In gratitude, and for the sake of truth,
Unheard by her, that she, not falsely taught,
Fetching her goodness rather from times
past

Than shaping novelties for times to come,
Had no presumption, no such jealousy,
Nor did by habit of her thoughts mistrust,
Our nature, but had virtual faith, that He
Who fills the mother's breast with innocent

milk

Doth also for our nobler part provide,
Under His great correction and control,
As innocent instincts, and as innocent food;
Or draws for minds that are left free to

trust

In the simplicities of opening life Sweet honey out of spurned or dreaded weeds.

[pure This was her creed, and therefore she was From anxious fear of error or mishap, And evil, overweeningly so called; Was not puffed up by false unnatural hopes, Nor selfish with unnecessary cares, Nor with impatience from the season asked More than its timely produce; rather loved The hours for what they are, than from regard

Glanced on their promises in restless pride. Such was she-not from faculties more strong

Than others have, but from the times, perhaps,

And spot in which she lived, and through a grace

Of modest meekness, simple-mindedness,
A heart that found benignity and hope,
Being itself benign

My drift I fear

Is scarcely obvious: but, that common sense
May try this modern system by its fruits,
Leave let me take to place before her sight
A specimen portrayed with faithful hand.
Full early trained to worship seemliness,
This model of a child is never known
To mix in quarreis; that were far beneath
Its dignity, with gifts he bubbles o'er
As generous as a fountain; selfishness
May not come near him, nor the little
throng

Of flitting pleasures tempt him from his path,

The wandering beggars propagate his name,
Dumb creatures find him tender as a n
And natural or supernatural fear,
Unless it leap upon him in a dream,
Touches him not. To enhance the wonder,

see

How arch his notices, how nice his sense
Of the ridiculous; not blind is he
To the broad follies of the licensed world,
Yet innocent himself withal, though shrewd,
And can read lectures upon innocence;
A miracle of scientific lore,
Ships he can guide across the pathless sea,
And tell you all their cunning; he can read
The inside of the earth, and spell the stars;
He knows the policies of foreign lands,
Can string, you names of districts, cities,
towns,

The whole world over, tight as beads of dew Upon a gossamer thread; he sifts, he weighs,

All things are put to question; he must live

Knowing that he grows wiser every day
Or else not live at all, and seeing too
Each little drop of wisdom as it falls
Into the dimpling cistern of his heart:
For this unnatural growth the trainer blame,
Pity the tree.-Poor human vanity,
Wert thou extinguished, little would be
left

Which he could truly love; but how escape?

For, ever as a thought of purer birth
Rises to lead him toward a better clime,
Some intermeddler still is on the watch
To drive him back, and pound him, like a
stray,

Within the pinfold of his own conceit. Meanwhile old grandame earth is grieved to find

The playthings, which her love designed for him,

Unthought of in their woodland beds the flowers

Weep, and the river sides are all forlorn.
Oh! give us once again the wishing cap
Of Fortunatus, and the invisible coat
Of Jack the Giant-killer, Robin Hood,
And Sabra in the forest with St. George!
The child, whose love is here, at least, doth
reap

One precious gain, that he forgets himself.

These mighty workmen of our later age, Who, with a broad highway, have over bridged

The forward chaos of futurity,

Tamed to their bidding; they who have the skill

To manage books, and things, and make

them act

On infant minds as surely as the sun

Uplifted, he, as through an instrument, Flew mimic hootings to the silent owls, That they might answer him; and they would shout

Across the watery vale, and shout again, Responsive to his call with quivering peals, And long halloos and screams, and echoes loud,

Redoubled and redoubled, concourse wild Of jocund din; and, when a lengthened pause

Of silence came and baffled his best skill, Then sometimes, in that silence while he hung

Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise
Has carried far into his heart the voice
Of mountain torrents; or the visible scene
Would enter unawares into his mind,
With all its solemn imagery, its rocks,
Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, re-
ceived

Into the bosom of the steady lake.

This Boy was taken from his mates, and died

In childhood, ere he was full twelve years old.

