ADLESTROP HILL. Ah, why in age Do we revert so fondly to the walks Of childhood, but that there the soul discerns Of her own native vigour-but for this, WORDSWORTH'S Excursion, book viii. I. BEAUTIFUL day thou art! but doubly fair Whispers of childhood, changeful lights unfold Distinctly, hamlets, mansions known of old, Glow in the sunshine; cornfields, meadows green, And wood-surrounded domes of grandeur swell between.* *And "flowery gardens curtain'd round With world-excluding groves." II. The deep of azure by a cloud unstained III. Here the pavilion stands, where children bright Though they are grown to womanhood, there came To-day, their young successors full of joy : And as the sun subdued his fiercer flame, The dance commenced, that charmed me when a boy, And simple sports that gave delight without alloy. IV. The presence of the past is bodied forth, It seemeth that this hill-encircling zone Of beech and firs but yesterday was made; There to assist illusion, yon grey stone Remains, of old the work-directing planter's throne. V. The numerous steps of time that rise between The mental eye with smooth descent illude: 'Twixt was and is how brief the interlude! As we reseek a spot the heart that cheers With the remembrance of a sport pursued In childhood, visibly there it re-appears ; Vanisheth like a rapid dream long interval of years! VI. And what is Time's progression? the same breeze Runs through the garden rapidly at will; The stars that cheered my nightly walks, here shed One proof, alas! there is, that years have fled— Some who have here with me rejoiced are numbered with the dead. VII. Feelings they had to harmony attuned Of Nature, song of birds, and voice of streams; They felt an evidence with which earth teems VIII. Now are they spirits glorified, and far Look through the unapparent, as they rise Through spaces infinite,- before their eyes "Wherever God will thus manifest himself, there is Heaven, though within the circle of this sensible world."-SIR THOMAS BROWNE'S" Religio Laici." † How beautifully Jeremy Taylor, whose works are an inexhaustible magazine of poetical images, illustrates the covenant of our redemption by that of the rainbow! "For this Jesus was like the rainbow which God set in the clouds as a sacrament to confirm a promise, and establish a grace; he was half made of the glories of the light and half of the moisture of a cloud; he was sent to tell of his Father's mercies, and that God intended to spare us; but appeared not but in the company or in the retinue of a shower and of foul weather." IX. I love an avenue- -'tis like the aisle Grey, turreted, the interspace command, Darkening the air in flights a cawing band: X. Each tree has its peculiar charms allied As that which Spenser's picturing fancies show, And spread her net for idle knights through the long summer-day *. XI. The spirit might (affections here embrace The home in which is cast our early lot) Hereafter recognise some glorious place, That slumbering in this world it had forgot— *See Spenser's "Fairy Queen," Book ii., Canto xii., Stanza 42, and the following stanzas, in which the great poet combines all his powers of description with the utmost harmony of versification. |