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Yet shall your ragged moor receive
The incomparable pomp of eve,
And the cold glories of the dawn
Behind your shivering trees be drawn ;
And when the wind from place to place
Doth the unmoor'd cloud-galleons chase,
Your garden gloom and gleam again,
With leaping sun, with glancing rain.
Here shall the wizard moon ascend
The heavens, in the crimson end
Of day's declining splendour; here
The army of the stars appear.
The neighbour hollows, dry or wet,
Spring shall with tender flowers beset;
And oft the morning muser see
Larks rising from the broomy lea,
And every fairy-wheel and thread
Of cobweb dew-bediamonded.
When daisies go, shall winter time
Silver the simple grass with rime;
Autumnal frosts enchant the pool
And make the cart-ruts beautiful;
And when snow-bright the moor expands,
How shall
your children clap their hands!
To make this earth, our hermitage,
A cheerful and a changeful page,
God's bright and intricate device
Of days and seasons doth suffice.

The Rainbow

Stevenson.

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 ;

187

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The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

188

The Leech-gatherer*

Wordsworth.

I

THERE was a roaring in the wind all night;
The rain came heavily and fell in floods;
But now the sun is rising calm and bright;
The birds are singing in the distant woods;
Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods;
The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters;
And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters.

II

All things that love the sun are out of doors;

The sky rejoices in the morning's birth;

The grass is bright with rain-drops ;-on the moors

The hare is running races in her mirth ;

And with her feet she from the plashy earth

Raises a mist; that, glittering in the sun,

Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run.

III

I was a Traveller then upon

the moor;

I saw the hare that raced about with joy ;
I heard the woods and distant waters roar ;
Or heard them not, as happy as a boy :
The pleasant season did my heart employ :
My old remembrances went from me wholly ;
And all the ways of men, so vain and melancholy.

IV

But, as it sometimes chanceth, from the might
Of joy in minds that can no further go,
As high as we have mounted in delight
In our dejection do we sink as low;

To me that morning did it happen so ;

And fears and fancies thick upon me came;

Dim sadness-and blind thoughts, I knew not, nor could

name.

V

I heard the sky-lark warbling in the sky;
And I bethought me of the playful hare :
Even such a happy Child of earth am I;
Even as these blissful creatures do I fare;
Far from the world I walk, and from all care;
But there may come another day to me—
Solitude, pain of heart, distress, and poverty.

VI

My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought,
As if life's business were a summer mood;
As if all needful things would come unsought
To genial faith, still rich in genial good;
But how can He expect that others should
Build for him, sow for him, and at his call
Love him, who for himself will take no heed at all ?

VII

I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy,
The sleepless Soul that perish'd in his pride;
Of him who walk'd in glory and in joy
Following his plough, along the mountain-side :
By our own spirits are we deified :

We Poets in our youth begin in gladness;

But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.

VI. He] cap. letter only denotes emphasis.

VII. him] Robert Burns.

VIII

Now, whether it were by peculiar grace,
A leading from above, a something given,
Yet it befell that, in this lonely place,

When I with these untoward thoughts had striven,
Beside a pool bare to the eye of heaven

I saw a Man before me unawares :

The oldest man he seem'd that ever wore grey hairs.

IX

As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie
Couch'd on the bald top of an eminence;
Wonder to all who do the same espy,

By what means it could thither come, and whence ;
So that it seems a thing endued with sense :
Like a sea-beast crawl'd forth, that on a shelf
Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself;

X

Such seem'd this Man, not all alive nor dead,
Nor all asleep-in his extreme old age :
His body was bent double, feet and head
Coming together in life's pilgrimage ;
As if some dire constraint of pain, or rage
Of sickness felt by him in times long past,

A more than human weight upon his frame had cast.

XI

Himself he propp'd, limbs, body, and pale face,

Upon a long grey staff of shaven wood :

And, still as I drew near with gentle pace,
Upon the margin of that moorish flood
Motionless as a cloud the old Man stood,
That heareth not the loud winds when they call;
And moveth all together, if it move at all.

XII

At length, himself unsettling, he the pond
Stirr'd with his staff, and fixedly did look
Upon the muddy water, which he conn'd,
As if he had been reading in a book :
And now a stranger's privilege I took ;
And drawing to his side, to him did say,
'This morning gives us promise of a glorious day.'

XIII

A gentle answer did the old man make,

In courteous speech which forth he slowly drew:
And him with further words I thus bespake,
'What occupation do you there pursue?
This is a lonesome place for one like you.'
Ere he replied, a flash of mild surprise
Broke from the sable orbs of his yet-vivid eyes.

XIV

His words came feebly, from a feeble chest,

But each in solemn order follow'd each,
With something of a lofty utterance drest—

Choice words and measured phrase, above the reach
Of ordinary men; a stately speech,

Such as grave

Livers do in Scotland use,

Religious men, who give to God and man their dues.

XV

He told, that to these waters he had come
To gather leeches, being old and poor :
Employment hazardous and wearisome!
And he had many hardships to endure:

From pond to pond he roam'd, from moor to moor;
Housing, with God's good help, by choice or chance;
And in this way he gain'd an honest maintenance.

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