To be a Prodigal's Favourite-then, worse truth,

A Miser's Pensioner-behold our lot! O Man, that from thy fair and shining youth

Age might but take the things Youth needed not! 1804.

AT APPLETHWAITE, NEAR
KESWICK

This place was presented to me by Sir George Beaumont with a view to the erection of a house upon it, for the sake of being near to Coleridge, then living, and likely to remain, at Greta Hall near Keswick. The severe necessities that prevented this arose from his domestic situation. This little property, with a considerable addition that still leaves it very small, lies beautifully upon the banks of a rill that gurgles down the side of Skiddaw, and the orchard and other parts of the grounds command a magnificent prospect of Derwent Water, and of the mountains of Borrowdale and Newlands. Many years ago I gave the place to my daughter.

BEAUMONT ! it was thy wish that I should

rear

A seemly Cottage in this sunny Dell,
On favoured ground, thy gift, where I
might dwell

In neighbourhood with One to me most dear,
That undivided we from year to year
Might work in our high Calling-a bright
hope

To which our fancies, mingling, gave free

scope

Till checked by some necessities severe. And should these slacken, honoured BEAUMONT ! still

Even then we may perhaps in vain implore Leave of our fate thy wishes to fulfil. Whether this boon be granted us or not, Old Skiddaw will look down upon the Spot With pride, the Muses love it evermore. 1804.

TO THE SUPREME BEING FROM THE ITALIAN OF MICHAEL ANGELO

THE prayers I make will then be sweet indeed

If Thou the spirit give by which I pray :
My unassisted heart is barren clay,

That of its native self can nothing feed:
Of good and pious works thou art the seed,
That quickens only where thou say'st it may:
Unless Thou show to us thine own true way
No man can find it: Father! Thou must
lead.

Do Thou, then, breathe those thoughts into my mind

By which such virtue may in me be bred That in thy holy footsteps I may tread; The fetters of my tongue do Thou unbind, That I may have the power to sing of thee, And sound thy praises everlastingly.

-ODE TO DUTY

1804.

This ode is on the model of Gray's Ode to Adversity, which is copied from Horace's Ode to Fortune. Many and many a time have I been twitted by my wife and sister for having forgotten this dedication of myself to the stern lawgiver. Transgressor indeed I have been, from hour to hour, from day to day: I would fain hope, however, not more flagrantly or in a worse way than most of my tuneful brethren. But these last words are in a wrong strain. We should be rigorous to ourselves and forbearing, if not indulgent, to others, and, if we make comparisons at all, it ought to be with those who have morally excelled us.

Jam non consilio bonus, sed more eò perductus, ut non tantum rectè facere possim, sed nisi rectè facere non possim."

STERN Daughter of the Voice of God!
O Duty! if that name thou love
Who art a light to guide, a rod
To check the erring, and reprove;
Thou, who art victory and law
When empty terrors overawe;

From vain temptations dost set free;

And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity!

There are who ask not if thine eye
Be on them; who, in love and truth,
Where no misgiving is, rely
Upon the genial sense of youth:
Glad Hearts! without reproach or blot
Who do thy work, and know it not:
Oh! if through confidence misplaced
They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power!
around them cast.

Serene will be our days and bright, And happy will our nature be,

I, loving freedom, and untried;
No sport of every random gust,
Yet being to myself a guide,
Too blindly have reposed my trust:
And oft, when in my heart was heard
Thy timely mandate, I deferred
The task, in smoother walks to stray;
But thee I now would serve more strictly, if
I may.

Through no disturbance of my soul,
Or strong compunction in me wrought,
I supplicate for thy control;
But in the quietness of thought:
Me this unchartered freedom tires;
I feel the weight of chance-desires :
My hopes no more must change their name,
I long for a repose that ever is the same.

Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear
The Godhead's most benignant grace;
Nor know we anything so fair
As is the smile upon thy face:
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds
And fragrance in thy footing treads;
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;
And the most ancient heavens, through
Thee, are fresh and strong.

To humbler functions, awful Power!
I call thee: I myself commend
Unto thy guidance from this hour;
Oh, let my weakness have an end!
Give unto me, made lowly wise,
The spirit of self-sacrifice;
The confidence of reason give;
And in the light of truth thy Bondman let
me live!
1805.

TO A SKY-LARK

Up with me! up with me into the clouds!
For thy song, Lark, is strong;
Up with me, up with me into the clouds!
Singing, singing,

With clouds and sky about thee ringing,

Lift me, guide me till I find
That spot which seems so to thy mind!

I have walked through wildernesses dreary
And to-day my heart is weary;

Had I now the wings of a Faery,

Up to thee would I fly.

A BARKING Sound the Shepherd hears, A cry as of a dog or fox;

He halts and searches with his eyes
Among the scattered rocks:

And now at distance can discern
A stirring in a brake of fern;
And instantly a dog is seen,

In that song of thine;

Lift me, guide me high and high

To thy banqueting-place in the sky.

Joyous as morning

Thou art laughing and scorning;

Thou hast a nest for thy love and thy rest,
And, though little troubled with sloth,
Drunken Lark! thou would'st be loth
To be such a traveller as I.
Happy, happy Liver,

With a soul as strong as a mountain river
Pouring out praise to the Almighty Giver,
Joy and jollity be with us both!

Alas! my journey, rugged and uneven, Through prickly moors or dusty ways must

wind;

But hearing thee, or others of thy kind, As full of gladness and as free of heaven, I, with my fate contented, will plod on, And hope for higher raptures, when life's day is done. 1805.

