Mailed and horsed, with lance and sword, To his ancestors restored,

Like a re-appearing star,

Like a glory from afar,

First shall head the flock of war!"

Alas! the fervent harper did not know That for a tranquil soul the lay was framed, Who, long compelled in humble walks to go, Was softened into feeling, soothed, and tamed

lie;

Love had he found in huts where poor men
[rills,
His daily teachers had been woods and
The silence that is in the starry sky,
The sleep that is among the lonely hills.

In him the savage virtue of the race, Revenge, and all ferocious thoughts were dead :

Nor did he change; but kept in lofty place The wisdom which adversity had bred.

Glad were the vales, and every cottage hearth; [and more: The shepherd lord was honoured more And, ages after he was laid in earth, "The good Lord Clifford' was the name he bore.

"

THE ECHO.

YES, it was the mountain echo, Solitary, clear, profound, Answering to the shouting cuckoo, Giving to her sound for sound!

Unsolicited reply

To a babbling wanderer sent;
Like her ordinary cry.
Like-but oh, how different!

Hears not also mortal life?
Hear not we, unthinking creatures!
Slaves of folly, love, and strife,
Voices of two different natures?

Have not we too ;-yes, we have
Answers, and we know not whence;
Echoes from beyond the grave,
Recognised intelligence?

Such rebounds our inward ear
Often catches from afar ;—
Giddy mortals! hold them dear;
For of God,-of God they are.

strain,

To the last point of vision, and beyond, Mount, daring warbler! that love-prompted (Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond) Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain: Yet mightst thou seem, proud privilege! to All independent of the leafy spring. [sing

Leave to the nightingale her shady wood; A privacy of glorious light is thine; [flood Whence thou dost pour upon the world a Of harmony, with rapture more divine; Type of the wise who soar, but never roam; True to the kindred points of heaven and home!

It is no spirit who from heaven hath flown,
And is descending on his embassy;
Nor traveller gone from earth the heavens
to espy!

'Tis Hesperus-there he stands with glit tering crown,

First admonition that the sun is down !
For yet it is broad daylight! clouds pass
by.

A few are near him still-and now the sky,
He hath it to himself-'tis all bis own.
O most ambitious star! thy presence
brought

A startling recollection to my mind
Of the distinguished few among mankind,
Who dare to step beyond their natural

race,

As thou seem'st now to do: nor was a thought

Denied that even I might one day trace Some ground not mine; and, strong her strength above,

My soul, an apparition in the place, Tread there, with steps that no one shall reprove!

FRENCH REVOLUTION,

AS IT APPEARED TO ENTHUSIASTS AT
ITS COMMENCEMENT.* REPRINTED
FROM "THE FRIEND.'

OH! pleasant exercise of hope and joy ! For mighty were the auxiliars, which then stood

Upon our side, we who were strong in love!
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven !-Oh!
times,

In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways
Of custom, law, and statute, took at once
The attraction of a country in romance!
When reason seemed the most to assert her
rights,

When most intent on making of herself A prime enchantress-to assist the work, Which then was going forward in her name! Not favoured spots alone, but the whole ¡earth, [sets The beauty wore of promise-that which (To take an image which was felt no doubt Among the bowers of paradise itself) The budding rose above the rose full blown. What temper at the prospect did not wake To happiness unthought of? The inert Were roused, and lively natures rapt away! They who had fed their childhood upon dreams,

The playfellows of fancy, who had made All powers of swiftness, subtilty, and strength [stirred Their ministers,-who in lordly wise had Among the grandest objects of the sense, And dealt with whatsoever they found there As if they had within some lurking right To wield it; they, too, who of gentle mood Had watched all gentle motions, and to these

Had fitted their own thoughts, schemers more mild,

And in the region of their peaceful selves; Now was it that both found, the meek and lofty

Did both find helpers to their heart's desire, And stuff at hand, plastic as they could wish,

Were called upon to exercise their skill,
Not in Utopia,-subterraneous fields,-

This, and the extract ("The Influence of Natural Objects"), page 28, and the first piece of this class, are from the unpublished poem of which some account is given in the preface to "The Excursion.".

THE PASS OF KIRKSTONE.

WITHIN the mind strong fancies work,
A deep delight the bosom thrills,
Oft as I pass along the fork
Of these fraternal hills :
Where, save the rugged road, we find
No appanage of human kind;
Nor hint of man; if stone or rock
Seem not his handy-work to mock
By something cognizably shaped ;
Mockery-or model roughly hewn,
And left as if by earthquake strewn,
Or from the flood escaped :--
Altars for Druid service fit ;
(But where no fire was ever lit,
Unless the glow-worm to the skies
Thence offer nightly acrifice;
Wrinkled Egyptian monument;
Green moss-grown tower; or hoary tent;
Tents of a camp that never shall be raised;
On which four thousand years have gazed!

