Poems (Wordsworth, 1815)/Volume 1/Extracts from An Evening Walk
II.
EXTRACTS
FROM A POEM ENTITLED
AN EVENING WALK;
Published in 1793.
Bright'ning the cliffs between, where sombrous pine
And yew-trees o'er the silver rocks recline;
I love to mark the quarry's moving trains,
Dwarf panniered steeds, and men, and numerous wains:
How busy the enormous hive within,
While Echo dallies with the various din!
Some (hardly heard their chisel's clinking sound)
Toil, small as pigmies, in the gulf profound;
Some, dim between th' aëreal cliffs descry'd,
O'erwalk the slender plank from side to side;
These, by the pale-blue rocks that ceaseless ring,
Glad from their airy baskets hang and sing.
* * * * * * * *
Now, while the solemn evening Shadows sail
On red slow-waving pinions down the vale,
How pleasant near the tranquil lake to stray,
Where winds the road along a secret bay;
By rills that tumble down the woody steeps,
And run in transport to the dimpling deeps;
Along the "wild meandering shore" to view,
Obsequious Grace the winding swan pursue.
He swells his lifted chest, and backward flings
His bridling neck between his towering wings;
In all the majesty of ease divides,
And glorying looks around, the silent tides:
On as he floats, the silvered waters glow,
Proud of the varying arch and moveless form of snow.
While tender Cares and mild domestic Loves
With furtive watch pursue her as she moves;
The Female with a meeker charm succeeds,
And her brown Little-ones around her leads,
Nibbling the water-lilies as they pass,
Or playing wanton with the floating grass.
She, in a mother's care, her beauty's pride
Forgets, unweary'd watching every side:
She calls them near, and with affection sweet
Alternately relieves their weary feet;
Alternately they mount her back, and rest,
Close by her mantling wings' embraces prest.
* * * * * * * *
Now with religious awe the farewel light
Blends with the solemn colouring of the night;
Mid groves of clouds that crest the mountain's brow,
And round the West's proud lodge their shadows throw,
Like Una shining on her gloomy way,
The half-seen form of Twilight roams astray;
Shedding, through paly loopholes mild and small,
Gleams that upon the lake's still bosom fall,
Beyond the mountain's giant reach that hides
In deep determined gloom his subject tides.
Soft o'er the surface creep those lustres pale
Tracking the fitful motions of the gale.
With restless interchange at once the bright
Wins on the shade, the shade upon the light.
No favoured eye was e'er allowed to gaze
On lovelier spectacle in faery days;
When gentle Spirits urged a sportive chace,
Brushing with lucid wands the water's face;
While music, stealing round the glimmering deeps,
Charmed the tall circle of th' enchanted steeps.
—The lights are vanished from the watry plains:
No wreck of all the pageantry remains.
Unheeded Night has overcome the vales:
On the dark earth the baffled vision fails;
The latest lingerer of the forest train,
The lone black fir, forsakes the faded plain;
Last evening sight, the cottage smoke no more,
Lost in the thickened darkness, glimmers hoar;
And, towering from the sullen dark-brown mere,
Like a black wall, the mountain steeps appear.
—Now o'er the soothed accordant heart we feel
A sympathetic twilight slowly steal,
And ever, as we fondly muse, we find
The soft gloom deepening on the tranquil mind.
Stay! pensive, sadly-pleasing visions, stay!
Ah no! as fades the vale, they fade away.
Yet still the tender, vacant gloom remains;
Still the cold cheek its shuddering tear retains.
The bird, who ceased, with fading light, to thread
Silent the hedge or steaming rivulet's bed,
From his grey re-appearing tower shall soon
Salute with boding note the rising moon,
Frosting with hoary light the pearly ground,
And pouring deeper blue to Æther's bound;
And pleased her solemn pomp of clouds to fold
In robes of azure, fleecy-white, and gold.
See, o'er the eastern hill, where Darkness broods
O'er all its vanished dells, and lawns, and woods;
Where but a mass of shade the sight can trace,
She lifts in silence up her lovely face;
Above the gloomy valley flings her light,
Far to the western slopes with hamlets white;
And gives, where woods the chequered upland strew,
To the green corn of summer autumn's hue.
Thus Hope, first pouring from her blessed horn
Her dawn, far lovelier than the Moon's own morn;
'Till higher mounted, strives in vain to cheer
The weary hills, impervious, blackening near;
—Yet does she still, undaunted, throw the while
On darling spots remote her tempting smile.
—Ev'n now she decks for me a distant scene,
(For dark and broad the gulph of time between)
Gilding that cottage with her fondest ray,
(Sole bourn, sole wish, sole object of my way;
How fair it's lawns and sheltering woods appear!
How sweet it's streamlet murmurs in mine ear!)
Where we, my friend, to happy days shall rise,
'Till our small share of hardly-paining sighs
(For sighs will ever trouble human breath)
Creep hushed into the tranquil breast of Death.