Puslapio vaizdai
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WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food,
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and
smiles.

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

YARROW UNVISITED.

FROM Stirling Castle we had seen
The mazy Forth unravelled;
Had trod the banks of Clyde and Tay,
And with the Tweed had travelled;
And when we came to Clovenford,

Then said my "winsome Marrow," "Whate'er betide, we 'll turn aside, And see the Braes of Yarrow."

"Let Yarrow folk, frae Selkirk town,

Who have been buying, selling, Go back to Yarrow, 't is their own, Each maiden to her dwelling! On Yarrow's banks let herons feed,

Hares couch, and rabbits burrow! But we will downward with the Tweed, Nor turn aside to Yarrow.

"There's Galla Water, Leader Haughs, Both lying right before us;

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"O, green," said I, "are Yarrow's
holmis,

And sweet is Yarrow flowing!
Fair hangs the apple frae the rock,
But we will leave it growing.
O'er hilly path and open strath
We'll wander Scotland thorough;
But, though so near, we will not turn
Into the dale of Yarrow.

"Let beeves and home-bred kine partake
The sweets of Burn Mill meadow;
The swan on still Saint Mary's Lake
Float double, swan and shadow!
We will not see them; will not go
To-day, nor yet to-morrow;
Enough if in our hearts we know
There's such a place as Yarrow.

"Be Yarrow stream unseen, unknown!
It must, or we shall rue it :
We have a vision of our own;

Ah! why should we undo it?
The treasured dreams of times long past,
We'll keep them, winsome Marrow!
For when we're there, although 't is fair,
"T will be another Yarrow!

"If care with freezing years should come,
And wandering seem but folly,
Should we be loath to stir from home,
And yet be melancholy;

Should life be dull, and spirits low,

"T will soothe us in our sorrow That earth has something yet to show, The bonny holms of Yarrow!"

And Dryburgh, where with chiming ON A PICTURE OF PEELE CASTLE IN

Tweed

The lintwhites sing in chorus;

There's pleasant Teviotdale, a land

Made blithe with plough and harrow: Why throw away a needful day

To go in search of Yarrow?

"What's Yarrow but a river bare, That glides the dark hills under? There are a thousand such elsewhere

As worthy of your wonder."

A STORM.

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thee:

I saw thee every day; and all the while
Thy form was sleeping on a glassy sea.

-- Strange words they seemed of slight So pure the sky, so quiet was the air!

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So like, so very like, was day to day!
Whene'er I looked, thy image still was

there;

It trembled, but it never passed away.

How perfect was the calm! It seemed no sleep,

No mood, which season takes away, or brings:

I could have fancied that the mighty Deep

Was even the gentlest of all gentle things.

Ah! then if mine had been the painter's hand

To express what then I saw; and add

the gleam,

The light that never was on sea or land, The consecration, and the poet's dream,

I would have planted thee, thou hoary pile,

Amid a world how different from this!
Beside a sea that could not cease to smile;
On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss.

A picture had it been of lasting ease,
Elysian quiet, without toil or strife;
No motion but the moving tide, a breeze;
Or merely silent Nature's breathing life.

Such, in the fond illusion of my heart, Such picture would I at that time have made;

And seen the soul of truth in every part, A steadfast peace that might not be

betrayed.

That hulk which labors in the deadly swell,

This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear!

And this huge castle, standing here sublime,

I love to see the look with which it

braves

Cased in the unfeeling armor of old time

The lightning, the fierce wind, and trampling waves.

Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone,

Housed in a dream, at distance from the kind!

Such happiness, wherever it be known, Is to be pitied; for 't is surely blind.

But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer, And frequent sights of what is to be borne!

Such sights, or worse, as are before me here:

Not without hope we suffer and we mourn.

ODE TO DUTY.

STERN daughter of the voice of God!
O Duty! if that name thou love,

So once it would have been, 't is so no Who art a light to guide, a rod

more;

I have submitted to a new control:

A power is gone, which nothing can restore;

A deep distress hath humanized my soul.

Not for a moment could I now behold
A smiling sea, and be what I have been:
The feeling of my loss will ne'er be
old;

This, which I know, I speak with mind

serene.

Then, Beaumont, Friend! who would have been the friend,

If he had lived, of him whom I deplore, This work of thine I blame not, but commend;

This sea in anger, and that dismal shore.

O, 't is a passionate work!-yet wise and well,

Well chosen is the spirit that is here;

To check the erring, and reprove;
Thou who art victory and law
When empty terrors overawe,
From vain temptations dost set free,
And calm'st the weary strife of frail hu-
manity!

