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 SOUTHAMPTON 
 
 AND 
 
 THE ISLE OF WIGHT 
 
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 IN FOUR BOOKS 
 
 BY SAMUEL BROMLEY: 
 
 AUTHOR OF "the LIFE OF CHRIST;" "SERMON ON THE 
 DEATH OF DR. CHALMERS;" ETC. ETC. ETC. 
 
 Sottti^ampton: 
 PRINTED BY GEORGE L. MARSHALL, 
 
 HDCCCXLIX.
 
 
 SOUTHAMPTON 
 
 AND 
 
 THE ISLE OF WIGHT: 
 
 % ^oem. 
 
 BOOK I . 
 
 " Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, 
 
 So do our minutes hasten to their end ; 
 
 Each changing place with that which goes before, 
 
 In sequent toil all forward do contend. 
 
 Nativity once in the main of light 
 
 Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned, 
 
 Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight, 
 
 And time that gave, doth now his gift confound. 
 
 Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth, 
 
 And delves the parallels in beauties brow ; 
 
 Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth, 
 
 And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow. 
 
 And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand. 
 Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand." 
 
 Shakespear, 
 
 872900
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 CANTO I.— The Introduction. 
 
 CANTO II.— The History of Southampton. 
 
 CANTO III.— The History of Southampton continued. 
 
 CANTO IV. — The History of Southampton concluded. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 CANTO I.— The Introduction. 
 
 CANTO II. — The Complaint of an old Inhabitantof Southampton, 
 
 who compares the present, with the past state of the 
 
 Town. 
 CANTO III.— The Queen's Visit to Wood Mill. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 CANTO I. — The Author's apology for poetising. 
 
 CANTO II.— Navigation. The Sailing of one of the Oriental 
 
 Steam Packets. 
 CANTO III.— The Return of one of the Oriental Packets to the 
 
 Mother Bank, and the Songs of the Jolly Sailors.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 I HAVE always thought that a poem should be, what 
 every man's life ought to be, — bear inspection, and defy 
 calumny, — though it is not possible that either the one 
 or the other should be free from occasional blemishes. 
 
 Both the poet and his poem, therefore, should be chil- 
 dren of nature, not of art. The poet should conceive, 
 and his poem, reveal the whole family of his ideas ; not 
 of giants, and monsters, and impossibilities, — but of 
 truth, beauty and love, as they exist in nature, and as 
 they are unfolded to the thoughtful mind in the unerring 
 operations of providence. 
 
 A poem, therefore, should utter the noblest sentiments ; 
 should express the warmest admiration of the works and 
 providence of GOD ; should reprove vice, and reproach 
 cruelty and injustice ; should praise virtue — laud bene- 
 volence — soothe affliction — and comfort distress ; it 
 should maintain the obligations of religion, and insist on 
 honesty, truthfulness and justice in all the transactions of 
 life ; it should dilate on the happiness of shewing com- 
 passion, exercising mercy, and frankly forgiving injuries, 
 when any sincere sorrow is expressed for their infliction. 
 Yea, a poem should maintain the necessity of opposing
 
 VI. PREFACE. 
 
 tyranny — of preventing unjust wars, — and of aclmow- 
 ledging universally the natural, moral, civil and religious 
 rights and liberties of man, 
 
 A poem should possess aU these advantages, because the 
 poet ought to be a man who abhors the cowardice which 
 dares not rebuke vice by whomsoever patronised, — 
 which dares not expose delusion, when whole empires 
 are infatuated with it, — and which dares not di.>^claim 
 against oppression and tyranny, when they chance to be 
 practiced by crowned heads, and maintained by arms. 
 When the poet is a man from whom neither vice, nor 
 fashion, nor power can win a single apology for either 
 opinions, or doctrines, or institutions which he knows to 
 be irjurious to mankind ; then may his poem contain 
 sentiments worthy of the respect of his fellow men. 
 
 But the poem from the pen of the greatest poet cannot 
 be expected to be perfect in itself. The art of nature is 
 hidden under beauties which strike the eye and please 
 the soul ; and the art of the poet should not always ap- 
 pear in extremely laboured verses. A poem, therefore, 
 should rather be hke a scene of nature than a gorgeous 
 palace ; it should have retreats of shade, as well as sunny 
 heights ; the quiet lake, as well as the foaming sea ; and 
 humble daisy, as well as the elm and oak. 
 
 Whether the following poem will give its author any 
 claim to be considered a child of nature, and to have 
 produced a poem in harmony with truth, beauty and uti- 
 lity, the reader must judge.
 
 PREFACE. VU. 
 
 It is perhaps necessay I should refer to an opinion 
 expressed in the first canto of this poem on the early- 
 history of Southampton. I cannot think with those 
 authors who deny its existence till after the Britons were 
 forsaken by the Romans. As there are many proofs 
 that Southampton was a place of importance in the ear- 
 liest times of the Saxons, it must have been a considerable 
 British town before the Romans left this Island, and was 
 perhaps a British town before they attempted its conquest. 
 I cannot, therefore, be justly charged with indulging a 
 warm imagination when I suppose, that Southampton 
 was a British town which began under the protection, 
 and subservient to the designs of the Romans, who, it is 
 now known, beyond a question, built large fortifications 
 so near as the east bank of the Itchen, and, in all proba- 
 bility, had a mihtary station on, or near Bevois Mount, 
 above the opposite shore. 
 
 S. B. 
 
 Southampton, 
 
 Jan. 1, 1849.
 
 SOUTHAMPTON 
 
 AND 
 
 THE ISLE OF WIGHT 
 BOOK I. 
 
 CANTO I 
 
 I. 
 
 A THOUSAND voluntary thoughts command 
 My harp, so long a stranger to my hand, — 
 So long neglected and contemned, to be 
 Re-strung and tuned for some grave minstrelsy. 
 A thousand beauteous scenes with sunbeams bright. 
 In Southern Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight, 
 Scenes where wood, water, village, field and hill 
 Are richly mingled, as with heavenly skill, 
 Invite that harp its vocal power to try 
 In song descriptive of th' effulgency 
 Of solar hght, and softened woodland shade. 
 Of which they seem romantically made. 
 To please mankind, to thrill the poet's heart, 
 And life and transport to his soul impart. 
 
 A 3
 
 10 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 II. 
 
 Already do I take that harp in hand, 
 And gazing over scenes of sea and land. 
 Essay to sing of many an inland scene. 
 And many a pompous prospect all marine, 
 Round thee, Southampton, sloping to the sea; 
 In thee, sweet Island, home of Royalty. 
 
 in. 
 
 Ye heaven-born Muses, aid me vv'ith your might : 
 Shed on my thoughts some effluence of your Hght. 
 'Tis yours to bid the soul of genius rise 
 Like the strong eagle when he takes the skies. 
 And look contemplative on all below 
 O'er which the solar beams in beauty glow, 
 Or night's dark shade in awful silence rests, — 
 But chiefly to contemplate Man's behests, — 
 To mark him in his ardent, active pride. 
 As avarice prompts him, and as passions guide, — 
 And draw the moral of his life and death : — 
 A luminous, a meteoric breath ! 
 A lightning flashing through sublunar time 
 To worlds unknown, or darksome, or sublime ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 Ye Muses who inspire those of mankind 
 
 To whom heaven gives the higher powers of mind. 
 
 With love of noble sentiments and truth. 
 
 And all the virtues ripening up from youth ;
 
 BOOK I. CANTO I. 11 
 
 Who to the injured and oppressed impart 
 
 That love which purges and expands the heart. 
 
 And gives the soul a generous, holy scorn 
 
 Of all that's subtle, selfish, and low-born ; 
 
 'Tis you I hail, and not those frantic powers 
 
 Which madden intellect in all its hours 
 
 Of serious study, souls enlarged as heaven 
 
 Depraving as with lewd and brutish leaven. 
 
 Till they the sanctities of human life 
 
 Mock, scorn, and cut as with th' assassin's knife, 
 
 And flirt and trifle with those sacred things 
 
 Willed into being by the " King of kings," 
 
 And made by HIM essential to the peace 
 
 Of neighbourhoods, and to the world's increase : 
 
 Not them — but you, ye Muses, who inspire 
 
 Your favoured bards with holy, heavenly fire, — 
 
 Who kindle in their souls perpetually 
 
 Respect for truth, for man, and DEITY, 
 
 And prompt the song that's sober, thoughtful, high. 
 
 Raising the soul that reads it towards the sky, 
 
 I hail ! for ye alone can bid me sing 
 
 What Watts* admired when on his Muse's wing ; 
 
 What ancient kings, and noble warriors chose 
 
 For haunts of pleasure, bowers of sweet repose ; 
 
 What thousands coming far beyond the sea 
 
 Have justly praised for simple majesty, 
 
 * The allusion is to a tradition, that Dr. Watts, who was a 
 native of Southampton, composed one of the finest of his Lyrics 
 while being upon an eminence, near Southampton, which com- 
 manded a view of both the shores of the Southampton Waters.
 
 12 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 And perfect beauty ; what the Queen of queens, 
 
 VICTORIA, loves as England's sweetest scenes, — 
 
 What in her Youth, she saw each sunny hour. 
 
 And what she chooses now, in all her power, 
 
 The southern scenery of woodland Hants, 
 
 And the sweet Island which her Name enchants. 
 
 And ye alone can aid me in my song, 
 
 To please the aged, and instruct the young ; 
 
 To mix reproof and commendation wise. 
 
 And praise what all great nations ought to prize, 
 
 Truth, justice, goodness, loyalty and love. 
 
 And aU that does a nation's strength improve. 
 
 Industry, enterprise, invention, — wealth 
 
 Acquired uprightly — energy and health. 
 
 V. 
 
 When yet the world was young, and florid time, 
 Trod lightly o'er the charms of every clime ; 
 When roses without culture bloomed below. 
 And grains sprang up by nature taught to grow ; 
 When men by hunting lived, and were but few. 
 Little of art, and less of science knew ; 
 And the vast earth and boundless sea were deemed 
 A plain o'er which the orbs of heaven beamed, 
 Then sank men, knew not whither, nor much cared ; 
 When lightnings, as their forky flashes glared. 
 Were thought presages of the wrath of heaven, — 
 And thunders, as they shook the skies of even. 
 The angry utterances of mighty Power 
 Who rode the whirlwind in that vengeful hour ;
 
 BOOK I. CANTO I. 13 
 
 Then was Southampton but a field of mud 
 Washed daily by the ocean's tidal flood,* — 
 Save the high ground we now call Lansdown Hill, — 
 And there, through summer warm, and winter chill. 
 The fox and wolf through low woods used to roam ; 
 And there the poisonous serpent had its home. 
 No sound was heard upon the river wide 
 But its own roar when wild winds tost its tide. 
 And the deep murmurs of the bending woods 
 Which raged in anger o'er the vocal floods. 
 
 VI. 
 
 What years rolled on, what ages had advanced 
 Ere human eye upon this Island glanced. 
 The Muse pretends not to enquire. Perhaps 
 Those who conjecture much of the past lapse 
 Of time, and confidently fix the dates 
 Of those events which no found record states. 
 Are but one step removed from those mad men 
 Who, from the earth's phenomena, say when 
 (Making Mosaic records but a lie !) 
 A thousand changes were efi'ected by 
 Fire, water, pent-up subterranean gas, — 
 Now fusing, solving, shifting many a mass, — 
 
 * It is the opinion of Sir H. C. Englefield, that, at a much later 
 period than that referred to in the poem, Northam, Chapel, and a 
 great part of Saint Mary's, were inundated by the tides. This 
 opinion will appear reasonable when we recollect, that, in our own 
 memory, the marsh lands were daily covered at high- water ; and 
 that, even now, the middle road, leading to the bottom of East 
 Street, is always flooded with a Spring tide.
 
 14 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 As if a world, so exquisitely fine 
 As ours, — in its arrangements so divine, — 
 Were what it has been, and progresses still 
 Without or superintending power or skill. 
 But ages ere Messiah from above 
 Was sent to sinful man in truth and love. 
 Vice to reprove, and virtue to command. 
 Mankind were living in this favoured land. 
 A colony from Gaul had crossed the floods 
 And settled here, and peopled the vast woods. 
 Whose savage gods, adored by murderous rites 
 The mere narration of the soul affrights, — 
 Whose social customs, and whose low delight 
 The chastened pen would shudder to recite ; 
 Whose mountain holocausts of living men. 
 And all the sins with which they curst the glen. 
 Called loud for vengeance from th' insulted skies. 
 Lo ! their vile idols and impurities 
 Filled monstrous Rome with horror and disgust ! 
 Even the Caesars,* men of boundless lust. 
 Made Briton's profligacies, dark, and dread, 
 A fair excuse for all the blood they shed. 
 Which flowed in torrents down the sides of hiUs, 
 And stained the waters of the bogs and rills, 
 Ere they, so used the wooded wilds to roam. 
 Entirely yielded to the power of Rome.f 
 
 * See The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Suetonius, 
 
 f For a full account of the painful things alluded to in the above 
 lines, I beg to refer the youthful reader, who may not have an op-
 
 BOOK I. CANTO I. 15 
 
 VII. 
 
 That land is always wicked past reform 
 
 Which heaven gives up to desolating storm, — 
 
 On which he sends war, famine, pestilence. 
 
 Which quickly sweep the tribes of mankind thence, — 
 
 And which he gives to armies from afar 
 
 By conquest, as the wages of their war ; 
 
 As once to Babylonia's king he gave 
 
 The land of Egypt for his soldiers brave ; 
 
 Who took its towns, and shared the mighty spoil 
 
 Among his army for their Tyrian toil : 
 
 Because those base Egyptians in their pride 
 The power and majesty of GOD defied. 
 And so it was with Briton. Heaven sublime 
 Indignant, blushed at its prodigious crime ; 
 And to the Roman sword, disease, and death 
 Gave myriads up, and furies drank their breath. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Rome came, and conquered, and to Briton gave 
 A race of men less bloody, yet more brave, — 
 The marriage rite, the individual home, — 
 The plough, the spade, the ship o'er seas to roam, — 
 Th' embattled tower, the temple, and the town, — 
 Letters and learning, — manners and renown : 
 For Rome's impossible polytheism 
 Was far less foul than bloody Diuidism ; 
 
 portunity of consulting our older historians, to the elegant History 
 of England by Lord Lyttleton, where they are discussed.
 
 16 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 And social license justly she abhorred, 
 And extirpated it by fire and sword. 
 
 TX. 
 
 Britons in Hampshire hved ere Romans came. 
 
 And gave to coasts, and inland spots a name. 
 
 The smokes of living victims many a time 
 
 Had shrouded yonder sunbeams so sublime. 
 
 And o'er yon waters melancholy stole. 
 
 As if they fled from many a murdered soul 
 
 They rose from in the wicker altar high, 
 
 And sacrificed to fancied deity.* 
 
 Oh ! then Southampton's lovely heights were trod 
 
 By Druid priests as savage as their god ; 
 
 And naked men through many a neighbouring wood 
 
 Prowled, like the beasts of prey, for daily food. 
 
 X. 
 
 But when the Romans came in warrior pride 
 And fearless anchored in the Itchen's tide ;f 
 
 * We cannot but be horror-stricken when we lookback at the 
 savage idolatry of Druidsra among the aboriginal Britons. Their 
 wicker altars were probably resorted to when they sacrificed away 
 from their temples, or more sacred localities. "Who does not feel 
 thankful that Divine providence permitted the sword of the idola- 
 trous Romans to extirpate such appalling, murderous superstition ? 
 
 t This subject is largely and satisfactorily discussed by Sir Henry 
 Englefield in the Supplement to the last edition of his " Walk," 
 etc.
 
 BOOK I. — CANTO I. 17 
 
 And knowing all th' advantages to prize 
 
 A wood and water, clear and sunny skies, — 
 
 And sent their armed parties to explore 
 
 The distant forest, and the neighbouring shore. 
 
 Who found the lands beneath their oaken shade 
 
 A deep, rich mould or fit for plough or spade. 
 
 Save where the gravel drunk the rains of spring. 
 
 And nothing grew but withered summer's ling : 
 
 And when they saw the savage, naked race 
 
 Who knew no war, who had no hiding place. 
 
 Who had no arts, knew no mechanic powers. 
 
 Could dig no moats, nor build protecting towers, — 
 
 Whose only hope, in danger, was in flight 
 
 To some morass, or wooded mountain height ; 
 
 (Like cunning hares by heaven defenceless made. 
 
 When hungry dogs, and men in cavalcade. 
 
 Pursue Uke demons for their timid blood. 
 
 To hide in safety seek the entangled wood ;) 
 
 And who, if famine should o'ertake them there. 
 
 The evening wolves their dying limbs would tear ; 
 
 Then all persistive as the flowing floods 
 
 Of ocean's tide, they landed, cleared the woods, 
 
 And upon Itchen's bending, beauteous stream 
 
 Claucentum built, — and warmed by mid-day's beam. 
 
 Forgot fair Italy, the land of hght, 
 
 In one more beautiful, though not so bright. 
 
 XL 
 
 Time still went forward, and those Romans staid. 
 And made aggressions on the forest's shade ;
 
 18 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The rich lands cleared, dug fosses, built strong towers 
 
 And battlemented walls, — which through the hours 
 
 Of darkness gave security and sleep 
 
 To those invaders from beyond the deep. 
 
 And then the Britons, savage, ignorant, base. 
 
 Saw themselves helpless, and a conquered race ; 
 
 And awed by might and armature they knew 
 
 Not how to imitate, could not subdue. 
 
 Submitted to their fate. But heaven was kind : 
 
 Their conquest by the Romans was designed 
 
 To raise them from their degradation, and 
 
 To lead them on to arts, — to clear the land, — 
 
 To build them homes in openings in the wood. 
 
 And rescue them from idol gods and blood. 
 
 The Romans, therefore, were their friends, not foes : 
 
 From them their future greatness first arose. 
 
 Their physical, and mental, moral might 
 
 Increased each generation, ag new light 
 
 Dawned on them, like the rising of sweet day 
 
 Which cheers the earth with its refulgent ray. 
 
 They soon forsook the hazard and the toil 
 
 Of hunting, to break up, and plant the soil : 
 
 Affected clothing, and the marriage rite. 
 
 And all the individual home's dehght. 
 
 Where infant health and beauty smile, and song. 
 
 And happy converse while the hours along. 
 
 XII. 
 
 That was the time, two thousand years ago, 
 Southam])ton first began its homes to shew
 
 BOOK I. CANTO I. 
 
 19 
 
 Of native Britons, — when the cottage doors 
 
 Opened along the level gravelly shores, — 
 
 And when young mothers with dehghted eyes 
 
 Blest the sweet earth and the benignant skies. 
 
 As oft they saw the day's declining beam 
 
 Glow down the tranquil surface of the stream. 
 
 Or the full moon's light from the blue of heaven 
 
 Dance lightly o'er the trembling tides of even : 
 
 For 'tis fair woman, of a soul more mild 
 
 Than man, who feels towards all things through her child. 
 
 And her fond husband — though she knows not why 
 
 The heavens and earth work so harmoniously, — 
 
 Sees in each scene of mixed shade and light 
 
 A beauty doubly sweet, serene, and bright. 
 
 I hate the man who thinks that human kind 
 
 Cannot from savage life arise to mind ; 
 
 Cannot be tutored morally to be 
 
 The child of truth, and love, and purity. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 'Twere far too long and difficult to say 
 What changes, as long ages passed away, 
 O'ertook Southampton in its commerce, wealth, — 
 Its honours, its importance, and its health. 
 But still the Muse would fain indulge a rhyme 
 To glance at what took place in olden time, — 
 Peace, wars, prosperity, decline of trade, — 
 Tumults in which kings, patriots, the pai-ade 
 Of armies, — pirates, pestilence, and crime, 
 Came forth to act upon the stage of time, —
 
 20 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 And altered manners, morals, character 
 
 In those who suffered from those changes here, — 
 
 Narrated in historic pantomime, 
 
 Oft shading virtue, making vice sublime, — 
 
 Where here and there a Worthy's good deeds glow 
 
 Like transient stars upon the world below. 
 
 When sullen storms invade the skies at night. 
 
 And clouds grow thick, and lightnings spend their might. 
 
 End of Canto I.
 
 CANTO II. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF SOUTHAMPTON. 
 
 I. 
 
 Thb ardent Muse, impassioned with her theme, 
 
 Looks back on time as up a river's stream. 
 
 And on its banks beholds the far-off time 
 
 When Briton rose from barbarism and crime ; 
 
 When Roman towers and temples rose on high. 
 
 And towns were built hke those of Italy ; 
 
 And sees in shadowy vision, like a dream 
 
 The fancy fabricates, or the last beam 
 
 Of sunset shed on some romantic shore. 
 
 Which mists, and clouds, and hastening night hang o'er. 
 
 The time Southampton a small town became. 
 
 Saw the first settlers, and received its name. 
 
 II. 
 
 But to the learned antiquarian she 
 
 Resigns the symbols of antiquity ; 
 
 The etymology of its famed name. 
 
 And aU the records of its earliest fame. 
 
 She bids him give the dates when ruins hoary. 
 
 And towers which have outlived th' authentic story 
 
 Of their erection, first threw back the light 
 
 Of morn and evening o'er yon waters white
 
 22 THE HISTORY OF SOUTHAMPTON. 
 
 When holy temples rising to the skies 
 
 Were hallowed first to christian mvsteries ; 
 
 And buildings, long defaced by sterm and time. 
 
 Rose in the perfect beauty of their prime, 
 
 The homes of merchants, courtiers, heroes, kings. 
 
 To him she gives all other ancient things. 
 
 As swords, seals, coats of arms, the dug-up stone 
 
 With antique character inscribed thereon. 
 
 And bids him tell, as best his learning may, 
 
 Th' events from which long centuries have passed away. 
 
 III. 
 
 For not to her the duty can belong 
 
 To speak of fosse, tower, bar, portcullis strong ; 
 
 The sculpture wasted by a thousand years. 
 
 And broke by alterations and repairs ; 
 
 Nor stand beneath one fragment of a ruin 
 
 Slow time, and storms, and men have been undoing, — 
 
 As the last remnant of Saint Denys stands 
 
 Moaning in winds which sweep th' adjacent lands,* 
 
 And there from one lone window to divine 
 
 The length, and breadth, and height of Abbey fine — 
 
 Fine when it stood in all its strength and pride. 
 
 And cast its shadows o'er the evening tide. 
 
 * It was a very windy and cold morning when I first beheld this 
 interesting fragment of the ancient Abbey of Saint Dionysius, or 
 Saint Denys, and the wind made a melancholy moan as it passed 
 through the solitary window, and the thick body of ivy with which 
 it is mantled.
 
 BOOK I. CANTO II. 23 
 
 And glowed resplendant in the morning light 
 Beamed on it o'er the Midanbury height. 
 
 IV. 
 
 It rather is her province to explore 
 The annals, ages, and events of yore. 
 Men, manners, morals, customs to portray. 
 Describe improving arts, and wealth's great sway ; 
 And while she views the policies of days 
 Gone by, mix just reproof, and honest praise. 
 The whole relieving with well-chosen glance 
 At neighbouring beauties as she shall advance. 
 Dark woods, bright waters, rosy morn and even. 
 And all the soft sublimities of moonlight heaven. 
 
 Rome reigned o'er Briton centuries of time. 
 
 Drained its morasses, and improved its clime ; 
 
 Built cities, peopled districts, opened mines. 
 
 But no found records, columns, medals, coins. 
 
 No curious sculpture, — no huge building's base. 
 
 No monumental stone with lettered face 
 
 And learned archseism, declares that e'er 
 
 She raised a temple, or a tower here. 
 
 Or dug a moat, or banked the tidal sands. 
 
 Or built a wall where now Southampton stands. 
 
 And yet it must through all that time have been 
 
 A place of rising consequence marine. 
 
 And, when Rome's power declined, and she withdrew 
 
 Her military legions old and new.
 
 24 THE HISTORY OF SOUTHAMPTON. 
 
 And left this Isle to govern and protect 
 
 Itself, — or suffer from its own neglect, — 
 
 (For an ungoverned and divided race 
 
 Are like the desert's sand's which whirlwinds chase, 
 
 Irresolute, unenterprizing, base ;) 
 
 Southampton was a place of trade and wealth. 
 
