The encircling laurels, thick with leaves,
Gave back a rich and dazzling sheen,
That overpowered their natural
green.
Through hill and valley every breeze
Had sunk to rest with folded wings:
Keen was the air, but could not freeze,
Nor check, the music of the strings;
So stout and hardy were the band

That scraped the chords with strenuous hand!
And who but listened ?-till was paid
Respect to every Inmate's claim:
The greeting given, the music played,
In honour of each household name,
Duly pronounced with lusty call,
And "merry Christmas" wished to all!
O Brother! I revere the choice
That took thee from thy native hills;
And it is given thee to rejoice:
Though public care full often tills
(Heaven only witness of the toil)
A barren and ungrateful soil.

Yet, would that Thou, with me and mine,
Hadst heard this never-failing rite;
And seen on other faces shine

A true revival of the light

Which Nature and these rustic Powers,

In simple childhood, spread through ours!
For pleasure hath not ceased to wait
On these expected annual rounds;
Whether the rich man's sumptuous gate
Call forth the unelaborate sounds,
Or they are offered at the door
That guards the lowliest of the poor.
How touching, when, at midnight, sweep
Snow-muffled winds, and all is dark,
To hear-and sink again to sleep!

Or, at an earlier call, to mark,
By blazing fire, the still suspense
Of self-complacent innocence;

The mutual nod, -the grave disguise
Of hearts with gladness brimming o'er;
And some unbidden tears that rise

For names once heard, and heard no more;
Tears brightened by the serenade
For infant in the cradle laid.

Ah! not for emerald fields alone,
With ambient streams more pure and bright
Than fabled Cytherea's zone

Glittering before the Thunderer's sight,
Is to my heart of hearts endeared

The ground where we were born and reared!
Hail, ancient Manners! sure defence,
Where they survive, of wholesome laws;
Remnants of love whose modest sense
Thus into narrow room withdraws;
Hail, Usages of pristine mould,

And ye that guard them, Mountains old!
Bear with me, Brother! quench the thought
That slights this passion, or condemns;
If thee fond Fancy ever brought
From the proud margin of the Thames,
And Lambeth's venerable towers,
To humbler streams, and greener bowers
Yes, they can make, who fail to find,
Short leisure even in busiest days;
Moments, to cast a look behind,
And profit by those kindly rays
That through the clouds do sometimes steal,
And all the far-off past reveal.
Hence, while the imperial City's din
Beats frequent on thy satiate ear,
A pleased attention I may win
To agitations less severe,
That neither overwhelm nor cloy,
But fill the hollow vale with joy!

The Sabine Bard was moved her praise to sing; Careless of flowers that in perennial blow Round the moist marge of Persian fountains cling;

How shall I paint thee?-Be this naked stone
My seat, while I give way to such intent;
Pleased could my verse, a speaking monument,
Make to the eyes of men thy features known.
But as of all those tripping lambs not one
Outruns his fellows, so hath Nature lent
To thy beginning nought that doth present
Peculiar ground for hope to build upon.
To dignify the spot that gives thee birth,
No sign of hoar Antiquity's esteem
Appears, and none of modern Fortune's care;
Yet thou thyself hast round thee shed a gleam
Of brilliant moss, instinct with freshness rare ;
Prompt offering to thy Foster-mother, Earth!

"CHANGE me, some God, into that breathing rose!"

The love-sick Stripling fancifully sighs,
The envied flower beholding, as it lies
On Laura's breast, in exquisite repose;
Or he would pass into her bird, that throws
The darts of song from out its wiry cage;
Enraptured,-could he for himself engage
The thousandth part of what the Nymph
bestows,

And what the little careless innocent
Ungraciously receives. Too daring choice!
There are whose calmer mind it would content
To be an unculled floweret of the glen,
Fearless of plough and scythe; or darkling

No fiction was it of the antique age:
A sky-blue stone, within this sunless cleft,
Is of the very foot-marks unbereft
Which tiny Elves impressed;-on that smooth
stage

Dancing with all their brilliant equipage
In secret revels-haply after theft

Of some sweet Babe-Flower stolen, and coarse
Weed left

For the distracted Mother to assuage

When the broad oak drops, a leafless skeleton, And the solidities of mortal pride,

Palace and tower, are crumbled into dust!The Bard who walks with Duddon for his guide

Shall find such toys of fancy thickly set:
Turn from the sight, enamoured Muse-we

must;

And, if thou canst, leave them without regret!

XIII.

OPEN PROSPECT.

HAIL to the fields-with Dwellings sprinkled o'er,

And one small hamlet, under a green hill Clustering, with barn and byre, and spouting mill!

A glance suffices;-should we wish for more, Gay June would scorn us. But when bleak winds roar

Through the stiff lance-like shoots of pollard ash,

Dread swell of sound! loud as the gusts that lash

The matted forests of Ontario's shore
By wasteful steel unsmitten-then would I
Turn into port; and, reckless of the gale,
Reckless of angry Duddon sweeping by,
While the warm hearth exalts the mantling ale,
Laugh with the generous household heartily
At all the merry pranks of Donnerdale!

XIV.

O MOUNTAIN Stream! the Shepherd and his
Cot

Are privileged Inmates of deep solitude;
Nor would the nicest Anchorite exclude
A field or two of brighter green, or plot
Of tillage-ground, that seemeth like a spot
Of stationary sunshine:- thou hast viewed
These only, Duddon! with their paths renewed
By fits and starts, yet this contents thee not.
Thee hath some awful Spirit impelled to leave,
Utterly to desert, the haunts of men,
Though simple thy companions were and few;
And through this wilderness a passage cleave
The clouds and fowls of the air thy way pur-
Attended but by thy own voice, save when

sue!

XV.

FROM this deep chasm, where quivering sunbeams play

Upon its loftiest crags, mine eyes behold
A gloomy NICHE, capacious, blank, and cold;

oh! where

In semblance fresh, as if, with dire affray,
Some Statue, placed amid these regions old
For tutelary service, thence had rolled,
Startling the flight of timid Yesterday!
Was it by mortals sculptured?-weary slaves
Of slow endeavour! or abruptly cast
Into rude shape by fire, with roaring blast
Tempestuously let loose from central caves?
Or fashioned by the turbulence of waves,
Then, when o'er highest hills the Deluge
pass'd?

XVI.

AMERICAN TRADITION.

SUCH fruitless questions may not long beguile Or plague the fancy 'mid the sculptured shows Conspicuous yet where Oroonoko flows;

There would the Indian answer with a smile
Aimed at the White Man's ignorance the while,
Of the GREAT WATERS telling how they rose,
Covered the plains, and, wandering where they
chose,

Mounted through every intricate defile,
Triumphant,-Inundation wide and deep,
O'er which his Fathers urged, to ridge and
steep

Else unapproachable, their buoyant way;
And carved, on mural cliff's undreaded side,
Sun, moon, and stars, and beast of chase or
prey;

Whate'er they sought, shunned, loved, or deified !*

XVII. RETURN.

A DARK plume fetch me from
blasted yew,
yon
Perched on whose top the Danish Raven croaks;
Aloft, the imperial Bird of Rome invokes
Departed ages, shedding where he flew
Loose fragments of wild wailing, that bestrew
The clouds and thrill the chambers of the rocks;
And into silence hush the timorous flocks,
That, calmly couching while the nightly dew
Moistened each fleece, beneath the twinkling

stars

Slept amid that lone Camp on Hardknot's height,

Whose Guardians bent the knee to Jove and
Mars:

Or, near that mystic Round of Druid frame
Tardily sinking by its proper weight
Deep into patient Earth, from whose smooth
breast it came !

XVIII.

SEATHWAITE CHAPEL.

SACRED Religion! "mother of form and fear,"
Dread arbitress of mutable respect,
New rites ordaining when the old are wrecked,
Or cease to please the fickle worshipper;
Mother of Love! (that name best suits thee
here)

Mother of Love! for this deep vale, protect
Truth's holy lamp, pure source of bright effect,
Gifted to purge the vapoury atmosphere
That seeks to stifle it ;-as in those days
When this low Pile a Gospel Teacher knew
Whose good works formed an endless retinue:
A Pastor such as Chaucer's verse pourtrays:
Such as the heaven-taught skill of Herbert
drew;

And tender Goldsmith crowned with deathless praise!

XIX.

TRIBUTARY STREAM.

My frame hath often trembled with delight
When hope presented some far-distant good,
That seemed from heaven descending, like the
flood

Of yon pure waters, from their aëry height
Hurrying, with lordly Duddon to unite;
Who, 'mid a world of images imprest
On the calm depth of his transparent breast,
Appears to cherish most that Torrent white,
The fairest, softest, liveliest of them all!

See Humboldt's Personal Narrative.

And seldom hath ear listened to a tune
More lulling than the busy hum of Noon,
Swoln by that voice-whose murmur musica
Announces to the thirsty fields a boon
Dewy and fresh, till showers again shall fall.

XX.

THE PLAIN OF DONNERDALE.

THE old inventive Poets, had they seen,
Or rather felt, the entrancement that detains
Thy waters, Duddon! 'mid these flowery
plains;

The still repose, the liquid lapse serene,
Transferred to bowers imperishably green,
Had beautified Elysium! But these chains
Will soon be broken;-a rough course remains,
Rough as the past; where Thou, of placid mien,
Innocuous as a firstling of the flock,
And countenanced like a soft cerulean sky,
Shalt change thy temper; and, with many a

shock

Given and received in mutual jeopardy, Dance like a Bacchanal, from rock to rock, Tossing her frantic thyrsus wide and high!"

XXI.

WHENCE that low voice?- A whisper from the heart,

That told of days long past, when here I roved
With friends and kindred tenderly beloved;
Some who had early mandates to depart,
Yet are allowed to steal my path athwart
By Duddon's side; once more do we unite,
Once more beneath the kind Earth's tranquil
light;

And smothered joys into new being start.
From her unworthy seat, the cloudy stall
Of Time, breaks forth triumphant Memory;
Her glistening tresses bound, yet light and free
As golden locks of birch, that rise and fall
On gales that breathe too gently to recal
Aught of the fading year's inclemency!

XXII. TRADITION.

A LOVE-LORN Maid, at some far-distant time,
Came to this hidden pool, whose depths surpass
In crystal clearness Dian's looking-glass;
And, gazing, saw that Rose, which from the
prime

Derives its name, reflected as the chime
Of echo doth reverberate some sweet sound:
The starry treasure from the blue profound
She longed to ravish ;-shall she plunge, or
climb

The humid precipice, and seize the guest
Of April, smiling high in upper air?
Desperate alternative! what fiend could dare
To prompt the thought? - Upon the steep

rock's breast