Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Wild-flowers from England's Arcady!—By these,
Dear Rotha, thanks to Her whose gracious hand
Gather'd, and with hermetic skill preserved
For us the delicate treasures—we may yet,
Ev'n in the tame South, repossess the fells,
The dingles, and the haunts of water-falls
That cleave “the flowery rocks,” and we may roam
By lake and cataract along the banks
Where these were born and Thou,—For these dried flowers
Are Fancy's passports to their native land;
And though so far from home, and never more
To nod and balance to the mountain breeze
And sparkle through the spangles of the dew,

Yet is their summer glory but prolong'd
Within this dainty Herbal, and the bloom
That would have quickly shrivell'd into dust,
Here in perennial loveliness survives,
Breathing the breath of voices from the North.—
Thus sun-dyed fancies, airy reveries,
Freaks of imagination, waking dreams,
Ephemeral fantasies of playful hues,
Fade into nothing if uncropt, and die
Forgotten; but if seized on while yet fresh
In their rich tints of light, and so consigned
To the bland pressure of judicious thought
And chaste constraint of language, they become
Heirlooms for after-times; and when the door
Of life has closed upon their parent-mind,
They tell us of the garden where they grew:
Relics of Eden-land, with fondness prized
After the gates of paradise are shut.

What have we here? The Muse's own plant first:
Grass of Parnassus, with its lofty flowers
In silver lustre poised, each on its stalk,
A tall thin pillar leafless; while the leaves,
Each on its separate stem, dwell near the ground,
Like poor and lowly relatives, abash'd,

Yet clinging conscious to their common root.
Or, rather, those aspiring flowers are symbols
Of minds that soar to fancy's altitudes,
And live in radiance for a little while,
And wither in the sun; while the green leaves,
Content to 'bide near home, caress their roots,
And thence imbibe sure nurture.—What comes next?
The Silver Dew! so euphonously named!
A simple flower enough, in gilding rich,
But with such lovely foliage as might task
An Indian carver's skill on ivory—
Fan-moss as delicately elegant:—
And Lady's Mantle, fairer flowers and leaves
Than ever lady's fingers finely work'd;
Lo, deadly Nightshade, and its mate th' Enchanter,
Perfidious lurker in the rocky woods!
And baleful Hemlock!—Kindlier herbs are near.—
The Harebell blithe—pensive Forget-me-not;—
And gay Heart's-ease, “the pansy freakt with jet,”
“The little western flower” of many names,
And sweeter none than “Love in Idleness.”
Behold a stately wand, the Golden Rod
That waved o'er Stockghyll Force, as if to charm
The waters' tumult.—The Wild-thyme that stills

With bribes the wild bees' murmurs, and when crush'd
By upland wanderer's foot, for evil good
Returning, greets the oppressor with its balm.
The Bird's-eye Primrose, of pink flowers minute,
That flush the Kendal meads in stem and leaf
Expansive as the redbreast's outstretch'd wing.
Bird's-foot, wing-heel'd like Hermes! A tress or two
Of Maiden-hair: and Cotton-grass has lent
A carded whitelock from its elfin head.
Here Ragged Robin, undespised, finds place;
And here the Bramble, though its touch be rude.
Culbrake and Parsley-fern, and many a fern
Besides, and many a heath: and Sweet-gale, too,
Both for its balmy name, and flower-like cones
Diminutive.

Stone-bramble, from the top of Silverhow,
For Barber's memory (and a yew-tree sprig
Were welcome from his grave on Grasmere side).
This purple bell is of the Foxglove tall,
“A weed of glorious feature,” the delight
Of rocky Westmoreland's melodious bees,
The glory of its craggy wildernesses,
And fondly designated “Fairy's Love.”

Flower of the wind, the wild Anemone,
Queen of the meadows, the tall Meadow-sweet,
Oppressive sweet on Rotha's banks, are here;
And here from soft Winander's, the Livelong,
A bud of Elleray; for Wilson's sake,
For Hamilton's and gentle Farquhar's sakes,
Welcome and kindly welcome!—The Musk-mallow,
Blue Violet, and Summer Violet blond;
Here is White heather from Winander's isle;
And Lily of the Vale of Windermere,
Blue glistening Eye-bright, delicate of stem,
Fibre, and leaflet, with consummate flowers,
Fit wreath for Ariel's self, to match his eyes.
Look at the fen-born lady, Pimpernel,
The purple Money-wort, whose sentient petals
Close to the touch of damp, (although its roots,
In fine thread cables clinging to the joints
Of its prone stems, cast anchor in the moist
And spongy turf,) and so th' affected flower,
Nurtured in moisture yet, with low-bred airs
Fastidious, shrinking from the external damp,
Has yet its use—“the Shepherd's Weather-glass.”
The pretty Speedwell, and of larger leaf
Though bud as small, its namesake, also call'd

“Man's Faith” by rural maidens: would'st thou know
Wherefore? then listen to the veriest tale
Of falseness, and the saddest.

Patient hopes
Sustain'd the heart of Emily for years,
While in the Babel upon Thames afar,
The vicar's son, her lover, tried his way
To wealth, whose distant prospect was his heaven,
Up through the slippery mazes of the Law;
That hollow, hideous, slime-cemented pile
Which ends in jargon. Poor as he began,
He long remain'd; but honest not so long.
Keen student in a circumventive school,
Villain he soon became, and when that word
Was writ in ink Satanic on his mind,
Saint on his breast he labell'd. He became
So smooth all over: sentiment, voice, look,
Were so quicksilvery smooth; and then his eye,
Demurely bland, would ever and anon,
Upturning, roll and quiver with a zeal
So sanctimonious, and he so would make
The trembling vowels bleat between his lips,
And make some consonants so strangely twang,
That many a worthy soul, devoid of guile,

Was wheedled into confidences rash
And treacherous toils of law: a fleecing caitiff,
Fleece-clad, he keenly prowl'd among the flocks.
Such was true Emily's false love! but how?
Her passion was the prejudice of chance
Ingrafted on her childhood. They were mates
Who hunted butterflies, and daisies pick'd,
And laugh'd and wept together, trifle-moved,
In infancy's sweet spring. Through youth they lived
By neighbourhood allied, just not so near
But that a blank of absence now and then,
Made itself felt: and when the hour was come
That call'd the slender youth of silvery voice
To charm his way to fortune in the south,
He hung upon her neck, and kiss'd her cheek,
And vow'd a hundred vows, and all sincere:
For he was yet a novice, and believed
Himself, and Emily believed him too.
She was the daughter of a Cumbrian squire,
A luckless man, whose acres were but few,
And children many: this, the fairest girl
Of all his household, not uncultured grew
Like the wild shoots among the rocky clefts
Of those Arcadian moors and pastures, green

For flocks as wildly devious as the rills
That filter slowly through the grass, or leap
From stone to stone at random. Careful hands
Had train'd her up to womanhood: and home
To her had been a plain domestic school
Of duties strictly taught and aptly learnt:
And, being one of many, she had miss'd
A share undue of those caresses fond,
And cares minute, and praises undeserved,
Which suffocate young virtue with a warmth
To nought but folly genial, and conceit.
Thus nurtured, mind and frame together grew
In health and strength, each fortifying each,
And each supplying to the other, grace
And beauty, or perpetual interchange
With gain to both; substance and spirit freshening
Each other, as the broad-leaved branches fan
And cool the air that fans and freshens them.
Hers was a temper less by nature tuned
Than harmonised by discipline to rule,
And by religion sanctified to peace.
Through the small trials of a crowded home,
And all the petty interests that jar,
She soothed and smiled her way to happiness.

From eyes that seldom wept, that youth's farewell
Drew virtuous tears: but she was happy still,
For she was true and trustful. Now and then,
While yet a struggler in the jostling crowds
That haunt the dens impure misnamed of Law,
He homeward turn'd his course, rebraced his pale
And dissolute frame among his native hills,
And sunn'd the wretched thing he call'd his heart
In Emily's clear loveliness. At last
He came in triumph: the attorney's clerk
Was now a partner in the Belial-house,
Where he had served apprenticeship to guile.
He came to ask a bride: the parents heard
Without dissent, for poverty's shrewd pinch
Rebuked the faint suspicion that disturb'd
Their tenderness by whispering, Lurks there not
Beneath this smooth mind's varnish something false?
It could not be! They knew him from his cradle,
And he was ever gentle. Not a fear
Speck'd the serene security of bliss,
The heaven in Emily's bosom. One fair noon
They saunter'd up a dingle of gray rocks
With oaken wildwood crested to a bank
Alive with Speedwell flowers, whose bright blue eyes

Glisten'd in welcome, as it seem'd, to greet
The happy lovers. On that slope they sat,
And while he wreathed a garland of those flowers
Sportive around her neck, as if she were
A lamb for sacrifice, he told her how
“A German maiden saw a tuft of Speedwell
More beauteous than its fellows, half-way lodged
Down a steep margin of the Danube flood.
‘Pluck me that wild germander!’ to the youth
She said, whose place was at her side. He stoop'd
And pluck'd it, but the slippery ground betray'd
His feet, and deep into the stream he sunk;
He rose and struggled towards the bank, and threw
The prize ashore, and to the maiden cried
‘Forget-me-not,’ and sunk to rise no more.
And hence that flower was call'd Forget-me-not,
The name we give a smaller flower as blue,
A floweret golden-eyed:—behold!”—And here
He show'd a ring whereon were radiant stones,
Five sapphires, and a beryl in the midst,
Set in the likeness of that well-known flower
Of memory! Saying thus, her hand he took—
It trembled unresisting—and that ring
Upon the bridal finger as he placed,

“Wear this, dear Emily,” he added, “till,
A few weeks hence it be displaced by one
Of simpler structure, but of force to link
Thee and thy fate to me and mine for ever.”—
Think you the brook that warbled to that bank
A mountain melody, was half so sweet
As was the voice of him who thus address'd
The observant heart of Emily? Was he
A traitor then?—oh, no! he yet believed
His spirit true to Her, although he knew
'Twas false to all things else of pure and good.

That night they parted:—and they never met
Again!—To London journeying, he paused
To seek at Harrogate a dwelling where
He and his bride-elect might shortly pass
Their earliest weeks of wedlock. There indeed
His honeymoon was pass'd: but the betroth'd
Was not the bride! A golden dupe he found,
A serious heiress: she was charm'd to see
His grave peculiar smile, and charm'd yet more
To hear his voice, still sweeter than his smile.
He smiled, and talk'd, and snared the splendid prize.
The twain were quickly one. No word was sent
To Emily; no friend was interposed

To break the tidings; 'twas a perfidy
Too gross for explanation. When she read
The strange announcement mix'd with common news,
She lifted up her soul to Heaven and pray'd
For strength to bear the trial: strength was given.
Her spirit droop'd not in its gentle pride;
But, for the agony was sharp, the rose
Was stricken out for ever from her cheek,
For ever and at once; and in a night,
Strange freak of suffering and yet true, one lock
Of her rich hair, and one alone, was blanched;
And gleam'd among her auburn tresses dark
In signal contrast, like the first snow-flake
That nestles on a copper beech-tree's bough.
Her rounded form, too, by degrees refined
To such sylph-like tenuity, that it seem'd
A plaything for a zephyr, yet endured
The mountain blasts, unshatter'd, many a year.
And years had pass'd away, and never word
Had she of him once utter'd; till, one day,
Upon that very bank, enamell'd still
With flowers of wild germander, a small child,
Her pupil, holding up a flower new-pluck'd,
Inquired its name. The marble cheek and brow

Of Emily to paler whiteness turn'd:—
Her eyes commerced with memory; the string
That tied the tongue of agony was snapt;
She wrung her hands and wept aloud, and cried
“Man's Faith!”—The name is constant to the flower.

Mr. Barber, a former friend and neighbour.

A FLOWER OF FAIRFIELD.

As once I roam'd the fells, to brood,
In silence and in solitude,
On fancies all my own,
In one of Nature's hiding spots
I found a flower as shy as thoughts
That love to be alone;

A primrose in a nook enshrined;
A rocky cleft with mosses lined,
And over-arch'd with fern;
And guarded well from wandering hoof,
By two rough sentries arm'd in proof—
A bramble and a thorn.

Wrens hide not in more jealous cells
Their precious hoard of speckled shells,
Than that where hidden blew
This golden treasure of the Spring,
As brightly delicate a thing
As ever Eden knew.

This is the very type, said I,
Of yon fair nymph, so lone and shy,
Whose spirit charms the wild!
And hither from her laurell'd nook,
On this her floral self to look,
I led the Poet's Child.

Together on the vernal gem,
That seem'd to tremble to its stem
With trouble not its own,
We gazed as silent as the flower;
But never from that happy hour
My heart has been alone.

Rydal Mount.

THE HELIOTROPE AND THE SNOWDROP.

That flower, in scented garments fine,
Came first from regions of the mine,
And soon its worth is told:—
Oppressive in its rich pretence,
Its very sweetness hath a sense
Analogous to gold.

A thing of luxury, worldly-wise!
A true sun-worshipper, whose eyes
Pursue the God of Day:—
But if a cloud deface his beam,
'Twill drop its cunning lids, and seem
A worshipper of clay.

Begone, thou type of summer friends!
The flower that winter's death-bed tends
Give me, in spite of scorn!

Begone, Peruvian Heliotrope!
Give me the snow-born Flower of Hope,
The Flower of Hope forlorn.

THE NIGHT-SCENTED STOCK.

Other flowers are not content,
Vestal-like, to live and die,
Prodigal of hue or scent,
They must bloom for passers-by.

Bright-eyed triflers kindly scattering
Smiles for all, in vain display;
Or with incense sweetly flattering
Good or bad that cross their way!

Not like them this Stock, that only
Seems to wake when sunbeams sleep;
(Skill'd in close reserve, and lonely,
All its balm till night to keep).

Then its subtle sense unsheathing,
With its pierces to the brain
Of the lonely poet, breathing
To the stars his midnight strain.

THE BIRCH OF SILVER-HOW.

WRITTEN FOR MR. BARBER OF GRASMERE.

I'll doubt no more that Fairies dwell
At least in one enchanted place,
Though wisdom long since rang the knell
Of Oberon and all his race:
They haunt Kehlbarrow's woody brow,
Amid the rocks of Silver-How!

And if you climb beyond the wood
You'll there a Fairy chapel see;
And there, in spite of wind and flood,
Beside it find a goodly tree:
Of upright stem and flexile bough,
The Fairy-tree of Silver-How.

A night of tempest shook the hills
That circle Grasmere's lovely lake;
To torrents swoln, the flashing rills
Went chafing down o'er stone and brake:
When morning peep'd o'er Fairfield's brow
Low lay the birch of Silver-How!

The red-breast that was wont to sing
His matins on its topmost spray,
Now wheel'd aloof his fickle wing
To chaunt elsewhere his roundelay:
To thriving trees his court he paid
So well he knew the poet's trade.

The Sun went down, but when again
He rose and look'd on Silver-How,
The red-breast trill'd his morning strain
Upon his old accustom'd bough:
For lo! the tree that prostrate lay,
Erectly stood in face of day.

It rose, untouch'd by human hands,
And now a living wonder stands
On that enchanted Fell!

Wise sceptic, you deny in vain
To wild Kehlbarrow's fairy fane
A priestess and a spell:
Go profit by my elfin creed,
And lift the fallen in their need
As secretly and well!

Rydal Mount, October 27, 1829.

CHESNUT TREES NEAR BRAGA.

WRITTEN BEFORE THE ABOLITION OF MONASTERIES IN PORTUGAL.

Old sylvans in a land of monks,
Your moss-furr'd boughs, and wrinkled trunks
All hollow from their roots,
Would speak you worn-out serfs of Time;
Yet fresh, as if in tree-hood's prime,
You bear your leaves and fruit.

Yon Elders of the Cowl, who dwell
Like worms within the kernell'd shell,
In choice monastic nooks,

This moral of your green old age,
Might deign to learn from Nature's page,
The second-best of books.

THE CANARY GOLDFINCH.

At Paris, in the month of June,
Within the square of Carrousel,
We heard as blithe a voice in tune,
As ever trill'd from wiry cell.

A hundred songsters dinn'd the wall
With music—'twas a bird-slave mart;
But one pied hybrid o'er them all
Sang triumph in his strength of heart.

He reign'd by innate power of voice
O'er all his rivals sweet and shrill,
Their Monarch self-acclaim'd by choice
No other than his vocal will.

To sing him down they oft broke out
In vain they one and all rebell'd;
Prolong'd through “many a winding bout”
His roundelay the triumph held.

Born in a cage, to reach his throne,
A perch, was all his use for wings:
Happier than He who made his own
Yon palace of the Bourbon Kings.

But birds no more than men can long
Evade Parisian glory's fate:
This golden-feather'd lord of song
Was now compell'd to abdicate.

By foreign hands was he deposed,
By foreign hands to exile borne;
We brought him to a vale enclosed
By mountains that delay the morn.

How fared he then? at such a change
Perhaps at first his taste revolted;
These rocks and quiet meads were strange,
But soon his city feelings moulted.

No bird Ovidian to lament
His Tiber in a weary strain,
He sang on Rotha's banks content
As if he ne'er had known the Seine.

He found in Her who brought him thence,
A nature he could understand,
Endearing to his subtle sense
Of harmony, a foreign land.

Yet once, as if her cheerful care
But tantalised caprice, away
He flitted to the cliffs, and there
He play'd the truant half a day.

We thought him lost, and sigh'd to think
On what might be the rover's doom,
For hawks o'er-eye the craggy brink,
And owlets haunt the woody gloom.

Who knows not danger knows not fear:—
But soon he found his freedom pall;
Ere eventide his carol clear
Announced him at the garden-wall.

A moment's pause—a sudden whirr
And lo, the prize was ours again!
He could not tarry long from her
For whom he had forgot the Seine.

But when her voice no more was heard,
But when her smile no more was seen,
He ceased to be the glossy bird,
The bright-eyed warbler he had been.

From day to day, from week to week,
He miss'd his friend and pined away;
His note became a sound to seek,
A fitful effort at a lay.

Though now and then he plainly strove,
By little fond familiar ways,
To thank us for the watchful love
That fain would have prolong'd his days.

And when he died, this very morn,
Of moss I made his winding-sheet,
And, in a mood the wise may scorn,
Her bird I buried at her feet.

February 26, 1848.

WANSFELL.

It was only yester-eve,
While the sun was taking leave
Of the mountain he loves best,
Tawny Wansfell seem'd to grieve—
For I saw the brackens heave
On his breast.

And I heard his firs bewailing,
With a shudder first, and quailing
From the tidings of the breeze;
Then in a chorus firmer,
With a long and sweeping murmur,
Like the sea's.

It was not for daylight's setting,
That his russet ferns were fretting,
While his groves were thrill'd with fear,

For the light returns to-morrow,
But not he for whom they sorrow—
The Old Year.

The last hour was drawing nigh,
Of the mountain's true ally,
In the merry seasons past:—
As a friend about to perish,
With a fonder love we cherish
At the last:

So the mountain seem'd revealing
A regret like human feeling
While the twilight round it hung;
But ere night had pass'd away,
And the dawn of New-Year's Day
Upward sprung,

What had changed the mourner's face?
Not a feature can we trace!
We behold a giant white,
From whose robe of silver tissue,
Ten thousand sparkles issue,
Jewel-bright.

After all his rustic nurture,
The old mountain has turn'd courtier,
And to greet the New-Year's Day
He has deck'd his shoulders proud,
From his wardrobe in the cloud,
All so gay.

All night on silent Wansfell
A shower like down of swans fell,
A shower of frosted dew:
And the shroud of the Old Year,
Is the mountain's festal gear
For the New.

January 1, 1843.

RYDAL-BECK, WESTMORELAND.

[_]

A mountain stream that descends through Lady Fleming's park, forming two waterfalls on the mountain side, and then flows leisurely through the lower grounds into the Rotha.

Foal of the well-spring and the cloud,
The young white horse, so fierce and proud,
Has broken forth from home!
What turf-train'd courser but would shun
With such a Colt a race to run
On such a Hippodrome?

