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 Roy,

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 tnither,

And see the Children sport upon the shore, And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

X.

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.

XI.

And O ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,

Think not of 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. 1806.

GIPSIES.

YET are they here the same unbroken knot
Of human Beings, in the self-same spot!
Men, women, children, yea, the frame
Of the whole spectacle the same!
Only their fire seems bolder, yielding light,
Now deep and red, the colouring of night;
That on their Gipsy-faces falls,

Their bed of straw and blanket-walls. Twelve hours, twelve bounteous hours, are gone, while I

Have been a traveller under open sky,
Much witnessing of change and cheer,
Yet as I left I find them here!

The weary Sun betook himself to rest,
Then issued Vesper from the fulgent west,
Outshining like a visible God

The glorious path in which he trod.
And now, ascending, after one dark hour
And one night's diminution of her power,

''

"O NIGHTINGALE! THOU SURELY ART." 187

Behold the mighty Moon! this way
She looks as if at them—but they

Regard not her :-oh better wrong and strife, (By nature transient) than this torpid life; The silent heavens have goings on :

The stars have tasks-but these have

none !

Yet witness all that stirs in heaven or earth! In scorn I speak it not ;-they are what their birth

1807.

And breeding suffer them to be;
Wild outcasts of society!

"O NIGHTINGALE! THOU SURELY

ART."

O NIGHTINGALE! thou surely art
A creature of a fiery heart :-

These notes of thine-they pierce and

pierce;

Tumultuous harmony and fierce!
Thou sing'st as if the God of wine
Had helped thee to a Valentine;
A song in mockery and despite
Of shades, and dews, and silent night;
And steady bliss, and all the loves
Now sleeping in these peaceful groves.

I heard a Stock-dove sing or say
His homely tale this very day;
His voice was buried among trees,
Yet to be come-at by the breeze;

He did not cease; but cooed-and cooed
And somewhat pensively he wooed :
He sang of love, with quiet blending,
Slow to begin, and never ending;
Of serious faith, and inward glee;
That was the song-the song for me!
1807.

SONG AT THE FEAST OF BROUGHAM

CASTLE,

UPON THE RESTORATION OF LORD CLIFFORD, THE
SHEPHERD, TO THE ESTATES AND HONOURS
OF HIS ANCESTORS.

HIGH in the breathless Hall the Minstrel sate,
And Emont's murmur mingled with the Song.—
The words of ancient time I thus translate,
A festal strain that hath been silent long :-

"From town to town, from tower to tower, The red rose is a gladsome flower. Her thirty years of winter past, The red rose is revived at last ; She lifts her head for endless spring, For everlasting blossoming :