ANONYMOUS Thomas Rhymer

True Thomas lay on Huntlie bank,

A ferlie he spied wi’ his ee,

And there he saw a lady bright,

Come riding down by the Eildon Tree.

 

5

Her shirt was o the grass-green silk,

Her mantle o the velvet fyne,

At ilka tett of her horse’s mane

Hang fifty siller bells and nine.

 

True Thomas, he pulld aff his cap,

10

And louted low down to his knee:

‘All hail, thou mighty Queen of Heaven!

For thy peer on earth I never did see.’

 

‘O no, O no, Thomas,’ she said,

‘That name does not belang to me:

15

I am but the queen of fair Elfland,

That am hither come to visit thee.

 

Harp and carp, Thomas,’ she said,

‘Harp and carp along wi me,

And if ye dare to kiss my lips,

20

Sure of your bodie I will be.’

 

‘Betide me weal, betide me woe,

That weird shall never daunton me;’

Syne he has kissed her rosy lips,

All underneath the Eildon Tree.

 

25

‘Now, ye maun go wi me,’ she said,

‘True Thomas, ye maun go wi me,

And ye maun serve me seven years,

Thro weal or woe, as may chance to be.’

 

She mounted on her milk-white steed,

30

She’s taen True Thomas up behind,

And aye wheneer her bridle rung,

The steed flew swifter than the wind.

 

O they rade on, and farther on –

The steed gaed swifter than the wind –

35

Untill they reached a desart wide,

And living land was left behind.

 

‘Light down, light down, now, True Thomas,

And lean your head upon my knee;

Abide and rest a little space,

40

And I will shew you ferlies three.

 

‘O see ye not yon narrow road,

So thick beset with thorns and briers?

That is the path of righteousness,

Tho after it but few enquires.

 

45

‘And see not ye that braid braid road,

That lies across that lily leven?

That is the path of wickedness,

Tho some call it the road to heaven.

 

‘And see not ye that bonny road,

50

That winds about the fernie brae?

That is the road to fair Elfland,

Where thou and I this night maun gae.

 

‘But, Thomas, ye maun hold your tongue,

Whatever ye may hear or see,

55

For, if you speak word in Elflyn land,

Ye’ll neer get back to your ain countrie.’

 

O they rade on, and farther on,

And they waded thro rivers aboon the knee,

And they saw neither sun nor moon,

60

But they heard the roaring of the sea.

 

It was mirk mirk night, and there was nae stern light,

And they waded thro red blude to the knee;

For a’ the blude that’s shed on earth

Rins thro the springs o that countrie.

 

65

Syne they came on to a garden green,

And she pu’d an apple frae a tree:

‘Take this for thy wages, True Thomas,

It will give thee the tongue that can never lie.’

 

‘My tongue is mine ain,’ True Thomas said;

70

‘A gudely gift ye wad gie to me!

I neither dought to buy nor sell,

At fair or tryst where I may be.

 

‘I dought neither speak to prince or peer,

Nor ask of grace from fair ladye:’

75

‘Now hold thy peace,’ the lady said,

‘For as I say, so must it be.’

 

He has gotten a coat of the even cloth,

And a pair of shoes of velvet green,

And till seven years were gane and past

80

True Thomas on earth was never seen.

ANONYMOUS Lord Randal

O where ha’ you been, Lord Randal my son?

And where ha’ you been, my handsome young man?

I ha’ been at the greenwood; mother, mak my bed soon,

For I’m wearied wi’ hunting and fain wad lie down.

An’ wha met ye there, Lord Randal my son?

An’ wha met you there, my handsome young man?

O I met wi my true-love; mother, mak my bed soon,

For I’m wearied wi’ huntin’ an’ fain wad lie down.

And what did she give you, Lord Randal my son?

And what did she give you, my handsome young man?

Eels fried in a pan; mother, mak my bed soon,

For I’m wearied wi’ huntin’ and fain wad lie down.

And wha gat your leavins, Lord Randal my son?

And wha gat your leavins, my handsom young man?

My hawks and my hounds; mother, mak my bed soon,

For I’m wearied wi’ hunting and fain wad lie down.

