I WANDER'D lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay :
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee :-
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed-and gazed-but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought :
For oft when on my couch I lie,
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
THE REVERIE OF POOR SUSAN.
AT the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears, There's a thrush that sings loud-it has sung for three years: Poor Susan has pass'd 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 tripp'd 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 pass'd away from her eyes.
AN Orpheus! an Orpheus !-yes, Faith may grow bold,
And take to herself all the wonders of old ;—
Near the stately Pantheon you'll meet with the same,
In the street that from Oxford hath borrow'd its name.
His station is there; and he works on the crowd,
He sways them with harmony merry and loud;
He fills with his power all their hearts to the brim-
Was aught ever heard like his fiddle and him?
What an eager assembly-what an empire is this!
The weary have life, and the hungry have bliss ;
The mourner is cheer'd, and the anxious have rest;
And the guilt-burthen'd soul is no longer oppress'd.
As the moon brightens round her the clouds of the night,
So he, where he stands, is a centre of light;
It gleams on the face, there, of dusky-brow'd Jack,
And the pale-visaged baker, with basket on back.
That errand-bound 'prentice was passing in haste-
What matter! he's caught-and his time runs to waste-
The newsman is stopp'd, though he stops on the fret,
And the half-breathless lamplighter, he's in the net!
The porter sits down on the weight which he bore;
The lass with her barrow wheels hither her store ;-
If a thief could be here he might pilfer at ease;
She sees the musician, 'tis all that she sees!
He stands, back'd by the wall; he abates not his din;
His hat gives him vigour, with boons dropping in,
From the old and the young, from the poorest-and there!
The one-pennied boy has his penny to spare.
O blest are the hearers, and proud be the hand
Of the pleasure it spreads through so thankful a band;
I am glad for him, blind as he is!-all the while
If they speak 'tis to praise, and they praise with a smile.
That tall man, a giant in bulk and in height,
Not an inch of his body is free from delight;
Can he keep himself still, if he would? oh, not he!
The music stirs in him like wind through a tree.
There's a cripple who leans on his crutch; like a tower
That long has lean'd forward, leans hour after hour!-
A mother, whose spirit in fetters is bound,
While she dandles the babe in her arms to the sound.
Now, coaches and chariots! roar on like a stream;
Here are twenty souls happy as souls in a dream:
They are deaf to your murmurs-they care not for you,
Nor what ye are flying, nor what ye pursue'
While my fellow-traveller and I were walking by the side of Loch Katrine, one fine evening after sunset, in our road to a hut where in the course of our tour we had been hospitably entertained some weeks before, we met, in one of the loneliest parts of that solitary region, two well-dressed women, one of whom said to us, by way of greeting, "What, you are stepping westward."
"What, you are stepping westward?"—"Yea."
-Twould be a wildish destiny,
If we, who thus together roam
In a strange land, and far from home,
Were in this place the guests of chance;
Yet who would stop, or fear t' advance,
Though home or shelter he had none,
With such a sky to lead him on?
The dewy ground was dark and cold;
Behind, all gloomy to behold;
And stepping westward seem'd to be
A kind of heavenly destiny:
I liked the greeting; 'twas a sound
Of something without place or bound;
And seem'd to give me spiritual right
To travel through that region bright.
The voice was soft, and she who spake
Was walking by her native lake ;
The salutation had to me
The very sound of courtesy;
Its power was felt; and while my eye
Was fix'd upon the glowing sky,
The echo of the voice enwrought
A human sweetness with the thought
Of travelling through the world that lay
Before me in my endless way.
GLEN-ALMAIN; OR, THE NARROW GLEN.
In this still place, remote from men,
Sleeps Ossian, in the "Narrow Glen;"
In this still place, where murmurs on
But one meek streamlet, only one :
He sang of battles, and the breath
Of stormy war, and violent death;
And should, methinks, when all was past,
Have rightfully been laid at last
Where rocks were rudely heap'd, and rent
As by a spirit turbulent;
Where sights were rough, and sounds were wild,
And everything unreconciled;
In some complaining, dim retreat,
For fear and melancholy meet;
But this is calm; there cannot be
A more entire tranquillity.
Does then the bard sleep here indeed?
Or is it but a groundless creed?
What matters it ?-I blame them not
Whose fancy in this lonely spot
Was moved; and in this way express'd
Their notion of its perfect rest.
A convent, even a hermit's cell
Would break the silence of this dell:
It is not quiet, is not ease;
But something deeper far than these:
The separation that is here
s of the grave; and of austere
And happy feelings of the dead:
And, therefore, was it rightly said
That Ossian, last of all his race!
Lies buried in this lonely place.
TO A HIGHLAND GIRL.
(AT INVERSNAID, UPON LOCH LOMOND.) SWEET Highland Girl, a very shower Of beauty is thy earthly dower! Twice seven consenting years have shed Their utmost bounty on thy head;
And these grey rocks; this household lawn;
These trees, a veil just half withdrawn ;
This fall of water, that doth make
A murmur near the silent lake;
This little bay, a quiet road,
That holds in shelter thy abode;
In truth together ye do seem
Like something fashion'd in a dream;
Such forms as from their covert peep
When earthly cares are laid asleep!
Yet, dream and vision as thou art,
I bless thee with a human heart!
God shield thee to thy latest years!
I neither know thee nor thy peers;
And yet my eyes are fill'd with tears.
With earnest feeling I shall pray
For thee when I am far away:
For never saw I mien, or face,
In which more plainly I could trace
Benignity and home-bred sense
Ripening in perfect innocence.
Here, scatter'd like a random seed,
Remote from men, thou dost not need
The embarrass'd look of shy distress,
And maidenly shamefacedness;
Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear
The freedom of a mountaineer,
A face with gladness overspread!
Sweet looks, by human kindness bred!
And seemliness complete, that sways
Thy courtesies, about thee plays;
With no restraint, but such as springs
From quick and eager visitings
Of thoughts, that lie beyond the reach
Of thy few words of English speech;
A bondage sweetly brook'd, a strife
That gives thy gestures grace and life!
So have I, not unmoved in mind,
Seen birds of tempest-loving kind,
Thus beating up against the wind.
What hand but would a garland cull
For thee, who art so beautiful?
O happy pleasure! here to dwell
Beside thee in some heathy dell;
Adopt your homely ways and dress,
A shepherd, thou a shepherdess !
But I could frame a wish for thee
More like a grave reality:
Thou art to me but as a wave
Of the wild sea; and I would have
Some claim upon thee, if I could,
Though but of common neighbourhood.
What joy to hear thee, and to see!
Thy elder brother I would be,
Thy father, anything to thee!
Now thanks to Heaven! that of its grace
Hath led me to this lonely place.
Joy have I had; and going hence
I bear away my recompense.
In spots like these it is we prize
Our memory, feel that she hath eyes;
Then, why should I be loth to stir?
I feel this place was made for her;
To give new pleasure like the past,
Continued long as life shall last.
Nor am I loth, though pleased at heart,
Sweet Highland Girl! from thee to part;
For I, methinks, till I grow old,
As fair before me shall behold,
As I do now, the cabin small,
The lake, the bay, the waterfall;
And thee, the spirit of them all!
THE SOLITARY REAPER.
BEHOLD her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland lass!
Reaping and singing by herself.
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts, and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain.
O listen for the vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.
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