LINES WRITTEN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS. N this lone open glade I lie, IN Screen'd by deep boughs on either hand. Where ends the glade, to stay the eye Those black-crown'd, red-boled pine-trees stand! Birds here make song, each bird has his, How green under the boughs it is! How thick the tremulous sheep-cries come! Sometimes a child will cross the glade Here at my feet what wonders pass, LINES WRITTEN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS. 187 Scarce fresher is the mountain-sod Where the tired angler lies, stretch'd out, And, eased of basket and of rod, Counts his day's spoil, the spotted trout. In the huge world, which roars hard by, But in my helpless cradle I Was breathed on by the rural Pan. I, on men's impious uproar hurl'd, Yet here is peace for ever new! Then to their happy rest they pass; 188 LINES WRITTEN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS. Calm soul of all things! make it mine That there abides a peace of thine, The will to neither strive nor cry, PALLADIUM. ET where the upper streams of Simois flow SET Was the Palladium, high 'mid rock and wood; And Hector was in Ilium, far below, And fought, and saw it not-but there it stood. It stood, and sun and moonshine rain'd their light So, in its lovely moonlight, lives the soul! Men will renew the battle in the plain Helen will come upon the wall to see. Then we shall rust in shade, or shine in strife, And fluctuate 'twixt blind hopes and blind despairs, And fancy that we put forth all our life, And never know how with the soul it fares. Still doth the soul, from its lone fastness high, And when it fails, fight as we will, we die, And while it lasts, we cannot wholly end. |