"The struggling rill insensibly is grown
Into a Brook of loud and stately march,
Crossed ever and anon by plank and arch;
And for like use, lo! what might seem a zone
Chosen for ornament; stone matched with stone
In studied symmetry, with interspace

For the clear waters to pursue their race
Without restraint.-How swiftly have they flown,
Succeeding still succeeding! Here the Child
Puts, when the high-swoln Flood runs fierce and wild,
His budding courage to the proof;—and here
Declining Manhood learns to note the sly
And sure encroachments of infirmity,

Thinking how fast time runs, life's end how near!"
"Not so that Pair whose youthful spirits dance
With prompt emotion, urging them to pass;
A sweet confusion checks the Shepherd-lass;
Blushing she eyes the dizzy flood askance,—
To stop ashamed-too timid to advance;
She ventures once again-another pause!
His outstretched hand He tauntingly withdraws-
She sues for help with piteous utterance !
Chidden she chides again; the thrilling touch
Both feel when he renews the wished-for aid;
Ah! if their fluttering hearts should stir too much,
Should beat too strongly, both may be betrayed.
The frolic Loves who, from yon high rock, see
The struggle, clap their wings for victory!"

And

The Fairies are sometimes seen yet in Seathwaite. there is a sonnet on the Faëry Chasm-about the sky-blue stone, within the sunless cleft, bearing the footmarks of the tiny elves. Fancy thus awakened will not be soon set asleep; and in another sonnet, she sees

66

Objects immense portray'd in miniature,

Wild shapes for many a strange comparison !"

Niagaras, Alpine passes, and abodes of Naiads

"Calm abysses pure

Bright liquid mansions, fashioned to endure
When the broad oak drops a leafless skeleton,
And the solidities of mortal pride,

Palace and Tower, are crumbled into dust!"

But the human heart of the poet longs again for human life; and, reascending from those sunless chasms, hear how he sings the "Open Prospect."

"Hail to the fields-with Dwellings sprinkled o'er,
And one small hamlet, under a green hill,

Clustered with barn and byre, and spouting mill!
A glance suffices ;-should we wish for more,
Gay June would scorn us; but when bleak winds roar
Through the stiff lance-like shoots of pollard ash,
Dread swell of sound! loud as the gusts that lash
The matted forests of Ontario's shore

By wasteful steel unsmitten, then would I
Turn into port,-and, reckless of the gale,
Reckless of angry Duddon sweeping by,

While the warm hearth exalts the mantling ale,
Laugh with the generous household heartily,
At all the merry pranks of Donnerdale!"

But the Duddon is a strange stream; and should you happen to walk half a mile by his side, in a reverie, on coming to yourself again on your return perhaps from Jerusalem, 'tis a thousand to one you don't know him-so sternly is he transfigured from a sweet-singer into a Boanerges, or Son of Thunder.

"O mountain Stream! the Shepherd and his Cot
Are privileged Inmates of deep solitude;
Nor would the nicest Anchorite exclude
A field or two of brighter green, or plot
Of tillage-ground, that seemeth like a spot
Of stationary sunshine:-thou hast viewed
These only, Duddon! with their paths renewed
By fits and starts, yet this contents thee not.
Thee hath some awful spirit impelled to leave,
Utterly to desert, the haunts of men,
Though simple thy companions were and few;
And through this wilderness a passage cleave
Attended but by thy own voice, save when

The Clouds and Fowls of the air thy way pursue!"

But if we go on at this rate, Jonathan-we shall soon have "read oop" the whole volume. And what better might we do, lying here, all four of us, carelessly diffused on the greensward, far from the noisy world, enveloped in the visions of a great poet's soul? This is the way to know and feel the spirit of this lovely and lonely, of this barren and bounteous land, where desolation lies in the close neighbourhood of plenty, and where the Hermit might find a secret cell within hearing of the glad hum of life. Let us recite two sonnets more-and then be up and going-away to the objects of which the Poet sings-how holily!

SEATHWAITE CHAPEL.

6

"Sacred Religion, mother of form and fear,'
Dread Arbitress of mutable respect,

New rites ordaining when the old are wreck'd,
Or cease to please the fickle worshipper;
If one strong wish may be embosom'd here,
Mother of Love! for this deep vale, protect
Truth's holy lamp, pure source of bright effect,
Gifted to purge the vapoury atmosphere
That seeks to stifle it ;-as in those days
When this low pile a Gospel Teacher knew,
Whose good works form'd an endless retinue:
Such Priest as Chaucer sang in fervent lays;
Such as the heaven-taught skill of Herbert drew;
And tender Goldsmith crown'd with deathless praise!"

ULPHA KIRK.

"The Kirk of Ulpha to the Pilgrim's eye

Is welcome as a Star, that doth present

Its shining forehead through the peaceful rent
Of a black cloud diffused o'er half the sky:

Or as a fruitful palm-tree towering high

O'er the parch'd waste beside an Arab's tent;

Or the Indian tree whose branches, downward bent,
Take root again, a boundless canopy.

