When it reveals, in evening majesty, Features half lost amid their own pure light. Poised like a weary cloud, in middle air He hung, then floated with angelic ease (Softening that bright effulgence by degrees) Till he had reached a summit sharp and bare,

Where oft the venturous heifer drinks the noontide breeze.

Upon the apex of that lofty cone
Alighted, there the Stranger stood alone;
Fair as a gorgeous Fabric of the east
Suddenly raised by some enchanter's power,
Where nothing was; and firm as some old
Tower

Of Britain's realm, whose leafy crest Waves high, embellished by a gleaming shower!

"What if those bright fires Shine subject to decay,

Sons haply of extinguished sires, Themselves to lose their light, or pass away Like clouds before the wind,

Be thanks poured out to Him whose hand bestows,

Nightly, on human kind

That vision of endurance and repose.

-And though to every draught of vital breath

Renewed throughout the bounds of earth or ocean,

The melancholy gates of Death
Respond with sympathetic motion;
Though all that feeds on nether air,
Howe'er magnificent or fair,
Grows but to perish, and entrust
Its ruins to their kindred dust;
Yet, by the Almighty's ever-during care,
Her procreant vigils Nature keeps
Amid the unfathomable deeps;
And saves the peopled fields of earth
From dread of emptiness or dearth.
Thus, in their stations, lifting tow'rd the

sky

The foliaged head in cloud-like majesty,
The shadow-casting race of trees survive:
Thus, in the train of Spring, arrive
Sweet flowers;--what living eye hath viewed
Their myriads ?-endlessly renewed,
Wherever strikes the sun's glad ray;
Where'er the subtle waters stray;
Wherever sportive breezes bend

Their course, or genial showers descend!
Mortals, rejoice! the very Angels quit
Their mansions unsusceptible of change,
Amid your pleasant bowers to sit,

And through your sweet vicissitudes to range!"

IV

Oh, nursed at happy distance from the cares Of a too-anxious world, mild pastoral Muse!

That, to the sparkling crown Urania wears, And to her sister Clio's laurel wreath, Prefer'st a garland culled from purple heath,

Ere shaken by that mood of stern disdain At which the desert trembles. - Humming Bee!

Was such bright Spectacle vouchsafed to me?

And was it granted to the simple ear
Of thy contented Votary
Such melody to hear!

Him rather suits it, side by side with thee,
Wrapped in a fit of pleasing indolence,
While thy tired lute hangs on the hawthorn-
tree,

To lie and listen-till o'er-drowsèd sense
Sinks, hardly conscious of the influence-
To the soft murmur of the vagrant Bee.
-A slender sound! yet hoary Time
Doth to the Soul exalt it with the chime
Of all his years;-a company
Of ages coming, ages gone;
(Nations from before them sweeping,
Regions in destruction steeping,)
But every awful note in unison
With that faint utterance, which tells
Of treasure sucked from buds and bells,
For the pure keeping of those waxen cells;
Where Shea statist prudent to confer
Upon the common weal; a warrior bold,
Radiant all over with unburnished gold,
And armed with living spear for mortal
fight;

A cunning forager
That spreads no waste; a social builder;

one

In whom all busy offices unite

With all fine functions that afford delight— Safe through the winter storm in quiet dwells!

V

And is She brought within the power
Of vision?-o'er this tempting flower
Hovering until the petals stay
Her flight, and take its voice away!—
Observe each wing!—a tiny van!
The structure of her laden thigh,
How fragile! yet of ancestry
Mysteriously remote and high;
High as the imperial front of man;
The roseate bloom on woman's cheek;
The soaring eagle's curvèd beak;
The white plumes of the floating swan;
Old as the tiger's paw, the lion's mane

unknown,

The discerning reader, who is aware that in the poem of Ellen Irwin I was desirous of throwing the reader at once out of the old ballad, so as, if possible, to preclude a comparison between that mode of dealing with the subject and the mode I meant to adopt-may here perhaps perceive that this poem originated in the four last lines of the first stanza. Those specks of snow, reflected in the lake and so transferred, as it were, to the subaqueous sky, reminded me of the swans which the fancy of the ancient classic poets yoked to the car of Venus. Hence the tenor of the whole first stanza, and the name of Lycoris, which-with some readers who think my theology and classical allusion too far-fetched and therefore more or less unnatural and affected-will tend to unrealise the sentiment that pervades these verses. But surely one who has written so much in verse as I have done may be allowed to retrace his steps in the regions of fancy which delighted him in his boyhood, when he first became acquainted with the Greek and Roman Poets. Before I read Virgil I was so strongly attached to Ovid, whose Metamorphoses I read at school, that I was quite in a passion whenever I found him, in books of criticism, placed below Virgil. As to Homer, I was never weary of travelling over the scenes through which he led me. Classical literature affected me by its own beauty. But the truths of scripture having been entrusted to the dead languages, and these fountains having been recently laid open at the Reformation, an importance and a sanctity were at that period attached to classical literature

that extended, as is obvious in Milton's Lycidas, for example, both to its spirit and form in a degree that can never be revived. No doubt the hackneyed and lifeless use into which mythology fell towards the close of the 17th century, and which continued through the 18th, disgusted the general reader with all allusion to it in modern verse; and though, in deference to this disgust, and also in a measure participating in it, I abstained in my earlier writings from all introduction of pagan fable, surely, even in its humble form, it may ally itself with real sentiment, as I can truly affirm it did in the present case.

AN age hath been when Earth was proud
Of lustre too intense

To be sustained; and Mortals bowed
The front in self-defence.

