LO cncJU o rfk i'c '■'■f iawL P/f SZ / 157^DEPARTURE OF ULYSSES. 115 Work secret of long cherished labour done ; Great ocean’s pilgrimage to be begun. Low bowed the god-like man to the salt Sea : And stretched his hands forth to it, as if he Resigned himself to its high will!—his own Fate-fixed. She stood as into marble grown Against that cave, which now shall be retreat Of love no more, the sea-foam touched her feet; Winds waved her tresses : her voluptuous eyes Languid with weeping, on the hero dwelt! A human grief then first within her felt, Even earthly yearnings: passions ecstacies Remembered, pity drawn from prescient sight, Drew tears that dimmed those eyes’ ethereal light, Large drops that left their fringed lashes bright! He knelt, and kissed her golden-sandalled foot Unheeded : she was passive, all was past, She stood a Woman there, forgot at last. She saw, heard, felt not: her’s the agony Whose pulse absorbs an immortality ! Slowly the hero turned to her, and mute Inclining, his eternal farewell gave, Unanswered: she but saw him in his grave. He stepped from earth, and floated on the wave, An atom on the watery world, impelled To seek the human forms so long withheld116 DEPARTURE OF ULYSSES. From his deep heart: that, sunk in apathy Of passionless life, would mix with its own birth Of Ithaca : wife, son, domestic hearth, And share ennobling sorrows! In that boat Kinglike he sat: nor needed crown remote, His passions subjects to his high command ! He touched the helm—and floated from the land, Nor marked that form midst fading shadows dim, Who in those waters heard his requiem. His eye was fixed upon the Polar Star, That through the darkness shone on him from far, Companion, guide : hope’s altar-place, to him Strength-giving ; purity and god-like will, Duty of obligation to fulfil, Opposed by fate, foes, shipwreck, or the storm. Calm and sedate, he looked the embodied form Of Virtue fleeing from the realm of sense : Strong in the nerve of holier innocence !®f)t Deati aSuttnflg. TO MARY READE. In the garden’s path we walked ; While with open hearts we talked In that mood when the calm breast Feeling happy and at rest, Colours with its own delight All rich things within its sight, And can not refrain from telling Sun-like joys within it dwelling. II. Mary’s hand with mine was twined: In that touch our spirits joined, Our bodies twain one Temple were; The shows of sky, and earth, and air,118 THE DEAD BUTTERFLY. Entering, one impulse gave and feeling ; Their presence shown in the revealing Of the light on her glad brow, And in her deep eyes; in me Felt, that gave not outward show; But an inward melody Filled me with a thrilling tone Of joy, reflected from her own. hi. Roses round us their breath shed : Apple-blossoms o’er her head All their lustrous glory threw, Tinged by light of twilight skies : And the heaven’s delicious blue Gave, and caught again their hue From the light in Mary’s eyes. “ Wherefore are you bending there Mary !—shadowing with your hair Something on the ground that lies ?” I bent forward with surprise : A dead butterfly was laid On the grass within the shade : Causing marvel first, then thought, That death’s evil could be wroughtTHE DEAD BUTTERFLY. 119 In that flowery Paradise : In a spot where all was light As Mary’s spirit and as bright. IV. But she, with fine and heedful face, And falling hair that gave a grace To her drooped head, began with care, And serious, and thoughtful air, To raise the dust about the place; “ And why the dust does Mary spread For a poor insect that is dead ?” “ Because the night is gathering fast, And chill and rain must come at last; When everything is gone to rest, And happy in its home and nest, I should not feel content, if I Left this sweet butterfly to lie Exposed to every passer by Beneath the cold and open sky!” There let it sleep : and lightly rest The dust upon its airy breast. K©!)t ftea spirit. I. She fainted ’neath the ardent sun That scorched along the lea : “ I wish the weary walk were done, That we could reach that tiresome tide We hear, but do not see! It seems that miles away are we; As if there we should never be A moment more, we stood beside The everlasting Sea! ii. She sat on a weed-wreathed stone, Ocean’s rich hair o’er it thrown, Carelessly as Mary’s own ; Braids fantastically twining, Flashing foam-drops o’er them shining,THE SEA SPIRIT. From a Sim that looked on her, As he were idolater, Or fine Alchemist that threw Wealth o’er her from whom he drew, Gilding beauty frail and dim, With a lustre drawn from him. There with languid eyes upraised, On a heaven as blue she gazed : With lips parted, drinking in Air, as life-blood it had been ; And the near, and watchful Ocean, With a still and gentle motion, Round her feet his waves delayed, Covering sand o’er which they played, While, like veils of woven air, Foam-mists floated o’er her there. hi. These for moments breath to win : Lo ! that temple shown within, Changes spiritual wrought, From life elemental caught. Slowly rose those lids enfringing Violet orbs erewhile that slept, ’Neath blue shadows o’er them swept: From their depths electric flame From the living spirit came,THE SEA SPIRIT. The awaked and conscious soul ! And her cheek with rose-leaves tinging, The rich blood o’er mantling stole, Deepening on her coral lips ; Waned awhile in their eclipse. And the living dimples broke Round them, silently that spoke, As expression’s life they woke ! While her eyes, rays flitting, shone Lights and shadows, flashing on Winged meanings seen and gone ! IV. On that laughing Nature’s child, Bounding up, elastic, wild, All impulsive, and at strife With the mighty flux of life, With the o’erflowing joy suppressed, Or heard, in the world’s throbbing breast I gazed mutely, reverently : As one who doth fix his eye On God’s work wrought visibly; For I saw that filled was she With the Spirit of the Sea !3l3trU’s Ktst. A. RECORD. With a step as soft as dew Shed o’er violets’ eye-lids, she Stole with finger raised to me, And an interdicting eye!— As if some fine mystery She had looked on, which she knew Breath, or movement might dispel. Spirit-like she led the way To a deep and tangled dell, Where in precincts now forbidden Laid the secret treasure hidden ! From the boughs of softest gray Tints of an ethereal hue I saw faintly glimmering through : Then a nest of mossy green,124 THE BIRD S NEST. Deep blue eggs within it seen, Rich as sapphires they had been Caved within the hollow Sea ! So we stood in luxury Of the rare discovery, Treasure that our own might be ! An important look was fixed On each forehead : gladness mixed With distrustful consciousness Felt, which neither did confess : Guardianship that doth belong To the weaker from the strong; To the beautiful there lying Unprotected and remote, None but us its haunt espying ! So we stood—a sudden note Rising plaintively, withheld Secret joy that in us swelled. The light twig above us stirred : On it perched the parent-bird, Watching with considerate look The intruders on her nook ! With the stealthful step she brought Mary, shadow-like, withdrew As one in her trespass caught!THE BIRDS NEST. 125 A regretful feeling wrought In her, softening, as she knew On each step retreating, grew Joy in her that o’er us flew. While recoiling from that nest, She told not her thought suppressed, Owned in either conscious breast! That the weakest thing that lives, Claims the freedom Nature gives.0k to JiHemorg. i. I have invoked thee, and am silent now Before the altar I have raised; for how Shall I hail thee, divinest Memory ? Thou life of our departed being ! Our thought and feeling onward fleeing Into thy shadowy receptacle, That within ourself doth dwell, As music in the folded shell. The past were starless vacancy and void : All that we felt, and suffered, and enjoyed : But that Thou sheddest on the stream Of vanished years, thy stationary gleam ; Proving existence not a dream. ii. Where, Inmate of our spirit, wert thou born Thou, that in life’s early momODE TO MEMORY. 127 Treasurest the shapes of things, Hued by our imaginings, Rayed from thee : when thou dost give Pictured forms that in us live, Then, when fancy’s self grows cold : When the worn out heart is old. Was thy sacred office here To record our petty days Wasted in life’s crowded ways ? The brief rapture, and the tear: Youth’s spring and its autumn sere ; Passions evil, mixed, and good, That we yielded or withstood, Waxing feebler as decays Our cell, where linger yet the rays Of thy lamp sicklily that wave Expiring gleams athwart a living grave ! hi. No, prescient Memory! Thou hast a loftier destiny ; Thy morning rays draw birth Beyond the gates of our mortality, Thy founts from the Eternal welling forth ! Thy deeper impulses within us come From an immortal home,128 ODE TO MEMORY. From Being known in brighter spheres j* Fallen from a loftier height: Of a past indefinite, Gulphed in unfathomable years ! Where the beautiful revealed Shone on us, now half concealed: Glowing instincts, purpler hues, Which the infant soul imbues, Fainter fading as he leaves Farther, thy day-gates behind : Till the unfolded Man receives Nought save humanities that bind Him to the universal Soul of human kind. IV. Yet to him dost thou recal, Memory ! what we are and were, Ere sunk in our sensual thrall: Visitations rich and rare ; * “ We are sunk down from the Stars to earth, to dwell as in a prison- house : from hence our origin of misery and depravity. It is only by rising above animal passions, and from sensible objects to the world of intelligence, the Soul can be prepared to return to its original habitation.” This belief of Plato has been adopted, or felt, and inculcated by all succeeding poets, himself being among the greatest. Milton and Donne, among others, frequently recur to it. In our days, Lord Byron has availed himself of its uses ; and the “ Ode of Intimations” of Mr. Wordsworth may be termed a transcript from the same source.ODE TO MEMORY. 129 Lights revealing treasures deep Hidden, over which we sleep ! So art thou, hope’s harbinger; Or rather do I call thee, Seer: Then, when thou with prescient eye, From Pisgah heights dost prophecy The promised Visions that to thee appear: Whereon do settled glories rest; Drawn not from fading vapours of the west. Then, when mysterious visitings Rise in us, that draw their wings t From our spirit’s hidden springs, Conscious, as they come and go, We are greater than we know. Then w'hen hues the sun’s last gleams The Paradise of outlived dreams : When we feel the starry cope Waken an immortal hope, The aching feeling of expansion given : When the hoary Clouds unfold Their robes : and we the beckoning Stars behold In the recesses measureless of heaven! v. Informer of our being ! mirroring river For ever from us flowing; We draw from thee the wealth of our bestowing,130 ODE TO MEMORY. Ourself the mighty giver! Thou that wrappest us apart In the world of our own heart, Recreate by thee alone. Oh, if thou, Memory ! be thus divine, What is my spirit that evoketh thine ? Thou art our inmate, yea, our own : Yet do I reverence as before a throne, Yea, worship at thy shrine ; For why P—from thee I gather all : Thou art my life’s coronal : Thou dost my Universe unfold; An everlasting festival In thy company I hold. VI. O holiest Memory ! May I not call thee, and unblamed, Empyrean spirit watching ever nigh, Recalling starry immortality ?* * Plato might he justly termed the first heathen revelation of the Deity, and of the immortality of man. It imports us little to know from whom originated his opinions ; or, from the fountain-source of philoso- phy, Pythagoras, or from Timaeus, the Locrian, or from the elder Egyptian, Indian, or Chaldean ; sufficient for us, that he first wrote them down: that they consoled and elevated our human nature for ages. Plato was, also, the first who shadowed forth an idea of a heaven —“ Another pure world is beyond the Sky, where are the Stars ; theODE TO MEMORY. 131 Should I not stand before thee awed, Recording minister of God ? Thou Angel of our life reclaimed ! Wakening hope whose crowning rays Gather glory from thy gaze : Who dost warn us by the past, By thy pictured world o’ercast, How Life’s shadow fades at last! Who teachest discipline of duty : Filling the temple of the Soul With shapes of grandeur and of beauty, The august, the good, that rise at thy controul. earth which we inhabit is hut the gross sediment of this ethereal world.” Plato abounds in obscure hints of a material trinity in unity: the words in Timseus are—“ It consists in the indivisible substance, the divisible, and the third, appertaining to the one and the other.* In the Phsedo, his doctrine, shadowing forth Catholic Purgatory, is remark- able :—“ Those who are not wholly criminal, nor absolutely innocent, are borne over the Acheron; there, they suffer punishments propor- tionate to their faults, until, cleansed of their sins, they receive among the blest the recompence of their virtuous deeds.” His doctrine of a resurrection is given in the tenth book of his Republic : where Heres is introduced, re-animated, and recounting what has passed in another world. * Justin quotes a fragment attributed to Orpheus, very noticeable :—u I swear by the Word proceeding from the Father, and which was his coun- cillor, when he created the world.” Almost all ethnic nations had formed their religious trinities; the Egyptians, their Isis, Osiris, and Horus : the Greeks,—Jove, Neptune, and Pluto.132 ODE TO MEMORY* VII. O, walk with me this vale of aimless strife, Forsake me not thou Spirit of my life! Sole treasurer of youth’s glories at its springs. Of all its orient imaginings. Thou, that at life’s close, dost sit Smiling by ambition’s grave, When the sun cloth shine on it: When the storms have ceased to rave; When Meditation’s self is born from thee : And owns the wisdom drawn from Memory ! jpamttj) licgeniy. i. Merrily glinted the rising sun On Morpeth castle brio-ht: Gray tower, and keep, and donjon shone In morning’s purple light: Merrier within the court-yard, din Of arming men arose, For Sir Reginald Reed on his mailed steed To the Border-foray goes. ii. “ Fling open the gate, it waxeth late,” Cried the Knight, but backward bore His rein; a swarthy Woman sate By the coping-stone of the door. “ In the fiend’s name, say, why stopp’st our way On the ground with thy fixed stare ?