Wordsworth Read Free

earth and sky
    By the restless Cuckoo sent;
    Like her ordinary cry,
    Like – but oh how different!
    Hears not also mortal Life?
    Hear not we, unthinking Creatures!
    Slaves of Folly, Love, or Strife,
    Voices of two different Natures?
    Have not We too? Yes we have
    Answers, and we know not whence;
    Echoes from beyond the grave,
    Recognized intelligence?
    Such within ourselves we hear
    Oft-times, ours though sent from far;
    Listen, ponder, hold them dear;
    For of God, of God they are!
LINES WRITTEN AT A SMALL DISTANCE FROM MY HOUSE, AND SENT BY MY LITTLE BOY TO THE PERSON TO WHOM THEY ARE ADDRESSED
    It is the first mild day of March:
    Each minute sweeter than before,
    The red-breast sings from the tall larch
    That stands beside our door.
    There is a blessing in the air,
    Which seems a sense of joy to yield
    To the bare trees, and mountains bare,
    And grass in the green field.
    My Sister! (’tis a wish of mine)
    Now that our morning meal is done,
    Make haste, your morning task resign;
    Come forth and feel the sun.
    Edward will come with you, and pray,
    Put on with speed your woodland dress,
    And bring no book, for this one day
    We’ll give to idleness.
    No joyless forms shall regulate
    Our living Calendar:
    We from to-day, my friend, will date
    The opening of the year.
    Love, now an universal birth,
    From heart to heart is stealing,
    From earth to man, from man to earth,
    – It is the hour of feeling.
    One moment now may give us more
    Than fifty years of reason;
    Our minds shall drink at every pore
    The spirit of the season.
    Some silent laws our hearts may make,
    Which they shall long obey;
    We for the year to come may take
    Our temper from to-day.
    And from the blessed power that rolls
    About, below, above;
    We’ll frame the measure of our souls,
    They shall be tuned to love.
    Then come, my sister! come, I pray,
    With speed put on your woodland dress,
    And bring no book; for this one day
    We’ll give to idleness.
LINES WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING
    I heard a thousand blended notes,
    While in a grove I sate reclined,
    In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
    Bring sad thoughts to the mind.
    To her fair works did Nature link
    The human soul that through me ran;
    And much it grieved my heart to think
    What man has made of man.
    Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
    The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
    And ’tis my faith that every flower
    Enjoys the air it breathes.
    The birds around me hopped and played,
    Their thoughts I cannot measure: –
    But the least motion which they made,
    It seemed a thrill of pleasure.
    The budding twigs spread out their fan,
    To catch the breezy air;
    And I must think, do all I can,
    That there was pleasure there.
    If this belief from heaven be sent,
    If such be Nature’s holy plan,
    Have I not reason to lament
    What man has made of man?
‘A WHIRL-BLAST FROM BEHIND THE HILL’
    A whirl-blast from behind the hill
    Rushed o’er the wood with startling sound;
    Then – all at once the air was still,
    And showers of hailstones pattered round.
    Where leafless oaks towered high above,
    I sat within an undergrove
    Of tallest hollies, tall and green;
    A fairer bower was never seen.
    From year to year the spacious floor
    With withered leaves is covered o’er,
    And all the year the bower is green.
    But see! where’er the hailstones drop
    The withered leaves all skip and hop;
    There’s not a breeze – no breath of air –
    Yet here, and there, and everywhere
    Along the floor, beneath the shade
    By those embowering hollies made,
    The leaves in myriads jump and spring,
    As if with pipes and music rare
    Some Robin Good-fellow were there,
    And all those leaves, in festive glee,
    Were dancing in the minstrelsy.
AIREY-FORCE VALLEY
                   Not a breath of air
    Ruffles the bosom of this leafy glen.
    From the brook’s margin, wide around, the trees
    Are steadfast as the rocks; the brook itself,
    Old as the hills that feed it from afar,
    Doth rather deepen than disturb the