¡ALM is all nature as a resting wheel. The kine are couched upon the dewy grass; Is cropping audibly his later meal : Dark is the ground; a slumber seems to steal Is hushed, am I at rest. My friends! restrain The officious touch that makes me droop again. OW sweet it is, when mother Fancy rocks An old place, full of many a lovely brood, Tall trees, green arbours, and ground-flowers in flocks; At wakes and fairs with wandering mountebanks,— When she stands cresting the clown's head, and mocks The crowd beneath her. Verily I think, Such place to me is sometimes like a dream Or map of the whole world: thoughts, link by link, Of all things, that at last in fear I shrink, And leap at once from the delicious stream. N UNS fret not at their convent's narrow room; And students with their pensive citadels : Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom, In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground; Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be) Who have felt the weight of too much liberty, Should find brief solace there, as I have found. HE world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! The winds that will be howling at all hours, A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. LONDON, 1802. ILTON! thou shouldst be living at this hour: Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen, Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, Have forfeited their ancient English dower Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; Oh! raise us up, return to us again; And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart; Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea, Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free; So didst thou travel on life's common way, In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on herself did lay. |