DED pangs of grief for lenient time too keen,
Grief that devouring waves had caused-or guilt
Which they had witnessed, sway the man who built
This Homestead, placed where nothing could be seen,
Nought heard, of ocean troubled or serene?
A tired Ship-soldier on paternal land,
That o'er the channel holds august command,
The dwelling raised, -a veteran Marine.
He, in disgust, turned from the neighbouring sea
To shun the memory of a listless life
That hung between two callings. May no strife More hurtful here beset him, doomed though free, ! Self-doomed, to worse inaction, till his eye Shrink from the daily sight of earth and sky!
(A FRIEND OF THE AUTHнов.)
FRow early youth I ploughed the restless Main,
My mind as restless and as apt to change;
Through every clime and ocean did I range,
In hape at length a competence to gain;
Far poor to Sea I went, and poor I still remain.
Year after year I strove, but strove in vain,
And hardships manifold did I endure,
For Fortune on me never deign'd to smile;
Yet I at last a resting-place have found,
With just enough life's comforts to procure,
In a snug Cove on this our favoured Isle,
A peaceful spot where Nature's gifts abound;
Then sure I have no reason to complain,
Though poor to Sea I went, and poor I still remain.
AT BALA-SALA, ISLE OF MAN.
(SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY A FRIEND.)
Baoxes in fortune, but in mind entire
And sound in principle, I seek repose
Where ancient trees this convent-pile enclose*,
la ruin beautiful. When vain desire
Entrades on peace, I pray the eternal Sire
To cast a soul-subduing shade on me,
A grey-haired, pensive, thankful Refugee;
A shade-but with some sparks of heavenly fire
Once to these cells vouchsafed. And when I note
The old Tower's brow yellowed as with the beams
Of sunset ever there, albeit streams
Of stormy weather-stains that semblance
I thank the silent Monitor, and say
* Shine so, my aged brow, at all hours of the day !"
ONCE on the top of Tynwald's formal mound
(Still marked with green turf circles narrowing
Stage above stage) would sit this Island's King,
The laws to promulgate, enrobed and crowned;
While, compassing the little mount around,
Degrees and Orders stood, each under each:
Now, like to things within fate's easiest reach,
The power is merged, the pomp a grave has found.
Off with yon cloud, old Snafell! that thine eye
Over three Realms may take its widest range;
And let, for them, thy fountains utter strange
Voices, thy winds break forth in prophecy,
If the whole State must suffer mortal change,
Like Mona's miniature of sovereignty.
DESPOND who will-I heard a voice exclaim,
"Though fierce the assault, and shatter'd the defence,
It cannot be that Britain's social frame,
The glorious work of time and providence,
Before a flying season's rash pretence,
Should fall; that She, whose virtue put to shame,
When Europe prostrate lay, the Conqueror's aim,
Should perish, self-subverted. Black and dense
The cloud is; but brings that a day of doom
To Liberty? Her sun is up the while,
That orb whose beams round Saxon Alfred shone:
Then laugh, ye innocent Vales! ye Streams, sweep
Nor let one billow of our heaven-blest Isle Toss in the fanning wind a humbler plume."
IN THE FRITH OF CLYDE, AILSA CRAG.
DURING AN ECLIPSE OF THE SUN, JULY 17.
SINCE risen from ocean, ocean to defy,
Appeared the Crag of Ailsa, ne'er did morn
With gleaming lights more gracefully adorn
His sides, or wreathe with mist his forehead high:
Now, faintly darkening with the sun's eclipse,
Still is he seen, in lone sublimity,
Towering above the sea and little ships;
For dwarfs the tallest seem while sailing by,
Each for her haven; with her freight of Care,
Pleasure, or Grief, and Toil that seldom looks
Into the secret of to-morrow's fare;
Though poor, yet rich, without the wealth of books,
Or aught that watchful Love to Nature owes
For her mute Powers, fix'd Forms, or transient
Shows.
ON THE FRITH OF CLYDE. (IN A STEAM-BOAT.) ARRAN! a single-crested Teneriffe, A St. Helena next-in shape and hue, Varying her crowded peaks and ridges blue; Who but must covet a cloud-seat, or skiff Built for the air, or wingèd Hippogriff? That he might fly, where no one could pursue, From this dull Monster and her sooty crew; And, as a God, light on thy topmost cliff. Impotent wish! which reason would despise If the mind knew no union of extremes, No natural bond between the boldest schemes Ambition frames, and heart-humilities. Beneath stern mountains many a soft vale lies, And lofty springs give birth to lowly streams.
ON REVISITING DUNOLLY CASTLE.
[See former series, p. 337.]
