XIX.

THE AVON (a feeder of the Annan.)

AVON -a precious, an immortal name!
Yet is it one that other Rivulets bear

Like this unheard-of, and their channels wear
Like this contented, though unknown to Fame:
For great and sacred is the modest claim

Of streams to Nature's love, where'er they flow;
And ne'er did genius slight them, as they go,
Tree, flower, and green herb, feeding without blame.
But Praise can waste her voice on work of tears,
Anguish, and death; full oft where innocent blood
Has mixed its current with the limpid flood,
Her heaven-offending trophies Glory rears;
Never for like distinction may the good

Shrink from thy name, pure Rill, with unpleased ears!

XX.

SUGGESTED BY A VIEW FROM AN EMINENCE IN
INGLEWOOD FOREST.

THE forest huge of ancient Caledon
Is but a name, nor more is Inglewood,

That swept from hill to hill, from flood to flood:
On her last thorn the nightly Moon has shone;
Yet still, though unappropriate Wild be none,
Fair parks spread wide where Adam Bell might deign
With Clym o' the Clough, were they alive again,
To kill for merry feast their venison.
Nor wants the holy Abbot's gliding Shade
His Church with monumental wreck bestrown;
The feudal Warrior-chief, a Ghost unlaid,
Hath still his Castle, though a Skeleton,
That he may watch by night, and lessons con
Of Power that perishes, and Rights that fade.

XXI.

HART'S-HORN TREE, NEAR PENRITHI. HERE stood an Oak, that long had borne affixed To his huge trunk, or, with more subtle art, Among its withering topmost branches mixed, The palmy antlers of a hunted Ilart, Whom the dog Hercules pursued his part Each desperately sustaining, till at last Both sank and died, the life-veins of the chased And chaser bursting here with one dire smart. Mutual the Victory, mutual the Defeat! High was the trophy hung with pitiless pride; Say, rather, with that generous sympathy That wants not, even in rudest breasts, a seat; And, for this feeling's sake, let no one chide Verse that would guard thy memory, Hart's-horn Tree !*

*See Note.

WHILE the Poor gather round, till the end of time
May this bright flower of Charity display
Its bloom, unfolding at the appointed day;
Flower than the loveliest of the vernal prime
Lovelier-transplanted from heaven's purest clime!
"Charity never faileth :" on that creed,
More than on written testament or deed,
The pious Lady built with hope sublime.
Alms on this stone to be dealt out, for ever!
"Laus Deo!" Many a Stranger passing by
Has with that parting mixed a filial sigh,
Blest its humane Memorial's fond endeavour;
And, fastening on those lines an eye tear-glazed,
Has ended, though no Clerk, with "God be praised!"

XXIII.

ROMAN ANTIQUITIES.

(FROM THE ROMAN STATION AT OLD PENRITH
How profitless the relics that we cull,
Troubling the last holds of ambitious Rome,
Unless they chasten fancies that presume
Too high, or idle agitations lull!
Of the world's flatteries if the brain be full,
To have no seat for thought were better doom,
Like this old helmet, or the eyeless skull
Of him who gloried in its nodding plume.
Heaven out of view, our wishes what are they?
Our fond regrets, insatiate in their grasp?
The Sage's theory? the Poet's lay?

Mere Fibula without a robe to clasp;
Obsolete lamps, whose light no time recalls;
Urns without ashes, tearless lacrymals!

That from a threshold loved by every Muse
Its impulse took that sorrow-stricken door,
Whence, as a current from its fountain-head,
Our thoughts have issued, and our feelings flowed,
Receiving, willingly or not, fresh strength
From kindred sources; while around us sighed
(Life's three first seasons having passed away)
Leaf-scattering winds, and hoar-frost sprinklings fell,
Foretaste of winter, on the moorland heights;
And every day brought with it tidings new
Of rash change, ominous for the public weal.
Hence, if dejection have too oft encroached
Upon that sweet and tender melancholy
Which may itself be cherished and caressed
More than enough, a fault so natural,

Even with the young, the hopeful, or the gay,
For prompt forgiveness will not sue in vain.

THE HIGHLAND BROACH.

