And sky, whose beauty and bounty are expressed By the proud name she bears, the name of Heaven. I called on both to teach me what they might; Or turning the mind in upon herself,
Pored, watched, expected, listened, spread my thoughts
And spread them with a wider creeping; felt Incumbencies more awful, visitings Of the Upholder of the tranquil soul, That tolerates the indignities of time, And, from the centre of eternity All finite motions overruling, lives In glory immutable. But peace! enough Here to record that I was mounting now To such community with highest truth— A track pursuing, not untrod before, From strict analogies by thought supplied Or consciousnesses not to be subdued. To every natural form, rock, fruit, or flower, Even the loose stones that cover the highway, I gave a moral life: I saw them feel,
Or linked them to some feeling: the great mass Lay bedded in a quickening soul, and all That I beheld respired with inward meaning. Add that whate'er of terror or of love Or beauty, Nature's daily face put on From transitory passion, unto this
I was as sensitive as waters are
To the sky's influence in a kindred mood Of passion; was obedient as a lute
That waits upon the touches of the wind. Unknown, unthought of, yet I was most rich- I had a world about me, 'twas my own; I made it, for it only lived to me,
And to the God who sees into the heart. Such sympathies, though rarely, were betrayed By outward gestures and by visible looks: Some called it madness-so indeed it was, If child-like fruitfulness in passing joy, If steady moods of thoughtfulness matured
To inspiration, sort with such a name; If prophecy be madness; if things viewed By poets in old time, and higher up By the first men, earth's first inhabitants, May in these tutored days no more be seen With undisordered sight. But leaving this, It was no madness, for the bodily eye Amid my strongest workings evermore Was searching out the lines of difference As they lie hid in all external forms, Near or remote, minute or vast; an eye Which, from a tree, a stone, a withered leaf, To the broad ocean and the azure heavens Spangled with kindred multitudes of stars, Could find no surface where its power might sleep; Which spake perpetual logic to my soul, And by an unrelenting agency
Did bind my feelings even as in a chain.
O Heavens! how awful is the might of souls, And what they do within themselves while yet The yoke of earth is new to them, the world Nothing but a wild field where they were sown.
Points have we all of us within our souls Where all stand single; this I feel, and make Breathings for incommunicable powers; But is not each a memory to himself?-
And yet not utterly. I could not print
Ground where the grass had yielded to the steps Of generations of illustrious men,
Unmoved. I could not always lightly pass Through the same gateways, sleep where they had slept.
Beside the pleasant mill of Trompington I laughed with Chaucer in the hawthorn shade;
Heard him, while birds were warbling, tell his tales Of amorous passion. And that gentle bard, Chosen by the muses for their page of state, Sweet Spenser, moving through his clouded heaven With the moon's beauty and the moon's soft pace, I called him brother, Englishman, and friend! Yea, our blind Poet, who, in his later day, Stood almost single; uttering odious truth, Darkness before, and danger's voice behind, Soul awful, if the earth has ever lodged An awful soul, I seemed to see him here Familiarly, and in his scholar's dress Bounding before me, yet a stripling youth, A boy, no better, with his rosy cheeks Angelical, keen eye, courageous look, And conscious step of purity and pride.
BRIGHT was the summer's noon when quickening steps Followed each other till a dreary moor
Was crossed, a bare ridge clomb, upon whose top Standing alone, as from a rampart's edge,
I overlooked the bed of Windermere, Like a vast river, stretching in the sun. With exultation, at my feet I saw
Lake, islands, promontories, gleaming bays, A universe of Nature's fairest forms Proudly revealed with instantaneous burst, Magnificent, and beautiful, and gay.
I bounded down the hill shouting amain For the old ferryman; to the shout the rock Replied, and when the Charon of the flood Had staid his oars, and touched the jutting pier, I did not step into the well-known boat
Without a cordial greeting. Thence with speed
Up the familiar hill I took my way
Towards that sweet valley 1 where I had been reared; 'Twas but a short hour's walk, ere veering round
I saw the snow-white church upon her hill Sit like a throned Lady, sending out
A gracious look all over her domain. Yon azure smoke betrays the lurking town; With eager footsteps I advance and reach The cottage threshold where my journey closed. Glad welcome had I, with some tears, perhaps, From my old dame, so kind and motherly, While she perused me with a parent's pride. The thoughts of gratitude shall fall like dew Upon thy grave, good creature! While my heart Can beat never will I forget thy name.
Heaven's blessing be upon thee where thou liest After thy innocent and busy stir
In narrow cares, thy little daily growth Of calm enjoyments, after eighty years, And more than eighty, of untroubled life, Childless, yet by the strangers to thy blood Honoured with little less than filial love. What joy was mine to see thee once again, Thee and thy dwelling, and a crowd of things About its narrow precincts all beloved, And many of them seeming yet my own! Why should I speak of what a thousand hearts Have felt, and every man alive can guess? The rooms, the court, the garden were not left Long unsaluted, nor the sunny seat Round the stone table under the dark pine, Friendly to studious or to festive hours; Nor that unruly child of mountain birth, The famous brook, who, soon as he was boxed Within our garden, found himself at once, As if by trick insidious and unkind. Stripped of his voice and left to dimple down
(Without an effort and without a will) A channel paved by man's officious care.
The memory of one particular hour
Doth here rise up against me.
Of maids and youths, old men, and matrons staid, A medley of all tempers, I had passed
The night in dancing, gaiety, and mirth,
The cock had crowed, and now the eastern sky Was kindling, not unseen, from humble copse And open field, through which the pathway wound, And homeward led my steps. Magnificent The morning rose, in memorable pomp, Glorious as e'er I had beheld; in front, The sea lay laughing at a distance; near, The solid mountains shone, bright as the clouds, Grain-tinctured, drenched in empyrean light; And in the meadows and the lower grounds Was all the sweetness of a common dawn- Dews, vapours, and the melody of birds, And labourers going forth to till the fields. Ah! need I say, dear friend! that to the brim My heart was full; I made no vows, but vows Were then made for me; bond unknown to me Was given, that I should be, else sinning greatly, A dedicated spirit. On I walked
In thankful blessedness, which yet survives.
A thought is with me sometimes, and I say, Should the whole frame of earth by inward throes Be wrenched, or fire come down from far to scorch Her pleasant habitations, and dry up
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