General Sketch of the Lakes--Author's Regret of his Youth passed amongst them--Short Description of Noon--Cascade Scene--Noon-tide Retreat--Precipice and Sloping Lights--Face of Nature as the Sun declines--Mountain Farm, and the Cock--Slate Quarry--Sunset--Superstition of the Country, connected with that Moment--Swans--Female Beggar--Twilight Objects--Twilight Sounds--Western Lights--Spirits--Night--Moonlight--Hope--Night Sounds--Conclusion.
Far from my dearest friend, 'tis mine to rove
Thro' bare grey dell, high wood, and pastoral cove;
His wizard course where hoary Derwent takes
Thro' craggs, and forest glooms, and opening lakes,
Staying his silent waves, to hear the roar
That stuns the tremulous cliffs of high Lodore:
Where silver rocks the savage prospect chear
Of giant yews that frown on Rydale's mere;
Where peace to Grasmere's lonely island leads,
To willowy hedgerows, and to emerald meads;
Leads to her bridge, rude church, and cottag'd grounds,
Her rocky sheepwalks, and her woodland bounds;
Where, bosom'd deep, the shy Winander peeps
'Mid clust'ring isles, and holly-sprinkl'd steeps;
Where twilight glens endear my Esthwaite's shore,
And memory of departed pleasures, more.
Fair scenes! with other eyes, than once, I gaze,
The ever-varying charm your round displays,
Than when, ere-while, I taught, "a happy child,"
The echoes of your rocks my carols wild:
Then did no ebb of chearfulness demand
Sad tides of joy from Melancholy's hand;
In youth's wild eye the livelong day was bright,
The sun at morning, and the stars at night,
Alike, when first the vales the bittern fills,
Or the first woodcocks roam'd the moonlight
hill.
Return Delights! with whom my road begun,
When Life rear'd laughing up her morning sun;
When Transport kiss'd away my april tear,
"Rocking as in a dream the tedious year;"
When link'd with thoughtless Mirth I cours'd the plain,
And hope itself was all I knew of pain.
For then, ev'n then, the little heart would beat
At times, while young Content forsook her seat,
And wild Impatience, pointing upward, show'd
Where tipp'd with gold the mountain-summits glow'd.
Alas! the idle tale of man is found
Depicted in the dial's moral round;
With Hope Reflexion blends her social rays
To gild the total tablet of his days;
Yet still, the sport of some malignant Pow'r,
He knows but from its shade the present hour.
While, Memory at my side, I wander here,
Starts at the simplest sight th' unbidden tear,
A form discover'd at the well-known seat,
A spot, that angles at the riv'let's feet,
The ray the cot of morning trav'ling nigh,
And sail that glides the well-known alders by.
But why, ungrateful, dwell on idle pain?
To shew her yet some joys to me remain,
Say, will my friend, with soft affection's ear,
The history of a poet's ev'ning hear?
When, in the south, the wan noon brooding still,
Breath'd a pale steam around the glaring hill,
And shades of deep-embattl'd clouds were seen
Spotting the northern cliffs with lights between;
Gazing the tempting shades to them deny'd,
When stood the shorten'd herds amid' the tide,
Where, from the barren wall's unshelter'd end,
Long rails into the shallow lake extend;
When school-boys stretch'd their length upon the green;
And round the humming elm, a glimmering scene!
In the brown park, in flocks, the troubl'd deer
Shook the still-twinkling tail and glancing ear;
When horses in the wall-girt intake stood,
Unshaded, eying far below, the flood,
Crouched begin the swain, in mute distress,
With forward neck the closing gate to press;
And long, with wistful gaze, his walk survey'd,
'Till dipp'd his pathway in the river shade;
--Then Quiet led me up the huddling rill,
Brightening with
water-breaks the sombrous gill;
To where, while thick above the branches close,
In dark-brown bason its wild waves repose,
Inverted shrubs, and moss of darkest green,
Cling from the rocks, with pale wood-weeds between;
Save that, atop, the subtle sunbeams shine,
On wither'd briars that o'er the craggs recline;
Sole light admitted here, a small cascade,
Illumes with sparkling foam the twilight shade.
Beyond, along the visto of the brook,
Where antique roots its bustling path o'erlook,
The eye reposes
on a secret bridge
Half grey, half shagg'd with ivy to its ridge.
Sweet rill, farewell! To-morrow's noon again,
Shall hide me wooing long thy wildwood strain;
But now the sun has gain'd his western road,
And eve's mild hour invites my steps abroad.
