The Poetry Corner

Memorials Of A Tour On The Continent, 1820 - VIII. - In A Carriage, Upon The Banks Of The Rhine

By William Wordsworth

Amid this dance of objects sadness steals O'er the defrauded heart while sweeping by, As in a fit of Thespian jollity, Beneath her vine-leaf crown the green Earth reels: Backward, in rapid evanescence, wheels The venerable pageantry of Time, Each beetling rampart, and each tower sublime, And what the Dell unwillingly reveals Of lurking cloistral arch, through trees espied Near the bright River's edge. Yet why repine? To muse, to creep, to halt at will, to gaze Such sweet wayfaring of life's spring the pride, Her summer's faithful joy, 'that' still is mine, And in fit measure cheers autumnal days.