The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening paradise.
* * * * *
WILLIAM COLLINS.
1720-1756.
_Ode in 1746_.
How sleep the brave, who sink to rest,
By all their country's wishes blessed!
* * * * *
By fairy hands their knell is rung;
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there.
* * * * *
_The Passions_. Line 1.
When Music, heavenly maid, was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung.
Line 10.
Filled with fury, rapt, inspired.
Line 28.
'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild.
Line 60.
In notes by distance made more sweet.
Line 68.
In hollow murmurs died away.
Line 95.
O Music! sphere-descended maid,
Friend of pleasure, wisdom's aid!
* * * * *
_Eclogue_ 1. Line 5.
Well may your hearts believe the truths I tell;
'Tis virtue makes the bliss, where'er we dwell.
* * * * *
_Ode on the Death of Thomson_.
In yonder grave a Druid lies.
* * * * *
MARK AKENSIDE.
1721-1770.
_Epistle to Curio_.
The man forget not, though in rags he lies,
And know the mortal through a crown's disguise.
* * * * *
NATHANIEL COTTON.
1721-1788.
_The Fireside_. St. 3.
If solid happiness we prize,
Within our breast this jewel lies;
And they are fools who roam:
The world has nothing to bestow;
From our own selves our joys must flow,
And that dear hut--our home.
St. 13.
Thus hand in hand through life we'll go;
Its checkered paths of joy and woe
With cautious steps we'll tread.
* * * * *
JOHN HOME.
1722-1808.
_Douglas_. Act i. Sc. 1.
In the first days
Of my distracting grief, I found myself
As women wish to be who love their lords.
Act ii. Sc. 1.
My name is Norval; on the Grampian hills
My father fed his flocks.
* * * * *
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
1728-1774.
THE TRAVELLER.
Line 1.
Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow.
Line 7.
Where er I roam, whatever realms to see,
My heart untravelled fondly turns to thee.
Line 22.
And learn the luxury of doing good.
Line 26.
Some fleeting good that mocks me with the view.
Line 77.
Such is the patriot's boast, where er we roam,
His first, best country ever is at home.
Line 153.
By sports like these are all his cares beguiled,
The sports of children satisfy the child.
Line 172.
But winter lingering chills the lap of May.
Line 217.
So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar.
But bind him to his native mountains more.
Line 251.
Alike all ages: dames of ancient days
Have led their children through the mirthful maze;
And the gay grandsire, skilled in gestic lore,
Has frisked beneath the burden of threescore.
Line 327.
Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
I see the lords of human kind pass by.
Line 372.
For just experience tells, in every soil,
That those that think must govern those that toil.
Line 386.
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.
Line 409.
Forced from their homes, a melancholy train.
* * * * *
THE DESERTED VILLAGE.
Line 14.
For talking age and whispering lovers made.
Line 51.
Ill fares the land to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay,
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade,
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.
Line 62.
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.
Line 100.
A youth of labor with an age of ease.
Line 110.
While resignation gently slopes the way--
And, all his prospects brightening to the last,
His heaven commences ere the world be past!
Line 122.
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind.
Line 141.
A man he was to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year.
Line 158.
Shouldered his crutch and showed how fields were won.
Line 161.
Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.
Line 164.
And even his failings leaned to virtue's side.
Line 170.
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.
Line 180.
And fools who came to scoff remained to pray.
Line 184.
And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile.
Line 192.
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.
Line 196.
The village master taught his little school.
Line 203.
Full well the busy whisper, circling round,
Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned.
Line 212.
For even though vanquished, he could argue still;
While words of learned length and thundering sound
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around;
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew
That one small head could carry all he knew.
Line 229.
Contrived a double debt to pay.
Line 254.
One native charm than all the gloss of art.
Line 264.
The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy.
Line 329.
Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,
Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn.
Line 385.
O Luxury! thou cursed by Heaven's decree.
* * * * *
RETALIATION.
Line 24.
Who mixed reason with pleasure and wisdom with mirth.
Line 31.
Who, born for the universe, narrowed his mind,
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind.
Line 37.
Though equal to all things, for all things unfit.
Line 94.
An abridgement of all that was pleasant in man.
* * * * *
VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.
Chapter viii. _The Hermit_.
Man wants but little here below,
Nor wants that little long.
* * * * *
Chapter xvii. _Elegy on a Mad Dog_.
The roan recovered of the bite,
The dog it was that died.
* * * * *
Chapter xxiv.
