TO THE TORRENT AT THE DEVIL'S
BRIDGE, NORTH WALES.
How art thou named? In search of what strange land, From what huge height, descending? Can such force Of waters issue from a British source?
Or hath not Pindus fed thee, where the band
Of patriots scoop their freedom out, with hand Desperate as thine? Or, come the incessant shocks From that young stream, that smites the throbbing rocks Of Via Mala? There I seem to stand,
As in life's morn; permitted to behold,
From the dread chasm, woods climbing above woods
In pomp that fades not, everlasting snows,
And skies that ne'er relinquish their repose:
Such power possess the family of floods
Over the minds of poets, young or old!
THOUGH narrow be that old man's cares, and near,
The poor old man is greater than he seems:
For he hath waking empire, wide as dreams :
An ample sovereignty of eye and ear.
Rich are his walks with supernatural cheer;
The region of his inner spirit teems
With vital sounds and monitory gleams
Of high astonishment and pleasing fear.
He the seven birds hath seen, that never part;
Seen the Seven Whistlers in their nightly rounds,
And counted them: and oftentimes will start-
For overhead are sweeping Gabriel's hounds,
Doomed, with their impious lord, the flying hart
To chase for ever, on aërial grounds!
TO A REDBREAST.
STRANGE visitation? at Jemima's lip
Thus hadst thou pecked, wild redbreast! Love might say, A half-blown rose had tempted thee to sip
Its glistening dews; but hallowed is the clay
Which the muse warms; and I, whose head is gray,
Am not unworthy of thy fellowship;
Nor could I let one thought-one motion-slip
That might thy sylvan confidence betray.
For are we not all his, without whose care
Vouchsafed, no sparrow falleth to the ground?
Who gives his angels wings to speed through air,
And rolls the planets through the blue profound;
Then peck or perch, fond flutterer! nor forbear
To trust a poet in still vision bound.
WHEN Philoctetes in the Lemnian isle
Lay couched-upon that breathless monument,
On him, or on his fearful bow unbent,
Some wild bird oft might settle, and beguile
The rigid features of a transient smile,
Disperse the tear, or to the sigh give vent,
Slackening the pains of ruthless banishment
From home affections, and heroic toil.
Nor doubt that spiritual creatures round us move,
Griefs to allay that reason cannot heal;
And very reptiles have sufficed to prove
To fettered wretchedness, that no Bastile
Is deep enough to exclude the light of love,
Though man for brother man has ceased to feel.
WHILE they, her playmates once, light-hearted tread The mountain turf and river's flowery marge;
Or float with music in the festal barge;
Rein the proud steed, or through the dance are led: Is Anna doomed to press a weary bed
Till oft her guardian angel, to some charge
More urgent called, will stretch his wings at large,
And friends too rarely prop the languid head.
Yet genius is no feeble comforter:
The presence even of a stuffed owl for her
Can cheat the time; sending her fancy out
To ivied castles and to moonlight skies,
Though he can neither stir a plume, nor shout,
Nor veil, with restless film, his staring eyes.
Nor the whole warbling grove in concert heard
When sunshine follows shower, the breast can thrill
Like the first summons, cuckoo, of thy bill,
With its twin notes inseparably paired.
The captive, mid damp vaults unsunned, unaired,
Measuring the periods of his lonely doom,
That cry can reach; and to the sick man's room
Sends gladness, by no languid smile declared,
The lordly eagle-race through hostile search
May perish; time may come when never more
The wilderness shall hear the lion roar;
But long as cock shall crow from household perch
To rouse the dawn, soft gales shall speed thy wing,
And thy erratic voice be faithful to the spring!
THE INFANT M- M—. UNQUIET childhood here by special grace Forgets her nature, opening like a flower That neither feeds nor wastes its vital power In painful struggles. Months each other chase,
And nought untunes that infant's voice; a trace
Of fretful temper sullies not her cheek;
Prompt, lively, self-sufficing, yet so meek
That one enrapt with gazing on her face,
Which even the placid innocence of death
Could scarcely make more placid, heaven more bright,
Might learn to picture, for the eye of faith,
The Virgin, as she shone with kindred light;
A nursling couched upon her mother's knee,
Beneath some shady palm of Galilee.
ROTHA, my spiritual child! this head was gray
When at the sacred font for thee I stood;
Pledged till thou reach the verge of womanhood,
And shalt become thy own sufficient stay:
Too late, I feel, sweet orphan! was the day
For steadfast hope the contract to fulfil :
Yet shall my blessing hover o'er thee still,
Embodied in the music of this lay,
Breathed forth beside the peaceful mountain stream
Whose murmur soothed thy languid mother's ear
After her throes, this stream of name more dear
Since thou dost bear it--a memorial theme
For others; for thy future self a spell
To summon fancies out of time's dark cell.
SUCH age how beautiful! O lady bright,
Whose mortal lineaments seem all refined
By favouring nature and a saintly mind
To something purer and more exquisite
Than flesh and blood; whene'er thou meet'st my sight,
When I behold thy blanched unwithered cheek,
Thy temples fringed with locks of gleaming white,
And head that droops because the soul is meek,
Thee with the welcome snowdrop I compare,
That child of winter, prompting thoughts that climb
From desolation towards the genial prime;
Or with the moon conquering earth's misty air,
And filling more and more with crystal light
As pensive evening deepens into night.
THE BUILDER VIRTUES.
In my mind's eye 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."
IF these brief records, by the Muses' art
Produced as lonely Nature or the strife
That animates the scenes of public life
Inspired, may in thy leisure claim a part;
And if these transcripts of the private heart
Have gained a sanction from thy falling tears,
Then I repent not: but my soul hath fears
Breathed from eternity; for as a dart
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