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:
It was indeed for all of us; for me
It was a time of rapture! - Clear and loud The village clock toll'd six - I wheel'd about, Proud and exulting like an untired horse
That cares not for his home. All shod with steel
We hiss'd along the polish'd 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, gleam'd 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, Stopp'd short; yet still the solitary cliffs Wheel'd by me even as if the earth had roll'd
With visible motion her diurnal round!
Behind me did they stretch in solemn train, Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watch'd Till all was tranquil as a summer sea.
LET us quit the leafy Arbour, And the torrent murmuring by: Sol has dropp'd into his harbour, Weary of the open sky.
Evening now unbinds the fetters Fashion'd by the glowing light;
All that breathe are thankful debtors
To the harbinger of night.
Yet by some grave thoughts attended
Eve renews her calm career;
For the day that now is ended, Is the Longest of the Year.
Laura! sport, as now thou sportest, On this platform, light and free; Take thy bliss, while longest, shortest, Are indifferent to thee!
Who would check the happy feeling That inspires the linnet's song? Who would stop the swallow, wheeling On her pinions swift and strong?
Yet at this impressive season, Words which tenderness can speak From the truths of homely reason, Might exalt the loveliest cheek;
And, while shades to shades succeeding Steal the landscape from the sight, I would urge this moral pleading,
Last forerunner of " Good night!"
Is a reflux from on high,
Tending to the darksome hollows
Where the frosts of winter lie.
He who governs the creation, In his providence, assign'd Such a gradual declination To the life of human kind.
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