SOLE listener, Duddon! to the breeze that played With thy clear voice, I caught the fitful sound Wafted o'er sullen moss and craggy mound, Unfruitful solitudes, that seemed to upbraid The sun in heaven !—but now, to form a shade For Thee, green alders have together wound Their foliage; ashes flung their arms around; And birch-trees risen in silver colonnade. And thou hast also tempted here to rise,
'Mid sheltering pines, this Cottage rude and grey; Whose ruddy children, by the mother's eyes Carelessly watched, sport through the summer day Thy pleased associates :—light as endless May On infant bosoms lonely Nature lies.
XXXIV.-SEATHWAITE CHAPEL.
SACRED Religion, "mother of form and fear," Dread Arbitress of mutable respect,
New rites ordaining when the old are wrecked, Or cease to please the fickle worshipper; Mother of Love (that name best suits thee here) Mother of Love! for this deep vale, protect Truth's holy lamp, pure source of bright effect, Gifted to purge the vapoury atmosphere That seeks to stifle it ;-as in those days When this low Pile a Gospel Teacher knew, Whose good works formed an endless retinue: A Pastor such as Chaucer's verse pourtrays; Such as the heaven-taught skill of Herbert drew; And tender Goldsmith crowned with deathless praise !
RETURN, Content! for fondly I pursued, Even when a child, the Streams—unheard, unseen; Through tangled woods, impending rocks between; Or, free as air, with flying inquest viewed The sullen reservoirs whence their bold brood, Pure as the morning, fretful, boisterous, keen, Green as the salt-sea billows, white and green, Poured down the hills, a choral multitude? Nor have I tracked their course for scanty gains; They taught me random cares and truant joys, That shield from mischief and preserve from stains Vague minds, while men are growing out of boys; Maturer Fancy owes to their rough noise Impetuous thoughts that brook not servile reins.
XXXVI.-AFTER-THOUGHT.
I THOUGHT of Thee, my partner and my guide, As being past away.-Vain sympathies ! For backward, Duddon! as I cast my eyes,
I see what was, and is, and will abide;
Still glides the Stream, and shall not cease to glide; The Form remains, the Function never dies; While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise, We Men, who in our morn of youth defied
The elements, must vanish ;-be it so !
Enough, if something from our hands have power
To live, and act, and serve the future hour;
And if, as tow'rd the silent tomb we go,
Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent
We feel that we are greater than we know.
LANCE, shield, and sword relinquished—at his side A Bead-roll, in his hand a clasped Book,
Or staff more harmless than a Shepherd's crook, The war-worn Chieftain quits the world—to hide His thin autumnal locks where Monks abide In cloistered privacy. But not to dwell In soft repose he comes. Within his cell, Round the decaying trunk of human pride, At morn, and eve, and midnight's silent hour, Do penitential cogitations cling:
Like ivy round some ancient elm, they twine In grisly folds and strictures serpentine ; Yet, while they strangle without mercy, bring For recompence their own perennial bower.
XXXVIII.-RUSH-BEARING.
CONTENT with calmer scenes around us spread And humbler objects, give we to a day Of annual joy one tributary lay;
This day, when, forth by rustic music led, The village Children, while the sky is red With evening lights, advance in long array Through the still Churchyard, each with garland gay, That, carried sceptre-like, o'ertops the head Of the proud Bearer. To the wide Church-door, 'Charged with these offerings which their Fathers bore For decoration in the Papal time,
The innocent procession softly moves :—
The spirit of Laud is pleased in Heaven's pure clime, And Hooker's voice the spectacle approves !
XXXIX.-INSIDE OF KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL, CAMBRIDGE.
TAX not the royal Saint with vain expense, With ill-matched aims the Architect who planned, Albeit labouring for a scanty band
Of white robed Scholars only, this immense And glorious work of fine intelligence!
Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore Of nicely-calculated less or more;
So deemed the Man who fashioned for the sense These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof Self-poised, and scooped into ten thousand cells, Where light and shade repose, where music dwells Lingering and wandering on as loth to die; Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof That they were born for immortality.
THEY dreamt not of a perishable home Who thus could build. Be mine, in hours of fear Or grovelling thought, to seek a refuge here; Or through the aisles of Westminster to roam; Where bubbles burst, and folly's dancing foam Melts, if it cross the threshold; where the wreath Of awe-struck wisdom droops :-or let my path Lead to that younger Pile, whose sky-like dome Hath typified by reach of daring art Infinity's embrace; whose guardian crest, The silent Cross, among the stars shall spread As now, when She hath also seen her breast Filled with mementos, satiate with its part Of grateful England's overflowing Dead.
XLI.-MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, LANDING AT THE MOUTH OF THE Derwent, Workington.
DEAR to the Loves, and to the Graces vowed, The Queen drew back the wimple that she wore ; And to the throng, that on the Cumbrian shore Her landing hailed, how touchingly she bowed! And like a Star (that, from a heavy cloud Of pine-tree foliage poised in air, forth darts 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, With step prelusive to a long array
Of woes and degradations hand in hand- Weeping captivity, and shuddering fear
Stilled by the ensanguined block of Fotheringay!
MOST sweet is it with un-uplifted eyes
To pace the ground, if path be there or none, While a fair region round the traveller lies Which he forbears again to look upon; Pleased rather with some soft ideal scene, The work of Fancy, or some happy tone Of meditation, slipping in between The beauty coming and the beauty gone.
If thought and Love desert us, from that day
Let us break off all commerce with the Muse:
With Thought and Love companions of our way, Whate'er the senses take or may refuse,
The Mind's internal heaven shall shed her dews Of inspiration on the humblest lay.
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