WITHIN the mind strong fancies work,
A deep delight the bosom thrills,
Oft as I pass along the fork
Of these fraternal hills:
Where, save the rugged road, we find
No appanage of human kind,
Nor hint of man; if stone or rock
Seem not his handy-work to mock
By something cognizably shaped :
Mockery-or model roughly hewn,
And left as if by earthquake strewn,
Or from the Flood escaped:
Altars for Druid service fit;
(But where no fire was ever lit,
Unless the glow-worm to the skies
Thence offer nightly sacrifice)
Wrinkled Egyptian monument;
Green moss-grown tower; or hoary tent:
Tents of a camp that never shall be razed-
On which four thousand years have gazed!

II.

Ye plough-shares sparkling on the slopes !
Ye snow-white lambs that trip
Imprisoned 'mid the formal props
Of restless ownership!

Ye trees, that may to-morrow fall
To feed the insatiate Prodigal
Lawns, houses, chattels, groves and fields,
All that the fertile valley shields;
Wages of folly-baits of crime,
Of life's uneasy game the stake,
Playthings that keep the eyes awake
Of drowsy, dotard Time ;-
O care! O guilt!-O vales and plains,
Here, 'mid his own unvexed domains,
A Genius dwells, that can subdue
At once all memory of You,-
Most potent when mists veil the sky
Mists that distort and magnify:

While the coarse rushes, to the sweeping breeze,

Sigh forth their ancient melodies!

III.

List to those shriller notes!-that march
Perchance was on the blast,

When, through this Height's inverted arch,
Rome's earliest legion passed!

-They saw, adventurously impelled,
And older eyes than theirs beheld,
Tlus block-and yon, whose church-like
frame

Gives to this savage Pass its name.
Aspiring Road! that lov'st to hide
Thy daring in a vapory bourn,
Not seldom may the hour return
When thou shalt be my guide:
And I (as all men may find cause,
When life is at a weary pause,
And they have panted up the hill
Of duty with reluctant will)

Be thankful, even though tired and faint,
For the rich bounties of constraint;
Whence oft invigorating transports flow
That choice lacked courage to bestow!

IV.

My soul was grateful for delight
That wore a threatening brow;
A veil is lifted-can she slight
The scene that opens now?
Though habitation none appear,
The greenness tells, man must be there
The shelter-that the perspective
Is of the clime in which we live :
Where Toil pursues his daily round:
Where Pity sheds sweet tears-and Love,
In woodbine bower or birchen grove,
Inflicts his tender wound.

-Who comes not hither ne'er shall know
How beautiful the world below:
Nor can he guess how lightly leaps
The brook adown the rocky steeps.
Farewell, thou desolate Domain!
Hope, pointing to the cultured plain,
Carols like a shepherd-boy;
And who is she?-Can that be Joy!
Who, with a sunbeam for her guide,
Smoothly skims the meadows wide:
While Faith, from yonder opening cloud,
To hill and vale proclaims aloud,
"Whate'er the weak may dread, the wicked
dare,

Thy lot, O Man, is good, thy portion fair!" 1817.

XXXIV.

TO ENTERPRISE.

KEEP for the Young the impassione smile Shed from thy countenance, as I see thee stand

High on that chalky cliff of Briton's Isle,
A slender volume grasping in thy hand-
(Perchance the pages that relate
The various turns of Crusoe's fate)-
Ah, spare the exulting smile,

And drop thy painting finger bright
As the first flash of beacon light;

But neither veil thy head in shadows dim,
Nor turn thy face away

From One who, in the evening of his day, To thee would offer no presumptuous hymn!

I.

Bold Spirit! who art free to rove
Among the starry courts of Jove,
And oft in splendor dost appear
Embodied to poetic eyes,

While traversing this nether sphere,
Where Mortals call thee ENTERPRISE,
Daughter of Hope! her favorite Child,
Whom she to young Ambition bore,
When hunter's arrow first defiled

The grove, and stained the turf with gore;
Thee winged Fancy took, and nursed
On board Euphrates' palmy shore,
And where the mightier Waters burst
From caves of Indian mountains hoar!
She wrapped thee in a panther's skin;
And Thou, thy favorite food to win,
The flame-eyed eagle oft wouldst scare
From her rock-fortress in mid air,
With infant shout; and often sweep,
Paired with the ostrich, o'er the plain:
Or, tired with sport, wouldst sink asleep
Upon the couchant lion's mane !

With rolling years thy strength increased;
And, far beyond thy native East,
To thee, by varying titles known
As variously thy power was shown,
Did incense-bearing altars rise
Which caught the blaze of sacrifice,
From suppliants panting for the skies!

II.

What though this ancient Earth be trod
No more by step of Demi-god
Mounting from glorious deed to deed
As thou from clime to clime didst lead;
Yet still, the bosom beating high,
And the hushed farewell of an

Where no procrastinating gaze
A last infirmity betrays,
Prove that thy heaven-descended sway
Shall ne'er submit to cold decay.
By thy divinity impelled,

The Stripling seeks the tented field:
The aspiring Virgin kneels: and, pale
With awe, receives the hallowed veil,
A soft and tender Heroine
Vowed to severer discipline:
Inflamed by thee, the blooming Boy
Makes of the whistling shrouds a toy,
And of the ocean's dismal breast
A play-ground,—
-or a couch of rest;
'Mid the blank world of snow and ice,
Thou to his dangers dost enchain
The Chamois-chaser awed in vain
By chasm or dizzy precipice;
And hast Thou not with triumph seen
How soaring Mortals glide between
Or through the clouds, and brave the light
With bolder than Icarian flight?
How they, in bells of crystal, dive-
Where winds and waters cease to strive-
For no unholy visitings,

Among the monsters of the Deep;
And all the sad and precious things
Which there in ghastly silence sleep?
Or, adverse ticies and currents headed,
And breathless calms no longer dreaded,
In never-slackening voyage go
Straight as an arrow from the bow:
And, slighting sails and scorning oars,
Keep faith with Time on distant shores?
--Within our fearless reach are placed
The secrets of the burning Waste;
Egyptian tombs unlock their dead,
Nile trembles at his fountain head;
Thou speak'st-and lo! the polar Seas
Unbosom their last mysteries.

