Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Volume 2

SONG

FOR THE WANDERING JEW

  Though the torrents from their fountains  Roar down many a craggy steep,  Yet they find among the mountains  Resting-places calm and deep.  Though almost with eagle pinion  O'er the rocks the Chamois roam.  Yet he has some small dominion  Which no doubt he calls his home.  If on windy days the Raven  Gambol like a dancing skiff,  Not the less he loves his haven  On the bosom of the cliff.  Though the Sea-horse in the ocean  Own no dear domestic cave;  Yet he slumbers without motion  On the calm and silent wave.  Day and night my toils redouble!  Never nearer to the goal,  Night and day, I feel the trouble,  Of the Wanderer in my soul.

RUTH

  When Ruth was left half desolate,  Her Father took another Mate;  And so, not seven years old,  The slighted Child at her own will  Went wandering over dale and hill  In thoughtless freedom bold.  And she had made a pipe of straw  And from that oaten pipe could draw  All sounds of winds and floods;  Had built a bower upon the green,  As if she from her birth had been  An Infant of the woods.  There came a Youth from Georgia's shore,  A military Casque he wore  With splendid feathers drest;  He brought them from the Cherokees;  The feathers nodded in the breeze  And made a gallant crest.  From Indian blood you deem him sprung:  Ah no! he spake the English tongue  And bare a Soldier's name;  And when America was free  From battle and from jeopardy  He cross the ocean came.  With hues of genius on his cheek  In finest tones the Youth could speak.  – While he was yet a Boy  The moon, the glory of the sun,  And streams that murmur as they run  Had been his dearest joy.  He was a lovely Youth! I guess  The panther in the wilderness  Was not so fair as he;  And when he chose to sport and play,  No dolphin ever was so gay  Upon the tropic sea.  Among the Indians he had fought,  And with him many tales he brought  Of pleasure and of fear,  Such tales as told to any Maid  By such a Youth in the green shade  Were perilous to hear.  He told of Girls, a happy rout,  Who quit their fold with dance and shout  Their pleasant Indian Town  To gather strawberries all day long,  Returning with a choral song  When day-light is gone down.  He spake of plants divine and strange  That ev'ry day their blossoms change,  Ten thousand lovely hues!  With budding, fading, faded flowers  They stand the wonder of the bowers  From morn to evening dews.  He told of the Magnolia,6 spread  High as a cloud, high over head!  The Cypress and her spire,  Of flowers that with one scarlet gleam7  Cover a hundred leagues and seem  To set the hills on fire.  The Youth of green Savannahs spake,  And many an endless endless lake  With all its fairy crowds  Of islands that together lie  As quietly as spots of sky  Among the evening clouds:  And then he said "How sweet it were  A fisher or a hunter there,  A gardener in the shade,  Still wandering with an easy mind  To build a household fire and find  A home in every glade."  "What days and what sweet years! Ah me!  Our life were life indeed, with thee  So pass'd in quiet bliss,  And all the while" said he "to know  That we were in a world of woe.  On such an earth as this!"  And then he sometimes interwove  Dear thoughts about a Father's love,  "For there," said he, "are spun  Around the heart such tender ties  That our own children to our eyes  Are dearer than the sun."  Sweet Ruth! and could you go with me  My helpmate in the woods to be,  Our shed at night to rear;  Or run, my own adopted bride,  A sylvan huntress at my side  And drive the flying deer.  "Beloved Ruth!" No more he said  Sweet Ruth alone at midnight shed  A solitary tear,  She thought again – and did agree  With him to sail across the sea,  And drive the flying deer.  "And now, as fitting is and right,  We in the Church our faith will plight,  A Husband and a Wife."  Even so they did; and I may say  That to sweet Ruth that happy day  Was more than human life.  