SONNETS.

XXVIII.

CAVE OF STAFF

YE shadowy Beings, that have ri In every cell of Fingal's mystic Where are ye? Driven or vent Our Fathers glimpses caught of And, by your mien and bearing, And they could hear his ghostly Earth, till the flesh lay on him 1 While he struck his desolate ha aims.

Vanished ye are, but subject to Why keep we else the instincts Ruled here of yore, till what r Not by black arts but magic n If eyes be still sworn vassals Yon light shapes forth a Bar

We Towers and Promis Wwe, authentic Sty dappered with England's Glory

PLOWERS ON THE

Hopp smiled when yo Children of Ser

What Summer

Calm as the

Of heaven me Suns and

In symmet

XLIV.

TO CORDELIA M

HALLSTEADS, ULLSWATER.

NoT in the mines beyond the western main,
You tell me, Delia! was the metal sought,
Which a fine skill, of Indian growth, has wrought
Into this flexible yet faithful Chain ;

Nor is it silver of romantic Spain

You say, but from Helvellyn's depths was brought,
Our own domestic mountain. Thing and thought
Mix strangely; trifles light, and partly vain,
Can prop, as you have learnt, our nobler being:
Yes, Lady, while about your neck is wound
(Your casual glance oft meeting) this bright cord,
What witchery, for pure gifts of inward seeing,
Lurks in it, Memory's Helper, Fancy's Lord,
For precious tremblings in your bosom found!

XLV.

CONCLUSION.

MOST sweet it is with unuplifted eyes
To pace the ground, if path be there or none,
While a fair region round the Traveller lies
Which he forbears again to look upon;
Pleased rather with some soft ideal scene,
The work of Fancy, or some happy tone
Of meditation, slipping in between
The beauty coming and the beauty gone.
If Thought and Love desert us, from that day
Let us break off all commerce with the Muse;
With Thought and Love companions of our way,
Whate'er the senses take or may refuse,

The Mind's internal Heaven shall shed her dews
Of inspiration on the humblest lay.

NOTES.

The River Greta. Page 190.

1 "But if thou like Cocytus," &c.

MANY years ago, when the author was at Greta Bridge, in Yorkshire, the hostess of the inn, proud of her skill in etymology, said, that "the name of the river was taken from the bridge, the form of which, as every one must notice, exactly resembled a great A." But Dr. Whitaker has derived it from the word of common occurrence in the north of England, "to greet;" signifying to lament aloud, mostly with weeping: a conjecture rendered more probable from the stony and rocky channel of both the Cumberland and Yorkshire rivers. The Cumberland Greta, though it does not, among the country people, take up that name till within three miles of its disappearance in the river Derwent, may be considered as having its source in the mountain cove of Wythburn, and flowing through Thirlmere, the beautiful features of which lake are known only to those who, travelling between Grasmere and Keswick, have quitted the main road in the vale of Wythburn, and, crossing over to the opposite side of the lake, have proceeded with it on the right hand.

The channel of the Greta, immediately above Keswick, has, for the purposes of building, been in a great measure cleared of the immense stones which, by their concussion in high floods, produced the loud and awful noises described in the

sonnet.