With a sweet inland murmur. Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion, and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage ground, these orchard tufts,
Which, at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
Among the woods and copses, nor disturb
The wild green landscape. Once again I see
These hedgerows, hardly hedgerows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Set up in silence from among the trees!
Wh some uncertain notice, as might seem,
Ot vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some hermit's cave, where, by his fire,
The hermit sits alone.
These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart,
And passing even into my purer mind
With tranquil restoration: feelings, too,
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As may have had no trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world
Is lightened; the serene and blessed mood
In which the affections gently lead us on,
Until the breath of this corporeal frame,
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.
Be but a vain belief, yet oh! how oft,
In darkness, and amid the many shapes
Of joyful daylight, when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart,
How oft in spirit have I turned to thee,
O sylvan Wye!-thou wanderer through the woods-
How often has my spirit turned to thee!
And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again:
While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years. And so I dare to hope,
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was whe
I came among these hills; when, like a roe,
I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever nature led: more like a man
Flying from something that he dreads, than one
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then-
The coarser pleasures of my boyish days
And their glad animal movements all gone by-
To me was all in all. I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, or any interest
Unborrowed from the eye. That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn, nor murmur; other gifts
Have followed, for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompense. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes
The still sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods
And mountains, and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye and ear, both what they half create
And what perceive; well pleased to recognize
In nature, and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.
Nor, perchance,
If I were not thus taught, should I the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
For thou art with me here, upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou, my dearest friend
My dear, dear friend, and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once,
My dear, dear sister! And this prayer I make,
Knowing that nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy; for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain winds be free
To blow against thee: and in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations. Nor, perchance,
If I should be where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence, wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshiper of nature, hither came,
Unwearied in that service: rather say
With warmer love, oh! with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!
Happy the man who, void of care and strife,
In silken or in leathern purse retains
A Splendid Shilling: he nor hears with pain
New oysters cried, nor sighs for cheerful ale;
But with his friends, when nightly mists arise,
To Juniper's Magpie or Town-hall* repairs:
Where, mindful of the nymph, whose wanton eye
Transfixed his soul, and kindled amorous flames,
Chloe or Phyllis, he each cheerful glass
Wishes her health, and joy, and equal love.
Meanwhile he smokes, and laughs at merry tale,
Or pun ambiguous, or conundrum quaint,
But I, whom griping penury surrounds,
And hunger, sure attendant upon want,
With scanty offals, and small acid tiff,
Wretched repast! my meager corpse sustain:
Then solitary walk, or doze at home
In garret vile, and with a warming puff
Regale chilled fingers: or from tube as black
As winter-chimney, or well-polished jet,
Exhale mundungus, ill perfuming scent:
Not blacker tube nor of a shorter size,
Smokes Cambro-Briton-versed in pedigree
Sprung from Cadwallader and Arthur, kings
Full famous in romantic tale-when he
O'er many a craggy hill and barren cliff,
Upon a cargo of famed Cestrian cheese,
High overshadowing rides, with a design
To vend his wares, or at the Avonian mart
Or Maridunum, or the ancient town
Ycleped Brechinia, or where Vaga's stream
Encircles Ariconium, fruitful soil!
Whence flow nectareous wines, that well may vie
With Massic, Setin, or renowned Falern.
Thus, while my joyless minutes tedious flow
With looks demure, and silent pace, a dun,
Horrible monster! hated by gods and men,
To my aërial citadel ascends:
With vocal heel thrice thundering at my gate;
With hideous accent thrice he calls; I know
The voice iil-boding, and the solemn sound.
