A MORNING EXERCISE
Composed 1828.—Published 1832
[Written at Rydal Mount. I could wish the last five stanzas of this to be read with the poem addressed to the skylark.—I.F.]
One of the "Poems of the Fancy."—Ed.
Fancy, who leads the pastimes of the glad,
Full oft is pleased a wayward dart to throw;
Sending sad shadows after things not sad,
Peopling the harmless fields with signs of woe:
Beneath her sway, a simple forest cry 5
Becomes an echo of man's misery.
Blithe ravens croak of death; and when the owl
Tries his two voices for a favourite strain—
Tu-whit—Tu-whoo! the unsuspecting fowl
Forebodes mishap or seems but to complain; 10
Fancy, intent to harass and annoy,
Can thus pervert the evidence of joy.
Through border wilds where naked Indians stray,
Myriads of notes attest her subtle skill;
A feathered task-master cries, "Work Away!" 15
And, in thy iteration, "Whip poor Will!"[509]
Is heard the spirit of a toil-worn slave,
Lashed out of life, not quiet in the grave.
What wonder? at her bidding, ancient lays
Steeped in dire grief the voice of Philomel; 20
And that fleet messenger of summer days,
The Swallow, twittered subject to like spell;
But ne'er could Fancy bend the buoyant Lark
To melancholy service—hark! O hark!
The daisy sleeps upon the dewy lawn, 25
Not lifting yet the head that evening bowed;
But He is risen, a later star of dawn,
Glittering and twinkling near yon rosy cloud;
Bright gem instinct with music, vocal spark;
The happiest bird that sprang out of the Ark! 30
Hail, blest above all kinds!—Supremely skilled
Restless with fixed to balance, high with low,
Thou leav'st the halcyon free her hopes to build
On such forbearance as the deep may show;
Perpetual flight, unchecked by earthly ties, 35
Leav'st to the wandering bird of paradise.
Faithful, though swift as lightning, the meek dove;
Yet more hath Nature reconciled in thee;
So constant with thy downward eye of love,
Yet, in aërial singleness, so free;[510] 40
So humble, yet so ready to rejoice
In power of wing and never-wearied voice.[511]
To the last point of vision, and beyond,
Mount, daring warbler!—that love-prompted strain,
('Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond) 45
Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain:
Yet might'st thou seem, proud privilege! to sing
All independent of the leafy spring.[512]
How would it please old Ocean to partake,
With sailors longing for a breeze in vain, 50
The harmony thy notes most gladly make[513]
Where earth resembles most his own domain![514]
Urania's self[515] might welcome with pleased ear
These matins mounting towards her native sphere.
Chanter by heaven attracted, whom no bars 55
To daylight known deter from that pursuit,
'Tis well that some sage instinct, when the stars
Come forth at evening, keeps Thee still and mute;
For not an eyelid could to sleep incline
Wert thou among them, singing as they shine![516] 60
FOOTNOTES:
[509] See Waterton's Wanderings in South America.—W. W. 1832.
Compare the reference to the "Melancholy Muccawiss" in The Excursion, book iii. l. 947 (vol. v. p. 140), and the note † in that page, with the appendix note C, p. [393].—Ed.
[510] Compare the two last lines of the poem To a Skylark, 1825—
Type of the wise who soar, but never roam;
True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!—Ed.
[511] Compare in Shelley's Ode to the Skylark, stanza ii.—
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.—Ed.
[512] This stanza was included in the Morning Exercise, for the first time, in 1845. It had been previously the second stanza of the poem To a Skylark, composed in 1825, and first published in 1827.—Ed.
[513] 1836.
The harmony that thou best lovest to make 1832.
[514] 1836.
... his blank domain! 1832.
[515] The muse who presided over astronomy.—Ed.
[516] Compare, in Addison's hymn in The Spectator, No. 465 (August 23), stanza iii. l. 7—
For ever singing as they shine.—Ed.
THE TRIAD[517]
Composed 1828.—Published 1829 (in The Keepsake)
[Written at Rydal Mount. The girls, Edith Southey, my daughter Dora, and Sara Coleridge.—I. F.]
