the Cavern is really quite great, but the Ode that's first on that
page, & a number of others, are very bad. not the master of the iamb,
this guy.
KS
On 04/01/2008, Robin Hamilton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > Hi all you well read hi tech academic friends -a friend of mine went to
> > Jamaica and saw a poem -up on a wall in a cave??/called 'the Cavern of
> > Melancholy' by Robert Charles Dallas c1778and was very impressed
> >
> > And would like to see it-I with my limited resources -ie google can't find
> > it -any leads ??
>
> Patrick:
>
> Go here for the text:
>
> http://dev.hil.unb.ca/Texts/EPD/UNB/view-works.cgi?c=dallasro.1552&pos=2
>
> (In case this is too difficult for you, I'll paste the text of the Sad Cave
> into this email. <g>
>
> If Chadwick Healey ever find out that their English Poetry Text Database is
> freely available on the Web, life is going to become much more difficult for
> me.)
>
> > Cheers Patrick -perhaps it might have a blowen in it??
>
> Not as far as I know, but then I haven't (see below) read through all seven
> volumes of his _Novels and Miscellaneous Works_.
>
> There is, however, a connection, as Dallas was apparently a mate of Byron,
> and as everyone knows, blowens occur in the Eleventh Canto of Don Juan,
> courtesy of the partial memory by Byron's boxing tutor Gentleman John
> Jackson of the broadside of "The Dog and Duck Rig".
>
> (A) R[oger of the Cluniac Order]
>
> {PS -- Copying this personally to you, my Patrick, as well as sending it to
> the list, as I'm not sure if my posts are getting through to poetryetc.
>
> Robin.}
>
> ............................................
>
> Dallas, Robert Charles
>
> Robert Charles Dallas (1754-1824) was born in Kingston, Jamaica. He was the
> son of Robert Dallas, a physician, and was educated at Musselburgh, in
> Scotland, and under James Elphinston at Kensington, in England. He trained
> as a barrister before returning to Jamaica to take possession of the family
> estate. On a visit to England he met and married Sarah Harding and brought
> her home. However, finding the climate of the West Indies did not suit her,
> the couple lived for a time in France and America and eventually returned to
> England. Dallas became a prolific author in many genres, including novels,
> tales, drama, poetry, political and social non-fiction, and translations,
> but his fame rests primarily with his connection to Lord Byron, his relation
> through his sister's marriage. Dallas served as editor of Byron's early
> poetry, and the men corresponded frequently until Byron, perhaps weary of
> Dallas's meddling, broke off the relationship. But as a token of thanks,
> Byron gave him letters written to his mother during his eastern travels.
> Dallas prepared these, together with his recollections, to be published upon
> Byron's death, but the executors disputed his ownership of the letters.
> Dallas's son published The Recollections and the letters after his father's
> death. The Recollections were also published alone the same year, followed
> by the 1825 compilation Correspondence of Lord Byron, with a Friend:
> Including His Letters to His Mother, Written from Portugal, Spain, Greece,
> and the Shores of the Mediterranean, in 1809, 1810 and 1811; also,
> Recollections of the Poet. . . . and a Continuation and Preliminary
> Statement of the Proceedings by Which the Letters were Suppressed in
> England, at the Suit of Lord Byron's Executors. Also among Dallas's
> published works was Miscellaneous Writings: Consisting of Poems; Lucretia, a
> Tragedy, and Moral Essays: with a Vocabulary of the Passions in Which Their
> Sources are Pointed Out; Their Regular Currents Traced; and Their Deviations
> (1797).
>
> Works Consulted: Matthew, H.C.G. and Brian Harrison, eds., Oxford Dictionary
> of National Biography, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
>
> The History of the Maroons (1803)
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=VccCAAAAYAAJ -- vol.1
> http://books.google.com/books?id=D8idWcD2ExQC -- vol.2
>
> Internet Archives -- http://www.archive.org/index.php -- have 7 volumes of
> his _Miscellaneous Works and Novels_!!!
>
> Search there for "Dallas, Robert Charles" in Texts
>
> THE CAVERN OF MELANCHOLY:
>
> AN ODE.
>
>
> [Note: Written after visiting a remarkable grotto in the parish of St. Ann's
> in Jamaica. In one of the lofty chambers of it, there were some large stones
> of extraordinary appearance. One particularly had the figure of a man,
> nearly as described in the following ode. The features of the face had been
> delineated (if the author was rightly informed) by Mr. Long, the historian
> of Jamaica; the rest of the figure was evidently a lusus naturę.]
>
> 1: While in the Grotto's gloomy cells
> 2: We press'd the devious way,
> 3: Through many a chamber that expels
> 4: With fretted roofs the day;
> 5: Where darkness darken'd with extent,
> 6: Seen by the rays our torches lent,
> 7: Or one just straggling from above,
> 8: That night's deep visage distant show'd,
> 9: Black'ning the arch of her abode,
> 10: A vast Cimmerian grove,
> 11: Melpomene, in mournful vein,
> 12: Sibylla's theme to inspire,
> 13: To melancholy gave the strain,
> 14: And symphoniz'd the lyre:
> 15: In a grey cell the hermit sat,
> 16: Remote from man; the skulking bat
> 17: Companion of his murky cave:
> 18: His head was canopied with stone,
> 19: Or water into chrystal grown,
> 20: Fix'd in a solid wave.
> 21: Of stone himself the hermit seem'd,
> 22: In meditation lost:
> 23: With sparry gems his garments gleam'd,
> 24: In many foldings crost:
> 25: A shining beard fell down his breast,
> 26: An elbow on his knee found rest,
> 27: The arm upheld his reverend cheek:
> 28: All vow'd the hermit was but stone,
> 29: When in a mellow awful tone,
> 30: All heard the hermit speak.
