Here closed the meditative strain; 25
But air breathed soft that day,
The hoary mountain-heights were cheered,
The sunny vale looked gay;
And to the Primrose of the Rock
I gave this after-lay. 30
I sang—Let myriads of bright flowers,
Like Thee, in field and grove
Revive unenvied;—mightier far,
Than tremblings that reprove
Our vernal tendencies to hope, 35
Is[688] God's redeeming love;
That love which changed—for wan disease,
For sorrow that had bent
O'er hopeless dust, for withered age—
Their moral element, 40
And turned the thistles of a curse
To types beneficent.
Sin-blighted though we are, we too,
The reasoning Sons of Men,
From one oblivious winter called 45
Shall rise, and breathe again;
And in eternal summer lose
Our threescore years and ten.
To humbleness of heart descends
This prescience from on high, 50
The faith that elevates the just,
Before and when they die;
And makes each soul a separate heaven,
A court for Deity.
FOOTNOTES:
[686] 1835.
... lonely front 1836.
The edition of 1841 returns to the text of 1835.
[687] In Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal the following occurs:—April 24, 1802.—"We walked in the evening to Rydal. Coleridge and I lingered behind. We all stood to look at Glow-worm Rock—a primrose that grew there, and just looked out on the road from its own sheltered bower."
The Primrose had disappeared when the Fenwick note was dictated, and Glow-worms have now almost deserted the district; but the Rock is unmistakable, and it is one of the most interesting spots connected with Wordsworth in the Lake District.—Ed.