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And, through that church-yard when my way has led
On summer-evenings, I believe, that there
A long half-hour together I have stood
Mute-looking at the grave in which he lies!

(1799-)

INFLUENCE OF NATURAL OBJECTS IN CALLING FORTH AND

STRENGTHENING THE IMAGINATION IN

EARLY YOUTH.

[Prelude I.]

Wisdom and Spirit of the universe!

BOYHOOD AND

Thou Soul that art the eternity of thought,
And givest 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 soul;
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 valley 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 I homeward 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 blazed through twilight gloom,

I heeded not their 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

That fled, and, 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 dreamless sleep.

(1799.)

THE GREEN LINNET.

Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed
Their snow-white blossoms on my head,
With brightest sunshine round me spread
Of spring's unclouded weather,

In this sequestered nook how sweet
To sit upon my orchard-seat !

And birds and flowers once more to greet,
My last year's friends together.

One have I marked, the happiest guest
In all this covert of the blest:

Hail to Thee, far above the rest

In joy of voice and pinion!
Thou, Linnet! in thy green array,
Presiding Spirit here to-day,
Dost lead the revels of the May,
And this is thy dominion.

While birds, and butterflies, and flowers,
Make all one band of paramours,
Thou, ranging up and down the bowers,
Art sole in thy employment;

A Life, a Presence like the Air,
Scattering thy gladness without care,
Too blest with any one to pair ;

Thyself thy own enjoyment.

Amid yon tuft of hazel trees,
That twinkle in the gusty breeze,
Behold him perched in ecstasies,
Yet seeming still to hover;
There! where the flutter of his wings
Upon his back and body flings
Shadows and sunny glimmerings,
That cover him all over.

My dazzled sight he oft deceives,
A Brother of the dancing leaves;
Then flits, and from the cottage-eaves
Pours forth his song in gushes;

As if by that exulting strain

He mocked and treated with disdain
The voiceless Form he chose to feign,
While fluttering in the bushes.

(1803.)

YEW TREES.

There is a Yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale,
Which to this day stands single, in the midst
Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore:
Not loth to furnish weapons for the bands
Of Umfraville or Percy ere they marched

To Scotland's heaths; or those that crossed the sea
And drew their sounding bows at Azincour,
Perhaps at earlier Crecy, or Poictiers.

Of vast circumference and gloom profound
This solitary Tree! a living thing
Produced too slowly ever to decay;
Of form and aspect too magnificent

To be destroyed. But worthier still of note
Are those fraternal Four of Borrowdale,
Joined in one solemn and capacious grove;
Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth
Of intertwisted fibres serpentine

Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved;
Nor uninformed with Phantasy, and looks
That threaten the profane ;—a pillared shade,
Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue,
By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged
Perennially-beneath whose sable roof

Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, decked
With unrejoicing berries-ghostly Shapes

May meet at noontide; Fear and trembling Hope,
Silence and Foresight; Death the Skeleton

And Time the Shadow ;-there to celebrate,
As in a natural temple scattered o'er
With altars undisturbed of mossy stone,
United worship; or in mute repose
To lie, and listen to the mountain flood
Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves.

(1803.)

TO A HIGHLAND GIRL.

(At Inversneyde, upon Loch Lomond.)

Sweet Highland Girl, a very shower
Of beauty is thy earthly dower!
Twice seven consenting years have shed
Their utmost bounty on thy head:

And these grey rocks; that household lawn;
Those trees, a veil just half withdrawn ;

This fall of water that doth make

A murmur near the silent lake;
This little bay; a quiet road
That holds in shelter thy Abode-
In truth together do ye seem
Like something fashioned in a dream;
Such Forms as from their covert peep
When earthly cares are laid asleep!
But, O fair Creature! in the light
Of common day, so heavenly bright,
I bless Thee, Vision as thou art,
I bless thee with a human heart;
God shield thee to thy latest years!
Thee, neither know I, nor thy peers;
And yet thy eyes are fill'd with tears.

With earnest feeling I shall pray
For thee when I am far away:
For never saw I mien, or face,
In which more plainly I could trace

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