Peter Faultless to his brother Simon :: :: University of Virginia Library

And curs'd in Nature's genial hour;
What dost thou here, wild woodbine flower?
Here verdure frowns! and, from on high,
Through vallies black and bare,
(The realm of cold sterility,
Where thou alone art fair,)
Don hastes, like pilgrim scorn'd and grey,
In search of richer scenes, away.

II.

How like a tyrant in distress,
Though late, at last, betray'd,
This land appears in loneliness!
What gloom of light and shade!
Dark mirror of the darker storm,
On which the cloud beholds his form!
Like night in day, how vast and rude,
On all sides, frowns the heath!
This horror is not solitude,
This barrenness is death;
And here, in sable shroud array'd,
Nature, a giant corse, is laid.

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III.

Is motion life? There rolls the cloud,
The ship of sea-like heaven,
By hand unseen its canvas bowed,
Its gloomy streamers riven;
If sound is life, in accents stern,
Here ever moans the restless fern.

IV.

Yea, life is here! the plover sails,
And, loud, torments the sky;
The wind, gaunt famine's herald, wails
Hungrily, hungrily;
The lean snake starts before my tread,
The dry brash cranshing o'er his head.
And, on grey Snealsden's summit lone,
The gloom-clad terrors dwell!
It is the tempest's granite throne,
It is the thunder's hell;
Hark! his dread voice! his glance of ire
Gleams, and the darkness melts in fire.

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Hurtles the torrent's sudden force
In swift rage at my side;
The bleak crag, lowering o'er his course,
Scorns sullenly his pride;
Time's eldest born! with naked breast,
And marble shield, and flinty crest,
And thou, at his etersial feet,
To make the desert sport,
Bloom'st, all alone, wild woodbine sweet,
Like modesty at court:
No leaf, save thine, is here to bless;
How lonely is thy loveliness!
Far hence thy sister is, the rose,
That virgin-fancied flower;
Nor almond here, nor lilac grows,
To form th' impassion'd bower;
Nor may thy beauteous languor rest
Its pale cheek on the lily's breast.
Who breathes thy sweets? Thou bloom'st in vain
Where none thy charms may see!
Save kite, or wretch like homeless Cain,
What guest shall visit thee?

204

Here, and alone! sad doom, I ween,
To be of such wild realm the queen!