% 134 FAMILY LEGEND. Squat like a toad on the bridal road, I had nigh tramped o’er thee there.” hi. “ Sir Reginald Rsed ! I warn thee, heed : Thy menials thrust me forth ; But I watched day-break that thou should’st make Thy peace with me on earth Wrath lit the Chieftain’s eye of flame :— “ Dost beg in our door-way still ? Get to the buttery in God’s name; There, feast thee at thy will. IY. There’s askaunce sly in thy swart eye I love not, woman !—hence : An my will were free, on the gallows tree Thine age were no defence.” She laid her hand upon the selle : Upreared the steed on high, As scathing fire had on him fell : To earth that dark gray Woman fell, But the Knight gazed on her eye. v. " Thou shalt listen, Knight! while I do thee right For the guerdon thou givest me:FAMILY LEGEND. 135 Years three-score ten are thine, the night Of this day shalt thou never see : The birth-day feast in thy hall even now Is spread for thee in vain : The Judgment-trump shall sound ere thou Shalt enter there again ! VI. Proud art thou of thy Saxon name Untainted by Norman stain ! Thy race shall be known when not a stone Of these proud towers remain ; But not a man of them shall see, Or warrior, bard, or sage, Years three-score ten accorded thee.” Forth burst the Chieftain’s rage :— VII. “ Avaunt thee, witch ! if ill befall On me, or mine, to-day, I’ll have thee hung on the Castle-wall To scare the crows away : And wert thou man didst beard me so, The stoutest, I had cleft His skull before me at a blow ! Hence—ere I spurn thee as I go: In safety thou are left.” L136 FAMILY LEGEND. VIII. Forth the warrior sprang, his armour rang, FI is falcon pennon spread* Waved to the wind, his spearmen lined, Marched on with measured tread ; The foray won, ere day was done Pealed forth the wailing horn : Pierced by Border-spear, the Chief on his bier Of shields, was homeward borne. IX. They passed the coping-stone where late That Woman-seer had been, Whose words had rung the knell of fate ; On that gray stone was seen A Cross, with rede of moral lay :— “ The Dead do warnings give : Work ye the little good ye may, The moment while ye live !” * His falcon pennon spread. Crest, on stump of a tree, a Falcon rising, proper, belled and jessed. Motto, Cedant arma togce. The ballad is founded on a tradition. The ancient family of Raed, the name attesting their Saxon ancestry, were originally from Morpeth, in Northumberland, where they had gained honourable note during the Border wars: we find the name also men- tioned in Froissart. So early as 1402, arms had resigned to the gown : Sir Robert Reade having been constituted King’s Sergeant, 1494, Henry VII.; and, from that monarch’s estimation, as also from hisFAMILY LEGEND. 137 claim of direct descent from the Plantagenet Kings,* ordained one of his Executors. He was created Chief Justice of Common Pleas, 1507, in which high station we recognize him, 2 Henry VIII. The family name was probably modernized by him to its present form. During the Civil wars, we find Sir Compton Reade distinguishing himself among the devoted adherents of Charles I., by raising and disciplining a troop of cavalry, and in holding out Barton Court, a fortified Abbey, near Abingdon, Berkshire, against a detachment of Cromwell’s soldiers, until it was in flames over his head. He was created Baronet by Charles II., 1660, for good service rendered, and for unshaken loyalty. His descendant, Sir Thomas Reade, was one of the gentlemen of the Privy Chamber, and First Clerk of the Board of Green Cloth to George II. : he was also Member in five successive Parliaments for Cricklade, in Wiltshire : and his brother and successor, Lieutenant-General Reade, stood Member for Tewkesbury during the reigns of George I. and his successor : the Baronetage lineally descend- ing from him to Sir John Chandos Reade, the present inheritor of Shipton Court, Oxfordshire. English Baronetage : 1727—1747. * Recently confirmed by the researches of Mr. Burke, in his interesting and remarkable work—“The Royal Families of England, Scotland, and Wales, with their Descendants,” &c., Vol. I. Ped. cxxx.; in which the present inheritor is shown to stand the eighteenth in direct descent from King Edward III.'^Transition. ♦ i. Mariana, Still thy face I see Through the vistas of long years, Through the rainbow of dried tears : Thou art bright as when in light Thine eyes shed their life on me; When in the idolatry Of my orient youth and love, As to a sphered star above, I bowed to thee. ii. Mariana, I see thee treading On the emerald green : The wood’s skirt its shadow sheddin On thy face: a star is seenTRANSITION. 139 Through cloud flakes its pathway threading : Blending its faint sheen With the light of those wild eyes: Twilight throws its mellowing streak From behind the crisped edge Of the trees, and fading, dies, On thy cheek ; Leaving thee before mine eye, Standing clear against the sky, Like a thing of spirit-birth, Floating on our surface-earth ! hi. Mariana, Time and scene are changed : To the earth thou hast descended, Eden’s garden thou hast ranged : Through its alleys thou hast wended, Now in light and now in shade, By the spirit’s sunshine made, That from thee did emanate ; All its happiness create From another who is gone: The gate is closed, the light has shone: Passion was fate.140 TRANSITION. IV. Mariana, I see thee on the sandy shore, I hear the gray waves at thy feet Wildly, murmuringly heat; The Sun throws its red light o’er Thy low drooping head. Light of hope is banished From those eyes no tears that shed: There the credulous smile is fled, And care’s shadow reigns instead : Thine ear opens to the Sea: Its wild, drear monotony Toned and echoed back by thee. Moaning winds, unheeded, lift Thy locks heavy with foam-drift: Thy deep eyes are turned on me, Sorrowfully, steadfastly: In their azure orbs I see The past—and futurity. v. Mariana, Misty changes float around me ; I see thee on the hill, Peace with halo-rays hath crowned thee : «TRANSITION. 141 Lonely thou, thy loneliness Doth the eternal truth confess :— Passion’s fate, abandonment Of the Idol, where faith knelt To the shrine on which it dwelt, Cloud that on the basis leant Impotent, of human will ! Life’s waste wilderness is trod : All is calm, as day newborn, When thou in thy orient morn, Look’dst, as stain of earthly sod Could not touch : nor cloud oppress Thy bosom in its loveliness. Thunder-storms have passed away, And the fiery heats of day, Fall’n, and struck the levin-ray : All was proved, the calm, the chill: All the heart may feel till ill Leaves its pulse insensible. Shades of evening round thee close, Yet thou sittest in repose, Like the Star, that o’er thee glows, Watchful—but still !^rometjcus 23ountr. 'Eaopus ijl 5os eicSiica irdcrx00* / Thou seest what wrongs I suffer. •ZEschvlus. I. I had a Vision of reality : Such as doth grow upon the eyes of Mind Intently fixed upon the past—the past, The prophet of the future : shadowing From deeds and thoughts of those who suffered here, Lessons, and prescience of things to come. * A waste, and icy plain stretched limitless, Lost in infinity of distance, where The arched Sky made a cloudless boundary. That waste was levelled, Ocean-like, rough, broken, Fissured with black ravines, down whose steep sides Laid the striped snows between earth’s bared ribs open To skiey change : on—measurelessly on, To where a heaving wilderness of hillsPROMETHEUS BOUND. 