Yet how?—for I, if there be truth
In the world's voice, was passing fair;
And beauty, for confiding youth,
Those shocks of passion can prepare
That kill the bloom before its time,
And blanch, without the Owner's crime,
The most resplendent hair.

Short-liv'd likings may be bred
By a glance from fickle eyes ;
But true love is like the thread
Which the kindly wool supplies,
When the flocks are all at rest,
Sleeping on the mountain's breast.

Unbleat distinctions! showered on me
To bind a lingering life in chains;

SEPTEMBER,
All that could quit my grasp, or flee,

1819.
Is gone;—but not the subtle stains
Fixed in the spirit ;-for even here
Can I be proud that jealous fear

The sylvan slopes with corn-clad fields Of what I was remains.

Are hung, as if with golden shields,
Bright trophies of the sun!

Like a fair sister of the sky,
A woman rules my prison's key;

Unruffled doth the blue Lake lie, A sister Queen, against the bent

The Mountains looking on. of law and holicst sympathy, Detains me-doubtful of the event;

And, sooth to say, yon vocal Grove Great God, who feelst for my distress,

Albeit uninspired by love, My thoughts are all that I possess,

By love untaught to ring,
O keep them innocent !

May well afford to mortal ear
An impulse more profoundly dear

Than music of the Spring.
Farewell for ever human aid,

For that from turbulence and heat
Which abject mortals vainly court!
By friends deceived, luy foes betrayed,

Proceeds, from some uneasy seat of fears the prey, of hopes the sport,

In Nature's struggling frame, Nonght but the world-redeeming Cross

Some region of impatient life; Is able to supply my loss,

And jealousy, and quivering strife, My burthen to support.

Therein a portion claim.

This, this is holy;—while I hear Hark! the death-note of the year,

These vespers of another year, Sounded by the castle-clock !

This hymn of thanks and praise, From her sunk eyes a stagnant tear

My spirit seems to mount above

The anxieties of human love,
Stole forth, unsettled by the shock;
But oft the woods renewed their green,

And earth's precarious days.
Ere the tir'd head of Scotland's Queen

But list'—though winter-sto ms be nigh, Repor'd upon the block!

Unchecked is that soft harmony:
There lives Who can provide
For all his creatures; and in Him,

Even like the radiant Seraphim,
SONG FOR THE SPINNING-WHEEL.

These Choristers confide.

FOUNDED UPON A BELIEF PREVALENT AMONG

THE PASTORAL VALES OF WESTMORELAND.

UPON THE SAME OCCASION.

Swiftly turn the murmuring wheel!
Night has brought the welcome hour,
When the weary fingers feel
Help, as if from fairy-power;
Dewy night o'ershades the ground;
Tarn the swift wheel round and round!

DEPARTING Summer hath assumed
An aspect tenderly illumed,
The gentlest look of Spring:
That calls from yonder leafy shade
Unfaded, yet prepared to fade,
A timely caroling.
No faint and hesitating trill,
Such tribute as to Winter chill
The lonely red-breast pays !
Clear, loud, and lively is the din,
From social warblers gathering in
Their harvest of swect lays.

Now, beneath the starry sky,
Rest the widely-scatter'd sheep ;-
Ply, the pleasant labour, ply!
For the spindle, while they sleep,
With a motion smooth and fine
Gathers up a trustier line.

is yet

Let me,

Nor doth the example fail to cheer The Conqueror, crowns the Conquer'd, on Me conscious that my leaf is sear,

this brow And yellow on the bough:

Planting his favourite silver diadem, Fall, rosy garlands, from my head !

Nor he, nor minister of his intent Ye myrtle-wreaths, your fragrance shed To run before bim, hath enrolled me yet, Around a younger brow!

Though not unmennced, among those who

lean Yet will I temperately rejoice;

Upon a living staff, with borrowed sight. Wide is the range, and free the choice -O my Antigone, beloved child ! Of undiscordant themes;

Should that day come—but hark! the birds Which, haply, kindred souls may prize

salute Not less than vernal extacies,

The cheerful dawn brightening for me the And passion's feverish dreams.

east;

For me, thy natural Leader, once again For deathless powers to verse belong, Impatient to conduct thee, not as erst And they like Demi-gods are strong A tottering Infant, with compliant stoop On whom the Muses smile;

From flower to flower supported; but to But some their function have disclaimed,

curb Best pleased with what is aptliest framed Thy nymph-like step swift-bounding o'er To enervate and defile.

the lawn,

Along the loose rocks, or the slippery verge Not such the initiatory strains

Of foaming torrents. From thy orisons Committed to the silent plains

Come forth; and, while the morning-air In Britain's earliest dawn; Trembled the groves, the stars grew pale, Transparent as the soul of innocent youth, While all-too-daringly the veil

thy happy Guide, now point thy way, Of Nature was withirawn!

