Within a temple stands an awful shrine, While ghastly faces through the gloom appear, The tall sun, pausing on an Alpine spire, gnaw no more. How gaily murmur and how sweetly taste And some with tears of joy each other greet. In that glad moment when your hands are prest Last, let us turn to Chamouny that shields With rocks and gloomy woods her fertile fields: Five streams of ice amid her cots descend, And with wild flowers and blooming orchards blend; A scene more fair than what the Grecian feigns 'Mid lawns and shades by breezy rivulets fanned, They sport beneath that mountain's matchless height That holds no commerce with the summer night. From age to age, throughout his lonely bounds And droop, while no Italian arts are thine, Hail Freedom! whether it was mine to stray, With shrill winds whistling round my lonely way, On the bleak sides of Cumbria's heath-clad moors, Or where dank sea-weed lashes Scotland's shores; This shrine is resorted to, from a hope of relief, by multitudes, from every corner of the Catholic world, labouring under mental or bodily afflictions. To scent the sweets of Piedmont's breathing rose, And orange gale that o'er Lugano blows; Of the sun peeping through the clouds can spy, Thy three-striped banner fluctuate on the breeze; Though martial songs have banished songs of love, And nightingales desert the village grove, Scared by the fife and rumbling drum's alarms, And the short thunder, and the flash of arms; That cease not till night falls, when far and nigh Sole sound, the Sourd✶ prolongs his mournful cry! -Yet, hast thou found that Freedom spreads her power Beyond the cottage-hearth, the cottage-door: unheard; Each clacking mill, that broke the murmuring streams, Rocked the charmed thought in more delightful dreams; Chasing those pleasant dreams, the falling leaf With more majestic course the water rolled, But foes are gathering-Liberty must raise Red on the hills her beacon's far-seen blaze: Must bid the tocsin ring from tower to tower! Nearer and nearer comes the trying hour! Rejoice, brave Land, though pride's perverted ire Rouse hell's own aid, and wrap thy fields in fire: Lo, from the flames a great and glorious birth; * An insect so called, which emits a short, melancholy cry, heard at the close of the summer evenings, on the banks of the Loire. As if a new-made heaven were hailing a new earth! His only visitants a straggling sheep, -All cannot be the promise is too fair In an impartial balance, give thine aid Brood o'er the long-parched lands with Nilelike wings! And grant that every sceptred child of clay Who cries presumptuous, "Here the flood shall stay, Or, swept in anger from the insulted shore, -Who he was That piled these stones and with the mossy sod Fixing his downcast eye, he many an hour And, lifting up his head, he then would gaze When nature had subdued him to herself, Would he forget those Beings to whose minds Warm from the labours of benevolence The world, and human life, appeared a scene He died, this seat his only monument. If Thou be one whose heart the holy forms Of young imagination have kept pure, Stranger! henceforth be warned; and know that pride, Howe'er disguised in its own majesty, Is in its infancy. The man whose eye PREFIXED TO THE FIRST EDITION OF THIS POEM, PUBLISHED IN 1842. Not less than one-third of the following poem, though it has from time to time been altered in the expression, was published so far back as the year 1798, under the title of "The Female Vagrant." The extract is of such length that an apology seems to be required for reprinting it here but it was necessary to restore it to its original position, or the rest would have been unintelligible. The whole was written before the close of the year 1794, and I will detail, rather as a matter of literary biography than for any other reason, the circumstances under which it was produced. mory. During the latter part of the summer of 1793, having passed a month in the Isle of Wight, in view of the fleet which was then preparing for sea off Portsmouth at the commencement of the war, I left the place with melancholy forebodings. The American war was still fresh in meThe struggle which was beginning, and which many thought would be brought to a speedy close by the irresistible arms of Great Britain being added to those of the allies, I was assured in my own mind would be of long continuance, and productive of distress and misery beyond all possible calculation. This conviction was pressed upon me by having been a witness, during a long residence in revolutionary France, of the spirit which prevailed in that country. After leaving the Isle of Wight, I spent two days in wandering on foot over Salisbury Plain, which, though cultivation was then widely spread through parts of it, had upon the whole a still more impressive appearance than it now retains. The monuments and traces of antiquity, scattered in abundance over that region, led me unavoidably to compare what we know or guess of those remote times with certain aspects of modern society, and with calamities, principally those consequent upon war, to which, more than other classes of men, the poor are subject. In those reflections, joined with particular facts that had come to my knowledge, the following stanzas originated. In conclusion, to obviate some distraction in the minds of those who are well acquainted with Salisbury Plain, it may be proper to say, that of the features described as belonging to it, one or two are taken from other desolate parts of England. And be it so-for to the chill night shower VII. For years the work of carnage did not cease, And death's dire aspect daily he surveyed, Death's minister; then came his glad release, And hope returned, and pleasure fondly made Her dwelling in his dreams. By Fancy's aid The happy husband flies, his arms to throw Round his wife's neck; the prize of victory laid In her full lap, he sees such sweet tears flow As if thenceforth nor pain nor trouble she could know. VIII. Vain hope! for fraud took all that he had earned. IX. From that day forth no place to him could be |