130

He through the portal takes his silent way,
And on the palace-floor a lifeless corse She lay.
Thus, all in vain exhorted and reproved,
She perished: and, as for a wilful crime,
By the just Gods whom no weak pity moved,
Was doomed to wear out her appointed time,
Apart from happy Ghosts, that gather flowers
Of blissful quiet 'mid unfading bowers.
-Yet tears to human suffering are due;
And mortal hopes defeated and o'erthrown
Are mourned by man, and not by man alone,
As fondly he believes.-Upon the side
Of Hellespont (such faith was entertained)
A knot of spiry trees for ages grew

From out the tomb of him for whom she died:
And ever, when such stature they had gained
That Ilium's walls were subject to their view,
The trees' tall summits withered at the sight:
A constant interchange of growth and blight!*
1814.

XXXII.
DION.

(SEE PLUTARCH).

I.

SERENE, and fitted to embrace,
Where er he turned, a swan-like grace
Of haughtiness without pretence,
And to unfold a still magnificence,
Was princely Dion, in the power
And beauty of his happier hour.
And what pure homage then did wait
On Dion's virtues ! while the lunar beam
Of Plato's genius, from its lofty sphere,
Fell round him in the grove of Academe,
Softening their inbred dignity austere-
That he, not too elate

With self-sufficing solitude,
But with majestic lowliness endued,
Might in the universal bosom reign,
And from affectionate observance gain
Help, under every change of adverse fate.

11.

Five thousand warriors-O the rapturous day! Each crowned with flowers, and armed with spear and shield,

Or ruder weapon which their course might yield,
To Syracuse advance in bright array.
Who leads them on?-The anxious people see
Long-exiled Dion marching at their head,
He also crowned with flowers of Sicily,
And in a white, far-beaming, corslet clad!
Pure transport undisturbed by doubt or fear
The gazers feel: and, rushing to the plain,
Salute those strangers as a holy train
Or blest procession (to the Immortals dear)
That brought their precious liberty again.
Lo! when the gates are entered, on each hand,
Down the long street, rich goblets filled with

wine

In seemly order stand,
On tables set, as if for rites divine.-
And, as the great Deliverer marches by,

*For the account of these long-lived trees, see Pliny's Natural History, lib. xvi. cap. 44: and for the features in the character of Protesilaus see the Iphigenia in Aulis of Euripides.

Saw, at a long-drawn gallery's dusky bound,
A Shape of more than mortal size
And hideous aspect, stalking round and round
A woman's garb the Phantom wore,
And fiercely swept the marble floor,-
Like Auster whirling to and fro,
His force on Caspian foam to try;
Or Boreas when he scours the snow
That skins the plains of Thessaly,
Or when aloft on Mænalus he stops
His flight, 'mid eddying pine-tree tops!

Lords of the visionary eye whose lid,
Once raised, remains aghast, and will not fall!
Ye Gods, thought He, that servile Implement
Obeys a mystical intent!

Your Minister would brush away

The spots that to my soul adhere;
But should she labour night and day,
They will not, cannot disappear;

Whence angry perturbations, and that look
Which no Philosophy can brook!

VI.

Ill-fated Chief! there are whose hopes are built
Upon the ruins of thy glorious name;
Who, through the portal of one moment's guilt,
Pursue thee with their deadly aim!

O matchless perfidy! portentous lust
Of monstrous crime !-that horror-striking
blade,

Drawn in defiance of the Gods, hath laid
The noble Syracusan low in dust!
Shudder'd the walls-the marble city wept-
And sylvan places heaved a pensive sigh:
But in calm peace the appointed Victim slept,
As he had fallen in magnanimity;

Of spirit too capacious to require

That Destiny her course should change; too just

To his own native greatness to desire

That wretched boon, days lengthened oy mis

trust.

So were the hopeless troubles, that involved
The soul of Dion, instantly dissolved.
Released from life and cares of princely state,
He left this moral grafted on his Fate;
"Him only pleasure leads, and peace attends,
Him, only him, the shield of Jove defends,
Whose means are fair and spotless as his ends."
1816.

XXXIII.

THE PASS OF KIRKSTONE.

I.

