15 The meek-robed lawyers, all in white; Pure as the lamb,?at least, to sight. A shelf of bottles, jar and phial,0 vial By which the rogues he can defy all,? All filled with lightning keen and genuine,
20 And many a little imp he'll pen you in;
1. The maps, historical charts, books, and scien-Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt. tific apparatus are all part of the 'furniture' (fur-3. The works of the Catholic Church Fathers. nishings) of Joseph Priestley's study (see the first 4. Ovid's Metamorphoses and the works of the note to the preceding poem). Roman satirist Juvenal. 2. Ptolemy I (ca. 367?283 B.C.E.), founder of the
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A SUMMER EVENING'S MEDITATION / 29
Which, like Le Sage's sprite, let out, Among the neighbours makes a rout;5 Brings down the lightning on their houses, And lulls their geese, and frights their spouses.
25 A rare thermometer, by which He settles, to the nicest pitch, The just degrees of heat, to raise Sermons, or politics, or plays. Papers and books, a strange mixed olio,
30 From shilling touch0 to pompous folio; cheap pamphlet Answer, remark, reply, rejoinder, Fresh from the mint, all stamped and coined here; Like new-made glass, set by to cool, Before it bears the workman's tool.
35 A blotted proof-sheet, wet from Bowling.6 ?'How can a man his anger hold in?'? Forgotten rimes, and college themes, Worm-eaten plans, and embryo schemes;? A mass of heterogeneous matter,
40 A chaos dark, nor land nor water;? New books, like new-born infants, stand, Waiting the printer's clothing hand;? Others, a motley ragged brood, Their limbs unfashioned all, and rude,
45 Like Cadmus' half-formed men appear;7 One rears a helm, one lifts a spear, And feet were lopped and fingers torn Before their fellow limbs were born; A leg began to kick and sprawl
50 Before the head was seen at all, Which quiet as a mushroom lay Till crumbling hillocks gave it way; And all, like controversial writing, Were born with teeth, and sprung up fighting.
55 'But what is this,' I hear you cry, 'Which saucily provokes my eye?'? A thing unknown, without a name, Born of the air and doomed to flame.
ca.1771 1825
A Summer Evening's Meditation1
Tis past! The sultry tyrant of the south Has spent his short-lived rage; more grateful0 hours pleasing Move silent on; the skies no more repel
5. In Rene LeSage's Le Diable Boiteiix (1707), a (Ovid's Metamorphoses 3.95-114). laboratory-created spirit lifts the roofs from the 1. This poem looks backward to poems such as neighbors' houses, exposing their private lives and William Collins's 'Ode to Evening' (1747), Anne creating havoc. Finch's 'A Nocturnal Reverie' (1713), and even to 6. Presumably a local printer. Milton's description in book 2 of Paradise Lost of 7. Armed men created when Cadmus sowed the Satan's daring navigation of the realm of Chaos. At earth with the teeth of a dragon he had killed the same time Barbauld's excursion-and-return
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3 0 / ANN A LETITI A BARBAUL D The dazzled sight, but with mild maiden beams 5 Of tempered lustre court the cherished eye To wander o'er their sphere; where, hung aloft, Dian's bright crescent, like a silver bow New strung in heaven, lifts high its beamy horns Impatient for the night, and seems to push 10 Her brother' down the sky. Fair Venus shines Apollo Even in the eye of day; with sweetest beam Propitious shines, and shakes a trembling flood Of softened radiance from her dewy locks. The shadows spread apace; while meekened2 Eve, is Her cheek yet warm with blushes, slow retires Through the Hesperian gardens of the west, And shuts the gates of day. Tis now the hour When Contemplation from her sunless haunts, The cool damp grotto, or the lonely depth 20 Of unpierced woods, where wrapt in solid shade She mused away the gaudy hours of noon, And fed on thoughts unripened by the sun, Moves forward; and with radiant finger points To yon blue concave swelled by breath divine, 25 Where, one by one, the living eyes of heaven Awake, quick kindling o'er the face of ether One boundless blaze; ten thousand trembling fires, And dancing lustres, where the unsteady eye, Restless and dazzled, wanders unconfined 30 O'er all this field of glories; spacious field, And worthy of the Master: he, whose hand With hieroglyphics elder than the Nile Inscribed the mystic tablet, hung on high To public gaze, and said, 'Adore, O man! 35 The finger of thy God.' From what pure wells Of milky light, what soft o'erflowing urn, Are all these lamps so fill'd? these friendly lamps, For ever streaming o'er the azure deep To point our path, and light us to our home. 40 How soft they slide along their lucid spheres! And silent as the foot of Time, fulfill Their destined courses: Nature's self is hushed, And, but? a scattered leaf, which rustles through except for The thick-wove foliage, not a sound is heard 45 To break the midnight air; though the raised ear, Intensely listening, drinks in every breath. How deep the silence, yet how loud the praise! But are they silent all? or is there not A tongue in every star, that talks with man, so And woos him to be wise? nor woos in vain: This dead of midnight is the noon of thought, And Wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars.
structure anticipates the high flights (and returns) sweetest beams (10 and 11) is differently gendered: of later lyrics by Coleridge, Percy Shelley, and this soul that launches 'into the trackless deeps' Keats. But her account of the journey, with its ref-(82) is clearly female. erences to Diana's crescent (line 7) and Venus's 2. Softened, made meek.
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A SUMMER EVENING'S MEDITATION / 31
At this still hour the self-collected soul Turns inward, and beholds a stranger there
55 Of high descent, and more than mortal rank; An embryo God; a spark of fire divine, Which must burn on for ages, when the sun,? Fair transitory creature of a day!? Has closed his golden eye, and wrapt in shades
60 Forgets his wonted journey through the east.
Ye citadels of light, and seats of Gods! Perhaps my future home, from whence the soul, Revolving0 periods past, may oft look back Meditating on With recollected tenderness on all
65 The various busy scenes she left below, Its deep-laid projects and its strange events, As on some fond and doting tale that soothed Her infant hours?O be it lawful now To tread the hallowed circle of your courts,
70 And with mute wonder and delighted awe Approach your burning confines. Seized in thought, On Fancy's
