The skiffs with naked masts at anchor laid,
Before the boat-house peeping through the shade;
The unwearied glance of woodman's echoed stroke;
And curling from the trees the cottage smoke.
Their pannier'd train a group of potters goad,
Winding from side to side up the steep road;
The peasant from yon cliff of fearful edge
Shot, down the headlong path darts with his sledge;
Bright beams the lonely mountain-horse illume,
Feeding 'mid purple heath, " 'green rings "* and broom;
While the sharp slope the slacken'd team confounds,
Downward the ponderous timber-wain resounds;
In foamy breaks the rill, with merry song,
Dash'd down the rough rock, lightly leaps along;
From lonesome chapel at the mountain's feet,
Three humble bells their rustic chime repeat;
Sounds from the water-side the hammer'd boat;
And blasted quarry thunders heard remote !
Even here, amid the sweep of endless woods,
Blue pomp of lakes, high cliffs and falling floods,
Not undelightful are the simplest charms,
Found by the glassy door of mountain farms.
Sweetly ferocious,† round his native walks,
Pride of his sister wives, the monarch stalks;
Spur-clad his nervous feet, and firm his tread;
A crest of purple tops his warrior head.
Bright sparks his black and rolling eyeball hurls
Afar, his tail he closes and unfurls;
On tiptoe rear'd, he strains his clarion throat,
Threaten'd by faintly answering farms remote.
Bright'ning the cliffs between where sombrous pine
And yew-trees o'er the silver rocks recline;
I love to mark the quarry's moving trains,
Dwarf pannier'd steeds, and men, and numerous wains:
How busy the enormous hive within,
While Echo dallies with the various din!
Some (hardly heard their chisels' clinking sound)
Toil, small as pigmies in the gulf profound;
Some, dim between th' aërial clifts descried,
O'erwalk the slender plank from side to side;
These, by the pale blue rocks that ceaseless ring,
Glad from their airy baskets hang and sing.
Hung o'er a cloud above the steep that rears
Its edge all flame, the broadening sun appears;
A long blue bar its ægis orb divides,
And breaks the spreading of its golden tides;
And now it touches on the purple steep
That flings his shadow on the pictured deep.
"Vivid rings of green."-Greenwood's Poem on Shooting.
"Dolcemente feroce."-Tasso.-In this description of the cock, I remembered a spirited one of the same animal in "L'Agriculture, ou Les Géorgiques Françaises," of M. Rossuet.
'Cross the calm lake's blue shades the cliffs aspire,
With towers and woods, a "prospect all on fire;"
The coves and secret hollows, through a ray
Of fainter gold, a purple gleam betray.
The gilded turf arrays in richer green
Each speck of lawn the broken rocks between,
Deep yellow beams the scatter'd boles illume,
Far in the level forest's central gloom :
Waving his hat, the shepherd, in the vale,
Directs his winding dog the cliffs to scale,-
That barking, busy 'mid the glittering rocks,
Hunts, where he points, the intercepted flocks.
Where oaks o'erhang the road the radiance shoots
On tawny earth, wild weeds, and twisted roots;
The druid-stones their lighted fane unfold,
And all the babbling brooks are liquid gold;
Sunk to a curve, the day-star lessens still,
Gives one bright glance, and drops behind the hill.*
In these lone vales, if aught of faith may claim,
Their silver hairs, and ancient hamlet fame,
When up the hills, as now, retreats the light,
Strange apparitions mock the village sight.
A desperate form appears that spurs his steed
Along the midway cliffs with violent speed;
Unhurt pursues his lengthen'd flight, while all
Attend, at every stretch, his headlong fall,
Anon, in order mounts, a gorgeous show
Of horsemen-shadows moving to and fro;
And now the van is gilt with evening's beam;
The rear through iron brown betrays a sullen gleam,
While silent stands the admiring crowd below,
Lost gradual o'er the heights in pomp they go,
Till, but the lonely beacon, all is fled
That tips with eve's latest gleam his spiry head.
Now, while the solemn evening shadows sail,
On red slow-waving pinions, down the vale;
How pleasant near the tranquil lake to stray
Where winds the road along a secret bay,
In all the majesty of ease divides,
And glorying looks around the silent tides;
Along the "wild meandering shore" to view,
Obsequious grace the winding swan pursue;
He swells his lifted chest and backward flings
His bridling neck between his towering wings;
By rills that tumble down the woody steeps,
And run in transports to the dimpling deeps;
On as he floats, the silver'd waters glow,
Proud of the varying arch and moveless form of snow,
While tender cares and mild domestic loves
With furtive watch pursue her as she moves,
The female with a meeker charm succeeds,
And her brown little ones around her leads,
Nibbling the water-lilies as they pass,
Or playing wanton with the floating grass.
She, in a mother's care, her beauty's pride
Forgets, unwearied watching every side;
She calls them near, and with affection sweet,
Alternately relieves their weary feet.
Alternately they mount her back, and rest,
Close by her mantling wings' embraces press'd.
Long may they roam these hermit waves, that sleep
In birch-besprinkled cliffs embosom'd deep,
These fairy holms untrodden, still, and green,
Whose shades protect the hidden wave serene,
Whence fragrance scents the water's desert gale,
The violet and lily of the vale!
Where, though her far-off twilight ditty steal,
They not the trip of harmless milkmaid feel;
Yon tuft conceals their home, their cottage bower;
Fresh water-rushes strew the verdant floor;
Long grass and willows form the woven wall,
And swings above the roof the poplar tall.
Thence issuing oft unwieldy as they stalk,
They crush with broad black feet their flowery walk;
Safe from your door ye hear at breezy morn
The hound, the horse's tread, and mellow horn;
No ruder sound your desert haunts invades
Than waters dashing wild, or rocking shades;
Ye ne'er, like hapless human wanderers, throw
Your young on winter's winding-sheet of snow.
