ON ENTERING DOUGLAS BAY, ISLE OF MAN.

351

XV.

ON ENTERING DOUGLAS BAY, ISLE OF MAN.

1

'Dignum laude virum Musa vetat mori.'

THE feudal Keep, the bastions of Cohorn,*
Even when they rose to check or to repel
Tides of aggressive war, oft served as well
Greedy ambition, armed to treat with scorn
Just limits; but yon Tower, whose smiles adorn
This perilous bay, stands clear of all offence;
Blest work it is of love and innocence,
A Tower of refuge built for the else forlorn.1
Spare it, ye waves, and lift the mariner,
Struggling for life, into its saving arms!
Spare, too, the human helpers! Do they stir
'Mid your fierce shock like men afraid to die?
No; their dread service nerves the heart it warms,
And they are led by noble HILLARY.†

1845.

A tower of refuge to the else forlorn.

1835.

* Baron Menno van Cohorn (or Coehoorn) was a Dutch military engineer of genius (1641-1704). His fame rests on discoveries connected with the effect of projectiles on fortifications. His practical successes against the French, under Vauban, were great; and the fortifications he designed and constructed, of which that of Bergen-op-Zoom was the chief, give him a place in the history of military science, greater than that derived from his writings. He devised a kind of small mortar or howitzer, for use in siege operations, which is named after him a Cohorn.-ED.

The TOWER of REFUGE, an ornament to Douglas Bay, was erected chiefly through the humanity and zeal of Sir William Hillary; and he also was the founder of the lifeboat establishment, at that place; by which, under his superintendence, and often by his exertions at the imminent hazard of his own life, many seamen and passengers have been saved.— W. W., 1835.

In Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal of a visit to the Isle of Man in 1826, the following occurs:-" Monday, July 3rd.-Sir William Hillary saved a boy's life to-day in harbour. He raised a regiment for government, and chose his own reward, viz., a Baronetcy! and now lives here on £300 per annum, &c., &c."-ED.

XVI.

BY THE SEA-SHORE, ISLE OF MAN.

WHY stand we gazing on the sparkling Brine,
With wonder smit by its transparency

And all-enraptured with its purity?—

Because the unstained, the clear, the crystalline,
Have ever in them something of benign;
Whether in gem, in water, or in sky,

A sleeping infant's brow, or wakeful eye
Of a young maiden, only not divine.

Scarcely the hand forbears to dip its palm
For beverage drawn as from a mountain-well;
Temptation centres in the liquid Calm;
Our daily raiment seems no obstacle
To instantaneous plunging in, deep Sea!
And revelling in long embrace with thee.*

XVII.

ISLE OF MAN.

[My son William + is here the person alluded to as saving the life of the youth, and the circumstances were as mentioned in the Sonnet.]

A YOUTH too certain of his power to wade

On the smooth bottom of this clear bright sea,1

1

1835.

that his feet could wade

At will the flow of this pellucid sea.

MS.

On the smooth bottom of this clear blue sea.

MS.

* The sea-water on the coast of the Isle of Man is singularly pure and beautiful.-W. W.

+ But it was his son John, and not William, who accompanied the poet in this Tour. See the first Fenwick note (p. 332.)—Ed.

ISLE OF MAN.

To sight so shallow, with a bather's glee

Leapt from this rock, and but for timely aid

He, by the alluring element betrayed,

Had perished. Then might Sea-nymphs (and with sighs Of self-reproach) have chanted elegies*

Bewailing his sad fate, when he was laid1

In peaceful earth: for, doubtless, he was frank,
Utterly in himself devoid of guile;

Knew not the double-dealing of a smile;

Nor aught that makes men's promises a blank,
Or deadly snare: and he survives to bless

The Power that saved him in his strange distress.

DID 3 pangs

XVIII.

ISLE OF MAN.2

of grief for lenient time too keen, Grief that devouring waves had caused-or guilt

Leapt from this rock, and surely, had not aid

Been near, must soon have breathed out life, betrayed

By fondly trusting to an element

Fair, and to others more than innocent;
Then had sea-nymphs sung dirges for him laid

1835.

* Compare Ariel's Song in The Tempest, Act i., Sc. 2

"Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell,"

353

-ED.

Which they had witnessed,-sway 1 the man who built
This Homestead, placed where nothing could be seen,
Nought heard, of ocean troubled or serene?
A tired Ship-soldier on paternal land,2
That o'er the channel holds august command,
The dwelling raised,-a veteran Marine.*
He, in disgust, turn'd from the neighbouring sea
To shun the memory of a listless life

That hung between two callings. May no strife
More hurtful here beset him, doomed though free,
Self-doomed, to worse inaction, till his eye
Shrink from the daily sight of earth and sky!

XIX.

BY A RETIRED MARINER.†

(A FRIEND OF THE AUTHOR.)

[Mrs Wordsworth's Brother, Henry.‡]

FROM early youth I ploughed the restless Main,
My mind as restless and as apt to change;
Through every clime and ocean did I range,
In hope at length a competence to gain;

1 1837.

swayed

1835.

*

Henry Hutchinson. See the Fenwick note to the next Sonnet.-Ed. + This unpretending Sonnet is by a gentleman nearly connected with me, and I hope, as it falls so easily into its place, that both the writer and the reader will excuse its appearance here.-W. W., 1835.

Mr Henry Hutchinson, Mrs Wordsworth's brother, was-the Bishop of Lincoln tells us-"a person of great originality and vigour of mind, a very enterprising sailor, and a writer of verses distinguished by no ordinary merit."-See the Memoirs of W. W., Vol. II., p. 246.-ED.

AT BALA-SALA, ISLE OF MAN.

For poor to Sea I went, and poor I still remain.
Year after year I strove, but strove in vain,
And hardships manifold did I endure,

For Fortune on me never deign'd to smile;
Yet I at last a resting-place have found,
With just enough life's comforts to procure,
In a snug Cove on this our favoured Isle,
A peaceful spot where Nature's gifts abound;
Then sure I have no reason to complain,

Though poor to Sea I went, and poor I still remain.

355

XX.

AT BALA-SALA, ISLE OF MAN.

(SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY A FRIEND.)

[Supposed to be written by a friend (Mr Cookson) who died there a few years after.]

BROKEN in fortune, but in mind entire

And sound in principle, I seek repose

Where ancient trees this convent-pile enclose,*

In ruin beautiful. When vain desire

Intrudes on peace, I pray the eternal Sire

To cast a soul-subduing shade on me,

A grey-haired, pensive, thankful Refugee;

A shade-but with some sparks of heavenly fire
Once to these cells vouchsafed.1 And when I note
The old Tower's brow yellowed as with the beams
Of sunset ever there, † albeit streams 2

+ The "old Tower" is that of Rushen Abbey, close to Bala Sala, the latest dissolved monastery in the British Isles. Little of it survives;