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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-learnéd 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! Seer blest!

On whom those truths do rest
Which we are toiling all our lives to find;
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 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 Groyes, Forbode not any severing of our loves!

Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;

I only have relinquish'd one delight

To live beneath your more habitual sway;

I love the brooks which down their channels fret Even more than when I tripp'd 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.

365

366

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.

MY HEART LEAPS UP

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began,

So is it now I am a man,

So be it when I shall grow old

Or let me die!

The Child is father of the Man:
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

THE TWO APRIL MORNINGS

WE walk'd along, while bright and red
Uprose the morning sun;

And Matthew stopp'd, he look'd, and said
'The will of God be done!'

A village schoolmaster was he,
With hair of glittering gray;

As blithe a man as you could see

On a spring holiday.

And on that morning, through the grass

And by the steaming rills

We travell'd merrily, to pass

A day among the hills.

'Our work,' said I, 'was well begun;
Then from thy breast what thought,
Beneath so beautiful a sun,

So sad a sigh has brought?'

A second time did Matthew stop;
And fixing still his eye

Upon the eastern mountain-top,
To me he made reply:

'Yon cloud with that long purple cleft

Brings fresh into my mind

A day like this, which I have left

Full thirty years behind.

'And just above yon slope of corn

Such colours, and no other,

Were in the sky that April morn
Of this the very brother.

'With rod and line I sued the sport

Which that sweet season gave,

And coming to the church, stopp'd short

Beside my daughter's grave.

'Nine summers had she scarcely seen,

The pride of all the vale;

And then she sang:-she would have been A very nightingale.

Six feet in earth my Emma lay;
And yet I loved her more-

For so it seem'd,-than till that day
I e'er had loved before.

'And turning from her grave, I met,
Beside the churchyard yew,

A blooming Girl, whose hair was wet
With points of morning dew.

'A basket on her head she bare; Her brow was smooth and white:

To see a child so very fair,

It was a pure delight!

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