His very feet bright as the dazzling snow
Which they are touching; yea far brighter, even As that which comes, or seems to come, from heaven, Surpasses aught these elements can show.
Much she rejoiced, trusting that from that hour Whate'er befel she could not grieve or pine; But the Transfigured, in and out of season, Appeared, and spiritual presence gained a power Over material forms that mastered reason. O, gracious Heaven, in pity make her thine!
But why that prayer? as if to her could come No good but by the way that leads to bliss Through Death, so judging we should judge amiss. Since reason failed want is her threatened doom, Yet frequent transports mitigate the gloom: Nor of those maniacs is she one that kiss
The air or laugh upon a precipice;
No, passing through strange sufferings towards the tomb
She smiles as if a martyr's crown were won:
Oft, when light breaks through clouds or waving trees,
With outspread arms and fallen upon her knees
The Mother hails in her descending Son
An Angel, and in earthly ecstacies
Her own angelic glory seems begun.
[These verses were suggested while I was walking on the foot-road between Rydal Mount and Grasmere. The clouds were driving over the top of Nab-Scar across the vale: they set my thoughts a-going, and the rest followed almost immediately.]
ARMY of Clouds! ye wingèd Host in troops Ascending from behind the motionless brow Of that tall rock,† as from a hidden world, O whither with1 such eagerness of speed? What seek ye, or what shun ye? of the gale2 Companions, fear ye to be left behind, Or racing o'er3 your blue ethereal field Contend ye with each other? of the sea Children, thus post ye over vale and height 4 To sink upon your mother's lap-and rest ?5 Or were ye rightlier hailed, when first mine eyes
* The title in the edition of 1842 was Address to the Clouds.-ED.
+ See the Fenwick note.-ED.
Beheld in your impetuous march the likeness Of a wide army pressing on to meet Or overtake some unknown enemy?— But your smooth motions suit a peaceful aim; And Fancy, not less aptly pleased, compares Your squadrons to an endless flight of birds Aerial, upon due migration bound
To milder climes; or rather do ye urge In caravan your hasty pilgrimage
To pause at last on more aspiring heights Than these, and utter your devotion there With thunderous voice? Or are ye jubilant, And would ye, tracking your proud lord the Sun, Be present at his setting; or the pomp
Of Persian mornings would ye fill, and stand Poising your splendours high above the heads. Of worshippers kneeling to their up-risen God? Whence, whence, ye Clouds! this eagerness of speed? Speak, silent creatures.-They are gone, are fled, Buried together in yon gloomy mass
That loads the middle heaven; and clear and bright And vacant doth the region which they thronged Appear; a calm descent of sky conducting Down to the unapproachable abyss,
Down to that hidden gulf from which they rose. To vanish-fleet as days and months and years, Fleet as the generations of mankind,
Power, glory, empire, as the world itself,
The lingering world, when time hath ceased to be. But the winds roar, shaking the rooted trees, And see a bright precursor to a train Perchance as numerous, overpeers the rock That sullenly refuses to partake
Of the wild impulse. From a fount of life
Invisible, the long procession moves Luminous or gloomy, welcome to the vale Which they are entering, welcome to mine eye That sees them, to my soul that owns in them,
And in the bosom of the firmament
O'er which they move, wherein they are contained, A type of her capacious self and all
Here is my body doomed to tread, this path, A little hoary line and faintly traced,* Work, shall we call it, of the shepherd's foot Or of his flock?-joint vestige of them both. I pace it unrepining, for my thoughts
Admit no bondage and my words have wings. Where is the Orphean lyre, or Druid harp, To accompany the verse? The mountain blast Shall be our hand of music; he shall sweep The rocks, and quivering trees, and billowy lake, And search the fibres of the caves, and they Shall answer, for our song is of the Clouds, And the wind loves them; and the gentle gales- Which by their aid re-clothe the naked lawn With annual verdure, and revive the woods, And moisten the parched lips of thirsty flowers-— Love them; and every idle breeze of air Bends to the favourite burthen. Moon and stars Keep their most solemn vigils when the Clouds Watch also, shifting peaceably their place Like bands of ministering Spirits, or when they lie, As if some Protean art the change had wrought,
In listless quiet o'er the ethereal deep
"A hoary pathway traced between the trees," in the Poems on the Naming of Places (1805).-Ed.
Scattered, a Cyclades of various shapes
And all degrees of beauty. O ye Lightnings ! Ye are their perilous offspring; † and the Sun- Source inexhaustible of life and joy,
And type of man's far-darting reason, therefore In old time worshipped as the god of verse, A blazing intellectual deity-
Loves his own glory in their looks, and showers Upon that unsubstantial brotherhood.
Visions with all but beatific light
Enriched-too transient were they not renewed From age to age, and did not, while we gaze In silent rapture, credulous desire
Nourish the hope that memory lacks not power To keep the treasure unimpaired. Vain thought!
Yet why repine, created as we are
For joy and rest, albeit to find them only Lodged in the bosom of eternal things?
NOT a breath of air
Ruffles the bosom of this leafy glen.
From the brook's margin, wide around, the trees Are stedfast as the rocks; the brook itself,
Old as the hills that feed it from afar,
Doth rather deepen than disturb the calm Where all things else are still and motionless.
The fifty-three small islands in the Ægean surrounding Delos, as with a circle (Kúkλos)-hence the name.-ED.
Ye dread arrows of the clouds."
-Coleridge's Hymn in the Vale of Chamouny.—Ed.
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