The purer elements of truth involved
In lines and numbers, and, by charm severe, (Especially perceived where nature droops And feeling is suppressed,) preserve the mind Busy in solitude and poverty.
These occupations oftentimes deceived
The listless hours, while in the hollow vale, Hollow and green, he lay on the green turf In pensive idleness. What could he do With blind endeavours, in that lonesome life, Thus thirsting daily? Yet still uppermost
Nature was at his heart as if he felt,
Though yet he knew not how, a wasting power In all things which from her sweet influence Might tend to wean him. Therefore with her hues, Her forms, and with the spirit of her forms, He clothed the nakedness of austere truth. While yet he lingered in the rudiments Of science, and among her simplest laws, His triangles-they were the stars of heaven, The silent stars! Oft did he take delight To measure th' altitude of some tall crag Which is the eagle's birth-place, or some peak
Familiar with forgotten years, that shews Inscribed, as with the silence of the thought, Upon it's bleak and visionary sides, The history of many a winter storm,-
Or obscure records of the path of fire.
And thus, before his eighteenth year was told, Accumulated feelings pressed his heart
With an increasing weight; he was o'erpower'd By Nature, by the turbulence subdued
Of his own mind; by mystery and hope, And the first virgin passion of a soul Communing with the glorious Universe.
Full often wished he that the winds might rage When they were silent; far more fondly now Than in his earlier season did he love Tempestuous nights-the conflict and the sounds That live in darkness :-from his intellect And from the stillness of abstracted thought He asked repose; and I have heard him say That often, failing at this time to gain
The peace required, he scanned the laws of light
Amid the roar of torrents, where they send From hollow clefts up to the clearer air
A cloud of mist, which in the sunshine frames A lasting tablet-for the observer's eye Varying it's rainbow hues. But vainly thus, And vainly by all other means, he strove
To mitigate the fever of his heart.
In dreams, in study, and in ardent thought, Thus, even from Childhood upward, was he reared; For intellectual progress wanting much, Doubtless, of needful help-yet gaining more; And every moral feeling of his soul
Strengthened and braced, by breathing in content The keen, the wholesome air of poverty, And drinking from the well of homely life. -But, from past liberty, and tried restraints, He now was summoned to select the course Of humble industry which promised best To yield him no unworthy maintenance. The Mother strove to make her Son perceive With what advantage he might teach a School
In the adjoining Village; but the Youth,
Who of this service made a short essay,
Found that the wanderings of his thought were then
A misery to him; that he must resign
A task he was unable to perform.
That stern yet kindly spirit, Who constrains
The Savoyard to quit his naked rocks, The free-born Swiss to leave his narrow vales, (Spirit attached to regions mountainous Like their own stedfast clouds)-did now impel His restless Mind to look abroad with hope. -An irksome drudgery seems it to plod on, Through dusty ways, in storm, from door to door, A vagrant Merchant bent beneath his load! Yet do such Travellers find their own delight;
And their hard service, deemed debasing now,
Gained merited respect in simpler times;
When Squire, and Priest, and they who round them dwelt
In rustic sequestration, all, dependant
Upon the PEDLAR's toil-supplied their wants,
Or pleased their fancies, with the wares he brought. Not ignorant was the Youth that still no few
Of his adventurous Countrymen were led By perseverance in this Track of life
To competence and ease;-for him it bore Attractions manifold ;—and this he chose. He asked his Mother's blessing; and, with tears Thanking his second Father, asked from him Paternal blessings. The good Pair bestowed Their farewell benediction, but with hearts Foreboding evil. From his native hills
He wandered far; much did he see of Men, Their manners, their enjoyments, and pursuits, Their passions, and their feelings; chiefly those Essential and eternal in the heart,
Which, mid the simpler forms of rural life, Exist more simple in their elements,
And speak a plainer language. In the woods, A lone Enthusiast, and among the fields, Itinerant in this labour, he had passed
The better portion of his time; and there Spontaneously had his affections thriven Upon the bounties of the year, and felt The liberty of Nature; there he kept In solitude and solitary thought
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