The cock had crowed, and now the eastern sky

Was kindling, not unseen, from humble copse

And open field, through which the pathway wound,

And homeward led my steps. Magnificent
The morning rose, in memorable pomp,
Glorious as e'er I had beheld-in front,
The sea lay laughing at a distance; near,
The solid mountains shone, bright as the
clouds,

Grain-tinctured, drenched in empyrean light;

And in the meadows and the lower grounds
Was all the sweetness of a common dawn--
Dews, vapors, and the melody of birds,
And laborers going forth to till the fields.
Ah! need I say, dear Friend! that to the
brim

My heart was full; I made no vows, but

Transient and idle, lacked not intervals When Folly from the frown of fleeting Time

Shrunk, and the mind experienced in herself

That-after I had left a flower-decked room (Whose in-door pastime, lighted up, survived

To a late hour), and spirits overwrought
Were making night do penance for a day
Spent in a round of strenuous idleness-
My homeward course led up a long ascent,
Where the road's watery surface, to the top
Of that sharp rising, glittered to the moon
And bore the semblance of another stream
Stealing with silent lapse to join the brook
That murmured in the vale. All else was
still;

No living thing appeared in earth or air,
And, save the flowing water's peaceful voice,
Sound there was none-but, lo! an uncouth
shape,

Conformity as just as that of old

Whether held forth in Nature or in Man, Through pregnant vision, separate or conjoined.

When from our better selves we have too long

man

droop,

Though faded, yet entire. Companionless,

No dog attending, by no staff sustained,
He stood, and in his very dress appeared
A desolation, a simplicity,

To which the trappings of a gaudy world
Make a strange back-ground. From his

lips, ere long,

Issued low muttered sounds, as if of pain Or some uneasy thought; yet still his form Kept the same awful steadiness-at his feet His shadow lay, and moved not, From selt-blame

Not wholly free, I watched him thus; at length

Subduing my heart's specious cowardice,
I left the shady nook where I had stood
And hailed him. Slowly from his resting-
place

He rose, and with a lean and wasted arm
In measured gesture lifted to his head
Returned my salutation; then resumed
His station as before; and when I asked
His history, the veteran, in reply,
Was neither slow nor eager, but, unmoved,
And with a quiet uncomplaining voice,
A stately air of mild indifference,
He told in few plain words a soldier's tale-
That in the Tropic Islands he had served,
Whence he had landed scarcely three weeks
past;

That on his landing he had been dismissed, And now was travelling towards his native home.

This heard, I said, in pity, "Come with me."

He stooped, and straightway from the ground took up

An oaken staff by me yet unobservedA staff which must have dropped from slack hand

his

His ghostly figure moving at my side; Nor could I, while we journeyed thus, forbear

To turn from present hardships to the past,
And speak of war, battle, and pestilence?
Sprinkling this talk with questions, better
spared,

On what he might himself have seen or felt.
He all the while was in demeanor calm,
Concise in answer; solemn and sublime
He might have seemed, but that in all he
said

There was a strange half-absence, as of one Knowing too well the importance of his theme,

But feeling it no longer. Our discourse
Soon ended, and together on we passed
In silence through a wood gloomy and still.
Up-turning, then, along an open field,
We reached a cottage. At the door I
knocked,

And earnestly to charitable care
Commended him as a poor friendless man,
Belated and by sickness overcome.
Assured that now the traveller would repose
In comfort, I entreated that henceforth
He would not linger in the public ways,
But ask for timely furtherance and help
Such as his state required At this reproof,
With the same ghastly mildness in his look,
He said, "My trust is in the God of Heaven,
And in the eye of him who passes me!"

The cottage door was speedily unbarred, And now the soldier touched his hat once

more

With his lean hand, and in a faltering voice,
Whose tone bespake reviving interests
Till then unfelt, he thanked me; I returned
The farewell blessing of the patient man,
And so we parted. Back I cast a look,
And lingered near the door a little space,
Then sought with quiet heart my distant
home.

