Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart:
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.
This was one of Wordsworth's contributions to the Lyrical Ballads; and it is all his own except the first stanza, which was thrown off, almost extempore, by Coleridge. Wordsworth, however, afterwards struck out "dear brother Jem."
A simple child, dear brother Jem,
That lightly draws its breath, And feels its life in every limb, What should it know of death?
I met a little cottage girl:
She was eight years old, she said; Her hair was thick with many a curl That cluster'd round her head.
She had a rustic, woodland air,
And she was wildly clad:
Her eyes were fair, and very fair;
-Her beauty made me glad.
"Sisters and brothers, little maid,
How many may you be?" "How many? Seven in all," she said, And wondering look'd at me.
"And where are they? I pray you tell."
She answer'd, "Seven are we;
And two of us at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea.
"Two of us in the churchyard lie, My sister and my brother;
2. Kerchief, spelt in Chaucer keverchef, coverchef, is properly a couvrechef, or thing for covering the head. What more
And, in the churchyard-cottage, I
Dwell near them with my mother."
"You say that two at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea,
Yet ye are seven !-I pray you tell,
Sweet maid, how this may be?"
Then did the little maid reply,
"Seven boys and girls are we;
Two of us in the churchyard lie,
Beneath the churchyard tree."
"You run about, my little maid,
Your limbs they are alive;
If two are in the churchyard laid,
Then ye are only five."
"Their graves are green, they may be
Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 1772-1834. (History, p. 238.)
215. GENEVIEVE.
Maid of my Love, sweet Genevieve !
In Beauty's light you glide along:
Your eye is like the star of eve,
And sweet your Voice, as Seraph's song.
Yet not your heavenly Beauty gives
This heart with passion soft to glow:
Within your soul a Voice there lives!
It bids you hear the tale of Woe.
When sinking low the Sufferer wan
Beholds no hand outstretcht to save,
Fair, as the bosom of the Swan,
That rises graceful o'er the wave,
I've seen your breast with pity heave,
And therefore love I you, sweet Genevieve!
216. HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI.
Hast thou a charm to stay the morning-star
In his steep course? So long he seems to pause
On thy bald awful head, O sovran 1 Blanc !
1. Sovran: see note 8, extract 18.
The Arve and Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful form!
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines,
Around thee and above
Deep is the air, and dark, substantial, black,
An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it,
As with a wedge! But when I look again,
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity!
O dread and silent mount! I gazed upon thee,
Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,
Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer,
I worshipp'd the Invisible alone.
Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody,
So sweet, we know not we are listening to it,
Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought,
Yea, with my life, and life's own secret joy;
Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused,
Into the mighty vision passing-there,
As in her natural form, swell'd vast to heaven.
Awake, my soul! not only passive praise
Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears,
Mute thanks and secret ecstasy! Awake,
Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake!
Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn.
Thou first and chief, sole Sovran of the Vale!
Oh struggling with the darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars,
Or when they climb the sky or when they sink:
Companion of the morning-star at dawn,
Thyself earth's ROSY STAR, and of the dawn
Co-herald! wake, oh wake, and utter praise!
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth?
Who fill'd thy countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?
And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad!
Who call'd you forth from night and utter death,
From dark and icy caverns called you forth,
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,
For ever shatter'd, and the same for ever?
Who gave you your invulnerable life,
Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,
Unceasing thunder, and eternal foam ?
And who commanded (and the silence came)
Here let the billows stiffen and have rest?
Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow
Adown enormous ravines slope amain-
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
And stopp'd at once amid their maddest plunge!
Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!
Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven
Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun
Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?
God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations,
Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God!
God! sing, ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice!
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!
And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow,
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!
Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost !
Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest!
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm!
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds !
Ye signs and wonders of the element !
Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise!
Thou too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks,
Oft from whose feet the avalanche,2 unheard,
Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene,
Into the depth of clouds that vail thy breast-
2. Avalanche: fr. avaler, to descend. See note 4, extract 159.
Thou too, again, stupendous mountain! thou,
That as I raise my head, awhile bow'd low
In adoration, upward from thy base
Slow-travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud,
To rise before me-rise, oh ever rise,
Rise like a cloud of incense from the earth!
Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador 3 from earth to heaven,
Great hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.
3. Ambassador: embassy and ambassador are taken immediately from L. L. ambaxia, ambactia, a commission, business, which is clearly connected with the word ambacts used by Cæsar (B. G. 6,
15) for servant, vassal. The Celtic or Gothic origin of ambactus is not so clear; but J. Grimm confidently refers it to Goth. andbahts, a servant.
Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,
"Twas sad as sad could be;
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea!
All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.
1. Observe the alliteration, perhaps unconscious, in these first two lines.
2. Copper is one of the many words in the language supplied by the names of
places. Cyprus was the source of this one, that island, in the Roman times, being rich in this metal.
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