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XI

An, think how one compelled for Efe to abide
Locked in a dungeon needs must eat the heart
Out of his own humanity, and part
With every hope that mutual cares provide;
And, should a less unnatural doom confide
In life-long exile on a savage coast,

Soon the relapsing penitent may boast

Of yet more heinous guilt, with fiercer pride. Hence thoughtful Mercy, Mercy sage and pure, Sanctions the forfeiture that Law demands, Leaving the final issue in His hands

Whose goodness knows no change, whose love is

sure,

Who sees, foresees; who cannot judge amiss, And wafts at will the contrite soul to bliss.

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XII.

SEE the Condemned alone within his cell
And prostrate at some moment when remorse
Stings to the quick, and, with resistless force,
Assaults the pride she strove in vain to quell.
Then mark him, him who could so long rebel,
The crime confessed, a kneeling Penitent
Before the Altar, where the Sacrament
Softens his heart, till from his eyes outwell
Tears of salvation. Welcome death! while Heaven
Does in this change exceedingly rejoice;
While yet the solemn heed the State hath given
Helps him to meet the last Tribunal's voice
In faith, which fresh offences, were he cast
On old temptations, might for ever blast.

XIII.

CONCLUSION.

YES, though He well may tremble at the sound
Of his own voice, who from the judgment-seat
Sends the pale Convict to his last retreat
In death; though Listeners shudder all around,
They know the dread requital's source profound;
Nor is, they feel, its wisdom obsolete-
(Would that it were!) the sacrifice unmeet

For Christian Faith. But hopeful signs abound;
The social rights of man breathe purer air;
Religion deepens her preventive care;
Then, moved by needless fear of past abuse,
Strike not from Law's firm hand that awful rod,
But leave it thence to drop for lack of use:
Oh, speed the blessed hour, Almighty God!

XIV.

APOLOGY.

THE formal World relaxes her cold chain
For One who speaks in numbers; ampler scope
His utterance finds; and, conscious of the gain,
Imagination works with bolder hope

The cause of grateful reason to sustain ;
And, serving Truth, the heart more strongly beats
Against all barriers which his labour meets
In lofty place, or humble Life's domain.
Enough ;-before us lay a painful road,
And guidance have I sought in duteous love
From Wisdom's heavenly Father. Hence hath
flowed

Patience, with trust that, whatsoe'er the way
Each takes in this high matter, all may move
Cheered with the prospect of a brighter day.

1840

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

1.

EPISTLE

TO SIR GEORGE HOWLAND BEAUMONT, BART. FROM THE SOUTH-WEST COAST OF CUMBERLAND.-1811.

FAR from our home by Grasmere's quiet Lake,
From the Vale's peace which all her fields partake,
Here on the bleakest point of Cumbria's shore
We sojourn stunned by Ocean's ceaseless roar ;
While, day by day, grim neighbour! huge Black
Comb

Frowns deepening visibly his native gloom,
Unless, perchance rejecting in despite
What on the Plain we have of warmth and light,
In his own storms he hides himself from sight.
Rough is the time; and thoughts, that would be free
From heaviness, oft fly, dear Friend, to thee;
Turn from a spot where neither sheltered road
Nor hedge-row screen invites my steps abroad;
Where one poor Plane-tree, having as it might
Attained a stature twice a tall man's height,
Hopeless of further growth, and brown and sere
Through half the summer, stands with top cut sheer,
Like an unshifting weathercock which proves
How cold the quarter that the wind best loves,
Or like a Centinel that, evermore
Darkening the window, ill defends the door
Of this unfinished house-a Fortress bare,
Where strength has been the Builder's only care;
Whose rugged walls may still for years demand
The final polish of the Plasterer's hand.
-This Dwelling's Inmate more than three weeks'

space

And oft a Prisoner in the cheerless place,
I-of whose touch the fiddle would complain,
Whose breath would labour at the flute in vain,
In music all unversed, nor blessed with skill
A bridge to copy, or to paint a mill,
Tired of my books, a scanty company!
And tired of listening to the boisterous sea—
Pace between door and window muttering rhyme,
An old resource to cheat a froward time!
Though these dull hours (mine is it, or their shame?)
Would tempt me to renounce that humble aim.
-But if there be a Muse who, free to take
Her seat upon Olympus, doth forsake

