IV.

So, but from toil less sign of profit reaping,
The sullen Spectre to her purpose bowed,

Sweeping, vehemently sweeping,— No pause admitted, no design avowed! Avaunt, inexplicable Guest! avaunt!" Exclaimed the Chieftain; "let me rather see

66

The coronal that coiling vipers make;

The torch that flames with many a lurid flake,
And the long train of doleful pageantry
Which they behold whom vengeful Furies haunt;
Who, while they struggle from the scourge to

flee,

Move where the blasted soil is not unworn,

And, in their anguish, bear what other minds have borne !"

V.

But Shapes that come not at an earthly call
Will not depart when mortal voices bid;
Lords of the visionary eye, whose lid,

Once raised, remains aghast, and will not fall!
Ye Gods, thought he, that servile implement
Obeys a mystical intent!

Your Minister would brush away

The spots that to my soul adhere;
But should she labor night and day,
They will not, cannot disappear;
Whence angry perturbations,
Which no philosophy can brook!

and that look

VI.

Ill-fated Chief! there are whose hopes are built Upon the ruins of thy glorious name;

Who, through the portal of one moment's guilt, Pursue thee with their deadly aim!

O matchless perfidy! portentous lust

Of monstrous crime! - that horror-striking blade, Drawn in defiance of the Gods, hath laid

The noble Syracusan low in dust!

Shuddered the walls, - the marble city wept,

And sylvan places heaved a pensive sigh;
But in calm peace the appointed Victim slept,
As he had fallen in magnanimity;

Of spirit too capacious to require

That Destiny her course should change; too just
To his own native greatness to desire
That wretched boon, days lengthened by mistrust.
So were the hopeless troubles, that involved
The soul of Dion, instantly dissolved.
Released from life and cares of princely state,
He left this moral grafted on his Fate:
"Him only pleasure leads, and peace attends,
Him, only him, the shield of Jove defends,
Whose means are fair and spotless as his ends."

XXXIII.

THE PASS OF KIRKSTONE.

I.

WITHIN the mind strong fancies work,
A deep delight the bosom thrills,

Oft as

I

pass along the fork

Of these fraternal hills:

Where, save the rugged road, we find
No appanage of human kind,

Nor hint of man; if stone or rock
Seem not his handiwork to mock
By something cognizably shaped;
Mockery, or model roughly hewn,
And left as if by earthquake strewn,
Or from the flood escaped:

Altars for Druid service fit

(But where no fire was ever lit,
Unless the glowworm to the skies
Thence offer nightly sacrifice);
Wrinkled Egyptian monument;

Green, moss-grown tower; or hoary tent;
Tents of a camp that never shall be raised,
On which four thousand years have gazed!

II.

Ye ploughshares sparkling on the slopes! Ye snow-white lambs that trip

Imprisoned 'mid the formal props
Of restless ownership?

Ye trees, that may to-morrow fall
To feed the insatiate Prodigal!
Lawns, houses, chattels, groves, and fields,
All that the fertile valley shields;

Wages of folly, baits of crime,

Of life's uneasy game the stake,
Playthings that keep the eyes awake
Of drowsy, dotard Time;

O care! O guilt! — O vales and plains,
Here, 'mid his own unvexed domains,

A Genius dwells, that can subdue

At once all memory of You,

Most potent when mists veil the sky,

Mists that distort and magnify;

While the coarse rushes, to the sweeping breeze,

Sigh forth their ancient melodies!

III.

List to those shriller notes!

- that march

Perchance was on the blast,

When, through this Height's inverted arch,
Rome's earliest legion passed!

-They saw, adventurously impelled,

And older eyes than theirs beheld,

This block, - and yon, whose church-like frame

Gives to this savage Pass its name.

Aspiring Road! that lov'st to hide

Thy daring in a vapory bourn,

Not seldom may the hour return
When thou shalt be my guide:
And I (as all men may find cause,
When life is at a weary pause,
And they have panted up the hill
Of duty with reluctant will)

Be thankful, even though tired and faint,
For the rich bounties of constraint;
Whence oft invigorating transports flow
That choice lacked courage to bestow !

IV.

My Soul was grateful for delight

That wore a threatening brow;

A veil is lifted,

can she slight

The scene that opens now?

Though habitation none appear,

The greenness tells, man must be there;

The shelter- that the pérspective

Is of the clime in which we live ;

Where Toil pursues his daily round; Where Pity sheds sweet tears; and Love, In woodbine bower or birchen grove,

Inflicts his tender wound.

Who comes not hither ne'er shall know

How beautiful the world below;

Nor can he guess how lightly leaps
The brook adown the rocky steeps.
Farewell, thou desolate Domain !
Hope, pointing to the cultured plain,