LXXVII

MEMORIAL

NEAR THE OUTLET OF THE LAKE OF THUN:

'DEM

ANDENKEN

MEINES FREUNDES

ALOYS REDING

MDCCCXVIII.

Aloys Reding, it will be remembered, was Captain-General of the Swiss forces, which, with a courage and perseverance worthy of the cause, opposed the flagitious and too successful attempt of Buonaparte to subjugate their country.

AROUND a wild and woody hill

A gravelled pathway treading,

We reached a votive Stone that bears

The name of Aloys Reding.

Well judged the Friend who placed it there

For silence and protection;

And haply with a finer care

Of dutiful affection.

The Sun regards it from the West;

And, while in summer glory

He sets, his sinking yields a type
Of that pathetic story:

And oft he tempts the patriot Swiss
Amid the grove to linger ;

Till all is dim, save this bright Stone
Touched by his golden finger.

LXXVIII

INCIDENT AT BRUGES

IN Brugès town is many a street
Whence busy life hath fled;
Where, without hurry, noiseless feet
The grass-grown pavement tread.
There heard we, halting in the shade
Flung from a Convent-tower,

A harp that tuneful prelude made
To a voice of thrilling power.

The measure, simple truth to tell,
Was fit for some gay throng;
Though from the same grim turret fell

The shadow and the song.

When silent were both voice and chords,
The strain seemed doubly dear,

Yet sad as sweet,—for English words
Had fallen upon the ear.

It was a breezy hour of eve;

And pinnacle and spire

Quivered and seemed almost to heave, Clothed with innocuous fire;

But, where we stood, the setting sun Showed little of his state;

And, if the glory reached the Nun, 'Twas through an iron grate.

Not always is the heart unwise,
Nor pity idly born,

If even a passing Stranger sighs
For them who do not mourn.
Sad is thy doom, self-solaced dove,
Captive, whoe'er thou be!
Oh! what is beauty, what is love,
And opening life to thee?

Such feeling pressed upon my soul,
A feeling sanctified

By one soft trickling tear that stole
From the Maiden at my side;
Less tribute could she pay than this,
Borne gaily o'er the sea,

Fresh from the beauty and the bliss Of English liberty?

LXXIX

DISSOLUTION OF THE ENGLISH MONASTERIES

THREATS Come which no submission may assuage,
No sacrifice avert, no power dispute ;

The tapers shall be quenched, the belfries mute,
And, 'mid their choirs unroofed by selfish rage,
The warbling wren shall find a leafy cage;
The gadding bramble hang her purple fruit;
And the green lizard and the gilded newt
Lead unmolested lives, and die of age.

The owl of evening and the woodland fox
For their abode the shrines of Waltham choose :
Proud Glastonbury can no more refuse

To stoop her head before these desperate shocks—
She whose high pomp displaced, as story tells,
Arimathean Joseph's wattled cells.

LXXX

MUTABILITY

FROM low to high doth dissolution climb,
And sink from high to low, along a scale
Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail;
A musical but melancholy chime,

M

Which they can hear who meddle not with crime, Nor avarice, nor over-anxious care.

Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear
The longest date do melt like frosty rime,

That in the morning whitened hill and plain
And is no more; drop like the tower sublime
Of yesterday, which royally did wear

His crown of weeds, but could not even sustain
Some casual shout that broke the silent air,
Or the unimaginable touch of Time.

LXXXI

INSIDE OF KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL, CAMBRIDGE

TAX not the royal Saint with vain expense,
With ill-matched aims the Architect who planned-
Albeit labouring for a scanty band

Of white robed Scholars only-this immense

And glorious Work of fine intelligence !

Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore Of nicely-calculated less or more;

So deemed the man who fashioned for the sense

These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof
Self-poised, and scooped into ten thousand cells,
Where light and shade repose, where music dwells