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May rather seem

To brood on air than on an earthly stream;

Suspended in a stream as clear as sky,

Where earth and heaven do make one imagery;

O blessed vision! happy child!

Thou art so exquisitely wild,

I think of thee with many fears

For what may be thy lot in future years.

I thought of times when Pain might be thy guest, Lord of thy house and hospitality;

And Grief, uneasy lover! never rest

But when she sàte within the touch of thee.

O too industrious folly !

O vain and causeless melancholy!

Nature will either end thee quite ;

Or, lengthening out thy season of delight,
Preserve for thee, by individual right,

A young lamb's heart among the full-grown flocks.
What hast thou to do with sorrow,

Or the injuries of to-morrow?

Thou art a dew-drop, which the morn brings forth,

Ill fitted to sustain unkindly shocks,

Or to be trailed along the soiling earth;

A gem that glitters while it lives,

And no forewarning gives;

But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife
Slips in a moment out of life.

XCVI

THE REVERIE OF POOR SUSAN

At the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears, Hangs a Thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three

years:

Poor Susan has passed by the spot, and has heard
In the silence of morning the song of the Bird.

'Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? She sees A mountain ascending, a vision of trees;

Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide, And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.

Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale, Down which she so often has tripped with her pail ; And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove's, The one only dwelling on earth that she loves.

She looks, and her heart is in heaven: but they fade,
The mist and the river, the hill and the shade :
The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,
And the colours have all passed away from her eyes!

1797

XCVII

GIPSIES

YET are they here the same unbroken knot
Of human Beings, in the self-same spot!
Men, women, children, yea the frame
Of the whole spectacle the same!
Only their fire seems bolder, yielding light,
Now deep and red, the colouring of night;
That on their Gipsy-faces falls,

Their bed of straw and blanket-walls. -Twelve hours, twelve bounteous hours are gone, while I

Have been a traveller under open sky,

Much witnessing of change and cheer,
Yet as I left I find them here!

The weary Sun betook himself to rest;—
Then issued Vesper from the fulgent west,
Outshining like a visible God

The glorious path in which he trod.
And now, ascending, after one dark hour
And one night's diminution of her power,
Behold the mighty Moon! this way
She looks as if at them-but they
Regard not her :-oh better wrong and strife
(By nature transient) than this torpid life;

Life which the very stars reprove

As on their silent tasks they move!

Yet, witness all that stirs in heaven or earth!

In scorn I speak not ;—they are what their birth And breeding suffer them to be;

Wild outcasts of society!

1807

XCVIII

A JEWISH FAMILY:

IN A SMALL VALLEY OPPOSITE ST. GOAR, UPON THE RHINE

GENIUS of Raphael! if thy wings

Might bear thee to this glen,
With faithful memory left of things

To pencil dear and pen,

Thou would'st forego the neighbouring Rhine,

And all his majesty

A studious forehead to incline

O'er this poor family.

The Mother-her thou must have seen,

In spirit, ere she came

To dwell these rifted rocks between,

Or found on earth a name ;

P

An image, too, of that sweet Boy,

Thy inspirations give

Of playfulness, and love, and joy,
Predestined here to live.

Downcast, or shooting glances far,
How beautiful his eyes,

That blend the nature of the star
With that of summer skies!
I speak as if of sense beguiled;
Uncounted months are gone,
Yet am I with the Jewish Child,
That exquisite Saint John.

I see the dark-brown curls, the brow,
The smooth transparent skin,
Refined, as with intent to show
The holiness within ;

The grace of parting Infancy
By blushes yet untamed;
Age faithful to the mother's knee,
Nor of her arms ashamed.

Two lovely Sisters, still and sweet
As flowers, stand side by side;
Their soul-subduing looks might cheat
The Christian of his pride:

Such beauty hath the Eternal poured
Upon them not forlorn,

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