O Native scenes, nought to my heart clings nearer
Than you, ye Edens of my youthful hours;
Nought in this world warms my affections dearer
Than you, ye plains of white and yellow flowers;
Ye hawthorn hedge-rows, and ye woodbine bowers,
Where youth has rov'd, and still where manhood roves
The pasture-pathway 'neath the willow groves.
Ah, as my eye looks o'er those lovely scenes,
All the delights of former life beholding;
Spite of the pain, the care that intervenes,--
When lov'd remembrance is her bliss unfolding,
Picking her childish posies on your greens,--
My soul can pause o'er its distress awhile,
And Sorrow's cheek find leisure for a smile.

[In the vale of Grasmere, by the side of an old highway
leading to Ambleside, is a gate, which, from time out of
mind, has been called the Wishing-gate, from a belief that
wishes formed or indulged there have a favorable issue.]

Hope rules a land forever green:
All powers that serve the bright-eyed Queen
Are confident and gay;
Clouds at her bidding disappear;
Points she to aught? the bliss draws near,
And Fancy smooths the way.

Not such the land of Wishes there
Dwell fruitless day-dreams, lawless prayer,
And thoughts with things at strife;
Yet how forlorn, should ye depart
Ye superstitions of the heart,
How poor, were human life!

When magic lore abjured its might,
Ye did not forfeit one dear right,
One tender claim abate;
Witne...

Nature, when she made thee, dear,
Begged the treasures of the year.
For thy cheeks, all pink and white,
Spring gave apple blossoms light;
Summer, for thy matchless eyes,
Gave the azure of her skies;
Autumn spun her gold and red
In a mass of silken thread,
Gold and red and sunlight rare
For the wonder of thy hair!
Surly Winter would impart
But his coldness, for thy heart.

Dearest, let the love I bring
Turn thy Winter into Spring.
What are Summer, Spring and Fall,
If thy Winter chills them all?

Not till the sun, that brings to birth
The myriad marvels of the earth
And bids us look with wandering eyes
On all that here about us lies,
Has gone behind the hill,
Do you, O peaceful evening star,
Gaze on the dusk in which we are
And draw the heart of hope and love
To infinite deep on deep above
And bid our care be still.

All glorious pleasures of the day,
When every sense may have its way
And thought may touch the tiniest fact
And gauge the motive and the act
And measure our delight,
Depart, and leave us to the quest
Of quiet solitude and rest
And knowledge that the plotting brain
With all its science cannot gain
But from the soul of Night.

    Thy world is made to fit thine own,
    A nursery for thy children small,
    The playground-footstool of thy throne,
    Thy solemn school-room, Father of all!
    When day is done, in twilight's gloom,
    We pass into thy presence-room.

    Because from selfishness and wrath,
    Our cold and hot extremes of ill,
    We grope and stagger on the path--
    Thou tell'st us from thy holy hill,
    With icy storms and sunshine rude,
    That we are all unripe in good.

    Because of snaky things that creep
    Through our soul's sea, dim-undulant,
    Thou fill'st the mystery of thy deep
    With faces heartless, grim, and gaunt;
    That we may know how ugly seem
    The things our spirit-oceans teem.

    Because of half-way thi...

Fancy, who leads the pastimes of the glad,
Full oft is pleased a wayward dart to throw;
Sending sad shadows after things not sad,
Peopling the harmless fields with signs of woe:
Beneath her sway, a simple forest cry
Becomes an echo of man's misery.

Blithe ravens croak of death; and when the owl
Tries his two voices for a favourite strain
'Tu-whit, Tu-whoo!' the unsuspecting fowl
Forebodes mishap or seems but to complain;
Fancy, intent to harass and annoy,
Can thus pervert the evidence of joy.

Through border wilds where naked Indians stray,
Myriads of notes attest her subtle skill;
A feathered task-master cries, "Work away!"
And, in thy iteration, "Whip poor will!"
Is heard the spirit of a toil-worn slave,
Lashed out of life, not quiet in the g...

Sometimes, slow moving through unlovely days,
The need to look on beauty falls on me
As on the blind the anguished wish to see,
As on the dumb the urge to rage or praise;
Beauty of marble where the eyes may gaze
Till soothed to peace by white serenity,
Or canvas where one master hand sets free
Great colours that like angels blend and blaze.

O, there be many starved in this strange wise--
For this diviner food their days deny,
Knowing beyond their vision beauty stands
With pitying eyes--with tender, outstretched hands,
Eager to give to every passer-by
The loveliness that feeds a soul's demands.

'Tis not with glad fruition crown'd,
We always feel our greatest joy;
For pleasure often dwells around
The heart that hopes, and knows no cloy.