Through dream and vision did she sink,  Delighted all the while to think  That on those lonesome floods  And green Savannahs she should share  His board with lawful joy, and bear  His name in the wild woods.  But, as you have before been told,  This Stripling, sportive gay and bold,  And, with his dancing crest,  So beautiful, through savage lands  Had roam'd about with vagrant bands  Of Indians in the West.  The wind, the tempest roaring high,  The tumult of a tropic sky  Might well be dangerous food.  For him, a Youth to whom was given  So much of earth so much of Heaven,  And such impetuous blood.  Whatever in those climes he found  Irregular in sight or sound  Did to his mind impart  A kindred impulse, seem'd allied  To his own powers, and justified  The workings of his heart.  Nor less to feed voluptuous thought  The beauteous forms of Nature wrought,  Fair trees and lovely flowers;  The breezes their own languor lent,  The stars had feelings which they sent  Into those magic bowers.  Yet, in his worst pursuits, I ween,  That sometimes there did intervene  Pure hopes of high intent:  For passions link'd to forms so fair  And stately, needs must have their share  Of noble sentiment.  But ill he liv'd, much evil saw  With men to whom no better law  Nor better life was known;  Deliberately and undeceiv'd  Those wild men's vices he receiv'd,  And gave them back his own.  His genius and his moral frame  Were thus impair'd, and he became  The slave of low desires;  A man who without self-controul  Would seek what the degraded soul  Unworthily admires.  And yet he with no feign'd delight  Had woo'd the Maiden, day and night  Had luv'd her, night and morn;  What could he less than love a Maid  Whose heart with so much nature play'd  So kind and so forlorn?  But now the pleasant dream was gone,  No hope, no wish remain'd, not one,  They stirr'd him now no more,  New objects did new pleasure give,  And once again he wish'd to live  As lawless as before.  Meanwhile as thus with him it fared.  They for the voyage were prepared  And went to the sea-shore,  But, when they thither came, the Youth  Deserted his poor Bride, and Ruth  Could never find him more.  "God help thee Ruth!" – Such pains she had  That she in half a year was mad  And in a prison hous'd,  And there, exulting in her wrongs,  Among the music of her songs  She fearfully carouz'd.  Yet sometimes milder hours she knew,  Nor wanted sun, nor rain, nor dew,  Nor pastimes of the May,  They all were with her in her cell,  And a wild brook with chearful knell  Did o'er the pebbles play.  When Ruth three seasons thus had lain  There came a respite to her pain,  She from her prison fled;  But of the Vagrant none took thought,  And where it liked her best she sought  Her shelter and her bread.  Among the fields she breath'd again:  The master-current of her brain  Ran permanent and free,  And to the pleasant Banks of Tone8  She took her way, to dwell alone  Under the greenwood tree.  The engines of her grief, the tools  That shap'd her sorrow, rocks and pools,  And airs that gently stir  The vernal leaves, she loved them still,  Nor ever tax'd them with the ill  Which had been done to her.  A Barn her winter bed supplies,  But till the warmth of summer skies  And summer days is gone,  (And in this tale we all agree)  She sleeps beneath the greenwood tree,  And other home hath none.  If she is press'd by want of food  She from her dwelling in the wood  Repairs to a road side,  And there she begs at one steep place,  Where up and down with easy pace  The horsemen-travellers ride.  That oaten pipe of hers is mute  Or thrown away, but with a flute  Her loneliness she cheers;  This flute made of a hemlock stalk  At evening in his homeward walk  The Quantock Woodman hears.  I, too have pass'd her on the hills  Setting her little water-mills  By spouts and fountains wild,  Such small machinery as she turn'd  Ere she had wept, ere she had mourn'd  A young and happy Child!  Farewel! and when thy days are told  Ill-fated Ruth! in hallow'd mold  Thy corpse shall buried be,  For thee a funeral bell shall ring,  And all the congregation sing  A Christian psalm for thee.