And what becam of them, Lord Randal my son?

And what becam of them, my handsome young man?

They stretched their legs out an’ died; mother, mak my bed soon,

For I’m wearied wi’ huntin’ and fain wad lie down.

O I fear you are poisoned, Lord Randal my son,

I fear you are poisoned, my handsome young man.

O yes, I am poisoned; mother, mak my bed soon,

For I’m sick at the heart and I fain wad lie down.

What d’ye leave to your mother, Lord Randal my son?

What d’ye leave to your mother, my handsome young man?

Four and twenty milk kye; mother, mak my bed soon,

For I’m sick at the heart and I fain wad lie down.

What d’ye leave to your sister, Lord Randal my son?

What d’ye leave to your sister, my handsome young man?

My gold and my silver; mother, make my bed soon,

For I’m sick at the heart an’ I fain wad lie down.

What d’ye leave to your brother, Lord Randal my son?

What d’ye leave to your brother, my handsome young man?

My houses and my lands; mother, mak my bed soon,

For I’m sick at the heart and I fain wad lie down.

What d’ye leave to your true-love, Lord Randal my son?

What d’ye leave to your true-love, my handsome young man?

I leave her hell and fire; mother, mak my bed soon,

For I’m sick at the heart and I fain wad lie down.

A Lyke-Wake Dirge

This ae nighte, this ae nighte,

Every nighte and alle,

Fire and fleet and candle-lighte,

And Christe receive thy saule.

 

5

When thou from hence away art past,

Every nighte and alle,

To Whinny-muir thou com’st at last;

And Christe receive thy saule.

 

If ever thou gavest hosen and shoon,

10

Every nighte and alle,

Sit thee down and put them on;

And Christe receive thy saule.

 

If hosen and shoon thou ne’er gav’st nane

Every nighte and alle,

15

The whinnes sail prick thee to the bare bane;

And Christe receive thy saule.

 

From Whinny-muir when thou may’st pass,

– Every nighte and alle,

To Brig o’ Dread thou com’st at last;

20

And Christe receive thy saule.

 

From Brig o’ Dread when thou may’st pass,

– Every nighte and alle,

To Purgatory fire thou com’st at last;

And Christe receive thy saule.

 

25

If ever thou gavest meat or drink,

Every nighte and alle,

The fire sail never make thee shrink;

And Christe receive thy saule.

 

If meat or drink thou ne’er gav’st nane,

30

Every nighte and alle,

The fire will burn theee to the bare bane;

And Christe receive thy saule.

 

This ae nighte, this ae nighte,

– Every nighte and alle,

35

Fire and fleet and candle-lighte,

And Christe receive thy saule.

1803 ANONYMOUS The Twa Corbies

As I was walking all alane,

I heard twa corbies making a mane;

The tane unto the t’other say,

‘Where sail we gang and dine to-day?’

5

‘In behint yon auld fail dyke,

I wot there lies a new slain knight;

And naebody kens that he lies there,

But his hawk, his hound, and lady fair.

‘His hound is to the hunting gane,

10

His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl hame,

His lady’s ta’en another mate,

So we may mak our dinner sweet.

‘Ye’ll sit on his white hause-bane,

And I’ll pike out his bonny blue een;

15

Wi ae lock o his gowden hair

We’ll theek our nest when it grows bare.

‘Mony a one for him makes mane,

But nane sail ken where he is gane;

Oer his white banes, when they are bare,

20

The wind sail blaw for evermair.’

 
image
 

WILLIAM COWPER The Snail

To grass, or leaf, or fruit, or wall

The snail sticks close, nor fears to fall,

As if he grew there, house and all,

Together.

Within that house secure he hides

When danger imminent betides

Of storm, or other harm besides

Of Weather.

Give but his horns the slightest touch,

His self-collecting pow’r is such,

He shrinks into his house with much

Displeasure.

Where’er he dwells, he dwells alone,

Except himself has chatells none,

Well satisfied to be his own

whole treasure.

Thus hermit-like his life he leads,

Nor partner of his banquet needs,

And if he meet one, only feeds

The faster.