We wait, we watch, we think, we plan
To catch the pleasure ere it flies,
But when 'tis caught, for which we ran,
It often droops, perchance, it dies.

In truth the non-possession oft'
Creates the chief, the only charm,
Of that, which, once obtain'd, is scoff'd,
And oft' receiv'd with vex'd alarm.

The mind of man is strange and deep,
Deceiving others and himself;
Its wiles would make an angel weep,
In strife for praise, for power and pelf.

Strange mixture of the good and ill,
He strives continually to bend
Those qualities, with wondrous skill,
To meet in one, which never blend.

Queen of the stars! so gentle, so benign,
That ancient Fable did to thee assign,
When darkness creeping o'er thy silver brow
Warned thee these upper regions to forego,
Alternate empire in the shades below
A Bard, who, lately near the wide-spread sea
Traversed by gleaming ships, looked up to thee
With grateful thoughts, doth now thy rising hail
From the close confines of a shadowy vale.
Glory of night, conspicuous yet serene,
Nor less attractive when by glimpses seen
Through cloudy umbrage, well might that fair face,
And all those attributes of modest grace,
In days when Fancy wrought unchecked by fear,
Down to the green earth fetch thee from thy sphere,
To sit in leafy woods by fountains clear!

O still beloved (for thine, meek Power, are charms
That...

I.

    As wand'ring late on Albion's shore
        That chains the rude tempestuous deep,
    I heard the hollow surges roar
        And vainly beat her guardian steep;
I heard the rising sounds of woe
    Loud on the storm's wild pinion flow;
And still they vibrate on the mournful lyre,
That tunes to grief its sympathetic wire.


II.

    From shores the wide Atlantic laves,
        The spirit of the ocean bears
    In moans, along his western waves,
        Afflicted nature's hopeless cares:
    Enchanting scenes of young delight,
    How chang'd since first ye rose to sight;
Since first ye rose in infant glories drest
Fresh from the wave, and rear'd your ample breast.


III.

    Her crested serpents, disco...

Nature rarer uses yellow
Than another hue;
Saves she all of that for sunsets, --
Prodigal of blue,

Spending scarlet like a woman,
Yellow she affords
Only scantly and selectly,
Like a lover's words.

Shall we conceal the Case, or tell it -
We who believe the evidence?
Here and there the watch-towers knell it
With a sullen significance,
Heard of the few who hearken intently and carry an eagerly upstrained sense.

Hearts that are happiest hold not by it;
Better we let, then, the old view reign;
Since there is peace in it, why decry it?
Since there is comfort, why disdain?
Note not the pigment the while that the painting determines humanity's joy and pain!

Her true beauty leaves behind
Apprehensions in my mind
Of more sweetness than all art
Or inventions can impart;
Thoughts too deep to be expressed,
And too strong to be suppressed....
... What pearls, what rubies can
Seem so lovely fair to man,
As her lips whom he doth love
When in sweet discourse they move:
Or her lovelier teeth, the while
She doth bless him with a smile!
Stars indeed fair creatures be;
Yet amongst us where is he
Joys not more the whilst he lies
Sunning in his mistress' eyes.
Than in all the glimmering light
Of a starry winter's night?
    Note the beauty of an eye,
And if aught you praise it by
Leave such passion in your mind,
Let my reason's eye be blind.
Mark if ever red or white
Anywhere gave such delight...

O Bios Bpaxus, - life is but a song;
H rexvn uakpn, - art is wondrous long;
Yet to the wise her paths are ever fair,
And Patience smiles, though Genius may despair.
Give us but knowledge, though by slow degrees,
And blend our toil with moments bright as these;
Let Friendship's accents cheer our doubtful way,
And Love's pure planet lend its guiding ray, -
Our tardy Art shall wear an angel's wings,
And life shall lengthen with the joy it brings!

Enmity be between ye! Your union too soon is cemented;
Ye will but learn to know truth when ye divide in the search.

Understanding, indeed, can repeat what already existed,
That which Nature has built, after her she, too, can build.
Over Nature can reason build, but in vacancy only:
But thou, genius, alone, nature in nature canst form.

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?
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
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
Which genius did not hallow; 'gainst the taint
Of dissolute tongues, and jealou...

Most sweet it is with unuplifted eyes
To pace the ground, if path be there or none,
While a fair region round the traveler lies
Which he forbears again to look upon;
Pleased rather with some soft ideal scene,
The work of Fancy, or some happy tone
Of meditation, slipping in between
The beauty coming and the beauty gone.
If Thought and Love desert us, from that day
Let us break off all commerce with the Muse:
With Thought and Love companions of our way,
Whate'er the senses take or may refuse,
The Mind's internal heaven shall shed her dews
Of inspiration on the humblest lay.