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From The International Library of Masterpieces, Literature, Art, and Rare Manuscripts, Volume XXX, Editor-in-Chief: Harry Thurston Peck; The International Bibliophile Society, New York; 1901; pp. 11194-11214.

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11194

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
(1770-1850)

WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM, an eminent English poet; born at Cockermouth, Cumberland, April 7, 1770; died at Rydal Mount, Westmoreland, April 23, 1850. In 1787 he was entered at St. John’s College, Cambridge, where he took his Bachelor’s degree in 1791. Soon afterward he went to France, where he remained about a year. His friends urged him to enter the Church; but he wished to devote himself to poetry. In 1798 Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy, accompanied by Coleridge, went to Germany. Returning after a few months, Wordsworth took up his residence at Grasmere, in the Lake region, and finally, in 1813, at Rydal Mount, his home for the remaining thirty-seven years of his life, which was singularly devoid of external incident. In 1813 he received the appointment of Distributor of Stamps for Westmoreland. This position he resigned in 1842, in favor of his son. Southey, dying in 1843, was succeeded as Poet Laureate by Wordsworth, who was succeeded by Tennyson. The Life of Wordsworth has been written by his nephew, the Rev. Christopher Wordsworth (1851), and by Frederick Myers in “English Men of Letters” (1882). Wordsworth’s first volume appears in 1793; in 1798 was published the “Lyrical Ballads,” one of which was Coleridge’s “Ancient Mariner,” all the others being by Wordsworth. From time to time he made excursions in Wales, Scotland, Switzerland, and Italy, of all of which he put forth “Memorials” in verse. Among his best-known works were: “An Evening Walk” (1793); “Lyrical Ballads” (1798); two volumes of “Poems” (1807); “The Excursion” (1814); new edition of “Poems” (1815); “The White Doe of Rylstone” (1815); “Thanksgiving Ode” (1816); “Peter Bell” and “The Waggoner” (1819); “Yarrow Revisited, and Other Poems” (1835); “Sonnets” (1838); “The Prelude” (1850); etc.

LINES COMPOSED A FEW MILES ABOVE

TINTERN ABBEY,

O
N REVISITING THE BANKS OF THE WYE DURING A TOUR.





FIVE years have passed: five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain springs
With a soft inland murmur. Once again
11195 Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thought so more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage ground, these orchard tufts,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
’Mid groves and copses. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, — hardly hedge-rows, — little lines
Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up in silence from among the trees!
With some uncertain notice, as might seem
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some hermit’s cave, where by his fire
The hermit sits alone.
                                        These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye;
But oft, in lonely rooms, and ’mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration: feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure; such perhaps
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man’s life, —
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime: that blessed mood
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened; that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on,
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul;
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.
11196                                                    If this
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft —
In darkness and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart —
How oft in spirit have I turned to thee,
O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer through the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee!
And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again;
While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years. And so I dare to hope,
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first
I came among these hills: when like a roe
I bounded o’er the mountains, by the sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever nature led; more like a man
Flying from something that he dreads, than one
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,
And their glad animal movements, all gone by)
To me was all in all: I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colors and their forms, were then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, nor any interest
Unborrowed from the eye. — That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur: other gifts
Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompense. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth: but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity;
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
11197 A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains: and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye and ear, — both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognize
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.
                                        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 not 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,
11198 When these wild ecstasies 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!

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SHE DWELT AMONG THE UNTRODDEN WAYS.





SHE dwelt among the untrodden ways
     Beside the springs of Dove;
A maid whom there were none to praise,
     And very few to love:


A violet by a mossy stone
     Half hidden from the eye! —
Fair as a star, when only one
     Is shining in the sky.


She lived unknown, and few could know
     When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and oh,
     The difference to me!

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THREE YEARS SHE GREW IN SUN AND SHOWER.





THREE years she grew in sun and shower
Then Nature said, “A lovelier flower
     On earth was never sown:
11199 This child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine, and I will make
     A lady of my own.


“Myself will to my darling be
Both law and impulse; and with me
     This girl, in rock and plain,
In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
Shall feel an overseeing power
     To kindle or restrain.


“She shall be sportive as the fawn,
That wild with glee across the lawn
     Or up the mountain springs;
And hers shall be the breathing balm,
And hers the silence and the calm
     Of mute insensate things.


