University of Virginia Library

BLAVEN.

Blow wildly blasts round Blaven's jagged crown,
And through sheer-yawning rifts
Whistle and shriek, while the swift Cloud swoops down,
And like a wild beast lifts
Wrathful his sweeping tail! Scowl, Blaven, scowl
Black as black hell, and, while
Deep in the cauldroned corry tempests growl,
With thy gigantic pile
Stand firm, and harshly seamed with gritty scars
Thy stern-indented face,
Display, defiant of all windy wars
With savage grim grimace,
While countless winters roll. I can rejoice
Where battling blasts increase,
And from the harsh bray of the tempest's voice
Can syllable sweet peace.
To-morrow, when the storm's hot puffing fit
Hath blown itself to rest,
A little child leading a lamb might sit
Harmless upon thy crest.
Oft have I seen Coruisk's dark-rounded lake,
That, like a hell-pot lies
Brewing commotion, sudden radiance take
From the discurtained skies,
And like a cushioned and a cradled thing
With beauty dimpled o'er,
Lie wreathed in lazy smiles, feeble to fling
One ripple to the shore.
There is a soul in Nature that delights
In peace, and peaceful moods,
Which still she finds from every storm that smites
The Bens, or shakes the woods;
A Sabbath tune she hath which most she loves,
And to herself doth sing
Secure, behind the crash of rended groves
And clang of winter's wing.
Such Sabbath tune the wise man's heart doth know
Through all the week day din,
And raptured hears the heavenly cadence flow
Of angel songs within,
What time Rebellion sets the state ajar
And Chaos conquers Law,
And on life's squandered fountains hungry War
Engluts his tiger-maw.
Terrific now the rainful power streams down
And with tremendous flail
Lashes thy battered ribs, and rifted crown,
In adamantine mail
Prodigious cased: the sudden torrent swells
Huge from its birth, and pours
With arrowy force into the sounding dells
Thy ruin's crumbled stores
Precipitous, and spreads the plain below
With slime and fertile dust,
Thy spoil, the soil for gentle life to grow
From thy obdurate crust.
Thus the harsh-blustering storm prepares the path
For plough and peaceful spade,
And hard-faced Blaven snorting in his wrath,
A genial bed hath made,
Where herbs shall spring, and delicate hands shall bind
The various-painted flower,
And children play, and old men walk, and find
Rest in the odorous bower.
These be Thy wonders, Lord, to pondering heart
In storm and cloud revealed,
Perpetual miracle, prolific art,
From sceptic wit concealed;
These shew to me, while humbly I would trace
Through rich-confounding maze
Thy reasoned plan, and with the angelic race
Mingle weak human praise,
To Him who sits supreme in righteous state
Above man's partial mood,
And worketh peace from storm, and love from hate;
And all He doth is good.