Pour forth their brown inhabitants. The hare, Though timorous of heart, and hard beset By death in various forms, dark snares and dogs, And more unpitying men, the garden seeks, Urged on by fearless want. The bleating kine Eye the bleak heaven, and next, the glistening earth, With looks of dumb despair; then, sad dispersed, Dig for the withered herb through heaps of snow. As thus the snows arise, and foul and fierce All winter drives along the darkened air, In his own loose revolving fields the swain Disastered stands; sees other hills ascend, Of unknown joyless brow, and other scenes, Of horrid prospect, shag the trackless plain; Nor finds the river nor the forest, hid Beneath the formless wild; but wanders on From hill to dale, still more and more astray, Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps,
Unbounded passion, madness, guilt, remorse; Whence tumbled headlong from the height of life, They furnish matter for the tragic muse. Even in the vale, where wisdom loves to dwell, With friendship, peace, and contemplation joined, How many, racked with honest passions, droop In deep retired distress. How many stand Around the deathbed of their dearest friends, And point the parting anguish. Thought fond man Of these, and all the thousand nameless ills, That one incessant struggle render life, One scene of toil, of suffering, and of fate, Vice in his high career would stand appalled, And heedless rambling impulse learn to think; The consious heart of charity would warm, And her wide wish benevolence dilate; The social tear would rise, the social sigh; And into clear perfection, gradual bliss,
Stung with the thoughts of home; the thoughts of Refining still, the social passions work.
Rush on his nerves, and call their vigour forth In many a vain attempt. How sinks his soul ! What black despair, what horror, fills his heart! When for the dusky spot which fancy feigned, His tufted cottage rising through the snow, He meets the roughness of the middle waste, Far from the track and blessed abode of man; While round him night resistless closes fast, And every tempest howling o'er his head, Renders the savage wilderness more wild. Then throng the busy shapes into his mind, Of covered pits, unfathomably deep,
A dire descent! beyond the power of frost; Of faithless bogs; of precipices huge
Smoothed up with snow; and what is land unknown, What water of the still unfrozen spring, In the loose marsh or solitary lake,
Where the fresh fountain from the bottom boils. These check his fearful steps, and down he sinks Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift, Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death, Mixed with the tender anguish nature shoots Through the wrung bosom of the dying man, His wife, his children, and his friends, unseen. In vain for him the officious wife prepares The fire fair blazing, and the vestiment warm: In vain his little children, peeping out Into the mingling storm, demand their sire With tears of artless innocence. Alas! Nor wife nor children more shall he behold, Nor friends, nor sacred home. On every nerve The deadly winter seizes, shuts up sense, And o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold, Lays him along the snows a stiffened corse, Stretched out, and bleaching on the northern blast.
[Benevolent Reflections, from Winter.']
Ah little think the gay licentious proud, Whom pleasure, power, and affluence surround; They, who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth, And wanton, often cruel, riot waste;
Ah little think they, while they dance along, How many feel, this very moment, death And all the sad variety of pain. How many sink in the devouring flood, Or more devouring flame. How many bleed, By shameful variance betwixt man and man. How many pine in want and dungeon glooms; Shut from the common air, and common use Of their own limbs. How many drink the cup Of baleful grief, or eat the bitter bread Of misery. Sore pierced by wintry winds, How many shrink into the sordid hut Of cheerless poverty. How many shake With all the fiercer tortures of the mind,
These, as they change, Almighty Father, these Are but the varied God. The rolling year Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love. Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm; Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles; And every sense and every heart is joy. Then comes thy glory in the Summer months, With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun Shoots full perfection through the swelling year: And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks, And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve, By brooks and groves in hollow-whispering gales. Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfined, And spreads a common feast for all that lives. In Winter awful thou! with clouds and storms Around thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolled, Majestic darkness! On the whirlwind's wing Riding sublime, thou bidst the world adore, And humblest nature with thy northern blast. Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine, Deep-felt, in these appear! a simple train, Yet so delightful mixed, with such kind art, Such beauty and beneficence combined; Shade unperceived, so softening into shade; And all so forming a harmonious whole, That, as they still succeed, they ravish still. But wandering oft, with rude unconscious gaze, Man marks not thee, marks not the mighty hand That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres; Works in the secret deep; shoots steaming thence The fair profusion that o'erspreads the spring; Flings from the sun direct the flaming day; Feeds every creature; hurls the tempest forth, And, as on earth this grateful change revolves, With transport touches all the springs of life. Nature, attend! join, every living soul Beneath the spacious temple of the sky, In adoration join; and ardent raise
One general song! To Him, ye vocal gales,
Breathe soft, whose spirit in your freshness breathes. Oh talk of Him in solitary glooms,
Where o'er the rock the scarcely waving pine Fills the brown shade with a religious awe.
