Dread cliff of Baruth! that wild wish may
sleep,
Bold as if men and creatures of the Deep
Breathed the same element; too many wrecks
Have struck thy sides, too many ghastly decks
Hast thou looked down upon, that such a
thought
Should here be welcome, and in verse en-
Wrought:
With thy stern aspect better far agrees
Utterance of thanks that we have past with
As millions thus shall do, the Headlands of St
Yet, while each useful Art augments her store,
What boots the gain if Nature should lose
And Wisdom, as she holds a Christian place
In man's intelligence sublimed by grace?
When Bega sought of yore the Cumbrian coast,
Tempestuous winds her holy errand cross'd:
She knelt in prayer-the waves their wrath
And, from her vow well weighed in Heaven's decrees,
Rose, where she touched the strand, the Chantry of St Bees.
"Cruel of heart were they, bloody of hand," Who in these Wilds then struggled for command;
The strong were merciless, without hope the weak:
Till this bright Stranger came, fair as day-
break,
And as a cresset true that darts its length
Of beamy lustre from a tower of strength;
Guiding the mariner through troubled seas,
And cheering oft his peaceful reveries,
Like the fixed Light that crowns yon Headland
of St Bees.
To aid the Votaress, miracles believed
Wrought in men's minds, like miracles achieved;
So piety took root; and Song might tell
What humanising virtues near her cell
Sprang up, and spread their fragrance wide
around;
How savage bosoms melted at the sound
Of gospel-truth enchained in harmonies
Wafted o'er waves, or creeping through close
From her religious Mansion of St Bees
When her sweet Voice, that instrument of love,
Was glorified, and took its place, above
The silent stars, among the angelic quire,
Her chantry blazed with sacrilegious fire,
And perished utterly; but her good deeds
Had sown the spot, that witnessed them, with
seeds
Which lay in earth expectant, till a breeze
With quickening impulse answered their mute
pleas,
And lo! a statelier pile, the Abbey of St Bees.
There are the naked clothed, the hungry fed;
And Charity extendeth to the dead
Her intercessions made for the soul's rest
Of tardy penitents; or for the best
Among the good (when love might else have
slept,
Sickened, or died) in pious memory kept.
| Thanks to the austere and simple Devotees,
Who, to that service bound by venial fees,
Keep watch before the altars of St Bees.
Are not, in sooth, their Requiems sacred ties
Woven out of passion's sharpest agonies,
Subdued, composed, and formalized by art,
To fix a wiser sorrow in the heart?
The prayer for them whose hour is past away
Says to the Living, profit while ye may !
Who thinks that priestly cunning holds the keys
A little part, and that the worst, he sees
That best unlock the secrets of St Bees.
Conscience, the timid being's inmost light,
Hope of the dawn and solace of the night,
Cheers these Recluses with a steady ray
In many an hour when judgment goes astray.
Ah! scorn not hastily their rule who try
Earth to despise, and flesh to mortify;
Consume with zeal, in wingèd ecstasies
Of prayer and praise forget their rosaries,
Nor hear the loudest surges of St Bees.
The forlorn traveller, or sailor wrecked
Yet none so prompt to succour and protect
On the bare coast; nor do they grudge the
boon
Which staff and cockle hat and sandal shoon
Claim for the pilgrim: and, though chidings
sharp
May sometimes greet the strolling minstrel's
harp,
It is not then when, swept with sportive ease,
It charms a feast-day throng of all degrees,
Brightening the archway of revered St Bees.
How did the cliffs and echoing hills rejoice
What time the Benedictine Brethren's voice,
Imploring, or commanding with meet pride,
Summoned the Chiefs to lay their feuds aside,
And under one blest ensign serve the Lord
In Palestine. Advance, indignant Sword!
Flaming till thou from Panym hands release
That tomb, dread centre of all sanctities
Nursed in the quiet Abbey of St Bees.
But look we now to them whose minds from far
Follow the fortunes which they may not share.
While in Judea Fancy loves to roam,
She helps to make a Holy-land at home:
The Star of Bethlehem from its sphere invites
To sound the crystal depth of maiden rights;
And wedded Life, through scriptural mysteries,
Heavenward ascends with all her charities,
Taught by the hooded Celibates of St Bees.
