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."
To thy first hope, and this good work pursue,
Poor as thou art. A welcome sacrifice
Dost thou prepare, whose sign will be the smoke
Of thy new hearth; and sooner shall its wreaths,
Mounting while earth her morning incense breathes,
From wandering fiends of air receive a yoke,
And straightway cease to aspire, than God disdain
This humble tribute as ill-timed or vain.
(Landing at the Mouth of the Derwent, Workington.)
DEAR to the Loves, and to the Graces vowed,
The Queen drew back the wimple that she wore ;
And to the throng, that on the Cumbrian shore
Her landing hailed, how touchingly she bowed!
And like a Star (that, from a heavy cloud
Of pine-tree foliage poised in air, forth darts,
When a soft summer gale at evening parts
The gloom that did its loveliness enshroud)
She smiled; but Time, the old Saturnian seer,
Sighed on the wing as her foot pressed the strand,
With step prelusive to a long array
Of woes and degradations hand in hand,-
Weeping captivity, and shuddering fear
Stilled by the ensanguined block of Fotheringay!
Breathed the same element; too many wrecks Have struck thy sides, too many ghastly decks Hast thou looked down upon, that such a thought Should here be welcome, and in verse enwrought: With thy stern aspect better far agrees
Utterance of thanks, that we have past with ease, As millions thus shall do, the Headlands of St. Bees.
Yet, while each useful Art augments her store,
What boots the gain if Nature should lose more?
And Wisdom, as she holds a Christian place
In man's intelligence sublimed by grace?
When Bega sought of yore the Cumbrian coast,
Tempestuous winds her holy errand crossed:
She knelt in prayer,
the waves their wrath ap-
And from her vow, well weighed in Heaven's de
Rose, where she touched the strand, the Chantry of St. Bees.
"Cruel of heart were they, bloody of hand,"
Who in these wilds then struggled for command;
The strong were merciless, without hope the weak;
Till this bright Stranger came, fair as daybreak,
And as a cresset true that darts its length
Of beamy lustre from a tower of strength;
Guiding the mariner through troubled seas,
And cheering oft his peaceful reveries,
Like the fixed Light that crowns yon Headland of
St. Bees.
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