Lies gathered to his father's side,

Soul-moving sight!

Yet one to which is not denied
Some sad delight.

For he is safe, a quiet bed

Hath early found among the dead,
Harboured where none can be misled,
Wronged, or distrest ;

And surely here it may be said
That such are blest.

And oh for thee, by pitying grace
Checked oft-times in a devious race,
May He who halloweth the place

Where man is laid

Receive thy spirit in the embrace
For which it prayed!

SHE was a phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;

A lovely apparition, sent

To be a moment's ornament;

Her eyes as stars of twilight fair;

5

Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair;

But all things else about her drawn

From May-time and the cheerful dawn;

A dancing shape, an image gay,

To haunt, to startle, and waylay.

I saw her upon nearer view,

A spirit, yet a woman too!

Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin liberty;

A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,

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Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

20

And now I see with eye serene

The very pulse of the machine;

A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveller between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a spirit still, and bright

There are who ask not if thine eye

Be on them; who, in love and truth,
Where no misgiving is, rely

10

Upon the genial sense of youth:

Glad hearts! without reproach or blot;
Who do thy work, and know it not :

Oh, if through confidence misplaced

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They fail, thy saving arms, dread power! around them

Even now, who, not unwisely bold,

Live in the spirit of this creed ;

Yet seek thy firm support, according to their need.

I, loving freedom, and untried ;
No sport of every random gust,
Yet being to myself a guide,

Too blindly have reposed my trust:
And oft, when in my heart was heard

Thy timely mandate, I deferred

The task, in smoother walks to stray;

But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may.

Through no disturbance of my soul,

Or strong compunction in me wrought,
I supplicate for thy control;

But in the quietness of thought:

Me this unchartered freedom tires;

I feel the weight of chance-desires :

My hopes no more must change their name,

I long for a repose that ever is the same.

40

Stern lawgiver! yet thou dost wear
The Godhead's most benignant grace;
Nor know we anything so fair

As is the smile upon thy face:

45

Flowers laugh before thee on their beds
And fragrance in thy footing treads;
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;
And the most ancient heavens, through thee, are fresh

And in the light of truth thy bondman let me live!

ON A PICTURE OF PEELE CASTLE IN A STORM.

I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged pile !
Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee:
I saw thee every day; and all the while
Thy form was sleeping on a glassy sea.

So pure the sky, so quiet was the air!
So like, so very like, was day to day!
Whene'er I looked, thy image still was there;
It trembled, but it never passed away.

How perfect was the calm! it seemed no sleep;
No mood, which season takes away, or brings:
I could have fancied that the mighty deep
Was even the gentlest of all gentle things.

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Ah! THEN, if mine had been the painter's hand,
To express what then I saw; and add the gleam,
The light that never was, on sea or land,
The consecration, and the poet's dream;

I would have planted thee, thou hoary pile,
Amid a world how different from this!
Beside a sea that could not cease to smile;
On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss.

Thou shouldst have seemed a treasure-house divine
Of peaceful years; a chronicle of heaven ;-

Of all the sunbeams that did ever shine
The very sweetest had to thee been given.

A picture had it been of lasting ease,
Elysian quiet, without toil or strife;
No motion but the moving tide, a breeze,
Or merely silent Nature's breathing life.
Such, in the fond illusion of my heart,

Such picture would I at that time have made:
And seen the soul of truth in every part,
A stedfast peace that might not be betrayed.

So once it would have been,-'tis so no more;
I have submitted to a new control:
A power is gone, which nothing can restore ;
A deep distress hath humanised my soul

Not for a moment could I now behold
A smiling sea, and be what I have been :

The feeling of my loss will ne'er be old;

This, which I know, I speak with mind serene.

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Then, Beaumont, friend! who would have been the friend,

If he had lived, of him whom I deplore,

This work of thine I blame not, but commend ;

This sea in anger, and that dismal shore.