[Having been prevented by the lateness of the season, in 1831, from visiting Staffa and Iona, the author made these the principal objects of a short tour in the summer of 1833, of which the following series of sonnets is a Memorial. The course pursued was down the Cumberland river Derwent, and to Whitehaven; thence (by the Isle of Man, where a few days were passed) up the Frith of Clyde to Greenock, then to Oban, Staffa, Iona; and back towards England, by Loch Awe, Inverary, Loch Goil-head, Greenock, and through parts of Renfrewshire, Ayrshire, and Dumfries-shire to Carlisle, and thence up the river Eden, and homewards by Ullswater.] SONNETS, 1833. I. ADIEU, Rydalian Laurels! that have grown On this fair Mount, a Poet of your own, One who ne'er ventured for a Delphic crown sown. Farewell! no Minstrels now with Harp new-strung For summer wandering quit their household bowers; Yet not for this wants Poesy a tongue To cheer the Itinerant on whom she pours Her spirit, while he crosses lonely moors, musing sits forsaken halls among. II. WHY should the Enthusiast, journeying through this Repine as if his hour were come too late? 'Mid fruitful fields that ring with jocund toil, And pleasure-grounds where Taste, refined Co-mate Fair land by Time's parental love made free, If what is rightly reverenced may last. III. THEY called Thee merry England, in old time; And, spite of change, for me thou keep'st the same To the heart's fond belief, though some there are Whose sterner judgments deem that word a snare For inattentive Fancy, like the lime Which foolish birds are caught with. Can, I ask, This face of rural beauty be a mask For discontent, and poverty, and crime; These spreading towns a cloak for lawless will; Forbid it, Heaven! - that "merry England" still May be thy rightful name, in prose and rhyme ! |