God ploughed one day with an earthquake,
And drove his furrows deep!
The huddling plains upstarted,
The hills were all a-leap!
But that is the mountains’ secret,
Age-hidden in their breast;
“God’s peace is everlasting,”
Are the dream-words of their rest.
He hath made them the haunt of beauty,
The home elect...
As on my bed at dawn I mused and prayed,
I saw my lattice prankt upon the wall,
The flaunting leaves and flitting birds withal—
A sunny phantom interlaced with shade;
“Thanks be to Heaven,” in happy mood I said,
“What sweeter aid my matins could befall
Than this fair glory from the east hath made?
What holy sleights hath God, the Lord of...
From the “Essay on Man,” Epistles I. and IV.
LO, the poor Indian! whose untutored mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind:
His soul, proud science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or Milky Way:
Yet simple Nature to his hope has given,
Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heaven;
Some safer world in depth of woods...
God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.
Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill,
He treasures up His bright designs,
And works His sovereign will.
Ye fearful, fresh courage take!
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big...
From the Russian by Sir John Bowring
O THOU eternal One! whose presence bright
All space doth occupy, all motion guide—
Unchanged through time’s all-devastating flight!
Thou only God—there is no God beside!
Being above all beings! Mighty One,
Whom none can comprehend and none explore!
Who fill’st existence with Thyself alone—...
Sonnet
THE World is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for...
From “Alastor”; Preface
“Nondum amabam, et amare amabam, quærebam quid amarem, amans amare.”—Confessions of Saint Augustine.
EARTH, ocean, air, belovèd brotherhood!
If our great mother has imbued my soul
With aught of natural piety to feel
Your love, and recompense the boon with mine;
If dewy morn, and odorous noon, and even,
With...
O Unseen Spirit! now a calm divine
Comes forth from thee, rejoicing earth and air!
Trees, hills, and houses, all distinctly shine,
And thy great ocean slumbers everywhere.
The mountain ridge against the purple sky
Stands clear and strong, with darkened rocks and dells,
And cloudless brightness opens wide and high
A home aerial,...
From “Paracelsus”
I KNEW, I felt, (perception unexpressed,
Uncomprehended by our narrow thought,
But somehow felt and known in every shift
And change in the spirit,—nay, in every pore
Of the body, even,)—what God is, what we are,
What life is—how God tastes an infinite joy
In infinite ways—one everlasting bliss,
From whom all being...
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky;
So was it when my life began,
So is it now I am a man,
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