143 Reared their peaks, wave-like, breaking at the base Of everlasting Clouds there steadfast fixed : Mountains voluminous on mountains piled, Earth’s visible Titans, watching from their thrones Great Day and Night reposing at their feet ! ii. The beautiful and familiar face of Earth, Her eyes that are the streams, her azure veins The founts, her rich hair leaves and pendent woods, Her voice, the winds, and waves, and thunders there Were not, extinct as thev had never been. All was a lifeless, soundless wilderness ; Where Air seemed breathless, frozen as the ground. There Echo died, elastic spirit! haunting Else desolate solitudes. On that dead waste Nought welcomed her, responding she was heard: No fowl of air, nor creeping thing that lives, And dies in darkness—it was nature’s grave. Silence reigned there presiding deity : The unreality became a Form Whose sway was felt, imparting mystery, And awe and fear—a presence in the heart. in. One solitary ridge of crag shot up From that illimitable plain, nor lone144 PROMETHEUS BOUND. In its sky-cleaving altitude. It held Communion with the risen and setting Sun : With tempests rushing round it, answering, While welcoming their fury: with the fine And subtle motions of the summer air, The lumineferous ether ! with the Clouds; With touches of ethereal moonlight, coming And vanishing like spirits: with the Stars, Those everlasting Watchers of the heavens, Looking down from their brightness on that rock Of durability that mocked their own. IV. One human being lived and suffered there. To suffer is to live : upon himself He took the burthens of humanity : To prove to Man his self-created mind, His powers of self-resistance and fixed will; All he can think, hope, feel, believe, endure ; All that he can aspire to, or dream, The waking aspiration baffled still : All that he doth exult in and lament; All he can prove of active agony : The sublimating hope that makes despair Ground-base for its Antoean spring ! the pangs Prostrating life, or maddening, were bornePROMETHEUS BOUND. 145 Concentrated within that lonely breast. Upon that open plain, the arena spread Between him and attesting Heaven, his spirit, From effort of self-disciplined will, watched there Sufferings it felt no more: the ordeal was proved, Endurance had become familiar : A sense subdued, even as despair or hope, Subjected to the mind’s supremacy. y. Midway that solitary form was bound : A human form, Man, as he walked on earth In his first growth developed, when the tree Of life shot up and flourished : ere disease Had sapped, time seared, or passion paralysed Magnificent dimension : his arms bound, Arched o’er his head, showed sanguine hands enchained; His feet no footstool had, nailed to the cliff. All the beatitude of blessed sleep Renewing life’s exhausted springs, unfolding Gates of the shadowy world to escape the real, Steeping o’erwearied sense like drooping flowers Dew-hung, in darkness and forgetfulness, To him was unknown, the undying mind In him was sleepless. Wherefore ?—to assert, And prove its faculty : to become the type,146 PROMETHEUS BOUND. The symbol of enduring Man, such as, Wakeful, he should be, and is not: opposing To Elements warring on him still, repulse; To Tyranny of power, or grosser sense, Resistance, which is liberty; evoking, From infinite energy folded in him, hope : No want from impotence create or fed, But prophecy of the all chainless Mind, Of life as deathless : calling on the will, To subject earthlier passions to its rule : Anger, disdain, and hatred, and despair. VI. Lo, there, ambition’s human recompense, Erring, yet god-like ! that could not descend Into the pale of our humanities, To own the weakness which is ignorance: To bow to shadows of our dreaming life, Knowing them shadows: feeling they entailed Agonies, closed but in a waking death. What his reward for all he taught and suffered P The worn out hope, the fear, the doubt, despair Returning still, hurled, wave-like, from the rock Of that impenetrable Spirit. These The harvests whose vain sweat were drops of blood This the bare height attained to open onPROMETHEUS BOUND. 147 Waste desolation: the Tantalean thirst Unslaked, that lives beyond the grave !—these are Unfabled vultures that do prey upon Engenderings of the heart which they have baffled ! VII. The Elements whose life is change, wrought none On him ; whether the rising Sun shone o’er, Or bade him on that icy waste farewell; Whether the fine airs of the summer slept Around him in the shadows of the rock, Or wreaked their eyeless wrath on his bared head, His eyes were sleepless !—his concentered Mind Was working out its destiny. The Lightnings Swallowing the darkness, gleamed upon his brow Frowning its mute defiance : on his lips Compressed with his deep thoughts’ intensity: And showed the Will stamped on that marble face, Stern, rigid, motionless, immutable !National Defence. Degenerate Men of England ! are ye bound To sloth ?—can wisdom’s prescient voice, nor fear Of honour lost, nor what ve are and were, Wake ye to look on dangers lowering round P Listen amidst your din of traffic life ! Athwart the narrow waters ye may hear The clang of arms, the sounds of coming strife : The shouts of myriads confident in arms, Even as one man by one soul animate ; Quenchless revenge, immitigable hate, O’ervvearied slaughter could not satiate. Boast ye of Blenheim and of Waterloo, Until an unsubstantial shadow warms ? Lo, where they live the combat to renew: To cast a desperate stake at war’s wild game On your own shores, and death or victory claim. And yet ye sleep on your departed fame !NATIONAL DEFENCE. 149 Wealth round ye lying to o’ergorge the heart Of Avarice, ye grudge to cast a part From your griped hands that yet your dross shall save. So olden Rome sunk in her own made grave, Peace-weakened : sentinelling naked walls, While slept behind the million ! Danger calls And must be heard : hive mercenary blood That had boiled in your Fathers’ veins ! Come forth Aristocrats, and prove a nobler worth Than blood from Norman Conquerors, ere they come To essay a second Hastings !—the bridged flood Guards ye no more, a Spartan wall of men Your bulwark: where your serried bands,—do ye Wait, till delay doth forge your destiny ? Till on your sacred soil they land again ? Trust ye undisciplined crowds shall stem the shock Of iron war?—presages do ye mock Of hero-wisdom, till the hostile drum Is heard ?—till roar of battle, shot, and shells, And shrieks from flaming London your fame tells, For ever buried P* From your trance awake, Freemen of England !—trust yourselves, and take Occasion in your hands. While arming be Peace-guardians : if your marshalled chivalry Withhold not, let the foemen land and feel The deeds undreamed of ye shall do, the steel150 NATIONAL DEFENCE. In disciplined bands : when on your Father-land Ye fight for all most holy !