GIORDANO, verily thy Pencil's skill
Hath here portrayed with Nature's happiest grace
The fair Endymion couched on Latmos-hill;
And Dian gazing on the Shepherd's face
In rapture, yet suspending her embrace,
As not unconscious with what power the thrill
Of her most timid touch his sleep would chase,
And, with his sleep, that beauty calm and still.
O may this work have found its last retreat
Here in a mountain-Bard's secure abode,
One to whom, yet a School-boy, Cynthia showed
A face of love which he in love would greet,
Fixed, by her smile, upon some rocky seat;
Or lured along where green-wood paths he trod.
RYDAL MOUNT, 1846.
WHO but is pleased to watch the moon on high
Travelling where she from time to time enshrouds
Her head, and nothing loth her Majesty
Renounces, till among the scattered clouds
One with its kindling edge declares that soon
Will reappear before the uplifted eye
A Form as bright, as beautiful a moon,
To glide in open prospect through clear sky.
Pity that such a promise e'er should prove
False in the issue, that yon seeming space
Of sky, should be in truth the steadfast face
Of a cloud flat and dense, through which must
(By transit not unlike man's frequent doom) The wanderer lost in more determined gloom!
WHERE lies the truth? has Man, in wisdom's creed
A pitiable doom; for respite brief
A care more anxious, or a heavier grief?
Is he ungrateful, and doth little heed
God's bounty, soon forgotten; or indeed,
Must Man, with labour born, awake to sorrow
When flowers rejoice and Larks with rival speed
Spring from their nests to bid the Sun good
morrow?
They mount for rapture as their songs proclaim
Warbled in hearing both of earth and sky;
But o'er the contrast wherefore heave a sigh?
Like those aspirants let us soar-our aim,
Through life's worst trials, whether shocks or
A happier, brighter, purer Heaven than theirs.
ILLUSTRATED BOOKS AND NEWSPAPERS. DISCOURSE was deemed Man's noblest attribute, And written words the glory of his hand; Then followed Printing with enlarged command For thought-dominion vast and absolute For spreading truth, and making love expand. Now prose and verse sunk into disrepute Must lacquey a dumb Art that best can suit The taste of this once-intellectual Land. A backward movement surely have we here, From manhood-back to childhood; for the ageBack towards caverned life's first rude career. Avaunt this vile abuse of pictured page! Must eyes be all in all, the tongue and ear Nothing Heaven keep us from a lower stage!
THE unremitting voice of nightly streams
That waste so oft, we think, its tuneful powers,
If neither soothing to the worm that gleams
Through dewy grass, nor small birds hushed in
bowers,
Nor unto silent leaves and drowsy flowers,-
That voice of unpretending harmony
(For who what is shall measure by what seems To be, or not to be,
Or tax high Heaven with prodigality?)
Once not a healing influence that can creep
Into the human breast, and mix with sleep
To regulate the motion of our dreams
For kindly issues-as through every clime
Was felt near murmuring brooks in earliest time;
As at this day, the rudest swains who dwell
Where torrents roar, or hear the tinkling knell
Of water-breaks, with grateful heart could tell.
I KNOW an aged Man constrained to dwell
In a large house of public charity,
Where he abides, as in a Prisoner's cell,
With numbers near, alas! no company.
When he could creep about, at will, though poor
And forced to live on alms, this old Man fed
A Redbreast, one that to his cottage door
Came not, but in a lane partook his bread.
There, at the root of one particular tree,
An easy seat this worn-out Labourer found
While Robin pecked the crumbs upon his knee
Laid one by one, or scattered on the ground.
Dear intercourse was theirs, day after day; What signs of mutual gladness when they met! Think of their common peace, their simple play, The parting moment and its fond regret.
Months passed in love that failed not to fulfil, In spite of season's change, its own demand, By fluttering pinions here and busy bill; There by caresses from a tremulous hand.
Thus in the chosen spot a tie so strong
Was formed between the solitary pair,
That when his fate had housed him mid a throng
The Captive shunned all converse proffered there.
Wife, children, kindred, they were dead and gone;
But, if no evil hap his wishes crossed,
One living Stay was left, and on that one
Some recompense for all that he had lost.
O that the good old Man had power to prove,
By message sent through air or visible token,
That still he loves the Bird, and still must love;
That friendship lasts though fellowship is broken!
AFFECTIONS lose their objects; Time brings forth
No successors; and, lodged in memory,
If love exist no longer, it must die,-
Wanting accustomed food must pass from earth,
Or never hope to reach a second birth.
This sad belief, the happiest that is left
To thousands, share not thou; howe'er bereft,
Scorned, or neglected, fear not such a dearth.
Though poor and destitute of friends thou art,
Perhaps the sole survivor of thy race,
One to whom Heaven assigns that mournful part
The utmost solitude of age to face,
Still shall be left some corner of the heart
Where Love for living Thing can find a place.
How beautiful the Queen of Night, on high
Her way pursuing among scattered clouds,
Where, ever and anon, her head she shrouds
Hidden from view in dense obscurity.
