That makes it more with beauty fraught, Such softness o'er the stream below, I've never known a fairer scene, A beauty matched with thine, sweet Dart! Thou leav'st, like some soft passing dream, An endless memory on the heart. Like gems upon the brow of Sleep The moonbeams on thy waters rest; And I could almost turn and weep, So strangely do they move my breast. * * * * * I would my life were like thy stream, O silent and majestic Dart! Of what wild beauties should I dream, What visions sweet would throng my heart. Eternal pleasures round my way Would never cease to rise and shine; And girt with beauty, day by day, O what a matchless course were mine! I linger still, and still I gaze, And deeper grows my heart's delight; O beauteous night! O starry skies! 1 Such mingled glories round me rise, Across my spirit as I gaze There comes a calmer sense of life, A pensive calm, an inward glow Of holy thoughts too seldom given, And whisper like a voice from heaven. Sydney Hodges. W1 Dartmoor. DARTMOOR. WILD Dartmoor! thou that midst thy mountains rude As a dark cloud on summer's clear blue sky, A mourner circled with festivity! For all beyond is life! the rolling sea, The rush, the swell, whose echoes reach not thee. As of a world unwaked to soul or sound. And naught of life be near, his camel's tread In those far ages which have left no trace, Of kings and chiefs who passed without their praise, Thou might'st have reared the valiant and the free, In history's page there is no tale of thee. Yet hast thou thy memorials. On the wild Still rise the cairns of yore, all rudely piled, But hallowed by that instinct which reveres Things fraught with characters of elder years. And such are these. Long centuries are flown, Bowed many a crest and shattered many a throne, Mingling the urn, the trophy, and the bust, With what they hide, — their shrined and treasured dust. Earth's glorious works fast mingling with her mould ; The eternity of nature with the forms Of the crowned hills beyond, the dwellings of the storms. But ages rolled away; and England stood With her proud banner streaming o'er the flood; And regal in collected majesty, To breast the storm of battle. Every breeze On the red fields they won; whose wild flowers wave 'T was then the captives of Britannia's war Yes! they whose march hath rocked the ancient thrones And temples of the world, the deepening tones Of whose advancing trumpet from repose Were prisoners here. And there were some whose dreams Were of sweet homes, by chainless mountain streams, And of the vine-clad hills, and many a strain And festal melody of Loire or Seine; And of those mothers who had watched and wept, When on the field the unsheltered conscript slept, Bathed with the midnight dews. And some were there Of sterner spirits, hardened by despair; Who, in their dark imaginings, again Fired the rich palace and the stately fane, Drank in their victim's shriek as music's breath, And lived o'er scenes, the festivals of death! Yes! let the waste lift up the exulting voice! And thou, lone moor! where no blithe reaper's song Felicia Hemans. |