University of Virginia Library

THE SPIRIT OF THE FELL

Dear foster-father, Spirit of the Fell,
Haunter of lonely cliff or hidden well,
How wert thou wont, by what fair ways and wild,
To lead unseen thy glad enchanted child!
For first his path was o'er the mountain's feet,
Where sight and sound of wood and moorland meet:
Thence might he hear, the happy summer through,
The unwearying murmur of the ring-dove's coo;
There are the flowers, more fair than gardens grow,
That by moist rock or scattered boskage blow;
Parnassian stars of tender-veinëd white,
Or the frail wind-flower, the spring's delight;
Thick-teeming woodruff, dear in balmy death,
And, best of all, the wind-swept heather's breath.
And therewithal would come to him the sound,
Or full or faint, of falling waters round,
Where fern and birch beside the deep-cleft pool
Quiver in bright spray of the torrent cool,
Tempting the headlong plunger from the rock
To his glad leap and rushing rapturous shock.
Then while his feet through broadening upland rise,
Thy hand would lead him on toward the skies.
The moss grows greyer and the rock more bare,
The wind's voice changes in the lonely air.
Then higher yet, beyond the noise of rills,
He drank the holy silence of the hills.
There tarrying late he best might know aright
The choral starry congress of the night;
And his still soul in free exulting awe
Adored the majesty of duteous law.
No further needs the spell that led him on;
He is alone, his gentle guide is gone.
Nay, rather deem, both spirits, thou and he,
Blend each with each and with Infinity.