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.