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H. W. LOHGFELLOVrS WORKS. 



POEMS. Illustrated Holiday Edition. 300 Illustrations and Portrait 

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cH — fe 

Poems of Places 



EDITED BY 



HENRY W. LONGFELLOW 



It is the Soul that sees; the outward eyes 
Present the object, but the Mind descries. 

CRABBB. 



ENGLAND. 

VOL. III. 

? 



BOSTON: 

JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, 

Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, 8e Ca 
1876. 

C "T igitizedbvLjOOgli T" "^ 



COPYMGHT, 1876. 

By henry W. LONGFELLOW. 



University Prbss: Welch, Bigelow, & Ca, 
Cambridge. 



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CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

OAKLEY. 

On Tui Agbd Oak at Oaklet, Somerset . H. Alfiyrd ... 1 
OLNEY. 

YisiTiNO Cowpsr's Garden AMD SuMMEK-HousB J. Taylor ... 8 
OTTER, THE RIVER. 

Sonnet TO THE River Otter S.T.Coleridge. . 6 

OTTERBURN. 

The Battle of Otterbourne Old BcMad ... 6 

OUSB, THE RIVER. 

The Boa and the Water-Lilt . . . . W. Cwoper . . 9 

OXFORB. 

Oxford T. WarUm ... 11 

Oxford Anonymoiis ... 12 

Oxford, Mat 30, 1820 W. Wordsvmth . 12 

On REvisrrraG Oxford W. L. Bowles . . 13 

For a Monument at Oxford R. SoutJ^ ... 14 

Memories of Merton J. B. Norton . . 14 

The Chestnut of Brazenose H. G. Bell ... 23 

Smith of Maudlin . . . ; W. Thombury . 24 

PENRITH. AC 

Hart*s-Horn Tree, near Penrith . . . W. Wordsworth . 26 

The Countess' Pillar " .26 

Roman Antiquities ** .27 

PENSHURST. 

To Pknshurst B. Jonson ... 28 

At Penshurst E. Waller ... 81 

For a Tablet at Penshurst B. Southey ... 83 

Sonnet ,^ . . . . C. Smith ... 84 

Penshurst 'O 1 . . . . F. Coventry ... 34 

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IV CONTENTS. 

PENTRIDGB. 

Pentrisgk bt the Biyxb W. Barnes ... 86 

PEVENSEY. 

Pbvensey W. L. Bowles . . 88 

PLAYFORD. 

Playford B. Barton ... 39 

PLUMPTON. 

Pldmpton E. EUioU ... 42 

PLYMOUTH. 

Plymouth M. Drayton . . 43 

The Spanish Abmada Lord Macaulay . 44 

POMFRET. 

Richard m the Dungeon of Pomfrbt Castle W. Shakespeare . 49 

PORLOCK. 

PoRLOCK R Sovihey . . .52 

Sacred to the Memory of E. S H. Al/ord ... 52 

PRESTON. 

Filial Piety W. WordswoHh . 63 

Preston Mills E. EUiott ... 54 

RAMSGATE. 

To THE Rev. Mr. Newton W. Cowper ... 66 

RAVENSWORTH. 

Allen-a-Dale SirW. Scott . . 56 

READINQ. 

The Forbury, at Reading T. N. Talfourd . 58 

The Reading Election " .58 

View of the Valley of Reading ... " .59 

REPTON. 

Repton B. Bigsby ... 60 

RESTORMEL .CASTLE 

Ruins of Restormel H. S. Stokes . . 62 

RICHMOND, SURREY. 

Richmond J. Thomson*. . . 65 

Ode on the Qrate of Thomson . . . . W. CcUins ... 67 

Richmond /. Kenyan ... 69 

Remembrance of Collins W. Wordsworth . 70 

RICHMOND, YORKSHIRE. 

Stanzas written in the Churchyard . . H. Knowles ... 71 



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CONTENTS. V 
RIBBLEDTN, THE RITER. 

RiBBLEDIN ; OR, Thb CHRISTENING . . . . E. EUiott ... 73 

RIVILIN, THE RIVER. 

The Tree of Rivilin " ... 77 

RIVERS OF ENGLAND. 

Rivers of England M. Drayton . . 78 

RrvsRS OF England J. MiMon ... 78 

Rivers of England A. Pope .... 79 

Rivers of England /. Dyer .... 79 

Rivers of England E. Elliott ... 80 

ROCH ABBEY. 

RocH Abbbt " ... 81 

ROKEBY. 

ROKEBT AND THE VaLLST OP THE GrETA . . Sir W. Scott . . 83 

RoKEBT AT Sunset " . . 87 

ROSS. 

The BIan of Ross A. Pope .... 88 

Lines written at the King's Arms . . . S. T. Coleridge . 90 

ROTHA, THE RIVER. 

The Rotha R Southey ... 91 

Banks of the Rotha W. Wordsworth . 91 

ROTHER AND DON, THE RIVERS. 

Don and Rothee E. EUiott ... 92 

RUGBY. 

RoGBY Chapel, November, 1857 . . . . M. Arnold ... 94 

RUNNIMEDE. 

The Barons at Runnimede Sir A. de Vere . 96 

RYDAL. 

Lines written upon a Stone W. Wordsworth . 97 

Rydal «« .99 

Composed at Rydal, September, 1860 . . A. de Vere ... 99 

Rydal Mount, June, 1838 H. Alford . . 100 

Rydal Mount M. J. Jewsbury . 100 

Inscription intended for a Stone . . . W. Word^ivorth . 101 

RYLSTONE HALL. 

Rylstone • " .102 

Norton Tower «' .103 

ST. BEES. 

Stanzas suggested in a Steamboat ... " .103 



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VI CONTENTS. 

ST. HELEN'S-AUCKLAND, 

St. Helen's-Auckland H. Taylor . . . 109 

ST. JOHN'S VALLEY. 

The Valley of St. John Sir W. Scfftt . . Ill 

ST. KEYNE. 

The Well op St. Eeyne R. SotUhey. . . 113 

ST. LEONARD'S. 

Lines on the View prom St. Leonard's . T. CampMl . . 115 

ST. MADRON'S. 

The Doom- Well of St. Madron . . . . R S. Hawker. . 120 

ST. MICHAEL'S MOUNT. 

St. Michael's Mount W. L. Bowles . . 122 

St. Michael's Chair R. Southey. . . 124 

ST. MINVER. 

The Padstow Lifeboat H. S. Stokes . . 126 

SALISBURY. 

The Cavalier's Escape W. Thmnhury . 129 

Salisbury Cathedral W. L. Bowles . . 131 

The Blind Man of Salisbury Cathedral ** . . 131 

Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke . BenJonson . . 132 

SALISBURY PLAIN. 

Sarum W. Word^orth . 133 

SAVERNAKB FOREST. 

Avenue in Savernake Forest W. L. Bowles . . 134 

8EATHWAITE. 

Seathwaitb Chapel W. Wordsworth . 135 

SELBORNE. 

Invitation to Selbornb G. White . . . 136 

SEVERN, THE RIVER. 

Sabrina J. Milton ... 138 

The Severn A. Tennyson . . 141 

SHEFFIELD. 

Lines on seeing a New Church . . . . E. Elliott . . .142 

SHERWOOD FOREST. 

Robin Hood M. Drayton . . 143 

Robin Hood B. R Parkes . . 145 

SHOOTER'S HTLK 

Shooter's Hill R Broomfield . . 147 



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CONTENTS. Vli 

SHREWSBURY. 

Shrewsbury W. Shakespeare . 149 

SIIURTON BARS. 

Written at Shurton Bars S. T. Coleridge . 151 

SIDMOUTH. 

To A Ladt, on lea vino her at Siomouth. George Crahbe . 153 

SILBURY HILL. 

For a Tablet at SiLburt Hill . . . . K Southey ... 154 

SILCHESTER. , 

The Ancient Caleva W. L. Bowles . . 155 

SiLCHESTER . /. Ketiyon . . . 157 

SKIDDAW. 

Skiddaw W. Wordsivorth . 159 

Summit of Skiddaw, July 7, 1838 . . . H, Al/ord ... 160 

Descent op the Same " ... 161 

Sonnet written on Skiddaw /. Wilson . . .161 

SLAUGHDEN. 

The Quay of Slaughdkn G. Crdbbe ... 162 

SOMERSET. 

Epitaph R. Southey ... 163 

SOUTHAMPTON. 

The Lord of the Sea Leitner . . . .164 

Southampton Castle W. L. Bowles . . 166 

Southampton Water " . . 167 

SOUTH DOWNS. 

Sonnet to the South Downs C. Smith ... 168 

SPITHEAD. 

On the Loss of the •' Royal Qeorgb " . W. Cowper . . 168 
Lines written at Spithead G. Croly . . . 170 

STANA6E. 

Cloudless Stanaos E. Elliott . . .171 

STOKE P06IS. 

Elegy written in a Country Churchyard T. Gray . . .172 
A Long Story ** ... 177 

STONEHENGE 

Description op Stonehenob S. Daniel ... 183 

Stonehenge Oa/ord Prize Poem, 1823 . 185 

STOURHEAD 

On the Busts of Milton, in Youth and Age W. L. Bowles . . 187 



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VIU CONTENTS. 

STOWB. 

On Lord Gobham's Gardens N. Cotton . . . 188 

STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 

The Church at Stratford 189 

Shakespeare's Epitaph W. Shakespeare . 190 

The Bust of Shakespeare Album at Stratford 190 

Shakespeare T. Gray . . .191 

Monody WRITTEN NEAR Stratford-upon-Avon T. Warton. . . 191 

Shakespeare D. Garrick . . 192 

On Shakespeare. 1630 J. Milton ... 193 

Shakespeare's Monument AnonyTnous . . 194 

Stratford-on-Avon R. I^ighton . . 194 

Stratford-on-Avon at Night . . . '. . H. G. Bell . . .195 
Stratford-upon-Avon, January, 1887 . . H. Al/ord . . . 197 
At Stratford-upon-Avon . . . . T. B. Aldrich . 197 
Anne Hathaway W. Shakespeare . 198 

stratton tower. 

The Scroll K S. Hawker . . 200 

STUDLAND. 

A Dorsetshire Legend W. Thorribury . 201 

SUFFOLK. 

The Suffolk Miracle Anonymous . . 203 

SURREY. 

The Green Hills of Surrey W. C. Bennett . 208 

SUSSEX. 

Why are ^hey Shut? H. Smith . . .210 

SUTTON-ACRES. 

Kino Ethllbert J. Philips . . . 213 

SWAINSTON. 

In the Garden at Swainston . .... A. Tennyson . . 213 

SWANAGE BAY. 

In Swanage Bay . . . D. M. M. Craik . 214 

SWINSTEAD ABBEY. 

SwmsTEAD Abbey IK. Shakespeare . 219 

TAMAR, THE RIVER 

The Tam ar Spring R. S. Hawker . . ^2 

TAMWORTH. 

Plain near Tamworth W. Shakespeare . 223 



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CONTENTS. IX 

TAUNTON. 

For a MomjMBNT at Taunton R Southey ... 224 

Taunton Dene G. Griffin . . . ^21^ 

TAVY, THE RIVER. 

Thb Tavy W. Brovme . . 226 

THAMES, THE RIVER. 

Tmk Thames M. Drayton . . 227 

PROTHALAMION E. Spcusev . . . 228 

The Frozen Riter J. Gay .... 231 

His Tearbs to Thamasis R Herrick. . . 232 

The Thames J. Thomson . . 233 

The Thames A. Pope. ... 233 

The Thames from Cooper^s Hill . . . Sir J. Denham . 234 

Where Thames alonq the Daisied Meads D. MaXlet ... 235 

Thames I. C. Knox ... 236 

Up the River B. R Parkes . . 287 

On a Grottq near the Thames . . . . A. Pope. . . . 240 

To Ladt Fane on her Qrotto at Basildon R Graves . . . 240 

The Grotto M. Green . . . 241 

Thames A. H. Butler . . £42 

The Glories of our Thames . . . . . W. C. Bennett . 243 

The Th.\me8 E. Cook .... 247 

The Bridge of Sighs T. Hood ... 249 

The Thames B. CarnvHtU . . 253 

THORSGILL. 

Thorsgill SirW. Scott . . 254 

THURSTON MERE. • 

Thurston Mere W. Wordsworth . 256 

TIDNA COMBR 

> The Token Stream of Tidna Combe . . R S. Hawker . . 257 
TILBURY. 

Elizabeth at Tilburt F. T. Palgrave • 259 

TINTERN ABBEY. 

TiNTERN Abbey Lord HougTUon . 261 

TOWNSTAL 

TowNSTAL Church , S. Hodges ... 262 

TOTVTON AND SAXTON. 

TowTON AND Saxton W. Shakespeare . 264 

TREBARRA. 

The Death-Race R S. Hawker . • 266 



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X CONTENTS. 

TRENT, THE RIVER 

The Trent M. Drayton- . . 268 

The Trent ** . . 269 

The Trent H. K. WhiU . . 273 

TROSTON. 

Troston Hall C. Lofft .... 274 

TUNBRIDGE. 

Pb(bbk, the NniPH of th« Well . . . F. Locker ... 276 
TWICKENHAM. 

The Cave op Pope Anonymous . . 277 

TYNE AND WAINSBECK. 

Tyne and Wainsbcek M. Akenside . . 278 

TYNEMOUTtt 

Wbttten at Ttnemouth, Noethumbbsland W. L. Bowles . . 279 
The Northern Star Anonymous . . 279 



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ENGLAND. 

Oakley. 

ON THE AGED OAK AT OAKLEY, SOMERSET. 

I WAS a young fair tree : 
Each spring with quivering green 
My boughs were clad; and far 
Down the deep vale a light 
Shone from me on the eyes 
Of those who past, — a light 
That told of sunny days. 
And blossoms, and blue sky; 
For I was ever first 
Of all the grove to hear 
Tlie soft voice under ground 
Of the warm- working spring; 
And ere my brethren stirred 
Their sheathed buds, the kine, 
And the kine's keeper, came 
Slow up the valley-path. 
And laid them underneath 



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POEMS OF PLACES. 

My cool and rustling leaves; 
And I could feel them there 
As in the quiet shade 
They stood, with tender thoughts 
That past along their life 
Like wings on a still lake, 
Blessing me; and to God, 
The blessed God, who cares 
For all my little leaves. 
Went up the silent praise; 
And I was glad, with joy 
Which life of laboring things 
111 knows, -^ the joy that sinks 
Into a life of rest. 

Ages have fled since then: 
But deem not my pierced trunk 
And scanty leafage serves 
No high behest ; my name 
Is sounded far and wide; 
And in the Providence 
That guides the steps of men. 
Hundreds have come to view 
My grandeur in decay; 
And there hath passed from me 
A quiet influence 
Into the minds of men: 
The silver head of age. 
The majesty of laws. 
The very name of God, 
Aud holiest things that are, 
Uave won upon tiie heart. 



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OLNEY. 6 

Of humankind the more. 

For that I stand to meet 

Witli vast and bleaching trunk 

The rudeness of the sky. 

Henry Alford. 



Olney. 



ON VISITING COWPER'S GARDEN AND SUMMER-HOUSE AT 
OLNEY. 

ARE these the trees? is this the place? 
Tliese roses, did they bloom for him"? 
Trod he these walks with thoughtful pace? 
Passed he amid these borders trim? 

Is this the bower? — a humble shed 
Methinks it seems for such a guest! 
Why rise not columns, dome-bespread. 
By art's elaborate fingers drest? 

Art waits on wealth; there let her roam, — 
Her fabrics .rear, her temples gild ; 
But Genius, where he seeks a home, 
Must send for Nature's self to build. 

This quiet garden's humble bound. 
This homely roof, this rustic fane. 
With playful tendrils twining round. 
And woodbines peeping at the pane ; 

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POEMS OF PLACES. 

That tranquil, tender skj of blue, 
Where clouds of golden radiance skim, 
Those ranging trees of varied hue, — 
These were the sights that solaced him. 

We stept within : at once on each 
A feeling steals, so undefined; 
In vain we seek to give it speech, — 
'T is silent homage paid to mind. 

They tell us here he thought and wrote. 

On this low seat, reclining thus; 

Ye garden breezes, as ye float 

Why bear ye no such thoughts to us ? 

Perhaps the balmy air was fraught 
With breath of heaven; or did he toil 
In precious mines of sparkling thought 
Concealed beneath the curious soil? 

Did zephyrs bear on golden wings 
Rich treasures from the honeyed dew? 
Or are there here celestial springs 
Of living waters, whence he drew ? 

And here he suifered! — this recess 
Where even Nature failed to cheer. 
Has witnessed oft his deep distress. 
And precious drops have fallen here! 

Here are no richly sculptured urns 
Tlie consecrated dust to cover; 
But Nature smiles and weeps, by turns. 
In memory of her fondest lover. 

Jane Taylor, 

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OTTER, THE RIVER. — OTTERBURN. 5 

Otter y the Biver. 

SONNET TO THE BIVER OTTER. 

DEAR native brook ! wild streamlet of the West ! 
How many various-fated years Lave past. 
What happy and what mournful hours, since last 
I skimmed the smooth thin stone along thy breast. 
Numbering its light leaps ! yet so deep imprest 
Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes 
I never shut amid the sunny ray, 
But straight with all their tints thy waters rise. 
Thy crossing-plank, thy marge with willows gray. 
And bedded sand that, veined with various dyes. 
Gleamed through thy bright transparence ! On my way, 
Visions of childhood ! oft have ye beguiled 
Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs: 
Ah ! that once more I were a careless child ! 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 



Otterhurn. 

THE BATTLE OF OTTERBOURNE. 

IT fell about the Lammas-tide, 
When the muir-men win their hay. 
The doughty Douglas bound him to ride 
Into England, to drive a prey. 



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POEMS OF PLACES. 

He chose the Gordons and the Graemes, 
With them the Lindesays, light and gay; 

But the Jardines wald not with him ride. 
And they rue it to this day. 

And he has burned the dales of Tyne, 

And part of Bambrough shire ; 
And three good towers on Reidswire fells. 

He left them all on fire. 

And he marched up to Newcastle, 

And rode it round about; 
" O, wha 's the lord of this castle. 

Or wha's the lady o't?" 

But up spake proud Lord Percy then. 

And O but he spake hie ! 
"I am the lord of this castle, 

My wife 's the lady gay." 

" If thou 'rt the lord of this castle, 

Sae weel it pleases me! 
For, ere I cross the Border fells. 

The tane of us shall dee." 

He took a lang spear in his hand, 

Shod with the metal free. 
And for to meet the Douglas there 

He rode right furiouslie. 

But how pale his lady looked, 
Frae aff the castle wa'. 

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OTTERBUEN. 

When down before the Scottish siicar 
She saw proud Percy fa'. 

"Had we twa been upon the green. 

And never an eye to see, 
I wad bae had you, flesh and fell; 

But your sword sail gae wi* me. 

"But gae ye up to Otterboume, 
And wait there dayis three; 

And if I come not ere three dayis end, 
A fause knight ca' ye me." 



They lighted high on Otterboume, 

Upon the bent sae brown; 
They lighted high on Otterboume, 

And threw their palUons down. 

And he that had a bonnie boy 
Sent out his horse to grass; 

And he that had not a bonnie boy 
His ain servant he was. 

But up then spake a little page, 

Before the peep of dawn, — 
"0, waken ye, waken ye, my good lord, 

For Percy 's hard at hand." 

"Ye lie, ye lie, ye liar loud! 
Sae loud T hear ye lie: 



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POEMS OF PLACES. 

For Percy had not men yestreen 
To dight my men and me. 

"But I have dreamed a dreary dream. 

Beyond the Isle of Sky; 
I saw a dead man win a fight. 

And I think that man was I." 

He belted on his guid braid sword. 

And to the field he ran; 
But he forgot the helmet good, 

That should have kept his brain. 

Wlien Percy wi' the Douglas met, 

I wat he was fu* fain; 
They swakked their swords, till sair they swat. 

And the blood ran down like rain. 

But Percy with his good broad sword, 

That could so sharply wound. 
Has wounded Douglas on the brow. 

Till he fell to the ground. 



This deed was done at the Otterboume, 

About the breaking of the day ; 
Earl Douglas was buried at the braken bush, 

And the Percy led captive away. 

Old Ballad. 



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OUSE, THE EIVER. y 

OusBy the River. 

THE DOG AND THE WATER LILY. 

THE noon was sbady, and soft airs 
Swept Ouse's silent tide. 
When, 'scaped from literary cares, 
I wandered on his side. 

My spaniel, prettiest of his race. 

And high in pedigree 
(Two nymphs adorned witli every grace 

That spaniel found for me), 

Now wantoned lost in flags and reeds. 

Now starting into sight. 
Pursued the swallow o'er the meads 

With scarce a slower flight. 

It was the time when Ouse displayed 

His lilies newly blown; 
Their beauties I intent surveyed. 

And one I wished my own. 

With cane extended far I sought 

To steer it close to land; 
But still the prize, though nearly caught, 

Escaped my eager hand. 

Beau marked my unsuccessful pains 
With fixed, considerate face. 

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10 POEMS OP PLACES. 

And puzzling set his puppy brains 
To comprehend the case. 

But with a cherup clear and strong 

Dispersing all his dream, 
I thence withdrew, and followed long 

The windings of the stream. 

My ramble ended, I returned; 

Beau, trotting far before. 
The floating wreath again discerned. 

And plunging left the shore. 

I saw him with that lily cropped 

Impatient swim to meet 
My quick approach, and soon he dropped 

The treasure at my feet. 

Charmed with the sight, "The world," I cried, 

" Shall hear of this thy deed ; 
My dog shall mortify the pride 

Of man's superior breed : 

"But chief myself I will enjom. 

Awake at duty's call. 
To show a love as prompt as thine 

To Him who gives me all." 

William Cowper, 



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OXFOED. 11 

Oxford. 

OXFORD. 

YE fretted pinnacles, ye fanes sublime. 
Ye towers that wear the mossy vest of time ; 
Ye massy piles of old munificence. 
At once the pride of learning and defence; 
Ye cloisters pale, that, lengthening to the sight. 
To contemplation, step by step, invite; 
Ye high-arched walks, where oft the whispers clear 
Of harps unseen have swept the poet's ear ; 
Ye temples dim, where pious duty pays 
Her holy hymns of ever-echoing praise ; — 
Lo! your loved Isis, from the bordering vale. 
With all a mother's fondness, bids you hail ! — 
Hail, Oxford, hail ! of all that 's good and great. 
Of all that 's fair, the guardian and the seat ; 
Nurse of each brave pursuit, each generous aim. 
By truth exalted to the throne of fame ! 
Like Greece in science and in liberty. 
As Athens learned, as Lacedemon free! 

Even now, confessed to my adoring eyes. 
In awful ranks thy gifted sons arise. 
Tunmg to knightly tale his British reeds. 
Thy genuine bards immortal Chaucer leads: 
His hoary head o'erlooks the gazing choir. 
And beams on all around celestial fire. 
With graceful step 'see Addison advance. 

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12 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Tlie sweetest child of Attic elegance : 
See Cliillingworth tlie depths of doubt explore. 
And Selden ope the rolls of ancient lore : 
To all but his beloved embrace denied. 
See Locke lead Reason, his majestic bride: 
See Hammond pierce Religion's golden mine. 
And spread the treasured stores of truth divine. 

Thomas Warton. 
OXFORD. 

OXFORD ! let delivered Britam know 
From thy famed seats her several blessings flow. 
The accoutred barons and assisting knights 
In thee prepared for council or for fights. 
Planned and obtained her civil liberty: 
Truth found her fearless witnesses in thee; 
When, tried as gold, saints, from thy tottering pyres. 
Rose up to heaven, Elijah-like, in fires! 
Peace to thy walls ! and honor to thy name ! 
May age to age record thy gathering fame! 
While thy still favored seats pour forth their youth, 
Brave advocates of liberty and truth ! 
In fair succession rise to bless the realm! 

Fathers in church, and statesmen at the helm! 

Anonymous. 

OXFORD, MAI 30, 1820. 

YE sacred nurseries of blooming youth ! 
In whose collegiate shelter England's flowers 
Expand, enjoying through their vernal hours 
The air of liberty, the hght of truth ; 

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OXFOED. 13 

Much have ye suffered from Time's gnawing tooth, 
Yet, O ye spires of Oxford ! domes and towers ! 
Gardens and groves! your presence overpowers 
The soberness of reason; till, in sooth. 
Transformed, and rushing on a bold exchange, 
I slight my own beloved Cam, to range 
Where silver Isis leads my stripling feet; 
Pace the long avenue, or glide adown 
Tiie stream-like windings of that glorious street, — 
An eager novice robed in fluttering gown! 

William Wordsworth. 



ON REVISITING OXFORD. 

I NEVER hear the sound of thy glad bells, 
Oxford! and chime harmonious, but I say 
(Sighing to think how time has worn away), 
" Some spirit speaks in the sweet tone that swells. 
Heard after years of absence, from the vale 
Wliere Cherwell winds." Most true it speaks the tale 
Of days departed, and its voice recalls 
Hours of delight and hope in the gay tide 
Of life, and many friends now scattered wide 
By many fates. Peace be within thy walls! 
I have scarce heart to visit thee ; but yet. 
Denied the joys sought in thy shades, — denied 

Each better hope, since my poor died. 

What I have owed to thee my heart can ne'er forget ! 

William Lisle Bowles. 



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14 POEMS OP PLACES. 



FOR A MONUMENT AT OXFORD. 

HERE Latimer and Ridley in the flames 
Bore witness to the truth. If thou hast walked 
Uprightly through the world, just thoughts of joy 
May fill thy breast in contemplating here 
Congenial virtue. But if thou hast swerved 
From the strait path of even rectitude. 
Fearful in trying seasons to assert 
The better cause, or to forsake the worse 
Reluctant, when perchance therein enthralled 
Slave to false shame, O, thankfully receive 
The sharp, compunctious motions that this spot 
May wake within thee, and be wise in time. 
And let the future for the past atone 1 

Robert Southey. 

MEMORIES OF MERTON. 
I. 

THE GATEWAY. 

NOT with that breathless haste and startling knock 
With which, old Gateway, in the days of yore 
I thundered nightly at your wicket door. 
Rousing the sleepy porter with the shock. 
While midnight chimes rang out from many a clock. 
If e'er from India's plains returning home. 
Before thy venerable arch 1 come. 
Shall 1 make clank thy chains, and hinges rock : 
But should my footfall be no longer bold. 



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OXFORD. 15 

My hand strike weakly, my thin locks be gray. 
My eye shine dim, my weary heart feel old 
In the long path to wealth, a weary way. 
Dear porch, still on thee shall I fondly gaze, 
With all the love, not dread, of earlier days. 



II. 



Hall! where an Emperor deigned to feast, I see 

Thy lofty roof, thy giant hearth, where blazed 

Too liberal flame: thy haughty dais, raised 

O'er the stone floor with proud distinction, free 

Only for social foot of high degree: 

Thy polished tables, and the Tutor's chair, 

Tliis for long lecture, those for simple fare, 

Thy portraits, all are present; but for me 

Gone is thy magic with the vanished crowd 

Who met light-hearted at the daily board, 

When thou didst ring with jest and laughter loud. 

Far parted now, we toil no more to meet — 

What care I though through thee light laugh be poured, 

And thou dost echo still to youthful feet? 

III. 

THE LIBRARY. 

Quaint gloomy chamber, oldest relic left 
Of monkish quiet; like a ship thy form. 
Stranded keel upward by some sudden storm, 
Now that a safe and polished age hath cleft 



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16 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Locks, bars, and chains, that saved thy tomes from theft, 

May Time, a surer robber, spare thine age. 

And reverence each huge black-lettered page, 

Of real boards and gilt-stamped leather reft. 

Long may ambitious student here unseal 

The secret mysteries of classic lore ; 

Though urged not by that blind and aimless zeal 

With which the Scot within these walls of yore 

Transcribed the Bible without breaking fast. 

Toiled through each word, and perished at the last. 



IV. 



THE BUTTERY. 

Fill high the tankard; crown the silver bowl 
With briglit October's foaming amber; spread 
The ashen board with manchets white of bread ; 
For hark ! the hour of noon ; and forth the whole 
Dry Lecture rushes with a thirsty soul. 
Up the hall-stairs the merry youths draw near, 
And throng the buttery for noontide cheer. 
See Charon comes to claim his weekly dole: 
O grim old ferryman,* how oft my boat. 
Through the long summer eve, on Isis' wave. 
Beside thy fearful barge would careless float, 
Wiiile thou o'er thy kind-cruel weapons sate. 
And, with an artist's fondness, didst relate 
Of drowning youths saved from a watery grave. 

1 An old man, a servant of the Humane Society, stationed on the river, 
for the prevention of accidents. His punt was filled with horrid-looking 
implements, — the drags, hooks, etc of his calling. 



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OXFORD. 17 



Our steeds are ready; whither shall we ride? 

To Woodstock, where a woman's jealous hate 

Gave her frail rival horrid choice of fate. 

And Blenheim rises in majestic pride? 

Or to old Cumnor, where false Leicester's bride, 

Like a fair falcon by the liawker lured. 

Was in the shades of that grim place immured, 

Till, trusting to Love's well-feigned note, she died? 

Or shall we slowly saunter to the wood 

Of Bagley, there explore each sylvan glen ; 

Or to the Quentin, sport of ages rude. 

On the green he^hts of open BuUenden ? 

Lead where you will; I follow, friend, to-night: 

All ways are equal to a spirit light. 



VI. 



THE WALK. 

Not through the Queen of Cities' lordliest street, 

Although all passing beautiful its sweep 

Of gray old colleges and gables steep. 

Where spire and dome and bridge and gateway meet, 

Let us now turn our fashionable feet; 

But unobserved, not unobserving, creep 

Down by the bank, where the green willows weep 

For Cherwell drowned in Isis: there a seat 

Courts us awhile, till from the farther shore 



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18 POEMS OF PLACES. 

The ferryman is hailed to punt us o*er. 
Now through the summer fields away, away. 
The grass beside the path brushing our knees; 
Haste! for the chapel bell, swung on the breeze. 
Pealing too quick return, forbids delay. 



VII. 

THE CHAPEL. 

How richly mellowed through the pamted glass 
The tranquil flood of solemn light pours down 
Upon each oaken stall's time-pohshed brown. 
On marble checkered floor and desk of brass. 
Along the aisle, in spotless surplice, pass 
Student and Fellow, while yet lingering swell 
The last faint echoes of the vesper bell. 
With the same tones that summoned erst to mass. 
Spirit of Unity ! keep fast the bands 
That bind to thee thy Church ! here chiefly rule ! 
For this thy primal sanctuary: here stands 
True Doctrine's very fountain-head and school; 
Yet here blind Schism is threatening to divide 
Those who should teach thy gospel side by side. 

VIII. 

OXFORD, FROM THE CHAPEL TOWER. 

Peace, silence, slumber, triple crown of night, 
Circle the queenlike city. Dim the shower 
Of moonbeams falk on every hoary tower. 



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OXFORD. 19 

And steeps each gabled roof in silver light. 

Hushed is the latest shout of revel rite 

Through the gray quadrangle; while faintly gleams 

The lamp of some pale student o'er the dreams 

Of Plato, or old Homer's sounding fight. 

Forth from below the mass superior stand 

The tall, gaunt steeples, like a faithful guard, — 

0, may it be so! — keeping watch and ward 

Above the weary world fast locked in sleep. 

Hark ! even now their voices through the band 

Pass on their hourly signal, clear and deep! 

IX. 

COLLEGE ROOMS: THE ORIEL WINDOW. 

My dear old Window, wherethrough summer's air 
Wafted the sweet scents of the garden flowers, 
Whilst the broad elms beat off the sultry hours. 
And thy deep-painted glass toned down the glare 
With mellowed golden lights that used to share 
My couch, with shade that fell in purple showers; 
O, choicest and best loved of all rest's bowers. 
How oft, amid my busiest toil and care. 
Retreating fancy brings thee to ray sight. 
As some still vision of the peaceful night; 
Magician's wand-waved circle; halcyon nest. 
Floating in calm upon the billow's crest. 
To me these sonnets, with their lights and glooms, 
Are my Life's Oriel of old Merton rooms. 



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20 POEMS OP PLACES. 



X. 



COLLEGE ROOMS : STUDY. 

Fling wide the casement, for the moniiug breeze 

Already curls the mist upon the stream. 

And o'er their half-built nests with welcome scream 

The busy rooks fill all the neighboring trees. 

Be labor lightened by luxurious ease; 

Up to the oriel window wheel the chair 

(Sweet aid to study the fresh morning air). 

And ponder tasks which please, or ought to please ; 

Graze happy round upon your pictured room, — 

Your own; for swiftly may the time draw nigh. 

When homeless thou, in stifling city pent. 

With spirit lustreless, and body bent, 

Shalt rise each morning unrefreshed, and sigh 

Daily o'er real toil with hopeless gloom. 

XI. 

MERTON MEADOWS. 

Gay with June's livery of liveliest green, 

By daisies crimson-edged and cowslip-dyed. 

Smile Merton meadows in their summer pride. 

While far off Isis glints back steely sheen 

Yon stately avenue's tall trees between. 

Like flash of casque and spear when warriors ride. 

Sweet Cherwell's waters edge the nearer side. 

The sleepy cattle seek a shady screen. 

For 't is still sultry noon; the martin wheels. 



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OXFORD. 2 1 

Like a black spirit of night haunting the day. 
His phantom circles high in the upper blue; 
Shrill grasshopper clacks loud his wliirring peals; 
Proud dragon-flies glance by in armor new; 
And the bee hums her homeward roundelay. 



XII. 

THE TEEEACE WALL. 

" Poor Windebank was sliot by sudden court-martial, so enraged were 
they at Oxford ; for Cromwell had not even foot-soldiers, still less a bat- 
tering-gun. It was his poor young M-ife, they said, she and other ladies 
on a visit there, at Bletchiugton House, that confounded poor Windebank. 
He set his back to the wall of Merton College, and received his death-vol- 
ley with a soldier's stoicism." — Carlyle's Cromwell. 

Sure man's heart-anguish ne'er hath broken here 

Tliis smiling air of natural repose. 

Which over Merton's meadowed landscape glows? 

Yes, on this spot where the gray stone walls rear 

Their hoary height, fell that poor cavalier 

Who gave his post up to his monarch's foes, 

At iron Cromwell's summons, without blows. 

Through gentle courtesy, not coward fear. 

Perchance beneath where now 1 stand he stood: 

Setting his back against the College wall, 

Baring his breast, not dabbled yet with blood, 

A bold, unflinching mark for many a ball, 

Hb young wife's nanje borne on his latest breath ; — 

Short trial his, brief shrift, and soldier's death. 



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22 POEMS OF PLACES. 

XIII. 

THE WALK OP THE TWO TOWERS. 

Thesb was in Merton Gardens a broad, straight walk, where a bean- 
tifuUy picturesque effect was prudiiced by introducing at cither end uf the 
vista the chapel tower^ of Magdalene and Merton. 

Surely this walk, straight, simple in its line. 

Was fashioned by some holy -hearted man. 

That, at each limit turning, h3 might scan 

Thy tower, dear Merton, or, fair Magdalene, thine. 

Point skyward with solemnity divine; 

So, while he walked, were his reflections given 

In ceaseless meditation to the heaven 

Of which his eyes beheld the earthly sign ; — 

Thus, while slow-pacing, often pausing, there, 

I loved, perchance erroneously, to dream; 

And 0, methought, with an uuuttered prayer. 

May my life's pathway, level, straight, and true. 

Like this, with cause for holy breathings teem. 

Begin and end with God, him alway view. 

XIV. 

"TOM** OP CHRIST CHURCH. 

One hundred and one times the mighty sound. 
Such as when Vulcan forged the war-god's shield. 
Startled the Lemnian shepherd in his field. 
Hath Christ Church giant bell swung out around. 
And the night songster's voice melodious drowned; 
Yet on mme ear did the tone's volume fall 



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OXFORD. 23 

Not fearful, but sad, solemn, musical. 

Though frighted air yet shakes with the rebound ; — 

Nor strange; for my note-stricken memory 

Hath wandered to the village' where I spent 

Some of youth's happiest days, where yet the proud 

Old Norman law had not to fashion bent. 

And curfew nightly woke the silent sky. 

With sounds as slow, as solemn, though less loud. 

John Bruce Norton, 



THE CHESTNUT OF BRAZENOSE. 

DOCTORS from Radcliffe's dome look down on thee. 
Unconscious chestnut with the leafy crown! 
And so on unpruned nature, fresh and free. 
Learning too often looks complacent down, — 
Learning decorous in her cap and gown. 
And feasting on the brains of men long dead. 
What should she see in aU this stately town 
To make her bend the knee or veil the head? 
And yet not Plato, not the Stagyrite, 
Could teach a bud to expand into a flower; 
Take then thy pen, book-worshipper, and write. 
Learning is but a secondary power, — 
And look not down, but reverently look up 
To every blossomed spray that rears its dewy cup! 

Henry Glasrford Bell, 

1 Sleaford, in Lincolnshire. 



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24 POEMS OF PLACES. 



SMITH OF MAUDLIN. 

MY cliums will bum their Indian weeds 
The yery night I pass away. 
And cloud-propelling puff and puff. 

As white the thin smoke melts away; 
Tlien Jones of Wadham, eyes half closed. 

Rubbing the ten hairs on his chin. 
Will say, "This very pipe I use 
Was poor old Smith's of Maudlin." 

Tliat night in High Street there will walk 

The rufliing gownsmen three abreast. 
The stiff-necked proctors, wary-eyed. 

The dons, the coaches, and the rest; 
Sly "Cherub Sims'* will then purpose 

Billiards, or some sweet ivory sin; 
Tom cries, " He played a pretty game, — 

Did honest Smith of Maudlin." 

The boats are out ! — the arrowy rush. 

The mad bull's jerk, the tiger's strength ; 
The Balliol men have wopped the Queen's,— 

Hurrah ! but only by a length. 
Dig on, ye muffs; ye cripples, dig! 

Pull blind, till crimson sweats the skin; — 
The man who bobs and steers cries, "0 

For plucky Smith of Maudlin ! " 

Wine-parties met, — a noisy night. 

Red sparks are breaking through the cloud ; 



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OXFORD. 25 

The man who won the silver cup 

Is in the chair erect and proud; 
Three are asleep, — one to himself 

Sings, " Yellow jacket 's sure to win." 
A silence ; — " Men, the memory 

Of poor old Smith of Maudlin ! " 

The boxing-rooms, — with solemn air 

A freshman dons the swollen glove; 
With slicing strokes the lapping sticks 

Work out a rubber, — three and love; 
With rasping jar the padded man 

Whips Thompson's foil, so square and thin. 
And cries, " Why, zur, you 've not the wrist 

Of Muster Smith of Maudlin." 

But all this time beneath the sheet 

I shall lie still, and free from pain. 
Hearing the bed-makers sluff in 

To gossip round the blinded pane ; 
Try on my rings, sniff up my scent. 

Feel in my pockets for my tin; 
While one hag says, "We all must die. 

Just like this Smith of Maudlin." 

Ah! then a dreadful hush will come. 

And all I hear will be the fly 
Buzzing impatient round the wall. 

