The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles Volume Ii Part 4

PART FIRST.

INTRODUCTION--GENERAL VIEW--CAVE--ASCENT--VIEW--STEEP HOLMS--FLAT HOLMS--SEA.

If, gazing from this eminence, I wake, With thronging thoughts, the harp of poesy Once more, ere night descend, haply with tones Fainter, and haply with a long farewell; If, looking back upon the lengthened way My feet have trod, since, long ago, I left Those well-known sh.o.r.es, and when mine eyes are filled With tears, I take the pencil in its turn, And shading light the landscape spread below, So smilingly beguile those starting tears; 10 Something, the feelings of the human heart-- Something, the scene itself, and something more-- A wish to gratify one generous mind-- May plead for pardon.

To this spot I came To view the dark memorials of a world[4]

Perished at the Almighty's voice, and swept 17 With all its noise away! Since then, unmarked, In that rude cave those dark memorials lay, And told no tale!

Spirit of other times, Sad shadow of the ancient world, come forth!

Thou who has slept four thousand years, awake!

Rise from the cavern's last recess, and say, What giant cleft in twain the neighbouring rocks,[5]

Then slept for ages in vast Ogo's Cave,[6]

And left them rent and frowning from that hour; Say, rather, when the stern Archangel stood, Above the tossing of the flood, what arm Shattered this mountain, and its hollow chasm 30 Heaped with the mute memorials of that doom!

Spirit of other times, thou speakest not!

Yet who could gaze a moment on that wreck Of desolation, but must pause to think Of the mutations of the globe--of time, Hurrying to onward spoil--of his own life, Swift pa.s.sing, as the summer light, away-- Of Him who spoke, and the dread storm went forth.

The surge came, and the surge went back, and there-- There--when the black abyss had ceased to roar, 40 And waters, shrinking from the rocks and hills, Slept in the solitary suns.h.i.+ne--there The bones that strew the inmost cavern lay: And when forgotten centuries had pa.s.sed, And the gray smoke went up from villages, And cities, with their towers and temples, shone, And kingdoms rose and perished--there they lay!

The crow sailed o'er the spot; the villager Plodded to morning toil, yet undisturbed 49 They lay:--when, lo! as if but yesterday The Archangel's trump had thundered o'er the deep The mighty shade of ages that are pa.s.sed Towers into light! Say, Christian, is it true, That dim recess, that cavern, heaped with bones, Will echo to thy Bible!

But a while Here let me stand, and gaze upon the scene; That headland, and those winding sands, and mark The morning suns.h.i.+ne, on that very sh.o.r.e Where once a child I wandered. Oh! return, 60 (I sigh) return a moment, days of youth, Of childhood,--oh, return! How vain the thought, Vain as unmanly! yet the pensive Muse, Unblamed, may dally with imaginings; For this wide view is like the scene of life, Once traversed o'er with carelessness and glee, And we look back upon the vale of years, And hear remembered voices, and behold, In blended colours, images and shades Long pa.s.sed, now rising, as at Memory's call, 70 Again in softer light.

I see thee not, Home of my infancy--I see thee not, Thou fane that standest on the hill alone,[7]

The homeward sailor's sea-mark; but I view Brean Down beyond; and there thy winding sands, Weston; and, far away, one wandering s.h.i.+p, Where stretches into mist the Severn sea.

There, mingled with the clouds, old Cambria draws Its stealing line of mountains, lost in haze; 80 There, in mid-channel, sit the sister holms,[8]

Secure and tranquil, though the tide's vast sweep, 82 As it rides by, might almost seem to rive The deep foundations of the earth again, Threatening, as once, resistless, to ascend In tempest to this height, to bury here Fresh-weltering carcases!

But, lo, the Cave!

Descend the steps, cut rudely in the rock, Cautious. The yawning vault is at our feet! 90 Long caverns, winding within caverns, spread On either side their labyrinths; all dark, Save where the light falls glimmering on huge bones, In mingled mult.i.tudes. Ere yet we ask Whose bones, and of what animals they formed The structure, when no human voice was heard In all this isle; look upward to the roof That silent drips, and has for ages dripped, From which, like icicles, the stalact.i.tes Depend: then ask of the geologist, 100 How nature, vaulting the rude chamber, scooped Its vast recesses; he with learning vast Will talk of limestone rock, of stalact.i.tes, And oolites, and hornblende, and graywacke-- With sounds almost as craggy as the rock Of which he speaks--feldspar, and gneis, and schorl!

