WRITTEN IN VERY EARLY

YOUTH

1786. 1807

CALM is all nature as a resting wheel.
The kine are couched upon the dewy grass;
The horse alone, seen dimly as I pass,
Is cropping audibly his later meal:

Dark is the ground; a slumber seems to steal

O'er vale, and mountain, and the starless sky.

Now, in this blank of things, a harmony,
Home-felt, and home-created, comes to heal
That grief for which the senses still supply
Fresh food; for only then, when memory
Is hushed, am I at rest. My Friends! re-
strain

Those busy cares that would allay my pain;
Oh! leave me to myself, nor let me feel
The officious touch that makes me droop
again.

AN EVENING WALK

ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG LADY

1787-9. 1793

The young Lady to whom this was addressed was my Sister. It was composed at school, and during my two first College vacations. There is not an image in it which I have not observed and now in my seventythird year, I recollect the time and place where most of them were noticed. I will confine myself to one instance:

"Waving his hat, the shepherd, from the vale, Directs his winding dog the cliffs to scale, The dog, loud barking, mid the glittering rocks, Hunts, where his master points, the intercepted flocks."

I was an eye-witness of this for the first time while crossing the Pass of Dunmail Raise. Upon second thought, I will mention another image:

"And, fronting the bright west, yon oak entwines

Its darkening boughs and leaves, in stronger lines." This is feebly and imperfectly expressed, but I recollect distinctly the very spot where this first struck me It was in the way between Hawkshead and Ambleside, and gave me extreme pleasure. The moment was important in my poetical histo far I date from it my consciousness of the infinite variety of natural appearances which had been unnoticed by the

poets of any age or country, so far as I was acquainted with them; and I made a resolution to supply, in some degree, the deficiency. I could not have been at that time above fourteen years of age. The description of the swans, that follows, was taken from the daily opportunities I had of observing their habits, not as confined to the gentleman's park, but in a state of nature. There were two pairs of them that divided the lake of Esthwaite and its inand-out-flowing streams between them, never trespassing a single yard upon each other's separate domain. They were of the old magnificent species, bearing in beauty and majesty about the same relation to the Thames swan which that does to the goose. It was from the remembrance of those noble creatures I took, thirty years after, the picture of the swan which I have discarded from the poem of Dion. While I was a school-boy, the late Mr. Curwen introduced a little fleet of those birds, but of the inferior species, to the lake of Windermere. Their principal home was about his own island; but they sailed about into remote parts of the lake, and, either from real or imagined injury done to the adjoining fields, they were got rid of at the request of the farmers and proprietors, but to the great regret of all who had become attached to them, from noticing their beauty and quiet habits. I will conclude my notice of this poem by observing that the plan of it has not been confined to a particular walk or an individual place,- -a proof (of which I was unconscious at the time) of my unwillingness to submit the poetic spirit to the chains of fact and real circumstance. The country is idealised rather than described in any one of its local aspects.

In thoughtless gaiety I coursed the plain, And hope itself was all I knew of pain; For then, the inexperienced heart would beat At times, while young Content forsook her seat,

And wild Impatience, pointing upward, showed,

Through passes yet unreached, a brighter road.

Alas! the idle tale of man is found
Depicted in the dial's moral round;
Hope with reflection blends her social rays
To gild the total tablet of his days;
Yet still, the sport of some malignant power,
He knows but from its shade the present
hour.

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While thick above the rill the branches close,

In rocky basin its wild waves repose, Inverted shrubs, and moss of gloomy green, Cling from the rocks, with pale wood-weeds betweenga cor

And its own twilight softens the whole

Save where aloft the subtle sunbeams shine On withered briars that o'er the crags re

Save where, with sparkling foam, a small cascade

Illumines, from within the leafy shade; Beyond, along the vista of the brook, Where antique roots its bustling course o'erlook, to

The eye reposes on a secret bridge Half grey, half shagged with ivy to its ridge;

There, bending o'er the stream the listless swain

Lingers behind his disappearing wain.

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Did Sabine grace adorn my living line, Blandusia's praise, wild stresshould yield to thine!

Never shall ruthless minister of death 'Mid thy soft glooms the glittering steel unsheath; bed trord & 4SOME

No goblets shall, for thee, be crowned with flowers,

No kid with piteous outcry thrill thy bowers;

The mystic shapes that by thy margin

rove

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A more benignant sacrifice approve -
A mind, that, in a calm angelic mood
Of happy wisdom, meditating good,
Beholds, of all from her high powers re-
quired,

Much done, and much designed, and more desired,

Harmonious thoughts, a soul by truth refined,

Entire affection for all human kind.

Dear Brook, farewell! To-morrow's noon again

Shall hide me, wooing long thy 'wildwood strain;

But now the sun has gained his western road,

And eve's mild hour invites my steps abroad. While, near the midway cliff, the silvered kite

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In many a whistling circle wheels her flight; Slant watery lights, from parting clouds, apace

Travel along the precipice's base; Cheering its naked waste of scattered stone, By lichens grey, and scanty moss, o'ergrown;

Where scarce the foxglove peeps, or thistle's beard;

And restless stone-chat, all day long, is heard.

How pleasant, as the sun declines, to view The spacious landscape change in form and hue!