Why throw away a needful day
To go in search of Yarrow?

"What's Yarrow but a river bare,
That glides the dark hills under?
There are a thousand such elsewhere
As worthy of your wonder."

-Strange words they seemed of slight and

scorn

My True-love sighed for sorrow;

And looked me in the face, to think

I thus could speak of Yarrow!

"Oh! green," said I, "are Yarrow's holms, And sweet is Yarrow flowing!

Fair hangs the apple frae the rock,

But we will leave it growing.

O'er hilly path, and open Strath,
We'll wander Scotland thorough;
But, though so near, we will not turn
Into the dale of Yarrow.

'Let beeves and home-bred kine partake
The sweets of Burn-mill meadow:
The swan on still St. Mary's Lake
Float double, swan and shadow!
We will not see them; will not go,
To-day, nor yet to-morrow,
Enough if in our hearts we know
There's such a place as Yarrow.

40

32

24

Be Yarrow stream unseen, unknown!
It must, or we shall rue it:

We have a vision of our own;
Ah! why should we undo it?

The treasured dreams of times long past,
We'll keep them, winsome Marrow!
For when we 're there, although 't is fair,
'T will be another Yarrow!

"If Care with freezing years should come,
And wandering seem but folly,—
Should we be loth to stir from home,

And yet be melancholy;

Should life be dull, and spirits low,
'T will soothe us in our sorrow,

That earth has something yet to show,
The bonny holms of Yarrow!"

1803.

1807.

William Wordsworth.

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64

THE MARSHES OF GLYNN

GLOOMS of the live-oaks, beautiful-braided and

Woven

With intricate shades of the vines that myriad

cloven

Clamber the forks of the multiform boughs,—
Emerald twilights,-

Virginal shy lights,

Wrought of the leaves to allure to the whisper

of vows,

When lovers pace timidly down through the green colonnades

Of the dim sweet woods, of the dear dark woods, Of the heavenly woods and glades,

That run to the radiant marginal sand-beach

within

The wide sea-marshes of Glynn;

Beautiful glooms, soft dusks in the noon-day

fire,

Wildwood privacies, closets of lone desire, Chamber from chamber parted with wavering arras of leaves,--

Cells for the passionate pleasure of prayer to the soul that grieves,

10

Pure with a sense of the passing of saints through the wood,

Cool for the dutiful weighing of ill with good:

O braided dusks of the oak and woven shades of the vine,

While the riotous noon-day sun of the June-day long did shine

Ye held me fast in your heart and I held you

fast in mine;

But now when the noon is no more, and riot

is rest,

And the sun is a-wait at the ponderous gate of

the West,

20

And the slant yellow beam down with the woodaisle doth seem

Like a lane into heaven that leads from a dream,

Ay, now, when my soul all day hath drunken soul of the oak,

And my heart is at ease from men, and the wearisome sound of the stroke

Of the scythe of time and the trowel of trade
is low,

And belief overmasters doubt, and I know
that I know,

And my spirit is grown to a lordly great
compass within,

That the length and the breadth and the sweep
of the marshes of Glynn

Will work me no fear like the fear they have

wrought me of yore

30

When length was fatigue, and when breadth was but bitterness sore,

And when terror and shrinking and dreary unnamable pain

Drew over me out of the merciless miles of the plain,

Oh, now, afraid, I am fain to face

The vast sweet visage of space.

To the edge of the wood I am drawn, I am drawn,

Where the gray beach glimmering runs, as a belt of the dawn,

For a mete and a mark

To the forest-dark:-

So:

Affable live-oak, leaning low,

40

Thus with your favor-soft, with a reverent

hand,

(Not lightly touching your person, Lord of the land!)

Bending your beauty aside, with a step I stand On the firm-packed sand,

Free

By a world of marsh that borders a world of sea. Sinuous southward and sinuous northward the shimmering band

Of the sand-beach fastens the fringe of the marsh to the folds of the land. 50 Inward and outward to northward and southward the beach-lines linger and curl

As a silver-wrought garment that clings to and follows the firm sweet limbs of a

girl.

Vanishing, swerving, evermore curving again into

sight,

Softly the sand-beach wavers away to a dim gray looping of light.

And what if behind.me to westward the wall of

the woods stands high?

The world lies east: how ample, the marsh and the sea and the sky!

A 'league and a league of marsh-grass, waist

high, broad in the blade,

Green, and all of a height, and unflecked with a light or a shade,

Stretch leisurely off, in a pleasant plain,

To the terminal blue of the main.

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