-But the Kitten, how she starts,
Crouches, stretches, paws, and darts!
First at one, and then its fellow,
Just as light and just as yellow;
There are many now-now one-
Now they stop and there are none:
What intenseness of desire
In her upward eye of fire!

With a tiger-leap half-way
Now she meets the coming prey,
Lets it go as fast, and then
Has it in her power again:

THE KITTEN AND FALLING LEAVES.

SEE the Kitten on the wall,

Sporting with the leaves that fall,

Withered leaves-one-two-and three-
From the lofty elder tree!

Through the calm and frosty air
Of this morning bright and fair,

Eddying round and round they sink
Softly, slowly: one might think,
From the motions that are made,
Every little leaf conveyed
Sylph or Fairy hither tending,

To this lower world descending,
Each invisible and mute,

In his wavering parachute.

Now she works with three or four,

Like an Indian conjuror;

Quick as he in feats of art,

Far beyond in joy of heart.

Were her antics played in the eye

Of a thousand standers-by,

Clapping hands with shout and stare,
What would little Tabby care
For the plaudits of the crowd?
Over happy to be proud,

Over wealthy in the treasure
Of her own exceeding pleasure!

-WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

home:

Imagination's airy wing repress :

Lock up thy senses;-let no passions stir;-
Wake all to Reason-let her reign alone;
Then, in thy soul's deep silence, and the depth
Of Nature's silence, midnight, thus inquire:

What am I? and from whence? I nothing know
But that I am; and, since I am, conclude
Something eternal: had there e'er been nought,
Nought still had been: Eternal there must be-
But what eternal? Why not human race,
And Adam's ancestors without an end?-
That's hard to be conceived; since ev'ry link
Of that long chain'd succession is so frail:
Can every part depend, and not the whole?
Yet grant it true; new difficulties rise;
I'm still quite out at sea; nor see the shore.
Whence earth, and these bright orbs?-Eternal too?
Grant matter was eternal: still these orbs
Would want some other Father-much design
Is seen in all their motions, all their makes.

That can't be from themselves-or man; that art
Man scarce can comprehend could man bestow?
And nothing greater yet allow'd than man.-
Who motion, foreign to the smallest grain,
Shot through vast masses of enormous weight?
Who bid brute matter's restive lump assume
Such various forms, and gave it wings to fly?
Has matter innate motion? Then each atom
Asserting its indisputable right

To dance, would form a universe of dust.
Has matter none? Then whence these glorious forms
And boundless flights, from shapeless and reposed?
Has matter more than motion? Has it thought,
Judgement, and genius? Is it deeply learn'd
In mathematics? Has it framed such laws,
Which, but to guess, a Newton made immortal?—
If art to form, and counsel to conduct,
And that with greater far than human skill,
Reside not in each block;-a GODHEAD reigns:-
And, if a GOD there is, that God how great!

-YOUNG.