O'er shelving reef, down craggy wall,
Full gallop comes the waterfall,
Then lights on glass-like ground;
The beauteous pool beneath him quakes,
But thence away—away—he breaks,
With a disdainful bound.

Fresh ferns, soft mosses, wild buds gay,
In vain are waiting by his way,
To tempt him to a check;
The trees' lithe arms are stretch'd in vain
To stop him, till he reach the plain;
No lasso for his neck!

The Dryad echo, hid aloof,
Lurks list'ning, till his sonorous hoof
Approaches her retreat;
Then forth, and leaps upon his back!
A rash equestrian, if she lack
The skill to keep her seat.

And hark! already she is off,
Sent shrieking, to the mimic scoff
Of lordly mountains round!
From that light weight the insulted steed
A single vigorous plunge has freed,
A headlong plunge profound.

But where is now that steed of force?
Or was it but a spectral horse?

Or whither did he pass?
I see a narrow streamlet take
Its course through Rydal Park—a snake
Of silver in the grass.

Strange transformation! oft we see
Blind Passion fall from high degree,
With headlong noisy pride;
Then, changed in nature as in place,
Through life's low vale, with sinuous grace,
In quiet meekness glide.

Lasso, the South American noose with which wild horses are caught.

These lines were suggested by a walk in Rydal Park, December 15, 1837, but composed on May Day, 1838, at Canterbury.

DALEGARTH FORCE.

What great voice of Birker Moor,
With a loud and louder lure,
Tempts us up this stony brook?
Dalegarth's haunted Ghyll is near!
'Tis the Water Spirit's call!

Onward, stranger, see and hear—
Hearken to the Waterfall;—
Hearken and look!
Fairer scene was ne'er beholden;
Wilder Fall thou wilt not list:
There the mosses, green and golden,
Bathe in brightening showers of mist;
Wild flowers there, in motley dresses,
Careless dip their colours gay;
There the birch tree droops her tresses,
Shining through the web of spray,—
While the Water Spirit presses
Through the granite chaos grey;
Yet, as his own shout confesses,
Cannot get away;
Flinging off, with vain endeavour,
Chains that leave him chainless never,—
There he chafes and foams for ever
Night and day.

A SEA LYRIC.

In Three Parts.

[_]

The first part, except the seventh and ninth stanzas, was rhymed on board the “Manchester” steam-ship in the bight of the Bay of Biscay, November, 1836, when the storm was rising, but before the sense of danger was thoroughly roused by its violence and the damage to both engines. The rest was written at Canterbury, April 23, 1838, from memory.

PART I.

I

I've stood a gale before now;
And do I shrink at last,
Where wind and wave but roar now
Their old accustom'd blast?

II

Ye gusts and seas of Biscay,
And thou Atlantic main,
Ye oft have served me this way
When I have steer'd for Spain.

III

Old friends expect, at meeting,
A welcome fair or foul;
You give a churlish greeting—
A bluster and a growl!

IV

Yet all your rant and railing,
Till now, I ever heard
With spirit as unquailing
As any ocean-bird:

V

The Gull, of constant pinion,
The Willock, sleek of form,
Your little fearless minion
The Petrel of the Storm;

VI

Or any winged skimmers
That ride the leaping foam,
Or e'en the deeper swimmers
Beneath the tides at home.

VII

But now, appall'd, I hear ye,
Ye stunning voices wild!
Ye winds and waves, I fear ye—
I tremble for my child.

VIII

Bold wave, thy salt lip kisses
A cheek whose rose it frets;
Shrewd wind, thy sharp tongue hisses
In ears unused to threats!

IX

Be hush'd, thou angry giant,
And sleek thy bristling hair;
O sea, for once compliant,
O hear a Father's prayer!

PART II.

I

“Ha, ha! the Wanderer's Daughter
Is mine!” the Demon said;
The Demon of the water,
With horrent laughter dread.

II

“Blow, blow, ye merry Tritons,
Blow, blow with all your might,
And call the cloud that lightens,
For dark will be the night!

III

“On yon Iberian breakers
This vapour-ship must strike,
That ploughs the ocean's acres
As free as Thames's dyke.

IV

“But first, stout billows shackle
The power that rules her keel;
Fair play to sheet and tackle,
But down with work and wheel!”

V

The surge obey'd its warrant,
And wheel and engine crash'd;
A hulk on Biscay's current,
The steam-bark landward dash'd.

VI

And nought can helm avail her
To keep her head to sea;
All evil blasts assail her,
And force her to the lee.

VII

And still she sinks and rises,
And pants along at speed;
Ten minutes bring the crisis—
God help her in her need!

VIII

And by the light of lightning,
To those on deck who stand,
The breakers dimly whitening,
Seem to beckon from the land.

IX

“A sail, a sail to wear her,
Or she her last has cruised!”
And twice they tried to wear her,
And twice the ship refused.

PART III.

I

The Father sought his Daughter,
And drew her from her berth,
And in his arms he caught her,
And held her in that girth.

II

And, in her eyeballs gazing,
He whisper'd all the truth;
O God! the doom amazing,
It shook her heart of youth.

III

Her lips were white with wonder,
She sank on trembling knees;
Her prayer, through ocean's thunder,
Christ heard, who walk'd the seas.

IV

Again was rigg'd the canvas,—
That effort seem'd despair's;
How sweet the voice of man was,
That cried “She wears! she wears!”

V

A counter-breeze from Finisterre,
Of God's own under-breath,
Was now the blessed minister
Of rescue from the death!

VI

Away the crippled vessel
Went limping from the coast,
With many a wave to wrestle,
And little strength to boast.

VII

And when the sun was risen,
And show'd the waste profound,
It seem'd again a prison
Of mountains quaking round!

VIII

But when did Christ deliver
With vacillating hand?
We gain'd the Golden River,
And touch'd the Lisbon strand!

A MOST RICH AND PERFECTLY DEFINED RAINBOW ON THE OCEAN.

One lady on the tall white cliff!
One boat upon the sea!
That little solitary skiff
Why watcheth Emma Lee?

The heavens with sulphurous clouds are black:
As black the billowy plain;
And wildly flies the stormy rack
Above the stormy main.

The winged ships their wings have spread,
For safety far from land;
The sea-birds from the sea have fled
For shelter, to the strand.

Then why intent on yonder shell
That scuds before the gale?
Why like a lone coast sentinel,
Stands there that lady pale?

Perhaps a brother's life to threat,
Those mighty waters rise;
Perhaps some object dearer yet,
The treasure of her eyes!

And as the waters heave and break,
Her breast keeps fearful time;
Her very heart-strings all awake
To that tremendous chime.

And on that cliff, so far above,
She stands in beauty pale,
To be the beacon-light of love,
To guide his daring sail.

No brother in that lonely boat
Is menaced by the strife;
No cherish'd lover there afloat,
Fights with the surge for life.

Her brow is pale with fear and hope,
With holy hope and fear,
Which high as heaven direct their scope,
While humbly trembling here.

That boat to her the type presents
Of man's immortal soul,
Struggling through turbid elements,
The passions—to its goal.

The sun is hid behind the clouds,
But is not gone to sleep,
For now a ray has touch'd the shrouds,
A rainbow spans the deep.

And now the salient canvas shines,
All boldly out in white,
Beneath its glorious arch of lines
Of many-colour'd light.

Thus from behind the curtain dark
Will flash a beam of grace,
When terrors shake the sinner's bark,
And tears are on his face.

And see! the boat is safe within
The strong protecting mole;
So safely from the gulfs of sin,
A refuge finds the soul.

But only through the saving woe
Of Him whose precious blood
Supplied the colours of the bow
That spans the clouded flood.

Ramsgate, Monday Evening, July 30, 1838.

A PARTING BENISON TO THE MEDEA STEAMSHIP.

Go, sink or swim, thou punt of evil name,
And rightly call'd, from Jason's barbarous dame!
Lured by thy signal-flag, descried afar,
Five home-bound English cross'd Oporto's Bar;
Rude winds they heard, and rampant waves they met,
But found thy bluff Commander rougher yet.

They ask'd admission at that vessel's side:
“The mail! the mail!” the imperious Triton cried.
“We seek a passage to our native shore!”
“Hand up the mail!” he answer'd with a roar.
“But here are passengers—a female one—”
“The mail I want,” responded Neptune's son.
“There take the mail!” (the devil take your manners,
And Fate embark us under gentler banners!)
“Thanks, very sorry! now shove off!” he cried!
“Shove off!” and left us on the weltering tide!
For this, thou vapouring punt of evil name,
We wish thee—a good voyage all the same!

San João da Foz, Oporto, September, 1837.

CLOUDS.

LINES SENT TO A FRIEND, AFTER WATCHING WITH HER ONE SUMMER'S EVENING THE PASSAGE OF CLOUDS AT DIFFERENT ALTITUDES SUCH AS ARE HERE DESCRIBED.

Fair is Earth, a goodly substance—fair with things of every hue;
But yon vapour-world is fairer, haunting the cerulean blue.
First the rain-clouds float above me, slow, like caravels of freight;
Higher are the central sailers; then the cirri, higher yet.
These are eastward slowly wending; o'er her grave their shadows pass,
While, in rapid retrocession, westward flies the central mass.

But the highest and the brightest, linger in their stately march:
These are they that bear the Angels, near the zenith of the arch;
And among them, poised or wafted, sit the Spirits of the Blest,
Looking down on us, the mourners, of their presence dispossest.
Oh for wings, that I might seek Her! Something whispers She is there,—
Yonder, up among the brightest of those floating isles of air.

Grasmere Church-yard, 1848.

The passage of clouds at different altitudes in different and even opposite directions, swayed by different currents of air, is quite a common, if not commonly observed, characteristic of them; but I ought not to say it is not commonly observed, for every seaman, and every shepherd, and every other habitual sky-gazer, must be familiar with it. The three several fleets of clouds yesterday sailed just as I have described them. The chapter on clouds in Mr. Ruskin's “Modern Painters” probably suggested something of the above.

ON A PORTRAIT BY COMERFORD.

Unjust to Nature, though not all untrue,
A skilful hand these cherish'd features drew;
The general lines with faithful touch it gave,
And so secured some triumph o'er the grave.

But with the lineaments of age, to trace
The fine expression of benignant grace,
And yet to mingle with the charm serene
The venerable dignity of mien,—
Impart the loftiness, yet not impair
The courtly softness by the regal air;
To give the eye the temper'd light that spread
A sort of glory round the reverend head;—
This was beyond the artist; all it could
His pencil furnish'd; and the work is good.
But memory's power a better likeness gives;
She still by that among her offspring lives;
Regret recals her, till her form appears—
Seen through the pensive mist of filial tears—
Such as she was ere life's last flame declined,
Cloudless of brow, and passionless of mind!
Such as she was when kindred seraphs came,
Her gentle spirit for the skies to claim.

THE MAGDALEN.

Paint me a Magdalen
With violets in her hair,
Such as she gave her Lover
Near his aching heart to wear—
On that frail Lover's bosom
As she had fared, to fare;
To love him and to lose him
When crush'd and wither'd there.—

Just when to heaven upturning
Her dark eyes bright with tears,
She bade farewell for ever
To passion's hopes and fears;—
To all the mortal yearning
That woman's bosom sears,
And scores her heart with burning
Whose traces last for years:—

Just in that awful struggle,
Which fiends and angels share,
When sorrow saves the victim
Of passion from despair,
Paint me that Magdalen
Redeem'd—but let her wear
A wreath of dark-blue violets
About her jet-black hair.

“WHAT HAVE YOU SEEN IN WICKLOW?”

All that the heart has ever charm'd or awed;
Scenes for Salvator; landscapes fit for Claude;
Banditti's glens; monks' temples; hermits' cells;
Lone streams where nuns might bathe; and lovers' dells;
Tall hills whose swelling bosoms heave with woods;
And rocks with their rude children, the fresh floods,
Plunging and leaping from their parents' arms—
These have I seen—with all the added charms
Of tint and shade that Autumn could impart
To captivate the eye, and fix the heart.—

[SONNETS.]

TO C. S. H.

Glide, spirit benign—for such our guest has been,
In presence with us for too brief a tide—
Back to thy sadden'd home that claims thee, glide!—
A lingering vision of that tranquil mien
Inform'd with virtue shrinking from display,
A dim reflection of that soul serene,
Although the visitant be far away
Will yet be ours amid this Eden scene.
The whitest cloud that ever light refined
Above us floating where the angels hide,
Sheds a dark shadow on the mountain-side:
So the bland image of thy stainless mind
From far will reach us, dear to memory's sight,
A pensive shadow of angelic light.

Rydal, October 12, 1849.

EMMA.

How like a soul on her chaste way to heaven
The moon is climbing up yon azure hill!
Clouds by rude gusts athwart her path are driven,
Then pass away, and leave her spotless still:
Thus o'er the good pass clouds of worldly ill!
Soft, serious Emma! like that moon wert Thou!
Lovely in youth and goodness as thou wert;
Religion's lambent light was on thy brow,
And on thy cheek, and in thy gentle heart,
Shedding mild lustre on thy heavenward way,
Spite of those earthly clouds that cross'd its ray.
Virtue in thee refined upon her part,
And seem'd to buoy thee upward, free from taint:
Serene Enthusiast! meekly soaring saint!

THE AMERICAN SHIP PAULINA.

The sinking moon, her herald to the west,
At midnight left her motionless in port:
Day is but two hours old, and round her sport
The Atlantic billows, welcoming their guest
Whose red-striped flag is by the breeze carest.
Home from the vine-land for her far-off mart,
She bears the bacchant juice that cheers the heart,
And sometimes maddens. For an exile's breast—
For him whom she is wafting far away
From Douro's banks, where all his fancies grew,
That now must wither in ungenial air—
Where is the flattering balm that can allay
The yearning of a heart in vain so true,
At sea upon a voyage of despair?

Foz, near Oporto, Sunday, July 13, 1845.

HERO-WORSHIP. I.

“Cromwell! our chief of men;” thy surest praise
Is this, that He, a greater far than thou,
Crown'd with immortal verse thine iron brow.
O “fallen on evil tongues and evil days,”
And blind already in the horrent blaze
Thy torch enkindled, he who could endow
Thy blood-red star with seraph light, and vow
Upon an idol shrine his sacred bays.—
Though none denies thee grandeur in thy crime,
That struck the realm as with a thunder shock,
Though Milton's organ peal'd applause sublime,
That trunkless visage haunts thee from the block,
Nor unrebuked will evil fame rejoice,
While honour in the island hath a voice.

HERO-WORSHIP. II.

Discrown'd misfortune trampled in the dust;
Admired disorder canting in the phrase
Of holiness; a Stuart (for after days
A lesson how a King benignly just,
Weak to resist though faithful to his trust,
Should perish) murder'd in the public gaze!
Creeds topsy-turvy, statutes in a blaze,
And all to deify a will robust!
Tongue-saintly Cromwell in his stalwart clutch
Seizes the sceptre, knocks the gilding off,
And makes it homely as a grandam's crutch:
But woe to the malignants if they scoff
At him who wields it; Oliver, the Man!
Save us from Lord-Protectors Puritan!

Louis XVI.

MEDUSA. I.

There is a pensive sweetness on her cheek,
And in her eye a melancholy lustre,
Complaining of the living snakes that cluster
Among her golden tresses. How, to wreak
Such vengeance on the lovely and the weak,
Could the Parthenian Goddess, for her shrine
Profaned, forget that mercy was divine?
Fair victim! I know one as fair as thou,
Whose foot, like thine, at Wisdom's altar stumbled,
And who, forsaken and forgotten now,
In spirit broken, as in beauty humbled,
Feels shame's keen vipers on her aching brow,
While they whose ears are shut to misery's groan,
View the poor wretch with eyes and hearts of stone!

MEDUSA. II.

Beautiful Maniac of the locks enchanted,
Whose golden net enslaved the Lord of Ocean!
Is this the end of all his false devotion?
Is this the crown upon thy temples planted
By him whose bosom for thy beauty panted?
Alas! frail Woman yields to soft emotion,
And love beguiles her with some airy notion:
And then the tempter's fatal suit is granted;
And then, away are wing'd the days of gladness
With him who sipp'd the nectar of her breath;
And then succeed the pains of guilt and sadness:
Love's flowery braid becomes a snaky wreath,
And then the serpents hiss her into madness:
Thus pleasure's garland turns a crown of death!

THE GAULS AT ROME. A.D. 1849. I.

License for Gaul, and Liberty for Rome!
The Frank Republic on its banner waves,
And marches forth to tell the Pontiff's slaves
That new-born Freedom shall not find a home
Within the precincts of St. Peter's dome,
Until in blood baptised, with Gallic knaves
For sponsors: such the rite their glory craves.
Egregious warning for all time to come—
The faith of Paris! Romans, ye have heard
The Chanticleer of France outcrow the bird
That smote on Peter's heart when he denied
His Master. Lo! the Gaul is at the gate;
Go forth, but weep not, duped Triumvirate,
Embrace your friend, philosopher, and guide!

THE GAULS AT ROME. A.D. 1849. II.

What! in the breach, amid the roar of guns,
Ye meet him hand to hand in deadly strife?
The heart of ancient Rome is come to life;
The Eternal City owns you for her sons,
And Tiber, flush'd with angry triumph, runs
Incarnadined with patriot gore, and rife
With airs of death; while “war unto the knife,”
As in Saguntum, maid nor matron shuns
To echo and re-echo from his banks.
Mazzini, Saffi, Garibaldi, now,
Stand ye or fall, enroll'd in valour's ranks
Ye live! Who love ye least will most avow
Your Curtian spirit, dreadless of the Gulf—
The Roman courage nurtured by the Wolf.

Written and published in the “Morning Post,” before the Surrender.

THE GAULS AT ROME. A.D. 1849. III.

The battle, though not always to the strong,
Was too unequal: Rome submits to Gaul;
The great republic hath disarm'd the small,
And, by that unimaginable wrong,
Confess'd itself a bubble, that ere long
Should burst by its own lightness. If the fall
Of men whose frantic minds the wise appal,
Be just, by Gallic hands, let choral song
Ring wide for Papal royalty restored.
That song, in France, should echo to recal
The long-descended heir of him whose sword
The pontiff-throne establish'd. From the thrall
Released of blind delirium, France again
Should hail the regal lily of the Seine.

THE GAULS AT ROME. A.D. 1849. IV.

Up with the Oriflamme, most Christian France!
That long-lost title wouldst thou yet regain,
Up with the golden wand of Charlemagne,
The banner of Saint Louis, and the lance
That, like the seraph's, glitter'd in advance
Of sacred armies on the Syrian plain,
When Paladins were champions of the Fane,
And Christian chivalry was true romance.
If this thy new crusade in Holy Land,
Be genuine zeal for desecrated law,
Look for its cause at home: for there is spawn'd
The speckled pest whose breath the nations draw;
That glozing cheat at dreaming Freedom's ear,
Would start a fiend, touch'd by Ithuriel's spear.

FIELD-FOOT CEDAR. I.

PLANTED BY WORDSWORTH, SEPTEMBER 18, 1849.

Muse-favoured Scion, flourish like thy peers
The solemn growth of orient peaks sublime,
And trust thy glorious destiny to Time:
For, though thy lot may lowlier seem than theirs,
The man who plants thee, one of Nature's seers,
Above their height has built enduring rhyme.
Among these rocks thou canst not choose but climb
And prosper, hallowed by his fourscore years.
Man's life, extended to its utmost length,
Is shorter than the crescent youth of trees;
Not so the life of genius, by the strength
Of virtue cherished in the sun and breeze.
When thou art old, his name will cling to thee,
And awe the spoiler,—thou art Wordsworth's Tree!

FIELD-FOOT CEDAR. II.

Not Menalus, with all his sylvan throng,
Waving applausive to the reed of Pan
While nymphal feet the dancing measure scan,—
Nor Val di Noto, though its forests rung
With Doric harmonies ere Maro sung, —
Not Monte Mario, though the Pine be there
That owes its menaced life to Beaumont's care,
Its glory to the Lute by Wordsworth strung,—
Outcharms these wild wood-rocks to Fancy's eye,
While she beholds this Himalayan plant
A stately cedar, potent to enchant
Beneath its umbrage, in a future age,
Some Poet destined to a mission high,
A Weird successor of the Rydal Sage.

