Cleaves the blank air, life flies: now every day Is but a glimmering spoke in the swift wheel Of the revolving week. Away, away,
All fitful cares, all transitory zeal;
So timely grace the immortal wing may heal, And honour rest upon the senseless clay.
FROM low to high doth dissolution climb, And sinks from high to low, along a scale Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail A musical but melancholy chime,
Which they can hear who meddle not with crime, Nor avarice, nor over-anxious care.
Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear The longest date do melt like frosty rime, That in the morning whitened hill and plain And is no more; drop like the tower sublime Of yesterday, which royally did wear
Its crown of weeds, but could not even sustain Some casual shout that broke the silent air, Or the unimaginable touch of time.
"MAN'S life is like a sparrow,* mighty king! That, stealing in while by the fire you sit Housed with rejoicing friends, is seen to flit Safe from the storm, in comfort tarrying. 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,
* See the original of this speech in Bede.
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!"
A PLEASANT music floats along the mere, From monks in Ely chanting service high, Whileas Canute the king is rowing by:
"My oarsmen," quoth the mighty king, " draw near, That we the sweet song of the monks may hear!" He listens, all past conquests and all schemes Of future vanishing like empty dreams, Heart-touched, and haply not without a tear. The royal minstrel, ere the choir is still, While his free barge skims the smooth flood along, Gives to that rapture an accordant rhyme. O suffering earth! be thankful; sternest clime And rudest age are subject to the thrill Of heaven-descended piety and song.
OBLIGATIONS OF CIVIL TO RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
UNGRATEFUL Country, if thou e'er forget The sons who for thy civil rights have bled! How, like a Roman, Sidney bowed his head, And Russell's milder blood the scaffold wet; But these had fallen for profitless regret Had not thy holy Church her champions bred; And claims from other worlds inspirited The star of liberty to rise. Nor yet
(Grave this within thy heart!) if spiritual things Be lost, through apathy, or scorn, or fear, Shalt thou thy humbler franchises support, However hardly won or justly dear;
What came from heaven to heaven by nature clings, And, if dissevered thence, its course is short.
NOR shall the eternal roll of praise reject Those unconforming; whom one rigorous day Drives from their cures, a voluntary prey To poverty and grief and disrespect,
And some to want-as if by tempests wrecked On a wild coast; how destitute! did they Feel not that conscience never can betray; That peace of mind is virtue's sure effect. Their altars they forego, their homes they quit, Fields which they love, and paths they daily trod, And cast the future upon Providence ;
As men the dictate of whose inward sense Outweighs the world; whom self-deceiving wit Lures not from what they deem the cause of God.
PLACES OF WORSHIP.
As star that shines dependent upon star
Is to the sky while we look up in love;
As to the deep fair ships which, though they move, Seem fixed to eyes that watch them from afar; As to the sandy desert fountains are,
With palm-groves shaded at wide intervals, Whose fruit around the sun-burnt native falls Of roving tired or desultory war;
Such to this British isle her Christian fanes, Each linked to each for kindred services;
Her spires, her steeple-towers with glittering vanes Far-kenned, her chapels lurking among trees, Where a few villagers on bended knees Find solace which a busy world disdains.
REASON AND FAITH.
DESIRE we past illusions to recall?
To reinstate wild Fancy would we hide Truths whose thick veil Science has drawn aside. No, let this age, high as she may, install
In her esteem the thirst that wrought man's fall,
The universe is infinitely wide,
And conquering Reason, if self-glorified,
Can nowhere move uncrossed by some new wall Or gulf of mystery, which thou alone, Imaginative Faith! canst overleap,
In progress toward the fount of love, the throne Of Power, whose ministering spirits records keep Of periods fixed, and laws established, less Flesh to exalt than prove its nothingness.
IN SIGHT OF THE TOWN OF COCKERMOUTH,
WHERE THE AUTHOR WAS BORN, AND HIS FATHER'S REMAINS ARE LAID.
A POINT of life between my parents' dust, And yours, my buried little ones! am I; And to those graves looking habitually In kindred quiet I repose my trust. Death to the innocent is more than just, And, to the sinner, mercifully bent; So may I hope, if truly I repent
And meekly bear the ills which bear I must:
And you, my offspring! that do still remain, Yet may outstrip me in the appointed race, If e'er, through fault of mine, in mutual pain We breathed together for a moment's space, The wrong, by love provoked, let love arraign, And only love keep in your hearts a place.
TO THE AUTHOR'S PORTRAIT. [Painted at Rydal Mount, by W. Pickersgill, for St. John's College, Cambridge.]
Go, faithful portrait! and where long hath knelt Margaret, the saintly foundress, take thy place; And, if time spare the colours for the grace Which to the work surpassing skill hath dealt, Thou, on thy rock reclined, though kingdoms melt And states be torn up by the roots, wilt seem To breathe in rural peace, to hear the stream, To think and feel as once the poet felt.
Whate'er thy fate, those features have not grown Unrecognised through many a household tear, More prompt, more glad to fall, than drops of dew By morning shed around a flower half blown ; Tears of delight, that testified how true To life thou art, and, in thy truth, how dear!
"WHY ART THOU SILENT?"
WHY art thou silent? Is thy love a plant Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air Of absence withers what was once so fair? Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant? Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant, As would my deeds have been, with hourly care,
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