Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised: Those shadowy recollections, Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy! Hence in a season of calm weather Though inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Can in a moment travel thither, And see the Children sport upon the shore, X. Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song! As to the tabor's sound! We in thought will join your throng, Ye that pipe and ye that play, Ye that through your hearts to-day Feel the gladness of the May! What though the radiance which was once so bright Be now for ever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower; Which, having been, must ever be; In the faith that looks through death, ΧΙ. And O ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, To live beneath your more habitual sway. I love the Brooks which down their channels fret, The Clouds that gather round the setting sun That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; 1803-6. NOTES. Page 36. "The Horn of Egremont Castle." This story is a Cumberland tradition. I have heard it also related of the Hall of Hutton John, an ancient residence of the Hudlestons, in a sequestered valley upon the river Dacor. Page 56. "The Russian Fugitive." Peter Henry Bruce, having given in his entertaining Memoirs the substance of this Tale, affirms that, besides the concurring reports of others, he had the story from the lady's own mouth. The Lady Catherine, mentioned towards the close, is the famous Catherine, then bearing that name as the acknowledged wife of Peter the Great. Page 126. "The Farmer of Tilsbury Vale." With this picture, which was taken from real life, compare the imaginative one of "The Reverie of Poor Susan," Vol. II., p. 132; and see (to make up the deficiencies of this class) "The Excursion," passim. Page 159. "Moss Campion (Silene acaulis)." This most beautiful plant is scarce in England, though it is found in great abundance upon the mountains of Scotland. The first specimen I ever saw of it, in its native bed, was singularly fine, the turf or cushion being at least eight inches in diameter, and the root proportionably thick. I have only met with it in two places among our mountains, in both of which I have since sought for it in vain. Botanists will not, I hope, take it ill, if I caution them against carrying off, inconsiderately, rare and beautiful plants. This has often been done, particularly from Ingleborough and other mountains in Yorkshire, till the species have totally disappeared, to the great regret of lovers of nature living near the places where they grew. Page 169. "From the most gentle creature nursed in fields." This way of indicating the name of my lamented friend has been found fault with; perhaps rightly so; but I may say in justification of the double sense of the word, that similar allusions are not uncommon in epitaphs. One of the best in our language in verse, I ever read, was upon a person who bore the name of Palmer; and the course of the thought, throughout, turned upon the Life of the Departed, considered as a pilgrimage. Nor can I think that the objection in the present case will have much force with any one who remembers Charles Lamb's beautiful sonnet addressed to his own name, and ending, "No deed of mine shall shame thee, gentle name!" APPENDIX, PREFACES, ETC., ETC. MUCH the greatest part of the foregoing Poems has been so long before the Public that no prefatory matter, explanatory of any portion of them, or of the arrangement which has been adopted, appears to be required; and had it not been for the observations contained in those Prefaces upon the principles of Poetry in general, they would not have been reprinted even as an Appendix in this Edition. |