And by the love that was in her soul
For her youthful Romilly.
-Young Romilly through Barden woods
Is ranging high and low;
And holds a greyhound in a leash,
To let slip on buck or doe.
The pair have reached that fearful chasm,
How tempting to bestride!
For lordly Wharf is there pent in
With rocks on either side.
The striding place is called The Strid,
A name it took of yore;
A thousand years hath it borne that name,
And shall a thousand more.
And thither has young Romilly come,
And what may now forbid
That he, perhaps for the hundredth time,
Shall bound across the Strid ?
He sprang in glee,-for what cared he
That the river was strong, and the rocks were steep?But the greyhound in the leash hung back,
And checked him in his leap.
The Boy is in the arms of Wharf,
And strangled by a merciless force,
And never more was young Romilly seen,
Till he rose a lifeless corse.
Now there is stillness in the vale,
And sad, unspeaking sorrow:
Wharf shall be to pitying hearts,
A name more sad than Yarrow.
If for a lover the Lady wept,
A solace she might borrow
From death, and from the passion of death ;-
Old Wharf might heal her sorrow.
She weeps not for the wedding-day,
Which was to be to-morrow :
Her hope was a further-looking hope,
And hers is a mother's sorrow.
He was a tree that stood alone,
And proudly did its branches wave;
And the root of this delightful tree
Was in her husband's grave!
Long, long, in darkness did she sit,
And her first words were, "Let there be.
In Bolton, on the field of Wharf,
A stately Priory!''
The stately Priory was built,
And Wharf as he moved along,
To matins joined a mournful voice,
Nor failed at evensong.
And the Lady prayed in heaviness,
That looked not for relief!
But slowly did her succour come,
And a patience to her grief.
Oh, there is never sorrow of heart,
That shall lack a timely end,
If but to God we turn, and ask
Of Him to be our Friend.
(Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1803.)
EARTH has not anything to show more fair;
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty ;
This City now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will;
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still.
SUGGESTED THE DAY AFTER SEEING THE GRAVE OF BURNS ON THE BANKS OF NITH, NEAR THE POET'S RESIDENCE.
Too frail to keep the lofty vow
That must have followed when his brow
Was wreathed--" The Vision" tells us how
With holly spray,
He faltered, drifted to and fro,
And passed away.
Well might such thoughts, dear Sister, throng
Our minds when lingering, all too long,
Over the grave of Burns we hung,
In social grief
Indulged as if it were a wrong
To seek relief.
But, leaving each unquiet theme
Where gentlest judgments may misdeem,
And prompt to welcome every gleam
Of good and fair,
Let us beside this limpid Stream
Breathe hopeful air.
Enough of sorrow, wreck, and blight;
Think rather of those moments bright
When to the unconsciousness of right
His course was true,
When Wisdom prospered in his sight
And virtue grew.
Yes, freely let our hearts expand,
Freely as in youth's season bland,
When side by side, his Book in hand,
We wont to stray,
Our pleasure varying at command
Of each sweet Lay.
How oft inspired must he have trode
These pathways, yon far-stretching road!
There lurks his home; in that Abode,
With mirth elate,
Or in his nobly pensive mood,
The Rustic sate.
Proud thoughts that Image overawes,
Before it humbly let us pause,
And ask of Nature, from which cause
And by what rules
She trained her Burns to win applause
That shames the Schools.
Through busiest street and loneliest glen
Are felt the flashes of his pen :
He rules mid winter snows, and when
Bees fill their hives:
Deep in the general heart of men
His power survives.
What need of fields in some far clime
Where Heroes, Sages, Bards sublime,
And all that fetched the flowing rhyme
From genuine springs,
Shall dwell together till old Time
Folds up his wings?
Sweet Mercy! to the gates of Heaven
The minstrel lead, his sins forgiven;
The rueful conflict, the heart riven
With vain endeavour,
And memory of Earth's bitter leaven,
Effaced for ever.
But why to him confine the prayer,
When kindred thoughts and yearnings bear
On the frail heart the purest share
With all that live?—
The best of what we do and are,
Just God forgive!
HOOTING TO THE OWLS.
THERE was a boy; ye knew him well, ye cliffs
And islands of Winander! Many a time
At evening, when the earliest stars began
To move along the edges of the hills,
Rising or setting, would he stand alone,
Beneath the trees or by the glimmering lake,
And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands
Pressed closely palm to palm and to his mouth
Uplifted, he, as through an instrument,
Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls,
That they might answer him.-And they would shout
Across the watery vale, and shout again,
Responsive to his call, with quivering peals,
And long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud
Redoubled and redoubled; concourse wild
Of jocund mirth and din! And when it chanced
That pauses of deep silence mocked his skill:
Then sometimes in that silence, while he hung
Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise
Has carried far into his heart the voice
Of mountain torrents; or the visible scene
Would enter unawares into his mind
With all its solemn imagery, its rocks,
Its woods, and that uncertain heaven received
Into the bosom of the steady lake.
This boy was taken from his mates, and died
In childhood, ere he was full twelve years old.
Fair is the spot, most beautiful the vale
Where he was born and bred: the churchyard hangs Upon a slope above the village school :
And through that churchyard when my way has led At evening, I believe that often-times
A long half-hour together I have stood
Mute, looking at the grave in which he lies.
THERE is a Yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale,
Which to this day stands single, in the midst
Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore:
Not loth to furnish weapons for the bands
Of Umfraville and Percy ere they marched
To Scotland's heaths; or those that crossed the sea
And drew their sounding bows at Azincour,
Perhaps at earlier Crecy, or Poictiers.
Of vast circumference and gloom profound
This solitary Tree! a living thing
Produced too slowly ever to decay;
Of form and aspect too magnificent
To be destroyed. But worthier still of note
Are those fraternal Four of Borrowdale,
Joined in one solemn and capacious grove ;
Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth
Of intertwisted fibres serpentine
Upcoiling, and inveterately convolved;
Not uninformed with Phantasy, and looks
That threaten the profane ;-a pillared shade
Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue
By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged
Perennially-beneath whose sable roof
Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, decked
With unrejoicing berries,-ghostly Shapes
May meet at noon-tide ;-Fear and trembling Hope,
Silence and Foresight; Death the Skeleton,
And Time the Shadow ;-there to celebrate,
As in a natural temple scattered o'er
With altars undisturbed of mossy stone,
United worship; or in mute repose
To lie, and listen to the mountain flood
Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves.
I WANDERED lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden doffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay ;
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee :
A poet could not but be gay
În such a jocund company;
I gazed, and gazed, but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought :
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
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