While, near the midway cliff, the silver'd kite
In many a whistling circle wheels her flight;
Slant wat'ry lights, from parting clouds a-pace,
Travel along the precipice's base;
Chearing its naked waste of scatter'd stone
By lychens grey, and scanty moss o'ergrown,
Where scarce the foxglove peeps, or thistle's beard;
And desert stone-chat, all day long, is heard.
How pleasant, as the yellowing sun declines,
And with long rays and shades the landscape shines;
To mark the birches' stem all golden light,
That lit the dark slant woods with silvery white!
The willows, weeping trees, that twinkling hoar,
Glanc'd oft upturn'd along the breezy shore,
Low bending o'er the colour'd water, fold
Their moveless boughs and leaves like threads of gold;
The skiffs with naked masts at anchor laid,
Before the boat-house peeping thro' the shade;
Th' unwearied glance of woodman's echo'd stroke;
And curling from the trees the cottage smoke.
Their pannier'd train a group of potters goad,
Winding from side to side up the steep road;
The peasant from yon cliff of fearful edge
Shot, down the headlong pathway darts his sledge;
Bright beams the lonely mountain horse illume
Feeding 'mid purple heath, "green rings,"
and broom;
While the sharp slope the slack'ned team confounds,
Downward the ponderous
timber-wain resounds;
Beside their sheltering
cross of wall, the flock
Feeds on in light, nor thinkgs of winter's shock;
In foamy breaks the rill, with merry song,
Dashed down the rough rock, lightly leaps along,
From lonesome chapel at the mountain's feet,
Three humble bells their rustic chime repeat;
Sounds from the water-side the hammer'd boat;
And blasted quarry thunders, heard remote!
Ev'n here, amid the sweep of endless woods,
Blue pomp of lakes, high cliffs, and falling floods,
Not undelightful are the simplest charms,
Found by the verdant door of mountain farms.
Sweetly
ferocious, round his native walks,
Gaz'd by his sister-wives, the monarch stalks;
Spur clad his nervous feet, and firm his tread;
A crest of purple tops his warrior head.
Bright sparks his black and haggard eye-ball hurls
Afar, his tail he closes and unfurls;
Whose state, like pine-trees, waving to and fro,
Droops, and o'er canopies his regal brow,
On tiptoe rear'd he blows his clarion throat,
Threaten'd by faintly-answering farms remote.
Bright'ning the cliffs between, where the sombrous pine
And yew-trees o'er the silver rocks recline;
I love to mark the quarry's moving trains,
Dwarf pannier'd steeds, and men, and numerous wains:
How busy the enormous hive within,
While Echo dallies with the various din!
Some, hardly heard their chissels' clinking sound,
Toil, small as pigmies in the gulph profound;
Some, dim between th' aerial cliffs descry'd,
O'erwalk the viewless plank from side to side;
These by the pale-blue rocks that ceaseless ring
Glad from their airy baskets hang and sing.
Hung o'er a cloud, above the steep that rears
It's edge all flame, the broad'ning sun appears;
A long blue bar it's aegis orb divides,
And breaks the spreading of it's golden tides;
And now it touches on the purple steep
That flings his shadow on the pictur'd deep.
Cross the calm lake's blue shades the cliffs aspire,
With tow'rs and woods, a "prospect all on fire;"
The coves and secret hollows thro' a ray
Of fainter gold a purple gleam betray;
The gilded turf arrays in richer green
Each speck of lawn the broken rocks between;
Deep yellow beams the scatter'd boles illume,
Far in the level forest's central gloom;
Waving his hat, the shepherd in the vale,
Directs his winding dog the cliffs to scale,
That, barking busy 'mid the glittering rocks,
Hunts, where he points, the intercepted flocks;
Where oaks o'erhang the road the radiance shoots
On tawny earth, wild weeds, and twisted roots;
The Druid stones their
lighted fane unfold,
And all the babbling brooks are liquid gold;
In these lone vales, if aught of faith may claim,
Thin silver hairs, and ancient hamlet fame;
When up the hills, as now, retreats the light,
Strange apparitions mock the village sight.
A desperate form appears, that spurs his steed,
Along the midway cliffs with violent speed;
Unhurt pursues his lengthen'd flight, while all
Attend, at every stretch, his headlong fall.
Anon, in order mounts a gorgeous show
Of horsemen shadows winding to and fro;
And now the van is gilt with evening's beam,
The rear thro' iron brown betrays a sullen gleam,
While silent stands
th' admiring vale below;
Till, but the lonely beacon all is fled,
That tips with eve's last gleam his spiry head.