And on the sheet where I must lie; 
Next day a jostling of feet, — 

The men who bring the coffin in: 

" This is the door, — the third-pair back, — 

Here 's Mr. Smith of Maudlin ! " 

Walter Thombwy. 

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POEMS OP PLACES. 



Penrith. 

HART'S-HORN TREE, NEAR PENRITH. 

HERE stood an oak, that long had borne affixed 
To his huge trunk, or, with more subtle art. 
Among its withering topmost branches mixed. 
The palmy antlers of a hunted hart. 
Whom the dog Hercules pursued, — his part 
Each desperately sustaining, till at last 
Both sank and died, the life-veins of the chased 
And chaser bursting here with one dire smart. 
Mutual the victory, mutual the defeat! 
High was the trophy hung with pitiless pride; 
Say, rather, with that generous sympathy 
That wants not, even in rudest breasts, a seat; 
And, for this feeling's sake, let no one chide 
Verse that would guard thy memory, Hart*s-Horn Tbee ! 

William Wordsworth, 

THE COUNTESS' PILLAR. 

On the roadside between Penrith and Appleby there stands a pillar 
with the following inscription : — 

" This pillar was erected, in the year 1656, by Anne Countess Dowa- 
ger of Pembroke, &c., for a memorial of her Ust parting yrith her pioua 
mother, Margaret Countess Dowager of Cumberland, on the 2d of April, 
1616; in memory whereof she hath left an annuity of 4 /. to be distrib- 
uted to the poor of the parish of Brou<;ham, every 2d day of April for- 
ever, upon the stone table placed hard by. Laus Deo ! " 

T17HILE the poor gather round, till the end of time 
Vf May tliis bright flower of charity display 
Its bloom, unfolding at the appointed day; 



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PENRITH. 27 

Flower than the loveliest of the vernal prime 
Lovelier, transplanted from heaven's purest clime! 
" Charity never faileth " : on that creed, 
More than on written testament or deed. 
The pious lady built with hope sublime. 
Alms on this stone to be dealt ovX forever! 
"Laus Deo." Many a stranger passing by 
Has with that parting mixed a filial sigh. 
Blest its humane memorial's fond endeavor. 
And, fastening on those lines an eye tear-glazed, 
lias ended, though no clerk, with " God be praised ! " 

William Wordsworth, 

ROMAN ANTIQUITIES. 

TBOM THE ROafAN STATION AT OLD PENlllTH. 

HOW profitless the relics that we cull. 
Troubling the last holds of ambitious Rome, 
Unless they chasten fancies that presume 
Too high, or idle agitations lull ! 
Of the world's flatteries if the brain be full. 
To have no seat for thought were better doom. 
Like this old helmet, or the eyeless skull 
Of him who gloried in its nodding plume. 
Heaven out of view, our wishes what are they? 
Our fond regrets tenacious in their grasp? 
The sage's theory? the poet's lay? — 
Mere fibulse without a robe to clasp; 
Obsolete lamps, whose light no time recalls; 
Urns without ashes, tearless lachrymals! 

William Wordsworth. 

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28 POEMS or PLACES. 

Penshurst. 

TO PENSHUEST. 

THOU art not, Penshurst, built to envious show 
Of touch or marble; nor canst boast a row 
Of polish'd pillars or a roofe of gold : 
Thou hast no lantherne, whereof tales are told; 
Or stayre, or courts; but stand'st an ancient pile. 
And, these grudged at, art reverenc'd the while. 
Thou joy'st in better marks, of soile, of ay re. 
Of wood, of water : therein thou art faire. 
Thou hast thy walkes for health, as well as sport: 
Thy Mount, to which the Dryads do resort. 
Where Pan and Bacchus their high feasts have made. 
Beneath the broad beach and the chestnut shade : 
The taller tree which of a nut was set. 
At his great birth, where all the Muses met. 
There, in the writhed barke, are cut the names 
Of many a Sylvane, taken with his flames ; 
And thence the ruddy Satyres oft provoke 
The lighter Faunes, to reach thy ladie*s oke. 
Thy copp's too, nam*d of Gamage, thou hast there. 
That never failes to serve thee seasoned deere. 
When thou wouldst feast, or exercise thy friends. 
The lower land, that to the river bends, 
Thy- sheep, thy bullocks, kine and calves, do feed : 
The middle grounds thy mares, and horses breed. 
Each bauck doth yeeld thee coueyes; and the topps 

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PENSHURST. 29 

Fertile of wood, Ashore and Sydney's copps, 

To crown thy open table, doth provide 

The purple phesant, with the speckled side: 

The painted partrich lyes in every field. 

And for thy messe is willing to be killed. 

And if the high-swolne Medway faile thy dish, 

Thou hast thy ponds, that pay thee tribute fish, 

Fat aged carps, that run into thy net. 

And pikes, now weary their own kinde to eat, 

As loth the second draught or cast to stay, 

Officiously at first themselves betray. 

Bright eeles, that emulate them, and leape on land. 

Before the fisher, or into liis hand. 

Then hath thy orchard fruit, thy garden flowers. 

Fresh as the ayre, and new as are the houres. 

The early cherry, with the later plum. 

Fig, grape, and quince, each in his time doth come: 

The blushmg apricot and woolly peach 

Hang on thy wals, that every child may reach. 

And though thy wals be of the countrey stone. 

They 're rear'd with no man's mine, no man's grone : 

There 's none that dwell about them wish them downe ; 

But all come in, the farmer and the clowne: 

And no one empty-handed, to salute 

Thy lord and lady, though they have no sute. 

Some bring a capon, some a rurall cake. 

Some nuts, some apples; some that think they make 

The better cheeses bring 'hem; or else send 

By their ripe daughters, whom they would commend 

This way to husbands; and whose baskets beare 

An emblem of themselves, in plum or peare. 

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30 POEMS OF PLACES. 

But what can this (more than expresse their love) 

Adde to thy free provisions, farre above 

The need of such? whose liberall boord doth flow. 

With all that hospitality doth know ! 

Where comes no guest but is allowed to eat. 

Without his feare, and of thy lord's owne meat : 

Where the same beere and bread, and selfe-same wine. 

That is his lordship's, shall be also mine. 

And I not faine to sit (as some this day. 

At great men's tables) and yet dine away. 

Here no man tels my cups ; nor, standing by, 

A waiter doth my gluttony envy: 

But gives me what I call for, aud lets me eate; 

He knowes, below, he shall finde plentie of meate; 

Thy tables hoord not up for the next day. 

Nor, when I take my lodging, need I pray 

For fire, or lights, or livorie : all is there ; 

As if thou then wert mine, or I raigu'd here : 

There *s nothing I can wish, for which I stay. 

That found king James, when hunting late this way. 

With his brave sonne, the prince, they saw thy fires 

Shine bright on every harth, as the desires 

Of thy Penates had beene set on flame. 

To entertayne them; or the countrey came. 

With all their zeale to warme their welcome here. 

What (great, I will not say, but) sodaine cheare 

Didst thou then make 'hem! and what praise was 

heap'd 
On thy good lady then! who therein reap'd 
The just reward of her high huswifery ; 
To have her linnen, plate, and all things nigh 

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PENSHUBST. 31 

When sbe was farre: and not a roome, but drest. 
As if it had expected such a guest ! 
These, Penshurst, are thy praise, and yet not all. 
Thy lady 's noble, fruitfull, chaste withall. 
His children thy great lord may call his owne: 
A fortune in this age but rarely knowne. 
They are, and have beene taught religion: thence 
Their gentler spirits have suck'd innocence. 
Each morne, and even, they are taught to pray 
With the whole houshold, and may every day 
Keade in their vertuous parents' noble parts. 
The mysteries of manners, armes, and arts. 
Now, Penshurst, they that will proportion thee 
With other edifices, when they see 
Those proud, ambitious heaps, and nothing else, 
May say, their lords have built, but thy lord dwells. 

JBen Jotuon. 

AT PENSHURST. 

TXTHILE in this park I sing, the listening deer 

» » Attend my passion, and forget to fear; 
When to the beeches I report my flame. 
They bow their heads, as if they felt the same. 
To gods appealing, when I reach their bowers 
With loud complaints, they answer me in showers. 
To thee a wild and cruel soul is given. 
More deaf than trees, and prouder than the heaven ! 
Love's foe professed ! why dost thou falsely feign 
Tliyself a Sidney? from which noble strain 
He sprung, that could so far exalt the name 
Of Love, and warm our nation with his flame. 

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32 POEMS OP PLACES. 

That all we can of love or high desire 

Seems but the smoke of amorous Sidney's fire. 

Nor call her mother who so well does prove 

One breast may hold both chastity and love. 

Never can she, that so exceeds the spring 

In joy and bounty, l)e supposed to bring 

One so destructive. To no human stock 

We owe this fierce unkindness, but the rock; 

That cloven rock produced thee, by whose side 

Nature, to recompense the fatal pride 

Of such stem beauty, placed those healing springs 

Which not more help than tliat destruction brings. 

Thy heart no ruder than the rugged stone, 

I might, like Orpheus, with my numerous moan 

Melt to compassion; now my traitorous song 

With thee conspires to do the singer wrong; 

While thus I suffer not myself to lose 

The memory of what augments my woes. 

But with my own breath still foment the fire. 

Which flames as high as fancy can aspire! 

This last complaint the indulgent ears did pierce 
Of just Apollo, president of verse ; 
Highly concerned that the Muse should bring 
Damage to one whom he had taught to sing, 
Thus he advised me: "On yon aged tree 
Hang up thy lute, and hie thee to the sea. 
That there with wonders thy diverted mind 
Some truce, at least, may with this passion find." 
Ah, cruel nymph! from whom her humble swain 
Flies for relief unto the raging main. 
And from the winds and tempests does expect 

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PENSHUBST. 33 

A milder fate than from her cold neglect! 
Yet there he '11 pray that the unkind may prove 
Blest in her choice; and tows this endless love 
Springs from no hope of what she can confer, 
Eut from those gifts which Heaven has heaped on her. 

Edmund Waller, 



FOR A TABLET AT PENSHUBST. 

ARE days of old familiar to thy mind, 
ileader? Hast thou let the midnight hour 
Pass unperceived, whilst thou in fancy lived 
With high-bom beauties and enamored chiefs. 
Sharing their hopes, and, with a breathless joy 
Whose expectation touched the verge of pain, 
Following their dangerous fortunes? If such lore 
Hath ever thrilled thy bosom, thou wilt tread 
As with a pilgrim's reverential thoughts 
The groves of Penshurst. Sidney here was bora, — 
Sidney, than whom no gentler, braver man 
His own delightful genius ever feigned. 
Illustrating the vales of Arcady 
With courteous courage and with loyal loves. 
Upon his natal day an acorn here 
Was planted; it grew up a stately oak. 
And in the beauty of its strength it stood 
And flourished, when his perishable part 
Had mouldered dust to dust. That stately oak 
Itself hath mouldered now, but Sidney's fame 

Endureth in his own immortal works. 

Robert Southey. 



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34 POEMS OP PLACES. 

sonnet' 

WKITTEN AT PENSHUEST IN AUTUMN, 1788. 

YE towers sublime, deserted now and drear. 
Ye woods deep sighing to the hollow blast. 
The musing wanderer loves to linger near. 
While history points to all your glories past; 
And, startling from their haunts the timid deer. 
To trace the walks obscnred by matted fern 
Which Waller's soothing lyre were wont to hear. 
But where now clamors the discordant hern! 
The spoiling hand of time may overturn 
These lofty battlements, and quite deface 
The fading canvas whence we love to learn 
Sidney's keen look and Sacharissa's grace ; 
But fame and beauty still defy decay, 
Saved by the historic page, the poet's tender lay ! 

Charlotte Smith. 

PENSHURST. 

GENIUS of Penshnrst old ! 
Who saw'st the birth of each immortal oak, 
Here sacred from the stroke; 
And all thy tenants of yon turrets bold 
Inspir'st to arts or arras; 
Where Sidney his Arcadian landscape drew, 
Grenuine from thy Doric view; 
And patriot Algernon unshaken rose 
Above insulting foes; 

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PENSHURST. 35 

And Sacliarissa nursed her angel charms. 

O, suffer me with sober tread 

To enter on thy holy sliade; 

Bid smoothly gliding Medway stand. 

And wave his sedgy tresses bland, 

A stranger let him kindly greet, 

And pour his urn beneath my feet. 

« « « « « 

But come, the minutes flit away. 
And eager Fancy longs to stray: 
Come, friendly Genius! lead me round 
Thy sylvan haunts and magic ground; 
Point every spot of hill or dale. 
And tell me, as we tread the vale, 
"Here mighty Dudley once would rove. 
To plan his triumphs in the grove: 
There looser Waller, ever gay. 
With Sachariss in dalliance lay; 
And Philip, sidelong yonder spring. 
His lavish carols wont to sing." 
Hark! I hear the echoes call. 
Hark! the rushing waters fall; 
Lead me to the green retreats, 
Guide me to the Muses' seats. 
Where ancient bards retirement chose. 
Or ancient lovers wept their woes. 
What Genius points to yonder oak? 
What rapture does my soul provoke? 
There let me hang a garland high. 
There let my Muse her accents try; 
Be there my earliest homage paid. 



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POEMS OF PLACES. 

Be there my latest vigils made: 
For thou wast planted in the earth 
The day that shone on Sidney's birth. 

« « « « « 

Meauwliile attention loves to mark 
The deer that crop the shaven park, 
The steep-browed hill, or forest wild. 
The sloping lawns, and zephyrs mild. 
The clouds that blush with evenhig red, 
Or meads with silver fountains fed. 
The fragrance of the new-mown hay. 
And blackbird chanting on the spray; 
The calm farewell of parting light. 
And evening saddening into night. 

Fi'oncU CovefUry, 



Pentridge. 

PENTRIDGE BY THE RIYEB. 

DIALECT OF DORSET. 

PENTRIDGE! — oh! my heart's a-swellen 
VuU wi' jay to hear ye tellen 
Any news o' thik wold pleace. 
An' the boughy hedges round it. 
An' the river that do bound it 

Wi* his dark but glisnen feace. 
Vor there *s noo land, on either hand, 
To me lik' Pentridge by the river. 



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PENTRIDOE. 37 

Be there any leaves to quiver 
On our aspen by the river? 

Doo er sheade the water still. 
Where the rushes be a-groweu. 
Where the sullen Stour 's a-flowen 

Droo the meads vrom mill to mill ? 
Vor if a tree wer' dear to me. 
Oh ! 't wer* thik aspen by the river. 

There, in eegrass newly shooten, 
I did run on even vooten, 

Happy, awver new-mown land; 
Or did zing wi' zingen drushes 
While I plaited, out o' rushes. 

Little baskets vor my hand; 
Bezide the clote that there did float, 
Wi' yoUor blossoms, on the river. 

When the western zun 's a-vallen. 
What shill vaice is now a-callen 

Hwome the deairy to the pails P 
Who do dreve em on, a-flingen 
Wide-bow'd horns, or slowly zwingen 

Right an' left their tufty tails? 
As they do goo a-huddled droo 
The geate a-leaden up vrom river. 

Bleaded grass is now a-shooten 

Where the vloor wer' oonce our vooten. 

While the hall wer' still in pleace, 
Stwones be looser in the wallen; 

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38 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Hollor trees be nearer vallen; 

Ev*ry thing ha' cliang'd its feace. 
But still the neame do bide the seame, — 
'T is Pentridge, — Pentridge by the river. 

William Barnes. 



Pevensey. 

PEYENSEY. 

FALLEN PILE 1 I ask not what has been thy fate. 
But when the weak winds, wafted from the main. 
Through each lone arch, like spirits that complain. 
Come hollow to my ear, I meditate 
On this world's passing pageant, and the lot 
Of those who once might proudly, in their prime. 
Have stood with giant port, till, bowed by time 
Or injury, their ancient boast forgot. 
They might have sunk like thee; though thus forlorn 
They lift their heads with venerable hairs 
Bespent, majestic yet, and as in scorn 
Of mortal vanities and short-lived cares; 
Even so dost thou, lifting thy forehead gray, 
Smile at the tempest, and Time's sweeping sway! 

William Lisle Bowles. 



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PLAYFOBD. 39 

Playford. 

PLAYFORD. 

A DESCRIPTIVE FRAGMENT. 

HAST thou a heart to prove the power 
Of a landscape lovely, soft, and serene? 
Go, when its fragrance hath left the flower. 

When the leaf is no longer glossy and green; 
When the clouds are careering across the sky, 
^nd the rising winds tell the tempest nigh, 
Thougli the slanting sunbeams are lingering still 
On the tower's gray top and the side of the hill: 
Then go to the village of Playford, and see 

If it be not a lovely spot; 
And if nature can boast of charms for thee. 
Thou wilt love it, and leave it not, 
Till the shower shall warn thee no longer to roam. 
And then thou wilt carry its picture home. 
To feed thy fancy when far away, 
A source of delight for a future day. 
Its sloping green is verdant and fair. 

And between its tuft« of trees 
Are white cottages, peeping here and there, 

The pilgrim's eye to please: 
A white farm-house may be seen on its brow. 
And its gray old hall in the valley below. 

By a moat encircled round; 
And from the left verge of its hill you may hear, 

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40 POEMS OF PLAGES. 

If you chance on a sabbath to wander near, 

A sabbath-breathing sound: 
'T is the sound of the bell which is slowly ringing 

In that tower, which lifts its turrets above 
The wood-fringed bank, where birds are singing, 
And from spray to spray are fearlessly springing. 

As if in a lonely and untrodden grove ; 
For the gray church-tower is far overhead; 

And so deep is the winding lane below. 
They hear not the sound of the traveller's tread. 

If a traveller there should chance to go. 
But few pass there, for most who come 
At the belFs last summons have left their home. 

That bell which is tolling so slow. 
And grassy and green may the path be seen 

To the village church that leads; 
For its glossy hue is as verdant to view 

As you see it in lowly meads. 
And he who the ascending pathway scales. 
By the gate above and the mossy pales, 
Will find the trunk of a leafless tree. 

All bleak and barren and bare; 
Yet it keeps its station, and seems to be 

Like a silent monitor there: 
Though wasted and worn, it smiles in the ray 
Of the bright warm sun, on a sunny day ; 

And more than once I have seen 
The moonbeams sleep on its barkless trunk 
As calmly and softly as ever they sunk 

On its leaves, when its leaves were green: 
And it seemed to rejoice in their light the while. 

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PLAYFORD. 41 

Reminding my heart of the patient smile 
Resignation can wear in the hour of grief. 
When it finds in religion a source of relief. 
And, stript of delights which earth had given. 
Still shines in the beauty it borrows from heaven! 

But the bell hath ceased to ring. 

And the birds no longer sing. 
And the grasshopper's carol is heard no more; 

Yet sounds of praise and prayer 

The wandering breezes bear. 
Like the murmur of waves on the ocean shore. 
All else is still! but silence can be 

More eloquent far than speech! 
And the valley below, and that tower and tree 

Through the eye to the heart can reach. 
Could the sage's creed, the historian's tale, 
Utter language like that of yon silent vale. 
As it basks in the beams of the sabbath-day. 
And rejoices in nature's reviving ray ; 
While its outstretched meadows and autumn-tinged 

trees 
Seem enjoying the sun and inhaling the breeze? 
And hath not that church a lovely look 
In the page of this landscape's open book? 
Like a capital letter which catches the eye 
Of the reader, and says a new chapter is nigh ; 
So its tower, by which the horizon is broken. 
Of prayer and of praise a beautiful token. 
Lifts up its head, fuid silently tells 
Of a world hereafter, where happiness dwells. 
While that scathed tree seems a link between 

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42 POEMS OP PLACES. 

The dead and the living ! 'T is barren and bare. 
But the grass below it is fresh and green. 

Though its roots can find no moisture there: 
Yet still on its birthplace it loves to linger. 
And evermore points with its silent finger 
To the clouds, and the sun, and the sky so fair. 
« « « « « 

Bernard Barlon. 



Plumpton. 

PLUMPTON. 

WHO would not here become a hermit? here 
Grow old in song? here die, on Nature's breast 
Hushed, like yon wild bird on the lake, to rest? 
Then laid asleep beneath the branches sere, 
Till the Awakener in the east appear. 
And call the dead to judgment? Quietness, 
Methinks the heart-whole rustic loves thee less 
Than the town's thought-worn smiler. O, most dear 
Art thou to him who flies from care to bowers 
That breathe of sainted calmness! and to me 
More welcome than the breath of hawthorn flowers 
To children of the city, when delight 
Leads them from smoke to cowslips, is the sight 
Of these green shades, those rocks, this little sea. 

Ebenezer EllioU, 



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PLYMOUTH. 43 



Plymouth. 

PLYMOUTH. 

CORINEUS AND 00GMA006. 

ALL doubtful to which part the victory would go 
Upon that lofty place at Plymouth called the 

Hoe, 
Those mighty wrestlers met; with many an ireful look 
Who threatened, as the one hold of the other took : 
But, grappled, glowing fire shines in their sparkling 

eyes. 
And whilst at length of arm one from the other lies. 
Their lusty sinews swell like cables, as they strive: 
Their feet such trampling make, as though they forced 

to drive 
A thunder out of earth, which staggered with the 

weight : 
Thus cither's utmost force urged to the greatest height. 
Whilst one upon his hip the other seeks to lift, 
Aud the adverse (by a turn) doth from his cunning 

shift. 
Their short-fetched troubled breath a hollow noise doth 

make 
Like bellows of a forge. Then Corin up doth take 
The giant 'twixt the grains ; and voiding of his hold 
(Before his cumberous feet he well recover could) 
Pitched headlong from the hill; as when a man doth 

throw 



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44 POEMS OF PLACES. 

An axtree, that with slight delivered from the toe 
Roots up the yielding earth; so that his violent fall 
Strook Neptune with such strength, as shouldered him 

withal ; 
That where the monstrous waves like mountains late 

did stand, 
They leaped out of the place, and left the bared sand 
To gaze upon wide Heaven : so great a blow it gave. 
For which the conquering brute on Corineus brave 
This horn of land bestowed, and marked it with his 

name; 
Of Corin, Cornwal called, to his immortal fame. 
« « « « « 

3£ichael Drayton, 

THE SPANISH ARMADA. 

ATTEND all ye who list to hear 
Our noble England's praise! 
I tell of the thrice famous deeds 

She wrought in ancient days. 
When that great fleet invincible 

Against her bore in vain 
The richest spoils of Mexico, 
The stoutest hearts of Spain. 

It was about the lovely close 

Of a warm summer day, 
There came a gallant merchant-ship 

Full sail to Plymouth Bay; 
Her crew had seen Castile's black fleet 

Beyond Aurigny*s Isle, 

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PLYMOUTH. 45 

At earliest twilight, on the waves. 

Lie heaving many a mile; 
At sunrise she escaped their van. 

By God's especial grace; 
And the tall Pinta, till the moon. 

Had held her close in chase. 
Forthwith, a guard at every gun 

Was placed along the wall; 
The beacon blazed upon the roof 

Of Edgecombe's lofty hall. 
And many a fishing-bark put out 

To pry along the coast. 
And with loose rein and bloody spur 

Rode inland many a post. 

With his white hair unbonneted 

The stout old sheriff comes ; 
Behind him march the halberdiers. 

Before him sound the drums. 
His yeomen round the market-cross 

Make clear an ample space. 
For there behoves liim to set up 

The standard of her grace. 
And haughtily the trumpets peal, 

And gayly dance the bells. 
As slow upon the laboring wind 

The royal blazon swells. 
Look how the lion of the seas 

Lifts up his ancient crown. 
And underneath his deadly paw 

Treads the gay lilies down! 

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46 POEMS OP PLACES. 

So stalked he when he turned to flight. 

On that famed Picard field, 
Bohemia's plume, Genoa's bow. 

And Caesar's eagle shield; 
So glared he when at Agincourt 

In wrath he turned to bay. 
And crushed and torn beneath his claws 

The princely hunters lay. 
Ho ! strike the flagstaff deep, Sir Knight, 

Ho! scatter flowers, fair maids. 
Ho! gunners, fire a loud salute. 

Ho ! gallants, draw your blades ; 
Thou sun, shine on her joyously ; 

Ye breezes, waft her wide; 
Our glorious Semper eadem, — 

The banner of our pride! 

The freshening breeze of eve unfurled 

That banner's massy fold, — 
The parting gleam of sunshine kissed 

That haughty scroll of gold ; 
Night sank upon the dusky beach. 

And on the purple sea, ^— 
Such night in England ne'er had been. 

Nor e'er again shall be. 
Prom Eddystone to Berwick bounds. 

From Lynn to Milford Bay, 
That time of slumber was as bright 

And busy as the day; 
For swift to east and swift to west 

The warning radiance spread; 



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PLYMOUTH. 47 

Higli on St. Michael's Mount it shone, 

It shone on Beachy Head. 
Ear on the deep the Spaniard saw. 

Along each southern shire, 
Cape beyond cape, in endless range, 

Those twinkling points of fire; 
The fisher left his skiff to rock 

On Tamar*s glittering waves. 
The rugged miners poured to war 

From Mendip's sunless caves. 
0*er Longleat's towers, o'er Cranbonme's oaks. 

The fiery herald flew; 
He roused the shepherds of Stonehenge, 

The rangers of Beaulieu. 

Right sharp and quick the bells all night 

Rang out from Bristol town, 
And ere the day three hundred horse 

Had met on Clifton down; 
The sentinel on Whitehall Gate 

Looked forth into the night. 
And saw o'erhanging Richmond Hill 

The streak of blood-red light. 
Then bugle's note and cannon's roar 

The death-like silence broke, 
And with one start and with one cry 

The royal city woke. 
At once on all her stately gates 

Arose the answering fires; 
At once the wild alarum clashed 

From all her reeling spires; 

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48 POEMS OF PLACES. 

From all the batteries of the Tower 

Pealed load the voice of fear; 
And all the thousand masts of Thames 

Sent back a louder cheer; 
And from the farthest wards was heard 

The rush of hurrying feet, 
And the broad streams of flags and pikes 

Dashed down each roaring street; 
And broader still became the blaze. 

And louder still the din, 
As fast from every village round 

The horse came spurring in; 
And eastward straight, from wild Blackheath, 

The warlike errand went. 
And roused in many an ancient hall. 

The gallant squires of Kent. 
Southward from Surrey's pleasant hills 

Flew those bright couriers forth; 
High on bleak Hempstead's swarthy moor 

They started for the north; 
And on andon, without a pause, 

Untired they bounded still; 
All night from tower to tower they sprang, — 

They sprang from hill to hill. 
Till the proud Peak unfurled the flag 

O'er Darwin's rocky dales, — 
Till like volcanoes flared to heaven 

The stormy hills of Wales, — 
Till twelve fair counties saw the blaze 

On Malvern's lonely height. 
Till streamed in crimson on the wind 

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PONTEPRACT. 49 

The Wrekin's crest of light, — 
Till broad and fierce the star came forth 

Oa Ely's stately fane. 
And tower and hamlet rose in arms 

O'er all the boundless plain, — 
Till Belvoir's lordly terraces 

The sign to Lincoln sent. 
And Lincoln sped the message on 

O'er the wide vale of Trent, — 
Till Skiddaw saw the fire that burned 

On Gaunt's embattled pile. 

And the red glare on Skiddaw roused 

The burghers of Carlisle ! 

Lord Macaultuf. 



Pontefrdct (Pom/ret). 

KING RICHARD IN THE DUNGEON OF POMFRET CASTLE. 

I HAVE been studying how to compare 
This prison, where I live, unto the world; 
And, for because the world b populous. 
And here is not a creature but myself, 
I canuot do it. — Yet I '11 hammer it out. 
My brain I '11 prove the female to my soul ; 
My soul, the father: and these two beget 
A generation of still-breeding thoughts. 
And these same thoughts people this little world 
In humors, like the people of this world. 



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50 POEMS OF PLACES. 

For no thought is contented. The better sort — 
As thoughts of things divine — are intermixed 
With scruples, and do set the Word itself 
Against the Word: as thus, Come^ little ones; then 

again, 
It is as hard to come, as for a camel 
To thread the postern of a small needle's eye. 
Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot 
Unlikely wonders: how these vain weak nails 
May tear a passage through the flinty ribs 
Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls; 
And, for they cannot, die in their own pride. 
Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves 
That they are not the first of Fortune's slaves. 
Nor shall not be the last; like silly beggars. 
Who, sitting in the stocks, refuge their shame 
That many have, and others must sit there: 
And in this thought they find a kind of ease. 
Bearing their own misfortune on the back 
Of such as have before endured the like. 
Thus play I, in one person, many people. 
And none contented. Sometimes am I king; 
Then treason makes me wish myself a beggar. 
And so I am. Then crushing penury 
Persuades me I was better when a king; 
Then am I kinged again: and, by and by. 
Think that I am unkinged by Bolingbroke, 
And straight am nothing. — But, whate'er I am. 
Nor I, nor any mafi that but man is. 
With nothing shall be pleased till he be eased 
With being nothing. — Music do I hear? 

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PONTEFRACT. 51 

Ha, ha! keep time. — How sour sweet music is, 
Wtien time is broke, and no proportion kept ! 
So is it in the music of men*s lives. 
And here have I the daintiness of ear 
To check time broke in a disordered string; 
But, for the concord of mj state and time. 
Had not an ear to hear my true time broke. 
I wasted time, and now doth Time waste me; 
Por now hath Time made me his numbering clock. 
My thoughts are minutes ; and, with sighs, they jar 
Their motions unto mine eyes, the outward watch. 
Whereto my finger, like a dial's point. 
Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears. 
Now, sir, the sound that tells what hour it is 
Are clamorous groans, that strike upon my heart. 
Which is the bell : so sighs, and tears, and groans, 
Show minutes, times, and hours; but my time 
Runs posting on in Bolingbroke's proud joy, 
While I stand fooling here, his Jack-o*-the-clock. 
This music mads me, let it sound no more; 
For, though it have holp madmen to their wits. 
In me, it seems, it will make wise men mad. 
Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me! 
For 't is a sign of love ; and love to Richard 
Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world. 

William Shakespeare. 



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53 POEMS OF PLACES. 



Porloch 

PORLOCK. 

PORLOCK! thy verdant vale so fair to sight, 
Thy lofty hills which fern and furze imbrown. 
The waters that roll musically down 
Thy woody glens, the traveller with delight 
Recalls to memory, and the channel gray 
Circling its surges in thy level bay. 
Porlock ! I also shall forget thee not. 
Here by the unwelcome summer rain confined; 
But often shall hereafter call to mind 
How here, a patient prisoner, 't was my lot 
To wear the lonely, lingering close of day, 
Making my sonnet by the alehouse fire, 
Whilst Idleness and Solitude inspire 
Dull rhymes to pass the duller hours away. 

Robert Souihey. 



SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF E. S. 

WRITTEN AT WORTHY FARM, NEAR PORLOCK, SOMERSET. 

THIS side the brow of yon sea-bounding hill 
There is an alley overarched with green. 
Where thick -grown briers entwine themselves at will; 
There, twinkling through the under-flowers, is seen 
The ever-shaking ocean far below; 
And on the upper side, a rocky wall 



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PRESTON. 53 

Where deepest mosses and lithe ivies grow. 
And honeysuckle-blooms in clusters fall. 
There walked I when I last remembered thee; 
And all too joyfully came o'er my mind 
Moments of pleasure by the southern sea. 
By our young lives two summers left behind; 
Ah, sad-sweet memory, — for that very day 
The gloom came on which may not pass away. 

Henry Alford. 



Preston. 

FILIAL PIETY. 

ON THE WAYSIDE BETWEEN PRESTON AND LIVERPOOL. 

UNTOUCHED through all severity of cold; 
Inviolate, whate'er the cottage hearth 
Might need for comfort or for festal mirth; 
That pile of turf is half a century old : 
Yes, traveller! fifty winters have been told 
Since suddenly the dart of death went forth 
'Grainst him who raised it, — his last work on earth: 
Thence has it, with the son, so strong a hold 
Upon his father's memory, that his hands. 
Through reverence, touch it only to repair 
Its waste. Though crumbling with each breath of air. 
In annual renovation thus it stands, — 
Rude mausoleum ! but wrens nestle there. 
And redbreasts warble when sweet sounds are rare. 

William Wxurdsworih. 

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54; POEMS OF PLACES. 



PRESTON MILLS. 

THE day was fair, the cannon roared. 
Cold blew the bracing north, 
And Preston's Mills, by thousands, poured 
Their little captives forth. 

All in their best they paced the street. 

All glad that they were free; 
And sung a song with voices sweet, — 

They sung of Liberty ! 

But from their lips the rose had fled, 
Like " death-m-life " they smiled; 

And still, as each passed by, I said, 
Alas! is that a child? 

Flags waved, and men — a ghastly crew — 
Marched with them, side by side : 

While hand in hand, and two by two. 
They moved, — a Uving tide. 

Thousands and thousands, — all so white ! — 

With eyes so glazed and dull! 
O God! it was indeed a sight 

Too sadly beautiful! 

And O, the pang their voices gave 

Refuses to depart ! 
This is a wailing for the grave, 

I whispered to my heart ! 



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RAMSGATE. 55 

It was as if, where roses blushed, 

A sudden blasting gale 
O'er fields of bloom had rudely rushed. 

And turned the roses pale. 

It was as if in glen and grove 

The wild birds sadly sung; 
And every linnet mourned its love. 

And every thrush its young. 

It was as if in dungeon gloom. 

Where chained despair reclined, 
A sound came from the living tomb. 

And hymned the passing wind. 

And while they sang, and though they smiled. 

My soul groaned heavily, — 
O, who would be or have a child? 

A mother who would beP 

Ebenezer Elliott. 



Ramsgate. 



TO THE REV. MR. NEWTON 

ON HIS EETUltN PEOM RAMSGATE. 

THAT ocean yon have late surveyed, 
Those rocks I too have seen; 
But I afflicted and dismayed. 
You tranquil and serene. 

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56 POEMS OF PLACES. 

You from the flood-controlling steep 
Saw stretched before your view. 

With conscious joy, the threatening deep. 
No longer such to you. 

To me the waves that ceaseless broke 

Upon the dangerous coast 
Hoarsely and ominously spoke 

Of all ray treasure lost. 

Your sea of troubles you have past. 

And found the peaceful shore; 
I, tempest-tossed, and wrecked at last. 

Come home to port no more. 

William Cowper, 



Bavensworth. 

ALLEN-A-DALE. 

ALLEN-A-DALE has no fagot for burning, 
Allen-a-Dale has no furrow for turning, 
AlIen-a-Dale has no fleece for the spinning. 
Yet Allen-a-Dale has red gold for the winning. 
Come read me my riddle! come hearken my tale! 
And tell me the craft of bold Allen-a-Dale. 

The Baron of Ravensworth prances in pride, 
And he views Ids domains upon Arkindale side. 

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EAVENSWORTH. 57 

The mere for Lis net, and the laud for his game. 
The chase for the wild, and the park for the tame; 
Yet the fish of the lake, and the deer of the vale. 
Are less free to Lord Dacre than Allen-a-Dale. 

Allen-a-Dale was ne'er belted a knight. 

Though his spur be as sharp, and his blade be as bright ; 

Allen-a-Dale is no baron or lord. 

Yet twenty tall yeomen will draw at his word; 

And the best of our nobles liis bonnet will veil. 

Who at Rere-cross on Stanmore meets Alleu-a-Dale. • 

Allen-a-Dale to his wooing is come; 
The mother, she asked of his household and home ; 
" Though the castle of Richmond stand fair on the hill, 
My hall," quoth bold Allen, "shows gallanter still; 
'T is the blue vault of heaven, with its crescent so pale. 
And with all its bright spangles ! " said Allen-a-Dale. 

The father was steel, and the mother was stone; 
They lifted the latch, and they bade him be gone; 
But loud, on the morrow, their wail and their cry. 
He had laughed on the lass with his bonny black eye, 
And she fled to the forest to hear a love-tale. 
And the youth it was told by was Allen-a-Dale! 

Sir Walter Scott. 



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58 POEMS OF PLACES. 



Reading. 



THE rOEBURY, AT READING, VISITED ON A MISTY EVENING 
IN AUTUMN. 

SOFT uplands, that in boyhood's earliest days 
Seemed mountain-like and distant, fain once more 
Would I behold you! but the autumn hoar 
Hath veiled your pensive groves in evening haze; 
Yet must I wait till on my searching gaze 
Your outline lives, — more dear than if ye wore 
An April sunset's consecrating rays, — 
For even thus the images of yore 
Which ye awaken glide from misty years 
Dream-like and solemn, and but half unfold 
Their tale of glorious hopes, religious fears. 
And visionary schemes of giant mould; 
Whose dimmest trace the world-worn heart reveres, 
And, with love's grasping weakness, strives to hold. 



II. 



ON HEARING THE SHOUTS OF THE PEOPLE AT THE READING 
ELECTION, IN THE SUMMER OF 1826, AT A DISTANCE. 

HAKK ! from the distant town the long acclaim 
On the charmed silence of the evening breaks 
With starthng interruption; yet it wakes 
Thought of that voice of never-dying fame 

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REPTON. 59 

Which on my boyish meditation came 

Here, at an hour like this; — my soul partakes 

A moment's gloom, that yon fierce contest slakes 

Its thirst of high emprise and glorious aim : 

Yet wherefore ? Feelings that from Heaven are shed 

Into these tenements of flesh ally 

Themselves to earthly passions, lest, unfed 

By warmth of human sympathies, they die; 

And shall — earth's fondest aspirations dead — 

Fulfil their first and noblest prophecy. 



III. 



VIEW OF THE VALLEY OF READINO, PEOM TTLEHURST, AT 
THE CLOSE OF THE SAME ELECTION. 

rpOO long have I regarded thee, fair vale, 

-L But as a scene of struggle which denies 

All pensive joy ; and now with childliood's eyes 

In old tranquillity, I bid thee hail; 

And welcome to my soul thy own sweet gale, 

Which wakes from loveliest woods the melodies 

Of long-lost fancy. Never may there fail 

Within thy circlet spirits born to rise 

In honor, — whether won by Freedom rude 

In her old Spartan majesty, or wrought 

With partial, yet no base regard, to brood 

O'er usages by time with sweetness fraught; 

Be thou their glory-tinted solitude, 

The cradle and the home of generous thought ! 

Thomas Noon Taffourd. 



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60 POEMS or PLACES. 

Repton. 

REPTON. 

FROM yon dark-tufted hill yet clothed in shade. 
Which, like a giant helm with its black plumes. 
Frowns o'er the velvet seat of its. repose. 
We may behold, in many a shining bend. 
The silver Trent, slow wandering on and on. 
Till it is lost amid the far-off vales. 
Still robed in fleecy shadows of dim purple. 

« « « « « 

Now gaze around you, — lo ! what scenes of beauty 
Spread their gay flood of transport on the eye. 
And from the eye spring rapturous to the heart! 
Cold, deadly cold, must be that dark-hued spirit 
That bums not with delight at Nature's charms. 
With grace luxuriant fraught, and softest bliss, — 
Thus decked with smiles of passionate tenderness. 
As if appealing to his heart's best love ! 

