LINES

          LOUD is the Vale! the Voice is up
          With which she speaks when storms are gone,
          A mighty unison of streams!
          Of all her Voices, One!

          Loud is the Vale;--this inland Depth
          In peace is roaring like the Sea
          Yon star upon the mountain-top
          Is listening quietly.

          Sad was I, even to pain deprest,
          Importunate and heavy load!                                 10
          The Comforter hath found me here,
          Upon this lonely road;

          And many thousands now are sad--
          Wait the fulfilment of their fear;
          For he must die who is their stay,
          Their glory disappear.

          A Power is passing from the earth
          To breathless Nature's dark abyss;
          But when the great and good depart
          What is it more than this--                                 20

          That Man, who is from God sent forth,
          Doth yet again to God return?--
          Such ebb and flow must ever be,
          Then wherefore should we mourn?
                                                              1806.

NOVEMBER 1806

          ANOTHER year!--another deadly blow!
          Another mighty Empire overthrown!
          And We are left, or shall be left, alone;
          The last that dare to struggle with the Foe.
          'Tis well! from this day forward we shall know
          That in ourselves our safety must be sought;
          That by our own right hands it must be wrought;
          That we must stand unpropped, or be laid low.
          O dastard whom such foretaste doth not cheer!
          We shall exult, if they who rule the land                   10
          Be men who hold its many blessings dear,
          Wise, upright, valiant; not a servile band,
          Who are to judge of danger which they fear,
          And honour which they do not understand.

ADDRESS TO A CHILD
DURING A BOISTEROUS WINTER EVENING
BY MY SISTER

          WHAT way does the wind come? What way does he go?
          He rides over the water, and over the snow,
          Through wood, and through vale; and, o'er rocky height
          Which the goat cannot climb, takes his sounding flight;
          He tosses about in every bare tree,
          As, if you look up, you plainly may see;
          But how he will come, and whither he goes,
          There's never a scholar in England knows.

          He will suddenly stop in a cunning nook
          And ring a sharp 'larum;--but, if you should look,          10
          There's nothing to see but a cushion of snow
          Round as a pillow, and whiter than milk,
          And softer than if it were covered with silk.
          Sometimes he'll hide in the cave of a rock,
          Then whistle as shrill as the buzzard cock;
          --Yet seek him,--and what shall you find in the place?
          Nothing but silence and empty space;
          Save, in a corner, a heap of dry leaves,
          That he's left, for a bed, to beggars or thieves!
          As soon as 'tis daylight to-morrow, with me                 20
          You shall go to the orchard, and then you will see
          That he has been there, and made a great rout,
          And cracked the branches, and strewn them about;
          Heaven grant that he spare but that one upright twig
          That looked up at the sky so proud and big
          All last summer, as well you know,
          Studded with apples, a beautiful show!

          Hark! over the roof he makes a pause,
          And growls as if he would fix his claws
          Right in the slates, and with a huge rattle                 30
          Drive them down, like men in a battle:
          --But let him range round; he does us no harm,
          We build up the fire, we're snug and warm;
          Untouched by his breath see the candle shines bright,
          And burns with a clear and steady light;
          Books have we to read,--but that half-stifled knell,
          Alas! 'tis the sound of the eight o'clock bell.
          --Come now we'll to bed! and when we are there
          He may work his own will, and what shall we care?
          He may knock at the door,--we'll not let him in;            40
          May drive at the windows,--we'll laugh at his din;
          Let him seek his own home wherever it be;
          Here's a 'cozie' warm house for Edward and me.
                                                              1806.

ODE
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.

                                   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,
          That there hath past away a glory from the earth.

                                  III

          Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,
              And while the young lambs bound
                  As to the tabor's sound,
          To me alone there came a thought of grief:
          A timely utterance gave that thought relief,
                  And I again am strong:
          The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;
          No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;
          I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,
          The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep,
                  And all the earth is gay;
                      Land and sea
              Give themselves up to jollity,
                  And with the heart of May
              Doth every Beast keep holiday;--
                  Thou Child of Joy,
          Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy
                    Shepherd-boy!

                                   IV

          Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call
              Ye to each other make; I see
          The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;
              My heart is at your festival,
              My head hath its coronal,
          The fulness of your bliss, I feel--I feel it all.
              Oh evil day! if I were sullen
              While Earth herself is adorning,
                  This sweet May-morning,
              And the Children are culling
                  On every side,
              In a thousand valleys far and wide,
              Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm,
          And the Babe leaps up on his Mother's arm:--
              I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!
              --But there's a Tree, of many, one,
          A single Field which I have looked upon,
          Both of them speak of something that is gone:
              The Pansy at my feet
              Doth the same tale repeat:
          Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
          Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

                                   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:
          Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
          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

          Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;
          Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,
          And, even with something of a Mother's mind,
              And no unworthy aim,
              The homely Nurse doth all she can
          To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man,
              Forget the glories he hath known,
          And that imperial palace whence he came.

