FAR from our home by Grasmere's quiet Lake,
From the Vale's peace which all her fields partake,
Here on the bleakest point of Cumbria's shore
We sojourn stunned by Ocean's ceaseless roar;
While, day by day, grim neighbor! huge Black
Comb

Frowns, deepening visibly his native gloom,
Unless, perchance rejecting in despite

What on the Plain we have of warmth and light,
In his own storms he hides himself from sight.
Rough is the time; and thoughts, that would be
free

From heaviness, oft fly, dear Friend, to thee; Turn from a spot where neither sheltered road Nor hedge-row screen invites my steps abroad;

Where one poor Plane-tree, having as it might
Attained a stature twice a tall man's height,
Hopeless of further growth, and brown and sere
Through half the summer, stands with top cut sheer.
Like an unshifting weathercock which proves
How cold the quarter that the wind best loves,
Or like a sentinel, that, evermore,
Darkening the window, ill defends the door
Of this unfinished house, a Fortress bare,

Where strength has been the Builder's only care; Whose rugged walls may still for years demand The final polish of the Plasterer's hand.

- This Dwelling's Inmate more than three weeks'

space

And oft a Prisoner in the cheerless place,
I of whose touch the fiddle would complain,
Whose breath would labor at the flute in vain,
In music all unversed, nor blessed with skill
A bridge to copy, or to paint a mill,
Tired of my books, a scanty company!

And tired of listening to the boisterous sea-
Pace between door and window, muttering rhyme,
An old resource to cheat a froward time!

Though these dull hours (mine is it, or their shame?)

Would tempt me to renounce that humble aim.

But if there be a Muse who, free to take

Her seat upon Olympus, doth forsake

Those heights, (like Phoebus when his golden locks He veiled, attendant on Thessalian flocks,)

And, in disguise, a Milkmaid with her pail
Trips down the pathways of some winding dale;
Or, like a Mermaid, warbles on the shores
To fishers mending nets beside their doors;
Or, Pilgrim-like, on forest moss reclined,
Gives plaintive ditties to the heedless wind,
Or listens to its play among the boughs
Above her head, and so forgets her vows,
If such a Visitant of Earth there be,
And she would deign this day to smile on me
And aid my verse, content with local bounds
Of natural beauty and life's daily rounds,
Thoughts, chances, sights, or doings, which we tell
Without reserve to those whom we love well, -
Then haply, Beaumont! words in current clear
Will flow, and on a welcome page appear
Duly before thy sight, unless they perish here.

What shall I treat of? News from Mona's Isle? Such have we, but unvaried in its style; No tales of Runagates fresh landed, whence And wherefore fugitive or on what pretence; Of feasts, or scandal, eddying like the wind, Most restlessly alive when most confined. Ask not of me, whose tongue can best appease The mighty tumults of the HOUSE OF KEYS; The last year's cup whose Ram or Heifer gained, What slopes are planted, or what mosses drained: An eye of fancy only can I cast

On that proud pageant now at hand or past,

When full five hundred boats in trim array, With nets and sails outspread and streamers gay, And chanted hymns and stiller voice of prayer, For the old Manx-harvest to the Deep repair, Soon as the herring-shoals at distance shine, Like beds of moonlight shifting on the brine.

Mona from our abode is daily seen, But with a wilderness of waves between ; And by conjecture only can we speak Of aught transacted there in bay or creek; No tidings reach us hence from town or field, Only faint news her mountain sunbeams yield, And some we gather from the misty air, And some the hovering clouds, our telegraph, de clare.

But these poetic mysteries I withhold;

For Fancy hath her fits both hot and cold,
And should the colder fit with you be on
When you might read, my credit would be gone.

Let more substantial themes the pen engage, And nearer interests, culled from the opening stage Of our migration. — Ere the welcome dawn Had from the east her silver star withdrawn, The Wain stood ready, at our Cottage-door, Thoughtfully freighted with a various store; And long or ere the uprising of the Sun, O'er dew-damped dust our journey was begun, A needful journey, under favoring skies,