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Home  »  Parnassus  »  William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

Ralph Waldo Emerson, comp. (1803–1882). Parnassus: An Anthology of Poetry. 1880.

To Joanna

William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

(See full text.)

AS it befell,

One summer morning we had walked abroad

At break of day, Joanna and myself.

’Twas that delightful season when the broom,

Full-flowered, and visible on every steep,

Along the copses runs in veins of gold.

Our pathway led us on to Rotha’s banks;

And when we came in front of that tall rock

That eastward looks, I there stopped short, and stood

Tracing the lofty barrier with my eye

From base to summit; such delight I found

To note in shrub and tree, in stone and flower,

That intermixture of delicious hues,

In one impression, by connecting force

Of their own beauty, imaged in the heart.

When I had gazed perhaps two minutes’ space,

Joanna, looking in my eyes, beheld

That ravishment of mine, and laughed aloud.

The Rock, like something starting from a sleep,

Took up the Lady’s voice, and laughed again;

That ancient Woman seated on Helm-crag

Was ready with her cavern; Hammar-scar,

And the tall Steep of Silver-how, sent forth

A noise of laughter; southern Loughrigg heard,

And Fairfield answered with a mountain tone;

Helvellyn far into the clear blue sky

Carried the Lady’s voice,—old Skiddaw blew

His speaking-trumpet; back out of the clouds

Of Glaramara southward came the voice;

And Kirkstone tossed it from his misty head.

“Now whether” (said I to our cordial friend,

Who in the hey-day of astonishment

Smiled in my face), “this were in simple truth

A work accomplished by the brotherhood

Of ancient mountains, or my ear was touched

With dreams and visionary impulses

To me alone imparted, sure I am

That there was a loud uproar in the hills.”

And while we both were listening, to my side

The fair Joanna drew, as if she wished

To shelter from some object of her fear.

And hence long afterwards, when eighteen moons

Were wasted, as I chanced to walk alone

Beneath this rock, at sunrise, on a calm

And silent morning, I sat down, and there,

In memory of affections old and true,

I chiselled out in those rude characters

Joanna’s name deep in the living stone;

And I and all who dwell by my fireside

Have called the lovely rock, “Joanna’s Rock.”