For, if a vestige of those gleams Survived, 'twas only in my dreams.
Dread Power! whom peace and calmness serve No less than Nature's threatening voice, If aught unworthy be my choice, From THEE if I would swerve;
Oh, let thy grace remind me of the light Full early lost, and fruitlessly deplored; Which, at this moment, on my waking sight Appears to shine, by miracle restored; My soul, though yet confined to earth, Rejoices in a second birth!
'Tis past, the visionary splendour fades; And night approaches with her shades.
Note. The multiplication of mountain-ridges, described at the comacncement of the third Stanza of this Ode, as a kind of Jacob's Ladder, leading to Heaven, is produced either by watery vapours, or sunny haze; -in the present instance by the latter cause. Allusions to the Ode, entitled 'Intimations of Immortality,' pervade the last stanza of the foregoing Poem.
COMPOSED BY THE SEA-SHORE.
[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. Laudor 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, 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 Betrothed was to come; 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,
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.
THE Crescent-moon, the Star of Love, Glories of evening, as ye there are seen With but a span of sky between——
Speak one of you, my doubts remove, Which is the attendant Page and which the Queen ?
(COMPOSED BY THE SEA-SIDE,—ON THE COAST OF CUMBERLAND.)
WANDERER! that stoop'st so low, and com'st so near To human life's unsettled atmosphere;
Who lov'st with Night and Silence to partake, So might it seem, the cares of them that wake; And, through the cottage-lattice softly peeping, Dost shield from harm the humblest of the sleeping; What pleasure once encompassed those sweet names Which yet in thy behalf the Poet claims,
An idolizing dreamer as of yore!—
I slight them all; and, on this sea-beat shore
Sole-sitting, only can to thoughts attend
That bid me hail thee as the SAILOR'S FRIEND;
So call thee for heaven's grace through thee made known By confidence supplied and mercy shown,
When not a twinkling star or beacon's light Abates the perils of a stormy night;
And for less obvious benefits, that find
Their way, with thy pure help, to heart and mind; Both for the adventurer starting in life's prime; And veteran ranging round from clime to clime, Long-baffled hope's slow fever in his veins,
And wounds and weakness oft his labour's sole remains. The aspiring Mountains and the winding Streams, Empress of Night! are gladdened by thy beams ; A look of thine the wilderness pervades, And penetrates the forest's inmost shades; Thou, chequering peaceably the minster's gloom, Guid'st the pale Mourner to the lost one's tomb; Canst reach the Prisoner-to his grated cell Welcome, though silent and intangible !—— And lives there one, of all that come and go On the great waters toiling to and fro,
One, who has watched thee at some quiet hour Enthroned aloft in undisputed power,
Or crossed by vapoury streaks and clouds that move Catching the lustre they in part reprove— Nor sometimes felt a fitness in thy sway
To call up thoughts that shun the glare of day, And make the serious happier than the gay? Yes, lovely Moon! if thou so mildly bright Dost rouse, yet surely in thy own despite, To fiercer mood the phrenzy-stricken brain, Let me a compensating faith maintain;
That there's a sensitive, a tender, part
Which thou canst touch in every human heart, For healing and composure. But, as least And mightiest billows ever have confessed Thy domination; as the whole vast Sea Feels through her lowest depths thy sovereignty; So shines that countenance with especial grace On them who urge the keel her plains to trace Furrowing its way right onward. The most rude, Cut off from home and country, may have stood- Even till long gazing hath bedimmed his eye, Or the mute rapture ended in a sigh- Touched by accordance of thy placid cheer, With some internal lights to memory dear, Or fancies stealing forth to soothe the breast Tired with its daily share of earth's unrest,— Gentle awakenings, visitations meek;
A kindly influence whereof few will speak, Though it can wet with tears the hardiest cheek. And when thy beauty in the shadowy cave Is hidden, buried in its monthly grave; Then, while the Sailor, mid an open sea
Swept by a favouring wind that leaves thought free, Paces the deck-no star perhaps in sight, And nothing save the moving ship's own light To cheer the long dark hours of vacant night— Oft with his musings does thy image blend, In his mind's eye thy crescent horns ascend,
And thou art still, O Moon, that SAILOR'S FRIEND!
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