The Complete Poetical Works of William Wordsworth

The mother, in her turns of anguish, worse

So clear, so bright, our fathers said Than desolate; for ofttimes from the sound

He wears a jewel in his head ! Of the survivor's sweetest voice (dear child,

And when, upon some showery day, He knew it not) and from his happiest looks,

Into a path or public way Did she extract the food of self-reproach,

A frog leaps out from bordering grass, As one that lived ungrateful for the stay

Startling the timid as they pass, By Heaven afforded to uphold her maimed

Do you observe him, and endeavour And tottering spirit. And full oft the boy,

To take the intruder into favour; Now first acquainted with distress and grief,

Learning from him to find a reason
Shrunk from his mother's presence, shunned with fear For a light heart in a dull season.
Her sad approach, and stole away to find,

And you may love him in the pool,
In his known haunts of joy where'er he might, That is for him a happy school,
A more congenial object. But, as time

In which he swims as taught by nature,
Softened her pangs and reconciled the child

Fit pattern for a human creature, To what he saw, he gradually returned,

Glancing amid the water bright,
Like a scared bird encouraged to renew

And sending upward sparkling light.
A broken intercourse; and, while his eyes
Were yet with pensive fear and gentle awe

Nor blush if o'er your heart be stealing
Turned upon her who bore him, she would stoop A love for things that have no feeling:
To imprint a kiss that lacked not power to spread The Spring's first rose by you espied,
Faint colour over both their pallid cheeks,

May fill your breast with joyful pride;
And stilled his tremulous lip. Thus they were calmed And you may love the strawberry-flower,
And cheered; and now together breathe fresh air And love the strawberry in its bower;
In open fields; and when the glare of day

But when the fruit, so often praised
Is gone, and twilight to the mother's wish

For beauty, to your lip is raised,
Befriends the observance, readily they join

Say not you love the delicate treat,
In walks whose boundary is the lost one's grave, But like it, enjoy it, and thankfully eat.
Which he with flowers hath planted, finding there
Amusement, where the mother does not miss

Long may you love your pensioner mouse,
Dear consolation, kneeling on the turf

Though one of a tribe that torment the house: In prayer, yet blending with that solemn rite

Nor dislike for her cruel sport the cat, Of pious faith the vanities of grief;

Deadly foe both of mouse and rat; For such, by pitying Angels and by Spirits

Remember she follows the law of her kind, Transferred to regions upon which the clouds

And instinct is neither wayward nor blind. Of our weak nature rest not, must be deemed

Then think of her beautiful gliding form, Those willing tears, and unforbidden sighs,

Her tread that would scarcely crush a worm,
And all those tokens of a cherished sorrow,

And her soothing song by the winter fire,
Which, soothed and sweetened by the grace of Heaven Soft as the dying throb of the lyre.
As now it is, seems to her own fond heart,
Immortal as the love that gave it being.

I would not circumscribe your love:
It may soar with the eagle and brood with the dove
May pierce the earth with the patient mole,

Or track the hedgehog to his hole.
LOVING AND LIKING:

Loving and liking are the solace of life,
IRREGULAR VERSES, ADDRESSED TO A CHILD.

Rock the cradle of joy, smooth the death-bed of strife
You love your father and your mother,

Your grown-up and your baby brother;
THERE's more in words than I can teach:

You love your sister, and your friends, Yet listen, child !- I would not preach;

And countless blessings which God sends: But only give some plain directions

And while these right affections play, To guide your speech and your affections.

You live each moment of your day; Say not you love a roasted fowl,

They lead you on to full content, But you may love a screaming owl,

And likings fresh and innocent, And, if you can, the unwieldy toad

That store the mind, the memory feed, That crawls from his secure abode

And prompt to many a gentle deed: Within the mossy garden wall

But likings come, and pass away; When evening dews begin to fall.

"Tis love that remains till our latest day: O mark the beauty of his eye.

Our heavenward guide is holy love, What wonders in that circle lie!

And will be - bliss with saints above.

BY MY SISTER.

