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race

Of weeds and flowers, till we return be slow,

And travel with the year at a soft pace.

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away,

But go to-morrow, or belike to-day,
As doth a fly upon a summer brook;
Seek for him, he is fled; and whither
none can say.

Help us to tell Her tales of years gone Thus often would he leave our peaceful by,

And this sweet spring, the best beloved and best;

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Joy will be flown in its mortality;
Something must stay to tell us of the

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happy Garden! whose seclusion deep Bath been so friendly to industrious hours;

home,

ΙΟ

And find elsewhere his business or de

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And to soft slumbers, that did gently Or like a sinful creature, pale and wan. steep Down would he sit; and without strength

ur spirits, carrying with them dreams of flowers,

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ind wild notes warbled among leafy bowers;

wo burning months let summer overleap,

el, coming back with Her who will be

ours,

to thy bosom we again shall creep.

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As if a blooming face it ought to be;
Heavy his low-hung lip did oft appear,
Deprest by weight of musing Phantasy;
Profound his forehead was, though not

severe;

Yet some did think that he had little business here:

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AFTER ACCOMPANYING HER ON A MOUN-
TAIN EXCURSION.

[Composed (probably) 1801.-Published 1907 I MET Louisa in the shade,

And, having seen that lovely Maid,
Why should I fear to say

That, nymph-like, she is fleet and stron

Sweet heaven forefend! his was a lawful And down the rocks can leap along

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Nor lacked his calmer hours device or toy
To banish listlessness and irksome care;

Like rivulets in May?

[And she hath smiles to earth unknown
Smiles, that with motion of their own
Do spread, and sink, and rise;
That come and go with endless play,
And ever, as they pass away,
Are hidden in her eyes."]

She loves her fire, her cottage-home;

He would have taught you how you might Yet o'er the moorland will she roam

employ

Yourself; and many did to him repair,-In
And certes not in vain; he had inven- Oh!

tions rare.

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weather rough and bleak;

might I kiss the mountain rains And, when against the wind she strains

That sparkle on her cheek.

1 On the question of the identity of Loui see Editor's note on To a Butterfly, p. 897.-E 2 This stanza came second in all edd. fr 1807 to 1843. It was most unfortunately omitt for some reason unknown to us-in edd. if

and 1849.-ED.

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[Composed 1799.-Published 1800.]

STRANGE fits of passion have I known:

And I will dare to tell,

But in the Lover's ear alone,

What once to me befell.

When she I loved looked eyery day
Fresh as a rose in June,

Ito her cottage bent my way,
Beneath an evening-moon.

pon the moon I fixed my eye,

All over the wide lea;

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A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!

15-Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;

But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!

IX.

[Composed 1799.-Published 1807.]

I TRAVELLED among unknown men,
In lands beyond the sea;

5 Nor, England! did I know till then What love I bore to thee.

ΙΟ

With quickening pace my horse drew nigh
Those paths so dear to me.

And now we reached the orchard-plot;
And, as we climbed the hill,

The sinking moon to Lucy's cot
Came near, and nearer still.

In one of those sweet dreams I slept,
Kind Nature's gentlest boon!

And all the while my eyes I kept
On the descending moon.

My horse moved on; hoof after hoof
He raised, and never stopped:
When down behind the cottage roof,
At once, the bright moon dropped.

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20

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'Tis past, that melancholy dream!
Nor will I quit thy shore

A second time; for still I seem
To love thee more and more.

Among thy mountains did I feel
The joy of my desire;

And she I cherished turned her wheel
Beside an English fire.

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ΙΟ

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[Composed 1826.-Published 1827.]

ERE with cold beads of midnight dew Had mingled tears of thine,

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I grieved, fond Youth! that thou shouldst

sue

To haughty Geraldine.

Immoveable by generous sighs,

She glories in a train

Who drag, beneath our native skies,

An Oriental chain.

Pine not like them with arms across,
Forgetting in thy care

How the fast-rooted trees can toss
Their branches in mid air.

ΙΟ

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If human Life do pass away,
Perishing yet more swiftly than the flower,
If we are creatures of a winter's day;
What space hath Virgin's beauty to dis-
close

ΙΟ

XII.

THE FORSAKEN.

[Dated 1804 (W.).—Probably composed earlier Published 1842.]

THE peace which others seek they find;
The heaviest storms not longest last;
Heaven grants even to the guiltiest mir
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.

XIII.

[Composed 1800.-Published 1800.] "TIS said that some have died for love: And here and there a church-yard gra is found

In the cold north's unhallowed ground, Because the wretched man himself h slain,

His love was such a grievous pain. Her sweets, and triumph o'er the breath- And there is one whom I five years ha

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known;

He dwells alone

Upon Helvellyn's side:

He loved the pretty Barbara died;
And thus he makes his moan:
Three years had Barbara in her gra
been laid

When thus his moan he made:

"Oh, move, thou Cottage, from behin that oak!

Or let the aged tree uprooted lie,
That in some other way yon smoke
May mount into the sky!

The clouds pass on; they from the he vens depart :

I look the sky is empty space;
I know not what I trace;

But when I cease to look, my hand is

my heart.

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And there for ever be thy waters chained! For thou dost haunt the air with sounds That cannot be sustained;

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If still beneath that pine-tree's ragged A well of love-it may be deep

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I trust it is, and never dry:
What matter? if the waters sleep
In silence and obscurity.
-Such change, and at the very door
Of my fond heart, hath made me poor,

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