335 TO THE CUCKOO O BLITHE New-comer! I have heard, O Cuckoo ! shall I call thee Bird, While I am lying on the grass Thy twofold shout I hear : From hill to hill it seems to pass, Though babbling only to the Vale Thou bringest unto me a tale Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring! No bird, but an invisible thing, A voice, a mystery: The same whom in my schoolboy days Which made me look a thousand ways To seek thee did I often rove And I can listen to thee yet; Can lie upon the plain That golden time again. O blessed Bird! the earth we pace Again appears to be An unsubstantial, faery place: That is fit home for thee! William Wordsworth. SHE was a Phantom of delight When first she gleamed upon my sight; To be a moment's ornament; I saw her upon nearer view, A countenance in which did meet Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles. And now I see with eyes serene A traveller between life and death; William Wordsworth. 337 ODE THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight, To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore : Turn wheresoe'er I may, By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more. The Rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the Rose; The Moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare: Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair; The Sunshine is a glorious birth; But yet I know, where'er I go, That there hath passed away a glory from the earth. Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, And while the young lambs bound As to the tabor's sound, To me alone there came a thought of grief: The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep : Land and Sea Give themselves up to jollity, And with the heart of May Doth every Beast keep holiday; Thou Child of Joy, Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Shepherd-boy! Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call Ye to each other make; I see The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee ; My heart is at your festival, My head hath its coronal, The fulness of your bliss, I feel-I feel it all, O evil day! if I were sullen While Earth herself is adorning, This sweet May-morning, And the children are culling On every side, In a thousand valleys far and wide, Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm, And the Babe leaps up on his mother's arm :I hear, I hear, with joy I hear ! -But there's a Tree, of many, one, A single Field which I have looked upon, Doth the same tale repeat: Whither is fled the visionary gleam? Where is it now, the glory and the dream? Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: And cometh from afar : Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing Boy, But He beholds the light, and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy; The Youth, who daily further from the east Must travel, still is Nature's Priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended; At length the Man perceives it die away, Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own; The homely Nurse doth all she can To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man, And that imperial palace whence he came. Behold the Child among his new-born blisses, A wedding or a festival, A mourning or a funeral; And this hath now his heart, And unto this he frames his song: Then will he fit his tongue To dialogues of business, love, or strife: Ere this be thrown aside, And with new joy and pride The little Actor cons another part; Filling from time to time his humorous stage Were endless imitation. Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep On whom those truths do rest, Which we are toiling all our lives to find, Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight, O joy! that in our embers Is something that doth live, That nature yet remembers What was so fugitive! The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction: not indeed For that which is most worthy to be blest; Delight and liberty, the simple creed Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest, |