Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,
And, even with something of a mother's mind,
And no unworthy aim,
The homely nurse doth all she can
To make her foster child, her inmate man,
Forget the glories he hath known
And that imperial palace whence he came.
Plain living and high thinking are no more. The homely beauty of the good old cause Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence, And pure religion breathing household laws.
Private courts, Gloomy as coffins, and unsightly lanes Thrilled by some female vendor's scream, belike The very shrillest of all London cries, May then entangle our impatient steps; Conducted through those labyrinths, unawares, To privileged regions and inviolate, Where from their airy lodges studious lawyers Look out on waters, walks, and gardens green.
When from our better selves we have too long been parted by the hurrying world, and droop. Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired, how gracious, how benign is solitude.
If the time should ever come when what is now called Science, thus famliarised to men, shall be ready to put on, as it were, a form of flesh and blood, the Poet will lend his divine spirit to the aid the transfiguration, and will welcome the Being thus produced, as a dear and genuine inmate of the household of man.
And when the stream Which overflowed the soul was passed away, A consciousness remained that it had left Deposited upon the silent shore Of memory images and precious thoughts That shall not die, and cannot be destroyed.
The stars of midnight shall be dear To her; and she shall lean her ear In many a secret place Where rivulets dance their wayward round, And beauty born of murmuring sound Shall pass into her face.