But let us learn of this same troglodyte,[9]

Who guides us through the winding labyrinth, The erudite "Professor" of the cave, Not of the college; stagyrite of bones. 110 He leads, with flickering candle, through the heaps Himself has piled, and placed in various forms, Grotesque arrangement, while the cave itself Seems but his element of breathing! Look! 114 This humereus is that of the wild ox.

The very candle, as with sympathy, Flares while he speaks, in glimmering wonderment!

But who can mark these visible remains, Nor pause to think how awful, and how true, The dread event they speak! What monuments 120 Hath man, since then, the lord, the emmet, raised On earth! He hath built pyramids, and said, Stand there! and in their solitude they stood, Whilst, like the camel's shadow on the sands Beneath them years and ages pa.s.sed. He said, My name shall never die! and like the G.o.d Of silence,[10] with his finger on his lip, Oblivion mocked, then pointed to a tomb, 'Mid vast and winding vaults, without a name.

Where art thou, Thebes? The chambers of the dead 130 Echo, Behold! and twice ten thousand men, Even in their march of rapine and of blood, Involuntary halted,[11] at the sight Of thy majestic wreck, for many, a league-- Sphynxes, colossal fanes, and obelisks-- Pale in the morning sun! Ambition sighed A moment, and pa.s.sed on. In this rude isle, The Druid altars frowned; and still they stand, As silent as the barrows at their feet, Yet tell the same stern tale. Soldier of Rome, 140 Art thou come hither to this land remote Hid in the ocean-waste? Thy chariot wheels Rung on that road below![12]--Cohorts, and turms, With their centurions, in long file appear, Their golden eagles glittering to the sun, O'er the last line of spears; and standard-flags 146 Wave, and the trumpets sounding to advance, And s.h.i.+elds, and helms, and crests, and chariots, mark The glorious march of Caesar's soldiery, Firing the gray horizon! They are pa.s.sed! 150 And, like a gleam of glory, peris.h.i.+ng, Leave but a name behind! So pa.s.ses man, An armed spectre o'er a field of blood, And vanishes; and other armed shades Pa.s.s by, red battle hurtling as they pa.s.s.

The Saxon kings have strewed their palaces From Thames to Tyne. But, lo! the sceptre shakes; The Dane, remorseless as the hurricane That sweeps his native cliffs, harries the land!

What terror strode before his track of blood! 160 What hamlets mourned his desultory march, When on the circling hills, along the sea, The beacon-flame shone nightly! He has pa.s.sed!

Now frowns the Norman victor on his throne, And every cottage shrouds its lonely fire, As the sad curfew sounds. Yet Piety, With new-inspiring energies, awoke, And ampler polity: in woody vales, In unfrequented wilds, and forest-glens, The towers of the sequestered abbey shone, 170 As when the pinnacles of Glaston-Fane First met the morning light. The parish church, Then too, exulting o'er the ruder cross, Upsprung, till soon the distant village peal Flings out its music, where the tapering spire Adds a new picture to the sheltered vale.

Uphill, thy rock, where sits the lonely church, Above the sands, seems like the chronicler Of other times, there left to tell the tale!

But issuing from the cave, look round, behold 180 How proudly the majestic Severn rides On to the sea; how gloriously in light It rides! Along this solitary ridge, Where smiles, but rare, the blue campanula, Among the thistles and gray stones that peep Through the thin herbage, to the highest point Of elevation, o'er the vale below, Slow let us climb. First look upon that flower, The lowly heath-bell, smiling at our feet.

How beautiful it smiles alone! The Power 190 That bade the great sea roar, that spread the heavens, That called the sun from darkness, decked that flower, And bade it grace this bleak and barren hill.

