Vain is the pleasure, a false calm the peace, If He, through whom alone our conflicts cease, Our virtuous hopes without relapse advance, Come not to speed the Soul's deliverance; To the distempered Intellect refuse His gracious help, or give what we abuse.
(BY THE SIDE OF RYDAL MERE.)
THE linnet's warble, sinking towards a close, Hints to the thrush 'tis time for their repose; The shrill-voiced thrush is heedless, and again The monitor revives his own sweet strain; But both will soon be mastered, and the copse Be left as silent as the mountain-tops, Ere some commanding star dismiss to rest The throng of rooks, that now, from twig or nest, (After a steady flight on home-bound wings, And a last game of mazy hoverings
Around their ancient grove) with cawing noise Disturb the liquid music's equipoise.
O Nightingale! Who ever heard thy song Might here be moved, till Fancy grows so strong That listening sense is pardonably cheated Where wood or stream by thee was never greeted. Surely, from fairest spots of favoured lands, Were not some gifts withheld by jealous hands, This hour of deepening darkness here would be As a fresh morning for new harmony;
And lays as prompt would hail the dawn of Night: A dawn she has both beautiful and bright, When the East kindles with the full moon's light; Not like the rising sun's impatient glow Dazzling the mountains, but an overflow Of solemn splendour, in mutation slow.
Wanderer by spring with gradual progress led, For sway profoundly felt as widely spread; To king, to peasant, to rough sailor, dear, And to the soldier's trumpet-wearied ear; How welcome wouldst thou be to this green Vale Fairer than Tempe! Yet, sweet Nightingale! From the warm breeze that bears thee on, alight At will, and stay thy migratory flight; Build, at thy choice, or sing, by pool or fount, Who shall complain, or call thee to account? The wisest, happiest, of our kind are they That ever walk content with Nature's way, God's goodness-measuring bounty as it may; For whom the gravest thought of what they miss, Chastening the fulness of a present bliss,
Is with that wholesome office satisfied,
While unrepining sadness is allied In thankful bosoms to a modest pride.
SOFT as a cloud is yon blue Ridge—the Mere Seems firm as solid crystal, breathless, clear, And motionless; and, to the gazer's eye, Deeper than ocean, in the immensity Of its vague mountains and unreal sky!
But, from the process in that still retreat, Turn to minuter changes at our feet;
Observe how dewy Twilight has withdrawn The crowd of daisies from the shaven lawn, And has restored to view its tender green,
That, while the sun rode high, was lost beneath their dazzling sheen.
-An emblem this of what the sober Hour Can do for minds disposed to feel its power! Thus oft, when we in vain have wished away The petty pleasures of the garish day, Meek eve shuts up the whole usurping host (Unbashful dwarfs each glittering at his post) And leaves the disencumbered spirit free To reassume a staid simplicity.
'Tis well-but what are helps of time and place, When wisdom stands in need of nature's
grace; Why do good thoughts, invoked or not, descend, Like Angels from their bowers, our virtues to befriend ; If yet To-morrow, unbelied, may say,
"I come to open out, for fresh display, The elastic vanities of yesterday ? "
[COMPOSED by the side of Grasmere lake. The mountains that enclose the vale, especially towards Easdale, are most favorable to the reverberation of sound. There is a passage in the "Excursion" towards the close of the fourth book, where the voice of the raven in flight is traced through the modifications it undergoes, as I have often heard it in that vale and others of this district.
When issue forth the first pale stars, is heard, Within the circuit of this fabric huge,
One voice-the solitary raven."]
THE leaves that rustled on this oak-crowned hill, And sky that danced among those leaves, are still; Rest smooths the way for sleep; in field and bower Soft shades and dews have shed their blended power On drooping eyelid and the closing flower; Sound is there none at which the faintest heart Might leap, the weakest nerve of superstition start; Save when the Owlet's unexpected scream Pierces the ethereal vault; and (mid the gleam Of unsubstantial imagery, the dream,
From the hushed vale's realities, transferred
To the still lake) the imaginative Bird
Seems, 'mid inverted mountains, not unheard.
Grave Creature!—whether, while the moon shines
On thy wings opened wide for smoothest flight,
Thou art discovered in a roofless tower,
Rising from what may once have been a lady's bower; Or spied where thou sitt'st moping in thy mew At the dim centre of a churchyard yew;
Or, from a rifted crag or ivy tod Deep in a forest, thy secure abode,
Thou giv'st, for pastime's sake, by shriek or shout, A puzzling notice of thy whereabout-
May the night never come, nor day be seen, When I shall scorn thy voice or mock thy mien ! In classic ages men perceived a soul Of sapience in thy aspect, headless Owl! Thee Athens reverenced in the studious grove; And, near the golden sceptre grasped by Jove, His Eagle's favourite perch, while round him sate The Gods revolving the decrees of Fate, Thou, too, wert present at Minerva's side:- Hark to that second larum!-far and wide
The elements have heard, and rock and cave replied.
[REPRINTED at the request of my Sister, in whose presence the lines were thrown off.]
This Impromptu appeared, many years ago, among the Author's poems, from which, in subsequent editions, it was excluded.
THE sun has long been set,
The stars are out by twos and threes,
The little birds are piping yet
Among the bushes and trees;
There's a cuckoo, and one or two thrushes, And a far-off wind that rushes,
And a sound of water that gushes,
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