Yet sometimes milder hours she knew,
Nor wanted sun, nor rain, nor dew,
Nor pastimes of the May;
They all were with her in her cell;
And a wild brook with cheerful knell
Did o'er the pebbles play.
I will give one other instance of this subtle method of dealing with
the contrasts in Nature. It is from the poem entitled "_Lines left
upon a Seat in a Yew-Tree which stands near the Lake of Esthwaite,
on a desolate part of the Shore, commanding a beautiful Prospect_."
This seat was once the haunt of a lonely, a disappointed, an
embittered man.
Stranger! These gloomy boughs
Had charms for him: and here he loved to sit,
His only visitants a straggling sheep,
The stone-chat, or the glancing sand-piper;
And on these barren rocks, with fern and heath
And juniper and thistle sprinkled o'er,
Fixing his downcast eye, he many an hour
A morbid pleasure nourished, tracing here
An emblem of his own unfruitful life:
And, lifting up his head, he then would gaze
On the more distant scene,--how lovely 'tis
Thou seest,--and he would gaze till it became
Far lovelier, and his heart could not sustain
The beauty, still more beauteous! Nor, that time,
When Nature had subdued him to herself,
Would he forget those beings, to whose minds,
Warm from the labours of benevolence,
The world, and human life, appeared a scene
Of kindred loveliness; then he would sigh
With mournful joy, to think that others felt
What he must never feel; and so, lost Man!
On visionary views would fancy feed
Till his eyes streamed with tears.
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