And with a living pleasure we describe;

And fits of sprightly malice do but bribe The languid mind into activity.

15

Sound sense, and love itself, and mirth and glee

Are fostered by the comment and the gibe." 20 Even be it so; yet still among your tribe, Our daily world's true worldings, rank not me!

Children are blest, and powerful; their world lies

More justly balanced; partly at their feet, And part far from them: sweetest melodies 25 Are those that are by distance made more sweet;

Whose mind is but the mind of his own eyes, He is a slave; the meanest we can meet!

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY

CHILDHOOD

I

There was a time when meadow, grove and stream,

The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem

Apparelled 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,

5

The things which I have seen I now can see no

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.

VI

70

75

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

80

To make her foster-child, her inmate Man,
Forget the glories he hath known,
And that imperial palace whence he came. 84

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

95

The pansy at my feet

Doth the same tale repeat:

Ere this be thrown aside,

55

And with new joy and pride

100

5

Once did She hold the gorgeous east in fee;
And was the safeguard of the west: the worth
Of Venice did not fall below her birth,
Venice, the eldest child of Liberty.
She was a maiden city, bright and free;
No guile seduced, no force could violate;
And, when she took unto herself a Mate,
She must espouse the everlasting Sea.
And what if she had seen those glories fade,
Those titles vanish, and that strength decay;
Yet shall some tribute of regret be paid
When her long life hath reached its final day:
Men are we, and must grieve when even the
Shade

ΙΟ

Of that which once was great is passed away.