HOPES what are they?-Beads of morning
Strung on slender blades of grass;
Or a spider's web adorning
In a strait and treacherous pass.
What are fears but voices airy?
Whispering harm where harm is not;
And deluding the unwary
Till the fatal bolt is shot!
What is glory? in the socket
See how dying tapers fare!
What is pride?-a whizzing rocket
That would emulate a star.
What is friendship?-do not trust her,
Nor the vows which she has made;
Diamonds dart their brightest lustre
From a palsy-shaken head.
What is truth?-a staff rejected;
Duty? an unwelcome clog;
Joy?-a moon by fits reflected
In a swamp or watery bog;
Bright, as if through ether steering,
To the Traveller's eye it shone:
He hath hailed it re-appearing-
And as quickly it is gone;
Such is Joy-as quickly hidden
Or mis-shapen to the sight,
And by sullen weeds forbidden
To resume its native light.
What is youth?-a dancing billow,
(Winds behind, and rocks before!)
Age?-a drooping, tottering willow
On a flat and lazy shore.
What is peace?-when pain is over,
And love ceases to rebel,
Let the last faint sigh discover
That precedes the passing-knell!
INSCRIBED UPON A ROCK.
11.
PAUSE, Traveller! whosoe'er thou be
Whom chance may lead to this retreat,
Where silence yields reluctantly
Even to the fleecy straggler's bleat;
Give voice to what my hand shall trace,
And fear not lest an idle sound
Of words unsuited to the place
Disturb its solitude profound.
I saw this Rock, while vernal air
Blew softly o'er the russet heath,
Uphold a Monument as fair
As church or abbey furnisheth.
Unsullied did it meet the day,
Like marble, white, like ether, pure;
As if, beneath, some hero lay,
Honoured with costliest sepulture.
My fancy kindled as I gazed;
And, ever as the sun shone forth,
The flattered structure glistened, blazed,
And seemed the proudest thing on earth.
But frost had reared the gorgeous Pile
Unsound as those which Fortune builds-
To undermine with secret guile,
Sapped by the very beam that gilds.
And, while I gazed, with sudden shock
Fell the whole Fabric to the ground;
And naked left this dripping Rock,
With shapeless ruin spread around!
HAST thou seen, with flash incessant,
Bubbles gliding under ice,
Bodied forth and evanescent,
No one knows by what device?
Such are thoughts!-A wind-swept meadow
Mimicking a troubled sea,
Such is life; and death a shadow
From the rock eternity!
NEAR THE SPRING OF THE HERMITAGE.
TROUBLED long with warring notions Long impatient of thy rod,
I resign my soul's emotions
Unto Thee, mysterious God!
What avails the kindly shelter
Yielded by this craggy rent,
If my spirit toss and welter
On the waves of discontent?
Parching Summer hath no warrant
To consume this crystal Well;
Rains, that make each rill a torrent
Neither sully it nor swell.
Thus, dishonouring not her station,
Would my Life present to Thee,
Gracious God, the pure oblation
Of divine tranquillity!
NOT seldom, clad in radiant vest,
Deceitfully goes forth the Morn;
Not seldom Evening in the west
Sinks smilingly forsworn.
The smoothest seas will sometimes prove
To the confiding Bark untrue
And, if she trust the stars above,
They can be treacherous too.
The umbrageous Oak, in pomp outspread,
Full oft, when storms the welkin rend,
Draws lightning down upon the head
It promised to defend.
But Thou art true, incarnate Lord,
Who didst vouchsafe for man to die;
Thy smile is sure, thy plighted word
No change can falsify!
I bent before thy gracious throne,
And asked for peace on suppliant knee;
And peace was given,-nor peace alone,
But faith sublimed to ecstasy!
FOR THE SPOT WHERE THE HERMITAGE STOOD
ON ST HERBERT'S ISLAND, DERWENT-WATER.
