In the brown park, in herds, the troubled deer
Shook the still-twinkling tail and glancing ear;
When horses in the sunburnt intake* stood,
And vainly eyed below the tempting flood,
Or tracked the Passenger, in mute distress,
With forward neck the closing gate to press -
Then, while I wandered up the huddling rill
Brightening with water-breaks the sombrous ghyll,+
As by enchantment, an obscure retreat
Opened at once, and stayed my devious feet.
While thick above the rill the branches close,
In rocky basin its wild waves repose,
Inverted shrubs, and moss of gloomy green,
Cling from the rocks, with pale wood-weeds between;
Save that aloft the subtle sunbeam shine

On withered briars that o'er the crags recline,
Sole light admitted here, a small cascade,
Illumes with sparkling foam the impervious shade;
Beyond, along the vista of the brook,
Where antique roots its bustling course o'erlook,
The eye reposes on a secret bridget

Half gray, half shagged with ivy to its ridge;
Whence hangs, in the cool shade, the listless swain
Lingering behind his disappearing wain.
-Did Sabine grace adorn my living line,
Bandusia's praise, wild Stream, should yield to thine!
Never shall ruthless minister of Death

'Mid thy soft glooms the glittering steel unsheath;
No goblets shall, for thee, be crowned with flowers,
No kid with piteous outcry thrill thy bowers;
The mystic shapes that by thy margin rove

A more benignant sacrifice approve;
A Mind, that, in a calm angelic mood

Of happy wisdom, meditating good,

Beholds, of all from her high powers required, Much done, and much designed, and more desired, Harmonious thoughts, a soul by truth refined, Entire affection for all human kind.

- Sweet rill, farewell! To-morrow's noon again Shall hide me, wooing long thy wildwood strain; But now the sun has gained his western road, And eve's mild hour invites my steps abroad.

While, near the midway cliff, the silvered kite In many a whistling circle wheels her flight; Slant watery lights, from parting clouds, apace Travel along the precipice's base; Cheering its naked waste of scattered stone, By lichens gray, and scanty moss, o'ergrown; Where scarce the fox-glove peeps, or thistle's beard: And desert stone-chat, all day long, is heard.

*The word intake is local, and signifies a mountain inclosure. + Ghyll is also, I believe, a term confined to this country: Glen, ghyll, and dingle, have the same meaning.

The reader who has made the tour of this country will recognise, in this description, the features which characterise the lower waterfall in the grounds of Rydale.

How pleasant, as the sun declines, to view The spacious landscape changed in form and hue! Here, vanish, as in mist, before a flood Of bright obscurity, hill, lawn, and wood; There, objects, by the searching beams betrayed, Come forth, and here retire in purple shade; Even the white stems of birch, the cottage white, Soften their glare before the mellow light; The skiffs, at anchor where with umbrage wide Yon chestnuts half the latticed boat-house hide, Shed from their sides, that face the sun's slant beam, Strong flakes of radiance on the tremulous stream: Raised by yon travelling flock, a dusty cloud Mounts from the road, and spreads its moving shroud The shepherd, all involved in wreaths of fire, Now shows a shadowy speck, and now is lost entire.

Into a gradual calm the zephyrs sink,

A blue rim borders all the lake's still brink:
And now, on every side, the surface breaks
Into blue spots, and slowly lengthening streaks;
Here, plots of sparkling water tremble bright
With thousand thousand twinkling points of light;
There, waves that, hardly weltering, die away,
Tip their smooth ridges with a softer ray,
And now the universal tides repose,
And, brightly blue, the burnished mirror glows,
Save where, along the shady western marge,
Coasts, with industrious oar, the charcoal barge;
The sails are dropped, the poplar's foliage sleeps,
And insects clothe, like dust, the glassy deeps.

Their panniered 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 slackened team confounds,
Downward the ponderous timber-wain resounds]];
In foamy breaks the rill, with merry song,
Dashed o'er 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 hammered 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 verdant door of mountain farms.

Sweetly ferociousT, round his native walks,
Pride of his sister-wives, the monarch stalks;

"Vivid rings of green."-GREENWOOD's Poem on Shooting. "Down the rough slope the ponderous wagon rings."—

BEATTIE.