Nor be it e'er forgotten how by skill
Of cloistered Architects, free their souls to fill
With love of God, throughout the Land were
raised
Churches on whose symbolic beauty gazed
Peasant and mail-clad Chief with pious awe;
As at this day men seeing what they saw,
Or the bare wreck of faith's solemnities,
Aspire to more than earthly destinies;
Witness yon Pile that greets us from St Bees.
Yet more; around those Churches, gathered
Towns
Safe from the feudal Castle's haughty frowns;
Peaceful abodes, where Justice might uphold
Her scales with even hand, and culture mould
The heart to pity, train the mind in care
For rules of life, sound as the Time could bear.
Nor dost thou fail, thro' abject love of ease,
Or hindrance raised by sordid purposes,
To bear thy part in this good work, St Bees.
Who with the ploughshare clove the barren
And to green meadows changed the swampy shores?
Thinned the rank woods; and for the cheerful grange
Made room where wolf and boar were used to range?
That no adventurer's bark had power to gain These shores if he approached them bent on wrong;
For, suddenly up-conjured from the Main, Mists rose to hide the Land-that search, though long
And eager, might be still pursued in vain.
O Fancy, what an age was that for song!
That age, when not by laws inanimate,
As men believed, the waters were impelled,
The air controlled, the stars their courses held:
But element and orb on acts did wait
Of Powers endued with visible form, instinct
Who taught, and showed by deeds, that gentler With will, and to their work by passion linked.
Should bind the vassal to his lord's domains? The thoughtful Monks, intent their God to please,
For Christ's dear sake, by human sympathies Poured from the bosom of thy Church, St Bees! But all availed not; by a mandate given Through lawless will the Brotherhood was driven
Forth from their cells; their ancient House laid
ON ENTERING DOUGLAS BAY, ISLE OF MAN. THE feudal Keep, the bastions of Cohorn, "Dignum laude virum Musa vetat mori."
Even when they rose to check or to repel Tides of aggressive war, oft served as well Greedy ambition, armed to treat with scorn
IN THE CHANNEL, BETWEEN THE COAST OF Just limits; but yon Tower, whose smiles
CUMBERLAND AND THE ISLE OF MAN.
RANGING the heights of Scawfell or Blackcomb,
In his lone course the Shepherd oft will pause,
And strive to fathom the mysterious laws
By which the clouds, arrayed in light or gloom,
On Mona settle, and the shapes assume
Of all her peaks and ridges. What he draws
From sense, faith, reason, fancy, of the cause,
He will take with him to the silent tomb.
Or, by his fire, a child upon his knee,
Haply the untaught Philosopher may speak
Of the strange sight, nor hide his theory
That satisfies the simple and the meek,
Blest in their pious ignorance, though weak
To cope with Sages undevoutly free.
AT SEA OFF THE ISLE OF MAN.
BOLD words affirmed, in days when faith was strong
And doubts and scruples seldom teazed the brain,
*See Excursion, seventh part; and Ecclesiastical Sketches, second part, near the beginning.
This perilous bay, stands clear of all offence;
Blest work it is of love and innocence,
A Tower of refuge built for the else forlorn.
Spare it, ye waves, and lift the mariner,
Struggling for life, into its saving arms!
Spare, too, the human helpers! Do they stir
'Mid your fierce shock like men afraid to die?
No; their dread service nerves the heart it
BY THE SEA-SHORE, ISLE OF MAN.
WHY stand we gazing on the sparkling Brine.
With wonder smit by its transparency
And all-enraptured with its purity?---
Because the unstained, the clear, the crystal-
line,
Have ever in them something of benign;
Whether in gem, in water, or in sky,
A sleeping infant's brow, or wakeful eye
Of a young maiden, only not divine.
Scarcely the hand forbears to dip its palm
For beverage drawn as from a mountain-well.