Imagination, in her playful mood, Might liken it to a poor village maid, Lowly, but smiling in her lowliness, And dressed so neatly as if every day Were Sunday. And some melancholy bard Might, idly musing, thus discourse to it:-- Daughter of Summer, who dost linger here, 200 Decking the thistly turf, and arid hill, Unseen, let the majestic dahlia Glitter, an empress, in her blazonry Of beauty; let the stately lily s.h.i.+ne, As snow-white as the breast of the proud swan Sailing upon the blue lake silently, That lifts her tall neck higher as she views Her shadow in the stream! Such ladies bright May reign unrivalled in their proud parterres!

Thou wouldst not live with them; but if a voice, 210 Fancy, in shaping mood, might give to thee, To the forsaken primrose thou wouldst say-- Come, live with me, and we two will rejoice: Nor want I company; for when the sea 214 s.h.i.+nes in the silent moonlight, elves and fays, Gentle and delicate as Ariel, That do their spiritings on these wild holts, Circle me in their dance, and sing such songs As human ear ne'er heard! But cease the strain, Lest wisdom and severer truth should chide. 220 Behind that windmill, sailing round and round, Like days on days revolving, Bleadon lies, Where first I pondered on the grammar-lore, Sad as the spelling-book, beneath the roof Of its secluded parsonage; Brean Down Emerges o'er the edge of Hutton Hill, Just seen in paler light! And Weston there, Where I remember a few cottages Sprinkling the sand, uplifts its tower, and s.h.i.+nes, As if in conscious beauty, o'er the scene. 230 And I have seen a far more welcome sight, The living line of population stream-- Children, and village maids, and gray old men-- Stream o'er the sands to church: such change has been In the brief compa.s.s of one hastening life!

And yet that hill, the light, is to my eyes Familiar as those sister isles that sit In the mid channel! Look, how calm they sit, As listening each to the tide's rocking roar!

Of different aspects--this, abrupt and high, 240 And desolate, and cold, and bleak, uplifts Its barren brow--barren, but on its steep One native flower is seen, the peony; One flower, which smiles in suns.h.i.+ne or in storm, There sits companionless, but yet not sad: She has no sister of the summer-field, None to rejoice with her when spring returns, None that, in sympathy, may bend its head, 248 When evening winds blow hollow o'er the rock, In autumn's gloom! So Virtue, a fair flower, Blooms on the rock of Care, and, though unseen, So smiles in cold seclusion; while, remote From the world's flaunting fellows.h.i.+p, it wears, Like hermit Piety, one smile of peace, In sickness or in health, in joy or tears, In summer days or cold adversity; And still it feels Heaven's breath, reviving, steal On its lone breast; feels the warm blessedness Of Heaven's own light about it, though its leaves Are wet with evening tears! 260 Yonder island Seems not so desolate, nor frowns aloof, As if from human kind. The lighthouse there, Through the long winter night, shows its pale fire; And three forgotten mounds mark the rude graves, None knows of whom; but those of men who breathed, And bore their part in life, and looked to Heaven, As man looks now!--they died and left no name!

Fancy might think, amid the wilderness Of waves, they sought to hide from human eyes 270 All memory of their fortunes. Till the trump Of doom, they rest unknown. But mark that hill-- Where Kewstoke seems to creep into the sea, Thy abbey, Woodspring, rose.[13] Wild is the spot; And there three mailed murderers retired, To the last point of land. There they retired, 276 And there they knelt upon the ground, and cried, Bury us 'mid the waves, where none may know The whispered secret of a deed of blood!

No stone is o'er those graves:--the sullen tide, As it flows by and sounds along the sh.o.r.e, Seems moaningly to say, Pray for our souls!

Nor other "Miserere" have they had At eve, nor other orison at morn.

Thou hast put on thy mildest look to-day, Thou mighty element! Solemn, and still, And motionless, and touched with softer light, And without noise, lies all thy long expanse.

Thou seemest now as calm, as if a child Might dally with thy playfulness, and stand, 290 The weak winds lifting gently its light hair; Upon thy margin, watching one by one The long waves, breaking slow, with such a sound As Silence, in her dreamy mood, might love, When she more softly breathed, fearing a breath Might mar thy placidness!

Oh, treachery!

