A ROCK there is whose homely front The passing traveller slights; Yet there the glow-worms hang their lamps, Like stars, at various heights; And one coy Primrose to that Rock The vernal breeze invites. What hideous warfare hath been waged, What kingdoms overthrown, Since first I spied that Primrose-tuft And marked it for my own; A lasting link in Nature's chain The flowers, still faithful to the stems, The stems are faithful to the root, And to the rock the root adheres In every fibre true. Close clings to earth the living rock, So blooms this lonely Plant, nor dreads Or seeks, a winsome Marrow," Was but an Infant in the lap When first I looked on Yarrow: Once more, by Newark's Castle-gate Long left without a warder, I stood, looked, listened, and with Thee, Great Minstrel of the Border! Grave thoughts ruled wide on that sweet day, Their dignity installing In gentle bosoms, while sere leaves sunshine The forest to embolden; Reddened the fiery hues, and shot Transparence through the golden. For busy thoughts the Stream flowed on And slept in many a crystal pool Brisk Youth appeared, the Morn of youth, With freaks of graceful folly,Life's temperate Noon, her sober Eve, Her Night not melancholy : Past, present, future, all appeared In harmony united, Like prests that meet, and some from By scrutal love av bed. And if. as Yarrow, through the woods It, then, some natural shadows spread The sour's deep valley was not slow Eternal blessings on the Muse. Vid her divine employment! The bia neless Muse, who trains her Sons For thee, O Scort! compelled to change For Thou, upon a hundred streams, With gladness must requite Thee. A gracious welcome shall be thine, Dreams treasured up from early days, And what, for this frail world, were all Did no responsive harp, no pen, Yea, what were mighty Nature's self? That hourly speaks within us? Nor deem that localized Romance Bear witness, Ye, whose thoughts that day In Yarrow's groves were centred ; Who through the silent portal arch Of mouldering Newark entered; And clomb the winding stair that once Too timidly was mounted By the last Minstrel," (not the last!) Flow on for ever, Yarrow Stream! Well pleased that future Bards should chant For simple hearts thy beauty; To dream-light dear while yet unseen, Dear to the common sunshine, And dearer still, as now I feel, To memory's shadowy moonshine! 1831 1835. THE TROSACHS As recorded in my sister's Journal, I had first seen the Trosachs in her and Coleridge's com pany. The sentiment that runs through this Sonnet was natural to the season in which I again saw this beautiful spot; but this and some other sonnets that follow were colored by the remembrance of my recent visit to Sir Walter Scott, and the melancholy errand on which he was going. (Wordsworth.) THERE'S not a nook within this solemn Pass, But were an apt confessional for One Taught his summer spent, his autumn Untouched, unbreathed upon. Thrice happy quest, If from a golden perch of aspen spray (October's workmanship to rival May) The pensive warbler of the ruddy breast That moral sweeten by a heaven-taught lay, Lulling the year, with all its cares, to IF THOU INDEED DERIVE THY IF thou indeed derive thy light from Then, to the measure of that heaven born light, Shine, Poet! in thy place, and be content: The stars pre-eminent in magnitude, And they that from the zenith dart their beams, (Visible though they be to half the earth, Though half a sphere be conscious of their brightness) Are yet of no diviner origin, No purer essence, than the one that burns, Like an untended watch-fire on the ridge Of some dark mountain; or than those which seem Humbly to hang, like twinkling winter lamps, Among the branches of the leafless trees. All are the undying offspring of one Sire: Then, to the measure of the light vouchsafed, Shine, Poet! in thy place, and be con1832. 1836. tent. |