"Twas all in vain, a useless matter,- No word to any man he utters, XIII. 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 golden Daffodils ; Beside the Lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine Ten thousand saw I at a glance, The waves beside them danced, but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:A Poet could not but be gay In such a jocund company: I gazed-and gazed-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 And then my heart with pleasure fills, * The subject of these Stanzas is rather an elementary feeling and simple impression (approaching to the nature of an ocular spectrum) upon the imaginative faculty, than an exertion of it. The one which follows is strictly a Reverie; and neither that, nor the next after it in succession, "The Power of Music," would have been placed here except for the reason given in the foregoing note. XIV. THE REVERIE OF POOR SUSAN. At the corner of Wood-street, when day-light appears, 'Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? She sees Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide, Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale, She looks, and her Heart is in heaven: but they fade, XV. POWER OF MUSIC. AN Orpheus! an Orpheus!-yes, Faith may grow bold, Near the stately Pantheon you'll meet with the same His station is there;—and he works on the crowd, What an eager assembly! what an empire is this! As the Moon brightens round her the clouds of the night, So he where he stands is a centre of light; It gleams on the face, there, of dusky-browed Jack, And the pale-visaged Baker's, with basket on back. |