XII

DESIRE we past illusions to recal?
To reinstate wild Fancy, would we hide
Truths whose thick veil Science has drawn
aside?

No, let this Age, high as she may, instal
In her esteem the thirst that wrought man's
The universe is infinitely wide;
fall,

And conquering Reason, if self-glorified,
Can nowhere move uncrossed by some new
wall

Imaginative Faith! canst overleap,
Or gulf of mystery, which thou alone,

In progress toward the fount of Love,-the throne

Of Power whose ministers the records keep
Of periods fixed, and laws established, less
Flesh to exalt than prove its nothingness.

XV.

ON ENTERING DOUGLAS BAY, ISLE OF MAN.

Dignum laude virum 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

CUMBERLAND AND THE ISLE OF MAN.

RANGING the heights of Scawfell or Black comb,

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.

XIII.

AT SEA OFF THE ISLE OF MAN.

BOLD words affirmed, in days when faith was strong

And doubts and scruples seldom teazed the brain,

*See Excursion, seventh part; and Ecclesiastical Sketches, second part, near the beginning.

adorn

Blest work it is of love and innocence,
This perilous bay, stands clear of all offence;
Spare it, ye waves, and lift the mariner,
A Tower of refuge built for the else forlorn.
Spare, too, the human helpers! Do they stir
Struggling for life, into its saving arms!
'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.

XVI.

BY THE SEA-SHORE, ISLE OF MAN.

WHY stand we gazing on the sparkling Brine,
With wonder smit by its transparency
And all-enraptured with its purity?-
Because the unstained, the clear, the crystal-
line,

Have ever in them something of benign ;
Whether in gem, in water, or in sky,
A sleeping infant's brow, or wakeful eye
Of a young maiden, only not divine.
Scarcely the hand forbears to dip its palm
For beverage drawn as from a mountain-well.
Temptation centres in the liquid Calm
Our daily raiment seems no obstacle

:

To instantaneous plunging in, deep Sea! And revelling in long embrace with thee.*

XVII.

ISLE OF MAN.

A YOUTH too certain of his power to wade
On the smooth bottom of this clear bright sea,
To sight so shallow, with a bather's glee
Leapt from this rock, and but for timely aid
He, by the alluring element betrayed,
Had perished. Then might Sea-nymphs (and
with sighs

Of self-reproach) have chanted elegies
Bewailing his sad fate, when he was laid

In peaceful earth: for, doubtless, he was frank,
Utterly in himself devoid of guile;

Knew not the double-dealing of a smile;
Nor aught that makes men's promises a blank,
Or deadly snare: and he survives to bless
The Power that saved him in his strange

distress.

XVIII.

ISLE OF MAN.

DID pangs of grief for lenient time too keen, Grief that devouring waves had caused-or guilt

Which they had witnessed, sway the man who built

This Homestead, placed where nothing could be seen,

Nought heard, of ocean troubled or serene?
A tired Ship-soldier on paternal land,
That o'er the channel holds august command,
The dwelling raised,-a veteran Marine.
He, in disgust, turned from the neighbouring

sea

To shun the memory of a listless life
That hung between two callings. May no strife
More hurtful here beset him, doomed though
free,

Self-doomed, to worse inaction, till his eye
Shrink from the daily sight of earth and sky!

XIX.

BY A RETIRED MARINER.

(A FRIEND OF THE AUTHOR.) FROM early youth I ploughed the restless Main, My mind as restless and as apt to change; Through every clime and ocean did I range, In hope at length a competence to gain ; For poor to Sea I went, and poor I still remain. Year after year I strove, but strove in vain, And hardships manifold did I endure, For Fortune on me never deign'd to smile; Yet I at last a resting-place have found, With just enough life's comforts to procure, In a snug Cove on this our favoured Isle, A peaceful spot where Nature's gifts abound: Then sure I have no reason to complain, Though poor to Sea I went, and poor I still re

main.

xx.