Who seeks him, must be worse than blind,

(He and his house are so combined),

If, finding it, he fail to find

Its master.

WILLIAM COWPER The Cast-away

Obscurest night involved the sky,

Th’ Atlantic billows roar’d,

When such a destin’d wretch as I

Wash’d headlong from on board

Of friends, of hope, of all bereft,

His floating home for ever left.

No braver Chief could Albion boast

Than He with whom he went,

Nor ever ship left Albion’s coast

With warmer wishes sent,

He loved them both, but both in vain,

Nor Him beheld, nor Her again.

Not long beneath the whelming brine

Expert to swim, he lay,

Nor soon he felt his strength decline

Or courage die away;

But waged with Death a lasting strife

Supported by despair of life.

He shouted, nor his friends had fail’d

To check the vessels’ course,

But so the furious blast prevail’d

That, pitiless perforce,

They left their outcast mate behind,

And scudded still before the wind.

Some succour yet they could afford,

And, such as storms allow,

The cask, the coop, the floated cord

Delay’d not to bestow;

But He, they knew, nor ship nor shore,

Whate’er they gave, should visit more.

Nor, cruel as it seem’d, could He

Their haste, himself, condemn,

Aware that flight in such a sea

Alone could rescue them;

Yet bitter felt it still to die

Deserted, and his friends so nigh.

He long survives who lives an hour

In ocean, self-upheld,

And so long he with unspent pow’r

His destiny repell’d,

And ever, as the minutes flew,

Entreated help, or cried, Adieu!

At length, his transient respite past,

His comrades, who before

Had heard his voice in ev’ry blast,

Could catch the sound no more;

For then, by toil subdued, he drank

The stifling wave, and then he sank.

No poet wept him, but the page

Of narrative sincere

That tells his name, his worth, his age,

Is wet with Anson’s tear,

And tears by bards or heroes shed

Alike immortalize the Dead.

I, therefore, purpose not or dream,

Descanting on his fate,

To give the melancholy theme

A more enduring date,

But Mis’ry still delights to trace

Its semblance in another’s case.

No voice divine the storm allay’d,

No light propitious shone,

When, snatch’d from all effectual aid,

We perish’d, each, alone;

But I, beneath a rougher sea,

And whelm’d in deeper gulphs than he.

1804 WILLIAM BLAKE from Milton [Preface]

And did those feet in ancient time.

Walk upon Englands mountains green:

And was the holy Lamb of God,

On Englands pleasant pastures seen!

And did the Countenance Divine,

Shine forth upon our clouded hills?

And was Jerusalem builded here,

Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold:

Bring me my Arrows of desire:

Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!

Bring me my Chariot of fire!

I will not cease from Mental Fight,

Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:

Till we have built Jerusalem,

In Englands green & pleasant Land.

