Rural Elegance, an Ode to the Late Duchess of Somerset. Written 1750

WHILE orient skies restore the day,
And dew-drops catch the lucid ray,
Amid the sprightly scenes of morn
Will aught the Muse inspire?
Oh! peace to yonder clam'rous horn
That drowns the sacred lyre!

Ye rural Thanes! that o'er the mossy down
Some panting tim'rous hare pursue,
Does Nature mean your joys alone to crown?
Say, does she smooth her lawns for you?
For you does Echo bid the rocks reply,
And, urg'd by rude constraint, resound the jovial cry?

See from the neighb'ring hill, forlorn,
The wretched swain your sport survey;
He finds his faithful fences torn,
He finds his labour'd crops a prey;
He sees his flock—no more in circles feed,
Haply beneath your ravage bleed,
And with no random curses lwads the deed.

Nor yet, ye Swains! conclude
That Nature smiles for you alone;
Your bounded souls and your conceptions crude,
The proud, the selfish, boast disown:
Yours be the produce of the soil;
O may it still reward your toil!
Nor ever the defenceless train
Of clinging infants ask support in vain!

But tho' the various harvest gild your plains,
Does the mere landscape feast your eye?
Or the warm hope of distant gains
Far other cause of glee supply?
Is not the red-streak's future juice
The source of your delight profound,
Where Ariconium pours her gems profuse,
Purpling a whole horizon round?
Athirst ye praise the limpid stream, 'tis true;
But tho' the pebbled shores among
It mimic no unpleasing song,
The limpid fountain murmurs not for you.

Unpleas'd ye see the thickets bloom,
Unpleas'd the Spring her flow'ry robe resume;
Unmov'd the mountain's airy pile,
The dappled mead without a smile.
O let a rural conscious Muse,
For well she knows, your froward sense accuse:
Forth to the solemn oak you bring the square,
And span the massy trunk before you cry 'Tis fair.

Nor yet, ye Learn'd! nor yet, ye Courtly Train!
If haply from your haunts ye stray
To waste with us a summer's day,
Exclude the taste of ev'ry swain,
Nor our untutor'd sense disdain:
'Tis Nature only gives exclusive right
To relish her supreme delight;
She, where she pleases kind or coy,
Who furnishes the scene, and forms us to enjoy.

Then hither bring the fair ingenuous mind,
By her auspicious aid refin'd.
Lo! not an hedge-row hawthorn blows,
Or humble harebell paints the plain,
Or valley winds, or fountain flows,
Or purple heath is ting'd in vain:
For such the rivers dash the foaming tides,
The mountain swells, the dale subsides;
Ev'n thriftless furze detains their wand'ring sight,
And the rough barren rock grows pregnant with delight.

With what suspicious fearful care
The sordid wretch secures his claim,
If haply some luxurious heir
Should alienate the fields that wear his name!
What scruples lest some future birth
Should litigate a span of earth!
Bonds, contracts, feoffments, names unmeet for prose,
The tow'ring Muse endures not to disclose:
Alas! her unrevers'd decree,
More comprehensive and more free,
Her lavish charter, taste, appropriates all we see.

Let gondolas their painted flags unfold,
And be the solemn day enroll'd,
When, to confirm his lofty plea,
In nuptial sort, with bridal gold,
The grave Venetian weds the sea:
Each laughing Muse derides the vow;
Ev'n Adria scorns the mock embrace,
To some lone hermit on the mountain's brow,
Allotted, from his natal hour,
With all her myrtle shores in dow'r.
His breast, to admiration prone,
Enjoys the smile upon her face,
Enjoys triumphant ev'ry grace,
And finds her more his own.

Fatigu'd with Form's oppressive laws,
When Somerset avoids the great,
When, cloy'd with merited applause,
She seeks the rural calm retreat,
Does she not praise each mossy cell,
And feel the truth my numbers tell?
When, deafen'd by the loud acclaim
Which genius grac'd with rank obtains,
Could she not more delighted hear
Yon' throstle chant the rising year?
Could she not spurn the wreaths of fame,
To crop the primrose of the plains?
Does she not sweets in each fair valley find,
Lost to the sons of Pow'r, unknown to half mankind?

Ah! can she covet there to see
The splendid slaves, the reptile race,
That oil the tongue and bow the knee,
That slight her merit, but adore her place?
Far happier, if aright I deem,
When from gay throngs and gilded spires,
To where the lonely halcyons play,
Her philosophic step retires;
While, studious of the moral theme,
She to some smooth sequester'd stream
Likens the swains' inglorious day,
Pleas'd from the flow'ry margin to survey
How cool, serene, and clear, the current glides away.

O blind to truth, to virtue blind,
Who slight the sweetly pensive mind!
On whose fair birth the Graces mild,
And ev'ry Muse prophetic smil'd.
Not that the poet's boasted fire
Should Fame's wide-echoing trumpet swell,
Or on the music of his lyre
Each future age with rapture dwell;
The vaunted sweets of praise remove,
Yet shall such bosoms claim a part
In all that glads the human heart;
Yet these the spirits form'd to judge and prove
All Nature's charms immense, and Heav'n's unbounded love.

And, oh! the transport most ally'd to song,
In some fair villa's peaceful bound,
To catch soft hints from Nature's tongue,
And bid Arcadia bloom around;
Whether we fringe the sloping hill,
Or smooth below the verdant mead,
Whether we break the falling rill,
Or thro' meand'ring mazes lead,
Or in the horrid bramble's room
Bid careless groups of roses bloom,
Or let some shelter'd lake serene
Reflect flow'rs, woods, and spires, and brighten all the scene.

