A Book of English Literature, Selected and Ed

LINES WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING

I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sat reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant
thoughts

Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

"Nor less I deem that there are Powers Which of themselves our minds impress; That we can feed this mind of ours

Through primrose tufts, in that green In a wise passiveness.
bower,

The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

"Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum

Of things forever speaking,

That nothing of itself will come,
But we must still be seeking?

As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din 25
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the
heart;

And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration:-feelings too 30
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift, 36
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed

Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things.

If this Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft― 50 In darkness and amid the many shapes Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, Have hung upon the beatings of my heart

How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, 55 O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer through the woods,

How often has my spirit turned to thee! And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,

бо

With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again:
While here I stand, not only with the sense

100

Of present pleasure, but with pleasing A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

thoughts

That in this moment there is life and food
For future years. And so I dare to hope, 65
Though changed, no doubt, from what
I was when first

I came among these hills; when like a roe
I bounded o'er the mountains, by the
sides

The guide, the guardian of my heart, and
soul
Of all my moral being.

To me was all in all.—I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy If I were not thus taught, should I the

wood,

Their colors and their forms, were then to

An appetite; a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, nor any interest
Unborrowed from the eye. That time is
past,

And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this 85
Faint I, nor mourn, nor murmur; other
gifts

Have followed; for such loss, I would
believe,

Abundant recompense.

learned

Nor perchance,

The language of my former heart, and
read

My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once, 120
My dear, dear sister! and this prayer I
make,

Knowing that Nature never did betray
For I have The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to

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A Book of English Literature, Selected and Ed, Volume 1