WRITTEN IN A HIGHLAND GLEN.
To whom belongs this valley fair,
That sleeps beneath the filmy air,
Even like a living thing?
Silent,-as infant at the breast,—
Save a still sound that speaks of rest,
That streamlet's murmuring!
The heavens appear to love this vale;
Here clouds with scarce-seen motion sail,
Or 'mid the silence lie.
By that blue arch, this beauteous earth
Mid evening's hour of dewy mirth
Seems bound unto the sky.
O! that this lovely vale were mine!
Then, from glad youth to calm decline,
My years would gently glide;
Hope would rejoice in endless dreams,
And memory's oft-returning gleams
By peace be sanctified.
There would unto my soul be given,
From presence of that gracious heaven,
And thoughts would come of mystic mood,
To make in this deep solitude
And did I ask to whom belonged
This vale I feel that I have wronged
Nature's most gracious soul.
She spreads her glories o'er the earth, And all her children from their birth Are joint-heirs of the whole.
Yea! long as Nature's humblest child
Hath kept her Temple undefiled
By sinful sacrifice,
Earth's fairest scenes are all his own,
He is a monarch, and his throne
Is built amid the skies.
BESIDE her Babe, who sweetly slept,
A widowed mother sat and wept
O'er years of love gone by;
And as the sobs thick-gathering came, She murmured her dead husband's name 'Mid that sad lullaby.
Well might that lullaby be sad,
For not one single friend she had
On this cold-hearted earth;
The sea will not give back its prey-
And they were wrapt in foreign clay
Who gave the orphan birth.
Steadfastly as a star doth look
Upon a little murmuring brook,
She gazed upon the bosom
And fair brow of her sleeping son-
"O merciful Heaven! when I am gone
Thine is this earthly blossom!"
While thus she sat-a sunbeam broke
Into the room; the babe awoke,
And from his cradle smiled!
Ah me! what kindling smiles met there!
I know not whether was more fair,
The mother or her child!
With joy fresh-sprung from short alarms, The smiler stretched his rosy arms,
And to her bosom leapt-
All tears at once were swept away, And said a face as bright as day,"Forgive me that I wept!"
Sufferings there are from nature sprung,
Ear hath not heard, nor poet's tongue
May venture to declare;
But this as Holy Writ is sure,
"The griefs she bids us here endure
She can herself repair!"
WRITTEN ON THE BANKS OF WASTWATER,
DURING A STORM.
THERE is a lake hid far among the hills,
That raves around the throne of solitude,
Not fed by gentle streams, or playful rills,
But headlong cataract and rushing flood.
There, gleam no lovely hues of hanging wood,
No spot of sunshine lights her sullen side;
For horror shaped the wild in wrathful mood,
And o'er the tempest heaved the mountain's pride.
If thou art one, in dark presumption blind,
Who vainly deem'st no spirit like to thine,
That lofty genius deifies thy mind,
Fall prostrate here at Nature's stormy shrine,
And as the thunderous scene disturbs thy heart,
Lift thy changed eye, and own how low thou art.
WRITTEN ON THE BANKS OF WASTWATER,
DURING A CALM.
Is this the lake, the cradle of the storms,
Where silence never tames the mountain-roar,
Where poets fear their self-created forms,
Or, sunk in trance severe, their God adore?
Is this the lake, for ever dark and loud
With wave and tempest, cataract and cloud?
Wondrous, O Nature! is thy sovereign power,
That gives to horror hours of peaceful mirth;
For here might beauty build her summer-bower!
Lo! where yon rainbow spans the smiling earth,
And, clothed in glory, through a silent shower
The mighty Sun comes forth, a godlike birth;
While, 'neath his loving eye, the gentle Lake
Lies like a sleeping child too blest to wake!
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