Whilome thou camest with the morning mist,

Even as a maid, whose stately brow

The dew-impearled winds of dawn have kiss'd,
When she, as thou,

Stays on her floating locks the lovely freight
Of overflowing blooms, and earliest shoots

Of orient green, giving safe pledge of fruits,
Which in wintertide shall star

The black earth with brilliance rare.

III.

Whilome thou camest with the morning mist,

And with the evening cloud,

Showering thy gleaned wealth into my open breast, (Those peerless flowers which in the rudest wind

Never grow sere,

When rooted in the garden of the mind,

Because they are the earliest of the year).
Nor was the night thy shroud.

In sweet dreams softer than unbroken rest
Thou leddest by the hand thine infant Hope.

The eddying of her garments caught from thee The light of thy great presence; and the cope

Of the half-attain'd futurity,

Though deep not fathomless,

Was cloven with the million stars which tremble

O'er the deep mind of dauntless infancy.
Small thought was there of life's distress;
For sure she deem'd no mist of earth could dull
Those spirit-thrilling eyes so keen and beautiful:
Sure she was nigher to heaven's spheres,
Listening the lordly music flowing from

The illimitable years.

Oh strengthen me, enlighten me!

I faint in this obscurity,

Thou dewy dawn of memory.

IV.

Come forth I charge thee, arise,

Thou of the many tongues, the myriad eyes!

Thou comest not with shows of flaunting vines

Thou wert not nursed by the waterfall

Which ever sounds and shines

A pillar of white light upon the wall

Of purple cliffs, aloof descried :

Come from the woods that belt the

gray

hill-side,

The seven elms, the poplars four

That stand beside my father's door,
And chiefly from the brook that loves
To purl o'er matted cress and ribbed sand,
Or dimple in the dark of rushy coves,
Drawing into his narrow earthen urn,
In every elbow and turn,

The filter'd tribute of the rough woodland.
O! hither lead thy feet!

Pour round mine ears the livelong bleat

Of the thick-fleeced sheep from wattled folds,
Upon the ridged wolds,

When the first matin-song hath waken'd loud

Over the dark dewy earth forlorn,

What time the amber morn

Forth gushes from beneath a low-hung cloud.

Large dowries doth the raptured eye
To the young spirit present

When first she is wed;

And like a bride of old

In triumph led,

With music and sweet showers

Of festal flowers,

Unto the dwelling she must sway.

Well hast thou done, great artist Memory,
In setting round thy first experiment

With royal frame-work of wrought gold; Needs must thou dearly love thy first essay, And foremost in thy various gallery

Place it, where sweetest sunlight falls
Upon the storied walls;

For the discovery

And newness of thine art so pleased thee,

That all which thou hast drawn of fairest

Or boldest since, but lightly weighs

With thee unto the love thou bearest
The first-born of thy genius. Artist-like,

Ever retiring thou dost gaze

On the prime labour of thine early days:

No matter what the sketch might be ;

Whether the high field on the bushless Pike,
Or even a sand-built ridge

Of heaped hills that mound the sea,

Overblown with murmurs harsh,

Or even a lowly cottage whence we see

Stretch'd wide and wild the waste enormous marsh,

Where from the frequent bridge,

Like emblems of infinity,

The trenched waters run from sky to sky;

Or a garden bower'd close

With plaited alleys of the trailing rose,

Long alleys falling down to twilight grots,

Or opening upon level plots

Of crowned lilies, standing near

Purple-spiked lavender :

Whither in after life retired

From brawling storms,

From weary wind,

With youthful fancy reinspired,