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These all wear out of me, like Forms, with chalk

Painted on rich men's floors, for one feastnight.

Better than such discourse doth silence long,
Long, barren silence, square with my desire;
To sit without emotion, hope, or aim,
In the lov'd presence of my cottage-fire,
And listen to the flapping of the flame,
Or kettle, whispering its faint undersong.
"Yet life," you say, "is life; we have seen
and see,
And with a living pleasure we describe;
And fits of sprightly malice do but bribe
The languid mind into activity.
Sound sense, and love itself, and mirth and
glee,

Are fostered by the comment and the gibe!"
Even be it so: yet still among your tribe,
Our daily world's true Worldlings, rank

not me!

Children are blest, and powerful; their world lies

More justly balanced; partly at their feet, And part far from them:-sweetest melodies Are those that are by distance made more sweet;

Whose mind is but the mind of his own eyes He is a Slave; the meanest we can meet!

Wings have we,-and as far as we can go We may find pleasure: wilderness and wood,

Blank ocean and mere sky, support that mood

Which with the lofty sanctifies the low: Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know,

Are a substantial world, both pure and good: Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,

Our pastime and our happiness will grow.
There do I find a never-failing store
Of personal themes, and such as I love best;
Matter wherein right voluble I am:
Two will I mention, dearer than the rest:
The gentle Lady, married to the Moor;
And heavenly Una with her milk - white
Lamb.

Nor can I not believe but that hereby Great gains are mine: for thus I live

remote

From evil-speaking; rancour, never sought, Comes to me not; malignant truth, or lie. Hence have genial seasons, hence have I Smooth passions, smooth discourse, and

joyous thought: And thus from day to day my little Boat Rocks in its harbour, lodging peaceably. Blessings be with them and eternal praise, Who gave us nobler loves, and nobler cares, The Poets, who on earth have made us Heirs

of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays! Oh! might my name be numbered among theirs,

Then gladly would I end my mortal days.

THE FORCE OF PRAYER;

OR THE FOUNDING OF BOLTON-PRIORY.

"WHAT is good for a bootless bene?" With these dark words begins my Tale; And their meaning is: whence can comfort spring When Prayer is of no avail?

"What is good for a bootless bene?" And she made answer: "Endless Sorrow!” The Falconer to the Lady said;

For she knew that her Son was dead.

She knew it by the Falconer's words,
And from the look of the Falconer's eye,
And from the love which was in her soul
For her youthful Romilly.

-Young Romilly through Barden Woods
Is ranging high and low;
And holds a Greyhound in a leash,
To let slip upon buck or doe.

And the Pair have reached that fearful chasm, | And the Lady prayed in heaviness

How tempting to bestride!

For lordly Wharf is there pent in With rocks on either side.

This Striding-place is called The Strid, A name which it took of yore:

A thousand years hath it borne that name And shall, a thousand more.

And hither is young Romilly come,
And what may now forbid

That he, perhaps for the hundredth time,
Shall bound across THE STRID?

He sprang in glee,-for what cared he
That the River was strong and the rocks
were steep?
-But the Greyhound in the leash hung back,
And checked him in his leap.

The Boy is in the arms of Wharf,
And strangled by a merciless force;
For never more was young Romilly seen
Till he rose a lifeless Corse!

Now there is stillness in the Vale, And long unspeaking sorrow :-Wharf shall be to pitying hearts A name more sad than Yarrow.

If for a Lover the Lady wept,

A solace she might borrow

From death, and from the passion of death;Old Wharf might heal her sorrow.

She weeps not for the wedding-day
Which was to be to-morrow :
Her hope was a farther-looking hope,
And hers is a Mother's Sorrow.

He was a Tree that stood alone,
And proudly did its branches wave;
And the Root of this delightful Tree
Was in her Husband's grave!

Long, long in darkness did she sit,
And her first words were: "Let there be
In Bolton, on the field of Wharf,
A stately Priory!”

The stately Priory was reared;
And Wharf, as he moved along,

To Matins joined a mournful voice,
Nor failed at Even-song.

That looked not for relief;
But slowly did her succour come,
And a patience to her grief.

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Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere it's setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,

But He beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;

The Youth, who daily farther from the East
Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own; Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind, And, even with something of a Mother's mind,

And no unworthy aim,

The homely Nurse doth all she can To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man, Forget the glories he hath known, And that imperial palace whence he came.

Behold the Child among his new-born blisses,
A four years' Darling of a pigmy size!
See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies,
Fretted by sallies of his Mother's kisses,
With light upon him from his Father's eyes!
See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,
Some fragment from his dream of human life,
Shap'd by himself with newly-learned art;
A wedding or a festival,
A mourning or a funeral;

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Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie Thy Soul's immensity;

Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind, That, deaf and silent, readst the eternal deep, Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,

Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!

On whom those truths do rest, Which we are toiling all our lives to find; Thou, over whom thy Immortality Broods like the Day, a Master o'er a Slave, A Presence which is not to be put by; To whom the grave

Is but a lonely bed without the sense or sight Of day or the warm light,

A place of thought where we in waiting lie; Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might Of heaven-born freedom, on thy Being's height,

Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke

The Years to bring the inevitable yoke, Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight,

And custom lie upon thee with a weight, Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

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And let the young Lambs bound
As to the tabor's sound!

We in thought will join your throng,
Ye that pipe and ye that play,
Ye that through your hearts to-day
Feel the gladness of the May!
What though the radiance which was once
so bright

Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the
flower;

We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind,
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be,
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering,

In the faith that looks through death, In years that bring the philosophic mind.