And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar, Who shake the astonished world, lift high to heaven The impetuous song, and say from whom you rage. His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills; And let me catch it as I muse along.
Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound; Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze Along the vale; and thou majestic main, A secret world of wonders in thyself, Sound His stupendous praise, whose greater voice
Or bids you roar, or bids your roaring fall. So roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers, In mingled clouds to Him, whose sun exalts, Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints. Ye forests bend, ye harvests wave to Him; Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart, As home he goes beneath the joyous moon. Ye that keep watch in heaven, as earth asleep Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams; Ye constellations, while your angels strike, Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre. Great source of day! blest image here below Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide, From world to world, the vital ocean round, On nature write with every beam His praise. The thunder rolls: be hushed the prostrate world, While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn. Bleat out afresh ye hills; ye mossy rocks Retain the sound; the broad responsive low, Ye valleys, raise; for the Great Shepherd reigns, And his unsuffering kingdom yet will come. Ye woodlands, all awake; a boundless song Burst from the groves; and when the restless day, Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep, Sweetest of birds! sweet Philomela, charm The listening shades, and teach the night His praise. Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles; At once the head, the heart, the tongue of all, Crown the great hymn! in swarming cities vast, Assembled men to the deep organ join The long resounding voice, oft breaking clear, At solemn pauses, through the swelling base; And, as each mingling flame increases each, In one united ardour rise to heaven. Or if you rather choose the rural shade, And find a fane in every sacred grove, There let the shepherd's lute, the virgin's lay, The prompting seraph, and the poet's lyre, Still sing the God of seasons as they roll. For me, when I forget the darling theme, Whether the blossom blows, the Summer ray Russets the plain, inspiring Autumn gleams, Or Winter rises in the blackening east- Be my tongue mute, my fancy paint no more, And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat.
Should fate command me to the farthest verge Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes, Rivers unknown to song; where first the sun Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam Flames on the Atlantic isles, 'tis nought to me; Since God is ever present, ever felt,
In the void waste as in the city full;
And where He vital breathes, there must be joy. When even at last the solemn hour shall come, And wing my mystic flight to future worlds, I cheerful will obey; there with new powers, Will rising wonders sing. I cannot go Where universal love not smiles around, Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns; From seeming evil still educing good, And better thence again, and better still, In infinite progression. But I lose Myself in Him, in light ineffable!
Come, then, expressive silence, muse His praise.
[The Caravan of Mecca.]
Breathed hot
From all the boundless furnace of the sky, And the wide glittering waste of burning sand, A suffocating wind the pilgrim smites With instant death. Patient of thirst and toil, Son of the desert! e'en the camel feels, Shot through his withered heart, the fiery blast. Or from the black-red ether, bursting broad, Sallies the sudden whirlwind. Straight the sands
Commoved around, in gathering eddies play; Nearer and nearer still they darkening come, Till with the general all-involving storm Swept up, the whole continuous wilds arise; And by their noon-day fount dejected thrown, Or sunk at night in sad disastrous sleep, Beneath descending hills, the caravan
Is buried deep. In Cairo's crowded streets The impatient merchant, wondering, waits in vain, And Mecca saddens at the long delay.
Our infant winter sinks Divested of his grandeur, should our eye Astonished shoot into the frigid zone; Where for relentless months continual night Holds o'er the glittering waste her starry reign. There, through the prison of unbounded wilds, Barred by the hand of nature from escape, Wide roams the Russian exile. Nought around Strikes his sad eye, but deserts lost in snow; And heavy-loaded groves; and solid floods That stretch athwart the solitary waste Their icy horrors to the frozen main; And cheerless towns far distant, never blessed Save when its annual course the caravan Bends to the golden coast of rich Cathay.
[Pestilence at Carthagena.]
