Type of a sunny human breast Is your transparent cell; Where Fear is but a transient guest, No sullen Humours dwell; Where, sensitive of every ray That smites this tiny sea, Your scaly panoplies repay The loan with usury. 20 How beautiful!-Yet none knows why 25 This ever-graceful change, Renewed-renewed incessantly Within your quiet range. Is it that ye with conscious skill And sometimes, not without your will, Are dwarfed, or magnified? Fays, Genii of gigantic size! And now, in twilight dim, Clustering like constellated eyes, In wings of Cherubim, When the fierce orbs abate their glare;— Whate'er your forms express, Whate'er ye seem, whate'er ye are— Cold though your nature be, 'tis pure; From all that haughtier kinds endure Ah! not alone by colours bright When, like essential Forms of light, Ye mingle, or divide. For day-dreams soft as e'er beguiled Day-thoughts while limbs repose; 30 35 40 45 50 For moonlight fascinations mild, Accept, mute Captives! thanks and praise; Delight resembling love. 55 1829. III. LIBERTY. SEQUEL TO THE PRECEDING. Addressed to a friend; the gold and silver fishes having been removed to a pool in the pleasureground of Rydal Mount. "The liberty of a people consists in being governed by laws which they have made for themselves, under whatever form it be of government. The liberty of a private man, in being master of his own time and actions, as far as may consist with the laws of God and of his country. Of this latter we are here to discourse."-CowLEY. THOSE breathing Tokens of your kind regard, 5 No winds disturb; the mirror of whose breast Is smooth as clear, save where with dimples small A fly may settle, or a blossom fall. 11 -There swims, of blazing sun and beating shower 15 Fearless (but how obscured!) the golden Power, Of hue and altering shape that charmed all eyes. shone; 21 30 And, if not so, what matters beauty gone 35 40 While musing here I sit in shadow cool, And watch these mute Companions, in the pool, (Among reflected boughs of leafy trees) By glimpses caught-disporting at their ease, Enlivened, braced, by hardy luxuries, 45 I ask what warrant fixed them (like a spell Beautiful, yet in mournful durance bound. Their peace, perhaps, our lightest footfall marred; 50 On their quick sense our sweetest music jarred; And whither could they dart, if seized with fear? No sheltering stone, no tangled root was near. When fire or taper ceased to cheer the room, They wore away the night in starless gloom; 55 And when the sun first dawned upon the streams, How faint their portion of his vital beams! Thus, and unable to complain, they fared, While not one joy of ours by them was shared. Is there a cherished bird (I venture now 60 To snatch a sprig from Chaucer's reverend brow) Is there a brilliant fondling of the cage, Though sure of plaudits on his costly stage, Though fed with dainties from the snow-white hand 65 Of a kind mistress, fairest of the land, 71 The bed we give him, though of softest down; name, If doomed to breathe against his lawful will 75 An element that flatters him-to kill, But would rejoice to barter outward show But most the Bard is true to inborn right, Lark of the dawn, and Philomel of night, Exults in freedom, can with rapture vouch For the dear blessings of a lowly couch, A natural meal-days, months, from Nature's hand; 85 Time, place, and business, all at his command! Who bends to happier duties, who more wise 90 96 99 Which Horace needed for his spirit's health; 105 |