 Of arts and arms, and Ladies fair in health. 
 
 And song and dance assumed a lofty tone, 
 
 And luxury and crime were not unknown. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Rome left the Britons with disunion curst. 
 
 Of all the ills mankind can know, the worst : 
 
 For family, or town, or nation, soon. 
 
 Divided, falls before its foes, undone. 
 
 United, many a little band of men 
 
 Has gone to battle, and returned again ; 
 
 Divided, many an army has been slain,' 
 
 Which wolves and vultures fed on o'er the plain. 
 
 United, crovsTis and kingdoms have been won 
 
 By cohorts in the reign of one day's sun ; 
 
 Divided, mighty empires have been lost. 
 
 Kings slain, and thrones o'ertumed, and myriads tost 
 
 To death and heU, though long-famed heroes led 
 
 Vast armies forth in all the pomp of battle dread. 
 
 VII. 
 
 And so the Britons. 'Twas disunion gave 
 Their sunny vales (as to Ih' o'erwhelming wave 
 Of inundation from the angry sea,) 
 To ravage, conflagration, puracy.
 
 BOOK I. CANTO II. 25 
 
 From the cold north like hungry wolves at night. 
 The Picts and Scots came forth in savage might, — 
 Robbed, murdered, burnt, and desolation dread. 
 From hill to vale through inland districts spread : 
 Jutes, Angles, Saxons, and more distant clans. 
 Free-hooters all, but all with different plans. 
 As plunder, or as conquest was their aim ; 
 From the rough bosom of the ocean came 
 Like tempests pregnant with consuming flame : 
 Until, subdued, the Britons left the vales, — 
 Fled to the hills of Cornwall and of Wales, — 
 Where their descendants now homes, freedom, find, 
 British in manners, morals, language, mind. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 'Twas then th' invaders and the conquerors gave 
 
 This fertile Isle amid the ocean's wave, 
 
 A name to truth, religion, freedom, dear, — 
 
 The dread of tyrants o'er the earth's whole sphere ; — 
 
 The name by which we hope it still wiU live. 
 
 And peace and freedom to the nations give ; 
 
 Wise in its policy, and just and great 
 
 In all the power and conduct of the state ; 
 
 To weaker nations generous and good. 
 
 Abhorring all untimely war and blood. 
 
 That name, for might and magnanimity 
 
 So long renowned, is ANGLE-LAND. The sea 
 
 Shall still protect it, and, we trust, the DEITY.
 
 26 THB HISTORY OF SOUTHAMPTON. 
 
 IX. 
 
 The Anglo-Saxons loved the woodland vales 
 Of Hampshire opening to the southern gales. 
 And warm as Italy, when the fidl day 
 Of Summer flames with long, unclouded ray. 
 And from the Britons took Southampton, which 
 They fortified with wall, and tower, and ditch. 
 And lived in great prosperity and ease. 
 Acquiring wealth from hoth the land and seas ; 
 UntU pride, luxury, and crime hegan 
 Law to corrupt, pollute the heart of man. 
 And turn religion into mere grimace. 
 Or solemn mockery of th' ALMIGHTY'S face. 
 
 X. 
 
 Then came the savage, fierce, and bloody Dane 
 Like sudden tempests from the furious main. 
 On pUlage, ravage, conflagration bent. 
 He passed hke seering flames where-e'er he went ; 
 Towns, cities, churches, monasteries fired. 
 And tortured priests iu holy vests attired ; 
 The open country to destruction gave. 
 And slew, or seized the Saxon as his slave. 
 
 XI. 
 
 On Anton's wave those furies oft were found. 
 The terror of the town and country round ; 
 And oft they landed, and with sword and fire 
 Made the old Hamptoners, though brave, retire ;
 
 ROOK I. CANTO II. 27 
 
 Their treasures took, their stately homes consumed, 
 And all their best hopes to confusion doomed ; 
 Left streets in ruin, palaces o'erthrown. 
 And murdered corses o'er the suburbs strewn. 
 And two long centuries past slowly o'er 
 Ere those appalling sufferings were no more. 
 They ceased not till the Danish monarch swayed 
 His sceptre o'er this Isle of wealth and trade. 
 And made Southampton the much loved resort 
 Of lords and ladies of his sumptuous court. 
 
 XIT. 
 
 The Saxon sovereigns of this beauteous Isle 
 
 Had royal residences here — to while 
 
 Away the heavy cares of state and sin 
 
 Which weighed upon their crowns, and consciences within. 
 
 And Canute,* when the Iron Edmund died. 
 
 By Edric slain — that traitor ! homicide ! 
 
 * The ancient ruin in Porter's Lane, which is only now distin- 
 guishable by some remaining segments of beautiful window arches, 
 is thought, by Sir H. C. Englefield, to have been a Saxon palace; 
 and to have been occupied as a royal residence by the Danish mo- 
 narch, Canute. And the same Author supposes Canute to have 
 descended from this palace into the tidal bed of the river when he 
 so piously reproved the flattery of his courtiers. And I have not 
 done wrong, perhaps, in assuming the truth of this opinion. Of 
 course, where the quay and pier are, was anciently a pebbly shore 
 sloping gradually to the tide. Sir H. C. Englefield thinks this 
 part of the ancient shore might be called " The Gravel," from 
 which, in later times. Gravel Lane derived its name. 
 
 1^ 2
 
 28 THE HISTORY OF SOUTHAMPTON. 
 
 Chose the chaste palace whence they oft had gazed 
 On bright Autona, when the evening blazed 
 With all those splendours which so beauteously 
 Shine o'er dark woods which border on the sea. 
 And thence, delighted like those monarchs, too. 
 He gazed on skies of mingled red and blue. 
 And saw the woods send back the radiant beam 
 Of evening o'er the scarcely moving stream ; 
 Loath to withdraw away Ids raptured eyes 
 TiU night came on, and shaded all the skies. 
 
 XIIT. 
 
 'Twas then — to check vain flattery — hateful thing ! 
 His courtiers offered to so great a king. 
 That he descended to the glowing tide. 
 And bade it do him homage in its pride. 
 
 Retire ye swelhng waters from the Sire 
 Of conquered nations, mighty in his ire ! 
 He said ; and then, as still the floods flowed o'er 
 The sands, by soft winds heaved along the shore. 
 And threw their foam upon the monarch's feet. 
 Who sat as on a throne the seas would greet. 
 He rose and spake with solemn voice again, — 
 Not to rebuke the motions of the main. 
 But by a demonstration to make known 
 The weakness of the power he called his own : — 
 The floods of ocean own not me their lord ! 
 They scorn my mandate, as a mortal's word ! 
 They were, ere I was born ! and, when I die. 
 Shall still exist in aU their majesty !
 
 BOOK I. CANTO II. 
 
 29 
 
 These shores a thousand ages yet to come. 
 
 Shall make them murmur, and receive their foam ; 
 
 But never to the latest age of time 
 
 Shall proudest monarch rule the deep sublime ! 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Ascribe not power almighty unto man, — 
 His passions, bubbles, — and his age, a span ; 
 Give to the DEITY, as king alone. 
 Immortal, and eternal, on his throne. 
 All homage with sincerest heart and soul ! 
 'Tis HE, not man ! these billows can controul ; 
 Who, when they foam in fury to the skies, 
 Bids the low shores prevent their higher rise. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Oh ! ye who sit on thrones, or from the state, 
 And govern nations prosperous and great, 
 Let not the mitred priest, or pontiff crowned, 
 Your plans subvert, or policies confound ; 
 Or instigate you to oppress, or draw 
 The sword without th' infraction of some law 
 Of nations, recognised by heaven on high ; 
 Lest blood, unjustly shed, for vengeance cry ; 
 And the fierce thunderbolts of war should blast 
 Your sovereignty, which otherwise might last, 
 
 XVI. 
 
 The Christian Faith in aU its plenitude 
 Of power to dictate to the world for good,
 
 30 THE HISTORY OP SOUTHAMPTON. 
 
 By Christ and his apostles was possessed : 
 But they ne'er sought in secret to arrest 
 The poheies of kings and governments. 
 War to create, or generate discontents : 
 They told mankind to form one brotherhood 
 Of truth and peace, all being of one blood ; 
 Bought by one price, — one everlasting love ; 
 Saved by one grace descending from above ; 
 AH destined in one glorious heaven to dwell 
 One GOD to serve, the Great, th' Immutable I 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Since the successors of those holy men, 
 
 Of hearts so simple, and of lives so plain. 
 
 Of love so burning to the human race, 
 
 Whate'er their nation, and where'er their place. 
 
 Assumed such princely state, and used the might 
 
 Their office gave them, men and mind to blight ; 
 
 Since tortures, massacres, and open war. 
 
 By bishop and by pontiff aided are. 
 
 Oft a lone noble spirit to o'erthrow, 
 
 (A Wycliffe, or a Luther, found below ;) 
 
 Consume a simple people, who despise 
 
 All antichristian pomps and vanities; 
 
 Or waste the strength of nations, lest their power. 
 
 United, should destroy the popedom in an hour ; 
 
 What scenes of horrid carnage have been known 
 
 In every longitude, and every zone ! 
 
 Bonds, massacres, and conflagrations vast. 
 
 And raging wars, have laid whole nations waste I
 
 BOOK I. CANTO II. 31 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Behold the conquering Norman, Uke a flood 
 Sweeping before it village, tower and wood, 
 Descends from ocean on these favoured coasts, 
 A pontiff's banner waving o'er his hosts, 
 A sanction thought from highest heaven to come. 
 To butcher armies, and their homes consume. 
 And fill a hundred vales with desolation. 
 And widowed mothers dying of starvation ! 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Behold the glorious Henry* bows his head 
 Before the tomb of Becket, while the dread 
 Scourge lacerates his back and shoulders bare ! 
 Inhuman spectacle of greatness rare 
 Debased by superstition, or through fear 
 Of impious priestcraft, artfully severe ! 
 Base subjects ! to behold a powerful king 
 Reduced to a mere superstitious thing ! 
 A noble monarch, generous as great. 
 Prostrate and bleeding ! in so vile a state I 
 A royal tool of subtle, savage Rome, 
 Thrones to intimidate, and kings o'ercome, — 
 And through the nations of the human kind 
 Destroy the last remains of soul and mind ! 
 
 Henry II. who went from Southampton to the tomb of Becket.
 
 32 THE HISTORY OF SOUTHAMPTON. 
 
 XX. 
 
 Behold the cruel and lascivious John, 
 
 By pontiff pride degraded on his throne I 
 
 His kingdom excommunicated — cast. 
 
 Like worthless dust before the summer's blast. 
 
 Out of the Church, and doomed by fierce decree 
 
 To utter loss of every sanctity ! 
 
 As if a king''s offences could deny 
 
 To a whole nation Christian charity ! 
 
 As if a mortal, ariogant and vain 
 
 Could govern GOD, and heavenly grace distrain. 
 
 And send the sovereign bounty here and there. 
 
 Or doom mankind denied it, to despair 1 
 
 XXL 
 
 Behold the monstrous scene ! and weep ye saints 
 
 Who dwell in heaven I 
 
 A mortal's curse attaints 
 
 A powerful nation ! and his wrath denies 
 
 To millions all the mercy of the skies ! 
 
 The shrines of saints and martyrs are deposed ; 
 
 Despoiled the altars, and the chuiches closed, —   
 
 To say no prayer of any kind can wing 
 
 Its way to heaven's High Priest, and Glorious King ; 
 
 The marriage contract, holiest rite below. 
 
 Is ratified 'mid monuments of woe; 
 
 The bride's and bridegroom's feetbeing forced to tread 
 
 The vulgar ground where sleep the common dead. 
 
 While they the sacred, solemn oath declare. 
 
 Which joins them an indissoluble pair j
 
 BOOK I. CANTO II. 33 
 
 Good- will forbid, and personal respect ; 
 Food, clothing, health, commanded to neglect ; 
 And, as if from perdition there had come 
 A flame the hopes of all men to consume, 
 The dying interdicted every grace ! 
 The dead in ditches cast, as curst and base ! 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Oh ! blush, blush, blush mankind, that such a power. 
 Which Christ ne'er exercised a single hour. 
 Should have been suffered in the hands of one 
 Affecting godhead on a lofty throne. 
 Although a subtle, selfish infidel. 
 Fierce as a fury from the deepest hell, 
 TDl a great nation groaned in shame and anguish. 
 And Hfe grew burdensome, and nature seemed to 
 languish. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Behold the impassioned Henry,* ere his prime. 
 
 By artful Juliusf flattered into crime. 
 
 An unjust war declared against a king 
 
 Who was at peace with him ! an impious thing ! 
 
 A sacred rose, which pontiff scents perfume. 
 
 While holy oil anoints its precious bloom. 
 
 Is sent to instigate that monarch bold 
 
 To war with France, even in the pontiffs fold ! 
 
 * Henry VIII. t Julius II. 
 
 B 3
 
 34 THE HISTORY OF SOUTHAMPTON. 
 
 Base traitor to Messiah, Prince of Peace, 
 High Priest of mercy — making anger cease — 
 Who bids the greatest monarchs all approve 
 Of justice — and great nations live in love. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Southampton felt the influence of those times 
 Of superstition, and of royal crimes : 
 But faithful, loyal, patriotic, then 
 Were its inhabitants, all warrior men. 
 And round their monarchs gathered a brave band 
 Of cordial friends, united heart and hand. 
 To do whatever might be done by them 
 To guard the English throne and diadem. 
 Hence royal bounty showered upon the town 
 Those honours long her basis of renown ;* 
 And oft on business, or on pleasure came. 
 Each time augmenting her enduring fame. 
 Until in trade, and wealth, and honour, she 
 Became the mistress of the northern sea. 
 
 * There is the fullest evidence that Southampton, during the 
 times referred to in the poem, TPas inhabited by a loyal and patriotic 
 people, and that a long race of glorious monarchs honoured itwith 
 substantial bounties ; all which is highly honourable to the history 
 of the Town : for there cannot be a nobler demonstration of human 
 greatness than a patriotic prince acknowledging the ardent enthu- 
 siasm of devoted subjects by manifestations of benignity and 
 generosity. 
 
 End of Canto H.
 
 CANTO III. 
 
 THE HISTOEY OF SOUTHAMPTON CONTINUED. 
 
 I. 
 
 Hast thou beheld the clouds of evening glow- 
 Beaming a thousand beauteous hues below. 
 As Summer gave the regions of the skies 
 To Autumn's changing winds and altering dies ? 
 How bright the lofty vapours stretch along 
 The cheek of heaven in colours fresh and strong, 
 Like arrows flying from celestial bows 
 And aiming high at s«perlunar foes, — 
 Mingled vith broader blushes, like the sweeps 
 Of radiance glowing o'er th' ^gean deeps. 
 When from the Grecian mountains Phoebus pours 
 His evening glory on the Asian shores. 
 
 n. 
 
 But soon those beauties change : dark, sullen clouds 
 
 Rising beneath the sun, his glory shrouds ; 
 
 Those colours one by one fade from the scene 
 
 Till not a ray of rosy light is seen ; 
 
 And then a tempest rushing on the wings 
 
 Of mighty winds a thousand lightnings flings
 
 36 THE HISTORY OF SOUTHAMPTON. 
 
 From heaven to earth, and with tremendous roar 
 Shakes the dark woods which crowd the ocean shore. 
 Till startled mortals half believe they see 
 Creation's Lord in all His might and majesty ! 
 
 Til. 
 
 So is it oft with men in this low state ; 
 
 Their trades are prosperous, and their wealth is great : 
 
 Like painted clouds their projects all look bright ; 
 
 Their homes are beauteous all. and all delight : 
 
 Till some calamity, like tempest di'iven 
 
 Upon the rising winds of angry heaven. 
 
 With consternation strikes them through and through. 
 
 And fearful changes all their schemes undo ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 And so 'twas with Southampton. When it had 
 
 Risen rich and happy, — confident and glad — 
 
 A sudden enemy came in the night.* 
 
 And made its streams with its own flames look bright ; 
 
 On helpless women perpetrated all 
 
 Th' atrocities, which soldiers " sacking " call : 
 
 And frighted infancy in vain implored 
 
 Protection or from violence, or sword : 
 
 * This, the reader will recollect, was in October, 1338, when a 
 body of French invaders from fifty galleys, landed, and after having 
 exhausted their- rage on the inhabitants, plundered, and then con- 
 flagrated a great part cf the town. This unhappy event arose out of 
 the claim of Edward III. to the crown of France.
 
 BOOK I. CANTO III. 37 
 
 And crippled age, that could not fight, nor fly, 
 Fed the fierce flames which lighted all the sky. 
 
 V. 
 
 But 'twas not with impunity those men 
 
 Inflamed with lust of plunder, landed when 
 
 Sweet sleep had closed the eyes of fathers, mothers, — 
 
 And brothers breathed upon the cheeks of brothers, — 
 
 And beauteous sisters slept, unfearing harms 
 
 And folded loose in one another's arms, — 
 
 Those who escaped, by early twilight, brought 
 
 A band of warriors, who most nobly fought. 
 
 And slew three hundred of the pirates strong. 
 
 With the young prince who led them on to wrong. 
 
 Their treasures rescued, and in fury drave 
 
 Th' atrocious murderers back upon the wave, 
 
 Who took the falling tide and western gale. 
 
 Beaten, and thmned in numbers, home to sail. 
 
 VI. 
 
 As when a noble soul, awhile oppressed 
 
 And wronged, bows down desponding and distressed. 
 
 But, with the aid of some substantial friend. 
 
 Soon rises up, and bids his sorrows end. 
 
 And, dihgent in business, wealthy grows. 
 
 And smiles unhurt upon insulting foes ; 
 
 So did Southampton rapidly again 
 
 Become the mistress of the English main. 
 
 Th' heroic Edward royal bounties gave, — 
 
 Embarked his fleets and armies on its wave, —
 
 38 THE HISTORY OF SOUTHAMPTON. 
 
 And saw it grow again in wealth and fame 
 Unhurt by either foreign sword or flame. 
 
 VII. 
 
 But 'tis not long that man, proud, thoughtless man. 
 
 Either alone, in family, or clan. 
 
 Or gathered into cities, can walk true : 
 
 Some chastisement is needful to subdue 
 
 His passions verging to licentiousness. 
 
 And apt to generate every dark excess, — 
 
 Lust, anger, envy, discontent, debate, — 
 
 Injustice, falsehood, violence and hate : 
 
 And on this favoured town there shortly came 
 
 A foe more subtle than the sword, or flame ; 
 
 A foe unseen, unheard, untouching, save 
 
 To those it strikes, and hurries to the grave. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 That foe a scourge is in th' Almighty's hand. 
 With which he sometimes visits every land ; 
 And young and old, aud every other age, — 
 The blooming virgin, and the learned sage, — 
 He gives to all its poisonous influence. 
 That foe is the contagious pestilence. 
 Which walks alike in darkness and in day. 
 And, like an unseen deluge, sweeps mankind away. 
 
 IX. 
 
 That pestilence in China first began ; 
 And, then diffused itself wherever man
 
 BOOK I. CANTO III. 39 
 
 Was found on earth ; and, with a fearful force 
 
 It thinned the nations in its widening course ; 
 
 Till with a double vengeance hovering o'er 
 
 The British Isle, it blighted this fair shore ; 
 
 And hke the unseen messenger of death 
 
 Who took from Egypt's first-born, living breath, 
 
 It only walked the streets by night and day 
 
 To smite the healthy, and the sick to slay. 
 
 Till sorrow, want, and desolation spread, [dead. 
 
 And those, who lived, the dying watched, — interred the 
 
 X. 
 
 Nor was its fury spent upon the town : 
 It swept the country over plain and down. 
 Till for the sickle hands could not be found. 
 And plenteous harvests rotted on the ground. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Too long it were for me th' events to tell 
 Of glorious monarchs who came here to dwell. 
 As war, or pleasure brought them to this port. 
 Now viewing soldiers, now in forest sport ; 
 How traitors to their sovereign, (impious men !) 
 Were here found out, tried, executed, when 
 They only waited both for place and time. 
 To stain their hands (oh ! awful ! horrid crime !j 
 In the thrice sacred blood of a great king ! 
 All unprovoked by sUght, or censuring ;
 
 40 THE HISTORY OF SOUTHAMPTON. 
 
 How the vindictive Hamptoners, who wore 
 Contending roses,* shed their precious gore, — 
 And how the cruel Tiptoft did impale 
 The conquered in the sun-illumined gale ; 
 How Nevil, traitor, pirate, monster, here 
 Suffered decapitulation — death severe ; 
 And how from ocean's restless billows hoar 
 Princes and kings debarked upon this shore ; 
 All these are foimd elaborately writ 
 On history's page by manly, fearless wit. 
 All studious erring mortals to advise, 
 And make the future generations wise. 
 
 XH. 
 
 But still the Muse, attached to hberty. 
 
 The birth-right of mankind where-e'er they be. 
 
 Would not pass o'er in silence that dark crime 
 
 Which has polluted Romef throughout all time, — 
 
 The crime of forcing men against their wiU 
 
 To trust her guidance as infallible, — 
 
 The crime, when she was thwarted in that mood. 
 
 Of lighting faggots, and of shedding blood, — 
 
 The crime which bonds and tortures did invent 
 
 For all who fled not into banishment, — 
 
 The crime which homes, and towns, and harvests gav&< 
 
 To desolation by the fiery wave 
 
 * During the wars of the roses between the houses of York and 
 Lancaster. 
 
 t Ecclesiastical Rome.
 
 BOOK I. CANTO III. 41 
 
 Of conflagration, myriads forcing far 
 To die of cold and want, fatigue and care ; 
 And the still greater crime, which did all this 
 For love of God, and for the Church's bliss ! 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Oh ! think not, think not, whatsoe'er the name 
 
 Thou takest on this orb of sin and shame, — 
 
 Whether men call thee Papist, Churchman high. 
 
 Or Churchman low, schismatic, sectary, — 
 
 Or Independent, Presbyterian, 
 
 Or any other foolish name of man, — 
 
 If only in thy heart thou wouldst o'erthrow 
 
 And doom a brother down to endless woe. 
 
 Because he differs from thy favourite creed, — 
 
 Oh ! think not, think not, stained by such a deed. 
 
 Only intended, thou canst ever rise 
 
 To take a mansion in th' unsullied skies ! 
 
 That heaven of light and love can ne'er become 
 
 The great reward, the everlasting home. 
 
 Of such as would, if not kept back by shame. 
 
 Consume mankind by either sword or flame ! 
 
 Yea, even the man who secretly undoes 
 
 Another's honest eff'orts to oppose 
 
 Priestcraft and tyranny, himself may bless, 
 
 May smile while thinking of his great success, — 
 
 But God, as with the simoom of the sky, 
 
 Shall blast him for indulged malignitj !
 
 42 THB HISTORY OF SOUTHAMPTON. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Thanks be to God, there is one sanctity. 
 One little Isle above the thundering sea 
 Of earth's commotions, where religious ire 
 Is now restrained from prisons, bonds and fire ; 
 Where if, or priest, or layman, wish to act 
 The pope, he must conceal the odious fact. 
 Or sink beneath the keen contempt of men 
 Who never will pupe-governed be again.* 
 
 XVI. 
 
 With great delight the Muse oft contemplates 
 
 Those times when men endured the greatest straits. 
 
 When even the gradual pressure, which alone, 
 
 Who felt, passed through a thousand deaths in dying one. 
 
 Was chosen rather than drink any mf>re 
 
 Of that mixed cup presented by the whore 
 
 Of Bab}' Ion, — that cup of mingled wine. 
 
 Of all ingredients save the one divine ; 
 
 * These lines make no allusion to the recent remarkable revolu- 
 tion at Rome ; they were indeed written long before that event 
 was suspected by the most sagacious politicians. "What will be 
 the result of so great a change in the political and ecclesiastical 
 world, it might appear presumptuous to attempt to predict. But 
 as tlie twelve hundred and sixty years given by the inspired pro- 
 phets for the reign of Antichrist, the Man of sin, must be approach- 
 ing, the overthrow of the political power of the pope, is an event 
 which ought to awaken the student of Biblical propliecy to great 
 expectation. Let us hope uo more blood will be shed.
 
