ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG LADY.
General Sketch of the Lakes-Author's regret of his youth which was passed amongst them-Short description of Noon-Cascade-Noon-tide Retreat--Precipice and sloping Lights-Face of Nature as the Sun declines-Mountain farm, and the Cock-Slatequarry-Sunset-Superstition of the Country connected with that moment-SwansFemale Beggar-Twilight sounds-Western Lights-Spirits-Night-Mooulight-HopeNight sounds-Conclusion.
FAR from my dearest friend, 'tis mine to rove
Through bare grey dell, high wood, and pastoral cove;
His wizard course where hoary Derwent takes,
Through crags and forest glooms and opening lakes,
Staying his silent waves, to hear the roar
That stuns the tremulous clifis of high Lodore;
Where peace to Grasmere's lonely island leads,
To willowy hedge-rows, and to emerald meads;
Leads to her bridge, rude church, and cottaged grounds,
Her rocky sheepwalks, and her woodland bounds;
Where bosom'd deep, the shy Winander* peeps
'Mid clustering isles, and holly-sprinkled steeps;
Where twilight glens endear my Esthwaite's shore,
And memory of departed pleasures, more.
Fair scenes, erewhile, I taught, a happy child,
The echoes of your rocks my carols wild;
Then did no ebb of cheerfulness demand
Sad tides of joy from Melancholy's hand,
In youth's wild eye the livelong day was bright,
The sun at morning, and the stars at night,
Alike when first the vales the bittern fills,
Or the first woodcocks+ roam'd the moonlight hills.
In thoughtless gaiety I coursed the plain,
And hope itself was all I knew of pain;
For then, even then, the little heart would beat
At times, while young Content forsook her seat,
And wild Impatience, pointing upward, show'd,
Where, tipp'd with gold, the mountain summits glow'd.
Alas! the idle tale of man is found
Depicted in the dial's moral round;
With hope reflection blends her social rays,
To gild the total tablet of his days:
Yet still, the sport of some malignant power,
He knows but from its shade the present hour.
But why, ungrateful, dwell on idle pain?
To show her yet some joys to me remain,
Say will my friend, with soft affection's ear,
The history of a poet's evening hear?
When, in the south, the wan noon, brooding still.
Breathed a pale steam around the glaring hill,
These lines are only applicable to the middle part of that lake.
In the beginning of winter, these mountains are frequented by woodcocks, which la dark nights retire into the woods
And shades of deep-embattled clouds were seen,
Spotting the northern cliffs with lights between ;
Gazing the tempting shades to them denied,
When stood the shorten'd herds amid the tide,
Where from the barren wall's unshelter'd end
Long rails into the shallow lake extend.
When school-boys stretch'd their length upon the green;
And round the humming elm, a glimmering scene,
In the brown park, in flocks the troubled deer
Shook the still-twinkling tail and glancing ear;
When horses in the wall-girt intake* stood,
Unshaded, eying far below the flood,
Crowded behind the swain, in mute distress,
With forward neck the closing gate to press-
Then, as I wander'd where the huddling rill
Brightens with water-breaks, the hollow ghyll,†
To where, while thick above the branches close,
In dark brown basin its wild waves repose,
Inverted shrubs, and moss of darkest green,
Cling from the rocks, with pale wood-weeds between
Save that aloft the subtile sunbeams shine
On wither'd briers that o'er the crags recline;
Sole light admitted here, a small cascade,
Illumes with sparkling foam the twilight shade;
Beyond, along the vista of the brook,
Where antique roots its bustling path o'erlook,
The eye reposes on a secret bridge,+
Half grey, half snagged with ivy to its ridge.
Sweet rill, farewell! To-morrow's noon again
Shall hide me, wooing long, thy wildwood strain;
But now the sun has gain'd his western road,
And eve's mild hour invites my steps abroad.
While, near the midway cliff, the silver'd kite
In many a whistling circle wheels her flight;
Slant watery lights, from parting clouds, apace
Travel along the precipice's base;
Cheering its naked waste of scatter'd stone,
By lichens grey and scanty moss o'ergrown ;
Where scarce the foxglove peeps, or thistle's beard;
And restless stone-chat, all day long, is heard.
How pleasant, as the yellowing sun declines,
And with long rays and shades the landscape shines;
To mark the birches' stems all golden light,
That lit the dark slant woods with silvery white;
The willow's weeping trees, that twinkling hoar,
Glanced oft upturn'd along the breezy shore,
Low bending o'er the colour'd water, fold
Their moveless boughs and leaves like threads of gold;
The word intake is local, and signifies a mountain inclosure.
↑ Ghyll is also, I believe, a term confined to this country: ghyll and dingle have the Bame meaning.
I The reader who has made the tour of this country, will recognize, in this description, the features which characterize the lower waterfall in the grounds of Rydal.
The skiffs with naked masts at anchor laid,
Before the boat-house peeping through the shade;
The unwearied glance of woodman's echoed stroke;
And curling from the trees the cottage smoke.
Their pannier'd train a group of potters goad,
Winding from side to side up the steep road;
The peasant from yon cliff of fearful edge
Shot, down the headlong path darts with his sledge;
Bright beams the lonely mountain-horse illume,
Feeding 'mid purple heath, "green rings'
"* and broom;
While the sharp slope the slacken'd team confounds,
Downward the ponderous timber-wain resounds;
In foamy breaks the rill, with merry song,
Dash'd down the rough rock, lightly leaps along;
From lonesome chapel at the mountain's feet,
Three humble bells their rustic chime repeat;
Sounds from the water-side the hammer'd boat;
And blasted quarry thunders heard remote !
Even here, amid the sweep of endless woods,
Blue pomp of lakes, high cliffs and falling floods,
Not undelightful are the simplest charms,
Found by the glassy door of mountain farms.
Sweetly ferocious,† round his native walks,
Pride of his sister wives, the monarch stalks;
Spur-clad his nervous feet, and firm his tread;
A crest of purple tops his warrior head.
Bright sparks his black and rolling eyeball hurls
Afar, his tail he closes and unfurls;
On tiptoe rear'd, he strains his clarion throat,
Threaten'd by faintly answering farms remote.
Bright'ning the cliffs between where sombrous pine
And yew-trees o'er the silver rocks recline;
I love to mark the quarry's moving trains,
Dwarf pannier'd steeds, and men, and numerous wains:
How busy the enormous hive within,
While Echo dallies with the various din !
Some (hardly heard their chisels' clinking sound)
Toil, small as pigmies in the gulf profound;
Some, dim between th' aërial clifts descried,
O'erwalk the slender plank from side to side;
These, by the pale blue rocks that ceaseless ring,
Glad from their airy baskets hang and sing.
Hung o'er a cloud above the steep that rears
Its edge all flame, the broadening sun appears;
A long blue bar its ægis orb divides,
And breaks the spreading of its golden tides;
And now it touches on the purple steep
That flings his shadow on the pictured deep.
"Vivid rings of green."-Greenwood's Poem on Shooting.
"Dolcemente feroce."-Tasso.-In this description of the cock, I remembered a spirited one of the same animal in "L'Agriculture, ou Les Géorgiques Francaises," of M. Rossuet.
'Cross the calm lake's blue shades the cliffs aspire,
With towers and woods, a "prospect all on fire;'
The coves and secret hollows, through a ray
Of fainter gold, a purple gleam betray.
The gilded turf arrays in richer green
Each speck of lawn the broken rocks between,
Deep yellow beams the scatter'd boles illume,
Far in the level forest's central gloom :
Waving his hat, the shepherd, in the vale,
Directs his winding dog the cliffs to scale,-
That barking, busy 'mid the glittering rocks,
Hunts, where he points, the intercepted flocks.