There is the village-church, serenely seated 
Amidst its shadowy elms, — its lofty spire 
Tapering majestic mid the azure skies. 
Now doth a snowy cloud of gorgeous lustre 
Throw its dark outline clearly on the eye; 
And -we may trace the starling's wheeling flight 
Hound each small ventage of that slender steeple. 
Near it, still shadowed in deep foliage, 
A mingled grove of elms and limes and chestnuts. 

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BEPTON. 61 

The antique Priory Hall, with its gray chimneys. 
Telling of other days, rears its broad pile. 
Reflected in the sleeping lake below. 

Seest thou beyond, amid that azure range 
Of low-browed hills receding to the west, 
The crumbling towers of ancient Tutbury, 
Once the stem prison of the Scottish Queen ! 
Around, for many a mile, the forest-sliades 
Of royal Needwood spread their dusky pomp ; 
Now, like that hoary ruin, stript and bare. 
Yet smiling with their majesty of yore. 
As in contempt of Time's oppressive hate ! 

Nor miss those nearer towers, of kindred grace. 

Soft-rising o'er yon green hill's wooded crest; 

Reared by a hand that grouped, with skilful aim. 

The frowning shadows of the feudal past 

With the gay sunbeams of more modern art: 

Fair, pastoral Newton, — Trent's embosomed pride ! 

Abode of hospitality and worth ! 

Still shall the hours of unretuming mirth 

Oft shared, of old, amid thy festive bowers. 

Live, brightly registered on Memory's page! 

Now gaze upon those cottage roofs below. 

From whose embowered chimneys the blue smoke 

Slowly up-curls : the day is now begun ; 

The cock's shrill clarion hath at length aroused 

Man to his varied task of customed labor. 

It is a scene of soft, sequestered beauty; 

Gently our eye descends a sunny slope 

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62 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Of brightest verdure, bounded by rich meads 

Through which a silvery trout-stream rippling winds; 

The hedge-rows garnished with tall, spreading elms, 

Whose dark and massive foliage well contrasts 

With the light poplars ranged along the brook. 

Lo ! many an antique gable courts the eye, 

O'erspread with vines; and many a cloistered nook 

Of sweetest shade. No habitation there 

But hath its well-stored orchard, or fair croft. 

Descending, in its quiet solitude. 

To the clear rill that murmurs at its feet. 

The hill beyond, which crowns this fairy vision. 

Is one wide range of sylvan loveUness, — 

Groves, orchards, mingling in confused delight! 

Uobert Bigihy. 



Restormel Castle. 

RUINS OF EESTORMEL. 

DAY wanes apace, and yet the sun 
Looks as if he had now begun 
His course, returning from the west; 
O'er Mawgan flames his golden crest, 
Roughtor's dark brow is helmed with fire. 
And the bluff headlands of Pentire 
Like shields embossed with silver glow. 
Glistening and nmrmuring as they flow. 
Camel and Fowey seek different shores; 
And north and south the eye explores 



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BESTORMEL CASTLE. 63 

Two spreading seas of purple sbeen, 
That blend with heaven's own depths serene. 
Inland, from crag and bosky height 
Hoar turrets spring like shafts of light, 
While in the dales the deepening shades 
Extend, and reach the forest glades. 

Descending from the breezy down, 
I turn from Bodmin's ancient town 
And skirt the banks of Fowey's clear stream. 
And through the osiers see the gleam 
Of scales would please old Walton's eye, 
Did he with baited line pass by. 
From the fair, hospitable roof 
Which Vivian reared I keep aloof. 
And pass, though few to leave would choose, 
Lanhydrock's stately avenues. 
At last, as if some mystic power 
Had in the greenwood built his tower, 
Restormel to the gaze presents 
Its range of lofty battlements : 
One part in crypt-like gloom, the rest 
Lit up as for a royal guest, 
And crimson banners in the sky 
Seem from the parapets to fly. 
Where tapers gleamed at close of day 
The sunset sheds its transient ray. 
And carols the belated bird 
Where once the vesper hymn was heard. 

Slowly the sylvan mount I climb, 
Like bard who- toils at some tall rhyme ; 

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64 POEMS OF PLACES. 

And now I reach the moat's broad marge, 
And at each pace more fair and large 
The antique pile grows on my sight, 
Though sullen Time's resistless might, 
Stronger than storms or bolts of Heaven, 
Through wall and buttress rents has riven; 
And widet gaps had here been seen 
But for the ivy's buckler green. 
With stems like stalwart arms sustained: 
Here else had little now remained 
But heaps of stone, or mounds o'ergrown 
With nettles, or with hemlock sown. 

Under the mouldering gate I pass. 
And, as upon the thick, rank grass 
With muffled sound my footstep falls, 
Waking no echo from the walls, 
I feel as one who clianced to tread 
The solemn precincts of the dead. 
There stood the ample hall, and here 
The chapel did its altar rear; 
All round the spacious chambers rose. 
Now swept by every wind that blows. 
By those stone stairs, abrupt and steep, 
You reach the ramparts of the keep. 
And thence may view, as I do now. 
Through opening trees or arching bough 
The distant town, its bridge and spire. 
And hostel, which some most admire; 
The valley with its sparkling wreath 
Of ripples ; the empurpled heath 



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BICHMOND, SUBBY. 65 

Of downs o'er which the lark still trills; 
The dusky underwoods; the hills. 
Some plumed with lofty nodding trees, 
And fringed with rich embroideries 
Of clover, com, or woodland flowers. 
Some decked with granges, balls, and bowers. 
O, not in all the Western land 
From Morwenstowe to Kynance strand. 
Can lovelier prospect charm the eye. 
Yet with each rock-bound coast so nigh 
That you can hear the billows roar. 
And see the birds of ocean soar. 
« « « « « 

Henry Sewell Stokes, 



Bickmondj Surry. 

RICHMOND. 

Say, shall we wind 
Along the streams? or walk the smiling mead? 
Or court the forest glades? or wander wild 
Among the waving harvests? or ascend. 
While radiant Summer opens all its pride, 
Thy hill, delightful Shene?* Here let us sweep 
The boundless landscape: now the raptured eye. 
Exulting swift, to huge Augusta send. 
Now to the Sister Hills that skirt her plain, 

* Ancient name of Richmond. 

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66 POEMS OF PLACES. 

To lofty Harrow now, and now to where 

Majestic Windsor lifts his princely brow. 

In lovely contrast to this glorious view 

Calmly magnificent, then will we turn 

To where the silver Thames first rural grows. 

There let the feasted eye unwearied stray. 

Luxurious, there, rove through the pendant woods 

That nodding hang o'er Harrington's retreat; 

And, stopping thence to Ham's embowering walks. 

Beneath whose shades, in spotless peace retired. 

With her the pleasing partner of his heart. 

The worthy Queensberry yet laments his Gay, 

And polished Cornbury wooes the willing Muse, 

Slow let us trace the matchless vale of Thames; 

Fair winding up to where the Muses haunt 

In Twit'nam's bowers, and for their Pope implore 

The healing Grod; to royal Hampton's pile. 

To Clermont's terraced height, and Esher's groves. 

Where in the sweetest solitude, embraced 

By the soft windings of the silent Mole, 

From courts and senates Pelham finds repose. 

Enchanting vale! beyond whate'er the Muse 

Has of Achaia or Hesperia sung ! 

O vale of bliss ! softly swelling hills ! 

On wliich the power of cultivation lies. 

And joys to see the wonders of his toil. 

Heavens! what a goodly prospect spreads around. 
Of hills, and dales, and woods, and lawns, and spires. 
And glittering towns, and gilded streams, till all 
The stretching landscape into smoke decays ! 
Happy Britannia! where the Queen of Arts, 

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RICHMOND, SURRY. 67 

Inspiring vigor. Liberty abroad 

Walks, unconfined, even to thy farthest cots. 

And scatters plenty with unsparing hand. 

Jamet Thomson, 

ODE ON THE GRAVE OF THOMSON. 

IN yonder grave a Druid lies, 
Where slowly winds the stealing wave; 
The year's best sweets shall duteous rise 
To deck its poet's sylvan grave. 

In yon deep bed of whispering reeds 

His airy harp shall now be laid. 
That he, whose heart in sorrow bleeds. 

May love through life the soothing shade. 

Then maids and youths shall linger here, 
And while its sounds at distance swell. 

Shall sadly seem in Pity's ear 
To hear the woodland pilgrim's knell. 

Remembrance oft shall haunt the shore 
When Thames in summer wreaths is drest. 

And oft suspend the dashing oar. 
To bid his gentle spirit rest. 

And oft, as ease and health retire 

To breezy lawn or forest deep. 
The friend shall view yon whitening spire. 

And mid the varied landscape weep. 

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68 POEMS OF PLACES. 

But thon, "who own*st that earthy bed. 
Ah ! wliat will every dirge avail P 

Or tears which love and pity shed. 
That mourn beneath the gliding sail? 

Yet lives there one, whose heedless eye 

Shall scorn thy pale shrine glimmering near? 

With him, sweet bard, may fancy die, 
And joy desert the blooming year. 

But thou, lorn stream, whose sullen tide 
No sedge-crowned sisters now attend. 

Now waft me from the green hilFs side 
Whose cold turf hides the buried friend ! 

And see the fairy valleys fade; 

Dun night has veiled the solemn view! 
Yet once again, dear parted shade. 

Meek Nature's child, again adieu! 

Thy genial meads, assigned to bless 
Thy life, shall mourn thy early doom; 

There hinds and shepherd-girls shall dress 
With simple hands thy rural tomb. 

Long, long, thy stone and pointed clay 
Shall melt the musing Briton's eyes: 

O vales and wild woods, shall he say, 
In yonder grave a Druid lies! 

William Collins. 



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EICHMOND, SURRY. 69 



RICHMOND. 

THAMES swept aloug in summer pride. 
Sparkling beneath liis verdant edge; 
With frolic kiss, as half denied. 
Light airs were glancing o'er the tide. 
Or whispering in the secret sedge. 

Cheerful the landscape's sunny green. 

Yet still, in pensive mood reclined. 
Pondering of things to be, or been, 
I shrank at many a visioned scene 

Of fear, before ; of grief, behind. 

The insect tribes, but newly born. 
Were flaunting in the awakening ray; 

In me they woke no touch of scorn ; 

I saw them frail, but more to mourn 
The kindred doom of man's decay. 

For here, of old, his booty won. 
The Dane caroused in barbarous glee. 
Or Roman veteran, toil-foredone. 
Lay stretched beneath the westering sun. 
In dreams of pleasant Italy. 

Or floating by, in gallant show, 
Gay beauty glanced at monarch's jest. 
Nor marked where, high above the prow, 
Mid mirth and wine^ and music's flow, 

Sat Change, — a dark and threatening guest. 

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70 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Their mirth is sped; their gravest theme 
Sleeps with the thiugs that cease to be; 
Their longest life, a morning gleam ; 
A bubble bursting on the stream. 
Then swept to Time's unfathomed sea. 

Yes ! all, beneath or change or chance. 
And passing, like the passing river. 
The wassail shout, the dreamer's trance. 
And monarch's jest, and beauty's glance. 
Were human all, and gone forever ! 

John Kenyan. 



REMEMBRANCE OF COLLINS. 

COMPOSED UPON THE THAMES, NEAE KICHMOND. 

GLIDE gently, thus forever glide, 
O Thames! that other bards may see 
As lovely visions by thy side 
As now, fair river ! come to me. 
O, glide, fair stream ! forever so 
Thy quiet soul on all bestowing, 
Till all our minds forever flow 
As thy deep waters now are flowing. 

Vain thought ! — Yet be as now thou art, 

That in thy waters may be seen 

The image of a poet's heart. 

How bright, how solemn, how serene ! 

Such as did once the poet bless. 

Who, murmuring here a later ditty, 



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RICHMOND, YORKSHIRE. 71 

Could find no refuge from distress 
But in the milder grief of pity. 

Now let us, as we float along, 
For him suspend the dashing oar; 
And pray that never child of song 
May know that poet's sorrows more. 
How calm! how still! the only sound. 
The dripping of the oar suspended ! 
The evening darkness gathers round. 
By virtue's holiest powers attended. 

William Wordtworth, 



Richmondj Yorkshire. 

STANZAS WRITTEN IN THE CHURCHYARD OF RICHMOND, 
YORKSHIRE. 

METHINKS it is good to be here; 
If thou wilt, let us build, — but for whom? 
Nor Elias nor Moses appear; 
But the shadows of eve that encompass with gloom 
The abode of the dead and the place of the tomb. 

Shall we build to Ambition ? Ah, no ! 

Affrighted, he shrinketh away, — 

For see, they would pin him below 

In a dark narrow cave, and, begirt with cold clay. 

To the meanest of reptiles a fear and a prey. 



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72 POEMS OF PLACES. 

To Beauty? Ah, no! she forgets 

The charms which she wielded before, 

Nor knows the foul worm that he frets 

The skin that but yesterday fools could adore. 

For the smoothness it held or the tint which it wore. 

Shall' we build to the purple of Pride, 
The trappings which dizen the proud? 
Alas! they are all laid aside. 
And here 's neither dress nor adornment allowed. 
Save the long winding-sheet and the fringe of the 
shroud. 

To Riches ? Alas, 't is in vain : 

Who hide in their turns have been hid; 

The treasures are squandered again; 

And here in the grave are all metals forbid, 

Save the tinsel that shines on the dark coffin-lid. 

To the pleasures which Mirth can afford. 

The revel, the laugh, and the jeer? 

Ah ! here is a plentiful board ! 

But the guests are all mute at their pitiful cheer. 

And none but the worm is a reveller here. 

Shall we build to Affection and Love? 

Ah, no ! They have withered and died. 

Or fled with the spirit above: 

Friends, brothers, and sisters are laid side by side. 

Yet none have saluted, and none have replied. 

Unto Sorrow? The dead cannot grieve; 
Not a sob, not a sigh, meets mine ear, 



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BIBBLEDIN, THE RIVER. 73 

Which compassion itself could relieve. 

Ah, sweetly they slumber, nor love, hope, or fear; 

Peace, peace! is the watchword, — the only one here. 

Unto Death, to whom monarchs must bow? 

Ah, no! for his empire is known. 

And here there are trophies enow ! 

Beneath the cold head and around the dark stone 

Are the signs of a sceptre that none may disown. 

The first tabernacle to Hope we will build. 
And. look for the sleepers around us to rise ! 
The second to Faith, which insures it fulfilled; 
And the third to the Lamb of the great sacrifice, 
Who bequeathed us them both when he rose to the 
skies. Herbert Knowlet. 



Rihhledirij the River. 

RIBBLEDIN; OB, THE CHRISTENING. 

NO name hast thou, lone streamlet 
That lovest Rivilm ! 
Here, if a bard may christen thee, 

I'll call thee "Ribbledm"; 
Here, where first murmuring from thine urn. 

Thy voice deep joy expresses; 
And down the rock, like music, flows 
The wildness of thy tresses. 

Here, while beneath the umbrage 
Of Nature's forest bower. 



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74 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Bridged o*er by many a fallen birch, 
And watched by many a flower. 

To meet thy cloud-descended love. 
All tremblmg, thou retirest, — 

Here will I murmur to thy waves 
The sad joy thou inspirest. 

Dim world -of weeping mosses ! 

A hundred years ago. 
Yon hoary-headed holly-tree 

Beheld thy streamlet flow: 
See how he bends him down to hear 

The tune that ceases never! 
Old as the rocks, wild stream, he seems. 

While thou art young forever. 

Wildest and lonest streamlet! 

Gray oaks, all lichened o'er! 
Rush-bristled isles! ye ivied trunks 

That marry shore to shore! 
And thou, gnarled dwarf of centuries. 

Whose snaked roots twist above me! 
for the tongue or pen of Burns 

To tell you how I love ye! 

Would that I were a river, 

To wander all alone 
Through some sweet Eden of the wild. 

In music of my own; 
And bathed in bliss, and fed with dew. 

Distilled o'er mountains hoary. 
Return unto my home in heaven 

On wings of joy and glory ! 

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BIBBLEDIN, THE RIVEE. 75 

Or that I were the lichen 

That in this roofless cave 
(The dim geranium's lone boudoir) 

Dwells near the shadowed wave. 
And hears the breeze-bowed tree-top's sigh. 

While tears below are flowing. 
For all the sad and lovely things 

That to the grave are going! 

that I were a primrose, 

To bask in sunny air! 
Far, far from all the plagues that make 

Town-dwelling men despair! 
Then would I w;atch the building birds, 

Where light and shade are moving, 
And lovers' whisper, and love's kiss. 

Rewards the loved and loving! 

Or that I were a skylark. 

To soar and sing above. 
Filling all hearts with joyful sounds^ 

And my own «oul with love! 
Then o'er the mourner and the dead. 

And o'er the good man dying. 
My song should come like buds and flowers, 

When music warbles flying. 

that a wing of splendor. 
Like yon wild cloud, were mine! 

Yon bounteous cloud, that gets to give, 
And borrows to resign! 

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76 POEMS OF PLACES. 

On that bright wing, to climes of spring 

I 'd bear all wintry bosoms, 
And bid hope smile on weeping thoughts, 

Like April on her blossoms; 

Or like the rainbow, laughing 

O'er Eivilin and Don, 
When misty mornmg calleth up 

Her mountains, one by one, 
While glistening down the golden broom. 

The gem-like dew-drop raineth, 
And round the little rocky isles 

The little wave com'plaineth. 

that the truth of beauty 

Were married to my rhyme! 
That it might wear a mountain charm 

Until the death of Time ! 
Then, Ribbledin! would all the best 

Of Sorrow's sons and daughters 
See truth reflected in my song, 
- Like beauty on thy waters. 

No longer nameless streamlet. 

That marriest Rivilin! 
Henceforth lone Nature's devotees 

Would call thee "Ribbledin," 
Whenever, listening where thy voice 

Its first wild joy expresses. 
And down the rocks all wildly flows 

The wildness of thy tresses. 

Ebenezer Elliott. 

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KIVILIN, THE EIVER. 77 

Riviliriy the River. 

THE TREE OF RIVILIN. 

THE liglitniug, like an Arab, crossed 
The moou's dark patli on high. 
And wild on Eivilin writhed and tossed 

The stars and troubled sky, 
Where lone the tree of ages grew. 

With branches wide and tall: 
All! who, when such a tempest blew. 

Could hear his stormy fall? 
But now the skies, the stars are still. 

The blue wave sleeps again, 
And heath and moss, by rock and rill, 

Are whispering, in disdain. 
That Rivilin's side is desolate. 

Her giant in the dust! 
Beware, Power ! for God is great, 

Guilt ! for God is just ! 
And boast not. Pride! wliile millions pine. 

That wealth secures thy home: 
The storm that shakes all hearths but thine 

Is not the storm to come. 
The tremor of the stars is pale, 

The dead clod quakes with fear, « 
The worm slinks down o*er hill and vale. 

When God in wrath draws near. 
But if the Upas will not bend 

Beneath the frown of Heaven, 
A whisper cometh, which shall rend 

What thunder hath not riven. Eb^^n@^ Elliott. 



78 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Bivers of England. 

RIVERS OF ENGLAND. 

OUR floods' queen, Thames, for skips and swans is 
crowned ; 
And stately Severn for her shore is praised; 
The crystal Trent for fords and fish renowned. 
And Avon's fame to Albion's cliffs is raised. 
Carlegion-Chester vaunts her holy Dee; 
York many wonders of her Ouse can tell ; 
The Peak her Dove, whose banks so fertile be. 
And Kent will say her Medway doth excel. 
Cotswold commends her Isis to the Thame; 
Our northern borders boast of Tweed's fair flood; 
Our western parts extol their Welly's fame, 
And the old Lea brags of the Danish blood. 

Michael Drayton, 

RIVERS OF ENGLAND. 

RIVERS arise; whether thou be the son 
Of utmost Tweed, or Ouse, or gulfy Dun, 
Or Trent, who like some earth-bom giant spreads 
His thirty arms along the indented meads. 
Or sullen Mole that runneth underneath. 
Or Severn swift, guilty of maiden's death. 
Or rocky Avon, or of sedgy Lee, 
Or coaly Tine, or ancient hallowed Dee, 
Or Humber land that keeps the Scythian's name. 
Or Medway smooth, or royal towered Thame. 

John Milton^ 

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EIVEES OP ENGLAND. 79 



RIVERS OF ENGLAND. 



rr that blest moment from his oozy bed 
Old father Thames advanced his reverend head. 
His tresses dropped with dews, and o*er the stream 
His shining horns diffused a golden gleam : 
Graved on his urn appeared the moon, that guides 
His swelling waters and alternate tides ; 
The figured streams in waves of silver rolled. 
And on their banks Augusta rose in gold. 
Around his throne the sea-bom brothers stood, 
•Who swell with tributary urns his flood; 
First the famed authors of his ancient name. 
The winding Isis and the fruitful Tame: 
The Kennet swift, for silver eels renowned; 
The Loddon slow, with verdant alders crowned; 
Cole, whose dark streams his flowery islands lave; 
And chalky Wey, that rolls a milky wave: 
The blue, transparent Vandalis appears; 
The gulfy Lee his sedgy tresses rears; 
And sullen Mole, that hides his diving flood; 
And silent Darent, stained with Danish blood. 

Alexander Pope. 

RIVERS OF ENGLAND. 

NO common pleasure warms the generous mind. 
When it beholds the labors of the loom ; 
How widely round the globe they are dispersed, 
From little tenements by wood or croft. 
Through many a slender path, how sedulous. 

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80 POEMS OP PLACES. 

As rills to rivers broad, tUey speed tlieir way 

To public roads, to Fosse, or Watliug Street, 

Or Armine, ancient works; and thence explore. 

Through every navigable wave, the sea 

That laps the green earth round: through Tyne, and 

Tees, 
Through Weare, and Lune, and merchandizing Hull, 
And Swale, and Aire, whose crystal waves reflect 
The various colors of the tinctured web ; 
Through Ken, swift rolling down his rocky dale. 
Like giddy youth impetuous, then at Wick 
Curbing his train, and, with the sober pace 
Of cautious eld, meandering to the deep; 
Through Dart, and sullen Exe, whose murmuring wave 
Envies the Dune and Rother, who have won 
The serge and kersie to their blanching streams. 

John Dyer. 

RIVERS OF ENGLAND. 

FIVE rivers, like the fingers of a hand. 
Flung from black mountains, mingle, and are one 
Wiiere sweetest valleys quit the wild and grand, 
And eldest forests, o'er the silvan Don, 
Bid their immortal brother journey on, 
A stately pilgrim, watched by all the hills. 
Say, shall we wander where, through warriors' graves, 
The infant Yewden, mountain-cradled, trills 
Her Doric notes? Or where the Locksley raves 
Of broil and battle, and the rocks and caves 
Dream yet of ancient days P Or where the sky 

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ROCH ABBEY. 81 

Darkens o'er Rivilin, the clear and cold, 

That throws his blue length, like a snake, from high P 

Or where deep azure brightens into gold 

O'er Sheaf, that mourns in Eden? Or where rolled 

On tawny sands, through regions passion-wild. 

And groves of love, in jealous beauty dark, 

Complains the Porter, Nature's thwarted child. 

Bom in the waste, like headlong Wiming? Hark! 

The poised hawk calls thee. Village Patriarch ! 

He calls thee to his mountains ! Up, away ! 

Up, up, to Stanedge ! higher still ascend. 

Till kindred rivers, from the summit gray. 

To distant seas their course in beauty bend. 

And, like the lives of human mD lions, blend 

Disparted waves in one immensity! 

Ebenezer EllioU, 



Roch Abbey. 



ROCH ABBEY. 

I. 

PALE ruin! no, — they come no more, the days 
When thought was like a bee within a rose. 
Happier and busier than the beam that plays 
On this thy stream. The stream sings, as it flows, 
A song of valleys, where the hawthorn blows; 
And wanderings through a world of flowery ways, 
Even as of old; but never will it bring 

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82 POflMS OF PLACES. 

Back to my heart my guileless love of praise, — 

The blossomy hours of life's all-beauteous spriug. 

When joy aud hope were ever on the wing, 

Chasing the redstart for its flamy glare. 

The coru-craik for its secret. Who can wring 

A healing balsam from the dregs of care. 

And turn to auburn curls the soul's gray hair ? 

II. 

Yet, Abbey! pleased, I greet thee once agam; 
Shake hands, old friend, for I in soul am old. 
But storms assault thy golden front in vain; 
Unchanged thou seemest, though times are changed and 

cold; 
While to thy side I bring a man of pain. 
With ^youthful cheeks in furrows deep and wide. 
Ploughed up by Fortune's volleyed hail and rain; 
To truth a martyr, hated and belied; 
Of freedom's cause a champion true and tried. 
O, take him to thy heart ! for Pemberton 
Loves thee and thine, because your might hath died, — 
Because thy friends are dead, thy glories gone, — 
Because, like him, thy battered walls abide 
A thousand wrongs, and smile at power and pride. 

III. 
0, BID him welcome then! and let his eyes 
Look on thy beauty, until blissful tears 
Flood the deep channels, worn by agonies. 
Which leave a wreck more sad than that of years. 
Yes; let him see the evening-purpled skies 

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ROKEBY. 83 

Above thy glowing lake bend down to tbee; 
And the love-listening vesper-star arise. 
Slowly, o'er silent earth's tranquillity; 
And all thy ruins weeping silently: 
Then, be his weakness pitied and forgiven. 
If, when the moon illumes her deep blue sea. 
His soul could wish to dream of thee in heaven, 
And, with a friend his bosomed mate to be. 
Wander through endless years by silvered arch and tree. 

Ebenezer Elliott. 



Rokeby. 

ROKEBY AND THE VALLEY OF THE GRETA. 

STERN Bertram shunned the nearer way, 
Through Rokeby's park and chase that lay. 
And, skirting high the valley's ridge, 
They crossed by Greta's ancient bridge; 
Descending where her waters wind 
Free for a space and unconfined. 
As 'scaped from Brignall's dark-wood glen, 
She seeks wild Mortham's deeper den. 
There, as his eye glanced o'er the mound, 
Raised by that Legion long renowned. 
Whose votive shrine asserts their claim, 
Of pious, faithful, conquering fame, 
" Stern sons of war ! " sad Wilfrid sighed, 
" Behold the boast of Roman pride ! 



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84 POEMS OP PLACES. 

What now of all your toils are known ? 
A grassy trencL, a broken stone ! '* — 
This to himself; for moral strain 
To Bertram were addressed in vain. 

Of different mood, a deeper sigh 
Awoke, when Rokeby's turrets high 
Were northward in the dawnmg seen 
To rear them o'er the thicket green. 
then, though Spenser's self had strayed 
Beside him through the lovely glade, 
Lendmg his rich luxuriant glow 
Of fancy, all its charms to show. 
Pointing the stream rejoicing free. 
As captive set at liberty. 
Flashing her sparkling waves abroad, 
And clamoring joyful on her road; 
Pointing where, up the sunny banks. 
The trees retire in scattered ranks. 
Save where, advanced before the rest. 
On knoll or hillock rears his crest. 
Lonely and huge, the giant oak. 
As champions, when their band is broke. 
Stand forth to guard the rearward post, 
The bulwark of the scattered host, — 
All this, and more, might Spenser say. 
Yet waste in vain his magic lay, 
While Wilfrid eyed the distant tower. 
Whose lattice liglits Matilda's bower. 

The open vale is soon passed o'er. 
Rokeby, though nigli, is seen no more; 

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ROKEBY. 85 

Sinking mid Greta's thickets deep, 

A wild and darker course they keep, 

A stern and lone, yet lovely road, 

As e'er the foot of minstrel trode! 

Broad shadows o'er their passage fell. 

Deeper and narrower grew the dell; 

It seemed some mountain, rent and riven, 

A channel for the stream had given. 

So high the cliffs of limestone gray 

Hung beetling o'er the torrent's way. 

Yielding, along their rugged base, 

A flinty footpath's niggard space, 

Where he who winds 'twixt rock and wave 

May hear the headlong torrent rave. 

And like a steed in frantic fit, 

That flings the froth from curb and bit. 

May view her chafe her waves to spray 

O'er every rock that bars her way. 

Till foam-globes on her eddies ride. 

Thick as the schemes of human pride 

That down life's current drive amain. 

As frail, as frothy, and as vain! 

The cliffs that rear their haughty head 
High o'er the river's darksome bed 
Were now all naked, wild, and gray. 
Now waving all with greenwood spray; 
Here trees to every crevice clung, 
And o'er the dell their branches hung; 
And there all splintered and uneven. 
The shivered rocks ascend to heaven; 

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86 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Oft, too, tbe ivy swathed their breast. 
And wreathed its garland round their crest, 
Or from the spires bade loosely flare 
Its tendrils in the middle air. 
As pennons wont to wave of old 
O'er the high feast of baron bold, 
When revelled loud the feudal rout, 
And the arched halls returned their shout; 
Such and more wild is Grela's roar. 
And such the echoes from her shore ; 
And so the ivied banners gleam. 
Waved wildly o'er the brawling stream. 

Now from the stream the rocks recede, 
But leave between no sunny mead. 
No, nor the spot of pebbly sand, 
Oft found by such a mountain strand; 
Forming such warm and dry retreat. 
As fancy deems the lonely seat. 
Where hermit, wandering from his cell. 
His rosary might love to tell. 
But here, 'twixt rock and river, grew 
A dismal grove of sable yew. 
With whose sad tints were mingled seen 
The bhghted fir's sepulchral green. 
Seemed that the trees their shadows cast 
The earth that nourished them to blast; 
For never knew that swarthy grove 
The verdant hue that fairies love; 
Nor wilding green, nor woodland flower. 
Arose within its baleful bower; 



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BOKEBY. 87 

The dank and sable earth receives 

Its only carpet from the leaves, 

That, from the withering branches cast. 

Bestrewed the ground with every blast. 

Though now the sun was o'er the hill. 

In this dark spot 't was twilight still. 

Save that on Greta's farther side 

Some straggling beams through copsewood glide; 

And wild and savage contrast made 

That dingle's deep and funeral shade 

With the bright tints of early day, 

Which, glimmering through the ivy spray,' 

On the opposing summit lay. 



Sir Walter Scott. 



ROKEBY AT SUNSET. 



THE sultry summer day is done. 
The western hills have hid the sun. 
But mountain peak and vUlage spire 
Betain reflection of his fire. 
Old Barnard's towers are purple still 
To those that gaze from Toller Hill; 
Distant and high, the tower of Bowes 
Like steel upon the anvil glows; 
And Stanmore's ridge, behind that lay, 
Rich with the spoils of parting day, 
In crimson and in gold arrayed. 
Streaks yet a while the closing shade. 
Then slow resigns to darkening heaven 
The tints which brighter hours had given. 
Thus aged men, full loath and slow. 



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88 POEMS OF PLACES. 

The yanities of life forego. 

And connt their youthful follies o'er. 

Till memory lends her light no more. 

The eve, that slow on upland fades. 
Has darker closed on Bokeby's glades. 
Where, sunk within their banks profound. 
Her guardian streams to meeting wound. 
The stately oaks, whose sombre frown 
Of noontide make a twilight brown. 
Impervious now to fainter light. 
Of twilight make an early night. 
Hoarse into middle air arose 
The vespers of the roosting crows. 
And with congenial murmurs seem 
To wake the genii of the stream; 
For louder clamored Greta's tide. 
And Tees in deeper voice replied. 
And fitful waked the evening wind. 
Fitful in sighs its breath resigned. 

Sr Walter Scott. 



Boss. 

THE MAN OP ROSS. 

BUT all our praises why should lords engross? 
Bise, honest Muse ! and sing the Man of Ross : 
Pleased Vaga echoes through her winding bounds, 
And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds. 

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ROSS. S9 

Who hung with woods you mouutaiu's sultry brow? 

From the dry rock who bade the waters flow? 

Not to the skies in useless columns tost. 

Or in proud falls magnificently lost. 

But clear and artless, pouring through the plain 

Health to the sick and solace to the swain. 

Whose causeway parts the vale with shady rows? 

Whose seats the weary traveller repose? 

Who taught that heaven-directed spire to rise? 

" The Man of Ross," each lisping babe replies. 

Behold the market-place with poor o'erspread! 

The Man of Ress divides the weekly bread: 

He feeds yon almshouse, neat, but void of state. 

Where age and want sit smiling at the gate: 

Him portioned maids, apprenticed orphans blest. 

The young who labor, and the old who rest. 

Is any sick ? The Man of Ross relieves. 

Prescribes, attends, the medicine makes and gives. 

Is there a variance? Enter but his door. 

Balked are the courts, and contest is no more: 

Despairing quacks with curses fled the place. 

And vile attorneys, now a useless race. 

Thrice happy man! enabled to pursue 

What all so wish but want the power to do! 

O, say what sums that generous hand supply? 

What mines to swell that boundless charity? 

Of debts and taxes, wife and children clear. 

This man possessed, — five hundred pounds a year. 

Blush, grandeur, blush! proud courts, withdraw your 

blaze; 
Ye little stars! hide your diminished rays. 

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90 POEMS OP PLACES. 

And what? no monument, inscription, stone. 
His race, Lis form, bis name almost unknown? 
Who builds a church to God, and not to fame. 
Will never mark: the marble with his name. 

Alexander Fope. 

LINES 

WRITTEN AT THB KINO's ARMS, BOSS, FORMERLY THE HOUSE 
OF "the man OF ROSS.** 

RICHER than miser o'er his countless hoards, 
Nobler than kings or king-polluted lords. 
Here dwelt the Man of Ross! O traveller, hear! 
Departed merit claims a reverent tear. 
Friend to the friendless, to the sick man health. 
With generous joy he viewed his modest wealth ; 
He heard the widow's heaven-breathed prayer of praise. 
He marked the sheltered orphan's tearful gaze. 
Or where the sorrow-shrivelled captive lay, 
Poured the bright blaze of freedom's noontide ray. 
Beneath this roof if thy cheered moments pass. 
Fill to the good man's name one grateful glass: 
To higher zest shall memory wake thy soul. 
And virtue mingle in the ennobled bowl. 
But if, like me, through life's distressful scene 
Lonely and sad thy pilgrimage hath been. 
And if, thy breast with heart-sick anguish fraught, 
Thou journeyest onward tempest-tossed in thought. 
Here cheat thy cares! in generous visions melt. 
And dream of goodness thou hast never felt ! 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 

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BOTHA, THE BIVEE. 91 

Rothaj the River. 

THE ROTHA. 

LOVELIER river is there none 
Underneath an English sun; 
Erora its source it issues bright 
Upon hoar Helvellyn's height. 
Flowing where its summer voice 
Makes the mountain herds rejoice; 
Down the dale it issues then. 
Not polluted there by men; 
While its lucid waters take 
Their pastoral course from lake to lake. 
Please the eye in every part, 
Lull the ear, and soothe the heart. 
Till into Windermere sedate 
They flow and uncontaminate. 

Robert Souihey. 

BANKS OF THE ROTHA. 

'rp WAS that delightful season when the broom, 
-L Full-flowered, and visible on every steep. 
Along the copses runs in veins of gold. 
Our pathway led us on to Rotha's banks; 
And when we came in front of that tall rock 
That eastward looks, I there stopped short, and stood 
Tracing the lofty barrier with my eye 
From base to summit; such delight I found 
To note in shrub and tree, in stone and flower. 

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2 POEMS OF PLACES. 

That intermixture of delicious Lues, 
Along so vast a surface, all at once. 
In one impression, by connecting force 
Of their own beauty, imaged in the heart. 
When I had gazed perhaps two minutes' space, 
Joanna, looking in my eyes, beheld 
That ravishment of mine, and laughed aloud. 
The rock, like something starting from a sleep, 
Took up the lady's voice, and laughed again; 
That ancient woman seated on Helm Crag 
Was ready with her cavern; Hammar Scar, 
Aud the tall steep of Silver How, sent forth 
A noise of laughter; Southern Loughrigg heard. 
And Fairfield answered with a mountain tone; 
Hclvellyn far into the clear blue sky 
Carried the lady's voice, — old Skiddaw blew 
His speaking-trumpet; back out of the clouds 
Of Glaramara southward came the voice, 
Aud Kirkstone tossed it from his misty head. 

William JVorcUworth. 



Bother J the River. 

DON AND EOTHER. 

AGAIN we meet, where often we have met. 
Dear Rother! native Don! 
We meet again, to talk, with vain regret. 
Of deedless aims ! and years remembered yet, — 
The past and gone ! 



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ROTHER, THE RIVER. 93 

We meet again, — perchance to meet no more! 

rivers of the heart! 

I hear a voice, unvoyaged billows o'er. 
Which bids me hasten to their pathless shore. 
And cries, "Depart!" 

"Depart!" it cries. "Why linger on the stage 

Where virtues are veiled crimes? 
Have I not read thee, even from youth to age? 
Thou blotted book, with only one bright page ! 

Thy honest rhymes! 

"Depart, pale drone! What fruit-producing flower 

Hast thou reared on the plain? 
What useful moments count' st thou in thine hour? 
What victim hast thou snatched from cruel power? 

What tyi-ant slam?" 

I will obey the power whom all obey. 

Yes, rivers of the heart ! 
O'er that blind deep, where morning casts no ray 
To cheer the oarless wanderer on his way, 

1 will depart. 

But first, rivers of my childhood ! first 

My soul shall talk with you; 
For on your banks my infant thoughts were nursed ; 
Here from the bud the spirit's petals burst. 

When life was new. 

Before my fingers learned to play with flowers. 
My feet through flowers to stray; 



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94 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Ei-e my tongue lisped, amid your dewy bowers. 
Its first glad hymn to mercy's sunny showers 
And air and day; 

When in my mother's arms, an infant fi-ail. 

Along your windings borne, 
My blue eye caught your glimmer in the vale. 
Where halcyons darted o'er your willows pale. 

On wings like morn. 

Ye saw my feelings round that mother grow. 

Like green leaves round the root! 
Then thought, with danger came, and flowered like woe ! 
But deeds, the fervent deeds that blush and glow. 
Are virtue's fruit. 

« « » « « 

Ebenezer Elliott. 



Rughy. 

BUGBY CHAPEL, NOYEMBEB, 1857. 

COLDLY, sadly descends 
The autumn evening. The field 
Strewn with its dank yellow drifts 
Of withered leaves, and the elms. 
Fade into dimness apace. 
Silent ; — hardly a shout 
From a few boys late at their play! 
The lights come out in the street. 
In the school-room windows; but cold, 



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RUGBY. 95 

SoleiuD, unlighted, austere. 
Through tlie gathering darkness, arise 
The Chapel walls, in whose bound 
Thou, my father ! art laid. 

There thou dost lie, in the gloom 
Of the autumn evening. But ah ! 
That word gloom to my mind 
Brings thee back in the light 
Of thy radiant vigor again ! 
In the gloom of November we passed 
Days not of gloom at thy side; 
Seasons impaired not the ray 
Of thine even cheerfulness clear. 
Such thou wast ; and I stand 
In the autumn evening, and think 
Of bygone autumns with thee. 

Fifteen years Iiave gone round 
Since thou arosest to tread. 
In the summer morning, the road 
Of death, at a call unforeseen, 
Sudden. For fifteen years. 
We who till then in thy shade 
Rested as under the boughs 
Of a mighty oak, have endured 
Sunshine and rain as we might. 
Bare, unshaded, alone, 
Lacking the shelter of thee. 

strong soul, by what shore 
Tarriest thou now? For that force. 

