Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

The horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and | The village clock tolled six,-I wheeled about, huge, Proud and exulting like an untired horse That cares not for his home. All shod with steel,

As if with voluntary power instinct,
379
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

[blocks in formation]

390 Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars
Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the west
The orange sky of evening died away.
Not seldom from the uproar I retired
Into a silent bay, or sportively

And serious mood; but after I had seen
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.

Wisdom and Spirit of the universe! Thou Soul that art the eternity of thought That givest to forms and images a breath And everlasting motion, not in vain

400

410

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,
When vapours rolling down the valley 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, 420
Beneath the gloomy hills homeward I went
In solitude, such intercourse was mine;
Mine was it in the fields both day and night,
And by the waters, all the summer long.

[blocks in formation]

450

Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng,
To cut across the reflex of a star
That fled, and, 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 dreamless sleep.

460

Ye Presences of Nature in the sky And on the earth! Ye Visions of the hills! And Souls of lonely places! can I think A vulgar hope was yours when ye employed Such ministry, when ye, through many a year Haunting me thus among my boyish sports, On caves and trees, upon the woods and hills, 470 Impressed, upon all forms, the characters Of danger or desire; and thus did make The surface of the universal earth, With triumph and delight, with hope and fear, Work like a sea?

Not uselessly employed, Might I pursue this theme through every change Of exercise and play, to which the year Did summon us in his delightful round.

FROM BOOK V

There was a Boy: ye knew him well, ye cliffs And islands of Winander! 2-many a time

2 Winandermere, now Windermere, a lake in Westmoreland.

At evening, when the earliest stars began
To move along the edges of the hills,
Rising or setting, would he stand alone
Beneath the trees or by the glimmering lake, 369
And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands
Pressed closely palm to palm, and to his mouth
Uplifted, he, as through an instrument,
Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls,

That they might answer him; and they would shout

380

Across the watery vale, and shout again,
Responsive to his call, with quivering peals,
And long halloos and screams, and echoes loud,
Redoubled and redoubled, concourse wild
Of jocund din; and, when a lengthened pause
Of silence came and baffled his best skill,
Then sometimes, in that silence while he hung
Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise
Has carried far into his heart the voice
Of mountain-torrents; or the visible scene
Would enter unawares into his mind,
With all its solemn imagery, its rocks,
Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, received
Into the bosom of the steady lake.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;

listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

3 religious regard for nature

[blocks in formation]

And I can listen to thee yet;

Can lie upon the plain
And listen, till I do beget

That golden time again.

O blessed Bird! the earth we pace
Again appears to be

An unsubstantial, faery place;

That is fit home for Thee!

32

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed-and gazed-but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

SHE WAS A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT* For oft, when on my couch I lie

[blocks in formation]

12

18

24

7

And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity!

There are who ask not if thine eye

Be on them; who, in love and truth,

Where no misgiving is, rely

Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

20

Upon the genial sense of youth:

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

Up with me! up with me into the clouds!
For thy song, Lark, is strong;

Up with me, up with me into the clouds!
Singing, singing,

With clouds and sky about thee ringing,
Lift me, guide me till I find

That spot which seems so to thy mind!

I have walked through wildernesses dreary And to-day my heart is weary;

Had I now the wings of a Faery,

Up to thee would I fly.

There is madness about thee, and joy divine In that song of thine;

Lift me, guide me high and high

To thy banqueting-place in the sky.

Joyous as morning

Thou art laughing and scorning;

Thou hast a nest for thy love and thy rest.
And, though little troubled with sloth,
Drunken Lark! thou would'st be loth
To be such a traveller as I.

Happy, happy Liver,

With a soul as strong as a mountain river Pouring out praise to the Almighty Giver, Joy and jollity be with us both!

10

20

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD*

I

There was a time when meadow, grove, and

stream,

The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem

Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore;Turn wheresoe'er I may,

By night or day,

The things which I have seen I now can see no

more.

"To that dream-like vividness and splendour which invest objects of sight in childhood, every one, I believe, if he would look back, could bear testimony, and I need not dwell upon it here; but having in the poem regarded it as presumptive evidence of a prior state of existence, I think it right to protest against a conclusion, which has given pain to some good and pious persons, that I meant to inculcate such a belief. It is far too shadowy a notion to be recommended to faith, as more than an element in our instincts of immortality. A pre-existent state has entered into the popular creeds of many nations; and, among all persons acquainted with classic literature, is known as an ingredient in Platonic philosophy."-Extract from Wordsworth's note. Compare Henry Vaughan's The Retreat, p. 223,

[ocr errors]

II

The Rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the Rose,

The Moon doth with delight

Look round her when the heavens are bare;

Waters on a starry night

Are beautiful and fair;

The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where 'er I go,

10

V

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:

That there hath past away a glory from the Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

earth.

[blocks in formation]

Shades of the prison-house begin to close

Upon the growing Boy,

But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy;

The Youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is Nature's Priest, And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended;

At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.

VI

60

71

[blocks in formation]

Behold the Child among his new-born blisses,
A six years' Darling of a pigmy size!
See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies,
Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses,
With light upon him from his father's eyes!
See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,
Some fragment from his dream of human life,
Shaped by himself with newly-learned art;

A wedding or a festival,

A mourning or a funeral;

And this hath now his heart,
And unto this he frames his song:
Then will he fit his tongue

To dialogues of business, love, or strife;
But it will not be long

Ere this be thrown aside,

And with new joy and pride

The little Actor cons another part;
Filling from time to time his "humorous1

[blocks in formation]

90

100

« AnteriorContinuar »