Gaston de Blondeville, or The court of Henry III ::

Gaston de Blondeville, or The court of Henry III

Keeping festival in Ardenne, a romance. St. Alban's Abbey, a metrical tale; With some poetical pieces. By Anne Radcliffe ... To which is prefixed: A memoir of the author, with extracts from her journals. In four volumes

Radcliffe, Ann Ward (1764-1823)

VOL. I.

GASTON DE BLONDEVILLE.

THE BRIDAL.

[O'er the high western wolds afar]

III,IV.

II.

III.

IV.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

XVI.

XVII.

XVIII.

XIX.

XX.

XXI.

XXII.

XXIII.

XXIV.

XXV.

XXVI.

XXVII.

XXVIII.

XXIX.

XXX.

XXXI.

XXXII.

XXXIII.

XXXIV.

XXXV.

XXVI.

XXXVII.

XXXVIII.

XXXIX.

XL.

XLI.

XLII.

XLIII.

II.

CANTO II. THE NIGHT BEFORE THE FIRST BATTLE.

III.

CANTO III. THE DAY OF THE FIRST BATTLE.

IV.

CANTO IV. THE HOUR AFTER THE BATTLE.

CANTO V. THE EVENING AFTER THE BATTLE.

VI.

CANTO VI. THE EVENING AFTER THE BATTLE.

VII.

CANTO VII. SCENE IN THE MONASTERY.

VIII.

CANTO VIII. SOLEMN WATCH WITHIN THE ABBEY.

II.

III.

IV.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

XVI.

XVII.

XVIII.

XIX.

XX.

XXI.

XXII.

XXIII.

XXIV.

XXV.

XXVI.

XXVII.

XXVIII.

XXIX.

XXX.

XXXI.

XXXII.

XXXIII.

XXXIV.

XXXV.

XXXVI.

XXXVII.

XXXVIII.

XXXIX.

XL.

XLI.

XLII.

IX.

CANTO IX. AMONG THE DEAD.

CANTO X. AMONG THE DEAD.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

ON A FIRST VIEW OF THE GROUP CALLED THE SEVEN MOUNTAINS;

A SECOND VIEW OF THE SEVEN MOUNTAINS.

ON ASCENDING A HILL CROWNED WITH A CONVENT.

THE SNOW-FIEND.

AN ANCIENT BEECH-TREE. IN THE PARK, AT KNOLE.

SEA-VIEWS.

TO THE SWALLOW.

FOREST LAWNS.

ON THE RONDEAU, “JUST LIKE LOVE IS YONDER ROSE.”

DECEMBER'S EVE, ABROAD.

DECEMBER'S EVE, AT HOME.

A SEA-VIEW.

ON HAYLEY'S LIFE OF COWPER.

WRITTEN IN THE ISLE OF WIGHT.

SONNET TO THE LARK.

ON READING THE FOLLOWING BEAUTIFUL LINES, WRITTEN BY THE LATE LADY ELIZABETH LEE, SISTER OF EARL HARCOURT,

PART I. THE HAZEL TREE.

II.

PART II. THE FAIRIE COURT.

III.

PART III. THE MAGIC MIRRORS.

SCENE ON THE NORTHERN SHORE OF SICILY.

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107

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

109

SALISBURY PLAINS.

STONEHENGE.

I.

Whose were the hands, that upheaved these stones
Standing, like spectres, under the moon,
Steadfast and solemn and strange and alone,
As raised by a Wizard—a king of bones!
And whose was the mind, that willed them reign,
The wonder of ages, simply sublime?
The purpose is lost in the midnight of time;
And shadowy guessings alone remain.

II.

Yet a tale is told of these vast plains,
Which thus the mysterious truth explains:
'Tis set forth in a secret legend old,
Whose leaves none living did e'er unfold.
Quaint is the measure, and hard to follow,
Yet sometimes it flies, like the circling swallow.

110

III.

Near unto the western strand,
Lies a tract of sullen land,
Spreading 'neath the setting light,
Spreading, miles and miles around,
Which for ages still has frowned:
Be the sun all wintry white,
Or glowing in his summer ray,
Comes he with morning smile so bright,
Or sinks in evening peace away,
Yet still that land shows no delight!

IV.

There no forest leaves are seen,
Yellow corn, nor meadow green,
Glancing casement, grey-mossed roof,
Rain and hail and tempest proof;
Nor, peering o'er that dreary ground,
Is spied along the horizon's bound
The distant vane of village spire,
Nor far-off smoke from lone inn fire,
Where weary traveller might rest
With blazing hearth and brown ale blest,
Potent the long night to beguile,
While loud without raves the bleak wind;

111

No: his dark way he there must shivering find;
No signs of rest upon the wide waste smile.

V.

But the land lies in grievous sweep
Of hills not lofty, vales not deep,
Or endless plains where the traveller fears
No human voice shall reach his ears;
Where faintest peal of unknown bells
Never along the lone gale swells;
Till, folding his flock, some shepherd appear,
And Salisbury steeple it's crest uprear;
But that's o'er miles yet many to tell,
O'er many a hollow, many a swell;
And that shepherd sees it, now here now there,
Like a Will o'-the wisp in the evening air,
As his way winds over each hill and dell,
Where once the ban of the Wizard fell!

VI.

Would you know why this country so desolate lies?
Why no sound but the tempest's is heard, as it flies,
Or the croak of the raven, or bustard's cries?
Why the corn does not spring nor a cottage rise?

112

Why no village-Church is here to raise
The blest hymn of humble heart-felt praise,
Nor ring for the passing soul a knell,
Nor give to the dead a hallowed cell,
Nor in wedlock-bonds unite a pair,
Nor sound one merry peal through the air?
All this and much more would you know? And why,
And how, Salisbury spire was built so high,
As fairies had meant it to prop the sky?
Then listen and watch, and you soon shall hear
What never till now hath met mortal ear!

VII.

It was far, far back in the dusky time,
Before Church-bells had learnt to chime,
That a Sorcerer ruled these gloomy lands
Far as old Ocean's southern sands.
He lived under oaks of a thousand years,
Where now not the root of an oak appears!
On each high bough a dark fiend dwelt,
Ready to go, when his name was spelt,
Down, down to the caves where the Earthquake slept,
Or up to the clouds, where the whirlwind swept.

113

VIII.

The Sorcerer never knew joy, or peace,
For still with his power did pride increase.
He could ride on a wolf from the North to South,
With a bridle of serpents held fast by the mouth;
And he minded no more the glare of his eyes,
That flashed about as the lightning flies,
Than the red darting tongue of the snake, that coil'd
Round his bridling hand, and for liberty toil'd.
He could sail on the clouds from East to West,
He rested not, he! nor let others rest;
And evil he wrought, wherever he went,
For, he worked, with Hela's and Loke's consent.
The branch of spectres she gave for his wand,
And nine hundred imps were at his command!
He could call up a storm from the vast sea-wave,
And, when ships were wrecked, not a man would he save!
He could call a thunder-bolt down from a cloud,
And wrap a whole town in a fiery shroud!

114

IX.

He could chase a ghost down the road of the dead,
Through valleys of darkness, by snakes' eyes shown,
And pass o'er the bridge, that to Hela led,
Where afar off was heard the wolf Fenris' groan,
While it guarded her halls of pain and grief,
Where she nursed her children—Famine and Fear;
He could follow a spectre, even here,
With the dauntless eye of a Wizard-chief.
He could chase a ghost down the road of the dead,
Till it passed the halls of Hela the dread.
He could chase a ghost down the road of the dead,
Till it came where the northern lights flash red.
Then the ghost would vanish amid their glow,
But the Wizard's bold steps could no farther go!
And whether those lights were weal, or woe,
The Sorcerer's self might never know.
All this and more he full often had done,
And changed to an ice-ball the flaming Sun!

X.

Now Odin had watched from his halls of light
This dark Wizard's fell and increasing might;

115

And clearly he knew, that his craft he drew
From the Witch of Death and the Evil Sprite,
Who, though chain'd in darkness, and far below,
Sent his shadows on earth, to work it woe.
This Wizard had even defied his power,
For once, in the dim and lonely hour,
When Odin had seen him riding the air,
And bid him with his bright glance forbear,
Great Odin's look he would not obey,
But went, on his cloud, his evil way!
He had dared to usurp, when invoking a storm,
The likeness of Odin's shadowy form,
And, when Odin sang his famed song of Peace,
That hushes and bids the wild winds cease,
While it died the sleepy woods among,
And the moon-light vale had owned the song,
The Wizard called back the stormy gust,
O'er the spell-struck vale, and bade it burst!

116

The woods their murmuring branches tossed,
And the song—the song of Peace—was lost—
Then Odin heard the groan of thrilling Fear
Ascend from all the region, far and near,
And, as it slowly gained upon the skies,
He heard the solemn call of Pity rise!

XI.

Then Odin swore,
By the hour that is no more!
By the twilight hour to come!
By the darkness of the tomb!
By the flying warrior's doom!
Then Odin swore,
By the storm-light's lurid glare!
By the shape, that watches there!
By the battle's deadly field!
By his terrible sword and snow-white shield,
The Sorcerer's might to his might should yield.

XII.

While Odin spoke, the clouds were furled,
And those beneath, as stories say,

117

Lost the sight
Of our earthly light,
And caught a glimpse above the world!
But the phantasma did not stay:
It passed in the growing gloom away!
And from that hour these stories date
The fateful strife we now relate.

XIII.

Now, there was a Hermit, an ancient man,
Who oft lay deep in solemn trance,
Watching bright dreams of bliss advance;
And marvellous things of him there ran;
He had lived almost since the world began!
The people feared him, day and night,
And loved him, too, for they knew that he
Abhorred their wizard-enemy,
And wished and hoped to do them right.
He owned the spell of Minstrelsy!
And in the hour of deepest shade,
When he would seek his forest-glade,
(It was of grey oaks in a gloomy hollow
Where never footsteps dared to follow,)

118

And called from his harp a certain sound,
Pale shadows would stand in his presence 'round!
How this could be known, without a spell,
I must briefly own I never could tell.
—But, be that as it may—on that note's swell,
Whether they sleeping were in halls of light,
Or followed the stars down the deeps of night,
Or watched the wounded Warrior's mortal sigh,
Or after some ill-doing Sprite did fly,
On that note's swell they to the Hermit hie;
And heed his questions, wait on his command;
These were the Spirits white of Odin's band.

XIV.

Odin had marked this renowned old Seer,
And to him, at times, his favour lent;
He was the first of the Druids here;
And did all their laws and rites invent.
Some stories say a Druid never bent
At Odin's shrine; and others may have told
The self-same tale, that here for truth I hold;
He was the first of all the Druid race:
Owning the spell serene of Minstrelsy!

119

But though he oft the Runic rhyme did trace,
No wizard he!
No fiend he called, no fiend he served,
And never had from justice swerved.
From mystic learning came his power,
His name was from his oaken-bower,
He was the first of all the Druid race!

XV.

And Odin had marked this renowned old Seer,
And, when the solemn call for pity rose,
This goodly man to do his bidding chose,
A sage like whom was found not far or near:
Upon his head the snows of ages lay,
Hung o'er his glowing eyes and waving beard,
Touched every wrinkle with a paler grey,
And made him marvelled at, and shunned, and feared;
Yet, with this awe, love, as I said, appeared.

XVI.

He was gone to his home of oak;
Starlight 'twas and midnight nigh;
Not one wistful word he spoke,
But his magic harp strung high;

120

As he touched the calling string,
Hear it through the branches ring,
Till on lower clouds it broke.
Straight in his bower dim shapes were seen
By the fitful light, that rose within,
And reddened the dark boughs above,
And chequered all the shadowy grove,
And tinged his robe and his beard of snow,
And waked in his eyes their early glow!
While, as alternate rose and sunk the gleam,
The tree itself a bower or cave would seem!

XVII.

The Druid, wrapt in silence, lay;
No need of words; his thoughts were known;
“Odin has heard his people's groan,”
Spoke a loud voice and passed away.
Another rose, of milder tone!
“The mighty task is now thine own,
To free the land from wizard-guile;
If thou hast wisdom to obey,
And courage to fulfil the toil,
Odin, for ages, to thy sway

121

Gives each long plain and every sloping dell,
Now suffering by the sinful Sorcerer's spell.”

XVIII.

A third voice spoke, and thus it said—
“Listen and watch! for thou must brave
The wily Wizard's inmost cave;
And, while he sleeps, around his head
Bind a charm, that shall help thee draw
Each fang from his enormous jaw;
There lies the force of all his spells.
Hundred and forty teeth are there
In triple rows; his art they share.
Hundred and forty thou must draw,
From upper and from under jaw.
Quick must thou be; for, if the charm
Break, and his bond of sleep is o'er,
Ere yet thy task is done, no power
Can save thee from his vengeful arm.
Thence from his cave, at magic's hour,
Speed thou; and close beneath his bower
Bury the fangs nine fathom deep,
Or ere thine eyelids close in sleep:

122

With them his guile for ever laid,
Thine is the land, which late he swayed.”

XIX.

The voice is passed, and once more stillness reigns:
The Druid's trance is o'er; yet he retains
A wildered and a haggard look,
As pondering still the urgent word,
And wonderous call he just had heard.
And sure instruction from that call he took!

XX.

And from this hour he was not seen,
Neither on hill, nor yet in dale;
By the brown heath, nor forest green,
Nor by the rills, where waters wail;
By sun-light, nor by moonbeam pale.
But his shape was seen, by star-light sheen;
Or so the carle dreamt, who thus told the tale!

XXI.

For many a night and many a day,
Close within his bower he lay,
For many a day and many a night,
Hid from sight, and hid from light,
Trying the force of his mystic might;

123

Working the charm should shield him from harm,
When he in the Wizard's cave should be,
To set the wretched country free.
He owned the spell of Minstrelsy.

XXII.

It boots not that I here should say
What arts the Druid did essay:
How with the misletoe he wrought,
That twined upon his oldest oak,
How midnight dew he careful caught
From nightshade, nor the words he spoke,
When he mixed the charm with a moonbeam cold,
To form a web, that should fast enfold
The Sorcerer's eyes—vast Warwolf the bold.
Nor boots it, that I here should say
The dangers and changes, that him befell
On his murky course to Warwolf's cell;—
For, circled safe with many a subtle charm,
Was his dark path along the forest-way;
The lamp he bore sent forth its little ray,
And sometimes showed around strange shapes of harm
Gliding beneath the trees, now close beside;

124

Now distant they would stand, obscurely seen
Among the old oaks' deep-withdrawing green.

XXIII.

But the calm Druid touched th' according string
Of the small harp he bore, with skill so true
That straight they left their shape and faithless hue!
Then voices strange would in the tempest sing,
Calling along the wind, now loud, now low,
And now, far off, would into silence go:
Seeming the very fiends of wail and woe!
Again th' enchanting chord the Druid woke,
('Twas as the seraph Peace herself had spoke,)
And hushed to silence every wizard-foe.

XXIV.

The story could unfold much more,
That the daring wanderer bore,
O'er valley and rock and starless wood,
Ere at the Sorcerer's cave he stood.
There come, he paused; for even he, I ween,
Confessed the secret horrors of the scene.
A place like this in all the spreading bound

125

Of these low plains can nowhere now be found.
And scarcely will it be, I fear, believed
That beetling cliffs did ever rear the head
O'er lands as wavy now as ocean's bed.
But these huge rocks on rocks by might extinct were heaved.

XXV.

It was where the high trees withdrew their boughs,
And let the midnight-moon behold the scene,
That hoary cliffs unlocked their marble jaws,
And showed a melancholy cave between,
With deadly nightshade hung and aconite,
And every plant and shrub, that worketh spite;
Upon their shuddering leaves the moonlight fell
But left no silver tinges there to tell
The winning power of simple Beauty's spell;
Nor touched the rocks, that hung in air,
With glimpse of lustre, passing fair;
A dull and dismal tinge it shed,
Such as might gleam on buried dead!
And led, as with a harbingering ray,
The Druid's steps, where the grim Wizard lay.

126

XXVI.

It led his steps; but he, in silent thought,
Stood long before th' expected cave;
For he beheld what none could brave,
Who had not yet with magic weapon fought;
He stood, the unknown cave before;
High shot the little flame he bore,
Then sunk as low, then spired again,
And gleamed throughout the Warwolf's den;
It glanced on the harp at the Druid's breast;
It brightened the folds of his gathered vest!
And chased the shade, that hung o'er his brow,
Bound with the sacred misletoe;
It silvered the snow of his wavy beard,
It showed the strong lines of age and care,
But the lines of Virtue mingled there,
And wisdom benignant, yet stern, appeared.

XXVII.

Long before that cave he stood,
For, hovering near,
Dark shapes of fear
Among the nightshade seemed to brood,
And watchful eyes, between the leaves,

127

Now here, now there, portentous glare,
Direful to him, who fears and grieves,
As meteors fly
Through a troubled sky,
When the autumn thunder-storm is near.

XXVIII.

And thrice he turned him to the east,
And sprinkled the juice of the misletoe;
And thrice he turned him to the east,
And the flame he bore then changed it's glow;
And thrice he turned him to the east,
And the flame he bore burned high, burned low.
Then a solemn strain from his harp arose;
'Mong the leaves the watching eyes 'gan close;
One by one, they were closed in night,
Till sunk in sleep was the Wizard's might.
For, by his art, the Druid knew,
That Warwolf, though he lay unseen,
His deepest, darkest cave within,
Closed his eyes, when these eyes closed,
And now in death-like swoon reposed.
And the Druid knew, that hitherto

128

The spell of Minstrelsy was true
But the Druid knew, that he must rue,
If the magic sound of his harping ceased
Ere his terrible task was fully done;
For Warwolf would wake, and, from spell released,
Call from their slumber the fiends it had won.

XXIX.

The Druid knew this; and he knew moreo'er,
That, the moment he trod in the Wizard's den,
Other fiends would spring from their sleep within,
To clamour and curse, with a horrible din,
If he left not his harp at the cave's door;
If he left it there, and the winds should deign
To call out it's sweet and magic strain,
The strain of his harp would with theirs contend;
And if theirs were baffled, his toil would end;
If their's should triumph, his life was o'er
Yet he left his harp at the cavern door;
But he traced a just circle where it hung,
And high in an oak's green branches swung.

XXX.

As now the Druid took his way
In the untried cave, where the Wizard lay,

129

Often he lingered and listened oft,
Still the distant harp was swelling soft;
And he paced up the cave, without dismay,
Under scowling rocks, between shaggy walls,
Where the gleam of his lamp, as it faintly falls,
Shows a frowning face, or a beckoning hand,
Or a gliding foot, or the glance of a wand.
Yet oft at a distance he sweetly hears
The joy of his harp, and he nothing fears,
Till he comes, where a light now flashed and fled,
Which darted, he knew, from the Wizard's bed.
There opened the wall to a lofty hall,
And he viewed what must mortal heart appal.

XXXI.

