And cleared a way for the first Votaries,
Prosper the new-born College of St Bees!
Alas! the Genius of our age from Schools
Less humble draws her lessons, aims, and rules.
To Prowess guided by her insight keen
Matter and Spirit are as one Machine;
Boastful Idolatress of formal skill

She in her own would merge the eternal will;
Better, if Reason's triumphs match with these,
Her flight before the bold credulities
That furthered the first teaching of St Bees.*
1833.

XII.

ON ENTERING DOUGLAS BAY, ISLE OF MAN. THE feudal Keep, the bastions of Cohorn, "Dignum laude virum Musa vetat mori." Even when they rose to check or to repel Tides of aggressive war, oft served as well Greedy ambition, armed to treat with scorn

CUMBERLAND AND THE ISLE OF MAN.

RANGING the heights of Scawfell or Black comb,

In his lone course the Shepherd oft will pause,
And strive to fathom the mysterious laws
By which the clouds, arrayed in light or gloom,
On Mona settle, and the shapes assume
Of all her peaks and ridges. What he draws
From sense, faith, reason, fancy, of the cause,
He will take with him to the silent tomb.
Or, by his fire, a child upon his knee,
Haply the untaught Philosopher may speak
Of the strange sight, nor hide his theory
That satisfies the simple and the meek,
Blest in their pious ignorance, though weak
To cope with Sages undevoutly free.

adorn

This perilous bay, stands clear of all offence;
Blest work it is of love and innocence,
A Tower of refuge built for the else forlorn.
Spare it, ye waves, and lift the mariner,
Struggling for life, into its saving arms!
Spare, too, the human helpers! Do they stir
'Mid your fierce shock like men afraid to die?
No; their dread service nerves the heart it
warms,

And they are led by noble HILLARY.

XVI.

BY THE SEA-SHORE, ISLE OF MAN.
WHY stand we gazing on the sparkling Brine,
With wonder smit by its transparency
And all-enraptured with its purity?—
Because the unstained, the clear, the crystal-
line,

Have ever in them something of benign ;
Whether in gem, in water, or in sky,
A sleeping infant's brow, or wakeful eye
Of a young maiden, only not divine.
Scarcely the hand forbears to dip its palm
For beverage drawn as from a mountain-well.
Temptation centres in the liquid Calm;
Our daily raiment seems no obstacle

To instantaneous plunging in, deep Sea ! And revelling in long embrace with thee.*

XVII.

ISLE OF MAN.

A YOUTH too certain of his power to wade
On the smooth bottom of this clear bright sea,
To sight so shallow, with a bather's glee
Leapt from this rock, and but for timely aid
He, by the alluring element betrayed,
Had perished. Then might Sea-nymphs (and
with sighs

Of self-reproach) have chanted elegies
Bewailing his sad fate, when he was laid

In peaceful earth: for, doubtless, he was frank,
Utterly in himself devoid of guile;
Knew not the double-dealing of a smile;
Nor aught that makes men's promises a blank,
Or deadly snare: and he survives to bless
The Power that saved him in his
strange
distress.

BY A RETIRED MARINER.

(A FRIEND OF THE AUTHOR.) FROM early youth I ploughed the restless Main, My mind as restless and as apt to change; Through every clime and ocean did I range, In hope at length a competence to gain;

Where ancient trees this convent-pile enclose,*
In ruin beautiful. When vain desire
Intrudes on peace, I pray the eternal Sire
To cast a soul-subduing shade on me,
A grey-haired, pensive, thankful Refugee;
A shade-but with some sparks of heavenly fire
Once to these cells vouchsafed. And when I
note

The old Tower's brow yellowed as with the beams

Of sunset ever there, albeit streams

Of stormy, weather-stains that semblance wrought,

I thank the silent Monitor, and say "Shine so, my aged brow, at all hours of the day!"

XXI.

TYNWALD HILL.

