132

XXXIV.

TO ENTERPRISE.

KEEP for the Young the impassioned smile
Shed from thy countenance, as I see thee stand
High on that chalky cliff of Briton's Isle,
A slender volume grasping in thy hand-
(Perchance the pages that relate
The various turns of Crusoe's fate)--
Ah, spare the exulting smile,

And drop thy pointing finger bright
As the first flash of beacon light:

But neither veil thy head in shadows dim,
Nor turn thy face away

From One who, in the evening of his day,
To thee would offer no presumptuous hymn!

I.

Bold Spirit! who art free to rove
Among the starry courts of Jove,
And oft in splendour dost appear
Embodied to poetic eyes,

While traversing this nether sphere,
Where Mortals call thee ENTERPRISE.
Daughter of Hope! her favourite Child,
Whom she to young Ambition bore,
When hunter's arrow first defiled

The grove, and stained the turf with gore;
Thee winged Fancy took, and nursed
On broad Euphrates' palmy shore,
And where the mightier Waters burst
From caves of Indian mountains hoar!
She wrapped thee in a panther's skin;
And Thou, thy favourite food to win,
The flame-eyed eagle oft wouldst scare
From her rock-fortress in mid air,
With infant shout and often sweep,
Paired with the ostrich, o'er the plain :
Or, tired with sport, wouldst sink asleep
Upon the couchant lion's mane !

With rolling years thy strength increased;
And, far beyond thy native East,
To thee, by varying titles known
As variously thy power was shown,
Did incense-bearing altars rise,
Which caught the blaze of sacrifice,
From suppliants panting for the skies!

IT.

What though this ancient Earth be trod
No more by step of Demi-god
Mounting from glorious deed to deed
As thou from clime to clime didst lead;
Yet still, the bosom beating high,
And the hushed farewell of an eye
Where no procrastinating gaze
A last infirmity betrays.

Prove that thy heaven-descended sway
Shall ne'er submit to cold decay.
By thy divinity impelled,

The Stripling seeks the tented field:
The aspiring Virgin kneels: and, pale
With awe, receives the hallowed veil,
A soft and tender Heroine
Vowed to severer discipline:
Inflamed by thee, the blooming Boy
Makes of the whistling shrouds a toy,
And of the ocean's dismal breast
A play-ground,-or a couch of rest:
'Mid the blank world of snow and ice,
Thou to his dangers dost enchain
The Chamois-chaser awed in vain

By chasm or dizzy precipice:

And hast Thou not with triumph seen
How soaring Mortals glide between
Or through the clouds, and brave the light
With bolder than Icarian flight?
How they, in bells of crystal, dive-
Where winds and waters cease to strive-
For no unholy visitings,

Among the monsters of the Deep;
And all the sad and precious things
Which there in ghastly silence sleep?
Or, adverse tides and currents headed,
And breathless calms no longer dreaded,
In never-slackening voyage go
Straight as an arrow from the bow:
And, slighting sails and scorning oars,
Keep faith with Time on distant shores?
---Within our fearless reach are placed
The secrets of the burning Waste:
Egyptian tombs unlock their dead,
Nile trembles at his fountain head:
Thou speak'st-and lo! the polar Seas
Unbosom their last mysteries.

-But oh! what transports, what sublime reward,
Won from the world of mind, dost thou prepare
For philosophic Sage: or high-souled Bard
Who, for thy service trained in lonely woods,
Hath fed on pageants floating through the air,
Or calentured in depth of limpid floods;
Nor grieves-tho' doom'd thro' silent night to

bear

The domination of his glorious themes,
Or struggle in the net-work of thy dreams!

TO A YOUNG LADY,

WHO HAD BEEN REPROACHED FOR TAKING
LONG WALKS IN THE COUNTRY.

DEAR Child of Nature, let them rail!
-There is a nest in a green dale,

A harbour and a hold;

Where thou, a Wife and Friend, shalt see
Thy own heart-stirring days, and be

A light to young and old.

