One with its kindling edge declares that soon Will reappear before the uplifted eye
A Form as bright, as beautiful a moon, To glide in open prospect through clear sky. Pity that such a promise e'er should prove False in the issue, that yon seeming space Of sky should be in truth the stedfast face Of a cloud flat and dense, through which must move (By transit not unlike man's frequent doom) The Wanderer lost in more determined gloom.
WHERE lies the truth? has Man, in wisdom's creed,
A pitiable doom; for respite brief
A care more anxious, or a heavier grief?
Is he ungrateful, and doth little heed
God's bounty, soon forgotten; or indeed,
Must Man, with labour born, awake to sorrow When Flowers rejoice and Larks with rival speed. Spring from their nests to bid the Sun good morrow? They mount for rapture as their songs proclaim Warbled in hearing both of earth and sky; But o'er the contrast wherefore heave a sigh ? Like those aspirants let us soar—our aim, Through life's worst trials, whether shocks or snares, A happier, brighter, purer Heaven than theirs.
COMPOSED OR SUGGESTED DURING A TOUR, IN THE SUMMER OF 1833.
[My companions were H. C. Robinson and my son John.]
Having been prevented by the lateness of the season, in 1831, from isiting 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.
ADIEU, Rydalian Laurels! that have grown And spread as if ye knew that days might come When ye would shelter in a happy home, On this fair Mount, a Poet of your own,
One who ne'er ventured for a Delphic crown To sue the God; but, haunting your green shade All seasons through, is humbly pleased to braid Ground-flowers, beneath your guardianship, self sown. Farewell! no Minstrels now with harp new-strung For summer wandering quit their household bowers; Yet not for this wants Poesy a tongue To cheer the Itinerant on whom she pours Her spirit, while he crosses lonely moors, Or musing sits forsaken halls among.
WHY should the Enthusiast, journeying through this Isle
Repine as if his hour were come too late?
Not unprotected in her mouldering state, Antiquity salutes him with a smile,
Mid fruitful fields that ring with jocund toil,
And pleasure-grounds where Taste, refined Co-mate Of Truth and Beauty, strives to imitate, Far as she may, primeval Nature's style. Fair Land! by Time's parental love made free, By Social Order's watchful arms embraced; With unexampled union meet in thee, For eye and mind, the present and the past; With golden prospect for futurity,
If that be reverenced which ought to last.
THEY called Thee MERRY ENGLAND, in old time; A happy people won for thee that name
With envy heard in many a distant clime;
And, spite of change, for me thou keep'st the same Endearing title, a responsive chime
To the heart's fond belief; though some there are Whose sterner judgments deem that word a snare For inattentive Fancy, like the lime
Which foolish birds are caught with. Can, I ask, This face of rural beauty be a mask
For discontent, and poverty, and crime;
These spreading towns a cloak for lawless will? Forbid it, Heaven!-and MERRY ENGLAND still Shall be thy rightful name, in prose and rhyme!
TO THE RIVER GRETA, NEAR KESWICK.
GRETA, what fearful listening! when huge stones Rumble along thy bed, block after block: Or, whirling with reiterated shock,
Combat, while darkness aggravates the groans: But if thou (like Cocytus from the moans Heard on his rueful margin) thence wert named The Mourner, thy true nature was defamed, And the habitual murmur that atones
For thy worst rage, forgotten. Oft as Spring Decks, on thy sinuous banks, her thousand thrones, Seats of glad instinct and love's carolling, The concert, for the happy, then may vie With liveliest peals of birth-day harmony: To a grieved heart, the notes are benisons.
AMONG the mountains were we nursed, loved Stream! Thou near the eagle's nest-within brief sail,
I, of his bold wing floating on the gale,
Where thy deep voice could lull me! Faint the beam Of human life when first allowed to gleam On mortal notice.-Glory of the vale,
Such thy meek outset, with a crown, though frail, Kept in perpetual verdure by the steam
Of thy soft breath!-Less vivid wreath entwined Nemæan's victor's brow; less bright was worn, Meed of some Roman chief—in triumph borne With captives chained; and shedding from his car The sunset splendours of a finished war Upon the proud enslavers of mankind!
IN SIGHT OF THE TOWN OF COCKERMOUTH.
(Where the Author was born, and his Father's remains are laid.)
A POINT of life between my Parent's dust, And yours, my buried Little-ones! am I; And to those graves looking habitually In kindred quiet I repose my trust.
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