Poems of Philip Henry Savage / Philip Henry Savage [electronic text]

II

NEAR THE WHITE LEDGE, SANDWICH, N.H.

I FOLLOWED up a little burn, Led onward by the smell of fern; And standing at the opening day Where yellow blossoms line the way I catch, blown faintly on the air, The whispered perfume of the rare, Pale morning-primrose, wet and fair! The bobolink stands on the grass Now ere the deep July shall pass And greets me from the bennets tall; I hear a distant thrush's call Rise full and deep, then silent fall.

Spirit of Wordsworth, with me still Upon the plain, upon the hill, I find my purpose wholly bent To be to-day thine instrument; Led upward to the thought of thee By all the spreading world I see. The broad lake country at my feet Bids Asquam with Wynander greet, Rydal with Ossipee; and shows The Bearcamp water where it flows Another Rotha, stream and break, From covert pond to glittering lake; While Grasmere lies serene and still By yonder tarn beneath Red Hill. Thy mountains, Wordsworth, too, are by And paint their shadows on the sky. Chocorua stands, but not alone, For out across the scene is thrown The memory of Helvellyn; hid Within thy folds, Tripyramid, Are thoughts of Kirkstone, Fairfield, all That heard Joanna's laughing call! Whiteface is vanished in the shade By Scawfell and Blencathra made; While Sandwich Mountain at the west, In Glaramara's shadow dressed, Leads the high path toward Campton ways

Across a steeper Dunmail Raise! Lake, hill, and mountain, all are bright With the first gift of morning light; The sun is on them and the dew, Shining far down and glittering through The wide, white fields of mountain air High o'er the valleys everywhere. And Wordsworth, in the auxiliar flame That trembles on them from thy name They bear in all their company Aloft, the living thought of thee.

The Quaker poet sang his song And loved the world these scenes among; A sober man, a song, I think Not like the wanton bobolink! It was an utterance sweet like those Light raptures of the song-sparrows; It ne'er attained the impetuous rush And music of the full-voiced thrush; Whose song, O Wordsworth, like to thine In joy long-thought and measured fine, Is priestly in the praise of Pan Divine.