THE WISHING-GATE DESTROYED.

To hearts so oft by hope betrayed;
Their very wishes wanted aid

Which here was freely given?

Where, for the love-lorn maiden's wound,
Will now so readily be found

A balm of expectation?

Anxious for far-off children, where

Shall mothers breathe a like sweet air

Of home-felt consolation?

And not unfelt will prove the loss 'Mid trivial care and petty cross

And each day's shallow grief: Though the most easily beguiled Were oft among the first that smiled At their own fond belief.

If still the reckless change we mourn,
A reconciling thought may turn

To harm that might lurk here,
Ere judgment prompted from within
Fit aims, with courage to begin,
And strength to persevere.

Not Fortune's slave is Man: our state
Enjoins, while firm resolves await
On wishes just and wise,
That strenuous action follow both,
And life be one perpetual growth
Of heaven-ward enterprise.

So taught, so trained, we boldly face
All accidents of time and place;

Whatever props may fail,

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Trust in that sovereign law can spread
New glory o'er the mountain's head,
Fresh beauty through the vale.

That truth informing mind and heart,
The simplest cottager may part,

Ungrieved, with charm and spell;
And yet, lost Wishing-gate, to thee
The voice of grateful memory

Shall bid a kind farewell!

A Gate-though not the "moss-grown bar" of 1828-still stands at the old place, where Wordsworth tells us one had stood "time out of mind;" so that the "blank wall" does not shut out the "bright landscape" at the old and now classic spot. Long may it stand, defying wind and weather!--ED.

[This poem was first printed in the annual called the "Keepsake." The painter's name I am not sure of, but I think it was Holmes.*]

1

THAT happy gleam of vernal eyes,

Those locks from summer's golden skies,

That o'er thy brow are shed;

That cheek-a kindling of the morn,

That lip-a rose-bud from the thorn,

I saw; and Fancy sped

To scenes Arcadian, whispering, through soft air,
Of bliss that grows without a care,

And1 happiness that never flies—
(How can it where love never dies?)

1837.

Of

1822.

* It was by J. Holmes, and was engraved by C. Heath.-ED.

THE GLEANER.

Whispering of promise, where no blight
Can reach the innocent delight;
Where pity, to the mind conveyed
In pleasure, is the darkest shade
That Time, unwrinkled grandsire, flings
From his smoothly gliding wings.

What mortal form, what earthly face
Inspired the pencil, lines to trace,
And mingle colours, that should breed
Such rapture, nor want power to feed;
For had thy charge been idle flowers,
Fair Damsel o'er my captive mind,
To truth and sober reason blind,

'Mid that soft air, those long-lost bowers,

The sweet illusion might have hung, for hours.

Thanks to this tell-tale sheaf of corn,

That touchingly bespeaks thee born
Life's daily tasks with them to share
Who, whether from their lowly bed
They rise, or rest the weary head,
Ponder the blessing they entreat 2
From Heaven, and feel what they repeat,
While they give utterance to the prayer

That asks for daily bread.

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The year of the publication of this poem in The Keepsake was 1829. It then appeared under the title of "The Country Girl," and was afterwards included in the 1832 edition of the poems.-ED.

[Written at Rydal Mount. I have often regretted that my tour in Ireland, chiefly performed in the short days of October in a carriageand-four (I was with Mr Marshall), supplied my memory with so few images that were new, and with so little motive to write. The lines however in this poem, "Thou too be heard, lone eagle!" were suggested near the Giants' Causeway, or rather at the promontory of Fairhead, where a pair of eagles wheeled above our heads and darted off as if to hide themselves in a blaze of sky made by the setting sun.]

ARGUMENT.

The Ear addressed, as occupied by a spiritual functionary, in communion with sounds, individual, or combined in studied harmony.—Sources and effects of those sounds (to the close of 6th Stanza).—The power of music, whence proceeding, exemplified in the idiot.-Origin of music, and its effect in early ages-how produced (to the middle of 10th Stanza).-The mind recalled to sounds acting casually and severally.- Wish uttered (11th Stanza) that these could be united into a scheme or system for moral interests and intellectual contemplation.-(Stanza 12th). The Pythagorean theory of numbers and music, with their supposed power over the motions of the universeimaginations consonant with such a theory.- Wish expressed (in 13th Stanza) realized in some degree, by the representation of all sounds under the form of thanksgiving to the Creator.-(Last Stanza) the destruction of earth and the planetary system—the survival of audible harmony, and its support in the Divine Nature, as revealed in Holy Writ.

I.

THY functions are ethereal,

As if within thee dwelt a glancing mind,
Organ of vision! And a Spirit aërial

Informs the cell of Hearing, dark and blind;
Intricate labyrinth, more dread for thought
To enter than oracular cave;

Strict passage, through which sighs are brought,
And whispers for the heart, their slave;

And shrieks, that revel in abuse

Of shivering flesh; and warbled air,

Whose piercing sweetness can unloose

ON THE POWER OF SOUND.

The chains of frenzy, or entice a smile
Into the ambush of despair;

Hosannas pealing down the long-drawn aisle,
And requiems answered by the pulse that beats
Devoutly, in life's last retreats!

II.

The headlong streams and fountains

Serve Thee, invisible Spirit, with untired powers:
Cheering the wakeful tent on Syrian mountains,
They lull perchance ten thousand thousand flowers.
That roar, the prowling lion's Here I am,

How fearful to the desert wide!

That bleat, how tender! of the dam

Calling a straggler to her side.

Shout, cuckoo-let the vernal soul

Go with thee to the frozen zone;

Toll from thy loftiest perch, lone bell-bird, toll !
At the still hour to Mercy dear,

Mercy from her twilight throne.

Listening to nun's faint throb of holy fear,

To sailor's prayer breathed from a darkening sea,
Or widow's cottage-lullaby.

III.

Ye Voices, and ye Shadows

And Images of voice-to hound and horn.
From rocky steep and rock-bestudded meadows
Flung back, and, in the sky's blue caves, reborn-
On with your pastime! till the church-tower bells
A greeting give of measured glee;

And milder echoes from their cells

Repeat the bridal symphony.

Then, or far earlier, let us rove

Where mists are breaking up or gone,

195