| Five years have past; five summers, with the length |
|
| Of five long winters! and again I hear |
|
| These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs |
|
| With a sweet inland murmur.*—Once
again |
|
| Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, |
|
| Which on a wild secluded scene impress |
|
| Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect |
|
| The landscape with the quiet of the sky. |
|
| The day is come when I again repose |
|
| Here, under this dark sycamore, and view |
10 |
| These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts, |
|
| Which, at this season, with their unripe fruits, |
|
| Among the woods and copses lose themselves, |
|
| Nor, with their green and simple hue, disturb |
|
| The wild green landscape. Once again I see |
|
| These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines |
|
| Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms, |
|
| Green to the very door; and wreathes of smoke |
|
| Sent up, in silence, from among the trees, |
|
| With some uncertain notice, as might seem, |
20 |
| Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, |
|
| Or of some hermit's cave, where by his fire |
|
The hermit sits alone.
|
|
| Though absent
long, |
|
| These forms of beauty have not been to me, |
|
| As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: |
|
| But oft, in lonely rooms, and mid the din |
|
| Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, |
|
| In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, |
|
| Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart, |
|
| And passing even into my purer mind |
30 |
| With tranquil restoration:—feelings too |
|
| Of unremembered pleasure; such, perhaps, |
|
| As may have had no trivial influence |
|
| On that best portion of a good man's life; |
|
| His little, nameless, unremembered acts |
|
| Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, |
|
| To them I may have owed another gift, |
|
| Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood, |
|
| In which the burthen of the mystery, |
|
| In which the heavy and the weary weight |
40 |
| Of all this unintelligible world |
|
| Is lighten'd:—that serene and blessed mood, |
|
| In which the affections gently lead us on, |
|
| Until, the breath of this corporeal frame, |
|
| And even the motion of our human blood |
|
| Almost suspended, we are laid asleep |
|
| In body, and become a living soul: |
|
| While with an eye made quiet by the power |
|
| Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, |
|
We see into the life of things.
|
50 |
| If
this |
|
| Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft, |
|
| In darkness, and amid the many shapes |
|
| Of joyless day-light; when the fretful stir |
|
| Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, |
|
| Have hung upon the beatings of my heart, |
|
| How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee |
|
| O sylvan Wye! Thou wanderer through the wood |
|
How often has my spirit turned to thee!
|
|
| And now, with gleams of half-extinguish'd though[t,] |
|
| With many recognitions dim and faint, |
60 |
| And somewhat of a sad perplexity, |
|
| The picture of the mind revives again: |
|
| While here I stand, not only with the sense |
|
| Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts |
|
| That in this moment there is life and food |
|
| For future years. And so I dare to hope |
|
| Though changed, no doubt, from what I was, when
first |
|
| I came among these hills; when like a roe |
|
| I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides |
|
| Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, |
70 |
| Wherever nature led; more like a man |
|
| Flying from something that he dreads, than one |
|
| Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then |
|
| (The coarser pleasures of my boyish days, |
|
| And their glad animal movements all gone by,) |
|
| To me was all in all.—I cannot paint |
|
| What then I was. The sounding cataract |
|
| Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, |
|
| The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, |
|
| Their colours and their forms, were then to me |
80 |
| An appetite: a feeling and a love, |
|
| That had no need of a remoter charm, |
|
| By thought supplied, or any interest |
|
| Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past, |
|
| And all its aching joys are now no more, |
|
| And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this |
|
| Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts |
|
| Have followed, for such loss, I would believe, |
|
| Abundant recompence. For I have learned |
|
| To look on nature, not as in the hour |
90 |
| Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes |
|
| The still, sad music of humanity, |
|
| Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power |
|
| To chasten and subdue. And I have felt |
|
| A presence that disturbs me with the joy |
|
| Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime |
|
| Of something far more deeply interfused, |
|
| Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, |
|
| And the round ocean, and the living air, |
|
| And the blue sky, and in the mind of man, |
100 |
| A motion and a spirit, that impels |
|
| All thinking things, all objects of all thought, |
|
| And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still |
|
| A lover of the meadows and the woods, |
|
| And mountains; and of all that we behold |
|
| From this green earth; of all the mighty world |
|
| Of eye and ear, both what they half-create,* |
|
| And what perceive; well pleased to recognize |
|
| In nature and the language of the sense, |
|
| The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, |
110 |
| The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul |
|
Of all my moral being.
|
|
| Nor, perchance, |
|
| If I were not thus taught, should I the more |
|
| Suffer my genial spirits to decay: |
|
| For thou art with me, here, upon the banks |
|
| Of this fair river; thou, my dearest Friend, |
|
| My dear, dear Friend, and in thy voice I catch |
|
| The language of my former heart, and read |
|
| My former pleasures in the shooting lights |
|
| Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while |
120 |
| 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, |
130 |
| Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all |
|
| The dreary intercourse of daily life, |
|
| Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb |
|
| Our chearful 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 |
140 |
| Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, |
|
| Thy memory be as a dwelling-place |
|
| For all sweet sounds and harmonies; Oh! then, |
|
| 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 |
150 |
| 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 forget, |
|
| That after many wanderings, many years |
|
| Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs, |
|
| And this green pastoral landscape, were to me |
|
| More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake.
|
160 |