Wasteful, forth
Walks the dire power of pestilent disease. A thousand hideous fiends her course attend, Sick nature blasting, and to heartless wo And feeble desolation casting down The towering hopes and all the pride of man. Such as of late at Carthagena quenched The British fire. You, gallant Vernon, saw The miserable scene; you, pitying, saw To infant weakness sunk the warrior's arm; Saw the deep racking pang, the ghastly form, The lip pale quivering, and the beamless eye No more with ardour bright; you heard the groans Of agonising ships, from shore to shore; Heard, nightly plunged amid the sullen waves, The frequent corse; while on each other fixed In sad presage, the blank assistants seemed Silent to ask whom Fate would next demand.
[From the Castle of Indolence.']
O mortal man, who livest here by toil, Do not complain of this thy hard estate; That like an emmet thou must ever moil, Is a sad sentence of an ancient date; And, certes, there is for it reason great; For, though sometimes it makes thee weep and wail, And curse thy star, and early drudge and late, Withouten that would come a heavier bale, Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale. In lowly dale, fast by a river's side, With woody hill o'er hill encompassed round, A most enchanting wizard did abide, Than whom a fiend more fell is nowhere found. It was, I ween, a lovely spot of ground: And there a season atween June and May, Half pranked with spring, with summer half imbrowned,
A listless climate made, where, sooth to say, No living wight could work, ne cared even for play.
Was nought around but images of rest: Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between ; And flowery beds that slumberous influence kest, From poppies breathed; and beds of pleasant green,
Where never yet was creeping creature seen. Meantime unnumbered glittering streamlets played, And hurled everywhere their waters sheen; That, as they bickered through the sunny glade, Though restless still themselves, a lulling murmur
Joined to the prattle of the purling rills, Were heard the lowing herds along the vale, And flocks loud bleating from the distant hills, And vacant shepherds piping in the dale: And now and then sweet Philomel would wail, Or stock-doves 'plain amid the forest deep, That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale; And still a coil the grasshopper did keep; Yet all these sounds yblent inclined all to sleep.
Full in the passage of the vale above,
A sable, silent, solemn forest stood,
Where nought but shadowy forms was seen to move, As Idlesse fancied in her dreaming mood:
And up the hills, on either side, a wood
Of blackening pines, aye waving to and fro, Sent forth a sleepy horror through the blood; And where this valley winded out below,
The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely heard, to flow.
A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was,
Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye: And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, For ever flushing round a summer sky: There eke the soft delights, that witchingly Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast, And the calm pleasures, always hovered nigh; But whate'er smacked of noyance or unrest, Was far, far off expelled from this delicious nest.
The landskip such, inspiring perfect ease, Where Indolence (for so the wizard hight) Close hid his castle mid embowering trees, That half shut out the beams of Phoebus bright, And made a kind of checkered day and night. Meanwhile, unceasing at the massy gate, Beneath a spacious palm, the wicked wight Was placed; and to his lute, of cruel fate, And labour harsh, complained, lamenting man's estate.
Thither continual pilgrims crowded still,
From all the roads of earth that pass there by ; For, as they chanced to breathe on neighbouring hill, The freshness of this valley smote their eye, And drew them ever and anon more nigh; Till clustering round the enchanter false they hung, Ymolten with his syren melody;
While o'er the enfeebling lute his hand he flung, And to the trembling chords these tempting verses sung:
'Behold! ye pilgrims of this earth, behold! See all but man with unearned pleasure gay: See her bright robes the butterfly unfold, Broke from her wintry tomb in prime of May! What youthful bride can equal her array? Who can with her for easy pleasure vie? From mead to mead with gentle wing to stray, From flower to flower on balmy gales to fly, Is all she has to do beneath the radiant sky.
Behold the merry minstrels of the morn, The swarming songsters of the careless grove, Ten thousand throats! that from the flowering thorn, Hymn their good God, and carol sweet of love, Such grateful kindly raptures them emove: They neither plough, nor sow; ne, fit for flail, E'er to the barn the nodding sheaves they drove; Yet theirs each harvest dancing in the gale, Whatever crowns the hill, or smiles along the vale.
