The Poetical Works of John Critchley Prince :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Poetical Works of John Critchley Prince

Edited by R. A. Douglas Lithgow

Prince, John Critchley (1808-1866)

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IN TWO VOLS.—VOL. I.

HOURS WITH THE MUSES

DREAMS AND REALITIES.

II.

IN TWO VOLS.—VOL. II.

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I. IN TWO VOLS.—VOL. I.

HOURS WITH THE MUSES

POEMS PUBLISHED IN 1841.

THE POET'S SABBATH.

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“The Sabbath! Blessings and ten thousand blessings be upon that day! and let myriads of thanks stream up to the throne of God, for this divine and regenerating gift to man! As I have sat in some flowery dale, with the sweetness of May around me, on a week-day, I have thought of the millions of immortal creatures toiling for their daily life in factories and shops, amid the whirl of machinery and the greedy craving of mercantile gain; and suddenly that golden interval of time has lain before me in all its brightness—a time and a perpetually recurring time, in which the iron grasp of social tyranny is loosed, and Peace, Faith, and Freedom, the Angels of God, come down and walk once more among men! [OMITTED] For myself, I speak from experience; it has always been my delight to go out on a Sunday, and, like Isaac, meditate in the fields; and especially in the tranquility and amid the gathering shadows of evening; and never, in temple or in closet, did more hallowed influences fall upon my heart. With the twilight and the hush of earth, a tenderness has stolen upon me—a desire for every thing pure and holy—a love for every creature on which God has stamped the wonder of his handiwork, but especially for every child of humanity; and then I have been made to feel that there is no oratory like that which has heavem for its root, and no teaching like the teaching of the Spirit which created, and still overshadows with its infinite wing.”—William Howitt.

Sabbath! thou art my Ararat of life,
Smiling above the deluge of my cares,—
My only refuge from the storms of strife,
When constant Hope her noblest aspect wears,—
When my torn mind its broken strength repairs,
And volant Fancy breathes a sweeter strain.
Calm season! when my thirsting spirit shares
A draught of joy unmixed with aught of pain,
Spending the quiet hours 'mid Nature's green domain.

Once more the ponderous engines are at rest,
Where Manufacture's mighty structures rise:
Once more the babe is pillowed at the breast,
Watch'd by a weary mother's yearning eyes:
Once more to purer air the artist flies,
Loosed from a weekly prison's stern control,
Perchance to look abroad on fields and skies,
Nursing the germs of freedom in his soul,—
Happy if he escape the thraldom of the bowl.

'Tis morn, but yet the full and cloudless moon
Pours from her starry urn a chastened light:
'Tis but a little space beyond the noon—
The still delicious noon of Summer's night;
Forth from my home I take an early flight,
Down the lone vale pursue my devious way,
Bound o'er the meadows with a keen delight,
Brush from the forest leaves the dewy spray,
And scale the toilsome steep, to watch the kindling day.

The lark is up, disdainful of the earth,
Exulting in his airy realm on high;
His song, profuse in melody and mirth,
Makes vocal all the region of the sky;
The startled moor-cock, with a sudden cry,
Springs from beneath my feet; and as I pass,
The sheep regard me with an earnest eye,
Ceasing to nibble at the scanty grass,
And scour the barren waste in one tumultuous mass.

But lo! the stars are waning, and the dawn
Blushes and burns athwart the east;—behold!
The early sun, behind the upland lawn,
Looks o'er the summit with a front of gold;

Back from his beaming brow the mists are rolled,
And as he climbs the crystal tower of morn,
Rocks, woods, and glens their shadowy depths unfold;
The trembling dews grow brighter on the thorn,
And Nature smiles as fresh as if but newly born.

God of the boundless universe! I come
To hold communion with myself and Thee!
And though excess of beauty makes me dumb,
My thoughts are eloquent with all I see!
My foot is on the mountains,—I am free,
And buoyant as the winds that round me blow!
My dreams are sunny as yon pleasant lea,
And tranquil as the pool that sleeps below;
While, circling round my heart, a poet's raptures glow.

Oh, glorious Summer! what a sight is here,
To wean the heart from selfishness and care!
Where the vast prospect, bright, distinct, and clear,
Looks up in silence through the stainless air:
The moorlands are behind me, bleak and bare,
A rude and trackless wilderness of land!
Beneath me lie the vales, calm, rich, and fair,
With Alpine summits rising on each hand!
And stretching far before, the peopled plains expand.

Behold each various feature of the scene,
Shining in light, and softening into shade;
Peak beyond peak, with many a mile between,—
The rude defile, the lonely forest glade,—
The gold-besprinkled meadows, softly swayed
By every fitful frolic of the breeze,—
The river, like a wandering child, conveyed
Back to the bosom of its native seas,—
Paved with all glorious shapes, skies, clouds, hills, rocks, and trees.

Behold the lordly mansion's splendid pride,
The peasant's cottage with its zone of flowers,—
The shepherd's hut upon the mountain's side,
Keeping lone watch through calm and stormy hours,—
The clustered hamlet, with its quiet bowers,—
The pastor's snug abode, and gothic fane,—
The crowded city, with its thousand towers,—
The silvery-sheeted lake, the opening plain,
And, mixed with farthest sky, the blue and boundless main.

Hark, sweetly pealing in the arch of heaven,
The mingled music of the Sabbath bells:
A tide of varying harmony is driven,
In gentle wavelets, over streams and dells:
Now 'tis a melting cadence—now it swells
Full, rich, and joyous on the enamoured ear;
While, through the wondrous halls where Memory dwells,
A thousand visions of the past career,
A thousand joys and griefs in dreamy forms appear.

Now are the temples of a hundred creeds
Thronging with worshippers, where we may trace
Men known to fame by good or evil deeds,
As multiform in feeling as in face:
There Pomp is seated in his pride of place,
Cushioned, and carpeted, and curtained round;
There humbler Piety, with modest grace,
Lists to the blessed Word's consoling sound,
Or breathes, subdued and low, her orisons profound.

There was a time—(two thousand shadowy years
Have swept, since then, o'er earth's still changingball)—
When Christ, the Man of Sorrows and of tears,
Came to redeem our great primeval fall;

And as He preached life, love, and truth to all—
A blessed lore which cannot be defiled—
Rude men and sinful gathered at His call,
Won by the healing words, the aspect mild,
Of God in human mould, yet humble as a child!

Mournful and meek, yet dignified, He came
Before stern Pilate's judgment-seat, to hear
The Jewish hatred cast upon His name,
Yet breathed no murmur of reproach or fear:
Though smit by hands, He shed compassion's tear,—
Bore on His brow the blood-extorting wreath,
And, having made the way of mercy clear,
Spent on the painful cross His latest breath,
To save the human race from everlasting death.

Then Paul arose, the chosen of the Lord,
To nurse the seeds which Christ himself had sown;
To spread the living spirit of the Word
To hearts unborn, to lands as yet unknown:
With simple majesty and earnest tone,
He taught admiring multitudes to love;
His lips dropped manna, while his features shone
With holy light, reflected from above,
And God within his soul sat brooding like a dove.

Let memory turn some fleeting ages back,
When Christian martyrs, with a wondrous power,
Defied the stake, the dungeon, and the rack,
Though human gore was scattered like a shower:
What could sustain them in the trying hour,
But some bright hope unrealized below,—
Some strong conviction—some expected dower
Of peace and joy beyond this world of woe,—
Some mystery concealed, which they had yearned to know?

How calmly, boldly, on their native sod,
Girt with their native hills, sublime and high,
Did Scotland's Covenanters worship God,
Bible in hand, and sword upon the thigh!
Did not the bones of murdered thousands lie
In Alpine hollows of Helvetia's land,
Because they had resolved to live and die
A sternly faithful and religious band,
And fight against the sway of Persecution's hand?

Oh! these are great examples to admire,—
Deeds of the soul's devotion, which surpass
Those of the conqueror; the poet's lyre
Sings them in words outliving stone and brass;
But in our own enlightened days, alas!
Men unto pride and custom bow the knee;
The laboured sermon, and the gorgeous mass,
With idle pageantry, are things that be,—
Eternal One of Heaven! how all unworthy Thee!

Still we must own that there are some, in sooth,
To God devoted, and to man sincere;—
Some whose calm souls are yearning after truth,
With all that holy hope which knows no fear;—
Some who have ministered to virtue here,
Soothed the despairing, succoured the distressed,—
Breathed consolation in the mourner's ear,
And plucked the weed of sorrow from the breast,—
Swayed by the law of Love, the noblest, purest, best!

Oh God! my only hope of bliss above!
Soul of all being, human and divine!
Source of all wisdom! Fountain of all love!
Oh, let Thy light around my footsteps shine!

Oh, teach my stubborn spirit to resign
Pride, passion, lust, and every vicious art!
Oh, make me truly and securely Thine!
Give me a lowly purity of heart,
That I may understand and choose the better part!

Down from the breezy summits of the hills
I turn my lingering footsteps, and descend
A rugged pathway, where a thousand rills
All freshly, brightly, musically blend
Their ever-twinkling waters; now I wend
Along the streamlet's desultory wave,
To reach yon gothic fane, where those attend
Who feign, or feel, that they have souls to save,
Looking for deathless life, beyond the secret grave.

I stand within the walls, whose roof is spread
In the vain strength of architectural might;
Emblazoned banners droop above my head,—
Rich windows glow with many-coloured light;
Altar and shrine are gorgeously bedight
With costly ornament of dazzling sheen;
Proud tombs and cenotaphs the gaze invite,
Recording virtures which have never been;
(Thus self-exalted, man forgets his God, I ween).

The voice of psalms ascends the slumbering air,—
With sweet but stormy breath the organ blows;
The pastor reads the well-remembered prayer,
While murmuring lips respond to every close:
Now comes the brief discourse,—perchance it flows
With less of fervent feeling than of art;
Perchance it lulls some hearer to repose,—
Perchance it trembles in some human heart:
Now, hymn and service done, shepherd and flock depart.

Through pleasant fields, green lanes, and forest glooms,
Back to their humble homes the rustics go;
Save those who linger in the place of tombs,
Musing and mourning o'er the dead below:
There droops the widow in her weeds of woe,
Whose joys lie buried with the lifeless one;
The orphan, too, is there, whose tears o'erflow
For some kind sire or tender mother gone;—
There's comfort in their grief, oh, let their tears flow on!

Now the glad sun, from his ethereal throne,
Rains down the mid-day glory of his beams;
The skies sweep round me like an azure zone,—
Rolling in light the far off ocean gleams;
The hills are clothed with splendour, and the streams
Flash with a quivering radiance here and there;
Earth slumbers in the depth of summer dreams;
Mysterious murmurs stir the sultry air,
As if all Nature's breast throbbed with unuttered prayer.

My heart's religion is an earnest love
Of all that's good, and beautiful, and true!—
My noblest temple is this sky above—
This vast pavilion of unclouded blue:
These mountains are my altars, which subdue
My wildest passions in their wildest hours;
My hymn is ever many-voiced and new,—
From bird and bee, from wind and wave it pours;
My incense is the breath of herbs, leaves, fruits, and flowers.

Here Health and Piety, twin angels, shed
The healing influence of their hallowed wings;
Here joyous Freedom hovers round my head,
And young Hope whispers of immortal things;

Here lavish Music, dainty Ariel, flings
Mellifluous melody on every hand;
Here mild and many-featured Beauty brings
Dim visions of that undiscovered land,
Where the unshackled soul shall boundlessly expand.

Man cannot stand beneath a loftier dome
Than this cerulean canopy of light—
The Eternal's vast, immeasurable home,
Lovely by day, and wonderful by night!
Than this enamelled floor, so greenly bright,
A richer pavement man hath never trod;
He cannot gaze upon a holier sight
Than fleeting cloud, fresh wave, and fruitful sod—
Leaves of that boundless Book, writ by the hand of God!

Here let me rest, within this quiet scene—
This sylvan, shady, and secluded dell;
Where herb and leaf put on a chaster green,
And free-winged choristers in concert dwell;
Where daisies and the king-cup's golden bell,
Smile like a noon-day star-light on the ground;
And airy Echo, from her secret cell,
In mimic tones replies to every sound,
As if some fairy court held jubilee around.

A streamlet from the hills is purling near,
With an unceasing and melodious flow;
Whose twinkling waves, cool, crystalline, and clear,
Through pleasant spots a mazy journey go:
Athwart its face glad wings flit to and fro,
Like bright thoughts glancing through a mind at rest;
Flowers of all hues along its margin grow,
Like those affections blooming in the breast,
Which grace the path of life, and make man's lot more blest.

Here let me spend the peaceful, pensive hour,
Girt with the solemn majesty of trees,
Whose hardy stems defy the tempest's power,
Whose light leaves tremble to the faintest breeze;—
Here let me rest in meditative ease,
Half hidden in the soft luxuriant grass,
And wake those sweet imaginings that please
The tranquil soul, those phantom forms that pass,
Like unforgotten dreams, o'er memory's magic glass.

I lay me down upon the verdant slope,
Gazing around me with a loving eye;
Where waving branches form a leafy cope,
Yielding bright glimpses of the summer sky;
The west-wind greets me with a balmy sigh,
Rich with the rifled odours of the rose—
The honey-laden bee is murmuring nigh—
The wood-dove's voice with mournful murmur flows,
And every ruder thought is cradled to repose.

Now Fancy wafts me to that golden age,
Which blessed our fathers in the days of yore;
Whose semblance lingers on the poet's page,
And in the prophet's visionary lore:
Perchance some future age may yet restore
The lost reality, more pure and bright,
When man shall walk with Nature, to adore
The God of love, of loveliness, and light,
And truth shall teach his heart to worship Him aright.

Blest age of guiltless joy and cloudless truth!
Undimmed by human care, by human crime,—
When earth was in the gladness of her youth,
And man was in the glory of his prime!

Delicious lapse of golden wingéd time!
Thou dost not smile upon us now, as when
Angelic visitants, with port sublime,
Became familiar unto mortal ken,
And even gods came down among the sons of men!

The fabled charms which to thy name belong,
Inspire the patriot's earnest prayer; they lend
A living music to the poet's song,
And with the prophet's dreamy future blend.
Alas! that evil destiny should end
Thy peaceful reign! Thy patriarchal race—
Gone, like the spirit of a joyous friend—
Gone, like a melody that leaves no trace,
Or like a shattered star swept from the realms of space!

With thee the earth was ever rich and fair;
No Summer scorched, no Winter chilled her breast;
Nor storm, nor dearth, nor pestilence, were there,
To break the holy quiet of her rest;
Eternal Spring, with constant beauty dressed,
Walked in a paradise of buds and flowers;
Eternal Autumn, with abundance blest,
Smiled on the fields, and blushed upon the bowers,
Fed by a genial sun and fertilizing showers.

The world was one Arcadian realm, and rife
With graceful shape, soft tint, and pleasing sound;
Unwet by sorrow's tears, unstained by strife,
An Eden bloomed on every spot of ground:
Mankind, a mighty brotherhood, were bound
By the strong ties of Charity and Truth:
With equal hand spontaneous Plenty crowned
The universal feast; no care, no ruth
Furrowed the brow of Age, nor dimmed the eye of Youth.

On aromatic leaves, with tranquil dreams,
They slept the shadows of the night away:
'Mid sunny mountains and rejoicing streams,
They watched and wandered with their flocks by day;
Down the deep valleys they were wont to stray,
Where yet a savage foot had never trod,
To glorify their Maker, and to pray;
Making the green and ever-flowery sod,
Which blessed them with its fruits, the altar of their God!

Fair Woman then was guileless as the dove,
And pure and buoyant as a spring-tide morn;
The roses scattered on her path of love—
Happy for her!—were yet without a thorn:
With wild flowers—like herself, in beauty born,
And fed with dew in many a pleasant place—
She stood, her flowing tresses to adorn,
Beside the waters, whose unruffled face
Gave to her eager glance a form of perfect grace.

She knew that she was lovely, but her charms
Were never wed to meretricious art;
One worthy object filled her tender arms,
Whose constant image slumbered in her heart:
Blest in her choice, she never felt the smart
Of man's neglect, or passion's dark annoy;
She filled the maiden's and the matron's part,
With firmness, fondness, modesty, and joy,—
Virtue her only thought, and love her sole employ.

Peace, Virtue, Wisdom, Liberty, and Health,
Knew no decay beneath thy genial reign;
Then love was power, and happiness was wealth,
To the chaste damsel and the faithful swain:

Hate, Passion, Lust, Ambition, Falsehood, Gain,
Pride and Oppression, Poverty and Wrong,
Crime and Remorse, Disease, Despair, and Pain—
A dark and unextinguishable throng—
Were evils yet unknown to story or to song!

As yet gigantic Commerce had not built
Cities, and towers, and palaces of pride—
Those vast abodes of wretchedness and guilt,
Where Wealth and Indigence stand side by side;
Man had not ventured o'er the waters wide,
To deal in human thraldom, nor unrolled
His hostile banner to the breeze, nor dyed
His selfish hands in kindred blood, nor sold
The joys of Earth, and Heaven, for thrice-accurséd gold!

Man lived as love inspired, till mellow age
Brought his frail footsteps nearer to the tomb;
Prepared to stand upon a higher stage,
He had no fears to wrap his soul in gloom;
His fancy pictured no terrific doom
Of endless agony, for sins unknown,—
But gardens of imperishable bloom,
And forms and faces like unto his own,
All radiant with the light of God's eternal throne!

His youth was like the summer's morning hour,
Fresh, free, and buoyant, laughing and sincere;
His manhood, like the summer's noon-tide power,
Strong, deep, intense, warm, glorious, and clear;
His age like summer's eve, whose skies appear
Filled with a softer and serener light;
And when his day went down, and Death drew near,
To shroud him in the shadows of his night,
'Twas but to rise again with everlasting light!

Transcendent Fiction! though we cannot find
That aught so beautiful hath ever been;
Though thou art but a vision of the mind,
Fancied but felt not,—sought for but unseen;
Yet hope is with us,—let us strive to wean,
Our hearts from selfish influences, and go
Together in the fields of truth, and glean
All it behoves the hungry soul to know,
Creating for ourselves a Paradise below.

Farewell, my pleasant dream! The sinking sun
Is burning in the bosom of the west;
The joyous lark, whose vesper hymn is done,
Folds his light pinions to his weary breast;
The clamorous rook is hovering round his nest—
The thrush sits silent on the thorny spray—
The nectar-gathering bee is gone to rest—
The lonely cuckoo chants a lingering lay;
While I, with careless feet, go loitering on my way.

The sun, now resting on the mountain's head,
Flings rosy radiance o'er the smiling land;
Around his track gigantic clouds are spread,
Like the creation of some wizard hand:
Now they assume new shapes, wild, strange, and grand,
Touched by the breath of eve's ethereal gale:
Like burning cliffs and blazing towers they stand,
Frowning above an emerald-paven vale,
Such as my fancy found in Childhood's fairy tale.

Now they are scattered o'er the quiet sky,
Like those fair isles that gem the southern main;
The fragments of a shadowy realm, they lie,
Imprinting space with many a gorgeous stain;

Now they are fading from the boundless plain
Whereon they shed their splendours, as they grew;
Gone is their brief and transitory reign—
Gone is the sun that gave them glory, too,
And heaven, earth, air, and sea, put on a deeper hue.

Sights, sounds, and odours, that surround me here,
Soften and sanctify the evening hour;
The rose-enamoured nightingale is near,
Breathing delicious music in her bower;
Herds low along the vales—young children pour
Their gladsome voices on the tranquil air;
A richer perfume creeps from every flower—
Skies, fields, and waters, Beauty's mantle wear;
Nature's primeval face was not more calmly fair.

Blest hour of Peace, of Poetry, and Love!
Spell-breathing season—care-subduing time!
Dim emanation of a world above,
Hallowed and still, soft, soothing, and sublime!
My heaven-aspiring spirit seems to climb
Nearer to God, whose all-protecting wing
Shadows the universe; my feelings chime
In unison with every holy thing,
That memory can give, or meditation bring!

The voice of Nature is a voice of power,
More eloquent than mortal lips can make;
And even now in this most solemn hour,
She bids my noblest sympathies awake.
Nature! I love all creatures for thy sake,
But chiefly man, who is estranged from thee!
Oh! would that he would turn from strife, and take
Sweet lessons from thy lore, and learn to be
Submissive to thy laws, wise, happy, good, and free!

Now the lone twilight, like a widowed maiden,
Pale, pure, and pensive, steals along the skies;
With dewy tears the sleeping flowers are laden—
The leaves are stirred with spiritual sighs;
The stars are looking down with radiant eyes,
Like hosts of watchful Cherubim, that guard
A wide and weary world; the glow worm lies,
A living gem upon the grassy sward,
Uncared for and unsought, save by the wandering bard.

Now 'tis the trysting time, when lovers walk
By many a wild and solitary way,
Winging the moments with enraptured talk—
Breaking the silence with some plaintive lay:
Hushed be the tongue that flatters to betray
Confiding Woman in the tender hour;
Sad be the heart that will not own the sway
Of her ennobling, soul-refining power,—
She, of life's stormy wild, the only constant flower.

I journey homeward; for the taper's light
Gleams from the scattered dwellings of the poor,
Down the steep valleys, up the mountain's height,
And o'er the barren surface of the moor.
Shadows are round me as I tread the floor
Of balmy-breathing fields; my weary feet
Bear me right onward to my cottage door;—
I cross my threshold—take my accustomed seat,
And feel, as I have always felt, that home is sweet!

My wife receives me with a quiet smile,
Gentle and kind as wife should ever be;
My joyous little ones press round the while,
And take their wonted places on my knee:

Now with my chosen friends, sincere and free,
I pass the remnant of the night away;
Temper grave converse with becoming glee—
Wear in my face a heart serenely gay,
And wish that human life were one long Sabbath day.

Some poet's song, inspiring hope and gladness,
Gives to my social joys a sweeter zest;
Some tale of human suffering and sadness
Brings out the deeper feelings of my breast.
Sad for the millions stricken and oppressed,
My cheek with tears of sympathy impearled,
I urge my little household unto rest,
Till morn her rosy banner hath unfurl'd,
And care shall call me forth to battle with the world.

Blest Sabbath time! on life's tempestuous ocean,
The poor man's only haven of repose—
Oh, thou hast wakened many a sweet emotion,
Since morning's sun upon thy being rose!
Now thou art wearing gently to a close—
Thy starry pinions are prepared for flight—
A dim forgetfulness within me grows—
External things are stealing from my sight—
Good night! departing Sabbath of my soul—good night!

WHO ARE THE FREE?

Who are the Free?
They who have scorned the Tyrant and his rod,
And bowed in worship unto none but God;
They who have made the Conqueror's glory dim,
Unchained in soul, though manacled in limb;
Unwarped by prejudice, unawed by wrong—
Friends to the weak, and fearless of the strong;
They who would change not with the changing hour,
The self-same men in peril and in power;
True to the law of Right—as warmly prone
To grant another's as maintain their own—
Foes of oppression wheresoe'er it be:—
These are the proudly free!

Who are the Great?
They who have boldly ventured to explore
Unsounded seas, and lands unknown before;
Soared on the wings of science, wide and far,
Measured the sun and weighed each distant star;
Pierced the dark depths of Ocean and of Earth,
And brought uncounted wonders into birth;
Repelled the pestilence—restrained the storm,
And given new beauty to the human form;
Wakened the voice of Reason, and unfurled
The page of truthful Knowledge to the world;

They who have toiled and studied for mankind,
Aroused each slumbering faculty of mind,
Taught us a thousand blessings to create:—
These are the nobly great!

Who are the Wise?
They who have governed with a self-control,
Each wild and baneful passion of the soul;
Curbed the strong impulse of all fierce desires,
But kept alive affection's purer fires;
They who have pass'd the labyrinth of life,
With scarce one hour of weakness or of strife;
Prepared each change of fortune to endure,
Humble though rich, and dignified though poor;
Skilled in the latent movements of the heart—
Learned in that lore which Nature can impart;
Teaching that sweet philosophy aloud,
Which sees the “silver lining” of the cloud;
Looking for good in all beneath the skies:—
These are the truly wise!

Who are the Blest?
They who have kept their sympathies awake,
And scattered good for more than custom's sake;
Steadfast and tender in the hour of need,
Gentle in thought—benevolent in deed;
Whose looks have power to make dissension cease—
Whose smiles are pleasant, and whose words are peace;—
They who have lived as harmless as the dove,
Teachers of truth, and ministers of love,—
Love for all moral power, all mental grace,
Love for the humblest of the human race,—

Love for that tranquil joy which virtue brings,—
Love for the Giver of all goodly things;
True followers of that soul-exalting plan
Which Christ laid down to bless and govern man:
They who can calmly linger at the last,
Survey the future and recall the past;
And with that hope which triumphs over pain,
Feel well assured they have not lived in vain,
Then wait in peace their hour of final rest:—
These are the only blest!

MAY.

Bride of the Summer! gentle, genial May!
I hail thy presence with a child's delight;
For all that poets love of soft and bright,
Lives through the lapse of thy delicious day:
Glad earth drinks deep of thine ethereal ray;
Warmed by thy breath, up spring luxuriant flowers;
Stirred by thy voice, birds revel in the bowers,
And streams go forth rejoicing on their way;
Enraptured childhood rushes out to play,
'Mid light and music, colours and perfumes:
By silent meadow paths, through vernal glooms,
The enamoured feet of low-voiced lovers stray:
In thee Love reigns with Beauty, whose control
Steals joyful homage from the poet's soul.

THE POET TO HIS CHILD.

Hail to this teeming stage of strife,—
Hail, lovely miniature of life;
Parent of many cares untold,
Lamb of the world's extended fold.
Byron.

Welcome! blossom fair!
Affection's dear reward;
Oh! welcome to thy father's sight,
Whose heart o'erflows with new delight,
And tenderest regard;
While on thine eyes
Soft slumber lies,
And, bending o'er thy face, I feel thy breath arise.

Upon thy mother's cheek
Are trembling tears of joy:
We have no thought of worldly pain—
Past hours of bliss are felt again,
Unmingled with alloy;
May Heaven hear
The prayer sincere
Which, for thy earthly weal, a father offers here!

May Death's relentless hand
Some kind protector spare,
To guide thy steps through childhood's day—
To train them in religion's way,

By teaching early prayer;
In every hour
Check evil's power,
And in thy guileless heart plant virtue's fadeless flower!

Youth hath a thousand dreams,
As false as they are fair;
And womanhood's sad season brings
The stern reality of things—
Too oft the blight of care;
For man deceives,
And woman grieves
When passion plucks joy's flower, and scatters all its leaves.

May no such lot be thine,
My loved and only child!
Nor sin's remorse, nor sorrow's ruth;
But wedded love and holy truth
Preserve thee undefiled!
And when life's sun
Its course hath run,
Be thy departing words—“My God! thy will be done!”

A VISION OF THE FUTURE.

Grieved at the crimes and sorrows of mankind,
My soul grows sick of this unquiet world:
When shall the links of Error be untwined,
And withering Falsehood from her seat be hurled?
When shall pure Truth pour sunshine on the mind,
And Love's unspotted pinions be unfurled?
When shall Oppression's blood-stained sceptre fall,
And Freedom's wide embrace encircle all?

Celestial Hope! on thine eternal wings,
Through all thy boundless regions let me fly:
Remembrance of the past no comfort brings,
Oh, give the future to my anxious eye!

'Tis done! and lo, some prophet-spirit flings
The mantle of its power, and I descry,
Through the vast shadows of advancing time,
A cheering vision, lovely and sublime.

Enchanting picture of that happy scheme,
Whose blessings few have known, yet all shall know!
I hail thy coming, for thy dawning beam
Shall fill the world with its unclouded glow!
Ere long the patriot's hope, the poet's dream,
Shall change to sweet reality below;
And man, the slave of ignorance and strife,
Wake to a birth of intellectual life.

In fancy I behold the home of love,
Bathed in the sunlight of an azure June,
Where the rich mountains lift their forms above
The crystal calmness of the bright lagoon;
Where timid Peace, like some domestic dove,
Broods in the lap of Joy, and every boon
That harmonising Liberty can give,
Clings round a spot on which 'tis heaven to live!

I see no splendid tyrant on a throne,
Extorting homage with a bauble rod:
No senate, heedless of a people's moan,
Cursing the produce of the fertile sod;
No sensual priest, with pampered pride o'erblown,
Shielding oppression in the name of God;
No pensioned concubine—no pauper peer,
To scorn the widow's or the orphan's tear.

I see no bondsman at his brother's feet,
The weak one fearing what the strong one saith;
No biass'd wealth upon the judgment-seat,
Urging its victims to disgrace or death;
No venal pleaders, privileged to cheat,
With truth and falsehood in the self-same breath;
No dungeon glooms,—no prisons for the poor—
No partial laws to render power secure.

I see no human prodigy of war,
Borne on the wings of slaughter unto fame,—
The special favourite of some evil star,
Sent forth to gather curses on his name;—
Like him whose grave is o'er the ocean far,
At once his country's idol and her shame,
The bloody vulture of Imperial Gaul,
Whose loftiest flight sustained a fatal fall.

I see no honest toil, unpaid, unfed—
No idler revelling in lust and wine;
No sweat and blood unprofitably shed,
To answer every rash and dark design;
No violation of the marriage bed—
The worst transgression of a law divine—
No tempting devil in the shape of gold,
For which men's hearts and minds are bought and sold.

Instead of these I see a graceful hill,
On whose green sides unnumbered flocks are leaping;
I see the sparkling sheen of flood and rill,
Through cultured vales their tuneful mazes keeping;
And human habitations, too, that fill
A pleasant space, from leafy coverts peeping;
And blithesome swains upon their homeward way,
Singing the burden of some moral lay.

Beneath a lovely and unbounded sky,
Which wears its evening livery the while,
What scenes of beauty captivate the eye!
What spots of bloom—what fields of promise smile!
And where yon calm and peopled dwellings lie,
There breathes no slave, there beats no heart of guile;
But all is freedom, happiness, and quiet,
Far from the world, its restlessness, and riot.

To healthful, moderate, and mutual toil,
Yon sons of Industry go forth at morn,—
Take from indulgent earth a lawful spoil
Of juicy fruitage and nutritious corn.
Thus all the children of the common soil
Draw rich supplies from Plenty's flowing horn;
There is no bondage, no privation there,
To heave the breast, and dim the eye with care.

There Woman moves, with beauty-moulded form,
First inspiration of the Poet's song,
Her heart with fondest, purest feelings warm—
Soul in her eyes, and music on her tongue;
Esteemed and taught, she lives above the storm
Of social discord, poverty, and wrong;
Graceful and good, intelligent and kind,
The loveliest temple of the mighty mind!

Her offspring, too, unfettered as the fawn,
With elfin eyes, and cheeks that mock the rose,
Chase the wild bees o'er many a flowery lawn,
Or gather pebbles where the brooklet flows;
A little world of purity is drawn
Around their steps; a moral grandeur glows,
Serene in majesty, before their eyes,
Moulding their thoughts and feelings as they rise.

Oh, blest Community! calm spot of earth!
Where Love encircles all in his embrace;
Where generous deeds and sentiments have birth,
Warming each heart, and brightening every face;
Where pure Philosophy, and temperate Mirth,
The lore of Science, and the witching grace
Of never-dying Poesy, combine
To feed the hungry soul with food divine!

My flight is finished, and my fitful muse
Descends to cold reality again!
Yet she hath dipped her garments in the hues
Of hope and love, and she shall aid my pen,

With firm though feeble labour to diffuse
The love of truth among the sons of men;
And when her powers shall tremble and decay,
May loftier harps sustain the hallowed lay!

A thousand systems have been formed and wrought,
Where man hath looked for good, but looked in vain;
A thousand doctrines writ, diffused, and taught,
Adding new links to Error's tangled chain:
But, oh! the Apostles of unfettered thought—
Unwearied foes of Falsehood and her train—
Shall lift the veil of mystery at last,
And future times atone for all the past!

TO FRANCE.

When shall I tread thy fertile shores again,
Land of the warlike Gaul, salubrious France!—
Land of the wine-cup, festal song, and dance,—
Sweet lips, bright eyes, and hearts unknown to pain?
My visions are as strong—perchance as vain—
As those which haunt the captive in his cell,
When fancy conjures up his native dell,
With thoughts that make him half forget his chain.
Treasured in memory, thy charms have lain,
Since last I saw thee in the summer glow,
And wandered where Garonne's blue waters flow,
Through scenes where Bacchus holds his joyous reign:
I would in England that my grave should be,
But let my vigorous years, oh, France! be passed with thee!

THE MAID OF A MOUNTAIN LAND.

I met with a joyous few last night,
Gathered around the taper's light:
Warm hearts were glad and bright eyes shone,
Kind words were spoken in friendship's tone;
Calm truth fell pure from every tongue,
And voices awoke in the spell of song;
And one was there of that social band—
The dark-eyed Maid of a Mountain Land.

A smile of delight from all went round,
As she turned to the casket of sleeping sound;
On the tremulous keys her fingers fell,
As rain-drops fall in a crystal well;
Till full on the ear the witchery stole,
And melody melted the captive soul:
She touched the chords with a skilful hand,—
The dark-eyed Maid of a Mountain Land.

She sang of the bards of her native plains,
But Burns was the soul of her breathing strains:
She sang of bold Wallace of Elderslie,
Who died with a spirit unstained and free;
She sang of the deeds of Bruce the brave,
Who fought for the crown his country gave;
She spoke of her home 'mid scenes so grand,—
That dark-eyed Maid of a Mountain Land.

I have been with the buoyant dames of France,
In the pensive hour, in the mirthful dance;
I have looked in the gay Italian's eyes,
Sunny and warm as her own blue skies;
I have talked with the Spaniard, proud and fair,
With her stately step and her haughty air;
But I turn from all of a foreign strand,
And bow to the Maid of a Mountain Land.

THOU ART WOOED AND WON.

Thou art wooed—thou art won—thou art wed,
Thou hast taken the vows of a bride;
May virtue keep watch o'er thy head,
And happiness walk by thy side!
May the man thou hast chosen for life
Prove all that I wish him to be;
May he find every joy in his wife:—
Success to thy husband and thee!

Thou art bound for a land far away,—
Thy bark spreads her wings on the main,
And the bard thou hast praised for his lay
May never behold thee again.
No matter, he will not despair,
But when thou art gone o'er the sea,
Thy name shall be breathed in his prayer:—
Farewell to thy husband and thee!

THE CONTRAST.

“Look on this picture, and on that.”
Shakespeare.

'Twas evening's holy season, when the sun,
Robed in a garment of resplendent dyes,
Was going down in glory to his rest;—
Not like a warrior on a bloody field,
Begirt with all the horrors of his trade;
But like a good man at his final hour,
When weeping eyes are gazing on his face;
When pale but fervent lips stir the hush'd air
With blessings on his head: when kindred hearts
Throb with unuttered feelings for his loss;
And—oh, triumphant hour for him!—when all
The recollections of a well-spent life,
Rich with the hues of charity and love,
Crowd back to gild his passage to the tomb!

At that sweet hour of poetry and peace,
Musing on all the miseries of men,
I wandered far beyond my accustomed walk,
And passed a lowly dwelling on my way,
Whose abject air, and shattered window, told
Where sin-born wretchedness had found a home.
I paused to scan it closely, when a sound
Of hoarse, deep curses smote my startled ear,
Mixed with the breathings of a softer voice

In lowly supplication; and anon,
The sullen echo of repeated blows
Resounded from within; then wildly rang
A thrilling shriek of female agony,
And, flying to escape, the frantic wife,
All bruised and bleeding from her husband's hand,
Rushed from beneath his roof,—a famished race
Of terror-stricken offsprings clinging round her,
Whose cries and tears responded to her own.
Then came the drunkard to his cabin door,—
His odious visage smeared with filth, and flushed
With loathsome drunkenness and baffled rage.
There stood the squalid victim of the dram,
A reeling nuisance in the eye of day,—
A living blotch on fair creation's face;—
There stood he, flinging to the summer breeze
A host of imprecations, strangely mixed
With songs of lewdness and obscenity;
Till, yielding to the overpowering draught,
Whose deadly influence crept through every limb,
The human brute rolled senseless in the dust!

Departing thence, disgusted and amazed,
The sounds of sin still ringing in my ears,
Another homestead met my wandering eye:
This bore a lovelier aspect than the last,
For order's hand had not been wanting here:
The glossy ivy mantled o'er its walls;
Round its bright lattices, the rose of June
Held sweet communion with the woodbine flower;
And, circled with an atmosphere of peace,
It seemed the resting place of holy joy.
I could not choose but linger at its gate,
In contemplation of its varied charms:
Before its humble threshold sat a father,

Earnestly reading to his darling boy
Instructive precepts from some moral page:
There sat a mother, too, mild as the morn,
Plying the needle with a thrifty art,
In whose meek glance shone forth a mind serene:
Stretched on the greensward lay a lovely girl,
With sunny ringlets on a brow of snow—
Like Alpine summits tinged with dying light—
A healthful, innocent, and happy child.

Oh 'twas a scene to wonder at, and love!
For social error had so filled our land
With dens of infamy and homes of strife,
That 'twas a pleasing rarity indeed
To steal upon a spot so sweet as this.
Wrapt in a vision of delight, I stood
Till darkness deepened round, and one by one
The stars came out upon the silent sky,
Like angel eyes that watch o'er fallen man;
Then, with reluctant steps and slow, I left
The sober man's serene and blest abode.

Ye sons and daughters of my native isle,
Who labour at the wheel, the forge, the loom,—
Who wear—yet sigh to break—the oppressor's chain,
Look on the simple pictures I have drawn!
And if one spark of slumbering virtue live
Within your hearts, let zealous Truth be heard,
And Reason guide you to the better choice!

TO POESY.

Thou simple Lyre! thy music wild
Hath served to charm the weary hour,
And many a lonely night hath 'guiled;
When even pain hath owned (and smiled)
Its fascinating power!
—H. K. White.

Best solace of my lonely hours!
Whose tones can never tire,
Oh, how I thrill beneath thy powers,—
Sweet Spirit of the Lyre!
On streamlet's marge, or mountain's steep,
In wild, umbrageous forests deep,
Or by my midnight fire—
Where'er my vagrant footsteps be,
My soul can find a spell in thee!

Thy home is in the human mind,
And in the human breast,
With thoughts unfettered as the wind,
And feelings unexpressed;
With joys and griefs, with hopes and fears,
With pleasure's smiles, with sorrow's tears,
Thou art a constant guest:
And oh, how many feel thy flame,
Without a knowledge of thy name!

Beauty and grandeur give thee birth,
And echo in thy strain—

The stars of heaven, the flowers of earth,
The wild and wondrous main:
With Nature thou art always found
In every shape, in every sound,
Calm, tempest, sun, and rain;—
Yes! Thou hast ever been to me
An intellectual ecstasy!

When Poverty's dark pennons wave
Exulting o'er my head,—
When Hope's best efforts fail to save
My soul from inward dread,—
When Woman's soothing voice no more
Can charm with fondness that before
Such joyous comfort shed;
Thy smile can mitigate my doom
And fling a ray athwart the gloom.

When sickness bends my spirit low,
And dims my sunken eye,
And, wrestling with my subtle foe,
I breathe the bitter sigh;—
Again I seek thee—once again
To weave a meek, imploring strain
To Mercy's source on high!
And—oh, the magic of thy tone!—
I feel as though my pangs were gone!

When light on expectation's wing
My joyous thoughts arise,
Elate with thee I soar, and sing,
And seem to sweep the skies:
Though disappointment's voice of fear
Sternly arrests my wild career,
And expectation dies;

Yet thou, unchanged, art with me still,
Wreathing with flowers the thorns of ill.

Misfortune's blighting breath may kill
Hope's blossoms on the tree;
Mild sorceress! it cannot chill
My cherished love for thee!
When Death put forth his withering hand,
And snatched, of my domestic band,
The darling from my knee,
Thou didst not fail to breathe a lay
Of sorrow o'er its sinless clay.

I loved thee when a very child—
For every song was dear;
In youth, when Shakespeare's “wood-notes wild”
First charmed my ravish'd ear;
In manhood, too, when Byron's hand
Swept the deep chords, and every land
Enraptured turned to hear;
And oh, when age hath touched my brow,
Still may I cling to thee, as now!

The lonely swan's expiring breath
In mournful music flows;
He sings his requiem of death,
Though racked with painful throes;
Sweet Poesy! let such be mine,—
The calm, harmonious decline
To earth's serene repose!
May thy last murmurs still be there,
And tremble through my dying prayer!

HOPE.

Veiled by the shadows of obscurest night,
All Dian's host are shining unrevealed,
Save one fair star on heaven's unbounded field,
All lonely, lovely, fascinating, bright;
How clearly tremulous it hails the sight!
As if 'twould smile away the clouds that lie
Athwart its glorious sisters of the sky,
Prohibiting our earth their holy light:
So, as I stumble on the path of life,
Without one voice to cheer, one heart to love—
When all is darkness round me, and above,
And every bitter feeling is at strife—
The star of Hope my spirit can illume,
And draw fresh lustre from surrounding gloom.

A FATHER'S LAMENT.

My child of love! I look for thee
When night hath chased the day!
Thy sister seeks her father's knee,
But thou—thou art away!
J.B. Rogerson.

A dreamy stillness in the calm air slept;
The moon was cloudless, and serenely wept
Her tears of radiance in my lonely room,
Giving a silvery softness to the gloom;
When Death—that mighty and mysterious shade—
Beneath my roof his first dread visit paid,—
His shadowy banner o'er my hearth unfurled,
And broke the spell that bound me to the world.

Oh, mournful task! at that subduing hour
I watched the withering of a cherished flower;
I bent in silence o'er a dying child,
And felt that grief which cannot be beguiled;
Held on my trembling knee his wasted frame,
As the last shadow o'er his features came;
Saw the dull film that veiled his lovely eyes,—
Received upon my lips his latest sighs;
And as the spirit calmly, softly passed,
I knew that I was desolate at last!

A few brief hours and he was borne away,
And laid, soft sleeping, on his couch of clay.
Fond hearts that loved, and lips that blessed, were there,
That swelled with grief, and breathed the parting prayer.
The pastor gave his treasure unto God;—
I only heard the booming of the clod

That closed for ever on my darling son,
And told that love's last obsequies were done;
Then looking, lingering still—I turned again
To quell my grief amid the haunts of men.

Yes, thou art gone, my beautiful—my boy!
Thy father's solace, and thy mother's joy;
Gone to a far, far world, where sin and strife
Can never stain thy purity of life;
A young, bright worshipper at Mercy's throne,
While I am prisoned here, unblessed and lone,—
Lone as a shattered bark upon the deep,
When unrelenting storms around her sweep;—
Lone as a tree beneath an angry heaven,
Its foliage scattered, and its branches riven:—
Lone as a broken harp, whose wonted strain
Can never wake to melody again!
Thus I have felt for thee, child, since we parted,
Weary and sad, and all but broken-hearted.
I mourn in secret; for thy mother now,
With settled sorrow gathered on her brow,
Looks unto me for comfort in her tears,
While the soul's anguish in her face appears.
We sit together by our evening fire,
And talk of thee with tongues that cannot tire;
Recall thy buoyant form—thy winning ways,—
Thy healthful cheek that promised many days,—
Each pleasant word, each gentle look and tone
That touched the heart, and made it all thine own:
Gaze on the treasures which pertained to thee,
The constant sources of thy boyish glee—
Things which are kept with more than miser care—
The empty garment and the vacant chair;
Till, having eased the burden of the breast,
A tranquil sadness soothes us into rest.

