Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO AARON HILL, ESQ., ON HIS POEM CALLED GIDEON, by JOHN DYER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO AARON HILL, ESQ., ON HIS POEM CALLED GIDEON, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Tell me, wondrous friend, where were you
Last Line: While every word's a beauty in his song!
Subject(s): Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)


TELL me, wondrous friend, where were you
When Gideon was your lofty song!
Where did the heavenly spirit bear you,
When your fair soul reflected strong
Gideon's actions, as they shined
Bright in the chambers of your mind!
Say, have you trod Arabia's spicy vales,
Or gathered bays beside Euphrates' stream,
Or lonely sung with Jordan's water-falls,
While heavenly Gideon was your sacred theme?
Or have you many ages given
To close retirement and to books!
And held a long discourse with Heaven,
And noticed Nature in her various looks!
Full of inspiring wonder and delight,
Slow read I Gideon with a greedy eye,
Like a pleased traveller that lingers sweet
On some fair and lofty plain
Where the sun does brightly shine,
And glorious prospects all around him lie.
On Gideon's pages beautifully shine,
Surprising pictures rising to my sight,
With all the life of colours and of line,
And all the force of rounding shade and light,
And all the grace of something more divine!
High on a hill, beneath an oak's broad arm,
I see a youth divinely fair,
'Pensive he leans his head on his left hand;
His smiling eye sheds sweetness mixed with awe,
His right hand, with a milk-white wand, some figure seems to draw!
A nameless grace is scatter'd through his air,
And o'er his shoulders loosely flows his amber-colour'd hair!'
Above, with burning blush the morning glows,
The waking world all fair before him lies;
'Slow from the plain the melting dews,
To kiss the sunbeams, climbing, rise,' &c.
Methinks the grove of Baal I see,
In terraced stages mount up high,
And wave its sable beauties in the sky.
'From stage to stage, broad steps of half-hid stone,
With curling moss and blady grass o'ergrown,
Lead awful——
Down in a dungeon deep,
Where through thick walls, oblique the broken light
From narrow loopholes quivers to the sight,
With swift and furious stride,
Close-folded arms, and short and sudden starts,
The fretful prince, in dumb and sullen pride,
Revolves escape——'
Here in red colours glowing bold
A warlike figure strikes my eye!
The dreadful sudden sight his foes behold
Confounded so, they lose the power to fly;
'Backening they gaze at distance on his face,
Admire his posture, and confess his grace;
His right hand grasps his planted spear,' &c.
Alas! my Muse, through much good-will, you err:
And we the mighty author greatly wrong;
To gather beauties here and there,
As but a scatter'd few there were,
While every word's a beauty in his song!





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