—when the brand And bayonet flash for more than fame :—your wives, Children, and country, freedom, and your lives. This Poem appeared in the Morning Post, 1848, during a season of much national excitement on the subject. * “ I am especially sensible of the certainty of failure if we do not, at an early moment, attend to the measures necessary to be taken for our defence; and to the disgrace—the indelible disgrace—of such a failure.”—“I should infinitely prefer an army of regular troops. But I know that I shall not have these. I may have the others.” The Duke of Wellington.A.D. 1848. States shaken, monarchies o’erthrown, whose base Rested upon convulsion : elements Demon, in human hearts impregnated, Let loose: hate by diseased remembrance fed, * %/ ' * Fanaticism blind in her intents : Revenge, wild Priest of his red altar-place Drinking the blood he sheds ! Kings wandering Throneless, in pedlar beggary, sunk beneath The heels that scorned to crush. Ancestral race Vanished; fame chivalrous, and minstrel-wreath, Become a dream and an imagining : Statesmen whose art made tyrants to them bow; Prescience that schemed the future in the now, Mockeries indignant Time doth disavow. On rolls the mighty drama to its close, • Fate’s hand upon the curtain still unraised ! M152 a.d. 1848. Before the coming of a mighty Thing Sits panting Expectation ! her strained eye Baffled in its o’erwrought expectancy; Nought shall come forth whereon she hath not gazed Men, varying, change not from their human mould : The Past still shapes the Future; things untold Reflections are but of departed shows. Men-children, ruled by many or the one, Roused by oppression felt, or dreamed, or won By love of innovation purposeless, Or lightning-impulse moved, beyond the guess Of fantasy—or lie, or art, resume Animal fury buried in the tomb Of their wild bosoms inextinct: forth burst Passions that now must have volcanic vent In desolation !—even in deeds accursed Doth Nature own her sons of yesterday. Of such her eldest born, ruled by her sway To old Obedience; in their un-rest, rest Still seeking; till the fever-fit allayed, Blind fury spent, and blinder strength essayed, Shame-stricken Man doth own the parent-breast: The old Cain-stamp on his red brow impressed; Humanity resumes her natural bent, Seeking re-moulded props whereon she leant.ITaticinatton. A.D. 200— {)ttp=S>Iate,# In the Autumn of 1847. I. I knelt down as I poured my spirit forth by that gray gate, In the fulness of my gratitude because I was create ; Alone on that wild heath I stood, and offered up, apart, The human frankincense that, fount-like, gushed from my full heart. ii. I felt I stood on sacred ground—sacred it was to me ; To Boyhood’s far years faded on the verge of memory : Sacred to me, the gray-haired man, who drank God’s blessed air, Though thirty years had rolled away since last I entered there ! * Near Shepton Mallet: Somersetshire.LINES ON DOULTING SHEEP-SLATE. 159 hi. The oak drooped o’er that gate, a withered thing in dead repose : Gray Doulting’s spire o’er the far waste a sheeted spectre rose: And Mendips’ bleak and barren heights again around me frowned; Like faces of forgotten friends met on forgotten ground ! IV. But heath and landscape, boundless once, were shrunken, all was changed : I felt I stood a stranger, the old place and me estranged : Each step was thought, each look, a strange but welcome joy, each sense Was gratitude’s fine ecstasy, calm, voiceless, but intense, v. All active impulses of life were settled by the scene : By staid reflection looking in the glass of what had been ; For not a mound I trod on unfamiliar was, nor tree In the far distance seen, whose image had not entered me;— VI. Then when material Nature, mother-like, embraced her child !160 LINES ON DOULTING SHEEP-SLATE. Then, when each impulse was like hers, unfettered, pure, and wild; I came the Man : the breeze that freshly o’er my forehead blew Was welcomed like a blessing which that wild boy never knew ! VII. But where the strength, the nerved health, the Boy’s elastic tread ? The bird’s nest won, the cricket spun, the leap exulting sped, The conquest-wreath sought ardently by hearts aspiring then, As in the strife of after life among contending men P VIII. The lark sprang from the turf again, and cleaved the air along, Intoxicate with joy she poured forth madly in her song : The Clouds on the blue sky reposed, and silently revealed The waiting aspect, and the calm, on each vast forehead sealed ! IX. The thistle’s beard flew past me, but, as once, I chased it not:LINES ON DOULTING SHEEP-SLATE. 161 I stood where games were played, whose very names I had forgot: I saw the faces I had raised, I met each answering eye: I heard their voices fill the silent halls of Memory ! x. Why sunk the sounds within me an oppression chill and drear, A pain in my deep heart, and in mine eyes the gushing tear ? I seemed on the bleak shoal of time left desolate and lone : I asked of startled Consciousness where buried youth was flown ? XI. I called upon the firmament of memory, the sun, Creator of the past, its hues and glory from it won : I saw fond eyes shed in me the affections life they drew: I felt my human happiness most fixed—even while it flew ! XII. I closed my eyes to watch the living Visions I had raised :— Faces that shone familiar lights again upon me gazed; I heard their words, dream-music by wind wakened, when it flings Its spirit-thrilling touches on the harp’s electric strings !162 LINES ON DOULTING SHEEP-SLATE. XIII. The thistle waved by me, it broke the dream of shadows : I Alone stood on the heath before the wind and open sky, The past receded from me like the clouds o’er the far scene : I stood within the present—yearning back to w'hat had been. XIV. Where are thev now those forms and faces, shadows still endeared ? Those ardent hearts that swelled round me, that hated, hoped, and feared ? Or dead, or living, scattered o’er the earth : so changed, they Are creatures of another world whose mould hath passed away! xv. Not so art thou—I thank thee, God ! I refuge found at last, From passion’s fiery impulses that scathed me as they passed ; The dried up eye, the feverish pulse is stilled ; and, left behind, The resignation, and the hope, the calm and equal mind !LINES ON DOULTING SHEEP-SLATE. 