Seated at ease, on some smooth mossy rock;
In social silence now, and now to unlock
The treasured heart; arm linked in friendly arm,
Save if the one, his muse's witching charm
Muttering brow-bent, at unwatched distance lag;
Till high o'er head his beckoning friend appears
And from the forehead of the topmost crag
Shouts eagerly for haply there uprears
That shadowing pine its old romantic limbs,
Which latest shall detain the enamoured sight
Seen from below, when eve the valley dims,
Tinged yellow with the rich departing light;
And haply, basoned in some unsunned cleft,
A beauteous spring, the rock's collected tears,
Sleeps sheltered there, scarce wrinkled by the gale!
Together thus, the world's vain turmoil left,
Stretched on the crag, and shadowed by the pine,
And bending o'er the clear delicious fount,
Ah! dearest youth! it were a lot divine
To cheat our noons in moralizing mood,
While west-winds fanned our temples toil-bedewed:
Then downwards slope, oft pausing, from the mount,
To some lone mansion, in some woody dale,
Where smiling with blue eye, domestic bliss
Gives this the husband's, that the brother's kiss!
Thus rudely versed in allegoric lore,
The Hill of Knowledge I essayed to trace;
That verdurous hill with many a resting-place,
And many a stream, whose warbling waters pour
To glad and fertilize the subject plains;
That hill with secret springs, and nooks untrod,
And many a fancy-blest and holy sod
Where Inspiration, his diviner strains
ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG MAN OF FORTUNE. 265
Low murmuring, lay; and starting from the rocks
Stiff evergreens, whose spreading foliage mocks
Want's barren soil, and the bleak frosts of age,
And bigotry's mad fire-invoking rage!
O meek retiring spirit! we will climb,
Cheering and cheered, this lovely hill sublime;
And from the stirring world up-lifted high,
(Whose noises, faintly wafted on the wind,
To quiet musings shall attune the mind,
And oft the melancholy theme supply)
There, while the prospect through the gazing eye Pours all its healthful greenness on the soul, We'll smile at wealth, and learn to smile at fame, Our hopes, our knowledge, and our joys the same,
As neighbouring fountains image, each the whole : Then when the mind hath drunk its fill of truth We'll discipline the heart to pure delight, Rekindling sober joy's domestic flame.
They whom I love shall love thee, honoured youth! Now may Heaven realize this vision bright!
ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG MAN OF FORTUNE
WHO ABANDONED HIMSELF TO AN INDOLENT AND
CAUSELESS MELANCHOLY.
HENCE that fantastic wantonness of woe,
O Youth to partial Fortune vainly dear!
To plundered want's half-sheltered hovel go,
Go, and some hunger-bitten infant hear
Moan haply in a dying mother's ear:
Or when the cold and dismal fog-damps brood
O'er the rank church-yard with sear elm-leaves strewed,
Pace round some widow's grave, whose dearer part
Was slaughtered, where o'er his uncoffined limbs The flocking flesh-birds screamed! Then, while thy heart
Groans, and thine eye a fiercer sorrow dims, Know (and the truth shall kindle thy young mind) What nature makes thee mourn, she bids thee heal! O abject! if, to sickly dreams resigned, All effortless thou leave life's common-weal A prey to tyrants, murderers of mankind.
SONNET TO THE RIVER OTTER.
DEAR native brook! wild streamlet of the West!
How many various-fated years have past,
What happy, and what mournful hours, since last
I skimmed the smooth thin stone along thy breast,
Numbering its light leaps! yet so deep imprest
Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes
I never shut amid the sunny ray,
But straight with all their tints thy waters rise,
Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows grey,
And bedded sand that, veined with various dyes,
Gleamed through thy bright transparence! On my way,
Visions of childhood! oft have ye beguiled
Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs
Ah! that once more I were a careless child!
THE FOSTER MOTHER'S TALE.
The following Scene, as unfit for the stage, was taken from the tragedy in the year 1797, and published in the Lyrical Ballads.
Ter. 'Tis said, he spake of you familiarly, As mine and Alvar's common foster-mother.
Sel. Now blessings on the man, whoe'er he be, That joined your names with mine! O my sweet Lady, As often as I think of those dear times,
When you two little ones would stand, at eve,
On each side of my chair, and make me learn
All you had learnt in the day; and how to talk
In gentle phrase; then bid me sing to you-
'Tis more like heaven to come, than what has been! Ter. But that entrance, Selma ?
Sel. Can no one hear? It is a perilous tale!
Ter. No one.
My husband's father told it me,
Poor old Sesina-angels rest his soul;
He was a woodman, and could fell and saw
With lusty arm. You know that huge round beam
Which props the hanging wall of the old chapel ?
Beneath that tree, while yet it was a tree,
He found a baby wrapt in mosses, lined
With thistle-beards, and such small locks of wool
As hang on brambles. Well, he brought him home,
And reared him at the then Lord Valdez' cost,
And so the babe grew up a pretty boy,
A pretty boy, but most unteachable
And never learn'd a prayer, nor told a bead,
But knew the names of birds, and mocked their notes,
And whistled, as he were a bird himself.
And all the autumn 'twas his only play
To gather seeds of wild flowers, and to plant them.
With earth and water on the stumps of trees.
A Friar, who gathered simples in the wood,
A grey-haired man, he loved this little boy:
The boy loved him, and, when the friar taught him,
He soon could write with the pen; and from that time
Lived chiefly at the convent or the castle.
So he became a rare and learned youth:
But O! poor wretch! he read, and read, and read,
Till his brain turned; and ere his twentieth year
He had unlawful thoughts of many things:
And though he prayed, he never loved to pray
With holy men, nor in a holy place.
But yet his speech, it was so soft and sweet,
The late Lord Valdez ne'er was wearied with him.
And once, as by the north side of the chapel
They stood together chained in deep discourse,
The earth heaved under them with such a groan,
That the wall tottered, and had well nigh fallen
Right on their heads. My Lord was sorely frightened;
A fever seized him, and he made confession
Of all the heretical and lawless talk
Which brought this judgment: so the youth was seized,
And cast into that hole. My husband's father
Sobbed like a child--it almost broke his heart:
And once as he was working near this dungeon,
He heard a voice distinctly; 'twas the youth's,
Who
sung a doleful song about green fields,
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