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.
VIEW OF THE VALLEY OF READING, FROM TILEHURST, AT THE CLOSE OF THE SAME ELECTION.
100 long have I regarded thee, fair vale,
But as a scene of struggle which denies
All pensive joy; and now with childhood'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
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 Talfourd.
FROM yon dark-tufted hill yet clothed in shade, like a gift helm with its black planes,
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.
-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 burns 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
Round each small ventage of that slender steeple.
Near it, still shadowed in deep foliage,
A mingled grove of elms and limes and chestnuts,
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 stern prison of the Scottish Queen!
Around, for many a mile, the forest-shades
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 unreturning 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
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 loveliness,
Groves, orchards, mingling in confused delight!
Robert Bigsby.
RUINS OF RESTORMEL.
AY 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 murmuring as they flow,
Camel and Fowey seek different shores;
And north and south the eye explores
Two spreading seas of purple sheen,
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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