Earth's paramount Creature! not so much for woes

That thou endurest; heavy though that weight be,

Cloud-like it mounts, or touched with light divine

Doth melt away, but for those palms achieved,

Through length of time, by patient exercise

That sadness finds its fuel Hitherto,

In progress through this Verse, my mind hath looked

Upon the speaking face of earth and heaven
As her prime teacher, intercourse with man
Established by the sovereign Intellect,
Who through that bodily image hath dif-
tused,

As might appear to the eye of fleeting time, A deathless spirit. Thou also, man! hast wrought,

For commerce of thy nature with herself, Things that aspire to unconquerable life; And yet we feel-we cannot choose but feel

That they must perish. Tremblings of the

heart

It gives, to think that our immortal being No more shall need such garments; and yet

man,

As long as he shall be the child of earth, Might almost " weep to have" what he may

lose, Nor be himself extinguished, but survive, Abject, depressed, forlorn, disconsolate. A thought is with me sometimes, and I

say,

Should the whole frame of earth by inward
throes
[scorch
Be wrenched, or fire come down from far to
Her pleasant habitations, and dry up
Old Ocean, in his bed left singed and bare,
Yet would the living Presence still subsist
Victorious, and composure would ensue,
And kindlings like the morning-presage

sure

Of day returning and of life revived.
But all the meditations of mankind,
Yea, all the adamantine holds of truth
By reason built, or passion, which itself
Is highest reason in a soul sublime;
The consecrated works of Bard and Sage,
Sensuous or intellectual, wrought by men,
Twin laborers and heirs of the same hopes;
Where would they be? Oh! why hath not
the Mind

Some element to stamp her image on
In nature somewhat nearer to her own?
Why, gifted with such powers to send
abroad

Her spirit, must it lodge in shrines so frail?

One day, when from my lips a like complaint

Had fallen in presence of a studious friend,

'Twas going far to seek disquietude:
But on the front of his reproof confessed
That he himself had oftentimes given way
To kindred hauntings. Whereupon I told,,
That once in the stillness of a summer's
noon,

While I was seated in a rocky cave
By the sea-side, perusing, so it chanced,
The famous history of the errant knight
Recorded by Cervantes, these same thoughts
Beset me, and to height unusual rose,
While listlessly I sate, and, having closed
The book, had turned my eyes toward the
wide sea.

On poetry and geometric truth,
And their high privilege of lasting life,
From all internal injury exempt,

I mused; upon these chiefly: and at length,
My senses yielding to the sultry air,
Sleep seized me, and I passed into a dream.
I saw before me stretched a boundless plain
Of sandy wilderness, all black and void,
And as I looked around, distress and fear
Came creeping over me, when at my side,
Close at my side, an uncouth shape ap-
peared

Upon a dromedary, mounted high.
He seemed an Arab of the Bedouin tribes:
A lance he bore, and underneath one arm
A stone, and in the opposite hand a shell
Of a surpassing brightness. At the sight
Much I rejoiced, not doubting but a guide
Was present, one who with unerring skill
Would through the desert lead me; and
while yet

I looked and looked, self-questioned what this freight

Which the new comer carried through the waste

Could mean, the Arab told me that the

By deluge, now at hand. No sooner ceased The song, than the Arab with calm look declared

That all would come to pass of which the voice

Had given forewarning, and that he himself
Was going then to bury those two books:
The one that held acquaintance with the
stars,

And wedded soul to soul in purest bond
Of reason, undisturbed by space or time;
The other that was a god, yea many gods,
Had voices more than all the winds, with
power

To exhilarate the spirit, and to soothe,
Through every clime, the heart of human
kind.
[seem,
While this was uttering, strange as it may
I wondered not, although I plainly saw
The one to be a stone, the other a shell;
Nor doubted once but that they both were
books,

Having a perfect faith in all that passed.
Far stronger, now, grew the desire I felt
To cleave unto this man; but when I prayed
To share his enterprise, he hurried on
Reckless of me: I followed, not unseen,
For oftentimes he cast a backward look,
Grasping his twofold treasure.-Lance in
rest,

He rode, I keeping pace with him; and now
He, to my fancy, had become the knight
Whose tale Cervantes tells; yet not the
knight,

But was an Arab of the desert too;

Of these was neither, and was both at once. His countenance, nieanwhile, grew more disturbed;

And, looking backwards when he looked,

mine eyes

Saw, over half the wilderness diffused,
A bed of glittering light: I asked the cause:
"It is," said he, "the waters of the deep
Gathering upon us;" quickening then the

pace

Of the unwieldy creature he bestrode,
He left me: I called after him aloud;
He heeded not; but, with his twofold charge
Still in his grasp, before me, full in view,
Went hurrying o'er the illimitable waste,
With the fleet waters of a drowning world
In chase of him; whereat I waked in terror,
And saw the sea before me, and the book,
In which I had been reading, at my side.

