The last autumnal crocus, 't was my joy,
With store of springes o'er my shoulder hung, To range the open heights where woodcocks run Along the smooth green turf. Through half the
Scudding away from snare to snare, I plied That anxious visitation; moon and stars Were shining o'er my head. I was alone, And seemed to be a trouble to the peace That dwelt among them. Sometimes it befell, In these night wanderings, that a strong desire O'erpowered my better reason, and the bird Which was the captive of another's toil Became my prey; and when the deed was done I heard among the solitary hills
Low breathings coming after me, and sounds Of undistinguishable motion, steps
Almost as silent as the turf they trod.
Nor less, when Spring had warmed the cultured
Moved we as plunderers where the mother-bird Had in high places built her lodge; though mean Our object and inglorious, yet the end
Was not ignoble. Oh! when I have hung Above the raven's nest, by knots of grass And half-inch fissures in the slippery rock But ill sustained, and almost (so it seemed) Suspended by the blast that blew amain, Shouldering the naked crag, oh! at that time
While on the perilous ridge I hung alone,
With what strange utterance did the loud, dry wind Blow through my ear! the sky seemed not a sky Of earth,—and with what motion moved the clouds!
Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows Like harmony in music; there is a dark Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles. Discordant elements, makes them cling together In one society. How strange that all The terrors, pains, and early miseries, Regrets, vexations, lassitudes interfused
Within my mind, should e'er have borne a part, And that a needful part, in making up
The calm existence that is mine when I
Am worthy of myself! Praise to the end! Thanks to the means which Nature deigned to employ ;
Whether her fearless visitings, or those
That came with soft alarm, like hurtless light Opening the peaceful clouds; or she may use Severer interventions, ministry
More palpable, as best might suit her aim.
One summer evening (led by her) I found A little boat tied to a willow-tree
Within a rocky cave, its usual home.
Straight I unloosed her chain, and, stepping in, Pushed from the shore. It was an act of stealth And troubled pleasure, nor without the voice
Of mountain-echoes did my boat move on; Leaving behind her still, on either side, Small circles glittering idly in the moon, Until they melted all into one track
Of sparkling light. But now, like one who rows, Proud of his skill, to reach a chosen point With an unswerving line, I fixed my view Upon the summit of a craggy ridge,
The horizon's utmost boundary; far above Was nothing but the stars and the gray sky. She was an elfin pinnace; lustily
I dipped my oars into the silent lake, And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boat Went heaving through the water like a swan; When, from behind that craggy steep till then The horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge, As if with voluntary power instinct,
Upreared its head. I struck and struck again, And, growing still in stature, the grim shape Towered up between me and the stars, and still, For so it seemed, with purpose of its own And measured motion like a living thing, Strode after me. With trembling oars I turned, And through the silent water stole my way Back to the covert of the willow-tree; There in her mooring-place I left my bark, And through the meadows homeward went, in grave And serious mood; but after I had seen That spectacle, for many days, my brain Worked with a dim and undetermined sense
of unknown modes of being; o'er my thoughts There hung a darkness, call it solitude Or blank desertion. No familiar shapes Remained, no pleasant images of trees, Of sea or sky, no colors of green fields; But huge and mighty forms, that do not live Like living men, moved slowly through the mind By day, and were a trouble to my dreams.
*Wisdom and Spirit of the universe! Thou Soul that art the eternity of thought, That givest to forms and images a breath And everlasting motion, not in vain
By day or star-light thus from my first dawn Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me The passions that build up our human soul; Not with the mean and vulgar works of man, But with high objects, with enduring things, With life and nature, purifying thus The elements of feeling and of thought, And sanctifying, by such discipline, Both pain and fear, until we recognize A grandeur in the beatings of the heart. Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me With stinted kindness. In November days, When vapors rolling down the valley made A lonely scene more lonesome, among woods, At noon and 'mid the calm of summer nights,
When, by the margin of the trembling lake, Beneath the gloomy hills homeward I went In solitude, such intercourse was mine; Mine was it in the fields both day and night, And by the waters, all the summer long.
And in the frosty season, when the sun Was set, and visible for many a mile
The cottage windows blazed through twilight gloom, I heeded not their summons: happy time
It was indeed for all of us,
It was a time of rapture!
The village clock tolled six, — I wheeled about, Proud and exulting like an untired horse That cares not for his home. All shod with steel, We hissed along the polished ice in games Confederate, imitative of the chase
And woodland pleasures, the resounding horn, The pack loud chiming, and the hunted hare. So through the darkness and the cold we flew, And not a voice was idle; with the din Smitten, the precipices rang aloud; The leafless trees and every icy crag Tinkled like iron; while far distant hills Into the tumult sent an alien sound
Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the west
The orange sky of evening died away. Not seldom from the uproar I retired
Into a silent bay, or sportively
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