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Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight,
And custom lie upon thee with a weight,
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

IX.

Oh joy! that in our embers

Is something that doth live,
That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!

The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction: not indeed

For that which is most worthy to be blest ;
Delight and liberty, the simple creed

Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest,

With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast. Not for these I raise

The song of thanks and praise;

But for those obstinate questionings

Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a Creature

Moving about in worlds not realised,

High instincts before which our mortal Nature
Did tremble like a guilty Thing surprised:
But for those first affections,

Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may,

Are yet the fountain light of all our day,

Are yet a master light of all our seeing;

Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make

Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,
To perish never;

Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
Nor Man nor Boy,

Nor all that is at enmity with joy,

Can utterly abolish or destroy!

Hence in a season of calm weather

Though inland far we be,

Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither.

Can in a moment travel thither,

And see the Children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

X.

Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!

And let the young Lambs bound

As to the tabor's sound!

We in thought will join your throng,

Ye that pipe and ye that play,

Ye that through your hearts to-day

Feel the gladness of the May!

What though the radiance which was once so bright Be now for ever taken from my sight,

Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find

Strength in what remains behind :
In the primal sympathy

Which having been must ever be ;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;

In the faith that looks through death
In years that bring the philosophic mind.

XI.

And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, Forbode not any severing of our loves!

Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might:

I only have relinquished one delight

To live beneath your more habitual sway.

I love the Brooks which down their channels fret, Even more than when I tripped lightly as they ; The innocent brightness of a new-born Day

Is lovely yet;

The Clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye

That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;

Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
W. Wordsworth.

Mir.

CCLVI.

THE TEMPEST.

ACT I. SCENE II.-The Island. Before Prospero's cell.
Enter PROSPERO and MIRANDA.

F by your art, my dearest father, you have
Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.
The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking

pitch,

But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's1 cheek,
Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffered

With those that I saw suffer a brave vessel,
Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her,
Dashed all to pieces. O, the cry did knock
Against my very heart. Poor souls, they perished.
Had I been any god of power, I would

Have sunk the sea within the earth or ere

It should the good ship so have swallowed and
The fraughting souls within her.

Pros.

Be collected:

No more amazement: tell your piteous heart
There's no harm done.

Mir.

Pros.

O, woe the day!

No harm.

I have done nothing but in care of thee,

1 Welkin, the vault of heaven. Saxon, wolc, wolcen; German, wolke, a cloud.

Of thee, my dear one, thee, my daughter, who
Art ignorant of what thou art, naught knowing
Of whence I am, nor that I am more better
Than Prospero, master of a full poor cell,
And thy no greater father.

Mir.

Did never meddle with my thoughts.

Pros.

More to know

'Tis time

Lend thy hand,

So:

I should inform thee farther.

And pluck my magic garment from me.

[Lays down his mantle.

Lie there, my art. Wipe thou thine eyes; have comfort.
The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touched
The very virtue of compassion in thee,

I have, with such provision in mine art,
So safely ordered that there is no soul-
No, not so much perdition as a hair
Betid to any creature in the vessel

Which thou heard'st cry, which thou saw'st sink.

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By accident most strange, bountiful Fortune,
Now my dear lady, hath mine enemies

Brought to this shore; and by my prescience
I find my zenith doth depend upon

A most auspicious star, whose influence
If now I court not but omit, my fortunes

Will ever after droop. Here cease more questions
Thou art inclined to sleep; 'tis a good dulness,
And give it way: I know thou canst not choose.

[Miranda sleeps.

Come away, servant, come. I am ready now.
Approach, my Ariel, come.

Enter ARIEL.

Ari. All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come

To answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly,

F F

To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride

On the curled clouds, to thy strong bidding task
Ariel and all his quality.

Pros.

Hast thou, spirit,

Performed to point the tempest that I bade thee?
Ari. To every article.

I boarded the king's ship; now on the beak,
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
I flamed amazement : sometime I'd divide,
And burn in many places; on the topmast,
The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,
Then meet and join. Jove's lightnings, the precursors
O' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary
And sight-outrunning were not; the fire and cracks
Of sulphurous roaring, the most mighty Neptune
Seem to besiege, and make his bold waves tremble,
Yea, his dread trident shake.

Pros.

My brave spirit!

Who was so firm, so constant, that, this coil

Would not infect his reason?

Ari.

Not a soul

But felt a fever of the mad and played

Some tricks of desperation. All but mariners
Plunged in the foaming brine and quit the vessel,
Then all afire with me: the king's son, Ferdinand,
With hair up-staring, then like reeds, not hair,—
Was the first man that leaped; cried, 'Hell is empty,
And all the devils are here.'

Pros.

But was not this nigh shore?

Ari.

Why, that's my spirit !

Close by, my master.

Not a hair perished ;

Pros. But are they, Ariel, safe?
Ari.

On their sustaining garments not a blemish,

But fresher than before: and, as thou badest me,
In troops I have dispersed them 'bout the isle.
The king's son have I landed by himself;

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