He sees it in his joy;

The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's priest,
And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended;

At length the Man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day.

VI

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;

Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind, And, even with something of a mother's mind,

And no unworthy aim,

The homely nurse doth all she can

To make her foster-child, her inmate Man,
Forget the glories he hath known,
And that imperial palace whence he came.

VII

Behold the Child among his new-born blisses,

A six years' darling of a pigmy size!
See, where 'mid work of his own hand he

lies,

Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses, With light upon him from his father's eyes!

See, at his feet, some little plan or chart, Some fragment from his dream of human

life,

Shaped by himself with newly-learned art; A wedding or a festival,

A mourning or a funeral;

And this hath now his heart,
And unto this he frames his song:
Then will he fit his tongue

To dialogues of business, love, or strife;
But it will not be long

Ere this be thrown aside,

And with new joy and pride
The little Actor cons another part;
Filling from time to time his "humorous
stage"

With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,
That Life brings with her in her equipage;
As if his whole vocation
Were endless imitation.

VIII

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie Thy soul's immensity;

Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep Thy heritage, thou eye among the blind,

That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep,

Haunted forever by the eternal mind,—
Mighty prophet! Seer blest!

On whom those truths do rest,
Which we are toiling all our lives to find,
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;
Thou, over whom thy immortality
Broods like the day, a master o'er a slave,
A presence which is not to be put by;
Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's
height,

Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke

The years to bring the inevitable yoke,
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly
freight

And custom lie upon thee with a weight,
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

IX

O joy! that in our embers

Is something that doth live,
That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!

The thought of our past years in me doth breed

Perpetual benediction: not indeed

For that which is most worthy to be blest― Delight and liberty, the simple creed Of childhood, whether busy or at rest, With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast::

Not for these I raise

The song of thanks and praise;

But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realized,
High instincts before which our mortal na-
ture

Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:
But for those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may,
Are yet the fountain light of all our day,
Are yet a master light of all our seeing;
Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,

To perish never;

Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor,

Nor Man nor Boy,

Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy!

Hence in a season of calm weather
Though inland far we be,

Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,

Can in a moment travel thither, And see the Children sport upon the shore, And hear the mighty waters rolling ever

more.

X

Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!

And let the young lambs bound
As to the tabor's sound!

We in thought will join your throng,
Ye that pipe and ye that play,
Ye that through your hearts today
Feel the gladness of the May!

What though the radiance which was once so bright

Be now forever taken from my sight,

Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;

We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy

Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;

In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.

ΧΙ

And O ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,

Forebode not any severing of our loves!
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquished one delight

To live beneath your more habitual sway.
I love the Brooks which down their chan-

nels fret,

Even more than when I tripped lightly as

they;

The innocent brightness of a new-born Day Is lovely yet;

The Clouds that gather round the setting

sun

Do take a sober coloring from an eye That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; Another race hath been, and other palms

are won.

Thanks to the human heart by which we live,

Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for

tears.

THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping
flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.-Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less
forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

TO TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE

Toussaint, the most unhappy man of men! Whether the whistling rustic tend his plow Within thy hearing, or thy head be now Pillowed in some deep dungeon's earless den;

O miserable chieftain! where and when Wilt thou find patience? Yet die not; do thou

Wear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow: Though fallen thyself, never to rise again, Live, and take comfort. Thou hast left behind

Powers that will work for thee; air, earth, and skies;

There's not a breathing of the common wind

That will forget thee; thou hast great allies;
Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
And love, and man's unconquerable mind.

ELEGIAC STANZAS

Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle, in a Storm, Painted by Sir George Beaumont

I was thy neighbor once, thou rugged Pile! Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee:

I saw thee every day; and all the while
Thy Form was sleeping on a glassy sea.

So pure the sky, so quiet was the air!
So like, so very like, was day to day!
Whene'er I looked, thy Image still was
there;

It trembled, but it never passed away.

How perfect was the calm! it seemed no sleep;

No mood, which season takes away, or brings:

I could have fancied that the mighty Deep Was even the gentlest of all gentle Things.

