283 THE RIVER OF LIFE The more we live, more brief appear The gladsome current of our youth, 5 Steals lingering like a river smooth But as the careworn cheek grows wan, Ye stars, that measure life to man, 10 When joys have lost their bloom and breath, Why, as we reach the Falls of death, It may be strange-yet who would change Heaven gives our years of fading strength And those of youth, a seeming length, 15 20 T. CAMPBELL, 284 THE HUMAN SEASONS Four seasons fill the measure of the year; He has his Summer, when luxuriously 5 10 Spring's honey'd cud of youthful thought he loves To ruminate, and by such dreaming nigh His nearest unto heaven: quiet coves His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings He furleth close; contented so to look On mists in idleness-to let fair things Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook : He has his Winter too of pale misfeature, Or else he would forgo his mortal nature. J. KEATS. 285 A LAMENT O World! O Life! O Time! Trembling at that where I had stood before; Out of the day and night A joy has taken flight : Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight No more Oh, never more! 5 10 P. B. SHELLEY. 286 My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky: So was it when my life began, So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die ! The Child is father of the Man : 5 287 ODE ON INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, Apparell'd in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. By night or day, 5 The things which I have seen I now can see no more. The rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the rose; The moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare; Are beautiful and fair; The sunshine is a glorious birth; But yet I know, where'er I go, 10 15 That there hath pass'd away a glory from the earth. Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, To me alone there came a thought of grief: And I again am strong. 20 24 The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep, No more shall grief of mine the season wrong: I hear the echoes through the mountains throng, The winds come to me from the fields of sleep, And all the earth is gay; Land and sea Give themselves up to jollity, 30 And with the heart of May Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Ye blesséd 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. And the children are culling In a thousand valleys far and wide Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm, A single field which I have look'd upon, Doth the same tale repeat: Whither is fled the visionary gleam? Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting ; And cometh from afar ; Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, The Youth, who daily farther from the east Is on his way attended; At length the Man perceives it die away, Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own; 70 75 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. Behold the Child among his new-born blisses, A six years' darling of a pigmy size! 86 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-learnéd art ; A wedding or a festival, 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; 90 95 100 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. 105 |