Ode. The Pass of Kirkstone. I. Within the mind strong fancies work, A deep delight the bosom thrills, Oft as I pass along the fork Of these fraternal hills : Where, save the rugged road, we find No appanage of human kind ; Nor hint of man, if stone or rock Seem not his handy-work to mock By something cognizably shaped ; Mockery—or model—roughly hewn, And left as if by earthquake strewn, Or from the Flood escaped :— Altars for Druid service fit ; (But where no fire was ever lit, Unless the glow-worm to the skies Thence offer nightly sacrifice ;) Wrinkled Egyptian monument ; Green moss-grown tower ; or hoary tent ; Tents of a camp that never shall be raised : On which four thousand years have gazed ! II. Ye plowshares sparkling on the slopes ! Ye snow-white lambs that trip Imprison’d mid the formal props Of restless ownership ! Ye trees that may to-morrow fall, To feed the insatiate Prodigal ! Lawns, houses, chattels, groves, and fields, All that the fertile valley shields ; Wages of folly—baits of crime,— Of life’s uneasy game the stake,— Playthings that keep the eyes awake Of drowsy, dotard Time ;— O care! O guilt !—O vales and plains, Here, mid his own unvexed domains, A Genius dwells, that can subdue At once all memory of You,— Most potent when mists veil the sky, Mists that distort and magnify ; While the coarse rushes, to the sweeping breeze, Sigh forth their ancient melodies ! III. List to those shriller notes !—that march Perchance was on the blast, When through this Height’s inverted arch Rome’s earliest legion passed ! —They saw, adventurously impell’d, And older eyes than theirs beheld, This block—and yon whose Church-like frame Gives to the savage Pass its name. Aspiring Road ! that loy’st to hide Thy daring in a vapoury bourn, Not seldom may the hour return When thou shalt be my guide ; And I (as often we find cause, When life is at a weary pause, And we have panted up the hill Of duty with reluctant will) Be thankful, even though tired and faint, For the rich bounties of Constraint ; Whence oft invigorating transports flow That Choice lacked courage to bestow ! IV. My soul was grateful for delight That wore a threatening brow ; A veil is lifted—can she slight The scene that opens now ? Though habitation none appear, The greenness tells, man must be there ; The shelter—that the perspective Is of the clime in which we live ; Where Toil pursues his daily round ; Where Pity sheds sweet tears, and Love, In woodbine bower or birchen grove, Inflicts his tender wound. —Who comes not hither ne’er shall know How beautiful the world below ; Nor can he guess how lightly leaps The brook adown the rocky steeps. Farewell thou desolate Domain ! Hope, pointing to the cultur’d Plain, Carols like a shepherd boy ; And who is she ?—can that be Joy ? Who, with a sun-beam for her guide, Smoothly skims the meadows wide ; While Faith, from yonder opening cloud To hill and vale proclaims aloud, “Whate’er the weak may dread, the wicked dare, Thy lot, O man, is good, thy portion fair !”