(ON THE WAYSIDE BETWEEN PRESTON AND LIVERPOOL.)

UNTOUCHED through all severity of cold;
Inviolate, whate'er the cottage hearth
Might need for comfort, or for festal mirth;
That Pile of Turf is half a century old:
Yes, Traveller! fifty winters have been told
Since suddenly the dart of death went forth
'Gainst him who raised it,-his last work on
earth:

Thence has it, with the Son, so strong a hold
Upon his Father's memory, that his hands,
Through reverence, touch it only to repair
Its waste. Though crumbling with each
breath of air,

In annual renovation thus it stands-
Rude Mausoleum! but wrens nestle there,
And red-breasts warble when sweet sounds are

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!

XXV.

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-
Bound to thy service with unceasing care,
The mind's least generous wish a mendicant
For nought but what thy happiness could spare.
Speak-though this soft warm heart, once free
to hold

A thousand tender pleasures, thine and mine,
Be left more desolate, more dreary cold
Than a forsaken bird's-nest filled with snow
'Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine-
Speak, that my torturing doubts their end may
know!

XXVI.

TO B. R. HAYDON, ON SEEING HIS PICTURE OF
NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE ON THE ISLAND OF
ST HELENA.

HAYDON! let worthier judges praise the skill
Here by thy pencil shown in truth of lines
And charm of colours; I applaud those signs
Of thought, that give the true poetic thrill;
That unencumbered whole of blank and still,
Sky without cloud-ocean without a wave;
And the one Man that laboured to enslave
The World, sole-standing high on the bare hill-
Back turned, arms folded, the unapparent face
Tinged, we may fancy, in this dreary place
With light reflected from the invisible sun
Set, like his fortunes; but not set for aye
Like them. The unguilty Power pursues his

A POET!-He hath put his heart to school,
Nor dares to move unpropped upon the staff
Which Art hath lodged within his hand-must
laugh

By precept only, and shed tears by rule.
Thy Art be Nature; the live current quaff,
And let the groveller sip his stagnant pool,
In fear that else, when Critics grave and cool
Have killed him, Scorn should write his epitaph
How does the Meadow-flower its bloom unfold?
Because the lovely little flower is free
Down to its root, and, in that freedom, bold;
And so the grandeur of the Forest-tree
Comes not by casting in a formal mould,
But from its own divine vitality.

XXVIII.

THE most alluring clouds that mount the sky
Owe to a troubled element their forms,
Their hues to sunset. If with raptured eye
We watch their splendour, shall we covet storms,
And wish the Lord of day his slow decline
Would hasten, that such pomp may float on
high?

Behold, already they forget to shine,
Dissolve-and leave to him who gazed a sigh.
Not loth to thank each moment for its boon

Let the Steed glory while his Master's hand
Lies fixed for ages on his conscious neck;

But by the Chieftain's look, though at his side Hangs that day's treasured sword, how firm a check

Is given to triumph and all human pride!
Yon trophied Mound shrinks to a shadowy speck
In his calm presence! Him the mighty deed
Elates not, brought far nearer the grave's rest,
As shows that time-worn face, for he such seed
Has sown as yields, we trust, the fruit of fame
In Heaven; hence no one blushes for thy name,
Conqueror, mid some sad thoughts, divinely

blest!

XXX.

COMPOSED ON A MAY MORNING, 1838. LIFE with yon Lambs, like day, is just begun, Yet Nature seems to them a heavenly guide. Does joy approach? they meet the coming tide; And sullenness avoid, as now they shun Pale twilight's lingering glooms,-and in the

sun

Couch near their dams, with quiet satisfied;
Or gambol-each with his shadow at his side,
Varying its shape wherever he may run.
As they from turf yet hoar with sleepy dew
All turn, and court the shining and the green,
Where herbs look up, and opening flowers are

seen;

Why to God's goodness cannot We be true, And so, His gifts and promises between, Feed to the last on pleasures ever new?

XXXI.

