Edward will come with you-and, pray, No joyless forms shall regulate Our living calendar: We from to-day, my Friend, will date The opening of the year. Love, now a universal birth, From heart to heart is stealing, From earth to man, from man to earth: -It is the hour of feeling. One moment now may give us more Than years of toiling reason:1 Our minds shall drink at every pore The spirit of the season. Some silent laws our hearts will make,2 Which they shall long obey: We for the year to come may take Our temper from to-day. And from the blessed power that rolls About, below, above, We'll frame the measure of our souls: They shall be tuned to love. Then come, my Sister! come, I pray, And bring no book: for this one day In editions 1798 to 1815 the title of this poem was, "Lines written at a small distance from my house, and sent by my little boy to the person to whom they were addressed." From 1820 to 1843 the title was, "To my Sister; written at a small distance from my house, and sent by my little boy." After 1845 it was simply "To my Sister." The larch is now gone; but the place where it stood can easily be identified.-ED. [Observed in the holly-grove at Alfoxden, where these verses were written in the spring of 1799. I had the pleasure of again seeing, with dear friends, this grove in unimpaired beauty forty-one years after.] A WHIRL-BLAST from behind the hill Rushed o'er the wood with startling sound; And showers of hailstones pattered round. I sat within an undergrove Of tallest hollies, tall and green; A fairer bower was never seen. You could not lay a hair between, 1800. Along the floor, beneath the shade And all those leaves, that jump and spring, 2 In edd. 1800 to 1805, the following lines are added— That I may never cease to find, Even in appearances like these Enough to nourish and to stir my mind! 1800. [This poem is a favourite among the Quakers, as I have learned on many occasions. It was composed in front of the house at Alfoxden, in the spring of 1798.] "WHY, William, on that old grey stone Thus for the length of half a day, Why, William, sit you thus alone, And dream your time away? Where are your books?—that light bequeathed To Beings else forlorn and blind! Up! up and drink the spirit breathed From dead men to their kind. You look round on your Mother Earth, One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake, "The eye-it cannot choose but see; Nor less I deem that there are Powers That we can feed this mind of ours In a wise passiveness. Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum Of things for ever speaking, That nothing of itself will come, But we must still be seeking? -Then ask not wherefore, here, alone, I sit upon this old grey stone, And dream my time away." THE TABLES TURNED. AN EVENING SCENE ON THE SAME SUBJECT. 1 1820. Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;1 Or surely you'll grow double: Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks; Up! up my friend, and clear your looks, Up! up! my friend, and quit your books, 1798. The sun, above the mountain's head, A freshening lustre mellow Through all the long green fields has spread, Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife: Come, hear the woodland linnet, How sweet his music! on my life, There's more of wisdom in it.. And hark! how blithe the throstle sings! Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher. She has a world of ready wealth, Our minds and hearts to bless Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health, One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can. Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; Our meddling intellect Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:- 1 1815. And he is no mean preacher. 1798. |