And what the morning brought to light,
Two losses had we to sustain,

We lost both WAGONER and WAIN!

Accept, O Friend, for praise or blame,
The gift of this adventurous song;
A record which I dared to frame,
Though timid scruples checked me long;
They checked me, and I left the theme
Untouched; in spite of many a gleam
Of fancy which thereon was shed,
Like pleasant sunbeams shifting still
Upon the side of a distant hill:
But Nature might not be gainsaid;
For what I have and what I miss

I sing of these; - it makes my bliss!
Nor is it I who play the part,

But a shy spirit in my heart,

That comes and goes, will sometimes leap

From hiding-places ten years deep;

Or haunts me with familiar face,

Returning, like a ghost unlaid,
Until the debt I owe be paid.
Forgive me, then; for I had been
On friendly terms with this Machine :
In him, while he was wont to trace
Our roads, through many a long year's space

A living almanac had we;

We had a speaking diary,

That in this uneventful place

Gave to the days a mark and name

By which we knew them when they came. — Yes, I, and all about me here,

Through all the changes of the year,

Had seen him through the mountains go,

of mist or pomp pomp Majestically huge and slow:

snow,

Or, with a milder grace adorning

The landscape of a summer's morning;
While Grasmere smoothed her liquid plain
The moving image to detain;
And mighty Fairfield, with a chime
Of echoes, to his march kept time;
When little other business stirred,
And little other sound was heard;
In that delicious hour of balm,
Stillness, solitude, and calm,
While yet the valley is arrayed,
On this side with a sober shade,
On that is prodigally bright

Crag, lawn, and wood with rosy light.

―

But most of all, thou lordly Wain!

I wish to have thee here again,
When windows flap and chimney roars,
And all is dismal out of doors;

And, sitting by my fire, I see
Eight sorry carts, no less a train !

Unworthy successors of thee,

Come straggling through the wind and rain :

And oft, as they pass slowly on,
Beneath my windows, one by one,
See, perched upon the naked height,
The summit of a cumbrous freight,
A single traveller, and there
Another; then perhaps a pair,
The lame, the sickly, and the old;
Men, women, heartless with the cold;
And babes in wet and starveling plight
Which once, be weather as it might,
Had still a nest within a nest,

Thy shelter- and their mother's breast!
Then most of all, then far the most,
Do I regret what we have lost;
Am grieved for that unhappy sin
Which robbed us of good Benjamin ;-
And of his stately Charge, which none
Could keep alive when He was gone
!

1805.

POEMS OF THE IMAGINATION.

I.

THERE WAS A BOY.

THERE was a Boy; ye knew him well, ye cliffs

And islands of Winander!

many a time, At evening, when the earliest stars began To move along the edges of the hills, Rising or setting, would he stand alone, Beneath the trees, or by the glimmering lake; And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands Pressed closely palm to palm and to his mouth Uplifted, he, as through an instrument,

Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls,

That they might answer him. And they would shout

Across the watery vale, and shout again,
Responsive to his call, with quivering peals,
And long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud
Redoubled and redoubled; concourse wild
Of jocund din! And when there came a pause
Of silence such as baffled his best skill,

Then, sometimes, in that silence, while he hung
Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise
Has carried far into his heart the voice

Of mountain-torrents; or the visible scene
Would enter unawares into his mind

With all its solemn imagery, its rocks,

Its woods, and that uncertain heaven received
Into the bosom of the steady lake.

This boy was taken from his mates, and died In childhood, ere he was full twelve years old. Preeminent in beauty is the vale

Where he was born and bred: the churchyard hangs Upon a slope above the village school;

And, thro' that churchyard when my way has led On summer evenings, I believe that there

A long half-hour together I have stood

Mute,

looking at the grave in which he lies!

1799.

II.

TO THE CUCKOO.

O BLITHE New-comer! I have heard,

I hear thee and rejoice.

O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird,

Or but a wandering Voice?

While I am lying on the grass.

Thy twofold shout I hear,
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off, and near.