But most to Bolton's sacred Pile,
On favoring nights, she loved to go;
But to the world returned no more, Although with no unwilling mind
There ranged through cloister, court, and Help did she give at need, and joined
Attended by the soft-paced Doe;
Nor feared she in the still moonshine
To look upon Saint Mary's shrine;
Nor on the lonely turf that showed
Where Francis slept in his last abode.
For that she came; there oft she sate
Forlorn, but not disconsolate:
And, when she from the abyss returned
Of thought, she neither shrunk nor mourned.
Was happy that she lived to greet
Her mute Companion as it lay
In love and pity at her feet;
How happy in its turn to meet
The recognition! the mild glance
Beamed from that gracious countenance;
Communication, like the ray
Of a new morning, to the nature
And prospects of the inferior Creature!
A mortal Song we sing, by dower
Encouraged of celestial power;
Power which the viewless Spirit shed
By whom we were first visited;
Whose voice we heard, whose hand and
wings
Swept like a breeze the conscious strings,
When, left in solitude, erewhile
We stood before this ruined Pile,
And, quitting unsubstantial dreams,
Sang in this Presence kindred themes;
Distress and desolation spread
Through human hearts, and pleasure dead,-
Dead-but to live again on earth,
A second and yet nobler birth;
Dire overthrow, and yet how high
The re-ascent in sanctity!
From fair to fairer; day by day
A more divine and loftier way!
Even such this blessèd Pilgrim trod,
By sorrow lifted towards her God;
Uplifted to the purest sky
Of undisturbed mortality.
Henown thoughts loved she; and could bend
A dear look to her lowly Friend;
There stopped; her thirst was satisfied
With what this innocent spring supplied;
Her sanction inwardly she bore,
And stood apart from human cares :
The Wharfdale peasants in their prayers.
At length, thus faintly, faintly tied
To earth, she was set free, and died.
Thy soul, exalted Emily,
Maid of the blasted family,
Kose to the God from whom it came!
-In Rylstone Church her mortal frame Was buried by her Mother's side.
Most glorious sunset! and a ray
Survives the twilight of this day-
In that fair Creature whom the fields
Support, and whom the forest shields;
Who, having filled a holy place,
Partakes, in her degree, Heaven's grace;
And bears a memory and a mind
Raised far above the law of kind;
Haunting the pots with lonely cheer
Which her e Mistress once held dear:
Loves most what Emily loved most-
The enclosure of this church-yard ground;
Here wanders like a gliding ghost,
And every sabbath here is found;
Comes with the people when the bells
Are heard among the moorland dells,
Finds entrance through yon arch, where way
Lies open on the sabbath-day;
Here walks amid the mournful waste
Of prostrate altars, shrines defaced,
And floors encumbered with rich show
Of fret-work imagery laid low;
Paces softly, or makes halt,
By fractured cell, or tomb, or vault;
By plate of monumental brass
Dim-gleaming among weeds and grass,
And sculptured Forms of Warriors brave :
But chiefly by that single grave,
That one sequestered hillock green,
The pensive visitant is seen.
There doth the gentle Creature lie
With those adversities unmoved;
Calm spectacle, by earth and sky
In their benignity approved!
And aye, methinks, this hoary Pile,
Subdued by outrage and decay,
Looks down upon her with a smile,
A gracious smile, that seems to say-
"Thou, thou art not a Child of Time,
But Daughter of the Eternal Prime!"
FROM THE INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY INTO BRITAIN, TO THE CONSUMMA
The tidings come of Jesus crucified; They come-they spread-the weak, the suffering, hear;
Receive the faith, and in the hope abide.
DRUIDICAL EXCOMMUNICATION. MERCY and Love have met thee on thy road,
Thou wretched Outcast, from the gift of fire
And food cut off by sacerdotal ire,
From every sympathy that Man bestowed!
Yet shall it claim our reverence, that to
God,
Ancient of days! that to the eternal Sire,
These jealous Ministers of law aspire,
As to the one sole fount whence wisdom
flowed,
Justice, and order. Tremblingly escaped
As if with prescience of the coming storm,
That intimation when the stars were
shaped ;
And still, 'mid yon thick woods, the primal
Glimmers through many a superstitious form
That fills the Soul with unavailing ruth.
DARKNESS surrounds us; seeking, we are lost
On Snowdon's wilds, amid Brigantian coves,
Or where the solitary shepherd roves
Along the plain of Sarum, by the ghost
Of Time and shadows of Tradition, crost;
And where the boatman of the Western
Isles
Slackens his course-to mark those holy piles
Which yet survive on bleak Iona's coast.
Nor these, nor monuments of eldest name,
Nor Taliesin's unforgotten lays,
Nor characters of Greek or Roman fame,
To an unquestionable Source have led ;
Enough-if eyes, that sought the fountain.
In vain, upon the growing Rill may gaze.
LAMENT! for Diocletian's fiery sword Works busy as the lightning, but instinct
As, when a storm hath ceased, the birds re-
Their cheerfulness, and busily retrim
gain
To the blue ether and bespangled plain;
Their nests, or chant a gratulating hymn
Even so, in many a reconstructed fane,
Have the survivors of this Storm renewed
Their holy rites with vocal gratitude;
And solemn ceremonials they ordain
To celebrate their great deliverance:
Most feelingly instructed 'mid their fear-
That persecution, blind with rage extreme,
May not the less, through Heaven's mild
countenance,
Even in her own despite, both feed and cheer;
For all things are less dreadful than they
For she returns not.-Awed by her own knell,
She casts the Britons upon strange Allies, Soon to become more dreaded enemies Than heartless misery called them to repel.
Permits a second and a darker shade
Of Pagan night Afflicted and dismayed, The Relics of the sword flee to the mountains:
O wretched Land! whose tears have flowed like fountains,
Whose arts and honors in the dust are laid
By men yet scarcely conscious of a care
For other monuments than those of Earth;
Who, as the fields and woods have given
them birth,
Will build their savage fortunes only there;
Content, if foss, and barrow, and the girth
Of long-drawn rampart, witness what they
The sword from Bangor's walls, and guard the store
STRUGGLE OF THE BRITONS AGAINST THE Of Aboriginal and Roman lore,
And Christian monuments, that now must burn
To senseless ashes. Mark! how all things
From their known course, or vanish like a dream;
Another language spreads from coast to coast;
Only perchance some melancholy Stream And some indignant Hills old names pre
When laws, and creeds, and people all are lost!
CASUAL INCITEMENT.
A BRIGHT-HAIRED company of youthful slaves,
Beautiful strangers, stand within the pale Of a sad market, ranged for public sale,
Toward the pure truths this Delegate propounds,
Repeatedly his own deep mind he sounds
With careful hesitation,-then convenes
A synod of his Councillors :-give ear,
And what a pensive Sage doth utter, hear!
"MAN'S life is like a Sparrow, mighty King! That-while at banquet with your Chiefs you sit
Housed near a blazing fire-is seen to flit Safe from the wintry tempest. Fluttering, Here did it enter; there, on hasty wing, Flies out, and passes on from cold to cold; But whence it came we know not, nor behold
Whither it goes. Even such, that transient Thing,
The human Soul; not utterly unknown While in the Body lodged, her warm abode; But from what world She came, what woe or weal
On her departure waits, no tongue hath shown;
This mystery if the Stranger can reveal,
His be a welcome cordially bestowed !"
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