AT BALA-SALA, ISLE OF MAN. (SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY A FRIEND.) BROKEN in fortune, but in mind entire And sound in principle, I seek repose

*The sea-water on the coast of the Isle of Man is singularly pure and beautiful.

Where ancient trees this convent-pile enclose,*
In ruin beautiful. When vain desire
Intrudes on peace, I pray the eternal Sire
To cast a soul-subduing shade on me,
A grey-haired, pensive, thankful Refugee;
A shade-but with some sparks of heavenly fire
Once to these cells vouchsafed. And when I
note

The old Tower's brow yellowed as with the beams

Of sunset ever there, albeit streams

Of stormy weather-stains that semblance wrought,

I thank the silent Monitor, and say "Shine so, my aged brow, at all hours of the day!"

XXI.

TYNWALD HILL.

ONCE on the top of Tynwald's formal mound
(Still marked with green turf circles narrowing
Stage above stage) would sit this Island's King,
The laws to promulgate, enrobed and crowned;
While, compassing the little mount around,
Degrees and Orders stood, each under each:
Now, like to things within fate's easiest reach,
The power is merged, the pomp a grave has
found.

Off with yon cloud, old Snafell! that thine eye
Over three Realms may take its widest range;
And let, for them, thy fountains utter strange
Voices, thy winds break forth in prophecy,
If the whole State must suffer mortal change,
Like Mona's miniature of sovereignty.

XXII.

DESPOND who will-I heard a voice exclaim,
'Though fierce the assault, and shatter'd the
defence,

It cannot be that Britain's social frame,
The glorious work of time and providence,
Before a flying season's rash pretence,
Should fall; that She, whose virtue put to
shame,

When Europe prostrate lay, the Conqueror's aim,

Should perish, self-subverted. Black and dense The cloud is; but brings that a day of doom To Liberty? Her sun is up the while,

That orb whose beams round Saxon Alfred

IN THE FRITH OF CLYDE, AILSA CRAG. DURING AN ECLIPSE OF THE SUN, JULY 17. SINCE risen from ocean, ocean to defy, Appeared the Crag of Ailsa, ne'er did morn With gleaming lights more gracefully adorn His sides, or wreathe with mist his forehead high:

Now, faintly darkening with the sun's eclipse, Still is he seen, in lone sublimity,

lowering above the sea and little ships; For dwarfs the tallest seem while sailing by, Each for her haven; with her freight of Care,

*Rushen Abbey.

Pleasure, or Grief, and Toil that seldom looks Into the secret of to-morrow's fare;

Though poor, yet rich, without the wealth of books,

Or aught that watchful Love to Nature owes For her mute Powers, fix'd Forms, or transient Shows.

XXIV.

ON THE FRITH OF CLYDE.

(IN A STEAM-BOAT.)

ARRAN! a single-crested Teneriffe,
A St Helena next-in shape and hue,
Varying her crowded peaks and ridges blue;
Who but must covet a cloud-seat, or skiff
Built for the air, or wingèd Hippogriff?
That he might fly, where no one could pursue,
From this dull Monster and her sooty crew;
And, as a God, light on thy topmost cliff.
Impotent wish! which reason would despise
If the mind knew no union of extremes,
No natural bond between the boldest schemes
Ambition frames, and heart-humilities.
Beneath stern mountains many a soft vale lies,
And lofty springs give birth to lowly streams.

With ear not coveting the whole,
A part so charmed the pensive soul:
While a dark storm before my sight
Was yielding, on a mountain height
Loose vapours have I watched, that won
Prismatic colours from the sun;

Nor felt a wish that heaven would show
The image of its perfect bow.

