XLII.

TO ROTHA Q

ROTHA, my Spiritual Child! this head was gray
When at the sacred Font for Thee I stood;
Pledged till thou reach the verge of womanhood
And shalt become thy own sufficient stay:
Too late, I feel, sweet Orphan! was the day
For steadfast hope the contract to fulfil;
Yet shall my blessing hover o'er thee still,
Embodied in the music of this Lay,
Breathed forth beside the peaceful mountain Stream*
Whose murmur soothed thy languid Mother's ear
After her throes, this Stream of name more dear
Since thou dost bear it, -a memorial theme
For others; for thy future self a spell

To summon fancies out of Time's dark cell.

XL.

TO THE CUCKOO.

Nor the whole warbling grove in concert heard
When sunshine follows shower, the breast can thrill
Like the first summons, Cuckoo! of thy bill,
With its twin notes inseparably paired.
'The Captive 'mid damp vaults unsunned, unaired,
Measuring the periods of his lonely doom,
That cry can reach; and to the sick man's room
Sends gladness, by no languid smile declared.
The lordly Eagle-race through hostile search
May perish; time may come when never more
The wilderness shall hear the Lion roar;
But, long as Cock shall crow from household perch
To rouse the dawn, soft gales shall speed thy wing,
And thy erratic voice be faithful to the Spring!

TO

XLIII.

IN HER SEVENTIETH YEAR.

SUCH age how beautiful! O Lady bright,
Whose mortal lineaments seem all refined
By favouring Nature and a saintly Mind
To something purer and more exquisite
Than flesh and blood; whene'er thou meet'st my sight
When I behold thy blanched unwithered cheek,
Thy temples fringed with locks of gleaming white,
And head that droops because the soul is meek,
Thee with the welcome Snowdrop I compare;
That Child of Winter, prompting thoughts that climb
From desolation toward the genial prime;
Or with the Moon conquering earth's misty air,
And filling more and more with crystal light
As pensive Evening deepens into night.

UNQUIET Childhood here by special grace
Forgets her nature, opening like a flower
That neither feeds nor wastes its vital power
In painful struggles. Months each other chase,
And nought untunes that Infant's voice; a trace
Of fretful temper sullies not her cheek;
Prompt, lively, self-sufficing, yet so meek
That one enrapt with gazing on her face
(Which even the placid innocence of Death
Could scarcely make more placid, Heaven more bright)
Might learn to picture, for the eye of faith,
The Virgin, as she shone with kindred light;
A Nursling couched upon her Mother's knee,
Beneath some shady Palm of Galilee.

XLIV.

A GRAVE-STONE UPON THE FLOOR IN THE CLOISTELS OF WORCESTER CATHEDRAL

"MISERRIMUS!" and neither name nor date,

Prayer, text, or symbol, graven upon the stone;
Nought but that word assigned to the unknown,
That solitary word-to separate

around the fate

Most wretched one, Himself alone

From all, and cast a cloud
Of him who lies beneath.
Who chose his Epitaph?
Could thus have dared the grave to agitate.
And claim, among the dead, this awful crown;
Nor doubt that He marked also for his own,
Close to these cloistral steps a burial-place,
That every foot might fall with heavier tread,
Trampling upon his vileness. Stranger, pass
Softly! To save the contrite, Jesus bled,

The River Rotha, that flows into Windermere from the Lakes of Grasmere and Rydal.

XLVIII.

CHATSWORTH! thy stately mansion, and the pride
Of thy domain, strange contrast do present
To house and home in many a craggy rent
Of the wild Peak; where new-born waters glide
Through fields whose thrifty Occupants abide
As in a dear and chosen banishment,
With every semblance of entire content;
So kind is simple Nature, fairly tried!
Yet He whose heart in childhood gave her troth
To pastoral dales, thin set with modest farms,
May learn, if judgment strengthen with his growth,
That, not for Fancy only, pomp hath charms;
And, strenuous to protect from lawless harms
The extremes of favoured life, may honour both.

XLVI.

FILIAL PIETY.

STOCCHED through all severity of cold, Levadate, whate'er the cottage hearth Ngat need for comfort, or for festal mirth, That Pule of Turf is half a century old: Yes, Traveller! fifty winters have been told Se suddenly the dart of death went forth Gunst him who raised it, his last work on earth; Thence by his Son more prized than aught which gold Cald purchase-watched, preserved by his own hands, That, faithful to the Structure, still repair

XLIX.

DESPONDING Father! mark this altered boug,
So beautiful of late, with sunshine warmed,
Or moist with dews; what more unsightly now,
Its blossoms shrivelled, and its fruit, if formed,
Invisible? yet Spring her genial brow
Knits not o'er that discolouring and decay
As false to expectation. Nor fret thou
At like unlovely process in the May
Of human life: a Stripling's graces blow,
Fade and are shed, that from their timely fall
(Misdeem it not a cankerous change) may grow

Is annual renovation thus it stands

Rude Mansoleam! but wrens nestle there,

And red-breasts warble when sweet sounds are rare.

