With earnest feeling I shall pray For thee when I am far away: For never saw I mien, or face, In which more plainly I could trace Benignity and home-bred sense Ripening in perfect innocence. Here scattered, like a random seed, Remote from men, Thou dost not need The embarrassed look of shy distress, And maidenly shamefacedness: Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear The freedom of a Mountaineer: A face with gladness overspread ! Soft smiles, by human kindness bred! And seemliness complete, that sways Thy courtesies, about thee plays; With no restraint, but such as springs From quick and eager visitings Of thoughts that lie beyond the reach Of thy few words of English speech: A bondage sweetly brooked, a strife That gives thy gestures grace and life! So have I, not unmoved in mind, Seen birds of tempest-loving kind-Thus beating up against the wind.

What hand but would a garland cull For thee who art so beautiful? O happy pleasure! here to dwell Beside thee in some heathy dell; Adopt your homely ways, and dress, A Shepherd, thou a Shepherdess! But I could frame a wish for thee More like a grave reality: Thou art to me but as a wave Of the wild sea; and I would have Some claim upon thee, if I could, Though but of common neighborhood. What joy to hear thee, and, to see! Thy elder Brother I would be, Thy Father--anything to thee!

Now thanks to Heaven! that of its grace

Hath led me to this lonely place.
Joy have I had; and going hence
I bear away my recompense.
In spots like these it is we prize
Our Memory, feel that she hath eyes:
Then, why should I be loth to stir?
I feel this place was made for her;
To give new pleasure like the past,
Continued long as life shall last.
Nor am I loth, though pleased at heart,
Sweet Highland Girl! from thee to part:
For I, methinks, till I grow old,
As fair before me shall behold,
As I do now, the cabin small,
The lake, the bay, the waterfall;
And Thee, the spirit of them all!

1803. 1807.

STEPPING WESTWARD

While my Fellow-traveller and I were walk. ing by the side of Loch Ketterine, one fine even. ing after sunset, in our road to a Hut where, in the course of our Tour, we had been hospitably entertained some weeks before, we met, in one of the loneliest parts of that solitary region, two well-dressed Women, one of whom said to us by way of greeting, "What, you are stepping west. ward? (Wordsworth.)

"What, you are stepping westward ?* -"Yea."

-Twould be a wildish destiny,
If we, who thus together roam

In a strange Land, and far from home,
Were in this place the guests of Chance:
Yet who would stop, or fear to advance
Though home or shelter he had none,
With such a sky to lead him on?

The dewy ground was dark and cold;
Behind, all gloomy to behold;
And stepping westward seemed to be
A kind of heavenly destiny:

I liked the greeting; 't was a sound
Of something without place or bound;
And seemed to give me spiritual right
To travel through that region bright.
The voice was soft, and she who spake
Was walking by her native lake:
The salutation had to me

The very sound of courtesy:
Its power was felt; and while my eye
Was fixed upon the glowing Sky,
The echo of the voice enwrought
A human sweetness with the thought
Of travelling through the world that lay
Before me in my endless way.

1803. 1807.

THE SOLITARY REAPER
BEHOLD her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chant
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:

A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?-
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:

Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?

Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?

Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending ;-
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.
1803. 1807.

YARROW UNVISITED

See the various Poems the scene of which is laid upon the banks of the Yarrow; in particu lar, the exquisite Ballad of Hamilton beginning "Busk ye, busk ye, my bonny, bonny Bride,-Busk ye, busk ye, my winsome Marrow -" (Wordsworth).

FROM Stirling castle we had seen
The mazy Forth unravelled;
Had trod the banks of Clyde, and Tay,
And with the Tweed had travelled;
And when we came to Clovenford,
Then said my "winsome Marrow,"
"Whate'er betide, we'll turn aside,
And see the Braes of Yarrow."

"Let Yarrow folk, frae Selkirk town,
Who have been buying, selling,
Go back to Yarrow, 'tis their own;
Each maiden to her dwelling!
On Yarrow's banks let herons feed,
Hares couch, and rabbits burrow!
But we will downward with the Tweed,
Nor turn aside to Yarrow.

"There's Galla Water, Leader Haughs,
Both lying right before us;
And Dryborough, where with chiming
Tweed

The lintwhites sing in chorus;
There's pleasant Tiviot-dale, a land
Made blithe with plough and harrow:
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."

39

-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.

"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 'tis fair.
"Twill be another Yarrow !

"If Care with freezing years should

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD

"In my Ode on the Intimations of Immortality in Childhood, I do not profess to give a literal representation of the state of the affections and of the moral being in childhood. I record my own feelings at that time-my absolute spirituality, my all-soulness,' if I may so speak. At that time I could not believe that I should lie down quietly in the grave, and that my body would moulder into dust." (Knight's Words worth, II, 326. See also, in the Encyclopædia Britannica, the article" Poetry.")

I

THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,

Forget the glories he hath known, And that imperial palace whence he

came.

VII

Behold the Child among his new-born blisses,

A six years' Darling of a pigmy size! See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies,

Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses, With light upon him from his father's eyes!

See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,

Some fragment from his dream of human life.

Shaped by himself with newly-learned art;

A wedding or a festival,

A mourning or a funeral;

And this hath now his heart, And unto this he frames his song: Then will he fit his tongue

To dialogues of business, love, or strife; But it will not be long

Ere this be thrown aside,

And with new joy and pride The little Actor cons another part; Filling from time to time his "humorous stage"

With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,

That Life brings with her in her equipage;

As if his whole vocation
Were endless imitation.

Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might

Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height,

Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke

The years to bring the inevitable yoke, Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?

Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight,

And custom lie upon thee with a weight,

Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

IX

O joy! that in our embers

Is something that doth live,
That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!

The thought of our past years in me doth breed

Perpetual benediction: not indeed
For that which is most worthy to be
blest-

Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest,
With new-fledged hope still fluttering
in his breast:-

Not for these I raise

The song of thanks and praise; But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Fallings from us, vanishings; Blank misgivings of a Creature Moving about in worlds not realized, High instincts before which our mortal Nature

Did tremble like a guilty Thing surprised:

But for those first affections.

Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain light of all our day, Are yet a master light of all our seeing; Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make

Our noisy years seem moments in the being

Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake.

TO THE CUCKOO

O BLITHE New-comer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice.

O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird,
Or but a wandering Voice?
While I am lying on the grass
Thy twofold shout I hear,
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off, and near.

Though babbling only to the Vale,
Of sunshine and of flowers,
Thou bringest unto me a tale
Of visionary hours.

Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!
Even yet thou art to me

No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery;

The same whom in my school-boy days
I listened to; that Cry

Which made me look a thousand ways
In bush, and tree, and sky.

To seek thee did I often rove
Through woods and on the green;
And thou wert still a hope, a love;
Still longed for, never seen.

And I can listen to thee yet;
Can lie upon the plain
And listen, till I do beget
That golden time again.

O blessed Bird! the earth we pace
Again appears to be

An unsubstantial, faery place;
That is fit home for Thee!

1802. 1807.

SHE WAS A PHANTOM OF

DELIGHT

Written at Town-end, Grasmere. The germ of this poem was four lines composed as a part of the verses on the Highland Girl. Though beginning in this way, it was written from my heart. as is sufficiently obvious. (Wordsworth.)

SHE was a Phantom of delight

When first she gleamed upon my sight;