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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

D

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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