One of the "Poems of the Imagination."—Ed.
Show me the noblest Youth of present time,
Whose trembling fancy would to love give birth;
Some God or Hero, from the Olympian clime
Returned, to seek a Consort upon earth;
Or, in no doubtful prospect, let me see 5
The brightest star of ages yet to be,
And I will mate and match him blissfully.
I will not fetch a Naiad from a flood
Pure as herself—(song lacks not mightier power)
Nor leaf-crowned Dryad from a pathless wood, 10
Nor Sea-nymph glistening from her coral bower;
Mere Mortals bodied forth in vision still,
Shall with Mount Ida's triple lustre fill[518]
The chaster coverts of a British hill.
"Appear!—obey my lyre's command! 15
Come, like the Graces, hand in hand![519]
For ye, though not by birth allied,
Are Sisters in the bond of love;
Nor shall the tongue of envious pride
Presume those interweavings to reprove 20
In you, which that fair progeny of Jove,
Learned[520] from the tuneful spheres that glide
In endless union, earth and sea above."
—I sing[521] in vain;—the pines have hushed their waving:
A peerless Youth expectant at my side, 25
Breathless as they, with unabated craving
Looks to the earth, and to the vacant air;
And, with a wandering eye that seems to chide,
Asks of the clouds what occupants they hide:—
But why solicit more than sight could bear, 30
By casting on a moment all we dare?
Invoke we those bright Beings one by one;
And what was boldly promised, truly shall be done.
"Fear not a constraining measure!
—Yielding to this gentle spell,[522] 35
Lucida![523] from domes of pleasure,
Or from cottage-sprinkled dell,
Come to regions solitary,
Where the eagle builds her aery,
Above the hermit's long-forsaken cell!" 40
—She comes!—behold
That Figure, like a ship with snow-white sail![524]
Nearer she draws; a breeze uplifts her veil;
Upon her coming wait
As pure a sunshine and as soft a gale 45
As e'er, on herbage covering earthly mold,
Tempted the bird of Juno[525] to unfold
His richest splendour—when his veering gait
And every motion of his starry train
Seem governed by a strain 50
Of music, audible to him alone.
"O Lady, worthy of earth's proudest throne!
Nor less, by excellence of nature, fit
Beside an unambitious hearth to sit
Domestic queen, where grandeur is unknown; 55
What living man could fear
The worst of Fortune's malice, wert Thou near,
Humbling that lily-stem, thy sceptre meek,
That its fair flowers may from his cheek
Brush the too happy tear?[526] 60
---- Queen, and handmaid lowly!
Whose skill can speed the day with lively cares,
And banish melancholy
By all that mind invents or hand prepares;
O Thou, against whose lip, without its smile 65
And in its silence even, no heart is proof;
Whose goodness, sinking deep, would reconcile
The softest Nursling of a gorgeous palace
To the bare life beneath the hawthorn-roof
Of Sherwood's Archer,[527] or in caves of Wallace—
Who that hath seen thy beauty could content 71
His soul with but a glimpse of heavenly day?
Who that hath loved thee, but would lay
His strong hand on the wind, if it were bent
To take thee in thy majesty away? 75
—Pass onward (even the glancing deer
Till we depart intrude not here;)
That mossy slope, o'er which the woodbine throws
A canopy, is smoothed for thy repose!"
Glad moment is it[528] when the throng 80
Of warblers in full concert strong
Strive, and not vainly strive, to rout
The lagging shower, and force coy Phœbus out,
Met by the rainbow's form divine,
Issuing from her cloudy shrine;— 85
So may the thrillings of the lyre
Prevail to further our desire,
While to these shades a sister Nymph I call.
"Come, if the notes thine ear may pierce,
Come, youngest of the lovely Three,[529] 90
Submissive to the might of verse
And the dear voice of harmony,
By none[530] more deeply felt than Thee!"
—I sang; and lo! from pastimes virginal
She hastens to the tents 95
Of nature, and the lonely elements.
Air sparkles round her with a dazzling sheen;
But[531] mark her glowing cheek, her vesture green!
And, as if wishful to disarm
Or to repay the potent Charm, 100
She bears the stringèd lute of old romance,
That cheered the trellised arbour's privacy,
And soothed war-wearied knights in raftered hall.
How vivid, yet[532] how delicate, her glee!
So tripped the Muse, inventress of the dance; 105
So, truant in waste woods, the blithe Euphrosyne![533]
But the ringlets of that head
Why are they ungarlanded?
Why bedeck her temples less
Than the simplest shepherdess? 110
Is it not a brow inviting
Choicest flowers[534] that ever breathed,
Which the myrtle would delight in
With Idalian rose enwreathed?
But her humility is well content 115
With one wild floweret (call it not forlorn)
Flower of the winds,[535] beneath her bosom worn—
Yet[536] more for love than ornament.
Open, ye thickets! let her fly,
Swift as a Thracian Nymph o'er field and height! 120
For She, to all but those who love her, shy,
Would gladly vanish from a Stranger's sight;
Though where she is beloved and loves,
Light as the wheeling butterfly she moves;
Her happy spirit as a bird is free, 125
That rifles blossoms on a tree,[537]
Turning them inside out with arch audacity.
Alas! how little can a moment show
Of an eye where feeling plays
In ten thousand dewy rays; 130
A face o'er which a thousand shadows go!
—She stops—is fastened to that rivulet's side;
And there (while, with sedater mien,
O'er timid waters that have scarcely left
Their birth-place in the rocky cleft 135
She bends) at leisure may be seen
Features to old ideal grace allied,[538]
Amid their smiles and dimples dignified—
Fit countenance for the soul of primal truth;
The bland composure of eternal youth! 140
What more changeful than the sea?
But over his great tides
Fidelity presides;
And this light-hearted Maiden constant is as he.
High is her aim as heaven above, 145
And wide as ether her good-will;
And, like the lowly reed, her love
Can drink its nurture from the scantiest rill:
Insight as keen as frosty star
Is to her charity no bar, 150
Nor interrupts her frolic graces
When she is, far from these wild places,
Encircled by familiar faces.
O the charm that manners draw,
Nature, from thy genuine law![539] 155
If from what her hand would do,
Her voice would utter, aught ensue
Untoward[540] or unfit;
She, in benign affections pure,
In self-forgetfulness secure, 160
Sheds round the transient harm or vague mischance
A light unknown to tutored elegance:[541]
Her's is not a cheek shame-stricken,
But her blushes are joy-flushes;
And the fault (if fault it be) 165
Only ministers to quicken
Laughter-loving gaiety,
And kindle sportive wit—-
Leaving this Daughter of the mountains free[542]
As if she knew that Oberon king of Faery[543] 170
Had crossed her purpose with some quaint vagary,
And heard his viewless bands
Over their mirthful triumph clapping hands.
"Last of the Three, though eldest born,[544]
Reveal thyself, like pensive Morn 175
Touched by the skylark's earliest note,
Ere humbler gladness be afloat.
But whether in the semblance drest
Of Dawn—or Eve, fair vision of the west,
Come with each anxious hope subdued 180
By woman's gentle fortitude,
Each grief, through meekness, settling into rest.
—Or I would hail thee when some high-wrought page
Of a closed volume lingering in thy hand
Has raised thy spirit to a peaceful stand 185
Among the glories of a happier age."
Her brow hath opened on me—see it there,
Brightening the umbrage of her hair;
So gleams the crescent moon, that loves
To be descried through shady groves. 190
Tenderest bloom is on her cheek;
Wish not for a richer streak;
Nor dread the depth of meditative eye;
But let thy love, upon that azure field
Of thoughtfulness and beauty, yield 195
Its homage offered up in purity.
What would'st thou more? In sunny glade,
Or under leaves of thickest shade,
Was such a stillness e'er diffused
Since earth grew calm while angels mused? 200
Softly she treads, as if her foot were loth
To crush the mountain dew-drops—soon to melt
On the flower's breast; as if she felt
That flowers themselves, whate'er their hue,
With all their fragrance, all their glistening, 205
Call to the heart for inward listening—
And though for bridal wreaths and tokens true
Welcomed wisely; though a growth
Which the careless shepherd sleeps on,
As fitly spring from turf the mourner weeps on—
And without wrong are cropped the marble tomb to strew. 211
The Charm is over;[545] the mute Phantoms gone,
Nor will return—but droop not, favoured Youth;
The apparition that before thee shone
Obeyed a summons covetous of truth. 215
From these wild rocks thy footsteps I will guide
To bowers in which thy fortune may be tried,
And one of the bright Three become thy happy Bride.
