WHILE the Poor gather round, till the end of time Countess’ May this bright Aower of Charity display

Pillar

near Penrith Its bloom, unfolding at the appointed day; Flower than the loveliest of the vernal prime Lovelier-transplanted from heaven's purest clime! “ Charity never faileth”: on that creed, More than on written testament or deed, The pious Lady built with hope sublime. Alms on this stone to be dealt out for ever! “ Laus Deo.” Many a Stranger passing by Has with that Parting mixed a filial sigh, Blest its humane Memorial's fond endeavour ; And, fastening on those lines an eye tear-glazed, Has ended, though no Clerk, with “God be

praised !”

Roman
Antiquities
from Old
Penrith

How profitless the relics that we cull,
Troubling the last holds of ambitious Rome,
Unless they chasten fancies that presume
Too high, or idle agitations lull !
Of the world's flatteries if the brain be full,
To have no seat for thought were better doom,
Like this old helmet, or the eyeless skull
Of him who gloried in its nodding plume.
Heaven out of view, our wishes what are they?
Our fond regrets tenacious in their grasp?
The Sage's theory? the Poet's lay?-
Mere Fibulæ without a robe to clasp ;
Obsolete lamps, whose light no time recalls ;
Urns without ashes, tearless lacrymals !

SERIES IV

Composed or suggested during a Tour to
Staffa and Iona in the Summer

of 1833

If that

Adieu, Adieu, Rydalian Laurels ! that have grown
Rydalian A
Laurels

an And spread as if ye knew that days might come

When ye would shelter in a happy home.
On this fair Mount, a Poet of your own,
One who ne'er ventured for a Delphic crown
To sue the God; but, haunting your green shade
All seasons through, is humbly pleased to braid.
Ground-flowers, beneath your guardianship, self

sown.
Farewell! no Minstrels now with harp new-strung
For summerwandering quittheir household bowers;
Yet not for this wants Poesy a tongue
To cheer the Itinerant on whom she pours
Her spirit, while he crosses lonely moors,
Or musing sits forsaken halls among.

Why should the Enthusiast, journeying through Past, Prethis Isle,

sent, and Repine as if his hour were come too late ?

Future of

Britain
Not unprotected in her mouldering state,
Antiquity salutes him with a smile,
'Mid fruitful fields that ring with jocund toil,
And pleasure-grounds where Taste, refined Co-

mate
Of Truth and Beauty, strives to imitate,
Far as she may, primeval Nature's style.
Fair Land! by Time's parental love made free,
By Social Order's watchful arms embraced ;
With unexampled union meet in thee,
For eye and mind, the present and the past;
With golden prospect for futurity,
If that be reverenced which ought to last.

crow

die het They called Thee Merry ENGLAND, in old time; Merry
When A happy people won for thee that name England
my With envy heard in many a distant clime;

And, spite of change, for me thou keep'st the same
Endearing title, a responsive chime
To the heart's fond belief; though some there are
Whose sterner judgments deem that word a snare
For inattentive Fancy, like the lime

Which foolish birds are caught with. Can, I ask,
So This face of rural beauty be a mask

For discontent, and poverty, and crime;
These spreading towns a cloak for lawless will ?
Forbid it, Heaven !--and Merry ENGLAND still
Shall be thy rightful name, in prose and rhyme !

To the River GRETA, what fearful listening! when huge stones
Greta, near Rumble along thy bed, block after block:
Keswick Or, whirling with reiterated shock,

Combat, while darkness aggravates the groans :
But if thou (like Cocytus from the moans
Heard on his rueful margin) thence wert named
The Mourner, thy true nature was defamed,
And the habitual murmur that atones
For thy worst rage, forgotten. Oft as Spring
Decks, on thy sinuous banks, her thousand thrones,
Seats of glad instinct and love's carolling,
The concert, for the happy, then may vie
With liveliest peals of birth-day harmony:
To a grieved heart the notes are benisons.

w To the River AMONG the mountains were we pursed, loved T Derwent. Stream!

Thou near the eagle's nest—within brief sail,
I, of his bold wing floating on the gale,
Where thy deep voicecouldlullme! Faintthebeam
Of human life when first allowed to gleam
On mortal notice.—Glory of the vale,
Such thy meek outset, with a crown, though frall,
Kept in perpetual verdure by the steam
Of thy soft breath!-Less vivid wreath entwined
Nemæan victor's brow ; less bright was word,
Meed of some Roman chief-in triumph borne
With captives chained; and shedding from his car
The sunset splendours of a finished war
Upon the proud enslavers of mankind !

that you A POINT of life between my Parent's dust, In sight of Hock". And yours, my buried Little-ones ! am I; the Town of

Cockermouth And to those graves looking habitually une gros In kindred quiet I repose my trust. 5020 Death to the innocent is more than just; kerten And, to the sinner, mercifully bent; efanel So may I hope, if truly I repent .

And meekly bear the ills which bear I must : 23 DE And You, my Offspring! that do still remain, and things Yet may outstrip me in the appointed race, ling. If e'er, through fault of mine, in mutual pain - mie We breathed together for a moment's space, cony: The wrong, by love provoked, let love arraign, FONS And only love keep in your hearts a place.

And

ased, "Thou look'st upon me, and dost fondly think, Address from

Poet! that, stricken as both are by years,
Lief si We, differing once so much, are now Compeers, Castle

- Cockermouth Prepared, when each has stood his time, to sink metben Into the dust. Erewhile a sterner link Team United us; when thou, in boyish play, .

Entering my dungeon, didst become a prey LoughTo soul-appalling darkness. Not a blink . Of light was there ; and thus did I, thy Tutor, Dentri Makethy youngthoughts acquainted with the grave; s that while thou wert chasing the winged butterfly : och bereits Through my green courts; or climbing, a bold

suitor,

Up to the flowers whose golden progeny
Still round my shattered brow in beauty wave.'