> 31: "Go on, ye busy curious train,
> 32: "Your active walks pursue,
> 33: "Which Melancholy shall disdain
> 34: "To mark with ebon hue.
> 35: "Still trip it in the prosperous glare;
> 36: "Ye ne'er shall see my footsteps there;
> 37: "I shun the bustling crowded court:
> 38: "In lonely grove or darksome room
> 39: "I dwell, and cast an awful gloom
> 40: "On all who near resort.
> 41: "Go on, ye busy prating crew,
> 42: "Ye take the happier part;
> 43: "Ne'er shall my tear your cheeks bedew,
> 44: "Nor sorrows press the heart:
> 45: "Grief on light minds can never last,
> 46: "A gloom, perhaps in rising past,
> 47: "Scarce clouded e'er again 'tis bright;
> 48: "'Tis not the calm yet deep-fetch'd sigh,
> 49: "The glowing soul that melts the eye,
> 50: "And dims the fairest light.
> 51: "Ah far! still far, my haunts avoid;
> 52: "A solitary road;
> 53: "Some yew tree shade or cavern wide,
> 54: "A gloomy drear abode.
> 55: "Come ye! whom musing fancy leads
> 56: "O'er awful philosophic meads,
> 57: "Who weigh of life each parting hour:
> 58: "Or ye, who Fortune's dross despise,
> 59: "Yet still must feel, if off she flies,
> 60: "The loss of generous power.
> 61: "And ah! beware ye generous youth
> 62: "Too prompt to yield the heart:
> 63: "One hand the villain lifts to soothe,
> 64: "The other holds the dart.
> 65: "Your unsuspecting bosoms know
> 66: "With nature's genial warmth to glow,
> 67: "Warm friendships and fond loves enjoying:
> 68: "But ah! the faithless crew beware,
> 69: "They are not, what they seem, sincere,
> 70: "And live but by destroying.
> 71: "Near to this cavern's rocky ground
> 72: "A lofty standard grew;
> 73: "His foliag'd branches spread around,
> 74: "Most comely to the view:
> 75: "A creeping vine that grovell'd nigh
> 76: "The tree receiv'd and rais'd on high,
> 77: "Pleas'd to support the wanton wreath:
> 78: "The usurping tendril wreathes too free;
> 79: "The parasite becomes the tree,
> 80: "The standard's hugg'd to death.
> 81: "Come too, ye born of Sympathy,
> 82: "Whom social woes depress,
> 83: "To Melancholy's haunts be free,
> 84: "Your hearts partake distress;
> 85: "Ye turn and agonize each thought
> 86: "With the keen pangs of mortal lot,
> 87: "Give sigh for sigh, and groan for groan:
> 88: "Pale misery ye contemplate,
> 89: "Of others feel the wretched fate,
> 90: "And make it all your own.
> 91: "And ye who court, but court in vain,
> 92: "Health's cheerful, roseate boon;
> 93: "Whose hours are tarnish'd o'er with pain,
> 94: "Whose joys are fled too soon:
> 95: "Like poor Eugenia, form'd to please,
> 96: "Yet doom'd the victim of disease,
> 97: "Where Sol pours forth his torrid day:
> 98: "Vain is her form, her song is vain,
> 99: "She charms, but languid sinks again
> 100: "Beneath the fervid ray.
> 101: "And come, ye sons of simple heart,
> 102: "Who are not fain to chuse,
> 103: "But doom'd to hug the fatal dart,
> 104: "And taught by Love to muse:
> 105: "Though unavailing sighs are wind,
> 106: "Still paint the angel on your mind,
> 107: "Still hope the beauteous maid may turn;
> 108: "Still see her smile, still think ye hear
> 109: "Soft-flowing words that more endear,
> 110: "In fancied raptures burn.
> 111: "Come, thou black fugitive of woe,
> 112: "Who fliest the torturing scourge;
> 113: "Whose blood is taught through pores to flow,
> 114: "Whom thongs to labour urge!
> 115: "And thou, the bolder brother, thou,
> 116: "Whom Afric never taught to bow,
> 117: "To bondage rebel and to toil,
> 118: "Bold Cromantee! whose fruitless strife
> 119: "But rivets more thy chain for life,
> 120: "But makes each link a coil.
> 121: "Come, all ye sable sons of earth,
> 122: "Spurn'd by the fairer race;
> 123: "Made slaves by commerce or by birth,
> 124: "To Reason's sad disgrace:
> 125: "Once wanderers on your native fields,
> 126: "Where Nature ample nurture yields;
> 127: "Here come and mourn your social lot:
> 128: "Quench early at the neighbouring spring,
> 129: "A plain repast from breadnuts bring,
> 130: "Or tax the tyrant's spot:
> 131: "Thence mellow avocadoes gain,
> 132: "Nor spare his roost or fold;
> 133: "The plantain thence and juicy cane;
> 134: "Whence Afric's bonds are told:
> 135: "Your portion seize ere yet day dawn,
> 136: "By nature and by hunger drawn;
> 137: "No theft-with ease of conscience blest-
> 138: "Then to this desert cave retire,
> 139: "Here kindle oft your friendly fire,
> 140: "And sink to sleep and rest.
> 141: "Go hence, ye vain explorers! go!
> 142: "Whose thoughts from self ne'er rove-
> 143: "Yet learn this truth, ah! learn to know
> 144: "All bliss must spring from love:
> 145: "For love of God, and love of man,
> 146: "Extend our nature's bounded plan;
> 147: "Let tropic tyrants call it folly:
> 148: "'Tis vice, not man, I strive to shun-
> 149: "Ye thoughtless sons of vice begone!
> 150: "Ye know not melancholy."
>
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