When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy?
What art can wash her guilt away?
The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover,
And wring his bosom, is--to die.
_Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaise_.
The king himself has followed her
When she has walked before.
* * * * *
TOBIAS SMOLLETT.
1721-1771.
_Ode to Independence_.
Thy spirit, Independence, let me share;
Lord of the lion heart and eagle eye,
Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare,
Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky.
* * * * *
THOMAS PERCY.
1728-1811.
_Reliques of English Poetry. The Baffled Knight_.
He that wold not when he might,
He shall not when he wolda.
* * * * *
_The Friar of Orders Gray_.
Weep no more, lady, weep no more,
Thy sorrow is in vain;
For violets plucked the sweetest showers
Will ne'er make grow again.
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever;
One foot on sea, and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.
_From Byrd's Psalmes, Sonets, &c_. 1588.
My mind to me a kingdom is;
Such perfect joy therein I find,
As far exceeds all earthly bliss
That God and Nature hath assigned.
Though much I want that most would have,
Yet still my mind forbids to crave.
* * * * *
BEILBY PORTEUS.
1731-1808.
_Death, a Poem_. Line 154.
One murder makes a villain,
Millions a hero.
* * * * *
JAMES BEATTIE.
1735-1766.
_The Minstrel_. Book i. St. 1.
Ah! who can tell how hard it is to climb
The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar?
* * * * *
_The Hermit_. Line 8.
He thought as a sage, but he felt as a man.
* * * * *
_Epigram_. _The Bucks had dined_.
How hard their lot who neither won nor lost.
CHARLES CHURCHILL.
1741-1764.
_The Rosciad_. Line 861.
But spite of all the criticising elves,
Those who would make us feel--must feel themselves.
* * * * *
MRS. THEALE.
1740-1822.
_Three Warnings_.
The tree of deepest root is found
Least willing still to quit the ground;
'Twas therefore said, by ancient sages,
That love of life increased with years
So much, that in our latter stages,
When pains grow sharp, and sickness rages,
The greatest love of life appears.
* * * * *
WILLIAM COWPER.
1731-1800.
THE TASK.
Book i. _The Sofa_.
God made the county, and man made the town.[20]
[Note 20: "God the first garden made, and the first city Cain."--Cowley]
Book ii. _The Timepiece_.
O for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumor of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never roach me more.
* * * * *
Mountains interposed
Make enemies of nations, who had else,
Like kindred drops, been mingled into one.
* * * * *
England, with all thy faults, I love thee still.
* * * * *
Praise enough
To fill the ambition of a private man,
That Chatham's language was his mother tongue.
* * * * *
There is a pleasure in poetic pains
Which only poets know.
* * * * *
Variety's the very spice of life,
That gives it all its flavor.
* * * * *
Book iii. _The Garden_.
Domestic Happiness, thou only bliss
Of Paradise that hast survived the fall!
How various his employments whom the world
jails idle; and who justly in return
Esteems that busy world an idler too!
* * * * *
Book iv. _Winter Evening_.
And while the bubbling and loud hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups
That cheer, but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.
* * * * *
'Tis pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat,
To peep at such a world; to see the stir
Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd.
* * * * *
Book v. _Winter Morn in a Walk_.
He is the freeman whom the truth makes free.
* * * * *
Book vi. _Winter Walk at Noon_.
There is in souls a sympathy with sounds;
And as the mind is pitched, the ear is pleased
With melting airs, or martial, brisk or grave;
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touched within us, and the heart replies.
* * * * *
Here the heart
May give a useful lesson to the head,
And Learning wiser grow without his books.
_Tirocinium_.
Shine by the side of every path we tread
With such a lustre, he that runs may read.
* * * * *
_Retirement_.
Built God a church, and laughed His word to scorn.
* * * * *
How sweet, how passing sweet is solitude!
But grant me still a friend in my retreat,
Whom I may whisper, Solitude is sweet.
* * * * *
_Conversation_.
A fool must now and then be right, by chance.
* * * * *
_John Gilpin_.
That, though on pleasure she was bent,
She had a frugal mind.
* * * * *
To dash through thick and thin.
* * * * *
A hat not much the worse for wear
* * * * *
_Lines to his Mother's Picture_.
O that those lips had language! Life has passed
With me but roughly since I heard thee last.
_Walking with God_.
What peaceful hours I once enjoyed?
How sweet their memory still!
But they have left an aching void,
The world can never fill.
* * * * *
VERSES,
_Supposed to be Written by Alexander Selkirk_.
