Ill-fated Vessel !-ghastly shock !
-At length delivered from the rock,
The deep she hath regained;

And through the stormy night they steer;
Labouring for life, in hope and fear,
To reach a safer shore-how near,
Yet not to be attained!

"Silence!" the brave Commander cried ;
To that calm word a shriek replied,
It was the last death-shriek.
-A few (my soul oft sees that sight)
Survive upon the tall mast's height;
But one dear remnant of the night-
For Him in vain I seek.

Six weeks beneath the moving sea
He lay in slumber quietly;
Unforced by wind or wave

To quit the Ship for which he died,
(All claims of duty satisfied ;)

And there they found him at her side;
And bore him to the grave.

Vain service! yet not vainly done
For this, if other end were none,
That He, who had been cast
Upon a way of life unmeet

For such a gentle Soul and sweet,
Should find an undisturbed retreat
Near what he loved, at last-

That neighbourhood of grove and field
To Him a resting-place should yield,
A meek man and a brave!

The birds shall sing and ocean make
A mournful murmur for his sake;
And Thou, sweet Flower, shalt sleep and wake
Upon his senseless grave.
1805.

VIII.

ELEGIAC VERSES,

IN MEMORY OF MY BROTHER, JOHN WORDSWORTH, COMMANDER OF THE E. I. COMPANY'S SHIP THE EARL OF ABERGAVENNY, IN WHICH HE PERISHED BY CALAMITOUS

SHIPWRECK, FEB. 6TH, 1805.

Composed near the Mountain track, that leads from Grasmere through Grisdale Hawes, where it descends towards Patterdale.

1805.

I.

THE Sheep-boy whistled loud, and lo!
That instant, startled by the shock,
The Buzzard mounted from the rock
Deliberate and slow:

Lord of the air, he took his flight;
Oh! could he on that woeful night
Have lent his wing, my Brother dear,
For one poor moment's space to Thee,
And all who struggled with the Sea,
When safety was so near.

II.

Thus in the weakness of my heart I spoke (but let that pang be still) When rising from the rock at will, I saw the Bird depart.

IX.

LINES

Composed at Grasmere, during a walk one Evening, after a stormy day, the Author having just read in a Newspaper that the dissolution of Mr Fox was hourly expected. LOUD is the Vale! the Voice is up

With which she speaks when storms are gone,
A mighty unison of streams!
Of all her Voices, One!

Loud is the Vale ;-this inland Depth

In peace is roaring like the Sea;
Yon star upon the mountain-top
Is listening quietly.

Sad was I, even to pain deprest,
Importunate and heavy load!

The Comforter hath found me here.
Upon this lonely road;

And many thousands now are sad-
Wait the fulfilment of their fear;
For he must die who is their stay,
Their glory disappear.

A Power is passing from the earth
To breathless Nature's dark abyss;
But when the great and good depart
What is it more than this-

That Man, who is from God sent forth,
Doth yet again to God return?-
Such ebb and flow must ever be,
Then wherefore should we mourn?
1806.

"From regions where no evil thing has birth I come-thy stains to wash away,

Thy cherished fetters to unbind,

And open thy sad eyes upon a milder day.

The Heavens are thronged with martyrs that have risen

From out thy noisome prison
The penal caverns groan

With tens of thousands rent from off the tree
Of hopeful life,-by battle's whirlwind blown
Into the deserts of Eternity.

Unpitied havoc! Victims unlamented!

But not on high, where madness is resented,
And murder causes some sad tears to flow,
Though, from the widely-sweeping blow,
The choirs of Angels spread, triumphantly
augmented.

XII.

ELEGIAC STANZAS.

(ADDRESSED TO SIR G. H. B. UPON THE DEATH OF HIS SISTER-IN-LAW.)

1824.

O FOR a dirge! But why complain?
Ask rather a triumphal strain
When FERMOR's race is run;
A garland of immortal boughs

To twine around the Christian's brows,
Whose glorious work is done.

We pay a high and holy debt;
No tears of passionate regret
Shall stain this votive lay;
Ill-worthy, Beaumont! were the grief
That flings itself on wild relief
When Saints have passed away.

Sad doom, at Sorrow's shrine to kneel,
For ever covetous to feel,

And impotent to bear!

Such once was hers-to think and think
On severed love, and only sink
From anguish to despair!

But nature to its inmost part

Faith had refined; and to her heart
A peaceful cradle given:

Calm as the dew-drop's, free to rest

Within a breeze-fanned rose's breast
Till it exhales to Heaven.

Was ever Spirit that could bend

So graciously?-that could descend,
Another's need to suit,

So promptly from her lofty throne?

Z

Inspired-works potent over smiles and tears. And as round mountain-tops the lightning plays,

Thus innocently sported, breaking forth
As from a cloud of some grave sympathy,
Humour and wild instinctive wit, and all
The vivid flashes of his spoken words.
From the most gentle creature nursed in fields
Had been derived the name he bore-a name,
Wherever christian altars have been raised,
Hallowed to meekness and to innocence;
And if in him meekness at times gave way,
Provoked out of herself by troubles strange,
Many and strange, that hung about his life;
Still, at the centre of his being, lodged
A soul by resignation sanctified:
And if too often, self-reproached, he felt
That innocence belongs not to our kind,
A power that never ceased to abide in him,
Charity, 'mid the multitude of sins
That she can cover, left not his exposed
To an unforgiving judgment from just Heaven.
O, he was good, if e'er a good Man lived!

blamed

As long as verse of mine shall breathe the air
Of
memory, or see the light of love.
Thou wert a scorner of the fields, my Friend,
But more in show than truth; and from the
fields,

And from the mountains, to thy rural grave
Transported, my soothed spirit hovers o'er
Its green untrodden turf, and blowing flowers;
And taking up a voice shall speak (tho' still
Awed by the theme's peculiar sanctity
Which words less free presumed not even to
touch)

Of that fraternal love, whose heaven-lit lamp
From infancy, through manhood, to the last
Of threescore years, and to thy latest hour,
Burnt on with ever-strengthening light, en-
shrined

Within thy bosom.

