Term
The Tyger William Blake Songs of Experience
Speaker is the poet and Child |
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Definition
Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night : What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears And water'd heaven with their tears : Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger, Tyger burning bright In the forests of the night : What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? |
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Term
Ode To the West Wind Percy Shelley |
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Definition
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou, Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The wingéd seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odors plain and hill:
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!
[edit] II
Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,
Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread On the blue surface of thine aery surge, Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge Of the horizon to the zenith's height, The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapors, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh, hear!
[edit] III
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers Quivering within the wave's intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss and flowers So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou For whose path the Atlantic's level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, And tremble and despoil themselves: oh, hear!
[edit] IV
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
The impulse of thy strength, only less free Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven, As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.
[edit] V
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth! And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? |
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Term
Ode to a Grecian Urn John Keats Urn is frozen in time thus better then this transient life Keats would like to kiss her the sylvan girl forever |
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Definition
Thou still unravished bride of quietness! Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flow'ry tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal -yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; And, happy melodist, unwearied, For ever piping songs for ever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love! For ever warm and still to be enjoyed, For ever panting and for ever young; All breathing human passion far above, That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed, A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
Who are these coming to the sacrifice? To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? What little town by river or sea-shore, Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn? And, little town, thy streets for evermore Will silent be; and not a soul to tell Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou sayst, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," -that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. |
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Ode to a Nightingale John Keats Negative capability |
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Definition
1.
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: ’Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness,— That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
2.
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
3.
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs, Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
4.
Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: Already with thee! tender is the night, And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Cluster’d around by all her starry Fays; But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
5.
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; Fast fading violets cover’d up in leaves; And mid-May’s eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
6.
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain— To thy high requiem become a sod.
7.
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
8.
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf. Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now ’tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep? |
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Definition
My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is To sit beside our Cot, our Cot o'ergrown With white-flower'd Jasmin, and the broad-leav'd Myrtle, (Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love !) And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light, Slow saddenning round, and mark the star of eve Serenely brilliant (such should Wisdom be) Shine opposite ! How exquisite the scents Snatch'd from yon bean-field ! and the world so hush'd ! The stilly murmur of the distant Sea Tells us of silence.
And that simplest Lute, Plac'd length-ways in the clasping casement, hark ! How by the desultory breeze caress'd, Like some coy maid half-yielding to her lover, It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs Tempt to repeat the wrong ! And now, its strings Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes Over delicious surges sink and rise, Such a soft floating witchery of sound As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve Voyage on gentle gales from Faery-Land, Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers, Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise, Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untam'd wing ! O ! the one Life within us and abroad, Which meets all motion and becomes its soul, A light in sound, a sound-like power in light, Rhythm in all thought, and joyance every where-- Methinks, it should have been impossible Not to love all things in a world so fill'd ; Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air Is Music slumbering on her instrument.
And thus, my Love ! as on the midway slope Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon, Whilst thro' my half-clos'd eye-lids I behold The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main, And tranquil muse upon tranquility ; Full many a thought uncall'd and undetain'd, And many idle flitting phantasies, Traverse my indolent and passive brain, As wild and various, as the random gales That swell and flutter on this subject Lute !
And what if all of animated nature Be but organic Harps diversly fram'd, That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze, At once the Soul of each, and God of all ? But thy more serious eye a mild reproof Darts, O belovéd Woman ! nor such thoughts Dim and unhallow'd dost thou not reject, And biddest me walk humbly with my God. Meek Daughter in the Family of Christ ! Well hast thou said and holily disprais'd These shapings of the unregenerate mind ; Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break On vain Philosophy's aye-babbling spring. For never guiltless may I speak of him, The Incomprehensible ! save when with awe I praise him, and with Faith that inly feels ; Who with his saving mercies healéd me, A sinful and most miserable man, Wilder'd and dark, and gave me to possess Peace, and this Cot, and thee, heart-honour'd Maid ! |
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Term
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) |
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Definition
Founder of Modern Literary Criticism Kubla Khan Rime of the ancient mariner (longest) Eolian Harp This lime-tree bower my prison |
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This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison Coleridge |
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Definition
Well, they are gone, and here must I remain, This lime-tree bower my prison ! I have lost Beauties and feelings, such as would have been Most sweet to my remembrance even when age Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness ! They, meanwhile, Friends, whom I never more may meet again, On springy heath, along the hill-top edge, Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance, To that still roaring dell, of which I told ; The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep, And only speckled by the mid-day sun ; Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock Flings arching like a bridge ;--that branchless ash, Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still, Fann'd by the water-fall ! and there my friends Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds[2], That all at once (a most fantastic sight !) Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge Of the blue clay-stone.