ONCE on the top of Tynwald's formal mound
(Still marked with green turf circles narrowing
Stage above stage) would sit this Island's King,
The laws to promulgate, enrobed and crowned;
While, compassing the little mount around,
Degrees and Orders stood, each under each:
Now, like to things within fate's easiest reach,
The power is merged, the pomp a grave has
found.

Off with yon cloud, old Snafell! that thine eye
Over three Realms may take its widest range;
And let, for them, thy fountains utter strange
Voices, thy winds break forth in prophecy,
If the whole State must suffer mortal change,
Like Mona's miniature of sovereignty.

XXII.

DESPOND who will-I heard a voice exclaim,
"Though fierce the assault, and shatter'd the
defence,

It cannot be that Britain's social frame,
The glorious work of time and providence,
Before a flying season's rash pretence,
Should fall; that She, whose virtue put to
shame,

When Europe prostrate lay, the Conqueror's aim,

Should perish, self-subverted. Black and dense
The cloud is; but brings that a day of doom
To Liberty? Her sun is up the while,
That orb whose beams round Saxon Alfred
shone:

Year after year I strove, but strove in vain,
And hardships manifold did I endure,
For Fortune on me never deign'd to smile;
Yet I at last a resting-place have found,
With just enough life's comforts to procure,
In a snug Cove on this our favoured Isle,
A peaceful spot where Nature's gifts abound;
Then sure I have no reason to complain,
Though poor to Sea I went, and poor I still re-
main.

XX.

AT BALA-SALA, ISLE OF MAN. (SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY A FRIEND.) BROKEN in fortune, but in mind entire And sound in principle, 1 seck repose

* The sea-water on the coast of the Isle of Man is singularly pure and beautiful.

sweep on,

Nor let one billow of our heaven-blest Isle Toss in the fanning wind a humbler plume."

XXIII.

IN THE FRITH OF CLYDE, AILSA CRAG. DURING AN ECLIPSE OF THE SUN, JULY 17. SINCE risen from ocean, ocean to defy, Appeared the Crag of Ailsa, ne'er did morn With gleaming lights more gracefully adorn His sides, or wreathe with mist his forehead high:

Now, faintly darkening with the sun's eclipse,
Still is he seen, in lone sublimity,

Towering above the sea and little ships;
For dwarfs the tallest seem while sailing by,
Each for her haven; with her freight of Care,
* Rushen Abbey.

Pleasure, or Grief, and Toil that seldom looks Into the secret of to-morrow's fare:

Though poor, yet rich, without the wealth of books,

Or aught that watchful Love to Nature owes For her mute Powers, fix'd Forms, or transient Shows.

XXIV.

ON THE FRITH OF CLyde,

(IN A STEAM-BOAT.)

ARRAN! a single-crested Teneriffe,
A St Helena next-in shape and hue,
Varying her crowded peaks and ridges blue;
Who but must covet a cloud-seat, or skiff
Built for the air, or wingèd Hippogriff?
That he might fly, where no one could pursue,
From this dull Monster and her sooty crew;
And, as a God, light on thy topmost cliff.
Impotent wish! which reason would despise
If the mind knew no union of extremes,
No natural bond between the boldest schemes
Ambition frames, and heart-humilities.
Beneath stern mountains many a soft vale lies,
And lofty springs give birth to lowly streams.

With ear not coveting the whole,
A part so charmed the pensive soul:
While a dark storm before my sight
Was yielding, on a mountain height
Loose vapours have I watched, that won
Prismatic colours from the sun;

Nor felt a wish that heaven would show
The image of its perfect bow.