The Triad was first published in The Keepsake, in 1829, and next in the 1832 edition of the Poems. See the criticism passed upon it by one of the three described, viz., Sara Coleridge, in her Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 409-10. Of this poem Mr. Aubrey de Vere writes, "perhaps the most accomplished of Wordsworth's works, and the most unlike his earlier manner."—Ed.
FOOTNOTES:
[517] This poem is called The Promise, in a letter written upon its publication in The Keepsake.—Ed.
[518] The Phrygian Ida was a many-branched range of mountains; two subordinate ranges, parting from the principal summit, enclosed Troy as with a crescent. The Cretan Ida terminated in three snowy peaks. There may be a reference to Skiddaw's triple summit in the "British hill."—Ed.
[519] The Charites—Aglaia, Thalia, and Euphrosyne—were usually represented with hands joined, as a token of graciousness and friendship.—Ed.
[520] 1836.
And not the boldest tongue of envious pride
In you those interweavings could reprove
Which They, the progeny of Jove,
Learnt ... 1829.
[521] 1836.
—I speak ... 1829.
[522] 1836.
... this constraining measure!
Drawn by a poetic spell, 1829.
[523] Edith Southey.—Ed.
[524] 1845.
... with silver sail! 1832.
[525] The peacock.—Ed.
[526] 1845.
... may brush from off his cheek
The too, too happy tear! 1832.
[527] Robin Hood.—Ed.
[528] The following version of ll. 80-101, is given in a MS. letter:—
Like notes of birds that after showers
In April concert try their powers,
And with a tumult and a rout
Of warbling, force coy Phœbus out;
Or bid some dark cloud's bosom show
That form divine, the many-coloured Bow.
E'en so the thrillings of the Lyre
Prevail to further our desire,
While to these shades a Nymph I call.
The youngest of the lovely three;
With glowing cheeks from pastimes virginal
Behold her hastening to the tents
Of Nature, and the lonely elements!
And as if wishful to disarm
Or to repay the tuneful charm
She bears the stringed lute of old Romance,—Ed.
[529] Dora Wordsworth.—Ed.
[530] 1836.
... a Nymph I call,
The youngest of the lovely Three.—
"Come, if the notes thine ear may pierce,
Submissive to the might of verse,
By none ... 1820.
[531] 1836.
And ... 1829.
[532] 1836.
How light her air!... 1829.
[533] Compare L'Allegro, ll. 11-13—
Thou Goddess fair and free
In heaven yclept Euphrosyne,
And by men heart-easing Mirth.—Ed.
[534] 1832.
Choicest flower ... 1829.
[535] The wild anemone.—Ed.
[536] 1836.
Yet is it ... 1829.
[537] 1836.
Though where she is beloved and loves, as free
As bird that rifles blossoms on a tree, 1829.
[538] According to Sara Coleridge this was an allusion to a likeness supposed to have been found in the poet's daughter's countenance to the Memnon Head in the British Museum. See Sara Coleridge's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 410.—Ed.
[539] 1840.
... the genuine law. 1836.
[540] 1845.
... there ensue
Aught untoward ... 1832.
[541] 1832.
Nature, from thy perfect law!
Through benign affections pure
In the light of self secure,
If from what her hand would do
Or tongue utter, there ensue
Aught untoward or unfit,
Transient mischief, vague mischance
Shunned by guarded elegance. 1829.
[542] 1829.
Only minister to quicken
Sallies of instinctive wit;
Unchecked in laughter-loving gaiety
In all the motions of her spirit free. MS.
[543] 1832.
... that Oberon the fairy 1829.
[544] Sara Coleridge.—Ed.
[545] Compare in The Wishing-Gate Destroyed, stanza 4—
... the charm is fled.—Ed.