I am monarch of all I survey,
My right there is none to dispute.
* * * * *
O Solitude! where are the charms
That sages have seen in thy face?
* * * * *
But the sound of the church-going bell
Those valleys and rocks never heard,
Never sighed at the sound of a knell,
Or smiled when a Sabbath appeared.
* * * * *
How fleet is a glance of the mind!
Compared with the speed of its flight,
The tempest itself lags behind,
And the swift-winged arrows of light.
* * * * *
W. J. MICKLE.
1734-1788.
_The Mariner's Wife_.
His very foot has music in 't
As he comes up the stairs.
JOHN LANGHORNE.
1735-1779.
_The Country Justice_.
Part i
Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew;
The big drops, mingling with the milk he drew,
Gave the sad presage of his future years,
The child of misery, baptized in tears.
* * * * *
DR. WALCOTT.
1738-1819.
_Peter Pindar's Expostulatory Odes to a great Duke
and a little Lord_. _Ode XV_.
Care to our coffin adds a nail, no doubt,
And every grin, so merry, draws one out.
* * * * *
MRS. BARBAULD.
1743-1825.
_Warrington Academy_.
Man is the noblest growth our realms supply,
And souls are ripened in our northern sky.
* * * * *
SIR WILLIAM JONES.
1746-1794.
_A Persian Song of Hafiz_.
Go boldly forth, my simple lay,
Whose accents flow with artless ease,
Like orient pearls at random strung.
* * * * *
_Ode in Imitation of Alcoeus_.
What constitutes a state?
* * * * *
Men who their duties know,
But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain.
* * * * *
And sovereign law, that state's collected will,
O'er thrones and globes elate,
Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill.
* * * * *
Seven hours to law, to soothing slumber seven,
Ten to the world allot, and all to heaven.[21]
[Note 21: "Six hours in sleep, in law's grave study six, Four spend
in prayer, the rest on nature fix."--_Sir Edward Coke_.]
* * * * *
CAPTAIN CHARLES MORRIS.
--1832.
_Billy Pitt and the Farmer_.
Solid men of Boston, make no long orations;
Solid men of Boston, drink no deep potations.
* * * * *
JOHN TRUMBULL.
1750-1881.
_McFingal_. Canto i. Line 67.
But optics sharp it needs, I ween,
To see what is not to be seen.
Canto iii. Line 489.
No man e'er felt the halter draw,
With good opinion of the law.
* * * * *
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
1751-1816.
_The Rivals_. Act v. Sc. 3.
As headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile.
* * * * *
_The Critic_. Act ii. Sc. 1.
My valor is certainly going! it is sneaking
off! I feel it oozing out as it were at the pain,
of my hands.
Act ii. Sc. 2.
Where they do agree, their unanimity is
wonderful.
* * * * *
_School for Scandal_. Act i. Sc. 1.
You shall see a beautiful quarto page, where
a neat rivulet of text shall meander through a
meadow of margin.
Act iii. Sc. 3.
Here's to the maiden of bashful fifteen;
Here's to the widow of fifty;
Here's to the flaunting, extravagant quean,
And here's to the housewife that's thrifty.
Let the toast pass;
Drink to the lass;
I'll warrant she'll prove an excuse for the glass.
_The Duenna_. Act i. Sc. 2.
I ne'er could any lustre see
In eyes that would not look on me;
I ne'er saw nectar on a lip
But where my own did hope to sip.
* * * * *
_Speech in Reply to Mr. Dundas_.
The Right Honorable gentleman is indebted
to his memory for his jests and to his imagination for his facts.
* * * * *
GEORGE CRABBE.
1754-1832.
_Parish Register_.
Oh! rather give me commentators plain,
Who with no deep researches vex the brain,
Who from the dark and doubtful love to run,
And hold their glimmering taper to the sun.
_The Borough Schools_.
Books cannot always please, however good;
Minds are not ever craving for their food.
* * * * *
_The Borough Placers_.
In this fool's paradise lie drank delight.
* * * * *
_The Birth of Flattery_.
In idle wishes fools supinely stay;
Be there a will, then wisdom finds a way.
* * * * *
ROBERT BURNS.
1759-1796.
_Tom O'Shanter_.
Where sits our sulky, sullen dame,
Gather in' her brows like gatherin' storm,
Nursin' her wrath to keep it warm.
* * * * *
Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious,
O'er a' the ills o' life victorious.