Now while the solemn evening Shadows sail,
On red slow-waving pinions down the vale,
And, fronting the bright west in stronger lines,
The oak its dark'ning boughs and foliage twines,
I love beside the glowing lake to stray,
Where winds the road along the secret bay;
By rills that tumble down the woody steeps,
And run in transport to the dimpling deeps;
Along the "wild meand'ring shore" to view,
Obsequious Grace the winding swan pursue.
He swells his lifted chest, and backward flings
His bridling neck between his tow'ring wings:
Stately, and burning in his pride, divides
And glorying looks around, the silent tides:
On as he floats, the silver'd waters glow,
Proud of the varying arch and moveless form of snow.
While tender Cares and mild domestic Loves
With furtive watch pursue her as she moves;
The female with a meeker charm succeeds,
And her brown little-ones around her leads,
Nibbling the water lilies as they pass,
Or playing wanton with the floating grass:
She in a mother's care, her beauty's pride
Forgets, unweary'd watching every side,
She calls them near, and with affection sweet
Alternately relieves their weary feet;
Alternately they mount
her back, and rest
Close by her mantling wings' embraces prest.
Long may ye roam these hermit waves that sleep,
In birch-besprinkl'd cliffs embosom'd deep;
These fairy holms untrodden, still, and green,
Whose shades protect the hidden wave serene;
Whence fragrance sents the water's desart gale,
The violet, and the
lily of the vale;
Where, tho' her far-off twilight ditty steal,
They not the trip of harmless milkmaid feel.
Yon tuft conceals your home, your cottage bow'r,
Fresh water rushes strew the verdant floor;
Long grass and willows form the woven wall,
And swings above the roof the poplar tall.
Thence issuing oft, unwieldy as a stalk,
Ye crush with broad black feet your flow'ry walk;
Safe from your door ye hear at breezy morn,
The hound, the horse's tread, and mellow horn;
At peace inverted, your little necks ye lave,
With the green bottom strewing o'er the wave;
No ruder sound your desart haunts invades,
Than waters dashing wild, or rocking shades.
Yet ne'er, like hapless human wanderers, throw
Your young on winter's winding sheet of snow.
Fair Swan! by all a mother's joys caress'd,
Haply some wretch has ey'd, and call'd thee bless'd;
Who faint, and beat by summer's breathless ray,
Hath dragg'd her babes along this weary way;
While arowy fire extorting feverish groans
Shot stinging through her stark o'erlabour'd bones,
--With backward gaze, lock'd joints, and step of pain,
Her seat scarce left, she strives, alas! in vain,
To teach their limbs along the buring road
A few short steps to totter with their load,
When with her infants, from some shady seat
By the lake's edge, she rose--to face the noontide heat;
Or taught their limbs along the dusty road
A few short steps to totter with their load.
Shakes her numb arm that slumbers with its weight,
And eyes through tears the mountain's shadeless height;
And bids her soldier come her woes to share,
Asleep on Bunker's charnel hill afar;
For hope's deserted well why wistful look?
Chok'd is the pathway, and the pitcher broke.
I see her now, deny'd to lay her head,
On cold blue nights, in hut or straw-built shed;
Turn to a silent smile their sleepy cry,
By pointing to the shooting star on high:
I hear, while in the forest depth he sees,
The Moon's fix'd gaze between the opening trees,
In broken sounds her elder grief demand,
And skyward life, like one that prays, his hand,
If, in that country, where he dwells afar,
His father views that good, that kindly star;
--Ah me! all light is mute amid the gloom,
The interlunar cavern of th tomb.
--When low-hung clouds each star of summer hide,
And fireless are the valleys far and wide,
Where the brook brawls along the painful road,
Dark with bat haunted ashes stretching broad,
The distant clock forgot, and chilling dew,
Pleas'd thro' the dusk their breaking smiles to view,
Oft has she taught them on her lap to play
Delighted, with the glow-worm's harmless ray
Toss'd light from hand to hand; while on the ground
Small circles of green radiance gleam around.
Oh! when the sleety showers her path assail,
And roars between the hills the torrent gale,
--No more her breath can thaw their fingers cold,
Their frozen arms her neck no more can fold;
Scarce heard, their chattering lips her shoulder chill,
And her cold back their colder bosoms thrill;
All blind she wilders o'er the lightless heath,
Led by Fear's cold wet hand, and dogg'd by Death;
Breaks off the dreadful kiss with angry shriek.
