Shaped by himself with newly-learned art; A wedding or a festival, A mourning or a funeral; And this hath now his heart, To dialogues of business, love, or strife; Ere this be thrown aside, And with new joy and pride The little Actor cons another part; Filling from time to time his "humorous stage Were endless imitation. " VIII. Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep On whom those truths do rest, Which we are toiling all our lives to find, Broods like the Day, a Master o'er a Slave, A Presence which is not to be put by; Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? IX. O joy! that in our embers The thought of our past years in me doth breed For that which is most worthy to be blest; Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest, With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast: The song of thanks and praise; 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: Those shadowy recollections, Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor, 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 Can in a moment travel thither, And see the Children sport upon the shore, X. Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song! 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 splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower; Which, having been, must ever be; In the faith that looks through death, XI. And O ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, To live beneath your more habitual sway. I love the Brooks which down their channels fret, Even more than when I tripped lightly as they; The innocent brightness of a new-born Day Is lovely. yet; The Clouds that gather round the setting sun That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; 1803-6. NOTES. Page 36. "The Horn of Egremont Castle." This story is a Cumberland tradition. I have heard it also related of the Hall of Hutton John, an ancient residence of the Hudlestons, in a sequestered valley upon the river Dacor. Page 56. "The Russian Fugitive." Peter Henry Bruce, having given in his entertaining Memoirs the substance of this Tale, affirms that, besides the concurring reports of others, he had the story from the lady's own mouth. The Lady Catherine, mentioned towards the close, is the famous Catherine, then bearing that name as the acknowledged wife of Peter the Great. Page 126. "The Farmer of Tilsbury Vale." With this picture, which was taken from real life, compare the imaginative one of "The Reverie of Poor Susan," Vol. II., p. 132; and see (to make up the deficiencies of this class) "The Excursion," passim. Page 159. "Moss Campion (Silene acaulis)." This most beautiful plant is scarce in England, though it is found in great abundance upon the mountains of Scotland. |