THE TABLES TURNED.
An evening scene on the same subject.
UP! up! my Friend, and quit your books; Or surely you'll grow double:
Up up my Friend, and clear your looks; Why all this toil and trouble?
The sun, above the mountain's head, A freshening lustre mellow
Through all the long green fields has spread, His first sweet evening yellow.
Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet, How sweet his music! on my life, There's more of wisdom in it.
And hark! how blithe the throstle sings! He, too, is no mean preacher : Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher.
She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless- Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health, Truth breathed by cheerfulness.
One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can.
Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; Our meddling intellect
Misshapes the beauteous forms of things— We murder to dissect.
Enough of Science and of Art;
Close up those barren leaves; Come forth, and bring with you a heart That watches and receives.
INFLUENCE OF NATURAL OBJECTS
IN CALLING FORTH AND STRENGTHENING THE IMAGINATION IN BOYHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH.
ISDOM 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 souls, 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 valleys 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, homeward I went In solitude, such intercourse was mine. Mine was it in 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 his 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-chiming, and the hunted hare. So through the darkness and the cold we flew, And not a voice was idle: with the din Smitten, the precipices rang aloud; The leafless trees and every icy crag Tinkled like iron; while far-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 cut across the reflex 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.
FIVE POEMS RELATING TO LUCY.
TRAVELLED among unknown men, In lands beyond the sea;
Nor, England! did I know till then What love I bore to thee.
'Tis past, that melancholy dream! Nor will I quit thy shore A second time: for still I seem To love thee more and more.
Among thy mountains did I feel The joy of my desire;
And she I cherished turned her wheel Beside an English fire.
Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed The bowers where Lucy played; And thine too is the last green field That Lucy's eyes surveyed.
STRANGE fits of passion have I known: And I will dare to tell,
But in the Lover's ear alone,
What once to me befel.
When she I loved looked every day
Fresh as a rose in June, I to her cottage bent my way, Beneath an evening moon.
Upon the moon I fixed my eye, All over the wild lea;
With quickening pace my horse drew nigh Those paths so dear to me.
And now we reached the orchard-plot; And, as we climbed the hill, The sinking moon to Lucy's cot Came near, and nearer still.
In one of those sweet dreams I slept- Kind Nature's gentlest boon! And all the while my eyes I kept On the descending moon.
My horse moved on; hoof after hoof He raised, and never stopped: When down behind the cottage-roof, At once, the bright moon dropped.
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