Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Germany: Vols. XVII–XVIII. 1876–79.

Rhine, the River

In a Carriage, upon the Banks of the Rhine

By William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

AMID this dance of objects sadness steals

O’er the defrauded heart, while sweeping by,

As in a fit of Thespian jollity,

Beneath her vine-leaf crown the green earth reels:

Backward, in rapid evanescence, wheels

The venerable pageantry of time,

Each beetling rampart, and each tower sublime,

And what the dell unwillingly reveals

Of lurking cloistral arch, through trees espied

Near the bright river’s edge. Yet why repine?

To muse, to creep, to halt at will, to gaze,—

Such sweet wayfaring,—of life’s spring the pride,

Her summer’s faithful joy,—that still is mine,

And in fit measure cheers autumnal days.