WITHIN the mind strong fancies work,
A deep delight the bosom thrills,
Oft as I pass along the fork
Of these fraternal hills:

Where, save the rugged road, we find
No appanage of human kind,

Nor hint of man; if stone or rock
Seem not his handy-work to mock
By something cognizably shaped :
Mockery-or model roughly hewn,
And left as if by earthquake strewn,
Or from the Flood escaped:
Altars for Druid service fit:
(But where no fire was ever lit,
Unless the glow-worm to the skies
Thence offer nightly sacrifice)
Wrinkled Egyptian monument:

Green moss-grown tower; or hoary tent:
Tents of a camp that never shall be razed-
On which four thousand years have gazed!

11.

Ye plough-shares sparkling on the slopes! Ye snow-white lambs that trip

Imprisoned 'mid the formal props Of restless ownership!

131

Ye trees, that may to-morrow fall
To feed the insatiate Prodigal!
Lawns, houses, chattels, groves and fields,
All that the fertile valley shields;
Wages of folly-baits of crime,
Of life's uneasy game the stake,
Playthings that keep the eyes awake
Of drowsy, dotard Time ;-

O care! O guilt!-O vales and plains,
Here, 'mid his own unvexed domains,
A Genius dwells, that can subdue
At once all memory of You,-
Most potent when mists veil the sky,
Mists that distort and magnify ;

While the coarse rushes, to the sweeping

breeze,

List to those shriller notes !-that march
Perchance was on the blast,

When, through this Height's inverted arch,
Rome's earliest legion passed!

-They saw, adventurously impelled,
And older eyes than theirs beheld,
This block-and yon, whose church-like frame
Gives to this savage Pass its name.
Aspiring Road! that lov'st to hide
Thy daring in a vapoury bourn,
Not seldom may the hour return
When thou shalt be my guide:
And I (as all men may find cause,
When life is at a weary pause,
And they have panted up the hill
Of duty with reluctant will)

Be thankful, even though tired and faint,
For the rich bounties of constraint;
Whence oft invigorating transports flow
That choice lacked courage to bestow!

IV.

My Soul was grateful for delight
That wore a threatening brow;
A veil is lifted-can she slight
The scene that opens now?
Though habitation none appear,
The greenness tells, man must be there;
The shelter-that the perspective
Is of the clime in which we live :
Where Toil pursues his daily round:
Where Pity sheds sweet tears-and Love,
In woodbine bower or birchen grove,
Inflicts his tender wound.

-Who comes not hither ne'er shall know
How beautiful the world below:
Nor can he guess how lightly leaps
The brook adown the rocky steeps.
Farewell, thou desolate Domain!
Hope, pointing to the cultured plain,
Carols like a shepherd-boy:
And who is she?-Can that be Joy!
Who, with a sunbeam for her guide,
Smoothly skims the meadows wide:
While Faith, from yonder opening cloud,
To hill and vale proclaims aloud.
"Whate'er the weak may dread, the wicked
dare,

Thy lot, O Man, is good, thy portion fair!" 1817.

XXXIV.

TO ENTERPRISE.

KEEP for the Young the impassioned smile
Shed from thy countenance, as I see thee stand
High on that chalky cliff of Briton's Isle,
A slender volume grasping in thy hand-
(Perchance the pages that relate
The various turns of Crusoe's fate)--
Ah, spare the exulting smile,

And drop thy pointing finger bright
As the first flash of beacon light:

But neither veil thy head in shadows dim,
Nor turn thy face away

From One who, in the evening of his day,
To thee would offer no presumptuous hymn!

Bold Spirit! who art free to rove
Among the starry courts of Jove,
And oft in splendour dost appear
Embodied to poetic eyes,

While traversing this nether sphere,
Where Mortals call thee ENTERPRISE.
Daughter of Hope! her favourite Child,
Whom she to young Ambition bore,
When hunter's arrow first defiled

The grove, and stained the turf with gore;
Thee winged Fancy took, and nursed
On broad Euphrates' palmy shore,
And where the mightier Waters burst
From caves of Indian mountains hoar!
She wrapped thee in a panther's skin;
And Thou, thy favourite food to win,
The flame-eyed eagle oft wouldst scare
From her rock-fortress in mid air,
With infant shout; and often sweep,
Paired with the ostrich, o'er the plain;
Or, tired with sport, wouldst sink asleep
Upon the couchant lion's mane!
With rolling years thy strength increased;
And, far beyond thy native East,
To thee, by varying titles known
As variously thy power was shown,
Did incense-bearing altars rise,
Which caught the blaze of sacrifice,
From suppliants panting for the skies!

