Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here, If thou appear'st untouched by solemn thought, Thy nature therefore is not less divine: Thou liest "in Abraham's bosom " all the year; And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner shrine, God being with thee when we know it not. COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE. EARTH has not anything to show more fair: This City now doth like a garment wear In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill; THE BROOK. BROOK! whose society the Poet seeks And whom the curious Painter doth pursue Through rocky passes, among flowery creeks, And tracks thee dancing down thy water-breaks; If I some type of thee did wish to view, Thee, and not thee thyself, I would not do Like Grecian Artists, give thee human cheeks, Channels for tears; no Naiad should'st thou be, Have neither limbs, feet, feathers, joints, nor hairs. It seems the Eternal Soul is clothed in thee With purer robes than those of flesh and blood, Ann hath bestowed on thee a better good Unwearied joy, and life without its cares. WHERE lies the Land to which yon ship must go? Is she for tropic suns, or polar snow? What boots the inquiry-Neither friend nor foe Ever before her, and a wind to blow. Yet still I ask, what haven is her mark? And, almost as it was when ships were rare Is with me at thy farewell, joyous Bark! 1801. I GRIEVED for Buonaparté, with a vain Man holds with week-day man in the hourly walk THE world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; |