COMPOSED BY THE SEA-SHORE.

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

The multiplication of mountain-ridges, described at the commencement 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.

979

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 moon-
beams 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.

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 peep-
ing,

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 idolising dreamer as of yore!

I slight them all; and, on this sea-beat shore
Sole-sitting, only can to thoughts attend
That Eid 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,
Abates the perils of a stormy night:
When not a twinkling star or beacon's light
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
Long-bafiled hope's slow fever in his veins,
clime,
And wounds and weakness oft his labour's sole

remains.

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 sove-
reignty;

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

A Bard, who, lately near the wide-spread sea
Traversed by gleaming ships, looked up to thee
With grateful thoughts, doth now thy rising
hail

From the close confines of a shadowy vale.
Glory of night, conspicuous yet serene,
Nor less attractive when by glimpses seen
Through cloudy umbrage, well might that fair
face,

And all those attributes of modest grace,
In days when Fancy wrought unchecked by
fear,

Down to the green earth fetch thee from thy sphere,

To sit in leafy woods by fountains clear!

O still belov'd (for thine, meek Power, are charms

That fascinate the very Babe in arms While he, uplifted towards thee, laughs outright,

Spreading his little palms in his glad Mother's sight)

O still belov'd, once worshipped! Time, that frowns In his destructive flight on earthly crowns, Spares thy mild splendour; still those far-shot beams

Tremble on dancing waves and rippling streams With stainless touch, as chaste as when thy praise

Was sung by Virgin-choirs in festal lays;
And through dark trials still dost thou explore
Thy way for increase punctual as of yore,
When teeming Matrons-yielding to rude faith
In mysteries of birth and life and death
And painful struggle and deliverance-prayed
Of thee to visit them with lenient aid.
What though the rites be swept away, the fanes
Extinct that echoed to the votive strains;
Yet thy mild aspect does not, cannot, cease
Love to promote and purity and peace;
And Fancy, unreproved, even yet may trace
Faint types of suffering in thy beamless face.

Then, silent Monitress! let us-not blind
To worlds unthought of till the searching mind
Of Science laid them open to mankind-
Told, also, how the voiceless heavens declare
God's glory; and acknowledging thy share

To aught of highest, holiest, influenceReceive whatever good 'tis given thee to dis

1835.

XIII.

TO THE MOON.

(RYDAL.)

QUEEN of the stars 1-so gentle, so benign,
That ancient Fable did to thee assign,
When darkness creeping o'er thy silver brow
Warned thee these upper regions to forego,
Alternate empire in the shades below-

pense.

May sage and simple, catching with one eye The moral intimations of the sky,

Learn from thy course, where'er their own be taken,

"To look on tempests, and be never shaken;"
To keep with faithful step the appointed way
Eclipsing or eclipsed, by night or day,
And from example of thy monthly range
Gently to brook decline and fatal change;
Meek, patient, stedfast, and with loftier scope,
Than thy revival yields, for gladsome hope!

1835

(ON THE BANKS OF THE DERWENT.,

PASTOR and Patriot!-at whose bidding rise These modest walls, amid a flock that need, For one who comes to watch them and to feed, A fixed Abode-keep down presageful sighs. Threats, which the unthinking only can despise, Perplex the Church; but be thou firm,-be true To thy first hope, and this good work pursue, Poor as thou art. A welcome sacrifice

remains are laid.)

A POINT of life between my Parents' dust,
And yours, my buried Little-ones! am I ;
And to those graves looking habitually
In kindred quict I repose my trust.
Death to the innocent is more than just,
And, to the sinner, mercifully bent;
So may I hope, if truly I repent
And meekly bear the ills which bear I must:
And You, my Offspring! that do still remair
Yet may outstrip me in the appointed race,
If e'er, through fault of mine, in mutual pain
We breathed together for a moment's space,
The wrong, by love provoked, let love arraign,
And only love keep in your hearts a place.

VII.

ADDRESS FROM THE SPIRIT OF COCKERMOUTH
CASTLE

"THOU look'st upon me, and dost fondly think,
Poet! that, stricken as both are by years,
We, differing once so much, are now Compeers,
Prepared, when each has stood his time, to sink
Into the dust. Erewhile a sterner link
United us; when thou, in boyish play,
Entering my dungeon, didst become a prey
To soul-appalling darkness. Not a blink
Of light was there;-and thus did I, thy Tutor,
Make thy young thoughts acquainted with the
grave;

While thou wert chasing the wing'd butterfly Through my green courts; or climbing, a bold suitor,

Up to the flowers whose golden progeny
Still round my shattered brow in beauty wave."

The encircling turf into a barren clod;
Through which the waters creep, then disappear,
Born to be lost in Derwent flowing near;
Yet, o'er the brink, and round the lime-stone cell
Of the pure spring (they call it the "Nun's
Well,"

Name that first struck by chance my startled ear)

A tender Spirit broods-the pensive Shade
Of ritual honours to this Fountain paid
By hooded Votaresses with saintly cheer;
Albeit oft the Virgin-mother mild
Looked down with pity upon eyes beguiled
Into the shedding of "too soft a tear."