How sweet were leisure! could it yield no more
Than 'mid that wave-wash'd Churchyard to recline,
From pastoral graves extracting thoughts divine;
Or there to pace, and mark the summits hoar
Of distant moonlit mountains faintly shine,
Sooth'd by the unseen River's gentle roar."

Prevailing poet! here, among the scenes thou hast so finely

sung,

"Fit audience find, though few."

Few, indeed! for the Three have vanished; and in Seathwaite Tarn, the shadows of no Christians are to be seen but those of Christopher and Jonathan. He informs us, that ere we had "read oop taa haf o't," the graceless, mannerless, fancyless, unfeeling, unprincipled, and uninitiated cubs had scampered over the knowe, and have probably been for an hour, at least, in another county! Yes, Jonathan-you say right-they are to be pitied; but we have reaped

"The harvest of a quiet eye,

That broods and sleeps on its own heart."

Surely the winner will have the sense to order dinner at the Chapel Alehouse.

"Wherever God erects a house of prayer,

The devil always builds a chapel there."

"Mr

"In this"-quoth Mr Green, who, you know, Jonathan, was the most sober and industrious of God's creatures Daniel is not quite correct; such houses, particularly in thinly inhabited countries, are absolutely necessary to the comforts of distant parishioners." Now, we are distant parishioners; so put his volume into the haversack-and the "Bard's " we return to our bosom. Now let's be off.

Descent may be adverse to younger knees-but to ours it is natural; and,

down the sward, we feel like an aged eagle skimming in easy undulations, ere he alights to fold up his wings.

Sweet Seathwaite ! for, spite of all thy sternness, art thou, indeed, most sweet-may we believe from that sunny smile kindling up thy groves into greenness that obliterates the brown of thy superincumbent cliffs-that thou rejoicest to see again the Wanderer, who, in life's ardent prime, was with thee so oft of yore in thy sylvan solitudes! Much changed-thou seest-are we-in face and figure so sorely changed that haply we seem to thee a stranger, and must pass by a disregarded shadow! Alas! we feel as if we were forgotten! we, and all those dawns, morns, days, eves, and nights! Insensate Seathwaite ! what art thou but an assemblage of rocks, stones, clods, stumps, and trees? Our imagination it was that vivified thee into beauty-till thou becamest symbolical of all spiritual essences, embodied Poetry of a paradisaical state of being, which, on this fair representment, transcendantly returns-but overspread now, and interfused with a profoundest pathos that almost subdues the glory of nature into the glimmer of the grave, solemnising life by death, and subjecting the dim past and the bright present to the mysterious future, till faith flings herself humbly at the feet of God.

And thou, too, art somewhat changed, sweet Seathwaite ! Thou, too, art getting old! But with thee, age is but a change into "beauty still more beauteous." A gradual alteration, during all the while of our long absence, has been

silently taking place upon the character of thy groves. Glades are gone like overshadowed sun-spots. We see rocky pastures where then the coppice-wood grew-smooth fields of barleybraird that then were rocky pastures. We miss that bright blue river-heard above the Alder Ford-where hung the nest-hiding hazels; we hear, not see, the Fairies' Waterfall. Pools that of yore still slept in branchy twilight, now shine in day and picture-passing clouds. Some oaks have fallen that should have lived for ever; and strange confusion in our memory grows from the whole of these bewildering woods. But amidst all the change of unceasing growth and unceasing decay, thou art the same sweet Seathwaite still-and unaltered for ever the lines magnificent now drawn by thy multitudinous mountains along the peaceful heavens.

The wallet is empty of all viands now-Jonathan—and in the Chapel Alehouse it may happen that the sole fare may be but ham and eggs. You see this crutch. We unscrew the cross, and out of the bole emerges a fishing-rod, of which the pieces may be put up so as to suit minnow, trout, grilse, or fish. Now for trout. One of the seals dangling at our watchchain is a reel. 'Tis an ensnaring seal, Jonathan—and on all our love-letters it leaves its irresistible impress. A silk reel-line you observe, Jonathan, and gut like gossamer, to whose invisibility in water are attached the murderous midges with black half-heckle on the yellow bodies, and brown mallardwings, adjusted by the microscopic eye and fairy finger of Margaret-that is, Mrs Widow Phin. Not a breath of airthe river is low-and bright the sun-nor will he reach for an hour to come those castellated clouds. But let us lay our lures among the lucid murmurs, and in a minute shall you see the silver-shiners in various sizes dancing on the gravel or the greensward, up from the not unsuccessful imitation of the minnow to what might seem-nay, may be—the salmon's self.

Ay-there are two to begin with-one at the tail-fly, and one at the top-bobber. We always angle with five hooks, Jonathan, on an occasion like this, when to garnish the grosser we desire some fry. Why, they seem smoults! How can that be in the Duddon in May? Trouts. But born and bred in this gravelly shallow, their scales are as silver, and you almost suppose you see through them, as you hold up their