To her fair works did Nature link Through primrose tufts, in that green bower, The periwinkle trailed its wreaths; The birds around me hopped and played, The budding twigs spread out their fan, If this belief from heaven be sent, One moment now may give us more Some silent laws our hearts will make, And from the blessed power that rolls About, below, above, We'll frame the measure of our souls: They shall be tuned to love. Then come, my Sister! come. I pray, With speed put on your woodland dress; And bring no book: for this one day We'll give to idleness. 1798. 1798. A WHIRL-BLAST FROM BEHIND THE HILL A WHIRL-BLAST from behind the hill Rushed o'er the wood with startling sound; Then-all at once the air was still. And showers of hailstones pattered round. Where leafless oaks towered high above, Of tallest hollies, tail and green; Were Lancing tota FXPOSTULATION AND REPLY WHY, W It as the bour of fecking No poem of mine was composed under circumstances more pleasant for me to remember than this. I began it upon leaving Tintern, after crossing the Wye, and concluded it just as I was entering Bristol in the evening, after a ramble of four or five days, with my sister. Not a line of it was altered, and not any part of it written down till I reached Bristol. It was published almost immediately after in the little volume of which so much has been said in these Notes. (Wordsworth. The volume referred to is The Lyrical Ballads, as first published at Bristol by Cottle.) The language of my former heart, and read My former pleasures in the shooting lights Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while May I behold in thee what I was once, My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make, Knowing that Nature never did betray The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege, Through all the years of this our life, to lead From joy to joy for she can so inform The mind that is within us, so impress With quietness and beauty, and so feed With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all The dreary intercourse of daily life. Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon Shine on thee in thy solitary walk; And let the misty mountain-winds be free To blow against thee: and, in after years, When these wild ecstasies shall be matured Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief, Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance If I should be where I no more can hear Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams Of past existence-wilt thou then forget That on the banks of this delightful stream We stood together; and that I, so long A worshipper of Nature, hither came Unwearied in that service: rather say With warmer love-oh! with far deeper zeal Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then for get, And by the waters, all the summer long. And in the frosty season, when the sun Was set, and, visible for many a mile. The cottage-windows through the twilight blazed, I heeded not the summons: happy time It was indeed for all of us; for me It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud The village-clock tolled six-I wheeled about, Proud and exulting like an untired horse That cares not for his home.-All shod with steel We hissed along the polished ice, in games Confederate, imitative of the chase And woodland pleasures,-the resounding horn, The pack loud-chiming, and the hunted hare. So through the darkness and the cold we flew, And not a voice was idle: with the din |