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Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart :
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea,
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free;
So didst thou travel on life's common way
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

THE RIVER DUDDON

AFTER-THOUGHT

I THOUGHT of Thee, my partner and my guide,
As being past away.
Vain sympathies !
For, backward, Duddon, as I cast my eyes,
I see what was, and is, and will abide;

Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide;
The Form remains, the Function never dies;
While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise,
We Men, who in our morn of youth defied
The elements, must vanish; be it so!

Enough, if something from our hands have power

To live, and act, and serve the future hour;

And if, as toward the silent tomb we go,

Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower, We feel that we are greater than we know.

MOST SWEET IT IS

MOST sweet it is with unuplifted eyes
To pace the ground, if path be there or none,
While a fair region round the traveller lies
Which he forbears again to look upon;
Pleased rather with some soft ideal scene,
The work of Fancy, or some happy tone
Of meditation, slipping in between

The Mind's internal heaven shall shed her dews
Of inspiration on the humblest lay.

IT IS A BEAUTEOUS EVENING

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free;
The holy time is quiet as a Nun

Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquillity;

The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea:
Listen! the mighty Being is awake,

And doth with his eternal motion make

A sound like thunder-everlastingly.

Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,
If thou appear untouch'd by solemn thought
Thy nature is not therefore less divine:
Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year,
And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.

WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING

I HEARD a thousand blended notes
While in a grove I sate reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;

And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trail'd its wreaths;
And 't is my faith that every flower

The budding twigs spread out their fan
To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature's holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?

THE RAINBOW

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began,
So is it now I am a man,

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!

The Child is father of the Man:

And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.

ODE ON INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY

From "Recollections of Early Childhood"

THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight
To me did seem

Apparell'd in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;
Turn wheresoe'er I may,

By night or day,

The rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the rose;

The moon doth with delight

Look round her when the heavens are bare;
Waters on a starry night

Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth;

But yet I know, where'er I go,

That there hath past away a glory from the earth.

Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,
And while the young lambs bound

As to the tabor's sound,

To me alone there came a thought of grief:
A timely utterance gave that thought relief,
And I again am strong.

The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong:
I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,
The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep,
And all the earth is gay;

Land and sea

Give themselves up to jollity,

And with the heart of May
Doth every Beast keep holiday;
Thou child of joy,

Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Shepherd boy!

Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call
Ye to each other make; I see

The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;
My heart is at your festival,

My head hath its coronal,

The fulness of your bliss, I feel - I feel it all.
O evil day! if I were sullen
While Earth herself is adorning

This sweet May-morning;

And the children are culling

On every side

In a thousand valleys far and wide,

Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm

And the babe leaps up on his mother's arm: I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!

-

But there's a tree, of many, one,

A single field which I have look'd upon,
Both of them speak of something that is gone:
The pansy at my feet

Doth the same tale repeat:

Whither is fled the visionary gleam?

Where is it now,

the glory and the dream?

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar;

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,

But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
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.

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.

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,

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