What need, then, of these finished Strains
Away with counterfeit Remains!
An abbey in its lone recess,

A temple of the wilderness,

Wrecks though they be, announce with feeling
The majesty of honest dealing.
Spirit of Ossian! if imbound

In language thou may'st yet be found,
If aught (intrusted to the pen

Or floating on the tongues of men,
Albeit shattered and impaired)
Subsist thy dignity to guard,

In concert with memorial claim

Of old grey stone, and high-born name
That cleaves to rock or pillared cave
Where moans the blast, or beats the wave,
Let Truth, stern arbitress of all,
Interpret that Original,

And for presumptuous wrongs atone ;-
Authentic words be given, or none !
Time is not blind;-yet He, who spares
Pyramid pointing to the stars,

Hath preyed with ruthless appetite
On all that marked the primal flight
Of the poetic ecstasy

Into the land of mystery.
No tongue
is able to rehearse
One measure, Orpheus! of thy verse;
Musæus, stationed with his lyre
Supreme among the Elysian quire,
Is, for the dwellers upon earth
Mute as a lark ere morning's birth.
Why grieve for these, though past away
The music, and extinct the lay?
When thousands, by severer doom,
Full early to the silent tomb
Have sunk, at Nature's call; or strayed
From hope and promise, self-betrayed;
The garland withering on their brows;
Stung with remorse for broken vows;
Frantic-else how might they rejoice?
And friendless, by their own sad choice!
Hail, Bards of mightier grasp! on you
I chiefly call, the chosen Few,
Who cast not off the acknowledged guide,
Who faltered not, nor turned aside;
Whose lofty genius could survive
Privation, under sorrow thrive;
In whom the fiery Muse revered
The symbol of a snow-white beard,
Bedewed with meditative tears
Dropped from the lenient cloud of years.

Brothers in soul! though distant times
Produced you nursed in various climes,
Ye, when the orb of life had waned,
A plenitude of love retained:
Hence, while in you each sad regret
By corresponding hope was met,
Ye lingered among human kind,
Sweet voices for the passing wind;
Departing sunbeams, loth to stop,
Though smiling on the last hill top!

WE saw, but surely, in the motley crowd,
Not One of us has felt the far-famed sight;
How could we feel it? each the other's blight,
Hurried and hurrying, volatile and loud.
O for those motions only that invite
The Ghost of Fingal to his tuneful Cave
By the breeze entered, and wave after wave
Softly embosoming the timid light!
And by one Votary who at will might stand
Gazing and take into his mind and heart,
With undistracted reverence, the effect
Of those proportions where the almighty hand
That made the worlds, the sovereign Architect,
Has deigned to work as if with human Art!

XXIX.

CAVE OF STAFFA.

AFTER THE CROWD HAD DEPARTED.

THANKS for the lessons of this Spot-fit school For the presumptuous thoughts that would Mechanic laws to agency divine

And, measuring heaven by earth, would overrule

Infinite Power. The pillared vestibule,
Expanding yet precise, the roof embowed,
Might seem designed to humble man, when
proud

Of his best workmanship by plan and tool.
Down-bearing with his whole Atlantic weight
Of tide and tempest on the Structure's base,
And flashing to that Structure's topmost height,
Ocean has proved its strength, and of its grace
In calms is conscious, finding for his freight
Of softest music some responsive place.

ON to Iona!-What can she afford
To us save matter for a thoughtful sigh,
Heaved over ruin with stability
In urgent contrast? To diffuse the WORD
(Thy Paramount, mighty Nature! and Time's
Lord)

Her Temples rose, 'mid pagan gloom; but why,
Even for a moment, has our verse deplored
Their wrongs, since they fulfilled their destiny?
And when, subjected to a common doom
Of mutability, those far-famed Piles
Shall disappear from both the sister Isles,
Iona's Saints, forgetting not past days,
Garlands shall wear of amaranthine bloom,
While heaven's vast sea of voices chants their
praise.

XXXIII. IONA.

(UPON LANDING.)

