XXXI. THE KIRK of ULPHA to the Pilgrim's eye O'er the parched waste beside an Arab's tent; Or the Indian tree whose branches, downward bent, How sweet were leisure! could it yield no more XXXII. Nor hurled precipitous from steep to steep; Majestic Duddon, over smooth flat sands Gliding in silence with unfettered sweep! Beneath an ampler sky a region wide Is opened round him :- hamlets, towers, and towns, In stately mien to sovereign Thames allied With Commerce freighted, or triumphant War. XXXIII. CONCLUSION. BUT here no cannon thunders to the gale; Where all his unambitious functions fail. And may thy Poet, cloud-born Stream! be free, The sweets of earth contentedly resigned, And each tumultuous working left behind At seemly distance, to advance like Thee, XXXIV. AFTER-THOUGHT. I THOUGHT of Thee, my partner and my guide, Still glides the Stream, and shall not cease to glide; The elements, must vanish; be it so! Enough, if something from our hands have power To live, and act, and serve the future hour; And if, as tow'rd the silent tomb we go, Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendant dower, We feel that we are greater than we know. A POET, whose works are not yet known as they deserve to be, thus enters upon his description of the "Ruins of Rome:" "The rising Sun Flames on the ruins in the purer air Towering aloft;" and ends thus "The setting Sun displays His visible great round, between yon towers, As through two shady cliffs." Mr. Crowe, in his excellent loco-descriptive Poem, "Lewesdon Hill," is still more expeditious, finishing the whole on a May-morning, before breakfast. "To-morrow for severer thought, but now To breakfast, and keep festival to-day." No one believes, or is desired to believe, that these Poems were actually composed within such limits of time; nor was there any reason why a prose statement should acquaint the Reader with the plain fact, to the disturbance of poetic credibility. But, in the present case, I am compelled to mention, that the above series of Sonnets was the growth of many years; — the one which stands the 14th was the first produced; and others were added upon occasional visits to the Stream, or as recollections of the scenes upon its banks awakened a wish to describe them. In this manner I had proceeded insensibly, without perceiving that I was trespassing upon ground preoccupied, at least as far as intention went, by Mr. Coleridge; who, more than twenty years ago, used to speak of writing a |