I bind the caverns of the sea with hair, Glossy, and long, and rich as kings' estate; I polish the green ice, and gleam the wall With the white frost, and leaf the brown trees tall. CHANNING. THE PASS OF KIRKSTONE. WITHIN the mind strong fancies work, A deep delight the bosom thrills, Where, save the rugged road, we find No appanage of human kind, Tents of a camp that never shall be raised On which four thousand years have gazed! roar: I love not man the less, but nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal. Roll on, thou deep and dark-blue ocean, roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain: Man marks the earth with ruin: his control Stops with the shore: upon the watery plain The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay; And from the wood-top calls the crow, through all the gloomy day. Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood, In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood? Alas! they all are in their graves: the gentle race of flowers Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours. The rain is falling where they lie; but the cold November rain Calls not, from out the gloomy earth, the lovely ones again. The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago; And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow; But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood, And the yellow sunflower by the brook, in autumn beauty stood, Till fell the frost from the clear, cold heaven, as falls the plague on men, And the brightness of their smile was gone from upland, glade, and glen. And now when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come, To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home; When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still, And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill, The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore, And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more. And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died, The fair, meek blossom that grew up, and faded by my side: In the cold moist earth we laid her when the forest cast the leaf, And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief; With footing worne, and leading inward far: Faire harbour that them seems; so in they entred are. And forth they passe, with pleasure forward led, Joying to heare the birdes' sweete harmony, Which therein shrouded from the tempest dred, Seemed in their song to scorne the cruell sky. Much can they praise the trees so straight and high, The sayling pine; the cedar proud and tall; The vine-propp elme; the poplar never dry; The builder oake, sole king of forrests all; The aspine good for staves; the cypresse funerall; The laurell meed of mightie con Of Umfraville or Percy ere they marched To Scotland's heaths; or those that crossed the sea, And drew their sounding bows at Azincour; Perhaps at earlier Crecy, or Poictiers. Of vast circumference and gloom profound This solitary Tree! a living thing Produced too slowly ever to decay; Of form and aspect too magnifi cent To be destroyed. But worthier still of note Are those fraternal Four of Borrowdale, Joined in one solemn and capacious grove; Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth Of intertwisted fibres serpentine Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved; Nor uninformed with fantasy, and looks That threaten the profane; a pillared shade, Upon whose grassless floor of redbrown hue, By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged Perennially; beneath whose sable roof Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, decked With unrejoicing berries, ghostly shapes May meet at noontide; Fear, and trembling Hope, Silence, and Foresight; Death the Skeleton, And Time the Shadow; there to celebrate, As in a natural temple scattered o'er With altars undisturbed of mossy stone, United worship; or in mute re pose To lie, and listen to the mountain flood Murmuring from Glaramara's in most caves. WORDSWORTH. THE bush that has most briers and bitter fruit: Wait till the frost has turned its green leaves red, Its sweetened berries will thy palate suit, And thou mayst find e'en there a homely bread. Upon the hills of Salem scattered wide, Their yellow blossoms gain the eye in spring; And, straggling e'en upon the turnpike's side, Their ripened branches to your hand they bring. I've plucked them oft in boyhood's early hour, That then I gave such name, and thought it true; But now I know that other fruit as Beneath the lowly alder-tree, And we will sleep a pleasant sleep, And not a care shall dare intrude To break the marble solitude, And hark! the wind-god, as he flies, Sweet flower! that requiem wild It warns me to the lonely shrine, Where as I lie, by all forgot, A dying fragrance thou wilt o'er my ashes shed. H. K. WHITE. THE PRIMROSE. Ask me why I send you here This sweet Infanta of the yeere? Ask me why I send to you This Primrose, thus bepearl'd with dew? I will whisper to your eares, The sweets of love are mixt with tears. |