Outcast of nature, man! the wretched thrall Of bitter dropping sweat, of sweltry pain, Of cares that eat away thy heart with gall, And of the vices, an inhuman train, That all proceed from savage thirst of gain: For when hard-hearted Interest first began To poison earth, Astræa left the plain; Guile, violence, and murder, seized on man, And, for soft milky streams, with blood the rivers ran! Come, ye who still the cumbrous load of life Push hard up hill; but as the farthest steep You trust to gain, and put an end to strife, Down thunders back the stone with mighty sweep, And hurls your labours to the valleys deep, For ever vain; come, and, withouten fee, I in oblivion will your sorrows steep, Your cares, your toils, will steep you in a sea Of full delight: oh come, ye weary wights, to me! With me, you need not rise at early dawn, To pass the joyless day in various stounds; Or, louting low, on upstart fortune fawn, And sell fair honour for some paltry pounds; Or through the city take your dirty rounds, To cheat, and dun, and lie, and visit pay, Now flattering base, now giving secret wounds: Or prowl in human courts of law for human prey, In venal senate thieve, or rob on broad highway. No cocks, with me, to rustic labour call, From village on to village sounding clear: To tardy swain no shrill-voiced matrons squall; No dogs, no babes, no wives, to stun your ear; No hammers thump; no horrid blacksmith fear; No noisy tradesmen' your sweet slumbers start, With sounds that are a misery to hear: But all is calm, as would delight the heart Of Sybarite of old, all nature, and all art.
Here nought but candour reigns, indulgent ease, Good-natured lounging, sauntering up and down: They who are pleased themselves must always please; On others' ways they never squint a frown, Nor heed what haps in hamlet or in town: Thus, from the source of tender indolence, With milky blood the heart is overflown,
Is soothed and sweetened by the social sense; For interest, envy, pride, and strife, are banished hence. What, what is virtue, but repose of mind, A pure ethereal calm, that knows no storm; Above the reach of wild ambition's wind, Above the passions that this world deform, And torture man, a proud malignant worm? But here, instead, soft gales of passion play, And gently stir the heart, thereby to form A quicker sense of joy; as breezes stray Across the enlivened skies, and make them still more
The best of men have ever loved repose: They hate to mingle in the filthy fray; Where the soul sours, and gradual rancour grows, Imbittered more from peevish day to day. Even those whom Fame has lent her fairest ray, The most renowned of worthy wights of yore, From a base world at last have stolen away: So Scipio, to the soft Cumaan shore Retiring, tasted joy he never knew before. But if a little exercise you choose, Some zest for ease, 'tis not forbidden here. Amid the groves you may indulge the muse, Or tend the blooms, and deck the vernal year; Or softly stealing, with your watery gear, Along the brook, the crimson-spotted fry You may delude; the whilst, amused, you hear Now the hoarse stream, and now the zephyr's sigh, Attuned to the birds, and woodland melody.
Oh, grievous folly! to heap up estate, Losing the days you see beneath the sun; When, sudden, comes blind unrelenting fate, And gives the untasted portion you have won, With ruthless toil, and many a wretch undone, To those who mock you gone to Pluto's reign, There with sad ghosts to pine, and shadows dun: But sure it is of vanities most vain,
To toil for what you here untoiling may obtain.'
He ceased. But still their trembling ears retained The deep vibrations of his 'witching song; That, by a kind of magic power, constrained To enter in, pell-mell, the listening throng, Heaps poured on heaps, and yet they slipped along, In silent ease; as when beneath the beam Of summer-moons, the distant woods among, Or by some flood all silvered with the gleam, The soft-embodied fays through airy portal stream.
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Waked by the crowd, slow from his bench arose A comely full-spread porter, swollen with sleep; His calm, broad, thoughtless aspect breathed repose; And in sweet torpor he was plunged deep, Ne could himself from ceaseless yawning keep; While o'er his eyes the drowsy liquor ran, Through which his half-waked soul would faintly peep,
Then taking his black staff, he called his man, And roused himself as much as rouse himself he can.
The lad leaped lightly at his master's call. He was, to weet, a little roguish page, Save sleep and play who minded nought at all, Like most the untaught striplings of his age. This boy he kept each band to disengage, Garters and buckles, task for him unfit, But ill-becoming his grave personage,
And which his portly paunch would not permit, So this same limber page to all performed it.
Meantime the master-porter wide displayed Great store of caps, of slippers, and of gowns; Wherewith he those that entered in, arrayed Loose, as the breeze that plays along the downs, And waves the summer-woods when evening frowns. Oh fair undress, best dress! it checks no vein, But every flowing limb in pleasure drowns,
And heightens ease with grace. This done, right fain Sir porter sat him down, and turned to sleep again.
