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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.

1846.

XVI.

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.

1846.

POEMS,

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.

I.

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.

II.

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.

III.

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

VOL. IV.

Σ

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!

IV.

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.

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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!

VI.

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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