Puslapio vaizdai
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Mourns less for what age takes away
Than what it leaves behind.

The blackbird amid leafy trees,

The lark above the hill,

Let loose their carols when they please,

Are quiet when they will.

With Nature never do they wage
A foolish strife; they see

A happy youth, and their old age
Is beautiful and free:

But we are pressed by heavy laws;

And often, glad no more,

We wear a face of joy, because
We have been glad of yore.

If there be one who need bemoan

His kindred laid in earth,

The household hearts that were his own;

It is the man of mirth.

My days, my Friend, are almost gone,

My life has been approved,

And many love me; but by none

Am I enough beloved."*

"Now both himself and me he wrongs,

The man who thus complains!

I live and sing my

idle songs

Upon these happy plains;

* Coleridge bestows especial praise on "the six beautiful quatrains" of which this is the last.

And, Matthew, for thy children dead
I'll be a son to thee !"

At this he grasped my hand, and said,
"Alas! that cannot be."

We rose up from the fountain-side;
And down the smooth descent

Of the green sheep-track did we glide;
And through the wood we went;

And, ere we came to Leonard's rock,
He sang those witty rhymes
About the crazy old church-clock,
And the bewildered chimes.

REMEMBRANCE OF COLLINS,

COMPOSED UPON THE THAMES NEAR RICHMOND.

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.
O 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 murmuring here a later ditty,
Could find no refuge from distress
But in the milder grief of pity.

Now let us, as we float along,
For him suspend the dashing oar;
And pray
that never child of song
May know that Poet's 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.

1789.

LINES

WRITTEN WHILE SAILING IN A BOAT AT EVENING.†

How richly glows the water's breast
Before us, tinged with evening hues,

While, facing thus the crimson west,
The boat her silent course pursues !

And see how dark the backward stream!
A little moment past so smiling!
And still, perhaps, with faithless gleam,
Some other loiterers beguiling.

* 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.-W. W.

Julius C. Hare remarks that many persons have so little feeling of what is original and beautiful in poetry that they wish Wordsworth had always written verses of such ordinary character as those in this short poem!

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?

PERSONAL TALK.

1789.

I.

I AM not One who much or oft delight
To season my fireside with personal talk,—
Of friends, who live within an easy walk,
Or neighbours, daily, weekly, in my sight:
And, for my chance-acquaintance, ladies bright,
Sons, mothers, maidens withering on the stalk,
These all wear out of me, like Forms, with chalk
Painted on rich men's floors, for one feast-night.
Better than such discourse doth silence long,
Long, barren silence, square with my desire;
To sit without emotion, hope, or aim,
In the loved presence of my cottage-fire,
And listen to the flapping of the flame,
Or kettle whispering its faint undersong.

II.

"Yet life," you say, "is life; we have seen and see, And with a living pleasure we describe;

And fits of sprightly malice do but bribe
The languid mind into activity.

Sound sense, and love itself, and mirth and glee
Are fostered by the comment and the gibe."
Even be it so yet still among your tribe,
Our daily world's true Worldlings, rank not me!
Children are blest, and powerful; their world lies
More justly balanced; partly at their feet,
And part far from them :-sweetest melodies
Are those that are by distance made more sweet;
Whose mind is but the mind of his own eyes,
He is a Slave; the meanest we can meet !

III.

Wings have we,-and as far as we can go
We may find pleasure: wilderness and wood,
Blank ocean and mere sky, support that mood
Which with the lofty sanctifies the low.

Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good:

Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,

Our pastime and our happiness will grow.

There find I personal themes, a plenteous store,
Matter wherein right voluble I am,

To which I listen with a ready ear;

*

Two shall be named, pre-eminently dear,—
The gentle Lady married to the Moor;
And heavenly Una with her milk-white Lamb.

*There do I find a never failing store

Of personal themes, and such as I love best;

Matter wherein right voluble I am ;

Two will I mention dearer than the rest.-Edit. 1815.

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