* * * * *
But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow falls in the river,
A moment white, then melts for ever.
As Tammie gloured, amazed and curious,
The mirth and fun grew fast and furious.
_To a Mouse_.
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft a-gley;
An' lea'e us naught but grief and pain
For promised joy.
* * * * *
_Scots wha hae_.
Let us do, or die!
* * * * *
_Address to the Unco Guid_.
Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler, sister woman;
Though they may gang a kennin' wrang
To step aside is human.
* * * * *
_On Captain Grose's Peregrinations through Scotland_.
If there's a hole in a' your coats,
I rede you tent it;
A chiel's amang you takin' notes,
An', faith, he'll prent it.
_To a Louse_.
O wad some power the giftie gie us,
To see oursel's as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion.
* * * * *
_Epistle to a Young Friend_.
The fear o' hell 's a hangman's whip
To haud the wretch in order;
But where ye feel your honor grip,
Let that aye be your border.
* * * * *
_The Twa Dogs_.
His locked, lettered, braw brass collar
Shawed him the gentleman and scholar.
* * * * *
_Epistle to James Smith_.
O Life! how pleasant in thy morning,
Young Fancy's rays the hills adorning!
Cold, pausing Caution's lesson scorning,
We frisk away,
Like schoolboys at th' expected warning.
To joy and play.
* * * * *
_Despondency_.
O Life! them art a galling load,
Along a rough, a weary road,
To wretches such as I!
_Auld Lang Syne_.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to min'?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days o' lang syne?
* * * * *
_Green grow the Rashes_.
Her 'prentice han' she tried on man.
And then she made the lasses, O!
* * * * *
_Man was made to Mourn_.
Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn.
* * * * *
_Death and Dr. Hornbook_.
Some wee short hour ayont the twal.
* * * * *
_Is there for honest Poverty_.
The _rank_ is but the guinea's _stamp_.
The man's the gowd for a' that.
* * * * *
A prince can mak' a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, and a that:
But an honest man's aboon his might,
Guid faith, he maunna fa' that.
_The Cotter's Saturday Night_.
He wales a portion with judicious care;
And "Let us worship God!" he says, with solemn air.
* * * * *
THOMAS MOSS.
--1808.
_The Beggar_.
Pity the sorrows of a poor old man,
Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door,
Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span;
Oh! give relief, and Heaven will bless your store.
* * * * *
GEORGE COLMAN.
1762-1836.
BROAD GRINS.
_The Maid of the Moor_.
And what's impossible can't be,
And never, never comes to pass.
* * * * *
Three stories high, long, dull, and old,
As great lord's stories often are.
* * * * *
_Lodgings for Single Gentlemen_.
But when ill indeed,
E'en dismissing the doctor don't always succeed.
_The Poor Gentleman_.
Act i. Sc. 2.
Thank you, good sir, I owe you one.
* * * * *
_Prologue to the Heir ft Law_.
On their own merits modest men are dumb.
* * * * *
THOMAS MORTON.
1764-1836.
_Speed the Plough_. Act i. Sc. 1.
What will Mrs. Grundy say?
* * * * *
GEORGE CANNING.
1770-1827.
POETRY OF THE ANTI-JACOBIN.
_The Needy Knife-Grinder_.
Story! God bless you, I have none to tell, sir!
* * * * *
I give thee sixpence! I will see thee d--d first.
* * * * *
_The Loves of the Triangles_.
Line 178.
So down thy hill, romantic Ashbourne, glides
The Derby dilly, carrying three insides.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
1770-1850.
_Quilt and Sorrow_.
St. 41.
And homeless near a thousand homes I stood,
And near a thousand tables pined and wanted food.
* * * * *
_My Heart Leaps up_.
The Child is father of the Man.
* * * * *
_Lucy Gray_.
St. 2.
The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door.
* * * * *
_We are Seven_.
A simple Child,
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?
* * * * *
_The Pet Lamb_.
Drink, pretty creature, drink.
* * * * *
_The Brothers_.
Until a man might travel twelve stout miles,
Or reap an acre of his neighbor's corn.
_Stanzas written in Thomson_.
A noticeable man, with large gray eyes.
* * * * *
_Lucy_.
She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A maid whom there were none to praise,
And very few to love:
A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!
Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.
She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and oh!
The difference to me!
* * * * *
_The Solitary Reaper_.
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again.
* * * * *
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.
_Rob Hoy's Grave_.
St. 9.
Because the good old rule
Sufficeth them, the simple plan,
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can.