WILLIAM BLAKE

Mock on Mock on Voltaire Rousseau

Mock on Mock on tis all in vain

You throw the sand against the wind

And the wind blows it back again

And every sand becomes a Gem

Reflected in the beams divine

Blown back they blind the mocking Eye

But still in Israels paths they shine

The Atoms of Democritus

And Newtons Particles of light

Are sands upon the Red sea shore

Where Israels tents do shine so bright

WILLIAM BLAKE The Crystal Cabinet 1805

The Maiden caught me in the Wild

Where I was dancing merrily

She put me into her Cabinet

And Lockd me up with a golden Key

This Cabinet is formd of Gold

And Pearl & Crystal shining bright

And within it opens into a World

And a little lovely Moony Night

Another England there I saw

Another London with its Tower

Another Thames & other Hills

And another pleasant Surrey Bower

Another Maiden like herself

Translucent lovely shining clear

Threefold each in the other closd

O what a pleasant trembling fear

O what a smile a threefold Smile

Filld me that like a flame I burnd

I bent to Kiss the lovely Maid

And found a Threefold Kiss returnd

I strove to sieze the inmost Form

With ardor fierce & hands of flame

But burst the Crystal Cabinet

And like a Weeping Babe became

A weeping Babe upon the wild

And Weeping Woman pale reclind

And in the outward air again

I filld with woes the passing Wind

WILLIAM BLAKE from Auguries of Innocence

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour

A Robin Red breast in a Cage

Puts all Heaven in a Rage

A dove house filld with doves & Pigeons

Shudders Hell thro all its regions

A dog starvd at his Masters Gate

Predicts the ruin of the State

A Horse misusd upon the Road

Calls to Heaven for Human blood

Each outcry of the hunted Hare

A fibre from the Brain does tear

A Skylark wounded in the wing

A Cherubim does cease to sing

The Game Cock clipd & armd for fight

Does the Rising Sun affright

Every Wolfs & Lions howl

Raises from Hell a Human Soul

The wild deer wandring here & there

Keeps the Human Soul from Care

The Lamb misusd breeds Public strife

And yet forgives the Butchers Knife

The Bat that flits at close of Eve

Has left the Brain that wont Believe

The Owl that calls upon the Night

Speaks the Unbelievers fright

He who shall hurt the little Wren

Shall never be belovd by Men

He who the Ox to wrath has movd

Shall never be by Woman lovd

The wanton Boy that kills the Fly

Shall feel the Spiders enmity

He who torments the Chafers sprite

Weaves a Bower in endless Night

The Catterpiller on the Leaf

Repeats to thee thy Mothers grief

Kill not the Moth nor Butterfly

For the Last Judgment draweth nigh

He who shall train the Horse to War

Shall never pass the Polar Bar

The Beggers Dog & Widows Cat

Feed them & thou wilt grow fat

The Gnat that sings his Summers song

Poison gets from Slanders tongue

The poison of the Snake & Newt

Is the sweat of Envys Foot

The Poison of the Honey Bee

Is the Artists Jealousy

The Princes Robes & Beggars Rags

Are Toadstools on the Misers Bags

A truth thats told with bad intent

Beats all the Lies you can invent

(1863)

ANONYMOUS Lamkin 1806

It’s Lamkin was a mason good

As ever built wi stane;

He built Lord Wearie’s castle,

But payment got he nane.

 

5

‘O pay me, Lord Wearie,

Come, pay me my fee:’

‘I canna pay you, Lamkin,

For I maun gang oer the sea.’

 

‘O pay me now, Lord Wearie,

10

Come, pay me out o hand:’

‘I canna pay you, Lamkin,

Unless I sell my land.’

 

‘O gin ye winna pay me,

I here sall mak a vow,

15

Before that ye come hame again,

Ye sail hae cause to rue.’

 

Lord Wearie got a bonny ship,

To sail the saut sea faem;

Bade his lady weel the castle keep,

20

Ay till he should come hame.

 

But the nourice was a fause limmer

As eer hung on a tree;

She laid a plot wi Lamkin,

Whan her lord was oer the sea.

 

25

She laid a plot wi Lamkin,

When the servants were awa,

Loot him in at a little shot-window,

And brought him to the ha.

 

‘O whare’s a’ the men o this house,

30

That ca me Lamkin?’

‘They’re at the barn-well thrashing;

’T will be lang ere they come in.’

 

‘And whare’s the women o this house,

That ca me Lamkin?’

35

‘They’re at the far well washing;

’T will be lang ere they come in.’

 

‘And whare’s the bairns o this house,

That ca me Lamkin?’

‘They’re at the school reading;

40

’T will be night or they come hame.’

 

‘O whare’s the lady o this house,

That ca’s me Lamkin?’

‘She’s up in her bower sewing,

But we soon can bring her down.’

 

45

Then Lamkin’s tane a sharp knife,

That hang down by his gaire,

And he has gien the bonny babe

A deep wound and a sair.

 

Then Lamkin he rocked,

50

And the fause nourice sang,

Till frae ilkae bore o the cradle

The red blood out sprang.

 

Then out it spak the lady,

As she stood on the stair:

55

‘What ails my bairn, nourice,

That he’s greeting sae sair?

 

‘O still my bairn, nourice,

O still him wi the pap!’

‘He winna still, lady,

60

For this nor for that.’

 

‘O still my bairn, nourice,

O still him wi the wand!’