IF to Tradition faith be due,

And echoes from old verse speak true,
Ere the meek Saint, Columba, bore
Glad tidings to Iona's shore,
No common light of nature blessed
The mountain region of the west,
A land where gentle manners ruled
O'er men in dauntless virtues schooled,
That raised, for centuries, a bar
Impervious to the tide of war;
Yet peaceful Arts did entrance gain
Where haughty Force had striven in vain;
And, 'mid the works of skilful hands,
By wanderers brought from foreign lands
And various climes, was not unknown
The clasp that fixed the Roman Gown;
The Fibula, whose shape, I ween,
Still in the Highland Broach is seen,*

The exact resemblance which the old Broach (still in use, though rarely met with, among the Highlanders) bears to the Roman Fibula, must strike every one, and concurs with the plaid and kilt to recall to mind the communication which the ancient Romans had with this remote country. How much the Broach is sometimes prized by persons in humble stations may be gathered from an occurrence mentioned to me by a female friend She had had an opportunity of benefiting a poor old

The silver Broach of massy frame,
Worn at the breast of some grave Dame
On road or path, or at the door
Of fern-thatched Hut on heathy moor:
But delicate of yore its mould,
And the material finest gold;

As might beseem the fairest Fair,
Whether she graced a royal chair,
Or shed, within a vaulted Hall,
No fancied lustre on the wall
Where shields of mighty Heroes hung,
While Fingal heard what Ossian sung.

The heroic age expired-it slept
Deep in its tomb:- the bramble crept
O'er Fingal's hearth; the grassy sod
Grew on the floors his Sons had trod:
Malvina where art thou? Their state
The noblest-born must abdicate,
The fairest, while with fire and sword
Come spoilers-horde impelling horde,
Must walk the sorrowing mountains, drest
By ruder hands in homelier vest.
Yet still the female bosom lent,
And loved to borrow, ornament;

Still was its inner world a place

Reached by the dews of heavenly grace;

Still Pity to this last retreat
Clove fondly; to his favourite seat

Love wound his way by soft approach,
Beneath a massier Highland Broach.

When alternations came of rage

Yet fiercer, in a darker age;

And feuds, where, clan encountering clan,

The weaker perished to a man;

For maid and mother, when despair

Might else have triumphed, baffling prayer,
One small possession lacked not power,
Provided in a calmer hour,

To meet such need as might befall-
Roof, raiment, bread, or burial:
For woman, even of tears bereft,
The hidden silver Broach was left.

As generations come and go,

Their arts, their customs, ebb and flow;
Fate, fortune, sweep strong powers away,
And feeble, of themselves, decay;
What poor abodes the heir-loom hide,
In which the castle once took pride!

woman in her own hut, who, wishing to make a return, said to her daughter, in Erse, in a tone of plaintive earnestness, “I would give any thing I have, but I hope she does not wish for my Broach!" and, uttering these words, she put her hand upon the Brouch which fastened her kerchief, and which, she ima gined, had attracted the eye of her benefactress.

A POINT of life between my Parents' dust,
And yours, my buried Little-ones! am I;
And to those graves looking habitually
In kindred quiet I repose my trust.
Death to the innocent is more than just,
And, to the sinner, mercifully bent;
So may I hope, if truly I repent
And meekly bear the ills which bear I must:
And You, my Offspring! that do still remain,
Yet may outstrip me in the appointed race,
If e'er, through fault of mine, in mutual pain
We breathed together for a moment's space,
The wrong, by love provoked, let love arraign,
And only love keep in your hearts a place.

* See Note.

This sonnet has already appeared in several editions of the author's poems; but he is tempted to ceprint it in this place, as natural introduction to the two that follow it.

NUN'S WELL, BRIGHAM.

THE cattle crowding round this beverage clear
To slake their thirst, with reckless hoofs have trod
The encircling turf into a barren clod;
Through which the waters creep, then disappear,
Born to be lost in Derwent flowing near;
Yet, o'er the brink, and round the limestone-cell
Of the pure spring (they call it the "Nun's well,"
Name that first struck by chance my startled ear)
A tender Spirit broods- the pensive Shade
Of ritual honours to this Fountain paid
By hooded Votariest with saintly cheer;
Albeit oft the Virgin-mother mild
Looked down with pity upon eyes beguiled
Into the shedding of "too soft a tear."

IX.

