Broods like the day, a master o'er a slave,
A presence which is not to be put by;
Thou little child, yet glorious in the might
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height,
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
The years to bring the inevitable yoke,

Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight,
And custom lie upon thee with a weight,
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!
O joy! that in our embers

Is something that doth live,
That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!

The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction: not indeed

For that which is most worthy to be blest;
Delight and liberty, the simple creed

Of childhood, whether busy or at rest,

With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:-
Not for these I raise

The song of thanks and praise;
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;

Blank misgivings of a creature

Moving about in worlds not realized,
High instincts before which our mortal nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:
But for those first affections
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may,

Are yet the fountain light of all our day,
Are yet a master light of all our seeing;

Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make

Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal silence: truths that wake,
To perish never;

Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
Nor man nor boy,

Nor all that is at enmity with joy,

Can utterly abolish or destroy!

Hence, in a season of calm weather,

Though inland far we be,

Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,

Can in a moment travel thither,

And see the children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.
Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song!
And let the young lambs bound

As to the tabor's sound!

We in thought will join your throng,
Ye that pipe and ye that play,

Ye that through your hearts to-day
Feel the gladness of the May!

What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,

Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find

Strength in what remains behind,
In the primal sympathy

Which having been must ever be,
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering,

In the faith that looks through death,

In years that bring the philosophic mind.
And O ye fountains, meadows, hills, and groves,
Think not of any severing of our loves!
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquished one delight

To live beneath your more habitual sway.

I love the brooks which down their channels fret,
Even more than when I tripped lightly as they;
The innocent brightness of a new-born day

Is lovely yet;

The clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;
Another race hath been, and other palms are won,
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

W. WORDSWORTH.

193.

A Lament.

OH, world! oh, life! oh, time!
On whose last steps I climb

Trembling at that where I had stood before;
When will return the glory of your prime?
No more-O, never more!

Out of the day and night

A joy has taken flight;

Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar, Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight No more-0, never more!

P. B. SHELLEY.

194.

Lucy.

SHE dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,

A maid whom there were none to praise,
And very few to love.

A violet by a mossy stone

Half-hidden from the eye!

-Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know

When Lucy ceased to be;

But she is in her grave, and O!

The difference to me!

W. WORDSWORTH.

195.

I TRAVELLED among unknown men,
In lands beyond the sea;

Nor, England! did I know till then
What love I bore to thee.

'Tis past, that melancholy dream!
Nor will I quit thy shore

A second time; for still I seem
To love thee more and more.

Among thy mountains did I feel
The joy of my desire;

And she I cherished turned her wheel
Beside an English fire.

Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed
The bowers where Lucy played;

And thine is too the last green field

That Lucy's eyes surveyed.

W. WORDSWORTH.

ΤΟ

196.

ONE word is too often profaned
For me to profane it,

One feeling too falsely disdained
For thee to disdain it.

One hope is too like despair
For prudence to smother,
And pity from thee more dear
Than that from another.

I can give not what men call love,
But wilt thou accept not
The worship the heart lifts above
And the Heavens reject not,
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,

The devotion to something afar

From the sphere of our sorrow?

P. B. SHELLEY.

197.

Ozymandias of Egypt.

I MET a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

P. B. SHElley.

198.

Upon Westminster Bridge.
EARTH has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth like a garment wear

The beauty of the morning: silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky,

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

W. WORDSWORTH.