"Dolcemente feroce."-TAsso. In this description of the cock, I remembered a spirited one of the same animal in l'Agriculture, ou Les Georgiques Françoises, of M. Rossuet.

Spar-clad his nervous feet, and firm his tread;
A crest of purple tops his warrior head.

Bright sparks his black and haggard eye-ball hurls
Afar, his tail he closes and unfurls;

Whose state, like pine-trees, waving to and fro,
Droops, and o'er-canopies his regal brow;
On tiptoe reared, he strains his clarion throat,
Threatened by faintly-answering farms remote:
Again with his shrill voice the mountain rings,

While, flapped with conscious pride, resound his wings!

Brightening the cliffs between, where sombrous pine And yew-trees o'er the silver rocks recline;

I love to mark the quarry's moving trains,

Anon, in order mounts a gorgeous show Of horsemen shadows winding to and fro; At intervals imperial banners stream,

And now the van reflects the solar beam,

How busy the enormous hive within,

While Echo dallies with the various din!

Sore (hardly heard their chisels' clinking sound)
Tel, small as pigmies in the gulf profound;
Sie, dim between the aërial cliffs descried,
ferwalk the slender plank from side to side;
These, by the pale-blue rocks that ceaseless ring,
Gad from their airy baskets hang and sing.

Hang o'er a cloud, above the steep that rears
An edge all flame, the broadening sun appears;
A long blue bar its regis orb divides,
And breaks the spreading of its golden tides;
And now it touches on the purple steep
That fings its image on the pictured deep.

Cross the calm lake's blue shades the cliffs aspire,
With towers and woods a "prospect all on fire;"
The cores and secret hollows, through a ray
Of hinter gold, a purple gleam betray;
The gilded turf invests with richer green
Each speck of lawn the broken rocks between;
Deep yellow beams the scattered stems illume,
Par in the level forest's central gloom;
Waving his hat, the shepherd, from the vale,
Directs his winding dog the cliffs to scale,
That, barking busy, 'mid the glittering rocks,
Hants, where he points, the intercepted flocks.
Where oaks o'erhang the road the radiance shoots
On away 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 secluded vales, if village fame,
Confirmed by silver hairs, belief may claim;
When up the hills, as now, retired the light,
Strange apparitions mocked the gazer's sight.
A desperate form appears, that spurs his steed
Along the midway cliffs with violent speed;
Chart pursues his lengthened flight, while all
Attend, at every stretch, his headlong fall.

"From Thomson See Scott's Critical Essays.

Where winds the road along a secret bay;
By rills that tumble down the woody steeps,
And run in transport to the dimpling deeps;
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;
In all the majesty of ease, divides

And, glorying, looks around the silent tides;
On as he floats, the silvered 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 prest.

Long may ye float upon these floods serene;
Yours be these holms untrodden, still, and green,
Whose leafy shades fence off the blustering gale,
Where breathes in peace the lily of the vale.
Yon Isle, which feels not even the milk-maid's feet,
Yet hears her song, "by distance made more sweet,"
Yon isle conceals your home, your 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 often with unwieldy stalk,
With broad black feet ye crush your flowery walk;
Or, from the neighbouring water, hear at morn
The hound, the horses' tread, and mellow horn;
Involve your serpent necks in changeful rings,
Rolled wantonly between your slippery wings,

+ See a description of an appearance of this kind in Clarke's Survey of the Lakes, accompanied by vouchers of its veracity. that may amuse the reader.

1

Or, starting up with noise and rude delight,
Force half upon the wave your cumbrous flight.

Fair Swan! by all a mother's joys caressed,
Haply some wretch has eyed, and called thee blessed;
The while upon some sultry summer's day
She dragged her babes along this weary way;
Or taught their limbs along the burning road
A few short steps to totter with their load.

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;

I hear, while in the forest depth, he sees
The Moon's fixed gaze between the opening trees,
In broken sounds her elder grief demand,
And skyward lift, like one that prays, his hand,
If, in that country, where he dwells afar,
His father views that good, that kindly star;
-Ah me! all light is mute amid the gloom,
The interlunar cavern, of the tomb.
-When low-hung clouds each star of summer hide,
And fireless are the valleys far and wide,
Where the brook brawls along the painful road,
Dark with bat-haunted ashes stretching broad,
Oft has she taught them on her lap to play
Delighted, with the glow-worm's harmless ray
Tossed light from hand to hand; while on the ground
Small circles of green radiance gleam around.

