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 beloved, (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 beloved, once worshipped! Time, that
frowns
In his destructive flight on earthly crowns,
Spares thy mild splendor; 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 In that blest charge; let us - without offence To aught of highest, holiest, influenceReceive whatever good 't is given thee to dispense. 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, steadfast, and with loftier scope
Than thy revival yields for gladsome hope!
GIORDANO, verily thy Pencil's skill
Hath here portrayed with Nature's happiest grace
The fair Endymion couched on Latmos hill;
And Dian gazing on the Shepherd's face
In rapture, yet suspending her embrace,
As not unconscious with what power the thrill
Of her most timid touch his sleep would chase,
And, with his sleep, that beauty calm and still.
0 may this work have found its last retreat
Here in a Mountain-bard's secure abode !
One to whom, yet a School-boy, Cynthia showed
A face of love which he in love would greet,
Fixed, by her smile, upon some rocky seat,
Or lured along where greenwood paths he trod.
RYDAL MOUNT, 1846.
WHO but is pleased to watch the moon on high
Travelling where she from time to time enshrouds
Her head, and nothing loth her majesty
Renounces, till among the scattered clouds
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 steadfast 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 labor 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,
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.
[HAVING been prevented by the lateness of the season, in 1831, from visiting 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 Dumfriesshire 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-
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