Young spirit, thou hast taught me what is joy,
And fathomed nature with a larger line;
How sweet to learn when nature’s powers deploy,
And o’er thy frame their dalliance combine:
Ye passions soothed to one unanimous end,
Thou concord breath’d through avenues of sound,
Witchery, ever winning, from its power to blend
Fancy’s light hints with intuition’s ground:
Fulness of power lives not with those who roam,
Dandling the toy of a fantastic grief,
Iconoclast of woe, it builds its home
In joy’s ebullience at its own relief;
Youth founds the pile where age contented dwells,
And drowns his dearth with draughts from childhood’s wells.