What need, then, of these finished Strains
Away with counterfeit Remains!
An abbey in its lone recess,

A temple of the wilderness,

Wrecks though they be, announce with feeling
The majesty of honest dealing.
Spirit of Ossian! if im bound

In language thou may'st yet be found,
If aught (intrusted to the pen

Or floating on the tongues of men,
Albeit shattered and impaired)
Subsist thy dignity to guard,

In concert with memorial claim
Of old grey stone, and high-born name
That cleaves to rock or pillared cave
Where moans the blast, or beats the wave,
Let Truth, stern arbitress of all,
Interpret that Original,

And for presumptuous wrongs atone ;-
Authentic words be given, or none !
Time is not blind;-yet He, who spares
Pyramid pointing to the stars,
Hath preyed with ruthless appetite
On all that marked the primal flight
Of the poetic ecstasy

Into the land of mystery.
No tongue is able to rehearse
One measure, Orpheus! of thy verse;
Musæus, stationed with his lyre
Supreme among the Elysian quire,
Is, for the dwellers upon earth
Mute as a lark ere morning's birth.
Why grieve for these, though past away
The music, and extinct the lay?
When thousands, by severer doom,
Full early to the silent tomb
Have sunk, at Nature's call; or strayed
From hope and promise, self-betrayed;
The garland withering on their brows;
Stung with remorse for broken vows:
Frantic-else how might they rejoice?
And friendless, by their own sad choice!
Hail, Bards of mightier grasp on you
I chiefly call, the chosen Few,
Who cast not off the acknowledged guide,
Who faltered not, nor turned aside;
Whose lofty genius could survive
Privation, under sorrow thrive;
In whom the fiery Muse revered
The symbol of a snow-white beard,
Bedewed with meditative tears
Dropped from the lenient cloud of years.

Brothers in soul! though distant times
Produced you nursed in various climes,
Ye, when the orb of life had waned,
A plenitude of love retained:
Hence, while in you each sad regret
By corresponding hope was met,
Ye lingered among human kind,
Sweet voices for the passing wind;
Departing sunbeams, loth to stop,
Though smiling on the last hill top!

Such to the tender-hearted maid
Even ere her joys begin to fade;
Such, haply, to the rugged chief
By fortune crushed, or tamed by grief;
Appears, on Morven's lonely shore,
Dim-gleaming through imperfect lore,
The Son of Fingal; such was blind
Mæonides of ampler mind;

Such Milton, to the fountain head
Of glory by Urania led!

1824.

XXVIII.

CAVE OF STAFFA.

WE saw, but surely, in the motley crowd,
Not One of us has felt the far-famed sight;
How could we feel it? each the other's blight,
Hurried and hurrying, volatile and loud.
O for those motions only that invite
The Ghost of Fingal to his tuneful Cave
By the breeze entered, and wave after wave
Softly embosoming the timid light!
And by one Votary who at will might stand
Gazing and take into his mind and heart,
With undistracted reverence, the effect
Of those proportions where the almighty hand
That made the worlds, the sovereign Architect,
Has deigned to work as if with human Art!

XXIX.

CAVE OF STAFFA.

AFTER THE CROWD HAD DEPARTED.

THANKS for the lessons of this Spot-fit school For the presumptuous thoughts that would

assign

Mechanic laws to agency divine; And, measuring heaven by earth, would overrule

Infinite Power. The pillared vestibule,
Expanding yet precise, the roof embowed,
Might seem designed to humble man, when
proud

Of his best workmanship by plan and tool.
Down-bearing with his whole Atlantic weight
Of tide and tempest on the Structure's base,
And flashing to that Structure's topmost height,
Ocean has proved its strength, and of its grace
In calms is conscious, finding for his freight
Of softest music some responsive place.

XXXI

FLOWERS ON THE TOP OF THE PILLARS AT THE ENTRANCE OF THE CAVE.

HOPE smiled when your nativity was cast, Children of Summer! Ye fresh Flowers that brave

What Summer here escapes not, the fierce wave, And whole artillery of the western blast, Battering the Temple's front, its long-drawn

nave

Smiting, as if each moment were their last.
But ye, bright Flowers, on frieze and architrave
Survive, and once again the Pile stands fast:
Calm as the Universe, from specular towers
Of heaven contemplated by Spirits pure.
With mute astonishment, it stands sustained
Through every part in symmetry, to endure,
Unhurt, the assault of Time with all his hours,
As the supreme Artificer ordained.

