Lies open we have heard from You a voice
At every moment softened in its course
By tenderness of heart; have seen your Eye,
Even like an Altar lit by fire from Heaven,
Kindle before us. Your discourse this day,
That, like the fabled Lethe, wished to flow
In creeping sadness, through oblivious shades
Of death and night, has caught at every turn
The colours of the Sun. Access for you
Is yet preserved to principles of truth,
Which the Imaginative Will upholds
In seats of wisdom, not to be approached
By the inferior Faculty that moulds,
With her minute and speculative pains,
Opinion, ever changing!-I have seen
A curious Child, who dwelt upon a tract
Of inland ground, applying to his ear
The convolutions of a smooth-lipped Shell;
To which, in silence hushed, his very soul
Listened intensely; and his countenance soon
Brightened with joy; for murmurings from within
Were heard, sonorous cadences! whereby,
To his belief, the Monitor expressed
Mysterious union with its native Sea.
Even such a Shell the Universe itself
Is to the ear of Faith; and there are times,
I doubt not, when to You it doth impart
Authentic tidings of invisible things ;
Of ebb and flow, and ever-during power;
And central peace, subsisting at the heart
Of endless agitation. Here you stand,
Adore, and worship, when you know it not;
Pious beyond the intention of your thought;
Devout above the meaning of your will.
-Yes, you have felt, and
have felt, and may not cease to feel.
The estate of Man would be indeed forlorn
If false conclusions of the reasoning Power
Made the Eye blind, and closed the passages
Through which the Ear converses with the heart.
Has not the Soul, the Being of your Life
Received a shock of awful consciousness,
In some calm season, when these lofty Rocks
At night's approach bring down the unclouded Sky,
To rest upon their circumambient walls;
A Temple framing of dimensions vast,
And yet not too enormous for the sound
Of human anthems,-choral song, or burst
Sublime of instrumental harmony,
To glorify the Eternal! What if these
Did never break the stillness that prevails
Here, if the solemn Nightingale be mute
And the soft Woodlark here did never chaunt
Her vespers, Nature fails not to provide
Impulse and utterance. The whispering Air
Sends inspiration from the shadowy heights,
And blind recesses of the caverned rocks;
The little Rills, and Waters numberless,
Inaudible by day-light, blend their notes
With the loud Streams: and often, at the hour
When issue forth the first pale Stars, is heard,
Within the circuit of this Fabric huge,
One Voice the solitary Raven, flying
Athwart the concave of the dark-blue dome,
Unseen, perchance above the power of sight-
An iron knell! with echoes from afar,
Faint-and still fainter-as the cry, with which
The wanderer accompanies her flight
Through the calm region, fades upon
Diminishing by distance till it seemed
To expire, yet from the Abyss is caught again,
And yet again recovered!
From these Imaginative Heights, that yield
Far-stretching views into Eternity,
Acknowledge that to Nature's humbler power
Your cherished sullenness is forced to bend
Even here, where her amenities are sown
With sparing hand. Then trust yourself abroad
To range her blooming bowers, and spacious fields,
Where on the labours of the happy Throng
She smiles, including in her wide embrace
City, and Town, and Tower,-and Sea with Ships
Sprinkled, be our Companion while we track
Her rivers populous with gliding life ;
While, free as air, o'er printless sands we march,
And pierce the gloom of her majestic woods;
Roaming, or resting under grateful shade
peace and meditative chearfulness; Where living Things, and Things inanimate,
Do speak, at Heaven's command, to eye
And speak to social Reason's inner sense,
With inarticulate language.
Who, in this spirit, communes with the Forms
Of Nature, who with understanding heart,
Doth know and love, such Objects as excite
No morbid passions, no disquietude,
No vengeance, and no hatred, needs must feel
So deeply, that, unsatisfied with aught
Less pure and exquisite, he cannot choose
But seek for objects of a kindred love
In Fellow-natures, and a kindred joy.
Accordingly, he by degrees perceives
His feelings of aversion softened down ;
A holy tenderness pervade his frame.
His sanity of reason not impaired,
Say rather, all his thoughts now flowing clear,
From a clear Fountain flowing, he looks round
And seeks for good; and finds the good he seeks :
Until abhorrence and contempt are things
He only knows by name; and, if he hear
From other mouths, the language which they speak, He is compassionate; and has no thought,
No feeling, which can overcome his love.
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