This, this is holy; - while I hear
These vespers of another year,
This hymn of thanks and praise,
My spirit seems to mount above
The anxieties of human love,

And earth's precarious days.

But list! though winter storms be nigh, Unchecked is that soft harmony:

There lives Who can provide

For all His creatures; and in Him,
Even like the radiant Seraphim,

These choristers confide.

UPON THE SAME OCCASION

1819 1820

DEPARTING Summer hath assumed

An aspect tenderly illumed,

The gentlest look of Spring;

That calls from yonder leafy shade
Unfaded, yet prepared to fade,
A timely carolling.

No faint and hesitating trill,
Such tribute as to winter chill

The lonely redbreast pays!

Clear, loud, and lively is the din,
From social warblers gathering in
Their harvest of sweet lays.

Nor doth the example fail to cheer
Me, conscious that my leaf is sere,
And yellow on the bough:-

Fall, rosy garlands, from my head!

Ye myrtle wreaths, your fragrance shed Around a younger brow!

Yet will I temperately rejoice;

Wide is the range, and free the choice
Of undiscordant themes;

Which, haply, kindred souls may prize
Not less than vernal ecstasies,

And passion's feverish dreams.

For deathless powers to verse belong,
And they like Demi-gods are strong
On whom the Muses smile;

But some their function have disclaimed,

Best pleased with what is aptliest framed To enervate and defile.

Not such the initiatory strains
Committed to the silent plains

In Britain's earliest dawn:

Trembled the groves, the stars grew pale, While all-too-daringly the veil

Of nature was withdrawn!

Nor such the spirit-stirring note

When the live chords Alcæus smote,

Inflamed by sense of wrong;

Woe! woe to Tyrants! from the lyre
Broke threateningly, in sparkles dire
Of fierce vindictive song.

And not unhallowed was the page
By winged Love inscribed, to assuage
The pangs of vain pursuit;

Love listening while the Lesbian Maid
With finest touch of passion swayed
Her own Æolian lute.

O ye, who patiently explore
The wreck of Herculanean lore,
What rapture! could ye seize
Some Theban fragment, or unroll
One precious, tender-hearted, scroll
Of pure Simonides.

That were, indeed, a genuine birth
Of poesy; a bursting forth

Of genius from the dust:

What Horace gloried to behold,
What Maro loved, shall we enfold?

Can haughty Time be just!

"THERE IS A LITTLE UNPRETENDING

RILL"

1820 1820

This Rill trickles down the hill-side into Windermere, near Lowwood. My sister and I, on our first visit together to this part of the country, walked from Kendal, and we rested to refresh ourselves by the side of the lake where the streamlet falls into it. This sonnet was written some years after in recollection of that happy ramble, that most happy day and hour.

THERE is a little unpretending Rill

Of limpid water, humbler far than aught
That ever among Men or Naiads sought
Notice or name! It quivers down the hill,
Furrowing its shallow way with dubious will;
Yet to my mind this scanty Stream is brought
Oftener than Ganges or the Nile; a thought
Of private recollection sweet and still!
Months perish with their moons; year treads on year!
But, faithful Emma! thou with me canst say
That, while ten thousand pleasures disappear,
And flies their memory fast almost as they;
The immortal Spirit of one happy day

Lingers beside that Rill, in vision clear.