Full often, taking from the world of sleep This Arab phantom, which I thus beheld,

This semi-Quixote, I to him have given
A substance, fancied him a living man,
A gentle dweller in the desert crazed
By love and feeling, and internal thought
Protracted among endless solitudes;
Have shaped him wandering upon this
quest!

Nor have I pitied him; but rather felt Reverence was due to a being thus employ. ed;

And thought that, in the blind and awful lair

Of such a madness, reason did lie couched.
Enow there are on earth to take in charge
Their wives, their children, and their virgin
loves,

Or whatsoever else the heart holds dear;
Enow to stir for these; yea, will I say,
Contemplating in soberness the approach
Of an event so dire, by signs in earth
Or heaven made manifest, that I could

share

That maniac's fond anxiety, and go
Upon like errand. Oftentimes at least
Me hath such strong entrancement over-

come,

When I have held a volume in my hand,
Poor earthly casket of immortal verse,
Shakespeare, or Milton, laborers divine!

Great and benign, indeed, must be the power

Of living nature, which could thus so long
Detain me from the best of other guides
And dearest helpers, left unthanked, un-
praised,

Even in the time of lisping infancy;
And later down, in prattling childhood even,
While I was travelling back among those
days

How could I ever play an ingrate's part? Once more should I have made those bowers resound,

By intermingling strains of thankfulness With their own thoughtless melodies; at least

It might have well beseemed me to repeat
Some simply fashioned tale, to tell again,
In slender accents of sweet verse, some tale
That did bewitch me then, and soothes me

What is already written in the hearts

Of all that breathe?-what in the path of all

Drops daily from the tongue of every child, Wherever man is found? The trickling

tear

Upon the cheek of listening Infancy
Proclaims it, and the insuperable look
That drinks as if it never could be full.

That portion of my story I shall leave There registered: whatever else of power Or pleasure sown, or fostered thus, may be Peculiar to myself, let that remain

Where still it works, though hidden from all search

Among the depths of time. Yet is it just That here, in memory of all books which lay

Their sure foundations in the heart of man,
Whether by native prose, or numerous verse,
That in the name of all inspirèd souls-
From Homer the great Thunderer, from
the voice

That roars along the bed of Jewish song,
And that more varied and elaborate,
Those trumpet-tones of harmony that shake
Our shores in England,-from those loftiest

notes

Down to the low and wren-like warblings, made

For cottagers and spinners at the wheel, And sun-burnt travellers resting their tired limbs,

Stretched under wayside hedge-rows, ballad tunes.

Food for the hungry ears of little ones, And of old men who have survived their joys

'Tis just that in behalf of these, the works, And of the men that framed them, whether known

Or sleeping nameless in their scattered graves,

That I should here assert their rights, attest Their honors, and should, once for all, pro

nounce

Their benediction; speak of them as Pow

ers

Forever to be hallowed; only less,

For what we are and what we may become, Than Nature's self, which is the breath of God,

Or His pure Word by miracle revealed.

Rarely and with reluctance would I stoop To transitory themes; yet I rejoice,

And, by these thoughts admonished, will pour out

Thanks with uplifted heart, that I was reared

Safe from an evil which these days have laid

Upon the children of the land, a pest That might have dried me up, body and soul.

This verse is dedicate to Nature's self, And things that teach as Nature teaches : then,

Oh! where had been the Man, the Poet where,

Where had we been, we two, beloved Friend!
If in the season of unperilous choice,
In lieu of wandering, as we did, through
vales

Rich with indigenous produce, open ground
Of Fancy, happy pastures ranged at will,
We had been followed, hourly watched, and
noosed

Each in his several melancholy walk Stringed like a poor man's heifer at its feed,

Led through the lanes in forlorn servitude;
Or rather like a stalled ox debarred
From touch of growing grass, that may not