Joyous as morning

Thou art laughing and scorning;

Thou hast a nest for thy love and thy rest,
And, though little troubled with sloth,

Drunken Lark! thou would'st be loth

To be such a traveller as I.

Happy, happy Liver,

With a soul as strong as a mountain river
Pouring out praise to the almighty Giver,
Joy and jollity be with us both!

Alas! my journey, rugged and uneven,
Through prickly moors or dusty ways must wind;
But hearing thee, or others of thy kind,
As full of gladness and as free of heaven,

I, with my fate contented, will plod on,

And hope for higher raptures, when life's day is done.1 Compare this poem with Shelley's Skylark, and with Wordsworth's poem, on the same subject, written in the year 1825. It was placed amongst the "Poems of the Fancy."-ED.

[The young man whose death gave occasion to this poem was named Charles Gough, and had come early in the spring to Patterdale for the

1 1827.

Joy and jollity be with us both!

Hearing thee, or else some other,
As merry a Brother,

I on the earth will go plodding on,

By myself, cheerfully, till the day is done.

What though my course be rugged and uneven,
To prickly moors and dusty ways confined,

Yet, hearing thee, or others of thy kind,
As full of gladness and as free of heaven,
I on the earth will go plodding on,
By myself, cheerfully, till the day is done.

1807.

1820.

sake of angling. While attempting to cross over Helvellyn to Grasmere he slipped from a steep part of the rock where the ice was not thawed, and perished. His body was discovered as described in this poem. Walter Scott heard of the accident, and both he and I, without either of us knowing that the other had taken up the subject, each wrote a poem in admiration of the dog's fidelity. His contains a most beautiful stanza :

"How long did'st thou think that his silence was slumber!

When the wind waved his garment how oft did'st thou start!"

I will add that the sentiment in the last four lines of the last stanza of my verses was uttered by a shepherd with such exactness, that a traveller, who afterwards reported his account in print, was induced to question the man whether he had read them, which he had not.]

A BARKING Sound the Shepherd hears,

A cry as of a dog or fox;

He halts and searches with his eyes
Among the scattered rocks:

And now at distance can discern
A stirring in a brake of fern;
And instantly a dog is seen,
Glancing through that covert green.1

The Dog is not of mountain breed;

Its motions, too, are wild and shy;
With something, as the Shepherd thinks,
Unusual in its cry:

Nor is there any one in sight

All round, in hollow or on height;

Nor shout, nor whistle strikes his ear;
What is the creature doing here?

1

1820.

From which immediately leaps out
A Dog, and yelping runs about.
And instantly a Dog is seen,
Glancing from that covert green.

1807.

1815.

It was a cove, a huge recess,

That keeps, till June, December's snow;
A lofty precipice in front,

A silent tarn below!

Far in the bosom of Helvellyn,

Remote from public road or dwelling,
Pathway, or cultivated land;

From trace of human foot or hand.

There sometimes doth a leaping fish
Send through the tarn a lonely cheer;
The crags repeat the raven's croak,
In symphony austere;

Thither the rainbow comes-the cloud-
And mists that spread the flying shroud;
And sunbeams; and the sounding blast,
That, if it could, would hurry past;

But that enormous barrier holds it fast.1

Not free from boding thoughts, a while 2
The Shepherd stood; then makes his way
O'er rocks and stones, following the Dog 3
As quickly as he may;

Nor far had gone before he found
A human skeleton on the ground;
The appalled Discoverer with a sigh*
Looks round, to learn the history.

From those abrupt and perilous rocks
The Man had fallen, that place of fear!
At length upon the Shepherd's mind
It breaks, and all is clear:

He instantly recalled the name,

And who he was, and whence he came;
Remembered, too, the very day

On which the Traveller passed this way.

But hear a wonder, for whose sake
This lamentable tale I tell!1

A lasting monument of words

This wonder merits well.

The Dog, which still was hovering nigh,

Repeating the same timid cry,

This dog had been through three months' space

A dweller in that savage place.

Yes, proof was plain that, since the day

When this ill-fated Traveller died,2

The Dog had watched about the spot,

Or by his master's side:

How nourished here through such long time
He knows, who gave that love sublime;
And gave that strength of feeling, great

Above all human estimate!

Thomas Wilkinson, author of "Tours to the British Mountains, with the Descriptive Poems of Lowther, and Emont Vale”—already referred to in the notes to The Solitary Reaper, and the verses To the Spade of a Friend-alludes to this incident at some length in his poem, Emont Vale. Wilkinson attended the funeral of young Gough, and writes of the incident with feeling, but without inspiration. This poem was classed amongst those of "Sentiment and Reflection."-ED.

[This dog I knew well. It belonged to Mrs Wordsworth's brother, Mr Thomas Hutchinson, who then lived at Sockburn-on-the-Tees, a beautiful retired situation, where I used to visit him and his sisters before my marriage. My sister and I spent many months there after my return from Germany in 1799.]

ON his morning rounds the Master
Goes to learn how all things fare;
Searches pasture after pasture,
Sheep and cattle eyes with care;
And, for silence or for talk,
He hath comrades in his walk;

Four dogs, each pair of different breed,
Distinguished two for scent, and two for speed.

See a hare before him started!
-Off they fly in earnest chase;
Every dog is eager-hearted,
All the four are in the race:
And the hare whom they pursue
Knows from instinct what to do;1
Her hope is near: no turn she makes;
But, like an arrow, to the river takes.

Deep the river was, and crusted
Thinly by a one night's frost;

But the nimble Hare hath trusted

To the ice, and safely crost;

1

1836.

Hath an instinct what to do.

1807.