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
Wrought in men’s minds, like miracles achieved;
So piety took root; and Song might tell
What humanizing virtues near her cell
Sprang up, and spread their fragrance wide around; 50
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 quire,
Her chantry blazed with sacrilegious fire,
And perished utterly; but her good deeds
Had sown the spot, that witnessed them, with seeds 60
Which lay in earth expectant, till a breeze
With quickening impulse answered their mute pleas,
And lo! a ‘statlier’ pile, the Abbey of St. Bees.
There are the naked clothed, the hungry fed;
And Charity extendeth to the dead
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, 70
Who, to that service bound by venial fees,
Keep watch before the altars of St. Bees.
Are not, in sooth, their Requiem’s sacred ties
Woven out of passion’s sharpest agonies,
Subdued, composed, and formalized 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 80
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. 90
Yet none so prompt to succour and protect
The forlorn traveller, or sailor wrecked
On the bare coast; nor do they grudge the boon
Which staff and cockle hat and sandal shoon
Claim for the pilgrim: and, though chidings sharp
May sometimes greet the strolling minstrel’s harp,
It is not then when, swept with sportive ease,
It charms a feast-day throng of all degrees,
Brightening the archway of revered St. Bees.
How did the cliffs and echoing hills rejoice 100
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 Panym 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. 110
While in Judea 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 120
Churches, on whose symbolic beauty gazed
Peasant and mail-clad Chief with pious awe;
As at this 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 with even hand, and culture mould 130
The heart to pity, train the mind in care
For rules of life, sound as the Time could bear.
Nor dost thou fail, thro’ 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 140
Should bind the vassal to his lord’s domains?—
The thoughtful Monks, intent their God to please,
For 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
Forth from their cells; their ancient House laid low
In Reformation’s sweeping overthrow.
But now once more the local Heart revives,
The inextinguishable Spirit strives. 150
Oh may that Power who hushed the stormy seas,
And 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 rules.
To Prowess guided by her insight keen
Matter and Spirit are as one Machine;
Boastful Idolatress of formal skill
She in her own would merge the eternal will:
Better, if Reason’s triumphs match with these, 160
Her flight before the bold credulities
That furthered the first teaching of St. Bees.
XII.
IN THE CHANNEL, BETWEEN THE COAST OF CUMBERLAND AND THE ISLE OF MAN
RANGING the heights of Scawfell or Blackcomb,
In his lone course the Shepherd oft will pause,
And strive to fathom the mysterious laws
By which the clouds, arrayed in light or gloom,
On Mona settle, and the shapes assume
Of all her peaks and ridges. What he draws
From sense, faith, reason, fancy, of the cause,
He will take with him to the silent tomb.
Or, by his fire, a child upon his knee,
Haply the untaught Philosopher may speak 10
Of the strange sight, nor hide his theory
That satisfies the simple and the meek,
Blest in their pious ignorance, though weak
To cope with Sages undevoutly free.
XIII.
AT SEA OFF THE ISLE OF MAN
BOLD words affirmed, in days when faith was strong
And doubts and scruples seldom teased the brain,
That no adventurer’s bark had power to gain
These shores if he approached them ben
t on wrong;
For, suddenly up-conjured from the Main,
Mists rose to hide the Land—that search, though long
And eager, might be still pursued in vain.
O Fancy, what an age was ‘that’ for song!
That age, when not by ‘laws’ inanimate,
As men believed, the waters were impelled, 10
The air controlled, the stars their courses held;
But element and orb on ‘acts’ did wait
Of ‘Powers’ endued with visible form, instinct
With will, and to their work by passion linked.
XIV
DESIRE WE PAST ILLUSIONS TO RECALL?
DESIRE we past illusions to recall?
To reinstate wild Fancy, would we hide
Truths whose thick veil Science has drawn aside?
No,—let this Age, high as she may, instal
In her esteem the thirst that wrought man’s fall,
The universe is infinitely wide;
And conquering Reason, if self-glorified,
Can nowhere move uncrossed by some new wall
Or gulf of mystery, which thou alone,
Imaginative Faith! canst overleap, 10
In progress toward the fount of Love,—the throne
Of Power whose ministers the records keep
Of periods fixed, and laws established, less
Flesh to exalt than prove its nothingness.
XV.
ON ENTERING DOUGLAS BAY, ISLE OF MAN
“Dignum laude virum Musa vetat mori.”
THE feudal Keep, the bastions of Cohorn,
Even when they rose to check or to repel
Tides of aggressive war, oft served as well
Greedy ambition, armed to treat with scorn
Just limits; but yon Tower, whose smiles adorn
This perilous bay, stands clear of all offence;
Blest work it is of love and innocence,
A Tower of refuge built for the else forlorn.
Spare it, ye waves, and lift the mariner,
Struggling for life, into its saving arms! 10
Spare, too, the human helpers! Do they stir
‘Mid your fierce shock like men afraid to die?
No; their dread service nerves the heart it warms,
And they are led by noble HILLARY.
XVI.
BY THE SEASHORE, ISLE OF MAN
WHY stand we gazing on the sparkling Brine,
With wonder smit by its transparency,
And all-enraptured with its purity?—
Because the unstained, the clear, the crystalline,
Have ever in them something of benign;
Whether in gem, in water, or in sky,
A sleeping infant’s brow, or wakeful eye
Of a young maiden, only not divine.
Scarcely the hand forbears to dip its palm
For beverage drawn as from a mountain-well; 10
Temptation centres in the liquid Calm;
Our daily raiment seems no obstacle
To instantaneous plunging in, deep Sea!
And revelling in long embrace with thee.
XVII.
