And when I learned to mark the spectral shape,
As each new moon obeyed the call of time,
If gloom fell on me, swift was my escape,
Such happy privilege hath life's gay prime,
To see or not to see, as best may please
A buoyant spirit, and a heart at ease.
Now, dazzling stranger! when thou meet'st my glance,
Thy dark associate ever I discern;
Emblem of thoughts too eager to advance
While I salute my joys, thoughts sad or stern;
Shades of past bliss, or phantoms that to gain
Their fill of promised lustre wait in vain.
So changes mortal life with fleeting years,
A mournful change, should reason fail to bring
The timely insight that can temper fears,
And from vicissitude remove its sting;
While faith aspires to seats in that domain
Where joys are perfect, neither wax nor wane.
OH, for a dirge! But why complain?
Ask rather a triumphal strain
When Fermor's race is run;
A garland of immortal boughs
To bind around the Christian's brows,
Whose glorious work is done.
We pay a high and holy debt;
No tears of passionate regret
Shall stain this votive lay;
Ill-worthy, Beaumont! were the grief
That flings itself on wild relief
When saints have passed away.
Sad doom, at sorrow's shrine to kneel
For ever covetous to feel
And impotent to bear:
Such once was hers-to think and think
On severed love, and only sink
From anguish to despair!
But nature to its inmost part
Had faith refined, and to her heart
A peaceful cradle given;
Calm as the dew-drop, free to rest
Within a breeze-fanned rose's breast
Till it exhales to heaven.
Was ever spirit that could bend
So graciously?—that could descend,
Another's need to suit,
So promptly from her lofty throne!-
In works of love, in these alone,
How restless, how minute!
Pale was her hue; yet mortal cheek
Ne'er kindled with a livelier streak
When aught had suffered wrong,-
When aught that breathes had felt a wound;
Such look the oppressor might confound,
However proud and strong.
But hushed be every thought that springs
From out the bitterness of things;
Her quiet is secure;
No thorns can pierce her tender feet,
Whose life was like the violet sweet,
As climbing jasmine pure;
As snowdrop on an infant's grave,
Or lily heaving with the wave
That feeds it and defends;
As vesper, ere the star hath kissed
The mountain top, or breathed the mist That from the vale ascends.
Thou takest not away, O death!
Thou strik'st-and absence perisheth,
Indifference is no more;
The future brightens on our sight;
For on the past hath fallen a light
That tempts us to adore.
THESE tourists, Heaven preserve us ! needs must live
A profitable life: some glance along,
Rapid and gay, as if the earth were air,
And they were butterflies to wheel about
Long as the summer lasted; some, as wise,
Perched on the forehead of a jutting crag,
Pencil in hand and book upon the knee,
Will look and scribble, scribble on and look,
Until a man might travel twelve stout miles,
Or reap an acre of his neighbour's corn.
But, for that moping son of idleness,
Why can he tarry yonder?-In our churchyard
Is neither epitaph nor monument,
Tombstone nor name-only the turf we tread
And a few natural graves. To Jane, his wife,
Thus spake the homely priest of Ennerdale.
It was a July evening; and he sate
Upon the long stone-seat beneath the eaves
Of his old cottage,-as it chanced, that day,
Employed in winter's work. Upon the stone
His wife sate near him, teasing matted wool,
While, from the twin cards toothed with glittering wire,
He fed the spindle of his youngest child,
Who turned her large round wheel in the open air
With back and forward steps. Towards the field
In which the parish chapel stood alone,
Girt round with a bare ring of mossy wall,
While half an hour went by, the priest had sent
Many a long look of wonder: and at last,
Risen from his seat, beside the snow-white ridge
Of carded wool which the old man had piled
He laid his implements with gentle care,
Each in the other locked; and, down the path
That from his cottage to the churchyard led,
He took his way, impatient to accost
The stranger, whom he saw still lingering there.
'Twas one well known to him in former days.
A shepherd-lad ;—who ere his sixteenth year
Had left that calling, tempted to intrust
His expectations to the fickle winds
And perilous waters,-with the mariners
A fellow-mariner,—and so had fared
Through twenty seasons; but he had been reared
Among the mountains, and he in his heart
Was half a shepherd on the stormy seas.
Oft in the piping shrouds had Leonard heard
The tones of waterfalls, and inland sounds
Of caves and trees :-and when the regular wind
Between the tropics filled the steady sail,
And blew with the same breath through days and weeks,
Lengthening invisibly its weary line
Along the cloudless main, he, in those hours
Of tiresome indolence, would often hang
Over the vessel's side, and
And, while the broad green wave and sparkling foam
Flashed round him images and hues that wrought
In union with the employment of his heart,
He, thus by feverish passion overcome,
Even with the organs of his bodily eye,
Below him, in the bosom of the deep,
Saw mountains,-saw the forms of sheep that grazed
On verdant hills-with dwellings among trees,
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