XXXII. IONA.

ON to Iona!-What can she afford
To us save matter for a thoughtful sigh,
Heaved over ruin with stability

In urgent contrast? To diffuse the WORD
(Thy Paramount, mighty Nature! and Time's
Lord).

Her Temples rose, 'mid pagan gloom; but why,
Even for a moment, has our verse deplored
Their wrongs, since they fulfilled their destiny?
And when, subjected to a common doom
Of mutability, those far-famed Piles
Shall disappear from both the sister Isles,
Iona's Saints, forgetting not past days,
Garlands shall wear of amaranthine bloom,
While heaven's vast sea of voices chants their
praise.

XXXIII. IONA.

(UPON LANDING.)

How sad a welcome! To each voyager
Some ragged child holds up for sale a store
Of wave-worn pebbles, pleading on the shore
Where once came monk and nun with gentle stir,
Blessings to give, news ask, or suit prefer.
Yet is yon neat trim church a grateful speck
Of novelty amid the sacred wreck
Strewn far and wide. Think, proud Philosopher!
Fallen though she be, this Glory of the west,
Still on her sons the beams of mercy shine;
And "hopes, perhaps more heavenly bright
than thine,
A grace by thee unsought and unpossest,
A faith more fixed, a rapture more divine,
Shall gild their passage to eternal rest."

XXXIV.

THE BLACK STONES OF IONA.

[See Martin's Voyage among the Western Isles.]

HERE on their knees men swore: the stones were black,

Black in the people's minds and words, yet they
Were at that time, as now, in colour grey.
But what is colour, if upon the rack

Of conscience souls are placed by deeds that lack
Concord with oaths? What differ night and day
Then, when before the Perjured on his way

Hell opens, and the heavens in vengeance crack Above his head uplifted in vain prayer

To Saint, or Fiend, or to the Godhead whom He had insulted-Peasant, King, or Thane? Fly where the culprit may, guilt meets a doom; And, from invisible worlds at need laid bare, Come links for social order's awful chain.

HOMEWARD we turn. Isle of Columba's Cell,
Where Christian piety's soul-cheering spark
(Kindled from Heaven between the light and
dark

Of time) shone like the morning-star, farewell!-
And fare thee well, to Fancy visible,
Remote St Kilda, lone and loved sea-mark
For many a voyage made in her swift bark,
When with more hues than in the rainbow dwell
Thou a mysterious intercourse dost hold,
Extracting from clear skies and air serene,
And out of sun-bright waves, a lucid veil,
That thickens, spreads, and, mingling fold with

fold,

Makes known, when thou no longer canst be

seen,

Thy whereabout, to warn the approaching sail.

XXXVI. GREENOCK.

Per me si va nella Città dolente. We have not passed into a doleful City, We who were led to-day down a grim dell, By some too boldly named "the Jaws of Hell:" Where be the wretched ones, the sights for pity? These crowded streets resound no plaintive ditty:

As from the hive where bees in summer dwell, Sorrow seems here excluded; and that knell,

IN WETHERAL CHURCH, NEAR CORBY, ON THE BANKS OF THE EDEN.

dead

STRETCHED on the dying Mother's lap, lies
Her new-born Babe; dire ending of bright
hope!
But Sculpture here, with the divinest scope
Of luminous faith, heavenward hath raised that
head

So patiently; and through one hand has spread
A touch so tender for the insensate Child-
(Earth's lingering love to parting reconciled,
Brief parting, for the spirit is all but fled)-
That we, who contemplate the turns of life
Through this still medium, are consoled and
Feel with the Mother, think the severed Wife
Is less to be lamented than revered;
And own that Art, triumphant over strife

cheered:

were thrones;

Soon may the punctual sea in vain respire
To serve thy need, in union with that Clyde
Whose nursling current brawls o'er mossy

stones,

XL.

SUGGESTED BY THE FOREGOING. TRANQUILLITY! the sovereign aim wert thou In heathen schools of philosophic lore; Heart-stricken by stern destiny of yore The Tragic Muse thee served with thoughtful