It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud
The village-clock tolled six-I wheeled about,
Proud and exulting like an untired horse
That cares not for his home.-All shod with steel
We hissed along the polished ice, in games
Confederate, imitative of the chase

And woodland pleasures,-the resounding horn,
The pack loud-chiming, and the hunted hare.
So through the darkness and the cold we flew,
And not a voice was idle; with the din
Smitten, the precipices rang aloud;
The leafless trees and every icy crag
Tinkled like iron; while far-distant hills
Into the tumult sent an alien sound

Of melancholy, not unnoticed while the stars,
Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west
The orange sky of evening died away.

Not seldom from the uproar I retired
Into a silent bay, or sportively

Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng,
To cut across the reflex of a star;

Image, that, flying still before me, gleamed
Upon the glassy plain: and oftentimes,

When we had given our bodies to the wind,

And all the shadowy banks on either side

Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still
The rapid line of motion, then at once
Have I, reclining back upon my heels,
Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs.

Wheeled by me-even as if the earth had rolled
With visible motion her diurnal round!

Behind me did they stretch in solemn train,
Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched
Till all was tranquil as a summer sea.

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1799

XVII

THE LONGEST DAY

ADDRESSED TO MY DAUGHTER, DORA

ET us quit the leafy arbour,

LET

And the torrent murmuring by ;
For the sun is in his harbour,
Weary of the open sky.

Evening now unbinds the fetters
Fashioned by the glowing light;
All that breathe are thankful debtors
To the harbinger of night.

Yet by some grave thoughts attended
Eve renews her calm career;

For the day, that now is ended,

Is the longest of the year.

Dora! sport, as now thou sportest,
On this platform, light and free;
Take thy bliss, while longest, shortest,
Are indifferent to thee!

Who would check the happy feeling
That inspires the linnet's song?
Who would stop the swallow, wheeling
On her pinions swift and strong?

Yet, at this impressive season,
Words which tenderness can speak
From the truths of homely reason
Might exalt the loveliest cheek;

And, while shades to shades succeeding
Steal the landscape from the sight,
I would urge this moral pleading,
Last forerunner of 'Good night!

SUMMER ebbs; each day that follows
Is a reflux from on high,
Tending to the darksome hollows
Where the frosts of winter lie.

He who governs the creation,
In his providence, assigned
Such a gradual declination
To the life of human kind.

Yet we mark it not ;-fruits redden,

Fresh flowers blow, as flowers have blown,
And the heart is loth to deaden

Hopes that she so long hath known.

Be thou wiser, youthful Maiden!
And when thy decline shall come,
Let not flowers, or boughs fruit-laden,
Hide the knowledge of thy doom.

ΤΟ

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Now, even now, ere wrapped in slumber,
Fix thine eyes upon the sea

That absorbs time, space, and number;
Look thou to Eternity!

Follow thou the flowing river

On whose breast are thither borne
All deceived, and each deceiver,
Through the gates of night and morn;

Through the year's successive portals;
Through the bounds which many a star
Marks, not mindless of frail mortals,
When his light returns from far.

Thus when thou with Time hast travelled
Toward the mighty gulf of things,

And the mazy stream unravelled

With thy best imaginings;

Think, if thou on beauty leanest,

Think how pitiful that stay,
Did not virtue give the meanest
Charms superior to decay.

Duty, like a strict preceptor,

Sometimes frowns, or seems to frown;

Choose her thistle for thy sceptre,

While youth's roses are thy crown.

Grasp it,-if thou shrink and tremble,
Fairest damsel of the green,

Thou wilt lack the only symbol

That proclaims a genuine queen;

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And ensures those palms of honour
Which selected spirits wear,

Bending low before the Donor,
Lord of heaven's unchanging year!

XVIII

THE NORMAN BOY

1817

IGH on a broad unfertile tract of forest-skirted Down,

H Nor kept by Nature for herself, nor made by man

his own,

From home and company remote and every playful joy, Served, tending a few sheep and goats, a ragged Norman

Boy.

Him never saw I, nor the spot; but from an English Dame, Stranger to me and yet my friend, a simple notice came, With suit that I would speak in verse of that sequestered child

Whom, one bleak winter's day, she met upon the dreary Wild.

His flock, along the woodland's edge with relics sprinkled

o'er

Of last night's snow, beneath a sky threatening the fall of more,

ΤΟ

Where tufts of herbage tempted each, were busy at their feed,

And the poor Boy was busier still, with work of anxious heed.

There was he, where of branches rent and withered and decayed,

For covert from the keen north wind, his hands a hut had made.

A tiny tenement, forsooth, and frail, as needs must be

A thing of such materials framed, by a builder such as he.

The hut stood finished by his pains, nor seemingly lacked

aught

That skill or means of his could add, but the architect had wrought

Some limber twigs into a Cross, well-shaped with fingers nice, To be engrafted on the top of his small edifice.

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That Cross he now was fastening there, as the surest power and best

For supplying all deficiencies, all wants of the rude nest
In which, from burning heat, or tempest driving far and wide,
The innocent Boy, else shelterless, his lonely head must hide.

That Cross belike he also raised as a standard for the true And faithful service of his heart in the worst that might

ensue

Of hardship and distressful fear, amid the houseless waste Where he, in his poor self so weak, by Providence was placed.

-Here, Lady! might I cease; but nay, let us before we part

With this dear holy shepherd-boy breathe a prayer of earnest heart,

That unto him, where'er shall lie his life's appointed way, The Cross, fixed in his soul, may prove an all-sufficing stay.

Published 1842.

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XIX

THE POET'S DREAM

SEQUEL TO THE NORMAN BOY

UST as those final words were penned, the sun broke out in power,

Jo

And gladdened all things; but, as chanced, within that very hour,

Air blackened, thunder growled, fire flashed from clouds that hid the sky,

And, for the Subject of my Verse, I heaved a pensive sigh.

Nor could my heart by second thoughts from heaviness be cleared,

For bodied forth before my eyes the cross-crowned hut appeared;

And, while around it storm as fierce seemed troubling earth

and air,

I saw, within, the Norman Boy kneeling alone in prayer.

The Child, as if the thunder's voice spake with articulate call,

Bowed meekly in submissive fear, before the Lord of All; 10 His lips were moving; and his eyes, upraised to sue for

grace,

With soft illumination cheered the dimness of that place.

How beautiful is holiness!—what wonder if the sight,
Almost as vivid as a dream, produced a dream at night?
It came with sleep and showed the Boy, no cherub, not
transformed,

But the poor ragged Thing whose ways my human heart had

warmed.

Me had the dream equipped with wings, so I took him in my arms,

And lifted from the grassy floor, stilling his faint alarms, And bore him high through yielding air my debt of love to

pay,

By giving him, for both our sakes, an hour of holiday.

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I whispered, 'Yet a little while, dear Child! thou art my

own,

To show thee some delightful thing, in country or in town.