As may attune his soul to meet the dower
Bestowed on this transcendent hour!
Such hues from their celestial Urn
Were wont to stream before my eye,
Where'er it wandered in the morn
Of blissful infancy.
This glimpse of glory, why renewed?
Nay, rather speak with gratitude;
For, if a vestige of those gleams
Survived, 'twas only in my dreams.
Dread Power! whom peace and calmness serve
No less than Nature's threatening voice,
If aught unworthy be my choice,
From THEE if I would swerve,
Oh, let thy grace remind me of the light
Full early lost, and fruitlessly deplored;
Which, at this moment, on my waking sight
Appears to shine, by miracle restored!
My soul, though yet confined to earth,
Rejoices in a second birth;
'Tis past, the visionary splendour fades ;
And night approaches with her shades.
Note. The multiplication of mountain ridges, described at the commencement of the third stanza of this ode, as a kind of Jacob's ladder, leading to Heaven, is produced either by watery vapours, or sunny haze ;—in the present instance, by the latter cause. Allusions to Intimations of Immortality" pervade the last stanza of the foregoing poem.
"" PELION AND OSSA FLOURISH SIDE
BY SIDE."
PELION and Ossa flourish side by side,
Together in immortal books enrolled :
His ancient dower Olympus hath not sold;
And that inspiring Hill which "did divide
Into two ample horns his forehead wide,"
Shines with poetic radiance as of old;
While not an English mountain we behold
By the celestial Muses glorified.
Yet round our sea-girt shore they rise in crowds :
What was the great Parnassus' self to thee,
In his natural sovereignty
Our British hill is nobler far: he shrouds
His double front among Atlantic clouds,
And pours forth streams more sweet than Castaly.
COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE,
SEPT. 3, 103.
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!
"IT IS A BEAUTEOUS EVENING, CALM
IT is a beauteous evening, calm and free ;
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquillity;
The gentleness of heaven is on the sea:
Listen! the mighty Being is awake,
And doth with His eternal motion make
A sound like thunder-everlastingly.
Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me
If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,
Thy nature is not therefore less divine:
Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year;
And worship'st at the temple's inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.
1802.
PERSONAL TALK.
(Four Sonnets.)
I AM not One who much or oft delight
To season my fireside with personal talk,—
Of friends, who live within an easy walk,
Or neighbours, daily, weekly, in my sight:
And, for my chance-acquaintance, ladies bright,
Sons, mothers, maidens withering on the stalk,
These all wear out of me, like Forms, with
Painted on rich men's floors for one feast night.
Better than such discourse doth silence long,
Long, barren silence, square with my desire;
To sit without emotion, hope, or aim,
By my half-kitchen, my half-parlour fire,
And listen to the flapping of the flame,
Or kettle whispering its faint undersong.
"YET life," you say, "is life; we have seen and see,
And with a living pleasure we describe;
And fits of sprightly malice do but bribe
The languid mind into activity.
Sound sense, and love itself, and mirth and glee
Are fostered by the comment and the gibe."
Even be it so yet still among your tribe,
Our daily world's true Worldlings, rank not me!
Children are blest, and powerful; their world lies
More justly balanced; partly at their feet,
And part far from them ;-sweetest melodies
Are those that are by distance made more sweet;
Whose mind is but the mind of his own eyes,
He is a Slave; the meanest we can meet !
WINGS have we,—and as far as we can go We may find pleasure: wilderness and wood, Blank ocean and mere sky, support that mood Which with the lofty sanctifies the low. Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good:
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