-But oh! what transports, what sublim Won from the world of mind, dost thou pre reward,

Back flows the willing current of my Song. If to provoke such doom the Impious dare, Why should it daunt a blameless prayer?

Bold Goddess! range our Youth among;
Nor let thy genuine impulse fail to beat
In hearts no longer young;
Still may a veteran Few have pride
In thoughts whose sternness makes them
sweet;

In fixed resolves by Reason justified;
That to their object cleave like sleet
Whitening a pine tree's northern side,
When fields are naked far and wide,
And withered leaves, from earth's cold
breast

Up-caught in whirlwinds, nowhere can find

rest.

VI.

But, if such homage thou disdain
As doth with mellowing years agr
One rarely absent from thy train
More humble favors may obtain
For thy contented Votary.
She, who incites the frolic lambs
In presence of their heedless dams,
And to the solitary fawn

Vouchsafes her lessons, bounteous Nymph

ON HER FIRST ASCENT TO THE SUMMIT
OF HELVELLYN.

INMATE of a mountain dwelling,
Thou hast clomb aloft, and gazed
From the watch-towers of Heivellyn;
Awed, delighted, and amazed!

Potent was the spell that bound thee
Not unwilling to obey;

For blue Ether's arms, flung round thee,
Stilled the pantings of dismay.

Lo! the dwindled woods and meadows;
What a vast abyss is there!
Lo! the clouds, the solemn shadows,
And the glistenings-heavenly fair

And a record of commotion
Which a thousand ridges yield:
Ridge, and gulf, and distant ocean
Gleaming like a silver shield!

Maiden! now take flight ;-inherit
Alps or Andes-they are thine!
With the morning's roseate Spirit,
Sweep their length of snowy line:

Or survey their bright dominions In the gorgeous colors drest Flung from off the purple pinions, Evening spreads throughout the west! Thine are all the coral fountains Warbling in each sparry vault Of the untrodden lunar mountains; Listen to their songs!—or halt, To Niphates' top invited, Whither spiteful Satan steered; Or descend where the ark alighted, When the green earth re-appeared; For the power of hills is on thee, As was witnessed through thine cye Then when old Helvellyn won thee To confess their majesty! 1816.

XXXVI.

TO A YOUNG LADY,

Inferior to angelical, prolong

Their curious pastime! shaping in mid air (And sometimes with ambitious wing that

soars

High as the level of the mountain-tops)
A circuit ampler than the lake beneath-
Their own domain; but ever, while intent
On tracing and retracing that large round,
Their jubilant activity evolves

Hundreds of curves and circlets, to and fro,
Upward and downward, progress intricate
Yet unperplexed, as if one spirit swayed
Their indefatigable flight. "Tis done-
Ten times, or more, I fancied it had ceased;
But lo! the vanished company again
Ascending they approach-I hear their
wings.

Faint, faint at first; and then an eager sound,
Past in a moment-and as faint again!
They tempt the sun to sport amid their
plumes:

They tempt the water, or the gleaming ice,

ING LONG WALKS IN THE COUNTRY.

DEAR Child of Nature, let them rail
-There is a nest in a green dale,

A harbor and a hold;

Where thou, a Wife and Friend, shalt see

Thy own heart-stirring days, and be

A light to young and old.

There, healthy as a shepherd boy,
And treading among flowers of joy
Which at no season fade,

Thou, while thy babes around thee cling,
Shalt show us how divine a thing

A Woman may be made.

Thy thoughts and feelings shall not die,
Nor leave thee, when gray hairs are nigh,
A melancholy slave;

But an old age serene and bright,
And lovely as a Lapland night,
Shall lead thee to thy grave.
1803.

XXXVII.

WATER-FOWL.

"Let me be allowed the aid of verse to de

scribe the evolutions which these visitants

sometimes perform, on a fine day, towards the close of winter."-Extract from the

Author's Book on the Lakes.

MARK how the feathered tenants of the flood,

With grace of motion that might scarcely

seem

Their own fair forms, upon the glimmering

plain,

Painted more soft and fair as they descend
Almost to touch ;-then up again aloft,
Up with a sally and a flash of speed,

As if they scorned both resting-place and
rest!
1812.

XXXVIII.

VIEW FROM THE TOP OF BLACK COMB.*

THIS Height a ministering Angel might select:

For from the summit of BLACK COMB (dread name

Derived from clouds and storms!) the amplest range

Of unobstructed prospect may be seen That British ground commands:-low dusky tracts,

Where Trent is nursed, far southward! Cambrian hills

To the south-west, a multitudinous show; And, in a line of eye-sight linked with these The hoary peaks of Scotland that give birth To Tiviot's stream, to Annan, Tweed, and

Clyde :

Crowding the quarter whence the sun comes

forth

Black Comb stands at the southern extrem. ity of Cumberland.