As still at Memory's call your glories rise
And meaning phantasies salute my eyes!
Nor yet unfeeling fate my step bewrays,
Though mers'd in toiling life's distracted maze,
From your charm'd haunts estrang'd, far off to roam,
Or lost to you to fix this favour'd home.
Fond with its scenes your ties of love unite,
As swelling fair your boundaries strike my sight,
And oft allure my willing feet to climb
With unfatiguing toil their heights sublime:
One various rapturous hour those heights can gain,
One changeful hour restores this calm domain,
Mid whose bland shades the eye retraces o'er
Each ample range my footsteps mark'd before,
Or won by present charms, exulting roves
O'er fields of bliss and native pride of groves.
And sure no fields can boast a livelier green, No bowers can smile with gladness more serene, No spring-drest sod feed more refreshing airs, No rural powers be sooth'd with holier prayers, Than thine, lov'd seat!-Does here some inmate God * With conscious radiance cheer his pleas'd abode ? Or does this potent calm that broods around, This thrilling awe that clothes the answering ground,
* Alludes to the Inscription on a bench near a stream in a sequestered part of the grounds-imitated from Gray's Ode t written in the Album of the Chartreuse monastery:
"Et hujus etiam est secreti Religio loci;
"Nativa et hæc quoque fluenta Numen habet."
† Oh Tu, severi religio loci,
Quocunque gaudes nomine (non leve
Nativa nam certe fluenta
Numen habet, veteresque Sylvas
This burst of throbs that thro' the bosom dart
And with strange rapture agitate the heart,
Proclaim that here some mightiest hero laid
Midst sympathising glories glads his shade?
Some sacred chieftain of the times of old,
Whose fame, whose death, by history unenroll'd, 100
This high mysterious worship large repays
Beyond the uncertain strains of mortals' praise!
Sure is his meed through gather'd years on years,
Drear boundless wastes, where even Tradition fears
With desperate wing her course forlorn to sweep
Or claim the secrets of the hideous deep:
Still yet she dimly points to yon cold plain
Where kindred silence now and torpor reign,
Where erst the sons of war fierce contest waged,
Where slaughter madden'd, where fell havoc raged, 110
Whence awful borne in sorrowing warrior state
Mid these near shades, the victor chief elate
Bless'd their repose with parting hallowed breath,
And with high transport hail'd a hero's death.
Ages uncounted since have worn away,
And whelm'd that fane long lost in black decay,
Memorial rais'd by pious hands in vain
When Heaven sent peace had calm'd each hostile train,
Close where these garden yews uphold their shade,
And clustering bones reproach the intruding spade: 120
«Near the four-mile stone is Moreen (or Margaret's), a most pleasing situation: it is within three miles of the sea, of which "it has a grand view, also of the city and adjoining county for many miles. This place is remarkable for having a desperate "battle fought in it some centuries ago by two of the neighbouring families, who on their revenge being satiated, mutually "agreed to erect a church in the valley where the engagement was "had, and from thence called the cross-church of Moreen."
Wilson's Postchaise Companion, p. 391.
With Nature's incense still his sleep is blest,
Creation's reverence watches o'er his rest.
Why else, thou chosen greatly favour'd scene, Thy secret charm, thy changeless smile serene ? The cheering breath that woos thy conscious bowers, The nameless witcheries of thy blissful hours? Why thus assign'd with partial guardian care Each envied gift thy bounds exclusive share? Whence the mild soil with living bounties stor'd, Or bosom'd fossil wealth its veins afford? Boons which for thee parental earth benign Rich pours, impregned by genial power divine, That brooding fond, her sluggish bosom warms And each dull particle with life informs,
Spreads the gay bloom that wraps thy vivid plain, 135
And with proud honor clothes thy rural reign.
Awe-struck even untaught hinds revering own
The sacred wonders of its mystic throne,
Whose high pre-eminence still smiles supreme,
While, pressing fervent round, rich splendors stream,
Swell with their willing pomp its ample state,
Nor mix their fortune with its favour'd fate.
Even dungeon'd pleasure-ground of yon demesne
Wakes but the throb of pardoning pity's pain,
While hid from thee its motley fabricks rise,
And tedious boundary walls fatigue the eyes;
Harmful alone its gloom where, thwart those woods, ́
Howth smiles rejoicing midst his pomp of floods,
Thine only then, while winter's storm bereaves
Yon mean ash branches of their envious leaves;
Discourteous guard of that forbidding line
Where just their acres with thy acres join.
Yet why on cureless ills vain murmurings waste,
Or plaining brood o'er wrongs of lordly taste;
Oh blest in yon horizon's various round,
Bless'd in that mountain's long retiring bound;
Bless'd in the smile of Anville's woodclothed sweep,
And forest crown of haughty Merion's steep,
That o'er its subject regions towering, shields
From city smoke and care thy sacred fields;
And through the seasons' ever-circling train,
Hoar winter's frown and summer's roseate reign,
Bless'd still supreme in each bright joy that knows
The endearing transport of thy home repose;
The proud exuberance of thy glowing lawn,
Its breezy swell, its cherish'd shades withdrawn ;
Thy frequent streams that with perennial wave
And lingering reverence the sooth'd meadows lave,
In murmuring peace their genial progress take,
Or smile expansive in their bosoming lake,
Around, above, whose lucid gladness spreads,
And radiant glories o'er the landscape sheds;
Clothes thy mild woodwalk gloom or terrace gay
With each lov'd colouring of the changeful day,
With brighten'd splendor cheers the orient beam,
Or breathes fresh magic o'er eve's parting gleam, 176
To each calm glade gives animation's mien,
And wakes to glow and life the wondering scene;
That sure to more than thee its joy displays,
While holier inmates greet its jocund blaze:
Full sure, as borne on evening's fragrant breeze
Joins the soft murmuring of the heaving seas,
Such hymn as custom'd forms * erst chaunted clear,
With heaven-lov'd spirits' mingling strains I hear,
While at each sacred swell symphonious flows
The charm'd accordance of earth's pleas'd repose;
*Kilmacud, the Irish appellation of the place generally, means "The Church of the Friars."
That as I hear, bids wake each great desire,
And kindles into glow seraphic fire;'
Gives each vain discord of the breast to cease,
And stills each human passion into peace;
190
Through the thrill'd heart while purest transports roll,
To highest heavenward aim conforms the soul.
Blest seat! from thee diurnal drudge while borne, And from thy shades of peace regretful torn; Torn from each joy that glads thy social dome, Each fond endearing charity of Home; Torn from the influence of her charm serene That beams high felt o'er all thy conscious scene, Her sympathy that spleen's dread power beguiles, And meed rich priz'd of her approving smiles; From thy whole hoard of bliss while doom'd to part, Bind still thy spells around my secret heart, Nor e'er suspend their soft constraining power Mid the vext gloom of Care's recurring hour: Through crowds, through smoke, through fretful cankering toil,
Through all vicissitude of human coil,
Each fever'd throb, each fiercer wish control,
And fix thy empire o'er my willing soul;
Dispel vain fears, all earth-born hope refine,
And raise the mortal to a height divine.
Since such the fervors that thy peace invest, Such their sure influence o'er thy votary's breast, Bid thou me welcome still, glad seat of ease, And breathe thou still thy hallowed power to please!
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