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

"THE SNOW-TRACKS OF MY FRIENDS I SEE"

The following incomplete stanzas were evidently written when The Complaint of a Forsaken Indian Woman was being composed. They were all discarded, but have a biographical interest. I assign them to the year 1798.--ED.

The snow-tracks of my friends I see,

Their foot-marks do not trouble me,

For ever left alone am I.

Then wherefore should I fear to die?

They to the last my friends did cherish 

And to the last were good and kind,

Methinks 'tis strange I did not perish

The moment I was left behind.

Why do I watch those running deer?

And wherefore, wherefore come they here?

And wherefore do I seem to love

The things that live, the things that move?

Why do I look upon the sky?

I do not live for what I see.

Why open thus mine eyes? To die

Is all that now is left for me,

If I could smother up my heart

My life would then at once depart.

My friends, you live, and yet you seem

To me the people of a dream;

A dream in which there is no love,

And yet, my friends, you live and move.

When I could live without a pain,

And feel no wish to be alive,

In quiet hopelessness I sleep,

Alas! how quiet, and how deep!

Oh no! I do not, cannot rue,

I did not strive to follow you.

I might have dropp'd, and died alone

On unknown snows, a spot unknown.

This spot to me must needs be dear,

Of my dear friends I see the trace.

You saw me, friends, you laid me here,

You know where my poor bones shall be,

Then wherefore should I fear to die?

Alas that one beloved, forlorn,

Should lie beneath the cold starlight!

With them I think I could have borne

The journey of another night,

And with my friends now far away

I could have lived another day.