And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, Forbode not any severing of our loves! To live beneath your more habitual sway. I love the brooks which down their channels fret The clouds that gather round the setting sun won. Thanks to the human heart by which we live, 204 ODE TO DUTY STERN Daughter of the voice of God! Thou who art victory and law When empty terrors overawe; From vain temptations dost set free; And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity! 8 There are who ask not if thine eye Upon the genial sense of youth: Oh! if through confidence misplaced They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power! around them cast. Serene will be our days and bright, And happy will our nature be, When love is an unerring light, And they a blissful course may hold Yet seek thy firm support, according to their I, loving freedom, and untried; 16 } 24 The task, in smoother walks to stray; But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may. Through no disturbance of my soul, Or strong compunction in me wrought, 32 I supplicate for thy control; But in the quietness of thought: Me this uncharter'd freedom tires; I feel the weight of chance-desires: My hopes no more must change their name, I long for a repose that ever is the same. Stern lawgiver! yet thou dost wear 40 Flowers laugh before thee on their beds And fragrance in thy footing treads; Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong; And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong. To humbler functions, awful Power! live. 1807. William Wordsworth. 48 56 FRANCE: AN ODE YE Clouds! that far above me float and pause, Whose pathless march no mortal may control! Ye Ocean Waves! that, wheresoe'er ye roll, Yield homage only to eternal laws! Ye Woods! that listen to the nightbirds' Midway the smooth and perilous slope Save when your own imperious branches Have made a solemn music of the wind! Where, like a man beloved of God, Through glooms, which never woodman trod, How oft, pursuing fancies holy, My moonlight way o'er flowering weeds I wound, Inspired, beyond the guess of folly, By each rude shape and wild unconquerable sound! O ye loud Waves! and O ye Forests high! 21 When France in wrath her giant-limbs up reared, And with that oath, which smote air, earth and sea, Stamped her strong foot and said she would be free, Bear witness for me, how I hoped and feared! With what a joy my lofty gratulation Unawed I sang, amid a slavish band: And when to whelm the disenchanted nation, Like fiends embattled by a wizard's wand, The Monarchs marched in evil day, And Britain join'd the dire array; Though dear her shores and circling ocean, Though many friendships, many youthful loves Had swoln the patriot emotion And flung a magic light o'er all her hills and groves; Yet still my voice, unaltered, sang defeat To all that braved the tyrant-quelling lance, And shame too long delay'd and vain retreat! For ne'er, O Liberty! with partial aim I dimmed thy light or damped thy holy flame; But blessed the pæans of delivered France, And hung my head and wept at Britain's name. "And what," I said, "though Blasphemy's loud scream 42 With that sweet music of deliverance strove! Wove |