Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Robert Prince and the DP Team




LYRICAL BALLADS,

WITH OTHER POEMS.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

1800

By W. WORDSWORTH.


  Quam nihil ad genium, Papiniane, tuum!


VOL. I.

SECOND EDITION.




CONTENTS.


  Expostulation and Reply
  The Tables turned; an Evening Scene, on the same subject
  Animal Tranquillity and Decay, a Sketch
  The Complaint of a forsaken Indian Woman
  The Last of the Flock
  Lines left upon a Seat in a Yew-tree which stands near the Lake of
        Esthwaite
  The Foster-Mother's Tale
  Goody Blake and Harry Gill
  The Thorn
  We are Seven
  Anecdote for Fathers
  Lines written at a small distance from my House and sent me by my
        little Boy to the Person to whom they are addressed
  The Female Vagrant
  The Dungeon
  Simon Lee, the old Huntsman
  Lines written in early Spring
  The Nightingale, written in April, 1798.
  Lines written when sailing in a Boat at Evening
  Lines written near Richmond, upon the Thames
  The Idiot Boy
  Love
  The Mad Mother
  The Ancient Mariner
  Lines written above Tintern Abbey





PREFACE.

The First Volume of these Poems has already been submitted to
general perusal. It was published, as an experiment which, I hoped,
might be of some use to ascertain, how far, by fitting to metrical
arrangement a selection of the real language of men in a state of
vivid sensation, that sort of pleasure and that quantity of pleasure
may be imparted, which a Poet may rationally endeavour to impart.

I had formed no very inaccurate estimate of the probable effect of
those Poems: I flattered myself that they who should be pleased with
them would read them with more than common pleasure: and on the
other hand I was well aware that by those who should dislike them
they would be read with more than common dislike. The result has
differed from my expectation in this only, that I have pleased a
greater number, than I ventured to hope I should please.

For the sake of variety and from a consciousness of my own weakness
I was induced to request the assistance of a Friend, who furnished me
with the Poems of the ANCIENT MARINER, the FOSTER-MOTHER'S TALE, the
NIGHTINGALE, the DUNGEON, and the Poem entitled LOVE. I should not,
however, have requested this assistance, had I not believed that the
poems of my Friend would in a great measure have the same tendency
as my own, and that, though there would be found a difference, there
would be found no discordance in the colours of our style; as our
opinions on the subject of poetry do almost entirely coincide.

Several of my Friends are anxious for the success of these Poems
from a belief, that if the views, with which they were composed,
were indeed realized, a class of Poetry would be produced, well
adapted to interest mankind permanently, and not unimportant in the
multiplicity and in the quality of its moral relations: and on this
account they have advised me to prefix a systematic defence of the
theory, upon which the poems were written. But I was unwilling to
undertake the task, because I knew that on this occasion the Reader
would look coldly upon my arguments, since I might be suspected of
having been principally influenced by the selfish and foolish hope
of _reasoning_ him into an approbation of these particular Poems:
and I was still more unwilling to undertake the task, because
adequately to display my opinions and fully to enforce my arguments
would require a space wholly disproportionate to the nature of a
preface. For to treat the subject with the clearness and coherence,
of which I believe it susceptible, it would be necessary to give a
full account of the present state of the public taste in this country,
and to determine how far this taste is healthy or depraved; which
again could not be determined, without pointing out, in what manner
language and the human mind act and react on each other, and without
retracing the revolutions not of literature alone but likewise of
society itself. I have therefore altogether declined to enter
regularly upon this defence; yet I am sensible, that there would be
some impropriety in abruptly obtruding upon the Public, without a
few words of introduction, Poems so materially different from those,
upon which general approbation is at present bestowed.

It is supposed, that by the act of writing in verse an Author makes
a formal engagement that he will gratify certain known habits of
association, that he not only thus apprizes the Reader that certain
classes of ideas and expressions will be found in his book, but that
others will be carefully excluded. This exponent or symbol held
forth by metrical language must in different aeras of literature
have excited very different expectations: for example, in the age of
Catullus Terence and Lucretius, and that of Statius or Claudian, and
in our own country, in the age of Shakespeare and Beaumont and
Fletcher, and that of Donne and Cowley, or Dryden, or Pope. I will
not take upon me to determine the exact import of the promise which
by the act of writing in verse an Author in the present day makes to
his Reader; but I am certain it will appear to many persons that I
have not fulfilled the terms of an engagement thus voluntarily
contracted. I hope therefore the Reader will not censure me, if I
attempt to state what I have proposed to myself to perform, and also,
(as far as the limits of a preface will permit) to explain some of
the chief reasons which have determined me in the choice of my
purpose: that at least he may be spared any unpleasant feeling of
disappointment, and that I myself may be protected from the most
dishonorable accusation which can be brought against an Author,
namely, that of an indolence which prevents him from endeavouring to
ascertain what is his duty, or, when his duty is ascertained
prevents him from performing it.

The principal object then which I proposed to myself in these Poems
was to make the incidents of common life interesting by tracing in
them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature:
chiefly as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in
a state of excitement. Low and rustic life was generally chosen
because in that situation the essential passions of the heart find a
better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under
restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language; because
in that situation our elementary feelings exist in a state of
greater simplicity and consequently may be more accurately
contemplated and more forcibly communicated; because the manners of
rural life germinate from those elementary feelings; and from the
necessary character of rural occupations are more easily comprehended;
and are more durable; and lastly, because in that situation the
passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent
forms of nature. The language too of these men is adopted (purified
indeed from what appear to be its real defects, from all lasting and
rational causes of dislike or disgust) because such men hourly
communicate with the best objects from which the best part of
language is originally derived; and because, from their rank in
society and the sameness and narrow circle of their intercourse,
being less under the action of social vanity they convey their
feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated expressions.
Accordingly such a language arising out of repeated experience and
regular feelings is a more permanent and a far more philosophical
language than that which is frequently substituted for it by Poets,
who think that they are conferring honour upon themselves and their
art in proportion as they separate themselves from the sympathies of
men, and indulge in arbitrary and capricious habits of expression in
order to furnish food for fickle tastes and fickle appetites of
their own creation.[1]

[Footnote 1: It is worth while here to observe that the affecting
parts of Chaucer are almost always expressed in language pure and
universally intelligible even to this day.]

I cannot be insensible of the present outcry against the triviality
and meanness both of thought and language, which some of my
contemporaries have occasionally introduced into their metrical
compositions; and I acknowledge that this defect where it exists, is
more dishonorable to the Writer's own character than false
refinement or arbitrary innovation, though I should contend at the
same time that it is far less pernicious in the sum of its
consequences. From such verses the Poems in these volumes will be
found distinguished at least by one mark of difference, that each of
them has a worthy _purpose_. Not that I mean to say, that I always
began to write with a distinct purpose formally conceived; but I
believe that my habits of meditation have so formed my feelings, as
that my descriptions of such objects as strongly excite those
feelings, will be found to carry along with them a _purpose_. If in
this opinion I am mistaken I can have little right to the name of a
Poet. For all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful
feelings; but though this be true, Poems to which any value can be
attached, were never produced on any variety of subjects but by a
man who being possessed of more than usual organic sensibility had
also thought long and deeply. For our continued influxes of feeling
are modified and directed by our thoughts, which are indeed the
representatives of all our past feelings; and as by contemplating
the relation of these general representatives to each other, we
discover what is really important to men, so by the repetition and
continuance of this act feelings connected with important subjects
will be nourished, till at length, if we be originally possessed of
much organic sensibility, such habits of mind will be produced that
by obeying blindly and mechanically the impulses of those habits we
shall describe objects and utter sentiments of such a nature and in
such connection with each other, that the understanding of the being
to whom we address ourselves, if he be in a healthful state of
association, must necessarily be in some degree enlightened, his
taste exalted, and his affections ameliorated.

I have said that each of these poems has a purpose. I have also
informed my Reader what this purpose will be found principally to be:
namely to illustrate the manner in which our feelings and ideas are
associated in a state of excitement. But speaking in less general
language, it is to follow the fluxes and refluxes of the mind when
agitated by the great and simple affections of our nature. This
object I have endeavoured in these short essays to attain by various
means; by tracing the maternal passion through many of its more
subtle windings, as in the poems of the IDIOT BOY and the MAD MOTHER;
by accompanying the last struggles of a human being at the approach
of death, cleaving in solitude to life and society, as in the Poem
of the FORSAKEN INDIAN; by shewing, as in the Stanzas entitled WE
ARE SEVEN, the perplexity and obscurity which in childhood attend
our notion of death, or rather our utter inability to admit that
notion; or by displaying the strength of fraternal, or to speak more
philosophically, of moral attachment when early associated with the
great and beautiful objects of nature, as in THE BROTHERS; or, as in
the Incident of SIMON LEE, by placing my Reader in the way of
receiving from ordinary moral sensations another and more salutary
impression than we are accustomed to receive from them. It has also
been part of my general purpose to attempt to sketch characters
under the influence of less impassioned feelings, as in the OLD MAN
TRAVELLING, THE TWO THIEVES, &c. characters of which the elements
are simple, belonging rather to nature than to manners, such as
exist now and will probably always exist, and which from their
constitution may be distinctly and profitably contemplated. I will
not abuse the indulgence of my Reader by dwelling longer upon this
subject; but it is proper that I should mention one other
circumstance which distinguishes these Poems from the popular Poetry
of the day; it is this, that the feeling therein developed gives
importance to the action and situation and not the action and
situation to the feeling. My meaning will be rendered perfectly
intelligible by referring my Reader to the Poems entitled POOR SUSAN
and the CHILDLESS FATHER, particularly to the last Stanza of the
latter Poem.

I will not suffer a sense of false modesty to prevent me from
asserting, that I point my Reader's attention to this mark of
distinction far less for the sake of these particular Poems than
from the general importance of the subject. The subject is indeed
important! For the human mind is capable of excitement without the
application of gross and violent stimulants; and he must have a very
faint perception of its beauty and dignity who does not know this,
and who does not further know that one being is elevated above
another in proportion as he possesses this capability. It has
therefore appeared to me that to endeavour to produce or enlarge
this capability is one of the best services in which, at any period,
a Writer can be engaged; but this service, excellent at all times,
is especially so at the present day. For a multitude of causes
unknown to former times are now acting with a combined force to
blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and unfitting it for
all voluntary exertion to reduce it to a state of almost savage
torpor. The most effective of these causes are the great national
events which are daily taking place, and the encreasing accumulation
of men in cities, where the uniformity of their occupations produces
a craving for extraordinary incident which the rapid communication
of intelligence hourly gratifies. To this tendency of life and
manners the literature and theatrical exhibitions of the country have
conformed themselves. The invaluable works of our elder writers, I
had almost said the works of Shakespeare and Milton, are driven into
neglect by frantic novels, sickly and stupid German Tragedies, and
deluges of idle and extravagant stories in verse.--When I think upon
this degrading thirst after outrageous stimulation I am almost
ashamed to have spoken of the feeble effort with which I have
endeavoured to counteract it; and reflecting upon the magnitude of
the general evil, I should be oppressed with no dishonorable
melancholy, had I not a deep impression of certain inherent and
indestructible qualities of the human mind, and likewise of certain
powers in the great and permanent objects that act upon it which are
equally inherent and indestructible; and did I not further add to
this impression a belief that the time is approaching when the evil
will be systematically opposed by men of greater powers and with far
more distinguished success.

Having dwelt thus long on the subjects and aim of these Poems, I
shall request the Reader's permission to apprize him of a few
circumstances relating to their _style_, in order, among other
reasons, that I may not be censured for not having performed what I
never attempted. Except in a very few instances the Reader will find
no personifications of abstract ideas in these volumes, not that I
mean to censure such personifications: they may be well fitted for
certain sorts of composition, but in these Poems I propose to myself
to imitate, and, as far as possible, to adopt the very language of
men, and I do not find that such personifications make any regular
or natural part of that language. I wish to keep my Reader in the
company of flesh and blood, persuaded that by so doing I shall
interest him. Not but that I believe that others who pursue a
different track may interest him likewise: I do not interfere with
their claim, I only wish to prefer a different claim of my own.
There will also be found in these volumes little of what is usually
called poetic diction; I have taken as much pains to avoid it as
others ordinarily take to produce it; this I have done for the
reason already alleged, to bring my language near to the language of
men, and further, because the pleasure which I have proposed to
myself to impart is of a kind very different from that which is
supposed by many persons to be the proper object of poetry. I do not
know how without being culpably particular I can give my Reader a
more exact notion of the style in which I wished these poems to be
written than by informing him that I have at all times endeavoured
to look steadily at my subject, consequently I hope it will be found
that there is in these Poems little falsehood of description, and
that my ideas are expressed in language fitted to their respective
importance. Something I must have gained by this practice, as it is
friendly to one property of all good poetry, namely good sense; but
it has necessarily cut me off from a large portion of phrases and
figures of speech which from father to son have long been regarded
as the common inheritance of Poets. I have also thought it expedient
to restrict myself still further, having abstained from the use of
many expressions, in themselves proper and beautiful, but which have
been foolishly repeated by bad Poets till such feelings of disgust
are connected with them as it is scarcely possible by any art of
association to overpower.

If in a Poem there should be found a series of lines, or even a
single line, in which the language, though naturally arranged and
according to the strict laws of metre, does not differ from that of
prose, there is a numerous class of critics who, when they stumble
upon these prosaisms as they call them, imagine that they have made
a notable discovery, and exult over the Poet as over a man ignorant
of his own profession. Now these men would establish a canon of
criticism which the Reader will conclude he must utterly reject if he
wishes to be pleased with these volumes. And it would be a most easy
task to prove to him that not only the language of a large portion
of every good poem, even of the most elevated character, must
necessarily, except with reference to the metre, in no respect
differ from that of good prose, but likewise that some of the most
interesting parts of the best poems will be found to be strictly the
language of prose when prose is well written. The truth of this
assertion might be demonstrated by innumerable passages from almost
all the poetical writings, even of Milton himself. I have not space
for much quotation; but, to illustrate the subject in a general
manner, I will here adduce a short composition of Gray, who was at
the head of those who by their reasonings have attempted to widen
the space of separation betwixt Prose and Metrical composition, and
was more than any other man curiously elaborate in the structure of
his own poetic diction.


  In vain to me the smiling mornings shine,
  And reddening Phoebus lifts his golden fire:
  The birds in vain their amorous descant join,
  Or chearful fields resume their green attire:
  These ears alas! for other notes repine;
  _A different object do these eyes require;
  My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine;
  And in my breast the imperfect joys expire;_
  Yet Morning smiles the busy race to cheer,
  And new-born pleasure brings to happier men;
  The fields to all their wonted tribute bear;
  To warm their little loves the birds complain.
  _I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear
  And weep the more because I weep in vain._


It will easily be perceived that the only part of this Sonnet which
is of any value is the lines printed in Italics: it is equally
obvious that except in the rhyme, and in the use of the single word
"fruitless" for fruitlessly, which is so far a defect, the language
of these lines does in no respect differ from that of prose.

Is there then, it will be asked, no essential difference between the
language of prose and metrical composition? I answer that there
neither is nor can be any essential difference. We are fond of
tracing the resemblance between Poetry and Painting, and, accordingly,
we call them Sisters: but where shall we find bonds of connection
sufficiently strict to typify the affinity betwixt metrical and
prose composition? They both speak by and to the same organs; the
bodies in which both of them are clothed may be said to be of the
same substance, their affections are kindred and almost identical,
not necessarily differing even in degree; Poetry [2] sheds no tears
"such as Angels weep," but natural and human tears; she can boast of
no celestial Ichor that distinguishes her vital juices from those of
prose; the same human blood circulates through the veins of them both.

[Footnote 2: I here use the word "Poetry" (though against my own
judgment) as opposed to the word Prose, and synonomous with metrical
composition. But much confusion has been introduced into criticism
by this contradistinction of Poetry and Prose, instead of the more
philosophical one of Poetry and Science. The only strict antithesis
to Prose is Metre.]


