SELECTIONS FROM WORDSWORTH.
FROM THE CONCLUSION OF A POEM, COMPOSED IN ANTICIPATION OF LEAVING SCHOOL.
DEAR native regions, I foretell, From what I feel at this farewell, That, wheresoe'er my steps may tend, And whensoe'er my course shall end, If in that hour a single tie Survive of local sympathy, My soul will cast the backward view, The longing look alone on you.
Thus, while the Sun sinks down to rest Far in the regions of the west, Though to the vale no parting beam Be given, not one memorial gleam, A lingering light he fondly throws On the dear hills where first he rose.
WRITTEN IN VERY EARLY YOUTH.
Composed 1786 (probably).
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.
LEFT UPON A SEAT IN A YEW-TREE, (1) WHICH STANDS NEAR THE LAKE OF ESTHWAITE, ON A DESOLATE PART OF THE SHORE, COMMANDING A BEAUTIFUL PROSPEСТ.
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 the bee love not these barren boughs? 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 sod First covered, and here 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! Nor, that time, 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, Inly disturbed, 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. In this deep vale 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 move 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.
REMEMBRANCE OF COLLINS,
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. O 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 heart did once the poet bless, Whỏ 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.
THE REVERIE OF POOR SUSAN. (2)
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.
Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale, Down which she so often has tripped with her pail; And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove's, The one only dwelling on earth that she loves..
She looks, and her heart is in heaven: but they fade, The mist and the river, the hill and the shade : The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise, And the colours have all passed away from her eyes!
With a continuous cloud of texture close, Heavy and wan, all whitened by the Moon, Which through that veil is indistinctly seen, A dull, contracted circle, yielding light So feebly spread, that not a shadow falls,
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