SONNET.
Me rather may to tears unbidden move
The meanest print that on a cottage wall
Some ancient deed heroic doth recal,
Or loving act of His, whose life was love,
Than that my heart should be too proud to prove
Emotions and sweet sympathies, until
The magic of some mighty master’s skill
Called hues and shapes of wonder from above:
Since if we do no idle homage pay
To what in art most beautiful is found,
We shall have learned to feel in that same hour
With man’s most rude and most unskilled essay
To win the beauty that is floating round
Into abiding forms of grace and power.
SONNET,
CONNECTED WITH THE FOREGOING.
Yes, and not otherwise, if we in deed
And with pure hearts are seeking what is fair
In Nature, then believe we shall not need
Long anxious quests, exploring earth and air
Ere we shall find wherewith our hearts to feed:
The beauty which is scattered everywhere
Will in our souls such deep contentment breed,
We shall not pine for aught remote or rare;
We shall not ask from some transcendant height
To gaze on such rare scenes, as may surpass
Earth’s common shows, ere we will own delight:
We shall not need in quest of these to roam,
While sunshine lies upon our English grass,
And dewdrops glitter on green fields at home.
DESPONDENCY[8].
I.
It is a weary hill
Of moving sand that still
Shifts, struggle as we will,
Beneath our tread:
Of those who went before,
And tracked the desert o’er,
The footmarks are no more,
But gone and fled.
II.
We stray to either side,
We wander far and wide,
We fall to sleep and slide
Far down again:
As thro’ the sand we wade,
We do not seek to aid
Our fellows, but upbraid
Each others’ pain.
III.
I gaze on that bright band
Who on the summit stand,
To order and command,
Like stars on high:
Yet with despairing pace
My way I could retrace,
Or on this desert place
Sink down and die.
IV.
As we who toil and weep,
And with our weeping steep
The path o’er which we creep,
They had not striven;
They must have taken flight
To that serenest height,
And won it by the might
Of wings from heaven.
V.
Alack! I have no wing,
My spirit lacks that spring,
And Nature will not bring
Her help to me.
From her I have no aid,
But light-enwoven shade,
And stream and star upbraid
Our misery.