And now precede thee, winding to and fro,

Till we by perseverance gain the top Nor such the spirit-stirring note

Of some smooth ridge, whose brink preWhen the live chords Alcæus smote,

cipitous Inflamed by sense of wrong ;

Kindles intense desire for powers withheld Woe! woe to Tyrants! from the lyre From this corporeal frame; whereon who Broke threateningly, in sparkles dire

stands, Of fierce vindictive song.

Is seized with strong incitement to push forth

His arms, as swimmers use, and plungeAnd not anhallow'd was the page

dread thought! By winged Love inscrib'd, to assuage For pastime plunge into the abrupt The pangs of vain pursuit;

abyss, Love listening while the Lesbian Maid Where Ravens spread their plumy vans, at With passion's finest finger swayed

ease! Her own Aeolian lute.

And yet more gladly thee would I conduct

Through woods and spacious forests,—to 0 ye who patiently explore

behold The wreck of Herculanean lore,

There, how the Original of human art, What rapture could ye seize

Heaven-prompted Nature, measures and Some Theban fragment, or unroll

erects One precious, tender-hearted scroll

Her temples, fearless for the stately work, Of pure Simonides !

Though waves in every breeze its high

arched roor, That were, indeed, a genuine birth

And storms the pillars rock. But we such of poesy; a bursting forth

schools Of Genius from the dust:

Of reverential awe will chiefly seek What Horace boasted to behold,

In the still summer-noon, while beams of What Maro loved, shall we enfold ?

light, Can haughty Time be just!

Reposing here, and in the aisles beyond
Traceably gliding through the dusk, recall
To mind the living presences of nuns;
A gentle, pensive, white-robed sisterhood,

Whose saintly radiance mitigates the gloom
TO MY DAUGHTER. Of those terrestrial fabrics, where they serve,

To Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, “A LITTLE onward lend thy guiding hand

espoused. To these dark steps, a little further on!” Re-open now thy cverlasting gates, - What trick of memory to my voice hath Thou Fane of holy writ! Ye classic Domes,

brought,

To these glad orbs from darksome bondage This mournful iteration? For though Time,

freed,

A SERIES

OF XXXIII SONNETS.

Unfold again your portals ! Passage lles

III. Through you to heights more glorious still,

and shades

How shall I paint thee?—Be this naked stone More awful, where this Darling of my care, My seat while I give way to such intent; Advancing with me hand in hand, may learn Pleased could my verse, a speaking monuWithout forsaking a too earnest world,

ment, To calm the affections, elevate the soul, Make to the eyes of men thy features known. And consecrate her life to truth and love.

But as of all those tripping lambs not one
Outruns his fellows, so hath nature lent
To thy beginning nought that doth present

Peculiar grounds for hope to build upon.
RIVER DUDDON.

To dignify the spot that gives thee birth,
No sign of hoar Antiquity's esteem
Appears, and none of modern Fortune's care;

Yet thou thyself hast round thee shed a The River Duddon rises upon Wrynose Fell, on

gleam the confines of Westmoreland, Cumberland, and of brilliant moss, instinct with freshness Lancashire; and, serving as a boundary to the

rare; two latter counties, for the space of about twenty: Prompt offering to thy Foster-mother, Earth! five miles, enters the Irish sea, between the Isle of Walncy and the lordship of Millum. 1.

IV. Not envying shades which haply yet may Taxe, cradled Nursling of the mountain, take

throw

This parting glance, no negligent adieu! A grateful coolness round that rocky spring, A Protean change seems wrought while I Bandusia, once responsive to the string

pursue of the Horatian lyre with babbling flow;

The curves, a loosely-scattered chain doth Careless of flowers that in perennial blow Round the moist marge of Persian fountains or rather thou appearst a glistering snake,

cling;

Silent, and to the gazer's eye untrue, Heedless of Alpine torrents thundering,

Thridding with sinuous lapse the rushes, Through icy portals radiant as heaven's bow;

through I seek the birth-place of a native Stream.-" Dwarf willows gliding, and by ferny brake. All hail ye mountains, bail thou morning-Starts from a dizzy steep the undaunted Rill

light!

