That love for little things by Fate
Is rendered vain as love for great.
Yet, where the guardian fence is wound,
So subtly are our eyes beguiled
We see not nor suspect a bound,
No more than in some forest wild;
The sight is free as air—or crost
Only by art in nature lost. 30
And, though the jealous turf refuse
By random footsteps to be prest,
And feed on never-sullied dews,
‘Ye’, gentle breezes from the west,
With all the ministers of hope
Are tempted to this sunny slope!
And hither throngs of birds resort;
Some, inmates lodged in shady nests,
Some, perched on stems of stately port
That nod to welcome transient guests; 40
While hare and leveret, seen at play,
‘Appear’ not more shut out than they.
Apt emblem (for reproof of pride)
This delicate Enclosure shows
Of modest kindness, that would hide
The firm protection she bestows;
Of manners, like its viewless fence,
Ensuring peace to innocence.
Thus spake the moral Muse—her wing
Abruptly spreading to depart, 50
She left that farewell offering,
Momento for some docile heart;
That may respect the good old age
When Fancy was Truth’s willing Page;
And Truth would skim the flowery glade,
Though entering but as Fancy’s Shade.
1824.
TO THE LADY E. B. AND THE HON. MISS P.
A STREAM, to mingle with your favourite Dee,
Along the VALE OF MEDITATION flows;
So styled by those fierce Britons, pleased to see
In Nature’s face the expression of repose;
Or haply there some pious hermit chose
To live and die, the peace of heaven his aim;
To whom the wild sequestered region owes
At this late day, its sanctifying name.
GLYN CAFAILLGAROCH, in the Cambrian tongue,
In ours, the VALE OF FRIENDSHIP, let ‘this’ spot 10
Be named; where, faithful to a low-roofed Cot,
On Deva’s banks, ye have abode so long;
Sisters in love, a love allowed to climb,
Even on this earth, above the reach of Time!
TO THE TORRENT AT THE DEVIL’S BRIDGE, NORTH WALES, 1824
HOW art thou named? In search of what strange land
From what huge height, descending? Can such force
Of waters issue from a British source,
Or hath not Pindus fed thee, where the band
Of Patriots scoop their freedom out, with hand
Desperate as thine? Or come the incessant shocks
From that young Stream, that smites the throbbing rocks
Of Viamala? There I seem to stand,
As in life’s morn; permitted to behold,
From the dread chasm, woods climbing above woods, 10
In pomp that fades not; everlasting snows;
And skies that ne’er relinquish their repose;
Such power possess the family of floods
Over the minds of Poets, young or old!
COMPOSED AMONG THE RUINS OF A CASTLE IN NORTH WALES
THROUGH shattered galleries, ‘mid roofless halls,
Wandering with timid footsteps oft betrayed,
The Stranger sighs, nor scruples to upbraid
Old Time, though he, gentlest among the Thralls
Of Destiny, upon these wounds hath laid
His lenient touches, soft as light that falls,
From the wan Moon, upon the towers and walls,
Light deepening the profoundest sleep of shade.
Relic of Kings! Wreck of forgotten wars,
To winds abandoned and the prying stars, 10
Time ‘loves’ Thee! at his call the Seasons twine
Luxuriant wreaths around thy forehead hoar;
And, though past pomp no changes can restore,
A soothing recompence, his gift, is thine!
1824.
ELEGIAC STANZAS ADDRESSED TO SIR G. H. B. UPON THE DEATH OF HIS SISTER-IN-LAW
O FOR a dirge! But why complain?
Ask rather a triumphal strain
When FERMOR’S race is run;
A garland of immortal boughs
To twine around the Christian’s brows,
Whose glorious work is done.
We pay a high and holy debt;
No tears of passionate regret
Shall stain this votive lay;
Ill-worthy, Beaumont! were the grief 10
That flings itself on wild relief
When Saints have passed away.
Sad doom, at Sorrow’s shrine to kneel,
For ever covetous to feel,
And impotent to bear!
Such once was hers—to think and think
On severed love, and only sink
From anguish to despair!
But nature to its inmost part
Faith had refined; and to her heart 20
A peaceful cradle given:
Calm as the dew-drop’s, free to rest
Within a breeze-fanned rose’s breast
Till it exhales to Heaven.
Was ever Spirit that could bend
So graciously?—that could descend,
Another’s need to suit,
So promptly from her lofty throne?—
In works of love, in these alone,
How restless, how minute! 30
Pale was her hue; yet mortal cheek
Ne’er kindled with a livelier streak
When aught had suffered wrong,—
When aught that breathes had felt a wound;
Such look the Oppressor might confound,
However proud and strong.
