“CALM IS ALL NATURE AS A RESTING WHEEL."
CALM is all nature as a resting wheel.
The kine are couched upon the dewy grass;
The horse alone, seen dimly as I pass,
Is cropping audibly his later meal:
Dark is the ground; a slumber seems to steal
O'er vale, and mountain, and the starless sky.
Now, in this blank of things, a harmony,
Home-felt, and home-created, comes to heal
That grief for which the senses still supply
Fresh food; for only then, when memory
Is hushed, am I at rest. My friends! restrain
Those busy cares that would allay my pain:
Oh! leave me to myself; nor let me feel
The officious touch that makes me droop again.
1786?
COMPOSED UPON THE THAMES, NEAR RICHMOND.
GLIDE gently, thus for ever glide,
O Thames that other bards may see
As lovely visions by thy side
As now, fair river! come to me.
Oh, glide, fair stream, for ever so!
Thy quiet soul on all bestowing,
Till all our minds for ever flow,
As thy deep waters now are flowing.
Vain thought!-Yet be as now thou art,
That in thy waters may be seen
The image of a poet's heart
How bright, how solemn, how serene!
Such as did once the poet bless,
Who murmuring here a later ditty,
Could find no refuge from distress
But in the milder grief of pity.
Now let us, as we float along,
For him suspend the dashing oar,
And pray that never child of song
May know that poet's sorrows more.
How calm! how still! the only sound
The dripping of the oar suspended!
The evening darkness gathers round,
By virtue's holiest Powers attended.
1789.
Left upon a seat in a Yew-tree, which stands near the Lake of Esthwaite, on a desolate part of the shore, commanding a beautiful prospect.
NAY, traveller! rest. This lonely Yew-tree stands
Far from all human dwelling: what if here
No sparkling rivulet spread the verdant herb? What if these barren boughs the bee not loves? Yet, if the wind breathe soft, the curling waves, That break against the shore, shall lull thy mind
By one soft impulse saved from vacancy.
That piled these stones, and with the mossy
First covered o'er, and taught this aged Tree
With its dark arms to form a circling bower
I well remember. He was one who owned
No common soul. In youth by science nursed,
And led by Nature into a wild scene
Of lofty hopes, he to the world went forth
A favoured being, knowing no desire
Which genius did not hallow,—'gainst the taint
Of dissolute tongues, and jealousy, and hate,
And scorn,—against all enemies prepared,
All but neglect. The world, for so it thought,
Owed him no service: wherefore he at once
With indignation turned himself away,
And with the food of pride sustained his soul
In solitude. Stranger! these gloomy boughs
Had charms for him; and here he loved to sit,
His only visitants a straggling sheep,
The stone-chat, or the glancing sand-piper :
And on these barren rocks, with fern and
heath,
And juniper and thistle, sprinkled o'er,
Fixing his downcast eye, he many an hour
A morbid pleasure nourished, tracing here
An emblem of his own unfruitful life :
And, lifting up his head, he then would gaze On the more distant scene,—how lovely 'tis Thou seest, and he would gaze till it became Far lovelier, and his heart could not sustain The beauty, still more beauteous!
When Nature had subdued him to herself,
Would he forget those beings, to whose minds;
Warm from the labours of benevolence,
The world, and human life, appeared a scene
Of kindred loveliness, then he would sigh
With mournful joy, to think that others felt
What he must never feel: and so, lost man!
On visionary views would fancy feed,
Till his eye streamed with tears.
He died, this seat his only monument.
If thou be one whose heart the holy forms
Of young imagination have kept pure,
Stranger! henceforth be warned; and know
that pride,
Howe'er disguised in its own majesty,
Is littleness; that he who feels contempt
For any living thing, hath faculties
Which he has never used; that thought with him
Is in its infancy. The man whose eye
Is ever on himself doth look on one,
The least of Nature's works, one who might
The wise man to that scorn which wisdom holds Unlawful, ever. O be wiser, thou!
Instructed that true knowledge leads to love,
True dignity abides with him alone
Who, in the silent hour of inward thought,
Can still suspect, and still revere himself,
In lowliness of heart.
THE REVERIE OF POOR SUSAN.
AT the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears,
Hangs a thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three years :
Poor Susan has passed by the spot, and has heard
In the silence of morning the song of the bird. 'Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? She sees
A mountain ascending, a vision of trees; Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide,
And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.
|