'Twas sweet to kiss thy sleeping eyes at morn,
And press thy lips that welcomed my return;
Twas sweet to hear thy cheerful voice at play,
And watch thy steps the live-long Sabbath day;
'Twas sweet to take thee on my knee, and hear
Thine artless narrative of joy or fear,—
To catch the dawning of inquiring thought,
And every change that time and teaching wrought.
This was my wish,—to guard thee as a child,
And keep thy stainless spirit undefiled:
To guide thy progress upward unto youth,
And store thy mind with every precious truth:
Send thee to mingle with the world's rude throng,
In moral worth and manly virtue strong,
With such rare energies as well might claim
The patriot's glory and the poet's fame;
To go down gently to the verge of death,
And bless thee with a father's parting breath,
Assured that thou would'st duly come to lave,
With filial tears, a parent's humble grave.

Such was my wish, but Providence hath shown
How little wisdom man can call his own!
Such was my wish, but God hath been more just,
And brought my humble spirit to the dust!
I should not murmur that thou couldst not live—
Thou hast a brighter lot than earth can give;
Then let me turn to thy fair sisters here,
And hold them, for thy precious sake, more dear;
Restore them to a place upon my knee,
And yield that love which I reserved for thee.
One hope remains—and one that never dies—
That I may taste thy rapture in the skies;
Here let me bow my stricken soul in prayer,
Till God shall summon me to meet thee there!

A CALL TO THE PEOPLE.

Awake! (the patriot poet cries)—
Awake, each sire and son;
From long degrading sleep arise
Ere ruin is begun!
The very echo of your name—
The very shadow of your fame—
Hath many a battle won;
And can ye stoop to what ye are—
Chained followers of Oppression's car?

Have ye not lavished health and life,
At mad ambition's call!
Have ye not borne the brunt of strife,
Unbroken as a wall!
Have ye not bled for worthless things,—
Priests, placemen, concubines, and kings,—
Have ye not toiled for all!
And can ye, in this startling hour,
Still slumber in the grasp of power?

Awake! but not to spend your breath
In unavailing ire;
Awake! but not to deal in death,
Crime, carnage, blood, and fire;
Awake! but not to hurl the brand
Of desolation round the land,
Till all your hopes expire;

Lest vengeance rise amid the gloom,
To push ye to a deeper doom.

In pity to yourselves, beware
Of battle-breathing knaves,
Who raise their voices in the air
To congregated slaves;—
Those men who Judas-like betray,
Or lead through anarchy the way
To dungeons and to graves:—
Strong arms can work no great reform,
Mind—mind alone—must quell the storm!

Awake! in moral manhood strong,
Endowed with mental might,
With warm persuasion on your tongue,
To plead the cause of right;
Let reason, centre of the soul,
Your wild and wandering thoughts control,
And give them life and light!
Then may ye hope at length to gain
That freedom ye have sought in vain.

O God! the future yet shall see,
On this fair world of thine,
The myriads wise, and good, and free,
Fulfil thy blest design;
The dawn of Truth, long overcast,
Shall kindle into day at last,
Bright, boundless, and divine;
And man shall walk the fruitful sod,
A being worthy of his God!

TO J. B. ROGERSON.

Thou who hast roamed with reverie and song,
And won a wreath from Poesy divine,
I would not change thy pleasant dreams and mine,
For all the splendours that to wealth belong.
Why should we mingle with the sordid throng,
Who strive and struggle in the walks of gain,—
Who sell their souls to purchase care and pain,
And speak of knowledge with a foolish tongue?
Have we not treasures which can not be bought;—
Perception of the lovely and sublime,—
The social converse, and the soothing rhyme,—
The quiet rapture of aspiring thought?
And let us hope that we may learn to claim
Some little portion of unsullied fame.

CLIFTON GROVE.

OCCASIONED BY A VISIT TO THE SCENE OF H. K. WHITE'S POEM OF THAT NAME.

How rich is the season, how soothing the time!
For summer looks forth in its fulness and prime—
As through thy recesses, blest Clifton, I stray,
Where solitude slumbers in varied array:
How lovely these valleys that round me expand,—
The sylvan and soft, with the gloomy and grand,
Where rocks, woods, and waters harmoniously blent
Give beauty and peace to the banks of the Trent.

Meek evening broods o'er the landscape, and flings
A spell of repose from its dew-dropping wings:
No sound from the city disturbs the pure calm,
And the sigh of the zephyr comes mingled with balm:
No vestige remains of the sunset, that gave
A tremulous glow to the breast of the wave;
With the tears of the twilight the woodbine is bent,
As I tread with devotion the banks of the Trent.

How warmly, yet vainly, I yearn for the fire
That lit up the soul of that child of the lyre—
The student of science, of wisdom and song,
Who fled to your shades from the snares of the young!

Aloof from the heartless, the selfish and proud,
From the mirth of the million, unmeaning and loud,
With the fervour of feeling which Nature had lent,
He sought your enchantments, sweet banks of the Trent.

Steal on, placid river; thy freshness diffuse
Through scenes rendered fair by the tints of the Muse;
Where tradition hath cast a mysterious glance,
And fancy created the forms of romance.
Oh, would that my hand with success could assume
The harp of your Minstrel who sleeps in the tomb!
A share of my life and my skill should be spent
In singing your beauties, sweet banks of the Trent!

THE BLIND ENTHUSIAST.

He loved and worshipped all that's fair,
In wondrous ocean, earth, and air;
The grand, the lovely, and the rare,
To him were sacred ever;
The thousand hues that summer brings,
The gorgeous glow that sunset flings—
The source whence every beauty springs—
Can art restore? Oh, never!

He loved the music of the bowers—
He loved the freshness of the showers—
He loved the odours of the flowers
With passion deep and holy;
All that the Poet's song hath stored—
All that the minstrel's strains afford,
Found in his soul a kindred chord
Of mirth and melancholy.

He walks in hopeless darkness now,
With faltering foot and lifted brow;—
If aught may human patience bow,
'Twere loss of noon-day splendour;
Hill, wood, and stream, with sunshine blent—
Bright stars that gem the firmament—
All lovely things that God hath sent,
How painful to surrender!

'Tis true, he wanders forth in gloom,
Dense and unchanging as the tomb,
Yet breathes no murmur at his doom—
No sound of fretful feeling;
For though from outward vision gone,
The things he loved to look upon,
He still beholds them, one by one,
O'er memory's mirror stealing.

He seeks the haunts he sought of yore—
He sings the songs he sang before—
He listens yet to your sweet lore,
Philosophy and fiction:
And, happy in a cloudless mind,
A fancy pure and unconfined,
To heaven's own will he bows resigned,
And smiles beneath affliction.

A SUMMER'S DAY.

Scared at the aspect of advancing Day,
Stern Night puts on his starry robe, and flies;
The joyous lark pours forth his earliest lay,
And bathes his pinions in the dewy skies.
Behold the graceful smoke-wreath warmly rise
From quiet hamlets scattered far and near,
While from his sheltered home the woodman hies,
To win his bread where yonder woods appear.
Look down upon this laughing valley here,
Where stream and pool are kindled into gold,
And on the summer vesture of the eyar,
Flowers of all hues their balmy eyes unfold.
Escaped from slumber's enervating arms,
I bound at Nature's voice, and own her purer charms.

Lo! reared sublime on his meridian seat,
The eternal Sun pours down o'erwhelming rays;
How shall we bear the splendour of his gaze,
His fierce intensity of light and heat?
Nature grows faint where'er his fervours beat;
Shrunk are the flowers in Summer's vestment wove,
Mute is the music of the sky and grove,
And not a zephyr comes, the brow to greet;—
Fit time to seek the woodland's dark retreat,
Where scarce a sunbeam trembles through the shade,
And, on the rivulet's fresh margin laid,

Pass noontide's hour in meditation sweet,
Far from all earthly sights and sounds, save those
Which soothe the harassed mind to solitude's repose.

Like the warm hectic-flush on beauty's cheek,
The hues of sunset linger in the sky;
But lo! as treacherous, they but brightly speak
The hastening close of day's expiring eye.
All richly now yon western glories die,
Quenched in the shadows of approaching night;
The quiet moon hath hung her lamp on high,
And Hesper's star breaks sweetly on the sight;
The flowers are closed, yet Zephyr in his flight
Bears living fragrance on his wanton wings;
Meanwhile a pure uncertainty of light
Steals calm and soft athwart the face of things;
Enchanting eve! mild promiser of rest!
How dear thy presence to the mourner's breast!

Sweet is the smile of dewy-footed morn—
Sweet the bright ardour of the lusty noon—
Sweet are the sighs of evening, when the tune
Of flute-toned voices on the air is borne;—
But sweeter still, when living gems adorn
His awful brow, is philosophic Night:
Then contemplation takes a boundless flight,
Through realms untainted by this world of scorn.
What peace to sit beneath this shadowy thorn,
Where the lone wave steals by with gentle sound—
The wan moon's soft effulgence slumbering round—
And drink from Fancy's everflowing horn!
What joy, when forth the unshackled spirit springs,
To hold high converse with all nobler things!

DOMESTIC MELODY.

Though my lot hath been dark for these many long years,
And the cold world hath brought me its trials and tears,
Though the sweet star of hope scarcely looks through the gloom,
And the best of my joys have been quenched in the tomb;—
Yet why should I murmur at Heaven's decree,
While the wife of my home is a solace to me?

Though I toil through the day for precarious food,
With my body worn down, and my spirit subdued:
Though the good things of life seldom enter my door,
And my safety and shelter are far from secure;—
Still, still I am rich as a poet may be,
For the wife of my heart is a treasure to me!

Let the libertine sneer, and the cold one complain,
And turn all the purest of pleasures to pain;
There is nothing on earth that can e'er go beyond
A heart that is faithful, and feeling, and fond:
There is but one joy of the highest degree,
And the wife of my soul is that blessing to me!

LAND AND SEA.

The seaman may sing of his own vast sea,
And the swain of his own sweet land;
But it boots not where the wanderer be,
With a chainless heart and hand;
In storm the sea hath a fearful power—
A beauty in repose;
And the land is rich in fruit and flower,
Or bleak in winter's snows.

How free to bound o'er the waters wide,
Swift as the rushing gale!
How sweet to look from the mountain's side
On the calm sequestered vale!
There's a charm in the greenwood's summer sigh—
There's a spell in ocean's roar;
I have loved, I have sought them both, as fly
Spring birds from shore to shore.

I was born on the verge of the ocean deep,
I have played with his locks of foam,
And watched his weltering billows leap
From the door of my cottage home:
I would die on the breast of some lonely isle,
Where no rude footsteps sound—
Where a southern heaven on my grave may smile,
And the wild waves boom around.

EPISTLE TO A BROTHER POET.

By some means or other I've gathered a hint
That you sport with the Muses, and show it in print;
So, being a somewhat presumptuous elf,
And touched with the mania of scribbling myself,
I have ventured to write, with the hope, in the end,
To make your acquaintance, and call you my friend;
For nought yields me pleasure more pure, than to find,
In my rambles through life, men of merit and mind.
That you lend me your friendship, is what I request,—
Refuse it or grant it, just as you like best;
But before you do either, pray, hold, if you please—
I will draw you my portrait, and set you at ease:—

I'm a very strange with, with a very strange name,
Unaided by Fortune, unfavoured by Fame:
I am homely in person, and awkward in speech,
Yet am willing to learn, though unable to teach.
Sometimes I am sunny, and buoyant, and gay,
As the breezes and bowers in the bright month of May;
Sometimes, like December, I'm rugged and rough,
And heavy, and gloomy, and peevish enough;

But feelings like these are engendered in life,
By poverty, toil, disappointment, and strife;
But away with reflection, and care, and the rest on't,
I live for to-day, and I'll just make the best on't.

I've a passion for woman, and music, and joyance,
And from children I gain more delight than annoyance—
(As for Woman herself, in the season of need,
Without her this world were a desert indeed!)
In my evenings of leisure I fly to my books,
With their quiet, unchanging, intelligent looks;
Whene'er I am with them, sweet visions come o'er me,
And as to my choice, why, I read all before me;
Be it wisdom or wit, it can ne'er come amiss—
I have learning from that page, and laughter from this;
So between one and t'other, I manage to sweep
O'er a great deal of surface, but never go deep.

In Man I love all that is noble and great,
But war, and oppression, and falsehood, I hate;
And oft has my spirit burst forth into song
Against every species of riot and wrong.
I'm a pleader for freedom in every form;
For my country I feel patriotic and warm,
Yet still I've no wish to disorder the land
With the flame of the torch and the flash of the brand;
I'm for measures more gentle, more certain, in sooth,—
The movement of morals, the triumph of truth;
And my hopes are that men who are toiling and grieving,
Will make this fair Earth like the Heaven they believe in.

My religion is Love,—'tis the noblest and purest;
And my temple the Universe—widest and surest;
I worship my God through his works, which are fair,
And the joy of my thoughts is perpetual prayer.

I awake to new life with the coming of Spring,
When the lark is aloft with a fetterless wing;

When the thorn and the woodbine are bursting with buds,
And the throstle is heard in the depth of the woods;
When the verdure grows bright where the rivulets run,
And the primrose and daisy look up at the sun;
When the iris of April expands o'er the plain,
And a blessing comes down in the drops of the rain;
When the skies are as pure, and the breezes as mild,
As the smile of my wife, and the kiss of my child.

When the Summer in fulness of beauty is born,
I love to be out with the first blush of morn;
And to pause in the field where the mower is blithe,
Keeping time with a song to the sweep of the scythe.
At meridian I love to revisit the bowers,
'Mid the murmur of bees and the breathing of flowers,
And there in some sylvan and shadowy nook,
To lay myself down on the brink of the brook;
Where the coo of the ring-dove sounds soothingly near,
And the light laugh of childhood comes sweet to my ear.
I love, too, at evening, to rest in the dell,
Where the tall fern is drooping above the green well;
When the vesper-star burns—when the zephyr-wind blows,
When the lay of the nightingale ruffles the rose;
When silence is round me, below and above,
And my heart is imbued with the spirit of love;
When the things that I gaze on grow fairer, and seem
Like the fancy-wrought shapes of some young poet's dream.

In the calm reign of Autumn I'm happy to roam,
When the peasant exults in a full harvest-home;
When the boughs of the orchard with fruitage incline,
And the clusters are ripe on the stem of the vine;
When Nature puts on the last smiles of the year,
And the leaves of the forest are scattered and sere;
When the lark quits the sky, and the linnet the spray,
And all things are clad in the garb of decay.

Even Winter to me hath a thousand delights,
With its short gloomy days, and its long, starry nights:
And I love to go forth ere the dawn, to inhale
The health-breathing freshness that floats in the gale;
When the sun riseth red o'er the crest of the hill,
And the trees of the woodland are hoary and still:
When the motion and sound of the streamlet are lost
In the icy embrace of mysterious frost;
When the hunter is out on the shelterless moor,
And the robin looks in at the cottager's door;
When the Spirit of Nature hath folded his wings,
To nourish the seeds of all glorious things;
Till the herb, and the leaf, and the fruit, and the flower,
Shall awake in the fulness of beauty and power.

There's a harvest of knowledge in all that I see,
For a stone or a leaf is a treasure to me;
There's the magic of music in every sound,
And the aspect of beauty encircles me round;
Whilst the fast-gushing joy that I fancy and feel,
Is more than the language of song can reveal.

Did God set his fountains of light in the skies,
That Man should look up with the tears in his eyes?
Did God make this earth so abundant and fair,
That Man should look down with a groan of despair?
Did God fill the world with harmonious life,
That Man should go forth with destruction and strife?
Did God scatter freedom o'er mountain and wave,
That Man should exist as a tyrant and slave?
Away with so hopeless—so joyless a creed,
For the soul that believes it is darkened indeed!

Thus I've told you, without an intent to deceive,
Of the things that I love, and the things I believe;
If I've glossed o'er my failings, you need not abhor me—
What I've now left untold, other tongues may tell for me.

A SONG OF FREEDOM.

Oh, beautiful world! thou art fertile and fair,
But filled with oppression, and strife, and despair;
Hard, hard is the lot which thy children endure—
The thousands are wealthy, the myriads are poor;
These lavish their blood, and their sweat and their tears,—
Those revel in splendour, yet shudder with fears;
But Love shall come down to the nations, and bring
Peace, plenty, and joy in the folds of his wing!

Rejoice! Sons of Industry! triumph! rejoice!
List, list to the sound of a glorious voice!
'Tis the sweet hymn of Freedom that gladdens the gale,
From hamlet and city, from mountain and vale;
Soon, soon shall we gaze on the light of her face—
Soon, soon shall we share her impartial embrace;
Prepare we to meet her wherever she roams,
And welcome her back to our hearts and our homes!

Oh, Isle of my Fathers! fair Queen of the Sea!
Men call thee the land of the fearless and free;
They say thou art first on the records of fame,
They speak of thy glory—but not of thy shame!
Despair not, my country! for Truth is revealed,—
Her hands have the fountains of knowledge unsealed!
Thy children shall gather new life from the stream,
Till the pains of the past are forgot as a dream!

SONNET,

ON RECEIVING THE POEMS OF KEATS FROM A FRIEND.

Thanks for the Song of Keats—as rich a boon
As ever poet unto poet sent:
Oh! thou hast pleased me to my heart's content,
And set my jarring feelings all in tune.
'Twere sweet to lie upon the lap of June,
Half hidden in a galaxy of flowers,
Beneath the shadow of impending bowers,
And pore upon his page from morn till noon.
'Twere sweet to slumber by some calm lagoon,
And dream of young Endymion, the boy
Who nightly snatched a more than mortal joy
From the bright cheek of the enamoured moon.
Thanks for the Song of Keats, whose luscious lay
Hath half dissolved my earthly thoughts away.

LINDA.

A BALLAD.

Along the moorland, bleak and bare,
The blast of winter blew;
O'er midnight's dark and dreary face
The snow tempestuous flew;
When Linda, poor forsaken maid,
With none her griefs to share,
Kept on her rude and lonely path,
In silent, sad despair.

A baby clung to her aching breast,
Whose wild and feeble wail
Filled up the pauses of the storm,
And rose upon the gale;
And, ah! that helpless infant's cry
Smote heavy on her heart,
While visions pressed upon her brain—
Too dreadful to depart.

She kissed its cheek adoringly—
At length it sweetly slept;
She raised to Heaven her streaming eyes,
And thus she prayed and wept:—
“Oh! Thou who see'st my contrite tears,
Assist me in this hour,
And show the spoiler of my peace
Thy mercy and thy power!

“He found me in my quiet home,
While yet my cares were light,—
Ere sin had tinged my inmost thoughts,
Or sorrow breathed its blight;
His sighs of passion fanned my cheek,
But withered all its bloom;
He drew me down from innocence,
And left me to my doom.

“My father drove me from his door,
With curses stern and deep;
My mother watched me as I went,
But only dared to weep;
My comrades in that pleasant vale
Where I was reared and born,—
They strove to shun me as I passed,
Or followed me with scorn.

“And thou, my last, sole solace now,
Reposing calmly still,
Sweet fruit of all my guilty joys,
Whose lips are blanched and chill;
Thy sire's away from thee and me,
Where all are fair and kind,
Regardless of the ruined hopes
That he hath left behind.

“But ah! what fearful sign is this!
I feel no more thy breath!
Thy lips are cold—thy pulse is still!
Thy slumber, then, is death!
O God! let not thy wakened wrath
My shrinking soul pursue,
But since my child is gone to thee,
Oh! take his mother too!”

With shattered frame and mind subdued,
Expiring Linda fell;
But let us hope that heaven forgave,
And mercy whispered, “Well!”
Nor love's, nor friendship's voice was there,
To breathe a soothing tone:—
She died upon that desert heath,
Heart-broken and alone!

Roused early to his daily toil,
A peasant bent his way
Where, stretched in lifeless loveliness,
Seduction's victim lay;
Her bones lie mouldering where she died,
Beneath the barren sod,
Crown'd with a record of her fate,
Appealing unto God!

Young hearts grow sad, and youthful eyes
Grow tearful at her name,
And trembling lips repeat her tale
Of misery and shame;
And gentle hands bring early flowers
To strew above her breast;
And kindred knees imprint the turf
Around her place of rest.

But where is he—the cause of all,—
Lost Linda's only foe;
Who triumphed in that selfish joy
Which made another's woe?
Thou of the false and cruel heart,
Repent thee of the past!
This deed may stand in dark array,
To startle thee at last!

TO HYPATIA.

IN REPLY TO SOME BEAUTIFUL VERSES ADDRESSED TO THE AUTHOR.

I know thee not yet, gentle child of the lyre,—
Thou of the kind and compassionate heart;
But sympathy's song cannot fail to inspire
A wish to behold thee ere life shall depart.

My heart speaks to thine with as trembling a tone,
As ever awoke from its feeble strings yet;
But though 'tis unfit to respond to thine own,
It tells that thy bounty I cannot forget.

If a maiden thou art, in the hey-day of life,
With thy feelings and form in the pride of their spring,
May the hours that fly o'er thee with rapture be rife,
And the purest that fall from old Time's rapid wing!

But if thou art wedded to one of thy choice,
And duty hath called thee to mix with the world,
May thy heart, in its fondness, have cause to rejoice,
And the banner of love o'er thy head be unfurled!

If the sweet, sacred name of a mother be thine,
And beautiful offspring encircle thy knee;
Long, long may those blessings around thee entwine,
Like tendrils that add to the grace of the tree!

The Muse hath been with thee, that spirit of light,
Which flies not, though friendship and fortune decay;
That star through the darkest and loneliest night,
That rainbow of peace through the stormiest day.

Yes, Poesy, sent from some bright source above,
Like a vestal flame burns in the depths of the mind;
'Tis an echo of music, and beauty, and love,
Awaking and melting the hearts of mankind.

The poet hath piety, changeless and strong,
Which turns to the wisdom and wonders of God,
For everything claims his glad worship of song,
From a world in the sky to a weed on the sod.

Abandon not, lady, that glorious dower,
That treasure of thought which thy Maker hath given;
That fervour of feeling,—that language of power,
Those wings of the soul which exalt us to heaven!

Farewell to thee, Lady; wherever I be,
Whether shadow or sunshine descend on my brow,
Remembrance shall turn to thy kindness and thee,
And pray for thy peace as sincerely as now.

And when, after many but brightening years,
The rich flowers of summer above thee shall wave,
May the pilgrim of Poesy come with his tears,
And touch his sad harp as he weeps o'er thy grave!

TO QUINTUS HORTENSIUS.

Quintus, my earliest intellectual friend,—
The first who listened to my artless lay;
The first who had the courage to commend,
And teach me to expect a brighter day;—
This humble tribute to thy worth I pay;
Though brief and rude, it springeth from the heart.
Thy warmth of soul may lessen and decay,
But my first feelings cannot all depart.
Let us not break from Friendship's holy thrall;—
Canst thou forget thine ancient cordial greeting;—
Canst thou forget that joyous Sabbath meeting,
When poesy and music gladdened all?
Then did the light of mind adorn each brow,
And thou wert kind and true, as I would have thee now.

A SKETCH AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.

Dark Kinder! standing on thy whin-clad side,
Where Storm, and Solitude, and Silence dwell,
And stern Sublimity hath set his throne,—
I look upon a region wild and wide,
A realm of mountain, forest haunt, and fell,
And fertile valleys, beautifully lone,
Where fresh and far romantic waters roam,
Singing a song of peace by many a cottage home.

I leave the sickly haunts of sordid men,—
The toil that fetters and the care that kills
The purest feelings of the human breast,—
To gaze on Nature's lineaments again,—
To find, amid these congregated hills,
Some fleeting hours of quiet thought and rest;—
Tread with elastic step the fragrant sod,
Drink the inspiring breeze, and feel myself with God!

Like Heaven-invading Titans, girt with gloom,
The mountains crowd around me, while the skies
Stoop to enfold them in their azure sheen;
The air is rich with music and perfume,
And beauty, like a varying mantle, lies
On barren steep, bright wave, and pasture green,—

On ancient hamlets nestling far below,
And many a wild-wood walk, where childhood's footsteps go.

It is the Sabbath morn,—a blessed hour
To those who have to struggle with a lot
Which clouds the mind, and chains the languid limb:
From yon low temple, bosomed in the bower,
Which prayer and praise have made a hallowed spot,
Soars in the air the peasant's earliest hymn;
And as the sounds come sweetly to my ear,
They say, or seem to say, that happy hearts are near.

Pray Heaven they are so! for this restless earth
Holds much of human misery and crime,—
Much to awake our sympathies indeed;
And though eternal blessings spring to birth
Beneath the footsteps of advancing time,
Myriads of mortal hearts in silence bleed:
Vain is the hungry mourner's suppliant cry:
Oh, Justice! how is this? Let Pride and Power reply!

Away, away with these reflections now!
The natural colours of a pensive mind
Yearning for liberty, and truth, and love!
For, standing upon Kinder's awful brow,
Breathing the healthy spirit of the wind,
Green lands below, and glorious skies above,—
I deem that God, whose hand is ever sure,
Will break the rankling chain that binds the suffering poor.

I look before me,—lo! how wild a change
Hath come upon the scene! yon mountain wall

Wears a vast diadem of fiery gloom;
A lurid darkness, terrible and strange,
Spreads o'er the face of heaven its sultry pall,
As though earth trembled on the verge of doom;
A fearful calm foretells a coming fight,
For Tempest is prepared to revel in its might!

It comes at length, for the awakening breeze
Whirls with a sudden gust each fragile thing
That lay this moment in unwonted rest;
The storm's first drops fall tinkling on the trees,
Heavy, but few, as though 'twere hard to wring
Such painful tears from out its burning breast;
And now a deep, reverberated groan
Is heard amid the span of Heaven's unbounded zone.

The lightning leapeth from the riven cloud,
Vivid and broad upon the startled eye,
Wrapping the mountains in a robe of fire;
The voice of thunder follows, long and loud,—
Hot rain is shaken from the troubled sky,—
The winds rush past me with redoubled ire;
And yon proud pine which stood the wintry shock,
Bows its majestic head, and quits its native rock!

Flash hurries after flash with widening sweep,
And peal meets peal, resounding near and far,
As though some veil of mystery were rent;
The headlong torrent boundeth from the steep
Where I enjoy the elemental jar,
Nor fear its rage, nor wish its passions spent.
But now God curbs the lightning—stills the roar,
And earth smiles through her tears more lovely than before.

How sternly fair! how beautifully wild,
To the sad spirit, is the war of storms,
When thought and feeling mingle with the strife!
Nature, I loved thee when a very child,
In all thy moods, in all thy hues and forms,
Because I found thee with enchantment rife;
And even yet, in spite of every ill,
I feel within my soul that thou art glorious still!

I leave the hoary mountains for the vale,
Which wears the milder features of a scene
Too rarely brought before my longing sight;
And where the streamlet tells its summer tale
To bright flowers bending on its margin green,
I walk with softened and subdued delight,
Breathing the words of some remembered lay,
Or talking with the things that smile around my way.

Oh! is it not religion, to admire,
O God! what thou hast made in field and bower,
And solitudes from man and strife apart!—
To feel within the soul the wakening fire
Of pure and chastened pleasure, and the power
Of natural beauty on the tranquil heart,—
And then to think that our terrestrial home
Is but a shadow still of that which is to come!

This is the fitting temple of high thought
And glorious emotion,—the true place
Of adoration, silent and sincere;
For all that the Eternal Hand hath wrought,
Having the form of grandeur and of grace,
Reminds us of a happier, holier sphere,—
Fills us with wonder, strengthens hope and love,
While the rapt soul aspires to brighter things above.

Farewell each Alpine haunt, each quiet glen,
Farewell each fragrant offspring of the wild,
Each twilight forest and secluded vale!
I go to mingle with my fellow-men,
Bearing within me, pure and undefiled,
A store of beauty which can never fail:
In Memory's keeping ye shall linger long,
And wake my lowly harp to many a future song!

THE CAPTIVE'S DREAM.

He had a dream, ere midnight,
Of a green and sunny dell,
And trees, and streams, and shadowy haunts,
Which he remembered well.
J. B. Rogerson.

Deep in a loathsome dungeon's twilight gloom,
Which scarce received a dubious gleam of day,
Where many a wretch had found a living tomb—
Pining for home,—a prisoned patriot lay.
As the rich hues of sunset waned away,
And land and sea with rosy radiance shone,
Through the barred lattice came the evening ray,
Beaming in beauty on the wall of stone,—
And lingered, loth to leave the Captive sad and lone.

That brief reflection of the summer skies,
Sent from the happier region of the spheres,
Caught the poor mourner's dim and drooping eyes,
And stirred the slumbering fountains of his tears;
For all the rapture of his boyish years,
And all his ardent youth's romantic spell,—
All that fair freedom—all that love endears,
Came like the sad tones of a vesper bell,
While thus the Captive woke the echoes of his cell:—

“Blest was my boyhood! when I wandered free,
Fearless and far, o'er mountain, moor, and vale;

When every season brought its share of glee,—
Life in the sun and gladness in the gale;
When the young moon that rose serenely pale,
Looked like a fairy bark through cloud-waves driven,
And the rich music of the nightingale
Sank like a spirit's voice which God had given
To teach the listening soul the melody of heaven!

“Lured by the genial freshness of the hour,
With buoyant step I bounded forth at morn,
And hied away to some familiar bower
To pluck the wild-rose from the dewy thorn;
Or roved through fields of undulating corn—
Or watched the winding of some wizard stream—
Or lay beneath some beetling rock forlorn,
Wrapt in the quiet ecstasy of dream,
Till Phœbus flushed the west with his departing beam.

“Around the precincts of my tranquil home,
I knew each barren spot, each cultured nook—
The pathless wild, the wood's umbrageous dome—
The tumbling torrent, and the dimpling brook;
And ever and anon my way I took
Through scenes, alas! which I shall view no more;
For Nature was my ever-open book,
Whose peaceful, pleasant, and exhaustless lore,
Gave to my craving soul the choicest of its store.

“When time, at length, had knit my growing form,
And shaped my spirit in a manlier mould,
I loved to share the grandeur of the storm,
As its vast billows o'er the welkin rolled:
Oft have I borne the midnight gloom and cold,

In contemplation of those worlds on high
Which men call stars—those drops of heavenly gold
Which burn and brighten o'er the slumbering sky,
Like gems which cannot fade—like flowers which cannot die!

“All that is lovely, tender, and serene,—
All that is wild, and wonderful, and strong,—
All that is free as it hath ever been,
Spoke to my spirit with a trumpet's tongue:
The rush of winds—the roar of waves—the long
Reverberated thunder—the far boom
Of ever restless Ocean—the glad song
Of birds and bees in sylvan haunts—the bloom
That sleeps in buds and blossoms, cradled in perfume;—

“The opening splendour that Aurora yields,
Deep Noon, rich Eve, and philosophic Night;
The harvest waving on the peaceful fields—
The billowy forest on the mountain's height;
The rainbow's arch, prismatically bright—
The Summer music in the air that rings—
The sweeping cloud—the eagle's sunward flight—
The joyous flutter of a thousand wings,
And all the boundless range of universal things!

“Oh! I was calm and happy, though, as yet,
In all my gladness I had been alone;
But heaven was round my footsteps when I met
One gentle soul congenial with my own.
Like chords that thrill in harmony of tone,
Our thoughts, words, looks, and feelings were the same,
And o'er my heart so sweet a spell was thrown,
That e'en the poet's glowing words were tame,
To paint the gush of joy that o'er my being came!

“And I was blest, if man be blest below,—
The favoured father of as fond a child
As e'er brought gladness in a world of woe;
My household sprite, fair, frolicsome, and wild—
The Ariel of my home, whose voice beguiled
My darkest hours—my peace-preserving dove,
Whose young affections, fresh and undefiled,
Gushed from his heart in syllables of love,
And winged my prayers for him unceasingly above.

“Alas, for all my joys! in evil hour
I yearned to mingle with my fellow-men;
Left the calm pleasures of my cottage bower,
Never to taste tranquillity again:
I found the city a tumultuous den,
Where crime, oppression, ignorance, and strife,
Made up one mass of misery—a fen
Where every vicious weed grew rank and rife,
And flung a withering taint on all the flowers of life.

“But why was this? the earth was passing fair,
Flinging rich gifts from her prolific breast;
The ocean, with its mighty bosom bare,
Wildly magnificent in storm or rest;
The heavens with wondrous beauty were impressed,
Whether in summer's noon, or winter's night!
Lovely, their varying splendours of the west—
Sublime their wilderness of starry light—
Hours when the soul had wings to take unbounded flight.

“A God of wisdom, harmony, and love,
Was seen and felt in all things, from the round
Of burning worlds that wheel their course above,
To the mute glow-worm on the dewy ground:
Where'er I roved, my eager spirit found

Things which reflected Hope's inspiring beam;
Some shape of beauty—some melodious sound,
Which touched my heart with joy; and could I deem
That Man was made to mar Creation's perfect scheme?

“I raised my voice imploringly aloud,
And wicked men were startled into fear!—
Nor vain my cry, for soon a gathering crowd,
Haggard and worn with misery, drew near;
Some came to scoff, and some to lend an ear,
With wondering eyes and faces sadly pale;
My heart waxed warmer, and my voice more clear,
Till soft, persuasive Reason did prevail,
To make the thousands feel my true yet fearful tale.

“Fired with the earnest eloquence of Truth,
My words warmed every listener to the core,
Inspired old Age, and in the soul of Youth
Aroused those energies which slept before:
I strove to teach them, from the sickening lore
Of Europe's annals—dark with many a stain—
How much of human tears and human gore
Had fallen unheeded as the summer rain,
That selfish man might reap unprofitable gain.

“I bade them scan the universe and see
What God had done for man; I bade them seek
That virtuous knowledge which adorns the free,
Softens the strong and dignifies the weak;
I bade them deeply think, and calmly speak,
And promptly act at love or duty's call;
I urged them to be patient, mild, and meek,
But fearless, firm, and watchful; and withal,
To keep heart, mind, and limb, secure from slavish thrall.

“I bade them leave those haunts of vice and gloom,
Where they profaned the Sabbath's holy hours;
To go abroad, and revel in the bloom
That blushed in beauty on a thousand flowers!
To scale the mountains, thread the tangled bowers,
And by the brinks of brawling brooks repair;
To catch the freshness of the summer showers,
And breathe the life of unpolluted air;
Till the wrapt soul was filled with all of pure and fair.

“I prayed that they would strengthen and employ
Each wiser, nobler faculty of mind;
Gather the gems of Science, and enjoy
Those flowers of thought which Genius had entwined;
I bade them walk with Charity, and bind
The stricken heart by sin or sorrow riven;
Succour and serve the feeblest of their kind,
Moved by those sympathies which Love hath given
To soothe the ills of Earth, and win the joys of Heaven.

“Had I been swayed by selfishness, and built
My hopes of glory on a rebel's name,
I could have led my followers into guilt,
And blown the sparks of Discord into flame;
But no; I had a higher, holier aim—
And well my hallowed mission was begun—
To rouse my country from her slavish shame,—
To do what human effort could have done,
To make her free and blest;—and lo! what I have won!

“A felon's fare, and worse than felon's doom,
With fetters rusting on my fleshless bones:
This narrow prison of perpetual gloom—
This cold damp pillow of unyielding stones!
Far from Affection's gentle looks and tones,

My wife's fond smile—my child's rich voice of glee,
With none to silence or to soothe my groans.—
Father of Mercy! let me turn to thee,
I feel thy spirit here, and bow to thy decree!”—

The manly victim of Oppression's law,
Faint with the nightly vigils he had kept,
Sunk down supine upon his couch of straw,
And, lapped in brief forgetfulness, he slept.
Enchanting visions through his memory swept,
Flushed his pale cheek, and heaved his weary breast;
Fair forms and faces round his pillow crept,
Which he in early youth had loved and blest;
And voices such as these stole through his troubled rest:—

THE VOICE OF SPRING.

“Come, Captive, come, let us joyfully roam
O'er the green and reviving earth;
While the skies are fair, and the vocal air
Resounds with the voice of mirth:
The dew-drop lies in the violet's eyes,
And the primrose gems the grass;
On verdurous brinks, the cowslip drinks
Of the brooklets as they pass:—
But Summer is near, and I may not stay,—
Come away, man of grief—come away, come away!

“The lark sings loud in the silvery cloud,
And the thrush in the emerald bowers;
The rainbow expands o'er the smiling lands,
And glows through the twinkling showers;
The breeze, like a thief, from the bud and the leaf
Steals odours newly born,
And wantonly flings, from its viewless wings,
The breath of the blooming thorn—
But Summer is near, and I may not stay,—
Come away, man of grief—come away, come away!

“There is freedom on the hill, there is freshness in the rill—
There is health in the cheering gale;
And the stream runs bright, like a path of light,
Through the maze of the folding vale;
The wildest glen hath a charm again,
And the moor hath a look less stern;—
The cool, clear well, in the woodland dell,
Is fringed with the feathery fern:
But Summer is near, and I may not stay,—
Come away, man of grief—come away, come away!

“Glad Childhood strays through tangled ways,
In solitudes green and lone,
And Youth frolics free, with unwonted glee,
To music's inspiring tone:
Old Age with his staff, and a merry, merry laugh,
Goes forth in my bright domain:
Man, maiden, and boy, feel the spirit of joy,
That comes with my gladsome reign:—
But Summer is near, and I may not stay,—
Come away, man of grief—come away, come away!”

THE VOICE OF SUMMER.

“Come away from the gloom of thy dungeon forlorn,
And escape from the thraldom of sorrow and sleep:
Come, and catch the first hues on the cheek of the morn,
From the pine-covered mountain's precipitous steep:
For the lark hath its matin hymn newly begun,
And the last star that lingered hath melted away;
Every shadow falls back from the face of the sun,
And the world is awake in the fulness of day.

“Come away in the pride of my glorious noon,
And retire to some old haunted forest with me,
While the skies are unrobed, and the air is in tune
With the call of the cuckoo—the boom of the bee:
Where the brook o'er its pebbles runs drowsily by,
And green waving branches bend gracefully o'er,
In a trance of sweet thought thou shalt quietly lie,
And dream all the poet hath told thee before.

“Come away in the silence and softness of eve,
When dimly the last tints of sunset appear;
When daylight and darkness commingle, and weave
A mantle of beauty o'er mountain and mere:
When the breath of the woodbine floats richly about,
And the glow-worm begins its pale lamp to relume:
When a star here and there looketh fitfully out,
And a spirit of tenderness steals through the gloom.

“Come away while the shadowy pinions of night
Brood over the earth, like a bird in its nest;
When the mind seeks to soar to those planets of light,
Which fancy hath made the abodes of the blest.
What heart can resist the deep spell of that hour,
When the moon goeth forth on her journey above,
And the nightingale, hid in the depths of her bower,
Pours abroad her full soul in the music of love!”

THE VOICE OF AUTUMN.

“Thou lonely man of grief and pain,
By lawless power oppressed,
Burst from thy prison—rend thy chain,
I come to make thee blest;
I have no springtide buds and flowers,
I have no summer bees and bowers;
But oh! I have some pleasant hours,
To soothe thy soul to rest.

“Plenty o'er all the quiet land
Her varied vesture weaves,
And flings her gifts with liberal hand
To glad the heart that grieves:
Along the southern mountain steeps,
The vine its purple nectar weeps,
While the bold peasant proudly reaps
The wealth of golden sheaves.

“Forth with the earliest march of morn,
He bounds with footstep free:

He plucks the fruit—he binds the corn,
Till night steals o'er the lea;
Beneath the broad, ascending moon,
He carries home the welcome boon,
And sings some old remembered tune,
With loud and careless glee.

“Then come, before my reign is past,
Ere darker hours prevail,—
Before the forest leaves are cast,
And wildly strew the gale:
There's splendour in the day-spring yet—
There's glory when the sun is set—
There's beauty when the stars are met
Around night's pilgrim pale.

“The lark at length hath left the skies
The throstle sings alone;
And far the vagrant cuckoo flies,
To seek a kinder zone;
But other music still is here,
Though fields are bare and woods are sere—
Where the lone robin warbles clear
His soft and plaintive tone.

“While heaven is blue, and earth is green—
Come, at my earnest call,
Ere winter sadden all the scene
Beneath his snowy pall;
The fitful wailing of the woods—
The solemn roar of deepening floods,
Sent forth from Nature's solitudes,
Proclaim my coming fall.”

THE VOICE OF WINTER.

“Lone victim of Tyranny's doom,
Bowed down to his pitiless will,
I come o'er the earth with my grandeur and gloom,
And though I have nothing of freshness and bloom,
I know that thou lovest me still.

“With a spirit unwearied and warm,
Thou hast sported with me from a child;
Thou hast watch'd my career on the wings of the storm—
Thou hast fearlessly followed my shadowy form
Over mountain, and valley, and wild.

“In the depths of some desolate vale,
Thou hast given thy breast to the blast,
As I built up my snow-drift, and scattered my hail;
Thou didst hear my stern voice in the sweep of the gale,
And shouted with joy as I passed.

“Young Spring may be tender and bland,
With her flowers like the stars of the sky;
Bright Summer may breathe his warm soul o'er the land,
And Autumn may open a bountiful hand;—
But none are so mighty as I.

“Through the silent dominions of Night
I go to my wonderful play;
While the tremulous pole-star burns piercingly bright,
I cover the earth with a mantle of light,
To dazzle the dawning of day.

“There's a silvery crisp on the grass,
And a cluster of gems on the thorn;
The boughs of the forest grow still as I pass,—
The reeds stand erect in the frozen morass,
Unstirred by the breath of the morn.

“On the uttermost verge of the year,
As I sit on my crystalline throne,
I send out my frost-spirit, cloudless and clear,
And the rivers are stayed in their onward career—
The cataracts stiffen to stone.

“But when my vast power hath begun
To lessen the comforts of men,
I withdraw my dim veil from the face of the sun,
And the floods, and the streams, and the rivulets run,
On—on to the ocean again.

“But though I am savage and strong,
And though I am sullen and cold,
I have hearth-stones encircled by many a throng,
Who awaken the jest, and the dance, and the song,
As if they would never grow old.

“Sad Captive, awake from thy thrall,—
Come back to the home of thy birth!
Festivity ringeth in cottage and hall,
Where the holly and mistletoe garland the wall,
And shake to the music of mirth.

“Fair forms which thou canst not forget—
Fond hearts with affection that burn—
The true and the tender are cheerfully met,
Where the wine-cup is filled, and the banquet is set
To welcome thy happy return.

“The face of thy father is bright—
Thy child is awake on his knee—
The wife of thy bosom is mad with delight,
Oh! fly to her faithful embraces to-night,
For liberty waiteth for thee!”

Such were the visions that his grief beguiled;
And as the last voice to his fancy spoke,
He sprang to clasp the mother of his child—
And in the frenzy of his joy—awoke!
Brief was that joy! for on his senses broke
The dread, dark, cold reality of pain;
He heard the midnight bell's discordant stroke—
He heard the clank of his unbroken chain,
And knew that he had dreamed of liberty in vain!