 BOOK I. CANTO III. 43 
 
 And when John Bull rose up, and said 'twas time 
 
 Men should be men, — and that the Word sublime 
 
 Alone should govern men in faith and truth, — 
 
 Console the aged, and instruct the youth ; 
 
 That God alone was worthy to be sought 
 
 For pardon nr for sins of act, or thought ; 
 
 That there is only for mankind one source 
 
 Of merit, all divine, and of full force — 
 
 That merit everywhere available 
 
 To snatch impending souls of men from hell. 
 
 Treasured in Him, who, God, and man, became 
 
 Man's sufferiiig substitute — " endured the shame " 
 
 A crucifixion — and expiring, wrought 
 
 A full salvation ! oh ! transcendant thought ! 
 
 For guilty rebels of the race of man. 
 
 Of every age and nation, clime and clan ; 
 
 That prayers to saints, and love of rotting bones, 
 
 Ts but a heathenish trust in stocks and stones 
 
 Revived, to turn men to idolatry. 
 
 The greatest insult to the DEITY 
 
 Men can indulge in here ; that abstinence 
 
 From lawful marriage, and those scenes of sense 
 
 And pleasure, where relations dear exist. 
 
 And social intercourses souls assist, — 
 
 Is an infraction of the law sublime 
 
 Which bade men multiply o'er every clime. 
 
 And a dark source of all impurity and crime ; 
 
 That prayers said for the dead, can ne'er avail 
 
 To liberate souls in everlasting wail, — 
 
 Yea, that the mere pretension to such might. 
 
 Is a mean artifice mankind to fright.
 
 44 THE HISTORY OF SOUTHAMPTON. 
 
 A gross impeachment of the Godhead great. 
 
 By subtle, selfish men in this low state, 
 
 At whose presumption holy angels turn 
 
 Pale, and o'er man's besotted reason mourn ; 
 
 And, that, to sell indulgences to sin — 
 
 To promise pardon ere the act begin — 
 
 Is the last madness of the atheist's brain 
 
 To turn the souls of men, and heaven and earth, to gain! 
 
 XVII. 
 
 'Twas she, who, loved by peasant and by sage, 
 
 The noblest, wisest monarch of her age, 
 
 Elizabeth the daughter fair and great 
 
 Of a great minded mother of untimely fate, — 
 
 'Twas she, with magnanimity of sway. 
 
 Swept Romish power, and Romish craft away, ' 
 
 And bade her dark delusions disappear 
 
 Before the force of arguments most clear ; 
 
 'Twas she who bade the hunted sheep of heaven 
 
 A calm asylum find, unsought, undriven 
 
 By popish priest, or prince, in this sweet Isle 
 
 Where first she taught life, truth, and liberty to smile. 
 
 When bloody Rome, from this great nation sent, 
 
 Poured forth her wrath upon the continent. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 To thee Southampton, came those refugees — 
 Those persecuted men — across the seas. 
 And with them brought good morals, useful arts. 
 Industrious habits, upright minds and hearts.
 
 BOOK I. — CANTO III. 45 
 
 And the protecting, prospering care of heaven ; 
 And soon thou didst again become the haven 
 For shipping ; and wast justly famed for wealth, 
 The beauty of thy buildings, — for the health 
 Of thine inhabitants, — the great resort 
 Of merchants, — for festivities and sport. 
 
 End of Canto III. 
 
 I feel it a duty I owe myself to state, that the whole of the first 
 book of this poem was written before anything was known in 
 England of the changes which have lately taken place in Rome. 
 I cannot therefore be justly charged with insulting fallen great- 
 ness. I have always believed the pope of Rome, along with all 
 persons of all Christian denominations, who indulge the ambition, 
 and cruelty, and tyranny, which are the chief elements in the con- 
 stitution of what we may call the popedom of Eomanism, to be the 
 Man of Sin of Saint Paul, and the Antichrist of Saint John ; and, 
 as such, I anticipate their complete destruction. But God forbid 
 that I should wish for the destruction of the Catholic Church, in 
 its members, priesthood, and property. I only wish for the de- 
 struction of that which is destructive of its own religious health, 
 and opposed to the conversion of the world to Christianity. To 
 be more particular — I wish for the destruction of that spirit, which 
 did, for hundreds of years, and would again, if humanity could go 
 back to the dark ages, triumph over the rights, liberties, lives, and 
 souls of men. What can be more monstrous than tortures, im- 
 prisonment, the burning faggot, and the unsheathed sword, either 
 to propagate Christianity, or prevent heresy ? The persecutor, to 
 whatever community he may belong, is not more an enemy of 
 mankind, than his pretensions are hateful to God. With much 
 pain am I obliged to admit, that many protestants, who talk and 
 write a great deal about liberty and religious tyranny, would make
 
 46 APPENDAGE TO 
 
 most consummate popes, if they had learning and policy enough 
 extensively to gain the confidence of men. Happily they shew 
 the cruel foot before it has had time to tread upon the consciences, 
 and destroy the liberty of Christian Churches. I cannot, how- 
 ever, charge any protestant divines with affecting to pray souls out 
 of purgatury, with selling indulgences to commit sin, nor with 
 denying the reading of the Holy Scriptures to the laity. 
 
 I should not be just, perhaps, to my Southampton reader, were 
 I not to extract, from one of the most interesting lectures I ever 
 read, a passage which greatly delighted me with its honesty, man- 
 liness, and wisdom, bearing immediately on the sentiment of this 
 note. 
 
 " In making this rapid sketch of the scarcity of literary means, 
 " I have purposely and advisedly dwelt on the particulars regard- 
 " ing the circulation of the Holy Scriptures ; from a well-grounded 
 " conviction, that the freedom of the human mind is no where 
 " complete, where the holy scriptures do not freely and largely 
 " circulate. In no society, on no occasion, will I ever consent 
 " to conceal my firm, deliberate, established, immoveable 
 " belief in revealed religion, in protestant Christianity ; nor what, 
 " in my estimation, immediately follows from this, the infinite 
 " importance of making this the basis of all pursuits whatever ; of 
 " none more prominently, than the pursuit of knowledge. Here 
 " is the great security, here the corrective, here the preservative 
 " from error and from evil." 
 
 Bullar's Advantages of the Present Time, page 29. 
 
 We have been told that the popery of the present age will never 
 be what it has been, supposing it should regain all the influence 
 over the nations which it has lost. But this is to contradict the 
 experience of the whole world. The Jewish religion went rapidly 
 into decay even while Solomon permitted his heathen wives to have 
 idolatrous temples in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, his own
 
 BOOK I. CANTO III. 47 
 
 wisdom being less influential than his own bad ekample. And 
 idolatry continued to have a worse and worse effect upon the tribes 
 of Israel, under the protection of the Israelitish kings, till it be- 
 came fatal to the ten tribes. And after this we all know that it 
 had nearly proved fatal to the tribe of Judah, owing to the defec- 
 tion of the house of David. And human nature has not altered 
 any of its natural and moral elements ; nor is it more elevated in 
 mind than it was in ancient times. If the pope of Rome could 
 again intimidate kings, he would again enlist their arms to mur- 
 der schismatics and extirpate heretics. One generation of indifl'er- 
 ence to the Holy Scriptures, and to the honour of God, as He 
 has revealed Himself in tliose inspired bonks, would paralize the 
 whole world of mind so far as to plunge the educated part of it 
 into virtual infidelity, and the uneducated part of it into gross su- 
 perstition. Let us remember, that it is the positive refusal of the 
 pope to refoi-m acknowledged abuses in his government, which has 
 virtually deposed him. Where then are we to look for any wil- 
 lingness on his part to purify tlie temple of his God, upon whose 
 abominable pollutions he has, for twelve hundred years, based the 
 vrhole of his political and ecclesiastical power ? 
 
 Since the above note was written we have had published in the 
 daily papers of England the Proclamation of Pius IX., condem- 
 natory of all the attempts of the people of Rome to bring about 
 any measure of reform. This proclamation, demonstrates more 
 than a thousand arguments could, that ^o^ery is, in the nineteenth 
 century, what it was, (what it always has been,) twelve hundred 
 years ago. The proclamation is as follows. 
 
 " Pius IX. to the Roman People. — The outrage in latter 
 days committed against our person, and the intention openly 
 manifested to continue these acts of violence (which the Almighty, 
 inspiring men's minds with sentiments of union and moderation, 
 has prevented), have compelled us to separate ourselves temporarily 
 from our subjects and children, whom we love, and ever shall love.
 
 48 APPENDAGE TO 
 
 The reasons which have induced us to take this important step — 
 Heaven knows how painful it is to our hearts — have arisen from 
 the necessity of our enjoying free liberty in the exercise of the 
 sacred duties of the Holy See, as under the circumstances by which 
 we were then aiBicted, the Catliolic world might reasonably doubt 
 of the freedom of that exercise. The acts of violence of which we 
 complain can alone be attributed to the machinations which have 
 been used, and the measures that have been taken by a class of 
 men degraded in the face of Europe and the world. This is the 
 more evident, as the wrath of the Almighty has already fallen on 
 their souls, a7id as it will call down on them sooner or later the 
 punishment which is prescribed for them by his Church. We 
 recognise humbly in the ingratitude of these misguidtd children, 
 the anger of the Almighty , who permits their misfortunes as an 
 atonement for the sins of ourselves and those of our people. But 
 still we cannot, without betraying the sacred duties imposed on us, 
 refrain from protesting formally against their acts, as we did do 
 verbally on the 16th day of November of painful memory, in pre- 
 sence of the whole diplomatic corps, who on that occasion honour- 
 ably encircled us, and brought comfort and consolation to our soul, 
 in recognizing that a violent and unprecedented sacrilege had been 
 committed. That protest we did intend, as we now do, openly and 
 publicly to repeat, inasmuch as we yielded only to violence, and 
 because we were and are desirous it should be made known that 
 all proceedings emanating from such acts of violence were and are 
 devoid of all efficacy and legality. This protesting is a necessary 
 consequence of the malicious labours of these wicked men, and we 
 publish it from the suggestion of our conscience, stimulated as it 
 has been by the circumstances in which we were placed , and the 
 impediments offered to the exercise of our sacred duties. Never- 
 theless, we confide upon the Most High that the continuance of 
 these evils may be abridged, and we humbly supplicate the God of 
 Heaven to avert His wrath, in the language of the Royal Prophet — 
 ^Memento Domine David, et omnis niansuetudinis ejus.' hi order 
 t}iat the city of Rome and our states be not deprived of a legal
 
 BOOK I. CANTO III. 49 
 
 executive, ice have nominated a governing commission, composed of 
 the following persons : — The Cardenale Castricane, President; Mon- 
 signor Roberto Robert! ; Principe di Roviano ; Principe Barberini ; 
 Marquis Bevilacque di Bologna ; Lieut.-General Zucchi. In con- 
 fiding to the said governing commission the temporary direction 
 of public affairs, we recommend to our subjects and children, 
 without exception, the conservation of tranquillity and good order. 
 Finally, wc desire and command that daily and earnest prayers 
 shall be offered for the safety of our person, and that the peace of 
 the world may be preserved, especially that of our state of Rome, 
 where and with, when children, our heart shall be wherever we in 
 person may dwell within the fold of Christ. And in the fulfilment 
 of our duty, as Supreme Pontiff, we thus humbly and devoutly 
 invoke the Great Mother of Mercy, and the holy Apostles, Peter 
 and Paul, for their intercession, that the city and state of Rome 
 may be saved from the wrath of the Omnipotent God. 
 
 Pius Papa IX. 
 " Gaeta, die Nov. 28." 
 
 This Proclamation, the intelligent reader vrill see with me, con- 
 tains the following sentiments peculiar to the popery of Rome. 
 
 I. That God is under some kind of moral obligation to inflict 
 upon men disobedient to the popery of Rome, the particular 
 kind of punishment which that popery thinks proper to pre- 
 scribe. 
 
 II. That \h.eperso7ial sufferings of the pope are meritorious. 
 
 III. That the pope of Rome has a right to be an absolute prince 
 in his own dominion. 
 
 IV. That the Virgin Mary, and the apostles, Peter and Paul, 
 have power of available intercession with God. 
 
 Now long, very long experience has a hundred times demon- 
 strated to mankind, that every one of these sentiments is fatal, 
 
 c
 
 50 APPENDAGE, ETC. 
 
 either to the peace of the world, or the good of the Church. When 
 they all appear in an official document of but a few sentences, 
 they at least shew, beyond a question, that popery, (not, 
 the Catholic Church, but the popery of it,) must be destroyed : it 
 cannot be changed. It is antichrist — the Man of Siti. If it so 
 please God may it come to nothing without the shedding of blood. 
 
 It was almost the same hour I had sent the paragraphs above to 
 the press that I saw in the London News, that the Pope has al- 
 ready addressed all the European governments, with the exception 
 of ours, " demanding their assistance to replace him in the chair of 
 Saint Peter." What this demand of his Holiness may lead to, no 
 one, perhaps, can at present predict ; but the reader may not err, 
 if, with the Author of " Southampton and the Isle of Wight," he 
 considers it as one of many events which will sooner or later fulfil 
 the predictions of the Old and New Testament prophets. The 
 Reader who has leisure may peruse the Dissertations of Bishop 
 Newton, on the predictions of Daniel, Saint Paul, and Saint J ohn , 
 with much advantage at the present time.
 
 CANTO IV 
 
 THE HISTOEY OF SOUTHAMPTON CONCLUDED. 
 
 I. 
 
 Years of delightful joy now passed away ; 
 Months followed months like dancing ladies gay. 
 When, in the warming days of verdant spring. 
 They form in graceful couples, or in ring. 
 On the fresh earth, and, in unmixed dehght. 
 Pass the whole day away till dewy night. 
 The swallow, bird of sunny, summer clime. 
 Came, and went back at b«r appointed time ; 
 The Spring and Summer with sweet- smelling flowers 
 Painted the gardens bright, and clothed the bowers ; 
 The Autumn with its roots, and fruits, and grains. 
 Brought plenty o'er the neighbouring vales and plains ; 
 And winter, as its winds blew with a tone 
 Which seeraeth half a murmur, half a moan. 
 Disrobed the forests of their leafy dress. 
 And made the earth a withered wilderness ; 
 But equally delightful went each season : 
 Wealth, health, and beauty, and unchastened reason 
 In love with sense, united all their powers 
 To find out pleasures for the varying hours : 
 
 c 2
 
 52 THE HISTORY OF SOUTHAMPTON. 
 
 Even the dark nights of winter passed along 
 
 In sweetest comfort, or in gayest song : 
 
 For what are wind and rain, or frost and snow. 
 
 Or any other common ill below. 
 
 To men whose stores of gold can meet the price 
 
 Of richest Polar furs, and Indian spice, 
 
 And every other luxury which sense 
 
 Can crave for here, and every elegance 
 
 Of art, — and, valued more, far more than they. 
 
 The evening banquet, and th' heroic lay ? 
 
 II. 
 
 'Tis at such times that men, when left alone. 
 Forget the moral of misfortunes gone ; 
 Forget th' instruction of a thousand pages 
 Concerning man's mutations in past ages ; 
 And strangely influenced by foolish pride. 
 As empty as the buoy which rides the tide. 
 Which, if but sea- worms perforate, soon drinks 
 The wave it floats in, and then downward sinks. 
 Passes his days in soft voluptuousness, 
 In thoughtless ease, or pleasure, or excess, 
 When some misfortune, like a midnight storm, 
 WiU shortly burst, and all his joys deform. 
 
 III. 
 
 'Twas when Southampton had exceeded all 
 
 Its former wealth and fame, — when great and small 
 
 Felt all that confidence and joy elate 
 
 Which affluence never faileth to create, —
 
 BOOK I. CANTO IV. 
 
 53 
 
 "When every morning dawned more bright and gay 
 
 Than the glad morning of the previous day, — 
 
 "When every evening brought its festive song, 
 
 And life went Uke a sunny brook along, — 
 
 "When wealth, and health, and fame seemed ever near, 
 
 And plague and death created not a fear, — 
 
 'Twas then, in those sweet days of confidence. 
 
 Came forth again the dreadful pestilence. 
 
 And walked the frighted streets, and quickly bore. 
 
 As it had done three centuries before, 
 
 Men, women, children to the awful gloom 
 
 And fearful silence of the hfeless tomb. 
 
 The smitten faintly wailed, the dying groaned, — 
 
 And the bereaved but a short period moaned 
 
 Ere they were tainted or by touch, or breath, 
 
 And hurried, after those they wept, to death. 
 
 IV. 
 
 But the appalled Muse shall change her rhyme 
 "While she narrates th' events of that dread time : 
 A varying measure suiting more her powers, 
 "Which tremble while they contfeinplate those hours 
 Of horror, agony, despair, ancj^eath. 
 With a half-breathing, half suspended breath. 
 
 The Story of the Plague of 1665. 
 
 V. 
 
 Again the plague came to Southampton bright : 
 It came on a calm and a moonlight night.
 
 54 THE HISTORY OP SOUTHAMPTON. 
 
 But It was not in the moon's soft beam ; 
 
 Nor in the air which slept on the stream. 
 
 It came in a bundle of linen, tied 
 
 By a mother who in her child-bed died* 
 
 Of that same scourge of human kind : 
 
 And she left her late-born babe behind. 
 
 That infant followed its mother soon ; 
 
 And the father came here as the silver moon 
 
 Cast her sweet beams of graceful light 
 
 O'er the cloudless concave of the night. 
 
 That witless widower did not know 
 
 That his wife had tainted that linen so. 
 
 And he brought it among some things from thence 
 
 Which he thought were free from the pestilence. 
 
 The woman who opened that hnen, died. 
 
 And infection and death went side by side. 
 
 Till business ceased, and the death-Cart's call 
 
 Was all the noise that heard at all. 
 
 Or day, or night, save the hollow wind 
 
 Which moaned along the untrodden street j 
 
 Or the voice of the tide when it sought to find 
 Its wonted holes at the high walls feet. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Oh ! who can tell what horrors then 
 Pervaded the souls of stricken men ! 
 
 * Tradition assures us that the plague of 1665 was transmitted 
 to Southampton in this manner.
 
 BOOK I. CANTO IV. 55 
 
 What agony looked from the tortured eye 
 Of such as were seized, and doomed to die ! 
 Oh ! who can tell what tears were shed 
 On mothers, fathers, children dead. 
 Till a frantic horror those sources dried ! 
 And then the fond lover turned aside 
 From beauty's lip, when beauty died ; 
 And friend and brother, pierced with fear. 
 Forsook both friend and brother dear ; 
 And even the mother trembled much 
 Her dying, and dead babe to touch. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Ah ! what are men, when heaven above 
 In anger sends the pestilence ? 
 
 Who can the mortal curse remove. 
 Or bid devouring death go hence ? 
 When he sends judgments here below, 
 A friend may convey them as well as a foe ; 
 And even a holy angel's wing 
 The vials of wrath from heaven may fling ; 
 And light and air, which life impart. 
 Inflate the lungs, and warm the heart. 
 May soon two awful sources be 
 Of sickness, and mortahty. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 While walked that pestilence along 
 
 The streets, and took the young and strong ;
 
 56 THE HISTORY OF SOUTHAMPTON. 
 
 And bore the infant's soul away 
 
 That had not learned to lisp a prayer. 
 And did not hairs, however gray 
 
 And weak, shew mercy to, or spare ; 
 A father and a mother died 
 
 Who had an only daughter young ; 
 And when the death- cart passed beside 
 
 The door, she let it go along. 
 Alone, and in the evening hour. 
 
 She in the garden dug a grave 
 Beside a honeysuckle bower. 
 
 And there to earth their corses gave.* 
 
 IX. 
 
 That daughter was a gentle maid. 
 
 Of mingled home and foreign blood ; 
 More beautiful with that rude spade 
 
 In unprotected womanhood. 
 Than is the loveliest light of day 
 
 When it comes down the morning skies. 
 Or paints with more refulgent ray 
 
 Eve-clouds with their transcendant dies. 
 The beauty of her night-dark eye 
 
 Was like those Uving beams of Ught 
 Which came and went athwart the sky 
 
 When heavenly angels shone at night. 
 
 * This is a well authenticated fact.
 
 BOOK I. CANTO IV. 57 
 
 And shepherds hstened to the hyinn 
 Of those exalted serapliim 
 Who sang the love of Elohim, 
 The lash that o'er it threw its shade. 
 Was like the graceful bamboo,* made 
 To tremble in romantic glade 
 By the cool air of dewy even 
 
 Wliich sighs whUe passing to the sea. 
 When moonlight from an Indian heaven 
 
 Is cast o'er momitain scenery. 
 Her voice was hke an evening lay 
 
 From lady's bower on soft winds sent. 
 Whose fingers musically play 
 On some romantic instrument. 
 With her sweet voice's ravishment. 
 And she'd a tall and graceful frame 
 
 More beautifully elegant 
 Than is the Indian lightning's flame. 
 
 When flashing o'er night's firmament, 
 It cuts and hghts the breadths of space. 
 
 And diving down its native heaven. 
 It casts a ray on every place 
 
 Beneath the raven wings of even. 
 
 * It is impossible to conceive a vegetable object to be more 
 gracefully beautiful than a clump of bamboo. I have watched its 
 moonlight shadows, when it trembled in the land-wind of Jamaica, 
 himdreds of times. The land-wind is a soft breeze which blows 
 towards the sea all night. 
 
 c 3
 
 58 THE HISTORY OF SOUTHAMPTON. 
 
 X. 
 
 But when she'd left her parents there. 
 
 And gone alone to her dark room. 
 The plague seized on her beauties fair 
 
 And the dread dead-cart seemed to doom. 
 But when some days and nights had passed 
 
 The iron hand of death ungrasped. 
 And gave her back, like swimmer cast 
 
 On what his hand would erst have grasped ; 
 And, slowly as the ascending sap 
 
 Renews the rose tree for the spring. 
 She seemed to conquer the mishap 
 
 Which left her such a feeble thing. 
 
 XI. 
 
 That maiden lived to tell the tale 
 
 Of fihal charity and pain ; 
 How she recovered — hved to hail 
 
 The full return of health again. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Daughters who love their parents dear, 
 
 Better than angels are below ; 
 For they can soothe and bless them here 
 
 "With love which angels cannot shew. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 As when a Scotsman of gigantic size. 
 Of robust health, and matchless energies,
 
 BOOK 1.— CANTO IV. 59 
 
 In Indian climes is smitten — bows his head 
 
 With burning anguish, and deUrium dread ; 
 
 And then, consumed by fever unsubdued. 
 
 Which quickens but t' impoverish all his blood. 
 
 Lies day by day tiU life seems but a spark. 
 
 Now flickering, now expiring in the dark ; 
 
 At length recovers, but so very slowly 
 
 He seemeth but as withered grass bent lowly 
 
 Beneath the pressure of the simoom, which 
 
 The desert sendeth oft o'er countries rich. 
 
 And blights the fields and gardens, flowers and fruits, 
 
 And parches up both hving men and brutes. 
 
 Till nature languishes as if 'twould die 
 
 In torrid, panting, stifled agony.* 
 
 XIV. 
 
 At length that man creeps to the air and light : 
 This chills his body ; that o'erpowers his sight ; 
 Until returning to his native vale. 
 His health improves by every bracing gale. 
 And he more rapidly, in course of time. 
 Regains some portion of his gone-by prime. 
 
 XV. 
 
 So with Southampton 'twas : the pestilence 
 Left it almost deprived of life and sense. 
 
 * I have several times endured this wind only in its mildest 
 force, when I was always oppressed with langoiir, and had a skin 
 anything but comfortable.
 