There, healthy as a shepherd boy,

And treading among flowers of joy
Which at no season fade,

Thou, while thy babes around thee cling,
Shalt show us how divine a thing

A Woman may be made.

Thy thoughts and feelings shall not die,
Nor leave thee, when grey hairs are nigh,
A melancholy slave;

But an old age serene and bright,
And lovely as a Lapland night,
Shall lead thee to thy grave.
1803.

་

Lo the dwindled woods and meadows;
What a vast abyss is there!

Lo! the clouds, the solemn shadows,
And the glistenings-heavenly fair!
And a record of commotion
Which a thousand ridges yield;
Ridge, and gulf, and distant ocean
Gleaming like a silver shield!
Maiden! now take flight: inherit
Alps or Andes -they are thine!
With the morning's roseate Spirit,
Sweep their length of snowy line;
Or survey their bright dominions
In the gorgeous colours drest
Flung from off the purple pinions,
Evening spreads throughout the west!
Thine are all the coral fountains
Warbling in each sparry vault

XXXVII.

WATER-FOWL.

"Let me be allowed the aid of verse to describe the evolutions which these visitants sometimes perform, on a fine day, towards the close of winter."-Extract from the Author's Book on the Lakes.

MARK how the feathered tenants of the flood,
With grace of motion that might scarcely seem
Inferior to angelical, prolong

Their curious pastime ! shaping in mid air
(And sometimes with ambitious wing that soars
High as the level of the mountain-tops)
A circuit ampler than the lake beneath-
Their own domain: but ever, while intent
On tracing and retracing that large round,
Their jubilant activity evolves
Hundreds of curves and circlets, to and fro,
Upward and downward, progress intricate
Yet unperplexed, as if one spirit swayed
Their indefatigable flight. "Tis done-
Ten times, or more, I fancied it had ceased;
But lo! the vanished company again
Ascending: they approach-I hear their wings,
Faint, faint at first; and then an eager sound,
Past in a moment-and as faint again!
They tempt the sun to sport amid their plumes:
They tempt the water, or the gleaming ice,
To show them a fair image; 'tis themselves,
Their own fair forms, upon the glimmering plain,

tracts,

Where Trent is nursed, far southward! Cambrian hills

To the south-west, a multitudinous show;
And, in a line of eye-sight linked with these,
The hoary peaks of Scotland that give birth
To Tiviot's stream, to Annan, Tweed, and
Clyde :-

Crowding the quarter whence the sun comes forth

Gigantic mountains rough with crags: beneath,
Right at the imperial station's western base
Main ocean, breaking audibly, and stretched
Far into silent regions blue and pale ;-
And visibly engirding Mona's Isle
That, as we left the plain, before our sight
Stood like a lofty mount, uplifting slowly
(Above the convex of the watery globe)
Into clear view the cultured fields that streak
Her habitable shores, but now appears
A dwindled object, and submits to lie
At the spectator's feet.-Yon azure ridge,
Is it a perishable cloud? Or there
Do we behold the line of Erin's coast?
Land sometimes by the roving shepherd-swain
(Like the bright confines of another world)
Not doubtfully perceived. Look homeward

now!

In depth, in height, in circuit, how serene
The spectacle, how pure !-Of Nature's works,
In earth, and air, and earth-embracing sea,
A revelation infinite it seems;
Display august of man's inheritance,
Of Britain's calm felicity and power.
1813.

Black Comb stands at the southern extremity of Cumberland.

XXXIX.

THE HAUNTED TREE.

THOSE silver clouds collected round the sun
His mid-day warmth abate not, seeming less
To overshade than multiply his beams
By soft reflection-grateful to the sky,
To rocks, fields, woods. Nor doth our human

sense

Ask, for its pleasure, screen or canopy
More ample than the time-dismantled Oak
Spreads o'er this tuft of heath, which now, attired
In the whole fulness of its bloom, affords
Couch beautiful as e'er for earthly use

Was fashioned; whether by the hand of Art,
That eastern Sultan, amid flowers enwrought
On silken tissue, might diffuse his limbs
In languor; or, by Nature, for repose
Of panting Wood-nymph, wearied with the
chase.

O Lady! fairer in thy Poet's sight
Than fairest spiritual creature of the groves,
Approach; and, thus invited, crown with rest
The noon-tide hour: though truly some there
Whose footsteps superstitiously avoid

are

This venerable Tree; for, when the wind
Blows keenly, it sends forth a creaking sound
(Above the general roar of woods and crags)
Distinctly heard from far-a doleful note!
As if so Grecian shepherds would have deemed)
The Hamadryad, pent within, bewailed
Some bitter wrong. Nor is it unbelieved,
By ruder fancy, that a troubled ghost
Haunts the old trunk; lamenting deeds of which
The flowery ground is conscious. But no wind
Sweeps now along this elevated ridge:
Not even a zephyr stirs ;-the obnoxious Tree
Is mute; and, in his silence, would look down,
O lovely Wanderer of the trackless hills,
Than his coevals in the sheltered vale
On thy reclining form with more delight
Seem to participate, the while they view
Their own far-stretching arms and leafy heads
Vividly pictured in some glassy pool,

That, for a brief space, checks the hurrying

1819.

stream!

XL.

THE TRIAD.

SHOW me the noblest Youth of present time,
Whose trembling fancy would to love give birth;
Some God or Hero, from the Olympian clime
Returned, to seek a Consort upon earth;
Or, in no doubtful prospect, let me see
The brightest star of ages yet to be,
And I will mate and match him blissfully.
I will not fetch a Naiad from a flood
Pure as herself (song lacks not mightier power)
Nor leaf-crowned Dryad from a pathless wood,
Nor Sea-nymph glistening from her coral bower;
Mere Mortals, bodied forth in vision still,
Shall with Mount Ida's triple lustre fill
The chaster coverts of a British hill.

'Appear!-obey my lyre's command!
Come, like the Graces, hand in hand!
For ye, though not by birth allied,
Are Sisters in the bond of love;
Nor shall the tongue of envious pride
Presume those interweavings to reprove
In you, which that fair progeny of Jove,
Learned from the tuneful spheres that glide
In endless union, earth and sea above."
--I sing in vain ;-the pines have hushed their
waving:

A peerless Youth expectant at my side.
Breathless as they, with unabated craving
Looks to the earth, and to the vacant air;
And, with a wandering eye that seems to chide,
Asks of the clouds what occupants they hide :-
But why solicit more than sight could bear,
By casting on a moment all we dare?

Invoke we those bright Beings one by one; And what was boldly promised, truly shall be done.

"Fear not a constraining measure! -Yielding to this gentle spell, Lucida! from domes of pleasure,

Or from cottage-sprinkled dell,

Come to regions solitary,

Where the eagle builds her aery,

Above the hermit's long-forsaken cell!"
-She comes !-behold

That Figure, like a ship with snow-white sail!
Nearer she draws; a breeze uplifts her veil;
Upon her coming wait

As pure a sunshine and as soft a gale

As e'er, on herbage covering earthly mold,
Tempted the bird of Juno to unfold

His richest splendour-when his veering gait
And every motion of his starry train
Seem governed by a strain

Of music, audible to him alone.

"O Lady, worthy of earth's proudest throne!
Nor less, by excellence of nature, fit
Beside an unambitious hearth to sit
Domestic queen, where grandeur is unknown;
What living man could fear

The worst of Fortune's malice, wert Thou near,
Humbling that lily-stem, thy sceptre meek,
That its fair flowers may from his cheek
Brush the too happy tear?

