No door the tenement requires, And seldom needs a laboured roof'; Yet is it to the fiercest sun Impervious and storm-proof. So warm, so beautiful withal, In perfect fitness for its aim, That to the Kind by special grace Their instinct surely came. And when for their abodes they seek An opportune recess, For shadowy quietness. These find, 'mid ivied Abbey walls, A canopy in some still nook; Others are pent-housed by a brae That overhangs a brook. Just three days after, passing by In clearer light the moss-built cell And felt that all was well. The Primrose for a veil had spread The largest of her upright leaves; A simple Flower deceives. Concealed from friends who might disturb Thy quiet with no ill intent, On barbarous plunder bent, Rest, mother bird ! and when thy young Take flight, and thou art free to roam, When withered is the guardian flower, And empty thy late home, There to the brooding Bird her Mate Warbles by fits his low clear song ; And by the busy Streamlet both Are sung to all day long. Think how ye prospered, thou and thine, Amid the unviolated grove In foresight or in love. Or in sequestered lanes they build, Where, till the flitting Bird's return, Her eggs within the nest repose, Like relics in an urn. But still, where general choice is good, Taere is a better and a best; And, among fairest objects, some Are fairer than the rest; LOVE LIES BLEEDING, This, one of those small builders prove In a green covert, where, from out The forehead of a pollard oak, The leafy antlers sprout; For She who planned the mossy Lodge, Mistrusting her evasive skill, Had to a Primrose looked for aid Her wishes to fulfil. High on the trunk's projecting brow, And fixed an infant's span above The prettiest of the grove! You call it, “ Love lies bleeding," – so you may, bower wilt ever bear. The treasure proudly did I show To some whose minds without disdain Can turn to little things, but once Looked up for it in vain : "Tis gone "Tis - a ruthless Spoiler's prey, Who heeds not beauty, love, or song, gone! (so seemed it) and we griered Indignant at the wrong. COMPANION TO THE FOREGOING. The old mythologists, more impress'd than we Of this late day by character in tree Or herb, that claimed peculiar sympathy, Or by the silent lapse of fountain clear, Or with the language of the viewless air By bird or beast made vocal, sought a cause To solve the mystery, not in nature's laws But in man's fortunes. Hence a thousand tales Sung to the plaintive lyre in Grecian vales. Nor doubt that something of their spirit swayed The fancy-stricken youth or heart-sick maid, Who, while each stood companionless and eyed This undeparting flower in crimson dyed, Thought of a wound which death is slow to cure, A fate that has endured and will endure, And, patience coveting yet passion feeding Called the dejected Lingerer, Love lies bleeding. RURAL ILLUSIONS. Sylph was it? or a bird more bright Than those of fabulous stock? Another of the flock, To nestle in the rock. Of April's mimicries! Among the budding trees, To frolic on the breeze, Not such the world's illusive shows; Her wingless flutterings, The floweret as it springs, Are melancholy things: With ever-varying wiles, So well she reconciles, Whom oftenest she beguiles. ADDRESS TO MY INFANT DAUGHTER, DORA, ON BEING REMINDED THAT SHE WAS A MONTH OLD ON THAT DAT (SEPTEMBER 16TH) Hast thou then survived Mild offspring of infirm humanity, Meek infant! among all forlornest things The most forlorn - one life of that bright star, The second glory of the Heavens ?- Thou hast; Already hast survived that great decay, That transformation through the wide earth felt, And by all nations. In that Being's sight From whom the Race of human kind proceed, A thousand years are but as yesterday; And one day's narrow circuit is to Him Not less capacious than a thousand years. But what is time? What outward glory? neither A measure is of Thee, whose claims extend Through “ Heaven's eternal year."— Yet hail to Thee, Frail , feeble, monthling!— by that name, methinks, Thy scanty breathing-time is portioned out Not idly. - Hadst thou been of Indian birth, Couched on a casual bed of moss and leaves, And rudely canopied by leafy boughs, Or to the churlish elements exposed On the blank plains, the coldness of the night. Or the night's darkness, or its cheerful face Of beauty, by the changing moon adorned, Would, with imperious admonition, then Have scored thine age, and punctually timed Thine infant history, on the minds of those Who might have wandered with thee. Mother's love, Nor less than mother's love in other breasts, Will, among us warm-clad and warınly housed, Do for thee what the finger of the heavens Doth all too often harshly execute For thy unblest coevals, amid wilds Where fancy hath small liberty to grace The affections, to exalt them or refine; And the maternal sympathy itself, Though strong, is, in the main, a joyless tie Of naked instinct, wound about the heart. Ilappier, far happier is thy lot and ours ! Even now to solemnise thy helpless state, And to enliven in the mind's regard Thy passive beauty — parallels have risen, Peter Bell, you asked why THE WAGGONER was not they differ from each other. The Epilogue carries on the Resemblances, or contrasts, that connect, added ?" — To say the truth, — from the higher tone of Within the region of a father's thoughts, imagination, and the deeper touches of passion aimed Thee and thy mate and sister of the sky. at in the former, I apprehend, this little Piece could And first ; — thy sinless progress, through a world not accompany it without disadvantage. In the year By sorrow darkened and by care disturbed, Apt likeness bears to hers, through gat! ed clouds, The fact of my discarded hero's getting the horses out Moving untouched in silver purity, of a great difficulty with a word, as related in the poem, And cheering ofttimes their reluctant gloom. was told me by an eye-witness. Fair are ye both, and both are free from stain : [“ Due honour is done to Peter Bell, at this time, by But thou, how leisurely thou fill'st thy horn students of poetry in general; but some, even of Mr. Wordsworth's greatest admirers, do not quite satisfy me With brightness ! leaving her to post along, in their admiration of The Waggoner, a poem which my And range about, disquieted in change, dear uncle, Mr. Southey, preferred even to the former. And still impatient of the shape she wears. Ich will meine Denkungsart hierin niemanden aufdringen, Once up, once down the hill, one journey, babe as Lessing says; I will force my way of thinking on noThat will suffice thee; and it seems that now body, but take the liberty, for my own gratification, to Thou hast fore-knowledge that such task is thine; express it. The sketches of hill and valley in this poem Thou travellest so contentedly, and sleep'st have a lightness and spirit, - an allegro touch, - distin. In such a heedless peace. Alas! full soon guishing them from the grave and elevated splendour which Hath this conception, grateful to behold, characterizes Mr. Wordsworth's representations of nature Changed countenance, like an object sullied o'er in general, and from the pensive tenderness of those in The White Doe, while it harmonizes well with the human By breathing mist; and thine appears to be interest of ibe piece ; indeed, it is the harmonious sweetA meurnful labour, while to her is given ness of the composition which is most dwelt upon by its Hope and a renovation without end. special admirers. In its course it describes, with bold - That smile forbids the thought; for on thy face brief touches, the striking mountain tract from Grasmere Smiles are beginning, like the beams of dawn, to Keswick; it commences with an evening storm among To shoot and circulate; smiles have there been seen; the mountains, presents a lively interior of a country inn Tranquil assurances that Heaven supports during midnight, and concludes after bringing us in sight The feeble inotions of thy life, and cheers of St. John's Vale and the Vale of Keswick seen by day Thy loneliness: or shall those smiles be called break. — Skiddaw touched with rosy light,' and the pros pect from Nathdale Fell, 'hoar with the frost-like dews of Feelers of love, put forth as if to explore dawn:' thus giving a beautiful and well contrasteo This untried world, and to prepare thy way panorama, produced by the most delicate and masterly Through a strait passage intricate and dim? strokes of the pencil. Well may Mr. Ruskin, a fine Such are they; and the same are tokens, signs, observer and eloquent describer of various classes of Which, when the appointed season hath arrived, natural appearances, speak of Mr. Wordsworth as the Joy, as her holiest language, shall adopt ; great poetic landscape painter of the age. But Mr. Ruskin And reason's godlike power be proud to own. has found how seldom the great landscape painters are powerful in expressing human passions and affections on canvass, or even successful in the introduction of human figures into their foregrounds; whereas in the poetic paint. ings of Mr. Wordsworth, the landscape is always subordiTIIE WAGGONER.