Thy harvest home, thy wassail bowle, That's tost up after fox i' th' hole, Thy mummeries, thy twelf-tide kings And queenes, thy Christmas revellings, Thy nut-browne mirth, thy russet wit, And no man pays too deare for it: To these thou hast thy times to goe, And trace the hare i' th' treacherous snow; Thy witty wiles to draw and get To take the precious pheasant made; Thy lime-twigs, snares, and pit-falls then To catch the pilfering birds, not Ran cow and calf, and eke the very hogges So feared were for barking of the dogges. And shouting of the men and women eke, They ronnen so, them thought hir hertes breke. They yelleden as fendés don in Helle: The dokès crieden as men wold hem quelle: The gees for fere flewen over the trees, Out of the hive came the swarme of bees, Up with the day, the Sun thou welcom'st then, Sport'st in the gilt plaits of his beams, And all these merry days mak'st merry men Thyself and melancholy streams. But ah! the sickle! golden ears are cropt; Ceres and Bacchus bid good-night; Sharp frosty fingers all your flowers have topt, And what scythes spared winds shave off quite. Poor verdant fool! and now green ice, thy joys Large and as lasting as thy perch of grass Bid us lay in 'gainst winter rain, and poise Their floods with an o'erflowing glass. Thou best of men and friends, we will create A genuine summer in each other's breast; And spite of this cold time and frozen fate, Thaw us a warm seat to our rest. Our sacred hearths shall burn eternally As vestal flames; the North-wind, he Shall strike his frost-stretched wings, dissolve, and fly This Ætna in epitome. Dropping December shall come weeping in, Bewail th' usurping of his reign; But when in showers of old Greek* we begin, Shall cry, he hath his crown again! Night as clear Hesper shall our tapers whip From the light casements where we play, And the dark hag from her black mantle strip, And stick there everlasting day. Greek wine. And when we came in front of that tall rock That eastward looks, I there stopped short, and stood Tracing the lofty barrier with my eye From base to summit; such delight I found To note in shrub and tree, in stone and flower, That intermixture of delicious hues, In one impression, by connecting force Of their own beauty, imaged in the heart. When I had gazed perhaps two minutes' space, Joanna, looking in my eyes, beheld That ravishment of mine, and laughed aloud. The Rock, like something starting from a sleep, Took up the Lady's voice, and laughed again; That ancient Woman seated on Helm-crag Was ready with her cavern; Ham His speaking-trumpet; back out of the clouds Of Glaramara southward came the voice; And Kirkstone tossed it from his misty head. "Now whether" (said I to our cordial friend, Who in the hey-day of astonishment Smiled in my face), "this were in simple truth A work accomplished by the brotherhood Of ancient mountains, or my ear was touched With dreams and visionary impulses To me alone imparted, sure I am That there was a loud uproar in the hills." And while we both were listening, to my side The fair Joanna drew, as if she wished To shelter from some object of her fear. And hence long afterwards, when eighteen moons Were wasted, as I chanced to walk alone Beneath this rock, at sunrise, on a calm And silent morning, I sat down, and there, In memory of affections old and true, I chiselled out in those rude charac As thick and numberless As the gay motes that people the sunbeams, Or likest hovering dreams The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train. But hail thou Goddess, sage and holy, Hail divinest Melancholy, Whose saintly visage is too bright Black, but such as in esteem seem, Or that starr'd Ethiop queen that strove To set her beauty's praise above The Sea-Nymphs, and their powers offended: Yet thou art higher far descended; Thee bright-hair'd Vesta, long of yore, To solitary Saturn bore; His daughter she (in Saturn's reign, Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes: Quiet, Spare Fast, that oft with Gods doth diet, And hears the Muses in a ring Him that yon soars on golden wing, Gently o'er th' accustomed oak; Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly, Most musical, most melancholy! Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among I woo, to hear thy even-song; And oft, as if her head she bow'd, Or the tale of Troy divine, Or call up him that left half told And of the wondrous horse of brass, side, In sage and solemn tunes have sung, ear. Thus Night oft see me in thy pale career, Till civil-suited Morn appear, Not trick'd and frounc'd as she was wont With the Attic boy to hunt, But kerchiefed in a comely cloud, eaves. And when the sun begins to fling His flaring beams, me, Goddess, bring To arched walks of twilight groves, And shadows brown that Sylvan loves Of pine, or monumental oak, Where the rude axe with heavèd stroke Was never heard the Nymphs to daunt, Or fright them from their hallow'd haunt. There in close covert by some brock, Entice the dewy-feather'd Sleep; And let some strange mysterious dream Wave at his wings in aery stream And as I wake, sweet music breathe Sent by some Spirit to mortals good, Dissolve me into ecstasies, And bring all heav'n before mine eyes. And may at last my weary age FROM THE BOTHIE OF TOBER NA VUOLICH. THERE is a stream, I name not its name, lest inquisitive tourist Hunt it, and make it a lion, and get it at last into guide-books, Springing far off from a loch unexplored in the folds of great mountains, Falling two miles through rowan and stunted alder, enveloped Then for four more in a forest of pine, where broad and ample Spreads, to convey it, the glen with heathery slopes on both sides: Broad and fair the stream, with occasional falls and narrows; But, where the glen of its course approaches the vale of the river, Met and blocked by a huge interposing mass of granite, Scarce by a channel deep-cut, raging up and raging onward, Forces its flood through a passage so narrow a lady would step it, There, across the great rocky wharves, a wooden bridge goes, Carrying a path to the forest; below, three hundred yards, say Lower in level some twenty-five feet, through flats of shingle, Stepping-stones and a cart-track cross in the open valley. But in the interval here the boiling, pent-up water Frees itself by a final descent, attaining a basin, Ten feet wide and eighteen long, with whiteness and fury Occupied partly, but mostly pellucid, pure, a mirror; Beautiful there for color derived from green rocks under; Beautiful, most of all, where beads of foam uprising Mingle their clouds of white with the delicate hue of the stillness. Cliff over cliff for its sides, with rowan and pendent birch-boughs, Here it lies, unthought of above at the bridge and pathway, Still more enclosed from below by wood and rocky projection. You are shut in, left alone with yourself and perfection of water, Hid on all sides, left alone with yourself and the goddess of bathing. Here, the pride of the plunger, you stride the fall and clear it; Here, the delight of the bather, you roll in beaded sparklings, Here into pure green depth drop down from lofty ledges. Hither, a month agone, they had come, and discovered it; hither (Long a design, but long unaccountably left unaccomplished), Leaving the well-known bridge and pathway above to the forest, Turning below from the track of the carts over stone and shingle, |