-Queen, and handmaid lowly!
Whose skill can speed the day with lively cares,
And banish melancholy

By all that mind invents or hand prepares:
O Thou, against whose lip, without its smile
And in its silence even, no heart is proof;
Whose goodness, sinking deep, would reconcile
The softest Nursling of a gorgeous palace
To the bare life beneath the hawthorn-root
Of Sherwood's Archer, or in caves of Wallace--
Who that hath seen thy beauty could content
His soul with but a glimpse of heavenly day?
Who that hath loved thee, but would lay
His strong hand on the wind, if it were bent
To take thee in thy majesty away?
--Pass onward (even the glancing deer
Till we depart intrude not here :)

That mossy slope, o'er which the woodbine
throws

A canopy, is smoothed for thy repose!"

Glad moment is it when the throng

Of warblers in full concert strong

Strive, and not vainly strive, to rout

And, as if wishful to disarm
Or to repay the potent Charm,

She bears the stringèd lute of old romance,
That cheered the trellised arbour's privacy,
And soothed war-wearied knights in raftered
hall.

How vivid, yet how delicate, her glee!
So tripped the Muse, inventress of the dance:
So, truant in waste woods, the blithe Euphro-
syne!

But the ringlets of that head
Why are they ungarlanded?
Why bedeck her temples less
Than the simplest shepherdess?
Is it not a brow inviting
Choicest flowers that ever breathed,
Which the myrtle would delight in
With Idalian rose enwreathed?

But her humility is well content

With one wild floweret (call it not forlorn)

FLOWER OF THE WINDS, beneath her bosom

worn

Yet more for love than ornament.

Open, ye thickets! let her fly,

Swift as a Thracian Nymph o'er field and height!

For She, to all but those who love her, shy,
Would gladly vanish from a Stranger's sight;
Though where she is beloved and loves,
Light as the wheeling butterfly she moves;
Her happy spirit as a bird is free,
That rifles blossoms on a tree,
Turning them inside out with arch audacity.
Alas! how little can a moment show
Of an eye where feeling plays
In ten thousand dewy rays;

A face o'er which a thousand shadows go!
-She stops-is fastened to that rivulet's side;
And there (while, with sedater mien,
O'er timid waters that have scarcely left
Their birth-place in the rocky cleft
She bends) at leisure may be seen
Features to old ideal grace allied,
Amid their smiles and dimples dignified-
Fit countenance for the soul of primal truth:
The bland composure of eternal youth!

What more changeful than the sea?
But over his great tides

Fidelity presides:

And this light-hearted Maiden constant is as he.
High is her aim as heaven above,

And wide as ether her good-will;
And, like the lowly reed, her love

Met by the rainbow's form divine,

Issuing from her cloudy shrine :--
So may the thrillings of the lyre

Prevail to further our desire,

While to these shades a sister Nymph I call.

"Come, if the notes thine ear may pierce,

Come, youngest of the lovely Three,
Submissive to the might of verse

And the dear voice of harmony,
By none more deeply felt than Thee!"
-I sang; and lo! from pastimes virginal
She hastens to the tents

Of nature, and the lonely elements.

Air sparkles round her with a dazzling sheen; But mark her glowing check, her vesture green!

Insight as keen as frosty star

Is to her charity no bar,

Nor interrupts her frolic graces

When she is, far from these wild places,
Encircled by familiar faces.

O the charm that manners draw,
Nature, from thy genuine law!
If from what her hand would do,
Her voice would utter, aught ensue
Untoward or unfit;

She, in benign affections pure,

In self-forgetfulness secure,

Sheds round the transient harm or vague mis

chance

A light unknown to tutored elegance:

Hers is not a cheek shame-stricken,

But her blushes are joy-flushes;

And the fault (if fault it be)
Only ministers to quicken
Laughter-loving gaiety,

And kindle sportive wit

Leaving this Daughter of the mountains free
As if she knew that Oberon king of Faery
Had crossed her purpose with some quaint
vagary,

And heard his viewless bands

Over their mirthful triumph clapping hands.

"Last of the Three, though eldest born,
Reveal thyself, like pensive Morn
Touched by the skylark's earliest note,
Ere humbler gladness be afloat.

