XXV
ON REVISITING DUNOLLY CASTLE
(See former series, "Yarrow Revisited," etc., p. 278.)
The captive Bird was gone;—to cliff or moor
Perchance had flown, delivered by the storm;
Or he had pined, and sunk to feed the worm:
Him found we not: but, climbing a tall tower,
There saw, impaved with rude fidelity 5
Of art mosaic, in a roofless floor,[887]
An Eagle with stretched wings, but beamless eye—
An Eagle that could neither wail nor soar.
Effigy[888] of the Vanished[889]—(shall I dare
To call thee so?) or symbol of fierce deeds 10
And of the towering courage which past times
Rejoiced in—take, whate'er thou be, a share,[890]
Not undeserved, of the memorial rhymes
That animate my way where'er it leads!
Lieutenant-Colonel M'Dougal of Dunollie wrote to me
(October 1883) that "the mosaic picture of an eagle—if it may
be called so—still exists, though it is rather a rude work of art.
I believe it was executed by a gardener, who was here about
the time of Wordsworth's visit. It was made of small stones,
and is now a good deal overgrown with weeds, moss, etc., as
the second story of the old ruin is open to the weather. An
eagle was for many years kept in a cage, made against a wall
of the ruin, and this no doubt was the cause of the rude picture
being made."—Ed.
XXVI
THE DUNOLLY EAGLE
Not to the clouds, not to the cliff, he flew;
But when a storm, on sea or mountain bred,
Came and delivered him, alone he sped
Into the castle-dungeon's darkest mew.
Now, near his master's house in open view 5
He dwells, and hears indignant tempests howl,
Kennelled and chained. Ye tame domestic fowl,[891]
Beware of him! Thou, saucy cockatoo,
Look to thy plumage and thy life!—The roe,
Fleet as the west wind, is for him no quarry; 10
Balanced in ether he will never tarry,
Eyeing the sea's blue depths. Poor Bird! even so
Doth man of brother man a creature make
That clings to slavery for its own sad sake.
XXVII
WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF MACPHERSON'S
OSSIAN[892]
Composed 1824.—Published 1827
[The verses,
or strayed
From hope and promise, self-betrayed,
were, I am sorry to say, suggested from apprehensions of the
fate of my friend, H.C.,[893] the subject of the verses addressed
to H.C. when six years old. The piece to "Memory" arose
out of similar feelings.[894]—I. F.]
Oft have I caught, upon a fitful breeze,[895]
Fragments of far-off melodies,
With ear not coveting the whole,
A part so charmed the pensive soul:
While a dark storm before my sight 5
Was yielding, on a mountain height
Loose vapours have I watched, that won
Prismatic colours from the sun;
Nor felt a wish that heaven would show
The image of its perfect bow. 10
What need, then, of these finished Strains?
Away with counterfeit Remains!
An abbey in its lone recess,
A temple of the wilderness,
Wrecks though they be, announce with feeling 15
The majesty of honest dealing.
Spirit of Ossian! if imbound
In language thou may'st yet be found,
If aught (intrusted to the pen
Or floating on the tongues of men, 20
Albeit shattered and impaired)
Subsist thy dignity to guard,
In concert with memorial claim
Of old grey stone, and high-born name
That cleaves to rock or pillared cave 25
Where moans the blast, or beats the wave,
Let Truth, stern arbitress of all,
Interpret that Original,
And for presumptuous wrongs atone;—
Authentic words be given, or none! 30
Time is not blind;—yet He, who spares
Pyramid pointing to the stars,
Hath preyed with ruthless appetite
On all that marked the primal flight
Of the poetic ecstasy 35
Into the land of mystery.
No tongue is able to rehearse
One measure, Orpheus! of thy verse;[896]
Musæus, stationed with his lyre
Supreme among the Elysian quire, 40
Is, for the dwellers upon earth
Mute as a lark ere morning's birth,[897]
Why grieve for these, though past away
The music, and extinct the lay?
When thousands, by severer doom, 45
Full early to the silent tomb
Have sunk, at Nature's call; or strayed
From hope and promise, self-betrayed;
The garland withering on their brows;
Stung with remorse for broken vows; 50
Frantic—else how might they rejoice?
And friendless, by their own sad choice!
Hail, Bards of mightier grasp! on you
I chiefly call, the chosen Few,
Who cast-not off the acknowledged guide, 55
Who faltered not, nor turned aside;
Whose lofty genius could survive
Privation, under sorrow thrive;
In whom the fiery Muse revered
The symbol of a snow-white beard, 60
Bedewed with meditative tears
Dropped from the lenient cloud of years.
Brothers in soul! though distant times
Produced you nursed in various climes,
Ye, when the orb of life had waned, 65
A plenitude of love retained:
Hence, while in you each sad regret
By corresponding hope was met,
Ye lingered among human kind,
Sweet voices for the passing wind; 70
Departing sunbeams, loth to stop,
Though smiling on the last hill top![898]
Such to the tender-hearted maid
Even ere her joys begin to fade;
Such, haply, to the rugged chief 75
By fortune crushed, or tamed by grief;
Appears, on Morven's lonely shore,
Dim-gleaming through imperfect lore,
The Son of Fingal; such was blind
Mæonides of ampler mind;[899] 80
Such Milton, to the fountain head
Of glory by Urania led!
XXVIII
CAVE OF STAFFA[900]
We saw, but surely, in the motley crowd,
Not one of us has felt the far-famed sight;
How could we feel it? each the other's blight,
Hurried and hurrying, volatile and loud.
