En.Citatepedia^®.ro

On A Landscape Bt Rubens

Nay, let us gaze, ev'n till the sense is full,
Upon the rich creation, shadowed so
That not great Nature, in her loftiest pomp
Of living beauty, ever on the sight
Rose more magnificent; nor aught so fair
Hath Fancy, in her wildest, brightest mood,
Imaged of things most lovely, when the sounds
Of this cold cloudy world at distance sink,
And all alone the warm idea lives
Of what is great, or beautiful, or good,
In Nature's general plan.
So the vast scope,
O Rubens! of thy mighty mind, and such
The fervour of thy pencil, pouring wide
The still illumination, that the mind
Pauses, absorbed, and scarcely thinks what powers
Of mortal art the sweet enchantment wrought.
She sees the painter, with no human touch,
Create, embellish, animate at will,
The mimic scenes, from Nature's ampler range
Caught as by inspiration; while the clouds,
High wandering, and the fairest form of things,
Seem at his bidding to emerge, and burn
With radiance and with life!
Let us, subdued,
Now to the magic of the moment lose
The thoughts of life, and mingle every sense
Ev'n in the scenes before us!
The fresh morn
Of summer shines; the white clouds of the east
Are crisped; beneath, the bright blue champaign steams;
The banks, the meadows, and the flowers, send up
An incensed exhalation, like the meek
And holy praise of Him whose soul's deep joy
The lone woods witness. Thou, whose heart is sick
Of vanities; who, in the throng of men,
Dost feel no lenient fellowship; whose eye
Turns, with a languid carelessness, around
Upon the toiling crowd, still murmuring on,
Restless;--oh, think, in summer scenes like these,
How sweet the sense of quiet gladness is,
That, like the silent breath of morning, steals
From lowly nooks, and feels itself expand
Amid the works of Nature, to the Power
That made them: to the awful thought of HIM
Who, when the morning stars shouted for joy,
Bade the great sun from tenfold darkness burst,
The green earth roll in light, and solitude
First hear the voice of man, whilst hills and woods
Stood eminent, in orient hues arrayed,
His dwelling; and all living Nature smiled,
As in this pictured semblance, beaming full
Before us!
Mark again the various view:
Some city's far-off spires and domes appear,
Breaking the long horizon, where the morn
Sits blue and soft: what glowing imagery
Is spread beneath!--Towns, villages, light smoke,
And scarce-seen windmill-sails, and devious woods,
Chequering 'mid sunshine the grass-level land,
That stretches from the sight.
Now nearer trace
The forms of trees distinct--the broad brown oak;
The poplars, that, with silvery trunks, incline,
Shading the lonely castle; flakes of light
Are flung behind the massy groups, that, now
Enlarging and enlarging still, unfold
Their separate beauties. But awhile delay;
Pass the foot-bridge, and listen (for we hear,
Or think we hear her), listen to the song
Of yonder milkmaid, as she brims her pail;
Whilst, in the yellow pasture, pensive near,
The red cows ruminate.
Break off, break off, for lo! where, all alarmed,
The small birds, from the late resounding perch,
Fly various, hushed their early song; and mark,
Beneath the darkness of the bramble-bank
That overhangs the half-seen brook, where nod
The flowing rushes, dew-besprent, with breast
Ruddy, and emerald wing, the kingfisher
Steals through the dripping sedge away. What shape
Of terrors scares the woodland habitants,
Marring the music of the dawn? Look round;
See, where he creeps, beneath the willowy stump,
Cowering and low, step silent after step,
The booted fowler: keen his look, and fixed
Upon the adverse bank, while, with firm hand,
He grasps the deadly tube; his dog, with ears
Hung back, and still and steady eye of fire,
Points to the prey; the boor, intent, moves on
Panting, and creeping close beneath the leaves,
And fears lest ev'n the rustling reeds betray
His footfall; nearer yet, and yet more near,
He stalks. Who now shall save the heedless group,
The speckled partridges, that in the sun,
On yonder hillock green, across the stream,
Bask unalarmed beneath the hawthorn bush,
Whose aged boughs the crawling blackberry
Entwines!
And thus, upon the sweetest scenes
Of human loveliness, and social peace
Domestic, when the full fond heart reclines
Upon its hopes, and almost mingles tears
Of joy, to think that in this hollow world
Such bliss should be its portion; then (alas,
The bitter change!), then, with his unheard step,
In darkness shrouded, yet approaching fast,
Death, from amidst the sunny flowers, lifts up
His giant dread anatomy, and smites,
Smites the fair prospect once, whilst every bloom
Hangs shrivelled, and a sound of mourning fills
The lone and blasted valley: but no sound
Is here of sorrow or of death, though she,
The country Kate, with shining morning cheek
(Who, in the tumbril, with her market-gear,
Sits seated high), seems to expect the flash
Exploding, that shall lay the innocent
And feathered tenants of the landscape low.
Not so the clown, who, heedless whether life
Or death betide, across the plashy ford
Drives slow; the beasts plod on, foot following foot,
Aged and grave, with half-erected ears,
As now his whip above their matted manes
Hangs tremulous, while the dark and shallow stream
Flashes beneath their fetlock: he, astride
On harness saddle, not a sidelong look
Deigns at the breathing landscape, or the maid
Smiling behind; the cold and lifeless calf
Her sole companion: and so mated oft
Is some sweet maid, whose thrilling heart was formed
For dearer fellowship. But lift the eye,
And hail the abode of rural ease. The man
Walks forth, from yonder antique hall, that looks
The mistress of the scene; its turrets gleam
Amid the trees, and cheerful smoke is seen,
As if no spectred shape (though most retired
The spot) there ever wandered, stoled in white,
Along the midnight chambers; but quaint Mab
Her tiny revels led, till the rare dawn
Peeped out, and chanticleer his shrill alarm
Beneath the window rang, then, with a wink,
The shadowy rout have vanished!
As the morn
Jocund ascends, how lovely is the view
To him who owns the fair domain! The friend
Of his still hours is near, to whom he vowed
His truth; her eyes reflect his bliss; his heart
Beats high with joy; his little children play,
Pleased, in his pathway; one the scattered flowers
Straggling collects, the other spreads its arms,
In speechless blandishment, upon the neck
Of its caressing nurse.
Still let us gaze,
And image every form of heartfelt joy
Which scenes like these bestow, that charm the sight,
Yet soothe the spirit. All is quiet here,
Yet cheerful as the green sea, when it shines
In some still bay, shines in its loneliness
Beneath the breeze, that moves, and hardly moves,
The placid surface.
On the balustrade
Of the old bridge, that o'er the moat is thrown,
The fisher with his angle leans intent,
And turns, from the bright pomp of spreading plains,
To watch the nimble fry, that glancing oft
Beneath the gray arch shoot! Oh, happiest he
Who steals through life, untroubled as unseen!
The distant city, with its crowded spires,
That dimly shines upon his view, awakes
No thought but that of pleasure more composed,
As the winds whisper him to sounder sleep.
He leans upon the faithful arm of her
For whom his youthful heart beat, fondly beat,
When life was new: time steals away, yet health
And exercise are his; and in these shades,
Though sometimes he has mourned a proud world's wrong,
He feels an independence that all cares
Breasts with a carol of content; he hears
The green leaves of his old paternal trees
Make music, soothing as they stir: the elm,
And poplar with its silvery trunk, that shades
The green sward of the bank before his porch,
Are to him as companions;--whilst he turns
With more endearment to the living smile
Of those his infants, who, when he is dead,
Shall hear the music of the self-same trees
Waving, till years roll on, and their gray hairs
Go to the dust in peace.
Away, sad thought!
Lo! where the morning light, through the dark wood,
Upon the window-pane is flung like fire,
Hail, Life and Hope; and thou, great work of art,
That 'mid this populous and busy swarm
Of men dost smile serene, as with the hues
Of fairest, grandest Nature; may'st thou speak
Not vainly of the endearments and best joys
That Nature yields. The manliest heart that swells
With honest English feelings,--while the eye,
Saddened, but not cast down, beholds far off
The darkness of the onward rolling storm,--
Charmed for a moment by this mantling view,
Its anxious tumults shall suspend: and such,
The pensive patriot shall exclaim, thy scenes,
My own beloved country, such the abode
Of rural peace! and while the soul has warmth,
And voice has energy, the brave arm strength,
England, thou shalt not fall! The day shall come,
Yes, and now is, that thou shalt lift thyself;
And woe to him who sets upon thy shores
His hostile foot! Proud victor though he be,
His bloody march shall never soil a flower
That hangs its sweet head, in the morning dew,
On thy green village banks! His mustered hosts
Shall be rolled back in thousands, and the surge
Bury them! Then, when peace illumes once more,
My country, thy green nooks and inmost vales,
It will be sweet amidst the forest glens
To stray, and think upon the distant storm
That howled, but injured not!
At thoughts like these,
What heart, what English heart, but shall beat high!
Meantime, its keen flash passed, thine eye intent,
Beaumont, shall trace the master-strokes of art,
And view the assemblage of the finished piece,
As with his skill who formed it: ruder views,
Savage, with solitary pines, hung high
Amid the broken crags (where scowling wait
The fierce banditti), stern Salvator's hand
Shall aptly shade: o'er Poussin's clustering domes,
With ampler umbrage, the black woods shall hang,
Beneath whose waving gloom the sudden flash
Of broken light upon the brawling stream
Is flung below.
Aerial Claude shall paint
The gray fane peering o'er the summer woods,
The azure lake below, or distant seas,
And sails, in the pellucid atmosphere,
Soft gleaming to the morn. Dark on the rock,
Where the red lightnings burst, shall Wilson stand,
Like mighty Shakspeare, whom the imps of fire
Await. Nor oh, sweet Gainsborough! shall thee
The Muse forget, whose simple landscape smiles
Attractive, whether we delight to view
The cottage chimney through the high wood peep;
Or beggar beauty stretch her little hand,
With look most innocent; or homeward kine
Wind through the hollow road at eventide,
Or browse the straggling branches.
Scenes like these
Shall charm all hearts, while truth and beauty live,
And Nature's pictured loveliness shall own
Each master's varied touch; but chiefly thou,
Great Rubens! shalt the willing senses lead,
Enamoured of the varied imagery,
That fills the vivid canvas, swelling still
On the enraptured eye of taste, and still
New charms unfolding; though minute, yet grand,
Simple, yet most luxuriant; every light
And every shade, greatly opposed, and all
Subserving to one magical effect
Of truth and harmony.
So glows the scene;
And to the pensive thought refined displays
The richest rural poem. Oh, may views
So pictured animate thy classic mind,
Beaumont, to wander 'mid Sicilian scenes,
And catch the beauties of the pastoral bard,
Shadowing his wildest landscapes! AEtna's fires,
Bebrycian rocks, Anapus' holy stream,
And woods of ancient Pan; the broken crag
And the old fisher here; the purple vines
There bending; and the smiling boy set down
To guard, who, innocent and happy, weaves,
Intent, his rushy basket, to ensnare
The chirping grasshoppers, nor sees the while
The lean fox meditate her morning meal,
Eyeing his scrip askance; whilst further on
Another treads the purple grapes--he sits,
Nor aught regards, but the green rush he weaves.
O Beaumont! let this pomp of light and shade
Wake thee, to paint the woods that the sweet Muse
Has consecrated: then the summer scenes
Of Phasidamus, clad in richer light,
Shall glow, the glancing poplars, and clear fount;
While distant times admire (as now we trace
This summer-mantling view) hoar AEtna's pines,
The vine-hung grotts, and branching planes, that shade
The silver Arethusa's stealing wave.

