The same whom in my school-boy days I listened to; that cry
Which made me look a thousand ways, In bush, and tree, and sky.
To seek thee did I often rove Through woods and on the green; And thou wert still a hope, a love; Still longed for, never seen!
And I can listen to thee yet; Can lie upon the plain And listen, till I do beget That golden time again.
O blessed bird; the earth we pace Again appears to be
An unsubstantial, faery place; That is fit home for thee!
THERE is a yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale, Which to this day stands single, in the midst Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore, Not loth to furnish weapons for the bands Of Umfraville or Percy, ere they marched
To Scotland's heaths; or those that crossed the sea And drew their sounding bows at Azincour, Perhaps at earlier Crecy, or Poictiers.
Of vast circumference and gloom profound This solitary tree! a living thing Produced too slowly ever to decay; Of form and aspect too magnificent To be destroyed. But worthier still of note Are those fraternal four of Borrowdale, Joined in one solemn and capacious grove; Huge trunks!—and each particular trunk a growth Of intertwisted fibres serpentine
Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved,- Nor uninformed with phantasy, and looks That threaten the profane ;-a pillared shade, Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue, By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged Perennially-beneath whose sable roof Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, decked With unrejoicing berries, ghostly shapes May meet at noontide-Fear and trembling Hope, Silence and Foresight-Death the Skeleton
And Time the Shadow,-there to celebrate, As in a natural temple scattered o'er With altars undisturbed of mossy stone, United worship; or in mute repose To lie, and listen to the mountain flood Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves.
INFLUENCE OF THE LOVE OF NATURE.
NOR perchance, If I were not thus taught, should I the more Suffer my genial spirits to decay;
For thou art with me, here, upon the banks Of this fair river; thou, my dearest friend, My dear, dear friend, and in thy voice I catch The language of my former heart, and read My former pleasures in the shooting lights Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while May I behold in thee what I was once, My dear, dear Sister! And this prayer I make, Knowing that Nature never did betray The heart that loved her; 't is her privilege, Through all the years of this our life, to lead From joy to joy: for she can so inform The mind that is within us, so impress With quietness and beauty, and so feed With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all The dreary intercourse of daily life, Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb Our cheerful faith that all which we behold Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon Shine on thee in thy solitary walk; And let the misty mountain winds be free To blow against thee: and, in after years, When these wild ecstacies shall be matured Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then, If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! Nor perchance,
If I should be where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams Of past existence, wilt thou then forget That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long A worshipper of Nature, hither came, Unwearied in that service: rather say With warmer love, oh! with far deeper zeal Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget, That after many wanderings, many years Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs, And this green pastoral landscape, were to me More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake.
COMPOSED UPON THE THAMES NEAR RICHMOND.
GLIDE gently, thus forever glide,
O Thames! that other bards may see As lovely visions by thy side As now, fair river! come to me. O glide, fair stream! forever so, Thy quiet soul on all bestowing, Till all our minds forever flow, As thy deep waters now are flowing.
Vain thought!-Yet be as now thou art, That in thy waters may be seen The image of a poet's heart,
How bright, how solemn, how serene!
Such as did once the poet bless, Who, murmuring here a later ditty, Could find no refuge from distress But in the milder grief of pity.
Now let us, as we float along, For him suspend the dashing oar; And pray that never child of song May know that poet's sorrows more. How calm! how still! the only sound, The dripping of the oar suspended! -The evening darkness gathers round By virtue's holiest powers attended.
INFLUENCE OF NATURAL OBJECTS UPON THE MIND IN
WISDOM and Spirit of the Universe!
Thou Soul, that art the eternity of thought! And giv'st to forms and images a breath And everlasting motion! not in vain,
By day or star-light, thus from my first dawn
Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me The passions that build up our human soul; Not with the mean and vulgar works of man,— But with high objects, with enduring things, With life and nature; purifying thus The elements of feeling and of thought, And sanctifying by such discipline Both pain and fear, until we recognise A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.
Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me With stinted kindness. In November days When vapours, rolling down the vallies, made A lonely scene more lonesome; among woods At noon; and 'mid the calm of summer nights, When, by the margin of the trembling lake, Beneath the gloomy hills, I homeward went In solitude, such intercourse was mine:
"T was mine among the fields both day and night, And by the waters all the summer long.
And in the frosty season, when the sun Was set, and visible for many a mile,
The cottage windows through the twilight blazed, I heeded not the summons:-happy time
It was indeed for all of us; for me
It was a time of rapture!-Clear and loud The village clock tolled six-I wheeled about, Proud and exulting like an untired horse That cares not for its home.-All shod with steel We hissed along the polished ice, in games Confederate, imitative of the chase And woodland pleasures, the resounding horn, The pack loud-bellowing, and the hunted hare. So through the darkness and the cold we flew, And not a voice was idle: with the din Meanwhile the precipices rang aloud; The leafless trees and every icy crag Tinkled like iron; while the distant hills Into the tumult sent an alien sound
Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars, Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west The orange sky of evening died away.
Not seldom from the uproar I retired Into a silent bay, or sportively
Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng, To cross the bright reflection of a star, Image, that, flying still before me, gleamed Upon the glassy plain: and oftentimes
When we had given our bodies to the wind, And all the shadowy banks on either side Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still The rapid line of motion, then at once 'Have I, reclining back upon my heels, Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs Wheeled by me-even as if the earth had rolled With visible motion her diurnal round! Behind me did they stretch in solemn train, Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched Till all was tranquil as a summer sea.
THE ECLIPSE OF THE SUN, 1821.
HIGH on her speculative tower Stood Science waiting for the hour When Sol was destined to endure That darkning of his radiant face Which Superstition strove to chase, Erewhile, with rites impure.
Afloat beneath Italian skies, Through regions fair as Paradise We gaily passed, till Nature wrought A silent and unlooked-for change, That checked the desultory range Of joy and sprightly thought.
Where'er was dipped the toiling oar The waves danced round us as before, As lightly, though of altered hue; 'Mid recent coolness, such as falls At noon-tide from umbrageous walls That screen the morning dew.
No vapour stretched its wings; no cloud Cast far or near a murky shroud;
The sky an azure field displayed;
"I' was sun-light sheathed and gently charmed Of all its sparkling rays disarmed,
And as in slumber laid :
Or something night and day between,
Like moon-shine-but the hue was green; Still moon-shine, without shadow, spread On jutting rock and curved shore, Where gazed the peasant from his door, And on the mountain's head.
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