Ah! THEN, if mine had been the Painter's hand,

To express what then I saw; and add the gleam,

The light that never was, on sea or land,
The consecration, and the Poet's dream;

I would have planted thee, thou hoary Pile
Amid a world how different from this!
Beside a sea that could not cease to smile;
On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss.
Thou shouldst have seemed a treasure-house
divine

Of peaceful years; a chronicle of heaven;-
Of all the sunbeams that did ever shine
The very sweetest had to thee been given.
A Picture had it been of lasting ease,
Elysian quiet, without toil or strife;
No motion but the moving tide, a breeze,
Or merely silent Nature's breathing life.

Such, in the fond illusion of my heart, Such Picture would I at that time have made:

And seen the soul of truth in every part, A steadfast peace that might not be betrayed.

So once it would have been,-'tis so no more;

I have submitted to a new control:

A power is gone, which nothing can restore;
A deep distress hath humanized my Soul.
Not for a moment could I now behold
A smiling sea, and be what I have been:
The feeling of my loss will ne'er be old;
This, which I know, I speak with mind

serene.

Then, Beaumont, Friend! who would have been the Friend,

If he had lived, of Him whom I deplore, This work of thine I blame not, but commend;

This sea in anger, and that dismal shore.

O 'tis a passionate Work!-yet wise and well,

Well chosen is the spirit that is here; That Hulk which labors in the deadly swell, This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear!

And this huge Castle, standing here sublime,

I love to see the look with which it braves, Cased in the unfeeling armor of old time, The lightning, the fierce wind, and trampling waves.

Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone,
Housed in a dream, at distance from the
Kind!

Such happiness, wherever it be known,
Is to be pitied; for 'tis surely blind.

But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer,
And frequent sights of what is to be borne!
Such sights, or worse, as are before me
here.-

Not without hope we suffer and we mourn.

ODE TO DUTY

Stern Daughter of the Voice of God!
O Duty! if that name thou love,
Who art a light to guide, a rod
To check the erring, and reprove;
Thou who art victory and law
When empty terrors overawe;
From vain temptations dost set free;
And calm'st the weary strife of frail
humanity!

There are who ask not if thine eye
Be on them; who, in love and truth,
Where no misgiving is, rely
Upon the genial sense of youth;
Glad Hearts! without reproach or blot;
Who do thy work, and know it not:
Oh! if through confidence misplaced
They fail, thy saving arms dread Power!
around them cast.

Serene will be our days and bright And happy will our nature be, When love is an unerring light, And joy its own security.

And they a blissful course may hold Even now, who, not unwisely bold,

Live in the spirit of this creed;

Yet seek thy firm support, according to their need.

I, loving freedom, and untried,
No sport of every random gust,
Yet being to myself a guide,
Too blindly have reposed my trist:
And oft, when in my heart was heard
Thy timely mandate, I deferred

The task, in smoothe. walks to st.ay;
But thee I now would serve more strictly,
if I may.

Through no disturbance of my soul,
Or strong compunction in me wrought,
I supplicate for thy control;
But in the quietness of thought:
Me this unchartered freedom tires;
I feel the weight of chance-desires:
My hopes no more must change their name,
I long for a repose that ever is the same.

Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear
The Godhead's most benignant grace;
Nor know we anything so fair
As is the smile upon thy face:
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds
And fragrance in thy footing treads;
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;
And the most ancient heavens, through

Thee, are fresh and strong.

To humbler functions, awful Power!
I call thee: I myself commend
Unto thy guidance from this hour;
Oh, let my weakness have an end'
Give unto me, made lowly wise,
The spirit of self-sacrifice;

The confidence of reason give;

And in the light of truth thy Bondman let me live!

THE MOUNTAIN ECHO

Yes, it was the mountain Echo, Solitary, clear, profound, Answering to the shouting Cuckoo, Giving to her sound for sound!

Unsolicited reply

To a babbling wanderer sent;
Like her ordinary cry,
Like-but oh, how different!

Hears not also mortal Life?

Hear not we, unthinking Creatures!