163 XVI. But from thy shrine I turned not, mighty Nature ! thou hadst given The freshness of the heart to me, a coronal of heaven : Simplicity, and child-like hope, and faith thou didst instil, And love of freedom, among crowds forgot—but cherished still. XVII. n l For there, I felt the sickness and the weariness of heart Of him who feels the hollow shows in which he bore no part: The heaviness and languor of the hope that all hath tried; Convention’s lie, hate’s jaundiced eye, hypocrisy, and pride. XVIII. Almighty Nature ! take again thy child unto thy breast: Let me repose again on thee, by weight of life oppressed, Before thy awful countenance forget diseased thought, False friends, false loves, and hope, and fame, and man, alike forgot: XIX. 0 holy Pilgrim ! thou dost stand before a sacred shrine : Thy altar-place of opening life, and grave: and is it thine164 LINES ON DOULTING SHEEP-SLATE. This altered form, this blanched hair and cheek, and can it be This gray-haired pensive man is all that now remains of thee ? xx. A changed form, more changed within, the stamp of youth effaced : Who walks with thoughtful steps along the melancholy waste, Standing on Life’s strand lonely, like the exiled ghost of yore,* Sighing in vain his soul toward lost youth’s delicious shore! XXI. Yet what art thou but still the child of thy departed youth P Now, knowing good and evil, plucked the knowledge- fruit of truth; Then, as the animal vvert thou, material; now sublime, Thou stand’st, and, god-like, look’st beyond the bounds of space and time ! XXII. Thou wert the sapling of this trunk that must in age decay: Seed shed in blossom, morning’s hue subdued to twilight gray; * Stabant orantes prirai transmittere cur sum, Tendebantque manus ripac ulterioris amore ! ^Eneid. vi. 312.LINES ON DOULTING SHEEP-SLATE. 165 The infant to the giant grown : the laurel-leaf wert thou He moulded to a wreath to twine unfading on his brow. XXIII. Even now I rise and pace the desert heath with firmer tread; I cast depression to the winds, I raise to heaven my head: I feel the mission is fulfilled my soul was set to do : To read the truth, to look the heart of man and nature through. XXIY. A calmer feeling follows and repose: a grateful love To the Wisdom moving in me, and around me, and above: That fills my veins with gladness, with the silent joy I see In bearded faces of the Clouds, in leaf, and flower, and tree; XXV. That tells me I am one with the divinity revealed, The visible thought of God on Nature’s awful forehead sealed! The veneration, and the faith, the gushing love in me, The triad-elements that, ray-like, flow from central Thee!166 LINES ON DOULTING SHEEP-SLATE. XXVI. Gray Earth shall pass, tongues be forgot, fame’s records sink in dust, And in oblivion’s scrolls be lost the good, the brave, the just: But the mind, raised by Thee above its dust, earth-bonds shall sever, Yea, dwell a consciousness apart, for ever and for ever.jpmal iLtnes on Moulting S>&eep=§blatt. Oct31, 1847. i —♦— Farewell—farewell thou holy Altar place Of sacred thought! I never more shall pace The grave of boyhood that hath left no trace. The Sun is setting o’er bleak Mendip’s height: A solemn, red, and melancholy light, Expression coloured by my mental sight. His glorious visage saddened, rests on me: Wild elf-lock clouds his brow veil mournfully, As if into my spirit he could see : As if he shared the passion that I felt; As if my sadness in great nature dwelt, Blessing this holy ground where I have knelt. N168 FINAL LINES ON DOULTING. Happy that I have seen it!—happier That I to Nature bound idolater In youth, in evening life returned to her. I never more shall see thee, heath !—thou part Of my own being, parent Earth, that art Material pulse of God’s eternal heart! I pass from thee as I had never been : A wind that sighed itself o’er thee unseen : A human thing that could not from thee wean Affections human which thou gav’st!—that told Its grief and joy : that dared to thee unfold Passion that else had stifled in its hold. It was I felt thee as a Mother !—knew The original tie; on wings of memory flew Back to the life I from thy bosom drew. I left thee : with the million proved the force Of human passion ; love, faith, hate, remorse, All this worn heart have wasted in their course. And yet I live; a monument in whom They buried lie: my bosom is their tomb Where Memory sheds a sanctifying gloom.FINAL LINES ON DOULTING. Nor there repentance watcheth, nor regret: I nought would change; all I avoided, met, Meshes of one inextricable net. I felt the chains I struggled with and failed : Evil that fell upon me was entailed By fate or nature, conquered when assailed. I might have lived unknown in solitude : A passionless animal, a savage; rude As the brutes round me knowing ill nor good ; And, swine-like, thus have perished in my den. No !—rather action’s stormiest life again, Feeling my heart-pulse throbbing among men !- Foiled, baffled, overthrown ; yet, though in vain Contesting : spurning sloth’s inglorious chain, For virtue’s strife, self-dignifying pain ! The storm hath passed away : the human tree Shaken, but fixed, again looks tranquilly In the unruffled stream of memory : There contemplates all that it was and is : The altered form, the startled consciousness, The quiet of o’ershadowing happiness,170 FINAL LINES ON DOULTING. Imaged in life that doth its reflex show; Another looks upon my placid brow, And shares the silent joy it doth avow. Ineffable, eternal, and unknown Wisdom !—the visible Universe thy throne, Whose mystery most is in our being shown : Hear me !—here kneeling where my boyhood grew; Again in me life’s earliest faiths renew: Child-purity I from thy Spirit drew! Life is oblivion, hope, its sigh suppressed : Let the great mystery in darkness rest, So, child-like, I he gathered to thy breast! Or in Thyself, or in the Universe, Thy visible Thought: and be this lasting verse, Record of him whose spirit Thou didst nurse.^rescfence. i. A Poet by the cliff-side sate That overbrowed the Sea : The cliff with brow as staid and grave As his, did overlook the wave : Drearily at his feet Still did its iron tongue repeat The law of self-impelling fate ; Ruthless, blind, and desolate. He looked behind : pale twilight’s hue Hung o’er a city’s shroud, A mighty City : darker grew Above it smoke and cloud, Lurid from fires beneath that glared On the red canopy they bared. There, through up-reeking mists was heard The throbbings of the giant-heart,172 PRESCIENCE. The mighty Life therein that stirred ; That breathed, and felt, and thought apart: Yet was one heaving Thing, one whole Struggling in the great eye of Heaven ! Bound by one universal Soul; That, self-withheld, or, onward driven, Broke still upon that human shore, Restlessly, and for evermore ! ii. He leaned his head upon his hand And watched, till spake the thought suppressed : “Thou Life of life ! upon thy strand I strove to raise the monument That should not be of sand : A granite mark by storms unrent! I sought within thy mighty breast Enduring memory : to be Portion of thy humanity ; Nurtured as one who could unfold Truths that thy inmost heart doth hold. My latest soul’s idol thou wert, That, in thy mighty bosom holdest All or of lowly or sublime, Earthly or heavenly desert, The human spirit doth assert!PRESCIENCE. 173 Sole Parent! that, at last enfoldest Even as thine own, the earth-disguised, Who at thy temple-gates misprised, Watched : or in graved oblivion thrust, Were raised by Thee, defiled with dust, To conquer time. hi. Here lapsed Youth’s dream : aspiring years Of hope sublime, vague joys, and fears, Fervidly offered to thy shrine, Almighty Nature !