He spoke not, for his feelings kept him dumb;
He did not weep, for sorrow's fount was dry;
He could not move, so faint had he become,—
He only felt how gladly he could die!

Calm was his aspect, though his languid eye
Had something of a wild imploring look;
Without a word, a struggle, or a sigh—
Stretched in the darkness of his dungeon nook,—
He lay till his pure soul her tenement forsook.

Day dawned in splendour, and the summer heaven
Shone with a blue serenity of light;
To the rich bosom of the earth was given
All that is blooming, bountiful, and bright;
Birds hailed the morn, and breezes in their flight
Swept fragrance from the flowers; rejoicing waves
Sang to the ear, and sparkled to the sight;
The world, too lovely for a race of slaves,
Seemed at that pleasant hour as though it held no graves.

But Death had been his latest, kindest friend,
And snatched the Captive from his earthly thrall;
Though brief his course, and desolate his end,
Freedom was strengthened by her martyr's fall.
Ten thousand souls have answered to his call,
And sown the seeds of truth, which soon shall grow
To fair and full maturity for all;
And Man that hour of happiness shall know,
When universal love shall blend all hearts below!

TO SYLVAN.

Bard of the woods, thy tributary lay,
Though brief and simple, is a welcome boon;
Thus may our souls in sympathy commune,
Through the rude song of many a future day.
Thou walkest forth with Nature, whose sweet way
Is ever open, lovely, and serene;
Thy harp is strung to Liberty—the queen
Whose voice all hearts instinctively obey.
The Muse hath moved thee with a gentle sway,
And plucked thee flowers of fancy here and there;
Long may she soothe thee in the time of care,
When things less pure might lead thy soul astray;
May all of good which thou hast wished for me,
Fall back with seven-fold bounty upon thee!

Mr. R. W. Procter of Manchester.

THE PROFLIGATE AWAKENED.

Away from my heart and my haunts, Dissipation!—
Away, for thy smiles are less sweet than before;
Thou temptest in vain, for thy guilty libation
Bewilders my soul and my senses no more!

Oh! curs'd was the hour when thy cup stood before me,
All sparkling with light, and allured me to taste;
For thy spirit of folly and frenzy came o'er me,
And the feelings of virtue were running to waste.

Since then I have lived with thy syren called Pleasure—
(Can Vice be allied with so gentle a name?)
My footsteps have trod each iniquitous measure,
Through mazes of ruin, disorder, and shame.

I have shared all the drunkard's revolting excesses,
The fiend and the brute gleaming fierce in my eyes;
I have smiled at the harlot's dissembling caresses,
And fed on her loathsome and treacherous sighs.

I have sported with Woman's confiding affection,—
Exulted and triumphed o'er purity's fall;
And the pangs that awake in that one recollection,
Imbue every thought—every feeling—with gall.

Shall the wife who despite of my injuries loves me,
Receive undeserving reproaches and pain?
Shall the wife who in sorrow and kindness reproves me,
Appeal to my heart and my judgment in vain?

Ah, no! to the dictates of truth and of reason,
Again, even now, let my ear be inclined;
Some Angel of Pity may bring back the season
Of long-banished virtue and peace to my mind.

Away with the soul-sinking draught that enslaved me—
A slumberless monitor bids me beware;
One drop from the Fountain of Mercy hath saved me
A life of transgression—a death of despair.

Henceforth let the dear ones of home come around me,
With words of affection, and smiles of delight;
Let me cherish those ties by which Nature hath bound me,
The Sober Man's pleasures are boundless and bright.

TO LILLA, WEEPING.

Yes, thou hast cause to weep, lone maiden!
Those dark and drooping lids are laden
With sorrow's bitterest tears;
Thine eye hath lost its wonted brightness,—
Thy cheek its glow—thy step its lightness,—
No smile thine aspect cheers.

Think not of him whose arts bereaved thee
Of peace and joy—whose words deceived thee
In passion's witching tone;
Although thy kindred turn and shun thee,
And cast their cruel scorn upon thee,
For errors scarce thine own.

I, too, have wept o'er many a token
Of hope, and love, and friendship broken,
Which wrung me to the core:—
Fain would I charm thy soul from sadness,
And bring the light of guiltless gladness
Around thee, as before.

One heart hath never yet dissembled,
But with that hopeless feeling trembled,
Which pride could not subdue;
And now, when ready tongues upbraid thee,—
When all abandon and degrade thee,
That heart can still be true.

Come, let us leave the world behind us,
And where its malice may not find us,
Seek out a home of rest;
There shall my own untired devotion
Calm down each memory-stirred emotion
That lingers in thy breast.

THERE IS BEAUTY.

There is beauty o'er all this delectable world,
Which wakes at the first golden touch of the light;
There is beauty when Morn hath her banner unfurled,
Or stars twinkle out from the depths of the Night;
There is beauty on Ocean's vast, verdureless plains,
Though lashed into fury, or lulled into calm;
There is beauty on Land, and its countless domains—
Its corn-fields of plenty—its meadows of balm:—
Oh, God of Creation! these sights are of Thee!
Thou surely hast made them for none but the free!

There is music when Summer is with us on earth,
Sent forth from the valley, the mountain, the sky:
There is music where fountains and rivers have birth,
Or leaves whisper soft as the wind passeth by;
There is music in voices that gladden our homes,
In the lay of the mother—the laugh of the child;
There is music wherever the wanderer roams,
In city or solitude, garden, or wild:—
Oh, God of Creation! these sounds are of Thee!
Thou surely hast made them for none but the free!

STANZAS,

ADDRESSED TO THE CHILD OF MY POET-FRIEND, J. B. ROGERSON.

Young Ariel of the Poet's home,
Thou fair and frolic boy,
May every blessing round thee come,
Unmingled with alloy!
And wheresoe'er thy footsteps stray,
Along the world's uncertain way,
May love, and hope and joy,
Their choicest flowers around thee fling,
Without a blight, without a sting!

A spirit looketh from thine eyes,
So softly, darkly clear;
Thy thoughts gush forth without disguise,
Unchecked by shame or fear:
There is a music in thy words,
Sweet as the sound of brooks and birds,
When summer hours are near;
And every gesture, look, and tone,
Make the beholder's heart thine own.

Thou sportest round thy father's hearth
With ever-changing glee,
And all who listen to thy mirth
Grow young again with thee:

Thy fitful song, thy joyful shout,
Thy merry gambols round about,
Thy laughter fresh and free;
All, all combine to make us bless
Thy form of life and loveliness.

Thou art a fair and tranquil thing,
When wearied into rest,
Like a young lark with folded wing,
Within its grassy nest;
But when the night hath passed, thy lay
Hails the first blush of kindling day,
And from thy mother's breast
Thou leapest forth with gladsome bound,
To walk in Pleasure's daily round.

Oh, what a place of silent gloom
Thy father's house would seem,
If thou wert summoned to the tomb
In childhood's early dream,
With every beauty in thy form,
With all thy first affections warm,
And in thy mind a beam
Of rare and intellectual fire,
Such as hath raised thy gifted sire!

I had a child—and such a child,
O God!—can I forget!
So fair, so fond, so undefiled—
I see his image yet;
With breaking heart, but tearless eye,
I watched my spring-flower fade and die,
My lode-star wane and set;
And still I wrestle with my grief,
For time hath brought me no relief.

I mingle with the thoughtless throng,
But even there I feel;
I breathe some sorrow in my song,
But may not all reveal;
I know that nought of worldly ill
Can agonize my lost one, still
My wounds I cannot heal,
But wander, musing, mourning on,
As though my every hope were gone.

Away with this unquiet strain,—
This echo of despair;
Why should I speak to thee of pain,
Or slow-consuming care?
Much have I seen of human strife,
Along the shadowy path of life,—
Much have I had to bear;
But ah! 'tis yet too soon, my boy,
To break thy transient dream of joy!

Child of delight! had I the power
Thy destiny to weave,
Thou shouldst not know one single hour
To make thy spirit grieve:
But earth should meet thy radiant eyes
Like the first look of Paradise
To love-enraptured Eve,
And heaven at last should take thee in,
Without one stain of mortal sin.

SPRING.

I pause and listen, for the Cuckoo's voice
Floats from the vernal depths of yonder vale,
Whose aspect brightens at the gaze of morn.
Green woods, free winds, and sparkling waves rejoice—
Sweet sounds, sweet odours freight the wanton gale,
And April's parting tear-drops gem the thorn.
Through field and glade the truant school-boy sings,
And where in quiet nooks the primrose springs,
Sits down to weave a coronet of flowers;
From hill to hill a cheering spirit flies,
Talks in the streamlet—laughs along the skies,
And breathes glad music through the forest bowers:—
God of Creation! on this mountain shrine,
I praise, I worship thee, through this fair world of thine!

A FAREWELL TO POESY.

Another weary day was past,—
Another night had come at last,
Its welcome calm diffusing;
Without a light, without a book,
I sat beside my chimney nook,
In painful silence musing.

The cricket chirped within the gloom,
The kitten gambolled round the room
In wild and wanton gladness;
While I, a thing of nobler birth,
A reasoning denizen of earth,
Gave up my soul to sadness.

My children were resigned to sleep,
My wife had turned aside to weep
In unavailing sorrow;
She mourned for one lost, lost for aye,—
Pined o'er the troubles of to-day,
And feared the coming morrow.

I turned the glance of memory back,
Along the rude and chequered track
Which manhood set before me;
Then forward as I cast my eye,
Seeing no gleam of comfort nigh,
Despairing dreams came o'er me:—

I thought of all my labours vain—
The watchful nights, the days of pain,
Which I had more than tasted;
Of all my false and foolish pride,
My humble talents misapplied,
And hours of leisure wasted:—

I thought how I had wandered far,
Allured by some malignant star,
In other lands a stranger!
How often I had gone unfed,
Without a home, without a bed,
And lain me down in danger.

Thus, after twenty years of life
Made up of wretchedness and strife,
Tired hope, and vain endeavour,
I smote my brow in bitter mood,
My mind a peopled solitude,
Remote from peace as ever.

“Hence!” I exclaimed, “ye dazzling dreams!
Nor tempt me with your idle themes,
Soft song, and tuneful story:
I'll break my harp, I'll burn my lays,
I'll sigh no more for empty praise,
And unsubstantial glory.

“Tis true, I've sat on Fancy's throne,
King of a region called my own,
In fairy worlds ideal;
But ah! the charms that Fancy wrought,
Were apt to make me set at nought
The tangible and real.

“I've loved, ‘not wisely, but too well,’
The mixed and soul-dissolving spell
Of poetry and passion:
I've suffered strangely for their sake,—
Henceforth I'll follow in the wake
Of feelings more in fashion.

“Farewell to Shakespeare's matchless name,
Farewell to Milton's hallowed fame,
And Goldsmith's milder measures;
Farewell to Byron's thrilling powers,
Farewell to Moore's resplendent flowers,
And Campbell's polished ‘Pleasures.’

“Farewell, sweet Poet of the Plough,
Who wandered with a thoughtful brow,
By Coila's hills and fountains;
Farewell to thee, too, Shepherd Bard,
Whose strain was wild, whose lot was hard,
On Ettrick's barren mountains.

“Farewell, young Keats, whose luscious lore
With beauty's sweet excess runs o'er,
And all that genius giveth;
Farewell to Shelley, with a sigh,
Whose strengthening fame can never die
While Truth or Freedom liveth.

“Farewell to all the needy throng,
Who waste their energies in song,
And bright illusions cherish:
Here I renounce the Muse divine,
Why should I worship at her shrine,
To please the world—and perish?”

TO THE POLES, AFTER THEIR SUBJUGATION.

Devoted people! are ye fallen at last,
Spite of the widow's prayer, the orphan's wail!
What could a thousand patriot swords avail
Where host on host poured merciless and fast?
Your strength—your hope—your freedom, too, is past!
Crushed by the ruler of a savage land,
In vain ye cried for some supporting hand,
While faithless nations meanly stood aghast;
Shame be their portion! could they hear the blast
Sent forth by harassed Liberty, nor save
Her noblest martyrs, the defeated brave,
Around whose limbs despotic chains are cast!
How could they stand the foremost of the free,
And turn unheeding from thy wrongs and thee?

THE CARRIER TO HIS PONY.

Farewell to thee, Bobby; since fate has decreed,
Though my feelings at parting are painful indeed:
The hand of the stranger may lead thee away
To stables more costly, and pastures more gay;
But fond recollection will still wander back
To thy once happy stall, and its well-supplied rack;
To the friend who bestrode thee with pleasure's sweet throb—
Adieu, my companion! farewell to thee, Bob!

Farewell to thee, Bobby; thy hoof never pressed
The long sunny tracts of Arabia the Blessed,
But Cambria's hills, of all spots upon earth,
Lay claim to thy parentage, breeding, and birth:
Thy coat, though unpolished, was dear unto me;
Thy limbs, too, though slender, were faithful and free;
Thou wert willing to toil, whatsoe'er was the job—
Adieu, my companion! farewell to thee, Bob!

Farewell to thee, Bobby; how oft hast thou sped
Long miles to procure thy old master his bread:
How I felt and acknowledged thy efforts to keep
A cautious, firm foot on the dangerous steep;
How cheerful I've seen thee thy journey pursue,
Till home, that sweet resting-place, rose into view,
With pleasures unknown to the world's giddy mob—
Adieu, my companion! farewell to thee, Bob!

Farewell to thee, Bobby; I ne'er can forget
Thy artless attachment, my Cambrian pet;
For Man and his fellowship offer no charms,
And Nature hath shut me from Woman's fond arms;
Thou wert all that I loved—but 'tis done, thou art sold,
My friend and my peace I have bartered for gold;
I shall sigh as I look on the dross in my fob—
Adieu, my companion! farewell to thee, Bob!

Farewell to thee, Bobby; but ere thou art gone,
Take one measure more of the corn thou hast won:
Indulge once again in a long cooling draught,
From the pool which for years thou hast heartily quaffed:
Thou goest; thine owner, who hears me complain,
Hath mounted thy saddle and taken thy rein!
And I see thee depart with a tear and a sob—
Adieu, my companion! farewell to thee, Bob!

100

THE OAK AND THE SAPLING.

I beheld an oak, a goodly oak,
In his prime he seemed to flourish:
For the sun o'er his boughs in beauty broke,
And the rain came down to nourish:
He shook from his locks the acorn cup,
To the grassy earth around him,
And soon a kindred plant sprung up,
From the fertile soil that bound him.

Then the goodly oak looked calmly down
On the infant stem beside him,
And spread his broad, umbrageous crown,
To shelter, shade, and guide him;
Some summer seasons came and passed,
Some wintry times of danger,
While the thunder stroke, and the boreal blast,
Swept harmless o'er the stranger.

But the tempest came in its ruthless ire,—
Alas, for the fondly cherished!
For the storm-bolt fell with its fatal fire,
And the shattered sapling perished;
Then the parent-tree, a lonely one,
Drooped fast in every weather,
And both, ere many moons were gone,
Lay stretched on the plain together.

101

WRITTEN IN AFFLICTION.

Softly careering on the wintry breeze,
Comes the faint music of yon distant bells,
As sad I sit beneath these naked trees,
Whose mournful sobbings sound like Joy's farewells.
Touched by their melody, my full heart swells—
The cloudy future, and the happy past
Around me come, till retrospection dwells
With vain regret on days which could not last.
Behold me on the sea of Manhood cast,
Without a chart to guide, or helm to steer;
The constant sport of every adverse blast—
No breeze of hope, no port of shelter near;
But time shall speed me o'er the dangerous wave—
There is no peaceful haven but the grave!

102

AN APPEAL ON BEHALF OF THE UNEDUCATED.

“It is not good that man be without knowledge.” Proverbs.

Well may the pure Philanthropist complain
Of Barbarism's rude, protracted reign;
Well may he yearn to curb its savage sway,
When insult galls him on the public way;
When every human haunt, in every hour,
Can furnish proofs of a degrading power,—
Where lewd deportment and unpolished jeer
Offend the eye, and jar upon the ear,
And beings, fashioned by a Power benign,
Seem to forget their Maker's hand divine.

Turn to the city, and let Truth declare
How much of what we mourn is centred there;
At every step how many evils greet
The wandering eye, and catch unwary feet—
The thousands who neglect each worthy aim,
For brutalising sport and vulgar game;
The stately tavern, with unholy light,
Glaring athwart the shadows of the night;
The sickening scene of drunkenness and din,
Where song and music minister to sin;
The ribald language, and the shameless face,
The guilty passion, and the lewd embrace;
The crafty mendicant, the felon vile,
The ruffian's menace, and the harlot's wile;

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The artful gesture, the lascivious leer,
The lip of falsehood, and the specious tear;
The gambler broken upon Fortune's wheel,
The deep despair which pride can not conceal;
And, closing all, the dungeon's awful gloom,
Where ripe transgression finds an early doom.

Such is this moral wilderness; and so
Profuse and rank its thousand evils grow;
And though 'tis true that worthier plants are found,
Struggling for life in uncongenial ground,—
Their buds of promise wither as they spring,
Fanned by Adversity's malignant wing;
Or, far too few a just regard to share,
They waste their “sweetness on the desert air;”
While sordid ignorance and sorrowing ruth,
Usurp the place of happiness and truth.

Not to the town are vicious things confined,
But fly abroad, unfettered as the wind;
O'er human feelings sway with stern control,
And sit in shadow on the human soul.

Behold the wretch, besotted and beguiled,
Whose hours are wasted, and whose thoughts defiled,
Within those dens of drunkenness, that stand
Breathing a moral poison o'er the land:
Say, can ye view his lineaments, and trace
Aught of intelligence and manly grace?
Where is the soul's serene effulgence—where?
Worse than Cimmerian darkness broodeth there.
Pent in a narrow and a noisome room,
Where sound is discord, and where light is gloom—
He drinks, talks loudly, and with many a curse,
Rails at his lot, yet blindly makes it worse;
Of freedom and oppression learns to rave,
Himself at once the enslaver and the slave;—

104

Slave to a thousand vices that destroy
His public honour, and his private joy;
Surround him with an atmosphere of strife,
And take all sweetness from his cup of life.
But hark! at once forgetful of his theme,
“A change comes o'er the spirit of his dream;”
Renewed potations put all cares to flight,
And mirth becomes the watchword of the night.
The ribald tale, loose jest, and song obscene,
Provoke the draught, and fill the pause between;
And as the cup of frenzy circles round,
The last remains of decency are drowned;
Through every vein the subtle demon flies,
Distorts the visage and inflames the eyes;
Brings out the hidden rancour of the breast,
In selfish thoughts malignantly expressed:
From every tongue a loud defiance falls,
Till general uproar echoes round the walls.

Seek ye the drunkard at his sober toil,
Tending the loom, or sweating o'er the soil,—
An unenlightened slave your glance shall greet,
Scarce wiser than the clod beneath his feet.
Then turn ye to his household; who can tell
The daily feuds of that domestic hell?
Where the harsh husband and the fretful wife
Live in a bitter element of strife;
Where sons, grown wild, no gentle force can tame,
Heirs to the father's vices and his shame;
Where daughters from the path of duty stray,
And cast the charm of modesty away:
Without one sweet remembrance of the past,
They wed themselves to misery at last.

Though sad the subject of my feeble strain,
'Tis no creation of the poet's brain;

105

Though rude and dark the picture I have traced,
Its painful truth has yet to be effaced.
All are not equally in heart depraved,—
All are not equally in soul enslaved;
Yet, even those who curb some few desires,
And walk with prudence as the world requires,—
They cannot feel the pure delight that springs
From constant converse with all nobler things;
Bound to a beaten track, they cannot know
How many flowers along its margin grow;
They reap no joy from wit or wisdom's lore,
But toil, eat, drink, and sleep—and nothing more.

And must this ever be? must man's sad doom
Be still to walk in fetters and in gloom;—
An unimproving savage from his birth—
A mere machine of animated earth?
Must he still live in mind and limb a slave,
Groping his weary passage to the grave?
If so, then he was born to wear a chain,
And God endowed him with a soul in vain!

Ye wealthy magnates of my native land,
Stretch forth, in pity, an assisting hand;
Give back a portion of your ample store,
To purchase wholesome knowledge for the poor;
Knowledge to search the universe, and find
Exhaustless food and rapture for the mind;
Knowledge to nurse those feelings of the breast
Which yield them peace, and banish all the rest;
Knowledge to know the wrong and choose the right,
Increasing still in intellectual might,
Till falsehood, error, thraldom, crime, and ruth,
Melt in the splendour of immortal truth.

Priests of Religion, if to you be given
A delegated love and power from heaven,

106

Forget the jar of interests and creeds,
And cherish virtue less in words than deeds.
Give us a proof of your high mission here,—
Be zealous, gentle, upright and sincere;
Use the pure doctrines of the Sacred Page,
To rouse and rectify the selfish age;
Speak to the millions with a father's voice,
Till every child of darkness shall rejoice;
Reject the formal prayer, the flowery speech,—
Your best and noblest province is to teach;
Nor need ye spend your energies for nought,
While one sad soul is willing to be taught.

Oh! glorious task! and be that task your own,
To wake new feelings in the heart of stone,
To free the mind from each unworthy thrall,
And bring the boon of liberty to all.

Go to the sons of Labour, and inspire
Their sluggish souls with intellectual fire:
Teach them to think, and, thinking, to explore
A glorious realm unknown to them before;
Give them the eyes of Knowledge, to behold
The wondrous things which Science can unfold;
Teach them to feel the beauty and the grace
Which breathe unceasingly from Nature's face;
The purity of Spring's delicious morn,
When pleasant sounds and mingled sweets are born;
The silent splendour of a Summer's noon,
When earth is sleeping in the lap of June:
The gorgeous hues of Autumn's evening hour,—
Corn in the fields, and fruitage in the bower;
The night of Winter, whose vast flag unfurled,
Is gemmed with stars, and every star a world:
From these the mind shall wing its way above,
To Him, the soul of harmony and love.

107

Oh, teach them this,—and more than this, impart
A humanizing sympathy of heart;
That God-like feeling of the gentle breast,
For ever blessing, and for ever blest;
That charitable link, which ought to bind
The highest and the humblest of mankind!

Would they be free,—Oh, teach them to despise
The heart of hatred, and the lip of lies,
Of those who seek to lead them from the way
Of peace and truth, to dazzle and betray;
Tell them that freedom never yet was won
By the rash deeds that Anarchy hath done;
Tell them that mental, and that moral power,
Which grows and strengthens with each passing hour,
Shall break the tyrant's rod, the bondsman's chain,
Without the bleeding of one human vein.

Would they be blest,—Oh, teach them to become
The source of blessings in their tranquil home;
To break the stubborn spirit of the child,
With firm example and with precept mild;
To pour into the ear of growing youth,
All the pure things of knowledge and of truth;
To help the gentle and enduring wife,
To banish care, and poverty, and strife;
In every word, in every deed, to blend
The sage, the sire, the husband, and the friend.

Ye sacred Preachers, who profess to show
The shortest path to happiness below,—
Ye sons of Science, who have brought to birth
Ten thousand hidden wonders of the earth,—
Ye mighty Poets, who have sung so well
The beauties of the world wherein ye dwell,—
Ye true Philanthropists, who yearn to chase
The sins and sorrows of the human race,—

108

Your love, your power, your intellect unite,
And bring mankind from darkness into light!

They come, a feeling and a faithful band,
To teach the lowly of my native land;
Knowledge is waving her exulting wings,
And truth is bursting from a thousand springs;
A few brief years, this present hour shall seem
The dim remembrance of a painful dream.

Blest be your efforts, ye enlightened few,
Followers of knowledge, and of virtue too;
Ye who are toiling with a generous zeal,
Your end and hope, the poor man's mental weal:
Blest be your liberal, well-directed plan,
To cheer, instruct, and elevate the man,—
Yield him a solace to subdue his cares,
And make him worthy of the form he wears!

109

THE CHILD OF SONG.

“What is he?
The worshipped and the poor—a child of song!”
Eliza Cook.

A Child of Song! Oh, sadly pleasing name,
Which steals like music o'er my gladdened heart,
And, uttered by the myriad lips of fame,
Becomes a spell whose power will ne'er depart.

Oh! Child of Song, the voice of memory brings
Strange recollections of thy life and lyre;—
The pride that burns, the poverty that stings,
The brief hopes born to dazzle and expire.

I think of him, the mighty one of old—
Time-honoured Homer, aged, poor, and blind;
Who suffered much, as history hath told,
Yet filled the world with his immortal mind.

I think of Ovid, by the lonely main
Mourning his exile from imperial Rome;
Of Tasso, writhing in his dungeon chain,
Removed from love, from liberty, and home.

I think of Milton—Christian, bard, and sage,
Who sang Man's primal purity and sin,
Who strove for freedom in a stormy age,
Bereft of light, save that which burned within.

110

Musing on Chatterton, my eyes grow dim
With heart-felt tears, which will not be denied;
Well may a kindred spirit feel for him,—
“The sleepless boy, who perished in his pride.”

Nor less for Burns, that splendour of the north,
That bright, brief meteor in the heaven of song;
Though frail, his heart could sympathise with worth;
Though poor, his soul could spurn the oppressor's wrong.

And where lies gentle Keats, to whom was given
The rarest gift that moves the hearts of men?
Beneath the blue of an Italian heaven,
Slain by the poison of the critic's pen.

These, and a thousand more, have wrestled hard,
Beneath Misfortune's unrelenting ban;
The selfish world withheld the due reward,—
Worshipped the poet, but o'erlooked the man.

Such is the Minstrel's lot; yet do not deem
That all things unto him are sad and cold;
For he hath joy amid the realms of dream,
And mental treasures which can not be told.

His is the universe,—around, above,
Beauty is ever present to his eye;
He breathes the elements of hope and love,
And shrines his thoughts in words that ne'er will die.

When ills oppress, he grasps the soothing lyre,
And throws his cunning hand athwart the strings,
Feels in his soul the pure ethereal fire,
And links his language with eternal things.

111

Beneath the grandeur of the palace dome
The living music of his song is heard;
Beneath the roof-tree of the humble home,
The strongest soul, the coldest heart is stirred.

Then who would change the Poet's dark career
For all that power can grant, that wealth can give?
Man's common lot may be his portion here,
But when he dies, he does not cease to live!

112

TO B. S.

While yet my harp retains its youthful tone,
And rings responsive to the voice of song;
Ere the cold world shall leave the Bard alone,
While yet my feelings are unstained and strong,—
Thou who wouldst make the slaves of England free,
I weave this tribute of regard to thee.

Thou hast a head for knowledge and for truth,—
Thou hast a heart for friendship and for love;
And though the world may bind thee down, in sooth,
Thy soul doth often take a flight above
The vulgar level of ignoble things,
Sweeping the realms of thought with vigorous wings.

My chequered lot may yet be darker still,—
For thee, old Time may have bright days in store;
But through our brief existence, good or ill,
May our two hearts but sympathise the more,
Without one hour of coldness, care, or strife,
To fling its shadow on the path of life.

113

MY COUNTRY AND MY QUEEN.

Rejoice, rejoice, ye loyal band,
In social mirth and glee,
And yield the Sovereign of your land
The homage of the free;
Let no rude tongue your pleasures mar,
Nor discord come between;
Be this the spell of harmony—
Your Country and your Queen.

Let friendship fill the festal cup,
Dispensing joy to all;
Let the rich forget that they are great,
The poor forget their thrall;
Let generous feelings spring to life,
Where enmity hath been,
And faction hear the Patriot cry—
“My Country and my Queen!”

The Briton's fame o'er all the earth,
Is scattered far and wide;
They own his power on every shore,
He's lord on Ocean's tide;

114

Oh! he hath played a fearless part
In many a glorious scene,
And still his manly breast shall guard
His Country and his Queen.

Why should I sing of blood and strife?—
Let War's red flag be furled,
And never meet the breeze again,
To rouse a peaceful world;
Let nations turn to Freedom's star,
And Truth's unclouded sheen;
Let Britain's sons have cause to bless
Their Country and their Queen.

Then, hail, Victoria! hail to thee!
Our hearts shall be thine own;
We pray that Heaven may lend thee light
To dignify the throne:
Thou rulest o'er as fair a realm
As e'er the sun hath seen;
Long may thy people's watchword be,—
“Our Country and our Queen!”

115

TO JULIUS.

Oh, Julius! friend of the forsaken poor,
Champion of all who feel the Oppressor's wrong—
Teacher of doctrines destined to endure;
Thou fightest for the weak against the strong,—
Thy name is breathed by many a grateful throng:
A few may slander thee, but thousands raise
Their loud and fearless voices in thy praise,
Speaking of virtues which to thee belong.
Keep on, and swerve not in thy high career,—
Be what thou hast been, do as thou hast done;
And if thy heart be, as we think, sincere,
Then heaven will prosper what thou hast begun:
That God who set the sons of Israel free,
Shall shield, shall animate, and strengthen thee!

116

THERE'S FALSEHOOD.

There's falsehood in those eyes of light,
In every glance, in every ray;
Too like those meteors of the night,
Which sparkle, lure us, and betray:—
Oh, turn those fatal eyes from me,
For mine hath ceased to weep for thee.

There's falsehood on thy lip, alas!
Severer far than its disdain;
Oh, that its broken vows could pass,
Lost in oblivion, back again!
That lip hath breathed no truth to me,
And mine shall cease to speak of thee.

There's falsehood in thy heart of guile,—
Couched in the centre, there it lies;
Thy ready tear, and dazzling smile,
Fling o'er the fiend a sweet disguise:—
Away, frail maid! thy heart is free,
And mine hath ceased to throb for thee!

117

LINES

WRITTEN ON THE BLANK LEAF OF A SELECTION OF POEMS, ENTITLED “THE TOKEN OF AFFECTION.”

Behold Affection's garden, whose sweet flowers—
A blending of all odours, forms, and hues,—
Were nursed by Fancy and the gentle Muse,
In heaven-born Poesy's delightful bowers.
Ye who appreciate the Poet's powers,
And love the bright creations of his mind,
Come, linger here awhile, and ye shall find
A noble solace in your milder hours:
Here Byron's genius like an eagle towers
In dread sublimity, while Rogers' lute,
Moore's native harp, and Campbell's classic flute,
Mingle in harmony, as beams with showers.
Can their high strains of inspiration roll,
Nor soothe the heart, nor elevate the soul?

118

THE ROSE AND THE NIGHTINGALE.

RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED TO HYPATIA.

The sun was away in the golden west,
And the lark had returned to his lowly nest;
And a hush and a feeling o'er earth was cast,
Which told that the glory of day was past;—
As I lingered to muse in a valley fair,
Where the Wild-rose blushed in the scented air,
And sighed, as she drooped on her trembling tree—
“My own loved Nightingale, come to me!”

The sun went down, but the summer moon
Rose up from her eastern harem soon,
And flung on the path of approaching Night
Soft gleams from her bosom of pearly light.
Pale Evening paused as she turned and wept
On the folded flowers as they sweetly slept;
But the Rose still sighed on her trembling tree—
“My own loved Nightingale, come to me!”

At length night came,—a mysterious hour,
When silence and gloom have a wondrous power;
And the sky hung o'er my uplifted head,
Like a gem-strewn floor where the angels tread:
The glow-worm shone, and the vesper-star
Looked out from its deep blue home afar,

119

And the Nightingale sang from his shadowy tree,—
“My own loved Rose, I am come to thee!”

The minstrel of solitude sang so well,
That my soul soon caught the melodious spell;
And my fond heart felt what my ear had heard,—
A lesson of love from that lonely bird:
I flew to the maid of my youthful choice,
With a bounding step and an earnest voice,
And cried, as I bent my adoring knee—
“Bright Rose of Truth, I am come to thee!”

120

TEMPERANCE SONG.

Oh! tempt me no more to the wine-brimming bowl,
Nor say 'twill arouse me to gladness;
I have felt how it breaks the repose of the soul,
And fires every frailty to madness;
But fill me a cup where the bright waters flow,
From that health and freshness I'll borrow;
'Tis the purest of nectars that sparkle below,
Since it brings neither sickness nor sorrow.

Oh! look not for me where the drunkard is found,
A stranger to virtue and quiet;
Where the voice of affection and conscience is drowned,
In fierce Bacchanalian riot;
On the hearth of my home, a more tranquil retreat,
My enjoyments are guiltless and cheering,
Where the smile of my wife becomes daily more sweet,
And the kiss of my child more endearing.

Oh! turn thee, deluded one, turn and forsake
Those haunts whose excitements enslave thee;
Be firm in thy manhood, let reason awake,
While Pity is yearning to save thee.
With me all unholy allurements are past—
May I swerve from my rectitude never!
No, rather than sink to perdition at last,
One and all, I abjure them for ever!

121

A SICK MAN'S FANCIES.

In the blessed time of the vernal spring,
A joyless, hopeless, feeble thing—
I lay on a sleepless bed of pain,
While fever burned in my heart and brain;
My eyes were sunk in my throbbing head;
My cheeks with a livid hue were spread;
My thin, withered hands were dry and pale,
As the leaves that float in the autumn gale;
My cries of distress were loud and long,
For a fiery thirst was upon my tongue.
The thoughts that awoke in my wandering mind
Were tossed like trees in a stormy wind;
My ears were stunned with incessant sound,
From a legion of shadows that hemmed me round;
While my fancy flashed into fitful gleams,
And hurried me off to a land of dreams.

Methought I stood at meridian day
In a desolate region far away,
Where the wild Arab roams with a lawless band,
And the desert-ship sails o'er a sea of sand;
Where the ostrich runs with a wondrous speed,
As fleet and as far as the tameless steed;
Where earth puts forth not a spot of bloom,
And feels not a plough but the dread simoom;
Where the sun looks down with oppressive glare,
And the heart grows faint with the sultry air;

122

Where the wanderer thinks of his home in vain,
And finds a lone grave on that wide, wide plain.
'Twas there I stood, and with languid eye
Looked abroad on the dreary earth and sky;
Not a blade of green verdure smiled in my view,—
Not a gleaming of water the sad waste through,—
Not the breath of a breeze, not the scent of a flower,
To cheer my lorn soul in that perilous hour.

Thirsting and weary I wandered on,
But my hopes of relief and rest were gone;
Till at length I beheld what seemed to be
The broad bright face of an inland sea,—
A mass of mute water of silvery sheen,
Where the prow of a vessel had never been.
Oh! how I panted to reach its brink,
And refresh my soul with delicious drink!
Oh! how I yearned to be there, and lave
My feverish limbs in its lucid wave!
I flew o'er the waste with a madman's flight—
But a vision of beauty had mocked my sight;
For scarce a short league had my bare feet sped,
Than my last hope vanished—the waters fled!
And as I looked back with despairing mind,
On the sandy space I had left behind,
I marvelled to see on the farthest plain
The false, fair wave I had followed in vain!

My fancy changed, and methought that I
Lay naked and faint 'neath a tropic sky;
A mariner wrecked, and compelled to float
In a mastless, sailless, rudderless boat;
Above me a cloudless welkin wide,
Below me a green and waveless tide,
Where never a breath o'er its surface blew,—
Where languid and slow the sea-bird flew.

123

In thought I lay many nightless days,
While the terrible sun's unconquered blaze
Blistered and scorched my shrivelled skin,
Till the fountains of blood felt dry within.
The raging of hunger aroused me first,
But that soon passed, and remorseless thirst
Burned in my throat with increased desire,
Till my breath was flame, and my tongue was fire;
And the bitter wave, as I stooped to sip,
Was turned to salt on my baffled lip.

For months and years—for ages of pain,
I lay without hope on the stagnant main,
Consumed and destroyed by slow degrees,
On the pitiless breast of those lonely seas.
I gnawed my flesh with a frantic yell,
And greedily drank of the drops that fell;
Till, strong in my agony, up I sprang—
While the startled air with my curses rang—
And plunged in the sunny and silent deep,
To find in its caverns a long, long sleep.

Still in my dream's unwelcome thrall,
I passed by the ancient Memphian wall,
And wandered, beneath warm Summer's smile,
On the fertile banks of the mighty Nile.
The thirst within me now seemed to be
Increased to a dread intensity;
So great, indeed, I was fain to throw
My weary form in the waters below:
But scarce had I stooped to taste of the flood,
Than its whole bright surface was turned to blood,
And crocodiles came from their slimy lair,
Sent by the fiends to devour me there;
And lest from their jaws I should hope to spring,
They hemmed me round with a terrible ring.

124

With an effort for life, I strove to cry,
But my soundless throat was husk and dry:
I writhed in my agony,—gasped for breath,
And would have rejoiced at a gentler death;
But I could not keep my dire foes at bay—
They gathered around their hopeless prey;
They breathed on my pale and despairing face,
And smothered me soon in their horrid embrace.

I dreamed again, and I stood once more
On giant Columbia's boundless shore;
The land of broad lakes and impetuous floods,—
The land of dark and eternal woods;
Where the Red Man walks in his wild attire,
Compelled to escape from the White Man's ire;—
The land of mountains that rise, and rise,
As if they aspired to reach the skies;
Lifting their vast and fantastic forms
Beyond the dark region of clouds and storms;—
The land of rich prairies, unploughed and green,
Where the foot of the pilgrim hath rarely been.
It was here I roamed with my demon—Thirst,
Shut out from my race like one accursed;
Till I rested at last on St. Lawrence's side,
And wistfully gazed on its roaring tide,
Where Niagara falls from his crescent rock,
And startles the woods with his thunder-shock.
Weary of being,—unquenched within,
Unscared by the cataract's awful din,
I leaped in the torrent both strong and deep,
And shot like a dart o'er the fearful steep:
Down for many a fathom I fell,
Tossed about in the watery hell.
Stunned with a spirit-appalling sound,
In the eddying gulf whirled round and round,

125

I looked to the sky, which seemed to me,
Through the billowy spray, like a troubled sea;
And the mass of rude waters, as down it came,
Went hissing through all my burning frame,
Till my thoughts were lost in the peril and pain,
And madness took hold of my dizzy brain.
My knowledge of danger had waned away,
And my pulse had almost ceased to play;
The scene of my horror was dark and still,
I felt at my heart a death-like chill;
Unconscious of all that passed before,
I struggled a moment, and felt no more.

My vision was changed; and I took my stand,
Once more on the breast of my own green land;
And, Oh! I was glad I had ceased to roam,
And drew so near to my native home.
How fain I beheld, and how well I knew,
Each object that met my delighted view!
It was joy to my soul as I paused to mark
The quivering wing of the soaring lark,
And hear from the boughs of some far off tree,
The cuckoo that called o'er the “pleasant lea.”
And then there were odours from fields and bowers,
Breathed by the lips of the wilding flowers;
Roses that blushed on the briery thorn,
And wild blue-bells by the rivulet born;
Violets that deep in the dingle hide,
And woodbines hung on the hedge-row side;—
All seemed to welcome the wanderer back
From the desolate main and the desert's track.
And though I was thirsting and fevered still,
Unquenched by the waters of river or rill,
I felt it were sweeter to linger and die
Beneath the calm smile of my own blue sky.

126

Such were my thoughts, when my loitering feet
Bore me away to a green retreat,—
A beautiful, quiet, and sheltered dell,
Where first I listened to Fancy's spell,
And learned from her mild and mysterious tongue
The power of beauty, the pleasure of song;
Indeed 'twas a lovely and peaceful spot,
Which seen but once could be never forgot;
'Twas a natural theatre, circled by trees,
Which whispered like harps to the fairy breeze;
Its daisy-paved floor was level and soft,
And the sky, like a canopy, hung aloft;
In its centre uprose a limpid spring,
Like a diamond set in an emerald ring.
Oh! with what rapture I paused to drink,
And knelt me down on its grassy brink;
But scarce had I dimpled its glassy face,
Than its waters shrunk, and left no trace,
But a slimy bottom, that swarmed with life,
With a host of reptiles rank and rife,—
A legion of lizards, and bloated toads,
That crept in crowds from their dark abodes!
There was the scorpion's loathsome form,
The twisted adder, and crawling worm,
And a thousand other unnatural things,
With monstrous legs and preposterous wings.
I started back with a fearful scream,
Which broke the spell of that horrible dream;
And, lo! by the side of my humble bed,
With her arm beneath my distracted head,
My wife bent o'er me with anxious eye,
Alarmed by the sound of my helpless cry.
She held to my lips the cooling draught,
And, Oh! how sweetly,—how deeply I quaffed!

127

It ran through my veins like a blessed balm,
Till my heart grew glad, and my brain grew calm.

The bine at my window hung bright in bloom,
And sent its breath in my lonely room;
The evening breeze blew mild and meek,
And fanned my hair and kissed my cheek.
The golden sun, as he sunk to rest,
In the purple lap of the gorgeous west,
Poured on my face his rosy light,
To cheer me with hope through the shadowy night.
In the glorious smile of the waning day,
I heard my darling boy at play,
Whose voice beguiled me of pleasing tears,
And carried my memory back for years,
To the time when I myself was free
From sickness, and sorrow, and care, as he;
And then I called upon Heaven above
To bless that child of my hope and love.

The soothing scent of the woodbine flower—
The freshening breeze of the evening hour—
The beautiful blush of the setting sun—
The boy at his sport ere day was done—
Were tokens of mercy and peace, which brought
A rapture of feeling and thankful thought:—
I prayed to Him who is strong to save,
And He snatched me back from the yawning grave!

128

TO A BROTHER POET.

Successful suitor at the Muse's feet,
Accept the tribute of a wight whose name
Ne'er found a place upon the scroll of Fame,
Nor gathered from her lips one sentence sweet;
Who never mingled with the crowds that meet
At Learning's shrine, intent to catch the lore
Of soul-exalting Science, and explore
Paths that betray Philosophy's retreat:
Yet Hope hath taught—that ever-welcome cheat—
His intellectual feelings to aspire,
Though Poverty would quench the wakening fire,
And fix Despair on Hope's unsteady seat.
He who doth breathe this unassuming strain,
Would gladly link with thee in Friendship's honoured chain.

129

TO THE CRICKET.

Thou merry minstrel of my cottage hearth,
Again I hear thy shrill and silvery lays;
Where hast thou been these many, many days,
Mysterious thing of music and of mirth?
Thou shouldst not leave thy brother Bard so long—
Sadly without thee pass my evening hours.
Hast thou been roaming in the fields and bowers,
To shame the grasshopper's loud summer song?
When poring o'er some wild, romantic book,
In the hushed reign of thought-awakening night,
I love to have thee near me, wingèd sprite,
To cheer the silence of my chimney nook;
For I have faith that thy prophetic voice
Foretelleth things which come to make my heart rejoice.

130

SONG.

Youthful widow! lovely widow!
With thy fair and thoughtful face;
With thy weeds of sorrow floating
Round thy form of quiet grace;—
Wheresoe'er thy footsteps lead thee,
Magic reigns upon the spot;
I have watched thy mien and motion,—
Could I gaze and love thee not?

Gentle widow! pleasing widow!
Music lingers on thy tongue,—
Sweet when social converse floweth,—
Sweeter in the words of song.
When to thee men turn and listen,
Other things are all forgot;—
I have heard thee, lovely mourner!—
Could I hear, and love thee not?

Pensive widow! faithful widow!
Truth and feeling warm thy heart;—
Virtue flings her light around thee,—
May that glory ne'er depart!
None have dared in wanton malice,
Thine unsullied fame to blot;
I have known thy worth and beauty,—
Could I know, and love thee not?