What should I do? or whither turn? Amazed,
Confounded, to the dark recess I fly
Of wood-hole; straight my bristling hairs erect
Through sudden fear: a chilly sweat bedews
My shuddering limbs, and-wonderful to tell!-
My tongue forgets her faculty of speech;
So horrible he seems! His faded brow
Intrenched with many a frown, and conic beard,
And spreading band, admired by modern saints,
Disastrous acts forebode; in his right hand
Long scrolls of paper solemnly he waves,
With characters and figures dire inscribed,
Grievous to mortal eyes-ye gods, avert
Such plagues from righteous men!- Behind naa
stalks
Another monster, not unlike himself,
Sullen of aspect, by the vulgar called
A catchpole, whose polluted hands the gods
With force incredible, and magic charms,
First have endued: if he his ample palm
Should haply on ill-fated shoulder lay
Of debtor, straight his body, to the touch
Obsequious-as whilom knights were wont-
To some enchanted castle is conveyed,
Where gates impregnable, and coercive chains,
In durance strict detain him, till, in form
Of money Pallas sets the captive free.
Beware, ye debtors! when ye walk, beware,
Be circumspect; oft with insidious ken
This caitiff eyes your steps aloof, and oft
Lies perdue in a nook or gloomy cave,
Prompt to erchant some inadvertent wretch
With his unnallowed touch. So-poets sing-
Grimalkin, to domestic vermin sworn
An everlasting foe, with watchful eye
Lies nightly brooding o'er a chinky gap,
Portending her fell claws, to thoughtless mice
Sure ruin. So her disembowelled web
Arache, in a hall or kitchen, spreads
Obvious to vagrant flies: she secret stands
Within her woven cell: the humming prey,
Regardless of their fate, rush on the toils
Inextricable; nor will aught avail
Their arts, or arms, or shapes of lovely hue;
The wasp insidious, and the buzzing drone,
And butterfly, proud of expanded wings
Distinct with gold, entangled in her snares
Useless resistance make: with eager strides,
She tow'ring flies to her expected spoils:
Then, with envenomed jaws, the vital blood
Drinks of reluctant foes, and to her cave
Their bulky carcasses triumphant drags.
So pass my days. But when nocturnal shades
This world envelop, and th' inclement air
Persuades men to repel benumbing frosts
With pleasant wines and crackling blaze of wood,
Me lonely sitting, nor the glimmering light
Of make-weight candle, nor the joyous talk
Of loving friend, delights; distressed, forlorn,
Amidst the horrors of the tedious night,
Darkling I sigh, and feed with dismal thoughts
My anxious mind; or sometimes mournful verse
Indite, and sing of groves and myrtle shades,
Or desperate lady near a purling stream,
Or lover pendent or a willow tree.
Meanwhile I labor with eternal drought,
And restless wish, and rave; my parched throat
Finds no relief, nor heavy eyes repose:
But if a slumber haply does invade
My weary limbs, my fancy's still awake;
Thoughtful of drink, and eager, in a dream,
Tipples imaginary pots of ale,
In vain; awake I find the settled thirst
Still gnawing, and the pleasant phantom curse.
Thus do I live, from pleasure quite debarred,
Nor taste the fruits that the sun's genial rays
Mature, John apple, nor the downy peach,
Nor walnut in rough-furrowed coat secure,
Nor medlar, fruit delicious in decay.
Afflictions great! yet greater still remain:
My galligaskins, that have long withstood
The winter's fury and encroaching frosts,
By time subdued—what will not time subdue!—
A horrid chasm disclosed with orifice
Wide, discontinuous; at which the winds
Eurus and Auster and the dreadful force
Of Boreas, that congeals the Cronian waves,
Tumultuous enter with dire chilling blasts,
Portending agues. Thus, a well-fraught ship,
Long sailed secure, or through th' Ægean deep,
Or the Ionian, till, cruising near
The Lilybean shore, with hideous crush
On Scylla or Charybdis-dangerous rocks!—
She strikes rebounding; whence the shattered oak,
So fierce a shock unable to withstand,
Admits the sea; in at the gaping side
The crowding waves rush with impetuous rage,
Resistless, overwhelming! horrors seize
The mariners; death in their eyes appears;
They stare, they lave, they pump, they swear, they pray;
(Vain efforts!) still the battering waves rush in, Implacable; till deluged by the foam,
The ship sinks foundering in the vast abyss.
POOR JACK.
CHARLES DIBDIN.
