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! Such to the tender-hearted maid Even ere her joys begin to fade; Such, haply, to the rugged chief By fortune crushed, or tamed by grief; Appears, on Morven's lonely shore, Dim-gleaming through imperfect lore, The Son of Fingal; such was blind Mæonides of ampler mind; Such Milton, to the fountain head Of glory by Urania led!

1824.

XXIX.

CAVE OF STAFFA.

AFTER THE CROWD HAD DEPARTED.

THANKS for the lessons of this Spot-fit school
For the presumptuous thoughts that would assign
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.

XXX.

CAVE OF STAFFA.

YE shadowy Beings, that have rights and claims
In every cell of Fingal's mystic Grot,
Where are ye? Driven or venturing to the spot,
Our fathers glimpses caught of your thin Frames,
And, by your mien and bearing, knew your names;
And they could hear his ghostly song who trod
Earth, till the flesh lay on him like a load,
While he struck his desolate harp without hopes or
Vanished ye are, but subject to recal; [aims.
Why keep we else the instincts whose dread law
Ruled here of yore, till what men felt they saw,
Not by black arts but magic natural!
If eyes be still sworn vassals of belief,
Yon light shapes forth a Bard, that shade a Chief.

XXVIII.

CAVE OF STAFFA.

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!

XXXI.

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 nave
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.

XXXII.

IONA.

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.

XXXIII.
IONA.

(UPON LANDING.)

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
A grace by thee unsought and unpossest, [thine,
A faith more fixed, a rapture more divine
Shall gild their passage to eternal rest.'

XXXIV.

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
Hell opens, and the heavens in vengeance crack
Above his head uplifted in vain prayer
To Saint, or Fiend, or to the Godhead whom
He had insulted-Peasant, King, or Thane?
Fly where the culprit may, guilt meets a doom;
And, from invisible worlds at need laid bare,
Come links for social order's awful chain.

XXXV.

HOMEWARD we turn. Isle of Columba's Cell, Where Christian piety's soul-cheering spark (Kindled from Heaven between the light and dari Of time) shone like the morning-star, farewell !And fare thee well, to Fancy visible, Remote St. Kilda, lone and loved sea-mark For many a voyage made in her swift bark, When with more hues than in the rainbow dwel Thou a mysterious intercourse dost hold, Extracting from clear skies and air serene, And out of sun-bright waves, a lucid veil, That thickens, spreads, and, mingling fold with bal Makes known, when thou no longer canst be sel Thy whereabout, to warn the approaching sil

XXXVI. GREENOCK.

Per me si va nella Città dolente. We have not passed into a doleful City, We who were led to-day down a grim dell, By some too boldly named the Jaws of Hell Where be the wretched ones, the sights for per These crowded streets resound no plaintive diay As from the hive where bees in summer dwel Sorrow seems here excluded; and that knel, It neither damps the gay, nor checks the wi Alas! too busy Rival of old Tyre, Whose merchants Princes were, whose decla Soon may the punctual sea in vain respire To serve thy need, in union with that Clyde Whose nursling current brawls o'er mossy The poor, the lonely, herdsman's joy and pri

XXXVII.

"THERE !” said a Stripling, pointing with meet Towards a low roof with green trees half cr "Is Mosgiel Farm; and that's the very fill Where Burns ploughed up the Daisy." F

wide

A plain below stretched seaward, while, dese">
Above sea-clouds, the Peaks of Arran ruse
And, by that simple notice, the repose
Of earth, sky, sea, and air, was vivified.
Beneath the random bield of clod or stat
Myriads of daisies have shone forth in fo*
Near the lark's nest, and in their natural h-
Have passed away; less happy than the
That, by the unwilling ploughshare, died
The tender charm of poetry and love.

THE RIVER EDEN, CUMBERLAND.

EDEN! till now thy beauty had I viewed
By glimpses only, and confess with shame
That verse of mine, whate'er its varying mood,
Repeats but once the sound of thy sweet name :
Yet fetched from Paradise that honour came,
Rightfully borne; for Nature gives thee flowers
That have no rivals among British bowers;
And thy bold rocks are worthy of their fame.
Measuring thy course, fair Stream! at length I pay
To my life's neighbour dues of neighbourhood;
But I have traced thee on thy winding way
With pleasure sometimes by this thought restrained
For things far off we toil, while many a good
Not sought, because too near, is never gained.

XXXIX.

MONUMENT OF MRS. HOWARD,
(by Nollekens,)

IN WETHERAL CHURCH, NEAR CORBY, ON THE BANKS OF
THE EDEN.

