PRESENTIMENTS
Composed 1830.—Published 1835
[Written at Rydal Mount.—I. F.]
One of the "Poems of the Imagination."—Ed.
Presentiments! they judge not right
Who deem that ye from open light
Retire in fear of shame;
All heaven-born Instincts shun the touch
Of vulgar sense,—and, being such, 5
Such privilege ye claim.
The tear whose source I could not guess,
The deep sigh that seemed fatherless,
Were mine in early days;
And now, unforced by time to part 10
With fancy, I obey my heart,
And venture on your praise.
What though some busy foes to good,
Too potent over nerve and blood,
Lurk near you—and combine 15
To taint the health which ye infuse;
This hides not from the moral Muse
Your origin divine.
How oft from you, derided Powers!
Comes Faith that in auspicious hours 20
Builds castles, not of air:
Bodings unsanctioned by the will
Flow from your visionary skill,
And teach us to beware.
The bosom-weight, your stubborn gift, 25
That no philosophy can lift,
Shall vanish, if ye please,
Like morning mist: and, where it lay,
The spirits at your bidding play
In gaiety and ease. 30
Star-guided contemplations move
Through space, though calm, not raised above
Prognostics that ye rule;
The naked Indian of the wild,
And haply, too, the cradled Child, 35
Are pupils of your school.
But who can fathom your intents,
Number their signs or instruments?
A rainbow, a sunbeam,
A subtle smell that Spring unbinds, 40
Dead pause abrupt of midnight winds,
An echo, or a dream.[675]
The laughter of the Christmas hearth
With sighs of self-exhausted mirth
Ye feelingly reprove; 45
And daily, in the conscious breast,
Your visitations are a test
And exercise of love.
When some great change gives boundless scope
To an exulting Nation's hope, 50
Oft, startled and made wise
By your low-breathed interpretings,
The simply-meek foretaste the springs
Of bitter contraries.
Ye daunt the proud array of war, 55
Pervade the lonely ocean far
As sail hath been unfurled;
For dancers in the festive hall
What ghastly partners hath your call
Fetched from the shadowy world. 60
'Tis said, that warnings ye dispense,
Emboldened by a keener sense;
That men have lived for whom,
With dread precision, ye made clear
The hour that in a distant year 65
Should knell them to the tomb.
Unwelcome insight! Yet there are
Blest times when mystery is laid bare,
Truth shows a glorious face,
While on that isthmus which commands 70
The councils of both worlds, she stands,
Sage Spirits! by your grace.
God, who instructs the brutes to scent
All changes of the element,
Whose wisdom fixed the scale 75
Of natures, for our wants provides
By higher, sometimes humbler, guides,
When lights of reason fail.
FOOTNOTES:
[675] Compare Robert Browning's Bishop Blougram's Apology, ll. 191-197—
... there's a sunset-touch,
A fancy from a flower-bell, some one's death,
A chorus-ending from Euripides,—.
And that's enough for fifty hopes and fears
As old and new at once as Nature's self,
To rap and knock and enter in our soul,
Take hands and dance there, a fantastic ring, etc.—Ed.
["IN THESE FAIR VALES HATH MANY A TREE"]
Composed 1830.—Published 1835
[Engraven, during my absence in Italy, upon a brass plate inserted in the Stone.—I. F.]
This poem was classed among the "Inscriptions." In 1835 its title was Inscription intended for a Stone in the grounds of Rydal Mount. In 1845, and afterwards, the first line of the poem was its only title.—Ed.
In these fair vales hath many a Tree
At Wordsworth's suit been spared;
And from the builder's hand this Stone,
For some rude beauty of its own,
Was rescued by the Bard: 5
So let it rest; and time will come
When here the tender-hearted
May heave a gentle sigh for him,
As one of the departed.
The inscription is still preserved on the "brass plate inserted in the stone," within the grounds at Rydal Mount.—Ed.