A TRADITION OF OKER HILL IN DARLEY DALE, DERBYSHIRE.

"TIS said that to the brow of yon fair hill
Two Brothers clomb, and, turning face from
face,

Nor one look more exchanging, grief to still
Or feed, each planted on that lofty place
A chosen Tree: then, eager to fulfil
Their courses, like two new-born rivers, they
In opposite directions urged their way
Down from the far-seen mount. No blast
might kill

Or blight that fond memorial;-the trees grew,
And now entwine their arms; but ne'er again
Embraced those. Brothers upon Earth's wide
plain;

Nor aught of mutual joy or sorrow knew
Until their spirits mingled in the sea
That to itself takes all, Eternity.

XXIII.

LIAL PIETY.

(ON THE WAYSIDE BETWEEN PRESTON AND LIVERPOOL.)

UNTOUCHED through all severity of cold;
Inviolate, whate'er the cottage hearth
Might need for comfort, or for festal mirth;
That Pile of Turf is half a century old:
Yes, Traveller! fifty winters have been told
Since suddenly the dart of death went forth
'Gainst him who raised it,-his last work on
earth:

Thence has it, with the Son, so strong a hold
Upon his Father's memory, that his hands,
Through reverence, touch it only to repair
Its waste. -Though crumbling with each
breath of air,

In annual renovation thus it stands-
Rude Mausoleum! but wrens nestle there,
And red-breasts warble when sweet sounds are

TO B. R. HAYDON, ON SEEING HIS PICTURE OF
NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE ON THE ISLAND OF
ST HELENA.

HAYDON! let worthier judges praise the skill
Here by thy pencil shown in truth of lines
And charm of colours; I applaud those signs
Of thought, that give the true poetic thrill;
That unencumbered whole of blank and still,
Sky without cloud-ocean without a wave;
And the one Man that laboured to enslave
The World, sole-standing high on the bare hill-
Back turned, arms folded, the unapparent face
Tinged, we may fancy, in this dreary place
With light reflected from the invisible sun
Set, like his fortunes; but not set for aye
Like them. The unguilty Power pursues his

A POET!-He hath put his heart to school,
Nor dares to move unpropped upon the staff
Which Art hath lodged within his hand-must
laugh

By precept only, and shed tears by rule.
Thy Art be Nature; the live current quaff,
And let the groveller sip his stagnant pool,
In fear that else, when Critics grave and cool
Have killed him, Scorn should write his epitaph.
How does the Meadow-flower its bloom unfold?
Because the lovely little flower is free
Down to its root, and, in that freedom, bold;
And so the grandeur of the Forest-tree
Comes not by casting in a formal mould,
But from its own divine vitality.

XXVIII.

THE most alluring clouds that mount the sky
Owe to a troubled element their forms,
Their hues to sunset. If with raptured eye
We watch their splendour, shall we covet storms,
And wish the Lord of day his slow decline
Would hasten, that such pomp may float on

Of pure delight, come whencesoe'er it may,
Peace let us seek, -to stedfast things attune
Calm expectations: leaving to the gay
And volatile their love of transient bowers,
The house that cannot pass away be ours.
XXIX.

ON A PORTRAIT OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON
UPON THE FIELD OF WATERLOO, BY HAYDON.
By Art's bold privilege Warrior and War-horse
stand

On ground yet strewn with their last battle wreck;

Let the Steed glory while his Master's hand
Lies fixed for ages on his conscious neck;
But by the Chieftain's look, though at his side
Hangs that day's treasured sword, how firm a
check

Is given to triumph and all human pride!
Yon trophied Mound shrinks to a shadowy speck
In his calm presence! Him the mighty deed
Elates not, brought far nearer the grave's rest,
As shows that time-worn face, for he such seed
Has sown as yields, we trust, the fruit of fame
In Heaven; hence no one blushes for thy name,
Conqueror, mid some sad thoughts, divinely

blest!

