Ah! scorn not hastily their rule who try
Earth to despise, and flesh to mortify;
Consume with zeal, in wingèd ecstasies
Of prayer and praise forget their rosaries,
Nor hear the loudest surges of St Bees.
Yet none so prompt to succour and protect
The forlorn traveller, or sailor wrecked
On the bare coast; nor do they grudge the boon
Which staff and cockle hat and sandal shoon
Claim for the pilgrim: and, though chidings sharp
May sometimes greet the strolling minstrel's harp,
It is not then when, swept with sportive ease,
It charms a feast day throng of all degrees,
Brightening the archway of revered St Bees.
How did the cliffs and echoing hills rejoice
What time the Benedictine Brethren's voice,
Imploring, or commanding with meet pride,
Summoned the Chiefs to lay their feuds aside,
And under one blest ensign serve the Lord
In Palestine. Advance, indignant Sword!
Flaming till thou from Panym hands release
That tomb, dread centre of all sanctities
Nursed in the quiet Abbey of St Bees.
But look we now to them whose minds from far1
Follow the fortunes which they may not share.
While in Judea Fancy loves to roam,
She helps to make a Holy-land at home:
On, Champions, on !-But mark! the passing Day
Submits her intercourse to milder sway,
With high and low whose busy thoughts from far
Follow
STANZAS SUGGESTED IN A STEAM-BOAT.
The Star of Bethlehem from its sphere invites
To sound the crystal depth of maiden rights;
And wedded Life, through scriptural mysteries,
Heavenward ascends with all her charities,
Taught by the hooded Celibates of St Bees.
Nor be it e'er forgotten how by skill
Of cloistered Architects, free their souls to fill
With love of God, throughout the Land were raised
Churches, on whose symbolic beauty gazed
Peasant and mail-clad Chief with pious awe;
As at this day men seeing what they saw,
Or the bare wreck of faith's solemnities,
Aspire to more than earthly destinies;
Witness yon Pile that greets us from St Bees.
Yet more; around those Churches, gathered Towns*
Safe from the feudal Castle's haughty frowns;
Peaceful abodes, where Justice might uphold
Her scales with even hand, and culture mould
The heart to pity, train the mind in care
For rules of life, sound as the Time could bear.
Nor dost thou fail, thro' abject love of ease,
Or hindrance raised by sordid purposes,
To bear thy part in this good work, St Bees.†
Who with the ploughshare clove the barren moors,
And to green meadows changed the swampy shores?
Thinned the rank woods; and for the cheerful grange
Made room where wolf and boar were used to range?
*See "The English Town" in Green's Short History of the English People, ch. iv., sec. 4.—ED.
+ This stanza and the one preceding were added in 1845.-ED.
Who taught, and showed by deeds, that gentler chains
Should bind the vassal to his lord's domains?
The thoughtful Monks, intent their God to please,
For Christ's dear sake, by human sympathies
Poured from the bosom of thy Church, St Bees!
But all availed not; by a mandate given
Through lawless will the Brotherhood was driven
Forth from their cells; their ancient House laid low
In Reformation's sweeping overthrow.
But now once more the local Heart revives,
The inextinguishable Spirit strives.
Oh may that Power who hushed the stormy seas,
And cleared a way for the first Votaries,
Prosper the new-born College of St Bees!
Alas! the Genius of our age, from Schools
Less humble, draws her lessons, aims, and rules.
To Prowess guided by her insight keen
Matter and Spirit are as one Machine;
Boastful Idolatress of formal skill
She in her own would merge the eternal will:
Better,1 if Reason's triumphs match with these,
Her flight before the bold credulities
That furthered the first teaching of St Bees.†
Expert to move in paths that Newton trod,
From Newton's Universe would banish God.
* This College was founded for the education of clerks in holy orders who did not mean to proceed to Oxford or Cambridge.-ED.
+ See Excursion, seventh part; and Ecclesiastical Sketches, second part, near the beginning.-W. W.
The passages referred to are the following: Excursion, Book VII. 1. 1118, &c., beginning
and alluding to Sir Alfred Irthing; Ecclesiastical Sonnets, II. 3, 4, 5, Cistercian Monastery, and Monks and Schoolmen.-ED.
AT SEA OFF THE ISLE OF MAN.
IN THE CHANNEL, BETWEEN THE COAST OF CUMBERLAND AND THE ISLE OF MAN.
RANGING the heights of Scawfell or Black-comb,
In his lone course the Shepherd oft will pause,
And strive to fathom the mysterious laws
By which the clouds, arrayed in light or gloom,
On Mona settle, and the shapes assume
Of all her peaks and ridges.* What he draws
From sense, faith, reason, fancy, of the cause,
He will take with him to the silent tomb.
Or, by his fire, a child upon his knee,
Haply the untaught Philosopher may speak
Of the strange sight, nor hide his theory
That satisfies the simple and the meek,
Blest in their pious ignorance, though weak
To cope with Sages undevoutly free.
AT SEA OFF THE ISLE OF MAN.
BOLD words affirmed, in days when faith was strong
And doubts and scruples seldom teazed the brain,
Compare the View from the top of Black Comb (Vol. IV. p. 268); also the Inscription, Written with a slate-pencil on a stone, on the side of the mountain of Black Comb (Vol. IV. p. 270).
The atmospheric phenomena referred to in the Sonnet are frequently seen from the Cumberland hills, overspreading the peaks and ridges of the Isle of Man; and a similar appearance is often visible on the Cumbrian hills, as seen from Mona.-ED.
That no adventurer's bark had power to gain
These shores if he approached them bent on wrong;
For, suddenly up-conjured from the Main,
Mists rose to hide the Land—that search, though long
And eager, might be still pursued in vain.
O Fancy, what an age was that for song!
That age, when not by laws inanimate,
As men believed, the waters were impelled,
The air controlled, the stars their courses held;
But element and orb on acts did wait
Of Powers endued with visible form, instinct
With will, and to their work by passion linked.
DESIRE we past illusions to recal?
To reinstate wild Fancy, would we hide
Truths whose thick veil Science has drawn aside?
No, let this Age, high as she may, instal
In her esteem the thirst that wrought man's fall,
The universe is infinitely wide;
And conquering Reason, if self-glorified,
Can nowhere move uncrossed by some new wall
Or gulf of mystery, which thou alone,
Imaginative Faith! canst overleap,
In progress toward the fount of Love, the throne
Of Power whose ministers the 2 records keep
Of periods fixed, and laws established, less
Flesh to exalt than prove its nothingness.
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