CHAPTER III. [Chang alone, upon a hill commanding a wide and various prospect. The River flowing immediately beneath. Time, Noon.] "Ha! ha! roll on thou glorious Wave! 66 Sing out thou fresh and mirthful Air! "Joy! joy! my free heart now can brave "Your taunts 'twas madness once to bear! "The wild voice of your liberty "Can mock my sullen soul no more! "How bright are ye, sweet Earth and Sky, "That were so dark before! [Motioning away a herd of cattle that approach towards him gazing.] "Away! away! my heart is coy; "Nature is now my Empire! None "Shall share awhile my new-found throne! "Ha ha! the joy-the bounding joy "To be alone-ALONE!" And on he sped—and, aye, his tread From the herbage young* the laverock sprung, And the bird with the jetty wing That flieth low by the copse-alsò Sang its hymn to the loving Spring! And the Sun shone bright-and the happy light Delight was mirror'd on the Earth, Time at the Spring that saw his birth, He came unto a silent pool, Smooth lay the wave scarce ripplé-ing, For trees around the margent cool Had dull'd the light wind's crisping wing. *"And softè as velvet the yonge grass."-Chaucer. Silent he stood, and gazed upon His image in the water shown, Around his form his glad hands passing, That form alone the clear wave glassing. Then his lips moved, but without speaking, Smiles only round them mutely breaking; And up to the delicious skies He raised the deep joy of his eyes. The fish were glancing through the tide, Save these and God-were none beside And there for hours he staid, until His eyes upon the earth, nor sought From Truth, how blest soever, flown, He dreams to Mary he is telling. Poor youth!-what thoughts-what hopes are his ! And coloured by the present mood The future glows; and on its bliss No fear-no doubt intrude. Mary his own, through life to roam, And well we may conceive he ne'er And think-so Crauford says-extremely (For every where our lawless taste The strangest monsters hath embraced; But this fact useless to repeat is; -Just get my learned namesake's* treatise.) And, after all, there are some hours Hours when the heart leaps out beyond (The bright spark dormant in the clod,) Or Folly must be tamed to fool us; * That very quaint amusing old book, “The Artificial Changeling.” |