If it be affirmed that rhyme and metrical arrangement of themselves
constitute a distinction which overturns what I have been saying on
the strict affinity of metrical language with that of prose, and
paves the way for other distinctions which the mind voluntarily
admits, I answer that the distinction of rhyme and metre is regular
and uniform, and not, like that which is produced by what is usually
called poetic diction, arbitrary and subject to infinite caprices
upon which no calculation whatever can be made. In the one case
the Reader is utterly at the mercy of the Poet respecting what
imagery or diction he may choose to connect with the passion,
whereas in the other the metre obeys certain laws, to which the
Poet and Reader both willingly submit because they are certain,
and because no interference is made by them with the passion but
such as the concurring testimony of ages has shewn to heighten
and improve the pleasure which co-exists with it. It will now
be proper to answer an obvious question, namely, why, professing
these opinions have I written in verse? To this in the first place
I reply, because, however I may have restricted myself, there is
still left open to me what confessedly constitutes the most valuable
object of all writing whether in prose or verse, the great and
universal passions of men, the most general and interesting of
their occupations, and the entire world of nature, from which I am
at liberty to supply myself with endless combinations of forms and
imagery. Now, granting for a moment that whatever is interesting in
these objects may be as vividly described in prose, why am I to be
condemned if to such description I have endeavoured to superadd the
charm which by the consent of all nations is acknowledged to exist
in metrical language? To this it will be answered, that a very small
part of the pleasure given by Poetry depends upon the metre, and
that it is injudicious to write in metre unless it be accompanied
with the other artificial distinctions of style with which metre is
usually accompanied, and that by such deviation more will be lost
from the shock which will be thereby given to the Reader's
associations than will be counterbalanced by any pleasure which he
can derive from the general power of numbers. In answer to those who
thus contend for the necessity of accompanying metre with certain
appropriate colours of style in order to the accomplishment of its
appropriate end, and who also, in my opinion, greatly under-rate the
power of metre in itself, it might perhaps be almost sufficient to
observe that poems are extant, written upon more humble subjects,
and in a more naked and simple style than what I have aimed at,
which poems have continued to give pleasure from generation to
generation. Now, if nakedness and simplicity be a defect, the fact
here mentioned affords a strong presumption that poems somewhat less
naked and simple are capable of affording pleasure at the present day;
and all that I am now attempting is to justify myself for having
written under the impression of this belief.

But I might point out various causes why, when the style is manly,
and the subject of some importance, words metrically arranged will
long continue to impart such a pleasure to mankind as he who is
sensible of the extent of that pleasure will be desirous to impart.
The end of Poetry is to produce excitement in coexistence with an
overbalance of pleasure. Now, by the supposition, excitement is an
unusual and irregular state of the mind; ideas and feelings do not
in that state succeed each other in accustomed order. But if the
words by which this excitement is produced are in themselves powerful,
or the images and feelings have an undue proportion of pain connected
with them, there is some danger that the excitement may be carried
beyond its proper bounds. Now the co-presence of something regular,
something to which the mind has been accustomed when in an unexcited
or a less excited state, cannot but have great efficacy in tempering
and restraining the passion by an intertexture of ordinary feeling.
This may be illustrated by appealing to the Reader's own experience
of the reluctance with which he comes to the re-perusal of the
distressful parts of Clarissa Harlowe, or the Gamester. While
Shakespeare's writings, in the most pathetic scenes, never act upon
us as pathetic beyond the bounds of pleasure--an effect which is in
a great degree to be ascribed to small, but continual and regular
impulses of pleasurable surprise from the metrical arrangement.--On
the other hand (what it must be allowed will much more frequently
happen) if the Poet's words should be incommensurate with the passion,
and inadequate to raise the Reader to a height of desirable
excitement, then, (unless the Poet's choice of his metre has been
grossly injudicious) in the feelings of pleasure which the Reader
has been accustomed to connect with metre in general, and in the
feeling, whether chearful or melancholy, which he has been
accustomed to connect with that particular movement of metre, there
will be found something which will greatly contribute to impart
passion to the words, and to effect the complex end which the Poet
proposes to himself.

If I had undertaken a systematic defence of the theory upon which
these poems are written, it would have been my duty to develope the
various causes upon which the pleasure received from metrical
language depends. Among the chief of these causes is to be reckoned
a principle which must be well known to those who have made any of
the Arts the object of accurate reflection; I mean the pleasure
which the mind derives from the perception of similitude in
dissimilitude. This principle is the great spring of the activity of
our minds and their chief feeder. From this principle the direction
of the sexual appetite, and all the passions connected with it take
their origin: It is the life of our ordinary conversation; and upon
the accuracy with which similitude in dissimilitude, and
dissimilitude in similitude are perceived, depend our taste and our
moral feelings. It would not have been a useless employment to have
applied this principle to the consideration of metre, and to have
shewn that metre is hence enabled to afford much pleasure, and to
have pointed out in what manner that pleasure is produced. But my
limits will not permit me to enter upon this subject, and I must
content myself with a general summary.

I have said that Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful
feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in
tranquillity: the emotion is contemplated till by a species of
reaction the tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion,
similar to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is
gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind. In
this mood successful composition generally begins, and in a mood
similar to this it is carried on; but the emotion, of whatever kind
and in whatever degree, from various causes is qualified by various
pleasures, so that in describing any passions whatsoever, which are
voluntarily described, the mind will upon the whole be in a state of
enjoyment. Now if Nature be thus cautious in preserving in a state
of enjoyment a being thus employed, the Poet ought to profit by the
lesson thus held forth to him, and ought especially to take care,
that whatever passions he communicates to his Reader, those passions,
if his Reader's mind be sound and vigorous, should always be
accompanied with an overbalance of pleasure. Now the music of
harmonious metrical language, the sense of difficulty overcome, and
the blind association of pleasure which has been previously received
from works of rhyme or metre of the same or similar construction,
all these imperceptibly make up a complex feeling of delight, which
is of the most important use in tempering the painful feeling which
will always be found intermingled with powerful descriptions of the
deeper passions. This effect is always produced in pathetic and
impassioned poetry; while in lighter compositions the ease and
gracefulness with which the Poet manages his numbers are themselves
confessedly a principal source of the gratification of the Reader. I
might perhaps include all which it is _necessary_ to say upon this
subject by affirming what few persons will deny, that of two
descriptions either of passions, manners, or characters, each of
them equally well executed, the one in prose and the other in verse,
the verse will be read a hundred times where the prose is read once.
We see that Pope by the power of verse alone, has contrived to
render the plainest common sense interesting, and even frequently to
invest it with the appearance of passion. In consequence of these
convictions I related in metre the Tale of GOODY BLAKE and HARRY GILL,
which is one of the rudest of this collection. I wished to draw
attention to the truth that the power of the human imagination is
sufficient to produce such changes even in our physical nature as
might almost appear miraculous. The truth is an important one; the
fact (for it is a _fact_) is a valuable illustration of it. And I
have the satisfaction of knowing that it has been communicated to
many hundreds of people who would never have heard of it, had it not
been narrated as a Ballad, and in a more impressive metre than is
usual in Ballads.

Having thus adverted to a few of the reasons why I have written in
verse, and why I have chosen subjects from common life, and
endeavoured to bring my language near to the real language of men,
if I have been too minute in pleading my own cause, I have at the
same time been treating a subject of general interest; and it is for
this reason that I request the Reader's permission to add a few
words with reference solely to these particular poems, and to some
defects which will probably be found in them. I am sensible that my
associations must have sometimes been particular instead of general,
and that, consequently, giving to things a false importance,
sometimes from diseased impulses I may have written upon unworthy
subject; but I am less apprehensive on this account, than that my
language may frequently have suffered from those arbitrary
connections of feelings and ideas with particular words, from which
no man can altogether protect himself. Hence I have no doubt that in
some instances feelings even of the ludicrous may be given to my
Readers by expressions which appeared to me tender and pathetic.
Such faulty expressions, were I convinced they were faulty at present,
and that they must necessarily continue to be so, I would willingly
take all reasonable pains to correct. But it is dangerous to make
these alterations on the simple authority of a few individuals, or
even of certain classes of men; for where the understanding of an
Author is not convinced, or his feelings altered, this cannot be
done without great injury to himself: for his own feelings are his
stay and support, and if he sets them aside in one instance, he may
be induced to repeat this act till his mind loses all confidence in
itself and becomes utterly debilitated. To this it may be added,
that the Reader ought never to forget that he is himself exposed to
the same errors as the Poet, and perhaps in a much greater degree:
for there can be no presumption in saying that it is not probable he
will be so well acquainted with the various stages of meaning
through which words have passed, or with the fickleness or stability
of the relations of particular ideas to each other; and above all,
since he is so much less interested in the subject, he may decide
lightly and carelessly.

Long as I have detained my Reader, I hope he will permit me to
caution him against a mode of false criticism which has been applied
to Poetry in which the language closely resembles that of life and
nature. Such verses have been triumphed over in parodies of which
Dr. Johnson's Stanza is a fair specimen.

  "I put my hat upon my head,
  And walk'd into the Strand,
  And there I met another man
  Whose hat was in his hand."

Immediately under these lines I will place one of the most justly
admired stanzas of the "_Babes_ in the Wood."

  "These pretty Babes with hand in hand
  Went wandering up and down;
  But never more they saw the Man
  Approaching from the Town."

In both of these stanzas the words, and the order of the words, in
no respect differ from the most unimpassioned conversation. There
are words in both, for example, "the Strand," and "the Town,"
connected with none but the most familiar ideas; yet the one stanza
we admit as admirable, and the other as a fair example of the
superlatively contemptible. Whence arises this difference? Not from
the metre, not from the language, not from the order of the words;
but the _matter_ expressed in Dr. Johnson's stanza is contemptible.
The proper method of treating trivial and simple verses to which
Dr. Johnson's stanza would be a fair parallelism is not to say this
is a bad kind of poetry, or this is not poetry, but this wants sense;
it is neither interesting in itself, nor can _lead_ to any thing
interesting; the images neither originate in that sane state of
feeling which arises out of thought, nor can excite thought or
feeling in the Reader. This is the only sensible manner of dealing
with such verses: Why trouble yourself about the species till you
have previously decided upon the genus? Why take pains to prove that
an Ape is not a Newton when it is self-evident that he is not a man.

I have one request to make of my Reader, which is, that in judging
these Poems he would decide by his own feelings genuinely, and not
by reflection upon what will probably be the judgment of others. How
common is it to hear a person say, "I myself do not object to this
style of composition or this or that expression, but to such and
such classes of people it will appear mean or ludicrous." This mode
of criticism so destructive of all sound unadulterated judgment is
almost universal: I have therefore to request that the Reader would
abide independently by his own feelings, and that if he finds
himself affected he would not suffer such conjectures to interfere
with his pleasure.

If an Author by any single composition has impressed us with respect
for his talents, it is useful to consider this as affording a
presumption, that, on other occasions where we have been displeased,
he nevertheless may not have written ill or absurdly; and, further,
to give him so much credit for this one composition as may induce us
to review what has displeased us with more care than we should
otherwise have bestowed upon it. This is not only an act of justice,
but in our decisions upon poetry especially, may conduce in a high
degree to the improvement of our own taste: for an _accurate_ taste
in Poetry and in all the other arts, as Sir Joshua Reynolds has
observed, is an _acquired_ talent, which can only be produced by
thought and a long continued intercourse with the best models of
composition. This is mentioned not with so ridiculous a purpose as
to prevent the most inexperienced Reader from judging for himself,
(I have already said that I wish him to judge for himself;) but
merely to temper the rashness of decision, and to suggest that if
Poetry be a subject on which much time has not been bestowed, the
judgment may be erroneous, and that in many cases it necessarily
will be so.

I know that nothing would have so effectually contributed to further
the end which I have in view as to have shewn of what kind the
pleasure is, and how the pleasure is produced which is confessedly
produced by metrical composition essentially different from what I
have here endeavoured to recommend; for the Reader will say that he
has been pleased by such composition and what can I do more for him?
The power of any art is limited and he will suspect that if I propose
to furnish him with new friends it is only upon condition of his
abandoning his old friends. Besides, as I have said, the Reader is
himself conscious of the pleasure which he has received from such
composition, composition to which he has peculiarly attached the
endearing name of Poetry; and all men feel an habitual gratitude,
and something of an honorable bigotry for the objects which have
long continued to please them: we not only wish to be pleased, but
to be pleased in that particular way in which we have been
accustomed to be pleased. There is a host of arguments in these
feelings; and I should be the less able to combat them successfully,
as I am willing to allow, that, in order entirely to enjoy the
Poetry which I am recommending, it would be necessary to give up
much of what is ordinarily enjoyed. But would my limits have
permitted me to point out how this pleasure is produced, I might
have removed many obstacles, and assisted my Reader in perceiving
that the powers of language are not so limited as he may suppose; and
that it is possible that poetry may give other enjoyments, of a purer,
more lasting, and more exquisite nature. But this part of my subject
I have been obliged altogether to omit: as it has been less my
present aim to prove that the interest excited by some other kinds
of poetry is less vivid, and less worthy of the nobler powers of the
mind, than to offer reasons for presuming, that, if the object which
I have proposed to myself were adequately attained, a species of
poetry would be produced, which is genuine poetry; in its nature
well adapted to interest mankind permanently, and likewise important
in the multiplicity and quality of its moral relations. From what
has been said, and from a perusal of the Poems, the Reader will be
able clearly to perceive the object which I have proposed to myself:
he will determine how far I have attained this object; and, what is
a much more important question, whether it be worth attaining; and
upon the decision of these two questions will rest my claim to the
approbation of the public.




EXPOSTULATION AND REPLY.


  "Why, William, on that old grey 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 bequeath'd
  To beings else forlorn and blind!
  Up! Up! and drink the spirit breath'd
  From dead men to their kind."

  "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 chuse 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 grey stone,
  And dream my time away."




THE TABLES TURNED;


  _An Evening Scene, on the same Subject_,




  Up! up! my friend, and clear your looks,
  Why all this toil and trouble?
  Up! up! my friend, and quit your books,
  Or surely you'll grow double.

  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 dull and endless strife,
  Come, here the woodland linnet,
  How sweet his music; on my life
  There's more of wisdom in it.

  And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
  And he 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 hearts to bless--
  Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
  Truth breathed by chearfulness.

  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
  Mishapes the beauteous forms of things;
  --We murder to dissect.

  Enough of science and of art;
  Close up these barren leaves;
  Come forth, and bring with you a heart
  That watches and receives.




_ANIMAL TRANQUILLITY & DECAY_


_A SKETCH_.




                  The little hedge-row birds
  That peck along the road, regard him not.
  He travels on, and in his face, his step,
  His gait, is one expression; every limb,
  His look and bending figure, all bespeak
  A man who does not move with pain, but moves
  With thought--He is insensibly subdued
  To settled quiet: he is one by whom
  All effort seems forgotten, one to whom
  Long patience has such mild composure given,
  That patience now doth seem a thing, of which
  He hath no need. He is by nature led
  To peace so perfect, that the young behold
  With envy, what the old man hardly feels.
  --I asked him whither he was bound, and what
  The object of his journey; he replied
  That he was going many miles to take
  A last leave of his son, a mariner,
  Who from a sea-fight had been brought to Falmouth,
  And there was lying in an hospital.




THE COMPLAINT OF A FORSAKEN INDIAN WOMAN.

[_When a Northern Indian, from sickness, is unable to continue his
journey with his companions; he is left behind, covered over with
Deer-skins, and is supplied with water, food, and fuel if the
situation of the place will afford it. He is informed of the track
which his companions intend to pursue, and if he is unable to follow,
or overtake them, he perishes alone in the Desart; unless he should
have the good fortune to fall in with some other Tribes of Indians.
It is unnecessary to add that the females are equally, or still more,
exposed to the same fate. See that very interesting work_, Hearne's
Journey _from_ Hudson's Bay _to the_ Northern Ocean. _In the high
Northern Latititudes, as the same writer informs us, when the
Northern Lights vary their position in the air, they make a rustling
and a crackling noise. This circumstance is alluded to in the first
stanza of the following poem._]




THE COMPLAINT, etc.

  Before I see another day,
  Oh let my body die away!
  In sleep I heard the northern gleams;
  The stars they were among my dreams;
  In sleep did I behold the skies,
  I saw the crackling flashes drive;
  And yet they are upon my eyes,
  And yet I am alive.
  Before I see another day,
  Oh let my body die away!

  My fire is dead: it knew no pain;
  Yet is it dead, and I remain.
  All stiff with ice the ashes lie;
  And they are dead, and I will die.
  When I was well, I wished to live,
  For clothes, for warmth, for food, and fire;
  But they to me no joy can give,
  No pleasure now, and no desire.
  Then here contented will I lie;
  Alone I cannot fear to die.

  Alas! you might have dragged me on
  Another day, a single one!
  Too soon despair o'er me prevailed;
  Too soon my heartless spirit failed;
  When you were gone my limbs were stronger,
  And Oh how grievously I rue,
  That, afterwards, a little longer,
  My friends, I did not follow you!
  For strong and without pain I lay,
  My friends, when you were gone away.

  My child! they gave thee to another,
  A woman who was not thy mother.
  When from my arms my babe they took,
  On me how strangely did he look!
  Through his whole body something ran,
  A most strange something did I see;
  --As if he strove to be a man,
  That he might pull the sledge for me.
  And then he stretched his arms, how wild!
  Oh mercy! like a little child.

  My little joy! my little pride!
  In two days more I must have died.
  Then do not weep and grieve for me;
  I feel I must have died with thee.
  Oh wind that o'er my head art flying,
  The way my friends their course did bend,
  I should not feel the pain of dying,
  Could I with thee a message send.
  Too soon, my friends, you went away;
  For I had many things to say.

  I'll follow you across the snow,
  You travel heavily and slow:
  In spite of all my weary pain,
  I'll look upon your tents again.
  My fire is dead, and snowy white
  The water which beside it stood;
  The wolf has come to me to-night,
  And he has stolen away my food.
  For ever left alone am I,
  Then wherefore should I fear to die?

