Bulchevy's Book of English Verse Part 95

NUNS fret not at their convent's narrow room, And hermits are contented with their cells, And students with their pensive citadels; Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom, Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom, High as the highest peak of Furness fells, Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells: In truth the prison unto which we doom Ourselves no prison is: and hence for me, In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground; Pleased if some souls (for such there needs must be) Who have felt the weight of too much liberty, Should find brief solace there, as I have found.

William Wordsworth. 1770-1850

534. The Sonnet ii

SCORN not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frown'd, Mindless of its just honours; with this key Shakespeare unlock'd his heart; the melody Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound; A thousand times this pipe did Ta.s.so sound; With it Camoens sooth'd an exile's grief; The Sonnet glitter'd a gay myrtle leaf Amid the cypress with which Dante crown'd His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp, It cheer'd mild Spenser, call'd from Faery-land To struggle through dark ways; and when a damp Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew Soul-animating strains--alas, too few!

William Wordsworth. 1770-1850

535. The World

THE world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gather'd now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not.--Great G.o.d! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

William Wordsworth. 1770-1850

536. Ode Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight, To me did seem Apparell'd in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream.

It is not now as it hath been of yore;-- Turn wheresoe'er I may, By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

The rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the rose; The moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare; Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair; The suns.h.i.+ne is a glorious birth; But yet I know, where'er I go, That there hath pa.s.s'd away a glory from the earth.

Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, And while the young lambs bound As to the tabor's sound, To me alone there came a thought of grief: A timely utterance gave that thought relief, And I again am strong: The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep; No more shall grief of mine the season wrong; I hear the echoes through the mountains throng, The winds come to me from the fields of sleep, And all the earth is gay; Land and sea Give themselves up to jollity, And with the heart of May Doth every beast keep holiday;-- Thou Child of Joy, Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Shepherd-boy!

Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call Ye to each other make; I see The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; My heart is at your festival, My head hath its coronal, The fulness of your bliss, I feel--I feel it all.

O evil day! if I were sullen While Earth herself is adorning, This sweet May-morning, And the children are culling On every side, In a thousand valleys far and wide, Fresh flowers; while the sun s.h.i.+nes warm, And the babe leaps up on his mother's arm:-- I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!

--But there's a tree, of many, one, A single field which I have look'd upon, Both of them speak of something that is gone: The pansy at my feet Doth the same tale repeat: Whither is fled the visionary gleam?

Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From G.o.d, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing Boy, But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy; The Youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is Nature's priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended; At length the Man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day.

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own; Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind, And, even with something of a mother's mind, And no unworthy aim, The homely nurse doth all she can To make her foster-child, her Inmate Man, Forget the glories he hath known, And that imperial palace whence he came.

Behold the Child among his new-born blisses, A six years' darling of a pigmy size!

See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies, Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses, With light upon him from his father's eyes!

See, at his feet, some little plan or chart, Some fragment from his dream of human life, Shaped by himself with newly-learned art; A wedding or a festival, A mourning or a funeral; And this hath now his heart, And unto this he frames his song: Then will he fit his tongue To dialogues of business, love, or strife; But it will not be long Ere this be thrown aside, And with new joy and pride The little actor cons another part; Filling from time to time his 'humorous stage'

With all the Persons, down to palsied Age, That Life brings with her in her equipage; As if his whole vocation Were endless imitation.

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie Thy soul's immensity; Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep Thy heritage, thou eye among the blind, That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep, Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,-- Mighty prophet! Seer blest!

On whom those truths do rest, Which we are toiling all our lives to find, In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave; Thou, over whom thy Immortality Broods like the Day, a master o'er a slave, A presence which is not to be put by; To whom the grave Is but a lonely bed without the sense or sight Of day or the warm light, A place of thought where we in waiting lie; Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height, Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke The years to bring the inevitable yoke, Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?

Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight, And custom lie upon thee with a weight, Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

O joy! that in our embers Is something that doth live, That nature yet remembers What was so fugitive!

The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction: not indeed For that which is most worthy to be blest-- Delight and liberty, the simple creed Of childhood, whether busy or at rest, With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:-- Not for these I raise The song of thanks and praise; But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Fallings from us, vanis.h.i.+ngs; Blank misgivings of a Creature Moving about in worlds not realized, High instincts before which our mortal Nature Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised: But for those first affections, Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, Are yet a master-light of all our seeing; Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake, To perish never: Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour, Nor Man nor Boy, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy!

Hence in a season of calm weather Though inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Which brought us. .h.i.ther, Can in a moment travel thither, And see the children sport upon the sh.o.r.e, And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song!

And let the young lambs bound As to the tabor's sound!

We in thought will join your throng, Ye that pipe and ye that play, Ye that through your hearts to-day Feel the gladness of the May!

What though the radiance which was once so bright Be now for ever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the gra.s.s, of glory in the flower; We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind; In the primal sympathy Which having been must ever be; In the soothing thoughts that spring Out of human suffering; In the faith that looks through death, In years that bring the philosophic mind.

And O ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, Forebode not any severing of our loves!

Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might; I only have relinquish'd one delight To live beneath your more habitual sway.

I love the brooks which down their channels fret, Even more than when I tripp'd lightly as they; The innocent brightness of a new-born Day Is lovely yet; The clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober colouring from an eye That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; Another race hath been, and other palms are won.

Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

William Wordsworth. 1770-1850

537. Desideria

SURPRISED by joy--impatient as the Wind I turned to share the transport--O! with whom But Thee, deep buried in the silent tomb, That spot which no vicissitude can find?

Love, faithful love, recall'd thee to my mind-- But how could I forget thee? Through what power, Even for the least division of an hour, Have I been so beguiled as to be blind To my most grievous loss?--That thought's return Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore, Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn, Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more; That neither present time, nor years unborn Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.

William Wordsworth. 1770-1850

538. Valedictory Sonnet to the River Duddon

I THOUGHT of Thee, my partner and my guide, As being pa.s.s'd away.--Vain sympathies!

For, backward, Duddon! as I cast my eyes, I see what was, and is, and will abide; Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide; The Form remains, the Function never dies; While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise, We Men, who in our morn of youth defied The elements, must vanish;--be it so!

Enough, if something from our hands have power To live, and act, and serve the future hour; And if, as toward the silent tomb we go, Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower, We feel that we are greater than we know.

William Wordsworth. 1770-1850

539. Mutability

FROM low to high doth dissolution climb, And sink from high to low, along a scale Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail; A musical but melancholy chime, Which they can hear who meddle not with crime, Nor avarice, nor over-anxious care.

Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear The longest date do melt like frosty rime, That in the morning whiten'd hill and plain And is no more; drop like the tower sublime Of yesterday, which royally did wear His crown of weeds, but could not even sustain Some casual shout that broke the silent air, Or the unimaginable touch of Time.

William Wordsworth. 1770-1850

540. The Trosachs

THERE 's not a nook within this solemn Pa.s.s, But were an apt confessional for one Taught by his summer spent, his autumn gone, That Life is but a tale of morning gra.s.s Wither'd at eve. From scenes of art which chase That thought away, turn, and with watchful eyes Feed it 'mid Nature's old felicities, Rocks, rivers, and smooth lakes more clear than gla.s.s Untouch'd, unbreathed upon. Thrice happy quest, If from a golden perch of aspen spray (October's workmans.h.i.+p to rival May) The pensive warbler of the ruddy breast That moral sweeten by a heaven-taught lay, Lulling the year, with all its cares, to rest!

William Wordsworth. 1770-1850

541. Speak!