Is Nature felt, or can be; nor do words,
Which practised talent readily affords,
Prove that her hand has touched responsive
chords;

Nor has her gentle beauty power to move
With genuine rapture and with fervent love
The soul of Genius, if he dare to take
Life's rule from passion craved for passion's

sake;

Untaught that meekness is the cherished bent Of all the truly great and all the innocent.

15

19

But who is innocent? By grace divine, Not otherwise, O Nature! we are thine, Through good and evil thine, in just degree Of rational and manly sympathy. To all that Earth from pensive hearts is stealing, And Heaven is now to gladdened eyes revealing, Add every charm the Universe can show Through every change its aspects undergo― Care may be respited, but not repealed; No perfect cure grows on that bounded field. Vain is the pleasure, a false calm the peace, If He, through whom alone our conflicts cease, Our virtuous hopes without relapse advance, Come not to speed the Soul's deliverance; To the distempered Intellect refuse His gracious help, or give what we abuse.

1834.

24

30

V.

(BY THE SIDE OF RYDAL MERE.) THE linnet's warble, sinking towards a close, Hints to the thrush 'tis time for their repose; The shrill-voiced thrush is heedless, and again

The monitor revives his own sweet strain;
But both will soon be mastered, and the copse
Be left as silent as the mountain-tops,

6

Ere some commanding star dismiss to rest The throng of rooks, that now, from twig or nest,

ΙΟ

(After a steady flight on home-bound wings,
And a last game of mazy hoverings
Around their ancient grove) with cawing noise
Disturb the liquid music's equipoise.

O Nightingale! Who ever heard thy song Might here be moved, till Fancy grows so strong

15

That listening sense is pardonably cheated Where wood or stream by thee was never

greeted.

Surely, from fairest spots of favoured lands,
Were not some gifts withheld by jealous hands,
This hour of deepening darkness here would be
As a fresh morning for new harmony;
And lays as prompt would hail the dawn of
Night:

20

A dawn she has both beautiful and bright, When the East kindles with the full moon's

light;

Not like the rising sun's impatient glow
Dazzling the mountains, but an overflow
Of solemn splendour, in mutation slow.

25

Wanderer by spring with gradual progress led,

For sway profoundly felt as widely spread;
To king, to peasant, to rough sailor, dear,
And to the soldier's trumpet-wearied ear;
How welcome wouldst thou be to this green

Vale

30

Fairer than Tempe! Yet, sweet Nightingale! From the warm breeze that bears thee on, alight

At will, and stay thy migratory flight;

34

Build, at thy choice, or sing, by pool or fount,
Who shall complain, or call thee to account?
The wisest, happiest, of our kind are they
That ever walk content with Nature's way,
God's goodness-measuring bounty as it may;
For whom the gravest thought of what they
miss,
Chastening the fulness of a present bliss,
Is with that wholesome office satisfied,
While unrepining sadness is allied
In thankful bosoms to a modest pride.

1834.

40

VI.

5

SOFT as a cloud is yon blue Ridge the Mere
Seems firm as solid crystal, breathless, clear,
And motionless; and, to the gazer's eye,
Deeper than ocean, in the immensity
Of its vague mountains and unreal sky!
But, from the process in that still retreat,
Turn to minuter changes at our feet;
Observe how dewy Twilight has withdrawn
The crowd of daisies from the shaven lawn,
And has restored to view its tender green,
That, while the sun rode high, was lost beneath
their dazzling sheen.

-An emblem this of what the sober Hour
Can do for minds disposed to feel its power!
Thus oft, when we in vain have wished away
The petty pleasures of the garish day,
Meek eve shuts up the whole usurping host

ΙΟ

15

(Unbashful dwarfs each glittering at his post) And leaves the disencumbered spirit free To reassume a staid simplicity.

'Tis well-but what are helps of time and place,

20

When wisdom stands in need of nature's grace;
Why do good thoughts, invoked or not, descend,
Like Angels from their bowers, our virtues to
befriend;

If yet To-morrow, unbelied, may say,
"I come to open out, for fresh display,
The elastic vanities of yesterday?"

25

1834.

VII.

THE leaves that rustled on this oak-crowned hill, And sky that danced among those leaves, are

still;

Rest smooths the way for sleep; in field and

bower

Soft shades and dews have shed their blended

power

5

On drooping eyelid and the closing flower; Sound is there none at which the faintest heart Might leap, the weakest nerve of superstition

start;

ΙΟ

Save when the Owlet's unexpected scream
Pierces the ethereal vault; and ('mid the gleam
Of unsubstantial imagery, the dream,
From the hushed vale's realities, transferred
To the still lake) the imaginative Bird
Seems, 'mid inverted mountains, not unheard.

Grave Creature!-whether, while the moon shines bright

On thy wings opened wide for smoothest flight,

Thou art discovered in a roofless tower,

16

Rising from what may once have been a lady's

bower;

Or spied where thou sitt'st moping in thy mew
At the dim centre of a churchyard yew;
Or from a rifted crag or ivy tod

Deep in a forest, thy secure abode,

20

Thou giv'st, for pastime's sake, by shriek or shout,

A puzzling notice of thy whereabout

May the night never come, nor day be seen, When I shall scorn thy voice or mock thy mien !

25

In classic ages men perceived a soul Of sapience in thy aspect, headless Owl! Thee Athens reverenced in the studious grove; And near the golden sceptre grasped by Jove, His Eagle's favourite perch, while round him

sate

30

The Gods revolving the decrees of Fate,
Thou, too, wert present at Minerva's side:
Hark to that second larum !-far and wide
The elements have heard, and rock and cave
replied.

1834.

VIII.

This Impromptu appeared, many years ago, among the Author's poems, from which, in subsequent editions, it was excluded. It is reprinted at the request of the Friend in whose presence the lines were thrown off.

THE sun has long been set,

The stars are out by twos and threes,
The little birds are piping yet

Among the bushes and trees;