Classic Poem

Aspiring still, shall spread their powerful arms,
While the weak puny race, obscur'd below,
Sick'ning, die off, and leave their victors room.
Nor small the praise the skilful planter claims
From his befriended country. Various arts
Borrow from him materials. The soft beech,
And close-grain'd box, employ the turner's wheel,
And with a thousand implements supply
Mechanic skill. Their beauteous veins the yew
And phyllerea lend, to surface o'er
The cabinet. Smooth linden best obeys
The carver's chissel: best his curious work
Displays in all its nicest touches. Birch —
Ah! why should birch supply the chair? since oft
Its cruel twigs compel the smarting youth
To dread the hateful seat. Tough-bending ash
Gives to the humble swain his useful plough,
And for the peer his prouder chariot builds.
To weave our baskets the soft offer lends
His pliant twigs: Staves that nor shrink nor swell,
The cooper's close-wrought cask to chesnut owes.
The sweet leav'd walnut's undulated grain,
Polish'd with care, adds to the workman's art.
Its varying beauties. The tall, tow'ring elm,
Scoop'd into hollow tubes, in secret streams
Conveys for many a mile the limpid wave;
Or from its height, when humbled to the ground,
Conveys the pride of mortal man to dust.
And last the oak, king of Britannia's woods,
And guardian of her isle! whose sons robust,
The best supporters of incumbent weight,
Their beams and pillars to the builder give.
Of strength immense: or in the bounding deep
The loose foundations lay of floating walls,
Impregnably seeme. But sunk, but full'n
From all your ancient grandeur, O ye groves!
Beneath whose lofty venerable boughs
The druid erst his solemn rights perform'd,
And taught to distant realms his sacred lore,
Where are your beauties fled? where but to serve
Your thankless country, who unblushing sees
Her naked forests longing for your shade.
The talk, the glorious task, for thee remains,
O prince belov'd! for thee more nobly born
Than for thyself alone, the patriot work
Yet unattempted waits. O let not pass
The fair occasion to remotest time
Thy name with praise, with honour to transmit!
So shall thy country's rising fleets, to thee
Owe future triumph; so her naval strength,
Supported from within, shall fix thy claim
To ocean's sov'reignty; and to thy ports,
In every climate of the peopled earth,
Bear commerce; fearless, unresisted, safe.
Let then the great ambition fire thy breast.
For this thy native land; replace the lost
Inhabitants of her deserted plains.
Let Thame once more on Windsor's losty hills
Survey young forests planted by thy hand.
Let fair Sabrina's flood again behold
The Spaniard's terror rise renew'd. And Trent,
From Sherwood's ample plains with pride convey
The bulwarks of her country to the main.
O native Sherwood, happy were thy bard,
Might these his rural notes to future time
Boast of tall groves, that, nodding o'er thy plain,
Rose to their tuneful melody. But, ah!
Beneath the feeble efforts of a muse
Untutor'd by the lore of Greece or Rome;
A stranger to the fair Castalian springs,
Whence happier poets inspiration draw,
And the sweet magic of persuasive song,
The weak presumption, the fond hope expires.
Yet sure some sacred impulse stirs my breast!
I feel, I seel, an heavenly guest within!
And all-obedient to the ruling God,
The pleasing talk which he inspires, pursue.
And hence, disdaining low and trivial things;
Why should I tell of him whose obvious heart,
To drain the low damp meadow, sloping sinks
A hollow trench, which arch'd at half its depth,
Cover'd with filtering brush-wood, furze or broom,
And surfac'd o'er with earth; in secret streams
Draws its collected moisture from the glebe?
Or why of him, who o'er his sandy fields,
Too dry to bear the sun's meridian beam,
Calls from the neighbouring hills obsequious springs,
Which led in winding currents through the mead,
Cool the hot soil, refresh the thirsty plain,
While wither'd plants reviving smile around?
But sing, O muse! the swain, the happy swain,
Whom taste and nature leading o'er his fields,
Conduct to ev'ry rural beauty. See!
Before his footsteps winds the waving walk,
Here gently rising, there descending slow
Through the tall grove, or near the water's brink,
Where flowers besprinkled paint the shelving bank,
And weeping willows bend to kiss the stream.
Now wandering o'er the lawn he roves, and now
Beneath the hawthorn's secret shade reclines:
Where purple violets hang their bashful heads,
Where yellow cowslips, and the blushing pink,
Their mingled sweets, and lovely hues combine.
Here shelter'd from the North, his ripening fruits
Display their sweet temptations from the wall,
Or from the gay espalier: while below,
His various esculents, from glowing beds,
Give the fair promise of delicious fealts.
There from his forming hand new scenes arise,
The fair creation of his fancy's eye.
Lo! bosom'd in the solemn shady grove,
Whose reverend branches wave on yonder hill,
He views the moss grown temple's ruin'd tower.
Cover'd with creeping ivy's cluster'd leaves;
The mansion seeming of some rural god,
Whom nature's choristers, in untaught hymns
Of wild yet sweetest harmony, adore.
From the bold brow of that aspiring steep,
Where hang the nibbling slocks, and view below
Their downward shadows in the grassy wave,
What pleasing landscapes spread before his eye!
Of scatter'd villages, and winding streams,
And meadows green, and woods, and distant spires,
Seeming, above the blue horizon's bound,
To prop the canopy of Heav'n. Now lost
Amidst a glooming wilderness of shrubs,
The golden orange, arbute ever green.