Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; My head hath its coronal, The fulness of your bliss I feel-I feel it all. This sweet May-morning, And the children are culling In a thousand valleys far and wide, Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm, But there's a tree, of many one, Doth the same tale repeat: Whither is fled the visionary gleam? Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: But trailing clouds of glory do we come But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, 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, 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, Behold the child among his new-born blisses,-- See, where 'mid work of his own hand, he lies, A mourning or a funeral; And this hath now his heart, And unto this he frames his song: To dialogues of business, love, or strife; 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' Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep On whom those truths do rest, Which we are toiling all our lives to find, In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave; Broods like the day,-a master o'er a slave,— Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? Is something that doth live, 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 Blank misgivings of a creature Moving about in worlds not realized, High instincts before which our mortal nature Those shadowy recollections, 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 all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy! : Hence in a season of calm weather, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Can in a moment travel thither, And see the children sport upon the shore, Then sing, ye birds! sing, sing a joyous song! We in thought will join your throng; Ye that pipe, and ye that play, What though the radiance which was once so bright, Though nothing can bring back the hour Strength in what remains behind; Which having been, must ever be; In the faith that looks through death, In years that bring the philosophic mind. 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 LUCY. THREE years she grew in sun and shower, Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower On earth was never sown; This child I to myself will take,— Myself will to my darling be Both law and impulse; and with me The girl, in rock and plain, In earth and heaven, in glade and bower, Shall feel an overseeing power, To kindle or restrain. She shall be sportive as the fawn, Or up the mountain springs; And hers shall be the breathing balm,— The floating clouds their state shall lend for her the willow bend; To her, Nor shall she fail to see Even in the motions of the storm, Grace that shall mould the maiden's form, By silent sympathy. The stars of midnight shall be dear To her; and she shall lean her ear In many a secret place, Where rivulets dance their wayward round, And beauty, born of murmuring sound, And vital feelings of delight Shall rear her form to stately height, Her virgin bosom swell; Such thoughts to Lucy I will give, C |