  My journey will be shortly run,
  I shall not see another sun,
  I cannot lift my limbs to know
  If they have any life or no.
  My poor forsaken child! if I
  For once could have thee close to me,
  With happy heart I then should die,
  And my last thoughts would happy be.
  I feel my body die away,
  I shall not see another day.




THE LAST OF THE FLOCK.




  In distant countries I have been,
  And yet I have not often seen
  A healthy man, a man full grown,
  Weep in the public roads alone.
  But such a one, on English ground,
  And in the broad high-way, I met;
  Along the broad high-way he came,
  His cheeks with tears were wet.
  Sturdy he seemed, though he was sad;
  And in his arms a lamb he had.

  He saw me, and he turned aside,
  As if he wished himself to hide:
  Then with his coat he made essay
  To wipe those briny tears away.
  I follow'd him, and said, "My friend
  What ails you? wherefore weep you so?"
  --"Shame on me, Sir! this lusty lamb,
  He makes my tears to flow.
  To-day I fetched him from the rock;
  He is the last of all my flock."

  When I was young, a single man,
  And after youthful follies ran.
  Though little given to care and thought,
  Yet, so it was, a ewe I bought;
  And other sheep from her I raised,
  As healthy sheep as you might see,
  And then I married, and was rich
  As I could wish to be;
  Of sheep I numbered a full score,
  And every year increas'd my store.

  Year after year my stock it grew,
  And from this one, this single ewe,
  Full fifty comely sheep I raised,
  As sweet a flock as ever grazed!
  Upon the mountain did they feed;
  They throve, and we at home did thrive.
  --This lusty lamb of all my store
  Is all that is alive;
  And now I care not if we die,
  And perish all of poverty.

  Six children, Sir! had I to feed,
  Hard labour in a time of need!
  My pride was tamed, and in our grief,
  I of the parish ask'd relief.
  They said I was a wealthy man;
  My sheep upon the mountain fed,
  And it was fit that thence I took
  Whereof to buy us bread:
  "Do this; how can we give to you,"
  They cried, "what to the poor is due?"

  I sold a sheep as they had said,
  And bought my little children bread,
  And they were healthy with their food;
  For me it never did me good.
  A woeful time it was for me,
  To see the end of all my gains,
  The pretty flock which I had reared
  With all my care and pains,
  To see it melt like snow away!
  For me it was a woeful day.

  Another still! and still another!
  A little lamb, and then its mother!
  It was a vein that never stopp'd,
  Like blood-drops from my heart they dropp'd.
  Till thirty were not left alive
  They dwindled, dwindled, one by one,
  And I may say that many a time
  I wished they all were gone:
  They dwindled one by one away;
  For me it was a woeful day.

  To wicked deeds I was inclined,
  And wicked fancies cross'd my mind,
  And every man I chanc'd to see,
  I thought he knew some ill of me.
  No peace, no comfort could I find,
  No ease, within doors or without,
  And crazily, and wearily
  I went my work about.
  Oft-times I thought to run away;
  For me it was a woeful day.

  Sir! 'twas a precious flock to me,
  As dear as my own children be;
  For daily with my growing store
  I loved my children more and more.
  Alas! it was an evil time;
  God cursed me in my sore distress,
  I prayed, yet every day I thought
  I loved my children less;
  And every week, and every day,
  My flock, it seemed to melt away.

  They dwindled. Sir, sad sight to see!
  From ten to five, from five to three,
  A lamb, a weather, and a ewe;
  And then at last, from three to two;
  And of my fifty, yesterday
  I had but only one,
  And here it lies upon my arm,
  Alas! and I have none;
  To-day I fetched it from the rock;
  It is the last of all my flock.




LINES

  _Left upon a seat in a YEW-TREE, which stands near the
  Lake of ESTHWAITE, on a desolate part of the shore,
  yet commanding a beautiful prospect_.

  --Nay, Traveller! rest. This lonely yew-tree stands
  Far from all human dwelling: what if here
  No sparkling rivulet spread the verdant herb;
  What if these barren boughs the bee not loves;
  Yet, if the wind breathe soft, the curling waves,
  That break against the shore, shall lull thy mind
  By one soft impulse saved from vacancy.

                                         --Who he was
  That piled these stones, and with the mossy sod
  First covered o'er and taught this aged tree
  With its dark arms to form a circling bower,
  I well remember.--He was one who owned
  No common soul. In youth by science nursed
  And led by nature into a wild scene
  Of lofty hopes, he to the world went forth,
  A favored being, knowing no desire
  Which genius did not hallow, 'gainst the taint
  Of dissolute tongues, and jealousy, and hate
  And scorn, against all enemies prepared.
  All but neglect. The world, for so it thought,
  Owed him no service: he was like a plant
  Fair to the sun, the darling of the winds,
  But hung with fruit which no one, that passed by,
  Regarded, and, his spirit damped at once,
  With indignation did he turn away
  And with the food of pride sustained his soul
  In solitude.--Stranger! these gloomy boughs
  Had charms for him; and here he loved to sit,
  His only visitants a straggling sheep,
  The stone-chat, or the glancing sand-piper;
  And on these barren rocks, with juniper,
  And heath, and thistle, thinly sprinkled o'er,
  Fixing his downcast eye, he many an hour
  A morbid pleasure nourished, tracing here
  An emblem of his own unfruitful life:
  And lifting up his head, he then would gaze
  On the more distant scene; how lovely 'tis
  Thou seest, and he would gaze till it became
  Far lovelier, and his heart could not sustain
  The beauty still more beauteous. Nor, that time
  When Nature had subdued him to herself
  Would he forget those beings, to whose minds,
  Warm from the labours of benevolence,
  The world, and man himself, appeared a scene
  Of kindred loveliness: then he would sigh
  With mournful joy, to think that others felt
  What he must never feel: and so, lost man!
  On visionary views would fancy feed,
  Till his eye streamed with tears. In this deep vale
  He died, this seat his only monument.

  If thou be one whose heart the holy forms
  Of young imagination have kept pure,
  Stranger! henceforth be warned; and know, that pride,
  Howe'er disguised in its own majesty,
  Is littleness; that he, who feels contempt
  For any living thing, hath faculties
  Which he has never used; that thought with him
  Is in its infancy. The man, whose eye
  Is ever on himself, doth look on one,
  The least of nature's works, one who might move
  The wise man to that scorn which wisdom holds
  Unlawful, ever. O, be wiser thou!
  Instructed that true knowledge leads to love,
  True dignity abides with him alone
  Who, in the silent hour of inward thought,
  Can still suspect, and still revere himself,
  In lowliness of heart.




THE FOSTER-MOTHER'S TALE.
   _A Narration in Dramatic Blank Verse_.

        But that entrance, Mother!

FOSTER-MOTHER.

  Can no one hear? It is a perilous tale!

MARIA.

  No one.

FOSTER-MOTHER.

        My husband's father told it me,
  Poor old Leoni!--Angels rest his soul!
  He was a woodman, and could fell and saw
  With lusty arm. You know that huge round beam
  Which props the hanging wall of the old chapel?
  Beneath that tree, while yet it was a tree
  He found a baby wrapt in mosses, lined
  With thistle beards, and such small locks of wool
  As hang on brambles. Well, he brought him home,
  And reared him at the then Lord Velez' cost.
  And so the babe grew up a pretty boy,
  A pretty boy, but most unteachable--
  And never learnt a prayer, nor told a bead.
  But knew the names of birds, and mocked their notes,
  And whistled, as he were a bird himself:
  And all the autumn 'twas his only play
  To get the seeds of wild flowers, and to plant them
  With earth and water, on the stumps of trees.
  A Friar, who gathered simples in the wood,
  A grey-haired man--he loved this little boy,
  The boy loved him--and, when the Friar taught him,
  He soon could write with the pen: and from that time,
  Lived chiefly at the Convent or the Castle.
  So he became a very learned youth.
  But Oh! poor wretch!--he read, and read, and read,
  Till his brain turned--and ere his twentieth year,
  He had unlawful thoughts of many things:
  And though he prayed, he never loved to pray
  With holy men, nor in a holy place--
  But yet his speech, it was so soft and sweet,
  The late Lord Velez ne'er was wearied with him.
  And once, as by the north side of the Chapel
  They stood together, chained in deep discourse,
  The earth heaved under them with such a groan,
  That the wall tottered, and had well-nigh fallen
  Right on their heads. My Lord was sorely frightened;
  A fever seized him, and he made confession
  Of all the heretical and lawless talk
  Which brought this judgment: so the youth was seized
  And cast into that cell. My husband's father
  Sobbed like a child--it almost broke his heart:
  And once as he was working in the cellar,
  He heard a voice distinctly; 'twas the youth's
  Who sang a doleful song about green fields,
  How sweet it were on lake or wild savannah,
  To hunt for food, and be a naked man,
  And wander up and down at liberty.
  Leoni doted on the youth, and now
  His love grew desperate; and defying death,
  He made that cunning entrance I described:
  And the young man escaped.

MARIA.

                           'Tis a sweet tale.
  And what became of him?

FOSTER-MOTHER.

                          He went on ship-board
  With those bold voyagers, who made discovery
  Of golden lands. Leoni's younger brother
  Went likewise, and when he returned to Spain,
  He told Leoni, that the poor mad youth,
  Soon after they arrived in that new world,
  In spite of his dissuasion, seized a boat,
  And all alone, set sail by silent moonlight
  Up a great river, great as any sea,
  And ne'er was heard of more: but 'tis supposed,
  He lived and died among the savage men.




GOODY BLAKE & HARRY GILL,


A TRUE STORY,

  Oh! what's the matter? what's the matter?
  What is't that ails young Harry Gill?
  That evermore his teeth they chatter,
  Chatter, chatter, chatter still.
  Of waistcoats Harry has no lack,
  Good duffle grey, and flannel fine;
  He has a blanket on his back,
  And coats enough to smother nine.

  In March, December, and in July,
  'Tis all the same with Harry Gill;
  The neighbours tell, and tell you truly,
  His teeth they chatter, chatter still.
  At night, at morning, and at noon,
  'Tis all the same with Harry Gill;
  Beneath the sun, beneath the moon,
  His teeth they chatter, chatter still.

  Young Harry was a lusty drover,
  And who so stout of limb as he?
  His cheeks were red as ruddy clover,
  His voice was like the voice of three.
  Auld Goody Blake was old and poor,
  Ill fed she was, and thinly clad;
  And any man who pass'd her door,
  Might see how poor a hut she had.

  All day she spun in her poor dwelling,
  And then her three hours' work at night!
  Alas! 'twas hardly worth the telling,
  It would not pay for candle-light.
  --This woman dwelt in Dorsetshire,
  Her hut was on a cold hill-side,
  And in that country coals are dear,
  For they come far by wind and tide.

  By the same fire to boil their pottage,
  Two poor old dames as I have known,
  Will often live in one small cottage,
  But she, poor woman, dwelt alone.
  'Twas well enough when summer came,
  The long, warm, lightsome summer-day,
  Then at her door the _canty_ dame
  Would sit, as any linnet gay.

  But when the ice our streams did fetter,
  Oh! then how her old bones would shake!
  You would have said, if you had met her,
  'Twas a hard time for Goody Blake.
  Her evenings then were dull and dead;
  Sad case it was, as you may think,
  For very cold to go to bed,
  And then for cold not sleep a wink.

  Oh joy for her! whene'er in winter
  The winds at night had made a rout,
  And scatter'd many a lusty splinter,
  And many a rotten bough about.
  Yet never had she, well or sick,
  As every man who knew her says,
  A pile before hand, wood or stick,
  Enough to warm her for three days.

  Now when the frost was past enduring,
  And made her poor old bones to ache,
  Could any thing be more alluring,
  Than an old hedge to Goody Blake?
  And now and then, it must be said,
  When her old bones were cold and chill,
  She left her fire, or left her bed,
  To seek the hedge of Harry Gill.

  Now Harry he had long suspected
  This trespass of old Goody Blake,
  And vow'd that she should be detected,
  And he on her would vengeance take.
  And oft from his warm fire he'd go,
  And to the fields his road would take,
  And there, at night, in frost and snow,
  He watch'd to seize old Goody Blake.

  And once, behind a rick of barley,
  Thus looking out did Harry stand;
  The moon was full and shining clearly,
  And crisp with frost the stubble land.
--He hears a noise--he's all awake--
  Again?--on tip-toe down the hill
  He softly creeps--'Tis Goody Blake,
  She's at the hedge of Harry Gill.

  Right glad was he when he beheld her;
  Stick after stick did Goody pull,
  He stood behind a bush of elder,
  Till she had filled her apron full.
  When with her load she turned about,
  The bye-road back again to take,
  He started forward with a shout,
  And sprang upon poor Goody Blake.

  And fiercely by the arm he took her,
  And by the arm he held her fast,
  And fiercely by the arm he shook her,
  And cried, "I've caught you then at last!"
  Then Goody, who had nothing said,
  Her bundle from her lap let fall;
  And kneeling on the sticks, she pray'd
  To God that is the judge of all.

  She pray'd, her wither'd hand uprearing,
  While Harry held her by the arm--
  "God! who art never out of hearing,
  O may he never more be warm!"
  The cold, cold moon above her head,
  Thus on her knees did Goody pray,
  Young Harry heard what she had said;
  And icy-cold he turned away.

  He went complaining all the morrow
  That he was cold and very chill:
  His face was gloom, his heart was sorrow,
  Alas! that day for Harry Gill!
  That day he wore a riding-coat,
  But not a whit the warmer he:
  Another was on Thursday brought,
  And ere the Sabbath he had three.

  'Twas all in vain, a useless matter,
  And blankets were about him pinn'd;
  Yet still his jaws and teeth they clatter,
  Like a loose casement in the wind.
  And Harry's flesh it fell away;
  And all who see him say 'tis plain,
  That, live as long as live he may,
  He never will be warm again.

  No word to any man he utters,
  A-bed or up, to young or old;
  But ever to himself he mutters,
  "Poor Harry Gill is very cold."
  A-bed or up, by night or day;
  His teeth they chatter, chatter still.
  Now think, ye farmers all, I pray,
  Of Goody Blake and Harry Gill.




_THE THORN_.

  I.

  There is a thorn; it looks so old,
  In truth you'd find it hard to say,
  How it could ever have been young,
  It looks so old and grey.
  Not higher than a two years' child
  It stands erect this aged thorn;
  No leaves it has, no thorny points;
  It is a mass of knotted joints,
  A wretched thing forlorn.
  It stands erect, and like a stone
  With lichens it is overgrown.


  II.

  Like rock or stone, it is o'ergrown
  With lichens to the very top,
  And hung with heavy tufts of moss,
  A melancholy crop:
  Up from the earth these mosses creep,
  And this poor thorn! they clasp it round
  So close, you'd say that they were bent
  With plain and manifest intent,
  To drag it to the ground;
  And all had join'd in one endeavour
  To bury this poor thorn for ever.


  III.

  High on a mountain's highest ridge,
  Where oft the stormy winter gale
  Cuts like a scythe, while through the clouds
  It sweeps from vale to vale;
  Not five yards from the mountain-path,
  This thorn you on your left espy;
  And to the left, three yards beyond,
  You see a little muddy pond
  Of water, never dry;
  I've measured it from side to side:
  'Tis three feet long, and two feet wide.


  IV.

  And close beside this aged thorn,
  There is a fresh and lovely sight,
  A beauteous heap, a hill of moss,
  Just half a foot in height.
  All lovely colours there you see,
  All colours that were ever seen,
  And mossy network too is there,
  As if by hand of lady fair
  The work had woven been,
  And cups, the darlings of the eye,
  So deep is their vermillion dye.


  V.

  Ah me! what lovely tints are there!
  Of olive green and scarlet bright,
  In spikes, in branches, and in stars,
  Green, red, and pearly white.
  This heap of earth o'ergrown with moss,
  Which close beside the thorn you see,
  So fresh in all its beauteous dyes,
  Is like an infant's grave in size
  As like as like can be:
  But never, never any where,
  An infant's grave was half so fair.


  VI.

  Now would you see this aged thorn,
  This pond and beauteous hill of moss,
  You must take care and chuse your time
  The mountain when to cross.
  For oft there sits, between the heap
  That's like an infant's grave in size
  And that same pond of which I spoke,
  A woman in a scarlet cloak,
  And to herself she cries,
  "Oh misery! oh misery!
  Oh woe is me! oh misery!"


  VII.

  At all times of the day and night
  This wretched woman thither goes,
  And she is known to every star,
  And every wind that blows;
  And there beside the thorn she sits
  When the blue day-light's in the skies,
  And when the whirlwind's on the hill,
  Or frosty air is keen and still,
  And to herself she cries,
  "Oh misery! oh misery!
  Oh woe is me! oh misery;"


  VIII.

  "Now wherefore thus, by day and night,
  In rain, in tempest, and in snow
  Thus to the dreary mountain-top
  Does this poor woman go?
  And why sits she beside the thorn
  When the blue day-light's in the sky,
  Or when the whirlwind's on the hill,
  Or frosty air is keen and still,
  And wherefore does she cry?--
  Oh wherefore? wherefore? tell me why
  Does she repeat that doleful cry?"


