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-
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!
WRITTEN AT MIDNIGHT, ON HELM-CRAG.
Go up among the mountains, when the storm
Of midnight howls, but go in that wild mood,
When the soul loves tumultuous solitude,
And through the haunted air, each giant form
Of swinging pine, black rock, or ghostly cloud,
That veils some fearful cataract tumbling loud,
Seems to thy breathless heart with life imbued.
'Mid those gaunt, shapeless things thou art alone!
The mind exists, thinks, trembles through the ear,
The memory of the human world is gone,
And time and space seem living only here.
Oh! worship thou the visions then made known,
While sable glooms round Nature's temple roll,
And her dread anthem peals into thy soul.
THE VOICE OF THE MOUNTAINS.
LIST! while I tell what forms the mountain's voice!
-The storms are up; and from yon sable cloud
Down rush the rains; while 'mid the thunder loud
The viewless eagles in wild screams rejoice.
The echoes answer to the unearthly noise
Of hurling rocks, that, plunged into the Lake,
Send up a sullen groan: from clefts and caves,
As of half-murdered wretch, hark! yells awake,
Or red-eyed frenzy as in chains he raves.
These form the mountain's voice; these, heard at night,
Distant from human being's known abode,
To earth some spirits bow in cold affright,
But some they lift to glory and to God.
A CLOUD lay cradled near the setting sun,
A gleam of crimson tinged its braided snow :
Long had I watched the glory moving on
O'er the still radiance of the Lake below.
Tranquil its spirit seemed, and floated slow !
Even in its very motion there was rest :
While every breath of eve that chanced to blow,
Wafted the traveller to the beauteous West.
Emblem, methought, of the departed soul !
To whose white robe the gleam of bliss is given ;
And by the breath of mercy made to roll
Right onwards to the golden gates of Heaven,
Where, to the eye of Faith, it peaceful lies,
And tells to man his glorious destinies.
WRITTEN ON THE SABBATH-DAY.
WHEN by God's inward light, a happy child,
I walked in joy, as in the open air,
It seemed to my young thought the Sabbath smiled
With glory and with love. So still, so fair,
The Heavens looked ever on that hallowed morn,
That, without aid of memory, something there
Had surely told me of its glad return.
How did my little heart at evening burn,
When, fondly seated on my father's knee,
Taught by the lip of love, I breathed the prayer,
Warm from the fount of infant piety!
Much is my spirit changed; for years have brought Intenser feeling and expanded thought;
-Yet, must I envy every child I see !
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