Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

At morn we wended forth right merrily,
With hearts as high as though we had been bent
On great emprise and martial tournament:
The wind blew softly through the azure sky,
And in the dome the mountains stood upright,
Vested from head to foot in softest light,
Hung round them, a transparent drapery.

352

II

The budding branches of the oakwood bowers
With honeysuckle in full leaf were tangled;
The western slopes with primroses were spangled,
And cuckoo-plant and dusky violet-flowers;
And here and there the fragrant woodland floor
With white anemones was powdered o'er,
Like the last melting fringes of snow-showers.

III

How rich the carpet of yon fir-tree dome!
The moss just tinged afresh in juicy dyes,
The moneywort with countless golden eyes,
The dark green daffodil now shorn of bloom,
The woodroffe with its fragrant withered leaves,
While here and there an early orchis grieves
To flower and fade before its kinsfolk come.

IV

And to the eye betrayed by his deep tongue,
Within his watch-tower of old fir there sate
The pensive heron in baronial state,
And thrushes from their holly coverts sung;
All things were happy,—from the radiant skies
Down to the little breeze-fanned butterflies,
Which pendent from the rocking may-flowers swung.

V

Along the moorland steeps the heated air
To lines of silky softness did subdue
The harsh, rough walls, and bade the purple hue
Of the bright mere a crape of mist to wear.
The young lambs gleamed upon the island mead;
And hyacinths had just begun to lead
Their blue processions o'er the coppice there.

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VI

Then past the lately-felled larch wood we rode,
Not thankless for the odor which it gave;
We saw the newly plumed birch branches wave,
Where Greenhead brook in its rough channel flowed;
Onward we mounted from the quiet vale,
Till through its verdant gap the smooth Dunmail
One distant head of father Skiddaw showed.

VII

The mountain pass with streaks of herbage green
And loose blue stones alternately was faced,
Like amethyst with emerald interlaced
On either side, and the blue sky between.
The haze-fire played on Dunmail's shapeless tomb,
As though 'twere breathed from out the uncouth gloom
Where that old king nine hundred years hath been.

VIII

O I am garrulous perforce to tell
The birds, the wildflowers, and the pageantries
Of light and shade, the foliage and the breeze,
Which there upon that joyous day befell;
Lest aught omitting, I should haply miss
Some cheerful adjunct to that mood of bliss
Whereon hereafter we should love to dwell.

IX

Then from the Raise we turned to look once more
On Grasmere vale, so sweetly interspersed
With fields and woodlands, and the blue lake nursed
By its two streams, and fair hills bending o'er;
Ruling the vale, was heard the cuckoo's cry
Ubiquitous, like law's dread majesty,
Unseen, but audible from shore to shore.

354

X

The poets vaunt autumnal hues too much;
There is a season, a brief twenty days,
Intercalated between summer's rays
And the green flush of spring, whose tints are such,
As, for their depth and fair variety,
Richest autumnal coloring all outvie
In shading delicate and grace of touch.

XI

The gilded oak, the willow's pale sea-green,
The sable pine with brilliant larches blending,
And the fair birch its glossy plumage lending
To mediate the light and dark between,—
The yellow beech, the manly sycamore,
And clouds of cherry blossom floating o'er—
May well outdo sad autumn's broidered scene.

XII

And all is joy or hope in earth and sky;
'Tis not like autumn's pensive power that lies
In beautiful decay, which we so prize
Because it is a glory passing by;—
But a sweet sense that flowers are underfoot,
And that long evenings now are taking root,
And summer days foreshadowed pleasantly.

XIII

But now, the Cumbrian border gained at last,
At Wythburn's larch-girt Shrine and lonely dwelling
We stood beneath the steeps of great Helvellyn.
One year this very morning we had passed
The defiles of Parnassus, and had seen
The crags which over voiceless Delphi lean,
And on rich Crissa's plain their shadow cast.