But look, and to the watchful eye
A brightening edge will indicate that soon
We shall behold the struggling Moon
Break forth,-again to walk the clear blue sky.
WHY should we weep or mourn,- Angelic boy,
For such thou wert ere from our sight removed,
Holy, and ever dutiful-beloved
From day to day with never-ceasing joy,
And hopes as dear as could the heart employ
In aught to earth pertaining? Death has proved
His might, nor less his mercy, as behoved-
Death conscious that he only could destroy
The bodily frame. That beauty is laid low
To moulder in a far-off field of Rome;
But Heaven is now, blest Child, thy Spirit's home:
When such choice communion which we know,
Is felt, thy Roman-burial place will be
Surely a sweet remembrancer of Thee.
ACQUITTAL of the Bishops, 32
Address to a Child during a boisterous
Winter's Evening, 55
to my Infant Daughter, 130
to the Scholars of the Village
School of, 433
from the Spirit of Cocker-
mouth Castle, 349
Admonition, 197
Affections. Poems founded on the, 68
Affliction of Margaret. The, 84
Afflictions of England, 326
After-thought, 258
(another poem), 292
Airey-Force Valley, 142
Aix-la-Chapelle, 236
His Descendants, 317
Alice Fell, or Poverty, 56
American Episcopacy, 329
Tradition, 289
Anecdote for Fathers, 60
Animal Tranquillity and Decay, 429
Anticipation, October 1803, 240
of leaving School. Con-
clusion of a poem in, 1
Apology (Eccles. Sonnets), 315
(another poem), 323
(Punishment of Death), 391
(Tour in Scotland), 341
Applethwaite. At, 198
Aquapendente. Musings near, 270
Armenian Lady's Love. The, 101
Artegal and Elidure, 72
Aspects of Christianity in America,
Beautiful Picture. Upon the sight of Celandine. To the same Flower, 120
a, &c., 199
Beggars, 147
CALAIS. Composed by the Sea-side
near, 236
(another poem), 236
Fishwomen at, 255
Cambridge and the Alps, 474
Canute, 317
Canute and Alfred, on the Sea-shore,
Captivity; Mary Queen of Scots, 208
Casual Incitements, 314
Catechising, 330
Cathedrals, &c., 333
Catholic Cantons.
of the, 258
Cave of Staffa, 355
Flowers, &c., 355
To the Small, 119
(another poem), 428
Celebrated Event in Ancient History.
Cenotaph. Frances Fermor, 432
Character. A, 362
Character of the Happy Warrior, 371
Characteristics of a Child, 55
Charles I. To the close of the
Troubles, &c., 319
Chaucer. Selections from; modern-
ised, 416
Chichely, Archbishop, to Hen. V., 321
Child. To a; written in her Album,
404
Childhood. Poems referring to, 54
and School-Time, 445
Childless Father. The, $6
Church, to be erected, 333
Churchyard among the Mountains.
The, 580
Cistercian Monastery, 319
Clerical Integrity, 327
Clouds. To the, 179
Cockermonth.
On the sight of Open Prospect, 288
Our Lady of the Snow, 259
March. Written in; at the foot of Oxford, May 30, 1820, 210
Brother's Water, 146
Marriage Ceremony. The, 331
of a Friend. On the Eve
of the, 201
Mary, Queen of Scots, 80
Matron of Jedborough and her Hus-
May Morning. At Rydal, on, 279
Ode, composed on, 381
On a, 214
Memorial; Lake of Thun, 258
Memory, 376
A, in Oxfordshire, 211
Pass of Killicranky, 226
Pass of Kirkstone, 166
Pastor. The, 570
Pastoral Character, 329
Patriotic Sympathies, 327
of Raisley Calvert. To the, Paulinus, 315
Men of Kent. To the, 240
MICHAEL; A Pastoral Poem, 96
Michael Angelo. From the Italian,
of, 201
Being, 201
Miscellaneous Poems, 392
Sonnets, 197
Missions and Travels, 316
Monasteries. Dissolution of the, 322
Same subject, 322
Monastery of Old Bangor, 314
Monastic Power. Abuse of, 322
Voluptuousness, 322
Monks and Schoolmen, 319
Moon. To the; Cumberland, 346
To the; Rydal, 347
Morning Exercise. A, 113
Mother's Return. The, 55
Mutability, 332
NAMING of Places. Poems on the, 108
Namur and Liege, Between, 256
Pillar of Trajan. The, 280
Place of Burial. A; in Scotland, 336
Places of Worship, 329
Plain of Donnerdale. The, 289
Planet Venus. To the, 216
(another poem), 340
Plea for Authors. A, 216
the Historian, 274
Poet and the caged Turtledove. The,
127
Poet's Dream. The, 63
Epitaph. A, 364
Point at Issue. The, 324
Poor Robin (Wild Geranium), 39′′
Popery. Revival of, 324
Power of Music, 145
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