The Irish Poet and the Natural World: An Anthology of Verse in English from the Tudors to the Romantics

William Webb (fl.1805)

The poet is addressing the seat in his garden for which the inscription was intended. 1 350 WILLIAM WEBB (fl.1805) Nothing certain is known of William Webb who seems to have published no poems but ‘Lakelands’(named after the house he owned at Kilmacud, near Dublin) though it is possible that he was the William Webb who subscribed to Patrick O’Kelly’s Eudoxologist in 1812. This poem started life as a translation of three lines from Horace that Webb attempted ‘for the purpose of inscription on an octagon building in a favourite recess’ in his garden. However the poem grew until it was over 200 lines long and it appeared in print in The Poetical Register, or repository of fugitive poetry for 1806–07 (London, 1811). ‘Lakelands’ was one of many villas built during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in the Stillorgan and Kilmacud areas a few miles south of Dublin. In his 1837 Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, Samuel Lewis lists 33 of these, with their owners; ‘Lakelands’ gave its name to the housing estates that have replaced it. The poem is remarkable for its observant picture of the attractions of the untamed country of the Dublin mountains and for the vivid contrast it draws between Dublin and its suburbs; for Webb, ‘Nature’s shrine’is his garden in Kilmacud from which he could see the Irish Sea on one side, the Dublin mountains on the other and rolling countryside between. Mr Webb was a commuter, regretfully leaving the peace of ‘Lakelands’ for the ‘diurnal drudge’ of travelling into Dublin through crowds and smoke to ‘fretful cankering toil’. The poem is rare in its criticism of the urban developments of late eighteenth century Dublin – which Webb dismissed as the ‘labour’d whimsies of the sons of gain’. from: Lakelands: a poem Originally written for inscription on a country residence in the Vicinity of Dublin. ... What tho’ not thine1 the boast of wide domain, Nor gorgeous wonder stablish here her reign; Tho’ not for thee Creation’s proud array; For thee nor Ocean waves expand their sway, Nor o’er thy head in mad disorder wild And savage waste the eternal granite pil’d; For thee no sweep of frowning forest near, No devious wizard haunt of gloom and fear; Not thine the giddy heights, the headlong steeps, Nor chasms that shuddering yawn to midnight deeps; 10 Fantastic scenes! with living force imprest Of mystic influence o’er the human breast! Nor these high honors thine! oh barely free From City concourse and from rabble glee! 351 William Webb Free from the clouded dust, the clattering noise Of City parties and their Sunday joys; The scenes where ceaseless throng, at wealth’s loud call The brick-red villa and the sad stone wall: Scap’d too from City taste! whose meddling hand With cumbrous frippery deforms the land, 20 Marshals its mimic gauds in dull parade, Its vamp’d up brick-pool and spruce starv’d cascade; Bids Chinese bridge or Chinese temple flare, Or old-new Gothic nick-nack rise in air; Nor knows the country its primaeval green While envious masonry usurps the scene! Yet peace to such! nor heeds thy just disdain These laboured whimsies of the sons of gain. Not here intrudes their sad tumultuous care, Nor frivolous joys thy bosom’d quiet share. 30 For has not nature’s self here rais’d her shrine? Breathes not around thee all her calm benign? Her steps of peace serenest raptures trace, And thrilling airs her living presence grace. Wide spread, behold! for thee her various stores With fond munificence profuse she pours; O’er thy loved home her emerald mantle throws, While woods sequestering veil its soft repose; Or bold contrasting swells the russet train Of uncouth downs or rudely wild champaign, 40 Where not a tree o’erlooks the expanse austere, And not a sound breaks on its peace severe, Save, simplest sounds! the sheep-bell’s tinkling call, Or insect hum, or streamlet’s rippling fall; A world of solitude! whose large control To thrill extatic wakes the accordant soul. No envious fence here checks the excursive range, As gathering round successive glories change, Far as yon triple cloud-topt rock ascends,2 Or lengthening mountain range still onward bends, 50 2 352 O’er wastes where erst my loitering youth has strayed To trace each wild recess, each...