O sweet disposal of the rural hour!
O beauties never known to cloy!
While Worth and Genius haunt the favour'd bow'r,
And ev'ry gentle breast partakes the joy;
While Charity at eve surveys the swain,
Enabled by these toils to cheer
A train of helpless infants dear,
Speed whistling home across the plain;
See vagrant Luxury, her handmaid grown,
For half her graceless deeds atone,
And hails the bounteous work, and ranks it with her own.

Why brand these pleasures with the name
Of soft unsocial toils, of indolence and shame?
Search but the garden or the wood,
Let yon' admir'd carnation own
Not all was meant for raiment or for food,
Not all for needful use alone;
There, while the seeds of future blossoms dwell,
'Tis colour'd for the sight, perfum'd to please the smell.

Why knows the nightingale to sing?
Why flows the pine's nectareous juice?
Why shines with paint the linnet's wing?
For sustenance alone? for use?
For preservation? Ev'ry sphere
Shall bid fair Pleasure's rightful claim appear;
And sure there seem, of human kind,
Some born to shun the solemn strife;
Some for amusive tasks design'd,
To sooth the certain ills of life;
Grace its lone vales with many a budding rose,
New founts of bliss disclose,
Call forth refreshing shades, and decorate repose.

From plains and woodlands, from the view
Of rural Nature's blooming face,
Smit with the glare of rank and place,
To courts the sons of Fancy flew;
There long had Art ordain'd a rival seat,
There had she lavish'd all her care
To form a scene more dazzling fair,
And call'd them from their green retreat
To share her proud control;
Had given the robe with grace to flow,
Had taught exotic gems to glow;
And, emulous of Nature's pow'r,
Mimic'd the plume, the leaf, the flow'r;
Chang'd the complexion's native hue,
Moulded each rustic limb anew,
And warp'd the very soul.

A while her magic strikes the novel eye,
A while the fairy forms delight;
And now aloof we seem to fly
On purple pinions thro' a purer sky,
Where all is wondrous, all is bright:
Now, landed on some spangled shore,
A while each dazzled maniac roves,
By sapphire lakes thro' em'rald groves:
Paternal acres please no more;
Adieu the simple, the sincere delight—
Th' habitual scene of hill and dale,
The rural herds, the vernal gale,
The tangled vetch's purple bloom,
The fragrance of the bean's perfume,
Be theirs alone who cultivate the soil,
And drink the cup of thirst, and eat the bread of toil.

But soon the pageant fades away!
'Tis Nature only bears perpetual sway.
We pierce the counterfeit delight,
Fatigu'd with splendour's irksome beams;
Fancy again demands the sight
Of native groves and wonted streams,
Pants for the scenes that charm'd her youthful eyes,
Where Truth maintains her court, and banishes Disguise.

Then hither oft', ye Senators! retire;
With Nature here high converse hold;
For who like Stamford her delights admire,
Like Stamford shall with scorn behold
Th' unequal bribes of pageantry and gold;
Beneath the British oak's majestic shade
Shall see fair Truth, immortal maid!
Friendship in artless guise array'd,
Honour and moral beauty shine
With more attractive charms, with radiance more divine.

Yes, here alone did highest Heav'n ordain
The lasting magazine of charms,
Whatever wins, whatever warms,
Whatever fancy seeks to share,
The great, the various, and the fair,
For ever should remain!

Her impulse nothing may restrain—
Or whence the joy 'mid columns, tow'rs,
'Midst all the city's artful trim,
To rear some breathless vapid flow'rs,
Or shrubs fuliginously grim?
From rooms of silken foliage vain,
To trace the dun far distant grove,
Where, smit with undissembled pain,
The woodlark mourns her absent love,
Borne to the dusty town from native air,
To mimic rural life, and sooth some vapour'd fair?

But how must faithless Art prevail,
Should all who taste our joy sincere,
To virtue, truth, or science, dear,
Forego a court's alluring pale,
For dimpled brook and leafy grove,
For that rich luxury of thought they love!

Ah, no! from these the public sphere requires
Example for its giddy bands;
From these impartial Heav'n demands
To spread the flame itself inspires;
To sift Opinion's mingled mass,
Impress a nation's taste, and bid the sterling pass.

Happy, thrice happy they,
Whose graceful deeds have exemplary shone
Round the gay precincts of a throne
With mild effective beams!
Who bands of fair ideas bring,
By solemn grot or shady spring,
To join their pleasing dreams!
Theirs is the rural bliss without alloy;
They only that deserve enjoy.

What tho' nor fabled Dryad haunt their grove,
Nor Naiad near their fountains rove?
Yet all embody'd to the mental sight,
A train of smiling Virtues bright
Shall there the wise retreat allow,
Shall twine triumphant palms to deck the wand'rer's brow.

And tho' by faithless friends alarm'd,
Art have with Nature wag'd presumptuous war,
By Seymour's winning influence charm'd,
In whom their gifts united shine,
No longer shall their councils jar.
'Tis her's to mediate the peace;
Near Percy-lodge, with awe-struck mien,
The rebel seeks her lawful queen,
And havoc and contention cease.
I see the rival pow'rs combine,
And aid each other's fair design;
Nature exalt the mound where Art shall build,
Art shape the gay alcove, while Nature paints the field.

Begin, ye Songsters of the grove!
O warble forth your noblest lay;
Where Somerset vouchsafes to rove,
Ye Lev'rets! freely sport and play.
—Peace to the strepent horn!
Let no harsh dissonance disturb the Morn;
No sounds inelegant and rude
Her sacred solitudes profane,
Unless her candour not exclude
The lowly shepherd's votive strain,
Who tunes his reed amidst his rural cheer,
Fearful, yet not averse, that Somerset should hear.