Last and foremost, every horse
To the utmost of his force!
And the smoke and respiration,
Rising like an exhalation,

Blend with the mist a moving shroud
To form, an undissolving cloud;
Which, with slant ray, the merry sun
Takes delight to play upon.
Never golden-haired Apollo,

Pleased some favourite chief to follow
Through accidents of peace or war,
In a perilous moment threw
Around the object of his care
Veil of such celestial hue:
Interposed so bright a screen
Him and his enemies between!

Alas! what boots it?--who can hide,
When the malicious Fates are bent
On working out an ill intent?
Can destiny be turned aside?
No-sad progress of my story!
Benjamin, this outward glory
Cannot shield thee from thy Master,
Who from Keswick has pricked forth,
Sour and surly as the north;
And, in fear of some disaster,
Comes to give what help he may,
And to hear what thou canst say ;

If, as needs he must forbode,

Thou hast been loitering on the road!

His fears, his doubts, may now take flight-

The wished-for object is in sight;
Yet, trust the Muse, it rather hath
Stirred him up to livelier wrath;
Which he stifles, moody man!
With all the patience that he can ;
To the end that, at your meeting,
He may give thee decent greeting.

There he is-resolved to stop,
Till the waggon gains the top;
But stop he cannot -must advance:
Him Benjamin, with lucky glance,
Espies--and instantly is ready,
Self-collected, poised, and steady:
And, to be the better seen,
Issues from his radiant shroud,
From his close-attending cloud,
With careless air and open mien.
Erect his port, and firm his going;

So struts yon cock that now is crowing;
And the morning light in grace
Strikes upon his lifted face,
Hurrying the pallid hue away
That might his trespasses betray.
But what can all avail to clear him,
Or what need of explanation,
Parley or interrogation?
For the Master sees, alas!
That unhappy Figure near him,
Limping o'er the dewy grass,
Where the road it fringes, sweet,
Soft and cool to way-worn feet;
And, O indignity! an Ass,
By his noble Mastiff's side,
Tethered to the waggon's tail:
And the ship, in all her pride,
Following after in full sail!

Not to speak of babe and mother;
Who. contented with each other,

And snug as birds in leafy arbour,
Find, within, a blessed harbour!

With eager eyes the Master pries:
Looks in and out, and through and through;
Says nothing-till at last he spies

A wound upon the Mastiff's head,

A wound, where plainly might be read
What feats an Ass's hoof can do!
But drop the rest :-this aggravation,
This complicated provocation,

A hoard of grievances unsealed;
All past forgiveness it repealed;

And thus, and through distempered blood
On both sides, Benjamin the good,
The patient, and the tender-hearted,
Was from his team and waggon parted;
When duty of that day was o'er,

Laid down his whip-and served no more.-
Nor could the waggon long survive,
Which Benjamin had ceased to drive:
It lingered on:-guide after guide
Ambitiously the office tried;
But each unmanageable hill
Called for his patience and his skill;-
And sure it is, that through this night,
And what the morning brought to light,
Two losses had we to sustain,

We lost both WAGGONER and WAIN!

Accept, O Friend, for praise or blame,
The gift of this adventurous song;
A record which I dared to frame,
Though timid scruples checked me long;
They checked me and I left the theme
Untouched-in spite of many a gleam
Of fancy which thereon was shed,
Like pleasant sunbeams shifting still
Upon the side of a distant hill:
But Nature might not be gainsaid;
For what I have and what I miss

I sing of these ;-it makes my bliss!

Nor is it I who play the part,

But a shy spirit in my heart,

That comes and goes-will sometimes leap
From hiding-places ten years deep;
Or haunts me with familiar face,
Returning, like a ghost unlaid,
Until the debt I owe be paid.
Forgive me, then: for I had been

On friendly terms with this Machine:

In him, while he was wont to trace

Our roads, through many a long year's space,

A living almanack had we;

We had a speaking diary,

That in this uneventful place,

Gave to the days a mark and name

By which we knew them when they came.

