“For I was reared in the great city, pent with cloisters dim,and saw naught lovely but the sky and stars.But thou, my babe! Shalt wander like a breezeBy lakes and sandy shores, beneath the cragsOf ancient mountains, and beneath the clouds,Which image in their bulk both lakes and shoresAnd mountain crags: so shall thou see and hearThe lovely shapes and sounds intelligible Of that eternal language, which thy GodUtters, who from eternity doth teachHimself in all, and al things in himselfGreat universal teacher! He shall moldThy spirit and by giving , make it ask.”

“The intelligible forms of ancient poets,The fair humanities of old religion,The Power, the Beauty, and the MajestyThat had their haunts in dale or piny mountain,Or forest, by slow stream, or pebbly spring,Or chasms and watery depths; all these have vanished;They live no longer in the faith of reason;But still the heart doth need a language; stillDoth the old instinct bring back the old names;Spirits or gods that used to share this earthWith man as with their friend; and at this day'Tis Jupiter who brings whate'er is great,And Venus who brings every thing that's fair.”

“Ere I was old? Ah woeful 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!”

“IIA grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,      A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,      Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,          In word, or sigh, or tear — O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood,To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd,      All this long eve, so balmy and serene,Have I been gazing on the western sky,      And its peculiar tint of yellow green:And still I gaze — and with how blank an eye!And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,That give away their motion to the stars;Those stars, that glide behind them or between,Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen:Yon crescent Moon as fixed as if it grewIn its own cloudless, starless lake of blue;I see them all so excellently fair,I see, not feel how beautiful they are!III          My genial spirits fail;          And what can these availTo lift the smothering weight from off my breast?          It were a vain endeavour,          Though I should gaze for everOn that green light that lingers in the west:I may not hope from outward forms to winThe passion and the life, whose fountains are within.”

“He prayeth best, who loveth bestAll things both great and small;For the dear God who loveth us,He made and loveth all.”

“And in Life's noisiest hour,There whispers still the ceaseless Love of Thee,The heart's Self-solace and soliloquy.You mould my Hopes, you fashion me within ;And to the leading Love-throb in the HeartThro' all my Being, thro' my pulse's beat ;You lie in all my many Thoughts, like Light,Like the fair light of Dawn, or summer EveOn rippling Stream, or cloud-reflecting Lake.And looking to the Heaven, that bends above you,How oft! I bless the Lot that made me love you.”

“Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rangFrom morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day,So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted meWith a wild pleasure, falling on mine earMost like articulate sounds of things to come!So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt,Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams!And so I brooded all the following morn,Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eyeFixed with mock study on my swimming book.”