The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth — Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 540 pages of information about The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth — Volume 1.

  But doubly pitying Nature loves to show’r
  Soft on his wounded heart her healing pow’r,
  Who plods o’er hills and vales his road forlorn, 15
  Wooing her varying charms from eve to morn. 
  No sad vacuities his heart annoy,
  Blows not a Zephyr but it whispers joy;
  For him lost flowers their idle sweets exhale;
  He tastes the meanest note that swells the gale; 20
  For him sod-seats the cottage-door adorn,
  And peeps the far-off spire, his evening bourn! 
  Dear is the forest frowning o’er his head,
  And dear the green-sward to his velvet tread;
  Moves there a cloud o’er mid-day’s flaming eye? 25
  Upward he looks—­and calls it luxury;
  Kind Nature’s charities his steps attend,
  In every babbling brook he finds a friend,
  While chast’ning thoughts of sweetest use, bestow’d
  By Wisdom, moralize his pensive road. 30
  Host of his welcome inn, the noon-tide bow’r,
  To his spare meal he calls the passing poor;
  He views the Sun uprear his golden fire,
  Or sink, with heart alive like [B] Memnon’s lyre;
  Blesses the Moon that comes with kindest ray 35
  To light him shaken by his viewless way. 
  With bashful fear no cottage children steal
  From him, a brother at the cottage meal,
  His humble looks no shy restraint impart,
  Around him plays at will the virgin heart. 40
  While unsuspended wheels the village dance,
  The maidens eye him with inquiring glance,
  Much wondering what sad stroke of crazing Care
  Or desperate Love could lead a wanderer there.

Me, lur’d by hope her sorrows to remove, 45 A heart, that could not much itself approve, O’er Gallia’s wastes of corn dejected led, [C] Her road elms rustling thin above my head, Or through her truant pathway’s native charms, By secret villages and lonely farms, 50 To where the Alps, ascending white in air, Toy with the Sun, and glitter from afar.

  Ev’n now I sigh at hoary Chartreuse’ doom
  Weeping beneath his chill of mountain gloom. 
  Where now is fled that Power whose frown severe 55
  Tam’d “sober Reason” till she crouch’d in fear? 
  That breath’d a death-like peace these woods around
  Broke only by th’ unvaried torrent’s sound,
  Or prayer-bell by the dull cicada drown’d. 
  The cloister startles at the gleam of arms, 60
  And Blasphemy the shuddering fane alarms;
  Nod the cloud-piercing pines their troubl’d heads,
  Spires, rocks, and lawns, a browner night o’erspreads. 
  Strong terror checks the female peasant’s sighs,
  And start th’ astonish’d shades at female eyes. 65
  The thundering tube the aged angler hears,
  And swells the groaning torrent with his

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Project Gutenberg
The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth — Volume 1 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.