BY THE SEA-SIDE

Of light with shade in beauty reconciled-
Such is the prospect far as sight can range,
The soothing recompense, the welcome change.
Where now the ships that drove before the blast,
Threatened by angry breakers as they passed;
And by a train of flying clouds bemocked ;
Or, in the hollow surge, at anchor rocked
As on a bed of death? Some lodge in peace,

Saved by His care who bade the tempest cease;
And some, too heedless of past danger, court
Fresh gales to waft them to the far-off port;
But near, or hanging sea and sky between,
Not one of all those wingèd powers is seen,
Seen in her course, nor 'mid this quiet heard ;
Yet oh! how gladly would the air be stirred
By some acknowledgment of thanks and praise,
Soft in its temper as those vesper lays
Sung to the Virgin while accordant oars
Urge the slow bark along Calabrian shores;

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ΤΟ

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A sea-born service through the mountains felt

Till into one loved vision all things melt:

Or like those hymns that soothe with graver sound

The gulfy coast of Norway iron-bound;

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And, from the wide and open Baltic, rise

With punctual care, Lutherian harmonies.

Hush, not a voice is here! but why repine,

Now when the star of eve comes forth to shine

On British waters with that look benign? *

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Ye mariners, that plough your onward way,
Or in the haven rest, or sheltering bay,
May silent thanks at least to God be given

With a full heart; "our thoughts are heard in heaven!" †

* Compare Robert Browning's Home-thoughts from the Sea

While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.
See Young's Night Thoughts, book ii. 1. 95.-ED.

ED.

COMPOSED BY THE SEA-SHORE

Composed 1834.-Published 1845

[These lines were suggested during my residence under my son's roof at Moresby, on the coast near Whitehaven, at the time when I was composing those verses among the “Evening Voluntaries" that have reference to the sea. It was in that neighbourhood I first became acquainted with the ocean and its appearances and movements. My infancy and early childhood were passed at Cockermouth, about eight miles from the coast, and I well remember that mysterious awe with which I used to listen to anything said about storms and shipwrecks. Sea-shells of many descriptions were common in the town; and I was not a little surprised when I heard that Mr. Landor * had denounced me as a plagiarist from himself for having described a boy applying a sea-shell to his ear and listening to it for intimations of what was going on in its native element. This I had done myself scores of times, and it was a belief among us that we could know from the sound whether the tide was ebbing or flowing.-I. F.]

One of the "Evening Voluntaries.”—ED.

WHAT mischief cleaves to unsubdued regret,
How fancy sickens by vague hopes beset;
How baffled projects on the spirit prey,
And fruitless wishes eat the heart away,
The Sailor knows; he best, whose lot is cast
On the relentless sea that holds him fast

On chance dependent, and the fickle star

Of power, through long and melancholy war.
O sad it is, in sight of foreign shores,
Daily to think on old familiar doors,

Hearths loved in childhood, and ancestral floors;

Or, tossed about along a waste of foam,

To ruminate on that delightful home,

Which with the dear Betrothèd was to come;

* The passage in Landor's Gebir, book i., is quoted in a note to the fourth

book of The Excursion (see vol. v. p. 188).-ED.

COMPOSED OR SUGGESTED DURING A TOUR

Or came and was and is, yet meets the eye
Never but in the world of memory;

Or in a dream recalled, whose smoothest range
Is crossed by knowledge, or by dread, of change,
And if not so, whose perfect joy makes sleep
A thing too bright for breathing man to keep.
Hail to the virtues which that perilous life
Extracts from Nature's elemental strife;
And welcome glory won in battles fought
As bravely as the foe was keenly sought.
But to each gallant Captain and his crew
A less imperious sympathy is due,

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Such as my verse now yields, while moonbeams play
On the mute sea in this unruffled bay;

Such as will promptly flow from every breast,
Where good men, disappointed in the quest
Of wealth and power and honours, long for rest;
Or, having known the splendours of success,
Sigh for the obscurities of happiness.

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POEMS, 1

COMPOSED OR SUGGESTED DURING A TOUR, IN THE SUMMER OF 1833

Composed 1833.-Published 1835

Having been prevented by the lateness of the season, in 1831, from visiting Staffa and Iona, the author made these the principal objects of a short tour in the summer of 1833, of which the following series of poems is a Memorial. The course pursued was down the Cumberland river Derwent, and to Whitehaven ; thence (by the Isle of Man, where a few days were passed) up the Frith of Clyde to Greenock, then to Oban, Staffa, Iona;

1 1845.

The Title in the 1835 edition was Sonnets composed or suggested during a tour in Scotland, in the Summer of 1833.

and back towards England by Loch Awe, Inverary, Loch Goilhead, Greenock, and through parts of Renfrewshire, Ayrshire, and Dumfries-shire to Carlisle, and thence up the river Eden, and homewards by Ullswater.-W. W.

[My companions were H. C. Robinson and my son John.-I. F.]

I

ADIEU, RYDALIAN LAURELS! THAT HAVE GROWN

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ADIEU, Rydalian Laurels! that have grown
And spread as if ye knew that days might come
When ye would shelter in a happy home,
On this fair Mount, a Poet of your own,
One who ne'er ventured for a Delphic crown
To sue the God; but, haunting your green shade 1
All seasons through, is humbly pleased to braid 2
Ground-flowers, beneath your guardianship, self-sɔwn.*
Farewell! no Minstrels now with harp new-strung
For summer wandering quit their household bowers;
Yet not for this wants Poesy a tongue

To cheer the Itinerant on whom she pours
Her spirit, while he crosses lonely moors,
Or musing sits forsaken halls among.

1 1835.

II

One who to win your emblematic crown
Aspires not, but frequenting your green shade

MS.

Who dares not sue the God for your bright crown
Of deathless leaves, but haunting your green shade

MS.

2 1835.

delights fresh wreaths to braid.

MS.

*The yellow flowering poppy and the wild geranium. Compare the poem Poor Robin, March 1840.-ED.

THEY CALLED THEE MERRY ENGLAND 343

II

"WHY SHOULD THE ENTHUSIAST, JOURNEYING THROUGH THIS ISLE"

WHY should the Enthusiast, journeying through this Isle,

Repine as if his hour were come too late?

Not unprotected in her mouldering state,

Antiquity salutes him with a smile,

'Mid fruitful fields that ring with jocund toil,

And pleasure-grounds where Taste, refined Co-mate
Of Truth and Beauty, strives to imitate,
Far as she may, primeval Nature's style.

Fair Land! by Time's parental love made free,
By Social Order's watchful arms embraced;
With unexampled union meet in thee,

For eye and mind, the present and the past;
With golden prospect for futurity,

If that be reverenced which ought to last.1

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III

"THEY CALLED THEE MERRY ENGLAND, IN OLD TIME"

THEY called Thee MERRY ENGLAND, in old time; A happy people won for thee that name

With envy heard in many a distant clime;

And, spite of change, for me thou keep'st the same
Endearing title, a responsive chime

To the heart's fond belief; though some there are
Whose sterner judgments deem that world a snare
For inattentive Fancy, like the lime

1 1845.

If what is rightly reverenced may last.

1835,

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