| |
| MATLOCK! amid thy hoary-hanging views, | |
| Thy glens that smile sequestered, and thy nooks | |
| Which yon forsaken crag all dark o’erlooks, | |
| Once more I court the long-neglected Muse, | |
| As erst when by the mossy brink and falls | 5 |
| Of solitary Wainsbeck, or the side | |
| Of Clysdale’s cliffs, where first her voice she tried, | |
| I strayed a pensive boy. Since then, the thralls | |
| That wait life’s upland road have chilled her breast, | |
| And much, as much they might, her wing depressed. | 10 |
| Wan Indolence, resigned, her deadening hand | |
| Laid on her heart, and Fancy her cold wand | |
| Dropped at the frown of fortune; yet once more | |
| I call her, and once more her converse sweet, | |
| Mid the still limits of this wild retreat, | 15 |
| I woo;—if yet delightful as of yore | |
| My heart she may revisit, nor deny | |
| The soothing aid of some sweet melody! | |
| I hail the rugged scene that bursts around; | |
| I mark the wreathéd roots, the saplings gray, | 20 |
| That bend o’er the dark Derwent’s wandering way; | |
| I mark its stream with peace-persuading sound | |
| That steals beneath the fading foliage pale, | |
| Or at the foot of frowning crags upreared, | |
| Complains like one forsaken and unheard. | 25 |
| To me, it seems to tell the pensive tale | |
| Of spring-time, and the summer days all flown: | |
| And while sad autumn’s voice even now I hear | |
| Along the umbrage of the high-wood moan, | |
| At intervals, whose shivering leaves fall sere; | 30 |
| Whilst o’er the group of pendant groves I view | |
| The slowly spreading tints of pining hue, | |
| I think of poor humanity’s brief day, | |
| How fast its blossoms fade, its summers speed away! * * * * * | |
| Yet the bleak cliffs that lift their head so high | 35 |
| (Around whose beetling crags with ceaseless coil | |
| And still-returning flight the ravens toil) | |
| Heed not the changeful seasons as they fly, | |
| Nor spring nor autumn; they their hoary brow | |
| Uprear, and ages past, as in this now, | 40 |
| The same deep trenches unsubdued have worn, | |
| The same majestic frown and looks of lofty scorn. | |
| So Fortitude, a mailéd warrior old, | |
| Appears; he lifts his scar-intrenchéd crest; | |
| The tempest gathers round his dauntless breast; | 45 |
| He hears far off the storm of havoc rolled; | |
| The feeble fall around: their sound is past; | |
| Their sun is set, their place no more is known; | |
| Like the wan leaves before the winter’s blast, | |
| They perish;—he unshaken and alone | 50 |
| Remains, his brow a sterner shade assumes | |
| By age ennobled, whilst the hurricane | |
| That raves resistless o’er the ravaged plain | |
| But shakes unfelt his helmet’s quivering plume. | |
| |
