Print-friendly poem

← Back to Find a poem to recite · Reader / work page · Print

3. _With how sad Steps, O Moon,
        thou climb'st the Sky_

4. _Alice Fell_

5. _Resolution and Independence_


SONNETS

_Prefatory Sonnet_

PART THE FIRST--MISCELLANEOUS SONNETS.

1.

2.

3. _Composed after a Journey across the
        Hamilton Hills, Yorkshire_

4.

5. _To Sleep_

6. _To Sleep_

7. _To Sleep_

8.

9. _To the River Duddon_

10. _From the Italian of Michael Angelo_

11. _From the same_

12. _From the same. To the Supreme Being_

13. _Written in very early Youth_

14. _Composed upon Westminster Bridge,
         Sept_. 3, 1803

15.

16.

17. _To_ ----

18.

19.

20. _To the Memory of Raisley Calvert_



PART THE SECOND--SONNETS DEDICATED TO LIBERTY.

CONTENTS.

1. _Composed by the Sea-side, near Calais, August_, 1802

2. _Is it a Reed_

3. _To a Friend, composed near Calais,
        on the Road leading to Ardres, August 7th_, 1802

4.

5.

6. _On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic_

7. _The King of Sweden_

8. _To Toussaint L'Ouverture_

9.

10. Composed in the Valley near Dover, on the Day of Landing

11.

12. Thought of a Briton on the Subjugation of Switzerland

13. Written in London, September, 1802

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23. To the Men of Kent. October, 1803

24.

25. Anticipation. October, 1803

26.

Notes:

[Transcribers' Note: the Notes will be found at the End of the Volume]



TO THE DAISY.

  In youth from rock to rock I went
  From hill to hill, in discontent
  Of pleasure high and turbulent,
          Most pleas'd when most uneasy;
  But now my own delights I make,
  My thirst at every rill can slake,
  And gladly Nature's love partake
          Of thee, sweet Daisy!

  When soothed a while by milder airs,
  Thee Winter in the garland wears
  That thinly shades his few grey hairs;
           Spring cannot shun thee;
  Whole summer fields are thine by right;
  And Autumn, melancholy Wight!
  Doth in thy crimson head delight
           When rains are on thee.

  In shoals and bands, a morrice train,
  Thou greet'st the Traveller in the lane;
  If welcome once thou count'st it gain;
           Thou art not daunted,
  Nor car'st if thou be set at naught;
  And oft alone in nooks remote
  We meet thee, like a pleasant thought,
           When such are wanted.

  Be Violets in their secret mews
  The flowers the wanton Zephyrs chuse;
  Proud be the Rose, with rains and dews
          Her head impearling;
  Thou liv'st with less ambitious aim,
  Yet hast not gone without thy fame;
  Thou art indeed by many a claim
          The Poet's darling.

  If to a rock from rains he fly,
  Or, some bright day of April sky,
  Imprison'd by hot sunshine lie
          Near the green holly,
  And wearily at length should fare;
  He need but look about, and there
  Thou art! a Friend at hand, to scare
          His melancholy.

  A hundred times, by rock or bower,
  Ere thus I have lain couch'd an hour,
  Have I derived from thy sweet power
          Some apprehension;
  Some steady love; some brief delight;
  Some memory that had taken flight;
  Some chime of fancy wrong or right;
          Or stray invention.

  If stately passions in me burn,
  And one chance look to Thee should turn,
  I drink out of an humbler urn
          A lowlier pleasure;
  The homely sympathy that heeds
  The common life, our nature breeds;
  A wisdom fitted to the needs
          Of hearts at leisure.

  When, smitten by the morning ray,
  I see thee rise alert and gay,
  Then, chearful Flower! my spirits play
          With kindred motion:
  At dusk, I've seldom mark'd thee press
  The ground, as if in thankfulness,
  Without some feeling, more or less,
          Of true devotion.

  And all day long I number yet,
  All seasons through, another debt,
  Which I wherever thou art met,
          To thee am owing;
  An instinct call it, a blind sense;
  A happy, genial influence,
  Coming one knows not how nor whence,
          Nor whither going.

  Child of the Year! that round dost run
  Thy course, bold lover of the sun,
  And chearful when the day's begun
          As morning Leveret,
  Thou long the Poet's praise shalt gain;
  Thou wilt be more belov'd by men
  In times to come; thou not in vain
          Art Nature's Favorite.



LOUISA.

       *       *       *       *       *

  I met Louisa in the shade;
  And, having seen that lovely Maid,
  Why should I fear to say
  That she is ruddy, fleet, and strong;
  And down the rocks can leap along,
  Like rivulets in May?

  And she hath smiles to earth unknown;
  Smiles, that with motion of their own
  Do spread, and sink, and rise;
  That come and go with endless play,
  And ever, as they pass away,
  Are hidden in her eyes.

  She loves her fire, her Cottage-home;
  Yet o'er the moorland will she roam
  In weather rough and bleak;
  And when against the wind she strains,
  Oh! might I kiss the mountain rains
  That sparkle on her cheek.

  Take all that's mine 'beneath the moon',
  If I with her but half a noon
  May sit beneath the walls
  Of some old cave, or mossy nook,
  When up she winds along the brook,
  To hunt the waterfalls.



FIDELITY.

       *       *       *       *       *

  A barking sound the Shepherd hears,
  A cry as of a Dog or Fox;
  He halts, and searches with his eyes
  Among the scatter'd rocks:
  And now at distance can discern
  A stirring in a brake of fern;
  From which immediately leaps out
  A Dog, and yelping runs about.

  The Dog is not of mountain breed;
  It's motions, too, are wild and shy;
  With something, as the Shepherd thinks,
  Unusual in its' cry:
  Nor is there any one in sight
  All round, in Hollow or on Height;
  Nor shout, nor whistle strikes his ear;
  What is the Creature doing here?

  It was a Cove, a huge Recess,
  That keeps till June December's snow;
  A lofty Precipice in front,
  A silent Tarn [1] below!
  Far in the bosom of Helvellyn,
  Remote from public Road or Dwelling,
  Pathway, or cultivated land;
  From trace of human foot or hand.

[Footnote 1: A Tarn is a small Mere or Lake mostly high up in the
mountains.]

  There, sometimes does a leaping Fish
  Send through the Tarn a lonely chear;
  The Crags repeat the Raven's croak,
  In symphony austere;
  Thither