Our fields rejoice, our mountains ring,
Our streams proclaim a welcoming;
Our strong abodes and castles see
The glory of their royalty.
How glad is Skipton at this hour-
Though she is but a lonely tower!
Silent, deserted of her best,
Without an inmate or a guest,
Knight, squire, or yeoman, page or groom;
We have them at the feast of Brough'm.
How glad Pendragon-though the sleep
Of years be on her!-She shall reap
A taste of this great pleasure, viewing
As in a dream her own renewing.
Rejoiced is Brough, right glad deem
Beside her little humble stream;
And she that keepeth watch and ward
Her statelier Eden's course to guard;
They both are happy at this hour,
Though each is but a lonely tower:-
But here is perfect joy and pride
For one fair house by Emont's side,
This day distinguished without peer.
To see her master and to cheer
Him, and his lady mother dear!
"Oh! it was a time forlorn
When the fatherless was born-
Give her wings that she may fly,
Or she sees her infant die!
Swords that are with slaughter wild
Hunt the mother and the child.
Who will take them from the light?
-Yonder is a man in sight-
Yonder is a house-but where?
No, they must not enter there.
To the caves, and to the brooks,
To the clouds of heaven she looks;
She is speechless, but her eyes
Pray in ghostly agonies.
Blissful Mary, mother mild,
Maid and mother undefiled,
Save a mother and her child!
"Now who is he that bounds with joy
On Carrock's side, a shepherd boy?
No thoughts hath he but thoughts that pass Light as the wind along the grass.
Can this be he who hither came
In secret, like a smothered flame?
O'er whom such thankful tears were shed
For shelter, and a poor man's bread!
God loves the child; and God hath willed
That those dear words should be fulfilled.
The lady's words, when forced away,
The last she to her babe did say,
'My own, my own, thy fellow-guest
I may not be; but rest thee, rest,
For lowly shepherd's life is best!'
Alas! when evil men are strong
No life is good, no pleasure long.
The boy must part from Mosedale's groves.
And leave Blencathara's rugged coves,
And quit the flowers that Summer brings
To Glenderamakin's lofty springs;
Must vanish, and his careless cheer
Be turned to heaviness and fear.
--Give Sir Lancelot Threlkeld praise
Hear it, good man, old in days!
Thou tree of covert and of rest
For this young bird that is distrest;
Among thy branches safe he lay,
And he was free to sport and play,
When falcons were abroad for prey.
"A recreant harp, that sings of fear
And heaviness in Clifford's ear!
I said, when evil men are strong,
No life is good, no pleasure long,
A weak and cowardly untruth!
Our Clifford was a happy youth,
And thankful through a weary time,
That brought him up to manhood's primo
-Again he wanders forth at will,
And tends a flock from hill to hill:
His garb is humble; ne'er was seen
Such garb with such a noble mien;
Among the shepherd-grooms no mate
Hath he, a child of strength and state!
Yet lacks not friends for solemn glee,
And a cheerful company,
That learned of him submissive ways;
And comforted his private days.
To his side the fallow-deer
Came, and rested without fear;
The eagle, lord of land and sea,
Stooped down to pay him fealty;
And both the undying fish that swim
Through Bowscale-Tarn did wait on him.
The pair were servants of his eye
In their immortality;
They moved about in open sight,
To and fro, for his delight.
He knew the rocks which angels haunt
On the mountains visitant;
He hath kenned them taking wing:
And the caves where fairies sing
He hath entered; and been told
By voices how men lived of old.
Among the heavens his eye can see
Face of thing that is to be;
And, if men report him right,
He can whisper words of might.
-Now another day is come,
Fitter hope, and nobler doom:
He hath thrown aside his crook,
And hath buried deep his book;
Armour rusting in his halls
On the blood of Clifford calls;-
'Quell the Scot,' exclaims the Lance--
Bear me to the heart of France,
Is the longing of the Shield
Tell thy name, thou trembling Field;
Field of death, where'er thou be,
Groan thou with our victory!