How sad a welcome! To each voyager
Some ragged child holds up for sale a store
Of wave-worn pebbles, pleading on the shore
Where once came monk and nun with gentle stir,
Blessings to give, news ask, or suit prefer.
Yet is yon neat trim church a grateful speck
Of novelty amid the sacred wreck
Strewn far and wide. Think, proud Philosopher!
Fallen though she be, this Glory of the west,
Still on her sons the beams of mercy shine;
And "hopes, perhaps more heavenly bright
A grace by thee unsought and unpossest,
than thine,
A faith more fixed, a rapture more divine,
Shall gild their passage to eternal rest.'

XXXIV.

THE BLACK STONES OF IONA.

"

[See Martin's Voyage among the Western Isles.]

HERE on their knees men swore: the stones were black,

Black in the people's minds and words, yet they
Were at that time, as now, in colour grey.
But what is colour, if upon the rack

Of conscience souls are placed by deeds that lack
Concord with oaths? What differ night and day
Then, when before the Perjured on his way

Hell opens, and the heavens in vengeance crack Above his head uplifted in vain prayer

To Saint, or Fiend, or to the Godhead whom He had insulted-Peasant, King, or Thane? Fly where the culprit may, guilt meets a doom; And, from invisible worlds at need laid bare, Come links for social order's awful chain.

HOMEWARD we turn. Isle of Columba's Cell,
Where Christian piety's soul-cheering spark
(Kindled from Heaven between the light and
dark

Of time) shone like the morning-star, farewell!
And fare thee well, to Fancy visible,
Remote St Kilda, lone and loved sea-mark
For many a voyage made in her swift bark,
When with more hues than in the rainbow dwell
Thou a mysterious intercourse dost hold,
Extracting from clear skies and air serene,
And out of sun-bright waves, a lucid veil,
That thickens, spreads, and, mingling fold with

fold,

Makes known, when thou no longer canst be

Per me si va nella Città dolente.
We have not passed into a doleful City,
We who were led to-day down a grim dell,
By some too boldly named "the Jaws of Hell:"
Where be the wretched ones, the sights for pity?
These crowded streets resound no plaintive
ditty:-

As from the hive where bees in summer dwell,
Sorrow seems here excluded; and that knell,
It neither damps the gay, nor checks the witty.
Alas! too busy Rival of old Tyre,
Whose merchants Princes were, whose decks
were thrones;

Soon may the punctual sea in vain respire
To serve thy need, in union with that Clyde
Whose nursling current brawls o'er mossy

STRETCHED on the dying Mother's lap, lies Her new-born Babe; dire ending of bright hope!

But Sculpture here, with the divinest scope
Of luminous faith, heavenward hath raised that
head

So patiently; and through one hand has spread
A touch so tender for the insensate Child-
(Earth's lingering love to parting reconciled,
Brief parting, for the spirit is all but fled)-
That we, who contemplate the turns of life
Through this still medium, are consoled and

cheered:

Feel with the Mother, think the severed Wife
Is less to be lamented than revered;
And own that Art, triumphant over strife
And pain, hath powers to Eternity endeared.

XL.

SUGGESTED BY THE FOREGOING.

TRANQUILLITY! the sovereign aim wert thou
In heathen schools of philosophic lore;
Heart-stricken by stern destiny of yore
The Tragic Muse thee served with thoughtful

And what of hope Elysium could allow
Was fondly seized by Sculpture, to restore
Peace to the Mourner. But when He who wore

The crown of thorns around his bleeding brow
Warmed our sad being with celestial light,
Then Arts which still had drawn a softening

grace

Communed with that Idea face to face: From shadowy fountains of the Infinite, And move around it now as planets run, Each in its orbit round the central Sun.

XLI, NUNNERY.

THE floods are roused, and will not soon be

weary;

Down from the Pennine Alps how fiercely sweeps

CROGLIN, the stately Eden's tributary!

He raves, or through some moody passage

creeps

Plotting new mischief-out again he leaps Into broad light, and sends, through regions airy,

*The chain of Crossfell.