DEAR Fellow-travellers! think not that the Muse
Presents to notice these memorial Lays,
Hoping the general eye thereon will gaze,
As on a mirror that gives back the hues
Of living Nature; no though free to choose
The greenest bowers, the most inviting ways,
The fairest landscapes and the brightest days,
Her skill she tried with less ambitious views.
For You she wrought; -ye only can supply
The life, the truth, the beauty: she confides
In that enjoyment which with you abides,
Trusts to your love and vivid memory;
Thus far contented, that for You her verse
Shall lack not power the "meeting soul to pierce!"
RYDAL MOUNT, January, 1822.
'TIS said, fantastic Ocean doth enfold
The likeness of whate'er on Land is seen;
But, if the Nereid Sisters and their Queen,
Above whose heads the Tide so long hath rolled,
The Dames resemble whom we here behold,
How terrible beneath the opening waves
To sink, and meet them in their fretted caves,
Withered, grotesque immeasurably old,
And shrill and fierce in accent! - Fear it not;
For they Earth's fairest Daughters do excel;
Pure undecaying beauty is their lot;
Their voices into liquid music swell,
Thrilling each pearly cleft and sparry grot—
The undisturbed Abodes where Sea-nymphs dwell!
BRUGES I saw attired with golden light
(Streamed from the west) as with a robe of power:
'Tis past; and now the grave and sunless hour,
That, slowly making way for peaceful night,
Best suits with fallen grandeur, to my sight
Offers the beauty, the magnificence,
And all the graces, left her for defence
Against the injuries of Time, the spite
Of Fortune, and the desolating storms
Of future War. Advance not-
spare to hide,
O gentle Power of Darkness! these mild hues;
Obscure not yet these silent avenues
Of stateliest Architecture, where the forms
Of Nun-like Females, with soft motion, glide!
THE Spirit of Antiquity — enshrined
In sumptuous Buildings, vocal in sweet Song,
In Picture, speaking with heroic tongue,
And with devout solemnities entwined.
Strikes to the seat of grace within the mind:
Hence Forms that glide with swan-like ease along ;
Hence motions, even amid the vulgar throng,
To an harmonious decency confined;
As if the Streets were consecrated ground,
dedicate
The City one vast Temple
To mutual respect in thought and deed;
To leisure, to forbearances sedate;
To social cares from jarring passions freed;
A nobler peace than that in deserts found!
IV. -AFTER VISITING THE FIELD OF WATERLOO.
A WINGED Goddess, clothed in vesture wrought
Of rainbow colours; One whose port was bold,
Whose overburthened hand could scarcely hold
The glittering crowns and garlands which it brought,
Hovered in air above the far-famed Spot.
She vanished-leaving prospect blank and cold
Of wind-swept corn that wide around us rolled
In dreary billows, wood, and meagre cot,
And monuments that soon must disappear:
Yet a dread local recompense we found ;
While glory seemed betrayed, while patriot zeal
Sank in our hearts, we felt as Men should feel
With such vast hoards of hidden carnage near,
And horror breathing from the silent ground!
V. SCENERY BETWEEN NAMUR AND LIEGE.
WHAT lovelier home could gentle Fancy choose?
Is this the Stream, whose cities, heights, and plains,
War's favourite playground, are with crimson stains
Familiar, as the Morn with pearly dews?
The Morn, that now, along the silver MEUSE,
Spreading her peaceful ensigns, calls the Swains
To tend their silent boats and ringing wains,
Or strip the bough whose mellow fruit bestrews
The ripening corn beneath it. As mine eyes
Turn from the fortified and threatening hill,
How sweet the prospect of yon watery glade,
With its grey rocks clustering in pensive shade,
That, shaped like old monastic turrets, rise
From the smooth meadow-ground, serene and still!
VI. AIX-LA-CHAPELLE.
Was it to disenchant, and to undo,
That we approached the Seat of Charlemaine ?
To sweep from many an old romantic strain
That faith which no devotion may renew!
Why does this puny Church present to view
Its feeble columns? and that scanty Chair!
This Sword that One of our weak times might wear!
Objects of false pretence, or meanly true!
If from a Traveller's fortune I might claim
A palpable memorial of that day,
Then would I seek the Pyrenean Breach
Which ROLAND clove with huge two-handed sway, And to the enormous labour left his name,
Where unremitting frosts the rocky Crescent bleach.
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