Than face of faithful friend; fairest when seen
In darkest day; and many sounds were sweet,
Most ravishing, and pleasant to the ear;
But sweeter none than voice of faithful friend;
Sweet always, sweetest, heard in loudest storm.
Some I remember, and will ne'er forget;
My early friends, friends of my evil day;
Friends in my mirth, friends in my misery too;
Friends given by God in mercy and in love;
My counsellors, my comforters, and guides;
My joy in grief, my second bliss in joy;
Companions of my young desires; in doubt,
My oracles; my wings in high pursuit.
Oh! I remember, and will ne'er forget,
Our meeting-spots, our chosen, sacred hours,
Our burning words, that uttered all the soul;
Our faces beaming with unearthly love;
Sorrow with sorrow sighing, hope with hope
Exulting, heart embracing heart entire.

As birds of social feather, helping each

His fellow's flight, we soared into the skies,

And cast the clouds beneath our feet, and earth,
With all her tardy leaden-footed cares,

And talked the speech and ate the food of heaven!
These I remember, these selectest men,
And would their names record; but what avails
My mention of their name? Before the Throne
They stand illustrious 'mong the loudest harps,
And will receive thee glad, my friend and theirs :
For all are friends in heaven, all faithful friends;
And many friendships, in the days of Time

1

Begun, are lasting here, and growing still;
So grows ours evermore, both theirs and mine.

Nor is the hour of lonely walk forgot,
In the wide desert, where the view was large.
Pleasant were many scenes, but most to me
The solitude of vast extent, untouched

By hand of art, where nature sowed, herself,

And reaped her crops; whose garments were the clouds; Whose minstrels, brooks; whose lamps, the moon and stars;

Whose organ-choir, the voice of many waters;

Whose banquets, morning dews; whose heroes, storms;

Whose warriors, mighty winds; whose lovers, flowers;

Whose orators, the thunderbolts of God;
Whose palaces, the everlasting hills;
Whose ceiling, heaven's unfathomable blue;
And from whose rocky turrets, battled high,
Prospect immense spread out on all sides round,
Lost now between the welkin and the main,
Now walled with hills that slept above the storm.

Most fit was such a place for musing men,
Happiest, sometimes, when musing without aim.
It was, indeed, a wondrous sort of bliss

The lonely bard enjoyed, when forth he walked
Unpurposed; stood, and knew not why; sat down,
And knew not where; arose, and knew not when ;
Had
eyes, and saw not; ears, and nothing heard ;
And sought-sought neither heaven nor earth-sought not,
Nor meant to think; but ran, mean time, through vast

Of visionary things, fairer than aught

That was; and saw the distant tops of thoughts,

Which men of common stature never saw,

Greater than aught that largest words could hold,

Or give idea of, to those who read.

He entered into Nature's holy place,

Her inner chamber, and beheld her face
Unveiled; and heard unutterable things,

And incommunicable visions saw

Things then unutterable, and visions then
Of incommunicable glory bright;

But by the lips of after ages formed

To words, or by their pencil pictured forth;
Who, entering further in, beheld again,
And heard unspeakable and marvellous things
Which other ages in their turn revealed,
And left to others greater wonders still.

The earth abounded much in silent wastes;
Nor yet is heaven without its solitudes-
Else incomplete in bliss-whither who will
May oft retire, and meditate alone,

Of God, redemption, holiness, and love;
Nor needs to fear a setting sun, or haste
Him home from rainy tempest unforeseen,
Or, sighing, leave his thoughts for want of time.

But whatsoever was both good and fair, And highest relish of enjoyment gave,

In intellectual exercise was found,

When gazing through the future, present, past, Inspired, thought linked to thought harmonious flowed In poetry-the loftiest mood of mind:

Or when philosophy the reason led

Deep through the outward circumstance of things;

And saw the master-wheels of Nature move;

And travelled far along the endless line

Of certain and of probable; and made

At every step some new discovery,

That gave the soul sweet sense of larger room.
High these pursuits, and sooner to be named,
Deserved; at present only named, again
To be resumed, and praised in longer verse.

Abundant and diversified above

All number, were the sources of delight;
As infinite as were the lips that drank;
And to the pure, all innocent and pure;
The simplest still to wisest men the best.

One made acquaintanceship with plants and flowers,
And happy grew in telling all their names;

One classed the quadrupeds; a third, the fowls;

Another found in minerals his joy:

And I have seen a man, a worthy man,

In happy mood, conversing with a fly;

And as he, through his glass made by himself,
Beheld its wondrous eye and plumage fine,
From leaping scarce he kept, for perfect joy.

And from my path I with my friend have turnedA man of excellent mind and excellent heart--And climbed the neighbouring hill, with arduous step, Fetching from distant cairn, or from the earth Digging, with labour sore, the ponderous stone, Which, having carried to the highest top, We downward rolled; and as it strove, at first, With obstacles that seemed to match its force, With feeble crooked motion, to and fro Wavering, he looked with interest most intense, And prayed almost; and as it gathered strength,