EPITAPHS
VIII

          NOT without heavy grief of heart did He
          On whom the duty fell (for at that time
          The father sojourned in a distant land)
          Deposit in the hollow of this tomb
          A brother's Child, most tenderly beloved!
          FRANCESCO was the name the Youth had borne,
          POZZOBONNELLI his illustrious house;
          And, when beneath this stone the Corse was laid,
          The eyes of all Savona streamed with tears.
          Alas! the twentieth April of his life                       10
          Had scarcely flowered: and at this early time,
          By genuine virtue he inspired a hope
          That greatly cheered his country: to his kin
          He promised comfort; and the flattering thoughts
          His friends had in their fondness entertained,
          He suffered not to languish or decay.
          Now is there not good reason to break forth
          Into a passionate lament?--O Soul!
          Short while a Pilgrim in our nether world,
          Do thou enjoy the calm empyreal air;                        20
          And round this earthly tomb let roses rise,
          An everlasting spring! in memory
          Of that delightful fragrance which was once
          From thy mild manners quietly exhaled.

EPITAPHS
IX

          PAUSE, courteous Spirit!--Balbi supplicates
          That Thou, with no reluctant voice, for him
          Here laid in mortal darkness, wouldst prefer
          A prayer to the Redeemer of the world.
          This to the dead by sacred right belongs;
          All else is nothing.--Did occasion suit
          To tell his worth, the marble of this tomb
          Would ill suffice: for Plato's lore sublime,
          And all the wisdom of the Stagyrite,
          Enriched and beautified his studious mind:                  10
          With Archimedes also he conversed
          As with a chosen friend, nor did he leave
          Those laureat wreaths ungathered which the Nymphs
          Twine near their loved Permessus.--Finally,
          Himself above each lower thought uplifting,
          His ears he closed to listen to the songs
          Which Sion's Kings did consecrate of old;
          And his Permessus found on Lebanon.
          A blessed Man! who of protracted days
          Made not, as thousands do, a vulgar sleep;                  20
          But truly did 'He' live his life. Urbino,
          Take pride in him!--O Passenger, farewell!

MATERNAL GRIEF

          DEPARTED Child! I could forget thee once
          Though at my bosom nursed; this woeful gain
          Thy dissolution brings, that in my soul
          Is present and perpetually abides
          A shadow, never, never to be displaced
          By the returning substance, seen or touched,
          Seen by mine eyes, or clasped in my embrace.
          Absence and death how differ they! and how
          Shall I admit that nothing can restore
          What one short sigh so easily removed?--                    10
          Death, life, and sleep, reality and thought,
          Assist me, God, their boundaries to know,
          O teach me calm submission to thy Will!
            The Child she mourned had overstepped the pale
          Of Infancy, but still did breathe the air
          That sanctifies its confines, and partook
          Reflected beams of that celestial light
          To all the Little-ones on sinful earth
          Not unvouchsafed--a light that warmed and cheered
          Those several qualities of heart and mind                   20
          Which, in her own blest nature, rooted deep,
          Daily before the Mother's watchful eye,
          And not hers only, their peculiar charms
          Unfolded,--beauty, for its present self,
          And for its promises to future years,
          With not unfrequent rapture fondly hailed.
            Have you espied upon a dewy lawn
          A pair of Leverets each provoking each
          To a continuance of their fearless sport,
          Two separate Creatures in their several gifts               30
          Abounding, but so fashioned that, in all
          That Nature prompts them to display, their looks,
          Their starts of motion and their fits of rest,
          An undistinguishable style appears
          And character of gladness, as if Spring
          Lodged in their innocent bosoms, and the spirit
          Of the rejoicing morning were their own?
            Such union, in the lovely Girl maintained
          And her twin Brother, had the parent seen,
          Ere, pouncing like a ravenous bird of prey,                 40
          Death in a moment parted them, and left
          The Mother, in her turns of anguish, worse
          Than desolate; for oft-times from the sound
          Of the survivor's sweetest voice (dear child,
          He knew it not) and from his happiest looks,
          Did she extract the food of self-reproach,
          As one that lived ungrateful for the stay
          By Heaven afforded to uphold her maimed
          And tottering spirit. And full oft the Boy,
          Now first acquainted with distress and grief,               50
          Shrunk from his Mother's presence, shunned with fear
          Her sad approach, and stole away to find,
          In his known haunts of joy where'er he might,
          A more congenial object. But, as time
          Softened her pangs and reconciled the child
          To what he saw, he gradually returned,
          Like a scared Bird encouraged to renew
          A broken intercourse; and, while his eyes
          Were yet with pensive fear and gentle awe
          Turned upon her who bore him, she would stoop               60
          To imprint a kiss that lacked not power to spread
          Faint colour over both their pallid cheeks,
          And stilled his tremulous lip. Thus they were calmed
          And cheered; and now together breathe fresh air
          In open fields; and when the glare of day
          Is gone, and twilight to the Mother's wish
          Befriends the observance, readily they join
          In walks whose boundary is the lost One's grave,
          Which he with flowers hath planted, finding there
          Amusement, where the Mother does not miss                   70
          Dear consolation, kneeling on the turf
          In prayer, yet blending with that solemn rite
          Of pious faith the vanities of grief;
          For such, by pitying Angels and by Spirits
          Transferred to regions upon which the clouds
          Of our weak nature rest not, must be deemed
          Those willing tears, and unforbidden sighs,
          And all those tokens of a cherished sorrow,
          Which, soothed and sweetened by the grace of Heaven
          As now it is, seems to her own fond heart,                  80
          Immortal as the love that gave it being.
                                                              1810.

