That all we can of love or high desire
Seems but the smoke of amorous Sidney's fire.
Nor call her mother who so well does prove
One breast may hold both chastity and love.
Never can she, that so exceeds the spring
In joy and bounty, be supposed to bring
One so destructive. To no human stock
We owe this fierce unkindness, but the rock;
That cloven rock produced thee, by whose side
Nature, to recompense the fatal pride

Of such stern beauty, placed those healing springs
Which not more help than that destruction brings.
Thy heart no ruder than the rugged stone,
I might, like Orpheus, with my numerous moan
Melt to compassion; now my traitorous song
With thee conspires to do the singer wrong;
While thus I suffer not myself to lose
The memory of what augments my woes,
But with my own breath still foment the fire,
Which flames as high as fancy can aspire!

This last complaint the indulgent ears did pierce Of just Apollo, president of verse;

Highly concernéd that the Muse should bring
Damage to one whom he had taught to sing,
Thus he advised me: “On yon aged tree
Hang up thy lute, and hie thee to the sea,
That there with wonders thy diverted mind
Some truce, at least, may with this passion find."
Ah, cruel nymph! from whom her humble swain
Flies for relief unto the raging main,

And from the winds and tempests does expect

A milder fate than from her cold neglect!

Yet there he'll pray that the unkind may prove
Blest in her choice; and vows this endless love
Springs from no hope of what she can confer,
But from those gifts which Heaven has heaped on her.
Edmund Waller.

A

FOR A TABLET AT PENSHURST.

RE days of old familiar to thy mind,

O Reader? Hast thou let the midnight hour
Pass unperceived, whilst thou in fancy lived
With high-born beauties and enamored chiefs,
Sharing their hopes, and, with a breathless joy
Whose expectation touched the verge of pain,
Following their dangerous fortunes? If such lore
Hath ever thrilled thy bosom, thou wilt tread
As with a pilgrim's reverential thoughts
The groves of Penshurst. Sidney here was born,
Sidney, than whom no gentler, braver man
His own delightful genius ever feigned,
Illustrating the vales of Arcady

With courteous courage and with loyal loves.
Upon his natal day an acorn here

Was planted; it grew up a stately oak,
And in the beauty of its strength it stood
And flourished, when his perishable part
Had mouldered dust to dust. That stately oak
Itself hath mouldered now, but Sidney's fame
Endureth in his own immortal works.

Robert Southey.

YE

SONNET

WRITTEN AT PENSHURST IN AUTUMN, 1788.

E towers sublime, deserted now and drear, Ye woods deep sighing to the hollow blast, The musing wanderer loves to linger near, While history points to all your glories past; And, startling from their haunts the timid deer, To trace the walks obscured by matted fern Which Waller's soothing lyre were wont to hear, But where now clamors the discordant hern! The spoiling hand of time may overturn These lofty battlements, and quite deface The fading canvas whence we love to learn Sidney's keen look and Sacharissa's grace; But fame and beauty still defy decay,

Saved by the historic page, the poet's tender lay!

PENSHURST.

Charlotte Smith.

ENIUS of Penshurst old!

Who saw'st the birth of each immortal oak,

Here sacred from the stroke;

And all thy tenants of yon turrets bold

Inspir'st to arts or arms;

Where Sidney his Arcadian landscape drew,

Genuine from thy Doric view;

And patriot Algernon unshaken rose

Above insulting foes;

And Sacharissa nursed her angel charms.
O, suffer me with sober tread
To enter on thy holy shade;

Bid smoothly gliding Medway stand,
And wave his sedgy tresses bland,
A stranger let him kindly greet,
And pour his urn beneath my feet.

But come, the minutes flit away, And eager Fancy longs to stray: Come, friendly Genius! lead me round Thy sylvan haunts and magic ground; Point every spot of hill or dale, And tell me, as we tread the vale, "Here mighty Dudley once would rove, To plan his triumphs in the grove : There looser Waller, ever gay, With Sachariss in dalliance lay; And Philip, sidelong yonder spring, His lavish carols wont to sing." Hark! I hear the echoes call, Hark! the rushing waters fall; Lead me to the green retreats, Guide me to the Muses' seats, Where ancient bards retirement chose, Or ancient lovers wept their woes. What Genius points to yonder oak? What rapture does my soul provoke? There let me hang a garland high, There let my Muse her accents try; Be there my earliest homage paid,

Be there my latest vigils made:
For thou wast planted in the earth

The day that shone on Sidney's birth.

The deer that crop the shaven park,
The steep-browed hill, or forest wild,
The sloping lawns, and zephyrs mild,
The clouds that blush with evening red,
Or meads with silver fountains fed,
The fragrance of the new-mown hay,
And blackbird chanting on the spray;
The calm farewell of parting light,
And evening saddening into night.

Francis Coventry.

Pentridge.

PENTRIDGE BY THE RIVER.

DIALECT OF DORSET.

ENTRIDGE!

PENTRIDO

-oh! my heart's a-swellen

Vull wi' jay to hear ye tellen
Any news o' thik wold pleace,
An' the boughy hedges round it,
An' the river that do bound it

Wi' his dark but glisnen feace.
Vor there's noo land, on either hand,
To me lik' Pentridge by the river.