V.

Neglect me! no, I suffered long

From that ill thought; and, being blind,
Said, Pride shall help me in my wrong;
Kind mother have I been, as kind

As ever breathed:' and that is true;
I've wet my path with tears like dew,
Weeping for him when no one knew.

VI.

My Son, if thou be humbled, poor,
Hopeless of honour and of gain,
Oh! do not dread thy mother's door;
Think not of me with grief and pain:
I now can see with better eyes;
And worldly grandeur I despise,
And fortune with her gifts and lies.

VII.

Alas! the fowls of heaven have wings,
And blasts of heaven will aid their flight;
They mount-how short a voyage brings
The wanderers back to their delight!
Chains tie us down by land and sea;
And wishes, vain as mine, may be

All that is left to comfort thee.

VIII.

Perhaps some dungeon hears thee groan,

Maimed, mangled by inhuman men;

Or thou upon a desert thrown

Inheritest the lion's den;

Or hast been summoned to the deep,
Thou, thou and all thy mates, to keep
An incommunicable sleep.

IX.

I look for ghosts; but none will force
Their way to me: 'tis falsely said
That there was ever intercourse
Between the living and the dead;
For, surely, then I should have sight
Of him I wait for day and night,
With love and longings infinite.

X.

My apprehensions come in crowds;
I dread the rustling of the grass;
The very shadows of the clouds
Have power to shake me as they pass:
I question things and do not find
One that will answer to my mind ;
And all the world appears unkind.

XI.

Beyond participation lie

My troubles, and beyond relief:
If any chance to heave a sigh,
They pity me, and not my grief.
Then come to see, my Son, or send

Some tidings that my woes may end;
I have no other earthly friend!

Betwixt the living

One of the "Poems founded on the Affections."-ED.

1807.

[This was an overflow from the "Affliction of Margaret," and was excluded as superfluous there, but preserved in the faint hope that it may turn to account by restoring a shy lover to some forsaken damsel. My poetry has been complained of as deficient in interests of this sort,— a charge which the piece beginning, "Lyre! though such power do in thy magic live," will scarcely tend to obviate. The natural imagery of these verses was supplied by frequent, I might say intense, observation of the Rydal torrent. What an animating contrast is the ever-changing aspect of that, and indeed of every one of our mountain brooks, to the monotonous tone and unmitigated fury of such streams among the Alps as are fed all the summer long by glaciers and melting snows. Α traveller observing the exquisite purity of the great rivers, such as the Rhine at Geneva, and the Reuss at Lucerne, when they issue out of their respective lakes, might fancy for a moment that some power in nature produced this beautiful change, with a view to make amends for those Alpine sullyings which the waters exhibit near their fountain heads; but, alas! how soon does that purity depart before the influx of tributary waters that have flowed through cultivated plains and the crowded abodes of men.]

THE peace which others seek they find;
The heaviest storms not longest last;
Heaven grants even to the guiltiest mind
An amnesty for what is past;
When will my sentence be reversed?

I only pray to know the worst;
And wish as if my heart would burst.

O weary struggle ! silent years
Tell seemingly no doubtful tale;
And yet they leave it short, and fears
And hopes are strong and will prevail.
My calmest faith escapes not pain;
And, feeling that the hope is vain,
I think that he will come again.

One of the "Poems founded on the Affections."-ED.

[Written at Town-end, Grasmere. Suggested by the conversation of our next neighbour, Margaret Ashburner.]

This "next neighbour" is constantly referred to in Miss Wordsworth's Grasmere Journals.-ED.

THE fields which with covetous spirit we sold,

Those beautiful fields, the delight of the day,

Would have brought us more good than a burthen of gold, Could we but have been as contented as they.

When the troublesome Tempter beset us, said I,

'Let him come, with his purse proudly grasped in his hand; But, Allan, be true to me, Allan,-we'll die

Before he shall go with an inch of the land!'

There dwelt we, as happy as birds in their bowers;
Unfettered as bees that in gardens abide;

We could do what we liked with the land, it was ours;
And for us the brook murmured that ran by its side.

But now we are strangers, go early or late;
And often, like one overburthened with sin,
With my hand on the latch of the half-opened gate,
I look at the fields, but I cannot go in!

When I walk by the hedge on a bright summer's day,
Or sit in the shade of my grandfather's tree,

A stern face it puts on, as if ready to say,

'What ails you, that you must come creeping to me!'

With our pastures about us, we could not be sad;

Our comfort was near if we ever were crost;

But the comfort, the blessings, and wealth that we had, We slighted them all,—and our birth-right was lost.

Oh, ill-judging sire of an innocent son

Who must now be a wanderer! but peace to that strain!
Think of evening's repose when our labour was done,
The sabbath's return; and its leisure's soft chain!

And in sickness, if night had been sparing of sleep,
How cheerful, at sunrise, the hill where I stood,
Looking down on the kine, and our treasure of sheep
That besprinkled the field; 'twas like youth in my blood!

Now I cleave to the house, and am dull as a snail;
And, oftentimes, hear the church-bell with a sigh,
That follows the thought-We've no land in the vale,
Save six feet of earth where our forefathers lie!

One of the "Poems founded on the Affections."-ED.

[The story of this Poem is from the German of Frederica Brun.]

I.

SEVEN Daughters had Lord Archibald,

All children of one mother:

You could not say in one short day 1
What love they bore each other.

I could not say

1807.