390

SONNETS UPON THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH.

VI.

IX.

Ye brood of conscience—Spectres! that frequent Though to give timely warning and deter
The bad Man's restless walk, and haunt his bed- Is one great aim of penalty, extend
Fiends in your aspect, yet beneficent

Thy mental vision further and ascend
In act, as hovering Angels when they spread Far higher, else full surely shalt thou err.
Their wings to guard the unconscious Innocent- What is a State? The wise behold in her
Slow be the Statutes of the land to share

A creature born of time, that keeps one eye
A laxity that could not but impair

Fixed on the statutes of Eternity,
Your power to punish crime, and so prevent. To which her judgments reverently defer.
And ye, Beliefs ! coiled serpent-like about Speaking through Law's dispassionate voice the
The adage on all tongues, “ Murder will out,”

State
How shall your ancient warnings work for good Endues her conscience with external life
In the full might they hitherto have shown, And being, to preclude or quell the strife
If for deliberate shedder of man's blood

Of individual will, to elevate
Survive not Judgment that requires his own? The grovelling mind, the erring to recal,

And fortify the moral sense of all.

VII.

X.

BEFORE the world had past her time of youth
While polity and discipline were weak,

OUR bodily life, some plead, that life the shrine
The precept eye for eye, and tooth for tooth, Of an immortal spirit, is a gift
Came forth-a light, though but as of day-break, So sacred, so informed with light divine,
Strong as could then be borne. A Master meek That no tribunal, though most wise to sift
Proscribed the spirit fostered by that rule, Deed and intent, should turn the Being adrift
Patience his law, long-suffering his school,

Into that world where penitential tear
And love the end, which all through peace must May not avail, nor prayer have for God's ear
seek.

A voice_that world whose veil no hand can lift But lamentably do they err who strain

For earthly sight. Eternity and Time”
His mandates, given rash impulse to controul They urge,“ have interwoven claims and rights
And keep vindictive thirstings from the soul, Not to be jeopardised through foulest crime:
So far that, if consistent in their scheme,

The sentence rule by mercy's heaven-born lights." They must forbid the State to inflict a pain, Even so; but measuring not by finite sense Making of social order a mere dream.

Infinite Power, perfect Intelligence.

Fit retribution, by the moral code

Au, think how one compelled for life to abide Determined, lies beyond the State's embrace, Locked in a dungeon needs must eat the heart Yet, as she may, for each peculiar case

Out of his own humanity, and part She plants well-measured terrors in the road With every hope that mutual cares provide ; Of wrongful acts. Downward it is and broad, And, should a less unnatural doom confide And, the main fear once doomed to banishment, In life-long exile on a savage coast, Far oftener then, bad ushering worse event, Soon the relapsing penitent may boast Blood would be spilt that in his dark abode Of yet more heinous guilt, with fiercer pride. Crime might lie better hid. And, should the Hence thoughtful Mercy, Mercy sage and pure, change

Sanctions the forfeiture that Law demands, Take from the horror due to a foul deed,

Leaving the final issue in His hands Pursuit and evidence so far must fail,

Whose goodness knows no change, whose love is And, guilt escaping, passion then might plead

sure, In angry spirits for her old free range,

Who sees, foresees; who cannot judge amiss, And the “wild justice of revenge” prevail. And wafts at will the contrite soul to bliss.

3

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

1.

Those heights (like Phoebus when his geledes bar
EPISTLE

He veiled, attendant on Thessalian flocks)
TO SIR GEORGE HOWLAND BEAUMONT, BART.

And, in disguise, a Milkmaid with her paid

Trips down the pathways of some winding dek: FROM THE SOUTH-WEST COAST OF CUMBERLAND.-1811.

Or, like a Mermaid, warbles on the shores Far from our home by Grasmere's quiet Lake,

To fishers mending nets beside their dous From the Vale's peace which all her fields partake, Or, Pilgrim-like, on forest moss reclined, Here on the bleakest point of Cumbria's shore Gives plaintive ditties to the heedless wind, We sojourn stunned by Ocean's ceaseless roar; Or listens to its play among the boughs While, day by day, grim neighbour ! huge Black Above her head and so forgets her vores Comb

If such a Visitant of Earth there be Frowns deepening visibly his native gloom,

And she would deign this day to smile ce ?
Unless, perchance rejecting in despite

And aid my verse, content with local bead
What on the Plain we have of warmth and light, Of natural beauty and life's daily rounds,
In his own storms he hides himself from sight. Thoughts, chances, sights, or doings, which me
Rough is the time; and thoughts, that would be free Without reserve to those whom we love wit
From heaviness, oft fly, dear Friend, to thee; Then haply, Beaumont ! words in curent es
Turn from a spot where neither sheltered road Will flow, and on a welcome page appear
Nor hedge-row screen invites my steps abroad; Duly before thy sight, unless they perish bt
Where one poor Plane-tree, having as it might
Attained a stature twice a tall man's height, What shall I treat of? News from Mas,
Hopeless of further growth, and brown and sere Such have we, but unvaried in its style ;
Through half the summer, stands with top cut sheer, No tales of Runagates fresh landed, whence
Like an unshifting weathercock which proves And wherefore fugitive or on what preteran
How cold the quarter that the wind best loves, Of feasts, or scandal, eddying like the wind
Or like a Centinel that, evermore

Most restlessly alive when most confue.
Darkening the window, ill defends the door Ask not of me, whose tongue can best appear
Of this unfinished house-a Fortress bare, The mighty tumults of the House Of Kas
Where strength has been the Builder's only care; The last year's cup whose Ram or Heter
Whose rugged walls may still for years demand What slopes are planted, or what meses de
The final polish of the Plasterer's hand.

