Of Nature’s common work. Yes, think of me,
My Edith, think that, travelling far away,
Thus I beguile the solitary hours
With many a day-dream, picturing scenes as fair
Of peace, and comfort, and domestic bliss,
As ever to the youthful poet’s eye
Creative Fancy fashion’d. Think of me.
Though absent, thine; and if a sigh will rise,
And tears, unbidden, at the thought steal down,
Sure hope will cheer thee, and the happy hour
Of meeting soon all sorrow overpay.
THE CONVENT OF ARRABIDA
WRITTEN AFTER VISITING THE CONVENT OF ARRABIDA, NEAR SETUBAL, MARCH 22, 1796.
HAPPY the dwellers in this holy house;
For surely never worldly thoughts intrude
On this retreat, this sacred solitude,
Where Quiet with Religion makes her home.
And ye who tenant such a goodly scene,
How should ye be but good, where all is fair,
And where the mirror of the mind reflects
Serenest beauty? O’er these mountain wilds’
The insatiate eye with ever-new delight
Roams raptured, marking now where to the wind
The tall tree bends its many-tinted boughs
With soft, accordant sound; and now the sport
Of joyous sea-birds o’er the tranquil deep,
And now the long-extending stream of light
Where the broad orb of day refulgent sinks
Beneath old Ocean’s line. To have no cares
That eat the heart, no wants that to the earth
Chain the reluctant spirit, to be freed
From forced communion with the selfish tribe
Who worship Mammon, — yea, emancipate
From this world’s bondage, even while the soul
Inhabits still its corruptible clay, —
Almost, ye dwellers in this holy house,
Almost I envy yon. You never see
Pale Misery’s asking eye, nor roam about
Those huge and hateful haunts of crowded men,
Where Wealth and Power have built their palaces,
Fraud spreads his snares secure, man preys on man,
Iniquity abounds, and rampant Vice,
With an infection worse than mortal, taints
The herd of human-kind.
I too could love,
Ye tenants of this sacred solitude,
Here to abide, and when the sun rides high,
Seek some sequestered dingle’s coolest shade;
And at the breezy hour, along the beach
Stray with slow step, and gaze upon the deep,
And while the breath of evening fann’d my brow,
And the wild waves with their continuous sound
Soothed my accustom’d ear, think thankfully
That I had from the crowd withdrawn in time,
And found a harbor — Yet may yonder deep
Suggest a less unprofitable thought,
Monastic brethren. Would the mariner,
Thougli storms may sometimes swell the mighty waves,
And o’er the reeling bark with thundering crash
Impel the mountainous surge, quit yonder deep,
And rather float upon some tranquil sea,
Whose moveless waters never feel the gale,
In safe stagnation? Rouse thyself, my soul!
No season this for self-deluding dreams;
It is thy spring-time; sow, if thou wouldst reap;
Then, alter honest labor, welcome rest,
In full contentment not to be enjoy’d
Unless when duly earn’d. Oh, happy then
To know that we have walked among mankind
More sinn’d against than sinning! Happy then
To muse on many a sorrow overpast,
And think the business of the day is done,
And as the evening of our lives shall close,
The peaceful evening, with a Christian’s hope
Expect the dawn of everlasting day.
Lisbon, 1796.
ON MY OWN MINIATURE PICTURE TAKEN AT TWO YEARS OF AGE.
AND I was once like this! that glowing cheek
Was mine, those pleasure-sparkling eyes; that brow
Smooth as the level lake, when not a breeze
Dies o’er the sleeping surface! — twenty years
Have wrought strange alteration! Of the friends
Who once so dearly prized this miniature,
And loved it for its likeness, some arc gone
To their last home; and some, estranged in heart,
Beholding me, with quick-averted glance
Pass on the other side. But still these hues
Remain unalter’d, and these features wear
The look of Infancy and Innocence.
I search myself in vain, and find no trace
Of what I was: those lightly-arching lines
Dark and o’erchanging now; arid that sweet face
Settled in these strong lineaments! — There were
Who form’d high hopes and flattering ones of thee,
Young Robert! for thine eye was quick to speak
Each opening feeling: should they not have known,
If the rich rainbow on a morning cloud
Reflects its radiant dyes, the husbandman
Beholds the ominous glory, and foresees
Impending storms! — They argued happily,
That thou didst love each wild and wondrous tale
Of faery fiction, and thine infant tongue
Lisp’d with delight the godlike deeds of Greece
And vising Rome; therefore they deem’d, forsooth,
That thou shouldst tread Preferment’s pleasant path.
Ill-judging ones! they let thy little feet
Stray in the pleasant paths of Poesy,
And when thou shouldst have press’d amid the crowd,
There didst thou love to linger out the day,
Loitering beneath the laurel’s barren shade.