 60 THE HISTORY OF SOUTHAMPTON. 
 
 Its trade was gone ; its wealth declined apace : 
 Where men had lived and laboured, empty space 
 Betokened desolation ; and the fanes. 
 For want of men to join in holy strains 
 And grateful homage, like the fane of old 
 Which Solomon adorned with beaten gold. 
 When bad kings reigned, and pestilence and sword 
 Wasted the erring people of the Lord, 
 Mourned that so few with prayer and sacrifice 
 Adored the Sovereign of the earth and skies. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 But the last age beheld Southampton rise 
 Like the old eagle, monarch of the skies. 
 When, while long preying in his wonted vale. 
 He is o'erwhelmed with furious storm of hail ; 
 But having sought some shelter 'neath the tree 
 Which laughs at heaven's wildest revelry. 
 And having waited till that icy hail 
 Has past, borne onwards by th' impetuous gale. 
 By slow degrees his beaten wings expands, 
 And sad and sullen leaves the lower lands. 
 Till, mounted high, his native rock he spies 
 Piercing the region of the distant skies. 
 And then puts forth his pinions' fullest might. 
 Regains his home upon the mountain height. 
 Scorning the winds which lately swept the vale 
 Where he was feeding, and its icy hail. 

 
 BOOK I. CANTO IV. 61 
 
 XVII. 
 
 A Prince's favour* brought the great and fair 
 To bathe in its sea- waters, — breathe its air ; 
 Merchants arose again, and foreign vines 
 SuppHed its cellars v^^ith the choicest wines ; 
 Collected hosts increased the traders' gain 
 Ere they embarked upon the stormy main ; 
 And many noble families brought wealth. 
 Who only sought resuscitated health, 
 And hid themselves away from damps and chills 
 In the sweet villas on its neighbouring hills ; 
 While others permanently staid, and gave 
 Impetus to the commerce on the wave. 
 And prospered all the small domestic trade 
 By which a peopled town is thriving made. 
 
 * The Duke of York, early in the reign of George III, 
 
 End op Book I.
 
 SOUTHAMPTON 
 
 AND 
 
 THE ISLE OF WIGHT 
 
 % ^om. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 " I care not, Fortune, what you me deny : 
 You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace ; 
 You cannot shut the windows of the sky, 
 Through which Aurora shews her brightening face ; 
 You cannot bar my constant feet to trace 
 The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve : 
 Let health my nerves and finer members trace, 
 And I their toys to the great children leare : 
 Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can me bereave." 
 
 Thomson.
 
 SOUTHAMPTON 
 
 AND 
 
 THE ISLE OF WIGHT 
 % poem. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 CANTO I 
 
 I OFT have looked upon the midnight deep 
 
 Mid-way from Europe to West Indian Isles, 
 And scarce refrained from shouting as the sleep 
 
 Of ocean grew coruscant with the smiles 
 Phosphoric, gleaming lovlier than the light 
 
 Siderian from the upper firmament 
 Which high illumes the infinite of night ; 
 
 For those phosphoric beauties, as if sent 
 Up from some submarine, sweet world of light. 
 Came flashing from a myriad waves so bright. 
 So soft, so beautiful, that all my soul 
 
 Seemed lost in wonder thxough the hours of night. 
 Where trade-winds blow, and tropic waters roll. 
 
 And softer, sweeter, brighter came that light
 
 66 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Phosphoric from the bosom of the sea, 
 
 Than all the mingled radiance of the night, 
 Or all the glory of the day to me. 
 But oft, amid that radiance would I sigh 
 That the ship brought me not more rapidly 
 To this fair Isle, the happy nursery 
 Of truth and peace, wealth, health and hberty. 
 
 II. 
 
 And oft from ocean's stormy waves I've come 
 From foreign chmes, and wanderings, and toil. 
 
 And gladsome seen the Channel's hoary foam 
 Swept by the south wind on this beauteous soil. 
 
 This Angle-land, this sweetest land on earth : 
 And though my soul was full of the great scenes 
 Where mighty mountains clothed with thousand greens. 
 
 And water-falls which in prodigious mirth 
 
 Leaped into gulphs which washed those mountains feet, — 
 And sunny vales with Indian fragrance sweet. 
 
 And lakes and rivers, and their countless isles. 
 And vast interminable scenes of wood. 
 
 On whose dark grandeur cloudless mid- day smiles, — 
 Th' indented shores which bound the ocean-flood. 
 
 O'er which looks down the mountain clad with snow ; 
 Shew nature in her proud subhmities,- — 
 
 Yet my heart felt a warmer, nobler glow 
 Of life, and love, and gratitude, and joy 
 "When Vectis' chalky cliffs, as they so high 
 
 Rose perpendicular above the seas. 
 
 And beamed their depth of whiteness to my eye ;
 
 BOOK II. CANTO I. 67 
 
 And when, the Solent past, Antona's tide 
 Recieved me on its bosom high and wide. 
 
 And bore me to Southampton, as its spires 
 And neighbouring woods, green fields, and mansions white. 
 Flamed with the lustre of the evening light. 
 
 And seemed half kindling with celestial fires. 
 
 III. 
 
 And oft, as Holly Hill looked on the wave. 
 And Hamble's hoary Church illustrious seemed. 
 
 And Cadland to the woodland forest gave 
 A calm magnificence as bright it beamed 
 O'er thickly crowded groves where evening gleamed ; 
 
 And Netley's ruined fane put on a smile 
 
 Like some sweet saint who meets the stroke of death 
 With cheerful eye, although his parting breath 
 
 Leaves him exhausted by affliction vile ; 
 
 And beauteous Hythe, and Dibden's verdant height. 
 
 And Woolston, Itchen, Bitterne, Portswood, shone 
 Like Turkish villages and villas, bright 
 
 Beneath the glory of a Thracian sun ; 
 
 And Millbrook, Redbridge, Totton, Eling, sent 
 Their beauties down the glossy element 
 
 Resplendant with the deeply ruddy beams 
 Of evening poured upon them from the hills 
 
 Far to the westward of the upper streams ; 
 
 And gay Southampton, like a queen who thrills 
 
 Her courtiers with her beauty, glowed all o'er 
 
 Refulgent as she stretched along the shore ; —
 
 68 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 As oft these eyes, returning from afar. 
 
 Have glanced upon these places one by one. 
 The Muse would long, relieved from every care, 
 
 To picture all those bright scenes as they shone ; 
 And now, retired on many a lonely hill. 
 
 Which overlooks Antona's scenery, — 
 Or sauntering on the shore, where sweetly stiU 
 
 The fuU tide sleeps serenely, beauteously. 
 She prompts the numbers of my present lay - 
 To suit my subject, tender, grave, or gay. 
 
 End of Canto I.
 
 CANTO II. 
 
 THE COMPLAINT OF AN OLD INHABITANT OF 
 
 THE TOWN. 
 
 I. 
 
 " Southampton now is altered. Gone are all 
 Those nobles who once graced the evening ball. 
 Gone, gone those Ladies, whose transcendant graces 
 Beamed heavenly beautiful from their fair faces, — 
 Brighter than angels found in earthly places. 
 When they led forth the gay nocturnal dance. 
 All life, all light, all matchless elegance, 
 
 II. 
 
 " The Company of Porters is no more. 
 Which carted all things from the quay and store ; 
 Those jolly men, who, privileged in their line. 
 Drank, when they hked, of good old bonded wine ; 
 And often made the midnight moor and kne 
 Vocal with some heart- stirring, oft-sung strain. 
 
 III. 
 
 " No more the cheerful cowherd blows his honi 
 Up and down High-street every eve and morn,
 
 70 THE COMPLAINT OF AN OLD INHABITANT, ETC. 
 
 Who, charged with all the dairies of the town. 
 For milking brought to every house its own ; 
 And who, while feeding, watched them all day long, 
 Joining the summer birds in thoughtless song.* 
 
 IV. 
 
 " No more the Channel packet, wind-bound, stays. 
 
 The inns enriching with its long delays : 
 
 For then the passengers could not come down 
 
 By rail, and in a few hours leave the town 
 
 By steamer, waiting nor for wind nor tide 
 
 Before she launch upon the ocean wide. 
 
 They often languished longer than 'twould take 
 
 A packet now the western world to make ; 
 
 Languished with loss of money, waste of time. 
 
 Neglect of business, chafings unsubhme, 
 
 Vexation, anger, passion, pain : but still 
 
 The town grew richer for a casual ill. 
 
 V. 
 
 " The altered state I now describe, began 
 As the last century closed on mortal man. 
 
 * I wish to observe, that I have derived much of all I know of 
 Southampton, for the last 70 years, from an old gentleman who 
 has been intimately acquainted with the place and its inhabitants 
 all that time. I have that gentleman's authority for stating, that 
 "The Cowherds" took its name from being the home of the 
 Cowherd in question.
 
 BOOK II. CANTO II. 71 
 
 When over earnest, and mistaken zeal 
 
 For the town's honour, and its peoples' weal. 
 
 Cut a canal along' the MiUbrook shore, 
 
 Where daily double tides their deep floods bore* 
 
 High up as Redbridge, with a channel free 
 
 From danger save when night invests the sea, 
 
 Even for vessels laden deep and large 
 
 Ten times the size of largest cord- drawn barge. 
 
 And dug a tunnel through the very course 
 
 The waters flowed by gravitating force 
 
 * An explanation of this phenomenon is given in a beautiful 
 pamphlet, by a scientific resident of this town, which I take the 
 liberty to extract for the advantage of such of my readers as may 
 not have that work. It is as follows : 
 
 " There is a peculiarity in the tides of the Southampton Water 
 " which is worthy of remark. After the first flood tide has begun 
 " to ebb, at an interval of about an hour, there is another tide, or 
 " second rise, which continues for another hour, and is equal to the 
 " former. This may be explained by reference to the position of 
 " the Isle of Wight between Southampton Water and the British 
 " Channel. The tidal wave coming up the Channel is divided by 
 " the Island, the northern portion rushes by Hurst Castle, and up 
 " Southampton Water, producing high tide at the quay and then 
 " ebbing. About two hours after the first flood, the southern 
 " portion of that wave reaches the quay, having gone round the 
 " Island and come in at Spithead, Hence we derive a second 
 " high tide before the final ebb." 
 
 See " Objects worthy of attention in an Eicursion round the 
 Isle of Wight ;" etc., by John Drew, F. E. A. S., page 30.
 
 72 THE COMPLAINT OF AN OLD INHABITANT, ETC. 
 
 Into the wells and fountains, sweet, and clear. 
 And pure, as e'er was drunk on earth's huge sphere, 
 To meet the flood-tide here, and thence convey 
 By paltry boat and barge, through many a day, 
 MTiat the same tide, with its ascending power. 
 Would have conveyed to Redbridge in an hour. 
 And twenty other laden ships beside. 
 So deep its flowing waters, and so wide. 
 
 VI. 
 
 " But that Canal, for want of means, or skill, 
 Failed to accomplish anything but ill. 
 To some it brought disgrace ; to others gave 
 A few mudstones,* vexation, and a grave. 
 For the ten thousands they had on it sunk. 
 And which its sand and gravel banks had dx-unk, 
 As they drink up the Summer's passing rain. 
 And, still unquenched as ever, thirst again. 
 
 * I call the stones in question, taken from the excavations of 
 the canal, mudstones, because I believe they are purely mud for- 
 mations. I have repeatedly seen, especially on the east coasts of 
 England, and the Thracian shores of the Propontis, large pieces 
 of hard mud rounded by the action of waveal waters, and dried al- 
 most to stone in the heat of the sun. The stones alluded to in 
 the poem may be seen in front of Spring Hill House, and were all 
 that Admiral Scot ever had for the fortune he sunk in the speculation 
 in question.
 
 BOOK II. — CANTO II. 73 
 
 VII. 
 
 " The town it injured ; for it turned the source 
 Of the sweet waters which obey the force 
 They have to gravitate, and seek the sea. 
 Whence in small particles, too small to see, 
 The air absorbed them ; and the earth again 
 Received in dews, and mists, and fogs, and rain, 
 To treasure up for man's perpetual need. 
 Supply small fountains, and large rivers feed. 
 And cool the upper crust of nature's breast. 
 Lest heats should generate, stifling damps infest. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 " And thus the waters being stopped below. 
 Where nature, ever- wise, had bade them flow. 
 The wells were emptied, or polluted by 
 Unchannelled drains accumulating nigh.* 
 The cook and house- wife bitterly complained 
 Of tea defiled, and vegetables stained. 
 And the gay visitor of fame and wealth, 
 Too, too tenacious of but feeble health. 
 Became alarmed, as if some unseen snare 
 Lurked in its light, some taint polluted aU the air. 
 
 * I have been told by an aged, most respectable, and influential 
 inhabitant of Southampton, that the present di'ainage of High- 
 street was obstinately opposed by a party from political feeling, 
 a feeling which has often injured both the town and its inhabitants. 
 
 D
 
 74 THE COMPLAINT OF AN OLD INHABITANT, ETC. 
 
 Hasted away to other air and light, 
 
 And other waters purer and more bright.* 
 
 IX. 
 
 " Th' effects of that canal and tunnel were 
 
 But one of many rapid changes here 
 
 Which have completely altered the whole town 
 
 From wealth and fashion looking gently down 
 
 On men devoted daily to their trade. 
 
 Who thousands gathered in their shops' dark shade. 
 
 To busy labour, noise, and population 
 
 Increasing hke a tidal inundation. 
 
 X. 
 
 " The force of steam, so safely now applied 
 To urge the largest vessels o'er the tide ; 
 By which the cumberous railway car is driven 
 Swifter than flies the hurricane of heaven ; 
 Has stamped it with the features it now wears, 
 A town of commerce, and commercial cares. 
 
 * It has frequently been declared to me, that the drying up of 
 the Houndwell springs, in consequence of their heing cut off by the 
 tunnel for the canal, and the either real or imagined alteration of 
 the well-waters, after that event, did the fame of the town more in- 
 jury than, in the nature of things, it ought. It was a great over- 
 sight some method was not thought of, before the railway tunnel 
 was commenced, to rescue the waters which used to supply Hound- 
 well. This might have been done by digging wells north of the 
 tunnel.
 
 BOOK II. CANTO II. 75 
 
 XL 
 
 " Where lords and ladies used to walk beside 
 
 Antona's summer, sunny, beauteous tide. 
 
 Glancing delighted o'er refulgent floods 
 
 To unique shores of shadowy, grateful woods. 
 
 Or the high hills of Vectis looming clear 
 
 'Neath the blue heavens, — what crowds of men appear 
 
 Daily and hourly, active, bent on gain, 
 
 Embarking, or debarking from the main, — 
 
 Men of all ages, nations, and complexions. 
 
 And of all hnguistical inflections. 
 
 And where the warblings of the summer morn 
 
 Were down the waters of the Itchen borne, 
 
 A thousand echoing hammers harshly sound. 
 
 And rail-car whistlings fright the country round. 
 
 XII. 
 
 " This is not all. The town four times the size. 
 Is four times poorer for its smoky skies. 
 And all th' improvements, (changes only they !) 
 Which brought the poor, and drove the rich away. 
 
 XIIL 
 
 " What, if the docks are dug, and railway made, — 
 They do no good to our own town and trade ; 
 This, luggage brings by but a single train 
 The largest ship transports across the main, — 
 
 D 2
 
 76 THE COMPLAINT OF AN OLD INHABITANT, ETC. 
 
 And that, engrosses all the other gain. 
 
 And even a hundred passengers come down 
 
 The day, or day before, they leave the town ; 
 
 Whose outfits are all packed from whence they come ; 
 
 By their own servants corded too, at home ; 
 
 They stay not here a day, and nothing buy. 
 
 Not even a watch-key, or an infant's toy. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 " Our inns are empty ; all our trade is dull ; 
 Our men want labour ; and our House* is full 
 And, if the town increases every day, 
 'Tis but by those 'twere best if far away. 
 The friendless poor, loose women, foreigners 
 Who smuggle ardent spirits and cigars." 
 
 XV. 
 
 'Twas thus complained an old inhabitant, — 
 A keen old gentleman, — no foolish cant, — 
 And mingled many other things severe 
 It might be deemed too personal to state here ; 
 Things, which no doubt, deserve rebuke, contempt. 
 But which the Muse, from private pique exempt. 
 Could not be waged to utter, were she sure 
 Her foes would from it secret pangs endure. 
 Men are but men in wisdom, as in might. 
 Short-sighted, hasty, angry even to spite, 
 
 * The workhouse.
 
 BOOK II. CANTO II. 77 
 
 And often do things out of opposition 
 Which they can ne'er recall by long contrition : 
 For 'tis most certain every case of hate. 
 Open or secret, only can create 
 Discomfort to the bosom where it dwells : 
 Even when full triumph the fell spirit swells. 
 It brings short pleasure, long enduring gloom. 
 And often builds disgrace upon the tomb. 
 And of all hate which men has ever cursed, 
 Rehgious and political 's the worst, 
 Such as the Muse alludes to, (source of shame,) 
 But which she would no more expressly name. 
 Than she would light the powder magazine 
 Built on the sunken shore of Marchwood green. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 But I partake not of the prescient eye 
 
 Which boldly looks into futurity. 
 
 And nothing sees through rear, or far-off time. 
 
 But thickening smokes, and toil, and noise, and crime, 
 
 For thee Southampton, as thy streets extend 
 
 From shore to shore, round many a graceful bend 
 
 Of Itchen's waters, — or along the rise 
 
 Which takes the purer breathings of the skies. 
 
 Till Shirley, Highfield, Portswood shall become 
 
 One town, of twenty myriad souls the home. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 The Muse, inferring only from what is, 
 Its situation, capabilities.
 
 78 THE COMPLAINT OF AN OLD INHABITANT, ETC. 
 
 Imperial favours, clear and soothing sky. 
 
 Its beauteous neighbourhood and imagery. 
 
 That — if enlightened laws and customs should 
 
 Encourage still the commerce on the flood ; 
 
 If truth, and justice, and good nature, bid 
 
 All party strifes to be for ever hid ; 
 
 If magistrates are merciful and just. 
 
 Unstained by crimes of lucre and of lust ; 
 
 If ministers, who heavenly Ught impart. 
 
 Do only wish each other well at heart. 
 
 And the whole town to purer morals rise. 
 
 However much it may augment in size. 
 
 No doubt it shall do well, and men increase 
 
 In trade, and wealth, and happiness, and peace. 
 
 Wliich may God grant; and may He make his face 
 
 To shine on all its families with grace ; 
 
 On generations yet unborn bestow 
 
 The favours of his healing love below. 
 
 End of Canto II.
 
 CANTO III. 
 
 THE QUEEN'S VISIT TO WOOD MILL. 
 
 I. 
 
 'Tis Summer. The absorbing air of heaven 
 
 Has drunk all moisture from the earth uneven. 
 
 And hill and valley, wood and field appear 
 
 In all the charms which nature bids them wear. 
 
 Come forth then, if Southampton be thy home. 
 
 And happy leisure gives thee time to roam — 
 
 Come forth and gaze upon the prospects wide. 
 
 O'er scenes where gardens bloom, where beams the tide ; 
 
 Where panorama varied, verdant, bright. 
 
 Lies in the view of some romantic height ; 
 
 Where deep green pastures peaceful dairies feed. 
 
 And limpid streamlets wander through the mead ; 
 
 Where blooms the ling along the open waste, 
 
 And mud- wall cottages in gardens placed. 
 
 Look out on many an undulating scene 
 
 Succeeding summers clothe in deepest green, — 
 
 Where thick, dark woods in solemn radiance glow, 
 
 And distant vistas pompous mansions shew. 
 
 And where the mouldering tower, and hoary fane 
 
 Adorn with sacred beauty hill and plain.
 
 80 THE queen's visit TO WOOD MILI>. 
 
 II. 
 
 But the impassioned Muse in her warm zeal. 
 Not for a party's, but the general weal. 
 Stoops not to sing alone for the blest few. 
 Who never toil, nor care, nor sorrow knew. 
 Such as beset the man whose hands and head 
 Are daily hard at work for honest bread, — 
 Who braves the surges of th' infuriate sea. 
 Or in his occupation constantly 
 Ashore, full oft sees time in onward flow 
 Take from his means, and seldom much bestow, — 
 But who, if prosperous, it has been his thought 
 To store some portion small of all he got, — 
 May, through the knavery of some villain, see 
 His all sink like a vessel in the sea. 
 
 III. 
 
 She would, if she possessed the happy art, 
 
 tiing to console the careful, anxious heart. 
 
 And give the soul, long wearied, long borne down 
 
 By the deep tide of business in the town, 
 
 ; :5ome relish for the scenes where sun and air 
 
 Unite to paint the landscape gay and fair, — 
 
 This without odour from polluted drain ; 
 
 That without cloud his majesty to stain. 
 
 Yea, as she is, she wiU exert her skill 
 
 To paint the valley, and describe the hill ; 
 
 To tell how fall the glorious beams of day 
 
 Where summer winds with deep green foliage play.
 
 BOOK II. CANTO III. 
 
 81 
 
 Or the calm atmosphere sleeps on the stream 
 Sweet as the sleep of saint without a dream ; 
 Happy if but a moment she should cheer 
 One upright heart, and make both life and nature dear. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Thanks be to common sense, that chartism yet 
 
 Has not the basis of our peace upset. 
 
 Acknowledged virtue in the Sovereignty, 
 
 And loyal love of a great people free. 
 
 Guard us against those machinations base 
 
 Which seek with civil blood to stain fair nature's face. 
 
 V. 
 
 Behold, from lovely Vectis, where retired 
 From a rude world by angry passions fired. 
 The Queen of queens for beauty, truth, and worth. 
 And mightiest empire e'er possessed on earth. 
 Descends, without the pomp of guards and arms, 
 Untouched by fear, imtroubled with alarms. 
 Upon the flood-tide which ascending pours 
 Higher and higher up Antona's shores. 
 With limpid lips to kiss the pebbled beach. 
 And verdant valleys with its arms to reach. 
 Or roll its purifying wave along 
 The feet of lofty walls so hoary, old, and strong. 
 
 D 3
 
 82 THE queen's visit to wood mill. 
 
 VT. 
 
 Behold th' imperial barque, like thing possessed 
 
 Of life, sense, motion, instinct, cleaves the breast 
 
 Of the blue brine ! Ten thousand crowd the shores 
 
 And utter joyous shouts ; the cannon roars 
 
 Its loud salute along the sunny floods. 
 
 Whose echoes die among far distant woods ; 
 
 From lofty towers loud peal the merry bells, 
 
 And the mixed music on the soft wind swells ; 
 
 Green fields, sweet walks, and gardens gay with flowers, 
 
 Are vocal with the songs of ladies near their bowers. 
 
 Whose eyes Ulusti-ious as the stars of night 
 
 Flash with peculiar beauty and delight. 
 
 While glancing o'er the waters proud to bear 
 
 Their Monarch sister, " fairest of the fair," 
 
 And feel their sex ennobled with the truth. 
 
 That in her loveliest beauty, sweetest youth, 
 
 VICTORIA, sat upon the mightiest throne, 
 
 And wore the brightest diadem, e'er known. 
 
 And o'er extent of empire ruled august, 
 
 With might, and majesty, and title just. 
 
 Greater than Babylonia's monarchy. 
 
 Whose six score provinces were governed by 
 
 Subsidiary princes ; greater far 
 
 Than all the Ceesars conquered by successful war. 
 
 And reigned o'er in the happy days of peace 
 
 From Egypt's burning sands to Briton's foaming seas ; 
 
 Greater than Saracen, or Turk e'er swayed. 
 
 Whom God the scourges of dark ages made ;
 
 BOOK II. CANTO III. 83 
 
 On whose extended empire, peaceful sway. 
 The glorious sun pours down perpetual day ; 
 Whose union jack waves in the Indian breeze. 
 And triumphs over both the polar seas. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The royal barque now floats on Itchen's stream 
 
 Bright with the glory of the solar beam. 
 
 A thousand loyal acclamations rise 
 
 And widen m the regions of the skies. 
 
 As the fair QUEEN, in beauteous youth, looks o'er 
 
 The waters, moving to the crowds ashore. 
 
 And still expressive of a fuller tide 
 
 Of feehng, of a patriotism more wide, 
 
 A thousand flags from towers and mast-heads high 
 
 Wave in the sound-excited air and sky. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The day advances. Down the narrow tides 
 
 The royal barque in beauty gently ghdes. 
 
