XXIX.-COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE,
SEPT. 3, 1803.
EARTH has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty :
This City now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
I WATCH, and long have watched, with calm regret Yon slowly-sinking star-immortal Sire
(So might he seem) of all the glittering quire!
Blue ether still surrounds him-yet-and yet ;
But now the horizon's rocky parapet
Is reached, where, forfeiting his bright attire,
He burns-transmuted to a sullen fire,
That droops and dwindles—and the appointed debt
To the flying moments paid, is seen no more.
Angels and gods! we struggle with our fate,
While health, power, glory, pitiably decline,
Depressed and then extinguished: and our state
In this how different, lost star, from thine,
That no to-morrow shall our beams restore !
XXXI.-SCENERY BETWEEN NAMUR AND LIEGE.
WHAT lovelier home could gentle Fancy choose?
Is this the Stream, whose cities, heights, and plains,
War's favourite playground, are with crimson stains
Familiar, as the Morn with pearly dews?
The Morn, that now, along the silver MEUSE,
Spreading her peaceful ensigns, calls the swains
To tend their silent boats and ringing wains,
Or strip the bough whose mellow fruit bestrews
The ripening corn beneath it. As mine eyes
Turn from the fortified and threatening hill,
How sweet the prospect of yon watery glade,
With its grey rocks clustering in pensive shade,
That, shaped like old monastic turrets, rise
From the smooth meadow-ground, serene and still !
XXXII.-COMPOSED AT NEIDPATH CASTLE.
DEGENERATE Douglas! oh, the unworthy Lord!
Whom mere despite of heart could so far please,
And love of havoc (for with such disease
Fame taxes him), that he could send forth word
To level with the dust a noble horde,
A brotherhood of venerable Trees,
Leaving an ancient Dome, and Towers like these,
Beggared and outraged !-Many hearts deplored
The fate of those old Trees; and oft with pain
The traveller, at this day, will stop and gaze
On wrongs, which Nature scarcely seems to heed:
For sheltered places, bosoms, nooks, and bays,
And the pure mountains, and the gentle Tweed,
And the green silent pastures, yet remain.
SOLE listener, Duddon! to the breeze that played
With thy clear voice, I caught the fitful sound
Wafted o'er sullen moss and craggy mound,
Unfruitful solitudes, that seemed to upbraid
The sun in heaven!—but now, to form a shade
For Thee, green alders have together wound
Their foliage; ashes flung their arms around;
And birch-trees risen in silver colonnade.
And thou hast also tempted here to rise,
'Mid sheltering pines, this Cottage rude and grey;
Whose ruddy children, by the mother's eyes
Carelessly watched, sport through the summer day
Thy pleased associates :-light as endless May
On infant bosoms lonely Nature lies.
XXXIV.-SEATHWAITE CHAPEL.
SACRED Religion, "mother of form and fear,"
Dread Arbitress of mutable respect,
New rites ordaining when the old are wrecked,
Or cease to please the fickle worshipper;
Mother of Love (that name best suits thee here)
Mother of Love! for this deep vale, protect
Truth's holy lamp, pure source of bright effect,
Gifted to purge the vapoury atmosphere
That seeks to stifle it ;
When this low Pile a Gospel Teacher knew,
Whose good works formed an endless retinue :
A Pastor such as Chaucer's verse pourtrays;
Such as the heaven-taught skill of Herbert drew;
And tender Goldsmith crowned with deathless praise!
RETURN, Content! for fondly I pursued,
Even when a child, the Streams-unheard, unseen;
Through tangled woods, impending rocks between ;
Or, free as air, with flying inquest viewed
The sullen reservoirs whence their bold brood,
Pure as the morning, fretful, boisterous, keen,
Green as the salt-sea billows, white and green,
Poured down the hills, a choral multitude?
Nor have I tracked their course for scanty gains;
They taught me random cares and truant joys,
That shield from mischief and preserve from stains
Vague minds, while men are growing out of boys;
Maturer Fancy owes to their rough noise
Impetuous thoughts that brook not servile reins.
XXXVI.-AFTER-THOUGHT.
I THOUGHT of Thee, my partner and my guide,
As being past away.-Vain sympathies !
For backward, Duddon! as I cast my eyes,
I see what was, and is, and will abide;
Still glides the Stream, and shall not cease to glide; The Form remains, the Function never dies;
While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise,
We Men, who in our morn of youth defied
The elements, must vanish ;-be it so !
Enough, if something from our hands have power
To live, and act, and serve the future hour;
And if, as tow'rd the silent tomb we go,
Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent
We feel that we are greater than we know.
LANCE, shield, and sword relinquished-at his side
A Bead-roll, in his hand a claspèd Book,
Or staff more harmless than a Shepherd's crook,
The war-worn Chieftain quits the world-to hide
His thin autumnal locks where Monks abide
In cloistered privacy. But not to dwell
In soft repose he comes. Within his cell,
Round the decaying trunk of human pride,
At morn, and eve, and midnight's silent hour,
Do penitential cogitations cling:
Like ivy round some ancient elm, they twine
In grisly folds and strictures serpentine ;
Yet, while they strangle without mercy, bring
For recompence their own perennial bower,
CONTENT with calmer scenes around us spread
And humbler objects, give we to a day
Of annual joy one tributary lay;
This day, when, forth by rustic music led,
The village Children, while the sky is red
With evening lights, advance in long array
Through the still Churchyard, each with garland gay,
That, carried sceptre-like, o'ertops the head
Of the proud Bearer. To the wide Church-door,
Charged with these offerings which their Fathers bore
For decoration in the Papal time,
The innocent procession softly moves :
The spirit of Laud is pleased in Heaven's pure clime, And Hooker's voice the spectacle approves !
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