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A PORTRAIT.

I HONOUR him, who stands in calm reliance
Amid a senate's frown, and shrug, and jeer;-
Hurls in the scoffer's face his proud defiance,

And, fearing no man, dares his God to fear:
Who spins no smooth harangue for stateman's ear

Of that misnamed expediency; but he

Deems that expedient which is just and fair;

Pronounces that most safe which ought to be;

And cries, "Let man have right, for God hath made him.

free."

SUMMIT OF THE GREAT GAVEL.*

AT the furthermost end of Borrowdale

There riseth a giant hill;

It beareth the name of the great Gavel:
Few to ascend its height are able,

And few who are able will.

There throned aloft, in visible form,

I have kenned the Spirit of the storm,

This mountain "is remarkable for a well of pure water on the very summit. This is not a spring issuing in the common way out of the earth; but is supplied immediately from the atmosphere, in the shape of rain and dews. It is a triangular receptacle in the rock, six inches deep, capable of holding about two gallons; and by containing water in the dryest seasons, shows how slight a degree of evaporation is carried on at this altitude."

OTWAY'S GUIDE TO THE LAKES.

Tossing his dark locks far and wide

Over the mountain's shadowy side:

He talks to his kindred friends that dwell
On gaunt Yewbarrow and grey Kirkfell;
You may hear their voices well

All along Wastdale's gloomy dell,

On a gusty autumn even.

But it was not of these I meant to speak :

In the solid slate of that awful peak,

Filled from the fount of Heaven,

Is scooped a small triangular basin,——
Just for the sun to wash his face in,

As he stops for a moment to rest thereon
After his hot day's work is done,

Ere he lies down to his curtained rest

In the golden chambers of the West:
No spring supplies it from below,—
Never a drop could filter through

The sheer and seamless stone;

Yet never doth the water shrink

Below the basin's rocky brink;

For it ever condescends to drink

From the skies-from the skies alone:

The crystal lymph, which sparkles there,

Is brought by Genii of the air

From the clouds that are braided with purple and amber,
Festooned round evening's gorgeous chamber;

And it may be at times they have snatched a gem
From the nethermost fringe of the rainbow's hem.

Thus, sometimes may you find the man
Standing apart from the human clan,

Musing, 'mid sternly kindred things,
His lone and wild imaginings,

At home 'mid Nature's rudest forms,
Conversing with her clouds and storms.
And should you deem it worth the pain
The summit of his soul to gain,

You may haply meet, like gem enchased,

Amid the bleak and barren waste,

A font of Heaven's own blessed dew,

Clear, sparkling, to refresh your view.
Oh! his the spring of poesy,

That draws its waters from on high.

The cistern may be roughly hewed

By Nature in her wildest mood;

But the water is pure as th' untrodden snow
On Liakura's stainless brow,

That wept bright tears in days gone by

For the sacred urn of Castaly.

All lovely colours are blended there,

Born in the azure depths of air,—

Fancy and Feeling their hues have shed,

Like the braided purple and gold and red,

That canopy the day-god's bed;

And Hope a livelier lustre flings

From the plumage of her rainbow wings.

* Parnassus. A village high up the mountain still retains the name of Liakoura.

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