INSCRIPTION FOR A SEAT IN THE
GROVES OF COLEORTON.
BENEATH yon eastern ridge, the craggy bound,
Rugged and high, of Charnwood's forest ground,
Stand yet-but, stranger! hidden from thy view-
The ivied ruins of forlorn Grace Dieu;
Erst a religious house, which day and night
With hymns resounded, and the chanted rite:
And when those rites had ceased, the spot gave birth
To honourable men of various worth:
There, on the margin of a streamlet wild,
Did Francis Beaumont sport, an eager child;
There, under shadow of the neighbouring rocks,
Sang youthful tales of shepherds and their flocks;
Unconscious prelude to heroic themes,
Heart-breaking tears, and melancholy dreams
Of slighted love, and scorn, and jealous rage,
With which his genius shook the buskin'd stage.
Communities are lost, and empires die,
And things of holy use unhallow'd lie;
They perish;-but the intellect can raise,
From airy words alone, a pile that ne'er decays.
What wonder if his being thus became
Sublime and comprehensive! Low desires,
Low thoughts had there no place; yet was his heart
Lowly; for he was meek in gratitude,
Oft as he call'd those ecstasies to mind,
[quired
And whence they flow'd; and from them he ac-
Wisdom, which works through patience; thence he
In oft recurring hours of sober thought, [learn'd
To look on nature with an humble heart,
Self-question'd where it did not understand,
And with a superstitious eye of love.
EVENING IN THE MOUNTAINS.
Has not the soul, the being of your life,
Received a shock of awful consciousness,
In some calm season, when these lofty rocks,
At night's approach, bring down th' unclouded sky
To rest upon their circumambient walls;
A temple framing of dimensions vast,
And yet not too enormous for the sound
Of human anthems choral song, or burst
Sublime of instrumental harmony,
To glorify the Eternal! What if these
A YOUTHFUL POET CONTEMPLATING Did never break the stillness that prevails
For the growing youth,
What soul was his, when from the naked top
Of some bold headland, he beheld the sun
Rise up, and bathe the world in light! He look'd-
Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth
And ocean's liquid mass, beneath him lay
In gladness and deep joy. The clouds were touch'd,
And in their silent faces could he read
Unutterable love. Sound needed none,
Nor any voice of joy; his spirit drank
The spectacle: sensation, soul, and form
All melted into him; they swallowed up
His animal being: in them did he live,
And by them did he live; they were his life.
In such access of mind, in such high hour
Of visitation from the living God,
Thought was not; in enjoyment it expired.
No thanks he breathed, he proffer'd no request;
Rapt into still communion that transcends
The imperfect offices of prayer and praise,
His mind was a thanksgiving to the Power
That made him; it was blessedness and love!
A herdsman on the lonely mountain top,
Such intercourse was his, and in this sort
Was his existence oftentimes possessed.
Oh then how beautiful, how bright appear'd
The written promise! Early had he learned
To reverence the volume that displays
The mystery, the life which cannot die;
But in the mountains did he feel his faith.
All things, responsive to the writing, there
Breathed immortality, revolving life,
And greatness still revolving; infinite;
There littleness was not; the least of things
Seem'd infinite; and then his spirit shaped
Her prospects, nor did he believe, he saw.
Here, if the solemn nightingale be mute,
And the soft woodlark here did never chant
Her vespers, Nature fails not to provide
Impulse and utterance. The whispering air
Sends inspiration from the shadowy heights,
And blind recesses of the cavern'd rocks;
The little rills and waters numberless,
Inaudible by daylight, blend their notes
With the loud streams: and often, at the hour
When issue forth the first pale stars, is heard,
Within the circuit of this fabric huge,
One voice-one solitary raven, flying
Athwart the concave of the dark-blue dome,
Unseen, perchance above the power of sight-
An iron knell! With echoes from afar,
Faint, and still fainter.
Nor seldom from the uproar I retired
Into a silent bay, or sportively
Glanced sideways, leaving the tumultuous throng,
To cross the bright reflection of a star,
Image that, dying still before me, gleam'd
Upon the glassy plain: and oftentimes
When we had given our bodies to the wind,
And all the shadowy banks on either side
Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still
The rapid line of motion, then at once
Have I, reclining back upon my heels,
Stopp'd short; yet still the solitary cliffs
Wheel'd by me, even as if the earth had roll'd,
With visible motion, her diurnal round!
Behind me did they stretch in solemn train,
Feebler and feebler; and I stood and watch'd
Till all was tranquil as a summer sea.
ON REVISITING THE WYE.
