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Nor has this city, in still older times,
Wanted its singer; “Carel” still has been
The theme of song, the burden of old rhymes,
The quickening word of numbers rashly wrought,
Giving its living spirit to the sheen
Of all the Poet’s music and his thought.
Here ’twas lived Percy, who o’erwrought by love
Of Border Minstrelsy, around it threw
A band protecting, gathering a sweet store
Of all its beauties, neither scarce nor few,
For common delectation, which he wove
Into his “Reliques”–songs which here of yore
Out of the people’s common customs grew.
So sanctified by song has all thy past,
Fierce though it seems, been shaped to something true,
Its rigours and its sorrows brought at last,
As doth the storm cloud in the rainbow’s hue,
To minister to pleasure, and create
Another mind, which, on the future cast,
Shall lipen into power, and subdue
War, and war’s spirit, either soon or late.
And still, still other names await my line;
Thy race of bards, O Carlisle, still flows on–
Thy last and latest, Lonsdale, of his sires,
The Border Poets, a most worthy son.
He sleeps too soon; but still his numbers pure,
Fraught with the love that ’mongst these mountains grows,
Shall still be honoured, still from door to door,
Spread the sweet sympathy that through them flows.
And thou hast had thy Paley, clear and strong,
Not quite a poet, but poetical: