Written in April 1798, During the Alarm of an Invasion

A Green and silent spot, amid the hills,A small and silent dell! O'er stiller placeNo singing sky-lark ever poised himself.The hills are heathy, save that swelling slope,Which hath a gay and gorgeous covering on,All golden with the never-bloomless furze,Which now blooms most profusely: but the dell,Bathed by the mist, is fresh and delicateAs vernal corn-field, or the unripe flax,When, through its half-transparent stalks, at eve,The level sunshine glimmers with green light.Oh! 'tis a quiet spirit-healing nook!Which all, methinks, would love; but chiefly he,The humble man, who, in his youthful years,Knew just so much of folly, as had madeHis early manhood more securely wise!Here he might lie on fern or withered heath,While from the singing lark (that sings unseenThe minstrelsy that solitude loves best),And from the sun, and from the breezy air,Sweet influences trembled o'er his frame;And he, with many feelings, many thoughts,Made up a meditative joy, and foundReligious meanings in the forms of Nature!And so, his senses gradually wraptIn a half sleep, he dreams of better worlds,And dreaming hears thee still, O singing lark;That singest like an angel in the clouds!

My God! it is a melancholy thingFor such a man, who would full fain preserveHis soul in calmness, yet perforce must feelFor all his human brethren--O my God!It weighs upon the heart, that he must thinkWhat uproar and what strife may now be stirringThis way or that way o'er these silent hills--Invasion, and the thunder and the shout,And all the crash of onset; fear and rage,And undetermined conflict--even now,Even now, perchance, and in his native isle:Carnage and groans beneath this blessed sun!We have offended, Oh! my countrymen!We have offended very grievously,And been most tyrannous. From east to westA groan of accusation pierces Heaven!The wretched plead against us; multitudesCountless and vehement, the sons of God,Our brethren! Like a cloud that travels on,Steam'd up from Cairo's swamps of pestilence,Even so, my countrymen! have we gone forthAnd borne to distant tribes slavery and pangs,And, deadlier far, our vices, whose deep taintWith slow perdition murders the whole man,His body and his soul! Meanwhile, at home,All individual dignity and powerEngulf'd in Courts, Committees, Institutions,Associations and Societies,A vain, speech-mouthing, speech-reporting Guild,One Benefit-Club for mutual flattery,We have drunk up, demure as at a grace,Pollutions from the brimming cup of wealth;Contemptuous of all honourable rule,Yet bartering freedom and the poor man's lifeFor gold, as at a market! The sweet wordsOf Christian promise, words that even yetMight stem destruction, were they wisely preached,Are muttered o'er by men, whose tones proclaimHow flat and wearisome they feel their trade:Rank scoffers some, but most too indolentTo deem them falsehoods or to know their truth.Oh! blasphemous! the book of life is madeA superstitious instrument, on whichWe gabble o'er the oaths we mean to break;For all must swear--all and in every place,College and wharf, council and justice-court;All, all must swear, the briber and the bribed,Merchant and lawyer, senator and priest,The rich, the poor, the old man and the young;All, all make up one scheme of perjury,That faith doth reel; the very name of GodSounds like a juggler's charm; and, bold with joy,Forth from his dark and lonely hiding-place,(Portentous sight!) the owlet Atheism,Sailing on obscene wings athwart the noon,Drops his blue-fringed lids, and holds them close,And hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven,Cries out, "Where is it?"

Thankless too for peace,(Peace long preserved by fleets and perilous seas)Secure from actual warfare, we have lovedTo swell the war-whoop, passionate for war!Alas! for ages ignorant of allIts ghastlier workings, (famine or blue plague,Battle, or siege, or flight through wintry snows,)We, this whole people, have been clamorousFor war and bloodshed; animating sports,The which we pay for as a thing to talk of,Spectators and not combatants! No guessAnticipative of a wrong unfelt,No speculation on contingency,However dim and vague, too vague and dimTo yield a justifying cause; and forth,(Stuffed out with big preamble, holy names,And adjurations of the God in Heaven,)We send our mandates for the certain deathOf thousands and ten thousands! Boys and girls,And women, that would groan to see a childPull off an insect's leg, all read of war,The best amusement for our morning meal!The poor wretch, who has learnt his only prayersFrom curses, who knows scarcely words enoughTo ask a blessing from his Heavenly Father,Becomes a fluent phraseman, absoluteAnd technical in victories and defeats,And all our dainty terms for fratricide;Terms which we trundle smoothly o'er our tonguesLike mere abstractions, empty sounds to whichWe join no feeling and attach no form!As if the soldier died without a wound;As if the fibres of this godlike frameWere gored without a pang; as if the wretch,Who fell in battle, doing bloody deeds,Passed off to Heaven, translated and not killed;As though he had no wife to pine for him,No God to judge him! Therefore, evil daysAre coming on us, O my countrymen!And what if all-avenging Providence,Strong and retributive, should make us knowThe meaning of our words, force us to feelThe desolation and the agonyOf our fierce doings?

