Shut close the door! press down the latch:
Sleep in thy intellectual crust,
Nor lose ten tickings of thy watch,
Near this unprofitable dust.
But who is He with modest looks,
And clad in homely russet brown?
He murmurs near the running brooks
A music sweeter than their own.
He is retired as noontide dew,
Or fountain in a noonday grove;
And you must love him, ere to you
He will seem worthy of your love.
The outward shews of sky and earth.
Of hill and valley he has view'd;
And impulses of deeper birth
Have come to him in solitude.
In common things that round us lie
Some random truths he can impart
The harvest of a quiet eye
That broods and sleeps on his own heart.
But he is weak, both man and boy,
Hath been an idler in the land;
Contented if he might enjoy
The things which others understand.
—Come hither in thy hour of strength,
Come, weak as is a breaking wave!
Here stretch thy body at full length
Or build thy house upon this grave.—
A CHARACTER,
In the antithetical Manner.
I marvel how Nature could ever find space
For the weight and the levity seen in his face:
There's thought and no thought, and there's paleness and bloom,
And bustle and sluggishness, pleasure and gloom.
There's weakness, and strength both redundant and vain;
Such strength, as if ever affliction and pain
Could pierce through a temper that's soft to disease,
Would be rational peace—a philosopher's ease.