HELVELLYN. ·

BY BARRY CORNWALL.

HELVELLYN! blue Helvellyn! Hill of hills!
Giant amongst the giants! Lift thy head

Broad in the sun-light! no loose vapour dims
Thy barren grandeur; but, with front severe,
Calm, proud, and unabashed, thou look'st upon
The heights around the lake and meadows green,
Whereon the herded cattle, tiny things,
Like flowers upon the sunny landscape lie;
Behind thee cometh quick the evening pale,
Whilst in the west an amphitheatre

Of crags (such as the Deluge might have washed
In vain,) against the golden face of heaven
Turns its dark shoulder, and insults the day.

With no imposing air, no needless state,
Thou risest, blue Helvellyn ;-no strange point
Lends thee distinction, no fantastic shape
Marks thee a thing whereon the mind must rest;
But in thine own broad height, peerless and vast,
Leviathan of mountains! thou art seen
Fairly ascending, amidst crags and hills
The mightiest one,-associate of the sky!

I see thee again, from these bleak sullen moors,
Boundless and bare,-long, dreary, wintry wastes,
Where the red waters lie stagnant, amidst

Black rocks, and treacherous moss, and rushes white
With age, or withered by the bitter blast ;-
Thou lookest out on thy huge limbs that lie
Sleeping far, far beneath; and on the plains
Below, and heaven which scarcely o'er thy head
Lifts its blue arch; and on the driven clouds
That loiter round thee, or impetuous burst
About thy summit with their stormy showers.

There, in thy lonely state, thou livest on
Through days, and years, and ages,--still the same
Unshaken, undecaying:-not alone

A thing material haply, for within

Thy heart a secret spirit may now abide;

The same that fills thy veins in spring with green,
And hangs around thee long the summer thyme;
And when the winds of Autumn moan away
Solemn and sad, from thy supremest brow
Poureth the white stream bright and beautiful.

The winds!—are they thy music? (who shall say
Thou hearest not!)-Thy echoes, which restore
The rolling thunder fainting fast away,

From death to a second life seem now, methinks,
Not mere percussions of the common air,
But imitations high of mightier sense―
Of some communicable soul that speaks

From the most inward earth, abroad to men
And mountains, bird and beast, and air and Heaven.
London Magazine.

INSCRIPTION

FOR A VILLAGE SPRING.

CALM is the tenor of my way,
Not hurried on with furious haste,
Nor raised aloft in proud display :
Pure too the tribute of my urn,
With constant flow, not idle waste,
Offering to him who sends the rain,
By serving man, the best return.
A course like mine thy trials o'er
Those living waters will attain,

Which he who drinks shall thirst no more.

BENEATH the chancel's hallowed stone,
Exposed to every rustic tread,
To few, save rustic mourners, known,
My brother, is thy lowly bed.

Few words, upon thy rough stone graven,
Thy name-thy birth-thy youth declare-
Thy innocence thy hopes of heaven,
In simplest phrase recorded there.
No 'scutcheons shine, no banners wave,
In mockery o'er my brother's grave!

The place is silent.-Rarely sound
Is heard those ancient walls around,
Nor mirthful voice of friends that meet
Discoursing in the public street;
Nor hum of business dull and loud,

Nor murmur of the passing crowd,

Nor soldier's drum, nor trumpet's swell,
From neigbouring fort or citadel;
No sound of human toil or strife
In death's lone dwelling speaks of life,
Or breaks the silence still and deep
Where thou, beneath thy burial stone,
Art laid in that unstartled sleep
The living eye hath never known.
The lonely sexton's footstep falls
In dismal echoes on the walls,
As, slowly pacing through the aisle,
He sweeps the unholy dust away,
And cobwebs, which must not defile

Those windows on the sabbath-day;
And, passing through the central nave,
Treads lightly on my brother's grave.

But when the sweet-toned sabbath-chime,
Pouring its music on the breeze,
Proclaims the well known holy time
Of prayer, and thanks, and bended knees;

When rustic crouds devoutly meet,

And lips and hearts to God are given,
And souls enjoy oblivion sweet

Of earthly ills, in thoughts of heaven;
What voice of calm and solemn tone
Is heard above thy burial stone?
What form in priestly meek array
Beside the altar kneels to pray ?
What holy hands are lifted up
To bless the sacramental cup?
Full well I know that reverend form,

And if a voice could reach the dead,
Those tones would reach thee, though the worm,
My brother, makes thy heart his bed.

That sire, who thy existence gave,
Now stands beside thy lowly grave.

It is not long since thou wert wont
Within these sacred walls to kneel;
This altar, that baptismal font,

These stones which now thy dust conceal,
The sweet tones of the sabbath bell,
Were holiest objects to thy soul;
On these thy spirit loved to dwell,
Untainted by the world's controul.
My brother, those were happy days,
When thou and I were children yet!
How fondly memory still surveys

Those scenes, the heart can ne'er forget!
My soul was then, as thine is now,
Unstained by sin, unstung by pain;
Peace smiled on each unclouded brow-
Mine ne'er will be so calm again.
How blithely then we hailed the ray
Which ushered in the sabbath day!
How lightly then our footsteps trod
Yon pathway to the house of God!
For souls, in which no dark offence
Hath sullied childhood's innocence,

G

Best meet the pure and hallowed shrine
Which guiltier bosoms own divine.

I feel not now, as then I felt ;-
The sunshine of my heart is o'er;
The spirit now is changed which dwelt
Within me, in the days of yore.

But thou wert snatched, my brother, hence
In all thy guileless innocence;

One sabbath saw thee bend the knee,
In reverential piety,-

(For childish faults forgiveness crave)—
The next beamed brightly on thy grave.
The crowd, of which thou late wert one,
Now throng across thy burial stone;
Rude footsteps trample on the spot,
Where thou liest mouldering-not forgot;
And some few gentler bosoms weep,
In silence, o'er thy last long sleep.
I stood not by thy feverish bed,

I looked not on thy glazing eye,
Nor gently lulled thy aching head,
Nor viewed thy dying agony;
I felt not what my parents felt,—

The doubt the terror-the distress
Nor vainly for my brother knelt ;—

My soul was spared that wretchedness: One sentence told me, in a breath, My brother's illness and his death!

And days of mourning glided by,
And brought me back my gaiety;
For soon in childhood's wayward heart
Doth crushed affection cease to smart.
Again I joined the sportive crowd
Of boyish playmates, wild and loud;
I learnt to view with careless eye
My sable garb of misery;