They’ll gluttonize on Stella’s wit.
‘Tea!’ cries a Patriot, ‘on that day
’Twere good you flung the drug away,
Rememb’ring ’twas the cruel source
Of sad distrust, and long divorce
’Twixt nations, which, combined, had hurled
Their conquering javelin round the world.
‘O! Indian shrub, thy fragrant flowers
To England’s weal had deadly powers, [30]
When Despotism, with impious hand,
To venom turned thy essence bland,
To venom, subtle, foul and fell,
As steeped the dart of Isdabel!
‘Have we forgot the dread libation
Which cost the life of half the nation?
When Boston, with indignant thought
Saw poison in the perfumed draught,
And caused her troubled bay to be
But one vast bowl, of bitter tea; [40]
While Ate, chiefly bidden guest,
Came sternly to the fatal feast,
And mingled with its baneful flood
Brothers’! – children’s! – parents’ blood;
Dire as the banquet Atreus served,
When his own son Thyestes carved,
And Phoebus, shrinking from the sight,
Drew o’er his orb the pall of night.
‘Tomorrow then, at least, refrain,
Nor quaff thy bleeding country’s bane! [50]
For O! reflect, poetic daughter,
’Twas hapless Britain’s laurel-water’.
from Colebrook Dale*
[The Industrial Revolution’s effect on the Midlands]
Scene of superfluous grace, and wasted bloom,
O, violated COLEBROOK! […]
… What though to vulgar eye
Invisible, yet oft the lucid gaze
Of the rapt Bard, in every dell and glade
Beheld them wander, – saw, from the clear wave
Emerging, all the wat’ry sisters rise,
Wearing the aqueous lily, and the flag,
In wreaths fantastic, for the tresses bright
Of amber-haired Sabrina. – Now we view [10]
Their fresh, their fragrant, and their silent reign
Usurped by Cyclops; – hear, in mingled tones,
Shout their thronged barge, their pond’rous engines clang
Through thy coy dales; while red the countless fires,
With umbered flames, bicker on all thy hills,
Dark’ning the summer’s sun with columns large
Of thick, sulphureous smoke, which spread, like palls,
That screen the dead, upon the sylvan robe
Of thy aspiring rocks; pollute thy gales,
And stain thy glassy waters – see, in troops, [20]
The dusk artificers, with brazen throats,
Swarm on thy cliffs, and clamour in thy glens,
Steepy and wild, ill suited to such guests […]
While neighbouring cities waste the fleeting hours,
Careless of art and knowledge and the smile
Of every Muse, expanding Birmingham,
Illumed by intellect, as gay in wealth,
Commands her aye-accumulating walls
From month to month to climb the adjacent hills,
Creep on the circling plains, now here, now there, [30]
Divergent – change the hedges, thickets, trees,
Upturned, disrooted, into mortared piles,
The streets elongate and the statelier square […]
… Warned by the Muse, if Birmingham should draw,
In future years, from more congenial climes
Her massy ore, her labouring sons recall,
And sylvan Colebrook’s winding vales restore
To beauty and to song, content to draw
From unpoetic scenes her rattling stores,
Massy and dun; if, thence supplied, she fail, [40]
Britain, to glut thy rage commercial, see
Grim Wolverhampton lights her smouldering fires,
And Sheffield’s smoke-involved; dim where she stands
Circled by lofty mountains, which condense
Her dark and spiral wreaths to drizzling rains,
Frequent and sullied, as the neighbouring hills
While to her dusky sister Ketley yields,
From her long-desolate and livid breast,
The ponderous metal. No aerial forms [50]
On Sheffield’s arid moor or Ketley’s heath
E’er wove the floral crowns, or smiling stretched
The shelly sceptre; – there no poet roved
To catch bright inspirations. Blush, ah, blush,
Thou venal Genius of these outraged groves,
And thy apostate head with thy soiled wings
Veil! – who hast thy beauteous charge resigned
To habitants ill-suited; hast allowed
Their rattling forges and their hammers’ din,
And hoarse, rude throats, to fright the gentle train, [60]
Dryads and fair-haired Naiades; – the song,
Once loud as sweet, of the wild woodland choir
To silence; – disenchant the poet’s spell,
And to a gloomy Erebus transform
The destined rival of Tempean vales.
Invocation, To the Genius of Slumber Written Oct. 1787*
Spirit of dreams, that when the dark hours steep
In the soft dews of life-enbalming sleep,
Our busy senses, canst restore the lost,
The loved, the mourned, from Death’s mysterious coast,
Propitious lately to my votive lay,
And the lone musings of the joyless day,
From ‘whelming years, and from sepulchral night,
Thou gav’st HONORA to my slumbering sight:
Decked in those various graces that arrayed
In youth’s first bloom, the fair ingenuous maid, [10]
In all those pure affection’s gladd’ning powers,
That winged for joy the animated hours,
Alike when her sweet converse welcome made
Morn’s rising light, and evening’s stealthy shade;
The months with flowers adorned, with radiance warm
The vernal day, and e’en the wintry storm.
