With tranquil restoration-feelings too, Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps, As may have had no trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremembered acts Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, To them I may have owed another gift, Of aspect more sublime that blessed mood In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world
Is lightened that serene and blessed mood In which the affections gently lead us on, Until the breath of this corporeal frame, And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul: While with an eye made quiet by the joy, We see into the life of things.
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh; how oft, In darkness and amid the many shapes Of joyless daylight, when the fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, Have hung upon the beating of my heart, How oft in spirit have I turned to thee,
O sylvan Wye!-thou wanderer through the woods- How often has my spirit turned to thee!
And now, with gleams of half extinguished thought, With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again :
While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts,
That in this moment there is life and good For future years. And so I dare to hope, Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first I came among these hills: when, like a roe, I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, Wherever nature led; more like a man,
Flying from something that he dreads, than one Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then (The coarser pleasures of my boyish days
And their glad animal movements all gone by,) To me was all in all-I cannot paint
The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms, were then to me An appetite a feeling and a love
That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, or any interest Unhonoured from the eye. That time is past, And all its aching joys are now no more, And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this Faint I, nor mourn, nor murmur: other gifts Have followed, for such loss, I would believe, Abundant recompense. For I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes The still sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts: a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; A motion of a spirit that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods
And mountains, and of all that we behold
From this green earth of all the mighty world Of eye and ear, both what they half create And what perceive: well pleased to recognize In nature and the language of the sense, The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being.
Nor, perchance, If I were not thus taught, should I the more Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
For thou art with me here, upon the banks Of this fair river: thou, my dearest friend, My dear, dear friend, and in thy voice I catch The language of my former heart, and read My purer pleasures in the shooting lights Of thy wild eyes. Oh yet a little while May I behold in thee what I was once, My dear, dear sister! And this prayer I make, Knowing that nature never did betray The heart that loved her; 't is her privilege, Through all the years of this our life, to lead From joy to joy; for she can so inform The mind that is within us, so impress With quietness and beauty, and so feed With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb Our cheerful faith that all which we behold Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain winds be free To blow against thee: and in after years When these wild extacies shall be matured Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, Thy memory be as a dwelling place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; Oh! then, If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance,
If I should be where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams Of past existence, wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream We stood together; and that I, so long A worshipper of nature hither came, Unwearied in that service: rather say With warmer love, Oh! with far deeper zeal Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget, That after many wanderings, many years Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs And this green pastoral landscape, were to me More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake."
EARLY piety is often EMINENT piety.
Che Mother's Dream.
"AND I will give him the Bright and Morning Star."
METHOUGHT once more to my wishful eye, My beautiful boy had come :
My sorrow was gone-my cheek was dry, And gladness was round my home!
I saw the form of my dear lost child: All kindled with life he came,
And he spoke in his own sweet voice and 'smiled, As soon as I named his name.
The raiment he wore looked heavenly white, As the feathery snow comes down, And warm as it shone in the softened light, That fell from his dazzling crown.
His brow was bright with a joy serene- His cheek with the deathless bloom, That only the eye of my soul hath seen, When looking beyond the tomb.
The odour of flowers from that fair land,
Where we deem that our blest ones are, Seemed borne in his skirts, and his small right hand Was holding a radiant star!
His feet unshod, as from out the shroud,
Were pure as the opening bell
Of the lilly and set on a folding cloud Of glory that round him fell.
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