Unto the caitiff wretch whom long affliction holdeth,
and now fully believes help to be quite perished,
Grant yet, grant yet a look, to the last monument of his anguish,
O you (alas so I find) cause of his only ruin.
Dread not a whit (O goodly cruel) that pity may enter
into thy heart by the sight of this epistle I send;
And so refuse to behold of these strange wounds the recital,
lest it might thee allure home to thyself to return
(Unto thyself I do mean, those graces dwell so within thee,

38

Sitting Galone, Love bids me goe and write;
Reason plucks back, commanding me to stay,
Boasting, that she doth still direct the way,
Or else Love were unable to indite:
Love growing angry, vexed at the Spleene,
And scorning Reason's maymed Argument,
Straight taxeth Reason, wanting to invent,
Where she with Love conversing hath not beene;
Reason reproched with this coy Disdaine,
Despiteth Love, and laug heth at her Folly;
And Love contemning Reasons reason wholly,
Thought it in weight too light by many a Graine:

36

Thou purblind Boy, since thou hast beene so slacke,
To wound her Heart, whose Eyes have wounded me,
And suff'red her to glory in my Wracke,
Thus to my aid, I lastly conjure thee;
By Hellish Styx (by which the T HUND'RER sweares)
By thy faire Mothers unavoided Power,
By H ECAT'S Names, by P ROSERPINE'S sad Teares,
When she was rapt to the infernall Bower;
By thine owne loved Psyches , by the Fires
Spent on thine Altars, flaming up to Heav'n;
By all true Lovers Sighes, Vowes, and Desires,
By all the Wounds that ever thou hast giv'n;

What sounds are those, Helvellyn, that are heard
Up to thy summit, through the depth of air
Ascending, as if distance had the power
To make the sounds more audible? What crowd
Covers, or sprinkles o'er, yon village green?
Crowd seems it, solitary hill! to thee,
Though but a little family of men,
Shepherds and tillers of the ground—betimes
Assembled with their children and their wives,
And here and there a stranger interspersed.
They hold a rustic fair—a festival,
Such as, on this side now, and now on that,

What sounds are those, Helvellyn, which are heard
Up to thy summit, through the depth of air
Ascending, as if distance had the power
To make the sounds more audible? What crowd
Is yon, assembled in the gay green field?
Crowd seems it, solitary hill! to thee,
Though but a little family of men,
Twice twenty, with their children and their wives,
And here and there a stranger interspersed.
It is a summer festival — a fair,
Such as, on this side now, and now on that,
Repeated through his tributary vales,
Helvellyn, in the silence of his rest,

1

In a swift vortex go the years,
Each swifter than the last,
And seasons four their set careers
Pursued, and somehow pass'd.
The spirit of Spring, this year, was quench'd
With clouds and wind and rain;
All night the gust-blown torrent drench'd
The gloomy window-pane;
Against the pane the flapping blind
Flapp'd ever, dismally;
And ever, above the rain and wind,

1

The noon was hot and close and still,
When, steadying Blanche's hand,
I led her down the southern hill,
And row'd with her from land.
Ere summer's prime that year the wasp
Lay gorged within the peach;
The tide, as though the sea did gasp,
Fell lax upon the beach.
Quietly dipp'd the dripping scull.
And all beside was calm;
But o'er the strange and weary lull

1

So subtly love within me wrought,
So excellent she seem'd,
Daily of Blanche was all my thought,
Nightly of Blanche I dream'd;
And this was all my wish, and all
The work now left for life,
To make this Wonder mine, to call
This laughing Blanche my Wife.

2

I courted her till hope grew bold;
Then sought her in her place,
And all my passion freely told,

1

We left the Church at Tamerton
In gloomy western air;
To greet the day we gallop'd on,
A merry-minded pair.
The hazy East hot noon did bode;
Our horses sniff'd the dawn;
We made ten Cornish miles of road
Before the dew was gone.
We clomb the hill where Lanson's Keep
Fronts Dartmoor's distant ridge;
Thence trotted South; walk'd down the steep

My love is the flaming Sword
To fight through the world;
Thy love is the Shield to ward,
And the Armour of the Lord
And the Banner of Heaven unfurled.