Fair is the spot, most beautiful the vale

Where he was born; the grassy churchyard hangs

Upon a slope above the village school,
And through that churchyard when my way
has led

On summer evenings, I believe that there
A long half hour together I have stood
Mute, looking at the grave in which he lies!
Even now appears before the mind's clear

eye

That self-same village church; I see her sit (The throned Lady whom erewhile we hailed)

On her green hill. forgetful of this Boy
Who slumbers at her feet,-forgetful, too,
Of all her silent neighborhood of graves,
And listening only to the gladsome sounds
That from the rural school ascending, play
Beneath her and about her. May she long
Behold a race of young ones like to those
With whom I herded !-(easily, indeed,
We might have fed upon a fatter soil
Of arts and letters-but be that forgiven)-
A race of real children; not too wise,
Too learned, or too good; but wanton, fresh,
And bandied up and down by love and hate;
Not unresentful where self-justified;
Fierce, moody, patient, venturous, modest,
shy;

Mad at their sports like withered leaves in winds:

Though doing wrong and suffering, and full oft

Bending beneath our life's mysterious weight

Of pain, and doubt, and fear, yet yielding

not

In happiness to the happiest upon earth.
Simplicity in habits, truth in speech,
Be these the daily strengtheners of their
minds;

May books and Nature be their early joy!
And knowledge, rightly honored with that

name

Knowledge not purchased by the loss of power!

Well do I call to mind the very week When I was first intrusted to the care Of that sweet Valley; when its paths, its shores,

And brooks were like a dream of novelty To my half-infant thoughts; that very week, While I was roving up and down alone, Seeking I knew not what. I chanced to cross One of those open fields, which, shaped like ears,

Of faery land, the forest of romance.
Their spirit hallowed the sad spectacle
With decoration of ideal grace,
A dignity, a smoothness, like the works.
Of Grecian art, and purest poesy.

A precious treasure had I long possessed,
A little yellow, canvas-covered book,
A slender abstract of the Arabian tales;
And, from companions in a new abode,
When first I learnt that this dear prize of
mine

Was but a block hewn from a mighty quarry

That there were four large volumes, laden

all

With kindred matter, 'twas to me, in truth,
A promise scarcely earthly. Instantly,
With one not richer than myself, I made
A covenant that each should lay aside
The moneys he possessed, and hoard up

more,

Till our joint savings had amassed enough To make this book our own. Through several months,

In spite of all temptation, we preserved

Religiously that vow; but firmness failed, Nor were we ever masters of our wish.

And when thereafter to my father's house The holidays returned me, there to find That golden store of books which I had left, What joy was nune! How often in the [wind

course

Of those glad respites, though a soft west
Ruffled the waters to the angler's wish,
For a whole day together, have I lain
Down by thy side, O Derwent! murmuring
stream,

On the hot stones, and in the glaring sun,
And there have read, devouring as I read,
Defrauding the day's glory, desperate!
Till with a sudden bound of smart reproach,
Such as an idler deals with in his shame,
I to the sport betook myself again.

A gracious spirit o'er this earth presides,
And o'er the heart of man, invisibly
It comes, to works of unreproved delight,
And tendency benign, directing those
Who care not, know not, think not what they
do.

The tales that charm away the wakeful night
In Araby, romances; legends penned
For solace by dim light of monkish lamps;
Fictions, for ladies of their love, devised
By youthful squires, adventures endless,

Our simple childhood, sits upon a throne
That hath more power than all the elements.
I guess not what this tells of Being past,
Nor what it augurs of the life to come;
But so it is, and, in that dubious hour,
That twilight when we first begin to see
This dawning earth, to recognize, expect,
And, in the long probation that ensues,
The time of trial, ere we learn to live
In reconcilement with our stinted powers;
To endure this state of meagre vassalage,
Unwilling to forego, confess, submit,
Uneasy and unsettled, yoke-fellows
To custom, mettlesome, and not yet tamed
And humbled down; oh! then we feel, we

feel,

We know where we have friends. Ye dreamers, then,

Forgers of daring tales! we bless you then,
Impostors, drivellers, dotards, as the ape
Philosophy will call you: then we feel
With what and how great might ye are in
league,

Who make our wish, our power, our thought a deed,

An empire, a possession,-ye whom time And seasons serve; all Faculties to whom Earth crouches, the elements are potter's clay,

Space like a heaven filled up with northern lights,

Here, nowhere, there, and everywhere at

On that delightful time of growing youth,
When craving for the marvellous gives way
To strengthening love for things that we
have seen;

When sober truth and steady sympathies,
Offered to notice by less daring pens,
Take firmer hold of us, and words them-
selves

Move us with conscious pleasure.

