A whirl-blast from behind the hill Rush'd o'er the wood with startling sound; Then-all at once the air was still, And showers of hailstones pattered round. 5 Where leafless oaks towered high above, I sat within an undergrove Of tallest hollies, tall and green; A fairer bower was never seen. From year to year the spacious floor 10 With withered leaves is covered o'er, And all the year the bower is green. But see! where'er the hailstones drop The withered leaves all skip and hop; There's not a breeze-no breath of air15 Yet here, and there, and everywhere Along the floor, beneath the shade By those embowering hollies made, The leaves in myriads jump and spring, As if with pipes and music rare 20 Some Robin Good-fellow were there, And all those leaves, in festive glee, Were dancing to the minstrelsy. EXPOSTULATION AND REPLY "Why, William, on that old gray stone, 5 "Where are your books?-that light bequeathed To beings else forlorn and blind! "You look round on your Mother Earth, 10 As if she for no purpose bore you; As if you were her first-born birth, One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake, When life was sweet, I knew not why, 30 That nothing of itself will come, Conversing as I may, "Then ask not wherefore, here, alone, I sit upon this old gray stone, And hark! how blithe the throstle sings! 15 Come forth into the light of things, She has a world of ready wealth, One impulse from a vernal wood 1 "A friend who was somewhat unreasonably attached to modern books of moral philosophy.” Wordsworth. Five years have past; five summers, with the length Of five long winters! and again I hear These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs With a soft inland murmur.-Once again 5 Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, That on a wild secluded scene impress Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect The landscape with the quiet of the sky. The day is come when I again repose 10 Here, under this dark sycamore, and view These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts, Which at this season, with their unripe fruits, Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves 'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see 15 These hedgerows, hardly hedgerows, little lines Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms, Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke Sent up, in silence, from among the trees! With some uncertain notice, as might seem 20 Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, Or of some hermit's cave, where by his fire The hermit sits alone. These beauteous forms, Through a long absence, have not been to me 25 As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; And passing even into my purer mind, 30 With tranquil restoration:-feelings too of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps, As have no slight or trivial influence On that best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremembered acts 35 Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, To them I may have owed another gift, Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood, In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight 40 Of all this unintelligible world, Is lightened:-that serene and blessed mood, In which the affections gently lead us on,Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even the motion of our human blood 45 Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul: While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things. Their colors and their forms, were then 10 An appetite; a feeling and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm, And all its aching joys are now no more, 35 And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts Have followed; for such loss, I would 130 believe, Abundant recompense. For I have learned The still, sad music of humanity, power To chasten and subdue. And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy 95 Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: 00 A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods, And mountains; and of all that we behold 105 From this green earth; of all the mighty world 135 140 145 Of eye, and ear,-both what they half 150 create, And what perceive; well pleased to rec- In nature and the language of the sense 155 Knowing that Nature never did betray From joy to joy: for she can so inform Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief, Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, chance May thence remount at ease. The aged man Had placed his staff across the broad smooth stone That overlays the pile; and, from a bag All white with flour, the dole of village dames, 10 He drew his scraps and fragments, one by one; And scanned them with a fixed and serious look Of idle computation. In the sun, Upon the second step of that small pile, Surrounded by those wild unpeopled hills, 15 He sat, and ate his food in solitude: And ever scattered from his palsied hand, That, still attempting to prevent the waste, Was baffled still, the crumbs in little |