The sightless Milton, with his hair Around his placid temples curled; And Shakespeare at his side,-a freight, If clay could think and mind were weight, For him who bore the world!
On Man, on Nature, and on Human Life, Musing in solitude, I oft perceive Fair trains of images before me rise, Accompanied by feelings of delight Pure, or with no unpleasing sadness mixed.
It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, The holy time is quiet as a nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquillity; The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the sea: Listen! the mighty being is awake, And doth with his eternal motion make A sound like thundereverlastingly.
Two voices are there: one is of the deep; It learns the storm-cloud's thunderous melody, Now roars, now murmurs with the changing sea, Now bird-like pipes, now closes soft in sleep: And one is of an old half-witted sheep Which bleats articulate monotony, And indicates that two and one are three, That grass is green, lakes damp, and mountains steep And, Wordsworth, both are thine.
For by superior energies; more strict affiance in each other; faith more firm in their unhallowed principles, the bad have fairly earned a victory over the weak, the vacillating, inconsistent good.
Me this uncharted freedom tires; I feel the weight of chance desires, My hopes no more must change their name, I long for a repose that ever is the same.