“The floating clouds their state shall lend
To her; for her the willow bend;
     Nor shall she fail to see
Even in the motions of the storm,
Grace that shall mould the maiden’s form
     By silent sympathy.


“The stars of midnight shall be dear
To her; and she shall lean her ear
     In many a secret place
Where rivulets dance their wayward round;
And beauty born of murmuring sound
     Shall pass into her face.


“And vital feelings of delight
Shall rear her form to stately height,
     Her virgin bosom swell:
Such thoughts to Lucy I will give,
While she and I together live
     Here in this happy dell.”


Thus Nature spake — the work was done; —
How soon my Lucy’s race was run!
     She died, and left to me
This heath, this calm and quiet scene;
The memory of what has been,
     And never more will be.

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11200

SHE WAS A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT.





SHE was a phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely apparition, sent
To be a moment’s ornament;
Her eyes as stars of twilight fair;
Like twilight’s, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful dawn:
A dancing shape, an image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and waylay.


I saw her upon nearer view,
A spirit, yet a woman too!
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet:
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature’s daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.


And now is eye with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine:
A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveller between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light.

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THE SOLITARY REAPER.





BEHOLD her, single in the field,
     Yon solitary Highland lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
     Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
Oh, listen! for the vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

11201
No nightingale did ever chaunt
     More welcome notes to weary hands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
     Among Arabian sands;
A voice so thrilling ne’er was heard
In spring-time from the cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.


Will no one tell me what she sings? —
     Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
     And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?


Whate’er the theme, the maiden sang
     As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
     And o’er the sickle bending; —
I listened, motionless and still;
And as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore
Long after it was heard no more.

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I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD.





I WANDERED lonely as a cloud
     That floats on high o’er vales and hills:
When all at once I saw a crowd,
     A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.


Continuous as the stars that shine
     And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
     Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.


The waves beside them danced; but they
     Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:
11202 A poet could not but be gay
     In such a jocund company.
I gazed — and gazed — but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:


For oft, when on my couch I lie
     In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
     Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

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THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US.





THE world is too much with us: late and soon,
     Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
     Little we see in nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The sea that bares her bosom to the moon, —
     The winds that will be howling at all hours,
     And are upgathered now like sleeping flowers, —
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. — Great God! I’d rather be
     A pagan suckled in a creed outworn,
So might I, standing on this plesant lea,
     Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn:
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea,
     Or hear old Triton blow his wrathful horn.

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ODE TO DUTY.





             STERN daughter of the Voice of God!
                  O Duty! if that name thou love
             Who art a light to guide, a rod
                  To check the erring, and reprove;
             Thou who art victory and law
             When empty terrors overawe;
             From vain temptations dost set free;
And calm’st the weary strife of frail humanity!


             There are who ask not if thine eye
                  Be on them; who, in love and truth,
             Where no misgiving is, relay
                  Upon thy genial sense of youth;
11203              Glad hearts! Without reproach or blot
             Who do thy work, and now it not:
             Oh! if through confidence misplaced
They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power! around them cast.


             Serene will be our days and bright,
                  And happy will our nature be,
             When love is an unerring light,
                  And joy its own security.
             And they a blissful course may hold
             Even now, who, not unwisely bold,
             Live in the spirit of this creed;
Yet seek thy firm support, according to their need.


             I, loving freedom, and untried;
                  No sport of every random gust,
             Yet being to myself a guide, —
                  Too blindly have reposed my trust;
             And oft, when in my heart was heard
             Thy timely mandate, I deferred
             The task, in smoother walks to stray;
But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may.


             Through no disturbance of my soul,
                  Or strong compunction in me wrought,
             I supplicate for thy control;
                  But in the quietness of thought:
             Me this unchartered freedom tires;
             I feel the weight of chance desires;
             My hopes no more must change their name,
I long for a repose that ever is the same.


             Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear
                  The Godhead’s most benignant grace;
             Nor know we anything so fair
                  As is the smile upon thy face:
             Flowers laugh before thee on their beds,
             And fragrance in thy footing treads;
             Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;
And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and
      strong.


             To humbler functions, awful Power!
                  I call thee: I myself commend
             Unto thy guidance from this hour;
                  Oh, let my weakness have an end!
11204              Give unto me, made lowly wise,
             The spirit of self-sacrifice;
             The confidence of reason give;
And in the light of truth thy bondman let me live!

