Of transitory interest, and peeps round
For some rare floweret of the hills, or plant
Of craggy fountain; what he hopes for wins,
Or learns, at least, that 'tis not to be won:
Then, keen and eager, as a fine-nosed hound
By soul-engrossing instinct driven along
Through wood or open field, the harmless Man
Departs, intent upon his onward quest !

Nor is that Fellow-wanderer, so deem I,
Less to be envied, (you may trace him oft
By scars which his activity has left

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Beside our roads and pathways, though, thank Heaven!
This covert nook reports not of his hand)

He who with pocket-hammer smites the edge
Of luckless rock or prominent stone, disguised
In weather-stains or crusted o'er by Nature
With her first growths,1 detaching by the stroke
A chip or splinter-to resolve his doubts;
And, with that ready answer satisfied,
The substance classes by some barbarous name,
And 2 hurries on; or from the fragments picks
His specimen, if but haply interveined 3
With sparkling mineral, or should crystal cube
Lurk in its cells—and thinks himself enriched,
Wealthier, and doubtless wiser, than before!
Intrusted safely each to his pursuit,
Earnest alike, let both from hill to hill

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1

1827.

Of every luckless rock or stone that stands

Before his sight, by weather-stains disguised,
Or crusted o'er with vegetation thin,

Range; if it please them, speed from clime to clime; The mind is full—and free from pain their pastime." 2

"Then," said I, interposing, "One is near,
Who cannot but possess in your esteem
Place worthier still of envy. May I name,
Without offence, that fair-faced cottage-boy?
Dame Nature's pupil of the lowest form,
Youngest apprentice in the school of art!
Him, as we entered from the open glen,
You might have noticed, busily engaged,

Heart, soul, and hands,-in mending the defects
Left in the fabric of a leaky dam

Raised 3 for enabling this penurious stream

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To turn a slender mill (that new-made plaything) 205 For his delight—the happiest he of all!"

"Far happiest," answered the desponding Man, "If, such as now he is, he might remain !

Ah! what avails imagination high

Or question deep? what profits all that earth,
Or heaven's blue vault, is suffered to put forth
Of impulse or allurement, for the Soul
To quit the beaten track of life, and soar
Far as she finds a yielding element
In past or future; far as she can go
Through time or space—if neither in the one,
Nor in the other region, nor in aught
That Fancy, dreaming o'er the map of things,
Hath placed beyond these penetrable bounds,

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1 1827.

This earnest Pair may range from hill to hill,
And,

1814.

2 1845.

no pain is in their sport."

1814.

3 1827. Framed

1814.

Words of assurance can be heard; if nowhere

A habitation, for consummate good,

Or for 1 progressive virtue, by the search
Can be attained,- —a better sanctuary

From doubt and sorrow, than the senseless grave?"

"Is this," the grey-haired Wanderer mildly said, "The voice, which we so lately overheard, To that same child, addressing tenderly The consolations of a hopeful mind? 'His body is at rest, his soul in heaven.'

These were your words; and, verily, methinks
Wisdom is oft-times nearer when we stoop

Than when we soar.

The Other, not displeased,

Promptly replied—“My notion is the same.

And I, without reluctance, could decline

All act of inquisition whence we rise,

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And what, when breath hath ceased, we may become.

Here are we, in a bright and breathing world.
Our origin, what matters it? In lack

Of worthier explanation, say at once

With the American (a thought which suits

*

The place where now we stand) that certain men
Leapt out together from a rocky cave;
And these were the first parents of mankind :
Or, if a different image be recalled

By the warm sunshine, and the jocund voice
Of insects chirping out their careless lives
On these soft beds of thyme-besprinkled turf,
Choose, with the gay Athenian, a conceit

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As sound-blithe race! whose mantles were bedecked

1 1814. Nor for

1827.

The text of 1845 returns to that of 1814.

* The Navagos and several other American tribes have this legend; but see Note B in the Appendix to this volume, p. 392.—ED.

With golden grasshoppers,* in sign that they

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Had sprung, like those bright creatures, from the soil Whereon their endless generations dwelt.1

But stop!—these theoretic fancies jar

On serious minds: then, as the Hindoos draw 2
Their holy Ganges from a skiey fount,†
Even so deduce the stream of human life

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From seats of power divine; and hope, or trust,
That our existence winds her 3 stately course
Beneath the sun, like Ganges, to make part
Of a living ocean; or, to sink engulfed,4
Like Niger, in impenetrable sands

And utter darkness: thought which may be faced,
Though comfortless!-

"Not of myself I speak;

Such acquiescence neither doth imply,

In me, a meekly-bending spirit soothed
By natural piety; nor a lofty mind,
By philosophic discipline prepared

For calm subjection to acknowledged law;

1 1827.

As sound; with that blithe race who wore ere-while
Their golden Grasshoppers, in sign that they

Had sprung from out the soil whereon they dwelt. 1814.

2 1827.

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265

On serious minds; for doubtless, in one sense,
The theme is serious; then, as Hindoos draw

1814.

* Before the time of Solon, the Athenians wore golden TÉTTɩYes—probably either brooches, or pins with a golden cicada for the head-as a sign that they considered themselves αὐτόχθονες, since the grasshopper τέττιξ (cicada) was supposed to spring out of the ground.-Ed.

The Ganges-sacred river of India-rising in the snow-clad Himalaya, was believed to have a celestial origin.-ED.

The great river of Western Africa, which was supposed, until recent geographical discovery, to lose itself in the sand.-ED.

Pleased to have been, contented not to be.
Such palms I boast not ;-no! to me, who find,
Reviewing my past way, much to condemn,
Little to praise, and nothing to regret,
(Save some remembrances of dream-like joys
That scarcely seem to have belonged to me)
If I must take my choice between the pair
That rule alternately the weary hours,
Night is than day more acceptable; sleep
Doth, in my estimate of good, appear

A better state than waking; death than sleep:
Feelingly sweet is stillness after storm,
Though under covert of the wormy ground!

"Yet be it said, in justice to myself,
That in more genial times, when I was free
To explore the destiny of human kind
(Not as an intellectual game pursued
With curious subtilty, from wish1 to cheat
Irksome sensations; but by love of truth
Urged on, or haply by intense delight

In feeding thought, wherever thought could feed)
I did not rank with those (too dull or nice,

For to my judgment such they then appeared,
Or too aspiring, thankless at the best)
Who, in this frame of human life, perceive
An object whereunto their souls are tied

In discontented wedlock; nor did e'er,

From me, those dark impervious shades, that hang
Upon the region whither we are bound,
Exclude a power to enjoy the vital beams
Of present sunshine.-Deities that float

On wings, angelic Spirits! I could muse

O'er what from eldest time we have been told
Of your bright forms and glorious faculties,

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290

295

300

1 1827.

thereby

1814.