So still, and like a giant in his strength Reposing, didst thou lie, when the fond sire One moment looked, and saw his blithsome boys 300 Gay on the sands, one moment, and the next, Heart-stricken and bereft, by the same surge, Stood in his desolation;[14]--for he looked, And thought how he had blessed them in their sleep, And the next moment they were borne away, s.n.a.t.c.hed by the circling surge, and seen no more; While morning shone, and not a ripple told 307 How terrible and dark a deed was done!

And so the seas were hushed, and not a cloud Marred the pale moonlight, save that, here and there, Wandering far off, some feathery shreds were seen, As the sole orb, above the lighthouse, held Its course in loveliness; and not a sound Came from the distant deep, save that, at times, Amid the noise of human merriment, The ear might seem to catch a low faint moan, A boding sound, as of a dying dirge, From the sunk rocks;[15] while all was still beside, And every star seemed listening in its watch; When the gay packet-bark, to Erin bound, 320 Resounding with the laugh and song, went on!

Look! she is gone! O G.o.d! she is gone down, With her light-hearted company; gone down, And all at once is still, save, on the mast, Just peering o'er the waters, the wild shrieks Of three, at times, are heard! They, when the dead Were round them, floating on the moonlight wave, Kept there their dismal watch till morning dawned, And to the living world were then restored!

PART SECOND.

REFLECTIONS ON THE MORAL AND RELIGIOUS STATE OF PARISHES, PAST AND PRESENT.

A shower, even while we gaze, steals o'er the scene, Shrouding it, and the sea-view is shout out, Save where, beyond the holms, one thread of light Hangs, and a pale and sunny stream shoots on, O'er the dim vapours, faint and far away, Like Hope's still light beyond the storms of Time.

Come, let us rest a while in this rude seat!

I was a child when first I heard the sound Of the great sea. 'Twas night, and journeying far, We were belated on our road, 'mid scenes 10 New and unknown,--a mother and her child, Now first in this wide world a wanderer:-- My father came, the pastor of the church[16]

That crowns the high hill crest, above the sea; When, as the wheels went slow, and the still night Seemed listening, a low murmur met the ear, Not of the winds:--my mother softly said, Listen! it is the sea! With breathless awe, I heard the sound, and closer pressed her hand.

Much of the sea, in infant wonderment, 20 I oft had heard, and of the s.h.i.+pwrecked man, Who sees, on some lone isle, day after day, The sun sink o'er the solitude of waves, Like Crusoe; and the tears would start afresh, Whene'er my mother kissed my cheek, and told The story of that desolate wild man, 26 And how the speaking bird, when he returned After long absence to his cave forlorn, Said, as in tones of human sympathy, Poor Robin Crusoe!

Thoughts like these arose, When first I heard, at night, the distant sound, Great Ocean, "of thy everlasting voice!"[17]

Where the white parsonage, among the trees, Peeped out, that night I restless pa.s.sed. The sea Filled all my thoughts; and when slow morning came, And the first sunbeam streaked the window-pane, I rose unnoticed, and with stealthy pace, Straggling along the village green, explored Alone my fearful but adventurous way; 40 When, having turned the hedgerow, I beheld, For the first time, thy glorious element, Old Ocean, glittering in the beams of morn, Stretching far off, and, westward, without bound, Amid thy sole dominion, rocking loud!

s.h.i.+vering I stood, and tearful; and even now, When gathering years have marked my look,--even now I feel the deep impression of that hour, As but of yesterday!

Spirit of Time, 50 A moment pause, and I will speak to thee!

Dark clouds are round thee; but, lo! Memory waves Her wand,--the clouds disperse, as the gray rack Disperses while we gaze, and light steals out, While the gaunt phantom almost seems to drop His scythe! Now shadows of the past, distinct, Are thronging round; the voices of the dead Are heard; and, lo! the very smoke goes up-- For so it seems--from yonder tenement, 60 Where leads the slender pathway to the door.

