Heaven gives our years of fading strength And those of youth, a seeming length, T. Campbell CCCXXXIII THE HUMAN SEASONS Four Seasons fill the measure of the year; He has his Summer, when luxuriously His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings He has his Winter too of pale misfeature, CCCXXXIV A DIRGE Rough wind, that moanest loud Wild wind, when sullen cloud CCCXXXV THRENOS O World! O Life! O Time! Trembling at that where I had stood before; No more--Oh, never more! Out of the day and night A joy has taken flight: Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight No more-Oh, never more! P. B. Shelley CCCXXXVI THE TROSACHS There's not a nook within this solemn Pass, Taught by his summer spent, his autumn gone, Wither'd at eve. From scenes of art which chase Rocks, rivers, and smooth lakes more clear than glas The pensive warbler of the ruddy breast CCCXXXVII My heart leaps up when I behold So was it when my life began, So be it when I shall grow old The Child is father of the Man : And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety. W. Wordsworth CCCXXXVIII ODE ON INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight To me did seem Apparell'd in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more The rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the rose ; The moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare ; Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair; The sunshine is a glorious birth; But yet I know, where'er I go, That there hath past away a glory from the earth. Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, To me alone there came a thought of grief: The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep ;- Give themselves up to jollity, And with the heart of May Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; My head hath its coronal, The fulness of your bliss, I feel-I feel it all. This sweet May-morning; And the children are culling On every side In a thousand valleys far and wide, Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warn And the babe leaps up on his mother's arm :I hear, I hear, with joy I hear ! --But there's a tree, of many, one, A single field which I have look'd upon, Both of them speak of something that is gone : The pansy at my feet Doth the same tale repeat: Whither is fled the visionary gleam? Where is it now, the glory and the dream? Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting And cometh from afar : Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come Heaven lies about us in our infancy! But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, The Youth, who daily farther from the east Is on his way attended; At length the Man perceives it die away, Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own; The homely nurse doth all she can Behold the Child among his new-born blisses, A mourning or a funeral ; And this hath now his heart, And unto this he frames his song: To dialogues of business, love, or strife; But it will not be long Ere this be thrown aside, And with new joy and pride |