Menalus, famous in classical lore for its pine-trees, and as the favourite haunt of Pan, and his company of Nymphs and Fauns.

The Greek Poet was born in Syracuse, which is in the Val di Noto.

See Wordsworth's Sonnet:—

“I saw far off the dark top of a Pine,”

and the note to it.

FIELD-FOOT CEDAR. III.

On Indus' banks and Ganges,' near the fane
Wherein sits Deva on his mystic throne,
The Brahmin sows the Deodarean cone;
And crouching myriads—for whose sires, in vain
A warning voice proclaim'd Messiah's reign,
Hereditary thralls to stock and stone—
Revere their God-tree in the seed thus sown.
Grow thou, secure from ministry insane.—
An English river near a purer shrine,
Flows by the rocks that will protect thy youth,
And thou art planted here but to record
A date that cleaves to sympathies benign
In hearts that trust the promise of the Word,
And rest their solace on Eternal Truth.

The Pinus Deodara, the Cedar of India, is held as “a sacred tree by the natives, deodara meaning the tree of Siva or Deva, who is one of the most important divinities in the Hindû Mythology. As the tree of the Gods, the deodara is planted near the Indian temples, and comes in for a share of the worship.”

Frances Xavier, Missionary of the East in 1547, was popularly styled “the Apostle of India.”

FIELD-FOOT. I.

The crags of Loughrigg to the rising sun
Oppose a jealous aspect: and his beam
(From Wansfell glancing o'er the charmèd stream
Of Rotha grateful for the glory won
From orient light) those sullen barriers shun,
Forbidding with a sylvan veil the gleam
That would awaken from their morning dream
The cavern'd Oreads, who disporting run
Among those cliffs till dawn, and weary then
Hide in their fern-screen'd coverts.—Footing there
To sprites of Fancy only, not to men,
Is free—So deems the pilgrim, unaware
How powers severe to strenuous art relent,
And passes, seeking a less coy ascent.

As laid out by the owner, William Crewdson, Esq.

FIELD-FOOT. II.

A human instinct, breathed into the soul
By Him who out of chaos Eden made,
Has work'd unseen behind yon leafy shade.—
The sense of beauty, stealthy as the mole
But like the lynx keen-vision'd, upward stole
Along the frowning walls, and there essay'd
The more than wizard power of axe and spade,
To lift the aspirant to a lofty goal.
The bird-like spirit of hope from bough to bough,
From rock to rock, incited labour on:
Reluctant nature smooth'd her angry brow,
For not a line of savage grace was gone,
From lowly Field-foot to the crowning Fell;
So shrewdly work'd the Master of the Spell!

Rydal, July 18, 1849.

CAVE OF MEDITATION, FIELD-FOOT.

A man, whose sorrows veil'd him from the crowd,
Wandering incautious of a tempest near,
At nightfall chanced to seek a shelter here,
And stood and listen'd from this stony shroud
To spectral voices hailing him aloud,
To woods and waters thundering in his ear,
While all was hidden but one eastern star
Serenely shining through a riven cloud.
Anon the placid star assumed the form
Of Her whom he had follow'd to the grave:
The momentary vision, poised in air,
Glanced with a pity that rebuked despair;
Then all the brightness vanish'd in the storm,
And Sibyl Night mused with him in the cave.

TO ANGUS FLETCHER.

Angus, this fond Memorial, that we raise
To One all worthy of the sculptor's art,
Is but a simple tribute of the heart;
No costly lure to take the stranger's gaze.
Yet, if some mourner, through the tender haze
Of tears, contemplating this modest stone,
By sympathetic grief shall soothe his own,
Be his the solace, and be thine the praise.
The frame of ivy, faithful to the dead,
The Cross, the Lamb that watches o'er her grave,
The words of life that to the dying gave
The peace of faith upon an anguish'd bed,
This love, this mystery, this hope, are there,
Evolved, yet guarded, by thy sentient care.

Grasmere Church-yard, September 22, 1849.

“Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.” St. John, vi. 37.

SUSPIRIA.

I. WORDSWORTH'S HOME.

The fairest bowers in this enchanted land,
To me are darken'd by a fate severe,
And most yon terraced bower of Rydal-mere,
That long-loved mount, where oft some pilgrim band,
Won by the genius of the place, will stand
Lingering, as now, in many a distant year.
Alas! the Delphic “laurels never sere,”
Undying trophies of their planter's hand,
To Him were blighted, though they yet be green,
For me were wither'd, when no more was seen
The light that fed her aged father's heart,
And shed the tenderest glory on his fame.
The living forms of his creative art
For us are shadowy,—Dora but a name.

August, 1849.

II. HER HOME.

Oh for a glance into the world above!
Enfranchised trembler, thou art surely there!
Not mine the gloom fanatic to despair
Of grace for thee: but, reft of thy pure love,
So dread a conflict in my soul I prove,
So lost I feel in solitary care,
So frail, forlorn, and worthless, that I dare
Aspire to no such height, unless the dove
Of peace, descending, teach my hope to soar.
Fond heart! thy wounds were heal'd, thy sins forgiven;
I saw thee die; I know that thou art blest.
Thou, dying sufferer, wert wing'd for heaven;
And when thy spirit mounted to its rest
My guardian angel fled, to come no more.

III. “JESUS WEPT.” (St. John xi. 35.)

Christ, Thou hast wept! Forgive the tears I shed;
I know Thou wilt upraise her. But I fear
This captious questioner within. The tear
That falls so oft upon her grave is bred
Of doubt and horror. When her Spirit fled
'Twas sanctified in Thee: but I am here,
On this bleak earth, a lorn probationer,
Struggling against myself—She is not dead,
But sleepeth:—shall I ever see her more,
Or see her as she was, the soul, the life,
Of my life's being? I shall sleep and wake,
But will the waking unto me restore,
Or find me doom'd for ever to forsake,
The glorified immortal, once my Wife?

Wednesday, August 22, 1849.

IV. A REQUEST.

Two graves, in Grasmere Vale, yew-shaded both,
My all of life, if life be love, comprise.
In one the mother of my children lies,
Fate's blameless victim in her bloom of youth:
The other holds the constancy and truth
That never fail'd me under darker skies,
When subtle wrongs perplex'd me. Her whose eyes
Saw light through every wildering maze uncouth.
Between those graves a space remains for me:
O lay me there, wherever I may be
When met by Death's pale angel; so in peace
My dust near theirs may slumber, till the day
Of final retribution or release
For mortal life's reanimated clay.

STANZAS

[Deem not the Bard ungentle of his kind]

[_]

Written at Oporto, January, 1837, and addressed to the sister of Lieut. Robert Cockburn, of the Royal Artillery, who perished in the “Tigris” steamer, which sank in a hurricane on the Euphrates, a little below Annah, on the 21st of May, 1836.

Deem not the Bard ungentle of his kind,
Though due so long his promised tribute be,
Pure pearls of fancy are but hard to find,
And meaner gems are all unworthy Thee.—
Fain would I summon now the Muse of glee
To chant the pæan of the new-born year,
And give thee greeting: but, believe the plea,—
No Muse of joy will answer to my cheer,
Though Thou art one of those to Fancy's Daughters dear.

I see a youthful Hebe-matron, clad
In raiment sacred to a stern distress,
And thoughts, that would be gay, perforce are sad,
To see her cheek, too, wear the mourner's dress,

The shade of sorrow, deepening loveliness;
The pensive trace of anguish that has past,
But with it taken from her life no less
Than youth's fond hope that ev'n on earth might last
Serene delights for them whose hopes on Heaven are cast.

Lady of Albyn, never northern flower,
Transplanted to a garden of the sun,
Found in the fervent south a fairer bower
Than Chance for Thee, by Taste directed, won,
Where Douro's waters near the ocean run;
There, rich in pleasures that the good esteem,
And far from revels that the happiest shun,
Thy lot, young wife and mother, well might seem
A proof that earthly joys were not indeed a dream.

Yet might thy distant home at times intrude
Its dearer image on the sunnier land;
Thy soul might hearken, in some anxious mood,
To well-known voices from a Scottish strand,
Though borne on softer gales than ever fann'd
The cheek of beauty on thy native shore:—
Then would thy spirit yearn till fancy's wand

Restored thee to that household hearth once more,
With all thy kinsmen there to greet thee as of yore.

Perhaps among them, thy return to hail,
A soldier stood embrown'd by torrid skies,
Safe from the ocean-storm, the desert-gale,
The breaker's menace, and the shoal's surprise;
Safe from the savage foe in friendly guise,
The dank miasma, the sirocco's breath,
And every chance that lurks with evil eyes
To waste adventurous Errantry beneath
Its subtle glance malign, and mock his toils with death.

Perhaps that very month, that very day
Such home-wing'd thoughts from yon “Mirante” flew,
That very noon—while rich delicious May
Shower'd orange-odours on thy head, and threw
About thy feet bright buds of every hue:—
Heedless that Spring's aroma round thee breathed,
Perhaps even then, thy mind the portrait drew

Of one with visionary laurels wreath'd—
Alas, the soldier's sword for evermore was sheath'd!

Him (by those shores where Judah's captive daughters
On Babel's willows hung their harps and wept),
Him, even then, embark'd on fatal waters,
Down to their depths the Syrian vortex swept.—
Their gliding course two ships of Britain kept,
Bound on a desert-pilgrimage to Ind!
Fraught with a Band whose brave impatience stept
To strait conclusions; with the island-mind
That spurns its billowy chain, and marches unconfined.

No more round scowling Afric's stormy Cape,
Where Lusian Vasco led the Hope forlorn,
Need western messengers remotely shape
Their track to reach the birth-land of the Morn,—
For lo! a Power in the west is born
That, wingless, mocks the flight of winged ships,
And laughing old impediments to scorn,
Right to the goal, as Arab courser leaps,
Fleets o'er the iron lines, or steams along the deeps.

That giant-child of science, cradled on
Britannia's waves, the Band of Britons take
To grapple with the flood of Babylon;
At Bir, their Infant-Hercules they wake
To try his prowess on the Desert Snake. —
The dusky Bedouin, near his swarthier tent,
Saw vessels strange with stranger flag opaque
Of streaming vapour, lengthen'd as they went,
And watch'd the breathing omen, wondering what it meant;

Or horde of Arabs group'd beneath the shade
Of clustering date-trees, gazed with jealous ire;
Lords of the parchèd wastes, they saw, dismay'd,
Intruders leagued with their own flood and fire;
Their founts of naphtha with their streams conspire
To serve the white magicians from the West,
Who came, with charms and occult courses dire,
To force the burning wilds, perhaps to wrest
Their sway, in nature's right, by Ismael's sons possest.

Brave minds, at war with Time and Space they think
They now have made that River proud their slave,
Have made Euphrates the bimarian link
Of Persia's gulf and the Levantine wave!
But, when the current friendliest promise gave
He kept barbaric faith with his allies:
He bade them welcome, and prepared their grave,—
While they, rejoicing in their hard emprise,
Assured fruition saw with Valour's trusting eyes.

'Twas noon: the sun from his meridian quiver,
Pelted the waves with arrows, in his play;
The shallow ships, adown the olden river,
Skimm'd o'er Is Geria's reef their earnest way:—
At once, a rushing Midnight blacken'd Day!
Midnight! in sweltering sandy mantle clad,
Borne on the wings of winds that scented prey,
And storm'd the waters with their barkings glad:
The panting River heaved, and reel'd with joyance mad.

Blind Passion works its furious purpose fast;
'Twas but a transient fit of Nature's spleen;
Almost ere one could cry “it comes,” 'twas past,—
Light look'd again on that unalter'd scene;

The brushwood-banks of Annah were as green,
The sylvan isles as graceful as before;
The Babylonish River was serene
As if one hapless ship it lately bore
Lay not, a wreck ensnared, beneath its treacherous floor;

As if its Arab gripe did never clutch,
And crush stout hearts within its fierce embrace;
Nor held, that moment, in its grasp so much
Of worth and daring that had toil'd to grace
A ruggèd enterprise, and earn a place
On Honour's lists.—They wrote their names in sand;
They penn'd their glory with a watery trace;
They reap'd the whirlwind, where they sought the bland
Rewards of ripe success for projects nobly plann'd.

And Thou—that gentle breast was sore assail'd,
When from thy vision of the bright May-morn
The flattering mist that soothed suspense exhaled,
And Hope, so oft to human love forsworn,
Show'd, through her orient veil abruptly torn,

The dull perspective of Ambition crost,
Of frustrate skill, of courage overborne;
And, in the midst of all, a Brother's ghost—
A Brother doubly dear because for ever lost.

No, not for ever! to thy constant faith
That hope at least in saintly trust is given;
For, those who tread like Thee the narrow path,
The arduous line of light that leads to Heaven,
With hopeless sorrow never yet have striven,
Nor known the heart's immedicable pain.—
O lady, if by mournful fancies driven
My verse has pierced a recent wound again,
Forgive the rash misdeed, forget the offending strain:

But no—the trembling sympathies that waken
Such strains, were never ministers of wrong:
To soothe the spirit though the heart be shaken
Is the emollient privilege of song:
Not with the griefs that all to pain belong
The mourner sits beneath the cypress tree
Whereon the melancholy lyre is hung
That turns to sighs the breeze's minstrelsy:
When tears to music flow their fall is anguish-free:

And thou hast listen'd to this verse of mine,
Although its melody in sooth be rude,
Not with the fever'd feelings that repine
At sorrow's violated solitude.
Thou still wouldst listen, if the theme pursued
Thy lonely kinsman, from his watery lair
Uplifted, (for the wave in milder mood
Resign'd its victim,) and by Christian care
Committed dust to dust—no kindred witness there;

No Sire at hand; no Mother (half whose heart
Was yet there buried with her gallant boy);
Nor Brother, nor the Sister-counterpart
Of all his gentler qualities, stood nigh.
Nor, haply, ever shall a kinsman sigh
Over his sand-swathed reliques, far removed
From native scenes, from every social tie
Of Childhood, every haunt where first he proved
The blessèd charm of life, to love and be beloved.

A stone, 'twas all they could, his comrades rear'd
To mark his grave—Oblivion's desert shower
Will quench the dim memorial: but the endear'd
By worth ev'n in the grave retain a power

Tenacious over memory. The hour
Of doom, the fondliest-cherish'd blossom reaves,
But they who knew the sweetness of the flower
Store in their breasts the crush'd and wither'd leaves,
Whose root in earth is hid, whose essence Heaven receives.

Mirante, a look-out tower fitted up as a garden summer-house, over-looking the river Douro.

The iron steamers the “Euphrates” and “Tigris,” sent out by Government with the expedition under Colonel Chesney, R. A., to ascertain the possibility of navigating the Euphrates river as a short route to India.

The two iron steamers the “Euphrates” and the “Tigris” were launched at Bir.

“Desert Snake,” so called from the winding course of the river.

TO D---.

Friend of my heart!—for thus my heart
Has named its dearest earthly friend—
Though distant far we dwell apart,
True minds can still in absence blend.

Where'er I wander on the earth,
I know that thou wilt think of me;
While every scene shall call to birth
Some fond and touching thought of thee.

I ne'er shall climb a mountain's side,
Nor steer across a glistening lake,
Nor through romantic woodlands ride,
Nor roam where billows wildly break;

But memory still within my breast
To soft regret will heave a sigh;
For every scene will still suggest
Some dearer scene where thou wert nigh.

TO D. H.

Blithe bird of the wood-nook, thy flight we deplore;
Fair flower of the Green Bank, we see thee no more;
Mild star of the moor-land, where now is thy gleam
That so softly gave light to the lake and the stream?
If a bird be thine emblem, a passage-bird thou;
Those warblers of summer, where carol they now?
They were friends of the summer, from winter they flee,
And the sweet wingèd sylvans have vanish'd like thee.
If a star be thy symbol, yon star in the west,
That peeps in at my casement, resembles thee best:
It haunts me, it sends me a light like a smile,
Yet is distant, alas! and is setting the while.
If a flower be thy type (but where now are the flowers?
Not a bud, scarce a leaf, cheers this winter of ours)

If a flower be thy type, 'tis the simplest, the dearest,
The bright little primrose, whose advent is nearest:
That flower will I call thee, the herald of spring;
'Twill announce thy return, and the season will bring.
No rose in all England, no lily of France,
Or in summer or spring against thee has a chance:
Such a primrose is worth all the tulips of Holland—
How I envy and hate longitudinal Bolland.

TO MRS. HARRISON,

OF THE SHRUBBERY, BARHAM.

The lark salutes thy May-day morn
From yonder fleecy cloud,
The blackbird from the dewy thorn
His welcome pipes aloud.

So we in early strains unite
To greet thy natal day—
Without the lark's ethereal flight,
Or blackbird's music gay.

But not without the songster's glee,
That in thy “shrubbery” sings,
And not without the prayer for thee
That lark-like heavenward springs.

And with us in accordance sweet
Thy children's children pray
That we may all together meet
In an eternal May.

May-day, 1839.

TO A YOUNG LADY, WHO RESIDED BETWEEN THE RIVERS LEE AND BRIDE, NEAR CORK.

A river by thy bower is flowing,
Lady of the Lee!
Tell me, maiden, is he going
Lonely to the sea?
Lovely lady, not alone,
For soon the Bride will be his own.

Below thy sire's abode, behold,
The gentle Bride has join'd the Lee,
Till now alone, and pure, and cold,
The Bride was but a type of thee:
Lovely lady, who is he
Whose symbol is the wedded Lee?

For him life's stream will fairly glide!
And joy be his, whoe'er he be!
So farewell now the Lee and Bride,
Whose flowery banks are not for me:
Banks there are as fair to see,
But where's the nymph like her of Lee?

LINES TO MRS. DUNLOP, FOR ROTHA.

O could I lay as fair a chain
Upon that neck of thine
As thou, to make my birthday vain,
This morn hast laid on mine,

Sweet lady, nor of gold nor pearl
My fairy gift should be;
The feeble fancy of a girl
Should prove too strong for thee.

And wert thou e'er so far away,
My chain should hold thee still,
A charm upon thy spirit lay,
Thy memory and thy will:

A charm to make thee, when we part,
Full oft of her to think
Who would have bound thee to her heart
With love in every link.

The Foz, near Oporto, September 15, 1845.

TO MISS ------.

Thou wert to me a mystery of not unpleasing dread;
Thou art to me a history that I have quickly read!
There is a spell upon thee which I would not read aloud,
To any but thy secret ear within an arbour's shroud.
For though it might be quickly said, thy cheek would change its hue
If 'twere exprest by more than one, or heard by more than two.
It is not guilt, it is not shame; tho' leading oft to both
In breasts where sensibility is prodigal of growth.

Thou art not happy, though thy smile would fain the truth deny;
I know too much of sorrow's guile to trust a laughing eye:

Thine is a genuine woman's heart; all woman to the core;
Beware; be warn'd before we part! for we shall meet no more.
(Though not perchance without a sigh shall memory oft retrace
That fine pale air of intellect and melancholy grace.)
Farewell, forget me if thou wilt, while pleasures round thee bloom,
Remember me when thou art left in solitude and gloom.

TO MARY, DANCING.

Diana's queenlike step is thine,
And when in dance thy feet combine
They fall with truth so sweet,
The music seems to come from thee,
And all the notes appear to be
“The echoes of thy feet.”

And every limb with all the notes
In that accordant beauty floats
And careless air of chance,
That 'tis a rapture to behold
Thee thus, with waving locks of gold,
The very soul of dance.

The loveliness so rich before
Puts on a thousand graces more
In that inspiring maze;
Like jewels brighter when in motion,
Or sunshine on the waves of ocean,
Alive with dancing rays.

MAY LUTTRELL.

A Christmas Day on Biscay's Bay
Is sorry cheer, May Luttrell!
A roaring breeze and raging seas
Are music drear, May Luttrell!

