Not Fortune's slave is Man: our state
Enjoins, while firm resolves await
On wishes just and wise,
That strenuous action follow both,
And life be one perpetual growth
Of heaven-ward enterprise.

So taught, so trained, we boldly face
All accidents of time and place;

Whatever props may fail,
Trust in that sovereign law can spread
New glory o'er the mountain's head,
Fresh beauty through the vale.

That truth informing mind and heart, The simplest cottager may part,

Ungrieved, with charm and spell; And yet, lost Wishing-gate, to thee The voice of grateful memory Shall bid a kind farewell!

See Note at the end of the Volume.

; XLIII.

THE PRIMROSE OF THE ROCK.

[WRITTEN at Rydal Mount. The Rock stands on the right hand a little way leading up the middle road from Rydal to Grasmere. We have been in the habit of calling it the glow-worm rock from the number of glow-worms we have often seen hanging on it as described. The tuft of primrose has, I fear, been washed away by the heavy rains.]

A Rock there is whose homely front
The passing traveller slights;

Yet there the glow-worms hang their lamps,
Like stars, at various heights;

And one coy Primrose to that Rock
The vernal breeze invites.

What hideous warfare hath been waged,
What kingdoms overthrown,
Since first I spied that Primrose-tuft
And marked it for my own;
A lasting link in Nature's chain
From highest heaven let down!

The flowers, still faithful to the stems,
Their fellowship renew;

The stems are faithful to the root,
That worketh out of view;
And to the rock the root adheres
In every fibre true.

Close clings to earth the living rock,
Though threatening still to fall;
The earth is constant to her sphere;
And God upholds them all:
So blooms this lonely Plant, nor dreads
Her annual funeral.

Here closed the meditative strain;
But air breathed soft that day,
The hoary mountain-heights were cheered,
The sunny vale looked gay;
And to the Primrose of the Rock
I gave this after-lay.

I sang-Let myriads of bright flowers,
Like Thee, in field and grove
Revive unenvied; -mightier far,
Than tremblings that reprove
Our vernal tendencies to hope,
Is God's redeeming love;

That love which changed-for wan disease,
For sorrow that had bent

O'er hopeless dust, for withered age-
Their moral element,

And turned the thistles of a curse
To types beneficent.

Sin-blighted though we are, we too,
The reasoning Sons of Men,

From one oblivious winter called
Shall rise, and breathe again;
And in eternal summer lose
Our threescore years and ten.

To humbleness of heart descends
This prescience from on high,
The faith that elevates the just,
Before and when they die;
And makes each soul a separate heaven,
A court for Deity.

1831.

XLIV.

PRESENTIMENTS.

[WRITTEN at Rydal Mount.]

PRESENTIMENTS! they judge not right
Who deem that ye from open light
Retire in fear of shame;

All heaven-born Instincts shun the touch
Of vulgar sense, and, being such,
Such privilege ye claim.

The tear whose source I could not guess,
The deep sigh that seemed fatherless,

Were mine in early days;
And now, unforced by time to part
With fancy, I obey my heart,

And venture on your praise.

What though some busy foes to good,
Too potent over nerve and blood,
Lurk near you-and combine
To taint the health which ye infuse;
This hides not from the moral Muse
Your origin divine.

How oft from you, derided Powers!
Comes Faith that in auspicious hours
Builds castles, not of air:
Bodings unsanctioned by the will
Flow from your visionary skill,
And teach us to beware.

The bosom-weight, your stubborn gift,
That no philosophy can lift,

Shall vanish, if ye please,
Like morning mist: and, where it lay,
The spirits at your bidding play
In gaiety and ease.

Star-guided contemplations move
Through space, though calm, not raised above

Prognostics that ye rule;

The naked Indian of the wild,

And haply, too, the cradled Child,
Are pupils of your school..

But who can fathom your intents,
Number their signs or instruments ?
A rainbow, a sunbeam,
A subtle smell that Spring unbinds,
Dead pause abrupt of midnight winds,
An echo, or a dream.