10
Over the broad, the shallow, rapid stream,
The Alder, a vast hollow Trunk, and ribb'd—
All mossy green with mosses manifold,
And ferns still waving in the river-breeze
Sent out, like fingers, five projecting trunks—
The shortest twice 6 (?) of a tall man's strides.—
One curving upward in its middle growth
Rose straight with grove of twigs—a pollard tree:—
The rest more backward, gradual in descent—
One in the brook and one befoamed its waters:
One ran along the bank in the elk-like head
And pomp of antlers—
11
I from the influence of thy Looks receive,
Access in every virtue, in thy Sight
More wise, more wakeful, stronger, if need were
Of outward strength.—
12
What never is, but only is to be
This is not Life:—
O hopeless Hope, and Death's Hypocrisy!
And with perpetual promise breaks its promises.
13
The silence of a City, how awful at Midnight!
Mute as the battlements and crags and towers
That Fancy makes in the clouds, yea, as mute
As the moonlight that sleeps on the steady vanes.
(or)
The cell of a departed anchoret,
His skeleton and flitting ghost are there,
Sole tenants—
And all the City silent as the Moon
That steeps in quiet light the steady vanes
Of her huge temples.
14
O beauty in a beauteous body dight!
Body that veiling brightness, beamest bright;
Fair cloud which less we see, than by thee see the light.
15
O th' Oppressive, irksome weight
Felt in an uncertain state:
Comfort, peace, and rest adieu
Should I prove at last untrue!
Self-confiding wretch, I thought
I could love thee as I ought,
Win thee and deserve to feel
All the Love thou canst reveal,
And still I chuse thee, follow still.
16
'Twas not a mist, nor was it quite a cloud,
But it pass'd smoothly on towards the sea—
Smoothly and lightly between Earth and Heaven:
So, thin a cloud,
It scarce bedimm'd the star that shone behind it:
And Hesper now
Paus'd on the welkin blue, and cloudless brink,
A golden circlet! while the Star of Jove—
That other lovely star—high o'er my head
Shone whitely in the centre of his Haze
. . . one black-blue cloud
Stretch'd, like the heaven, o'er all the cope of Heaven.