Snatch'd from her shoulder with despairing moan,
She clasps them at that dim-seen rootless stone.--
"Now ruthless Tempest launch thy deadliest dart!
Fall fires--but let us perish heart to heart."
Weak roof a cow'ring form two babes to shield,
And faint the fire a dying heart can yield;
Press the sad kiss, fond mother! vainly fears
Thy flooded cheek to wet them with its tears;
Soon shall the Light'ning hold before thy head
His torch, and shew them slumbering in their bed,
No tears can chill them, and no bosom warms,
Thy breast their death-bed, coffin'd in thine arms!
Sweet are the sounds that mingle from afar,
Heard by calm lakes, as peeps the folding star,
Where the duck dabbles mid the rustling sedge,
And feeding pike starts from the water's edge,
Or the swan stirs the reeds, his neck and bill
Wetting, that drip upon the water still;
And heron, as resounds the trodden shore,
Shoots upward, darting his long neck before.
While, by the scene compos'd, the breast subsides,
Nought wakens or disturbs it's tranquil tides;
Nought but the char that for the may-fly leaps,
And breaks the mirror of the circling deeps;
Or clock, that blind against the wanderer born
Drops at his feet, and stills his droning horn.
--The whistling swain that plods his ringing way
Where the slow waggon winds along the bay;
The sugh of swallow
flocks that twittering sweep,
The solemn curfew swinging long and deep;
The talking boat that moves with pensive sound,
Or drops his anchor down with plunge profound;
Of boys that bathe remote the faint uproar,
And restless piper wearying out the shore;
These all to swell the village murmurs blend,
That soften'd from the water-head descend.
While in sweet cadence rising small and still
The far-off minstrels of the haunted hill,
As the last bleating of the fold expires,
Tune in the mountain dells their water lyres.
Now with religious awe the farewel light
Blends with the solemn colouring of night;
Mid groves of clouds that crest the mountain's brow,
And round the West's proud lodge their shadows throw,
Like Una shining
on her gloomy way,
The half seen form of Twilight roams astray;
Thence, from three paly loopholes mild and small,
Slow lights upon the lake's still bosom fall,
Beyond the mountain's giant reach that hides
In deep determin'd gloom his subject tides.
--Mid the dark steeps repose the shadowy streams,
As touch'd with dawning moonlight's hoary gleams,
Long streaks of fairy light the wave illume
With bordering lines of intervening gloom,
Soft o'er the surface creep the lustres pale
Tracking the silvering path the changeful gale.
--'Tis restless magic all; at once the bright
Breaks on the shade, the shade upon the light.
Fair Spirits are abroad; in sportive chase
Brushing with lucid wands the water's face,
While music stealing round the glimmering deeps
Charms the tall circle of th' enchanted steeps.
--As thro' th' astonish'd woods the notes ascend,
The mountain streams their rising song suspend;
Below Eve's listening Star, the sheep walk stills
It's drowsy tinklings on th'attentive hills;
The milkmaid stops her ballad, and her pail
Stays it's low murmur in th' unbreathing vale;
No night-duck clamours for his wilder'd mate,
Aw'd, while below the Genii hold their state.
--The pomp is fled, and must the wondrous strains,
No wrack of all the pageant scene remains,
So vanish those fair
Shadows, human Joys,
But Death alone their vain regret destroys.
Unheeded Night has overcome the vales,
On the dark earth the baffl'd vision fails;
The latest lingerer of the forest train,
The lone-black fir, forsakes the faded plain;
Last evening sight, the cottage smoke no more,
Lost in the deepen'd darkness, glimmers hoar;
High towering from the sullen dark-brown mere,
Like a black wall, the mountain steeps appear,
Thence red from different heights with restless gleam
Small cottage lights across the water stream,
Nought else of man or life remains behind
To call from other worlds the wilder'd mind,
Till pours the wakeful bird her solemn strains
--No purple prospects
now the mind employ
Glowing in golden sunset tints of joy,
But o'er the sooth'd accordant heart we feel
A sympathetic twilight slowly steal,
And ever, as we fondly muse, we find
The soft gloom deep'ning on the tranquil mind.
Stay! pensive, sadly-pleasing visions, stay!
Ah no! as fades the vale, they fade away.
Yet still the tender, vacant gloom remains,
Still the cold cheek its shuddering tear retains.
The bird with fading light who ceas'd to thread
Silent the hedge or steamy rivulet's bed,
From his grey re-appearing tower shall soon
Salute with boding note the rising moon,
Frosting with hoary light the pearly ground,
And pouring deeper blue to Aether's bound;
Rejoic'd her solemn pomp of clouds to fold
In robes of azure, fleecy white, and gold,
While rose and poppy, as the glow-worm fades,
Checquer with paler red the thicket shades.
