Like an army defeated

The Snow hath retreated,

And now doth fare ill

On the top of the bare hill;

The Plough-boy is whooping-anon-anon: There's joy in the mountains;

There's life in the fountains ;

Small clouds are sailing,

Blue sky prevailing ;

The rain is over and gone!

6.

THE SMALL CELANDINE. *

There is a Flower, the Lesser Celandine,

That shrinks, like many more, from cold and rain; And, the first moment that the sun may shine, Bright as the sun itself, 'tis out again!

When hailstones have been falling swarm on swarm,
Or blasts the green field and the trees distress'd,
Oft have I seen it muffled up from harm,
In close self-shelter, like a Thing at rest.

* See Page 22 in the first Volume.

But lately, one rough day, this Flower I pass'd,

And recognized it, though an alter'd Form,
Now standing forth an offering to the Blast,
And buffetted at will by Rain and Storm.

I stopp'd, and said with inly muttered voice,
"It doth not love the shower, nor seek the cold:
This neither is it's courage nor it's choice,
But it's necessity in being old.

The sunshine may not bless it, nor the dew;

It cannot help itself in it's decay;

Stiff in it's members, wither'd, changed of hue." And, in my spleen, I smiled that it was grey.

To be a Prodigal's Favorite-then, worse truth, A Miser's Pensioner-behold our lot!

O Man! that from thy fair and shining youth

Age might but take the things Youth needed not!

7.

I wandered lonely as a Cloud

That floats on high o'er Vales and Hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd

A host of dancing Daffodills;

Along the Lake, beneath the trees,
Ten thousand dancing in the breeze.

The waves beside them danced, but they Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:A Poet could not but be gay

In such a laughing company:

I gaz'd-and gaz'd-but little thought What wealth the shew to me had brought:

For oft when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude,

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the Daffodils.