THE captive Bird was gone; to cliff or moor
Perchance had flown, delivered by the storm;
Or he had pined, and sunk to feed the worm:
Him found we not: but, climbing a tall tower,
There saw, impaved with rude fidelity
Of art mosaic, in a roofless floor,
An Eagle with stretched wings, but beamless eye-
An Eagle that could neither wail nor soar.
Effigy of the Vanished-(shall I dare
To call thee so?) or symbol of fierce deeds
And of the towering courage which past times
Rejoiced in-take, whate'er thou be, a share,
Not undeserved, of the memorial rhymes
That animate my way where'er it leads!
Nor to the clouds, not to the cliff, he flew;
But when a storm, on sea or mountain bred,
Came and delivered him, alone he sped
Into the castle-dungeon's darkest mew.
Now, near his master's house in open view
He dwells, and hears indignant tempests howl,
Kennelled and chained. Ye tame domestic fowl,
Beware of him! Thou, saucy cockatoo,
Look to thy plumage and thy life!-The roe,
Fleet as the west wind, is for him no quarry;
Balanced in ether he will never tarry,
Eyeing the sea's blue depths. Poor Bird! even so
Doth man of brother man a creature make
That clings to slavery for its own sad sake.
WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF MACPHERSON'S
OSSIAN.
OFT have I caught, upon a fitfal 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 vapours have I watched, that won
Prismatic colours 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 may'st 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 grey stone, and high-born name That cleaves to rock or pillared cave Where moans the blast, or beats the wave, Let Truth, stern arbitress of all,
Interpret that Original,
And for presumptuous wrongs atone;
Authentic words be given, or none !
Time is not blind ;-yet He, who spares
Pyramid pointing to the stars,
Hath preyed with ruthless appetite
On all that marked the primal flight
Of the poetic ecstasy
Into the land of mystery.
No tongue is able to rehearse
One measure, Orpheus! of thy verse;
Musæus, stationed with his lyre
Supreme among the Elysian quire,
Is, for the dwellers upon earth,
Mute as a lark ere morning's birth.
Why grieve for these, though past away
The music, and extinct the lay?
When thousands, by severer doom,
Full early to the silent tomb
Have sunk, at Nature's call; or strayed
From hope and promise, self-betrayed;
The garland withering on their brows; Stung with remorse for broken vows; Frantic-else how might they rejoice? And friendless, by their own sad choice!
Hail, Bards of mightier grasp! on you
I chiefly call, the chosen Few,
Who cast not off the acknowledged guide,
Who faltered not, nor turned aside;
Whose lofty genius could survive
Privation, under sorrow thrive;
In whom the fiery Muse revered
The symbol of a snow-white beard,
Bedewed with meditative tears
Dropped from the lenient cloud of years.
Brothers in soul! though distant times Produced you nursed in various climes, Ye, when the orb of life had waned, A plenitude of love retained: Hence, while in you each sad regret By corresponding hope was met, Ye lingered among human kind, Sweet voices for the passing wind; Departing sunbeams, loth to stop, Tarugh smiling on the last hill top! Such to the tender-hearted maid Even ere her joys begin to fade; such, haply, to the rugged chief By fortune crushed, or tamed by grief; Arpears, on Morven's lonely shore, Dongleaming through imperfect lore, The Son of Fingal; such was blind Maccides of ampler mind;
aph Milton, to the fountain head Of glory by Urania led!
THANKS for the lessons of this Spot-fit school
For the presumptuous thoughts that would assign
Mechanic laws to agency divine;
And, measuring heaven by earth, would overrule
Infinite Power. The pillared vestibule,
Expanding yet precise, the roof embowed,
Might seem designed to humble man, when proud
Of his best workmanship by plan and tool.
Down-bearing with his whole Atlantic weight
Of tide and tempest on the Structure's base,
And flashing to that Structure's topmost height,
Ocean has proved its strength, and of its grace
In calms is conscious, finding for his freight
Of softest music some responsive place.
YE shadowy Beings, that have rights and claims
In every cell of Fingal's mystic Grot,
Where are ye? Driven or venturing to the spot,
Our fathers glimpses caught of your thin Frames,
And, by your mien and bearing, knew your names ;
And they could hear his ghostly song who trod
Earth, till the flesh lay on him like a load,
While he struck his desolate harp without hopes or
Vanished ye are, but subject to recal;
Why keep we else the instincts whose dread law
Ruled here of yore, till what men felt they saw,
Not by black arts but magic natural!
If eyes be still sworn vassals of belief,
Yon light shapes forth a Bard, that shade a Chief.
