"Grey-headed Shepherd, thou hast spoken well; The Being, that is in the clouds and air, The pleasure-house is dust :-behind, before, She leaves these objects to a slow decay, That what we are, and have been, may be known; But at the coming of the milder day, These monuments shall all be overgrown. One lesson, Shepherd, let us two divide, Taught both by what she shows, and what conceals, Never to blend our pleasure or our pride With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels." XC RESOLUTION AND INDEPENDENCE I THERE was a roaring in the wind all night; II All things that love the sun are out of doors; The sky rejoices in the morning's birth; The grass is bright with rain-drops ;—on the moors The hare is running races in her mirth ; And with her feet she from the plashy earth Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run. III I was a Traveller then upon the moor, I saw the hare that raced about with joy; I heard the woods and distant waters roar ; N The pleasant season did my heart employ : My old remembrances went from me wholly ; IV But, as it sometimes chanceth, from the might Of joy in minds that can no further go, As high as we have mounted in delight In our dejection do we sink as low; And fears and fancies thick upon me came ; Dim sadness—and blind thoughts, I knew not, nor could name. V I heard the sky-lark warbling in the sky; VI My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought, But how can He expect that others should VII I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy, We Foets in our youth begin in gladness; But thereof come in the end despondency and madness. VIII Now, whether it were by peculiar grace, A leading from above, a something given, When I with these untoward thoughts had striven, I saw a Man before me unawares : The oldest man he seemed that ever wore grey hairs. IX As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie Couched on the bald top of an eminence; By what means it could thither come, and whence; Like a sea-beast crawled forth, that on a shelf X Such seemed this Man, not all alive nor dead, A more than human weight upon his frame had cast. XI Himself he propped, limbs, body, and pale face, XII At length, himself unsettling, he the pond |