I.

WRITTEN AT ULLESWATER.

The tide is rippling to my very feet,
The mountains are before me, and around,
Stretching in misty grandeur till they meet
In one dim bourne, their hoary summits crown’d
With cloudy chaplets, such as might have bound
The new-born Thunderer when Saturn fell,
All wonder-stricken, from his mighty throne.
The sun is shining upon wooded slopes,
And distant headlands, with faint shadows thrown
Amid its brightness like the shatter’d hopes
Of a young noontide, and its golden light
Crests the upheaving waters till each swell
Is tremulous with glory, and the sight
Pictures strange fancies which no tongue can tell.

II.

There is a spell by which the panting soul
Shakes from its stainless pinions all the gyves
Wherewith our frail mortality still strives
To bind it downward ’neath its stern controul;
When springing from the earth like the sweet lark
That wings its flight in music to the sky,
Amid the spheres it wanders, where the eye
Trembles to blindness, and the last faint spark
Of Earth’s far gleaming flickers and expires;
Thine is the charm, dear Poesy, which sets
The caged spirit on its heavenward flight,
And fills its being with those pure desires,
And holy aspirations, which like light
Shower on the world in distillations bright.

III.

We wander on through life as pilgrims do
O’er trackless deserts to a distant shrine,
Weary and parch’d, and to our longing view
Springs many a false mirage of joy divine,
That fades before us as we fain pursue
The empty picture which our fancy drew.
O thou, my heart! seek not the empty shows
And gilded nothings of this little Time,
But let thine endless effort be to climb
Above Earth’s petty vanities and woes
Unto a nobler range of feelings, joys,
Which no false leaven of decay alloys,
But whose substantial sweetness may increase,
And make thy journey pleasure, and thy slumber peace.

IV.

Sweet spirits of the Beautiful! where’er ye dwell,
Whether upon the misty mountain tops
With mantling crags about ye, or in dell
And sunny valley, by the hazel copse
Wherein the ring-dove nestles, or by streams
That wander amid woodlands, with the sheen
Of noontide trembling through the leafy screen
Down to their mossy banks in fitful gleams,
That murmur with the linnets and at e’en
Sigh with the plaintive nightingale, and oft
Mirror your bright eyes in the sparkling dew,
Circle me ever with your joyous crew,
Bring inspirations to me bland and soft,
And sun my slumbers still with happy dreams.

V.

We are ambitious overmuch in life,
Straining at ends of hard accomplishment,
And goaded onward by poor discontent,
We build our little Babels up through strife,
And bitterness of soul, and motions rife
With passions that oft slay the innocent,
Like Priests of Lust plunging the cruel knife
Into the victims of their wilderment.
Not thus do thou, but with a patient hand
Place thou thine acorn in the fertile soil,
Labouring ever with unhurtful toil,
And cheerful hope until the seed expand,
Grow with the strength of truth, and ripening Time,
And stand at last in majesty sublime.

VI.

Mountains! and huge hills! wrap your mighty forms
Close with mantle of eternal cloud;
Gather around ye the fierce band of storms;
And let the stainless snow-drift be your shroud.
Back from your rugged steeps, and caverns hoar
Bellow in hoarse disdain the tempest’s roar;
Laugh at the rolling thunder; let the flash
Of its fierce lightning lumine but your scorn;
Down your deep-furrow’d slopes let torrents dash,
And on the winds their hollow rage be borne.
Ye mighty ones! Why should ye bow your pride,
And doff your venerable crowns, or dress
Your wrinkled brows in smiles, or lay aside
The dread insignias of your mightiness!

VII.

TO ELLA.

Ofttimes I gaze upon thine eyes, fair child,
Till sense forgets all but the beautiful,
And my entranced and raptured heart is full
Of blissful visions, pure, and bland, and mild
In their o’erstealing, as the rosy sleep
That falls upon an infant, wafting it
In balmy dreams to heaven. Within the deep
The thrilling sea of their blue loveliness,
By sun-reflected gleams of heaven uplit,
My spirit bathes in sweet unconsciousness
Of aught material, and oft doth drink
Of beauty there, whose freshness never dies,
Till, pleasure-lapt, it feels as it could sink
Beneath the waves, and enter paradise.

VIII.

I traverse oft in thought the battle-plain
Of my past life, ’mid many a shatter’d dream
Of pleasure, and of hope, which youth in vain
Based on the shifting sands of Time’s swift stream,
Fond bulwarks ’gainst the strong assaults of pain;
And ’mid their ruins, like an exiled man
Gazing on scenes where he can dwell no more,
I stand and mourn their sweet enchantment o’er,
Where both life’s pleasures and its cares began.
Earth crumbles ’neath our feet as we walk on,
And leaves a gulf behind none can retrace;
Its pleasures flash a moment and are gone;
But if we treasure in our soul love’s grace,
That will refresh and gladden all our race.