In sea-like reach of prospect round him spread,
Tinged like an angel's smile all rosy red-
Awe in his breast with holiest love unites,
And the near heavens impart their own delights.

When downward to his winter hut he goes,
Dear and more dear the lessening circle grows;
That hut which on the hills so oft employs
His thoughts, the central point of all his joys.
And as a swallow, at the hour of rest,
Peeps often ere she darts into her nest,

So to the homestead, where the grandsire tends
A little prattling child, he oft descends,
To glance a look upon the well-matched pair;
Till storm and driving ice blockade him there.
There, safely guarded by the woods behind,
He hears the chiding of the baffled wind,
Hears Winter calling all his terrors round,

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And, blest within himself, he shrinks not from the sound.

Through Nature's vale his homely pleasures glide, Unstained by envy, discontent, and pride;

The bound of all his vanity, to deck,

With one bright bell a favourite heifer's neck;
Well pleased upon some simple annual feast,
Remembered half the year and hoped the rest,
If dairy-produce, from his inner hoard,

Of thrice ten summers dignify the board.
-Alas! in every clime a flying ray

Is all we have to cheer our wintry way;

And here the unwilling mind may more than trace
The general sorrows of the human race:

The churlish gales of penury, that blow

Cold as the north-wind o'er a waste of snow,

To them the gentle groups of bliss deny

That on the noon-day bank of leisure lie.

Yet more ;-compelled by Powers which only deign
That solitary man disturb their reign,

Powers that support an unremitting strife

With all the tender charities of life,

Full oft the father, when his sons have grown
To manhood, seems their title to disown;
And from his nest amid the storms of heaven
Drives, eagle-like, those sons as he was driven;
With stern composure watches to the plain-
And never, eagle-like, beholds again!

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When long familiar joys are all resigned,
Why does their sad remembrance haunt the mind?
Lo! where through flat Batavia's willowy groves,
Or by the lazy Seine, the exile roves ;

O'er the curled waters Alpine measures swell,
And search the affections to their inmost cell;
Sweet poison spreads along the listener's veins,
Turning past pleasures into mortal pains;
Poison, which not a frame of steel can brave,
Bows his young head with sorrow to the grave.1

Gay lark of hope, thy silent song resume!

Ye flattering eastern lights, once more the hills illume!
Fresh gales and dews of life's delicious morn,
And thou, lost fragrance of the heart, return!
Alas! the little joy to man allowed
Fades like the lustre of an evening cloud;
Or like the beauty in a flower installed,
Whose season was, and cannot be recalled.
Yet when opprest by sickness, grief, or care,
And taught that pain is pleasure's natural heir,
We still confide in more than we can know ;
Death would be else the favourite friend of woe.

'Mid savage rocks, and seas of snow that shine,
Between interminable tracts of pine,
Within a temple stands an awful shrine,
By an uncertain light revealed, that falls

On the mute Image and the troubled walls.

Oh! give not me that eye of hard disdain

That views, undimmed, Einsiedlen's 2 wretched fane.
While ghastly faces through the gloom appear,
Abortive joy, and hope that works in fear;
While prayer contends with silenced agony,
Surely in other thoughts contempt may die.
If the sad grave of human ignorance bear
One flower of hope-oh, pass and leave it there!
The tall sun, pausing on an Alpine spire,
Flings o'er the wilderness a stream of fire:
Now meet we other pilgrims ere the day
Close on the remnant of their weary way;

While they are drawing toward the sacred floor

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Where, so they fondly think, the worm shall gnaw no more.

1 The well-known effect of the famous air, called in French Ranz des Vaches, upon the Swiss troops.

2 This shrine is resorted to, from a hope of relief, by multitudes, from every corner of the Catholic world, labouring under mental or bodily afflictions.

How gaily murmur and how sweetly taste

The fountains 1 reared for them amid the waste!

560

Their thirst they slake :-they wash their toil-worn feet,

And some with tears of joy each other greet.
Yes, I must see you when ye first behold

Those holy turrets tipped with evening gold,
In that glad moment will for you a sigh
Be heaved, of charitable sympathy;
In that glad moment when your

hands are prest

In mute devotion on the thankful breast!

Last, let us turn to Chamouny that shields
With rocks and gloomy woods her fertile fields:
Five streams of ice amid her cots descend,
And with wild flowers and blooming orchards blend ;-
A scene more fair than what the Grecian feigns
Of purple lights and ever-vernal plains;
Here all the seasons revel hand in hand:
'Mid lawns and shades by breezy rivulets fanned,
They sport beneath that mountain's matchless height
That holds no commerce with the summer night.
From age to age, throughout his lonely bounds
The crash of ruin fitfully resounds;
Appalling havoc! but serene his brow,
Where daylight lingers on perpetual snow;
Glitter the stars above, and all is black below.