Now, my friends emerge Beneath the wide wide Heaven--and view again The many-steepled tract magnificent Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea, With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two Isles Of purple shadow ! Yes ! they wander on In gladness all ; but thou, methinks, most glad, My gentle-hearted Charles ! for thou hast pined And hunger'd after Nature, many a year, In the great City pent, winning thy way With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain And strange calamity[3] ! Ah ! slowly sink Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun ! Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb, Ye purple heath-flowers ! richlier burn, ye clouds ! Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves ! And kindle, thou blue Ocean ! So my friend Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood, Silent with swimming sense ; yea, gazing round On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem Less gross than bodily ; and of such hues As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes Spirits perceive his presence. A delight Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad As I myself were there ! Nor in this bower, This little lime-tree bower, have I not mark'd Much that has sooth'd me. Pale beneath the blaze Hung the transparent foliage ; and I watch'd Some broad and sunny leaf, and lov'd to see The shadow of the leaf and stem above Dappling its sunshine ! And that walnut-tree Was richly ting'd, and a deep radiance lay Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue Through the late twilight : and though now the bat Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters, Yet still the solitary humble-bee Sings in the bean-flower ! Henceforth I shall know That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure ; No plot so narrow, be but Nature there, No waste so vacant, but may well employ Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart Awake to Love and Beauty ! and sometimes 'Tis well to be bereft of promis'd good, That we may lift the soul, and contemplate With lively joy the joys we cannot share. My gentle-hearted Charles ! when the last rook Beat its straight path across the dusky air Homewards, I blest it ! deeming its black wing (Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light) Had cross'd the mighty Orb's dilated glory, While thou stood'st gazing ; or, when all was still, Flew creeking o'er thy head[4], and had a charm For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom No sound is dissonant which tells of Life. |
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Term
Frost at Midnight Coleridge |
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Definition
The Frost performs its secret ministry, Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry Came loud--and hark, again ! loud as before. The inmates of my cottage, all at rest, Have left me to that solitude, which suits Abstruser musings : save that at my side My cradled infant slumbers peacefully. 'Tis calm indeed ! so calm, that it disturbs And vexes meditation with its strange And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood, This populous village ! Sea, and hill, and wood, With all the numberless goings-on of life, Inaudible as dreams ! the thin blue flame Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not ; Only that film[1], which fluttered on the grate, Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing. Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature Gives it dim sympathies with me who live, Making it a companionable form, Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit By its own moods interprets, every where Echo or mirror seeking of itself, And makes a toy of Thought. But O ! how oft, How oft, at school, with most believing mind, Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars, To watch that fluttering stranger ! and as oft With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt Of my sweet birth-place, and the old church-tower, Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day, So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear Most like articulate sounds of things to come ! So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt, Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams ! And so I brooded all the following morn, Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eye Fixed with mock study on my swimming book : Save if the door half opened, and I snatched A hasty glance, and still my heart leaped up, For still I hoped to see the stranger's face, Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved, My play-mate when we both were clothed alike !
Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side, Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm, Fill up the intersperséd vacancies And momentary pauses of the thought ! My babe so beautiful ! it thrills my heart With tender gladness, thus to look at thee, And think that thou shalt learn far other lore, And in far other scenes ! For I was reared In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim, And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars. But thou, my babe ! shalt wander like a breeze By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds, Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores And mountain crags : so shalt thou see and hear The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible Of that eternal language, which thy God Utters, who from eternity doth teach Himself in all, and all things in himself. Great universal Teacher ! he shall mould Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask. Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee, Whether the summer clothe the general earth With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch Smokes in the sun-thaw ; whether the eave-drops fall Heard only in the trances of the blast, Or if the secret ministry of frost Shall hang them up in silent icicles, Quietly shining to the quiet Moon. |
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In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree : Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round : And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover ! A savage place ! as holy and enchanted As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover ! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain[1] momently[2] was forced : Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail : And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever It flung up momently the sacred river. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reached the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean : And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war !
