Such have I been deemed.-- 175 But, O dear Britain! O my Mother Isle! Needs must thou prove a name most dear and holy To me, a son, a brother, and a friend, A husband, and a father! who revere All bonds of natural love, and find them all 180 Within the limits of thy rocky shores. O native Britain! O my Mother Isle! How shouldst thou prove aught else but dear and holy To me, who from thy lakes and mountain-hills, Thy clouds, thy quiet dales, thy rocks and seas, 185 Have drunk in all my intellectual life, All sweet sensations, all ennobling thoughts, All adoration of the God in nature, All lovely and all honourable things. Whatever makes this mortal spirit feel 190 The joy and greatness of its future being? There lives nor form nor feeling in my soul Unborrowed from my country! O divine And beauteous island! thou hast been my sole And most magnificent temple, in the which 195 I walk with awe, and sing my stately songs, Loving the God that made me!-- May my fears, My filial fears, be vain! and may the vaunts And menace of the vengeful enemy Pass like the gust, that roared and died away 200 In the distant tree: which heard, and only heard In this low dell, bowed not the delicate grass. But now the gentle dew-fall sends abroad The fruit-like perfume of the golden furze: The light has left the summit of the hill, 205 Though still a sunny gleam lies beautiful, Aslant the ivied beacon. Now farewell, Farewell, awhile, O soft and silent spot! On the green sheep-track, up the heathy hill, Homeward I wind my way; and lo! recalled 210 From bodings that have well-nigh wearied me, I find myself upon the brow, and pause Startled! And after lonely sojourning In such a quiet and surrounded nook, This burst of prospect, here the shadowy main, 215 Dim-tinted, there the mighty majesty Of that huge amphitheatre of rich And elmy fields, seems like society-- Conversing with the mind, and giving it A livelier impulse and a dance of thought! 220 And now, beloved Stowey! I behold Thy church-tower, and, methinks, the four huge elms Clustering, which mark the mansion of my friend; And close behind them, hidden from my view, Is my own lowly cottage, where my babe 225 And my babe's mother dwell in peace! With light And quickened footsteps thitherward I tend, Remembering thee, O green and silent dell! And grateful, that by nature's quietness And solitary musings, all my heart 230 Is softened, and made worthy to indulge Love, and the thoughts that yearn for human kind. NETHER STOWEY, _April_ 20, 1798. FOOTNOTES: