Fair are the woods, and beauteous is the spot,
The vale where he was born: the churchyard hangs
Upon a slope above the village school;
And there, along that bank, when I have pass'd
At evening, I believe that oftentimes
A long half-hour together I have stood
Mute-looking at the grave in which he lies!
TO THE CUCKOO.
O BLITHE new-comer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice:
O Cuckoo shall I call thee bird,
Or but a wandering voice?
While I am lying on the grass,
Thy loud note smites my ear!
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off and near !
I hear thee babbling to the vale
Of sunshine and of flowers;
And unto me thou bring'st a tale
Of visionary hours.
Thrice welcome, darling of the spring!
Even yet thou art to me
No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery.
The same whom in my school-boy days
I listen'd to; that cry
Which made me look a thousand ways
In bush, and tree, and sky.
To seek thee did I often rove
Through woods and on the green;
And thou wert still a hope, a love;
Still long'd for, never seen!
And I can listen to thee yet;
Can lie upon the plain
And listen, till I do beget
That golden time again.
O blessed bird! the earth we pace
Again appears to be
An unsubstantial, fairy place;
That is fit home for thee!
With a continuous cloud of texture close,
Heavy and wan, all whiten'd by the moon,
Which through that vale is indistinctly seen,
A dull contracted circle, yielding light
So feebly spread that not a shadow falls,
Chequering the ground, from rock, plant, tree, or tower.
At length a pleasant instantaneous gleam
Startles the pensive traveller as he treads
His lonesome path, with unobserving eye
Bent earthwards; he looks up-the clouds are split
Asunder, and above his head he sees
The clear moon, and the glory of the heavens.
There, in a black blue vault she sails along,
Follow'd by multitudes of stars, that, small,
And sharp, and bright, along the dark abyss
Drive as she drives. How fast they wheel away,
Yet vanish not !-the wind is in the tree,
But they are silent; still they roll along
Immeasurably distant; and the vault,
Built round by those white clouds, enormous clouds,
Still deepens its unfathomable depth.
At length the vision closes; and the mind,
Not undisturb'd by the delight it feels,
Which slowly settles into peaceful calm,
Is left to muse upon the solemn scene.
THERE is a yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale,
Which to this day stands single, in the midst
Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore,
Not loth to furnish weapons for the bands
Of Umfraville or Percy, ere they march'd
To Scotland's heaths; or those that cross'd the sea
And drew their sounding bows at Azincour,
Perhaps at earlier Crecy, or Poictiers.
Of vast circumference and gloom profound
This solitary tree !-a living thing
Produced too slowly ever to decay;
Of form and aspect too magnificent
To be destroy'd. But worthier still of noto
Are those fraternal four of Borrowdale,
Join'd in one solemn and capacious grove;
Huge trunks!--and each particular trunk a growth
Of intertwisted fibres serpentine
Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved,-
Nor uninform'd with phantasy, and looks
That threaten the profane; a pillar'd shade,
Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue,
By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged
Perennially-beneath whose sable roof
Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, deck'd
With unrejoicing berries, ghostly shapes
May meet at noontide-Fear and trembling Hope,
Silence and Foresight--Death the skeleton
And Time the shadow,-there to celebrate,
As in a natural temple scatter'd o'er
With altars undisturb'd of mossy stone,
United worship; or in mute repose
To lie, and listen to the mountain flood
Murm'ring from Glaramara's inmost caves.
VIEW FROM THE TOP OF BLACK COMB,
CUMBERLAND.
THIS height a ministering angel might select:
For from the summit of Black Comb (dread name
Derived from clouds and storms!) the amplest range
Of unobstructed prospect may be seen
That British ground commands: low dusky tracts,
Where Trent is nursed, far southward! Cambrian hills
To the south-west, a multitudinous show;
And, in a line of eye-sight link'd with these,
The hoary peaks of Scotland that give birth
To Teviot's stream, to Annan, Tweed, and Clyde ;
Crowding the quarter whence the sun comes forth,
Gigantic mountains rough with crags; beneath,
Right at the imperial station's western base,
Main ocean, breaking audibly, and stretch'd
Far into silent regions blue and pale;
And visibly engirding Mona's isle,
That, as we left the plain, before our sight
Stood like a lofty mount, uplifting slowly
(Above the convex of the watery globe)
İnto clear view the cultured fields that streak
Its habitable shores; but now appears
A dwindled object, and submits to lie
At the spectator's feet. Yon azure ridge,
Is it a perishable cloud-or there
Do we behold the frame of Erin's coast?
Land sometimes by the roving shepherd swain
(Like the bright confines of another world)
Not doubtfully perceived. Look homeward now!
In depth, in height, in circuit, how serene
The spectacle-how pure! Of Nature's works,
In earth, and air, and earth embracing sea,
A revelation infinite it seems;
Display august of man's inheritance,
Of Britain's calm telicity and power.
(I speak of one from many singled out),
One of those heavenly days which cannot die;
When forth I sallied from our cottage-door,*
With a huge wallet o'er my shoulders slung,
The house in which I was boarded during the time I was at school.
"Perhaps it was a bower beneath whose leaves
The violets of five seasons re-appear
And fade, unseen by any human eye;
Where fairy water-breaks do murmur on
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