The shadow of the dome of pleasure Floated midway on the waves ; Where was heard the mingled measure From the fountain and the caves. It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice ! A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw : It was an Abyssinian maid, And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora. Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight 'twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome ! those caves of ice ! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware ! Beware ! His flashing eyes, his floating hair ! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise. |
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William Wordsworth (1770-1850) |
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Definition
Friend to Coleridge sibling of Dorothy The Prelude (Magnum Opus) London of 1802 Mutability Lucy Gray Strange Fits of Passion Nutting the solitary reaper Tintern Abbey Lines written in early spring A slumber did my spirit seal |
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Term
A slumber did my spirit seal Wordsworth |
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Definition
A slumber did my spirit seal; I had no human fears: She seemed a thing that could not feel The touch of earthly years.
No motion has she now, no force; She neither hears nor sees; Rolled round in earth's diurnal course, With rocks, and stone, and trees. |
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Term
The solitary reaper Wordsworth Ballad single highlands girl more ordinary language |
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Definition
Behold her, single in the field, Yon solitary Highland lass! Reaping and singing by herself; Stop here, or gently pass! Alone she cuts and binds the grain, And sings a melancholy strain; O listen! for the vale profound Is overflowing with the sound.
No nightingale did ever chaunt More welcome notes to weary bands Of travelers in some shady haunt, Among Arabian sands; A voice so thrilling ne'er heard In springtime from the cuckoo-bird, Breaking the silence of the seas Among the farthest Hebrides.
Will no one tell me what she sings?-- Perhaps the planitive numbers flow For old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago; Or is it some more humble lay, Familiar matter of today? Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, That has been, and may be again?
Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang As if her song could have no ending; I saw her singing at her work, And o'er the sickle bending; I listened, motionless and still; And, as I mounted up the hill, The music in my heart I bore, Long after it was heard no more. |
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Term
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Definition
Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray:
And, when I crossed the wild,
I chanced to see at break of day
The solitary child.
No mate, no comrade Lucy knew;
She dwelt on a wide moor,
--The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door!
You yet may spy the fawn at play,
The hare upon the green;
But the sweet face of Lucy Gray
Will never more be seen.
"To-night will be a stormy night--
You to the town must go;
And take a lantern, Child, to light
Your mother through the snow."
"That, Father! will I gladly do:
'Tis scarcely afternoon--
The minster-clock has just struck two,
And yonder is the moon!"
At this the Father raised his hook,
And snapped a faggot-band;
He plied his work;--and Lucy took
The lantern in her hand.
Not blither is the mountain roe:
With many a wanton stroke
Her feet disperse the powdery snow,
That rises up like smoke.
The storm came on before its time:
She wandered up and down;
And many a hill did Lucy climb:
But never reached the town.
The wretched parents all that night
Went shouting far and wide;
But there was neither sound nor sight
To serve them for a guide.
At day-break on a hill they stood
That overlooked the moor;
And thence they saw the bridge of wood,
A furlong from their door.
They wept--and, turning homeward, cried,
"In heaven we all shall meet;"
--When in the snow the mother spied
The print of Lucy's feet.
Then downwards from the steep hill's edge
They tracked the footmarks small;
And through the broken hawthorn hedge,
And by the long stone-wall;
And then an open field they crossed:
The marks were still the same;
They tracked them on, nor ever lost;
And to the bridge they came.
They followed from the snowy bank
Those footmarks, one by one,
Into the middle of the plank;
And further there were none!
--Yet some maintain that to this day
She is a living child;
That you may see sweet Lucy Gray
Upon the lonesome wild.
O'er rough and smooth she trips along,
And never looks behind;
And sings a solitary song
That whistles in the wind. |
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Definition
Stern Daughter of the Voice of God! O Duty! if that name thou love Who art a light to guide, a rod To check the erring, and reprove; Thou, who art victory and law When empty terrors overawe; From vain temptations does set free; And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity!
