A New Year's Eve, and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Art thou free-born nature's child?
Dost thou love her features wild,
More than all the grace which art
By her efforts can impart?
Turn thee from the busy crowd,
Contest fierce, and clamours loud,
And by moonlight, still and pale,
Wander on the banks of Swale.

Climb the steeps of Shunner's fell,
Towering o'er each darksome dell;
When, except the murmers hoarse,
Heard from Keld or Kisdon force,

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Or the music, sweeter yet,
Of romantic Ivelet,
All is hushed;—thou wilt not fail
Then to love the banks of Swale.

Or at morning musing there,
In the fresh and bracing air,
Ere the dew has left the flower,
Or the bird its leafy bower;
See, unfolding to thy sight,
Giant Skiddaw's distant height,
While below the mist-wreaths veil,
Gracefully, the banks of Swale.

Lonely as they now may seem,
Time has been when, by its stream,
Converts from dark error's night,
To the gospel's glorious light,
There in gathered thousands stood;
And, in its baptismal flood,
Bade a purer faith “all hail!”
On the rocky banks of Swale.

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From such dim and distant day
Turn thou not with scorn away:—
With it to that age were given
Peace on earth, and hope of heaven,
Light for darkness, joy for pain,
Liberty for thraldrom's chain,
Christian bliss for heathen bale,
By the quiet banks of Swale.

[_]

The Swale is memorable not only for the romantic scenery of the dale to which it gives its name, but for having had ten thousand persons baptized in it at one time on the introduction of Christianity into this country.