TINTERN ABBEY.

With tranquil restoration-feelings too,
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As may have had no trivial influence

On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime that blessed mood
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world

Is lightened that serene and blessed mood
In which the affections gently lead us on,
Until the breath of this corporeal frame,
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the joy,
We see into the life of things.

If this

Be but a vain belief, yet, oh; how oft,
In darkness and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight, when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beating of my heart,
How oft in spirit have I turned to thee,

O sylvan Wye!-thou wanderer through the woods-
How often has my spirit turned to thee!

And now, with gleams of half extinguished thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,

And somewhat of a sad perplexity,

The picture of the mind revives again :

While here I stand, not only with the sense

Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts,

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That in this moment there is life and good
For future years. And so I dare to hope,
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first
I came among these hills: when, like a roe,
I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever nature led; more like a man,

Flying from something that he dreads, than one
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days

And their glad animal movements all gone by,)
To me was all in all-I cannot paint

What then I was.

The sounding cataract

Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock,

The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite a feeling and a love

That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, or any interest
Unhonoured from the eye. That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn, nor murmur: other gifts
Have followed, for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompense. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes
The still sad music of humanity,

Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts: a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,

TINTERN ABBEY.

And the round ocean, and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion of a spirit that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods

And mountains, and of all that we behold

From this green earth of all the mighty world
Of eye and ear, both what they half create
And what perceive: well pleased to recognize
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.

Nor, perchance,
If I were not thus taught, should I the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay:

For thou art with me here, upon the banks
Of this fair river: thou, my dearest friend,
My dear, dear friend, and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My purer pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. Oh yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once,
My dear, dear sister! And this prayer I make,
Knowing that nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 't is her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy; for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all

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The dreary intercourse of daily life,

Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;

And let the misty mountain winds be free
To blow against thee: and in after years
When these wild extacies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling place

For all sweet sounds and harmonies; Oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,

Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts

Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,

And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance,

If I should be where I no more can hear

Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence, wilt thou then forget

That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshipper of nature hither came,
Unwearied in that service: rather say
With warmer love, Oh! with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake."

WORDSWORTH.

EARLY piety is often EMINENT piety.

Che Mother's Dream.

"AND I will give him the Bright and Morning Star."

METHOUGHT once more to my wishful eye,
My beautiful boy had come :

My sorrow was gone-my cheek was dry,
And gladness was round my home!

I saw the form of my dear lost child:
All kindled with life he came,

And he spoke in his own sweet voice and 'smiled,
As soon as I named his name.

The raiment he wore looked heavenly white,
As the feathery snow comes down,
And warm as it shone in the softened light,
That fell from his dazzling crown.

His brow was bright with a joy serene-
His cheek with the deathless bloom,
That only the eye of my soul hath seen,
When looking beyond the tomb.

The odour of flowers from that fair land,

Where we deem that our blest ones are, Seemed borne in his skirts, and his small right hand Was holding a radiant star!

His feet unshod, as from out the shroud,

Were pure as the opening bell

Of the lilly and set on a folding cloud
Of glory that round him fell.

2L

24*

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