I should dread to disfigure the beautiful ideal of the memories of illustrious persons with incongruous features, and to sully the imaginative purity of classical works with gross and trivial recollections.
Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretch'd in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
And when the stream Which overflowed the soul was passed away, A consciousness remained that it had left Deposited upon the silent shore Of memory images and precious thoughts That shall not die, and cannot be destroyed.