TINTERN ABBEY.

THE Men who called their passion piety,
And wrecked this noble argosy of faith,—
They little thought how beauteous could be Death,
How fair the face of Time's aye-deepening sea!

Nor arms that desolate, nor years that flee,

Nor hearts that fail, can utterly deflower

This

grassy

floor of sacramental power,

Where we now stand communicants-even We,
We of this latter, still protéstant age,

With priestly ministrations of the Sun
And Moon and multitudinous quire of stars
Maintain this consecration, and assuage

With tender thoughts the past of weary wars,

Masking with good that ill which cannot be undone.

THE CAVE OF THE DYING DEER,

ON THE BANKS OF ULLSWATER.

To our instructed patient-seeking eyes
Each day reveals the outer world more clear,
Yet Life and Death, Nature's solemnities,
Darkly as through a glass alone appear;
Whether the thing to scan

Be meditative Man

Or the poor instincts of a dying Deer.

Vex not the inland summer-calm with storms, Beauteous Ullswater! be as calm and grave As when the snows invest the mountain forms, And thy black crystal sleeps without a wave; Triumphant Aira Force !

Hold in thy torrent-course,—

Let Nature pity where she cannot save.

The noblest Stag of all Gowbarrow's park
Is struck, but by no mortal hunter's hand;
There is no hound to see, no horn to hark,
Yet are his legs too weary-weak to stand:

The antlers on his front

Hang heavy, that were wont

To rise rejoicing in their large command.

Now up the cliff he tries a sharp short bound,
Expiring action of his speedy pride,

And but once gazing pitifully round
The tangled bramble-heap he tears aside,
Seeking his solemn grave

Within the same lone Cave,

Where, through recorded time, his sires have died.

Sons of the greenwood and free mountain air,
Children of open life and herding ways,

Why should they seek this solitary lair,
Soon as their conscious energy decays?
How should they one and all

Select this common pall

Of cold damp rock for their departing days?

There is an ill repute of all that kind,

That, when the leader of the troop is weak

With age or wounds, at once both stag and hind

The wrongs of years on his

Yet here it is not so,—

poor members wreak ;

For mark his pace, how slow!

And all their looks, how sorrowful and meek!

Rather believe that to that voiceless creat ure
The decencies of Death are someway known,
That on the remnant of his living nature
The Last a shadow of itself has thrown,
Impelling him to teach,

More strongly than by speech,

That Death stands everywhere apart,-alone !

Wisdom incumbent on the heirs of life!

Not visible least in those whose sole behest Is to enjoy the world of peace or strife, Holding necessity their only best;

No part of thee is mean,

For each, devoutly seen,

Shall aid the pupil Man to read the rest.

ELYSIAN FIELDS AT LOWTHER,

IN WESTMORELAND.

A YOUTH caressed and nurtured long,
Beneath the sky, beside the sea,
Where rules a vivid world of song
The clear-eyed Queen Parthenope,—
And wont to blend with outward grace
The soul Virgilian memory yields,
Might seek with dull, uneager, pace,
The cloudy north's Elysian Fields.

"Lowther," he cried, "of ancient strength
Thy lofty towers the harness wear ;-
Thy terraces their mossy length
Extend through centuries of care;
In thine old oaks may Fancy read
A green traditionary chain

Of Worth and Power ;—Thou dost not need

To take the classic name in vain."