So wastes my life away. Perforce confin'd
To common things, a limit to its sphere,
It shines on worthless trifles undesign'd,
With fainter ray each hour imprison'd here. Alas! to know that the consuming mind Shall leave its lamp cold, ere the sun appear!
How little fades from earth when sink to rest
The hours and cares that mov'd a great man's breast!
Though naught of all we saw the grave may spare,
His life pervades the world's impregnate air; Though Shakespeare's dust beneath our footsteps lies,
His spirit breathes amid his native skies ; With meaning won from him forever glows Each air that England feels, and star it
O wit humane and blithe! O sense sublime For each dim oracle of mantled Time! Transcendent Form of Man! in whom we read
Mankind's whole tale of Impulse, Thought, and Deed;
Amid the expanse of years beholding thee, We know how vast our world of life may be ; Wherein, perchance, with aims as pure as thine,
Small tasks and strengths may be no less divine.
THE King with all his kingly train
Had left his Pompadour behind,
And forth he rode in Senart's wood
The royal beasts of chase to find.
That day by chance the Monarch mused,
And turning suddenly away,
He struck alone into a path
That far from crowds and courtiers lay.
He saw the pale green shadows play
Upon the brown untrodden earth;
He saw the birds around him flit
As if he were of peasant birth;
He saw the trees that know no king
But him who bears a woodland axe ;
He thought not, but he look'd about
Like one who skill in thinking lacks.
Then close to him a footstep fell,
And glad of human sound was he,
For truth to say he found himself
A weight from which he fain would flee.
But that which he would ne'er have guess'd
Before him now most plainly came;
The man upon his weary back
A coffin bore of rudest frame.
"Why, who art thou?" exclaim'd the King,
"And what is that I see thee bear?"
"I am a laborer in the wood,
And 't is a coffin for Pierre.
With bright round cheek, amid whose glow
Delight and wonder come and go,
And eyes whose inward meanings play,
Congenial with the light of day,
And brow so calm, a home for Thought
Before he knows his dwelling wrought;
Though wise indeed thou seemest not,
Thou brightenest well the wise man's lot.
That shout proclaims the undoubting mind,
That laughter leaves no ache behind;
And in thy look and dance of glee,
Unforced, unthought of, simply free,
How weak the schoolman's formal art
Thy soul and body's bliss to part!
I hail thee Childhood's very Lord,
gaze and glance, in voice and word.
In spite of all foreboding fear,
A thing thou art of present cheer;
And thus to be belov'd and known
As is a rushy fountain's tone,
As is the forest's leafy shade,
Or blackbird's hidden serenade:
Thou art a flash that lights the whole;
A gush from Nature's vernal soul.
And yet, dear Child! within thee lives
A power that deeper feeling gives,
That makes thee more than light or air,
Than all things sweet and all things fair;
And sweet and fair as aught may be,
Diviner life belongs to thee,
For 'mid thine aimless joys began
The perfect Heart and Will of Man.
Thus what thou art foreshows to me
How greater far thou soon shalt be;
And while amid thy garlands blow
The winds that warbling come and go,
Ever within not loud but clear
Prophetic murmur fills the ear,
And says that every human birth
Anew discloses God to earth.
TO A SWALLOW BUILDING UNDER OUR EAVES
Hast seen the world, and now thy weary wing Thou too must rest.
But much, my little bird, couldst thou but
THOU too hast travell'd, little fluttering I'd give to know why here thou lik'st so well
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