But whether in the semblance drest
Of Dawn-or Eve, fair vision of the west,
Come with each anxious hope subdued
By woman's gentle fortitude,

Each grief, through meekness, settling into rest.
-Or I would hail thee when some high-wrought

page

Of a closed volume lingering in thy hand
Has raised thy spirit to a peaceful stand
Among the glories of a happier age."

Her brow hath opened on me-see it there,
Brightening the umbrage of her hair;
So gleams the crescent moon, that loves
To be descried through shady groves.
Tenderest bloom is on her cheek;
Wish not for a richer streak;

Nor dread the depth of meditative eye;
But let thy love, upon that azure field
Of thoughtfulness and beauty, yield
Its homage offered up in purity.
What would'st thou more? In sunny glade,
Or under leaves of thickest shade,
Was such a stillness e'er diffused
Since earth grew calm while angels mused?
Softly she treads, as if her foot were loth
To crush the mountain dew-drops-soon to melt
On the flower's breast; as if she felt
That flowers themselves, whate'er their hue,
With all their fragrance, all their glistening,
Call to the heart for inward listening-

And though for bridal wreaths and tokens true
Welcomed wisely; though a growth
Which the careless shepherd sleeps on

As fitly spring from turf the mourner weeps on-
And without wrong are cropped the marble

tomb to strew.

The Charm is over; the mute Phantoms gone,
Nor will return-but droop not, favoured Youth;
The apparition that before thee shone
Obeyed a summons covetous of truth.
From these wild rocks thy footsteps I will guide
To bowers in which thy fortune may be tried,
And one of the bright Three become thy happy
Bride.

1828.

XLI.

THE WISHING-GATE.

In the vale of Grasmere, by the side of the old high-way leading to Ambleside, is a gate, which, time out of mind, has been called the Wishing-gate, from a belief that wishes formed or indulged there have a favourable issue.

HOPE rules a land for ever green:
All powers that serve the bright-eyed Queen
Are confident and gay;
Clouds at her bidding disappear;
Points she to aught?-the bliss draws near,
And Fancy smooths the way.

Not such the land of Wishes-there
Dwell fruitless day-dreams, lawless prayer,
And thoughts with things at strife;
Yet how forlorn, should ye depart,
Ye superstitions of the heart,

How poor, were human life!
When magic lore abjured its might,
Ye did not forfeit one dear right,
One tender claim abate;
Witness this symbol of your sway,
Surviving near the public way,
The rustic Wishing-gate!
Inquire not if the faery race
Shed kindly influence on the place,
Ere northward they retired;
If here a warrior left a spell,
Panting for glory as he fell;

Or here a saint expired.

Enough that all around is fair,
Composed with Nature's finest care,
And in her fondest love-
Peace to embosom and content-
To overawe the turbulent,

The selfish to reprove.
Yea! even the Stranger from afar,
Reclining on this moss-grown bar,
Unknowing, and unknown,
The infection of the ground partakes,
Longing for his Beloved-who makes
All happiness her own.

Then why should conscious Spirits fear
The mystic stirrings that are here,
The ancient faith disclaim?
The local Genius ne'er befriends
Desires whose course in folly ends,
Whose just reward is shame.
Smile if thou wilt, but not in scorn,
If some, by ceaseless pains outworn,
Here crave an easier lot;

If some have thirsted to renew
A broken vow, or bind a true,

With firmer, holier knot.

And not in vain, when thoughts are cast
Upon the irrevocable past,

Some Penitent sincere

May for a worthier future sigh,
While trickles from his downcast eye
No unavailing tear.

The Worldling, pining to be freed
From turmoil, who would turn or speed
The current of his fate,
Might stop before this favoured scene,
At Nature's call, nor blush to lean
Upon the Wishing-gate.

The Sage, who feels how blind, how weak
Is man, though loth such help to seek,
Yet, passing, here might pause,
And thirst for insight to allay
Misgiving, while the crimson day
In quietness withdraws;