Anna Seward: To F.N.C. Mundy, Esq. on his poem 'The Fall of Needwood Forest'
Poet of Needwood, much my heart approves,
This thy owed duty to his ravaged groves.
The lost! the lovely! who in better days,
Viewed their each grace reflected in thy lays.
And O! when many a future age passed,
Rolling oblivious over his nameless waste,
Its some time beauties shall again revive,
And in thy pictured strains for ever live.
Come pensive listening, ye once jocund throng,
Whilome that roved those Forest Haunts along!
Explored, with pleasure brightening in your air,
Each coy, green labyrinth, and each tufty lair.
Still, as in prime of youth, the wanton Spring,
Expanded to the sun her showery wing.
And cliffs, illustrious in their golden bloom,
Rose over the glades of light besprinkled gloom.
Nor absent ye, when Summer's fervid hours,
Dropt more luxuriant curtains on the bowers.
And the vast oak's writhed arms of dusky green,
Shadowed the dappled tenants of the scene.
With rival elm, whose mossy trunk appears,
Outnumbering far the lonely eagle's years.
Nor when the months consummate left their vales,
To suns less ardent, less benignant gales.
And Autumn painted, with his tawny hand,
The shrinking foliage; and, in colours bland.
Streaked the pale red with purple, faint and brief,
And tipped with tarnished gold each trembling leaf.
Nor even when Phoebus's steeds, no longer fleet,
With mane dishevelled, streaming to their feet.
Struggling through clouds, the hibernal solstice gain,
Their necks be dropt with globes of freezing rain.
And the loud tyrant of the dying year,
Stripped other groves, made other forests sear.
For Needwood to his sway disdained to yield,
Is polished umbrage an unfailing shield.
Those numerous hollies on his breast and brow,
That thrust their scarlet clusters through the snow.
Or spread their glossy leaves to transient rays,
The rebel glory of the icy days.
Nor if, ere yet arisen, dim morning heard,
Your light heeled coursers paw the dewy sward.
When the sly prowler stole adown the wind,
And hoped he left no tell tale scent behind.
Vain hope! your swift staunch hounds the scent began,
To right and left their hurring numbers ran.
Till found the taint, in streaming files they hie,
And in one shill, continuous clamouring cry.
To which the accordant forest joyous rings,
Hand on his rear while over the vale he springs.
Dash through the rhymy glades, and around the hills,
As when, receiving tribute brooks and rills.
Over the flinty bed a river foams and roars,
Loud and impatient of meandering shores.
Or deepened shews the Sun his mirrored face,
Or zones with silver light the mountain's base.
Now come with MUNDY, where the ruin lowers,
He hymns the dirge of the devasted bowers!
Echo his wailing over their fallen state,
Whom centuries hailed irregularity great!
Come, execrate the edit that destroyed,
Leaving time hallowed Needwood bare and void!
There fell Imagination's rural fane,
Thence fled fair shafted Dian's votive train,
All which the Bard entranced in forest sees,
Satyrs and Fauns, and leaf crowned Dryades!
They fled, when Avarice, with rapacious frown,
From Mercia's temples struck her sylvan crown.
Yet gentle Minstrel, thy whose raptured ears,
Drank thy sweet song in the departed years.
Saw oaken wreaths thy auburn brows entwine,
The well won meed at Needwood's shadowy shrine.
Shall find thy Gratulation's vivid glow,
Matched by the Requiem, in its mournful flow.
The orb of MUNDY's muse illumined day,
Setting with rival, though with milder ray.
Pleased, shall compare the evening with the noon,
And feel, in equal power, the Cypress garland won.
Anna Seward
Copyright@