TO A FRIEND.

(ON THE BANKS OF THE DERWENT.)
PASTOR and Patriot! at whose bidding rise
These modest Walls, amid a flock that need
For one who comes to watch them and to feed
A fixed Abode, keep down presageful sighs.
Threats which the unthinking only can despise,
Perplex the Church; but be thou firm,- be true
To thy first hope, and this good work pursue,
Poor as thou art. A welcome sacrifice
Dost thou prepare, whose sign will be the smoke

Attached to the church of Brigham was formerly a chantry which held a moiety of the manor; and in the decayed parson uge some vestiges of monastic architecture are still to be seen

Of thy new hearth; and sooner shall its wreaths,
Mounting while earth her morning incense breathes,
From wandering fiends of air receive a yoke,
And straightway cease to aspire, than God disdain
This humble tribute as ill-timed or vain.

X.

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS,

LANDING AT THE MOUTH OF THE DERWENT, WORKINGTON.*) DEAR to the Loves, and to the Graces vowed, The Queen drew back the wimple that she wore; And to the throng how touchingly she bowed That hailed her landing on the Cumbrian shore; Bright as a Star (that, from a sombre cloud Of pine-tree foliage poised in air, forth darts, When a soft summer gale at evening parts The gloom that did its loveliness enshroud) She smiled; but Time, the old Saturnian Seer, Sighed on the wing as her foot pressed the strand, With step prelusive to a long array Of woes and degradations hand in hand, Weeping captivity, and shuddering fear

Stilled by the ensanguined block of Fotheringay!

XI.

IN THE CHANNEL, BETWEEN THE COAST OF CUM-
BERLAND AND THE ISLE OF MAN.

RANGING the Heights of Scawfell or Black-coom,
In his lone course the Shepherd oft will pause,
And strive to fathom the mysterious laws
By which the clouds, arrayed in light or gloom,
On Mona settle, and the shapes assume

Of all her peaks and ridges. What He draws
From sense, faith, reason, fancy, of the cause
He will take with him to the silent tomb:
Or, by his fire, a Child upon his knee,
Haply the untaught Philosopher may speak
Of the strange sight, nor hide his theory
That satisfies the simple and the meek,
Blest in their pious ignorance, though weak
To cope with Sages undevoutly free.

"The fears and impatience of Mary were so great," says Robertson," that she got into a fisher-boat, and with about twenty attendants landed at Workington, in Cumberland; and thence

she was conducted with many marks of respect to Carlisle." The apartment in which the Queen tiua siept at Workington Hall (where she was received by Sir Henry Curwen as became her raak and misfortunes) was long preserved, out of respect to her memory, as she had left it; and one cannot but regret that some necessary alterations in the mansion could not be effected without its destruction '

XII.

AT SEA, OFF THE ISLE OF MAN.
BOLD words affirmed, in days when faith was strong,
That no adventurer's bark had power to gain
These shores if he approached them bent on wrong;
For, suddenly up-conjured from the Main,

Mists rose to hide the Land-that search, though long
And eager, might be still pursued in vain.
O Fancy, what an age was that for song!
That age, when not by laws inanimate,
As men believed, the waters were impelled,
The air controlled, the stars their courses held,
But element and orb on acts did wait

Of Powers endued with visible form, instinct
With will, and to their work by passion linked.

"Dignum laude virun Musa vetat mori."

THE feudal Keep, the bastions of Cohorn,
Even when they rose to check or to repel
Tides of aggressive war, oft served as well
Greedy ambition, armed to treat with scorn
Just limits; but yon tower, whose smiles adorn
This perilous bay, stands clear of all offence;
Blest work it is of love and innocence,
A Tower of refuge to the else forlorn.
Spare it, ye waves, and lift the mariner,
Struggling for life, into its saving arms!
Spare, too, the human helpers! Do they stir
'Mid your fierce shock like men afraid to die?
No, their dread service nerves the heart it warms,
And they are led by noble HILLARY. †

The TOWER of REFUGE, an ornament to Douglas Bay, was erected chiefly through the humanity and zeal of Sir William Hillary; and he also was the founder of the life-boat establishment, at that place; by which, under his superintendence, and often by his exertions at the imminent hazard of his own life many seamen and passengers have bec. saved.