Now, o'er the eastern hill, where Darkness
broods
O'er all its vanish'd dells, and lawns, and woods;
Where but a mass of shade the sight can trace,
She lifts in silence up her lovely face;
Above the gloomy valley flings her light,
Far to the western slopes with hamlets white;
And gives, where woods the checquer'd upland strew,
To the green corn of summer autumn's hue.
Thus Hope, first pouring from her blessed horn
Her dawn, far lovelier than the Moon's own morn;
'Till higher mounted, strives in vain to chear
The weary hills, impervious, black'ning near;
--Yet does she still, undaunted, throw the while
On darling spots remote her tempting smile.
--Ev'n now she decks for me a distant scene,
(For dark and broad the gulph of time between)
Gilding that cottage with her fondest ray,
(Sole bourn, sole wish, sole object of my way;
How fair it's lawns and sheltering woods appear!
How sweet it's streamlet murmurs in mine ear!)
Where we, my friend, to golden days shall rise,
'Till our small share of hardly-paining sighs
(For sighs will ever trouble human breath)
Creep hush'd into the tranquil breast of Death.
But now the clear-bright Moon her zenith
gains,
And rimy without speck extend the plains;
The deepest dell the mountain's breast displays,
Scarce hides a shadow from her searching rays;
From the dark-blue "faint silvery threads"
divide
The hills, while gleams below the azure tide;
The scene is waken'd, yet its peace unbroke,
By silver'd wreaths of quiet charcoal smoke,
That o'er the ruins of the fallen wood,
Steal down the hill, and spread along the flood.
The song of mountain-streams, unheard by
day,
Now hardly heard, beguiles my homeward way.
All air is, as the sleeping water, still,
List'ning th' aereal music of the hill,
Broke only by the slow clock tolling deep,
Or shout that wakes the ferry-man from sleep,
Soon follow'd by his hollow-parting oar,
And echo'd hoof approaching the far shore;
Sound of clos'd gate, across the water borne,
Hurrying the feeding hare thro' rustling corn;
The tremulous sob of the complaining owl;
And at long intervals the mill-dog's howl;
The distant forge's swinging thump profound;
Or yell in the deep woods of lonely hound.
THE END.
These lines are only applicable to the middle part of the lake. [Back to text]
In the beginning of winter, these mountains, in the moonlight nights, are covered with immense quantities of woodcocks; which in the dark nights, retire into the woods. [Back to text]
The word intake is local, and signifies a mountain-inclosure. [Back to text]
Gill is also, I believe, a term confined to this country. Glen, gill, and dingle, have the same meaning. [Back to text]
"Vivid rings of green."--GREENWOOD'S Poem on Shooting. [Back to text]
"Down the rough slope the pondrous
waggon rings."
[Back to text]
These rude structures, to protect the flocks, are frequent in this country: the traveller may recollect one in Withburne, another upon Whinlatter. [Back to text]
"Dolcemente feroce."--TASSO.--In this description of the cock, I remembered a spirited one of the same animal in the l'Agriculture ou les Georgiques Françoises, of M. Roossuet. [Back to text]
Not far from Broughton is a Druid monument, of which I do not recollect that any tour descriptive of this country makes mention. Perhaps this poem may fall into the hands of some curious traveller, who may thank me for informing him, that up the Duddon, the river which forms the aestuary at Broughton, may be found some of the most romantic scenery of these mountains. [Back to text]
From Thomson: see Scott's Critical Essays. [Back to text]
See a description of an appearance of this kind in Clark's Survey of the Lakes, accompanied with vouchers of its veracity, that may amuse the reader. [Back to text]
This is a fact of which I have been an eye-witness. [Back to text]
The lily of the valley is found in great abundance in the smaller islands of Winandermere. [Back to text]
Sugh, a Scotch word, expressive, as Mr. Gilpin explains it, of the sound of the motion of a stick through the air, or of the wind passing through the trees. See Burn's Cotter's Saturday Night. [Back to text]
Alluding to this passage of
Spenser--
--------------
Her angel face
As
the great eye of Heaven shined bright,
And
made a sunshine in that shady place.
[Back to text]
So break those glittering shadows, human joys. YOUNG. [Back to text]
"Charming the night-calm with her powerful song." A line of one of our older poets. [Back to text]
Design, coding, and editing: Copyright © 1997 by James M. Garrett. All rights reserved.