“WHY ART THOU SILENT? IS THY LOVE A PLANT”
Composed 1835 (or earlier).—Published 1835
[In the month of January,—when Dora and I were walking from Town-end, Grasmere, across the Vale, snow being on the ground, she espied, in the thick though leafless hedge, a bird’s nest half-filled with snow. Out of this comfortless appearance arose this Sonnet, which was, in fact, written without the least reference to any individual object, but merely to prove to myself that I could, if I thought fit, write in a strain that Poets have been fond of. On the 14th of February in the same year, my daughter, in a sportive mood, sent it as a Valentine, under a fictitious name, to her cousin C.W.—I.F.]
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”—Ed.
Why art thou silent? Is thy love a plant
Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air
Of absence withers what was once so fair?
Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant?
Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant— 5
Bound to thy service with unceasing care,[17]
The mind’s least generous wish a mendicant
For nought but what thy happiness could spare.
Speak—though this soft warm heart, once free to hold
A thousand tender pleasures, thine and mine, 10
Be left more desolate, more dreary cold
Than a forsaken bird’s-nest filled with snow
’Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine—
Speak, that my torturing doubts their end may know!
[17] 1845.
… with incessant care,
C.
(As would my deeds have been) with hourly care,
1835.
TO THE MOON
(COMPOSED BY THE SEA-SIDE,—ON THE COAST OF CUMBERLAND)
Composed 1835.—Published 1837
One of the “Evening Voluntaries.”—Ed.
Wanderer! that stoop’st so low, and com’st so near
To human life’s unsettled atmosphere;
Who lov’st with Night and Silence to partake,
So might it seem, the cares of them that wake;
And, through the cottage-lattice softly peeping, 5
Dost shield from harm the humblest of the sleeping;
What pleasure once encompassed those sweet names
Which yet in thy behalf the Poet claims,
An idolizing dreamer as of yore!—
I slight them all; and, on this sea-beat shore 10
Sole-sitting, only can to thoughts attend
That bid me hail thee as the Sailor’s Friend;
So call thee for heaven’s grace through thee made known
By confidence supplied and mercy shown,
When not a twinkling star or beacon’s light 15
Abates the perils of a stormy night;
And for less obvious benefits, that find
Their way, with thy pure help, to heart and mind;
Both for the adventurer starting in life’s prime;
And veteran ranging round from clime to clime, 20
Long-baffled hope’s slow fever in his veins,
And wounds and weakness oft his labour’s sole remains.
The aspiring Mountains and the winding Streams,
Empress of Night! are gladdened by thy beams;
A look of thine the wilderness pervades, 25
And penetrates the forest’s inmost shades;
Thou, chequering peaceably the minster’s gloom,
Guid’st the pale Mourner to the lost one’s tomb;
Canst reach the Prisoner—to his grated cell
Welcome, though silent and intangible!— 30
And lives there one, of all that come and go
On the great waters toiling to and fro,
One, who has watched thee at some quiet hour
Enthroned aloft in undisputed power,
Or crossed by vapoury streaks and clouds that move 35
Catching the lustre they in part reprove—
Nor sometimes felt a fitness in thy sway
To call up thoughts that shun the glare of day,
And make the serious happier than the gay?
Yes, lovely Moon! if thou so mildly bright 40
Dost rouse, yet surely in thy own despite,
To fiercer mood the phrenzy-stricken brain,
Let me a compensating faith maintain;
That there’s a sensitive, a tender, part
Which thou canst touch in every human heart, 45
For healing and composure.—But, as least
And mightiest billows ever have confessed
Thy domination; as the whole vast Sea
Feels through her lowest depths thy sovereignty;
So shines that countenance with especial grace 50
On them who urge the keel her plains to trace
Furrowing its way right onward. The most rude,
Cut off from home and country, may have stood—
Even till long gazing hath bedimmed his eye,
Or the mute rapture ended in a sigh— 55
Touched by accordance of thy placid cheer,
With some internal lights to memory dear,
Or fancies stealing forth to soothe the breast
Tired with its daily share of earth’s unrest,—
Gentle awakenings, visitations meek; 60
A kindly influence whereof few will speak,
Though it can wet with tears the hardiest cheek.
And when thy beauty in the shadowy cave
Is hidden, buried in its monthly grave;[18]
Then, while the Sailor, ’mid an open sea 65
Swept by a favouring wind that leaves thought free,
Paces the deck—no star perhaps in sight,
And nothing save the moving ship’s own light
To cheer the long dark hours of vacant night—
Oft with his musings does thy image blend, 70
In his mind’s eye thy crescent horns ascend,
And thou art still, O Moon, that Sailor’s Friend!
[18] Compare—
When thou wert hidden in thy monthly grave,
in the lines Written in a Grotto, p. 235.—Ed.
TO THE MOON
(RYDAL)
Composed 1835.—Published 1837
One of the “Evening Voluntaries.”—Ed.
Queen of the stars!—so gentle, so benign,
That ancient Fable did to thee assign,
When darkness creeping o’er thy silver brow
Warned thee these upper regions to forego,
Alternate empire in the shades below— 5
A Bard, who, lately near the wide-spread sea
Traversed by gleaming ships, looked up to thee
With grateful thoughts, doth now thy rising hail
From the close confines of a shadowy vale.
Glory of night, conspicuous yet serene, 10
Nor less attractive when by glimpses seen
Through cloudy umbrage,[19] well might that fair face,
And all those attributes of modest grace,
In days when Fancy wrought unchecked by fear,
Down to the green earth fetch thee from thy sphere, 15
To sit in leafy woods by fountains clear!
O still belov’d (for thine, meek Power, are charms
That fascinate the very Babe in arms,
While he, uplifted towards thee, laughs outright,
Spreading his little palms in his glad Mother’s sight) 20
O still belov’d, once worshipped! Time, that frowns
In his destructive flight on earthly crowns,
Spares thy mild splendour; still those far-shot beams
Tremble on dancing waves and rippling streams
With stainless touch, as chaste as when thy praise 25
Was sung by Virgin-choirs in festal lays;
And through dark trials still dost thou explore
Thy way for increase punctual as of yore,
When teeming Matrons—yielding to rude faith
In mysteries of birth and life and death 30
And painful struggle and deliverance—prayed
Of thee to visit them with lenient aid.
What though the rites be swept away, the fanes
Extinct that echoed to the votive strains;
Yet thy mild aspect does not, cannot, cease 35
Love to promote and purity and peace;
And Fancy, unreproved, even yet may trace
Faint types of suffering in thy beamless face.
Then, silent Monitress! let us—not blind
To worlds unthought of till the searching mind 40
Of Science laid them open to mankind—
Told, also, how the voiceless heavens declare
God’s glory; and acknowledging thy share
In that blest charge; let us—without offence
To aught of highest, holiest, influence— 45
Receive whatever good ’tis given thee to dispense.
May sage and simple, catching with one eye
The moral intimations of the sky,
Learn from thy course, where’er their own be taken,
“To look on tempests, and be never shaken”;[20] 50
To keep with faithful step the appointed way
Eclipsing or eclipsed, by night or day,
And from example of thy monthly range
Gently to brook decline and fatal change;
Meek, patient, stedfast, and with loftier scope, 55
Than thy revival yields, for gladsome hope![21]
[19] Compare The Triad, vol. vii. p. 181.—Ed.
[20] Compare l. 6 of Shakespeare’s sonnet, beginning—
Let me not to the marriage of true minds.
Ed.
[21] See a fragment of ten lines, which was written by Wordsworth in MS. after the above, in a copy of his poems. They are printed in the Appendix to this volume.—Ed.