Puslapio vaizdai
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Rejoiced is Brough, right glad I deem
Beside her little humble stream;
And she that keepeth watch and ward
Her statelier Eden's course to guard;
They both are happy at this hour,
Though each is but a lonely Tower :---
But here is perfect joy and pride
For one fair House by Emont's side,
This day, distinguished without peer
To see her Master and to cheer-
Him, and his Lady-mother dear!

Oh! it was a time forlorn
When the fatherless was born-
Give her wings that she may fly,
Or she sees her infant die!

Swords that are with slaughter wild
Hunt the Mother and the Child.
Who will take them from the light?
-Yonder is a man in sight—
Yonder is a house-but where?
No, they must not enter there.
To the caves, and to the brooks,
To the clouds of heaven she looks ;
She is speechless, but her eyes
Pray in ghostly agonies.

Blissful Mary, Mother mild,
Maid and Mother undefiled,

Save a Mother and her Child!

Now Who is he that bounds with joy On Carrock's side, a Shepherd-boy?

X

No thoughts hath he but thoughts that pass Light as the wind along the grass.

Can this be He who hither came

In secret, like a smothered flame?

O'er whom such thankful tears were shed
For shelter, and a poor man's bread!
God loves the Child; and God hath willed
That those dear words should be fulfilled,
The Lady's words, when forced away
The last she to her Babe did say :

'My own, my own, thy Fellow-guest

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Alas! when evil men are strong No life is good, no pleasure long. The Boy must part from Mosedale's groves, And leave Blencathara's rugged coves, And quit the flowers that summer brings To Glenderamakin's lofty springs; Must vanish, and his careless cheer Be turned to heaviness and fear. -Give Sir Lancelot Threlkeld praise! Hear it, good man, old in days! Thou tree of covert and of rest For this young Bird that is distrest ; Among thy branches safe he lay, And he was free to sport and play, When falcons were abroad for prey.

A recreant harp, that sings of fear And heaviness in Clifford's ear!

I said, when evil men are strong,
No life is good, no pleasure long,
A weak and cowardly untruth!
Our Clifford was a happy Youth,
And thankful through a weary time,
That brought him up to manhood's prime.
-Again he wanders forth at will,

And tends a flock from hill to hill:
His garb is humble; ne'er was seen
Such garb with such a noble mien ;
Among the shepherd grooms no mate
Hath he, a Child of strength and state!
Yet lacks not friends for simple glee,
Nor yet for higher sympathy.*

To his side the fallow-deer

Came, and rested without fear;
The eagle, lord of land and sea,
Stooped down to pay him fealty;
And both the undying fish that swim
Through Bowscale-tarn did wait on him;
The pair were servants of his eye
In their immortality;

And glancing, gleaming, dark or bright,†
Moved to and fro, for his delight.

He knew the rocks which Angels haunt
Upon the mountains visitant;

He hath kenned them taking wing:
And into caves where Faeries sing

* Yet lacks not friends for solemn glee
And a cheerful company,

That learned of him submissive ways,
And comforted his private days.-Edit. 1815.

They moved about in open sight.-Edit. 1815.

He hath entered; and been told

By Voices how men lived of old.
Among the heavens his eye can see
The face of thing that is to be ;
And, if that men report him right,
His tongue could whisper words of might.
-Now another day is come,
Fitter hope, and nobler doom;
He hath thrown aside his crook,
And hath buried deep his book ;
Armour rusting in his halls

On the blood of Clifford calls ;—
'Quell the Scot,' exclaims the Lance—
Bear me to the heart of France,

Is the longing of the Shield—

Tell thy name, thou trembling Field;
Field of death, where'er thou be,
Groan thou with our victory!

Happy day, and mighty hour,

When our Shepherd, in his power,

Mailed and horsed, with lance and sword,

To his ancestors restored

Like a re-appearing Star,

Like a glory from afar,

First shall head the flock of war!"

Alas! the impassioned minstrel did not know *
How, by Heaven's grace, this Clifford's heart was framed :
How he, long forced in humble walks to go,
Was softened into feeling, soothed, and tamed.

* Alas! the fervent Harper did not know,
That for a tranquil soul the lay was framed,

Who long compelled in humble walks to go.-Edit. 1815.

Love had he found in huts where poor men lie;
His daily teachers had been woods and rills,
The silence that is in the starry sky,

The sleep that is among the lonely hills.

In him the savage virtue of the Race,
Revenge, and all ferocious thoughts were dead :
Nor did he change; but kept in lofty place
The wisdom which adversity had bred.

Glad were the vales, and every cottage-hearth;
The Shepherd-lord was honoured more and more ;
And, ages after he was laid in earth,

"The good Lord Clifford

was the name he bore.*

HESPERUS.

It is no Spirit who from heaven hath flown,

And is descending on his embassy;

Nor Traveller gone from earth the heavens to espy ! 'Tis Hesperus-there he stands with glittering crown, First admonition that the sun is down!

For yet it is broad day-light: clouds pass by;

A few are near him still—and now the sky,
He hath it to himself 'tis all his own.

* "I know nothing in lyric poetry more beautiful or affecting than the final transition from the rapid metre, to the slow elegiac stanzas at the end, when from the warlike fervor and eagerness, the jubilant menacing strain, the Poet passes back into the sublime silence of Nature, gathering amid her deep and quiet bosom a more subdued and solemn tenderness than he had manifested before :-it is as if from the heights of the imaginative intellect his spirit had retreated into the recesses of a profoundly thoughtful Christian heart."-SARA COLERIDGE.

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