CHARACTERISTICS OF A CHILD THREE YEARS OLD

          LOVING she is, and tractable, though wild;
          And Innocence hath privilege in her
          To dignify arch looks and laughing eyes;
          And feats of cunning; and the pretty round
          Of trespasses, affected to provoke
          Mock-chastisement and partnership in play.
          And, as a faggot sparkles on the hearth,
          Not less if unattended and alone
          Than when both young and old sit gathered round
          And take delight in its activity;                           10
          Even so this happy Creature of herself
          Is all-sufficient, solitude to her
          Is blithe society, who fills the air
          With gladness and involuntary songs.
          Light are her sallies as the tripping fawn's
          Forth-startled from the fern where she lay couched;
          Unthought-of, unexpected, as the stir
          Of the soft breeze ruffling the meadow-flowers,
          Or from before it chasing wantonly
          The many-coloured images imprest                            20
          Upon the bosom of a placid lake.
                                                              1811.

SPANISH GUERILLAS

          THEY seek, are sought; to daily battle led,
          Shrink not, though far outnumbered by their Foes,
          For they have learnt to open and to close
          The ridges of grim war; and at their head
          Are captains such as erst their country bred
          Or fostered, self-supported chiefs,--like those
          Whom hardy Rome was fearful to oppose;
          Whose desperate shock the Carthaginian fled.
          In One who lived unknown a shepherd's life
          Redoubted Viriatus breathes again;                          10
          And Mina, nourished in the studious shade,
          With that great Leader vies, who, sick of strife
          And bloodshed, longed in quiet to be laid
          In some green island of the western main.
                                                              1811.

"THE POWER OF ARMIES IS A VISIBLE THING"

          THE power of Armies is a visible thing,
          Formal, and circumscribed in time and space;
          But who the limits of that power shall trace
          Which a brave People into light can bring
          Or hide, at will,--for freedom combating
          By just revenge inflamed? No foot may chase,
          No eye can follow, to a fatal place
          That power, that spirit, whether on the wing
          Like the strong wind, or sleeping like the wind
          Within its awful caves.--From year to year                  10
          Springs this indigenous produce far and near;
          No craft this subtle element can bind,
          Rising like water from the soil, to find
          In every nook a lip that it may cheer.
                                                              1811.

"HERE PAUSE: THE POET CLAIMS AT LEAST THIS PRAISE"

          HERE pause: the poet claims at least this praise,
          That virtuous Liberty hath been the scope
          Of his pure song, which did not shrink from hope
          In the worst moment of these evil days;
          From hope, the paramount 'duty' that Heaven lays,
          For its own honour, on man's suffering heart.
          Never may from our souls one truth depart--
          That an accursed thing it is to gaze
          On prosperous tyrants with a dazzled eye;
          Nor--touched with due abhorrence of 'their' guilt           10
          For whose dire ends tears flow, and blood is spilt,
          And justice labours in extremity--
          Forget thy weakness, upon which is built,
          O wretched man, the throne of tyranny!
                                                              1811.

