'Yon cloud with that long purple cleft
Brings fresh into my
mind

A day like this, which I have left
Full thirty years behind.

'And just above yon slope of corn
Such colours, and no other,
Were in the sky that April morn,
Of this the very brother.

'With rod and line I sued the sport

Which that sweet season gave,

And to the church-yard come, stopp'd short

Beside my daughter's grave.

'Nine summers had she scarcely seen,

The pride of all the vale;

And then she sang,-she would have been

A very nightingale.

'Six feet in earth my Emma lay;
And yet I loved her more-

For so it seem'd,—than till that day
I e'er had loved before.

'And turning from her grave, I met,
Beside the churchyard yew,

A blooming Girl, whose hair was wet
With points of morning dew.

'A basket on her head she bare;
Her brow was smooth and white :

To see a child so very fair,
It was a pure delight!

'No fountain from its rocky cave
E'er tripp'd with foot so free;
She seem'd as happy as a wave
That dances on the sea.

'There came from me a sigh of pain
Which I could ill confine;

I look'd at her, and look'd again:
And did not wish her mine!

-Matthew is in his grave, yet now Methinks I see him stand

As at that moment, with a bough

Of wilding in his hand.

W. Wordsworth

CCCXXXI

THE FOUNTAIN

A Conversation

We talk'd with open heart, and tongue Affectionate and true,

A pair of friends, though I was young, And Matthew seventy-two.

We lay beneath a spreading oak,

Beside a mossy seat;

And from the turf a fountain broke

And gurgled at our feet.

'Now, Matthew!' said I, 'let us match

This water's pleasant tune

With some old border-song, or catch

That suits a summer's noon;

'Or of the church-clock and the chimes

Sing here beneath the shade

That half-mad thing of witty rhymes

Which you last April made!'

In silence Matthew lay, and eyed

The spring beneath the tree;

And thus the dear old man replied,

The gray-hair'd man of glee :

'No check, no stay, this Streamlet fears,

How merrily it goes!

'Twill murmur on a thousand years And flow as now it flows.

'And here, on this delightful day,
I cannot choose but think

How oft, a vigorous man, I lay
Beside this fountain's brink.

'My eyes are dim with childish tears,
My heart is idly stirr'd,

For the same sound is in my ears
Which in those days I heard.

'Thus fares it still in our decay:

And yet the wiser mind

Mourns less for what Age takes away,
Than what it leaves behind.

"The blackbird amid leafy trees,
The lark above the hill,

Let loose their carols when they please, Are quiet when they will.

'With Nature never do they wage
A foolish strife; they see

A happy youth, and their old age
Is beautiful and free:

'But we are press'd by heavy laws;

And often, glad no more,

We wear a face of joy, because

We have been glad of yore.

'If there be one who need bemoan

His kindred laid in earth,

The household hearts that were his own,

It is the man of mirth.

'My days, my friend, are almost gone,

My life has been approved,

And many love me; but by none

Am I enough beloved.'

'Now both himself and me he wrongs,

The man who thus complains!

I live and sing my idle songs

Upon these happy plains:

Ꮓ

'And Matthew, for thy children dead I'll be a son to thee!'

At this he grasp'd my hand and said,
6 Alas! that cannot be.'

-We rose up from the fountain-side;
And down the smooth descent

Of the green sheep-track did we glide;
And through the wood we went ;

And ere we came to Leonard's rock
He sang those witty rhymes

About the crazy old church-clock,

And the bewilder'd chimes.

W. Wordsworth

CCCXXXII

THE RIVER OF LIFE

The more we live, more brief appear
Our life's succeeding stages:
A day to childhood seems a year,
And years like passing ages.

The gladsome current of our youth,
Ere passion yet disorders,
Steals lingering like a river smooth
Along its grassy borders.

But as the care-worn cheek grows wan,

And sorrow's shafts fly thicker,

Ye Stars, that measure life to man,

Why seem your courses quicker?

When joys have lost their bloom and breath
And life itself is vapid,

Why, as we reach the Falls of Death,
Feel we its tide more rapid?

It may be strange-yet who would change
Time's course to slower speeding,
When one by one our friends have gone
And left our bosoms bleeding?

Heaven gives our years of fading strength
Indemnifying fleetness;

And those of youth, a seeming length,
Proportion'd to their sweetness.

T. Campbell

CCCXXXIII

THE HUMAN SEASONS

Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;
There are four seasons in the mind of man :
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span :

He has his Summer, when luxuriously
Spring's honey'd cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves

His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
He furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness-to let fair things
Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.

He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.
J. Keats

CCCXXXIV

A DIRGE

Rough wind, that moanest loud
Grief too sad for song ;
Wild wind, when sullen cloud
Knells all the night long;
Sad storm whose tears are vain,
Bare woods whose branches stain,
Deep caves and dreary main,-
Wail for the world's wrong!

P. B. Shelley