                                  VII

          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 "humorous stage"
          With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,
          That Life brings with her in her equipage;
              As if his whole vocation
              Were endless imitation.

                                  VIII

          Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
              Thy Soul's immensity;
          Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep
          Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind,
          That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep,
          Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,--
              Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!
              On whom those truths do rest,
          Which we are toiling all our lives to find,
          In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;
          Thou, over whom thy Immortality
          Broods like the Day, a Master o'er a Slave,
          A Presence which is not to be put by;
          Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might
          Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height,
          Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
          The years to bring the inevitable yoke,
          Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
          Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight,
          And custom lie upon thee with a weight
          Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

                                   IX

              O joy! that in our embers
              Is something that doth live,
              That nature yet remembers
              What was so fugitive!
          The thought of our past years in me doth breed
          Perpetual benediction: not indeed
          For that which is most worthy to be blest--
          Delight and liberty, the simple creed
          Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest,
          With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:--
              Not for these I raise
              The song of thanks and praise;
            But for those obstinate questionings
            Of sense and outward things,
            Fallings from us, vanishings;
            Blank misgivings of a Creature
          Moving about in worlds not realised,
          High instincts before which our mortal Nature
          Did tremble like a guilty Thing surprised:
              But for those first affections,
              Those shadowy recollections,
            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;
          Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
              Nor Man nor Boy,
          Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
          Can utterly abolish or destroy!
              Hence in a season of calm weather
              Though inland far we be,
          Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea
              Which brought us hither,
              Can in a moment travel thither,
          And see the Children sport upon the shore,
          And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

                                   X

          Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!
              And let the young Lambs bound
              As to the tabor's sound!
          We in thought will join your throng,
              Ye that pipe and ye that play,
              Ye that through your hearts to-day
              Feel the gladness of the May!
          What though the radiance which was once so bright
          Be now for ever taken from my sight,
              Though nothing can bring back the hour
          Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
              We will grieve not, rather find
              Strength in what remains behind;
              In the primal sympathy
              Which having been must ever be;
              In the soothing thoughts that spring
              Out of human suffering;
              In the faith that looks through death,
          In years that bring the philosophic mind.

                                   XI

          And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,
          Forebode not any severing of our loves!
          Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
          I only have relinquished one delight
          To live beneath your more habitual sway.
          I love the Brooks which down their channels fret,
          Even more than when I tripped lightly as they;
          The innocent brightness of a new-born Day
                      Is lovely yet;
          The Clouds that gather round the setting sun
          Do take a sober colouring from an eye
          That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;
          Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
          Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
          Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
          To me the meanest flower that blows can give
          Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
                                                            1803-6.

A PROPHECY. FEBRUARY 1807.

          HIGH deeds, O Germans, are to come from you!
          Thus in your books the record shall be found,
          "A watchword was pronounced, a potent sound--
          ARMINIUS!--all the people quaked like dew
          Stirred by the breeze; they rose, a Nation, true,
          True to herself--the mighty Germany,
          She of the Danube and the Northern Sea,
          She rose, and off at once the yoke she threw.
          All power was given her in the dreadful trance;
          Those new-born Kings she withered like a flame."            10
          --Woe to them all! but heaviest woe and shame
          To that Bavarian who could first advance
          His banner in accursed league with France,
          First open traitor to the German name!

THOUGHT OF A BRITON ON THE SUBJUGATION OF SWITZERLAND

          TWO Voices are there; one is of the sea,
          One of the mountains; each a mighty Voice:
          In both from age to age thou didst rejoice,
          They were thy chosen music, Liberty!
          There came a Tyrant, and with holy glee
          Thou fought'st against him; but hast vainly striven:
          Thou from thy Alpine holds at length art driven,
          Where not a torrent murmurs heard by thee.
          Of one deep bliss thine ear hath been bereft:
          Then cleave, O cleave to that which still is left;          10
          For, high-souled Maid, what sorrow would it be
          That Mountain floods should thunder as before,
          And Ocean bellow from his rocky shore,
          And neither awful Voice be heard by thee!
                                                              1807.

