SONNET LV.

Written after seeing Rydal Lake.

8th Oct. 1807.

WILD is the lake, dark in autumnal gloom!
And white its surf rolls in the silvery gleam;
Swift lights that flit like phantoms in a dream,
Or white robed spirits hovering o'er a tomb
The shades of autumn fitfully illume.

The plaintive winds now swelling in a stream
Of deep-toned music, now subsiding, seem
To frame a dirge for Nature's faded bloom.
The yellow leaf whirls frequent in the air;
From the full floating clouds propitious showers,
As with an infant's playfulness repair

To variegate the visionary hours:

The elements at work exhaust their powers,

From the bard's heart, to dissipate all care.

SONNET LVI.

8th Oct. 1807.

WHENCE dost thou spring, thou visionary sound, Heard by my hearth, what time the curtain hides

The external world, where sable night abides? Thy source unseen, though Fancy in her round, Scorning the illumin'd parlour's scanty bound

Springs to the waste o'er which thy murmur glides,

Pictures the mountain, or the roaring tides Whose haunts thou visitest with voice profound. Cease not thy music, when, at hour of sleep, The forms of day no longer cheat my woes; When slumber's stealing powers mine eye-lids close,

Still let thy melodies, so soft and deep,

A soothing presage bring, that peace shall keep My bosom, rocked by Nature to repose.

SONNET LVII.

Inserted in a Novel, written by the Author, called "Isabel,"

14th Oct. 1807.

My God! I lift my sorrowing voice to thee!
I ask not health, prosperity, or fame,

Joy, life, whate'er of good the thought can

frame:

I ask the gift of faith, when misery

Must be my lot, that I may bend the knee,

And feel, great God, that whence my misery

came,

From the same source alone my heart can

claim

That which from mental pangs can set me free!

Yes, Father! let me see thy hand in grief, And grief to me shall be as comfort dear! But if, in wisdom, thou refuse to hear,

If of my trials darkened faith be chief, Let resignation, with a holy fear,

Refuse presumptuous, premature relief.

SONNET LVIII.

Descriptive as well as commemorative of a place belonging to the eldest Brother of the Author's Father; a place in which were spent many of the happiest Hours of his Youth.

19th Oct. 1807.

BELOVED spot, ere sleep mine eyes did close On last night's pillow, thy remembered scene, Thy shrubbery, avenue, and daisied green, Thy teeming garden, farm, and orchard rose

With many a thought of what I once had been! What beauty, and what joy didst thou disclose! What hopes, what loves, what friendships, and what woes!

What tide of life thy busy range has seen! Now silent all, deserted! Memory's thought Can never from that moment* be estrang'd, When the lov'd progeny, in order rang'd,

*The Uncle and Aunt of the Author had sixteen chil dren, seven sons and nine daughters, and most of them so far remarkable for beauty of person, that, when collected together, the family groupe probably could scarce

The parent's glance of heartfelt triumph caught! Six graceful forms the hand of death hath

chang'd,

And to thy once gay bowers are fear and sorrow brought.

ly be rivalled in that respect. The Author once in his life saw each individual of them marshalled according to their age: e-it is to this circumstance, and to the subsequent death of six of the family, all unexpectedly, and in quick succession one after the other, carried off in the bloom of life, that the latter part of the Sonnet alludes.