poem by William Lisle Bowles
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Cadland, Southampton River

If ever sea-maid, from her coral cave,
Beneath the hum of the great surge, has loved
To pass delighted from her green abode,
And, seated on a summer bank, to sing
No earthly music; in a spot like this,
The bard might feign he heard her, as she dried
Her golden hair, yet dripping from the main,
In the slant sunbeam.
So the pensive bard
Might image, warmed by this enchanting scene,
The ideal form; but though such things are not,
He who has ever felt a thought refined;
He who has wandered on the sea of life,
Forming delightful visions of a home
Of beauty and repose; he who has loved,
With filial warmth his country, will not pass
Without a look of more than tenderness
On all the scene; from where the pensile birch
Bends on the bank, amid the clustered group
Of the dark hollies; to the woody shore
That steals diminished, to the distant spires
Of Hampton, crowning the long lucid wave.
White in the sun, beneath the forest-shade,
Full shines the frequent sail, like Vanity,
As she goes onward in her glittering trim,
Amid the glances of life's transient morn,
Calling on all to view her!
Vectis there,
That slopes its greensward to the lambent wave,
And shows through softest haze its woods and domes,
With gray St Catherine's creeping to the sky,
Seems like a modest maid, who charms the more
Concealing half her beauties.
To the East,
Proud, yet complacent, on its subject realm,
With masts innumerable thronged, and hulls
Seen indistinct, but formidable, mark
Albion's vast fleet, that, like the impatient storm,
Waits but the word to thunder and flash death
On him who dares approach to violate
The shores and living scenes that smile secure
Beneath its dragon-watch!
Long may they smile!
And long, majestic Albion (while the sound
From East to West, from Albis to the Po,
Of dark contention hurtles), may'st thou rest,
As calm and beautiful this sylvan scene
Looks on the refluent wave that steals below.

poem by William Lisle Bowles
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Sketch From Bowden Hill After Sickness

How cheering are thy prospects, airy hill,
To him who, pale and languid, on thy brow
Pauses, respiring, and bids hail again
The upland breeze, the comfortable sun,
And all the landscape's hues! Upon the point
Of the descending steep I stand.
How rich,
How mantling in the gay and gorgeous tints
Of summer! far beneath me, sweeping on,
From field to field, from vale to cultured vale,
The prospect spreads its crowded beauties wide!
Long lines of sunshine, and of shadow, streak
The farthest distance; where the passing light
Alternate falls, 'mid undistinguished trees,
White dots of gleamy domes, and peeping towers,
As from the painter's instant touch, appear.
As thus the eye ranges from hill to hill,
Here white with passing sunshine, there with trees
Innumerable shaded, clustering more,
As the long vale retires, the ample scene,
Warm with new grace and beauty, seems to live.
Lives! all is animation! beauty! hope!
Snatched from the dark and dreamless grave, so late,
Shall I pass silent, now first issuing forth,
To feel again thy fragrance, to respire
Thy breath, to hail thy look, thy living look,
O Nature!
Let me the deep joy contrast,
Which now the inmost heart like music fills,
With the sick chamber's sorrows, oft from morn,
Silent, till lingering eve, save when the sound
Of whispers steal, and bodings breathed more low,
As friends approach the pillow: so awaked
From deadly trance, the sick man lifts his eyes,
Then in despondence closes them on all,
All earth's fond wishes! Oh, how changed are now
His thoughts! he sees rich nature glowing round,
He feels her influence! languid with delight,
And whilst his eye is filled with transient fire,
He almost thinks he hears her gently say,
Live, live! O Nature, thee, in the soft winds,
Thee, in the soothing sound of summer leaves,
When the still earth lies sultry; thee, methinks,
Ev'n now I hear bid welcome to thy vales
And woods again!
And I will welcome them,
And pour, as erst, the song of heartfelt praise.
From yonder line, where fade the farthest hills
Which bound the blue lap of the swelling vale,
On whose last line, seen like a beacon, hangs
Thy tower, benevolent, accomplished Hoare,
To where I stand, how wide the interval!
Yet instantaneous, to the hurrying eye
Displayed; though peeping towers and villages
Thick scattered, 'mid the intermingling elms,
And towns remotely marked by hovering smoke,
And grass-green pastures with their herds, and seats
Of rural beauty, cottages and farms,
Unnumbered as the hedgerows, lie between!
Roaming at large to where the gray sky bends,
The eye scarce knows to rest, till back recalled
By yonder ivied cloisters in the plain,
Whose turret, peeping pale above the shade,
Smiles in the venerable grace of years.
As the few threads of age's silver hairs,
Just sprinkled o'er the forehead, lend a grace
Of saintly reverence, seemly, though compared
With blooming Mary's tresses like the morn;
So the gray weather-stained towers yet wear
A secret charm impressive, though opposed
To views in verdure flourishing, the woods,
And scenes of Attic taste, that glitter near.
O venerable pile, though now no more
The pensive passenger, at evening, hears
The slowly-chanted vesper; or the sounds
Of 'Miserere,' die along the vale;
Yet piety and honoured age retired,
There hold their blameless sojourn, ere the bowl
Be broken, or the silver chord be loosed.
Nor can I pass, snatched from untimely fate,
Without a secret prayer, that so my age,
When many a circling season has declined,
In charity and peace may wait its close.
Yet still be with me, O delightful friend,
Soothing companion of my vacant hours,
Oh, still be with me, Spirit of the Muse!
Not to subdue, or hold in moody spell,
The erring senses, but to animate
And warm my heart, where'er the prospect smiles,
With Nature's fairest views; not to display
Vain ostentations of a poet's art,
But silent, and associate of my joys
Or sorrows, to infuse a tenderness,
A thought, that seems to mingle, as I gaze,
With all the works of GOD. So cheer my path,
From youth to sober manhood, till the light
Of evening smile upon the fading scene.
And though no pealing clarion swell my fame,
When all my days are gone; let me not pass,
Like the forgotten clouds of yesterday,
Nor unremembered by the fatherless
Of the loved village where my bones are laid.

poem by William Lisle Bowles
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Schuylkill

WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM

Sun-lit and shadow'd waters, leaping by
'Midst flowers and greenness, singing as they pass,
Or sleeping in some deep and shaded pool,
Lake-like, and dimpled by the playful touch
Of stooping branches, rocks vine-garlanded,
And the green pleasant woods, and over all
The wide blue glorious sky—oh it is sweet
To breathe amid such scenes!

Look on the page
Of Schuylkill's pictured beauty! that is such—
And thou may'st gaze, till it shall waken thoughts
Treasured in memory—for thou hast watch'd
The flashing of its waters, and hast stood,
Perchance, beside them, when the moonlight made
The scene a paradise, and friends were nigh,
Smiling with their glad eyes upon thy joy;
And music floated off upon the air,
As if the zephyrs breathed in melody.
Now other scenes are round thee—it is fair—
This wide extended landscape—but unlike
To that the Schuylkill mirrors. The old trees
That lift their tall green heads against the sky,
Are relies of past ages, and there seems,
Beneath their dim gray shade, to linger yet
A faint and mournful echo of the tones
Of the old forest tribes.

But when the hush,
And the dim beauty of the twilight steals
O'er the calm earth, and on thy spirit lies
A shadow and a pensiveness as sweet,
Then memory will lift the mystic screen
That veils departed years, and give them back
The consecrated past; and thou shalt stand
'Midst scenes where thou hast stood in other days;
And the gay laugh, and the remember'd tone,
Will seem, with startling vividness, to thrill
Across thy ear—but mine will not be there;
Thy memory hath no garner'd thought of me—
Yet think of me, for there may gleam a light
Amidst thy twilight dreams, from scenes to which
I turn for my most sweet remembrances;
Oh, how one charmed word will start to life
A thousand breathing memories of the past!
Schuylkill! sweet Schuylkill! and still dearer loved,
And hallow'd with yet deeper, sweeter thoughts,
My own dear native vale, and the bright flood*
That makes it beautiful! name them again,
For thou hast trodden there, and let me dwell
With thee upon the past! Yet they will come
To thee, with but a stranger's parting glance
Of brief and pleasant memory—to me—
With tales of childhood's years, of hours of glee,
Friendships, and tears, and rainbow-pinion'd hopes,
And all the sacred thoughts that halo home!

