Others, too, of lofty mien ;

They have done as worldlings do,
Taken praise that should be thine,
Little, humble Celandine!

Prophet of delight and mirth,
Ill-requited upon earth;
Herald of a mighty band,
Of a joyous train ensuing,
Serving at my heart's command,
Tasks that are no tasks renewing,
I will sing, as doth behove,
Hymns in praise of what I love!

TO THE SAME FLOWER.

1802. - 1807.

PLEASURES newly found are sweet

When they lie about our feet:

February last, my heart

First at sight of thee was glad;

All unheard of as thou art,

Thou must needs, I think, have had,

Celandine! and long ago,

Praise of which I nothing know.

I have not a doubt but he,
Whosoe'er the man might be,
Who the first with pointed rays
(Workman worthy to be sainted)

60

ΙΟ

THERE was a roaring in the wind all night;
The rain came heavily and fell in floods;
But now the sun is rising calm and bright;
The birds are singing in the distant woods;
Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods;
The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters;
And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters.

All things that love the sun are out of doors;
The sky rejoices in the morning's birth;

The grass is bright with rain-drops; on the moors
The hare is running races in her mirth;

And with her feet she from the plashy earth
Raises a mist, that, glittering in the sun,

Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run.

I was a Traveller then upon the moor,

I saw the hare that raced about with joy;
I heard the woods and distant waters roar,
Or heard them not, as happy as a boy:
The pleasant season did my heart employ :
My old remembrances went from me wholly,
And all the ways of men, so vain and melancholy.

But, as it sometimes chanceth, from the might

Of joy in minds that can no further go,
As high as we have mounted in delight

In our dejection do we sink as low;

IO

20

To me that morning did it happen so :

And fears and fancies thick upon me came;

Dim sadness and blind thoughts, I knew not, nor could

name.

I heard the skylark warbling in the sky;
And I bethought me of the playful hare;
Even such a happy Child of earth am I ;
Even as these blissful creatures do I fare;
Far from the world I walk, and from all care;
But there may come another day to me,
Solitude, pain of heart, distress, and poverty.

30

My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought,
As if life's business were a summer mood;
As if all needful things would come unsought
To genial faith, still rich in genial good;
But how can He expect that others should

40

Build for him, sow for him, and at his call

Love him, who for himself will take no heed at all?

I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy,

The sleepless Soul that perished in his pride;
Of Him who walked in glory and in joy
Following his plough, along the mountain-side;
By our own spirits are we deified :

We Poets in our youth begin in gladness:

But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.

Now, whether it were by peculiar grace,

A leading from above, a something given,
Yet it befell that in this lonely place,

When I with these untoward thoughts had striven,
Beside a pool bare to the eye of heaven

I saw a Man before me unawares :

The oldest man he seemed that ever wore gray hairs.

As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie

Couched on the bald top of an eminence ;

Wonder to all who do the same espy,

By what means it could thither come, and whence;

So that it seems a thing endued with sense,
Like a sea-beast crawled forth, that on a shelf
Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself;

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