Where, answering to the sudden shot, thin smoke, Through thick-leaved branches, from the dingle broke. If thou art worn and hard beset With sorrows, that thou wouldst forget, If thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep, Go to the woods and hills! — No tears Dim the sweet look that Nature wears. THE SPIRIT OF POETRY. THERE is a quiet spirit in these woods, Or when the cowled and dusky-sandaled Eve, And frequent, on the everlasting hills, In all the dark embroidery of the storm, Its presence shall uplift thy thoughts from earth, The flowers, the leaves, the river on its way, Blue skies, and silver clouds, and gentle winds, The swelling upland, where the sidelong sun Aslant the wooded slope, at evening, goes, Groves, through whose broken roof the sky looks in, Mountain, and shattered cliff, and sunny vale, The distant lake, fountains, -and mighty trees, In many a lazy syllable, repeating Their old poetic legends to the wind. And this is the sweet spirit, that doth fill The world; and, in these wayward days of youth, My busy fancy oft embodies it, As a bright image of the light and beauty That dwell in nature, of the heavenly forms We worship in our dreams, and the soft hues That stain the wild bird's wing, and flush the clouds When the sun sets. Within her eye The heaven of April, with its changing light, And when it wears the blue of May, is hung, Is like the summer tresses of the trees, When twilight makes them brown, and on her cheek Blushes the richness of an autumn sky, With ever-shifting beauty. Then her breath, As, from the morning's dewy flowers, it comes To have it round us, and her silver voice Heard in the still night, with its passionate ca dence. |