(*The Brandywine)

poem by Elizabeth Margaret Chandler from Poetical Works (1836)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Monody, Written At Matlock

Matlock! amid thy hoary-hanging views,
Thy glens that smile sequestered, and thy nooks
Which yon forsaken crag all dark o'erlooks;
Once more I court the long neglected Muse,
As erst when by the mossy brink and falls
Of solitary Wainsbeck, or the side
Of Clysdale's cliffs, where first her voice she tried,
I strayed a pensive boy. Since then, the thralls
That wait life's upland road have chilled her breast,
And much, as much they might, her wing depressed.
Wan Indolence, resigned, her deadening hand
Laid on her heart, and Fancy her cold wand
Dropped at the frown of fortune; yet once more
I call her, and once more her converse sweet,
'Mid the still limits of this wild retreat,
I woo;--if yet delightful as of yore
My heart she may revisit, nor deny
The soothing aid of some sweet melody!
I hail the rugged scene that bursts around;
I mark the wreathed roots, the saplings gray,
That bend o'er the dark Derwent's wandering way;
I mark its stream with peace-persuading sound,
That steals beneath the fading foliage pale,
Or, at the foot of frowning crags upreared,
Complains like one forsaken and unheard.
To me, it seems to tell the pensive tale
Of spring-time, and the summer days all flown;
And while sad autumn's voice ev'n now I hear
Along the umbrage of the high-wood moan,
At intervals, whose shivering leaves fall sere;
Whilst o'er the group of pendant groves I view
The slowly-spreading tints of pining hue,
I think of poor Humanity's brief day,
How fast its blossoms fade, its summers speed away!
When first young Hope, a golden-tressed boy,
Most musical his early madrigal
Sings to the whispering waters as they fall,
Breathing fresh airs of fragrance and of joy,
The wild woods gently wave, the morning sheds
Her rising radiance on the mountain heads,
Strewed with green isles appears old ocean's reign,
And seen at distance rays of resting light
Silver the farthest promontory's height:
Then hushed is the long murmur of the main,
Whilst silent o'er the slowly-crisping tides,
Bound to some beaming spot, the bark of pleasure glides.
Alas! the scenes that smile in light arrayed
But catch the sense, and then in darkness fade.
We, poor adventurers, of peace bereft,
Look back on the green hills that late we left,
Or turn, with beating breast and anxious eye,
To some faint hope that glimmering meets our sight
(Like the lone watch-tower in the storm of night),
Then on the dismal waste are driv'n despairing by!
Meantime, amid the landscape cold and mute,
Hope, sweet enchanter, sighing drops his lute:
So sad decay and mortal change succeeds,
And o'er the silent scene Time, like a giant, speeds!
Yet the bleak cliffs that lift their heads so high
(Around whose beetling crags, with ceaseless coil,
And still-returning flight, the ravens toil)
Heed not the changeful seasons as they fly,
Nor spring, nor autumn: they their hoary brow
Uprear, and ages past, as in this now,
The same deep trenches unsubdued have worn,
The same majestic frown, and looks of lofty scorn.
So Fortitude, a mailed warrior old,
Appears; he lifts his scar-intrenched crest;
The tempest gathers round his dauntless breast;
He hears far off the storm of havoc rolled;
The feeble fall around: their sound is past;
Their sun is set, their place no more is known;
Like the wan leaves before the winter's blast
They perish:--He, unshaken and alone
Remains, his brow a sterner shade assumes,
By age ennobled, whilst the hurricane,
That raves resistless o'er the ravaged plain,
But shakes unfelt his helmet's quivering plume.
And so yon sovereign of the scene I mark
Above the woods rear his majestic head,
That soon all shattered at his feet shall shed
Their short-lived beauties: he the winter dark
Regardless, and the wasteful time that flies,
Rejoicing in his lonely might, defies.
Thee, wandering in the deep and craggy dell,
Sequestered stream, with other thoughts I view:
Thou dost in solitude thy course pursue,
As thou hadst bid life's busy scenes farewell,
Yet making still such music as might cheer
The weary passenger that journeys near.
Such are the songs of Peace in Virtue's shade;
Unheard of Folly, or the vacant train
That pipe and dance upon the noontide plain,
Till in the dust together they are laid!
But not unheard of Him, who sits sublime
Above the clouds of this tempestuous clime,
Its stir and strife; to whom more grateful rise
The humble incense, and the still small voice
Of those that on their pensive way rejoice,
Than shouts of thousands echoing to the skies;
Than songs of conquest pealing round the car
Of hard Ambition, or the Fiend of War,
Sated with slaughter. Nor may I, sweet stream,
From thy wild banks and still retreats depart,
Where now I meditate my casual theme,
Without some mild improvement on my heart
Poured sad, yet pleasing! so may I forget
The crosses and the cares that sometimes fret
Life's smoothest channel, and each wish prevent
That mars the silent current of content!
In such a spot, amidst these rugged views,
The pensive poet in his drooping age
Might wish to place his reed-roofed hermitage;
Where much on life's vain shadows he might muse.
If fortune smiled not on his early way,
If he were doomed to mourn a faithless friend,
Here he might rest, and when his hairs were gray,
Behold in peace the parting day descend.
If a hard world his errors scanned severe,
When late the earth received his mouldering clay,
Perhaps some loved companion, wandering near,
Plucking the gray moss from the stone, might say:
Him I remember, in our careless days,
Vacant and glad, till many a loss severe
First hung his placid eyelids with a tear;
Yet on such visions ardent would he gaze,
As the Muse loved, that oft would smile and die,
Like the faint bow that leaves the weeping sky;
His heart unguarded, yet it proudly beat
Against hard wrong, or coward cold deceit;--
Nor passed he e'er without a sigh the cell
Where wretchedness and her pale children dwell.
He never wished to win the world's cold ear,
Nor, prized by those he loved, its blame could fear;
Its praise he left to those who, at their will,
The ingenious strain of torturing art could trill!
Content, as random fancies might inspire,
If his weak reed, at times, or plaintive lyre,
He touched with desultory hand, and drew
Some softened tones, to Nature not untrue.
The leaves, O Derwent! on thy bosom still
Oft with the gust now fall--the season pale
Hath smote with hand unseen the silent vale,
And slowly steals the verdure from the hill;
So the fair scene departs, yet wears a while
The lingering traces of its beauteous smile:
But we who by thy margin stray, or climb
The cliff's aerial height, or join the song
Of hope and gladness amidst yonder throng,
Losing the brief and fleeting hours of time,
Reck not how age, even thus, with icy hand,
Hangs o'er us;--how, as with a wizard's wand,
Youth blooming like the spring, and roseate mirth,
To slow and sere consumption he shall change,
And with invisible mutation strange,
Withered and wasted send them to the earth;
Whilst hushed, and by the mace of ruin rent,
Sinks the forsaken hall of merriment!
Bright bursts the sun upon the shaggy scene!
The aged rocks their glittering summits gray
Hang beautiful amid the beams of day;
And all the woods, with slowly-fading green,
Yet smiling wave:--severer thoughts, away!
The night is distant, and the lovely day
Looks on us yet;--the sound of mirthful cheer
From yonder dome comes pleasant to mine ear.
From rock to rock reverberated swells,
Hark,--the glad music of the village bells!
On the crag's naked point the heifer lows,
And wide below the brightening landscape glows!
Though brief the time and short our course to run,
Derwent! amid the scenes that deck thy side,
Ere yet the parting paths of life divide,
Let us rejoice, seeking what may be won
From the laborious day, or fortune's frown:
Here may we, ere the sun of life goes down,
A while regardless of the morrow, dwell;
Then to our destined roads, and speed us well!

poem by William Lisle Bowles
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Earlier Poems : The Spirit Of Poetry

There is a quiet spirit in these woods,
That dwells where'er the gentle south-wind blows;
Where, underneath the white-thorn, in the glade,
The wild flowers bloom, or, kissing the soft air,
The leaves above their sunny palms outspread.
With what a tender and impassioned voice
It fills the nice and delicate ear of thought,
When the fast ushering star of morning comes
O'er-riding the gray hills with golden scarf;
Or when the cowled and dusky-sandalled Eve,
In mourning weeds, from out the western gate,
Departs with silent pace! That spirit moves
In the green valley, where the silver brook,
From its full laver, pours the white cascade;
And, babbling low amid the tangled woods,
Slips down through moss-grown stones with endless laughter.
And frequent, on the everlasting hills,
Its feet go forth, when it doth wrap itself
In all the dark embroidery of the storm,
And shouts the stern, strong wind. And here, amid
The silent majesty of these deep woods,
lts presence shall uplift thy thoughts from earth,
As to the sunshine and the pure, bright air
Their tops the green trees lift. Hence gifted bards
Have ever loved the calm and quiet shades.
For them there was an eloquent voice in all
The sylvan pomp of woods, the golden sun,
The flowers, the leaves, the river on its way,
Blue skies, and silver clouds, and gentle winds,
The swelling upland, where the sidelong sun
Aslant the wooded slope, at evening, goes,
Groves, through whose broken roof the sky looks in,
Mountain, and shattered cliff, and sunny vale,
The distant lake, fountains, and mighty trees,
In many a lazy syllable, repeating
Their old poetic legends to the wind.
And this is the sweet spirit, that doth fill
The world; and, in these wayward days of youth,
My busy fancy oft embodies it,
As a bright image of the light and beauty
That dwell in nature; of the heavenly forms
We worship in our dreams, and the soft hues
That stain the wild bird's wing, and flush the clouds
When the sun sets. Within her tender eye
The heaven of April, with its changing light,
And when it wears the blue of May, is hung,
And on her lip the rich, red rose. Her hair
Is like the summer tresses of the trees,
When twilight makes them brown, and on her cheek
Blushes the richness of an autumn sky,
With ever-shifting beauty. Then her breath,
It is so like the gentle air of Spring,
As, front the morning's dewy flowers, it comes
Full of their fragrance, that it is a joy
To have it round us, and her silver voice
Is the rich music of a summer bird,
Heard in the still night, with its passionate cadence.

poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Spirit of Poetry, The

There is a quiet spirit in these woods,
That dwells where'er the gentle south-wind blows;
Where, underneath the white-thorn, in the glade,
The wild flowers bloom, or, kissing the soft air,
The leaves above their sunny palms outspread.
With what a tender and impassioned voice
It fills the nice and delicate ear of thought,
When the fast ushering star of morning comes
O'er-riding the gray hills with golden scarf;
Or when the cowled and dusky-sandaled Eve,
In mourning weeds, from out the western gate,
Departs with silent pace! That spirit moves
In the green valley, where the silver brook,
From its full laver, pours the white cascade;
And, babbling low amid the tangled woods,
Slips down through moss-grown stones with endless laughter.
And frequent, on the everlasting hills,
Its feet go forth, when it doth wrap itself
In all the dark embroidery of the storm,
And shouts the stern, strong wind. And here, amid
The silent majesty of these deep woods,
lts presence shall uplift thy thoughts from earth,
As to the sunshine and the pure, bright air
Their tops the green trees lift. Hence gifted bards
Have ever loved the calm and quiet shades.
For them there was an eloquent voice in all
The sylvan pomp of woods, the golden sun,
The flowers, the leaves, the river on its way,
Blue skies, and silver clouds, and gentle winds,
The swelling upland, where the sidelong sun
Aslant the wooded slope, at evening, goes,
Groves, through whose broken roof the sky looks in,
Mountain, and shattered cliff, and sunny vale,
The distant lake, fountains, and mighty trees,
In many a lazy syllable, repeating
Their old poetic legends to the wind.