Of thy new hearth; and sooner shall its wreaths, Mounting while earth her morning incense

breathes,

From wandering fiends of air receive a yoke, And straightway cease to aspire, than God dis

dain

This humble tribute as ill-timed or vain.

X.

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. (LANDING AT THE MOUTH OF THE DERWENT, WORKINGTON.)

DEAR to the Loves, and to the Graces vowed, The Queen drew back the wimple that she

wore;

And to the throng, that on the Cumbrian shore
Her landing hailed, how touchingly she bowed!
And like a Star (that, from a heavy cloud
Of pine-tree foliage poised in air, forth darts,
When a soft summer gale at evening parts
The gloom that did its loveliness enshroud)
She smiled; but Time, the old Saturnian seer,
Sighed on the wing as her foot pressed the
strand,

With step prelusive to a long array

Of woes and degradations hand in hand-
Weeping captivity, and shuddering fear
Stilled by the ensanguined block of Fotherin-
gay!

XI.

STANZAS SUGGESTED IN A STEAM-BOAT OFF
SAINT BEES' HEADS, ON THE COAST OF CUM-
BERLAND.

IF Life were slumber on a bed of down,
Toil unimposed, vicissitude unknown,
Sad were out lot: no hunter of the hare
Has roused the lion; no one plucks the rose,
Exults like him whose javelin from the lair
Whose proffered beauty in safe shelter blows
'Mid a trim garden's summer luxuries,
With joy like his who climbs, on hands and
knees,

For some rare plant, yon Headland of St Bees.
This independence upon oar and sail,
This new indifference to breeze or gale,
This straight-lined progress, furrowing a flat
lea,

And regular as if locked in certainty-
Depress the hours. Up, Spirit of the storm!
That Courage may find something to perform :
That Fortitude, whose blood disdains to freeze
At Danger's bidding, may confront the seas,
Firm as the towering Headlands of St Bees.

From her religious Mansion of St Bees
When her sweet Voice, that instrument of love,
Was glorified, and took its place, above
The silent stars, among the angelic quire,
Her chantry blazed with sacrilegious fire,
And perished utterly; but her good deeds
Had sown the spot, that witnessed them, with
seeds

Which lay in earth expectant, till a breeze With quickening impulse answered their mute pleas,

And lo! a statelier pile, the Abbey of St Bees.
There are the naked clothed, the hungry fed;
And Charity extendeth to the dead
Her intercessions made for the soul's rest
Of tardy penitents; or for the best
Among the good (when love might else have
slept,

Sickened, or died) in pious memory kept.

Thanks to the austere and simple Devotees,
Who, to that service bound by venial fees,
Keep watch before the altars of St Bees.
Woven out of passion's sharpest agonies,
Are not, in sooth, their Requiems sacred ties
Subdued, composed, and formalized by art,
To fix a wiser sorrow in the heart?
The prayer for them whose hour is past away
Says to the Living, profit while ye may!
Who thinks that priestly cunning holds the keys
A little part, and that the worst, he sees
That best unlock the secrets of St Bees.
Conscience, the timid being's inmost light,
Hope of the dawn and solace of the night,
Cheers these Recluses with a steady ray
In many an hour when judgment goes astray.
Ah! scorn not hastily their rule who try
Earth to despise, and flesh to mortify;
Consume with zeal, in wingèd ecstasies
Of prayer and praise forget their rosaries,
Nor hear the loudest surges of St Bees.
Yet none so prompt to succour and protect
The forlorn traveller, or sailor wrecked
On the bare coast; nor do they grudge the
boon

Which staff and cockle hat and sandal shoon Claim for the pilgrim: and, though chidings sharp

May sometimes greet the strolling minstrel's harp,

It is not then when, swept with sportive ease,
It charms a feast-day throng of all degrees,
Brightening the archway of revered St Bees.
How did the cliffs and echoing hills rejoice
What time the Benedictine Brethren's voice,
Imploring, or commanding with meet pride,
Summoned the Chiefs to lay their feuds aside,
And under one blest ensign serve the Lord
In Palestine. Advance, indignant Sword!
Flaming till thou from Panym hands release
That tomb, dread centre of all sanctities
Nursed in the quiet Abbey of St Bees.
But look we now to them whose minds from far
Follow the fortunes which they may not share.
While in Judea Fancy loves to roam,
She helps to make a Holy-land at home:
The Star of Bethlehem from its sphere invites
To sound the crystal depth of maiden rights;
And wedded Life, through scriptural mysteries,
Heavenward ascends with all her charities,
Taught by the hooded Celibates of St Bees.
Nor be it e'er forgotten how by skill

Of cloistered Architects, free their souls to fill With love of God, throughout the Land were raised

Churches on whose symbolic beauty gazed
Peasant and mail-clad Chief with pious awe;
As at this day men seeing what they saw,
Or the bare wreck of faith's solemnities,
Aspire to more than earthly destinies;
Witness yon Pile that greets us from St Bees.
Yet more; around those Churches, gathered
Towns

Safe from the feudal Castle's haughty frowns;
Peaceful abodes, where Justice might uphold
Her scales with even hand, and culture mould
The heart to pity, train the mind in care