Which old folk, fondly pleased to trim
Lamps of faith, now burning dim,
Say that the cherubs carved in stone,
When clouds gave way at dead of night
And the ancient church was filled with light,
Used to sing in heavenly tone,
Above and round the sacred places
They guard, with winged baby-faces.

Thrice happy creature! in all lands Nurtured by hospitable hands: Free entrance to this cot has he, Entrance and exit both yet free; And, when the keen unruffled weather That thus brings man and bird together, Shall with its pleasantness be past, And casement closed and door made fast, To keep at bay the howling blast, He needs not fear the season's rage, For the whole house is Robin's cage. Whether the bird flit here or there, O’er table lill, or perch on chair, Though some may frown and make a stir, To scare him as a trespasser, And he belike will flinch or start, Good friends he has to take his part; One chiefly, who with voice and look Pleads for him from the chimney-nook, Where sits the dame, and wears away Her long and vacant holiday; With images about her heart, Reflected from the years gone by, On human nature's second infancy.

HER EYES ARE WILD.

THE REDBREAST.

SUGGESTED IN A WESTMORELAND COTTAGE.

Driven in by Autumn's sharpening air
From half-stripped woods and pastures bare,
Brisk robin seeks a kindlier home:
Not like a beggar is he come,
But enters as a looked-for guest,
Confiding in his ruddy breast,
As if it were a natural shield
Charged with a blazon on the field,
Due to that good and pious deed
Of which we in the ballad read.
But pensive fancies putting by,
And wild-wood sorrows, speedily
He plays the expert ventriloquist;
And, caught by glimpses now — now missed,
Puzzles the listener with a doubt
If the soft voice he throws about
Comes from within doors or without !
Was ever such a sweet confusion,
Sustained by delicate illusion ?
He's at your elbow – to your feeling
The notes are from the floor or ceiling;
And there's a riddle to be guessed,
"Till you have marked his heaving chest,
And busy throat whose sink and swell
Betray the elf that loves to dwell
Io Robin's bosom, as a chosen cell.

Heart-pleased we smile upon the bird
If
seen,

and with like pleasure stirred
Cornmend him, when he's only heard.
But small and fugitive our gain
Compared with hers who long hath lain,
With languid limbs and patient head
Repocing on a lone sick-bed;
Where now, she daily hears a strain
That cheats her of too busy cares,
Eises her pain, and helps her prayers.
And who but this dear bird beguiled
The fever of that pale-faced child;
Now cooling with his passing wing,
Her forehead, like a breeze of Spring:
Recalling now, with descant soft
Shed round her pillow from aloft,
Sweet thoughts of angels hovering nigh,
And the invisible sympathy
0f • Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John,
Blessing the bed she lies upon ?'*
And sometimes, just as listening ends
In slumber, with the cadence blends
A dream of that low-warbled hymn

Her eyes are wild, her head is bare,
The sun has burnt her coal-black hair;
Her eyebrows have a rusty stain,
And she came far from over the main.
She has a baby on her arm,
Or else she were alone:
And underneath the hay-stack warm,
And on the greenwood stone,
She talked and sung the woods among,
And it was in the English tongue.

II.

The words -
Matthew, Mork, and Luke, and John,

Bless the bed that I lie on,'
are part of a child's prayer, still in general use through the

“Sweet babe! they say that I am mad,
But nay, my heart is far too glad;
And I am happy when I sing
Full many a sad and doleful thing:
Then, lovely baby, do not fear!
I
pray

thee have no fear of me;
But safe as in a cradle, here
My lovely baby! thou shalt be:
To thee I know too much I owe;
I cannot work thee any woe,

northern counties.

POETICAL WORKS

III.

A fire was once within my brain;
And in my head a dull, dull pain;
And fiendish faces, one, two, three,
Hung at my breast, and pulled at me;
But then there came a sight of joy;
It came at once to do me good;
I waked, and saw my little boy,
My little boy of flesh and blood;
O joy for me that sight to see !
For he was here, and only he.

VII. Thy father cares not for my breast, 'T is thine, sweet baby, there to rest ; 'Tis all thine own! — and, if its bue Be changed, that was so fair to view, 'Tis fair enough for thee, my dove! My beauty, little child, is flown, But thou wilt live with me in love; And what if my poor cheek be brown ? 'T is well for me, thou canst not see How pale and wan it else would be.