STRETCHED on the dying Mother's lap, lies dead
Her new-born Babe; dire ending of bright hope!
But Sculpture here, with the divinest scope
Of luminous faith, heavenward hath raised that head
So patiently; and through one hand has spread
A touch so tender for the insensate Child-
(Earth's lingering love to parting reconciled,
Brief parting, for the spirit is all but fled)——
That we, who contemplate the turns of life
Through this still medium, are consoled and cheered;
Feel with the Mother, think the severed Wife
Is less to be lamented than revered;
And own that Art, triumphant over strife
And pain, hath powers to Eternity endeared.

XL.

SUGGESTED BY THE FOREGOING.

TRANQUILLITY! the sovereign aim wert thou
In heathen schools of philosophic lore;
Heart-stricken by stern destiny of yore

The Tragic Muse thee served with thoughtful vow;

And what of hope Elysium could allow

Was fondly seized by Sculpture, to restore

Peace to the Mourner. But when He who wore

The crown of thorns around his bleeding brow
Warmed our sad being with celestial light,

Then Arts which still had drawn a softening grace
From shadowy fountains of the Infinite,
Communed with that Idea face to face:
And move around it now as planets run,
Each in its orbit round the central Sun.

NUNNERY.

THE floods are roused, and will not soon be weary;
Down from the Pennine Alps how fiercely sweeps
CROGLIN, the stately Eden's tributary!

He raves, or through some moody passage creeps
Plotting new mischief-out again he leaps
Into broad light, and sends, through regions airy,
That voice which soothed the Nuns while on the
steeps

They knelt in prayer, or sang to blissful Mary.
That union ceased: then, cleaving easy walks
Through crags, and smoothing paths beset with
danger,

Came studious Taste; and many a pensive stranger
Dreams on the banks, and to the river talks.
What change shall happen next to Nunnery Dell?
Canal, and Viaduct, and Railway, tell !

XLII.

STEAMBOATS, VIADUCTS, AND RAILWAYS. MOTIONS and Means, on land and sea at war With old poetic feeling, not for this, Shall ye, by Poets even, be judged amiss! Nor shall your presence, howsoe'er it mar The loveliness of Nature, prove a bar To the Mind's gaining that prophetic sense Of future change, that point of vision, whence May be discovered what in soul ye are. In spite of all that beauty may disown In your harsh features, Nature doth embrace Her lawful offspring in Man's art; and Time, Pleased with your triumphs o'er his brother Space, Accepts from your bold hands the proffered crown Of hope, and smiles on you with cheer sublime.

XLIII.

THE MONUMENT COMMONLY CALLED LONG MEG AND HER
DAUGHTERS, NEAR THE RIVER EDEN.

A WEIGHT of awe, not easy to be borne,
Fell suddenly upon my Spirit-cast
From the dread bosom of the unknown past,
When first I saw that family forlorn.
Speak Thou, whose massy strength and stature scorn
The power of years-pre-eminent, and placed
Apart, to overlook the circle vast-
Speak, Giant-mother! tell it to the Morn
While she dispels the cumbrous shades of Night;
Let the Moon hear, emerging from a cloud;
At whose behest uprose on British ground
That Sisterhood, in hieroglyphic round
Forth-shadowing, some have deemed, the infinite
The inviolable God, that tames the proud +!

XLIV. LOWTHER.

LOWTHER! in thy majestic Pile are seen
Cathedral pomp and grace, in apt accord
With the baronial castle's sterner mien;
Union significant of God adored,

And charters won and guarded by the sword
Of ancient honour; whence that goodly state
Of polity which wise men venerate,
And will maintain, if God his help afford.
Hourly the democratic torrent swells;
For airy promises and hopes suborned
The strength of backward-looking thoughts is
Fall if ye must, ye Towers and Pinnacles,
With what ye symbolise ; authentic Story
Will say, Ye disappeared with England's Glory!

XLV.

TO THE EARL OF LONSDALE. 'Magistratus indicat virum.'

[scorned.

LONSDALE! it were unworthy of a Guest,
Whose heart with gratitude to thee inclines,
If he should speak, by fancy touched, of signs
On thy Abode harmoniously imprest,

Yet be unmoved with wishes to attest
How in thy mind and moral frame agree
Fortitude, and that Christian Charity
Which, filling, consecrates the human breast.
And if the Motto on thy 'scutcheon teach
With truth, 'THe Magistracy shows the Man ;'
That searching test thy public course has stood;
As will be owned alike by bad and good,
Soon as the measuring of life's little span
Shall place thy virtues out of Envy's reach.

XLVI.

THE SOMNAMBULIST.

LIST, ye who pass by Lyulph's Tower+
At eve; how softly then
Doth Aira-force, that torrent hoarse,
Speak from the woody glen!
Fit music for a solemn vale!

And holier seems the ground
To him who catches on the gale
The spirit of a mournful tale,
Embodied in the sound.

* See Note.

A pleasure-house built by the late Duke of Norfolk upon the banks of Ullswater. FORCE is the word used in the Lake District for Water-fall.