thought so? The word is adopted with reference to its derivation, implying something sent on a mission; and assuredly this little flower, especially when the subject of verse, may be regarded, in its humble degree, as administering both to moral and to spiritual purposes.

BRIGHT Flower! whose home is everywhere,
Bold in maternal Nature's care,

And all the long year through the heir
Of joy or sorrow;

Methinks that there abides in thee
Some concord with humanity,
Given to no other flower I see
The forest thorough!

BENEATH these fruit-tree boughs that shed
Their snow-white blossoms on my head,
With brightest sunshine round me spread
Of spring's unclouded weather,
In this sequestered nook how sweet
To sit upon my orchard-seat !
And birds and flowers once more to greet,
My last year's friends together.

One have I marked, the happiest guest
In all this covert of the blest:
Hail to Thee, far above the rest

In joy of voice and pinion!
Thou, Linnet! in thy green array,
Presiding Spirit here to-day,
Dost lead the revels of the May;
And this is thy dominion.

10

While birds, and butterflies, and flowers,
Make all one band of paramours,
Thou, ranging up and down the bowers,
Art sole in thy employment:
A life, a Presence like the Air,
Scattering thy gladness without care,
Too blest with any one to pair;

Thyself thy own enjoyment.

Amid yon tuft of hazel trees,
That twinkle to the gusty breeze,
Behold him perched in ecstasies,

Yet seeming still to hover;
There! where the flutter of his wings
Upon his back and body flings
Shadows and sunny glimmerings,

That cover him all over.

My dazzled sight he oft deceives,
A Brother of the dancing leaves;
Then flits, and from the cottage-eaves
Pours forth his song in gushes;
As if by that exulting strain
He mocked and treated with disdain
The voiceless Form he chose to feign,
While fluttering in the bushes.

YEW-TREES

1803. 1815

20

30

40

Written at Grasmere. These yew-trees are still standing, but the spread of that at Lorton is much diminished by mutilation. I will here mention that a little way up the hill, on the road leading from Rosthwaite to Stonethwaite (in Borrowdale), lay the trunk of a yew-tree, which appeared as you approached, so vast was its diameter, like the entrance of a cave, and not a small one. Calculating upon what I have observed of the slow growth of this tree in rocky situations, and of its durability. I have often thought that the one I am describing must have been as old as the Christian era. The tree lay in the line of a fence. Great masses of its ruins were strewn about, and some had been rolled down the hillside and lay near the road at the bottom. As you approached the tree, you were struck with the number of shrubs and young plants, ashes, etc., which had found a bed upon the decayed trunk and grew to no inconsiderable height, forming. as it were, a part of the hedgerow. In no part of England, or of Europe, have I ever seen a yew-tree at all approaching this in magnitude, as it must have stood. By the bye, Hutton, the old Guide, of Keswick, had been so im

Written at Town-end, Grasmere. I remember the instant my sister, S. H., called me to the window of our Cottage, saying, “Look how beautiful is yon star! It has the sky all to itself." I composed the verses immediately.

It is no Spirit who from heaven hath flown,
And is descending on his embassy;
Nor Traveller gone from earth the heavens
to espy!

'Tis Hesperus- there he stands with glit tering crown,

First admonition that the sun is down!
For yet it is broad day-light: clouds pass
by;

A few are near him still — and now the sky,
He hath it to himself - 't is all his own.
O most ambitious Star! an inquest wrought
Within me when I recognised thy light;
A moment I was startled at the sight:
And, while I gazed, there came to me a
thought

That I might step beyond my natural race As thou seem'st now to do; might one day trace

Some ground not mine; and, strong her strength above,

My Soul, an Apparition in the place, Tread there with steps that no one shall reprove!

I

DEPARTURE FROM THE VALE OF GRASMERE

AUGUST 1803

1803. 1827

THE gentlest Shade that walked Elysian plains

Might sometimes covet dissoluble chains; Even for the tenants of the zone that lies Beyond the stars, celestial Paradise, Methinks 't would heighten joy, to overleap At will the crystal battlements, and peep Into some other region, though less fair, To see how things are made and managed

there.

Change for the worse might please, incur

sion bold

10

Into the tracts of darkness and of cold;
O'er Limbo lake with aery flight to steer,
And on the verge of Chaos hang in fear.
Such animation often do I find,
Power in my breast, wings growing in my
mind,

Then, when some rock or hill is overpast,
Perchance without one look behind me cast.
Some barrier with which Nature, from the
birth

Of things, has fenced this fairest spot on earth.

O pleasant transit, Grasmere ! to resign Such happy fields, abodes so calm as thine;

20

Not like an outcast with himself at strife; The slave of business, time, or care for life,

But moved by choice; or, if constrained in part,

Yet still with Nature's freedom at the heart;

To cull contentment upon wildest shores, And luxuries extract from bleakest moors; With prompt embrace all beauty to enfold, And having rights in all that we behold.

IV

TO THE SONS OF BURNS

AFTER VISITING THE GRAVE OF THEIR

FATHER

1803. 1807

"The Poet's grave is in a corner of the church-yard. We looked at it with melanch and painful reflections, repeating to each othe his own verses

"Is there a man whose judgment clear,' etc."

Extract from the Journal of my Fellow-Tratel 'MID crowded obelisks and urns

I sought the untimely grave of Burns; Sons of the Bard, my heart still mourns With sorrow true;

And more would grieve, but that it turns
Trembling to you!

Through twilight shades of good and ill
Ye now are panting up life's hill,
And more than common strength and skill
Must ye display;

If ye would give the better will
Its lawful sway.

Hath Nature strung your nerves to bear
Intemperance with less harm, beware!
But if the Poet's wit ye share,
Like him can speed

The social hour of tenfold care
There will be need;