For 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. Therefore let the moon 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 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 me,
And these my exhortations! nor, perchance, If I should be where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams Of past existence, wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream We stood together; and that I, so long A worshipper of Nature, hither came, Unwearied in that service: rather say With warmer love, oh! with far deeper zeal Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget, That after many wanderings, many years Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs And this green pastoral landscape, were to me More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake.
LEFT UPON A SEAT IN A YEW-TREE WHICH STANDS NEAR THE LAKE OF ESTHWAITE, ON A DESOLATE PART OF THE SHORE, COMMANDING A BEAUTIFUL PROSPECT.
NAY, traveller! rest. This lonely yew-tree stands Far from all human dwelling: what if here No sparkling rivulet spread the verdant herb? What if the bee loves not these barren boughs? Yet if the wind breathe soft, the curling waves, That break against the shore, shall lull thy mind By one soft impulse saved from vacancy.
That piled these stones, and with the mossy sod First covered o'er, and taught this aged tree With its dark arms to form a circling bower,
I well remember.
No common soul.
He was one who owned
In youth by science nursed,
And led by nature into a wild scene
Of lofty hopes, he to the world went forth A favoured being, knowing no desire
Which genius did not hallow,-'gainst the taint Of dissolute tongues, and jealousy, and hate, And scorn, against all enemies prepared All but neglect. The world, for so it thought, Owed him no service: wherefore he at once With indignation turned himself away, And with the food of pride sustained his soul
In solitude. Stranger! these gloomy boughs Had charms for him and here he loved to sit, His only visitants a straggling sheep,
The stone-chat, or the glancing-sand piper. And on these barren rocks, with fern and heath, And juniper and thistle sprinkled o'er, Fixing his downcast eye, he many an hour A morbid pleasure nourished, tracing here An emblem of his own unfruitful life:
And lifting up his head, he then would gaze On the more distant scene,-how lovely 'tis Thou seest, and he would gaze till it became Far lovelier, and his heart could not sustain The beauty still more beauteous! Nor that time When Nature had subdued him to herself, Would he forget those beings, to whose minds Warm from the labours of benevolence, The world, and human life, appeared a scene Of kindred loveliness; then he would sigh With mournful joy, to think that others felt What he must never feel: and so, lost man !
On visionary views would fancy feed,
Till his eye streamed with tears. In this deep vale He died, this seat his only monument.
If thou be one whose heart the holy forms
Of young imagination have kept pure,
Stranger! henceforth be warned; and know, that pride
Howe'er disguised in his own majesty,
Is littleness; that he who feels contempt
For any living thing, hath faculties
Which he has never used; that thought with him
Is in its infancy. The man whose eye
Is ever on himself, doth look on one
The least of Nature's works, one who might move The wise man to that scorn which wisdom holds Unlawful ever. Oh, be wiser, thou!
Instructed that true knowledge leads to love, True dignity abides with him alone
Who, in the silent hour of inward thought, Can still suspect, and still revere himself, In lowliness of heart.
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