I heard a Stock-dove sing or say
His homely tale, this very day;
His voice was buried among trees,
Yet to be come at by the breeze :
He did not cease; but cooed — and cooed;
And somewhat pensively he wooed :
He sang of love, with quiet blending,
Slow to begin, and never ending;
Of serious faith, and inward glee;
That was the song, — the song for me!
THREE years she grew in sun and shower,
Then Nature said, “ A lovelier flower
On earth was never sown;
This Child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine, and I will make
A Lady of my own.
“Myself will to my darling be
Both law and impulse : and with me
The Girl, in rock and plain,
In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
Shall feel an overseeing power
To kindle or restrain.
“ She shall be sportive as the fawn
That wild with glee across the lawn
Or up the mountain springs ;
And hers shall be the breathing balm,
And hers the silence and the calm
Of mute, insensate things.
“The floating clouds their state shall lend
To her; for her the willow bend;
Nor shall she fail to see,
Even in the motions of the Storm,
Grace that shall mould the Maiden's form
By silent sympathy.
“ The stars of midnight shall be dear
To her; and she shall lean her ear
In many a secret place
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of murmuring sound
Shall pass into her face.
'“ And vital feelings of delight
Shall rear her form to stately height,
Her virgin bosom swell;
Such thoughts to Lucy I will give
While she and I together live
Here in this happy dell.”
Thus Nature spake.—The work was done.
How soon my Lucy's race was run! · VOL. II.
She died, and left to me
This heath, this calm and quiet scene;
The memory of what has been,
And never more will be.
1799.
A SLUMBER did my spirit seal ;
I had no human fears :
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.
No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.
1799.
I WANDERED lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and bills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils ;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay :
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed, — and gazed, — but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought :
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude ;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
THE REVERIE OF POOR SUSAN. At the corner of Wood Street, when daylight
appears, Hangs a Thrush that sings loud, it has sung for
three years : Poor. Susan has passed by the spot, and has heard In the silence of morning the song of the Bird.
"Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? She
sees A mountain ascending, a vision of trees ; Bright volumes of vapor through Lothbury glide, And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.
Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale, Down which she so often has tripped with her pail ; And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove's, The one only dwelling on earth that she loves.
She looks, and her heart is in heaven: but they fade, The mist and the river, the hill and the shade: The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise, And the colors have all passed away from her
eyes !
|