Published in Fears in Solitude (London: Joseph Johnson, 1798), a quarto pamphlet that also included "Fears in Solitude" and "France: An Ode."
The frost performs its secret ministry | 5 |
| Abstruser musings, save that at my side My cradled infant slumbers peacefully. 'Tis calm indeed! -- so calm that it disturbs And vexes meditation with its strange And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood, | 10 |
| This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood, With all the numberless goings-on of life, Inaudible as dreams! The thin blue flame Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not; Only that film which fluttered on the grate | 15 |
| Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing. Methinks its motion in this hush of nature Gives it dim sympathies with me who live, Making it a companionable form With which I can hold commune. Idle thought! | 20 |
| But still the living spirit in our frame That loves not to behold a lifeless thing, Transfuses into all its own delights Its own volition -- sometimes with deep faith And sometimes with fantastic playfulness. | 25 |
| Ah me! amused by no such curious toys Of the self-watching subtilizing mind, How often in my early schoolboy days, With most believing superstitious wish Presageful have I gazed upon the bars, | 30 |
| To watch the stranger there! -- and oft belike, With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt Of my sweet birthplace, and the old church-tower Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang From morn to evening all the hot fair-day, | 35 |
| So sweetly that they stirred and haunted me With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear Most like articulate sounds of things to come! So gazed I till the soothing things I dreamt Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams! | 40 |
| And so I brooded all the following morn, Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eye Fixed with mock study on my swimming book; Save if the door half-opened, and I snatched A hasty glance, and still my heart leaped up, | 45 |
| For still I hoped to see the stranger's face -- Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved, My playmate when we both were clothed alike! Dear babe, that sleepest cradled by my side, Whose gentle breathings heard in this dead calm | 50 |
| Fill up the interspersed vacancies And momentary pauses of the thought; My babe so beautiful, it fills my heart With tender gladness thus to look at thee, And think that thou shalt learn far other lore | 55 |
| And in far other scenes! For I was reared In the great city, pent mid cloisters dim, And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars. But thou, my babe, shalt wander like a breeze By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags | 60 |
| Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores And mountain crags; so shalt thou see and hear The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible Of that eternal language which thy God | 65 |
| Utters, who from eternity doth teach Himself in all, and all things in himself. Great universal teacher! He shall mould Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask. Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee, | 70 |
| Whether the summer clothe the general earth With greenness, or the redbreasts sit and sing Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch Of mossy apple-tree, while all the thatch Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall | 75 |
| Heard only in the trances of the blast, Or whether the secret ministry of cold Shall hang them up in silent icicles, Quietly shining to the quiet moon; Like those, my babe, which ere tomorrow's warmth | 80 |
| Have capped their sharp keen points with pendulous drops, Will catch thine eye, and with their novelty Suspend thy little soul; then make thee shout And stretch and flutter from thy mother's arms, As thou would'st fly for very eagerness. | 85 |
February, 1798