The rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the rose; The moon doth with delight The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep, No more shall grief of mine the season wrong: I hear the echoes through the mountains throng, The winds come to me from the fields of sleep, And all the earth is gay; Land and sea Give themselves up to jollity, And with the heart of May Doth every beast keep holiday;Thon child of joy, Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy shepherd boy! Ye blesséd creatures, I have heard the call Ye to each other make; I see The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; My heart is at your festival, My head hath its coronal, Look round her when the heavens are The fulness of your bliss, I feel — I feel bare; Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair; The sunshine is a glorious birth: That there hath passed away a glory from the earth. Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, And while the young lambs bound To me alone there came a thought of grief; A timely utterance gave that thought relief, And I again am strong. it all. O evil day! if I were sullen While Earth herself is adorning, 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 warm, 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 looked upon, Both of them speak of something that is gone; 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 From God, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing boy; But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy. The youth who daily farther from the With all the persons, down to palsied age, Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie Thy soul's immensity; Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep Thy heritage; thou eye among the blind, That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep, Haunted forever by the eternal mind,— Mighty prophet! Seer blest! On whom those truths do rest Which we are toiling all our lives to find, In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave; Thou, over whom thy immortality Broods like the day, a master o'er a slave, A presence which is not to be put by; Thou little child, yet glorious in the might Of heaven-born freedom, on thy being's height, Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke The years to bring the inevitable yoke, Thus blindly with thy b'essedness at strife? Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight, And custom lie upon thee with a weight Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life! O joy! that in our embers Is something that doth live; The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction: not indeed Delight and liberty, the simple creed Not for these I raise WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. The song of thanks and praise; But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Fallings from us, vanishings, Blank misgivings of a creature Moving about in worlds not realized, High instincts before which our mortal nature Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised: Our noisy years seem moments in the being Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor, Nor man nor boy, Hence, in a season of calm weather, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea 99 And O ye fountains, meadows, hills, and groves, Forebode not any severing of our loves! Even more than when I tripped lightly as they; The innocent brightness of a new-born day Is lovely yet; The clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober coloring from an eye That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; Another race hath been, and other palms are won. Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. THE DAFFODILS. I WANDERED lonely as a cloud Continuous as the stars that shine The waves beside them danced, but they I gazed and gazed-but little thought 44780B TO THE CUCKOO. O BLITHE new-comer! I have heard, O cuckoo! shall I call thee bird, While I am lying on the grass Though babbling only to the vale Thrice welcome, darling of the spring! No bird, but an invisible thing, The same whom in my school-boy days To seek thee did I often rove Through woods and on the green; And thou wert still a hope, a love; Still longed for, never seen! And I can listen to thee yet; O blessed bird! the earth we pace Again appears to be An unsubstantial, fairy place A MEMORY. THREE years she grew in sun and shower; "Myself will to my darling be In earth and heaven, in glade and bower, "She shall be sportive as the fawn, That wild with glee across the lawn Or up the mountain springs; And hers shall be the breathing balm, And hers the silence and the calm, Of mute insensate things. "The floating clouds their state shall lend To her; for her the willow bend; E'en in the motions of the storm "The stars of midnight shall be dear To her; and she shall lean her ear In many a secret place, Where rivulets dance their wayward round, And beauty born of murmuring sound Shall pass into her face. "And vital feelings of delight Her virgin bosom swell; Here in this happy dell." Thus Nature spake. The work was doneHow soon my Lucy's race was run! She died, and left to me This heath, this calm and quiet scene; The memory of what has been, And nevermore will be. SHE WAS A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT. SHE was a phantom of delight To be a moment's ornament; I saw her upon nearer view, |