!

4.

But, of his scorn repenting soon, he drew
My soul was grateful for delight

A juster judgment from a calmer view;
That wore a threatening brow;

And, with a spirit freed from discontent,
A veil is lifted — can she slight

Thankfully took an effort that was meant
The scene that opens now?

Not with God's bounty, nature's love, to vie,
Though habitation none appear,

Or made with hope to please that inward eye
The greenness tells, man must be there;

Which ever strives in vain itself to satisfy,
The shelter - that the perspective

But to recal the truth by some faint trace
Is of the clime in which we live;

Of power ethereal and celestial grace,
Where Toil pursues his daily round;

That in the living creature find on earth a place.
Where Pity sheds sweet tears, and Love,
In woodbine bower or birchen grove,
Inflicts his tender wound.

AIREY-FORCE VALLEY.

Not a breath of air
Who comes not hither ne'er shall know
How beautiful the world below;

Ruffles the bosom of this leafy glen.
Nor can he guess how lightly leaps

From the brook's margill, wide around, the trees The brook adown the rocky steeps.

Are stedfast as the rocks; the brook itself, Farewell, thou desolate Domain !

Old as the hills that feed it from afar, Hope, pointing to the cultured Plain,

Doth rather deepen than disturb the calm Carols like a shepherd boy;

Where all things else are still and motionless

. And who is she? - Can that be Joy !

And yet, even now, a little breeze, perchance Who, with a sunbeam for her guide,

Escaped from boisterous winds that rage

without, Smoothly skims the meadows wide;

Has entered, by the sturdy oaks unfelt, While Faith, from yonder opening cloud,

But to its gentle touch how sensitive To hill and vale proclaims aloud,

Is the light ash! that, pendent from the brow “ Whate'er the weak may dread, the wicked dare,

Of yon dim cave, in seeming silence makes
Thy lot, O Man, is good, thy portion fair !"

A soft eye-music of slow-waving boughs,
Powerful almost as vocal harmony

To stay the wanderer's steps and soothe his thoughits
SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF THE BIRD
OF PARADISE.

THE CUCKOO-CLOCK.
The gentlest poet, with free thoughts endowed,
And a true master of the glowing strain,

Wouldst thou be taught, when sleep has taken fligini

, Might scan the narrow province with disdain

By a sure voice that can most sweetly tell, That to the painter's skill is here allowed.

How far-off yet a glimpse of morning light, This, this the Bird of Paradise ! disclaim

And if to lure the truant back be well, The daring thought, forget the name;

Forbear to covet a repeater's stroke, This the sun's bird, whom Glendoveers might own

That, answering to thy touch will sound the hour; As no unworthy partner in their flight

Better provide thee with a Cuckoo-clock Through seas of ether, where the ruffling sway

For service hung behind thy chamber-door; Of nether air's rude billows is unknown;

And in due time the soft spontaneous shock, Whom sylphs, if e'er for casual pastime they

The double-note, as if with living power, Through India's spicy regions wing their way,

Will to composure lead

in bower. Might bow to as their Lord. What character, O sovereign Nature! I appeal to thee,

List, Cuckoo — Cuckoo! - oft tho' tempests howl, Of all thy feathered progeny

Or nipping frost remind thee trees are bare, Is so unearthly, and what shape so fair ?

How cattle pine, and droop the shivering fowl, So richly decked in variegated down,

Thy spirits will seem to feed on balmy air: Green, sable, shining yellow, shadowy brown, I speak with knowledge, – by that voice beguiled, Tints softly with each other blended,

Thou wilt salute old memories as they throng
Hues doubtfully begun and ended;

Into thy heart; and fancies, running wild
Or intershooting, and to sight
Lost and recovered, as the rays of light

Through fresh green fields, and budding groves arnong,

Will make thee happy, happy as a child ; Glance on the conscious plumes touched here and there? Of sunshine wilt thou think, and flowers, and song Full surely, when with such proud gifts of life

And breathe as in a world where nothing can go wrong. Began the pencil's strife, D'erweening art was caught as in a snare.

And know — that, even for him who shuns the day

And nightly tosses on a bed of pain;
A sense of seemingly presumptuous wrong Whose joys, from all but memory swept away,
Gave the first impulse to the poet's song;

Must come unhoped for, if they come again;

- or make thee blithe as bird

TIL BANKS OF THE WYE DURING A TOUR.

Koow - that, for him whose waking thoughts, severe Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
As hls distress is sharp, would scorn my theme, And passing even into my purer mind,
The mimic notes striking upon his ear

With tranquil restoration : — feelings too
In sleep, and intermingling with his dream,

Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps, Could from sad regions send him to a dear

As have no slight or trivial influence Delightful land of verdure, shower and gleam,

On that best portion of a good man's life, To mock the wandering voice beside some haunted His little, nameless, unremembered acts stream.

Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
O bounty without measure! while the grace To them I may have owed another gift,
Of Heaven doth in such wise, from humblest springs, Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
Pour pleasure forth, and solaces that trace

In which the burthen of the mystery,
A mazy course along familiar things,

In which the heavy and the weary weight
Well may our hearts have faith that blessings come, Of all this unintelligible world,
Streaming from founts above the starry sky,

Is lightened :— that serene and blessed mood,
With angels when their own untroubled home In which the affections gently lead us on,
They leave, and speed on nightly embassy

Until the breath of this corporeal frame
To visit earthly chambers, — and for whom?

And even the motion of our human blood
Yea, both for souls who God's forbearance try,
And those that seek his help, and for his mercy sigh.

Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul :
While with an eye made quiet by the power

Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
LINES,
We see into the life of things.

If this
COMPOSED A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY, ON REVISITING

Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft,
JULY 13, 1798.

In darkness, and amid the many shapes
Five years have past ; five summers, with the length

Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir Of five long winters! and again I hear

Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs

Have hung upon the beatings of my heart, With a sweet inland murmur.* – Once again

How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,

O sylvan Wye! Thou wanderer thro' the woods, That on a wild secluded scene impress

How often has my spirit turned to thee ! Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought, The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

With many recognitions dim and faint, The day is come when I again repose

And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view

The picture of the mind revives again :
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts, While here I stand, not only with the sense
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,

Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves

That in this moment there is life and food
Among the woods and copses, nor disturb

For future years. And so I dare to hope,
The wild green landscape. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines

Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first

I came among these hills; when like a roe Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,

I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke

Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, Sent up, in silence, from among the trees

Wherever nature led: more like a man With some uncertain notice, as might seem

Flying from something that he dreads, than one vagrant Dwellers in the houseless woods, Or of sorne Hermit's cave, where by his fire

Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,

And their glad animal movements all gone by)
These beauteous Forms,

To me was all in all. — I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract

Haunted me like a passion : the tall rock,
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din

The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite ; a feeling and a love,

That had no need of a remoter charm,
in the river is not effected by the tides a few miles above By thought supplied, or any interest
Z
Unborrowed from the eye. - That time is past,

The Hermit sits alone.

Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:

Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,

Tinitern