Page:Poems by William Wordsworth (1815) Volume 1.djvu/368

308 Until, at length, I came to one dear nook

Unvisited, where not a broken bough

Drooped with its withered leaves, ungracious sign

Of devastation, but the hazels rose

Tall and erect, with milk-white clusters hung,

A virgin scene!—A little while I stood,

Breathing with such suppression of the heart

As joy delights in; and, with wise restraint

Voluptuous, fearless of a rival, eyed

The banquet,—or beneath the trees I sate

Among the flowers, and with the flowers I played;

A temper known to those, who, after long

And weary expectation, have been blessed

With sudden happiness beyond all hope.—

Perhaps it was a bower beneath whose leaves

The violets of five seasons re-appear

And fade, unseen by any human eye;

Where fairy water-breaks do murmur on

For ever,—and I saw the sparkling foam,

And with my cheek on one of those green stones

That, fleeced with moss, beneath the shady trees,

Lay round me, scattered like a flock of sheep,

I heard the murmur and the murmuring sound,

In that sweet mood when pleasure loves to pay