The Poetical Works of Thomas Tickell/To a Lady before Marriage
TO A LADY BEFORE MARRIAGE.
Oh! form'd by Nature and refin'd by art,
With charms to win and sense to fix the heart,
By thousands sought, Clotilda! canst thou free
Thy crowd of captives and descend to me,
Content in shades obscure to waste thy life, 5
A hidden beauty and a country wife?
O! listen while thy summers are my theme,
Ah! sooth thy partner in his waking dream.
In some small hamlet on the lonely plain 9
Where Thames thro' meadows rolls his mazy train,
Or where high Windsor, thick with greens array'd,
Waves his old oaks and spreads his ample shade,
Fancy has figur'd out our calm retreat;
Already round the visionary seat
Our limes begin to shoot, our flow'rs to spring, 15
The brooks to murmur and the birds to sing.
Where dost thou lie thou thinly-peopled green,
Thou nameless lawn and village yet unseen,
Where sons contented with their native ground
Ne'er travell'd further than ten furlongs round, 20
And the tann'd peasant and his ruddy bride
Were born together and together dy'd,
Where early larks best tell the morning light,
And only Philomel disturbs the night?
'Midst gardens here my humble pile shall rise, 25
With sweet's surrounded of ten thousand dies;
All savage where th' embroider'd gardens end,
The haunt of Echoes shall my woods ascend;
And oh! if Heav'n th' ambitious thought approve,
A rill shall warble cross the gloomy grove; 30
A little rill, o'er pebbly beds convey'd,
Gush down the steep and glitter thro' the glade.
What cheering scents these bord'ring banks exhale!
How loud that heifer lows from yonder vale!
That thrush how shrill! his note so clear, so high, 35
He drowns each feather'd minstrel of the sky.
Here let me trace beneath the purpled Morn
The deepmouth'd beagle and the sprightly horn,
Or lure the trout with well dissembled flies,
Or fetch the flutt'ring partridge from the skies. 40
Nor shall thy hand disdain to crop the vine,
The downy peach or flavour'd nectarine,
Or rob the beehive of its golden hoard,
And bear th' unbought luxuriance to thy board.
Sometimes my books by day shall kill the hours, 45
While from thy needle rise the silken flow'rs,
And thou by turns to ease my feeble sight
Resume the volume and deceive the night.
Oh! when I mark thy twinkling eyes opprest,
Soft whisp'ring let me warn my love to rest, 50
Then watch thee charm'd while sleep locks ev'ry sense,
And to sweet Heav'n commend thy innocence.
Thus reign'd our fathers o'er the rural sold,
Wise, hale, and honest, in the days of old,
Till courts arose where substance pays for show, 55
And specious joys are bought with real wo.
See Flavia's pendants large, well spread and right;
The ear that wears them hears a fool each night.
Mark how th' embroider'd col'nel sneaks away
To shun the with'ring dame that made him gay. 60
That knave to gain a title lost his fame;
That rais'd his credit by a daughter's shame:
This coxcomb's riband cost him half his land,
And oaks unnumber'd bought that fool a wand.
Fond man, as all his sorrows were too few, 65
Acquires strange wants that Nature never knew,
By midnight lamps he emulates the day,
And sleeps perverse the cheerful suns away;
From goblets high-embost his wine must glide,
Round his clos'd sight the gorgeous curtain slide, 70
Fruits ere their time to grace his pomp must rise,
And three untasted courses glut his eyes:
For this are Nature's gentle calls withstood,
The voice of conscience and the bonds of blood;
This wisdom thy reward for ev'ry pain, 75
And this gay glory all thy mighty gain:
Fair phantoms woo'd and scorn'd from age to age
Since bards began to laugh or priests to rage,
And yet, just curse on man's aspiring kind!
Prone to ambition, to example blind, 80
Our children's children shall our steps pursue,
And the same errours be for ever new.
Mean-while in hope a guiltless country swain,
My reed with warblings cheers th' imagin'd plain.
