Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses, Of shapes that haunt Thought's wildernesses. The lake-reflected sun illume The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom, Nor heed nor see what things they beBut from these create he can Forms more real than living Man, Nurslings of Immortality! P. B. Shelley CCLXXVIII The World is too much with us; late and soon, We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! W. Wordsworth CCLXXIX WITHIN KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL, CAMBRIDGE Tax not the royal Saint with vain expense, (Albeit labouring for a scanty band Of white-robed Scholars only) this immense And glorious work of fine intelligence! -Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore Of nicely-calculated less or more : So deem'd the man who fashion'd for the sense These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof W. Wordsworth CCLXXX YOUTH AND AGE Verse, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying, When I was young?-Ah, woful when ! That ask no aid of sail or oar, That fear no spite of wind or tide! Nought cared this body for wind or weather Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like; O! the joys, that came down shower-like, Ere I was old! Ere I was old? Ah woful Ere, Which tells me, Youth's no longer here! It cannot be, that Thou art gone! Dew-drops are the gems of morning, -That only serves to make us grieve CCLXXXI S. T. Coleridge THE TWO APRIL MORNINGS We walk'd along, while bright and red And Matthew stopp'd, he look'd, and said 'The will of God be done!' A village schoolmaster was he, And on that morning, through the grass We travell'd merrily, to pass A day among the hills. 'Our work,' said I, ' was well begun ; Then, from thy breast what thought, Beneath so beautiful a sun, So sad a sigh has brought?' A second time did Matthew stop; Upon the eastern mountain-top, 'Yon cloud with that long purple cleft A day like this, which I have left '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 coming to the church, stopp'd short '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; For so it seem'd,-than till that day And turning from her grave, I met A blooming Girl, whose hair was wet 'A basket on her head she bare; 'No fountain from its rocky cave 'There came from me a sigh of pain I look'd at her, and look'd again: -Matthew is in his grave, yet now As at that moment, with a bough W. Wordsworth CCLXXXII 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. |