Volume Ii Part 10 (2/2)
In him the savage Virtue of the Race, Revenge, and all ferocious thoughts were dead: 170 Nor did he change; but kept in lofty place The wisdom which adversity had bred.
Glad were the Vales, and every cottage hearth; The Shepherd Lord was honour'd more and more: And, ages after he was laid in earth, ”The Good Lord Clifford” was the name he bore.
_LINES_, Composed at GRASMERE, during a walk, one Evening, after a stormy day, the Author having just read in a Newspaper that the dissolution of MR. FOX was hourly expected.
Loud is the Vale! the Voice is up With which she speaks when storms are gone, A mighty Unison of streams!
Of all her Voices, One!
Loud is the Vale;--this inland Depth In peace is roaring like the Sea; Yon Star upon the mountain-top Is listening quietly.
Sad was I, ev'n to pain depress'd, Importunate and heavy load! 10 The Comforter hath found me here, Upon this lonely road;
And many thousands now are sad, Wait the fulfilment of their fear; For He must die who is their Stay, Their Glory disappear.
A Power is pa.s.sing from the earth To breathless Nature's dark abyss; But when the Mighty pa.s.s away What is it more than this, 20
That Man, who is from G.o.d sent forth, Doth yet again to G.o.d return?-- Such ebb and flow must ever be, Then wherefore should we mourn?
_ELEGIAC STANZAS_, Suggested by a Picture of PEELE CASTLE, in a Storm, _painted_ BY SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT.
I was thy Neighbour once, thou rugged Pile!
Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee: I saw thee every day; and all the while Thy Form was sleeping on a gla.s.sy sea.
So pure the sky, so quiet was the air!
So like, so very like, was day to day!
Whene'er I look'd, thy Image still was there; It trembled, but it never pa.s.s'd away.
How perfect was the calm! it seem'd no sleep; No mood, which season takes away, or brings: 10 I could have fancied that the mighty Deep Was even the gentlest of all gentle Things.
Ah! THEN, if mine had been the Painter's hand, To express what then I saw; and add the gleam, The light that never was, on sea or land, The consecration, and the Poet's dream;
I would have planted thee, thou h.o.a.ry Pile!
Amid a world how different from this!
Beside a sea that could not cease to smile; On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss: 20
Thou shouldst have seem'd a treasure-house, a mine Of peaceful years; a chronicle of heaven:-- Of all the sunbeams that did ever s.h.i.+ne The very sweetest had to thee been given.
A Picture had it been of lasting ease, Elysian quiet, without toil or strife; No motion but the moving tide, a breeze, Or merely silent Nature's breathing life.
Such, in the fond delusion of my heart, Such Picture would I at that time have made: 30 And seen the soul of truth in every part; A faith, a trust, that could not be betray'd.
So once it would have been,--'tis so no more; I have submitted to a new controul: A power is gone, which nothing can restore; A deep distress hath humaniz'd my Soul.
Not for a moment could I now behold A smiling sea and be what I have been: The feeling of my loss will ne'er be old; This, which I know, I speak with mind serene. 40
Then, Beaumont, Friend! who would have been the Friend, If he had lived, of Him whom I deplore, This Work of thine I blame not, but commend; This sea in anger, and that dismal sh.o.r.e.
Oh 'tis a pa.s.sionate Work!--yet wise and well; Well chosen is the spirit that is here; That Hulk which labours in the deadly swell, This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear!
And this huge Castle, standing here sublime, I love to see the look with which it braves, 50 Cased in the unfeeling armour of old time, The light'ning, the fierce wind, and trampling waves.
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