To clothe the fields with verdure. Other haunts

Meanwhile were mine; till, one bright
April day,

By chance retiring from the glare of noon
To this forsaken covert, there I found
A hoary pathway traced between the trees,
And winding on with such an easy line
Along a natural opening, that I stood
Much wondering how I could have sought
in vain

For what was now so obvious. To abide,
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

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60

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.

I love to see the look with which it braves, Cased in the unfeeling armour of old time, The lightning, the fierce wind, and trampling waves.

Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone,

Housed in a dream, at distance from the
Kind!

Such happiness, wherever it be known,
Is to be pitied; for 't is surely blind.

But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer,
And frequent sights of what is to be borne !
Such sights, or worse, as are before me
here.

59

Not without hope we suffer and we mourn.

LOUISA

AFTER ACCOMPANYING HER ON A

MOUNTAIN EXCURSION

1805. 1807

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

WHO HAD BEEN REPROACHED FOR TAKING LONG WALKS IN THE COUNTRY

1805. 1807

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.

DEAR Child of Nature, let them rail !
There is a nest in a green dale,

A harbour and a hold;

Where thou, a Wife and Friend, shalt see
Thy own heart-stirring days, and be
A light to young and old.

There, healthy as a shepherd boy,

And treading among flowers of joy
Which at no season fade,

Thou, while thy babes around thee cling,
Shalt show us how divine a thing
A Woman may be made.

Thy thoughts and feelings shall not die,
Nor leave thee, when grey hairs are nigh,
A melancholy slave;

But an old age serene and bright,
And lovely as a Lapland night,
Shall lead thee to thy grave.

VAUDRACOUR AND JULIA
1805. 1820

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.