Yes, I, and all about me here,

Through all the changes of the year,

Had seen him through the mountains go, pomp of mist or pomp of snow,

In

Majestically huge and slow:

Or, with a milder grace adorning
The landscape of a summer's morning;
While Grasmere smoothed her liquid plain
The moving image to detain;
And mighty Fairfield, with a chime
Of echoes, to his march kept time;
When little other business stirred,
And little other sound was heard;

In that delicious hour of balm,
Stillness, solitude, and calm,
While yet the valley is arrayed,
On this side with a sober shade;
On that is prodigally bright-

Crag, lawn, and wood-with rosy light.
-But most of all, thou lordly Wain!
I wish to have thee here again,
When windows flap and chimney roars,
And all is dismal out of doors;
And, sitting by my fire, I see
Eight sorry carts, no less a train!
Unworthy successors of thee,

Come straggling through the wind and

rain:

And oft, as they pass slowly on, Beneath my windows, one by one,

See, perched upon the naked height
The summit of a cumbrous freight,
A single traveller-and there
Another; then perhaps a pair-
The lame, the sickly, and the old;
Men, women, heartless with the cold:
And babes in wet and starveling plight;
Which once, be weather as it might,
Had still a nest within a nest,

Thy shelter-and their mother's breast
Then most of all, then far the most,
Do I regret what we have lost;
Am grieved for that unhappy sin
Which robbed us of good Benjamin ;-
And of his stately Charge, which none
Could keep alive when He was gone!
1805.

I.

THERE WAS A BOY.

THERE was a Boy; ye knew him well, ye cliffs
And islands of Winander!-many a time,
At evening, when the earliest stars began
To move along the edges of the hills,
Rising or setting, would he stand alone,
Beneath the trees, or by the glimmering lake:
And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands
Pressed closely palm to palm and to his mouth
Uplifted, he, as through an instrument,
Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls,
That they might answer him.-And they would
shout

Across the watery vale, and shout again,
Responsive to his call,- with quivering peals,
And long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud
Redoubled and redoubled; concourse wild
Of jocund din! And, when there came a pause
Of silence such as baffled his best skill:
Then, sometimes, in that silence, while he hung
Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise
Has carried far into his heart the voice
Of mountain-torrents; or the visible scene
Would enter unawares into his mind
With all its solemn imagery, its rocks,

Its woods, and that uncertain heaven received
Into the bosom of the steady lake.

This boy was taken from his mates, and died In childhood, ere he was full twelve years old. Pre-eminent in beauty is the vale

Where he was born and bred: the church-yard

hangs

Upon a slope above the village-school;
And, through that church-yard when my way

has led

On summer-evenings, I believe, that there
A long half-hour together I have stood
Mute-looking at the grave in which he lies!

1799.

II.

TO THE CUCKOO.

O BLITHE New-comer! I have heard,

I hear thee and rejoice.

O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird,
Or put 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!
1804.

The clear Moon, and the glory of the heavens.
There, in a black-blue vault she sails along,
Followed by multitudes of stars, that, small
And sharp, and bright, along the dark abyss
Drive as she drives: how fast they wheel away,
Yet vanish not!-the wind is in the tree,
But they are silent ;-still they roll along
Immeasurably distant, and the vault,

Built round by those white clouds, enormous clouds,

Still deepens its unfathomable depth.
At length the Vision closes; and the mind,
Not undisturbed by the delight it feels,
Which slowly settles into peaceful calm,
Is left to muse upon the solemn scene.
1798.

Has entered, by the sturdy oaks unfelt, But to its gentle touch how sensitive

with

Is the light ash! that, pendent from the brow
Of yon dim cave, in seeming silence makes
A soft eye-music of slow-waving boughs,
Powerful almost as vocal harmony

May meet at noontide; Fear and trembling
Hope,

Silence and Foresight; Death the Skeleton
And Time the Shadow; there to celebrate,
As in a natural temple scattered o'er
With altars undisturbed of mossy stone,
United worship; or in mute repose
To lie, and listen to the mountain flood
Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves.
1803.

VI. NUTTING.

It seems a day

(I speak of one from many singled out)
One of those heavenly days that cannot die,
When, in the eagerness of boyish hope,
I left our cottage-threshold, sallying forth
With a huge wallet o'er my shoulders slung,
A nutting-crook in hand; and turned my step
Tricked out in proud disguise of cast-off weeds
Tow'rd some far-distant wood, a Figure quaint,

Which for that service had been husbanded,
By exhortation of my frugal Dame--
Motley accoutrement, of power to smile
At thorns, and brakes, and brambles,—and, in
truth,
O'er pathless

More ragged than need was !

thickets,

thoughts.

V. YEW-TREES.

THERE is a Yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale,
Which to this day stands single, in the midst
Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore:
Not loth to furnish weapons for the bands
Of Umfraville or Percy ere they marched
To Scotland's heaths; or those that crossed the

sea

And drew their sounding bows at Azincour,
Perhaps at earlier Crecy, or Poictiers.
Of vast circumference and gloom profound
This solitary Tree! a living thing
Produced too slowly ever to decay;
Of form and aspect too magnificent
To be destroyed. But worthier still of note
Are those fraternal Four of Borrowdale,
Joined in one solemn and capacious grove;
Hugh trunks! and each particular trunk a
growth

Of intertwisted fibres serpentine
Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved;
Nor uninformed with Phantasy, and looks
That threaten the profane ;-a pillared shade,
Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue,
By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged
Perennially beneath whose sable roof
Of boughs as if for festal purpose, decked
With unrejoicing berries-ghostly Shapes

Tall and erect, with tempting clusters hung,
A virgin scene!--A little while I stood,
Breathing with such suppression of the heart
As joy delights in; and, with wise restraint
Voluptuous, fearless of a rival, eyed
The banquet;-or beneath the trees I sate
Among the flowers, and with the flowers I
played;

A temper known to those who, after long
And weary expectation, have been blest
With sudden happiness beyond all hope.
Perhaps it was a bower beneath whose leaves
The violets of five seasons re-appear
And fade, unseen by any human eye;
Where fairy water-breaks do murmur on
For ever; and I saw the sparkling foam,
And-with my cheek on one of those green

stones

That, fleeced with moss, under the shady trees,
Lay round me, scattered like a flock of sheep-
I heard the murmur and the murmuring sound,
In that sweet mood when pleasure loves to pay
Tribute to ease; and, of its joy secure,
The heart luxuriates with indifferent things,
Wasting its kindliness on stocks and stones,
And on the vacant air. Then up
I rose,
And dragged to earth both branch and bough,
with crash

And merciless ravage: and the shady nook
Of hazels, and the green and mossy bower,
Deformed and sullied, patiently gave up
Their quiet being: and, unless I now
Confound my present feelings with the past;
H

Ere from the mutilated bower I turned
Exulting, rich beyond the wealth of kings,
I felt a sense of pain when I beheld

The silent trees, and saw the intruding sky.-
Then, dearest Maiden, move along these shades
In gentleness of heart; with gentle hand
Touch-for there is a spirit in the woods.
1799.

VII

THE SIMPLON PASS.

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 light-
Were 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.

VIII.

SHE was a Phantom of delight

When first she gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely Apparition, seat

To be a moment's ornament:
Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair,
Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful Dawn;
A dancing Shape, an Image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and way-lay.

I saw her upon nearer view,
A Spirit, yet a Woman too!

Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin-liberty;

A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A Creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,

Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A Being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveller between life and death:
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect Woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light.

1804.

IX.

O NIGHTINGALE! thou surely art
A creature of a "fiery heart:"-
These notes of thine-they pierce and pierce :
Tumultuous harmony and fierce!
Thou sing'st as if the God of wine
Had helped thee to a Valentine;
A song in mockery and despite

Of shades, and dews, and silent night;
And steady bliss, and all the loves
Now sleeping in these peaceful groves.
I heard a Stock-dove sing or say
His homely tale, this very day;
His voice was buried among trees,
Yet to be come-at by the breeze:

He did not cease; but cooed-and cooed;
And somewhat pensively he wooed :
He sang of love, with quiet blending,
Slow to begin, and never ending;
Of serious faith, and inward glee :
That was the song-the song for me!
1806.

X.

THREE years she grew in sun and shower,
Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower
On earth was never sown;
This Child I to myself will take.
She shall be mine, and I will make
A Lady of my own.

Myself will to my darling be

Both law and impulse: and with me
The Girl, in rock and plain,

In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
Shall feel an overseeing power

To kindle or restrain.

She shall be sportive as the fawn
That wild with glee across the lawn
Or up the mountain springs;

And hers shall be the breathing balm,
And hers the silence and the calm

Of mute insensate things.

The floating clouds their state shall lend
To her; for her the willow bend;

Nor shall she fail to see

Even in the motions of the Storm

Grace that shall mould the Maiden's form By silent sympathy.

The stars of midnight shall be dear

To her; and she shall lean her car

In many a secret place

Where rivulets dance their wayward round,

And beauty born of murmuring sound

Shall pass into her face.

And vital feelings of delight

Shall rear her form to stately height,

Her virgin bosom swell;

Such thoughts to Lucy I will give

While she and I together live

Here in this happy dell."

Thus Nature spake- The work was done

How soon my Lucy's race was run!

She died, and left to me

This heath, this calm, and quiet scene;

The memory of what has been,

And never more will be.

1799