Слике страница
PDF
ePub

406

407

Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men:
O! raise us up, return to us again;

And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.

Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart:
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea,
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free;

So didst thou travel on life's common way
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

WHEN I HAVE BORNE

WHEN I have borne in memory what has tamed
Great nations; how ennobling thoughts depart
When men change swords for ledgers, and desert
The student's bower for gold,—some fears unnamed

I had, my Country!-am I to be blamed?
Now, when I think of thee, and what thou art,
Verily, in the bottom of my heart

Of those unfilial fears I am ashamed.

For dearly must we prize thee; we who find
In thee a bulwark for the cause of men;
And I by my affection was beguiled:

What wonder if a Poet now and then,
Among the many movements of his mind,
Felt for thee as a lover or a child!

THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US

THE World is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

408

409

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours
And are up-gather'd now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for every thing, we are out of tune;

It moves us not.-Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn,—
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathéd horn.

WITHIN KING'S COLLEGE CHApel, Cambridge
TAX not the royal Saint with vain expense,
With ill-match'd aims the Architect who plann'd
(Albeit labouring for a scanty band.

Of white-robed Scholars only) this immense

And glorious work of fine intelligence!

-Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore
Of nicely-calculated less or more:-

So deem'd the man who fashion'd for the sense

These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof
Self-poised, and scoop'd into ten thousand cells
Where light and shade repose, where music dwells

Lingering and wandering on as loth to die-
Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof
That they were born for immortality.

VALEDICTORY SONNET TO THE RIVER DUDDON

I THOUGHT of Thee, my partner and my guide,
As being past away.-Vain sympathies !
For, backward, Duddon! as I cast my eyes,
I see what was, and is, and will abide;

410

411

Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide;
The Form remains, the Function never dies;
While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise,
We Men, who in our morn of youth defied
The elements, must vanish;—be it so!

Enough, if something from our hands have power
To live, and act, and serve the future hour;
And if, as toward the silent tomb we go, [dower,
Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent
We feel that we are greater than we know.

COMPOSED AT NEIDPATH CAstle, the Property of
LORD QUEENSBERRY
[1803]

DEGENERATE Douglas! oh, the unworthy lord!
Whom mere despite of heart could so far please
And love of havoc, (for with such disease
Fame taxes him,) that he could send forth word

To level with the dust a noble horde,
A brotherhood of venerable trees,

Leaving an ancient dome, and towers like these,
Beggar'd and outraged!—Many hearts deplored

The fate of those old trees; and oft with pain
The traveller at this day will stop and gaze
On wrongs, which Nature scarcely seems to heed:

For shelter'd places, bosoms, nooks, and bays,
And the pure mountains, and the gentle Tweed,
And the green silent pastures, yet remain.

ADMONITION TO A TRAVELLER

YES, there is holy pleasure in thine eye!
-The lovely cottage in the guardian nook
Hath stirr'd thee deeply; with its own dear brook,
Its own small pasture, almost its own sky!

But covet not the abode; O do not sigh
As many do, repining while they look;
Intruders who would tear from Nature's book

This precious leaf with harsh impiety:

-Think what the home must be if it were thine,

Even thine, though few thy wants!-Roof, window, door, The very flowers are sacred to the Poor,

The roses to the porch which they entwine:
Yea, all that now enchants thee, from the day
On which it should be touch'd would melt away!

[blocks in formation]

A FLOCK of sheep that leisurely pass by
One after one; the sound of rain, and bees

Murmuring; the fall of rivers, winds and seas,
Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky;-

I've thought of all by turns, and still I lie
Sleepless; and soon the small birds' melodies
Must hear, first utter'd from my orchard trees,
And the first cuckoo's melancholy cry.

Even thus last night, and two nights more I lay,
And could not win thee, Sleep! by any stealth:
So do not let me wear to-night away:

Without Thee what is all the morning's wealth?
Come, blesséd barrier between day and day,
Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!

413

THE SONNET

I

NUNS fret not at their convent's narrow room;
And hermits are contented with their cells;

And students with their pensive citadels;
Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom,

Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom,
High as the highest peak of Furness-fells,
Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells:
In truth the prison, unto which we doom
Ourselves, no prison is: and hence for me,

In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground; Pleased if some souls (for such there needs must be) Who have felt the weight of too much liberty, Should find brief solace there, as I have found.

II

SCORN not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frown'd,
Mindless of its just honours; with this key

Shakespeare unlock'd his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
With it Camöens sooth'd an exile's grief;
The Sonnet glitter'd a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crown'd
His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp,

It cheer'd mild Spenser, call'd from Faery-land To struggle through dark ways; and, when a damp Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew Soul-animating strains-alas, too few!

414

WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES
[1762-1850]

DOVER CLIFFS

ON these white cliffs, that calm above the flood
Uplift their shadowy heads, and at their feet
Scarce hear the surge that has for ages beat,
Sure many a lonely wanderer has stood;
And while the distant murmur met his ear,
And o'er the distant billows the still eve

Sailed slow, has thought of all his heart must leave

« ПретходнаНастави »