COMMANDER OF THE E.I. COMPANY'S SHIP THE EARL OF ABERGAVENNY, IN WHICH HE PERISHED BY CALAMITOUS SHIPWRECK, FEB. 6, 1805.

Composed near the Mountain track that leads from Grasmere through Grisdale Hawes, where it descends towards Paterdale.

"Here did we stop; and here looked round, While each into himself descends."

The point is two or three yards below the outlet of Grisdale tarn, on a foot-road by which a horse may pass to Paterdale-a ridge of Helvellyn on the left, and the summit of Fairfield on the right.

IV

Full soon in sorrow did I weep,
Taught that the mutual hope was dust,
In sorrow, but for higher trust,
How miserably deep!

All vanished in a single word,

A breath, a sound, and scarcely heard:
Sea-Ship-drowned - Shipwreck-so it
came,

The meek, the brave, the good, was gone;
He who had been our living John
Was nothing but a name.

V

That was indeed a parting! oh,
Glad am I, glad that it is past;
For there were some on whom it cast
Unutterable woe.

But they as well as I have gains;—
From many a humble source, to pains
Like these, there comes a mild release;
Even here I feel it, even this Plant
Is in its beauty ministrant
To comfort and to peace.

VI

He would have loved thy modest grace, Meek Flower! To Him I would have said, 'It grows upon its native bed

Beside our Parting-place;

There, cleaving to the ground, it lies
With multitude of purple eyes,
Spangling a cushion green like moss;
But we will see it, joyful tide!
Some day, to see it in its pride,
The mountain will we cross."

VII

-Brother and Friend, if verse of mine Have power to make thy virtues known, Here let a monumental Stone Stand-sacred as a Shrine;

And to the few who pass this way,
Traveller or Shepherd, let it say,
Long as these mighty rocks endure,-
Oh do not Thou too fondly brood,
Although deserving of all good,
On any earthly hope, however pure!1

1805.

WHEN TO THE ATTRACTIONS
OF THE BUSY WORLD."

The grove still exists, but the plantation has been walled in, and is not so accessible as when my brother John wore the path in the manner here described. The grove was a favourite haunt with us all while we lived at Town-end.

WHEN, to the attractions of the busy world,
Preferring studious leisure, I had chosen
A habitation in this peaceful Vale,
Sharp season followed of continual storm
In deepest winter; and, from week to week,
Pathway, and lane, and public road, were
clogged

With frequent showers of snow. Upon a hill

At a short distance from my cottage, stands
A stately Fir-grove, whither I was wont
To hasten, for I found, beneath the roof
Of that perennial shade, a cloistral place
Of refuge, with an unincumbered floor.
Here, in safe covert, on the shallow snow,
And, sometimes, on a speck of visible earth,
The redbreast near me hopped; nor was I
loth

To sympathise with vulgar coppice birds
That, for protection from the nipping blast,
Hither repaired.-A single beech-tree grew
Within this grove of firs! and, on the fork
Of that one beech, appeared a thrush's nest;
A last year's nest, conspicuously built
At such small elevation from the ground
As gave sure sign that they, who in that

house

Of nature and of love had made their home Amid the fir-trees, all the summer long Dwelt in a tranquil spot. And oftentimes, A few sheep, stragglers from some mountainflock,

Would watch my motions with suspicious stare,

The plant alluded to is the Moss Campion (Silene acaulis of Linnæus). See Note.

To abide,

For what was now so obvious.
For an allotted interval of ease,
Under my cottage-roof, had gladly come
From the wild sea a cherished Visitant;
And with the sight of this same path-
begun,

Begun and ended, in the shady grove,
Pleasant conviction flashed upon my mind
That, to this opportune recess allured,
He had surveyed it with a finer eye,

A heart more wakeful; and had worn the track

By pacing here, unwearied and alone,
In that habitual restlessness of foot
That haunts the Sailor measuring o'er and

o'er

His short domain upon the vessel's deck,

While she pursues her course through the dreary sea.

When thou hadst quitted Esthwaite's pleasant shore,

And taken thy first leave of those green hills

And rocks that were the play-ground of thy youth,

Year followed year, my Brother! and we

two,

Conversing not, knew little in what mould Each other's mind was fashioned; and at length,

When once again we met in Grasmere Vale,

Between us there was little other bond
Than common feelings of fraternal love.
But thou, a Schoolboy, to the sea hadst
carried

Undying recollections! Nature there
Was with thee; she, who loved us both,

she still

Was with thee; and even so didst thou become

A silent Poet; from the solitude

Of the vast sea didst bring a watchful heart

Still couchant, an inevitable ear,

And an eye practised like a blind man's touch.

