THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, VOL. 8 (Completed)

COMPANION TO THE FOREGOING

Composed (?)[256]--Published 1845


Never enlivened with the liveliest ray

That fosters growth or checks or cheers decay,

Nor by the heaviest rain-drops more deprest,

This Flower, that first appeared as summer's guest,

Preserves her beauty 'mid autumnal leaves

And to her mournful habits fondly cleaves.

When files of stateliest plants have ceased to bloom,

One after one submitting to their doom,

When her coevals each and all are fled,

What keeps her thus reclined upon her lonesome bed?

The old mythologists, more impress'd than we

Of this late day by character in tree

Or herb, that claimed peculiar sympathy,

Or by the silent lapse of fountain clear,

Or with the language of the viewless air

By bird or beast made vocal, sought a cause

To solve the mystery, not in Nature's laws

But in Man's fortunes. Hence a thousand tales

Sung to the plaintive lyre in Grecian vales.

Nor doubt that something of their spirit swayed

The fancy-stricken Youth or heart-sick Maid,

Who, while each stood companionless and eyed

This undeparting Flower in crimson dyed,

Thought of a wound which death is slow to cure,

A fate that has endured and will endure,

And, patience coveting yet passion feeding,

Called the dejected Lingerer, Love lies bleeding.

[256] The date of the composition of this poem is uncertain, but, as"companion" to Love lies Bleeding, it must be placed in immediate succession to it.--ED.