Or, to the giddy top of self-esteem Justice shall rule, disorder be supprest, course! 130 Oh may the Almighty scatter with his grace These mists, and lead you to a safer place, By paths no human wisdom can foretrace! May He pour round you, from worlds far above Man's feverish passions, his pure light of love, That quietly restores the natural mier. Fields gaily sown when promises were cheap. Why is the Past belied with wicked art, 140 The Future made to play so false a part, Among a people famed for strength of mind, Foremost in freedom, noblest of mankind? We act as if we joyed in the sad tune Storms make in rising, valued in the moon Nought but her changes. Thus, ungrate ful Nation! "IF THIS GREAT WORLD OF JOY AND PAIN" 1833. 1835 If this great world of joy and pain And virtue, flown, come back; Woe to the purblind crew who fill The heart with each day's care; Nor gain, from past or future, skill To bear, and to forbear! ON A HIGH PART OF THE THE AUTHOR'S SIXTY-THIRD BIRTHDAY 1833. 1835 The lines were composed on the road between Moresby and Whitehaven while I was on a visit to my son, then rector of the former place. This and some other Voluntaries originated in the concluding lines of the last paragraph of this poem. With this coast I have been familiar from my earliest childhood, and remember being struck for the first time by the town and port of Whitehaven, and the white waves breaking against its quays and piers, as the whole came into view from the top of the high ground down which the road (it has since been altered) then descended abruptly. My sister, when she first heard the voice of the sea from this point, and beheld the scene spread before her, burst into tears. Our family then lived at Cockermouth, and this fact was often mentioned among us as indicating the sensibility for which she was so remarkable. THE Sun, that seemed so mildly to retire, Flung back from distant climes a streaming fire, Whose blaze is now subdued to tender The grass-crowned headland that conceals the shore? No; 't is the earth-voice of the mighty sea, Whispering how meek and gentle he can be! Thou Power supreme! who, arming to rebuke Offenders, dost put off the gracious look, And clothe thyself with terrors like the flood Of ocean roused into its fiercest mood, Teach me with quick-eared spirit to rejoice Breathe through my soul the blessing of thy grace, Glad, through a perfect love, a faith sincere Drawn from the wisdom that begins with fear, Glad to expand; and, for a season, free From finite cares, to rest absorbed in Thee! (BY THE SEASIDE) THE sun is couched, the sea-fowl gone to rest, And the wild storm hath somewhere found a nest; Air slumbers - wave with wave no longer strives, Only a heaving of the deep survives, A tell-tale motion! soon will it be laid, And by the tide alone the water swayed. Stealthy withdrawings, interminglings mild Of light with shade in beauty reconciled Such is the prospect far as sight can range, The soothing recompence, the welcome change. 10 Where, now, the ships that drove before the blast, Threatened by angry breakers as they passed; And by a train of flying clouds bemocked; Or, in the hollow surge, at anchor rocked As on a bed of death? Some lodge in Or like those hymns that soothe with grave The gulfy coast of Norway iron-bound; 3 On British waters with that look benign? 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 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. I 1833. 1835 ADIEU, Rydalian Laurels! that have grown come When ye would shelter in a happy home, All seasons through, is humbly pleased to Ground-flowers, beneath your guardianship, self-sown. Farewell! no Minstrels now with harp newstrung For summer wandering quit their house- Yet not for this wants Poesy a tongue II 1833. 1835 WHY should the Enthusiast, journeying Repine as if his hour were come too late? And pleasure-grounds where Taste, refined Of Truth and Beauty, strives to imitate, By Social Order's watchful arms em With unexampled union meet in thee, With golden prospect for futurity, VII NUN'S WELL, BRIGHAM 1833. 1835 So named from the religious House which stood close by. I have rather an odd anecdote to relate of the Nun's Well. One day the landlady of a public-house, a field's length from the well, on the road side, said to me "You have been to see the Nun's Well, Sir?"-"The Nun's Well! what is that?" said the Postman, who in his royal livery stopt his mail-car at the door. The landlady and I explained to him what the name meant, and what sort of people the nuns were. A countryman who was standing by, rather tipsy, stammered out-"Aye, those nuns were good people; they are gone; but we shall soon have them back again." The Reform mania was just then at its height. THE cattle crowding round this beverage clear To slake their thirst, with reckless hoofs have trod The encircling turf into a barren clod; Through which the waters creep, then dis When a soft summer gale at evening parts The gloom that did its loveliness enshroud) She smiled; but Time, the old Saturnian seer, Sighed on the wing as her foot pressed the strand, |