And the round ocean and the living air,

- the blue sky, and in the mind of man:

Artion and a spirit, that impels

A thinking things, all objects of all thought,
Ani rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From the green earth; of all the mighty world
Xeyr, and ear, both what they half create
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
sire and the language of the sense,
Tachor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
De gade, the guardian of my heart, and soul
fad my moral being.

Nor perchance,

If I were not thus taught, should I the more
<3 my genial spirits to decay:
Fart with me here upon the banks

Has fair river; thou my dearest Friend,
Mar, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch
Ta hoguage of my former heart, and read
My ferner pleasures in the shooting lights
of thy eyes. Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once,

My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make,
Arwing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead

joy to joy: for she can so inform

The mind that is within us, so impress

quietness and beauty, and so feed With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, Raah judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, Yer greetings where no kindness is, nor all The reary intercourse of daily life, “al' e'er prevail against us, or disturb

cheerful faith, that all which we behold is faù of blessings Therefore let the moon

on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the sty mountain-winds be free
Twainst thee: and, in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Its sober pleasure; when thy mind
Fala mansion for all lovely forms,
The memory be as a dwelling-place

• This isme has a close resemblance to an admirable line ** \ mng's the exact expression of which I do not recollect.

For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance-
If I should be where I no more can hear

Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams

Of past existence-wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshipper of Nature, hither came
Unwearied in that service: rather say
With warmer love-oh! with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!

First admonition that the sun is down!

For yet it is broad day-light: clouds pass by;
A few are near him still-and now the sky,
He hath it to himself-'tis all his own.
O most ambitious Star! an inquest wrought
Within me when I recognised thy light;
A moment I was startled at the sight:
And, while I gazed, there came to me a thought
That I might step beyond my natural race
As thou seem'st now to do; might one day trace
Some ground not mine; and, strong her strength

*This and the Extract, page 62, and the first Picce of this Class are from the unpublished Poem of which some account is given in the Preface to the EXCURSION.

Upon our side, we who were strong in love!
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,

But to be young was very heaven!-Oh! times,
In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways
Of custom, law, and statute, took at once
The attraction of a country in romance!
When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights,
When most intent on making of herself
A prime Enchantress-to assist the work,
Which then was going forward in her name!
Not favoured spots alone, but the whole earth,
The beauty wore of promise, that which sets
(As at some moment might not be unfelt
Among the bowers of paradise itself)
The budding rose above the rose full blown.
What temper at the prospect did not wake
To happiness unthought of? The inert
Were roused, and lively natures rapt away!
They who had fed their childhood upon dreams,
The playfellows of fancy, who had made
All powers of swiftness, subtilty, and strength
Their ministers,-who in lordly wise had stirred
Among the grandest objects of the sense,
And dealt with whatsoever they found there
As if they had within some lurking right
To wield it ;-they, too, who, of gentle mood,
Had watched all gentle motions, and to these
Had fitted their own thoughts, schemers more mild,
And in the region of their peaceful selves;—
Now was it that both found, the meek and lofty
Did both find, helpers to their heart's desire,
And stuff at hand, plastic as they could wish;
Were called upon to exercise their skill,
Not in Utopia, subterranean fields,
Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where !
But in the very world, which is the world
Of all of us, the place where in the end
We find our happiness, or not at all!

XXIX.

YES, it was the mountain Echo, Solitary, clear, profound, Answering to the shouting Cuckoo, Giving to her sound for sound!

Unsolicited reply

To a babbling wanderer sent;
Like her ordinary cry,
Like-but oh, how different!

Hears not also mortal Life?

Hear not we, unthinking Creatures!

1805.

XXXI.

LAODAMIA.

"WITH sacrifice before the rising morn
Vows have I made by fruitless hope inspired;
And from the infernal Gods, 'mid shades forlorn
Of night, my slaughtered Lord have I required:
Celestial pity I again implore ;-

Restore him to my sight-great Jove, restore!**

So speaking, and by fervent love endowed
With faith, the Suppliant heavenward lifts her hands:
While, like the sun emerging from a cloud,
Her countenance brightens-and her eye expands;
Her bosom heaves and spreads, her stature grows;
And she expects the issue in repose.

STEVE, and fitted to embrace,

Where'er he turned, a swan-like grace
Of haughtiness without pretence,
And to unfold a still magnificence,
Was princely Dion, in the power
And beauty of his happier hour.

And what pure homage then did wait

Dion's virtues, while the lunar beam

Of Plato's genius, from its lofty sphere, Fell round him in the grove of Academe, Softening their inbred dignity austereThat he, not too elate

With self-sufficing solitude, But with majestic lowliness endued, Mght in the universal bosom reign, Lai from affectionate observance gain Help, under every change of adverse fate.

II.

Five thousand warriors-0 the rapturous day!
Each crowned with flowers, and armed with spear
and shield,

Or ruder weapon which their course might yield,
To Syracuse advance in bright array.
Who leads them on!-The anxious people see
Lengxiled Dion marching at their head,
He also crowned with flowers of Sicily,
And in a white, far-beaming, corslet clad!
Fure transport undisturbed by doubt or fear
The pazers feel; and, rushing to the plain,
Saate those strangers as a holy train
Orest procession (to the Immortals dear)
That brought their precious liberty again.

Le when the gates are entered, on each hand,
Down the long street, rich goblets filled with wine
In seemly order stand,

On tables set, as if for rites divine ;-
And as the great Deliverer marches by,

He looks on festal ground with fruits bestrown; And flowers are on his person thrown

In boundless prodigality;

Nor 4th the general voice abstain from prayer, Isang Dion's tutelary care,

As of a very Deity he were !

III

Mirn, hills and groves of Attica! and mourn Les, hending o'er thy classic urn!

Mourn, and lament for him whose spirit dreads Your once sweet memory, studious walks and shades!

For him who to divinity aspired,

Not on the breath of popular applause,

But through dependence on the sacred laws Framed in the schools where Wisdom dwelt retired, Intent to trace the ideal path of right

(More fair than heaven's broad causeway paved with stars)

Which Dion learned to measure with sublime

delight;

But He hath overleaped the eternal bars;

And, following guides whose craft holds no consent With aught that breathes the ethereal element, Hath stained the robes of civil power with blood, Unjustly shed, though for the public good. Whence doubts that came too late, and wishes vain, Hollow excuses, and triumphant pain;

And oft his cogitations sink as low

As, through the abysses of a joyless heart,
The heaviest plummet of despair can go-

But whence that sudden check? that fearful start!
He hears an uncouth sound-
Anon his lifted eyes

Saw, at a long-drawn gallery's dusky bound,
A Shape of more than mortal size
And hideous aspect, stalking round and round!
A woman's garb the Phantom wore,
And fiercely swept the marble floor,—
Like Auster whirling to and fro,

His force on Caspian foam to try;
Or Boreas when he scours the snow
That skins the plains of Thessaly,
Or when aloft on Mænalus he stops
His flight, 'mid eddying pine-tree tops!

IV

So, but from toil less sign of profit reaping,
The sullen Spectre to her purpose bowed,
Sweeping-vehemently sweeping-
No pause admitted, no design avowed!
"Avaunt, inexplicable Guest !-avaunt,"
Exclaimed the Chieftain-"let me rather see
The coronal that coiling vipers make;
The torch that flames with many a lurid flake,
And the long train of doleful pageantry
Which they behold, whom vengeful Furies haunt;
Who, while they struggle from the scourge to flee,
Move where the blasted soil is not unworn,
And, in their anguish, bear what other minds have
borne !"