III.

How fondly will the woods embrace
This daughter of thy pious care,
Lifting her front with modest grace
To make a fair recess more fair;
And to exalt the passing hour,
Or soothe it with a healing power
Drawn from the Sacrifice fulfilled
Before this rugged soil was tilled,
Or human habitation rose

To interrupt the deep repose!

IV.

Well may the villagers rejoice!
Nor heat, nor cold, nor weary ways,
Will be a hindrance to the voice

That would unite in prayer and praise ;
More duly shall wild wandering Youth
Receive the curb of sacred truth,

Shall tottering Age, bent earthward, hear
The Promise, with uplifted ear;

And all shall welcome the new ray

Imparted to their Sabbath-day.

V.

Nor deem the Poet's hope misplaced,
His fancy cheated that can see
A shade upon the future cast,

Of time's pathetic sanctity;

Can hear the monitory clock

Sound o'er the lake with gentle shock

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At evening, when the ground beneath
Is ruffled o'er with cells of death;
Where happy generations lie,
Here tutored for eternity.

VI.

Lives there a man whose sole delights
Are trivial pomp and city noise,
Hardening a heart that loathes or slights
What every natural heart enjoys?
Who never caught a noon-tide dream
From murmur of a running stream;
Could strip, for aught the prospect yields
To him, their verdure from the fields;
And take the radiance from the clouds
In which the sun his setting shrouds?

VII.

A soul so pitiably forlorn,

If such do on this earth abide,
May season apathy with scorn,

compared

May turn indifference to pride;
And still be not unblest
With him who grovels, self-debarred
From all that lies within the scope
Of holy faith and Christian hope;
Or, shipwrecked, kindles on the coast
False fires, that others may be lost.

VIII.

Alas! that such perverted zeal

Should spread on Britain's favored ground!

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That public order, private weal,

Should e'er have felt or feared a wound
From champions of the desperate law
Which from their own blind hearts they draw;
Who tempt their reason to deny

God, whom their passions dare defy,

And boast that they alone are free

Who reach this dire extremity!

IX.

But turn we from these "bold, bad" men;
The way, mild Lady! that hath led
Down to their "dark opprobrious den,"

Is all too rough for Thee to tread.
Softly as morning vapors glide

Down Rydal-cove from Fairfield's side,
Should move the tenor of his song

Who means to charity no wrong;

Whose offering gladly would accord

With this day's work, in thought and word.

X.

Heaven prosper it! may peace, and love,
And hope, and consolation fall,
Through its meek influence, from above,
And penetrate the hearts of all;
All who, around the hallowed Fane,
Shall sojourn in this fair domain;
Grateful to Thee, while service pure,
And ancient ordinance, shall endure,
For opportunity bestowed

To kneel together, and adore their God!

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O DEARER far than light and life are dear,
Full oft our human foresight I deplore ;

Trembling, through my unworthiness, with fear
That friends, by death disjoined, may meet no more!

Misgivings, hard to vanquish or control,

Mix with the day, and cross the hour of rest;
While all the future, for thy purer soul,

With "sober certainties" of love is blest.

That sigh of thine, not meant for human ear,
Tells that these words thy humbleness offend;
Yet bear me up else faltering in the rear
Of a steep march: support me to the end.

Peace settles where the intellect is meek,

And Love is dutiful in thought and deed;

Through Thee communion with that Love I seek:

ΤΟ

The faith Heaven strengthens where he moulds the Creed.

WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF MACPHERSON'S

OSSIAN.

1824. — 1827.

OFT have I caught, upon a fitful breeze,
Fragments of far-off melodies,

With ear not coveting the whole,

A part so charmed the pensive soul:
While a dark storm before my sight
Was yielding, on a mountain height
Loose vapors have I watched, that won
Prismatic colors from the sun;

Nor felt a wish that heaven would show

The image of its perfect bow.

What need, then, of these finished Strains?

Away with counterfeit Remains!

An abbey in its lone recess,

A temple of the wilderness,

Wrecks though they be, announce with feeling
The majesty of honest dealing.

Spirit of Ossian ! if imbound

In language thou mayst yet be found,

If aught (intrusted to the pen

Or floating on the tongues of men,
Albeit shattered and impaired)
Subsist thy dignity to guard,

In concert with memorial claim

Of old gray stone, and high-born name
That cleaves to rock or pillared cave

ΙΟ

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