ページの画像
PDF
ePub

XXI.

CAPTIVITY. MARY QUEEN OF SCOTH.

[ocr errors]

“As the cold aspect of a sunless way

Strikes through the Traveller's frame with deadlier chill, Oft as appears a grove, or obvious hill,

Glistening with unparticipated ray,

Or shining slope where he must never stray ;
So joys, remembered without wish or will,
Sharpen the keenest edge of present ill,-
On the crushed heart a heavier burthen lay.
Just Heaven, contract the compass of my
To fit proportion with my altered state!
Quench those felicities whose light I find
Reflected in my bosom all too late!-

O be my spirit, like my thraldom, strait ;

mind

And, like mine eyes that stream with sorrow, blind!"

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

WHEs human touch (as monkish books attest)
Nor was applied nor could be, Ledbury bells
Broke forth in concert flung adown the dells,
And upward, high as Malvern's cloudy crest ;
Sweet tones, and caught by a noble Lady blest
To rapture! Mabel listened at the side

t

Of her loved Mistress; soon the music died,
And Catherine said, Here X set up my rest.
Warned in a dream, the Wanderer long had sought
A home that by such miracle of sound

Must be revealed :—she heard it now, or felt
The deep, deep joy of a confiding thought;
And there, a saintly Anchoress, she dwelt
Till she exchanged for heaven that happy ground.

• gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name."

THOUGн narrow be that old Man's cares, and near,
The poor old Man is greater than he seems :
For he hath waking empire, wide as dreams ;
An ample sovereignty of eye and ear.
Rich are his walks with supernatural cheer;
The region of his inner spirit teems
With vital sounds and monitory gleams
Of high astonishment and pleasing fear.

He the seven birds hath seen, that never part,
Seen the SEVEN WHISTLERS in their nightly rounds,
And counted them: and oftentimes will start-
For overhead are sweeping GABRIEL's Hounds,
Doomed, with their impious Lord, the flying Hart
To chase for ever, on aërial grounds!

XXIV.

FOUR fiery steeds impatient of the rein
Whirled us o'er sunless ground beneath a sky
As void of sunshine, when, from that wide plain,
Clear tops of far-off mountains we desery,
Like a Sierra of cerulean Spain,

All light and lustre. Did no heart reply?
Yes, there was one;-for one, asunder fly
The thousand links of that ethereal chain;
And green vales open out, with grove and field,
And the fair front of many a happy Home;
Such tempting spots as into vision come
While Soldiers, weary of the arms they wield
And sick at heart of strifeful Christendom,
Gaze on the moon by parting clouds revealed.

1

XXV.

BROOK! whose society the Poct seeks,
Intent his wasted spirits to renew;

And whom the curious Painter doth pursue
Through rocky passes, among flowery creeks,
And tracks thee dancing down thy water-breaks ; ·
If wish were mine some type of thee to view,
Thee, and not thee thyself, I would not do

Like Grecian Artists, give thee human cheeks,
Channels for tears; no Naiad should'st thou be,—
Hlave neither limbs, feet, feathers, joints nor hairs:
It seems the Eternal Soul is clothed in thee
With purer robes than those of flesh and blood,
And hath bestowed on thee a better good;
Unwearied joy, and life without its cares,

[ocr errors]
« 前へ次へ »