Note FD — 1820
Reading edition
There bloomed the strawberry of the wilderness; The trembling eyebright showed her sapphire blue.
These two lines are in a great measure taken from The Beauties of Spring, a Juvenile Poem, by the Rev. Joseph Sympson, author of The Vision of Alfred, etc. He was a native of Cumberland, and was educated in the vale of Grasmere, and at Hawkshead school: his poems are little known, but they contain passages of splendid description; and the versification of his Vision of Alfred is harmonious and animated. The present severe season,[438] with its amusements, reminds me of some lines which I will transcribe as a favourable specimen. In describing the motions of the Sylphs, that constitute the strange machinery of his Vision of Alfred, he uses the following illustrative simile:—
Glancing from their plumes A changeful light the azure vault illumes. Less varying hues beneath the Pole adorn The streamy glories of the Boreal morn, That wavering to and fro their radiance shed On Bothnia's gulf with glassy ice o'erspread, Where the lone native, as he homeward glides, On polish'd sandals o'er the imprisoned tides, And still the balance of his frame preserves, Wheel'd on alternate foot in lengthening curves, Sees at a glance, above him and below, Two rival heav'ns with equal splendour glow. Sphered in the centre of the world he seems, For all around with soft effulgence gleams; Stars, moons, and meteors, ray opposed to ray, And solemn midnight pours the blaze of day.
He was a man of ardent feeling, and his faculties of mind, particularly his memory, were extraordinary. Brief notices of his life ought to find a place in the History of Westmoreland.—W. W. 1820.