Or hast been summoned to the deep, Thou, thou and all thy mates, to keep An incommunicable sleep. I look for ghosts, but none will force Their way to me; 'tis falsely said That there was ever intercourse Betwixt the living and the dead; For, surely, then I should have sight Of him I wait for day and night, With love and longings infinite. My apprehensions came in crowds; Beyond participation lie My troubles, and beyond relief: With stony barrenness, a shining speck And such it might be deemed-a sleeping sunbeam ; Cut off, an island in the dusky waste; Far forth to send his wandering eye o'er land That ever hermit dipped his maple dish In the sweet spring that lurks 'mid yon green fields, And no such visionary views belong To those who occupy and till the ground, And on the bosom of the mountain dwell A wedded pair in childless solitude. A house of stones collected on the spot, By rude hands built, with rocky knolls in front, Might have been wished for and contrived, to elude Suffices; and unshaken bears the assault Of their most dreaded foe, the strong south-west, There, or within the compass of her fields, And to the grove that holds it. She beguiles By intermingled work of house and field Even at the worst, a smooth stream of content, And by his converse crowns a silent day Hold lower rank than this sequestered pair: Stoop from your height, ye proud, and copy these! A PORTRAIT. He was a peasant of the lowest class: And confident to-morrows. THAT way look, my Infant, lo! What a pretty baby-show! See the Kitten on the wall, Sporting with the leaves that fall, Withered leaves-one-two-and three From the lofty elder tree! Through the calm and frosty air Eddying round and round they sink, Softly, slowly one might think, : |