Free Wordsworth by William Wordsworth Page B

– she would have been
    A very nightingale.
    ’Six feet in earth my Emma lay,
    And yet I loved her more,
    For so it seemed, than till that day
    I e’er had loved before.
    ’And, turning from her grave, I met
    Beside the church-yard Yew
    A blooming Girl, whose hair was wet
    With points of morning dew.
    ’A basket on her head she bare,
    Her brow was smooth and white,
    To see a Child so very fair,
    It was a pure delight!
    ’No fountain from its rocky cave
    E’er tripped with foot so free,
    She seemed as happy as a wave
    That dances on the sea.
    ‘There came from me a sigh of pain
    Which I could ill confine;
    I looked at her and looked again;
    – And did not wish her mine.’
    Matthew is in his grave, yet now
    Methinks I see him stand,
    As at that moment, with his bough
    Of wilding in his hand.
A POET’S EPITAPH
    Art thou a Statist in the van
    Of public conflicts trained and bred?
    – First learn to love one living man;
    Then
mayst thou think upon the dead.
    A Lawyer art thou? – draw not nigh!
    Go, carry to some fitter place
    The keenness of that practised eye,
    The hardness of that 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 cushion is for thee.
    Or art thou one of gallant pride,
    A Soldier and no man 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?
    Wrapt closely in thy sensual fleece,
    O turn aside, – and take, I pray,
    That he below may rest in peace,
    Thy ever-dwindling 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 God;
    One to whose smooth-rubbed soul can cling
    Nor form, nor feeling, great or 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 noon-day grove;
    And you must love him, ere to you
    He will seem worthy of your love.
    The outward shows of sky and earth,
    Of hill and valley, he has viewed;
    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.

SONNETS
‘THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US; LATE AND SOON’
    The world is too much with us; late and soon,
    Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
    Little we see in Nature that is ours;
    We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
    This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
    The winds that will be howling at all hours,
    And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
    For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
    It moves us not. – Great God! I’d rather be
    A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
    So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
    Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
    Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
    Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
‘IT IS A BEAUTEOUS EVENING, CALM AND FREE’
    It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
    The holy time is quiet as a Nun
    Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
    Is sinking down in its tranquillity;
    The gentleness of heaven broods o’er the Sea:
    Listen! the mighty Being is awake,
    And doth with his eternal motion make
    A sound like