Temptation centres in the liquid Calm;
Our daily raiment seems no obstacle
To instantaneous plunging in, deep Sea ! And revelling in long embrace with thee.*
A YOUTH too certain of his power to wade
On the smooth bottom of this clear bright sea,
To sight so shallow, with a bather's glee
Leapt from this rock, and but for timely aid
He, by the alluring element betrayed,
Had perished. Then might Sea-nymphs (and with sighs
Of self-reproach) have chanted elegies
Bewailing his sad fate, when he was laid
In peaceful earth: for, doubtless, he was frank,
Utterly in himself devoid of guile;
Knew not the double-dealing of a smile;
Nor aught that makes men's promises a blank,
Or deadly snare: and he survives to bless
The Power that saved him in his strange
DID pangs of grief for lenient time too keen, Grief that devouring waves had caused-or guilt
Which they had witnessed, sway the man who built
This Homestead, placed where nothing could be seen,
Nought heard, of ocean troubled or serene?
A tired Ship-soldier on paternal land,
That o'er the channel holds august command,
The dwelling raised,-a veteran Marine.
He, in disgust, turned from the neighbouring
To shun the memory of a listless life
That hung between two callings. May no strife More hurtful here beset him, doomed though free,
Self-doomed, to worse inaction, till his eye Shrink from the daily sight of earth and sky!
BY A RETIRED MARINER.
(A FRIEND OF THE AUTHOR.) FROM early youth I ploughed the restless Main, My mind as restless and as apt to change; Through every clime and ocean did I range, In hope at length a competence to gain; For poor to Sea I went, and poor I still remain. Year after year I strove, but strove in vain, And hardships manifold did I endure, For Fortune on me never deign'd to smile; Yet I at last a resting-place have found, With just enough life's comforts to procure, In a snug Cove on this our favoured Isle, A peaceful spot where Nature's gifts abound: Then sure I have no reason to complain, Though poor to Sea I went, and poor I still re
AT BALA-SALA, ISLE OF MAN. !SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY A FRIEND.) BROKEN in fortune, but in mind entire And sound in principle, 1 seek repose
The sea-water on the coast of the Isle of Man is singularly pure and beautiful.
Where ancient trees this convent-pile enclose,*
In ruin beautiful. When vain desire
Intrudes on peace, I pray the eternal Sire
To cast a soul-subduing shade on me,
A grey-haired, pensive, thankful Refugee;
A shade-but with some sparks of heavenly fire
Once to these cells vouchsafed. And when I
The old Tower's brow yellowed as with the beams
Of sunset ever there, albeit streams
Of stormy weather-stains that semblance wrought,
I thank the silent Monitor, and say "Shine so, my aged brow, at all hours of the day!'
(Still marked with green turf circles narrowing
ONCE on the top of Tynwald's formal mound
Stage above stage) would sit this Island's King,
The laws to promulgate, enrobed and crowned;
While, compassing the little mount around,
Degrees and Orders stood, each under each:
Now, like to things within fate's easiest reach,
The power is merged, the pomp a grave has
found.
Off with yon cloud, old Snafell! that thine eye
Over three Realms may take its widest range;
And let, for them, thy fountains utter strange
Voices, thy winds break forth in prophecy,
If the whole State must suffer mortal change,
Like Mona's miniature of sovereignty.
DESPOND who will-I heard a voice exclaim,
"Though fierce the assault, and shatter'd the
defence,
It cannot be that Britain's social frame,
The glorious work of time and providence,
Before a flying season's rash pretence,
Should fall; that She, whose virtue put to
shame,
When Europe prostrate lay, the Conqueror's aim,
Should perish, self-subverted. Black and dense The cloud is; but brings that a day of doom To Liberty? Her sun is up the while,
That orb whose beams round Saxon Alfred
IN THE FRITH OF CLYDE, AILSA CRAG. DURING AN ECLIPSE OF THE SUN, JULY 17. SINCE risen from ocean, ocean to defy, Appeared the Crag of Ailsa, ne'er did morn With gleaming lights more gracefully adorn His sides, or wreathe with mist his forehead high:
Now, faintly darkening with the sun's eclipse,
Still is he seen, in lone sublimity,
Towering above the sea and little ships:
For dwarfs the tallest seem while sailing by,
Each for her haven; with her freight of Care,
Pleasure, or Grief, and Toil that seldom looks
Into the secret of to-morrow's fare;
Though poor, yet rich, without the wealth of
books,
Or aught that watchful Love to Nature owes
For her ute Powers, fix'd Forms, or transient
Jows.