Oh! when the sleety 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, coffined 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,

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 favoured eye was e'er allowed to gaze
On lovelier spectacle in faery days;
When gentle Spirits urged a sportive chase,
Brushing with lucid wands the water's face;
While music, stealing round the glimmering deeps,
Charmed the tall circle of the enchanted steeps.
-The lights are vanished 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 thickened 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 gray re-appearing tower shall soon
Salute with boding note the rising moon,
Frosting with hoary light the pearly ground,
And pouring deeper blue to Ether'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 vanished 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 chequered 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;

Iker fair its lawns and sheltering woods appear! sweet its streamlet murmurs in mine ear! Where we, my Friend, to happy days shall rise, Till our small share of hardly-paining sighs F: sighs will ever trouble human breath) Cep bushed into the tranquil breast of Death.

But now the clear bright Moon her zenith gains, And my without speck extend the plains; The deepest dell the mountain's front displays Searce 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 wakened, yet its peace unbroke, By silvery wreaths of quiet charcoal smoke, That, o'er the ruins of the fallen wood, Steal down the hills, and spread along the flood.

The song of mountain streams, unheard by day, Now hardly heard, beguiles my homeward way. Air listens, as the sleeping water still, To catch the spiritual music of the hill,

Enke only by the slow clock tolling deep,

Or shout that wakes the ferry-man from sleep, Soca followed by his hollow-parting oar, Aat echoed hoof approaching the far shore; Scend of closed gate, across the water borne, Horrying 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; yell, in the deep woods, of lonely hound.

I am happy in being conscious I shall have one reader who will approach the conclusion of these few pages with regret. You they must certainly interest, in reminding you of moments to which you can hardly look back without a pleasure not the less dear from a shade of melancholy. You will meet with few images without recollecting the spot where we observed them together; consequently, whatever is feeble in my design, or spiritless in my colouring, will be amply supplied by your own memory.

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCHES, TAKEN DURING A PEDESTRIAN TOUR AMONG THE ALPS.

TO THE REV. ROBERT JONES,

FELLOW OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

With still greater propriety I might have inscribed to you a description of some of the features of your native mountains, through which we have wandered together, in the same manner, with so much pleasure. But the sea-sunsets, which give such splendour to the vale of Clwyd, Snowdon, the chair of Idris, the quiet village of Bethgelert, Menai and her Druids, the Alpine steeps of the Conway, and the still more interesting windings of the wizard stream of the Dee, remain yet untouched. Apprehensive that my pencil may never be exercised on these subjects, I cannot let slip this opportunity of thus publicly assuring you with how much affection and esteem

London, 1793.

treuse

I am, dear Sir,
Most sincerely yours,

W. WORDSWORTH.

Happiness (if she had been to be found on Earth) amongst the Charms of Nature · Pleasures of the pedestrian Traveller · - Author crosses France to the Alps-Present State of the Grande Char-Lake of Como-Time, Sunset — Same Scene, Twilight-Same Scene, Morning, its voluptuous Character; Old Man and Forest Cottage Music- River Tusa-Via Mala and Grison Gipsy-Sckellenen-thal - Lake of Uri - Stormy Sunset - Chapel of William Tell-Force of Local Emotion - Chamois-chaser View of the higher Alps- Manner of Life of a Swiss Mountaineer, interspersed with Views of the higher Alps- Golden Age of the Alps-Life and Views continued· - Ranz des Vaches, famous Swiss Air-Abbey of Einsiedlen and its Pilgrims Mont Blanc · Valley of Chamouny Slavery of Savoy-Influence of Liberty on Cottage Happiness-France-Wish for the Extirpation of Slavery - Conclusion.

we have suggested.

WERE there, below, a spot of holy ground

ween two

latter!

The leafy wood, or sleeps in quiet lakes.