Ir thou in the dear love of some one Friend
Hast been so happy that thou know'st what
thoughts
Will sometimes in the happiness of love
Make the heart sink, then wilt thou reverence
This quiet spot; and, Stranger! not unmoved
Wilt thou behold this shapeless heap of stones,
The desolate ruins of St Herbert's Cell.
Here stood his threshold; here was spread the
roof
That sheltered him, a self-secluded Man,
After long exercise in social cares
And offices humane, intent to adore
The Deity, with undistracted mind,
And meditate on everlasting things,
In utter solitude.-But he had left
A Fellow-labourer, whom the good Man loved
As his own soul. And, when with eye upraised
To heaven he knelt before the crucifix,
While o'er the lake the cataract of Lodore
Pealed to his orisons, and when he paced
Along the beach of this small isle and thought
Of his Companion, he would pray that both
(Now that their earthly duties were fulfilled)
Nor in vair
Might die in the same moment.
So prayed he:-as our chronicles report,
Though here the Hermit numbered his last day
Far from St Cuthbert his beloved Friend,
Those holy Men both died in the same hour.
1800.
ON THE BANKS OF A ROCKY STREAM. BEHOLD an emblem of our human mind Crowded with thoughts that need a settled home,
Yet, like to eddying balls of foam
Within this whirlpool, they each other chase
Round and round, and neither find
An outlet nor a resting-place!
Stranger! if such disquietude be thine,
Fall on thy knees and sue for help divine.
THE PRIORESS' TALE.
"Call up him who left half told
The story of Cambuscan bold." In the following Poem no further deviation from the original has been made than was necessary for the fluent reading and instant understanding of the Author: so much, how ever, is the language altered since Chaucer's time, especially in pronunciation, that much was to be removed, and its place supplied with as little incongruity as possible. The ancient accent has been retained in a few conjunctions, as also and alway, from a conviction that such sprinklings of antiquity would be admitted, by persons of taste, to have a graceful accordance with the subject. The fierce bigotry of the Prioress forms a fine back-ground for her fender-hearted sympathies with the Mother and Child; and the mode in which the story is told amply atones for the extravagance of the
Conceived was the Father's sapience, Help me to tell it in thy reverence!
This Widow thus her little Son hath taught
Our blissful Lady, Jesu's Mother dear,
To worship aye, and he forgat it not;
For simple infant hath a ready ear.
Sweet is the holiness of youth and hence,
Calling to mind this matter when I may,
Saint Nicholas in my presence standeth aye,
For he so young to Christ did reverence.
This little Child, while in the school he sate
His Primer conning with an earnest cheer,
The whilst the rest their anthem-book repeat,
The Alma Redemptoris did he hear;
And as he durst he drew him near and near,
And hearkened to the words and to the note,
Till the first verse he learned it all by rote.
This Latin knew he nothing what it said,
For he too tender was of age to know;
But to his comrade he repaired, and prayed
That he the meaning of this song would show,
And unto him declare why men sing so;
This oftentimes, that he might be at ease,
This child did him beseech on his bare knees.
XII.
His Schoolfellow, who elder was than he, Answered him thus:-'This song, I have heard say,
Was fashioned for our blissful Lady free;
Her to salute, and also her to pray
To be our help upon our dying day:
If there is more in this, I know it not;
Song do I learn,- small grammar I have got.'
From that day forward have the Jews conspired
Out of the world this Innocent to chase;
And to this end a Homicide they hired,
That in an alley had a privy place,
And, as the Child 'gan to the school to pace,
This cruel Jew him seized, and held him fast
And cut his throat, and in a pit him cast.
I say that him into a pit they threw,
A loathsome pit, whence noisome scents ex-
hale :
O cursed folk! away, ye Herods new!
What may your ill intentions you avail?
Murder will out; certès it will not fail;
Know, that the honour of high God may
spread,
The blood cries out on your accursed deed.
O Martyr 'stablished in virginity!
Now may'st thou sing for aye before the
throne,
Following the Lamb celestial," quoth she,
"Of which the great Evangelist, Saint John,
In Patmos wrote, who saith of them that go
Before the Lamb singing continually,
That never fleshly woman they did know.
|