And this is the sweet spirit, that doth fill
The world; and, in these wayward days of youth,
My busy fancy oft embodies it,
As a bright image of the light and beauty
That dwell in nature; of the heavenly forms
We worship in our dreams, and the soft hues
That stain the wild bird's wing, and flush the clouds
When the sun sets. Within her tender eye
The heaven of April, with its changing light,
And when it wears the blue of May, is hung,
And on her lip the rich, red rose. Her hair
Is like the summer tresses of the trees,
When twilight makes them brown, and on her cheek
Blushes the richness of an autumn sky,
With ever-shifting beauty. Then her breath,
It is so like the gentle air of Spring,
As, front the morning's dewy flowers, it comes
Full of their fragrance, that it is a joy
To have it round us, and her silver voice
Is the rich music of a summer bird,
Heard in the still night, with its passionate cadence.

poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Sketches In The Exhibition

What various objects strike with various force,
Achilles, Hebe, and Sir Watkin's horse!
Here summer scenes, there Pentland's stormy ridge,
Lords, ladies, Noah's ark, and Cranford bridge!
Some that display the elegant design,
The lucid colours, and the flowing line;
Some that might make, alas! Walsh Porter stare,
And wonder how the devil they got there!

LADY M----VE.

How clear a strife of light and shade is spread!
The face how touched with nature's loveliest red!
The eye, how eloquent, and yet how meek!
The glow subdued, yet mantling on thy cheek!
M----ve! I mark alone thy beauteous face,
But all is nature, dignity, and grace!

HON. MISS MERCER.--HOPNER.

Oh! hide those tempting eyes, that faultless form,
Those looks with feeling and with nature warm;
The neck, the softly-swelling bosom hide,
Nor, wanton gales, blow the light vest aside;
For who, when beauties more than life excite
Silent applause, can gaze without delight!
But innocence, enchanting maid, is thine;
Thine eyes in liquid light unconscious shine;
And may thy breast no other feelings prove,
Than those of sympathy and mutual love!

BLIND FIDDLER.--WILKIE.

With mirth unfeigned the cottage chimney rings,
Though only vocal with four fiddle-strings:
And see, the poor blind fiddler draws his bow,
And lifts intent his time-denoting toe;
While yonder maid, as blythe as birds in June,
You almost hear her whistle to the tune!
Hard by, a lad, in imitative guise,
Fixed, fiddle-like, the broken bellows plies;
Before the hearth, with looks of honest joy,
The father chirrups to the chattering boy,
And snaps his lifted thumbs with mimic glee,
To the glad urchin on his mother's knee!

MORNING.--TURNER.

Up! for the morning shines with welcome ray,
And to the sunny seabeach let us stray.
What orient hues proclaim the master's hand!
How light the wave upon the half-wet sand!
How beautiful the sun, as still we gaze,
Streams all diffusive through the opening haze!
Artist--when to the thunder's pealing sound,
Fire mixed with hailstones ran upon the ground,
When partial darkness the dread prospect hid,
And sole aspired the aged pyramid--
Sublimity thy genius seemed to guide
O'er Egypt's champaign, desolate and wide;
But here delightful beauty reigns alone,
And decks the morning scene with graces all her own.

KESWICK.--SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT.

How shall I praise thee, Beaumont, whose nice skill
Can mould the soft and shadowy scene at will;
Chastise to harmony each gaudy ray,
Simple, yet grand, the mountain scene display;
The lake where sober evening seems to sleep,
Hills far retiring into umbrage deep;
Blend all with classic, pure, poetic taste,
And strike the more with forms and colours chaste!

MARKET-DAY.--CALCOT.

Through the wood's maze our eyes delighted stray,
To mark the rustics on the market-day.
Beneath the branches winds the long white road;
Here peeps the rustic cottager's abode;
There in the morning sun, the children play,
Or the crone creeps along the dusty way.

SCENE IN FRANCE.--LOUTHERBOURG.

Artist, I own thy genius; but the touch
May be too restless, and the glare too much:
And sure none ever saw a landscape shine,
Basking in beams of such a sun as thine,
But felt a fervid dew upon his phiz,
And panting cried, O Lord, how hot it is!

DEATH OF NELSON.--WEST.

Turn to Britannia's triumphs on the main:
See Nelson, pale and fainting, 'mid the slain,
Whilst Victory sighs, stern in the garb of war,
And points through clouds the rocks of Trafalgar!
Here cease the strain; but while thy hulls shall ride,
Britain, dark shadowing the tumultuous tide,
May other Nelsons, on the sanguine main,
Guide, like a god, the battle's hurricane;
And when the funeral's transient pomp is past,
High hung the banner, hushed the battle's blast,
May the brave character to ages shine,
And Genius consecrate the immortal shrine!

poem by William Lisle Bowles
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Parting

The chestnut steed stood by the gate
His noble master's will to wait,
The woody park so green and bright
Was glowing in the morning light,
The young leaves of the aspen trees
Were dancing in the morning breeze.
The palace door was open wide,
Its lord was standing there,
And his sweet lady by his side
With soft dark eyes and raven hair.
He smiling took her wary hand
And said, 'No longer here I stand;
My charger shakes his flowing mane
And calls me with impatient neigh.
Adieu then till we meet again,
Sweet love, I must no longer stay.'

'You must not go so soon,' she said,
'I will not say farewell.
The sun has not dispelled the shade
In yonder dewy dell;
Dark shadows of gigantic length
Are sleeping on the lawn;
And scarcely have the birds begun
To hail the summer morn;
Then stay with me a little while,'
She said with soft and sunny smile.

He smiled again and did not speak,
But lightly kissed her rosy cheek,
And fondly clasped her in his arms,
Then vaulted on his steed.
And down the park's smooth winding road
He urged its flying speed.
Still by the door his lady stood
And watched his rapid flight,
Until he came to a distant wood
That hid him from her sight.
But ere he vanished from her view
He waved to her a last adieu,
Then onward hastily he steered
And in the forest disappeared.

The lady smiled a pensive smile
And heaved a gently sigh,
But her cheek was all unblanched the while
And tearless was her eye.
'A thousand lovely flowers,' she said,
'Are smiling on the plain.
And ere one half of them are dead,
My lord will come again.
The leaves are waving fresh and green
On every stately tree,
And long before they die away
He will return to me!' --
Alas! Fair lady, say not so;
Thou canst not tell the weight of woe
That lies in store for thee.

Those flowers will fade, those leaves will fall,
Winter will darken yonder hall;
Sweet spring will smile o'er hill and plain
And trees and flowers will bloom again,
And years will still keep rolling on,
But thy beloved lord is gone.
His absence thou shalt deeply mourn,
And never smile on his return.

poem by Anne Brontë
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Pine Forest Of The Cascine Near Pisa

Dearest, best and brightest,
Come away,
To the woods and to the fields!
Dearer than this fairest day
Which, like thee to those in sorrow,
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow
To the rough Year just awake
In its cradle in the brake.
The eldest of the Hours of Spring,
Into the Winter wandering,
Looks upon the leafless wood,
And the banks all bare and rude;
Found, it seems, this halcyon Morn
In February’s bosom born,
Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth,
Kissed the cold forehead of the Earth,
And smiled upon the silent sea,
And bade the frozen streams be free;
And waked to music all the fountains,
And breathed upon the rigid mountains,
And made the wintry world appear
Like one on whom thou smilest, Dear.

Radiant Sister of the Day,
Awake! arise! and come away!
To the wild woods and the plains,
To the pools where winter rains
Image all the roof of leaves,
Where the pine its garland weaves
Sapless, gray, and ivy dun
Round stems that never kiss the sun--
To the sandhills of the sea,
Where the earliest violets be.

Now the last day of many days,
All beautiful and bright as thou,
The loveliest and the last, is dead,
Rise, Memory, and write its praise!
And do thy wonted work and trace
The epitaph of glory fled;
For now the Earth has changed its face,
A frown is on the Heaven’s brow.

We wandered to the Pine Forest
That skirts the Ocean's foam,
The lightest wind was in its nest,
The tempest in its home.

The whispering waves were half asleep,
The clouds were gone to play,
And on the woods, and on the deep
The smile of Heaven lay.

It seemed as if the day were one
Sent from beyond the skies,
Which shed to earth above the sun
A light of Paradise.

We paused amid the pines that stood,
The giants of the waste,
Tortured by storms to shapes as rude
With stems like serpents interlaced.

How calm it was--the silence there
By such a chain was bound,
That even the busy woodpecker
Made stiller by her sound

The inviolable quietness;
The breath of peace we drew
With its soft motion made not less
The calm that round us grew.