Outstretched and grim on his stony bed,
All ghastly-pale, like a giant dead,
With eyes half closed the Wizard lay,
His half-shut mouth his fangs display.
The skin of a dragon unscaled was his shroud;
A rock was his bier; his watcher was Fear,
And the winds were his mourners shrill and loud,
And the caverns groaned their echoes severe.

130

At his couch's foot lay a wolf at length,
But harmless in sleep was his sinewy strength,
'Twas the wolf he had ridden from north to south;
All uncurled were the serpents, that bridled his mouth,
And the black, clotted stains might yet be seen
Of his yesterday's prey the teeth between.

XXXII.

The Druid approached, with caution and dread;
The Wizard was pale; but, was he dead?
Here waited the Druid his harp's sweet sound.
It's note was now changed; like a deep-drawn sigh,
He heard it's faint swell, and he heard it die;
Then knew he full well, that danger was nigh.
He often and steadfastly looked around:
No spectre appeared in the dim-seen bound!
The Druid approached, with caution and dread;
The Wizard was pale; but, was he dead?
As the Druid bent o'er that giant form,
While his lamp glared pale on the haggard brow,
And showed the huge teeth in a triple row,
He muttered the words, that will still a storm,
That can struggle with Loke and all his swarm.

131

XXXIII.

The mourning winds o'er vast Warwolf were still;
No breath from the Wizard's pale lips bodes ill,
Yet could not the Druid those fangs once view,
And know the task he was bidden to do,
Without feeling his very heart-blood chill.
He hung his lamp on a sharp rock near,
He bent again o'er vast Warwolf's bier,
And he touched one fang, with prudent fear.

XXXIV.

But, why does he start, and why does he stand
As though he saw Hela's shadowy hand?
He has heard the shriek of his harp afar!
He has felt the glance of his evil star!
And he hastens to fold his charmed band
Round the cold damp brows of his foe.
But not all the strength of his magic might
Can lift the head from its stony bed,
Or the strong bandage pass below,
To press the Wizard's forehead tight;
So he laid it loosely on the brow.

XXXV.

Then he took from the rock his faithful lamp,
And sprinkled the flame on the forehead damp.

132

Straight the head uprose, and the lips unclosed,
And each of the terrible fangs exposed.
And now he hastened to pass the band;
He tied the knot with a shaking hand,
But tied it firm—he tied it fast,
That it might well and sure outlast
The struggle of every mighty pang.
And then he seized one hideous fang,
And threw it on the ground!
No blood escaped the wound.
Hark, to the harp's now rising sound!
He knew the fiends were fighting round it,
But he knew that his charmed circle bound it.

XXXVI.

And when he had seized the second tooth,
He thought that he heard the Wizard sigh!
The third required the strength of youth,
But he won it, and the Wizard unclosed an eye!
Senseless and dim, at first, it showed,
But quickly a livid glare outspread,
Which changed to a light of enraged red,
And strongly as a furnace glowed.

133

But the glow died away in the livid ray;
And, touched by the spell, the eyelid fell,
Like a storm-cloud over the setting day.

XXXVII.

At the ninth drawn fang, the Wizard's hair
Rose up and began to twine and twist,
Like serpents, and like to serpents hissed!
Till it curled all on fire,
In many a spire,
And the bridle-snakes, that lay on the ground,
Began to stir, and to coil them around;
And the wolf reared up his grisly head,
And fiercely bristled his watchful ears;
His foamy jaws grinned close and red,
And a rolling fire in his eye appears,
As he looks back o'er the Wizard's bed.

XXXVIII.

Is that the harp? or is it the wind,
Murmuring from the cave behind?
It is the wind! 'tis not the harp!
See! Warwolf's face grows long and sharp;
About his mouth a grim smile draws,
And the fiends know well his dire applause!

134

The charmed band can scarcely bear
The struggling of his writhing brow.
Watching that horrid strife, the Druid stood,
His harp's tones answered to his fearful mood;
Then he thought of the deeds of Balder good:
He muttered the Helper song of Odin;
He faced to the frost, that has fire within;
And thrice he bowed him o'er the bier,
Sprinkling the mystic misletoe.
Now Warwolf's fiendly smile is gone,
His brow is steadfast and severe;
Slow falls each hair to it's dark lair,
Quenched are the fire-snakes every one.
The wolf, half-raised on his worn claws,
Stands fixed as stone, with grinning jaws
And upward eyes, as watchful still
To do his Wizard's vengeful will;
His bridle of serpents, coiled o'er his head,
Remains, and their tongues are yet living-red;
But they dart no death, and no malice they shed;
And their hisses have ceased; for their venom is dead!

135

XXXIX.

Hark! hark! afar what feeble note
Begins, like dawn of day, to float?
Hark! it is the rejoicing string,
Sounding sweetly along the wind!
Never did mortal music fling
Notes so cheering, notes so kind.
The Druid hoped, yet feared and sighed,
And then again his task he plied.

XL.

Three times nine of the fangs he drew,
And the Wizard did not change his hue!
Three times three and three times nine,
And his lamp more dimly gan to shine.
When he tried the very last fang of all,
Warwolf lifted an arm on high;
And faintly waved the hand,
That held the Spectre-Wand,
As though he would some evil Spirit call.
His arm he did but feebly ply,
Like one, who, in an agitating dream,
Mimicks some action of his waking hour,
Pursuing still his often-baffled aim,

136

And struggling with the wish, without the power,
To chase the phantoms, that all living seem!

XLI.

The Spectre-Wand had lurked within
The dragon's many-folded skin,
That was the Wizard's shroud.
Now, firmly grasping that dread wand,
Which ne'er disowned its master's hand,
He called on Hela loud!—
But he called Hela! once alone.
Low sunk the muttered spell;
No fiends th' imperfect summons own,
His lifted arm down fell.
Now tried the Seer, but tried in vain,
The hateful Spectre-Wand to gain;
Which still vast Warwolf's fingers grasped,
As though his only hope they clasped,
Till every tendon seemed to strain.

XLII.

The Druid tried to break the wand,
But, by its forceful charm secured,
And held, as if by iron hand,
The mighty struggle it endured.

137

In the long strife the Druid turned,
And spoke again dread Hela's name;
The Druid's lamp then faintly burned,
Quivered again the failing flame.
He, by the signal undismayed,
Another daring effort made:
He tried again the last strong fang:
The Wizard started at the pang,
But, though his lips moved at his will,
His wish they could not now fulfill.
The wolf, though standing fixed as stone,
Uttered one long and yelling groan;
And his kindling eyes began to stream;
Then sunk the Druid's lamp's last gleam!

XLIII.

Oh! what is become of the harp's far sound?
Sadder it mourns, and yet more weak;
I hear it but faintly, faintly speak;
And I see the Druid upon the ground
In speechless alarm,
Despairing his charm;—
The last of his spells had the fiends now found?

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XLIV.

Whence is the light, that 'gins to wave?
'Tis not his lamp, it's beams are shorn.
Nor fire, nor flame, through all the cave
The Druid sees, aghast, forlorn.
But look not on the Wizard's bier,
For, the red light is streaming there,
That threatens unknown ill;
Both, both his glaring eyes unclose!
The hall with lurid lightning glows;
As if at Warwolf's will.
The harp, the harp! where is it's note?
I hear no distant music float!
He tried to lift his head
From off his rocky bed,
But the charmed band was true and strong;
Vast Warwolf's groans were loud and long,
And every mighty limb convulsive heaved.
Could I have told the horrors of his face,
The tale, too fearful, would not be believed.
Th' astonished Druid stood some little space;
So hideous and so ghastly was the sight,
That e'en his firmness viewed it with affright;

139

What then he thought may ne'er be told;
But what his fate this story may unfold.

XLV.

Then lifting his eyes from off the bier,
A pallid shade confronts him near.
It surely is the form of Fear!
It has her wild red look, her spectre-eye,
Her attitude, as in the act to fly;
Her backward glance, her face of livid hue,
Her quivering lip, dropping with coldest dew;
Her breathless pause, as waiting to descry
The nameless, shapeless, harm, that must be nigh!
He waved the Branch of Spectres o'er the bier;
'Twas Hela's self—the mother of wan Fear!
The Druid knew her by that dreadful wand
And by the glimpses of her flitting band.
When he saw the berried misletoe,
Profaned to conjure deeds of woe,
Fear was subdued, indignant ire arose,
The Druid-soul, disdainful of repose,
Knew not to tamper with his Order's foes.

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XLVI.

She waved it o'er the half-gone Wizard's head;
A tremour crept upon his bloodless cheek;
And see! he turns upon his rocky bed,
He moves his lips, that have not strength to speak.
She spoke: “Wake, Warwolf, from thy trance;
The phantoms of thy fate advance;
Or wake not; th' abject plain shall tell
The change, that still awaits thy spell.
The sun shall set, the moon shall rise;
Four and twenty hours shall go;
The sun shall set, the moon shall rise;
Then each oak of the forest dies!
For thy bones shall have rule below.”

XLVII.

With shaded eyes the Druid stood,
Wrapt in dismay and fearful thought;
But now, awaking from his mood,
The last of all his spells he wrought.
Three bands he tore from his night-woven vest,
And sprinkled the oil of his failing lamp.
The Wizard sunk on his bed in rest!
Thrice on the ground did the Prophetess stamp,

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And shook her streaming hair
In dæmon-like despair,
And stretched athwart the bier her withering hand,
And, shrieking, waved three times the Spectre-Wand.

XLVIII.

At the first shriek, dark spreading mists appear;
And, in the midst, a Spectre, trembling Fear;
A wreath of aspin quivered round her hair.
More grisly pale than the Prophetess she;
More wild and haggard face could never be.
At the next shriek, distorted Pain,
With rolling eyes, that seemed to strain,
Started along th' affrighted ground,
With dreadful yell and fitful bound;
Even dark Hela shuddered, as he rose,
For Hela could not grant him short repose.
To the third shriek the Spectre-Branch waved high.
A dim Shape came more dread than Pain or Fear;
Fell woe was in her eye, but not one tear!
A poniard in her breast, but not one sigh!

142

All ghastly was her face, and yet a smile
Was wandering on, but owned no thought, the while;
Unnoticed blood distilled from her loose hair!
She spoke not, wept not, looked not—'twas Despair!

XLIX.

Hela, as touched by her cold hand,
Stood, when she saw these shadows rise
To the false summons of her wand,
Stood, like a wretch, who guilty dies.
“Ye come uncalled. Why are ye here?”
“We wait around vast Warwolf's bier.”
“Ye come unwelcomed. Hence, away!”
But Hela saw, with dire dismay,
Her children would no more obey.
They gathered round the Wizard's bed,
Despair drooped mutely o'er his head,
And Hela sunk, in mist, down to the dead!

L.

Then the flame of the Druid's lamp returned,
And as clear as the morning-light it burned,
And the harp's triumphant sound
Lightly danced the cavern round,

143

And filled the vaulted roof, on high,
With the loud song of truth and joy;
Through every hollow rock it rung;
The Echoes tell not all the notes,
For ne'er before had they heard sung
Such song as now around them floats.

LI.

At the first note, round Warwolf's bier,
The ghastly shadows disappear,
And a dark cloud began to rise,
That wrapt him from the Druid's eyes,
Who gathered and counted the conquered fangs;
Then, thankful, from the cave he hies,
To seek the lorn place, where the cymbal clangs
Of the Wizard's imp, as it watches his bower;
There to bury the teeth, at the magic hour.

LII.

From the mouth of the cave his harp he took,
And hung it near his grateful heart;
The wires with answering rapture shook,
And hope and courage did impart.
But its cautious master, true
To the whole task he had to do,

144

Bent, with tempered mind, his way,
Whither the Sorcerer's bower lay.
Through the forest he heard afar
The cymbal's hoarsely-clanging jar,
Till he came to a widely-spreading plain,
Then ceased the Wizard's threatening strain;
All was still as yon setting star.
But, for the bower he looked around in vain,
Unless that giant-tree be his strange bower,
A ruin now like him, and 'reft of power.

LIII.

In the centre it stood—a withered oak;
It's shadow was gone, and it's branches broke;
It's mighty trunk, knotted all round and round,
And gnarled roots, o'erspreading the ground,
Were proofs of summers that on it had shone,
And honours of old from the tempests won,
In generations all past and gone.
And a scant foliage yet was seen,
Wreathing it's hoary brows with green;
Like to a crown of victory,
On some old Warrior's forehead grey.

145

So reverend was it's look, it seemed to speak
Of times long buried, that had passed it by
And left it there thus desolate to sigh
To the wild winter-winds, in murmurs weak;
A spectre of the woods, shadeless and pale,
A form of vanished ages, whose dark tale
It once beheld, and seemed by fits to wail.

LIV.

Here came the Druid, with firm, silent tread,
To bury deep the fangs of Warwolf dread.
Now, by the waning Moon's red, slanting ray,
By her long, gloomy shadows on the way,
Two circles round about the oak he traced,
And, as with measured step and slow he paced,
And Runic words of secret import drew,
The mighty lines wider and wider grew,
As watery circles o'er a lake increase;
At length they rested, where he bade them cease.
Watching the minutes of the downward moon,
He walked th' enchanted Celtic circles duly o'er;
Dropping, at every bidden step, a fang.

146

One fang to every step he gave, no more,
Meanwhile his harp, unsmote, with strange notes rang!
The vast circumference he paced not soon;
One hundred and forty minute-steps past,
Ere was paced the widest circle and last;
And the pale moon, behind the forest-shade,
Sunk with a small and smaller curve of light;
O'er the wood-tops he watched her last glow fade,
Till every lingering ray was lost in night.
The hour is won!—the spell is done!
The Druid to rest in his bower is gone!

LV.

Now listen and watch, and you shall see
What passed around that old oak-tree.
The marvellous story must now be told
Of the ban's last force of Warwolf bold.
When next the midnight-moon was seen,
The Druid returned to the forest green;
That forest green on yester-night,
Now mourned in all its leaves a blight!
And now were its branches shattered and bare;
Nor tree, nor bough, did the Sorcerer spare,

147

Dire was the hour when he waked from his swoon!
O'er all the region, far and nigh,
Far as the Druid cast his eye,
(Under the glimpses of the low-hung moon)
The lands all black and desolate lie!
But whither the Wizard his-self was fled,
And whether still living in trance, or dead,
Or what was become of his horrid den,
Were matters not reached by the Druid's ken.
Nor cliff, nor rock, was e'er seen from that hour,
On wilds, that had owned the Sorcerer's power;
Not an oak, or green bank, on hill or dale,
That once waved in Summer's and Winter's gale.

LVI.

The Druid pressed on through the lifeless wood,
Till he reached the plain, where the old oak stood.
Now listen and watch, and you shall see
What was done around that warrior tree.
Scarce could the Druid now believe,
That phantoms did not his eyes deceive,
As he looked o'er this desert land,
Far as his vision could command.

148

Is it the light, that mocks his sight?
Or shadows, that now the low moon throws?
What dark and mighty shapes are those,
Standing like dæmons of the night?
Nearer and nearer the Seer now goes,
Taller and taller the figures arose!
Astonished he saw, on the plain around,
In the circles he traced on the teeth-sown ground,
A hundred and forty figures stand,
A lofty and motionless giant-band!
He paused in the midst, and calmly viewed
Their strange array and their sullen mood.
High wonder filled his mind, as this he saw.
And wonder still and reverential awe,
From age to age, have filled the gazer's mind,
With sweet yet melancholy dread combined.
Stonehenge is the name of the place this day,
But what more it means no man may say.

LVII.

Who, that beholds these solid masses rude,
Could guess they ever were with life endued?

149

And yet, receive the marvel that I tell,
These mighty masses held the Wizard's spell!
They were his buried fangs, and upward sprung
By nerve of magic, which they yet retained,
Dilating to enormous size and shape,
While from their prison-grave they strove t' escape.
But here their effort ceased, and, wildly flung,
They in their mighty shapes have since remained.
Their effort, but not yet their power, has ceased,
For, as the ages of the world increased,
Still with the charm of wonder they have bound
Whoever stepped in their enchanted ring,
And when the learned held the truth was found,
The daily and the nightly thought,
So long pursued, so closely caught,
Has proved a feather dropped from Fancy's wing!
And thus have two thousand ages rolled,
But the truth till now was never told!
Unsuspected it lay,
Closely hid from the day,
Till some smatterer bold
Should the secrets of Druid lore unfold.

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LVIII.

The Hermit, by the wondrous vision won,
Felt not the shuddering earth, nor heard the gale
O'er the far wilderness come sweeping on,
With gathering strength and wildly sweeping yell,
Till, like some fiendly voice it burst around,
And gradual died along the hollow ground.
Then he knew it the Wizard's blast;
It was his fiercest and his last,
And came for vengeance on the Druid's head;
But with his fangs his evil power was fled.
And, when rung out the harp's rejoicing swell,
The Druid knew that all was once more well.
Then to his bowery home his steps he turned,
And slept the sleep by conscious virtue earned.
His fortitude the Wizard's spell had braved;
His patient wisdom a wide land had saved!

LIX.

From forth that day began the Druid sway
O'er all this widely stretching plain,
And hamlets few that on their border lay.
Still did the Druids long remain

151

In the lone desert, far from vulgar eye,
'Wrapt in high thought and solemn mystery.
The circle of the Wizard's fangs, 'tis said,
Was their great temple, where, on certain days,
In triumph for the tyrant-dæmon fled,
They gathered from the country far around,
And sang, with nameless rites, their mystic lays,
Here on this rescued memorable ground.

LX.

And thus they ruled, for age succeeding age.
There is one later record, which doth spell,
But in what scroll, or rhyme, or numbered page,
Or letter black, or white, I cannot tell—
There is one record, could it now be found,
Doth spell the words which, spoken on that ground,
By the wan light of the setting moon,
When night is far past her highest noon—
Words, that make sight so strong and fine,
As will the Druids' shadowy figures show,
When in their long and stately march they go,
Around and round that mighty line,
Where yet the Wizard's fangs uprear
Their monstrous shapes upon the air.

152

And, as they glide those shapes between,
A beam-touched harp does sometimes shine,
Or golden fillet's glance is seen;
While long devolving robes of snow,
Wave on the wind, and round their footsteps flow.
And then are heard the wild, fantastic strains,
Which Druid-charm has left to dignify these plains.

LXI.

Such was the scene, and such are the sounds,
Linked with the history of these grounds!
Nay, 'tis said that, at this very hour,
Without aid from any words of power,
If mortal has courage to go alone
To that remote circle and count each stone,
When the midnight-moon doth silently reign
Over the pathless and desolate plain,
Gliding forms may ev'n yet be viewed,
Of lofty port and solemn mood,
Performing rites ill understood
By people of this latter day!
How this may be I cannot say;
For nobody of these days can be found
To venture alone to that distant ground,

153

When the midnight moon walks over the land,
With slow, soundless step and beckoning wand,
And cold shadows following her command.

LXII.

