From worlds not quickened by the sun
A portion of the gift is won;
An intermingling of Heaven's pomp is spread
On ground which British shepherds tread!
And, if there be whom broken ties
Afflict, or injuries assail,
Yon hazy ridges to their eyes
Present a glorious scale,
Climbing suffused with sunny air,
To stop-no record hath told where !
And tempting fancy to ascend,
And with immortal Spirits blend !
-Wings at my shoulders seem to play ;
But, rooted here, I stand and gaze
On those bright steps that heavenward raise
Their practicable way.
Come forth, ye drooping old men, look abroad,
And see to what fair countries ye are bound!
And if some traveller, weary of his road,
Hath slept since noon-tide on the grassy ground,
Ye Genii! to his covert speed,
And wake him with such gentle heed
As may attune his soul to meet the dower
Bestowed on this transcendant hour!
Such hues from their celestial urn
Were wont to stream before mine eye,
Where'er it wandered in the morn
This glimpse of glory why renewed?
Nay, rather speak with gratitude;
For, if a vestige of those gleams
Survived, 'twas only in my dreams.
Dread Power! whom peace and calmness serve
No less than Nature's threatening voice,
If aught unworthy be my choice,
From THEE if I would swerve;
Oh! let thy grace remind me of the light
Full early lost, and fruitlessly deplored,
Which, at this moment, on my waking sight
Appears to shine, by miracle restored;
My soul, though yet confined to earth,
Rejoices in a second birth!
'Tis past! the visionary splendour fades, And Night approaches with her shades.
THE LAST DAY OF AUTUMN.
THE year lies dying in this evening light;
The poet, musing in autumnal woods,
Hears melancholy sighs
Among the withered leaves.
Not so-but like a spirit glorified
The angel of the year departs, lays down
His robes, once green in spring,
Or bright with summer's blue,
And, having done his mission on the earth, Filling ten thousand vales with golden corn, Orchards with rosy fruit,
And scattering flowers around,
He lingers for a moment in the west,
With the declining sun sheds over all
A pleasant, farewell smile,
And so returns to God.
T is a beauteous evening, calm and free ;
The holy time is quiet as a nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquillity ;
The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the sea :
Listen the mighty being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder-everlastingly.
Dear child! dear girl! that walkest with me here,
If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,
Thy nature is not therefore less divine:
Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year,
And worship'st at the Temple's inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it, not.
Composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, on re-visiting the banks of the Wye during a tour, July 13th, 1798.
FIVE years have past; five summers, with the
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur. Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion, and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which, at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!
With some uncertain notice, as might seem,
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some hermit's cave, where, by his fire,
The hermit sits alone.
These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye :
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration :-feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burden of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened :-that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on,
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While, with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft―
In darkness and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
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