Which She is pleased and proud to call her own,
Witness how oft upon my noble Friend

Mute offerings, tribute from an inward sense
Of admiration and respectful love,

Have waited-till the affections could no more
Endure that silence, and broke out in song,
Snatches of music taken up and dropt
Like those self-solacing, those under, notes
Trilled by the redbreast, when autumnal leaves
Are thin upon the bough. Mine, only mine,
The pleasure was, and no one heard the praise,
Checked, in the moment of its issue, checked
And reprehended, by a fancied blush
From the pure qualities that called it forth.

Thus Virtue lives debarred from Virtue's meed; Thus, Lady, is retirèdness a veil

That, while it only spreads a softening charm
O'er features looked at by discerning eyes,
Hides half their beauty from the common gaze;
And thus, even on the exposed and breezy hill
Of lofty station, female goodness walks,
When side by side with lunar gentleness,
As in a cloister. Yet the grateful Poor
(Such the immunities of low estate,
Plain Nature's enviable privilege,

Her sacred recompence for many wants)
Open their hearts before Thee, pouring out

All that they think and feel, with tears of joy,

And benedictions not unheard in heaven:

And friend in the ear of friend, where speech is free

To follow truth, is eloquent as they.

Then let the Book receive in these prompt lines A just memorial; and thine eyes consent

To read that they who mark thy course behold
A life declining with the golden light

Of summer, in the season of sere leaves;
See cheerfulness undamped by stealing Time;
See studied kindness flow with easy stream.
Illustrated with inborn courtesy ;

And an habitual disregard of self
Balanced by vigilance for others' weal.

And shall the Verse not tell of lighter gifts
With these ennobling attributes conjoined
And blended, in peculiar harmony,

By Youth's surviving spirit? What agile grace!
A nymph-like liberty, in nymph-like form,
Beheld with wonder; whether floor or path

Thou tread; or sweep-borne on the managed steed-1
Fleet as the shadows, over down or field,

Driven by strong winds at play among the clouds.

Yet one word more-one farewell word—a wish
Which came, but it has passed into a prayer-
That, as thy sun in brightness is declining,
So at an hour yet distant for their sakes
Whose tender love, here faltering on the way
Of a diviner love, will be forgiven-

So may it set in peace, to rise again.
For everlasting glory won by faith.

1 1837.

Thou tread, or on the managed steed art borne,

1835.

1835.

Two Evening Voluntaries, two Elegies (on the deaths of Charles Lamb and James Hogg), the lines on the Bird of Paradise, and a few sonnets, make up the poems belonging to the year 1835.

[In the month of January,-when Dora and I were walking from Town-end, Grasmere, across the Vale, snow being on the ground, she espied, in the thick though leafless hedge, a bird's nest half filled with snow. Out of this comfortless appearance arose this Sonnet, which was, in fact, written without the least reference to any individual object, but merely to prove to myself that I could, if I thought fit, write in a strain that Poets have been fond of. On the 14th of February in the same year, my daughter, in a sportive mood, sent it as a Valentine, under a fictitious name, to her cousin C. W.]

WHY art thou silent? Is thy love a plant
Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air
Of absence withers what was once so fair?
Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant ?
Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant-
Bound to thy service with unceasing care,
The mind's least generous wish a mendicant
For nought but what thy happiness could spare.
Speak-though this soft warm heart, once free to hold
A thousand tender pleasures, thine and mine,

Be left more desolate, more dreary cold
Than a forsaken bird's-nest filled with snow

'Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine

Speak, that my torturing doubts their end may know!

TO THE MOON.

COMPOSED BY THE SEA-SIDE, ON THE COAST OF CUMBERLAND.

WANDERER! that stoop'st so low, and com'st so near
To human life's unsettled atmosphere;

Who lov'st with Night and Silence to partake,
So might it seem, the cares of them that wake;
And, through the cottage-lattice softly peeping,
Dost shield from harm the humblest of the sleeping;
What pleasure once encompassed those sweet names
Which yet in thy behalf the Poet claims,

An idolising dreamer as of yore !—

I slight them all; and, on this sea-beat shore

Sole-sitting, only can to thoughts attend

That bid me hail thee as the SAILOR'S FRIEND;

So call thee for heaven's grace through thee made known

By confidence supplied and mercy shown,

When not a twinkling star or beacon's light

Abates the perils of a stormy night;

And for less obvious benefits, that find

Their way, with thy pure help, to heart and mind;
Both for the adventurer starting in life's prime;
And veteran ranging round from clime to clime,
Long-baffled hope's slow fever in his veins,

And wounds and weakness oft his labour's sole remains.

The aspiring Mountains and the winding Streams,
Empress of Night! are gladdened by thy beams;
A look of thine the wilderness pervades,
And penetrates the forest's inmost shades;
Thou, chequering peaceably the minster's gloom,
Guid'st the pale Mourner to the lost one's tomb;

Canst reach the Prisoner-to his grated cell
Welcome, though silent and intangible !-
And lives there one, of all that come and go
On the great waters toiling to and fro,

One, who has watched thee at some quiet hour
Enthroned aloft in undisputed power,

Or crossed by vapoury streaks and clouds that move
Catching the lustre they in part reprove―

Nor sometimes felt a fitness in thy sway

To call up thoughts that shun the glare of day
And make the serious happier than the gay ?

Yes, lovely Moon! if thou so mildly bright
Dost rouse, yet surely in thy own despite,
To fiercer mood the phrenzy-stricken brain,
Let me a compensating faith maintain;
That there's a sensitive, a tender, part

Which thou canst touch in every human heart,
For healing and composure.-But, as least
And mightiest billows ever have confessed
Thy domination; as the whole vast Sea
Feels through her lowest depths thy sovereignty;
So shines that countenance with especial grace
On them who urge the keel her plains to trace
Furrowing its way right onward. The most rude,
Cut off from home and country, may have stood-
Even till long gazing hath bedimmed his eye,
Or the mute rapture ended in a sigh-
Touched by accordance of thy placid cheer,
With some internal lights to memory dear,
Or fancies stealing forth to soothe the breast
Tired with its daily share of earth's unrest,-
Gentle awakenings, visitations meek;