LINES

Written with a Slate-pencil upon a Stone, the largest of a heap lying near a deserted Quarry, upon one of the Islands at Rydale

  Stranger! this hillock of mishapen stones  Is not a ruin of the ancient time,  Nor, as perchance thou rashly deem'st, the Cairn  Of some old British Chief: 'tis nothing more  Than the rude embryo of a little dome  Or pleasure-house, which was to have been built  Among the birch-trees of this rocky isle.  But, as it chanc'd, Sir William having learn'd  That from the shore a full-grown man might wade,  And make himself a freeman of this spot  At any hour he chose, the Knight forthwith  Desisted, and the quarry and the mound  Are monuments of his unfinish'd task. —  The block on which these lines are trac'd, perhaps,  Was once selected as the corner-stone  Of the intended pile, which would have been  Some quaint odd play-thing of elaborate skill,  So that, I guess, the linnet and the thrush,  And other little builders who dwell here,  Had wonder'd at the work. But blame him not,  For old Sir William was a gentle Knight  Bred in this vale to which he appertain'd  With all his ancestry. Then peace to him  And for the outrage which he had devis'd  Entire forgiveness. – But if thou art one  On fire with thy impatience to become  An Inmate of these mountains, if disturb'd  By beautiful conceptions, thou hast hewn  Out of the quiet rock the elements  Of thy trim mansion destin'd soon to blaze  In snow-white splendour, think again, and taught  By old Sir William and his quarry, leave  Thy fragments to the bramble and the rose,  There let the vernal slow-worm sun himself,  And let the red-breast hop from stone to stone.

In the School of – is a tablet on which are inscribed, in gilt letters, the names of the federal persons who have been Schoolmasters there since the foundation of the School, with the time at which they entered upon and quitted their office. Opposite one of those names the Author wrote the following lines.

  If Nature, for a favorite Child  In thee hath temper'd so her clay,  That every hour thy heart runs wild  Yet never once doth go astray,  Read o'er these lines; and then review  This tablet, that thus humbly rears  In such diversity of hue  Its history of two hundred years.  – When through this little wreck of fame,  Cypher and syllable, thine eye  Has travell'd down to Matthew's name,  Pause with no common sympathy.  And if a sleeping tear should wake  Then be it neither check'd nor stay'd:  For Matthew a request I make  Which for himself he had not made.  Poor Matthew, all his frolics o'er,  Is silent as a standing pool,  Far from the chimney's merry roar,  And murmur of the village school.  The sighs which Matthew heav'd were sighs  Of one tir'd out with fun and madness;  The tears which came to Matthew's eyes  Were tears of light, the oil of gladness.  Yet sometimes when the secret cup  Of still and serious thought went round  It seem'd as if he drank it up,  He felt with spirit so profound.  – Thou soul of God's best earthly mould,  Thou happy soul, and can it be  That these two words of glittering gold  Are all that must remain of thee?

The Two April Mornings

  We walk'd along, while bright and red  Uprose the morning sun,  And Matthew stopp'd, he look'd, and said,  "The will of God be done!"  A village Schoolmaster was he,  With hair of glittering grey;  As blithe a man as you could see  On a spring holiday.  And on that morning, through the grass,  And by the steaming rills,  We travell'd merrily to pass  A day among the hills.  "Our work," said I, "was well begun;  Then, from thy breast what thought,  Beneath so beautiful a sun,  So sad a sigh has brought?"  A second time did Matthew stop,  And fixing still his eye  Upon the eastern mountain-top  To me he made reply.  Yon cloud with that long purple cleft  Brings fresh into my mind  A day like this which I have left  Full thirty years behind.  And on that slope of springing corn  The self-same crimson hue  Fell from the sky that April morn,  The same which now I view!  With rod and line my silent sport  I plied by Derwent's wave,  And, coming to the church, stopp'd short  Beside my Daughter's grave.  Nine summers had she scarcely seen  The pride of all the vale;  And then she sang! – she would have been  A very nightingale.  Six feet in earth my Emma lay,  And yet I lov'd her more,  For so it seem'd, than till that day  I e'er had lov'd before.  And, turning from her grave, I met  Beside the church-yard Yew  A blooming Girl, whose hair was wet  With points of morning dew.

