"IT IS NOT TO BE THOUGHT OF" It is not to be thought of that the Flood Of British freedom, which, to the open sea Of the world's praise, from dark antiquity Hath flowed, "with pomp of waters, unwithstood,"

Roused though it be full often to a mood
Which spurns the check of salutary bands,
That this most famous Stream in bogs and
sands

Should perish; and to evil and to good
Be lost for ever. In our halls is hung
Armoury of the invincible Knights of old:
We must be free or die, who speak the
tongue

That Shakspeare spake; the faith and morals hold

Which Milton held.-In everything we are

sprung

Of Earth's first blood, have titles manifold. 1802.

"WHEN I HAVE BORNE IN

MEMORY"

WHEN I have borne in memory what has tamed

COMPOSED AFTER A JOURNEY

ACROSS THE HAMBLETON
HILLS, YORKSHIRE

Composed October 4th, 1802, after a journey over the Hambleton Hills, on a day memorable to me-the day of my marriage. The horizon commanded by those hills is most magnificent.The next day, while we were travelling in a postchaise up Wensleydale, we were stopt by one of the horses proving restive, and were obliged to wait two hours in a severe storm before the postboy could fetch from the inn another to supply its place. The spot was in front of Bolton Hall, where Mary Queen of Scots was kept prisoner soon after her unfortunate landing at Workington. The place then belonged to the Scroopes, and memorials of her are yet preserved there. To beguile the time I composed a Sonnet. The subject was our own confinement contrasted with hers; but it was not thought worthy of being preserved.

DARK and more dark the shades of evening fell;

The wished-for point was reached-but at an hour

When little could be gained from that rich dower

Of prospect, whereof many thousands tell. Yet did the glowing west with marvellous

power

Salute us; there stood Indian citadel, Temple of Greece, and minster with its

tower

Substantially expressed—a place for bell Or clock to toll from! Many a tempting isle,

depart

When men change swords for ledgers, and desert

The student's bower for gold, some fears unnamed

I had, my Country!-am I to be blamed? Now, when I think of thee, and what thou art,

Verily, in the bottom of my heart,
Of those unfilial fears I am ashamed.
For dearly must we prize thee; we who find
In thee a bulwark for the cause of men:
And I by my affection was beguiled:
What wonder if a Poet now and then,
Among the many movements of his mind,
Felt for thee as a lover or a child!

1802.

'Mid seas how steadfast! objects all for the eye

Of silent rapture; but we felt the while We should forget them; they are of the sky,

And from our earthly memory fade away. 1802.

STANZAS

WRITTEN IN MY POCKET-COPY OF THOMSON'S "CASTLE OF INDOLENCE Composed in the orchard, Town-end, Grasmere, Coleridge living with us much at the time: his son Hartley has said, that his father's character and habits are here preserved in a livelier way than in anything that has been written about him.

TO H. C.

SIX YEARS OLD

O THOU! whose fancies from afar are brought;

Who of thy words dost make a mock apparel, And fittest to unutterable thought

The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol;

Thou faery voyager! that dost float
In such clear water, that thy boat
May rather seem

To brood on air than on an earthly stream;
Suspended in a stream as clear as sky,
Where earth and heaven do make one
imagery;

O blessed vision! happy child!
Thou art so exquisitely wild,

I think of thee with many fears

For what may be thy lot in future years.
I thought of times when Pain might be
thy guest,

Lord of thy house and hospitality;
And Grief, uneasy lover! never rest

But when she sate within the touch of thee.
O too industrious folly!

O vain and causeless melancholy!
Nature will either end thee quite;

Or, lengthening out thy season of delight,
Preserve for thee, by individual right,

A young lamb's heart among the full-grown flocks.

What hast thou to do with sorrow,
Or the injuries of to-morrow?
Thou art a dew-drop, which the morn
brings forth,

Ill fitted to sustain unkindly shocks,
Or to be trailed along the soiling earth;
A gem that glitters while it lives,
And no forewarning gives;

But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife
Slips in a moment out of life.

TO THE DAISY1

1802.

