To kneel before his Maker, and to hear
The chanted service, pealing full and clear.
Ask why alone in the same spot he kneels
Through the long year. O, the wide world is cold,
As dark, to him! Here he no longer feels
His sad bereavement. Faith and hope uphold
His heart; he feels not he is poor and blind,
Amid the unpitying tumult of his mind.
As through the aisles the choral anthems roll,
His soul is in the choirs above the skies,
And songs far off of angel companies,
When this dim earth hath perished like a scroll.
O, happy if the rich, the vain, the proud, —
The pluméd actors in life's motley crowd,
Since pride is dust, and life itself a span,
Would learn one lesson from a poor blind man !
William Lisle Bowles.

EPITAPH

ON THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE.

UNDERNEATH this sable herse

Lies the subject of all verse.
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother;
Death! ere thou hast slain another,
Learn'd and fair and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee.

Ben Jonson.

Not less ambitious once, among the wilds

Of Sarum's Plain, my youthful spirit was raised;
There, as I ranged at will the pastoral downs
Trackless and smooth, or paced the bare white roads
Lengthening in solitude their dreary line,
Time with his retinue of ages fled

Backwards, nor checked his flight until I saw
Our dim ancestral past in vision clear;

Saw multitudes of men, and here and there

A single Briton clothed in wolf-skin vest,

With shield and stone-axe, stride across the wold;
The voice of spears was heard, the rattling spear
Shaken by arms of mighty bone, in strength,
Long mouldered, of barbaric majesty.

I called on Darkness; but before the word
Was uttered, midnight darkness seemed to take
All objects from my sight; and lo! again
The desert visible by dismal flames:

It is the sacrificial altar, fed

With living men, - how deep the groans! the voice
Of those that crowd the giant wicker thrills
The monumental hillocks, and the pomp

Is for both worlds, the living and the dead.
At other moments (for through that wide waste
Three summer days I roamed) where'er the Plain
Was figured o'er with circles, lines, or mounds,

That yet survive,

a work, as some divine,

Shaped by the Druids, so to represent

Their knowledge of the heavens, and image forth

The constellations, gently was I charmed

Into a waking dream, a reverie

That, with believing eyes, where'er I turned,
Beheld long-bearded teachers, with white wands
Uplifted, pointing to the starry sky,
Alternately, and plain below, while breath

Of music swayed their motions, and the waste
Rejoiced with them and me in those sweet sounds.
William Wordsworth.

H%

Savernake Forest.

AVENUE IN SAVERNAKE FOREST.

OW soothing sound the gentle airs that move
The innumerable leaves, high overhead,
When autumn first, from the long avenue

That lifts its arching height of ancient shade,
Steals here and there a leaf!

Within the gloom,
In partial sunshine white, some trunks appear
Studding the glens of fern; in solemn shade
Some mingle their dark branches, but yet all,
All make a sad, sweet music, as they move,
Not undelightful to a stranger's heart.
They seem to say, in accents audible,

Farewell to summer, and farewell the strains

Of many a lithe and feathered chorister,

That through the depth of these incumbent woods Made the long summer gladsome.

I have heard To the deep-mingling sounds of organs clear (When slow the choral anthem rose beneath) The glimmering minster through its pillared aisles Echo; but not more sweet the vaulted roof Rang to those linkéd harmonies, than here The high wood answers to the lightest breath Of nature.

O, may such music steal,

Soothing the cares of venerable age,
From public toil retired; may it awake,
As, still and slow, the sun of life declines,
Remembrances, not mournful, but most sweet;
May it, as oft beneath the sylvan shade
Their honored owner strays, come like the sound
Of distant seraph harps, yet speaking clear!
How poor is every sound of earthly things,
When heaven's own music waits the just and pure!

William Lisle Bowles.

SACRE

Seathwaite.

SEATHWAITE CHAPEL.

NACRED Religion! "mother of form and fear,”
Dread arbitress of mutable respect,

New rites ordaining when the old are wrecked,

Or cease to please the fickle worshipper;

Mother of Love! (that name best suits thee here,)
Mother of Love! for this deep vale, protect
Truth's holy lamp, pure source of bright effect,
Gifted to purge the vapory atmosphere
That seeks to stifle it; as in those days
When this low pile a gospel teacher knew,
Whose good works formed an endless retinue;
A pastor such as Chaucer's verse portrays,
Such as the heaven-taught skill of Herbert drew,
And tender Goldsmith crowned with deathless praise!

William Wordsworth.

Selborne.

INVITATION TO SELBORNE.

NEE, Selborne spreads her boldest beauties round

SEE

The varied valley, and the mountain ground,

Wildly majestic! What is all the pride

Of flats, with loads of ornaments supplied?
Unpleasing, tasteless, impotent expense,
Compared with Nature's rude magnificence!

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Romantic spot! from whence in prospect lies
Whate'er of landscape charms our feasting eyes,
The pointed spire, the hall, the pasture plain,
The russet fallow, or the golden grain,
The breezy lake that sheds a gleaming light,
Till all the fading picture fail the sight.

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