IN THE CHANNEL, BETWEEN THE COAST OF CUMBERLAND AND THE ISLE OF MAN.
RANGING the heights of Scawfell or Black-comb, In his lone course the Shepherd oft will pause, And strive to fathom the mysterious laws. By which the clouds, arrayed in light or gloom, On Mona settle, and the shapes assume Of all her peaks and ridges. What he draws From sense, faith, reason, fancy, of the cause, He will take with him to the silent tomb. Or, by his fire, a child upon his knee, Haply the untaught Philosopher may speak Of the strange sight, nor hide his theory That satisfies the simple and the meek, Blest in their pious ignorance, though weak To cope with Sages undevoutly free.
AT SEA OFF THE ISLE OF MAN.
BOLD words affirmed, in days when faith was strong And doubts and scruples seldom teazed the brain, That no adventurer's bark had power to gain These shores if he approached them bent on wrong;
For, suddenly up-conjured from the Main,
Mists rose to hide the Land—that search, though long And eager, might be still pursued in vain. O Fancy, what an age was that for song! That age, when not by laws inanimate,
As men believed, the waters were impelled,
The air controlled, the stars their courses held; But element and orb on acts did wait
Of Powers endued with visible form, instinct With will, and to their work by passion linked.
DESIRE we past illusions to recal?
To reinstate wild Fancy, would we hide Truths whose thick veil Science has drawn aside ? No, let this Age, high as she may, instal
In her esteem the thirst that wrought man's fall, The universe is infinitely wide;
And conquering Reason, if self-glorified,
Can nowhere move uncrossed by some new wall Or gulf of mystery, which thou alone, Imaginative Faith! canst overleap,
In progress toward the fount of Love,-the throne Of Power whose ministers the records keep Of periods fixed, and laws established, less Flesh to exalt than prove its nothingness.
ON ENTERING DOUGLAS BAY, ISLE OF MAN.
'Dignum laude virum Musa vetat mori.'
THE feudal Keep, the bastions of Cohorn, Even when they rose to check or to repel Tides of aggressive war, oft served as well Greedy ambition, armed to treat with scorn Just limits; but yon Tower, whose smiles adorn This perilous bay, stands clear of all offence; Blest work it is of love and innocence, A Tower of refuge built for the else forlorn. Spare it, ye waves, and lift the mariner, Struggling for life, into its saving arms! Spare, too, the human helpers! Do they stir 'Mid your fierce shock like men afraid to die? No; their dread service nerves the heart it warms, And they are led by noble HILLARY*.
BY THE SEA-SHORE, ISLE OF MAN.
WHY stand we gazing on the sparkling Brine, With wonder smit by its transparency,
And all-enraptured with its purity ?-
Because the unstained, the clear, the crystalline,
Have ever in them something of benign; Whether in gem, in water, or in sky, A sleeping infant's brow, or wakeful eye Of a young maiden, only not divine. Scarcely the hand forbears to dip its palm For beverage drawn as from a mountain-well; Temptation centres in the liquid Calm; Our daily raiment seems no obstacle To instantaneous plunging in, deep Sea! And revelling in long embrace with thee*.
[My son William is here the person alluded to as saving the life of the youth, and the circumstances were as mentioned in the Sounet.]
A YOUTII too certain of his power to wade On the smooth bottom of this clear bright sea,
To sight so shallow, with a bather's glee Leapt from this rock, and but for timely aid
He, by the alluring element betrayed,
Had perished. Then might Sea-nymphs (and with sighs Of self-reproach) have chanted elegies
Bewailing his sad fate, when he was laid
* The sea-water on the coast of the Isle of Man is singularly pure and beautiful.
In peaceful earth: for, doubtless, he was frank, Utterly in himself devoid of guile;
Knew not the double-dealing of a smile; Nor aught that makes men's promises a blank, Or deadly snare: and He survives to bless The Power that saved him in his strange distress.
DID pangs of grief for lenient time too keen, Grief that devouring waves had caused, or guilt Which they had witnessed-sway the man who built This Homestead, placed where nothing could be seen, Nought heard, of ocean troubled or serene? A tired Ship-soldier on paternal land, That o'er the channel holds august command, The dwelling raised,-a veteran Marine.
He, in disgust, turned from the neighbouring sea To shun the memory of a listless life
That hung between two callings. May no strife More hurtful here beset him, doomed though free, Self-doomed, to worse inaction, till his eye Shrink from the daily sight of earth and sky!
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