THESE beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration:-feelings, too,
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremember'd acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift
Of aspect more sublime; that blesses most
In which the burden of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world
Is lighten'd:-that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on-
Until the breath of this corporeal frame,
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul;
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things. If this
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft,
In darkness, and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world
Has hung upon the beatings of my heart-
How oft, in spirit, have I turn'd to thee,
O silvan Wye! Thou wanderer through the woods,
How often has my spirit turn'd to thee!
And now with gleams of half-extinguish'd thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again:
While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts,
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years. And so I dare to hope,
[first
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when
I came among these hills; when like a roe
I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever nature led: more like a man
Flying from something that he dreads, than one
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,
And their glad varied moments all gone by)
To me was all in all. I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, nor any interest
Unborrow'd from the eye. That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn, nor murmur; other gifts
Have follow'd; for such loss I would believe
Abundant recompense. For I have learn'd
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes
The still sad music of humanity,
Not harsh nor grating, but of amplest power
To soften and subdue. And I have felt
A passion that disturb'd me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interposed,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting sun,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and on the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects and all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye and ear, both what they half create
And what perceive; well-pleased to recognise,
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.
-A SINGLE Step which freed me from the skirts
Of the blind vapour, open'd to my view
Glory beyond all glory ever seen
By waking sense or by the dreaming soul-
The appearance instantaneously disclosed,
Was of a mighty city-boldly say
A wilderness of building, sinking far
And self-withdrawn into a wondrous depth
Far sinking into splendour-without end!
Fabric it seem'd of diamond and of gold,
With alabaster domes and silver spires;
And blazing terrace upon terrace high
Uplifted: here serene pavilions bright
In avenues disposed; there towers begirt
With battlements that on their restless fronts
Bore stars, illumination of all gems!
Oh 'twas an unimaginable sight;
[turf,
Clouds, mists, streams, watery rocks, and emerald
Clouds of all tincture, rocks and sapphire sky,
Confused, commingled, mutually inflamed,
Molten together, and composing thus,
Each lost in each, that marvellous array
Of temple, palace, citadel, and huge
Fantastic pomp of structure without name,
In fleecy folds voluminous enwrapp'd.
Right in the midst, where interspace appear'd
Of open court, an object like a throne
Beneath a shining canopy of state
Stood fix'd; and fix'd resemblances were seen
To implements of ordinary use,
But vast in size, in substance glorified;
Such as by Hebrew prophets were beheld
In vision-forms uncouth of mightiest power,
For admiration and mysterious awe!
That none, the meanest of created things,
Of forms created the most vile and brute,
The dullest or most noxious, should exist
Divorced from good-a spirit and pulse of good,
A life and soul, to every mode of being
Inseparably link'd. Then be assured
That least of all can aught that ever own'd
The heaven-regarding eye and front sublime
Which man is born to sink, howe'er depress'd,
So low as to be scorn'd without a sin;
Without offence to God cast out of view;
Like the dry remnant of a garden flower
Whose seeds are shed, or as an implement
Worn out and worthless.
OBEDIENCE AND HUMILITY.
- GLORIOUS is the blending
Of light affections climbing or descending
Along a scale of light and life, with cares
Alternate; carrying holy thoughts and prayers
Up to the sovereign seat of the Most High;
Descending to the worm in charity;
Like those good angels whom a dream of night
Gave, in the field of Luz, to Jacob's sight;
All, while he slept, treading the pendant stairs
Earthward or heavenward, radiant messengers,
That, with a perfect will in one accord
Of strict obedience, served the Almighty Lord;
And with untired humility forbore
To speed their errand by the wings they wore.
Her eyelids droop'd, her eyes were downward cast,
And, when she at her table gave me food,
She did not look at me! Her voice was low,
Her body was subdued. In every act
Pertaining to her house affairs, appear'd
The careless stillness of a thinking mind
Self-occupied; to which all outward things
Are like an idle matter. Still she sigh'd,
But yet no motion of the breast was seen,
No heaving of the heart. While by the fire
We sate together, sighs came on my ear,
I knew not how, and hardly whence they came.
And took my rounds along this road again
Ere on its sunny bank the primrose flower
Peep'd forth, to give an earnest of the spring.
I found her sad and drooping; she had learn'd
No tidings of her husband; if he lived,
She knew not that he lived; if he were dead,
She knew not he was dead. She seem'd the same
In person and appearance; but her house
Bespake a sleepy hand of negligence.
Had from its mother caught the trick of grief, And sigh'd among its playthings!
I THOUGHT of Chatterton, the marvellous boy, The sleepless soul that perish'd in his pride; Of him who walk'd in glory and in joy Following his plough, along the mountain side; By our own spirits we are deified; We poets in our youth begin in gladness, But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.