There are who ask not if thine eye
Be on them; who, in love and truth,
Where no misgiving is, rely
Upon the genial sense of youth:
Glad hearts! without reproach or blot;
Who do thy work, and know it not:
May joy be theirs while life shall last!
And thou, if they should totter, teach
them to stand fast!

Serene will be our days and bright,
And happy will our nature be,
When love is an unerring light,
And joy its own security.
And blest are they who in the main
This faith, even now, do entertain:

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

Live in the spirit of this creed;
Yet find that other strength, according to
their need.

I, loving freedom, and untried,
No sport of every random gust,
Yet being to myself a guide,
Too blindly have reposed my trust;
Full oft, when in my heart was heard
Thy timely mandate, I deferred
The task imposed, from day to day;
But thee I now would serve more strict-
ly, if I may.

Through no disturbance of my soul,
Or strong compunction in me wrought,
I supplicate for thy control;
But in the quietness of thought:
Me this unchartered freedom tires;
I feel the weight of chance desires:
My hopes no more must change their

name,

I long for a repose which ever is the same.

Stern lawgiver! yet thou dost wear
The Godhead's most benignant grace;
Nor know we anything so fair
As is the smile upon thy face.
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds,
And fragrance in thy footing treads;
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong,
And the most ancient heavens, through.

thee, are fresh and strong.

To humbler functions, awful power!
I call thee: I myself commend
Unto thy guidance from this hour;
O, let my weakness have an end!
Give unto me, made lowly wise,
The spirit of self-sacrifice;
The confidence of reason give;
And, in the light of truth, thy bondman
let me live!

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While we, the brave, the mighty, and | "O, come ye in peace here, or come ye in the wise, We men, who in our morn of youth Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord

defied

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war,

Lochinvar?"

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He swam the Esk River where ford there And

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the bride-maidens whispered, "T were better by far have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar!"

One touch to her hand, and one word in

her ear,

When they reached the hall door, and the charger stood near, So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung,

So

light to the saddle before her he

sprung.

"She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur;

They'll have fleet steeds that follow!" quoth young Lochinvar.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

There was mounting 'mong Græmes of
the Netherby clan;
Fosters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they
rode and they ran;

There was racing and chasing on Canno-
bie Lea,

But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see!

So daring in love, and so dauntless in

war,

Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young
Lochinvar?

A SERENADE.

AH! County Guy, the hour is nigh,
The sun has left the lea,

The orange-flower perfumes the bower,
The breeze is on the sea.

The lark, his lay who trilled all day,
Sits hushed his partner nigh;
Breeze, bird, and flower confess the hour,
But where is County Guy?

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I hate to learn the ebb of time
From yon dull steeple's drowsy chime,
Or mark it as the sunbeams crawl,
Inch after inch, along the wall.
The lark was wont my matins ring,
The sable rook my vespers sing;
These towers, although a king's they be,
Have not a hall of joy for me.

No more at dawning morn I rise,
And sun myself in Ellen's eyes,
Drive the fleet deer the forest through,
And homeward wend with evening dew;

The village maid steals through the shade A blithesome welcome blithely meet,

Her shepherd's suit to hear;

To Beauty shy, by lattice high,
Sings high-born Cavalier.

The star of Love, all stars above,

Now reigns o'er earth and sky,

And high and low the influence know, -
But where is County Guy?

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And lay my trophies at her feet,
While fled the eve on wing of glee, —
That life is lost to love and me!

THE TROSACHS.

THE western waves of ebbing day
Rolled o'er the glen their level way;
Each purple peak, each flinty spire,
Was bathed in floods of living fire.
But not a setting beam could glow
Within the dark ravines below,
Where twined the path, in shadow hid,
Round many a rocky pyramid,
Shooting abruptly from the dell
Its thunder-splintered pinnacle;
Round many an insulated mass,
The native bulwarks of the pass,
Huge as the tower which builders vain
Presumptuous piled on Shinar's plain.
Their rocky summits, split and rent,
Formed turret, dome, or battlement,
Or seemed fantastically set
With cupola or minaret,
Wild crests as pagod ever decked,
Or mosque of Eastern architect.
Nor were these earth-born castles bare,
Nor lacked they many a banner fair;
For, from their shivered brows displayed,
Far o'er the unfathomable glade,
All twinkling with the dew-drop sheen,

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