ON WORDSWORTH'S COTTAGE,

NEAR GRASMERE LAKE.

(by Landon, Laetitia Elizabeth)

1 Not for the glory on their heads

2 Those stately hill-tops wear,

3 Although the summer sunset sheds

4 Its constant crimson there.

5 Not for the gleaming lights that break

6 The purple of the twilight lake,

7 Half dusky and half fair,

8 Does that sweet valley seem to be

9 A sacred place on earth to me.

10 The influence of a moral spell

11 Is found around the scene,

12 Giving new shadows to the dell,

13 New verdure to the green.

14 With every mountain-top is wrought

15 The presence of associate thought,

16 A music that has been;

17 Calling that loveliness to life,

18 With which the inward world is rife.

19 His home---our English poet's home---

20 Amid these hills is made;

21 Here, with the morning hath he come,

22 There, with the night delayed.

23 On all things is his memory cast,

24 For every place wherein he past,

25 Is with his mind arrayed,

26 That, wandering in a summer hour,

27 Asked wisdom of the leaf and flower.

28 Great poet, if I dare to throw

29 My homage at thy feet,

30 'Tis thankfulness for hours which thou

31 Hast made serene and sweet;

32 As wayfarers have insense thrown

33 Upon some mighty altar-stone

34 Unworthy, and yet meet,

35 The human spirit longs to prove

36 The truth of its uplooking love.

37 Until thy hand unlocked its store,

38 What glorious music slept!

39 Music that can be hushed no more

40 Was from our knowledge kept.

41 But the great Mother gave to thee

42 The poet's universal key,

43 And forth the fountains swept---

44 A gushing melody for ever,

45 The witness of thy high endeavour.

46 Rough is the road which we are sent,

47 Rough with long toil and pain;

48 And when upon the steep ascent,

49 A little way we gain,

50 Vexed with our own perpetual care,

51 Little we heed what sweet things are

52 Around our pathway blent;

53 With anxious steps we hurry on,

54 The very sense of pleasure gone.

55 But thou dost in this feverish dream

56 Awake a better mood,

57 With voices from the mountain stream,

58 With voices from the wood.

59 And with their music dost impart

60 Their freshness to the world-worn heart,

61 Whose fever is subdued

62 By memories sweet with other years,

63 By gentle hopes, and soothing tears.

64 A solemn creed is thine, and high,

65 Yet simple as a child,

66 Who looketh hopeful to yon sky

67 With eyes yet undefiled

68 By all the glitter and the glare

69 This life's deceits and follies wear,

70 Exalted, and yet mild,

71 Conscious of those diviner powers

72 Brought from a better world than ours.

73 Thou hast not chosen to rehearse

74 The old heroic themes;

75 Thou hast not given to thy verse

76 The heart's impassioned dreams.

77 Forth flows thy song as waters flow,

78 So bright above---so calm below,

79 Wherein the heaven seems

80 Eternal as the golden shade

81 Its sunshine on the stream hath laid.

82 The glory which thy spirit hath

83 Is round life's common things,

84 And flingeth round our common path,

85 As from an angel's wings,

86 A light that is not of our sphere,

87 Yet lovelier for being here,

88 Beneath whose presence springs

89 A beauty never mark'd before,

90 Yet once known, vanishing no more.

91 How often with the present sad,

92 And weary with the past,

93 A sunny respite have we had,

94 By but a chance look cast

95 Upon some word of thine that made

96 The sullenness forsake the shade,

97 Till shade itself was past:

98 For Hope divine, serene and strong,

99 Perpetual lives within thy song.

100 Eternal as the hills thy name,

101 Eternal as thy strain;

102 So long as ministers of Fame

103 Shall Love and Hope remain.

104 The crowded city in its streets,

105 The valley, in its green retreats,

106 Alike thy words retain.

107 What need hast thou of sculptured stone?---

108 Thy temple, is thy name alone.