Lo! where she stands fixed in a saint-like trance,

One upward hand, as if she needed rest
From rapture, lying softly on her breast!
Nor wants her eyeball an ethereal glance;
But not the less-nay more-that countenance,
While thus illumined, tells of painful strife
For a sick heart made weary of this life
By love, long crossed with adverse circumstance.
-Would She were now as when she hoped to
pass

At God's appointed hour to them who tread
Heaven's sapphire pavement; yet breathed well

content,

Well pleased, her foot should print earth's

common grass,

Lived thankful for day's light, for daily bread, For health, and time in obvious duty spent.

XXXII.

TO A PAINTER.

ALL praise the Likeness by thy skill portrayed; But 'tis a fruitless task to paint for me,

ON THE SAME SUBJECT. THOUGH I beheld at first with blank surprise This Work, I now have gazed on it so long I see its truth with unreluctant eyes; O, my Beloved! I have done thee wrong, Conscious of blessedness, but, whence it sprung, Ever too heedless, as I now perceive: Morn into noon did pass, noon into eve, And the old day was welcome as the young, As welcome, and as beautiful-in sooth More beautiful, as being a thing more holy: Thanks to thy virtues, to the eternal youth Of all thy goodness, never melancholy; To thy large heart and humble mind, that cast Into one vision, future, present, past.

XXXIV.

HARK! 'tis the Thrush, undaunted, undeprest,
Nor does that roaring wind deaden his strain
By twilight premature of cloud and rain;"
Who carols thinking of his Love and nest,
And seems, as more incited, still more blest.
Thanks; thou hast snapped a fire-side Prisoner's
chain,

Exulting Warbler! eased a fretted brain,
Yes, I will forth, bold Bird! and front the blast,
And in a moment charmed my cares to rest.
That we may sing together, if thou wilt,

So loud, so clear, my Partner through life's day,
Mute in her nest love-chosen, if not love-built
Like thine, shall gladden, as in seasons past,
Thrilled by loose snatches of the social Lay.
Rydal Mount, 1838.

XXXV.

'Tis He whose yester-evening's high disdain
Beat back the roaring storm-but how subdued
His day-break note, a sad vicissitude!
Does the hour's drowsy weight his glee restrain?
Or, like the nightingale, her joyous vein
Pleased to renounce, does this dear Thrush

attune

His voice to suit the temper of yon Moon
Doubly depressed, setting, and in her wane?
Rise, tardy Sun! and let the Songster prove
(The balance trembling between night and morn
No longer) with what ecstasy upborne
He can pour forth his spirit. In heaven above,
And earth below, they best can serve true glad-

ness

Who meet most feelingly the calls of sadness.

XXXVI.

OH what a Wreck! how changed in mien and speech! Yet-though dread mystery, spin

Powers, that work in

Deep in the vale a little rural Town*

Breathes forth a cloud-like creature of its own, That mounts not toward the radiant morning sky,

But, with a less ambitious sympathy,

Hangs o'er its Parent waking to the cares,
Troubles and toils that every day prepares.
So Fancy, to the musing Poet's eye,
Endears that Lingerer. And how blest her
sway

(Like influence never may my soul reject)
If the calm Heaven, now to its zenith decked
With glorious forms in numberless array,
To the lone shepherd on the hills disclose
Gleams from a world in which the saints repose.
Jan. 1, 1843.

XLIV.

IN my mind's eyes a Temple, like a cloud
Slowly surmounting some invidious hill,
Rose out of darkness: the bright Work stood

still:

And might of its own beauty have been proud,
But it was fashioned and to God was vowed
By Virtues that diffused, in every part,
Spirit divine through forms of human art;
Faith had her arch-her arch, when winds blow
loud,

Into the consciousness of safety thrilled;

And Love her towers of dread foundation laid Under the grave of things; Hope had her spire Star-high, and pointing still to something higher; Trembling I gazed, but heard a voice-it said, "Hell-gates are powerless Phantoms when we build."

