Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast-
Thou too again, stupendous mountain! thou
That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low
In adoration, upward from thy base
Slow-travelling, with dim eyes suffused with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud,
To rise before me-rise, O ever rise,
Rise, like a cloud of incense, from the earth!
Thou kingly spirit, throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven,
Great hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God!
OH! it is pleasant with a heart at ease,
Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies,
To make the shifting clouds be what you please,
Or let the easily persuaded eyes
Own each quaint likeness, issuing from the mould
Of a friend's fancy; or with head bent low,
And cheek aslant, see rivers flow of gold
'Twixt crimson banks; and then, a traveller, go From mount to mount through Cloudland, gorgeous land!
Or listening to the tide, with closed sight, Be that blind bard, who, on the Chan strand, By those deep sounds possessed with inward light, Beheld the Iliad and Odyssee
Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea.
O NE'ER enchained, nor wholly vile,
O Albion! O my Mother Isle!
Thy valleys, fair as Eden's bowers,
Glitter green with sunny showers!
Thy grassy upland's gentle swells
Echo to the bleat of flocks ;
Those grassy hills, those glittering dells,
Proudly ramparted with rocks:
And OCEAN mid his uproar wild
Speaks safely to his ISLAND-CHILD!
Hence, through many a fearless age,
Has social Freedom loved the Land,
Nor alien Despot's jealous rage,
Or warped thy growth, or stamped the servile brand.
SOUTHEY.-BORN 1774; DIED 1843.
THE HOLLY-TREE.
O READER, hast thou ever stood to see
The holly-tree?
The eye that contemplates it well perceives
Its glossy leaves,
Order'd by an Intelligence so wise,
As might confound the atheist's sophistries.
Below a circling fence its leaves are seen
Wrinkled and keen;
No grazing cattle through their prickly round
Can reach to wound;
But, as they grow where nothing is to fear,
Smooth and unarm'd the pointless leaves appear.
I love to view these things with curious eyes,
And in this wisdom of the holly-tree
Can emblems see,
Wherewith perchance to make a pleasant rhyme, One which may profit in the after time.
Thus, though abroad perchance I might appear
Harsh and austere;
To those who on my leisure would intrude,
Reserved and rude ;-
Gentle at home amid my friends I'd be
Like the high leaves upon the holly-tree.
And should my youth, as youth is apt, I know,
Some harshness show,
All vain asperities I day by day
Would wear away,
Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the holly-tree.
And as when all the summer trees are seen
So bright and green,
The holly-leaves a sober hue display
Less bright than they;
But when the bare and wint'ry woods we see,
What then so cheerful as the holly-tree?
So serious should my youth appear among
The thoughtless throng;
So would I seem amid the young and gay
More grave than they;
That in my age as cheerful I might be
As the green winter of the holly-tree.
How calmly, gliding through the dark-blue sky,
The midnight moon ascends! Her placid beams,
Through thinly scattered leaves, and boughs
grotesque,
Mottle with mazy shades the orchard-slope:
Here o'er the chesnut's fretted foliage, gray
And massy, motionless they spread; here shine
Upon their crags, deepening with blacker night
Their chasms; and there the glittering argentry
Ripples and glances on the confluent streams.
A lovelier, purer light than that of day
Rests on the hills; and O, how awfully
Into that deep and tranquil firmament
The summits of Anseva rise serene!
The watchman on the battlement partakes
The stillness of the solemn hour; he feels
The silence of the earth; the endless sound
Of flowing water soothes him; and the stars,
Which in that brightest moonlight well-nigh
quenched,
Scarce visible, as in the utmost depth
Of yonder sapphire infinite, are seen,
Draw on with elevating influence
Towards eternity the attempered mind.
Musing on worlds beyond the grave he stands, And to the Virgin Mother silently
Breathes forth her hymn of praise.
How does the water come down at Lodore?
Here it comes sparkling,
And there it lies darkling;
Here smoking and frothing,
Its tumult and wrath in,
It hastens along, conflicting, strong,
Now striking and raging,
As if a war waging,
Its caverns and rocks among.
Rising and leaping,
Sinking and creeping,
Swelling and flinging,
Showering and springing,
Eddying and whisking,
Spouting and frisking,
Turning and twisting,
Around and around,
Collecting, disjecting,
With endless rebound;
Smiting and fighting,
A sight to delight in ;
Confounding, astounding,
Dizzying and deafening the ear with its sound.
Receding and speeding,
And shocking and rocking,
And darting and parting,
And threading and spreading,
And whizzing and hissing,
And dripping and skipping,
And brightening and whitening,
And quivering and shivering,
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