(To J. L. Paton)
God give me Derwentwater when I die.
Let no one else be by
To say prayers over me or close my eye.
On Friar's Crag my body will lie down.
On green grass and earth brown.
I will forget the fever and the town.
Over the tops of ancient Borrowdale,
Slowly the clouds will sail
Through great sky spaces, exquisite and frail.
And grandly will the flames of heather climb
Up Skiddaw-Hill sublime,
With head unbowed before the knees of time.
Thro' the still dusk a little bird will sing
Sweetly a holy thing,
And fade in silence on a drowsy wing.
The winds will pass along the quiet lake,
And God will gently take
My own breath with them for His Godhead's sake.
"I VOWED THAT I WOULD BE A TREE"
I vowed that I would be a tree.
I went up to an oak and said,
"What shall I do that I might be
A beech, an oak, or any tree,
With branches leafing from my head?"
There was a sound of sap that ran,
There was a wind of leaves that spoke.
"So you would cease to be a man,
And be a green tree, if you can,
A pine, a beech, an oak?"
I answered, "I am tired of men,
As tired as they of me.
I fain would not return again
To the perplexity of men,
But straightway be a tree."
There was a sound of winds that went
To summon every oldest tree,
To hold their austere Parliament
About the thing had craved to be
Elect of their calm company.
There was a sound of bursting tide,
There was a wash of clanging foam,
A crumbling shore, a bursting tide.
There came a thunder that outcried,
"Go, wretched mortal, get thee home!
"Who art thou that would be a tree,
Least of the weeds that shoot and pass?
Bide till a Wisdom come, and see
Before a mortal be a tree,
He first must be a blade of grass!"