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90 POEMS or PLACES. 

Surely, has not been left vain ! 
Somewhere, surely, afar, 
In the soundmg labor-house vast 
Of being, is practised that strength, 
Zealous, beneficent, firm ! 

Yes, in some far-shining sphere. 
Conscious or not of the past, 
Still thou performest the word 
Of the Spirit in whom thou dost live. 
Prompt, unwearied, as here ! 
Still thou upraisest with zeal 
The humble good from the ground. 
Sternly repressest the bad. 
Still, like a trumpet, dost rouse 
Those who with half-open eyes 
Tread the border-land dim 
'Twixt vice and virtue; reviv'st, 
Snccorest; — this was thy work. 
This was thy life upon earth. 
« « « « « 

McUthew Arnold. 



Runnimede. 

THE BARONS AT RUNNIMEDE. 

WITH what an awful grace those barons stood 
In presence of the king at Runnimede ! 
Their silent finger to that righteous deed 



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EYDAL. 97 

0*er which, with cheek forsaken of its blood. 

He hung, stiii pointing with stern hardihood. 

And brow tliat spake the unuttered mandate, " Read ! " 

" Sign ! " He glares round. — Never ! though thousands 

bleed 
He will not ! Hush, — low words, in solemn mood, 
Are murmured; and he signs. Great God! were these 
Progenitors of our enfeebled kind? 
Whose wordy wars are waged to thwart or please 
Minions, not kings; who stoop with grovelling mind 
To weigh the pauper's dole, scan right by rule, 
And plunder churches to endow a school! 

Sir Aubrey de Vere» 



Rydal. 

LINES 
WRITTEBT wrrn a slate-pencil upon a stone, the largest 

OF A heap lying NEAR A DESERTED qUARRY, UPON ONE 
OF THE ISLANDS AT RYDAL. 

STRANGER! this hillock of misshapen stones 
Is not a ruin spared or made by time. 
Nor, as perchance thou rashly deem'st, the cairn 
Of some old British chief: 't is nothing more 
Than the rude embyro of a little dome 
Or pleasure-house, once destined to be built 
Among the bircli-trees of this rocky isle. 
But, as it chanced, Sir William having learned 



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98 POEMS OP PLACES. 

That from the shore a full-grown man might wade, 

And make himself a freeman of this spot 

At any hour he chose, the prudent knight 

Desisted, and the quarry and the mound 

Are monuments of his unfinished task. 

The block on which these lines are traced, perhaps. 

Was once selected as the comer-stone 

Of that intended pile, which would have been 

Some quaint odd playthuig of elaborate skill. 

So that, I guess, the linnet and the thrush. 

And other little builders who dwell here, 

Had wondered at the work. But blame him not. 

For old Sir William was a gentle knight. 

Bred in this vale, to which he appertained 

With all his ancestry. Then peace to him, 

And for the outrage which he had devised. 

Entire forgiveness ! But if thou art one 

On fire with thy impatience to become 

An inmate of these mountains, — if, disturbed 

By beautiful conceptions, thou hast hewn 

Out of the quiet rock the elements 

Of thy trim mansion destined soon to blaze 

In snow-white splendor, — think again; and, taught 

By old Sir William and his quarry, leave 

Thy fragments to the bramble and the rose; 

There let the vernal slow-worm sun himself. 

And let the redbreast hop from stone to stone. 

William Wordsworth. 



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RYDAL. 99 



RYDAL. 



ADIEU, Rydalian laurels! that have grown 
And spread as if ye knew that days might come 
When ye would shelter in a happy home, 
On this fair mount, a poet of your own. 
One who ne'er ventured for a Delphic crown 
To sue the god; but, haunting your green shade 
All seasons through, is humbly pleased to braid 
Ground-flowers, beneath your guardianship self-sown. 
Farewell! no minstrels now with harp new-strung 
For summer wandering quiet their household bowers; 
Yet not for this wants Poesy a tongue 
To cheer the itinerant on whom she pours 
Her spirit, while he crosses louely moors 
Or, musing, sits forsaken halls among. 

William Wordsworth. 

COMPOSED AT RYDAL, SEPTEMBER, 1860. 

THE last great man by manlier times bequeathed 
To these our noisy and self-boasting days 
In this green valley rested, trod these ways. 
With deep calm breast this air inspiring breathed; 
True bard, because true man, his brow he wreathed 
With wild-flowers only, singing Nature's praise; 
But Nature turned, and crowned him with her bays, 
And said, "Be thou my Laureate." Wisdom sheathed 
In song love-humble; contemplations high, 
That built like larks their nests upon the ground; 

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100 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Insight and vision; sympathies profound 
Tliat spanned tlie total of humanity, — 
These were the gifts which God poured forth at large 
On men through hhn ; and he was faithful to his charge. 

Aubrey de Vere. 

RYDAL MOUNT, JUNE, 1838. 

THIS day without its record may not pass, 
In which I first have seen the lowly roof 
That shelters Wordsworth's age. A love intense. 
Bom of the power that charmed me in his song, 
But grown beyond it into liigher moods 
And deeper gratitude, bound me to seek 
His rural dweUing. Fitting place I found. 
Blest with rare beauty, set in deepest calm : 
Looking upon still waters, whose expanse 
Might tranquillize all thought; and bordered round 
By mountains springing from the turfy slopes 
Tliat bound the margin, to where heath and fera 
Dapple their soaring sides, and higher still 
To where the bare crags cleave the vaporous sky. 

Henry Afford, 

RYDAL MOUNT. 

LOW and white, yet scarcely seen. 
Are its walls for mantling green; 
Not a window lets in light 
But through flowers clustering bright; 
Not a glance may wander there 
But it falls on something fair: 

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BYDAL. 101 

Grardcu choice and fairy mound, 
Ouly that no elves are found; 
Winding walk and sheltered nook. 
For student grave and graver book; 
Or a bird-like bower, perchance. 
Fit for maiden and romance. 
Then, far off, a glorious sheen 
Of wide and sunlit waters seen; 
Hills that in the distance lie 
Blue and yielding as the sky; 
And nearer, closing round the nest. 
The liome, — of all the " living crest " ; 
Other rocks and mountains stand 
' Rugged, yet a guardian band, 
Like those that did in fable old 
Elysium from the world enfold. 

Maria Jane Jewabury. 

INSCRIPTION 

INTENDED FOE A STONE IN THE GROUNDS OP BTDAL MOUNT. 

IN these fair vales hath many a tree 
At Wordsworth's suit been spared; 
And from the builder's hand this stone. 
For some rude beauty of its own. 
Was rescued by the bard : 
So let it rest; and time will come 
When here the tender-hearted 
May heave a gentle sigh for him. 
As one of the departed. 

William Wordstoorlh. 

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102 POEMS OF PLACES. 



Rylstone Hall. 



BYLSTONE. 

'rri IS night : in silence looking down, 
J. Tlie moon from cloudless ether sees 
A camp, and a beleaguered town. 
And castle like a stately crown 
On the steep rocks of winding Tees; 
And southward far, with moor between. 
Hill-top, and flood, and forest green, 
The bright moon sees that valley small 
Where Rylstone's old sequestered Hall 
A venerable image yields 
Of quiet to the neighboring fields. 
While from one pillared chimney breathes 
The smoke, and mounts in silver wreaths. 
The courts are hushed; for timely sleep 
The greyhounds to their kennel creep; 
The peacock in the broad ash-tree 
Aloft is roosted for the night, — 
He who in proud prosperity 
Of colors manifold and bright 
Walked round, affronting the daylight; 
And higher still, above the bower 
Where he is perched, from yon lone tower 
The hall-clock in the clear moonshine 
With glitteriiig finger points at nine. 

William Wordsworlh, 

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ST. BEES. 103 



NORTON TOWER. 



HIGH ott a point of rugged ground 
Among the wastes of Rylstone Fell, 
Above the loftiest ridge or mound 
Where foresters or shepherds dwell. 
An edifice of warlike frame 
Stands single, — Norton Tower its name ; 
It fronts all quarters, and looks round 
O'er path and road, and plain and dell. 
Dark moor, and gleam of pool and stream. 
Upon a prospect without bound. 

William Wordsworth, 



St. Bees. 

STANZAS 

SUGGESTED IN A STEAMBOAT OFF ST. BEES HEADS, ON THE 
COAST OF CUMBERLAND. 

IF life were slumber on a bed of down^ 
Toil unimposed, vicissitude unknown, 
Sad were our lot: no hunter of the hare 
Exults like him whose javelin from the lair 
Has roused the lion; no one plucks the rose. 
Whose proffered beauty in safe shelter blows 
Mid a trim garden's summer luxuries. 
With joy like his who climbs, on hands and knees. 
For some rare plant, yon headland of St. Bees. 



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104i POEMS OF PLACES. 

This independence upon oar and sail. 
This new indifference to breeze or gale, 
This straight-lined progress, furrowing a flat lea. 
And regular as if locked in certainty, 
Depress the hours. Up, spirit of the storm ! 
That courage may find something to perform ; 
That fortitude, whose blood disdains to freeze 
At danger's bidding, may confront the seas. 
Firm as the towering headlands of St. Bees. 

Dread cliff of Baruth ! that wild wish may sleep. 
Bold as if men and creatures of the deep 
Breathed the same element; too many wrecks 
Have struck thy sides, too many ghastly decks 
Hast thou looked down upon, that such a thought 
Should here be welcome, and in verse en wrought: 
With thy stern aspect better far agrees 
Utterance of thanks, that we have past with ease. 
As millions thus shall do, the headlands of St. Bees. 

Yet, while each useful art augments her store. 
What boots the gain if nature should lose more ? 
And wisdom, as she holds a Christian place 
In man's intelligence sublimed by grace? 
When Bega sought of yore the Cumbrian coast. 
Tempestuous winds her holy errand crossed; 
She knelt in prayer, — the waves their wrath appease ; 
And from her vow, well weighed in Heaven's decrees. 
Rose, where she touched the strand, the Chantry of 
St. Bees. 

" Cruel of heart were they, bloody of hand," 
Who in these wilds then struggled for command; 

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ST. BEES. 105 

The strong were merciless, without hope the weak; 
Till this bright stranger came, fair as daybreak. 
And as a cresset true that darts its length 
Of beamy lustre from a tower of strength; 
Guiding the mariner through troubled seas. 
And cheering oft his peaceful reveries. 
Like the fixed light that crowns yon headland of St. 
Bees. 

To aid the votaress, miracles believed 

WrougFit in men's minds, like miracles achieved; 

So piety took root; and song might tell 

What Immanizing virtues near her cell 

Sprang up, and spread their fragrance wide around; 

How savage bosoms melted at the sound 

Of gospel truth enchained in harmonies 

Wafted o'er waves, or creeping through close trees. 

From her religious mansion of St. Bees. 

When her sweet voice, that instrument of love. 

Was glorified, and took its place, above 

The silent stars, among the angelic choir, 

Her Chantry blazed with sacrilegious fire. 

And perished utterly; but her good deeds 

Had sown the spot that witnessed them with seeds 

Which lay in earth expectant, till a breeze 

With quickening impulse answered their mute pleas. 

And lo ! a statelier pile, the Abbey of St. Bees. 



There are the naked clotlied, the hungry fed; 
And Charity extendeth to the dead 



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106 POEMS OP PLACES. 

Her intercessions made for the soul's rest 

Of tardy penitents; or for the best 

Among the good (when love might else have slept, 

Sickened, or died) in pious memory kept. 

Thanks to the austere and simple devotees, 

Who, to that service bound by venial fees. 

Keep watch before the altars of St. Bees. 

Are not, in sooth, their requiems sacred ties 

Woven out of passion's sharpest agonies. 

Subdued, composed, and fbrmaUzed by art, * 

To fix a wiser sorrow in the heart? 

The prayer for them whose hour is past away 

Says to the living, Profit while ye may ! 

A little part, and that the worst, he sees. 

Who thinks that priestly cunning holds the keys 

That best unlock the secrets of St. Bees. 

Conscience, the timid being's inmost light, 
Hope of the dawn and solace of the night. 
Cheers these recluses with a steady ray 
In many an hour when judgment goes astray. 
Ah ! scorn not hastily their rule who try 
Earth to despise and flesh to mortify. 
Consume with zeal, in winged ecstasies 
Of prayer and praise forget their rosaries. 
Nor hear the loudest surges of St. Bees. 

Yet none so prompt to succor and protect 

The forlorn traveller, or sailor wrecked 

On the bare coast; nor do they grudge the boon 

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ST. BEES. 107 

Which staff and cockle hat and sandal shoon 
Claim for the pilgrim : and^ though chidings sharp 
May sometimes greet the strolling mmstrel's harp, 
It is not then when, swept with sportive ease. 
It charms a feast-day throng of ^ degrees. 
Brightening the archway of revered St. Bees. 

How did the cliffs and echoing hills rejoice 
What time the Benedictine Brethren's voice. 
Imploring, or commanding with meet pride, 
Summoned the chiefs to lay their feuds aside, 
And under one blest ensign serve the Lord 
In Palestine. Advance, indignant Sword ! 
Flaming till thou from Painim hands release 
That tomb, dread centre of all sanctities 
Nursed in the quiet Abbey of St. Bees. 

But look we now to them whose minds from far 
Follow the fortunes which they may not share. 
While in Judaea fancy loves to roam. 
She helps to make a Holy Land at home: 
The Star of Bethlehem from its sphere invites 
To sound the crystal depth of maiden rights; 
And wedded life, through Scriptural mysteries, 
Heavenward ascends with all her charities. 
Taught by the hooded celibates of St. Bees. 

Nor be it e'er forgotten how by skill 
Of cloistered architects, free their souls to fill 
With love of God, throughout the land were raised 
Churches, on whose symbolic beauty gazed 

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108 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Peasant and mail-clad chief with pious awe; 
As at tbis day men seeing what they saw. 
Or the bare wreck of faith's solemnities, 
Aspire to more than earthly destinies; 
Witness yon pile that greets us from St. Bees. 

Yet more; around those churches gathered towns 
Safe from the feudal castle's haughty frowns ; 
Peaceful abodes, where justice might uphold 
Her scales witli even hand, and culture mould 
The heart to pity, train the mind in care 
Por rules of life, sound as the time could bear. 
Nor dost thou fail, through abject love of ease, 
Or hindrance raised by sordid purposes, 
To bear thy part in this good work, St. Bees. 

Who with the ploughshare clove the barren moors. 
And to green meadows changed the swampy shores? 
Thinned the rank woods; and for the cheerful grange 
Made room where wolf and boar were used to range? 
Who taught, and showed by deeds, that gentler chains 
Should bind the vassal to his lord's domains? 
The thoughtful monks, intent their God to please, 
Por Christ's dear sake, by human sympathies 
Poured from the bosom of thy church, St. Bees ! 

But all availed not; by a mandate given 
Through lawless will, the brotherhood was driven 
Porth from their cells; their ancient house laid low 
In Beformation's sweeping overthrow. 
But now once more the local heart revives. 

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ST. helen's-auckland. 109 

The inextinguisliable spirit strives. 
0, may that Power who hushed the stormy seas, 
Aud cleared a way for the first votaries. 
Prosper the new-born College of St. Bees ! 

Alas ! the genius of our age from schools 

Less humble draws her lessons, aims, and mles. 

To prowess guided by her insight keen 

Matter and spirit are as one machine ; 

Baastful idolatress of formal skill, 

She in her own would merge the Eternal Will: 

Better, if reason's triumphs match with these. 

Her flight before the bold credulities 

That furthered the first teaching of St. Bees. 

WiUlam Wordsworth, 



St. Helen's -Auckland. 

ST. HELEN'S-AUCKLAND. 

I WANDER o'er each well-known field 
My boyhood's home in view, 
Aud thoughts tiiat were as fountams sealed 
Are welling forth anew. 

The ancient house, the aged trees. 

They bring again to light 
The years that like a summer's breeze 

Were trackless in their flight. 



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110 POEMS OF PLACES. 

How much is changed of what I see, 
How much more changed am I, 

And yet how much is left, — to me 
How is the distant nigh ! 

The walks are overgrown and wild. 
The terrace flags are green, — 

But I am once again a child, 
1 am what I have been. 

The sounds that round about me rise 
Are what none other hears; 

I see what meets no other eyes. 
Though mine are dim with tears, — 

The breaking of the summer's morn. 
The tinge on house and tree. 

The billowy clouds, — the beauty born 
Of that celestial sea. 

The freshness of the faery land 
Lit by the golden gleam, — 

It is my youth that where I staiid 
Surrounds me like a dream. 

Alas! the real never lent 

Those tints, too bright to last; 

They fade, and bid me rest content 
And let the past be past. 

The wave that dances to the breast 
Of earth can ne'er be stayed; 



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ST. John's valley. Ill 

The star that glitters in the crest 
Of morning needs must fade. 

But there shall flow another tide, 

So let me hope, and far 
Over the outstretched waters wide 

Shall shine another star. 

In every change of man's estate 
Are lights and guides allowed; 

The fiery pillar will not wait. 
But, parting, sends the cloud. 

Nor mourn I the less manly part 

Of life to leave behind ; 

My loss is but the lighter heart, 

My gain the graver mind. 

Henry Taylor. 



St. JohnHs Valley.. 

THE VALLEY OF ST. JOHN. 

HE rode till over down and dell 
The shade more broad and deeper fell; 
And though around the mountain's head 
Flowed streams of purple and gold and red. 
Dark at the base, unblest by beam. 
Frowned the black rocks and roared the stream. 
With toil the king his way pursued 

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112 POEMS OF PLACES. 

By lonely Tlirelkeld's waste and wood, 
Till on his course obliquely slione 
The narrow valley of St. John, 
Down sloping to the western sky. 
Where lingering sunbeams love to lie. 
Right glad to feel those beams again, 
The king drew up his charger's rein; 
With gauntlet raised he screened his siglit. 
As dazzled with the level light. 
And, from beneath his glove of mail. 
Scanned at his ease the lovely vale. 
While 'gainst the sun his armor brig] it 
Gleamed ruddy like the beacon's light. 

Paled in by many a lofty hill. 
The narrow dale lay smooth and still. 
And, down its verdant bosom led, 
A winding brooklet found its bed. 
But, midmost of the vale, a mound 
Arose, with airy turrets crowned, 
Buttress and rampire's circlmg bound. 

And mighty keep and tower; 
Seemed some primeval giant's hand 
The castle's massive walls had planned, 
A ponderous bulwark, to withstand 

Ambitious Nimrod's power. 
Above the moated entrance slung. 
The balanced drawbridge trembling hung, 

As jealous of a foe ; 
Wicket of oak, as iron hard. 
With iron studded, clenched, and barred. 



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ST. KEYNE. 113 

And pronged portcullis, joined to guard 

The gloomy pass below. 

'Bfit the gray walls no banners crowned. 

Upon the watch-tower's airy round 

No warder stood his horn to sound. 

No guard beside the bridge was found. 

And, where the Gothic gateway frowned. 

Glanced neither bill nor bow. 

Sir Walter Scott, 



St. Keyne. 

THE WELL OF ST. KEYNE. 

A WELL there is in the west country, 
And a clearer one never was seen; 
There is not a wife in the west country 
But has heard of the Well of St. Keyne. 

An oak and an elm tree stand beside. 
And behind doth an ash-tree grow, 

And a willow from the bank above 
Droops to the water below? 

A traveller came to the Well of St. Keyne; 

Joyfully he drew nigh; 
For from cock-crow he had been travelling, 

And there was not a cloud in the sky. 

He drank of the water so cool and clear, 
For thirsty and hot was he; 



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114 POEMS OF PLACES. 

And he sat dowa upon the bank, 
Under the willow-tree. 

There came a man from the house hard by. 

At the well to fill his pail ; 
On the well-side he rested it, 

And he bade the stranger hail. 

"Now, art thou a bachelor, stranger?" quoth he; 

"For, an if thou hast a wife. 
The happiest draught thou hast drank this day 

That ever thou didst in thy life. 

" Or has thy good woman, if one thou hast. 

Ever here in Cornwall been? 
Por, an if she have, I '11 venture my life 

She has drank of the Well of St. Keyne." 

"I have left a good woman who never was here," 

The stranger he made reply ; 
" But that my draught should be the better for that, 

I pray you answer me why." 

" St. Keyne," quoth the Comish-raan, " many a time 

Drank of this crystal well; 
And, before the angel summoned her. 

She laid on the water a spell, — 

" If the husband of this gifted well 

Shall drink before liis wife, 
A happy man thenceforth is he, 

For he shall be master for life; 

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ST. Leonard's. 115 

" But if the wife should drink of it first, 

God help the husband then ! " 
The stranger stooped to the Well of St. Keyne, 

And drank of the water again. 

" You drank of the well, I warrant, betimes ? " 

He to the Cornish-man said; 
But the Cornish-man smiled as the stranger spake. 

And sheepishly shook his head : — 

"I hastened, as soon as the wedding was done. 

And left my wife in the porch; 

But i' faith she had been wiser than me. 

For she took a bottle to church." 

Robert Southetj. 



St. Leonardos. 

LINES 

ON THE VIEW FROM ST. LEONARDOS. 

HAIL to thy face and odors, glorious Sea! 
*T were thanklessness in me to bless thee not. 
Great, beauteous Being! in whose breath and smile 
My heart beats calmer, and my very mind 
Inhales salubrious thoughts. How welcomer 
Thy murmurs than the murmurs of the world ! 
Though like the world thou fluctuatest, thy din 
To me is peace, thy restlessness repose. 
Even gladly I exchange yon spring-green lanes 
With all the darling field-flowers in their prime. 



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116 POEMS OF PLACES. 

And gardens haunted by the nightingale's 
Long trills and gushing ecstasies of song, 
For these wild headlands, and the sea-mews clang. 

With thee beneath my windows, pleasant Sea, 

I long not to o'erlook earth's fairest glades 

And green savannahs, — earth has not a plain 

So boundless or so beautiful as thine; 

The eagle's vision cannot take it in; 

The lightning's wing, too weak to sweep its space, 

Sinks half-way o'er it like a wearied bird; 

It is the mirror of the stars, where all 

Their hosts within the concave firmament. 

Gay marching to the music of the spheres. 

Can see themselves at once. 

Nor on the stage 
Of rural landscape are there liglits and shades 
Of more harmonious dance and play than thine. 
How vividly this moment brightens forth, 
Between gray parallel and leaden breadtlis, 
A belt of hues that stripes thee many a league. 
Flushed like the rainbow, or the ringdove's neck, 
And giving to the glancing sea-bird's wing 
The semblance of a meteor. 

Mighty Sea! 
Chameleon-like thou changest, but there 's love 
In all thy change, and constant sympathy 
With yonder Sky, — thy mistress; from her brow 
Thou tak'st thy moods and wear'st her colors on 
Thy faithful bosom; morning's milky white, 
Noon's sapphire, or the saffron glow of eve ; 

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ST. Leonard's. 117 

And all thy balmier hours, fair Element, 
Have, such divine complexion, crisped smiles. 
Luxuriant heavings, and sweet whisperings, 
That little is the wonder Love's own Queen 
From thee of old was fabled to have sprung, — 
Creation's common! which no human power 
Can parcel or enclose; the lordliest floods 
And cataracts that the tiny hands of man 
Can tame, conduct, or bound are drops of dew 
To thee, that couldst subdue the earth itself. 
And brook'st commandment from the heavens alone 
* Tor marshalhng thy waves. 

Yet, potent Sea! 
How placidly thy moist lips speak even now 
Along yon sparkling shingles. Who can be 
So fanciless as to feel no gratitude 
That power and grandeur can be so serene. 
Soothing the home-bound navy's peaceful way. 
And rocking even the fisher's little bark 
As gently as a mother rocks her child? 

The inhabitants of other worlds behold 

Our orb more lucid for thy spacious share 

On earth's rotundity; and is he not 

A blind worm in the dust, great Deep, the man 

Who sees not, or who seeing has no joy 

In thy magnificence? What though thou art 

Unconscious and material, thou canst reach 

The inmost immaterial muid's recess. 

And with thy tints and motion stir its chords 

To music, like the light on Memnon's lyre! 

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118 POEMS OP PLACES. 

The Spirit of tlie Universe in thee 
Is visible; thou hast in thee the life, — 
The eternal, graceful, and majestic life 
Of nature, and the natural human heart 
Is therefore bound to thee with holy love. 
Earth has her gorgeous towns; the earth-circling sea 
Has spires and mansions more amusive still, — 
Men's volant homes that measure liquid space 
On wheel or wing. The chariot of the land 
With pained and panting steeds and clouds of dust 
Has no sight-gladdening motion like these fair 
Careerers with the foam beneath their bows. 
Whose streaming ensigns charm the waves by day. 
Whose carols and whose watch-bells cheer the night. 
Moored as they cast the shadows of their masts 
In long array, or hither flit and yond 
Mysteriously with slow and crossing lights. 
Like spirits on the darkness of the deep. 

There is a magnet-like attraction in 

These waters to the imaginative power 

That links the viewless with the visible. 

And pictures things unseen. To realms beyond 

Yon highway of the world my fancy flies. 

When by her tall and triple mast we know 

Some noble voyager that has to woo 

The trade-winds and to stem the ecliptic surge. 

The coral groves, — the shores of conch and pearl 

Where she will cast her a»chor and reflect 

Her cabin-window lights on warmer waves. 

And under planets brighter than our own; 

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ST. leonaed's. 119 

The nights of palmy isles, that she will see 
Lit boundless by the fire-fly, — all the smells 
Of tropic fruits that will regale her, — all 
The pomp of nature, and the inspiriting 
Varieties of life she has to greet. 
Come swarming o'er the meditative mind. 

True, to the dream of fancy Ocean has 

His darker tints ; but where *s the element 

That checkers not its usefulness to man 

With casual terror? Scathes not Earth sometimes 

Her children with Tartarean fires, or shakes 

Their shrieking cities, and, with one last clang 

Of bells for their own ruin, strews them flat 

As riddled ashes, — silent as the grave ? 

Walks not contagion on the air itself? 

I should old Ocean's satumalian days 

And roaring nights of revelry and sport 

With wreck and human woe be loath to sing; 

For they are few, and all their ills weigh light 

Against his sacred usefulness, that bids 

Our pensile globe revolve in purer air. 

Here mom and eve with blushing thanks receive 

Their freshening dews, gay fluttering breezes cool 

Their wings to fan the brow of fevered climes. 

And here the spring dips down her emerald urn 

For showers to glad the earth. 

Old Ocean was. 
Infinity of ages ere we breathed 
Existence, and he will be beautiful 
When all the living world that sees him now 



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120 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Shall roll nnconscious dust around the sun. 

Quelling from age to age the vital throb 

In human heails, death shall not subjugate 

The pulse that swells in his stupendous breast. 

Or interdict his minstrelsy to sound 

In thundering concert with the quiring winds; 

But long as man to parent nature owns 

Instinctive homage, and in times beyond 

VThe power of thought to reach, bard arler bard 

Shall smg thy glory. Beatific Sea. 

Thomas Campbell, 



St. MadrorHs. 

THE DOOM-WELL OF ST. MADRON. 

** pLUNGE thy right liand in St. Madron's spring, 

A If true to its troth be the palm you bring ; 
But if a false sigil thy fingers bear. 
Lay them the rather on the burning share.'* 

Loud laughed King Arthur when-as he heard 
Tliat solemn friar his boding word; 
And blithely he sware as a king he may, 
" We tryst for St. Madron's at break of day." 

"Now horse and hattock, both but and ben," 
Was the cry at Lauds, with Dundagel men; 
And forth they pricked upon Routorr side. 
As goodly a raid as a king could ride. 



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ST. madeon's. / 121 

Proud Gwennivar rode like a queen of the land. 
With page and with squire at her bridle hand^ 
And the twice six knights of the stony ring, * 
They girded and guarded their CorniSh king. 

Then they halted their steeds at St. Madron's cell, 
And they stood by the monk of the cloistered well; 
" Now off with your gauntlets," King Arthur he cried, 
"And gfory or shame for our Tamar side." 

'T were sooth to sing how Sir Gauvain smiled. 
When he grasped the waters so soft and mild; 
How Sir Lancelot dashed the glistening spray 
0*er the rugged beard of the rough Sir Kay. 

Sir Bevis he touched and he found no fear; 

'T was a benitee stoup to Sir Belvidere ; 

How the fountain flashed o'er King Arthur's Queen, 

Say, Cornish dames, for ye guess the scene. 

"Now rede me my riddle. Sir Mordred, I pray. 
My kinsmen, mine ancient, my Bien-aime ; 
Now rede me my riddle, and rede it aright. 
Art thou traitorous knave or my trusty knight ? " 

He plunged his right arm in the judgment well. 
It bubbled and boiled like a caldron of hell: 
Hs drew and he lifted his quivering limb. 
Ha ! Sir Judas, how Madron had sodden him. 

Now let Uter Pendragon do what he can. 
Still the Tamar River will run as it ran; 
Let king or let kaisar be fond or be fell. 
Ye may harowe their troth in St. Madron's well. 

Robert Stephen Ilawker. 

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122 POEMS OF PLACES. 



St. MichaeVs Mount. 

ST. MICHAEL'S MOUNT. 

WHILE summer airs scarce breathe along tlie tide, 
Oft pausing, up tlie mountain's scraggy side 
We climb, how beautiful, how still, how clear 
The scenes that stretch around! The rocks that rear 
Their shapes in rich fantastic colors dressed. 
The hill-tops where the softest shadows rest. 
The long-retiring bay, the level sand. 
The fading sea-line and the farthest land, 
That seems, as low it lessens from the eye. 
To steal away beneath the cloudless sky ! 

But yesterday the misty morn was spread 
In dreariness on the bleak mountain's head; 
No glittering prospect from the upland smiled, 
The driving squall came dark, the sea heaved wild, 
And, lost and lonely, the wayfarer sighed. 
Wet with the hoar spray of the flashing tide. 
How changed is now the circling scene! The deep 
Stirs not; the glancing roofs and white towers peep 
Along the margin of the lucid bay ; 
The sails descried far in the offing gray 
Hang motionless, and the pale headland's height 
Is touched as with sweet gleams of fairy light! 

O, lives there on earth's busy stirring scene. 
Whom nature's tranquil charms, her airs serene. 
Her seas, her skies, her sunbeams, fail to move 
With stealing tenderness and grateful love! 
Go, thimkless man, to misery's care, — behold 

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ST. Michael's mount. 123 

Captivity stretched in lier dungeon cold! 
Or tliiuk on those who, in yon dreary mine 
Sunk fathoms desp beneath the rolling brine. 
From year to year amid the lurid shade, 
O'er-wearisd ply thair melancholy trade ; 
Tbat thou may'st bless the glorious sun, and hail 
Ilim who with beauty clothed the hill and vale. 
Who bent the arch of the high heavens for thee. 
And stretched in amplitude the broad blue sea ! 
Now sunk are all its murmui*s; and the air 
But moves by fits the bents that here and there 
Upshoot in casual spots of faded green; 
Here straggling sheep the scanty pasture glean. 
Or on the jutting fragments that impend. 
Stray fearlessly, and gaze as we ascend. 

Mountain, no pomp of waving woods hast thou. 
That deck with varied shade thy hoary brow; 
No sunny meadows at thy feet are spread. 
No streamlets sparkle o*er their pebbly bed! 
But thou canst boast thy beauties: ample views 
That catch the rapt eye of the pausing Muse; 
Headlands around new-lighted; sails and seas. 
Now glassy-smooth, now wrinkling to the breeze; 
And when the drizzly winter, wrapped in sleet, 
Goes by, and winds and rain thy ramparts beat. 
Fancy can see thee standing thus aloof. 
And frowning, bleak and bare and tempest-proof, . 
Look as with awful confidence, and brave 
The howling hurricane, the dashing wave; 
More graceful when the storm's dark Vapors frown 
Than when the summer suns in pomp go down! 

William Lhle Bowles. 

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124 POEMS OF PLACES. 



ST. MICHAELS CHAIR. 



MERRILY, merrily rung the bells. 
The bells of St. Michael's tower. 
When Richard Penlake and Rebecca his wife 
Arrived at St. Michael's door. 

Richard Penlake was a cheerful man. 

Cheerful and frank and Aree; 
But he led a sad life with Rebecca his wife. 

For a terrible shrew was she. 

Richard Penlake a scolding would take. 

Till patience availed no longer; 
Then Richard Penlake his crab-stick would take. 

And show her that he was the stronger. 

Rebecca his wife had often wished 

To sit in St. Michael's chair; 
For she should be the mistress then 

If she had once sat there. 

It chanced that Richard Penlake fell sick; 

They thought he would have died: 
Rebecca his wife made a vow for his life, 

As she knelt by his bedside. 

"Now hear my pmyer, St. Michael ! and spare 

My Imsband's life," quoth she; 
"And to thine altar we will go. 

Six marks to give to thee." 



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ST. MICHAE^^S MOUNT. 125 

Richard Penl^ke repeated the vow; 

•For wouudily sick was he: 
" Save me, St. -Michael ! and we will go, 

Six marks to give to thee." 

When Richard grew well, Rebecca his wife 
Teased him by night and by day: 

"O mine own dear! for you I fear. 
If we the vow delay." 

Merrily, merrily rung the bells, 

The bells of St. Michael's tower. 
When Richard Penlake and Rebecca his wife 

Arrived at St. Michael's door. 

Six marks they on the altar laid. 

And Richard knelt in prayer: 
She left him to pray, and stole away 

To sit in St. Michael's chair. 

Up the tower Rebecca ran. 

Round and round and round: 
'T was a gic^y sight to stand atop. 

And look upon the ground. 

"A curse on the ringers for rocking 

The tower ! " Rebecca cried. 
As over the church battlements 

She strode with a long stride. 

** A blessing on St. Michael's chair ! " 

She said, as she sat down: 
Merrily, merrily rung the bells. 

And out Rebecca was thrown. ^ i 

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126 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Tidings to Richard Penlake were brought. 

That his good wife was dead: 
"Now shall we toll for her poor soul 

The great church-bell?" they said. 

"Toll at her burying," quoth Richard Penlake, 

"Toll at her burying," quoth he; 

"But don't disturb the ringers now. 

In compliment to me." 

Robert SoMey. 



St. Minver. 

THE PADSTOW LIFEBOAT. 

I SING no more of belted knights. 
Or the pure blood they boast; 
My Bong is of the sterner stuff 
That guards our native coast: 
The hearts of oak that grow all round 

The islands where we dwell, 
Whose names have less of Norman sound, 
And easier are to spell. 

At nine a. m., wind west-northwest. 

And blowing half a gale. 
Round Stepper Point a schooner came. 

But under close-reefed sail. 
*T is a wild place to fetch, the waves 

Break on the Doombar sands. 



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ST. MINVER. 127 

And from the liills the eddying winds 
Perplex the steadiest hands. 

And now she glides in water smooth. 

But the ebb-tide runs fast. 
And suddenly the land-wind blows. 

And shakes each bending mast: 
Soon back to sea she drifts away, 

Nearing St. Minver's shore; 
Thsn grounds, and o'er her deck the high 

Atlantic billows pour. 

Man, man the lifeboat ! Many a crew 

Her pride has been to save 
In a stronger gale and darker hour. 

And from a wilder wave. 
Their names are: Harris, Truscott, French, 

Hills, Crounell, Brenton, May, 
Varcoe, Bate, Bennett, Malyn, ^nd 

Intross and coastguard Shea. 

All trusty men of pluck and strength. 

And skill to guide withal; 
Some more than some had proved their worth, 

As chance to them did fall: 
Shea for his human chivalry 

The Imperial medal wore; 
Intross and Varcoe*s breasts the words 

"Crimea," "Baltic," bore. 

One more, Hills, claims brief mention here. 
No sturdier man than he; 

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128 POEMS OF PLACES. 

In quest of Franklin's bones lie went 

To the dread Arctic Sea. 
Sucli was the staple of the crew. 

Who worked with earnest will; 
To see them breast the awful waves 

Made the spectators thrill. 

Towards the doomed ship their way they cleave. 

But may not reach her side; 
And then to Polzeath Bay they steer,*^ 

But stronger runs the tide: 
The breakers, as they heave and burst, 

The buoyant boat submerge; 
Overturned she rights, — again o'ertumed. 

She drifts upon the surge! 

The watchers from Trebethic Cliff 

And high Pentire rush down. 
As dead or gasping on the rocks 

The dauntless crew are thrown : 
Of the thirteen but eight survive ! 

Shea, Truscott, breathe no more; 
Varcoe and Cronnell, last Intross, 

Come lifeless to the shore. 

The schooner's crew, ^ye souls in all. 

Save one the shore did reach. 
Just where the stranded vessel lay,. 

On the Trebethic beach. 
He, at the moment when she struck. 

Was jerked into the wave; 
And well he swam in sight of all. 

But none was nigh to save. 

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SALISBURY. 129 

The wail of widows pierced the night, 

And on the starlit strand 
The weeping children, fatherless. 

Still lingered, hand in hand. 
And lore and pity thrilled men's hearts. 

For sorrow makes all kin; 
And not to honor bravery 

Were more than shame, — were sin. 

Soon to the old churchyard the dead 

Went with a countless throng; 
All but the splendid Irishman, 

So gentle, brave, and strong: 
And him to lone Lanheme they took, 

Where manly tears did fell. 

While other rites his ashes blessed 

Within that ancient wall. 

Henry Sewell Stokes. 



Salisbury. 

THE CAVALIER'S ESCAPE. 

TRAMPLE ! trample ! went the roan. 
Trap! trap! went the gray; 
But pad ! pad I pad ! like a thing that was mad. 

My chestnut broke away. — 
It was just five miles from Salisbury town. 
And but one hour to day. 

Thud! thud! came on the heavy roan. 
Rap! rap! the mettled gray; 

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130 POEMS, OP PLACES. 

But my chestnut mare was of blood so rare. 
That she showed them all the way. 
Spur on! spur on! — I doffed my hat. 
And wished them all good day. 

They splashed through miry rut and pool, — 
SpUntered through fence and rail; 
But chestnut Kate switched over the gate, — 
I saw them droop and tail. 

To Salisbury town — but a mile of down. 
Once over this brook and rail. 

Trap ! trap ! I heard their echoing hoofs 

Past the walls of mossy stone; 
The roan flew on at a staggering pace. 

But blood is better than bone. 
I patted old Kate, and gave her the spur. 

For I knew it was all my own. 

But trample I trample ! came their steeds. 
And I saw their wolfs' eyes burn; 
I felt like a royal hart at bay. 

And made me ready to turn. 
I looked where highest grew the may. 
And deepest arched the fern. 

I flew at the first knave's sallow throat; 

One blow, and he was down. 
The second rogue fired twice, and missed; 

I sUced the villain's crown. 
Clove through the rest, and flogged brave Kate, 

Fast, fast to Salisbury town! 

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SALISBURY. 131 

Pad ! pad ! they came on the level sward. 
Thud! thud! upon the sand; 
With a gleam of swords, and a burning match. 
And a shaking of flag and hand : 
But one long bound, and I passed the gate. 
Safe from the canting band. 

Walter Thomhury. 

SALISBURY CATHEDRAL. 