Our moaning bark like Noah's ark
Is all alone, May Luttrell!
The waste of surge to Ocean's verge
Seems all our own, May Luttrell!
Skies, sea, and wind were fair and kind
But yesterday, May Luttrell!
But now astray they force our way
On Biscay's Bay, May Luttrell!
The sea and wind are like thy mind,
A fickle pair, May Luttrell!
The changing skies are like thine eyes,
So false and fair, May Luttrell!

Within Oporto's orange shades
And citron bowers, May Luttrell,
Are maids of beauty dark, and maids
As fair as flowers, May Luttrell!
And one there is above them all
With charms endow'd, May Luttrell!
A maiden dark and pale and tall,
Of spirit proud, May Luttrell!
Her eyes are as the lightning bright
In arrowy freaks, May Luttrell!

Enkindling blushes with their light
On her own cheeks, May Luttrell!
And then the magic of her smile,
That smile of smiles, May Luttrell!
Which still invites and still delights
And still beguiles, May Luttrell!

Though far away from sunny shores
And sunnier eyes, May Luttrell!
I toss where angry ocean roars
To blackening skies, May Luttrell!
That stately form, with all its warm
Array of grace, May Luttrell!
Before me glitters through the storm!
I see her face, May Luttrell!
But mark, the gale has ceased to rail;
The wind has veer'd, May Luttrell!
Our bark so gay now knows her way,
Northeastward steer'd, May Luttrell!
I fill the glass, a health to pass
Though far at sea, May Luttrell!
A health to Porto's fairest lass;—
And that's to Thee, May Luttrell!

TO A LADY OF SUPERCILIOUS AIR.

Why should thine eyes look daggers? sheathe
Their pride within those silken lids;
And listen, lady, while I breathe
The tale thy haughty stare forbids.

Is it a tale of love? why how
Those orbs dilate with wondering scorn!
No, think to hear no lover's vow,
Proud daughter of the “son of morn!”

'Tis true while I regard that brow
My deepest feelings trembling wake;
Like leaves upon the aspen bough
They seem without a cause to shake.

But thou art less than half the cause,
So toss not thus the head superb;
Although thy form my memory awes,
Although thy traits my dreams disturb.

I watch thy course in fashion's train,
Where most thy gaudy beauty flares;
And hate thy spirit cold and vain,
But love too well the form it wears.

Thou art to me as if the Dead
Had shaken off her mortal trance,
And glided round my board and bed
With icy, strange, mysterious glance.

As if, unchanged in shape, she came
From out her dormitory damp,
But with the mind's informing flame
Rekindled at another's lamp.

Thou wilt die young, perchance, like her
Whose breathing effigy thou art;
Death's angel may delight to mar
The beauty that deforms thy heart.

No: not o'er thee will early wave
The shadow of that angel's wings;
The hearts which find the earliest grave
Are those that feeling deepest stings.

No, live, till by the crooked share
Of time, thy brow and cheek are plough'd,
And, scant and gray, thy feeble hair
Thy palsied head shall faintly shroud.

Alas, if I misjudge thee!—soul
And feature often disagree;
Beneath the ice that guards the pole
Unnumber'd living things there be.

Unnumber'd germs of loveliest flowers
Lie slumbering under winter snows,
Awaiting vernal sun and showers
To rouse them from their drear repose.

Like birds that nestle among leaves
Of thistle, holly-tree, and thorn,
There's many a heart that warmly heaves
Within its prickly hedge of scorn.

LADIES' EYES.

TO MISS ------.

The common song of “Ladies' Eyes”
Is not the song for me;
And flattery is too coarse a prize
To be received by thee.

Then shade not thine with anger's cloud,
Although a friend complain
Of eyes that captivate the proud,
And persecute the vain.

False tongues have ruin'd many a heart,
False eyes have ruin'd more;
Thine eyes are false, and full of art,
The modern lady's lore.

Forgive me, if I rudely preach;
But thou art fair and young,
And few will beauty's eyes impeach
With truth's impartial tongue.

A generous spirit like to thine
Should scorn the juggler's play,
That teaches ladies' eyes to shine,
To flatter, and betray.

If only fools and fops were stung
By that hyblean smile,
I scarce could grudge thee, fair and young,
The triumph of thy guile.

The victims of their own conceit
May serve a lady's mirth;
But there are hearts that warmly beat
On this unfeeling earth.

Such, by delusive kindness caught,
To looks confide their peace;
And, when they find their hopes were nought
But trophies for caprice,

They will not let thee hear them sigh.
Nor let thee see them weep;
They will not sue, for pride is high
Where tenderness is deep.

100

They will not wear the lover's chain
Exposed upon their breast;
Nor make a spectacle of pain
That thou and thine may jest.

Nor will they dreary woods explore,
Nor pace in lonely halls;
Nor linger on the river shore,
To gaze upon thy walls.

But they will join the social walk,
And fare as others fare;
And thus thy pride of conquest balk,
By their contented air.

But not the less, oh not the less,
Though well they act their part,
May be the patient mind's distress,
The blight upon the heart.

Remember then, for true love's sake,
False looks are worse than words;
And play no more the bright-eyed snake
That fascinates the birds.

101

TO THE POET.

I

Wordsworth, the nightingales are come!
They love the pleasant groves of Lee;
'Tis budding, billing, singing weather;
“Birds of a feather
Flock together.”
And where they are 'tis fit that you should be.

II

Poet, the nightingales are come!
Their throats are now in perfect tune;
Yet you are gone away,
Though after May
These vernal melodies are almost dumb;
And seldom shall we hear in June
These shy, inconstant, poets of the moon.

102

III

Though passing fair is Rydal-mere,
Nor Rotha's groves in music fail:
They only boast throughout the year
One solitary nightingale.

IV

Wordsworth is that dainty bird;
But scores of nightingales are heard
Among the pleasant groves of Lee:
And where they are, 'tis fit that he should be;
Yet he is gone away
Upon the very day
They flock to greet the bard, and welcome in the May.

Lee Priory, April 30, 1824.

103

LEE PRIORY, IN MAY.

WRITTEN IN THE ALBUM OF R. Q.

When squirrels dance, and humble-bees
Come murmuring out of hollow trees
To rifle primrose flowers;
When cuckoos come o'er southern seas,
And with them bring the genial breeze,
That wakes the drowsy hours—

When colts are frisking in the glade,
Lambs racing in the light and shade,
On green and woody slopes,
Where daisies, violets, spread their treasures,
As pure, as rich, as children's pleasures,
As lively as their hopes—

Then is the seasonable time,
When all things sweet are in their prime,
To ramble and to see

104

Fair sights and hear delightful sounds,
Where every woodland charm abounds,
Among the groves of Lee.

Then tender leaves on tree and bush,
Scarce hide the blackbird and the thrush,
The linnets green and brown,
The wren, and every shyest bird
Whose madrigals from morn are heard,
Until the sun goes down.

Then that fond bird, the sylvan dove,
Whose name and nature chime to love,
Sends forth his long low call;
And all are sweetly heard in spite
Of clouds of rooks, from morn till night,
Discordant over all.

But when the vernal daylight fails,
Then is the time for nightingales,
The air is all their own—
Save when the gray-owl shrilly sends
His shout abroad, or sheep-bell blends
A soothing pastoral tone;

105

Save when the distant Minster clock
Distinctly breathes with solemn shock
The oracles of time,
Which sleepless echo loves to mock,
While faintly crows the pheasant-cock,
Awaken'd by the chime.

They who thus in star-lit vales
Listen to the nightingales;
They may sometimes fairly doubt
That far more cunning sprites are out
Than ever taught the little throats
Of birds to trill melodious notes.

They may believe such strains to be
The songs of ladies of the Sea,
Mermaidens come from Thanet's coves
To pass the night in Ickham groves,
And stud with pearls the flowering thorn,
To please the curious eye of Morn.

Lee Priory, May, 1833.

Of Canterbury Cathedral, four miles off.

106

CHILD LOST.

IN A LADY'S ALBUM.

Let prosing souls on earthly steeds
To earth their foggy rides confine:
Aloft, aloft, where fancy leads,
To ride the wingèd horse be mine!

He bears me far, from sordid crowds;
He leaps the welkin's crystal bars;
His pinions cleave the sullen clouds;
His hoofs strike sparkles from the stars.

Last night alone and unregarded,
I canter'd up the milky way,
And found heaven's suburbs all placarded—
“Child lost. A cherub gone astray!

“A flaxen-headed blue-eyed treasure,
A rosy minion, round and merry,
Who laughs, the very soul of pleasure,
And answers to the name of Cherry.

107

“Supposed that a terrestrial dame,
Seen lurking near some time ago,
Seduced the child, to change its name,
And pass it for her own below.

“The lady's face was pale and fair,
Her wit was lively, keen, and bright;
And oft 'tis said to Cynthia's car
She climb'd to pilfer rays of light.

“Whoever brings to Cherub Square,
The small Angelic, shall be paid
Ten thousand thanks, in coin of air;
No further offer will be made.”

Oh ho! said I, if that's the pay
Your Cherubim-retrievers earn,
Yon urchin where it is may stay,
And bloom on earth as Marion Burn.

108

WRITTEN IN THE ALBUM OF EDITH MAY SOUTHEY, WHO FORBADE COMPLIMENT.

Art thou a creature to enchant,
Exquisitely elegant,
And delicately fair!
Form'd in the spirit of the plan
Of nature, when she made a swan,
A lily, and a star!

Is thine that union undefined,
Of harmony, of form, and mind,
Whose type was Beauty's zone?
The voice and smile that charm together;
Like sun and breeze in vernal weather
At play with flowers new blown?

Hast thou the glory of a name,
Familiar to melodious fame,
And dear to Fancy's lyre?

109

Do streams and birds from rock and brake
Proclaim thee nymph of Derwent Lake,
In honour of thy sire?

And must I on this page of thine,
Without one laudatory line,
Poetic tribute pay?
Well—thou art not to be denied,
Though Skiddaw frown, though Greta chide,
Sweet Edith, I obey.

IN A LADY'S ALBUM.

Songstress, when at dew-fall,
Wandering in May,
I shall hear the warblers
Singing down the day,
While the yellow “May-fly”
Hovers o'er the brook,
Watching its own shadow
With a lover's look;

110

Wheresoe'er it be,
Often thus and long,
I shall think of thee,
And thy grace of song.

When in vernal hedge-banks,
Under hawthorn trees,
“Pansies” archly ask me,
Is your heart at ease?
Then thy verse remembering,
Verse in Music's dress,
Verse that scents those flowers,
I shall answer—“Yes.”
Bird and quivering insect,
Flower and “honey-bee,”
All shall be memorials
Of thy song and thee.

111

IN AN ALBUM.

Lady, are you dark or fair,
Owner of this pretty book?
What's the colour of your hair?
Are you blithe and debonnaire,
Or demure of look?

If your eyes are black as sloes,
And your locks of ebon hue;
O'er your cheeks if nature throws
Only just enough of rose,
Why, I think you'll do.

If with pretty mouth you sing,
Void of all extravaganza,
Tender melodies that bring
Hearts around you fluttering,
You are worth a stanza.

112

If you be in soul a child
Lively as a meteor,
Yet with a discretion mild,
Tempering the spirit wild,
You're a charming creature.

Rydal Mount, October 28, 1829.

IN THE ALBUM OF MARGARET ---

Both meanings of La Marguerite,
The daisy or the pearl,
For once in perfect concord meet,
And suit the very girl!

Some prophet surely gave that name
At the baptismal hour
Of one who sparkles like a gem,
Though modest as the flower.

113

IN AN ALBUM

[_]

Given to Miss Bayley (Allan Bank, Grasmere), by “An Old Man, C. W.,” and in which Mr. Wordsworth had written a stanza from his Dedication of the Duddon Sonnets.

An old man gave this little book
To young and blooming Fanny Bayley;
That fancies, brighten'd by her look,
Might decorate its pages gaily:

An older man, the Wizard Chief
Of Rydal's Heliconian Mount,
Is first to grace a favour'd leaf
With fancies born of Duddon's Fount.

But he has quaff'd of Hippocrene;
Then who to follow him shall dare,
Whose laurels are in age as green
As those that deck'd Apollo's hair?

114

I too am old, but never drank
The frenzy of that subtle spring;
Nor dare to sing for Allan Bank,
Where he, when young, was wont to sing;

Where every tree, and rock, and hill,
Were cheer'd by Wordsworth's voice so long;
Where every grove is haunted still
With sadden'd echoes of his song.

Let youthful bards his footsteps trace,
And cull the wreath for maiden brows!
Yet why should I refuse to place
A sprig thereon from Loughrigg boughs?

Such tribute, from December's bowers,
I yet may borrow without folly:
Though wintry age is bare of flowers,
'Twill yield at least a Christmas holly.

Loughrigg Holme, December 26, 1849.

115

SONG.—AMBLESIDE VALE.

[_]

Air—“The Meeting of the Waters.”

There's a vale in the lakeland, a Westmoreland vale,
Where a bright river runs the Winander to hail;
With a voice from Helvellyn it warbles along,
But reserves for that valley the pride of its song.

As it winds out of Rydal, in mazes it steals
To the rock of Fieldfoot, that so shyly conceals
How the spirit of nature, though ever so wild,
By the genius of taste may be led like a child.

Flowing on, the bright river sweeps round by the Ghyll,
Where the fairies by moonlight yet wander at will;
Then turns to the How, —there the rings may be seen
Where the feet of the Fairies have danced out the green.

116

Now it takes to its bosom the nymph-haunted brook,
That to Lesketh comes down from the wells of the Nook,
Loth to leave its green hills, and that exquisite brow
Where it brawls through the oaks by the lawns of Scale How.

Sweet vale of the Rotha! no beauty like thine!
Even sorrow but lends thee a grace more divine;
There's a light from the past on thy meadows and streams,
And this Garden of Eden is more than it seems!

The source of the Rotha is on Helvellyn.

Fieldfoot. Mr. William Crewdson's.

Foxghyll. Mr. Roughsedge's.

Foxhow. Mrs. Arnold's. Fox is here a corruption from Folk: in north country language the Folk means the fairies; consequently Foxghyll is the fairies' ghyll (or glen). Foxhow is the fairies' how or knoll.

Lesketh. Dr. Davy's.

Scale How. Mr. Benson Harrison's.

SONG ALTERED FROM MOORE.

Come tell me, says Rosa, (and who could resist
The wishes by Rosa express'd?)
Come tell me the number, repeat me the list,
Of those you have loved and caress'd.

117

Oh Rosa! 'twas only my fancy that roved,
My heart at the moment was free;
But I'll tell thee, my girl, how many I've loved,
And the number shall finish with thee.

My first love was Chloe, the proud and the coy,
Who shrank from the flatterer's tone,
But smiled on the innocent love of a boy,
Whose heart was as pure as her own.

The next was Maria, a beauty and flirt,
Who smiled upon twenty and more;
We loved and we quarrell'd, and neither was hurt,
For the heart was left out of the score.

Cassandra, the preacher, is third on the roll,
She reign'd for a year and a day;
But the dear theologian so puzzled my soul,
That at last I ran fairly away.

The fourth had a foot for the slipper of glass,
An eye all comparison mocking,
A shape for an angel of light, but alas,
There was always a hole in her stocking.

118

The next was a damsel all trouble and tears,
The sibyl of sorrow was she,
For ever disturbing the present with fears
Of the woes that might possibly be.

The flower that would fondly have lived in her smile,
She water'd to death with her eyes;
The bird that would near her have caroll'd awhile,
She frighten'd away with her sighs.

Then came Angelina, an angel in name,
A mortal in temper was she;
Yet her nature was noble, and I was to blame,
But in sooth we could never agree.

The first was the dream of my childhood: the rest
Were visions as fleeting for me;
My fancy was vagrant, the heart in my breast,
Sweet Rosa, was waiting for thee.

119

LOW WOOD, WINANDERMERE.

In such a scene, on such a day,
I crown'd my bride the queen of May
With wreath by Erin's daughters braided;
The hills were grand, the bowers were gay,
Roughly bold, and softly shaded;
The lake was calm, and bright, and clear,
Like the lake of Windermere.

Years since have past of joy and pain,
I've never heard her voice complain,
In sickness and in sadness;
In health I've never known her vain,
Nor arrogant in gladness.
Would that I now her voice could hear
By the lake of Windermere.

May 1, 1824.

120

MELANCHOLY.

There is a kind of soothing sorrow
Which vulgar minds can never know;
There is a feeling that can borrow
Its wildest sweetest thrill from woe.

'Tis felt at that lone hour of night,
When sadly smiles the silver orb,
When witching gleams of shadowy light
The sighs of misery absorb.

There is a tear of doubtful birth,
By sorrow claim'd yet joy resembling,
Though unallied to ruder mirth,
'Tis still 'twixt grief and pleasure trembling.

That feeling with its foster tear,
Though human earth-worms deem it folly,
Is yet to pensive fancy dear,
And poets call it Melancholy.

121

NEPTUNE AND MEDUSA.

He ask'd the simple nymph to roam,
And view his sparry grot so rare,
And promised her a coral comb,
To bind her long refulgent hair.

He lured the nymph of golden locks,
To dive beneath the gurgling foam,
But told not that the ocean rocks
Conceal'd another bride at home.

Nor told her of the green sea-snakes,
That watch'd about the sparry floor;
She knows them now, and never shakes
The serpents from her tresses more.

122

STANZAS. IN ALLUSION TO SOME WORLDLY ADVICE IN CLEVER VERSE BY A LADY TO HER YOUNGER FRIEND, THE FOLLOWING WAS WRITTEN:—

[Each verse is as acute in wit]

Each verse is as acute in wit,
Each turn of thought as keenly clever,
As if with not a pen 'twas writ
But arrow from Apollo's quiver.

And yet to me those stanzas shine
Like wintry stars whose brilliance freezes,
So shrewdly wise each cautious line
'Twould suit a grey logician's thesis.

Then, maid, dissolve, (like Egypt's Queen
Her pearl,) though more than pearls they glisten,
Dissolve those icicles serene,
Those gems of hard advice, and listen.

123

I'll offer counsel quite as just
Though dull of point and rude in measure;
Beware in youth of cold distrust
That clogs the springs of sinless pleasure.

Suspect not all—if thou art fair,—
Of flattery whom thy converse pleases;
But yet their praise as lightly bear
As flowers the touch of passing breezes.

If small thy dower—round Mammon's cave
Disdain to watch with lures of beauty;
Nor seek to be a glittering slave
In golden chains of bridal duty.

The fault of Atalanta shun,
Who lost the race with sordid leisure;
The goal of happiness unwon,
Of what avail is senseless treasure?

If wealth be thine, with prudent care
But not idolatrously keep it:
There never yet was spendthrift heir
Whom sorrow did not force to weep it.

124

But, being rich, in scale too nice
Weigh not thy gold against affection;
Earth has no ore of half the price
Of love refined by fond reflection.

If thou hast mind as well as wealth,
When strangers gladly round thee hover,
Oh do not then insidious stealth
In each admirer's glance discover.

Think not the ruling lust of pelf
Sets every head in scheming action—
Trust that thy mind's magnetic self
May have some share in the attraction.

O maiden, be reserve thy stay;
'Tis youthful Hope's unfailing anchor:
But throw suspicion far away;
'Tis Feeling's bane, and Beauty's canker.

125

TENSES.

Past, be thou forgot!
Present, vanish fast!
Future, thou art not,
Would that thou wert past!

So in peevish moods,
Youth impatient said,
Later sorrow broods
Thus o'er wiser dread.

Past, be thou not dumb!
Present, be not deaf!
Lest the future come
Like a sudden thief.

Age, within thy brow,
Grave the deeds of youth;
So shall then to now
Teach severest truth.

126

So shall folly's page
Furnish wisdom's text,
Youth instructing age
Ever when perplext.

Sins are memory's thorns,
Lay them to thy soul;
Every puncture warns
Wanderers from the goal:

‘Him who wore their crown,
Truant, thou must meet
(O beware his frown!)
On his judgment seat.’

