Or the Lover's Resolution

Through weeds and thorns, and matted underwoodI force my way; now climb, and now descendO'er rocks, or bare or mossy, with wild footCrushing the purple whorts; while oft unseen,Hurrying along the drifted forest-leaves,The scared snake rustles. Onward still I toil,I know not, ask not whither! A new joy,Lovely as light, sudden as summer gust,And gladsome as the first-born of the spring,Beckons me on, or follows from behind,Playmate, or guide! The master-passion quelled,I feel that I am free. With dun-red barkThe fir-trees, and the unfrequent slender oak,Forth from this tangle wild of bush and brakeSoar up, and form a melancholy vaultHigh o'er me, murmuring like a distant sea.Here Wisdom might resort, and here Remorse;Here too the love-lorn man, who, sick in soul,And of this busy human heart aweary,Worships the spirit of unconscious lifeIn tree or wild-flower.--Gentle lunatic!If so he might not wholly cease to be,He would far rather not be that he is;But would be something that he knows not of,In winds or waters, or among the rocks!

But hence, fond wretch! breathe not contagionhere!No myrtle-walks are these: these are no grovesWhere Love dare loiter! If in sullen moodHe should stray hither, the low stumps shallgoreHis dainty feet, the briar and the thornMake his plumes haggard. Like a woundedbirdEasily caught, ensnare him, O ye Nymphs,Ye Oreads chaste, ye dusky Dryades!And you, ye Earth-winds! you that make atmornThe dew-drops quiver on the spiders' webs!You, O ye wingless Airs! that creep betweenThe rigid stems of heath and bitten furze,Within whose scanty shade, at summer-noon,The mother-sheep hath worn a hollow bed--Ye, that now cool her fleece with dropless damp,Now pant and murmur with her feeding lamb.Chase, chase him, all ye Fays, and elfin Gnomes!With prickles sharper than his darts bemockHis little Godship, making him perforceCreep through a thorn-bush on yon hedgehog'sback.

This is my hour of triumph! I can nowWith my own fancies play the merry fool,And laugh away worse folly, being free.Here will I seat myself, beside this old,Hollow, and weedy oak, which ivy-twineClothes as with net-work: here will couch my limbs,Close by this river, in this silent shade,As safe and sacred from the step of manAs an invisible world--unheard, unseen,And listening only to the pebbly brookThat murmurs with a dead, yet tinkling sound;Or to the bees, that in the neighbouring trunkMake honey-hoards. The breeze, that visits me,Was never Love's accomplice, never raisedThe tendril ringlets from the maiden's brow,And the blue, delicate veins above her cheek;Ne'er played the wanton--never half disclosedThe maiden's snowy bosom, scattering thenceEye-poisons for some love-distempered youth,Who ne'er henceforth may see an aspen-groveShiver in sunshine, but his feeble heartShall flow away like a dissolving thing.

Sweet breeze! thou only, if I guess aright,Liftest the feathers of the robin's breast,That swells its little breast, so full of song,Singing above me, on the mountain-ash.And thou too, desert stream! no pool of thine,Though clear as lake in latest summer-eve,Did e'er reflect the stately virgin's robe,The face, the form divine, the downcast lookContemplative! Behold! her open palmPresses her cheek and brow! her elbow restsOn the bare branch of half-uprooted tree,That leans towards its mirror! Who erewhileHad from her countenance turned, or looked by stealth(For fear is true-love's cruel nurse), he nowWith steadfast gaze and unoffending eye,Worships the watery idol, dreaming hopesDelicious to the soul, but fleeting, vain,E'en as that phantom-world on which he gazed,But not unheeded gazed: for see, ah! see,The sportive tyrant with her left hand plucksThe heads of tall flowers that behind her grow,Lychnis, and willow-herb, and fox-glove bells:And suddenly, as one that toys with time,Scatters them on the pool! Then all the charmIs broken--all that phantom world so fairVanishes, and a thousand circlets spread,And each mis-shapes the other. Stay awhile,Poor youth, who scarcely dar'st lift up thine eyes!

