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And the Lady prayed in heaviness

That looked not for relief!

But slowly did her succour come,
And a patience to her grief.

Oh! there is never sorrow of heart
That shall lack a timely end,

If but to God we turn, and ask

Of Him to be our friend!

1808

XXIII.

A FACT, AND AN IMAGINATION;

OR,

CANUTE AND ALFRED, ON THE SEA-SHORE.

[THE first and last fourteen lines of this poem each make a sonnet, and were composed as such; but I thought that by intermediate lines they might be connected so as to make a whole. One or two expressions are taken from Milton's History of England.]

THE Danish Conqueror, on his royal chair,
Mustering a face of haughty sovereignty,
To aid a covert purpose, cried-" O ye
Approaching Waters of the deep, that share
With this green isle my fortunes, come not where
Your Master's throne is set."-Deaf was the Sea;

Her waves rolled on, respecting his decree
Less than they heed a breath of wanton air.
-Then Canute, rising from the invaded throne,
Said to his servile Courtiers,- "Poor the reach,
The undisguised extent, of mortal sway!
He only is a King, and he alone

Deserves the name (this truth the billows preach) Whose everlasting laws, sea, earth, and heaven, obey.” This just reproof the prosperous Dane

Drew, from the influx of the main,

For some whose rugged northern mouths would strain At oriental flattery;

And Canute (fact more worthy to be known)

From that time forth did for his brows disown
The ostentatious symbol of a crown;

Esteeming earthly royalty
Contemptible as vain.

Now hear what one of elder days,
Rich theme of England's fondest praise,
Her darling Alfred, might have spoken;
To cheer the remnant of his host

When he was driven from coast to coast,

Distressed and harassed, but with mind unbroken:
"My faithful followers, lo! the tide is spent
That rose, and steadily advanced to fill
The shores and channels, working Nature's will
Among the mazy streams that backward went,
And in the sluggish pools where ships are pent:
And now, his task performed, the flood stands still,
At the green base of many an inland hill,
In placid beauty and sublime content!
Such the repose that sage and hero find;
Such measured rest the sedulous and good
Of humbler name; whose souls do, like the flood
Of Ocean, press right on; or gently wind,
Neither to be diverted nor withstood,

Until they reach the bounds by Heaven assigned."

1816.

VOL. IV.

R

XXIV.

TO DORA.

[THE complaint in my eyes which gave occasion to this address to my daughter first showed itself as a consequence of infiammation, caught at the top of Kirkstone, when I was over-heated by having carried up the ascent my eldest son, a lusty infant. Frequently has the disease recurred since, leaving my eyes in a state which has often prevented my reading for months, and makes me at this day incapable of bearing without injury any strong light by day or night. My acquaintance with books has therefore been far short of my wishes; and on this account, to acknowledge the services daily and hourly done me by my family and friends, this note is written.]

' A LITTLE onward lend thy guiding hand

To these dark steps, a little further on!'

-What trick of memory to my voice hath brought This mournful iteration? For though Time,

The Conqueror, crowns the Conquered, on this brow Planting his favourite silver diadem,

Nor he, nor minister of his—intent

To run before him-hath enrolled me yet,
Though not unmenaced, among those who lean
Upon a living staff, with borrowed sight.

-O my own Dora, my beloved child!

Should that day come- -but hark! the birds salute
The cheerful dawn, brightening for me the east;
For me, thy natural leader, once again
Impatient to conduct thee, not as erst
A tottering infant, with compliant stoop
From flower to flower supported; but to curb
Thy nymph-like step swift-bounding o'er the lawn,

Along the loose rocks, or the slippery verge
Of foaming torrents.-From thy orisons
Come forth; and, while the morning air is yet
Transparent as the soul of innocent youth,
Let me, thy happy guide, now point thy way,
And now precede thee, winding to and fro,
Till we by perseverance gain the top

Of some smooth ridge, whose brink precipitous
Kindles intense desire for powers withheld
From this corporeal frame; whereon who stands,
Is seized with strong incitement to push forth
His arms, as swimmers use, and plunge-dread thought,
For pastime plunge-into the abrupt abyss,'
Where ravens spread their plumy vans, at ease!
And yet more gladly thee would I conduct
Through woods and spacious forests,―to behold
There, how the Original of human art,

Heaven-prompted Nature, measures and erects
Her temples, fearless for the stately work,

Though waves, to every breeze, its high-arched roof,
And storms the pillars rock. But we such schools
Of reverential awe will chiefly seek

In the still summer noon, while beams of light,
Reposing here, and in the aisles beyond
Traceably gliding through the dusk, recal
To mind the living presences of nuns ;
A gentle, pensive, white-robed sisterhood,
Whose saintly radiance mitigates the gloom
Of those terrestrial fabrics, where they serve,
To Christ, the Sun of righteousness, espoused.
Now also shall the page of classic lore,
To these glad eyes from bondage freed, again
Lie open; and the book of Holy Writ,

Again unfolded, passage clear shall yield
To heights more glorious still, and into shades
More awful, where, advancing hand in hand,
We may be taught, O Darling of my care!
To calm the affections, elevate the soul,
And consecrate our lives to truth and love.

1816.

XXV.

ODE TO LYCORIS.

May, 1817.

(THE discerning reader-who is aware that in the poem of Ellen Irwin I was desirous of throwing the reader at once out of the old ballad, so as if possible, to preclude a comparison between that mode of dealing with the subject and the mode I meant to adopt-may here perhaps perceive that this poem originated in the four last lines of the first stanza. Those specks of snow, reflected in the lake and so transferred, as it were, to the subaqueous sky, reminded me of the swans which the fancy of the ancient classic poets yoked to the car of Venus. Hence the tenor of the whole first stanza, and the name of Lycoris, which-with some readers who think my theology and classical allusion too far-fetched and therefore more or less unnatural and affected-will tend to unrealise the sentiment that pervades these verses. But surely one who has written so much in verse as I have done may be allowed to retrace his steps in the regions of fancy which delighted him in his boyhood, when he first became acquainted with the Greek and Roman Poets. Before I read Virgil I was so strongly attached to Ovid, whose Metamorphoses I read at school, that I was quite in a passion whenever I found him, in books of criticism, placed below Virgil. As to Homer, I was never weary of travelling over the scenes through which he led me. Classical literature affected me by its own beauty. But the truths of scripture having been entrusted to the dead languages, and these fountains having been recently laid open at the Reformation, an importance and a sanctity were at that period attached to classical literature that extended, as is obvious in Milton's Lycidas for example, both to its spirit and form in a degree that can never be revived. No doubt the backnied and

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