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 "humourous 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.
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 for ever 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!
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 nature 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 endeavour, 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 evermore.
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 to-day Feel the gladness of the May!
What though the radiance which was once so bright Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour 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.
And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, Forbode not any severing of our loves! Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquish'd one delight
To live beneath your more habitual sway:
I love the brooks which down their channels fret Even more than when I tripp'd 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 colouring 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.
LINES COMPOSED A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY
ON REVISITING THE BANKS OF THE WYE, DURING A TOUR, JULY 13, 1798
years have past; five summers, with the length Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs With a soft inland murmur. Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, That on a wild secluded scene impress Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect The landscape with the quiet of the sky. The day is come when I again repose Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts, Which at this season, with their unripe fruits, Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves 'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms, Green to the very door: and wreaths of smoke Sent up, in silence, from among the trees! With some uncertain notice, as might seem Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire The Hermit sits alone.
These beauteous forms, Through a long absence, have not been to me As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; And passing even into my purer mind, With tranquil restoration : --- feelings too Of unremember'd pleasure: such, perhaps, As have no slight or trivial influence On that best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremember'd acts Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift, Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood, In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lighten'd:- that serene and blessed mood, In which the affections gently lead us on, Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul : While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things.
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft- In darkness and amid the many shapes Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, Have hung upon the beatings of my heart How oft, in spirit, have I turn'd to thee, O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods, How often has my spirit turn'd to thee!
And now, with gleams of half-extinguish'd thought, With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again :
While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts That in this moment there is life and food
For future years. And so I dare to hope,
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first I came among these hills; when like a roe I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, Wherever nature led: more like a man
Flying from something that he dreads, than one Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then (The coarser pleasures of my boyish days, And their glad animal movements all gone by) To me was all in all. — I cannot paint What then I was. The sounding cataract
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