Such hues from their celestial Urn Were wont to stream before mine eye, Where'er it wandered in the morn Of blissful infancy.
This glimpse of glory, why renewed? Nay, rather speak with gratitude; For, if a vestige of those gleams Survived, 'twas only in my dreams.
Dread Power! whom peace and calmness serve No less than Nature's threatening voice,
If aught unworthy be my choice, From THEE if I would swerve;
Oh, let thy grace remind me of the light Full early lost, and fruitlessly deplored; Which, at this moment, on my waking sight Appears to shine, by miracle restored; My soul, though yet confined to earth, Rejoices in a second birth!
-'Tis past, the visionary splendour fades ; And night approaches with her shades.
Note. The multiplication of mountain-ridges, described at the commencement of the third Stanza of this Ode, as a kind of Jacob's Ladder, leading to Heaven, is produced either by watery vapours, or sunny haze;-in the present instance by the latter cause. Allusions to the Ode, entitled Intimations of Immortality,' pervade the last stanza of the foregoing Poem.
And if not so, whose perfect joy makes sleep A thing too bright for breathing man to keep. Hail to the virtues which that perilous life Extracts from Nature's elemental strife; And welcome glory won in battles fought As bravely as the foe was keenly sought. But to each gallant Captain and his crew A less imperious sympathy is due,
Such as my verse now yields, while moonbeams play
On the mute sea in this unruffled bay;
Such as will promptly flow from every breast, Where good men, disappointed in the quest Of wealth and power and honours, long for rest; Or, having known the splendours of success, Sigh for the obscurities of happiness.
THE Crescent-moon, the Star of Love,
Glories of evening, as ye there are seen
With but a span of sky between—
Speak one of you, my doubts remove,
Which is the attendant Page and which the Queen?
COMPOSED BY THE SEA-SHORE.
WHAT mischief cleaves to unsubdued regret, How fancy sickens by vague hopes beset; How baffled projects on the spirit prey, And fruitless wishes eat the heart away, The Sailor knows; he best, whose lot is cast On the relentless sea that holds him fast On chance dependent, and the fickle star Of power, through long and melancholy war. O sad it is, in sight of foreign shores, Daily to think on old familiar doors, Hearths loved in childhood, and ancestral floors; Or, tossed about along a waste of foam, To ruminate on that delightful home Which with the dear Betrothed was to come; Or came and was and is, yet meets the eye Never but in the world of memory;
Or in a dream recalled, whose smoothest range Is crossed by knowledge, or by dread, of change,
(COMPOSED BY THE SEA-SIDE, ON THE COAST OF CUMBERLAND.)
WANDERER! that stoop'st so low, and com'st so near To human life's unsettled atmosphere; Who lov'st with Night and Silence to partake, So might it seem, the cares of them that wake; And, through the cottage-lattice softly peeping, Dost shield from harm the humblest of the sleeping; What pleasure once encompassed those sweet names Which yet in thy behalf the Poet claims,
An idolizing dreamer as of yore !
I slight them all; and, on this sea-beat shore Sole-sitting, only can to thoughts attend That bid me hail thee as the SAILOR'S FRIEND; So call thee for heaven's grace through thee made known
By confidence supplied and mercy shown, When not a twinkling star or beacon's light Abates the perils of a stormy night; And for less obvious benefits, that find Their way, with thy pure help, to heart and mind; Both for the adventurer starting in life's prime; And veteran ranging round from clime to clime,
Long-baffled hope's slow fever in his veins, And wounds and weakness oft his labour's sole remains.
The aspiring Mountains and the winding Streams, Empress of Night! are gladdened by thy beams; A look of thine the wilderness pervades, And penetrates the forest's inmost shades; Thou, chequering peaceably the minster's gloom, Guid'st the pale Mourner to the lost one's tomb; Canst reach the Prisoner-to his grated cell Welcome, though silent and intangible!—— And lives there one, of all that come and go On the great waters toiling to and fro, One, who has watched thee at some quiet hour Enthroned aloft in undisputed power,
Or crossed by vapoury streaks and clouds that move Catching the lustre they in part reprove Nor sometimes felt a fitness in thy sway To call up thoughts that shun the glare of day, And make the serious happier than the gay?