EPISTLE
TO SIR GEORGE HOWLAND BEAUMONT, BART.
FROM THE SOUTH-WEST COAST OR CUMBERLAND
1811

          FAR from our home by Grasmere's quiet Lake,
          From the Vale's peace which all her fields partake,
          Here on the bleakest point of Cumbria's shore
          We sojourn stunned by Ocean's ceaseless roar;
          While, day by day, grim neighbour! huge Black Comb
          Frowns deepening visibly his native gloom,
          Unless, perchance rejecting in despite
          What on the Plain 'we' have of warmth and light,
          In his own storms he hides himself from sight.
          Rough is the time; and thoughts, that would be free         10
          From heaviness, oft fly, dear Friend, to thee;
          Turn from a spot where neither sheltered road
          Nor hedge-row screen invites my steps abroad;
          Where one poor Plane-tree, having as it might
          Attained a stature twice a tall man's height,
          Hopeless of further growth, and brown and sere
          Through half the summer, stands with top cut sheer,
          Like an unshifting weathercock which proves
          How cold the quarter that the wind best loves,
          Or like a Centinel that, evermore                           20
          Darkening the window, ill defends the door
          Of this unfinished house--a Fortress bare,
          Where strength has been the Builder's only care;
          Whose rugged walls may still for years demand
          The final polish of the Plasterer's hand.
          --This Dwelling's Inmate more than three weeks space
          And oft a Prisoner in the cheerless place,
          I--of whose touch the fiddle would complain,
          Whose breath would labour at the flute in vain,
          In music all unversed, nor blessed with skill               30
          A bridge to copy, or to paint a mill,
          Tired of my books, a scanty company!
          And tired of listening to the boisterous sea--
          Pace between door and window muttering rhyme,
          An old resource to cheat a froward time!
          Though these dull hours (mine is it, or their shame?)
          Would tempt me to renounce that humble aim.
          --But if there be a Muse who, free to take
          Her seat upon Olympus, doth forsake
          Those heights (like Phoebus when his golden locks           40
          He veiled, attendant on Thessalian flocks)
          And, in disguise, a Milkmaid with her pail
          Trips down the pathways of some winding dale;
          Or, like a Mermaid, warbles on the shores
          To fishers mending nets beside their doors;
          Or, Pilgrim-like, on forest moss reclined,
          Gives plaintive ditties to the heedless wind,
          Or listens to its play among the boughs
          Above her head and so forgets her vows--
          If such a Visitant of Earth there be                        50
          And she would deign this day to smile on me
          And aid my verse, content with local bounds
          Of natural beauty and life's daily rounds,
          Thoughts, chances, sights, or doings, which we tell
          Without reserve to those whom we love well--
          Then haply, Beaumont! words in current clear
          Will flow, and on a welcome page appear
          Duly before thy sight, unless they perish here.
            What shall I treat of? News from Mona's Isle?
          Such have we, but unvaried in its style;                    60
          No tales of Runagates fresh landed, whence
          And wherefore fugitive or on what pretence;
          Of feasts, or scandal, eddying like the wind
          Most restlessly alive when most confined.
          Ask not of me, whose tongue can best appease
          The mighty tumults of the HOUSE OF KEYS;
          The last year's cup whose Ram or Heifer gained,
          What slopes are planted, or what mosses drained:
          An eye of fancy only can I cast
          On that proud pageant now at hand or past,                  70
          When full five hundred boats in trim array,
          With nets and sails outspread and streamers gay,
          And chanted hymns and stiller voice of prayer,
          For the old Manx-harvest to the Deep repair,
          Soon as the herring-shoals at distance shine
          Like beds of moonlight shifting on the brine.
            Mona from our Abode is daily seen,
          But with a wilderness of waves between;
          And by conjecture only can we speak
          Of aught transacted there in bay or creek;                  80
          No tidings reach us thence from town or field,
          Only faint news her mountain sunbeams yield,
          And some we gather from the misty air,
          And some the hovering clouds, our telegraph, declare.
          But these poetic mysteries I withhold;
          For Fancy hath her fits both hot and cold,
          And should the colder fit with You be on
          When You might read, my credit would be gone.
            Let more substantial themes the pen engage,
          And nearer interests culled from the opening stage          90
          Of our migration.--Ere the welcome dawn
          Had from the east her silver star withdrawn,
          The Wain stood ready, at our Cottage-door,
          Thoughtfully freighted with a various store;
          And long or ere the uprising of the Sun
          O'er dew-damped dust our journey was begun,
          A needful journey, under favouring skies,
          Through peopled Vales; yet something in the guise
          Of those old Patriarchs when from well to well
          They roamed through Wastes where now the tented Arabs
              dwell.                                                 100
            Say first, to whom did we the charge confide,
          Who promptly undertook the Wain to guide
          Up many a sharply-twining road and down,
          And over many a wide hill's craggy crown,
          Through the quick turns of many a hollow nook,
          And the rough bed of many an unbridged brook?
          A blooming Lass--who in her better hand
          Bore a light switch, her sceptre of command
          When, yet a slender Girl, she often led,
          Skilful and bold, the horse and burthened 'sled'           110
          From the peat-yielding Moss on Gowdar's head.
          What could go wrong with such a Charioteer
          For goods and chattels, or those Infants dear,
          A Pair who smilingly sate side by side,
          Our hope confirming that the salt-sea tide
          Whose free embraces we were bound to seek,
          Would their lost strength restore and freshen the pale cheek?
          Such hope did either Parent entertain
          Pacing behind along the silent lane.
            Blithe hopes and happy musings soon took flight,         120
          For lo! an uncouth melancholy sight--
          On a green bank a creature stood forlorn
          Just half protruded to the light of morn,
          Its hinder part concealed by hedge-row thorn
          The Figure called to mind a beast of prey
          Stript of its frightful powers by slow decay,
          And, though no longer upon rapine bent,
          Dim memory keeping of its old intent.
          We started, looked again with anxious eyes,
          And in that griesly object recognise                       130
          The Curate's Dog--his long-tried friend, for they,
          As well we knew, together had grown grey.
          The Master died, his drooping servant's grief
          Found at the Widow's feet some sad relief;
          Yet still he lived in pining discontent,
          Sadness which no indulgence could prevent;
          Hence whole day wanderings, broken nightly sleeps
          And lonesome watch that out of doors he keeps;
