Yet being to myself a guide,

Too blindly have reposed my trust:

And oft, when in my heart was heard
Thy timely mandate, I deferred

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The task, in smoother walks to stray;

But thee 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:

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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.

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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

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And fragrance in thy footing treads ;

Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;

And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong.

And in the light of truth thy Bondman let me live!

TO A SKY-LARK.

Up with me! up with me into the clouds !
For thy song, Lark, is strong;

Up with me, up with me into the clouds !
Singing, singing,

With clouds and sky about thee ringing,
Lift me, guide me till I find

That spot which seems so to thy mind!

I have walked through wildernesses dreary,

And to-day my heart is weary ;

Had I now the wings of a Faery,

Up to thee would I fly.

There is madness about thee, and joy divine
In that song of thine;

Lift me, guide me, high and high,

To thy banqueting-place in the sky.

Joyous as morning,

Thou art laughing and scorning;

Thou hast a nest for thy love and thy rest,

And, though little troubled with sloth,

Drunken Lark! thou would'st be loth

To be such a traveller as I.

Happy, happy Liver,

With a soul as strong as a mountain river
Pouring out praise to the Almighty Giver,

Joy and jollity be with us both!

Alas! my journey, rugged and uneven,
Through prickly moors or dusty ways must wind;
But hearing thee, or others of thy kind,

As full of gladness and as free of heaven,

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I, with my fate contented, will plod on,

And hope for higher raptures, when life's day is done.

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FIDELITY.

A BARKING Sound the Shepherd hears,

A cry as of a dog or fox;

He halts

and searches with his eyes

Among the scattered rocks :
And now at distance can discern
A stirring in a brake of fern;
And instantly a dog is seen,
Glancing through that covert green.

The Dog is not of mountain breed;

Its motions, too, are wild and shy;

1805.

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With something, as the Shepherd thinks,
Unusual in its cry:

That keeps, till June, December's snow;
A lofty precipice in front,

A silent tarn1 below!

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Far in the bosom of Helvellyn,

Remote from public road or dwelling,
Pathway, or cultivated land;

From trace of human foot or hand.

1 Tarn is a small Mere, or Lake, mostly high up in the mountains.

There sometimes doth a leaping fish
Send through the tarn a lonely cheer;
The crags repeat the raven's croak,
In symphony austere ;

Thither the rainbow comes the cloud
And mists that spread the flying shroud;
And sunbeams; and the sounding blast,
That, if it could, would hurry past;
But that enormous barrier holds it fast.

Not free from boding thoughts, a while
The Shepherd stood; then makes his way
O'er rocks and stones, following the Dog
As quickly as he may;

Nor far had gone before he found
A human skeleton on the ground;
The appalled Discoverer with a sigh
Looks round, to learn the history.

From those abrupt and perilous rocks
The Man had fallen, that place of fear !
At length upon the Shepherd's mind
It breaks, and all is clear:

He instantly recalled the name,

And who he was, and whence he came ;
Remembered, too, the very day

This Dog, had been through three months' space

A dweller in that savage place.

Yes, proof was plain that, since the day
When this ill-fated Traveller died,

The Dog had watched about the spot,

Or by his master's side:

How nourished here through such long time
He knows, who gave that love sublime;
And gave that strength of feeling, great
Above all human estimate !

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1805.

ELEGIAC STANZAS.

SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF PEELE CASTLE, IN A STORM,
PAINTED BY SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT.

I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged Pile!
Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee:
I saw thee every day; and all the while
Thy Form was sleeping on a glassy sea.

So pure the sky, so quiet was the air!
So like, so very like, was day to day!
Whene'er I looked, thy Image still was there;
It trembled, but it never passed away.

How perfect was the calm! it seemed no sleep;
No mood, which season takes away, or brings :
I could have fancied that the mighty Deep
Was even the gentlest of all gentle Things.

Ah! THEN, if mine had been the Painter's hand,
To express what then I saw; and add the gleam,

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The light that never was, on sea or land,

The consecration, and the Poet's dream;

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