ISLE OF MAN (I)
A YOUTH too certain of his power to wade
On the smooth bottom of this clear bright sea,
To sight so shallow, with a bather’s glee
Leapt from this rock, and but for timely aid
He, by the alluring element betrayed,
Had perished. Then might Sea-nymphs (and with sighs
Of self-reproach) have chanted elegies
Bewailing his sad fate, when he was laid
In peaceful earth: for, doubtless, he was frank,
Utterly in himself devoid of guile; 10
Knew not the double-dealing of a smile;
Nor aught that makes men’s promises a blank,
Or deadly snare: and He survives to bless
The Power that saved him in his strange distress.
ISLE OF MAN (II)
DID pangs of grief for lenient time too keen,
Grief that devouring waves had caused, or guilt
Which they had witnessed—sway the man who built
This Homestead, placed where nothing could be seen,
Nought heard, of ocean troubled or serene?
A tired Ship-soldier on paternal land,
That o’er the channel holds august command,
The dwelling raised,—a veteran Marine.
He, in disgust, turned from the neighbouring sea
To shun the memory of a listless life 10
That hung between two callings. May no strife
More hurtful here beset him, doomed though free,
Self-doomed, to worse inaction, till his eye
Shrink from the daily sight of earth and sky!
XIX.
BY A RETIRED MARINER, H. H.
FROM early youth I ploughed the restless Main,
My mind as restless and as apt to change;
Through every clime and ocean did I range,
In hope at length a competence to gain;
For poor to Sea I went, and poor I still remain.
Year after year I strove, but strove in vain,
And hardships manifold did I endure,
For Fortune on me never deigned to smile;
Yet I at last a resting-place have found,
With just enough life’s comforts to procure, 10
In a snug Cove on this our favoured Isle,
A peaceful spot where Nature’s gifts abound;
Then sure I have no reason to complain,
Though poor to Sea I went, and poor I still remain.
XX.
AT BALA-SALA, ISLE OF MAN
BROKEN in fortune, but in mind entire
And sound in principle, I seek repose
Where ancient trees this convent-pile enclose,
In ruin beautiful. When vain desire
Intrudes on peace, I pray the eternal Sire
To cast a soul-subduing shade on me,
A grey-haired, pensive, thankful Refugee;
A shade—but with some sparks of heavenly fire
Once to these cells vouchsafed. And when I note
The old Tower’s brow yellowed as with the beams 10
Of sunset ever there, albeit streams
Of stormy weather-stains that semblance wrought,
I thank the silent Monitor, and say
“Shine so, my aged brow, at all hours of the day!”
XXI.
TYNWALD HILL
ONCE on the top of Tynwald’s formal mound
(Still marked with green turf circles narrowing
Stage above stage) would sit this Island’s King,
The laws to promulgate, enrobed and crowned:
While, compassing the little mount around,
Degrees and Orders stood, each under each:
Now, like to things within fate’s easiest reach
The power is merged, the pomp a grave has found.
Off with yon cloud, old Snafell! that thine eye
Over three Realms may take its widest range; 10
And let, for them, thy fountains utter strange
Voices, thy winds break forth in prophecy,
If the whole State must suffer mortal change
Like Mona’s miniature of sovereignty.
XXII.
DESPOND WHO WILL—’I’ HEARD A VOICE EXCLAIM
DESPOND who will—’I’ heard a voice exclaim,
“Though fierce the assault, and shattered the defence,
It cannot be that Britain’s social frame,
The glorious work of time and providence,
Before a flying season’s rash pretence,
Should fall; that She, whose virtue put to shame,
When Europe prostrate lay, the Conqueror’s aim,
Should perish, self-subverted. Black and dense
The cloud is; but brings ‘that’ a day of doom.
&n
bsp; To Liberty? Her sun is up the while, 10
That orb whose beams round Saxon Alfred shone:
Then laugh, ye innocent Vales! ye Streams, sweep on,
Nor let one billow of our heaven-blest Isle
Toss in the fanning wind a humbler plume.”
XXIII.
IN THE FRITH OF CLYDE, AILSA CRAG: DURING AN ECLIPSE OF THE SUN, JULY 17
SINCE risen from ocean, ocean to defy,
Appeared the crag of Ailsa, ne’er did morn
With gleaming lights more gracefully adorn
His sides, or wreathe with mist his forehead high:
Now, faintly darkening with the sun’s eclipse,
Still is he seen, in lone sublimity,
Towering above the sea and little ships;
For dwarfs the tallest seem while sailing by,
Each for her haven; with her freight of Care,
Pleasure, or Grief, and Toil that seldom looks 10
Into the secret of to-morrow’s fare;
Though poor, yet rich, without the wealth of books,
Or aught that watchful Love to Nature owes
For her mute Powers, fixed Forms, or transient Shows.
XXIV.
ON THE FRITH OF CLYDE IN A STEAMBOAT
ARRAN! a single-crested Teneriffe,
A St. Helena next—in shape and hue,
Varying her crowded peaks and ridges blue;
Who but must covet a cloud-seat, or skiff
Built for the air, or winged Hippogriff?
That he might fly, where no one could pursue,
From this dull Monster and her sooty crew;
And, as a God, light on thy topmost cliff.
Impotent wish! which reason would despise
If the mind knew no union of extremes, 10
No natural bond between the boldest schemes,
Ambition frames, and heart-humilities.
Beneath stern mountains many a soft vale lies,
And lofty springs give birth to lowly streams.
XXV.
ON REVISITING DUNOLLY CASTLE
THE captive Bird was gone;—to cliff or moor
Perchance had flown, delivered by the storm;
Or he had pined, and sunk to feed the worm:
Him found we not: but, climbing, a tall tower,
There saw, impaved with rude fidelity
Of art mosaic, in a roofless floor,
An Eagle with stretched wings, but beamless eye—
Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth Page 290