TO THOMAS CLARKSON
ON THE FINAL PASSING OF THE BILL FOR THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE
MARCH 1807

          CLARKSON! it was an obstinate hill to climb:
          How toilsome--nay, how dire--it was, by thee
          Is known; by none, perhaps, so feelingly:
          But thou, who, starting in thy fervent prime,
          Didst first lead forth that enterprise sublime,
          Hast heard the constant Voice its charge repeat,
          Which, out of thy young heart's oracular seat,
          First roused thee.--O true yoke-fellow of Time,
          Duty's intrepid liegeman, see, the palm
          Is won, and by all Nations shall be worn!                   10
          The blood-stained Writing is for ever torn;
          And thou henceforth wilt have a good man's calm,
          A great man's happiness; thy zeal shall find
          Repose at length, firm friend of human kind!

THE MOTHER'S RETURN
BY MY SISTER

          A MONTH, sweet Little-ones, is past
          Since your dear Mother went away,--
          And she to-morrow will return;
          To-morrow is the happy day.

          O blessed tidings! thought of joy!
          The eldest heard with steady glee;
          Silent he stood; then laughed amain,--
          And shouted, "Mother, come to me."

          Louder and louder did he shout,
          With witless hope to bring her near;                        10
          "Nay, patience! patience, little boy!
          Your tender mother cannot hear."

          I told of hills, and far-off towns,
          And long, long vales to travel through;--
          He listens, puzzled, sore perplexed,
          But he submits; what can he do?

          No strife disturbs his sister's breast;
          She wars not with the mystery
          Of time and distance, night and day;
          The bonds of our humanity.                                  20

          Her joy is like an instinct, joy
          Of kitten, bird, or summer fly;
          She dances, runs without an aim,
          She chatters in her ecstasy.

          Her brother now takes up the note,
          And echoes back his sister's glee;
          They hug the infant in my arms,
          As if to force his sympathy.

          Then, settling into fond discourse,
          We rested in the garden bower;                              30
          While sweetly shone the evening sun
          In his departing hour.

          We told o'er all that we had done,--
          Our rambles by the swift brook's side
          Far as the willow-skirted pool,
          Where two fair swans together glide.

          We talked of change, of winter gone,
          Of green leaves on the hawthorn spray,
          Of birds that build their nests and sing,
          And all "since Mother went away!"                           40

          To her these tales they will repeat,
          To her our new-born tribes will show,
          The goslings green, the ass's colt,
          The lambs that in the meadow go.

          --But, see, the evening star comes forth!
          To bed the children must depart;
          A moment's heaviness they feel,
          A sadness at the heart:

          'Tis gone--and in a merry fit
          They run upstairs in gamesome race;                         50
          I, too, infected by their mood,
          I could have joined the wanton chase.

          Five minutes past--and, O the change!
          Asleep upon their beds they lie;
          Their busy limbs in perfect rest,
          And closed the sparkling eye.
                                                              1807.

GIPSIES

          YET are they here the same unbroken knot
          Of human Beings, in the self-same spot!
              Men, women, children, yea the frame
              Of the whole spectacle the same!
          Only their fire seems bolder, yielding light,
          Now deep and red, the colouring of night;
              That on their Gipsy-faces falls,
              Their bed of straw and blanket-walls.
          --Twelve hours, twelve bounteous hours are gone, while I
          Have been a traveller under open sky,                       10
              Much witnessing of change and cheer,
              Yet as I left I find them here!
          The weary Sun betook himself to rest;--
          Then issued Vesper from the fulgent west,
              Outshining like a visible God
              The glorious path in which he trod.
          And now, ascending, after one dark hour
          And one night's diminution of her power,
              Behold the mighty Moon! this way
              She looks as if at them--but they                       20
          Regard not her:--oh better wrong and strife
          (By nature transient) than this torpid life;
              Life which the very stars reprove
              As on their silent tasks they move!
          Yet, witness all that stirs in heaven or earth!
          In scorn I speak not;--they are what their birth
              And breeding suffer them to be;
              Wild outcasts of society!
                                                              1807.

"O NIGHTINGALE! THOU SURELY ART"

          O NIGHTINGALE! thou surely art
          A creature of a "fiery heart":--
          These notes of thine--they pierce and pierce;
          Tumultuous harmony and fierce!
          Thou sing'st as if the God of wine
          Had helped thee to a Valentine;
          A song in mockery and despite
          Of shades, and dews, and silent night;
          And steady bliss, and all the loves
          Now sleeping in these peaceful groves.                      10
          I heard a Stock-dove sing or say
          His homely tale, this very day;
          His voice was buried among trees,
          Yet to be come at by the breeze:
          He did not cease; but cooed--and cooed;
          And somewhat pensively he wooed:
          He sang of love, with quiet blending,
          Slow to begin, and never ending;
          Of serious faith, and inward glee;
          That was the song--the song for me!                         20
                                                              1807.