His little, nameless, unremembered [From Lines Composed a Few Miles Above acts 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 burden of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight 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, 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. I have learned To look on Nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes The still, sad music of humanity, Not harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy 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: A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. Tintern Abbey.] APOSTROPHE TO THE POET'S SISTER. THOU art with me, here, upon the banks Of this fair river; thou, my dearest friend, My dear, dear friend, and in thy voice I catch The language of my former heart, and read My former pleasures in the shooting lights Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while May I behold in thee what I was once, My dear, dear sister! And this prayer I make, Knowing that Nature never did betray The heart that loved her: 'tis her privilege, Through all the years of this our life, to lead From joy to joy: for she can so inform The mind that is within us, so impress With quietness and beauty, and so feed With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all The dreary intercourse of daily life, Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb Our cheerful faith that all which we behold Is full of blessings. the moon Therefore let Shine on thee in thy solitary walk; And let the misty mountain winds be free To blow against thee: and, in after years, When these wild ecstasies shall be matured Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind Shall be a mansion for all lovely Of suffering hath been thoroughly forms, Thy memory be as a dwelling-place For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh, then, If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief, Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts Of tender joy wilt thou remember And go to the grave unthought of. Strongest minds Are often those of whom the noisy world hears least. [From The Excursion.] THE DEAF DALESMAN. ALMOST at the root Of that tall pine, the shadow of whose bare And slender stem, while here I sit at eve, Oft stretches towards me, like a long straight path Traced faintly in the greensward; there beneath A plain blue stone, a gentle dalesman lies, From whom, in early childhood, was withdrawn The precious gift of hearing. He grew up From year to year in loneliness of soul; And this deep mountain valley was to him Soundless, with all its streams. The bird of dawn Did never rouse this cottager from sleep With startling summons; nor for his delight The vernal cuckoo shouted; not for him Murmured the laboring bee. When stormy winds Were working the broad bosom of the lake Into a thousand thousand sparkling waves, Rocking the trees, or driving cloud on cloud Along the sharp edge of yon lofty crags, The agitated scene before his eye Was silent as a picture: evermore Were all things silent, wheresoe'er he moved; Yet, by the solace of his own pure thoughts Upheld, he duteously pursued the round Of rural labors; the steep mountain side Ascended, with his staff and faithful dog; The plough he guided, and the scythe he swayed; And the ripe corn before his sickle fell Among the jocund reapers. For himself, All watchful and industrious as he was, He wrought not; neither flock nor field he owned; No wish for wealth had place within his mind; Nor husband's love, nor father's hope or care. Though born a younger brother, need was none That from the floor of his paternal home He should depart to plant himself anew ; And when, mature in manhood, he beheld His parents laid in earth, no loss ensued Of rights to him; but he remained well pleased, By the pure bond of independent An inmate of a second family, Nor deem that his mild presence was a weight That pressed upon his brother's house, for books Were ready comrades whom he could not tire, Of whose society the blameless man Was never satiate. Their familiar voice. Even to old age, with unabated charm Beguiled his leisure hours, refreshed his thoughts; Beyond its natural elevation, raised His introverted spirit, and bestowed Upon his life an outward dignity Which all acknowledged. The dark winter night, prized And, at the touch of every wander ing breeze, Murmurs, not idly, o'er his peaceful grave. FROM "INTIMATIONS OF IMMOR TALITY." OUR birth is but a sleep and a forget. ting: The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, His gentle manners; and his peaceful But trailing clouds of glory do we smiles, But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Fallings from us, vanishings; Black misgivings of a creature Moving about in worlds not realized, High instincts, before which our mortal nature There, healthy as a shepherd-boy, Shalt show us how divine a thing Did tremble like a guilty thing sur-Thy thoughts and feelings shall not prised! But for those first affections, Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain light of all our day, Are yet a master light of all our seeing; Uphold us - cherish and have power to make Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal silence: truths that wake, To perish never; die, Nor leave thee when gray hairs are A melancholy slave; THE DAFFODILS. I WANDERED lonely as a cloud Which neither listlessness, nor mad When all at once I saw a crowd, endeavor, Nor man nor boy, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Which brought us hither; And see the children sport upon the And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. TO A YOUNG LADY, A host of golden daffodils; The waves beside them danced, but Outdid the sparkling waves in glee: In such a jocund company: I gazed and gazed, but little thought WHO HAD BEEN REPROACHED FOR TAKING LONG What wealth the show to me had |