The FOUNTAIN,

A Conversation

  We talk'd with open heart, and tongue  Affectionate and true,  A pair of Friends, though I was young,  And Matthew seventy-two.  We lay beneath a spreading oak,  Beside a mossy seat,  And from the turf a fountain broke,  And gurgled at our feet.  Now, Matthew, let us try to match  This water's pleasant tune  With some old Border-song, or catch  That suits a summer's noon.  Or of the Church-clock and the chimes  Sing here beneath the shade,  That half-mad thing of witty rhymes  Which you last April made!  On silence Matthew lay, and eyed  The spring beneath the tree;  And thus the dear old Man replied,  The grey-hair'd Man of glee.  "Down to the vale this water steers,  How merrily it goes!  Twill murmur on a thousand years,  And flow as now it flows."  And here, on this delightful day,  I cannot chuse but think  How oft, a vigorous Man, I lay  Beside this Fountain's brink.  My eyes are dim with childish tears.  My heart is idly stirr'd,  For the same sound is in my ears,  Which in those days I heard.  Thus fares it still in our decay:  And yet the wiser mind  Mourns less for what age takes away  Than what it leaves behind.  The blackbird in the summer trees,  The lark upon the hill,  Let loose their carols when they please,  Are quiet when they will.  With Nature never do they wage  A foolish strife; they see  A happy youth, and their old age  Is beautiful and free:  But we are press'd by heavy laws,  And often, glad no more,  We wear a face of joy, because  We have been glad of yore.  If there is one who need bemoan  His kindred laid in earth,  The houshold hearts that were his own,  It is the man of mirth.  "My days, my Friend, are almost gone,  My life has been approv'd,  And many love me, but by none  Am I enough belov'd."  "Now both himself and me he wrongs,  The man who thus complains!  I live and sing my idle songs  Upon these happy plains,"  "And, Matthew, for thy Children dead  I'll be a son to thee!"  At this he grasp'd his hands, and said,  "Alas! that cannot be."  We rose up from the fountain-side,  And down the smooth descent  Of the green sheep-track did we glide,  And through the wood we went,  And, ere we came to Leonard's Rock,  He sang those witty rhymes  About the crazy old church-clock  And the bewilder'd chimes.

NUTTING

  – It seems a day,  One of those heavenly days which cannot die,  When forth I sallied from our cottage-door,9  And with a wallet o'er my shoulder slung,  A nutting crook in hand, I turn'd my steps  Towards the distant woods, a Figure quaint,  Trick'd out in proud disguise of Beggar's weeds  Put on for the occasion, by advice  And exhortation of my frugal Dame.  Motley accoutrements! of power to smile  At thorns, and brakes, and brambles, and, in truth,  More ragged than need was. Among the woods,  And o'er the pathless rocks, I forc'd my way  Until, at length, I came to one dear nook  Unvisited, where not a broken bough  Droop'd with its wither'd leaves, ungracious sign  Of devastation, but the hazels rose  Tall and erect, with milk-white clusters hung,  A virgin scene! – A little while I stood,  Breathing with such suppression of the heart  As joy delights in; and with wise restraint  Voluptuous, fearless of a rival, eyed  The banquet, or beneath the trees I sate  Among the flowers, and with the flowers I play'd;  A temper known to those, who, after long  And weary expectation, have been bless'd  With sudden happiness beyond all hope. —  – Perhaps it was a bower beneath whose leaves  The violets of five seasons re-appear  And fade, unseen by any human eye,  Where fairy water-breaks do murmur on  For ever, and I saw the sparkling foam,  And with my cheek on one of those green stones  That, fleec'd with moss, beneath the shady trees,  Lay round me scatter'd like a flock of sheep,  I heard the murmur and the murmuring sound,  In that sweet mood when pleasure loves to pay  Tribute to ease, and, of its joy secure  The heart luxuriates with indifferent things,  Wasting its kindliness on stocks and stones,  And on the vacant air. Then up I rose,  And dragg'd to earth both branch and bough, with crash  And merciless ravage; and the shady nook  Of hazels, and the green and mossy bower  Deform'd and sullied, patiently gave up  Their quiet being: and unless I now  Confound my present feelings with the past,  Even then, when, from the bower I turn'd away,  Exulting, rich beyond the wealth of kings  I felt a sense of pain when I beheld  The silent trees and the intruding sky. —  Then, dearest Maiden! move along these shades  In gentleness of heart with gentle hand  Touch, – for there is a Spirit in the woods.