But, not for kindly sprites alone,
Is now that haunted region known,
Since the antique Seers are gone.
'Tis said that, sometimes, even there
Fiendish sprites will ride on the air!
To lone shepherd their forms appear.
Their forms in the tempest's first gloom he finds;
And this is the cause that the hurrying winds
Sweep so swiftly, and moan so loud,
As o'er those haunted downs they crowd.
On the waste's edge they gather and brood;
Then, meeting the wild fiend's fiercest mood,
They scud o'er the desert, through clouds, through rain,
Like ship, with her storm-sail set, on the main.
While the Druids lived, these evil bands
Kept far aloof from the guarded lands.
But, when the last died, the Sorcerer's ban
Gained part of the force, with which it began.

154

LXIII.

And this is the cause why corn will not spring,
Nor a bird of summer will rest his wing,
Nor will the cottager here build his home,
Nor hospitable mansion spread its dome;
Why the plain never hears merry peal,
Announcing benefactor's weal,
Nor e'en lone bell in village tower
Knells the irrevocable hour;
Why the dead find not here a hallowed grave,
Why the bush will not bud, nor tall tree wave.
And why Salisbury steeple was built so high
As though fairies had reared it to prop the sky!
For the mischievous sprites they once came so nigh,
They threatened all the country round,
Castles and woods, and meadow-ground,
That kindly peer o'er the edge of the plain,
Like a sunny shore o'er a stormy main;
Nay, they came so near to Salisbury town,
The people within feared the walls would down.

LXIV.

Then they built a tower, as by charmed hands,
So grand, yet so simple, its airy form!

155

To guard the good town from all fiendish bands,
And avert the dreaded pitiless storm.
And they fenced the tower with pinnacles light,
And they traced fine open-work all around;
It is, at this day, a beautiful sight!
And they piled on the tower a spire so high,
That it looked o'er all the Sorcerer's ground,
And almost it vanished into the sky.
So lofty a steeple the world cannot show;
Nor, drawn on the air with the truth of a line,
A form so majestic, so gracefully fine;
Nor a tower more richly adorned below,
Where fretted pinnacles attend,
The spire's first ascent to defend,
And catch the bright purple of evening's glow,
While, sinking in shadows, the long roofs go.
This spire, viewed by the dawn's blue light,
Or rising darkly on the night,
As with tall black line to measure the sphere,
While stars beside it more glorious appear,
Has so holy a look, not of earth it seems,
But some vision unknown save in Fancy's dreams.

156

LXV.

Now this good spire thus high they made,
All the land to watch and ward,
That the ill sprites, whene'er they strayed,
To their confines might be awed.
It could see on the wide horizon's bound
Each shade, good or bad, as it walked its round,
Whether a fairy or fiend,
Whether a foe or a friend.
It could see the procession move along
With glittering harps, in robes of white;
It could hear the responsive far-borne song
Faintly swell o'er the wide-stretched plain,
Then sink, till all was still again,
And sleeping in the clear moonlight.
So this beautiful spire did watch and wake,
And guarded the land for Innocence' sake.

LXVI.

And, at this very day,
Let but the feeblest ray,
Or gleam, of moonshine chance to fall
Over this steeple so slenderly tall,

157

Or but glimmer upon the trembling vane;
Though the 'nighted traveller on the plain,
While he perceives it faintly shine,
Peering over upland downs afar,—
Though he hails it for the morning-star,
Yet all too well the warning sign
Know the bands of the Wizard's line!
Soon as they spy its watching eye,
Whether by moonlight, or by morn,
Sullen they sigh, and shrink and fly,
Where sun, or moonbeam, never warn.
So this beautiful spire does watch and wake,
And still guards the land for Innocence' sake.

Hela.

Loke.

Odin boasts of possessing such a song. Had Milton seen the boast of it in the Edda, when he wrote?—

“He, with his soft pipe and smooth-dittied song,
Well knew to still the wild waves, when they roar,
And hush the waving woods.”

The shield of Odin was said to be white as snow.

162

SHAKSPEARE'S CLIFF.

Here, all along the high sea-cliff,
Oh, how sweet it is to go!
When Summer lures the light-winged skiff
Over the calm expanse below,—

And tints, with shades of sleepy blue,
Misty ocean's curving shores;
And with a bright and gleaming hue,
Dover's high embattled towers.

How sweet to watch the blue haze steal
Over the whiteness of yon sail;
O'er yon fair cliffs, and now conceal
Boulogne's walls and turrets pale!

163

Oh! go not near that dizzy brink,
Where the mossed hawthorn hangs its root,
To look how low the sharp crags sink,
Before the tide they overshoot.

Nor listen for their hollow sound—
Thou canst not hear the surges mourn,
Nor see how high the billows bound
Among the caves their rage has worn.

Yet, yet forbear! thou canst not spring,
Like fay, from off this summit high,
And perch upon the out-stretched wing
Of the sea-mew passing by,

And safely with her skirt the clouds;
Or, sweeping downward to the tide,
Frolic amid the seaman's shrouds,
Or on a bounding billow ride.

Ah! no; all this I cannot do;
Yet I will dare the mountain's height,

164

Seas and shores and skies to view,
And cease but with the dim day-light.

For fearful-sweet it is to stand
On some tall point 'tween earth and heaven,
And view, far round, the two worlds blend,
And the vast deep by wild winds riven.

And fearful-sweet it is to peep
Upon the yellow strands below,
When on their oars the fishers sleep,
And calmer seas their limits know.

And bending o'er this jutting ridge,
To look adown the steep rock's sides,
From crag to crag, from ledge to ledge,
Down which the samphire-gatherer glides.

Perhaps the blue-bell nods its head,
Or poppy trembles o'er the brink,
Or there the wild-briar roses shed
Their tender leaves of fading pink.

165

Oh fearful-sweet it is, through air
To watch their scattered leaves descend,
Or mark some pensile sea-weed dare
Over the perilous top to bend,

And, joyous in its liberty,
Wave all its playful tresses wide,
Mocking the death, that waits for me,
If I but step one foot aside.

Yet I can hear the solemn surge
Sounding long murmurs on the coast;
And the hoarse waves each other urge,
And voices mingling now, then lost.

The children of the cliffs I hear,
Free as the waves, as daring too;
They climb the rocky ledges there,
To pluck sea-flowers of humble hue.

Their calling voices seem to chime;
Their choral laughs rise far beneath,

166

While, who the dizziest point can climb,
Throws gaily down the gathered wreath.

I see their little upward hands,
Outspread to catch the falling flowers,
While, watching these, the little bands
Sing welcomes to the painted showers.

And others scramble up the rocks,
To share the pride of him, who, throned
On jutting crag, at danger mocks,
King of the cliffs and regions round.

Clinging with hands and feet and knee,
How few that envied height attain!
Not half-way up those urchins, see,
Yet ply their perilous toil in vain.

Fearless their hero sports in air,
A rival almost of the crows,
And weaves fresh-gathered blossoms there,
To bind upon his victor-brows.

167

The broad sea-myrtle glossy bright,
Mixed with the poppy's scarlet bell,
And wall-flowers, dipt in golden light,
Twine in his sea-cliff coronal.

The breeze has stolen his pageant-crown;
He leans to mark how low it falls;
Oh, bend not thou! lest, headlong down,
Thou paint'st with death these fair sea-walls!

Now, o'er the sky's concave I glance,
Now o'er the azure deep below,
Now on the long-drawn shores of France,
And now on England's coast I go,

To where old Beachy's beaked head,
High peering in the utmost West,
Bids the observant seaman dread,
Lest he approach his guarded rest.

What fairy hand hangs loose that sail
In graceful fold of sunny light?

168

Beneath what tiny figures move,
Traced darkly on the wave's blue light?

It is the patient fisher's sloop,
Watching upon the azure calm;
They are his wet sea-boys, that stoop,
And haul the net with bending arm.

But on this southern coast is seen,
From Purbeck hills to Dover piers,
No foam-tipt wave so clearly green,
No rock so dark as Hastings rears.

How grand is that indented bay,
That sweeps to Romney's sea-beat wall,
Whose marshes slowly stretch away,
And slope into some green hill small.

Now North and East I bend my sight
To where the flats of Flanders spread;
And now where Calais cliffs are bright,
Made brighter by the sunset red.

169

Shows not this towering point so high
To him, who in mid-channel sails;
For the slant light from western sky
Ne'er on its awful front prevails.

But mark! on this cliff Shakspeare stood,
And waved around him Prosper's wand,
When straight from forth the mighty flood
The Tempest “rose, at his command!”

170

THE FISHERS.

STEEPHILL.

Behold this rocky bay! On either hand
Cliffs dark and frantic rise and stretch away
To yon bold promontories, East and West,
Hanging amid the clouds; that shut out all,
Save seas and skies and sails dim-moving on
Th' horizon's edge, and the rough boat, that skirts,
With slow and wary course, this ruinous strand.
Far 'mong the waves, are shown gigantic limbs
Of these stern shores, whose out-post Terror is,
Whose eyes look down on desolation, pain,
Shipwreck and death. Yet, half way up the rocks,
And scarce beyond the salt spray's reach, when storms
Of winter beat, perched where the sea-mew rests

171

In sun-beam, a low fisher's cabin peeps
From its green sheltering nook. Wild mountainous shrubs
Hang beetling o'er it, and such flowers as grow
On rocky ledges, brought by the unseen
Air, messengers from off some fertile hill
Or dale, or haply from far forest's side;
The scarlet poppy and the blue corn-flower,
The wild rose and the purple bells, that chime
In th' evening breeze to the poor woodlark's notes.
Full to the South, the fisher's cottage peeps,
And overlooks how many lonely leagues
Of ocean, sleeping in its summer haze
Of downy blue, or green, or purple, shades,
Charming the heart to musing and sweet peace!
How solemn, when our autumn's moon goes down,
And walks in silence on the farthest waves,
(Then sinks, leaving brief radiance in the air,)
To measure out a few short moments here,
By the sad, dying glow!

But sweet, O then, most sweet! when the clear dawn

172

Of June breaks on, and blesses the horizon.
In holy stillness it dispels the shades
Of night, appearing like the work sublime
Of Goodness,—a meek emblem of the Just
And Living God! Bending our heads with awe
And grateful adoration, we exclaim—
“Father of Light! Thou art our Father too;
We are Thy creatures; and these glorious beams
Attest, that in Thy goodness we are made
For bliss eternal.”

There stands the fisher's hut, and close beside,
A mountain-stream winds round the mossed platform,
Singing wild lullaby to the wailing surge,
As 'mid resisting brakes and massy crags,
It seeks a passage to the shore below.
There, hauled above the reach of flowing tides
And the high-bounding spray, the sea-boat rests,
Huge, sturdy, heavy, almost round, and formed
For labour and hard strife with the rough sea;
About the fisher's cot, from crag to crag,

173

His nets hang round in many a graceful sweep,
'Midst his long lines and treacherous baits and hooks.
Beside his door, the aged fisher weaves
New meshes for his sons, and sends, at times,
A look far o'er the ocean, where the beam
O' the west falls brightest, for the adventurers,
Who yester-morn went forth, and all night long
Watched patient on the waters, and all day
Have hauled the net, or laboured at the oar.
More fearful roves his eye, as sinks the sun,
While sad he marks September's stormy cloud
Fire all the West, and tip with crimson hues,
Though less resplendent, ev'n the nearer waves
While the broad flush tinges his silver locks
And his brown visage and his garments blue.
Anxious, he throws aside th' unfinished web,
And climbs the higher crag, and thence afar,
Turning the western cape, he sees the glance
Of oars withdrawing, and the square sail set
And swelling to the breeze. With struggling toil
The poor bark seeks its home, ere night and tempest
Meet on the billows. While she thus, scarce known,

174

Alternate rides the ridge and then is lost
Below the shelving wave, widely they steer
Athwart the dangerous surge, though not that way
Lies their dear home; but well they know where lurk
The rocks unseen, and where the currents flow.
Suddenly drops the sail, and now again
This way they bend, while, as they ply once more
The oars, just heard, and turn, with scrupulous eyes,
To view their narrow course, a faint ray shows
Their sun-burnt features and their ragged locks,
Beneath the sea-worn hat. Nearer now they move,
And now scarce lift the oar, so cautiously
They creep along the strand, and wind their way
Among its half-seen rocks.

Stays the old fisher on the high crag now?
No; yonder down the steep path slow he steps,
And his wave-faring children hails afar.
Meanwhile upon the beach, patient and cold,
Stands the poor horse, with drooping head and eyes
Half-shut, and panniers all too wide and deep,
Waiting the cargo, that his master, tired

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And sauntering on the water's edge, shall bring:
Then must he bear it up high cliffs and hills,
To the far vale, where lies some peopled town.
Now slowly grounds the skiff, and the glad fishers,
Mounting the beach, the bended grapple cast.
“What luck? what luck? my boys!” “Good luck, my father!”
And forth they pour the treasure of the main,
With many a scaly form unshapely, strange!
The dog-fish monstrous, with his high, round back,
And look voracious. Oh! ill-named is he,
After man's careful, tender, faithful friend!
The spotted Seston, dragon-like, with wings
And jaws terrific; and the giant skate.
Then dark-mailed forms, that die in torture wild,
Unfitted, therefore, for the feast of man,
To whom abundant guiltless food is given.
And last, a shape, the fairy of the wave,
Clad in transparent tints of silver comes.

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But see where the last gleam of the day's sun,
Far from behind that western promontory,
Slants 'thwart the deep curve of this shaded bay,
Tinges yon headland of the eastern shore,
And goes in stillness down on the fair waves,
Seeming to say, “Children of Time, farewell!
Your course draws nearer to Eternity;
Even thus must fade your glory in this world:—
But sure as dark shades of the night lead on
To morning, the sun-set of earthly life
Leads to the dawn of an eternal day:—
Think of that dawn!”

Now doth the aged fisher mutely watch,
While his stout sons fling o'er their shoulders broad
Deep osier baskets hung with pebbles round;
Then, wrapt in his blue mantle, stalks away,
Beneath the dark cliffs beetling o'er the sea,
To those low rocks, that stretch, point after point,
Far out amid the tide, crowned with black moss.
There, in the waves, safe from rapacious force,
And from the eye of plunderer close concealed,
He leaves his treasure, for to-morrow's care;

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Then hies he homeward. There, amidst the friends
He loves, reposes. All last night, he watched
Upon the rocking main; the arching sky
His sole, cold roof; the stars his only guides
Through the vast shadow of the lonely deep!
This night, how calm his dream, how sweet his sleep,
In the safe shelter of his cabin small,
With his glad family round him hush'd in peace!

So called by the fishermen.

Lobsters.

Whitings.

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IN THE NEW FOREST.

Wanderer! if thy path bend o'er these lawns
And forest-lands, stay thy rejoicing steps—
Though they would fain bound with yon fawns and hinds
Down the green slope, and skim the level turf
To other slopes, and other pluming groves,—
Stay thy intemperate spirit, and mark well
Each beauty of the scene, and the strong lights
And stormy sunshine, that fall o'er these shades!
Pause thou awhile, that, in some future hour,
When the long sunless storm of winter broods,
And thou sitt'st lonely by thy evening hearth,
In melancholy twilight, listening
The far-off tempest,—then sweet Memory
May come, and with her mirror cheer thy mind,

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On whose bright surface lovelier scenes shall live
Than any shrined within Italian climes;
And every graceful form and shaded hue,
As now it lives, again shall smile before thee:
For England, beauteous England, scarce can boast,
Through her green vales and plains and wavy hills,
Another landscape of such sylvan grace.

'Twas surely here, that Shakspeare dreamt of fays,
And in these shades Titania held her court,
And bade her tiny bands in starlight revel.
Those tufts of oak, that crown the swelling lawn,
Those were her shady halls at high moon-tide;
And yon light ash her summer-night pavilion,
Lighted by dew-drops and the flickering blaze,
That glances from the high electric north.
Where'er the groves retire and meadows rise,
There were her carpets spread, of various tints
From turf and amorous lichen, all combined
With soft flowers and transparent azure-bells,
On whose pure skin their purple veins appear.
And over all these hues a veil is thrown
Of silvery dew, oft lighted by the moon.

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Temper thy joyous spirit, wanderer!
And 'gainst the wintry hour, when thorns alone
Hold forth their berries, cull sweet summer-buds.
Then shall the deep gloom vanish, the storm sink!
The balmy air of woods shall soothe thy sense,
And their broad leaves thy landscape canopy,
E'en in December's melancholy day!

And now bound with those fawns down the green slope,
Skim the smooth turf to other hills and groves,
In the full joy of sunshine and new hopes.

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ON A FIRST VIEW OF THE GROUP CALLED THE SEVEN MOUNTAINS;

IN THE APPROACH TO COLOGNE FROM XANTEN.

When first I saw ye, Mountains, the broad sun
In cloudy grandeur sunk, and showed, far off,
A solemn vision of imperfect shapes
Crowding the southward sky and stalking on
And pointing us “the way that we should go.”
Dark thunder-mists dwelt on ye; and your forms,
Obscurely towering, stood before the eye,
Like some strange thing portentous and unknown.
I watched the coming storm. The sulphurous gloom
Clung sullenly round me, and a dull tinge
Began to redden through these mournful shades.
A low imperfect murmur o'er ye rolled.

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Doubtful, I listened. On the breathless calm
Again I heard it—then, ye Mountains vast,
Amid the tenfold darkness ye withdrew,
And vanished quite, save that your high tops smoked,
And from your clouds the arrowy lightnings burst,
While peals resistless shook the trembling world!—

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A SECOND VIEW OF THE SEVEN MOUNTAINS.

Mountains! when next I saw ye it was Noon,
And Summer o'er your distant steeps had flung
Her veil of misty light: your rock-woods hung
Just green and budding, though in pride of June,

And pale your many-spiring tops appeared,
While, here and there, soft tints of silver grey
Marked where some jutting cliff received the ray;
Or long-lived precipice its brow upreared.

Beyond your tapering pinnacles, a show
Of other giant-forms more dimly frowned,
Hinting the wonders of that unknown ground,
And of deep wizard-vales, unseen below.

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Thus, o'er the long and level plains ye rose
Abrupt and awful, when my raptured eye
Beheld ye. Mute I gazed! 'Twas then a sigh
Alone could speak the soul's most full repose;

For of a grander world ye seemed the dawn,
Rising beyond where Time's tired wing can go,
As, bending o'er the green Rhine's liquid lawn,
Ye watched the ages of the world below.

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ON ASCENDING A HILL CROWNED WITH A CONVENT.

NEAR BONN.

Up the mossed steeps of this round hill we climbed,
Tracking amid close woods our doubtful way;
When, high above, the lonely vesper chimed
On the still hour of the declining day.
We paused to listen, and to taste awhile
The pure air scented with the bruised herb;
And catch the distant landscape's parting smile,
Ere the light breeze the shadowy boughs disturbed.
“Oh verdant foliage! in your dancing play,
Hide not those soft blue lines, that northward swell,
And of far mountain-regions faintly tell!
Wrap not in your high shades those turrets grey,

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That rear themselves above the Rhine's broad flood,
Where the slow bark, with wide, out-stretched wings,
Her lengthening shadow o'er the waters flings.”
Onward we pass amid the closing wood,
Till, once again emerging from the night,
O'er a near ridge of darkest pine we spy
The peaks of eastward mountains, peering high;
Touched with gay colours and with sunshine bright,
They draw clear lines on the transparent sky,
And lift their many-tinctured forms of light!

With weary step a convent's porch we found.
What music met us on that holy ground,
Swelling the song of peace and praise to Him,
Who clad with glory all the prospect round!
Our full hearts echoed back the grateful hymn.
A turret's utmost height at length we gain,
And stand as on a point above the world,
Viewing the heaven's vast canopy unfurled,
And the great circle's widely-spreading line
Sink low, and softly into light decline.

187

There, in far distance, on the western plain,
Thy spires, Cologne, gleamed to the setting ray:
Thy useless ramparts and thy turrets grey
Hinted where still the cowled city lay.
Oh melancholy walls! unlike the view,
That the sweet poet of Vauclusa drew,
When, wreathed with flowers, thy maidens fair advance,
With choral songs and steps of airy dance,
And to the Rhine's fleet wave, on summer's eve,
Their blooming garlands and their sorrows give.

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How changed the scene! Now paler forms appear,
Wrapt in black garments and with brow severe;
And, as with shaded eyes they stalk along,
Receive poor homage from the passing throng.
Oh melancholy walls! always, as now,
Be seen at distance on the landscape's brow!

That stretching landscape various shades o'erspread,
Of yellow corn and bowery vineyards green;
There the brown orchard reared its tufted head,
And there the Rhine's long-winding light was seen,
With castles crowned was its rocky shore,
And famed for dismal tales in early lore.
Northward, the far Westphalian lands withdrew,
Line above line, in level tints of blue;
While to the West, where forest hills extend,

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The long perspective lifts a pomp of shade,
Mellowed with evening lights, where sweetly blend
Convents and spires, as if for peace-marks made.
Such were the scenes, that from the falling sun,
(When he his bright and blessed course had run)
Threw their long shadows, mourners of past day,
And then in stillness slept beneath his ray.
But other scenes a holier homage paid,
Where, eastward, pointing up the heavenly way,
Above the thunder's cloud and cloud of Time,
Those everlasting mountains stand sublime,
And to the sun's Creator lift the head!
Steadfast upon the Rhine's tumultuous shore,
Ye listened, Mountains, to the distant roar,
The battle-shout of nations now no more.
Ye viewed the suns of centuries go down,
And smiled, as now, beneath their farewell beam;
Ye saw the thunder-storms of ages gleam,
The elemental and the human frown,
And heard afar the mingled strife pass by
Into the silence of Eternity!
Unchanged amid the ever-changing scene,
As in the world's first dawn, ye still appear,

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With beauty bright, majestic, young, serene,
Clothed in the colours of the various year.
While rainbow-colours indistinctly lay
On the lone summits, till, in slow decay,
They seemed like far-hung clouds on Evening's pall,
Just purpled with a melancholy ray;
While dark we saw the mountain-shadows fall,
And steal the valleys and the woods away!
Then all in paleness came the twilight-star,
And, pensive, seemed to bend upon the West;
As though she watched th' expiring sun afar,
And bade, with tearful smile, his spirit rest!
Oh! then how sweetly and how solemn rose
The requiem-strains, that, in the parting hour,
Beneath the sacred roof responses pour;
While all without was hushed in deep repose.
The air's soft breathings scarce were heard to die,
Save when among the braided vines it crept,
And waked the quivering tendril with its sigh.
Thus earth and air their hour of slumber kept!
All but the stars! Slumbering too long in light,
They now through shade their opening eyes reveal,
In trembling glances, to their empress—Night,
Keeping high watch till forth the Morning steal,

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From adverse darkness. Self-supported, great,
Ye, tranquil 'mid the louring storms of fate,
Rise, like the honest mind, in the dread hour,
When stern Adversity tries Virtue's power:—
Thus ye, distinguished through the fearful gloom,
A steadfast strength and brighter mien assume.
Thus, 'mid the changing lights, that life pervade,
May we, like you, assailing clouds dispel—
Grateful in sunshine—steadfast in the shade!
Farewell! ye awful monitors, farewell!

Petrarch notices this ceremony in one of his letters. “The sun was declining: and scarcely was I alighted, when these unknown friends brought me to the bank of the Rhine, to amuse me with a spectacle which is exhibited every year, on the same day, and on the same place. They conducted me to a little hill, from whence I could discover all that passed along the river. An innumerable company of women covered its banks: their air, their faces, their dress struck me ------ In the midst of the vast crowd this sight had drawn together, I was surprised to find neither tumult nor confusion; a great joy appeared without licentiousness. How pleasant was it to behold these women; their heads crowned with flowers, their sleeves tucked up above their elbows, with a sprightly air advancing to wash their hands and arms in the river. They pronounced something in their language, which appeared pleasing, but I did not understand it. Happily, I found an interpreter at hand; I desired one who came with me to explain to me this ceremony. He told me it was an ancient opinion spread among the people, and particularly the women, that this lustration was necessary to remove all the calamities with which human beings are threatened in the course of the year; and, when this was done, they had nothing to fear till the following year, at which time the ceremony must be renewed.”

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THE SNOW-FIEND.

Hark! to the Snow-Fiend's voice afar
That shrieks upon the troubled air!
Him by that shrilly call I know—
Though yet unseen, unfelt below—
And by the mist of livid grey,
That steals upon his onward way.
He from the ice-peaks of the North
In sounding majesty comes forth;
Dark amidst the wondrous light,
That streams o'er all the northern night.
A wan rime through the airy waste
Marks where unseen his car has past;
And veils the spectre-shapes, his train,
That wait upon his vengeful reign.

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Disease and Want and shuddering Fear
Danger and Woe and Death are there.
Around his head for ever raves
A whirlwind cold of misty waves.
But oft, the parting surge between,
His visage, keen and white, is seen;
His savage eye and paly glare
Beneath a helm of ice appear;
A snowy plume waves o'er the crest,
And wings of snow his form invest.
Aloft he bears a frozen wand;
The ice-bolt trembles in his hand;
And ever, when on sea he rides,
An iceberg for his throne provides.
As, fierce, he drives his distant way,
Agents remote his call obey,
From half-known Greenland's snow-piled shore
To Newfoundland and Labrador;
O'er solid seas, where nought is scanned
To mark a difference from land,
And sound itself does but explain
The desolation of his reign;

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The moaning querulous and deep,
And the wild howl's infuriate sweep
Where'er he moves, some note of woe
Proclaims the presence of the foe;
While he, relentless, round him flings
The white shower from his flaky wings.
Hark! 'tis his voice:—I shun his call,
And shuddering seek the blazing hall.
O! speak of mirth; O! raise the song!
Hear not the fiends, that round him throng
Of curtained rooms and firesides tell,
Bid Fancy work her genial spell,
That wraps in marvel and delight
December's long tempestuous night;
Makes courtly groups in summer bowers
Dance through pale Winter's midnight hours;
And July's eve its rich glow shed
On the hoar wreath, that binds his head;
Or knights on strange adventure bent,
Or ladies into thraldom sent;
Whatever gaiety ideal
Can substitute for troubles real.

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Then let the storms of Winter sing,
And his sad veil the Snow-Fiend fling,
Though wailing lays are in the wind,
They reach not then the 'tranced mind;
Nor murky form, nor dismal sound
May pass the high, enchanted bound!

196

AN ANCIENT BEECH-TREE. IN THE PARK, AT KNOLE.

THE WOODLAND NYMPH.

Down in yon glade, that points to the red West,
O'erhung with ancient groves, whose shadows fall
So darkly on the ground, that the green moss
Is hardly known beneath them;—in yon glade,
Just where the trees irregularly part
In long perspective, and an evening scene
Of sylvan grandeur glimmers, stands a beech,
Like some gigantic sentinel, advanced
On watch to guard the pass to sacred haunts.
Approach, and let thy nobler mind prevail;
And, as thine eye measures its form, its large
Grey limbs upstretching in the air, among

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The pendent, rich, luxuriant foliage,
Over the silvery rind, moss-mottled, showing
Like gleams of light 'mid their green shadows; if
Grace and grandeur ever touched thine heart, adore
And weep—weep tears of deep delight, and tears
Of gratitude, that thou canst weep such tears!

If thou would'st see in full magnificence
This canopy, most surely the domain
Of some lone Dryad,—come when Evening casts
Her yellow light, and gives its lower shades
Their most luxuriant tinge; speak not, but watch
And thou 'lt see haply at this dewy hour
The Nymph of this deep shade 'rise from her sleep.
The scared hind, bounding athwart the glades,
Springs not so lightly, nor so graceful turns,
When, listening to the step, that startles her,
She bends her slender neck and branched head
And shows her dark eyes, bright and innocent.

Oh, Nymph of graces, playful as these boughs,
When gentle airs play o'er them, thee I know,

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And have, at eve, beheld thy dance of joy
In the proud shade, that shields thee from the storm,
And guards thy slumbers from the summer rain.
Thy noon-tide slumbers, too, I have beheld,
And the high canopy of boughs bespread,
When, laid in peace upon the twilight moss,
Where the green shadows deep and coolest fall,
Thy fairy court watched round thee—court of Elves
That dwell unseen within the hollow leaves
Or inmost foliage, rocked by summer sighs.
These have I seen around thy mossy couch,
Fanning thy slumber with long leaves of lilies,
Scattering the white bells in thy twisted hair,
And binding each dark lock with wreaths of flowers.
Thy footsteps trod the tender hyacinth,
Blue and transparent as the light of Morn,
The dark-eyed violet, that weeps perfume,
The wild-rose tinted with the Dawn's first blush,
And sparkling with the tears and smiles she shed,
When, scattered from her hand, it fell to earth.

This ancient beech, this sylvan wonder, triumphs

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Over the oak, whose spreading pomp has crowned him
King o' the woods; but his magnificence
Is rude and heavy,—while this lonely beech,
With all its wealth of green, transparent shadows,
(A graceful hill of leaves in the blue air,)
Still must be hailed the hero of the forest!

200

SEA-VIEWS.

MIDNIGHT.

Carolling sweetly to the midnight gale
Above the strife of waves, his voice is heard—
The sea-boy's voice, who, on some top-sail yard,
Bows with the mast, and hangs amid the clouds,
Or sweeps the salt foam from the billow's ridge,
And mocks its fury. Far around he sees,
Beneath the night-gloom, ocean's wondrous fires
Flashing from surge to surge—a boding light,
That seems the spirit of the troubled realm.
Palely it gleams, though bright, now near, now distant,
Shapeless, though visible—though threatening, mute:
Still, sweet he carols on the dizzy cap.

201

Anon, he hears the storm-bird's slender cry,
And scarcely marks her flitting round and round
And sheltering in the shrouds. Oh, fearful bird!
Herald of warring winds! he heeds thee not;
Nor yet those hollow sounds from strand unseen;
Nor e'en those sullen lights among the clouds,
Whose hue they show more livid; for, behold!
Like to a star, which in th' horizon dawns,
There gleam those guiding, ever watchful fires,
Placed on some low peninsula's long line,
Or on some promontory's pointed horn,
And spied far on the solitary waves
By the poor mariner, who, rocked upon
His dark and billowy cradle, thinks of home,
His little cabin, sheltered by the cliff,
His blazing hearth, bright through the casement seen,
And all the dear-loved faces shining round;
And knows the smiles of welcome ambushed there.

Still cheerly sings the watch-boy; down he goes
Through gasping seas; now driving down the gulph,
Now rising light in air; while nearer roll

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The thunders of the shore, reverbed from caves
Surge-worn, and cliffs high arching o'er the tide.
But now the plunging lead is heard, and now
The sullen voice of one below calls out
The sounded fathoms; then the master bids
His last sail furl; for well-known sands are nigh,
And louder sweeps the gale. At last, he nears
Those friendly beacon fires, the level line
Of distance changes for the rugged shores,
Whose tops the horizontal twilight mark;
Soon they rise up more bold, solemn, distinct;
And wide unfolds the hospitable bay,
On whose deep margin spreads the wished-for port,
With many dim lamps quivering in the blast.
No joyful shout hails th' approaching crew;
For Sleep has waved his potent wand on high!
The lonely pier receives them; on they steer
For quiet depth, and gradually steal
Into the silent harbour—silent save
The drowsy rippling of the faint sea-tide,
Or when the watch-dog, on some neighbouring deck,
His honest vigil barks, as strangers pass.

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And now each heart beats joyfully, as drops
The ready anchor; busy footsteps sound;
Loud swells the mingled voice; the narrow plank
Is hoisted and extends a tottering bridge,
That bears them to the quay; there, bounding light
Once more they press the firm earth, and once more
Each to his long-left home in safety goes.
Dark is the way and silent; yet awhile
And an awakening voice shall call up hope,
And all the poor man's wealth, the wealth of heart!

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TO THE SWALLOW.

O happy bird! thy gay return I hail;
For now I see young Spring, with all her train
Of sports and joys, borne on the western gale,
And hear afar her sweetly warbling strain.

Once more the opening clouds shall now disclose
The heaven's blue vault—the sun's all-cheering ray:
The vales, once more, in tender green repose,
The violet wake beneath the breath of May.

O happy bird! how playful and how light
Thy circling pinions skim the upward air;
Exulting, gay and playful in thy flight,
Companion of the Summer season fair!

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Yet, while I welcome thee, and wish thee long,
I sigh to think that ere the Autumn fade,
Thou'lt seek, in other climes, a vernal song,
More gentle gales and renovated shade.

Ev'n now I see thee on the light clouds soar,
And melt in distant æther from my view;
As laughing Summer, to the western shore,
Over the seas Biscayan you pursue.

Thy policy to us, ah! dost thou lend?
Flies thus, with gay prosperity—the friend?

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FOREST LAWNS.

Oh, forest lawns!—Oh, lawns of tender green,
That spread in sunshine, crowned with copsy groves,
Or, winding in deep glades, retire among
The shades of ages, my glad steps receive!
Oh! let me, with your fawns, bound o'er these slopes,
Fresh with the dew, that melts apace before
The morning ray, leaving long level lines
Of hoary silver, 'mid the various hues
Of lichen, turf and mead-flower. Let me seek,
With tempered pace and reverential thought,
Your far-seen solitudes and deepest gloom,
And often note the monarch of the woods
In pious wonder. Oh, ye stern-browed oaks,

207

That raise your giant arms on all the scene,
How like your parent Druids ye appear!
Lonely, severe and in your grandeur dark,
Your fearful shades, like superstitious night,
Fall on the awe-struck spirit!—
Steadfast ye stand, and ever silent, save
Unto the potent, unknown winds, that shake
Your grey tops, when a voice of plaint is heard.
The traveller, listening this, at even-tide,
Thinks 'tis the voice of one departed hence,
Prophet of evil, warning him of death!
Then to his fancy lours, with deeper gloom,
The cloud, which sheds a pale and ghastly light
Upon the woods. He pauses oft, and back
Through the long forest-glades marks the last gleam
The sun has left, far in the lonely West;
While shapes uncertain seem to glide athwart
The twilight vista, and approach his path;
The hollow murmur swells upon his ear!
And, shuddering then, he takes his onward way.

How oft, ye Druid oaks!—
Your voice has sounded, in a distant age,

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To him, who hears no more; and now it speaks
In the same tone to him, who then was not—
The passing traveller of the living hour!
Thus, ever and anon, it sounds the knell
Of fleeting, swift mortality!

209

ON THE RONDEAU, “JUST LIKE LOVE IS YONDER ROSE.”

No, ah! no; not just like love,
Is yon gay and conscious rose;
All its flaunting leaves disclose
Sun-shine joy—and fearless prove;
Not like love!

But yonder little violet-flower,
That, folded in its purple veil,
And trembling to the lightest gale,
Weeps beneath that shadowing bower,
Is just like love!

Though filled with dew its closing eyes,
Though bends its slender stem in air,
It breathes perfume and blossoms fair,
It feeds on tears, and lives on sighs,
Just like love!

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And should a sun-beam kiss its leaf,
How bright the dew-drops would appear!
Like beams of hope upon a tear,
Like light of smiles through parting grief!
And just like love!

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DECEMBER'S EVE, ABROAD.

Awful is Winter's setting sun,
When, from beneath a sullen cloud,
He eyes his dreary course now run,
And shrinks within his lurid shroud—

Leaving to Twilight's cold, grey sky
Yon Minster's dark and lonely tower,
That seems to shun the searching eye,
And vanish with the parting hour.

Dim is the long roof's sloping line,
Whose airy pinnacles I trace,
Point over point, and o'er the shrine
And eastern window's gothic grace.

212

While loud the winds, in chorus clear,
Swell, or in sinking murmurs grieve,
The Ministers of Night I hear
In requiem o'er December's Eve.

Wide o'er the plains and distant wolds
I see her pall of darkness flow;
And all around, in mighty folds,
Her winding sheet of new-fallen snow.

Farewell December's dismal night!
Appalled I hear thy shrieking breath;
And view, aghast, by glimmering light,
Thy visage, terrible in death!
Farewell December's dismal night!

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DECEMBER'S EVE, AT HOME.

Welcome December's cheerful night,
When the taper-lights appear;
When the piled hearth blazes bright,
And those we love are circled there!

And, on the soft rug basking lies,
Outstretched at ease, the spotted friend,
With glowing coat and half-shut eyes,
Where watchfulness and slumber blend.

Welcome December's cheerful hour,
When books, with converse sweet combined,
And music's many-gifted power
Exalt, or soothe th' awakened mind.

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Then, let the snow-wind shriek aloud,
And menace oft the guarded sash,
And all his diapason crowd,
As o'er the frame his white wings dash.

He sings of darkness and of storm,
Of icy cold, and lonely ways;
But, gay the room, the hearth more warm,
And brighter is the taper's blaze.

Then, let the merry tale go round,
And airy songs the hours deceive;
And let our heart-felt laughs resound,
In welcome to December's Eve!

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A SEA-VIEW.

A breeze is springing up. Mark yon grey cloud,
That from th' horizon piles it's Alpy steeps
Upon the sky; there the fierce tempest rides.
Our vessel owns the gale, and all her sails
Are full; the broad and slanted deck cuts with i edge
The foaming waves, that roll almost within it,
And often bow their curling tops, as if
In homage. Not so the onward billows;
For while, with steady force, the vexing prow
Flings wide the groaning waters, high rise they,
Darting their dragon-headed vengeance: now
Baffled they burst on either side with rage,
And dash their spray in the hard seaman's face.