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INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD.

I.

THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
                To me did seem
           Apparelled in celestial light
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore; —
           Turn wheresoe’er I may,
                By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

II.

            The rainbow comes and goes,
            And lovely is the rose;
            The moon doth with delight
   Look round her when the heavens are bare;
            Waters on a starry night
            Are beautiful and fair;
        The sunshine is a glorious birth;
        But yet I know, where’er I go,
That there hath past away a glory from the earth.

III.

Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,
        And while the young lambs bound
                As to the tabor’s sound,
To me alone there came a thought of grief:
A timely utterance gave that thought relief,
                And I again am strong:
The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;
I hear the echoes through the mountains throng,
The winds come to me from the fields of sleep,
                And all the earth is gay;
                        Land and sea
             Give themselves up to jollity,
11205                 And with the heart of May
             Doth every beast keep holiday; —
                Thou child of joy,
Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy shep-
        herd-boy!

IV.

Ye blessèd creatures, I have heard the call
        Ye to each other make; I see
The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;
        My heart is at your festival,
             My head hath its coronal,
The fulness of your bliss, I feel — I feel it all.
             O evil day! if I were sullen
             While earth herself is adorning,
                     This sweet May morning,
             And the children are culling
                     On every side,
             In a thousand valleys far and wide,
             Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm,
And the babe leaps in his mother’s arm; —
             I hear, I hear, with joy I hear! —
             But there ’s a tree, — of many, one, —
A single field which I have looked upon:
Both of them speak of something that is gone;
                  The pansy at my feet,
                  Doth the same tale repeat:
Whether is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

V.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our life’s star,
            Hath had elsewhere its setting,
                 And cometh from afar:
            Not in entire forgetfulness,
            And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
            From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
            Upon the growing boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows.
            He sees it in his joy;
11206 The youth, who daily farther from the east
            Must travel, still is Nature’s priest,
            And by the vision splendid
            Is on his way attended;
At length the man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.

VI.

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,
And even with something of a mother’s mind,
            And no unworthy aim,
            The homely nurse doth all she can
To make her foster-child, her inmate man,
            Forget the glories he hath known,
And that imperial palace whence he came.

VII.

Behold the child among his new-born blisses,
A six-years’ darling of a pygmy size!
See, where ’mid work of his own hand he lies,
Fretted by sallies of his mother’s kisses,
With light upon him from his father’s eyes!
See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,
Some fragment from his dream of human life,
Shaped by himself with newly-learnèd art;
            A wedding or a festival,
            A mourning or a funeral;
                And this hath now his heart,
            And unto this he frames his song:
                 Then wil he fit his tongue
To dialogues of business, love, or strife!
            But it will not be long
            Ere this be thrown aside,
            And with new joy and pride
The little actor cons another part;
Filling from time to time his “humorous stage”
With all the persons, down to palsied age,
That life brings with her in her equipage;
            As if his whole vocation
            Were endless imitation.

VIII.

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
            Thy soul’s immensity;
11207 Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep
Thy heritage, thou eye among the blind,
That, deaf and silent, read’st the eternal deep,
Haunted forever by the eternal mind, —
            Mighty prophet! seer blest!
            On whom those truths do rest,
Which we are toiling all our lives to find,
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;
Thou, over whom thy immortality
Broods like the day, a master o’er a slave,
A presence which is not to be put by;
Thou little child, yet glorious in the might
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being’s height, —
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
The years to bring the inevitable yoke,
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight,
And custom lie upon thee with a weight
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

IX.

           O joy! That in our embers
           Is something that doth live,
           That nature yet remembers
           What was so fugitive!
The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction: not indeed
For that which is most worthy to be blest, —
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of childhood, whether busy or at rest,
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast; —
           Not for these I raise
           The song of thanks and praise:
       But for those obstinate questionings
       Of sense and outward things,
       Fallings from us, vanishings;
       Blank misgivings of a creature
Moving about in worlds not realized,
High instincts before which our mortal nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:
           But for those first affections,
           Those shadowy recollections,
       Which, be they what they may,
Are yet the fountain light of all our day,
Are yet a master light of all our seeing. —
11208         Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal silence: truths that wake,
               To perish never;
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor,
               Nor man nor boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy!
        Hence in a season of calm weather
            Though inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
            Which brought us hither,
        Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

X.

Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song!
            And let the young lambs bound
            As to the tabor’s sound!
We in thought will join your throng,
            Ye that pipe and ye that play,
            Ye that through your hearts to-day
            Feel the gladness of the May!
What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
            Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;
            We will grieve not, rather find
            Strength in what remains behind;
            In the primal sympathy
            Which having been must ever be;
            In the soothing thoughts that spring
            Out of human suffering;
            In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.

XI.

And oh, ye fountains, meadows, hills, and groves,
Forbode not any severing of our loves!
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquished one delight
To live beneath your habitual sway.
I love the brooks which down their channels fret,
11209 Even more than when I tripped lightly as they;
The innocent brightness of a new-born day
                Is lovely yet;
The clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober coloring from an eye
That hath kept watch o’er man’s mortality:
Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

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TO THE SMALL CELANDINE.





PANSIES, lilies, kingcups, daisies,
Let them live upon their praises,
Long as there ’s a sun that sets,
     Primroses will have their glory;
Long as there are violets,
     They will have a place in story:
There ’s a flower that shall be mine, —
’T is the little Celandine.


Eyes of some men travel far
For the finding of a star;
Up and down the heavens they go,
     Men that keep a mighty rout!
I ’m as great as they, I trow,
     Since the day I found thee out,
Little Flower! I ll make a stir,
Like a sage astronomer.


Modest, yet withal an Elf
Bold, and lavish of thyself;
Since we needs must first have met,
     I have seen thee, high and low,
Thirty years or more, and yet
     ’T was a face I did not know;
Thou hast now, go where I may,
Fifty greetings in a day.


Ere a leaf is on a bush,
In the time before the thrush
Has a thought about her nest,
     Thou wilt come with half a call,
11210 Spreading out thy glossy breast
     Like a careless Prodigal;
Telling tales about the sun,
When we ve lttle warmth, or none.


Poets, vain men in their mood!
Travel with the multitude:
Never heed them, — I aver
     That they all are wanton wooers;
But the thrifty cottager,
     Who stirs little out of doors,
Joys to spy thee near her home:
Spring is coming, thou art come!


Comfort have thou of thy merit,
Kindly, unassuming Spirit!
Careless of thy neighborhood,
     Thou dost show thy pleasant face
On the moor, and in the wood,
     In the lane; — there ’s not a place,
Howsoever mean it be,
But ’t is good enough for thee.


Ill befall the yellow flowers,
Children of the flaring hours!
Buttercups, that will be seen,
     Whether we will see or no;
Others, too, of lofty mien:
     They have done as worldlings do, —
Taken praise that should be thine,
Little, humble Celandine!


Prophet of delight and mirth,
Ill-requited upon earth;
Herald of a mighty band,
     Of a joyous train ensuing;
Serving at my heart’s command,
     Tasks that are no tasks renewing, —
I will sing, as doth behove,
Hymns in praise of what I love!

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WE ARE SEVEN.





           — A SIMPLE Child,
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?


11211 I met a little cottage Girl:
She was eight years old, she said;
Her hair was thick with many a curl
That clustered round her head.


She had a rustic, woodland air,
And she was wildly clad:
Her eyes were fair, and very fair:
— Her beauty made me glad.


“Sisters and brothers, little Maid,
How many may you be?”
“How many? Seven in all,” she said,
And wondering looked at me.


“And where are they? I pray you tell.”
She answered, “Seven are we;
And two of us at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea.


“Two of us in the church-yard lie,
My sister and my brother;
And, in the church-yard cottage, I
Dwell near them with my mother.”


“You say that two at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea,
Yet ye are seven! — I pray you tell,
Sweet Maid, how this may be.”


Then did the little Maid reply,
“Seven boys and girls are we;
Two of us in the church-yard lie,
Beneath the church-yard tree.”


“You run about, my little Maid,
Your limbs they are alive;
If two are in the church-yard laid,
Then you are only five.”


“Their graves are green, they may be seen,”
The little Maid replied,
“Twelve steps or more from my mother’s door,
And they are side by side.


“My stockings there I often knit,
My kerchief there I hem;
And there upon the ground I sit,
And sing a song to them.