Those heights (like Phoebus when his golden locks
He veiled, attendant on Thessalian flocks)
And, in disguise, a Milkmaid with her pail
Trips down the pathways of some winding dale ;
Or, like a Mermaid, warbles on the shores
To fishers mending nets beside their doors;
Or, Pilgrim-like, on forest moss reclined,
Gives plaintive ditties to the heedless wind,
Or listens to its play among the boughs
Above her head and so forgets her vows-
If such a Visitant of Earth there be
And she would deign this day to smile on me
And aid my verse, content with local bounds
Of natural beauty and life's daily rounds,
Thoughts, chances, sights, or doings, which we tell
Without reserve to those whom we love well-
Then haply, Beaumont! words in current clear
Will flow, and on a welcome page appear
Duly before thy sight, unless they perish here.

What shall I treat of? News from Mona's Isle ?
Such have we, but unvaried in its style;
No tales of Runagates fresh landed, whence
And wherefore fugitive or on what pretence;
Of feasts, or scandal, eddying like the wind
Most restlessly alive when most confined.
Ask not of me, whose tongue can best appease
The mighty tumults of the HOUSE OF KEYS;
The last year's cup whose Ram or Heifer gained,
What slopes are planted, or what mosses drained:
An eye of fancy only can I cast

On that proud pageant now at hand or past,
When full five hundred boats in trim array,
With nets and sails outspread and streamers gay,
And chanted hymns and stiller voice of prayer,
For the old Manx-harvest to the Deep repair,
Soon as the herring-shoals at distance shine
Like beds of moonlight shifting on the brine.

Mona from our Abode is daily seen, But with a wilderness of waves between ; And by conjecture only can we speak Of aught transacted there in bay or creek; No tidings reach us thence from town or field, Only faint news her mountain sunbeams yield, And some we gather from the misty air,

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

declare.

But these poetic mysteries I withhold;

For Fancy hath her fits both hot and cold,
And should the colder fit with You be on
When You might read, my credit would be gone.

Let more substantial themes the pen engage,
And nearer interests culled from the opening stage
Of our migration.-Ere the welcome dawn
Had from the east her silver star withdrawn,
The Wain stood ready, at our Cottage-door,
Thoughtfully freighted with a various store;
And long or ere the uprising of the Sun

O'er dew-damped dust our journey was begun,
A needful journey, under favouring skies,
Through peopled Vales; yet something in the guise
Of those old Patriarchs when from well to well
They roamed through Wastes where now the tented
Arabs dwell.

Say first, to whom did we the charge confide, Who promptly undertook the Wain to guide Up many a sharply-twining road and down, And over many a wide hill's craggy crown, Through the quick turns of many a hollow nook, And the rough bed of many an unbridged brook? A blooming Lass-who in her better hand Bore a light switch, her sceptre of command When, yet a slender Girl, she often led, Skilful and bold, the horse and burthened sled * From the peat-yielding Moss on Gowdar's head. What could go wrong with such a Charioteer For goods and chattels, or those Infants dear, A Pair who smilingly sate side by side, Our hope confirming that the salt-sea tide, Whose free embraces we were bound to seek, Would their lost strength restore and freshen the

pale cheek?

Such hope did either Parent entertain Pacing behind along the silent lane.

