TO THE RIVER GRETA, NEAR KESWICK.
GRETA, what fearful listening! when huge stones
Rumble along thy bed, block after block:
Or, whirling with reiterated shock,
Combat, while darkness aggravates the groans:
But if thou (like Cocytus 1 from the moans
Heard on his rueful margin) thence wert named
The Mourner, thy true nature was defamed,
And the habitual murmur that atones
For thy worst rage, forgotten. Oft as Spring
Decks, on thy sinuous banks, her thousand thrones, Seats of glad instinct and love's carolling,
The concert, for the happy, then
With liveliest peals of birth-day harmony:
To a grieved heart, the notes are benisons.
AMONG the mountains were we nursed, loved stream!
Thou near the Eagle's nest within brief sail,
I, of his bold wing floating on the gale,
Where thy deep voice could lull me! Faint the
Of human life when first allowed to gleam
On mortal notice. Glory of the Vale,
Such thy meek outset, with a crown, though frail,
Kept in perpetual verdure by the steam
Of thy soft breath! - Less vivid wreath entwined
Nemæan victor's brow; less bright was worn,
Meed of some Roman chief—in triumph borne
With captives chained; and shedding from his car
The sunset splendours of a finished war
Upon the proud enslavers of mankind!
IN SIGHT OF THE TOWN OF COCKERMOUTH,
(WHERE THE AUTHOR WAS BORN, AND HIS FATHER'S REMAINS ARE LAID.)
A POINT of life between my Parents' dust,
And your's, my buried Little-ones! am I;
And to those graves looking habitually
In kindred quiet I repose my trust.
Death to the innocent is more than just,
And, to the sinner, mercifully bent;
So may I hope, if truly I repent
And meekly bear the ills which bear I must:
And You, my Offspring! that do still remain,
Yet may outstrip me in the appointed race,
If e'er, through fault of mine, in mutual pain
We breathed together for a moment's space,
The wrong, by love provoked, let love arraign,
And only love keep in your hearts a place.
THE SPIRIT OF COCKERMOUTH CASTLE.
THOU look'st upon me, and dost fondly think,
Poet! that, stricken as both are by years,
We, differing once so much, are now Compeers,
Prepared, when each has stood his time, to sink
Into the dust. Erewhile a sterner link
United us; when thou, in boyish play,
Entering my dungeon, didst become a prey
To soul-appalling darkness. Not a blink
Of light was there; - and thus did I, thy Tutor,
Make thy young thoughts acquainted with the
While thou wert chasing the wing'd butterfly
Through my green courts; or climbing, a bold suitor,
Up to the flowers whose golden progeny
Still round my shattered brow in beauty wave.
THE cattle crowding round this beverage clear
To slake their thirst, with reckless hoofs have trod
The encircling turf into a barren clod;
Through which the waters creep, then disappear,
Born to be lost in Derwent flowing near;
Yet, o'er the brink, and round the limestone-cell
Of the pure spring (they call it the "Nun's Well,”
Name that first struck by chance my startled ear)
A tender Spirit broods- the pensive Shade
Of ritual honours to this Fountain paid
By hooded Votaries 3 with saintly cheer;
Albeit oft the Virgin-mother mild
Looked down with pity upon eyes beguiled
Into the shedding of "too soft a tear."
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