O THOU! whose fancies from afar are brought; Who of thy words dost make a mock apparel, And fittest to unutterable thought The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol; In such clear water, that thy Boat To brood on air than on an earthly stream; Where earth and heaven do make one imagery; O blessed Vision! happy Child! That art so exquisitely wild, I think of thee with many fears For what may be thy lot in future years. I thought of times when Pain might be thy guest, Lord of thy house and hospitality; And Grief, uneasy Lover! never rest But when she sute within the touch of thee. O too industrious folly! O vain and causeless melancholy! Nature will either end thee quite: Or, lengthening out thy season of delight, A young Lamb's heart among the full-grown flocks. Or the injuries of to-morrow? Thou art a Dew-drop, which the morn brings forth, Ill fitted to sustain unkindly shocks; Or to be trailed along the soiling earth; A gem that glitters while it lives, But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife INFLUENCE OF NATURAL OBJECTS IN CALLING FORTH AND STRENGTHENING THE IMAGINA TION IN BOYHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH. From an unpublished Poem. (This extract is reprinted from "THE FRIEND.") WISDOM and Spirit of the Universe Thou Soul, that art the Eternity of thought' "T was mine among the fields both day and night, And by the waters, all the summer long. And in the frosty season, when the sun Was set, and, visible for many a mile, The cottage windows through the twilight blazed, I heeded not the summons;-happy time It was indeed for all of us; for me It was a time of rapture! - Clear and loud The village clock tolled six- I wheeled about, -- The Pack loud-bellowing, and the hunted hare. Of melancholy, not unnoticed, while the stars, Not seldom from the uproar I retired Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng, To cut across the reflex of a Star, Of last night's snow, beneath a sky threatening the fall Nor could my heart by second thoughts from heaviness of more, * See Note 3. be cleared, For bodied forth before my eyes the cross-crowned hut appeared; And, while around it storm as fierce seemed troubling Strong as an eagle with my charge I glided round and earth and air, round I saw, within, the Norman boy kneeling alone in prayer. The wide-spread boughs, for view of door, window, and stair that wound The child, as if the thunder's voice spake with articu- Gracefully up the gnarled trunk; nor left we unsurveyed late call, The pointed steeple peering forth from the centre of the shade. Bowed meekly in submissive fear, before the Lord of All; His lips were moving; and his eyes, upraised to sue for grace, I lighted-opened with soft touch the chapel's iron door, With soft illumination cheered the dimness of that place. Past softly leading in the boy; and, while from roof to On wings, from broad and steadfast poise let loose by "Then offer up thy heart to God in thankfulness and this reply, praise, For Allonville, o'er down and dale, away then did Give to Him prayers, and many thoughts, in thy most we fly; busy days; O'er town and tower we flew, and fields in May's fresh And in His sight the fragile cross, on thy small hut. verdure drest; will be The wings they did not flag; the child, though grave, Holy as that which long hath crowned the chapel of was not deprest. this tree; But who shall show, to waking sense, the gleam of light "Holy as that far seen which crowns the sumptuous Church in Rome that broke Forth from his eyes, when first the boy looked down on Where thousands meet to worship God under a mighty that huge oak, dome; For length of days so much revered, so famous where He sees the bending multitude, he hears the choral it stands rites, For twofold hallowing-Nature's care, and work of Yet not the less, in children's hymns and lonely prayer, numan hands? delights. |