Nature will either end thee quite;

Or, lengthening out thy season of delight,
Preserve for thee, by individual right,

A young lamb's heart among the full-grown flocks.
What hast thou to do with sorrow,

Or the injuries of to-morrow?

Thou art a dew-drop, which the morn brings forth,

Ill fitted to sustain unkindly shocks,1

Or to be trailed along the soiling earth;

A gem that glitters while it lives,

And no forewarning gives;

But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife

Slips in a moment out of life.

These stanzas were addressed to Hartley Coleridge. The lines

I think of thee with many fears

For what may be thy lot in future years,

taken in connection with his subsequent career suggests the similarly sad "presentiment" with which the lines on Tintern Abbey conclude. -Ed.

1

By a Daisy whose leaves spread
Shut when Titan goes to bed;
Or a shady bush or tree;
She could more infuse in me
Than all Nature's beauties can
In some other wiser man."

G. WITHER.

[Composed in the orchard, Town-end, Grasmere.]

1807.

IN youth from rock to rock I went,
From hill to hill in discontent

Of pleasure high and turbulent,

Most pleased when most uneasy;
But now my own delights I make,-
My thirst at every rill can slake,
And gladly Nature's love partake,
Of Thee, sweet Daisy ! 2

Thee Winter in the garland wears
That thinly decks his few grey hairs;

Spring parts the clouds with softest airs,
That she may sun thee; 3

When soothed awhile by milder airs,
Thee Winter in the garland wears,
That thinly shades his few grey hairs;

Spring cannot shun thee;

When Winter decks his few gray hairs,
Thee in the scanty wreath he wears;
Spring parts the clouds with softest airs,
That she may sun thee;

1807.

1827.

1 1836.

Whole Summer-fields are thine by right;
And Autumn, melancholy Wight!
Doth in thy crimson head delight
When rains are on thee.

In shoals and bands, a morrice train,
Thou greet'st the traveller in the lane;
Pleased at his greeting thee again;

Yet nothing daunted,

Nor grieved if thou be set at nought:
And oft alone in nooks remote

1

We meet thee, like a pleasant thought,
When such are wanted.

Be violets in their secret mews

The flowers the wanton Zephyrs choose;
Proud be the rose, with rains and dews
Her head impearling,

Thou liv'st with less ambitious aim,
Yet hast not gone without thy fame;
Thou art indeed by many a claim
The Poet's darling.

If to a rock from rains he fly,
Or, some bright day of April sky,
Imprisoned by hot sunshine lie
Near the green holly,

And wearily at length should fare;
He needs but look about, and there

Thou art a friend at hand, to scare
His melancholy.

If welcome once thou count'st it gain;

Thou art not daunted,

Nor car'st if thou be set at naught;

1807.

1 1807.

A hundred times, by rock or bower,
Ere thus I have lain couched an hour,
Have I derived from thy sweet power
Some apprehension;

Some steady love; some brief delight;
Some memory that had taken flight;

Some chime of fancy wrong or right;
Or stray invention.

If stately passions in me burn,

1

And one chance look to Thee should turn,
I drink out of an humbler urn

A lowlier pleasure ;

The homely sympathy that heeds
The common life, our nature breeds;
A wisdom fitted to the needs

Of hearts at leisure.

Fresh-smitten by the morning ray,
When thou art up, alert and gay,2
Then, cheerful Flower! my spirits play
With kindred gladness: 3

And when, at dusk, by dews opprest
Thou sink'st, the image of thy rest

Hath often eased my pensive breast

Of careful sadness.4

And all day long I number yet,
All seasons through, another debt,
Which I, wherever thou art met,
To thee am owing;

An instinct call it, a blind sense;
A happy, genial influence,

Coming one knows not how, nor whence,
Nor whither going.

Child of the Year! that round dost run

Thy pleasant course,-when day's begun
As ready to salute the sun

As lark or leveret,

Thy long-lost praise thou shalt regain;
Nor be less dear to future men

Than in old time;-thou not in vain

Art Nature's favourite.1

*

For illustration of the last stanza, see Chaucer's Prologue to "The Legend of Good Women."

As I seyde erst, whanne comen is the May,
That in my bed ther daweth me no day,
That I nam uppe and walkyng in the mede,
To seen this floure agein the sonne sprede,

See, in Chaucer, and the elder poets, the honours formerly paid to this flower.

1815.