Poems and Lancashire Songs :: :: University of Virginia Library

Dark is the lot of him with heart so dull
By sensual appetite's unbridled sway,
As to be blind unto the beautiful
In common things that strew the common way.
Trailing the dusty elements of death,
He crawls, in his embruted blindness, proud;
To perishable ends he draws his breath;
His life, a funeral passing through a crowd;
His soul, a shrunken corpse within; his body, but a shroud.

II

Nature! kind handmaid of the thoughtful soul,
Be thy sweet ministrations ever mine;
Thy angel-influences keep me whole,
And lead my spirit into things divine:
Holding thy lovely garment, when a child,
I walked in simple ecstasy with thee;
And now, with sadder heart, and travel-toiled,
Thou hast a sanctuary still for me,
Where oft I find repose from earthly care and misery.

III

In cities proud, by grovelling factions torn,
Where glittering pomp and stony-eyed despair,
Murder and stealth, the lordly and the lorn,
Squalor and wealth, divide the Christian air;—
Where prowling outcasts hug with ignorant rage
Some sense of wrong that smoulders deep within;—

Where mean intrigues their furtive battles wage;
Where they are wrong that lose, and they are right that win,—
And drowning virtue struggles with the waves of sin;—

IV

Where drooping penitence, and pious pride;
The sons of labour and the beasts of prey;
The spoilers and the spoiled, are side by side,
Jostling unkindly on the crowded way;—
E'en there sweet Nature sings her heaven-taught songs,—
Unheeded minstrel of the fuming street,—
For ever wooing its discordant throngs
With sounds and shapes that teem with lessons meet,—
Like thee, fair rose-tree, on my window blooming sweet.

V

Oh, floral comrade of my lonely hours,
Sweet soother of my saddest mood,
The summer's glow, the scents of summer flowers,
Are filling all my solitude:
The thick-leaved groves, whose sylvan rooflets ring
With blending lyrics poured from every tree,
The sleepy streams where swallows dip the wing,
The wild flowers, nodding in the wind, I see,—
And hear the murmurous music of the roving bee.

VI

Taking my willing fancy by the hand,
Thou leadest me through nature like a child,
Where rustling forests robe the pleasant land,
And lonely streamlets ripple through the wild;—

Through verdant nooks, where, on the long, cool grass
The lingering dews light up the leafy shade,
In dreamy bliss, my wandering footsteps pass,
Sweeping from many a lush and bending blade
The load of liquid pearls that such a twinkling made.

VII

Now, through a sunny glade, away, away,—
Oh, let me wander thus a while with thee,—
By many a pleasant streamlet we will play,
And gad o'er many a field in careless glee:
Thus gently, thou, when on life's pathway rude
My heart grows faint as gloomy shadows lower,
Leadest me back into a happier mood,
By some sweet, secret, heaven-inspiréd power,
That lurks in thy fringed leaf and orient-tinted flower.

VIII

My spirit bursts its prison-house of care,
And dreamily, with lingering feet, I stray
Where garden odours fill the golden air,
And blossoms tremble to the wild birds' lay;—
O'er cool moist slopes, beneath the woodland shade,
Where the blithe throstle in his chamber sings,
Then wonders at the music he has made;—
Where the lush bluebell's little censer swings,
And pleasant incense to the wandering breezes flings.

IX

Upon a shady bank, as I recline,
Gazing, with silent joy, the landscape o'er,
I feel its varied glories doubly mine—
My heart's inheritance, my fancy's store;

Above me waves a roof of green and gold—
Delightful shelter from the noontide heat;
Beyond, a wandering streamlet I behold,
Where wind and sunlight on the waters meet
In silvery shimmerings, past description sweet.

X

I hear the skylark, poised on trembling wings,
Teaching the heavenly quire his thrilling lay,
All nature seems to listen as he sings,
Hushed into stillness by his minstrelsy;—
As the blithe lyric streams upon the lea,
Steeping the wild flowers in melodious rain,
The very dewdrops, dancing to the glee,
Look up with me, but, like me, look in vain
To find the heaven-hid singer of that matchless strain.

XI

Now, on rough byways, sauntering through the sun,
From fertile haunts of man I gladly stray,
Up to the sweet brown moorlands, bleak and dun,
While rindling waters tinkle o'er my way;
Where the free eagle lords it in the sky;
Where red grouse, springing from the heath'ry steep,
Wake the wild echoes with their lonely cry;
And whistling breezes unrestrainèd sweep
O'er the old hills, that in the sunlight seem asleep.

XII

O'er yon wild height, between the rugged steeps,
From crag to crag, in many an airy bound
Of mighty glee, the mountain torrent leaps,
And the lone ravine trembles to the sound;

Through cave and cleft, along the narrow glen,
The rushing thunders rage, and roll afar,
Like untamed lions struggling in their den,—
With unavailing rage,—each rocky scar
Hurls back the prisoned roar of elemental war.

XIII

As homeward, down a winding path I stray,
Where mazy midges in the twilight throng:
In plaintive fits of liquid melody,
I hear the lonely ousel's vesper-song;
Odours of unseen flowers the air pervade;
As I sit listening on a wayside mound,
Watching the daylight and its business fade,
The evening stillness fills with weird sound,
And distant waters sing their ancient choral round.

XIV

Mild evening brings the gauzy fringe of dreams
That trails upon the golden skirts of day;

And here and there a cottage candle gleams
With cheerful twinkle o'er my drowsy way;
As flaxen-headed elves, from rambles wild,
With straggling footsteps, to their mothers hie
With woodland trophies, and with garments soiled,
And tired and pleased,—they know not, care not why;—
So from my wand'rings I return, as daylight quits the sky.

XV

Oh, flowery leader of these fancy flights,
Epitome of Nature's charms to me,
Filling my spirit with such fine delights
As I can never more repay to thee,—
For my behoof thou donn'st the summer's sheen,
Smiling benignly on thy prison-spot,

Though exiled from that native nook of green
Where playmate zephyrs seek through bower and grot,
Through all the summer roses seek, but find thee not.

XVI

Fair lamp of beauty, in my cloistral shade,
Through brief at best the time thou hast to shine,
By an almighty artist thou wert made,
And touched with light eternally divine.
Like a caged bird, in this seclusion dim,—
Where slanting sunbeams seldom find a way,—
Singing with patient joy a silent hymn,
That wafts my thought from worldly care away
Into the realms of Nature's endless holiday.

XVII

Sweet specimen of Nature's mystic skill,
Dost thou know aught of human joys and woes?
Can'st thou be gladdened by the glad heart's thrill,
Or feel the writhing spirit's silent throes?
To me thou art a messenger of love—
A leaf of peace amid the storms of woe—
Dropt in my path by that celestial Dove
Who made all things in heaven and earth below,
That wandering man the beautiful and true might know.