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The gale is rising: and the roughening waves
Show darker shades of green, with, here and there,
Far out, white foamy tops, that rise and fall
Incessant. Storm-lights, issuing from the clouds,
Mark distances upon the mighty deep;
There, in one gleam, a white sail scuds along—
Farther, those vessels seem to hang in shade;
And, farther still, on the last edge of ocean,
Where falls a paler, mistier sun-light,
See where some port-town peeps above the tide,
With its long, level ramparts, turret-crowned;
There a broad tower and there a slender spire
Stand high upon the light, while all between,
Of intermingled roofs, embattled gates,
Quays, ancient halls and smoking chimneys,—sunk
Low, and all blended in one common mass,
Are undiscerned so far. There, all is calm;
The waters slumber; the anchored keels repose;
And not a top-mast trembles;—
While here the chafing billows mount the deck
Dash through the sturdy shrouds, and with their foam

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Buffet the braced sail. Toward that port
Our vessel steers, which from the seas and winds
May soon receive us.—
But ah! while yet we gaze, the vision fades!
The high-piled ramparts, overtopped with turrets,
Vanish in shade before the searching eye,
Which nought but waves and sky can trace o'er all
The lone horizon! So on Calabria's shore,
Where the old Reggio spreads its walls
Beside the sea, the fairy's wand, at eve,
Is lifted—and behold! far on the waters,
Another landscape rise! Wood-mantled steeps
And shadowy mountains soar, and turrets from
Some promontory's point hang o'er the vale,
Where sleeps among its palms the hamlet low,
Hid from the bustling, ostentatious world,
Deep in the bosom of this silent scene.

Ah! beauteous work of Fairie! that can paint

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Unreal visions to th' admiring eye,
Charming it with distinct, though faithless forms.
The magic sceptre dropt, behold, they vanish!
A desert world of water's only there!

This phænomenon is noticed in Swinburne's Travels in the Two Sicilies. The people of Reggio attribute it, all natural as it is, to the fairy Morgana, and run with shouts to the shore, to witness her wonders.

And thus th' enchantress on the daily path
Of Youth attends, known only by her power
Unseen, and conjures up Hope, Joy and Bliss,
To dance in the fresh bowers of fadeless spring.
At Reason's touch the airy dream dissolves;
We gaze, and wonder at such wild delusion,
Yet weep its loss, and court its forms again.
Hail, beauteous scenes of Fairie, Fancy's world!
Where Truth, so cold and colourless, comes not,
Or far away in lonely grandeur stands,
Like the great snowy Alps, whose cloudy shapes
And aspect stern (deforming the horizon),
Make the still landscape, spread below, appear
More green, more gay, more cheering to our view.
Hail, beauteous scenes of Fairie, Fancy's world!
And now, as if the spell had worked again,
The stormy shade far distant floats away.

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Again the spired city shines in light,
Peering beyond the waves, here shadowed yet
By the lingering storm. The pier outstretches
Its arm to meet us, and the light-house shows
Its column, and we see the lanthorn high,
Suspended o'er the margin of the tide,
The star of the night-wandering mariner.
Hail, cheering port, first vision of the land,
Vision, but not illusion, hail again!

220

ON HAYLEY'S LIFE OF COWPER.

Oh speak no more of Fiction's painted woes!
Her laboured scenes are colourless and cold;
Her high-wrought sorrows are but dull repose,
Beside the tale that simple Truth has told.

O'er the sad Poet dead shall Pity weep,
Weep tears of anguish, such as mothers shed
O'er the poor infant, when its paling lip
Moves with a last faint smile; when droops the head,

And the imploring eyes look up once more
To her, whose fondness can no aid dispense!
'Tis well there is a Higher World, where soar
The accepted hopes of suffering Innocence!

221

WRITTEN IN THE ISLE OF WIGHT.

Oh! for a cottage on the shady brow
Of this green Island, where the Channel flows
With less tumultuous wave, and sends abroad
The many sails of England to the world,
And beareth to his home the mariner,
Who shouts to view the light blue hills, that dawn
O'er Wight's gay plains; and soon he spies the woods,
That shade its shores, and brighter tints of corn
And pastoral slopes and all their “green delights.”
Advancing gently, 'mid the sleepy tide,
Soon he marks some long-left object clear,
A lofty watch-tower, or some village church,
Or the white parsonage peeping through the trees,
To which, when last beheld, he sighed farewell

222

With throbbing grief.—These now he hails with joy,
As he steers onward to the well-known shore.

Oh! for a cottage on the breezy cliff,
That points the crescent of thy harbour, Cowes!
And bears the raptured glance o'er seas and shores—
A boundless prospect, tinted all around
With summer shades of soft ethereal blue!—
O'er the wide waters rise the far-famed downs
Of Sussex; while thy forests, Hampshire, vast,
Spread their dark line, for many a winding mile,
By the blue waves, till, failing, the sight rests
Where yon dim hill-tops overlook the main.
There Purbeck's summits rise, while broader hills,
Marking their grey lines on the forest shade,
Lead back the eye to where Southampton's vale
Pours forth th' abundant wave, and spreads its lawns,
Its jutting slopes, with villas gaily crowned,
Its sheltered cots, the rough wood's shade, whence peers
The village fane 'mid the high foliage:—

223

Southampton's vale, where lurks the twilight glade,
Whose ancient oaks their branches stretch austere,
And half conceal that Abbey's fretted arch,
As if to guard from eye and hand profane
The mouldering stones, whose pious founder once
Dropped them, green acorns, in this hallowed ground,
To shelter and adorn the sainted walls,
Whose long-forgotten sons mused 'neath their shade,
Blest thoughts of sure Eternity; and now
Leave here all that was mortal of themselves.
Oh! reverence this ground; for it is holy,
Sacred to pious thought; for worldly grace
By the high-gifted poet often praised.
Here winged steps have passed, and brightest thoughts,
Creative as the sun-beam, have up-flown.
Here pensive Gray some sad sweet moments passed,
And breathed a spell that saved these falling walls;
There walks that solemn vision , telling his beads;
Where 'neath the leafy gloom, the Poet's glance

224

Espied him! Still athwart yon vista dark
Shoots the white sail; still in the sun the waves
Glitter, as when Gray's musing abbot viewed them,
Measuring the moments with his pangs. Oh! pause
Awhile, and shed a melancholy tear
To the departed shade of him, who sung
“The paths of glory lead but to the grave:”
Weep o'er the memory of that wondrous Bard,
That master of the song, whose full-toned harp
Called round him loftiest themes of Fantasy,
Whose voice, rolling on the midnight thunder,
Waked sublimest awe; or played in cadence,
While the Graces danced; or, still oftener, mourned
O'er mortal doom and life's brief vanities,
While early youth and all the train of joy
Would leave their sports, listening the strain that bade
Them woo the languishments of Melancholy.

225

Farewell! thou mighty master, who, with high
Disdain of vulgar fame, “knew thine own worth
And reverenced the lyre,” and kept thy still
Footstep far away from the thronged path and
Vanity's dull round. Farewell! thou doff'st
Thy mortal weeds, and the same strain sublime,
That moralized th' unstoried lives and deaths
Of villagers, is oft repeated o'er thy grave,
With faltering voice, by those, who walk thy path
From Eton's shades to Stoke, and view the scene
That filled thy youthful eye and charmed thy mind—
Where, years ago, thy “careless childhood strayed,
A stranger yet to pain.”—

Now let us leave the vale, thus dedicate
To memory, sweet and melancholy,
And trace the landscape o'er yon chalky ridge
To Portsdown, shielding in its concave all
That tract of greyer land, that banks the sea.
On the low point extends the busy port,
Its forts and ramparts rising o'er the main,
And wide o'erlooking all its anchored fleets.

226

Oh! for the magic pencil of Lorraine!
To give the soft perspective, where the waves
Fade to thin air in tints of mildest blue,
And the dark masts and cobweb-shrouds and lines
Of spiry shipping trace themselves in light.

Midway the sails of various vessels swell,
Gliding their silent course; here the swift-winged
Slant cutter skims the sea; and there the skiff,
Low on the mighty waters, shows a speck,
Invisible, but that its tiny sail
Catches the sunbeam, and, wondrous! tells that
Human life dwells in the moving atom
Amidst the waters. While we gaze, each wave
Threatens to whelm it; and the shores appear
Too distant for its small and feeble wing;
Yet on it goes in safety, and displays
Regular purpose, well-considered rules,
And skill, which guides its weakness through the strength
Of waves, o'er pathless distance, to the sheltering port.

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Oh! that the old Spirit of Song
Would sound his harp from this high aery brow,
And bid its sweet tones languish, till the Nymphs,
That dwell beneath its waves, wake at the strain,
And send up answering music, now scarce heard,
Now lost, now heard again with wondering doubt,
Till, rising slow, a clearer chorus swells
In the soft gale, and makes its voice its own:
Then, the full sounds float over woods and rocks;
And then, descending on the wave, retire,
Die with the 'plaining of the distant tide,
And leave a blessed peace o'er all the soul.

Raise such a strain, O Nymphs! whose spell may spread
A sweeter grace on all the eye beholds,
That the fine vision of these seas and shores
May paint their living colours on the mind,
With charm so forceful, as Time cannot fade.
Then Memory with their own truth shall give
The blue shades of the main, under these dark
And waving boughs upon the steep; the mast

228

Now seen, or lost, in the smooth bay, as choose
The dancing leaves; the grey fort on the strand,
Its low, round tower o'ercanopied with elms,
The pacing sentinel, beneath their gloom,
Safe from the noon-day sun. Then would she paint
The slopes, that swell beside thy harbour, Cowes,
With pasture gay and oft with groves embrowned,
That amid veiling leaves, half show the villa,
Gay mimic of a cottage, or the trim crest
Of some proud castle, falsely old. Thy town
Would still be seen to climb the craggy bank;
Thy vale, withdrawing from the sunny bay,
Would wind beneath these green hills' shade, where droops
The sail becalmed, that on Medina's tide
Bears the full freight to Newport. Memory then
Would give these nearer scenes of gentle beauty,
Those spreading waters and the dim-seen coast,
Fading into the sky. Then, gentle Nymphs,
Borne far upon the winds, my song might tell
Of your sweet haunts, perchance in Indian seas—
Of them, who dance before the rising sun,
With songs of joyance breathing spicy gales.

229

Methinks, I hear their far-off notes complain:
“Oh! ne'er yet tripp'd we on the yellow sands,
That Fame says base the cliffs of English land;
Never yet danced we on those heights, that send
Airs from their mantling woods; never yet trod
The ridges of her stormy waves, nor watched
The tender azure melt into the green,
Then deepen to the purple's changing shades,
Beneath the sleepy indolence of noon.
For such delights we'll leave our splendid clime,
Our groves of cassia and our coral bowers,
Our diamond-beaming caves and golden beds,
'Broidered with rubies, with transparent pearl,
And emeralds, that steal the sea-wave's hue,
And shells of rainbow-tint, fairy pavilions:
All but our tortoise cars; they shall bear us
O'er many a curling surge and chasm deep,
Farther than where the blended sea and sky
Hide from our sight the cooler, better oceans.
That way seek we those temperate islands, now
Wearing green Neptune's livery, crowned with oak,
And terraced with bright cliffs; such Oberon,

230

The fairy, told of, to win our music.
'Twas a charmful moon-time, and he perched him
In a purple shell, he called his mantle,
And basked him in the pure light, and then asked
A lullaby to soothe his care, for he
Was sad and weary, and had, all the day,
Toiled on a north-beam; and now Titania,
For whom he sought, had left the spicy steeps
Of India, on a bat's wing, at twilight.
We asked a story of the northern clime
To pay our melody, and I remember
It told of castles moving on the waves,
Of a soft emerald throne upon an isle,
Beyond the falling sun, and other wonders,
That we, all night, could well have listened him,
But that he craved our pity and our song.
On that we breathed a soul into our shells,
And charmed him into slumber!”

“In the bosom of the woods (concealed from profane eyes) lie the ruins of Nettley Abbey; there may be richer and greater houses, but the abbot is content with his situation. See there, at the top of that hanging meadow, under the shade of those old trees that bend into a half circle about it, he is walking slowly, and bidding his beads for the souls of his benefactors, interred in that venerable pile, that lies beneath him.” Letter of Mr. Gray to Mr. Nichols, Nov. 19, 1764.—Mason's Life of Gray, p. 381.

231

SONNET TO THE LARK.

Sweet lark! I hear thy thrilling note on high,
The note of rapture, that thy bosom pours
To Spring's fresh gales, green plains and azure sky,
As o'er the mountains steal Morn's blushing hours.
With silent step they come and meekened grace,
In twilight's veil half-hid from mortal view,
Wafting rich fragrance through the crystal space,
O'er groves and valleys shedding April dew.
Gay bird! now all the woods in silence sleep,
How sweet thy music comes upon the air,
And dies at distance, as, up heaven's blue steep,
Thou, lessening, soar'st to meet Aurora's star!
Oh! bird of hope and joy, thou point'st the way
That I would go—high o'er life's cloudy day!

232

ON READING THE FOLLOWING BEAUTIFUL LINES, WRITTEN BY THE LATE LADY ELIZABETH LEE, SISTER OF EARL HARCOURT,

IN A BOWER CALLED BY HER NAME, AT ST. LEONARD'S HILL, THE SEAT OF THE EARL, IN WINDSOR FOREST; A SEAT WHICH STRANGERS ARE SOMETIMES PERMITTED TO VIEW.

“This peaceful shade—this green-roofed bower,
Great Maker! all are full of Thee;
Thine is the bloom, that decks the flower,
And Thine the fruit, that bends the tree.

As much Creative Goodness charms
In these low shrubs, that humbly creep,
As in the oak, whose giant-arms
Wave o'er the high romantic steep.

The bower, the shade, retired, serene,
The grateful heart may most affect;
Here, God in every leaf is seen,
And man has leisure to reflect!

“And I too was once of Arcadia.”

From this high lawn, beneath the varied green
Of grove and bower, dark oak and blossomed shade,
How brightly spreads the vale! how grand the scene
Of forest woods and towers, that lift the head

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Majestic from the strife of ages past!
And seem to view, with melancholy smile,
The gloom of thought by solemn Pity cast
On the world, fleeting to its rest;—the while

The fleeting world, all various and gay,
Sports in those villas and those hamlets free,
Where stretching tints of ripened harvest play
Among dark woods and meads of Arcady.

There Spires of Peace arise, and straw-roofed farm
By village green, from 'mid it's antient grove
Sends the high curling smoke, renowned charm
Of those, who watch how lights and shadows rove.

Embattled Windsor, throned upon the vale,
Beneath these boughs displays its bannered state;
And learned Eton, o'er its willows pale,
Looks stern and sad, as mourning Henry's fate.

On this high lawn, where Nature's wealth we view,
All is instinct with life and fine delight!

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Trees of all shades, the flowers of every hue,
Shrubs breathing joy and blooming on the sight.

Here bliss may dwell, and never, never die!
Vain thought! in that low bower there seems a voice,
Breathed, soft as summer winds o'er waters sigh,
“I once, like you, could in this scene rejoice.

This was my bower of bliss! Approach and read!”
It sunk, that solemn sound, and died on air.
Within the cell I passed with reverend dread,
And found the angel-spirit still was there.

Still in “that green-roofed bower,” that “peaceful shade,”
Whose changeful prospect seems for ever new,
The pomp of forests stretching till they fade,
And sleep in softness on the distant blue.—

235

Still in that fine repose—that once-loved bower,
Breathe thoughts of heavenly mind, that speak of God!
And tell a heart, which, grateful, owned His power
In every leaf, that paints the humble sod.

Fast fell my tears, as flowed with her's my thought,
The living feeling with the voice of Death!
The glowing joy by Nature's beauty wrought
With proof how transient is even rapture's breath.

Here in this shade she sat! fast fell my tears;
When my sad mind a hushing music won;
Again mild accents seemed to soothe my fears,
And murmur, “Grieve not that her race is run!

The pious heart, the comprehensive mind,
These were of Heaven, and are to Heaven returned!”
It was a seraph's voice upon the wind;
I heard her song of joy; I heard! nor longer mourned.

The delicious fragrance of the mangolia, which flourishes in great abundance before the colonnade, fills the breakfast-room, and scents all the upper part of the lawn. Its bushes are wide and high, its egg-flowers large, and its foliage broad and glossy, like a bay-leaf.

236

TO THE RIVER DOVE.

Oh! stream beloved by those,
With Fancy who repose,
And court her dreams 'mid scenes sublimely wild,
Lulled by the summer-breeze,
Among the drowsy trees
Of thy high steeps, and by thy murmurs mild,

My lonely footsteps guide,
Where thy blue waters glide,
Fringed with the Alpine shrub and willow light;
'Mid rocks and mountains rude,
Here hung with shaggy wood,
And there upreared in points of frantic height.

237

Beneath their awful gloom,
Oh! blue-eyed Nymph, resume
The mystic spell, that wakes the poet's soul!
While all thy caves around
In lonely murmur sound,
And feeble thunders o'er these summits roll.

O shift the wizard scene
To banks of pastoral green
When mellow sun-set lights up all thy vales;
And shows each turf-born flower,
That, sparkling from the shower,
Its recent fragrance on the air exhales.

When Evening's distant hues
Their silent grace diffuse
In sleepy azure o'er the mountain's head;
Or dawn in purple faint,
As nearer cliffs they paint,
Then lead me 'mid thy slopes and woodland shade.

Nor would I wander far,
When Twilight lends her star,

238

And o'er thy scenes her doubtful shades repose;
Nor when the Moon's first light
Steals on each bowery height,
Like the winged music o'er the folded rose.

Then, on thy winding shore,
The fays and elves, once more,
Trip in gay ringlets to the reed's light note;
Some launch the acorn's ring,
Their sail—Papilio's wing,
Thus shipped, in chace of moon-beams, gay they float.

But, at the midnight hour,
I woo thy thrilling power,
While silent moves the glow-worm's light along,
And o'er the dim hill-tops
The gloomy red moon drops,
And in the grave of darkness leaves thee long.

Even then thy waves I hear,
And own a nameless fear,
As, 'mid the stillness, the night winds do swell,

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Or (faint from distance) hark
To the lone watch-dog's bark!
Answering a melancholy far sheep bell.

O! Nymph fain would I trace
Thy sweet awakening grace,
When summer dawn first breaks upon thy stream;
And see thee braid thy hair;
And keep thee ever there,
Like thought recovered from an antique dream!

240

THE SEA-MEW.