  IX.

  I cannot tell; I wish I could;
  For the true reason no one knows,
  But if you'd gladly view the spot,
  The spot to which she goes;
  The heap that's like an infant's grave,
  The pond--and thorn, so old and grey.
  Pass by her door--tis seldom shut--
  And if you see her in her hut,
  Then to the spot away!--
  I never heard of such as dare
  Approach the spot when she is there.


  X.

  "But wherefore to the mountain-top,
  Can this unhappy woman go,
  Whatever star is in the skies,
  Whatever wind may blow?"
  Nay rack your brain--'tis all in vain,
  I'll tell you every thing I know;
  But to the thorn and to the pond
  Which is a little step beyond,
  I wish that you would go:
  Perhaps when you are at the place
  You something of her tale may trace.


  XI.

  I'll give you the best help I can:
  Before you up the mountain go,
  Up to the dreary mountain-top,
  I'll tell you all I know.
  'Tis now some two and twenty years,
  Since she (her name is Martha Ray)
  Gave with a maiden's true good will
  Her company to Stephen Hill;
  And she was blithe and gay,
  And she was happy, happy still
  Whene'er she thought of Stephen Hill.


  XII.

  And they had fix'd the wedding-day,
  The morning that must wed them both;
  But Stephen to another maid
  Had sworn another oath;
  And with this other maid to church
  Unthinking Stephen went--
  Poor Martha! on that woful day
  A cruel, cruel fire, they say,
  Into her bones was sent:
  It dried her body like a cinder,
  And almost turn'd her brain to tinder.


  XII.

  They say, full six months after this,
  While yet the summer leaves were green,
  She to the mountain-top would go,
  And there was often seen.
  'Tis said, a child was in her womb,
  As now to any eye was plain;
  She was with child, and she was mad,
  Yet often she was sober sad
  From her exceeding pain.
  Oh me! ten thousand times I'd rather,
  That he had died, that cruel father!


  XIV.

  Sad case for such a brain to hold
  Communion with a stirring child!
  Sad case, as you may think, for one
  Who had a brain so wild!
  Last Christmas when we talked of this,
  Old Farmer Simpson did maintain,
  That in her womb the infant wrought
  About its mother's heart, and brought
  Her senses back again:
  And when at last her time drew near,
  Her looks were calm, her senses clear.


  XV.

  No more I know, I wish I did,
  And I would tell it all to you;
  For what became of this poor child
  There's none that ever knew:
  And if a child was born or no,
  There's no one that could ever tell
  And if 'twas born alive or dead,
  There's no one knows, as I have said,
  But some remember well,
  That Martha Ray about this time
  Would up the mountain often climb.


  XVI.

  And all that winter, when at night
  The wind blew from the mountain-peak,
  'Twas worth your while, though in the dark,
  The church-yard path to seek:
  For many a time and oft were heard
  Cries coming from the mountain-head,
  Some plainly living voices were,
  And others, I've heard many swear,
  Were voices of the dead:
  I cannot think, whate'er they say,
  They had to do with Martha Ray.


  XVII.

  But that she goes to this old thorn,
  The thorn which I've described to you,
  And there sits in a scarlet cloak,
  I will be sworn is true.
  For one day with my telescope,
  To view the ocean wide and bright,
  When to this country first I came,
  Ere I had heard of Martha's name,
  I climbed the mountain's height:
  A storm came on, and I could see
  No object higher than my knee.


  XVIII.

  'Twas mist and rain, and storm and rain,
  No screen, no fence could I discover,
  And then the wind! in faith, it was
  A wind full ten times over.
  Hooked around, I thought I saw
  A jutting crag, and off I ran,
  Head-foremost, through the driving rain,
  The shelter of the crag to gain,
  And, as I am a man,
  Instead of jutting crag, I found
  A woman seated on the ground.


  XIX.

  I did not speak--I saw her face,
  In truth it was enough for me;
  I turned about and heard her cry,
  "O misery! O misery!"
  And there she sits, until the moon
  Through half the clear blue sky will go,
  And when the little breezes make
  The waters of the pond to shake,
  As all the country know
  She shudders, and you hear her cry,
  "Oh misery! oh misery!"


  XX.

  "But what's the thorn? and what's the pond?
  And what's the hill of moss to her?
  And what's the creeping breeze that comes
  The little pond to stir?"
  I cannot tell; but some will say
  She hanged her baby on the tree,
  Some say she drowned it in the pond,
  Which is a little step beyond,
  But all and each agree,
  The little babe was buried there,
  Beneath that hill of moss so fair.


  XXI.

  I've heard, the moss is spotted red
  With drops of that poor infant's blood;
  But kill a new-born infant thus!
  I do not think she could.
  Some say, if to the pond you go,
  And fix on it a steady view,
  The shadow of a babe you trace,
  A baby and a baby's face,
  And that it looks at you;
  Whene'er you look on it, 'tis plain
  The baby looks at you again.


  XXII.

  And some had sworn an oath that she
  Should be to public justice brought;
  And for the little infant's bones
  With spades they would have sought.
  But then the beauteous bill of moss
  Before their eyes began to stir;
  And for full fifty yards around,
  The grass it shook upon the ground;
  But all do still aver
  The little babe is buried there.
  Beneath that hill of moss so fair.


  XXIII.

  I cannot tell how this may be,
  But plain it is, the thorn is bound
  With heavy tufts of moss, that strive
  To drag it to the ground.
  And this I know, full many a time,
  When she was on the mountain high,
  By day, and in the silent night;
  When all the stars shone clear and bright,
  That I have heard her cry,
  "Oh misery! oh misery!
  O woe is me! oh misery!"




  _WE ARE SEVEN._

  A simple child, dear brother Jim,
  That lightly draws its breath,
  And feels its life in every limb,
  What should it know of death?

  I met a little cottage girl,
  She was eight years old, she said;
  Her hair was thick with many a curl
  That cluster'd round her head.

  She had a rustic, woodland air,
  And she was wildly clad;
  Her eyes were fair, and very fair,
  --Her beauty made me glad.

  "Sisters and brothers, little maid,
  How many may you be?"
  "How many? seven in all," she said,
  And wondering looked at me.

  "And where are they, I pray you tell?"
  She answered, "Seven are we,
  And two of us at Conway dwell,
  And two are gone to sea."

  "Two of us in the church-yard lie,
  My sister and my brother,
  And in the church-yard cottage, I
  Dwell near them with my mother."

  "You say that two at Conway dwell,
  And two are gone to sea,
  Yet you are seven; I pray you tell
  Sweet Maid, how this may be?"

  Then did the little Maid reply,
  "Seven boys and girls are we;
  Two of us in the church-yard lie,
  Beneath the church-yard tree."

  "You run about, my little maid,
  Your limbs they are alive;
  If two are in the church-yard laid,
  Then ye are only five."

  "Their graves are green, they may be seen,"
  The little Maid replied,
  "Twelve steps or more from my mother's door,
  And they are side by side."

  "My stockings there I often knit,
  My 'kerchief there I hem;
  And there upon the ground I sit--
  I sit and sing to them."

  "And often after sunset, Sir,
  When it is light and fair,
  I take my little porringer,
  And eat my supper there."

  "The first that died was little Jane;
  In bed she moaning lay,
  Till God released her of her pain,
  And then she went away."

  "So in the church-yard she was laid,
  And all the summer dry,
  Together round her grave we played,
  My brother John and I."

  "And when the ground was white with snow,
  And I could run and slide,
  My brother John was forced to go,
  And he lies by her side."

  "How many are you then," said I,
  "If they two are in Heaven?"
  The little Maiden did reply,
  "O Master! we are seven."

  "But they are dead; those two are dead!
  Their spirits are in heaven!"
  'Twas throwing words away; for still
  The little Maid would have her will,
  And said, "Nay, we are seven!"




_ANECDOTE for FATHERS,
   Shewing how the practice of Lying may be taught._

  I have a boy of five years old,
  His face is fair and fresh to see;
  His limbs are cast in beauty's mould,
  And dearly he loves me.

  One morn we stroll'd on our dry walk,
  Our quiet house all full in view,
  And held such intermitted talk
  As we are wont to do.

  My thoughts on former pleasures ran;
  I thought of Kilve's delightful shore,
  My pleasant home, when Spring began,
  A long, long year before.

  A day it was when I could bear
  To think, and think, and think again;
  With so much happiness to spare,
  I could not feel a pain.

  My boy was by my side, so slim
  And graceful in his rustic dress!
  And oftentimes I talked to him
  In very idleness.

  The young lambs ran a pretty race;
  The morning sun shone bright and warm;
  "Kilve," said I, "was a pleasant place,
  And so is Liswyn farm."

  "My little boy, which like you more,"
  I said and took him by the arm--
  "Our home by Kilve's delightful shore,
  Or here at Liswyn farm?"

  "And tell me, had you rather be,"
  I said and held-him by the arm,
  "At Kilve's smooth shore by the green sea,
  Or here at Liswyn farm?"

  In careless mood he looked at me,
  While still I held him by the arm,
  And said, "At Kilve I'd rather be
  Than here at Liswyn farm."

  "Now, little Edward, say why so;
  My little Edward, tell me why;"
  "I cannot tell, I do not know."
  "Why this is strange," said I.

  "For, here are woods and green hills warm:
  There surely must some reason be
  Why you would change sweet Liswyn farm,
  For Kilve by the green sea."

  At this, my boy hung down his head,
  He blush'd with shame, nor made reply;
  And five times to the child I said,
  "Why, Edward, tell me, why?"

  His head he raised--there was in sight,
  It caught his eye, he saw it plain--
  Upon the house-top, glittering bright,
  A broad and gilded vane.

  Then did the boy his tongue unlock,
  And thus to me he made reply;
  "At Kilve there was no weather-cock,
  And that's the reason why."

  Oh dearest, dearest boy! my heart
  For better lore would seldom yearn
  Could I but teach the hundredth part
  Of what from thee I learn.




_LINES
  Written at a small distance from my House, and sent by
  my little boy to the person to whom they are addressed._

  It is the first mild day of March:
  Each minute sweeter than before,
  The red-breast 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 an 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 fifty years of reason;
  Our minds shall drink at every pore
  The spirit of the season.

  Some silent laws our hearts may 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 I come, I pray,
  With speed put on your woodland dress,
  And bring no book; for this one day
  We'll give to idleness.




_THE FEMALE VAGRANT_

  By Derwent's side my Father's cottage stood,
  (The Woman thus her artless story told)
  One field, a flock, and what the neighbouring flood
  Supplied, to him were more than mines of gold.
  Light was my sleep; my days in transport roll'd:
  With thoughtless joy I stretch'd along the shore
  My father's nets, or from the mountain fold
  Saw on the distant lake his twinkling oar
  Or watch'd his lazy boat still less'ning more and more

  My father was a good and pious man,
  An honest man by honest parents bred,
  And I believe that, soon as I began
  To lisp, he made me kneel beside my bed,
  And in his hearing there my prayers I said:
  And afterwards, by my good father taught,
  I read, and loved the books in which I read;
  For books in every neighbouring house I sought,
  And nothing to my mind a sweeter pleasure brought.

  Can I forget what charms did once adorn
  My garden, stored with pease, and mint, and thyme,
  And rose and lilly for the sabbath morn?
  The sabbath bells, and their delightful chime;
  The gambols and wild freaks at shearing time;
  My hen's rich nest through long grass scarce espied;
  The cowslip-gathering at May's dewy prime;
  The swans, that, when I sought the water-side,
  From far to meet me came, spreading their snowy pride.

  The staff I yet remember which upbore
  The bending body of my active sire;
  His seat beneath the honeyed sycamore
  When the bees hummed, and chair by winter fire;
  When market-morning came, the neat attire
  With which, though bent on haste, myself I deck'd;
  My watchful dog, whose starts of furious ire,
  When stranger passed, so often I have check'd;
  The red-breast known for years, which at my casement peck'd.

  The suns of twenty summers danced along,--
  Ah! little marked, how fast they rolled away:
  Then rose a stately hall our woods among,
  And cottage after cottage owned its sway.
  No joy to see a neighbouring house, or stray
  Through pastures not his own, the master took;
  My Father dared his greedy wish gainsay;
  He loved his old hereditary nook,
  And ill could I the thought of such sad parting brook.

  But when he had refused the proffered gold,
  To cruel injuries he became a prey,
  Sore traversed in whate'er he bought and sold:
  His troubles grew upon him day by day,
  Till all his substance fell into decay.
  His little range of water was denied; [3]
  All but the bed where his old body lay.
  All, all was seized, and weeping, side by side,
  We sought a home where we uninjured might abide.

[Footnote 3: Several of the Lakes in the north of England are let
out to different Fishermen, in parcels marked out by imaginary lines
drawn from rock to rock.]

  Can I forget that miserable hour,
  When from the last hill-top, my sire surveyed,
  Peering above the trees, the steeple tower
  That on his marriage-day sweet music made?
  Till then he hoped his bones might there be laid,
  Close by my mother in their native bowers:
  Bidding me trust in God, he stood and prayed,--
  I could not pray:--through tears that fell in showers,
  Glimmer'd our dear-loved home, alas! no longer ours!

  There was a youth whom I had loved so long.
  That when I loved him not I cannot say.
  'Mid the green mountains many and many a song
  We two had sung, like gladsome birds in May.
  When we began to tire of childish play
  We seemed still more and more to prize each other;
  We talked of marriage and our marriage day;
  And I in truth did love him like a brother,
  For never could I hope to meet with such another.

  His father said, that to a distant town
  He must repair, to ply the artist's trade.
  What tears of bitter grief till then unknown?
  What tender vows our last sad kiss delayed!
  To him we turned:--we had no other aid.
  Like one revived, upon his neck I wept,
  And her whom he had loved in joy, he said
  He well could love in grief: his faith he kept;
  And in a quiet home once more my father slept.

  Four years each day with daily bread was blest,
  By constant toil and constant prayer supplied.
  Three lovely infants lay upon my breast;
  And often, viewing their sweet smiles, I sighed,
  And knew not why. My happy father died
  When sad distress reduced the childrens' meal:
  Thrice happy! that from him the grave did hide
  The empty loom, cold hearth, and silent wheel,
  And tears that flowed for ills which patience could not heal.

  'Twas a hard change, an evil time was come;
  We had no hope, and no relief could gain.
  But soon, with proud parade, the noisy drum
  Beat round, to sweep the streets of want and pain.
  My husband's arms now only served to strain
  Me and his children hungering in his view:
  In such dismay my prayers and tears were vain:
  To join those miserable men he flew;
  And now to the sea-coast, with numbers more, we drew.

  There foul neglect for months and months we bore,
  Nor yet the crowded fleet its anchor stirred.
  Green fields before us and our native shore,
  By fever, from polluted air incurred,
  Ravage was made, for which no knell was heard.
  Fondly we wished, and wished away, nor knew,
  'Mid that long sickness, and those hopes deferr'd,
  That happier days we never more must view:
  The parting signal streamed, at last the land withdrew.

  But from delay the summer calms were past.
  On as we drove, the equinoctial deep
  Ran mountains-high before the howling blast.
  We gazed with terror on the gloomy sleep
  Of them that perished in the whirlwind's sweep,
  Untaught that soon such anguish must ensue,
  Our hopes such harvest of affliction reap,
  That we the mercy of the waves should rue.
  We readied the western world, a poor, devoted crew.

  Oh I dreadful price of being to resign
  All that is dear _in_ being! better far
  In Want's most lonely cave till death to pine,
  Unseen, unheard, unwatched by any star;
  Or in the streets and walks where proud men are,
  Better our dying bodies to obtrude,
  Than dog-like, wading at the heels of war,
  Protract a curst existence, with the brood
  That lap (their very nourishment!) their brother's blood.

  The pains and plagues that on our heads came down;
  Disease and famine, agony and fear,
  In wood or wilderness, in camp or town,
  It would thy brain unsettle even to hear.
  All perished--all, in one remorseless year,
  Husband and children! one by one, by sword
  And ravenous plague, all perished: every tear
  Dried up, despairing, desolate, on board
  A British ship I waked, as from a trance restored.

  Peaceful as some immeasurable plain
  By the first beams of dawning light impress'd;
  In the calm sunshine slept the glittering main,
  The very ocean has its hour of rest,
  That comes not to the human mourner's breast.
  Remote from man, and storms of mortal care,
  A heavenly silence did the waves invest:
  I looked and looked along the silent air,
  Until it seemed to bring a joy to my despair.

  Ah! how unlike those late terrific sleeps!
  And groans, that rage of racking famine spoke:
  The unburied dead that lay in festering heaps!
  The breathing pestilence that rose like smoke!
  The shriek that from the distant battle broke!
  The mine's dire earthquake, and the pallid host
  Driven by the bomb's incessant thunder-stroke
  To loathsome vaults, where heart-sick anguish toss'd,
  Hope died, and fear itself in agony was lost!

