Five years have passed; five summers, with the length | |
Of five long winters! and again I hear | |
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs | |
With a soft inland murmur.—Once again | |
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, |
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That on a wild secluded scene impress | |
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect | |
The landscape with the quiet of the sky. | |
The day is come when I again repose | |
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view |
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These plots of cottage ground, these orchard tufts, | |
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits, | |
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves | |
‘Mid groves and copses. Once again I see | |
These hedgerows, hardly hedgerows, little lines |
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Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms, | |
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke | |
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees! | |
With some uncertain notice, as might seem | |
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, |
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Or of some Hermit’s cave, where by his fire | |
The Hermit sits alone. | |
These beauteous forms, | |
Through a long absence, have not been to me | |
As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye; | |
But oft, in lonely rooms, and ‘mid the din |
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Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, | |
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, | |
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; | |
And passing even into my purer mind, | |
With tranquil restoration—feelings too |
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Of unremembered pleasure; such, perhaps, | |
As have no slight or trivial influence | |
On that best portion of a good man’s life, | |
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts | |
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, |
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To them I may have owed another gift, | |
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood, | |
In which the burthen of the mystery, | |
In which the heavy and the weary weight | |
Of all this unintelligible world, |
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Is lightened:—that serene and blessed mood, | |
In which the affections gently lead us on,— | |
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame | |
And even the motion of our human blood | |
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep |
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In body, and become a living soul; | |
While with an eye made quiet by the power | |
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, | |
We see into the life of things. | |
If this | |
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft— |
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In darkness and amid the many shapes | |
Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir | |
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, | |
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart— | |
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, |
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O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer through the woods, | |
How often has my spirit turned to thee! | |
And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought, | |
With many recognitions dim and faint, | |
And somewhat of a sad perplexity, |
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The picture of the mind revives again; | |
While here I stand, not only with the sense | |
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts | |
That in this moment there is life and food | |
For future years. And so I dare to hope, |
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Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first | |
I came among these hills; when like a roe | |
I bounded o’er the mountains, by the sides | |
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, | |
Wherever nature led: more like a man |
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Flying from something that he dreads than one | |
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then | |
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days, | |
And their glad animal movements all gone by) | |
To me was all in all.—I cannot paint |
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What then I was. The sounding cataract | |
Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock, | |
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, | |
Their colours and their forms, were then to me | |
An appetite; a feeling and a love, |
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That had no need of a remoter charm, | |
By thought supplied, nor any interest | |
Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past, | |
And all its aching joys are now no more, | |
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this |
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Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts | |
Have followed; for such loss, I would believe, | |
Abundant recompense. For I have learned | |
To look on nature, not as in the hour | |
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes |
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The still, sad music of humanity, | |
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power | |
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt | |
A presence that disturbs me with the joy | |
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime |
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Of something far more deeply interfused, | |
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, | |
And the round ocean and the living air, | |
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: | |
A motion and a spirit, that impels |
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All thinking things, all objects of all thought, | |
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still | |
A lover of the meadows and the woods, | |
And mountains; and of all that we behold | |
From this green earth; of all the mighty world |
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Of eye, and ear—both what they half create, | |
And what perceive; well pleased to recognize | |
In nature and the language of the sense | |
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, | |
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul |
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Of all my moral being. | |
Nor perchance, | |
If I were not thus taught, should I the more | |
Suffer my genial spirits to decay: | |
For thou art with me here upon the banks | |
Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend, |
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My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch | |
The language of my former heart, and read | |
My former pleasures in the shooting lights | |
Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while | |
May I behold in thee what I was once, |
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My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make, | |
Knowing that Nature never did betray | |
The heart that loved her; ’tis her privilege, | |
Through all the years of this our life, to lead | |
From joy to joy: for she can so inform |
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The mind that is within us, so impress | |
With quietness and beauty, and so feed | |
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, | |
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, | |
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all |
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The dreary intercourse of daily life, | |
Shall e’er prevail against us, or disturb | |
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold | |
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon | |
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk; |
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And let the misty mountain winds be free | |
To blow against thee: and, in after years, | |
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured | |
Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind | |
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, |
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Thy memory be as a dwelling-place | |
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then, | |
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief | |
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts | |
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, |
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And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance— | |
If I should be where I no more can hear | |
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams | |
Of past existence—wilt thou then forget | |
That on the banks of this delightful stream |
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We stood together; and that I, so long | |
A worshipper of Nature, hither came | |
Unwearied in that service; rather say | |
With warmer love—oh! with far deeper zeal | |
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget, |
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That after many wanderings, many years | |
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs, | |
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me | |
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake! |