I bind the caverns of the sea with hair,
Glossy, and long, and rich as kings' estate;
I polish the green ice, and gleam the wall
With the white frost, and leaf the brown trees tall.
CHANNING.
THE PASS OF KIRKSTONE.
WITHIN the mind strong fancies work,
A deep delight the bosom thrills,
Oft as I pass along the fork
Of these fraternal hills,
Where, save the rugged road, we
find
No appanage of human kind,
Nor hint of man; if stone or rock
Seem not his handiwork to mock
By something cognizably shaped;
Mockery, or model roughly hewn,
And left as if by earthquake strewn,
Or from the flood escaped:
Altars for Druid service fit;
(But where no fire was ever lit,
Unless the glow-worm to the skies
Thence offer nightly sacrifice,)
Wrinkled Egyptian monument;
Green moss-grown tower; or hoary
tent;
Tents of a camp that never shall be raised
―
On which four thousand years have
gazed!
Ye ploughshares sparkling on the slopes!
Ye snow-white lambs that trip
Imprisoned 'mid the formal props
Of restless ownership!
Ye trees, that may to-morrow fall
To feed the insatiate prodigal!
Lawns, houses, chattels, groves, and
fields,
All that the fertile valley shields;
Wages of folly, baits of crime,
Of life's uneasy game the stake,
Playthings that keep the eyes awake
Of drowsy, dotard Time,
O care! O guilt! O vales and
plains, Here, mid his own unvexed domains,