Spare us yet awhile,Father and God! O! spare us yet awhile!Oh! let not English women drag their flightFainting beneath the burthen of their babes,Of the sweet infants, that but yesterdayLaughed at the breast! Sons, brothers, husbands, allWho ever gazed with fondness on the formsWhich grew up with you round the same fire-side,And all who ever heard the sabbath-bellsWithout the infidel's scorn, make yourselves pure!Stand forth! be men! repel an impious foe,Impious and false, a light yet cruel race,Who laugh away all virtue, mingling mirthWith deeds of murder; and still promisingFreedom, themselves too sensual to be free,Poison life's amities, and cheat the heartOf faith and quiet hope, and all that soothesAnd all that lifts the spirit! Stand we forth;Render them back upon the insulted ocean,And let them toss as idly on its wavesAs the vile sea-weed, which some mountain-blastSwept from our shores! And oh! may we returnNot with a drunken triumph, but with fear,Repenting of the wrongs with which we stungSo fierce a foe to frenzy!

I have told,O Britons! O my brethren! I have toldMost bitter truth, but without bitterness.Nor deem my zeal or factious or mistimed;For never can true courage dwell with them,Who, playing tricks with conscience, dare not lookAt their own vices. We have been too longDupes of a deep delusion! Some, belike,Groaning with restless enmity, expectAll change from change of constituted power;As if a Government had been a robe,On which our vice and wretchedness were taggedLike fancy-points and fringes, with the robePulled off at pleasure. Fondly these attachA radical causation to a fewPoor drudges of chastising Providence,Who borrow all their hues and qualitiesFrom our own folly and rank wickedness,Which gave them birth and nursed them. Others, meanwhile,Dote with a mad idolatry; and allWho will not fall before their images.And yield them worship, they are enemiesEven of their country!

Such have I been deemed.--But, O dear Britain! O my Mother Isle!Needs must thou prove a name most dear and holyTo me, a son, a brother, and a friend,A husband, and a father! who revereAll bonds of natural love, and find them allWithin the limits of thy rocky shores.O native Britain! O my Mother Isle!How shouldst thou prove aught else but dear and holyTo me, who from thy lakes and mountain-hills,Thy clouds, thy quiet dales, thy rocks and seas,Have drunk in all my intellectual life,All sweet sensations, all ennobling thoughts,All adoration of the God in nature,All lovely and all honourable things,Whatever makes this mortal spirit feelThe joy and greatness of its future being?There lives nor form nor feeling in my soulUnborrowed from my country! O divineAnd beauteous island! thou hast been my soleAnd most magnificent temple, in the whichI walk with awe, and sing my stately songs,Loving the God that made me!--

May my fears,My filial fears, be vain! and may the vauntsAnd menace of the vengeful enemyPass like the gust, that roared and died awayIn the distant tree: which heard, and only heardIn this low dell, bow'd not the delicate grass.But now the gentle dew-fall sends abroadThe fruit-like perfume of the golden furze:The light has left the summit of the hill,Though still a sunny gleam lies beautiful,Aslant the ivied beacon. Now farewell,Farewell, awhile, O soft and silent spot!On the green sheep-track, up the heathy hill,Homeward I wind my way; and lo! recalledFrom bodings that have well-nigh wearied me,I find myself upon the brow, and pauseStartled! And after lonely sojourningIn such a quiet and surrounded nook,This burst of prospect, here the shadowy main,Dim-tinted, there the mighty majestyOf that huge amphitheatre of richAnd elmy fields, seems like society--Conversing with the mind, and giving itA livelier impulse and a dance of thought!And now, beloved Stowey! I beholdThy church-tower, and, methinks, the four huge elmsClustering, which mark the mansion of my friend;And close behind them, hidden from my view,Is my own lowly cottage, where my babeAnd my babe's mother dwell in peace! With lightAnd quickened footsteps thitherward I tend,Remembering thee, O green and silent dell!And grateful, that by nature's quietnessAnd solitary musings, all my heartIs soften'd, and made worthy to indulgeLove, and the thoughts that yearn for human kind.