ELEGIAC STANZAS,

SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF Peele Castle, in A STORM, PAINTED BY SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT.

[Sir George Beaumont painted two pictures of this subject, one of which he gave to Mrs Wordsworth, saying she ought to have it; but Lady Beaumont interfered, and after Sir George's death she gave it to Sir Uvedale Price, at whose house at Foxley I have seen it.]

I WAS thy neighbour once, thou rugged Pile!
Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee:
I saw thee every day; and all the while
Thy Form was sleeping on a glassy sea.

So pure the sky, so quiet was the air!
So like, so very like, was day to day!
Whene'er I looked, thy Image still was there;
It trembled, but it never passed away.

How perfect was the calm! it seemed no sleep;
No mood, which season takes away, or brings:
I could have fancied that the mighty Deep
Was even the gentlest of all gentle Things.

Ah! THEN, if mine had been the Painter's hand,
Το express what then I saw; and add the gleam,
The light that never was, on sea or land,
The consecration, and the Poet's dream;1

I would have planted thee, thou hoary Pile
Amid a world how different from this!
Beside a sea that could not cease to smile;
On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss.

1

1807.

and add a gleam

Of lustre known to neither sea nor land,

But borrowed from the youthful Poet's dream. in 1820.

The lustre

the gleam,

1827.

Ed. 1832 returns to text of 1807.

Thou shouldst have seemed a treasure-house divine 11

Of peaceful years; a chronicle of heaven;—

Of all the sunbeams that did ever shine
The very sweetest had to thee been given.

A Picture had it been of lasting ease,
Elysian quiet, without toil or strife;
No motion but the moving tide, a breeze,
Or merely silent Nature's breathing life.

Such, in the fond illusion of my heart,

Such Picture would I at that time have made :
And seen the soul of truth in every part,
A stedfast peace that might not be betrayed.2

So once it would have been,-'tis so no more;
I have submitted to a new control:

A power is gone, which nothing can restore;
A deep distress hath humanised my Soul.

Not for a moment could I now behold
A smiling sea, and be what I have been:

The feeling of my loss will ne'er be old;

This, which I know, I speak with mind serene.

Then, Beaumont, Friend! who would have been the Friend, If he had lived, of Him whom I deplore,

This work of thine I blame not, but commend;

This sea in anger, and that dismal shore.

O'tis a passionate Work-yet wise and well,
Well chosen is the spirit that is here;

That Hulk which labours in the deadly swell,
This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear!

And this huge Castle, standing here sublime,
I love to see the look with which it braves,
Cased in the unfeeling armour of old time,

The lightning, the fierce wind, and trampling waves.
Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone,
Housed in a dream, at distance from the Kind!
Such happiness, wherever it be known,

Is to be pitied; for 'tis surely blind.

But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer,
And frequent sights of what is to be borne !
Such sights, or worse, as are before me here.—
Not without hope we suffer and we mourn.

Peele Castle is in the Isle of Man. It is on a small rocky island, close to the town of Peele, and separated from it much as St Michael's Mount in Cornwall is separated from the mainland. The castle was for many years the residence of the Princes of Mona. (See Grose's Antiquities, Vol. VI.) The "four summer weeks" referred to in the first stanza, were probably during the year 1794.

With the last stanza of these Elegiac Verses compare stanzas ten and eleven of the Ode on Immortality.

One of the two pictures of "Peele Castle in a Storm "-engraved by S. W. Reynolds, and published in several editions of the poems-is still in the Gallery of Sir George Beaumont at Coleorton Hall.-ED.

ELEGIAC VERSES,

IN MEMORY OF MY BROTHER, JOHN WORDSWORTH, COMMANDER OF THE E. I. COMPANY'S SHIP THE EARL OF ABERGAVENNY, IN WHICH HE PERISHED BY CALAMITOUS SHIPWRECK, Feb. 6th, 1805.

Composed near the Mountain track, that leads from Grasmere through Grisedale Hawes, where it descends towards Patterdale.

["Here did we stop; and here looked round,

While each into himself descends."

The point is two or three yards below the outlet of Grisedale Tarn,

on a foot-road by which a horse may pass to Paterdale-a ridge of Helvellyn on the left, and the summit of Fairfield on the right.]

I.

THE Sheep-boy whistled loud, and lo!
That instant, startled by the shock,
The Buzzard mounted from the rock
Deliberate and slow:

Lord of the air, he took his flight;
Oh! could he on that woeful night
Have lent his wing, my Brother dear,
For one poor moment's space to Thee,
And all who struggled with the Sea,
When safety was so near.

II.

Thus in the weakness of my heart
I spoke (but let that pang be still)
When rising from the rock at will,
I saw the Bird depart.

And let me calmly bless the Power
That meets me in this unknown Flower,

Affecting type of him I mourn!

With calmness suffer and believe,

And grieve, and know that I must grieve,

Not cheerless, though forlorn.

III.

Here did we stop; and here looked round
While each into himself descends,
For that last thought of parting Friends
That is not to be found.

Hidden was Grasmere Vale from sight,
Our home and his, his heart's delight,

His quiet heart's selected home.
But time before him melts away,
And he hath feeling of a day

Of blessedness to come.

IV.

Full soon in sorrow did I weep,

Taught that the mutual hope was dust,

In sorrow, but for higher trust,
How miserably deep!

All vanished in a single word,

A breath, a sound, and scarcely heard:
Sea-Ship-drowned-Shipwreck—so it came,

The meek, the brave, the good, was gone;

He who had been our living John

Was nothing but a name.

V.

That was indeed a parting! oh,

Glad am I, glad that it is past;

For there were some on whom it cast
Unutterable woe.

But they as well as I have gains ;—
From many a humble source, to pains
Like these, there comes a mild release;
Even here I feel it, even this Plant
Is in its beauty ministrant

To comfort and to peace.

VI.

He would have loved thy modest grace,
Meek Flower! To Him I would have said,

"It grows upon its native bed

Beside our Parting-place ;