NOTES

POEMS FOUNDED ON THE AFFECTIONS.

The letter from which this extract is made, was pubNote, p. 87.

lished in 1838, by Sir Henry Bunbury, among some "The Brothers."

miscellaneous letters in his “Correspondence of Sir (Extract from a letter addressed by Wordsworth to Thomas Hanmer, etc.," p. 436. Carles James Fox in 1802, and accompanying a copy It is this poem of which Coleridge said—“THE BROof the Poems:

THERS, that model of English pastoral, which I never “In the two poems, "The Brothers' and · Michael, yet read with unclouded eye.” Biographia Literaria, I have attempted to draw a picture of the domestic Vol. II., chap. v., p. 85, Note, Edit. of 1847. And affections, as I know they exist amongst a class of men Southey, writing to Coleridge, July 11, 1801, says: – i ho are now almost confined to the north of England. “God bless Wordsworth for that poem! (“The BroThey are small independent proprietors of land, here THERS.")" Life and Correspondence of Southey, Vol. II., called • statesmen,' men of respectable education, who

p. 150, chap. viii. - H. R.] daily labour on their own little properties. The domestic affections will always be strong amongst men who live

Page 96. In a country not crowded with population; if these men

.I travelled among unknown men.' are placed above poverty. But, if they are proprietors

[“ Amongst the Poems founded on the Affections is # small estates which have descended to them from Uber ancestors, the power which these affections will one called, from its first line, “I travelled among unacquire amongst such men, is inconceivable by those known men,' which ends with these lines, wherein the who bare only had an opportunity of observing hired poet addresses his native land : ka tourers, fariners, and the manufacturing poor. Their Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed itle tract of land serves as a kind of permanent rally. The bowers where Lucy played ; ing point for their domestic feelings, as a tablet upon And thine too is the last green field a bich they are written, which makes them objects of That Lucy's eyes surveyed. Cipriory in a thousand instances when they would A friend, a true poet himself, to whom I owe some new vverwise be forgotten. It is a fountain fitted to the insight into the merits of Mr. Wordsworth's poetry, pa'ure of social man, from which supplies of affection and who showed me to my surprise, that there were d« mire as his heart was intended for, are daily drawn. nooks in that rich and varied region, some of the shy Tiis class of men is rapidly disappearing. You, Sir, treasures of which I was not perfectly acquainted with, here a consciousness, upon which every good man will first made me feel the great beauty of this stanza ; in ruggratulate you, that the whole of your public conduct which the poet, as it were, spreads day and night over has in one way or other been directed to the preservation the object of his affections, and seems, under the influce this class of men, and those who hold similar situa- ence of passionate feeling, to think of England, whether 103. You have felt that the most sacred of all pro- in light or darkness, only as her play-place and verdant "sity is the property of the poor. The two poems home. -S. C.” (Sara Coleridge.) Biographia LitePhat I have mentioned were written with a view to raria of S. T. Coleridge, Vol. II., chap. ix., p. 173, Note, w that men who do not wear fine cloaths can feel Edit. of 1847.-H. R.] loppy. Pectus enim est quod disertos facit, et vis Turnus. Ideoque imperitis quoque, si modo sint aliquo

Page 98. ctu concitati, verba non desunt.' The poems are

Let other bards of angels sing.' "Stiful copies from nature; and I hope whatever effect they have upon you, you will at least be able to

[In his editions of 1845 and 1850, the author has ex: steve that they may excite profitable sympathies in cluded the following stanza, which was the second in

kind and good hearts ; and may in some small this piece in the earlier editions, to the readers of which Senarge our feelings of reverence for our species, it had become familiar, and is therefore preserved in 1. Mur knowledge of human nature, by showing that this note : 11,7 best qualities are possessed by men whom we are

Such if thou wert in all men's view, ang app to consider, not with reference to the points

A universal show, nahich they resemble us, but to those in which they

What would my fancy have to do? man testly differ from us."

My feelings to bestow ? - H. R.
R

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