Page images
PDF
EPUB

THE GALLANT YOUTH WHO MAY HAVE GAINED. 271

Once more, by Newark's Castle-gate

Long left without a warder,

I stood, looked, listened, and with Thee,
Great Minstrel of the Border!*

Grave thoughts ruled wide on that sweet day,

Their dignity installing

In gentle bosoms, while sere leaves.

Were on the bough, or falling;

But breezes played, and sunshine gleamed—
The forest to embolden;

Reddened the fiery hues, and shot
Transparence through the golden,

For busy thoughts the Stream flowed on
In foamy agitation;

And slept in many a crystal pool

For quiet contemplation:†

No public and no private care

The free-born mind enthralling,

We made a day of happy hours,

Our happy days recalling.

Brisk Youth appeared, the Morn of youth,
With freaks of graceful folly,-

Life's temperate Noon, her sober Eve,

Her Night not melancholy;

* Wordsworth arrived at Abbotsford with his daughter to say farewell to Scott on the 21st September 1831. "On the 22nd," says Mr Lockhart, "these two great poets, who had through life loved each other well, and in spite of very different theories as to art, appreciated each other's genius more justly than infirm spirits ever did either of them, spent the morning together in a visit to Newark. Hence the last of the three poems by which Wordsworth has connected his name to all time with the most romantic of Scottish streams."-Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Vol. X., ch. 80, p. 104.

Compare the note to Musings near Aquapendente, in the Poems of the Italian Tour of 1837.-ED.

+ Compare Tennyson's Brook.-ED.

4

272

THE GALLANT YOUTH WHO MAY HAVE GAINED.

Past, present, future, all appeared

In harmony united,

Like guests that meet, and some from far,

By cordial love invited.

And if, as Yarrow, through the woods

And down the meadow ranging,

Did meet us with unaltered face,

Though we were changed and changing;
If, then, some natural shadows spread
Our inward prospect over,

The soul's deep valley was not slow
Its brightness to recover.

Eternal blessings on the Muse,

And her divine employment!

The blameless Muse, who trains her Sons
For hope and calm enjoyment;

Albeit sickness, lingering yet,

Has o'er their pillow brooded;

And Care waylays their steps-a Sprite
Not easily eluded.

For thee, O SCOTT! compelled to change
Green Eildon-hill and Cheviot

For warm Vesuvio's vine-clad slopes;

And leave thy Tweed and Tiviot
For mild Sorrento's breezy waves;
May classic Fancy, linking
With native Fancy her fresh aid,
Preserve thy heart from sinking!

waylay

1

1837.

1835.

THE GALLANT YOUTH WHO MAY HAVE GAINED.

O while they minister to thee,
Each vying with the other,
May Health return to mellow Age

With Strength, her venturous brother;

And Tiber, and each brook and rill
Renowned in song and story,
With unimagined beauty shine,
Nor lose one ray of glory!

For Thou, upon a hundred streams,
By tales of love and sorrow,
Of faithful love, undaunted truth,
Hast shed the power of Yarrow;
And streams unknown, hills yet unseen,
Wherever they1 invite Thee,

At parent Nature's grateful call,
With gladness must requite Thee.

A gracious welcome shall be thine,
Such looks of love and honour
As thy own Yarrow gave to me

When first I gazed upon her;
Beheld what I had feared to see,
Unwilling to surrender

Dreams treasured up from early days,

The holy and the tender.

And what, for this frail world, were all

That mortals do or suffer,

Did no responsive harp, no pen,

Memorial tribute offer?

273

1

1837.

Where'er thy path

1835.

271

THE GALLANT YOUTH WHO MAY HAVE GAINED.

Yea, what were mighty Nature's self?

Her features, could they win us,
Unhelped by the poetic voice

That hourly speaks within us?

Nor deem that localised Romance
Plays false with our affections;
Unsanctifies our tears-made sport
For fanciful dejections:

Ah, no! the visions of the past
Sustain the heart in feeling

Life as she is our changeful Life,
With friends and kindred dealing.

Bear witness, Ye, whose thoughts that day
In Yarrow's groves were centered;
Who through the silent portal arch
Of mouldering Newark enter'd;
And clomb the winding stair that once
Too timidly was mounted

By the "last Minstrel," (not the last!)

Ere he his Tale recounted.

Flow on for ever, Yarrow Stream!

Fulfil thy pensive duty,

Well pleased that future Bards should chant

For simple hearts thy beauty;

To dream-light dear while yet unseen,

Dear to the common sunshine,

And dearer still, as now I feel,

To memory's shadowy moonshine!

A PLACE OF BURIAL IN THE SOUTH OF SCOTLAND. 275

II.

ON THE DEPARTURE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT
FROM ABBOTSFORD, FOR NAPLES.*

A TROUBLE, not of clouds, or weeping rain,
Nor of the setting sun's pathetic light
Engendered, hangs o'er Eildon's triple height:
Spirits of Power, assembled there, complain
For kindred Power departing from their sight;
While Tweed, best pleased in chanting a blithe strain,
Saddens his voice again, and yet again.

Lift up your hearts, ye Mourners! for the might
Of the whole world's good wishes with him goes;
Blessings and prayers, in nobler retinue

Than sceptred king or laurelled conqueror knows,
Follows this wondrous Potentate.
Be true,

Ye winds of ocean, and the midland sea,

Wafting your Charge to soft Parthenope!

With the closing lines of this sonnet addressed to the "winds of ocean," and Sir Walter's departure for Naples, compare Horace's Ode to the ship carrying Virgil to Athens, (Ode I. 3).-ED.

III.

A PLACE OF BURIAL IN THE SOUTH OF

SCOTLAND.

[Similar places for burial are not unfrequent in Scotland. The one that suggested this Sonnet lies on the banks of a small stream called the Wauchope that flows into the Esk near Langholme. Mickle, who, as it appears from his poem on Sir Martin, was not without genuine

This sonnet was sent to Alaric Watts for his Souvenir in 1832. Wordsworth wrote, "I enclose a sonnet for your next volume if you choose to insert it. It would have appeared with more advantage in this year's, but was not written in time. It is proper that I should mention it has been sent to Sir Walter Scott, and one or two of my other friends.”—(See Alaric Watts, a Narrative of his Life, Vol. II. p. 190.)—Ed.

« PreviousContinue »