  Yet does that burst of woe congeal my frame,
  When the dark streets appeared to heave and gape,
  While like a sea the storming army came,
  And Fire from hell reared his gigantic shape,
  And Murder, by the ghastly gleam, and Rape
  Seized their joint prey, the mother and the child!
  But from these crazing thoughts my brain, escape!
  --For weeks the balmy air breathed soft and mild,
  And on the gliding vessel Heaven and Ocean smiled.

  Some mighty gulph of separation past,
  I seemed transported to another world:--
  A thought resigned with pain, when from the mast
  The impatient mariner the sail unfurl'd,
  And whistling, called the wind that hardly curled
  The silent sea. From the sweet thoughts of home,
  And from all hope I was forever hurled.
  For me--farthest from earthly port to roam
  Was best, could I but shun the spot where man might
      come.

  And oft, robb'd of my perfect mind, I thought
  At last my feet a resting-place had found:
  Here will I weep in peace, (so fancy wrought,)
  Roaming the illimitable waters round;
  Here watch, of every human friend disowned,
  All day, my ready tomb the ocean-flood--
  To break my dream the vessel reached its bound:
  And homeless near a thousand homes I stood,
  And near a thousand tables pined, and wanted food.

  By grief enfeebled was I turned adrift,
  Helpless as sailor cast on desert rock;
  Nor morsel to my mouth that day did lift,
  Nor dared my hand at any door to knock.
  I lay, where with his drowsy mates, the cock
  From the cross timber of an out-house hung;
  How dismal tolled, that night, the city clock!
  At morn my sick heart hunger scarcely stung,
  Nor to the beggar's language could I frame my tongue.

  So passed another day, and so the third:
  Then did I try, in vain, the crowd's resort,
  In deep despair by frightful wishes stirr'd,
  Near the sea-side I reached a ruined fort:
  There, pains which nature could no more support,
  With blindness linked, did on my vitals fall;
  Dizzy my brain, with interruption short
  Of hideous sense; I sunk, nor step could crawl,
  And thence was borne away to neighbouring hospital.

  Recovery came with food: but still, my brain
  Was weak, nor of the past had memory.
  I heard my neighbours, in their beds, complain
  Of many things which never troubled me;
  Of feet still bustling round with busy glee,
  Of looks where common kindness had no part.
  Of service done with careless cruelty,
  Fretting the fever round the languid heart,
  And groans, which, as they said, would make a dead man start.

  These things just served to stir the torpid sense,
  Nor pain nor pity in my bosom raised.
  Memory, though slow, returned with strength: and thence
  Dismissed, again on open day I gazed,
  At houses, men, and common light, amazed.
  The lanes I sought, and as the sun retired,
  Came, where beneath the trees a faggot blazed;
  The wild brood saw me weep, my fate enquired,
  And gave me food, and rest, more welcome, more desired.

  My heart is touched to think that men like these,
  The rude earth's tenants, were my first relief:
  How kindly did they paint their vagrant ease!
  And their long holiday that feared not grief,
  For all belonged to all, and each was chief.
  No plough their sinews strained; on grating road
  No wain they drove, and yet, the yellow sheaf
  In every vale for their delight was stowed:
  For them, in nature's meads, the milky udder flowed,

  Semblance, with straw and panniered ass, they made
  Of potters wandering on from door to door:
  But life of happier sort to me pourtrayed,
  And other joys my fancy to allure;
  The bag-pipe dinning on the midnight moor
  In barn uplighted, and companions boon
  Well met from far with revelry secure,
  In depth of forest glade, when jocund June
  Rolled fast along the sky his warm and genial moon.

  But ill it suited me, in journey dark
  O'er moor and mountain, midnight theft to hatch;
  To charm the surly house-dog's faithful bark,
  Or hang on tiptoe at the lifted latch;
  The gloomy lantern, and the dim blue match,
  The black disguise, the warning whistle shrill,
  And ear still busy on its nightly watch,
  Were not for me, brought up in nothing ill;
  Besides, on griefs so fresh my thoughts were brooding still.

  What could I do, unaided and unblest?
  Poor Father! gone was every friend of thine:
  And kindred of dead husband are at best
  Small help, and, after marriage such as mine,
  With little kindness would to me incline.
  Ill was I then for toil or service fit:
  With tears whose course no effort could confine,
  By high-way side forgetful would I sit
  Whole hours, my idle arms in moping sorrow knit.

  I lived upon the mercy of the fields
  And oft of cruelty the sky accused;
  On hazard, or what general bounty yields.
  Now coldly given, now utterly refused,
  The fields I for my bed have often used:
  But, what afflicts my peace with keenest ruth
  Is, that I have my inner self abused,
  Foregone the home delight of constant truth,
  And clear and open soul, so prized in fearless youth.

  Three years a wanderer, often have I view'd,
  In tears, the sun towards that country tend
  Where my poor heart lost all its fortitude:
  And now across this moor my steps I bend--
  Oh! tell me whither--for no earthly friend
  Have I.--She ceased, and weeping turned away,
  As if because her tale was at an end
  She wept;--because she had no more to say
  Of that perpetual weight which on her spirit lay.




_THE DUNGEON._

  And this place our forefathers made for man!
  This is the process of our love and wisdom
  To each poor brother who offends against us--
  Most innocent, perhaps--and what if guilty?
  Is this the only cure? Merciful God!
  Each pore and natural outlet shrivell'd up
  By ignorance and parching poverty,
  His energies roll back upon his heart,
  And stagnate and corrupt; till changed to poison,
  They break out on him, like a loathsome plague spot.
  Then we call in our pamper'd mountebanks--
  And this is their best cure! uncomforted.

  And friendless solitude, groaning and tears.
  And savage faces, at the clanking hour,
  Seen through the steams and vapour of his dungeon,
  By the lamp's dismal twilight! So he lies
  Circled with evil, till his very soul
  Unmoulds its essence, hopelessly deformed
  By sights of ever more deformity!

  With other ministrations thou, O nature!'
  Healest thy wandering and distempered child:
  Thou pourest on him thy soft influences.
  Thy sunny hues, fair forms, and breathing sheets,
  Thy melodies of woods, and winds, and waters,
  Till he relent, and can no more endure
  To be a jarring and a dissonant thing,
  Amid this general dance and minstrelsy;
  But, bursting into tears, wins back his way,
  His angry spirit healed and harmonized
  By the benignant touch of love and beauty.




_SIMON LEE, THE OLD HUNTSMAN,
   With an incident in which he was concerned._

  In the sweet shire of Cardigan,
  Not far from pleasant Ivor-hall,
  An old man dwells, a little man,
  I've heard he once was tall.
  Of years he has upon his back,
  No doubt, a burthen weighty;
  He says he is three score and ten,
  But others say he's eighty.

  A long blue livery-coat has he,
  That's fair behind, and fair before;
  Yet, meet him where you will, you see
  At once that he is poor.
  Full five and twenty years he lived
  A running huntsman merry;
  And, though he has but one eye left,
  His cheek is like a cherry.

  No man like him the horn could sound,
  And no man was so full of glee;
  To say the least, four counties round.
  Had heard of Simon Lee;
  His master's dead, and no one now
  Dwells in the hall of Ivor;
  Men, dogs, and horses, all are dead;
  He is the sole survivor.

  His hunting feats have him bereft
  Of his right eye, as you may see:
  And then, what limbs those feats have left
  To poor old Simon Lee!
  He has no son, he has no child,
  His wife, an aged woman,
  Lives with him, near the waterfall,
  Upon the village common.

  And he is lean and he is sick,
  His dwindled body's half awry,
  His ancles they are swoln and thick;
  His legs are thin and dry.
  When he was young he little knew
  'Of husbandry or tillage;
  And now he's forced to work, though weak,
  --The weakest in the village.

  He all the country could outrun,
  Could leave both man and horse behind;
  And often, ere the race was done,
  He reeled and was stone-blind.
  And still there's something in the world
  At which his heart rejoices;
  For when the chiming bounds are out,
  He dearly loves their voices!

  Old Ruth works out of doors with him.
  And does what Simon cannot do;
  For she, not over stout of limb,
  Is stouter of the two.
  And though you with your utmost skill
  From labour could not wean them,
  Alas! 'tis very little, all
  Which they can do between them.

  Beside their moss-grown hut of clay,
  Not twenty paces from the door,
  A scrap of land they have, but they
  Are poorest of the poor.
  This scrap of land he from the heath
  Enclosed when he was stronger;
  But what avails the land to them,
  Which they can till no longer?

  Few months of life has he in store,
  As he to you will-tell,
  For still, the more he works, the more
  His poor old ancles swell.
  My gentle reader, I perceive
  How patiently you've waited,
  And I'm afraid that you expect
  Some tale will be related.

  O reader! had you in your mind
  Such stores as silent thought can bring,
  O gentle reader! you would find
  A tale in every thing.
  What more I have to say is short,
  I hope you'll kindly take it;
  It is no tale; but should you think,
  Perhaps a tale you'll make it.

  One summer-day I chanced to see
  This old man doing all he could
  About the root of an old tree,
  A stump of rotten wood.
  The mattock totter'd in his hand;
  So vain was his endeavour
  That at the root of the old tree
  He might have worked for ever.

  "You've overtasked, good Simon Lee,
  Give me your tool" to him I said;
  And at the word right gladly he
  Received my proffer'd aid.
  I struck, and with a single blow
  The tangled root I sever'd,
  At which the poor old man so long
  And vainly had endeavoured.

  The tears into his eyes were brought,
  And thanks and praises seemed to run
  So fast out of his heart, I thought
  They never would have done.
  --I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds
  With coldness still returning.
  Alas! the gratitude of men
  Has oftner left me mourning.




_LINES
   Written in early Spring_.

  I heard a thousand blended notes,
  While in a grove I sate reclined,
  In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
  Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

  To her fair works did nature link
  The human soul that through me ran;
  And much it griev'd my heart to think
  What man has made of man.

  Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower,
  The periwinkle trail'd its wreathes;
  And 'tis my faith that every flower
  Enjoys the air it breathes.

  The birds around me hopp'd and play'd:
  Their thoughts I cannot measure,
  But the least motion which they made,
  It seem'd 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 I these thoughts may not prevent,
  If such be of my creed the plan,
  Have I not reason to lament
  What man has made of man?




_The NIGHTINGALE.
  Written in April, 1798._

  No cloud, no relique of the sunken day
  Distinguishes the West, no long thin slip
  Of sullen Light, no obscure trembling hues.
  Come, we will rest on this old mossy Bridge!
  You see the glimmer of the stream beneath,
  But hear no murmuring: it flows silently
  O'er its soft bed of verdure. All is still,
  A balmy night! and tho' the stars be dim,
  Yet let us think upon the vernal showers
  That gladden the green earth, and we shall find
  A pleasure in the dimness of the stars.

  And hark! the Nightingale begins its song
  "Most musical, most melancholy" [4] Bird!
  A melancholy Bird? O idle thought!
  In nature there is nothing melancholy.
  --But some night wandering Man, whose heart was pierc'd
  With the remembrance of a grievous wrong,
  Or slow distemper or neglected love,
  (And so, poor Wretch! fill'd all things with himself
  And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale
  Of his own sorrows) he and such as he
  First named these notes a melancholy strain:
  And many a poet echoes the conceit;
  Poet, who hath been building up the rhyme

[Footnote 4: "_Most musical, most melancholy_." This passage in
Milton possesses an excellence far superior to that of mere
description: it is spoken in the character of the melancholy Man,
and has therefore a _dramatic_ propriety. The Author makes this
remark, to rescue himself from the charge of having alluded with
levity to a line in Milton: a charge than which none could be more
painful to him, except perhaps that of having ridiculed his Bible.]

  When he had better far have stretch'd his limbs
  Beside a 'brook in mossy forest-dell
  By sun or moonlight, to the influxes
  Of shapes and sounds and shifting elements
  Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song
  And of his fame forgetful! so his fame
  Should share in nature's immortality,
  A venerable thing! and so his song
  Should make all nature lovelier, and itself
  Be lov'd, like nature!--But 'twill not be so;
  And youths and maidens most poetical
  Who lose the deep'ning twilights of the spring
  In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still
  Full of meek sympathy must heave their sighs
  O'er Philomela's pity-pleading strains.
  My Friend, and my Friend's Sister! we have learnt
  A different lore: we may not thus profane
  Nature's sweet voices always full of love
  And joyance! Tis the merry Nightingale

  That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates
  With fast thick warble his delicious notes,
  As he were fearful, that an April night
  Would be too short for him to utter forth
  Hi? love-chant, and disburthen his full soul
  Of all its music! And I know a grove
  Of large extent, hard by a castle huge
  Which the great lord inhabits not: and so
  This grove is wild with tangling underwood,
  And the trim walks are broken up, and grass,
  Thin grass and king-cups grow within the paths.
  But never elsewhere in one place I knew
  So many Nightingales: and far and near
  In wood and thicket over the wide grove
  They answer and provoke each other's songs--
  With skirmish and capricious passagings,
  And murmurs musical and swift jug jug
  And one low piping sound more sweet than all--
  Stirring the air with such an harmony,
  That should you close your eyes, you might almost
  Forget it was not day!

                         A most gentle maid
  Who dwelleth in her hospitable home
  Hard by the Castle, and at latest eve,
  (Even like a Lady vow'd and dedicate
  To something more than nature in the grove)
  Glides thro' the pathways; she knows all their notes,
  That gentle Maid! and oft, a moment's space,
  What time the moon was lost behind a cloud,
  Hath heard a pause of silence: till the Moon
  Emerging, hath awaken'd earth and sky
  With one sensation, and those wakeful Birds
  Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy,
  At if one quick and sudden Gale had swept
  An hundred airy harps! And she hath watch'd
  Many a Nightingale perch giddily
  On blosmy twig still swinging from the breeze,
  And to that motion tune his wanton song,
  Like tipsy Joy that reels with tossing head.

  Farewell, O Warbler! till to-morrow eve,
  And you, my friends! farewell, a short farewell!
  We have been loitering long and pleasantly,
  And now for our dear homes.--That strain again!
  Full fain it would delay me!-My dear Babe,
  Who, capable of no articulate sound,
  Mars all things with his imitative lisp,
  How he would place his hand beside his ear,
  His little hand, the small forefinger up,
  And bid us listen! And I deem it wise
  To make him Nature's playmate. He knows well
  The evening star: and once when he awoke
  In most distressful mood (some inward pain
  Had made up that strange thing, an infant's dream)
  I hurried with him to our orchard plot,
  And he beholds the moon, and hush'd at once
  Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently,
  While his fair eyes that swam with undropt tears
  Did glitter in the yellow moon-beam!  Well--
  It is a father's tale. But if that Heaven
  Should give me life, his childhood shall grow up
  Familiar with these songs, that with the night
  He may associate Joy! Once more farewell,
  Sweet Nightingale! once more, my friends! farewell.




_LINES
  Written when sailing in a Boat At EVENING._

  How rich the wave, in front, imprest
  With evening twilights summer hues,
  While, facing thus the crimson west,
  The boat her silent path pursues!
  And see how dark the backward stream!
  A little moment past, so smiling!
  And still, perhaps, with faithless gleam,
  Some other loiterer beguiling.

  Such views the youthful bard allure,
  But, heedless of the following gloom,
  He deems their colours shall endure
  'Till peace go with him to the tomb.
  --And let him nurse his fond deceit,
  And what if he must die in sorrow!
  Who would not cherish dreams so sweet,
  Though grief and pain may come to-morrow?




_LINES
  Written near Richmond upon the Thames._

  Glide gently, thus for ever glide,
  O Thames! that other bards may see,
  As lovely visions by thy side
  As now, fair river! come to me.
  Oh glide, fair stream! for ever so;
  Thy quiet soul on all bestowing,
  'Till all our minds for ever flow,
  As thy deep waters now are flowing.

  Vain thought! yet be as now thou art,
  That in thy waters may be seen
  The image of a poet's heart,
  How bright, how solemn, how serene!
  Such as did once the poet bless,
  Who, pouring here a _later_ ditty,
  Could find no refuge from distress,
  But in the milder grief of pity.

  Remembrance! as we float along,
  For him suspend the dashing oar,
  And pray that never child of Song
  May know his freezing sorrows more.
  How calm! how still! the only sound,
  The dripping of the oar suspended!
  --The evening darkness gathers round
  By virtue's holiest powers attended. [5]

[Footnote 5: Collins's Ode on the death of Thomson, the last written,
I believe, of the poems which were published during his life-time.
This Ode is also alluded to in the next stanza.]




THE IDIOT BOY.


_The IDIOT BOY_.

  'Tis eight o'clock,--a clear March night,
  The moon is up--the sky is blue,
  The owlet in the moonlight air,
  He shouts from nobody knows where;
  He lengthens out his lonely shout,
  Halloo! halloo! a long halloo!

  --Why bustle thus about your door,
  What means this bustle, Betty Foy?
  Why are you in this mighty fret?
  And why on horseback have you set
  Him whom you love, your idiot boy?

  Beneath the moon that shines so bright,
  Till she is tired, let Betty Foy
  With girt and stirrup fiddle-faddle;
  But wherefore set upon a saddle
  Him whom she loves, her idiot boy?

