They run upstairs in gamesome race;
I, too, infected by their mood,
I could have joined the wanton chase.
"Five minutes past—and, O the change!
Asleep upon their beds they lie;
Their busy limbs in perfect rest,
And closed the sparkling eye."
The following poem was written at Rydal Mount in 1832. Wordsworth has said he believed it arose out of a casual expression of one of Mr. Swinburne's children:—
LOVING AND LIKING: IRREGULAR VERSES, ADDRESSED TO A CHILD.
"There's more in words than I can teach;