Where oaks o'erhang the road the radiance shoots
On tawny earth, wild weeds, and twisted roots;
The druid-stones their lighted fane unfold,
And all the babbling brooks are liquid gold;
Sunk to a curve, the day-star lessens still,
Gives one bright glance, and drops behind the hill,*
In these lone vales, if aught of faith may claim,
Their silver hairs, and ancient hamlet fame,
When up the hills, as now, retreats the light,
Strange apparitions mock the village sight.
A desperate form appears that spurs his steed
Along the midway cliffs with violent speed;
Unhurt pursues his lengthen'd flight, while all
Attend, at every stretch, his headlong fall.
Anon, in order mounts, a gorgeous show
Of horsemen-shadows moving to and fro;
And now the van is gilt with evening's beam;
The rear through iron brown betrays a sullen gleam,
While silent stands the admiring crowd below,
Lost gradual o'er the heights in pomp they go,
Till, but the lonely beacon, all is fled
That tips with eve's latest gleam his spiry head.
Now, while the solemn evening shadows sail,
On red slow-waving pinions, down the vale;
How pleasant near the tranquil lake to stray
Where winds the road along a secret bay,
In all the majesty of ease divides,
And glorying looks around the silent tides;
Along the "wild meandering shore" to view,
Obsequious grace the winding swan pursue;
He swells his lifted chest and backward flings
His bridling neck between his towering wings;
By rills that tumble down the woody steeps,
And run in transports to the dimpling deeps;
On as he floats, the silver'd waters glow,
Proud of the varying arch and moveless form of snow,
While tender cares and mild domestic loves
With furtive watch pursue her as she moves,
The female with a meeker charm succeeds,
And her brown little ones around her leads,
Nibbling the water-lilies as they pass,
Or playing wanton with the floating grass.
She, in a mother's care, her beauty's pride
Forgets, unwearied watching every side;
She calls them near, and with affection sweet,
Alternately relieves their weary feet.
Alternately they mount her back, and rest,
Close by her mantling wings' embraces press'd.
Long may they roam these hermit waves, that sleep
In birch-besprinkled cliffs embosom'd deep,
These fairy holms untrodden, still, and green,
Whose shades protect the hidden wave serene,
Whence fragrance scents the water's desert gale,
The violet and lily of the vale!
Where, though her far-off twilight ditty steal,
They not the trip of harmless milkmaid feel;
Yon tuft conceals their home, their cottage bower;
Fresh water-rushes strew the verdant floor;
Long grass and willows form the woven wall,
And swings above the roof the poplar tall.
Thence issuing oft unwieldy as they stalk,
They crush with broad black feet their flowery walk;
Safe from your door ye hear at breezy morn
The hound, the horse's tread, and mellow horn;
No ruder sound your desert haunts invades
Than waters dashing wild, or rocking shades;
Ye ne'er, like hapless human wanderers, throw
Your young on winter's winding-sheet of snow.
Fair Swan! by all a mother's joys caress'd,
Haply some wretch has eyed, and call'd thee bless'd;
I see her now, denied to lay her head,
On cold blue nights, in hut or straw-built shed,
Turn to a silent smile their sleepy cry,
By pointing to a shooting star on high.
When low-hung clouds each star of summer hide,
And fireless are the valleys far and wide,
Where the brook brawls along the public road,
Dark with bat-haunted ashes stretching broad,
Oft has she taught them on her lap to play
Delighted with the glowworm's harmless ray,
Toss light from hand to hand, while on the ground
Small circles of green radiance gleam around.
Oh! when the bitter showers her path assail,
And roars between the hills the torrent gale;
No more her breath can thaw their fingers cold,
Their frozen arms her neck no more can fold;
Weak roof a cowering form two babes to shield,
And faint the fire a dying heart can yield!
Press the sad kiss, fond mother! vainly fears
Thy flooded cheek to wet them with its tears;
No tears can chill them, and no bosom warms,
Thy breast their death-bed coffin'd in thine arms?
|