Strait of these endless numbers, swarming round, As thick as idle motes in sunny ray, Not one eftsoons in view was to be found, But every man strolled off his own glad way, Wide o'er this ample court's blank area, With all the lodges that thereto pertained; No living creature could be seen to stray; While solitude and perfect silence reigned:
So that to think you dreamt you almost was constrained.
As when a shepherd of the Hebrid isles, Placed far amid the melancholy main (Whether it be lone fancy him beguiles, Or that aërial beings sometimes deign To stand embodied to our senses plain), Sees on the naked hill, or valley low, The whilst in ocean Phoebus dips his wain, A vast assembly moving to and fro;
Then all at once in air dissolves the wondrous show.
The doors, that knew no shrill alarming bell, Ne cursed knocker plied by villain's hand, Self-opened into halls, where, who can tell What elegance and grandeur wide expand,
The pride of Turkey and of Persia land? Soft quilts on quilts, on carpets carpets spread, And couches stretched around in seemly band; And endless pillows rise to prop the head;
So that each spacious room was one full-swelling bed.
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And everywhere huge covered tables stood, With wines high flavoured and rich viands crowned; Whatever sprightly juice or tasteful food On the green bosom of this earth are found, And all old ocean genders in his round; Some hand unseen these silently displayed,
• Even undemanded by a sign or sound; You need but wish, and, instantly obeyed, Fair ranged the dishes rose, and thick the glasses played.
The rooms with costly tapestry were hung, Where was inwoven many a gentle tale; Such as of old the rural poets sung, Or of Arcadian or Sicilian vale: Reclining lovers, in the lonely dale,
Poured forth at large the sweetly-tortured heart; Or, sighing tender passion, swelled the gale,
And taught charmed echo to resound their smart ; While flocks, woods, streams, around, repose and peace impart.
Those pleased the most, where, by a cunning hand, Depainted was the patriarchal age;
What time Dan Abraham left the Chaldee land, And pastured on from verdant stage to stage, Where fields and fountains fresh could best engage. Toil was not then. Of nothing took they heed, But with wild beasts the sylvan war to wage, And o'er vast plains their herds and flocks to feed ; Blest sons of nature they! true golden age indeed! Sometimes the pencil, in cool airy halls, Bade the gay bloom of vernal landscapes rise, Or autumn's varied shades imbrown the walls; Now the black tempest strikes the astonished eyes, Now down the steep the flashing torrent flies; The trembling sun now plays o'er ocean blue, And now rude mountains frown amid the skies; Whate'er Lorraine light-touched with softening hue, Or savage Rosa dashed, or learned Poussin drew. A certain music, never known before, Here lulled the pensive melancholy mind, Full easily obtained. Behoves no more, But sidelong, to the gently-waving wind, To lay the well-tuned instrument reclined; From which with airy flying fingers light, Beyond each mortal touch the most refined, The god of winds drew sounds of deep delight; Whence, with just cause, the harp of olus it hight.
Ah me! what hand can touch the string so fine? Who up the lofty diapason roll
Such sweet, such sad, such solemn airs divine, Then let them down again into the soul? Now rising love they fanned; now pleasing dole They breathed, in tender musings, through the heart; And now a graver sacred strain they stole, As when seraphic hands a hymn impart : Wild warbling nature all, above the reach of art!
Such the gay splendour, the luxurious state Of Caliphs old, who on the Tigris' shore, In mighty Bagdad, populous and great, Held their bright court, where was of ladies store; And verse, love, music, still the garland wore ; When sleep was coy, the bard in waiting there Cheered the lone midnight with the muse's lore; Composing music bade his dreams be fair, And music lent new gladness to the morning air.
Near the pavilions where we slept, still ran Soft tinkling streams, and dashing waters fell, And sobbing breezes sighed, and oft began (So worked the wizard) wintry storms to swell, As heaven and earth they would together mell; At doors and windows threatening seemed to call The demons of the tempest, growling fell,
Yet the least entrance found they none at all; Whence sweeter grew our sleep, secure in massy hall.
And hither Morpheus sent his kindest dreams, Raising a world of gayer tinct and grace; O'er which were shadowy cast Elysian gleams, That played in waving lights, from place to place, And shed a roseate smile on nature's face. Not Titian's pencil e'er could so array, So fierce with clouds, the pure ethereal space; Ne could it e'er such melting forms display, As loose on flowery beds all languishingly lay.
