Hayley, William (1745-1820)

An Essay on Epic Poetry

London

Printed for J. Dodsley

1782

"Pleasure, the rambling Bird! the painted Jay! / May snatch the richest seeds of Verse away; / Or Indolence, the worm that winds with art / Thro' the close texture of the cleanest heart, / May, if they haply have begun to shoot, / With partial mischief wound the sick'ning root; / Or Avarice, the mildew of the soul, / May sweep the mental field, and blight the whole; / Nay, the meek errors of the modest mind, / To its own vigor diffidently blind, / And that cold spleen, which falsely has declared / The powers of Nature and of Art impair'd, / The gate that Genius has unclos'd may guard, / And rivet to the earth the rising Bard."

Can we then deem that in those happier lands,
Where every vital energy expands;
Where Thought, the golden harvest of the mind,
Springs into rich luxuriance, unconfin'd;
That in such soils, with mental weeds o'ergrown,
The seeds of Poesy were thinly sown?

Shall we deny the labor of the swain,
Who to the cultur'd earth confides the grain,
If all the vagrant harpies of the air
From its new bed the pregnant treasure tear;
If, when scarce rising, with a stem infirm,
It dies the victim of the mining worm;
If mildew, riding in the eastern gust,
Turns all its ripening gold to sable dust?

These foes combin'd (and with them who may cope?)
Are not more hostile to the Farmer's hope,
Than Life's keen passions to that lighter grain
Of Fancy, scatter'd o'er the infant brain.
Pleasure, the rambling Bird! the painted Jay!
May snatch the richest seeds of Verse away;
Or Indolence, the worm that winds with art
Thro' the close texture of the cleanest heart,
May, if they haply have begun to shoot,
With partial mischief wound the sick'ning root;
Or Avarice, the mildew of the soul,
May sweep the mental field, and blight the whole;
Nay, the meek errors of the modest mind,
To its own vigor diffidently blind,
And that cold spleen, which falsely has declar'd
The powers of Nature and of Art impair'd,
The gate that Genius has unclos'd may guard,
And rivet to the earth the rising Bard:
For who will quit, tho' from mean aims exempt,
The cares that summon, and the joys that tempt
In many a lonely studious hour to try
Where latent springs of Poesy may lie;
Who will from social ease his mind divorce,
To prove in Art's wide field its secret force,
If, blind to Nature's frank parental love,
He deems that Verse, descended from above,
Like Heaven's more sacred signs, whose time is o'er,
A gift miraculous, conferr'd no more?

Animals::Birds::Jay Plant::Seeds Animals::Worm Uncategorized::Mildew Plant::Field

Searching "bird" and "brain" in HDIS (Poetry)

4 entries in LION and ESTC (1782, 1785, 1788).

First published as An Essay on Epic Poetry; in Five Epistles to the Rev^d. M^r. Mason. With Notes. (London: Printed for J. Dodsley, 1782). <Link to Hathi Trust>

Reprinted in Poems and Plays, by William Hayley, Esq. (London: Printed for T. Cadell, 1785). <Link to ECCO>

Text from new edition of Poems and Plays, by William Hayley, Esq. (London: Printed for T. Cadell, 1788). See also William Hayley, Poems and Plays, by William Hayley, Esq., vol. 3 of 6 vols. (London: Printed for T. Cadell, 1785). <Link to ECCO>

06/27/2012