SPIRIT OF SPENSER! was the wanderer wrong?
Bristol, 1796.
ON THE DEATH OF A FAVORITE OLD SPANIEL.
AND they have drown’d thee, then, at last! Poor Phillis!
The burden of old age was heavy on thee,
And yet thou shouldst have lived! What though thine eye
Was dim, and watch’d no more with eager joy
The wonted call that on thy dull sense sunk
With fruitless repetition? The warm Sun
Might still have cheer’d thy slumbers; thou didst love
To lick the hand that fed thee, and though past
Youth’s active season, even Life itself
Was comfort. Poor old friend, how earnestly
Would I have pleaded for thee! thou hadst been
Still the companion of my boyish sports;
And as I roam’d o’er Avon’s woody cliffs,
From many a day-dream has thy short, quick bark
Recall’d my wandering soul. I have beguiled
Often the melancholy hours at school,
Sour’d by some little tyrant, with the thought
Of distant home, and I remember’d then
Thy faithful fondness; for not mean the joy,
Returning at the happy holidays,
I felt from thy dumb welcome. Pensively
Sometimes have I remark’d thy slow decay,
Feeling myself changed too, and musing much
On many a sad vicissitude of Life.
Ah, poor companion! when thou followedst last
Thy master’s parting footsteps to the gate
Which closed forever on him, thou didst lose
Thy truest friend, and none was left to plead
For the old age of brute fidelity.
But fare thee well! Mine is no narrow creed;
And HE who gave thee being did
not frame
The mystery of life to be the sport
Of merciless Man. There is another world
For all that live and move — a better one!
Where the proud bipeds, who would fain confine
INFINITE GOODNESS to the little bounds
Of their own charity, may envy thee.
Bristol, 1796.
RECOLLECTIONS OF A DAY’S JOURNEY IN SPAIN.
NOT less delighted do I call to mind,
Land of Romance, thy wild and lovely scenes,
Than I beheld them first. Pleased I retrace
With memory’s eye the placid Minho’s course,
And catch its winding waters gleaming bright
Amid the broken distance. I review
Leon’s wide wastes, and heights precipitous,
Seen with a pleasure not unmix’d with dread,
As the sagacious mules along the brink
Wound patiently and slow their way secure;
And rude Galicia’s hovels, and huge rocks
And mountains, where, when all beside was dim,
Dark and broad-headed the tall pines erect
Rose on the farthest eminence distinct,
Cresting the evening sky.
Rain now falls thick,
And damp and heavy is the unwholesome air;
I by this friendly hearth remember Spain,
And tread in fancy once again the road,
Where twelve months since I held my way, and thought
Of England, and of all my heart held dear,
And wish’d this day were come.
The morning mist,
Well I remember, hovered o’er the heath,
When with the earliest dawn of day we left
The solitary Venta. Soon the Sun
Rose in his glory; scatter’d by the breeze
The thin fog roll’d away, and now emerged
We saw where Oropesa’s castled hill
Tower’d dark, and dimly seen; and now we pass’d
Torvalva’s quiet huts, and on our way
Paused frequently, look’d back, and gazed around;
Then journey’d on, yet turn’d and gazed again,
So lovely was the scene. That ducal pile
Of the Toledos now with all its towers
Shone in the sunlight. Half way up the hill.
Embower’d in olives, like the abode of Peace,
Lay Lagartina; and the cool, fresh gale,
Bending the young corn on the gradual slope,
Play’d o’er its varying verdure. I beheld
A convent near, and could almost have thought
The dwellers there must needs be holy men,
For as they look’d around them, all they saw
Was good.
But when the purple eve came on,
How did the lovely landscape fill my heart!
Trees scatter’d among peering rocks adorn’d
The near ascent; the vale was overspread
With ilex in its wintry foliage gay,
Old cork-trees through their soft and swelling
bark
Bursting, and glaucous olives, underneath
Whose fertilizing influence the green herb
Grows greener, and with heavier ears enrich’d
The healthful harvest bends. Pellucid streams
Through many a vocal channel from the hills
Wound through the valley their melodious way;
And o’er the intermediate woods descried,
Naval-Moral’s church tower announced to us
Our resting-place that night, — a welcome mark;
Though willingly we loiter’d to behold
In long expanse Plasencia’s fertile plain,
And the high mountain range which bounded it,
Now losing fast the roseate hue that eve
Shed o’er its summit and its snowy breast;
For eve was closing now. Faint and more faint
The murmurs of the goatherd’s scattered flock
Were borne upon the air, and sailing slow
The broad-wing’d stork sought on the church tower top
His consecrated nest. O lovely scenes!