She looked, as in those golden years foregone,
Spoke, as when love attuned each melting tone,
When, by my side, her cautious steps she moved,
Watching the friend solicitously loved, [20]
Whose youthful strength, in one disastrous day,
Had fall’n to luckless accident a prey,
And needed much, to save from future harm,
The eye attentive, the supporting arm.
Remembered looks, ye rays of friendship’s flame,
Long my soul’s light, and guardians of my frame!
Why, visionary power, so seldom kind
To the deprived, the life-retracing mind;
Withholding oft, ’mid thy obtrusive swarm,
My day-dream’s idol, fair Honora’s form? [30]
O! when thou giv’st it, then, and only then,
Lost to my woes, I live with her again.
Again on me those soft’ning eye-balls shine!
I hear her speak! I feel her arm on mine!
Real as fair, the tender pleasures glow,
Sweet, as the past was potent to bestow,
Freed from that sense which shrouds with dire control
Volition’s image in a cypress stole;
That tells me, searching wide creation o’er,
My dear Honora I shall find no more; [40]
That on her lonely grave, and mouldering form,
Six dreary winters poured the ruthless storm,
Violent and dark as my soul’s primal woe
When first I found that beauteous head lai
d low.
On that unshrined, yet ever-sacred spot,
By faithless Love deserted and forgot,
Six bloomy springs their crystal light have showed,
Their sun-gilt rains in fragrant silence flowed,
Mild as my sorrows (calmed by passing years),
Time-softened sighs, and time-assuaged tears. [50]
Once, as the taper’s steady light conveyed
Upon the white expanse the graceful shade
Of sweet Honora’s face, the traces fair
My anxious hand pursued, and fixed them there,
To throw, in spite of Fate’s remorseless crimes,
Soft sooting magic o’er succeeding times.
For this dear purpose, near my couch I placed
The shade, by Love assiduously traced;
And, while no sullen curtain drops between,
The image consecrates the sombrous scene; [60]
Serenely sweet it stands, – at morn, at eve,
The first, last object these fond eyes perceive,
And still my heart, and oft my lips address
The shadowy form of her who lived to bless.
Now strikes the midnight clock; – the taper gleams
With the faint flash of half-expiring beams,
And soon that lovely semblance shall recede,
And Sleep’s dim veils its thrilling powers impede.
I feel their balmy, kind, resistless charms
Creep o’er my closing eyes, – I fold my arms, [70]
Breathing in murmurs through the paly gloom,
‘Come to my dreams, my lost Honora, come!
Back as the waves of Time benignly roll,
Show thy bright face to my enchanted soul!’
HANNAH MORE 1745–1833
The fourth of five daughters of a charity-school master, Jacob More; well-educated, within the limits he felt appropriate to women’s more delicate brains; the older sisters ran a successful school in Bristol. About 1767 began a long engagement, which fell through in 1773. Began visiting London, and entered into literary society, becoming one of the Bluestocking group. In 1784 helped the Bristol milkwoman poet, Anne Yearsley, but later they quarrelled. Established Sunday-schools for the poor, campaigned against the slave trade, and wrote large quantities of didactic works and conservative propaganda (The Riot is impressive in its insolence). Was very popular, and extremely successful financially, skilfully combining the conservatively moralistic with the entertaining. In her pastoral dialogue Florella, Urania argues,
So Woman born to dignify retreat,
Unknown to flourish, and unseen be great,
To give domestic life its sweetest charm …
Should seek but Heaven’s applauses, and her own.
Of Mary Wollstonecraft, she remarked, ‘Rights of women! We will be hearing of the Rights of Children next!’
Poems (London, 1816); Works, 6 vols (London, 1834); Mary G. Jones, Hannah More (Cambridge: CUP, 1952); Walter Sidney Scott, The Blue Stocking Ladies (London: John Green, 1947).
from The Bas Bleu; Or, Conversation*
[An account of Blue-Stocking parties]
… Long was Society o’er-run
By whist, that desolating Hun;
Long did quadrille despotic sit,
That Vandal of colloquial wit;
And conversation’s setting light
Lay half-obscured in Gothic night.
At length the mental shades decline,
Colloquial wit begins to shine;
Genius prevails, and conversation
Emerges into Reformation […] [10]
Hail, Conversation, soothing power,
Sweet goddess of the social hour!
O may thy worship long prevail,
And thy true votaries never fail!
Long may thy polished altars blaze
With wax-lights’ undiminished rays!
Still be thy nightly offerings paid,
Libations large of lemonade!
