Is up, and
cropping
yet .
Wordsworth - 1
* * * * *
Calm is all nature as a resting wheel.
The kine are couched upon the dewy grass;
The horse alone, seen dimly as I pass,
Is cropping audibly [1] his later meal: [C]
Dark is the ground; a slumber seems to steal 5
O'er vale, and mountain, and the starless sky.
Now, in this blank of things, a harmony,
Home-felt, and home-created, comes [2] to heal
That grief for which the senses still supply
Fresh food; for only then, when memory 10
Is hushed, am I at rest. My Friends! restrain
Those busy cares that would allay my pain;
Oh! leave me to myself, nor let me feel
The officious touch that makes me droop again.
* * * * *
[Footnote A: The date of the composition of this fragment is quite
unknown. --Ed. ]
[Footnote B: But previously, in 'The Morning Post', Feb. 13, 1802. --Ed. ]
[Footnote C: Canon Ainger calls attention to the fact that there is here
a parallel, possibly a reminiscence, from the 'Nocturnal Reverie' of
the Countess of Winchelsea.
Whose stealing pace and lengthened shade we fear,
Till torn-up forage in his teeth we hear.
Ed. ]
* * * * *
[Variant 1:
1827.
Is up, and cropping yet . . . 1807. ]
[Variant 2:
1838.
. . . seems . . . 1807. ]
* * * * *
AN EVENING WALK
ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG LADY
Composed 1787-9. [A]--Published 1793
[The young Lady to whom this was addressed was my Sister. It was
composed at School, and during my first two College vacations. There
is not an image in it which I have not observed; and, now in my
seventy-third year, I recollect the time and place, when most of them
were noticed.
