Such small machinery as she turned

Ere she had wept, ere she had mourned,
A young and happy Child!

Farewell, and when thy days are told,

Ill-fated Ruth, in hallowed mould

Thy corpse shall buried be,

For thee a funeral bell shall ring,

And all the congregation sing

A Christmas psalm for thee.

1799.

INFLUENCES OF BEAUTY AND FEAR IN BOYHOOD.

(FROM THE PRELUDE," BOOK I.)

DUST as we are, the immortal spirit grows
Like harmony in music; there is a dark
Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles
Discordant elements, makes them cling together
In one society. How strange, that all

The terrors, pains, and early miseries,
Regrets, vexations, lassitudes interfused

Within my mind, should e'er have borne a part,
And that a needful part, in making up

The calm existence that is mine when I

Am worthy of myself! Praise to the end!

Thanks to the means which Nature deigned to employ ;
Whether her fearless visitings, or those

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That came with soft alarm, like hurtless light

Opening the peaceful clouds; or she would use

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Severer interventions, ministry

More palpable, as best might suit her aim.

One summer evening (led by her) I found
A little boat tied to a willow tree
Within a rocky cave, its usual home.
Straight I unloosed her chain, and stepping in
Pushed from the shore. It was an act of stealth
And troubled pleasure, nor without the voice
Of mountain-echoes did my boat move on;
Leaving behind her still, on either side,
Small circles glittering idly in the moon,

Until they melted all into one track

Of sparkling light. But now, like one who rows,
Proud of his skill, to reach a chosen point

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With an unswerving line, I fixed my view
Upon the summit of a craggy ridge,

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The horizon's utmost boundary; far above
Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky.
She was an elfin pinnace; lustily

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I dipped my oars into the silent lake,

And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boat
Went heaving through the water like a swan;
When, from behind that craggy steep till then

The horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge,
As if with voluntary power instinct

Upreared its head. I struck and struck again,
And growing still in stature the grim shape
Towered up between me and the stars, and still,
For so it seemed, with purpose of its own
And measured motion like a living thing,
Strode after me. With trembling oars I turned,
And through the silent water stole my way

Back to the covert of the willow tree;

There in her mooring-place I left my bark,

And through the meadows homeward went, in grave
And serious mood; but after I had seen

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That spectacle, for many days, my brain
Worked with a dim and undetermined sense
Of unknown modes of being; o'er my thoughts
There hung a darkness, call it solitude
Or blank desertion. No familiar shapes
Remained, no pleasant images of trees,
Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields;

But huge and mighty forms, that do not live
Like living men, moved slowly through the mind
By day, and were a trouble to my dreams.

1799-1800.

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60

INFLUENCE OF NATURAL OBJECTS

IN CALLING FORTH AND STRENGTHENING THE IMAGINATION IN
BOYHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH. WRITTEN IN GERMANY.

WISDOM and Spirit of the universe!

Thou Soul, that art the Eternity of thought!

And giv'st to forms and images a breath
And everlasting motion, not in vain,

By day or star-light, thus from my first dawn
Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me
The passions that build up our human soul;
Not with the mean and vulgar works of Man;
But with high objects, with enduring things,
With life and nature; purifying thus
The elements of feeling and of thought,

And sanctifying by such discipline

Both pain and fear, until we recognize
A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.

Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me
With stinted kindness. In November days,

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When vapours rolling down the valleys made
A lonely scene more lonesome; among woods
At noon; and 'mid the calm of summer nights,
When, by the margin of the trembling lake,
Beneath the gloomy hills, homeward I went
In solitude, such intercourse was mine:
Mine was it in the fields both day and night,

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And by the waters, all the summer long.

And in the frosty season, when the sun

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Was set, and, visible for many a mile,

The cottage-windows through the twilight blazed,
I heeded not the summons: happy time

It was indeed for all of us; for me

It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud

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The village-clock tolled six - I wheeled about,

Proud and exulting like an untired horse

That cares not for his home. All shod with steel
We hissed along the polished ice, in games
Confederate, imitative of the chase

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And woodland pleasures, the resounding horn,
The pack loud-chiming, and the hunted hare.

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So through the darkness and the cold we flew,

And not a voice was idle: with the din

Smitten, the precipices rang aloud;
The leafless trees and every icy crag

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Tinkled like iron; while far-distant hills

Into the tumult sent an alien sound

Of melancholy, not unnoticed while the stars,

Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west

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The orange sky of evening died away.

Not seldom from the uproar I retired

Into a silent bay, or sportively

Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng,

To cut across the reflex of a star;

Image, that, flying still before me, gleamed
Upon the glassy plain and oftentimes,
When we had given our bodies to the wind,
And all the shadowy banks on either side
Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still
The rapid line of motion, then at once

Have I, reclining back upon my heels,
Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs

Wheeled by me

even as if the earth had rolled

With visible motion her diurnal round!

Behind me did they stretch in solemn train,

Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched

Till all was tranquil as a summer sea.

1799.

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NUTTING.

It seems a day

(I speak of one from many singled out),
One of these heavenly days that cannot die;
When, in the eagerness of boyish hope,
I left our cottage-threshold, sallying forth
With a huge wallet o'er my shoulders slung.
A nutting-crook in hand; and turned my steps
Tow'rd some far-distant wood, a Figure quaint,
Tricked out in proud disguise of cast-off weeds
Which for that service had been husbanded,
By exhortation of my frugal Dame
Motley accoutrement, of power to smile
At thorns, and brakes, and brambles,

and, in truth,

More ragged than need was! O'er pathless rocks,