I gazed upon you with intense delight,
And yet with thoughts that weigh the spirit down.
I was a stranger in a foreign land,
And knowing that these eyes should never more
Behold that glorious prospect, Earth itself
Appear’d the place of pilgrimage it is.
Bristol, January 15, 1797.
TO MARGARET HILL.
WRITTEN FROM LONDON. 1798.
MARGARET! my Cousin, — nay you must not smile,
I love the homely and familiar phrase:
And I will call thee Cousin Margaret,
However quaint amid the measured line
The good old term appears. Oh! it looks ill
When delicate tongues disclaim old terms of kin,
Sir-ing and Madam-ing as civilly
As if the road between the heart and lips
Were such a weary and Laplandish way,
That the poor travellers came to the red gates
Half frozen. Trust me, Cousin Margaret,
For many a day my memory hath play’d
The creditor with me on your account,
And made me shame to think that I should owe
So long the debt of kindness. But in truth,
Like Christian on his pilgrimage, I bear
So heavy a pack of business, that albeit
I toil on mainly, in our twelve hours’ race
Time leaves me distanced. Loath indeed were I
That for a moment you should lay to me
Unkind neglect; mine, Margaret, is a heart
That smokes not; yet methinks there should be some
‘Who know its genuine warmth. I am not one
Who can play off my smiles and courtesies
To every Lady of her lap-dog tired
Who wants a plaything; I am no sworn friend
Of half-an-hour, as apt to leave as love;
Mine are no mushroom feelings, which spring up
At once without a seed, and take no root,
Wiseliest distrusted. In a narrow sphere,
The little circle of domestic life,
I would be known and loved: the world beyond
Is not for me. But, Margaret, sure I think
That you should know me well; for you and I
Grew up together, and when we look back
Upon old times, our recollections paint
The same familiar faces. Did I wield
The wand of Merlin’s magic, I would make
Brave witchcraft. We would have a faery ship,
Ay, a new Ark, as in that other flood
Which swept the sons of Anak from the earth;
The Sylphs should waft us to some goodly isle
Like that where whilom old Apollidon,
Retiring wisely from the troublous world,
Built up his blameless spell; and I would bid
The Sea-Nymphs pile around their coral bowers,
That we might stand upon the beach, and mark
The far-off breakers shower their silver spray,
And hear the eternal roar, whose pleasant sound
Told us that never mariner should reach
Our quiet coast. In such a blessed isle
We might renew the days of infancy,
And life, like a long childhood, pass away,
Without one care. It may be, Margaret,
That I shall yet he gather’d to my friends;
For I am not of those who live estranged
Of choice, till at the last they join their race
In the family vault. If so, if I should lose,
Like my old friend the Pilgrim, this huge pack
So heavy on my shoulders, I and mine
Right pleasantly will end our pilgrimage.
I
f not, if I should never get beyond
This Vanity-town, there is another world
Where friends will meet. And often, Margaret,
I gaze at night into the boundless sky,
And think that I shall there be born again,
The exalted native of some better star;
And, like the untaught American, I look
To find in Heaven the things I loved on earth.
AUTUMN.
NAY, William, nay, not so! the changeful year,
In all its due successions, to my sight
Presents but varied beauties, transient all,
All in their season good. These fading leaves,
That with their rich variety of hues
Make yonder forest in the slanting sun
So beautiful, in you awake the thought
Of winter, — cold, drear winter, when the trees
Each like a fleshless skeleton shall stretch
Its bare, brown boughs; when not a flower shall spread
Its colors to the day, and not a bird
Carol its joyance, — but all nature wear
One sullen aspect, bleak and desolate,
To eye, ear, feeling, comfortless alike.
To me their many-color’d beauties speak
Of times of merriment and festival,
The year’s best holiday: I call to mind
The school-boy days, when in the falling leaves
I saw with eager hope the pleasant sign
Of coming Christians; when at morn I took
My wooden calendar, and counting up
Once more its often-told account, smoothed off
Each day with more delight the daily notch.
To you the beauties of the autumnal year
Make mournful emblems, and you think of man
Doom’d to the grave’s long winter, spirit-broken,
Bending beneath the burden of his years,
Sense-dull’d and fretful, “full of aches and pains,”
Yet clinging still to life. To me they show
The calm decay of nature when the mind
Retains its strength, and in the languid eye
Religion’s holy hopes kindle a joy
That makes old age look lovely. All to you
Is dark anti cheerless; you in this fair world
See some destroying principle abroad,
Air, earth, and water full of living things,
Each on the other preying; and the ways
Of man, a strange, perplexing labyrinth,
Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey Page 38