There are who ask not if thine eye Be on them; who, in love and truth, Where no misgiving is, rely Upon the genial sense of youth: Glad Hearts! without reproach or blot; Who do thy work, and know it not: Oh! if through confidence misplaced They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power! around them cast.
Serene will be our days and bright, And happy will our nature be, When love is an unerring light, And joy its own security. And they a blissful course may hold Even now, who, not unwisely bold, Live in the spirit of this creed; Yet seek thy firm support, according to their need.
I, loving freedom, and untried; No sport of every random gust, Yet being to myself a guide, Too blindly have reposed by trust: And oft, when in my heart was heard Thy timely mandate, I deferred The task, in smoother walks to stray; But I now would serve more strictly, if I may.
Through no disturbance of my soul, Or strong compunction in me wrought, I supplicate for thy control; But in the quietness of thought: Me this unchartered freedom tires; I feel the weight of chance-desires: My hopes no more must change their name, I long for a repose that ever is the same.
Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear The Godhead's most benignant grace; Nor know we anything so fair As is the smile upon thy face: Flowers laugh before thee on their beds And fragrance in thy footing treads; Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong; And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong.
To humbler functions, awful Power! I call thee: I myself commend Unto thy guidance from this hour; Oh, let my weakness have an end! Give unto me, made lowly wise, The spirit of self-sacrifice; The confidence of reason give; And in the light of truth thy Bondman let me live! |
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Mutability Wordsworth Sonnet |
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Definition
From low to high doth dissolution climb, And sink from high to low, along a scale Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail; A musical but melancholy chime, Which they can hear who meddle not with crime, Nor avarice, nor over-anxious care. Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear The longest date do melt like frosty rime, That in the morning whitened hill and plain And is no more; drop like the tower sublime Of yesterday, which royally did wear His crown of weeds, but could not even sustain Some casual shout that broke the silent air, Or the unimaginable touch of Time. |
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Term
I traveled among unknown men Wordsworth |
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Definition
I TraveledWi among unknown men, In lands beyond the sea; Nor, England! did I know till then What love I bore to thee.
'Tis past, that melancholy dream! Nor will I quit thy shore A second time; for still I seem To love thee more and more.
Among thy mountains did I feel The joy of my desire; 10 And she I cherished turned her wheel Beside an English fire.
Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed The bowers where Lucy played; And thine too is the last green field That Lucy's eyes surveyed. |
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Term
William Blake (1757-1827) |
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Definition
Songs of Innocence and of Experience The Tyger-Gnostic thought Demiurge(urizen)
Sees poet as prophet The Lamb The Songs of Los Milton Jerusalem |
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Term
Ozymandias Shelley Sonnet but also a fragment |
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Definition
I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things, The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains: round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away. |
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Term
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Definition
She walks in beauty—like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies, And all that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes; Thus mellowed to the tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
II One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impaired the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress Or softly lightens o'er her face— Where thoughts serenely sweet express How pure, how dear their dwelling place.
III And on that cheek and o'er that brow So soft, so calm yet eloquent, The smiles that win, the tints that glow But tell of days in goodness spent A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent. |
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Term
Frost at midnight Coleridge To his son young buy homesick from school memory is a type of spontaneous emotion must go out and think about who you are conversation poems-blank verse |
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Definition
The Frost performs its secret ministry, Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry Came loud--and hark, again ! loud as before. The inmates of my cottage, all at rest, Have left me to that solitude, which suits Abstruser musings : save that at my side My cradled infant slumbers peacefully. 'Tis calm indeed ! so calm, that it disturbs And vexes meditation with its strange And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood, This populous village ! Sea, and hill, and wood, With all the numberless goings-on of life, Inaudible as dreams ! the thin blue flame Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not ; Only that film[1], which fluttered on the grate, Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing. Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature Gives it dim sympathies with me who live, Making it a companionable form, Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit By its own moods interprets, every where Echo or mirror seeking of itself, And makes a toy of Thought. But O ! how oft, How oft, at school, with most believing mind, Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars, To watch that fluttering stranger ! and as oft With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt Of my sweet birth-place, and the old church-tower, Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day, So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear Most like articulate sounds of things to come ! So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt, Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams ! And so I brooded all the following morn, Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eye Fixed with mock study on my swimming book : Save if the door half opened, and I snatched A hasty glance, and still my heart leaped up, For still I hoped to see the stranger's face, Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved, My play-mate when we both were clothed alike !
Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side, Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm, Fill up the intersperséd vacancies And momentary pauses of the thought ! My babe so beautiful ! it thrills my heart With tender gladness, thus to look at thee, And think that thou shalt learn far other lore, And in far other scenes ! For I was reared In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim, And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars. But thou, my babe ! shalt wander like a breeze By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds, Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores And mountain crags : so shalt thou see and hear The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible Of that eternal language, which thy God Utters, who from eternity doth teach Himself in all, and all things in himself. Great universal Teacher ! he shall mould Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask. Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee, Whether the summer clothe the general earth With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch Smokes in the sun-thaw ; whether the eave-drops fall Heard only in the trances of the blast, Or if the secret ministry of frost Shall hang them up in silent icicles, Quietly shining to the quiet Moon. |
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Strophe-(turn)a pair of stanzas of alternating form on which the structure of a given poem is based. In modern poetry the strophe usually becomes identical with the stanza, and it is the arrangement and the recurrence of the rhymes which give it its character. antistrophe-(counterturn)It has the nature of a reply and balances the effect of the strophe. epode-unison, intermingling, finale |
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London of 1802 Wordsworth Sonnet Synechdoche |
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MILTON! thou shouldst be living at this hour: England hath need of thee: she is a fen Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen, Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, Have forfeited their ancient English dower Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; O raise us up, return to us again, And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power! Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart; Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, So didst thou travel on life's common way, In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on herself did lay. |
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3 quatrains, tun, couplet |
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Italian (petrarchan) sonnet form |
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George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) |
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Works=She walks in beauty, when we two parted, don juan, Bio-Calvinist, born with club foot, squandered fortune at early age. Most romantic of Romantics, died of a fever while fighting of the turkish independence. |
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When we two parted Lord Byron |
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Definition
When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.
The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow—
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame:
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.
They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me—
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well:
Long, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.
In secret we met—
In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears. |
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attention towards what is east of europe. Poets have the ability to see inside of this mystery and communicate what that is like. ie dream of the arab from the prelude wordsworth. |
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drowned at sea ozymandias, to wordsworth, |
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to wordworth sonnet wordsworth not dead Shelley |
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Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to know That things depart which never may return: Childhood and youth, friendship and love's first glow, Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn. These common woes I feel. One loss is mine Which thou too feel'st, yet I alone deplore. Thou wert as a lone star, whose light did shine On some frail bark in winter's midnight roar: Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood Above the blind and battling multitude: In honoured poverty thy voice did weave Songs consecrate to truth and liberty,-- Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve, Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be. |
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economically successful, had eight children, french revolution sympathizer which marginilized her so she turned to novel. |
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Was never a writer we just have diary and letters. became senile |
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biting social commentary and masterful use of free indirect speech, burlesque, and irony have earned her a place as one of the most widely read and most beloved writers in English literature. Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816), she achieved success as a published writer. She wrote two additional novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, |
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Regional Novelist (scotland)Older is better, antique, Waverly first historical novel., Works-Ivanhoe, Rob Roy, The Lady of The Lake, Waverley, The Heart of Midlothian and The Bride of Lammermoor. |
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Irish regionalist poet works- |
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Hymn to intellectual beauty Shelley raises the immaterial to divine Ineffable intellectual world is dear and yet dearer for its mystery. Simile |
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The awful shadow of some unseen Power Floats though unseen among us, -- visiting This various world with as inconstant wing As summer winds that creep from flower to flower, -- Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower, It visits with inconstant glance Each human heart and countenance; Like hues and harmonies of evening, -- Like clouds in starlight widely spread, -- Like memory of music fled, -- Like aught that for its grace may be Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.
Spirit of Beauty, that dost consecrate With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon Of human thought or form, -- where art thou gone? Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate? Ask why the sunlight not for ever Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain-river, Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown, Why fear and dream and death and birth Cast on the daylight of this earth Such gloom, -- why man has such a scope For love and hate, despondency and hope?
