Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1839/Lines Suggested on Visiting Newstead Abbey
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NEWSTEAD ABBEY, NOTTINGHAMSHIRE.
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LINES SUGGESTED ON VISITING NEWSTEAD ABBEY.*
What makes the poet?—Nothing but to feel
More keenly than the common sense of feeling;
To have the soul attuned to the appeal
Of the dim music through all nature stealing.
Ah! poetry is like love, its own avenger;
Sweet thoughts, fine fancies, by its footsteps roam;
It wanders through the world a lonely stranger,
To find this weary world is not its home.
Cares, envyings, blame, disturb its bright dominion;
Fretted, it labours with its own unrest;
The wounded dove folds up its drooping pinion,
And pines and fevers on its lonely nest.
Or rather say, it is the falcon, scorning
The shaft by which he met his mortal blow;
Stately he rose to meet the golden morning—
Ere noontide came, the gallant bird lay low.
Ah! who may know what gloomy guests, unbidden,
Await such spirits in their unstrung hours!
Thoughts by the better nature vainly chidden,
Forcing allegiance to the darker powers.
And who may know how sad and how subdued
When, with its own o’ertasking, faint and weary,
The mind sinks down into that gloomy mood,
To which all future hours seem dark and dreary!
The soul is out of tune—its sweet notes scattered—
Vexed—irritable—harsh—its power is flown:
Like some fine lute, whose higher chords are shattered
By forcing too much music from their tone.
But few can pity such a mood as this,
Because they know it not—calm is their sadness,
Tranquil their joy; they know not how it is
Genius is feverish in its grief and gladness.
It has no quiet; for it could not live
In the far sunlight of some placid ocean;
It asks the warring winds and waves that give
Need for its strength, and life to its emotion.
And then it suffers bitterly—consuming
With the fierce struggle which itself hath sought;
While fame the future’s mighty world illuming
Is never wholly by the present bought.
Fame is a noble vision, fixed for ever—
Praise is its mockery—the one word of praise
A thousand come, of blame for each endeavour
That turns the mind’s pure light on coming days.
All daily ills beset its daily path:
Poverty—toil—neglect—dislike—and sorrow;
The many visit it with scorn and wrath—
Its hopes come never nearer than the morrow.
Vainly did he resist—half mirth—half rage,—
The weight with which the world on genius presses;
What bitter truths are flung upon his page,
Truths which the lip denies—the heart confesses.
Life is a fable, with its lesson last;
Genius, too, has its fable and its moral:
Of all the trees that down their shadows cast,
Choose you a wreath from any but the laurel.
* Newstead Abbey, celebrated as having been the paternal estate of Lord Byron, is situated in Nottinghamshire, within a short distance of Mansfield. It was founded in 1170, by Henry II as a priory for Black Canons, and was granted, at the period of the dissolution of religious houses, to Sir John Byron, lieutenant of Sherwood forest, in Henry the Eighth’s time. The grantee incorporated part of the Abbey with his dwelling-house, but suffered the Church to fall into decay. Although the estate continued in the Byron family until 1815, the mansion and offices, which are all in the ecclesiastical style, were much neglected, and the antique and valuable furniture of the chief apartments, alienated by the representatives of the family. The eccentric author of Childe Harolde disposed of this patrimonial inheritance to T. Clawton Esq., for the sum of £140,000, by whom it was resold to Colonel Wildman for £100,000. It is now in a most perfect state of repair, and, independent of the interest it derives from having once belonged to, perhaps, the first of English poets, it possesses very considerable claim to admiration, as a splendid and beautiful private residence.