And lives there one, of all that come and go
On the great waters, toiling to and fro,
One, who has watched thee at some quiet hour,
Enthroned aloft in undisputed power,
Or crossed by vapory streaks and clouds that move
Catching the lustre they in part reprove,
Nor sometimes felt a fitness in thy sway
To call up thoughts that shun the glare of day, And make the serious happier than the gay?
Yes, lovely Moon! if thou so mildly bright Dost rouse, yet surely in thy own despite, To fiercer mood the frenzy-stricken brain, Let me a compensating faith maintain ; — That there's a sensitive, a tender part Which thou canst touch in every human heart, For healing and composure. But, as least And mightiest billows ever have confessed Thy domination; as the whole vast Sea Feels through her lowest depths thy sovereignty; So shines that countenance with especial grace On them who urge the keel her plains to trace, Furrowing its way right onward. The most rude, Cut off from home and country, may have stood, Even till long gazing hath bedimmed his eye, Or the mute rapture ended in a sigh, Touched by accordance of thy placid cheer, With some internal lights to memory dear, Or fancies stealing forth to soothe the breast, Tired with its daily share of earth's unrest,
From the close confines of a shadowy vale.
Glory of night, conspicuous yet serene,
Nor less attractive when by glimpses seen
Through cloudy umbrage, well might that fair face,
And all those attributes of modest grace,
In days when Fancy wrought unchecked by fear,
Down to the green earth fetch thee from thy sphere
To sit in leafy woods by fountains clear!
O still beloved, (for thine, meek Power, are charms
While he, uplifted towards thee, laughs outright,
Spreading his little palms in his glad Mother's sight,)
O still beloved, once worshipped! Time, that
frowns
In his destructive flight on earthly crowns,
Spares thy mild splendor; still those far-shot beams
Tremble on dancing waves and rippling streams
With stainless touch, as chaste as when thy praise
Was sung by Virgin-choirs in festal lays ;
And through dark trials still dost thou explore
Thy way for increase punctual as of yore,
When teeming Matrons
yielding to rude faith In mysteries of birth and life and death
And painful struggle and deliverance - prayed
Of thee to visit them with lenient aid.
What though the rites be swept away, the fanes Extinct that echoed to the votive strains;
Yet thy mild aspect does not, cannot, cease
The fair Endymion couched on Latmos hill;
And Dian gazing on the Shepherd's face
In rapture, yet suspending her embrace,
As not unconscious with what power the thrill
Of her most timid touch his sleep would chase,
And, with his sleep, that beauty calm and still.
O may this work have found its last retreat
Here in a Mountain-bard's secure abode!
One to whom, yet a School-boy, Cynthia showed
A face of love which he in love would greet,
Fixed, by her smile, upon some rocky seat,
Or lured along where greenwood paths he trod.
RYDAL MOUNT, 1846.
WHO but is pleased to watch the moon on high
Travelling where she from time to time enshrouds
Her head, and nothing loth her majesty
Renounces, till among the scattered clouds
One with its kindling edge declares that soon
Will reappear before the uplifted eye
A Form as bright, as beautiful a moon,
To glide in open prospect through clear sky.
Pity that such a promise e'er should prove
False in the issue, that yon seeming space
Of sky should be in truth the steadfast face
Of a cloud flat and dense, through which must move
(By transit not unlike man's frequent doom)
The Wanderer lost in more determined gloom.
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