COMPOSED ON THE EVE OF THE MARRIAGE OF A FRIEND, IN THE VALE
OF GRASMERE.
WHAT need of clamorous bells, or ribbands gay,
These humble nuptials to proclaim or grace?
Angels of love, look down upon the place,
Shed on the chosen vale a sun-bright day!
Even for such omen would the bride display
No mirthful gladness :--Serious is her face,
Modest her mien; and she, whose thoughts keep pace
With gentleness, in that becoming way
Will thank you. Faultless does the maid appear,
No disproportion in her soul, no strife:
But, when the closer view of wedded life
Hath shown that nothing human can be clear
From frailty, for that insight may the wife
To her indulgent lord become more dear.
FROM the dark chambers of dejection freed,
Spurning the unprofitable yoke of care
" rise the gales of youth shall bear
Thy genius forward like a winged steed.
Though bold Bellerophon (so Jove decreed
In wrath) fell headlong from the fields of air,
Yet a high guerdon waits on minds that dare,
If aught be in them of immortal seed,
And reason govern that audacious flight
Which heav'nward they direct.-Then droop not thou,
Erroneously renewing a sad vow
In the low dell 'mid Roslin's fading grove:
A cheerful life is what the muses love,
A soaring spirit is their prime delight.
TO THE MEMORY OF RAISLEY CALVERT.
CALVERT! it must not be unheard by them
Who may respect my name, that I to thee
Owed many years of early liberty.
This care was thine when sickness did condemn
Thy youth to hopeless wasting, root and stem:
That I, if frugal and severe, might stray
Where'er I liked; and finally array
My temples with the muse's diadem.
Hence, if in freedom I have loved the truth,
If there be aught of pure, or good, or great,
In my past verse, or shall be, in the lays
Of higher mood, which now I meditate,-
It gladdens me, O worthy, short-lived youth:
To think how much of this will be thy praise,
COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE, SEPT. 3, 1803.
EARTH has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty :
This city now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
PELION and Ossa flourish side by side,
Together in immortal books enrolled:
His ancient dower Olympus hath not sold;
And that inspiring hill, which "did divide
Into two ample horns his forehead wide,"
Shines with poetic radiance as of old;
While not an English mountain we behold
By the celestial muses glorified.
Yet round our sea-girt shore they rise in crowds.
What was the great Parnassus' self to thee,
Mount Skiddaw? in his natural sovereignty
Our British hill is fairer far: he shrouds
His double-fronted head in higher clouds,
And pours forth streams more sweet than Castaly.
BROOK! whose society the Poet seeks
Intent his wasted spirits to renew;
And whom the curious painter doth pursue
Through rocky passes, among flowery creeks,
And tracts thee dancing down thy water-breaks;
If I some type of thee did wish to view,
Thee, and not thee thyself, I would not do
Like Grecian artists, give thee human checks,
Channels for tears; no Naiad should'st thou be,
Have neither limbs, feet, feathers, joints, nor hairs;
It seems the eternal soul is clothed in thee
With purer robes than those of flesh and blood,
And hath bestowed on thee a better good;
Unwearied joy, and life without its cares.
HAIL Twilight,--sovereign of one peaceful hour!
Not dull art thou as undiscerning Night;
But studious only to remove from sight
Day's mutable distinctions.-Ancient power!
Thus did the waters gleam, the mountains lower
To the rude Briton, when, in wolf-skin vest
Here roving wild, he laid him down to rest
On the bare rock, or through a leafy bower
Looked ere his eyes were closed. By him was seen
The self-same vision which we now behold,
At thy meek bidding, shadowy power, brought forth ;-
These mighty barriers, and the gulph between ;
The floods, the stars ;-a spectacle as old
As the beginning of the heavens and earth!
THE Shepherd, looking eastward, softly said,
"Bright is thy veil, O Moon, as thou art bright!"
Forthwith, that little cloud, in ether spread,
And penetrated all with tender light,
She cast away, and showed her fulgent head
Uncovered;-dazzling the beholder's sight
As if to vindicate her beauty's right,
Her beauty thoughtlessly disparaged.