131

TO MY FRIEND, JOHN DICKINSON.

True-hearted Dickinson! can I forget
Thy warm, impetuous friendship, and how prone
Thou wert to solace me, when first we met,
And I was coinless, hopeless, and unknown?
No! for the generous feeling thou hast shown
To me, an humble minstrel, in my need,
My harp, with feeble but with faithful tone,
Shall tell thee that I cherish every deed.
Let me bear witness that thou hast, withal,
Though rudely earnest, an inquiring mind,—
Pity for human suffering and thrall,
And love for things exalted and refined.
May Heaven afford thee, to thy latest hour,
The joy of doing good, and ne'er deny the power!

132

TO G. R.

Oh, George! it is a cheering thing to know
That, as we travel through the waste of life,
'Mid much of sorrow, weariness, and strife,
There are some spots of beauty as we go:
Yes, there are hours apart from care and woe,
Which we may pleasantly and wisely spend
With wife or child, with lover or with friend,
And feel our lot not all unkind below.
Then let us meet as heretofore, and so
Expand the soul, and ease the burdened breast:
The song, the temperate cup, the harmless jest
Shall gild the fleeting moments as they flow,
And teach us, by our sympathies, to find
The “lights and shadows” of each other's mind.

133

HYMN TO SPRING.

Thou comest once more, fairest child of the Sun!
With all that is lovely to gladden our eyes;
While the ocean that heaves, and the rivers that run,
Flash back the ethereal light of thy skies.
Flowers follow thy footsteps, and blossoms and buds
Are scattered abroad from thy redolent wing:
There is health on the mountains, and joy in the woods;—
Hail! hail to thee! beautiful Spring!

Thou comest once more, from the arms of the South,
Who pursues thee afar with his glances of fire;
And the breath that exhales from thy odorous mouth,
Fans the feelings of youth into bashful desire.
To walk with the maid of our passionate love,
'Mid the sweets and the sounds which thy spirit may bring,
Is a draught from the chalice of pleasure above:—
Hail! hail to thee! beautiful Spring!

Thou comest once more, and thy voices awake
In snatches of melody everywhere,
Glad choristers call from the forest and brake,
To the lark who makes vocal the tremulous air;
The tinkle of waters is heard in the bowers,
And sighs like the tones of the zephyr-harp's string;
The bee murmurs low to the amorous flowers:—
Hail! hail to thee! beautiful Spring!

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Sunny Summer hath charms in the freshness of morn,
In the glory and pomp of voluptuous noon;
And Autumn, who comes with his fruitage and corn,
Rejoiceth my heart with his bountiful boon:
Even Winter is welcome, the wild and the free,
Who walks o'er the earth like a conquering king;
But thy presence hath always a blessing for me:—
Hail! hail to thee! beautiful Spring!

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WHAT IS GLORY? WHAT IS FAME?

In the full strength of youthful prime,
My very soul in flame,
Without a stain of care or crime
Upon my heart or name,—
Impatient of each dull delay,
I yearned to tread the rugged way
To glory and to fame;
And as each kindling thought awoke,
Thus the sweet voice of Fancy spoke:—

“The warrior grasps the battle brand,
And seeks the field of fight,
And madly lifts his daring hand
Against all human right.
He goeth with unholy wrath,
To scatter death along his path,
While nations mourn his might;
And though he win the world's acclaim,
This is not glory—is not fame.

“The roll of the arousing drum,
The bugle's startling bray;
The thunder of the bursting bomb,
The tumult of the fray;
The oft-recurring hour of strife,
The blight of hope, the waste of life,
The proud victorious day:—

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This, this may be a splendid game,
But 'tis not glory—'tis not fame.

“Can we subdue the orphan's cries,
The widow's plaintive wail;
Or turn from mute, upbraiding eyes—
From faces sad and pale?
Can we restore the mind gone dim,
The broken heart, the shattered limb,
By war's exulting tale?
This is ambition, guilt, and shame,
But 'tis not glory—'tis not fame.

“When some aspiring spirit turns
To seize the helm of state,
And with a selfish ardour burns
To make his title great;
Honour and power, and wealth and pride,
May gather round on every side,
And at his bidding wait;
But curs'd be each oppressive aim!—
This is not glory—is not fame.

“The Rebel, too, who rears aloft
The banner of his cause,
And calls upon the people oft
To spurn their country's laws;—
The Rebel, whose destructive hand
Would bring disorder in the land,
Ere Reason think or pause;—
He hath a loud, notorious name,
But 'tis not glory—'tis not fame.

137

“The Patriot, who hath seen too long
His own loved land oppressed,
While all Man's nobler feelings throng
Within his generous breast;—
He who can wield the sword so well,
Like Washington, or Bruce, or Tell,
The bravest and the best—
He lives unknown to fear or blame:
This is glory—this is fame.

“There are who pour the light of truth
Upon the glowing page,
To purify the soul of youth,
To cheer the heart of age:
There are whom God hath sent to show
The wonders of his power below—
Such is the gifted Sage;
And these have learned our love to claim:—
This is glory—this is fame.

“There are, like Howard, who employ
Their healthiest, happiest hours
In shedding peace, and hope, and joy
Around this world of ours;
Who free the captive, feed the poor,
And enter every humble door
Where sin or sorrow lowers,
Till nations breathe and bless their name:—
This is glory—this is fame.

“The poet, whose aspiring Muse
Waves her ecstatic wing,
Clothes thought and language with the hues
Of every holy thing,—

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Of beauty in its thousand forms,
Of all that cheers, refines, and warms,
He loves to dream and sing;
And myriads feel his song of flame:—
This is glory—this is fame.

“Then go, proud Youth! go even now,
Nor heed Misfortune's frown,
And win for thine undaunted brow
A well-deservèd crown.
Look not for false and fleeting state;
But if thou wouldst be loved and great,
Keep pride and passion down;
Let constant virtue be thy aim,
For that is glory—that is fame!”

139

THE VOICE OF THE PRIMROSE.

The sun's last glances through the clear air trembled,
And died in blushes on the changeful stream,
Till all the features of the scene resembled
The dim remembrance of some blessed dream:
A Bard sat musing by a woodland well,
Wrapt in the chain of Thought's delicious spell.

Far hills, green fields, and shadowy woods before him,
Faded with gradual softness into shade,
And as the veil of twilight gathered o'er him,
Each lingering sound to quiet hush was laid;
And, save a breezy whisper in the bower,
Nought broke the calm of that most tender hour.

At length, a voice of fragrant breath, below him,
Pronounced, in silvery syllables, his name:
But there was scarce a gleam of light to show him
From whence the gentle voice and odour came;
Till, stooping down, the murmuring tones to meet,
He saw a Primrose smiling at his feet.

Thus spake the flower:—“Oh! Child of Fancy! listen,
While I my sorrows and my hopes unfold;
And ere the dews upon my leaflets glisten,
My weak ambition shall to thee be told;
And when thou minglest with thy kind again,
Tell them that flowers have griefs as well as men.

140

“I pine in solitude, unknown, unknowing,
From morn's first blushes to the last of eve,
And as the generous sun is o'er me glowing,
Beneath the splendour of his smile I grieve,—
Opening my bosom to the roving gale,
Far from my fragrant sisters of the vale.

“The burly peasants pass me by unheeding,
As forth they loiter to their toil at morn;
And, as they pass, my little heart is bleeding,
That I should linger in a world of scorn:
And then I hope again that I may be
The simple favourite of one like thee.

“When weeping twilight o'er this valley hovers,
And sheds her tears upon the earth, as now,
Oft do I listen to the talk of lovers,
Beneath the shadow of that hawthorn bough;
And then I sigh to grace the bashful fair,
And be entwined within her braided hair.

“Young, happy children, through the woodlands roaming,
Waking the echoes with their joyous play,
Oft cross my path, and as I see them coming,
I wish that they would pluck me by the way:
Alas! regardless of my soft perfume,
They pass me o'er for things of gaudier bloom.

“I have beheld thee in thy fits of musing,
Thy loose hair lifted by the zephyr's sighs;
And I have seen ecstatic tears suffusing
The dreamy depths of thy soul-speaking eyes;
And I have spread my saffron leaves, perchance
To catch, though briefly, thy delighted glance.

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“Now thou hast seen me—heard me, and my story
Shall fall in sweetness from thy magic tongue;
Oh! shrine me in the halo of thy glory—
Give me a place in thine immortal song;
And when I die in this enchanted spot,
The lowly Primrose will not be forgot!”

142

A WINTER'S EVENING.

High o'er the woody crest of yonder hill,
The clear, cold moon through clouds serenely sails,
And glances meekly down; December's gales,
Locked in their secret caves, lie hushed and still;
Now the soft evening, beautiful but chill,
Its shadowy vesture o'er the welkin weaves;
While from yon moss-grown oak, unblest with leaves,
Is heard the Robin's melancholy trill.
In this lone spot of solitude, the rill
Leaps, musically gushing, and the star
Of dewy vesper, twinkling from afar,
Soothes down each thought of sublunary ill.
A blessed influence in this scene I find,
Which, like a dove, broods o'er my heart and mind.

143

I GO FOR EVERMORE.

I go, but ere my steps depart,—
Before my lips pronounce thee free,—
While yet I hold thee to my heart,
That bleeds—how vainly bleeds!—for thee;
Thou hear'st my unavailing sighs,—
The hidden strife will soon be o'er;
Thou seest the tears that dim mine eyes,—
I go—I go for evermore!

I met thee in thy earliest youth,
A meek and unassuming maid,—
The seeming light of holy truth
O'er thine enchanting aspect played;
I loved thee;—that sweet dream is past,
'Twas thine own falsehood broke the spell;
My baffled hopes expire at last,
In one despairing word—Farewell!

144

THE POOR MAN'S APPEAL.

Look down upon the people, gracious God!
The suffering millions need thy special care;
For cruel laws are made to curse the sod
Which thou hast made so fertile and so fair;
Laws which, like harpies on our vitals fed,
Snatch from our lips the life-sustaining bread.

Thou smilest on the fruit-tree and the field,
And beauteous bounty springeth into birth;
Thou breathest in the seasons, and they yield
More than enough for every child of earth:
Then is it just that we should pine and die,
'Mid blessings broad and boundless as the sky?

Listen, ye wealthy magnates of the land,
Girt with the splendour of your palace halls;
Listen, ye mingled law-creating band,
Our chosen voice within the senate walls;
Let wisdom guide your delegated power,
For danger thrives with each succeeding hour.

Who raised our country's greatness?—Britain's slaves,
Chained to the oar of unrequited toil;
The seaman wrestling with the winds and waves,—
The ploughman fainting o'er the furrowed soil,

145

And all the victims of Misfortune's frown,
Who fill the windings of the sickly town:

The famished weaver, bending o'er his loom,
Venting his agonies with smothered breath;
The miner, buried in unbroken gloom,
Looking for life amid the damps of death;
Young children, too, have borne unheeded pains,
To swell the stream of your unhallowed gains.

If ye are husbands, loving and beloved,—
If ye are fathers, in your offspring blest,—
If ye are men, by human passions moved,
Let truth and justice plead for the oppressed:
The sorrowing mothers of our babes behold,
Whose homes are sad, and comfortless, and cold.

Lo! fettered Commerce droops her feeble wing,
And ships lie freightless on the heaving main:
No more with busy sounds our harbours ring—
The breezes come, the tides go back in vain;
And England's artizans, a squalid brood,
Creep from their homes and supplicate for food.

Our once proud marts are desolate and lone,—
Our patriots trembling for the nation's fame;
Prison and poor-house, gorged with victims, groan
With complicated misery and shame;
And public pride, and private joy, no more
Can find a place on our unhappy shore.

Behold where many-armed Rebellion walks,
Gaunt, fierce, and fearless, in the eye of day;
And Crime, the offspring of Oppression, stalks
'Mid scenes of strife, and terror, and dismay;

146

And Vengeance bares his arm, and lifts the brand,
To sweep Injustice from the groaning land.

Forth rush the multitude in mad career,
For unrelenting hunger goads them on;
Stern Anarchy is leagued with frantic Fear;
Safety, and Peace, and Liberty are gone;
Mighty and mean are mingled in the fall,
Now Ruin comes and tramples upon all.

Such is, or shall be, the disastrous end
Of all your stubborn policy and pride:
A wakening people must and will contend
For rights withheld, and sustenance denied:
Thoughts of the painful present and the past
Must bring the hour of reckoning at last.

Be timely just,—your granary gates unbar,—
Let Plenty's golden banner be unfurled;
Let Trade with wingèd ships speed wide and far,
Laden to every corner of the world:
Let Knowledge soothe, let Labour feed the poor,
And make the freedom of the land secure.

Then love, and peace, and virtue shall be found,
Where erst sat discord, hatred, and despair;
Then man shall sow, and God shall bless the ground,
And none shall murmur at another's share;
A social grandeur, and a moral grace
Shall warm each heart, and brighten every face!

147

TO J. P. WESTHEAD, ESQ.

Before I lay my lowly harp aside,—
My constant hope, my solace, and my pride,
Through all the changes of my grief or glee,—
Before its powers grow weaker and depart,
I weave the inmost feelings of my heart
In one true song of thankfulness to thee.

My earthly lot hath been so strangely cast,
That all my musings on the chequered past
Are but a kind of retrospective pain,
Without regret for any day gone by;
To Hopeful Campbell's polished song I fly,
For gentle Rogers sings for me in vain.

When I was yet an unsuspecting child,
I was not thoughtless, frolicsome, and wild,
To sport and pastime, or to mischief prone:
A moody, melancholy, wordless boy,
I always felt a strange and quiet joy
In wandering companionless and lone.

But poverty, and pain, and darker things,
Threw much of withering poison in the springs
Of better feeling in my youthful breast;
In every season and in every place,
I wore a shade of sorrow on my face,—
For I had troubles not to be expressed.

148

With none to strengthen and to teach my mind,
I groped my way like some one lost and blind,
Within the windings of a tangled wood;
But still, by wakeful and inquiring thought,
My watchful spirit in its musings caught
A partial glimpse of what was true and good.

I grew at last to manhood; fear and strife,
With all the bitterest ills of human life,
Beset me round with wretchedness and gloom;
So low, so hopeless, was my abject state,
I thought it vain to wrestle with my fate,
And bowed in passive patience to my doom.

Joyless I struggled on, till I became
A husband and a father; and the name
Fell like the sound of music on my ear;
For spite of indigence and worldly wrong,
The guileless prattle of an infant's tongue
Touched my sad heart, and made existence dear.

My troubles grew apace; my hopes grew less,
And, for my precious children's sake, distress
Entered my spirit with a keener sting;
Man had no love and sympathy for me,
Nor I for tyrant man, who seemed to be
A sordid, selfish, and ignoble thing.

Worn out, at length, I left my cheerless home,
Though rashly, in another land to roam,
Where I became the poorest of the poor;
For I was forced (Oh! soul-degrading task!)
With low and supplicating voice, to ask
The meed of bitter bread from door to door:

149

From house to house—from crowded town to town—
A wretched outcast, wandering up and down,
From every little comfort kept aloof;—
Without a shelter, naked, and unfed,
The cold and stony ground my only bed,
The dark, inclement sky my only roof.

The vast and everlasting hills of God,—
The rock, the stream, the forest, and the sod,
Exultingly I felt were all my own;
But when I mingled with the city's hum,
My soul grew joyless, and my heart grew dumb,
For peopled places made me doubly lone.

By many a river, silent wood, and glen,
Far from the prying eyes of busy men,—
By many a fertile vale, and castled steep,—
On many an ancient and romantic spot,
Where peaceful Nature was, but Man was not,—
I sat me down to meditate and weep.

My mind drank beauty, as the sandy plain
Absorbs the freshness of the summer rain,
That falls so sweetly on its burning face;
At every forward step, some strange delight
Wakened my slumbering heart, and charmed my sight
With some new feature of surpassing grace.

My wondering soul with poesy was fraught,
And higher, nobler, and serener thought,
Which I had never felt or known before;
Back to my native land I gladly flew,
Resolved my best endeavours to renew,
And quit my kindred and my home no more.

150

But, Oh! the many and the bitter tears,—
The daily sorrows and the nightly fears,
My poor and patient wife had borne so long!
The cold, the want, the misery, the blame,
The vulgar scorn, the insult, and the shame,—
'Twere vain to tell in this protracted song!

An older, wiser, and a better man,
I strove to find some calm and steady plan,
Whereby to banish restlessness and want:
Vain were my best resolves; I only found
The same unvaried, dull, and toilsome round
Of unremitting slavery and scant.

Daily I laboured for uncertain food;
But yet my dearest hopes were not subdued
By stern Misfortune's unrelenting frown;
A bright but distant future cheered my way,—
Oh! how I yearned to breathe a living lay,
And win the glory of a Bard's renown!

For I had roamed in Fancy's fairy bower,
And rifled here and there some wilding flower
That grew uncared for in the secret nooks;
I wandered oft in silence and alone,
Gathering some simple shell, some polished stone,
From level sea-sands and meandering brooks.

At length some kind and kindred spirits came
To praise and flatter; and the smothered flame
That burned so feebly in my fettered soul,
Flashed out at once with unexpected gleams,
Taking the shape of dear, delicious dreams,
That woke unceasingly and mocked control.

151

I thirsted then, and I am thirsting still,
Of mind's imaginings to take my fill,
And drink bright thoughts from fountains pure and free.
But I have talked too wildly, and too long;
Here let my willing, but my wayward song,
Come back, respected Westhead! unto thee.

I have my friends—and valued ones—a few
For ever gentle and for ever true,
Bearing the heart within the open palm;
Some are of good estate, and some are poor;—
Oh! may our mutual fellowship endure,
And fill the cup of life with hallowed balm!

But thou hast been a steadfast friend indeed,—
For ever ready, in the hour of need,
To bid my sorrows and my wants depart;
Not with a haughty, patronising pride,
Taking a license to condemn and chide,
But with a perfect sympathy of heart.

A kind adviser thou hast been to me,
Leaving me still in thought and action free;
Oh! let me thank thee for such just regard!
For I believe that thy superior aim
Is but to raise to comfort and to fame
A long-distressed, but now aspiring Bard.

To thee and generous Jellicorse I owe
Much—and my future gratitude shall show
How well I can remember every debt;
The calm benevolence,—the manly tone,—

152

The care,—the kindly feeling ye have shown,
Are things I cannot, if I would, forget.

May peace be with ye both! Should future time
Prosper my energies, and I should climb
Where the far steep of glory proudly towers,
With what pure pleasure I shall then look back,
Along my perilous but upward track,
And bless the friends who cheered my darker hours!

153

THE SLAVE.

Ye may tell of the gladness that wakes with the Spring,
When green-wood and welkin with melody ring;
When, strength in his pinion, and joy in his lay,
The lark flutters up in the face of the day;
When young bud and blossom are bursting to light,
And fields in their emerald freshness are bright:—
What boots this exulting o'er hill, field, and wave?—
Alas! it is lost to the ear of the Slave!

Ye may tell of the glories of Summer-born June,
Of the pride of its morning, the pomp of its noon;
Of its beauty of sunset, ere Night hath unfurled
His star-coloured veil o'er the face of the world;
When the breezes are sweet with the kisses of flowers,
Those odorous gems of the meadows and bowers:—
But the sweat-drops of toil his wan forehead that lave,
Embitter and darken these charms to the Slave.

Ye may tell of the treasures of Autumn's domain,
When fertile abundance enriches the plain;
When the warm blushing orchard begins to unfold
Its various fruitage of purple and gold;
When the song of the reaper grows loud in its mirth,
And the drones of the world claim the gifts of the earth;

154

Though his toil may deserve them, his poverty crave,
How few are bestowed on the comfortless Slave!

Ye may tell of the vigour that Winter sends forth,
On the health-bearing wings of the boisterous North,
When ye sit by the dear social hearth and its fire,
Shut in from the storm in its pitiless ire;
When dainty profusion encumbers the board,—
When ye feel the enjoyments that riches afford,—
Oh! think, when the turbulent elements rave,
How dreary and sad is the home of the Slave!

Ye may tell us that Knowledge hath shed on our isle
The glow of her pure and encouraging smile;
That all may sit down to the banquet, and share
The mental provision untaxed as the air;
But where shall the children of Poverty find
One hour to enlighten or solace the mind?
Farewell to the splendour that circles the knave,
When knowledge and truth are revealed to the Slave!

Ye may say there's a spirit of freedom in all,
Throughout the vast realm of this wonderful ball:—
In the gush of the stream and the fountain 'tis heard,
In the sigh of the gale, in the song of the bird;
'Tis seen in the sun-cloud's ethereal sweep,—
'Tis known in the womb of the fathomless deep:
It lives in the cloud, in the gale, in the wave—
Oh, why is it kept from the labouring Slave!

Must we bear with those dens of pollution that stand
Dark, frequent, and full o'er the once pleasant land,—
Those temples of Bacchus, where thousands are slain
By the poisonous cup at the altar of gain;—

155

Where the mind of the man is degraded and tame,
Where the cheek of the maiden grows callous to shame;
Let them cease to destroy—let them cease to deprave,
Let us blot out the name of the Drunkard and Slave!

Go, watch the poor human automaton rise
With a load at his heart, and reproach in his eyes,
The victim of poverty, vice, and disease;—
How haggard his visage! how feeble his knees!
When hunger hath made its most urgent appeal,
For labour incessant—how scanty the meal!
He hath but one hope and that hope is the grave,
For life is a source of despair to the Slave!

Oh! merciful God of the poor and oppressed,
Who hath promised the sick and the weary one rest—
Look down on the thousands whose sweat has been spilt
To nurse the oppressor in grandeur and guilt!
Oh! let not the proud, the unpitying few,
The many—the broken in spirit—subdue!
Let the words of the gifted, the good, and the brave,
Ring out in behalf of the soul-stricken Slave!

156

A FRAGMENT FOR THE PEOPLE.

Oh! I am sick of this degrading strife,
This harsh reiteration of a theme
Which men call Politics,—this lust of power
By those who would abuse the precious boon,—
This yearning after fame, or infamy—
(They care not which, so the base end be won;)—
This cant of patriotism, too, from lips
That sell their country with a Judas kiss;—
This restless striving for unhallowed gain,—
This false ambition, which, exalting one,
Brings unprotected thousands to the dust;
This mockery of millions who have toiled,
Yet pine for bread for which they toil in vain!

Is it not sad to see a mass of men,—
The sinews of the State—the heart of wealth—
The never-failing life-blood of the land;—
Is it not sad to see them stand like trees,
Swayed by the breath of every wind that blows:—
Drinking with greedy ear the specious tale
Of some deluding orator? And, when
The artful speaker with a flourish makes
The accustomed pause, shouting they know not why,—
Acting they know not how,—till, having sent
The exulting demagogue in triumph home,
They find, alas! what they have ever found,
For freedom—scorn, and words instead of bread.

When will this suffering people learn to think,
And, thinking, learn to know the good from ill,—

157

The true from false,—the metal from the dross?
When will they watch their own frail steps, and shun
That subtle serpent shining in their path,
Whose glance is danger, and whose tongue is death?
Behold, the town is all astir; each house
Sends forth its eager inmates; to and fro,
Promiscuous crowds are hurrying in haste,
With haggard looks, and savage. In the air
Gay banners flaunt it bravely; square and street
Echo the sounds of music, and the shouts
Of gathered multitudes. In Reason's eyes,
This is a foolish jubilee of shame,
When Britons sell their manhood for a promise—
“Kept to the ear but broken to the hope.”

A few more hours of riotous display—
Of wolfish warfare and of party strife—
And Night shall draw her curtain o'er a scene
Unworthy of the glory of the sun:
Then shall this mass of artizans retire
To pass the midnight in a rude debauch,
Till Morn shall wake them to a painful sense
Of all that was and is;—babes without food,—
Wives without peace,—themselves without a hope
Of aught save vengeance for a thousand wrongs!
Poor sons of toil! your destiny is dark,
Without the light of Knowledge; sad your lot,
Without the cheering influence of Truth;
Vain your resolves, till Virtue shall inspire
Your souls with moral dignity, and bring
The power to win what God has given for all.

Come, let me turn from this tumultuous din
Of human voices—this discordant jar
Of human thoughts and passions,—let me turn
To live and think for some few fleeting hours,

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In the calm presence of unsullied Nature,
Where I could live for ever, were it not
That I had sympathy with man, and hope
To walk with him the way to happier times.
Where now I stand the very sky puts on
A frowning face,—the very air feels rank
With falsehood and corruption. Fast and far,
I fly contamination, till at length
The mingled uproar of the distant town
Sounds like the moaning of a far-off sea.

I pause to rest and meditate, and lo!
The fresh, fair country smiles upon me; skies
Bend in their brightness o'er me; slumbering woods
Keep twilight yet, save where the parted boughs
Let in brief intervals of golden day.
Like living things of music and of light,
Streams dance upon their journey,—pastures green,
Studded with quiet cattle, calmly give
Their verdurous bosoms to the summer sun;
Luxuriant meadows, sighing for the scythe,
And prodigal of beauty, rise and fall
Beneath the frolic footsteps of the breeze.
The birds, with ceaseless voices, fill the ear
With pure and delicate melody; the lark,
Caged in the centre of a silvery cloud,
Lets fall a shower of gladness upon earth;
The desultory bees that sing and toil,
Fill up the chorus with their soothing hum;
The flowers, from tiny chalices, pour out
A draught of fragrance for the thirsty soul;
All, all is harmony, and light, and bloom,
Freedom and freshness, peacefulness and joy.

Oh! thou Almighty and Beneficent God!
Beneath thy span of glorious heaven, I kneel

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Upon thine own fair earth, and ask of thee
The boon of truth and liberty for man!
Look down, I pray thee, on this groaning land,
Where Wrong rides rampant o'er the prostrate form
Of helpless Right,—where crime of every shape
Is rife, and that of greatest magnitude
Allowed to go unpunished;—true it is,
That harsh Injustice is the chief of all.
The flower of social virtue scarcely lives,
But droops and saddens 'mid the weeds of vice
That grow on every side. Gaunt Famine sits
Upon the threshold of a thousand homes;
The holy bonds of brotherhood are loosed,
And Man, a worshipper of Self, lifts up
His hand against his neighbour. Every door
Of misery and death is opened wide:
Madness, and suicide, and murder bring
Unnumbered victims to the ready grave;
In parish prisons many pine and die,
And many on their own cold hearths unseen;
Some, bolder than their fellows in distress,
Snatch at the means of life, and find their way
To lonely dungeons, and are sent afar,
From wife and children severed, o'er the seas,
Or else, perchance, the gallows is their fate,
Which waits to take them from a cruel world.

O God of Mercy, Justice, Love, and Peace!
How long must we despair? When wilt Thou make
This part of Thy creation like the rest?
Thy universe is wonderful, and vast,
And beautiful, and pure—sustained and kept
By Thee in perfect harmony for ever!
Then why should Man, thine image, still remain
The jarring string of thine eternal harp?

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Bright Essence of all Good! Oh, deign to give
To human hearts a portion of the bliss
Which Thou hast promised in thy written Word!
Give to the nations liberty, and love,
And plenty of the fruits of thy fair earth,
And charity, and knowledge, and a thirst
For Truth's bright fountains, and a trusting hope
To share, at last, thine immortality!

161

THE POET AT THE GRAVE OF HIS CHILD.

[_]

[The Poet here alluded to is my friend Mr. Samuel Bamford, of Middleton, a gentleman possessing high poetical powers, which, had they been more extensively cultivated, would have made him one of the most eminent, if not the most eminent of our Lancashire bards.]

A bard stood drooping o'er the grave
Where his lost daughter slept,
Where nothing broke the stillness, save
The breeze that round him crept;
And as he plucked the weeds away
That grew above her slumbering clay,
He neither spoke nor wept;
But then he could not all disguise
The sadness looking from his eyes.

Indeed, it was a fitting tomb
For one so young and fair,
Where flowers, as emblems of her bloom,
Scented the summer air.
The primrose told her simple youth,
The violet her modest truth;—
Thus had a father's care
Brought the sweet children of the wild,
To deck the head-stone of his child.

Around that spot of hallowed rest
Grew many a solemn tree,
Where many a wild bird built its nest,
And sung with constant glee;

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And hills upreared their mighty forms
Through Summer's light and Winter's storms;
And streams ran fresh and free,
Through many a green and silent vale,
Kept pure by heaven's untainted gale.

I looked upon the furrowed face
Of that heart-breaking sire,
Where I, methought, could plainly trace
The spirit's fading fire;
For he had stemmed the tide of years
In care, captivity, and tears;
And yet he touched the lyre
With cunning and unfailing hand,
For freedom in his native land.

But now the darling child he had,
The last and only one,
Which always made his spirit glad,
From earth to heaven had gone,
And left him in his hoary age
To finish life's sad pilgrimage;
And, as he travelled on,
To soothe the sorrows of his mate,
And brood upon his lonely fate.

How oft together did they climb
The steep of Tandle hill,
And pause to pass the pleasant time
Beside the mountain rill;
Then he would read some cherished book
Within some leafy forest nook,
All cool, and green, and still:
Or homeward as they went along,
Sing of his own some artless song.

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Such were the well-remembered themes
That told him of the past,
And well might these recurring dreams
Some shade of sadness cast:
Those hearts whose strong affections cling
Too closely round some blessed thing,
Too often bleed at last,
When death comes near the stricken heart,
To tear its dearest ties apart.

True Poet! touch thy harp again,
As was thy wont of yore;
Its voice will charm the sting of pain,
As it hath done before:
Husband, subdue a mother's sorrow,—
Father, expect a brighter morrow,
And nurse thy grief no more;
Man, bow thee to the chastening rod,
And put thy holiest trust in God!

164

LYRICS FOR THE PEOPLE.

No. I. “LET THE BOISTEROUS BACCHANAL.”

Let the boisterous Bacchanal sing of his bowl,
That blight of the body, that scourge of the soul;
Let the libertine boast of the wreck he hath made,—
Of the hearts he hath tempted, and won, and betrayed;
Let the soldier exult o'er the blood-seeking sword,
Though his deeds have by thousands been cursed and deplored:
Be mine the proud pleasure to weave at command,
A song for the poor of my own fatherland.

Let the tyrant send forth his iniquitous law,
To insult the sad millions, and keep them in awe;
Although it were wiser to govern and guide
By justice and love, than oppression and pride;
Let a self-seeking priesthood preach patience to man,
Though to “reck their own rede” be no part of their plan:
Be mine the proud glory to weave at command,
A song for the poor of my own fatherland.

Let the venal bard flatter, and court the caress
Of “the minions of splendour who shrink from distress;”
Let him turn from the lowly, and shut from his songs
Their faith and affections, their rights and their wrongs;
Let him cling to the mighty, and flutter his hour
In the warm smile of plenty, the sunshine of power;
Be mine the proud duty to weave at command,
A song for the poor of my own fatherland.

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No. II. “MAN OF TOIL.”

Man of Toil, wouldst thou be free?
Lend thine ear to Reason's call;
There's folly in the Drunkard's glee—
There's madness in the midnight brawl;
The ribald jest, the vulgar song,
May give a keener sting to care;
The riot of a reckless throng
May lead to ruin and despair:
Let Truth unloose thy fettered soul,—
There is no freedom in the bowl.

Man of Toil, wouldst thou be wise?
The paths of moral right explore;
Pierce the human heart's disguise,
And track its motives to the core;
Creation's boundless beauties scan,
Observe its wonders—search its laws;
Look on the vast, harmonious plan,
And learn to love the Eternal Cause:
Let Truth illume thy darkened soul,—
There is no wisdom in the bowl.

Man of Toil, wouldst thou be blest?
Give thy purest feelings play;

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Bring all that's noble to thy breast,
Let all that's worthless pass away.
Let generous deeds bid sorrow cease,
Let gentlest words thy lips employ;
Scatter the seeds of love and peace,
And reap a harvest full of joy:
Let Truth make glad thy harassed soul—
There are no blessings in the bowl.

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No. III. “THERE IS BEAUTY ON EARTH.”

There is beauty on earth, wheresoever our eyes
May rest on the wonders that tell of a God;
For glory and grandeur look down from the skies,
And loveliness breathes from the streamlet and sod;
But, alas for the poor! they are grievously blind
To the charms which have lived since creation begun;
For sorrow and ignorance brood o'er the mind,
As the shadows of winter brood over the sun.

There is plenty on earth; for the soil that we tread,
In reward of our labour, is sterile no more;
The broad lands are laden with fruitage and bread,
That all may sit down and partake of the store;
But, alas for the poor! they may plant, they may sow,
They may gather the grain, and the tillage renew,
But the blessings which God hath seen good to bestow,
Are torn from the millions to pamper the few.

There is freedom on earth; for a thousand glad wings
In ecstasy sweep o'er the mountains and plains;
The light from its fountain spontaneously springs,—
The winds have no fetters, the waters no chains;

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But, alas for the poor! they are shackled through life,
They are bondsmen in word, and in action the same;
They are wed to the curse of toil, famine, and strife,
And a hope for the future is all they can claim.

A voice speaks within me I cannot control,
Which tells of a time when these ills shall depart:
When knowledge shall win its bright way to the soul,
And beauty, like music, shall soften the heart;
When plenty shall wait on the labours of all,
And pleasure, with purity, sweeten each hour;
When freedom shall spurn degradation and thrall,
And man rise exulting in virtue and power!

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No. IV. “SAD AND SICK UNTO DEATH.”

Sad and sick unto death, on his pallet reclining,
A pauper of England was heard to deplore;
The last beam of day on his pale cheek was shining,
From the sun whose return he might never see more.
No child to receive his last blessing was near him,—
No wife of his bosom to comfort and cheer him;
No kinsman to pity, no friend to revere him,
And smooth the rough way to a happier shore.

“Oh! Sons of my Country! forsaken I leave ye,
Let the lips of a dying man bid ye beware;
Of freedom and bread cruel men would bereave ye,
And force ye to struggle with famine and care.
Be brave, in the name of your fathers before ye,—
Be wise, for the sake of yourselves, I implore ye,—
Let hope and endeavour combine to restore ye
Those rights which ye plead for, but plead in despair.

“I look back to childhood, when life was a pleasure,
And health and enjoyment came pure from above;
I look back to youth, when I found a new treasure
In the fair form of woman, who taught me to love;
I look back to manhood, when, fearing to sever,
I plighted my faith to my Mary for ever,
And strove, by unceasing and honest endeavour,
The joys of a husband and father to prove.

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“My cottage looked out on the meadows and mountains,
Where the odours of Summer came rich on the breeze;
My gardens were watered by Nature's own fountains;
I had kine in my pastures, and fruit on my trees:
My home was a heaven of domestic affection—
Even now there is joy in the sweet recollection—
And the dear ones who looked for my love and protection,
In dutiful fondness encircled my knees.

“But, alas! in a moment of strife and distraction,
My blessings were banished, my visions o'erblown;
My country was raging with tumult and faction,
And Anarchy threatened the cottage and throne:
The sweet dove of Peace on her olive lay bleeding,—
Stern fathers were cursing, sad mothers were pleading;
But the Lords of Oppression turned cold and unheeding
From thousands whom hunger had worn to the bone.

“Then the Angel of Death brooded over my dwelling,
Where poverty reigned with perpetual gloom;
No tears could I shed, though my torn heart was swelling,
As my children were borne, one by one, to the tomb.
My wife mourned aloud with a mother's fond madness,
But her grief was subdued into silence and sadness,
Till her spirit was called to the regions of gladness,
And mine left alone to its desolate doom.

“Forlorn in the wide world, and weary with anguish,—
Expelled from the home which my forefathers gave,
I sought the sad spot where I now lie and languish,
From the stern laws of England a deathbed to crave.
I go to a land where no care can distress me,
Where no sorrow can come, where no power can oppress me,—
Where the beings I loved will receive me and bless me,—
Oh! God of the lowly! I pine for the grave!”

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No. V. “SONS OF MY MOTHER, ENGLAND.”

Sons of my mother, England,
List to the voice of song,
And turn from that degrading path
Which ye have trod so long;
Shake off that mental slavery
Which lays your manhood low;—
Up! awake! for Freedom's sake,
As through the world ye go;
Lift up your faces from the dust,
As through the world ye go.

Sons of my mother, England,
I feel a pang of pain,
That ye should breathe the bondsman's sigh,
And wear the bondsman's chain;
That ye should seek, 'mid scenes of sin,
A refuge from your woe,—
Still to bear the sting of care,
As through the world ye go,
And toil through life for bitter bread,
As through the world ye go.

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Sons of my mother, England,
I know ye are oppressed;
But let not vengeance fire the soul,
Nor burn within the breast;
Let wiser thoughts, let higher deeds,
Let milder language flow,
Nor cherish strife, the bane of life,
As through the world ye go;
But walk with hope and charity,
As through the world ye go.

Sons of my mother, England,
Ye have unconquered been,
On deadly War's unhallowed ground,
'Mid many a fearful scene;—
A nobler warfare ye must wage
With many a subtle foe,
If ye would rise more free and wise,
As through the world ye go,
And with a bloodless banner march,
As through the world ye go.

Sons of my mother, England,
Brave deeds must yet be done;
But 'tis not by man's strength of arm,
That liberty is won;
But ye must bear unclouded minds,
And hearts with love that glow;
And truth must guide your steps of pride,
As through the world ye go,
And shine your constant beacon fire,
As through the world ye go.

Sons of my mother, England,
Girt with her wall of waves,

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Let not your fair and fruitful soil
Give birth to future slaves:
Arise with God-like energy,
Each lingering curse o'erthrow,
And firmly stand by fatherland,
As through the world ye go,
For hearth and home, for each and all,
As through the world ye go.

Sons of my mother, England,
The worst will soon be past,
For Knowledge from a thousand springs
Is pouring pure and fast;
The star of Freedom soon shall burn,
With wider, brighter glow,
And ye shall be the blest and free,
As through the world ye go,—
A mighty and enlightened race,
As through the world ye go.

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No. VI. “OH! DESPISE NOT MY HARP.”

Oh! despise not my harp,—I have cherished it long,
And its voice hath been hailed by the lovers of song;
It hath been my best solace 'mid labour and care,
And strengthened my soul in the hour of despair:
It hath wakened the spirit of love in my heart,
And raised me bright dreams which can never depart;
But, better than all, from my morning of youth,
It hath sounded for freedom and pleaded for truth.

It hath said to the rich—“Ye are wealthy and great,—
Oh! scorn not the thousands of lowly estate;
For the treasures ye hold, and the powers ye possess,
Were lent you to soften the woes of distress:
A bountiful Providence put you in trust,—
As His stewards on earth be ye gentle and just!
And still let this beautiful truth be believed,
That ‘a blessing bestowed is a blessing received.’”

It hath said to the poor—“Ye are feeble and frail,
And well may the hand of oppression prevail,
For passion and ignorance rule ye in turn,
As with sadness ye droop, as with anger ye burn:
Indeed ye have sorrows, and heavy ones, too,
And a feeling of wrong which ye cannot subdue;

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Let me teach ye to hope and prepare for the day,
When your chains shall be broken, your griefs pass away.”

Thus singeth my harp,—thus it ever shall sing,
To the lord and the peasant, the priest and the king;
And though it may pour out its breathings in vain,
It shall never relapse into silence again:
Till the breast of the bondsman with liberty thrill,
The harp of the poet should never be still;
And mine, while the fire in my soul shall endure,
Shall respond unto all that may plead for the poor.

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No. VII. “LET US DRINK TO THE BARDS.”

Let us drink to the Bards of our own native land,
The inspired, the humane, and the brave,
Who have touched the loud lyre with so mighty a hand,
That it thrills through the soul of the slave;
In the army of truth they have marched in the van,
A gifted and glorious band:—
Come, bring me the wine, let me drink like a man,
To the Bards of my dear native land.

When Shakespeare came down, like a god from the skies,
Such a light from his spirit he cast,
That he startled the world into love and surprise,
And quenched many stars of the past:
Every passion that sleeps in the depths of the mind
He hath melted and moved at command;—
Let us drink to the best of our country and kind,—
The Bards of our dear native land.

Then Milton arose, like a rocket of fire,
When the nation was buried in gloom,
And the garland he wreathed with the strings of the lyre,
Wore the hues of celestial bloom:
For freedom and glory, for virtue and truth,
He flung the proud tones from his hand:—

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Let us drink to the sons of perpetual youth,—
The Bards of our dear native land.

There was Burns, who hath hallowed the mountains and streams,—
There was Byron, the stern and the strong;
There was Shelley, who lived in the purest of dreams,
There is Moore, the unshackled in song;
All, all have combined, with a wonderful power,
The heart and the soul to expand:—
Let us drink to the heirs of a heavenly dower,—
The Bards of our dear native land.

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No. VIII. “THE PEN AND THE PRESS.”

Young Genius walked out by the mountains and streams,
Entranced by the power of his own pleasant dreams,
Till the silent, the wayward, the wandering thing,
Found a plume that had dropped from a passing bird's wing:
Exulting and proud, like a boy at his play,
He bore the new prize to his dwelling away;
He gazed for awhile on its beauties, and then
He cut it, and shaped it, and called it a Pen.

But its magical use he discovered not yet,
Till he dipped its bright lips in a fountain of jet;
And, Oh! what a glorious thing it became,
For it spoke to the world in a language of flame;
While its master wrote on like a being inspired,
Till the hearts of the millions were melted or fired;
It came as a boon and a blessing to men,—
The peaceful, the pure, the victorious Pen!

Young Genius went forth on his rambles once more,
The vast, sunless caverns of earth to explore;
He searched the rude rock, and with rapture he found
A substance unknown, which he brought from the ground;

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He fused it with fire, and rejoiced at the change,
As he moulded the ore into characters strange,
Till his thoughts and his efforts were crowned with success,
For an engine uprose, and he called it a Press!

The Pen and the Press, blest alliance! combined
To soften the heart and enlighten the mind;
For that to the treasures of Knowledge gave birth,
And this sent them forth to the ends of the earth;
Their battles for truth were triumphant indeed,
And the rod of the tyrant was snapped like a reed;
They were made to exalt us, to teach us, to bless,
Those invincible brothers, the Pen and the Press!

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POEMS PUBLISHED IN 1842.

183

LINES

RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED TO THE VIRTUOUS AND PATRIOTIC WIVES AND MOTHERS OF ENGLAND.

Daughters of England! forms of love and grace,
Warmed with compassion for a suffering race,
You leave your household pleasures for a while,
The child's companionship—the husband's smile,
To show your hatred of oppressive laws,
To lift your banner in a holy cause,
To lend your mild endeavours to secure
Bread to the hungry—justice to the poor!
Spirits of pity, you were ever prone
To make another's sorrows all your own,
And with a feeling, sacred and sincere,
To soothe and strengthen, sympathise and cheer!
Go forth and triumph in this stirring hour,
Strong in your weakness, gentle in your power!

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Go forth, ye beings, kindred to divine,
And proudly prosper in your task benign!
Go forth, a faithful and angelic band,
And wake the grateful voice of every groaning land!

Manchester, January 7, 1842.

185

ANTI-CORN-LAW LYRIC.

Hark! a nation's suppliant cry
Goeth upward to the sky—
“Give us bread!”
While those who spurn that nation's weal
With stubborn souls and hearts of steel,
Disdain to heed the wild appeal—
“Give us bread!”