It seemed that from the remotest seat
Of the white mountain's waste
To the bright flower beneath our feet,
A magic circle traced;--

A spirit interfused around,
A thinking, silent life;
To momentary peace it bound
Our mortal nature’s strife;--

And still, it seemed, the centre of
The magic circle there,
Was one whose being filled with love
The breathless atmosphere.

Were not the crocuses that grew
Under that ilex-tree
As beautiful in scent and hue
As ever fed the bee?

We stood beneath the pools that lie
Under the forest bough,
And each seemed like a sky
Gulfed in a world below;

A purple firmament of light
Which in the dark earth lay,
More boundless than the depth of night,
And clearer than the day—

In which the massy forests grew
As in the upper air,
More perfect both in shape and hue
Than any waving there.

Like one beloved the scene had lent
To the dark water's breast
Its every leaf and lineament
With that clear truth expressed;

There lay far glades and neighbouring lawn,
And through the dark green crowd
The white sun twinkling like the dawn
Under a speckled cloud.

Sweet views, which in our world above
Can never well be seen,
Were imaged by the water's love
Of that fair forest green.

And all was interfused beneath
With an Elysian air,
An atmosphere without a breath,
A silence sleeping there.

Until a wandering wind crept by,
Like an unwelcome thought,
Which from my mind's too faithful eye
Blots thy bright image out.

For thou art good and dear and kind,
The forest ever green,
But less of peace in S---'s mind,
Than calm in waters, seen.

poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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To The Painted Columbine

Bright image of the early years
When glowed my cheek as red as thou,
And life's dark throng of cares and fears
Were swift-winged shadows o'er my sunny brow!

Thou blushest from the painter's page,
Robed in the mimic tints of art;
But Nature's hand in youth's green age
With fairer hues first traced thee on my heart.

The morning's blush, she made it thine,
The morn's sweet breath, she gave it thee,
And in thy look, my Columbine!
Each fond-remembered spot she bade me see.

I see the hill's far-gazing head,
Where gay thou noddest in the gale;
I hear light-bounding footsteps tread
The grassy path that winds along the vale.

I hear the voice of woodland song
Break from each bush and well-known tree,
And on light pinions borne along,
Comes back the laugh from childhood's heart of glee.

O'er the dark rock the dashing brook,
With look of anger, leaps again,
And, hastening to each flowery nook,
Its distant voice is heard far down the glen.

Fair child of art! thy charms decay,
Touched by the withered hand of Time;
And hushed the music of that day,
When my voice mingled with the streamlet's chime;

But on my heart thy cheek of bloom
Shall live when Nature's smile has fled;
And, rich with memory's sweet perfume,
Shall o'er her grave thy tribute incense shed.

There shalt thou live and wake the glee
That echoed on thy native hill;
And when, loved flower! I think of thee,
My infant feet will seem to seek thee still.

poem by Jones Very
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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To Jane: The Recollection

I.
Now the last day of many days,
All beautiful and bright as thou,
The loveliest and the last, is dead,
Rise, Memory, and write its praise!
Up,--to thy wonted work! come, trace
The epitaph of glory fled,--
For now the Earth has changed its face,
A frown is on the Heaven’s brow.

II.
We wandered to the Pine Forest
That skirts the Ocean’s foam,
The lightest wind was in its nest,
The tempest in its home.
The whispering waves were half asleep,
The clouds were gone to play,
And on the bosom of the deep
The smile of Heaven lay;
It seemed as if the hour were one
Sent from beyond the skies,
Which scattered from above the sun
A light of Paradise.

III.
We paused amid the pines that stood
The giants of the waste,
Tortured by storms to shapes as rude
As serpents interlaced;
And, soothed by every azure breath,
That under Heaven is blown,
To harmonies and hues beneath,
As tender as its own,
Now all the tree-tops lay asleep,
Like green waves on the sea,
As still as in the silent deep
The ocean woods may be.

IV.
How calm it was!—the silence there
By such a chain was bound
That even the busy woodpecker
Made stiller by her sound
The inviolable quietness;
The breath of peace we drew
With its soft motion made not less
The calm that round us grew.
There seemed from the remotest seat
Of the white mountain waste,
To the soft flower beneath our feet,
A magic circle traced,--
A spirit interfused around
A thrilling, silent life,--
To momentary peace it bound
Our mortal nature’s strife;
And still I felt the centre of
The magic circle there
Was one fair form that filled with love
The lifeless atmosphere.

V.
We paused beside the pools that lie
Under the forest bough,--
Each seemed as ’twere a little sky
Gulfed in a world below;
A firmament of purple light
Which in the dark earth lay,
More boundless than the depth of night,
And purer than the day--
In which the lovely forests grew,
As in the upper air,
More perfect both in shape and hue
Than any spreading there.
There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn,
And through the dark green wood
The white sun twinkling like the dawn
Out of a speckled cloud.
Sweet views which in our world above
Can never well be seen,
Were imaged by the water’s love
Of that fair forest green.
And all was interfused beneath
With an Elysian glow,
An atmosphere without a breath,
A softer day below.
Like one beloved the scene had lent
To the dark water’s breast,
Its every leaf and lineament
With more than truth expressed;
Until an envious wind crept by,
Like an unwelcome thought,
Which from the mind’s too faithful eye
Blots one dear image out.
Though thou art ever fair and kind,
The forests ever green,
Less oft is peace in Shelley’s mind,
Than calm in waters, seen.

poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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To Anna

For thee, the Sibyl in the future sees
A lovely cottage hidden by the trees;---
Round its white porch are trained the clustering vines;
Beneath its roof perpetual summer shines---
The heart's sweet summer that shall take its dyes
From the clear sunshine of thine azure eyes.
The nightingale shall sing thee to thy dreams;
The lark shall wake thee with morn's earliest beams;
The flocks and herds shall own thy gentle care;
All living things thy kind regard shall share.
And as thou wanderest midst the lovely scene,
The flowers shall claim thee for their fairy queen.
And here, where Nature wears her loveliest spell,
Shalt thou, her fairest work, serenely dwell;
Far from the world's "ignoble strife" and care,
With some loved spirit "for thy minister,"
Thy life like some fair stream shall glide away,
And thou shalt sleep, to wake in the Eternal Day.

poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Coombe-Ellen

Call the strange spirit that abides unseen
In wilds, and wastes, and shaggy solitudes,
And bid his dim hand lead thee through these scenes
That burst immense around! By mountains, glens,
And solitary cataracts that dash
Through dark ravines; and trees, whose wreathed roots
O'erhang the torrent's channelled course; and streams,
That far below, along the narrow vale,
Upon their rocky way wind musical.
Stranger! if Nature charm thee, if thou lovest
To trace her awful steps, in glade or glen,
Or under covert of the rocking wood,
That sways its murmuring and mossy boughs
Above thy head; now, when the wind at times
Stirs its deep silence round thee, and the shower
Falls on the sighing foliage, hail her here
In these her haunts; and, rapt in musings high,
Think that thou holdest converse with some Power
Invisible and strange; such as of yore
Greece, in the shades of piney Maenalaus,
The abode of Pan, or Ida's hoary caves,
Worshipped; and our old Druids, 'mid the gloom
Of rocks and woods like these, with muttered spell
Invoked, and the loud ring of choral harps.
Hast thou oft mourned the chidings of the world,
The sound of her disquiet, that ascends
For ever, mocking the high throne of GOD!
Hast thou in youth known sorrow! Hast thou drooped,
Heart-stricken, over youth's and beauty's grave,
And ever after thought on the sad sound
The cold earth made, which, cast into the vault,
Consigned thy heart's best treasure--dust to dust!
Here, lapped into a sweet forgetfulness,
Hang o'er the wreathed waterfall, and think
Thou art alone in this dark world and wide!
Here Melancholy, on the pale crags laid,
Might muse herself to sleep; or Fancy come,
Witching the mind with tender cozenage,
And shaping things that are not; here all day
Might Meditation listen to the lapse
Of the white waters, flashing through the cleft,
And, gazing on the many shadowing trees,
Mingle a pensive moral as she gazed.
High o'er thy head, amidst the shivered slate,
Behold, a sapling yet, the wild ash bend,
Its dark red berries clustering, as it wished
In the clear liquid mirror, ere it fell,
To trace its beauties; o'er the prone cascade,
Airy, and light, and elegant, the birch
Displays its glossy stem, amidst the gloom
Of alders and jagged fern, and evermore
Waves her light pensile foliage, as she wooed
The passing gale to whisper flatteries.
Upon the adverse bank, withered, and stripped
Of all its pleasant leaves, a scathed oak
Hangs desolate, once sovereign of the scene,
Perhaps, proud of its beauty and its strength,
And branching its broad arms along the glen:
Oh, speaks it no remonstrance to the heart!
It seems to say: So shall the spoiler come,
The season that shall shatter your fair leaves,
Gay children of the summer! yet enjoy
Your pleasant prime, and lift your green heads high,
Exulting; but the storm will come at last,
That shall lay low your strength, and give your pride
To the swift-hurrying stream of age, like mine.
And so severe Experience oft reproves
The gay and careless children of the world;
They hear the cold rebuke, and then again
Turn to their sport, as likes them, and dance on!
And let them dance; so all their blooming prime
They give not up to vanity, but learn
That wisdom and that virtue which shall best
Avail them, when the evil days draw nigh,
And the brief blossoms of their spring-time fade.
Now wind we up the glen, and hear below
The dashing torrent, in deep woods concealed,
And now again white-flashing on the view,
O'er the huge craggy fragments. Ancient stream,
That murmurest through the mountain solitudes,
The time has been when no eye marked thy course,
Save His who made the world! Fancy might dream
She saw thee thus bound on from age to age
Unseen of man, whilst awful Nature sat
On the rent rocks, and said: These haunts be mine.
Now Taste has marked thy features; here and there
Touching with tender hand, but injuring not,
Thy beauties; whilst along thy woody verge
Ascends the winding pathway, and the eye
Catches at intervals thy varied falls.
But loftier scenes invite us; pass the hill,
And through the woody hanging, at whose feet
The tinkling Ellen winds, pursue thy way.
Yon bleak and weather-whitened rock, immense,
Upshoots amidst the scene, craggy and steep,
And like some high-embattled citadel,
That awes the low plain shadowing. Half-way up
The purple heath is seen, but bare its brow,
And deep-intrenched, and all beneath it spread
With massy fragments riven from its top.
Amidst the crags, and scarce discerned so high,
Hangs here and there a sheep, by its faint bleat
Discovered, whilst the astonished eye looks up,
And marks it on the precipice's brink
Pick its scant food secure:--and fares it not
Ev'n so with you, poor orphans, ye who climb
The rugged path of life without a friend;
And over broken crags bear hardly on,
With pale imploring looks, that seem to say,
My mother! she is buried, and at rest,
Laid in her grave-clothes; and the heart is still,
The only heart that throughout all the world
Beat anxiously for you! Oh, yet bear on;
He who sustains the bleating lamb shall feed
And comfort you: meantime the heaven's pure beam,
That breaks above the sable mountain's brow,
Lighting, one after one, the sunless crags,
Awakes the blissful confidence, that here,
Or in a world where sorrow never comes,
All shall be well.
Now through the whispering wood
We steal, and mark the old and mossy oaks
Imboss the mountain slope; or the wild ash,
With rich red clusters mantling; or the birch,
In lonely glens light-wavering; till behold!
The rapid river shooting through the gloom
Its lucid line along; and on its side
The bordering pastures green, where the swinked ox
Lies dreaming, heedless of the numerous flies
That, in the transitory sunshine, hum
Round his broad breast; and further up the cot,
With blue, light smoke ascending; images
Of peace and comfort! The wild rocks around
Endear your smile the more, and the full mind,
Sliding from scenes of dread magnificence,
Sinks on your charms reposing; such repose
The sage may feel, when, filled and half-oppressed
With vast conceptions, smiling he returns
To life's consoling sympathies, and hears,
With heartfelt tenderness, the bells ring out;
Or pipe upon the mountains; or the low
Of herds slow winding down the cottaged vale,
Where day's last sunshine linger. Such repose
He feels, who, following where his SHAKSPEARE leads,
As in a dream, through an enchanted land,
Here, with Macbeth, in the dread cavern hails
The weird sisters, and the dismal deed
Without a name; there sees the charmed isle,
The lone domain of Prospero; and, hark!
Wild music, such as earth scarce seems to own,
And Ariel o'er the slow-subsiding surge
Singing her smooth air quaintly! Such repose
Steals o'er her spirits, when, through storms at sea,
Fancy has followed some nigh-foundered bark
Full many a league, in ocean's solitude
Tossed far beyond the Cape of utmost Horn,
That stems the roaring deep; her dreary track
Still Fancy follows, and at dead of night
Hears, with strange thunder, the huge fragments fall
Crashing, from mountains of high-drifting ice
That o'er her bows gleam fearful; till at last
She hails the gallant ship in some still bay
Safe moored; or of delightful Tinian;
Smiling, like fairy isle, amid the waste;
Or of New Zealand, where from sheltering rocks
The clear cascades gush beautiful, and high
The woodland scenery towers above the mast,
Whose long and wavy ensign streams beneath.
Far inland, clad in snow, the mountains lift
Their spiry summits, and endear the more
The sylvan scene around; the healing air
Breathes o'er green myrtles, and the poe-bird flits,
Amid the shade of aromatic shrubs,
With silver neck and blue enamelled wing.
Now cross the stream, and up the narrow track,
That winds along the mountain's edge, behold
The peasant girl ascend: cheerful her look,
Beneath the umbrage of her broad black hat,
And loose her dark-brown hair; the plodding pad
That bears her panting climbs, and with sure step
Avoids the jutting fragments; she, meantime,
Sits unconcerned, till, lessening from the view,
She gains the summit and is seen no more.
All day, along that mountain's heathy waste,
Booted and strapped, and in rough coat succinct,
His small shrill whistle pendent at his breast,
With dogs and gun, untired the sportsman roams;
Nor quits his wildly-devious range, till eve,
Upon the woods, the rocks, and mazy rills
Descending, warns him home: then he rejoins
The social circle, just as the clear moon,
Emerging o'er the sable mountain, sails
Silent, and calm, and beautiful, and sheds
Its solemn grandeur on the shadowy scene.
To music then; and let some chosen strain
Of HANDEL gently recreate the sense,
And give the silent heart to tender joy.
Pass on to the hoar cataract, that foams
Through the dark fissures of the riven rock;
Prone-rushing it descends, and with white whirl,
Save where some silent shady pool receives
Its dash; thence bursting, with collected sweep,
And hollow sound, it hurries, till it falls
Foaming in the wild stream that winds below.
Dark trees, that to the mountain's height ascend,
O'ershade with pendent boughs its mossy course,
And, looking up, the eye beholds it flash
Beneath the incumbent gloom, from ledge to ledge
Shooting its silvery foam, and far within
Wreathing its curve fantastic. If the harp
Of deep poetic inspiration, struck
At times by the pale minstrel, whilst a strange
And beauteous light filled his uplifted eye,
Hath ever sounded into mortal ears,
Here I might think I heard its tones, and saw,
Sublime amidst the solitary scene,
With dimly-gleaming harp, and snowy stole,
And cheek in momentary frenzy flushed,
The great musician stand. Hush, every wind
That shakes the murmuring branches! and thou stream,
Descending still with hollow-sounding sweep,
Hush! 'Twas the bard struck the loud strings: Arise,
Son of the magic song, arise!
And bid the deep-toned lyre
Pour forth its manly melodies.
With eyes on fire,
CARADOC rushed upon the foe;
He reared his arm--he laid the mighty low!
O'er the plain see him urge his gore-bathed steed!
They bleed, the Romans bleed!
He lifts his lance on high,
They fly! the fierce invaders fly!
Fear not now the horse or spear,
Fear not now the foeman's might;
Victory the cry shall hear
Of those who for their country fight;
O'er the slain
That strew the plain,
Stern on her sable war-horse shall she ride,
And lift her red right hand, in their heart's blood deep dyed!
Return, my Muse! the fearful sound is past;
And now a little onward, where the way
Ascends above the oaks that far below
Shade the rude steep, let Contemplation lead
Our footsteps; from this shady eminence
'Tis pleasant and yet fearful to look down
Upon the river roaring, and far off
To see it stretch in peace, and mark the rocks
One after one, in solemn majesty
Unfolding their wild reaches; here with wood
Mantled, beyond abrupt and bare, and each
As if it strove, with emulous disdain,
To tower in ruder, darker amplitude.
Pause, ere we enter the long craggy vale;
It seems the abode of Solitude. So high
The rock's bleak summit frowns above our head,
Looking immediate down, we almost fear
Lest some enormous fragment should descend
With hideous sweep into the vale, and crush
The intruding visitant. No sound is here,
Save of the stream that shrills, and now and then
A cry as of faint wailing, when the kite
Comes sailing o'er the crags, or straggling lamb
Bleats for its mother. Here, remote from man,
And life's discordant roar, might Piety
Lift up her early orisons to Him
Who made the world; who piled up, mighty rocks,
Your huge o'ershadowing summits; who devolved
The mighty rivers on their mazy course;
Who bade the seasons roll, and they rolled on
In harmony; who filled the earth with joy,
And spread it in magnificence. O GOD!
Thou also madest the great water-flood,
The deep that uttereth thy voice; whose waves
Toss fearful at thy bidding. Thou didst speak,
And lo! the great and glorious sun, from night
Tenfold upspringing, through the heavens' wide way
Held his untired career. These, in their course,
As with one shout of acclamation, praise
Thee, LORD! thee, FATHER! thee, ALMIGHTY KING!
Maker of earth and heaven! Nor less the flower
That shakes its purple head, and smiles unseen
Upon the mountain's van; nor less the stream
That tinkles through the cliff-encircled bourne,
Cheering with music the lone place, proclaim:
In wisdom, Father, hast thou made them all!
Scenes of retired sublimity, that fill
With fearful ecstasy and holy trance
The pausing mind! we leave your awful gloom,
And lo! the footway plank, that leads across
The narrow torrent, foaming through the chasm
Below; the rugged stones are washed and worn
Into a thousand shapes, and hollows scooped
By long attrition of the ceaseless surge,
Smooth, deep, and polished as the marble urn,
In their hard forms. Here let us sit, and watch
The struggling current burst its headlong way,
Hearing the noise it makes, and musing much
On the strange changes of this nether world.
How many ages must have swept to dust
The still succeeding multitudes, that 'fret
Their little hour' upon this restless scene,
Or ere the sweeping waters could have cut
The solid rock so deep! As now its roar
Comes hollow from below, methinks we hear
The noise of generations, as they pass,
O'er the frail arch of earthly vanity,
To silence and oblivion. The loud coil
Ne'er ceases; as the running river sounds
From age to age, though each particular wave
That made its brief noise, as it hurried on,
Ev'n whilst we speak, is past, and heard no more;
So ever to the ear of Heaven ascends
The long, loud murmur of the rolling globe;
Its strife, its toils, its sighs, its shouts, the same!
But lo! upon the hilly croft, and scarce
Distinguished from the crags, the peasant hut
Forth peeping; nor unwelcome is the sight.
It seems to say: Though solitude be sweet,
And sweet are all the images that float
Like summer-clouds before the eye, and charm
The pensive wanderer's way, 'tis sweeter yet
To think that in this world a brother lives.
And lovelier smiles the scene, that, 'mid the wilds
Of rocks and mountains, the bemused thought
Remembers of humanity, and calls
The wildly-roving fancy back to life.
Here, then, I leave my harp, which I have touched
With careless hand, and here I bid farewell
To Fancy's fading pictures, and farewell
The ideal spirit that abides unseen
'Mid rocks, and woods, and solitudes. I hail
Rather the steps of Culture, that ascend
The precipice's side. She bids the wild
Bloom, and adorns with beauty not its own
The ridged mountain's tract; she speaks, and lo!
The yellow harvest nods upon the slope;
And through the dark and matted moss upshoots
The bursting clover, smiling to the sun.
These are thy offspring, Culture! the green herb
Is thine, that decks with rich luxuriance
The pasture's lawny range; the yellow corn,
That waves upon the upland ridge, is thine;
Thine too the elegant abode, that smiles
Amidst the rocky scene, and wakes the thought,
The tender thought, of all life's charities.
And senseless were my heart, could I look back
Upon the varied way my feet have trod,
Without a silent prayer that health and joy,
And love and happiness, may long abide
In the romantic vale where Ellen winds.

poem by William Lisle Bowles
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Ode to Borrowdale

IN CUMBERLAND.

