POEMS
COMPOSED OR SUGGESTED DURING A TOUR IN THE SUMMER OF 1833
POEMS
IV TO THE RIVER GRETA, NEAR KESWICK GRETA, what fearful listening! when huge stones Rumble along thy bed, block after block: Or, whirling with reiterated shock, Combat, while darkness aggravates the groans: But if thou (like Cocytus from the moans Heard on his rueful margin) thence wert named The Mourner, thy true nature was defamed, And the habitual murmur that atones For thy worst rage, forgotten. Oft as Spring Decks, on thy sinuous banks, her thousand thrones 10 Seats of glad instinct and love’s carolling, The concert, for the happy, then may vie With liveliest peals of birth-day harmony: To a grieved heart, the notes are benisons.