  There's scarce a soul that's out of bed;
  Good Betty put him down again;
  His lips with joy they burr at you,
  But, Betty! what has he to do
  With stirrup, saddle, or with rein?

  The world will say 'tis very idle,
  Bethink you of the time of night;
  There's not a mother, no not one,
  But when she hears what you have done,
  Oh! Betty she'll be in a fright.

  But Betty's bent on her intent,
  For her good neighbour, Susan Gale,
  Old Susan, she who dwells alone,
  Is sick, and makes a piteous moan,
  As if her very life would fail.

  There's not a house within a mile,
  No hand to help them in distress;
  Old Susan lies a bed in pain,
  And sorely puzzled are the twain,
  For what she ails they cannot guess.

  And Betty's husband's at the wood,
  Where by the week he doth abide,
  A woodman in the distant vale;
  There's none to help poor Susan Gale,
  What must be done? what will betide?

  And Betty from the lane has fetched
  Her pony, that is mild and good,
  Whether he be in joy or pain,
  Feeding at will along the lane,
  Or bringing faggots from the wood.

  And he is all in travelling trim,
  And by the moonlight, Betty Foy
  Has up upon the saddle set,
  The like was never heard of yet,
  Him whom she loves, her idiot boy.

  And he must post without delay
  Across the bridge that's in the dale,
  And by the church, and o'er the down,
  To bring a doctor from the town,
  Or she will die, old Susan Gale.

  There is no need of boot or spur,
  There is no need of whip or wand,
  For Johnny has his holly-bough,
  And with a hurly-burly now
  He shakes the green bough in his hand.

  And Betty o'er and o'er has told
  The boy who is her best delight,
  Both what to follow, what to shun,
  What do, and what to leave undone,
  How turn to left, and how to right.

  And Betty's most especial charge,
  Was, "Johnny! Johnny! mind that you
  Come home again, nor stop at all,
  Come home again, whate'er befal,
  My Johnny do, I pray you do."

  To this did Johnny answer make,
  Both with his head, and with his hand,
  And proudly shook the bridle too,
  And then! his words were not a few,
  Which Betty well could understand.

  And now that Johnny is just going,
  Though Betty's in a mighty flurry,
  She gently pats the pony's side,
  On which her idiot boy must ride,
  And seems no longer in a hurry.

  But when the pony moved his legs,
  Oh! then for the poor idiot boy!
  For joy he cannot hold the bridle,
  For joy his head and heels are idle,
  He's idle all for very joy.

  And while the pony moves his legs,
  In Johnny's left hand you may see,
  The green bough's motionless and dead:
  The moon that shines above his head
  Is not more still and mute than he.

  His heart it was so full of glee,
  That till full fifty yards were gone,
  He quite forgot his holly whip,
  And all his skill in horsemanship,
  Oh! happy, happy, happy John.

  And Betty's standing at the door,
  And Betty's face with joy o'erflows,
  Proud of herself, and proud of him,
  She sees him in his travelling trim;
  How quietly her Johnny goes.

  The silence of her idiot boy,
  What hopes it sends to Betty's heart!
  He's at the guide-post--he turns right,
  She watches till he's out of sight,
  And Betty will not then depart.

  Burr, burr--now Johnny's lips they burr,
  As loud as any mill, or near it,
  Meek as a lamb the pony moves,
  And Johnny makes the noise he loves,
  And Betty listens, glad to hear it.

  Away she hies to Susan Gale:
  And Johnny's in a merry tune,
  The owlets hoot, the owlets purr,
  And Johnny's lips they burr, burr, burr,
  And on he goes beneath the moon.

  His steed and he right well agree,
  For of this pony there's a rumour,
  That should he lose his eyes and ears,
  And should he live a thousand years,
  He never will be out of humour.

  But then he is a horse that thinks!
  And when he thinks his pace is slack;
  Now, though he knows poor Johnny well,
  Yet for his life he cannot tell
  What he has got upon his back.

  So through the moonlight lanes they go,
  And far into the moonlight dale,
  And by the church, and o'er the down,
  To bring a doctor from the town,
  To comfort poor old Susan Gale.

  And Betty, now at Susan's side,
  Is in the middle of her story,
  What comfort Johnny soon will bring,
  With many a most diverting thing,
  Of Johnny's wit and Johnny's glory.

  And Betty's still at Susan's side:
  By this time she's not quite so flurried;
  Demure with porringer and plate
  She sits, as if in Susan's fate
  Her life and soul were buried.

  But Betty, poor good woman! she,
  You plainly in her face may read it,
  Could lend out of that moment's store
  Five years of happiness or more,
  To any that might need it.

  But yet I guess that now and then
  With Betty all was not so well,
  And to the road she turns her ears,
  And thence full many a sound she hears,
  Which she to Susan will not tell.

  Poor Susan moans, poor Susan groans,
  "As sure as there's a moon in heaven,"
  Cries Betty, "he'll be back again;
  They'll both be here, 'tis almost ten,
  They'll both be here before eleven."

  Poor Susan moans, poor Susan groans,
  The clock gives warning for eleven;
  'Tis on the stroke--"If Johnny's near,"
  Quoth Betty "he will soon be here,
  As sure as there's a moon in heaven."

  The clock is on the stroke of twelve,
  And Johnny is not yet in sight,
  The moon's in heaven, as Betty sees,
  But Betty is not quite at ease;
  And Susan has a dreadful night.

  And Betty, half an hour ago,
  On Johnny vile reflections cast:
  "A little idle sauntering thing!"
  With other names, an endless string.
  But now that time is gone and past.

  And Betty's drooping at the heart.
  That happy time all past and gone,
  "How can it be he is so late?
  The Doctor he has made him wait,
  Susan! they'll both be here anon."

  And Susan's growing worse and worse,
  And Betty's in a sad quandary;
  And then there's nobody to say
  If she must go or she must stay:
  --She's in a sad quandary.

  The clock is on the stroke of one;
  But neither Doctor nor his guide
  Appear along the moonlight road,
  There's neither horse nor man abroad,
  And Betty's still at Susan's side.

  And Susan she begins to fear
  Of sad mischances not a few,
  That Johnny may perhaps be drown'd,
  Or lost perhaps, and never found;
  Which they must both for ever rue.

  She prefaced half a hint of this
  With, "God forbid it should be true!"
  At the first word that Susan said
  Cried Betty, rising from the bed,
  "Susan, I'd gladly stay with you."

  "I must be gone, I must away,
  Consider, Johnny's but half-wise;
  Susan, we must take care of him,
  If he is hurt in life or limb"--
  "Oh God forbid!" poor Susan cries.

  "What can I do?" says Betty, going,
  "What can I do to ease your pain?
  Good Susan tell me, and I'll stay;
  I fear you're in a dreadful way,
  But I shall soon be back again."

  "Nay, Betty, go! good Betty, go!
  There's nothing that can ease my pain."
  Then off she hies, but with a prayer
  That God poor Susan's life would spare,
  Till she comes back again.

  So, through the moonlight lane she goes,
  And far into the moonlight dale;
  And how she ran, and how she walked,
  And all that to herself she talked,
  Would surely be a tedious tale.

  In high and low, above, below,
  In great and small, in round and square,
  In tree and tower was Johnny seen,
  In bush and brake, in black and green,
  'Twas Johnny, Johnny, every where.

  She's past the bridge that's in the dale,
  And now the thought torments her sore,
  Johnny perhaps his horse forsook,
  To hunt the moon that's in the brook,
  And never will be heard of more.

  And now she's high upon the down,
  Alone amid a prospect wide;
  There's neither Johnny nor his horse,
  Among the fern or in the gorse;
  There's neither doctor nor his guide.

  "Oh saints! what is become of him?
  Perhaps he's climbed into an oak,
  Where he will stay till he is dead;
  Or sadly he has been misled,
  And joined the wandering gypsey-folk."

  "Or him that wicked pony's carried
  To the dark cave, the goblins' hall,
  Or in the castle he's pursuing,
  Among the ghosts, his own undoing;
  Or playing with the waterfall,"

  At poor old Susan then she railed,
  While to the town she posts away;
  "If Susan had not been so ill,
  Alas! I should have had him still,
  My Johnny, till my dying day."

  Poor Betty! in this sad distemper,
  The doctor's self would hardly spare,
  Unworthy things she talked and wild,
  Even he, of cattle the most mild,
  The pony had his share.

  And now she's got into the town,
  And to the doctor's door she hies;
  'Tis silence all on every side;
  The town so long, the town so wide,
  Is silent as the skies.

  And now she's at the doctor's door,
  She lifts the knocker, rap, rap, rap,
  The doctor at the casement shews,
  His glimmering eyes that peep and doze;
  And one hand rubs his old night-cap.

  "Oh Doctor! Doctor! where's my Johnny?"
  "I'm here, what is't you want with me?"
  "Oh Sir! you know I'm Betty Foy,
  And I have lost my poor dear boy,
  You know him--him you often see;"

  "He's not so wise as some folks be,"
  "The devil take his wisdom!" said
  The Doctor, looking somewhat grim,
  "What, woman! should I know of him?"
  And, grumbling, he went back to bed.

  "O woe is me! O woe is me!
  Here will I die; here will I die;
  I thought to find my Johnny here,
  But he is neither far nor near,
  Oh! what a wretched mother I!"

  She stops, she stands, she looks about,
  Which way to turn she cannot tell.
  Poor Betty! it would ease her pain
  If she had heart to knock again;
  --The clock strikes three--a dismal knell!

  Then up along the town she hies,
  No wonder if her senses fail,
  This piteous news so much it shock'd her,
  She quite forgot to send the Doctor,
  To comfort poor old Susan Gale.

  And now she's high upon the down,
  And she can see a mile of road,
  "Oh cruel! I'm almost three-score;
  Such night as this was ne'er before,
  There's not a single soul abroad."

  She listens, but she cannot hear
  The foot of horse, the voice of man;
  The streams with softest sound are flowing,
  The grass you almost hear it growing,
  You hear it now if e'er you can.

  The owlets through the long blue night
  Are shouting to each other still:
  Fond lovers, yet not quite hob nob,
  They lengthen out the tremulous sob,
  That echoes far from hill to hill.

  Poor Betty now has lost all hope,
  Her thoughts are bent on deadly sin;
  A green-grown pond she just has pass'd,
  And from the brink she hurries fast,
  Lest she should drown herself therein.

  And now she sits her down and weeps;
  Such tears she never shed before;
  "Oh dear, dear pony! my sweet joy!
  Oh carry back my idiot boy!
  And we will ne'er o'erload thee more."

  A thought it come into her head;
  "The pony he is mild and good,
  And we have always used him well;
  Perhaps he's gone along the dell,
  And carried Johnny to the wood."

  Then up she springs as if on wings;
  She thinks no more of deadly sin;
  If Betty fifty ponds should see,
  The last of all her thoughts would be,
  To drown herself therein.

  Oh reader! now that I might tell
  What Johnny and his horse are doing!
  What they've been doing all this time,
  Oh could I put it into rhyme,
  A most delightful tale pursuing!

  Perhaps, and no unlikely thought!
  He with his pony now doth roam
  The cliffs and peaks so high that are,
  To lay his hands upon a star,
  And in his pocket bring it home.

  Perhaps he's turned himself about,
  His face unto his horse's tail,
  And still and mute, in wonder lost,
  All like a silent horse-man ghost,
  He travels on along the vale.

  And now, perhaps, he's hunting sheep,
  A fierce and dreadful hunter he!
  Yon valley, that's so trim and green,
  In five months' time, should he be seen,
  A desart wilderness will be.

  Perhaps, with head and heels on fire,
  And like the very soul of evil,
  He's galloping away, away,
  And so he'll gallop on for aye,
  The bane of all that dread the devil.

  I to the muses have been bound
  These fourteen years, by strong indentures:
  Oh gentle muses! let me tell
  But half of what to him befel,
  For sure he met with strange adventures.

  Oh gentle muses! is this kind
  Why will ye thus my suit repel?
  Why of your further aid bereave me?
  And can ye thus unfriended leave me?
  Ye muses! whom I love so well.

  Who's yon, that, near the waterfall,
  Which thunders down with headlong force,
  Beneath the moon, yet shining fair,
  As careless as if nothing were,
  Sits upright on a feeding horse?

  Unto his horse, that's feeding free,
  He seems, I think, the rein to give;
  Of moon or stars he takes no heed;
  Of such we in romances read,
  --Tis Johnny! Johnny! as I live.

  And that's the very pony too.
  Where is she, where is Betty Foy?
  She hardly can sustain her fears;
  The roaring water-fall she hears,
  And cannot find her idiot boy.

  Your pony's worth his weight in gold,
  Then calm your terrors, Betty Foy!
  She's coming from among the trees,
  And now all full in view she sees
  Him whom she loves, her idiot boy.

  And Betty sees the pony too:
  Why stand you thus Good Betty Foy?
  It is no goblin, 'tis no ghost,
  'Tis he whom you so long have lost,
  He whom you love, your idiot boy.

  She looks again-her arms are up--
  She screams--she cannot move for joy;
  She darts as with a torrent's force,
  She almost has o'erturned the horse,
  And fast she holds her idiot boy.

  And Johnny burrs, and laughs aloud,
  Whether in cunning or in joy,
  I cannot tell; but while he laughs,
  Betty a drunken pleasure quaffs,
  To hear again her idiot boy.

  And now she's at the pony's tail,
  And now she's at the pony's head,
  On that side now, and now on this,
  And almost stifled with her bliss,
  A few sad tears does Betty shed.

  She kisses o'er and o'er again,
  Him whom she loves, her idiot boy,
  She's happy here, she's happy there.
  She is uneasy every where;
  Her limbs are all alive with joy.

  She pats the pony, where or when
  She knows not, happy Betty Foy!
  The little pony glad may be,
  But he is milder far than she,
  You hardly can perceive his joy.

  "Oh! Johnny, never mind the Doctor;
  You've done your best, and that is all."
  She took the reins, when this was said,
  And gently turned the pony's head
  From the loud water-fall.

  By this the stars were almost gone,
  The moon was setting on the hill,
  So pale you scarcely looked at her:
  The little birds began to stir,
  Though yet their tongues were still.

  The pony, Betty, and her boy,
  Wind slowly through the woody dale;
  And who is she, be-times abroad,
  That hobbles up the steep rough road?
  Who is it, but old Susan Gale?

  Long Susan lay deep lost in thought,
  And many dreadful fears beset her,
  Both for her messenger and nurse;
  And as her mind grew worse and worse,
  Her body it grew better.

  She turned, she toss'd herself in bed,
  On all sides doubts and terrors met her;
  Point after point did she discuss;
  And while her mind was fighting thus,
  Her body still grew better.

  "Alas! what is become of them?
  These fears can never be endured,
  I'll to the wood."--The word scarce said,
  Did Susan rise up from her bed,
  As if by magic cured.

  Away she posts up hill and down,
  And to the wood at length is come,
  She spies her friends, she shouts a greeting;
  Oh me! it is a merry meeting,
  As ever was in Christendom.

  The owls have hardly sung their last,
  While our four travellers homeward wend;
  The owls have hooted all night long,
  And with the owls began my song,
  And with the owls must end.

  For while they all were travelling home,
  Cried Betty, "Tell us Johnny, do,
  Where all this long night you have been,
  What you have heard, what you have seen,
  And Johnny, mind you tell us true."

  Now Johnny all night long had heard
  The owls in tuneful concert strive;
  No doubt too he the moon had seen;
  For in the moonlight he had been
  From eight o'clock till five.

  And thus to Betty's question, he,
  Made answer, like a traveller bold,
  (His very words I give to you,)
  "The cocks did crow to-whoo, to-whoo,
  And the sun did shine so cold."
  --Thus answered Johnny in his glory,
  And that was all his travel's story.




_LOVE_.

  All Thoughts, all Passions, all Delights,
  Whatever stirs this mortal Frame,
  All are but Ministers of Love,
    And feed his sacred flame.

  Oft in my waking dreams do I
  Live o'er again that happy hour,
  When midway on the Mount I lay
    Beside the Ruin'd Tower.

  The Moonshine stealing o'er the scene
  Had blended with the Lights of Eve;
  And she was there, my Hope, my Joy,
    My own dear Genevieve!

  She lean'd against the Armed Man,
  The Statue of the Armed Knight:
  She stood and listen'd to my Harp
    Amid the ling'ring Light.

  Few Sorrows hath she of her own,
  My Hope, my Joy, my Genevieve!
  She loves me best, whene'er I sing
    The Songs, that make her grieve.

  I play'd a soft and doleful Air,
  I sang an old and moving Story--
  An old rude Song that fitted well
    The Ruin wild and hoary.

  She listen'd with a flitting Blush,
  With downcast Eyes and modest Grace;
  For well she knew, I could not choose
    But gaze upon her Face.

  I told her of the Knight, that wore
  Upon his Shield a burning Brand;
  And that for ten long Years he woo'd
    _The Lady of the Land_.

