had made, one after another, of the Mother and her Infant: the improvement on each was surprising; and how so much grace, beauty, and tenderness had come out of such a head I was sadly puzzled to conceive. Upon a window-seat in his parlour lay two casts of faces, one of the Duchess of Devonshire, so noted in her day; and the other of Mr Pitt, taken after his death, a ghastly resemblance, as these things always are, even when taken from the living subject, and more ghastly in this instance from the peculiarity of the features. The heedless and apparently neglectful manner in which the faces of these two persons were left-the one so distinguished in London society, and the other upon whose counsels and public conduct, during a most momentous period, depended the fate of this great Empire and perhaps of all Europe-afforded a lesson to which the dullest of casual visitors could scarcely be insensible. It touched me the more because I had so often seen Mr Pitt upon his own ground at Cambridge and upon the floor of the House of Commons.]

STRETCHED on the dying Mother's lap, lies dead
Her new-born Babe; dire ending1 of bright hope!
But Sculpture here, with the divinest scope
Of luminous faith, heavenward hath raised that head
So patiently; and through one hand has spread
A touch so tender for the insensate Child—
(Earth's lingering love to parting reconciled,
Brief parting, for the spirit is all but fled)—
That we who contemplate the turns of life
Through this still medium, are consoled and cheered;
Feel with the Mother, think the severed Wife

Is less to be lamented than revered;

And own that Art, triumphant over strife
And pain, hath powers to Eternity endeared.

XL.

SUGGESTED BY THE FOREGOING.
TRANQUILLITY! the sovereign aim wert thou
In heathen schools of philosophic lore ;*

1

1845.

issue

1835.

* 'Arapaĝia, was the aim of Stoic, Epicurean, and Sceptic alike.—ED.

NUNNERY.

Heart-stricken by stern destiny of yore

The Tragic Muse thee served with thoughtful vow;
And what of hope Elysium could allow

Was fondly seized by Sculpture, to restore

Peace to the Mourner. But when He who wore 1
The crown of thorns around his bleeding brow
Warmed our sad being with celestial light,2
Then Arts which still had drawn a softening grace
From shadowy fountains of the Infinite,
Communed with that Idea face to face:
And move around it now as planets run,
Each in its orbit round the central Sun.

377

XLI.

NUNNERY.*

[I became acquainted with the walks of Nunnery when a boy: they are within easy reach of a day's pleasant excursion from the town of Penrith, where I used to pass my summer holidays under the roof of my maternal Grandfather. The place is well worth visiting; though, within these few years, its privacy, and therefore the pleasure which the scene is so well fitted to give, has been injuriously affected by walks cut in the rocks on that side the stream which had been left in its natural state.]

THE floods are roused, and will not soon be weary;
Down from the Pennine Alps † how fiercely sweeps
CROGLIN, the stately Eden's tributary ! ‡

He raves, or through some moody passage creeps

1 1843.

Peace to the Mourner's soul; but He who wore

1835.

* Nunnery; so named from the House for Benedictine Nuns established by William Rufus. -ED.

†The chain of Crossfell.-W. W., 1835.

The two streams of the Croglin and the Eden unite in the grounds of Nunnery.-ED.

Plotting new mischief-out again he leaps

Into broad light, and sends, through regions airy,1
That voice which soothed the Nuns while on the steeps
They knelt in prayer, or sang to blissful Mary.2
That union ceased: then, cleaving easy walks

Through crags, and smoothing paths beset with danger,
Came studious Taste; and many a pensive stranger
Dreams on the banks, and to the river talks.
What change shall happen next to Nunnery Dell? 3
Canal, and Viaduct, and Railway, tell ! *

XLII.

STEAM-BOATS, VIADUCTS, AND RAILWAYS. ·
MOTIONS and Means, on land and sea at war

With old poetic feeling, not for this,
Shall ye, by Poets even, be judged amiss!
Nor shall your presence, howsoe'er it mar
The loveliness of Nature, prove a bar
To the Mind's gaining that prophetic sense
Of future change, that point of vision, whence
May be discovered what in soul ye are.