Does the God of Justice sleep
While His children wail and weep?—
“Give us bread!”
He sends the soft and summer rain
To feed and fertilise the plain;
Does He work such good in vain?—
“Give us bread!”

No! from His unshaken throne
He hears, and He will help his own:—
“Give us bread!”
Against the oppressors of the land
The Lord shall lift His mighty hand,
Till they shall feel and understand—
“Oh, give us bread!”

February 2, 1842.

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TO AN EARLY PRIMROSE.

RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED TO THE COMPANION OF MY WALK, J. HILL, ESQ.

Young herald of the spring, pale Primrose flower,
Peering so sweetly from the frozen earth,
Why art thou blooming in this sunless hour,
When not a daisy in the field or bower
Hath sprung to birth;—
When Nature sleepeth in her wintry thrall,
Leafless, and verdureless, and silent all?

Thy stainless sister, Snowdrop, is not here,
Though called the earliest of thy fragrant race;
Upon the stormy threshold of the year
None of thy kindred venture to appear
With new-born grace,
Lest the keen frost-wind, with remorseless breath,
Should blow into their hearts the seeds of death.

No lark is chanting o'er the lonely hill,
No thrush is piping in the sheltered vale;
The streams are voiceless, and the silvery rill,
Which seems to quiver, stands subdued and still,
Beneath the gale;

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There is no motion in the tenderest trees,
And the frail bulrush bends not to the breeze.

The buds are yet in embryo; the light
Hath brought no vernal promise to the thorn;
The fields are shrouded in resplendent white,
And in this solemn time—half day, half night—
Follows the morn;
A cold, grey sky bends o'er the barren plain,
And the blind sun looks from his throne in vain.

Welcome thou art, though, like a poor man's child,
Brought without joy into a home of gloom;
'Mid mournful sounds and tearful tempests wild,
Thou comest forth, fresh, fair, and undefiled,
From Nature's womb,
Baring thy breast to the inclement sky,
To brave its storms, or prematurely die.

Gazing on thee, association brings
A thousand golden intervals of time,
A thousand pleasant, unforgotten things,
Which Memory colours with her magic wings,
Bright and sublime;—
Old loves and friendships, happy hearts and faces,
Old songs and tales, and old romantic places.

I feel thy breath, and Fancy leads the way
To many a solitude of youthful choice,
Where the glad lark, his tribute hymn to pay,
Hails the Aurora of returning day
With merry voice,
When the faint starlight of the night-time yields
To the sweet floral starlight of the fields.

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Green forest haunts come back to me, where I
Feasted my soul with man's immortal words;
And winding lanes, where dewy roses sigh
Their odours out to breezes passing by,—
Where happy birds
Sing to the sparkling waters, as they creep
Brightly and blithely, onward to the deep.

I hear the voice of children at their play,
Gathering sweet garlands from the hedge-row side;
I hear the talk of lovers as they stray,
Absorbed in joy, along some bowery way
Or valley wide,
Earnest but soft, with frequent pause they speak,
While blushes mantle on the maiden's cheek.

Fair, fragrant promiser of brighter hours,
Like Hope, thou smilest on my weary eye;—
Fairer, because the firstling of the flowers,—
Dearer, because a shade of sadness lowers
Along the sky,—
Richer, because thou teachest from the sod,
A lore which lifts my musings unto God!

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ON QUITTING NORTH WALES.

Farewell, proud region, where the living God
Hath built a temple for the human heart
To worship in, sincerely: I have trod—
From cloudy towns and fretful men apart—
Thine aisles of majesty: in truth thou art
A vast cathedral, where devotion springs
In feelings, not in words. Thou dost impart
Sublimest doctrines by sublimest things:
The mountains are thy priesthood—Snowdon flings
A silent language from his awful face;
Prayer goeth up from streams—the cataract sings
Incessant anthems to the Throne of Grace;
And I have lingered in thy fane to feel
The Eternal's Presence o'er my spirit steal!

190

STANZAS,

WRITTEN AFTER A WINTER'S WALK IN THE COUNTRY.

Once more, old trees, I seek your solemn shades,
And pensive trample on your fallen leaves:
But, as I pierce your patriarchal glades,
Mythoughts are chastened, and remembrance grieves—
Grieves for the precious but departed hours
Which I have spent away from your embracing bowers.

Sadness is sitting on your boughs, old trees,
Tossed by the blast, and beaten by the rain;
But summer sunlight and the summer breeze
Shall bring your sylvan majesty again;—
So may the renovating hand of Time
Give to my broken mind its former strength and prime!

Bright waters of the solitude, I come
To catch your silvery voices as they flow;
But Frost hath walked upon ye,—ye are dumb,
Sleeping beneath a coverlet of snow;
Your flowers are withered, and your waves at rest,
Your springs of gladness closed, like those within my breast.

But southern airs shall melt your icy sleep,
And send ye singing on your devious way,
And bright, fresh verdure to your sides shall creep,

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And flowers bend listening to your liquid lay;—
May my lorn soul throw off its pall of gloom,
And rise, renewed in power, from Care's oppressive tomb!

All shapes of Nature! ye are wondrous fair,
And ever soothing to my aching mind,
Although I see you cold, unsunned, and bare,
Shorn of your glories by the boreal wind;
Your very silence is a voice, a tone
Of purity and peace, which comes from God alone.

In the dark labyrinths of yonder town,
I feel, alas! that I have stayed too long,
Bringing my soul's proud aspirations down,
By unsubstantial revelry and song;
But now, kind Nature! like a wayward child,
Weary I turn to thee for pleasures undefiled.

What is the voice of Flattery to me,
If it withdraw me from exalted things?
Would we admire the lark's melodious glee,
Yet dispossess him of his skyward wings?
Alas! we pluck the wild-flower with a smile,
Inhale its fragrant breath, but stain its leaves the while!

Let me resume my long-neglected lyre,
The purest solace of my earlier days;
And, if my soul retain that spark of fire
Which gave me poesy and won me praise,
Let me improve the “faculty divine,”
And snatch a wreath from Fame's imperishable shrine.

Manchester.

192

LINES ON SEEING A PICTURE.

I saw two sisters,
The semblance of two lovely human fays,
Which the bold hand of Genius had thrown
Upon the canvas in a happy hour.
On one ten springs had shed their light and bloom,
And seven had waked the other into joy.
Like tendrils on one parent stem, they twined
Their snowy arms around each other's neck,
In gentle dalliance, while their silken locks,
Like waves of amber, on their shoulders fell
In beautiful luxuriance. Some strange thing
Had made them glad, for they were laughing both.
Both faces had a merry look, but each
In mirth's expression differed from the other:
The elder sister's joy seemed uncontrolled,—
For her wild soul sent out its silvery laugh,
Like a full fountain bubbling o'er in music:
The younger elf, with arch and sidelong glance,
And dimpled cheek, was laughing to herself;
Her gladness was not boisterous, but spoke
Mutely but mirthfully in her bright eye,
Her lifted finger, and her cherry lip,
Like some clear well, which sounds not though it shine.

I saw the father of these little dames
Stand with his arms enfolded on his breast,

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Gazing on these his blessed ones, and long,
With earnest scrutiny and inward pride—
(A holy pride, which fathers only feel!)—
Scan every single feature, while his soul
Seemed to absorb their every line and hue.
After a time, I saw his restless lip
Tremble with deep emotion, and a tear
Drop as a witness of the painter's power.
That tear—that one most sweet and eloquent tear—
Reminded me of home and home's affections,—
Of lips which sent their blessings for my weal,
Though far away—of eyes which looked and wept,—
Of hearts which sighed, and ached for my return;
And as I thought, I melted like a child!

“A Portrait of Two Sisters,” by Mr. Hill, Birmingham.

194

TO THE FALL OF THE SWALLOW,

NORTH WALES.

Fall of the Swallow, whose impetuous stream
Sends its astounding voice adown the glen,
A wandering truant from the haunts of men
Comes to behold thy glory, and to dream
An hour within thy presence. Noon's bright beam
In broken splendour sparkles on thy breast,
As if to charm thee from thy wild unrest,
And soothe thee into quiet. Thou dost seem
A mighty prophet in the wilderness,
Placed here to awe, to dazzle, and to bless
With high and holy mysteries. I deem
Thou art a priest within this lonely bower,
Teaching the love of God, His wisdom, and His power!

195

SONNET

WRITTEN IN THE CASTLE OF CAERNARVON.

How glorious is thy fall, rich summer's day!
How deeply tender is thy dying hour!
Lonely I linger on this crumbling tower,
And watch with silent joy thy sweet decay.
Upon the blushing bosom of the bay
Thy last kiss trembles, and the clouds that lie
In beautiful disorder round the sky
Absorb the latest vestige of thy ray.
But now the chill of twilight doth betray
The coming of the night;—yon mountain range
Hath put the garb of darkness on;—a change
Creeps o'er the deepening waters. Who may say
How many griefs, or hopes, or dreams sublime
Awake the human soul in this mysterious time!

196

VERSES,

SUGGESTED BY THE RHAIDR MAWR; OR, THE GREAT WATERFALL, IN THE VALE OF CONWAY.

Thou splendid thing of beauty and of power,
Fed by the mountain rill—the fitful shower,
From spring to winter, and from day to day;
Fain would I build me a domestic bower,
Where I might share love, solitude, and thee,
From toilsome cities and their vices free,
And far away!

Thy voice came to me as I mused below,
Where silvery Conway's tranquil billows flow
Through the rich windings of his fair domain;
And I have laboured up the hill to know
Thine awful features, and to rest awhile,
My world-afflicted spirit to beguile
From care and pain.

I see thee, hear thee, feel thee, but thy face
Hath more of rugged grandeur than of grace,
Which fills the soul and fascinates the eye;
And as I linger in thy “pride of place”
'Tis sweet to watch thee in thy motions stern
Sprinkle with constant baptism the fern
That trembles by.

At first, soft, warbling like a summer bird,
Gushing from verdant darkness, thou art heard,
Falling like strings of pearl from many a steep;

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But soon thy tall and tearful trees are stirred
By the rough chidings of thy waters hoarse,
Which, waxing wilder in their downward course,
Flash, writhe, and leap.

And now I see thee boiling, bounding under
Umbrageous arches, and I hear thy thunder,
As fierce thou fallest from thy rock of pride!
Anon, escaping from thy home of wonder
By channels branching down the mountain's breast,
Thou findest, after all thy troubles, rest
In Conway's tide.

So have I travelled o'er the waste of life
A weary journey, with afflictions rife,
Which stung and tortured me along the way;
But after waging this unequal strife,
May I go down in quietude, like thee,
And find, in regions which I cannot see,
A calmer day!

Yet thou art beautiful, in spite of all
Which waits to hold thee in unwelcome thrall,
Or break the even course of thy career:
The mixed complainings of thy frequent fall,
Thy stern impatience of the rifted rock,
And thine impetuous plunge and startling shock,
Have brought me here.

Even so it seemeth with the child of song,
His very fretfulness doth make him strong—
Awaking fancies which he must reveal;
And as he strives with wretchedness and wrong,
Enduring agony without a choice,
He gains a power, a grandeur, and a voice
Which myriads feel!

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AN EVENING SONG.

'Tis wearing late, 'tis wearing late, I hear the vesper bell,
And o'er yon misty hill the sun hath looked a bright farewell;
The bee is in its honey-home, the bird is in its nest,
And every living being yearns for solace and for rest;
The household gathers round the hearth, and loving souls draw near,—
Young mothers rock, young mothers rock, oh, rock your children dear!

It is the hour, the happy hour, when I was wont to be
Hushed to a calm and blessed sleep upon my mother's knee,
While she would sing with voice subdued, and ever tuneful tongue,
Some well-remembered melody, some old and simple song;
And sometimes on my cheek would fall affection's holy tear,—
Young mothers rock, young mothers rock, oh, rock your children dear!

It is the heart-awakening time when breezes rock the rose,
Which drooping folds its vermeil leaves in Nature's soft repose,
And silvery-winged butterflies, in field or garden fair,
Are swinging in their dewy beds by every passing air;

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And birds are rocked in cradles green, till morning's hues appear,
Young mothers rock, young mothers rock, oh, rock your children dear!

The star-engirdled moon looks down, and sees her welcome beam
Rocked on the undulating breast of ocean, lake, and stream;
And mariners, who love her light, are rocked by wave and wind,
Pining for home and all its joys which they have left behind,
Till Hope's sweet sunshine comes again their sickening souls to cheer,—
Young mothers rock, young mothers rock, oh, rock your children dear!

Oh! it would be a pleasant thing, had we the will and power,
To change the present for the past, and fly to childhood's hour;
To seek old haunts, to hear old tales, resume our former play,—
To live in joyous innocence but one, one little day—
Oh! that would be a precious pause on life's unknown career—
Young mothers rock, young mothers rock, oh, rock your children dear!

200

SONG.

I have rarely sung of Love—
Cherished being of my soul!
Yet that blessing from above
Holds me in its sweet control:
How can I give fitting voice
To a passion so divine?
'Tis enough that I rejoice
That thou art mine—thou art mine.

I have worshipped Beauty's form,
I have wooed as others woo,
Perchance with words less wild and warm,
But with feelings quite as true;
How often have I lingered, dear,
With my fond heart pressed to thine,
And whispered in thy willing ear—
Thou art mine—thou art mine.

Then our divided lot became
Mingled in a world of care,
We had one wish, one life, one name—
Of joy and grief an equal share;
And after sorrow, deep and long,
Our love hath never known decline,
For I can say, in truthful song,
“Thou art mine—thou art mine.”

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THE BANKS OF CONWAY.

I lay me down to rest awhile
Upon thy banks, sweet Conway!
While summer evening's golden smile
Sleeps on thy waves, sweet Conway!
I lay me down beside thy stream,
To revel in the realms of dream,
Or mourn o'er many a ruined scheme,
Far from thy banks, sweet Conway!

The lark still lingers in the sky,
Above thy banks, sweet Conway!
And drops his image from on high,
Upon thy breast, sweet Conway!
The thrush still singeth from the shade,
The cuckoo answers from the glade,
And every bird for music made
Is on thy banks, sweet Conway!

Yon castle's clustered turrets frown
Beside thy brink, sweet Conway!
And send their feudal shadows down
Upon thy face, sweet Conway!
Their ancient reign of strength is o'er,
Their regal splendours are no more,
But thou hast yet the charms of yore—
Upon thy banks, sweet Conway!

202

I've seen the Thames' vast waters flow,—
They're not like thine, sweet Conway!
I've seen the Seine meandering go,
Yet not like thee, sweet Conway!
And, save the blue and storied Rhine,
No waters may compare with thine,
For Nature's beauties all combine—
Upon thy banks, sweet Conway!

There are vast mountains, stern and drear,
Upon thy banks, sweet Conway!
And broken fountains, grand and clear,
Upon thy banks, sweet Conway!
And there are wild-woods, rich and green,
And broad lands, sunny and serene,
And many a happy home between—
Upon thy banks, sweet Conway!

Lo! yonder is thy “mother Sea,”
Whose arms embrace thee, Conway!
And glorious must that mother be
Whose arms embrace thee, Conway!
The clouds will take thee up in rain,
And pour thee on the earth again,
To wander through each vale and plain
That blooms around thee, Conway?

Oh! for a pure and tranquil life
Upon thy banks, sweet Conway!
Afar from towns of sin and strife,
Upon thy banks, sweet Conway!
With one unchanged companion nigh,
To watch me with affection's eye,
How calmly could I live and die
Upon thy banks, sweet Conway!

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Oh! that the world might hear my name
Beyond thy banks, sweet Conway!
And the enchanting voice of fame
Float o'er thy waters, Conway!
Oh! that the great, the good, the brave
Might come to muse beside thy wave,
And bend above my simple grave
Upon thy banks, sweet Conway!

The sun is down, the birds are still
Upon thy banks, sweet Conway!
The mist is creeping up the hill,
Upon thy banks, sweet Conway!
The waning of another day
Will see me musing far away,
No more in happy thought to stray
Upon thy banks, sweet Conway!

204

STANZAS

SUGGESTED AT THE GRAVE OF SHAKESPEARE.

Once mortal here, but now Immortal One,
Thou great and glorious favourite of Fame,
Thoughtful I stand upon thy grave alone,
Tranced by the mighty magic of thy name;
Filled with a slender portion of thy flame,
Hither, a pilgrim, I have proudly sped,
To linger for a brief but happy space
About the genius-hallowed resting-place
Of England's honoured Dead.

King of the poet's fair, ideal land!
Thou of my country's stars the brightest, best!
I scarce believe me that I waking stand
Where thy far-worshipped relics calmly rest;
But yet this stone, these graven words, attest
That he whose voice hath charmed me, slumbers near;
And truly I rejoice that I am come,
A lonely wanderer from my northern home,
To pay my homage here.

When I was yet a simple-hearted boy,
I heard men whisper of thy wondrous powers;
And it became with me a cherished joy
To ponder o'er thy page in after hours,—
To bathe my spirit in the genial showers

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Of splendour shaken from thy meteor pen;
To fly with thee on Fancy's vagrant wings,
Beyond the reach, the stain of earthly things,
And earthly-minded men.

I've laughed and mused, I've talked and wept with thee,
Drunk with the kindling essence of thy lore,
Until my inmost heart hath seemed to be
With every happier feeling gushing o'er;
And thoughts which slumbered in my soul before
Have sprung to blessed being fast and bright;
And visions wild, tumultuous, and strange,
With constant beauty and with constant change,
Have thrilled me with delight.

Thy worldly wisdom hath great lessons taught;
Thy playful wit hath cleared the brow of care;
Thy stormy grief hath many a wonder wrought;
Thy joy hath conquered e'en the fiend Despair;
Thy power hath laid the hidden secrets bare
Of every human passion, good or ill,
And mingled thousands in thy presence placed,
Who feel by thy gigantic arm embraced,
Are creatures of thy will.

Some look for glory in the fields of strife,
The fools and followers of unholy war,
And some get foremost in the march of life,
Because self-chained to Mammon's golden car;
But thou art higher, greater, nobler far
Than all who seek such false and vain renown;
Thy name shall brighten on from age to age,
But theirs shall keep no place on Memory's page,
For Time will tread them down.

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Thou shouldst be sleeping on that lonely isle
Where banished Prospero was wizard king;
Where sweet Miranda gently did beguile
Her father's sorrows, like some holy thing;
There, through the sunny hours should Ariel sing
Melodious requiems above thy tomb;
And troops of midnight fays should gather round,
To brush the dews from off the moonlit ground,
And scatter buds of bloom.

No gaudy temple, reared by mortal might,
Should rise around that sacred dust of thine;
No arch, save that which God hath filled with light,
With suns that burn, and stars that coldly shine.
The simple sod should be thine only shrine;
And proud green trees which whisper as they wave—
But argosies from every land should sweep
Athwart the silvery bosom of the deep,
With pilgrims to thy grave.

I leave thee to thy slumbers; I must go
Back to the struggles of my adverse lot,
To feel the nameless agonies that flow
From a cold world which understands me not.
Greater than I may linger on this spot,
Of many a language, and of many a shore;
Some other bard of loftier mind may raise
A song more sweet, more lasting, in thy praise,—
But none can love thee more!

207

THE MOUNTAIN SPRING.

Alone I lingered at the rocky foot
Of Snowdon's throne—Snowdon, the awful king
Of Cambria's mountain realm,—and as I gazed
With longing eyes upon his cloudy crown,
I yearned, with feelings strong as they were strange,
To plant my daring foot upon his head
Of glory and sublimity. The wish
Inspired me with the power, and I prepared
With an enthusiast's ardour, to explore
The solitudes of mystery and might.

Wild was the way, and weary was the steep,
Up which I travelled with a tardy pace;
The sun shone fiercely in the summer sky,
And scarce the mountain winds could temper down
His sultry splendour. As I upward strained,
My brow was beaded with the dews of toil;
My tongue was wordless with increasing thirst,
Yet not a rill, or stream, or shaded well
Was seen to twinkle in the burning light.
Yet was the mind the conqueror; my dreams
Sustained and strengthened me along the way
Of savage desolation, till the crown,
The peaked, fantastic crown, on Snowdon's brow,
Loomed sternly, darkly in the azure air,
And lent new vigour to my panting heart.

A moment's rest, a moment's wildering thought,

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A moment's look upon the world below,
And up I bounded with renewed delight,
To end my toilsome task. More wild and steep,
More terrible and strange, more silent yet,
Became the scene of grandeur I had sought;
And as I gained the goal of my desires,—
The utmost summit of the place of storms,
The highest stone in Cambria's magic land,
The granite diadem on Snowdon's head,—
A whirl of wonder and a gush of joy,
A mingled sense of terror and of love,
Came o'er my soul, and, languid as a child,
I sat in speechless ecstasy and awe!

I may not tell, in this imperfect strain,
The things I felt, the glories I beheld,
In this transcendent solitude; a pen
Dipped in a fountain of celestial fire,
And wielded by an angel's mystic hand,
Might fail in fitting language to convey
To mortal ear the feelings of my heart,
Or paint the matchless majesty that reigns
In this enchanting corner of the world.

Thirsting and faint, and feeble with excess
Of pleasure and amazement, I essayed
To find some herb wherewith to cool my lips,
And stay the pangs of agonising thirst.
Long was my search in vain; a scanty grass,
Brown, dry, and seared, was all I found,—anon
A line of glittering moisture on the stones
Caught my expectant eye; soon, soon I traced
The silvery promise to its source, and lo!
A cool delicious spring, a tiny well,
Scarce broader than a maiden's looking-glass,
Displayed its crystal bosom to my sight,

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And wooed my willing lip. With eager haste
I stooped to quaff its nectar, while a thrill
Of exquisite delight ran through my veins,
Imparting strength and gladness. On its brink
I sat, exulting in my loneliness,
Feeding my soul with poesy. Afar
The dim blue circle of the level sea
Zoned the unbounded prospect: lakes and streams,
Gleaming and glittering in the valleys fair,
Mixed in the mighty picture; mountains vast,
Enclosing regions sterile, dark, and stern,
Bristled on every side, as if the world,
Tortured and tossed, like tempest-trodden waves,
To fury inconceivable, had turned
To sudden stone,—a monument of power
Built by the Eternal's wonder-working hand!
Soft snatches of green field, of waving wood,
Of human-dwelling-places, towns, and towers,
And corn-producing plains, filled up the whole,
Leaving an impress on my mind and heart
Which time can never weaken or destroy!

Another draught from the inspiring spring,
And I descended from the silent height
Of storm-defying Snowdon; as I went,
Grateful for dangers past, for beauties won,
For toils accomplished, and for pleasures felt,
In fancy then, but since in feeble words,
I sang the tiny Fountain of the Wild:—

“Well of the Mountain Wild! I leave thee now,
No more to linger by thy crystal side:
No more to stand upon thy father's brow,
Who owns a kingdom wonderful and wide;

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Yet I would help thee to a far renown,
Thou brightest gem on Snowdon's awful crown!

“Other fair scenes may lure me from my home,
Other bright springs may tempt me to partake;
But wheresoe'er my vagrant feet may roam,
Still will I love thee for thy own sweet sake,
For thou didst soothe my painful fever down,
Thou brightest gem on Snowdon's barren crown!

“Thou art old giant Snowdon's tranquil eye!—
His one unsleeping eye without a veil,
Gazing for ever on the changeful sky,
To watch the clouds career before the gale;
Undimmed by lightning or the tempest's frown,
Thou art a gem on Snowdon's lonely crown!

“It were, indeed, a joy by thee to rest,
In calm companionship throughout the night,
While the sweet dew-stars slumbered on thy breast,
And the mild moon beheld her own pure light,
Until the dawn sent kindling glory down,
To wake thy smiles, rich gem on Snowdon's crown!

“By many a wanderer thy place and name
Are known and sought, as they shall ever be;
To other men thy freshness and thy fame
Shall go abroad, till they shall come to thee
From plain and glen, from hamlet and from town
Thou brightest gem on Snowdon's awful crown!”

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THE STUDENT OF NATURE.

A FRAGMENT.

Books are a blessed dower, when they enshrine
Thoughts, words, and feelings of immortal men;—
Gushes of glory from a fount divine,
Flashes of freedom from the chainless pen;
Mirrors of mental light, condensed and strong,
Pure treasures of philosophy and song;
Records of truth which all should understand,
Voices of wisdom heard in every land:
I have a passion for each page of power,
And love to try its spells at midnight's quiet hour!

But my chief study is in Nature's halls,
For ever fair, magnificent, sublime;
The everlasting mountains are its walls,
Which rarely shrink beneath the touch of time.
Pictured with clouds that o'er its surface roam,
Its ceiling is vast heaven's eternal dome;
By day sun-lit with splendour, and by night
Hung with a myriad lamps of never-dying light.

My study hath an ever-open door,
Stretching away from golden east to west;
It hath a broad and variegated floor,
The loveliest human foot hath ever pressed;

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'Tis pranked with flowers of every form and hue,
Woven with streams of living crystal through;
Studded with silvery lakes and shadowy woods,
Glassed with the green expanse of Ocean's restless floods!

On every spot beneath the embracing skies,
In every season, and in every place,
Some page of beauty lingers on my eyes,
A blending of sublimity and grace;
Some living odour hangs upon the air,
From clustered leaves, fresh herbs, and blossoms fair;
Tones of strange melody, from sources dim,
Mingle to greet me with a choral hymn;
All air-born sounds, birds, bees, and gushing springs,
Breathe to my listening soul a thousand happy things!

If I go down to the unconquered deep,
On the frail ship where man embarks his life,
When horror-wingèd storms around me sweep,
Trampling the briny waters into strife—
Tossed upward to the lightning-riven clouds,
Dashed downward even to the topmost shrouds;—
I feel, or could feel, glory in the rout
Of angry waves, a language in the shout
Of wind to wind, of thunder unto thunder—
A wild and dreamy sense of danger and of wonder!

And then to loiter on the shell-paved shore,
When calm broods o'er the billows like a dove,—
Are there not things around me as before,
To see, to feel, to dream upon and love?
Pensive to wander on the sandy verge,
And watch the snow-fringed and advancing surge
Come rolling up from out the tranquil sea,
Is peace, is joy, is luxury to me!

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While the far murmur of the waves at play
Sounds like a grateful voice for troubles passed away.

Away on Fancy's world-exploring pinions,
To Araby's wide wilderness—away;
Where the high sun hangs o'er his dread dominions,
With looks that make intolerable day,
Save when the swift and terrible simoom
Covers the face of heaven with burning gloom;
Walks o'er the surface of the sandy sea,
A formless fiend of dark sublimity;
Builds baseless mountains by his sultry breath,
And reigns, the scourge of life, the minister of death!

'Tis eve—and hark! the camel-bell is ringing;
The caravan, with perilous toils oppressed,
Stays where the tree-girt well is sweetly springing,
To snatch some fleeting hours of blessed rest.
The sun is set, and twilight, like a veil,
Floats o'er the cooling skies; the stars are pale,
But ere another hour the breath of night
Shall fan them till they burn intensely bright;
While the lone wanderers of that desert plain
Shall dream of hope and home till morn return again.

In thought I sojourn in the solitudes,
The silent regions of the western star,—
The awful, dark, interminable woods,
The level prairies, stretching fair and far;
The uninvaded mountain peaks, that stand
Like the stern barriers to an unknown land;
And mighty hollows, where the Storm alone
Hath dared to plant his footsteps and his throne,—
Caverns of gloomy grandeur, where the power
Of Art hath never triumphed to this hour;

214

And all the thousand mysteries sublime
Which rose when Earth began,—the co-mates of old Time.

I come once more unto the milder charms
Of calm, green England, the enlightened Isle
Which lies encircled by old Ocean's arms,
And wears upon its face a placid smile;
I come unto her pastoral vales to dream
Beneath the sylvan shadows, where the stream
Twinkles with chequered radiance, as it singeth
Through grassy dingles where the wild-flower springeth,
Bent by the butterfly and gorgeous bee;
Where birds from sunny sky and trembling tree
Fill the bright summer with melodious voice;
So that my spirit cannot but rejoice
That heaven hath dropped such pleasures from above,
To cheer the human soul with poesy and love!

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THE INQUIRY.

“Tell me, where canst thou be seen,
Poesy?
I yearn to see thy face serene,
Poesy!”
“Ask the stars, the dews, the flowers,
Ask the hills, the brooks, the bowers;
Ask the clouds when lightning-riven,
Or gleaming with the gold of even;
Ask the bow that spans the plain,
Ask the sunny-twinkling rain,—
And they will answer thee!”

“Tell me, where canst thou be heard,
Poesy?
Alas! I pine with hope deferred,
Poesy?”
“Ask the thunders as they leap,
Ask the never-sleeping deep;
Ask the winds that roar, or sigh,
Ask the waters babbling by;
Ask the bee who sings, and sips
Sweets from a thousand fragrant lips;
Ask the language of the leaves,
The shivering thrill of golden sheaves,
The coo of doves, the rush of wings:
Ask the breeze-awakened strings,—

216

Ask the birds in sun and shade,—
Ask all sounds that God hath made,—
And they will answer thee!”

“Tell me, how canst thou be known,
Poesy?
Make thy spirit all my own,
Poesy!”
“Ask the feelings which awake
Within thee for compassion's sake;
Ask the sorrows of thy soul,
Ask the joy which mocks control;
Ask thy hopes—affections—love;
Ask thy dreams of bliss above,—
And they will answer thee!”

“Tell me, how canst thou be spoken,
Poesy?
Give me some unfailing token,
Poesy!”
“Ask the wailings of the poor,
A stricken crowd who much endure;
Ask the child's endearing tongue,
And the mother's answering song;
Ask the fervent vows of youth,
Ask the words of steadfast truth;
Ask the poet, who hath brought
Rich language from the mines of thought;
Ask the breathings of despair,
Ask the contrite sinner's prayer;
Ask the syllables that fall
From Nature's lips—the best of all,—
And they will answer thee!”

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“I thank thee with a gladdened heart,
Poesy;
Henceforth my fears shall all depart,
Poesy!
I'll go abroad upon the earth,
And give my dreamy feelings birth;
My every sense of sadness lull,
By gazing on the beautiful;
‘And rise from out my mean estate,’
By mingling with the good and great,
Whose aim has been, mid toil and strife,
To give a thousand charms to life.
I'll follow thee in all thy moods,
Through Nature's awful solitudes;
I'll seek the ruins of the past,
Mid regions still, and wild, and vast;
Where pride and splendour once have been,
Where weary wastes are only seen
To mock the pilgrim's eye, and show
His lasting home is not below.
Through peopled towns my feet shall pass,
And o'er the barren, dark morass,
And o'er the mountain's giant form,
The nurse and birthplace of the storm.
My lonely footsteps shall abide
In forests wildering and wide,
And on the banks of mighty rivers,
Whose waves are broken into shivers
By gusty winds that o'er them sweep,
Or rocks precipitously steep.
And in the desert I will linger,
When early Morning's golden finger
Plays on Memnon's mystic stone,
And wakes it into music lone.

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Where'er thy genial spirit reigns,
On wintry wastes, or sunny plains,
My vagrant feet shall find a place,
Where I will gaze upon thy face,
Until I utter words of flame,
To wreathe with light my humble name.
I'll talk with thought-exalted things,
Until, on Fancy's strengthened wings,
I pierce the infinite afar,
And journey on from star to star,
Through dazzling files of sun-like spheres,
Which, seen from earth, are but like tears
Which hang on blade, and flower, and thorn
Shook from the dewy locks of Morn.
Or I will travel on the path
Which the mysterious comet hath,
Perchance to see it past me driven,
Filling with fire the cope of heaven,
And roaring like ten thousand seas,
Through its vast realms of mysteries,
Till fierce and far it fades away,
Beyond where human thoughts can stray.

“Grown faint with splendour, Fancy falls
Down from the blue and boundless halls,
Where distant planets wax and wane,
To rest awhile on earth again.
Still thou art with me here below,
Spirit of Song! and well I know
Thou art the soul of every thing
That comes with renovating Spring,—
Of all that Summer wakes to light,
Luxuriant, blooming, green, and bright,—
Of all that reeling Autumn yields,
Of luscious fruits and laden fields,—

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Of all that Winter ushers in
With stormy revelry and din;—
The pictures of fantastic frost,
The feathery snow-shower, tempest-tost,
The fierce and unexpected hail,
Smit downwards by the raging gale;
The trees that sway and groan aghast,
Beneath the wrestling of the blast,
And all the powers which reign sublime
Throughout that cold tumultuous time.
Thou art a spirit, too, at rest
Within the human soul and breast;
Felt beneath the palace dome,
And in the peasant's cottage home;
Spoken by the watchful sage,
Written on the poet's page,
Dispensing light to many a mind,
With joys exalted and refined.

“Spirit of beauty, sound, and feeling!
So calmly o'er my vision stealing,—
Lend me thy purest, holiest fire,
To raise my aspirations higher,
Until I seem to spurn the sod,
And feel thine essence—which is God!”

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POEMS PUBLISHED IN 1847.

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THE THREE ANGELS.

A VISION.

In the shadow of slumber as dreaming I lay,
While the skies kindled up at the coming of day,
Three Angels, with pinions of splendour unfurled,
Came down with the softness of light on the world.
Grace, glory, and gentleness compassed them round,
And their voices came forth with mellifluous sound,
As they uttered sweet words, heard and echoed above,
And departed on God-given missions of love.
From nation to nation one wandered afar,
And the tumult, the broil, the delirium of War,—
The music that mocked the last struggle of life,
The trumpet that wailed through the pauses of strife,
The sod-staining revel, the cloud-cleaving roar,
Were awed into silence, to waken no more:—
The death-dealing bolts of the cannon were stayed,
The soldier flung from him the blood-reeking blade,
The plume was uncared for, the helmet unworn,
The laurel was withered, the banner was torn,

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The gorgeous delusion of warfare was past,
And the spirit of Brotherhood triumphed at last!

Then Science arose from his thraldom, and stole
From the keeping of Nature new gifts for the soul;
Then valorous Enterprise waved his proud hand,
And might and magnificence covered the land;
Then Commerce, from bonds of oppression set free,
Linked country to country, and sea unto sea;
Then Art, with a dream-like devotion, refined
Into beauty and purity, matter and mind;
Then Knowledge let loose all her treasures, and found
Goodly seed springing up in the stoniest ground;
Then lowly-born Industry learned to be blest,
Grew proud of his labour, and pleased with his rest;
The fields with unfailing abundance grew rife,
The cities were peopled with prosperous life;
Power, Plenty, Intelligence, prospered amain,
Secure of a placid and permanent reign;
While the Poet, a prophet, a teacher in song,
Sang hymns of rejoicing to gladden the throng;—
And well might such multiform blessings have birth,
For the Angel of Peace had re-hallowed the earth!

Another dear visitant, sweetly sublime,
Went forth as a pleader for error and crime;
In the palace she tempered the soul of the king,
And his heart opened out at the touch of her wing:
In the senate she governed with eloquent awe,—
She swayed in the council, she lived in the law;
In the prison, mid apathy, terror, and gloom,
To the wretch who lay waiting the word of his doom,
She whispered of hope, breathed a calm o'er his fears,
Till his eyes overflowed with the blessing of tears,—
Till his spirit shook off the sad slouch of despair,
And his lips were inspired with the fervour of prayer.

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By the side of grave Justice she took her proud stand,
And touched the dread scales with so lenient a hand
That the guilty, o'erburthened with gladness, withdrew
To a life of repentance, and usefulness, too,—
To a life which atoned to the world for the past,
And cancelled their records of sinning at last.
Then the axe of the headsman lay rotting with rust;—
Then the gallows and guillotine crumbled to dust;—
Then those legalised slaughters, which reddened the sod
With a sacrifice foul and offensive to God,
Being hideous and useless, went down to decay,
For the Angel of Mercy had willed them away!

That Peace had accomplished, this Mercy had done,
But a great moral conquest had yet to be won;
And the third of these Angels came down to reclaim
A multitude steeped in sin, squalor, and shame.
Mid the children of Penury, Passion, and Toil,
The town-fettered craftsmen, the sons of the soil;—
Mid the by-ways of life, pestilential and cold,
Mid the haunts where the draughts of destruction were sold,
Midst the hovels whose hearthstones were sordid and bare,
Mid the ravings of frenzy, the tears of despair;—
Mid fathers that clung to the thraldom of sin,
Mid mothers that revelled in lewdness and din,
Mid children, poor aliens to comfort and rest,
Who learnt a dread vice as they hung at the breast;—
Mid the lowly who made their sad destiny worse,
Mid the gifted who writhed in the coils of the curse—
The Angel walked forth, clothed in goodness and grace,
And the demon of Drunkenness fled from her face!

But, inspired by her presence, the gifted looked up—
The lowly threw down the insidious cup,

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The father grew blest in the love of his child,
The mother cast from her the things that defiled,
While her offspring grew docile, and happy, and wise,
And beheld their own joy in affectionate eyes;
The dwelling, though poor, became quiet and clean,
And harmony reigned where disorder had been;
Home pleasures, home treasures, home duties, home rest,
Were found to be holiest, calmest, and best;
The haunts of excitement grew empty and still,
Or peopled with souls of a healthier will;
The craftsman in bearing grew sober and trim,
The peasant rejoiced in a sturdier limb;
The tongues of the timid found words to declaim
'Gainst the ills that oppressed them with sorrow and shame;
And a mission of brothers, Age, Manhood, and Youth,
Went out to instil the new essence of truth;
The Orator caught a new theme for his speech,—
The Pastor was glad the new doctrine to teach,
And the Poet, who stood in the van of the throng,
Found his spirit expanding with loftier song:—
And well might his soul to new triumphs aspire,
For the Angel of Temperance kindled his fire!

Then the voice of the multitudes burst into glee,
Like the swell and the shout of a turbulent sea:—
“Peace, Mercy, and Temperance!” Earth seemed to cry—
“Peace, Mercy, and Temperance!” echoed the Sky;
And I started from sleep with a bound and a scream,
Overawed by the splendour and power of my dream!

Disdain not the night-vision's mystical lore,
For “coming events cast their shadows before:”
And the Angels are coming, broad-winged on the wind,
And the pinions of Freedom press closely behind!

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THE ROBIN.

A POEM FOR CHILDHOOD.

The Robin is an English bird, fond of his native sky,
Whate'er the season, fierce or calm, he never deigns to fly;
He, like a patriot tried and true, braves every varying time,
And seems to cling the faithfullest when storms are in his clime.

The Robin is a bonny bird, as merry Childhood knows,
Although he wears no gaudy crown, and dons no dainty clothes;
Although no sun-hues paint his wing, or play about his crest,
One ruddy flush of beauty burns upon his buoyant breast!

The Robin is a sacred bird, by Nature's nameless charm,
Romance and song have hallowed him, and shielded him from harm:
The school-boy, as he roams about, on mischief bent, or play,
Peeps in upon his callow brood, but takes them not away.

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The Robin is a gentle bird,—for so old legends tell;—
The Babes that died in the forest wide, he guarded long and well;
He made for them a winding-sheet of fragrant leaves and flowers,
And sung a daily dirge for them in the dim cathedral bowers.

The Robin is a tuneful bird,—how oft, at shut of day,
With his familiar music, he disturbs the dewy spray!
With song so quaint and querulous, and yet so sweet and wild,
That Age leans on his trembling staff, and listens like a child.

The Robin is a social bird, that loves the kindly poor,—
He scorns the palace porch, but comes to haunt the cottage door;
For bit or crumb he is not dumb, nor insolent, nor shy,
He sets his thanks to melody, and bids his friends goodbye!

The Robin is a patient bird, for in the sternest hour
His grateful anthem gushes forth with most consoling power;
And though a touch of sadness seems to mingle with the strain,
'Tis such as suits the pensive ear, and gives the heart no pain.

The Robin is the Poet's bird, poetic is his name,
And mortal minstrels, not a few, have linked him with their fame;

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Poor Robin Bloomfield spake his praise, as eke did Robin Burns,
And Redbreast sings a requiem above their honoured urns.

The Robin is a welcome bird, when frost is creeping round,
When snow-wreaths wrap the ghostly trees, and clothe the stilly ground;
But woe to them who have no heart to love his simple lay,
For birds, like flowers, are pleasant things that never lead astray.

Then from the Robin let me learn some lessons good and wise,—
Firm faithfulness, sweet cheerfulness, beneath the sternest skies,
A hymn of praise, an upward gaze to Him who guides and gives,
Who moulds and moves, sustains and loves, the humblest thing that lives!

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DREAMS AND REALITIES.

Poems Published in 1847

THE PEN AND THE SWORD.

“One murder made a villain—millions a hero.” Porteus.

Creative Pen, destructive Sword—dread powers!
How strongly ye have stirred this world of ours!
By different means, to different ends ye sway,
One with delight, the other with dismay—
Homes, cities, nations, climes, religions, kings,
And all the boundless range of human things.
One, proud of Peace and her great gifts, aspires
To aid progression in its vast desires:
One, prone to waste, disorder, spoil, and pride,
Would turn the course of onward thought aside;
One lifts, enlightens, purifies, and saves;
One smites, degrades, contaminates, enslaves;
One hath a baneful, one a blest employ,—
One labours to create, one leapeth to destroy!

Giant opponents! leagued with peace and strife,—
One blights, one beautifies, the forms of life;
One leads to pleasures, lofty and refined,
One, while it darkens, tortures humankind.

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Stupendous twain! great ministers on earth
Of good and ill, of plenitude and dearth,—
One is the storm, the pestilence, the grief,
One the mind's health, calm solace, and relief;
One is the hope, the majesty, the dower
Of man, still striving for a wiser power;
And one—dark game, which false ambition plays!
A fierce, but fading, error of old days.

The world grows weary of this sad unrest,
This nightmare of its myriad-hearted breast,—
This monster, breathing horror in its path,
This hideous thing of recklessness and wrath:
New thoughts, new deeds, more kindred to the skies,
Pregnant with better destinies, arise,
And 'mong the old iniquities of men,
The mighty Sword shall fall before the mightier Pen!

Ye worshippers of Warfare, can ye tell
Where are the right, the beauty, and the spell,
The glory, the morality, the gain,
Of the disastrous system ye maintain?
When ye have paved the battle-ground with bones,
To the sad music of a people's groans;
Wakened the cries of multitudinous woe,—
Done all ye can to slaughter and o'erthrow;
Brought man's and nature's fairest doings down,—
Bold hearts and bloody hands! how holy your renown!

Holy? Dear God! War in his whole career
Is rife with lawless force and hopeless fear;
And, spite of gorgeous garniture and forms,
With inward agonies and outward storms;
Lust, riot, ruin hang upon his breath,
Tumultuous conflict, and dishonoured death!
Let not the youth whose spirit pants to win
By lofty labours, fame unsoiled with sin,

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Seek it amid those desolating hordes
That gird Ambition with embattled swords;
Nor desecrate his soul—which God has made
For nobler things—in War's unhallowed trade.
But let him serve his country as he can,
With pen, tongue, action, as becomes a man
Bent upon toils that dignify and grace,
And bring some blessing to the human race.