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XIV

And the same day had now been dignified,
In humorous caprice and pleasant mood,
To explore Helvellyn's pastoral solitude,
And the huge coves upon its eastern side:
And never day could dawn more graciously;
There was no cloud in all the dappled sky,
Which did not clear of every summit ride.

XV

Like virtue, old Helvellyn must be won
By the first hard ascent o'er moorland grass
Intolerably smooth, as polished glass,
Save the moss-swollen lines where streamlets run,
Tinkling like hidden bells; and o'er the steep
The shrunken waterfalls in silence creep,
Braiding their crystal beadshowers in the sun.

XVI

And, as we clung like goats to the steep grass,
How strangely sight and memory did strike
Against each other! Oh how all unlike
To the Greek hill our own Helvellyn was!
And, ere we did the first green platform reach,
In broken words each had reminded each
Of noble features in the Phocian Pass.

XVII

Oh I could weep for pity when I hear,
Soft as far echoes, those old names of Greece,
Spots I have seen in utter joyless peace,
Like sanctuaries, beautiful but drear!
And who will blame though Delphi now supplants
With vivid presence these domestic haunts,
As though embayed in its rough ledges here?

356

XVIII

Full in the face of sunset Ktypa stood,
When from the sheepflocks on the Theban plain
I first beheld the great Parnassian chain,
Nine layers of folded mountain crag, which glowed
Distinctly pencilled out by purple mist,
Till, by the shooting flames of sunset kissed,
They melted off into the golden flood.

XIX

Calm was the morning when our upward way
From bowl to bowl of shrubby moorland rose,
Where nothing but smooth-stemmed lentiscus grows;
The distances were soft and clear; no ray
Of garish sunbeam to those heights did come,
Curtained within a pleasant, pensive gloom
Of daylight, tinged, but not obscured, with gray.

XX

Fearful, Parnassus! are thy clefts, which lean
With their deep yellow rocks across the dell,
Terrace on terrace piled, and citadel
With ever-tumbling towers, o'ertopped with green,
With belts of jutting pine-wood darkly seamed
In airy, hanging slopes, as I have dreamed
The Babylonian gardens to have been.

XXI

There is Arracova with sounding shores,
Perched mid the torrent-springs and eagles'-nests:
There, on her steep recumbent, Delphi rests
Her patient ear on old earth's steaming pores;
There in a cool rock-shaded trough hard by
The silent tripod, gifted Castaly
Her silver water frugally outpours.

357

XXII

How beautiful the moon rose on the shore
And olive-tops of Salona! The light
In trickling falls stole down from every height,
Until the pinewood belts were silvered o'er;
And tremulous pulses of white splendor crept
To glens which still in purple darkness slept,
Teasing the eye their soft gloom to explore.

XXIII

I rose and sunk upon the gentle sea,
And from Herodotus I strove to spell
By the clear moon some Delphic oracle
In quaint hexameters, while memory
Aided the dubious light: I was alone,
And all entranced; for truth, which had outgrown
My dream, still more a dream appeared to be.

XXIV

How glorious was the night, the twofold power
Of hills and starry sea, when I did float
At anchor there, while dark above my boat
In the bright air did true Parnassus tower!
And, as the curlew's solitary wail
Was faintly answered from some inland vale,
I could have wept for joy of that sweet hour.

XXV

As in the night all outward noises creep
Into our dreams, so the sad curlew's cry
On the Greek bay Helvellyn did supply
Unto my wakeful trance; a lonely sheep
Sent forth a mournful bleating to recall
Me from the dream which did in gentle thrall
The very outposts of my senses keep.

358

XXVI

To hear high up it is a solemn sound,
And, rising from a sunken hollow nigh,
It seems far off, a voice in the blue sky
Or earthborn plaint breathed from the moorland ground,
A woful elegy, which hourly fills
The pastoral waste with melancholy thrills,
And echoes by the lone tarn's desert bound.

XXVII

The platform gained, we watched one fair cloud sail
For some Atlantic haven; the gay fir
Looked through the mist below like gossamer,
A thin green network stretched across the vale.
The wheat-ears ran or glided through the grass
And o'er the stones; they might for serpents pass,
Parting the crisp white stalks with rustling tail.

XXVIII

One more ascent, and we had gained with slow
And weary step the mountain's eastern edge,
Where, hanging o'er the sheer and dizzy ledge,
There stood a sparkling parapet of snow,
Breeding a wild desire to lean thereon,
Although we shivered at the thought alone,
And turned from that abyss which yawned below.

XXIX

Then in light mood the surface did we break,
The virgin surface of the giant drift,
And to our mouths the tempting crystals lift,
Yet dared we not our burning thirst to slake;
But, standing on the slope of greensward nigh
With the white battlement in front breast-high,
We delved our hands therein for coolness' sake.

359

XXX

Then onward o'er a shingly, sea-like beach
Of dreary stones with scarce a lichen veined,
Or blotched with golden spots, or weather-stained,
Did we the high-crowned promontory reach,
And hoary pile and beacon-staff all rent
And peeled and white, which wintry storms have sent
Wild winds and eddies of strong rain to bleach.

XXXI

There to the north the silver Solway shone,
And Criffel, by the hazy atmosphere
Lifted from off the earth, did then appear
A nodding island or a cloud-built throne.
And there, a spot half fancied and half seen,
Was sunny Carlisle; and by hillside green
Lay Penrith with its beacon of red stone.

XXXII

Southward through pale blue steam the eye might glance
Along the Yorkshire fells, and o'er the rest,
My native hill, dear Ingleboro's crest,
Rose shapely, like a cap of maintenance.
The classic Duddon, Leven, and clear Kent
A trident of fair estuaries sent,
Which did among the mountain roots advance.

XXXIII

Westward, a region of tumultuous hills,
With here and there a tongue of azure lake
And ridge of fir, upon the eye did break.
But chiefest wonder are the tarns and rills
And giant coves, where great Helvellyn broods
Upon his own majestic solitudes,
Which even now the sunlight barely fills.

360

XXXIV

There Striding Edge with Swirrel meets to keep
The Red Tarn still when tempests rage above:
There Catsty-Cam doth watch o'er Keppel Cove
And the chill pool that lurks beneath the steep.
Far to the right St. Sunday's quiet shade
Stoops o'er the dell, where Grisedale Tarn is laid
Beneath that solemn crag in waveless sleep.

XXXV

The golden cliffs which from Parnassus lean
With uncouth rivets of the roots of trees,
And silent-waving pinewood terraces,
And burnished zones of hanging evergreen,—
Haunts of the antique muses though they are,
May not for dread solemnity compare,
Or savage wonders, with this native scene.

XXXVI

Awful in moonlight shades, more awful far
When the winds wake, are those majestic coves,
Or when the thunder feeds his muttering droves
Of swart clouds on the raven-haunted scar;
And in the bright tranquillity of noon
Most awful; lovely only in the boon
Of soft apparel wrought by twilight air.

XXXVII

Shall Brownrigg Well be left without a song,
Which near the summit, mid the wintry snows
In a clear vein of liquid crystal flows,
And through the pastoral months in gushes strong
Gleams in the eye of sunset, and from far
Holds up a mirror to the evening star,
While round its mouth the thirsty sheepflocks throng?

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XXXVIII

And now, with loitering step and minds unbent
Through hope fulfilled, we reached the vale once more;
And, wending slowly along Rydal shore,
Watched the dusk splendor which from Langdale went,
And on the hills dethroned the afternoon;
And home was gained ere yet the yellow moon
From over Wansfell her first greeting sent.

XXXIX

Thus flowed the day, a current o'er the mind;
Yet happiness however plain or short,
Is alway meekly forward to consort
With virtuous mood and purpose, and unbind
Selfish desires, making the genial calms
Of pleasure not abused a liberal alms
Of loving thoughts unto all human-kind.

Pinus maritima.