But hushed be every thought that springs
From out the bitterness of things;
Her quiet is secure;
No thorns can pierce her tender feet, 40
Whose life was, like the violet, sweet,
As climbing jasmine, pure—
As snowdrop on an infant’s grave,
Or lily heaving with the wave
That feeds it and defends;
As Vesper, ere the star hath kissed
The mountain top, or breathed the mist
That from the vale ascends.
Thou takest not away, O Death!
Thou strikest—absence perisheth, 50
Indifference is no more;
The future brightens on our sight;
For on the past hath fallen a light
That tempts us to adore.
1824.
CENOTAPH
BY vain affections unenthralled,
Though resolute when duty called
To meet the world’s broad eye,
Pure as the holiest cloistered nun
That ever feared the tempting sun,
Did Fermor live and die.
This Tablet, hallowed by her name,
One heart-relieving tear may claim;
But if the pensive gloom
Of fond regret be still thy choice, 10
Exalt thy spirit, hear the voice
Of Jesus from her tomb!
“I AM THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE”
1824.
EPITAPH IN THE CHAPEL-YARD OF LANGDALE, WESTMORELAND
BY playful smiles, (alas! too oft
A sad heart’s sunshine, by a soft
And gentle nature, and a free
Yet modest hand of charity,
Through life was OWEN LLOYD endeared
To young and old; and how revered
Had been that pious spirit, a tide
Of humble mourners testified,
When, after pains dispensed to prove
Here, brought from far, his corse found rest,—
Fulfilment of his own request;—
Urged less for this Yew’s shade, though he
Planted with such fond hope the tree;
Less for the love of stream and rock,
Dear as they were, than that his Flock,
When they no more their Pastor’s voice
Could hear to guide them in their choice
Through good and evil, help might have,
Admonished, from his silent grave, 20
Of righteousness, of sins forgiven,
For peace on earth and bliss in heaven.
1824.
THE CONTRAST; THE PARROT AND THE WREN
I
WITHIN her gilded cage confined,
I saw a dazzling Belle,
A Parrot of that famous kind
Whose name is NON-PAREIL.
Like beads of glossy jet her eyes;
And, smoothed by Nature’s skill,
With pearl or gleaming agate vies
Her finely-curved bill.
Her plumy mantle’s living hues
In mass opposed to mass, 10
Outshine the splendour that imbues
The robes of pictured glass.
And, sooth to say, an apter Mate
Did never tempt the choice
Of feathered Thing most delicate
In figure and in voice.
But, exiled from Australian bowers,
And singleness her lot,
She trills her song with tutored powers,
Or mocks each casual note. 20
No more of pity for regrets
With which she may have striven!
Now but in wantonness she frets,
Or spite, if cause be given;
Arch, volatile, a sportive bird
By social glee inspired;
Ambitious to be seen or heard,
And pleased to be admired!
II
THIS moss-lined shed, green, soft, and dry,
Harbours a self-contented Wren, 30
Not shunning man’s abode, though shy,
Almost as thought itself, of human ken.
Strange places, coverts unendeared,
She never tried; the very nest
In which this Child of Spring was reared,
Is warmed, thro’ winter, by her feathery breast.
To the bleak winds she sometimes gives
A slender unexpected strain;
Proof that the hermitess still lives,
Though she appear not, and be sought in vain. 40
Say, Dora! tell me, by yon placid moon,
If called to choose between the favoured pair,
Which would you be,—the bird of the saloon
By lady-fingers tended with nice care,
Caressed, applauded, upon dainties fed,
Or Nature’s DARKLING of this mossy shed?
1825.
TO A SKY-LARK
ETHEREAL minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!
Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?
Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye
Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?
Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will,
Those quivering wings composed, that music still!
Leave to the nightingale her shady wood;
A privacy of glorious light is thine;
Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood
Of harmony, with instinct more divine; 10
Type of the wise who soar, but never roam;
True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!
1825.
ERE WITH COLD BEADS OF MIDNIGHT DEW
ERE with cold beads of midnight dew
Had mingled tears of thine,
I grieved, fond Youth! that thou shouldst sue
To haughty Geraldine.
Immoveable by generous sighs,
She glories in a train
Who drag, beneath our native skies,
An oriental chain.
Pine not like them with arms across,
Forgetting in thy care 10
How the fast-rooted trees can toss
Their branches in mid air.
The humblest rivulet will take
Its own wild liberties;
And, every day, the imprisoned lake
Is flowing in the breeze.