HERE stood the city of the dead ; look round, — 
Dost thou not mark a visionary band, 
Druids and bards upon the summits stand, 
Of the majestic and time-hallowed mound? 
Hark! heard ye not at times the acclaiming word 
Of harps, as when those bards, in white array. 
Hailed the ascending lord of light and day ! 
Here o*er the clouds the first cathedral rose. 
Whose prelates now in yonder fane repose. 
Among the mighty of years passed away ; 
For there her latest seat Religion chose, 
There still to heaven ascends the holy lay. 
And never may those shrines in dust and silence close. 

Wiliiam LUle Bowles. 

THE BLIND MAN OF SALISBURY CATHEDRAL. 

THERE is a poor blind man, who every day, 
In summer sunshine or in winter's rain. 
Duly as tolls the bell, to the high fane 
Explores, with faltering footsteps, his dark way. 

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132 POEMS OF PLACES. 

To kneel before liis Maker, and to hear 
The chanted service, pealing fnll and clear. 
Ask why alone in the same spot he kneels 
Through the long year. O, the wide world is cold. 
As dark, to him! Here he no longer feels 
His sad bereavement. Faith and hope uphold 
His heart; he feels not he is poor and blind. 
Amid the unpitying tumult of his mind. 
* As through the aisles the choral anthems roll, 
His soul is in the choirs above the skies, 
And songs far off of angel companies. 
When this dim earth hath perished like a scroll. 
O, happy if the rich, the vam, the proud, — 
The plumed actors in life's motley crowd, — 
Since pride is dust, and life itself a span. 
Would learn one lesson from a poor blind man ! 

William Lisle Bowles. 



EPITAPH 

ON THE COUNTESS 07 PEMBROKE. 

UNDERNEATH this sable herse 
Lies the subject of all verse. 
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother; 
Death ! ere thou hast slain another, 
Leam'd and fair and good as she. 
Time shall throw a dart at thee. 

Ben Jonson. 



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SALISBURY PLAIN. 133 

Salisbury Plain. 

SARUM. 

To a hope 

Not less ambitious once, among the wilds 

Of Sarum's Plain, my youthful spirit was raised; 

There, as I ranged at will the pastoral downs 

Trackless and smooth, or paced the bare white roads 

Lengthening in solitude their dreary line, 

Time with his retinue of ages fled 

Backwards, nor checked his flight until I saw 

Our dim ancestral past in vision clear; — 

Saw multitudes of men, and here and there 

A single Briton clothed in wolf-skin vest. 

With shield and stone-axe, stride across the wold; 

The voice of spears was heard, — the rattling spear 

Shaken by arms of mighty bone, in strength, 

Long mouldered, of barbaric majesty. 

r called on Darkness ; but before the word 

Was uttered, midnight darkness seemed to take 

All objects from my sight; and lo! again 

The desert visible by dismal flames: 

It is the sacrificial altar, fed 

With living men, — how deep the groans! the voice 

Of those that crowd the giant wicker thrills 

The monumental hillocks, and the pomp 

Is for both worlds, the living and the dead. 

At other moments (for through that wide waste 

Three summer days I roamed) wherever the Plain 

Was figured o'er with circles, lines, or mounds. 

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134 POEMS OF PLACES. 

That yet survive, — a work, as some divine. 
Shaped by the Druids, so to represeut 
Their knowledge of tlie heavens, and image forth 
The constellations, — gently was I charmed 
luto a waking dream, a reverie 
That, with believing eyes, where'er I turned. 
Beheld long-bearded teachers, with white wands 
Uplifted, pointing to the starry sky. 
Alternately, and plain below, while breath 
Of music swayed their motioiis, and the waste 
Kejoiced with them and me in those sweet sounds. 

IFiUiam Wordsworth, 



Savernake Forest. 

AVENUE IN SAVERNAKE FOREST. 

HOW sootliing sound the gentle airs that move 
The innumerable leaves, high overhead. 
When autumn first, from the long avenue 
That lifts its arching height of ancient sliade. 

Steals here and there a leaf! 

Within the gloom. 

In partial sunshine white, some trunks appear 
Studding the glens of fern; in solemn shade 
Some mingle their dark branches, but yet all. 
All make a sad, sweet music, as they move. 
Not undelightful to a stranger's heart. 
They seem to say, in accents audible, 
Farewell to summer, and farewell the strains 

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SEAtHWin'i). 135 

Of many a lithe and feathered chorister. 

That through the depth of these incumbent woods 

Made the long summer gladsome. 

I have heard 

To the deep-niingling sounds of organs clear 
(When slqw the choral anthem rose beneath) 
The glimmering minster through its pillared aisles 
Echo; but not more sweet the vaulted roof 
Rang to those linked harmonies, than here 
The high wood answers to the lightest breath 

Of nature. 

0, may such music steal. 
Soothing the cares of venerable age. 
From public toil retired; may it awake, 
As, still and slow, the suri of life declines. 
Remembrances, not mournful, but most sweet; 
May it, as oft beneath the sylvan shade 
Their honored owner strays, come like the sound 
Of distant seraph harps, yet speaking clear I 
How poor is every sound of earthly things. 
When heaven's own music waits the just and pure ! 

William Lisle Bowles. 



Seathwaite. 

SEATHWAITE CHAPEL. 

SACRED Religion ! " mother of form and fear," 
Dread arbitress of mutable respect, 
New rites ordaining when the old are wrecked, 
Or cease to please the fickle worshipper; 

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136 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Mother of Love ! (that name best suits thee here,) 
Mother of Love ! for this deep vale, protect 
Truth's holy lamp, pure source of bright effect. 
Gifted to purge the vapory atmosphere 
That seeks to stifle it; — as in those days 
When this low pile a gospel teacher knew, 
Wliose good works formed an endless retinue; 
A pastor such as Chaucer's verse portrays. 
Such as the heaven-taught skill of Herbert drew. 
And tender Goldsmith crowned with deathless praise! 

Wiliiam Wordsworth. 



Selhorne. 

INVITATION TO SELBORNE. 

SEE, Selbome spreads her boldest beauties round 
The varied valley, and the mountain ground, 
Wildly majestic ! What is all the pride 
Of flats, with loads of ornaments supplied ? — 
Unpleasing, tasteless, impotent expense. 
Compared with Nature's rude magnificence ! 

» » » « » 

Ex)mantic spot! from whence in prospect lies 
Whate'er of landscape charms our feasting eyes, — 
The pointed spire, the hall, the pasture plain, 
Tlie russet fallow, or the golden grain. 
The breezy lake that sheds a gleaming light. 
Till all the fading picture fail the sight. 



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SELBORNE. 137 

Hark, while below the village bells ring round. 
Echo, sweet nymph, returns the softened sound; 
But if gusts rise, tlie rushing forests roar. 
Like the tide tumbling on the pebbly shore. 

Adown the vale, in lone, sequestered nook. 
Where skirting woods imbrown the dimpling brook. 
The rumed convent lies: here wont to dwell 
The lazy canon midst his cloistered cell, 
While papal darkness brooded o'er the land, 
Ere Reformation made her glorious stand; 
Still oft at eve belated shepherd swains 
See the cowled spectre skim the folded plains. 
« » » » » 

Now climb the steep, drop now your eye below 
Where round the blooming village orchards grow; 
There, like a picture, lies my lowly seat, 
A rural, sheltered, unobserved retreat. 
Me far above the rest Selbornian scenes, 
Tlie pendent forests and the mountain greens, 
Strike with delight; there spreads the distant view. 
That gradual fades till sunk in misty blue; 
Here Nature hangs her slopy woods to sight. 
Kills purl between and dart a quivering light. 

Gilbert While, 



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138 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Severn^ the Biver. 

SABRINA. 

THERE is a gentle nymph not far from hence, 
That with moist curb sways the smooth Severn 
stream. 
Sabrina is her name, a virgin pure; 
Whilom she was the daughter of Locrine, 
That had the sceptre from his father Brute. 
She, guiltless damsel, flying the mad pursuit 
Of her enraged step-dame Guendolen, 
Commended her fair innocence to the flood. 
That stayed her flight with his cross-flowing course. 
The water-nymphs, that in the bottom played. 
Held up their pearled wrists and took her in. 
Bearing her straight to aged Nereus* hall; 
Who, piteous of her woes, reared her lank head, 
And gave her to his daughters to imbathe 
In nectared lavers, strewed with asphodel: 
And through the porch and inlet of each sense 
Dropped in ambrosial oils, till she revived. 
And underwent a quick immortal change. 
Made goddess of the river : still she retains 
Her maiden gentleness, and oft at eve 
Visits the herds along the twilight meadows, 
Helping all urchin blasts, and ill-luck signs 
That the shrewd meddling elf delights to make. 
Which she with precious vialled liquors heals: 

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SEVERN, THE BIVEB. 139 

For which the shepherds at their festivals 

Carol her goodness loud in rustic lays, 

And throw sweet garland wreaths into her stream 

Of pansies, pinks, and gaudy daffodils : 

And, as the old swain said, she can unlock 

The clasping charm, and thaw the numbing spell. 

If she be right invoked in warbled song; 

For maidenhood she loves, and will be swift 

To aid a virgin, such as was herself. 

In hard-besetting need; this will I try. 

And add the power of some adjuring verse. 



SONG. 
Sabrina fair. 

Listen where thou art sitting 
Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave. 

In twisted braids of hlies knitting 
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair: 

Listen for dear honor's sake, 

Goddess of the silver lake; 
Listen, and save ! 
Listen, and appear to us. 
In name of great Oceanus ; 
By the earth-shaking Neptune's mace. 
And Tethys' grave majestic pace; 
By hoary Nereus* wrinkled look. 
And the Carpathian wizard's hook; 
By scaly Triton's winding shell. 
And old soothsaying Glaucus' spell; 
By Leucothea's lovely har.ds. 



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140 POEMS OP PLACES. 

And her son that rules the strands; 
By Thetb' tmsel-slippered feet. 
And tlie songs of sirens sweet; 
By dead Parthenope's dear tomb. 
And fair Ligea's golden comb, 
Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks. 
Sleeking her soft alluring locks; 
By all the nymphs that nightly dance 
Upon thy streams with wily glance; 
Rise, rise, and heave thy rosy head, 
Erom thy coral-pavcn bed. 
And bridle-in thy headlong wave. 
Till thou our summons answered have. 

Listen, and save! 

Sabrina riseSy attended hy v)ater -nymphs, and sings. 
By the rushy-fringed bank. 
Where grows the willow, and the osier dank. 

My slidiug chariot stays. 
Thick se{ with agate, and the azum sheen 
Of turkis blue, and emerald green 

That in the channel strays; 
Whilst fi-om off the waters fleet 
Thus I set my printless feet 
0*er the cowslip's velvet head. 

That bends not as I tread: 
Gentle swain, at thy request, 

I am here. 

John Ml/ton. 



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SEVERN, THE RIVER. 141 



THE SEVERN. 

THE Danube to the Severn gave 
The darkened heai-t that beat no more; 
They kid him by the pleasant shore, 
And in the hearing of the wave. 

There twice a day the Severn fills; 
The salt sea-water passes by, 
And hushes half the babbhng Wye, 

And makes a silence in the hills. 

The Wye is hushed nor moved along, 
And hushed my deepest grief of all. 
When filled with tears that cannot fall, 

I brim with sorrow drowning song. 

The tide flows down, the wave again 

Is vocal in its wooded walls; 

My deeper anguish also falls. 
And I can speak a little then. 

Alfred Tennyson. 



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142 POEMS OF PLACES. 



Sheffield. 

LINES 

ON SEEING UNEXPECTEDLY A NEW CHUECH, WHILE WALK- 
ING ON THE SABBATH IN OLD-PARK WOOD, NEAR SHEF- 
FIELD. 

FROM SbireclifFe, o'er a silent sea of trees, 
WlieH evening waned o*er Wadsley's cottages, 
I looked on Loxley, Rivilin, and Don, 
Willie at my side stood truth-loved Pemberton ; 
And wondered, far beneath me, to behold 
A golden spire, that glowed o'er fields of gold. 
Out of the earth it rose, with sudden power, 
A bright flame, growing heavenward, like a flower 
Where erst nor temple stood, nor holy psalm 
Rose to tlie mountains in the day of calm. 
There, at the altar, plighted hearts may sigh; 
There, side by side, how soon their dust may lie ! 
Then carven stones the old, old tale will tell. 
That saddens joy with its brief chronicle. 
Till time, with pinions stolen from the dove. 
Gently erase the epitaph of love ; 
While rivers sing, on their unwearied way. 
The songs that but with earth can pass away, 
That brings the tempest's accents from afar 
And breathes of woodbines where no woodbines are ! 
Yet deem not that affection can expire. 
Though earth and skies shall melt in fervent fire; 



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SHERWOOD FOREST. 143 

For truth hath written, on the stars above, — 
" Affection cannot die, if God is Love ! " 
Whene'er I pass a grave with moss o'ergrown. 
Love seems to rest upon the silent stone. 
Above the wreck of sublunary things, 
Like a tired angel sleeping on his wings. 

Ebenezer Elliott. 



Sherwood Forest. 

KOBIN HOOD. 

THE merry pranks he played would ask an age to 
tell, 
And the adventures strange that Robin Hood befell. 
When Mansfield many a time for Robin hath been laid. 
How he hath cousened them that him would have be- 
trayed : 
How often he hath come to Nottingham disguised. 
And cunningly escaped, being set to be surprised. 
In this our spacious isle I think there is not one 
But he hath heard some talk of him and little John ; 
And to the end of time the tales shall ne'er be done. 
Of Scarlock, George-a-Green, and Much the miller's 

son, 
Of Tuck the merry friar, which many a sermon made 
In praise of Robin Hood, his outlaws and their trade. 
An hundred valiant men had this brave Robin Hood, 
Still ready at his call, that bow-men were right good. 



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144 POEMS OF PLACES. 

All clad in Lincoln green, with caps of red and blue. 
His fellow's winded horn not one of them but knew, 
When setting to their lips their little bugles shrill, 
The warbling echoes waked from every dale and hill: 
Their baldrics set with studs, athwart their shoulders 

cast. 
To which imder their arms their sheafs were buckled 

fast, 
A short sword at their belt, a buckler scarce a span. 
Who struck below the knee, not counted then a man : 
All made of Spanish yew, their bows were wondrous 

strong ; 
They not an arrow drew but was a cloth-yard long. 
Of archery they had the very perfect craft. 
With broad arrow, or but, or prick, or rovmg shaft. 
At marks full forty score they used to prick and rove. 
Yet higher than the breast for compass never strove; 
Yet at the farthest mark a foot could hardly win: 
At long-buts, short, and hoyles each one could cleave 

the pin: 
Their arrows finely paired, for timber, and for feather. 
With birch and brazil pieced, to fly in any weather; 
And shot they with the round, the square, or forked 

pile. 
The loose gave such a twang as might be heard a mile. 
And of these archers brave there was not any one 
But he could kill a deer his swiftest speed upon. 
Which they did boil and roast, in many a mighty wood. 
Sharp hunger the fine sauce to their more kingly food. 
Then taking them to rest, his merry men and he 
Slept many a summer's night under the greenwood tree. 

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SHERWOOD FOREST. 145 

From wealthy abbots' chests, and churls* abundant 

store. 
What oftentimes he took, he shared amongst the poor ; 
No lordly Bishop came in lusty Robin's way. 
To him before he went, but for his pass must pay: 
The widow in distress he graciously relieved. 
And remedied the wrongs of many a virgin grieved : 
He from the husband's bed no married woman wan. 
But to his mistress dear, his loved Marian, 
Was ever constant known, which wheresoe'er she came, 
Was sovereign of the woods, chief lady of the game : 
Her clothes tucked to the knee, and dainty braided hair, 
With bow and quiver armed, she wandered here and 

there 
Amongst the forest wild; Diana never knew 
Such pleasure, nor such harts as Mariana slew. 

Michael Drayton. 

BOBIN HOOD. 

IN a fair wood like this, where the beeches are growing, 
Brave Robin Hood hunted in days of old; 
Down his broad shoulders his brown locks fell flowing, 
His cap was of green, with a tassel of gold. 

His eye was as blue as the sky in midsummer, 
Ruddy his cheek as the oak-leaves in June, 

Hearty his voice as he hailed the new-comer. 
Tender to maidens in changeable tune. 

His step had a strength, and his smile had a sweetness. 
His spirit was wrought of the sun and the breeze. 

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146 POEMS OF PLACES. 

He moved as a man framed in nature's completeness. 
And grew unabashed with the growth of the trees. 

And ever to poets, who walk in the gloaming, 
His horn is still heard in the prime of the year; 

Last eve he went with us, unseen, in our roaming, 
And thrilled with his presence the shy troops of deer. 

When the warm sun sank down in a golden declining, 
And night clomb the slopes and the firs to their tops, 

And the faint stars to meet her did brighten their 
shining, 
And the heat was refined into diamond drops; 

Then Kobin stole forth in his quaint forest-fashion, — 
Tor dear to the heart of all poets is he, — 

And in mystical whispers awakened the passion 
Which slumbers within for a life that were free. 

We follow the lead unawares of his spirit. 
He tells us the tales which we heard in past time; 

Ah ! why should we forfeit this earth we inherit 
For lives which we cannot expand into rhyme! 

I think, as I lie in the shade of the beeches. 
How lived and how loved this old hero of song; 

I would we could follow the lesson he teaches. 
And dwell, as he dwelt, these wild thickets among. 

At least for a while, till we caught up the meaning 
The beeches breathe out in the wealth of their growth. 

Width in their nobleness, love in their leaning. 
And peace at the heart from the fulness of both. 

Bessie Rayner Farkes. 

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shooter's hill. 147 



Shooter^s Hill. 

SHOOTER'S HILL. 

HEALTH ! I seek thee ; — dost thou love 
The mountain-top or quiet vale. 
Or deign o'er humbler hills to rove 
On showery June's dark southwest gale ? 
If so, I '11 meet all blasts that blow, 
With silent step, but not forlorn; 
Though, goddess, at thy shrine I bow. 
And woo thee each returning mom. 

I seek thee where, with all his might, 
The joyous bird his rapture tells, 
Amidst the half-excluded Ught, 
That gilds the foxglove's pendent bells; 
Where cheerly up this bold hill's side 
The deepening groves triumphant climb: 
In groves Delight and Peace abide, 
And Wisdom marks the lapse of time. 

To hide me from the public eye, 
To keep the throne of reason clear. 
Amidst fresh air to breathe or die, 
I took my staff and wandered here. 
Suppressing every sigh that heaves. 
And coveting no wealth but thee, 
I nestle in the honeyed leaves. 
And hug my stolen liberty. 

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148 POEMS OF PLACES. 

O'er eastward uplands, gay or rude. 
Along to Eritli's ivied spire, 
I start, with strength and hope renewed. 
And cherish life's rekindling fire. 
Now measure vales with straining eyes. 
Now trace the churchyard's humble names; 
Or climb brown heaths, abnipt Ihat rise. 
And overlook the winding Thames. 
« « « « « 

Sweet health, T seek thee! hither bring 
Thy balm that softens human ills ; 
Come, on the long-drawn clouds that fling 
Their shadows o'er the Surrey hills. 
Yon green-topt hills, and far away 
Where late as now I freedom stole. 
And spent one dear delicious day 
On thy wild banks, romantic Mole. 

Ay, there 's the scene ! * beyond the sweep 
Of London's congregated cloud. 
The dark-browed wood, the headlong steep. 
And valley-paths without a crowd! 
Here, Thames, I watch thy flowing tides, 
Thy thousand sails am proud to see; 
For where the Mole all silent glides 
Dwells peace, — and peace is wealth to me ! 
« « « « « 

Uobert Broomjield. 

1 Box Hiil, and the beautiful neighborhood of Dorking, in Surrey. 

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SHREWSBURY. 149 

Shrewsbury. 

SHREWSBURY. 

HOTSPUR. My cousin Vernon ! welcome, by my 
soul. 

Vernon. Tray God my news be worth a welcome, 
lord. 
The Earl of Westmoreland, seven thousand strong. 
Is marching hitherwards; with him. Prince John. 

Hot. No harm ; what more ? 

Ver. And further, I have learned. 

The King himself in person is set forth. 
Or hitherwards intended speedily, 
With strong and mighty preparation. 

Hot. He shall be welcome too. Where is liis son. 
The nimble-footed mad-cap Prince of Wales, 
And his comrades that dafifed the world aside. 
And bid it pass? 

Ver. All furnished, all in arms; 

All plumed like estridges, that wing the wind. 
Baited like eagles having lately bathed; 
Glittering in golden coats like images; 
.As full of spirit as the month of May, 
And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer; 
Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls^ 
I saw young Harry, with his beaver on. 
His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly armed, 
Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury, 

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150 POEMS OF PLACES. 

And vaulted with such ease into his seat. 
As if an angel dropped down from the clouds. 
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus, 
And witch the world with noble horsemanship. 
« « ♦ « « 

King Henry. How bloodily the sun begins to peer 
Above yon busky hill! the day looks pale 
At his distemperature. 

PfiiNCE Henry. The southern wind 

Doth play the trumpet to his purposes; 
And, by his hollow whistling in the leaves, 
Foretells a tempest and a blustering day. 

K. HJEN. Then with the losers let it sympathize; 
For nothing can seem foul to those that win. 
« « » « « 

Hot. Harry, thou hast robbed me of my youth. 
I better brook the loss of brittle life 
Than those proud titles thou hast won of me ; 
They wound my thoughts, worse than thy sword my 

flesh.— 
But Thought 's the slave of Life, and Life Time's fool ; 
And Time that takes survey of all the world 
Must have a stop. Oh! I could prophesy. 
But that the earthy and cold hand of Death 
Lies on my tongue. — No, Percy, thou art dust. 
And food for — [Dies. 

P. Hen. Por worms, brave Percy. Pare thee well, 
great heart! — 
lU-weaved ambition, how much art thou shrunk! 
When that this body did contain a spirit, 
A kingdom for it was too small a bound; 

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SHURTON BABS. 151 

But now, two paces of the vilest earth 

Is room enough. This earth, that bears thee dead. 

Bears not alive so stout a gentleman. 

If thou wert sensible of courtesy, 

I should not make so dear a show of zeal. — 

But let my favors hide thy mangled face; 

And, even in thy behalf, I '11 thank myself 

For doing these fair rites of tenderness. 

Adieu, and take thy praise with thee to heaven! 

Thy ignomy sleep with thee in the grave, 

But not remembered in thy epitaph! — 

He sees Fallstaff on the ground. 
What! old acquaintance! could not all this flesh 
Keep in a little life? Poor Jack, farewell! 
I could have better spared a better man. — 
Oh ! I should have a heavy miss of thee. 
If I were much in love with vanity. 
Death hath not struck so fat a deer to-day, 
Though many dearer, in this bloody fray. 

William Shakespeare. 



Shurton Bars. 

WRITTEN AT SHURTON BARS, NEAR BRIDGEWATER. 

AND hark, my love! The sea-breeze moans 
Through yon reft house! O'er rolling stones 
In bold ambitious sweep. 
The onward-surging tides supply 



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152 POEMS OP PLACES. 

The silence of the cloudless sky 
With mimic thunders deep. 

Dark reddening from the channelled Isle 
(Where stands one solitary pile 

Unslated by the blast), 
The watchfire, like a sullen star. 
Twinkles to many a dozing tar 

Rude cradled on the mast. 

Even there — beneath that lighthouse tower — 
In the tumultuous evil hour, 

Ere peace with Sara came. 
Time was, I should have thought it sweet 
To count the echoings of my feet 

And watch the storm-vexed flame. 

And there in black soul-jaundiced fit, 
A sad gloom-pampered man to sit. 

And listen to the roar: 
When mountain surges bellowing deep 
With an uncouth monster leap 

Plunged foaming on the shore. 

Then by the lightning's blaze to mark 
Some toiling tempest-shattered bark; 

Her vain distress-guns hear; 
And when a second sheet of light 
Flashed o'er the blackness of the niglit, — 

To see no vessel there! 

« « « « « 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 



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SIDMOUTH. 153 



Sidmouth. 

TO A UDY, ON LEAVING HER AT SIDMOUTH. 

YES! I must go, — it is a part 
That cruel Fortune has assigned me, — 
Must go, and leave, with aching heart. 
What most that heart adores behind me. 

Still I shall see thee on the sand 
Till o'er the space the water rises. 

Still shall in thought behind thee stand. 
And watch the look affection prizes. 

But ah! what youth attends thy side. 

With eyes that speak his soul's devotion, — 

To thee as constant as the tide 
That gives the restless wave its motion? 

Still in thy train must he appear 

Forever gazing, smiling, talking? 
Ah! would that he were sighing here. 

And I were there beside thee walking! 

Wilt thou to him that arm resign. 
Who is to that dear heart a stranger. 

And with those matchless looks of thine 
The peace of this poor youth endanger? 

Away this fear that fancy makes 
When night and death's duU image hide thee : 



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154 POEMS OF PLACES. 

In sleep, to thee my mind awakes; 
Awake, it sleeps to all beside thee. 

Who could in absence bear the pain 
Of all this fierce and jealous feeling. 

But for the hope to meet again. 
And see those smiles all sorrow healing? 

Then shall we meet, and, heart to heart, 
Lament that fate such friends should sever. 
And I shall say, " We must not part " ; 
And thou wilt answer, " Never, never ! " 

George Crabhe. 



Silhury Hill. 

FOR A TABLET AT SILBURY HILL. 

fTTHIS mound, in some remote and dateless day 

J- Reared o'er a chieftain of the age of hills. 

May here detain thee, traveller! from thy road 

Not idly lingering. In his narrow house 

Some warrior sleeps below, whose gallant deeds 

Haply at many a solemn festival 

The scald hath sung; but perished is the song 

Of praise, as o'er these bleak and barren downs 

The wind that passes and is heard no more. 

Go, traveller, and remember, when the pomp 

Of earthly glory fades, that one good deed. 

Unseen, unheard, unnoted by mankind. 

Lives in the eternal register of heaven. 

Robert Southey. 

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SILCHESTER. 155 



Silchester. 



THE ANCIENT CALEYA. 

A CELEBRATBD station and city on the great Roman road from Bath 
to London; the walls of which, covered with trees, yet remain nearly 
entire. 

THE wild pear whispers and the ivy crawls 
Along the circuit of thine ancient walls^ 
Lone city of the dead! and near this mound 
The buried coins of mighty men are found, — 
Silent remains of Gsesars and of kings. 
Soldiers of whose renown the world yet rings, 
In its sad story 1 These have had their day 
Of glory, and have passed like sounds away ! 

And such their fame! WhQe we the spot behold. 
And muse upon the tale that time has told, 
We ask where are they ? — they whose clarion brayed. 
Whose chariot glided, and whose war-horse neighed; 
Whose cohorts hastened o'er the echoing way. 
Whose eagles glittered to the orient ray ! 

Ask of this fragment, reared by Roman hands. 
That now a lone and broken column stands! 
Ask of that road — whose track alone remains — 
That swept of old o*er mountains, downs, and plains, 
And still along the silent champaign leads, 
Where are its noise of cars and tramp of steeds? 



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156 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Ask of the dead, and silence will reply; 

Go, seek them in the grave of mortal vanity! 

Is this a Roman veteran ? Look again, — 

It is a British soldier, who, in Spain, 

At Albuera*s glorious fight, has bled; 

He, too, has spurred his charger o*er the dead! 

Desolate, now, — friendless and desolate, — 

Let him the tale of war and home relate. 

His wife (and Gainsborough such a form and mien 

Would paint, in harmony with such a scene). 

With pensive aspect, yet demeanor bland, 

A tottering infant guided by her hand. 

Spoke of her own green Erin, while her child 

Amid the scene of ancient glory smiled. 

As spring's first flower smiles from a monument 

Of other years, by time and ruin rent ! 

Lone city of the dead! thy pride is past, 

Thy temples sunk, as at the whirlwind's blast! 

Silent, — all silent, where the mingled cries 

Of gathered myriads rent the pui-ple skies ! 

Here where the summer breezes waved the wood 

The stem and silent gladiator stood. 

And listened to the shouts that hailed his gushing blood. 

And on this wooded mount, that oft of yore 

Hath echoed to the Lybian lion's roar. 

The ear scarce catches, from the shady glen. 

The small pipe of the solitary wren. 

William Lisle Bowles. 



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SILCHESTER. 157 



SILCHESTER. 

MY travels* dream and talk for many a year. 
At length I view thee, hoary Silchester ! 
Pilgrim long vowed ; now only hither led. 
As with new zeal by fervent Mitford fed, 
Whose voice of poesy and classic grace 
Had breathed a new religion on the place. 

'Scaped from the pride, the smoke, the busy hum 
Of our metropolis, a later Rome, 
How sweet to win one calm, uncrowded day. 
Where congregated man hath passed away! 

For these old city-walls, a half-league round. 
Are but the girdle now of rural ground; 
These stones from far-off fields, toil-gathered thence 
For man's protection, but a farm's ring-fence; 
The fruit of all his planning and his pain 
By Nature's certain hand resumed again ! 

Yet eyes instructed, as along they pass. 
May learn from crossing lines of stunted grass. 
And stunted wheat-stems, that refuse^ to grow. 
What intersecting causeways sleep below. 
And ploughshare, deeplier delving on its path. 
Will oft break in on pavement quaint or bath ; 
Or flax-haired little one, from neighboring cot. 
Will hap on rusted coin, she knows not what; 
'Bout whichj though grave collectors make great stir. 
Some pretty pebble found had more contented her. 

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158 POEMS OF PLACES. 

From trees that shade thine amphitheatre, 
Hoarse caws the rook, and redbreast carols clear; 
All silent else! nor human foot nor call 
Are heard to-day within its turfy wall; 
Gone — many a century since — its shouts, its shows ; 
Here thought may now hold commune with repose. 

Yet sheds the sun no other evening glow 
Than tinged these walls two thousand years ago; 
While leaves, e'en such as then in autumn fell. 
Twirling adown with faint decaying smell. 
Mix with the pensive thoughts of ruin well. 

These walls already reared did Csesar see? 
Rose they, Stonehenge ! coevally with thee. 
Whose years, in prose untold or Druid-rhyme, 
Still baffle thought, — the riddle of old Time? 
Or was it Rome first fixed to fortify 
This pleasant spot? deserted when ? or why? 
What name, familiar to historic ear. 
Ruled this hill-circled track. Proconsul here; 
And master of these fields, though fair they be. 
Sighed for his sunny vines beyond the Tyrrhene sea? 

Within these bounds when Jove's high altar stood. 
Was the oak worshipped in yon sloping wood? 
And did each creed, as creeds are wont to do, 
The other scorn, and hold itself the true ? 

Declare, Geologist! what ancient sea 
These flinty nodules fashioned, thus to be 
Ruin or rock, as each — a mystery! 

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SKIDDAW. 159 

Thy very name a puzzle! Yet, I wis, 
Scanning these flints, 't was " Castrum Silicis." 
My books away, I vouch not how it is; 
For heavy tomes of antiquarian lore 
Burden the traveller much, if reader more. 

In vain for cicerone round I seek; 
Speak, ancient bulwarks \ your own story speak : 
Vexed heretofore by dilettanti lungs, 
How often have I wished that stones had tongues! 

Can he explain, stretched silent as hb fold. 
Perchance of Latin blood, yon shepherd old. 
Himself a crumbling ruin of fourscore P 
" The Romish folk," he says, " dwelt here of yore '* ; 
'Tis all he knows, — the learned scarce know more. 

Slow I muse on, in idle question lost. 

If knowledge or if mystery please the most. 

John Kenton. 



Skiddaw. 

SKIDDAW. 

PELION and Ossa flourish side by side. 
Together in immortal books enrolled: 
His ancient dower Olympus hath not sold, 
And that inspiring hill, which " did divide 



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160 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Into two ample horns bis forehead wide," 
Shines with poetic radiance as of old; 
While not an English mountain we behold 
By the celestial muses glorified. 
Yet round our sea-girt shore they rise in crowds: 
What was the great Parnassus' self to thee, 
Mount Skiddaw? In his natural sovereignty 
Our British hill is nobler far; he shrouds 
His double front among Atlantic clouds. 
And pours forth streams more sweet than Castaly. 

William Wordsworth. 



SUMMIT OF SKIDDAW, JULY 7, 1838. 

AT length here stand we, wrapt as in the cloud 
In which light dwelt before the sun was born, 
Wlien the great fiat issued, in the morn 
Of this fair world; alone and in a shroud 
Of dazzling mist, while the wind whistling loud 
Buffets thy streaming locks ; — result forlorn 
For us who up yon steep our way have worn. 
Elate with hope, and of our daring proud. 
Yet though no stretch of glorious prospect range 
Beneath our vision, — neither Scottish coast 
Nor ocean-island, nor the future boast 
Of far-off hills descried, — I would not change 
For aught on earth this solitary hour 
Of Nature's grandest and most sacred power. 

Henrtj Alford. 



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SKIDDAW. 161 



DESCENT OF THE SAME. 

GLORY on glory greets our wondering sight 
As we wind down these slopes ; mountain and plain 
Robed in rich sunshine, and the distant main 
Lacing the sky with silver; and yon height, 
So lately left in clouds, distinct and bright. 
Anon the mist enwraps us; then again 
Burst into view lakes, pastures, fields of gram. 
And rocky passes, with their torrents white. 
So on the head, perchance, and highest bent 
Of thine endeavor. Heaven may stint the dower 
Of rich reward long hoped; but thine ascent 
Was full of pleasures, and the teaching hour 
Of disappointment hath a kindly voice. 

That moves the spirit inly to rejoice. 

Henry Alford, 

SONNET 

WRITTEN ON SKIDDAW, DUBING A TEMPEST. 

IT was a dreadful day, when late I passed 
O'er thy dim vastness, Skiddaw! Mist and cloud 
Each subject fell obscured, and rushing blast 
To thee made darling music, wild and loud. 
Thou Mountain Monarch ! Rain in torrents played. 
As- when at sea a wave is borne to heaven, 
A watery spire, then on the crew dismayed 
Of reeling ship with downward wrath is driven. 
I could have thought that every living form 
Had fled, or perished in that savage storm. 



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162 POEMS OF PLACES. 

So desolate the day. To me were given 
Peace, calmness, joy; then to myself 1 said. 
Can grief, time, chance, or elements control 
Man's chartered pride, the liberty of soul? 

John WUton. 



Slaughden. 

THE QUAY OF SLAUGHDEN. 

YON is our quay! those smaller hoys from town, 
Its various ware, for country use, bring down; 
Those laden wagons, in return, impart 
The country produce to the city mart. 
Hark to the clamor in that miry road. 
Bounded and narrowed by yon vessel's load! 
The lumbering wealth she empties round the place. 
Package and parcel, hogshead, chest, and case: 
While the loud seaman and the angry hind. 
Mingling in business, bellow to the wind. 

Near these a crew" amphibious, in the docks. 
Rear, for the sea, those castles on the stocks: 
See the long keel, which soon the waves must hide! 
See the strong ribs which form the roomy side! 
Bolts yielding slowly to the sturdiest stroke. 
And planks which curve and crackle in the smoke. 
Around the whole rise cloudy wreaths, and far 
Bear the warm pungence of o'er-boiling tar. 

Dabbling on shore half-naked sea-boys crowd. 



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SOMERSET. 163 

Swiin round a ship, or swing upon the shroud; 

Or in a boat purloined, with paddles play. 

And grow fa*:iiliar with the watery way: 

Young though they be, they feel whose sons they are, 

They know what British seamen do and dare; 

Proud of that fame, they raise and they enjoy 

The rustic wonder of the village boy. 

George Crabbe. 



Somerset. 

EPITAPH. 

HERE, in the fruitful vales of Somerset, 
Was Emma bom, and here the maiden grew 
To the sweet season of her womanhood. 
Beloved and lovely, like a plant whose leaf 
And bud and blossom all are beautiful. 
In peacefulness her virgin years were passed; 
And, when in prosperous wedlock she was given. 
Amid the Cumbrian mountains far away 
She had her summer bower. 'T was like a dream 
Of old romance to see her when she plied 
Her little skiff on Derwent's glassy lake; 
The roseate evening resting on the hills. 
The lake returning back the hues of heaven, 
Mountains and vales and waters, all imbued 
With beauty, and in quietness; and she. 
Nymph-like, amid tliat glorious solitude 
A heavenly presence, gUding in her joy. 



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164 POEMS OF PLACES. 

But soon a wasting malady began 

To prey upon her, frequent in attack. 

Yet with such flattering intervals as mock 

The hopes of anxious love, and most of all 

The sufferer, self-deceived. During those days 

Of treacherous respite, many a time hath he. 

Who leaves tliis record of his friend, drawn back 

Into the shadow from her social board. 

Because too surely in her cheek he saw 

The insidious bloom of death; and then her smiles 

And innocent mirth excited deeper grief 

Than when long-looked-for tidings came at last. 

That, all her sufferings ended, she was laid 

Amid Madeira's orange-groves to rest. 

O gentle Emma! o'er a lovelier form 

Than thine earth never closed; nor e'er did heaven 

Receive a purer spirit from the world. 

Robert Soutkey. 



Southampton. 

THE LORD OF THE SEA. 

BEFOEE sea-washed Southampton, 
With sceptre and with crown. 
King Knut, in pomp of purple, 

Upon his throne sits down, 
The billows loudly roaring. 

His vassals, mute, around him. 
Await his nod, but he 



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SOUTHAMPTON. 165 

Peers out with frowning eyebrows 

Upon tlie boundless sea. 
The billows loudly roaring. 

Then, with defiant gesture. 

The haughty, gray-haired Dane, 
Tamer of England's people. 

Flings back his lion-mane; 
The billows loudly roaring. 

"From this gold chair I sit on, 

To the blue Baltic's brine. 
From Thule to Southampton, 

The world," he cried, " is mine ! " 
The billows loudly roaring. 

"Thou, too, despite thy fury. 

White-crested old sea- wave! 
Shalt henceforth pay me tribute. 

And be my faithful slave ! *' 
The billows loudly roaring. 

And while he speaks, a sea-wave 

Flung up its sparkling spray. 
And spat upon his beard there. 

As if in scornful play. 
The billows loudly roaring. 

But he took off his crown, then. 

And flung it in the sea, 
Crying, "Man's might is idle! 

To God all glory be ! " 
The billows loudly roaring. 

Karl Gottfried Leitner, Tr. C. T^roott. 

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166 POEMS OF PLACES. 



SOUTHAMPTON CASTLE. 



rlE moonlight is without, and I could lose 
An hour to gaze, though taste and splendor here. 
As in a lustrous fairy palace, reign! 
liegardless of the lights that blaze within, 
I look upon the wide and silent sea 
That in the shadowy moonbeam sleeps. 

How still. 
Nor heard to murmur or to move, it lies; 
Shining in Fancy's eye, like the soft gleam. 
The eve of pleasant yesterdays ! 

The clouds 
Have all sunk westward, and the host of stars 
Seem in their watches set as gazing on; 
While night's fair empress, sole and beautiful. 
Holds her illustrious course through the mid heavens 
Supreme, the spectacle, for such she looks. 
Of gazing worlds ! 

