Forth from a jutting ridge, around whose base
Winds our deep vale, two heath-clad rocks ascend
In fellowship, the loftiest of the pair
Rising to no ambitious height; yet both,
O'er lake and stream, mountain and flowery mead,
Unfolding prospects fair as human eyes
Ever beheld. Up-led with mutual help,
To one or other brow of those twin peaks
Were two adventurous sisters wont to climb,
And took no note of the hour while thence they gazed,
The blooming heath their couch, gazed, side by side,
In speechless admiration. I, a witness
And frequent sharer of their calm delight
With thankful heart, to either eminence
Gave the baptismal name each sister bore.
Now are they parted, far as death's cold hand
Hath power to part the Spirits of those who love
As they did love. Ye kindred pinnacles—
That, while the generations of mankind
Follow each other to their hiding-place
In time's abyss, are privileged to endure
Beautiful in yourselves, and richly graced
With like command of beauty-grant your aid
For MARY's humble, SARAH's silent, claim,
That their pure joy in nature may survive
From age to age in blended memory.
To the last point of vision, and beyond, Mount, daring warbler! that love-prompted strain, ("Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond) Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain: Yet might'st thou seem, proud privilege! to sing. All independent of the leafy spring.
How would it please old ocean to partake, With sailors longing for a breeze in vain, The harmony thy notes most gladly make Where earth resembles most his own domain ! Urania's self might welcome with pleased ear These matins mounting towards her native sphere. Chanter by heaven attracted, whom no bars To day-light known deter from that pursuit, 'Tis well that some sage instinct, when the stars Come forth at evening, keeps thee still and mute; For not an eyelid could to sleep incline Wert thou among them, singing as they shine!
Whole summer fields are thine by right;
And Autumn, melancholy Wight!
Doth in thy crimson head delight
When rains are on thee.
In shoals and bands, a morrice train,
Thou greetest the Traveller in the lane;
If welcome thou countest it gain;
Thou art not daunted,
Nor carest if thou be set at naught:
And oft alone in nooks remote
We meet thee like a pleasant thought,
When such are wanted.
Be Violets in their secret mews
The flowers the wanton Zephyrs choose;
Proud be the Rose, with rains and dews
Her head impearling;
Thou livest with less ambitious aim,
Yet hast not gone without thy fame;
Thou art indeed by many a claim
The Poet's darling.
If to a rock from rains he fly,
Or, some bright day of April sky,
Imprisoned by hot sunshine lie
Near the green holly,
And wearily at length should fare;
He needs but look about, and there
Thou art! -a Friend at hand, to scare
His melancholy.
A hundred times, by rock or bower, Ere thus I have lain couched an hour, Have I derived from thy sweet power Some apprehension;
Come steady love; some brief delight; Some memory that had taken flight; Some chime of fancy wrong or right; Or stray invention.
If stately passions in me burn,
And one chance look to Thee should turn,
I drink out of an humbler urn
A lowlier pleasure;
The homely sympathy that heeds
The common life our nature breeds;
A wisdom fitted to the needs
Of hearts at leisure.
When, smitten by the morning ray,
I see thee rise, alert and gay,
Then, cheerful Flower! my spirits play
With kindred gladness:
And when, at dusk, by dews opprest
Thou sink'st, the image of thy rest
Hath often eased my pensive breast
Of careful sadness.
And all day long I number yet,
All seasons through, another debt,
Which I, wherever thou art met,
To thee am owing;
An instinct call it, a blind sense;
A happy, genial influence,
Coming one knows not how, nor whence, Nor whither going. 1
Child of the year! that round dost run
Thy course bold lover of the sun,
And cheerful when the days begun
As morning Leveret,
Thy long-lost praise thou shalt regain;
Dear shalt thou be to future men
As in old time; - thou not in vain
Art Nature's favourite.
A WHIRL-BLAST from behind the hill
Rushed o'er the wood with startling sound:
Then all at once the air was still,
And showers of hail-stones pattered round
Where leafless Oaks towered high above,
I sat within an undergrove
Of tallest hollies, tall and green;
A fairer bower was never seen.
From year to year the spacious floor
With withered leaves is covered o'er,
And all the year the bower is green.
But see! where'er the hail-stones drop
The withered leaves all skip and hop;
There's not a breeze- no breath of air-
Yet here, and there, and everywhere
Along the floor, beneath the shade
By those embowering hollies made,
The leaves in myriads jump and spring,
As if with pipes and music rare
Some Robin Good-fellow were there,
And all those leaves, in festive glee,
Were dancing to the minstrelsy.
THE GREEN LINNET. BENEATH these fruit tree boughs that shed Their snow-white blossoms on my head, With brightest sunshine round me spread Of spring's unclouded weather, In this sequestered nook how sweet To sit upon my Orchard-seat! And birds and flowers once more to greet, My last year's Friends together.
One have I marked, the happiest Guest In all this covert of the blest:
Hail to Thee, far above the rest
*See, in Chaucer and the elder Poets, the honours formerly paid to this flower
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