Upon the happy creature's face. O moment ever blest! O pair Beloved of Heaven, Heaven's choicest caroi This was for you a precious greeting, For both a bounteous, fruitful meeting. Join'd are they, and the sylvan doe- 486 WORDSWORTH'S POEMS. Long past, delights and sorrowings? That day, the first of a reunion The master of whose humble board Where Rylstone Brook with Wharf is blended. When Emily by morning light Of time, and place, and thought, and deed, In her silent follower's eyes! Who with a power like human reason, Discerns the favourable season, Skill'd to approach or to retire, From looks conceiving her desire, From look, deportment, voice, or mien, And kindly intercourse ensue. How pleased, when down the straggler sank How soothed, when in thick bower inclosed, With her companion, in such frame Into a soul which now was blest When the bells of Rylstone play'd Had in her childhood read the same, But now, when such sad change was wrought, Nor lack'd she reason's firmest power; Her fate there measures,-all is still'd,- Fulfill'd, and she sustains her part! Yet, sometimes-sometimes doth she weop Bless, tender hearts, their mutua! lot, The youngest, then a lusty boy, Brought home the prize-and with what joy! But most to Bolton's sacred pile, On favouring nights she loved to go: There ranged through cloister, court, and aisle Nor did she fear in the still moonshine And, when she from the abyss return'd Of thought, she neither shrunk nor mourn'd; Was happy that she lived to greet Her mute companion as it lay In love and pity at her feet; How happy in her turn to meet That recognition! the mild glance Beam'd from that gracious countenance; Communication, like the ray Of a new morning, to the nature A mortal song we frame, by dower |