IN THE CHANNEL, BETWEEN THE COAST OF CUM-
BERLAND AND THE ISLE OF MAN.

RANGING the heights of Scawfell or Black-comb,
In his lone course the Shepherd oft will pause,
And strive to fathom the mysterious laws
By which the clouds, arrayed in light or gloom,
On Mona settle, and the shapes assume
Of all her peaks and ridges. What he draws
From sense, faith, reason, fancy, of the cause,
He will take with him to the silent tomb.
Or, by his fire, a child upon his knee,
Haply the untaught Philosopher may speak
Of the strange sight, nor hide his theory
That satisfies the simple and the meek,
Blest in their pious ignorance, though weak
To cope with Sages undevoutly free.

XIII.

AT SEA OFF THE ISLE OF MAN.

BOLD words affirmed, in days when faith was strong
And doubts and scruples seldom teazed the brain,
That no adventurer's bark had power to gain
These shores if he approached them bent on wrong;
For, suddenly up-conjured from the Main,
Mists rose to hide the Land—that search, though
long

And eager, might be still pursued in vain.
O Fancy, what an age was that for song!
That age, when not by laws inanimate,
As men believed, the waters were impelled,
The air controlled, the stars their courses held;
But element and orb on acts did wait
Of Powers endued with visible form, instinct
With will, and to their work by passion linked.

XIV.

DESIRE we past illusions to recal?

To reinstate wild Fancy, would we hide

Truths whose thick veil Science has drawn aside?
No, let this Age, high as she may, instal
In her esteem the thirst that wrought man's fall,
The universe is infinitely wide;

And conquering Reason, if self-glorified,

Can nowhere move uncrossed by some new wall
Or gulf of mystery, which thou alone,
Imaginative Faith! canst overleap,

In progress toward the fount of Love,-the throne
Of Power whose ministers the records keep
Of periods fixed, and laws established, less
Flesh to exalt than prove its nothingness.

ON ENTERING DOUGLAS BAY, ISLE OF MAN.
'Dignum laude virum Musa vetat mori.'

THE feudal Keep, the bastions of Cohorn,
Even when they rose to check or to repel
Tides of aggressive war, oft served as well
Greedy ambition, armed to treat with scorn
Just limits; but yon Tower, whose smiles adorn
This perilous bay, stands clear of all offence;
Blest work it is of love and innocence,
A Tower of refuge built for the else forlorn.
Spare it, ye waves, and lift the mariner,
Struggling for life, into its saving arms!
Spare, too, the human helpers! Do they stir
'Mid your fierce shock like men afraid to die?
No; their dread service nerves the heart it warms,
And they are led by noble HILLARY*.

XVI.

BY THE SEA-SHORE, ISLE OF MAN. WHY stand we gazing on the sparkling Brine, With wonder smit by its transparency, And all-enraptured with its purity?— Because the unstained, the clear, the crystalline, Have ever in them something of benign ; Whether in gem, in water, or in sky, A sleeping infant's brow, or wakeful eye Of a young maiden, only not divine. Scarcely the hand forbears to dip its palm For beverage drawn as from a mountain-well. Temptation centres in the liquid Calm; Our daily raiment seems no obstacle To instantaneous plunging in, deep Sea ! And revelling in long embrace with thee+

XVII.

ISLE OF MAN.

[sighs

A YOUTH too certain of his power to wade
On the smooth bottom of this clear bright sea,
To sight so shallow, with a bather's glee
Leapt from this rock, and but for timely aid
He, by the alluring element betrayed,
Had perished. Then might Sea-nymphs (and with
Of self-reproach) have chanted elegies
Bewailing his sad fate, when he was laid
In peaceful earth: for, doubtless, he was frank,
Utterly in himself devoid of guile;
Knew not the double-dealing of a smile;
Nor aught that makes men's promises a blank,
Or deadly snare: and He survives to bless
The Power that saved him in his strange distress

* See Note.

The sea-water on the coast of the Isle of Man is sim gularly pure and beautiful

XVIII.

ISLE OF MAN.

DD 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!

XIX.

BY A RETIRED MARINER.

(A FRIEND OF The author.)

From early youth I ploughed the restless Main,
My mind as restless and as apt to change;
Through every clime and ocean did I range,
Is hope at length a competence to gain;

For 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.

xx.

AT BALA-SALA, Isle of Man. (SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY A FRIEND.) Basses in fortune, but in mind entire And sound in principle, I seek repose Where ancient trees this convent-pile enclose*, le rain beautiful. When vain desire Intrades 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 wrought, I thank the silent Monitor, and say *Shine so, my aged brow, at all hours of the day!"

Rushen Abbey.

XXI.

TYNWALD HILL.

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.

XXII.

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

on,

Nor let one billow of our heaven-blest Isle Toss in the fanning wind a humbler plume.”

XXIII.

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.

A A

XXIV.

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.

XXV.

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!

XXVI.

THE DUNOLLY EAGLE.

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.

XXVII.

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,
Though 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,
In gleaming through imperfect lore,
The Son of Fingal; such was blind
Macides of ampler mind;
Sh Milton, to the fountain head
Of glory by Urania led!

1824.

XXIX.

CAVE OF STAFFA.

AFTER THE CROWD HAD DEPARTED.

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; [aims.
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.

XXVIII.

CAVE OF STAFFA.

WI saw, but surely, in the motley crowd,
Not One of us has felt the far-famed sight;
How could we feel it ! each the other's blight,
Hamed and hurrying, volatile and loud.
for those motions only that invite
Test of Fingal to his tuneful Cave
By the breeze entered, and wave after wave
bosoming the timid light!

Andy Votary who at will might stand
ang ani take into his mind and heart,
th undistracted reverence, the effect
proportions where the almighty hand
made the worlds, the sovereign Architect,
argued to work as if with human Art!

XXXI.

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.