ON THE FRITH OF CLYDE.
(IN A STEAM-BOAT.)
ARRAN! a single-crested Teneriffe,
A St Helena next-in shape and hue,
Varying her crowded peaks and ridges blue;
Who but must covet a cloud-seat, or skiff
Built for the air, or winged Hippogriff?
That he might fly, where no one could pursue,
From this dull Monster and her sooty crew;
And, as a God, light on thy topmost cliff.
Impotent wish! which reason would despise
If the mind knew no union of extremes,
No natural bond between the boldest schemes
Ambition frames, and heart-humilities.
Beneath stern mountains many a soft vale lies,
And lofty springs give birth to lowly streams.
ON REVISITING DUNOLLY CASTLE.
(See former series, p. 271.)
THE captive Bird was gone ;--to cliff or moor
Perchance had flown, delivered by the storm;
Or he had pined, and sunk to feed the worm:
Him found we not: but, climbing a tall tower,
There saw, impaved with rude fidelity
Of art mosaic, in a roofless floor,
An Eagle with stretched wings, but beamless
An Eagle that could neither wail nor soar.
Effigy of the Vanished-shall I dare
To call thee so?) or symbol of fierce deeds
And of the towering courage which past times
Rejoiced in-take, whate'er thou be, a share,
Not undeserved, of the memorial rhymes
That animate my way where'er it leads!
NOT to the clouds, not to the cliff, he flew:
But when a storm, on sea or mountain bred,
Came and delivered him, alone he sped
Into the castle-dungeon's darkest mew.
Now, near his master's house in open view
He dwells, and hears indignant tempests howl,
Kennelled and chained. Ye tame domestic
fowl,
Beware of him! Thou, saucy cockatoo,
Look to thy plumage and thy life!-The roe,
Fleet as the west wind, is for him no quarry;
Balanced in ether he will never tarry,
Eyeing the sea's blue depths. Poor Bird! even
Doth man of brother man a creature make That clings to slavery for its own sad sake.
WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF MACPHERSON'S
OFT have I caught, upon a fitful breeze, Fragments of far-off melodies,
With ear not coveting the whole,
A part so charmed the pensive soul:
While a dark storm before my sight
Was yielding, on a mountain height
Loose vapours have I watched, that won
Prismatic colours from the sun;
Nor felt a wish that heaven would show
The image of its perfect bow.
What need, then, of these finished Strains
Away with counterfeit Remains!
An abbey in its lone recess,
A temple of the wilderness,
Wrecks though they be, announce with feeling
The majesty of honest dealing.
Spirit of Ossian! if im bound
In language thou may'st yet be found,
If aught (intrusted to the pen
Or floating on the tongues of men,
Albeit shattered and impaired)
Subsist thy dignity to guard,
In concert with memorial claim
Of old grey stone, and high-born name
That cleaves to rock or pillared cave
Where moans the blast, or beats the wave,
Let Truth, stern arbitress of all,
Interpret that Original,
And for presumptuous wrongs atone ;-
Authentic words be given, or none !
Time is not blind;-yet He, who spares
Pyramid pointing to the stars,
Hath preyed with ruthless appetite
On all that marked the primal flight
Of the poetic ecstasy
Into the land of mystery.
No tongue is able to rehearse
One measure, Orpheus! of thy verse;
Musæus, stationed with his lyre
Supreme among the Elysian quire,
Is, for the dwellers upon earth
Mute as a lark ere morning's birth.
Why grieve for these, though past away
The music, and extinct the lay?
When thousands, by severer doom,
Full early to the silent tomb
Have sunk, at Nature's call; or strayed
From hope and promise, self-betrayed;
The garland withering on their brows;
Stung with remorse for broken vows;
Frantic-else how might they rejoice?
And friendless, by their own sad choice!