Enter that small blue parlour: there sits one, A female, and a child is in her arms; A child leans at her side, intent to show A pictured book, and looks upon her face; One, from the green, comes with a cowslip ball;[18]

And one,[19] a hero, sits sublime and horsed, Upon a rocking-steed, from Banwell-fair; This,[20] drives his tiny wheel-barrow, without, On the green garden-sward; whilst one,[21] apart, Sighs o'er his solemn task--the spelling-book-- 70 Half moody, half in tears. Some lines of thought Are on that matron's brow; yet placidness, Such as resigned religion gives, is there, Mingled with sadness; for who e'er beheld, Without one stealing sigh, a progeny Of infants cl.u.s.tering round maternal knees, Nor felt some boding fears, how they might fare In the wide world, when they who loved them most Were silent in their graves!

Nay! pa.s.s not on, 80 Till thou hast marked a book--the leaf turned down-- Night Thoughts on Death and Immortality!

This book, my mother! in the weary hours Of life, in every care, in every joy, Was thy companion: next to G.o.d's own Word, The book that bears this name,[22] thou didst revere, Leaving a stain of tears upon the page, Whose lessons, with a more emphatic truth, Touched thine own heart!

That heart has long been still! 90 But who is he, of aspect more severe, Yet with a manly kindness in his mien, He, who o'erlooks yon st.u.r.dy labourer Delving the glebe! My father as he lived!

That father, and that mother, "earth to earth, And dust to dust," the inevitable doom Hath long consigned! And where is he, the son, Whose future fate they pondered with a sigh?

Long, nor unprosperous, has been his way Through life's tumultuous scenes, who, when a child, 100 Played in that garden platform in the sun; Or loitered o'er the common, and pursued The colts among the sand-hills; or, intent On hardier enterprise, his pumpkin-s.h.i.+p, New-rigged, and buoyant, with its tiny sail, Launched on the garden pond; or stretched his hand, At once forgetting all this glorious toil, When the bright b.u.t.terfly came wandering by.

But never will that day pa.s.s from his mind, When, scarcely breathing for delight, at Wells, 110 He saw the hors.e.m.e.n of the clock[23] ride round, As if for life; and ancient Blandifer,[24]

Seated aloft, like Hermes, in his chair Complacent as when first he took his seat, Some hundred years ago; saw him lift up, As if old Time was cowering at his feet, Solemn lift up his mace, and strike the bell, Himself for ever silent in his seat.

How little thought I then, the hour would come, When the loved prelate of that beauteous fane, 120 At whose command I write, might placidly Smile on this picture, in my future verse, 122 When Blandifer had struck so many hours For me, his poet, in this vale of years, Himself unchanged and solemn as of yore!

My father was the pastor, and the friend Of all who, living then--the scene is closed-- Now silent in that rocky churchyard sleep, The aged and the young! A village then Was not as villages are now. The hind, 130 Who delved, or "jocund drove his team a-field,"

Had then an independence in his look And heart; and, plodding on his lowly path, Disdained a parish dole, content, though poor.

He was the village monitor: he taught His children to be good, and read their book, And in the gallery took his Sunday place,-- To-morrow, with the bee, to work.

So pa.s.sed His days of cheerful, independent toil; 140 And when the pastor came that way, at eve, He had a ready present for the child Who read his book the best; and that poor child Remembered it, when, treading the same path In which his father trod, he so grew up Contented, till old Time had blanched his locks, And he was borne--whilst the bell tolled--to sleep In the same churchyard where his father slept!

His daughter walked content, and innocent As lovely, in her lowly path. She turned 150 The hour-gla.s.s, while the humming wheel went round, Or went "a-Maying" o'er the fields in spring, Leading her little brother by the hand, Along the village lane, and o'er the stile, To gather cowslips; and then home again, To turn her wheel, contented, through the day. 156 Or, singing low, bend where her brother slept, Rocking the cradle, to "sweet William's grave!"[25]

No lure could tempt her from the woodbine shed, Where she grew up, and folded first her hands 160 In infant prayer: yet oft a tear would steal Down her young cheek, to think how desolate That home would be when her poor mother died; Still praying that she ne'er might cause a pain, Undutiful, to "bring down her gray hairs With sorrow to the grave!"

Now mark this scene!

