That night he wrote a letter to the Priest, Reminding him of what had passed between them; And adding, with a hope to be forgiven, That it was from the weakness of his heart He had not dared to tell him who he was. This done, he went on fhipboard, and is now A feaman, a grey-headed mariner. S Descriptions of Scenery. INFLUENCE OF NATURAL OBJECTS In calling forth and strengthening the Imagination in Boyhood and Early Youth. W ISDOM and spirit of the universe ! Thou foul, that art the eternity of thought! By day or star-light, thus from my first dawn The paffions that build up our human foul; With life and nature; purifying thus Nor was this fellowship vouchfafed to me With ftinted kindness. In November days, When vapours rolling down the valleys made A lonely scene more lonesome; among woods At noon; and mid the calm of Summer nights, When, by the margin of the trembling lake, Beneath the gloomy hills, I homeward went In folitude, fuch intercourse was mine: 'Twas mine among the fields both day and night, And by the waters all the Summer long. And in the frofty season, when the fun Was fet, and, visible for many a mile, The cottage windows through the twilight blazed, I heeded not the fummons:-happy time It was, indeed, for all of us; for me It was a time of rapture !-Clear and loud That cares not for its home.-All fhod with steel And woodland pleasures,—the resounding horn, Tinkled like iron; while the diftant hills Of melancholy, not unnoticed, while the stars, Not feldom from the uproar I retired Into a filent bay, or sportively Glanced fideway, leaving the tumultuous throng, That gleamed upon the ice; and oftentimes, And all the shadowy banks on either fide Came fweeping through the darkness, spinning still Wheeled by me-even as if the earth had rolled Behind me did they stretch in folemn train, Till all was tranquil as a Summer sea. A SUMMER FORENOON. 'Twas Summer, and the fun had mounted high: Through a pale steam; but all the northern downs, A furface dappled o'er with shadows flung Where the wren warbles, while the dreaming man, From "The Excursion,” Book 1. |