Present, let the past
Therefore be thy tutor;
Welcome then the last
Trumpet to the future!

127

THE TWO RINGS.

[_]

One contained hair, which had been set by mistake in a black-bordered ring, with a butterfly enamelled on it—On the other was engraved the Portuguese word Saudade.

So, Dora, 'tis thy chance to wear
Thy living lover's pledge of hair,
Upon a Mourning Ring;
Say could the Genius of Despair
A darker omen bring?

Well, wear it thus in fortune's spite!
Perhaps the omen read aright
With bland injunction saith,
‘In absence be thy spirit bright,
For he is true till death.’

And that Greek emblem, wing'd for flight
Through mortal darkness to the light
Which gleams afar, above,
May hint that even thus his soul
From death may rise to thee, its goal,
Its beacon light of love.

128

But lest thy courage take alarm,
Wear this Ring too, a counter-charm
In fancy's drooping hour;
An amulet to guard from harm
The faith that trusts its power.

A simple offering; lady's hand
Was ne'er with golden finger-band
Of less pretension deck'd;
Yet more than wealth of Ophir-land
Thy heart will there detect.

Blank as the superfice appears,
Within, the ripen'd gems of years,
Love's diamond quarry, shine;
Truth, feeling, memory, hopes and fears,—
One word is all the mine.

129

“HIC JACET MALLEUS SCOTORUM.”

King Edward held a stately feast
For England's peace restored;
Unarmèd knight and rosy priest
Were jovial at the board.

He sate on Scotia's Lia-Fail,
The mystic Chair of Fate,
Whereon, ere Erin's star grew pale,
The crown'd of Cashel sate.

The harpstring and the pliant voice
Were chiming in accord,
And made th' heroic heart rejoice
Of England's aged lord.

130

The minstrels sang of Cambria tamed,
Her prince, her bards, a dream:
(O, how was minstrel honour shamed
By that unholy theme!)

They sang of Scotland, and the death
The traitor Wallace died;
The monarch glanced on pale Monteith,
And laugh'd out in his pride:

They sang of Bruce, a broken reed,
Of Scotland's hopes the last,
A waif on ocean, or a weed,
On Erin's breakers cast:

No more the dew of homage fails
To Britain's triple throne;
No more shall vassals reign in Wales,
Nor slaves be crown'd at Scone;
King Edward reigns o'er hills and dales
Unrivall'd and alone.

They sang—but hark, another strain,
A cry from Cheviot's warders,
“The Scots are up in arms again,
From Carrick to the borders.”

131

The barons started to their feet:
The King sate fiercely still,
Hard-tempering, in the furnace heat
Of rage, his iron will.

His heel on Scotland's neck to plant,
Arising then, he swore;
He vowed it by the Saxon saint
Whose crown and name he bore.

The Liege of Albion by his right,
Of Scotia by his wrong—
Woe to the weak who dare to plight
Their cause against the strong!

A hunting-field shall Scotland be!
And, like a knightly lord,
He comes with England's chivalry
To keep his royal word.

Through old Carlisle, the merry town
Of trouble and turmoil,
A city out of chaos grown
For border-carls to spoil;

132

Through Carlisle, merry with alarms,
What dread procession flows!
What force of mounted knights in arms,
What press of bills and bows!

That very tramp of cavalry
Might quail the Lowland thanes,
That show alone of archery
Dry up the Highland veins.

Lo, in advance of targe and lance,
King Edward, on a rock,
Surveys the north with such a glance
As eagle eyes the flock.

His look devours the Scottish land,
It seems within his clasp;
He stretches forth his threatening hand
As if the prey to grasp:

That hand is grappled suddenly
By one who beards his wrath!
What madman dares a jest so free?
Hush—'tis a greater King than he,
The King whose name is Death!

133

Like him who took his lingering stand
On Nebo, to explore
Gilead, with all the promised land
From Napthali to Zoar,

But thither came a dying man,
His entrance disallow'd:
Thus, though no guide his way foreran,
No seraph in the cloud—

Thus came the haught Plantagenet,
To see, but not possess,
A land that in his fury yet
He doom'd a wilderness.

For, ev'n in death, a tyrant brave,
He felt his heart enlarge
With despot passion, and he gave
His son a solemn charge:

“When I am dead, if thou would'st thrive,
In earth depose me not;
Thy father, breathless, as alive,
Would yet appal the Scot.

134

With fire and water seethe my corse
Until my bones are bare;
Then fix me on a gallant horse
In front of England's war;
My very skeleton shall force
The rebels to despair.”

That ghastly mandate on the wind
Spent its delirious sting;
In London's Minster were enshrined
The relics of the King.

In that grand pile of memories,
Whoever seeks the spot
May read his epitaph—“Here lies
The Hammer of the Scot.”

But what of all the dread array
The invader led so far?
Gone; but, as tempests pass away,
To gather fiercer war.

135

The southern wind comes roaring loud,
The stormy hosts return!
Who now shall brave the thunder-cloud?—
The Bruce at Bannockburn.

ADDRESS TO A PONY.

Climb, pigmy steed! strain up each rocky ledge!
Ambition browses on imperial heights;
Goodwill and courage are the plumes that fledge
Small hippogriffs like thee for daring flights.

Dwarfs conquer giants by their strength of heart;
If thou art emulous of like renown,
Climb, Pony, climb! achieve a glorious part,
And plant thy hoof on proud Helvellyn's crown.

Almost as light a freight is thine to-day
As thou art wont to bear on many a hill,
Although for once 'tis not thine own blithe Fay,
The sunny sylphid of the sunless ghyll.

136

Thou bear'st an Oread panting for the gales
That blow so purely there twixt fell and sky;
Region forbid to Her, unless avails
Thy might to lift her weaken'd frame so high.

No vulgar charge is she for equine back,
The very daughter of the Moorland Bard,
Who, murmuring verse, now follows in thy track:
(Oft has he climb'd Parnassian steeps as hard!)

Ev'n now his song is of a deathless horse
That bore the victor on the Belgic field:—
Climb, Pony, climb! and thine heroic force
A theme as worthy of his lay shall yield.

Achilles' steeds survive in Homer's voice;
Olympic racers live in Pindar's breath:—
Is immortality like theirs thy choice?
Climb, Pony, climb! and save thy name from death.

137

So—halt and breathe—the first ascent is won,
Hark, infant Rotha crows applausive glee;
Now start again—now zig-zag—bravely done!
Crop now the herb, scant earnest of large fee.

Now for another stubborn tug—take heed—
A bright green swamp before thee lies—come round—
These crags, though rude, may better serve our need;
Oft are the roughest friends the truest found.

Climb, Pony, climb! bend well the limber knee,
Yon aged Poet watches thee with joy;
And haply meditates that thou shalt be
Matched with the Pony of his Idiot Boy.

How now, ungracious Imp! what means that kick?
Forelegs at stand! hind heels aloft in air!
Would'st thou dislodge thy rider by a trick,
As if elusive of reward so fair.

138

Would'st thou then forfeit ages of acclaim
For present ease, void saddle, and free rein?
Perish the thought! tenacious of thy fame,
Thy rider sits unmoved—that plunge is vain.

Earth and her feet are strangers till thou reach
The elastic sward on yonder topmost head;
Be wise and gentle, Pony! all and each,
Both man and beast, must toil for praise and bread.

Ev'n while I moralise, we touch the end;
Down, freshly winnowing now, the breezes come,
Like angels that invisibly descend
To tempt man upward, whispering of their home.

Now, Dora, now, thy palfrey's task is o'er!
The wide commanding ridge of peaks is gain'd;
The very crowning pinnacle, no more
A fancy sigh'd for, but a prize attain'd!

August, 31st, 1840.

The horse Copenhagen, who carried the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo. Mr. Wordsworth composed his sonnet on Haydon's picture of that subject, while we were ascending Helvellyn.

The Rotha was gurgling down at our right hand near this point, and was both seen and heard.

139

ON THE REPORTED VISIT OF QUEEN ADELAIDE TO WORDSWORTH.

That ancient Wizard of the Cumbrian Meres
Hath won, 'tis said, a meed to poets rare,
A visit from a Queen. If so, 'twas well;
And unabased was dignity, howe'er
August, in stooping at that poet's door.

Him, the High Druid of the oak-clad fells
And aqueous vales of our romantic North,
The breasts of thousands, yea of millions, own
To be the Seer whose power hath o'er them most
A sway like that of conscience. One whose keen
Mysterious eye peruses minds aright
Ev'n in their shyest depths, and best rebukes
The workings of that intricate machine
For evil, most accelerates the springs
That are the pulses of ingenuous deeds.

140

He, in his sunny childhood, sported wild
Among the wild-flowers and the pensile ferns
That fringe the craggy banks of waterfalls,
Whose pools were arch'd with irises enwoven
Of spray and sunbeams: these into his mind
Pass'd, and were blent with fancies of his own;
And in that interfusion of bright hues
His soul grew up and brighten'd. On the peaks
Of mighty hills he learnt the mysteries
That float 'twixt heaven and earth. The strenuous key
Of cloud-born torrents harmonised his verse
To strength and sweetness: but the voice that brake
The cedars upon Lebanon—none else—
Taught him to rend more stubborn stocks than they,
The obdurate hearts of men: that awful voice,
Which exorcised the serpent-haunted tree
Of knowledge; and the perilous fruit, matured
And chasten'd in the light of gospel-truth,
Forbade not to that old man eloquent.

July, 1840.

141

MORALS FROM THE STARS.

How few, on life's vain stage, enjoy their part!
With her own torch pale Envy burns her heart.
The low would rise; the high would soar; and still
Dwarf Fortune lags behind the giant Will.
Go, wiser thou,—however small thy state,—
Peruse the stars, and then forgive the great.
The stars in glory differ as in place:
Some show a dim, and some a dazzling face;
Some shine in groups, where each, by union strong,
Appropriates splendours that to all belong;
Myriads, too crowded for a separate sway,
Merge in a lucid stream,—a Milky Way.
Some, wandering, seem to dance from sphere to sphere,
But timed by laws of harmony severe.
Others in clusters interweave their rays,
Trembling in air like floating wreaths of haze.

142

Some fix'd in power, and jealous neighbours, dart
Their rival beams; while others rule apart.
Of these, One reigns superior and alone,
A keen-eyed lustre on the polar throne,
Lord of the magnet that compels the steel
To guide o'er trackless seas th' adventurous keel.
Yon azure wall, with starry sentries mann'd,
Hides worlds, perhaps more wonderfully plann'd.
Could sight prevail, with Galileo's glass,
Athwart that flaming boundary to pass,
Man might descry, beyond his prison bars,
On every side a paradise of stars;
Yet nowhere find exact proportion given:
'Tis not in earth, or sea, or air, or heaven.
Read thou the earth in heaven, and things below
By those above, in their unequal show.
Look on the scatter'd difference of things,
Content that few are nobles, fewer kings;
That most are fated homely garb to wear,
And mean the livery that thyself must bear;
Content to live obscure, unknown to die,
And in the poor man's grave forgotten lie;
No mourner's love engraven o'er thy head,
But starlike daisies on the turf instead.

143

Stars of the grave, to hope and daylight true,
Those flowers at nightfall shroud themselves from view;
At dawn unclose their lids, and all day's space
Look up to heaven with bright undoubting face:
Simple expounders of a text sublime
O'er sleeping dust that sleeps the night of time,
They shut their eyes against the charnel gloom,
And preach the Resurrection from the tomb.

THE SPELL.

Jemima! not that she is fair,
And yet her beauty is excelling;
Not for the mildly winning air,
Her native sweetness gently telling;
Not for the azure veins that streak
Her neck and rounded arms so lightly;
Not for the modest cheerful cheek,
Where rosy blushes live so brightly.

144

Not for the harmony of face,
Of form, of manner, or of stature;
Oh, not for any outward grace,
She seems to me the pride of nature.
Hers is a charm that thought may paint,
But words are weak for its revealing:
The temper of a gentle saint,
Ruled by a matchless heart of feeling.

'Twas this that bade me seek my bride,
When dreams were o'er of first affection;
'Tis this that, now her truth is tried,
Sets reason's seal on love's election.
'Tis this, beyond the boast of birth,
Beyond her beauty far excelling,
That makes a paradise of earth,
And home a dear Elysian dwelling.

145

INTERIOR OF CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL, AS SEEN BY MOONLIGHT, SEPTEMBER 30, 1841.

A spirit haunts to-night this reverend pile,
The moon, the ghostly vestal of the aisle;
Spirit of power, and not o'er hearts alone;
She sheds a tender charm on glass and stone;
The pillars of the temple, sign'd with light,
Attest the beauty of the soul of night;
The solemn arches, delicately flect,
Smile with a grace that thanks its architect.
A semicirque of yonder oriel shows
As soft an arch as sunlit showers disclose;
Yet all the heighten'd colours of the prism
Are glowing there, distinct without a schism.
Yon sumptuous window sparkles like a mine
Of votive gems, restored to Becket's shrine;

146

Stray flakes of light to kiss the floor come down,
Like jewels shaken from the martyr's crown.
The monumental effigies confess
The presence of her touching loveliness:
Yon pair, where Life and Death their moral teach,
Inform'd by her, more eloquently preach:
Beneath a gorgeous canopy, with all
Official gauds of pomp pontifical,
The robed and mitred hierarch o'erlays
The grim anatomy of what he was;
So falls the gleam that in their silent strife
Attenuate Death shines more than swelling Life.
Lo, one who stands those forms supine beside,
More like a vision than an earthly bride;
Her pale cheek hallow'd by the lambent ray
That streams its effluence on the sculptured clay.
Oh wherefore lingers she at such a tomb,
She whose May-wreath was twined of orange-bloom?
“My own beloved! in life and death my own,
What say those fearful monitors of stone,
Proud Chicheley and his skeleton beneath?”
“That in the midst of life we are in death.”

147

“No more?”—“Aye more,” replied the stedfast wife,
“That in the midst of death we are in life;
The nearer death the nearer life are we,
That only to allure us seems to flee.”

What strain comes floating up the length of nave,
A chaunt that might be music from the grave,
The wail of Shades as if in cloistral gloom
Confined, and longing for the trump of doom?
One living voice supplies the teeming strain,
Which choral echoes dreamily sustain.
Pale listeners feel, but hardly know they listen,
And tearless eyes with more than feeling glisten:
Hush'd hearts are rapt beyond the lunar sphere,
By faith transported to the eternal year,
With all their wrongs and sorrows, every pain
Of dear regret, too, following in her train,
And catching as she soars a glory won
From Him who kindles moonlight from the sun,
Whose blazing orb itself is but the dim
Reflection of a glance benign from Him.

Monument of Archbishop Chicheley.

148

VERY UNFINISHED VERSES SUGGESTED BY THE SERRA OF GERÉS.

Were I an idol to adore,
Nor glittering gems nor golden ore
Could so pervert my mind;
Nor man, nor woman, nor the moon;
Nor sun, the most divine-like boon
That cheereth mortal kind.

The moon, than woman lovelier far,
Is yet but an unsteady star,
In growth, or on the wane;
Like woman's too, her smiles are sad,
And make the earnest gazer mad
At springtide of the brain.

The dazzling god of olden days,
Veil'd in a mystery of rays,
Hath still too many a shrine;

149

For many a poet's heart supplies
A vainly burning sacrifice
To Phœbus and the Nine.

The strange unmeasurable deep,
Low panting in his awful sleep,
A god benign might seem;
But I too oft have seen him wake,
With every wave a hissing snake,
More dreadful than a dream.

So none of these, Moon, Sun, nor Sea,
The idol of my choice should be,
Though all have had their praise;
I'd ask of Nature to supply
Some fix'd transcendent majesty,
Like Thee, sublime Gerés!

Girt with a stedfast cloud of pines,
His star-loved head above them shines
Serener than a star,
While eagles with a desert-voice,
Around their father-king rejoice,
Or hail him from afar.

150

Behold the mighty Serra stand!
Grim patron of a smiling land,
His bounty never fails;
But freely from his generous veins
He yields the streams that feed the plains,
The life-blood of the vales.

When stormy uproar round him raves,
When winds howl wolf-like in his caves,
And through his forests chide,
A type he stands of sufferance meek;—
The peevish tempests smite his cheek,
The lightnings pierce his side;

And when their idle rage is o'er,
More like a god he seems to soar,
And shine with all his fountains—
Yet, lip to earth, on height like this,
'Tis but a footstool that I kiss
Of Him who made the mountains.

151

“N'EVEILLEZ PAS LE CHAT QUI DORT.”

I saw a pale and silent maid
From all around her coldly turn,
As if she were a lonely shade
With whom the world had no concern.

Was this a maid of bosom cold?—
Who puts his trust in cloudless skies?
Or ocean's calm? or fortune's hold?
Or wavering woman's tranquil eyes?

Though soft as snow the swan may glide,
'Tis peril to provoke her wing:
And lamblike woman's soul of pride
May sleep to wake with tiger-spring.

You gaze as on a statue there,
Nor fear her quiet beauty more—
But there's a heart within—beware!
N'eveillez pas le chat qui dort.

152

THE ROSE-WREATHED HOUR-GLASS.

Poets while away their leisure,
Culling flowers of rhyme;
Thus they twine the wreath of pleasure
Round the glass of Time,
Culling flowers of rhyme.

Fancy's children, ever heedless,
Why thus bribe the hours?
Death to prove the trouble needless
Withers all your flowers;
Why then bribe the hours?

Like the sand so fast retreating,
Thus your hopes shall fall;
Life and fame are just as fleeting;
Poets, flowers, and all:—
So your fancies fall.

153

THE OLD MAN AND HIS DAUGHTERS.

There came an Elder from the north,
A shrewd and crabbèd carl was he,
And muttering threats, he hurried forth
To seek his truant daughters three.

Three daughters as the Graces fair,
Whom he would never trust from home,
But who in spite of all his care
Will each in turn contrive to roam.

The earliest out of bounds was Spring,
A nymph with violet-colour'd eyes:
Her head with snowdrops covering,
She stole away in that disguise.

And meeting in her doubtful flight
The Sun, she paused, and blush'd, and said,
“If thou art brave as thou art bright,
My sisters free from prison dread!”

154

A smile he gave her in reply,
Too fervent for her bloom so frail;
It shamed the violet in her eye,
And turn'd her hectic cheek to pale.

But heedful of the maiden's word,
He went and thaw'd the gelid door;
Whence out rush'd Summer like a bird,
And lightly bounded on before.

Then linger'd, and at Spring look'd back,
Spring laugh'd to see her panting there,
Then vanish'd by a woodland track,
Abash'd at Phœbus' saucy stare.

But Summer eyed him like a queen
Accustom'd to resplendent rays,
While blushes through her brown cheek seen
Were ripening in his ardent gaze.

But where was Autumn? While their sire
Was tracking Spring across the snow,
She thought upon her father's ire,
And hardly dared, yet long'd, to go.

155

At last she rose and ventured out,
And slily took the other way;
But Winter now had turn'd about,
And saw the traitress go astray.

He follow'd her with crouching gait,
Who, all unconscious, slack'd her pace,
And meeting Summer, down they sate,
And Summer slept in her embrace.

But on her shoulder soon she felt
Their father's rigid fingers cold:
He bound them both with frozen belt,
And dragg'd them to his icy hold.

And hither too had Spring retraced
Her way, for, wandering to and fro,
Bewilder'd on a border waste,
She knew not whither else to go.

But though he has them all again
In durance numb—the hard old man!
Be sure, in spite of bolt and chain,
Apollo their release will plan.

Canterbury, August, 1838.

156

FIRST LOVE.

When first I saw her by the bleak sea-shore,
Like the strong wave I felt my heart to leap:
It left me then and dwelt with me no more,
But lived with her, a dweller by the deep.

She was my muse while yet my life was May,
That soft serene, half melancholy girl!
Nature had form'd her of no vulgar clay,
Or if of dust, 'twas dust of ocean pearl.

Her cheek was colourless; grave Passion there
And smiling Innocence together strove;
With one white rose-bud in her jet-black hair,
She seem'd the spirit of unworldly love.

Even now I scarce can look upon a star,
A water-lily, or a passion-flower,
But with a sigh that wafts my memory far
Back unto her in youth's romantic hour.

157

AT A BALL.

Let us go to some place of rest, my soul!
Why do we linger here?
Where the night-winds pant, and the dull waves roll,
And the sound and sight are drear;
It will suit the worn spirit best, my soul!
Then why should we linger here?
What avail the gay notes and light foot of young pleasure,
When the heart's not in tune to keep time with the measure.

Not for us is the festive hall, my soul!
Its groups like spectres grin;
And music and dance as the death-bells toll
In the ear of the child of sin;
Ev'n thus on my heart they fall, my soul!
And jar on the strings within.
When the heart's out of tune, oh how harsh seems the measure,
To which giddy groups whirl in the circle of pleasure!

158

AVONDALE.

ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG FRIEND, AN ADMIRER OF AN ITALIAN LADY.

Boy! would'st thou have thy suit prevail?
Go lead thy heart's enchantress o'er
The woody steeps of Avondale,
That guard the stream of Avonmore.
Howe'er her partial mind pourtray
The graces of her bard's Vaucluse,
She'll there as charmèd haunts survey
As ever soothed the Tuscan muse.

For there from every zephyr's wing
A fairy spirit gently calls,
And there the waters wildly sing,
And there a mimic Sorga falls:
Though Arklow's woodlands proudly sweep,
And Aghrim boasts its golden ore;
Though wild is Cronroe's rocky steep,
And wilder yet is lone Glenmore;

159

Though Vartrey lightly bounding goes,
As coy yet playful childhood strays;
Though sweet Avoca sweeter flows
Since young Catullus sung its praise;
Let lovers roam o'er hill and vale,
Yet never shall their eyes explore
A fairer glen than Avondale,
A lovelier stream than Avonmore.

Then warmly while thy lips repeat
The liquid verse she loves so well,
Be sure her heart will kindly beat,
Be sure her breast will softly swell:
Dull must the lover be to fail,
Or else a frozen nymph implore,
Among the groves of Avondale,
Beside the stream of Avonmore.

160

AGNES OF HOLMGARD.

Keep in shore by moonlight, ladies! Ocean's marge is spread with wiles,
Heed the Runic tale of Agnes, echoed from the Baltic Isles:
By the light that witches Fancy, roving in a moonlight mood,
She beheld a gallant merman rising from the tideless flood.
Down his neck and o'er his shoulders gleam'd his hair like threads of gold;
Bright his eyes; his comely features were a marvel to behold.
On his breast he wore sea-armour, scales that shone as burnish'd ore;
Shining through that shallow cover, love was burning evermore.

161

He began with notes prelusive, trying many an artful change;
Then his passion boldly chaunted, in a music sweet and strange.
“Listen, Agnes, I implore thee, listen, lovely as thou art;
I, an Ocean King, adore thee; pity thou a breaking heart.”
‘Weave the mermaid-dance without me; gentle Merman, I am wed;
Silver sands in spangled grottoes, foot of mine must never tread.’
“Lo,” he sang, and two small sandals floated to the pebbled beach,
Rarely wrought of golden tissue, ruby-gemm'd the ties of each!
“These bright sandals, rare in beauty as thy feet, I give to thee;
Never was an earthly princess bravely shod as thou wilt be.”
‘Mark my blessed amber-necklace; this my pious mother gave,
Ave Mary! should I leave her, grief would press her to the grave:’

162

“Lo,” he sang, and from his bosom drew a string of pearly beads!
“Take it, Agnes, never princess wore on neck such ocean-seeds.”
‘This gold circlet on my finger binds me to an earthly lot;
I have two and loving daughters; gentle Merman, tempt me not!’
“Lo,” he sang; and from his finger drew a wondrous jewell'd ring:
“Take it, Agnes, never princess gain'd the like from earthly king.
Take it, Agnes, beauteous Agnes, take it as my pledge of love;
Caves of ocean nurture passion deeper far than earth above.
Listen, Agnes, I implore thee, listen, lovely as thou art,
I, an Ocean-King, adore thee; pity thou a breaking heart.”
‘Bright-eyed Merman, I have listen'd; I am thine for weal or woe,
Thou hast conquer'd, bear me with thee to the dreamy halls below.’

163

Then he seal'd her ears and bade her close her lips, and through the waves
Hand in hand they plunged together, down to the mysterious caves.
Two years there, beneath the waters, Agnes dwelt from sorrow free;
Two fair sons she bore, and proudly nursed her princes of the sea.
One day, near their cradle seated, spinning at the crystal wheel,
Hark! she heard the bells of Holmgard booming forth a solemn peal.
Up she started from the cradle, left her wheel and elfin thread,
Instant sought her Triton-lover, and in tender accents said:
‘Let me go, my gentle Merman, ere the hour of midnight toll,
Back to Holmgard at the altar to petition for my soul!’
“Go,” he said “I will not stay thee; go, belovèd Agnes, go,
Back to these thy babes returning, ere the beams of morning glow.”

164

Then he seal'd her ears and bade her close her lips and dart away
Upward through the verdant waters, shoreward to the pebbled bay.
On she hasten'd; backward started, just as she had reach'd the church,
For she saw her pious mother standing in the temple-porch.
“Wherefore wouldst thou fly, my Agnes, why thy mother's love forsake;
Whither, whither hast thou wander'd, leaving earnest hearts to break?”

‘I have lived below the Ocean, underneath the coral tree;
I have wed the gallant Merman, father of my sons is he.
Leave me, mother, let me enter, leave me in the church to pray;
I must cleave the depths of ocean ere the coming break of day.’
“Hear me, Agnes, wait and listen; if thy mother's love be scorn'd,
For thy two deserted daughters, hear me, and at last be warn'd.

165

Day and night the wretched orphans wail and weep and waste away;
Grief will kill them, they will perish; calling on thee night and day.”
‘What should ail them? let their father keep his growing plants from harm,
Mine are ears that cannot hear them, guarded by a Merman charm!’
“If thy daughters are forgotten, whom thy purer bosom fed,
Yet, in pity for their father, be their solace,—he is dead.
Madden'd by thy flight he linger'd, raving for a faithless wife,
Rushing then amidst the billows quench'd the sacred light of life;
And the billows in compassion gave him to the shore again:
Christian burial not denied him, here he sleeps within the fane.”
‘Mother, be to them a mother; let me pass thee, I must pray!
I must cleave the depths of ocean ere the coming light of day.’

166

Now the iron tongue was knelling midnight with a clang profound,
And the unprevailing mother vanish'd with the closing sound!—
Agnes in the holy water dipp'd her finger, cross'd her brow,
Brow and finger were unmoisten'd, all things holy shunn'd her now.
She advanced, and every image, every type of holy things,
Saintly statues, pictured martyrs, cherub groups with painted wings,
Swam before her, glided from her, all at her approach recoiled.
Agnes sprang to touch the altar with a sudden terror wild:
But the very altar shunn'd her, fast and faster it retired;
Pyx and crucifix receded; one by one the lamps expired:
Save one silver lamp suspended o'er a newly graven tomb;
Thither Agnes flew despairing, goaded by a present doom;

167

By that lamp the name engraven on the marble's face she read,
'Twas her mother's!—at the portal she had communed with the dead!
One shrill cry she gave of horror, on the marble falling prone,
And the lamp went out and left her stretch'd on the sepulchral stone.

There were young and tender voices, wailing on the sadden'd shore;
Wailing for the fickle mother who must never see them more.
There were feeble infant voices, deep beneath the ocean swell,
Moaning for the hapless mother who had loved them but too well.

168

THE LEGEND OF SAINT MEINRAD.

Beside the Lake of Wallenstadt
I saw a damsel fair and young,
Beneath an ash-crown'd rock she sate,
And thus the Maid of Glaris sung:

On Etzel's Mount Saint Meinrad's hands
His hut remotely rear'd,
Where now the painted chapel stands
That bears his name revered.

In vain he made that lonely peak
His home among the clouds;
Rude Etzel's Mount, so bare and bleak,
Was soon the goal of crowds.

Repentant sinners thither came,
His blessing to implore;
He bless'd them in his Master's name,
And bade them sin no more.

169

Nor dead to Nature's yearnings then
With mortals he conferr'd;
The voice and social helps of men
His human feelings stirr'd.

Yet, having vow'd to stand apart,
Unpropp'd by human aids,
He plunged into the deeper heart
Of black Einsidlen's shades.

And there again his patient hands
An humble dwelling raised,
Where now our Lady's chapel stands:
(Her holy name be praised!)

A sparkling well refresh'd the place
Where shines her altar now;
(Whose pure unfailing fount of grace
Rewards the pilgrim's vow.)

That crystal spring his drink supplied;
Its cresses were his food,
With berries that the mountains hide,
And fruits unsunn'd and crude.

170

Saint Meinrad knelt one early morn
Beside the crystal fount;
He heard a raven's croak forlorn
Each pater-noster count.

He heard a raven's dismal cry
At every bead he told;
“Now, God be praised! for I shall die,”
Said he, “ere I grow old.”

He look'd about, nor long he search'd,
Making the Cross's sign,
Before he saw two ravens, perch'd
Above him on a pine.

Saint Meinrad knelt upon the floor
That eve within his cell,
When angry sounds besieged his door;
He knew their meaning well.

He cross'd his breast and thank'd the Lord
Who died upon the Rood;
He calmly then the door unbarr'd,
And there two ruffians stood.

171

They rush'd upon the sacred man,
Who meekly met his doom;
About the floor his life-blood ran,
Exhaling sweet perfume.

A golden chalice (used to hold
The host, the spirit's health)
They seized, and crucifix of gold,
Their victim's only wealth.

The ravens came and flapp'd their wings
O'er each assassin's head;
Then, struck with inward shudderings,
The ghastly wretches fled.

In vain they fled to cavern'd rocks,
And sought the loneliest gulf
Where, ever, crouch'd the nursing fox,
Or lurk'd the grim she-wolf.

In vain the white-furr'd mountain hare
They startled in their flight,
And roused the chamois from his lair
On Schindeleggi's height.

172

In vain they tried the otter's den,
By watery Richterswyl;
Or hollow trees in Teuffel's glen,
Among the owls so shrill.

Aye follow'd by those ravens twain,
Bewilder'd with heaven's wrath,
To right, to left, they turn'd in vain;
The ravens cross'd their path.

They cross'd them with denouncing shrieks;
They doom'd them with their eye;
Their feathers brush'd their bloodless cheeks,
So closely swoop'd they by.

In vain they left those wild retreats,
And tried the peopled town,
Through all the throng of Zurich's streets
The ravens chased them down.

They flew at them with piercing shrieks,
They tore them with their claws,
They bit them with their horny beaks,
Till they confess'd the cause:

173

Till they confess'd their mortal guilt,
And, guarded, forth were led;
And for the saintly blood they spilt,
The cruel ruffians bled.

VAL DE LUZ.

In Val de Luz, the vale of light,
A hamlet neither fair nor bright
That valley's title bears—
(As honours oft by merit won,
Descend to some ignoble son,
Or wealth to worthless heirs.)

A narrow street of squalid huts,
Fierce visaged men and fiercer sluts
With eyes and elf-locks black,
And earth-brown features, grinning scorn,
The passing stranger seem'd to warn,
“Beware of an attack!”

174

Such hints are spurs, but yet the last
Ill-omen'd shed was scarcely past
When check'd was every bridle!
What halts us here?—a torrent strong,
A mighty flood of glorious song—
(It wafts me back to Rydal.)

The nightingale of lusty lungs,
The bird that has the gift of tongues,
The key to every breast,
'Twas he that, as we rode along,
Waylaid us with a flood of song
That held us in arrest.

No wanderer thro' a dark pine wood
To brigand mandate ever stood
More suddenly than we;
Stopt by a bird in open day,
An attic bird that ambush'd lay
Behind an olive tree!

175

DIALOGUE BETWEEN A MOOR OF GRANADA AND HIS SPANISH PRISONER.

MOOR.

Christian captive, heed not fortune,
Tell thy name and true degree;
Boldly speak, and frankly answer,
Then light ransom sets thee free.

CHRISTIAN.

Moor! my name is Quinonero,
Lorca is my native spot,
Knight and warrior, though thy captive,
Fortune's malice daunts me not.

Such are war's accustom'd chances,
Fate to day declares me thine,
But a change may come to-morrow,
And the change may make thee mine.

176

Yet, if thou hast further question,
I have no unwilling ear;
Ask, and I will answer freely,
Unrestrain'd at least by fear.

MOOR.

Yonder then are trumpets sounding,
Pennons yonder wave in air;
Turn thine eyes to yonder olives,
Horse and foot are marshall'd there.

I would have then, Quinonero,
All the truth by thee avow'd:
What the standards yonder glancing,
Who the warriors thence advancing,
With a gait so brave and proud?

CHRISTIAN.

That red flag superbly bearing
Six embroider'd crowns of gold,
That leads on the men of Murcia;
Need their fame to you be told?

177

On the next a king is blazon'd,
Armed in mail to front the foe:
Ask your troops! Granada's people
Lorca's standard well should know.

Lorca, nearest to your borders,
Ever too is first in fight;
Hers are men by nature martial,
War is their supreme delight.

Art thou answer'd? What remains then
But for battle to provide?
See with what good haste they press thee,
Of thy prize to dispossess thee,
And thy destiny decide.

MOOR.

Yes, I see them onward bearing,
Bold their speed: but not a man
Steps beyond yon stony causeway,
By the sacred Alcoran!

178

If, by prowess unexampled,
That important line be cross'd,
Well I know of such their triumph,
We shall dearly pay the cost.

There's the trial! let them come then!
We are ready for the game!
Sound and loudly sound the zambra!
Let it reach our own Alhambra,
And our chivalry proclaim!

ZELINDA.

“What says my lord?” Zelinda cried,
“From yonder pine-tree spring!”
“Alas!” the woeful prince replied,
“Thy lover's scarf I bring.”

“I know then well for whom,” she said,
“The Houris now rejoice:”
And not a tear the mourner shed,
The woe was in her voice.

179

She thank'd the prince with tearless eyes,
And, when his tale was told,
She turn'd to hide her blood-stain'd prize,
As miser hides his gold.

That night the Queen, by pity sway'd,
Would go and vigil keep
Beside Zelinda's couch, the maid
Whose sorrow would not weep.

Within her own alcove she found
The maiden laid to rest;
A scarf across her bosom bound,
One hand upon it prest.

The gracious Queen with pity smiled,
With joy and pity meek,
To see the sleeper's woe beguiled,
And gently kiss'd her cheek;

And softly as a mother moves,
Who fears the dew to shake
Of slumber from the flower she loves,
Who fears her babe to wake,

180

So softly did the Moorish Queen
Lie down to share repose
With her who slept in such serene
Oblivion of her woes.

The royal dame to slumber's yoke
Her own thoughts bent in vain,
And daylight's earliest glimmer broke
Her dream's transparent chain.

Zelinda still lay placidly
As in the last night's gloom,
Just as a sculptured effigy
Reposes on a tomb.

Her dark locks round her fair face curved,
As round the moon a cloud;
And from her bosom had not swerved
That scarf's ensanguined shroud.

And by the fine lids, darkly fringed,
Her eyes half-curtain'd were,
And though her lips with blood were tinged,
A heavenly smile was there.

181

The royal lady shuddering cried,
“Zelinda, how is this?
Wake, smiling sleeper!” and she tried
To wake her with a kiss.

She prest the clay-cold cheek in vain;
Last night 'twas faintly warm—
All night the gentle Queen had lain
Beside a lifeless form.

208

THE DUKE OF ALBA.

SUGGESTED BY THE PORTUGUESE BALLAD PRECEDING.

Rumour through the city carries
Evil news for gentle dames,
That the Duke of Alba marries
One of Seville's highest names.
Evil rumour seldom tarries:
Woe for Donna Anna's dreams!

Yet the busy tidings miss'd her,
Tidings all the town had heard,
Till her little laughing sister
Running brought the fatal word;
Saying, as she sweetly kiss'd her,
Merry as an April bird,

Saying, “Know you, Donna Anna,
Know you what is soon to be?
Wed will be the Duke of Alba

209

With a dame of high degree.”
Coldly answer'd Donna Anna,
“Prattler, what is that to me?”

But her knees beneath her falter,
But her heart within her burns;
Woe and wonder both assault her,
To her chamber as she turns.
Alba's Duke before the altar!
Woe for love that honour spurns!

Sadly in her room she paces,
Sadly paces to and fro;
Then about the mansion chases
Cruel thoughts that will not go;
Then again her steps retraces,
Now above, and now below.

Then she bade the gates be fasten'd,
Never closed by day before;
Upward then again she hasten'd,
There to pace her chamber floor.
Tears in vain her sorrow chasten'd,
Sighs but fann'd her grief the more.

210

Weary then she took her station
Where her casement show'd the square;
Saw with fearless trepidation,
Saw the Duke of Alba there:
Sign'd him, waving a carnation,
'Neath her balcon to repair.

“What would you, my Donna Anna,
What would you, my life, with me?”
“I would have you, Duke of Alba,
Though 'tis false and cannot be,
Tell me if the Duke of Alba
Weds a dame of high degree?”

“'Tis not false, my Donna Anna,
'Tis not false, my love and life:
For to-morrow will an heiress
Be the Duke of Alba's wife;
And I bid you to the bridal,
Wish me joy, my love and life!”

Duke of Alba, words are crushing!
Senseless fell she to the ground:
Doors were burst, and men came rushing

211

To the maiden prostrate found;
Blood from forth her lips was gushing,
Blood that well'd without a wound.

By a golden chain suspended
Lay a treasure next her heart;
Noble features finely blended
By the painter's mimic art;
'Twas the Duke of Alba's portrait,
And she wore it next her heart.

Yet she lived, nor deign'd accuse him.
When she woke, the gem she spied.
“What is this, if I must lose him?
Take it to the bridegroom's bride,
Let her wear it in her bosom,
Though with blood of mine 'tis dyed!”

Hearts abused by heartless follies
Seek their peace in convent shades;
Donna Anna finds her solace
With Saint Clara's holy maids:
Yet—for 'twas a bitter chalice—
Memory oft her peace invades.

212

Seven years are gone and over;
Comes her mother to the grate:
“Oh! forget your worthless lover,
Pass with me the convent gate.”
“How forget him! Mother, mother!
Once for me his love was great.”

“Still you love the Duke of Alba,
Love him with a passion wild,
Love him as I love you, Anna,
As a mother loves her child;
Oh! forget the Duke of Alba!”
Weeping, said the mother mild.

“Yes, I loved him, mother, mother!
More, alas, than lips can tell!
No, I love him not, my mother:
Oh! I loved him passing well!
Duke of Alba wed another!
Leave me, leave me to my cell!”

San João da Foz, July 9, 1845.

213

THE GROVES OF ENTRE QUINTAS.

Where scenes so sweet the Douro greet
Before he joins the main,
Where nature hails from Porto's vales
That truant child of Spain;

Where many a green and golden screen
Adorns his banks romantic,
Ere yet he glides among the tides,
And tastes the salt Atlantic;

Though many a muse might pause to choose
'Twixt Freixo and Avintes,
No bowers can strike my fancy like
The groves of Entre Quintas.

214

There stands the tree of lordly grace,
Of all Magnolias grandest;
And there I saw the fairest face,
The fairest and the blandest.

I saw a smile, alas the while,
It was not meant for me!
I saw a cheek whose beauty meek
I never more shall see.

A voice I heard, and every word
Was music soft and clear;
That thrilling tone till life is flown
I ever more shall hear.

Farewell! the bowers of orange flowers
From Porto to the sea!
Farewell thy blooms of rich perfumes,
Superb magnolia tree.

Farewell the rills on sunny hills
Ten thousand flowerets laving;
And fountains bland to coolness fann'd
By willows o'er them waving.

215

Arcades of vines, and groves of pines
That clothe each rocky fell;
And every shrub that greenly shines,
And every bud, farewell!

And fare thee well, thou fairest grace
Beside the western sea!
Thy form will haunt me to my place
Beneath the cypress-tree.

EPITAPH ON COLONEL GEORGE HOLMES, C.B.

[_]

TRANSCRIBED ON A MONUMENT (BY WESTMACOTT) CAUSED TO BE PLACED BY HIS WIDOW IN THE PARISH CHURCH AT DONCASTER.

Heart ever steady to a manly mind,
Good, gallant heart, repose in honour shrined!
Stern are a soldier's duties; and but few
Like Holmes accomplish'd, and yet smooth'd them too:
His cordial voice the tasks of peace endear'd:
And war's severest toils and perils cheer'd:
And many a veteran's hand may grateful wave
A Spanish laurel o'er his English grave.

216

The martial chief—the gay and social friend
Words cold as this sad marble may commend,
Sacred to silent memory and tears,
And yearning hopes to meet in purer spheres,
And to lone anguish in a widow'd breast,
The brother's, father's, husband's merits rest.

EPITAPH ON J. K. E. HOLMES.

DROWNED IN THE WYE, JUNE 16, 1848.

In joyous youth on Wye's green verge he stood,
And in a moment perish'd in the flood;
The fatal river of the wealth it stole
Gave back the casket, gone the precious soul.
Dread Lord of Life! taught by thy blessed Son,
A wife, a mother, say, “Thy will be done.”
On them hath sorrow set an awful mark:
But Heaven looks brighter as this world grows dark.
Teach them to show their infant charge the way
To find her father on that final day,
When earth and all its waters shall restore
The dead redeem'd in Christ, to part no more!

217

FUNERAL OF ROBERT SOUTHEY.

Crossthwaite Tower sends forth a knell;
Skiddaw knows its meaning well;
And the mountain veils its head,
As they bear away the dead;
Scawfell hides his towering height;
Glaramara shrinks from sight;
All the solemn steeps around
Hide their faces at the sound;
Derwent hears it; Greta hears;
And, while the clouds supply their tears,
The troubled rivers as they swell
Hoarsely chide that funeral bell.

218

Herbert's haunt, on Keswick-mere,
Feels the ghost of genius near;
Lodore sends a deeper wail
To the rough heart of Borrowdale;
Stream and lake, and force and fell,
Sylvan isle and rocky dell,
Their part in this day's sorrow bear;
And heavier make the gloom they share;
For our human feelings give
Sympathies that in them live.

Where a hedge of blackthorn blooms
Close beside the place of tombs,
As the Bearers bear the Dead,
Pacing slow with solemn tread,
Two feather'd choristers of spring
To the dark procession sing:
Heedless of the driving rain,
Fearless of the mourning train,
Perch'd upon a trembling stem
They sing the poet's requiem.
Some sacred frenzy has possest
These warblers of the russet breast,

219

To honour thus with friendship brave,
A Poet's passage to his grave.
Poet, what avails it now
That the laurel graced thy brow?—
What avail'd it years before
The angel death thy summons bore?
When thy noble mind o'erwrought
Stranded lay, a wreck of thought?
Thy bruised spirit, all that while,
Was blind to fame's approving smile.
Deaf and careless wert thou then
To the plausive tongues of men,
As now to notes—more sweet than words—
Flowing from the hearts of birds;
As now to the sepulchral bell
Which smites the vale that loved thee well.

Honour built on virtue's rock
Nor disease nor death can shock.
Poet, virtue's priest wert thou!
So yet the laurel decks thy brow.

220

This avails thee now and ever,
Guerdon of thy high endeavour;
Love and honour ne'er forsake thee,
Till the trump of doom awake thee:
Tolls the bell for vanish'd worth—
Earth to earth surrenders earth.
Life has lower'd death sublime
Down the shallow pit of time;
Thence, when ripen'd in that mine,
A gem on heaven's brow to shine:
Hid, till then, its precious light
By the jealous miser night,
And yet play'd on all the while
By the deep supernal smile
That can pierce the stone and lead,
Which o'erlay the virtuous dead—
Just as well as it can reach
Planets in their gulfs of air,
Lending brightness due to each
In its duly portion'd share:
To the sun its light creative,
To the moon its borrow'd force,
To the stars a lustre native
From the One Eternal Source!

Mr. Southey was buried on the 24th of March, 1843, in the north-west corner of Crossthwaite Church-yard, Keswick, about half a mile from Greta Hall, the house which had been his home for forty years, when he there died.

The writer, who was present at the funeral, can apologise for the introduction of so trifling, but not unaffecting, an incident as that related of these birds, by assuring the reader that their prolonged singing in the situation, and under the circumstances alluded to, is a fact which attracted his own notice.

221

ELEGY ON G. M. B.

ADDRESSED TO LADY B.

Thy child was lull'd on death's cold couch to sleep.
Years since have pass'd, and yet I see thee weep;
Yet, yet, by busy memory kept alive,
The heart-struck mother's griefs, alas! survive.
Is there no blessed spell, no opiate blest,
To cheat a mother's memory to rest?
Look on the lovely treasures that remain
Let these seduce thee from regrets so vain.
Oh no: by links too powerful are allied
The joy for these that live, the woe for him that died.
In life's young season, when the world was new,
And love adorn'd it with enchantment's hue,
He, the first pledge which love awoke to light,
Was more than angel in thy partial sight.

222

Ah! who can tell the youthful mother's joy,
When first her arms received her infant boy?
When first she saw, what fancy help'd to trace,
The father's features in his little face,
When first she gave her first maternal kiss,
Ah! what are words to paint a mother's bliss!
Fed from thy breast, in charms the infant grew,
Fresh as the May-morn flower that drinks the dew.
Then, as the term of boyhood just began,
How well the Boy gave promise of the Man;
When, warm for enterprise, and pall'd with ease,
The gallant child went forth, and dared the seas!
What serves it here in long detail to tell
The proving chances that the child befell;
Each toil and watch endured by day and night,
Each rough assault of tempest or of fight;
To tell what lands he saw; how oft he bore
Some classic relic from the famous shore:
How oft return'd (ah why again to roam?)
To taste the dear felicity of home;
And pause awhile from ocean's rude alarms;
The harbour of his rest a mother's arms.
I saw, ere last the wanderer left thy side,
This cherish'd object of thy pain and pride.

223

I saw him clad with beauty as a vest,
His graceful form the graceful mind express'd.
I mark'd that mind, so young, yet so matured
By painful trial, manfully endured.
Talent's strong sun had forced the vernal shoot,
At once it bore the blossom and the fruit;
Then friendship too, in sympathy with thee,
Was idly dreaming what the youth would be.
A Hero, diadem'd with glory's crown,
To gild his ancient name with new renown.
Where is he now? thus gifted and thus fair,
Could not the hand of Heaven the stroke forbear?
So good, so young, so beautiful and brave,
Was it not hard to doom him to the grave?
To bid disease assail with jealous tooth
The rich unfolding roses of his youth,
And blighting them, the mother's hope to blight,
The hope that promised such a long delight?
Yet, it were something still if o'er the clay
Of him thus early snatch'd from life away,
Maternal love but now and then might keep
A little sacred interval to weep.
Alas! fond mother! this too is denied;
Far, far away, from home, from thee, he died.

224

Minorca's air received his latest breath;
Its earth too gave his narrow cell of death.
To dew his fading cheek with pious tear,
No parent, brother, sister, tended near:
No sister, brother, parent, e'er must weep
Beside the bed wherein his ashes sleep.
Child of the Ocean! had the troubled wave,
Thine own proud element, become thy grave,
When all thy soul with generous rage was warm'd,
Hadst thou been struck while gallant battle storm'd.
Then by thy fall had fame at least been bought:
So whispers fancy to a mother's thought.
Delusion! could that mother's thought have borne
The bosom gash'd, the limb asunder torn,
The life-blood, none perhaps its tide to check,
Effusive o'er the horror-drenched deck,
The form convulsed, the shriek of torment wild,
The last dull moaning of her dying child?
No, no, though doom'd to fall, poor boy, 'twas well
That not in battle's hideous fray he fell.
Thy tears, fond mother, though so long they flow,
Are not the rash impiety of woe.
Rebellion brands not the afflicted mind—
Regret may deeply mourn, yet be resign'd:

225

And heaven, in mercy to a mother's grief,
Permits those tears to lend a sad relief.
Perchance at times 'tis e'en allow'd thy boy
To quit for thee his Paradise of joy!
Perchance, e'en now, the disembodied saint
Is hovering near, to silence grief's complaint,
Breathe comfort to his mother's aching heart,
And act at once the son's and angel's part.
I do believe, that when the good ascend,
To live the empyreal life that ne'er shall end,
'Tis not denied them in that world to meet
Those for whose sakes e'en this bad world was sweet;
That friends and kindred are allow'd above
Each to know each again, in purer love;
That in the presence of the Great Adored,
Again the spouse may meet the spouse deplored;
Sister and brother form the ring again,
And parted lovers bind the broken chain;
Fathers amidst their gather'd children rest,
And tender mothers bless them and be blest.
I do believe, to mothers such as thou
Will Heaven this perfect blessedness allow.
While seraphs up to heaven thy soul translate,
Thy child shall meet thee at the Golden Gate;

226

Shall bid thee welcome to the Promised Land,
Shall guide thee in through all the glorious band;
While all the angels clap their wings with joy,
And hail ye both, the mother and her boy!
And these, yet left to her who gave them birth,
To cheer her further sojourn upon earth,
These, who with youth elate and blind to care
Now round thee wanton, shall rejoin thee there.
There too, where never the high heart is rack'd,
Where never cares the noble mind distract,
Where feeling, fancy, genius unrepress'd
May thrill, expand, exalt the unburthen'd breast,
There shall the generous lyre, that here below
Wafts scarce a note beside the note of woe,
No more by sorrow warp'd, by envy jarr'd,
Breathe all the lofty spirit of the bard,
Whom, while thine offspring listen to that lyre,
Their eyes and hearts shall know, and bless their sire.

Lee Priory, September 16th, 1815.

227

ELEGY ON E. W. G. B.

ADDRESSED TO LADY B.

Another blow from Heaven! and wherefore thus
Shall human woe the act of Heaven discuss?
Shall roused affliction lift to God her eye,
And, knowing that He will'd it, question why?
Tried mother, bow thy head, and quell thy breast,
And check the unholy murmur ere exprest;
There was too much of good about thee still,
Baffling the jealous counterpoise of ill.
The draught of life was yet too strong for care,
Schemes were too quick, and hopes too busy there;
So grief again, as bubbles mantled up,
Was sent to tame the spirit of the cup:
Ask thine own heart—descend into that cell
Where lives the Priestess of Truth's Oracle,
Conscience, that breathes self-knowledge; She will say,
A mother's pride too deeply rooted lay

228

Within thy bosom; giving thoughts of earth
More room than aught terrestrial should be worth.
The love of thine own lovely race was such
As held thee fetter'd to the world too much:
So death was made thy visitor again,
To break another rivet of the chain,
That to thy mind's ambition might be given
A freer aspiration after Heaven.
Twice on the treasure of thy soul the hand
That lent it has enforced a stern demand.
Yet think, afflicted parent, for thy peace,
How may the seeming loss thy wealth increase.
If both so early in the grave they lie,
They both were innocent and fit to die.
Fairer than stars their spirits glow above;
And from their sphere depends a chain of love,
A chain of light to thee and thine descending,
Whereby riven hearts in mystic links are blending;
And the pure fires with which those spirits glow
Can thrill and lighten on the hearts below.
Direct thy gaze, thou cherisher of woes,
Where yon meek spire the hamlet's temple shows:
Is there no comfort in that place of prayer?
Alas, those tears deny all solace there.

229

Fuller and faster at the view they fall,
As though that sight were bitterer than all.
Well; who shall censure those o'erflowing eyes?
Religion's self will scarce refuse her sighs.
We all remember when each Sabbath morn
Saw thy young group that humble fane adorn;
With him, among the rest, of guileless brow—
Where is that dear and guileless Edward now?
When then ye glanced upon that vault beneath,
No echo warn'd you from that seat of death,
Whose shade at last must shroud you all, that doom
Adjudged him next into that cold dark room.
Death stole upon thee in a doubtful mask;
The black destroyer wanton'd with his task;
And mock'd with promise thy maternal hope;
And gave,—that's some relief—thy virtues scope.
We all remember—how can we forget—?
Those nightly vigils, that should soothe regret;
Those daily cares, and duties overpaid,
While the youth wasted to a bloodless shade.
We all remember, how, until the last,
Clung by his side this mother unsurpass'd;
Caught every tone, consulted every look,
Read every thought, and every wish o'ertook:

230

And, in despite of pain's exerted fangs,
Foil'd the tormentor of his keenest pangs.
Propp'd on his pillow as the victim lay,
While Life just pruned her wings to fleet away,
Cheer'd by her flutter, it was sweet, he said,
To lie thus careless on a tranquil bed;
And thence behold the trees in tender green,
And all the freshness of a vernal scene;
And feel the breeze that sometimes flew by stealth
To fan his cheeks and warble words of health.
Then came the hour!—the spirit waxing dim,
The helpless, hopeless feebleness of limb;
The wandering hands that quarrell'd with the air,
The glance that flicker'd round, but knew not where;
The language wilder than the trackless wind;
The last delirious energies of mind;
The cheeks like wither'd aspen leaves in hue,
And like those leaves all coldly shuddering too;
The quivering throat's half-choked and struggling cry;
And last, that fix'd expression of the eye!
Not yet; not yet; it cannot yet be o'er;
The soul still lights that face—O gaze no more,
Unhappy father! wherefore didst thou stay,
Watching the progress of thine own decay,

231

The dread mortality of thine own flesh,
That seems in those that yet remain so fresh?
Away! even she who watch'd as none have watch'd,
She, the poor mother with the heart unmatch'd,
Dragg'd by the arm of friendship from the room,
Has left him—to the agents of the tomb.
Take thy last look, and let it linger not;
And let us lead thee from the blighted spot.
In your sepulchral chamber, corse to corse,
Ye still shall meet, in spite of this divorce;
In the eternal kingdom, soul to soul,
Ye still may live, when planets cease to roll.

232

SHORT POEMS

IN MEMORY OF JEMIMA A. D. QUILLINAN,

WHO DIED IN MAY, 1822.

I. [Madness, if thou wilt let me dwell]

Madness, if thou wilt let me dwell
With Thee in some fantastic hell,
Some chaos of the mind,
For Thee I'll quit the friends of years,
The loves of youth, the hopes and fears
About the heart-strings twined.

For joy has dried, for me, her springs,
And Death has shadow'd with his wings
An Eden to a waste,
And I am left in lone distress,
Mark'd with a curse of hopelessness
Too deep to be erased.

233

I had a friend—Where is she now?
I mock thee with my placid brow,
I mock thee with my smile:
But search, wild Power, my heart's despair;
Her epitaph is written there,
There woe is without guile.

Griefs have o'erwhelm'd me oft before,
But then my buoyant spirit bore
Against their stormy tide:
I listen'd to the voice of men;
Some cheer'd me from the shore, and then
I struggled through with pride.

Oft have I been perplex'd with woes,
But then there was a dear repose
From trouble and from pain:
I look'd in Beauty's tender eyes,
And there encounter'd sympathies
That soothed the aching brain.

I went abroad among the hills;
I traced the streams and humming rills
That through the woodlands stole;

234

I walk'd with Nature, and communed
With all her birds, and they attuned
The jarrings in my soul.

I cannot pray—I still have pray'd,
In weal or woe, for mercy's aid
To guide me on my way;
But this too heavily hath prest;
And there is hardness in my breast,
And now I cannot pray.

Then make me thine! I fear thee not.
Better the shrieking maniac's lot
Than this wild sense of gloom;
These thick still thoughts of full distress,
Brooding o'er blighted happiness
Like yew-trees o'er a tomb.

Then make me thine! I love the tune
Of the starved dog that bays the moon,
While angry echo jars:
Make me thy priest, and let me chaunt,
From some rent fane that spectres haunt,
Strange anthems to the stars.

235

II. Near Lauffenberg.

On Lauffen's river, green and swift,
The rays of morning shine;
Bright mists are on the hills adrift,
The breathing of the Rhine.

The flood, the hills, the hazy veil,
Of other scenes remind,
Where shines a lake in Loughrigg dale,
Where Rotha's waters wind:

An ivied cot by Rotha's side,
Beneath a rocky knoll;
And Her, its ornament and pride,
The treasure of my soul:

Her store of all the heart could crave
To make her beauty dear,
Her sorrows, and her early grave,
The cause that I am here.

236

III. Near Schaffhausen.

HER FAVOURITE FLOWERS.

I cannot bear those brilliant flowers
So blue among the corn,
With which she used in festal hours
Her tresses to adorn.

I cannot bear that they should still
Be beautiful and gay,
When she who loved their bloom so well
Has past in hers away.

IV. SOCIETY. BERNE.

The sad must wear the jester's mask;
And surely 'tis the hardest task
That can the sad employ:
Grief has no privilege to ask
For sympathy from joy.

237

It is a melancholy art
To take the theme the gay impart
With a complacent smile:
They little think the secret heart
Is aching all the while.

V. SCHWYTZ.

The relics of her human charms
Are lock'd in earth's maternal arms
By Grasmere's quiet shore;
Her spirit, ever bright and pure,
Is where there are no ills to cure,
Where pain torments no more.

An exile from a blighted home,
From land to land I vainly roam,
And seek, but cannot find
In nature, nor in powerless art,
Some charm to lull an aching heart,
To soothe a troubled mind.

238

Severe it seems, and only seems,
To rouse from life's delusive dreams
The beautiful and young:
If, like Jemima good as fair,
They wake, we trust, in purer air,
Immortal joys among;

Theirs is the harder lot who mourn,
Who, with a vain compunction, burn
To expiate faults that grieved
A breast they never more can pain,
A heart they cannot please again—
The living, the bereaved.

O vain complaint of selfishness!
Weak wish to paralyse distress!
The tear, the pang, the groan,
Are justly mine, who once possess'd,
Yetn sometimes pain'd, the fondest breast
Where love was ever known.

239

VI. THE LAKE OF LAUWERTZ.

Like Rydal with its sister-isles
The little lake of Lauwertz smiles;
If less exquisitely fair,
Yet the very character;
The very road along the shore,
And tufted rocks projecting o'er;
Straggling orchards like the same,
Plots of green that kindred claim:
E'en the lilies float and lave,
And the reeds are on the wave;
And the lights of morning make
Mimic lines across the lake.
All but Goldau's ruins seem
Rydal in a faithful dream.

Goldau's ruins!—more than all
The resemblance they recall.
Tell they not the o'erwhelming doom
Of soft beauty in its bloom;

240

Virtue, joy, and tenderness,
All that happy homes could bless,
In a moment's awful fate
Crush'd beneath a mountain's weight?
Why should Rydal seem like this?
Let the memory of bliss,
Let its ruin, answer why—
Let Jemima's grave reply.

VII. BERNE.

I saw to day a roseate cheek,
A soft blue eye, and tender air;
Her very traits appear'd to speak,
But only seem'd not quite so fair.

I never see a roseate cheek,
A soft blue eye, and tender air,
But that the features seem to speak
Of early death and lonely care.

241

VIII. LAUSANNE.

Time slowly knits the strongest ties,
No ardent heat at first I felt;
But slowly did her tender eyes
To love the snow of friendship melt.

I play'd no wild enthusiast's part;
Her outward beauty scarce address'd;
She charm'd me by the noble heart
That beat beneath her modest breast.

In after years of wedded life
Her virtues taught me all their claim;
'Twas not the mistress, but the wife
Of whom the lover I became.

Yet—shall remorse the truth avow?
Her form is now but mouldering earth;
And now, alas! and only now,
I know Jemima's utmost worth.

242

So when the sacred light of Heaven
Has first illumined infant eyes,
The child enjoys the blessing given,
Unconscious how divine a prize.

As reason wins by slow degrees
Dominion o'er the ductile mind,
Delighted more the more he sees,
He blesses God he is not blind.

But, if the curse of blindness seals
His orbs, and blots the world from sight,
O then the victim fully feels
The value of the blessed light.

