Fair scenes for childhood's opening bloom,
For sportive youth to stray in,
For manhood to enjoy his strength, And age to wear away in!
Yon cottage seems a bower of bliss, A covert for protection
Of tender thoughts, that nestle there— The brood of chaste affection.
How sweet on this autumnal day The wild-wood fruits to gather, And on my true-love's forehead plant A crest of blooming heather!
And what if I enwreathed my own? "Twere no offence to reason;
The sober hills thus deck their brows To meet the wintry season.
I see but not by sight alone, Loved Yarrow, have I won thee; A ray of Fancy still survives- Her sunshine plays upon thee! Thy ever-youthful waters keep A course of lively pleasure;
And gladsome notes my lips can breathe Accordant to the measure.
The vapours linger round the heights, They melt, and soon must vanish; One hour is theirs, nor more is mine- Sad thought! which I would banish, But that I know, where'er I go, Thy genuine image, Yarrow! Will dwell with me-to heighten joy, And cheer my mind in sorrow.
THE INVITATION
Best and brightest, come away, Fairer far than this fair day, Which, like thee, to those in sorrow Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow To the rough year just awake In its cradle on the brake.
The brightest hour of unborn Spring Through the Winter wandering, Found, it seems, the halcyon morn To hoar February born;
Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth, It kiss'd the forehead of the earth, And smiled upon the silent sea,
And bade the frozen streams be free, And waked to music all their fountains, And breathed upon the frozen mountains, And like a prophetess of May
Strew'd flowers upon the barren way, Making the wintry world appear Like one on whom thou smilest, dear.
Away, away, from men and towns, To the wild wood and the downs- To the silent wilderness Where the soul need not repress Its music, lest it should not find An echo in another's mind, While the touch of Nature's art Harmonizes heart to heart.
Radiant Sister of the Day Awake! arise! and come away! To the wild woods and the plains, To the pools where winter rains Image all their roof of leaves, Where the pine its garland weaves
Of sapless green, and ivy dun, Round stems that never kiss the sun, Where the lawns and pastures be And the sandhills of the sea, Where the melting hoar-frost wet The daisy-star that never sets, And wind-flowers and violets Which yet join not scent to hue Crown the pale year weak and new ; When the night is left behind In the deep east, dim and blind, And the blue noon is over us, And the multitudinous Billows murmur at our feet, Where the earth and ocean meet, And all things seem only one
In the universal Sun.
THE RECOLLECTION
Now the last day of many days All beautiful and bright as thou, The loveliest and the last, is dead, Rise, Memory, and write its praise ! Up, to thy wonted work! come, trace The epitaph of glory fled,
For now the Earth has changed its face, A frown is on the Heaven's brow.
We wander'd to the Pine Forest That skirts the Ocean's foam; The lightest wind was in its nest, The tempest in its home.
The whispering waves were half asleep, The clouds were gone to play,
And on the bosom of the deep
The smile of Heaven lay;
It seem'd as if the hour were one Sent from beyond the skies Which scatter'd from above the sun A light of Paradise!
We paused amid the pines that stood The giants of the waste,
Tortured by storms to shapes as rude As serpents interlaced,-
And soothed by every azure breath That under heaven is blown To harmonies and hues beneath, As tender as its own:
Now all the tree-tops lay asleep
Like green waves on the sea, As still as in the silent deep The ocean-woods may be.
How calm it was !-the silence there By such a chain was bound, That even the busy woodpecker Made stiller by her sound The inviolable quietness;
The breath of peace we drew With its soft motion made not less The calm that round us grew. There seem'd from the remotest seat Of the white mountain waste To the soft flower beneath our feet, A magic circle traced,-
A spirit interfused around,
A thrilling silent life;
To momentary peace it bound
Our mortal nature's strife ;
And still I felt the centre of
The magic circle there
Was one fair form that fill'd with love
The lifeless atmosphere.
We paused beside the pools that lie
Under the forest bough;
Each seem'd as 'twere a little sky Gulf'd in a world below; A firmament of purple light Which in the dark earth lay, More boundless than the depth of night And purer than the day—
In which the lovely forests grew As in the upper air,
More perfect both in shape and hue Than any spreading there.
There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn, And through the dark green wood
The white sun twinkling like the dawn
Out of a speckled cloud.
Sweet views which in our world above
Can never well be seen
Were imaged by the water's love
Of that fair forest green : And all was interfused beneath With an Elysian glow,
An atmosphere without a breath, A softer day below.
Like one beloved, the scene had lent To the dark water's breast
Its every leaf and lineament
With more than truth exprest; Until an envious wind crept by,
Like an unwelcome thought
Which from the mind's too faithful eye Blots one dear image out.
-Though thou art ever fair and kind, The forests ever green,
Less oft is peace in Shelley's mind
Than calm in waters seen!
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