ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG LADY.
General Sketch of the Lakes
• Author's Regret of his Youth passed amongst them— Short Description of Noon - Cascade Scene Noon-tide Retreat
Precipice and sloping Lights
try, connected with that Moment Swans Female Beggar Twilight Sounds-Western Lights - Spirits Moonlight-Hope-Night Sounds Conclusion.
FAR from my dearest Friend, 'tis mine to rove
Through bare grey dell, high wood, and pastoral cove;
Where Derwent stops his course to hear the roar
That stuns the tremulous cliffs of high Lodore;
Where silver rocks the savage prospect cheer
Of giant yews that frown on Rydal's mere ;
Where peace to Grasmere's lonely island leads,
To willowy hedgerows, and to emerald meads;
Leads to her bridge, rude church, and cottaged grounds,
Her rocky sheepwalks, and her woodland bounds;
Where, deep embosomed, shy* Winander peeps
'Mid clustering isles, and holly-sprinkled steeps;
Where twilight glens endear my Esthwaite's shore,
And memory of departed pleasures, more.
Fair scenes! with other eyes, than once, I gaze Upon the varying charm your round displays,
* These lines are only applicable to the middle part of that lake.
Than when, erewhile, I taught, "a happy child,”
The echoes of your rocks my carols wild:
Then did no ebb of cheerfulness demand
Sad tides of joy from Melancholy's hand;
In youth's keen eye the livelong day was bright,
The sun at morning, and the stars of night,
Alike, when heard the bittern's hollow bill,
Or the first woodcocks* roamed the moonlight hill.
In thoughtless gaiety I coursed the plain,
And hope itself was all I knew of pain.
For then, even then, the little heart would beat
At times, while young Content forsook her seat,
And wild Impatience, panting upward, showed
Where, tipped with gold, the mountain-summits glowed.
Alas! the idle tale of man is found
Depicted in the dial's moral round;
With Hope Reflection blends her social rays
To gild the total tablet of his days;
Yet still, the sport of some malignant Power,
He knows but from its shade the present hour.
But why, ungrateful, dwell on idle pain? To show what pleasures yet to me remain, Say, will my Friend, with unreluctant ear, The history of a poet's evening hear?
When, in the south, the wan noon, brooding still, Breathed a pale steam around the glaring hill, And shades of deep-embattled clouds were seen, Spotting the northern cliffs with lights between ;
* In the beginning of winter, these mountains are frequented by woodcocks, which in dark nights retire into the woods.
When, at the barren wall's unsheltered end,
Where long rails far into the lake extend,
Crowded the shortened herds, and beat the tides
With their quick tails, and lashed their speckled sides;
When school-boys stretched their length upon the
green;
And round the humming elm, a glimmering scene!
In the brown park, in herds, the troubled deer
Shook the still-twinkling tail and glancing ear;
When horses in the sunburnt intake * stood,
And vainly eyed below the tempting flood,
Or tracked the Passenger, in mute distress,
With forward neck the closing gate to press
Then, while I wandered up the huddling rill
Brightening with water-breaks the sombrous ghyllt,
As by enchantment, an obscure retreat
Opened at once, and stayed my devious feet.
While thick above the rill the branches close,
In rocky basin its wild waves repose,
Inverted shrubs, and moss of gloomy green,
Cling from the rocks, with pale wood-weeds between ;
Save that aloft the subtle sunbeams shine
On withered briars that o'er the crags recline,
Sole light admitted here, a small cascade,
Illumes with sparkling foam the impervious shade;
Beyond, along the vista of the brook,
Where antique roots its bustling course o'erlook,
The eye reposes on a secret bridge +
Half grey, half shagged with ivy to its ridge;
* The word intake is local, and signifies a mountain inclosure.
+ Ghyll is also, I believe, a term confined to this country: Glen, ghyll, and dingle, have the same meaning.
The reader who has made the tour of this country: will recognise, in this description, the features which characterise the lower waterfall in the grounds of Rydale.
Whence hangs, in the cool shade, the listless swain Lingering behind his disappearing wain.
- Did Sabine grace adorn my living line,
Bandusia's praise, wild Stream, should yield to thine!
Never shall ruthless minister of Death
'Mid thy soft glooms the glittering steel unsheath;
No goblets shall, for thee, be crowned with flowers,
No kid with piteous outcry thrill thy bowers;
The mystic shapes that by thy margin rove
A more benignant sacrifice approve;
A Mind, that, in a calm angelic mood
Of happy wisdom, meditating good,
Beholds, of all from her high powers required,
Much done, and much designed, and more desired,-
Harmonious thoughts, a soul by truth refined,
Entire affection for all human kind.
Sweet rill, farewell! To-morrow's noon again Shall hide me, wooing long thy wildwood strain; But now the sun has gained his western road, And eve's mild hour invites my steps abroad.
While, near the midway cliff, the silvered kite
In many a whistling circle wheels her flight;
Slant watery lights, from parting clouds, apace
Travel along the precipice's base ;
Cheering its naked waste of scattered stone,
By lichens grey, and scanty moss, o'ergrown;
Where scarce the foxglove peeps, or thistle's beard:
And desert stone-chat, all day long, is heard.
How pleasant, as the sun declines, to view The spacious landscape change in form and hue!
Here, vanish, as in mist, before a flood
Of bright obscurity, hill, lawn, and wood;
There, objects, by the searching beams betrayed,
Come forth, and here retire in purple shade;
Even the white stems of birch, the cottage white,
Soften their glare before the mellow light;
The skiffs, at anchor where with umbrage wide
Yon chesnuts half the latticed boat-house hide,
Shed from their sides, that face the sun's slant beam,
Strong flakes of radiance on the tremulous stream:
Raised by yon travelling flock, a dusty cloud
Mounts from the road, and spreads its moving shroud;
The shepherd, all involved in wreaths of fire,
Now shows a shadowy speck, and now is lost entire.
Into a gradual calm the zephyrs sink,
A blue rim borders all the lake's still brink:
And now, on every side, the surface breaks
Into blue spots, and slowly lengthening streaks ;
Here, plots of sparkling water tremble bright
With thousand thousand twinkling points of light;
There, waves that, hardly weltering, die away,
Tip their smooth ridges with a softer ray,
And now the universal tides repose,
And, brightly blue, the burnished mirror glows,
Save where, along the shady western marge,
Coasts, with industrious oar, the charcoal barge;
The sails are dropped, the poplar's foliage sleeps,
And insects clothe, like dust, the glassy deeps.
Their panniered train a groupe of potters goad,
Winding from side to side up the steep road;
The peasant, from yon cliff of fearful edge,
Shot, down the headlong path darts with his sledge;
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