Yes, lovely Moon! if thou so mildly bright Dost rouse, yet surely in thy own despite, To fiercer mood the phrenzy-stricken brain, Let me a compensating faith maintain; That there's a sensitive, a tender, part Which thou canst touch in every human heart, For healing and composure.-But, as least And mightiest billows ever have confessed Thy domination; as the whole vast Sea Feels through her lowest depths thy sovereignty; So shines that countenance with especial grace On them who urge the keel her plains to trace Furrowing its way right onward. The most rude, Cut off from home and country, may have stood-Even till long gazing hath bedimmed his eye, Or the mute rapture ended in a sighTouched by accordance of thy placid cheer, With some internal lights to memory dear, Or fancies stealing forth to soothe the breast Tired with its daily share of earth's unrest,— Gentle awakenings, visitations meek; A kindly influence whereof few will speak, Though it can wet with tears the hardiest cheek.
And when thy beauty in the shadowy cave Is hidden, buried in its monthly grave; Then, while the Sailor, mid an open sea Swept by a favouring wind that leaves thought free, Paces the deck-no star perhaps in sight, And nothing save the moving ship's own light To cheer the long dark hours of vacant night
QUEEN of the stars!--so gentle, so benign, That ancient Fable did to thee assign, When darkness creeping o'er thy silver brow Warned thee these upper regions to forego, Alternate empire in the shades below- A Bard, who, lately near the wide-spread sea Traversed by gleaming ships, looked up to thee With grateful thoughts, doth now thy rising hail From the close confines of a shadowy vale. Glory of night, conspicuous yet serene, Nor less attractive when by glimpses seen Through cloudy umbrage, well might that fair face, And all those attributes of modest grace, In days when Fancy wrought unchecked by fear, Down to the green earth fetch thee from thy sphere, To sit in leafy woods by fountains clear!
O still belov❜d (for thine, meek Power, are charms That fascinate the very Babe in arms, While he, uplifted towards thee, laughs outright, Spreading his little palms in his glad Mother's sight) O still belov'd, once worshipped! Time, that frowns In his destructive flight on earthly crowns, Spares thy mild splendour; still those far-shot beams
Tremble on dancing waves and rippling streams With stainless touch, as chaste as when thy praise Was sung by Virgin-choirs in festal lays; And through dark trials still dost thou explore Thy way for increase punctual as of yore, When teeming Matrons-yielding to rude faith In mysteries of birth and life and death And painful struggle and deliverance-prayed Of thee to visit them with lenient aid. What though the rites be swept away, the fanes Extinct that echoed to the votive strains; Yet thy mild aspect does not, cannot, cease Love to promote and purity and peace; And Fancy, unreproved, even yet may trace Faint types of suffering in thy beamless face.
Then, silent Monitress! let us-not blind To worlds unthought of till the searching mind Of Science laid them open to mankind
Told, also, how the voiceless heavens declare God's glory; and acknowledging thy share In that blest charge; let us—without offence To aught of highest, holiest, influence- Receive whatever good 'tis given thee to dispense. May sage and simple, catching with one eye The moral intimations of the sky,
Learn from thy course, where'er their ow 'To look on tempests, and be never staken,' To keep with faithful step the appointed Eclipsing or eclipsed, by night or day, And from example of thy monthly range Gently to brook decline and fatal change; Meek, patient, stedfast, and with loftier sep Than thy revival yields, for gladsome haye
COMPOSED OR SUGGESTED DURING A TOUR, IN THE SUMMER OF 1833
[Having been prevented by the lateness of the season, in 1831, from visiting Staffa and Iona, the author use principal objects of a short tour in the summer of 1833, of which the following series of poems is a Memarial pursued was down the Cumberland river Derwent, and to Whitehaven; thence (by the Isle of Man, where were passed) up the Frith of Clyde to Greenock, then to Oban, Staffa, Iona; and back towards England Awe, Inverary, Loch Goil-head, Greenock, and through parts of Renfrewshire, Ayrshire, and Dumfries-dire and thence up the river Eden, and homewards by Ullswater.]
