A Remembrance Of Grasmere.[434]

O vale and lake, within your mountain-urn Smiling so tranquilly, and set so deep! Oft doth your dreamy loveliness return, Colouring the tender shadows of my sleep With light Elysian; for the hues that steep Your shores in melting lustre, seem to float On golden clouds from spirit-lands remote, Isles of the blest; and in our memory keep Their place with holiest harmonies. Fair scene, Most loved by evening and her dewy star! Oh! ne’er may man, with touch unhallow’d, jar The perfect music of thy charm serene! Still, still unchanged, may one sweet region wear Smiles that subdue the soul to love, and tears, and prayer.

It would have been very dear to her, could she have foreseen the delicate and appropriate commemoration awarded to her by Mr Wordsworth, in the elegiac stanzas which record the high names of some of his most distinguished contemporaries, (Scott, Coleridge, Lamb, Crabbe, and Hogg,) summoned in quick succession “to the land whence none return:”--

“Mourn rather for that holy spirit, Sweet as the spring, as ocean deep, For her who, ere her summer faded, Has sunk into a breathless sleep.”

THOUGHTS CONNECTED WITH TREES.

Trees, gracious trees!--how rich a gift ye are, Crown of the earth! to human hearts and eyes! How doth the thought of home, in lands afar, Link’d with your forms and kindly whisperings rise! How the whole picture of a childhood lies Oft midst your boughs forgotten, buried deep! Till, gazing through them up the summer skies, As hush’d we stand, a breeze perchance may creep, And old, sweet leaf-sounds reach the inner world Where memory coils--and lo! at once unfurl’d, The past, a glowing scroll, before our sight Spreads clear; while, gushing from their long-seal’d urn, Young thoughts, pure dreams, undoubting prayers return, And a lost mother’s eye gives back its holy light.

THE SAME.

And ye are strong to shelter!--all meek things, All that need home and covert, love your shade! Birds of shy song, and low-voiced quiet springs, And nun-like violets, by the winds betray’d. Childhood beneath your fresh green tents hath play’d With his first primrose-wreath: there love hath sought A veiling gloom for his unutter’d thought; And silent grief, of day’s keen glare afraid, A refuge for her tears; and ofttimes there Hath lone devotion found a place of prayer, A native temple, solemn, hush’d, and dim; For wheresoe’er your murmuring tremours thrill The woody twilight, there man’s heart hath still Confess’d a spirit’s breath, and heard a ceaseless hymn.

ON READING PAUL AND VIRGINIA IN CHILDHOOD.

O gentle story of the Indian isle! I loved thee in my lonely childhood well On the sea-shore, when day’s last, purple smile Slept on the waters, and their hollow swell And dying cadence lent a deeper spell Unto thine ocean-pictures. Midst thy palms And strange bright birds, my fancy joy’d to dwell, And watch the southern cross through midnight calms, And track the spicy woods. Yet more I bless’d Thy vision of sweet love--kind, trustful, true, Lighting the citron groves, a heavenly guest, With such pure smiles as Paradise once knew. Even then my young heart wept o’er this world’s power To reach with blight that holiest Eden-flower.

A THOUGHT AT SUNSET.

Still that last look is solemn! though thy rays, O sun! to-morrow will give back, we know, The joy to nature’s heart. Yet through the glow Of clouds that mantle thy decline, our gaze Tracks thee with love half-fearful: and in days When earth too much adored thee, what a swell Of mournful passion, deepening mighty lays, Told how the dying bade thy light farewell, O sun of Greece! O glorious, festal sun! Lost, lost!--for them thy golden hours were done, And darkness lay before them! Happier far Are we, not thus to thy bright wheels enchain’d, Not thus for thy last parting unsustain’d-- Heirs of a purer day, with its unsetting star.

IMAGES OF PATRIARCHAL LIFE.

Calm scenes of patriarch life! how long a power Your unworn pastoral images retain O’er the true heart, which in its childhood’s hour Drank their pure freshness deep! The camels’ train Winding in patience o’er the desert plain-- The tent, the palm-tree, the reposing flock, The gleaming fount, the shadow of the rock-- Oh! by how subtle, yet how strong a chain, And in the influence of its touch how bless’d, Are these things link’d, in many a thoughtful breast, To household-memories, thro’ all change endear’d! --The matin bird, the ripple of a stream Beside our native porch, the hearth-light’s gleam, The voices, earliest by the soul revered!

ATTRACTION OF THE EAST.

What secret current of man’s nature turns Unto the golden East with ceaseless flow? Still, where the sunbeam at its fountain burns, The pilgrim-spirit would adore and glow; Rapt in high thoughts, though weary, faint, and slow, Still doth the traveller through the deserts wind, Led by those old Chaldean stars, which know Where pass’d the shepherd-fathers of mankind. Is it some quenchless instinct, which from far Still points to where our alienated home Lay in bright peace? O thou true Eastern star! Saviour! atoning Lord! where’er we roam, Draw still our hearts to thee, else, else how vain Their hope, the fair lost birthright to regain!