> 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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