Forth from her cliffs sublime the sea-mew goes
To meet the storm, rejoicing! To the woods
She gives herself; and, borne above the peaks
Of highest head-lands, wheels among the clouds,
And hears Death's voice in thunder roll around,
While the waves far below, driven on the shore,
Foaming with pride and rage, make hollow moan.
Now, tossed along the gale from cloud to cloud,
She turns her silver wings touched by the beam,
That through a night of vapours darts its long,
Level line; and, vanishing 'mid the gloom,
Enters the secret region of the storm;
But soon again appearing, forth she moves
Out from the mount'nous shapes of other clouds,

241

And, sweeping down them, hastens to new joys.
It was the wailing of the deep she heard!
No fears repel her: when the tumult swells,
Ev'n as the spirit-stirring trumpet glads
The neighing war-horse, is the sound to her.
O'er the waves hovering, while they lash the rocks,
And lift, as though to reach her, their chafed tops,
Dashing the salt foam o'er her downy wings,
Higher she mounts, and from her feathers shakes
The shower, triumphant. As they sink, she sinks,
And with her long plumes sweeps them in their fall,
As if in mockery; then, as they retreat,
She dances o'er them, and with her shrill note
Dares them, as in scorn.

It is not thus she meets their summer smiles;
Then, skimming low along the level tide,
She dips the last point of her crescent wings,
At measured intervals, with playful grace,
And rises, as retreating to her home.
High on yon 'pending rock, but poised awhile
In air, as though enamoured of the scene,

242

She drops, at once, and settles on the sea.
On the green waves, transparent then she rides,
And breathes their freshness, trims her plumage white,
And, listening to the murmur of the surge,
Doth let them bear her wheresoe'er they will.

Oh! bird beloved of him, who, absent long
From his dear native land, espies thee ere
The mountain tops o'er the far waters rise,
And hails thee as the harbinger of home!
Thou bear'st to him a welcome on thy wings.
His white sail o'er th' horizon thou hast seen
And hailed it, with thy oft-repeated cry,
Announcing England. “England is near!” he cries,
And every seaman's heart an echo beats,
And “England—England!” sounds along the deck,
Mounts to the shrouds, and finds an answering voice,
Ev'n at the top-mast head, where, posted long,
The “look out” sailor clings, and with keen eye,
By long experience finely judging made,

243

Reads the dim characters of air-veiled shores.
O happy bird! whom Nature's changing scenes
Can ever please; who mount'st upon the wind
Of Winter and amid the grandeur soar'st
Of tempests, or sinkest to the peaceful deep,
And float'st with sunshine on the summer calm!
O happy bird! lend me thy pinions now.
Thy joys are mine, and I, like thee, would skim
Along the pleasant curve of the salt bays,
Where the blue seas do now serenely sleep;
Or, when they waken to the Evening breeze,
And every crisping wave reflects her tints
Of rose and amber,—like thee, too, would I
Over the mouths of the sea-rivers float,
Or watch, majestic, on the tranquil tide,
The proud ships follow one another down,
And spread themselves upon the mighty main,
Freighted for shores that shall not dawn on sight,
Till a new sky uplift its burning arch,
And half the globe be traversed. Then to him,
The home-bound seaman, should my joyous flight
Once more the rounding river point,—to him

244

Who comes, perchance, from coasts of darkness, where
Grim Ruin, from his throne of hideous rocks,
O'ercanopied with pine, or giant larch,
Scowls on the mariner, and Terror wild
Looks through the parting gloom with ghastly eye,
Listens to woods, that groan beneath the storm,
And starts to see the river-cedar fall.

How sweet to him, who from such strands returns,
How sweet to glide along his homeward stream
By well-known meads and woods and village cots,
That lie in peace around the ivied spire
And ancient parsonage, where the small, fresh stream
Gives a safe haven to the humbler barks
At anchor, just as last he viewed the scene.
And soft as then upon the surface lies
The sunshine, and as sweet the landscape
Smiles, as on that day he sadly bade farewell
To those he loved. Just so it smiles, and yet
How many other days and months have fled,

245

What shores remote his steps have wandered o'er,
What scenes of various life unfolded strange,
Since that dim yesterday! The present scene
Unchanged, though fresh, appears the only truth,
And all the interval a dream! May those
He loves still live, as lives the landscape now;
And may to-morrow's sun light the thin clouds
Of doubt with rainbow-hues of hope and joy!

Bird! I would hover with thee o'er the deck,
Till a new tide with thronging ships should tremble;
Then, frightened at their strife, with thee I'd fly
To the free waters and the boundless skies,
And drink the light of heaven and living airs;
Then with thee haunt the seas and sounding shores,
And dwell upon the mountain's beaked top,
Where nought should come but thou and the wild winds.
There would I listen, sheltered in our cell,
The tempest's voice, while midnight wraps the world.
But, if a moon-beam pierced the clouds, and shed
Its sudden gleam upon the foaming waves,

246

Touching with pale light each sharp line of cliff,
Whose head towered darkly, which no eye could trace,—
Then downward I would wheel amid the storm,
And watch, with untired gaze, the embattled surges
Pouring in deep array, line after line,
And hear their measured war-note sound along
The groaning coast, whereat the winds above
Answer the summons, and each secret cave,
Untrod by footsteps, and each precipice,
That oft had on the unconscious fisher frowned,
And every hollow bay and utmost cape
Sighs forth a fear for the poor mariner.
He, meanwhile, hears the sound o'er waters wide;
Lashed to the mast, he hears, and thinks of home.

O bird! lend me thy wings,
That swifter than the blast I may out-fly
Danger, and from yon port the life-boat call.
And see! e'en now the guardian bark rides o'er
The mountain-billows, and descends through chasms
Where lurks Destruction eager for his prey,
With eyes of flashing fire and foamy jaws.

247

He, by strange storm-lights shown, uplifts his head,
And, from the summit of each rising wave,
Darts a grim glance upon the daring crew,
And sinks the way their little boat must go!
But she, with blessings armed, best shield! as if
Immortal, surmounts the abyss, and rides
The watery ridge upon her pliant oars,
Which conquer the wild, raging element
And that dark demon, with angelic power.
Wave after wave, he sullenly retreats,
With oft repeated menace, and beholds
The poor fisherman, with all his fellows,
Borne from his grasp in triumph to the shore—
There Hope stands watchful, and her call is heard
Wafted on wishes of the crowd. Hark! hark!
Is that her voice rejoicing? 'Tis her song
Swells high upon the gale, and 'tis her smile,
That gladdens the thick darkness. They are saved.

Bird of the winds and waves and lonely shores,
Of loftiest promontories—and clouds,

248

And tempests—Bird of the sun-beam, that seeks
Thee through the storm, and glitters on thy wings!
Bird of the sun-beam and the azure calm,
Of the green cliff, hung with gay summer plants,
Who lov'st to sit in stillness on the bough,
That leans far o'er the sea, and hearest there
The chasing surges and the hushing sounds,
That float around thee, when tall shadows tremble,
And the rock-weeds stream lightly on the breeze.
O bird of joy! what wanderer of air
Can vie with thee in grandeur of delights,
Whose home is on the precipice, whose sport
Is on the waves? O happy, happy bird!
Lend me thy wings, and let thy joys be mine!

249

TO THE WINDS.

Spirit! who dwellest in the secret clouds,
Unseen, unknown, yet heard o'er all the world!
Who reign'st in storms and darkness half the year,
Yet sometimes lov'st, in Summer's season bright,
To breathe soft music through her azure dome:
Oft heard art thou amongst the high tree-tops,
In mournful and so sweet a melody,
As though some Angel, touched with human grief,
Soothed the sad mind. Oh, viewless, viewless wind!
I love thy potent voice, whether in storms
It gives to thunder clouds their impulse dread,
Swells the Spring airs, or sighs in Autumn's groves,

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Mourning the dying leaf. Whate'er the note,
Thy power entrances, wins me from low cares,
And bears me towards God, who bids you breathe,
And bids the morning of a higher world
Dawn on my hopes.

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MOONLIGHT.

A SCENE.

On the bright margin of Italia's shore,
Beneath the glance of summer-noon we stray,
And, indolently happy, ask no more
Than cooling airs, that o'er the ocean play;

And watch the bark, that, on the busy strand,
Washed by the sparkling tide, awaits the gale,
Till, high among the shrouds, the sailor-band
Gallantly shout, and raise the swelling sail.

On the broad deck a various group recline,
Touched with the moonlight, yet half-hid in shade,
Who, silent, watch the bark the coast resign,
The Pharos lessen, and the mountains fade.

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We, indolently happy, ask alone
The wandering airs, which o'er the ocean stray,
To bring some sad Venetian sonnet's tone,
From that lone vessel floating far away!

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SMILES.

I was a smile—a fleeting smile,
Like a faint gleam through Autumn's shade,
That softly, sweetly, did beguile,
As it around her dimples played.

What are smiles, and whence their sway?
Smiles that, o'er the features stealing,
To the gazer's heart convey
All the varied world of feeling,
What are smiles?

Do they dwell in Beauty's eye?
No! nor on her playing cheek,
Nor on her wavy lip—though nigh
Seems the glancing charm they seek.
Where do they dwell?

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Where?—Their home is in the mind;
Smiles are light—the light of soul!
Light of many tints combined,
And of strong and sure control.
Smiles are light.

There's a smile—the smile of Joy,
Bright as glance of May's fresh morn;
And one, that gleams but to destroy,—
'Tis the lightning smile of Scorn.

There is a smile of glow-worm hue,
That glimmers not near scenes of Folly,
Pale and strange and transient too,—
The smile of awful Melancholy.

Like to the sad and silvery showers,
Falling in an April sun,
Is the smile, that Pity pours
O'er the deed, that Fate has done.

Dear is Friendship's meeting look,
As moonlight on a sleeping vale,

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Soothing those the sun forsook—
So does that o'er Care prevail.

But who the first pure tint has seen,
That trembles on the edge of Morning,
When summer's veil is so serene,
Hiding half and half adorning?

They, who this have seen, may know,
What the smile that's here intended;
They, who do to Laura go,
See that smile with beauty blended.

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THE REED OF POESY.

Oh! sweet reed, come hither!
Never from thee will I part;
For oft, like sun-shine weather,
Thy music has cheered my heart:
Oh! sweet reed, come hither.

Many a forest-green mountain
In leafless November I've seen;
Many a daisy-rimmed fountain
In frozen December has been;

Many an April bower,
And many a valley of May
Bright with sunbeam and flower,
I've seen on a Winter's day.

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Oft, in the depth of December,
When the night-blast shrieked aloud,
And sadly bade me remember,
That Death was abroad in his shroud;

Thy welcomest note light sounding
Has flattered my fears to rest;
My lone, lone hearth surrounding
With many a fairy guest.

And many a scene of wonder,
Rising from forth the dark night,
In veil thrown but half asunder,
Has thrilled me with dread delight.

How oft, in some measureless chamber,
I have seen the traveller wait,
Through the dull night of December,
All fearful of some sad fate.

And I've heard that voice so hollow
Break once on his startled ear;

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And seen him how sadly follow,
And dimly disappear.

And, when the grey doubtful morning
Has gleamed pale over the waste,
I've viewed him all safe returning,
And smiling at danger past.

So come, sweet reed, come hither!
I never from thee will part;
For oft, like sunshine weather,
Thy music has cheered my heart.
Oh! sweet reed, come hither!

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EDWY.

A POEM, IN THREE PARTS.

I. PART I. THE HAZEL TREE.

A SUMMER SONG OF FAIRIE.

Lightly green with springing buds,
The hazel twines her fairy bowers,
In yon dell o'erhung with woods,
Where the brook its music pours.

O'er the margin of the stream
Peeps the yellow marygold,
And lilies, where the waters gleam,
Bend their heads so fair and cold.

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Know ye why the Elfin-band
Watch beneath the hazel-bough?
'Tis to guard its Magic Wand
And its blossoms, as they blow.

These, gathered at the mid-day hour,
To mortal eyes their haunts betray;
That has the strange enchanting power
To call up a prophetic Fay.

Be she down among the rills,
In some wild-wood dingle hid;
Or dancing on the moonlight hills—
She must speed, as she is bid.

Or sleep she on the mossy bed,
Under the blossom-breathing lime,
That sheds sweet freshness over head—
The freshness of the morning prime;

Or stray she with old Thames serene
Through osier-tufts and lofty groves,

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By royal towers, or cottaged green,
Still must she leave what best she loves—

Leave the thatched cot, where finest spreads
The turf, 'mid every choicest flower,
And the far-branching chestnut sheds
Over the wave its greenest shower.

Where, silver-streak'd, that polished wave
Glides by with lingering, sweet farewell,
While stately swans their proud necks lave,
And seem to feel some fairy spell.

Then marvel not that Elfins fair
Guard the thin wand and hazel bloom;
Since these can all their haunts lay bare,
By hidden stream, or forest gloom.

—Near Windsor's shades there dwelt a youth,
Who fast was bound in Cupid's chain;

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But how to try his lady's truth
By mortal means he sought in vain.

He to a chamber dim withdrew,
Where serpent's skin and head of toad
Hinted of themes he must pursue,
Ere secret would to him be showed.

It was a chamber magical,
Where light in partial gleams appeared,
And showed strange shapes upon the wall,
By his own mystic learning reared.

Thence to the hazel-copse he went,
When the sun was flaming high;
And there the twining branches rent;
For then no Fay was watching nigh.

Fast asleep in closed flowers,
And all unheard, and all unseen,
Who, that walked these noontide bowers,
Could guess that any Elves had been?—

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Next, to the forest-hills he hied,
To pull the wild thyme's budding bloom,
Fresh from some haunted dingle's side;
For, it must blow where Fairies come.

Just such a dingle still is seen,
Hanging upon the Park's high brow,
Deep buried in the shadowy green,
Where tall o'erarching beeches grow.

Here oft the Fairies revel keep,
To bless the Castle's moonlight hours,
And peep, as winds these branches sweep,
At Windsor diadem'd with towers.

Grass, that crowns a Fairie's throne,
Marygolds—her canopy,
Lilies, for her cradle known,
These he gathered, three and three.

Well prepared with hazel-leaves,
Thus the wondrous charm distill,

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Which, laid on an eye, that grieves,
Shows each sprite of grove, or rill.

“Three hazel-wands peel smooth and white,
Just a twelvemonth old—no more:
Thrice on each wand the full name write
Of the Fay you would implore.

“Then in earth these wands consign;
In earth, that elfin footsteps tread,
Extract them with well-muttered line,
Unheard of man—by man unread.

“Next, to the North your visage turn,
Invoke her name, with thrice told three,
Be she by forest, mead, or bourne,
Her on your magic glass you'll see.”

With shaking hand he peeled the wand;
Then would he trace her name, I wot;
Edwy the Love-Fay would command;
But Edwy had her name forgot.

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Full of great flaws to aught but love
Is the memory of a lover;
Now he must watch where Fairies rove,
Or this name he'll ne'er recover.

Back o'er the sunny hills he goes
To his green home in Windsor shades,
To draw the charm, that shall expose
The Elfin-Court, when day-light fades.

Down by good Clewer's winding mead,
And where the silver currents glide,
A plume of elms lifts high it's head,
And casts it's shadow on the tide.

All dark and still the feathery grove
Sleeps in the streamy light below;
The streamy light with placid love
And hushing murmur seems to flow.

There Elves, 'twas said, in ringlets went,
When chimes sang midnight to the land,

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If then, on Windsor's battlement,
Tip-toe the full-orbed Moon should stand.

Duly distilled the flowery charm,
Thither Edway must repair,
And, that no check the spell might harm,
Ere the sun-set he was there.

The golden tints of Evening lie
Upon the smoothly-flowing stream,
Tint the old walls and turrets high,
And lower on the wood-tops gleam.

And, slanting o'er the willowed vale,
The blessed Henry's fane enshrined,
It's fretted windows, turrets pale,
And pinnacles far ranged behind.

And now the soothing hour is come,
The star-light hour, when all is still,
Save the far-distant village hum,
And the lone watch-bark from the hill;

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And wheels which, far-off travelling,
Pass unseen in bowery lane,
Like to the sea-tide murmuring,
Now loud and lost, then loud again.

He laid the charm upon his eyes,
And looked with desperate courage round;
Alas! no tripping phantoms rise
On the shadowy, Fairie ground.

Patience is a lover's duty!
Here, counting every distant chime,
He exalts his lady's beauty,
In quaint, or pity-moving rhime.

Till, in the East, a shadowy light,
Rising behind the Castle-walls,
Gives the dim turrets to his sight,
And in mute watch his spirit thralls.

As slow the unseen Moon ascends,
More darkly drawn the towers appear,

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Till every doubtful mass expands,
And lives upon the radiant air;

Then, peers she o'er the broad Keep's height,
A spreading curve of light serene;
And, faithful to her loved Midnight,
There, reigns it's pale and pensive Queen.

And touches, with her silver ray,
Terrace and woody steep below
The river's willow-sheltered bay,
And waters quivering as they flow.

Where'er th' Enchantress points her wand,
Forth from the deep of darkness crowd
Pale glimmering shapes, and silent stand
As waked from Death's unfolding shroud.

The landscape lived, clear spread the lawn
The groves their shadowy tops unfurled,
And airy hills in prospect dawn,
Like vision of another world.

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The chimes sang midnight; Edwy shook,
While by the grove of elm he stood,
And cast a sly and wistful look
Around the turf and o'er the flood.

That wrinkled flood, all silver bright,
No sail of Fairie pinnace showed,
Nor, 'neath the still elm's bowery night,
A glimpse of elfin-pageant glowed.

St. George's chimes, with falter sweet,
Like infants, tried their task to say;
But, waked from midnight's slumber meet,
Th' imperfect accents died away.

And soft they sunk to sleep again,
Ere the slow song was duly closed,
As seeming feebly to complain
Of broken rest, e'en while they dozed.

But Fairies met not Edwy's eye;
For, here, alas! no more they rove;

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Some urchins of the College nigh
Had surely scared them from the grove;

Such as the forest-keepers here
Have followed, helter-skelter, round
Hills, woods and dales, for tracking deer;
Till fond Thames bore the wights to ground;

To Eton ground, where, safe from law,
And praising oft the helping tide,
They peeped, well hid in grass, and saw
The foresters on t'other side!

Such as the May-pole oft has watched
Doff gown and mount the coach on high;
Such as the tavern-dinner snatched,
The bottle drank and ate the pie,

In fifteen minutes and away!
And, if an oxen-herd they met,

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Sprung on their horns, in laughing play,
Then gravely joined the school-room set.

Oh! those were happy times, I ween,
The light of Morning o'er the sky—
That touches all the varied scene
With life-full gleams of hope and joy.

The angered fairies, in revenge,
Still, the tale goes, “their tyrants flout;”
Plunge them in scrapes and mischief strange,
Then leave them to a flogging-bout!

But oft good Robin proves their friend,
And lays his bandage on the eyes
Of the grave Heads, who mildly blend
Remembrance with severe surmise.

And now, in more removed ground,
Up in the high Park's ancient shade,
On the grey forest's lonely bound,
These fairies dance in secret glade;

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Where oaks Plantagenet still frown,
Great Edward's tree e'en each appears,
A warlike ruin, gaunt and lone,
The spectre of five hundred years.

Nursed by long centuries gone by,
Reared in the storms, that wrecked their kings,
Oh! could they give the Past a sigh,
And speak the tale of vanished things,

The peopled scenes they have beheld,
In long succession, varied guise,
More wonders here had stood revealed,
Than aught, that Fairie dream supplies.

