326 THE WARNING. -O for a bridle bitted with remorse To stop your Leaders in their headstrong course!* To hope, and makes truth willing to be seen! Nought but her changes. Thus, ungrateful Nation: Spread for thyself the snares of tribulation, What saving skill Lie in forbearance, strength in standing still? -Soon shall the widow (for the speed of Time Nought equals when the hours are winged with crime) Widow, or wife, implore on tremulous knee, From him who judged her lord, a like decree; The skies will weep o'er old men desolate : Ye little-ones! Earth shudders at your fate, But turn, my Soul, and from the sleeping pair * See the Fenwick note prefixed to the poem.-ED. ON A HIGH PART OF THE COAST OF CUMBERLAND. 327 Be strong in faith, bid anxious thoughts lie still; Oppose, or bear with a submissive will. ON A HIGH PART OF THE COAST OF [The lines were composed on the road between Moresby and Whitehaven while I was on a visit to my son, then rector of the former place. This succession of Voluntaries, with the exception of the 8th and 9th, originated in the concluding lines of the last paragraph of this poem. With this coast I have been familiar from my earliest childhood, and remember being struck for the first time by the town and port of Whitehaven and the white waves breaking against its quays and piers, as the whole came into view from the top of the high ground down which the road (it has since been altered) then descended abruptly. My sister, when she first heard the voice of the sea from this point, and beheld the scene before her, burst into tears. Our family then lived at Cockermouth, and this fact was often mentioned among us as indicating the sensibility for which she was so remarkable.] THE Sun, that seemed so mildly to retire, Flung back from distant climes a streaming fire, 328 BY THE SEA-SIDE. Prelude of night's approach with soothing dreams. The boundless plain of waters seems to lie :- Thou Power supreme! who, arming to rebuke For the brief course that must for me remain; Whate'er the path these mortal feet may trace, Breathe through my soul the blessing of thy grace, Glad, through a perfect love, a faith sincere Drawn from the wisdom that begins with fear, Glad to expand; and, for a season, free From finite cares, to rest absorbed in Thee! THE sun is couched, the sea-fowl gone to rest, And the wild storm hath somewhere found a nest; Compare the Elegiac Stanzas, suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm (1805), Vol. III., p. 45; also the sonnet (written in 1807), "Two voices are there, one is of the sea," Vol. IV., p. 64; and the second sonnet on the Cave of Staffa, in the poems descriptive of the tour in Scotland in 1833.-ED. BY THE SEA-SIDE. Air slumbers-wave with wave no longer strives, Or like those hymns that soothe with graver sound 329 330 COMPOSED BY THE SEA-SHORE. Now when the star of eve comes forth to shine May silent thanks at least to God be given With a full heart; our thoughts are heard in heaven!' COMPOSED BY THE SEA-SHORE. Comp. 1834. Pub. 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 Landort 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.] WHAT mischief cleaves to unsubdued regret, Compare Robert Browning's Home-thoughts from the Sea- -ED. + The passage in Landor's Gebir, Book I., is quoted in a note to fourth book of The Excursion, (see Vol. V., p. 191).-Ed. |