 Until it meets Antona's middle stream. 
 
 And, puttuig forth its wonted force of steam. 
 
 It cleaves the deep, clear element below 
 
 Swift as the April cloud, aU white as snow, 
 
 Sweeps past the moon full-orbed in lovely Hght, 
 
 And but a moment vails the Queen of night, 
 
 Until it gains the happy, happy Isle 
 
 Where winter stays not, where long summers smile ;
 
 84 THE queen's visit to wood mill. 
 
 And where the QUEEN has built a peaceful home 
 
 'Midst the sweet scenes o'er which she used to roam. 
 
 When, underneath a mother's anxious eye. 
 
 She cultivated most assiduously 
 
 Those virtues, and that wisdom, by which now 
 
 She rules the greatest empire here below. 
 
 And yet, amid the sweeter joys of life. 
 
 Is happy as a mother, and a wife. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Thy Name, VICTORIA, like a charm from heaven. 
 
 For thou to man art, as to England given, 
 
 Is echoed o'er the earth and vaster sea, — 
 
 Not by the thunder, or the potency 
 
 Of fleets and armies, oft to justice blind. 
 
 Awing the troubled nations of mankind ; 
 
 But by the righteousness, and truth, and skill 
 
 Of thy own sovereignty, and heaven's good will. 
 
 Hence population, wealth, dominion wide, 
 
 Trade in thy cities, commerce on the tide. 
 
 And all that builds thy throne above those things 
 
 Which oft have broke the sceptres of bad kings. 
 
 X. 
 
 QUEEN of brave armies, and of gallant fleets. 
 Not of base bandits, and piratic cheats, — 
 QUEEN of free people, not of slaves oppressed,- 
 QUEEN of great nations, prosperous and blest,-
 
 BOOK II. CANTO III. 85 
 
 Loved by thy subjects wheresoe'er they be 
 Whose lives, rights, homes protected are by thee ; 
 Long mayst thou live the Patroness of peace, 
 (Thy throne, and thy descendants never cease !) 
 Thy Name, hke fragrant oil upon the deep 
 Lowering the fury of the billows' sweep. 
 Calming the heaving tumults of mankind. 
 Checking the fierce lust of dominion, blind 
 To human happiness and human good. 
 Baptizing conquered realms in their own blood ; 
 Long mayst thou Uve, thy subjects hearts e'er glowing 
 With most devoted loyalty, well knowing 
 A QUEEN, as Thou, should rule as sun-beams shine. 
 To bless the world with guiding light divine, 
 Worthy of honour, love, obedience true. 
 And all that faith to righteous monarch's due. 
 
 XL 
 
 Ask for some spot of this delightful earth, 
 Where nature keeps the freshness of her birth ; 
 Where ne'er excessive heat nor cold are known. 
 Nor sultry airs, nor piercing winds are blown ; 
 Where fruitful beauty reigns throughout the year. 
 And fountains flow for ever cool and clear ; 
 That spot is Candia, where mount Ida gleams. 
 Prodigious rock, with ever golden beams. 
 The warmest days of summer there are fanned 
 With cool sea- airs which breathe for ever bland. 
 And winter there is tempered with the rays
 
 86 THE queen's visit to wood mill. 
 
 The glorious sun casts on her cloudless days. 
 The radiant summer glowing o'er her skies 
 Ripens the fruits where lofty mountains rise. 
 And fills with plenty all the plains and vales, 
 And leaves salubrious her autumnal gales. 
 No stagnant waters, no morasses, there 
 Taint the pure breath of odoriferous air. 
 And the clear brooks, with song so exquisite. 
 Are fringed with myrtles and with roses sweet. 
 
 XII. 
 
 But there th' imperious Turk, and subtle Greek, 
 
 Of vile impostures, dark delusions, speak : 
 
 Th' Arabian prophet, or the fabled saint, 
 
 The solemn mosque, or church bedaubed with paint,* 
 
 And all the worthless and fantastic dreams 
 
 By which the soul is robbed of all the beams 
 
 Divine of truth, — there greivously debase 
 
 The principles and morals of our race. 
 
 So that the ends for which mankind exist 
 
 Are not beheld through so much mental mist. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 But Candia is surpassed by Vectis' Isle, 
 Where verdant hiUs in cooler sun- beams shine ; 
 
 * In all the Greek churches I have seen in Turkey the paint- 
 ings are miserable daubings.
 
 BOOK II. CANTO III, 87 
 
 Where deep white chffs look out upon the sea. 
 
 And glow resplendant in the majesty 
 
 Of mid-day ; where the deep, prodigious chine 
 
 Pours down its waters to the foaming brine ; 
 
 And where the shore which slopes to drink the floods 
 
 Is gemed with beauteous villas, fringed with woods. 
 
 And graced with here and there a town and spire, 
 
 "Which shine on summer's eve in solar fire 
 
 Like the fan- suburbs of some paradise 
 
 Unblighted by sad sorrow, child of vice. 
 
 And there dwell truth and freedom ; health and peace 
 
 Walk hand in hand 'mong joys which never cease ; 
 
 And holy love, religion pure, hope even, 
 
 Light up both house and church as with the smile of heaven. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 But the charmed Muse would now return again 
 From beauteous Vectis looking on the main. 
 And sing the joyous pleasures which pervade 
 The sun-bright elevations, powers of shade. 
 Near thee, Southampton, while thy population. 
 Of every age, proclaims its exultation 
 By sport and song, by driving, sailing, ambulation. 
 
 XV. 
 
 The royal visit to this favoured place 
 Has brought a tide of joy in every face. 
 Both landsmen and the sons of ocean join 
 To feast, to ramble, as their hearts incline.
 
 88 THE queen's visit to wood mill. 
 
 The merchant and the captain both relax 
 
 From duties which their spirits daily tax. 
 
 The trader bids the apprenticed youth go free 
 
 For a day's recreation on the sea. 
 
 The schools are emptied, and excited boys 
 
 Bound o'er the neighbouring scenes elate with joys. 
 
 While the more modest and more timid fair 
 
 Ramble in lovely couples here and there. 
 
 The slender milliner remits her toil. 
 
 And saunters down to Netley's hoary pile. 
 
 Or meets, perhaps, by half- appointment, near 
 
 The ruins, youth late known, and loved full dear. 
 
 The aged widow, and the needy poor. 
 
 Receive some bounty at the rich man's door. 
 
 Through the gay streets the country people throng. 
 
 And crowded ale-rooms roar with many a song. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Out towards the neighbouring villages and vales. 
 For beauty famed, or old historic tales, 
 A hundred carriages are rolling forth 
 With ladies gay and gentkmen of worth. 
 And parties of high-spirited young men 
 Explore the far-off mountain, wood and glen. 
 Or, half inebriate, practice many a lark 
 On country lout in village, field, and park. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Some, aU in love with natures many graces. 
 Drive here and there to different noted places,—
 
 BOOK II. CANTO III. 
 
 89 
 
 Places where heaven and earth appear combined 
 
 To pour the " oil of joy" upon the mind. 
 
 In that they speak a language all divine 
 
 For Godhead, ever present, all benign, 
 
 The Father and the Friend of men below, 
 
 Their origin, and end of all they know, — 
 
 Who, in the beauties of the morn and even, 
 
 Far more than v hispers of the joys of heaven. 
 
 Reserved for every wounded breast and contrite spirit. 
 
 And every loving heart, apart from human merit. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 The heights of Stoneham some ascend, and gaze 
 
 O'er half the county basking in the blaze 
 
 Of cloudless mid- day. West, south, east, and north. 
 
 The scene expands romantically foith. 
 
 Woods, farms, green fields, and villages, and spires. 
 
 And mansions, proudly bright with solar fires. 
 
 All peristrephically meet the sight 
 
 In panorama exquisitely bright. 
 
 Bounded by mountains of the loveliest hue. 
 
 All bathed in heaven's deep tides serenely blue. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Others go further. Leaving Belvidere, 
 They part from Stoneham, and its skies so clear, 
 Through Chilworth, Toothill, Romsey, the sweet vale 
 Where lovehest Somborne* drinks the western gale, 
 
 * King's Somborne.
 
 90 THE queen's visit TO WOOD MILL. 
 
 They go, till Stockbridge with its many streams, — 
 Or Winchester o'er hill and valley beams 
 A prouder radiance than the village scene. 
 Surrounded with its lofty downs so green. 
 
 XX. 
 
 Some towards the west go hastily away 
 Where woodland lanes are shaded from the ray 
 Intensely glowing down the depths of heaven ; 
 Where the road winds, now level, now imeven. 
 Until, still rising. Stony Cross towers high. 
 And brings to sight three coimties' scenery, — 
 The wooded vales of Hampshire far and near. 
 The mountains of far Wilts and Dorsetshire, — 
 While two small Islands bovmd the southern view, 
 Rough Purbec, and smooth Vectis, darkly blue. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Others in various groups, with various tastes. 
 Wander o'er wooded heights, and marshy wastes. 
 Or seek a hundred different villages 
 Hid in deep forest, or apart from trees. 
 Where flowery gardens sweet scents heaven- ward send. 
 And lanes romantic and fantastic bend 
 Roimd cottages and mansions, till they stretch 
 Through farm and forest, and the turnpike fetch ; 
 Hythe, Fawley, Exbury, Beaulieu, Lymington ; 
 Brockenhurst, where Howard Uved ere he begun 
 Those labours of benevolence and fame 
 Which have endeared, immortalized his name ;
 
 BOOK II. CANTO III> 91 
 
 Lyndhurst, the sweetest inland village e'er 
 
 Beheld 'mid woodland vale in sun and air ; 
 
 Camden, and Totton, Eling, Marchwood, whose 
 
 White spire is seen to grace a hundred views 
 
 Of landscape, where wood, water, town and tower 
 
 Beam forth a glorious Hght, or shadowy lower ; 
 
 Sweet woodland Dibden, shewing here and there 
 
 Its rosiate cottages, and gardens fair, 
 
 Along green lanes which serpentine among 
 
 Groups of high trees, the theatres of song, — 
 
 Or 'twixt the deeply verdant lawns, which o'er 
 
 Autona's waters and its northern shore 
 
 Give glances of romantic beauty, bright 
 
 With all the rosy effluence of light. 
 
 Or vnde extending prospect, where tower, town. 
 
 And distant hill, all look in beauty down 
 
 Upon the tidal, gladsome, radiant floods 
 
 Which glow from Millbrook's shores to Netley's woods; 
 
 Whose hoary church entombs the sacred dust 
 
 Of Lady Lisle, the victim of unjust 
 
 And bloody vengeance of judge Jefferies, 
 
 Long infamous for murders, perjuries, 
 
 And blasphemy, and baseness, such as mix 
 
 When darkest elements imite and fix 
 
 A character ferocious, who, to shew 
 
 His honour for his God, and truth, below, 
 
 Ofiers up holocosts of faithful saints, — 
 
 Or with their blood the face of nature paints ; 
 
 And, not less beautiful for site and scene. 
 
 Small Hamble, Holly Hill, and Sarisbury Green,
 
 92 THE queen's visit to wood mill. 
 
 And Bursledon, and Botley, and West-End, 
 And all the intermediate hills which bend 
 Inwards, or loftily projecting, drink 
 Th' aerial currents parting on each brink. 
 Which breathe in whispers past the summit- seat. 
 Or wanton 'mong the new-blown roses sweet. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 The day declines. The burning orb of day 
 
 Beams from the west his last refulgent ray, — 
 
 And Hampshire twilight, cool, and sweetly clear. 
 
 Sees many a mother fondle infant dear, — 
 
 And many a lover lead his fair along 
 
 The vale where nightingale begins his song, — 
 
 And many a lady young, (whose lover sighs 
 
 For her 'mid ocean's toils 'neath other skies,) 
 
 Chant in her favourite bower the tender lay 
 
 She sang when first she caught the softening ray. 
 
 Of his dark eye, and won the manly heart. 
 
 Which hold their love alike in every part 
 
 Of earth and ocean, morn, and noon, and night. 
 
 Just as the sun that gives, and yet retains its light ; 
 
 (Her voice, though exquisitely sweet its tone. 
 
 Less sweet is than those lips she keeps for him alone ;) 
 
 And many a banquet, where th' heroic lay 
 
 Closes the joyful pleasures of the day. 
 
 End of Book II.
 
 SOUTHAMPTON 
 
 AND 
 
 THE ISLE OF WIGHT 
 
 ^ \9Dcm. 
 
 BOOK III . 
 
 '• There is a pleasure in the pathless woods ; 
 
 There is a rapture in the lonely shore ; 
 
 There is society where none intrudes, 
 
 By the deep sea, and music in its roar. 
 
 I love not man the less, but nature more. 
 
 From these our interviews, in which I steal 
 
 From all I may be, or have been before, 
 
 To mingle with the universe, and feel 
 
 What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal." 
 
 Byron.
 
 SOUTHAMPTON 
 
 AND 
 
 THE ISLE OF WIGHT 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 CANTO I. 
 
 THE AUTHOR'S APOLOGY FOR POETISING. 
 
 Oh ye, who live in country, or in town. 
 
 On whom the goddess sleep comes gently down, 
 
 And steals progressively o'er all the soul, 
 
 E ye, ear, taste, touch, smell, reason to controul. 
 
 And then suspend, — and does this with as nice. 
 
 An influence as the shades of paradise 
 
 Bedew the bowers of new-translated saints. 
 
 And silently as night, which phoehus paints 
 
 With rosy blushes on her brow, comes forth 
 
 To shroud the regions of the west and north. 
 
 Investing all the earth and all the sky 
 
 Without a sound, or whisper, or a sigh, 
 
 With darkness ; ye can never comprehend 
 
 The night of wakefuLiess which seems to have no end:
 
 96 THE author's apology for poetising. 
 
 The night when body and when mind assume 
 
 A spirituahty amid the gloom 
 
 Imperious and tyrannical, to mock 
 
 The soul late weakened with some mental shock. 
 
 II. 
 
 'Tis then that every limb, and faculty. 
 
 And sense, seems intellectuality. 
 
 And the roused soul, by some mysterious might. 
 
 Is made involuntary thought and hght. 
 
 And visions such as sober reason ne'er 
 
 Beheld, come forth, hke lightnings through the air. 
 
 Pass and repass before the mind's strong eye 
 
 With all the outline of reality. 
 
 III. 
 
 What can be done to bid those visions go } 
 
 The head is turned, the pillow pressed more low ; 
 
 The coverlet 's thrown from the chest and heart 
 
 To bid some sense of fulness to depart, 
 
 And leave th' excited spirits to repose. 
 
 If it be possible, as sleeps the rose 
 
 Which bows not o'er the cottage window's light 
 
 Through the long hours of a becalmed night, 
 
 But drinks the dew dropped on it from the wing 
 
 Of darkness, without shghtest fluttering. 
 
 IV. 
 
 But no — those visions go not — they remain 
 To vex the soul with intellectual pain.
 
 BOOK III. — CANTO I. 97 
 
 First comes a train of graceful forms of light 
 With smiling brows, and eyes divinely bright. 
 Aerial, etherial, feminine. 
 Whose garments brighter than the morning shine. 
 
 V. 
 
 Those forms of beauty turn to cruel scorn. 
 And tease the soul by real scornings torn ; 
 They stop, they ogle hke some proud coquette, 
 Who only smiles to make men chafe and fret ; 
 Then, all at once, they bend a laughing glance. 
 And quick as Ughtnings dart away in dance. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Then comes some htttle, mean, and stupid form 
 In punch-hke caricature to rage and storm. 
 And mock, and half torment th' unpatient soul 
 With everlasting sameness of cajole, — 
 Now leering, laughing, grinning, till in ire 
 The hand is raised to make that imp retire ; 
 Vain, vain attempt ; that ugly monster shews 
 Undaunted ; for he can't be touched by blows. 
 Like some sea-rock high towering in the dark 
 That frowns all night on lone becalmed bark. 
 Hour after hour unaltered he remains. 
 And doubles, as he triumphs in one's pains.
 
 98 THE author's apology for poetising. 
 
 VII. 
 
 When he with shews of idiotcy has vexed 
 
 The soul till reason languishes perplexed. 
 
 And asks if some wild phantom of the night 
 
 Does not audaciously insult its sight. 
 
 He waves his hand, which seems to 'lume the shade. 
 
 And calls a thousand other monsters to his aid. 
 
 Such as the minds of madmen form in sleep. 
 
 Or superstition fears upon the deep 
 
 Of ocean, when some awful, horrid form 
 
 Has seemed to ride upon, and prompt the storm. 
 
 Or such as in perdition ever dweU 
 
 And fright the dismal glooms of deepest hell. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The eyes are opened, and the body raised. 
 
 And the head rubbed, and asked, if it be crazed ? 
 
 Those phantoms chased away, repose again 
 
 Is sought, the only respite from such pain. 
 
 But ere the clock which hangs upon the wall 
 
 Shall twenty seconds with its tick-tack caU, 
 
 Involuntary memory stirs the soul 
 
 With incidents, and accidents, and dole, — 
 
 And friends forgotten, enemies forgiven. 
 
 Losses and crosses which the soul have riven. 
 
 Pass and repass the chambers of the mind 
 
 Like vivid hghtnings through the midnight wind, 
 
 Until the intellect seems upwards borne 
 
 As by a whirlwind, and from matter torn.
 
 BOOK III. CANTO I. 99 
 
 Reasons on things transcendantly sublime — 
 
 Free-will and fate — eternity and time — 
 
 Mind — matter — essence — attribute and form — 
 
 Force — operation — life — death — multiform 
 
 Mutations — growth — development — decay — 
 
 The starry heavens, and the solar day — 
 
 Salvation, and perdition exquisite — 
 
 Unnumbered worlds, and spaces infinite — 
 
 God, uncreated, always, everywhere 
 
 Existing — making, guiding all with care. 
 
 Till thoughts as big as mountains are conceived. 
 
 And born, and from the labouring mind upheaved — 
 
 Volume on volume written — chain on chain 
 
 Of argument, all well sustained and plain. 
 
 Stretching along in all their fullest force 
 
 Like mighty rivers rolling in their course : 
 
 And stUl the spirit rises higher and higher 
 
 Mad as the ocean in its utmost ire. 
 
 When its vast surges strike the lofty skies 
 
 As if they soon would break the law which nature ties.* 
 
 IX. 
 
 That wild, wild revery has the blood propelled 
 And gorged the arteries of the brain. Close held 
 The forehead throbs against the moistened hand. 
 And feels the soothings of a Hmb so bland. 
 
 * The law of gravitation, the sole cause of calming the sea 
 
 E 2
 
 1 
 
 100 THE author's apology FOR POETISING. 
 
 Th' exhausted mind and body ask for sleep : 
 But the eyes wakeful as the dog's which keep 
 The charge- of poachers in the midnight wood. 
 To ward off capture, and to guard from blood. 
 Refuse to close— and mind and body lie 
 All wakeful still, and only grieve and sigh ; 
 Till rosy morning chmbing up the east 
 Breaks the dark spell which has the soul oppressed. 
 And calls those wakeful eyes to taste delight 
 By seeing nature wake in sunbeams bright. 
 And human beings, well-refreshed and gay. 
 Commence th' accustomed labours of the day. 
 
 X. 
 
 Can ye be angry that your poet, then. 
 Should seek the ocean's shore, or woodland glen ; 
 Or wander up the banks of quiet stream, 
 HaH shaded, and half bright with orient beam ; 
 Or saunter careless down the winding lane 
 To some sequestered valley, or lone plam. 
 Where fields of ripening com in whispers sweet 
 Speak of the treadings of the light winds' feet. 
 While the soft warblings of a thousand birds 
 Mixed with the lowings of the distant herds. 
 Float in the sunny regions of the sky. 
 Nature's sweet matin, full of harmony ? 
 
 XI. 
 
 And 'mid such music, grateful to the soul,— 
 Such scenes of beauty, driving every dole,—
 
 BOOK III. CANTO I. 101 
 
 Can ye be angry, that his Muse, inspired 
 
 By nature's spirit, and by nature fired. 
 
 Till pain and lassitude are both forgot 
 
 In a rich tide of voluntary thought. 
 
 Should tune her harp to some exalted strain. 
 
 To honour God, or soothe mankind in pain, — 
 
 Or teach the young some doctrine deep and high. 
 
 Some truth which bears upon eternity, — 
 
 Some moral of past history, to build 
 
 Bulwarks about the soul its principles to shield? 
 
 XII. 
 
 But do not think that poetry is nought 
 But new ideas, unconnected thought. 
 The passionate actings of a tragedy 
 Without or plot, or plan, — mere mystery, — 
 The reveries which the soul, unguided, dreams 
 When troubled, hke o'erflowing mountain streams. 
 Such as the Muse described in present strain, 
 Th' outrageous wanderings of a wakeful brain. 
 The poet may imagine strangest things, — 
 But not when intellectual he sings ; 
 Then his chaste thoughts, hke sacrificial fire 
 Sustained by feeding, must the Muse inspire, — 
 Which point to some essential truth ; or guide 
 Incipient reason from the precipice of pride ; 
 Or wake contempt towards some prevailing sin. 
 Which, as infatuate mortals drink it in. 
 Poisons aU purity and peace of mind, 
 Makes reason stupid, turns the conscience blind.
 
 102 THE author's apology for poetising. 
 
 Depraves the public morals, and destroys 
 The sources of the sweetest human joys ; 
 Or, if a finer heat his soul should move. 
 Paint the endearments and delights of love. 
 Or praise those virtues which exalt mankind 
 To some faint hkeness of th' Eternal Mind. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The poet who would charm all proper taste. 
 
 Must not be sourly, not fantastically chaste ; 
 
 Must shun indelicacy, as a stain , 
 
 From some polluted and foul-vapoured drain ; 
 
 And, if with sweetest ease he would impart 
 
 Truth and instruction to th' ingenuous heart. 
 
 He must avoid all odd, high-sounding phrase j 
 
 Must, like our Shakspear, in his earliest lays. 
 
 Link his sweet numbers into chains of rhyme. 
 
 And now be high, now homely, now subUme ; 
 
 Must frame his lay to be what nature is, 
 
 A book with many soft sublimities 
 
 And little landscapes, as with many views 
 
 Of moxmtain grandeur clothed with myriad hues. 
 
 The village rill must wander in his song. 
 
 The ocean roll his raging waves dong. 
 
 The breath of summer whisper 'mong the flowers. 
 
 The wintry hurricane collect its powers. 
 
 The blush of morning paint the earth with dies. 
 
 The vivid lightning tear the midnight skies. 
 
 The softest sighs he heard of vernal even, 
 
 And the big thunders shake the earth and heaven.
 
 BOOK III. CANTO I. 103 
 
 XIV. 
 
 There are who think that poetry consists 
 
 Of thoughts hke sunshine mixed with mountain mists. 
 
 Where pleasing shade romantic shrouds th' abyss ; 
 
 And nothing is distinguished as it is ; 
 
 Where cavern, precipice, and steep wood green. 
 
 Are hid from eyes which scrutinize the scene ; 
 
 And where but here and there a shadowy hght 
 
 Gives beauty to the castellated height. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Not so the Muse which now essays to sing: 
 
 She hates all vain, and quaint imagining ; 
 
 Despises, as she ought, all dark conceits. 
 
 All that th' unwary soul misguides, or cheats ; 
 
 All the uncommon and unnatural thought. 
 
 The offspring oft of reason overwrought, 
 
 Which some, who know not nature as a plan. 
 
 Nor what is just and right to say of man. 
 
 Call " new," " original," " sublime," and " deep," 
 
 Unworthy real poets dream in sleep. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 She deems her power of song a gift divine. 
 Truth to defend, and virtue to define ; 
 And treats the censures of uncultured pride 
 As only froth from ocean's broken tide ; 
 And fierce malignity, and open ire, 
 She pities, as soon destined to expire :
 
 104 THE author's apology for poetising. 
 
 For every wicked hand, and envious eye. 
 And tongue long used to guile and calumny, 
 (Whether directed in these days of cant 
 By subtle worlding, or pretending saint ,) 
 And every dexterous foot which loves to pace 
 From street to street on purpose mean and base. 
 Accurst, shall soon to death's strong chain be given. 
 Reserved for judgment in the court of heaven. 
 