Three years she grew in sun and shower, &c

Three years she grew in sun and shower,  Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower  On earth was never sown;  This Child I to myself will take,  She shall be mine, and I will make  A Lady of my own."  Myself will to my darling be  Both law and impulse, and with me  The Girl in rock and plain,  In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,  Shall feel an overseeing power  To kindle or restrain.  She shall be sportive as the fawn  That wild with glee across the lawn  Or up the mountain springs,  And hers shall be the breathing balm,  And hers the silence and the calm  Of mute insensate things.  The floating clouds their state shall lend  To her, for her the willow bend,  Nor shall she fail to see  Even in the motions of the storm  A beauty that shall mould her form  By silent sympathy.  The stars of midnight shall be dear  To her, and she shall lean her ear  In many a secret place  Where rivulets dance their wayward round,  And beauty born of murmuring sound  Shall pass into her face.  And vital feelings of delight  Shall rear her form to stately height,  Her virgin bosom swell,  Such thoughts to Lucy I will give  While she and I together live  Here in this happy dell.  Thus Nature spake – The work was done —  How soon my Lucy's race was run!  She died and left to me  This heath, this calm and quiet scene,  The memory of what has been,  And never more will be.

The Pet-Lamb, A Pastoral

  The dew was falling fast, the stars began to blink;  I heard a voice, it said, Drink, pretty Creature, drink!  And, looking o'er the hedge, before me I espied;  A snow-white mountain Lamb with a Maiden at its side.  No other sheep were near, the Lamb was all alone,  And by a slender cord was tether'd to a stone;  With one knee on the grass did the little Maiden kneel,  While to that Mountain Lamb she gave its evening meal.  The Lamb while from her hand he thus his supper took  Seem'd to feast with head and ears, and his tail with pleasure shook.  "Drink, pretty Creature, drink," she said in such a tone  That I almost receiv'd her heart into my own.  'Twas little Barbara Lewthwaite, a Child of beauty rare;  I watch'd them with delight, they were a lovely pair.  And now with empty Can the Maiden turn'd away,  But ere ten yards were gone her footsteps did she stay.  Towards the Lamb she look'd, and from that shady place  I unobserv'd could see the workings of her face:  If Nature to her tongue could measur'd numbers bring  Thus, thought I, to her Lamb that little Maid would sing.  What ails thee, Young One? What? Why pull so at thy cord?  Is it not well with thee? Well both for bed and board?  Thy plot of grass is soft, and green as grass can be.  Rest little Young One, rest; what is't that aileth thee?  What is it thou would'st seek? What is wanting to thy heart?  Thy limbs are they not strong? And beautiful thou art:  This grass is tender grass, these flowers they have no peer,  And that green corn all day is rustling in thy ears.  If the Sun is shining hot, do but stretch thy woollen chain,  This beech is standing by, its covert thou can'st gain,  For rain and mountain storms the like thou need'st not fear,  The rain and storm are things which scarcely can come here.  Rest, little Young One, rest; thou hast forgot the day  When my Father found thee first in places far away:  Many flocks are on the hills, but thou wert own'd by none,  And thy Mother from thy side for evermore was gone.  He took thee in his arms, and in pity brought thee home,  A blessed day for thee! then whither would'st thou roam?  A faithful nurse thou hast, the dam that did thee yean  Upon the mountain tops no kinder could have been.  Thou know'st that twice a day I have brought thee in this Can  Fresh water from the brook as clear as ever ran;  And twice in the day when the ground is wet with dew  I bring thee draughts of milk, warm milk it is and new.  Thy limbs will shortly be twice as stout as they are now,  Then I'll yoke thee to my cart like a pony in the plough,  My playmate thou shalt be, and when the wind is cold  Our hearth shall be thy bed, our house shall be thy fold.  It will not, will not rest! – poor Creature can it be  That 'tis thy Mother's heart which is working so in thee?  Things that I know not of belike to thee are dear,  And dreams of things which thou can'st neither see nor hear.  Alas, the mountain tops that look so green and fair!  I've heard of fearful winds and darkness that come there,  The little brooks, that seem all pastime and all play,  When they are angry, roar like lions for their prey.  Here thou needst not dread the raven in the sky,  He will not come to thee, our Cottage is hard by,  Night and day thou art safe as living thing can be,  Be happy then and rest, what is't that aileth thee?  As homeward through the lane I went with lazy feet,  This song to myself did I oftentimes repeat,  And it seem'd as I retrac'd the ballad line by line  That but half of it was hers, and one half of it was mine.  Again, and once again did I repeat the song,  "Nay" said I, "more than half to the Damsel must belong,  For she look'd with such a look, and she spake with such a tone,  That I almost receiv'd her heart into my own."

