Night Pieces for Halloween - William Wordsworth

 

A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal

A slumber did my spirit seal;

     I had no human fears:

She seemed a thing that could not feel

     The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;

     She neither hears nor sees;

Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,

     With rocks, and stones, and trees.

She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways

She dwelt among the untrodden ways

Beside the springs of Dove,

A maid whom there were none to praise

And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone

Half hidden from the eye!

--Fair as a star, when only one

Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know

When Lucy ceased to be;

But she is in her grave, and, oh,

The difference to me!

A Night-Piece

----The sky is overcast

With a continuous cloud of texture close,

Heavy and wan, all whitened by the Moon,

Which through that veil is indistinctly seen,

A dull, contracted circle, yielding light

So feebly spread, that not a shadow falls,

Chequering the ground -- from rock, plant, tree, or tower.

At length a pleasant instantaneous gleam

Startles the pensive traveller while he treads

His lonesome path, with unobserving eye

Bent earthwards; he looks up -- the clouds are split

Asunder, -- and above his head he sees

The clear Moon, and the glory of the heavens.

There, in a black-blue vault she sails along,

Followed by multitudes of stars, that, small

And sharp, and bright, along the dark abyss

Drive as she drives: how fast they wheel away,

Yet vanish not! -- the wind is in the tree,

But they are silent; --still they roll along

Immeasurably distant; and the vault,

Built round by those white clouds, enormous clouds,

Still deepens its unfathomable depth.

At length the Vision closes; and the mind,

Not undisturbed by the delight it feels,

Which slowly settles into peaceful calm,

Is left to muse upon the solemn scene.

BIO: William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was born on April 7, 1770 at Cockermouth, Cumbria, England. He was known for his interest in the "common man" and his call for the use of "common speech" in poetry. His lyrical style had a profound effect on the Romantic Movement. He died on April 23, 1850. His most influential work, The Prelude, was published posthumously.