Aloof, with hermit-eye I scan

The present works of present man—

A wild and dream-like trade of blood and guile,
Too foolish for a tear, too wicked for a smile!

TO A YOUNG FRIEND,

ON HIS PROPOSING TO DOMESTICATE WITH THE
AUTHOR. COMPOSED IN 1796.

A MOUNT, not wearisome and bare and steep,
But a green mountain variously up-piled,
Where o'er the jutting rocks soft mosses creep,
Or colored lichens with slow oozing weep;

Where cypress and the darker yew start wild;

And 'mid the summer torrent's gentle dash
Dance brightened the red clusters of the ash;
Beneath whose boughs, by those still sounds be-
guiled,

Calm Pensiveness might muse herself to sleep;
Till haply startled by some fleecy dam,

That rustling on the bushy cliff above,

With melancholy bleat of anxious love,

Made meek inquiry for her wandering lamb:

Such a green mountain 'twere most sweet to climb, E'en while the bosom ached with loneliness

How more than sweet, if some dear friend should bless

The adventurous toil, and up the path sublime Now lead, now follow the glad landscape round, Wide and more wide, increasing without bound/

O then 'twere loveliest sympathy, to mark The berries of the half-uprooted ash

Dripping and bright; and list the torrent's dash,— Beneath the cypress, or the yew more dark,

Seated at ease, on some smooth mossy rock;
In social silence now, and now to unlock
The treasured heart; arm linked in friendly arm,
Save if the one, his muse's witching charm
Muttering brow-bent, at unwatched distance lag;
Till high o'er head his beckoning friend appears,
And from the forehead of the topmost crag
Shouts eagerly for haply there uprears
That shadowing pine its old romantic limbs,
Which latest shall detain the enamored sight
Seen from below, when eve the valley dims,
Tinged yellow with the rich departing light;
And haply, basoned in some unsunned cleft,
A beauteous spring, the rock's collected tears,
Sleeps sheltered there, scarce wrinkled by the gale!
Together thus the world's vain turmoil left,
Stretched on the crag, and shadowed by the pine,
And bending o'er the clear delicious fount,
Ah! dearest youth! it were a lot divine
To cheat our noons in moralizing mood,

While west-winds fanned our temples toil-bedewed: Then downwards slope, oft pausing, from the mount,

To some lone mansion, in some woody dale,
Where smiling with blue eye, domestic bliss
Gives this the husband's, that the brother's kiss!
Thus rudely versed in allegoric lore,

The Hill of Knowledge I essayed to trace;
That verdurous hill with many a resting-place,
And many a stream, whose warbling waters pour
To glad and fertilize the subject plains;
That hill with secret springs, and nooks untrod,
And many a fancy-blest and holy sod
Where Inspiration, his diviner strains

II.

A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,
A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,
Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,
In word, or sigh, or tear—

O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood,
To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd,
All this long eve, so balmy and serene,
Have I been gazing on the western sky,

And its peculiar tint of yellow green:
And still I gaze—and with how blank an eye!
And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,
That give away their motion to the stars;

Those stars, that glide behind them or between,
Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen:
Yon crescent Moon as fixed as if it grew

In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue;

I see them all so excellently fair,

I see, not feel how beautiful they are!

III.

My genial spirits fail:

And what can these avail

To lift the smothering weight from off my breast? It were a vain endeavor,

Though I should gaze for ever

On that green light that lingers in the west:
I may not hope from outward forms to win
The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.

IV.

O Lady! we receive but what we give,

And in our life alone does nature live:

Ours is her wedding-garment, ours her shroud! And would we aught behold, of higher worth,

Than that inanimate cold world allowed
To the poor loveless ever-anxious crowd.

Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth,
A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud
Enveloping the Earth-

And from the soul itself must there be sent
A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth,
Of all sweet sounds the life and element!

V.

Ο pure of heart! thou need'st not ask of me
What this strong music in the soul may be!
What, and wherein it doth exist,

This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist,
This beautiful and beauty-making power.

Joy, virtuous Lady! Joy that ne'er was given,
Save to the pure, and in their purest hour,
Life, and Life's effluence, cloud at once and shower,
Joy, Lady! is the spirit and the power,

Which wedding Nature to us gives in dower,
A new Earth and new Heaven,

Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud-
Joy is the sweet voice, Joy the luminous cloud-
We in ourselves rejoice!

And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight,
All melodies the echoes of that voice,
All colors a suffusion from that light.

VI.

There was a time when, though my path was rough,
This joy within me dallied with distress,
And all misfortunes were but as the stuff

Whence Fancy made me dreams of happiness: For hope grew round me like the twining vine, And fruits, and foliage, not my own, seemed mine.

But now afflictions bow me down to earth:
Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth,
But oh! each visitation

Suspends what nature gave me at my birth,
My shaping spirit of Imagination.

For not to think of what I needs must feel,
But to be still and patient, all I can :
And haply by abstruse research to steal
From my own nature all the natural man—
This was my sole resource, my only plan:
Till that which suits a part infects the whole,
And now is almost grown the habit of my soul.

Hence, viper thoughts, that coil around my mind, Reality's dark dream!

I turn from you, and listen to the wind,

Which long has raved unnoticed. What a scream Of agony by torture lengthened out, That lute sent forth!

without,

Thou Wind, that ravest

Bare craig, or mountain-tairn,* or blasted tree, Or pine-grove whither woodman never clomb, Or lonely house, long held the witches' home,

Methinks were fitter instruments for thee, Mad Lutanist! who in this month of showers, Of dark brown gardens, and of peeping flowers, Mak'st Devils' yule, with worse than wintry song, The blossoms, buds, and timorous leaves among. Thou Actor, perfect in all tragic sounds!

*Tairn is a small lake, generally, if not always applied to the lakes up in the mountains, and which are the feeders of those in the valleys. This address to the Stormwind will not appear extravagant to those who have heard it at night, and in a mountainous country.