Wa saw, but surely, in the motley crowd, Not One of us has felt the far-famed sight; flow could we feel it! each the other's blight, Harmed and hurrying, volatile and loud. U for those motions only that invite The List of Fingal to his tuneful Cave by the breeze entered, and wave after wave
y embosoming the timid light! And lywe Votary who at will might stand azug and take into his mind and heart, thundistracted reverence, the effect time proportions where the almighty hand That made the worlds, the sovereign Architect, has trigued to work as if with human Art!
FLOWERS ON THE TOP OF THE PILLARS AT THE
ENTRANCE OF THE CAVE.
HOPE Smiled when your nativity was cast,
Children of Summer! Ye fresh Flowers that brave
What Summer here escapes not, the fierce wave,
And whole artillery of the western blast,
Battering the Temple's front, its long-drawn nave
Smiting, as if each moment were their last.
But ye, bright Flowers, on frieze and architrave
Survive, and once again the Pile stands fast:
Calm as the Universe, from specular towers
Of heaven contemplated by Spirits pure
With mute astonishment, it stands sustained
Through every part in symmetry, to endure,
Unhurt, the assault of Time with all his hours,
As the supreme Artificer ordained.
On to Iona! - What can she afford
To us save matter for a thoughtful sigh,
Heaved over ruin with stability
In urgent contrast? To diffuse the WORD
(Thy Paramount, mighty Nature! and Time's Lord)
Her Temples rose, 'mid pagan gloom; but why,
Even for a moment, has our verse deplored
Their wrongs, since they fulfilled their destiny?
And when, subjected to a common doom
Of mutability, those far-famed Piles
Shall disappear from both the sister Isles,
Iona's Saints, forgetting not past days,
Garlands shall wear of amaranthine bloom,
While heaven's vast sea of voices chants their praise.
![[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]](https://books.google.ru/books/content?id=sukji8f-tngC&hl=ru&output=html_text&pg=PA356&img=1&zoom=3&q=%22for+the+Vale+profound+Is+overflowing+with+the+sound.+No+Nightingale+did+ever+chaunt+More+welcome+notes+to+weary+bands%22&cds=1&sig=ACfU3U3yRWGj4xkMLBbU9qI1g-3im2h1VQ&edge=0&edge=stretch&ci=82,689,468,145)
HOMEWARD We turn. Isle of Columba's Cell,
Where Christian piety's soul-cheering spark
(Kindled from Heaven between the light and dark
Of time) shone like the morning-star, farewell!-
And fare thee well, to Fancy visible,
Remote St. Kilda, lone and loved sea-mark
For many a voyage made in her swift bark,
When with more hues than in the rainbow dwell
Thou a mysterious intercourse dost hold,
Extracting from clear skies and air serene,
And out of sun-bright waves, a lucid veil,
That thickens, spreads, and, mingling fold with fold,
Makes known, when thou no longer canst be seen,
Thy whereabout, to warn the approaching sail.
Per me si va nella Città dolente.
We have not passed into a doleful City,
We who were led to-day down a grim dell,
Of wave-worn pebbles, pleading on the shore
Where once came monk and nun with gentle stir, By some too boldly named 'the Jaws of Hell:"
Blessings to give, news ask, or suit prefer.
Yet is yon neat trim church a grateful speck
Of novelty amid the sacred wreck
Strewn far and wide. Think, proud Philosopher!
Fallen though she be, this Glory of the west,
Still on her sons, the beams of mercy shine;
And hopes, perhaps more heavenly bright than
A grace by thee unsought and unpossest, [thine,
A faith more fixed, a rapture more divine
Shall gild their passage to eternal rest.'
THE BLACK STONES OF IONA.
[See Martin's Voyage among the Western Isles.] HERE on their knees men swore: the stones were black,
Black in the people's minds and words, yet they
Were at that time, as now, in colour grey.
But what is colour, if upon the rack
Of conscience souls are placed by deeds that lack
Concord with oaths? What differ night and day
Then, when before the Perjured on his way
Hell opens, and the heavens in vengeance crack
Above his head uplifted in vain prayer
To Saint, or Fiend, or to the Godhead whom
He had insulted-Peasant, King, or Thane?
Fly where the culprit may, guilt meets a doom;
And, from invisible worlds at need laid bare,
Come links for social order's awful chain.
Where be the wretched ones, the sights for pity!
These crowded streets resound no plaintive ditty
As from the hive where bees in summer dwell,
Sorrow seems here excluded; and that knell,
It neither damps the gay, nor checks the witty.
Alas! too busy Rival of old Tyre,
[thrones:
Whose merchants Princes were, whose decks were
Soon may the punctual sea in vain respire
To serve thy need, in union with that Clyde
Whose nursling current brawls o'er mossy stones,
The poor, the lonely, herdsman's joy and pride.