No, fair illusions! artful phantoms, no! My muse will not attempt your fairy land; She has no colours that like you can glow; To catch your vivid scenes too gross her hand. But sure it is, was ne'er a subtler band
Than these same guileful angel-seeming sprights, Who thus in dreams voluptuous, soft, and bland, Poured all the Arabian heaven upon our nights, And blessed them oft besides with more refined delights.
They were, in sooth, a most enchanting train, Even feigning virtue; skilful to unite With evil good, and strew with pleasure pain. But for those fiends whom blood and broils delight, Who hurl the wretch, as if to hell outright, Down, down black gulfs, where sullen waters sleep; Or hold him clambering all the fearful night On beetling cliffs, or pent in ruins deep; They, till due time should serve, were bid far hence to keep.
Ye guardian spirits, to whom man is dear, From these foul demons shield the midnight gloom; Angels of fancy and of love be near, And o'er the blank of sleep diffuse a bloom; Evoke the sacred shades of Greece and Rome, And let them virtue with a look impart : But chief, awhile, oh lend us from the tomb Those long-lost friends for whom in love we smart, And fill with pious awe and joy-mixt wo the heart.
When Britain first at Heaven's command, Arose from out the azure main,
This was the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sung the strain : Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves! Britons never shall be slaves.
The nations not so blest as thee,
Must in their turn to tyrants fall, Whilst thou shalt flourish great and free, The dread and envy of them all. Rule Britannia, &c.
Still more majestic shalt thou rise,
More dreadful from each foreign stroke; As the loud blast that tears the skies, Serves but to root thy native oak. Rule Britannia, &c.
Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame; All their attempts to bend thee down Will but arouse thy generous flame, And work their wo and thy renown. Rule Britannia, &c.
To thee belongs the rural reign; Thy cities shall with commerce shine; All shall be subject to the main, And every shore it circles thine. Rule Britannia, &c.
The muses, still with freedom found, Shall to thy happy coast repair; Blest isle, with matchless beauty crowned, And manly hearts to guard the fair. Rule Britannia, &c.
JOHN DYER, a picturesque and moral poet, was a native of Wales, being born at Aberglasslyn, Carmarthenshire, in 1700. His father was a solicitor, and intended his son for the same profession. latter, however, had a taste for the fine arts, and rambled over his native country, filling his mind with a love of nature, and his portfolio with sketches of her most beautiful and striking objects. sister art of poetry also claimed his regard, and during his excursions he wrote Grongar Hill, the production on which his fame rests, and where it rests securely. Dyer next made a tour to Italy, to study painting. He does not seem to have excelled his return in 1740, he published another poem, The as an artist, though he was an able sketcher. On Ruins of Rome, in blank verse. One short passage, often quoted, is conceived, as Johnson remarks, 'with the mind of a poet :'
At dead of night, 'mid his orison, hears, Aghast, the voice of time, disparting towers, Tumbling all precipitate down dashed,
Rattling around, loud thundering to the moon. Seeing, probably, that he had little chance of succeeding as an artist, Dyer entered the church, and obtained successively the livings of Calthrop, in Leicestershire, of Conningsby, in Huntingdonshire, and of Belchford and Kirkby, in Lincolnshire. He published in 1757 his longest poetical work, The Fleece, devoted to
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The care of sheep, the labours of the loom. The subject was not a happy one. How can a man write poetically, as was remarked by Johnson, of serges and druggets? One critic asked Dodsley how old the author of The Fleece' was; and learning that he was in advanced life, He will,' said the critic, be buried in woollen.' The poet did not long survive the publication, for he died next year, on the 24th of July 1758. The poetical pictures of Dyer are happy miniatures of nature, correctly drawn, beautifully coloured, and grouped with the taste of an artist. His moral reflections arise naturally out of his subject, and are never intrusive. All bear evidence of a kind and gentle heart, and a true poetical fancy.
Silent nymph, with curious eye, Who, the purple evening, lie On the mountain's lonely van, Beyond the noise of busy man; Painting fair the form of things, While the yellow linnet sings; Or the tuneful nightingale Charms the forest with her tale; Come, with all thy various hues, Come, and aid thy sister Muse; Now, while Phoebus, riding high, Gives lustre to the land and sky!
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