Rob’d instantly in garb of snow-white foam; Better to breathe upon this aëry height

And laughing dares the Adventurer, who

hath clomb Than pass in needless sleep from dream to

dream;

So high, a rival purpose to fulfil; Pure flow the verse, pure, vigorous, free, Else let the Dastard backward wend, and and bright,

roam, For Duddon, long lov’d Duddon, is my theme! Seeking less bold achievement, where he

will!

make;

Child of the clouds! remote from every taint Sole listener, Duddon! to the breeze that Of sordid industry thy lot is cast;

play'd Thine are the honors of the lofty waste; With thy clear voice, I caught the fitful Not seldom, when with heat the valleys faint,

sound Thy hand-maid Frost with spangled tissue Wafted o'er sullen moss and craggy mound,

quaint

Unfruitful solitudes, that seem'd to upbraid Thy cradle decks ;-to chaunt thy birth, The sun in heaven!—but now, to form a thou hast

shade No meaner Poet than the whistling Blast, For Thee, green alders have together wound And Desolation is thy Patron-saint! Their foliage; ashes flung their arms around; She guards thee, ruthless Power! who And birch-trees risen in silver colonnade.

would not spare

And thou hast also tempted here to rise, Those mighty forests, once the bison's screen, 'Mid sheltering pines, this Cottage rude and Where stalk'd the huge deer to his shaggy

gray; lair

Whose ruddy children, by the mother's eyes Through paths and alleys roofed with sombre Carelessly watch’d, spori through the sungreen,

mer-day, Thousands of years before the silent air Thy pleas'd associates:- light as endless May Was pierced by whizzing shaft of hunter keen! On infant bosoms lonely Nature lies.

trees

zone

VI.

Than a soft record that whatever fruit

Of ignorance thou mightst witness heretoERE yet our course was graced with social

fore,

Thy function was to heal and to restore, It lacked not old remains of hawthorn-To soothe and cleanse, not madden and bowers,

pollute!
Where small birds warbled to their para-
mours;

IX.
And, earlier still, was heard the hum of bees;
I saw them ply their harmless robberies,

The struggling Rill insensibly is grown And caught the fragrance which the sundry Into a Brook of loud and stately march,

flowers,

Cross'd ever and anon by plank and arch; Fed by the stream with soft perpetual And, for like use, lo! what might seem a

showers, Plenteously yielded to the vagrant breeze.

Chosen for ornament; stone match'd with There bloomed the strawberry of the wil

stone derness;

In studied symmetry, with interspace The trembling eye-bright showed her sap- For the clear waters to pursue their race

phire blue,

Without restraint.-How swiftly have they The thyme her purple like the blush of

flown! even;

Succeeding still succeeding! Here the And, if the breath of some to no caress

Child Invited, forth they peeped so fair to view, Puts, when the high-swoln Flood runs fierce All kinds alike seemed favourites of Heaven.

and wild, His budding courage to the proof;—and here

Declining Manhood learns to note the sly VII.

And sure encroachments of infirmity,

Thinking how fast time runs, life's end how “CHANGE me, some God, into that breathing

near! rose!” The love-sick Stripling fancifully sighs,

X. The envied flower beholding, as it lies On Laura's breast, in exquisite repose; Not so that Pair whose youthful spirits Or he would pass into her Bird, that throws

dance The darts of song from out its wiry cage; With prompt emotion, urging them to pass; Enraptured,—could he for himself

engage A sweet confusion checks the Shepherd-lass; The thousandth part of what the Nymph Blushing she eyes the dizzy flood askance,

bestows,

To stop ashamed-too timid to advance ; And what the little careless Innocent

She ventures once again-another pause! Ungraciously receives. Too daring choice! His outstretch'd hand He tauntingly withThere are whose calmer mind it would

drawscontent

She sues for help with piteous utterance! To be an unculled flow'ret of the glen, Fearless of plough and scythe; or darkling Both feel when he renews the wish’d-for aid:

Chidden she chides again; the thrilling touch wren,

Ah! if their fluttering hearts should stir too That tunes on Duddon's banks her slender

much, voice. Should beat too strongly, both may be

betrayed. VIII.