Through the meanest object's sight.
By the murmur of a spring,
Or the least bough's rustelling;
By a Daisy whose leaves spread
Shut when Titan goes to bed;
Or a shady bush or tree;
She could more infuse in me
Than all Nature's beauties can
In some other wiser man.'

G. WITHER.

IN youth from rock to rock I went,
From hill to hill in discontent
Of pleasure high and turbulent,

Most pleased when most uneasy;
But now my own delights I make,
My thirst at every rill can slake,
And gladly Nature's love partake,

Of Thee, sweet Daisy!

Thee Winter in the garland wears
That thinly decks his few grey hairs;
Spring parts the clouds with softest airs,
That she may sun thee;
Whole Summer-fields are thine by right;
And Autumn, melancholy Wight!
Doth in thy crimson head delight

When rains are on thee.

In shoals and bands, a morrice train, Thou greet'st the traveller in the lane; Pleased at his greeting thee again;

Yet nothing daunted,

Nor grieved if thou be set at nought:
And oft alone in nooks remote
We meet thee, like a pleasant thought,
When such are wanted.

Be violets in their secret mews
The flowers the wanton Zephyrs choose;
Proud be the rose, with rains and dews

Her head impearling,

Thou liv'st with less ambitious aim,
Yet hast not gone without thy fame;
Thou art indeed by many a claim
The Poet's darling.

If to a rock from rains he fly,
Or, some bright day of April sky,
Imprisoned by hot sunshine lie

Near the green holly,

And wearily at length should fare;
He needs but look about, and there
Thou art a friend at hand, to scare
His melancholy.

TO THE DAISY

This and the other Poems addressed to the same flower were composed at Town-end, Grasmere, during the earlier part of my residence there. I have been censured for the last line but one"thy function apostolical "—as being little less than profane. How could it be thought so? The word is adopted with reference to its derivation, implying something sent on a mission; and assuredly this little flower, especially when the subject of verse, may be regarded, in its humble degree, as administering both to moral and to spiritual purposes.

BRIGHT Flower! whose home is everywhere,

Bold in maternal Nature's care,
And all the long year through the heir
Of joy or sorrow;

Methinks that there abides in thee

Some concord with humanity,

Given to no other flower I see
The forest thorough!

One have I marked, the happiest guest
In all this covert of the blest:
Hail to Thee, far above the rest

In joy of voice and pinion!
Thou, Linnet! in thy green array,
Presiding Spirit here to-day,
Dost lead the revels of the May;

And this is thy dominion.

While birds, and butterflies, and flowers,
Make all one band of paramours,
Thou, ranging up and down the bowers,
Art sole in thy employment:

A Life, a Presence like the Air,
Scattering thy gladness without care,
Too blest with any one to pair;

Thyself thy own enjoyment.

Amid yon tuft of hazel trees,
That twinkle to the gusty breeze,
Behold him perched in ecstasies,

Yet seeming still to hover;
There! where the flutter of his wings
Upon his back and body flings
Shadows and sunny glimmerings,
That cover him all over.

My dazzled sight he oft deceives,
A Brother of the dancing leaves;
Then flits, and from the cottage-eaves
Pours forth his song in gushes;
As if by that exulting strain
He mocked and treated with disdain
The voiceless Form he chose to feign,
While fluttering in the bushes.

1803.

THE GREEN LINNET

BENEATH these fruit-tree boughs that

shed

Their snow-white blossoms on my head,
With brightest sunshine round me spread
Of spring's unclouded weather,
In this sequestered nook how sweet
To sit upon my orchard-seat!
And birds and flowers once more to greet,
My last year's friends together.

YEW-TREES

Written at Grasmere. These yew-trees are still standing, but the spread of that at Lorton is much diminished by mutilation. I will here mention that a little way up the hill, on the road leading from Rosthwaite to Stonethwaite (m Borrowdale), lay the trunk of a yew-tree, which appeared as you approached, so vast was its diameter, like the entrance of a cave, and not a small one. Calculating upon what I have observed of the slow growth of this tree in rocky situations, and of its durability, I have often thought that the one I am describing must have been as old as the Christian era. The tree lay in the line of a fence. Great masses of its ruins were strewn about, and some had been rolled down the hillside and lay near the road at the