5. Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting : The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar :
Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home :
Heaven lies about us in our infancy !
Shades of the prison-house begin to close

Upon the growing Boy,
But He beholds the light, and whence it flows

He sees it in his joy ;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east

Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,
And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended ;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.

6.

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own; Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind, And even with something of a Mother's mind,

And no unworthy aim,

The homely Nurse doth all she can To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man,

Forget the glories he hath known, And that imperial palace whence he came.

7. Behold the Child among his new-born blisses, A six years' Darling of a pigmy size ! See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies, Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses,

With light upon him from his father's eyes !
See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,
Some fragment from his dream of human life,
Shaped by himself with newly-learned art;

A wedding or a festival,
A mourning or a funeral ;

And this hath now his heart,
And unto this he frames his song :

Then will he fit his tongue
To dialogues of business, love, or strife :

But it will not be long
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'
With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,
That Life brings with her in her equipage ;

As if his whole vocation
Were endless imitation.

8.

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie

Thy Soul's immensity; Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind, That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep, Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,

Mighty Prophet! Seer blest !

On whom those truths do rest, Which we are toiling all our lives to find, In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave; Thou, over whom thy Immortality Broods like the Day, a Master o'er a Slave, A Presence which is not to be put by; Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height, Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke The years to bring the inevitable yoke,

Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight,
And custom lie upon thee with a weight,
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life !

9.

O joy! that in our embers
Is something that doth “live,
That nature yet remembers

What was so fugitive !
The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction : not indeed
For that which is most worthy to be blest;
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest,
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast :-

Not for these I raise

The song of thanks and praise ;
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings ;

Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realised,
High instincts before which our mortal Nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised :

But for those first affections,

Those shadowy recollections,

Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain light of all our day, Are yet a master light of all our seeing ;

Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,

To perish never ;
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,

Nor Man nor Boy.
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

Which brought us hither,

Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the Children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

IO.

Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!

And let the young Lambs bound

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 splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower ;

We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind ;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering ;

In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.

II.

And o, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,
Forebode not any severing of our loves !
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquished one delight
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
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;
Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

(1803-1806.)

LAODAMIA.

"With sacrifice before the rising morn Vows have I made by fruitless hope inspired : And from the infernal Gods, ’mid shades forlorn Of night, my slaughtered Lord have I required: Celestial pity I again implore ;Restore him to my sight-great Jove, restore !' So speaking, and by fervent love endowed With faith, the Suppliant heavenward lifts her hands ; While, like the sun emerging from a cloud, Her countenance brightens—and her eye expands ; Her bosom heaves and spreads, her stature grows; And she expects the issue in repose. O terror ! what hath she perceived ?–0 joy! What doth she look on ?-whom doth she behold ? Her Hero slain upon the beach of Troy? His vital presence? his corporeal mould ? It is-if sense deceive her not-'tis he! And a god leads him-winged Mercury! Mild Hermes spake—and touched her with his wand That calms all fear : 'Such grace hath crowned thy prayer, Laodamía! that at Jove's command Thy Husband walks the paths of upper air: He comes to tarry with thee three hours' space ; Accept the gift, behold him face to face !!