Of open court, an object like a throne
Under a shining canopy of state

Stood fixed; and fixed resemblances were seen
To implements of ordinary use,

But vast in size, in substance glorified;
Such as by Hebrew Prophets were beheld
In vision-forms uncouth of mightiest power
For admiration and mysterious awe.
This little Vale, a dwelling-place of Man,
Lay low beneath my feet; 'twas visible-
I saw not, but I felt that it was there.
That which I saw was the revealed abode
Of Spirits in beatitude.

From The Excursion.

AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.

(Greek Divinities.)

ONCE more to distant ages of the world
Let us revert, and place before our thoughts
The face which rural solitude might wear

To the unenlightened swains of pagan Greece.

-In that fair clime, the lonely herdsman, stretched
On the soft grass through half a summer's day,
With music lulled his indolent repose :

And, in some fit of weariness, if he

When his own breath was silent, chanced to hear

A distant strain, far sweeter than the sounds

Which his poor skill could make, his fancy fetched,
Even from the blazing chariot of the sun,

A beardless youth, who touched a golden lute,
And filled the illumined groves with ravishment.
The nightly hunter, lifting a bright eye

Up towards the crescent moon, with grateful heart
Called on the lovely wanderer who bestowed

That timely light, to share his joyous sport :

And hence, a beaming Goddess with her Nymphs,
Across the lawn and through the darksome grove,
Not unaccompanied with tuneful notes

By echo multiplied from rock or cave,

Swept in the storm or chase; as moon and stars

Glance rapidly along the clouded heaven,

When winds are blowing strong. The traveller slaked
His thirst from rill or gushing fount, and thanked
The Naiad. Sunbeams, upon distant hills
Gliding apace, with shadows in their train,
Might, with small help from fancy, be transformed
Into fleet Oreads sporting visibly.

The Zephyrs fanning, as they passed, their wings,
Lacked not, for love, fair objects whom they wooed
With gentle whisper. Withered boughs grotesque,
Stripped of their leaves and twigs by hoary age,

From depth of shaggy covert peeping forth
In the low vale, or on steep mountain side;
And, sometimes, intermixed with stirring horns
Of the live deer, or goat's depending beard,-
These were the lurking Satyrs, a wild brood
Of gamesome Deities; or Pan himself,
The simple shepherd's awe-inspiring God!

From The Excursion.

ODE.

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD.

THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight
To me did seem

Apparelled in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore ;-
Turn wheresoe'er I may,

By night or day,

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 heaven is bare;
Waters on a starry night

Are beautiful and fair;

The sunshine is a glorious birth;

But yet I know, where'er I go,

That there hath passed away a glory from the earth.

Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,
And while the young lambs bound

As to the tabor's sound,

To me alone there came a thought of grief:
A timely utterance gave that thought relief,
And I again am strong :

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,

And with the heart of May

Doth every beast keep holiday ;

Thou Child of Joy,

Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy
Shepherd boy!

Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call
Ye to each other make; I see

The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee ;
My heart is at your festival,

My head hath its coronal,

The fulness of your bliss, I feel-I feel it all.
Oh evil day! if I were sullen
While Earth herself is adorning,
This sweet May morning,
And the Children are culling
On every side,

In a thousand valleys far and wide,

Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm, And the Babe leaps up on his Mother's arm; I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!

-But there's a Tree, of many, one, A single Field which I have looked upon, Both of them speak of something that is gone : The Pansy at my feet

Doth the same tale repeat:

Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

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 Innate 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!
See at his feet some little plan or chart,
Some fragment from his dream of human life,
Shaped by himself with newly learned art;
A wedding or a festival,

A mourning or a funeral;

And this hath now his heart,

And unto this he frames his song;
Then will he fit his tongue

To dialogues of business, love, or strife.
But it will not be long

Ere this be thrown aside,

And with new joy and pride

The little Actor cons another part,

66

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.

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
Thy Soul's immensity;

Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep
Thy heritage; thou Eye among the blind,
That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep,
Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,-
Mighty Prophet, Seer blest!

On whom those truths do rest, Which we are toiling all our lives to find, In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave; Thou, over whom thine Immortality Broods like the Day, a Master o'er a Slave, A Presence which is not to be put by ; Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height, Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke The years to bring the inevitable yoke, Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight, And custom lie upon thee with a weight Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

O joy that in our embers
Is something that doth live,
That Nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!

The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction; not indeed

For that which is most worthy to be blest;
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest,

With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast :-
Not for these I raise

The song of thanks and praise;
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings,
Blank misgivings of a Creature

Moving about in worlds not realized,

High instincts before which our mortal Nature
Did tremble like a guilty Thing surprised;
But for those first affections,

Those shadowy recollections

Which, be they what they may,

Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,
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 endeavor,
Nor Man, nor Boy,

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 thither,

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

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,