CHATSWORTH! thy stately mansion, and the pride Chatsworth
Of thy domain, strange contrast do present
To house and home in many a craggy rent
Of the wild Peak; where new-born waters glide
Through fields whose thrifty occupants abide
As in a dear and chosen banishment,
With every semblance of entire content;
So kind is simple Nature, fairly tried!

Yet He whose heart in childhood gave her troth
To pastoral dales, thin-set with modest farms,
May learn, if judgment strengthen with its growth,
That, not for Fancy only, pomp hath charms;
And, strenuous to protect from lawless harms
The extremes of favoured life, may honour both.

"Tis said that to the brow of yon fair hill

Oker Hill in

Two Brothers clomb-and, turning face from face, Derbyshire

Nor one look more exchanging, grief to still
Or feed, each planted on that lofty place
A chosen Tree; then, eager to fulfil
Their courses, like two new-born rivers, they
In opposite directions urged their way

Down from the far-seen mount. No blast might
kill

Or blight that fond memorial;-the trees grew,
And now entwine their arms; but ne'er again
Embraced those Brothers upon earth's wide plain;
Nor aught of mutual joy or sorrow knew
Until their spirits mingled in the sea

That to itself takes all, Eternity.

D

Filial Piety 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 rare.

To the Go, faithful Portrait! and where long hath knelt
Author's Margaret, the saintly Foundress, take thy place;
Portrait And, if Time spare the colours for the grace
painted for
St John's Which to the work surpassing skill hath dealt,
College, Thou, on thy rock reclined, though kingdoms melt
Cambridge And states be torn up by the roots, wilt seem

To breathe in rural peace, to hear the stream,
And think and feel as once the Poet felt.
Whate'er thy fate, those features have not grown
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!

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!

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
Like them: the unguilty Power pursues his
And before him doth dawn perpetual run.

aye

way,

Why art thou Silent?

On Haydon's
Picture of
Napoleon
Buonaparte
June 11, 1831

Poets by Art A POET!-He hath put his heart to school, and Poets by Nor dares to move unpropped upon the staff Nature Which Art hath lodged within his hand—must 1842? 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.

Peace is best 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
Of pure delight, come whencesoe'er it may,
Peace let us seek,—to steadfast things attune
Calm expectations-leaving to the gay
And volatile their love of transient bowers,
The house that cannot pass away be ours.

By Art's bold privilege Warrior and War-horse stand

On a Portrait

of the Duke of Wellington upon the Field of Waterloo, by Haydon

On ground yet strewn with their last battle's wreck;
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 1840
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!

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?

Composed on a May morning, 1838