In spite of all that beauty may disown

In

your harsh features, Nature doth embrace Her lawful offspring in Man's art; and Time,

Pleased with your triumphs o'er his brother Space,

Seeking in vain broad light, and regions aery.

MS.

But with that voice which once high on his steeps
Mingled with vespers, sung to blissful Mary—

MS.

* At Corby, a few miles below Nunnery, the Eden is crossed by a magnificent viaduct; and another of these works is thrown over a deep glen or ravine at a very short distance from the main stream.-W. W., 1835.

LONG MEG AND HER DAUGHTERS.

Accepts from your bold hands the proffered crown
Of hope, and smiles on you with cheer sublime.*

379

XLIII.

THE MONUMENT COMMONLY CALLED LONG MEG AND HER DAUGHTERS, NEAR THE RIVER EDEN.

Pub. 1836.

A WEIGHT of awe, not easy to be borne,

Fell suddenly upon my Spirit-cast

From the dread bosom of the unknown past,

When first I saw that family forlorn.

Speak Thou, whose massy strength and stature scorn
The power of years-pre-eminent, and placed
Apart, to overlook the circle vast-

Speak, Giant-mother! tell it to the Morn

While she dispels the cumbrous shades of Night;
Let the Moon hear, emerging from a cloud;
At whose behest uprose on British ground
That Sisterhood, in hieroglyphic round
Forth-shadowing, some have deemed, the infinite,
The inviolable God, that tames the proud! t

Compare the Sonnet On the projected Kendal and Windermere Railway, written in 1844.-ED.

+ The daughters of Long Meg, placed in a perfect circle eighty yards in diameter, are seventy-two in number above ground; a little way out the circle stands Long Meg herself, a single stone, eighteen feet high. When I first saw this monument, as I came upon it by surprise, I might over-rate its importance as an object; but, though it will not bear a comparison with Stonehenge, I must say, I have not seen any other relique of those dark ages, which can pretend to rival it in singularity and dignity of appearance.-W. W., 1835.

In a letter to Sir George Beaumont, January 6, 1821, Wordsworth wrote, "My road brought me suddenly and unexpectedly upon that ancient monument, called by the country people Long Meg and her Daughters. Everybody has heard of it, and so had I from very early childhood; but had never seen it before. Next to Stonehenge it is beyond dispute the most noble relic of the kind that this or probably any other country contains. Long Meg is a single block of unhewn stone, eighteen feet high,

XLIV.

LOWTHER.

["Cathedral pomp." It may be questioned whether this union was in the contemplation of the artist when he planned the edifice. However this might be, a poet may be excused for taking the view of the subject presented in this Sonnet.]

LOWTHER! in thy majestic Pile are seen1
Cathedral pomp and grace, in apt accord
With the baronial castle's sterner mien ;*
Union significant of God adored,

2

And charters won and guarded by the sword
Of ancient honour; whence that goodly state
Of polity which wise men venerate,†
And will maintain, if God his help afford.
Hourly the democratic torrent swells; 3

For airy promises and hopes suborned

3

The strength of backward-looking thoughts is scorned.
Fall if ye must, ye Towers and Pinnacles,

With what ye symbolise; authentic Story

Will say, Ye disappeared with England's Glory!

at a small distance from a vast circle of other stones, some of them of huge size, though curtailed of their stature, by their own incessant pressure upon it."-ED.

* The present Castle was begun in 1808. It is in the style of the 13th and 14th century structures. The arched corridors surrounding the staircase -which is sixty feet square and ninety feet high-may justify the description in the sonnet. These stone corridors open on each side, through the centre of the castle. Compare the reference to Lowther in Barron's Travels in China, p. 134, in the course of his description of "Gehol's matchless gardens" referred to in The Prelude, Book viii. (Vol. III., p. 285.)—ED. + The Lowther family have been, for generations, the representatives of the Conservative cause in Cumberland.-ED.