How different is the scene 
That lies beneath this arch6d window's height ! 
The town that murmured through the busy day 
Is hushed; the roofs one solemn breadth of shade 
Veils; but the towers, and taper spires above. 
The pinnets and the gray embattled walls. 
And masts that throng around the southern pier 
Shine all distinct in light; and mark, remote 
O'er yonder elms, St. Mary's modest fane. 

William lasle Bowles. 

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SOUTHAMPTON. 167 



SOUTHAMPTON WATER. 

SMOOTH went our boat upon the summer seas, 
Leaving, for so it seemed, the world behind. 
Its sounds of mingled uproar; we reclined 
Upon tlie sunny deck, heard but the breeze 
That o'er us whispering passed, or idly played 
With the lithe flag aloft. A woodland scene 
On either side drew its slope line of green. 
And hung the water's shining edge with shade. 
Above the woods, Netley! thy ruins pale 
Peered as we passed; and Vecta's azure hue 
Beyond the misty castle met our view; 
Where in mid channel hung the scarce-seen sail. 
So all was calm and sunshine as we went 
Cheerily o'er the briny element. 
0, were this little boat to us the world. 
As thus we wandered far from sounds of care, 
Circled by friends and gentle maidens fair. 
Whilst morning airs the waving pennant curled; 
How sweet were life's long voyage till in peace 
We gained that haven still, where all things cease! 

William lasle Bowles. 



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168 POEMS OF PLACES. 

South Downs. 

SONNET 

TO THE SOUTH DOWNS. 

AH, hills beloved ! — where once, a happy child, 
Your beechen shades, "your turf, your flowers, 
among," 
I wove your bluebells into garlands wild, 
And woke your echoes with my artless song. 
Ah! hills beloved! — your turf, your flowers, remain; 
But can they peace to this sad breast restore. 
For one poor moment soothe the sense of pain, 
And teach a broken heart to throb no more? 
And you, Aruna! in the vale below. 
As to the sea your limpid waves you bear. 
Can you one kind Lethean cup bestow. 
To drink a long oblivion to my care? 
Ah no! — when all, e'en hope's last ray is gone. 
There 's no oblivion but in death alone I 

Charlotte Smith. 



Spithead. 

ON THE LOSS OF THE "ROYAL GEORGE.' 

TOLL for the brave, — 
The brave that are no more! 
All sunk beneath the wave, 
Fast by their native shore! 



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SPITHEAD. 169 

Eight hundred of the brave, 

Whose courage well was tried, 
Had made the vessel heel. 

And laid her on her side. 

A land breeze shook the shrouds, 

And she was overset: 
Down went tlie " Royal George," 

With all her crew complete. 

Toll for* the brave! 

Brave Kempenfelt is gone; 
His last sea-fight is fought. 

His work of glory done. 

It was not in the battle; 

No tempest gave the shock; 
She sprang no fatal leak. 

She ran upon no rock. 

His sword was in its sheath; 

His fingers held the pen. 
When Kempenfelt went down 

With twice four hundred men. 

Weigh the vessel up. 

Once dreaded by our foes! 
And mingle with our cup 

The tear that England owes. 

Her timbers yet are sound. 
And she may float again. 



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170 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Full charged with England's thunder. 
And plough the distant main. 

But Kempenfelt is gone. 

His victories are o'er; 
And he and his eight hundred 

Shall plough the waves no more. 

William Cotoper. 

LINES 

WEITTEN AT SPITHEAD. 

HARK to the knell! 
It comes on the swell 
Of the stormy ocean M'ave; 
'T is no earthly sound. 
But a tale profound 
From the mariner's deep-sea grave. 

When the billows dash. 
And the signals flash, 

And the thunder is on the gale; 
And the ocean is white 
With its own wild light. 

Deadly and dismal and pale. 

When the lightning's blaze 
Smites the seaman's gaze, 

And the sea rolls in fire an4 in foam; 
And the surge's roar 
Shakes the rocky shore, 

We hear the sea-knell come. 



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STANAGE. 171 

There 'neath the billow. 
The sand their pillow. 

Ten thousand men lie low; 
And still their dirge 
Is sung by the surge, 

When the stormy night-winds blow. 

Sleep, warriors! sleep 
On your pillow deep 

In peace! for no mortal care. 
No art can deceive. 
No anguish can heave, 

The heart that once slumbers there. 

■> George Croly, 



Stanage. 

CLOUDLESS STANAGE. 

TXTHY, shower-loved Derwent I have the rainbows left 
YY thee? 

Mam-Tor ! Win-Hill ! a single falcon sails 
Between ye; but no airy music wails. 
Who, mountains ! of your soft hues hath bereft ye. 
And stolen the dewy freshness of your dales ? 
Dove-stone! thy cold drip-drinking fountain fails; 
Sun-darkened shadows, motionless, are on ye; 
Silence to his embrace of fire hath won ye; 
And light, as with a shroud of glory, veils 
The Peak and all his marvels. Slowly trails 



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172 POEMS OF PLACES. 

One streak of silver o'er the deep dark blue 
Its feathery stillness, while of whispered tales 
The ash, where late his quivering shade he threw. 
Dreams o'er the thoughtful plant that hoards its drop 
of dew. 

Ebenezer Elliott. 



Stoke Pogis. 

ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD. 

THE curfew tolls the knell of parting day. 
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea. 
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, 
And leaves the world to darkness and to me. 

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight. 
And all the air a solemn stillness holds, 

Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, 
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds: 

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower 
The moping owl does to the moon complain 

Of such as, wandering near her secret bower. 
Molest her ancient solitary reign. 

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade. 
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap. 

Each in his narrow cell forever laid. 

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. 

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, 

The swalUw twittering from the straw-built shed, 



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STOKE POGIS. 173 

The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, 
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. 

For them no more the blazing hearth sliall bum, 
Or busy housewife ply her evening care; 

No children run to lisp their sire's return. 
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to sliare. 

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, 
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke : 

How jocund did they drive their team afield ! 
How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! 

Let not ambition mock their useful toil, 
Their homely joys and destiny obscure; 

Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile 
The short and simple annals of the poor. 

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 
And all that beauty, all that wealth, e'er gave. 

Await alike the inevitable hour: 
The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault. 
If memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise. 

Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault 
The pealing anthem swells the note of prabe. 

Can storied urn or animated bust 

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? 
Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust. 

Or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death? 

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174 POEMS OP PLACES. 

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid 

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; 

Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed. 
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre : 

But knowledge to their eyes her ample page, 
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll ; 

Chill penury repressed their noble rage. 
And froze the genial current of the soul. 

Full many a gem of purest ray serene 
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear; 

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen. 
And waste its sweetness on the desert air. 

Some village Hampden, that, with dauntless breast. 
The little tyrant of his fields withstood. 

Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest. 
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood. 

The applause oi listening senates to command. 
The threats of pain and ruin to despise. 

To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land. 
And read their history in a nation's eyes, 

Their lot forbade: nor circumscribed alone 

Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined; 

Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne. 
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind, 

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, 
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, 

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STOKE POGIS. 175 

Or heap the shrine of luxury and pride 
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame. 

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife. 
Their sober wishes never learned to stray; 

Along the cool sequestered, vale of life 
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. 

Yet even these bones from insult to protect. 

Some frail memorial still erected nigli. 
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked. 

Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. 

Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered Muse, 

The place of fame and elegy supply : 
And many ^ lioly text around she strews. 

That teach the rustic moralist to die. 

For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey. 
This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned, 

Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day. 
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind? 

On some fond breast the parting soul relies. 
Some pious drops the closing eye requires; 

E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, 
E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires. 

For thee, who, mindful of the unhonored dead, 
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate; 

If chance, by lonely contemplation led, 

Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, — 

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176 POEMS or PLACES. 

Haply some hoary-Leaded swain may say, 
"Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn 

Brushing with^hasty steps the dews away, 
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn: 

** There at the foot of yonder nodding beech. 
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high. 

His listless length at noontide would he stretch. 
And pore upon the brook that babbles by. 

"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn. 
Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove; 

Now drooping, woful-wan, like one forlorn. 

Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love. 

"One mom I missed him on the accustomed hill. 
Along the heath, and near his favorite tree; 

Another came; nor yet beside the rill. 

Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood, was he: 

"The next with dirges due, in sad array. 
Slow through the church-way path we saw him 
borne; — 

Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay 
Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn." 

THE EPITAPH. 

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth, 
A youth to fortune and to fame unknown: 

Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth, 
And Melancholy marked him for her own. 

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STOKE P0GI8. 177 

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere. 
Heaven did a recompense as largely send; 

He gave to misery (all he had) a tear. 
He gained from heaven (H was all he wished) a friend. 

No farther seek his merits to disclose. 

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, 

(There they alike in trembling hope repose,) 

The bosom of his Father and his God. 

Thomas Gray. 

A LONG STOBY. • 

Ms. Gray's Elegy, previous to its publication, was handed about in 
MS., and had, amongst other admirers, the Lady Cobham, who resided m 
the mansion-house at Stoke Pogis. The performance inducing her to 
wbh for the author's acquaintance. Lady Schaub and Miss Speed, then 
at her house, undertook to introduce her to it. These two ladies waited 
upon the author at his aunt's solitary habitation, where he at that time 
resided, and, not finding him at home, they left a card behind them. Mr. 
Gray, surprised at such a compliment, returned the jrisit ; and as the be- 
ginning of this intercourse bore some appearance of romance, he gave the 
humorous and lively account of it which the Long Story contains. 

IN Britain's isle, no matter where, 
An ancient pile of building stands ; 
The Huntingdons and Hattons there 
Employed the power of fairy hands. 

To raise the ceilings' fretted height. 
Each panel in achievements clothing. 

Rich windows that exclude the light. 
And passages that lead to nothing. 

Full oft within the spacious walls, 
When he had fifty winters o'er him. 



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178 POEMa OP PLACES. 

My grave lord-keepeif led the brawls: 
The seal and maces danced before him. 

His bushy beard and shoe-strings green. 
His high-crowned hat and satin doublet. 

Moved the stout heart of England's queen. 
Though pope and Spaniard could not trouble it. 

What, in the very first beginning. 

Shame of the versifying tribe ! 
Your history whither are you spinning? 

Can you do nothing but describe? 

A house there is (and that's enough) 
From whence one fatal morning issues 

A brace of warriors, not in buflf. 
But rustling in their silks and tissues. 

The first came cap-a-pie from France, 

Her conquering destiny fulfilling. 
Whom meaner beauties eye askance. 

And vainly ape her art of killing. 

The other Amazon kind Heaven 

Had armed with spirit, wit, and satire; 

But Cobham had the polish given. 
And tipped her arrows with good-nature. 

To celebrate her eyes, her air — 

Coarse panegyrics would but tease her; 

Melissa is her nom de guerre: 
Alas ! who would not wish to please her ? 

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STOKE POGIS. 179 

With bonnet blue and ^apucliin. 
And aprons long, they hid their armor, 

And veiled their weapons bright and keen 
In pity to the country farmer. 

Fame in the shape of Mr. P — t 

(By this time all the parish know it) 

Had told that thereabouts there lurked 
A wicked imp they called a poet, 

Who prowled the country far and near. 
Bewitched the children of the peasants. 

Dried up the cows and lamed the deer. 
And sucked the eggs and killed the pheasants. 

My lady heard their joint petition ; 

Swore by her coronet and ermine. 
She'd issue out her high commission 

To rid the manor of such vermin. 

The heroines undertook the task; 

Through lanes unknown, o'er stiles they ventured, 
Kapped at the door, nor stayed to ask. 

But bounce into the parlor entered. 

The trembling family they daunt. 

They flirt, they sing, they laugh, they tattle. 
Rummage his mother, pinch his aunt. 

And upstairs in a whirlwind rattle. 



Each hole and cupboard they explore. 
Each creek and cranny of his chamber, 



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180 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Run hurry-scurry round the floor, 
And o'er the bed and tester clamber; 

Into the drawers and china pry, 

Papers and books, a huge imbroglio ! 

Under a teacup he might lie. 
Or creased like dog's ears in a folio. 

On the first marching of the troops. 
The muses, hopeless of his pardon. 

Conveyed him underneath their hoops 
To a small closet in the garden. 

So rumor says, (who will believe?) 
But that they left the door ajar. 

Where, safe, and laugliing in his sleeve. 
He heard the distant din of war. 

Short was his joy; he little knew 
The power of magic was no fable ; 

Out of the window whisk they flew. 
But left a spell upon the table. 

The words too eager to unriddle. 
The poet felt a strange disorder; 

Transparent birdlime formed the middle. 
And chains invisible the border. 

So cunning was the apparatus. 
The powerful pothooks did so move him. 

That will he nill he to the great house 
He went as if the devil drove him. 

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STOKE POGIS. 181 

Yet on his way (no sign^ of grace, 

For folks in fear are apt to pray) 
To Phoebus he preferred his case. 

And begged his aid that dreadful day. 

The godhead would have backed his quarrel. 

But with a blush, on recollection. 
Owned that his quiver and his laurel 

'Gainst four such eyes were no protection. 

The court was sat, the culprit there: 
Forth from their gloomy mansions creeping. 

The Lady Janes and Jones repair. 
And from the gallery stand peeping; 

Such as in silence of the night 
Come (sweep) along some winding entry, 

(Styack* has often seen the sight). 
Or at the chapel door stand sentry; 

In peaked hoods and mantle tarnished. 

Sour visages enough to scare ye. 
High dames of honor once that garnished 

The drawing-room of fierce Queen Mary ! 

The peeress comes: the audience stare. 
And doff their hats with due submission; 

She courtesies, as she takes her chair, 
To all the people of condition. 

The bard with many an artful fib 
Had in imagination fenced him, 

1 The housekeeper. 

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182 POEMS OP PLACES. 

Disproved the arguments of Squib/ 
And all tliat Groom* could urge against him. 

But soon his rhetoric forsook him 
When he the solemn hall had seen; 

A sudden fit of ague shook him ; 
He stood as mute as poor Macleane.* 

Yet something he was heard to mutter, 
"How in the park, beneath an old tree, 

(Without design to hurt the butter, 
Or any malice to the poultry,) 

He once or twice had penned a sonnet. 
Yet hoped that he might save his bacon; 

Numbers would give their oaths upon it. 
He ne'er was for a conjuror taken." 

The ghostly prudes, with hagged face. 
Already had condemned the sinner: 

My lady rose, and with a grace — 

She smiled, and bid him come to dinner. 

"Jesu Maria! Madam Bridget, 
Why, what can the Viscountess mean!" 

Cried the square hoods, in woful fidget; 
"The times are altered quite and clean! 

"Decorum's turned to mere civility! 

Her air and all her manners show it: 
Commend me to her afi'ability! 

Speak to a commoner and poet ! " 
[Here 500 stanzas are lost!] 

1 The steward. * Groom of the chamber, 

s A famous highwayman, hanged the week before. 

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STONEHENGE. 183 

And so God save our noble king. 

And guard us from long-Mrinded lubbers. 

That to eternity would sing, 
And keep my lady from her rubbers. 

Thomas Gray. 



Stonehenge. 

DESCRIPTIOiT OF STONEHENGE. 

AND whereto serves that wondrous trophy now 
That on the goodly plain near Walton stands? 
That huge dumb heap, that cannot tell us how. 
Nor what, nor whence it is, nor with whose hands 
Nor for whose glory it was set to show 
How much our pride mocks that of other lands. 

Whereon, when as the gazing passenger 
Had greedy looked with admiration. 
And fain would know his birth, and what we were, 
How there erected, and how long agon, 
Inquires and asks his fellow-traveller 
What he had heard, and his opinion. 

And he knows nothing. Then he turns again. 
And looks and sighs ; and then admires afresh, 
And in himself with sorrow doth complain 
The misery of dark foi^tfulness. 
Angry with time that nothing should remain. 
Our greatest wonders' wonder to express. 

Then Ignorance, with fabulous discourse. 
Robbing fair art and cunning of their right. 
Tells how those stones were, by the devil's force, 



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184 POEMS OF PLACES. 

From Afric brought to Ireland in a niglit; 

And thence to Brittany, by magic course. 

From giants' hands redeemed by Merlin's sleight. 

And then near Ambri placed, in memory 
Of all those noble Britons murdered there. 
By Hengist and his Saxon treachery. 
Coming to parley, in peace at unaware. 
With this old legend then Credulity 
Holds her content, and closes up her care. 

But is Antiquity so great a liar? 
Or do her younger sons her age abuse; 
Seeing after-comers still so apt to admire 
The graTC authority that she doth use. 
That reverence and respect dares not require 
Proof of her deeds, or once her words refuse? 

Yet wrong they did us, to presume so far 
Upon our early credit and delight; 
For once found false, they straight became to mar 
Our faith, and their own reputation quite; 
That now her truths hardly believed are; 
And though she avouch the right, she scarce hath right. 

And as for thee, thou huge and mighty frame. 
That stand'st corrupted so with time's despite. 
And giv'st false evidence against their fame. 
That set thee there to testify their right; 
And art become a traitor to their name. 
That trusted thee with all the best they might, — 

Thou shalt stand still belied and slandered. 
The only gazing-stock of ignorance, 
And by thy guile the wise, admonished. 
Shall nevermore desire such hopes to advance. 

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STOEHENGNE. 185 

Nor trust their living glory with the dead 

That cannot speak, but leave their fame to chance. 

Considering in how small a room do lie. 
And yet lie safe (as fresh as* if alive). 
All those great worthies of antiquity, 
Which long forelived thee, and shall long survive; 
Who stronger tombs found for eternity. 
Than could the powers of all the earth contrive. 

Where they remain these trifles to upbraid. 
Out of the reach of spoil and way of rage ; 
Though time with all his power of years hath laid 
Long battery, backed with, undermining age. 
Yet they make head only with their own aid. 
And war with his all-conquering forces wage; 
Pleading the heaven's prescription to be free. 
And to have a grant to endure as long as he. 

Samuel Daniel, 

STONEHENGE. 

WRAPT in the veil of time's unbroken gloom. 
Obscure as death and silent as the tomb. 
Where cold oblivion holds her dusky reign, 
Frowns the dark pile on Sarum's lonely plain. 
Yet think not here with classic eye to trace 
Corinthian beauty or Ionian grace; 
No pillared lines with sculptured foliage crowned. 
No fluted remnants deck the hallowed ground; 
Firm, as implanted by some Titan's might. 
Each rugged stone uprears its giant height. 
Whence the poised fragment tottering seems to throw 
A trembling shadow on the plain below. 

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186 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Here oft, when evening sheds her twilight ray, 
And gilds with fainter beam departing day. 
With breathless gaze, and cheek with terror pale. 
The lingering shepherd startles at the tale. 
How at deep midnight by the moon's chill glance, 
Unearthly forms prolong the viewless dance; 
While on each whispering breeze that murmurs by. 
His busied fancy hears the hollow sigh. 

Bise from thy haunt, dread genius of the clime. 
Rise, magic spirit of forgotten time ! 

'T is thine to burst the mantling clouds of age. 
And fling new radiance on tradition's page: 
See! at thy call from fable's varied store. 
In shadowy train the mingled visions pour; 
Here the wild Briton, mid his wilder reign. 
Spurns the proud yoke and scorns the oppressor's chain ; 
Here wizard Merlin, where the mighty fell. 
Waves the dark wand and chants the thrilling spell. 
Hark ! 't is the bardic lyre whose harrowing strain 
Wakes the rude echoes of the slumbering plain; 
Lo ! 't is the Druid pomp, whose lengthening line 
In lowliest homage bends before the shrine. 
He comes — the priest — amid the sullen blaze 
His snow-white robe in spectral lustre plays; 
Dim gleam the torches through the circling night. 
Dark curl the vapors round the altar's light; 
O'er the black scene of death each conscious star. 
In lurid glory rolls its silent car. 

'T is gone ! e'en now the mystic horrors fade 
From Sarum's loneliness and Mona's glade; 
Hushed is each note of Taliesin's lyre. 

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STOUKHEAD. 187 

Sheathed the fell blade and quenched the fatal fire. 
Oa wings of light hope's angel form appears. 
Smiles on the past and points to happier years; 
Points with uplifted hand and raptured eye 
To yon pure dawn that floods the opening sky. 
And views at length the Sun of Judah pour 
One cloudless noon o'er Albion's rescued shore. 

Ojcford Prize Poem, 1823. 



Stourhead. 

ON THE BUSTS OF MILTON, IN YOUTH AND AGE AT 
STOURHEAD. 

IN YOUTH. 

MILTON, our noblest poet, in the grace 
Of youth, in those fair eyes and clustering hair. 
That brow untouched by one faint line of care 
To mar its openness, we seem to trace 
The front of the first lord of human race. 
Mid thine own paradise portrayed so fair, 
Ere sin or sorrow scathed it: such the air 
That characters thy youth. Shall time efface 
These lineaments as crowding cares assail! 
It is the lot of fallen humanity. 
What boots it! armed in adamantine mail. 
The unconquerable mind and genius high 
Right onward hold their way through weal and woe. 
Or whether life's brief lot be high or low I 



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188 POEMS OF PLACES. 

IN AGE. 

And art thou Le, now "falleii on evil days," 
And changed indeed ! Yet what do this sunk cheek. 
These thinner locks, and that calm forehead speak? 
A spirit reckless of man's blame or praise, — 
A spirit, when thine eyes to the noon's blaze 
Their dark orbs roll in vain, in suffering meek. 
As in the sight of God intent to seek. 
Mid solitude or age, or through the ways 
Of hard adversity, the approving look 
Of its great Master; whilst the conscious pride 
Of wisdom, patient and content to brook 
All ills to that sole Master's task applied. 
Shall show before high Heaven the unaltered mind, 
Milton, though thou art poor, and old, and blind! 

William lAsle Bowles, 



Stowe. 

ON LORD COBHAM'S GARDENS. 
T puzzles much the sages' brains 



I 



Where Eden stood of yore ; 
Some place it in Arabia's plains, 
Some say it is no more. 

But Cobham can these tales confute. 

As all the curious know; 
For he has proved beyond dispute 

That Paradise is Stowe. 

NathatUel Cotton. 

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STRATrORD-ON-AVON. 189 



Stratford-on-Avon. 

THE CHURCH AT STRATFORD. 

OLD INSCRIPTION ON THE WALL OP THE CHURCH AT 
STRATFORD-UPON-AVON. 

Agatnst the west wall of the nave (now in the antechapel), on the 
south side of the arch, was painted the martyrdom of Thomas 4 Becket, 
whilst kneeling at the altar of St. Benedict, in Canterbury cathedral; 
below tliis was the figure of an angel, probably St. Michael, supporting a 
long scroll, upon which were seven stanzas in Old English, being an 
allegory of mortality. 

ERTHE oute of erthe ys wondurly wroght 
Ertb hatb gotyn uppon erth a dygayte of nogbt 
Erth ypon erth hath sett all hys thowht 
How erth apon erth may be bey browght 

Erth upon erth wold be a kyng 
But how that erth gott to erth he thyngkys nothyng 
When erth byddys erth hys rentys whom bryng 
Then schall erth apon erth have a bard ptyng 

Erth apon erth wynnys castellys and towrys 
Then seth erth unto erth thys ys all owrys 
When erth apon erth hath bylde hys bowrys 
Then schall erth for erth suffur many hard schowrys 

Erth goth apon erth as man apon mowld 

Lyke as erth apon erth never goo scbold 

Erth goth apon erth as glesteryng gold 

And yet schall erth unto erth rather then he wold 

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190 POEMS OP PLACES. 

Why that erth loveth erth wondur me thynke 
Or why that erth wold for erth other swett or swynke 
When erth apon erth ys broght wt.yn the brynke 
' Theu schall erth apon erth have a fowll styuke 

Lo erth on erth consedur thow may 
How erth comyth to erth nakyd all way 
Why schall erth apon erth goo stowte or gay 
Seth erth owt of erth schall passe yn poor aray 

I counsill erth apon erth that ys wondurly wrogt 
The whyl yt. erth ys apon erth to tome hys thowht 
And pray to god npon erth yt. all erth wroght 
That all crystyn soullys to ye. blys may be broght 

William Shakespeare. 

SHAKESPEARE'S EPITAPH. 

GOOD frend, for Jesvs' sake forbeare 
To digg the dvst enclosed heare. 
Bleste be y* man y* spares these stones. 
And cvrst be he y* moves my bones. 



THE BUST OF SHAKESPEARE. 

STRANGER, to whom this monument is shown. 
Invoke the poet's curses on Malone, 
Whose meddling zeal his barb'rous taste displays, 
Aud daubs his tombstone, as he marred his plays. 
Album at Stratford^ Trinity Church, 



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STKATFOKD-ON-AVON. 191 



SHAKESPEARE. 

FAR from the sun and summer gale, 
In thy green lap was Nature's darling laid. 
What time, where lucid Avon strayed. 
To him the mighty mother did unveil 
Her awful face; the dauntless child 
Stretched forth his little arms, and smiled. 
This pencil take (she said), whose colors clear 
Richly paint the vernal year; 
Thine too these golden keys, immortal boy! 
This can unlock the gates of joy ; 
Of horror that and thrilling fears. 
Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears. 

Thomas Gray. 

MONODY 

WEITTEN NEAR STRATFOED-UPON-AVON. 

AVON, thy rural views, thy pastures wild. 
The willows that o'erhang thy twilight edge. 
Their boughs entangling with the embattled sedge; 
Thy brink with watery foliage quaintly fringed. 
Thy surface with reflected verdure tinged, 
Soothe me with many a pensive pleasure mild. 
But while I muse, that here the bard divine. 
Whose sacred dust yon high-arched aisles enclose 
Where the tall windows rise in stately rows 
Above the embowering shade. 



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192 POEMS OP PLACES. 

Here first, at Fancy's fairy-circled shrine, 

Of daisies pied his infant oflfering made; 

Here playful yet, in stripling years unripe, 

Framed of thy reeds a shrill and artless pipe, — 

Sudden thy beauties, Avon, all are fled. 

As at the waving of some magic wand: 

An holy trance my charmed spirit wings. 

And awful shapes of warriors and of kings 

People the busy mead. 

Like spectres swarming to the wizard's hall; 

And slowly pace, and point with trembling hand 

The wounds ill-covered by the purple pall. 

Before me Pity seems to stand 

A weeping mourner, smote with anguish sore. 

To see Misfortune rend in frantic mood 

His robe, with regal woes embroidered o'er. 

Pale Terror leads the visionary band. 

And sternly shakes his sceptre, dropping blood. 

Thomas Warton. 

SHAKESPEARE. 

THOU soft-flowing Avon, by thy silver stream 
Of things more than mortal sweet Shakespeare 
would dream, 
The fairies by moonlight dance round his green bed 
For hallowed the turf is which pillowed his head. 

The love-stricken maiden, the soft-sighing swain. 
Here rove without danger, and sigh without pain: 
The sweet bud of beauty no blight shall here dread. 
For hallowed the turf is which pillowed his head. 

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STBATFOED-ON-AVON, 193 

Here youth shall be famed for their love and their 

truth. 
And cheerful old age feel the spirit of youth ; 
For the raptures of fancy here poets shall tread. 
For hallowed the turf is that pillowed his head. 

Flow on, silver Avon, in song ever flow! 
Be the swans on thy borders still whiter than snow ! 
Ever full be thy stream, like his fame may it spread! 
And the turf ever hallowed which pillowed his head. 

Bavid Oarrick, 



ON SHAKESPEARE, 1630. 

WHAT needs my Shakespeare for his honored bones 
The labor of an age in pil6d stones. 
Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid 
Under a star-ypointing pyramid? 
Dear son of memory, great heir of fame. 
What ueed'st thou such weak witness of thy name? 
Thou in our wonder and astonishment 
Hast built thyself a livelong monument. 
For whilst to the shame of slow endeavoring art 
Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart 
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book 
Those Delphic lines with deep impression took; 
Then thou our fancy of itself bereaving, 
Dost make us marble with too much conceiving; 
And so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie, 
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die. 

John Millon. 



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194 POEMS OF PLACES. 



• SHAKESPEARE'S MONUMENT AT STRATFORD- UPON- A YON. 

GREAT Homer's birth seven rival cities claim. 
Too mighty such monopoly of fame; 
Yet not to birth alone did Homer owe 
His wondrous worth; what Egypt could bestow. 
With all the schools of Greece and Asia joined. 
Enlarged the immense expansion of his mind. 
Nor yet unrivalled the MaBonian strain. 
The British Eagle, and the Mantuan Swan 
Tower equal heights. But, happier Stratford, thou 
With incontested laurels deck thy brow; 
Thy Bard was thine unschooled, and from thee brought 
More than all Egypt, Greece, or Asia taught. 
Not Homer's self such matchless honors won ; 
The Greek has rivals, but thy Shakespeare none. 

Anonymous. 

STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 

rpO Stratford-on-the-Avon. And we passed 
A Through aisles and avenues of the princeliest trees 
That ever eyes beheld. None such with us 
Here in the bleaker North. And as we went 
Through Lucy's park, the red day dropt i' the west ; 
A crimson glow, like blood in lovers' cheeks. 
Spread up the soft green sky and passed away ; 
The mazy twilight came down on the lawns. 
And all those huge trees seemed to fall asleep; 
The deer went past like shadows. All the park 



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STEATPORD-ON- AVON. 195 

Lay round us like a dream; and one fine thought 
Hung over us, and hallowed all. Yea, he, 
The pride of England, glistened like a star. 
And beckoned us to Stratford. 

Robert Leighton. 



STMTFORD-ON-AYON AT NIGHT. 

TWENTY-SEVEN paces in front. 
And barely eleven deep. 
Lights in every window but it, — 
Are they dead, or do they sleep? 

The merry gossips of Stratford 

Grossip in shops all round, — 
From that untenanted mansion 

There cometh not a sound. 

If you knock you will get no answer, — 

Knock reverently and low. 
For the sake of one who was living there 

Three hundred years ago. 

He was bom in the upper chamber, 

Had playmates down the street; 
They noted at school, when he read the lesson, 

That his voice was soft and sweet. 

His father, they say, was a glover. 

Though that is not so clear; 
He married liis sweetheart at Shottery, 

When he came to his nineteenth year. 



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196 POEMS OF PLACES. 

And then he left old Stratford, 

And nobody missed him much. 
For Stratford, a thriving burgh. 

Took little account of such. 

But somehow it came to be whispered. 
When some short years had flown, 

That the glover's son was making himself 
A credit to that good town. 

The best folks scarcely believed it, 
And dreamily shook their head, — 

But the world was owning the archer 
Whose arrows of light liad sped; 

Whose arrows were brightening space 

With fire unknown before. 
Plucked from a grander quiver 

Than Phcebus-Apollo bore. 

So his birthplace came to be famous. 
And the ground where his bones were laid. 

And to Stratford, the thriving burgh. 
Nations their pilgrimage made. 

They saw the tenantless dwelling. 

They saw the bare flat stone ; 
But the soul that had brightened the world 

Still lived to brighten their own. 

And they learned the sacred lesson. 
That he whom the proud eschew. 

The simplest and the lowliest. 
May have Gtod's best work to do. 

Henry Glasrford Bell. 

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STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 197 



STRATFORB-UPON-AYON, JANUARY, 1837. 

WE stood upon the tomb of him whose praise 
Time, nor oblivious thrift, nor envy chill. 
Nor war, nor ocean with her severing space. 
Shall hinder from the peopled world to fill; 
And thus,' in fulness of our heart, we cried : 
God*s works are wonderful, — the circling sky. 
The rivers that with noiseless footing gUde, 
Man's firm-built strength, and woman's liquid eye;* 
But the high spirit that slecpeth here below. 
More than all beautiful and stately things. 
Glory to God the mighty Maker brings; 
To whom alone 't was given the bounds to know 
Of human action, and the secret springs 
Whence the deep streams of joy and sorrow flow. 

Henry Alford. 

AT STRATFORD-UPON-AYON. 

THUS spake his dust (so seemed it as I read 
The words) : Good frend for Jesos* sake forbears 
(Poor ghost !) To digg the dost enclosed keare, — 
Then came the malediction on the head 
Of who so dare disturb the sacred dead. 
Outside the mavis whistled strong and clear. 
And, touched with the sweet glamour of the year. 
The winding Avon murmured in its bed. 
But in the little Stratford churcli the air 
Was chill and dank, and on the foot-worn tomb 



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198 POEMS OF PLACES. 

The evening shadows deepened momently: 
Then a great awe crept on me, standing there. 
As if some speechless Presence in the gloom 
Was hovering, and fain would speak with me. 

Thomas Bailey Aldiich. 



ANNE HATHAWAY. 

TO THE IDOL OP MY EYE AND DELIGHT OP MY HEABT, 
ANNE HATHAWAY. 

WOULD ye be taught, ye feathered tlirong, 
With love's sweet notes to grace your song. 
To pierce the heart with thrilling lay, 
Listen to mine Anne Hathaway! 
She hath a way to sing so clear, 
Phoebus might wondering stop to hear. 
To melt the sad, make blithe the gay. 
And nature charm, Anne hath a way; 

She hath a way, 

Anne Hathaway; 
To breathe delight Anne hath a way. 

Wlien Envy's breath and rancorous tooth 

Do soil and bite fair worth and truth. 

And merit to distress betray. 

To soothe the heart Anne hath a way. 

She hath a way to chase despair. 

To heal all grief, to cure all care. 

Turn foulest night to fairest day. 

Thou know'st, fond heart, Anne hath a way; 



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STRATFOBD-ON-AVON. 199 

She hath a way, 
Anne Hathaway; 
To make grief bliss, Anne hath a way. 

Talk not of gems, the orient list. 
The diamond, topaz, amethyst. 
The emerald mild, the ruby gay; 
Talk of my gem, Anne Hathaway ! 
She hath a way, with her bright eye. 
Their various lustres to defy, — 
The jewels she, and the foil they. 
So sweet to look Anne hath a way; 

She hath a way, 

Anne Hathaway; 
To shame bright gems, Anne hath a way. 

But were it to my fancy given • 

To rate her charms, I'd call them heaven; 
For though a mortal made of clay. 
Angels must love Anne Hathaway; 
She hath a way so to control. 
To rapture, the imprisoned soul. 
And sweetest heaven on earth display. 
That to be heaven Anne hath a way; 

She hath a way, 

Anne Hathaway; 
To be heaven's self, Anne hath a way. 

William Shakespeare. 



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200 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Stratton Tower. 

THE SCROLL. 

"jDRING me," he said, "tliat scribe of feme, 

-1-^ Symeon el Siddekab his name: 
With parchment skin, and pen in hand, 
I would devise my Cornish land. 

"Seven goodly manors, fair and wide. 
Stretch from the sea to Tamar side: 
And Bien-aim6, my hall and bower. 
Nestles beneath tall Stratton Tower. 

"All these I render to my God, 
By seal and signet, knife and sod: 
I giie and grant to church and poor. 
In franc-almoign forevermore. 

" Choose ye seven men among the just. 
And bid them hold my lands in trust; 
On Michael's mom, and Mary's day. 
To deal the dole, and watch and pray. 

"Then bear me coldly o'er the deep. 

Mid my own people I would sleep: 

Their hearts shall melt, their prayers will breathe, 

Wliere he who loved them rests beneath. 

"Mould me in stone as here I lie. 
My face upturned to Syria's sky: 
Carve ye this good sword at my side. 
And write the legend, 'True and tried.* 

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STUDLAND. 201 

" Let mass be said, and requiem sung ; 
And that sweet chime I loved be rung: 
Those sounds along the northern wall 
Shall thrill me like a trumpet-call." 

Thus said he, and at set of sun 
The bold Crusader's race was run. 
Seek ye his ruined hall and bower? 
Then stand beneath tall Stratton Tower. 

Robert Stephen Hawker. 



Studland. 

A DORSETSHIRE LEGEND. 

THORKILL and Thorston from Jutland came 
To torture us Saxons with sword and flame. 
To strip our homesteads and thorps and crofts. 
To bum our bams and hovels and lofts. 
To fell our kine and slay our deer. 
To strip the orchard and drag the mere. 
To butcher our sheep and reap our corn. 
To fire our coverts of fem and thom. 
Driving the wolves and boars in bands 
To raven and prey on our Saxon lands. — 
We had watched for their galleys day and night. 
From sunrise until beacon-light; 
But still the sea lay level and dead. 
And never a sail came round the Head. — 
We watched in vain till one autumn day. 
When a woolly fog that northward lay 

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202 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Sullenly rose, and the broad gray sea 

Sparkled and danced in the full bright sun 

(The shadows were purple as they could be): 

Then stealing round by Worbarrow Bay, 

Past Lulworth Cove and the White Swyre Head, 

The black sails came, and every one 

When they saw the sight turned pale as the dead. 

The black sails spread in a long curved line. 
Like a shoal of dog-fish, or rather of sharks, 
When, chasing the porpoise in the moonshine. 
They leave behind them a. drift of sparks. 
Those coal-black sails bore slowly on. 
Past Kingsland Bay and Osmington, 
By the white cliff of Bindon Hill, 
Past Kimmeridge and Gad Cliff Mill ; — 
Then with a bolder, fiercer swoop 
Bore down the Danish robber troop. 
Skimming around St. Adhelm's Head, 
With its chantry chapel and its rocks 
Stained green and brown by tempest shocks. 
And its undercliff all moss and heather. 
And ivy cable and green fern feather. 
And steered straight on for Studland Bay, 
Where all our Saxon treasure lay. 

Their sails, as black as a starless night. 

Came moving on with a sullen might; 

Rows of gleaming shields there hung 

Over the gunwales, in order slung; 

And the broad black banners fluttered and flapped 

Like raven's pinions, as dipped and lapped 

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SUFFOLK. 203 

The Norsemen's galleys ; their axes shone. — 
Every Dane had a hauberk on, 
Glittering gold; how each robber lord 
Waved in the air his threatening sword! — 
One long swift rush through surf and foam, 
And they leapt ere the rolling waves had gone, 
On our Saxon shore, their new-found home. 
With a clash of collars and targe and spear, 
With a laughing shout and a rolling cheer, 
Like wolf-hounds when the wolf's at bay 
Those bearded warriors leapt ashore 
(If there was one there were forty score). 
And dragged their galleys with fierce uproar 
To where our fishing-vessels lay. 

Who dare resist? Woe worth the day! 

« « « « « 

Walter Thornhury. 



Suffolk. 

THE SUFFOLK MIRACLE ; 

OR, A RELATION OP A YOUNG MAN, WHO, A MONTH AFTER 
HIS DEATH, APPEARED TO HIS SWEETHEART, AND CARRIED 
HER ON HORSEBACK BEHIND HIM FOR FORTY MILES IN TWO 
HOURS, AND WAS NEVER SEEN AFTER BUT IN HIS GRAVE. 

A WONDER stranger ne'er was known 
Than what I now shall treat upon. 
In Suffolk there did lately dwell 
A farmer rich and known full well. 



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204 POEMS OF PLACES. 

He had a daughter fair and bright, 
On whom he placed his chief delight; 
Her beauty was beyond compare. 
She was both virtuous and feir. 

There was a young man living by, 
Who was so charmed with her eye. 
That he could never be at rest; 
He was by love so much possest. 

He made address to her, and she 
Did grant him love immediately; 
But when her father came to hear. 
He parted her and her poor dear. 

Forly miles distant was she sent, 
Unto his brother's, with intent 
That she should there so long remain, 
Till she had changed her mind again. 

