See, at his feet, some little plan or chart, Some fragment from his dream of human life, Shaped by himself with newly-learnèd art-A wedding or a festival,

A mourning or a funeral !

And this hath now his heart;
And unto this he frames his song;
Then will he fit his tongue

To dialogues of business, love, or strife:
But it will not be long

Ere this be thrown aside,

And with new joy and pride

The little actor cons another part;
Filling from time to time his "humorous stage
With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,
That Life brings with her in her equipage;
As if his whole vocation
Were endless imitation.

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
Thy soul's immensity;

Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep
Thy heritage; thou eye among the blind,
That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep,
Haunted for ever by the eternal Mind:
Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!

On whom those truths do rest,

Which we are toiling all our lives to find,
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;
Thou, over whom thy immortality

Broods like the day, a master o'er a slave,

"1

1 i.e. A stage showing men's caprices and follies. The expression occurs in the Musophilus of S. Daniel (see No. 81), a poet greatly admired and often quoted by Wordsworth.

A presence which is not to be put by ;
Thou little child, yet glorious in the might
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height,
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
The years to bring the inevitable yoke,
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight,
And custom lie upon thee with a weight
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life.

O joy! that in our embers

Is something that doth live;
That nature yet remembers

What was so fugitive!

The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction: not indeed

For that which is most worthy to be blest ;
Delight and liberty, the simple creed

Of childhood, whether busy or at rest,

With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:

Not for these I raise

The song of thanks and praise :
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;

Blank misgivings of a creature

Moving about in worlds not realised;
High instincts before which our mortal nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:
But for those first affections,

Those shadowy recollections

Which, be they what they may,

Are yet the fountain light of all our day,

Are yet a master light of all our seeing;
Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,
To perish never;

Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
Nor man nor boy,

Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy !

Hence, in a season of calm weather,
Though inland far we be,

Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,

Can in a moment travel thither,

And see the children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song!
And let the young lambs bound
As to the tabor's sound!

We in thought will join your throng,
Ye that pipe and ye that play,
Ye that through your hearts to-day
Feel the gladness of the May!

What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,

Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find

Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy

Which having been must ever be,
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering,

In the faith that looks through death,

In years that bring the philosophic mind.

And O, ye fountains, meadows, hills, and groves,
Forebode not of any severing of our loves!
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might:
I only have relinquished one delight

To live beneath your more habitual sway.

I love the brooks which down their channels fret Even more than when I tripped lightly as they ; The innocent brightness of a new-born day

Is lovely yet;

The clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality:
Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
W. WORDSWORTH

16. PICTURES FROM THE "FAERY QUEENE"

I. THE MASQUE OF CUPID

WITH that a joyous fellowship issuéd
Of minstrels making goodly merriment,
With wanton bards, and rimers impudent; 1
All which together sang full cheerfully
A lay of love's delight with sweet consent :
After whom marched a jolly company,
In manner of a masque, enrangèd orderly.
1 Shameless.

1

The whiles a most delicious harmony

In full strange notes was sweetly heard to sound,
That the rare sweetness of the melody
The feeble senses wholly did confound,

And the frail soul in deep delight nigh drowned: And, when it ceased, shrill trumpets loud did bray,

That their report did far away rebound;

And, when they ceased, it 'gan again to play, The whiles the masquers marchèd forth in trim

array.

The first was Fancy,1 like a lovely boy Of rare aspect and beauty without peer, Matchable either to that imp of Troy 2 Whom Jove did love, and chose his cup to bear, Or that same dainty lad which was so dear To great Alcides, that whenas he died He wailed womanlike with many a tear, And every wood and every valley wide He filled with Hylas' 3 name; the nymphs eke "Hylas " cried.

His garment neither was of silk nor say,4
But painted plumes in goodly order dight,
Like as the sunburnt Indians do array
Their tawny bodies in their proudest plight:
As those same plumes so seemed he vain and
light,

1 Love in its more superficial aspect,

vain and light." Contrast the train of Cupid here described with the worshippers of True Love in The Temple of Venus.

2 Ganymede.

3 A favourite of Heracles, drowned during the expedition of the Argonauts.

4 Wool.