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 bower,

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.

TO MY SISTER

IT is the first mild day of March:
Each minute sweeter than before
The redbreast sings from the tall larch
That stands beside our door.

There is a blessing in the air,
Which seems a sense of joy to yield
To the bare trees, and mountains bare,
And grass in the green field.

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.

Love, now a universal birth,

From heart to heart is stealing,

From earth to man, from man to earth: -It is the hour of feeling.

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,

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

A WHIRL-BLAST from behind the hill Rushed o'er the wood with starting 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

Of 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 air-
Yet 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.

"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.

No poem of mine was composed under circumstances more pleasant for me to remember than this. I began it upon leaving Tintern, after crossing the Wye, and concluded it just as 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. (Wordsworth. The volume referred to is The Lyrical Ballads, as first published at Bristol by Cottle.)

FIVE years have past; five summers, with the length

Of five long winters! and again I hear These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs

With a soft inland murmur.1-Once 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 above Tintern. (Wordsworth, 1798.)

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,

As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, naineless, 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

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,

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 for

get,

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-
light blazed,

I heeded 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 resounding horn,

The pack loud-chiming, and the hunted