Rocks! sacred deem'd to eldest fraud, when fear
First darken'd death's reality with dreams!
The spirit of your cruel worship seems,
Like a wolf's shadow, yet to linger here,
Deepening the gloom with peril still too near;
For guile and knowledge long have been allies,
Most pious found when preaching blasphemies,
Most treacherous when most trusted.
But the year,
Whose seasons are all winters, soon must close;
Knowledge hath join'd the millions; and mankind
Are learning to distinguish friends from foes;
The eagle-eyed give sight unto the blind;
The eagle-wing'd are chasing crime-made woes ;
The mighty-voiced are heard in every wind.
TREES AT BRIMHAM.
GNARL'D oak and holly! stone-cropp'd like the stone! Are ye of it, or is it part of you?
Your union strange is marvellously true,
And makes the granite, which I stand upon,
Seem like the vision of an empire gone-
Gone, yet still present, thou it never was,
Save as a shadow-let the shadow pass!
So perish human glories, every one!
But Rocks! ye are not shadows; Trees! ye cast
Th' Almighty's shadow o'er the homeward bee,
His name on Brimham! yea, the coming blast,
Beneath his curtains, reads it here with me;
And pauses not to number marvels past,
But speeds the thunder on o'er land and sea.
ROCK IDOL AT BRIMHAM.
STONE! did the hand of sacerdotal fraud
Shape thee into this vital type of things?
Or did a million winters, on their wings
Of scythe-like perseverance come abroad,
To bid Conjecture stand before thee awed,
And, almost severing thee from parent-earth,
Make thee a marvel? Vainly giv'st thou birth
To solemn fancies, building an abode
Around thee, for a world of shapeless ghosts;
Vainly they rise before me, calling up
Kings and their masters, and imagined hosts
That fight for clouds. What then? The heath
With dew-drops feeds this fountain ever clear,
And the ring'd ouzel whistles-"God is here!"
BEHOLD! the Medicean Venus! O
Is not this beauty? Yes, for it is truth.
See how she bends in her eternal youth!
E'en thus she charm'd ten thousand years ago;
Ere painting's magic bade the canvas glow,
Or soul inspired the marble; thus she stood
Before her own Adonis of the wood!
The master-piece of sculpture? Artist! No.
In all divine perfection as she stands,
So came she, perfect, from th' Almighty's hands,
The masterpiece of Nature. Everywhere
His spirit walks; but he who in strange lands
Seeks her fair form, turns homeward in despair,
Then seeks it in his soul, and finds it there.
YET art hath less of instinct than of thought, All instinct though it seems; for as the flower Which blooms in solitude, by noiseless power, And skill divine, is wonderfully wrought,
So from deep study art's high charm is caught;
And as the sunny air, and dewy light,
Are spun in heavenly looms, till blossoms, bright
With honey'd wealth and sweetness, droop o'erfraught,
And our eyes breathe of beauty; so the bard
Wrings from slow time inimitable grace;
So wins immortal Music her reward,
E'en with a bee's industry; and we trace
The sculptor's home-thoughts thro' his labours hard, Till beams, with deathless love, the chisell'd face.
ABBEY! for ever smiling pensively,
How like a thing of Nature dost thou rise,
Amid her loveliest works! as if the skies,
Clouded with grief, were arch'd thy roof to be,
And the tall trees were copied all from thee!
Mourning thy fortunes-while the waters dim
Flow like the memory of thy evening hymn;
Beautiful in their sorrowing sympathy;
As if they with a weeping sister wept,
Winds name thy name! But thou, though sad, art
And time with thee his plighted troth hath kept;
For harebells deck thy brow, and, at thy feet,
Where sleep the proud, the bee and red-breast meet,
Mixing thy sighs with Nature's lonely psalm.
SCENES which renew my youth, and wake again
Its earliest dreams of love and beauty!-here,
E'en as in heaven, found perfect, though the tear
Of frailty dims them with its earthly stain
Too often and too soon! I can remain
With you no longer; I must haste to things
That drink the ice, which in a moment brings
The chill of fifty winters, and their pain,
To the sick heart. Already I grow cold
In spirit; and the thought of leaving you
For alien scenes, where nothing good or new
Remains for crowds to show, or men to say,
Instructs me-not that I in years am old,
But that the tresses of my soul are grey.
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