From humble violet, modest thyme,
Exhaled, the essential odours climb,
As if no space below the sky
Their subtle flight could satisfy :
Heaven will not tax our thoughts with pride
If like ambition be their guide.
Roused by this kindliest of May showers,
The spirit-quickener of the flowers,
That with moist virtue softly cleaves
The buds, and freshens the young leaves,
The birds pour forth their souls in notes
Of rapture from a thousand throats-
Here checked by too impetuous haste,
While there the music runs to waste,
With bounty more and more enlarged,
Till the whole air is overcharged;
Give ear, O Man! to their appeal,
And thirst for no inferior zeal,
Thou, who canst think as well as feel.
Mount from the earth; aspire! aspire!
So pleads the town's cathedral quire,
In strains that from their solemn height
Sink, to attain a loftier flight;
While incense from the altar breathes
Rich fragrance in embodied wreaths;
Or, flung from swinging censer, shrouds
The taper-lights, and curls in clouds
Around angelic forms, the still
Creation of the painter's skill,
That on the service wait concealed
One moment, and the next revealed.
-Cast off your bonds, awake, arise,
And for no transient ecstasies!
What else can mean the visual plea
Of still or moving imagery-
The iterated summons loud,
Not wasted on the attendant crowd,
Nor wholly lost upon the throng
Hurrying the busy streets along?
Alas! the sanctities combined By art to unsensualise the mind, Decay and languish; or, as creeds
And humours change, are spurned like weeds;
The priests are from their altars thrust;
Temples are levelled with the dust;
And solemn rites and awful forms
Founder amid fanatic storms.
Yet evermore, through years renewed
In undisturbed vicissitude
Of seasons balancing their flight
On the swift wings of day and night,
Kind Nature keeps a heavenly door
Wide open for the scattered poor.
Where flower-breathed incense to the skies
Is wafted in mute harmonies;
And ground fresh-cloven by the plough
Is fragrant with a humbler vow;
Where birds and brooks from leafy dells
Chime forth unwearied canticles,
And vapours magnify and spread
The glory of the sun's bright head-
Still constant in her worship, still
Conforming to the Eternal Will,
Whether men sow or reap the fields,
Divine monition Nature yields,
That not by bread alone we live,
Or what a hand of flesh can give;
That every day should leave some part
Free for a sabbath of the heart;
So shall the seventh be truly blest,
From morn to eve with hallowed rest.
[Supposed to be found in and near a hermit's cell.]
HOPES what are they? Beads of morning
Strung on slender blades of grass:
Or a spider's web adorning
In a straight and treacherous pass.
What are fears but voices airy?
Whisperings where harm is not:
And deluding the unwary
Till the fatal bolt is shot!
What is glory? in the socket
See how dying tapers fare!
What is pride?—A whizzing rocket
That would emulate a star.
What is friendship?-do not trust her,
Nor the vow which she has made;
Diamonds dart their brightest lustre
From a palsy-shaken head.
What is truth?—a staff rejected;
Duty?-an unwelcome clog;
Joy? A moon by fits reflected
In a swamp or watery bog;
Bright, as if through ether steering,
To the traveller's eye it shone:
He hath hailed it reappearing-
And as quickly it is gone;
Such is joy-as quickly hidden,
Or misshapen to the sight,
And by sullen weeds forbidden
To resume its native light.
What is youth?-a dancing billow,
(Winds behind, and rocks before!)
Age?--a drooping, tottering willow
On a flat and lazy shore.
What is peace?--When pain is over,
And love ceases to rebel,
Let the last faint sight discover
That precedes the passing knell !
Hast thou seen, with flash incessant,
Bubbles gliding under ice,
Bodied forth and evanescent,
No one knows by what device?
Such are thoughts-A wind-swept meadow
Mimicking a troubled sea,
Such is life; and death a shadow
From the rock eternity!
Troubled long with warring notions,
Long impatient of thy rod,
I resign my soul's emotions,
Unto Thee, mysterious God!
What avails the kindly shelter
Yielded by this craggy rent,
If my spirit toss and welter,
On the waves of discontent?
Parching Summer hath no warrant
To consume this crystal Well;
Rains, that make each rill a torrent,
Neither sully it nor swell.
Thus, dishonouring not her station,
Would my Life present to thee,
Gracious God, the poor oblation
Of divine tranquillity!
Not seldom, clad in radiant vest,
Deceitfully goes forth the morn;
Not seldom evening in the west
Sinks smilingly forsworn.
The smoothest seas will sometimes prove,
To the confiding bark untrue;
And, if she trust the stars above,
They can be treacherous too.
The umbrageous oak, in pomp outspread
Full oft, when storms the welkin rend,
Draws lightning down upon the head
It promised to defend."
But Thou art true, incarnate Lord,
Who didst vouchsafe for man to die;
Thy smile is sure, thy plighted word
No change can falsify!
I bent before thy gracious throne,
And asked for peace on suppliant knee;
And peace was given,- -nor peace alone,
But faith sublimed to ecstacy!
SMALL service is true service while it lasts!
Of humblest friends, bright creature, scorn not one, The Daisy, by the shadow that it casts,
Protects the lingering dew-drop from the Sun.
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky.
So was it when my life began ;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The child is father of the man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
WHO HAD BEEN REPROACHED FOR TAKING
LONG WALKS IN THE COUNTRY.
DEAR child of Nature, let them rail!
There is a nest in a green dale,
A harbour and a hold,
Where thou, a wife and friend, shalt seę
Thy own delightful days, and be
A light to young and old.
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