In all men, sinful is it to be slow

To hope-in Parents, sinful above all.

XLVII.

TO B. R. HAYDON, ESQ.,

A SEEING HIS PICTURE OF NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE
ON THE ISLAND OF ST. HELENA.

HATION! let worthier judges praise the skill
Here by thy pencil shown in truth of lines
Asi charm of colours; I applaud those signs
thought, that give the true poetic thrill;
That unencumbered whole of blank and still,
Sy without cloud- ocean without a wave;
Aad the one Man that laboured to enslave
The World, soie-standing high on the bare hill-
Bark tare, arms folded, the unapparent face
Ted, we may fancy, in this dreary place
With gat reflected from the invisible sun

like his fortunes; but not set for aye

Like them. The unguilty Power pursues his way, Aad before him doth dawn perpetual run.

L.

ROMAN ANTIQUITIES DISCOVERED,

AT BISHOPSTONE, HEREFORDSHIRE.

WHILE poring Antiquarians search the ground
Upturned with curious pains, the Bard, a Seer,
Takes fire: The men that have been reappear;
Romans for travel girt, for business gowned,
And some recline on couches, myrtle-crowned,
In festal glee: why not? For fresh and clear,
As if its hues were of the passing year,

Dawns this time-buried pavement. From that mound
Hoards may come forth of Trajans, Maximins,
Shrunk into coins with all their warlike toil;
Or a fierce impress issues with its foil

Of tenderness the Wolf, whose suckling Twins

The unlettered Ploughboy pities when he wins The casual treasure from the furrowed soil.

ALL praise the likeness by thy skill portrayed;
But 't is a fruitless task to paint for me,
Who, yielding not to changes time has made,
By the habitual light of memory see
Eyes unbedimmed, see bloom that cannot fade,
And smiles that from their birth-place ne'er shall flee
Into the land where ghosts and phantoms be;
And, seeing this, own nothing in its stead.
Couldst thou go back into far-distant years,
Or share with me, fond thought! that inward eye,
Then, and then only, painter! could thy art
The visual powers of nature satisfy,
Which hold, whate'er to common sight appears,
Their sovereign empire in a faithful heart.

IX.

ON THE SAME SUBJECT.

THOUGH I beheld at first with blank surprise
This work, I now have gazed on it so long
I see its truth with unreluctant eyes;
O, my beloved! I have done thee wrong,
Conscious of blessedness, but, whence it sprung,
Ever too heedless, as I now perceive:
Morn into noon did pass, noon into eve,
And the old day was welcome as the young,
As welcome, and as beautiful-in sooth
More beautiful, as being a thing more holy:
Thanks to thy virtues, to the eternal youth
Of all thy goodness, never melancholy;
To thy large heart and humble mind, that cast
Into one vision, future, present, past.

X.

HARK! 'tis the thrush, undaunted, undeprest,
By twilight premature of cloud and rain;
Nor does that roaring wind deaden his strain
Who carols thinking of his love and nest,
And seems, as more incited, still more blest.

And in a moment charmed my cares to rest.
Yes, I will forth, bold bird! and front the blast,
That we may sing together, if thou wilt,
So loud, so clear, my partner through life's day,
Mute in her nest love-chosen, if not love-built
Like thine, shall gladden, as in seasons past,
Thrilled by loose snatches of the social lay.

RYDAL MOUNT, 1838.

XI.

'Tis he whose yester-evening's high disdain Beat back the roaring storm- but how subdued

His day-break note, a sad vicissitude!
Does the hour's drowsy weight his glee restram?
Or, like the nightingale, her joyous vein
Pleased to renounce, does this dear thrush attune
His voice to suit the temper of yon moon
Doubly depressed, setting, and in her wane?
Rise, tardy sun! and let the songster prove
(The balance trembling between night and morn
No longer) with what ecstasy upborne

He can pour forth his spirit. In heaven above,
And earth below, they best can serve true gladness
Who meet most feelingly the calls of sadness.

XII.

On what a wreck! how changed in mien and speech Yet though dread Powers, that work in myster

spin
Entanglings of the brain; though shadows stretch
O'er the chilled heart-reflect; far, far within
Hers is a holy being, freed from sin.

She is not what she seems, a forlorn wretch,
But delegated Spirits comfort fetch
To her from heights that reason may not win.
Like children, she is privileged to hold
Divine communion; both do live and move,
Whate'er to shallow faith their ways unfold,
Inly illumined by Heaven's pitying love;
Love pitying innocence not long to last,
In them in her our sins and sorrows past.

XIII.

INTENT on gathering wool from hedge and brake
Yon busy little-ones rejoice that soon
A poor old dame will bless them for the boon:
Great is their glee while flake they add to flake
With rival earnestness; far other strife
Than will hereafter move them, if they make
Pastime their idol, give their day of life
To pleasure snatched for reckless pleasure's sake.

Exulting warbler! eased a fretted brain,

Pains which the world inflicts can she requite!