The frolic Loves who, from yon high rock, What aspect bore the Man who roved or The struggle, clap their wings for victory!

fled, First of his tribe, to this dark dell—who first In this pellucid Current slaked his thirst?

XI. What hopes came with him? what designs

were spread No fiction was it of the antique age: Along his path? His unprotected bed A sky-blue stone, within this sunless cleft, What dreams'encompassid ? Was the Intruder Is of the very foot-marks unbereft

nurs'd
Which tiny Elves impressid ;

on that In bideous usages, and rites accurs’d,

smooth stage That thinned the living and disturbed the Dancing with all their brilliant equipage

In secret revels-haply after theft No voice replies;—the earth, the air is mute; Of some sweet babe, flower stolen, and coarse And Thou, blue Streamlet, murmuring

see

Her grief with, as she might!—But, where, By fits and starts, yet this contents thee not.

oh where

Thee hath some awful Spirit impelled to Is traceable a vestige of the notes

leave, That ruled those dances, wild in character? Utterly to desert, the haunts of men, -Deep underground ?-Or in the upper air, Though simple thy companions were and few; On the shrill wind of midnight? or where And through this wilderness a passage cleave

floats

Attended but by thy own voice, save when O'er twilight-fields the autumnal gossamer? | The Clouds and Fowls of the air thy way

pursue!

XII.

XV. On, loitering Muse! — The swift Stream From this deep chasm-where quivering chides us-on!

sun-beams play Albeit his deep-worn channel doth immure Upon its loftiest crags--mine eyes behold Objects immense, portray'd in miniature, wild shapes for many a strange comparison ! A concave free from shrubs and mosses gray;

A gloomy Niche, capacious, blank, and cold; Niagaras, Alpine-passes, and anon

In semblance fresh, as if, with dire affray, Abodes of Naïads, calm abysses pure, Bright liquid mansions, fashion'd to endure For tutelary service, thence had rolled,

Some Statue, placed amid these regions old When the broad Oak drops, a leafless skeleton, Startling the flight of timid Yesterday! And the solidities of mortal pride, Palace and Tower, are crumbled into dust! of slow endeavour ! or abruptly cast

Was it by mortals sculptur’d-weary slaves The Bard who walks with Duddon for his Into rude shape by fire, with roaring blast

guide, Shall find such toys of Fancy thickly set:

Tempestuously let loose from central caves ?

Or fashioned by the turbulence of waves, Turn from the sight, enamour'd Muse—we Then, when o'er highest bills the Deluge must;

past ?
Leave them-and, if thou canst, without
regret!

XVI.
XIII.

Such fruitless questions may not long beguile Hail to the fields-with Dwellings sprinkled or plague the fancy, 'mid the sculptured

shows o'er, And one small Hamlet, under a green hill, Conspicuous yet where Oroonoko flows; Cluster'd with barn and byer, and spouting Aim'd at the White Man's ignorance, the

There would the Indian answer with a smile

mill! A glance suffices,—should we wish for more of the Great Waters telling, how they rose,

while Gay June would scorn us;— but when bleak

winds roar

Covered the plains, and wandering where Through the stiff lance-like shools of pollard Mounted through every intricate defile,

they chose, ash, Dread swell of sound! loud as the gusts O'er which his Fathers urged, to ridge and

Triumphant.-Inundation wide and deep,

that lash The matted forests of Ontario's shore

steep By wasteful steel unsmitten, then would i Else unapproachable, their buoyant way; Turn into port,-and, reckless of the gale, And carved, on mural cliff's undreaded side, Reckless of angry Duddon sweeping by,

Sun, moon, and stars, and beast of chase or While the warm hearth exalts the mantling Whate'er they sought, shunn'd, loved, or

prey ; ale,

deified! Laugh with the generous household heartily, At all the merry pranks of Donnerdale !

XVII.

XIV.
A DARK plume fetch me from yon blasted

Yew
O Mountain-Stream! the Shepherd and his Cot Perched on whose top the Danish Raven
Are privileged Inmates of deep solitude;

croaks; Nor would the nicest Anchorite exclude Aloft, the imperial Bird of Rome invokes A field or two of brighter green, or plot Departed ages, shedding where he flew Of tillage-ground, that seemeth like a spot Loose fragments of wild wailing that bestrew Of stationary sunshine :-- thou hast view'd The clouds, and thrill the chambers of the These only, Duddon! with their paths

rocks, renewid And into silence hush the timorous flocks,