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Behold the child among his new-born blisses,
A six-years' darling of a pigmy size!

See where 'mid work of his own hand he lies,
Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses,
With light upon him from his father's eyes!
See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,
Some fragment from his dream of human life,
Shaped by himself with newly-learned art;
A wedding or a festival,

A mourning or a funeral;

And this hath now his heart,

And unto this he frames his song:
Then will he fit his tongue

To dialogues of business, love, or strife:
But it will not be long

Ere this be thrown aside,

And with new joy and pride

The little actor cons another part;

Filling from time to time his 'humorous stage'
With all the persons, down to palsied age,
That life brings with her in her equipage;
As if his whole vocation

Were endless imitation.

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
Thy soul's immensity;

Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep
Thy heritage, thou eye among the blind,
That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep,
Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,—
Mighty prophet! seër blest!

On whom those truths do rest

Which we are toiling all our lives to find,
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;
Thou, over whom thy immortality

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 realised,
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.

TO A SKY-LARK.

Up with me! up with me into the clouds!
For thy song, lark, is strong;

Up with me, up with me into the clouds!
Singing, singing,

With clouds and sky about thee ringing,
Lift me, guide me till I find

That spot which seems so to thy mind.

I have walked through wilderness dreary,
And to-day my heart is weary;

Had I now the wings of a fairy

Up to thee would I fly.

There is madness about thee, and joy divine
In that song of thine;

Up with me, up with me, high and high
To thy banqueting-place in the sky!

Joyous as morning,

Thou art laughing and scorning;

Thou hast a nest for thy love and thy rest,
And, though little troubled with sloth,
Drunken lark! thou wouldst be loth
To be such a traveller as I.

Happy, happy liver,

With a soul as strong as a mountain river
Pouring out praise to the almighty Giver,
Joy and jollity be with us both.

Alas! my journey, rugged and uneven,
Through prickly moors or dusty ways must wind;
But hearing thee, or others of thy kind,
As full of gladness and as free of heaven,

I, with my fate contented, will plod on,

And hope for higher raptures, when life's day is done.

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