CCCXXIX

YOUTH AND AGE

Verse, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying,
Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee
Both were mine! Life went a-maying
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,
When I was young!
When I was young?-Ah, woful when!
Ah! for the change 'twixt Now and Then!
This breathing house not built with hands,
This body that does me grievous wrong,
O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands
How lightly then it flash'd along:
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,
On winding lakes and rivers wide,
That ask no aid of sail or oar,

That fear no spite of wind or tide!

Nought cared this body for wind or weather
When youth and I lived in't together.

Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like;
Friendship is a sheltering tree;

O! the joys, that came down shower-like,
Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty,
Ere I was old!

Ere I was old? Ah woful Ere,

Which tells me, Youth's no longer here!
O Youth! for years so many and sweet,
"Tis known that Thou and I were one,
I'll think it but a fond conceit-

It cannot be, that Thou art gone!
Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd:-
And thou wert aye a masker bold!
What strange disguise hast now put on
To make believe that Thou art gone?
I see these locks in silvery slips,
This drooping gait, this alter'd size:
But Springtide blossoms on thy lips,
And tears take sunshine from thine eyes!
Life is but Thought: so think I will
That Youth and I are house-mates still.

Dew-drops are the gems of morning,
But the tears of mournful eve!
Where no hope is, life's a warning
That only serves to make us grieve
When we are old:

-That only serves to make us grieve
With oft and tedious taking-leave,
Like some poor nigh-related guest
That may not rudely be dismist,

10 Yet hath out-stay'd his welcome while,
And tells the jest without the smile.

S. T. Coleridge

CCCXXX

THE TWO APRIL MORNINGS

We walk'd along, while bright and red
Uprose the morning sun;

And Matthew stopp'd, he look'd, and said
"The will of God be done!'

A village schoolmaster was he,

With hair of glittering gray;

As blithe a man as you could see

On a spring holiday.

And on that morning, through the grass

And by the steaming rills

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;
And fixing still his eye

Upon the eastern mountain-top,
To me he made reply:

'Yon cloud with that long purple cleft
Brings fresh into my mind

A day like this, which I have left
Full thirty years behind.

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 to the church-yard come, stopp'd short
Beside my daughter's grave.

'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;

And yet I loved her more

For so it seem'd,-than till that day
I e'er had loved before.

'And turning from her grave, I met,
Beside the churchyard yew,

A blooming Girl, whose hair was wet
With points of morning dew.

'A basket on her head she bare;
Her brow was smooth and white:
To see a child so very fair,
It was a pure delight!

'No fountain from its rocky cave
E'er tripped with foot so free;
She seem'd as happy as a wave
That dances on the sea.

"There came from me a sigh of pain
Which I could ill confine;

I look'd at her, and 'look'd again:
And did not wish her mine!'

-Matthew is in his grave, yet now
Methinks I see him stand

As at that moment, with a bough
Of wilding in his hand

W. Wordsworth

CCCXXXI

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;

'Or of the church-clock and the chimes Sing here beneath the shade

That half-mad thing of witty rhymes

Which you last April made!'

In silence Matthew lay, and eyed

The spring beneath the tree;

And thus the dear old man replied,
The gray-hair'd man of glee:

'No check, no stay, this Streamlet fears,

How merrily it goes!

'Twill murmur on a thousand years
And flow as now it flows.

'And here, on this delightful day,
I cannot choose but think

How oft, a vigorous man, I lay
Beside this fountain's brink.

'My eyes are dim with childish tears,
My heart is idly stirr'd,

For the same sound is in my ears

Which in those days I heard.

'Thus fares it still in our decay:

And yet the wiser mind

Mourns less for what Age takes away,
Than what it leaves behind.

'The blackbird amid leafy trees,

The lark above the hill,

Let loose their carols when they please,
Are quiet when they will.

'With Nature never do they wage
A foolish strife; they see

A happy youth, and their old age
Is beautiful and free:

'But we are press'd by heavy laws;
And often, glad no more,

We wear a face of joy, because
We have been glad of yore.

'If there be one who need bemoan

His kindred laid in earth,

The household hearts that were his own,—

It is the man of mirth.

'My days, my friend, are almost gone,

My life has been approved,

And many love me; but by none

Am I enough beloved.'

'Now both himself and me he wrongs,

The man who thus complains!

35

I live and sing my idle songs

Upon these happy plains: