There are who ask not if thine eye Be on them; who, in love and truth, Where no misgiving is, rely Upon the genial sense of youth: Glad Hearts! without reproach or blot; Who do thy work, and know it not: Oh! if through confidence misplaced They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power! around them cast. Serene will be our days and bright, When love is an unerring light, And joy its own security. And they a blissful course may hold Yet seek thy firm support, according to their need. I, loving freedom, and untried; The task, in smoother walks to stray; XX. CHARACTER OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR. WHO is the happy Warrior? Who is he In face of these doth exercise a power But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may. So often that demand such sacrifice; Through no disturbance of my soul, Or strong compunction in me wrought, But in the quietness of thought: Me this unchartered freedom tires; My hopes no more must change their name, Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear The Godhead's most benignant grace; Nor know we any thing so fair As is the smile upon thy face: To humbler functions, awful Power! I call thee: I myself commend The spirit of self-sacrifice; The confidence of reason give; More skilful in self-knowledge, even more pure, As tempted more; more able to endure, As more exposed to suffering and distress; Thence, also, more alive to tenderness. Upon that law as on the best of friends; And in himself possess his own desire; Or mild concerns of ordinary life, A constant influence, a peculiar grace; But who, if he be called upon to face And in the light of truth thy Bondman let me live! Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined 1805. Great issues, good or bad for human kind, Is happy as a Lover; and attired With sudden brightness, like a Man inspired; And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw; Or if an unexpected call succeed, Come when it will, is equal to the need: -He who, though thus endued as with a sense It is his darling passion to approve; More brave for this, that he hath much to love :— ΧΧΙ. THE FORCE OF PRAYER *; OR, 1806. THE FOUNDING OF BOLTON PRIORY. A TRADITION. "What is good for a bootless bene?” "What is good for a bootless bene?” And she made answer "ENDLESS SORROW!" * See the White Doe of Rylstone. She knew it by the Falconer's words, And from the look of the Falconer's eye; And from the love which was in her soul For her youthful Romilly. -Young Romilly through Barden woods And holds a greyhound in a leash, The pair have reached that fearful chasm, For lordly Wharf is there pent in This striding-place is called THE STRID, A thousand years hath it borne that name, And hither is young Romilly come, That he, perhaps for the hundredth time, He sprang in glee,—for what cared he But the greyhound in the leash hung back, The Boy is in the arms of Wharf, Now there is stillness in the vale, And long, unspeaking, sorrow: Wharf shall be to pitying hearts A name more sad than Yarrow. If for a lover the Lady wept, A solace she might borrow From death, and from the passion of death;Old Wharf might heal her sorrow. She weeps not for the wedding-day He was a tree that stood alone, Her darling Alfred, might have spoken; To cheer the remnant of his host Long, long in darkness did she sit, And her first words were, "Let there be In Bolton, on the field of Wharf, A stately Priory!" The stately Priory was reared; To matins joined a mournful voice, And the Ledy prayed in heaviness But slowly did her succour come, Ch: there is never sorrow of heart That shall lack a timely end, If but to God we turn, and ask 1808. When he was driven from coast to coast, Distressed and harassed, but with mind unbroken: "My faithful followers, lo! the tide is spent Of humbler name; whose souls do, like the flood 1816. XXII. A FACT, AND AN IMAGINATION; OR, CANUTE AND ALFRED, ON THE SEA-SHORE. THE Danish Conqueror, on his royal chair, Mustering a face of haughty sovereignty, To and a covert purpose, cried-"O ye Approaching Waters of the deep, that share With this green isle my fortunes, come not where Your Master's throne is set."-Deaf was the Sea; fler waves rolled on, respecting his decree Less than they heed a breath of wanton air. ! -Then Canute, rising from the invaded throne, Said to his servile Courtiers," Poor the reach, The undisguised extent, of mortal sway! He only is a King, and he alone Deserves the name (this truth the billows preach) Whose everlasting laws, sea, earth, and heaven, obey." This just reproof the prosperous Dane Drew from the influx of the main, For some whose rugged northern mouths would strain At oriental flattery; And Canute (fact more worthy to be known) Now hear what one of elder days, XXIII. 'A LITTLE onward lend thy guiding hand Nor he, nor minister of his-intent To run before him, hath enrolled me yet, thought, For pastime plunge-into the abrupt abyss,' Where ravens spread their plumy vans, at ease! And yet more gladly thee would I conduct Through woods and spacious forests,-to behold There, how the Original of human art, Heaven-prompted Nature, measures and erects Her temples, fearless for the stately work, Though waves, to every breeze, its high-arched roof, In the still summer noon, while beams of light, Who then, if Dian's crescent gleamed, Or Cupid's sparkling arrow streamed While on the wing the Urchin played, Could fearlessly approach the shade? --Enough for one soft vernal day, If I, a bard of ebbing time, And nurtured in a fickle clime, May haunt this horned bay; Whose amorous water multiplies The flitting halcyon's vivid dyes; And smooths her liquid breast-to show These swan-like specks of mountain snow, White as the pair that slid along the plains Of heaven, when Venus held the reins! In youth we love the darksome lawn Pleased with the harvest hope that runs Pleased while the sylvan world displays Its ripeness to the feeding gaze; Pleased when the sullen winds resound the knell Of the resplendent miracle. But something whispers to my heart Whose smiles, diffused o'er land and sea, Of youth into the breast: May pensive Autumn ne'er present Still, as we nearer draw to life's dark goal, XXV. TO THE SAME ENOUGH of climbing toil!-Ambition treads With wonder mixed-that Man could e'er be tied, In anxious bondage, to such nice array More efficaciously than realms outspread, As in a map, before the adventurer's gaze Ocean and Earth contending for regard. The umbrageous woods are left-how far beneath! But lo! where darkness seems to guard the mouth Of yon wild cave, whose jagged brows are fringed With flaccid threads of ivy, in the still And sultry air, depending motionless. Yet cool the space within, and not uncheered (As whoso enters shall ere long perceive) By stealthy influx of the timid day Mingling with night, such twilight to compose As Numa loved; when, in the Egerian grot, From the sage Nymph appearing at his wish, He gained whate'er a regal mind might ask, Or need, of counsel breathed through lips divine. Long as the heat shall rage, let that dim cave Protect us, there deciphering as we may Diluvian records; or the sighs of Earth Interpreting; or counting for old Time His minutes, by reiterated drops, Audible tears, from some invisible source That deepens upon fancy-more and more Drawn toward the centre whence those sighs creep To awe the lightness of humanity. Or, shutting up thyself within thyself, There let me see thee sink into a mood [forth And, sooth to say, yon vocal grove, Albeit uninspired by love, By love untaught to ring, May well afford to mortal ear An impulse more profoundly dear Than music of the Spring. For that from turbulence and heat This, this is holy;-while I hear These vespers of another year, This hymn of thanks and praise, My spirit seems to mount above The anxieties of human love, And earth's precarious days. But list!-though winter storms be nigh, XXVII. UPON THE SAME OCCASION. DEPARTING summer hath assumed No faint and hesitating trill, Nor doth the example fail to cheer Fall, rosy garlands, from my head! |