LXXIII.

Confirmed of purpose, fearlessly prepared
For act and suffering, to the city straight
He journeyed, and forthwith his crime declared:
"And from your doom," he added, "now I wait,
Nor let it linger long, the murderer's fate."

Not ineffectual was that piteous claim:

O welcome sentence which will end though late,"
He said, "the pangs that to my conscience came

Out of that deed.

My trust, Saviour! is in thy name!"

His fate was pitied.

LXXIV.

Him in iron case

(Reader, forgive the intolerable thought)
They hung not:-no one on his form or face
Could gaze, as on a show by idlers sought;
No kindred sufferer, to his death-place brought
By lawless curiosity or chance,

When into storm the evening's sky is wrought,
Upon his swinging corse an eye can glance,
And drop, as he once dropped, in miserable trance.

THE YEW-TREE SEAT.

LINES LEFT UPON A SEAT IN A YEW-TREE, WHICH STANDS NEAR THE LAKE OF ESTHWAITE, ON A DESOLATE PART OF THE SHORE, COM

MANDING A BEAUTIFUL PROSPECT.

Comp. 1795.

Pub. 1798.

[Composed in part at school at Hawkshead. The tree has disappeared, and the slip of Common on which it stood, that ran parallel to the lake, and lay open to it, has long been enclosed; so that the road has lost much of its attraction. This spot was my favourite walk in the evenings during the latter part of my school-time. The individual whose habits and character are here given, was a gentleman of the

neighbourhood, a man of talent and learning, who had been educated at one of our Universities, and returned to pass his time in seclusion on his own estate. He died a bachelor in middle age. Induced by the beauty of the prospect, he built a small summer-house, on the rocks above the peninsula on which the Ferry House stands. This property afterwards passed into the hands of the late Mr Curwen. The site was long ago pointed out by Mr West, in his Guide, as the pride of the Lakes, and now goes by the name of "The Station." So much used I to be delighted with the view from it, while a little boy, that some years before the first pleasure house was built, I led thither from Hawkshead a youngster about my own age, an Irish boy, who was a servant to an itinerant conjurer. My notion was to witness the pleasure I expected the boy would receive from the prospect of the islands below and the intermingling water. I was not disappointed; and I hope the fact, insignificant as it may appear to some, may be thought worthy of note by others who may cast their eye over these notes.]

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 the bee love not these barren boughs ?1
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, and here taught this aged Tree 2
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. favoured Being, knowing no desire

What if these barren boughs the bee not loves?

1798

2 1836.

First covered o'er, and taught this aged Tree.

1798.

This refers to the Ferry on Windermere.-Ev.

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; wherefore he at once
With indignation turned himself away,1
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 :2
And on these barren rocks, with fern and heath,
And juniper and thistle, sprinkled o'er,3
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

In youth by genius nurs'd,

And big with lofty views, he to the world
Went forth, pure in his heart, against the taint
Of dissolute tongues, 'gainst jealousy, and hate,
And scorn, against all enemies prepared,
All but neglect: and so, his spirit damped
At once, with rash disdain he turned away.
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,

2

1798.

With indignation did he turn away.

1800.

1798.

The stone-chat, or the sand-lark, restless bird,
Piping along the margin of the lake.

1815.

3 1820.

The text of 1820 returns to that of 1798.

And on these barren rocks, with juniper,
And heath, and thistle, thinly sprinkled o'er.

1798.

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,

2

When Nature had subdued him to herself,1
Would he forget those Beings to whose minds
Warm from the labours of benevolence
The world, and human life, appeared a scene
Of kindred loveliness: then he would sigh,
Inly disturbed, to think that others felt 3
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 holy 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,

The world, and man himself appeared a scene.

1798.

3

With mournful joy, to think that others felt.

1798

Can still suspect, and still revere himself,

In lowliness of heart.

The place where this Yew-tree stood may be found without difficulty. It was about three-quarters of a mile from Hawkshead, on the eastern shore of the lake, a little to the left above the present highway, as you go towards Sawrey. Mr Bowman, the son of Wordsworth's last teacher at the grammar-school of Hawkshead, told me that it stood about forty yards nearer the village than the yew which now stands on the roadside, and is sometimes called "Wordsworth's Yew." In his school-days the road passed right through the unenclosed common, and the tree was a conspicuous object. It was removed, he says, owing to the popular belief that its leaves were poisonous, and might injure the cattle grazing in the common. The present tree is erroneously called Wordsworth's yew, its proximity to the place where the tree of the poem stood having given rise to the tradition.-ED.

[Of this dramatic work I have little to say in addition to the short printed note which will be found attached to it. It was composed at Racedown, in Dorset, during the latter part of the year 1795, and in the following year. Had it been the work of a later period of life, it would have been different in some respects from what it is now. The plot would have been something more complex, and a greater variety of characters introduced to relieve the mind from the pressure of incidents so mournful.) The manners also would have been more attended to. My care was almost exclusively given to the passions and the characters, and the position in which the persons in the drama stood relatively to each other, that the reader (for I thought of the stage at the time it was written) might be moved, and to a degree instructed, by lights penetrating somewhat into the depths of our nature. In this endeavour, I cannot think, upon a very late review, that I have failed. As to the scene and period of action, little more was required for my purpose than the absence of established law and government, so that the agents might be at liberty to act on their own impulses. Nevertheless, I do remember, that having a wish to colour the manners in some degree from local history more than my knowledge enabled me to do, I read " Redpath's History of the Borders," but found there nothing to my purpose. I once