‘He winna still, lady,

For a’ his father’s land.’

 

65

‘O still my bairn, nourice,

O still him wi the bell!’

‘He winna still, lady,

Till ye come down yoursel.’

 

O the firsten step she steppit,

70

She steppit on a stane;

But the neisten step she steppit,

She met him Lamkin.

 

‘O mercy, mercy, Lamkin,

Hae mercy upon me!

75

Though you’ve taen my young son’s life,

Ye may let mysel be.’

 

‘O sail I kill her, nourice,

Or sail I lat her be?’

‘O kill her, kill her, Lamkin,

80

For she neer was good to me.’

 

‘O scour the bason, nourice,

And mak it fair and clean,

For to keep this lady’s heart’s blood,

For she’s come o noble kin.’

 

85

‘There need nae bason, Lamkin,

Lat it run through the floor;

What better is the heart’s blood

O the rich than o the poor?’

 

But ere three months were at an end,

90

Lord Wearie came again;

But dowie, dowie was his heart

When first he came hame.

 

‘O wha’s blood is this,’ he says,

‘That lies in the chamer?’

95

‘It is your lady’s heart’s blood;

’T is as clear as the lamer.’

 

‘And wha’s blood is this,’ he says,

‘That lies in my ha?’

‘It is your young son’s heart’s blood;

100

’T is the clearest ava.’

 

O sweetly sang the black-bird

That sat upon the tree;

But sairer grat Lamkin,

When he was condemned to die.

 

105

And bonny sang the mavis,

Out o the thorny brake;

But sairer grat the nourice,

When she was tied to the stake.

1807 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Composed upon Westminster Bridge

Sept. 3, 1802

Earth has not any thing to shew more fair:

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by

A sight so touching in its majesty:

This City now doth like a garment wear

The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,

Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie

Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep

In his first splendor valley, rock, or hill;

Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at his own sweet will:

Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;

And all that mighty heart is lying still!

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Elegiac Stanzas Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle, in a Storm, Painted by Sir George Beaumont

I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged Pile!

Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee:

I saw thee every day; and all the while

Thy Form was sleeping on a glassy sea.

So pure the sky, so quiet was the air!

So like, so very like, was day to day!

Whene’er I looked, thy Image still was there;

It trembled, but it never passed away.

How perfect was the calm! it seemed no sleep;

No mood, which season takes away, or brings:

I could have fancied that the mighty Deep

Was even the gentlest of all gentle Things.

Ah! THEN, if mine had been the Painter’s hand,

To express what then I saw; and add the gleam,

The light that never was, on sea or land,

The consecration, and the Poet’s dream;

I would have planted thee, thou hoary Pile

Amid a world how different from this!

Beside a sea that could not cease to smile;

On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss.

Thou shouldst have seemed a treasure-house divine

Of peaceful years; a chronicle of heaven; –

Of all the sunbeams that did ever shine

The very sweetest had to thee been given.

A Picture had it been of lasting ease,

Elysian quiet, without toil or strife;

No motion but the moving tide, a breeze,

Or merely silent Nature’s breathing life.

Such, in the fond illusion of my heart,

Such Picture would I at that time have made:

And seen the soul of truth in every part,

A stedfast peace that might not be betrayed.

So once it would have been, – ’tis so no more;

I have submitted to a new control:

A power is gone, which nothing can restore;

A deep distress hath humanized my Soul.

Not for a moment could I now behold

A smiling sea, and be what I have been:

The feeling of my loss will ne’er be old;

This, which I know, I speak with mind serene.

Then, Beaumont, friend! who would have been the Friend,

If he had lived, of Him whom I deplore,

This work of thine I blame not, but commend;

This sea in anger, and that dismal shore.

O ’tis a passionate Work! – yet wise and well,

Well chosen is the spirit that is here;

That Hulk which labours in the deadly swell,

This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear!

And this huge Castle, standing here sublime,

I love to see the look with which it braves,

Cased in the unfeeling armour of old time,

The lightning, the fierce wind, and trampling waves.

Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone,

Housed in a dream, at distance from the Kind!