—on thy face I gazed, until thou didst erase All thought unworthy of thy dwelling-place. Till impresses of thy Being Thou all-present, and all-seeing, Entering, became as mine : Shadows following me, when rife With hope, and ardent for the strife I entered the arena-life : Steadfastness, shield-like, o’er me thrown, Calmness and strength that were thine own. Shadows they, shade-like, fled before Paths where the fiery passions came ! Creature of blood, with pulse of flame, A thing of nature I became ;174 PRESCIENCE. Joy that shaped heaven, remorse that drew The penal agonies it knew, Were mine; tree, lightning-rent, that left Within its core their traces cleft. Memories of feeling and of thought, Of will, and impulse overwrought, That must be told to Man, ere they Seared on their nameless trunk away.” IV. Droop not, thou ardent Spirit! thou Typest the race thou dost avow : Oh, never yet the Titan stood Who died without a name ; Who in mortality’s unimaged flood Buried his fame! Earth could not hide, nor man, nor heaven, The God-filled and unquenchable Spirit From infinite founts he did inherit! The mighty utterance he hath given Undipped by quaint art’s tortuous phrase; The reinless language passion gives From the Soul that in it lives, Self-burning impresses, are rays That do attest the flame Of the diviner essence he doth claim!PRESCIENCE. 175 The emanations of divinity His sun-like glory swathes. No secondary seat hath he : Spirit that inferior could not be. Whose dwelling is infinity ! His testimonies ever lie Before Thine opened Eye, Sublimest Spirit of Humanity ! Their dwelling-place thy heart: Ever treading human paths He trod, unheeded and apart, To isolation of a life resigned: Ever grasping passion’s key; The Mantle, dropped, of prophecy, By suffering glorified, he left behind. NOTESNOTES TO REVELATIONS OF LIFE. Page 12—“ Frowned the stern crags of Haytor s granite throne." The two elevations of granite known as Haytor Rocks, which are of a peculiarly bold and massive character, rise to nearly 1600 feet above the level of the sea; their summits affording one of the finest views in our country. The granite of Dartmoor, from Mist-tor to Haytor, possesses a character which belongs to the whole. The district is entirely mountainous; the highest elevations being on the borders, whereon some of the chief attain the height of not less than 2000 feet.—History of Devonshire. “ The summits of the Dartmoor tors,” observes Polwhele, “ are found to be composed, in general, of granite and of dark brown iron- stone, which in some places appears to have been in a state of fusion : Brent-tor, and others on the side of the river, are evidently volcanic. On the eastern pile of Haytor, an imperfect rock basin, of 2 feet 6 inches in diameter, is still discernible. A track-way, leading eastward, terminates at the western pile; while a second, parallel to the last, ends at a small tor, westward of the highest.” Page 42—“ As in a tablet spake his character The portrait of the Fatalist was drawn from life ; or I might have referred to one of the finest pieces of prose painting in our language :180 NOTES. —“ The portraits of some of the remarkable Italians of those times are perfectly in harmony with this description. Ample and majestic fore- heads; brows strong and dark, but not frowning; eyes, of which the calm, full gaze, while it expresses nothing, seems to discern everything; cheeks, pale with thought and sedentary habits; lips, formed with feminine delicacy, but compressed with more than masculine decision; mark out men at once enterprising and timid—men equally skilled in detecting the purposes of others and in concealing their own—men who must have been formidable enemies and unsafe allies; but men, at the same time, whose tempers were mild and equable, and who possessed an amplitude and subtlety of intellect which would have rendered them eminent either in active or in contemplative life, and fitted them either to govern or to instruct mankind.”—Critical and Historical Essays,* vol. i., p. 86. Page 53—“ As Egypt gazed on Isis :” Alluding to the well knowm inscription upon the temple dedicated to Neitha, at Sais, in Lower Egypt:—“ I am whatever is, or has been, or will be ; and no mortal has drawn aside my veil.” Page 54—“ The flower-wreathed skull Placed, according to Herodotus, at the tables of the Egyptians’ feasts, with the stern moral warning—“ While looking on me, drink and eat; for thus shalt thou be when dead.”—Herod. ii., 78. Page 56.—Plotinus, in his last moments, replied to his consoling friends—“ I am striving to liberate the divinity that is in me.” Page 60—“ The bearded Druid raised his arm." Pliny alludes to the learning of the Druid Priesthood, comparing them to the Persian Magi, the physicians, as w’ell as the poets of their country. He instances that they recognized a Supreme God, that they also rendered religious worship to secondary deities, who united themselves to different parts of nature, making them divine by their incorporation. Among these, w^ere the sea, and rivers, lakes, and fountains. Strabo, also, reports their opinions on the Universe : Ceesar and Diodorus allude to their groves and rites, and the profounder Tacitus thus records of them : —“ Their deities are not immured in temples, nor represented in * Thomas Babington Macaulay.NOTES. 181 human forms. To do either, were, in their opinions, to derogate from Supreme Majesty. Woods and groves they consecrated to Him: and they gave to their sacredness the name of the divinity that tilled the place.” Putor, near Sampford Spiney, was the Druidical Court of Judicature. The granite masses are raised in two divisions: that on the east consists of four piles of granite rocks, standing at the four cardinal points ; on the north-west pile is found a series of rock basins irregularly disposed over the surface of the granite mass. Page 60—“ Gray Whistmann$ Wood, dwarf forest." Whistmann’s Wood, or the Wise-Men’s Wood is unquestionably the last remaining relique of the Druid Woods on Dartmoor. Antiquaries consider it to be in the same state as at the time of the Norman Con- quest. This singularly wild and impressive scene lies along the slope of a steep hill opposite Bair-down, or the Hill of Bards. By account taken of the Dartmoor issues in the 25th of Edward I., Ralph de Comber was fined 12d. for a dog taken in the forest: and Joel Thyr 65. for a trespass in the wood. On the banks of the West Dart, above Two Bridges, rises this cele- brated Wood: the venerable relique of one of the most ancient forests in the world. The Wood extends along the acclivity, which rises abruptly from the river, nearly half-a-mile in length, and a furlong in breadth. The trees, which are all oaks, present a scene at once strange and extraordinary, from their stunted growth : their gnarled and twisted boughs matted with moss, whortle, and parasitical plants. Although the trees in their highest elevation never exceed twelve feet, most of them are not less than ten feet in girth : their foliage, wherever it appears, thick and flourishing. Huge fragments of granite are scattered among them, half-buried in mosses; adding to the scene, a wild and weird effect, heightened by the appearance of the topmost branches of this dwarf forest, shorn off to one level as if by the scythe of the east wind. Their trunks and branches are less clothed, than buried in mosses to the thickness of a thickest muff, to the effect, that the size of