Had placed his staff across the broad, smooth stone
That overlays the pile; and from a bag
All white with flour, the dole of village dames,
He drew his scraps and fragments, one by one,
And scann'd them with a fix'd and serious look
Of idle computation. In the sun,
Upon the second step of that small pile,
Surrounded by these wild, unpeopled hills,
He sat, and ate his food in solitude;
And ever, scatter'd from his palsied hand,
That, still attempting to prevent the waste,
Was baffled still, the crumbs in little showers
Fell on the ground; and the small mountain birds,
Not venturing yet to pick their destined meal,
Approach'd within the length of half his staff.
ARABIAN fiction never fill'd the world
With half the wonders that were wrought for him.
Earth breathed in one great presence of the spring;
Life turn'd the meanest of her implements
Before his eyes to price above all gold;
The house she dwelt in was a sainted shrine;
Her chamber window did surpass in glory
The portal of the dawn; all paradise
Could, by the simple opening of a door,
Let itself in upon him; pathways, walks,
Swarm'd with enchantment, till his spirit sank,
Surcharged, within him-overblest to move
Beneath a sun that walks a weary world
To its dull round of ordinary cares;
A man too happy for mortality.
LONGING FOR REUNION WITH THE DEAD.
- FULL oft the innocent sufferer sees Too clearly; feels too vividly; and longs To realize the vision with intense
And over-constant yearning; there-there lies
The excess by which the balance is destroy'd.
Too, too contracted are these walls of flesh,
This vital warmth too cold, these visual orbs,
Though inconceivably endow'd, too dim,
For any passion of the soul that leads
To ecstasy; and, all the crooked paths
Of time and change disdaining, takes its course
Along the line of limitless desires.
NATURE never did betray
The heart that loved her: 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, nor disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain-winds be free
To blow against thee: and in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Set and sustain'd; -Thou, who didst wrap the Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of infancy around us, that Thyself,
Therein with our simplicity a while
Might'st hold, on earth, communion undisturb'd;
Who from the anarchy of dreaming sleep,
Or from its deathlike void, with punctual care,
And touch as gentle as the morning light,
Restorest us, daily, to the powers of sense,
And reason's steadfast rule-Thou, Thou alone
Art everlasting, and the bless'd spirits,
Which thou includest, as the sea her waves:
For adoration thou endurest; endure
For consciousness the motions of thy will;
For apprehension those transcendent truths
Of the pure intellect, that stand as laws
(Submission constituting strength and power)
Even to Thy Being's infinite majesty!
This universe shall pass away-a work
Glorious! because the shadow of thy might,
A step, or link, for intercourse with thee.
Ah! if the time must come, in which my feet
No more shall stray where meditation leads,
By flowing stream, through wood, or craggy wild,
Loved haunts like these; the unimprison'd mind
May yet have scope to range among her own,
Her thoughts, her images, her high desires.
If the dear faculty of sight should fail,
Still, it may be allow'd me to remember
What visionary powers of eye and soul
In youth were mine; when, station'd on the top
Of some huge hill-expectant I beheld
The sun rise up, from distant climes return'd
Darkness to chase, and sleep; and bring the day
His bounteous gift! or saw him toward the deep
Sink, with a retinue of flaming clouds
Attended; then, my spirit was entranced
With joy exalted to beatitude;
The measure of my soul was fill'd with bliss,
And holiest love; as earth, sea, air, with light,
With pomp, with glory, with magnificence!
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, And these my exhortations!
FROM A POEM ON THE POWER OF SOUND.
-THE gift to King Amphion
That wall'd a city with its melody
Was for belief no dream :-thy skill, Arion ! Could humanize the creatures of the sea, Where men were monsters. A last grace he craves,
Leave for one chant; -the dulcet sound Steals from the deck o'er willing waves, And listening dolphins gather round. Self-cast, as with a desperate course,
Mid that strange audience, he bestrides A proud one, docile as a managed horse; And singing, while the accordant hand Sweeps his harp, the master rides;
So shall he touch at length a friendly strand, And he, with his preserver, shine star-bright In memory, through silent night.
The pipe of Pan, to shepherds
Couch'd in the shadow of Mænalian pines, Was passing sweet; the eyeballs of the leopards • That in high triumph drew the Lord of Vines, How did they sparkle to the cymbal's clang!
While Fauns and Satyrs beat the ground
In cadence, and Silenus swang
This way and that, with wild-flowers crown'd.
To life, to life give back thine ear:
Ye who are longing to be rid
Of fable, though to truth subservient, hear
The little sprinkling of cold earth that fell
Echoed from the coffin-lid;
The convict's summons in the steeple's knell; "The vain distress-gun" from a leeward shore Repeated-heard and heard no more!