243

ELEGY ON THE SAME, WRITTEN TWELVE YEARS LATER.

TO SIR EGERTON BRYDGES.

I crown thee, Brydges, with a baleful wreath,
And raise another deeper cry of death!
I seem ordain'd by mystery and fear
To breathe sepulchral horrors in thine ear,
And deck thee victim of some mortal curse,
With sullen garlands of funereal verse.
When Thou and thy two boys were wrench'd apart,
I raised the death-lament that thrill'd thy heart,
Yet soothed thy pride. It seem'd a stern decree
That let the tempest loose to shake thy tree,
And bear the crude fruit down,—but wild and rough
Though blew those angry gales, 'twas not enough!
A fiercer hurricane was yet to come:
It came; I heard, and shudder'd, and was dumb;
It swept away the best of all thy race,
And there was darkness in Jemima's place.

244

My loss was then severer far than thine:
I felt at first too stupid to repine:
But soon was roused to consciousness of pain
By stormy thoughts and tumults of the brain;
And then by lawless wretchedness betray'd,
I did but outrage mild Jemima's shade;
For, driven by passion to rebellion's verge,
I call'd the Furies to perform her dirge.
No Furies answer'd, but a little child
Look'd in my face and like her mother smiled.
As waters from the stricken rock devolved,
Smote by that look, my eyes in tears dissolved,
Wild bursts of tears, yet powerful to assuage
The fever and the impiety of rage.
My anguish now was calmer, not less keen:
I sought, afar, diversity of scene;
All heart-sick wretches hope to flee from care,
And still they flee to find her everywhere.
I stood beside the Rhine's chaotic fall:
What did that pomp of bounding waves recall?
Lone cataracts, and coy unnamed cascades,
And modest waterfalls in woody shades,
Among the hills of Westmoreland, where long
And oft Jemima listen'd to their song.

245

In Zurich's Grove at Gessner's tomb I wept
Not him, who there, but her who distant, slept,
And but for her sake wish'd to me bequeath'd
The adorning spirit that in Gessner breathed;
The double tribute of a painter-bard
Might so through time her sacred memory guard;
So might those features eloquently meek
Still to the heart with sure persuasion speak;
So might the world her sweet example save,
And Art be twice triumphant o'er the grave.
I climb'd the Kamor mountain ridged with fir,
To be a little nearer Heaven and Her.
In vain the Rheinthal smiled with all its vines:
The rocks of Appenzel, the gloomy pines,
And lonely ice-beds pleased my alter'd mind,
And the wild howling of the glacial wind.
How still in yon far mountain clefts, my soul,
Reposed the eternal snows of the Tyrol!
Thus still in death, as pure, as cold, as white,
She slept in the grim fold of breathless night.
I see her yet in that familiar room
Where last she lay, apparell'd for the tomb.
Trick'd out with sweet fantastic flowers she lay,
Cold to the touch that press'd the life-like clay,

246

Blind to the eyes that rivetted their gaze,
Deaf to the voice she loved in other days.
I bear to think, I bore to brood on this!
With lingering lips the passive brow to kiss,
And o'er the hush'd unsympathising corse
To stand in blank despair and vain remorse,
While all my faults, held light in happier times,
From death's pale shadow took the hue of crimes.
Not to a father need I tell her worth
Who saw its growth, to womanhood from birth;
Her lucid sense, without a stain of pride;
Her taste with pure simplicity allied;
Her tranquil manners, so reserved with ease;
Her care unwearied, not to shine, but please:
Her graceful truth, the ornament and bond
Of coy affections exquisitely fond;
Her temper, human nature's precious ore,
In sorrow's crucible refined the more.
Whether she graced her own paternal home,
Or shared a soldier's restless fate to roam;
Whether by blind adversity opprest,
Or worn by sickness, late her frequent guest;
Through many a trying year I never saw
Her will rebellious to her duty's law.

247

Nor e'er beheld an evil passion chase
Love from her lips nor beauty from her face.
Some minds repose in apathetic rest,
Without a feeling, negatively blest:
Patient because untempted to transgress;
But hers was sensibility's excess;
A nature quick, too full of hopes and fears,
All turn'd to smiles and tenderness and tears.
She sleeps in Britain's Eden, on the shore
Of mead-fringed Grasmere girt with mountains hoar!
Far from her native Kent: yet not forsaken
Of friends found faithful when my heart was shaken;
True friends as e'er appalling sorrow tried,
In-dwellers of the valley where she died.
Her relics too are of that earth a part,
Whose meanest flower has school'd its poet's heart;
And the same airs that stir the grass around
Her tomb, are agents to his thoughts profound;
Deepening the murmurs musically strong
Of Wordsworth's grand and philosophic song.
Brydges, remote from where thy fathers sleep,
While other hands than thine thy harvests reap,
Far from the hearth of Wootton and the hill
Whose greenwoods whisper thy young fancies still,

248

Thine age is whitening where Helvetian snows
From glowing sunsets catch the tints of rose;
Thine age embellish'd too with colours caught
From Fancy's richly-setting orb of thought.
Thine ear is greeted by the rushing Rhone,
And liquid voices of yet grander tone.
Lake, river, cataract, ravine, and glen,
Rock, forest, pike, are all within thy ken.
Charm'd land! which Nature in some frantic fit
Heaved to the skies, in monstrous masses split,
Nor blush'd to view the havoc she had made,
But gulf and chasm with dauntless eye survey'd:
And, here, with glaciers bridged the headland gaps,
There, flung her snows into the mountain laps;
Push'd the pale fountains down the stony fells,
And brimm'd with inland seas the nether dells;
And tossing verdure up and down the wild,
Exultant on her glorious chaos smiled!
Charm'd land! yet dearer to my longing heart
Our own wild North, its humble counterpart.
More dear for bliss and anguish, and the sake
Of that lorn grave by Grasmere's beauteous lake.—
O vale Elysian, and ye bosky nooks
Of Rydal, and thou pride of mountain-brooks,

249

Thou Rotha, linking with thy sonorous chain
Of argent, three Lake Naiads who sustain
A threefold mirror, where the wood-crown'd rocks
And ferny mountains sleek their shagged locks.
O haunts romantic, how could you betray?
And thou perfidious blossom-kirtled May,
What had I done to win thy smiling hate,
And make the loveliest of the months my fate?
Already had my mother sunk in death,
Kill'd by the sweet caresses of thy breath.
She, too, died young; and I remember well,
Child as I was, her beauty's healing spell;
And how her angel-smile could soften down,
To my young heart, a sterner parent's frown.
False May! I loved thee much and hate thee more,
How could I trust thy smile so false before?
'Neath the close texture of thy flowery woof
Our blest seclusion seem'd disaster-proof.
Never did bland insidious beauty lure
Like thine the soul to dreams of peace secure;
As when thine evil-eye the signal gave,
That doom'd Jemima to her early grave!
Time files away in every human heart
The points acute of sorrow's barbed dart;

250

Twelve years have pass'd, and their balsamic wings
Have fann'd my bosom and appeased its stings.
But she, whose spirit hover'd in the skies,
Could she oblivious be of earthly ties?
Oh, no; if ever nuptial love was true,
Not time alone, but she consoled me too.
I've seen her oft in solitude and night,
And she has o'er me waved a wand of light;
Cheer'd by her smile when fainting on my way,
I've seen her in the broad unconscious day;
Have heard her whispers, soft as dreams of song,
Clear through the tumult of the human throng.
Her spirit, though beatified, unchanged
In nature, proved the woman not estranged.
A surge-tost voyager on Biscay's bay,
I've seen her rise resplendent from the spray.
In Cintra's palace, in that ancient hall,
Where pomps heraldic blaze along the wall,
Brydges, of thee, her sire, I mused and sigh'd
In mood censorious of thy lordly pride,
And fond solicitude of jealous birth
That earth should glitter o'er its kindred earth.
Sudden her voice arose in soft reproof
From tesselated floor to pillar'd roof;

251

Back on my heart the meek remonstrance fell,
And hush'd the censure with its filial spell.
Where curved Mondego rolls through Coimbra's plains
I read the tenderest of Camoens' strains;
By that famed rock where Inez' fountain flows,
And letter'd marble breathes in verse her woes.
A well-known form was near me when I read,
And tears were gushing from the spectral dead;
Griefs snatch'd by genius from the urn of years,
Drew tears that fell into “the Fount of Tears.”
Thus still she haunts me wheresoe'er I roam,
And cheats my exile with the ghost of home.
One eve, again in Cintra's charmed bourne,
Land of enchantment even for those that mourn,
Midway I loiter'd up the craggy steep,
Where myrtles bloom, where infant fountains leap;
Where the rich orange blends its flower and food,
And rugged cork trees dwell on rocks as rude.
In that dread humour of the prostrate mind
When plaintless grief is but despair resign'd,
Lorn as I sate, beside the Afric bath,
She glided by me up the mountain-path!
Impell'd, I follow'd where the vision led,
Clad as she was in raiment of the dead.

252

On the tall peak she linger'd in her shroud,
'Tween Earth and Heaven like a silver cloud.
When near I drew, with watchful look upraised,
With eyes refulgent on the peak she gazed,
A crag with lichens stain'd and hoary moss,
And on its centre stood a reverend Cross!
One moment from my visionary guide
The type of mercy drew my glance aside,
And she had vanish'd! I was all alone
On the grey summit of that pile of stone;
Below, the sea expanded from the beach,
The Cross of Marble stood within my reach—
Emblems august for wretches that despond,
Salvation near, Eternity beyond!

253

ELEGY ON A YOUNG LADY WHO DIED AT TORQUAY, FEB. 2, 1833.

We weep with soften'd grief the aged dead;
When the young die more bitter tears we shed:
We quiver when the shroud-wrapt sleeper wears
Rich glossy locks instead of thin white hairs.
Does startled Pity chide, then, His decree,
Who said to Marian's soul, “Return to me?”
Alas! we mourn in impotence, we rave
In ignorance and folly o'er the grave!
'Tis selfish guilt to grieve for one so good,
Though summon'd in the bloom of womanhood.
Yet if so good, so modest, pure and kind,
The harder lot for those she leaves behind:
Her thoughts reflected all things fresh and fair;
Why so soon broken was that mirror rare?
Why was so just a standard thus denied
To our observance? We have lost a guide.
Again we question, and in sin demur
In sorrow for ourselves lamenting her.

254

But Mercy, sentient to each human tear,
Forgives, perhaps, what Wisdom frowns to hear.
It was so lately in the month of June—
June's leafy month, when birds were all in tune,
All sweetest flowers in blossom, all sweet words,
Pure as those flowers, and blithesome as those birds,
Mingling in gay confusion in the bowers
Of Bronsil, haunt of children's happiest hours—
It was so lately that I saw her first,
Where tender minds were by her virtues nurst;
There I beheld her to all hearts endear'd,
And fresh in health as the young plants she rear'd.
It was more lately, in the harvest moon,
I last beheld her, to be mourn'd so soon!
Her cheek was mantled with a floral bloom,—
Perfidious roses, blossoms of the tomb.
A few short weeks; the bland breath of Torbay
Play'd on her brow as treacherous breezes play.
A few weeks yet—she sleeps on Devon's shore
The sleep that never shall be broken more,
Till the dread voice of Judgment cries, “Behold!
How on your lives has her remembrance told?
In vain your words bewail'd her laid in earth,
Unless your deeds exemplified her worth.”

255

TO THE CITY OF FLORENCE.

Florence—in my waking dream,
Arch'd with rays through tears of gladness,
Spanning Arno's famous stream—
Florence, thou hast lost the gleam,
The bow of Promise fades in sadness.

For me no more shall Fancy's fingers
Trace on Arno's silver sands
Names of heaven-inspired singers;
Painters old whose spirit lingers
On the wonders of their hands;

Lords of art who gave to marble
Form and voice and love divine,
Faith that sceptics cannot garble,—
Seraphs, iris-wing'd, that warble
Round the Medicean Shrine.

256

Nought but clouds on fancy thicken
From thy once alluring vale,
Where our northern blossoms sicken,
Where the hope of love lay stricken,
And the mother's heart grew pale.

Where my friend, an English stranger,
Had his dearest heart-strings wrench'd—
Italy! thou smiling danger,
Could thy breath so darkly change her?
Can that loveliest light be quench'd?

When will Time this memory harden?
Florence, what to me art thou?
What but a forbidden garden,
By a dread angelic warden,—
Asrael of the placid brow,—
Guarded with a flaming sword,
On whose sky-wrought blade is scored
One bright name, too bright for me,
And that name is “Emily.”

257

LINES COMPOSED IN THE ENGLISH BURIAL-GROUND AT OPORTO.

I wear a smile upon my lip,
I teach my voice a careless tone,
My cup of woe I lightly sip,
Nor let its harsh contents be known.

I will not droop to worldly eyes
As if my grief their pity craves,
Though here I breathe my lonely sighs,
Within this solemn field of graves.

For mine are woes that dwell apart,
And human sympathy reject;
Too sacred to the jealous heart
To seek compassion's cold respect.

258

But when such shades as these I find,
Where nature fondly smiles on death,
It checks the pulse, and soothes the mind
To humour sorrow's plaintive breath.

Praised be the hand whose skill contrived
To make a Golgotha so fair;
While nature at the fraud connived,
And lent her robe for death to wear.

Within this pensive place of trees,
This green elysium for the dead,
If I might now my fancy please
I'd choose my own sepulchral bed.

I think my spirit less forlorn
Would feel, if it were certain now
That when my heart should cease to mourn
'Twould sleep beneath a greenwood bough.

Vain fancy! can religion draw
No thoughts of healthier sorrow bred,
No life of death from nature's law,
Within this garden sown with dead?

259

That in due season every seed,
However deeply hid it lie,
Will yet come up a flower or weed,
Is seen by faith's prophetic eye.

Weeds only are we all, alas;
But hence, by Christ's transforming power,
No weed so mean but it may pass
Through death to life and be a flower.

DIALOGUE WITH THE DEPARTING SPIRIT OF A FRIEND'S CHILD.

“Emily, thou fair white child,
Whither goest thou,
Smiling as thy father smiled
When he kiss'd thy brow?

“Thou art yet too young to roam,
Tell me, maiden, whither?”
“I but go from home to home,
Hence ascending—thither:

260

(Heavenward with those light clear eyes
Glancing, she replied:)
“I go yonder to the skies,
Marian my guide.”

“Where is Marian, fair child?”
(Still she look'd above:)
“Waiting yonder with her mild
Cheering face of love.”

“Think how lone will Anna be—
How forlorn thy brother—
Wilt thou from thy father flee?
Wilt thou leave thy mother?”

(Downward then she look'd awhile
Troubled and afraid;
But with arch and radiant smile
Soon look'd up and said:)

“Yes, 'tis but one more good night—
And when God gives warning,
They will find me in the light
Of eternal morning.”

261

A DREAM OF DEATH AT SEA.

Under the gannet's pillow
Twenty fathoms deep,
Under the dull green billow
Of Finisterre I sleep.

Be kind to my two young daughters
For the sake of him who sends
This voice from beneath the waters
To all who were his friends.

By Grasmere's Lake their mother
Rests among the dead;
Their father has found another
And a wilder bed.

Be the ban of a father's spirit,
On those who would do them wrong!
And a blessing may they inherit
Who are kind to his orphan young!

The Night of New Year's Eve, 1826.

262

STANZAS.

[The clouds of wintry yesterday are gone]

The clouds of wintry yesterday are gone;
The blue of Heaven is pale with light to-day;
Bright shines the morn as ever morning shone
In southern vallies, in the month of May.

Green meadows bask beneath me; all around
Are mountains brow'd with diadems of snow;
And Rotha dances with a silvery sound,
At play with sunbeams, to the lake below.

Fair scene and sunny sabbath! why this tear?
Alas, it is not Rydal Vale I see,
Nor Rotha's spring-tide music that I hear,
Nor Fairfield's crown of snow that shines for me.

263

Granada's circled plain is at my feet;
Her mountains their eternal snows reveal;
And myrtled Darro flashes down to greet
And mingle yonder with the soft Xenil.

And lo! the magic palace of the Moor,
The red Alhambra haunted by Romance;
And Dora, spell-bound by delight as pure
As ever trembled in a woman's glance.

Hark to the nightingales! they throng their lays;
Not one, but hundreds hail the poet's child.
O what a day was that! Of Sabbath days
The most divine that ever hope beguiled.

264

Strange contrast to the sound of Sabbath bells,
That woodland music heard in Moslem halls!
Yet to her heart of holier things it tells,
And dearer harmonies of prayer recalls.

And where was Dora after one short year,
When flowers exhaled the May's delicious breath?
Not yet, not yet, on her untimely bier,
But living, conscious, in the arms of Death.

O flowers of Rydal, could ye bloom again!
The last her mortal eyes were doom'd to see
Were roses clustering at her lattice pane,
The blossoms from her brother's funeral tree.

Ere three-score suns and ten, from May-day morn,
Had risen and set on Rydal's laurell'd height,
The radiant spirit which of Heaven was born,—
For us too precious, wing'd to Heaven her flight.

265

When thrice the folds in Grasmere Vale had yean'd,
And April daisies bloom'd upon her grave,
A life broke down that would on hers have lean'd;
And sire to daughter, dust to dust, we gave.

In these loved haunts, where all things have a voice
That echoes to the bard's inspiring tongue,
Where woods and waters in his strain rejoice,
“And not a mountain lifts its head unsung,”

Of Him the Tarns and Meres are eloquent;
The running waters are his chroniclers;
The eternal mountains are his monument.—
A few frail hearts and one green mound are hers.

Rydal, Sunday, February 2nd, 1851.

Windermere.

The Alpine range called Sierra Nevada, overlooking the City and Vega (plain) of Granada.

The Darro rises from the hill of myrtles, near Huetar, and approaches Granada under the Monte Sacro. The walks on both sides of this swift arrowy river are delicious. The Darro flows into the Xenil (pronounced Heneel with the h strongly aspirated—some write it Genil) below the Carrera, one of the Alamedas or public walks of Granada. The Xenil rises in the glaciers of the Sierra Nevada, and discharges itself, far away, at Ecija, into the Guadalquiver.

This is no extravagance: the groves on the banks of the Darro and Xenil are peopled with nightingales, and the effect of their choirs of harmony in May is indescribable.

That fatal illness began before Christmas, 1846, hardly six months after our return from Spain. In April, 1847, all hope was over, and she knew it! She expired on Friday, the 9th of July.

The rose-tree that climbs up the front wall of Rydal Mount to the windows of the room where she breathed her last, was planted there in memorial of her brother Thomas's death, and is called Thomas's tree.

Mr. Wordsworth died in April, 1850, not quite three years after the loss of his beloved daughter, and was buried by her side in Grasmere churchyard.

266

ALONE.

Alone! no stir nor sound of life;
The house to day is all my own:
And where art thou, my peerless wife?
Alas, alone.

All joyous things are out among
The flowers, this April morn so fair.
And thou, whose heart was ever young,
Art where, oh where?

A nest is in thy holly-tree,
A red-breast chants amid the leaves;
The same that used to sing to thee
On winter eves.

The sunbeams through the casement peep
And glint along thy chamber floor;
What seek they here? thy morning sleep
They break no more.

267

A year ago so shone the spring
Where faint my blighted love was lying;
The buds could bloom, the birds could sing,
When thou wert dying.

The river on Helvellyn born
Runs, clear as at the fountain-head,
Beside my door—as on the morn
When thou wert dead.

But with another voice it calls,
A greeting to my soul address'd,
Borne hither from the churchyard walls
That guard thy rest.

O keen intolerable sense
Of solitude in hopeless woe!
I will arise and bear me hence,
But whither go?

Ah whither but to yonder knoll,
So green beneath the dark yew-bough?
Whereof this river to my soul
Is murmuring now.

268

For thou art there, and thoughts are there
That dwell not on less holy ground;
The lakeland knows no spot so fair
As that green mound.

There standing, where I saw or heard
The earth upon thy coffin thrown:
I feel, so near my home deferr'd,
Not all alone.

April, 1848.

THE END.