The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
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, indoors into

Thy memory be as a dwelling-place

For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,

If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,

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thought to not present

Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,

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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 gleams

Of past existence-wilt thou then forget

I 50

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!

155

THERE WAS A BOY.

THERE was a Boy; ye knew him well, ye cliffs
And islands of Winander! –

many a time,
At evening, when the earliest stars began
To move along the edges of the hills,
Rising or setting, would he stand alone,
Beneath the trees, or by the glimmering lake;
And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands
Pressed closely palm to palm and to his mouth
Uplifted, he, as through an instrument,

Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls,

That they might answer him. - And they would shout
Across the watery vale, and shout again,

Responsive to his call, with quivering peals,

And long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud
Redoubled and redoubled'; concourse wild

Of jocund din! And, when there came a pause
Of silence such as baffled his best skill:
Then, sometimes, in that silence, while he hung
Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise
Has carried far into his heart the voice
Of mountain-torrents; or the visible scene
Would enter unawares into his mind

With all its solemn imagery, its rocks,

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Its woods, and that uncertain heaven received
Into the bosom of the steady lake.

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This boy was taken from his mates, and died

In childhood, ere he was full twelve years old.

Preeminent in beauty is the vale

Where he was born and bred: the church-yard hangs
Upon a slope above the village-school;

30

And, through that church-yard when my way has led
On summer-evenings, I believe, that there

STRANGE fits of passion have I known :

And I will dare to tell,

But in the Lover's ear alone,

What once to me befell.

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 wide 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.

1798.

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ΙΟ

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What fond and wayward thoughts will slide

Into a Lover's head!

"O mercy!" to myself I cried,

ee

If Lucy should be dead!"

SHE dwelt among the untrodden ways

Besides the springs of Dove,

A maid whom there were none to praise

And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone

Half hidden from the eye!

- Fair as a star, when only one

Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know

When Lucy ceased to be;

But she is in her grave, and, oh,

The difference to me!

I 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.

THREE years she grew in sun and shower,

Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower

On earth was never sown;

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1799.

This Child I to myself will take;

She shall be mine, and I will make
A Lady of my own.

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er

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

To kindle or restrain.

She shall be sportive as the fawn That wild with glee across the lawn,

Or up the mountain springs;

And her's shall be the breathing balm,

And her's the silence and the calm

ee

Of mute insensate things.

The floating clouds their state shall lend To her; for her the willow bend;

Nor shall she fail to see

Even in the motions of the Storm

Grace that shall mould the Maiden's form
By silent sympathy.