Tenderest of tender hearts, of spirits pure
The purest! such, O Cowper! such wert thou,
But such are not the happiest: thou wert not,
Till borne where all those hearts and spirits rest.
Young was I, when from Latin lore and Greek
I played the truant for thy sweeter Task,
Nor since that hour hath aught our Muses held
Before me seem’d so precious; in one hour,
I saw the poet and the sage unite,
More grave than man, more versatile than boy!
Spenser shed over me his sunny dreams;
Chaucer far more enchanted me; the force
Of Milton was for boyhood too austere,
Yet often did I steal a glance at Eve:
Fitter for after-years was Shakespeare’s world,
Its distant light had not come down to mine.
Thy milder beams with wholesome temperate warmth
Fill’d the small chamber of my quiet breast.
I would become as like thee as I could;
First rose the wish and then the half-belief,
Founded like other half and whole beliefs
On sand and chaff! “We must be like,” said I,
“I loved my hare before I heard of his.”
’Twas very true; I loved him, though he stampt
Sometimes in anger, often moodily.
I am the better for it: still I love
God’s unperverted creatures, one and all,
I dare not call them brute, lest they retort.
And here is one who looks into my face,
Waving his curly plumes upon his back,
And bids me promise faithfully, no hare
Of thine need fear him when they meet above.