* nate to a higher interest; certainly, in The Waggoner, the liule sketch of human nature which occupies, as it were, the front of that encircling background, the picture of In Cairo's crowded streets Thwe impatient Merchant wondering waits in vain, Benjamin and his temptations, his humble friends and the And Mecca saddens at the long delay. THOMSON mute companions of his way, has a character of its own, , This fine criticism – worthy of the Sire- is from the ne several years after the event that forms the subject of pen of the daughter of Coleridge, the widow of Henry non sono in company with my friend, the late Mr. Cole Nelson Coleridge; it is part of a note in Coleridge's rut I happened to fall in with the person to whom the tame of expressing regret · Biographia Literaria.' Edition of 1847. Vol. II. p. 183. mong op had not, for a long time, seen upon the front de fer 1801, in which an account is given of the master" in more on me, and as to the man who was put in my place, Correspondence , Vol . II. p. 148, Chap. viii., where in a note it is added that the circumstances of the poerr, are accurately correct.-H. R.) U TO CHARLES LAMB, Esq. MY DEAR Friend, Hex I sent you, a few weeks ago, the Tale of Philemon; though it differs from each of them as much as Po ginat could come out of bim ; he was a man of no 1 1806, it I am not mistaken, The WAGGONER was read | The Horses have worked with right good-will, Or for some other danger nigh? William WORDSWORTH. Be one of much infirmity; For at the bottom of the Brow, Where once the Dove and OLIVE-BOUGH CANTO FIRST. Offered a greeting of good ale To all who entered Grasmere Vale; Tis spent — this burning day of June! And called on him who must depart Soft darkness o'er its latest gleams is stealing; To leave it with a jovial heart; – The dor-hawk, solitary bird, There, where the Dove and OLIVE-BOUGH Round the dim crags on heavy pinions wheeling, Once hung, a Poet harbours now, – Buzzes incessantly, a tiresomne tune; A simple water-drinking Bard ; That constant voice is all that can be heard Why need our Hero then (though frail In silence deeper far than that of deepest noon! His best resolves) be on his guard? – He marches by, secure and bold, – Confiding Glow-worms ! 't is a night Yet while he thinks on times of old, Propitious to your earth-born light; It seems that all looks wondrous cold; But where the scattered stars are seen He shrugs his shoulders - shakes his head In hazy straits the clouds between, And, for the honest folk within, Each, in his station twinkling not It is a doubt with Benjamin Whether they be alive or dead ! Here is no danger, none at all! With a haunting and a panting, Beyond his wish is he secure; Like the stifling of disease; But pass a mile and then for trial, – The mountains rise to wondrous height, Then for the pride of self-denial; And in the heavens there hangs a weight; If he resist that tempting door, But the dews allay the heat, Which with such friendly voice will cail, And the silence makes it sweet. If he resist those casement panes, And that bright gleam which thence will fall Hush, there is some one on the stir! Upon his Leaders' bells and manes, 'Tis Benjamin the Waggoner; Inviting him with cheerful lure: Who long bath trod this toilsome way, For still, though all be dark elsewhere, Companion of the night and day. Some shining notice will be there, Of open house and ready fare. The place to Benjamin full well Is known, and by as strong a spell Along the banks of Rydal Mere, As used to be that sign of love He paces on, a trusty Guide, And hope --- the OLIVE-BOUGH and Dove, Listen! you can scarcely hear ! He knows it to his cost, good Man! Hither he his course is bending; — Who does not know the famous Swax! Now he leaves the lower ground, Uncouth although the object be, And up the craggy hill ascending An image of perplexity; Many a stop and stay he makes, Yet not the less it is our boast, Many a breathing-fit he takes ; For it was painted by the Host ; Steep the way and wearisome, His own conceit the figure planned, Yet all the while his whip is dumb! 'Twas colou own hand; This rude piece of self-taught art (such is the progress of sents two figures, full as distinctly shaped as that of the famuus And that frail Child of thirsty clay, A storrn, which had been smothered long it. Of u hom I sing this rustic lay, Was growing inwardly more strong; me Could tell with self-dissatisfaction And, in its struggles to get free, Was busily employed as he. The thunder had begun to growl — He heard not, too intent of soul; The air was now without a breath He marked not that 't was still as death. But soon large drops upon his head Fell with the weight of drops of lead ; - He starts — and, at thic admonition, Takes a survey of his condition. The road is black before his eyes, Glimmering faintly where it lies; Black is the sky - and every hill, Up to the sky, is blacker still - A huge and melancholy room, Hung round and overhung with gloom; * A mountain of Grasmere, the broken summit of which pre Now am I fairly safe to-night — His meditations thus pursued, rcfiperdent) has been supplanted by a professional production Cobbler, near Arroquhar in Scotland. |