And oh ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and
Groves,

Think not of any severing of our loves!
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquished one delight
To live beneath your more habitual sway.
I love the Brooks which down their channels
fret,
Even more than when I tripped lightly as
they;
The innocent brightness of a new-born Day
Is lovely yet;

The Clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;
Another race hath been, and other palms

are won.

Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

ODE

THE MORNING OF THE DAY APPOINTED FOR A GENERAL THANKSGIVING.

JANUARY 18, 1816.

HALL, universal Source of pure delight!
Thou that canst shed the bliss of gratitude
On hearts howe'er insensible or rude,
Whether thy orient visitations smite
The haughty towers where monarchs dwell;
Or thou, impartial Sun, with presence bright
Cheerst the low threshold of the peasant's
cell!

In naked splendour, clear from mist or haze,
-Not unrejoiced I see thee climb the sky
Or cloud approaching to divert the rays,
Which even in deepest winter testify

Dazzling the vision that presumes to gaze.
Thy power and majesty,
Well does thinè aspect usher in this Day;
As aptly suits therewith that timid pace,
That bind thee to the path which God ordains
Framed in subjection to the chains
That thou shalt trace,

Till, with the heavens and earth, thou pass
Nor less the stillness of these frosty plains,
away!
Their utter stillness, and the silent grace
Of yon etherial summits white with snow,
Whose tranquil pomp, and spotless purity,
Report of storms gone by
To us who tread below,
Do with the service of this Day accord.
Of mortal man is suffered to behold;
-Divinest object, which the uplifted eye
Thou, who upon yon snow-clad heights hast
poured

Meek splendour, nor forgetst the humble
vale,
Thou who dost warm Earth's universal
mould,-

And for thy bounty wert not unadored By pious men of old; Once more, heart-cheering Sun, I bid thee hail; Bright be thy course to-day, let not this promise fail!

'Mid the deep quiet of this morning-hour All nature seems to hear me while I speak, — By feelings urged, that do not vainly seek Apt language, ready as the tuneful notes That stream in blithe succession from the throats

Of birds in leafy bower,
Warbling a farewell to a vernal shower.
There is a radiant þut a short-lived flame
That burns for Poets in the dawning East;-
And oft my soul hath kindled at the same,
When the captivity of sleep had ceased;
But he who fixed immovably the frame
Of the round world, and built, by laws as
strong,

A solid refuge for distress,
The towers of righteousness;

He knows that from a holier altar came
The quickening spark of this day's sacrifice;
Knows that the source is nobler whence doth
rise

The current of this matin-song;
That deeper far it lies

Than aught dependant on the fickle skies.

Have we not conquered?-By the vengeful sword?

Ah no, by dint of Magnanimity; That curbed the baser passions, and left free

A loyal band to follow their liege Lord, Clear-sighted Honour-and his staid Com

peers,

Along a track of most unnatural years,
In execution of heroic deeds;
Whose memory, spotless as the crystal beads
Of morning-dew upon the untrodden meads,
Shall live enrolled above the starry spheres.
Who to the murmur of an earthly string

Of Britain's acts would sing,
He with enraptured voice will tell
Of One whose spirit no reverse could quell;
Of One that 'mid the failing never failed:
Who paints how Britain struggled and pre-
vailed,

Shall represent her labouring with an eye Of circumspect humanity;

Shall shew her clothed with strength and skill,

All martial duties to fulfil;

How dreadful the dominion of the impure! Why should the song be tardy to proclaim That less than power unbounded could not

tame

That Soul of Evil - which, from Hell let
loose,
Had filled the astonished world with such
abuse,
As boundless patience only could endure?
-Wide-wasted regions-cities wrapped in
flame-

Who sees and feels, may lift a streaming eye
To Heaven,-who never saw may heave a
sigh;
But the foundation of our nature shakes,
And with an infinite pain the spirit aches,
When desolated countries, towns on fire,
Are but the avowed attire
Of warfare waged with desperate mind
Against the life of virtue in mankind;
Assaulting without ruth
The citadels of truth;
While the old forest of civility
Is doomed to perish, to the last fair tree.

A crouching purpose—a distracted will— Opposed to hopes that battened upon scorn, And to desires whose ever-waxing horn Not all the light of earthly power could fill; Opposed to dark, deep plots of patient skill, And the celerities of lawless force Which, spurning God, had flung away

remorse

What could they gain but shadows of redress?
-So bad proceeded propagating worse;
And discipline was passion's dire excess.
Widens the fatal web-its lines extend,
And deadlier poisons in the chalice blend-
When will your trials teach you to be wise?
-O prostrate Lands, consult your agonies!

No more-the guilt is banished, And with the Guilt the Shame is fled, And with the Guilt and Shame the Woe hath vanished, Shaking the dust and ashes from her head! Fierce as a flood-gate bursting in the night-No more, these lingerings of distress To rouse the wicked from their giddy

Firm as a rock in stationary fight;
In motion rapid as the lightning's gleam;

dream

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Sully the Jimpid stream of thankfulness.

What robe can gratitude employ
So seemly as the radiant vest of Joy?
What steps so suitable as those that move
In prompt obedience to spontaneous mea-

sures

Of glory-and felicity-and love, Surrendering the whole heart to sacred pleasures?

Land of our fathers! precious unto me
Since the first joys of thinking infancy;
When of thy gallant chivalry I read,
And hugged the volume on my sleepless
bed!

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