*THERE!" said a Stripling, pointing with meet prid Towards a low roof with green trees half conceale "Is Mosgiel Farm; and that's the very field Where Burns ploughed up the Daisy." Far
A plain below stretched seaward, while, descri
Above sea-clouds, the Peaks of Arran rose;
And, by that simple notice, the repose
Of earth, sky, sea, and air, was vivified.
Beneath the random bield of clod or stone'
Myriads of daisies have shone forth in flower
Near the lark's nest, and in their natural bour
Have passed away; less happy than the One
That, by the unwilling ploughshare, died to p
The tender charm of poetry and love.
THE RIVER EDEN, CUMBERLAND.
EDEN! till now thy beauty had I viewed
By glimpses only, and confess with shame
That verse of mine, whate'er its varying mood,
Repeats but once the sound of thy sweet name:
Yet fetched from Paradise that honour came,
Rightfully borne; for Nature gives thee flowers
That have no rivals among British bowers;
And thy bold rocks are worthy of their fame.
Measuring thy course, fair Stream! at length I pay
To my life's neighbour dues of neighbourhood;
But I have traced thee on thy winding way
With pleasure sometimes by this thought restrained
For things far off we toil, while many a good
Not sought, because too near, is never gained.
IN WETHERAL CHURCH, NEAR CORBY, ON THE BANKS OF
STRETCHED on the dying Mother's lap, lies dead Her new-born Babe; dire ending of bright hope! | But Sculpture here, with the divinest scope
Of luminous faith, heavenward hath raised that head
So patiently; and through one hand has spread
A touch so tender for the insensate Child-
(Earth's lingering love to parting reconciled,
Brief parting, for the spisit is all but fled)-
That we, who contemplate the turns of life
Through this still medium, ale consoled and cheered;
Fed with the Mother, think the severed Wife
Is leas to be lamented than revered;
And own that Art, triumphant over strife
And pain, hath powers to Eternity endeared.
SUGGESTED BY THE FOREGOING.
TRANQUILLITY! the sovereign aim wert thou
In heathen schools of philosophic lore;
Heart-stricken by stern destiny of yore
THE floods are roused, and will not soon be weary;
Down from the Pennine Alps how fiercely sweeps
CROGLIN, the stately Eden's tributary!
He raves, or through some moody passage creeps
Plotting new mischief-out again he leaps
Into broad light, and sends, through regions airy,
That voice which soothed the Nuns while on the
steeps
They knelt in prayer, or sang to blissful Mary.
That union ceased: then, cleaving easy walks
Through crags, and smoothing paths beset with
danger,
Came studious Taste; and many a pensive stranger
Dreams on the banks, and to the river talks.
What change shall happen next to Nunnery Dell ?
Canal, and Viaduct, and Railway, tell!
STEAMBOATS, VIADUCTS, AND RAILWAYS.
MOTIONS and Means, on land and sea at war
With old poetic feeling, not for this,
Shall ye, by Poets even, be judged amiss!
Nor shall your presence, howsoe'er it mar
The loveliness of Nature, prove a bar
To the Mind's gaining that prophetic sense
Of future change, that point of vision, whence
May be discovered what in soul ye are.
In spite of all that beauty may disown
In your harsh features, Nature doth embrace
Her lawful offspring in Man's art; and Time,
Pleased with your triumphs o'er his brother Space,
Accepts from your bold hands the proffered crown
Of hope, and smiles on you with cheer sublime.
THE MONUMENT COMMONLY CALLED LONG MEG AND HER
DAUGHTERS, NEAR THE RIVER EDEN.
A WEIGHT of awe, not easy to be borne,
Fell suddenly upon my Spirit-cast
From the dread bosom of the unknown past,
When first I saw that family forlorn.
Speak Thou, whose massy strength and stature scorn
The Tragic Muse thee served with thoughtful vow; The power of years-pre-eminent, and placed
And what of hope Elysium could allow
Apart, to overlook the circle vast
Was fondly seized by Sculpture, to restore
Pence to the Mourner. But when He who wore
Speak, Giant-mother! tell it to the Morn
While she dispels the cumbrous shades of Night;
The crown of thorns around his bleeding brow
Let the Moon hear, emerging from a cloud;
Warmed our sad being with celestial light,
At whose behest uprose on British ground
From shadowy fountains of the Infinite,
Then Arts which still had drawn a softening grace That Sisterhood, in hieroglyphic round
Commanned with that Idea face to face:
And move around it now as planets run,
Each in its orbit round the central Sun.
Forth-shadowing, some have deemed, the infinite
The inviolable God, that tames the proud+!
|