網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

A whirl-blast from behind the hill Rush'd o'er the wood with startling sound; Then-all at once the air was still, And showers of hailstones pattered round. 5 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 10 With withered leaves is covered o'er, And all the year the bower is green. But see! where'er the hailstones drop The withered leaves all skip and hop; There's not a breeze-no breath of air15 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 20 Some Robin Good-fellow were there, And all those leaves, in festive glee, Were dancing to the minstrelsy.

EXPOSTULATION AND REPLY
1798
1798

"Why, William, on that old gray stone,
Thus for the length of half a day,
Why, William, sit you thus alone,
And dream your time away?

5 "Where are your books?-that light bequeathed

To beings else forlorn and blind!
Up! up! and drink the spirit breathed
From dead men to their kind.

"You look round on your Mother Earth, 10 As if she for no purpose bore you;

As if you were her first-born birth,
And none had lived before you!"

One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake, When life was sweet, I knew not why,

[blocks in formation]

30

That nothing of itself will come,
But we must still be seeking?

Conversing as I may,

"Then ask not wherefore, here, alone,

I sit upon this old gray stone,
And dream my time away."

[blocks in formation]

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher:

15 Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless-
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
20 Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.

1 "A friend who was somewhat unreasonably attached to modern books of moral philosophy.” Wordsworth.

[blocks in formation]

Five years have past; five summers, with the length

Of five long winters! and again I hear These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs

With a soft inland murmur.-Once again 5 Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, That on a wild secluded scene impress Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect

The landscape with the quiet of the sky. The day is come when I again repose 10 Here, under this dark sycamore, and view These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,

Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,

Are clad in one green hue, and lose

themselves

'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see 15 These hedgerows, hardly hedgerows, little lines

Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,

Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke

Sent up, in silence, from among the trees! With some uncertain notice, as might seem 20 Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, Or of some hermit's cave, where by his fire The hermit sits alone.

These beauteous forms, Through a long absence, have not been

to me

25 As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; And passing even into my purer mind, 30 With tranquil restoration:-feelings too of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps, As have no slight or trivial influence

On that best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremembered acts 35 Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, To them I may have owed another gift, Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood, In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight 40 Of all this unintelligible world,

Is lightened:-that serene and blessed mood,

In which the affections gently lead us on,Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even the motion of our human blood 45 Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul: While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things.

[blocks in formation]

Their colors and their forms, were then
to me

10 An appetite; a feeling and a love,

That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, nor any interest 125
Unborrowed from the eye.-That time is
past,

And all its aching joys are now no more, 35 And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts

Have followed; for such loss, I would 130 believe,

Abundant recompense. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
30 Of thoughtless youth; but hearing often-
times

The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample

power

To chasten and subdue. And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy 95 Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: 00 A motion and a spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still

A lover of the meadows and the woods, And mountains; and of all that we behold 105 From this green earth; of all the mighty world

135

140

145

Of eye, and ear,-both what they half 150 create,

And what perceive; well pleased to rec-
ognize

In nature and the language of the sense
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the

[blocks in formation]

155

Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life,
to lead

From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil
tongues,

Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish
men,

Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we
behold

Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain-winds be free
To blow against thee: and, in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies;
oh! then,

If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what heal-
ing thoughts

Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! Nor, per-

chance

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

May thence remount at ease. The aged

man

Had placed his staff across the broad smooth stone

That overlays the pile; and, from a bag All white with flour, the dole of village dames,

10 He drew his scraps and fragments, one by one;

And scanned them with a fixed and serious look

Of idle computation. In the sun, Upon the second step of that small pile, Surrounded by those wild unpeopled hills, 15 He sat, and ate his food in solitude:

And ever scattered from his palsied hand, That, still attempting to prevent the waste, Was baffled still, the crumbs in little

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
« 上一頁繼續 »