An eye of fancy only can I cast - This Dwelling's Inmate more than three weeks' On that proud pageant now at hand ar peste space

When full five hundred boats in trin atale
And oft a Prisoner in the cheerless place, With nets and sails outspread and stress
1-of whose touch the fiddle would complain, And chanted hymns and stiller voice di pensie
Whose breath would labour at the flute in vain, For the old Manx-harvest to the Deep peran
In music all unversed, nor blessed with skill Soon as the herring-shoals at distance de
A bridge to copy, or to paint a mill,

Like beds of moonlight shifting on the briga
Tired of my books, a scanty company!
And tired of listening to the boisterous sea- Mona from our Abode is daily seen,
Pace between door and window muttering rhyme, But with a wilderness of waves betwees;
An old resource to cheat a froward time!

And by conjecture only can we speak
Though these dull hours (mine is it, or their shame ?) of aught transacted there in bay or creek
Would tempt me to renounce that humble aim. No tidings reach us thence from tontorfa
-But if there be a Muse who, free to take Only faint news her mountain sunbeses nad
Her seat upon Olympus, doth forsake

And some we gather from the misty sir

,

banye's

And some the hovering clouds, our telegraph, And in that griesly object recognise
declare.

The Curate's Dog—his long-tried friend, for they,
But these poetic mysteries I withhold;

As well we knew, together had grown grey.
For Fancy hath her fits both hot and cold, The Master died, his drooping servant's grief
And should the colder fit with You be on

Found at the Widow's feet some sad relief ;
When You might read, my credit would be gone. Yet still he lived in pining discontent,

Sadness which no indulgence could prevent;
Let more substantial themes the pen engage, Hence whole day wanderings, broken nightly sleeps
And nearer interests culled from the opening stage And lonesome watch that out of doors he keeps ;
Of our migration.-Ere the welcome dawn Not oftentimes, I trust, as we, poor brute !
Had from the east her silver star withdrawn, Espied him on his legs sustained, blank, mute,
l'he Wain stood ready, at our Cottage-door, And of all visible motion destitute,
l'houghtfully freighted with a various store ; So that the very heaving of his breath
And long or ere the uprising of the Sun

Seemed stopt, though by some other power than
D'er dew-damped dust our journey was begun,

death.
I needful journey, under favouring skies, Long as we gazed upon the form and face,

"hrough peopled Vales; yet something in the guise A mild domestic pity kept its place,
If those old Patriarchs when from well to well Unscared by thronging fancies of strange hue
'hey roamed through Wastes where now the tented That haunted us in spite of what we knew.
Arabs dwell.

Even now I sometimes think of him as lost

In second-sight appearances, or crost
Say first, to whom did we the charge confide, By spectral shapes of guilt, or to the ground,
'ho promptly undertook the Wain to guide On which he stood, by spells unnatural bound,
p many a sharply-twining road and down, Like a gaunt shaggy Porter forced to wait

ad over many a wide hill's craggy crown, In days of old romance at Archimago's gate.
arough the quick turns of many a hollow nook,
id the rough bed of many an unbridged brook? Advancing Summer, Nature's law fulfilled,
blooming Lass—who in her better hand The choristers in every grove had stilled;
re a light switch, her sceptre of command But we, we lacked not music of our own,
hen, yet a slender Girl, she often led,

For lightsome Fanny had thus early thrown,
ilful and bold, the horse and burthened sled • Mid the gay prattle of those infant tongues,
om the peat-yielding Moss on Gowdar's head. Some notes prelusive, from the round of songs
iat could go wrong with such a Charioteer With which, more zealous than the liveliest bird
goods and chattels, or those Infants dear,

That in wild Arden's brakes was ever heard, Pair who smilingly sate side by side,

Her work and her work's partners she can cheer, hope confirming that the salt-sea tide, The whole day long, and all days of the year. ose free embraces we were bound to seek, uld their lost strength restore and freshen the

Thus gladdened from our own dear Vale we pass pale cheek?

And soon approach Diana’s Looking-glass !

To Loughrigg-tarn, round clear and bright as 19*** I hope did either Parent entertain ing behind along the silent lane.

heaven,

Such name Italian fancy would have given, lithe hopes and happy musings soon took flight, Ere on its banks the few grey cabins rose lo! an uncouth melancholy sight

That yet disturb not its concealed repose

More than the feeblest wind that idly blows. EFTED E'* green bank a creature stood forlorn

half protruded to the light of morn, tinder part concealed by hedge-row thorn.

Ah, Beaumont! when an opening in the road Figure called to mind a beast of prey

Stopped me at once by charm of what it showed, it of its frightful powers by slow decay,

The encircling region vividly exprest though no longer upon rapine bent,

Within the mirror's depth, a world at restmemory keeping of its old intent.

Sky streaked with purple, grove and craggy bield*, sitarted, looked again with anxious eyes, And the smooth green of many a pendent field,

A word common in the country, signifying shelter, as * A local word for Sledge.

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