James Thompson - Scottish poet
1700-1748He was born at Ednam in Roxburghshire, and educated at the University of Edinburgh. It was while a student there that he first published some of his poems, their subject matter mainly being the Jed Valley where he had been brought up.
He had been intended for a career in the church, but gave up his divinity course because his sermons were criticised as being too flowery.
In 1725 he went to London, where he met other literary figures including a fellow-Scotsman, David Mallet. He quickly became successful, and won favour with Frederick, Prince of Wales, whom he supported politically.
His collected poetry was published as The Seasons in 1730, addressed to George Lyttelton, and he became tutor to the son of Sir Charles Talbot, then Solicitor-General. Lytttelton arranged for him to become a secretary in chancery, and his next major work, Liberty (1734) was dedicated to the Tory-leaning Prince of Wales.
He also wrote several plays, including The Tragedy of Sophonisba (1734) and collaborated with Mallet on the masque, Alfred, which contained the song, Rule Britannia, and was first performed at Cliveden, the country home of the Prince and Princess of Wales.
After Talbot's death, however, Thomson fell out of favour with the prince, and his career ended with The Castle of Indolence, his best-known work, which was published just before his own death.
A dispute over the publishing rights to one of his works, The Seasons gave rise to two important legal decisions (Millar v. Taylor; Donaldson v. Beckett) in the history of copyright.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
from The Seasons: Summer
BEAR ME, POMONA! to thy citron groves;
To where the lemon and the piercing lime,
With the deep orange glowing through the green,
Their lighter glories blend. Lay me reclined
Beneath the spreading tamarind, that shakes,
Fanned by the breeze, its fever-cooling fruit.
Deep in the night the massy locust sheds
Quench my hot limbs; or lead me through the maze,
Embowering endless, of the Indian fig;
Or, thrown at gayer ease on some fair brow,
Let me behold, by breezy murmur cooled,
Broad o'er my head the verdant cedar wave,
And high palmettos lift their graceful shade.
Oh, stretched amid these orchards of the sun,
Give me to drain the cocoa's milky bowl,
And from the palm to draw its freshening wine!
More bounteous far than all the frantic juice
Which Bacchus pours, nor, on its slender twigs
Low-bending, be the full pomegranate scorned;
Nor, creeping through the woods, the gelid race
Of berries. Oft in humble station dwells
In boastful worth, above fastidious pomp.
Witness, thou best Anana, thou the pride
Of vegetable life, beyond whate'er
The poet's imaged in the golden age:
Quick let me strip thee of thy tufty coat,
Spread thy ambrosial stores, and feast with Jove!
From these the prospect varies. Plains immense
He stretched below, interminable meads
And vast savannas, where the wandering eye,
Unfixt, is in a verdant ocean lost.
Another Flora there, of bolder hues
And richer sweets beyond our garden's pride,
Plays o'er the fields, and showers with sudden hand
Exuberant spring - for oft these valleys shift
Their green-embroidered robe to fiery brown,
And swift to green again, as scorching suns
Or streaming dews and torrent rains prevail.
Along these lonely regions, where, retired
From little scenes of art, great Nature dwells
In awful solitude, and naught is seen
But the wild herds that own no master's stall,
Prodigious rivers roll their fattening seas;
On whose luxuriant herbage, half-concealed,
Like a fallen cedar, far diffused his train,
Cased in green scales, the crocodile extends.
The flood disparts: behold! in plaited mail
Behemoth rears his head. Glanced from his side,
The darted steel in idle shivers flies:
He fearless walks the plain, or seeks the hills,
Where, as he crops his varied fare, the herds,
In widening circle round, forget their food
And at the harmless stranger wondering gaze.
Upon Cider By John Phillips
'Let every tree in every garden own
The Red-streak as supreme, whose pulpous fruit
With gold irradiate, and vermilion shines
Tempting, not fatal, as the birth of that
Primeval interdicted plant that won
Fond Eve in hapless hour to taste, and die.
This, of more bounteous influence, inspires
Poetic raptures, and the lowly
Muse Kindles to loftier strains; even I perceive
Her sacred virtue. See! the numbers flow
Easy, whilst, cheer'd with her nectareous juice,
Hers and my country's praises I exalt.
Hail Herefordian plant, that dost disdain
All other fields! Heaven's sweetest blessing, hail!
Be thou the copious matter of my song,
And thy choice nectar; on which always waits
Laughter, and sport, and care-beguiling wit,
And friendship, chief delight of human life.
What should we wish for more? or why, in quest
Of foreign vintage, insincere, and mixt,
Traverse th' extremest world? why tempt the rage
Of the rough ocean? when our native glebe
Imparts, from bounteous womb, annual recruits
Of wine delectable, that far surmounts
Gallic, or Latin grapes, or those that see
The setting sun near Calpes' towering height.
Nor let the Rhodian, nor the Lesbian vines
Vaunt their rich Must, nor let Tokay contend
For sovereignty; Phanaeus self must bow
To th' Ariconian vales.'
