A young lamb's heart among the full-grown flocks. What hast thou to do with sorrow,
Or the injuries of to-morrow?
Thou art a dewdrop which the morn brings forth,
Ill fitted to sustain unkindly shocks,
Or to be trailed along the soiling earth;
gem that glitters while it lives,
And no forewarning gives;
But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife
Slips in a moment out of life.
INFLUENCE OF NATURAL OBJECTS
IN CALLING FORTH AND STRENGTHENING THE IMA- GINATION IN BOYHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH.
WISDOM and Spirit of the universe! Thou Soul that art the eternity of thought, And giv'st to forms and images a breath And everlasting motion! not in vain, By day or star light, thus from my first dawn Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me The passions that build up our human soul; Not with the mean and vulgar works of man, But with high objects, with enduring things, With life and nature; purifying thus The elements of feeling and of thought, And sanctifying by such discipline Both pain and fear, until we recognise A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.
Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me With stinted kindness. In November days, When vapours rolling down the valleys made A lonely scene more lonesome, among woods
At noon, and mid the calm of summer nights, When, by the margin of the trembling lake, Beneath the gloomy hills, I homeward went In solitude, such intercourse was mine: 'Twas mine among the fields both day and night, And by the waters, all the summer long;
And in the frosty season, when the sun Was set, and visible for many a mile,
The cottage windows through the twilight blazed, I heeded not the summons: happy time
It was indeed for all of us; for me
It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud The village clock tolled six-I wheeled about, Proud and exulting like an untired horse That cares not for his home. All shod with steel We hissed along the polished ice, in games Confederate, imitative of the chase
And woodland pleasures, the resounding horn, The pack loud bellowing, and the hunted hare. So through the darkness and the cold we flew, And not a voice was idle: with the din Meanwhile the precipices rang aloud; The leafless trees and every icy crag Tinkled like iron; while the distant hills Into the tumult sent an alien sound
Of melancholy, not unnoticed, while the stars, Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west The orange sky of evening died away.
Not seldom from the uproar I retired Into a silent bay, or sportively
Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng, To cut across the reflex of a star,
Image that, flying still before me, gleamed
Upon the glassy plain: and oftentimes,
When we had given our bodies to the wind, And all the shadowy banks on either side Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still The rapid line of motion, then at once Have I, reclining back upon my heels, Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs Wheeled by me-even as if the earth had rolled With visible motion her diurnal round! Behind me did they stretch in solemn train, Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched Till all was tranquil as a summer sea.
THE OLD CUMBERLAND BEGGAR.
I SAW an aged beggar in my walk; And he was seated, by the highway side, On a low structure of rude masonry Built at the foot of a huge hill, that they
Who lead their horses down the steep rough road May thence remount at ease. The aged man Had placed his staff across the broad smooth stone That overlays the pile; and, from a bag
All white with flour, the dole of village dames, He drew his scraps and fragments, one by one; And scanned them with a fixed and serious look Of idle computation. In the sun,
Upon the second step of that small pile, Surrounded by those wild unpeopled hills, He sat, and ate his food in solitude: And ever, scattered from his palsied hand, That, still attempting to prevent the waste, Was baffled still, the crumbs in little showers Fell on the ground; and the small mountain birds, Not venturing yet to peck their destined meal, Approached within the length of half his staff.
Him from my childhood have I known; and then He was so old, he seems not older now;
He travels on, a solitary man,
So helpless in appearance, that for him
The sauntering horseman-traveller does not throw With careless hand his alms upon the ground, But stops,-that he may safely lodge the coin Within the old man's hat; nor quits him so, But still, when he has given his horse the rein, Watches the aged beggar with a look Sidelong-and half-reverted. She who tends The toll-gate, when in summer at her door She turns her wheel, if on the road she sees The aged beggar coming, quits her work, And lifts the latch for him that he may pass, The post-boy, when his rattling wheels o'ertake The aged beggar in the woody lane,
Shouts to him from behind; and, if thus warned The old man does not change his course, the boy Turns with less noisy wheels to the road-side, And passes gently by-without a curse Upon his lips, or anger at his heart. He travels on, a solitary man ;
His age has no companion. On the ground His eyes are turned, and, as he moves along, They move along the ground; and, evermore, Instead of common and habitual sight Of fields with rural works, of hill and dale, And the blue sky, one little span of earth Is all his prospect. Thus, from day to day, Bow-bent, his eyes for ever on the ground, He plies his weary journey; seeing still, And seldom knowing that he sees, some straw, Some scattered leaf, or marks which, in one track, The nails of cart or chariot-wheel have left
Impressed on the white road,—in the same line, At distance still the same. Poor traveller! His staff trails with him; scarcely do his feet Disturb the summer dust; he is so still In look and motion, that the cottage curs, Ere he have passed the door, will turn away, Weary of barking at him. Boys and girls, The vacant and the busy, maids and youths, And urchins newly breeched-all pass him by: Him even the slow-paced waggon leaves behind.
But deem not this man useless.—Statesmen! ye Who are so restless in your wisdom, ye
Who have a broom still ready in your hands To rid the world of nuisances; ye proud, Heart-swoll'n, while in your pride ye contemplate Your talents, power, and wisdom, deem him not A burthen of the earth! 'Tis nature's law That none, the meanest of created things, Of forms created the most vile and brute, The dullest or most noxious, should exist Divorced from good—a spirit and pulse of good, A life and soul, to every mode of being Inseparably linked. While thus he creeps From door to door, the villagers in him Behold a record which together binds Past deeds and offices of charity,
Else unremembered, and so keeps alive The kindly mood in hearts which lapse of years, And that half-wisdom half-experience gives, Make slow to feel, and by sure steps resign To selfishness and cold oblivious cares. Among the farms and solitary huts, Hamlets and thinly-scattered villages, Where'er the aged beggar takes his rounds,
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