_Yarrow Unvisited_.
The swan on still St. Mary's Lake
Float double, swan and shadow!
* * * * *
_Sonnets to National Independence and Liberty_.
Part i. vi
Men are we, and must grieve when even the Shade
Of that which once was great is passed away.
Part i. xiv.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart.
Part i. xvi.
We must be free or die, who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held.
* * * * *
_Nutting_.
One of those heavenly days that cannot die.
_She was a Phantom of Delight_.
A Creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food,
For transient sorrows, simple wiles;
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.
* * * * *
A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command.
* * * * *
_I Wandered Lonely_.
That inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude.
* * * * *
_Ruth_.
A Youth to whom was given
So much of earth, so much of heaven.
* * * * *
_Resolution and Independence_.
Part i. St. 7
I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy,
The sleepless soul that perished in his pride;
Of him who walked in glory and in joy,
Following his plough, along the mountainside.
* * * * *
_Hart-Leap Well_.
Part ii
"A jolly place," said he, "in times of old!
But something ails it now: the spot is cursed."
Never to blend our pleasure or our pride
With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.
* * * * *
_Tintern Abbey_.
Sensations sweet
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart.
* * * * *
That best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love.
* * * * *
That blessed mood,
In which the burden of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened.
* * * * *
The fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart.
* * * * *
The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colors and their forms, were then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm
By thoughts supplied, nor any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.
But hearing often-times
The still, sad music of humanity.
* * * * *
_To a Skylark_.
Type of the wise who soar, but never roam;
True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home.
* * * * *
_Peter Bell_.
Prologue. St. 1.
There's something in a flying horse,
There's something in a huge balloon.
Prologue. St. 27.
The common growth of Mother Earth
Suffices me--her tears, her mirths
Her humblest mirth and tears.
Part i. St. 12.
A primrose by a river's brim
A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more.
Part i. St. 15.
The soft blue sky did never melt
Into his heart; he never felt
The witchery of the soft blue sky!
Part i. St. 26.
As if the man had fixed his face,
In many a solitary place,
Against the wind and open sky!
_Miscellaneous Sonnets_.
Part i. xxx.
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration.
Part i. xxxiii.
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.
Part i. xxxv.
'Tis hers to pluck the amaranthine flower
Of Faith, and round the Sufferer's temples bind
Wreaths that endure affliction's heaviest shower,
And do not shrink from sorrow's keenest wind.
Part ii. xxxvi.
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
* * * * *
_Ecclesiastical Sonnets_.
Part iii. v. _Walton's Book of Lives_.
The feather, whence the pen
Was shaped that traced the lives of these good men,
Dropped from an Angel's wing.
* * * * *
Meek Walton's heavenly memory.
_The Tables Turned_.
Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books,
Or surely you'll grow double:
Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?
* * * * *
One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.
* * * * *
_A Poet's Epitaph_.
St. 5.
One that would peep and botanize
Upon his mother's grave.
* * * * *
_Personal Talk_.
St. 3.
The gentle Lady married to the Moor,
And heavenly Una with her milk-white Lamb.
* * * * *
_The Small Celandine_.
(From Poems referring to the Period of Old Age.)
To be a Prodigal's Favorite--then, worse truth,
A Miser's Pensioner--behold our lot!
_Elegiac Stanzas suggested by a Picture of Peele
Castle in a Storm_.
St. 4.
The light that never was, on sea or land,
The consecration, and the Poet's dream.
* * * * *
_Intimations of Immorality_.
St 5.
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting.
* * * * *
But trailing clouds of glory, do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
St. xi.
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
* * * * *
THE EXCURSION.
Book i.
The vision and the faculty divine.
* * * * *
The imperfect offices of prayer and praise.
* * * * *
The good die first,
And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust
Burn to the socket.
Book ii.
With battlements, that on their restless fronts
Bore stars.
Book iii.
Wrongs unredressed, or insults unavenged.
* * * * *
Monastic brotherhood, upon rock Aerial.
Book iv.
I have seen
A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract
Of inland ground, applying to his ear
The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell;
To which, in silence hushed, his very soul
Listened intensely; and his countenance soon
Brightened with joy; for from within were heard
Murmurings, whereby the monitor expressed
Mysterious union with its native sea.
* * * * *
One in whom persuasion and belief
Had ripened into faith, and faith become
A passionate intuition.
Book vi.
Spires whose silent fingers point to heaven.
Book vii.
Wisdom married to immortal verse.
Book ix.