 End of Canto I.
 
 CANTO II. 
 
 THE SAILING OF THE "LIVERPOOL" ORIENTAL 
 STEAM PACKET. 
 
 I. 
 
 'Tis a May Sabbath morn. The glorious sun 
 
 Ascends the sky his lofty course to run. 
 
 His beams o'er Bitterne cast, and Pear-Tree- Green, 
 
 Fall on Southampton gilding it with sheen. 
 
 The beauteous Itchen, swelled with a full tide. 
 
 Reflects the ships which on its bosom ride ; 
 
 And all the buildings on its bending shores. 
 
 Wharfs, factories, houses, coal-sheds, mills and stores. 
 
 Are imaged in its waveless waters clear. 
 
 There is no spot of vapour, far, or near, 
 
 To^suUy the pure blue of heaven's high brow, 
 
 Or hide the sunshine from a spot below. 
 
 II. 
 
 Seen from the sacred shadow westward shed 
 From venerable oaks which shade the dead. 
 And give a rural grandeur to the fane 
 By Smith erected, — small, and coarsely plain,- 
 
 E 3
 
 106 THE SAILING OF THE " LIVERPOOL. 
 
 Seen from the shadow of those knotty oaks, 
 
 How bright Southampton looks ! now free from smokes I 
 
 The sunbeams on its lofty mansions shine. 
 
 And make it seem uncurst, and half divine. 
 
 III. 
 
 But thousands slumbering there, as if 'twere night. 
 
 Behold not, taste not, know not the delight 
 
 Of early morning, beaming from the sky 
 
 In all its glorious hght and majesty. 
 
 How sottish 'tis to sleep those hours away. 
 
 The sweetest, purest, lovehest of the day. 
 
 And foul the lungs, and blind the wearied eyes. 
 
 With gas-light burning under midnight skies ! 
 
 But thus it always has been. Foolish men 
 
 Despise the benefits of nature, when 
 
 'Tis of most consequence they should them prize ; 
 
 And then oft pass long years in groans and sighs : 
 
 Yea, more than this, they turn from health and grace. 
 
 To low inventions, poisonous and base, 
 
 And hang eternal interests on that breath 
 
 Which any moment may be drunk by death ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Itchen village, and Antona's flood 
 Bordered by beauteous hamlet, and by wood ; 
 The docks, Saint Mary's, and the lower town. 
 Here radiant whiteness, there a sullen brown ;
 
 BOOK III. CANTO II. 107 
 
 Chapel and Northam basking in the light, 
 Set off by dark woods frowning on the right ;* 
 Mar lands and New Town, lofty Bedford Place, 
 And Portswood House with palace-looking face ; 
 The wooded Bevois Mount, and High- Field high. 
 Clear with the purity of loftier sky ; 
 The farther Portswood villas glowing bright 
 Like Turkish kiosks with orient morning bright ; 
 The hoary pile with slender graceful spire 
 Towering and flaming in the solar fire ; 
 Sweet fields and gardens in the dress of spring 
 Clothed richly, breathing on the air's soft wing 
 Which gently fans the morning hour, perfume 
 From herbs and flowers just opening into bloom ; 
 The boat now parting from the distant shores 
 Aad flashing infant hghtnings from its oars; 
 While, far to westward, high lands darkly blue 
 Give all a grandeur while they bound the view : 
 These are the scenes, so beauteously serene. 
 These eyes have oft on vernal morning seen, 
 When not a sound of any kind was heard. 
 Save the soft whispers of the leaves which stirred 
 Short as the low, involuntary sigh 
 Of the first sleep of new-born infancy ; 
 Or broken warblings from the garden bower 
 Of thrush, or blackbird, at that early hour. 
 
 * That is to the beholder on Pear-Tree-Green.
 
 108 THE SAILING OF THE " LIVERPOOL." 
 
 V. 
 
 The morn advances. Brighter glows the day. 
 
 And the warmed earth reflects the heated ray. 
 
 And still there is a calmness in the morn. 
 
 As if its beauties were but freshly born, 
 
 And men had yet the aptitude to gain 
 
 For arts, trade, commerce, navigation, gain : 
 
 So brightly does the solar radiance beam 
 
 O'er silent town, and suburbs, and untroubled stream, 
 
 VI. 
 
 But list awhile. — Commingling sounds explain 
 
 The silence of the market, street, and lane ; 
 
 Why here and there a drowsy smoke is seen 
 
 To dim the beauty of the glowing sheen. 
 
 When every chimney top should darkly make 
 
 Its token of maid-servant well awake. 
 
 And many sounds of active men should rise 
 
 Through the fresh air which fills the neighbouring skies. 
 
 Yon chiming bells from lofty towers declare 
 
 This is the day for sanctitude and prayer. 
 
 And bids the slumberer wake his God to seek 
 
 By faith, repentance, and a spirit meek. 
 
 VII. 
 
 But few, perhaps, on this sweet day of grace 
 Will worship Him whose essence fills all space ; 
 Whose power put forth created yonder skies, 
 And bade this beauteous earth from chaos rise :
 
 BOOK in. CANTO II. 109 
 
 Who was the origin, and is the end 
 
 Of all things, and all creatures. Few will bend 
 
 With humbled heart, and soul devout and true. 
 
 To praise Him thankfully for favours new. 
 
 And, wisely thoughtful, merit all disclaim. 
 
 While they pronounce the ever Sacred Name, 
 
 Who from " the heaven of heavens" looks down to bless 
 
 His worshippers in aU their httleness ; 
 
 Yea ! who delights His mercy to impart. 
 
 And heal with grace divine the contrite heart. 
 
 Alas, that man, so gifted, favoured, blest. 
 
 Should slight his mighty Maker's wise behest. 
 
 And spend that day in formal words and ways 
 
 Which He has hallowed for His own devoutest praise. 
 
 VHL 
 
 But 'tis not vice, nor crime, nor dark despair. 
 Nor that more sinful thing unmeaning prayer. 
 In which so many will indulge this day. 
 Turning from hope, and grace, and heaven away. 
 Which desecrate alone these hours of rest. 
 Business and pleasure both are openly confessed. 
 Merchants must write, although the day is blest : 
 And ships, dependent on nor wind nor tide. 
 Must put to sea in busy, noisy pride : 
 As if a few hours snatched from God's own day, 
 Gave men more manliness, and ships more way ; 
 And as if winds and waves would fear the nod 
 Of men who virtually defy their God —
 
 110 THE SAILING OP THE " LIVERPOOL." 
 
 Their God who spoke in thunder on the brow 
 
 Of Sinai, and is hourly near them now. 
 
 To mark their reverence, or want of fear. 
 
 And note down all the words they utter in his ear. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Seest thou yon cloud of vapour white as snow 
 Which rushing roars from pent up stores below, 
 A moment floating round yon funnel high. 
 Then melting, soon absorbed in sunny sky ? 
 That vapour is the voice of powerful steam 
 Which waits to move the ponderous engine beam, 
 And sweep yon vessel o'er the pathless seas 
 'Gainst every tide, and without any breeze. 
 
 X. 
 
 The day is lovely. Crowds are hastening down 
 
 To see the vessel leave the docks and town. 
 
 Cars thunder o'er the streets with beaus and belles 
 
 Who too long hngered at their gay hotels. 
 
 And round the spacious bason multitudes 
 
 Intently gazing on the ship and floods, 
 
 Express their gratitude with lifted hand 
 
 No duty bids them leave their native land. 
 
 Though here and there among those crowds perchance 
 
 Th' impetuous youth casts many a longing glance. 
 
 And deems o'er seas and foreign climes to roam 
 
 Were better than the dull restraints of home.
 
 BOOK III. CANTO II. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Where health, and wealth, and reputation, can 
 Alone be based on painful things to man, 
 Truth, purity, industry, self-controul. 
 And all the finer virtues of the soul. 
 Thou foohsh novice ! think' st thou nature's plan 
 In England only lays restraints on man? 
 There is no spot beneath the watchful sun 
 But nature says— Do right, or be undone ! 
 
 XL 
 
 That vessel is to Egypt bound, — a land 
 Low, base, accursed,— a wilderness of sand,— 
 Where man is bought and sold, as if the God 
 Who made him, made him only for the sod ; 
 As if no mental lineament, or line 
 Shewed his relation to the Mind Divine ; 
 Where pestilence and despotism severe 
 Invade the homes of myriads every year. 
 And there she takes the fabrics England could 
 Supply the world with ; such its plenitude 
 Of art and wealth,— its keen inventive skill, — 
 Its beds of coal,— its industry, and will. 
 
 XII. 
 
 That vessel so long fortunate, has swept 
 The main with thousands, who have waked and wept, 
 When other winds, and seas, and skies, each day 
 Told them how fast from home they went away,
 
 112 THE SAILING OF THE " LIVERPOOL." 
 
 And when mysterious thoughts of future, would. 
 Like dark forebodings, on the soul intrude. 
 And picture in strong lines with rapid hand 
 An early mournful death in distant land. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 And now she ready is to bear away 
 The man of broken fame, the damsel gay ; 
 The petty tourest, who perchance will rhyme, 
 Or write of places ruined by old time. 
 Whose \\'ithng intellect, unskilled to think 
 Deeper of nature than brute creatures drink, 
 Not one inch lower than the face of things, — 
 And all unapt to soar on mental wings, — 
 Intends to say with equal foolish pride. 
 What others, withng tourists till they died. 
 Said long ago— That such and such great places 
 They went to, and beheld with their own faces ; 
 As if their eyes an interest could throw 
 On palaces and temples olden times laid low ; 
 And as if broken obeHsks and columns 
 Derived their hoary grandeur from the volumes 
 Afterwards written with unskilful pen 
 Which little knew of nature, art, or men. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 And, ah ! a scandal to a land like this. 
 
 Where works of genius are thrown down th' abyss
 
 BOOK III. — CANTO II. 113 
 
 Of silence and neglect, a venal press, 
 
 Fast sinking into low licentiousness. 
 
 Prints at the author's risk, and own expense. 
 
 And bribed reviewers call good common sense. 
 
 The trash which Byron justly mocked with scorn. 
 
 And would now scout could he but be reborn, — 
 
 Light, flippant, frothy, duU and foolish cant. 
 
 Of nature's works most grossly ignorant ; 
 
 To history's moral as profoundly blind 
 
 As soap-blobs blown upon the autumn wind. 
 
 XV. 
 
 That witling tourist soon will sail away 
 
 To Egypt, and then take the hallowed way 
 
 Jehovah trod in heavenly fire and cloud, 
 
 A peevish, hasty, thoughtless, heedless, proud. 
 
 Vain mortal ! yea, you soon shall hear him joke 
 
 Beneath the mount where God in thunder spoke ; 
 
 And pour the nonsense of presumptuous thought 
 
 Where all the mightiest miracles were wrought, — 
 
 And treading with unhallowed feet the spot 
 
 Where David sang, and Solomon forgot 
 
 His father's God ; and where the Man Divine 
 
 Was born, and wept, and died to save mankind from sin. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 There, too, upon the busy deck is seen 
 The India clerk of truly clerk-hke mien ;
 
 114 THE SAILING OP THE " LIVERPOOL." 
 
 The penniless cadet for India bound. 
 
 Who could not learn, — who only is profound 
 
 At gaming, drinking, swearing, lying, puns. 
 
 And all that honesty and honour shuns : 
 
 Pale wretch ! thy mother thinks with agony 
 
 The army only is the place for thee ! 
 
 And thou, perchance, because thou didst despise 
 
 Her grief, may'st perish under burning skies. 
 
 With no one near to hear thy latest sigh, 
 
 Or close the hd of thy low sunken eye. 
 
 And there the hero, famed in foreign wars. 
 
 Proud of his honours, clothing, and his scars. 
 
 Stands like a high and beauteous mountain bright 
 
 With all the glory of the noon- day hght. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Among that group who o'er the larboard rail 
 Gaze on th' unloading of the India Mail, 
 And see the sealed-up boxes one by one 
 Down the slant gangway so adroitly thrown. 
 Stands the Mail-agent, as bedecked with gold 
 As some gay shew-man, and with looks as bold 
 As hero who has never battle seen. 
 Who wins his honours on the common green, 
 Or whose fine Hmbs and clothing are displayed 
 Among his comrades in the gay parade. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 ' Twere long and difficult for me to tell 
 
 The names of men themselves alone can spell.
 
 BOOK III. CANTO II. 115 
 
 All harsh and vulgar in enunciation. 
 
 And all unknown, unfamed by commendation ; 
 
 The countries, callmgs, features, characters 
 
 Of such a motley crowd of passengers ; 
 
 Where English, Irish, Scotch, French, Portuguese, 
 
 Swiss, German, Spanish, mingle all at ease : 
 
 Where Greeks, Armenians, Turks, and Persians glance 
 
 Delighted on the glowing radiance. 
 
 Perchance anticipating a safe run 
 
 To their own climes, much nearer to the sun ; 
 
 And where fair ladies, lovelier than the skies. 
 
 With tears and sympathies dim their bright eyes. 
 
 For some sashed soldier, or some stripUng doomed 
 
 To shores where health is sure to be consumed. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 But 'twere more difficult to picture true 
 The natural, moral features of that crew, — 
 Men who were sailors almost from their birth, 
 And who have been to every port on earth, — 
 Who from the arctic gale in its wild ire 
 Have rushed to winds inflamed with solar fire,- 
 Who in the east and west alike have braved 
 The loss of all by wrecks, oft scarcely saved, — 
 And yet they 're willing as the winds of heaven 
 To sail again where-ever bark was driven 
 By wind or storm, or ocean's wave was cast 
 By tropic hurricane, or polar blast.
 
 116 THE SAILING OP THE " LIVERPOOL. 
 
 XX. 
 
 Hark ! the first bell rings ! Soon that ship will sail ! 
 
 Eyes fill ashore, and infant voices wail ! 
 
 Lo ! engineers and stokers hurry fast 
 
 From mothers, wives and lovers, aU down- cast ! 
 
 Lo ! stewards, sailors, officers are seen 
 
 To nod farewells, then urge along the scene 
 
 Of preparation ! Lo ! as sickly proud 
 
 As peacocks, and with voice as harshly loud, 
 
 Subaltern officers and agents talk 
 
 Ashore ! and idle gazers idly talk. 
 
 XXL 
 
 The thief is there ; and there the ruined maid. 
 The wretch she trusted skulks in yonder shade. 
 Ashamed to look on her upbraiding eye, — 
 So base his cruelty, and treachery. 
 And now he waits to sail away from infamy. 
 
 XXIL 
 
 There, too, are seen the cant, the country lout. 
 
 The low procuress looking round about. 
 
 And subtly contriving with bad men. 
 
 To lead some artless maiden to her den. 
 
 Base wretch ! the wide, wide earth, and wider sea. 
 
 Feed not a monster half so vile as thee !
 
 BOOK III. — CANTO II. 117 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 But there, conspicuous above the rest, 
 
 Is one of bitter heart, and soul unblest, 
 
 Who fain would have you think her half a saint. 
 
 So well her tongue her own good deeds can paint. 
 
 She darts keen looks, and shifts from place to place. 
 
 And passes judgment upon every face. 
 
 Strange thoughts and plans she reads in many eyes. 
 
 Surmising intrigues, sins, and mysteries. 
 
 And assignations, and she means to tell 
 
 Those unjust thinkings, as things known too well. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 She is well known, and has been hated long ; 
 And injured men oft curse her cruel tongue. 
 There's not an officer can leave the port 
 "With whose dear fame she does not often sport. 
 And to learn how they act beyond the sea. 
 She gives the steward and stewardess a fee ; 
 And to their relatives, at chosen times. 
 Writes notes anonymous, imputing crimes. 
 But oft she out of malice mentions ports 
 Where such a husband such a beauty courts ; 
 Where such a lover, of his fair and fame 
 Forgetful, fondless such and such a dame. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 In conversation she is low, or loud. 
 
 As suits her purpose best among the crowd.
 
 118 THE SAILING OP THE " LIVERPOOL. 
 
 If e'er she smile, her masculine, large face, 
 Without that softness which should woman grace. 
 Speaks of a calous heart, and mind low-born. 
 And temper governed most by hate and scorn. 
 There's scarce a person there, unknown, or known, 
 She will not talk of when that ship is gone ; 
 And months and years, perhaps, will not avail 
 To clear the fogs she'll generate with each tale ; 
 Yea even life may scarcely be too long 
 To wipe off all th' aspersions of her tongue. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Unhappy woman, thus to waste thy life. 
 The breeder of surmisings, wrath and strife ! 
 Let thy officious madness have an end : 
 Divide not wife from husband, friend from friend. 
 If thou couldst hear, as I have, on the sea. 
 The mess-room ring with curses against thee, 
 Thou never would' st be seen, or heard of more 
 Watching a steam-ship leave this honoured shore ; 
 Never again would' st use thy tongue or pen 
 To sully the dear characters of men. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 See there the fondest lover doomed to part 
 
 From matchless beauty, and from friendship's heart. 
 
 Absorbed, abstracted, seated in midships. 
 
 With the last kiss yet warm upon his lips 
 
 He gave Guzel, and glancing o'er some rhyme 
 
 His pen has written darkly, wanting time.
 
 BOOK III. CANTO II. 119 
 
 To tell his fond heart's passionate excess 
 
 Of love for her he left in loneliness. 
 
 He folds, and seals, directs, and sends ashore. 
 
 To one, perchance, his eyes may see no more. 
 
 The testimony of undying love. 
 
 A thousand thoughts his inward spirit move. 
 
 As he remembers all the dear delights 
 
 Of summer-walks, and social winter-nights. 
 
 When her unearthly beauty sent its charm. 
 
 Sweet as the hving beams of sunshine warm. 
 
 O'er aU his soul, with all its holy power 
 
 To fill with heaven each moment of each hour. 
 
 A pleasing, pensive, melancholy smile 
 
 Heightens the beauty of his face awhile ; 
 
 But soon a sorrowing seriousness creeps o'er 
 
 His features, such as they ne'er wore before ; 
 
 For he forebodes the possibility 
 
 His eyes that charming beauty ne'er again may see. 
 
 XXVHL 
 
 This was the letter that ingenuous youth 
 
 Sent to his Fair, expressive of his truth. 
 
 His love, his admiration, his intent 
 
 Of faithfulness, all through his banishment ; 
 
 For such that lover thought the stem decree 
 
 Which doomed him for long years to roam the sea. 
 
 Exposed to all the changes of the skies 
 
 And all the swelling deep's malignities. 
 
 And many a stream of pestilential breath 
 
 From low, warm shoresoft scourged with plagueand death.
 
 120 THE SAILING OF THE " LIVERPOOL." 
 
 The Love-Letter to Guzel. 
 XXIX. 
 
 Wert thou to bid the far- off savage Turk 
 
 Interpret for thee thy poetic name, 
 His eye, where all his passions darkly lurk. 
 
 Would, glowing, say thou hadst a lovely frame : 
 
 I gave it thee because it means the same 
 As what thou art, all sweet beyond compare. 
 
 We call seas salt, stars bright, and the red flame 
 Of thunder lightning ; and Guzel, thou fair — 
 One, I do call thee, for thy beauty charming, rare. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 If I should think of fairness, thou art fair : 
 
 If I should think of figure, thine it fine : 
 If I should think of goodness, still more rare 
 
 Is all that goodness intimately thine. 
 
 In truth I think thee matchless, all divine 
 As is the light of heaven o'er mount and dell 
 
 When the big sun ascends the sky to shine 
 O'er spicy islands 'mid the ocean's swell : 
 And I do write these lines to say, I love thee well. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Yea I do write these lines to say to thee. 
 That I do give this language of my pen 
 
 To be a witness betwixt thee and me 
 
 Where-e'er I wander 'mong the sons of men ; 
 O'er mountain height, or down the sunken glen,
 
 BOOK III. CANTO II. 121 
 
 How I appreciate thy constancy, 
 
 As sweet as sunshine to the pilgrim, when 
 He claps the holy shrine he came to see. 
 And feels his heart beat quick, as near some deity. 
 
 xxxn. 
 
 And I do know thou wilt not spurn this gift. 
 
 This testimony of my upright love. 
 That never stooped by sliness, nor by drift. 
 
 The generous passions of thy soul to move. 
 
 And I do know that, wheresoe'er we rove. 
 Near, or apart, or wheresoe'er we be. 
 
 True as revolving orbs in heaven above. 
 Thy heart will cherish feehngs kind to me ; 
 For thou wilt still believe my truthfulness to thee. 
 
 xxxni. 
 
 Farewell, Guzel, thou lovely one, farewell. 
 
 Heaven shield thy sweet soul from all deadly blight ; 
 And guide thee onwards still of truth to tell, 
 
 By evening twihght, and by morning light. 
 
 I hope on thee will never come the night 
 Of pain, and grief, and lonely bitterness : 
 
 May no calamity thy spirit fright : 
 May thy dear life in smoothest evenness 
 Pass all away, till God thy soul with heaven shall bless. 
 
 F
 
 122 THE SAILING OF THE " LIVERPOOL. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 I know that I have wished thee all that heaven 
 And earth can give, both here and there above : 
 
 And yet I wish, though heaven were to thee given. 
 That I might always tell thee of my love : 
 For I would wish thy goodness still to prove. 
 
 To hear thy voice, and all thy beauty see. 
 
 Rich as the cane-flower Indian breezes move, 
 
 And feel thee manifest thy love to me. 
 
 While I talked over all my rapturous love to thee. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Though mighty continents, and oceans wide. 
 May part our bodies, our united soiJs 
 
 Can't be by distance, or by time, untied : 
 Even the hoar sea as it roughly rolls. 
 And bears me to the tropics, or the poles, 
 
 I wiU imagine speaks of thee to me ; 
 
 And the bright sun, which all the year controls. 
 
 And moon and stars, and day and night, shall be 
 
 The witnesses of all my faithfulness to thee. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Perchance that Fair one, when the wintry gale 
 Shall sweep from its strong wings the midnight hail. 
 And loud, and louder o'er her chamber roar. 
 Like ocean's surges breaking on the shore. 
 Her wakeful spirit, pierced with mental pain. 
 May traverse all the vastness of the main.
 
 BOOK III. CANTO II. 123 
 
 And fancy she a thousand dangers sees 
 
 Be?et her lover 'mid the raging seas. 
 
 While he, perchance becalmed, and without motion. 
 
 Floats on the flaming surface of the tropic ocean. 
 
 Sighing that so long time, and such great distance 
 
 Should part two souls so made for one existence, 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 But there is one among that motley crowd 
 Whom others scarcely notice, yet as proud. 
 And more o'erbearing than the pompous Turk, 
 Although all passionless he seem to lurk. 
 And take but little interest in the scene. 
 So sunny, so surrounded with deep green, 
 So heart-exciting, active, noisy, so 
 Commixed with tears and tenderness, and woe. 
 Tall, lank, and with a meagre, sallow face 
 A low-bred scorn has robbed of manly grace. 
 
 He stands beside the wheel and looks around 
 On all that scene as dust upon the ground. 
 
 He has not dignity enough to hide 
 
 Unjust ambition, and unmanly pride ; 
 
 He has not goodness, inward truth of mind. 
 
 Sufficient to be either wise or kind. 
 
 He is a traveller, but travels not 
 
 "Wisdom to gain, and wipe away the blot 
 
 His country gave him of vulgarity 
 
 In some new far-off town beyond the sea. 
 
 And yet he is as highly favoured man 
 
 As ever Uved since hoary time began : 
 
 F 2
 
 124 THE SAILING OF THE " LIVERPOOL." 
 
 By nature blest, and blest by providence : 
 
 By nation really of superior sense ; 
 
 A nation prosperous, and allied to ours. 
 
 The same in language, and in mental powers ; 
 
 Possessing quick and keen intelligence ; 
 
 Exploring worlds, and drawing treasures thence , 
 
 Industrious, active, enterprizing, bold. 
 
 Scorning alike th' extremes of heat and cold ; 
 
 In Hterature and science, art and trade. 
 
