Guide to the Lakes

ODE

THE PASS OF KIRKSTONE

WITHIN the mind strong fancies work,
A deep delight the bosom thrills,
Oft as I pass along the fork

Of these fraternal hills:

Where, save the rugged road, we find
No appanage of human kind;

Nor hint of man, if stone or rock
Seem not his handy-work to mock
By something cognizably shaped;
Mockery-or model roughly hewn,
And left as if by earthquake strewn,
Or from the Flood escaped:
Altars for Druid service fit;
(But where no fire was ever lit,
Unless the glow-worm to the skies
Thence offer nightly sacrifice;)
Wrinkled Egyptian monument;

Green moss-grown tower; or hoary tent;
Tents of a camp that never shall be razed;
On which four thousand years have gazed!

Ye plough-shares sparkling on the slopes!
Ye snow-white lambs that trip

Imprisoned 'mid the formal props
Of restless ownership!

Ye trees, that may to-morrow fall
To feed the insatiate Prodigal!

Lawns, houses, chattels, groves, and fields,
All that the fertile valley shields;
Wages of folly-baits of crime,-
Of life's uneasy game the stake,
Playthings that keep the eyes awake
Of drowsy, dotard Time;

O care! O guilt!-O vales and plains,
Here, 'mid his own unvexed domains,
A Genius dwells, that can subdue
At once all memory of You,

Most potent when mists veil the sky,
Mists that distort and magnify;

While the coarse rushes, to the sweeping breeze,
Sigh forth their ancient melodies!

List to those shriller notes!-that march
Perchance was on the blast,

When through this Height's inverted arch,
Rome's earliest legion passed!

-They saw, adventurously impelled,
And older eyes than theirs beheld,

This block-and yon, whose Church-like frame
Gives to the savage Pass its name.
Aspiring Road! that lov'st to hide
Thy daring in a vapoury bourn,
Not seldom may the hour return
When thou shalt be my Guide:
And I (as often we find cause,
When life is at a weary pause,
And we have panted up the hill
Of duty with reluctant will)

Be thankful, even though tired and faint,
For the rich bounties of Constraint;
Whence oft invigorating transports flow
That Choice lacked courage to bestow !

My Soul was grateful for delight
That wore a threatening brow;
A veil is lifted-can she slight
The scene that opens now?
Though habitation none appear,
The greenness tells, man must be there;
The shelter-that the perspective
Is of the clime in which we live ;
Where Toil pursues his daily round;
Where Pity sheds sweet tears, and Love,
In woodbine bower or birchen grove,
Inflicts his tender wound.

-Who comes not hither ne'er shall know
How beautiful the world below;
Nor can he guess how lightly leaps
The brook adown the rocky steeps.
Farewell, thou desolate Domain !
Hope, pointing to the cultured Plain,
Carols like a shepherd boy;

And who is she? Can that be Joy!
Who, with a sun-beam for her guide,
Smoothly skims the meadows wide;
While Faith, from yonder opening cloud,
To hill and vale proclaims aloud,

'Whate'er the weak may dread, the wicked dare, Thy lot, O man, is good, thy portion fair!'

The Publishers, with permission of the Author,

have added the following

ITINERARY OF THE LAKES

FOR THE USE OF TOURISTS

STAGES

Lancaster to Kendal, by Kirkby Lonsdale

Lancaster to Kendal, by Burton .

Lancaster to Kendal, by Milnthorpe

Lancaster to Ulverston, over Sands

Lancaster to Ulverston, by Levens Bridge

Ulverston to Hawkshead, by Coniston Water-Head
Ulverston to Bowness, by Newby Bridge
Hawkshead to Ambleside