University of Virginia Library

Blve in the mists all day
The hills slept far away,
Skiddaw, Blencathra, all:
But now that eve gins fall,
They all seem drawing near
In giant shapes of fear:
While o'er the winding walks
The mighty darkness stalks,
Quenching the rich gorse-gold
On purple-deepened wold,
The columned pines their plumes
More blackly wave: then comes
The night, the rising wind.

Oh Nature, art thou kind
From fair to fair to range
In never ceasing change
Beyond our power to feel?
For still dost thou unseal
Thy glories numberless
In changeful recklessness,
But givest us no power
To take the varied hour.
O'erweighed by all, we lose
Thy glories, or confuse.
E'en now this changeful sight
Of slow-advancing night,
The sleeping fields, the sweep
Of redness on the steep,
And o'er the hills and meads
The darkness which succeeds,
E'en now this change is lost,
Or by dull urgents crossed.

So, on the smooth sea-sand
Spread by the ebb's last hand,
And warmed by sunset's fire,
Walking to me desire
Has come to bear away
Each precious grain that lay,
Ere the cold wave again
Should mix and drown the plain:
So have I felt desire
Insatiably expire.

To mock us thus with change,
From fair to fair to range,
Dissolving thy most fair
Into a change as rare,
Leaving our hearts behind,
Oh, Nature, art thou kind?
Thou walkest by our side,
Looking with eyes full wide
With laughter at our woe,
Because we would keep so
What is most fair to us.—
That bud how tremulous,
Which hangeth on the bough!
Ah, wouldst thou but allow
That it should hang there still!
Not so; with wanton will
Thou clappest to thy hands,
And the burst bud expands
Into a flower as sweet.
With laughter thou dost greet
The human sigh and groan
That mourns the thing that's gone.
Thou laughest, for thy store
Holds beauty evermore:
Nor loss to thee the pain
Of our heart-dizzied brain.
Then thou thyself dost tire
Of the unfilled desire
With which we thee pursue:
Therefore, with sudden view
Thou shewest us a glass
To see ourselves—Alas,
Grey we are grown, and old:
Our fancied heat is cold,
Our shaking limbs are dry:
We see ourselves, and die.