 Behind no nation of the highest grade. 
 
 But, like our own proud men of httle state, 
 
 Who are not great because the nation's great. 
 
 He, vainly high, and ignorantly proud. 
 
 And, when he talks, a bragger fierce and loud. 
 
 Dreams of but little but dethroning kings. 
 
 Of conquering England, and the mighty things. 
 
 Which shall be done, when the United States 
 
 Shall dictate laws, and alter nation's fates ; 
 
 When from the Isthmus to the Arctic line, 
 
 Where cold destroys the human form divine ; 
 
 From Behring's Strait to Labradorian snows. 
 
 Where the keen north wind even in summer blows ; 
 
 From California unto Florida, 
 
 Where flames perennially the solar ray, 
 
 ShaU be one vast, kind brotherhood of men. 
 
 One federal government repubhcan, 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 ' Tis pity meu; by nation, truly great. 
 Should make their nation little by their hate.
 
 BOOK III. CANTO II. 125 
 
 And pride, and envy, and vulgarity. 
 Where'er they wander o'er the earth and sea. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 The Muse disclaims, as foreign from her view. 
 
 All wish one kindly feeling to undo 
 
 Of cordiahty and faith, betwixt 
 
 Two nations, so allied, so intermixed 
 
 In interests, and relationships, and blood. 
 
 Although th' Atlantic rolls his hoary flood 
 
 Between their shores ; she would, if in her power. 
 
 Cement their friendships of the present hour. 
 
 And sink for ever in the deepest sea 
 
 All cause of rupture in futurity : 
 
 Her only object is to lay the rod 
 
 On one who makes vulgarity his god ; 
 
 Who with his petulence, ill-nature, scorn, 
 
 Lowers his nation's fame, high, though late born : 
 
 A man too haughty to know how to shew 
 
 Those courtesies which all men claim below 
 
 Of different nations, which alone can bind 
 
 In peace that touchy thing the human mind. 
 
 When different climes, and sol's intenser ray a^ 
 
 Have only tinged the contour of our clay. 
 
 And different education only given 
 
 Differing opinions, like the hues of heaven. 
 
 And earth, and ocean, which, where'er thy gleam, 
 
 Are painted all by bright Apollo's beam ; 
 
 A man too ignorant of nature, man. 
 
 To reason rightly on the world's great plan
 
 126 THE SAILING OF THE " LIVERPOOL."' 
 
 Of moral government, or see perfection 
 
 In ought beside his own form and complexion. 
 
 XL, 
 
 The last bell rings ! Now idlers haste ashore. 
 The steam is vented with impatient roar. 
 Command is given, the vessel leaves her berth. 
 And slowly swings away from all that's earth. 
 She quits the bason, takes the falling tides. 
 Sends a black smoke up, and then downward glides. 
 And seems to move instinctively and free. 
 Endowed with hfe, a creature of the sea. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 What tears are shed I what spirits wrenched with pain ! 
 
 What souls have parted ne'er to meet again ! 
 
 The last waved hat, or handkerchief, in air. 
 
 Is the last token many a lady fair 
 
 Shall ever have of fond, impassioned love 
 
 From him who lifts it long his head above. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 As when some parent eagle for her young 
 Grasps the weak lambkin in her talons strong. 
 But slowly mounts from earth, until she gain 
 A prospect in 'mid-heaven of all the plain 
 And distant mountains, then with onward spring 
 Cleaves the deep sky with her prodigious wing ; 
 
 =s
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 -CANTO II. 127 
 
 So that long prosperous, now, ill-fated ship. 
 To make her first, her last disastrous trip,* 
 
 * The last time I saw the " Liverpool " sail was on a Sunday. 
 This was an event 1 deeply regretted at the time ; for in my hum- 
 ble opinion it did more to justify a lax observance of the Sabbath, 
 than if half the little shops in the town had been open for a year. 
 A municipal regulation, sanctioned by Parliament, has lately done 
 away with sabbath desecration by shopkeepers, I mean in South- 
 ampton. The poor man, with great reason, asks, Why should a 
 steam-packet be permitted to sail on a Sunday, when the law does 
 not permit him to buy a loaf of bread ? 
 
 "We must all regret the wreck of the " Liverpool," and the un- 
 happy fate of her excellent commander. 
 
 Since writing the above it has been suggested to me, that some 
 of my readers might infer that the long prosperous, and at last ill- 
 fated " Liverpool," sailed on a Sunday the last time she left this 
 port. I now perceive that this inference might be drawn ; but I 
 did not by any menns design it should. The truth is, as the Pe- 
 ninsular and Oriental Company is at the head of all maritime 
 companies in the world for commercial integrity and influence, and 
 as many of its ships are commanded by gentlemen as excellent in 
 their moral character as they are proficient in seamanship, it has 
 always appeared highly desirable to me that that Company should 
 set a strict example of sacred regard to the fourth commandment. 
 Probably there is not one of the Directors would personally objec- 
 to such an arrangement. And every one who has seen what ma- 
 ritime affairs are abroad, especially in connexion with steam navi- 
 gation, will be convinced by a moment's reflection, that, were a 
 resolution passed by the Directors, and carried out by the gentle- 
 men who command their vessels, it would give an immediate in- 
 fluence to Sabbath observance over more than half the world. I
 
 128 THE SAILING OF THE " LIVERPOOS./' 
 
 With curbed speed puts down Antona's tide. 
 The Solent measures, gains the channel wide. 
 Then fearless as a thunderbolt of war, 
 Cleaves the vast floods, intent on climes afar. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 Ah ! few suspect this is the last, last time 
 That vessel e'er shall sail from this sweet clime I 
 She will ride safely o'er the foaming deep 
 Where the big swells of ocean madly sweep 
 The solemn shores of Portugal and Spain ; 
 But she shall never here return again : 
 Upon those shores, while on her passage home. 
 The sunken rock shall break her, and the foam 
 Of those prodigious seas wash o'er and o'er 
 Her shattered fragments all along the shore. 
 
 am aware that an humble individual like me may be thought to 
 take too much upon himself when he dictates to a number of gen- 
 tlemen like those who manage the affairs of the Company in ques- 
 tion. This is probably a mistake. Besides I am under many 
 obligations to the Directors of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam 
 Navigation Company, in connexion with a once contemplated plan 
 of giving religious instruction to British sailors in the port of Con- 
 stantinople, and I cannot better express my gratitude for those 
 obligations than by expressing an anxious desire, that that Com- 
 pany should give, both at home and abroad, all that moral influence 
 to mankind of which it is so capable, especially as a regulation of 
 that Company itself to hallow the Sabbath, would be incomparably 
 better received than if an act of parliament enforced the command 
 enunciated by Jehovah on the top of Sinai. 
 
 End op Canto II.
 
 CANTO III . 
 
 EETURN OF ONE OF THE ORIENTAL PACKETS 
 TO THE MOTHER BANK, 
 
 AND THE SONGS OP THE JOLLY SAILORS. 
 I. 
 
 From the famed city of th' imperious Turks, 
 
 Through seas where many a hidden danger lurks, 
 
 Yon vessel, true to skilful, calm command, 
 
 Now nears triumphantly this happy land. 
 
 The Needles past, the Solent's shallow floods 
 
 Bears the quick paddles' strokes to the dark woods 
 
 Which clothe the shores, where the pale moon-beam plays 
 
 From narrow horns with but a feeble blaze. 
 
 The Isle of Wight looks on the midnight sea 
 
 In indistinct and shadowy majesty : 
 
 And all the air sleeps on the waters round 
 
 As calm as virgin beauty pillowed sound 
 
 Ere first affection's often foolish dart 
 
 Has pierced the first recesses of the heart. 
 
 IT. 
 
 The Mother Bank is gained. The anchor's chain 
 Utters its thunders o'er the silvered main, 
 
 F 3
 
 130 RETURN OF, ETC. TO THE MOTHER BANK. 
 
 Then brings the vessel up ; and soon as still 
 She floats as summer-cloud on distant hill ; 
 Not even the motion of the restless tide 
 Is heard to softly sob along her side. 
 
 III. 
 
 The captain and his ofiicers now meet. 
 
 And drink their glasses, and old England greet ; 
 
 And feel a lightsomeness of heart and soul 
 
 They are too frank to labour to control, 
 
 Or sour with any recollection past 
 
 Of toil, or danger, or from wave or blast. 
 
 And, sure the Muse is, she can guarantee 
 
 Those joyous men are what they seem to be. 
 
 Brave, loyal, honest as the face of day : 
 
 And England has no heartier sons than they. 
 
 IV. 
 
 A gallant crew that gallant vessel mans. 
 
 Whose hearts are warm as fire the north-wind fans. 
 
 Their grog saved up, the midnight hour they pass 
 
 In jovial song, and the too much loved glass. 
 
 And the forecastle thunders with the sound 
 
 Of deep-toned voice, as each one's turn comes round 
 
 To sing, as love, or freedom shall inspire. 
 
 And joy, or sorrow, touch the ocean lyre. 
 
 V. 
 
 Jim was the oldest sailor in that crew. 
 
 Who every sea, and shore, and country, knew.
 
 BOOK III. CANTO III. 131 
 
 And wheresoe'er he went was still the brave 
 Undaunted lover of the ocean's wave. 
 This master passion of his soul ne'er felt 
 An equal, save when his rough soul would melt 
 As the dark eye of woman flashed its Hght, 
 And subtle charms inflamed him with delight. 
 And kindhng now with thoughts of friends ashore, 
 His voice like mighty winds is heard to roar. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Woman's Eyes. 
 
 Come lads, and let us pass the night. 
 
 As jolly sailors ought to do, 
 Who long have borne the tempest's might 
 
 With courage ever new and true. 
 Come, let us drink to all our lasses : 
 Come, jolly sailors, fill your glasses. 
 Oh ! what are far-ofi" seas and skies 
 When we're so near to woman's eyes ? 
 
 Our voyage novv^ is safely o'er ; 
 
 Our anchor deeply bites the mud ; 
 We only wait a few days more 
 
 In quarantine upon the flood : 
 Then we shall meet our charming lasses. 
 Come, jolly sailors, fill your glasses. 
 Oh ! what are far-ofi* seas and skies. 
 When we're so near to woman's eyes ?
 
 132 RETURN OF, ETC. TO THE MOTHER BANK. 
 
 Come, lads, come, every man a song 
 
 For her he's left so sad ashore ; 
 Come, let us pass the whole night long 
 
 Like jolly tars whose toils are o'er : 
 Like joUy tars so near their lasses. 
 Come, bravest lads, come fill your glasses. 
 Oh ! what are far-off seas and skies, 
 When we're so near to woman's eyes ; 
 
 VIL 
 
 A young apprentice now poured forth his song ; 
 
 A simple and unlettered lad ; but strong 
 
 And active when the wave ran fierce and high ; 
 
 And first to go aloft in windy sky. 
 
 When the command is given to clue the sail. 
 
 To shun the fury of impetuous gale. 
 
 On Beauheu's hill he drew his humble breath 
 
 In a mud-cottage built upon the heath, 
 
 Where, through the summer's heat, and winter's cold. 
 
 He roamed the forest round, untiring, bold ; 
 
 Now bathing, fishing in some neighbouring flood ; 
 
 Now chasing game through darkly shaded wood ; 
 
 Now robbing many a nest of helpless young. 
 
 And now decoying birds of sweetest song ; 
 
 Nor feared he, with his new-cut stick, to kill 
 
 The adder coiled upon the sunny hill : 
 
 And aU he knew on ocean's restless wave 
 
 Was to love truly, and be always brave. 
 
 This simple rhyme was aU the song he knew. 
 
 Which he sang poorly, but with heart all true.
 
 BOOK III. CANTO III. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 133 
 
 The Lass of BeauUeu Rails. 
 
 The lass, the lass of Beaulieu Rails, 
 
 So youthful and so fair, 
 With charming hands and finger-nails. 
 
 And ankles light as air. 
 
 Is the sweet lass I love the best 
 
 Of all the lasses there : 
 Her graces dance upon her breast. 
 
 And in her eyes and hair. 
 
 The morn I left my father's roof, 
 
 To join this gallant crew, 
 I past her door to give her proof 
 
 My love for her was true. 
 
 I met her at the wicket with 
 
 A large tear in her eye ; 
 I kissed her lovely cheek, looked blithe. 
 
 And smiling said — Good-bye. 
 
 But as I hastened down the hill 
 My heart and soul grew sad. 
 
 And ere I came to Beaulieu Mill, 
 I seemed hke one half mad. 
 
 And wheresoe'er our vessel sails. 
 
 My song shall ever be. 
 The lass, the lass of Beauheu Rails, 
 
 Is the sweet lass for me.
 
 134 RETURN OF, ETC. TO THE MOTHER BANK. 
 
 IX. 
 
 These sons of ocean now inflamed with rum 
 
 Praised long and loud, the simple song of Tom ; 
 
 Then called upon a youth, who, that same day, 
 
 Had served his time out, healthy, manly, gay, — 
 
 Who to a body perfect, and heart kind, 
 
 Joined a well tutored, strong, disciplined mind ; 
 
 Wlio, though he joined his shipmates in their joy. 
 
 And sang, and drank, and seemed a reckless boy. 
 
 Had feelings which he ne'er to them betrayed. 
 
 He loved a lady, not a simple maid. 
 
 And an ambition to be great and famed 
 
 Had long his powerful mind to study framed. 
 
 And led him to despise the vulgar cup 
 
 Of pleasure which the common tar drinks up. 
 
 He pitied, not admired such low excess. 
 
 And followed, but not led to such vile emptiness : 
 
 And only stooped occasionally low 
 
 His right good heart and manliness to shew 
 
 Towards those who far less favoured in their youth 
 
 Than he, had not so pure a sense of truth. 
 
 He sang. His voice, though powerful and bass-toned. 
 
 Was musically rich, like echo moaned 
 
 Down some long valley, when the thunder beam's 
 
 Loud voice comes soften'd o'er the waveless face of streams.* 
 
 * The allusion is to the power broad, deep, and quiet rivers have 
 to convey and soften sounds. I have heard the Falls of Niagara 
 at the Ferry Tavern, opposite Buffalo, at midnight, a distance of 
 . near twenty miles from the falls.
 
 BOOK III. — CANTO III. 135 
 
 X. 
 
 The song of the oldest Apprentice. 
 
 The morning light is lovely when 
 It shines o'er mountain, valley, glen. 
 
 And gilds the Marmora's vrave ; 
 When Stamboul's* minarets look bright. 
 And all the mosques are bathed in light, 
 
 Phantastic, and yet grave : 
 When down the Bosphorus the day 
 Pours stronger his refulgent ray. 
 And makes the solemn cypress gay 
 
 Upon the Moslem's grave,f 
 
 And Nicomedia's GulphJ is bright 
 When blushing with the evening light. 
 
 Contrasting with the snows 
 Which glow upon Olympus' height 
 All spotless, radiantly white ; 
 
 * Stamboul is the Turkish part of the present Constantinople. 
 It is twelve miles round, and contains 500,000 people. It is very 
 beautiful seen from the upper part of the sea of Marmora. 
 
 t It is customary for the Turks to plant a cypress at the head 
 of the graves of those they bury with respect. And as they never 
 bury two bodies in the same grave, some of the Turkish cemeteries 
 are cypress groves of great extent, and are objects of great beauty 
 in the magnificent landscapes round Constantinople. 
 
 \ Called by the Turks, Izmid. It is a most beautiful part of 
 the Sea of Marmora, especially a little before sun-set.
 
 136 RETURN OF, ETC. TO THE MOTHER BANK. 
 
 Seen long past evening's close ; 
 And that big mountain in its might 
 Through the long hours of silent night 
 Beams oft the most enchanting light 
 
 Which Luna on him throws.'* 
 
 The Smyrnian Gulph, the Grecian Isles, 
 Look bright when morn, or evening smiles 
 
 O'er mountains, valleys, dells, — 
 And Samothrakiaf when his head 
 Beams on the Plain of Troy, wide spread 
 
 Where rolls the Dardanelles, 
 As burning mid-day melts the cloud 
 Wliich does his wooded brow enshroud 
 To nurse the bolt of thunder loud 
 
 'Gainst when the tempest swells. 
 
 The golden mist at close of day 
 On Mityline's mountains, gay 
 
 With villas at their feet ; 
 The blue tint of th' JEgean deep. 
 When light oar wakes it from its sleep 
 
 * The whole outline of Olympus is visible by moonlight to 
 persons on the heights of Stamboul, a distance of perhaps 60 miles. 
 I have frequently seen it. 
 
 t Samothrace is pronounced by the modern Greeks, Samothraky. 
 By Europeans it is pronounced as in the text, Samothrakia. I 
 have several times seen the phenomenon to which I allude.
 
 BOOK III. CANTOIll. 137 
 
 In beauty exquisite, 
 Have oft into my bosom sent 
 A pleasure kindly nature meant 
 Should be to toiling sailor lent 
 
 To soothe him in his heat.* 
 
 But cheerly, lads, there is no land. 
 Nor hght on foreign sea, rock, sand. 
 
 Mosque, minaret, or hill. 
 Is half so beautiful as ours. 
 Where woodland vales, and garden bowers. 
 
 And limpid lake and rill. 
 And health, and freedom, love and song. 
 The live-long day and night prolong 
 With pleasures ever new and young 
 
 The brave heart e'er to fill. 
 
 So here's, my jolly lads, a health 
 To British power, and British wealth. 
 
 To British lads and lasses, — 
 To England, Scotland, Ireland, all 
 Their sons, in cabin, cot, or hall. 
 
 Haste, lads, and fill your glasses : 
 May Britain live throughout all time. 
 For ever free from mortal crime. 
 Such as made Babylon, subhme 
 
 In strength and beauty, fall. 
 
 * I have several times witnessed the high degree of pleasure 
 intelligent common seamen have taken in beholding all the scenery 
 mentioned in this song.
 
 138 RETURN OP, ETC. TO THE MOTHER BANK. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Bill was a lad of manly modesty. 
 
 And often thoughtful, sad, — but always free. 
 
 He ne'er his tongue to filthy converse lent ; 
 
 Nor e'er was drunk beyond self-government. 
 
 He was accounted bravest of the brave 
 
 When the wild winds upheaved the ocean's wave 
 
 For he was always first to mount the shrouds 
 
 When night involved the rolling deep in clouds. 
 
 And the tossed vessel, turning on her sides 
 
 Dipped her main-yard-arms in the raging tides. 
 
 He loved a maid he'd vowed to make his bride : 
 
 But that fair creature of a fever died : 
 
 And ever-since, where e'er he roamed the sea. 
 
 He nursed a sorrow no one knew but he. 
 
 XII. 
 
 The Maid of Fawley. 
 
 The sun was rising o'er the sea. 
 
 And up Southampton river beamed. 
 
 When I took leave of Sarah Lee, 
 
 Whose eyes through tear- wet eyelids gleamed. 
 
 A hundred times through Cadland Park 
 We walked in conversation sweet ; 
 
 A hundred miles, in light, or dark. 
 Would I now walk that maid to meet.
 
 BOOK III. CANTO III. 
 
 Her eyes were darker than the sky. 
 And yet they shed the loveUest light, 
 
 Like that which Luna, throned on high, 
 Casts o'er romantic lakes at night. 
 
 Her cheeks in their all lovely hues 
 
 Were ruddier far than rose-tree howers ; 
 
 Her lips were sweeter than the dews 
 Night sprinkles on the sweetest flowers. 
 
 But 'tis not mine to see that maid 
 Again to walk in Cadland Park ; 
 
 Upon her beauteous eyes the shade 
 
 Of death has sunk, and made them dark. 
 
 Her form more exquisitely fine 
 
 Than ever Turkish lady bore. 
 The grave has closed from me and mine : 
 
 And I shall see that maid no more. 
 
 139 
 
 Once, after I came off to sea, 
 A fever drank her hfe away : 
 
 But oft she called aloud for me : 
 So those, who waited on her, say. 
 
 Enough, my lads, we all must fade ; 
 
 In this you '11 all agree with me : 
 But here's a health to every maid 
 
 Who loves as true as Sarah Lee. 
 
 XHL 
 
 The song of Bill brought tears in many an eye 
 For drink oft wakes up smothered sympathy.
 
 140 RETURN OP, ETC. TO THE MOTHER BANK. 
 
 And brings events, by memory long forgot, 
 
 With all the force of clear, inspired, strong thought. 
 
 Before the soul, when recollections come. 
 
 Like sons and daughters to their native home, 
 
 And talk o'er all th' events of early life 
 
 Before the joyous husband and glad wife, 
 
 Who, gazing on each other friendship true. 
 
 Think of past things their children never knew. 
 
 Things which, but for their children being there. 
 
 Would have been lost, as clouds oft melt in air. 
 
 The dissipated particles, up-caught 
 
 By other air, are never more together brought. 
 
 But wandering from each other, will condense 
 
 With other vapours, distances immense ; 
 
 But being called to recollection there 
 
 And then, by manly son, and daughter fair. 
 
 By some mysterious action of the brain. 
 
 Live in the soul most vividly again : 
 
 For drink, the drink most loved by generous tar,* 
 
 Where-e'er he wander o'er the ocean far, 
 
 When it excites the heart, inflames the brain. 
 
 Especially when just returned again 
 
 From some long prosperous voyage o'er the main. 
 
 Bids long ebbed passions rise, swell high, and pour 
 
 Their all-o'erpowering force the reason o'er ; 
 
 Or, if perchance some favourite song be sung, 
 
 Learned when the soul was 'midst its pleasures young. 
 
 It wakes up memory and conscience, those 
 
 Two sources of the bad heart's bitter woes, 
 
 * Rum.
 
 BOOK III. CANTO III. 141 
 
 And paints again in colours strong and bold 
 
 Crimes incompensative on earth with gold ; 
 
 Crimes where too willing, too fond woman, fell 
 
 To taste the fires of an undying hell. 
 
 Under the guarantee of solemn oaths. 
 
 Or artful force, which common manhood loathes. 
 
 Followed by cold neglect, forsaken shame. 
 
 And all those pangs for which there is no name 
 
 A woman suffers when she's made to groan. 
 
 Betrayed, forsaken, ruined, left alone. 
 
 In prospect of that murderous wrong of time 
 
 Which charges the seduced with the seducer's crime. 
 
 And makes fair woman suffer all she can. 
 
 Stained by the fraud, or violence of man. 
 
 But for which fraud, or violence, her eye 
 
 Had still been bright in beauteous chastity. 
 
 And her sweet heart the temple of that joy 
 
 Which virtue only feels without alloy. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Alas ! alas ! among that generous crew 
 Were men who'd studied women to undo ; 
 Who'd rashly eaten of their first ripe fruit. 
 Then breathed a deadly blight o'er branch and root. 
 And left them as the seering thunder flame 
 Leaves the tall Coaco,* and the graceful Palm, 
 
 * Both the Coaco-nut-tree, and the Palm-tree, often grows from 
 60 to 80 feet high. I have seen them when the thunder bolt has
 
 142 RETURN OF, ETC. TO THK MOTHER BANK. 
 
 Robbed of their beauty, and their virtue gone, 
 Blackened and barren in the glorious sun ; 
 Left their dear fames down trodden in the dust, 
 The ruined objects of rapacious lust. 
 
 XV. 
 
 It was Bill's song of tenderness which brought 
 
 The crimes referred to on the wings of thought. 
 
 And led th' excited soul, as in a glass. 
 
 To look on scenes, as one by one would pass 
 
 Before her, each exasperating still 
 
 The bitter poison of long-gone-by ill. 
 
 Until some effort of the mind became 
 
 All needful to conceal her guilt and shame. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 But soon those moments' sadness passed away, 
 
 And loudly tliey demand another lay. 
 
 Dick Tatest, a wild, waggish, " drunken dog," 
 
 As ever clued a sail, or heaved the log. 
 
 And yet with feelings genuinely kind 
 
 Deep seated in his rude, uncultured mind. 
 
 Now roared out like a fitful midnight gale 
 
 Which hoarsely blusters down a rocky dale. 
 
