It has a glory, and nought else can share it: The thought thereof is awful, sweet, and holy, Chasing away all worldliness and folly: Coming sometimes like fearful claps of thunder, Or the low rumblings earth's regions under; And sometimes like a gentle whispering 29 Of all the secrets of some wond'rous thing That breathes about us in the vacant air; So that we look around with prying stare, Perhaps to see shapes of light, aerial limning; And catch soft floatings from a faint-heard hymning; To see the laurel wreath, on high suspended, That is to crown our name when life is But what is higher beyond thought than A growing splendour round about me hung, thee? Fresher than berries of a mountain-tree? More strange, more beautiful, more smooth, And echo back the voice of thine own tongue ? O Poesy! for thee I grasp my pen, That am not yet a glorious denizen O ye whose charge It is to hover round our pleasant hills! Whose congregated majesty so fills My boundly reverence, that I cannot trace Your hallowed names, in this unholy place, So near those common folk; did not their shames 211 Is like a fallen angel: trees uptorn, Darkness, and worms, and shrouds, and sepulchres Delight it; for it feeds upon the burrs And thorns of life; forgetting the great end Of Poesy, that it should be a friend Affright you? Did our old lamenting To soothe the cares, and lift the thoughts Between two hills. All hail, delightful Lifted to the white clouds. Therefore hopes! As she was wont, th' imagination O may these joys be ripe before I die. 270 Will not some say that I presumptuously Have spoken? that from hastening disgrace 'T were better far to hide my foolish face? That whining boyhood should with reverence bow Ere the dread thunderbolt could reach? If I do hide myself, it sure shall be And there shall be a kind memorial graven. 280 But off, Despondence! miserable bane! They should not know thee, who athirst to gain A noble end, are thirsty every hour. And friendliness the nurse of mutual good. Hither and thither all the changing The hearty grasp that sends a pleasant thoughts sonnet Into the brain ere one can think upon it; 320 The silence when some rhymes are coming out; And when they're come, the very pleasant rout: The message certain to be done to-morrow. 'Tis perhaps as well that it should be to borrow Some precious book from out its snug retreat, To cluster round it when we next shall meet. Scarce can I scribble on; for lovely airs |