FIDELITY

The young man whose death gave occasion to this poem was named Charles Gough, and had come early in the spring to Paterdale for the sake of angling. While attempting to cross over Helvellyn to Grasmere he slipped from a steep part of the rock where the ice was not thawed, and perished. His body was discovered as is told in this poem. Walter Scott heard of the accident, and both he and I, without either of us knowing that the other had taken up the subject, each wrote a poem in admiration of the dog's fidelity. His contains a most beautiful stanza :— How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber,

When the wind waved his garment how oft didst thou start."

I will add that the sentiment in the last four lines of the last stanza in my verses was uttered by a shepherd with such exactness, that a traveller, who afterwards reported his account in print, was induced to question the man whether he had read them, which he had not.

The Dog is not of mountain breed;
Its motions, too, are wild and shy;
With something, as the Shepherd thinks,
Unusual in its cry:

Nor is there any one in sight

All round, in hollow or on height;
Nor shout, nor whistle strikes his ear;
What is the creature doing here?

It was a cove, a huge recess,

That keeps, till June, December's snow; A lofty precipice in front,

A silent tarn1 below!

Far in the bosom of Helvellyn,
Remote from public road or dwelling,
Pathway, or cultivated land;

From trace of human foot or hand.

There sometimes doth a leaping fish
Send through the tarn a lonely cheer;
The crags repeat the raven's croak,
In symphony austere;

Thither the rainbow comes-the cloud-
And mists that spread the flying shroud;
And sunbeams; and the sounding blast,
That, if it could, would hurry past;
But that enormous barrier holds it fast.

Not free from boding thoughts, a while
The Shepherd stood; then makes his way
O'er rocks and stones, following the Dog
As quickly as he may;

Nor far had gone before he found
A human skeleton on the ground;
The appalled Discoverer with a sigh
Looks round, to learn the history.

From those abrupt and perilous rocks
The Man had fallen, that place of fear!
At length upon the Shepherd's mind
It breaks, and all is clear:
He instantly recalled the name,
And who he was, and whence he came ;

1 Tarn is a small Mere or Lake, mostly high up in the mountains.

This Dog I knew well. It belonged to Mrs. Wordsworth's brother, Mr. Thomas Hutchinson, who then lived at Sockburn on the Tees, a beautiful retired situation where I used to visit him and his sisters before my marriage. My sister and I spent many months there after our return from Germany in 1799.

On his morning rounds the Master
Goes to learn how all things fare;
Searches pasture after pasture,
Sheep and cattle eyes with care;
And, for silence or for talk,

He hath comrades in his walk;

Four dogs, each pair of different breed, Distinguished two for scent, and two for speed.

See a hare before him started!
-Off they fly in earnest chase;
Every dog is eager-hearted,
All the four are in the race:
And the hare whom they pursue,
Knows from instinct what to do;
Her hope is near: no turn she makes;
But, like an arrow, to the river takes.

Deep the river was, and crusted Thinly by a one night's frost;

But the nimble Hare hath trusted

To the ice, and safely crost;

She hath crost, and without heed

All are following at full speed,
When, lo! the ice, so thinly spread,
Breaks-and the greyhound, DART, is over-
head!

Better fate have PRINCE and SWALLOW-
See them cleaving to the sport !
MUSIC has no heart to follow,
Little MUSIC, she stops short.
She hath neither wish nor heart,
Hers is now another part:

A loving creature she, and brave!
And fondly strives her struggling friend to

save.

From the brink her paws she stretches,
Very hands as you would say!
And afflicting moans she fetches,
As he breaks the ice away.
For herself she hath no fears,-
Him alone she sees and hears,-
Makes efforts with complainings; nor gives

o'er

Until her fellow sinks to re-appear no more. 1805.

TRIBUTE

TO THE MEMORY OF THE SAME DOG LIE here, without a record of thy worth, Beneath a covering of the common earth! It is not from unwillingness to praise, Or want of love, that here no Stone we raise; More thou deserv'st; but this man gives to

man,

Brother to brother, this is all we can. Yet they to whom thy virtues made thee dear

Shall find thee through all changes of the

year:

This Oak points out thy grave; the silent

tree

Will gladly stand a monument of thee.

We grieved for thee, and wished thy end

were past;

And willingly have laid thee here at last : For thou hadst lived till everything that cheers

In thee had yielded to the weight of years; Extreme old age had wasted thee away, And left thee but a glimmering of the day;

knees,

I saw thee stagger in the summer breeze, Too weak to stand against its sportive breath,

And ready for the gentlest stroke of death. It came, and we were glad; yet tears were shed;

Both man and woman wept when thou wert dead;

Not only for a thousand thoughts that were, Old household thoughts, in which thou hadst thy share;

But for some precious boons vouchsafed to thee,

Found scarcely anywhere in like degree!
For love, that comes wherever life and sense
Are given by God, in thee was most intense;
A chain of heart, a feeling of the mind,
A tender sympathy, which did thee bind
Not only to us Men, but to thy Kind:
Yea, for thy fellow-brutes in thee we saw
A soul of love, love's intellectual law:-
Hence, if we wept, it was not done in
shame;

Our tears from passion and from reason

That Ship was goodly to be seen, His pride and his delight!

Yet then, when called ashore, he sought
The tender peace of rural thought:
In more than happy mood

To your abodes, bright daisy Flowers!
He then would steal at leisure hours,
And loved you glittering in your bowers
A starry multitude.

But hark the word!-the ship is gone;-
Returns from her long course :-anon
Sets sail:-in season due,

Once more on English earth they stand:
But, when a third time from the land
They parted, sorrow was at hand
For Him and for his crew.