Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will; Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!
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.
The tears into his eyes were brought, And thanks and praises seemed to run So fast out of his heart, I thought They never would have done. -I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds With coldness still returning; Alas! the gratitude of men Hath oftener left me mourning.
The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune.
When from our better selves we have too long been parted by the hurrying world, and droop. Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired, how gracious, how benign is solitude.
Of all that is most beauteous, imaged there In happier beauty; more pellucid streams, An ampler ether, a diviner air, And fields invested with purpureal gleams.