469. *Floating Island. [VII.]
My poor sister takes a pleasure in repeating these Verses, which she composed not long before the beginning of her sad illness.
470. *Once I could hail, &c. [VIII.]
'No faculty yet given me to espy the dusky shape.' Afterwards, when I could not avoid seeing it, I wondered at this, and the more so because, like most children, I had been in the habit of watching the moon thro' all her changes, and had often continued to gaze at it while at the full, till half-blinded.
471. *The Gleaner (suggested by a Picture).
This poem was first printed in the Annual called 'The Keep-sake.' The Painter's name I am not sure of, but I think it was Holmes.
472. Nightshade. [IX. ii. 6.]
Bekangs Ghyll—or the dell of Nightshade—in which stands St. Mary's Abbey in Low Furness.
473. Churches—East and West. [X.]
Our churches, invariably perhaps, stand east and west, but why is by few persons exactly known; nor that the degree of deviation from due east often noticeable in the ancient ones was determined, in each particular case, by the point on the horizon at which the sun rose upon the day of the saint to whom the church was dedicated. These observances of our ancestors, and the causes of them, are the subject of the following stanzas.