“There’s not a nook within this solemn Pass, But were an apt confessional for one Taught by his summer spent, his autumn gone, That life is but a tale of morning grass Withered at eve. From scenes of art which chase That thought away, turn, and with watchful eyes Feed it, ’mid Nature’s old felicities, Rocks, rivers, and smooth lakes more clear than glass Untouched, unbreathed upon. Thrice happy quest. If from a golden perch of aspen spray (October’s workmanship to rival May), The pensive warbler of the ruddy breast, That moral sweeten by a heaven-taught lay, Lulling the year, with all its cares, to rest.” There is another poem of the same date, 1831, which, though it is seldom quoted, shall be given here in full, since it well illustrates Wordsworth’s later phase of feeling about natural objects. It is entitled “The Primrose of the Rock,” and refers to a rock which stands on the right hand, a little way up the middle road leading from Rydal to Grasmere:— “A Rock there is whose homely front The passing traveler slights; Yet there the glow-worms hang their lamps, Like stars, at various heights; And one coy Primrose to that Rock The vernal breeze invites. “What hideous warfare hath been waged, What kingdoms overthrown, Since first I spied that Primrose-tuft, And marked it for my own; A lasting link in Nature’s chain From highest heaven let down! “The flowers, still faithful to the stems, Their fellowship renew; These stems are faithful to the root That worketh out of view; And to the rock the root adheres In every fibre true. “Close clings to earth the living rock Though threatening still to fall; The earth is constant to her sphere; And God upholds them all: So blooms this lonely Plant, nor fears Her annual funeral. “Here closed the meditative strain, But air breathed soft that day, The hoary mountain-heights were cheered. The sunny vale looked gay, And to the Primrose of the Rock I gave this after-lay. “I sang—Let myriads of bright flowers, Like thee, in field and grove Revive unenvied; mightier far, Than tremblings that reprove Our vernal tendencies to hope Is God’s redeeming love; “That love which changed—for wan disease, For sorrow that had bent O’er hopeless dust—for withered age— Their moral element, And turned the thistles of a curse To types beneficent. “Sin-blighted though we are, we too, The reasoning Sons of Men, From our oblivious winter called Shall rise, and breathe again, And in eternal summer lose Our threescore years and ten.