          Not oftentimes, I trust, as we, poor brute!
          Espied him on his legs sustained, blank, mute,             140
          And of all visible motion destitute,
          So that the very heaving of his breath
          Seemed stopt, though by some other power than death.
          Long as we gazed upon the form and face,
          A mild domestic pity kept its place,
          Unscared by thronging fancies of strange hue
          That haunted us in spite of what we knew.
          Even now I sometimes think of him as lost
          In second-sight appearances, or crost
          By spectral shapes of guilt, or to the ground,             150
          On which he stood, by spells unnatural bound,
          Like a gaunt shaggy Porter forced to wait
          In days of old romance at Archimago's gate.
            Advancing Summer, Nature's law fulfilled,
          The choristers in every grove had stilled;
          But we, we lacked not music of our own,
          For lightsome Fanny had thus early thrown,
          Mid the gay prattle of those infant tongues,
          Some notes prelusive, from the round of songs
          With which, more zealous than the liveliest bird           160
          That in wild Arden's brakes was ever heard,
          Her work and her work's partners she can cheer,
          The whole day long, and all days of the year.
            Thus gladdened from our own dear Vale we pass
          And soon approach Diana's Looking-glass!
          To Loughrigg-tarn, round clear and bright as heaven,
          Such name Italian fancy would have given,
          Ere on its banks the few grey cabins rose
          That yet disturb not its concealed repose
          More than the feeblest wind that idly blows.               170
            Ah, Beaumont! when an opening in the road
          Stopped me at once by charm of what it showed,
          The encircling region vividly exprest
          Within the mirror's depth, a world at rest--
          Sky streaked with purple, grove and craggy 'bield',
          And the smooth green of many a pendent field,
          And, quieted and soothed, a torrent small,
          A little daring would-be waterfall,
          One chimney smoking and its azure wreath,
          Associate all in the calm Pool beneath,                    180
          With here and there a faint imperfect gleam
          Of water-lilies veiled in misty steam--
          What wonder at this hour of stillness deep,
          A shadowy link 'tween wakefulness and sleep,
          When Nature's self, amid such blending, seems
          To render visible her own soft dreams,
          If, mixed with what appeared of rock, lawn, wood,
          Fondly embosomed in the tranquil flood,
          A glimpse I caught of that Abode, by Thee
          Designed to rise in humble privacy,                        190
          A lowly Dwelling, here to be outspread,
          Like a small Hamlet, with its bashful head
          Half hid in native trees. Alas 'tis not,
          Nor ever was; I sighed, and left the spot
          Unconscious of its own untoward lot,
          And thought in silence, with regret too keen,
          Of unexperienced joys that might have been;
          Of neighbourhood and intermingling arts,
          And golden summer days uniting cheerful hearts.
          But time, irrevocable time, is flown.                      200
          And let us utter thanks for blessings sown
          And reaped--what hath been, and what is, our own.
            Not far we travelled ere a shout of glee,
          Startling us all, dispersed my reverie;
          Such shout as many a sportive echo meeting
          Oft-times from Alpine 'chalets' sends a greeting.
          Whence the blithe hail? behold a Peasant stand
          On high, a kerchief waving in her hand!
          Not unexpectant that by early day
          Our little Band would thrid this mountain way,             210
          Before her cottage on the bright hill side
          She hath advanced with hope to be descried.
          Right gladly answering signals we displayed,
          Moving along a tract of morning shade,
          And vocal wishes sent of like good will
          To our kind Friend high on the sunny hill--
          Luminous region, fair as if the prime
          Were tempting all astir to look aloft or climb;
          Only the centre of the shining cot
          With door left open makes a gloomy spot,                   220
          Emblem of those dark corners sometimes found
          Within the happiest breast on earthly ground.
            Rich prospect left behind of stream and vale,
          And mountain-tops, a barren ridge we scale;
          Descend, and reach, in Yewdale's depths, a plain
          With haycocks studded, striped with yellowing grain--
          An area level as a Lake and spread
          Under a rock too steep for man to tread,
          Where sheltered from the north and bleak northwest
          Aloft the Raven hangs a visible nest,                      230
          Fearless of all assaults that would her brood molest.
          Hot sunbeams fill the steaming vale; but hark,
          At our approach, a jealous watch-dog's bark,
          Noise that brings forth no liveried Page of state,
          But the whole household, that our coming wait.
          With Young and Old warm greetings we exchange,
          And jocund smiles, and toward the lowly Grange
          Press forward by the teasing dogs unscared.
          Entering, we find the morning meal prepared:
          So down we sit, though not till each had cast              240
          Pleased looks around the delicate repast--
          Rich cream, and snow-white eggs fresh from the nest,
          With amber honey from the mountain's breast;
          Strawberries from lane or woodland, offering wild
          Of children's industry, in hillocks piled;
          Cakes for the nonce, and butter fit to lie
          Upon a lordly dish; frank hospitality
          Where simple art with bounteous nature vied,
          And cottage comfort shuned not seemly pride.
            Kind Hostess! Handmaid also of the feast,                250
          If thou be lovelier than the kindling East,
          Words by thy presence unrestrained may speak
          Of a perpetual dawn from brow and cheek
          Instinct with light whose sweetest promise lies,
          Never retiring, in thy large dark eyes,
          Dark but to every gentle feeling true,
          As if their lustre flowed from ether's purest blue.
            Let me not ask what tears may have been wept
          By those bright eyes, what weary vigils kept,
          Beside that hearth what sighs may have been heaved         260
          For wounds inflicted, nor what toil relieved
          By fortitude and patience, and the grace
          Of heaven in pity visiting the place.
          Not unadvisedly those secret springs
          I leave unsearched: enough that memory clings,
          Here as elsewhere, to notices that make
          Their own significance for hearts awake,
          To rural incidents, whose genial powers
          Filled with delight three summer morning hours.
            More cold my pen report of grave or gay                  270
          That through our gipsy travel cheered the way;
          But, bursting forth above the waves, the Sun
          Laughs at my pains, and seems to say, "Be done."
          Yet, Beaumont, thou wilt not, I trust, reprove
          This humble offering made by Truth to Love,
          Nor chide the Muse that stooped to break a spell
          Which might have else been on me yet:--
                                                   FAREWELL.
                                                              1811.