 The following rhyme — The Lass of Norley Wood, 
 
 The lass that charmed him most on ocean's flood. 
 
 as completely consumed their upper part, as if they had been 
 burnt in a fire.
 
 BOOK III. CANTO III. 
 
 143 
 
 And most ashore, when drunkenness and crime 
 For love and friendship gave him any time. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 The Lass of Norley Wood. 
 
 Of all the lasses ever seen, 
 
 Sail Dingle is the fairest. 
 Her eye's hght's soft as morning sheen 
 
 On mountain flowers the rarest. 
 
 The sky- sail on a summer's day 
 Hung o'er the ocean, glowing 
 
 In sun-shine, is not half so gay 
 As Sail is when she's throwing 
 
 Her roguish glances all around, 
 Then smiling so enchanting, — 
 
 Then timid as young fawns that bound 
 Away from arrow slanting. 
 
 Sail is the wUdest, sweetest thing, 
 (Though hke the sea unruly,) 
 
 That ever nature made to fling 
 The darts of love so truly. 
 
 I met her first at Norley Wood, 
 And saw her there the latest. 
 
 And asked her twice if e'er she would 
 Be married to Dick Tatest ?
 
 144 RETURN OF, ETC. TO THE MOTHER BANK. 
 
 She hung her head, and blushed, and laughed. 
 
 Then off she darted from me 
 Fleeter than ever wind could waft 
 
 The barque o'er biUow stormy. 
 
 But when I go to Norley Wood, 
 
 I'll seek again Sail Dingle, 
 To tell her that I'm come for good 
 
 With her's my soul to mingle. 
 
 And if she will receive my love. 
 
 She shall be mine for ever ; 
 My heart from hers shall never move ; 
 
 I'll love another never. 
 
 So here's a health, (a bumper glass, 
 
 My lads !) to fair Sail Dingle ; 
 I never wish for other lass ; 
 
 Though dashed* if I'll be single. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Of all the vices known among mankind, 
 The vice which most debases aU the mind, 
 Is drunkenness : and if it e'er become 
 A habit, farewell health, and friends, and home. 
 
 * This is a common word for, confound me, hence dash you, 
 that is, confound you, humorously : and the intelligent reader will 
 remember this is the ninth sense Dr. Johnson gives this word. 
 His own words are — " To confound ; to make ashamed suddenly ; 
 to surprize with shame or fear." — Johnson's Die. the verb To dash.
 
 BOOK III. — CANTO III. 145 
 
 And wealth, and all respectability : 
 
 The drunkard must a man of misery be ! 
 
 Loathed by the world, and still more by himself, 
 
 While drink o'erflows him as a flood a delf. 
 
 He gives himself to wrecklessness and crime. 
 
 And wallows when he might have soared subhme 
 
 Above ten thousand feebler wits than his, 
 
 "Who, being sober, drink enduring bliss. 
 
 Home, wife, fair children, friends, and prosperous trade, 
 
 Conspiring all to bless, and not degrade. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Bob Rover was a brave and manly tar 
 
 As e'er ship guided o'er the ocean far ; 
 
 As e'er defied the torrid tropic breeze. 
 
 Or dared the frosty breath of arctic seas ; 
 
 Had not that fatal habit, drunkenness, 
 
 Been, through his life, the source of penniless 
 
 Contempt, and scorn, and crime, and misery. 
 
 And always doomed him to the raging sea. 
 
 Ten times he had been shipwrecked ; ne'er ashore 
 
 Two months together thirty years or more ; 
 
 Three times he had been married, every time 
 
 To subtle harlot, patroness of crime ; 
 
 And often when he went ashore " all right," 
 
 He spent, or lost his earnings in a night. 
 
 And the next morning, in the sight of men. 
 
 Half naked, staggered from a harlot's den. 
 
 Alas ! when e'er his feet were found on land. 
 
 And he had but a shilling in his hand, 
 
 G
 
 146 RETURN OF, ETC. TO THE MOTHER BANK. 
 
 Too bad ideas did possess his soul, 
 And dog him with a dark and strong controul. 
 Rum, and a harlot. — But his own wild lay 
 Shall now say all of him I wish to say. 
 
 XX. 
 
 The Sailor s Lay. 
 
 Let misers take their bags of gold ; 
 
 Let gamblers sport their gold away ; 
 The jolly sailor, brave and bold. 
 
 Delights to sing the sailor's lay: 
 
 He braves the elements in rage ; 
 
 He laughs amid the polar snows ; 
 He will 'mid hurricanes engage 
 
 The sea when it in madness flows. 
 
 Because he knows as soon ashore. 
 The charm above all others blest, 
 
 WUl make him feel his toils all o'er. 
 The lay loud sung he loves the best. 
 
 Cheerly lads ! the ocean's foam 
 
 Has washed us oft on main-yard-arm ; 
 
 But we came always cheerly home 
 To feel of saUor's lay the charm. 
 
 That lay sung 'mong our comrades brave 
 When we from ocean come safe home. 
 
 Repays the toils 'mid every wave 
 
 Which o'er the labouring ship may foam.
 
 BOOK HI. CANTO III. 147 
 
 Let hermits boast of what they may. 
 And prating priests say all the rest ; 
 
 'Tis ours to glory in the lay 
 
 The sailor sings, and loves the best. 
 
 Let miser count his bags of gold ; 
 
 Let gambler sport his gold away ; 
 The jolly sailor, brave and bold, 
 
 Will glory in his own wild lay. 
 
 So here 's my toast, my comrades bold. 
 
 The jovial song, in truth, or jest : 
 Let misers, spendthrifts, play with gold : 
 
 Give me the lay I love the best. 
 
 XXL 
 
 Old Banter next was called on for a song. 
 As rough a tar, as boisterous and strong 
 As the wide, foaming ocean ever knew ; 
 And yet his heart was upright, loyal, true. 
 His voice was like the sound of wind and wave 
 The sullen tempest pours in some dark cave 
 Which opens to the sea's unbroken sweep. 
 Unequal, hoarse, unmusically deep. 
 
 XXIL 
 
 Our Gallant Ship. 
 
 My jolly lads, we ought to sing 
 
 The praises of our gallant ship. 
 Which flies before the gale's wild wing 
 
 Which stoops in ocean's brine to dip, 
 c2
 
 148 RETURN OP, ETC. TO THE MOTHER BANK. 
 
 Far swifter than the chariot bounds 
 
 Upon a prince's bridal day ; 
 Far swifter than the greedy hounds 
 
 When scenting fleetest stag's rough way. 
 
 A gallant captain, lads, we have 
 As e'er heaved quadrant to the sun. 
 
 Or guided ship across the wave 
 
 Till she her destined course had run. 
 
 Cheerly, lads ! Our gallant barque 
 
 Shall yet sail over many a sea. 
 Through heat and cold, through hght and dark^ 
 
 When winds are blowing merrily. 
 
 And many a night, my comrades brave. 
 We '11 sing the long dark hours away. 
 
 When we 're safe anchored in the wave, 
 Returned from ocean's heavier spray. 
 
 Cheerly ! cheerly ! jolly tars ; 
 
 The barque we guide o'er ocean's foam. 
 Shall never fear the sportive wars 
 
 Of winds and waves, where e'er we roam. 
 
 Cheerly, cheerly, brave lads all ! 
 
 Our captain, ship, and each bold man! 
 But chaplain, cook, and doctor Ball,* 
 
 The sea may drown them, if it can. 
 
 * The intelligent traveller will remember that nothing is more 
 common among carousing sailors than for them to pay oif, and
 
 BOOK III. CANTO III. 149 
 
 XXITI. 
 
 That night past o'er as if its breadth of shade 
 With four-fold motion had its journey made ; 
 For scarcely had each sailor found his berth. 
 When morn came forth in beauty on the earth. 
 
 forget an old grudge by making it the part of a merry song over a 
 glass or two of grog. This will account at once for the pointed 
 reference, in the last song, to the chaplain, cook, and doctor, by old 
 Banter. 
 
 But it is not impossible that the faithful picture I have drawn of 
 the noisy conviviality of the crew, may be thought to be coloured 
 by those readers who know next to nothing about the habits of 
 seamen. It may be very proper, therefore, to let a son of the ocean, 
 a man of genius, and a fine poet, the ill-fated Falconer, speak on 
 this subject. In one of the finest paragraphs of the Shipwreck 
 are the following lines on this very custom : 
 
 " Now radiant Vesper leads the starry train, 
 
 " And night slow draws her veil o'er land and main. 
 
 " Round the charged bowl the sailors form a ring ; 
 
 " By turns recount the wonderous tale, or sing, 
 
 " As love, or battle, hardships of the main, 
 
 " Or genial wine, awake the homely strain." 
 
 And the same authority, the highest authority in the world, may 
 be referred to as proving the statement I have made on the ten- 
 dency of sailors to colour their pleasures with affectionate and 
 tender recollections. 
 
 " Each amorous sailor too, with heart elate, 
 " Dwells on the beauties of his gentle mate ; 
 " Even they the impressive dart of love can feel, 
 " Whose stubborn souls are sheathed in triple steel." 
 g3
 
 150 RETURN OF, ETC. TO THE MOTHER BANK, 
 
 These feet had paced the deck that whole night long ; 
 These ears had heard each sailor's noisy song,* 
 And these all wakeful eyes were first to see 
 Tlie grey of twilight silver the ea?t sea. 
 Which gazed, and still delighted, gazed again 
 Till sun-rise threw deep blushes on the main, 
 And Hampshire's wooded^ unique shores grew gay 
 In all the splendour of unclouded day. 
 
 * This canto is as faithful a description as I am capable of giving 
 of what took place the first time I anchored on the Mother Bank, 
 after coming from Constantinople, except that the songs are ori- 
 ginal, and intended to be characteristic of the sailors who sing 
 them. 
 
 End of Book III. 
 
 SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE MORAL CONDITION 
 OF SAILORS. 
 
 I HAVB frequently desired a proper opportunity of making a few 
 observations on the moral condition of our seamen ; and, lest a 
 more suitable one should not soon offer itself to me, I gladly avail 
 myself of the present half sheet, which it was originally thought 
 the third book of the poem would occupy, to say all on this impor- 
 tant subject my unexpected room will permit. 
 
 I am far from thinking that the generality of sailors are so ha- 
 bitually wicked as are a much greater number of landsmen, having 
 the same operative relations to society ashore, as sailors have at 
 sea. But owing to the peculiarities of a life spent in a great mea- 
 sure upon the ocean, their wickedness is much more injurious to 
 all the relations they bear to nature, to man, and to God, — in 
 other words, much more injurious to their physical, mental, tem- 
 poral, moral, and religious interests. Ashore men have all the aids 
 they can desire in every condition of life, — medical care and nurs- 
 ing when they arc sick, the wholesome influences of correct 
 manners and customs to check improper indulgences, and
 
 SOME OBSERVATIOXS, ETC. 151 
 
 all the salutary instructions of religion to induce in them 
 a regard to moral principle, and a respect for the honour of 
 God. In thousands of ships at sea sailors are almost destitute of 
 all these advantages. Instead, therefore, of wondering at the in- 
 sobriety of sailors in general, we ought rather to be astonished 
 that they possess the many virtues they do. 
 
 I am aware that much has been done of late years to 
 improve the condition of common seamen ; but I may assert, 
 ■without in the slightest degree diverging from the truth, 
 that nothing has been done yet in comparison of what remains to 
 be done. Indeed almost a re-organization of maritime opinions 
 and habits is indispensable, before a lasting reformation among 
 sailors can reasonably be expected. I shall point out a few par- 
 ticulars which I think are very important. 
 
 I. Marriage among sailors ought to be much more 
 
 FREQUENT. 
 
 Our Maker mistook the whole elements of our nature, if 
 virtuous reciprocal love of the sexes be not the strongest induce- 
 ment possible to sobriety and morality under all circumstances of 
 life. Do we believe there is any truth in the statement of the 
 inspired penman concerning the love of Jacob for Rachel, that the 
 years he served for her passed away like a few days because of the 
 love he felt for her ? But there was not about either Jacob or 
 Rachel anything which is not common to mankind. Every man 
 is capable of such a virtuous admiration of a woman, as to prefer 
 her happiness and well-being to any other object the world can 
 ofifer him under any circumstances. And we are sure, that, until 
 blighted by disappointment, or degraded by vice, the generality 
 of women possess both physical beauty and moral goodness every 
 way worthy of the tenderest love and the most ardent admiration 
 of men, I mean prospectively to, or actually in, matrimonial 
 relations. 
 
 I do not hesitate to say, that a contempt for the sober pleasures 
 and unavoidable duties of marriage, as the care of a young family, 
 etc. etc., is the first step to the eternal ruin of tens of thousands of 
 sailors. I speak what I know to be true. I have seen sailors in 
 many parts of the world, and have long been convinced that in 
 their pleasures they have (generally speaking) only two thoughts, 
 only two modes of indulgence — inebriation, and intemperance. 
 I have seen sailors for years, in the West Indies, enslaved to base 
 connexions in the bush, where new rum could be bought for a few 
 pence per pint, and have not unfrequently seen them buried in the 
 sands upon the shores of the Charibbean as the immediate con- 
 sequence of their immoral habits. In New York, Montreal, Que- 
 bec, Gibraltar, Malta, Smyrna, and Constantinople, I have been 
 awfully/«onvinced how dreadful to British sailors is their contempt
 
 152 SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE 
 
 of marriage. In all these ports inebriating drinks are as cheap as 
 table-beer in England ; the basest of men live by enticing seamen 
 ashore, whenever that is possible, especially at Constantinople ; 
 and to make use of a strong- declaration made by the captain of a 
 merchantman under the walls of the Seraglio of Stamboul, " When 
 a sailor has been ashore a few hours here, he is frequently not 
 only not worth two-pence while our vessels lie here, but he is a 
 burden all the w^ay home." 
 
 But sailors who despise marriage are a curse to thousands on 
 our own shores. Where is there a village in Hampshire that has 
 not one or more females in it who have reason to curse the worth- 
 less principles of unmarried sailors ? They add many to the 
 number of those unhappy creatures of whom the pen of inspiration 
 says, they " increase transgressors among men." And so long as 
 the cause exists, in this respect, the melancholy efiect may be 
 expected to follow. 
 
 It were almost needless to point out the advantages of marriage 
 to seamen ; they must be evident to every one who thinks. But 
 as some men will not tliink, and yet will take upon themselves to 
 judge on this matter, and who go so far as to discountenance 
 the marriage of common seamen, it may not be amiss to mention 
 a few of the advantages of marriage, to sailors themselves, to their 
 employers, and to the world. 
 
 Married sailors have a clean, quiet, comfortable home all the 
 time they are ashore, for much less expense than would be habits 
 of intoxication and vice. They do not suffer at sea the dreadful 
 penalties of transgression. They are usually men possessing the 
 best of health. And they commonly live to a good old age. It 
 will be time for the world to come to an end when these advantages 
 shall deserve to be counted as of no value. 
 
 Married sailors are more serviceable to their employers than 
 unmarried ones. "While at sea they have the strongest motives 
 to sobriety, morality, and honesty, and can, therefore, be much 
 more confided in. Look at a ship in a gale of wind : the unprin- 
 cipled unmarried sailor, especially if he be in liquor, has no anxiety 
 for the safety of the ship : but the sober married man will make a 
 hundred efforts to keep the ship afloat for the sake of his wife and 
 children. I have been twice wrecked at sea, and know full-well 
 the truth of what I now say- 
 Married sailors are a blessing to the world. Their sons often 
 make the best of seamen, and their daughters, from the peculiarity 
 of their education, make the best of sailors' wives, that is, under 
 circumstances favourable to human virtue. And they themselves, 
 among their sons and daughters the short time they are ashore, 
 are not roots of bitterness to poison the social pleasures, and de- 
 stroy the domestic peace of their neighbours.
 
 MORAL CONDITION OF SAILORS. 153 
 
 It is not beyond possibility that some honorary, and even tem- 
 poral advantages might be thought of for trust-worthy married 
 seamen. A silver medal, after a term of years, and a free maritime 
 education for one son, would be great encouragements. 
 
 In conclusion, on this particular, let us not forget, that an 
 apostle has declared — that " marriage is honourable in all," etc. 
 Can we suppose it was ever the design of providence that sea-faiing 
 men are necessarily excluded from this honour, and that they 
 ought to be left to fall under the malediction of the unquoted part 
 of the above passage ? Let us not be so unwise. 
 
 II. The owners of all ships ought to enjoin a strict and 
 
 SACRED OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH ON THE MEN IN THEIR 
 EMPLOY. 
 
 Vessels, it is well known, often put to sea on a Saturday night, 
 when under the most favourable weather the following Sabbath is 
 unavoidably a day of hurry and confusion. Taking the chance of 
 a favourable wind after detention in port, is another thing. I re- 
 fer to the contemplated and appointed period for vessels to sail by 
 ship-owners and captains. The plea that the crew " might go 
 ashore and get drunk," if unoccupied on a Sunday when so near 
 home, is to reason on a presumed impossibility in seamen to possess 
 common honesty, in other words, that they are wholly unimprov- 
 able in their moral degradation. Besides it is to take the only day 
 in the week which the Almighty has hallowed for religious ob- 
 servances, a day which offers special opportunities for thoughtful- 
 ness, repentance, and reformation, even to wicked men, and 
 devote it to a studied insult of the law of God, and to a ten-fold 
 increase of the moral darkness of the sailor mind. 
 
 It would be easy to prove that, this general desecration of the 
 Sabbath, both by ship-owners and captains, offers many obstruc- 
 tions to their own interests, unless it could be shewn that the ar- 
 rangements of nature are favourable to those who break the Sab- 
 bath. But who that knows anything about the constitution of 
 this planet, would maintain an opinion so ridiculous ? And if the 
 Sabbath has no advantage to offer its desecraters more than any 
 other day, it may reasonably be asked — even losing sight of the 
 peculiar sacredness of that day — Are not the advantages of Sabbath 
 desecration by manual labour far more than counter-balanced by 
 the moral disorder generated by it in the minds of seamen ? Has 
 an apprentice boy a keen concern about his master's interests, who 
 among other unwise aud unjust artfulnesses, forces him to an un- 
 der-cover contempt of the holy Sabbath ? If the master cheats 
 the public and defies God, will the apprentice not have great 
 temptations to be deceptions and dishonest to him ? And there is 
 more than a strong analogy betwixt this case and the relations 
 common seamen stand in to owners of ships and captains all the
 
 154 SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE 
 
 time they are at sea. A •oTitten contract exists betwixt them, and 
 all the interests of the owner, so far as they are connected with 
 that ship, are committed to the protection of the crew. For we 
 are to suppose there are always possibilities that the ship may be 
 brought into such circumstances of danger as will take from the 
 minds of any but good men all regard for the authority of the 
 captain. I was shipwrecked once, when the crew, like raging fu- 
 ries (knowing not their situation because of the horrible darkness 
 which enveloped the seas,) were no more to be governed by the 
 authority of the captain than the furious winds which blustered 
 over his vessel : for they ran fore and aft swearing like fallen 
 spirits, and very unnecessarily completely disabled the ship by 
 cutting down her masts and throwing them overboard. This was 
 on a Sunday night. And that day had not been hallowed by any 
 public acknowledgment of the providence and grace of God. 
 
 It is by no means my intention to reflect on persons by any 
 mention of names and places ; but I cannot forbear to observe, 
 that I have been passenger in a ship which left a port on a sunday 
 morning, unavoidably forcing many, and inducing many more, to 
 desecrate that holy day. But what did the vessel gain by this 
 breach of the Sabbath ? Why, after steaming five days without 
 stopping a paddle, she was detained in the first port she made, 
 just the time she had stolen from God on her leaving England ; 
 so that Her Majesty's Mail gained not a moment's time by its 
 contempt of the divine thunders of Sinai. I was passenger again 
 in the same vessel when she left a foreign port. She was to sail 
 on Monday. But early on Sunday morning some flaw was discov- 
 ered in her machinery. Her Majesty's Mail could not be detained. 
 Engineers, smiths, boatmen, and horses, independently of the 
 engineers and crew of the vessel, were obliged to work. But all 
 tliis hurry was perfectly unnecessary, if the most excellent com- 
 mander had possessed a discretionary power of putting off all de- 
 secration of the Lord's-day. But he had not. But the first port 
 he afterwards made, his ship was detained double its usunl time; 
 and the next port, his vessel, crew, and passengers, lay some days 
 in quarantine, under the blazing heat of a southern sun, and a 
 suffocating wind from the Libyia of the ancients, awaiting the ar- 
 rival of another ship in that port. 
 
 But when it is admitted that the fourth commandment is of di- 
 vine authority, we may presume that tlie prospective arrangements 
 of nature, as a whole, are in harmony with a strict observance of 
 the Sabbath, and that, in the long run, they never fail to inflict 
 severe penalties on Sabbath desecration ; just as all the operations 
 of nature are in harmony witli sobriety and purity of human mo- 
 rals, but sooner or later demand dreadful compensations for inso- 
 briety and intemperance. It were well if ship-owners and captains 
 would think of this.
 
 MORAL CONDITION OF SAILORS. 155 
 
 Of course an observance of the Sabbath supposes that every ship's 
 crew, whether in port, or at sea, should assemble for public worship. 
 I have personally conducted divine service on many seas, and can 
 testify that I never saw a want of reverence in seamen generally, 
 when called together for divine service. Indeed I have been con- 
 vinced that where divine service is seriously conducted at sea, it 
 has some impressive advantages denied to religious services ashore. 
 The worshippers are on a vast ocean ; the only object they see, 
 besides sea and sky, is a distant sail ; they are thousands of miles 
 from home ; they feel more immediately in the hands of God than 
 when ashore ; and they have fewer sensible objects to distract 
 their attention. 
 
 I deeply regret that religious distinctions and religious prej u- 
 dices should to the extent they do, stand in the way of religious 
 services at sea having their full force on the sailor mind. I was 
 most solemnly ordained myself to preach the Gospel of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, and to administer the holy Sacraments of Baptism, 
 and the Lord's Supper, and possess the signatures of twelve godly 
 ministers who engaged in the service of my ordination. But this 
 was not in the church of England. Being called upon while 
 crossing the Atlantic to read the Common Prayer of that church 
 to the captain and crew, who were all churchmen, out of respect 
 to the usage of that church, which confines the form of absolution 
 to the lips of clergymen who are in priest's orders, I omitted the 
 absolution. " What," said the indignant and blunt captain, 
 " What have we done, Mr. Bromley, that we are not to be forgiven !" 
 After this I read the absolution, regarding it as I should if I were 
 in episcopal priest's orders, simply as a declaration of the willing- 
 ness of God to pardon penitent sinners ; (certainly nothing more.) 
 I was called upon to read the same form of prayer in a saloon 
 crowded with ladies and gentlemen, and the crew of the vessel. 
 I read the form of absolution. " Why," said an educated and 
 intelligent gentleman, who had been almost all over the world, and 
 with whom I had spent many hours of conversation during the 
 previous week, — " Why did you read the absolution, Mr. Bromley? 
 you are not a clergyman of our church !" It was useless to reason. 
 That gentleman regarded the absolution as a real authority com- 
 municated to the clergyman in priest's orders, to pronounce the 
 forgiveness of sin, over and above that of any other minister not 
 so ordained. What a fatal mistake ! and what an unreasonable 
 prejudice! 
 
 But this is nothing — nothing in comparison of those divisions 
 which operate ashore, in many ports, to prevent any united and 
 cordial endeavour to improve the moral condition of seamen. The 
 churchman will not meet the dissenter ; the dissenters find out 
 reasons for cautious cxclusiveness among themselves; and no 
 effective effort is made to convert " the abundance of the sea
 
 156 SOME OBSERVATIONS, ETC. 
 
 unto God." How unmanly ! how lamentable is all this ! oh ! de- 
 nominational Christianity ! thou art the strong hold of the devil ! 
 And, oh ! infatuated cxclusiveness ! thou art more selfish than 
 Judas, for thou sellest thy Lord and Master, and all the interests 
 of his Church, for a surmise, a suspicion, a jealousy, an unjust 
 dislike ! 
 
 Mftrjliall's Steam Press, 154, High Street, Southampton.
 
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