A stream is heard, I see it not, but know
By its soft music whence the waters flow:
Wheels and the tread of hoofs are heard no more;
One boat there was, but it will touch the shore
With the next dipping of its slackened oar;
Faint sound, that, for the gayest of the gay,
Might give to serious thoughts a moment's sway,
As a last token of man's toilsome day!
ON A HIGH PART OF THE COAST OF CUMBERLAND (EASTER APRIL 7), THE AUTHOR'S
THE sun, that seemed so mildly to retire,
Flung back from distant climes a streaming fire.
Whose blaze is now subdued to tender gleams,
Prelude of night's approach with soothing dreams.
Look round-of all the clouds not one is moving;
'Tis the still hour of thinking, feeling, loving.
Silent and steadfast as the vaulted sky,
The boundless plain of waters seems to lie :
Comes that low sound from breezes rustling o'er
The grass-crowned headland that conceals the shore?
No; 'tis the earth-voice of the mighty sea,
Whispering how meek and gentle he can be!
Thou Power Supreme! who, arming to rebuke
Offenders, dost put off the gracious look,
And clothe thyself with terrors like the flood
Of ocean roused into his fiercest mood,
Whatever discipline thy Will ordain
For the brief course that must for me remain,
Teach me with quick-eared spirit to rejoice
In admonitions of thy softest voice!
Whate'er the path these mortal feet may trace,
Breathe through my soul the blessing of thy grace,
Glad, through a perfect love, a faith sincere,
Drawn from the wisdom that begins with fear;
Glad to expand; and, for a season, free
From finite cares, to rest absorbed in Thee!
NOT in the lucid intervals of life
That come but as a curse to party strife;
Not in some hour when Pleasure with a sigh
Of languor puts his rosy garland by ;
Not in the breathing-times of that poor slave
Who daily piles up wealth in Mammon's cave—
Is Nature felt, or can be; nor do words,
Which practised talent readily affords,
Prove that her hand has touched responsive chords;
Nor has her gentle beauty power to move
With genuine rapture and with fervent love
The soul of Genius, if he dare to take
Life's rule from passion craved for passion's sake;
Untaught that meekness is the cherished bent
Of all the truly great and all the innocent.
But who is innocent? By grace divine-
Not otherwise, O Nature !-we are thine,
Through good and evil thine, in just degree
Of rational and manly sympathy.
To all that earth from pensive heart is stealing,
And heaven is now to gladdened eyes revealing,
Add every charm the universe can show
Through every change its aspects undergo-
Care may be respited, but not repealed;
No perfect cure grows on that bounded field.
Vain is the pleasure, a false calm the peace,
If He through whom alone our conflicts cease,
Our virtuous hopes without relapse advance,
Come not to speed the soul's deliverance;
To the distempered intellect refuse
His gracious help, or give what we abuse.
"Not to the earth confined,
WHERE will they stop, those breathing Powers, The spirits of the new-born flowers? They wander with the breeze, they wind Where'er the streams a passage find; Up from their native ground they rise In mute aerial harmonies;
From humble violet, modest thyme,
Exhaled, the essential odours climb,
As if no space below the sky
Their subtle flight could satisfy:
Heaven will not tax our thoughts with pride
If like ambition be their guide.
Roused by this kindliest of May showers,
The spirit-quickener of the flowers,
That with moist virtue softly cleaves
The buds, and freshens the young leaves,
The birds pour forth their souls in notes
Of rapture from a thousand throats-
Here checked by too impetuous haste,
While there the music runs to waste,
With bounty more and more enlarged,
Till the whole air is overcharged;
Give ear, O Man! to their appeal,
And thirst for no inferior zeal,
Thou, who canst think as well as feel.
Mount from the earth; aspire! aspire!
So pleads the town's cathedral quire,
In strains that from their solemn height
Sink, to attain a loftier flight;
While incense from the altar breathes
Rich fragrance in embodied wreaths;
Or, flung from swinging censer, shrouds
The taper-lights, and curls in clouds
Around angelic forms, the still
Creation of the painter's skill,
That on the service wait concealed
One moment, and the next revealed.
-Cast off your bonds, awake, arise,
And for no transient ecstasies!
What else can mean the visual plea
Of still or moving imagery-
The iterated summons loud,
Not wasted on the attendant crowd,
Nor wholly lost upon the throng
Hurrying the busy streets along?
Alas! the sanctities combined By art to unsensualise the mind, Decay and languish; or, as creeds
And humours change, are spurned like weeds;
The priests are from their altars thrust;
Temples are levelled with the dust;
And solemn rites and awful forms
Founder amid fanatic storms.
Yet evermore, through years renewed
In undisturbed vicissitude
Of seasons balancing their flight
On the swift wings of day and night,
Kind Nature keeps a heavenly door
Wide open for the scattered poor.
Where flower-breathed incense to the skies
Is wafted in mute harmonies;
And ground fresh-cloven by the plough
Is fragrant with a humbler vow;
Where birds and brooks from leafy dells
Chime forth unwearied canticles,
And vapours magnify and spread
The glory of the sun's bright head-
Still constant in her worship, still
Conforming to the Eternal Will,
Whether men sow or reap the fields,
Divine monition Nature yields,
That not by bread alone we live,
Or what a hand of flesh can give;
That every day should leave some part
Free for a sabbath of the heart;
So shall the seventh be truly blest,
From morn to eve with hallowed rest.
[Supposed to be found in and near a hermit's cell.]
HOPES what are they? Beads of morning
Strung on slender blades of grass:
Or a spider's web adorning
In a straight and treacherous pass.
What are fears but voices airy?
Whisperings where harm is not:
And deluding the unwary
Till the fatal bolt is shot!
What is glory? in the socket
See how dying tapers fare!
What is pride?—A whizzing rocket
That would emulate a star.
What is friendship?-do not trust her,
Nor the vow which she has made;
Diamonds dart their brightest lustre
From a palsy-shaken head.
What is truth?-a staff rejected;
Duty? an unwelcome clog;
Joy? A moon by fits reflected
In a swamp or watery bog;
Bright, as if through ether steering,
To the traveller's eye it shone:
He hath hailed it reappearing-
And as quickly it is gone;
Such is joy-as quickly hidden,
Or misshapen to the sight,
And by sullen weeds forbidden
To resume its native light.
What is youth?-a dancing billow,
(Winds behind, and rocks before!)
Age?-a drooping, tottering willow
On a flat and lazy shore.
What is peace?--When pain is over,
And love ceases to rebel,
Let the last faint sight discover
That precedes the passing knell !
Hast thou seen, with flash incessant,
Bubbles gliding under ice,
Bodied forth and evanescent,
No one knows by what device?
Such are thoughts—A wind-swept meadow
Mimicking a troubled sea,
Such is life; and death a shadow
From the rock eternity!
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