Cockermouth.

IN SIGHT OF THE TOWN OF COCKERMOUTH,

WHERE THE AUTHOR WAS BORN, AND HIS FATHER'S REMAINS ARE LAID.

A

POINT of life between my parents' dust
And yours, my buried little ones! am I;
And to those graves looking habitually,
In kindred quiet I repose my trust.
Death to the innocent is more than just,
And, to the sinner, mercifully bent;
So may I hope, if truly I repent

And meekly bear the ills which bear I must:
And you, my offspring! that do still remain,
Yet may outstrip me in the appointed race,
If e'er, through fault of mine, in mutual pain
We breathed together for a moment's space,
The wrong, by love provoked, let love arraign,
And only love keep in your hearts a place.

William Wordsworth.

ADDRESS FROM THE SPIRIT OF COCKERMOUTH CASTLE.

66

"THOU

HOU look'st upon me, and dost fondly think,
Poet! that, stricken as both are by years,

We, differing once so much, are now compeers,
Prepared, when each has stood his time, to sink

Into the dust.

Erewhile a sterner link

United us; when thou, in boyish play,
Entering my dungeon, didst become a prey
To soul-appalling darkness. Not a blink

Of light was there; and thus did I, thy tutor,
Make thy young thoughts acquainted with the grave;
While thou wert chasing the winged butterfly
Through my green courts; or climbing, a bold suitor,
Up to the flowers whose golden progeny
Still round my shattered brow in beauty wave."

William Wordsworth.

Corby.

MONUMENT OF MRS. HOWARD,

IN WETHERAL CHURCH, NEAR CORBY, ON THE BANKS OF

THE EDEN.

TRETCHED on the dying mother's lap lies dead

STRETCH

Her new-born babe; dire ending of bright hope! But sculpture here, with the divinest scope

Of luminous faith, heavenward hath raised that head
So patiently; and through one hand has spread
A touch so tender for the insensate child,
(Earth's lingering love to parting reconciled,
Brief parting, for the spirit is all but fled,)
That we, who contemplate the turns of life
Through this still medium, are consoled and cheered;

Feel with the mother, think the severed wife
Is less to be lamented than revered;

And own that art, triumphant over strife
And pain, hath powers to eternity endeared.

William Wordsworth.

AS

Corston.

CORSTON.

S thus I stand beside the murmuring stream, And watch its current, Memory here portrays Scenes faintly formed of half-forgotten days, Like far-off woodlands by the moon's bright beam Dimly descried, but lovely. I have worn Amid these haunts the heavy hours away, When childhood idled through the sabbath day; Risen to my tasks at winter's earliest morn; And, when the summer twilight darkened here, Thinking of home, and all of heart forlorn, Have sighed, and shed in secret many a tear. Dreamlike and indistinct those days appear, As the faint sounds of this low brooklet, borne Upon the breeze, reach fitfully the ear.

Robert Southey.

CORSTON

THE RETROSPECT.

ORSTON, twelve years in various fortunes fled Have passed with restless progress o'er my head, Since in thy vale, beneath the master's rule, I dwelt an inmate of the village school. Yet still will Memory's busy eye retrace Each little vestige of the well-known place; Each wonted haunt and scene of youthful joy, Where merriment has cheered the careless boy; Well pleased will Fancy still the spot survey Where once he triumphed in the boyish play, Without one care where every morn he rose, Where every evening sunk to calm repose.

Large was the house, though fallen, in course of fate,
From its old grandeur and manorial state.

Lord of the manor, here the jovial squire
Once called his tenants round the crackling fire;
Here, while the glow of joy suffused his face,
He told his ancient exploits in the chase,
And, proud his rival sportsmen to surpass,
He lit again the pipe and filled again the glass.

But now no more was heard at early morn
The echoing clangor of the huntsman's horn;
No more the eager hounds with deepening cry
Leaped round him as they knew their pastime nigh;
The squire no more obeyed the morning call,
Nor favorite spaniels filled the sportsman's hall;
For he, the last descendant of his race,

Slept with his fathers, and forgot the chase.
There now in petty empire o'er the school
The mighty master held despotic rule;
Trembling in silence all his deeds we saw,
His look a mandate and his word a law;
Severe his voice, severe and stern his mien,

And wondrous strict he was, and wondrous wise I ween.

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Such was my state in those remembered years,

When two small acres bounded all my fears;
And therefore still with pleasure I recall

The tapestried school; the bright, brown-boarded hall;
The murmuring brook, that every morning saw
The due observance of the cleanly law;

The walnuts, where, when favor would allow,
Full oft I went to search each well-stripped bough;
The crab-tree, which supplied a secret hoard
With roasted crabs to deck the wintry board:
These trifling objects then my heart possessed,
These trifling objects still remain impressed;
So, when with unskilled hand some idle hind
Carves his rude name within a sapling's rind,
In after-years the peasant lives to see

The expanding letters grow as grows the tree;
Though every winter's desolating sway

Shake the hoarse grove, and sweep the leaves away,
That rude inscription uneffaced will last,
Unaltered by the storm or wintry blast.

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Cold was the morn, and bleak the wintry blast
Blew o'er the meadow, when I saw thee last.