With an advantage furnished by that (Though they had long been carefully kind

But when that first poetic faculty 330 Of plain Imagination and severe, No longer a mute influence of the soul, Ventured, at some rash Muse's earnest call,

Their trivial pleasures; and when these A dismal look; the yew-tree had its

For her own sake, became my joy, even Were tasteless, and truth's golden mean, then

And upwards through late youth, until Where no sufficient pleasure could be not less

Than two-and-twenty summers had been Then, if a widow, staggering with the

Through quaint obliquities I might Instinctively to human passions, then Least understood. Yet, 'mid the fervent

Laughed as with rival eagerness their If, when the woodman languished with

If not already from the woods retired Sparkling from out a copse-clad bank To die at home, was haply as I knew, Withering by slow degrees, 'mid gentle

Suspended over a knight's tomb, who lay Or spirit that full soon must take her

Along the line of low-roofed water, moves As in a cloister. Once-while, in that shade

With godhead, and, by reason and by will,

Loitering, I watched the golden beams of Acknowledging dependency sublime.

light

Of vice and folly thrust upon my view,

In a pure stream of words fresh from the Objects of sport, and ridicule, and scorn,

heart:

close

Manners and characters discriminate,

Dear native Regions, wheresoe'er shall And little bustling passions that eclipse, As well they might, the impersonated thought,

My mortal course, there will I think on you;

469 Dying, will cast on you a backward look; Even as this setting sun (albeit the Vale Is no where touched by one memorial gleam)

Doth with the fond remains of his last
power

Still linger, and a farewell lustre sheds
On the dear mountain-tops where first he

The idea, or abstraction of the kind.

501

Power growing under weight: alas! I feel

555 That I am trifling: 'twas a moment's

pause,

Common to all?) that, seeing, I was led
Gravely to ponder judging between good
And evil, not as for the mind's delight
But for her guidance one who was to act, All that took place within me came and
As sometimes to the best of feeble means
I did, by human sympathy impelled;
And, through dislike and most offensive
pain,

525 Was to the truth conducted; of this faith

Never forsaken, that, by acting well,
And understanding, I should learn to love
The end of life, and everything we know.

Grave Teacher, stern Preceptress! for at times

530 Thou canst put on an aspect most severe; London, to thee I willingly return. Erewhile my verse played idly with the flowers

Enwrought upon thy mantle; satisfied
With that amusement, and a simple look
Of child-like inquisition now and then
Cast upwards on thy countenance, to
detect

Some inner meanings which might har-
bour there.

But how could I in mood so light indulge, Keeping such fresh remembrance of the day,

540

When, having thridded the long labyrinth
Of the suburban villages, I first

went

As in a moment; yet with Time it dwells,
And grateful memory, as a thing divine.

The curious traveller, who, from open
day,

560 Hath passed with torches into some huge

cave,

The Grotto of Antiparos, or the Den
In old time haunted by that Danish
Witch,

Yordas; he looks around and sees the
vault

Widening on all sides; sees, or thinks he sees,

565

Erelong, the massy roof above his head,
That instantly unsettles and recedes,-
Substance and shadow, light and dark-
ness, all

Commingled, making up a canopy
Of shapes and forms and tendencies to
shape
570

That shift and vanish, change and inter-
change

Like spectres,-ferment silent and sublime !

That after a short space works less and
less,

Entered thy vast dominion? On the roof Till, every effort, every motion gone,
Of an itinerant vehicle I sate,

With vulgar men about me, trivial forms
Of houses, pavement, streets, of men and
things,-
546

Mean shapes on every side: but, at the instant,

When to myself it fairly might be said, The threshold now is overpast, (how strange

That aught external to the living mind Should have such mighty sway! yet so it was), 551

A weight of ages did at once descend

The scene before him stands in perfect view

575

Exposed, and lifeless as a written book !—
But let him pause awhile, and look again,
And a new quickening shall succeed, at
first

Beginning timidly, then creeping fast,
Till the whole cave, so late a senseless
580

mass,

Busies the eye with images and forms Boldly assembled, here is shadowed forth

From the projections, wrinkles, cavities,

drawn

615 From books and what they picture and record.

A variegated landscape,-there the shape Of vanished nations, or more clearly
Of some gigantic warrior clad in mail, 585
The ghostly semblance of a hooded monk,
Veiled nun, or pilgrim resting on his
staff:

595

"Tis true, the history of our native land, With those of Greece compared and popular Rome,

And in our high-wrought modern narratives

621

Stript of their harmonising soul, the life
Of manners and familiar incidents,
Had never much delighted me. And
less

625

Than other intellects had mine been used
To lean upon extrinsic circumstance
Of record or tradition; but a sense
Of what in the Great City had been done
And suffered, and was doing, suffering,
still,

of thought;

Imperial, their chief living residence. With strong sensations teeming as it Weighed with me, could support the test did Of past and present, such a place must And, in despite of all that had gone by, needs Or was departing never to return, 630 Have pleased me, seeking knowledge at There I conversed with majesty and that time

power

Like independent natures. Hence the place

Far less than craving power; yet knowledge came, 600 Sought or unsought, and influxes of Was thronged with impregnations like the Wilds

power

Came, of themselves, or at her call de- In which my early feelings had been

Was not a punctual presence, but a spirit To forward reason's else too scrupulous Diffused through time and space, with

march.

The effect was, still more elevated views
Of human nature. Neither vice nor guilt,
Debasement undergone by body or mind,
Nor all the misery forced upon my sight,

In earth, the widely scattered wreck Misery not lightly passed, but sometimes

sublime

scanned

648