Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting

And cometh from afar ;

Not in entire forgetfulness

And not in utter nakedness

But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing boy,

But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy ;

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,
And fade into the light of common day.

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, 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!

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!

A second time did Matthew stop;
And fixing still his eye

Upon the eastern mountain-top,
To me he made reply :

'Yon cloud with that long purple cleft

Brings fresh into my mind

A day like this, which I have left
Full thirty years behind.

'And just above yon slope of corn

Such colours, and no other,

Were in the sky that April morn

Of this the very brother.

'With rod and line I sued the sport

Which that sweet season gave,

And coming to the church, stopp'd short

Beside my daughter's grave.

'Nine summers had she scarcely seen,

The pride of all the vale ;

And then she sang :- she would have been

A very nightingale.

'Six feet in earth my Emma lay;

And yet I loved her more

For so it seem'd — than till that day

I e'er had loved before.

'And turning from her grave, I met
Beside the church-yard yew

A blooming Girl, whose hair was wet
With points of morning dew.

'A basket on her head she bare;
Her brow was smooth and white:
To see a child so very fair,
It was a pure delight!

'No fountain from its rocky cave
E'er tripp'd with foot so free;
She seem'd as happy as a wave
That dances on the sea.

'There came from me a sigh of pain
Which I could ill confine;

I look'd at her, and look'd again :
And did not wish her mine!'

- Matthew is in his grave, yet now Methinks I see him stand

As at that moment, with a bough
Of wilding in his hand.

W. Wordsworth

WE

CCLXXXII

THE FOUNTAIN

A Conversation

E talk'd with open heart, and tongue
Affectionate and true,

A pair of friends, though I was young,
And Matthew seventy-two.

We lay beneath a spreading oak,

Beside a mossy seat;

And from the turf a fountain broke

And gurgled at our feet.

'Now, Matthew!' said I, 'let us match This water's pleasant tune

With some old border song, or catch
That suits a summer's noon.

'Or of the church-clock and the chimes

Sing here beneath the shade

That half-mad thing of witty rhymes

Which you last April made!'

In silence Matthew lay, and eyed

The spring beneath the tree;

And thus the dear old man replied,

The gray-hair'd man of glee :

'No check, no stay, this Streamlet fears, How merrily it goes!

'T will murmur on a thousand years

And flow as now it flows.

'And here, on this delightful day,

I cannot choose but think

How oft, a vigorous man, I lay
Beside this fountain's brink.

'My eyes are dim with childish tears,

My heart is idly stirr'd,

For the same sound is in my ears

Which in those days I heard.

'Thus fares it still in our decay:

And yet the wiser mind

Mourns less for what Age takes away,

Than what it leaves behind.

"The blackbird amid leafy trees
The lark above the hill

Let loose their carols when they please,
Are quiet when they will.

'With Nature never do they wage

A foolish strife; they see

A happy youth, and their old age
Is beautiful and free:

'But we are press'd by heavy laws

And often, glad no more,

We wear a face of joy, because

We have been glad of yore.

'If there be one who need bemoan

His kindred laid in earth,

;

The household hearts that were his own,

It is the man of mirth.

'My days, my friend, are almost gone,

My life has been approved,

And many love me; but by none

Am I enough beloved.'

'Now both himself and me he wrongs,

The man who thus complains!

live and sing my idle songs

Upon these happy plains:

'And Matthew, for thy children dead

I'll be a son to thee!'

At this he grasp'd my hand and said, 'Alas! that cannot be.'