O for those motions only that invite 5
The Ghost of Fingal to his tuneful Cave
By the breeze entered, and wave after wave
Softly embosoming the timid light!
And by one Votary who at will might stand
Gazing, and take into his mind and heart, 10
With undistracted reverence, the effect
Of those proportions where the almighty hand
That made the worlds, the sovereign Architect,
Has deigned to work as if with human Art![901]
XXIX
CAVE OF STAFFA
(AFTER THE CROWD HAD DEPARTED)[903]
Thanks for the lessons of this Spot—fit school
For the presumptuous thoughts that would assign
Mechanic laws to agency divine;
And, measuring heaven by earth, would overrule
Infinite Power. The pillared vestibule, 5
Expanding yet precise, the roof embowed,[904]
Might seem designed to humble man, when proud
Of his best workmanship by plan and tool.
Down-bearing with his whole Atlantic weight
Of tide and tempest on the Structure's base, 10
And flashing to that Structure's topmost height,[905]
Ocean has proved its strength, and of its grace
In calms is conscious,[906] finding for his freight
Of softest music some responsive place.
XXX
CAVE OF STAFFA
Ye shadowy Beings, that have rights and claims
In every cell of Fingal's mystic Grot,
Where are ye? Driven or venturing to the spot,
Our fathers glimpses caught of your thin Frames,
And, by your mien and bearing, knew your names; 5
And they could hear his ghostly song who trod
Earth, till the flesh lay on him like a load,
While he struck his desolate harp without hopes or aims.
Vanished ye are, but subject to recal;
Why keep we else the instincts whose dread law 10
Ruled here of yore, till what men felt they saw,
Not by black arts but magic natural!
If eyes be still sworn vassals of belief,
Yon light shapes forth a Bard, that shade a Chief.
XXXI
FLOWERS ON THE TOP OF THE PILLARS
AT THE ENTRANCE OF THE CAVE
Hope smiled when your nativity was cast,
Children of Summer![907] Ye fresh Flowers that brave
What Summer here escapes not, the fierce wave,
And whole artillery of the western blast,
Battering the Temple's front, its long-drawn nave 5
Smiting, as if each moment were their last.
But ye, bright Flowers, on frieze and architrave
Survive,[908] and once again the Pile stands fast;
Calm as the Universe, from specular towers
Of heaven contemplated by Spirits pure 10
With mute astonishment, it stands sustained
Through every part in symmetry, to endure,[909]
Unhurt, the assault of Time with all his hours,
As the supreme Artificer ordained.[910]
XXXII
IONA
On to Iona!—What can she afford
To us save matter for a thoughtful sigh,
Heaved over ruin with stability
In urgent contrast? To diffuse the Word
(Thy Paramount, mighty Nature! and Time's Lord)
Her Temples rose,[912] 'mid pagan gloom; but why, 6
Even for a moment, has our verse deplored
Their wrongs, since they fulfilled their destiny?
And when, subjected to a common doom
Of mutability, those far-famed Piles 10
Shall disappear from both the sister Isles,
Iona's Saints, forgetting not past days,
Garlands shall wear of amaranthine bloom,
While heaven's vast sea of voices chants their praise.
XXXIII
IONA
(UPON LANDING)
How sad a welcome! To each voyager[913]
Some ragged child holds up for sale a store[914]
Of wave-worn pebbles, pleading on the shore[915]
Where once came monk and nun with gentle stir,
Blessings to give, news ask, or suit prefer. 5
Yet is[916] yon neat trim church[917] a grateful speck
Of novelty amid the sacred wreck
Strewn far and wide. Think, proud Philosopher![918]
Fallen though she be, this Glory of the west,[919]
Still on her sons, the beams of mercy shine; 10
And "hopes, perhaps more heavenly bright than thine,
A grace by thee unsought and unpossest,
A faith more fixed, a rapture more divine,
Shall gild their passage to eternal rest."[920]
XXXIV
THE BLACK STONES OF IONA
[See Martin's Voyage among the Western Isles.[923]]
Here on their knees men swore; the stones were black,[924]
Black in the people's minds and words,[925] yet they
Were at that time, as now, in colour grey.
But what is colour, if upon the rack
Of conscience souls are placed by deeds that lack 5
Concord with oaths? What differ night and day
Then, when before the Perjured on his way
Hell opens, and the heavens in vengeance crack
Above his head uplifted in vain prayer
To Saint, or Fiend,[926] or to the Godhead whom 10
He had insulted—Peasant, King, or Thane?
Fly where the culprit may, guilt meets a doom;
And, from invisible worlds at need laid bare,
Come links for social order's awful chain.
XXXV
"HOMEWARD WE TURN. ISLE OF
COLUMBA'S CELL"
Homeward we turn. Isle of Columba's Cell,
Where Christian piety's soul-cheering spark
(Kindled from Heaven between the light and dark
Of time) shone like the morning-star, farewell!—
And fare thee well, to Fancy visible, 5
Remote St. Kilda, lone and loved sea-mark[927]
For many a voyage made in her swift bark,[928]
When with more hues than in the rainbow dwell
Thou a mysterious intercourse dost hold,
Extracting from clear skies and air serene, 10
And out of sun-bright waves, a lucid veil,
That thickens, spreads, and, mingling fold with fold,
Makes known, when thou no longer canst be seen,
Thy whereabout, to warn the approaching sail.
XXXVI
GREENOCK
Per me si va nella Città dolente.[929]