No voice from some sublimer world hath ever To sage or poet these responses given -- Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven, Remain the records of their vain endeavour, Frail spells -- whose uttered charm might not avail to sever, From all we hear and all we see, Doubt, chance, and mutability. Thy light alone -- like mist oe'er the mountains driven, Or music by the night-wind sent Through strings of some still instrument, Or moonlight on a midnight stream, Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream.
Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart And come, for some uncertain moments lent. Man were immortal, and omnipotent, Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art, Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart. Thou messgenger of sympathies, That wax and wane in lovers' eyes -- Thou -- that to human thought art nourishment, Like darkness to a dying flame! Depart not as thy shadow came, Depart not -- lest the grave should be, Like life and fear, a dark reality.
While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin, And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing Hopes of high talk with the departed dead. I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed; I was not heard -- I saw them not -- When musing deeply on the lot Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing All vital things that wake to bring News of birds and blossoming, -- Sudden, thy shadow fell on me; I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy!
I vowed that I would dedicate my powers To thee and thine -- have I not kept the vow? With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now I call the phantoms of a thousand hours Each from his voiceless grave: they have in visioned bowers Of studious zeal or love's delight Outwatched with me the envious night -- They know that never joy illumed my brow Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free This world from its dark slavery, That thou - O awful Loveliness, Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express.
The day becomes more solemn and serene When noon is past -- there is a harmony In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, Which through the summer is not heard or seen, As if it could not be, as if it had not been! Thus let thy power, which like the truth Of nature on my passive youth Descended, to my onward life supply Its calm -- to one who worships thee, And every form containing thee, Whom, Spirit fair, thy spells did bind To fear himself, and love all human kind. |
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On first looking into chapmans homer Keats Didn't know greek written rapidly...mail next day |
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Definition
Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He star'd at the Pacific — and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise — Silent, upon a peak in Darien. |
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When I have fears that I cease to be John Keats Where is the consolation in death |
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When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high piled books, in charactry, Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain; When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour, That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the fairy power Of unreflecting love;—then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till love and fame to nothingness do sink. |
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to Autumn Keats autumn has beauty of her own. The big picture... |
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Definition
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
[edit] II
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; Or by a cyder-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
[edit] III
Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,-- While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. |
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The boy stood on the burning deck, Whence all but him had fled; The flame that lit the battle's wreck Shone round him o'er the dead.
Yet beautiful and bright he stood, As born to rule the storm; A creature of heroic blood, A proud though childlike form.
The flames rolled on--he would not go Without his father's word; That father, faint in death below, His voice no longer heard.
He called aloud, "Say, father, say If yet my task is done?" He knew not that the chieftain lay Unconscious of his son.
"Speak, father!" once again he cried, "If I may yet be gone!" And but the booming shots replied, And fast the flames rolled on.
Upon his brow he felt their breath, And in his waving hair; And looked from that lone post of death In still, yet brave despair.
And shouted but once more aloud "My father! must I stay?" While o'er him fast, through sail and shroud, The wreathing fires made way.
They wrapt the ship in splendour wild, They caught the flag on high, And streamed above the gallant child Like banners in the sky.
Then came a burst of thunder sound-- The boy--oh! where was he? --Ask of the winds that far around With fragments strew the sea;
With mast, and helm, and pennon fair. That well had borne their part-- But the noblest thing that perished there Was that young, faithful heart. |
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Tintern Abbey Wordworth
it is a poem of re-visitation, both to the central themes of the Advertisement, and to nature itself.
nature has freed wordsworth from worrying about God/religion/purpose of life. |
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Definition
Five years have past; 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, 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 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 hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines 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, 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 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 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, 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, Is lightened:—that serene and blessed mood, In which the affectations 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 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— 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, O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods, How oft 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, 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, 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still A love of the meadows and the woods, And mountains; and of all that we behold From this green earth; of all the mighty world Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create, And what perceive; well pleased to recognise 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 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, 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, 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 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 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; 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, 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, 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 forger That on the banks of this delightful stream 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, 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! |
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