Lo! where she stands fixed in a saint-like trance,

One upward hand, as if she needed rest
From rapture, lying softly on her breast!
Nor wants her eyeball an ethereal glance;
But not the less-nay more-that countenance,
While thus illumined, tells of painful strife
For a sick heart made weary of this life
By love, long crossed with adverse circumstance.
-Would She were now as when she hoped to
pass

At God's appointed hour to them who tread
Heaven's sapphire pavement; yet breathed well

THOUGH I beheld at first with blank surprise
This Work, I now have gazed on it so long
I see its truth with unreluctant eyes;
O, my Beloved! I have done thee wrong,
Conscious of blessedness, but, whence it sprung,
Ever too heedless, as I now perceive:
Morn into noon did pass, noon into eve,
And the old day was welcome as the young,
As welcome, and as beautiful-in sooth
More beautiful, as being a thing more holy:
Thanks to thy virtues, to the eternal youth
Of all thy goodness, never melancholy;
To thy large heart and humble mind, that cast
Into one vision, future, present, past.

XXXIV.

HARK! 'tis the Thrush, undaunted, undeprest,
Nor does that roaring wind deaden his strain
By twilight premature of cloud and rain ;
Who carols thinking of his Love and nest,
And seems, as more incited, still more blest.
Thanks; thou hast snapped a fire-side Prisoner's
chain,

Exulting Warbler! eased a fretted brain,
And in a moment charmed my cares to rest.
Yes, I will forth, bold Bird! and front the blast
That we may sing together, if thou wilt,
So loud, so clear, my Partner through life's day,
Mute in her nest love-chosen, if not love-built
Like thine, shall gladden, as in seasons past,
Thrilled by loose snatches of the social Lay.
Rydal Mount, 1838.

XXXV.

'TIS He whose yester-evening's high disdain
Beat back the roaring storm-but how subdued
His day-break note, a sad vicissitude!
Does the hour's drowsy weight his glee restrain?
Or, like the nightingale, her joyous vein
Pleased to renounce, does this dear Thrush

attune

His voice to suit the temper of yon Moon
Doubly depressed, setting, and in her wane?
Rise, tardy Sun! and let the Songster prove
(The balance trembling between night and morn
No longer) with what ecstasy upborne
He can pour forth his spirit. In heaven above,
And earth below, they best can serve true glad-
Who meet most feelingly the calls of sadness.

ness

XXXVI.

OH what a Wreck! how changed in mien and speech! Yet-though dread mystery, spin

Powers, that work in

PROUD were ye, Mountains, when, in times of old,

Your patriot sons, to stem invasive war,

Deep in the vale a little rural Town *
Breathes forth a cloud-like creature of its own,
That mounts not toward the radiant morning
sky,

But, with a less ambitious sympathy,
Hangs o'er its Parent waking to the cares,
Troubles and toils that every day prepares.
So Fancy, to the musing Poet's eye,
Endears that Lingerer. And how blest her

IN my mind's eyes a Temple, like a cloud
Slowly surmounting some invidious hill,
Rose out of darkness: the bright Work stood
still;

And might of its own beauty have been proud,

But it was fashioned and to God was vowed
By Virtues that diffused, in every part,
Spirit divine through forms of human art;
Faith had her arch-her arch, when winds blow
loud,

Into the consciousness of safety thrilled;

And Love her towers of dread foundation laid Under the grave of things; Hope had her spire Star-high, and pointing still to something higher;

Trembling I gazed, but heard a voice—it said, "Hell-gates are powerless Phantoms when we build."

XLV.

ON THE PROJECTED KENDAL AND WINDERMERE RAILWAY.

Is then no nook of English ground secure From rash assault? Schemes of retirement

sown

In youth, and mid the busy world kept pure As when their earliest flowers of hope were blown,

Must perish;-how can they this blight en dure?

And must he too the ruthless change bemoan Who scorns a false utilitarian lure

Mid his paternal fields at random thrown? Baffle the threat, bright Scene, from Orrest head

Given to the pausing traveller's rapturous glance:

Plead for thy peace, thou beautiful romance

* Ambleside.