  I told her, how he pin'd: and, ah!
  The low, the deep, the pleading tone,
  With which I sang another's Love,
    Interpreted my own.

  She listen'd with a flitting Blush,
  With downcast Eyes and modest Grace;
  And she forgave me, that I gaz'd
    Too fondly on her Face!

  But when I told the cruel scorn
  Which craz'd this bold and lovely Knight,
  And that be cross'd the mountain woods
    Nor rested day nor night;

  That sometimes from the savage Den,
  And sometimes from the darksome Shade,
  And sometimes starting up at once
    In green and sunny Glade,

  There came, and look'd him in the face,
  An Angel beautiful and bright;
  And that he knew, it was a Fiend,
    This miserable Knight!

  And that, unknowing what he did,
  He leapt amid a murd'rous Band,
  And sav'd from Outrage worse than Death
    The Lady of the Land;

  And how she wept and clasp'd his knees
  And how she tended him in vain--
  And ever strove to expiate
    The Scorn, that craz'd his Brain

  And that she nurs'd him in a Cave;
  And how his Madness went away
  When on the yellow forest leaves
    A dying Man he lay;

  His dying words--but when I reach'd
  That tenderest strain of all the Ditty,
  My falt'ring Voice and pausing Harp
    Disturb'd her Soul with Pity!

  All Impulses of Soul and Sense
  Had thrill'd my guileless Genevieve,
  The Music, and the doleful Tale,
    The rich and balmy Eve;

  And Hopes, and Fears that kindle Hope,
  An undistinguishable Throng!
  And gentle Wishes long subdued,
    Subdued and cherish'd long!

  She wept with pity and delight,
  She blush'd with love and maiden shame;
  And, like the murmur of a dream,
    I heard her breathe my name.

  Her Bosom heav'd--she stepp'd aside;
  As conscious of my Look, she stepp'd--
  Then suddenly with timorous eye
    She fled to me and wept.

  She half inclosed me with her arms,
  She press'd me with a meek embrace;
  And bending back her head look'd up,
    And gaz'd upon my face.

  'Twas partly Love, and partly Fear,
  And partly 'twas a bashful Art
  That I might rather feel than see
    The Swelling of her Heart.

  I calm'd her Tears; and she was calm,
  And told her love with virgin Pride.
  And so I won my Genevieve,
    My bright and beauteous Bride!




_The MAD MOTHER_.

  Her eyes are wild, her head is bare,
  The sun has burnt her coal-black hair,
  Her eye-brows have a rusty stain,
  And she came far from over the main.
  She has a baby on her arm,
  Or else she were alone;
  And underneath the hay-stack warm,
  And on the green-wood stone,
  She talked and sung the woods among;
  And it was in the English tongue.

  "Sweet babe! they say that I am mad,
  But nay, my heart is far too glad;
  And I am happy when I sing
  Full many a sad and doleful thing:
  Then, lovely baby, do not fear!
  I pray thee have no fear of me,
  But, safe as in a cradle, here
  My lovely baby! thou shalt be,
  To thee I know too much I owe;
  I cannot work thee any woe."

  A fire was once within my brain;
  And in my head a dull, dull pain;
  And fiendish faces one, two, three,
  Hung at my breasts, and pulled at me.
  But then there came a sight of joy;
  It came at once to do me good;
  I waked, and saw my little boy,
  My little boy of flesh and blood;
  Oh joy for me that sight to see!
  For he was here, and only he.

  Suck, little babe, oh suck again!
  It cools my blood; it cools my brain;
  Thy lips I feel them, baby! they
  Draw from my heart the pain away.
  Oh! press me with thy little hand;
  It loosens something at my chest;
  About that tight and deadly band
  I feel thy little fingers press'd.
  The breeze I see is in the tree;
  It comes to cool my babe and me.

  Oh! love me, love me, little boy!
  Thou art thy mother's only joy;
  And do not dread the waves below,
  When o'er the sea-rock's edge we go;
  The high crag cannot work me harm,
  Nor leaping torrents when they howl;
  The babe I carry on my arm,
  He saves for me my precious soul;
  Then happy lie, for blest am I;
  Without me my sweet babe would die.

  Then do not fear, my boy! for thee
  Bold as a lion I will be;
  And I will always be thy guide,
  Through hollow snows and rivers wide.
  I'll build an Indian bower; I know
  The leaves that make the softest bed:
  And if from me thou wilt not go.
  But still be true 'till I am dead,
  My pretty thing! then thou shalt sing,
  As merry as the birds in spring.

  Thy father cares not for my breast,
  'Tis thine, sweet baby, there to rest:
  'Tis all thine own! and if its hue
  Be changed, that was so fair to view,
  'Tis fair enough for thee, my dove!
  My beauty, little child, is flown;
  But thou will live with me in love,
  And what if my poor cheek be brown?
  'Tis well for me, thou canst not see
  How pale and wan it else would be.

  Dread not their taunts, my little life!
  I am thy father's wedded wife;
  And underneath the spreading tree
  We two will live in honesty.
  If his sweet boy he could forsake,
  With me he never would have stay'd:
  From him no harm my babe can take,
  But he, poor man! is wretched made,
  And every day we two will pray
  For him that's gone and far away.

  I'll teach my boy the sweetest things;
  I'll teach him how the owlet sings.
  My little babe! thy lips are still,
  And thou hast almost suck'd thy fill.
  --Where art thou gone my own dear child?
  What wicked looks are those I see?
  Alas! alas! that look so wild,
  It never, never came from me:
  If thou art mad, my pretty lad,
  Then I must be for ever sad.

  Oh! smile on me, my little lamb!
  For I thy own dear mother am.
  My love for thee has well been tried:
  I've sought thy father far and wide.
  I know the poisons of the shade,
  I know the earth-nuts fit for food;
  Then, pretty dear, be not afraid;
  We'll find thy father in the wood.
  Now laugh and be gay, to the woods away!
  And there, my babe; we'll live for aye.




THE ANCIENT MARINER,


A POET'S REVERIE.

_ARGUMENT_.

How a Ship, having first sailed to the Equator, was driven by Storms,
to the cold Country towards the South Pole; how the Ancient Mariner
cruelly, and in contempt of the laws of hospitality, killed a
Sea-bird; and how he was followed by many and strange Judgements;
and in what manner he came back to his own Country.




_The ANCIENT MARINER_.

_A POET'S REVERIE_.

I.

  It is an ancient Mariner,
    And he stoppeth one of three:
  "By thy long grey beard and thy glittering eye
    Now wherefore stoppest me?"

  "The Bridegroom's doors are open'd wide
    And I am next of kin;
  The Guests are met, the Feast is set,--
    May'st hear the merry din."

  But still he holds the wedding guest--
    "There was a Ship, quoth he--"
  "Nay, if thou'st got a laughsome tale,
    Mariner! come with me."

  He holds him with his skinny hand,
    Quoth he, there was a Ship--
  "Now get thee hence, thou grey-beard Loon
    Or my Staff shall make thee skip."

  He holds him with his glittering eye--
    The wedding guest stood still
  And listens like a three year's child;
    The Mariner hath his will.

  The wedding-guest sate on a stone,
    He cannot chuse but hear:
  And thus spake on that ancient man,
    The bright-eyed Mariner.

  The Ship was cheer'd, the Harbour clear'd--
    Merrily did we drop
  Below the Kirk, below the Hill,
    Below the Light-house top.

  The Sun came up upon the left,
    Out of the Sea came he:
  And he shone bright, and on the right
    Went down into the Sea.

  Higher and higher every day,
    Till over the mast at noon--
  The wedding-guest here beat his breast,
    For he heard the loud bassoon.

  The Bride hath pac'd into the Hall,
    Red as a rose is she;
  Nodding their heads before her goes
    The merry Minstralsy.

  The wedding-guest he beat his breast,
    Yet he cannot chuse but hear:
  And thus spake on that ancient Man,
    The bright-eyed Mariner.

  But now the Northwind came more fierce,
    There came a Tempest strong!
  And Southward still for days and weeks
    Like Chaff we drove along.

  And now there came both Mist and Snow,
    And it grew wond'rous cold;
  And Ice mast-high came floating by
    As green as Emerald.

  And thro' the drifts the snowy clifts
    Did send a dismal sheen;
  Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken--
    The Ice was all between.

  The Ice was here, the Ice was there,
    The Ice was all around:
  It crack'd and growl'd, and roar'd and howl'd--
    A wild and ceaseless sound.

  At length did cross an Albatross,
    Thorough the Fog it came;
  As if it had been a Christian Soul,
    We hail'd it in God's name.

  The Mariners gave it biscuit-worms,
    And round and round it flew:
  The Ice did split with a Thunder-fit;
    The Helmsman steer'd us thro'.

  And a good south wind sprung up behind.
    The Albatross did follow;
  And every day for food or play
    Came to the Mariner's hollo!

  In mist or cloud on mast or shroud
    It perch'd for vespers nine,
  Whiles all the night thro' fog-smoke white
    Glimmer'd the white moon-shine.

  "God save thee, ancient Mariner!
    From the fiends that plague thee thus--"
  "Why look'st thou so?--with my cross bow
    I shot the Albatross."


II:

  The Sun now rose upon the right,
    Out of the Sea came he;
  Still hid in mist; and on the left
    Went down into the Sea.

  And the good south wind still blew behind,
    But no sweet Bird did follow
  Nor any day for food or play
    Came to the Mariner's hollo!

  And I had done an hellish thing
    And it would work e'm woe:
  For all averr'd, I had kill'd the Bird
    That made the Breeze to blow.

  Nor dim nor red, like an Angel's head,
    The glorious Sun uprist:
  Then all averr'd, I had kill'd the Bird
    That brought the fog and mist.

  'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay
    That bring the fog and mist.

  The breezes blew, the white foam flew,
    The furrow follow'd free:
  We were the first that ever burst
    Into that silent Sea.

  Down dropt the breeze, the Sails dropt down,
    'Twas sad as sad could be
  And we did speak only to break
    The silence of the Sea.

  All in a hot and copper sky
    The bloody sun at noon,
  Right up above the mast did stand,
    No bigger than the moon.

  Day after day, day after day,
    We stuck, nor breath nor motion,
  As idle as a painted Ship
    Upon a painted Ocean.

  Water, water, every where
    And all the boards did shrink;
  Water, water, every where,
    Nor any drop to drink.

  The very deeps did rot: O Christ!
    That ever this should be!
  Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
    Upon the slimy Sea.

  About, about, in reel and rout
    The Death-fires danc'd at night;
  The water, like a witch's oils.
    Burnt green and blue and white.

  And some in dreams assured were
    Of the Spirit that plagued us so:
  Nine fathom deep he had follow'd us
    From the Land of Mist and Snow.

  And every tongue thro' utter drouth
    Was wither'd at the root;
  We could not speak no more than if
    We had been choked with soot.

  Ah wel-a-day! what evil looks
    Had I from old and young;
  Instead of the Cross the Albatross
    About my neck was hung.


III.

  So past a weary time; each throat
    Was parch'd, and glaz'd each eye,
  When, looking westward, I beheld
    A something in the sky.

  At first it seem'd a little speck
    And then it seem'd a mist:
  It mov'd and mov'd, and took at last
    A certain shape, I wist.

  A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
    And still it near'd and near'd;
  And, as if it dodg'd a water-sprite,
    It plung'd and tack'd and veer'd.

  With throat unslack'd, with black lips bak'd
    We could nor laugh nor wail;
  Thro' utter drouth all dumb we stood
  Till I bit my arm and suck'd the blood,
    And cry'd, A sail! a sail!

  With throat unslack'd, with black lips bak'd
    Agape they heard me call:
  Gramercy! they for joy did grin
  And all at once their breath drew in
    As they were drinking all.

  See! See! (I cry'd) she tacks no more!
    Hither to work us weal
  Without a breeze, without a tide
    She steddies with upright keel!

  The western wave was all a flame,
    The day was well nigh done!
  Almost upon the western wave
    Rested the broad bright Sun;
  When that strange shape drove suddenly
    Betwixt us and the Sun.

  And strait the Sun was fleck'd with bars
    (Heaven's mother send us grace)
  As if thro' a dungeon grate he peer'd
    With broad and burning face.

  Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)
    How fast she nears and nears!
  Are those _her_ Sails that glance in the Sun
    Like restless gossameres?

  Are those _her_ Ribs, thro' which the Sun
    Did peer, as thro' a grate?
  And are those two all, all her crew.
    That Woman, and her Mate?

  _His_ bones were black with many a crack,
    All black and bare, I ween;
  Jet-black and bare, save where with rust
  Of mouldy damps and charnel crust
    They were patch'd with purple and green.

  _Her_ lips were red, _her_ looks were free,
    _Her_ locks were yellow as gold:
  Her skin was as white as leprosy,
  And she was far liker Death than he;
    Her flesh made the still air cold.

  The naked Hulk alongside came
    And the Twain were playing dice;
  "The Game is done! I've won, I've won!"
    Quoth she, and whistled thrice.

  A gust of wind sterte up behind
    And whistled thro' his bones;
  Thro' the holes of his eyes and the hole of his mouth
    Half-whistles and half-groans.

  With never a whisper in the Sea
    Off darts the Spectre-ship;
  While clombe above the Eastern bar
  The horned Moon, with one bright Star
    Almost between the tips.

  One after one by the horned Moon
    (Listen, O Stranger! to me)
  Each turn'd his face with a ghastly pang
    And curs'd me with his ee.

  Four times fifty living men,
    With never a sigh or groan,
  With heavy thump, a lifeless lump
    They dropp'd down one by one.

  Their souls did from their bodies fly,--
    They fled to bliss or woe;
  And every soul it pass'd me by,
    Like, the whiz of my Cross-bow.


IV.

  "I fear thee, ancient Mariner!
    I fear thy skinny hand;
  And thou art long and lank and brown
    As is the ribb'd Sea-sand."

  "I fear thee and thy glittering eye
    And thy skinny hand so brown--"
  "Fear not, fear not, thou wedding guest!
    This body dropt not down."

  Alone, alone, all all alone
    Alone on the wide wide Sea;
  And Christ would take no pity on
    My soul in agony.

  The many men so beautiful,
    And they all dead did lie!
  And a million million slimy things
    Liv'd on--and so did I.

  I look'd upon the rotting Sea,
    And drew my eyes away;
  I look'd upon the ghastly deck,
    And there the dead men lay.

  I look'd to Heaven, and try'd to pray;
    But or ever a prayer had gusht,
  A wicked whisper came and made
    My heart as dry as dust.

  I clos'd my lids and kept them close,
    Till the balls like pulses beat;
  For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky
  Lay like a load on my weary eye,
    And the dead were at my feet.

  The cold sweat melted from their limbs,
    Nor rot, nor reek did they;
  The look with which they look'd on me,
    Had never pass'd away.

  An orphan's curse would drag to Hell
    A spirit from on high:
  But O! more horrible than that
    Is the curse in a dead man's eye!
  Seven days, seven nights I saw that curse,
    And yet I could not die.

  The moving Moon went up the sky
    And no where did abide:
  Softly she was going up
    And a star or two beside--

  Her beams bemock'd the sultry main
    Like April hoar-frost spread;
  But where the ship's huge shadow lay,
  The charmed water burnt alway
    A still and awful red.

  Beyond the shadow of the ship
    I watch'd the water-snakes:
  They mov'd in tracks of shining white;
  And when they rear'd, the elfish light
    Fell off in hoary flakes.

  Within the shadow of the ship
    I watch'd their rich attire:
  Blue, glossy green, and velvet black
  They coil'd and swam; and every track
    Was a flash of golden fire.

  O happy living things! no tongue
    Their beauty might declare:
  A spring of love gusht from my heart,
    And I bless'd them unaware!
  Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
    And I bless'd them unaware.

  The self-same moment I could pray;
    And from my neck so free
  The Albatross fell off, and sank
    Like lead into the sea.


V.

  O sleep, it is a gentle thing
    Belov'd from pole to pole!
  To Mary-queen the praise be given
  She sent the gentle sleep from heaven
    That slid into my soul.

  The silly buckets on the deck
    That had so long remain'd,
  I dreamt that they were fill'd with dew
    And when I awoke it rain'd.

  My lips were wet, my throat was cold,
    My garments all were dank;
  Sure I had drunken in my dreams
    And still my body drank.

  I mov'd and could not feel my limbs,
    I was so light, almost
  I thought that I had died in sleep,
    And was a blessed Ghost.

  And soon I heard a roaring wind,
    It did not come anear;
  But with its sound it shook the sails
    That were so thin and sere.

  The upper air burst into life
    And a hundred fire-flags sheen
  To and fro they were hurried about;
  And to and fro, and in and out
    The wan stars danc'd between.

  And the coming wind did roar more loud;
    And the sails did sigh like sedge:
  And the rain pour'd down from one black cloud
    The moon was at its edge.

  The thick black cloud was cleft, and still
    The Moon was at its side:
  Like waters shot from some high crag,
  The lightning fell, with never a jag
    A river steep and wide.

  The loud wind never reach'd the Ship,
    Yet now the Ship mov'd on!
  Beneath the lightning and the moon
    The dead men gave a groan.