Hereat this young man sadly grieved. 
But knew not how to be relieved; 
He sighed and sobbed continually 
That his true-love he could not see. 

She by no means could to him send 
Wlio was her heart's espoused friend; 
He sighed, he grieved, but all in vain. 
For she confined must still remain. 

He mourned so much that doctor's art 
Could give no ease unto his heart. 



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SUFFOLK. f^05 

Who was so strangely terrified 
Tbat in sliort time for loye Ue died* 

She tLat from him was sent away 
Knew nothing of liia dyiug diiy^ 
But constant still she did reraiiin^ 
And loved the dead, although in vain. 

After be had in grave been laid 
A month or more, unto tliis nmid 
He came in middle of the night. 
Who joyed to sec her hearths dehght. 

Her father's horse, which well she knew, 
Her mother'^ hood and safcr^iiard too. 
He brought with hi in to testify 
Her parents' order he came by. 

Whieli when her uncle understood, 
He hoped it would be for her good. 
And gave consent to her straightway* 
That with him she should come away. 

When she was got her love l>ehind, 
Tliey passed as swift as any wind, 
That in two honrs or little more^ 
He brought her to her father's door. 

But as they did this great haste make. 
He did complam his bead did ake; 
Her handkerchief she then took out, 
And tied the san^e his head about. 

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206 POEMS OF PLACES. 

And unto him she thus did say : 
"Thou art as cold as any cky; 
When we come home a fire we '11 have " ; 
But little dreamed he went to grave. 

Soon were they at her father's door. 
And after she ne'er saw him more; 
"I'll set the horse up," then he said, 
And there he left this harmless maid. 

She knocked, and straight a man he cried, 
" Who 's there ? " " 'T is I," she then replied ; 
Who wondered much her voice to hear. 
And was possessed with dread and fear. 

Her father he did tell, and then 

He stared like an affrighted man: 

Down stairs he ran, and when he see her. 

Cried out, " My child, how cam'st thou here ? " 

"Pray, sir, did you not send for me. 
By such a messenger?" said she; 
Which made his hair stare on his head. 
As knowing well that he was dead. 

"Wliere is heP" then to her he said; 
" He 's in the stable," quoth the maid. 
"Go in," said he, "and go to bed; 
" I 'U see the horse well littered." 

He stared about, and there could he 
No shape of any mankind see, 



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SUFFOLK. 207 

But found his horse all on a sweat; 
Which made him in a deadly fret. 

His daughter he said nothing to, 
Nor none else (though full well they knew 
That he was dead a month before), 
For fear of grieving her full sore. 

Her father to the father went 
Of the deceased, with full intent 
To tell him what his daughter said; 
So both came back unto this maid. 

They asked her, and she still did say 
'T was he that then brought her away ; 
Which when they heard they were amazed, 
And on each other strangely gazed. 

A handkerchief she said she tied 
About his head, and that they tried; 
The sexton they did speak unto. 
That he the grave would then undo. 

Aifrighted then they did behold 

His body turning into mould. 

And though he had a month been dead. 

This handkerchief was about his head. 

This thing unto her then they told, 
And the whole truth they did unfold ; 
She was thereat so terrified 
And griev6d, that she quickly died. 

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208 POEMS OP PLACES. 

Part not true love, you rich men, tlien; 
But, if tliey be riglit honest men 
Your daughters love, give them their way. 
For force oft breeds their lives' decay. 

Anonymous, 



Surrey. 







THE GREEN HILLS OF SURREY. 

AN EMIGRANT SONG. 

FROM Box Hill and Leith Hill the prospects are 

You look o'er the sweet vales of green Surrey there. 
And than Surrey's dear green vales you never saw lie 
Or sweeter or greener, beneath the blue sky; 
O, the green hills of Surrey, the sweet hills of Surrey, 
The dear hUls of Surrey, I '11 love till I die. 

O, Famham, green Famham, what hop-grounds are there 
That with Famham's fair hop-grounds can ever compare ! 
And what pleasure it were once again but to lie 
On Guildford's green hillsides beneath the blue sky! 
0, the green hills of Surrey, the sweet hills of Surrey, 
The dear hills of Surrey, I 'U love till I die. 

O, Dorking is pleasant, and Dorking is green. 

And sweet are the woods and the walks of Deepdene, 

But for Dorking's sweet meadows in vain I must sigh. 



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SURREY. 209 

And Deepdene's green woods will no more meet my eje ; 
But the green woods of Surrey, the sweet woods of 

Surrey, 
The dear woods of Surrey, I'll love till I die. 

O, Kent has fair orchards; no pleasanter show 
Tlian her apple-trees blooming in April, I know. 
Save the orchards round Reigate, sweet Reigate, that lie 
With their red and white blossoms so fair 'neath the sky. 
0, the green fields of Surrey, the sweet fields of Surrey, 
The dear fields of Surrey, I'll love till I die. 

O Surrey, green Surrey, that I had been born 

To a farm 'mongst your fields, with its hops and its com, 

That I'd not been forced far, my fortune to try. 

Across the wide sea, 'neath a far foreign sky! 

O, the green vales of Surrey, the sweet vales of Surrey, 

The dear vales of Surrey, I'll love till I die. 

Minnesota's green prairies have plenty for all. 
And comfort and wealth here my own I can call. 
Yet often and often my thoughts, with a sigh, 
Far to Surrey's green hills, o'er the wide sea will fly ; 
0, the green hiUs of Surrey, the sweet hills of Surrey, 
The dear hills of Surrey, I'll love till I die. 

But sighing avails not, and wishing is vain. 

And the home of my childhood I '11 ne'er see again ; 

The acres my labors made mine here, I'll try 

To make dear to my heart, as they 're fair to my eye ; 

But the green hills of Surrey, the sweet hills of Surrey, 

The dsar hills of Surrey, I '11 love till I die. 

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210 POEMS OF PLACES. 

'Neath the park limes in Betchworth, 't is there I would 

stroll ; 
O, to walk but once more by the clear winding Mole ! 
But no more shall' I hear the soft breeze rustle by 
Through those lime-tops, no more by the Mole I shall lie ; 
But the clear streams of Surrey, the sweet streams tf 

Surrey, 
The dear streams of Surrey, I'll love till I die. 

By the gray ivied church, where my father is laid. 
Where my mother lies with him, my grave should be 

made. 
But, far from them, my bones, when my time comes, 

must lie 
'Neath the ram and the snow of a strange foreign sky ; 
O, the green hills of Surrey, the sweet vales of Surrey, 
The dear fields of Surrey, I '11 love till I die. 

Wifliam C. Bennett, 



Sussex. 

WHY ARE THEY SHUT? 

The following stanzas were composed while the author was sitting 
outside a country church, in Sussex, much regretting that, as it M-as week- 
day, he could not gain admittance to the sacred editice. 

WHY are our churches shut with jealous care. 
Bolted and barred against our bosom's yearning. 
Save for the few short hours of sabbath prayer. 
With the bell's toUing statedly returning? 

Why are they shut? 

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SUSSEX. 211 

If with diurnal drudgeries o'erwrought, 

Or sick of dissipation's dull vagaries, 
We wish to snatch one little space for thought, 

Or holy respite in our sanctuaries. 

Why are they shut? 

What ! shall the church, the house of prayer, no more 
Give tacit notice from its fastened portals, 

That for six days 't is useless to adore. 

Since God will hold no communings with mortals? 
Why are they shut? 

Are there no sinners in the churcliless week, 
Who wish to sanctify a vowed repentance? 

Are there no hearts bereft which fain would seek 

The only balm for Death's un pitying sentence? 

Why are they shut? 

Are there no poor, no wronged, no heirs of grief, 
No sick, who, when their strength or courage falters. 

Long for a moment's respite or relief. 
By kneeling ati the God of mercy's altars? 

Why are they shut? 

Are there no wicked, whom, if tempted in, 

Some qualm of conscience or devout suggestion 

Might suddenly redeem from future sin? 
O, if there be, how solemn is the question. 

Why are they shut? 

In foreign climes mechanics leave their tasks 
To breathe a passing prayer in their cathedrals: 

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212 POEMS OP PLACES. 

There they have week-day, shrines, and no one asks, 
When he would kneel to them and count his bead-rolls. 
Why are they shut? 

Seeing them enter sad and disconcerted, 

To quit those cheering fanes with looks of gladness, — 
How often have my thoughts to ours reverted! 

How oft have I exclauned in tones of sadness. 
Why are they shut? 

For who within a parish church can stroll. 
Wrapt in its week-day stillness and vacation. 

Nor feel that in the very air his soul 
Receives a sweet and hallowing lustration? 

Why are they shut? 

The vacant pews, blank aisles, and empty choir. 
All in a deep sepulchral silence shrouded, 

An awe more solemn and intense inspire, 

Than when with sabbath congregations crowded. 
Why are they shut? 

The echoes of our footsteps, as we tread 
On hollow graves, are spiritual voices; 

And holding mental convei*se with the dead, 
In holy reveries our soul rejoices. 

Why are they shut? 

If there be one — one only — who might share 

This sanctifying week-day adoration. 
Were but our churches open to his prayer. 
Why — I demand with earnest iteration — 

Why are they shut? 

UQrace Smith, 

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SUTTON-ACftES. — SWAIN STON. 213 



Sutton-Acres. 

KING ETHELBERT. 

AND Sutton-Acres, drenched with regal blood 
Of Ethelbert, when to the unhallowed feast 
Of Mercian Offa he invited came 
To treat of spousals ; long connubial joys 
He promised to himself, allured by fair 
Elfrida's beauty; but deluded died 
In height of hopes. O hardest fate, to fall 
By show of friendship and pretended love ! 

John Philips. 



Sicainston. 

IN THE GARDEN AT SWAINSTON. 

NIGHTINGALES warbled witliout. 
Within was weeping for thee: 
Shadows of three dead men 
Walked in the walks with me, 

Shadows of three dead men, and thou wast one of tlie 
three. 

Nightingales sang in his woods: 
The Master was far away : 
Nightingales warbled and sang 



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214 POEMS OP PLACES. 

Of a passion that lasts but a day ; 
Still in tlie house in his coffin the Prince of courtesy 
lay. 

Two dead men have I known 

In courtesy like to thee: 

Two dead men have I loved 

With a love that ever will be: 

Three dead men have I loved, and thou art last of the 

three. 

Alfred Tennyson. 



Swanage Bay. 

IN SWANAGE BAY. 

^^'rpWAS five and forty year ago, 

J- Just such another morn. 
The fishermen were on the beach, 

The reapers in the com; 
My tale is true, young gentlemen, 

As sure as you were born. 

" My tale 's all true, young gentlemen," 

The fond old boatman cried 
Unto the sullen, angry lads, 

Who vain obedience tried; 
"Mind what your father says to you. 

And don't go out this tide. 

"Just such a shiny sea as this. 
Smooth as a pond, you'd say. 



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SWAN AGE BAY. 215 

And white gulls flying, and the crafts 

Down Cliannel making way; 
And Isle of Wight, all glittering bright. 

Seen clear from Swanage Bay. 

"The Battery point, the Eace beyond. 

Just as to-day you see; 
This was, I think, the very stone 

Where sat Dick, Dolly, and me; 
She was our little sister, sirs, 

A small child, just turned three. 

"And Dick was mighty fond of her: 

Tliough a big lad and bold. 
He 'd carry her like any nurse. 

Almost from bii-th, I 'm told ; 
For mother sickened soon, and died, 

When Doll was eight months old. 

"We sat and watched a little boat. 

Her name the 'Tricksy Jane,' 
A queer old tub laid up ashore. 

But we could see her plain; 
To see her and not haul her up 

Cost us a deal of pain. 

" Said Dick to me, * Let 's have a pull. 

Father will never know. 
He *s busy in his wheat up there. 

And cannot see us go: 
These landsmen are such cowards, if 

A puflT of wind does^ blow. 

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216 POEMS OF PLACES. 

" * I *ve been to France and back three times, — 

Who knows best. Dad or me, 
Wliether a craft 's seaworthy or not ? — 

Dolly, wilt go to sea?' 
And Dolly langhed, and hugged him tight. 

As pleased as she could be. 

" I don't mean, sirs, to blame poor Dick : 

What he did, sure I 'd do : 
And many a sail in 'Tricksy Jane' 

We 'd had when she was new. 
Father was always sharp; and what 

He said, he meant it too. 

"But now the sky had not a cloud. 

The bay looked smooth as glass; 
Our Dick could manage any boat. 

As neat as ever was; 
And Dolly crowed, * Me go to sea ! ' 

The jolly little lass ! 

" Well, sirs, we went ; a pair of oars, 

My jacket for a sail ; 
Just round 'Old Harry and his Wife,' — 

Those rocks there, within hail, — 
And we came back. — D' ye want to hear 

The end o' the old man's tale ? 

"Ay, ay, we came back, past that point. 

But then a breeze upspruug; 
Dick shouted, * Hoy ! down sail ! ' and pulled 

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SWAN AGE BAY. 217 

With all bis might among 
The white sea-horses that upreared 
So terrible and strong. 

"I pulled too; I was blind with fear, — 

But I could hear Dick's breath 
Coming and going, as he told 

Dolly to creep beneath 
His jacket, and not hold him so: 

We rowed for life or death. 

"We almost reached the sheltered bay. 

We could see father stand 
Upon the little jetty here. 

His sickle in his hand, — 
The houses white, the yellow fields. 

The safe and pleasant land. 

"And Dick, though pale as any ghost. 

Had only said to me, 
* We're all right now, old lad!' when up 

A wave rolled, — drenched us three, — 
One lurch, — and then I felt the chill 

And roar of blinding sea. 

"I don't remember much but that — 

You see, I'm safe and sound; 
I have been wrecked four times since then, 

Seen queer sights, I'll be bound: 
I think folks sleep beneath the deep 

As calm as under ground.'* 

"But Dick and Dolly?" "Well, poor Dick! 
I saw him rise and cling 

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218 POEMS OP PLACES. 

Unto the gunwale of the boat, — 

Floating keel up, — and sing 
Out loud, 'Where 's Doll?' — I hear him yet. 

As clear as anything. 

" * Where 's Dolly ? * I no answer made ; 

For she dropped like a stone 
Down through the deep sea, — and it closed: 

The little thing was gone. 
* Where 's Doll ? ' three times, — then Dick loosed hold. 

And left me there alone. 

m m m m m 

"It's five and forty year since then," 

Muttered the boatman gray. 
And drew his rough hand o'er his eyes. 

And stared across the bay; 
" Just five and forty year ! " and not 

Another word did say. 

"But Dolly?" ask the children all. 

As they about him stand; — 
"Poor Doll! she floated back next tide 

With seaweed in her hand. 
She 's buried o*er that hill you see. 

In a churchyard on land. 

" But where Dick lies, God knows ! He '11 find 

Our Dick at judgment day." — 
The boatman fell to mending nets. 

The boys ran off to play; 
And the sun shone and the waves danced 

In quiet Swanage Bay. 

Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, 

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SWINSTEAD ABBEY. 219 



Swinstead Ahhey. 

SWINSTEAD ABBEY. 
Enter Prince Henry, Salisbury, and Bigot. 

PRINCE HENRY. It is too late; the life of all his 
blood 
Is touch'd corruptibly; and his pure brain 
(Which some suppose the souFs frail dwelling-house) 
Doth, by the idle comments that it makes, 
Foretell the ending of mortality. 

Enter Pembroke. 

Pem. His Highness yet doth speak ; and holds belief. 
That, being brought into the open air. 
It would allay the burning quality 
Of that fell poison which assaileth him. 

P. Hen. Let him be brought into the orchard here. — 
Doth he still rage? [fi'xi/ Bigot. 

Pem. He is more patient 

Than when yon left him; even now he sung. 

P. Hen. O, vanity of sickness ! fierce extremes, 
In their continuance, will not feel themselves. 
Death, having preyed upon the outward parts. 
Leaves them insensible; and his siege is now 
Against the mind, the which he pricks and wounds 
With many legions of strange fantasies; 
Which, in their throng and press to that last hold, 



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220 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Confound themselves. *T is strange, that Death should 

slug. 
I am the cjgnet to this pale, faint swan. 
Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death; 
And, from the organ -pipe of frailty, sings 
His soul and body to their lasting rest. 

Sax. Be of good comfort, Prince ; for you are born 
To set a form upon that indigest. 
Which he hath left so shapeless and so rude. 

Re-enter Bigot and Attendants, who bring in Kino John in 
a chair, 

K. John. Ay, marry, now my soul hath elbow-room ; 
It would not out at windows, nor at doors. 
There is so hot a summer in my bosom. 
That all my bowels crumble up to dust. 
I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen 
Upon a parchment; and against this fire 
Do I shrink up. 

P. Hen. How fares your Majesty? 

K. John. Poisoned, — ill fare ; — dead, forsook, cast 
off; 
And none of you will bid the Winter come. 
To thrust his icy fingers in my maw; 
Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their course 
Through my bum'd bosom; nor entreat the North 
To make his bleak winds kiss my parched lips. 
And comfort me with cold. — I do not ask you much, 
I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait. 
And so ingrateful, you deny me that. 

P. Hen. O that there were some virtue in my tears. 
That might relieve you! 

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SWINSTEAD ABBEY. 221 

K. John. The salt in them is hot. — 

Withm me is a hell; and there the poison 
Is, as a fiend, confined to tyrannize 
On unreprievable-condemned blood. 

Enter the Bastard. 

Bast. Oh! I am scalded with my violent motion, 
And spleen of speed to see your Majesty. 

K. John. O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye. 
The tackle of my heart is cracked and burned ; 
And all the shrouds, wherewith my life should sail, 
Are turned to one thread, one little hair. 
My heart hath one poor string to stay it by. 
Which holds bat till thy news be uttered; 
And then all this thou seest is but a clod. 
And module of confounded royalty. 

Bast. The Dolphin is preparing hitherward: 
Where, Heaven he knows, how we shall answer him; 
For, in a night, the best part of my power. 
As I upon advantage did remove. 
Were in the Washes, all unwarily. 
Devoured by the unexpected flood. [The King dies. 

Sal. You breathe these dead news in as dead an 
ear. — 
My liege! my lord! — But now a king, — now thus. 

P. Hen. Even so must I run on, and even so stop. 
What surety of the world, what hope, what stay. 
When this was now a king, and now is clay! 

William, Shakespeare. 



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222 POEMS OF PLACES. 



TamaVy the River. 

THE TAMAR SPRING. 

The source of this storied river of the West is on a rushy knoll, in a 
moorland of this parish. The Torridge also flows from the selfsame 
mound. 

FOUNT of a rushing river! wild-flowers wreathe 
The home where thy first waters sunlight claim: 
The lark sits hushed beside thee, while I breathe. 
Sweet Tamar Spring ! the music of thy name. 

On through thy goodly channel, on to the sea! 

Pass amid heathery vale, tall rock, fair bough; 
But nevermore with footstep pure and free. 

Or face so meek with happiness as now. 

Fair is the future scenery of thy days. 
Thy course . domestic, and thy paths of pride : 

Depths that give back the soft-eyed violets' gaze. 
Shores where tall navies march to meet the tide. 

Tliine, leafy Tetcott, and those neighboring walls. 
Noble Northumberland's embowered domain; 

Thine, Cartha Martha, Morwell's rocky falls, 
Storied Cotehele, and Ocean's loveliest plain. 

Yet false the vision, and untrue the dream, 
That lures thee from thy native wilds to stray. 

A thousand griefs will mingle with that stream, 
Unnumbered hearts shall sigh those waves away. 



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TAMWORTH. 223 

Scenes fierce with men thy seaward current laves. 
Harsh multitudes will throng thy gentle brink; 

Back with the grieving concourse of thy waves. 
Home to the waters of thy childhood shrink. 

Thou heedest not! thy dream is of the shore, 
Thy heart is quick with life; on to the sea! 

How will the voice of thy far streams implore. 
Again amid these peaceful weeds to be! 

My soul! my soul! a happier choice be thine. 
Thine the hushed valley and the lonely sod; 

False dream, far vision, hollow hope resign. 
Fast by our Tamar Spring, alone with God! 

Robert Stephen Hawker. 



Tamworth. 

PLAIN NEAR TAMWORTH. 

Enter^ with drum and colors^ Richmond, Oxford, Sir 
James Blunt, Sir Walter Herbert, and others ^ with 
Forces^ marching, 

RICHMOND. Fellows in arms, and my most loving 
friends, 
Bruis'd underneath the yoke of tyranny. 
Thus far into the bowels of the land 
Have we march'd on without impediment; 
And here receive we from our father Stanley 
Lines of fair comfort and encouragement. 
The wretched, bloody, and usurping boar. 



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224 POEMS OF PLACES. 

That spoil'd your summer-fields and fruitful Tines, 
Swills your warm blood like wash, and makes his trough 
In your embowelPd bosoms, this foul swine 
Lies now even in the centre of this isle. 
Near to the town of Leicester, as we learn. 
From Tamworth thither is but one day's march; 
In God*s name, cheerly on, courageous friends. 
To reap the harvest of perpetual peace 
By this one bloody trial of sharp war. 

OxF. Every man's conscience is a thousand men, 
To fight against that guilty homicide. 

Herb. I doubt not but his friends will turn to us. 

Blunt. He hath no friends but who are friends 
for fear; 
Which, in his dearest need, will fly from him. 

RiCHM. All for our vantage: then, in God's name, 
march. 
Ti*ue hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings. 
Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings. 

William Shakespeare. 



Taunton. 

FOR A MONUMENT AT TAUNTON. 

THEY suffered here whom Jeffreys doomed to death 
In mockery of all justice, when the judge 
Unjust, subservient to a cruel king. 
Performed his work of blood. They suffered here. 
The victims of that judge and of that king ; 



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TAUNTON. 225 

In mockery of all justice, here they bled, 
Unheard. But not unpitied, nor of God 
Unseen, the innocent suffered ; not unheard 
The innocent blood cried vengeance; for at length 
The indignant nation in its power arose, 
llesistless. Then that wicked judge took flight. 
Disguised in vain: not always is the Lord 
Slow to revenge. A miserable man, 
He fell beneath the people's rage, and still 
The children curse his memory. From the throne 
The obdurate bigot who commissioned him. 
Inhuman James, was driven. He lived to drag 
Long years of frustrate hope; he lived to load 
More blood upon his soul. Let tell the Boyne, 
Let Londonderry tell, his guilt and shame; 
And that immortal day when on thy shores. 
La Hogue, the purple ocean dashed the dead! 

Robert Souihey. 

TAUNTON DENE. 

SWEET Taunton Dene ! thy smiling fields 
Once more with merry accents ring; 
Once more reviving Nature yields 
Her tribute to the smiling spring. 
The small birds in the woodland sing, 
The ploughman turns the kindly green, 

And Pleasure waves her resistless wing 
Among thy groves, sweet Taunton Dene. 

But peace abides with Him alone 
Who rules with calm, resistless power; 

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226 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Through all creation's boundless zone. 
From rolling sphere to garden flower. 
Nor falls in spring the welcome shower 

Unwilled of Him, nor tempest blows, 
Nor wind within the fragrant bower 

Can rend a leaf from summer rose. 

Sweet Taunton Dene! 0, long abide 

In thy fair vale delights like these ! 
And long may Tone's smooth waters glide 

By smiling cots and hearts at ease ! 

Be thine the joy of rustic peace. 
Each sound that haunts the woodland scene; 

And blithe beneath thy bowering trees 
The dance at eve. Sweet Taunton Dene ! 

Gerald Griffin, 



Tavy, the River. 

THE TAVy. 

A LITTLE grove is seated on the marge 
Of Tavy's streame, not over thicke nor large. 
Where every mom a quire of Silvaus sung, 
And leaves to chatt'ring winds serv'd as a tongue. 
By whom the water runs in many a ring. 
As if it fain would stay to heare them sing. 
And on the top a thousand young birds flye. 
To be instructed in their harmony. 
Neere to the end of this all-joy some grove 
A dainty circled plot seem'd as it strove 



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THAMES, THE RIVER. 22? 

To keepe all bryers and bushes from invading 

Her pleasing compasse by their needlesse shading, 

Since it was not so large but that the store 

Of trees around could shade her breast and more. 

In midst thereof a little swelling hill, 

Gently disburdened of a christall rill 

Which from the greenside of the flow'ry bancke 

Eat downe a channell; here the wood-nymphs dranke, 

And great Diana, having slaine the deere. 

Did often use to come and bathe her here. 

Here talked they of their chase, and where next day 

They meant to hunt: here did the shepheards play, 

And many a gaudy nymph was often scene 

Imbracing shepheard's boyes upon this greene. 

From hence the spring hasts downe to Tavy's brim. 

And pays a tribute of his drops to him. 

William Browne. 



Thames, the River. 

THE THAMES. 

BUT now this mighty flood, upon his voyage prest 
(That found how with his strength his beauties 
still increased. 
From where brave Windsor stood on tiptoe to behold 
The fair and goodly Thames, so far as ere he could, 
With kingly houses crowned, of more than earthly pride, 
Upon his either banks, as he along doth glide) 
With wonderful delight doth his long course pursue. 

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55550 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Where Oatlands, Hampton Court, and Richmond Le 

doth view, 
Then Westminster the next great Thames dotli enter- 
tain; 
That vaunts her palace large, and her most sumptuous 

fane: 
The land's tribunal seat that challengeth for hers. 
The crowning of our kings, their famous sepulchres. 
Then goes he on along by that more beauteous strand, 
Expressing both the wealth and bravery of the land. 
(So many sumptuous bowers within so little space 
The all-beholding sun scarce sees in all his race.) 
And on by London leads, whicli like a crescent lies. 
Whose windows seem to mock the star-befreckled skies ; 
Besides her rising spires, so thick themselves tliat show. 
As do the bristling reeds within his banks that grow. 
There sees his crowded wharfs, and people-pestered 

shores, 
His bosom overspread with shoals of laboring oars ; 
Witli that most costly bridge that doth him most re- 
nown, 
-By which he clearly puts all other rivers down. 

Michael Drayton. 

PROTHALAMION. 

CALME was tlie day, and through the trembling ayre 
Sweete-breathing Zephyrus did softly play 
A gentle spirit, that lightly did delay 
Hot Titans beames, which then did glyster fayre; 
When I, (whose sullein care. 
Through discontent of my long fruitlesse stay 



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THAMES, THE BIVER. 229 

III princes court, and expectation vayne 

Of idle hopes, which still doe fly away, 

Like empty shadows, did afilict my brayne,) 

Walkt forth to ease my payne 

Along the shoare of silver streaming Therames; 

Whose rutty bank, the which his river hemmes. 

Was paynted all with variable flowers. 

And all the meades adomd with dainty gemmes, 

Fit to decke maydens bowres. 

And crowne their paramours 

Against the brydale day, which is not long: 

Sweet Themraes ! runne softly, till I end my song. 
» » » « « 

With that I saw two Swannes of goodly hewe 
Come softly swimming downe along the lee; 
Two fairer birds I yet did never see; 
The snow, which doth the top of Piudus strew. 
Did never whiter shew. 

Nor Jove himselfe, when he a swan would be 
For love of Leda, whiter did appeare ; 
Yet Leda was (they say) as white as he. 
Yet not so white as these, nor nothing near; 
So purely white they were. 

That even the gentle stream, the which them bare, 
Seem'd foule to them, and bad his billowes spare 
To wet their silken feathers, least they might 
Soyle their fayre plumes with water not so fayre. 
And marre their beauties bright, 
That shone as heavens light. 
Against their brydale day, which was not long : 
Sweet Themmes! runne softly, till I end my song. 
« « « « « 

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230 POEMS OF PLACES. 

So ended slie; and all the rest around 
To lier redoubled that her undersong, 
Which said, their brydale daye should not be long: 
And gentle Eccho from the neighbour ground 
Their accents did resound. 
So forth those ioyous Birdes did passe along 
Adowne the lee, that to them murmurde low, 
As he would speake, but that he lackt a toug. 
Yet did by sigues his glad affection show. 
Making his streame nin slow. 
And all the foule which in his flood did dwell 
Gan flock about these twaine, that did excell 
The rest, so far as Cynthia doth sheud 
Tlie lesser stars. So they, enranged well. 
Did on those two attend, 
And their best service lend 
Against tlieir weddmg day, which was not long: 
Sweet Therames! runue softly, till I end my song. 

At length they all to mery London came, 

To mery London, my most kyndly nurse. 

That to me gave this lifes first native sourse, 

Though from another place I take my name, 

An house of auncient fame : 

There when they came, whereas those bricky towres 

The which on Tliemmes brode aged backe doe ryde. 

Where now the studious lawyers have their bowers. 

There whylome wont the Templer Knights to byde. 

Till they decayd through pride; 

Next wliereunto there standes a stately place. 

Where oft I gayned giftes and goodly grace 

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THAMES, THE RIVER. 231 

Of that great lord, which therein wont to dwell. 
Whose want too well now feels my freendles case; 
But ah! here fits not well 
Olde woes, but ioyes, to tell 
Against the bridale daye, which is not long: 
Sweet Themmes! runne softly, till I end my song. 
« « « « > » 

Edmund Spenser, 

THE FROZEN RIVER. 

ROVING Muse! recall that wondrous year 
When winter reigned in bleak Britannia's air; 
When hoary Tliames, with frosted osiers crowned, 
Was three long moons in icy fetters bound. 
The waterman, forlorn, along the shore. 
Pensive reclines upon his useless oar: 
See harnessed steeds desert the stony town. 
And wander roads unstable not their own; 
Wheels o'er the hardened water smoothly glide, 
And raze with whitened tracks the slippery tide; 
Here the fat cook piles high the blazing fire. 
And scarce the spit can turn the steer entire; 
Booths sudden hide the Thames, long streets a[)pear, 
And numerous games proclaim the crowded fair. 
So, when the general bids the martial train 
Spread their encampment o'er the spacious plain, 
Thick-rising tents a canvas city build. 
And the loud dice resound through all the field. 

John Gay. 



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232 POEMS OP PLACES. 



HIS TEARES TO THAMASIS. 



I SEND, I send here my supremest kiss 
To thee, my silver-footed Thamasis. 
No more shall I reiterate thy straud. 
Whereon so many stately structures stand: 
Nor in the summer's sweeter evenings go, 
To bath in thee, as thousand others doe : 
No more shall I a long thy christall glide. 
In barge with boughes and rushes beautified, 
With soft-smooth virgins for our chast disport. 
To Richmond, Kingstone, and to Hampton-Court : 
Never againe shall I with finnie ore 
Put from or draw unto the faithfuU shore. 
And landing here, or safely landing there. 
Make way to my beloved Westminster, 
Or to the golden Cheap-side, where the earth 
Of Julia Herrick gave to me my birth. 
May all clean nimphs and curious water dames 
With swan-like state flote up and down thy streams : 
No drought upon thy wanton waters fall 
To make them leane, and languishing at all: 
No ruffling winds come hither to discease 
Thy pure and silver- wristed Naides. 
Keep up your state, ye streams ; and as ye spring. 
Never make sick your banks by surfeiting. 
Grow young with tydes, and though I see ye never. 
Receive this vow, so fare ye well for ever. 

Robert Herrick. 



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THAMES, THE RIVER. 233 



THE THAMES. 



THEN commerce brought into the public walk 
The busy merchant; the big warehouse built; 
Raised the strong ci*ane; choked up the loaded street 
With foreign plenty; and thy stream, O Thames, 
Large, gentle, deep, majestic, king of floods ! 
Chose for his grand resort. On either hand. 
Like a long wintry forest, groves of masts 
Shot up their spires; the bellying sheet between 
Possessed the breezy void; the sooty hulk 
Steered sluggish on; the splendid barge along 
Rowed, regular, to harmony ; around. 
The boat, light skimming, stretched its oary wings; 
While deep the various voice of fervent toil 
From bank to bank increased. . 

Jamei Thomson. 

THE THAMES. 

THOU too, great father of the British floods ! 
With joyful pride survey'st our lofty woods ; 
Where towering oaks their growing honors rear. 
And future navies on thy shores appear. 
Not Neptune's self from all her streams receives 
A wealtliier tribute than to thine he gives. 
No seas so rich, so gay no banks appear. 
No lake so gentle, and no spring so clear. 
Nor Po so swells the fabling poet's lays. 
While led along the skies his current strays, 
As thine, which visits Windsor's famed abodes. 

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ZOh POEMS OF PLACES. 

To grace the mansion of our earthly gods : 
Nor all his stars above a lustre show^ 
Like the bright beauties on thy banks below ; 
Where Jove, subdued by mortal passion still. 

Might change Olympus for a nobler hill. 

Alexander Fope^ 

THE THAMES FROM COOPER'S HILL. 

MY eye, descending from the hill, surveys 
Where Thames among the wanton vjJleys strays. 
Thames ! the most loved of all the Ocean* sons. 
By his old sire, to his embraces runs. 
Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea. 
Like mortal life to meet eternity ; 
Though with those streams he no resemblance hold. 
Whose foam is aml)er, and their gravel gold: 
His genuine and less guilty wealth to explore. 
Search not his bottom, but survey his shore, 
0*er which he kindly spreads his spacious wing 
And hatches plenty for the ensuing spring; 
Nor then destroys it with too fond a stay. 
Like mothers which their infants overlay; 
Nor with a sudden and impetuous wave. 
Like profuse kmgs, resumes the wealth he gave. 
No unexpected inundations spoil 
The mower's hopes, nor mock the ploughman's toil; 
But godlike his unwearied bounty flows; 
First loves to do, then loves the good he does. 
Nor are his blessings to his banks confined. 
But free and common as the sea or wind; 
When he, to boast or to disperse his stores. 

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THAMES, THE RIVER. 235 

Full of the tributes of his grateful shores, 
Visits the world, and in his flying towers 
Brings home to us, and makes both Indies ours; 
Finds wealth where 't is, bestows it where it wants. 
Cities in deserts, woods in cities, plants. 
So that to us no thing, no place, is strange, 
While his fair bosom is the world's Exchange. 
O, could I flow like thee, and make thy stream 
My great example, as it is my theme! 
Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not didl; 
Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full. 

Sir John Denham. 



WHERE THAMES ALONG THE DAISIED MEADS. 

WHERE Thames along the daisied meads 
His wave in lucid mazes leads. 
Silent, slow, serenely flowing, 
Wealth on either side bestowing. 
There in a safe though small retreat. 
Content and Love have fixed their seat, — 
Love, that counts his duty pleasure; 
Content, that knows and hugs his treasure. 

From art, from jealousy secure. 

As faith unblamed, as friendship pure. 

Vain opinion nobly scorning. 

Virtue aiding, life adorning. 

Fair Thames along thy flowery side. 

May thou whom truth and reason guide 

All their tender hours improving, 

Live like us, beloved and loving. 

David Mallet. 



236 POEMS OF PLACES. 



THAMES. 



A GLIMPSE of the river ! it glimmers 
Through the stems of the beeches ; 
Througli the screen of the willows it shimmers 

In long winding reaches; 
Flowing so softly that scarcely 

It seems to be flowing, 
But the reeds of the low little islands 

Are bent to its going; 
And soft as the breath of a sleeper 

Its heaving and sighing, 
In the coves where the fleets of the lilies 

At anchor are lying: 
It looks as if fallen asleep 

In the lap of the meadows, and smiling 
Like a child in the grass, dreaming deep 

Of the flowers and their golden beguiling. 

A glimpse of the river ! it glooms 

Underneath the dark arches; 
Across it the broad sliadow looms. 

And the eager cro^vd marches; 
Where waiting the feet of the city, 

Strong and swift it is flowing; 
On its bosom the ships of the nations 

Are coming and going; 
Heavy laden, it labors and spends. 

In a great strain of duty. 
The power that was gathered and nursed 

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THAMES, THE RIVER. 237 

In the calm and the beauty. 
Like thee, noble river, like thee! 

Let our lives in beginning and ending 
Fair in their gathering be. 

And great in the time of their spending. 

Isabella Craig Knox. 

UP THE RIVER. 

I DEARLY love this London, this royal northern 
Loudon, 
And am up in all its history, to Brutus aud to Lud; 
But I wish that certain Puritan simplicities were un- 
done. 
That the houses had more gable-ends, and the river 
less of mud. 

And often, as I wander in the fine new squares, I 
ponder 

The reason why men like to live in long white plas- 
tered rows. 

And sigh for our old streets, like those across the 
Channel yonder. 

At Bruges or at Antwerp, such as everybody knows. 

But our river still is beautiful, rejoicing in the quaintest 

Old comers for a painter (till the new quays are be- 
gun). 

See there the line of distant hills, and where the blue 
is faintest. 

The brown sails of the barges lie slanting in the sun. 

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238 POEMS OP PLACES. 

Here 's a steamer — now we 're in it — one is passing 
every minute; 

There 's the palace of St. Stephen, which thej call " a 
dream in stone"; 

But I think, beyond all question, it was in an indi- 
gestion 

That the architect devised those scrolls whose language 
is unknown. 

Now we pass the Lollards' Tower, as we glide upon 

our journey. 
And think of WicHiTe's ashes scattered wide across the 

sea; 
Pass the site of ancient Ranelagh, which (vide Fanny 

Burney) 
Brings up the tales we read at school to Laurence 

and to me. 

At last we get to Putney, and we rush across the 

river. 
The gentle rural river, flowing softly through the 

grass; 
And we walk more fast than ever, for our nerves are 

in a quiver. 
Till we mount the hill of Wimbledon, and see the 

shadows pass 

Athwart the budding chestnuts, and clear brown water 

Iving, 
Filled with the click of insects, among the yellowing 

gorse ; 



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THAMES, THE EIVER. 239 

Here there is no human creature, and the only living 

feature 
Of all this glorious common is that idle old white horse. 

m m m m m 

The sun is sinking in the west, let's leave the wood 

behind us. 
Across the road, and up the steps, see here is Rich- 
mond Park ; 
Let's plunge amid the ferny glades, where only deer 

can find us, — 
It wants an hour to sunset yet, and two before it's 

dark. 

m m m m ^ 

There, now we're on the terrace; see, this regal 

Thames is winding 
Among its poplared islands with a slow majestic pace ; 
We should see the towers of Windsor if the sun were 

not so blinding, 
It casts a glow on all the trees, and a glory on your 



Grolden is the landscape, and the river, and the people. 
The cedar-stems are molten now the sun is going 

down; 
Let's keep the vision as it is; the clock in yonder 

steeple 
E;eminds us it is getting late, and we're miles away 
from town. 

« « . * « m 

Bessie Rayner Parkes. 



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240 POEMS OP PLACES. 



ON A GROTTO NEAR THE THAMES AT TWICKENHAM. 

THOU who shalt stop where Thames' translucent wave 
Shines a broad mirror through the shadowy cave. 
Where lingering drops from mineral roofs distil. 
And pointed crystals break the sparkling rill. 
Unpolished gems no ray on pride bestow. 
And latent metals innocently glow: 
Approach. Great nature studiously behold! 
And eye the mine without a wish for gold. 
Approach: but aweful! Lo the Egerian grott, 
Where, nobly-pensive, St. John sate and thought; 
Where British sighs from dying Wyndham stole. 
And the bright flame was shot through Marchmont's soul. 
Let such, such only, tread the sacred floor, 
Who dare to love their country, and be poor. 

Alexander Pope. 