UPON PERUSING THE FOREGOING EPISTLE THIRTY YEARS AFTER ITS COMPOSITION

          SOON did he Almighty Giver of all rest
          Take those dear young Ones to a fearless nest;
          And in Death's arms has long reposed the Friend
          For whom this simple Register was penned.
          Thanks to the moth that spared it for our eyes;
          And Strangers even the slighted Scroll may prize,
          Moved by the touch of kindred sympathies.
          For--save the calm, repentance sheds o'er strife
          Raised by remembrances of misused life,
          The light from past endeavours purely willed                10
          And by Heaven's favour happily fulfilled;
          Save hope that we, yet bound to Earth, may share
          The joys of the Departed--what so fair
          As blameless pleasure, not without some tears,
          Reviewed through Love's transparent veil of years?

UPON THE SIGHT OF A BEAUTIFUL PICTURE
PAINTED BY SIR G. H. BEAUMONT, BART.

          PRAISED be the Art whose subtle power could stay
          Yon cloud, and fix it in that glorious shape;
          Nor would permit the thin smoke to escape,
          Nor those bright sunbeams to forsake the day;
          Which stopped that band of travellers on their way,
          Ere they were lost within the shady wood;
          And showed the Bark upon the glassy flood
          For ever anchored in her sheltering bay.
          Soul-soothing Art! whom Morning, Noontide, Even,
          Do serve with all their changeful pageantry;                10
          Thou, with ambition modest yet sublime,
          Here, for the sight of mortal man, hast given
          To one brief moment caught from fleeting time
          The appropriate calm of blest eternity.
                                                              1811.