"Here nymphs from hollow oaks relate / The dark decrees and will of fate, / And dreams beneath the spreading beach / Inspire, and docile fancy teach; / While, soft as breezy breath of wind, / Impulses rustle thro' the mind."
— Green, Matthew (1696-1737)
Author
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for A. Dodd
Date
1737 (also 1738, 1743, reprinted 1754)
Metaphor
"Here nymphs from hollow oaks relate / The dark decrees and will of fate, / And dreams beneath the spreading beach / Inspire, and docile fancy teach; / While, soft as breezy breath of wind, / Impulses rustle thro' the mind."
Metaphor in Context
Forc'd by soft violence of pray'r,
The blithsome goddess sooths my care;
I feel the deity inspire,
And thus she models my desire:
Two hundred pounds half-yearly paid,
Annuity securely made;
A farm some twenty miles from town,
Small, tight, salubrious, and my own;
Two maids, that never saw the town;
A serving-man, not quite a clown;
A boy to help to tread the mow,
And drive, while t'other holds the plow;
A chief of temper form'd to please,
Fit to converse, and keep the keys,
And, better to preserve the peace,
Commission'd by the name of niece;
With understandings of a size
To think their master very wise.
May heav'n (it's all I wish for) send
One genial room to treat a friend,
Where decent cup-board, little plate
Displays benevolence, not state.
And may my humble dwelling stand
Upon some chosen spot of land;
A pond before full to the brim,
Where cows may cool, and geese may swim;
Behind a green, like velvet neat,
Soft to the eye, and to the feet,
Where od'rous plants in ev'ning fair
Breathe all around ambrosial air,
From Eurus, foe to kitchen-ground,
Fenc'd by a slope with bushes crown'd,
Fit dwelling for the feather'd throng,
Who pay their quit-rents with a song;
With op'ning view of hills and dales,
Which sense and fancy too regales,
Where the half-cirque, which vision bounds,
Like amphitheatre surrounds;
And woods impervious to the breeze,
Thick phalanx of embodied trees,
From hills thro' plains in dusk array
Extended far repel the day.
Here stillness, height, and solemn shade
Invite, and contemplation aid:
Here nymphs from hollow oaks relate
The dark decrees and will of fate,
And dreams beneath the spreading beach
Inspire, and docile fancy teach;
While, soft as breezy breath of wind,
Impulses rustle thro' the mind:
Here Dryads, scorning Phoebus' ray,
While Pan melodious pipes away,
In measur'd motions frisk about,
'Till old Silenus puts them out:
There see the clover, pea, and bean,
Vie in variety of green;
Fresh pastures speckled o'er with sheep;
Brown fields their fallow sabbaths keep;
Plump Ceres golden tresses wear,
And poppy top-knots deck her hair;
And silver streams thro' meadows stray,
And Naiads on the margin play;
And lesser nymphs on side of hills
From play-thing urns pour down the rills.
(ll. 623-648, pp. 18-20 in 1737 ed., pp. 35-8 in 1754 ed.)
The blithsome goddess sooths my care;
I feel the deity inspire,
And thus she models my desire:
Two hundred pounds half-yearly paid,
Annuity securely made;
A farm some twenty miles from town,
Small, tight, salubrious, and my own;
Two maids, that never saw the town;
A serving-man, not quite a clown;
A boy to help to tread the mow,
And drive, while t'other holds the plow;
A chief of temper form'd to please,
Fit to converse, and keep the keys,
And, better to preserve the peace,
Commission'd by the name of niece;
With understandings of a size
To think their master very wise.
May heav'n (it's all I wish for) send
One genial room to treat a friend,
Where decent cup-board, little plate
Displays benevolence, not state.
And may my humble dwelling stand
Upon some chosen spot of land;
A pond before full to the brim,
Where cows may cool, and geese may swim;
Behind a green, like velvet neat,
Soft to the eye, and to the feet,
Where od'rous plants in ev'ning fair
Breathe all around ambrosial air,
From Eurus, foe to kitchen-ground,
Fenc'd by a slope with bushes crown'd,
Fit dwelling for the feather'd throng,
Who pay their quit-rents with a song;
With op'ning view of hills and dales,
Which sense and fancy too regales,
Where the half-cirque, which vision bounds,
Like amphitheatre surrounds;
And woods impervious to the breeze,
Thick phalanx of embodied trees,
From hills thro' plains in dusk array
Extended far repel the day.
Here stillness, height, and solemn shade
Invite, and contemplation aid:
Here nymphs from hollow oaks relate
The dark decrees and will of fate,
And dreams beneath the spreading beach
Inspire, and docile fancy teach;
While, soft as breezy breath of wind,
Impulses rustle thro' the mind:
Here Dryads, scorning Phoebus' ray,
While Pan melodious pipes away,
In measur'd motions frisk about,
'Till old Silenus puts them out:
There see the clover, pea, and bean,
Vie in variety of green;
Fresh pastures speckled o'er with sheep;
Brown fields their fallow sabbaths keep;
Plump Ceres golden tresses wear,
And poppy top-knots deck her hair;
And silver streams thro' meadows stray,
And Naiads on the margin play;
And lesser nymphs on side of hills
From play-thing urns pour down the rills.
(ll. 623-648, pp. 18-20 in 1737 ed., pp. 35-8 in 1754 ed.)
Categories
Provenance
Reading Arthur Sherbo's English Poetic Diction (Michigan State UP, 1975). p. 13-14.
Citation
7 copies in ECCO. Earliest printings from 1737 and 1738. I find two "second" editions: from 1738 and 1754 and a Dublin edition from 1743.
Text from C-H/HDIS transcription of Matthew Green, The Spleen. An Epistle Inscribed to his particular Friend Mr. C. J., 2nd edition (London: Printed for A. Dodd, 1754). <Link to ECCO><Link to ESTC>
See also the first edition (London: A Dodd, 1737) in ECCO <Link> or third edition, corrected (London: A. Dodd, 1738) in Google Books <Link>
Text from C-H/HDIS transcription of Matthew Green, The Spleen. An Epistle Inscribed to his particular Friend Mr. C. J., 2nd edition (London: Printed for A. Dodd, 1754). <Link to ECCO><Link to ESTC>
See also the first edition (London: A Dodd, 1737) in ECCO <Link> or third edition, corrected (London: A. Dodd, 1738) in Google Books <Link>
Date of Entry
06/04/2009
Date of Review
06/11/2013
