It is no spirit who from heaven hath flown
And is descending on his embassy;
Nor traveller gone from earth the heavens t'espy! "Tis Hesperus-there he stands with glittering crown, First admonition that the sun is down,-
For yet it is broad daylight!-clouds pass by;
A few are near him still-and now the sky,
He hath it to himself-'tis all his own. O most ambitious star! an inquest wrought Within me when I recognized thy light;
A moment I was startled at the sight;
And, while I gazed, there came to me a thought
That even I beyond my natural race
Might step as thou dost now:-might one day trace
Some ground not mine; and, strong her strength above, My soul, an apparition in the place,
Tread there, with steps that no one shall reprove!
COMPOSED A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY, ON REVISITING THE BANKS OF THE WYE DURING A TOUR.
FIVE years have pass'd; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain springs
With a sweet inland murmur.* *-Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
Which on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of 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 tuftz, Which, at this season, with their unripe fruits, Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves Among the woods and copses, nor disturb The wild green landscape. 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.
Though absent long, These forms of beauty 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,
* The river is not affected by the tides a few miles above Tintern
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 unremember'd pleasure; such, perhaps, As may have had no trivial influence On that best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremember'd 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 lighten'd;-that, sorene and blessèd mood, In which th' 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.
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 wand'rer through the woods, How often has my spirit turn'd to thee!
And now, with gleams of half-extinguish'd 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 fixt 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 colours 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, or any interest Unborrow'd 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 follow'd, for such loss, I would believe, Abundant recompense. For I have learn'd To look on Nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes The sti, sad music of humanity
Not harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. And I have felt 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 bohold 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: 'tis 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 'ofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
This line has a close resemblance to an admirable line of Young, the exact expression which I cannot recollect.
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 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 gleam 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.
Poems proceeding from Sentiment and Reflection.
LEFT UPON A SEAT IN A YEW-TREE WHICH STANDS NEAR THE LAKE OF ESTHWAITE, ON A DESOLATE PART OF THE SHORE, COMMANDING A BEAUTIFUL PROSPECT.
NAY, traveller! rest. This lonely yew-tree stands Far from all human dwelling: what if here No sparkling rivulet spread the verdant herb? What if these barren boughs the bee not loves? Yet, if the wind breathe soft, the curling waves, That break against the shore, shall lull thy mind By one soft impulse saved from vacancy.
That piled these stones, and with the mossy sod First cover'd o'er, and taught this aged tree With its dark arms to form a circling bower, I well remember. He was one who own'd
No common soul. In youth by science nursed, And led by Nature into a wild scene
Of lofty hopes, he to the world went forth A favour'd being, knowing no desire
Which genius did not hallow,-'gainst the taint Of dissolute tongues, and jealousy and hate, And scorn, against all enemies prepared, All but neglect. The world, for so it thought, Owed him no service: wherefore he at once With indignation turn'd himself away, And with the food of pride sustain'd his soul In solitude. Stranger! these gloomy boughs Had charms for him; and here he loved to sit, His only visitants a straggling sheep, The stone-chat, or the sand-lark, restless bird, Piping along the margin of the lake. And on these barren rocks, with juniper, And heath, and thistle, thinly sprinkled o'er, Fixing his downcast eye, he many an hour A morbid pleasure nourish'd, tracing here An emblem of his own unfruitful life:
And lifting up his head, he then would gaze On the more distant scene,-how lovely 'tis Thou seest, and he would gaze till it became Far lovelier, and his heart could not sustain The beauty, still more beauteous! Nor, that time, When Nature had subdued him to herself, Would he forget those beings, to whose minds, Warm from the labours of benevolence, The world, and man himself, appear'd a scene Of kindred loveliness: then he would sigh With mournful joy, to think that others felt What he must never feel: and so, lost man! On visionary views would fancy feed, Till his eye stream'd with tears. He died,-this seat his only monument.
If thou be one whose heart the holy forms
Of young imagination have kept pure,
Stranger! henceforth be warn'd; and know, that price. Howe'er disguised in his own majesty,
Is littleness; that he who feels contempt
For any living thing, hath faculties
Which he has never used; that thought with him
Is in its infancy. The man whose eye
Is ever on himself, doth look on one,
The least of Nature's works, one who might move The wise man to that scorn which wisdom holds Unlawful, ever. O be wiser, thou!
Instructed that true knowledge leads to love, True dignity abides with him alone Who, in the silent hour of inward thought, Can still suspect, and still revere himself, In lowliness of heart.
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