| Well, they are gone, and here must I remain, | |
| This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost | |
| Such beauties and such feelings, as had been | |
| Most sweet to have remembrance, even when age | |
| Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile, |
|
| Friends, whom I never more may meet again, | |
| On springy heath, along the hilltop edge, | |
| Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance, | |
| To that still roaring dell, of which I told; | |
| The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep, | 10 |
| And only speckled by the mid-day sun; | |
| Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock | |
| Flings arching like a bridge; —that branchless ash, |
|
| Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves | |
| Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still, | |
| Fann'd by the water-fall! and there my friends | |
| Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds, | |
| That all at once (a most fantastic sight!) | |
| Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge | |
Of the blue clay-stone.
| |
|
Now my friends emerge | 20 |
| Beneath the wide wide Heaven—and view again | |
| The many-steepled tract magnificent | |
| Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea, | |
| With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up | |
| The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two Isles | |
| Of purple shadow! Yes! they wander on | |
| In gladness all; but thou, methinks, most glad, | |
| My gentle-hearted Charles! For thou hast pined | |
| And hunger'd after Nature, many a year, | |
| In the great City pent, winning thy way | 30 |
| With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain | |
| And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink | |
| Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun! | |
| Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb, | |
| Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds! |
|
| Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves! | |
| And kindle, thou blue Ocean! So my friend, | |
| Struck with deep joy, may stand, as I have stood, | |
| Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round | |
| On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem |
40 |
| Less gross than bodily; and of such hues | |
| As veil the Almighty Spirit, when he makes | |
Spirits perceive his presence.
| |
|
A delight |
|
| Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad | |
| As I myself were there! Nor in this bower, | |
| This little lime-tree bower, have I not mark'd | |
| Much that has sooth'd me. Pale beneath the blaze | |
| Hung the transparent foliage; and I watch'd | |
| Some broad and sunny leaf, and loved to see | 50 |
| The shadow of the leaf and stem above | |
| Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut-tree | |
| Was richly ting'd, and a deep radiance lay | |
| Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps | |
| Those fronting elms, and now with blackest mass | |
| Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue | |
| Through the late twilight: and though now the bat | |
| Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters, | |
| Yet still the solitary humble-bee | |
| Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know |
60 |
| That nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure; | |
| No plot so narrow, be but Nature there | |
| No waste so vacant, but may well employ | |
| Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart | |
| Awake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes | |
| 'Tis well to be bereft of promised good, | |
| That we may lift the soul, and contemplate | |
| With lively joy the joys we cannot share. | |
| My gentle-hearted Charles! when the last rook | |
| Beat its straight path along the dusky air | |
| Homewards, I blessed it! deeming its black wing | 70 |
| (Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light) | |
| Had cross'd the mighty Orb's dilated glory | |
| While thou stood'st gazing; or, when all was still, |
|
| Flew creaking o'er thy head, and had a charm | |
| For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom | |
| No sound is dissonant which tells of Life. | |