IV. Such hues from their celestial Urn Were wont to stream before my eye, Where'er it wandered in the morn Of blissful infancy. This glimpse of glory, why renewed ? Nay, rather speak with gratitude; For, if a vestige of those gleams Survived, 'twas only in my dreams. Dread Power ! whom peace and calmness serve No less than Nature's threatening voice, If aught unworthy be my choice, From Thee if I would swerve, Oh, let thy grace remind me of the light, Full early lost, and fruitlessly deplored ; Which at this moment, on my waking sight Appears to shine, by miracle restored! My soul though yet confined to earth, Rejoices in a second birth; - 'Tis past, the visionary splendour fades, And night approaches with her shades.

Note. The multiplication of mountain-ridges, described, at the commencement of the third stanza of this Ode, as a kind of Jacob's Ladder, leading to Heaven, is produced either by watery vapours, or sunny haze ; - in the present instance, by the latter cause. Allusions to the Ode, entitled “ Intimations of Immortality,” at the conclusion of these volumes, pervade the last stanza of the foregoing Poem.

XLII.

LINES,

Composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, on revisiting the

Banks of the Wye during a Tour.

July 13. 1798.

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 sweet inland murmur. Once again Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, Which 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,

door ;

Which, at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
Among the woods and copses, nor disturb
The wild green landscape. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild ; these pastoral farms
Green to the

very

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.

Though absent long, These forms of beauty 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 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
In body, and become a living soul :
While with an eye made quiet by the
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 day-light; 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,

power

O sylvan Wye! Thou wanderer thro’ 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,
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,