So let us strive to live, and to our Spirits will be given Such wings as, when our Saviour calls, shall bear us up to heaven."

The Boy no answer made by words, but, so earnest was his

look,

Sleep fled, and with it fled the dream-recorded in this

book,

Lest all that passed should melt away in silence from my

mind,

As visions still more bright have done, and left no trace behind.

But oh that Country-man of thine, whose eye, loved Child,

can see

A pledge of endless bliss in acts of early piety,

In verse, which to thy ear might come, would treat this simple theme,

Nor leave untold our happy flight in that adventurous dream.1

Alas the dream,2 to thee, poor Boy! to thee from whom it flowed,

Was nothing, scarcely can be aught, yet3 'twas bounteously bestowed,

If I may dare to cherish hope that gentle eyes will read Not loth, and listening Little-ones, heart-touched, their fancies

feed.

1

These four lines were added in the edition of 1845.

THE WIDOW ON WINDERMERE SIDE.

Pub. 1842.

*

[The facts recorded in this Poem were given me, and the character of the person described, by my friend the Rev. R. P. Graves, who has long officiated as curate at Bowness, to the great benefit of the parish and neighbourhood. The individual was well known to him. She died before these verses were composed. It is scarcely worth while to notice that the stanzas are written in the sonnet form, which was adopted when I thought the matter might be included in twenty-eight lines.]

I.

How beautiful when up a lofty height

Honour ascends among the humblest poor,

And feeling sinks as deep! See there the door

Of One, a Widow, left beneath a weight
Of blameless debt. On evil Fortune's spite
She wasted no complaint, but strove to make
A just repayment, both for conscience-sake
And that herself and hers should stand upright
In the world's eye. Her work when daylight failed
Paused not, and through the depth of night she kept
Such earnest vigils, that belief prevailed

With some, the noble Creature never slept;
But, one by one, the hand of death assailed

Her children from her inmost heart bewept.

II.

The Mother mourned, nor ceased her tears to flow,
Till a winter's noon-day placed her buried Son
Before her eyes, last child of many gone—

His raiment of angelic white, and lo!

* Now of Dublin, author of Life of Sir William Rowan Hamilton, &c.-ED.

His very feet bright as the dazzling snow

Which they are touching; yea far brighter, even

As that which comes, or seems to come, from heaven,
Surpasses aught these elements can show.

Much she rejoiced, trusting that from that hour
Whate'er befel she could not grieve or pine;
But the Transfigured, in and out of season,
Appeared, and spiritual presence gained a power
Over material forms that mastered reason.
O, gracious Heaven, in pity make her thine!

III.

But why that prayer? as if to her could come
No good but by the way that leads to bliss
Through Death, so judging we should judge amiss.
Since reason failed want is her threatened doom,
Yet frequent transports mitigate the gloom:
Nor of those maniacs is she one that kiss

The air or laugh upon a precipice;

No, passing through strange sufferings towards the tomb

She smiles as if a martyr's crown were won:

Oft, when light breaks through clouds or waving trees,

With outspread arms and fallen upon her knees

The Mother hails in her descending Son

An Angel, and in earthly ecstacies

Her own angelic glory seems begun.

TO THE CLOUDS.*

Pub. 1842.

[These verses were suggested while I was walking on the foot-road between Rydal Mount and Grasmere. The clouds were driving over the top of Nab-Scar across the vale: they set my thoughts a-going, and the rest followed almost immediately.]

ARMY of Clouds! ye wingèd Host in troops
Ascending from behind the motionless brow
Of that tall rock,† as from a hidden world,
O whither with1 such eagerness of speed?
What seek ye, or what shun ye? of the gale2
Companions, fear ye to be left behind,
Or racing o'er3 your blue ethereal field
Contend ye with each other? of the sea
Children, thus post ye over vale and height
To sink upon your mother's lap-and rest ?5
Or were ye rightlier hailed, when first mine eyes

* The title in the edition of 1842 was Address to the Clouds.-ED.
+ See the Fenwick note.-ED.

Beheld in your impetuous march the likeness
Of a wide army pressing on to meet
Or overtake some unknown enemy?—
But your smooth motions suit a peaceful aim;
And Fancy, not less aptly pleased, compares
Your squadrons to an endless flight of birds
Aerial, upon due migration bound

To milder climes; or rather do ye urge
In caravan your hasty pilgrimage

To pause at last on more aspiring heights
Than these, and utter your devotion there
With thunderous voice? Or are ye jubilant,
And would ye, tracking your proud lord the Sun,
Be present at his setting; or the pomp

Of Persian mornings would ye fill, and stand
Poising your splendours high above the heads
Of worshippers kneeling to their up-risen God?
Whence, whence, ye Clouds! this eagerness of speed?
Speak, silent creatures.-They are gone, are fled,
Buried together in yon gloomy mass

That loads the middle heaven; and clear and bright
And vacant doth the region which they thronged
Appear; a calm descent of sky conducting
Down to the unapproachable abyss,

Down to that hidden gulf from which they rose
To vanish-fleet as days and months and years,
Fleet as the generations of mankind,

Power, glory, empire, as the world itself,

The lingering world, when time hath ceased to be.
But the winds roar, shaking the rooted trees,

And see a bright precursor to a train
Perchance as numerous, overpeers the rock
That sullenly refuses to partake

Of the wild impulse. From a fount of life