II.

What though this ancient Earth be trod
No more by step of Demi-god
Mounting from glorious deed to deed
As thou from clime to clime didst lead;
Yet still, the bosom beating high,
And the hushed farewell of an eye
Where no procrastinating gaze
A last infirmity betrays,

Prove that thy heaven-descended sway
Shall ne'er submit to cold decay.
By thy divinity impelled,
The Stripling seeks the tented field:
The aspiring Virgin kneels: and, pale
With awe, receives the hallowed veil,
A soft and tender Heroine
Vowed to severer discipline:
Inflamed by thee, the blooming Boy
Makes of the whistling shrouds a toy,
And of the ocean's dismal breast
A play-ground,-or a couch of rest;
'Mid the blank world of snow and ice,
Thou to his dangers dost enchain
The Chamois-chaser awed in vain

By chasm or dizzy precipice :

And hast Thou not with triumph seen
How soaring Mortals glide between
Or through the clouds, and brave the light
With bolder than Icarian flight?

How they, in bells of crystal, dive-
Where winds and waters cease to strive-
For no unholy visitings,

Among the monsters of the Deep;
And all the sad and precious things
Which there in ghastly silence sleep?
Or, adverse tides and currents headed,
And breathless calms no longer dreaded,
In never-slackening voyage go
Straight as an arrow from the bow:
And, slighting sails and scorning oars,
Keep faith with Time on distant shores?
-Within our fearless reach are placed
The secrets of the burning Waste:
Egyptian tombs unlock their dead,
Nile trembles at his fountain head:
Thou speak'st-and lo! the polar Seas
Unbosom their last mysteries.

But oh! what transports, what sublime reward,
Won from the world of mind, dost thou prepare
For philosophic Sage: or high-souled Bard
Who, for thy service trained in lonely woods,
Hath fed on pageants floating through the air,
Or calentured in depth of limpid floods;
Nor grieves-tho' doom'd thro' silent night to

INMATE of a mountain-dwelling,
Thou hast clomb aloft, and gazed
From the watch-towers of Helvellyn;
Awed, delighted, and amazed!

Potent was the spell that bound thee
Not unwilling to obey:

For blue Ether's arms, flung round thee,
Stilled the pantings of disinay.

Lo the dwindled woods and meadows;
What a vast abyss is there!

Lo! the clouds, the solemn shadows,
And the glistenings-heavenly fair!
And a record of commotion
Which a thousand ridges yield:
Ridge, and gulf, and distant ocean
Gleaming like a silver shield!
Maiden! now take flight :-inherit
Alps or Andes -they are thine!
With the morning's roseate Spirit,
Sweep their length of snowy line;
Or survey their bright dominions
In the gorgeous colours drest
Flung from off the purple pinions,
Evening spreads throughout the west!
Thine are all the coral fountains
Warbling in each sparry vault

Of the untrodden lunar mountains;
Listen to their songs !-or halt,

To Niphates' top invited,
Whither spiteful Satan steered;
Or descend where the ark alighted,
When the green earth re-appeared;
For the power of hills is on thee,
As was witnessed through thine eye
Then when old Helvellyn won thee
To confess their majesty!

1816.

XXXVI.

TO A YOUNG LADY,

WHO HAD BEEN REPROACHED FOR TAKING
LONG WALKS IN THE COUNTRY.

DEAR Child of Nature, let them rail!
-There is a nest in a green dale,

A harbour and a hold;

Where thou, a Wife and Friend, shalt see

Thy own heart-stirring days, and be

A light to young and old.

There, healthy as a shepherd boy,

And treading among flowers of joy
Which at no season fade,

Thou, while thy babes around thee cling,
Shalt show us how divine a thing

A Woman may be made.

Thy thoughts and feelings shall not die,

Nor leave thee, when grey hairs are nigh,
A melancholy slave;

But an old age serene and bright,
And lovely as a Lapland night,
Shall lead thee to thy grave.

1803.

XXXVII.

WATER-FOWL.

"Let me be allowed the aid of verse to describe the evolutions which these visitants sometimes perform, on a fine day, towards the close of winter."-Extract from the Author's Book on the Lakes.