The stream will soon renew its smoothness, soonThe visions will return! And lo! he stays:And soon the fragments dim of lovely formsCome trembling back, unite, and now once moreThe pool becomes a mirror; and beholdEach wildflower on the marge inverted there,And there the half-uprooted tree--but where,O where the virgin's snowy arm, that leanedOn its bare branch? He turns, and she is gone!Homeward she steals through many a woodland mazeWhich he shall seek in vain. Ill-fated youth!Go, day by day, and waste thy manly primeIn mad love-yearning by the vacant brook,Till sickly thoughts bewitch thine eyes, and thouBehold'st her shadow still abiding there,The Naiad of the mirror!

Not to thee,O wild and desert stream! belongs this tale:Gloomy and dark art thou-the crowded firsSpire from thy shores, and stretch across thy bed,Making thee doleful as a cavern-well:Save when the shy king-fishers build their nestOn thy steep banks, no loves hast thou, wild stream!

This be my chosen haunt--emancipateFrom passion's dreams, a freeman, and alone,I rise and trace its devious course. O lead,Lead me to deeper shades and lonelier glooms.Lo! stealing through the canopy of firs,How fair the sunshine spots that mossy rock,Isle of the river, whose disparted wavesDart off asunder with an angry sound,How soon to re-unite! And see! they meet,Each in the other lost and found: and seePlaceless, as spirits, one soft water-sunThrobbing within them, heart at once and eye!With its soft neighbourhood of filmy clouds,The stains and shadings of forgotten tears,Dimness o'erswum with lustre! Such the hourOf deep enjoyment, following love's brief feuds;And hark, the noise of a near waterfall!I pass forth into light--I find myselfBeneath a weeping birch (most beautifulOf forest trees, the Lady of the Woods),Hard by the brink of a tall weedy rockThat overbrows the cataract. How burst?The landscape on my sight! Two crescent hillsFold in behind each other, and so makeA circular vale, and land-locked, as might seem,With brook and bridge, and grey stone cottages,Half hid by rocks and fruit-trees. At my feet,The whortle-berries are bedewed with spray,Dashed upwards by the furious waterfall.How solemnly the pendent ivy-massSwings in its winnow: All the air is calm.The smoke from cottage-chimneys, tinged with light,Rises in columns; from this house alone,Close by the waterfall, the column slants,And feels its ceaseless breeze. But what is this?That cottage, with its slanting chimney-smoke,And close beside its porch a sleeping child,His dear head pillow'd on a sleeping dog--One arm between its fore-legs, and the handHolds loosely its small handful of wildflowers,Unfilletted, and of unequal lengths.A curious picture, with a master's hasteSketched on a strip of pinky-silver skin,Peeled from the birchen bark! Divinest maid!Yon bark her canvas, and those purple berriesHer pencil! See, the juice is scarcely driedOn the fine skin! She has been newly here;And lo! yon patch of heath has been her couch--The pressure still remains! O blessed couch!For this may'st thou flower early, and the sun,Slanting at eve, rest bright, and linger longUpon thy purple bells! O Isabel!Daughter of genius! stateliest of our maids!More beautiful than whom Alcæus wooed,The Lesbian woman of immortal song!O child of genius! stately, beautiful,And full of love to all, save only me,And not ungentle e'en to me! My heart,Why beats it thus? Through yonder coppicewoodNeeds must the pathway turn, that leads straightwayOn to her father's house. She is alone!The night draws on-such ways are hard to hit--And fit it is I should restore this sketch,Dropt unawares no doubt. Why should I yearnTo keep the relique? 'twill but idly feedThe passion that consumes me. Let me haste!The picture in my hand which she has left;She cannot blame me that I follow'd her:And I may be her guide the long wood through.

Whorts, Whortle-berries, Bilberries; and in the North of England,