Hail , Derwent's beauteous pride!
Whose charms rough rocks in threatening grandeur guard,
Whose entrance seems to mortals barred,
But to the Genius of the storm thrown wide.

He on thy rock's dread height,
Reclined beneath his canopy of clouds,
His form in darkness shrouds,
And frowns as fixt to keep thy beauties from the sight.

But rocks and storms are vain:
Midst mountains rough and rude
Man's daring feet intrude,
Till, lo! upon the ravished eye
Burst thy clear stream, thy smiling sky,
Thy wooded valley, and thy matchless plain.

Bright vale! the Muse's choicest theme,
My morning thought, my midnight dream;
Still memory paints thee, smiling scene,
Still views the robe of purest green,
Refreshed by beauty-shedding rains,
Which wraps thy flower-enamelled plains;

Still marks thy mountains' fronts sublime,
Force graces from the hand of time;
Still I thy rugged rocks recall,
Which seem as nodding to their fall,
Whose wonders fixed my aching sight,
Till terror yielded to delight,
And my surprises, pleasures, fears,
Were told by slow delicious tears.

But suddenly the smiling day
That cheered the valley, flies away;
The wooded rocks, the rapid stream,
No longer boast the noon-tide beam.

But storms athwart the mountains sail,
And darkly brood o'er Borrowdale.
The frightened swain his cottage seeks,
Ere the thick cloud in terror speaks:--
And see, pale lightning flashes round!
While as the thunder's awful sound
On Echo's pinion widely flies,
Yon cataract's roar unheeded dies;....
And thee, Sublimity! I hail,
Throned on the gloom of Borrowdale.

But soon the thunder dies away,
The flash withdraws its fearful ray;

Again upon the silver stream
Waves in bright wreaths the noon-tide beam.

O scene sequestered, varied, wild,
Scene formed to soothe Affliction's child,
How blest were I to watch each charm
That decks thy vale in storm or calm!

To see Aurora's hand unbind
The mists by night's chill power confined;
Upon the mountain's dusky brow
Then mark their colours as they flow,
Gliding the colder West to seek,
As from the East day's splendours break.

Now the green plain enchants the sight,
Adorned with spots of yellow light;
While, by its magic influence, shade
With contrast seems each charm to aid,
And clothes the woods in deeper dyes,
To suit the azure-vested skies.
While, lo! the lofty rocks above,
Where proudly towers the bird of Jove;
See from the view yon radiant cloud
His broad and sable pinions shroud,
Till, as he onward wings his flight,
He vanishes in floods of light;
Where feathered clouds on æther sail,
And glittering hang o'er Borrowdale.....

Or, at still midnight's solemn hour,
When the dull bat revolves no more,
In search of nature's awful grace,
I'd go, with slow and cautious pace,
Where the loud torrent's foaming tide
Lashes the rock's uneven side,....
That rock which, o'er the stream below
Bending its moss-clad crumbling brow,
Makes pale with fear the wanderer's cheek,
Nor midnight's silence fails to break
By fragments from its aged head,
Which, rushing to the river's bed,
Cause, as they dash the waters round,
A dread variety of sound;

While I the gloomy grandeur hail,
And awe-struck rove through Borrowdale.

Yes, scene sequestered, varied, wild,
So form'd to soothe Affliction's child,
Sweet Borrowdale! to thee I'll fly,
To hush my bosom's ceaseless sigh.
If yet in Nature's store there be
One kind heart-healing balm for me,
Now the long hours are told by sighs,
And sorrow steals health's crimson dyes,--
If aught can smiles and bloom restore,
Ah! surely thine's the precious power!

Then take me to thy world of charms,
And hush my tortured breast's alarms;
Thy scenes with unobtrusive art
Shall steal the mourner from her heart,....
The hands in sorrow claspt unclose,
Bid her sick soul on Heaven repose,
And, soothed by time and nature, hail
Health, peace, and hope in Borrowdale.

poem by Amelia Opie
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This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison

Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,
This lime-tree bower my prison ! I have lost
Beauties and feelings, such as would have been
Most sweet to my remembrance even when age
Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness ! They, meanwhile,
Friends, whom I never more may meet again,
On springy heath, along the hill-top edge,
Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,
To that still roaring dell, of which I told ;
The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep,
And only speckled by the mid-day sun ;
Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock
Flings arching like a bridge ;--that branchless ash,
Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves
Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still,
Fann'd by the water-fall ! and there my friends
Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds,
That all at once (a most fantastic sight !)
Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge
Of the blue clay-stone.

[Image][Image][Image]Now, my friends emerge
Beneath the wide wide Heaven--and view again
The many-steepled tract magnificent
Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea,
With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up
The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two Isles
Of purple shadow ! Yes ! they wander on
In gladness all ; but thou, methinks, most glad,
My gentle-hearted Charles ! for thou hast pined
And hunger'd after Nature, many a year,
In the great City pent, winning thy way
With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain
And strange calamity ! Ah ! slowly sink
Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun !
Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb,
Ye purple heath-flowers ! richlier burn, ye clouds !
Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves !
And kindle, thou blue Ocean ! So my friend
Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood,
Silent with swimming sense ; yea, gazing round
On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem
Less gross than bodily ; and of such hues
As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes
Spirits perceive his presence.

[Image][Image][Image][Image]A delight
Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad
As I myself were there ! Nor in this bower,
This little lime-tree bower, have I not mark'd
Much that has sooth'd me. Pale beneath the blaze
Hung the transparent foliage ; and I watch'd
Some broad and sunny leaf, and lov'd to see
The shadow of the leaf and stem above
Dappling its sunshine ! And that walnut-tree
Was richly ting'd, and a deep radiance lay
Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps
Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass
Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue
Through the late twilight : and though now the bat
Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters,
Yet still the solitary humble-bee
Sings in the bean-flower ! Henceforth I shall know
That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure ;
No plot so narrow, be but Nature there,
No waste so vacant, but may well employ
Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart
Awake to Love and Beauty ! and sometimes
'Tis well to be bereft of promis'd good,
That we may lift the soul, and contemplate
With lively joy the joys we cannot share.
My gentle-hearted Charles ! when the last rook
Beat its straight path across the dusky air
Homewards, I blest it ! deeming its black wing
(Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light)
Had cross'd the mighty Orb's dilated glory,
While thou stood'st gazing ; or, when all was still,
Flew creeking o'er thy head, and had a charm
For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom
No sound is dissonant which tells of Life.

poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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Southampton Castle

INSCRIBED TO THE MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE.

The moonlight is without; and I could lose
An hour to gaze, though Taste and Splendour here,
As in a lustrous fairy palace, reign!
Regardless of the lights that blaze within,
I look upon the wide and silent sea,
That in the shadowy moonbeam sleeps:
How still,
Nor heard to murmur, or to move, it lies;
Shining in Fancy's eye, like the soft gleam,
The eve of pleasant yesterdays!
The clouds
Have all sunk westward, and the host of stars
Seem in their watches set, as gazing on;
While night's fair empress, sole and beautiful,
Holds her illustrious course through the mid heavens
Supreme, the spectacle, for such she looks,
Of gazing worlds!
How different is the scene
That lies beneath this arched window's height!
The town, that murmured through the busy day,
Is hushed; the roofs one solemn breadth of shade
Veils; but the towers, and taper spires above,
The pinnets, and the gray embattled walls,
And masts that throng around the southern pier,
Shine all distinct in light; and mark, remote,
O'er yonder elms, St Mary's modest fane.
Oh! if such views may please, to me they shine
How more attractive! but few years have passed,
Since there I saw youth, health, and happiness,
All circling round an aged sire, whose hairs
Are now in peace gone down; he was to me
A friend, and almost with a father's smile
Hung o'er my infant Muse. The cheerful voice
Of fellowship, the song of harmony,
And mirth, and wit, were there.
That scene is passed:
Cold death and separation have dissolved
The evening circle of once-happy friends!
So has it ever fared, and so must fare,
With all! I see the moonlight watery tract
That shines far off, beneath the forest-shades:
What seems it, but the mirror of that tide,
Which noiseless, 'mid the changes of the world,
Holds its inevitable course, the tide
Of years departing; to the distant eye
Still seeming motionless, though hurrying on
From morn till midnight, bearing, as it flows,
The sails of pleasurable barks! These gleam
To-day, to-morrow other passing sails
Catch the like sunshine of the vernal morn.
Our pleasant days are as the moon's brief light
On the pale ripple, passing as it shines!
But shall the pensive bard for this lament,
Who knows how transitory are all worlds
Before His eye who made them!
Cease the strain;
And welcome still the social intercourse
That soothes the world's loud jarring, till the hour
When, universal darkness wrapping all
This nether scene, a light from heaven shall stream
Through clouds dividing, and a voice be heard:
Here only pure and lasting bliss is found!

poem by William Lisle Bowles
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Avenue In Savernake Forest