-Back to the joyless Ocean thou art gone; Nor from this vestige of thy musing hours Could I withhold thy honoured name,— and now

I love the fir-grove with a perfect love. Thither do I withdraw when cloudless suns Shine hot, or wind blows troublesome and strong;

And there I sit at evening, when the steep Of Silver-how, and Grasmere's peacefu! lake,

And one green island, gleam between the stems

Of the dark firs, a visionary scene!
And, while I gaze upon the spectacle
Of clouded splendour, on this dream-like

sight

Of solemn loveliness, I think on thee,
My Brother, and on all which thou hast lost.
Nor seldom, if I rightly guess, while Thou,
Muttering the verses which I muttered first
Among the mountains, through the mid-
night watch

Art pacing thoughtfully the vessel's deck

In some far region, here, while o'er my head,

At every impulse of the moving breeze, The fir-grove murmurs with a sea-like sound,

Alone I tread this path;--for aught I know, Timing my steps to thine; and, with a

store

Of undistinguishable sympathies,

Mingling most earnest wishes for the day When we, and others whom we love, shall meet

A second time, in Grasmere's happy Vale. 1805.

NOTE.-This wish was not granted; the lamented Person not long after perished by shipwreck, in discharge of his duty as Commander of the Honourable East India Company's Vessel, the Earl of Abergavenny.

LOUISA

AFTER ACCOMPANYING HER ON A

MOUNTAIN EXCURSION

Written at Town-end, Grasmere.

I MET Louisa in the shade,
And, having seen that lovely Maid,
Why should I fear to say

That, nymph-like, she is fleet and strong,
And down the rocks can leap along
Like rivulets in May?

She loves her fire, her cottage-home;
Yet o'er the moorland will she roam
In weather rough and bleak ;
And, when against the wind she strains,
Oh! might I kiss the mountain rains
That sparkle on her cheek.

Take all that's mine "beneath the moon,"'
If I with her but half a noon
May sit beneath the walls

Of some old cave, or mossy nook,
When up she winds along the brook
To hunt the waterfalls.

TO A YOUNG LADY

1805.

WHO HAD BEEN REPROACHED FOR TAKING LONG WALKS IN THE COUNTRY Composed at the same time and on the same view as "I met Louisa in the shade": indeed they were designed to make one piece.

Written at Town-end, Grasmere. Faithfully narrated, though with the omission of many pathetic circumstances, from the mouth of a French lady, who had been an eye-and-ear-witness of all that was done and said. Many long years after, I was told that Dupligne was then a monk in the Convent of La Trappe.

The following tale was written as an Episode, in a work from which its length may perhaps exclude it. The facts are true; no invention as to these has been exercised, as none was needed.

O HAPPY time of youthful lovers (thus My story may begin) O balmy time, In which a love-knot on a lady's brow Is fairer than the fairest star in heaven! To such inheritance of blessed fancy (Fancy that sports more desperately with minds

Than ever fortune hath been known to do) The high-born Vaudracour was brought,

by years

Whose progress had a little overstepped His stripling prime. A town of small

repute,

Among the vine-clad mountains of Auvergne, Was the Youth's birth-place. There he

wooed a Maid

Who heard the heart-felt music of his suit

1 The first four lines occur in The Prelude, book ix. p. 306.

Plebeian, though ingenuous, the stock, From which her graces and her honours sprung:

And hence the father of the enamoured Youth,

With haughty indignation, spurned the thought

Of such alliance.-From their cradles up, With but a step between their several homes,

Twins had they been in pleasure; after strife

And petty quarrels, had grown fond again; Each other's advocate, each other's stay; And, in their happiest moments, not content,

If more divided than a sportive pair
Of sea-fowl, conscious both that they are
hovering

Within the eddy of a common blast,
Or hidden only by the concave depth
Of neighbouring billows from each other's
sight.

Thus, not without concurrence of an age
Unknown to memory, was an earnest given
By ready nature for a life of love,
For endless constancy, and placid truth;
But whatsoe'er of such rare treasure lay
Reserved, had fate permitted, for support
Of their maturer years, his present mind
Was under fascination ;-he beheld
A vision, and adored the thing he saw.
Arabian fiction never filled the world
With half the wonders that were wrought
for him.

Earth breathed in one great presence of the spring;

Life turned the meanest of her implements, Before his eyes, to price above all gold; The house she dwelt in was a sainted shrine; Her chamber-window did surpass in glory The portals of the dawn; all paradise Could, by the simple opening of a door, Let itself in upon him :-pathways, walks, Swarmed with enchantment, till his spirit sank,

Surcharged, within him, overblest to move Beneath a sun that wakes a weary world To its dull round of ordinary cares;

A man too happy for mortality!

So passed the time, till whether through

effect