Now, for your shame, a Power, the Thirst of Gold,

That rules o'er Britain like a baneful star, Wills that your peace, your beauty, shall be sold,

And clear way made for her triumphal car Through the beloved retreats your arms enfold! Heard YE that Whistle? As her long-linked

XLVIII.

AT FURNESS ABBEY.

WELL have yon Railway Labourers to THIS ground

Withdrawn for noontide rest. They sit, they walk

Among the Ruins, but no idle talk

Is heard; to grave demeanour all are bound; And from one voice a Hymn with tuneful sound Hallows once more the long-deserted Quire And thrills the old sepulchral earth, around. Others look up, and with fixed eyes admire That wide-spanned arch, wondering how it was raised,

To keep, so high in air, its strength and grace: All seem to feel the spirit of the place,

And by the general reverence God is praised: Profane Despoilers, stand ye not reproved, While thus these simple-hearted men are moved?

June 21st, 1845.

FROM THE VALE OF GRASMERE. AUGUST, 1803.
THE gentlest Shade that walked Elysian plains
Might sometimes covet dissoluble chains;
Even for the tenants of the zone that lies
Beyond the stars, celestial Paradise,
Methinks 'twould heighten joy to overleap
At will the crystal battlements, and peep
Into some other region, though less fair,

To see how things are made and managed there. Change for the worse might please, incursion bold

Into the tracts of darkness and of cold;
O'er Limbo lake with aëry flight to steer,
And on the verge of Chaos hang in fear.
Such animation often do I find,

Power in my breast, wings growing in my mind,
Then, when some rock or hill is overpast,
Perchance without one look behind me cast,
Some barrier with which Nature, from the birth
Of things, has fenced this fairest spot on earth.
O pleasant transit, Grasmere ! to resign
Such happy fields, abodes so calm as thine;
Not like an outcast with himself at strife;
The slave of business, time, or care for life,
But moved by choice; or, if constrained in part,
Yet still with Nature's freedom at the heart;-
To cull contentment upon wildest shores,
And luxuries extract from bleakest moors;
With prompt embrace all beauty to enfold,
And having rights in all that we behold.
-Then why these lingering steps?-A bright

adieu,

For a brief absence, proves that love is true;
Ne'er can the way be irksome or forlorn
That winds into itself for sweet return.

II.

AT THE GRAVE OF BURNS.

1803.

SEVEN YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH.

I SHIVER, Spirit fierce and bold,
At thought of what I now behold:
As vapours breathed from dungeons cold
Strike pleasure dead,

So sadness comes from out the mould
Where Burns is laid.

And have I then thy bones so near,
And thou forbidden to appear?
As if it were thyself that's here
I shrink with pain;

And both my wishes and my feat

Alike are vain.

Off weight-nor press on weight!-away Dark thoughts!-they came, but not to stay; With chastened feelings would I pay

The tribute due

To him, and aught that hides his clay
From mortal view.

Fresh as the flower, whose modest worth
He sang, his genius "glinted" forth,
Rose like a star that touching earth,
For so it seems,

Doth glorify its humble birth

With matchless beams.

The piercing eye, the thoughtful brow,
The struggling heart, where be they now?-
Full soon the Aspirant of the plough,
The prompt, the brave,
Slept, with the obscurest, in the low
And silent grave.

I mourned with thousands, but as one
More deeply grieved, for He was gone
Whose light I hailed when first it shone,
And showed my youth

How Verse may build a princely throne
On humble truth.

Alas! where'er the current tends,
Regret pursues and with it blends,-
Huge Criffel's hoary top ascends
By Skiddaw seen,--
Neighbours we were, and loving friends
We might have been ;

True friends though diversely inclined;
But heart with heart and mind with mind,
Where the main fibres are entwined,

Through Nature's skill,

May even by contraries be joined
More closely still.

The tear will start, and let it flow;
Thou "poor Inhabitant below,"
At this dread moment-even so-

Might we together

Have sate and talked where gowans blow, Or on wild heather.