See the poor soldier—no unworthy name
When wielding moral weapons 'gainst the shame
Born of a thousand social ills and wrongs,
Which dash with bitterness the Poet's songs;—
See the poor soldier, from less guilty life
Coaxed or coerced to tread the fields of strife,
Caught in a tavern; in a barrack bred
To things that blight his heart and cloud his head;
Shut up his sympathies, enslave his soul,
Hold natural impulse in a stern control:
Hoodwink his reason, paralyse his speech,
Uproot his virtues—all that's good unteach,—
Till he becomes,—oh! man thrice brave and blest!—
In war a terror, and in peace a pest!
And if he dare—for manhood sometimes will
Break through its bondage, spite of every ill,—
If he but dare by look, word, act, or flaw,
Mark his impatience of the iron law,
The Lash, laid ready for the needful hour,—
That just and gentle instrument of power,
That man-degrading, man-upbraiding thing,
Bearing at every point a scorpion's sting,—
Tears up the quivering flesh, extorts the groan,
Rouses to vengeance, or subdues to stone,
Making the being it pretends to win
A restless, reckless follower of sin;

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Or a machine, now dead to fear and shame,
Whereby the well-born coward climbs to fame!

Fame, did I say? Can that enchanting thing,
For whose great guerdon Genius strains his wing,
Bedim her lustrous records with the tale
Of deeds, whereat the harassed world turns pale?
They write it fame; but Reason, Truth, and Song,
Must find a darker word to designate the wrong!

But, hark! your country calls! up valiant sons!
Gird on your swords, prepare your murderous guns;
Some new aggression, grand in its design,
Strikes the wise rulers of your land and mine:—
Your country calls, and her strong law and voice
Admit no conscience, and allow no choice:
Ye wear War's gaudy badge, ye willing braves,—
Ask not the why and where, go at it, slaves!
Plenty may fail, and Commerce droop the while,
And Peace, for lack of light, refuse to smile;
The Arts may sicken, Science cease his toils,
And a sad people tremble at your broils.
What boots it if a wilderness be won,
Or a pacific nation half undone?
Go forth, nor let the hostile flag be furled
Till ye have cursed and conquered half the world!

But ere ye go, the Servant of the Lord
Must bless the banner, consecrate the sword;
Must pray the God of Battles—impious prayer!
To make your cohorts His especial care;
And, with a mock solemnity of mien,—
Ah! how unworthy of the sacred scene!—
Ask blessings on a bloody crowd that goes
To fetter human wills, and feast on human woes!

Dear Christ! commissioned from the Eternal Throne
To touch our hearts, and claim them for thine own;

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Man of humility and patient pain,
Word without error, life without a stain;
Teacher of truths reflected from above,—
Pure type of Peace, and miracle of Love!
It shocks the soul, it makes the spirit sad,
To hear these men, in robes of meekness clad,
Beside the altars hallowed in thy name,
Sanction a giant sin, should brand their cheeks with shame!

It is the day of battle; morn's sweet light
Comes surging o'er the lingering shades of night,
And Nature, fresh as in her newest hour,
Looks up with calm and renovated power;
But hostile hosts, impatient for the day,
Panting like hungry tigers for the fray:—
For slaughter eager, and for conquest keen,
Crowd and encumber the enchanting scene;
Preparing to pollute, with gloom and glare,
What God has made so holy and so fair;
And with the life-blood of each other's veins,
Curse and incarnadine the peaceful plains.
The mournful bugle sings a startling note;
The cannon opes its fulminating throat;
Gleams the quick sword; upstarts the bristling lance,—
A thousand files with deadly strength advance,
And with a wild tornado-shock of strife,
Each bosom burning with delirious life—
Meet midway; and the tumult rising high
Shakes the ensanguined ground, and troubles all the sky.

Fiercer and fiercer, till the noon is past,
Rages the battle's desolating blast;
Closer and closer, with unbated breath,
The martial multitudes contend with death,
Till the insulted sun, adown the skies,
Sinks in an ocean of resplendent dyes,

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And pensive twilight, clothed in dewy grey,
Drops her dim curtain o'er the fitful fray;
Till baffled, bleeding, filled with pride and spleen,
Foe shrinks from foe, and darkness steals between.

But not in silence reigns the fearful night,
For muffled sounds denote the hurried flight;
And groans, upheaved from ebbing hearts, ascend
And shriek, and prayer, and malediction blend;
And ruffian violence, and frantic fear,
Strike with abrupt alarm the inquiring ear;
And reckless revel in the camp is heard,
And angry cries at victory deferred,—
And the mixed mockery of laugh and song,
From men that glory in gigantic wrong;
Till a new morning, lovely as before,
Smiles on the field that reeks with human gore,—
Wakes the rough soldier from his haunted sleep,
And gilds a scene “that makes the angels weep!”

For many a day the dread Golgotha lies
Hideous and bare to the upbraiding skies;
The gentle flowers, the yet surviving few,
Droop with the burden of unhallowed dew:
The lark, returning thither, soars and sings
With man's last life-blood on his buoyant wings!
The vagrant butterfly drops down to bear
The stains of slaughter through the summer air:
The quiet cattle startle, as they stray,
At ghastly faces festering into clay;
The stream runs red; the bare and blackened trees
Have ceased to wanton with the wayward breeze;
But the gaunt wolf and hungry vulture, led
By tainted gales that blow athwart the dead,
Hold loathsome banquet; till some friendly hand
Digs a great grave, and clears the cumbered land,

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And pleasant winds, and purifying rains,
Sweep out at last the horror of the plains!

Thought sickens o'er the scene:—come back, sweet Muse!
Nor soil thy sunny garments with the hues
Gathered from gory battle-grounds, and graves
Unheaped with warfare's immolated slaves,
Lest gentle bosoms, and disdainful tongues,
Tire of thy truths, and rail against thy songs.

Lo! in that quiet and contracted room,
Where the lone lamp just mitigates the gloom,
Sits a pale student, stirred with high desires,
With lofty principles and gifted fires.
From time to time, with calm inquiring looks,
He culls the ore of wisdom from his books;
Clears it, sublimes it, till it flows refined
From his alchymic crucible of mind;
And as the mighty thoughts spring out complete,
How the quill travels o'er the snowy sheet!
Till signs of glorious import crowd the page,
Destined to raise and rectify the age;
For every drop from that soul-guided pen
Shall fall a blessing on the hearts of men,—
Shall rouse the listless to triumphant toils,
Wean the unruly from their sins and broils:
Teach the grown man, and in the growing child
Transfuse a power to keep it undefiled;
Solace the weary, animate the sad,
Restrain the reckless, make the dullest glad,
Sow in the bosoms of our rising youth
The seed of unadulterated truth;—
Uproot the lingering errors of the throng,

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Break down the barriers of remorseless Wrong;
Direct mind's onward march, and in the van
Send back electric thought from man to man:
This is the Pen's high purpose—Can it fail?
Soul! scorn the shameful doubt! press forward and prevail!

Oh! for a day of that triumphant time,
That universal jubilee sublime;—
When Marlboroughs shall be useless, and the name
Of Miltons travel through a wider fame;
When other Nelsons shall be out of place,
While other Newtons pierce the depths of space;
When other Wellingtons!—proud name!—shall yield
To mightier Watts, in a far mightier field!
When other Shakespeares shall direct the mind
To Hero-worship of a purer kind;
When War's red banner shall, for aye, be furled,
And Peace embrace all climes, all children of the world!

I find that this passage is an unintentional imitation of a beautiful one in “The Battle of Life,” by Charles Dickens.

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THE PRESS AND THE CANNON.

The Cannon and Press! how they ban, how they bless
This beautiful planet of ours;
The first by the length of its terrible strength,
The other by holier powers.
More and more they are foes as the new spirit grows—
Will their struggles bring joy to the free?
For the wrongful and right—for the darkness and light—
Oh, which shall the conqueror be?

With a war-waking note from its sulphurous throat
The Cannon insulteth the day,
And flingeth about, with a flash and a shout,
The death-bolts that deepen the fray:
“Give me slaughter,” it cries, as it booms to the skies,
And men turn to fiends at the sound;
Till the sun droppeth dun, till the battle is won,
And carnage encumbers the ground.

Then the reveller reels, then the plunderer steals
Like a snake, through the horrible gloom;
Then the maid is defiled, then the widow is wild,
As she fathoms the depths of her doom;
Fierce fires glare aloof, till the night's starry roof
Seems to blush at the doings of wrong;
Sounds of terror and woe through the dark come and go,
With fury, and laughter, and song!

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When the morrow's fair face looketh down on the place,
All trodden and sodden with strife,
The grass and the grain are empurpled with rain
From the fountains of desperate life;
The stream runneth red, and the green leaves are shed,
That o'ershadowed its waters so clear—
For the bale-fire hath been on the desolate scene,
And hath cursed it for many a year!

Reeking ruins abound on the war-withered ground,
In whose ashes sit shapes of despair,
And the voices of wail float afar on the gale,
Till the brute is appalled in his lair:
On the broad battle-floor, in their cerements of gore,
Lie thousands whose conflicts are past,
To furnish a feast for the bird and the beast—
To fester and bleach in the blast.

But the tears of the sad, and the cries of the mad,
And the blood that polluteth the sod,
And the prayers of the crowd—solemn, earnest, and loud—
Together go up unto God!
Nor in vain do they rise—for the good and the wise,
And the gifted of spirit and speech,
Are waking the lands to more holy commands,
For peace is the lesson they teach.

Behold the proud Press! how it labours to bless,
By the numberless tones of its voice!
To lofty and low its grand harmonies flow,
And the multitudes hear and rejoice;
Scarce an alley of gloom, scarce an artizan's room,
Scarce a heart in the mill or the mine,

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Scarce a soul that is dark, but receiveth a spark
Of its spirit, so vast and divine!

The Cannon lays waste, but the Press is in haste
To enlighten, uplift, and renew;
And the life of its lore—can we languish for more?—
Is the beautiful, peaceful, and true.
Man bringeth his thought, in calm solitude wrought,
To be multiplied, scattered, and sown;
And the seed that to-day droppeth down by the way,
Is to-morrow fair, fruitful, and grown.

Joy, joy to the world! Press and People have hurled
Their slings 'gainst the errors of old;
One by one, as they fall, the poor children of thrall
Grow dignified, gladsome, and bold.
The Cannon and Sword—cruel, cursed, and abhorred—
Cannot stay the proud march of the free;
They may ban and beguile the rude nations awhile,
But the Press will the conqueror be!

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A WINTER SKETCH FROM OLDERMANN.

Fair are the Springtide features of the hills—
Glorious their Summer aspect of repose—
Calm in Autumnal hues their shadowy forms—
But not less beautiful when Winter fills—
Their wild untrodden solitudes; and throws
Around them all the grandeur of its storms!
Such are my musings on the craggy crown
Of Oldermann, the sterile, stern, and cold,
As days sink sloping to the evening hour;
Round my proud centre mountain regions frown,
Abrupt and lone, wherein my eyes behold
Gigantic proofs of God's unmeasured power,
Which wake mute worship in the eloquent heart,
And lift the aspiring soul from common things apart.

What a religious silence is outspread
O'er all the rude and solitary scene—
So cold, so pure, so solemn, so serene—
From the deep valley to the mountain's head!
Ice-roofed, the stream runs mutely o'er its bed;
The torrent lingers in its mid-way leap;
The firs, in all their branches, are asleep;
The bird is absent, and the bee is fled;
From moss-fringed fountains not a tear is shed;

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Of human life no shape or voice is near;
And the sole sound that greets my passive ear
Is the crisp snow-floor yielding to my tread:
Dumb seems the earth, and rifled of her bloom,
Like breathless beauty shrouded for the tomb.

Dear Heaven! it is a blessed thing to feel
My heart unwithered by the world,—my mind
Wakeful as ever, and as glad to steal
Into the realms of wonder, unconfined,
As round me drops the drapery of night,
With the delicious dimness of a dream,
While the one herald-star, of restless beam,
Climbs, with the quiet moon, the ethereal height.
Winter is Nature's Sabbath-time; and now,
With all her energies within her breast,
She folds her matron garments round her brow,
Sits down in peace, and takes her holy rest:
For wave, wood, mountain, star, moon, cloud and sky,
In deep-adoring stillness, prove that God is nigh!

A bold precipitous hill in the romantic valley of Saddleworth, a few miles from Ashton-under-Lyne.

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HYMN TO THE CREATOR.

Praise unto God! whose single will and might
Upreared the boundless roof of day and night,
With suns, and stars, and glorious cloud-wreaths hung;
The 'blazoned veil that hides the Eternal's throne,
The glorious pavement of a world unknown,
By angels trodden, and by mortals sung.
To God! who fixed old Ocean's utmost bounds,
And bade the Moon, in her harmonious rounds,
Govern its waters with her quiet smiles;
Bade the obedient winds, though seeming free,
Walk the tumultuous surface of the sea,
And place man's daring foot upon a thousand isles!

Praise unto God! who thrust the rifted hills,
With all their golden veins and gushing rills,
Up from the burning centre, long ago;
Who spread the deserts, verdureless and dun,
And those stern realms, forsaken of the sun,
Where Frost hath built his palace-halls of snow!
To God! whose hand hath anchored in the ground
The forest-growth of ages, the profound

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Green hearts of solitude, unsought of men!
God! who suspends the avalanche,—who dips
The Alpine hollows in a cold eclipse,
And hurls the headlong torrent shivering down the glen!

Praise unto God! who speeds the lightning's wing
To fearful flight, making the thunder spring
Abrupt and awful from its sultry lair,
To rouse some latent function of the earth,
To bring some natural blessing into birth,
And sweep disorder from the troubled air!
To God! who bids the hurricane awake,
The firm rock shudder, and the mountain quake
With deep and inextinguishable fires;
Who urges ghastly pestilence to wrath,
Sends withering famine on his silent path,
The holy purpose hid from our profane desires.

Praise unto God! who fills the fruitful soil
With wealth, awaking to the hand of toil,
With germs of beauty, and abundance, too;
Who bends athwart the footstool of the skies
His braided sunbow of resplendent dyes,
Melting in rain-drops from the shadowy blue!
To God! who sends the seasons, “dark or bright,”
Spring's frequent resurrection of delight;
Summer's mature tranquillity of mien;
The generous flush of the Autumnal time,
The ever-changing spectacle sublime
Of purgatorial Winter, savage or serene!

Praise unto God! whose wisdom placed me here,
A lowly dweller on this lovely sphere—

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This temporary home to mortals given;
Which holds its silent and unerring way
Among the innumerable worlds that stray,
Singing and burning through the halls of heaven!
To God! who sent me hither to prepare,
By wordless worship, and by uttered prayer,
By suffering, humility, and love,
By sympathies and deeds, from self apart,
Nursed in the inmost chambers of the heart,
For that transcendent life of purity above.

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THE QUEEN'S QUESTION; OR, THE RIVAL FLOWERS.

Ladies,—who linger o'er this page
With pure and tranquil pleasure,
Moved by the words of Wit and Sage,
Or Bard's romantic measure,—
Deign to receive this random rhyme,
This brief and simple story,
Of Solomon's transcendent time
Of grandeur and of glory.

Fired at the splendour of his fame,
A proud and regal maiden
To Israel's distant kingdom came
With costly presents laden.
She brought bright gold from Ophir's mine,
Rich gems of mighty prices,
Raiment of colours half divine,
With perfumes and with spices.

With mingled majesty and grace,
A gorgeous crowd attending,
She met the monarch face to face,
In silent homage bending.
With dignified, but gentle, tone,
His eyes with kindness beaming,
The good king placed her on his throne,
In posture more beseeming.

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The feast was spread, the hymn was sung,
The dancers bounded lightly;
Rare music through the palace rung,
And scented lamps burnt brightly:
Meanwhile the monarch urged his guest
To pleasure's sweet employment;
And both, by radiant looks, confessed
The depth of their enjoyment.

With questions subtle, deep, refined,
In changing conversation,
The maiden tasked the monarch's mind
With skilful penetration:
But still, like gold thrice tried by fire,
Wit, wisdom, lore, and learning
Came from the king, the sage, the sire,
With richer lustre burning.

The baffled queen was sorely tried,
And dumb with pleasing wonder;
But what can quell a woman's pride,
Or keep her spirit under?
Sheba, with persevering pains,
Assumes a modest meekness,
For one last question still remains
To prove her strength or weakness.

With quick and cunning hand she culled
A mass of seeming flowers,
And one of real sweetness pulled
From lavish Nature's bowers.
In equal parts, with silken tie,
She bound the blushing roses,
Till each appeared, to casual eye,
Twin pyramids of posies.

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Within the spacious palace hall,
A fair and winsome thing;
She stood apart from each and all,
And thus addressed the king:—
“Pray tell me, thou of high command,
To whom great thoughts are given,
Which is the work of human hand—
Which drank the dews of heaven?”

He gazed with earnest look and long—
The question was repeated;
But still he held a silent tongue,
Half angry, half defeated.
The pleased spectators clustered nigh,
And whispered—almost loudly,—
While Sheba, with inquiring eye,
Stood patiently and proudly.

'Twas summer, and some bees had strayed
Away from fields and bowers;
They hovered round the royal maid,
And round the rival flowers:
To one gay group they clung at last,—
Their own strange instinct guiding;
But careless o'er the other passed,
Not one lone wing abiding.

“Fair queen! those floral gems of thine,
Where yet the wild bee lingers,—
Where all the rainbow hues combine,
Were trained by Nature's fingers!”
Thus spoke old Israel's king, aloud,
And every bosom started;—
The vanquished maiden blushed and bowed,
Then gracefully departed.

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Of Solomon's exalted soul,
Of Sheba's mental merit,
A portion of the glorious whole,
'Tis well, if we inherit;
With sight to see, desire to know,
And reason our adviser,
Better and happier we may grow,
And surely something wiser.

Fair female flowers, which breathe and bloom
Where'er our lot hath bound us;
Flinging Affection's dear perfume
Delightfully around us:
Born with a beauty all your own,
In proud and pure completeness,
May well-deserving bees alone
Enjoy your summer sweetness!

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A LAY FOR THE PRINTER.

Who will deny the dignity of that enduring toil
That penetrates earth's treasure-glooms, and ploughs her sunny soil!
That flings the shuttle, plies the hammer, guides the spinning wheel,
Moulds into shape the rugged ore, and bends the stubborn steel?—
That hews the mountain's rocky heart, piles the patrician dome,
Leans to some lone and lowly craft beneath a lowlier home?
And who shall say that my employ hath not the power to bless,
Or scorn the honest hand that wields the wonder-working Press?

With ready finger, skilful eye, and proudly-cheerful heart,
I link those potent signs that make the magic of my art;
Till word by word, and line by line, expands the goodly book,
Wherein a myriad eyes, ere long, with eager souls will look.
The lightning wit, the thunder-truth, the tempest passion there,
The touching tones of poesy, the lesson pure and fair,

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Come forth upon the virgin page, receive their outward dress,
And, to inspire an anxious world, teem glowing from the Press!

What were the Poet's vision-life, his rapture-moods of mind,
His heavenward aspirations, and his yearnings undefined?—
His thoughts that drop like precious balm in many a kindred breast,
His gorgeous fancies, and his feelings gloriously expressed?—
What were his sentiments that make the hopeful spirit strong,
His fervent language for the right, his fearless 'gainst the wrong?—
What were they to the multitudes—a nation's strength—unless
They sprang in thrice ten thousand streams triumphant from the Press?

The star-seer—honour to his name—with art-assisted sight
May travel 'midst the pathless heavens, and trace their founts of light;
May weigh the planet, watch the comet, pierce those realms that be
Of suns that cluster thick as sands by Wonder's boundless sea;
May mark, with mute exalted joy, some nameless orb arise
To shine a lawful denizen of earth's familiar skies;—

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But these sublime and silent toils how few could know or guess,
Save through the tongue that faileth not, the ever-voiceful Press!

The student of the universe, the searcher of its laws,
Whose soul mounts, link by link, the chain that leads to God, the Cause;
Who reads the old world's history in wondrous things that lay
Tombed in the rock-veins and the seas, ere man assumed his sway;
Who grasps the subtile elements and bows them to his will,
Tracks the deep mysteries of Mind, a nobler knowledge still;
Who adds to human peace and power, makes human darkness less,
What warms, applauds, and cheers him on? His own inspiring Press!

A proud preserver of the past, it gives us o'er again
A Tully's golden tide of speech, a Homer's stirring strain;
Reflects the glory of old Greece, Rome's stern heroic state,
And tells us how they sank beneath the shocks of Time and Fate:
Horatian wit, Virgilian grace, it keeps for us in store,
And every classic dream is fresh and lovely as of yore:—
How had these treasures been consigned to “dumb forget-fulness,”
But for the mirror of great things, the re-creating Press!

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The Press! 'tis Freedom's myriad-voice re-echoed loud and long,
The Poet's world-wide utterance of high and hopeful song;
A trump that blows the barriers down where fear and falsehood lie,
A lever lifting yearning hearts still nearer to the sky!
In good men's hands it multiplies God's Oracles of Grace,
And puts them in a hundred tongues to glad the human race:
Oh! Christian truth! oh! Christian love! twin fires that burn to bless,—
What holier spirit than your own to purify the Press?

And yet it is an evil thing when wicked men combine
To use it for some selfish end, some fierce or dark design;
Who through it pour their poison-creeds, their principles of strife,
To cripple, darken, and degrade the social forms of life.
Oh! ye of strong and upright minds, from such unhallowed things
Defend the mighty instrument whence peaceful knowledge springs;
Make it the bulwark of all right, the engine of redress,
The altar of our country's hopes—a chainless, stainless Press!

254

A RHYME FOR THE TIME.

On! ye have glorious duties to fulfil,
Nor fear, nor falter on the weary way;
Ye, who with earnest rectitude of will
Marshal the millions for the moral fray:
Ye, who with vollied speech and volant lay,
'Gainst the dark crowd of social ills engage,
Lead us from out the darkness to the day
We languish to behold; exalt the age,
And write your names in fire on Truth's unspotted page!

With hopeful heart and faith-uplifted brow
Press on, Crusaders, for the goal is near;
Desert and danger are behind, and now
Sweet winds and waters murmur in our ear;
And plenteous signs of peaceful life appear,
And songs of solace greet us as we go;
And o'er the horizon's rim, not broad, but clear,
The light of a new morning seems to flow,—
We journey sunwards! on, and hail the uprising glow!

In the sad wilderness we've wandered long,
Thirsting amid the inhospitable sand,
Cheered by that burden of prophetic song,—
“The clime, the time of freedom is at hand!”

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And, lo! upon the threshold of the land
We strive and hope, keep patient watch, and wait;
And few and feeble are the foes that stand
Between us and our guerdon:—back, proud gate,
That opes into the realm of Freedom's high estate!

Not ours, perchance, the destiny to see
The unveiled glories of her inner bower,
But myriads following in our steps shall be
Equal partakers of the coming hour;
The unencumbered heritage, the dower
With its full fruits is theirs, with all its store
Of fine fruition and exalted power:
And Truth shall teach them her transcendent lore—
“Man towards the perfect good advanceth evermore!”

And in our upward progress through the past,
What giant evils have been trodden down!
Dread deeds which struck the shrinking soul aghast,
Branding the doer with unblest renown:
The Inquisitor's harsh face and gloomy gown,
Girt with a thousand torture-tools; the flame
In whose fierce folds the martyr won his crown,—
Are gone into the darkness whence they came,—
There let them rust and rot, in God's insulted name!

Knowledge hath left the hermit's ruined cell,
The narrow convent and the cloister's gloom,
With world-embracing wings to soar and dwell
In ampler ether, and sublimer room;
The vollied lightnings of her Press consume
The tyrant's strength, and smite the bigot blind;
Day after day its thunders sound the doom
Of some old wrong, too hideous for the mind
Which reason hath illumed, which knowledge hath refined.

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Knowledge hath dignified the sons of toil,
And taught where purest pleasures may be won;
The peasant leaves his ploughshare in the soil
For mental pastime when the day is done;
The swart-faced miner, shut from breeze and sun,
While Nature reigns in beauty unsubdued,
Creeps from his caverned workshop, deep and dun,
And in his hovel's fire-lit solitude
Storeth his craving mind with not unwholesome food.

'Mid the harsh clangour of incessant wheels,
Beside the stithy and the furnace blaze,
Some soul, still hungering and enlarging, feels
The silent impulse of her quickening rays;
In the lone loom-cell, where for weary days,
And weary nights, the shuttle flies amain,
With his white web the weaver weaveth lays
To speed his labour, or beguile his pain,
Lays which the world shall hear, and murmur o'er again.

Proud halls re-echo with exalted song,
With calm instruction, or impassioned speech;
And who stands foremost in the listening throng?
The artisan, who learns that he may teach:
Longing, acquiring, holding, like the leech,
He cries, “Give, give!” with unallayed desire;
No point of knowledge seems beyond his reach:
Effort begets success, and higher, higher,
Like eagles towards the sun, his full-fledged thoughts aspire!

Nor is there danger in the liberal gift
Of soul-seed, cast abroad by Genius' hand,
Not weeds, but flowers and fruitful stems shall lift
Their forms of grace and grandeur o'er the land.

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Like that proud tree by eastern breezes fanned,
From kindred roots a mighty forest made—
A brotherhood of branches shall expand
From the great myriad mind, affording shade,
Strength, shelter, and supply, when outer storms invade.

And by this patient gathering of thought—
And by this peaceful exercise of will,
What wonders have been nursed, matured, and wrought!
What other wonders will they not fulfil?
Upheaves the valley, yawns the opposing hill,
Man and his hand-work sweep triumphant through;
Time swells, space narrows, prejudice stands still
And dwindles in the distance; high and new
Are all our dreams and deeds:—but much remains to do.

But War, that tawdry yet terrific thing,
The Ethiop's brand and bondage, the vile show
Of God's frail image from the gallows string
Dangling and heaving with convulsive throe:—
These man-made ministers of death and woe,
Shall we not crush them—Reason, Mercy, say?
Shall we not fling behind us, as we go,
These ancient errors? Reason answers “Yea!
Pure hearts and earnest souls will clear the encumbered way.”

Hail to the lofty minds, the truthful tongues
Linked in an universal cause, as now!
Which break no rights, which advocate no wrongs,
Firm to the loom, and faithful to the plough!
Commerce, send out thy multifarious prow

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Laden with goodly things for every land;
Labour, uplift thy sorrow-shaded brow,
Put forth thy strength of intellect and hand,
And plenty, peace, and joy may round thy homes expand.

Hail! mighty Science, nature's conquering lord!
Thou star-crowned, steam-winged, fiery-footed power!
Hail! gentle Arts, whose hues and forms afford
Refined enchantments for the tranquil hour!
Hail! tolerant teachers of the world, whose dower
Of spirit-wealth outweighs the monarch's might!
Blest be your holy mission, may it shower
Blessings like rain, and bring, by human right,
To all our hearts and hearths, love, liberty, and light!

259

POETRY IN COMMON THINGS.

'Twas Saturn's night, dark, silent, chill, and late,
My exhausted fire was dying in the grate;
My taper's wick was waxing large and long,
While I sat musing on the gift of song,
With all its soul-born influences, and power
To soothe or strengthen in the varying hour:
Upon my table, in promiscuous crowd,
Lay the great minds to whom my spirit bowed;—
Shakespeare, the universal, and the bard
Who Gloriana sang without reward,
Save that which Fame accorded him for ever!—
Dryden, the child of change, whose best endeavour
Was aye beset with troubles, though his string
Rang out in praise of Commonwealth and King;
Milton, the mighty, dignified, and pure,
Born with a soul to battle or endure:
Pope, the euphoneous, whose every theme
Is smooth and flowing as the summer stream;
The cold and caustic Swift, whose loveless heart
Knew not the pangs he laboured to impart;
Goldsmith, whose muse is ever undefiled,
“In wit a man—simplicity a child!”
The grave sarcastic Cowper, best of men!
And Crabbe, the moral Hogarth of the pen;

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Calm Campbell, dazzling Moore, to fancy dear;
The erratic Ploughman, and the wayward Peer;
Southey, the sorcerer, whose wizard strain,
Alas! is silent, ne'er to sound again;
Wordsworth, now full of honourable years,
Whose thoughts do often lie “too deep for tears;”
Coleridge, of dreamy lore (who shall excel
His wild and wondrous fragment, “Christabel?”),
Baronial Scott, the heir of deathless glory,
And him who sang Kilmeny's fairy story;
Ideal Shelley, and ethereal Keats,
With their fine gathering of luxurious sweets;
Leigh Hunt, who loves a quaint but cheerful lore,
And Lamb, as gentle as the name he bore;
Elliott the iron-like, but sweetly strong,
And the Montgomery of sacred song;
The fervid Hemans of the magic shell,
And that lorn nightingale, sweet L. E. L.
These are a glorious number, yet not all
Whose words have held me in delicious thrall.

Weary with many thoughts, I went to sleep,
(Mysterious mute existence!), calm and deep
My slumbers came upon me, while my dreams,
Tinged with the beauty of a thousand themes
From childhood cherished, crowded through my brain,—
Bright things a waking eye might seek in vain.—
Freed from its daily struggles with the real,
My spirit sought the infinite ideal,
And revelled in its regions for a time,
Where all is pure, ecstatic, and sublime.
With clear, unbounded intellect, and tongue
To utter at my will undying song,

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My lips dropped poesy, like flakes of light,
As though some wandering angel, in his flight,
Had waved his radiant pinions o'er my head,
And shaken plumage off. Forth from my bed,
When the spring morning shed its lustrous rain,
I leapt in joy, and seized my pen to chain
A thousand splendid visions which had crept
Through my delighted being as I slept;
But like a breath upon a mirror's face,
They lapsed away, nor left a lingering trace.
Finding my muse had crippled both her wings,
And fluttered earthward, back to common things,
I went to breakfast, wrapt in thoughtful gloom,
While Sabbath sunshine, pouring in my room,
Hung brightly upon ceiling, wall, and floor,
And laid a golden bar across my door;
I could not choose but own its silent power,
And feel in calm accordance with the hour.
The scribbling fit was on me, but in lieu
Of soaring into regions high and new
Of perfect Poesy, I strove to climb
The little mole-hill of imperfect Rhyme.

The ample table-cover drooped adown
In graceful folds, white as a bridal gown,
Or childhood's shroud, or vestal-maid's array,
Or blossoms breathing on the lap of May,
Or cygnet's breast, or those fair clouds that lie
Hovering in beauty in a summer sky;
Or snow on Alpine summits;—(thus you see
We get at poesy by simile).
The bread suggested corn-fields broad and yellow,
Touched by the autumn sunbeams mild and mellow;
The rustle of full sheaves, the laugh and song
Of jolly reapers, sickle-armed and strong,

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And all the loud hilarities that come
To swell the triumph of a harvest home.
And then the restless and secluded mill,
Moved by the gushings of a mountain rill,
With its moss-grown and ever-dripping wheel,
Churning the waters till they flash and reel,
Came up distinct before my mental gaze,—
A well-remembered picture of old days.
The unctuous butter and the cooling cream,
Though simple in themselves, inspired a dream
Of quiet granges seated far away
From towns and cities, and of meadows gay
With spring's innumerable flowers: of kine
Feeding in healthful pastures (how I pine
To rush into the fields!), of dairies sweet,
Where buxom damsels, rosy-lipped and neat,
Have pleasant toils; and last, the ingle side,
Scene of the farmer's solacement and pride.
The juicy lettuce and the pungent cress,
At least in fancy's hearing, spoke no less
Of trim-laid gardens, and complaining brooks,
Winding away through green romantic nooks,
To schoolboys and to lovers only known,
Or Poets wandering in their joy alone;
And then the coffee, with its amber shine,
In aromatic richness half divine—
Brought Araby, and Araby the “Nights,”
Which in my boyhood filled me with delights
That linger yet. To memory how dear
The generous Caliph, and the good Vizier:
The silent city with its forms of stone,
Its crowded streets so wonderfully lone:—
Sinbad, of eastern travellers the great;
Aladdin's potent lamp, and splendid state,

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And all that dreamy mystery whose power
Hath kept one wakeful till the morning hour.
Alas! that time's remorseless hand should raze
Those magic mansions of our early days,
Wherein we dwelt in quietude and joy,
As yet unconscious of the world's annoy;
But still, though time, and even truth, be stern,
'Tis well if we can meditate, and learn
To gather solace from the meanest springs,
And see some beauty in the humblest things;
For to the willing heart and thoughtful mind,
To eyes with pride and prejudice unblind,
Germs of enjoyment are for ever rife,
E'en on the waste of unromantic life.

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THE SEASIDE SOJOURN.

TO A POET FRIEND.

My valued Friend! as generous and true
As bard could wish, when steadfast friends are few,—
Friend of the feeling heart and soul of fire,
Restrained and chastened by each just desire:
Whose thoughts are high, exuberant and warm,—
Whose manners win, whose lightest words inform;
Whose deeds are ever on the helpless side
Of all who are oppressed and trouble-tried.
Thou hast not 'scaped the many-headed strife,
Which in the tangled labyrinths of life
Meets us at every turn, and strives to wrest
Peace from the mind, and pleasure from the breast;
But could I, as my wishes urge, extend
A prayer-won blessing unto thee, my friend,
Thy storms should cease, thy clouds should break away,
And leave the experienced evening of thy day
Calm in its joy, and in its brightness bland,
A fleeting foretaste of a happier land.

Sick of the thoughtless revel, and the throng
Of paltry pleasures that have done me wrong,
Of envious malice and of spurious praise
(The bane, the blight of my aspiring days!),
I come, with more than sadness in my breast,
To be with Nature a repentant guest;

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And here, once more by the consoling sea,
Whose constant voice of solemn euphony
Disposes to serene, exalted thought,
I find the tranquil solacement I sought;
Put off my cares, repress regretful tears,
And wake fond memories of departed years.
Many and harmless are the spells that bind
To this calm spot my stricken heart and mind,
The grey and breezy downs, unploughed and bare;
The priceless luxury of healthful air;
The long lone ramble by the sounding shore;
The drip and sparkle of the measured oar;
The white-winged sea-gull's low and laggard flight;
The green wave's fitful and phosphoric light;
The staunch and stately ships that come and go
With the strong tide's unfailing ebb and flow;
The hardy sailor's wild, peculiar cry,
As, with a spirit emulous and high,
His horny hands unfurl the fluttering sail
To catch the fulness of the freshening gale;
The steadfast beacon's red revolving shine,
Far-looking o'er the still or stormy brine
With calm and constant, needful, watchfulness,
To warn from danger, and to cheer distress.
Then the pure pleasantness at eventide,
Our faces brightening by the “ingle side,”—
In social converse, various and new,
Merry or sad, with chosen friends and few,—
Of wit and wisdom, manners, books, and men,
Of the strong sword-plague and the stronger pen;
Of living laws that guard us or degrade;
Of peaceful arts that speed the wings of trade;
Of mild Philosophy's untold delights;
Of fearless Science in his daring flights:

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Of fervid eloquence, whose wondrous tongue
Makes truth and falsehood, rectitude and wrong,—
Play faithless and, withal, fantastic parts
On our deluded ears and doubtful hearts;
Till thou, my Friend, already brimming o'er
With classic story and poetic lore,
Dost lead us gently, by degrees, away
To mental regions of serener day,
Where Genius of a loftier, holier power,
Lives soul-rapt in the quiet of his bower,
Calmly creating and enjoying things
(Born of emotions and imaginings),
So sweet and stainless, truthful and sublime,
And so instinct with life, that even Time,
Who makes material grandeur stern and hoary,
Adds to their strength, their beauty and their glory!
'Tis sweet again, with tranquil heart and limb,
Within my dormitory, small and dim,
To lie and listen to the lengthened roar
Of restless waters rolling on the shore,
And feel o'er all my languid senses creep
The soft and silent witchery of sleep;
With its mysterious crowd of glooms and gleams
Mixed in a wild romance of miscellaneous dreams.

Once more there's pleasure, when my lattice pane
Admits the dewy morning's golden rain,
To hear the merry birds' melodious glee,
And the still sleepless and complaining sea—
Call me to spend another happy day
Of fresh, free thought—too soon to pass away!

But there are other charms that gently hold
My world-sick spirit to thy little fold
Of joyous human lambs, that learn and live
'Mid many pleasures fair but fugitive;

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That wist not wherefore, and that ask not when
Care claims the hearts, and dims the eyes of men.
The first that greets my inquiring eyes at morn
Is the sweet fay, thy loved and latest born:
Her with the ruddy and the rounded cheek,
And flowing elf-locks, amber-hued and sleek,
And ripe lips, like a virgin bud that blows
'Mid summer dews, a stainless infant rose:
Her with the thoughtless brow, and laughing eye,
Clear as the depths of the cerulean sky,
Where storms are brief, where shadows seldom dare
Pollute or trouble the salubrious air.

Well do I know her father hath the power
(A dear, but yet, alas! a dangerous dower!)
To shrine his daughter in a song whose tone
Would be as sweet and lasting as my own;
But since he lays his trembling harp aside,
With a deep sense of not unworthy pride,—
Be mine the privilege, with words sincere,
To please an anxious father's willing ear.

She duly comes—that little sprite of thine,—
A human form, but seeming half divine,
With the young morn, as fresh and free from care
As forest flowers that meet us unaware—
To kiss with ready lips her fond, firm mother,
Her kindly nurse,—her grave and growing brother,
Her yearning father, and her father's friend,
As if she sought her little soul to blend
With souls of sterner mood, and thus impart
Her own spontaneous happiness of heart.
With bright impatient face she rushes out,
Her lips disparted with a gleesome shout,
To make a merry pastime of the hours
In the romantic fields, knee deep in flowers,

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Which with an eager hand she plucks to grace
The unravelled tresses floating round her face.
Else, with her young companions hand in hand,—
Leaving her tiny footprints in the sand,—
Roams the long level of the sloping shore,
Watching the waters—fearless of their roar;
Gathering the stranded shells wherewith to deck
The purer whiteness of her graceful neck;
Till in the full-tide splendours of the noon,
Humming with “vacant joy” some wordless tune,
She comes exulting from her pleasant toils,
And strews the floor with variegated spoils;
Worthless, perchance, to our maturer sight,
But to her own a treasure of delight.
The dinner done, the irksome lesson o'er,
Again she seeks her playmates, to explore
Haunts yet unvisited, or old ones where
All that salutes her earnest eyes is fair;
And every sound to her untutored ears
Is as the fabled music of the spheres.
The shady quiet of some bosky dell,
And the cool sparklings of its little well;
The bustling brooklet hurrying past her feet
With a low murmur, tremulous and sweet;
A fluttering leaf—a waving flower—a tree
Shivering through all its foliage; a bee
Sitting assiduous on the honied bloom
Of clover, blushing in its own perfume:
The song and plumage of some fearless bird—
The cuckoo's shout from dim remoteness heard;
Mysterious Echo's mimic voice, that seems
Like that of spirit from a place of dreams;—
The dauntless pleasure-toils to seek and find
The brown nuts nestling in their rugged rind;

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The feast of bramble-berries black and bright,
Staining the lip that prattles with delight;
The tale of fairy—childhood's cherished creed—
Of wild old thoughts, a treasury indeed!
Yea, all that Nature's outward form imparts
To win the worship of such sinless hearts,
Makes up her waking life, and makes it too
Seem ever gladsome, glorious, and new,—
Sending her home at the calm set of day
Subdued and silent from her joyous play;
Her light limbs weary, and her eyelids prest
By slumber—welcome, though unbidden guest,
Which lays her down, a pure unconscious thing,
In the soft shadow of an angel's wing.

Oh! Childhood is the Paradise of Life,
Long safe from sin, and separate from strife;
And heaven-appointed spirits hover round,
To guard from evil the enchanted ground,
Till the dread thing o'erleaps the hallowed wall,
Basks in our path, and lures us to our fall:
Bright thoughts and pure all stealthily depart,
Leaving a strange vacuity of heart;
Some necessary impulse seems to press
Our footsteps nearer to the wilderness,
Until we learn the knowledge of our doom
From the “small voice” that whispers through the gloom,
While unseen hands, and powerful, compel
Our going from the Eden where we dwell;
And at the boundary, the angel Truth,
With looks of pity on our dawning youth,
Waves the stern flame-sword in our startled eyes,
And turns us to the world where danger lies:
But happy we, if in our hearts we find
Aught holy from the home for ever left behind.

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I may not predicate what grief or glee
Awaits the darling of thy wife and thee,—
Her fate lies folded in the breast benign
Of Him who holds her in His hand divine:
But hope is soothing, and despair is vain,
And gentle precept leadeth with a chain
Stronger than passion's, from the path of wrong,
And firm example doeth more than song.

Thus with the teaching thou alone canst give,
Serene in virtue she may learn to live;
And though some bitter taints the cup of all,
Her's in its sweetness, may subdue the gall.
Oh! may these written thoughts, when after life
Hath merged the maiden in the prouder wife,
Awake sweet memories of departed years,
And call the tribute down of none but happy tears.

I go, heart-strengthened by the little space
Of calm enjoyment in as calm a place,
Enlarged in sympathy, refreshed in mind,
With loftier thoughts, and feelings more refined;
Earnest and hopeful, anxious to explore
A clearer region of poetic lore,
Where I may toil with purer soul, and stand
Among the worthiest of my native land.

In sadness I depart, but not in pain,
Trusting to clasp thy cordial hand again:
Take thou and thine my blessing and farewell,—
Peace to thy house and all therein that dwell!

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COME TO MY HOME.

Come to my calm but lonely home,
With all thy grace, and love, and light,
That I may watch thee day by day,
And be thy guardian through the night;
Be thou my household's happy queen,
The pride and beauty of my bower;
My wayward soul's presiding star,—
My fond heart's sweetest, dearest flower.

Light labours only wait thee here,—
My peerless and my chosen one!
For thou shalt train the nectar-tree
To hang its tresses in the sun.
By thee the honey-fingered bine
Shall mantle round our rural shed;
And the Sultana summer rose
Lift high her proud imperial head.

Through radiant summer's gorgeous time,
When pleasant toils are duly told:
When burn upon the western skies
The sun's rich robes of cloudy gold,—

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We'll tread the green and fragrant sward,
And, leaning by some laggard stream,
Breathe to the sweet and listening air
The words of some immortal dream.

When garish day fades softly out,
Religious twilight gathering o'er,—
We'll read upon the book of heaven
Its God-illuminated lore;
Then filled with quiet thankfulness
While odorous night winds round us creep,
We'll turn with homeward steps, and slow,
To woo the tranquil bliss of sleep.

When moonlight snow is on the roof,
And pictured frost is on the pane;
When clustering stars look keenly forth,
And clouds discharge their solid rain,—
We'll nestle near the chimney side,
Unenvious of the festive throng,
And drown the moaning of the blast
In the united tones of song.

Should sickness bow thy fragile form,
Or sorrow rifle thee of rest,—
Should aught of human ill destroy
The peaceful rapture of thy breast,
My lips shall speak of home and health,
To cheat thee of thy grief and pain,
And all my faculties combine
To bring thee back to peace again.

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When other voices than our own,
And other forms which are not here,
Shall fill these walls with childish glee,
And make existence doubly dear;
What shall estrange us heart from heart,
When such connubial joys are given?
Come, be the angel of my life,
And make my earthly home a heaven!

Originally entitled “The Request,” and contributed to “The Athenæum Souvenir”—a publication associated with the Athenæum Bazaar, held in Manchester Town-Hall in 1843.

A SUMMER'S EVENING SKETCH.

