Five years have past; five summers, with the length |
|
Of five long winters! and again I hear |
|
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs |
|
With a sweet inland murmur.*—Once again |
|
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, |
|
Which on a wild secluded scene impress |
|
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect |
|
The landscape with the quiet of the sky. |
|
The day is come when I again repose |
|
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view |
10 |
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts, |
|
Which, at this season, with their unripe fruits, |
|
Among the woods and copses lose themselves, |
|
Nor, with their green and simple hue, disturb |
|
The wild green landscape. Once again I see |
|
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines |
|
Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms, |
|
Green to the very door; and wreathes of smoke |
|
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees, |
|
With some uncertain notice, as might seem, |
20 |
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, |
|
Or of some hermit's cave, where by his fire |
|
The hermit sits alone.
|
|
Though absent long, |
|
These forms of beauty have not been to me, |
|
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: |
|
But oft, in lonely rooms, and mid the din |
|
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, |
|
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, |
|
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart, |
|
And passing even into my purer mind |
30 |
With tranquil restoration:—feelings too |
|
Of unremembered pleasure; such, perhaps, |
|
As may have had no trivial influence |
|
On that best portion of a good man's life; |
|
His little, nameless, unremembered acts |
|
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, |
|
To them I may have owed another gift, |
|
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood, |
|
In which the burthen of the mystery, |
|
In which the heavy and the weary weight |
40 |
Of all this unintelligible world |
|
Is lighten'd:—that serene and blessed mood, |
|
In which the affections gently lead us on, |
|
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame, |
|
And even the motion of our human blood |
|
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep |
|
In body, and become a living soul: |
|
While with an eye made quiet by the power |
|
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, |
|
We see into the life of things.
|
50 |
If this |
|
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft, |
|
In darkness, and amid the many shapes |
|
Of joyless day-light; when the fretful stir |
|
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, |
|
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart, |
|
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee |
|
O sylvan Wye! Thou wanderer through the wood |
|
How often has my spirit turned to thee!
|
|
And now, with gleams of half-extinguish'd though[t,] |
|
With many recognitions dim and faint, |
60 |
And somewhat of a sad perplexity, |
|
The picture of the mind revives again: |
|
While here I stand, not only with the sense |
|
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts |
|
That in this moment there is life and food |
|
For future years. And so I dare to hope |
|
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was, when first |
|
I came among these hills; when like a roe |
|
I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides |
|
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, |
70 |
Wherever nature led; more like a man |
|
Flying from something that he dreads, than one |
|
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then |
|
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days, |
|
And their glad animal movements all gone by,) |
|
To me was all in all.—I cannot paint |
|
What then I was. The sounding cataract |
|
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, |
|
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, |
|
Their colours and their forms, were then to me |
80 |
An appetite: a feeling and a love, |
|
That had no need of a remoter charm, |
|
By thought supplied, or any interest |
|
Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past, |
|
And all its aching joys are now no more, |
|
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this |
|
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts |
|
Have followed, for such loss, I would believe, |
|
Abundant recompence. For I have learned |
|
To look on nature, not as in the hour |
90 |
Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes |
|
The still, sad music of humanity, |
|
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power |
|
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt |
|
A presence that disturbs me with the joy |
|
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime |
|
Of something far more deeply interfused, |
|
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, |
|
And the round ocean, and the living air, |
|
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man, |
100 |
A motion and a spirit, that impels |
|
All thinking things, all objects of all thought, |
|
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still |
|
A lover of the meadows and the woods, |
|
And mountains; and of all that we behold |
|
From this green earth; of all the mighty world |
|
Of eye and ear, both what they half-create,* |
|
And what perceive; well pleased to recognize |
|
In nature and the language of the sense, |
|
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, |
110 |
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul |
|
Of all my moral being.
|
|
Nor, perchance, |
|
If I were not thus taught, should I the more |
|
Suffer my genial spirits to decay: |
|
For thou art with me, here, upon the banks |
|
Of this fair river; thou, my dearest Friend, |
|
My dear, dear Friend, and in thy voice I catch |
|
The language of my former heart, and read |
|
My former pleasures in the shooting lights |
|
Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while |
120 |
May I behold in thee what I was once, |
|
My dear, dear Sister! And this prayer I make, |
|
Knowing that Nature never did betray |
|
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege, |
|
Through all the years of this our life, to lead |
|
From joy to joy: for she can so inform |
|
The mind that is within us, so impress |
|
With quietness and beauty, and so feed |
|
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, |
|
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, |
130 |
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all |
|
The dreary intercourse of daily life, |
|
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb |
|
Our chearful faith that all which we behold |
|
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon |
|
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk; |
|
And let the misty mountain winds be free |
|
To blow against thee: and in after years, |
|
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured |
|
Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind |
140 |
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, |
|
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place |
|
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; Oh! then, |
|
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief, |
|
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts |
|
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, |
|
And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance, |
|
If I should be, where I no more can hear |
|
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams |
|
Of past existence, wilt thou then forget |
150 |
That on the banks of this delightful stream |
|
We stood together; and that I, so long |
|
A worshipper of Nature, hither came, |
|
Unwearied in that service: rather say |
|
With warmer love, oh! with far deeper zeal |
|
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget, |
|
That after many wanderings, many years |
|
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs, |
|
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me |
|
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake. |
160 |