Hail, Bards of mightier grasp ! on you
I chiefly call, the chosen Few,
Who cast not off the acknowledged guide,
Who faltered not, nor turned aside;
Whose lofty genius could survive
Privation, under sorrow thrive ;
In whom the fiery Muse revered
The symbol of a snow-white beard,
Bedewed with meditative tears
Dropped from the lenient cloud of years.
Brothers in soul! though distant times
Produced you nursed in various climes,
Ye, when the orb of life had waned,
A plenitude of love retained:
Hence, while in you each sad regret
By corresponding hope was met,
Ye lingered among human kind,
Sweet voices for the passing wind;
Departing sunbeams, loth to stop,
Though smiling on the last hill top!
WE saw, but surely, in the motley crowd,
Not One of us has felt the far-famed sight:
How could we feel it? each the other's blight,
Hurried and hurrying, volatile and loud.
O for those motions only that invite
The Ghost of Fingal to his tuneful Cave
By the breeze entered, and wave after wave
Softly embosoming the timid light!
And by one Votary who at will might stand
Gazing and take into his mind and heart,
With undistracted reverence, the effect
Of those proportions where the almighty hand
That made the worlds, the sovereign Architect,
Has deigned to work as if with human Art!
AFTER THE CROWD HAD DEPARTED.
THANKS for the lessons of this Spot-fit school For the presumptuous thoughts that would
Mechanic laws to agency divine;
And, measuring heaven by earth, would overrule
Infinite Power. The pillared vestibule,
Expanding yet precise, the roof embowed,
Might seem designed to humble man, when
proud
Of his best workmanship by plan and tool.
Down-bearing with his whole Atlantic weight
Of tide and tempest on the Structure's base,
And flashing to that Structure's topmost height,
Ocean has proved its strength, and of its grace
In calms is conscious, finding for his freight
Of softest music some responsive place.
FLOWERS ON THE TOP OF THE PILLARS AT THE ENTRANCE OF THE CAVE.
HOPE smiled when your nativity was cast, Children of Summer! Ye fresh Flowers that brave
What Summer here escapes not, the fierce wave, And whole artillery of the western blast, Battering the Temple's front, its long-drawn
Smiting, as if each moment were their last.
But ye, bright Flowers, on frieze and architrave
Survive, and once again the Pile stands fast:
Calm as the Universe, from specular towers
Of heaven contemplated by Spirits pure
With mute astonishment, it stands sustained
Through every part in symmetry, to endure,
Unhurt, the assault of Time with all his hours,
As the supreme Artificer ordained.
ON to Iona!--What can she afford
To us save matter for a thoughtful sigh,
Heaved over ruin with stability
In urgent contrast? To diffuse the WORD
(Thy Paramount, mighty Nature! and Time's
Lord)
Her Temples rose, 'mid pagan gloom; but why,
Even for a moment, has our verse deplored
Their wrongs, since they fulfilled their destiny?
And when, subjected to a common doom
Of mutability, those far-famed Piles
Shall disappear from both the sister Isles,
Iona's Saints, forgetting not past days,
Garlands shall wear of amaranthine bloom,
While heaven's vast sea of voices chants their
praise.
How sad a welcome! To each voyager
Some ragged child holds up for sale a store
Of wave-worn pebbles, pleading on the shore
Where once came monk and nun with gentle stir,
Blessings to give, news ask, or suit prefer.
Yet is yon neat trim church a grateful speck
Of novelty amid the sacred wreck
Strewn far and wide. Think, proud Philosopher!
Fallen though she be, this Glory of the west,
Still on her sons the beams of mercy shine;
And "hopes, perhaps more heavenly bright
than thine,
A grace by thee unsought and unpossest,
Shall gild their passage to eternal rest."
A faith more fixed, a rapture more divine,
THE BLACK STONES OF IONA.
[See Martin's Voyage among the Western Isles.]
HERE on their knees men swore: the stones were black,
Black in the people's minds and words, yet they
Were at that time, as now, in colour grey.
But what is colour, if upon the rack
Of conscience souls are placed by deeds that lack
Concord with oaths? What differ night and day
Then, when before the Perjured on his way
|