What marvel then if many a Wanderer sigh,
While roars the sullen Arve in anger by,
That not for thy reward, unrivall'd Vale!

Waves the ripe harvest in the autumnal gale;

That thou, the slave of slaves, art doomed to pine
And droop, while no Italian arts are thine,
To soothe or cheer, to soften or refine.

Hail Freedom! whether it was mine to stray,
With shrill winds whistling round my lonely way,
On the bleak sides of Cumbria's heath-clad moors,
Or where dank sea-weed lashes Scotland's shores;
To scent the sweets of Piedmont's breathing rose,
And orange gale that o'er Lugano blows;
Still have I found, where Tyranny prevails,
That virtue languishes and pleasure fails,
While the remotest hamlets blessings share
In thy loved presence known, and only there;

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1 Rude fountains built and covered with sheds for the accommodation of the Pilgrims, in their ascent of the mountain.

Heart-blessings-outward treasures too which the eye
Of the sun peeping through the clouds can spy,
And every passing breeze will testify.

There, to the porch, belike with jasmine bound
Or woodbine wreaths, a smoother path is wound;
The housewife there a brighter garden sees,
Where hum on busier wing her happy bees;
On infant cheeks there fresher roses blow;
And grey-haired men look up with livelier brow,—
To greet the traveller needing food and rest;
Housed for the night, or but a half-hour's guest.

And oh, fair France! though now the traveller sees
Thy three-striped banner fluctuate on the breeze;
Though martial songs have banished songs of love,
And nightingales desert the village grove,
Scared by the fife and rumbling drum's alarms,
And the short thunder, and the flash of arms;
That cease not till night falls, when far and nigh,
Sole sound, the Sourd1 prolongs his mournful cry;

Yet hast thou found that Freedom spreads her power
Beyond the cottage-hearth, the cottage-door:
All nature smiles, and owns beneath her eyes
Her fields peculiar, and peculiar skies.
Yes, as I roamed where Loiret's waters glide
Through rustling aspens heard from side to side,
When from October clouds a milder light
Fell where the blue flood rippled into white;
Methought from every cot the watchful bird

Crowed with ear-piercing power till then unheard;

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621

Each clacking mill, that broke the murmuring streams, 630
Rocked the charmed thought in more delightful dreams;

Chasing those pleasant dreams, the falling leaf

Awoke a fainter sense of moral grief;

The measured echo of the distant flail

Wound in more welcome cadence down the vale;
With more majestic course 2 the water rolled,
And ripening foliage shone with richer gold.
-But foes are gathering-Liberty must raise
Red on the hills her Beacon's far-seen blaze;
Must bid the tocsin ring from tower to tower !——
Nearer and nearer comes the trying hour!

640

1 An insect so called, which emits a short, melancholy cry, heard at the close of the summer evenings, on the banks of the Loire.

2 The duties upon many parts of the French rivers were so exorbitant, that the poorer people, deprived of the benefit of water-carriage, were obliged to transport their goods by land.

Rejoice, brave Land, though pride's perverted ire
Rouse hell's own aid, and wrap thy fields in fire:
Lo, from the flames a great and glorious birth;
As if a new-made heaven were hailing a new earth!
--All cannot be the promise is too fair

Rev.

650

For creatures doomed to breathe terrestrial air:
Yet not for this will sober reason frown
Upon that promise, nor the hope disown;
She knows that only from high aims ensue
Rich guerdons, and to them alone are due.

Great God! by whom the strifes of men are weighed
In an impartial balance, give thine aid

To the just cause; and, oh! do thou preside
Over the mighty stream now spreading wide:

So shall its waters, from the heavens supplied

In copious showers, from earth by wholesome springs,
Brood o'er the long-parched lands with Nile-like wings!
And grant that every sceptred child of clay

Who cries presumptuous, 'Here the flood shall stay,' 660
May in its progress see thy guiding hand,

And cease the acknowledged purpose to withstand;

Or, swept in anger from the insulted shore,

Sink with his servile bands, to rise no more! R

To-night, my Friend, within this humble cot
Be scorn and fear and hope alike forgot
In timely sleep; and when, at break of day,
On the tall peaks the glistening sunbeams play,
With a light heart our course we may renew,
The first whose footsteps print the mountain dew.

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1791-1792

VII
LINES

Left upon a Seat in a Yew-tree, which stands near the lake of Esthwaite, on a desolate part of the shore, commanding a beautiful prospect.

NAY, Traveller! rest, dwelling Yew-free stands

Far from all human dwelling: what if here No sparkling rivulet spread the verdant herb? What if the bee love not these barren boughs? Yet, if the wind breathe soft, the curling waves, That break against the shore, shall lull thy mind By one soft impulse saved from vacancy.