In tranquil thought, last eventide, I went my wonted way,
Along the foldings of a vale where quiet beauty lay,
To breathe the living air, and watch with fancies half divine,
The clouds that gathered near the sun, to grace his grand decline.

The new-mown meadows, smooth and broad, gay in their second green,
The sinuous river gliding on in shadow and in sheen;
The orchard and its little cot, with low and mossy eaves,
And tiny lattice twinkling through its chequered veil of leaves.

The costly mansion, here and there, 'mid solemn groves and still;
The mass of deep and wave-like woods uprolling on the hill;
The grey and Gothic church that looked down on its graveyard lone,
And on the hamlet roofs and walls, coeval with its own;

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Old farms remote and far apart, with intervening space
Of black'ning rock, and barren down, and pasture's pleasant face;
The white and winding road, that crept through village, vale, and glen,
And o'er the dreary moorlands, far beyond the homes of men.

The changeful glory of the sky, the loveliness below;
The tree-tops tinged with rosy fire, the bright pool's borrowed glow;
The blaze of windows, and the smile of fields so soon to fade,
And when the lingering sun went down, the tenderness of shade;

The throstle's still untiring song, loud as at early morn;
The grasshopper's shrill serenade amid the ripening corn;
The careless schoolboy's gleesome shout; the low of homeward herds;
The voice of mother and of child, let loose in loving words;

The rose that sighed its fragrant soul upon the summer air;
The breath of honeysuckle wild, that met me unaware;
The smell of cribs where oxen lay, of dairies dim and small;
Of herb, and moss, and fruit, that grew within the garden wall;

All pleasant things that wooed the sense in odour, sound, or hue,
Came with as sweet an influence as if they had been new,—

275

And so disposed my mind to love, to gentleness, and trust,
I blessed all seemly forms that God life-kindled from the dust.

The mingled magic of the scene, the season, and the hour,
Fell on my world-sick spirit then with most consoling power;
Old friendships seemed revived again—old enmities forgiven,
Suspended as my feelings were midway 'tween earth and heaven.

I could have sported with a child, myself a child again;
I could have hailed the veriest wretch of penury and pain;
Religion, love, humanity, awoke within my breast,
And filled me with a solemn joy my tears alone expressed.

Thus nature wins her peaceful way, with silent strength and grace,
To souls that love her lineaments, and meet her face to face.
Blest privilege! to leave behind the paths of toil we trod,
And live an hour of purity with Nature and with God!

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THE WANDERER.

In a lonely valley yonder,
Where the Rhenish wine-tree grows,
I sat me down to rest and ponder
On the mystery of woes:
For I was travel-stained and weary,
Sore of foot and faint of limb,
Helpless, hungry, heart-sick, dreary,
My eyes with want and watching dim.

It was a sunny Sabbath morning,
In the briefest days of Spring—
Infant buds the boughs adorning,
Larks upon the skyward wing:
Flowers, in fragrant childhood blowing,
Drank the golden light of day;
Streams, in clearer gladness flowing,
Found a sweeter, greener way.

The peasant poor to worship wending,—
Wrinkled dame and ruddy lass,
With a kind obeisance bending,
Greet the pilgrim as they pass:—

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Welcome, though their homely graces,
Buoyant footstep, aspect free,
Stranger forms and stranger faces
Are not those he yearns to see.

A simple Sabbath-chime was ringing
From a grey and leafy tower,—
A sweet and solemn music flinging
Over vineyard, vale, and bower;
The very woods and hills seemed listening,
In a holy calm profound,
And the lingering dew-drops, glistening,
Seemed to tremble at the sound.

Present sorrow,—baleful shadow!
Slid from off my languid mind,
Like a cloud-shade from a meadow,
Leaving greener spots behind.
Recollections, sad or splendid,
Came with softened smiles and tears,
And the future, hope-attended,
Beckoned unto brighter spheres.

England's temples of devotion,
Unassuming, old, and dim,
Where the deepest heart-emotion
Answers to the holy hymn;
In whose grave-yards, greened with ages,
Eyes the tears of memory shed,
Looking on those solemn pages—
Stony records of the dead.

278

I saw a sleeping babe receiving
Baptismal drops upon its face,
A blushing bride the portal leaving
With a proud and modest grace:
I saw a dark assembly gather
Round an open grave and deep,
And a wifeless, childless father
Stricken till he could not weep.

Then my youth rose up before me,
Fresh as in its newest hour,
When that deeper life came o'er me,
Love's pure passion and its power;
When a crowd of different feelings
In my growing heart took birth,
Different thoughts, whose sweet revealings
Uttered more of heaven than earth.

Memory opened out her treasures,
Which had lain unheeded long,—
Trials, triumphs, pains, and pleasures,
A mingled and familiar throng:
Scenes, where I had wandered lonely,
In my boyhood's dreamy days,
When the shapes of Nature only
Soothed and satisfied my gaze.

Wood haunts, where I lay and lingered,
At my stolen, but happy ease,
While the west wind, frolic-fingered,
Stirred the umbrage of my trees;

279

While the fern and fox-glove nigh me
Whispered things, too seldom heard;
And brook and bee that flitted by me
Held light concert with the bird.

England's soft and slumbering valleys,
With happy homesteads scattered o'er,
Where the honeysuckle dallies
With the rose, about the door:
England's ancient halls and granges,
In some woodland nestled low,
Through whose shades the river ranges
With a dark and devious flow.

Then I saw new things, and fairer,
In the stars, clouds, fields, and flowers;
Then I heard new sounds, and rarer,
In the ever-voiceful bowers:
Then with stronger life came laden
Every breeze that wandered wide,
Because one loved, one loving maiden,
Smiled, looked, listened, by my side.

Every spot of blissful meeting
Rose before my inner sight;
Every fond and joyous greeting
Thrilled me with an old delight.
Precious hours of speedy pinion—
Ye with purest passion rife,
Alas! to feel your dear dominion
Once only in the lapse of life!

280

Still that Sabbath-chime was ringing,
Where the Rhenish wine-tree grows,
Sterner recollections bringing,
Tinctured with a thousand woes:—
Poverty's resistless terrors,
Careless words, and careless deeds,
Rash resolves, and thoughtless errors,
For which the wiser spirit bleeds.

Absent voices, absent faces,
Which I longed to hear and see;
Hearts, which yearned for my embraces,
And beat with faithful pulse for me.
Thoughts like these, with strong appealings,
Tinged with hopes, and touched with fears,
Only asked for human feelings,
And I answered with my tears.

Thus that Sabbath-chime, though simple,
Stirred me with its hallowed sound,
As a still lake's smallest dimple
Moves the whole bright surface round.
That sweet music, and the brightness
Of the young and buoyant day,
Gave to my soul new strength, new lightness,
As I journeyed on my way.

281

WAR.

Scourge of the nations, and the bane of freedom, hope, and life!
Stern reveller in gory fields, exulting in the strife!
Thou terror of ten thousand homes, thou sword-plague of the world!
When shall we see thy balefires quenched, thy bloodstained banners furled?

Ambition-born, and power-begot, with passions dark and vile,
And fostered by the cruel arts of avarice and guile,
Thou goest forth with reckless hosts to slaughter and enslave,
Thou trampler upon human hearts, thou gorger of the grave!

Thy oriflamme floats wantonly in the pure unconscious air;
The chorus of thy drums gives out the warning note “Prepare;”
Thy cymbals ring, thy trumpets sing with shrill and vaunting breath,
Alas! that such vain pageantry should grace the feast of death!

Growing in peaceful splendour stands some proud and prosperous town,
Till thy dread footsteps pass her gates, and tread her glories down;
While panic sweeps her wildering streets, and all thy hounds of prey,
Make riot in her homes, and leave dishonour and dismay.

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Some village, nestling tranquilly amid its happy shades,
Girt with the calm amenities of corn-fields, streams, and glades,
Beholds thee pause upon thy march, and in thy fierce employ
Despoil its blooming paradise of quietude and joy.

A province withers at thy frown, a kingdom mourns to see
Her desecrated temples torn, her towers o'erthrown by thee;
Bewails her commerce paralysed, her fields unploughed and wild,
And all her household sanctities invaded and defiled.

And yet the land that sends thee forth, what land soe'er it be,
Leaps at thy lawless victories, and lifts the voice of glee,
And songs are sung, and bells are rung, and merry bonfires blaze,
While false, or foolish pens, distil the poison of their praise.

And at the crowded banquet board quick tongues diffuse thy fame,
And columns lift proud capitals in honour of thy name.
And virgins, pure and beautiful, give their fond hearts away
To men who trod out human life in the carnage yesterday.

Thy trophies, brought in triumph home, attest what thou hast done,
What valour lavished on the foe, what fields of glory won;
But men who scorn thy painful pomp, survey with blushing face
Such signs of sanguinary power, such symbols of disgrace.

283

Ay, strip thee of thy dainty garb, thy tinsel robe of pride,
Lay glistering helm, and flaunting plume, and specious names aside,—
And what remains of that gay thing that dazzled us before?
A monster, hideous to behold—an idol smeared with gore!

The widow's curse is on thee, War; the orphan's suppliant cries,
Mixed with the mother's malison, ascend the placid skies;
And bones that bleach upon the shore, and welter in the sea,
Appeal,—and shall it be in vain? against thy deeds and thee.

The green earth fain would fling thee off from her polluted breast:
The multitudes are yearning, too, for knowledge and for rest,
And lips inspired by Christian love all deprecate thy wrongs,
And poets fired with purer themes, disdain thee in their songs.

“The embattled corn” is lovelier far than thy embattled hordes;
One plough in Labour's honest hand is worth ten thousand swords;
The engine's steam pulse, fitly plied, hath nobler conquests made
Than all the congregated serfs of thy abhorrent trade.

More courage in the miner's heart than captain ever knew;
More promise in the peasant's frock than coats of scarlet hue;

284

More honour in the craftsman's cap, and in the student's gown;
More glory in the pastor's robe than all thy vain renown.

England, my own, my mother land, as fair as thou art free!
Thou Island queen! whose wide domains o'ersprinkle earth and sea,
What need that thou should'st yearn again to conquer and subdue?
Thy power has long been known to all, shall not thy mercy too?

Forbear to use the cruel sword, or, if thou wilt invade,
Be it with palm or olive branch, that maketh none afraid;
Be it with Bible in thy hand, with justice in thy breast,
Give peaceful arts; give Gospel light; give rectitude and rest.

If strong ambition dares to doom his weaker foe to bleed,
Raise high the trumpet-voice of truth against the ruthless deed;
With magnanimity of heart, with calm and fearless brow,
Be thou the umpire and the friend—the mediator thou.

So shall the nations look to thee, as one ordained to keep
The balance of the social world, the portals of the deep;
And history shall write thee down, with proud and willing hand,
A realm of mind and majesty, a wise and Christian land!

285

WINTER MUSINGS.

Stern Winter time! thy shrouded skies oppress me,
And fling funereal shadows o'er my brain:
Sad thoughts and visions, spectre-like, distress me,
And waken all my sympathies to pain;
Sad thoughts of yonder multitudinous city,
Where care too often festers into crime:
Where hearts heave out their life for lack of pity,
Or, living, dread thy coming, Winter time!

Sad thoughts of sinful and pestiferous places,
Where love, hope, joy, breeze, sunlight, never comes;
Where pen and pencil never lend their graces,
Nor common comforts quiet, to their homes—
Oh! no, not homes, but dens—where God's own creatures
Creep through the roughest ways of lowest life;
Where untaught minds make savage forms and features,
And hold perpetual fellowship with strife.

Sad thoughts! that virtue and that vice together
Stir the thick air with curses and with groans,
Pine through the day, and in the fiercest weather
Herd nightly on the cold and cruel stones;
Or desperate men put off their fear and starkness,
To wreak their vengeance on some guiltless head;
Or women, roaming through the storm and darkness,
Barter their beauty for dishonoured bread.

286

Even where royalty, oppressed with splendour,
Free as the humblest from repulsive pride,
While ready hands and willing hearts attend her,
Walks in her gardens beautiful and wide—
There, even there, with gorgeous wealth surrounded,
The lost, the scorned, the outcasts of their kind,
Lie down a heap of indigence confounded,
Fellows in misery, if not in mind.

Sad thoughts! that in yon town's bewildering mazes,
Dark veins far stretching from its giant heart,
Man in his saddest moods and sternest phases
Lives from all healthy influence apart:
Souls that have missed their way lie there benighted,
With all their sensual instincts wild and bare;
And hearts, once prone to love, are warped and blighted
For lack of genial sustenance and care.

Fathers sit brooding on the threatening morrow,
With looks of anger kindling into hate;
And mothers, with a mute, but deeper sorrow,
Cease to resist the thraldom of their fate:
Children, grown prematurely old, are pining
In apathetic squalor, day by day;
Round their young natures vicious weeds are twining,
Which thrust the flowers of purity away.

Perchance, within those lazar-dens of riot
Insidious sickness saps the shattered frame:
Where is the yielding couch, the room of quiet?
The pensive taper-light's unfailing flame?
Where is the cleanly hearthstone, blithely glowing?
The cordial offered ere the lips request?
Where are affection's eyes, with grief o'erflowing?
The forms that wait, yet fear, the final rest?

287

Where is the skilful leech, man's health-director,
With words of honey all unmixed with gall?
The pastor praying to the great Protector,
Without whose will a sparrow cannot fall!
Alas! not there! no love, no skill, no teaching,
Touches with hopeful light the hour of gloom,
The lorn wretch thinks high heaven beyond his reaching,
And, dying, braves the horrors of his doom!

Strange contrast! lo! yon lofty windows brighten
From chambers as an eastern vision fair,
Where lips and eyes with pleasure smile and lighten,
While song and music thrill the throbbing air;
Where Art hath brought her triumphs and her graces,
The glowing canvas, and the breathing stone;
Where rich refinements from a thousand places
Are tributes from the lands of every zone.

There lusty lacqueys round the banquet gliding
With costly dainties court the pampered taste,
While Joy and Plenty o'er the board presiding
See southern nectars run to wanton waste;
There Fortune's idol learns to love and languish,
Swathed in the splendour and the pride of birth,
Uncaring, or unconscious, of the anguish
That bows her lowly sisters of the earth.

And yet there are, beside the hall or palace,
Shapes of humanity, unhoused, unfed,
Untaught, unsought, unheeded, fierce or callous,
The sky their curtain, and the earth their bed:
Shapes which are all of one Almighty's making,
Imploring, threatening, near the rich man's feet,
With sin grown savage, or with sorrow quaking,
Frenzied for food his dogs refuse to eat.

288

“The poor shall cease not,” God's blest word declareth;
But are they less of human mould than kings?
Must they grow faint for what kind Nature beareth,
For what she gives to all her meaner things?
Must they exist in darkness and distraction,
Doubting if Heaven be merciful and just?
Shut out from joy, unnerved for glorious action,
And scarce uplifted from the grovelling dust?

Formed for all fitting faculties and feelings
By Him who gives the tiniest worm a law,
Who fills His humblest work with high revealings,
Sustains the skies, and keeps the stars in awe,—
Shall they, oppressed with famine and wrong doing,
With crowded cares, and unassuasive pain,
Obey, toil, falter, rush to deeper ruin,
Reason, implore, grow mad, and all in vain?

Forbid it, God! who deigns to guide and gift us!
Ye mild and moral principles of right—
Ye liberal souls that labour to uplift us—
Rise up against it with resistless light:
And all ye holy sympathies that slumber
Unstirred, unfruitful in the human breast,
Spring into active phalanx without number,
And give the poor hope, help, and happier rest.

Forbid it, Pen—for thou canst vanquish error;
Forbid it, Press—proud ally of the Pen!
Forbid it, Speech, that carries truth or terror
To the hard bosoms of unthinking men.
Pen, Press, and Speech, creators of opinion—
Opinion armed 'gainst ignorance and wrong—
League all the lands beneath your blest dominion,
Till the glad poet sings a calmer song.

289

THE PARTITION OF THE EARTH.

PARAPHRASED FROM THE GERMAN OF SCHILLER.

“Take the Earth!” uttered God, from the height of His throne,
As He looked on the children He made, from above:
“Take the Earth, with its treasures, and call it your own,
But divide it with justice and brotherly love!”

By myriads men came when they heard the decree,—
Age, manhood, and youth hurried on in the race;
The husbandman ruled o'er the corn-covered lea,—
The forest was given to the sons of the chase.

The merchant took all that his stores would contain,
While the priest—holy man! took the choicest of wine;
The king took the highways and byways for gain,
By a law which the people believed was divine.

At length, when each mortal rejoiced in his lot,
Came the poet, who loved not the boisterous throng;
But, alas! when he came he beheld not a spot,
Save the breadth of a grave, for the pilgrim of song.

Then he threw himself down at the throne of his Sire,
And cried to the Being who gave him his birth,—
“Oh! grant a poor outcast his only desire,
Let the child of Thy wrath be forgotten on earth.”

290

God said, “If thou liv'st in the empire of thought,
The cause of thy sorrow pertains not to me:—
Where, where hast thou stayed while My bidding was wrought?”
Said the Poet, “Oh, God! I was near unto Thee!

“If my eyes were entranced by Thy glory and might,
And my ears by the music that breathes in Thy skies;
If my soul was absorbed in Thy love and Thy light,
Forgive that the Earth disappeared from mine eyes.”

“Content thee,” God said, “for Earth's riches are given,—
As such was My pleasure, and hence My decree,
Thou shalt live with thy Lord in His own blessed heaven,
For whenever thou comest 'tis open to thee!”

THE PATRIOT'S BATTLE PRAYER.

PARAPHRASED FROM THE GERMAN OF SCHILLER.

Father of Life! to Thee, to Thee I call—
The cannon sends its thunders to the sky;
The wingèd fires of slaughter round me fall;
Great God of Battles! let Thy watchful eye
Look o'er and guard me in this perilous hour,
And if my cause be just, oh! arm me with Thy power!

Oh! lead me, Father, to a glorious end,
To well-won freedom, or a martyr's death;
I bow submissive to Thy will, and send
A soul-felt prayer to Thee in every breath:
Do with me as beseems Thy wisdom, Lord,
But let not guiltless blood defile my maiden sword!

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God, I acknowledge Thee, and hear Thy tongue
In the soft whisper of the falling leaves,
As well as in the tumult of the throng
Arrayed for fight—this human mass that heaves
Like the vexed ocean. I adore Thy name,
Oh, bless me, God of grace, and lead me unto fame.

Oh! bless me, Father! in Thy mighty hand
I place what Thou hast lent—my mortal life;
I know it will depart at Thy command,
Yet will I praise Thee, God, in peace or strife;
Living or dying, God, my voice shall raise
To Thee, Eternal Power, the words of prayer and praise!

I glorify thee, God, I come not here
To fight for false ambition, vainly brave;
I wield my patriot sword for things more dear,—
Home and my fatherland; the name of slave
My sons shall not inherit. God of Heaven!
For Thee and Freedom's cause my sacred vow is given!

God, I am dedicate to Thee for ever;
Death, which is legion here, may hem me round;
Within my heart the invader's steel may quiver,
And spill my life-blood on the crimson ground:
Still am I Thine, and unto Thee I call,—
Father, I seek the foe—forgive me if I fall!

292

ON THE DEATH OF ROBERT SOUTHEY, LATE POET LAUREATE.

From the bright coronal of living minds,
The grace and glory of these later days,
A gem is shaken to the dust; a star
Which rose in thought's wide hemisphere, and grew
Resplendent with the calm, sweet light of Song
Hath faded into darkness, while our eyes
Gaze with sad yearning after it—in vain!
The fitful winds, which sweep with varying voice
O'er the broad breast of Keswick's wrinkled lake,
Sing dirges o'er the mountain-girdled grave
Where Southey sleeps. A fitting tomb for him
Whose heart did feed itself amid a scene
So strangely beautiful; for many a sound,
And silence—which is sound made awful—will
Breathe about his resting place, from glens,
From green hill tops, from old time-twisted trees,
From wave-worn caverns in the rifted rock,
From waters, sleepless as the listening stars
On which they gaze, from breezes touched and tuned
To storms or zephyrs; for in them he heard
What unto him was Poesy, and she
Peopled his solitude with things of joy!
Sad to remember that that laurelled brow,
Which held such wild imaginings, such powers

293

To clothe in lofty language lofty truths,
And sentiments which humanised and stirred,
Wears the cold hues of death. That cunning hand,
Which traced upon the page the living line,
Is paralysed; and that once piercing eye,
Lit with the reflex of an ardent soul,
Is veiled and quenched. That spark of deathless fire,
Which filled its shrine with glory, hath returned
To the pure fountain of immortal light
From whence it sprang, leaving its “darkened dust”
To mingle with its elements for ever!

Men lightly say—“This is the common lot;”
But when the gifted and the good depart,
We stand aghast, as if some well-touched string,
Breathing divinest music in our ears,
Was snapped asunder, even while our hearts
Were throbbing to its tones. But have we not,
Within a few brief moons, been called to weep
O'er the sad loss of many an eloquent mind
Of strength and beauty? For a voice hath said,
That he who fixed his soul in marble lives
In fame alone; that Wilkie's magic hand,
Which threw upon the canvas genuine life,
Hath lost its power in the remorseless grave;
That honest Allan, of the hardy north,
Hath hung his harp upon the cypress bough,
And joined a nobler choir; and Southey, last,
But far from least of these, hath rent away
The gyves of earth, and soared to happier spheres.

Yet let us not despair,—for Southey lives,—
Lives in the labours of a quiet life,
Well spent and richly fruitful. Few may claim
The laurel crown which he hath laid aside,
And wear the wreath so nobly and so long.

294

The lustrous diamond in profoundest gloom
Retains the light it gathered from the sun
From age to age; so hath the world received
And treasured up the lustre of the mind
Of him we mourn, which shall not melt away.
Let us imbibe his spirit, like old wine
Long caverned in the earth, and mellowed down
To strength and purity; but let us not,
Because some lees remain within the cup,
Reject as worthless the inspiring draught.

Those first brief bursts of his unsullied muse—
Those earlier flights of her rejoicing wing,
Light as the lark and buoyant as his lay,
Are ours to think upon and love. How well
He sang the sorrows of his race, and cried
Aloud against its wrongs! How sweetly breathed
His harp-strings, when the charms of Nature wooed
Their eloquent voices out! For these alone,—
For these few flashes of a feeling soul,
His laurel leaves shall keep for ever green!

Wordsworth!
Thou priest and patriarch of Nature!—thou,
Who wast a brother of the buried bard
In mind and fame! awake thine ancient lyre
To one last mournful melody, and mine
Shall shrink to silence at thy loftier song!

295

A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO MY FRIEND JOHN BALL.

December 1843.

Dear Friend,

Free for an interval of time
To sleep or think, to read or rhyme,—
I hear yon steeple's measured chime,
With solemn weight,
Fling to the silent night sublime
The hour of eight.

Snug-seated by the chimney-cheek,
Too calmly indolent to speak,—
An evening custom through the week,
My tube of clay
Sends forth a light and odorous reek,
Like ocean spray.

The spiral cloud soars to the ceiling,
To Fancy's eye strange forms revealing,
Until I find around me stealing
So sweet a rest
That every kind and gentle feeling
Stirs in my breast.

296

(Thou tiny censer, burning slow,
Whose fire and fragrance soothe my woe,
I would not willingly forego
Thy quiet power
For all the dainty dazzling show
Of Fashion's hour.)

The flickering fire is dancing bright,
Dispensing genial warmth and light,
While beings pleasant to my sight
Are seated round;
And one doth read, and one doth write,
With scarce a sound.

Meanwhile, within the glowing grate
I see things wild and desolate,—
Rocks, mountains, towers, in gloomy state,
With other traces
Of monsters savagely sedate,
With gorgon faces.

But as I gaze they slowly change
To regions beautiful and strange,
Where lovely creatures seem to range
The red realm through;
Or English temple, cot, and grange
Start into view.

Outside, the myriad-fingered rain
Is drumming on the window pane,
And the strong night-winds wail in vain
To enter here:—
Alas! they move upon the main
With wrath and fear!

297

And now my thoughts are sent afar
To where the peril-seeking tar,
Without the light of moon or star,
Battles aghast,
And hears his proud ship's sail and spar
Rent in the blast.

Poor souls! who tempt the dangerous wave,
Your home, your empire, and your grave,
When winds and waters round you rave
In mighty madness,
Who shall extend the hand to save,
And give ye gladness?

Upbuoyed on Ocean's heaving flood,
A thousand breathing beings stood,
The brave, the gifted, and the good,
But yesterday,
Till the storm came in maddest mood,—
And where are they?

God of the tempest-ridden sea!
The solemn secret rests with Thee,—
With finite sense we are not free
To scan thy law;
'Tis ours alone to bow the knee
In silent awe!

Thus the sad chiding of the wind
Wakes memories of a mournful kind,
Which pour upon the restless mind
A tranquil balm,
As thoughtful here I sit reclined,
Secure and calm.

298

And thinking on the sleepless sea,
“Hungering for peace,” I think of thee,
And how with friendly souls and free
We strayed together,
To talk and dream of Poesy,
In summer weather.

I see that little rustic place
Where our “blithe friend,” with pleasant face,
Displayed with hospitable grace
Those goodly things,
Which quicken Time's lame, laggard pace,
And speed his wings.

The full o'erflowing of the breast,
The frank and unoffending jest,
The bright idea well expressed,—
The laugh and song;
The talk of Spenser, and the rest
Of Fancy's throng;

The antique chamber, warm and small,
The firelight flashing on the wall,
The social cup unmixed with gall,—
The whole delight
Passed like a vision to enthral
My memory quite.

Deferred too long, I seize my pen
(My wand of fancy now and then),
To tell you why, and where, and when
I scrawled this letter;
For in these courtesies, ye ken,
I am your debtor.

299

Yon crowded town, where stunned and tossed
I lingered long, and to my cost,
Caressed to-day—to-morrow crossed,
I've left at last;
And as I count the moments lost
I stand aghast.

And here I am, three leagues away,
Earning my dinner every day
As I was wont, before my lay
Found willing ears—
Without a single friend to say
“Put off thy fears.”

But yet I am not friendless—No!
My wife, fond sharer of my woe,
And Hope, that spirit-joy below,
Are with me still;
And God has blessings to bestow,—
I wait His will.

I have a corner in my heart
For thee, all generous as thou art;
For thou, like me, hast felt the smart
Of the world's wrong;
And thou art loth to live apart
From darling song.

And, therefore, do I wish to learn
If fortune's features grow less stern,
And if thou dost as yet discern
A brighter real,
Or if thy hidden thoughts still yearn
For the ideal.

300

Does Myra's cheek with gladness glow,
And her sweet mouth with laughter flow
As wont? Do all thy children grow
In sense and duty?
And does thy wife put off the woe
That veils her beauty?

With us the wretched rains and damps
Have turned the level fields to swamps,
And through the mist the drowsy lamps
Look dim and dreary;
But, save some fitful aches and cramps,
I'm well and cheery.

I've fallen in love, but not with Flora,
Nor Cynthia chaste, nor young Aurora,
Nor dark Gulnare, nor sweet Medora,
But with the shade
Of fair, fond, faithful fervent Zora,
A Syrian Maid!

Simply, I mean to weave a lay
Of love, to cheer me on my way;
And in my silent hours I pray
“God speed my pen,”
To which, methinks I hear you say
“Amen! Amen!”

Night wears, and, therefore, 'gainst my will,
I use the last drop in my quill
To tell thee I esteem thee still
In shade or shine;
And be our lot or good or ill,
I'm ever thine.

301

THE POWER OF PLEASANT MEMORIES.

Low drooping o'er my toil this afternoon,
With downward aspect, sombre as the air
Which slept around me, echoes of despair
Passed through my thoughts and put them out of tune.
Strong hope, of man the blessing and the dower,
With the calm will to fashion dreams, which rose
Instinct with mental splendour and repose,
Seemed shorn of their consolatory power.
Thus as I sat with melancholy face,
Resisting sadness with a faint endeavour,
“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever,”—
That verse of truthful melody and grace
Flashed through my darkened spirit, like the smile
Of sudden sunlight on a solemn pile.

As from her trance upleaps the joyous spring,
Like a young virgin on her bridal morn—
Flushed with expanding glories newly born,
While earth and air with merry greeting ring;
And Nature, strengthened by her rest, is rife
With fascinating purity and gladness,
So did my spirit, from its sleep of sadness
Start into active and delighting life.
Straightway I stood amid the classic glooms
Flung from the lavish pencil of young Keats,
Realms of immortal shapes, of mingled sweets,

302

Uncloying music, and unfading blooms;
The shadows of creations, which the boy
Nursed in his soul, and watched with silent joy.

Not one, but Legion, were the forms and places,
Laughing and lovely, solemn, and serene,
Which came with all their wonders and their graces
From Memory's treasure-halls, where they had been
Hoarded with miser passion. Spenser's sheen
And grandeur of romance; great Shakespeare's Muse,
Which holds all human sympathies between
The foldings of her pinions; Milton's hues
Stolen from the deathless amaranths of Heaven,
And woven in his own seraphic song;
These to my wakened faculties were given,
An ever moving, ever pleasing throng,
Until I stood, enraptured and alone,
In a strange world of beauty, boundless, and my own!

NEW YEAR'S DAY ASPIRATIONS.

Great God! a mighty multitude of years,
Unnumbered as the Heaven-adorning spheres,
Lit, living, moving, and upheld by Thee—
Are gone to that interminable sea
Which is unknown, unfathomed, and sublime,
The everlasting grave of all the things of Time.

The first faint dawning of another still,
Born of the sleepless goodness of Thy will,

303

Breaks newly, sweetly, through the kindling skies,
To which are turned our simultaneous eyes,
Filled with the heart's unbidden tears, which spring
A lowly, but a grateful offering
To Thee, our strength and hope from first to last
For blessings dropped beside our pathway of the past.

God of the world, and of the human soul
Held in the mystic bonds of Thy control,—
Maker of Virtue, Loveliness, and Truth,
The sister triad of eternal youth—
I glorify Thee, wander though I may,
Blindly or weakly, from Thy peaceful way;
Else why this restless longing to inquire
Into Thy hidden wonders—this desire
To read Thy book of stars, and see Thy power
Of silent working in the Summer flower?
Do I not worship when Thy lightnings break
Through the mid cloud-realm; when Thy thunders speak
With a tremendous eloquence, that thrills
The stony hearts of all the stalwart hills?
And in Thy other voices, which are heard,
From tiny organ of rejoicing bird;
From lapse of waters, twinkling as they run;
From bees assiduous in the sultry sun;
From leaves made tremulous by every breeze,
And the grand choir of stormy winds and seas,
Do I not hear in every sound a tone
Which speaks of Thy transcendent touch alone?

Thy grandeur, scattered with a goodly hand
O'er the upheaving breast of every land,
Hung in the boundless palace of the skies,
Fleeting or fixed to my enamoured eyes;
Holding an ancient solitary reign
O'er the mysterious empire of the main;

304

Clothing Thy change of seasons, ever rife
With mute and passive, loud and stirring life—
All glad my eye, and purify my heart
With joy and glory, of Thyself a part,
Till filled and blended with the things I see
I deem them symbols of Thy love and Thee!

Soul-searcher, Heart-sustainer! humbly now,
With the young year's first breathings on my brow,
With a fresh dawn expanding on my sight,
Melting the morning star's concentred light—
I ask Thy holy benison, and pray
That Thou wilt watch me from this very day,
As Wisdom watches o'er a wayward child,
Bidding me stand erect and undefiled!
Gird me with high resolves, and such desires
As fill the spirit with serener fires—
Which shine upon and warm, but not destroy
The seeds of virtue, and the flowers of joy.
Let not the worldling with insidious power,
Beguile me from Thee for a single hour;
Nor dim the “magic mirror” of my mind,
Hoodwink my judgment, smite my reason blind;
Nor freeze the well of charity, that flows
Freighted with feelings for all human woes;
Nor stir my meaner passions, till I rise
A strange anomaly to good men's eyes.
But let the lamp, which Thou hast lit within
This frail receptacle of grief and sin,
Fed by the life of Thine enduring love,
Burn on, aspiring to its source above—
A pure and steady guiding light to fame,
A sacred altar-fire in honour of Thy name.
And as Thou spar'st me for a little while,
Lend me Thy heart-regenerating smile;

305

Expunge my countless errors of the past,
Till my life's record, stainless at the last,—
The good acknowledged, and the ill forgiven,
Stand as my passport to Thy blessed Heaven!

TO A YOUNG POETESS.

I know thou hast within thee, child of dreams,
Songs which have not been uttered—veins of thought
As rich and rare as ever genius wrought,
Brightening thine inmost soul with golden gleams.
Enthusiast of the Muse! thy dark eye beams
Light intellectual; thy youthful cheek
Looks tinged with fancies which thou wilt not speak,
And through thy heart affection's current streams.
Vanish thy maiden fears! it well beseems
A gifted one of Poesy to sing:
Reanimate thy harp and bid it ring
Loudly, but sweetly, to a thousand themes—
Express the yearnings of thy soul, till fame
Yield thee a wreath of light to crown thy after name.

306

THE WOODLAND WELL.

I shall ever remember that morning of May
When I wandered to watch the first footsteps of day;
When I made a green path through the silvery dew,
And trampled the feather-like fern where it grew.
Untutored, but thoughtful, I then was a child,
In love with the silence that reigned in the wild,
And thus by the power of invisible spell,
I was led to the brink of the bright Woodland Well!

Sweet shadowy place of my musing, thy spring
Seemed ever a buoyant and beautiful thing,
As its waters leapt up from the depths of the ground
With a flash and a sparkle, a bubble and bound:
They sang in the shade, and they laughed in the light,
As blithe as the birds in their first summer flight,—
Then onward they went with a low pleasant voice,
Like bees in the sunshine let loose to rejoice,
Through banks sloping down from the green twilight bowers,
On—on was their march through a legion of flowers,
Which, shaking their bells as the waters passed by,
Paid homage in many an odorous sigh;
Let fancy pursue them for many a mile,
Through forests that frown, and through meadows that smile,
Through many a valley, and corn-field, and lea,
Till they mingle with rivers that rush to the sea.

Come back to the woodland, come back to the well,
That musical mirror of Barley-wood dell,—

307

That treasure of crystal, to memory dear,
Exhaustless and restless for many a year.
When the rose folded up at the close of the day,
And the rich hues of sunset waned slowly away,
The light-footed maiden would step o'er the stile,
To replenish her pitcher, and tarry awhile,
Till her lover would steal through the shadowy bower
To snatch from existence one rapturous hour;
They would talk and caress, they would laugh, they would sing,
Till the bird in the bough, with a tremulous wing,
Would start from its slumber, and wheel round its nest,
Till silence restored brought it back to its rest.
Could that fountain have told all the secrets that fell
From the lips of the loving that met in the dell,
What a story of truthfulness, sorrow, or gladness,
Of moments of ecstasy, followed by sadness,
Of vows that were uttered too soon to be broken,
Of hearts that were won by the words that were spoken.
Some lovely and lost one might thither repair,
And drop in its waters the tears of despair;
Perchance e'en the faithful, the tender, the true,
Might return to the spot former joys to renew,
And allude to the past, with no wish to forget
The enchantment that hung round the place where they met.
In gloomy December, or glorious June,

That fountain unceasingly mirror'd the skies;
The meteor, the sun, and the silver-bowed moon,

The stars, with their numberless magical eyes;
The vapour-built cloud, with its protean form,
Whether pausing in calm, or pursued by the storm.
All—all in their turn o'er its surface would pass,
Like dreams over Fancy's mysterious glass;
Those visions of splendour and darkness that creep
Through the brain of the Bard in the season of sleep.

308

Such—such was the well that I knew as a child,
In its green nook of quietness never defiled;
But, alas! after twenty long winters of strife
In the crowded arena of many-hued life,
I flew to revisit with feelings of joy
The scene which had made my romance when a boy,
And found it, not what I had left it, a spot
Where quiet, and beauty, and pleasure were not;
For the bold foot of Mammon had dared to intrude
On the sylvan recesses of Barley-brook Wood.
The trees were uprooted, the fern and the flowers
No longer grew gay in the sunlight and showers;
The well was laid bare, and its waters conveyed
To be tortured and tossed in the uses of Trade;
And the scene which was once my retreat and delight
Lay withered, and blackened, and bleak to my sight.
No longer the voice of the maiden was heard,
Nor the lisp of the leaf, nor the song of the bird,
Nor the lapse of the rill, nor the musical moan
Of the stream, as it danced over pebble and stone;
But sounds of rude clangour invaded the ear,
Which changed into discord the wild echoes near;
Like a pilgrim returned to the home of his birth,
When all that he loved has departed from earth,
I lingered awhile in the thraldom of thought,
To mourn o'er the ruin that Mammon had brought,
Then turned me away from the desolate scene,
As though, save in fancy, it never had been.

But still in my moments of grief and of gloom,
It comes, like a picture, in beauty and bloom,
As green and as silent, as fresh and as bright,
As when I first found it by May's morning light,
And though I look back with a sigh of regret,
The Well and the Woodland remain with me yet.

309

JANUARY.

A FRAGMENT.

He cometh!—the elder-born child of the year,
With a turbulent voice, and a visage austere;
But his cold callous hand, and his boreal breath,
Prepare for new life the lorn relics of death!
To-day he is sullen, and solemn, and wild,—
To-morrow, as calm as a slumbering child.
To-day he is weeping a black, chilly dew,—
To-morrow, he smileth the weary waste through.
To-day he enrobes him in hues of the night,—
To-morrow in garments resplendently white.
A changeling in temper, but ever sublime,
Is this moody, mad offspring of stern winter time.

'Tis eventide. Roofed and shut in from the storm,
How dear is the hearthstone, so laughing and warm!
Where my cat sits composing her puritan face,
And my dog at my feet has his privileged place;
While a friend I have tried, and a wife that is true,
And a sweet child of promise, all smile in my view!
With the blessing of books, and a spirit to feel
The glory and goodness their pages reveal,

310

I cling to the gods of my household—and hark—
Like a sorrowful outcast, that roams in the dark,—
The wind waileth by, and the fierce falling rain
Knocketh loud at my window, but knocketh in vain.
With the time-cherished legend, the heart-waking song,
With the prattle of childhood that never seems wrong;
With the voice of my friend in good-humoured debate,
And the smile of my wife, as she listens sedate,—
I feel the infusion of Heavenly things
As the hours hurry past on invisible wings:
Then a shake of the hand, and a look at the sky
Where the stars through a cloud-rift are winking on high;—
And I turn with a satisfied calmness of breast
Unto sleep, and the dream-life that covers my rest.

We sleep! But the Giver of sleep is awake,
For the snow, with its frost-fashioned, feathery flake,
Floats earthward, and falls on the bosom of night
With as silent a touch as the pulses of light.
Behold! through the mist of the dubious morn,—
His round, ruddy face of its bright tresses shorn,
The sun, like a reveller stealing to bed,
Affords but a glimpse of his comfortless head;
But he freshens, and lo! like a fame-eaten scroll,
Back—back from its beamings the fog-billows roll,
And we mark with delight on our dim lattice pane,
But yesterday dulled with a deluge of rain—
Quaint pictures of wavelet, and tendril, and curl,
Arrayed in the moon-coloured tints of the pearl;
And woodland and waterfall, temple and tree,
And shapes of the coralline depths of the sea,
In dainty confusion most cunningly tossed
By the fanciful pencil of frolicsome Frost.

I am out. (Who would prison his senses by walls,
When health-holy nature so lovingly calls?)

311

I am out—and my veins and my vision are rife
With a positive feeling of glorious life:
For my step is a triumph, my breathing a joy,
My thoughts a sweet madness unmixed with alloy.
I am out in the country, and who will gainsay
That pleasure and profit await me to-day?

I am pacing the fields, where a rabble-rout crew
With foot-ball and snow-ball their pastime pursue.
I have passed the rude hamlet, all lonely and still,
Overtopp'd by the fir-feathered crest of the hill;
I am walking the woodlands, whose tribe of old trees,
Erect in adversity, baffle the breeze;
Where the many-armed, weather-warped, long-honoured oak
Seemeth bent with the weight of his white winter cloak;
Where berries, like ruby drops, nestle between
The leaves of the holly bough, glossy and green;
Where the pool hath no ripple, the river no sound,
And the petrified rill hangs aloof from the ground;
Where the sociable robin, alone on the spray,
Saluteth my ear with his querulous lay,
And shaketh to earth by the stir of his wings
Such jewels as deck not the ermine of kings!
Where the scene hath a beauty no words can disclose,
As it lies in a solemn, but splendid repose,
And the whole realm of majesty, silence, and light,
In the trance of mid-winter, appears to my sight
Like the worship of mute and inanimate things,
Overshadowed and hushed by Omnipotent wings:
And my soul, in accordance with nature lies bare,
Overburthened with wordless, but eloquent prayer!

312

APRIL.

Sighing, storming, singing, smiling,
With her many moods beguiling,
April walks the wakening earth;
Wheresoe'er she looks and lingers,
Wheresoe'er she lays her fingers,
Some new charm starts into birth.

Fitful clouds about her sweeping—
Coming, going, frowning, weeping—
Melt in fertile blessings round;
Frequent rainbows that embrace her,
And with gorgeous girdles grace her,
Drop in flowers upon the ground.

Gay and green the fields beneath her,
Blue the broad unfathomed ether
Bending o'er her bright domain;
Full the buds her hands are wreathing,
Fresh the breezes round her breathing,
Fair her footprints on the plain.

Daisies sprinkle mead and mountain,
Violets by the mossy fountain
Ope their velvet vesture wide;
Cowslips bloom in open splendour,
But the primrose, pale and tender,
In lone places doth abide.

313

Nature now hath many voices—
Every living thing rejoices
In the spirit of the time;
Winds with leaves in whispers dally,
Streams run singing down the valley,
In the gladness of the prime.

Larks have long been up and chanting,
And the woodland is not wanting
In the sounds we love to hear;
For the thrush calls long and loudly,
And quaint echo answers proudly
From romantic hollows near.

Now the cuckoo, “blithe new-comer,”
Faithful seeker of the summer
Wheresoe'er its footsteps be,
Sits in places calm and lonely
And, in measured cadence only,
Sends wild music o'er the lea.

Who doth not delight to hear her?
Children's careless eyes grow clearer
As they look and listen long;
Manhood pauses on his travel,
Age endeavours to unravel
Old thoughts waking at her song.

Unbeliever, wan and wasted,
If the cup which thou hast tasted
Turns to poison as it flows,
Come, while gentler spirits call thee,
Let her summons disenthral thee
Of thy weakness and thy woes.

314

With the world if thou art weary,
If with doubt thy soul be dreary—
Crushed thy generous heart with care—
There is hope and there is healing,
Purer fancy, nobler feeling,
In this free, untainted air.

Mark this floweret, sweetly peeping
From the sod, where safe and sleeping
It hath lain the winter through—
How it opens with soft seeming,
To the breeze, and to the beaming
Of the sun-shower and the dew.

God hath made it, fed it, trained it
Into beauty, and maintained it
For thy use and solace, man;
Can such Guardian be forgetful
Of the selfish, sinful, fretful
Human portion of His plan?

All is gladness, all is beauty—
Nature with instinctive duty
Lifts her joyous homage high;—
Why should'st thou, with gloom ungrateful,
Turn on goodly things a hateful
Thankless heart, a scornful eye?