"Wonderful" hath been The love established between man and man, Passing the love of women;" and between Man and his help-mate in fast wedlock joined Through God, is raised a spirit and soul of love Without whose blissful influence Paradise Had been no Paradise; and earth were now A waste where creatures bearing human form, Direst of savage beasts, would roam in fear, Joyless and comfortless. Our days glide on; And let him grieve who cannot choose but grieve

That he hath been an Elm without his Vine, And her bright dower of clustering charities, That, round his trunk and branches, might

have clung

Enriching and adorning. Unto thee,
Not so enriched, not so adorned, to thee
Was given (say rather thou of later birth
Wert given to her) a Sister-'tis a word
Timidly uttered, for she lives, the meek,
The self-restraining, and the ever-kind;
In whom thy reason and intelligent heart
Found-for all interests, hopes, and tender

cares,

All softening, humanising, hallowing powers, Whether withheld, or for her sake unsoughtMore than sufficient recompence

Her love (What weakness prompts the voice to tell it here?)

Was as the love of mothers; and when years,
Lifting the boy to man's estate, had called
The long-protected to assume the part
Of a protector, the first filial tie

Was undissolved; and, in or out of sight,
Remained imperishably interwoven
With life itself. Thus, 'mid a shifting world,
Did they together testify of time

And season's difference-a double tree
With two collateral stems sprung from one
root;

Such were they-such thro' life they might

have been

In union, in partition only such;
Yet, thro' all visitations and all trials,
Otherwise wrought the will of the Most High;

Still they were faithful; like two vessels launched

From the same beach one ocean to explore
True, as inexorable winds, or bars
With mutual help, and sailing-to their league
Floating or fixed of polar ice, allow.

But turn we rather, let my spirit turn
With thine, O silent and invisible Friend!
To those dear intervals, nor rare nor brief,
When reunited, and by choice withdrawn
From miscellaneous converse, ye were taught
That the remembrance of foregone distress,
And the worse fear of future ill (which oft
Doth hang around it, as a sickly child
Upon its mother) may be both alike
Disarmed of power to unsettle present good
So prized, and things inward and outward held
In such an even balance that the heart
Acknowledges God's grace, his mercy feels,
And in its depth of gratitude is still.

O gift divine of quiet sequestration!
The hermit, exercised in prayer and praise,
And feeding daily on the hope of heaven,
Is happy in his vow, and fondly cleaves
To life-long singleness; but happier far
Was to your souls, and, to the thoughts of
others,

Your dual loneliness. The sacred tie
A thousand times more beautiful appeared,

Is broken; yet why grieve? for Time but holds
His moiety in trust, till Joy shall lead
To the blest world where parting is unknown.
1835.

XV.

EXTEMPORE EFFUSION UPON THE

DEATH OF JAMES HOGG. WHEN first, descending from the moorlands, I saw the Stream of Yarrow glide

Along a bare and open valley,
The Ettrick Shepherd was my guide.
When last along its banks I wandered,
Through groves that had begun to shed
Their golden leaves upon the pathways,
My steps the Border-minstrel led.

The mighty Minstrel breathes no longer,
Mid mouldering ruins low he lies;
And death upon the braes of Yarrow,
Has closed the Shepherd-poet's eyes:
Nor has the rolling year twice measured,
From sign to sign, its stedfast course,
Since every mortal power of Coleridge
Was frozen at its marvellous source;
The rapt One, of the godlike forehead,
The heaven-eyed creature sleeps in earth:
And Lamb, the frolic and the gentle,
Has vanished from his lonely hearth.
Like clouds that rake the mountain-summits,
Or waves that own no curbing hand,
How fast has brother followed brother,
From sunshine to the sunless land!
Yet I, whose lids from infant slumber
Were earlier raised, remain to hear
A timid voice, that asks in whispers,
"Who next will drop and disappear?"
Our haughty life is crowned with darkness,
Like London with its own black wreath,

On which with thee, O Crabbe! forth-looking,
I gazed from Hampstead's breezy heath.
As if but yesterday departed,
Thou too art gone before; but why,
O'er ripe fruit, seasonably gathered,
Should frail survivors heave a sigh?

Mourn rather for that holy Spirit,
Sweet as the spring, as ocean deep;
For Her who, ere her summer faded,
Has sunk into a breathless sleep.

No more of old romantic sorrows,
For slaughtered Youth or love-lorn Maid!
With sharper grief is Yarrow smitten,

And Ettrick mourns with her their Poet dead.
Nov. 1835.

XVI. INSCRIPTION

FOR A MONUMENT IN CROSTHWAITE CHURCH, IN THE VALE OF KESWICK.

YE vales and hills whose beauty hither drew The poet's steps, and fixed him here, on you, His eyes have closed! And ye, loved books,

no more

Shall Southey feed upon your precious lore,
To works that ne'er shall forfeit their renown,
Adding immortal labours of his own-
Whether he traced historic truth, with zeal
For the State's guidance, or the Church's weal,
Or Fancy, disciplined by studious art,
Inform'd his pen, or wisdom of the heart,
Or judgments sanctioned in the Patriot's mind
By reverence for the rights of all mankind.
Could private feelings meet for holier rest.
Wide were his aims, yet in no human breast
His joys, his griefs, have vanished like a cloud
From Skiddaw's top; but he to heaven was
vowed

Through his industrious life, and Christian faith
Calmed in his soul the fear of change and death.