Thus Edwy, with a face of rue,
Returned home for future feat;
Thus he, who does adventure woo,
Must sometimes disappointment meet.

The Princess Elizabeth's late cottage at Old Windsor.

A Maypole formerly stood on the Green, before the gates of the Long Walk at Windsor, where pranks of this sort have often been played.

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II. PART II. THE FAIRIE COURT.

A SUMMER'S NIGHT IN WINDSOR PARK.

Edwy, in his lonely chamber,
Plying still his magic lore,
Watched, when all was hushed in slumber,
The dead planetary hour.

Two crystal planes, three inches square,
Steeped in the blood of milk-white fowl,
With careful skill he did prepare,
'Gainst next should hoot the midnight owl.

One would reveal the summoned Fay,
Who, by her-divining art
Should on the second plane display
Scenes to grieve, or cheer, his heart.

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Thus endowed to conjure fairie,
He would fain have conjured sleep,
But the god of lovers, wary,
Hovers not o'er eyes that weep.

Sad and restless all the morning,
Sad and restless all the noon,
Counting every chime of warning
Through the longest day of June:

Thus he lingered, thus he wandered,
Round about his lady's hall,
Till his hopes were nearly foundered—
Till a rival spoke his fall.

In an oriel he saw her,
Chatting, smiling, blooming gay;
Doating, maddening, he bewailed her,
Doubting his first doubts this day.

Breathing lilacs after showers,
Bending with the silver drops,

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Greenest leaves and purple flowers,
Waving where the goldfinch hops,

And scattering round the scented dew,
And sparkling on the sunny air,
Not half so fresh as Aura glow,
Not half so graceful—half so fair.

Too soon she vanished from his eyes,
And Evening summoned him afar,
Then to the high-browed Park he hies;
There, must he meet the twilight-star.

With magic mirrors, hazel wand,
Eyelids touched with clearing spell,
He sought the Court of fairie land,
Hidden in their distant dell.

Through the shaded walks so wide,
That climb about the southern hill,
Edwy passed with rapid stride.
Nor saw one Elf—though all was still.

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With toil he gained the airy brow,
And, panting, paused to breathe awhile,
And throw a lingering look below
O'er the still landscape's parting smile.

Crowning the long vista's shade,
O'ertopped with turrets, terraced high,
Windsor all its pomp displayed,
Beneath the glowing western sky.

Beyond, the low, blue hills repose,
Along the far horizon's bound.
How soft the hues the forest throws,
Its leafy darkness shedding round!

Those hills their stretching woods display
In faint shade, through the azure veil,
While, sweetly bright, the setting ray
Bids many a spire once more—farewell.

And farewell to the banner proud,
That o'er the broad Keep floats on air,

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Proclaiming, as with trumpet loud,
It's royal lord reposes there.

Pale and more pale the scene retires,
And Windsor's state has vanished now,
Save one dim tower, that boldly spires
To meet the star on twilight's brow.

There stood he tranced, till, in the air,
Warbled music passed along;
So softly sweet, so finely clear!
This was sure a Fairie song.

For, now no woodlark waked to sing;
Every little eye was closed;
On slender foot, with drooping wing,
In it's home each bird reposed.

Save one, and, where he winged his way,
Pleased, Edwy heard his strain advance,
On his smooth neck a Fairie lay,
Or rather did a Fairie dance.

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A veil of gossamer she wore,
All spangled round with primrose dew;
A star-beam for a wand she bore,
Which she from Venus slyly drew.

This little bird on circling pinions
Wantoned over Edwy's head,
Then to its shady, loved dominions,
With its Fairie Lady sped.

The while his Fairie Lady trills
“To the beech-woods follow me,
Up the lawns and o'er the hills,
To the high woods follow me.”

In tiny echoes “Follow me”
All the hills and glades prolong;
From every bush and hollow tree
Seemed to rise the choral song.

And Edwy, round each hollow tree,
Spied the motley Elves at play;

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While, thick as emmets, “Follow me,”
They sang again, and passed away.

O'er greenest lawns, through proudest groves,
He pursued his feathered guide,
O'er scenes, that silent Moonlight loves,
To the long lake's mossy side.

The little bird flew o'er the lake;
Edwy round the turf-banks went,
Close where the silver currents break,
And lower oaks their branches bent.

The stream is there with rocks inlaid;
He tripped o'er these, and reached the road,
That, broad and turfy 'neath the shade,
Leads to the pleasantest abode.

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Green above green, of every hue,
The bordering trees in vista bend,
Shrubs lay their low leaves on the dew,
And pine and larch on light ascend.

Galleries of verdure! all is green,
Here lawn and bending boughs below;
Above 'tis stately shade; the scene
Seems made for glancing, Fairie show.

But, closer bowered, their noonday haunt
Rests in a hollow, beechen dell;
It's marge no human hand could plant,
It's shadows seem to breathe a spell.

Now, would you view the Fairies' scene,
Where twilight-dances print the lawn,
Where it spreads out in softest green,
To gaps, whence distant landscapes dawn,

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Hie to the western forest-gate;
There Claudian beauty melts around;
There Elfin-turrets keep their state,
And tell, at once, 'tis Fairie ground.

Or, at that later Evening-hour;
When the turf gladdens with the dew,
That almost darkens Windsor's tower,
And gives near hills a distant blue.

And oh! if Silence could be seen,
Thus would she look, so meek, so pale,
The image of this very scene,
When Evening glances on the vale.

Now Edwy reached the wood-walks wild,
That open from the watery glade,

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Where sweet vale-lilies, violets mild,
And primrose tufts the grass inlaid.

Climbing the spiky blades and stems,
Gathering dews, were Elves a million,
Diamond drops and crystal gems,
To fringe their Fairie Queen's pavilion.

And see what flaming lights appear!
Flashed through the foliage arching high;
What silver horn winds, sweet and clear,
As breathing from the lips of Joy!

Sudden the elves, on flower and blade,
Forsake their task, and, with a bound,
Touch the green turf, and down the glade
Take hands and trip a welcome round.

But Edwy hears no more the strain
Of his fleeting, tiny lady,
And watches for her bird, in vain,
To lead him through the alleys shady.

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By him an elfin-courier speeds
On grasshopper his forest-ways;
Brushing the humble cowslip heads,
While each its trembling homage pays.

And next, a winged beetle came,
Sounding deep his herald-horn,
The fairy sovereign to proclaim,
And evil sprites away to warn.

There, whisked an Indian lanthorn-fly
Quick flashing forth it's emerald sheen;
Dancing low and dancing high,
In many a ring of fiery green.

Then came a creeping, stilly breeze,
That made the crisped waters live,
That shivered all the sleeping trees,
And bade the leaves their essence give.

But see, the birds on every bough
Awake and stretch their ruffled wings;

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And o'er the dewy turf below
His starry glance the glow-worm flings;

And the whole woodbank's flowery couch
Is sprinkled now with glimmering bands,
Waiting their tiny Queen's approach,
Her guards and lights to Fairie lands.

Again, that horn of Joy breathes fine,
Again, the moonlight-light waters shake;
Where'er the foaming tips combine,
Rises a fairy of the lake.

Half veiled within the sparkling strife,
His inexperienced eyes scarce see
The pale forms changing into life,
Till all is glowing pageantry.

True to their sovereign's summons they,
Upon the lake's enchanted shore,
Await her presence proud and gay,
Where rides the fleet to waft her o'er.

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And now a spicy, rare perfume,
Such as breathes from Indian dells,
Fills all the high-wood's leafy dome,
And the fine Fairie presence tells.

And faint aërial strains are heard,
As through the rich, festooning ways,
The Queen in moonlit-pomp appeared,
Amongst ten thousand dancing Fays.

By gold and purple butterflies
Her rose-leaved car was drawn in air;
Above, two birds of Paradise
Arch o'er her head their plumage rare.

While, far around her, dancing beams,
That with bright rainbow colours glow,
Strike on the gloom in transient gleams,
And all her elfin-escort show.

All in the busy air around
Pert eyes and little wings are seen,

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And voices whisper, feathers sound,
Attendant on their elfin-queen.

A robe of silvery snow she wore,
Frosted with magic art so true,
That the hot breath of Midsummer
Could never change it into dew.

And, wafted by her happy bird,
A courtier-fairy oft proclaims,
“Now let the mirthful song be heard;
Our lady queen a welcome claims.”

The little bird too 'gan to sing,
And then the fairy tried her voice;
As gaily as the airs of Spring
Did that poor little bird rejoice.

The measure changed, a languid call,
Sweet with sorrow, thrice it sounded,
Concluding in a dying fall,
Softer than e'er fountain rounded.

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“O Nightingale! it was thy song
Sent through the woods that dying close;
I know thee now; the note prolong;
Oh! speak again those tender woes!”

Under the boughs, the elfin-train
Mutely listened to the measure;
But, when he trilled his joy again,
They beat the ground in antic pleasure.

“O bird of feeling, various, sweet!
Thee and thy guardian-friend I hail;
I know Thee now, and gladly greet
The Love-Fay and her nightingale.

All fly before the elfin-queen,
Toward the lake's high-crowned head,
Near where the forest-oaks begin
A reverential gloom to spread.

With thousand sparks the woodbank swarms:
Her glow-worm knights, in long array,

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Marshalled by Fire-fly—King at Arms,
Guard her and light her on her way.

Where'er they move, the drowsy flowers
Unclose their leafy curtains far;
And Fays, asleep within their bowers,
Leap forth, and dance before her car;

Dance to that crystal lake's green side,
That winds through fir-crowned lawns and woods,
Whose beeches old, in giant pride,
Fling their broad shadows on the floods.

And oft they wantoned with the surge,
That, flowing near the Fairie court,
It's silver line on line did urge,
As if to tempt and share their sport;

As if to woo the elfin-queen,
To float upon its moonlight breast;
Pleased to unfold each margent scene,
And bear her to her bower of rest.

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The smile, that played upon it's face,
She seemed by magic lore to read;
And, with a kind and sportive grace,
She bade her tiny sailors speed.

A fleet of pleasure-boats lay there,
Such vessels as befit a sprite;
The water-lilies schooners were,
Leaf after leaf out-spreading white.

There skiffs, fresh gathered from the lime:
There acorn-barges broad and deep;
So safe, that, e'en in tempest-time,
An Elf upon his oars might sleep,

And in his Heart of Oak could go,
His tiny Dreadnought, singing gay,
Spite of the winds and rocks below,
Round every fairy cliff and bay.

Sweet wherries of long lavender,
Blossoms of every shape and stain,

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From blue-bell yachts to bird-pepper,
Attended for the courtier-train.

But their bright Queen more proudly sailed
In a pearl-shell ship of the line:
By water mouse-ear was she veiled,
And she was fanned with eglantine.

Her canopy, bedropped with gold,
Had floated on the Indian tide;
A lotos-leaf, with ample fold,
Swelled for her sail, in snowy pride.

The cordage was of silver thread
Spun of fine bark of ashen tree;
The mast of sandal wood; the head
A living dolphin seemed to be.

Her green knights watched upon the shrouds,
Or ranged them far along the prow;
Stood round their Queen, in radiant crowds,
Or gleamed far on the wave below.

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And others, ranked as on a cone,
Stage above stage, of towery height,
Moved on the lake around her throne,
Proud, floating pyramids of light.

Above them all, then might you spy,
In busy care, high o'er the mast,
Their king-at-arms, Sir Lanthorn-fly,
Ordering the pageant, as it past;

And, glancing down the moonlight air,
He checked the lily-schooner's way;
And, whisking here and whisking there,
Recalled each blossom-sail astray.

Then, self-triumphant, in the van,
In airy circles pleased he danced;
Yet, while he led the revel on,
Back, for his Queen's applauses glanced.

And thus in gliding state she went
O'er the long windings of the wave,

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Where many a watchful eye was bent,
From hollow oak and secret cave.

The screech-owl and the snake were there,
The boding raven, cruel kite,
That fill the timid heart with care,
And love to prowl in moonless night.

But chief on the old Forest's bound,
Where the still waters sink away,
Such evil agents walk their round,
Or lurk within the oaks so grey.

Bewildered in the wild-wood glades,
Edwy oft lost the long lake's side;
Till, through some deep grove's opening shades,
He saw the splendid vision glide.

Low glanced the silver oars along,
Quick came the spires of glow-worm light,
That round their Queen's tall galley throng,
Shooting long beams aslant the night;

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These, trembling through the branches' dome,
Touching each leaf with transient joy,
Now seen, now lost, from gloom to gloom,
Showed like the stars, when clouds fleet by.

Then, over banks and under woods,
Edwy pursued the pageant's way;
Till, having reached the smiling floods,
The frolick shores his hopes betray.

For, winding back, his course they mar,
Leaving him on some jutting steep,
'Mid the lone waters, while afar
The inmost bay the Fairies sweep.

And thus through wilds and woods he toiled,
Lured by short glimpse of that bright train,
Which through the distant shadows smiled,
As if in mockery of his pain.

Till, once again, he heard remote
That gentle bird, faithful to lovers;

294

And, following the high-warbled note,
Again the Fairie fleet discovers:

Just as it touched the farther shore,
To land the Queen those groves among;
When still was every little oar,
And every white sail breathless hung.

No sound was heard but Music's voice,
Roused by the motley elfin-band,
Who play in moonshine, and rejoice
In choral welcomes o'er the strand.

The groves, that hovered o'er the brink,
The polished lake more dark returns;
And each bright star, in emerald twink,
Beneath the wave more keenly burns.

And there, the rival of their beams,
Reflected by the glass below,
A shooting-star Sir Fire-fly seems,
While marshalling the Fairie show.

295

Each shroud and sail of Fairie bark,
Each glittering oar and image fair,
Within that mirror, blue and dark,
Lay, like a picture, pencilled fair.

But when Sir Fire-fly's knights moved on,
And their green torches mutely raised,
Then all the Fairie's splendour shone,
And shores and woods and waters blazed.

Thus, ranged in vista-lines of light,
Moving beneath the leafy gloom,
Where forest-oaks spread deepest night,
They guard her to her sylvan home.

Under an ancient beech, that high
Out-hung it's spray, her dreams of night
Were veiled from every curious eye,
Save when with magic virtue bright.

It's mighty boughs a circle filled;
Like necromantic guard it stood;

296

It's air severe the wanderer chilled,
It's frown and haughty attitude.

Soon as that beechen shade she reached,
Rustled its every leaf for joy;
Then gracefully her wand she stretched,
And lighted all its leaves on high.

Yet flame of torch, or lamp, was none,
Nor any glittering sparkle there;
It seemed as if the setting sun
Tinged the rich spray with rosy air.

Her bower through many chambers ranged,
And each a different purpose showed;
This, oft with mystic shadows changed;
That, for the dance, or banquet, glowed.

Beyond them all, her cell of rest
In verdant shade and silence lay;
Save, when the ring-dove in her nest
Sung all her gentle cares away:

297

And sleepy leaves, scarce moved in air,
Or only swayed by breezes fleet,
With the lake's murmuring falls afar,
Made melody most sad and sweet.

Lime-blossoms strewed the mossy floor,
And breathed a dewy fragrance round,
Inviting her to slumbers pure,
While freshness seemed to bless the ground.

Yet here, sometimes, this Queen of dreams
Would weave such seeming forms of fate,
As, sent upon the still moonbeams,
Oft by the midnight sleeper wait.

Hid in her cool bower might she view
The noontide lake and sunny lawns;
The slow sail on the waters blue,
And, through the brakes, the fleeting fawns;

And watch them on the watery brim,
Bending to sip the dainty wave,

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Then starting at the form so slim,
The shadowed crystal truly gave.

Unseen, she traced each step that roved
Rejoicing on that margent green;
Or sought the hills and groves beloved,
That crown with pleasant shade the scene.

Edwy had joined the Fairie's train,
Just as she reached her leafy dome,
While full arose the choral strain
Of welcome to her beechen home.

Her glow-worm knights, wide round the beech,
In glimmering circles take their stand;
Adder, nor bird of boding speech,
Nor step unblest may pass that band.

In front, high on the beechen spray,
Like Hesper, on the eastern dawn,
Sir Fire-fly spreads his watchful ray
O'er dell obscure and distant lawn.

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No shape, among the shadows there,
Could glide unseen, nor move, where frowned
That beech's wizard brows in air,
And shrink not from the mystic ground.

Save Edwy, with his magic spell;—
Invisible and fearless, he
Might pass e'en to the Fairie's cell,
Unknown—but of one enemy.

She tripped into her vestibule,
Arched high with rose and eglantine,
Breathing a fragrance light and cool,
And bright with dew-drops, crystalline.

Here many a bell, that, in the day,
Had hung its fainting head awry,
Now waked for her in beauty gay,
And breathed for her its perfumed sigh.

Her pavilion next she entered;
Clear the glassy columns shone;

300

To the turf steps Edwy ventured,
And beheld her on her throne.

Under an ebon arch reclining,
With brilliant drops all thickly hung,
Where Mimosa's leaves were twining,
She listened, while the Love-Fay sung.

The thousand dew-drops hanging there
And in the swelling dome, on high,
Trembled with radiance keen and fair,
Poured from her living diamond's eye.

Splendour and Joy around her moved,
And winning smiles beamed in her face,
And every virtue most beloved
Gave to her air a tender grace.

On the ruby-pavement stealing,
Circling Elves their homage gave,
Then, in quaint moriscoes reeling,
They dance, and airy garlands wave.

301

The silver-triangle, the lute,
The tambourine, with tiny bells,
Mix with the softly-breathing flute;
The mellow horn more distant swells.

A quaint and various group arrived:
One, fliting on a bat's wing came,
No orchard, where he haunted, thrived;
Malignant Elfant was his name.

One, upon a field-mouse gliding,
Oft the traveller appalled,
Wondrously his steps misguiding;
Sly Elféna she was called.

A third, upon a squirrel springing,
Never rested, night, or day;
Into some droll mischief bringing
Solemn heads, as well as gay.

On butterfly next sailed a Fairie;
She soothes fine ladies in their vapour,

302

Who of unchanging good are weary,
And weep, because they've nought to weep for.

Winged by an owl, there came an elf,
Who loved to haunt the study-table,
Where, full of grave, important self,
The wisest head he would disable.

And make it Pro-and-Con and fight
On subjects lofty as the steeple;
Or tempt some Witling to endite
Long dreams, about the elfin-people!

And now, the Fairie Queen demanded
Whether her elves the tasks had done,
That, at sun-set, she had commanded;
And now she called them one by one.

She called them, but they came not all;
Again, the magic horn was wound,
Then thronging sprites obeyed the call;
But still some truants wild were found.

