THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, VOL. 8 (Completed)

HOLIDAY AT GWERNDWFFNANT, MAY 1826. IRREGULAR STANZAS BY DOROTHY WORDSWORTH

You're here for one long vernal day;

We'll give it all to social play,

Though forty years have rolled away

           Since we were young as you.

Then welcome to our spacious Hall!

Tom, Bessy, Mary, welcome all!

Though removed from busy men,

Yea lonesome as the foxes' den,

'Tis a place for joyance fit,

For frolic games and inborn wit.

'Twas nature built this hall of ours;

She shap'd the bank; she framed the bowers

          That close it all around;

From her we hold our precious right,

And here, thro' live-long day and night,

          She rules with modest sway.

Our carpet is our verdant sod;

A richer one was never trod

       In prince's proud saloon.

Purple, and gold, and spotless white,

And quivering shade, and sunny light,

       Blend with the emerald green.

She opened for the mountain brook

       A gentle winding pebbly way

Into this placid secret nook.

Its bell-like tinkling--list, you hear--

'Tis never loud, yet always clear

       As linnet's song in May.

And we have other music here:

A thousand songsters through the year

Dwell in these happy groves,

And in this season of their loves

They join their voices with the doves

    To raise a perfect harmony.

Thus spake I while with sober pace 

We slipped into that chosen place

And from the centre of our Hall

        The young ones played around,

Then, like a flock of vigorous lambs,

That quit their grave and slow-paced dams

          To frolic o'er the mead,

That innocent fraternal troop

Erewhile a steady listening group

        Off starting--Girl and Boy

In gamesome race with agile bound

Beat o'er and o'er the grassy ground

          As if in motion--perfect joy.