To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,

The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure :---
But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature's holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?

1798. 1798.

TO MY SISTER

IT is the first mild day of March:
Each minute sweeter than before
The red breast sings from the tall larch
That stands beside our door.

There is a blessing in the air,
Which seems a sense of joy to yield
To the bare trees, and mountains bare,
And grass in the green field.

My sister! ('tis a wish of mine)
Now that our morning meal is done,
Make haste, your morning task resign;
Come forth and feel the sun.

Edward will come with you ;--and, pray, Put on with speed your woodland dress; And bring no book: for this one day We'll give to idleness.

No joyless forms shall regulate Our living calendar:

We from to-day, my Friend, will date The opening of the year.

Love, now a universal birth,
From heart to heart is stealing,

From earth to man, from man to earth:
-It is the hour of feeling.

One moment now may give us more
Than years of toiling reason:
Our minds shall drink at every pore
The spirit of the season.

Some silent laws our hearts will make,
Which they shall long obey:
We for the year to come may take
Our temper from to-day.

And from the blessed power that rolls About, below, above,

We'll frame the measure of our souls: They shall be tuned to love.

Then come, my Sister! come, I pray, With speed put on your woodiand dress; And bring no book: for this one day We'll give to idleness. 1798. 1798.

A WHIRL-BLAST FROM BEHIND THE HILL

A WHIRL-BLAST from behind the hill Rushed o'er the wood with startiing sound;

Then--all at once the air was still, And showers of hailstones pattered round.

Where leafless oaks towered high above,
I sat within an undergrove
Of tallest hollies, tall and green;
A fairer bower was never seen.
From year to year the spacious floor
With withered leaves is covered o'er,
And all the year the bower is green.
But see! where'er the hailstones drop
The withered leaves all skip and hop;
There's not a breeze-no breath of air-
Yet here, and there, and everywhere
Along the floor, beneath the shade
By those embowering hollies made,
The leaves in myriads jump and spring,
As if with pipes and music rare
Some Robin Good-fellow were there,
And all those leaves, in festive glee,
Were dancing to the minstrelsy.
1798. 1800.

EXPOSTULATION AND REPLY

"WHY, William, on that old gray stone
Thus for the length of half a day,
Why, William, sit you thus alone,
And dream your time away?

No poem of mine was composed under circumstances more pleasant for me to remember than this. I began it upon leaving Tintern, after crossing the Wye, and concluded it just as I was entering Bristol in the evening, after a ramble of four or five days, with my sister. Not a line of it was altered, and not any part of it written down till I reached Bristol. It was published almost immediately after in the little volume of which so much has been said in these Notes. (Wordsworth. The volume referred to is The Lyrical Ballads, as first published at Bristol by Cottle.)

FIVE years have past; five summers, with the length

Of five long winters! and again I hear These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs

With a soft inland murmur.1-Once again

Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, That on a wild secluded scene impress Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect

The landscape with the quiet of the sky. The day is come when I again repose

1 The river is not affected by the tides a few miles above Tintern. (Wordsworth, 1798.)

Here, under this dark sycamore, and view

These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,

Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,

Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves

'Mid groves and copses. Once again I

see

These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines

Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,

Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke

Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!

With some uncertain notice, as might

seem

Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,

Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire

The Hermit sits alone.

These beauteous forms, Through a long absence, have not been

to me

As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din

Of towns and cities, I have owed to them In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;

And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration :-feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure: such, per-
haps,

As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I
trust,

To them I may have owed another gift, Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,

In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight

Of all this unintelligible world,

Is lightened:-that serene and blessed mood,

In which the affections gently lead us

on,

Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even the motion of our human blood

Almost suspended, we are laid asleep

With stinted kindness. In November
days,
When vapors rolling down the valleys
made

A lonely scene more lonesome; among
woods

At noon; and 'mid the calm of summer
nights,
When by the margin of the trembling
lake,
Beneath the gloomy hills, homeward I
went

In solitude, such intercourse was mine:
Mine was it in the fields both day and
night,

And by the waters, all the summer long. And in the frosty season, when the sun Was set, and, visible for many a mile, The cottage-windows through the twilight blazed,

I heeded not the summons: happy time It was indeed for all of us; for me

It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud The village-clock tolled six-I wheeled about,

Proud and exulting like an untired horse That cares not for his home.-All shod with steel We hissed along the polished ice, in games Confederate, imitative of the chase And woodland pleasures,-the resounding horn, The pack loud-chiming, and the hunted hare.

So through the darkness and the cold
we flew,

And not a voice was idle: with the din
Smitten, the precipices rang aloud ;
The leafless trees and every icy crag
Tinkled like iron; while far-distant hills
Into the tumult sent an alien sound
Of melancholy, not unnoticed while the

stars,