Yet not unrecompensed the man shall roam,

Who at the call of summer quits his home,

That thundering tube the aged angler hears, And swells the groaning torrent with his tears;

At least, not owning to himself an aim

To which the Sage would give a prouder name.
No gains too cheaply earned his fancy cloy,
Though every passing zephyr whispers joy;
Brisk toil, alternating with ready ease,
Feeds the clear current of his sympathies.
For him sod seats the cottage door adorn;
And peeps the far-off spire, his evening bourn!
Dear is the forest frowning o'er his head,
And dear the velvet green-sward to his tread:
Moves there a cloud o'er mid-day's flaming eye?
Upward he looks-"and calls it luxury;"
Kind Nature's charities his steps attend;
In every babbling brook he finds a friend;

And slow the insulted eagle wheels away.
The cross, by angels on the aërial rock
Planted, a flight of laughing demons mock.
The "parting Genius" sighs with hollow breath
Along the mystic streams of Life and Death.
Swelling the outcry dull, that long resounds
Portentous through her old woods' trackless bounds,
Vallombre, 'mid her falling fanes, deplores,
For ever broke, the sabbath of her bowers.

By Wisdom, moralize his pensive road.

Host of his welcome inn, the noon-tide bower, To his spare meal he calls the passing poor; He views the Sun uplift his golden fire, Or sink, with heart alive like Memnon's lyre ;* Blesses the Moon that comes with kindly ray, To light him shaken by his rugged way; With bashful fear no cottage children steal From him, a brother at the cottage meal; His humble looks no shy restraint impart, -Around him plays at will the virgin heart. While unsuspended wheels the village dance, The maidens eye him with enquiring glance, Much wondering what sad stroke of crazing Care Or desperate Love could lead a Wanderer there.

Me, lured by hope its sorrows to remove, A heart that could not much itself approve O'er Gallia's wastes of corn dejected led, Her road elms rustling high above my head, Or through her truant pathways' native charms, By secret villages and lonely farms, To where the Alps ascending white in air, Toy with the sun, and glitter from afar.

Even now, emerging from the forest's gloom, I heave a sigh at hoary Chartreuse' doom. Where now is fled that Power whose frown severe Tamed "sober Reason" till she crouched in fear? The cloister startles at the gleam of arms, And Blasphemy the shuddering fane alarms; Nod the cloud-piercing pines their troubled heads; Spires, rocks, and lawns, a browner night o'erspreads; Strong terror checks the female peasant's sighs, And start the astonished shades at female eyes.

The lyre of Memnon is reported to have emitted melancholy or cheerful tones, as it was touched by the sun's evening or morning rays.

To flat-roofed towns, that touch the water's bound,
Or lurk in woody sunless glens profound,
Or, from the bending rocks, obtrusive cling,
And o'er the whitened wave their shadows fling,
The pathway leads, as round the steeps it twines,
And Silence loves its purple roof of vines;
The viewless lingerer hence, at evening, sees
From rock-hewn steps the sail between the trees;
Or marks, 'mid opening cliffs, fair dark-eyed maids
Tend the small harvest of their garden glades,
Or stops the solemn mountain-shades to view
Stretch, o'er the pictured mirror, broad and blue,
Tracking the yellow sun from steep to steep,
As up the opposing hills with tortoise foot they creep.
Here, half a village shines, in gold arrayed,
Bright as the moon; half hides itself in shade:
While, from amid the darkened roofs, the spire,
Restlessly flashing, seems to mount like fire:
There, all unshaded, blazing forests throw
Rich golden verdure on the waves below.
Slow glides the sail along the illumined shore,
And steals into the shade the lazy oar;
Soft bosoms breathe around contagious sighs,
And amorous music on the water dies.

How blessed, delicious scene! the eye that greets Thy open beauties, or thy lone retreats; The unwearied sweep of wood thy cliff that scales: The never-ending waters of thy vales; The cots, those dim religious groves embower, Or, under rocks that from the water tower, Insinuated, sprinkling all the shore; Each with his household boat beside the door,

+ Alluding to crosses seen on the tops of the spiry rocks of Chartreuse, which have every appearance of being inacces

sible.

Names of Rivers at the Chartreuse.

Name of one of the valleys of the Chartreuse