Fair Swan! by all a mother's joys caress'd,
Haply some wretch has eyed, and call'd thee bless'd;
I see her now, denied to lay her head,
On cold blue nights, in hut or straw-built shed,
Turn to a silent smile their sleepy cry,
By pointing to a shooting star on high.
-When low-hung clouds each star of summer hide,
And fireless are the valleys far and wide,
Where the brook brawls along the public road,
Dark with bat-haunted ashes stretching broad,
Oft has she taught them on her lap to play
Delighted with the glowworm's harmless ray,
Toss light from hand to hand, while on the ground
Small circles of green radiance gleam around.
Oh! when the bitter showers her path assail,
And roars between the hills the torrent gale;
No more her breath can thaw their fingers cold,
Their frozen arms her neck no more can fold;
Weak roof a cowering form two babes to shield,
And faint the fire a dying heart can yield!
Press the sad kiss, fond mother! vainly fears
Thy flooded cheek to wet them with its tears;
No tears can chill them, and no bosom warms,
Thy breast their death-bed, coffin'd in thine arms
Sweet are the sounds that mingle from afar,
Heard by calm lakes, as peeps the folding star,
Where the duck dabbles 'mid the rustling sedge,
And feeding pike starts from the water's edge,
Or the swan stirs the reeds, his neck and bill
Wetting, that drip upon the water still;
And heron, as resounds the trodden shore,
Shoots upward, darting his long neck before.
Now, with religious awe, the farewell light
Blends with the solemn colouring of the night;
'Mid groves of clouds that crest the mountain's brow,
And round the west's proud lodge their shadows throw,
Like Una shining on her gloomy way,
The half-seen form of Twilight roams astray;
Shedding, through paly loopholes mild and small,
Gleams that upon the lake's still bosom fall;
Beyond the mountain's giant reach that hides
In deep determined gloom his subject tides;
Soft o'er the surface creep those lustres pale,
Tracking the fitful motions of the gale.
With restless interchange at once the bright
Wins on the shade, the shade upon the light.
No favour'd eye was e'er allow'd to gaze
On lovelier spectacle in fairy days;
When gentle spirits urged a sportive chase,
Brushing with lucid wands the water's face;
While music, stealing round the glimmering deeps,
Charm'd the tall circle of th' enchanted steeps.
-The lights are vanish'd from the watery plains:
No wreck of all the pageantry remains.
Unheeded night has overcome the vales:
On the dark earth the baffled vision fails;
The latest lingerer of the forest train,
The lone black fir, forsakes the faded plain;
Last evening sight, the cottage smoke no more,
Lost in the thicken'd darkness, glimmers hoar;
And, towering from the sullen dark-brown mere,
Like a black wall, the mountain-steeps appear.
-Now o'er the soothed accordant heart we feel
A sympathetic twilight slowly steal,
And ever, as we fondly muse, we find
The soft gloom deepening on the tranquil mind.
Stay! pensive, sadly-pleasing visions, stay!
Ah no as fades the vale, they fade away:
Yet still the tender, vacant gloom remains;
Still the cold cheek its shuddering tear retains.
The bird, who ceased, with fading light to thread
Silent the hedge or steaming rivulet's bed,
From his grey re-appearing tower shall soon
Salute with boding note the rising moon,
Frosting with hoary light the pearly ground,
And pouring deeper blue to æther's bound;
And pleased, her solemn pomp of clouds to fold
In robes of azure, fleecy-white, and gold.
See o'er the eastern hill, where darkness broods
O'er all its vanish'd dells, and lawns, and woods;
Where but a mass of shade the sight can trace,
She lifts in silence up her lovely face;
Above the gloomy valley flings her light,
Far to the western slopes with hamlets white;
And gives, where woods the chequer'd upland strew,
To the green corn of summer, autumn's hue.
Thus Hope, first pouring from her blessed horn
Her dawn, far lovelier than the moon's own morn,
Till higher mounted, strives in vain to cheer
The weary hills, impervious, blackening near;
Yet does she still, undaunted, throw the while
On darling spots remote her tempting smile.
Even now she decks for me a distant scene,
For dark and broad the gulf of time between),
Gilding that cottage with her fondest ray
(Sole bourn, sole wish, sole object of my way;
How fair its lawns and sheltering woods appear!
How sweet its streamlet murmurs in mine ear!)
Where we, my friend, to happy days shall rise,
Till our small share of hardly-paining sighs
(For sighs will ever trouble human breath)
Creep hush'd into the tranquil breast of death.
But now the clear bright moon her zenith gains,
And, rimy without speck, extend the plains:
The deepest cleft the mountain's front displays
Scarce hides a shadow from her searching rays;
From the dark blue faint silvery threads divide
The hills, while gleams below the azure tide;
The scene is waken'd, yet its peace unbroke
By silver'd wreaths of quiet charcoal smoke,
That o'er the ruins of the fallen wood,
Steal down the hill, and spread along the flood.
The song of mountain streams, unheard by day, Now hardly heard, beguiles my homeward way. All air is like the sleeping water, still,
List'ning the aërial music of the hill,
Broke only by the slow clock tolling deep,
Or shout that wakes the ferryman from sleep,
The echoed hoof approaching the far shore,
Soon follow'd by his hollow parting oar;
Sound of closed gate, across the water borne,
Hurrying the feeding hare through rustling corn;
The tremulous sob of the complaining owl;
And at long intervals the mill-dog's howl;
The distant forge's swinging thump profound;
Or yell, in the deep woods, of lonely hound.
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