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, 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— Reddened the fiery hues, and shot For busy thoughts the Stream flowed on 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, 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; The soul's deep valley was not slow Eternal blessings on the Muse, And her divine employment! The blameless Muse, who trains her Sons Albeit sickness, lingering yet, Has o'er their pillow brooded; And Care waylays their steps-a Sprite For thee, O SCOTT! compelled to change For warm Vesuvio's vine-clad slopes; And leave thy Tweed and Tiviot waylay 1 1837. 1835. THE GALLANT YOUTH WHO MAY HAVE GAINED. O while they minister to thee, With Strength, her venturous brother; And Tiber, and each brook and rill For Thou, upon a hundred streams, At parent Nature's grateful call, A gracious welcome shall be thine, When first I gazed upon her; 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, That hourly speaks within us? Nor deem that localised Romance Ah, no! the visions of the past Life as she is our changeful Life, Bear witness, Ye, whose thoughts that day 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 A TROUBLE, not of clouds, or weeping rain, Lift up your hearts, ye Mourners! for the might Than sceptred king or laurelled conqueror knows, 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. |