ELEGIAC STANZAS, SUGGESTED BY
A PICTURE OF PEELE CASTLE, IN A STORM,
PAINTED BY SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT
T WAS thy neighbour once, thou rugged Pile!
Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee:
I saw thee every day; and all the while
Thy form was sleeping on a glassy sea.
So pure the sky, so quiet was the air! 5
So like, so very like, was day to day!
Whene'er I looked, thy Image still was there;
It trembled, but it never passed away*
How perfect was the calm ! it seemed no sleep;
No mood, which season takes away, or brings: J0
I could have fancied that the mighty Deep
Was even the gentlest of all gentle Things.
Ah ! THEN, if mine had been the Painter's hand,
To express what then I saw; and add the gleam,
The light that never was, on sea or land, 15
The consecration, and the Poet's dream;
I would have planted thee, thou hoary Pile
Amid a world how different from this!
Beside a sea that could not cease to smile:
On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss. 20
Thou "shouldst have seemed a treasure-house divine
Of peaceful years; a chronicle of heaven :—
Of all the sunbeams that did ever shine
The very sweetest had to thee been given.
77'