Who then, if Dian's crescent gleamed,
Or Cupid's sparkling arrow streamed
While on the wing the Urchin played,
Could fearlessly approach the shade?
-Enough for one soft vernal day,
If I, a bard of ebbing time,
And nurtured in a fickle clime,
May haunt this horned bay;
Whose amorous water multiplies
The flitting halcyon's vivid dyes;
And smooths her liquid breast-to show
These swan-like specks of mountain snow,
White as the pair that slid along the plains
Of heaven, when Venus held the reins !

In youth we love the darksome lawn
Brushed by the owlet's wing;
Then, Twilight is preferred to Dawn,
And Autumn to the Spring.
Sad fancies do we then affect,

In luxury of disrespect

To our own prodigal excess

Of too familiar happiness.
Lycoris (if such name befit

Thee, thee my life's celestial sign!)
When Nature marks the year's decline,
Be ours to welcome it;

Pleased with the harvest hope that runs
Before the path of milder suns;
Pleased while the sylvan world displays
Its ripeness to the feeding gaze;

Pleased when the sullen winds resound the knell

Of the resplendent miracle.

But something whispers to my heart
That, as we downward tend,
Lycoris! life requires an art
To which our souls must bend;
A skill-to balance and supply;
And, ere the flowing fount be dry,
As soon it must, a sense to sip,
Or drink, with no fastidious lip.
Then welcome, above all, the Guest
Whose smiles, diffused o'er land and sea,
Seem to recall the Deity

Of youth into the breast:

May pensive Autumn ne'er present
A claim to her disparagement!

While blossoms and the budding spray
Inspire us in our own decay;

Still, as we nearer draw to life's dark goal,
Be hopeful Spring the favourite of the Soul!

TO THE SAME

One

This as well as the preceding and the two that follow were composed in front of Rydal Mount and during my walks in the neighbourhood. Nine-tenths of my verses have been murmured out in the open air: and here let me repeat what I believe has already appeared in print. day a stranger having walked round the garden and grounds of Rydal Mount asked one of the female servants, who happened to be at the door, permission to see her master's study. "This,' said she, leading him forward, "is my master's library where he keeps his books, but his study is out of doors.' After a long absence from home it has more than once happened that some one of my cottage neighbours has said-"Well, there he is; we are glad to hear him booing about again." Once more, in excuse for so much egotism, let me say, these notes are written for my familiar friends, and at their earnest request. Another time a gentleman whom James had conducted through the grounds asked him what kind of plants throve best there: after a little consideration he answered

"Laurels." "That is," said the stranger, "as it should be; don't you know that the laurel is the emblem of poetry, and that poets used on public occasions to be crowned with it?" James stared when the question was first put, but was doubtless much pleased with the information.

ENOUGH of climbing toil!-Ambition treads Here, as 'mid busier scenes, ground steep and rough,

Or slippery even to peril! and each step,

As we for most uncertain recompence Mount toward the empire of the fickle clouds,

Each weary step, dwarfing the world below,

Induces, for its old familiar sights,
Unacceptable feelings of contempt,
With wonder mixed-that Man could e'er be
tied,

In anxious bondage, to such nice array
And formal fellowship of petty things!
-Oh! 'tis the heart that magnifies this
life,

Making a truth and beauty of her own; And moss-grown alleys, circumscribing shades,

And gurgling rills, assist her in the work More efficaciously than realms outspread, As in a map, before the adventurer's gaze— Ocean and Earth contending for regard.

The umbrageous woods are left-how far beneath!

But lo! where darkness seems to guard the mouth

Of yon wild cave, whose jagged brows are

fringed

With flaccid threads of ivy, in the still
And sultry air, depending motionless.
Yet cool the space within, and not uncheered
(As whoso enters shall ere long perceive)
By stealthy influx of the timid day

Mingling with night, such twilight to

compose

As Numa loved; when, in the Egerian grot,

From the sage Nymph appearing at his wish,

He gained whate'er a regal mind might ask,

Or need, of counsel breathed through lips divine.

Long as the heat shall rage, let that dim

cave

Protect us, there deciphering as we may
Diluvian records; or the sighs of Earth
Interpreting; or counting for old Time
His minutes, by reiterated drops,

Audible tears, from some invisible source
That deepens upon fancy-more and more
Drawn toward the centre whence those
sighs creep forth

To awe the lightness of humanity:
Or, shutting up thyself within thyself,
There let me see thee sink into a mood

Duty, like a strict preceptor,
Sometimes frowns, or seems to frown;
Choose her thistle for thy sceptre,
While youth's roses are thy crown.

Grasp it,-if thou shrink and tremble,
Fairest damsel of the green,
Thou wilt lack the only symbol
That proclaims a genuine queen;

And ensures those palms of honour
Which selected spirits wear,
Bending low before the Donor,
Lord of heaven's unchanging year!
1817.

HINT FROM THE MOUNTAINS FOR CERTAIN POLITICAL PRETENDERS

Bunches of fern may often be seen wheeling about in the wind as here described. The particular bunch that suggested these verses was noticed in the Pass of Dunmail Raise. The verses were composed in 1817, but the application is for all times and places.

"WHO but hails the sight with pleasure When the wings of genius rise, Their ability to measure

With great enterprise;

But in man was ne'er such daring
As yon Hawk exhibits, pairing
His brave spirit with the war in
The stormy skies!

"Mark him, how his power he uses,
Lays it by, at will resumes!
Mark, ere for his haunt he chooses
Clouds and utter glooms!
There, he wheels in downward mazes;
Sunward now his flight he raises,
Catches fire, as seems, and blazes
With uninjured plumes!"-

ANSWER

'Stranger, 'tis no act of courage Which aloft thou dost discern; No bold bird gone forth to forage 'Mid the tempest stern; But such mockery as the nations See, when public perturbations Lift men from their native stations Like yon TUFT OF FERN;