So was it when my life began, so is it now I am a man, So be it when I shall grow old—so let me die! The child is father of the man: And I would wish my days to be bound each to each by natural piety. Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys and fears; Fragrance of Good Deeds : More sweet than odours caught by him who sails In thoughtful moments, wafted by the gales From fields where good men walk, or bowers wherein they rest. One of Wordsworth's finest sonnets is that he composed upon Westminster Bridge, in the autumn of 1803; here it is : Earth has not any thing to show more fair: A sight so touching in its majesty : This city now doth like a garment wear All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill: The river glideth at its own sweet will: In SHELLEY'S Queen Mab, we have this beautiful apostrophe to Night: How beautiful this Night! the balmiest sigh Studded with stars unutterably bright, Through which the moon's unclouded splendour rolls, Seems like a canopy which love has spread, To curtain her sleeping world. Among the most admired productions of Shelley are the lines to The Cloud, and the Ode to the Skylark. Judge of the rich quality of these compositions by the following extracts : The Cloud: I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers I bear light shade for the leaves, when laid From my wings are shaken the dews that waken When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under; * That orbed maiden, with white fire laden, Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, Which only the angels hear, May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, The stars peep behind her and peer: And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, Like a swarm of golden bees, When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, I bind the sun's throne with the burning zone, The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim, * I am the daughter of earth and water, And the nursling of the sky; I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die. For after the rain, when with never a stain The pavilion of heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex gleams, Build up the blue dome of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise and unbuild it again. To a Skylark: Hail to thee, blithe spirit! bird thou never wert, O'er which clouds are brightening, thou dost float and run, All the earth and air with thy voice is loud, As, when night is bare, from one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. What thou art we know not; what is most like thee? From rainbow-clouds there flow not drops so bright to see, As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. Like a poet hidden in the light of thought, Singing hymns unbidden, till the world is wrought Like a high-born maiden in a palace-tower, Soothing her love-laden soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower: Like a glow-worm golden in a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden its aërial hue Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view. Teach us, sprite or bird, what sweet thoughts are thine : I have never heard praise of love or wine That panted forth a rapture so divine. Chorus hymeneal, or triumphant chant, Matched with thine would be all but an empty vaunt- We look before and after, and pine for what is not; Teach me half the gladness that thy brain must know, Note the brilliant fancy gleaming throughout these stanzas: few poets, if any, since Spenser, have possessed such an exuberance of beautiful imagery as Shelley and Keats. Had they not died so young, it is impossible to conjecture what wonders they might have achieved in the world of song. Now let us gather a few fair flowers from Shelley's various poems: |