MARK how the feathered tenants of the flood,
With grace of motion that might scarcely seem
Inferior to angelical, prolong

Their curious pastime! shaping in mid air
(And sometimes with ambitious wing that soars
High as the level of the mountain-tops)
A circuit ampler than the lake beneath-
Their own domain but ever, while intent
On tracing and retracing that large round,
Their jubilant activity evolves

Hundreds of curves and circlets, to and fro,
Upward and downward, progress intricate
Yet unperplexed, as if one spirit swayed
Their indefatigable flight. "Tis done-
Ten times, or more, I fancied it had ceased;
But lo! the vanished company again
Ascending: they approach-I hear their wings,
Faint, faint at first; and then an eager sound,
Past in a moment-and as faint again!
They tempt the sun to sport amid their plumes:
They tempt the water, or the gleaming ice,
To show them a fair image; 'tis themselves,
Their own fair forms, upon the glimmering plain,

To the south-west, a multitudinous show;
And, in a line of eye-sight linked with these,
The hoary peaks of Scotland that give birth
To Tiviot's stream, to Annan, Tweed, and
Clyde:-

Crowding the quarter whence the sun comes forth

Gigantic mountains rough with crags; beneath,
Right at the imperial station's western base
Main ocean, breaking audibly, and stretched
Far into silent regions blue and pale ;-
And visibly engirding Mona's Isle
That, as we left the plain, before our sight
Stood like a lofty mount, uplifting slowly
(Above the convex of the watery globe)
Into clear view the cultured fields that streak
Her habitable shores, but now appears
A dwindled object, and submits to lie
At the spectator's feet.-Yon azure ridge,
Is it a perishable cloud? Or there
Do we behold the line of Erin's coast?
Land sometimes by the roving shepherd-swain
(Like the bright confines of another world)
Not doubtfully perceived.-Look homeward

now!

Was fashioned; whether by the hand of Art,
That eastern Sultan, amid flowers enwrought
On silken tissue, might diffuse his limbs
In languor; or, by Nature, for repose
Of panting Wood-nymph, wearied with the
chase.

O Lady! fairer in thy Poet's sight

Than fairest spiritual creature of the groves, Approach; and, thus invited, crown with rest The noon-tide hour: though truly some there Whose footsteps superstitiously avoid

are

Blows keenly, it sends forth a creaking sound
This venerable Tree; for, when the wind
(Above the general roar of woods and crags)
Distinctly heard from far-a doleful note!
As if (so Grecian shepherds would have deemed)
The Hamadryad, pent within, bewailed
Some bitter wrong.
Nor is it unbelieved,

By ruder fancy, that a troubled ghost
Haunts the old trunk ; lamenting deeds of which
The flowery ground is conscious. But no wind
Sweeps now along this elevated ridge;
Not even a zephyr stirs ;-the obnoxious Tree
Is mute; and, in his silence, would look down
O lovely Wanderer of the trackless hills,
Than his coevals in the sheltered vale
On thy reclining form with more delight
Seem to participate, the while they view
Their own far-stretching arms and leafy heads
Vividly pictured in some glassy pool,
That, for a brief space, checks the hurrying

1819.

stream!

XL.

THE TRIAD.

SHOW me the noblest Youth of present time,
Whose trembling fancy would to love give birth:
Some God or Hero, from the Olympian clime
Returned, to seek a Consort upon earth;
Or, in no doubtful prospect, let me see
The brightest star of ages yet to be,
And I will mate and match him blissfully.
I will not fetch a Naiad from a flood
Pure as herself (song lacks not mightier power)
Nor leaf-crowned Dryad from a pathless wood,
Nor Sea-nymph glistening from her coral bower;
Mere Mortals, bodied forth in vision still,
Shall with Mount Ida's triple lustre fill
The chaster coverts of a British hill.

"Appear!-obey my lyre's command!
Come, like the Graces, hand in hand!
For ye, though not by birth allied,
Are Sisters in the bond of love;
Nor shall the tongue of envious pride
Presume those interweavings to reprove
In you, which that fair progeny of Jove,
Learned from the tuneful spheres that glide
In endless union, earth and sea above."
-I sing in vain :-the pines have hushed their
waving :

A peerless Youth expectant at my side,
Breathless as they, with unabated craving
Looks to the earth, and to the vacant air;
And, with a wandering eye that seems to chide,
Asks of the clouds what occupants they hide:-
But why solicit more than sight could bear,
By casting on a moment all we dare?