Because the wretched man himself had slain,

His love was such a grievous pain.

And there is one whom I have five years known :

Upon Helvellyn's side:

He loved the pretty Barbara died;

And thus he makes his moan:

Three years had Barbara in her grave been laid

When thus his moan he made:

"Oh, move, thou Cottage, from behind that oak! Or let the aged tree uprooted lie,

That in some other way yon smoke

May mount into the sky!

The clouds pass on; they from the heavens depart :

I look the sky is empty space;

I know not what I trace;

But when I cease to look, my hand is on my heart.

O! what a weight is in these shades!

Ye leaves.

That murmur once so dear, when will it cease 1?

Your sound my heart of rest bereaves,

It robs my heart of peace.2

Thou Thrush, that singest loud—and loud and free,

. Into yon row of willows flit,

Upon that alder sit;

Or sing another song, or choose another tree.

Roll back, sweet Rill! back to thy mountain-bounds,
And there for ever be thy waters chained!

For thou dost haunt the air with sounds
That cannot be sustained;

If still beneath that pine-tree's ragged bough
Headlong yon waterfall must come,

Oh let it then be dumb!

Be anything, sweet Rill, but that which thou art now.

Thou Eglantine, so bright with sunny showers,
Proud as a rainbow spanning half the vale,1
Thou one fair shrub, oh! shed thy flowers,

And stir not in the gale.

For thus to see thee nodding in the air,

To see thy arch thus stretch and bend,

Thus rise, and thus descend,

Disturbs me till the sight is more than I can bear."

The Man who makes this feverish complaint
Is one of giant stature, who could dance
Equipped from head to foot in iron mail.
Ah gentle Love! if ever thought was thine
To store up kindred hours for me, thy face
Turn from me, gentle Love! nor let me walk
Within the sound of Emma's voice, nor know 2
Such happiness as I have known to-day.

1 1836.

Thou Eglantine whose arch so proudly towers
(Even like a rainbow spanning half the vale)

2 1836.

1800.

If the second, third, fourth, and fifth stanzas of this Poem had been published without the first and the last, it would have been deemed an

exquisite fragment by those who object to the explanatory preamble, and to the moralising sequel. The intermediate stanzas suggest Burns'

Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon,

How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair!
How can ye chant ye little birds,

An' I sae weary, fu' o' care!

-a mood of mind which Wordsworth appreciated as fully as the opposite or complementary feeling, which finds expression in the "Ode on Immortality,"

No more shall grief of mine the Season wrong.

The allusion in the last stanza of this Poem is to his Sister Dorothy.ED.

THE CHILDLESS FATHER.

Comp. 1800.

Pub. 1800.

[Written at Town-end, Grasmere. When I was a child at Cockermouth, no funeral took place without a basin filled with sprigs of boxwood being placed upon a table covered with a white cloth in front of the house. The huntings on foot, in which the old man is supposed to join as here described, were of common, almost habitual, occurrence in our vales when I was a boy, and the people took much delight in them. They are now less frequent.]

"UP, Timothy, up with your staff and away!
Not a soul in the village this morning will stay;
The hare has just started from Hamilton's grounds,
And Skiddaw is glad with the cry of the hounds.”

Of coats and of jackets grey, scarlet, and green,1
On the slopes of the pastures all colours were seen;
With their comely blue aprons, and caps white as snow,
The girls on the hills made a holiday show.

1 1802.

both grey, red, and green

1800.

Fresh sprigs of green box-wood, not six months before,
Filled the funeral basin* at Timothy's door;1

A coffin through Timothy's threshold had past;
One Child did it bear, and that Child was his last.

Now fast up the dell came the noise and the fray,
The horse and the horn, and the hark! hark away!
Old Timothy took up his staff, and he shut
With a leisurely motion the door of his hut.

Perhaps to himself at that moment he said:
"The key I must take, for my Ellen is dead."
But of this in my ears not a word did he speak;
And he went to the chase with a tear on his cheek.

SONG FOR THE WANDERING JEW.

Comp. 1800.

Pub. 1800.

THOUGH the torrents from their fountains

Roar down many a craggy steep,
Yet they find among the mountains
Resting-places calm and deep.

The basin of boxwood, just six months before,
Had stood on the table at Timothy's door

1800.

The basin had offered, just six months before,
Fresh sprigs of green boxwood at Timothy's door; 1820.

Fresh sprigs of green boxwood, just six months before,
Filled the funeral basin at Timothy's door;

1832.

* In several parts of the North of England, when a funeral takes place, a basin full of sprigs of box-wood is placed at the door of the house from which the coffin is taken up, and each person who attends the funeral ordinarily takes a sprig of this box-wood, and throws it into the grave of the deceased. 1800.

Clouds that love through air to hasten,

Ere the storm its fury stills,
Helmet-like themselves will fasten

On the heads of towering hills.

What, if through the frozen centre
Of the Alps the Chamois bound,
Yet he has a home to enter

In some nook of chosen ground:

And the Sea-horse, though the ocean Yield him no domestic cave, Slumbers without sense of motion, Couched upon the rocking wave.

If on windy days the Raven
Gambol like a dancing skiff,

Not the less she loves her haven

In the bosom of the cliff.

The fleet Ostrich, till day closes,

Vagrant over desert sands,

Brooding on her eggs reposes

When chill night that care demands.

Day and night my toils redouble,
Never nearer to the goal;
Night and day, I feel the trouble

Of the Wanderer in my soul.