THEY called Thee MERRY ENGLAND, indi
A happy people won for thee that name With envy heard in many a distant d And, spite of change, for me thou keeps Endearing title, a responsive chime To the heart's fond belief; though s Whose sterner judgments deem that wit
WHY should the Enthusiast, journeying through For inattentive Fancy, like the lime
Repine as if his hour were come too late? Not unprotected in her mouldering state,
Antiquity salutes him with a smile,
Mid fruitful fields that ring with jocund toil, And pleasure-grounds where Taste, refined Co-mate
Which foolish birds are caught with. This face of rural beauty be a mask For discontent, and poverty, and crime, These spreading towns a cloak for lavis Forbid it, Heaven !—and MERRY ENGL Shall be thy rightful name, in prose
TO THE RIVER GRETA, NEAR KESWICK. GRETA, what fearful listening! when huge stones Rumble along thy bed, block after block: Or, whirling with reiterated shock, Combat, while darkness aggravates the groans: But if thou (like Cocytus from the moans Heard on his rueful margin) thence wert named The Mourner, thy true nature was defamed, And the habitual murmur that atones
For thy worst rage, forgotten. Oft as Spring Decks, on thy sinuous banks, her thousand thrones, Seats of glad instinct and love's carolling, The concert, for the happy, then may vie With liveliest peals of birth-day harmony: To a grieved heart, the notes are benisons.
ADDRESS FROM THE SPIRIT OF COCKERMOUTH CASTLE.
"THOU look'st upon me, and dost fondly think, Poet! that, stricken as both are by years, We, differing once so much, are now Compeers, Prepared, when each has stood his time, to sink Into the dust. Erewhile a sterner link United us; when thou, in boyish play, Entering my dungeon, didst become a prey To soul-appalling darkness. Not a blink Of light was there;-and thus did I, thy Tutor, Make thy young thoughts acquainted with the grave; While thou wert chasing the wing'd butterfly Through my green courts; or climbing, a bold suitor, Up to the flowers whose golden progeny Still round my shattered brow in beauty wave."
TO THE RIVER DERWENT.
AMONG the mountains were we nursed, loved Stream !
Thou near the eagle's nest-within brief sail, I, of his bold wing floating on the gale, Where thy deep voice could lull me! Faint the Of human life when first allowed to gleam [beam On mortal notice.-Glory of the vale,
Such thy meek outset, with a crown, though frail, Kept in perpetual verdure by the steam
Of thy soft breath!-Less vivid wreath entwined Nemæan victor's brow; less bright was worn, Meed of some Roman chief—in triumph borne With captives chained; and shedding from his car The sunset splendours of a finished war Upon the proud enslavers of mankind!
THE cattle crowding round this beverage clear To slake their thirst, with reckless hoofs have trod The encircling turf into a barren clod; Through which the waters creep, then disappear, Born to be lost in Derwent flowing near; Yet, o'er the brink, and round the lime-stone cell Of the pure spring (they call it the "Nun's Well," Name that first struck by chance my startled ear) A tender Spirit broods-the pensive Shade Of ritual honours to this Fountain paid By hooded Votaresses with saintly cheer; Albeit oft the Virgin-mother mild Looked down with pity upon eyes beguiled Into the shedding of 'too soft a tear.'
IN SIGHT OF THE TOWN OF COCKERMOUTH.
(Where the Author was born, and his Father's remains are laid.)
A POINT of life between my Parents' dust, And yours, my buried Little-ones! am I ; And to those graves looking habitually In kindred quiet I repose my trust. Death to the innocent is more than just, And, to the sinner, mercifully bent; So may I hope, if truly I repent
And meekly bear the ills which bear I must : And You, my Offspring! that do still remain, Yet may outstrip me in the appointed race, If e'er, through fault of mine, in mutual pain We breathed together for a moment's space, The wrong, by love provoked, let love arraign, And only love keep in your hearts a place.
(ON THE BANKS OF THE DERWENT.) PASTOR and Patriot!-at whose bidding rise These modest walls, amid a flock that need, For one who comes to watch them and to feed, A fixed Abode-keep down presageful sighs. Threats, which the unthinking only can despise, Perplex the Church; but be thou firm,-be true To thy first hope, and this good work pursue, Poor as thou art. A welcome sacrifice Dost Thou prepare, whose sign will be the smoke Of thy new hearth; and sooner shall its wreaths, Mounting while earth her morning incense breathes, From wandering fiends of air receive a yoke, And straightway cease to aspire, than God disdain This humble tribute as ill-timed or vain.
(LANDING AT THE MOUTH OF THE DERWENT, WORKINGTON.) DEAR to the Loves, and to the Graces vowed, The Queen drew back the wimple that she wore ; And to the throng, that on the Cumbrian shore Her landing hailed, how touchingly she bowed! And like a Star (that, from a heavy cloud Of pine-tree foliage poised in air, forth darts, When a soft summer gale at evening parts The gloom that did its loveliness enshroud) She smiled; but Time, the old Saturnian seer, Sighed on the wing as her foot pressed the strand, With step prelusive to a long array Of woes and degradations hand in hand- Weeping captivity, and shuddering fear Stilled by the ensanguined block of Fotheringay'
STANZAS SUGGESTED IN A STEAM-BOAT OFF SAINT BEES' HEADS, ON THE COAST OF CUMBERLAND.
IF Life were slumber on a bed of down, Toil unimposed, vicissitude unknown, Sad were our lot: no hunter of the hare Exults like him whose javelin from the lair Has roused the lion; no one plucks the rose, Whose proffered beauty in safe shelter blows 'Mid a trim garden's summer luxuries, With joy like his who climbs, on hands and knees, For some rare plant, yon Headland of St. Bees.
This independence upon oar and sail, This new indifference to breeze or gale, This straight-lined progress, furrowing a flat lea, And regular as if locked in certainty- Depress the hours. Up, Spirit of the storm! That Courage may find something to perform; That Fortitude, whose blood disdains to freeze At Danger's bidding, may confront the seas, Firm as the towering Headlands of St. Bees.
Dread cliff of Baruth! that wild wish may sleep, Bold as if men and creatures of the Deep Breathed the same element; too many wrecks Have struck thy sides, too many ghastly decks Hast thou looked down upon, that such a thought Should here be welcome, and in verse enwrought: With thy stern aspect better far agrees Utterance of thanks that we have past with ease, As millions thus shall do, the Headlands of St. Bees.
Yet, while each useful Art augments ber set What boots the gain if Nature should lose ur And Wisdom, as she holds a Christian på In man's intelligence sublimed by grace! When Bega sought of yore the Cambrian sar Tempestuous winds her holy errand tres'i She knelt in prayer-the waves their wrsh qpm And, from her vow well weighed in Hessen) dem Rose, where she touched the strand, the of St. Bees.
'Cruel of heart were they, bloody of hand, Who in these Wilds then struggled for The strong were merciless, without hope the 10 Till this bright Stranger came, fair a depan - And as a cresset true that darts its lengå Of beamy lustre from a tower of strength: Guiding the mariner through troubled s And cheering oft his peaceful reveries Like the fixed Light that crowns you Hale! St. Bees.
To aid the Votaress, miracles believed Wrought in men's minds, like mirades So piety took root; and Song might tell What humanizing virtues near her cell Sprang up, and spread their fragrance vik How savage bosoms melted at the sound Of gospel-truth enchained in harmonies Wafted o'er waves, or creeping through From her religious Mansion of St. Bess
When her sweet Voice, that instrumen a Was glorified, and took its place, above The silent stars, among the angelic quir Her chantry blazed with sacrilegious fre And perished utterly; but her good deed Had sown the spot, that witnessed them, Which lay in earth expectant, till a bree With quickening impulse answered them And lo! a statelier pile, the Abbey of S
There are the naked clothed, the hungry And Charity extendeth to the dead Her intercessions made for the soul's ♫si Of tardy penitents; or for the best Among the good (when love might else b Sickened, or died) in pious memory kept Thanks to the austere and simple Denges Who, to that service bound by venial fes Keep watch before the altars of St. Bes
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