FAIR is the swan, whose majesty, prevailing
O'er breezeless water, on Locano's lake,
Bears him on, while proudly sailing
He leaves behind a moon-illumined wake:
Behold! the mantling spirit of reserve
Fashions his neck into a goodly curve;
An arch thrown back between luxuriant wings
Of whitest garniture, like fir-tree boughs,
To which, on some unruffled morning, clings
A flaky weight of winter's purest snows!
Behold! as with a gushing impulse heaves
That downy prow, and softly cleaves
The mirror of the crystal flood,
Vanish inverted hill, and shadowy wood,
And pendent rocks, where'er, in gliding state,
Winds the mute creature without visible mate
Or rival, save the queen of night
Showering down a silver light,
From heaven, upon her chosen favourite!
So pure, so bright, so fitted to embrace,
Where'er he turn'd, a natural grace
Of haughtiness without pretence,
And to unfold a still magnificence,
Was princely Dion, in the power
And beauty of his happier hour.
Nor less the homage that was seen to wait
On Dion's virtues, when the lunar beam
Of Plato's genius, from its lofty sphere,
Fell round him in the grove of Academe,
Softening their inbred dignity austere;
That he, not too elate
With self-sufficing solitude,
But with majestic lowliness endued,
Might in the universal bosom reign,
And from affectionate observance gain
Help, under every change of adverse fate.
Five thousand warriors-oh, the rapturous day! Each crown'd with flowers, and arm'd with spear and shield,
Or ruder weapon which their course might yield,
To Syracuse advance in bright array.
Who leads them on? -The anxious people see
Long-exiled Dion marching at their head,
He also crown'd with flowers of Sicily,
And in a white, far-beaming corslet clad!
Pure transport, undisturb'd by doubt or fear,
The gazers feel; and, rushing to the plain,
Salute those strangers as a holy train
Or blest procession (to the immortals dear)
That brought their precious liberty again.
Lo! when the gates are enter'd, on each hand,
Down the long street, rich goblets fill'd with wine
In seemly order stand,
On tables set, as if for rites divine ;
And, as the great deliverer marches by, He looks on festal ground with fruits bestrown; And flowers are on his person thrown
In boundless prodigality;
Nor doth the general voice abstain from prayer, Invoking Dion's tutelary care,
As if a very deity he were!
Mourn, hills and groves of Attica! and mourn
Illyssus, bending o'er thy classic urn!
Mourn, and lament for him whose spirit dreads
Youronce sweet memory, studious walks and shades!
For him who to divinity aspired,
Not on the breath of popular applause,
But through dependence on the sacred laws Framed in the schools where wisdom dwelt retired, Intent to trace the ideal path of right
(More fair than heaven's broad causeway paved with stars)
Which Dion learn'd to measure with delight;
But he hath overleap'd the eternal bars;
And, following guides whose craft holds no consent
With aught that breathes the ethereal element,
Hath stain'd the robes of civil power with blood,
Unjustly shed, though for the public good.
Whence doubts that come too late, and wishes vain,
Hollow excuses, and triumphant pain;
And oft his cogitations sink as low
As, through the abysses of a joyless heart,
The heaviest plummet of despair can go;
But whence that sudden check! that fearful start!
He hears an uncouth sound
Anon his lifted eyes
Saw at a long-drawn gallery's dusky bound
A shape of more than mortal size And hideous aspect, stalking round and round! A woman's garb the phantom wore, And fiercely swept the marble floor,Like Auster whirling to and fro,
His force on Caspian foam to try;
Or Boreas when he scours the snow
That skins the plains of Thessaly,
Or when aloft on Mænalus he stops
His flight mid eddying pine-tree tops!
So, but from toil less sign of profit reaping,
The sullen spectre to her purpose bow'd,
Sweeping-vehemently sweeping
No pause admitted, no design avow'd! "Avaunt, inexplicable guest!-avaunt!"
Exclaim'd the chieftain,-"Let me rather see
The coronal that coiling vipers make;
The torch that flames with many a lurid flake,
And the long train of doleful pageantry
Which they behold, whom vengeful furies haunt;
Who, while they struggle from the scourge to flee,
Move where the blasted soil is not unworn,
And, in their anguish, bear what other minds have
But shapes that come not at an earthly call,
Will not depart when mortal voices bid;
Lords of the visionary eye, whose lid
Once raised, remains aghast, and will not fall!
Ye gods, thought he, that servile implement
Obeys a mystical intent!
Your minister would brush away
The spots that to my soul adhere;
But should she labour night and day,
They will not, cannot disappear;
Whence angry perturbations, and that look
Which no philosophy can brook!
Ill-fated chief! there are whose hopes are built Upon the ruins of thy glorious name;
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