Happy day, and mighty hour,
When our shepherd, in his power,
Mailed and horsed, with lance and sword,
To his ancestors restored,
Like a re-appearing star,
Like a glory from afar,
First shall head the flock of war!"
Alas! the fervent harper did not know
That for a tranquil soul the lay was framed,
Who, long compelled in humble walks to go,
Was softened into feeling, soothed, and tamed.
Love had he found in huts where poor men lie,
His daily teachers had been woods and rills,
The silence that is in the starry sky,
The sleep that is among the lonely hills.
In him the savage virtue of the race,
Revenge, and all ferocious thoughts were dead:
Nor did he change; but kept in lofty place
The wisdom which adversity had bred.
Glad were the vales, and every cottage hearth;
The shepherd lord was honoured more and more:
And, ages after he was laid in earth,
"The Good Lord Clifford" was the name he bore.
YES! full surely 'twas the echo,
Solitary, clear, profound,
Answering to thee, shouting cuckoo !
Giving to thee sound for sound.
Unsolicited reply
To a baddling wanderer sent;
Like her ordinary cry,
Like-but oh how different!
Hears not also mortal life?
Hear not we, unthinking creatures!
Slaves of folly, love, or strife,
Voices of two different natures?
Have not we too?-Yes we have
Answers, and we know not whence;
Echoes from beyond the grave,
Recognised intelligence?
Such within ourselves we hear
Oft-times, ours though sent from far;
Listen, ponder, hold them dear;
For of God,-of God they are!
AS IT APPEARED TO ENTHUSIASTS AT ITS COMMENCEMENT
(Reprinted from "THE FRIEND.")
OH! pleasant exercise of hope and joy!
For mighty were the auxiliars, which then stood
Upon our side, we who were strong in love!
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!-0, times!
In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways
Of custom, law, and statute, took at once
The attraction of a country in romance!
When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights,
When most intent on making of herself
A prime enchantress-to assist the work,
Which then was going forward in her name!
Not favoured spots alone, but the whole earth,
The beauty wore of promise-that which sets
(To take an image which was felt no doubt
Among the bowers of paradise itself)
The budding rose above the rose full blown.
What temper at the prospect did not wake
To happiness unthought of? The inert
Were roused, and lively natures rapt away!
They who had fed their childhood upon dreams,
The play-fellows of fancy who had made
All powers of swiftness, subtility, and strength
Their ministers,-who in lordly wise had stirred
Among the grandest objects of the sense,
And dealt with whatsoever they found there
As if they had within some lurking right
To wield it ;-they, too, who of gentle mood
Had watched all gentle motions, and to these
Had fitted their own thoughts, schemers more mild,
And in the region of their peaceful selves;-
Now was it that both found, the meek and lofty
Did both find helpers to their heart's desire,
And stuff at hand, plastic as they could wish,—
Were called upon to exercise their skill,
Not in Utopia,-subterraneous fields,-
Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where !
But in the very world, which is the world
Of all of us-the place where in the end
We find our happiness, or not at all!
IT is no spirit who from heaven hath flown
And is decending on his embassy;
Nor traveller gone from earth the heavens to espy!
'Tis Hesperus-there he stands with glittering crown,
First admonition that the sun is down,
For yet it is broad daylight!-clouds pass by;
A few are near him still-and now the sky,
He hath it to himself-'tis all his own.
O most ambitious star! an inquest wrought
Within me when I recognised thy light;
A moment I was startled at the sight:
And, while I gazed, there came to me a thought
That even I beyond my natural race
Might step as thou dost know :-might one day trace
Some ground not mine; and, strong her strength above
My soul, an apparition in the place,
Tread there, with steps that no one shall reprove!
COMPOSED A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY, ON REVISIT ING THE BANKS OF THE WYE DURING A TOUR.
FIVE years have passed; five Summers, with the length
Of five long Winters! and again I here
These waters, rolling from their mountain springs
With a sweet inland murmur.*-Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
Which on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
* The river is not affected by the tides a few miles above Tintern. 2 D
|