The vapours linger round the Heights,
They melt, and soon must vanish;
One hour is theirs, nor more is mine—
Sad thoughts, which I would banish,
But that I know, where’er I go,
Thy genuine image, Yarrow!
Will dwell with me—to heighten joy,
And cheer my mind in sorrow.
It may interest many to read Wordsworth’s own comment on the two following poems. ‘On Tuesday morning,’ he says, ‘Sir Walter Scott accompanied us and most of the party to Newark Castle, on the Yarrow. When we alighted from the carriages he walked pretty stoutly, and had great pleasure in revisiting there his favourite haunts. Of that excursion the verses “Yarrow Revisited” are a memorial. Notwithstanding the romance that pervades Sir Walter’s works, and attaches to many of his habits, there is too much pressure of fact for these verses to harmonize, as much as I could wish, with the two preceding poems. On our return in the afternoon, we had to cross the Tweed, directly opposite Abbotsford. The wheels of our carriage grated upon the pebbles in the bed of the stream, that there flows somewhat rapidly. A rich but sad light, of rather a purple than a golden hue, was spread over the Eildon Hills at that moment; and thinking it probable that it might be the last time Sir Walter would cross the stream, I was not a little moved, and expressed some of my feelings in the sonnet beginning
“A trouble not of clouds,” etc.
At noon on Thursday we left Abbotsford, and on the morning of that day Sir Walter and I had a serious conversation, tête-à-tête, when he spoke with gratitude of the happy life which, upon the whole, he had led.
‘In this interview also it was, that, upon my expressing a hope of his health being benefited by the climate of the country to which he was going, and by the interest he would take in the classic remembrances of Italy, he made use of the quotation from “Yarrow Unvisited,” as recorded by me in the “Musings near Aquapendente,” six years afterwards. . . . Both the “Yarrow Revisited” and the “Sonnet” were sent him before his departure from England.’
YARROW REVISITED.
The gallant Youth, who may have gained,
Or seeks, a ‘winsome Marrow,’
Was but an Infant in the lap
When first I looked on Yarrow;
Once more, by Newark’s Castle-gate
Long left without a warder,
I stood, looked, listened, and with Thee,
Great Minstrel of the Border!
Grave thoughts ruled wide on that sweet day,
Their dignity installing
In gentle bosoms, while sere leaves
Were on the bough, or falling;
But breezes played, and sunshine gleamed—
The forest to embolden;
Reddened the fiery hues, and shot
Transparence through the golden.
For busy thoughts the Stream flowed on
In foamy agitation;
And slept in many a crystal pool
For quiet contemplation:
No public and no private care
The freeborn mind enthralling,
We made a day of happy hours,
Our happy days recalling.