Ye plough-shares sparkling on the slopes !
Ye snow-white lambs that trip
Imprisoned 'mid the formal props
Of restless ownership!

Ye trees, that may to-morrow fall
To feed the insatiate prodigal !
Lawns, houses, chattels, groves, and fields,
All that the fertile valley shields;
Wages of folly-baits of crime,—
Of life's uneasy game the stake,
Playthings that keep the eyes awake
Of drowsy, dotard time ;---

O care! O guilt !-O vales and plains,
Here, 'mid his own unvexed domains,
A genius dwells, that can subdue
At once all memory of you,
Most potent when mists veil the sky,
Mists that distort and magnify; [breeze,
While the coarse rushes, to the sweeping
Sigh forth their ancient melodies!

List to those shriller notes! that march
Perchance was on the blast,
When, through this height's inverted arch,
Rome's earliest legion passed!
They saw, adventurously impelled,
And older eyes than theirs beheld,

frame

Gives to the savage pass its name.
Aspiring road! that lov'st to hide
Thy daring in a vapoury bourn,
Not seldom may the hour return
When thou shalt be my guide;
And I (as often we find cause,
When life is at a weary pause,
And we have panted up the hill
Of duty with reluctant will)

Be thankful, even though tired and faint,
For the rich bounties of constraint;
Whence oft invigorating transports flow
'That choice lacked courage to bestow.

My soul was grateful for delight
That wore a threatening brow;
A veil is lifted-can she slight
The scene that opens now!
Though habitation none appear,
The greenness tells, man must be there;
The shelter-that the perspective
Is of the clime in which we live ;
Where toil pursues his daily round;
Where pity sheds sweet tears, and love,
In woodbine bower or birchen grove,
Inflicts his tender wound.

Who comes not hither ne'er shall know
How beautiful the world below;
Nor can he guess how lightly leaps
The brook adown the rocky steeps.
Farewell, thou desolate domain !
Hope, pointing to the cultured plain,
Carols like a shepherd-boy;

And who is she?-Can that be joy!
Who, with a sunbeam for her guide,
Smoothly skims the meadows wide;
While faith, from yonder opening clou
To hill and vale proclaims aloud,
"Whate'er the weak may dread,
wicked dare,

the

Thy lot, O man, is good, thy portion fair!"

EVENING ODE,

With modulated echoes rang,
While choirs of fervent angels sang
Their vespers in the grove;

Theight,
Or, ranged like stars along some sovereign
Warbled, for heaven above and earth below.
Strains suitable to both.-Such holy rite,
Methinks, if audibly repeated now
From hill or valley, could not move
Sublimer transport, purer love,
Than doth this silent spectacle-the gleam-
The shadow-and the peace supreme !

No sound is uttered,-but a deep
And solemn harmony pervades
The hollow vale from steep to steep,
And penetrates the glades.
Far-distant images draw nigh,
Called forth by wondrous potency
Of beamy radiance, that imbues
Whate'er it strikes, with gem-like hues
In vision exquisitely clear,

Herds range along the mountain side;
And glistening antlers are descried ;:
And gilded flocks appear.

Thine is the tranquil hour, purpureal eve!
But long as god-like wish, or hope divine,
Informs my spirit, ne'er can I believe
That this magnificence is wholly thine!
From worlds not quickened by the sun
A portion of the gift is won;

An intermingling of heaven's pomp is spread
On ground which British shepherds tread!

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, uhremembered acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world, [mood,
Is lightened: that serene and blessed
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:
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
While with an eye made quiet by the power
We see into the life of things.

If this

And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,

With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,

thoughts

That in this moment there is life and food For future years. And so I dare to hope, Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first

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, ...[then Who sought the thing he loved. For nature (The coarser pleasures of my boyish days, And their glad animal movements all gone by)

than one

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,
[to me
Their colours and their forms, were then
An appetite: a feeling and a love.
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, or any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.-That time
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 followed, for such loss, I would
believe,

Abundant recompense. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing often.
The still, sad music of humanity, [times
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample
power

To chasten and subdue. And I have felt.
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all
thought,
[am I still
And rolls through all things. Therefore
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,

This line has a close resemblance to an admirable line of Young, the exact expression of which I cannot recollect.

Suffer my genial spirits to decay :
For thou art with me, here upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou, my dearest friend,
My dear, dear friend, and in thy voice I
catch

The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once,
My dear, dear sister! and this prayer I
make,

Knowing that 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,
[men,

Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or 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,
Should be thy portion, with what healing
thoughts

Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance

If I should be where I no more can hear Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes

these gleams

Of past existence-wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshipper of nature, hither came,

I