THE DAFFODILS.
I WANDER'D lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay :
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee :-
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company!
I gazed, and gazed, but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
TO THE SKYLARK.
ETHEREAL minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!
Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?
Or while thy wings aspire, are heart and eye
Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?
Thy nest, which thou canst drop into at will, Those quivering wings composed, that music still. To the last point of vision, and beyond,
Mount, daring warbler! that love-prompted strain
Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond—
Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain :
Yet might'st thou seem, proud privilege! to sing
All independent of the leafy Spring.
Leave to the nightingale her shady wood;
A privacy of glorious light is thine,
Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood
Of harmony, with instinct more divine;
Type of the wise, who soar, but never roam,-
True to the kindred points of heaven and home!
COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE,
EARTH has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
The city now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields and to the sky,
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In its first splendour valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
The very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still.
OFT I had heard of Lucy Gray:
And, when I cross'd the wild,
I chanced to see at break of day
The solitary child.
No mate, no comrade Lucy knew;
She dwelt on a wide moor;
-The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a cottage-door!
You yet may spy the hare at play,
The fawn upon the green;
But the sweet face of Lucy Gray
Will never more be seen.
"To-night will be a stormy night;
You to the town must go,
And take a lantern, child, to light
Your mother through the snow."
"That, father, will I gladly do!
'Tis scarcely afternoon;
The Minster clock has just struck two,
And yonder is the moon."
At this the father raised his hook,
And snapp'd a faggot-band;
He plied his work ;-and Lucy took
The lantern in her hand.
Not blither is the mountain roe;
With many a wanton stroke
Her feet disperse the powdery snow,
That rises up like smoke.
The storm came on before its time:
She wander'd up and down;
And many a hill did Lucy climb;
But never reach'd the town.
The wretched parents all that night
Went shouting far and wide;
But there was neither sound nor sight
To serve them for a guide.
At day-break on a hill they stood
That overlook'd the moor;
And thence they saw the bridge of wood,
A furlong from their door.
And, turning homeward, now they cried, "In heaven we all shall meet ! " -When in the snow the mother spied The print of Lucy's feet.
Then downward from the steep hill's edge
They track'd the footmarks small;
And through the broken hawthorn-hedge,
And by the long stone wall:
And then an open field they cross'd:
The marks were still the same;
They track'd them on, nor ever lost,
And to the bridge they came.
They follow'd from the snowy bank
The footmarks, one by one,
Into the middle of the plank;
And further there were none !
-Yet some maintain that to this day
She is a living child;
That you may see sweet Lucy Gray
Upon the lonesome wild.
O'er rough and smooth she trips along,
And never looks behind;
And sings a solitary song
That whistles in the wind.
FROM "ODE ON INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD."
OUR birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The Soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath elsewhere had its setting,
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is nature's priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the lap of common day.
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