branch and trunk are often the same. The imagination, set at work to find analogies for them, is haunted by vague suggestions, as when listening to one of Beethoven’s inextricable melodies.182 NOTES. Page 71—“In Maen-y-dun we paused." In a small glen, near Manaton, is an enclosure of an elliptical form : the stones are pointed, and from six feet in height, rising in a double row, closely wedged together, their diameter being 128 feet. Maen-y- dun signifying—the enclosure of erect stones. Page 83—“ A Jesus Crucified" This passage was written before Guido’s Crucifixion and master- piece, in the Bolognese Gallery. Page 91—“ Bel-ior alone, sublimest spirit !" Grand in their isolation and attitude, the hills and Tors of Dartmoor acquire additional interest, as being the guardians and preservers of relics, wdiich, in more accessible spots, would have disappeared under the tools of the workman. The Avenues, the Kist-vaen, or Cairn, the rock-idol, and basin, the ancient huts, track-lines, and ways,—all are there to be found. Ancient British huts are to be found also in various parts of Dartmoor: the foundation-stones and door-jambs remaining still. They still illustrate Strabo’s description—“ wooden houses circular in form, with lofty conical roofs.” Near Little-ford tor, is a group of sixty-seven hut circles; at Tor-hill, near the Rippon tor, track lines intersect each other at right angles, in such numbers, that nearly the whole of the eastern slope is portioned out in squares, confirming the site of an ancient settlement. If the question be asked, why has not Dartmoor monuments of equal vastness with those of Stonehenge? the reply is obvious: on the level wastes of Sarum, Nature had effected nothing for Druidism—on Dartmoor, all. The Tors were Altar-places reared by her hands; in comparison to which the masses of stone, piled on Salisbury plain, sink into insignificance. Each Tor on Dartmoor is invested with its peculiar stamp of character. The gray Cromlech, or menhir,* gleams out on the moor: record of * Homer exactly describes a menhir, a long stone; mcen, a stone, and hirr, long, in his sepulchral trophy. Also Virgil—JEneid vi. At pius iEneas ingenti mole sepulchrum Imponit: Barrows, or low tumuli, are called also combes.—Make's Hist, of Brittany.NOTES. 183 some nameless hero who only wanted a Homer, to tell how and when he fell; as brave perhaps, but less sanguinary. Among the wilder glens rises the ponderous Logan stone, vibrating to each touch of the hand. The open circle of stones shews where their chiefs and priests met, to act or record what is now folded up in conjecture. Lessons of valour and virtue they must have instilled : for it was the Druid Priests who taught their countrymen to oppose, almost to overthrowing, the invincible Csesar. Ancient as are these vestiges, profoundly interesting as they must ever be, they become as modern instances, when we look up to their earthquake-splitten tors, each re- taining the relique of a name which carries the imagination into the night of time. In Hessary-tor, we recognize the altar where the British warrior knelt to his war-god, Hesus : the close affinity of name confirming the assumption. Great Mist-tor, or Mithras-tor, retains, with Bel-tor, its Phoenician name. Lucian informs us that the gods to whom were offered human sacrifices, were the Teutates, Hesus, and Taranis : Et quibus immitis placatur sanguine diro Teutates, horrensque feris altaribus Hesus, Et Taianis Scythicse non mitior ara Diance. Lib. i., v. 444. Associations national as these, should make Dartmoor a primal object of interest to every reflective and imaginative mind. Divesting it from associations of a recondite antiquity, Dartmoor reposes on its own grandeur and desolate sublimities. The scenery resembles no other scenery in England. The cold uni- formity of vale, mere, and rock, of the same character, varying only in place, exists not here. The dales, lakes, and rocks of Cumberland, are haunted and hallowed by no traditions : they breathe no remembrances, they inspire no ardours, nor regrets : they wear the ordinary faces of water and rock, suggesting nothing beyond materialism. The face of Nature among the Westmoreland dales, is seamed and tattoed in the usual fantastic divisions of dyke, wall, and hedge, to which the eye from earliest association becomes reconciled. Dartmoor opens the exact reverse. Here, leaving fertile uniformity behind us, we enter abruptly into uninclosed wastes, into an ocean of glens—they resemble nothing else—but an ocean entempested, heaving into mountainous fluctuations : each hollow is haunted with the ghosts O184 NOTES. of old tradition : while, on each loftiest top, whiten those granite altar- places, wdiich from their altitudes alone, divested of traditions that Time has rendered holy, assume from their desolation and loneli- ness a pronounced sublimity. In the centre of this oasis of mountain wastes, reposes, protected and folded as it were in their bosom, the woodland recesses of Holne-Chase : scenery of verdure, of wild and picturesque beauty, of wrhich not only are our more northern wrastes utterly destitute, but whose like may scarcely be approximated among the richest fertilities of England. The time must be approaching when the wTild glens and Tors of Dartmoor, comparatively so little known, shall become familiar as household words. It must, however, be conceded, that Nature, here, demands the whole man: one to whom her russet weeds and holiday garb are alike welcome ; to wThom her frowns and smiles have an ex- pression, alike understood ; for here the beautiful unfolds itself, occa- sionally, in veins of the richest and brightest gold, buried, rather than hidden, among the sternest forms of a repelling sublimity and desolation. The sun was setting when we reached the heights of Bel-tor, the loftiest of the Dartmoor range. We first approached a lesser tor, a gigantic stepping-stone below it, consisting of three huge masses of granite, detached, the rays of the setting sun steeping them in beauty, wrhile falling on the richest swrard living round their base. Behind them rose the shivered crests of Bel-tor, formed of two separated columns, or stupendous masses of granite, fragments hurled from them lying along the steep in every wildest form. Climbing to the loftiest of these grand altar-places, the rock-scooped basin of the priest was as discernible thereon, as if he had left it yesterday. “ They gave to the sun,” says Herodian, “ the name of Belin, by which they understood Apollo:”—“Belin vocunt ilium, Apollinem, interpretantes.” The pros- pect from hence might be termed limitless: Mil-tor and Yes-tor rose immediately opposite ; while Brent-tor, Vissery, Slaperton, and Hessary tors, swelled upward from the lesser hills beneath them.ZvO OToriks bp tbe same ^utjor. CATILINE : an Historical Tragedy, in Five Acts. THE DRAMA OF A LIFE. A RECORD OF THE PYRAMIDS. THE DELUGE : a Dramatic Poem. ITALY: in Four Cantos. Second and Revised Edition. CONTINENTAL IMPRESSIONS: or Prose from tlie South. Second Edi- tion, in 2 Yols. Charles Ollier, 19, Southampton Street, Strand. PRINTED BV WOOD BROTHERS, PARSONAOE LANE, BATH.