LXX. TO A LAKE PARTY.
I
We shall all meet again,
Not in the wood or plain,
Nor by the lake's green marge;
But we shall meet once more
By a far greener shore,
With our souls set at large.
II
We all shall never stand
On Rothay's white-lipped strand,
And hear the far sheep-cries:
The Wansfell wind may blow,
But not to kindle now
The bright fire in our eyes.
III
The three cleft mountains stand
In their own treeless land,
Where we all stood and wondered.
The black cliffs are the same
Where the hundred echoes came
That dark day when it thundered.
IV
The summer sun sinks nightly
Into the Solway brightly—
We are not there to see.
The mountain loophole seems
Full of the golden beams,
Full as it used to be.
V
Athwart the sunlit vale
The heavy ravens sail,
Each to his craggy dwelling;
While evening gathers brown
On thy stone-sprinkled down,
Thou desolate Helvellyn!
VI
Still, still, in twilight shade
Mountains make me afraid,
And the wood-sounds at night;
The red moon in the pine,
And lustrous tarns that shine,
With grey and ghostly light.
VII
But vain to me the show;
My heart is weary now
Of all its holy places.
Oh! what are sun and shower,
Hill-path and forest-bower.
Where there are no friend's faces?
VIII
My youth is left behind
For some one else to find,
Upon a bare green mountain:
My self-tuned harp is thrown,
Where a juniper clasps a stone,
Near a moss-belted fountain.
IX
We shall all meet again,
Not in the wood or plain,
Nor by the lake's green marge.
The past shall be lived o'er
By a far greener shore,
With our souls set at large.