Wayward, wilful though thou seemest,
Dark and doubtful though thou deemest
The Eternal's glory, power, and name;
Nature, true to her designing,
Goeth on without repining,
Ever changing, yet the same.

315

All thy thoughts are full of error;
Disappointment, strife, and terror
Make thy journey sad and rough;
Nature never can deceive thee,
But of half thy cares relieve thee,
If thou hast but faith enough:

Faith to feel that all her wonders,
Stars, flowers, seasons, calms, and thunders,
Seas that rave, and streams that roll,
Are God's every day revealings—
Mute and many-toned appealings
To thine apathetic soul.

Come and woo her—she will bless thee;
Let her fresh free winds caress thee—
Let her smiles thy love repay:
Come while she is proudly wearing
Bridal garments, and preparing
For the festival of May.

JULY.

Proudly, lovely, and serenely,
Power and passion in her eye,
With an aspect calm and queenly,
Comes the summer nymph, July—
Crowned with azure, clothed with splendour,
Gorgeous as an eastern bride,
While the glowing hours attend her
O'er the languid landscape wide.

316

Now the mantle of Aurora
Streams along the morning skies,
But the bridal wreath of Flora
Loses half its sweets and dyes.
Fierce the noontide glory gushes
From the fountains of the sun,
And a thousand stains and flushes
Strew the heavens when day is done.

Then the heavy dew-pearls glisten
In the twilight pure and pale,
And the drooping roses listen
To the love-lorn nightingale:
While the stars come out and cluster
With a dim and dreary light,
And the moon's pervading lustre
Takes all sternness from the night.

Scarce the weary lark betakes him
To his ground-nest on the plain,
Than returning day-spring wakes him
Into gladsome voice again;
Scarce the dew hath wet the grasses,
Or the wild-flower's curvèd cup,
Than the thirsty sunbeam passes,
Drinking all its nectar up.

Now the lurid lightning breaketh
Through the dull and lingering rack,
And the solemn thunder speaketh
From its cloud-throne bronzed and black.
Gleaming in the fitful flashes,
Swathing all the welkin round,
Rain, smit earthward, dances, dashes,
With a quick, tumultuous sound.

317

As the lightning, rain, and thunder,
Vanish with the cloven gloom,
All the breadth of nature under
Wakes to beauty and perfume.
Birds again essay their voices;
Bees renew their devious toil;
Man with grateful heart rejoices
O'er the promise of the soil.

Now the harvest-gathered meadows
With a second green are gay;
Now the wood's enwoven shadows
Lure us from the dusty way;
More than wont the streams delight us,
As they run their pleasant race—
And the lucid pools invite us
To their calm and cool embrace.

Shall I not, as here I wander,
Soul, and sense, and footstep free,
Where the fretful streams meander,
With a music dear to me—
Shall I not remember sadly
Those who have nor hope nor rest,—
Those who cannot know how gladly
Nature welcomes every guest?

Would the dwellers of the alleys,
In the city's stony heart,
Could behold these blithesome valleys,
From their wants and cares apart!
Would the pale and patient maiden,
Martyred at the shrine of Wealth,
Could but feel these breezes, laden
With the priceless blessing, health!

318

Would the tiny toiling creatures
In the noisome mine and mill,
On whose withered hearts and features
Moral mischief works its will;
Would that they might lift their faces
In this liberal light and air,
And perceive the nameless graces
Of a scene so passing fair!

Let me homeward by the river,
As the golden sunset glows,
Where the corn-fields swell and shiver
To the blandest wind that blows:
By the woodland brooks that darkle
Through the tangles of the glade;
By the mossy wells that sparkle
In the hawthorn's chequered shade.

Through the dingle deep and bowery,
Up the pasture paths above,
Through the silent lane and flowery,
Sacred to the vows of love.
Homeward, yet I pause, exploring
All thy burning breadth of sky,
While my spirit sings, adoring
Him, thy God and mine, July.

319

OCTOBER.

October a blithe and benevolent fellow,
Is here with his tresses enwreathed with the vine;
His broad visage glowing with purple and yellow,
As if he had quaffed of his own barley-wine.

His cloud-car of shifting and shadowy whiteness,
Up caught in mid air through the welkin careers;
His shield is the harvest moon, blest in her brightness,
His sword a light sickle, untarnished with tears.

His crown is a corn-sheaf—magnificent, truly!
Which whispers of peace as it waves to and fro;
His mantle of forest leaves, shaken down newly,
Is clasped with a belt of ripe apple and sloe.

'Tis a time for thanksgiving, oh let us be grateful
For beauties and bounties the season hath brought!
The heart of that being is woeful or hateful
Who can not, or will not, rejoice as he ought.

The grain in the garner, the grape in the presses,
Give earnest of plenty, and promise of joy;
And the soul, in the language of silence, confesses
His goodness, whose mandate can make or destroy.

Come, walk me the landscape, and cheerfully follow
The beck of our free-footed fancies to-day,—
By wild-wood and river-path, hill-side and hollow,
From shadows and sounds of the city away;

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For children are out on their devious ramble
(Sweet childhood! I cling to thy memories yet),
Who rifle the hazel-bough, halt by the bramble,
And stain laughing lips with its fruitage of jet.

How golden the garment of sunlight that covers
Earth's manifold features of glory and grace!
How teeming with silver the cloud-fleece that hovers
Above, in the measureless marvel of space!

The solemn old woods how they sadden! and slumber
In gorgeous tranquillity, fading though fair,
As if some rich sunset of hues, without number,
Had fallen, and rested in permanence there.

The cuckoo is gone, and the swallow prepareth
To wing his broad passage to far distant bowers;
Some region of splendours and spices, that weareth
The freshly-born beauties of bright summer hours.

Now turn we our steps, for the lusty sun lieth,
O'erhung with his banners of flame, in the west;
The rook to his cloud-gazing citadel flieth,
The hind to his homestead, the steer to his rest.

Let us feast upon nature, for silence and sadness
Will fling their stern fetters about her, ere long;
But the heart that is wont to partake of her gladness
Will find her, still living and blooming, in song.

High thought! that the soul of our mould is immortal!
Unwithered, unwasted, by season or time;
That a springtide eternal may open its portal,
And beckon us in to a happier clime!

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AUTUMN.

“Sweet is the quiet prime of Autumn time!”
A voice, like happy boyhood's, seemed to sing,
As half unconscious of the idle rhyme,
He carolled gaily, like a thoughtless thing.
“Sweet Autumn time! though jocund Spring be gone,
And Summer's fuller glories, one by one,—
Spring, with her lavish wealth of early flowers,
And early music in her festal bowers;
Her brief, resplendent rainbows, and her breeze
Rich with the breath of blossom-bearing trees,
Which drink the genial sunlight, as 'twere wine
Poured from a golden chalice half divine!
Summer, with languishing yet ardent looks
That stilled the fretful brawling of the brooks,
Till lightnings, born of many a labouring cloud,
Elanced their fires, and thunders, low or loud,—
Shook to the grateful earth the loosened rain,
And woke the waters into voice again.
When unmown meadow-lands were full and fair,
When slumbrous sounds were in the stirless air
Of bee that wavered on its sunny way,
Or weary song-birds' half forgotten lay;
When pleasure dimpled on the shadowy pool,
And tangled wood-haunts, still, remote, and cool,
Seemed full of sylvan visions, quaint and wild,
The dainty dream-life of the poet child,—

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Though these are gone, Autumnal season, thou
Wilt be my teacher and companion now.
Thy fields all golden with the ‘embattled’ grain;
Thy woods that glow with many a gorgeous stain;
Thy homestead orchards with fair fruit that blush;
Thy jet-bright berries on the bramble bush;
Thy rough, ripe, clustering nuts, that hang between
The lowly umbrage of the hazel green;
Thy shifting shadows on the silent waste;
Thy lightsome, lonely, lofty clouds that haste
Athwart the ethereal wilderness, and stray
Like wild flocks scattered on a trackless way!
These, and thy buoyant winds that come and go
While corn, fruit, foliage, waver to and fro;—
These, while the sturdy swain with skilful ease
Reaps the proud produce of the fertile leas,
Flinging his merry harvest songs around
With the unstinted tribute of the ground,—
These can delight, can thrill with nameless joy
The restless spirit of the roving boy.”

“A generous, joyous prime hath Autumn time,”
A voice, like hardy manhood's, seemed to cry,
Breathing a loud, heart-uttered, earnest rhyme,
Which rang beneath the mellow morning sky!

“Glad Autumn time! how leaps the expectant heart
At thy blithe coming, laden as thou art
With wine to cheer, with bread to feed the frame,—
Autumn, there's hope and promise in thy name!
Mothers and maids, young men and elders, see
What blest abundance clothes the quiet lea,
Bring forth the sickle,—bare the encumbered brow,
And nerve the lusty arm to labour now!

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Behold how droops the heavy harvest down,
A graceful plume for Plenty's golden crown!
There, let us bind the prostrate sheaves, the while
The noontide sun looks on with kindly smile,
And leave the poor man's progeny to glean
The scattered wheat-ears that we drop between!
'Tis done: and now the strong and ample wain
Receives its load of life-sustaining grain.
Uppiled, a trembling pyramid of gold,
It moves through stubble, pasture-field, and fold,—
Through woodland shades, by old romantic ways,
Beneath the low broad moon's unclouded gaze,
Until we store it, warm and weather proof,
Beneath the granary's capacious roof;
And anxious neighbours, unforbidden, come,
To share the triumph of our harvest home.

The cup is filled, the liberal board is set,
But ere we banquet, let us not forget
To lift the heart's best homage unto God
Who breathed His blessing on the pregnant sod!
Nor let us slight the unexampled few,
True to themselves, to natural justice true,
Who crushed the mighty error, and the power
That crippled commerce and withheld her dower;
That laid its selfish hands upon the soil,
Nor sought, nor soothed the home—the heart of toil.
That wrong is swept away, and other wrongs,
Scared by the eloquence of truthful tongues,—
Awed by the press, and perilled by the pen,
Shall cease to lord it o'er enlightened men!
Drink we in temperate draughts of generous ale—
God speed the plough, the sickle, and the flail!
Ye vintage gatherers, a lowly band,
Ye tillers of the ground in every land;

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Men at the spindle, women at the loom,—
Poor sempstress, pining in the sunless room,
Workers that weary in the perilous mine,
Ye toilers, tossed upon the stormy brine;
Smith at the anvil, grinder at the wheel,
Lone fisher leaning on thy venturous keel;
Hewers of stone, and builders of the wall,
Craftsmen that labour at the bench and stall;
May health, hope, freedom, plenty, peace, prepare
To bless your toils, and make your future fair!
Help is at hand, the darkness breaks away
From the quick dawning of serener day,
When ye shall sing in many a grateful rhyme
The gifts and glories of the Autumn time.”

“A sweet, yet solemn prime hath Autumn time!”
A pensive voice, like Age's, seemed to say,—
“Each of its warnings hath a tone sublime,
Each feature tells of splendour in decay!”
Sad Autumn time! sweet symbol of repose,
Can I behold thy rich harmonious close,—
All duties done, all promises fulfilled,
As an unerring Providence hath willed,
Nor feel, as Christian ought, a calm desire
Like thee in finished glory to expire?
I hear thy sere leaves, reft by every breeze
From the forsaken branches of the trees,
Shiver in air, and fall upon the ground
With a mysterious eloquence of sound!
I hear thy winds with mournful music sing
O'er naked fields that wait another spring;
Through woods that answer with a fitful moan
That make their solitudes seem doubly lone;

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But there's a language in thy tone, a power
That arms my spirit for the final hour;—
A language of high teaching, rich and rife
With happy promise of immortal life.
These trees shall bud again—these shades rejoice
With a full concert of melodious voice;
These fields shall smile, these sombre waters play
In the glad light of renovated day;
These skies shall put a gayer garment on
When needful Winter and his storms are gone:
But I must lay me in the quiet sod,
My faith unshaken in the love of God,
To re-awake in that celestial clime
Where perfect beauty reigns and knows no fading time.

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NORTH WALES.

ADDRESSED TO A POET-FRIEND.

These records of thy wanderings awake
Dear memories of that bold romantic land,
That mingling of the beautiful and grand
By God in nature moulded; where the lake
Sleeps in gigantic shadows, and the tower
(Which, crumbling, yet outlives the human power
That raised it) of the past records a troublous hour.

Make holiday once more; thou hast not seen
Cloud-girdled Snowdon's majesty of mien,
With all his rock-realm, wonderful and wide,
Where stern Llanberris lifts on either side
Twin lakes, his storm-rent citadels of stone,
Dark, splintered, inaccessible, and lone!

Thou hast not travelled up the sinuous length
Of pastoral Conway; nor beheld the strength
And beauty of its waters, as they boom
And flash, down leaping, in their glens of gloom.

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Thou hast not fettered Fancy with a spell
In grey Carnarvon, stalwart in decay,
Which calmly looks upon the busy bay
With all its chambers desolate and cold,—
A gaunt “romance in stone,” which seems to tell
A wild, strange story of the days of old.

Thou hast not trod with pilgrim foot the ground
Where sleeps the canine martyr of distrust,
Poor Gelert, famed in song, as brave a hound
As ever guarded homestead, hut, or hall,
Or leapt exulting at the hunter's call;
As ever grateful man consigned to dust.

Enthusiast as thou art, thou hast not heard,
In fair Llangollen's wilderness of charms
(Aloof from city vices and alarms),
The bleat of many flocks; the voice of bird
Sweet issuing from the sylvan depths of green
Which clothe the quiet slopes of that secluded scene.

Thou hast not passed the threshold of those homes,
Peaceful and far apart, o'er vale and hill—
Where those of ancient tongue, a simple race,
Cherish such virtues as in lordly halls
Die of neglect, and with glad heart and face
Perform harsh duties with a strenuous will.

Thou hast not listened by their evening fires
To lore, descended unto sons from sires,
Of ghastly legend and of oral song
By Cadwallador and Taleisen made,
Recording deeds of struggle, storm, and wrong,
When from the Roman's red resistless blade

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They fled amazed, in peril's bloodiest hour,
And in their mountain land withstood the invader's power.

Would we could go together, and explore,
With ready means, and minds of kindred mood,
Each quiet place that slumbers by the shore,
And all the inner haunts of solitude;
The cloud-crowned mountain, and the cloven glen,
Through which the fretful river leaps and flows;
Swart moors far stretching from the homes of men
In sullen silence, savage in repose;
Remnants of feudal pride and monkish power,
By the tenacious ivy clothed and graced,
And shepherd-peopled hamlets, grey and wild,
By circling hills and crowding woods embraced,
Where clustering graves, and consecrated tower,
Mementoes of a hopeful creed and mild,
Stand solemnly apart, for feelings undefiled.

Lakes gathered in stern hollows of the land,
Swept by the winds in their sublimest might—
Our eyes should gaze upon, and we should stand
Wrapt in tumultuous, but mute delight,
In presence of fierce waters, drinking in,
Till sense and soul were filled, their grandeur and their din.

And we would wander pensively along
The yellow beach, communing with the ocean,
Or sit and listen to the fisher's song,
Our hearts expanding with a sweet emotion,
Till sunset's magical and mingling hues
Had burned and faded, one by one, away,
Leaving the tender twilight to diffuse
A silent softness, a transparent grey

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O'er sky and wave; till o'er the mountain's rim
The moon and her one vassal-star should swim,
In the deep ether, with a dreamy light,
And call forth other stars to beautify the night.
Then for an hour or two we would abide
By the snug hostel's ample chimney-side;
Exult o'er toils o'ercome, recount our pleasures,
And linger fondly over memory's treasures;
Old times, old rhymes, old bards, old books, old places,
New dreams, new hopes, new knowledge, and new faces.

And we would visit (curious to behold
The moods, the manners, and the homely life
Of Cambria's hardy children, fair and bold,
The sire, the son, the husband, and the wife)
Quaint towns on festival and market days,
See bargains made, see purse and pannier laden;
Admire the lusty dance, and in its maze
Take hands ourselves, with some blithe pleasant maiden;
Exchange the courteous cup, and join the song
(Well as we could in so uncouth a tongue),
Snatch joy from the occasion, and increase
Our love of social unity and peace;
Or, when the Sabbath bell with morning chime
Broke on the holy stillness of the time—
To village churches quietly repair,
And offer up the heart's best homage there,
Rejoicing to behold good seed take birth
In such remote recesses of the earth;
And we would linger by the graves to know
How lived, how died, the occupant below,
Learn how the living sorrowed at the loss,
Yet leaned for strength and comfort on the Cross.

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So would we move and meditate awhile
In this, the loveliest corner of our isle;
Deep in its glooms and glories would we roam,
Till duty and affection called us home.
Here to admiring listeners we would tell
Of mountain cleft, rough cataract, and dell,
That stayed us on our pilgrimage; of nooks
Peopled and peaceful—all untold in books;
Or, left to silence and our thoughts, recall
From out the dimness of our cottage wall,
Shapes of stern grandeur, looming into light
And spots of beauty, soothing to the sight,
Transmissions of the memory to drown
The commonplaces of our crowded town:
From such warm solace what warm soul can sever?
“A thing of Beauty is a Joy for ever!”

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THE MERCHANT AND THE MOURNER.

I lingered at a lordly gate, before a lordly hall
With grove and garden girt around with low and mossy wall,
And from the gate a gravelled path swept gracefully and wide,
Up to the stately steps beneath the pillared door of pride.

Within that princely dwelling-place the Painter's master hand
Had hung the walls with Poesy from many a lovely land:
There soft Italia's sunny vales in quiet semblance smiled,
With mountain, lake, and waterfall, from Switzerland the wild.

And there were books of mental life, in student-like array,
More for the solace of the soul than splendour and display;
And goodly instruments of sound were placed in order there,
And woke to pleasant voice beneath the fingers of the fair.

And mirrors, set in massy gold, shed lustre on the sight,
And lamps of cunning workmanship diffused a mellow light,
And costly carpets clothed the floor, and couches offered ease,
And every fireside comfort met the child of wealth to please.

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And in the far-extended grounds triumphant Art had been,
To bring within her proper bounds the wild luxuriant scene;
There built the rook, there sang the bird of homely English dyes;
There flowers and fruitage blushed and bloomed, in spite of angry skies.

There bowers of shady solitude allured the musing mind,
Sweet spots of sylvan loveliness secure from sun and wind;
And there, reflecting cloud and star, transparent waters lay,
Scarce ruffled by the swan that moved along her silent way.

And he who owned that paradise, the Merchant of renown,
The honoured of the hamlet, and the flattered of the town,
Who duly went to Church and 'Change, and sought the shades of woe,
Was, in the spring-tide of his years, among the lowest low.

But kindness entered in his soul, even in his boyish days;
Give him the means of giving peace, he did not wish for praise;
The best of human sympathies awoke within his breast,
His words, his deeds, his secret tears, the gentle power confessed.

More kindly grew his honest heart to all the human race,
The language of benevolence was written on his face;
With self-denying prudence he, without or fear or guile,
Wooed Fortune in her mazy haunts until she deigned to smile.

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Wealth came, but did not bring the mien of insolence and pride,
Respectful to the powerful, he loved all else beside:
Thus, with his gold and gentleness he blessed the needy throng,
A constant guardian to the weak, a pattern to the strong.

At length, to please a polished taste, he bought him house and land,
And paid for household luxuries with large and liberal hand;
Sat down in peace and plentitude, with mind unwarped and free,
“Like wisdom,” so the poet sings, “with children round his knee.”

I lingered at his lordly gate the while my feelings rose
In silent homage to the man, and prayed for his repose;
And o'er my mental vision passed a scene remembered well,
Linked with a little history, which I essay to tell.

One evening in my wanderings near to our noisy town,
When Autumn breathed upon the woods, and turned their foliage brown,
I paused beside a lowly cot that looked upon the road,
Lifted the latch, and stood within the comfortless abode.

I saw beside the fireless earth a woman's well-known form,
Whose haggard features bore the marks of many a bitter storm;
The fire of joy, the bloom of health, from eye and cheek were fled,
And grief had sown its early grey upon that drooping head.

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Her sombre garments hung around her, labour-stained and wild,
And on her milkless bosom lay a weak and wailing child;
The cleanly cap of widowhood around her visage pale,
With her decayed and dreary weeds, disclosed too sad a tale.

I knew it all:—six months before, in the very prime of spring,
When bird, and bee, and butterfly, were roving on the wing;
When every hue was loveliness, when every sound was mirth,
A sudden cloud and silence fell upon the joyous earth.

Her loving husband, ailing long, with his departing breath
Muttered a blessing on her cheek, and slept the sleep of death;
Gone was the father, firm, though fond, the husband true and kind,
But woe, despair, and poverty, alas! remained behind.

His violin hung on the wall, the hat he used to wear,
There in the corner leaned his staff, there stood his vacant chair;
His favourite bird yet sang aloft at its capricious will,
And the old Bible that he loved lay in the window still.

But nearly all beside had gone for scanty means of life,
But not without a parting pang of deep and inward strife;
Then, even then, her eldest born dead on the pallet lay;—
Calmly the mother-mourner said, “She died but yesterday.”

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Dear God! what could that woman do, and all her helpless brood,
Within the wide and thoughtless world for shelter and for food?
Who would bestow upon her child a coffin and a grave?—
I prayed within my inmost soul that Heaven would stoop to save!

Startling my thoughts, some gentle hand smote the rude cottage door,
And one well known in sorrow's haunts stepped o'er the sanded floor;
The merchant's daughter fair and young, by many a heart beloved,
Her father's graceful almoner where'er her footsteps moved.

She gazed around the sad abode with quick and mute surprise,
While precious drops of sympathy suffused her earnest eyes;
She sat her down all pensively, with joy-abandoned air,
And for a moment seemed to breathe her soul in secret prayer.

With unobtrusive questions she drew forth the widow's woe,
While the rich blood upon her cheek went flitting to and fro;
With patient ear, and parted lips, the dark account she heard,
Till the deep fountains of her heart with kindred grief were stirred.

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She laid a purse of tinkling gold within the widow's palm,
Rose to depart, and spake again with voice subdued and calm:
“Mourner, the God who gave us wealth has sent his servant here,
Remember, in thy after need, my father's house is near.”

She went with blessings on her head, with beauty in her face,
A sister of sweet Charity, a messenger of Grace,
She went in virgin holiness, bent on her pure employ,
Leaving within the mourner's heart peace, thankfulness, and joy.

Like dew and showers in summer hours, shed from the wings of night,
Felt as a blessing on the earth when wakes the morning light,
The merchant's bounty fell abroad spontaneous and the same,
Refreshing many a languid soul that wist not whence it came.

When Heaven exalteth such as he, what hand would bring them down?
What heart would fret when Worth succeeds, what face at Virtue frown?
As well the fields might curse the clouds because they ride so high,
Or envious flowers upbraid the stars that burn along the sky.

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It is a rare and pleasant task to sing of generous power,
Oh! for a theme so beautiful for every passing hour!
When shall our mournful harps forget that sad, unheeded song
Of wants and woes, of toils and tears, too truthful and too long?

VINDICATORY STANZAS.

Whate'er I am, whatever sign I wear upon my sleeve,
Whatever creed my inmost heart may prompt me to believe,
Whatever right I recognise, whatever wrong endure,
I ne'er can yield my honest love for freedom and the poor.

The lowly and the suffering, the life-blood of the earth,
I'm one of them, to one of them I owe my children's birth;
And in my after years of life, however high my state,
I never can forget to plead for their unhappy fate.

For freedom did I say? ah, yes! for freedom just and true,
But not the lawless monster of the rancour-breathing few,
Who glide, like serpents, into hearts by toil and sorrow torn;
On them and their unholy deeds I fling my proudest scorn.

Freedom, whose law is Order, and whose action, wide and strong,
Can raise the wretched from the dust, and quell the rebel throng;

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Can weigh, adjust, withhold, bestow, with calm and steady hand,
And work in beauty, peace, and truth, for all within the land!

The poetry of England, in all its forms and hues;
The glowing words, the living thoughts of her transcendent muse;
The poetry that clings around her temples, halls, and towers,
And nestles in the sylvan depths of all her vales and bowers;

The poetry that clothes alike the cottage and the throne,
And speaks from every classic haunt, with high, majestic tone;
These have my deepest reverence, in these my thoughts rejoice;
“But the poetry of poverty should have a fitting voice.”

It has a voice, a stirring voice, sent from a thousand tongues,
From hearts that wish for all its rights, and feel for all its wrongs;
'Tis not the voice of fierce complaint, loud insolence and threat,
But that of calm, persuasive power,—the best and surest yet.

And mine, too, feeble though it be, and of a fitful sound,
But still the echo of a soul of sympathies profound,
Shall sometimes mingle with the rest, in pain's or peril's hour,
To warn, cheer, teach, and elevate,—if such may be its power.

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Perchance my lay hath ever been unsuited to the ear
Of those who feast on fiery thought, on bitter taunt and jeer;
But I am not of those who deem that words unwise and wild,
Can win one blessing for the poor, and make men reconciled.

A little song of cheerfulness to make their labours light;
A strain to open out their souls, and make them think aright;
A lesson which may lead them on to mend their common weal,
But not the stern anathema of false and factious zeal.

There are who with a puny pride my outward errors scan,
Alas! what little power is theirs to judge the inner man!
They think that my poor yielding heart, that impulse still controls,
Is narrow as their sympathies, and niggard as their souls.

Could they but read the hidden book, the life-book in my breast,
With sorrows, which they never knew, a thousand fold impressed,—
Could they but see its sentiments, its yearning, love, and trust,
And weigh its good against the ill, they could not but be just.

But that is not for them, and I dare not presume to claim
More virtues than the lowliest who bear a human name,
But in this world where men applaud, mistake, misjudge, condemn,
I only ask that charity which I would yield to them.

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There's good in all things, and 'tis well to seek it everywhere,
And when 'tis found, to honour it, and cherish it with care;
There's good in all the various forms of still and stirring life,
For all the boundless universe with excellence is rife.

And man hath always something good, or be he high or low
In intellect or circumstance, in happiness or woe;
His errors pity and remove, with mild and manly will,
And be his higher gifts your care and admiration still.

My badge is that which singles me from out the lower clay;
My motto, hope and thankfulness for blessings day by day;
My creed, that holy creed of love which Christ Himself hath given;
My party, all who walk the earth anticipating Heaven!

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CONTRITION.

Lord! in a weary labyrinth,
A wilderness of ways,
I've passed the freshness of my youth,—
The summer of my days;
Playing with Fancy's bubble thoughts,
Which as they glittered brake,
Snatching at flowers to feel the thorn,
Or venom of the snake.

But now I lay me at Thy feet,
With sad and trembling heart,
Or ere my better feelings fail,
My higher hopes depart,
I come—so late a sinful slave
In folly's low employ,—
To ask those better means of life
Which lead to holier joy.

In the calm hour of solitude
I lift my pensive eye
To read the burning language writ
Upon the silent sky;
And feel that He who lit the stars
And bade the planets roll,
Can chase the shadow and the strife
That linger in my soul.

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With sweet and simultaneous voice
All universal things
Speak of Thy watchful care, and feel
The shadow of Thy wings;
The placid and prolific earth,
The ever-wakeful sea,
And heaven's serene and starry depths,
Declare Thy love and Thee.

And wilt Thou not console me, Lord,
Admonish me and guide,
In tribulation's troublous time,
And in the hour of pride?
And wilt Thou not vouchsafe, at last,
By Thine own means, to win
Back to Thy fold an erring child
Of frailty, grief, and sin?

Thou canst, and when it seemeth good,
Thou wilt afford the clue
Whereby to leave the tangled path
My faltering feet pursue;—
Oh! bring me from the chilling gloom,
The cavern of despair,
That I may see the open day,
And breathe a purer air!

Oh! help me in my deepest need,
My Father, Friend, and Lord!
And make me drink with eager lip
The waters of Thy word!

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So I may rise refreshed and glad,
Unbowed by earthly ill,
My business and my pleasure both
To do Thy holy will.

For His dear sake who left Thy side
A fallen race to save,
To take all agony from death,
All terror from the grave,
Receive me 'mong the chosen ones
Who journey towards the sky,
And fit me for that Perfect Home
Where bliss can never die.

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LEONORE.

Oh! for a day of that departed time
When thou and I, lost Leonore, were young!
That dawn of feeling, that delicious prime
When Hope sang for us an unceasing song!
When life was love, and love was joy unworn,
And clouds turned all their silver to our gaze;
When each sweet night brought forth a sweeter morn—
Where art thou, dearest of my early days?

Oh! what a world of poesy was ours,
And poesy with passion undefiled!
Heaven with its stars, and earth with all her flowers,
Seemed made for us, for us alone they smiled;
Fused in each other's dreams, a constant spring,
One, yet apart, we trod all pleasant ways,
Sat down with Nature, heard her teach and sing,—
Where art thou, dearest of my early days?

With thee all beauty wore a lovelier face;
With thee all grandeur a sublimer mien;
With thee all music was a holier grace;
With thee all motion ecstasy unseen;
Without thee life was colourless and vain,
And common pleasure a bewildering maze,
All thought was languor, and all effort vain,—
Where art thou, dearest of my early days?

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I loved, how well let this worn cheek attest,
And these sad eyes with fresh tears streaming o'er;
Deep in the hidden chambers of my breast
The fire burns on, but ne'er to bless me more:—
Oh! Nevermore! a dreary word that falls
Like a dread knell that sets the brain acraze,
A word of doom that withers and appals,—
Where art thou, dearest of my early days?

We loved, but one with unrelenting power,
With selfish soul intent on cruel schemes—
Stepped in between us one disastrous hour,
And swept to ruin all our hopes and dreams;
And we were parted, thou to share the life
Of the gay crowd that dazzles and betrays,
I to contend with penury and strife,—
Where art thou, dearest of my early days?

I see thee as I saw thee “long ago”
(A fond, yet fatal time for thee and me),
When with the eloquence of love and woe
We blessed each other 'neath the alder tree;—
The aged alder, whose umbrageous boughs
Sigh where our native river sings and plays;
Which heard our earliest and our latest vows,—
Where art thou, dearest of my early days?

I see thee as I saw, when, one sweet eve,
I dared to pour my passion in thine ear,
And thou didst lean to listen and believe,
With mixed emotions of delight and fear;
I see the quick blush flitting o'er thy cheek,
And the soft fire of thy confiding gaze,
I feel thy heart in throbbing language speak,—
Where art thou, dearest of my early days?

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I see thee as I saw thee everywhere,
In the calm household graceful, quiet, kind,
In the broad sunshine and the breezy air
Bright as the beam, and buoyant as the wind;
I see thee flushed, and floating like a cloud
In the gay festival's enchanting maze,
And, lovelier still, in prayer serenely bowed,—
Where art thou, dearest of my early days?

Thou wast my earliest Muse: from thee I drew
My inspiration, which hath found a tongue,
The feeling quickened, germinated, grew,
Till I was shadowed with a bower of song;
And now men hail and syllable my name,—
Would thou couldst share the glory and the praise,
Thy love would lift me to a loftier fame,—
Where art thou, dearest of my early days?

Art thou of earth, sweet spirit of the past?
The lost and mourned, the adored and unforgot!
Hast thou been beaten by Misfortune's blast?
Or dost thou revel in a brighter lot?
Is there another whom thine eyes approve?
Is there another whom thy heart obeys?—
Or dost thou sorrow o'er thy blighted love?
Where art thou, dearest of my early days?

Art thou of Heaven? and dost thou now behold,
Stooping, in pity, from thy sainted sphere—
Thy poor, forsaken worshipper of old,
Despairing, desolate, and darkling here?
I look for thee, I long for thee, I languish
To press thee, bless thee, ere my life decays;
Still my lorn soul cries after thee with anguish,
Where art thou, dearest of my early days?

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THE POET'S WELCOME.

EXTEMPORE LINES READ AT A LITERARY MEETING IN 1842.

Welcome! ye worshippers of that sweet power,
The sweet mysterious power of Poesy,
That echo of the beautiful in shape,
Sound, hue, and fragrance; that calm voice
Of man's affections, aspirations, dreams;
That strange, impalpable, and blessed thing
Whose home is narrow as the human heart,
And wide as is the universe; that shade
Of God which passes through the mind of man,
And wakes within him thoughts which, wed to words,
Become the thoughts of millions; that pure ray
Sent down from the eternal fount of glory,
A sign and earnest of immortal life
Beyond the dim, dread barriers of Death!

Welcome! ye lovers of that spellful art
Which few possess, yet thousands can enjoy:
Welcome to this our festival of soul
And heart, where we may interchange the things
Which lie enshrined within us,—mental flowers
Which soon might languish, perish, pass away
Unnoticed of the world, did we not seek
To bring them from their solitudes, and throw

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The light of friendship round them, in the hope
That Fame will stoop to gather them ere long,
And weave them into wreaths for her eternal shrines.

The Poet's soul, bless Heaven, is rife with means
To multiply the pleasures of his race:
His warm heart thrills in sympathy with all
The suffering of the earth. The great and good
To him are ever glorious, and he yearns
“To throw those feelings out which bear him up”
Against the storms and sorrows of the world!
The scattered sons of humanising song,
Like twilight stars, ought not to reign apart,
As jealous of each other's light; but come
Clustering in one most glorious galaxy
Of mental splendour, as I see ye now!

Welcome again to this our old retreat,
This corner of antiquity! This group
Of wilding flowers which open to the night,
Breathing the holy incense of high thought,
May one day send its odours through the world!

349

“THE TEMPTATION” AND “THE EXPULSION.”

EXTEMPORE LINES SUGGESTED BY DUBUFFE'S PICTURES.

Stranger! wouldst thou be charmed, here stand thee still
And scan that canvas, where the Poet's pen,
The Painter's pencil, and the hues of heaven,
Have made a mimic Paradise. How fair!
How femininely fair that perfect form
Of gentle Eve!—who, leaning on the ground
In sidelong loveliness, bribes Adam's hand
With the rich fruit of the forbidden tree!
That seraph-face, sweet, yearning, full of love,
With passionate appeal upturned to his,
Might almost tempt an angel form to sin,
Though kindred forms stood by. Observe thee, too,
The troubled aspect of our human sire:—
Full of a natural dignity and grace—
Is sad with doubts, perplexities, and fears,
As trembling 'twixt the evil and the good,
He sits in mute uncertainty. “Beware!”
For so our busy fancies seem to say—
Timely beware! nor touch the fatal fruit;
Seal up thine ear against the insidious words
Of her thou lovest, for a pitiless Fiend,
God's enemy and thine, inspires her tongue
With more than mortal eloquence and power.
Gird up thy spirit to resist her plea—
Think on the tenure of thy happy state,
Lest thy infraction of Divine command
Bring sin, tears, ruin, on thy after race!”

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Stranger! thy steps depart not, for behold
The great, dread deed at which the infant earth
Shuddered through all her veins; while angels wept
In unavailing pity—hath drawn down
The long and awful curse. Oh! what a change
Hath come upon that Eden, which, but now,
Smiled, the abode of purity and joy,
And peaceful compact 'tween all living things.
The elements are up in warfare; clouds
Hang hot and heavy in the troubled air,
Save where a lurid and mysterious light
Streams through the cloven darkness, and reveals
All other horrors of that fearful scene!
Look on our guilty parents, what dismay
And terror in the wild uplifted look
Of our primeval mother, as she lies
Prone, and encircled by the eager arms
Of him who shares the peril and the pain!
Half kneeling, with a face of strange distress,
Mixed with compassion, wonder, and despair,
He bends above the bringer of his fate,
As if to shield her from the dread effect
Of God's most just displeasure; while the Fiend,
Exulting in the havoc he hath made,
Askant surveys his victims, breathing flame,—
The fire of that interminable hate
Which shut him out eternally from Heaven!

Thus man's conception and designing hand,
With the sweet aid of many-coloured light,
Have boldly given to our admiring eyes
Twin pictures, vivid, truthful, and sublime;
And as we ponder on the solemn theme
Which gave them birth, involuntary thought
Pays silent tribute to the Painter's power!

351

TO THE MEMORY OF A DECEASED FRIEND.

'Mid the harsh Babel of the busy crowd
A sudden voice my inward spirit bowed,
A friendly voice, that told me of thy doom;—
That years, and sorrows, and the world's rude strife,
Had pushed thee from the battle-ground of life
To the oblivious calm that dwelleth in the tomb.

Shade of my friend! although my languid lyre
Withheld the mournful tribute of its fire,
Not the less dear thy memory to me;
Deep in my heart the solemn feeling lay,
Till the renewed remembrance of to-day
Came forth in feeble language, all unworthy thee!

Warm was thy soul, without or pride or guile;
Thy liberal hand, thy sympathising smile,
Were prompt the suffering wretch to cheer and raise:
To God devoted, and to nature true,
Gentle and genial as the summer dew
Thy silent bounty fell, nor asked for human praise.

And I have marked thy countenance and mien,
Quiet, but kindly—watchful, but serene,
Govern thy household more by love than fear;
And I have seen thy manly features glow,
And heard thy lips with eloquent speech o'erflow,
When souls of kindred mood around thy board drew near.

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Scorning vain show, thy not untutored mind
Cherished a lofty sense of things refined,—
Things that adorn, and dignify, and bless;
And loving Truth for her sweet sake divine,
That best religion of the heart was thine,
A yearning evermore to make man's sorrows less.

And thou did'st glory in the poet's song,—
Poet thyself, though nameless 'mid the throng
That cheer, charm, elevate the human race;
But now thou hear'st the everlasting hymn,
The harps and voices of the seraphim
That kneel in radiant ranks before the throne of grace.

If e'er again my vagrant footsteps stray
Along each pleasant and romantic way
We trod together in the summer glow,
Each form and feature of the varied scene
Will wake sad memories of what hath been,
And lift my chastened thoughts from transient things below.

In lofty Marsden's cultivated glades,
In lordly Gisborne's proud, patrician shades,
By gentle Calder's ever-tuneful stream,
On cloud-communing Pendle's barren side,
'Mid Whalley's ruins of monastic pride,
Fancy will raise thee up, to stir me like a dream.

In grassy Craven's long-withdrawing dales,
In gloomy Gordale, where the storm prevails,
By Malham's giant cliff and secret wave,

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And by that lonely tarn where once we sang,
Till the rough rocks with startled echoes rang,
Some thought of thee will come and whisper of the grave.

Friend of my later days! thou sleepest well;
And many a grateful tongue is left to tell
What gentle thoughts, what generous deeds, were thine;
And in that calm and consecrated spot,
Where thou, forgetting, wilt not be forgot,—
With thy dear children's tears I fain would mingle mine.

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ON THE DEATH OF TWO INFANT CHILDREN.

Alas for me!
Two bonny buds but newly-blown,
But into winning beauty grown,
From my domestic garden torn,
Have left me feeble and forlorn;
I miss them from my household tree,—
Alas for me!

Alas for me!
Two lambs, a blessing to behold,
Are taken from their earthly fold,
'Mid fairer pasture-fields to roam,
Round the great Shepherd's happier home;
And though I bow submissive knee,
Alas for me!

Alas for me!
Two jewels rarest of the treasure
Set in my crown of human pleasure,
Are shaken earthward, and each gem
Recalled to God's own diadem,
To shine where sinless seraphs be,—
Alas for me!

355

Alas for me!
Two love-beams, sent from heaven to cheer
My lot of storm and darkness here,
Are gathered to the central light
Of climes unknown to death or night;
Would that my own sad soul were free—
Alas for me!

Alas for thee!
My own, my true, my patient wife,
Dear antidote of care and strife;
Fond mother of my babes that rest
In the mute earth's maternal breast!
What must thy double sorrow be?
Alas for thee!

But why repine?
Though the cold earth enshrines my dears;
Though moments scarcely count our tears,
A little hope, a little trust,
A little thought beyond the dust,
May fit us for that home of joy
Where they can never feel annoy,
Where they, perchance, keep watch, and wait
Our coming to that radiant gate
That opens into life divine,—
Then why repine?

356

SABBATH EVENING THOUGHTS.

In the calm shadow of this Sabbath night,
Restraining vicious thought and vain desire,
I sit with sober, but unseen delight,
In the blither presence of my flickering fire;—
Recall my struggles with the stormy past,
And wonder how my heart withstood the trying blast.

And yet it beats within my quiet breast
As warmly, not as wildly, as of old;
Perchance a little better for the test
Of human sorrows, mixed and manifold:
Perchance more fitted to repel or bear
The now familiar stings of poverty and care.

Books are about me, full of glorious things,
Left by the good and gifted of the earth,—
Pearls shaken, like the dews, from Fancy's wings,
Burnings of pathos, scintillings of mirth;
And, what is nearer unto Heaven allied,
The Christian's treasure-page, and comforter, and guide!

Beings, how dearly loved! are circled round,
Talking together in an undertone
Of pleasant voices, lest too rude a sound
Should wake the dreamer from his musings lone:

357

While the old cricket in his corner dim,
Pours on my passive ear his undisturbing hymn.

My street-bound home is unadorned and small,
With an accessible and ready door;—
No picture smiling on the plaster wall,
No carpet sleeping on the stony floor;
No graceful garniture, no couch of down,
No rich array of robes to make the envious frown.

But there is food prepared from day to day,
Won by the energies of hand and brain;
A hard, but grateful bed, whereon to lay
The limb of labour, and the head of pain:
And peace is with my household morn and night,
While through life's passing clouds love looks with purer light.

Beholding others sinking deeper still
On the rough road of our uncertain life,
Feeble, indeed, though resolute in will,
Waging with fortune a perpetual strife;
Partly forgetful of my darker days,
My silent soul sends up involuntary praise.

Originally entitled “Moments of Meditation; an extempore fragment,” and dated 10th February 1844.

358

LINES

WRITTEN IN RHUDDLAN CASTLE, NORTH WALES.

Retreat of our fathers, who battled and bled
Against the unhallowed invasion of Rome,
Who, vanquished by numbers, were scattered and fled
To find 'mid these solitudes freedom and home,
Preserving through sorrows and changes untold,
The firmness, the feelings, the language of old.

I come, in the light of the blue summer skies,
To visit thy beauties, wild Cambrian land!
Already thy mountains rise dark on my eyes,
And blooming before me thy valleys expand;
Thy rude rocks invite me, thy floods, as they flow,
Allure me to follow wherever they go.

I will muse in thy castles, I'll look from thy hills,
I'll plunge in the depths of thy forests and vales;
I will climb to thy cataracts, drink at thy rills,
And list to thy songs and thy stories, old Wales!
I will dream by thy rivers, and proudly explore
Every path which Tradition hath trodden before.

A pilgrim I am, and a pilgrim I've been,
And a pilgrim I would be while vigour remains,
My fond feet have wandered o'er many a scene,
But none which surpasses thy mountains and plains;

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And I marvel that e'er I could linger to see
A land less enchanting, less glorious than thee.

There are beings I love without coldness or guile,
There are friends I would cling to whatever betide,
My absence from these may be borne for awhile,
But the others will mourn me away from their side;
Yet a season will come when my manhood is past,
That will bind me to one little circle at last.

With a feeling of wonder I pause on my way,
In a ruin where monarchs held splendour and place,
But pleasures await me for many a day,
In a region of poesy, grandeur, and grace;
For a time I will linger by hill, stream, and glen,
Then back to the common existence of men.

END OF VOL. I.