Not Fortune's slave is Man: our state So taught, so trained, we boldly face Trust in that sovereign law can spread That truth informing mind and heart, The simplest cottager may part, Ungrieved, with charm and spell; And yet, lost Wishing-gate, to thee The voice of grateful memory Shall bid a kind farewell! See Note at the end of the Volume. XLIII. THE PRIMROSE OF THE ROCK. [WRITTEN at Rydal Mount. The Rock stands on the right hand a little way leading up the middle road from Rydal to Grasmere. We have been in the habit of calling it the glow-worm rock from the number of glow-worms we have often seen hanging on it as described. The tuft of primrose has, I fear, been washed away by the heavy rains.] A Rock there is whose homely front The passing traveller slights; Yet there the glow-worms hang their lamps, And one coy Primrose to that Rock The vernal breeze invites. What hideous warfare hath been waged, The flowers, still faithful to the stems, The stems are faithful to the root, That worketh out of view; And to the rock the root adheres Close clings to earth the living rock, So blooms this lonely Plant, nor dreads Here closed the meditative strain; The gay; And to the Primrose of the Rock I gave this after-lay. I sang-Let myriads of bright flowers, Our vernal tendencies to hope, That love which changed-for wan disease, For sorrow that had bent O'er hopeless dust, for withered age Their moral element, And turned the thistles of a curse To types beneficent. Sin-blighted though we are, we too, The reasoning Sons of Men, From one oblivious winter called Our threescore years and ten. To humbleness of heart descends And makes each soul a separate heaven, 1831. XLIV. PRESENTIMENTS. [WRITTEN at Rydal Mount.] PRESENTIMENTS! they judge not right All heaven-born Instincts shun the touch The tear whose source I could not guess, And venture on your praise. What though some busy foes to good, To taint the health which ye infuse; How oft from you, derided Powers! The bosom-weight, your stubborn gift, Shall vanish, if ye please, Like morning mist: and, where it lay, The spirits at your bidding play In gaiety and ease. Star-guided contemplations move Through space, though calm, not raised above Prognostics that ye rule; The naked Indian of the wild, And haply, too, the cradled Child, But who can fathom your intents, A subtle smell that Spring unbinds, |