Be likened? She whose countenance and air
Unite the graceful qualities of both,
Even as she shares the pride and joy of both.
My grey-haired Friend was moved; his vivid eye Glistened with tenderness; his Mind, I knew,
Was full; and had, I doubted not, returned,
Upon this impulse, to the theme-erewhile
Abruptly broken-off. The ruddy Boys
Did now withdraw to take their well-earned meal;
And He-(to whom all tongues resigned their rights
With willingness, to whom the general ear
Listened with readier patience than to strain
Of music, lute or harp,-a long delight
That ceased not when his voice had ceased) as One Who from truth's central point serenely views
The compass of his argument,-began
Mildly, and with a clear and steady tone.
DISCOURSE OF THE WANDERER, AND AN
EVENING VISIT TO THE LAKE.
every Form of Being is assigned,"
Thus calmly spake the venerable Sage,
"An active principle:-howe'er removed
From sense and observation, it subsists
In all things, in all natures, in the stars
Of azure heaven, the unenduring clouds,
In flower and tree, in every pebbly stone
That paves the brooks, the stationary rocks,
The moving waters, and the invisible air.
Whate'er exists hath properties that spread
Beyond itself, communicating good,
A simple blessing, or with evil mixed;
Spirit that knows no insulated spot,
No chasm, no solitude; from link to link
It circulates, the Soul of all the Worlds.
This is the freedom of the Universe;
Unfolded still the more, more visible,
The more we know; and yet is reverenced least,
And least respected, in the human Mind,
Its most apparent home. The food of hope
Is meditated action; robbed of this,
Her sole support, she languishes and dies.
We perish also; for we live by hope
And by desire; we see by the glad light,
And breathe the sweet air of futurity,
And so we live, or else we have no life.
To-morrow-nay perchance this very hour,
(For every moment has its own to-morrow!)
-Those blooming Boys, whose hearts are almost sick
With present triumph, will be sure to find
A field before them freshened with the dew
Of other expectations;-in which course
Their happy year spins round. The Youth obeys
A like glad impulse; and so moves the Man
Mid all his apprehensions, cares, and fears,—
Or so he ought to move. Ah! why in age
Do we revert so fondly to the walks
Of Childhood—but that there the Soul discerns
The dear memorial footsteps unimpaired
Of her own native vigour-but for this,
That it is given her thence in age to hear
Reverberations; and a
and a choral
Commingling with the incense that ascends
Undaunted, tow'rds the imperishable heavens,
From her own lonely altar?-Do not think
That Good and Wise will ever be allowed,
Though strength decay, to breathe in such estate
As shall divide them wholly from the stir
Of hopeful nature. Rightly is it said
That Man descends into the VALE of years;
Yet have I thought that we might also speak,
And not presumptuously I trust, of Age,
As of a final EMINENCE, though bare
In aspect and forbidding, yet a Point
On which 'tis not impossible to sit
In awful sovereignty-a place of power-
-A Throne, which may be likened unto his,
Who, in some placid day of summer, looks
Down from a mountain-top,-say one of those
High peaks, that bound the Vale where now we are.
Faint, and diminished to the gazing eye,
Forest and field, and hill and dale appear,
With all the shapes upon their surface spread.
But, while the gross and visible frame of things
Relinquishes its hold upon the sense,
Yea almost on the mind itself, and seems
All unsubstantialized,-how loud the voice
Of waters, with invigorated peal
From the full River in the vale below,
Ascending!-For on that superior height
Who sits, is disencumbered from the
Of near obstructions, and is privileged
To breathe in solitude above the host
Of ever-humming insects, mid thin air
That suits not them. The murmur of the leaves
Many and idle, touches not his ear;
This he is freed from, and from thousand notes
Not less unceasing, not less vain than these,
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