COMPOSED OR SUGGESTED DURING A TOUR, IN THE SUMMER OF 1833.
[HAVING been prevented by the lateness of the season, in 1831, from visiting Staffa and Iona, the author made these the principal objects of a short tour in the summer of 1833, of which the following series of Poems is a memorial. The course pursued was down the Cumberland river Derwent, and to Whitehaven; thence (by the Isle of Man, where a few days were passed) up the Frith of Clyde to Greenock, then to Oban, Staffa, Iona; and back towards England, by Loch Awe, Inverary, Loch Goil-head, Greenock, and through parts of Renfrewshire, Ayrshire, and Dumfriesshire to Carlisle, and thence up the river Eden, and homewards by Ullswater.]
ADIEU, Rydalian Laurels ! that have grown And spread as if ye knew that days might come ye would shelter in a happy home,
On this fair Mount, a Poet of your own,
One who ne'er ventured for a Delphic crown
To sue the God; but, haunting your green shade
All seasons through, is humbly pleased to braid
Ground-flowers, beneath your guardianship, self-
Farewell! no Minstrels now with harp new-strung
For summer wandering quiet their household bowers;
Yet not for this wants Poesy a tongue
To cheer the Itinerant on whom she pours
Her spirit, while he crosses lonely moors
Ur, musing, sits forsaken halls among.
WHY should the Enthusiast, journeying through this Isle,
Repine as if his hour were come too late?
Not unprotected in her mouldering state,
Antiquity salutes him with a smile,
'Mid fruitful fields that ring with jocund toil, And pleasure-grounds where Taste, refined Co
Of Truth and Beauty, strives to imitate,
Far as she may, primeval Nature's style.
Fair land! by Time's parental love made free,
By Social Order's watchful arms embraced,
With unexampled union meet in thee,
For eye and mind, the present and the past;
With golden prospect for futurity,
If that be reverenced which ought to last.
THEY called thee MERRY ENGLAND, in old time;
A happy people won for thee that name,
With envy heard in many a distant clime;
And, spite of change, for me thou keep'st the same
Endearing title, a responsive chime
To the heart's fond belief; though some there are
Whose sterner judgments deem that word a snare
For inattentive Fancy, like the lime
Which foolish birds are caught with.
This face of rural beauty be a mask
For discontent, and poverty, and crime;
These spreading towns a cloak for lawless will?
Forbid it, Heaven! — and MERRY ENGLAND still
Shall be thy rightful name, in prose and rhyme :
TO THE RIVER GRETA, NEAR KESWICK.
GRETA, what fearful listening! when huge stones
Rumble along thy bed, block after block:
Or, whirling with reiterated shock,
Combat, while darkness aggravates the groans:
But if thou (like Cocytus from the moans
Heard on his rueful margin) thence wert named
The Mourner, thy true nature was defamed,
And the habitual murmur that atones
For thy worst rage, forgotten. Oft as Spring
Decks, on thy sinuous banks, her thousand thrones,
Seats of glad instinct and love's carolling,
The concert, for the happy, then may vie
With liveliest peals of birthday harmony;
To a grieved heart, the notes are benisons.
Thou near the eagle's nest, - within brief sail,
I, of his bold wing floating on the gale,
Where thy deep voice could lull me! Faint the
beam
Of human life when first allowed to gleam
On mortal notice. Glory of the vale,
Such thy meek outset, with a crown, though frail,
Kept in perpetual verdure by the steam
Of thy soft breath! - Less vivid wreath entwined
Nemæan victor's brow; less bright was worn
Meed of some Roman chief, in triumph borne
With captives chained, and shedding from his car
The sunset splendors of a finished war
Upon the proud enslavers of mankind!
IN SIGHT OF THE TOWN OF COCKERMOUTH.
Where the Author was born, and his Father's remains are laid.)
A POINT of life between my Parents' dust
And yours, my buried Little-ones! am I;
And to those graves looking habitually,
In kindred quiet I repose my trust.
Death to the innocent is more than just.
And, to the sinner, mercifully bent;
So may I hope, if truly I repent
And meekly bear the ills which bear I must:
And you, my Offspring! that do still remain,
Yet may outstrip me in the appointed race,
If e'er, through fault of mine, in mutual pain
We breathed together for a moment's space,
The wrong, by love provoked, let love arraign.
And only love keep in your hearts a place
ADDRESS FROM THE SPIRIT OF COCKERMOUTH CASTLE.
"THOU look'st upon me, and dost fondly think,
Poet! that, stricken as both are by years,
We, differing once so much, are now Compeers,
Prepared, when each has stood his time, to sink
Into the dust. Erewhile a sterner link
United us; when thou, in boyish play,
Entering my dungeon, didst become a prey
To soul-appalling darkness. Not a blink
Of light was there; - and thus did I, thy Tutor,
Make thy young thoughts acquainted with the
While thou wert chasing the winged butterfly Through my green courts; or climbing, a bold suitor,
Up to the flowers whose golden progeny
Still round my shattered brow in beauty wave."
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