God's bounty, soon forgotten; or indeed,
Must Man, with labour born, awake to

sorrow

Warbled in hearing both of earth and sky;

But o'er the contrast wherefore heave a sigh?

6 When Flowers rejoice and Larks with rival speed Like those aspirants let us soar-our aim Spring from their nests to bid the Sun Through life's worst trials, whether shock good morrow?

They mount for rapture as their songs A happier, brighter, purer Heaven tha

proclaim

or snares,

theirs.

POEMS

COMPOSED OR SUGGESTED DURING A TOUR, IN THE SUMMER OF 18331.

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

1 The Poems of this Series were for the most part composed in 1833, and published for the first ime in the volume of 1835 entitled Yarrow Revisited, and Other Poems. Chronological notes

re attached only to those pieces to which this observation does not apply. See Nos. XXVII., XLIII., and LVL-ED.

These spreading towns a cloak for lawless Nemean victor's brow; less bright was will?

Forbid it, Heaven!-and MERRY ENG- Meed of some Roman chief-in triumph LAND still borne

Shall be thy rightful name, in prose and With captives chained; and shedding

Rumble along thy bed, block after block:
Or, whirling with reiterated shock,
Combat, while darkness aggravates the (Where the Author was born, and his Fathers

While thou wert chasing the winged Dost Thou prepare, whose sign will be butterfly Through my green courts; or climbing, a Of thy new hearth; and sooner shall its

Sad were our lot: no hunter of the hare
Exults like him whose javelin from the lair
Has roused the lion; no one plucks the

rose,

5

When Bega sought of yore the Cumbria coast,

Tempestuous winds her holy errand crossed:

Whose proffered beauty in safe shelter She knelt in prayer-the waves ther

wrath appease;

Who in these Wilds then struggled for command;

The strong were merciless, without leg the weak;

Till this bright Stranger came, fair #
day-break,

And as a cresset true that darts its lengt
Of beamy lustre from a tower of strength:
Guiding the mariner through troubled sea
And cheering oft his peaceful reveries,

At Danger's bidding, may confront the Like the fixed Light that crowns

Have struck thy sides, too many ghastly How savage bosoms melted at the sound
decks
Of gospel-truth enchained in harmonies
Hast thou looked down upon, that such Wafted o'er waves, or creeping through

a thought

Should here be welcome, and in verse

enwrought:

With thy stern aspect better far agrees 25
Utterance of thanks that we have past

with ease,

As millions thus shall do, the Headlands of St. Bees.

close trees,

From her religious Mansion of St. Bees.

When her sweet Voice, that instrume of love,

Was glorified, and took its place, above The silent stars, among the angelic que Her chantry blazed with sacrilegious ir And perished utterly; but her good deed Yet, while each useful Art augments her Had sown the spot, that witnessed this store, What boots the gain if Nature should Which lay in earth expectant, till a breer With quickening impulse answered ther

lose more?

And Wisdom, as she holds a Christian

with seeds

mute pleas,

And lo! a statelier pile, the Abbey
St. Bees.