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"Nor less I deem that there are Powers

Which of themselves our minds impress; That we can feel this mind of ours

In a wise passiveness.

“Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum
Of things for ever speaking,

That nothing of itself will come,
But we must still be seeking?

"Then ask not wherefore, here, alone,
Conversing as I may,

I sit upon this old gray stone,
And dream my time away."

THE TABLES TURNED. - Wordsworth.

AN EVENING SCENE ON THE SAME SUBJECT.

UP! up! my friend, and quit your books;
Or surely you 211

grow

double:

Up! up my friend, and clear your looks;

Why all this toil and trouble?

The sun, above the mountain's head,
A freshening lustre mellow

Through all the long green fields has spread,
His first sweet evening yellow.

Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:

Come, hear the woodland linnet, How sweet his music! on my life, There's more of wisdom in it.

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And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher :
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless,
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,

Than all the sages can.

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect

Misshapes the beauteous forms of things;
We murder to dissect.

Enough of Science and of Art ;

Close up these barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.

MANHOOD. C. A. Dana.

DEAR, noble soul, wisely thy lot thou bearest ;
For, like a god toiling in earthly slavery,
Fronting thy sad fate with a joyous bravery,
Each darker day a sunnier smile thou wearest,
No grief can touch thy sweet and spiritual smile,
No pain is keen enough that it has power
Over thy childlike love, that all the while
Upon the cold earth builds its heavenly bower;

And thus with thee bright angels make their dwelling, Bringing thee stores of strength when no man know

eth;

The ocean-stream from God's heart ever swelling,
That forth through each least thing in Nature goeth,
In thee, O truest hero, deeper floweth ;

With joy I bathe, and many souls beside
Feel a new life in the celestial tide.

THE CLOUD.- Shelley

I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;

I bear light shades for the leaves, when laid
In their noonday dreams.

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,

When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.

I wield the flail of the lashing hail,

And whiten the green plains under,

And then again I dissolve in rain,

And laugh as I pàss in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,

And their great pines groan aghast;

And all the night 't is my pillow white,

While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers,
Lightning my pilot sits;

In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,-
It struggles and howls at fits;

278

THE CLOUD.

Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,

Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;

Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,

Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The spirit he loves remains ;

And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,

Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,

When the morning star shines dead.

As on the jag of a mountain crag,

Which an earthquake rocks and swings,

An eagle alit one moment may sit

In the light of its golden wings.

And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,

Its ardors of rest and of love,

And the crimson pall of eve may fall

From the depth of heaven above,

With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest,
As still as a brooding dove.

That orbed maiden, with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the moon,

Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn;

And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;

And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,

Like a swarm of golden bees,

When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.

I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone,

And the moon's with a girdle of pearl;
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim,
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,
Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,-
The mountains its columns be.

The triumphal arch through which I march.
With hurricane, fire, and snow,

When the powers of air are chained to my chair,
Is the million-colored bow;

The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove,

While the moist earth was laughing below.

I am the daughter of earth and water,

I

And the nursling of the sky;

pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die.

For after the rain, when with never a stain

The pavilion of heaven is bare,

And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex

gleams,

Build up the blue dome of air,

I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,

And out of the caverns of rain,

Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the

tomb,

I arise and unbuild it again.

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