11212
“And often after sunset, Sir,
When it is light and fair,
I take my little porringer,
And eat my supper there.


“The first that died was sister Jane;
In bed she moaning lay,
Till God released her of her pain;
And then she went away.


“So in the church-yard she was laid;
And, when the grass was dry,
Together round her grave we played,
My brother John and I.


“And when the ground was white with snow,
And I could run and slide,
My brother John was forced to go,
And he lies by her side.”


“How many are you, then,” said I,
“If they two are in heaven?”
Quick was the little Maid’s reply,
“O Master! we are seven.”


“But they are dead; those two are dead!
Their spirits are in heaven!”
’T was throwing words away; for still
The little Maid would have her will.
And said, “Nay, we are seven!”

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THE PET LAMB.





THE dew was falling fast, the stars began to blink;
I heard a voice; it said, “Drink, pretty creature, drink!”
And, looking o’er the hedge, before me I espied
A snow-white mountain-lamb with a Maiden at its side.


Nor sheep nor kine were near; the lamb was all alone,
And by a slender cord was tethered to a stone;
With one knee on the grass did the little Maiden kneel,
While to that mountain-lamb she gave its evening meal.


The lamb, while from her hand he thus his supper took,
Seemed to feast with head and ears; and his tail with pleasure shook.
“Drink, pretty creature, drink,” she said in such a tone
That I almost received her heart into my own.


11213 ’T was little Barbara Lewthwaite, a child of beauty rare!
I watched them with delight, they were a lovely pair.
Now with her empty can the Maiden turned away:
But ere ten yards were gone her footsteps did she stay.


Right towards the lamb she looked; and from a shady place
I unobserved could see the workings of her face:
If Nature to her tongue could measured numbers bring,
Thus, thought I, to her lamb that little Maid might sing:


“What ails thee, young One? what? Why pull so at thy cord?
Is it no well with thee? well both for bed and board?
Thy plot of grass is soft, and green as grass can be;
Rest, little young One, rest; what is ’t that aileth thee?


“What is it thou wouldst seek? What is wanting to thy heart?
Thy limbs are they not strong? And beautiful thou art:
This grass is tender grass; these flowers they have no peers;
And that green corn all day is rustling in thy ears!


“If the sun be shining hot, do but stretch thy woollen chain,
This beech is standing by, its covert thou canst gain;
For rain and mountain-storms! The like thou need’st not fear,
The rain and storms are things that scarcely can come here.


“Rest, little young One, rest; thou hast forgot the day
When my father found thee first in places far away;
Many flocks were on the hills, but thou wert owned by none,
And thy mother from thy side for evermore was gone.


“He took thee in his arms, and in pity brought thee home:
A blessèd day for thee! then whither wouldst thou roam?
A faithful nurse thou hast; the dam that did thee yean
Upon the mountain-tops no kinder could have been.


“Thou know’st that twice a day I have brought thee in this can
Fresh water from the brook, as clear as ever ran;
And twice in the day, when the ground is wet with dew,
I bring thee draughts of milk, warm milk it is and new.


“Thy limbs will shortly be twice as stout as they are now,
Then I ’ll yoke thee to my cart like a pony in the plough;
My playmate thou shalt be; and when the wind is cold
Our hearth shall be thy bed, our house shall be thy fold.


“It will not, will not rest! — Poor creature, can it be
That ’t is thy mother’s heart which is working so in thee?
Things that I know not of belike to thee are dear,
And dreams of things which thou canst neither see nor hear.

11214
“Alas, the mountain-tops that look so green and fair!
I ’ve heard of fearful winds and darkness that come there;
The little brooks that seem all pastime and all play,
When they are angry, roar like lions for their prey.


“Here thou need’st not dread the raven in the sky;
Night and day thou art safe, — our cottage is hard by.
Why bleat so after me? Why pull so at thy chain?
Sleep — and at break of day I will come to thee again!”


As homeward through the lane I went with lazy feet,
This song to myself did I oftentimes repeat;
And it seemed, as I retraced the ballad line by line,
That but half of it was hers, and one-half of it was mine.


Again, and once again, did I repeat the song;
“Nay,” said I, “more than half to the damsel must belong,
For she looked with such a look and she spake with such a tone,
That I almost received her heart into my own.”









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