Written in GERMANY,

On one of the coldest days of the Century

I must apprize the Reader that the stoves in North Germany generally have the impression of a galloping Horse upon them, this being part of the Brunswick Arms.

  A fig for your languages, German and Norse,  Let me have the song of the Kettle,  And the tongs and the poker, instead of that horse  That gallops away with such fury and force  On this dreary dull plate of black metal.  Our earth is no doubt made of excellent stuff,  But her pulses beat slower and slower.  The weather in Forty was cutting and rough,  And then, as Heaven knows, the glass stood low enough,  And now it is four degrees lower.  Here's a Fly, a disconsolate creature, perhaps  A child of the field, or the grove,  And sorrow for him! this dull treacherous heat  Has seduc'd the poor fool from his winter retreat,  And he creeps to the edge of my stove.  Alas! how he fumbles about the domains  Which this comfortless oven environ,  He cannot find out in what track he must crawl  Now back to the tiles, and now back to the hall,  And now on the brink of the iron.  Stock-still there he stands like a traveller bemaz'd,  The best of his skill he has tried;  His feelers methinks I can see him put forth  To the East and the West, and the South and the North,  But he finds neither guide-post nor guide.  See! his spindles sink under him, foot, leg and thigh,  His eyesight and hearing are lost,  Between life and death his blood freezes and thaws,  And his two pretty pinions of blue dusky gauze  Are glued to his sides by the frost.  No Brother, no Friend has he near him, while I  Can draw warmth from the cheek of my Love,  As blest and as glad in this desolate gloom,  As if green summer grass were the floor of my room,  And woodbines were hanging above.  Yet, God is my witness, thou small helpless Thing,  Thy life I would gladly sustain  Till summer comes up from the South, and with crowds  Of thy brethren a march thou should'st sound through the clouds,  And back to the forests again.

The CHILDLESS FATHER

  Up, Timothy, up with your Staff and away!  Not a soul in the village this morning will stay;  The Hare has just started from Hamilton's grounds,  And Skiddaw is glad with the cry of the hounds.  – Of coats and of jackets both grey, scarlet, and green,  On the slopes of the pastures all colours were seen,  With their comely blue aprons and caps white as snow,  The girls on the hills made a holiday show.  The bason of box-wood,10 just six months before,  Had stood on the table at Timothy's door,  A Coffin through Timothy's threshold had pass'd,  One Child did it bear and that Child was his last.  Now fast up the dell came the noise and the fray,  The horse and the horn, and the hark! hark! away!  Old Timothy took up his Staff, and he shut  With a leisurely motion the door of his hut.  Perhaps to himself at that moment he said,  "The key I must take, for my Ellen is dead"  But of this in my ears not a word did he speak,  And he went to the chase with a tear on his cheek.