To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,

The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure :--
But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature's holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?

1798. 1798.

TO MY SISTER

IT is the first mild day of March:
Each minute sweeter than before
The red breast sings from the tall larch
That stands beside our door.

There is a blessing in the air,
Which seems a sense of joy to yield
To the bare trees, and mountains bare,
And grass in the green field.

My sister! ('tis a wish of mine)
Now that our morning meal is done,
Make haste, your morning task resign;
Come forth and feel the sun.

Edward will come with you ;--and, pray,
Put on with speed your woodland dress;
And bring no book: for this one day
We'll give to idleness.

No joyless forms shall regulate
Our living calendar:

We from to-day, my Friend, will date
The opening of the year.

Love, now a universal birth,

From heart to heart is stealing,

From earth to man, from man to earth: -It is the hour of feeling.

One moment now may give us more
Than years of toiling reason :
Our minds shall drink at every pore
The spirit of the season.

Some silent laws our hearts will make,
Which they shall long obey:
We for the year to come may take
Our temper from to-day.

And from the blessed power that rolls About, below, above,

We'll frame the measure of our souls: They shall be tuned to love.

Then come, my Sister! come, I pray, With speed put on your woodland dress; And bring no book: for this one day We'll give to idleness. 1798. 1798.

A WHIRL-BLAST FROM BEHIND THE HILL

A WHIRL-BLAST from behind the hill Rushed o'er the wood with startling sound;

Then--all at once the air was still,

And showers of hailstones pattered round.

Where leafless oaks towered high above, I sat within an undergrove

Of tallest hollies, tall and green; A fairer bower was never seen. From year to year the spacious floor With withered leaves is covered o'er, And all the year the bower is green. But see! where'er the hailstones drop The withered leaves all skip and hop; There's not a breeze-no breath of airYet here, and there, and everywhere Along the floor, beneath the shade By those embowering hollies made, The leaves in myriads jump and spring, As if with pipes and music rare Some Robin Good-fellow were there, And all those leaves, in festive glee, Were dancing to the minstrelsy. 1798. 1800.

"You look round on your Mother Earth,
As if she for no purpose bore you;
As if you were her first-born birth,
And none had lived before you!"

One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake,
When life was sweet, I knew not why,
To me my good friend Matthew spake,
And thus I made reply:

"The eye-it cannot choose but see;
We cannot bid the ear be still;
Our bodies feel, where'er they be,
Against or with our will.

"Nor less I deem that there are Powers
Which of themselves our minds impress;
That we can feed this mind of ours
In a wise passiveness.

"Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum
Of things for ever speaking,
That nothing of itself will come,
But we must still be seeking?

"Then ask not wherefore, here, alone, Conversing as I may,

I sit upon this old gray stone,
And dream my time away."

1798. 1798.

THE TABLES TURNED

AN EVENING SCENE ON THE SAME SUBJECT

UP!up! my Friend, and quit your books; Or surely you'll grow double:

Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;

Why all this toil and trouble?

The sun, above the mountain's head,
A freshening lustre mellow
Through all the long green fields has
spread,

His first sweet evening yellow.
Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet his music! on my life,
There's more of wisdom in it.

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher :
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless-
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous
things:

We murder to dissect.

forms of

No poem of mine was composed under circumstances more pleasant for me to remember than this. I began it upon leaving Tintern, after crossing the Wye, and concluded it just as I was entering Bristol in the evening, after a ramble of four or five days, with my sister. Not a line of it was altered, and not any part of it written down till I reached Bristol. It was published almost immediately after in the little volume of which so much has been said in these Notes. (Wordsworth. The volume referred to is The Lyrical Ballads, as first published at Bristol by Cottle.)

FIVE years have past; five summers, with the length

Of five long winters! and again I hear These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs

With a soft inland murmur.1-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

The river is not affected by the tides a few miles above Tintern. -(Wordsworth, 1798.)

Shine on thee in thy solitary walk ; And let the misty mountain-winds be free

To blow against thee: and, in after years, When these wild ecstasies shall be matured

Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies;
oh! then,

If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief, Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts

Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance

If I should be where I no more can hear Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes

these gleams

Of past existence-wilt thou then forget That on the banks of this delightful

stream

We stood together; and that I, so long A worshipper of Nature, hither came Unwearied in that service: rather say With warmer love-oh! with far deeper zeal

Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then for

get,

Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me

The passions that build up our human soul;

Not with the mean and vulgar works of Man,

But with high objects, with enduring things..

With life and nature; purifying thus
The elements of feeling and of thought,
And sanctifying by such discipline
Both pain and fear,-until we recognize
A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.
Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to

me

With stinted kindness. In November days,

When vapors rolling down the valleys made

A lonely scene more lonesome; among woods

At noon; and 'mid the calm of summer nights,

When by the margin of the trembling lake,

Beneath the gloomy hills, homeward I

went

In solitude, such intercourse was mine: Mine was it in the fields both day and

night,

And by the waters, all the summer long.
And in the frosty season, when the sun
Was set, and, visible for many a mile,
The cottage-windows through the twi-
light blazed,

I heeded not the summons: happy time
It was indeed for all of us; for me
It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud
The village-clock tolled six--I wheeled
about,

Proud and exulting like an untired horse That cares not for his home.-All shod with steel

We hissed along the polished ice, in