Go patter to lubbers and swabs, d'ye see,
'Bout danger, and fear, and the like;
A tight water-boat and good sea-room give me,
And 'taint to a little I'll strike:
Though the tempest top-gallant-masts smack smooth should smite,
And shiver each splinter of wood,
Clear the wreck, stow the yards, and house every
And under reef'd foresail we'll scud: Avast! nor don't think me a milksop so soft
To be taken for trifles aback;
For they say there's a Providence sits up aloft, To keep watch for the life of poor Jack.
Why, I heard our good chaplain palaver one day
About souls, heaven, mercy, and such;
And, my timbers! what lingo he'd coil and belay,
Why 'twas just all as one as High Dutch:
For he said how a sparrow can't founder, d'ye see,
Without orders that come down below;
And many fine things that proved clearly to me
That Providence takes us in tow:
For, says he, do you mind me, let storms e'er so oft
Take the topsails of sailors aback,
There's a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft,
To keep watch for the life of poor Jack.
I said to our Poll, for, d'ye see, she would cry,
When last we weigh'd anchor for sea,
What argufies sniv'ling and piping your eye,
Why, what a d'd fool you must be!
Can't you see the world's wide, and there's room fo us all,
Both for seamen and lubbers ashore, And if to old Davy I should go, friend Poll, Why you will ne'er hear of me more; What then, all's a hazard; come, don't be so soft, Perhaps I may laughing come back; For, d'ye see, there's a cherub sits smiling aloft, To keep watch for the life of poor Jack.
D'ye mind me, a sailor should be every inch All as one as a piece of the ship,
And with her brave the world without offering to flinch,
From the moment the anchor's a-trip.
As for me, in all weathers, all times, tides, and ends, Nought's a trouble from duty that springs,
For my heart is my Poll's, and my rhino's my friend's; And as for my life 'tis the king's:
Even when my time comes, ne'er believe me so soft
As for grief to be taken aback,
For the same little cherub that sits up aloft
Will look out a good berth for poor Jack.
"AD AMICOS"—1829-1876
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
Behold this cup; its mystic wine
No alien's lip has ever tasted;
The blood of friendship's clinging vine,
Still flowing, flowing, yet unwasted.
Old Time forgot his running sand,
And laid his hour-glass down to fill it, And Death himself, with gentle hand, Has touched the chalice, not to spill it.
Each bubble rounding at the brim
Is rainbowed with its magic story; The shining days, with age grown dim, Are dressed again in robes of glory. In all its freshness spring returns, With song of birds and blossoms tender; Once more the torch of passion burns, And youth is here in all its splendour!
Hope swings her anchor like a toy,
Love laughs and shows the silver arrow
We knew so well as man and boy,—
The shaft that stings through bone and marrow.
Again our kindling pulses beat,
With tangled curls our fingers dally,
And bygone beauties smile as sweet
As fresh-blown lilies of the valley.
O blessed hour! We may forget
Its wreaths, its rhymes, its songs, its laughter, But not the loving eyes we met,
Whose light shall gild the dim hereafter.
How every heart to each grows warm!
Is one in sunshine's ray? We share it.
Is one in sorrow's blinding storm?
A look, a word, shall help him bear it.
"The boys" we were, "the boys" we'll be As long as three, as two, are creeping; Then here's to him-ah! which is he?
Who lives till all the rest are sleeping; A life with tranquil comfort blest,
The young man's health, the rich man's plenty. All earth can give that earth has best,
And heaven at fourscore years and twenty.
THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE
Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, As his corse to the rampart we hurried; Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot O'er the grave where our hero we buried.
We buried him darkly, at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning;
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.
No useless coffin enclosed his breast,
Nor in sheet nor in shroud we wound him; But he lay like a warrior taking his rest, With his martial cloak around him.
Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;
But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.
We thought as we hollowed his narrow bed,
And sinoothed down his lonely pillow,
That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his
head,
And we far away on the billow!
Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone, And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him,— But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on In the grave where a Briton has laid him.
But half of our heavy task was done,
When the clock struck the hour for retiring; And we heard the distant and random gun That the foe was sullenly firing.
Slowly and sadly we laid him down,
From the field of his fame fresh and gory; We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone-But we left him alone with his glory.