I am sad At thought of rapture now forever flown; Almost to tears I sometimes could be sad To think of, to read over, many a page, Poems withal of name, which at that time Did never fail to entrance me, and are now Dead in my eyes, dead as a theatre Fresh emptied of spectators. Twice five years

Or less I might have seen, when first my mind

With conscious pleasure opened to the charm

Of words in tuneful order, found them sweet For their own sakes, a passion, and a power; And phrases pleased me chosen for delight, For pomp, or love. Oft in the public roads Yet unfrequented, while the morning light Was yellowing the hill tops, I went abroad

With a dear friend, and for the better part
Of two delightful hours we strolled along
By the still borders of the misty lake,
Repeating favorite verses with one voice,
Or conning more, as happy as the birds
That round us chaunted. Well might we be
glad,

Lifted above the ground by airy fancies, More bright than madness or the dreams of wine;

And, though full oft the objects of our love Were false, and in their splendor overwrought,

Yet was there surely then no vulgar power
Working within us,-nothing less, in truth,
Than that most noble attribute of man,
Though yet untutored and inordinate,
That wish for something loftier, more
adorned,

Than is the common aspect, daily garb,
Of human life. What wonder, then, if sounds
of exultation echoed through the groves!
For images, and sentiments, and words,
And everything encountered or pursued
In that delicious world of poesy,
Kept holiday, a never-ending show,
With music, incense, festival, and flowers!

Here must we pause: this only let me add, From heart experience, and in humbles!

sense

Of modesty, that he, who in his youth
A daily wanderer among woods and fields
With living Nature hath been intimate,
Not only in that raw unpractised time
Is stirred to ecstasy, as others are,
By glittering verse; but further, doth re
ceive,

In measure only dealt out to himself,
Knowledge and increase of enduring joy
From the great Nature that exists in works
Of mighty Poets. Visionary power
Attends the motions of the viewless winds,
Embodied in the mystery of words:
There, darkness makes abode, and all the
host

Of shadowy things work endless changes,— there,

As in a mansion like their proper home,
Even forms and substances are circumfused
By that transparent veil with light divine,
And, through the turnings intricate of verse,
Present themselves as objects recognized,
In flashes, and with glory not their own.

And the simplicities of cottage life

I bade farewell; and, one among the youth
Who, summoned by that season, reunite
As scattered birds troop to the fowler's lure,
Went back to Granta's cloisters, not so
prompt

Or eager, though as gay and undepressed
In mind, as when I thence had taken flight
A few short months before. I turned my
face

Without repining from the coves and heights Clothed in the sunshine of the withering fern;

Quitted, not loth, the mild magnificence of calmer lakes and louder streams; and

you,

Frank-hearted maids of rocky Cumberland,
You and your not unwelcome days of mirth,
Relinquished, and your nights of revelry,
And in my own unlovely cell sate down
In lightsome mood-such privilege has
youth

That cannot take long leave of pleasant thoughts.

The bonds of indolent society
Relaxing in their hold, henceforth I lived
More to myself. Two winters may be passed
Without a separate notice: many books
Were skimmed, devoured, or studiously pe-
rused,

But with no settled plan.
was detached
Internally from academic cares;
Yet independent study seemed a course
Of hardy disobedience toward friends
And kindred, proud rebellion and unkind.
This spurious virtue, rather let it bear
A name it now deserves. this cowardice,
Gave treacherous sanction to that over-love
Of freedom which encouraged me to turn
From regulations even of my own

As from restraints and bonds. Yet who can tell

Who knows what thus may have been gained, both then

And at a later season, or preserved;
What love of nature, what original strength
Of comtemplation, what intuitive truths
The deepest and the best, what keen re-

search,

Unbiassed, unbewildered, and unawed?

The Poet's soul was with me at that time;

Sweet meditations, the still overflow
Of present happiness, while future years
Lacked not anticipations, tender dreams,
No few of which have since been realized;
And some remain, hopes for my future life.
Four years and thirty, told this very week,
Have I been now a sojourner on earth,
By sorrow not unsmitten; yet for me
Life's morning radiance hath not left the
hills,

Her dew is on the flowers. Those were the days

Which also first emboldened me to trust With firmness, hitherto but slightly touched By such a daring thought, that I might leave

Some monument behind me which pure

hearts Should reverence.

ness,

The instinctive humble

Maintained even by the very name and thought

Of printed books and authorship, began
To melt away; and further, the dread awe
Of mighty names was softened down and

seemed

Approachable, admitting fellowship

Of modest sympathy. Such aspect now,
Content to observe, to achieve, and to en-
Though not familiarly, my mind put on,
joy.

All winter long, whenever free to choose,
Did I by night frequent the College grove
And tributary walks; the last, and oft
The only one, who had been lingering there
Through hours of silence, till the porter's
bell,

A punctual follower on the stroke of nine,
Rang with its blunt unceremonious voice,
Inexorable summons! Lofty elms,
Inviting shades of opportune recess,
Bestowed composure on a neighborhood
Unpeaceful in itself. A single tree
With sinuous trunk, boughs exquisitely
wreathed,

Grew there; an ash which Winter for him

self

Decked out with pride, and with outlandish grace:

Up from the ground, and almost to the top, The trunk and every master branch were

green