How soothing sound the gentle airs that move
The innumerable leaves, high overhead,
When autumn first, from the long avenue,
That lifts its arching height of ancient shade,
Steals here and there a leaf!
Within the gloom,
In partial sunshine white, some trunks appear,
Studding the glens of fern; in solemn shade
Some mingle their dark branches, but yet all,
All make a sad sweet music, as they move,
Not undelightful to a stranger's heart.
They seem to say, in accents audible,
Farewell to summer, and farewell the strains
Of many a lithe and feathered chorister,
That through the depth of these incumbent woods
Made the long summer gladsome.
I have heard
To the deep-mingling sounds of organs clear,
(When slow the choral anthem rose beneath),
The glimmering minster, through its pillared aisles,
Echo;--but not more sweet the vaulted roof
Rang to those linked harmonies, than here
The high wood answers to the lightest breath
Of nature.
Oh, may such sweet music steal,
Soothing the cares of venerable age,
From public toil retired: may it awake,
As, still and slow, the sun of life declines,
Remembrances, not mournful, but most sweet;
May it, as oft beneath the sylvan shade
Their honoured owner strays, come like the sound
Of distant seraph harps, yet speaking clear!
How poor is every sound of earthly things,
When heaven's own music waits the just and pure!

poem by William Lisle Bowles
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The Lime-tree Bower my Prison [Addressed to Charles Lamb, o

Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,
This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost
Beauties and feelings, such as would have been
Most sweet to my remembrance even when age
Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile,
Friends, whom I never more may meet again,
On springy heath, along the hill-top edge,
Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,
To that still roaring dell, of which I told;
The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep,
And only speckled by the mid-day sun;
Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock
Flings arching like a bridge;--that branchless ash,
Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves
Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still,
Fann'd by the water-fall! and there my friends
Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds,
That all at once (a most fantastic sight!)
Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge
Of the blue clay-stone.

Now, my friends emerge
Beneath the wide wide Heaven--and view again
The many-steepled tract magnificent
Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea,
With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up
The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two Isles
Of purple shadow! Yes! they wander on
In gladness all; but thou, methinks, most glad,
My gentle-hearted Charles! for thou hast pined
And hunger'd after Nature, many a year,
In the great City pent, winning thy way
With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain
And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink
Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun!
Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb,
Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds!
Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves!
And kindle, thou blue Ocean! So my friend
Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood,
Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round
On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem
Less gross than bodily; and of such hues
As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes
Spirits perceive his presence.

A delight
Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad
As I myself were there! Nor in this bower,
This little lime-tree bower, have I not mark'd
Much that has sooth'd me. Pale beneath the blaze
Hung the transparent foliage; and I watch'd
Some broad and sunny leaf, and lov'd to see
The shadow of the leaf and stem above
Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut-tree
Was richly ting'd, and a deep radiance lay
Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps
Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass
Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue
Through the late twilight: and though now the bat
Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters,
Yet still the solitary humble-bee
Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know
That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure;
No plot so narrow, be but Nature there,
No waste so vacant, but may well employ
Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart
Awake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes
'Tis well to be bereft of promis'd good,
That we may lift the soul, and contemplate
With lively joy the joys we cannot share.
My gentle-hearted Charles! when the last rook
Beat its straight path along the dusky air
Homewards, I blest it! deeming its black wing
(Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light)
Had cross'd the mighty Orb's dilated glory,
While thou stood'st gazing; or, when all was still,
Flew creeking o'er thy head, and had a charm
For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom
No sound is dissonant which tells of Life.

poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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In The Shade Of The Green Wood

In the shade of the green wood
The holly does grow,
While in soft rays of sunlight
The wild roses glow,
And I smell their sweet perfume
That gently floats by,
Past trees strong and mighty
That reach to the sky,
The pathway of gold autumn
Leaves still remain,
As I walk through the green wood again.

In the shade of the green wood
This bright sunny morn,
That's so cool in the shadows
A new day is born,
All the birds in the treetops
Are singing for me,
Sweet songs of the summer
Which fill me with glee,
And know from its beauty
I never shall part,
For the green wood does live in my heart.

In the shade of the green wood
A soft gentle breeze,
Now caresses the branches
And whispers through trees,
A sound reassuring
Shall carry me to,
All the scenes that exist
In each marvellous view,
It's here that my spirit
Shall always now stay,
And the green wood is guiding my way.

poem by Andrew Blakemore
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Pictures From Theocritus

FROM IDYL I.

Goat-herd, how sweet above the lucid spring
The high pines wave with breezy murmuring!
So sweet thy song, whose music might succeed
To the wild melodies of Pan's own reed.

THYRSIS.

More sweet thy pipe's enchanting melody
Than streams that fall from broken rocks on high.
Say, by the nymphs, that guard the sacred scene,
Where lowly tamarisks shade these hillocks green,
At noontide shall we lie?
No; for o'erwearied with the forest chase,
Pan, the great hunter god, sleeps in this place.
Beneath the branching elm, while thy sad verse,
O Thyrsis! Daphnis' sorrows shall rehearse,
Fronting the wood-nymph's solitary seat,
Whose fountains flash amid the dark retreat;
Where the old statue leans, and brown oaks wave
Their ancient umbrage o'er the pastoral cave;
There will we rest, and thou, as erst, prolong
The sweet enchantment of the Doric song!

FROM THE SAME IDYL.

Mark, where the beetling precipice appears,
The toil of the old fisher, gray with years;
Mark, as to drag the laden net he strains,
The labouring muscle and the swelling veins!
There, in the sun, the clustered vineyard bends,
And shines empurpled, as the morn ascends!
A little boy, with idly-happy mien,
To guard the grapes upon the ground is seen;
Two wily foxes creeping round appear,--
The scrip that holds his morning meal is near,--
One breaks the bending vines; with longing lip,
And look askance, one eyes the tempting scrip.
He plats and plats his rushy net all day,
And makes the vagrant grasshopper his prey;
He plats his net, intent with idle care,
Nor heeds how vineyard, grape, or scrip may fare.

FROM THE SAME.

Where were ye, nymphs, when Daphnis drooped with love?
In fair Peneus' Tempe, or the grove
Of Pindus! Nor your pastimes did ye keep,
Where huge Anapus' torrent waters sweep;
On AEtna's height, ah! impotent to save,
Nor yet where Akis winds his holy wave!

FROM THE SAME.

Pan, Pan, oh mighty hunter! whether now,
Thou roamest o'er Lyceus' shaggy brow,
Or Moenalaus, outstretched in amplest shade,
Thy solitary footsteps have delayed;
Leave Helice's romantic rock a while,
And haste, oh haste, to the Sicilian isle;
Leave the dread monument, approached with fear,
That Lycaonian tomb the gods revere.
Here cease, Sicilian Muse, the Doric lay;--
Come, Forest King, and bear this pipe away;
Daphnis, subdued by love, and bowed with woe,
Sinks, sinks for ever to the shades below.

FROM IDYL VII.

He left us;--we, the hour of parting come,
To Prasidamus' hospitable home,
Myself and Eucritus, together wend,
With young Amynticus, our blooming friend:
There, all delighted, through the summer day,
On beds of rushes, pillowed deep, we lay;
Around, the lentils, newly cut, were spread;
Dark elms and poplars whispered o'er our head;
A hallowed stream, to all the wood-nymphs dear,
Fresh from the rocky cavern murmured near;
Beneath the fruit-leaves' many-mantling shade,
The grasshoppers a coil incessant made;
From the wild thorny thickets, heard remote,
The wood-lark trilled his far-resounding note;
Loud sung the thrush, musician of the scene,
And soft and sweet was heard the dove's sad note between;
Then yellow bees, whose murmur soothed the ear,
Went idly flitting round the fountain clear.
Summer and Autumn seemed at once to meet,
Filling with redolence the blest retreat,
While the ripe pear came rolling to our feet.

FROM IDYL XXII.

When the famed Argo now secure had passed
The crushing rocks, and that terrific strait
That guards the wintry Pontic, the tall ship
Reached wild Bebrycia's shores; bearing like gods
Her god-descended chiefs. They, from her sides,
With scaling steps descend, and on the shore,
Savage, and sad, and beat by ocean winds,
Strewed their rough beds, and on the casual fire
The vessels place. The brothers, by themselves,
CASTOR and red-haired POLLUX, wander far
Into the forest solitudes. A wood
Immense and dark, shagging the mountain side,
Before them rose; a cold and sparkling fount
Welled with perpetual lapse, beneath its feet,
Of purest water clear; scattering below,
Streams as of silver and of crystal rose,
Bright from the bottom: Pines, of stateliest height,
Poplar, and plane, and cypress, branching wide,
Were near, thick bordered by the scented flowers
That lured the honeyed bee, when spring declines,
Thick swarming o'er the meadows. There all day
A huge man sat, of savage, wild aspect;
His breast stood roundly forward, his broad back
Seemed as of iron, such as might befit
A vast Colossus sculptured. Full to view
The muscles of his brawny shoulders stood,
Like the round mountain-stones the torrent wave
Has polished; from his neck and back hung down
A lion's skin, held by its claws. Him first
The red-haired youth addressed: Hail, stranger, hail,
And say, what tribes unknown inhabit here!
Take to the seas thy Hail: I ask it not,
Who never saw before, or thee, or thine.
Courage! thou seest not men that are unjust
Or cruel.
Courage shall I learn from thee!
Thy heart is savage; thou art passion's slave.
Such as I am thou seest; but land of thine
I tread not.
Come, these hospitable gifts
Accept, and part in peace.
No: not from thee.
My gifts are yet in store.
Say, may we drink
Of this clear fount?
Ask, when wan thirst has parched
Thy lips.
What present shall I give to thee?
None. Stand before me as a man; lift high
Thy brandished arms, and try, weak pugilist,
Thy strength.
But say, with whom shall I contend?
Thou seest him here; nor in his art unskilled.
Then what shall be the prize of him who wins?
Or thou shalt be my slave, or I be thine.
The crested birds so fight.
Whether like birds
Or lions, for no other prize fight we!
He said: and sounded loud his hollow conch;
The gaunt Bebrycian brethren, at the sound,
With long lank hair, come flocking to the shade
Of that vast plain.
Then Castor hied, and called
The hero chiefs from the Magnesian ship.

poem by William Lisle Bowles
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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