The Curate's Dog-his long-tried friend, for they,
As well we knew, together had grown grey.
The Master died, his drooping servant's grief
Found at the Widow's feet some sad relief;
Yet still he lived in pining discontent,
Sadness which no indulgence could prevent;
Hence whole day wanderings, broken nightly sleeps
And lonesome watch that out of doors he keeps;
Not oftentimes, I trust, as we, poor brute!
Espied him on his legs sustained, blank, mute,
And of all visible motion destitute,

So that the very heaving of his breath
Seemed stopt, though by some other power than

death.

Long as we gazed upon the form and face,
A mild domestic pity kept its place,
Unscared by thronging fancies of strange hue
That haunted us in spite of what we knew.
Even now I sometimes think of him as lost
In second-sight appearances, or crost
By spectral shapes of guilt, or to the ground,
On which he stood, by spells unnatural bound,
Like a gaunt shaggy Porter forced to wait
In days of old romance at Archimago's gate.

Advancing Summer, Nature's law fulfilled, The choristers in every grove had stilled; But we, we lacked not music of our own, For lightsome Fanny had thus early thrown, Mid the gay prattle of those infant tongues, Some notes prelusive, from the round of songs With which, more zealous than the liveliest bird That in wild Arden's brakes was ever heard, Her work and her work's partners she can cheer, The whole day long, and all days of the year.

Thus gladdened from our own dear Vale we pass And soon approach Diana's Looking-glass! To Loughrigg-tarn, round clear and bright as heaven,

Such name Italian fancy would have given,

Blithe hopes and happy musings soon took flight, Ere on its banks the few grey cabins rose

For lo! an uncouth melancholy sight-
On a green bank a creature stood forlorn
Just half protruded to the light of morn,
Its hinder part concealed by hedge-row thorn.
The Figure called to mind a beast of prey
Stript of its frightful powers by slow decay,
And, though no longer upon rapine bent,
Dim memory keeping of its old intent.
We started, looked again with anxious eyes,

* A local word for Sledge.

That yet disturb not its concealed repose More than the feeblest wind that idly blows.

Ah, Beaumont! when an opening in the road Stopped me at once by charm of what it showed, The encircling region vividly exprest Within the mirror's depth, a world at rest— Sky streaked with purple, grove and craggy bield*, And the smooth green of many a pendent field,

* A word common in the country, signifying shelter, as in Scotland.

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Vadina baru sarage in the bright hill wide
Whim birth, navmaand with hope to be donerred.

¦ Koon, gully wowwering wgnals we displayed,

1 Moring wlony, w truet of morning shade,

And vocal wishes ment of like good will
To our kind Vriend high on the munny hill –
Taminona regom, fair na if the prime
Were tempting all natir to look aloft or elimb;
Only the centre of the shining cot

With door left open makes a gloomy spot,
Kauble of those dark corners sometimes found
Within the happiest breast on earthly ground.

Hich prompeet, left behind of stream and vale, And mountain tops, a barren ridge we scale ; Descend and reach, in Yewdale's depths, a plain With baycocks studded, striped with yellowing Krain

An area level as a Lake and sprend

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Kind Homness: Hanimuat sist of the feas If tovt be appeler man the Ending East, Words by thy presence unrestrained may speak Of a perpetua dawz from trow and citret Luetines with light whose sweetest praise lies, Never retiring, in thy large dark eyes, Dark but to every gentle feeling true,

As if their lustre flowed from ether's parest bine.

Let me not ask what tears may have been wept By those bright eyes, what weary vigils kept, Beside that hearth what sighs may have been heaved

For wounds inflicted, nor what toil relieved
By fortitude and patience, and the grace
Of heaven in pity visiting the place.
Not unadvisedly those secret springs

I leave unsearched: enough that memory elings,
Here as elsewhere, to notices that make
Their own significance for hearts awake,
To rural incidents, whose genial powers
Filled with delight three summer morning hours.

More could my pen report of grave or gay That through our gipsy travel cheered the way; But, bursting forth above the waves, the Sun Laughs at my pains, and seems to say, "Be done." Yet, Beaumont, thou wilt not, I trust, reprove This humble offering made by Truth to Love,

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