The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, An appetite; a feeling and a love that had no need of a remoter charm by thought supplied, nor any interest Unborrowed from the eye.
I, methought, while the sweet breath of heaven Was blowing on my body, felt within A correspondent breeze, that gently moved With quickening virtue, but is now become A tempest, a redundant energy, Vexing its own creation.
Neither evil tongues, rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all the dreary intercourse of daily life, shall ever prevail against us.
Plain living and high thinking are no more. The homely beauty of the good old cause Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence, And pure religion breathing household laws.
My apprehension comes in crowds, I dread the rustling of the grass, The very shadows of the clouds, Have power to shake me as they pass, I question things and do not find, one that will answer to my mind, And all the world appears unkind.
Milton! thou should'st be living at this hour: England hath need of thee! . . . . . . Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart: So didst thou travel on life's common way In cheerful godliness.
my brain
Worked with a dim and undetermined sense
Of unknown modes of being; o'er my thoughts
There hung a darkness, call it solitude
Or blank desertion.
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!
Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows Like harmony in music; there is a dark Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles Discordant elements, makes them cling together In one society.
Rapt into still communion that transcends The imperfect offices of prayer and praise, His mind was a thanksgiving to the power That made him; it was blessedness and love!
As thou these ashes, little brook, wilt bear
Into the Avon, Avon to the tide
Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas,
Into main ocean they, this deed accursed
An emblem yields to friends and enemies
How the bold teacher's doctrine, sanctified
By truth, shall spread, throughout the world dispersed.