Hail, humble Shades! where truth and silence dwell;
Thou noisy Town and faithless Court! farewell; 86
Farewell ambition, once my darling flame,
The thirst of lucre and the charm of fame;
In life's by-road, that winds thro' paths unknown,
My days tho' number'd shall be all my own: 90
Here shall they end, (O! might they twice begin)
And all be white the Fates intend to spin. 92
With charms to win and sense to fix the heart,
By thousands sought, Clotilda! canst thou free
Thy crowd of captives and descend to me,
Content in shades obscure to waste thy life, 5
A hidden beauty and a country wife?
O! listen while thy summers are my theme,
Ah! sooth thy partner in his waking dream.
In some small hamlet on the lonely plain 9
Where Thames thro' meadows rolls his mazy train,
Or where high Windsor, thick with greens array'd,
Waves his old oaks and spreads his ample shade,
Fancy has figur'd out our calm retreat;
Already round the visionary seat
Our limes begin to shoot, our flow'rs to spring, 15
The brooks to murmur and the birds to sing.
Where dost thou lie thou thinly-peopled green,
Thou nameless lawn and village yet unseen,
Where sons contented with their native ground
Ne'er travell'd further than ten furlongs round, 20
And the tann'd peasant and his ruddy bride
Were born together and together dy'd,
Where early larks best tell the morning light,
And only Philomel disturbs the night?
'Midst gardens here my humble pile shall rise, 25
With sweet's surrounded of ten thousand dies;
All savage where th' embroider'd gardens end,
The haunt of Echoes shall my woods ascend;
And oh! if Heav'n th' ambitious thought approve,
A rill shall warble cross the gloomy grove; 30
A little rill, o'er pebbly beds convey'd,
Gush down the steep and glitter thro' the glade.
What cheering scents these bord'ring banks exhale!
How loud that heifer lows from yonder vale!
That thrush how shrill! his note so clear, so high, 35
He drowns each feather'd minstrel of the sky.
Here let me trace beneath the purpled Morn
The deepmouth'd beagle and the sprightly horn,
Or lure the trout with well dissembled flies,
Or fetch the flutt'ring partridge from the skies. 40
Nor shall thy hand disdain to crop the vine,
The downy peach or flavour'd nectarine,
Or rob the beehive of its golden hoard,
And bear th' unbought luxuriance to thy board.
Sometimes my books by day shall kill the hours, 45
While from thy needle rise the silken flow'rs,
And thou by turns to ease my feeble sight
Resume the volume and deceive the night.
Oh! when I mark thy twinkling eyes opprest,
Soft whisp'ring let me warn my love to rest, 50
Then watch thee charm'd while sleep locks ev'ry sense,
And to sweet Heav'n commend thy innocence.
Thus reign'd our fathers o'er the rural sold,
Wise, hale, and honest, in the days of old,
Till courts arose where substance pays for show, 55
And specious joys are bought with real wo.
See Flavia's pendants large, well spread and right;
The ear that wears them hears a fool each night.
Mark how th' embroider'd col'nel sneaks away
To shun the with'ring dame that made him gay. 60
That knave to gain a title lost his fame;
That rais'd his credit by a daughter's shame:
This coxcomb's riband cost him half his land,
And oaks unnumber'd bought that fool a wand.
Fond man, as all his sorrows were too few, 65
Acquires strange wants that Nature never knew,
By midnight lamps he emulates the day,
And sleeps perverse the cheerful suns away;
From goblets high-embost his wine must glide,
Round his clos'd sight the gorgeous curtain slide, 70
Fruits ere their time to grace his pomp must rise,
And three untasted courses glut his eyes:
For this are Nature's gentle calls withstood,
The voice of conscience and the bonds of blood;
This wisdom thy reward for ev'ry pain, 75
And this gay glory all thy mighty gain:
Fair phantoms woo'd and scorn'd from age to age
Since bards began to laugh or priests to rage,
And yet, just curse on man's aspiring kind!
Prone to ambition, to example blind, 80
Our children's children shall our steps pursue,
And the same errours be for ever new.
Mean-while in hope a guiltless country swain,
My reed with warblings cheers th' imagin'd plain.
Hail, humble Shades! where truth and silence dwell;
Thou noisy Town and faithless Court! farewell; 86
Farewell ambition, once my darling flame,
The thirst of lucre and the charm of fame;
In life's by-road, that winds thro' paths unknown,
My days tho' number'd shall be all my own: 90
Here shall they end, (O! might they twice begin)
And all be white the Fates intend to spin. 92