Then, crouch no more on suppliant knee,
But scorn with scorn outbrave;
A Briton, even in love, should be
A subject, not a slave! 20
1826.
ODE: COMPOSED ON MAY MORNING
WHILE from the purpling east departs
The star that led the dawn,
Blithe Flora from her couch upstarts,
For May is on the lawn.
A quickening hope, a freshening glee,
Foreran the expected Power,
Whose first-drawn breath, from bush and tree,
Shakes off that pearly shower.
All Nature welcomes Her whose sway
Tempers the year’s extremes; 10
Who scattereth lustres o’er noon-day,
Like morning’s dewy gleams;
While mellow warble, sprightly trill,
The tremulous heart excite;
And hums the balmy air to still
The balance of delight.
Time was, blest Power! when youths and maids
At peep of dawn would rise,
And wander forth, in forest glades
Thy birth to solemnize. 20
Though mute the song—to grace the rite
Untouched the hawthorn bough,
Thy Spirit triumphs o’er the slight;
Man changes, but not Thou!
Thy feathered Lieges bill and wings
In love’s disport employ;
Warmed by thy influence, creeping things
Awake to silent joy:
Queen art thou still for each gay plant
Where the slim wild deer roves; 30
And served in depths where fishes haunt
Their own mysterious groves.
Cloud-piercing peak, and trackless heath,
Instinctive homage pay;
Nor wants the dim-lit cave a wreath
To honour thee, sweet May!
Where cities fanned by thy brisk airs
Behold a smokeless sky,
Their puniest flower-pot-nursling dares
To open a bright eye. 40
And if, on this thy natal morn,
The pole, from which thy name
Hath not departed, stands forlorn
Of song and dance and game;
Still from the village-green a vow
Aspires to thee addrest,
Wherever peace is on the brow,
Or love within the breast.
Yes! where Love nestles thou canst teach
The soul to love the more; 50
Hearts also shall thy lessons reach
That never loved before.
Stript is the haughty one of pride,
The bashful freed from fear,
While rising, like the ocean-tide,
In flows the joyous year.
Hush, feeble lyre! weak words refuse
The service to prolong!
To yon exulting thrush the Muse
Entrusts the imperfect song; 60
His voice shall chant, in accents clear,
Throughout the live-long day,
Till the first silver star appear,
The sovereignty of May.
1826.
TO MAY
THOUGH many suns have risen and set
Since thou, blithe May, wert born,
And Bards, who hailed thee, may forget
Thy gifts, thy beauty scorn;
There are who to a birthday strain
Confine not harp and voice,
But evermore th
roughout thy reign
Are grateful and rejoice!
Delicious odours! music sweet,
Too sweet to pass away! 10
Oh for a deathless song to meet
The soul’s desire—a lay
That, when a thousand years are told,
Should praise thee, genial Power!
Through summer heat, autumnal cold,
And winter’s dreariest hour.
Earth, sea, thy presence feel—nor less,
If yon ethereal blue
With its soft smile the truth express,
The heavens have felt it too. 20
The inmost heart of man if glad
Partakes a livelier cheer;
And eyes that cannot but be sad
Let fall a brightened tear.
Since thy return, through days and weeks
Of hope that grew by stealth,
How many wan and faded cheeks
Have kindled into health!
The Old, by thee revived, have said,
“Another year is ours;”30
And wayworn Wanderers, poorly fed
Have smiled upon thy flowers.
Who tripping lisps a merry song
Amid his playful peers?
The tender Infant who was long
A prisoner of fond fears;
But now, when every sharp-edged blast
Is quiet in its sheath,
His Mother leaves him free to taste
Earth’s sweetness in thy breath. 40
Thy help is with the weed that creeps
Along the humblest ground;
No cliff so bare but on its steeps
Thy favours may be found;
But most on some peculiar nook
That our own hands have drest,
Thou and thy train are proud to look,
And seem to love it best.
And yet how pleased we wander forth
When May is whispering, “Come! 50
“Choose from the bowers of virgin earth
“The happiest for your home;
“Heaven’s bounteous love through me is spread
“From sunshine, clouds, winds, waves,
“Drops on the mouldering turret’s head,
“And on your turf-clad graves!”
Such greeting heard, away with sighs
For lilies that must fade,
Or “the rathe primrose as it dies
Forsaken” in the shade! 60
Vernal fruitions and desires
Are linked in endless chase;
While, as one kindly growth retires,
Another takes its place.
And what if thou, sweet May, hast known,
Mishap by worm and blight;
If expectations newly blown
Have perished in thy sight;
Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth Page 277