[Written at Rydal Mount. This dove was one of a pair that had been given to my daughter by our excellent friend, Miss Jewsbury,+ who went to India with her husband, Mr Fletcher, where she died of cholera. The dove survived its mate many years, and was killed, to our great sorrow, by a neighbour's cat that got in at the window and dragged it partly out of the cage. These verses were composed extempore, to the letter, in the Terrace Summer-house before spoken of It was the habit of the bird to begin cooing and murmuring whenever it heard me making my verses.]

* In a MS. letter to Sir George Beaumont I find the poem entitled "Twenty minutes Exercise on the Terrace last night, but scene within doors."-ED.

+ Compare the Sonnet beginning "While Anna's peers and early playmates tread," p. 163.-ED.

PRESENTIMENTS.

As often as I murmur here

My half-formed melodies,

Straight from her osier mansion near,
The Turtledove replies:
Though silent as a leaf before,

The captive promptly coos;
Is it to teach her own soft lore,
Or second my weak Muse?

I rather think, the gentle Dove
Is murmuring a reproof,
Displeased that I from lays of love
Have dared to keep aloof;
That I, a Bard of hill and dale,
Have caroll'd, fancy free,
As if nor dove nor nightingale,
Had heart or voice for me.

If such thy meaning, O forbear,
Sweet Bird! to do me wrong;
Love, blessed Love, is every where,

The spirit of my song:

'Mid grove, and by the calm fireside,
Love animates my lyre―
That coo again!-'tis not to chide,
I feel, but to inspire.

[Written at Rydal Mount.]

PRESENTIMENTS! they judge not right

Who deem that ye from open light
Retire in fear of shame;

257

All heaven-born Instincts shun the touch
Of vulgar sense,-and, being such,
Such privilege ye claim.

The tear whose source I could not guess,
The deep sigh that seemed fatherless,
Were mine in early days;

And now, unforced by time to part
With fancy, I obey my heart,

And venture on your praise.

What though some busy foes to good
Too potent over nerve and blood,

Lurk near you-and combine

To taint the health which ye infuse;
This hides not from the moral Muse
Your origin divine.

How oft from you, derided Powers!
Comes Faith that in auspicious hours
Builds castles, not of air:
Bodings unsanctioned by the will
Flow from your visionary skill,
And teach us to beware.

The bosom-weight, your stubborn gift,
That no philosophy can lift,

Shall vanish, if ye please,

Like morning mist: and, where it lay,

The spirits at your bidding play

In gaiety and ease.

Star-guided contemplations move

Through space, though calm, not raised above

Prognostics that ye rule;

PRESENTIMENTS.

The naked Indian of the wild,

And haply, too, the cradled Child,
Are pupils of your school.

But who can fathom your intents,
Number their signs or instruments?
A rainbow, a sunbeam,

A subtle smell that Spring unbinds,
Dead pause abrupt of midnight winds,
An echo, or a dream.*

The laughter of the Christmas hearth
With sighs of self-exhausted mirth
Ye feelingly reprove:

And daily, in the conscious breast,

Your visitations are a test

And exercise of love.

259

When some great change gives boundless scope

To an exulting Nation's hope,

Oft, startled and made wise

By your low-breathed interpretings,

The simply-meek foretaste the springs

Of bitter contraries.

Ye daunt the proud array of war,

Pervade the lonely ocean far

As sail hath been unfurled;

For dancers in the festive hall

Compare Robert Browning's Bishop Brougham's Apology

66

There's a sunset-touch,

A fancy from a flower-bell, some one's death,
A chorus ending from Euripides,-
And that's enough for fifty hopes and fears

As old and new at once as Nature's self,

To rap and knock and enter in our soul,

Take hands and dance there, a fantastic ring," &c.—ED.

What ghastly partners hath your call
Fetched from the shadowy world!

'Tis said that warnings ye dispense,
Emboldened by a keener sense;

That men have lived for whom,
With dread precision, ye made clear
The hour that in a distant year

Should knell them to the tomb.

Unwelcome insight! Yet there are
Blest times when mystery is laid bare,

Truth shows a glorious face,

While on that isthmus which commands
The councils of both worlds, she stands,
Sage Spirits! by your grace.

God, who instructs the brutes to scent
All changes of the element,

Whose wisdom fixed the scale

Of natures, for our wants provides
By higher, sometimes humbler, guides,
When lights of reason fail.

INSCRIPTION

INTENDED FOR A STONE IN THE GROUNDS OF RYDAL MOUNT. 1835.

[Engraven, during my absence in Italy, upon a brass plate inserted in the Stone.]

IN these fair vales hath many a Tree
At Wordsworth's suit been spared;
And from the builder's hand this Stone,