TO LADY FANE ON HER GROTTO AT BASILDON, 1740. 

GLIDE smoothly on, thou silver Thames, 
Where Fane has fixed her calm retreat; 
Go pour thy tributary streams. 

To lave imperial Thetis' feet. 
There when in flowery pride you come 

Amid the courtiers of the main. 
And join within the mossy dome 

Old Tiber, Arno, or the Seine; 
When each ambitious stream shall boast 

The glories of its flattered lords; 



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THAMES, THE BIYER. 241 

What pomp adorns the Grallic coast, 

What Rome, or Tascauy affords; 
Then shalt thou speak (and sure thy tale 

Must check each partial torrent's pride) 
What scenes adorn this flowery vale. 

Through which thy happier currents glide. 
But when thy fond description tells 

The beauties of this grott divine, — 
What miracles are wrought by shells. 

Where nicest taste and fancy join, — 
Thy story shall the goddess move 

To quit her empire of the maui. 
Her throne of pearls, her coral grove. 

And live retired with thee and Fane. 

JUchard Graves, 

THE GROTTO. 

SAY, Father Thames, whose gentle pace 
Gives leave to view what beauties grace 
Your flowery banks, if you have seen 
The much-sung Grotto of the queen. 
Contemplative, forget awhile 
Oxonian towers, and Windsor's pile. 
And Wolsey's pride (his greatest guilt). 
And what great William since has built. 
And flowing past by Richmond scenes 
(Honored retreat of two great queens), 
From Lion House, whose proud survey 
Browbeats your flood, look 'cross the way. 
And view, from highest swell of tide. 
The milder scenes of Surrey side. 

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242i POEMS OF PLACES. 

Though yet no palace grace the shore. 
To lodge that pair you should adore; 
Nor abbeys, great in ruins, rise. 
Royal equivalents for vice; 
Behold a grot, in Delphic grove. 
The Graces' and the Muses' love; 
(O, might our laureate here. 
How would he bail his new-born year !) 
A temple from vain glories free. 
Whose goddess is Philosophy, 
Whose sides such licensed idols crown 
As superstition would pull down: 
The only pilgrimage I know. 
That men of sense would choose to go; 
Which sweet abode, her wisest choice, 
Urania cheers with heavenly voice. 
While all the virtues gather round 
To see her consecrate the ground. 



Matihevj Green, 



THAMES. 

THAMES, infant Thames, 
Rippling, flowing 
Water-white, 
Where the bright 
Young wilding gems 
Are blowing; 
Babbling ever in unrest, 
Wliile as o'er her darling's pillow 
Bends the mother, so the willow 
O'er thy breast. 



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THAMES, THE BIVER. 243 

Thames, maiden Thames, 
Glancing, shining 
Silver-blue ; 
While for you 
The lilied stems 
Are pining. 
Ah ! thou lovest best to play 
Slily with the wanton swallow. 
While he whispers thee to follow 
Him away. 

Thames, matron Thames, 
That ebbest back 
From the sea; 
Oh! in thee 
There are emblems 

Of life's track : 
We, too, would, like thee, regain. 
If we might, our greener hours ; 
We, too, mourn our vanished flowers. 
But in vain. 

Alexander Hume Butler. 

THE GLORIES OF OUR THAMES. 

OMANY a river song has sung and dearer made the 
9 names 

Of Tweed arid Ayr and Nith and Doon, but who has 

sung our Thames? 
And much green Kent and Oxfordshire and Middlesex 
it shames 

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244 POEMS OF PLACES. 

That thej 've not given long since one song to their 
own noble Thames. 

O, clear are England's waters all, her rivers, streams, 

and rills. 
Flowing stilly through her valleys lone and winding by 

her hills; 
But river, stream, or rivulet through all her breadth 

who names 
For beauty and for pleasantness with our own pleasant 

Thames. 

The men of grassy Devonshire the Tamar well may love, 
And well may rocky Derbyshire be noisy of her Dove ; 
But with all their grassy beauty, nor Dove nor Tamar 

shames, 
Nor Wye, beneath her winding woods, our own green, 

pleasant Thames. 

I care not if it rises in the Seven Wells' grassy springs. 

Or at Thames' head whence the rushy Churn its gleam- 
ing waters brings. 

From the Cotswolds to the heaving Nore, our praise 
and love it claims. 

From the Isis' fount to the salt-sea Nore, how pleas- 
ant is the Thames! 

0, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire well its gleaming 

waters love. 
And Oxfordshire and Berkshire rank it all their streams 

above ; 
Nor Middlesex nor Essex nor Kent nor Surrey claims 
A river equal in their love to their own noble Thames. 

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THAMES, THE ElVER. 245 

How many a brimming river swells its waters deep 
and clear. 

The Windrush and the Cherwell and the Thame to 
Dorset dear. 

The Kennet and the Loddon that have music in their 
names. 

But no grandeur like to that in yours, my own mast- 
shadowed Thames. 

How many a city of renown beside its green course 
stands ! 

How many a town of wealth and fame, how famous 
through all lands! 

Fair Oxford, pleasant Abingdon and Reading, world- 
known names. 

Crowned Windsor, Hampton, Richmond, all add glory 
to our Thames. 

But what wide river through the world, though broad 

its waters be, 
A London with its might and wealth upon its banks 

shall see? 
The greatness of earth's greatest mart, that to herself 

she claims. 
The world's great wonder, England's boast, gives glory 

to our Thames. 

What hugest river of the earth such fleets as hers 

e'er bore, 
Such tribute rich from every land, such wealth from 

every shore, 



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246 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Such memories of mighty ones whose memories are 

fkmes. 
Who from their mighty deeds afkr came homewards 

up the Thames? 

In Westminster's old Abbey's vaults, what buried 

greatness lies! 
Nelson and WelUugton sleep there where Wren's dome 

fills the skies; 
Here stands proud England's senate-house with all its 

mighty fames. 
These are the boast of Englishmen, the glory of our 

Thames. 

How many a river of the earth flows through a land 

of slaves! 
Her banks are thronged with freemen's homes, are 

heaped with freemen's graves; 
Name the free races of the earth, and he who tells 

them names 
Freemen of the free blood of those who dwell beside 

our Thames. 

How many a heart in many a land yearns to you with 

what pride. 
What love, by the far Ganges' banks, by the green 

Murray's side! 
By Ohio's waves, Columbia's stream, how many a free 

heart names, 
0, with what love ! the old dear homes they left beside 

the Thames. 

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THAMES, THE EIVER. 247 

River of England, your green banks no armed feet, 

thank God! 
No hostile hosts, no stranger ranks for centuries past 

have trod; 
O, may no foemen ever come, to threat your homes 

with flames! 
But should they come we'll show them soon what 

hearts are by the Thames. 

Flow on in glory, still flow on, O Thames, unto the sea, 
Through glories gone, through grandeurs here, through 

greatness still to be: 
Through the free homes of England flow, and may yet 

higher fames. 
Still nobler glories, star your course, O my own native 

Thames ! 

WUliam C. BenjieU. 

THE THAMES. * 

LET the Rhine be blue and bright 
In its path of liquid light. 
Where the red grapes fling a beam 
Of glory on the stream ; 
Let the gorgeous beauty there 
Mingle all that 's rich and fair ; 
Yet to me it ne'er could be 
Like that river great and free, 

The Thames ! the mighty Thames ! 

Though it bear no azure wave. 
Though no pearly foam may lave. 

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248 POEMS OP PLACES. 

Or leaping cascades pour 
Their rainbows on its shore; 
Yet I ever loved to dwell 
Where I heard its gushing swell. 
And never skimmed its breast 
But I warmly praised and blest 

The Thames! the mighty Thames! 

Can ye find in all the world 
A braver flag unfurled 
Than that which floats above 
The stream I sing and love? 
O, what a burning glow 
Has thrilled my breast and brow. 
To see that proud flag come 
With glory to its home. 

The Thames! the mighty Thames! 

Did ribs more firm and fast 
Ere meet the shot or blast 
Than the gallant barks that glide 
On its full and steady tide? 
Would ye seek a dauntless crew 
With hearts to dare and hands to do? 
You'll find the foe proclaims 
They are cradled on the Tliames; 

The Thames! the mighty Thames! 

They say the mountain child 
Oft loves its torrent wild 
So well, that should he part 
He breaks his pining heart; 

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THAMES, THE BIVEB. 249 

He grieves with smothered sighs 

Till his wearying spirit dies; 

And so I yearn to thee. 

Thou river of the free, 

My own, my native Thames! 

Eliza Cook. 



THE BBIDGE OF SIGHS. 



ONE more unfortunate. 
Weary of breath. 
Rashly importunate. 
Gone to her death! 

Take her up tenderly. 
Lift her with care; 
Fashioned so slenderly, — 
Young, and so fair! 

Look at her garments 
Clinging like cerements. 
Whilst the wave constantly 
Drips from her clothing; 
Take her up instantly. 
Loving, not loathing! 

Touch her not scornfully ! 
Think of her mournfully. 
Gently and humanly, — 
Not of the stains of her; 
All that remains of her 
Now is pure womanly. 



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250 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Make no deep scrutiny 
Into her mutiny. 
Rash and undutiful; 
Past all dishonor. 
Death has left on her 
Only the beautiful. 

Still, for all slips of hers — 
One of Eve's family — 
Wipe those poor lips of hers, 
Oozing so clammily. 

Loop up her tresses 
Escaped from the comb, — 
Her fair auburn tresses, — 
Whilst wonderment guesses 
Where was her home? 

Who was her father? 
Who was her mother? 
Had she a sister? 
fiad she a brother? 
Or was there a dearer one 
Still, and a nearer one 
Yet, than all other? 

Alas for the rarity 
Of Christian charity 
Under the sun ! 
O, it was pitiful! 
Near a whole city full, 
Home she had none. 



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THAMES, THE RIVEB. 251 

Sisterly, brotherly. 
Fatherly, motherly 
Feelings had changed, — 
Love, by harsh evidence, 
Thrown from its eminence; 
Even God's providence 
Seeming estranged. 

Where the lamps quiver 
So far in the river, 
With many a light 
From window and casement. 
From garret to basement. 
She stood, with amazement. 
Houseless by night. 

The bleak wind of March 
Made her tremble and shiver; 
But not the dark arch. 
Or the black flowing river; 
Mad from life's history. 
Glad to death's mystery 
Swift to be hurled, — 
Anywhere, anywhere 
but of the world ! 

In she plunged boldly — 
No matter how coldly 
The rough river ran — 
Over the brink of it ! 
Picture it, — think of it ! 
Dissolute man! 

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252 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Lave in it, drink of it, 
Then, if you can ! 



Take her up tenderly. 
Lift her with care ! 
Fashioned so slenderly, — 
Young, and so fair! 

Ere her limbs frigidly 
Stiffen too rigidly. 
Decently, kindly. 
Smooth and compose them; 
And her eyes, close them. 
Staring so blindly! 
Dreadfully staring 
Through muddy impurity, 
As when with the daring 
Last look of despairing 
Fixed on futurity. 

Perishing gloomily. 
Spurred by contumely. 
Cold inhumanity. 
Burning insanity. 
Into her rest! 
Cross her hands humbly. 
As if praying dumbly. 
Over her breast! 

Owning her weakness. 

Her evil behavior. 

And leaving, with meekness. 

Her sins to her Saviour! 

Thomas Hood. 

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THAMES, THE BIVEE. 253 



THE THAMES. 



OLD Thames! thy merry waters run 
Gloomily now, without star or sun! 
The wind blows o'er thee, wild and loud. 
And heaven is in its death-black shroud; 
And the rain comes down with all its might. 
Darkening the face of the sullen Night. 

Midnight dies! There booms a sound. 
From all the church-towers thundering round; 
Their echoes into each other run. 
And sing out the grand night's awful " One ! '* 
Saint Bride, Samt Sepulchre, great Saint Paul, 
Unto each other, in chorus, call ! 

Who speaks P 'Twas nothing: the patrol grim 
Moves stealthily o'er the pavement dim; 
The debtor dreams of the gripe of law; 
The harlot goes staggering to her straw; 
And the drunken robber, and beggar bold 
Laugh loud, as they limp by the Bailey Old. 

Hark, — I hear the blood in a felon's heart! 

I see him shiver — and heave — and start 

(Does he cry?) from his last short bitter slumber, 

To find that his days have reached their number, — 

To feel that there comes, with the morning text, 

Blind death, and the scaffold, and then — what next ? 

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254 POEMS OP PLACES. 

Sound, stonny Autumn! Brazen bell. 

Into the morning send your knell ! 

Mourn, Thames! keep firm your chant of sorrow; 

Mourn, men ! for a fellow-man dies to-morrow. 

Alas ! none mourn ; none care ; — the debt 

Of pity the whole wide world forget ! 

Barry Cornwall. 



Thorsgill. 

THORSGILL. 

TTTHEN Denmark's raven soared on high, 
' » Triumphant through Northumbrian sky. 
Till, hovering near, her fatal croak 
Bade Reged's Britons dread the yoke. 
And the broad shadow of her wing 
Blackened c^ch cataract and spring. 
Where Tees in tumult leaves his source. 
Thundering o'er Caldron and High-Force; 
Beneath the shade the Northmen came, 
Fixed on each vale a Kunic name. 
Reared high their altar's rugged stone. 
And gave their gods the land they won. 
Then, Balder, one bleak garth was thine. 
And one sweet brooklet's silver line. 
And Woden's Croft did title gain 
Prom the stem Father of the Slain ; 
But to the Monarch of the Mace, 



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TH0R8GILL. 255 

That held in fight the foremost place. 
To Odin's son and Sifia's spouse. 
Near Stratforth high they paid their vows. 
Remembered Thor*s victorious fame, 
And gave the dell the Thunderer's name. 

Yet Scald or Kemper erred, I ween. 
Who gave that soft and quiet scene. 
With all its varied light and shade. 
And every little sunny glade, 
And the blithe brook that strolls along 
Its pebbled bed with summer song. 
To the grim god of blood and scar. 
The grisly King of Northern War. 
O, better were its banks assigned 
To spirits of a gentler kind ! 
For where the thicket-groups recede. 
And the rath primrose decks the inead. 
The velvet grass seems carpet meet 
For the light fairies' lively feet. 
Yon tufted knoll, with daisies strown, 
Might make proud Oberon a throne. 
While, hidden in the thicket nigh. 
Puck should brood o'er his frolic sly; 
And where profuse the wood-vetch clings 
Round ash and elm, in verdant rings, 
Its pale and azure-pencilled flower 
Should canopy Titania's bower. 

Here rise no cliffs the vale to shade; 
But, skirting every sunny glade. 

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256 POEMS OF PLACES. 

In fair variety of green 
The woodland lends its sylvan screen. 
Hoary, yet haughty, frowns the oak. 
Its boughs by weight of ages broke; 
And towers erect, in sable spire. 
The pine-tree scathed by lightning-fire; 
Tiie drooping ash and birch, between. 
Hang their fair tresses o'er the green, 
And all beneath, at random grow 
Each coppice dwarf of varied show; 
Or, round the stems profusely twined. 
Fling summer odors on the wind. 

Sir Waiter Scott. 



Thurston Mere. 

THURSTON MERE. 

A GROVE there is whose boughs 
Stretched from the western marge of Tlmrston Mere 
With length of shade so thick, that whoso glides 
Along the line of low-roofed water moves 
As in a cloister. Once — while, in that shade 
Loitering, I watched the golden beams of light 
Flung from the setting sun, as they reposed 
In silent beauty on the naked ridge 
Of a high eastern hill — thus flowed my thoughts 
In a pure stream of words fresh from the heart: 
Dear native regions, wheresoever shall close 



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TIDNA COMBE. 257 

My mortal course, there will I tliiuk on you; 
Djmg, will cast on you a backward look; 
Even as this setting sun (albeit the vale 
Is nowhere touched by one memorial gleam) 
Doth with the fond remains of his last power 
Still linger, and a farewell lustre sheds 
On the dear mountain-tops where first he rose. 

William Wordsworth, 



Tidna Combe. 

THE TOKEN STREAM OF TIDNA COMBE. 

SOURCE of gentle waters, mute and mild, 
A few calm reeds around the sedgy brink, 
The loneliest bird that flees to waste or wild 
Might fold Its feathers here in peace to drink. 

I do remember me of such a scene. 

Far in the depths of memory's glimmering hour. 
When earth looked e'en on me with tranquil mien. 

And life gushed, like this fountain in her bower. 

But lo! a little on, a gliding stream. 

Fed with fresh rills from fields before unknown. 
Where the glad roses on its banks may dream 

That watery mirror spreads for them alone. 

Ah, woe is me! that flood, those flowers, recall 
A gleaming glimpse of Time's departed shore. 



A 



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258 POEMS OP PLACES. 

Where now no dews descend, no sunbeams fall. 
And leaf and blossom burst no more, no more ! 

See now! with heart more stern, and statelier force. 
Through Tidna's vale the river leaps along; 

The strength of many trees shall, guard its course, 
Birds in the branches soothe it with their song, 

type of a far scene ! the lovely land ! 

Where youth wins many a friend, and I had one; 
Still do thy bulwarks, dear old Oxford, stand? 

Yet, Isis, do thy thoughtful waters run? 

But hush! a spell is o'er thy conscious wave; 

Pause and move onward with obedient tread; 
At yonder wheel they bind thee for their slave ; 

Hireling of man, they use thy toil for bread. 

Still is thy stream an image of the days 
At duty's loneliest labor meekly bound; 

The foot of joy is hushed, the voice of praise : 
We twain have reached the stem and anxious ground. 

*And now what hills shall smile, what depths remain. 
Thou tamed and chastened wanderer, for thee? 

A rocky path, a solitary plain. 
Must be thy broken channel to the sea. 

Come then, sad river, let our footsteps blend 
Onward, by silent bank and nameless stone: 

Our years began alike, so let them end, — 
We live with many men, we die alone. 

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TILBURY. 259 

Why dost thou slowly wind and sadly turn, 
As loath to leave e'en this most joyless shore? 

Doth thy heart fail thee? do thy waters yearn 
For the far (ields of memory once more? 

Ah me! my soul, and thou art treacherous too. 
Linked to this fatal flesh, a fettered thrall 

The sin, the sorrow, why wouldst thou renew? 
The past, the perished, vain and idle all ! 

Away! behold at last the torrent leap. 

Glad, glad to mingle with yon foamy brine; 

Free and unmourned, the cataract cleaves the steep, — 
O river of the rocks, thy fate is mine ! 

Robert Stephen Hawker. 



Tilbury. 

ELIZABETH AT TILBURY. 

AUTUMN, 1688. 

1* ET them come, come never so proudly 
-^ O'er the green waves in tall array; 
Silver clarions menacing loudly, 

"All the Spains" on their pennons gay; 
High on deck of their gilded galleys 
Our light sailers they scorn below : 
We will scatter them, plague and shatter them. 
Till their flag hauls down to the foe! 



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260 POEMS OP PLACES. 

For our oath we swear 

By the name we bear 
By England's Queen and England free and fair. 
Hers ever and hers still, come life, come death: 

God save Elizabeth! 

Sidonia, Recalde, and Leyva 

Watch from their bulwarks in swarthy scorn: 
Lords and princes by Philip's favor: 
We by birthright are noble bom! 
Freemen born of the blood of freemen, 
Sons of Cressy and Flodden are we : 
We shall sunder them, fire and plunder them, 
English boats on the English sea ! 
And our oath we swear 
By the name we bear. 
By England's Queen and England free and fair, — 
Hei*s ever and hers still, come life, come death: 
God save Elizabeth! 

Drake and Frobisher, Hawkins and Howard, 

Raleigh, Cavendish, Cecil and Brooke, 
Hang like wasps by the flagships towered, 

Sting their way through the thrice-piled oak : 
Let them range their seven-mile crescent. 

Giant galleons, canvas wide! 
Ours will harry them, board and carry them. 

Plucking the plumes of the Spanish pride ; 
For our oath we swear 
By the name we bear, 
By England's Queen, and England free and fair, - 

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TINTERN ABBEY. 2G1 

Hers ever aud hers still, come life, come death: 
God save Elizabeth! 

Has God risen in wrath and scattered. 

Have his tempests smote them iu scorn? 
Past the Orcades, dumb and tattered, 

'Mong sea-beasts do they drift forlorn? 
We were as lions hungry for battle; 

God has made our battle his own! 
God" has .scattered them, sunk and shattered them: 

Give the glory to him alone ! 

While our oath we swear 

By the name we bear. 

By England's Queen and England free and fair,— 

Hers ever and hers still, come life, come death: 

God save Elizabeth! 

Francis Turner Falgrave. 



Tintern Abbey. 

TINTERN ABBEY. 

THE men who called their passion piety. 
And wrecked this noble argosy of faith, — 
They little thought how beauteous could be death, 
How fair the face of time's aye-deepening sea! 
Nor arms that desolate, nor years that flee. 
Nor hearts that fail, can utterly deflower 
This grassy floor of sacramental power. 



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262 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Where we now stand communicants, — even we, 
We of this latter, still protestant age. 
With priestly ministrations of the sun 
And moon and multitudinous quire of stars. 
Maintain this consecration, and assuage 
With tender thoughts the past of weary wars. 
Masking with good that ill which cannot be undone. 

Lord Houghton, 



Townstal. 

TOWNSTAL CHURCH. 

THE calm of eve is round thee now, 
Old Townstal ! with its floods of gold ; 
That shed a glory round thy brow. 

Like that around the saints of old. 
The purple shades beneath thee creep. 
The cloudless sky shines overhead; 
The river wanders calm and deep. 
And hills of gold afar outspread. 

0, let me pause awhile, and think: 

Such soul-born feelings of repose — 
That to the past the present link — 

Steal o*er me as the daybeams close ; 
The heart-chords swelling send the while 

Their sacred music through the soul. 
As through thy old and hallowed aisle 

The chant of praise is wont to roll. 

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TOWNSTAL. 263 

O for a life of hours like this ! 

To cast aside the anxious fear — 
The struggle and the toil — for peace 

Like this which reigns around me here; 
To let the free soul soar away. 

Like winds that o'er thy turret climb, 
And bid the wandering fancy stray 

Mid memories of olden time. 

That olden time comes back once more, — 

The time when thy gray walb were young. 
When hallowed feet first trod thy floor. 

When midnight masses first were sung, 
When erring souls with trembling sigh 

First dropped the penitential tear. 
And fervent prayers went up on high. 

In mingled tones of hope and fear. 

A silent awe is on my soul. 

To think what vigils thou must keep. 
When nightly stars above thee roll. 

And all wide earth and ocean sleep; 
Those countless stars, to whom is given ' 

That inextinguishable glow 
Which marks the truth of God in heaven. 

As thou upon the earth below. 

Thy sunlit tower is all so bright, 

I do not care to gaze below, 
Where sleep the dead iu endless night. 

Beneath the turf where daisies grow. 

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264 POEMS OF PLACES. 

But yet tbeir souls are bright above. 

Yes, brighter than this evening hour; 
And beauteous in those realms of love, 
^ As air-gold on thy shining tower. 

The latest beam is lingering still 

Upon thy topmost crumbling stone; 
It fades beyond the western hill. 

And leaves thee to the night alone. 
The light, too, passes from my mmd. 

But leaves, ere yet its beams depart. 
Another joy in memory shrined, 

Another lesson on the heart. 

Sydney Hodge*. 



Towton and: Saxton. 



KING HENRY'S SOLILOQUY. 

THIS battle fares like to the morning's war, 
When dying clouds contend with growing light; 
What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails. 
Can neither call it perfect day, nor night. 
Now sways it this way, like a mighty sea, 
Porc'd by the tide to combat with the wind; 
Now sways it that way, like the selfsame sea 
Forc'd to retire by fury of the wind; 
Sometime, the flood prevails; and then, the wind; 



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TOWTON AND SAXTON. 265 

Now, one the better; then, another best; 

Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast, 

Yet neither conqueror, nor conquered: 

So is the equal poise of this fell war. — 

Here, on this molehill, will I sit me down. 

To whom God will, there be the victory! 

For Margaret my queen, and Clifford too. 

Have chid me from the battle, swearing both. 

They prosper best of all when I am thence. 

Would I were dead! if Grod's good will were so; 

For what is in this world but grief and woe ? 

O God! methinks it were a happy life 

To be no better than a homely swain; 

To sit upon a hill, as I do now. 

To carve out dials quaintly, point by point, 

Thereby to see the minutes how they run: 

How many make the hour full complete. 

How many hours bring about the day. 

How many days will finish up the year. 

How many years a mortal man may live. 

When this is known, then to divide the times: 

So many hours must I tend my flock; 

So many hours must I take my rest; 

So many hours must I contemplate; 

So many hours must I sport myself; 

So many days my ewes have been with young; 

So many weeks ei*e the poor fools will yean; 

So many years ere I shall shear the fleece: 

So minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years, 

Pass'd over to the end they were created. 

Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave. 

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266 POEMS OP PLACES. 

Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely! 

Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade 

To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep, 

Than doth a rich embroidered canopy 

To kings, that fear their subjects* treachery? 

O yes, it doth; a thousand-fold it doth. 

And to conclude, — the shepherd's homely curds, 

His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle. 

His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade, — 

All which secure and sweetly he enjoys, — 

Is far beyond a prince's delicates. 

His viands sparkling in a golden cup. 

His body couched in a curious bed. 

When care, mistrust, and treason wait on him. 

William Shakespeare. 



Treharra. 

THE DEATH-RACE. 

WATCH ye, and ward ye! a ship in sight, 
And bearing down for Trebarra Height, 
She folds her wings by that rocky strand: 
Watch ye, and ward ye, a boat on land! 

Hush! for they glide from yonder cave 
To greet these strangers of the wave; 
Wait! since they pace the seaward glen 
With the measured tread of mourning men. 



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TREBARRA. 267 

"Hold! masters, hold! ye tarry bere. 
What corse is laid on your solemn bier? 
Yon minster-ground were a calmer grave 
Than the roving bark or the weedy wave 1 " 

"Strong vows we made to our sister dead 
To hew in fair France her narrow bed ; 
And her angry ghost will win no rest 
If your Cornish earth lie on her breast." 

They rend that pall in the glaring light: 

By St. Michael of Came ! 't was an awful sight ! 

For those folded hands were meekly laid 

On the silent breast of a shrouded maid. 

" God speed, my masters, your mournful way ! 
Go, bury your dead where best ye may: 
But the Norroway barks are over the deep, 
So we watch and ward from our guarded steep." 

Who comes with weapon? who comes with steed? 
Ye may hear far off their clanking speed; 
What knight in steel is thundering on? 
Ye may know the voice of the grim Sir John. 

"Saw ye my daughter, my Gwennah bright. 
Borne out for dead at the deep of night ? " 
" Too late ! too late ! " cried the warder pale, 
"Lo! the full deck, and the rushing sail!" 

They have roused that maid Jrom her tmnce of sleep. 
They have spread their sails to the roaring deep; 
Watch ye, and ward ye! with wind and tide, 
Fitz-Walter hath won his Cornish bride. 

Robert Stephen Hawker. 

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268 POEMS or places. 

Trenty the River. 

THE TRENT. 

WHEN now the neighboring floods willed Wrekiu 
to suppress 
His style, or they were like to surfeit with excess. 
And time had brought about that now they all began 
To listen to a long-told prophecy, which ran 
Of Moreland, that she might live prosperously to see 
A river bom of her, who well might reckoned be 
The third of this large isle : which saw did first arise 
From Arden, in those days delivering prophecies. 
» « » » » 

Then of her 
Wliy shouldst thou all this while the prophecy defer. 
Who bearing many springs, which pretty rivers grew. 
She could not be content until she fully knew 
Which child it was of hers (bom under such a fate) 
As should in time be raised unto that high estate? 
(I fain would have you think that this was long ago. 
When many a river now that furiously doth flow 
Had scarcely learned to creep), and therefore she doth will 
Wise Arden, from the depth of her abundant skill. 
To tell her which of these her rills it was she meant. 
To satisfy her will, the wizard answers, Trent. 
For, as a skilful seer, th§ aged forest wist, 
A more than usual power did in that name consist. 
Which thirty doth import : by which she thus divined. 
There should be found in her of fishes thirty kind ; 

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TRENT, THE RIVER. 269 

And thirty Abbeys great, in places fat and rank. 
Should in succeeding time be builded on her bank; 
And thirty sever^al streams from many a sundry way 
Unto her greatness should their watery tribute pay. 

Michael Brayton, 

THE TRENT. 

NEAR to the silver Trent 
Sirena dwelleth. 
She to whom nature lent 
All that excelleth; 
By which the Muses late. 

And the neat Graces, 
Have for their greater state 

Taken their places; 
Twisting an anadem, 

Wherewith to crown her. 
As it belonged to them 

Most to renown her. 
Chorus. — On thy bank 
In a rank 

Let thy swans sing her. 
And with their music 

Along let them bring her. 

Tagus and Pactolus 

Are to thee debtor, 
Nor for their gold to us 

Are they the better; 
Henceforth of all the rest. 

Be thou the river. 



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270 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Which, as the daintiest. 

Puts them down ever. 

For as my precious one 

O'er thee doth travel. 

She to pearl paragon 

Turneth thy gravel. 

Our mournful Philomel, 

That rarest tuner. 
Henceforth in April 

Shall wake the sooner; 
And to her shall complain 

From the thick cover. 
Redoubling every strain 

Over and over: 
For when my love too long 

Her chamber keepeth; 
As though it suifered wrong. 

The morning weepeth. 

Oft have I seen the sun, 

To do her honor. 
Fix himself at his noon 

To look upon her. 
And hath gilt every grove. 

Every hill near her. 
With his flames from above. 

Striving to cheer her: 
And when she from his sight 

Hath herself turned. 
He, as it had been night. 

In clouds hath mourned. 



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TRENT, THE RIVER. 271 

The verdant meads are seen. 

When she doth view them. 
In fresh and gallant green 

Strait to renew them. 
And every little grass 

Broad itself spreadeth, 
Proud that this bonny lass 

Upon it treadeth: 
Nor flower is so sweet 

In this large cincture. 
But it upon her feet 

Leaveth some tincture. 

The fishes in the flood. 

When she doth angle. 
For the hook strive agood 

Them to entangle; 
And leaping on the land 

From the clear water, 
Their scales upon the sand 

Lavishly scatter; 
Therewith to pave the mould 

Whereon she passes. 
So herself to behold 

As in her glasses. 

When she looks out by night 

The stars stand gazing. 
Like comets to our sight 

Fearfully blazing; 
As wondering at her eyes. 

With their much brightness. 

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272 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Wliich so amaze the skies. 

Dimming their lightness. 

The raging tempests are calm 
When she speaketh. 

Such most dehglitsome balm 
From her lips breaketh. 

In all our Brittany 

There *s not a fairer, 
Nor can you fit any. 

Should you compare her. 
Angels her eyelids keep, 

All hearts surprising; 
Which look while she doth sleep 

Like the sun*s rising: 
She alone of her kind 

Knoweth true measure, 
And her unmatched mind 

Is heaven's treasure. 

Fair Dove and Darwent clear, 

Boast ye your beauties, 
To Trent your mistress here 

Yet pay your duties. 
My love was higher bom 

Towards the full fountains. 
Yet she doth moorland scorn 

And the Peak mountains; 
Nor would she none should dream 

Where she abideth, 
Humble as is the stream 

Which by her slideth. 



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TRENT, THE RIVER. 273 

Yet my poor rustic Muse, 

Nothing can move her, 
Nor the means I can use, 

Tliough her true lover: 
Many a long winter's night 

Have I waked for her. 
Yet this my piteous plight 

Nothing can stir her. 
All thy sands, silver Trent, 

Down to the Huniber, 
The sighs that I have spent 
Never can number. 
Chorus. ^ On thy bank 
In a rank 

Let thy swans sing her. 
And with their music 

Along let them bring her. 

Michael Drayton. 



THE TRENT. 

ONCE more, O Trent ! along thy pebbly marge 
A pensive invalid, reduced, and pale. 
From the close sick-room newly let at large. 
Wooes to his wan-worn cheek the pleasant gale. 
O, to his ear how musical the tale 
Which fills with joy the throstle's little throat ! 
And all the sounds which on the fresh breeze sail, 
How wildly novel on his senses float ! 
It was on this that many a sleepless night, 



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274 POEMS OP PLACES. 



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As lone he watched the taper's sicklj gleam. 
And at his casement heard, with wild affright. 
The owPs dull wing and melancholy scream. 
On this he thought, this, this, his sole desire. 
Thus once again to hear the warbling woodland choir. 

Hefir^ Kirke White. 



Troston. 

TROSTON HALL. 

FAR from the busy hum of men away. 
Secluded here, naught of the world I see; 
And almost doubt if such a place there be 
As London's trading town, or Paris gay. 
Surcharged with crowds the livelong night and day. 
That war is going on by land and sea. 
That slaughter, tumult, horror, and dismay 
Pervade the world, now seemeth strange to me. 
And, as I pass the sweetly lonely hours. 
Estranged here from bustle, strife, and care. 
Surrounded but by woods and fields and flowers. 
While Nature's music floats along the air. 
And Autumn all her various bounties pours, 
I wish an erring world these scenes with me to share. 

Capel Lofft, 



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TUNBRIDGE. 275 

Tunhridge. 

PH(EBE, THE NYMPH OF THE WELL, 

SHE smiled as she gave him a draught from the 
springlet, — 
Tunhridge, thy waters are bitter, alas! 
But love finds an ambush in dimple and ringlet; 
" Thy health, pretty maiden ! " — He emptied the glass. 

lie saw, and he loved her, nor cared he to quit her; 

The oftener he came, why the longer he stayed; 
Indeed, though the spring was exceedingly bitter. 

We found him eternally pledging the maid. 

A preux chevalier, and but lately a cripple. 
He met with his hurt where a regiment fell. 

But worse was he wounded when staying to tipple 
A bumper to " Phoebe, the Nymph of the Well." 

Some swore he was old, that his laurels were faded, 
All vowed she was vastly too nice for a nurse; 

But Love never looks on the matter as they did. 
She took the brave soldier for better or worse. 

And here is the home of her fondest election, — 
The walls may be worn, but the ivy is green; 

And here she has tenderly twined her affection 
Around a true soldier who bled fqr the Queen. 

See, yonder he sits, where the church-bells invite us; 
What child is that spelling the epitaphs there? 

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276 POEMS OF PLACES. 

'T is the joy of his age, and may fate so requite us 
Wheu time shall have broken, or sickness, or care. 

Erelong, ay, too soon, a sad concourse will darken 
The doors of that church and that peaceful abode ; 

His place then no longer will know him, — but hearken, 
Tlie widow and orphan appeal to their God. 

Much peace will be hers. " If our lot must be lowly. 
Resemble the father who *s with us no more " ; 

And only on days that are high or are holy. 

She *11 show him the cross that her warrior wore. 

So taught, he will rather take after his father,* 
And wear a long sword to our enemies* loss; 

And some day or other he 'U bring to his mother 
Victoria's gift, — the Victoria Cross! 

And still she '11 be charming, though ringlet and dimple 
Perhaps may have lost their pecuhar spell; 

And often she'll quote, with complacency simple. 
The compliments paid to the Nymph of the Well. 

And then will her darling, like all good and true ones. 
Console and sustain her, — the weak and the strong ; 

And some day or other two black eyes or blue ones 
Will smile on his path as he journeys along. 

Wherever they win him, whoever his Phoebe, 
Of course of all beauty she must be the belle, — 

If at Tunbridge he chance to fall in with a Hebe, 
He will not fall out with a draught from the well. 

Frederick Locker. 

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TWICKENHAM. 2Vi 



Twickenham. 

THE CAVE OF POPE. 

WHEN dark Oblivion in her sable cloak 
Shall wrap the names of heroes and of kings; 
And their high deeds, submitting to the stroke 
Of time, shall fall amongst forgotten things : 

Then (for the Muse that distant day can see) 
On Thames's bank the stranger shall arrive. 

With curious wish thy sacred grott to see. 
Thy sacred grott shall with thy name survive. 

Grateful posterity, from age to age. 
With pious hand the ruin shall repair: 

Some good old man, to each inquiring sage 
Pointing the place, shall cry, "The bard lived there 

"Wliose song was music to the listeniug ear, 
Yet taught audacious vice and folly shame; 

Easy his manners, but his life severe; 
His word alone gave infamy or fame. 

" Sequestered from the fool aud coxcomb-wit. 
Beneath this silent roof the Muse he found ; 

Twas here he slept inspired, or sat and writ; 

Here with his friends the social glass went round." 

With awful veneration shall they trace 

The steps which thou so long before hast trod; 



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278 POEMS OP PLACES. 

With reverent wonder view the solemn place 
From whence thy genius soared to nature's God. 

Then, some small gem, or moss, or shining ore. 
Departing, each shall pilfer, in fond hope 

To please their friends on every distant shore. 
Boasting a relic from the cave of Pope. 

Anonymous, 



Tyne and Wainsbeck. 

TYNE AND WAINSBECK. 

WOULD I again were with you, O ye dales 
Of Tyne, and ye most ancient woodlands ! where. 
Oft as the giant flood obliquely strides. 
And his banks open, and his lawns extend. 
Stops short the pleased traveller to view. 
Presiding o'er the scene, some rustic tower 
Founded by Norman or by Saxon hands; 

ye Northumbrian shades ! which overlook 
The rocky pavement and the mossy falls 
Of soHtary Wensbeck's limpid stream. 
How gladly I recall your well-known seats 
Beloved of old; and that delightful time 
When, all alone, for many a summer's day 

1 wandered through your calm recesses, fed 
In silence by some powerful hand unseen. 

3fark Akenside. 



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TYNEMOUTH. 279 



Tynemouth. 



\YRITTEN AT TYNEMOUTH. NORTHUMBERLAND, AFTER A 
TEMPESTUOUS VOYAGE. 

AS slow I climb the clifTs ascending side, 
Mucli musing on the track of terror past, 
When o'er the dark wave rode the howling blast. 
Pleased I look back, and view the tranquil tide 
That laves the pebbled shore; and now the beam 
Of evening smiles on the gray battlement. 
And yon forsaken tower tliat time has rent; — 
The lifted oar far off with silver gleam 
Is touched, and hushed is all the billowy deep! 
Soothed by the scene, thus on tired Nature's breast 
A stillness slowly steals, and kindred rest; 
While sea-sounds lull her, as she sinks to sleep. 
Like melodies which mourn upon the lyre. 
Waked by the breeze, and, as they mourn, expire! 

William Liile Bowles. 

THE NORTHERN STAR. 

A TYNEMOUTH SHIP. 

THE Northern Star 
Sailed over the bar 
Bound to the Baltic Sea; 
In the morning gray 
She stretched away ; — 
'T was a weary day to me! 



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280 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Tor many an hour 

In sleet and shower 
By the lighthouse rock I stray; 

And watch till dark 

Tor the winged bark 
Of him that is far away. 

The castle's bound 

I wander round. 
Amidst the grassy graves: 

But all I hear 

Is the north-wind drear. 
And all I see are the waves. 

The Northern Star 

Is set afar! 

Set in the Baltic Sea: 

And the waves have spread 

The sandy bed 

That holds my Love from me. 

Anonymous. 



END OF VOL. III. 



Cambridge : Elcctrotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co 

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