To a Young Friend [;]on his Proposing to Domesticate with the Author

1. 1A mount, not wearisome and bare and steep,
2. 2But a green mountain variously up-piled,
3. 3Where o'er the jutting rocks soft mosses creep,
4. 4Or colour'd lichens with slow oozing weep;
5. 5Where cypress and the darker yew start wild;
6. 6And, 'mid the summer torrent's gentle dash
7. 7Dance brighten'd the red clusters of the ash;
8. 8Beneath whose boughs, by those still sounds beguil'd,
9. 9Calm Pensiveness might muse herself to sleep;
10. 10Till haply startled by some fleecy dam,
11. 11That rustling on the bushy cliff above
12. 12With melancholy bleat of anxious love,
13. 13Made meek enquiry for her wandering lamb:
14. 14Such a green mountain 'twere most sweet to climb,
15. 15E'en while the bosom ach'd with loneliness--
16. 16How more than sweet, if some dear friend should bless
17. 17The adventurous toil, and up the path sublime
18. 18Now lead, now follow: the glad landscape round,
19. 19Wide and more wide, increasing without bound!

1. 20O then 'twere loveliest sympathy, to mark
2. 21The berries of the half-uprooted ash
3. 22Dripping and bright; and list the torrent's dash,--
4. 23Beneath the cypress, or the yew more dark,
5. 24Seated at ease, on some smooth mossy rock;
6. 25In social silence now, and now to unlock
7. 26The treasur'd heart; arm linked in friendly arm,
8. 27Save if the one, his muse's witching charm
9. 28Muttering brow-bent, at unwatch'd distance lag;
10. 29Till high o'er head his beckoning friend appears,
11. 30And from the forehead of the topmost crag
12. 31Shouts eagerly: for haply there uprears
13. 32That shadowing Pine its old romantic limbs,
14. 33Which latest shall detain the enamour'd sight
15. 34Seen from below, when eve the valley dims,
16. 35Tinged yellow with the rich departing light;
17. 36And haply, bason'd in some unsunn'd cleft,
18. 37A beauteous spring, the rock's collected tears,
19. 38Sleeps shelter'd there, scarce wrinkled by the gale!
20. 39Together thus, the world's vain turmoil left,
21. 40Stretch'd on the crag, and shadow'd by the pine,
22. 41And bending o'er the clear delicious fount,
23. 42Ah! dearest youth! it were a lot divine
24. 43To cheat our noons in moralising mood,
25. 44While west-winds fann'd our temples toil-bedew'd:
26. 45Then downwards slope, oft pausing, from the mount,
27. 46To some lone mansion, in some woody dale,
28. 47Where smiling with blue eye, Domestic Bliss
29. 48Gives this the Husband's, that the Brother's kiss!

1. 49Thus rudely vers'd in allegoric lore,
2. 50The Hill of Knowledge I essayed to trace;
3. 51That verdurous hill with many a resting-place,
4. 52And many a stream, whose warbling waters pour
5. 53To glad, and fertilise the subject plains;
6. 54That hill with secret springs, and nooks untrod,
7. 55And many a fancy-blest and holy sod
8. 56Where Inspiration, his diviner strains
9. 57Low-murmuring, lay; and starting from the rock's
10. 58Stiff evergreens, (whose spreading foliage mocks
11. 59Want's barren soil, and the bleak frosts of age,
12. 60And Bigotry's mad fire-invoking rage!)
13. 61O meek retiring spirit! we will climb,
14. 62Cheering and cheered, this lovely hill sublime;
15. 63And from the stirring world up-lifted high
16. 64(Whose noises, faintly wafted on the wind,
17. 65To quiet musings shall attune the mind,
18. 66And oft the melancholy theme supply),
19. 67There, while the prospect through the gazing eye
20. 68Pours all its healthful greenness on the soul,
21. 69We'll smile at wealth, and learn to smile at fame,
22. 70Our hopes, our knowledge, and our joys the same,
23. 71As neighbouring fountains image each the whole:
24. 72Then when the mind hath drunk its fill of truth
25. 73We'll discipline the heart to pure delight,
26. 74Rekindling sober joy's domestic flame.
27. 75They whom I love shall love thee, honour'd youth!
28. 76Now may Heaven realise this vision bright!