They lead you on to full content,
And likings fresh and innocent,
That store the mind, the memory feed,
And prompt to many a gentle deed:
But likings come, and pass away;
"Tis love that remains till our latest day:
Our heavenward guide is holy love,

And it will be our bliss with saints above.

STANZAS

SUGGESTED

IN A STEAM-BOAT OFF ST. BEES' HEADS,

ON THE COAST OF CUMBERLAND.

[St. Bees' Heads, anciently called the Cliff of Baruth, are a conspicuous sea-mark for all vessels sailing in the N. E. parts of the Irish Sea. In a bay, one side of which is formed by the southern headland, stands the village of St. Bees; a place distinguished, from very early times, for its religious and scholastic foundations.

"St. Bees," say Nicholson and Burns, "had its name from Bega, an holy woman from Ireland, who is said to have founded here, about the year of our Lord 650, a small monastery, where afterwards a church was built in memory of her.

"The aforesaid religious house, being destroyed by the Danes, was restored by William de Meschiens, son of Ranulph, and brother of Ranulph de Meschiens, first Earl of Cumberland after the Conquest; and made a cell of a prior and six Benedictine monks to the Abbey of St. Mary at York."

Several traditions of miracles, connected with the foundation of the first of these religious houses, survive among the people of the neighbourhood; one of which is alluded to in the following Stanzas; and another, of a somewhat bolder and more peculiar character, has furnished the subject of a spirited poem by the Rev. R. Parkinson, M. A., late Divinity Lecturer of St. Bees' College, and now Fellow of the Collegiate Church of Manchester.

After the dissolution of the monasteries, Archbishop Grindal founded a free school at St. Bees, from which the counties of Cumberland and Westmoreland have derived great benefit; and recently, under the patronage of the Earl of Lonsdale, a college has been established there for the education of ministers for the English Church. The old Conventual Church has been repaired under the superintendence of the Rev. Dr. Ainger, the Head of the College; and is well worthy of being visited by any strangers who might be led to the neighbourhood of this celebrated spot.

The form of stanza in the following Piece, and something in the style of versification, are adopted from the "St. Monica," a poem of much beauty upon a monastic subject, by Charlotte Smith: a lady to whom English verse is under greater obligations, than are likely to be either acknowledged or remembered. She wrote little, and that little unambitiously, but with true feeling for nature.]

ST. BEES,

SUGGESTED

IN A STEAM-BOAT OFF ST. BEES' HEADS.

1.

IF Life were slumber on a bed of down,
Toil unimposed, vicissitude unknown,
Sad were our lot: no Hunter of the Hare
Exults like him whose javelin from the lair
Has roused the Lion; no one plucks the Rose,
Whose proffered beauty in safe shelter blows
'Mid a trim garden's summer luxuries,

With joy like his who climbs on hands and knees,
For some rare Plant, yon Headland of St. Bees.

2.

this in dependence upon oar and sail,
This new indifference to breeze or gale,
This straight-lined progress, furrowing a flat lea,
And regular as if locked in certainty,

Depress the hours. Up, Spirit of the Storm!
That Courage may find something to perform;
That Fortitude, whose blood disdains to freeze
At Danger's bidding, may confront the seas,
Firm as the towering Headlands of St. Bees.

3.

Dread Cliff of Baruth! that wild wish may sleep, Bold as if Men and Creatures of the Deep Breathed the same Element: too many wrecks Have struck thy sides, too many ghastly decks Hast thou looked down upon, that such a thought Should here be welcome, and in verse enwrought: With thy stern aspect better far agrees

Utterance of thanks that we have past with ease, As Millions thus shall do, the Headlands of St. Bees.