In silver vases, loaded, rise
The biscuits’ ample sacrifice! [20]
Nor be the milk-white streams forgot
Of thirst-assuaging, cool orgeat;
Rise, incense pure from fragrant tea,
Delicious incense, worthy thee! […]
Enlightened spirits! you, who know
What charms from polished converse flow,
Speak, for you can, the pure delight
When kindling sympathies unite;
When correspondent tastes impart
Communion sweet from heart to heart […] [30]
In taste, in learning, wit or science,
Still kindred souls demand alliance;
Each in the other joys to find
The image answering to his mind.
But sparks electric only strike
On souls electrical alike;
The flash of intellect expires,
Unless it meet congenial fires:
The language to th’elect alone
Is, like the Masons’ mystery, known; [40]
In vain th’unerring sign is made
To him who is not of the Trade.
What lively pleasure to divine
The thought implied, the hinted line,
To feel allusion’s artful force,
And trace the image to its source!
Quick memory blends her scattered rays,
Till fancy kindles at the blaze;
The works of ages starts to view,
And ancient wit elicits new. [50]
But wit and parts if thus we praise,
What nobler altars should we raise,
Those sacrifices could we see
Which wit, o virtue! makes to thee.
At once the rising thought to dash,
To quench at once the bursting flash!
The shining mischief to subdue,
And lose the praise and pleasure too! […]
Blush, heroes, at your cheap renown,
A vanquished realm, a plundered town! [60]
Your conquests were to gain a name,
This conquest triumphs over fame;
So pure its essence, ’twere destroyed
If known, and if commended, void.
The Riot; or Half a Loaf is Better than No Bread In a Dialogue between Jack Anvil and Tom Hod*
‘Come, neighbours, no longer be patient and quiet,
Come let us go kick up a bit of a riot;
I am hungry, my lads, but I’ve little to eat,
So we’ll pull down the mills and seize all the meat:
I’ll give you good sport, boys, as ever you saw,
So a fig for the justice, a fig for the law.’
Then his pitchfork Tom seized – ‘Hold a moment,’ says Jack,
‘I’ll show thee thy blunder, brave boy, in a crack.
And if I don’t prove we had better be still,
I’ll assist thee straightway to pull down every mill; [10]
I’ll show thee how passion thy reason does cheat,
Or I’ll join thee in plunder for bread and for meat.
‘What a whimsy to think thus our bellies to fill,
For we stop all the grinding by breaking the mill!
What a whimsy to think we shall get more to eat
By abusing the butchers who get us the meat!
What a whimsy to think we shall mend our spare diet
By breeding disturbance, by murder and riot!
‘Because I am dry, ’twould be foolish, I think,
To pull out my tap and to spill all my drink; [20]
Because I am hungry and want to be fed,
That is sure no wise reason for wasting my bread;
And just such wise reasons for mending their diet
Are used by those blockheads who rush into riot.
‘I would not take comfort for others’ distresses,
But still I would mark how God our land blesses;
For though in Old England the times are but sad,
Abroad I am told they are ten times as bad;
In the land of the Pope there is scarce any grain,
And ’tis still worse, they say, both in Holland and Spain. [30]
‘Let us look to the harvest our wants to beguile,
See the lands with rich crops how they everywhere smile!
Meantime to assist us, by each western breeze,
Some corn is brought daily across the salt seas.
We’ll drink little tea, no whisky at all,
But patiently wait and the prices will fall.
‘But if we’re not quiet, then let us not wonder
If things grow much worse by our riot and plunder;
And let us remember, whenever we meet,
The more ale we drink, boys, the less we shall eat. [40]
On those days spent in riot, no bread you brought home:
Had you spent them in labour, you might have had some.
‘A dinner of herbs, says the wise man, with quiet
Is better than beef amid discord and riot.
If the thing can’t be helped, I’m a foe to all strife,
And pray for a peace every night of my life;
But in matters of state not an inch will I budge,
Because I conceive I’m no very good judge.
‘But though poor, I can work, my brave boy, with the best,
Let the King and the Parliament manage the rest; [50]
I lament both the war and the taxes together,
Though I verily think they don’t alter the weather.
The King, as I take it with very good reason,
May prevent a bad law but can’t help a bad season.
‘The Parliament-men, although great is their power,
Yet they cannot contrive us a bit of a shower;
And I never yet heard, though our rulers are wise,
That they know very well how to manage the skies;
For the best of them all, as they found to their cost,
Were not able to hinder last winter’s hard frost. [60]
‘Besides, I must share in the wants of the times,
Because I have had my full share in its crimes;
And I’m apt to believe the distress which is sent
Is to punish and cure us of all discontent.
But harvest is coming – potatoes will come!
Our prospect clears up. Ye complainers be dumb!