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NUTTING

Composed 1799.—­Published 1800

[Written in Germany; intended as part of a poem on my own life, but struck out as not being wanted there.  Like most of my schoolfellows I was an impassioned Nutter.  For this pleasure, the Vale of Esthwaite, abounding in coppice wood, furnished a very wide range.  These verses arose out of the remembrance of feelings I had often had when a boy, and particularly in the extensive woods that still stretch from the side of Esthwaite Lake towards Graythwaite, the seat of the ancient family of Sandys.—­I.F.]

One of the “Poems of the Imagination.”—­Ed.

—­It seems a day
  (I speak of one from many singled out)
  One of those heavenly days that [1] cannot die;
  When, in the eagerness of boyish hope, [2]
  I left our cottage-threshold, [A] sallying forth [3] 5
  With a huge wallet o’er my shoulders slung, [4]
  A nutting-crook in hand; and turned [5] my steps
  Tow’rd some far-distant wood, [6] a Figure quaint,
  Tricked out in proud disguise of cast-off weeds
  Which for that service had been husbanded, 10
  By exhortation of my frugal Dame—­[7]
  Motley accoutrement, of power to smile
  At thorns, and brakes, and brambles,—­and, in truth,
  More ragged than need was!  O’er pathless rocks,
  Through beds of matted fern, and tangled thickets, 15
  Forcing my way, I came to one dear nook [8]
  Unvisited, where not a broken bough
  Drooped with its withered leaves, ungracious sign
  Of devastation; but the hazels rose
  Tall and erect, with tempting clusters [9] hung, 20
  A virgin scene!—­A little while I stood,
  Breathing with such suppression of the heart
  As joy delights in; and, with wise restraint
  Voluptuous, fearless of a rival, eyed
  The banquet;—­or beneath the trees I sate 25
  Among the flowers, and with the flowers I played;
  A temper known to those, who, after long
  And weary expectation, have been blest
  With sudden happiness beyond all hope. 
  Perhaps it was a bower beneath whose leaves 30
  The violets of five seasons re-appear
  And fade, unseen by any human eye;
  Where fairy water-breaks do murmur on
  For ever; and I saw the sparkling foam,
  And—­with my cheek on one of those green stones 35
  That, fleeced with moss, under [10] the shady trees,
  Lay round me, scattered like a flock of sheep—­
  I heard the murmur and the murmuring sound,
  In that sweet mood when pleasure loves to pay
  Tribute to ease; and, of its joy secure, 40
  The heart luxuriates with indifferent things,
  Wasting its kindliness on stocks and stones,