For she looked with such a look, and she spake with such a tone, That I almost received her heart into my own." 1800. XV. SIX YEARS OLD. 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; 5 Thou faery voyager! that dost float In such clear water, that thy boat May rather seem To brood on air than on an earthly stream; Suspended in a stream as clear as sky, 9 Where earth and heaven do make one imagery; O blessed vision! happy child! Thou 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 sate within the touch of thee. O too industrious folly! O vain and causeless melancholy! Nature will either end thee quite; Preserve for thee, by individual right, 15 20 A young lamb's heart among the full-grown flocks. What hast thou to do with sorrow, Or the injuries of to-morrow? 25 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, 30 And no forewarning gives; But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife Slips in a moment out of life. 1802. XVI. INFLUENCE OF NATURAL OBJECTS IN CALLING FORTH AND STRENGTHENING THE IMAGINATION IN BOYHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH. FROM AN UNPUBLISHED POEM. [This extract is reprinted from "The Friend."] WISDOM and Spirit of the universe! By day or star-light, thus from my first dawn 5 With life and nature; purifying thus The elements of feeling and of thought, Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me 15 With stinted kindness. In November days, When vapours rolling down the valleys made A lonely scene more lonesome; among woods At noon; and 'mid the calm of summer nights, When, by the margin of the trembling lake, 20 Beneath the gloomy hills, homeward I went In solitude, such intercourse was mine: Mine was it in 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 25 blazed, I heeded not the summons: happy time It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud 30 steel We hissed along the polished ice, in games 35 And woodland pleasures, - the resounding horn, The pack loud-chiming, and the hunted hare. So through the darkness and the cold we flew, And not a voice was idle with the din Smitten, the precipices rang aloud; 40 The leafless trees and every icy crag Into the tumult sent an alien sound Of melancholy, not unnoticed while the stars, Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west The orange sky of evening died away. 46 Not seldom from the uproar I retired Into a silent bay, or sportively 50 Image that, flying still before me, gleamed still 55 The rapid line of motion, then at once 1799. 60 XVII. THE LONGEST DAY. ADDRESSED TO MY DAUGHTER, DORA. LET us quit the leafy arbour, Evening now unbinds the fetters 5 All that breathe are thankful debtors Dora! sport, as now thou sportest, Are indifferent to thee! Who would check the happy feeling That inspires the linnet's song? On her pinions swift and strong? 20 Yet, at this impressive season, Words which tenderness can speak Might exalt the loveliest cheek; And, while shades to shades succeeding 25 Steal the landscape from the sight, I would urge this moral pleading, Last forerunner of "Good night!" SUMMER ebbs; - each day that follows He who governs the creation, 30 35 |