The fuming factory's polluted air Has stained the country! See that rural nymph, An infant in her arms! She claims the dole 170 From the cold parish, which her faithless swain Denies: he stands aloof, with clownish leer; The constable behind--and mark his brow-- Beckons the nimble clerk; the justice, grave, Turns from his book a moment, with a look Of pity, signs the warrant for her pay, A weekly eighteen pence; she, unabashed, Slides from the room, and not a transient blush, Far less the accusing tear, is on her cheek!

A different scene comes next: That village maid 180 Approaches timidly, yet beautiful; A tear is on her lids, when she looks down Upon her sleeping child. Her heart was won, The wedding-day was fixed, the ring was bought!

'Tis the same story--Colin was untrue!

He ruined, and then left her to her fate.

Pity her, she has not a friend on earth, And that still tear speaks to all human hearts But his, whose cruelty and treachery 189 Caused it to flow! So crime still follows crime.

Ask we the cause? See, where those engines heave, That spread their giant arms o'er all the land!

The wheel is silent in the vale! Old age And youth are levelled by one parish law!

Ask why that maid, all day, toils in the field, a.s.sociate with the rude and ribald clown, Even in the shrinking April of her youth?

To earn her loaf, and eat it by herself.

Parental love is smitten to the dust; Over a little smoke the aged sire 200 Holds his pale hands--and the deserted hearth Is cheerless as his heart: but Piety Points to the Bible! Shut the book again: The ranter is the roving gospel now, And each his own apostle! Shut the book: A locust-swarm of tracts darken its light, And choke its utterance; while a Babel-rout Of mock-religionists, turn where we will, Have drowned the small still voice, till Piety, Sick of the din, retires to pray alone. 210 But though abused Religion, and the dole Of pauper-pay, and vomitories huge Of smoke, are each a steam-engine of crime, Polluting, far and wide, the wholesome air, And withering life's green verdure underneath, Full many a poor and lowly flower of want Has Education nursed, like a pure rill, Winding through desert glens, and bade it live To grace the cottage with its mantling sweets.

There was a village girl, I knew her well, 220 From five years old and upwards; all her friends Were dead, and she was to the workhouse left, And there a witness to such sounds profane 223 As might turn virtue pale! When Sunday came, a.s.sembled with the children of the poor, Upon the lawn of my own parsonage, She stood among them: they were taught to read In companies and groups, upon the green, Each with its little book; her lighted eyes Shone beautiful where'er they turned; her form 230 Was graceful; but her book her sole delight![26]

Instructed thus she went a serving-maid Into the neighbouring town,--ah! who shall guide A friendless maid, so beautiful and young, From life's contagions! But she had been taught The duties of her humble lot, to pray To G.o.d, and that one heavenly Father's eye Was over rich and poor! On Sunday night, She read her Bible, turning still away From those who flocked, inflaming and inflamed, 240 To nightly meetings; but she never closed Her eyes, or raised them to the light of morn, Without a prayer to Him who "bade the sun Go forth," a giant, from his eastern gate!

No art, no bribe, could lure her steps astray From the plain path, and lessons she had learned, A village child. She is a mother now, And lives to prove the blessings and the fruits Of moral duty, on the poorest child, When duty, and when sober piety, 250 Impressing the young heart, go hand in hand.

No villager was then a disputant In Calvinistic and contentious creeds; No pale mechanic, from a neighbouring sink Of steam and rank debauchery and smoke, 255 Crawled forth upon a Sunday morn, with looks Saddening the very suns.h.i.+ne, to instruct The parish poor in evangelic lore; To teach them to cast off, "as filthy rags,"

Good works! and listen to such ministers, 260 Who all (be sure) "are worthy of their hire;"

Who only preach for good of their poor souls, That they may turn "from darkness unto light,"

And, above all, fly, as the gates of h.e.l.l, Morality![27] and Baal's steeple house, Where, without "heart-work," Doctor Littlegrace Drones his dull requiem to the snoring clerk!"[28]

True; he who drawls his heartless homily For one day's work, and plods, on wading stilts, Through prosing paragraphs, with inference, 270 Methodically dull, as orthodox, Enforcing sagely that we all must die When G.o.d shall call--oh, what a pulpit drone Is he! The blue fly might as well preach "Hum,"