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
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;
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 ever-
I WANDERED lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
A host of golden daffodils,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
Along the margin of a bay:
They stretched in never-ending line
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:
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 fil's;
And dances with the daffodils.
O BLITHE new-comer! I have heard,
I hear thee, and rejoice:
O cuckoo! shall I call thee bird,
Or but a wandering voice?
While I am lying on the grass
Thy twofold shout I hear;
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off and near.
Though babbling only to the vale
Of sunshine and of flowers,
Thou bringest unto me a tale
Of visionary hours.
Thrice welcome, darling of the spring!
Even yet thou art to me
No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery;
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, fairy place
That is fit home for thee!
THREE years she grew in sun and shower;
Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower
On earth was never sown:
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
The girl, in rock and plain,
In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
Shall feel an overseeing power
Te 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
E'en 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 doneHow 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 nevermore will be.
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 I see 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, nokly planned
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a spirit still, and bright
With something of an angel light.
FROM Stirling Castle we had seen
The Forth unravelled;
mazy
Had trod the banks of Clyde and Tay,
And with the Tweed had travelled;
And when we came to Clovenford,
Then said my "winsome Marrow," "Whate'er betide, we 'll turn aside, And see the Braes of Yarrow."
"Let Yarrow folk, frae Selkirk town,
Who have been buying, selling,
Go back to Yarrow, 't is their own,
Each maiden to her dwelling!
On Yarrow's banks let herons feed,
Hares couch, and rabbits burrow! But we will downward with the Tweed, Nor turn aside to Yarrow.
"There's Galla Water, Leader Haughs, Both lying right before us;
"O, green, said I, "are Yarrow's
And sweet is Yarrow flowing! Fair hangs the apple frae the rock, But we will leave it growing. O'er hilly path and open strath We'll wander Scotland thorough; But, though so near, we will not turn Into the dale of Yarrow.
And Dryburgh, where with chiming ON A PICTURE OF PEELE CASTLE IN
How perfect was the calm! It seemed | That hulk which labors in the deadly no sleep, swell, No mood, which season takes away, or This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear!
I could have fancied that the mighty Deep
Was even the gentlest of all gentle things.
Ah! then if mine had been the painter's hand
To express what then I saw; and add
The light that never was on sea or land, The consecration, and the poet's dream,
I would have planted thee, thou hoary pile,
Amid a world how different from this!
Beside a sea that could not cease to smile;
On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss.
A picture had it been of lasting ease,
Elysian quiet, without toil or strife;
No motion but the moving tide, a breeze;
Or merely silent Nature's breathing life.
Such, in the fond illusion of my heart, Such picture would I at that time have made;
And seen the soul of truth in every part, A steadfast peace that might not be
And this huge castle, standing here sublime,
I love to see the look with which it
Cased in the unfeeling armor of old time
The lightning, the fierce wind, and trampling waves.
Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone,
Housed in a dream, at distance from the kind!
Such happiness, wherever it be known, Is to be pitied; for 't is surely blind.
But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer, And frequent sights of what is to be borne !
Such
Not without hope we suffer and we mourn.
sights, or worse, as are before me
here:-
STERN daughter of the voice of God!
O Duty! if that name thou love,
So once it would have been, -'t is so no 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 hu-
manity!
There are who ask not if thine eye
Be on them; who, in love and truth,
Where no misgiving is, rely
Upon the genial sense of youth:
Glad hearts! without reproach or blot;
Who do thy work, and know it not:
May joy be theirs while life shall last!
And thou, if they should totter, teach
them to stand fast!
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 blest are they who in the main
This faith, even now, do entertain:
Live in the spirit of this creed;
Yet find that other strength, 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;
Full oft, when in my heart was heard
Thy timely mandate, I deferred
The task imposed, from day to day;
But thee I now would serve more strict-
ly, 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
I long for a repose which 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;
O, let my weakness have an end!
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!
TO THE RIVER DUDDON.
I THOUGHT of thee, my partner and my guide,
As being passed away,-vain sympathies!
For backward, Duddon! as I cast my
I see what was, and is, and will abide: Still glides the stream, and shall forever glide;
The form remains, the function never dies;
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