WORDSWORTH'S COTTAGE.
Low and white, yet scarcely seen
Are its walls of mantling green;
Not a window lets in light
But through flowers clustering bright,
Not a glance may wander there
But it falls on something fair;
Garden choice and fairy mound
Only that no elves are found;
Winding walk and sheltered nook
For student grave and graver book,
Or a bird-like bower perchance
Fit for maiden and romance.
Another lady-poet has poured forth in verse her admiration of
THE RESIDENCE OF WORDSWORTH.
Not for the glory on their heads
Those stately hill-tops wear,
Although the summer sunset sheds
Its constant crimson there:
Not for the gleaming lights that break
The purple of the twilight lake,
Half dusky and half fair,
Does that sweet valley seem to be
A sacred place on earth to me.
The influence of a moral spell
Is found around the scene,
Giving new shadows to the dell,
New verdure to the green.
With every mountain-top is wrought
The presence of associate thought,
A music that has been;
Calling that loveliness to life,
With which the inward world is rife.
His home--our English poet's home--
Amid these hills is made;
Here, with the morning, hath he come,
There, with the night delayed.
On all things is his memory cast,
For every place wherein he past,
Is with his mind arrayed,
That, wandering in a summer hour,
Asked wisdom of the leaf and flower.
L.E.L.
The cottage and garden of the poet are not only picturesque and
delightful in themselves, but from their position in the midst of some
of the finest scenery of England. One of the writers in the book
entitled 'The Land we Live in' observes that the bard of the mountains
and the lakes could not have found a more fitting habitation had the
whole land been before him, where to choose his place of rest. "Snugly
sheltered by the mountains, embowered among trees, and having in itself
prospects of surpassing beauty, it also lies in the midst of the very
noblest objects in the district, and in one of the happiest social
positions. The grounds are delightful in every respect; but one view--
that from the terrace of moss-like grass--is, to our thinking, the most
exquisitely graceful in all this land of beauty. It embraces the whole
valley of Windermere, with hills on either side softened into perfect
loveliness."
Eustace, the Italian tourist, seems inclined to deprive the English of
the honor of being the first cultivators of the natural style in
gardening, and thinks that it was borrowed not from Milton but from
Tasso. I suppose that most genuine poets, in all ages and in all
countries, when they give full play to the imagination, have glimpses of
the truly natural in the arts. The reader will probably be glad to renew
his acquaintance with Tasso's description of the garden of Armida. I
shall give the good old version of Edward Fairfax from the edition of
1687. Fairfax was a true poet and wrote musically at a time when
sweetness of versification was not so much aimed at as in a later day.
Waller confessed that he owed the smoothness of his verse to the example
of Fairfax, who, as Warton observes, "well vowelled his lines."
THE GARDEN OF ARMIDA.
When they had passed all those troubled ways,
The Garden sweet spread forth her green to shew;
The moving crystal from the fountains plays;
Fair trees, high plants, strange herbs and flowerets new,
Sunshiny hills, vales hid from Phoebus' rays,
Groves, arbours, mossie caves at once they view,
And that which beauty most, most wonder brought,
No where appear'd the Art which all this wrought.
So with the rude the polished mingled was,
That natural seem'd all and every part,
Nature would craft in counterfeiting pass,
And imitate her imitator Art:
Mild was the air, the skies were clear as glass,
The trees no whirlwind felt, nor tempest's smart,
But ere the fruit drop off, the blossom comes,
This springs, that falls, that ripeneth and this blooms.
The leaves upon the self-same bough did hide,
Beside the young, the old and ripened fig,
Here fruit was green, there ripe with vermeil side;
The apples new and old grew on one twig,
The fruitful vine her arms spread high and wide,
That bended underneath their clusters big;
The grapes were tender here, hard, young and sour,
There purple ripe, and nectar sweet forth pour.
The joyous birds, hid under green-wood shade,
Sung merry notes on every branch and bow,
The wind that in the leaves and waters plaid
With murmer sweet, now sung and whistled now;
Ceaséd the birds, the wind loud answer made:
And while they sung, it rumbled soft and low;
Thus were it hap or cunning, chance or art,
The wind in this strange musick bore his part.
With party-coloured plumes and purple bill,
A wondrous bird among the rest there flew,
That in plain speech sung love-lays loud and shrill,
Her leden was like humane language true;
So much she talkt, and with such wit and skill,
That strange it seeméd how much good she knew;
Her feathered fellows all stood hush to hear,
Dumb was the wind, the waters silent were.
The gently budding rose (quoth she) behold,
That first scant peeping forth with virgin beams,
Half ope, half shut, her beauties doth upfold
In their dear leaves, and less seen, fairer seems,
And after spreads them forth more broad and bold,
Then languisheth and dies in last extreams,
Nor seems the same, that deckéd bed and bower
Of many a lady late, and paramour.
So, in the passing of a day, doth pass
The bud and blossom of the life of man,
Nor ere doth flourish more, but like the grass
Cut down, becometh wither'd, pale and wan:
O gather then the rose while time thou hast,
Short is the day, done when it scant began;
Gather the rose of love, while yet thou may'st
Loving be lov'd; embracing, be embrac'd.
He ceas'd, and as approving all he spoke,
The quire of birds their heav'nly tunes renew,
The turtles sigh'd, and sighs with kisses broke,
The fowls to shades unseen, by pairs withdrew;
It seem'd the laurel chaste, and stubborn oak,
And all the gentle trees on earth that grew,
It seem'd the land, the sea, and heav'n above,
All breath'd out fancy sweet, and sigh'd out love.
Godfrey of Bulloigne
I must place near the garden of Armida, Ariosto's garden of Alcina.
"Ariosto," says Leigh Hunt, "cared for none of the pleasures of the
great, except building, and was content in Cowley's fashion, with "a
small house in a large garden." He loved gardening better than he
understood it, was always shifting his plants, and destroying the seeds,
out of impatience to see them germinate. He was rejoicing once on the
coming up of some "capers" which he had been visiting every day, to see
how they got on, when it turned out that his capers were elder trees!"
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