Now, for your shame, a Power, the Thirst of Gold,

That rules o'er Britain like a baneful star, Wills that your peace, your beauty, shall be sold,

And clear way made for her triumphal car Through the beloved retreats your arms enfold! Heard YE that Whistle? As her long-linked Train

Swept onwards, did the vision cross your view? Yes, ye were startled :-and, in balance true, Weighing the mischief with the promised gain, Mountains, and Vales, and Floods, I call on you To share the passion of a just disdain.

WELL have yon Railway Labourers to THIS ground

Withdrawn for noontide rest. They sit, they walk

Among the Ruins, but no idle talk

Is heard; to grave demeanour all are bound;
And from one voice a Hymn with tuneful sound
Hallows once more the long-deserted Quire
And thrills the old sepulchral earth, around.
Others look up, and with fixed eyes admire
That wide-spanned arch, wondering how it was
raised,

To keep, so high in air, its strength and grace:
All seem to feel the spirit of the place,
And by the general reverence God is praised:
Profane Despoilers, stand ye not reproved,
While thus these simple-hearted men are
moved?

June 21st, 1845.

FROM THE VALE OF GRASMERE. AUGUST, 1803.
THE gentlest Shade that walked Elysian plains
Might sometimes covet dissoluble chains;
Even for the tenants of the zone that lies
Beyond the stars, celestial Paradise,
Methinks 'twould heighten joy to overleap
At will the crystal battlements, and peep
Into some other region, though less fair,

To see how things are made and managed there. Change for the worse might please, incursion bold

Into the tracts of darkness and of cold;
O'er Limbo lake with aëry flight to steer,
And on the verge of Chaos hang in fear.
Such animation often do I find,

Power in my breast, wings growing in my mind,
Then, when some rock or hill is overpast,
Perchance without one look behind me cast,
Some barrier with which Nature, from the birth
Of things, has fenced this fairest spot on earth.
O pleasant transit, Grasmere ! to resign
Such happy fields, abodes so calm as thine;
Not like an outcast with himself at strife;
The slave of business, time, or care for life,
But moved by choice; or, if constrained in part,
Yet still with Nature's freedom at the heart;-
To cull contentment upon wildest shores,
And luxuries extract from bleakest moors;
With prompt embrace all beauty to enfold,
And having rights in all that we behold.
-Then why these lingering steps?-A bright
adieu,

For a brief absence, proves that love is true;
Ne'er can the way be irksome or forlorn
That winds into itself for sweet return.

II.

AT THE GRAVE OF BURNS.

1803.

SEVEN YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH.

I SHIVER, Spirit fierce and bold,
At thought of what I now behold:
As vapours breathed from dungeons cold
Strike pleasure dead,

So sadness comes from out the mould
Where Burns is laid.

And have I then thy bones so near,
And thou forbidden to appear?
As if it were thyself that's here
I shrink with pain;

And both my wishes and my fea.
Alike are vain.

Off weight-nor press on weight!-away
Dark thoughts!-they came, but not to stay:
With chastened feelings would I pay

The tribute due

To him, and aught that hides his clay
From mortal view.

Fresh as the flower, whose modest worth
He sang, his genius "glinted" forth,
Rose like a star that touching earth,
For so it seems,

Doth glorify its humble birth

With matchless beams.

The piercing eye, the thoughtful brow,
The struggling heart, where be they now?-
Full soon the Aspirant of the plough,
The prompt, the brave,
Slept, with the obscurest, in the low
And silent grave.

I mourned with thousands, but as one
More deeply grieved, for He was gone
Whose light I hailed when first it shone,
And showed my youth

How Verse may build a princely throne
On humble truth.

Alas! where'er the current tends,
Regret pursues and with it blends,-
Huge Criffel's hoary top ascends
By Skiddaw seen,

Neighbours we were, and loving friends
We might have been :

True friends though diversely inclined;
But heart with heart and mind with mind,
Where the main fibres are entwined,

Through Nature's skill,
May even by contraries be joined
More closely still.

The tear will start, and let it flow;
Thou " 'poor Inhabitant below,"
At this dread moment-even so-

Might we together

Have sate and talked where gowans blow, Or on wild heather.