Such happiness, wherever it be known,

Is to be pitied; for ’tis surely blind.

But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer,

And frequent sights of what is to be borne!

Such sights, or worse, as are before me here. –

Not without hope we suffer and we mourn.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 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 himself, ’tis out again!

When hailstones have been falling swarm on swarm,

Or blasts the green field and the trees distrest,

Oft have I seen it muffled up from harm,

In close self-shelter, like a Thing at rest.

But lately, one rough day, this Flower I passed,

And recognized it, though an altered Form,

Now standing forth an offering to the Blast,

And buffetted at will by Rain and Storm.

I stopped, and said with inly muttered voice,

‘It doth not love the shower, nor seek the cold:

This neither is its courage nor its choice,

But its necessity in being old.

‘The sunshine may not bless it, nor the dew;

It cannot help itself in its decay;

Stiff in its members, withered, 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!

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Ode (Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood)

Paulò majora canamus

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,

The earth, and every common sight,

To me did seem

Apparelled in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness of a dream.

It is not now as it has been of yore; –

Turn wheresoe’er I may,

By night or day,

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

The Rainbow comes and goes,

And lovely is the Rose,

The Moon doth with delight

Look round her when the heavens are bare;

Waters on a starry night

Are beautiful and fair;

The sunshine is a glorious birth;

But yet I know, where’er I go,

That there hath passed away a glory from the earth.

Now, while the Birds thus sing a joyous song,

And while the young Lambs bound

As to the tabor’s sound,

To me alone there came a thought of grief:

A timely utterance gave that thought relief,

And I again am strong.

The Cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep,

No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;

I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,

The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep,

And all the earth is gay,

Land and sea

Give themselves up to jollity,

And with the heart of May

Doth every Beast keep holiday,

Thou Child of Joy,

Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Shepherd Boy!

Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call

Ye to each other make; I see

The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;

My heart is at your festival,

My head hath its coronal,

The fullness of your bliss, I feel – I feel it all.

Oh evil day! if I were sullen

While the Earth herself is adorning,

This sweet May-morning,

And the Children are pulling,

On every side,

In a thousand vallies far and wide,

Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm,

And the Babe leaps up on his mother’s arm: –

I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!

– But there’s a Tree, of many one,

A single Field which I have looked upon,

Both of them speak of something that is gone:

The Pansy at my feet

Doth the same tale repeat:

Whither is fled the visionary gleam?

Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,

Hath had elsewhere its 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 year’s 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,

Shaped by himself with newly-learned art;

A wedding or a festival,

A mourning or a funeral;

And this hath now his heart,

And unto this he frames his song:

Then will he fit his tongue

To dialogues of business, love, or strife;

But it will not be long

Ere this be thrown aside,

And with new joy and pride

The little Actor cons another part,

Filling from time to time his ‘humorous stage’

With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,

That Life brings with her in her Equipage;

As if his whole vocation

Were endless imitation.

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, read’st 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 untamed pleasures, 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!

O joy! that in our embers

Is something that doth live,

That nature yet remembers

What was so fugitive!

The thought of our past years in me doth breed

Perpetual benedictions: not indeed

For that which is most worthy to be blest;

Delight and liberty, the simple creed

Of Childhood, whether fluttering or at rest,

With new-born hope for ever in his breast: –

Not for these I raise

The song of thanks and praise;

But for those obstinate questionings

Of sense and outward things,

Fallings from us, vanishings;

Blank misgivings of a Creature

Moving about in worlds not realized,

High instincts, before which our mortal Nature

Did tremble like a guilty Thing surprized:

But for those first affections,

Those shadowy recollections,

Which, be they what they may,

Are yet the fountain light of all our day,

Are yet a master light of all our seeing;

Uphold us, cherish us, and make

Our noisy years seem moments in the being

Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,

To perish never;

Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,

Nor Man nor Boy,

Nor all that is at enmity with joy,

Can utterly abolish or destroy!

Hence, in a season of calm weather,

Though inland far we be,

Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea

Which brought us hither,

Can in a moment travel thither,

And see the Children sport upon the shore,

And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

Then, sing ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!

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.