Meanwhile that veil, removed or thrown aside,
Went, floating from her, darkening as it went;
And a huge mass, to bury or to hide,
Approached this glory of the firmament;
Who meekly yields, and is obscured;-content
With one calm triumph of a modest pride.
INTENDED MORE PARTICULARLY FOR THE PERUSAL OF THOSE WHO
MAY HAVE HAPPENED TO BE ENAMOURED OF SOME BEAUTIFUL PLACE
OF RETREAT IN THE COUNTRY OF THE LAKES.
YES, there is holy pleasure in thine eye!
-The lovely cottage in the guardian nook
Hath stirred thee deeply; with its own dear brook,
Its own small pasture, almost its own sky!
But covet not the abode-Oh! do not sigh,
As many do, repining while they look;
Sighing a wish to tear from Nature's book
This blissful leaf with harsh impiety.
Think what the home would be if it were thine,
Even thine, though few thy wants!-Roof, window. door,
The very flowers are sacred to the poor,
The roses to the porch which they entwine:
Yea, all, that now enchants thee, from the day
On which it should be touched would melt, and melt away
"BELOVED Vale!" I said, "when I shall con
Those many records of my childish years,
Remembrance of myself and of my peers
Will press me down: to think of what is gone
Will be an awful thought, if life have one."
But, when into the Vale I came, no fears
Distressed me; I looked round, I shed no tears;
Deep thought, or awful vision, I had none.
By thousand petty fancies I was cross'd,
To see the trees, which I had thought so tall,
Mere dwarfs; the brooks so narrow, fields so small
A juggler's balls old Time about him tossed;
I looked, I stared, I smiled, I laughed; and all
The weight of sadness was in wonder lost.
LADY! the songs of Spring were in the grove
While I was framing beds for Winter flowers;
While I was planting green unfading bowers,
And shrubs to hang upon the warm alcove,
And sheltering wall; and still, as fancy wove
The dream, to time and Nature's blended powers
I gave this paradise for Winter hours,
A abyrinth, Lady! which our feet shall rove,
Yes! when the sun of life more feebly shines,
Becoming thoughts, I trust, of solemn gloom
Or of high gladness you shall hither bring;
And these perennial bowers and murmuring pines
Be gracious as the music and the bloom
And all the mighty ravishment of Spring.
THE world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This sea that bares her bosom to the moon ;
The winds that will be howling at all hours
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.-Great God! I'd rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus coming from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
How sweet it is, when mother Fancy rocks
The wayward brain, to saunter through a wood!
An old place, full of many a lovely brood,
Tall trees, green arbours, and ground flowers in flocks;
And wild rose tip-toe upon hawthorn stocks,
Like to a bonny lass, who plays her pranks
At wakes and fairs with wandering mountebanks,-When she stands cresting the clown's head, and mocks The crowd beneath her. Verily I think,
Such place to me is sometimes like a dream
Or map of the whole world: thoughts, link by link,
Enter through ears and eyesight, with such gleam
Of all things, that at last in fear I shrink,
And leap at once from the delicious stream.
WHERE lies the land to which yon Ship must go!
Festively she puts forth in trim array;
As vigorous as a lark at break of day:
Is she for tropic suns, or polar snow?
What boots the inquiry?-Neither friend or foe
She cares for; let her travel where she may,
She finds familiar names, a beaten way
Ever before her, and a wind to blow.
Yet still I ask, what haven is her mark?
And, almost as it was when ships were rare,
(From time to time, like pilgrims, here and there
Crossing the waters) doubt, and something dark,
Of the old sea some reverential fear,
Is with me at thy farewell, joyous bark!
EVEN as a dragon's eye that feels the stress
Of a bedimming sleep, or as a lamp
Sullenly glaring through sepulchral damp,
So burns yon Taper 'mid its black recess
Of mountains, silent, dreary, motionless:
The lake below reflects it not; the sky
Muffled in clouds affords no company
To mitigate and cheer its loneliness.
Yet round the body of that joyless thing,
Which sends so far its melancholy light,
Perhaps are seated in domestic ring
A gay society with faces bright,
Conversing, reading, laughing-or they sing,
While hearts and voices in the song unite.
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