One moment now may give us more
Than years of toiling reason :
Our minds shall drink at every pore
The spirit of the season.

Some silent laws our hearts will make,
Which they shall long obey :
We for the year to come may take
Our temper from to-day.

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.
Through primrose tufts, in that green

hower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths ;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.
The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure :--
But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.
The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air ;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.
If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature's holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?

1798. 1798.

And from the blessed power that rolls
About, below, above,
We'll frame the measure of our souls :
They shall be tuned to love.

Then come, my Sister! come, I

pray, With speed put on your woodland dress; And bring no book : for this one day We 'll give to idleness. 1798. 1798.

A WHIRL-BLAST FROM BEHIND

THE HILL

Ez replies A WHIRL-BLAST from behind the hill Rushed o'er the wood with startiing

sound; Then--all at once the air was still, And showers of hailstones pattered

round. Where leafless oaks towered high above, I sat within an undergrove Or tallest hollies, tall and green; A fairer bower was never seen. From year to year the spacious floor With withered leaves is covered o'er, And all the year the bower is green, But see! where'er the hailstones drop The withered leaves all skip and hop; There's not a breeze-no breath of airYet here, and there, and everywhere Along the floor, beneath the shade By those embowering hollies made, The leaves in myriads jump and spring, As if with pipes and music rare Some Robin Good-fellow were there, And all those leaves, in festive glee, Were dancing to the minstrelsy.

1798. 1800.

My sister! ('tis a wish of mine)
Now that our morning meal is done,
Make haste, your morning task resign;
Come forth and feel the sun.

Edward will come with you ;--and, pray,
Put on with speed your woodland dress;
And bring no book : for this one day
We'll give to idleness.
No joyless forms shall regulate
Our living calendar :
We from to-day, my Friend, will date
The opening of the year.

EXPOSTULATION AND REPLY

Love, now a un sal birth,
From heart to heart is stealing,
From earth to man, from man to earth :
-It is the hour of feeling.

“WHY, William, on that old gr stone
Thus for the length of half a day,
Why, William, sit you thus alone,
And dream your time away?

“Where are your books ?--that light be

queathed To Beings else forlorn and blind! Up! up! and drink the spirit breathed From dead men to their kind.

And hark ! how blithe the throstle sings !
He, too, is no mean preacher :
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher.
She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and bearts to bless-
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.
One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.
Sweet is the lore which Nature brings ;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of

things:
We murder to dissect.

“You look round on your Mother Earth,
As if she for no purpose bore you;
As if you were her first-born birth,
And none had lived before you !"
One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake,
When life was sweet, I knew not why,
To me my good friend Matthew spake,
And thus I made reply :
“The eye-it cannot choose but see ;
We cannot bid the ear be still ;
Our bodies feel, where'er they be,
Against or with our will.
“ Nor less I deem that there are Powers
Which of themselves our minds impress ;
That we can feed this mind of ours
In a wise passiveness.
“Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum
Of things for ever speaking,
That nothing of itself will come,
But we must still be seeking ?
" --Then ask not wherefore, here, alone,
Conversing as I may,
I sit upon this old gray stone,
And dream my time away.”

1798. 1798.

Enough of Science and of Art;
Close up those barren leaves ;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives. 1798. 1798.

LINES

COMPOSED A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERY ABBEY, ON REVISITING THE BANKS OF THE WYE DURING A TOUR. JULY 13, 1798.

No poem of mine was composed under circum. stances more pleasant for me to remember than this. I began it upon leaving Tintern, after crossing the Wye, and concluded it just its I was entering Bristol in the evening, after a ramble of four or five days, with my sister. Not a line of it was altered, and not any part of it written down till I reached Bristol. it was published almost immediately after in the little volume of which so much has been said in these Notes. (Iordsworth. The volume referred to is The Lyrical Ballads, as first published at Bristol by Cottle.)

THE TABLES TURNED

AN EVENING SCENE ON TIIE SAME

SUBJECT

UP!up ! my Friend, and quit your books;
Or surely you'll grow double :
Up! up! my Friend, and clear your

looks ;
Why all this toil and trouble ?
The sun, above the mountain's head,
A freshening lustre mellow
Through all the long green fields has

spread,
His first sweet evening yellow.
Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet bis music! on my life,
There's more of wisdom in it.

Five years have past; five summers,

with the length Of five long winters ! and again I hear These waters, rolling from their moun

tain-springs With a soft inland murmur. L-Ouce

again Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, That on a wild secluded scene impress Thoughts of more deep seclusion ; and

connect The landscape with the quiet of the sky. The day is come when I again repose

1 The river is not affected by the tides a few miles abuve Tiuteru. (Horustrurth, 1798.)

seem

sense

Here, under this dark sycamore, and

view These plots of cottage-ground, these

orchard-tufts, Which at this season, with their unripe

fruits, Are clad in one green hue, and lose

themselves 'Mid groves and copses. Once again I

see These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows,

little lines Of sportive wood run wild : these pas

toral farms, Green to the very door; and wreaths of

smoke Sent up, in silence, from among the

trees ! With some uncertain notice, as might Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless

woods, Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his

fire The Hermit sits alone.

These beauteous forms, Through a long absence, have not been

to me As is a landscape to a blind man's eye : But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the

din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the

heart ; And passing even into my purer mind, With tranquil restoration :-feelings too Of unremembered pleasure : such, per

haps, s have no slight or trivial influence On that best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremembered acts Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I

trust, To them I may have owed another gift, Of aspect more sublime; that blessed

mood, In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary

weight Of all this unintelligible world, Is lightened :—that serene and blessed

mood, In which the affections gently lead us

on,Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even the motion of our human

blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep

In body, and become a living soul : While with an eye made quiet by the

power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things.

If this Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oftIn darkness and amid the many shapes Of joyless daylight ; when the fretful

stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, Have hung upon the beatings of my

heartHow oft, in spirit, have I turned to

thee, O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the

woods, How often has my spirit turned to thee! And now, with gleams of half-extin

guished thought, With many recognitions dim and faint, And somewhat of a sad perplexity, The picture of the mind revives again : While here I stand, not only with the Of present pleasure, but with pleasing

thoughts That in this moment there is life and food

And so i' dare to

há pleti For future years.

hope, Though changed, no doubt, from what I

was when first I came among these hills; when like a I bounded o'er the mountains, by the

sides of the deep rivers, and the lonely

streams, Wherever nature led : more like a man Flying from something that he dreads,

than one "Who sought the thing he loved. For

nature then (The coarser pleasures of my boyish

days, And their glad animal movements all

gone by) To me was all in all.- I cannot paint What then I was. The sounding cata

ract Haunted me like a passion: the tall

rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy

wood, Their colors and their forms, were then

to me An appetite ; a feeling and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm,

roe

moon

By thought supplied, nor any interest Unborrowed from the eye.—That time

is past, And all its aching joys are now no more, And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other

gifts Have followed; for such loss, I would

beliere, Abundant recompense.

For I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth; but hearing often

times The still, sad music of humanity, Nor harslı nor grating, though of ample

power To chasten and subdue. And I have

felt A presence that disturbs me with the

joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply inter

fused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting

suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of

man; A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all

thought, And rolls through all things. Therefore

am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods, And mountains; and of all that we be

hold From this green earth; of all the mighty

world Of eye, and ear,--both what they half

create, And what perceive; well pleased to

recognize In nature and the language of the sense, The anchor of my purest thoughts, the

nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart,

and soul Of all my moral being.

Nor perchance, If I were not thus taught, should I the

more Suffer my genial spirits to decay : 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 privi

lege, 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 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 heal.

ing thoughts Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, And these my exhortations ! Nor, per

chanceIf 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 for

get,

Of childhood didst thou intertwine for

me

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!

1798. 1798.

THE SIMPLON PASS

me

-BROOK and road Were, fellow-travellers in this gloomy

Pass, And with them did we journey several

hours At a slow step. The immeasurable

height Of woods decaying, never to be decayed, The stationary blasts of waterfalls, And in the narrow rent, at every turn, Winds thwarting winds bewildered and

forlorn, The torrents shooting from the clear

blue sky, The rocks that muttered close upon our

ears, Black drizzling crags that spake by the

wayside As if a voice were in them, the sick sight And giddy prospect of the raving stream, The unfettered clouds and region of the

heavens, Tumult and peace, the darkness and the

lightWere all like workings of one mind, the

features Of the same face, blossoms upon one

tree, Characters of the great Apocalypse, The types and symbols of Eternity, Of first, and last, and midst, and without end.

1799. 1815.

The passions that build up our human

soul; Not with the mean and vulgar works of

Man, But with high objects, with enduring

things, With life and nature : purifying thus The elements of feeling and of thought, And sanctifying by such discipline Both pain and fear,--until we recognize A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.

Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to With stinted kindness. In November

days, When vapors rolling down the valleys

made A lonely scene more lonesome ; among

woods At noon; and 'mid the calm of summer

nights, When by the margin of the trembling

lake, Beveath the gloomy bills, homeward I

went In solitude, such intercourse was mine : Mine was it in the fields both day and

night, And by the waters, all the summer long. And in the frosty season, when the sun Was set, and, visible for many a mile, The cottage-windows through the twi

liglot blazed, I beeded not the summons: happy time It was indeed for all of us; for me It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud The village-clock tolled six-I wheeled

about, Proud and exulting like an untired horse That cares not for his home.--All shod

with steel We hissed along the polished ice, in

games Confederate, imitative of the chase And woodland pleasures,--the resound

ing horn, The pack loud-chiming, and the hunted

hare. So through the darkness and the cold

we flew, And not a voice was idle: wit, the din Smitten, the precipices rang aloud : The leafless trees and every icy crag Tinkled like iron ; while far-distant hills Into the tumult sent an alien sound Of melancholy, not unnoticed while the

stars,

INFLUENCE OF NATURAL

OBJECTS

IN CALLING FORTH AND STRENGTHENING THE IMAGINATION IN BOYHOOD

AND EARLY YOUTH

WISDOM and Spirit of the universe ! Thou Soul, that art the Eternity of

thought! And giv'st to forms and images a breath And everlasting motion ! not in vain, By day or star-light, thus from my first

dawn