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Yet was this blast so distant heard,
That elves, on Windsor's battlement,
Mounted the moonbeams at it's word,
And o'er the Long Walk gaily went;

Nor stayed upon the tufts to dance
Of the broad, bowery way, that swept,
With utmost pomp, beneath their glance,
Though there the yellow moonlight slept;

Though many a bird they loved was hid
In silent rest, beneath the leaves,
Which, if awaked and gently bid,
Would sing the song that care deceives—

Yet, had they surely waked them, too,
And danced a morrice on the trees,
Had not the horn complaining blew,
Like coming of a tempest breeze.

But e'en the Fairie's summons failed,
Yielding awhile to Beauty's spell,

304

When Windsor's proudest groves they hailed,
Crowning its wildest, deepest dell.

They paused a moment on that brow,
Under the shading oaks they strayed,
To spy, beneath the branches low,
The moonlight-towers, beyond their shade.

Beyond that shade in peace they lay,
Gates, turrets, battlements aloft,
Just silvered by the distant ray,
That 'neath the dark boughs glimmered oft.

It seemed some vision of the air,
By magic raised in forest lone,
That held entranced some lady fair,
Till nodding towers her knight should own.

The horn again! but not like breeze
Before some gentle summer shower,
But rushing through th' affrighted trees,
E'en with an angry whirlwind's power.

305

The moonlight-castle sinks and fades,
Beneath the tossing boughs afar;
And fear the truant elves invades;
And swift they mount their beamy car.

No banquet in the bower for them;
No tripping strains their steps invite;
The Fairie sovereign will condemn
Their disobedience and their slight.

“Hence,” she cries, “a vision weave
For the couch of that false lover,
Who could a trusting heart deceive;
Hence, and o'er his slumber hover.

“Dance before him, like a shade;
Trace upon his sleeping eye
Image of that mournful maid,
Whom he won, and left to die;

“In my cell of shadows look
You will there the semblance see,

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Of the damsel he forsook
All from idle vanity.

“Touch his heart with jealousy,
Shape a dream to rouse despair;
Then to the sad maiden flee,
And expel her silly care.

“So, when the streaky dawn doth wake,
Each shall rise, with changed intent;
Each shall the other's fortune take,
He, despair—and she, content.

“If these dreams ye shadow well,
Return, before the lark is up,
Or the chime of matin bell;
Dance the morrice; sip the cup.
“Now farewell.”

Scarce had she spoke, when all the bower
As in a twilight shadow lay;
The dewy lamp on every flower
Quivered first, then died away.

307

Her magic diamond warned the Queen
Of step unhallowed passing near;
It paled its ray to trembling green,
And shrunk with sympathetic fear.

Then hastily the Queen exclaimed,
“Some mortal footsteps press the ground;”
For Edwy, when the Elves she named,
Had nearer drawn to catch the sound.

Just then the little Nightingale,
In pity of the lover's pain,
Sung from Mimosa's shadowy veil
His softest, sweetest, saddest tale.

Which, well he knew, his Queen would win
From aught ungracious, or severe.
With charmed, attentive, brow serene,
She smiled, and, dashing off a tear,

On Eda called, the Love Fay, thrice,
Some tale of mortal truth to tell:—

308

Her name did Edwy's heart rejoice;
For, that Fay's name completes his spell!

Then straight, the bower began to show
Returning light; and, through each bud,
From faintness freed to living glow,
Circled the bright transparent blood.

Now what of chastisement befell
This vagrant swain, for his intrusion,
Village-tradition does not tell,
Or tells with most profound confusion.

But this most gossips do relate,
That, though he was not held in durance,
He gained no knowledge of his fate,
And nothing got by his assurance,

Unless it be, that he did see
What seldom had been seen before,
A Fairie Court, in starlight sport,
With pleasure squadrons and on shore.

309

But haply, on some other day,
We may learn more of his manœuvres,
And then we shall not fail to say,
What came of Aura and her lovers.

The beautiful lodge at Sandpit Gate opening from the Western side of the Great Park. The scenery about this is of exceeding beauty and sweet repose.

The beautiful turf-walks, that branch from the Virginia Water, exhibit, perhaps, every known variety of pine and fir on their long, sweeping borders. Their stately forms and the variety of their tints, intermixed, at intervals, with lofty oak and beech, and so closely bowered below with flowering shrubs, that scarcely a spot of earth is visible beneath them, make these broad, green alleys as delightful, when closely viewed, as they are otherwise graceful from their general aspect.

310

III. PART III. THE MAGIC MIRRORS.

A SUMMER NIGHT IN WINDSOR FOREST.

Edwy forsook the Fairie Court,
And to forest-glades withdrew,
Where never yet had elfin-sport
Cheered the melancholy view.

Upon the hazel-wands he writes
Eda's name, with “thrice and three,”
Then buries them, with bidden rites,
Underneath a forest-tree.

It was an oak, whose trunk within
A foul and watching spirit lay,

311

Whose night-shrieks in the tempest-din,
Filled the traveller with dismay:

It was an oak, whose sinewy boughs
Threw a dark horror o'er the ground;
Whose high, gaunt top and warrior-brows
With the storms of ages frowned.

Its trunk was never touched with light,
So wide and deep the branching shade
Of leaves, that, on a starry night,
A gleam, like break of morning, shed.

But the brook, stealing from the brake,
Showed a glimpse of brighter ray,
When on it's dewy banks did take
Will-o'-the Wisp his mystic way.

Round the high roots our Edwy drew,
With muttered charm, a magic line;
And in the circle heart's ease threw,
And briony and eglantine;

312

Then sweets and poisons, three and three,
Jess'mine blossoms, violet bud,
The deadly nightshade's tresses grey,
And the pale Monk's gloomy head.

Next, the buried wands he raised,
And “Eda! Eda! Eda!” called;
Thrice upon the West he gazed,
When, hark! a shriek his breast appalled.

It was the spirit of the oak,
Who, startled by the Love-Fay's name,
His dark and secret home forsook.
He fled, in haste, whene'er she came.

A tongue from Windsor's distant tower
Tolled Twelve along the silent wood,
When, lo! the planet of the hour
Quivered upon the trembling flood.

Cheered by the monitory sight,
Then Edwy forth his mirrors drew,

313

And by that star's informing light,
Upheld them to his searching view.

Again he called on Eda's name
Mildly and meekly to appear.
And round the crystals rolled a flame;
While unknown murmurs met his ear.

See!—o'er the mirrors mists arise,
And strange and fearful shadows throng;
Frowning faces, glaring eyes
Look and threat and glance along.

These gone, a tiny form there bounds,
Flitting along the magic glass;
Which, in an instant, her surrounds
With leaves of Love in Idleness.

She seems reclining in a bower,
As the green leaves around her spread,
The motley-yellow, purple flower
Bends in a top-knot o'er her head.

314

As round this cage of wreaths she hies,
Forth from her wand a lustre pale
Dawns o'er her blue and frolic eyes,
And silvers all her dewy veil,

Touches the rose upon her cheek,
The dimple, that her quaint lip owns,
The smile, that now begins to break,
Through clouds of wild, capricious frowns.

While Edwy gazed, a little strain
Of sweet complaint did feebly swell,
When, hovering round her leafy chain,
Behold! her faithful Nightingale!

He perched upon the true-knot there,
And tried to break, with slender bill,
Her prison-wreath, so flowery fair;
But the leaves mocked his puny skill.

Too late, she owns the forceful spell
The little purple blossom throws.

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Fixed, as a painting, she must tell
Mildly and meekly all she knows!

“Fairy Eda! show to me
Aura, as she's now employed.”—
“On the other glass you'll see;”
With pretty lisp the Fay replied.

He looked; the colours faintly dawn,
And living forms begin to glow:
Aura, full-dressed in lace and lawn,
Blooms in a ball-room with a beau.

And, dancing with a Grace's air,
And with the eyes of Venus smiling,
Edwy beheld her, with despair,
His hated rival's heart beguiling.

To atoms he had almost dashed
The mirror, and so lost the spell,
But warning lights around him flashed,
Checked his hand, and all was well,

316

“Who is this Fop, so light and vain?”—
Quickly, the magic scene is changed
To rivers, woods, a wide domain,
With falconers on the banks ranged.

All at their head his rival pranced
In velvet cap, with feathers gay,
And proudly o'er the sward advanced,
While men and steeds their lord obey.

“O tell me, Eda—loves she him?
Can she her promise old forget?”—
A flame curled round the mirror's rim;
The crystal darkened into jet.

And in long moonlight prospect rose
Windsor-Terrace, flanked with towers;
How soft the lights and shades repose
Among the low Park's lawns and bowers!

Oh! what an arch the heavens throw
Upon the vast horizon round!

317

The stars! how numberless they glow
Down to the landscape's dim-seen bound!

Some battlements are left in night;
Others almost appear to shine
Of yonder tower, whose stately height
Draws on the sky a tall black line,

That measures, on the azure void,
Billions of miles, while worlds unknown,
Distant howe'er, glow, side by side,
Upon it's shadowy profile shown.

Down on the terrace, men appear,
Gliding along the stately wall,
With arms enfolding the tall spear—
How still their measured footsteps fall!

Voices are heard round that vast shade,
Although no talkers meet the sight;
But, beyond, where moonbeams spread,
Figures steal upon the light.

318

'Twas Aura, with a lady-friend—
'Twas Aura, with this lover new!
Ah! does she to his suit attend?
The distance baffled Edwy's view.

“Eda! Eda! why torment me
With obscure ambiguous truth?
Thou to show my fate wast sent me.
Say, will she wed this fopling-youth?”

Behold! the terrace fades away!
And a tap'stried room succeeds;
Her sire, with age and wisdom grey,
'Mid lawyer, settlements and deed

Again, the charmed picture changed:
A gothic porch, with silk all hung;
There beaux and ladies fair are ranged,
While humbler gazers round them throng.

There a happy rival waited
With his friends, in trim array:

319

“Aura! what makes thee belated?
Aura! why this long delay?”

Again, the mirrors were in danger,
From our thoughtless Edwy's rage;
But a fairie checked his anger—
Would she might his grief assuage!

Next, dimly on the crystal steals
A chamber in her father's home;
There, Aura, weeping, pleads and kneels!
The father, frowning, quits the room.

Again the changeful glass receives
The porch—and Edwy, doth he tremble,
As smiling Aura there he sees?
And whom doth the bridegroom resemble?

It is—himself!—He's joyous, frantic,
As the glass showed his happy shape;
But as he sprung, with gesture antic,
It fell, and let the fairie 'scape!

320

Without due homage let her fly!
Straight, unknown voices from the ground
Wildly exclaimed, “O fie! fie! fie!”
And “Fie! fie! fie!” the echoes sound.

Unhomaged he had let her fly!
From the old oak an owlet hooted;
And thence a louder “Fie! fie! fie!”
To the spot poor Edwy rooted.

But, soon recovered, through the woods,
Hopeful and light, away he sprung:
The moon peeped through their leafy hoods,
And o'er the path her chequers flung.

To the forest's-edge he hied,
Where the Beech's giant-form
Had, for age on age, defied,
With his lion-fangs the storm:

Where the Lime, with spotted bark—
Spots, that old moss on silver weaves,

321

Hung her spray on branches dark
Among the light transparent leaves,

And fragrant blossoms, forming bowers,
That cast, at noon, a twilight green,
Where 'twas most sweet to watch the hours
Change the highly-tinctured scene.

The silvery Aspin quivered nigh,
The spiry Pine in darkness rose,
The Ash, all airy grace, on high
Waved her lightly-feathered boughs.

And there the mighty Chesnut reared
His massy verdure, deepening night;
Whose pale flowers through the dark appeared
Like gleams of April's coldest light.

Under the low boughs Edwy went.
Shade, after shade, in close array,
A sadder tint to midnight lent;
And thoughtless Edwy lost his way.

322

Now, far beyond the long-drawn gloom,
Where a faint, misty moonlight fell,
He watched a lonely figure roam,
And loud he made the echoes swell.

His call was heard, the stranger turned,
And paused a moment; but, in vain,
Our Edwy would his way have learned,
For, not a word in answer came.

The vision fled—but soon a cry,
Loud, though far-off, alarmed his ear;
And a footstep passed him by;
Which he followed fast and near.

Till a groan of sad affright
Almost killed him, with dismay;
And to his undoubting sight
There a man expiring lay.

As, horror-fixed, awhile he stood,
A cloud o'erspread it's darkening veil;

323

It suited well his fearful mood;
It hid that dreadful visage pale.

Now, mark, where yonder high elms crowd,
What red lights gleam and pass along!
What funeral torches, dirges loud!
A bier and mourners round it throng.

Down th' avenue of pines they go:
All sad and chaunting their despair,
Then wind they on in pomp of woe;
Then fade and vanish into air!

For, yonder, o'er the eastern hill,
Morning's crystal tint is seen,
Edging the darkness, solemn still,
And glimmering o'er the sleeping scene.

O best of light! O light of soul!
O blessed Dawn, to thee we owe
The humbled thought—our mind's best dole,
The bliss of praise—Devotion's glow.

324

O blessed Dawn! more sweet to me
Thy gradual hues, thy influence fine
O'er flying darkness, than the ray
And glorious pomp, that doth enshrine

The cope of heaven, when the Sun
Comes laughing from the joyous East,
And bids th' expressive shadows run
To tell his coming to the West.

At thy first tint the happy lark
Awakes, and trills his note of joy;
And feebler, warbling murmurs, hark!
Break from the woodlands—rise, and die,

At thy first tint, O blessed light!
Th' observant Elves and spectres fled,
And that misguiding, watching sprite
Home to her oaken dungeon sped;

Elfena then, the mischief-fay,
Who with an urchin had combined

325

To 'wilder Edwy thus astray;
Now in a Monk's-hood is confined.

No dying man was there—no moan,
There were no red-lights, near the elms,
No funeral torches, dirge's moan,
No sable band, whom grief o'erwhelms.

Still, doubtful of his homeward way,
Our hero watched the rise of dawn,
Over a beech-tree's airy spray,
That trembles on the Park's high lawn.

And soon the glorious Sun was spied,
And Windsor, in her pomp of groves,
Rose up in battlemented pride,
Queen of the vale, that Old Thames loves—

From where the far-seen western hill
In smiling slumber seems to lie,
Upon the azure vault so still
As listening heaven's harmony,

326

To where, beneath the eastern ray,
With swelling dome and spires aloft,
Vast London's lengthened city lay,
All miniatured, distinct and soft—

To where, upon the northern edge,
Learned Harrow points her vane,
And Stanmore lifts it's heathy ridge,
Sloping to the cultured plain,

Which, purpled with the morning's glow,
To boundless tints of azure fades,
While humbler spires and hamlets show
Their sun-lights o'er the woody shades;

And gleaming Thames along the vale,
'Midst willowy meads, his waters led,
While, here and there, a feeble sail
Was to the scarce-felt breeze outspread.

The willowy meads and lawns rejoice;
And every heath, and warbling wood;

327

The fragrant air, with whispering voice,
The golden clouds, the brightened flood,

All laugh and sing beneath the morn,
The dancing lamb, the springing deer;
The wild bee with his humming horn,
And, loud and long, Sir Chanticleer.

Soon as his joyous clarion calls,
Answering notes strike up and swell
From rafter dark and loop-holed walls,
Where sleep and silence seemed to dwell,

Surprising with their clamour clear
The passing herdsman and his hound;
Thus, far and near, Sir Chanticleer
Rouses up all the country round.

Edwy so roused, who long had stood
Over this scene of morning beauty,
Forgetting every other good,
And lost to each forgotten duty,

328

Now, bounding lightly down the hills
And through the high o'erarching groves,
Hied to his home, where Eda wills
He soon shall wed the nymph he loves;

And grateful for the boon she grants,
He now resolves, that, never more,
His spell shall shock her quiet haunts;
And quite abjures the magic lore.

But,—never let impatient wight,
When he presumes to woo a fairie,
Destroy his glass,—or rouse her spite,
But civil be—and very wary.

Thus all was well,
As watchmen tell,
Of fairie sports in Windsor glades,
Save that too long
A summer-song
Once lingered in those witching shades.

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SCENE ON THE NORTHERN SHORE OF SICILY.

Here, from the Castle's terraced site,
I view, once more, the varied scene
Of hamlets, woods, and pastures green,
And vales far stretching from the sight
Beneath the tints of coming night;
And there is misty ocean seen,
With glancing oars and waves serene,
And stealing sail of shifting light.
Now, let me hear the shepherd's lay,
As on some bank he sits alone;
That oaten reed, of tender tone,
He loves, at setting sun, to play.
It speaks in Joy's delightful glee;
Then Pity's strains its breath obey—
Or Love's soft voice it seems to be—
And steals at last the soul away!

330

And now, the village bells afar
Their melancholy music sound
Mournfully o'er the waters round,
Till Twilight sends her trembling star.
Oft shall my pensive heart attend,
As swell the notes along the breeze,
And weep anew the buried friend,
In tears, that sadly, softly please;
And, when pale moonlight tips the trees,
On the dark Castle's tower ascends,
Throws o'er it's walls a silvery gleam,
And in one soft confusion blends
Forest and mountain, plain and stream,
I list the drowsy sounds, that creep
On night's still air, to soothe the soul;
The hollow moan of Ocean's roll,
The bleat and bell of wandering sheep,
The distant watch-dog's feeble bark,
The voice of herdsman pacing home
Along the leafy labyrinth dark,
And sounds, that from the Castle come
Of closing door, that sullen falls,

331

And murmurs, through the chambers high
Of half-sung strains from ancient halls,
That through the long, long galleries die.
And now the taper's flame I spy
In antique casement, glimmering pale;
And now 'tis vanished from my eye,
And all but gloom and silence fail.

Once more, I stand in pensive mood,
And gaze on forms, that Truth delude;
And still, 'mid Fancy's flitting scene,
I catch the streaming cottage-light,
Twinkling the restless leaves between,
And Ocean's flood, in moonbeams bright.

University of Virginia Library

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

SALISBURY PLAINS.

STONEHENGE.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

X.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

XVI.

XVII.

XVIII.

XIX.

XX.

XXI.

XXII.

XXIII.

XXIV.

XXV.

XXVI.

XXVII.

XXVIII.

XXIX.

XXX.

XXXI.

XXXII.

XXXIII.

XXXIV.

XXXV.

XXXVI.

XXXVII.

XXXVIII.

XXXIX.

XL.

XLI.

XLII.

XLIII.

XLIV.

XLV.

XLVI.

XLVII.

XLVIII.

XLIX.

L.

LI.

LII.

LIII.

LIV.

LV.

LVI.

LVII.

LVIII.

LIX.

LX.

LXI.

LXII.

LXIII.

LXIV.

LXV.

LXVI.

SHAKSPEARE'S CLIFF.

THE FISHERS.

STEEPHILL.

IN THE NEW FOREST.

ON A FIRST VIEW OF THE GROUP CALLED THE SEVEN MOUNTAINS;

IN THE APPROACH TO COLOGNE FROM XANTEN.

A SECOND VIEW OF THE SEVEN MOUNTAINS.

ON ASCENDING A HILL CROWNED WITH A CONVENT.

NEAR BONN.

THE SNOW-FIEND.