  They groan'd; they stirr'd, they all uprose,
    Nor spake, nor mov'd their eyes:
  It had been strange, even in a dream
    To have seen those dead men rise,

  The helmsman steerd, the ship mov'd on;
    Yet never a breeze up-blew;
  The Mariners all gan work the ropes,
    Where they were wont to do:
  They rais'd their limbs like lifeless tools--
    We were a ghastly crew.

  The body of my brother's son
    Stood by me knee to knee:
  The body and I pull'd at one rope,
    But he said nought to me.

  "I fear thee, ancient Mariner!"
    "Be calm, thou wedding guest!
  'Twas not those souls, that fled in pain,
  Which to their corses came again,
    But a troop of Spirits blest:"

  "For when it dawn'd--they dropp'd their arms,
    And cluster'd round the mast:
  Sweet sounds rose slowly thro' their mouths
    And from their bodies pass'd."

  Around, around, flew each sweet sound,
    Then darted to the sun:
  Slowly the sounds came back again
    Now mix'd, now one by one.

  Sometimes a dropping from the sky
    I heard the Sky-lark sing;
  Sometimes all little birds that are
  How they seem'd to fill the sea and air
    With their sweet jargoning.

  And now 'twas like all instruments,
    Now like a lonely flute;
  And now it is an angel's song
    That makes the heavens be mute.

  It ceas'd: yet still the sails made on
    A pleasant noise till noon,
  A noise like of a hidden brook
    In the leafy month of June,
  That to the sleeping woods all night,
    Singeth a quiet tune.

  Till noon we silently sail'd on
    Yet never a breeze did breathe:
  Slowly and smoothly went the Ship
    Mov'd onward from beneath.

  Under the keel nine fathom deep
    From the land of mist and snow
  The spirit slid: and it was He
    That made the Ship to go.
  The sails at noon left off their tune
    And the Ship stood still also.

  The sun right up above the mast
    Had fix'd her to the ocean:
  But in a minute she 'gan stir
    With a short uneasy motion--
  Backwards and forwards half her length
    With a short uneasy motion.

  Then, like a pawing horse let go,
    She made a sudden bound:
  It flung the blood into my head,
    And I fell into a swound.

  How long in that same fit I lay,
    I have not to declare;
  But ere my living life return'd,
  I heard and in my soul discern'd
    Two voices in the air.

  "Is it he?" quoth one, "Is this the man?
    By him who died on cross,
  With his cruel bow he lay'd full low
    The harmless Albatross."

  "The spirit who 'bideth by himself
    In the land of mist and snow,
  He lov'd the bird that lov'd the man
    Who shot him with his bow."

  The other was a softer voice,
    As soft as honey-dew:
  Quoth he the man hath penance done,
    And penance more will do.


VI.

  FIRST VOICE.

  "But tell me, tell me! speak again,
    Thy soft response renewing--
  What makes that ship drive on so fast?
    What is the Ocean doing?"

  SECOND VOICE.

  "Still as a Slave before his Lord,
    The Ocean hath no blast:
  His great bright eye most silently
    Up to the moon is cast--"

  "If he may know which way to go,
    For she guides him smooth or grim,
  See, brother, see! how graciously
    She looketh down on him."

  FIRST VOICE.

  "But why drives on that ship so fast
    Without or wave or wind?"

  SECOND VOICE.

  "The air is cut away before,
    And closes from behind."

  "Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high,
    Or we shall be belated:
  For slow and slow that ship will go,
    When the Mariner's trance is abated."

  I woke, and we were sailing on
    As in a gentle weather:
  'Twas night, calm night, the moon was high;
    The dead men stood together.

  All stood together on the deck,
    For a charnel-dungeon fitter:
  All fix'd on me their stony eyes
    That in the moon did glitter.

  The pang, the curse, with which they died,
    Had never pass'd away;
  I could not draw my eyes from theirs
    Nor turn them up to pray.

  And now this spell was snapt: once more
    I view'd the ocean green,
  And look'd far forth, yet little saw
    Of what had else been seen.

  Like one, that on a lonesome road
    Doth walk in fear and dread,
  And having once turn'd round, walks on
    And turns no more his head:
  Because he knows, a frightful fiend
    Doth close behind him tread.

  But soon there breath'd a wind on me,
    Nor sound nor motion made:
  Its path was not upon the sea
    In ripple or in shade.

  It rais'd my hair, it fann'd my cheek,
    Like a meadow-gale of spring--
  It mingled strangely with my fears,
    Yet it felt like a welcoming.

  Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship
    Yet she sail'd softly too:
  Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze--
    On me alone it blew.

  O dream of joy! is this indeed
    The light-house top I see?
  Is this the Hill? Is this the Kirk?
    Is this mine own countrée?

  We drifted o'er the Harbour-bar,
    And I with sobs did pray--
  "O let me be awake, my God!
    Or let me sleep alway!"

  The harbour-bay was clear as glass,
    So smoothly it was strewn!
  And on the bay the moonlight lay,
    And the shadow of the moon.

  The rock shone bright, the kirk no less:
    That stands above the rock:
  The moonlight steep'd in silentness
    The steady weathercock.

  And the bay was white with silent light,
    Till rising from the same
  Full many shapes, that shadows were,
    In crimson colours came.

  A little distance from the prow
    Those crimson shadows were:
  I turn'd my eyes upon the deck--
    O Christ! what saw I there?

  Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat;
    And by the Holy rood
  A man all light, a seraph-man,
    On every corse there stood.

  This seraph-band, each wav'd his hand:
    It was a heavenly sight:
  They stood as signals to the land,
    Each one a lovely light:

  This seraph-band, each wav'd his hand,
    No voice did they impart--
  No voice; but O! the silence sank,
    Like music on my heart.

  But soon I heard the dash of oars,
    I heard the pilot's cheer:
  My head was turn'd perforce away
    And I saw a boat appear.

  The pilot, and the pilot's boy
    I heard them coming fast:
  Dear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy,
    The dead men could not blast.

  I saw a third--I heard his voice:
    It is the Hermit good!
  He singeth loud his godly hymns
    That he makes in the wood.
  He'll shrive my soul, he'll wash away
    The Albatross's blood.


VII.

  This Hermit good lives in that wood
    Which slopes down to the Sea.
  How loudly his sweet voice he rears!
  He loves to talk with Mariners
    That come from a far countrée.

  He kneels at morn and noon and eve--
    He hath a cushion plump:
  It is the moss, that wholly hides
    The rotted old Oak-stump.

  The Skiff-boat ner'd: I heard them talk,
    "Why, this is strange, I trow!
  Where are those lights so many and fair
    That signal made but now?"

  "Strange, by my faith!" the Hermit said--
    "And they answer'd not our cheer.
  The planks look warp'd, and see those sails
    How thin they are and sere!
  I never saw aught like to them
    Unless perchance it were"

  "The skeletons of leaves that lag
    My forest brook along:
  When the Ivy-tod is heavy with snow,
  And the Owlet whoops to the wolf below
    That eats the she-wolf's young."

  "Dear Lord! it has a fiendish look--"
    (The Pilot made reply)
  "I am a-fear'd."--"Push on, push on!"
    "Said the Hermit cheerily."

  The Boat came closer to the Ship,
    But I nor spake nor stirr'd!
  The Boat came close beneath the Ship,
    And strait a sound was heard!

  Under the water it rumbled on,
    Still louder and more dread:
  It reach'd the Ship, it split the bay;
    The Ship went down like lead.

  Stunn'd by that loud and dreadful sound,
    Which sky and ocean smote:
  Like one that hath been seven days drown'd
    My body lay afloat:
  But, swift as dreams, myself I found
    Within the Pilot's boat.

  Upon the whirl, where sank the Ship,
    The boat spun round and round:
  And all was still, save that the hill
    Was telling of the sound.

  I mov'd my lips: the Pilot shriek'd
    And fell down in a fit.
  The Holy Hermit rais'd his eyes
    And pray'd where he did sit.

  I took the oars: the Pilot's boy,
    Who now doth crazy go,
  Laugh'd loud and long, and all the while
    His eyes went to and fro,
  "Ha! ha!" quoth he--"full plain I see,
    The devil knows how to row."

  And now all in mine own Countrée
    I stood on the firm land!
  The Hermit stepp'd forth from the boat,
    And scarcely he could stand.

  "O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy Man!"
    The Hermit cross'd his brow--
  "Say quick," quoth he, "I bid thee say
    What manner man art thou?"

  Forthwith this frame of mind was wrench'd
    With a woeful agony,
  Which forc'd me to begin my tale
    And then it left me free.

  Since then at an uncertain hour,
    That agency returns;
  And till my ghastly tale is told
    This heart within me burns.

  I pass, like night, from land to land;
    I have strange power of speech;
  The moment that his face I see
  I know the man that must hear me;
    To him my tale I teach.

  What loud uproar bursts from that door!
    The Wedding-guests are there;
  But in the Garden-bower the Bride
    And Bride-maids singing are:
  And hark the little Vesper-bell
    Which biddeth me to prayer.

  O Wedding-guest! this soul hath been
    Alone on a wide wide sea:
  So lonely 'twas, that God himself
    Scarce seemed there to be.

  O sweeter than the Marriage-feast,
    'Tis sweeter far to me
  To walk together to the Kirk
    With a goodly company.

  To walk together to the Kirk
    And all together pray,
  While each to his great father bends,
  Old men, and babes, and loving friends,
    And Youths, and Maidens gay.

  Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
    To thee, thou wedding-guest!
  He prayeth well who loveth well
    Both man, and bird and beast.

  He prayeth best who loveth best
    All things both great and small:
  For the dear God, who loveth us,
    He made and loveth all.

  The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
    Whose beard with age is hoar,
  Is gone; and now the wedding-guest
    Turn'd from the bridegroom's door.

  He went, like one that hath been stunn'd
    And is of sense forlorn:
  A sadder and a wiser man
    He rose the morrow morn,




_LINES_
  _Written a few miles above TINTERN ABBEY, an revisiting the banks of
  the WYE during a Tour_.
  _July 13, 1798_.

  Five years have passed; five summers, with the length
  Of five long winters! and again I hear
  These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
  With a sweet inland murmur. [6]--Once again
  Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
  Which on a wild secluded scene impress
  Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
  The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

[Footnote 6: The river is not affacted by the tides a few miles
above Tintern.]

  The day is come when I again repose
  Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
  These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
  Which, at this season, with their unripe fruits,
  Among the woods and copses lose themselves,
  Nor, with their green and simple hue, disturb
  The wild green landscape. Once again I see
  These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
  Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms
  Green to the very door; and wreathes of smoke
  Sent up, in silence, from among the trees,
  With some uncertain notice, as might seem,
  Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
  Or of some hermit's cave, where by his fire
  The hermit sits alone.

                         Though absent long.
  These forms of beauty 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 wariness, 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, perhaps,
  As may have had no 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 lighten'd:--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 oft,
  In darkness, and amid the many shapes
  Of joyless day-light; when the fretful stir
  Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
  Have hung upon the beatings of my heart,
  How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee
  O sylvan Wye! Thou wanderer through the woods,
  How often has my spirit turned to thee!

  And now, with gleams, of half-extinguish'd 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 sense
  Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
  That in this moment there is life and food
  For future years. And so I dare to hope
  Though changed, no doubt, from what I was, when first
  I came among these hills; when like a roe
  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 cataract
  Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
  The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
  Their colours and their forms, were then to me
  An appetite: a feeling and a love,
  That had no need of a remoter charm,
  By thought supplied, or 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 believe
  Abundant recompence. For I have learned
  To look on nature, not as in the hour
  Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes
  The still, sad music of humanity,
  Nor harsh 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 interfused,
  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 behold
  From this green earth; of all the mighty world
  Of eye and ear; both what they half create, [7]
  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.

[Footnote 7: This line has a close resemblance to an admirable
line of Young, the exact expression of which I cannot recollect.]

                         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 privilege,
  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 chearful faith that all which we behold
  Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
  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 forget,
  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.







_NOTES_

NOTE to THE THORN--This Poem ought to have been preceded by an
introductory Poem, which I have been prevented from writing by never
having felt myself in a mood when it was probable that I should
write it well.--The character which I have here introduced speaking
is sufficiently common. The Reader will perhaps have a general
notion of it, if he has ever known a man, a Captain of a small
trading vessel for example, who being past the middle age of life,
had retired upon an annuity or small independent income to some
village or country town of which he was not a native, or in which he
had not been accustomed to live. Such men having little to do become
credulous and talkative from indolence; and from the same cause, and
other predisposing causes by which it is probable that such men may
have been affected, they are prone to superstition. On which account
it appeared to me proper to select a character like this to exhibit
some of the general laws by which superstition acts upon the mind.
Superstitious men are almost always men of slow faculties and deep
feelings; their minds are not loose but adhesive; they have a
reasonable share of imagination, by which word I mean the faculty
which produces impressive effects out of simple elements; but they
are utterly destitute of fancy, the power by which pleasure and
surprize are excited by sudden varieties of situation and by
accumulated imagery.

It was my wish in this poem to shew the manner in which such men
cleave to the same ideas; and to follow the turns of passion, always
different, yet not palpably different, by which their conversation
is swayed. I had two objects to attain; first, to represent a
picture which should not be unimpressive yet consistent with the
character that should describe it, secondly, while I adhered to the
style in which such persons describe, to take care that words, which
in their minds are impregnated with passion, should likewise convey
passion to Readers who are not accustomed to sympathize with men
feeling in that manner or using such language. It seemed to me that
this might be done by calling in the assistance of Lyrical and rapid
Metre. It was necessary that the Poem, to be natural, should in
reality move slowly; yet I hoped, that, by the aid of the metre, to
those who should at all enter into the spirit of the Poem, it would
appear to move quickly. The Reader will have the kindness to excuse
this note as I am sensible that an introductory Poem is necessary to
give this Poem its full effect.

Upon this occasion I will request permission to add a few words
closely connected with THE THORN and many other Poems in these
Volumes. There is a numerous class of readers who imagine that the
same words cannot be repeated without tautology: this is a great
error: virtual tautology is much oftener produced by using different
words when the meaning is exactly the same. Words, a Poet's words
more particularly, ought to be weighed in the balance of feeling and
not measured by the space which they occupy upon paper. For the
Reader cannot be too often reminded that Poetry is passion: it is
the history or science of feelings: now every man must know that an
attempt is rarely made to communicate impassioned feelings without
something of an accompanying consciousness of the inadequateness of
our own powers, or the deficiencies of language. During such efforts
there will be a craving in the mind, and as long as it is
unsatisfied the Speaker will cling to the same words, or words of
the same character. There are also various other reasons why
repetition and apparent tautology are frequently beauties of the
highest kind. Among the chief of these reasons is the interest which
the mind attaches to words, not only as symbols of the passion, but
as _things_, active and efficient, which are of themselves part of
the passion. And further, from a spirit of fondness, exultation, and
gratitude, the mind luxuriates in the repetition of words which
appear successfully to communicate its feelings. The truth of these
remarks might be shewn by innumerable passages from the Bible and
from the impassioned poetry of every nation.


  "Awake, awake Deborah: awake, awake, utter a song:"

  "Arise Barak, and lead thy captivity captive, thou Son of Abinoam."

  "At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down: at her feet be bowed,
  he fell; where he bowed there he fell down dead."

  "Why is his Chariot so long in coming? Why tarry the Wheels of his
  Chariot?"--Judges, Chap. 5th. Verses 12th, 27th, and part of 28th.
      --See also the whole of that tumultuous and wonderful Poem.

NOTE to the ANCIENT MARINER, p. 155.--I cannot refuse myself the
gratification of informing such Readers as may have been pleased
with this Poem, or with any part of it, that they owe their pleasure
in some sort to me; as the Author was himself very desirous that it
should be suppressed. This wish had arisen from a consciousness of
the defects of the Poem, and from a knowledge that many persons had
been much displeased with it. The Poem of my Friend has indeed great
defects; first, that the principal person has no distinct character,
either in his profession of Mariner, or as a human being who having
been long under the controul of supernatural impressions might be
supposed himself to partake of something supernatural: secondly,
that he does not act, but is continually acted upon: thirdly, that
the events having no necessary connection do not produce each other;
and lastly, that the imagery is somewhat too laboriously accumulated.
Yet the Poem contains many delicate touches of passion, and indeed
the passion is every where true to nature; a great number of the
stanzas present beautiful images, and are expressed with unusual
felicity of language; and the versification, though the metre is
itself unfit for long poems, is harmonious and artfully varied,
exhibiting the utmost powers of that metre, and every variety of
which it is capable. It therefore appeared to me that these several
merits (the first of which, namely that of the passion, is of the
highest kind,) gave to the Poem a value which is not often possessed
by better Poems. On this account I requested of my Friend to permit
me to republish it.

NOTE to the Poem ON REVISITING THE WYE, p. 201.--I have not ventured
to call this Poem an Ode; but it was written with a hope that in the
transitions, and the impassioned music of the versification would be
found the principal requisites of that species of composition.

END OF VOL. I.