Selected Poems of Bernard Barton, the 'Quaker Poet'. Christopher Stokes W.

fair and fragrant, and its beauteous bowers

      Seem haunts of happiness, before thee set,

      All lovely as a landscape freshly wet 5

      With dew, or bright with sunshine after showers;

      Where pleasure dwells, and Flora’s magic powers

      Woo thee to pluck joy’s peerless coronet.

      Thus be it ever:—wouldst thou have it so,

      Preserve thy present openness of heart;— 10

      Cherish those generous feelings which now start

      At base dissimulation, and that glow

      Of native love for ties which home endears;

      And thou wilt find the world no vale of tears.

      [1818]

      “Thou art but in life’s morning!”—Years have sped

      Their silent flight since thus my idle rhyme

      Addressed thee in thy being’s opening prime;

      If since that hour some clouds at times have spread

      Their shadow o’er thy path, these have not shed 5

      On thee their anger; but, from time to time,

      Have led thy thoughts tow’rd sunnier heights to climb;

      Communing with the loved, lamented dead!

      And still thou art but in the glowing morn

      Of thy existence: hearts of finest mould, 10

      And warm affections claim their right to hold

      Those purer, nobler feelings with them born,

      Which will not let them droop, of hope forlorn,

      Nor in a few brief years be changed and cold.

      [1828]

       DRAB BONNETS

      Verses occasioned by reading in a Morning Paper, that at a Meeting convened in London, for some charitable purpose, “among other Ladies we observed a considerable number, whose Drab Bonnets bespoke them Members of the Society of Friends.”

      They may cant of costumes, and of brilliant head-dresses,

      A la Grecque—a la Françoise—or what else they will;

      They may talk of tiaras, that glitter on tresses

      Enwreath’d by the Graces, and braided with skill:

      Yet to my partial glance, I confess the drab bonnet 5

      Is the loveliest of any,—and most when it bears

      Not only the bright gloss of neatness upon it—

      But, beneath,—the expression Benevolence wears!

      Then let Fashion exult in her vapid vagaries,

      From her fascinations my favourite is free: 10

      Be Folly’s the head-gear that momently varies,

      But a Bonnet of drab is the sweetest to me.

      Though stately the ostrich-plume, gracefully throwing

      Its feathery flashes of light on the eye;

      Though tasty and trim the straw-bonnet, when glowing 15

      With its ribbons so glossy of various dye:—

      Yet still I must own, although none may seem duller

      Than a simple drab Bonnet to many a gaze—

      It is, and it will be, the favourite colour,

      Around which my fancy delightedly plays:— 20

      And it well suits my muse with a garland to wreathe it,

      And echo its praises with gratefullest glee,—

      For, knowing the goodness that oft lurks beneath it,

      The Bonnet of drab beats a turban with me.

      Full many a rare gem,—the poet has chaunted,— 25

      In the depths of the ocean flings round it its sheen;—

      And many a floweret, its beauties unvaunted,

      Springs to life, sheds its perfume, and withers unseen:

      And well do I know that our sisterhood numbers,

      Array’d in the liv’ry that coxcombs reprove,— 30

      Forms as fair as e’er rose on a poet’s sweet slumbers,

      And faces as lovely as ever taught love.

      This I know, and have felt;—and, thus knowing and feeling,

      A recreant minstrel I surely should be,

      If, my heart-felt attachment ignobly concealing, 35

      The Bonnet of drab past unhonour’d by me!

      I have bask’d in the blaze of both beauty and fashion,—

      Have seen these united with gifts rich and rare,

      And crown’d with a heart that could cherish compassion,—

      And by sympathy soften what sorrow must bear. 40

      Yet acknowledging this,—which I can do sincerely,—

      Far the highest enjoyment this bosom e’er knew,

      The glance which it treasures most fondly, most dearly,

      Beam’d from under a Bonnet of drab-colour’d hue.

      ’Twas my pleasure,—my pride!—it is past, and has perish’d, 45

      Like the track of a ship o’er the dark-heaving sea;

      But its loveliness lives, its remembrance is cherish’d,

      And the Bonnet of drab is still beauteous to me!

       1820–25: Emergence of the ‘Quaker Poet’

      

       THE IVY, ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG FRIEND

      Dost thou not love, in the season of spring,

      To twine thee a flowery wreath,

      And to see the beautiful birch-tree fling

      Its shade on the grass beneath?

      Its glossy leaf, and its silvery stem, 5

      O! dost thou not love to look on them?

      And dost thou not love, when leaves are greenest,

      And summer has just begun,

      When in the silence of moonlight thou leanest,

      Where glist’ning waters run,— 10

      To see, by that gentle and peaceful beam,

      The willow bend down to the sparkling stream?

      And O! in a lovely autumnal day,

      When leaves are changing before thee,

      Do not nature’s charms, as they slowly decay, 15

      Shed their own mild influence o’er thee?

      And hast thou not felt, as thou stood’st to gaze,

      The touching lesson such scene displays?

      It should be thus at an age