Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800 Volume Ii Part 12

Now Ralph is renown'd for the length of his bones; The Magog of Legberthwaite dale.

Just half a week after the Wind sallied forth, And, in anger or merriment, out of the North Coming on with a terrible pother, From the peak of the crag blew the Giant away.

And what did these School-boys?--The very next day They went and they built up another.

--Some little I've seen of blind boisterous works In Paris and London, 'mong Christians or Turks, Spirits busy to do and undo: At remembrance whereof my blood sometimes will flag.

--Then, light-hearted Boys, to the top of the Crag!

And I'll build up a Giant with you.

Great How is a single and conspicuous hill, which rises towards the foot of Thirl-mere, on the western side of the beautiful dale of Legberthwaite, along the 'high road between Keswick' and Ambleside.

_A POET'S EPITAPH_.

Art thou a Statesman, in the van Of public business train'd and bred, --First learn to love one living man; _Then_ may'st thou think upon the dead.

A Lawyer art thou?--draw not nigh; Go, carry to some other place The hardness of thy coward eye, The falshood of thy sallow face.

Art thou a man of purple cheer?

A rosy man, right plump to see?

Approach; yet Doctor, not too near: This grave no cus.h.i.+on is for thee.

Art thou a man of gallant pride, A Soldier, and no mail of chaff?

Welcome!--but lay thy sword aside, And lean upon a Peasant's staff.

Physician art thou? One, all eyes, Philosopher! a fingering slave, One that would peep and botanize Upon his mother's grave?

Wrapp'd closely in thy sensual fleece O turn aside, and take, I pray, That he below may rest in peace, Thy pin-point of a soul away!

--A Moralist perchance appears; Led, Heaven knows how! to this poor sod: And He has neither eyes nor ears; Himself his world, and his own G.o.d;

One to whose smooth-rubb'd soul can cling Nor form nor feeling great nor small, A reasoning, self-sufficing thing, An intellectual All in All!

Shut close the door! press down the latch: Sleep in thy intellectual crust, Nor lose ten tickings of thy watch, Near this unprofitable dust.

But who is He with modest looks, And clad in homely russet brown?

He murmurs near the running brooks A music sweeter than their own.

He is retired as noontide dew, Or fountain in a noonday grove; And you must love him, ere to you He will seem worthy of your love.

The outward shews of sky and earth.

Of hill and valley he has view'd; And impulses of deeper birth Have come to him in solitude.

In common things that round us lie Some random truths he can impart The harvest of a quiet eye That broods and sleeps on his own heart.

But he is weak, both man and boy, Hath been an idler in the land; Contented if he might enjoy The things which others understand.

--Come hither in thy hour of strength, Come, weak as is a breaking wave!

Here stretch thy body at full length Or build thy house upon this grave.--

_A CHARACTER_, _In the ant.i.thetical Manner_.

I marvel how Nature could ever find s.p.a.ce For the weight and the levity seen in his face: There's thought and no thought, and there's paleness and bloom, And bustle and sluggishness, pleasure and gloom.

There's weakness, and strength both redundant and vain; Such strength, as if ever affliction and pain Could pierce through a temper that's soft to disease, Would be rational peace--a philosopher's ease.

There's indifference, alike when he fails and succeeds, And attention full ten times as much as there needs, Pride where there's no envy, there's so much of joy; And mildness, and spirit both forward and coy.

There's freedom, and sometimes a diffident stare Of shame scarcely seeming to know that she's there.

There's virtue, the t.i.tle it surely may claim, Yet wants, heaven knows what, to be worthy the name.

What a picture! 'tis drawn without nature or art, --Yet the Man would at once run away with your heart, And I for five centuries right gladly would be Such an odd, such a kind happy creature as he.

A FRAGMENT

Between two sister moorland rills There is a spot that seems to lie Sacred to flowrets of the hills, And sacred to the sky.

And in this smooth and open dell There is a tempest-stricken tree; A corner stone by lightning cut, The last stone of a cottage hut; And in this dell you see A thing no storm can e'er destroy, The shadow of a Danish Boy.

In clouds above, the lark is heard, He sings his blithest and his beet; But in this lonesome nook the bird Did never build his nest.

No beast, no bird hath here his home; The bees borne on the breezy air Pa.s.s high above those fragrant bells To other flowers, to other dells.

Nor ever linger there.

The Danish Boy walks here alone: The lovely dell is all his own.

A spirit of noon day is he, He seems a Form of flesh and blood; A piping Shepherd he might be, A Herd-boy of the wood.

A regal vest of fur he wears, In colour like a raven's wing; It fears nor rain, nor wind, nor dew, But in the storm 'tis fresh and blue As budding pines in Spring; His helmet has a vernal grace, Fresh as the bloom upon his face.