'If there be one who need bemoan His kindred laid in earth, The household hearts that were his own,It is the man of mirth. 'My days, my friend, are almost gone, My life has been approved, And many love me; but by none Am I enough beloved.' 'Now both himself and me he wrongs, I live and sing my idle songs 'And Matthew, for thy children dead At this he grasp'd my hand and said, 'Alas! that cannot be.' We rose up from the fountain-side; Of the green sheep-track did we glide; And ere we came to Leonard's Rock And the bewilder'd chimes. W. Wordsworth CCLXXXIII THE RIVER OF LIFE The more we live, more brief appear The gladsome current of our youth But as the careworn cheek grows wan, Why seem your courses quicker? When joys have lost their bloom and breath Why, as we reach the Falls of Death, It may be strange-yet who would change Heaven gives our years of fading strength And those of youth, a seeming length, T. Campbell CCLXXXIV THE HUMAN SEASONS Four Seasons fill the measure of the year; He has his Summer, when luxuriously His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings J. Keats CCLXXXV A LAMENT O World! O Life! O Time! Trembling at that where I had stood before; Out of the day and night A joy has taken flight: Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight No more-O never more! P. B. Shelley CCLXXXVI My heart leaps up when I behold So was it when my life began, So be it when I shall grow old The Child is father of the Man: And I could wish my days to be W. Wordsworth CCLXXXVII 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 has been of yore ; Turn wheresoe'er I may, By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more! The rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the rose; The moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare Are beautiful and fair; The sunshine is a glorious birth; But yet I know, where'er I go, ; That there hath pass'd away a glory from the earth. Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, As to the tabor's sound, To me alone there came a thought of grief: The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep,— Land and sea Give themselves up to jollity, And with the heart of May Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee ; My head hath its coronal, The fulness of your bliss, I feel—I feel it all. This sweet May morning; And the children are pulling In a thousand valleys far and wide -But there's a tree, of many, one, Doth the same tale repeat: Whither is fled the visionary gleam? Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; And cometh from afar; Not in entire forgetfulness And not in utter nakedness But trailing clouds of glory do we come But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, Is on his way attended; At length the man perceives it die away, Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own; The homely nurse doth all she can And that imperial palace whence he came. |