While, compassing the little mound 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.
ESPOND who will-I heard a voice exclaim, 'Though fierce the assault, and shattered 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: Then laugh, ye innocent Vales! ye Streams, sweep on, Nor let one billow of our heaven-blest Isle Toss in the fanning wind a humbler plume.'
IN THE FRIth of CLYDE, AILSA CRAG
During an Eclipse of the Sun, July 17
INCE risen from ocean, ocean to defy,
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, 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.
ON THE FRITH OF CLYDE
(In a Steamboat)
RRAN! 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, of winged 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.
ON REVISITING DUNOLLY CASTLE
(See former Series, above, p. 172)
HE captive Bird was gone ;-to cliff or moor Perchance had flown, delivered by the storm; Or he had pined, and sunk to feed the worm: Him found we not: but, climbing a tall tower, There saw, impaved with rude fidelity
Of art mosaic, in a roofless floor,
An Eagle with stretched wings, but beamless eye— An Eagle that could neither wail nor soar. Effigy of the Vanished-(shall I dare
To call thee so?) or symbol of fierce deeds And of the towering courage which past times Rejoiced in-take, whate'er thou be, a share, Not undeserved, of the memorial rhymes That animate my way where'er it leads!
OT to the clouds, not to the cliff, he flew;
But when a storm, on sea or mountain bred,
Came and delivered him, alone he sped
Into the castle-dungeon's darkest mew.
Now near his master's house in open view He dwells, and hears indignant tempests howl, Kennelled and chained. Ye tame domestic fowl, Beware of him! Thou saucy cockatoo,
Look to thy plumage and thy life!—The roe, Fleet as the west wind, is for him no quarry ; Balanced in ether he will never tarry, Eyeing the sea's blue depths.
Doth man of brother man a creature make That clings to slavery for its own sad sake.
WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF MACPHERSON'S OSSIAN
FT have I caught, upon a fitful breeze, Fragments of far-off melodies, 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 imbound
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!
E 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!
CAVE OF STAFFA
(After the Crowd had departed)
HANKS 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.
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