This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison

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1. Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,
2. This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost
3. Beauties and feelings, such as would have been
4. Most sweet to my remembrance even when age
5. Had dimmed mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile,
6. Friends, whom I never more may meet again,
7. On springy heath, along the hill-top edge,
8. Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,
9. To that still roaring dell, of which I told;
10. The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep,
11. And only speckled by the mid-day sun;
12. Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock
13. Flings arching like a bridge--that branchless ash,
14. Unsunned and damp, whose few poor yellow-leaves
15. Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still,
16. Fanned by the water-fall! and there my friends
17. Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds,
18. That all at once (a most fantastic sight!)
19. Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge
20. Of the blue clay-stone.
21.  
22. Now, my friends emerge
23. Beneath the wide wide Heaven--and view again
24. The many-steepled tract magnificent
25. Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea,
26. With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up
27. The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two Isles
28. Of purple shadow! Yes! they wander on
29. In gladness all; but thou, me thinks, most glad,
30. My gentle-hearted Charles! for thou hast pined
31. And hungered after Nature, many a year,
32. In the great City pent, winning thy way
33. With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain
34. And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink
35. Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun!
36. Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb,
37. Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds
38. Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves!
39. And kindle, thou blue Ocean! So my friend
40. Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood,
41. Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round
42. On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem
43. Less gross than bodily; and of such hues
44. As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes
45. Spirits perceive his presence.
46.  
47. A delight
48. Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad
49. As I myself were there! Nor in this bower,
50. This little lime-tree bower, have I not marked
51. Much that has soothed me. Pale beneath the blaze
52. Hung the transparent foliage; and I watched
53. Some broad and sunny leaf, and loved to see
54. The shadow of the leaf and stem above,
55. Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut-tree
56. Was richly tinged, and a deep radiance lay
57. Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps
58. Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass--
59. Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue
60. Through the late twilight: and though now the bat
61. Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters,
62. Yet still the solitary humble-bee
63. Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know
64. That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure;
65. No plot so narrow, be but Nature there,
66. No waste so vacant, but may well employ
67. Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart.
68. Awake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes
69. 'Tis well to be bereft of promised good,
70. That we may lift the soul, and contemplate
71. With lively joy the joys we cannot share.
72. My gentle-hearted Charles! when the last rook
73. Beat its straight path along the dusky air
74. Homewards, I blest it! deeming, its black wing
75. (Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light)
76. Had cross'd the mighty orb's dilated glory,
77. While thou stood'st gazing; or when all was still,
78. Flew creeking o'er thy head, and had a charm
79. For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom
80. No sound is dissonant which tells of Life.