THE CLOSING YEAR,
GEORGE D. PRENTICE.
'Tis midnight's holy hour,-and silence now
Is brooding like a gentle spirit o'er
The still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds
The bell's deep tones are swelling,-'t is the knell
Of the departed year. No funeral train
sweeping past; yet, on the stream and wood,
With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest
Like a pale, spotless shroud; the air is stirred
As by a mourner's sigh, and on yon cloud
That floats so still and placidly through heaven,
The spirits of the seasons seem to stand-
Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn
form,
And Winter with its aged locks,-and breathe,
In mournful cadences that come abroad
Like the far wind-harp's wild and touching wail,
A melancholy dirge o'er the dead year,
Gone from the earth forever.
For memory and for tears. Within the deep,
Still chambers of the heart, a specter dim,
Whose tones are like the wizard's voice of Time
Heard from the tomb of ages. points its cold
And solemn finger to the beautiful
And holy visions that have passed away,
And left no shadow of their loveliness
On the dead waste of life. That specter lifts
The coffin-lid of Hope and Joy and Love,
And bending mournfully above the pale,
Sweet forms that slumber there, scatters dead flowers
O'er what has passed to nothingness.
Has gone, and with it, many a glorious throng
Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow,
Its shadow in each heart. In its swift course
It waved its scepter o'er the beautiful,
And they are not. It laid its pallid hand
Upon the strong man, and the haughty form
Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim.
It trod the hall of revelry, where thronged
The bright and joyous, and the tearful wail
Of stricken ones is heard where erst the song
And reckless shout resounded.
The battle-plain where sword and spear and shield
Flashed in the light of midday, and the strength
Of serried hosts is shivered, and the grass,
Green from the soil of carnage, waves above
The crushed and moldering skeleton. It came
And faded like a wreath of mist at eve;
Yet ere it melted in the viewless air
It heralded its millions to their home
in the dim land of dreams.
Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe!-what power
Can stay him in his silent course, or melt
His iron heart to pity? On, still on,
He presses, and forever. The proud bird,
The condor of the Andes, that can soar
Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave
The fury of the northern hurricane,
And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home,
Furls his broad wings at nightfall, and sinks dow
To rest upon his mountain crag,-but Time
Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness,
And night's deep darkness has no chain to bind
His rushing pinions.
Revolutions sweep O'er earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast
Of dreaming sorrow; cities rise and sink
Like bubbles on the water; fiery isles
Spring blazing from the ocean, and go back
To their mysterious caverns; mountains rear
To heaven their bald and blackened cliffs, and bow
Their tall heads to the plain; new empires rise,
Gathering the strength of hoary centuries,
And rush down like the Alpine avalanche,
Startling the nations; and the very stars,
Yon bright and burning blazonry of God,
Glitter awhile in their eternal depths,
And, like the Pleiades, loveliest of their train,
Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass away
To darkle in the trackless void,-yet Time,
Time the tomb builder, holds his fierce career,
Dark, stern, all pitiless, and pauses not
Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path
To sit and muse, like other conquerors,
Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought.
Pity the sorrows of a poor old man! Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door,
Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span;
Oh! give relief, and Heaven will bless your store
These tattered clothes my poverty bespeak,
These hoary locks proclaim my lengthened years p
And many a furrow in my grief-worn cheek
Has been the channel to a stream of tears.
Yon house, erected on the rising ground,
With tempting aspect drew me from my road,
For plenty there a residence has found,
And grandeur a magnificent abode.
(Hard is the fate of the infirm and poor!)
Here craving for a morsel of their bread,
A pampered menial forced me from the door,
To seek a shelter in a humbler shed.
Oh! take me to your hospitable dome,
Keen blows the wind, and piercing is the cold! Short is my passage to the friendly tomb, For I am poor, and miserably old.
Should I reveal the source of every grief,
If soft humanity e'er touched your breast,
Your hands would not withhold the kind relief,
And tears of pity could not be repressed.
Heaven sends misfortunes-why should we repine?
'Tis Heaven has brought me to the state you see:
And your condition may be soon like mine,
The child of sorrow, and of misery.
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