In steadfast smiles of more essential light,
Lying like azure streaks of placid sky
Amid the moving clouds, the Naiad loves
Your glimmering alleys, and your rustling bowers;
For there, in peace reclined, her half-closed eye
Through the long vista sees her darling Lake,
Even like herself, diffused in fair repose.
Not undelightful to the quiet breast
Such solitary dreams as now have filled
My busy fancy; dreams that rise in peace,
And thither lead, partaking in their flight
Of human interests and earthly joys.
Imagination fondly leans on truth,
And sober scenes of dim reality
To her seem lovely as the western sky,
To the rapt Persian worshipping the sun.
Methinks this little lake, to whom my heart
Assigned a guardian spirit, renders back
To me, in tenderest gleams of gratitude,
Profounder beauty to reward my hymn.
Long hast thou been a darling haunt of mine,
And still warm blessings gushed into my heart,
Meeting or parting with thy smiles of peace.
But now, thy mild and gentle character,
More deeply felt than ever, seems to blend
Its essence pure with mine, like some sweet tune
Oft heard before with pleasure, but at last,
In one high moment of inspired bliss,
Borne through the spirit like an angel's song.
This is the solitude that reason loves! Even he who yearns for human sympathies, And hears a music in the breath of man, Dearer than voice of mountain or of flood, Might live a hermit here, and mark the sun
Rising or setting 'mid the beauteous calm,
Devoutly blending in his happy soul
Thoughts both of earth and heaven !-Yon mountain-side, Rejoicing in its clustering cottages,
Appears to me a paradise preserved
From guilt by Nature's hand, and every wreath
Of smoke, that from these hamlets mounts to heaven,
In its straight silence holy as a spire
Reared o'er the house of God.
Thy sanctity
Time yet hath reverenced; and I deeply feel
That innocence her shrine shall here
preserve
For ever. The wild vale that lies beyond,
Circled by mountains trod but by the feet
Of venturous shepherd, from all visitants,
Save the free tempests and the fowls of heaven,
Guards thee;--and wooded knolls fantastical
Seclude thy image from the gentler dale,
That by the Brathay's often-varied voice
Cheered as it winds along, in beauty fades
'Mid the green banks of joyful Windermere !
O gentlest Lake! from all unhallowed things
By grandeur guarded in thy loveliness,
Ne'er may thy poet with unwelcome feet
Press thy soft moss embathed in flowery dies,
And shadowed in thy stillness like the heavens.
May innocence for ever lead me here,
To form amid the silence high resolves
For future life; resolves that, born in peace,
Shall live 'mid tumult, and though haply mild
As infants in their play, when brought to bear
On the world's business, shall assert their power
And majesty and lead me boldly on,
Like giants conquering in a noble cause.
This is a holy faith, and full of cheer
To all who worship Nature, that the hours,
Passed tranquilly with her, fade not away
For ever like the clouds, but in the soul
Possess a secret silent dwelling-place,
Where with a smiling visage memory sits,
And startles oft the virtuous, with a show
Of unsuspected treasures. Yea, sweet Lake!
Oft hast thou borne into my grateful heart
Thy lovely presence, with a thousand dreams
Dancing and brightening o'er thy sunny wave,
Though many a dreary mile of mist and snow
Between us interposed. And even now,
When yon bright star hath risen to warn me home,
I bid thee farewell in the certain hope,
That thou, this night, wilt o'er my sleeping eyes
Shed cheering visions, and with freshest joy
Make me salute the dawn. Nor may the hymn
Now sung by me unto thy listening woods,
Be wholly vain,-but haply it may yield
A gentle pleasure to some gentle heart,
Who blessing, at its close, the unknown bard,
May, for his sake, upon thy quiet banks
Frame visions of his own, and other songs
More beautiful, to Nature and to Thee!
O THAT my soul might breathe one touching strain,
By the gracious Muses destined not to die,
But murmuring oft, o'er valley, hill, and plain,
Enrolled 'mid Scotia's native minstrelsy!
O more than blest the spirit of thy sky,
Its stormy clouds, its depth of slumb'rous blue,
And gladly would I close my filial eye
In the calm fondness of a last adieu,
Could I but frame one lay to Thee and nature true.
In olden time, thy glens were heard to roll
The voice of song-deep, solemn, and divine,
That claimed dominion o'er the happy soul,
Most spirit-like, as from a secret shrine.
Oft as the dewy Evening star 'gan shine,
Th' inspired shepherd sought some lonely cave,
Nor, singing there, beheld its dim decline,
Nor heard, entranced, the Piny forest rave,
Nor saw the glorious sun descending to the wave.
The solitary soul, in such recess,
An air-swept lyre, the breath of heaven obeyed;
And still his hymns were hymns of tenderness,
Of blissful loves, or earthly bliss decayed.
The Poet died; and in the dust was laid!
The green earth hides him in its smiling rest!
For, haply now, the churchyard is a glade,
Where by the feet of wandering wild-deer prest,
The flowers in morning-dew are glistening o'er his
breast.
Yet Wisdom weeps not o'er such Poet's fate,
Though seeming robbed of his eternal fame
The soul whom heaven and genius consecrate,
In Nature's memory lives without a name.
The beauty of the wild-flower is the same
To him who loves it for that beauty's sake,
And for that sake alone! fair is the flame
Of nameless stars that suddenly awake,
And the earth laughs with light of many a nameless lake.
Yet looking now o'er this delightful earth,
A clinging spirit of immortal love
Is blending with the sweet land of my birth!
As if on field, lake, mountain, glen, and grove,
When I am dead, some part of me might move
Some faint memorial of my mortal day
Sleeping like moonlight the old woods above!
My soul in sorrow turneth from decay;
O might it live on earth, embalmed in heavenly lay!
Have I not e'er since reason's dawning light
Thee, Scotland, worshipped with praise and prayer!
Lovely by day, magnificent by night!
Where is the cloud-wrapt hill, the valley fair,
If mortal feet might climb or wander there,
Whose echo ne'er hath answered to my voice?
The unsunned-glen, the breathless forest, where,
That hath not heard my raptured soul rejoice
In Nature's hush divine, her spirit-humbling noise?
I, like an eagle, o'er the mountain cliff,
Have soared in dreams as lofty and as lone;
On air-woven lakes, I from my fairy skiff
The anchor of my solitude have thrown.
Methinks, that but to me some spots are known!
-Give answer from afar, thou once-seen glen,
Thou shadowy, silent world of mist and stone,
Thy desert shapes like images of men,
In mockery of man's voice, the small pipe of the wren !
Or answer thou! with music and with light,
Thou vale of vales! that to the Evening star
My soul did consecrate one summer night,
When loth that such sweet darkness should debar
My soul from loveliness it could not mar,
I asked that gentle orb to be the guide
Of one, who from his way had wandered far,
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