296. To л Skylark. Up with me! up with me into the clouds! Up with me, up with me into the clouds! With clouds and sky about thee ringing, That spot which seems so to thy mind! I have walked through wildernesses dreary, Had I now the wings of a Faery, Up to thee would I fly. There's madness about thee, and joy divine In that song of thine; Lift me, guide me high and high To thy banqueting-place in the sky. Joyous as morning, Thou art laughing and scorning; Thou hast a nest for thy love and thy rest, Drunken Lark! thou wouldst be loath To be such a Traveller as I. Happy, happy Liver, With a soul as strong as a mountain River Alas! my journey, rugged and uneven, As full of gladness and as free of heaven, I, with my fate contented, will plod on, And hope for higher raptures, when Life's day is done. 297. PORTRAIT. She was a phantom of delight When first she gleamed upon my sight; A lovely apparition, sent To be a moment's ornament; Her eyes as stars of twilight fair; Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair. But all things else about her drawn To haunt, to startle, and waylay. I saw her, upon nearer view, Her household motions light and free, A countenance in which did meet Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles. And now I see with eye serene 298. MILTON. Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour; Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; The lowliest duties on herself did lay. 299. WE Are Seven. A simple child, dear brother Jim, I met a little cottage girl; . She was eight years old, she said; She had a rustic woodland air, "Sisters and brothers, little maid, "How many? Seven in all," she said, And wondering looked at me. "And where are they? I pray you tell." And two of us at Conway dwell, And two are gone to sea. "Two of us in the churchyard lie, "You say that two at Conway dwell, Yet ye are seven! I pray you tell, Then did the little maid reply, "You run about, my little maid, "Their graves are green, they may be seen," The little maid replied, "Twelve steps or more from my mother's door, And they are side by side. “And when the ground was white with snow, My brother John was forced to go And he lies by her side." With the young of both sexes, poetry is, like love, a passion; but, for much the greater part of those who have been proud of its power over their minds, a necessity soon arises of breaking the pleasing bondage; or it relaxes of itself; the thoughts being occupied in domestic cares, or the time engrossed by business. Poetry then becomes only an occasional recreation; while to those whose existence passes away in a course of fashionable pleasure, it is a species of luxurious amusement. In middle and declining age, a scattered number of serious persons resort to poetry, as to religion, for a protection against the pressure of trivial employments, and as a consolation for the afflictions of life. And, lastly, there are many, who, having been enamoured of this art in their youth, have found leisure, after youth was spent, to cultivate general literature, in which poetry has continued to be comprehended as a study. Into the above classes the readers of poetry may be divided; critics abound in them all; but from the last only can opinions be collected of absolute value, and worthy to be depended upon, as prophetic of the destiny of a new work. The young, who in nothing can escape delusion, are especially subject to it in their intercourse with poetry. The cause, not so obvious as the fact is unquestionable, is the same as that from which erroneous judgments in this art, in the minds of men of all ages, chiefly proceed; but upon youth it operates with peculiar force. The appropriate business of poetry (which, nevertheless, if genuine, is as permanent as pure science), her appropriate employment, her privilege and her duty, is to treat of things not as they are, but as they appear; not as they exist in themselves, but as they seem to exist to the senses and to the passions. What a world of delusion does this acknowledged principle prepare for the inexperienced! what temptations to go astray are here held forth for them whose thoughts have been little disciplined by the understanding, and whose feelings revolt from the sway of reason! When a juvenile reader is in the height of his rapture with some vicious passage, should experience throw in doubts, or common sense suggest suspicions, a lurking consciousness that the realities of the Muse are but shows, and that her liveliest excitements are raised by transient shocks of conflicting feeling and successive assemblages of contradictory thoughts is ever at hand to justify extravagance, and to sanction absurdity. But, it may be asked, as these illusions are unavoidable, and, no doubt, eminently useful to the mind as a process, what good can be gained by making observations, the tendency of which is to diminish the confidence of youth in its feelings, and thus to abridge its innocent and even profitable pleasures? The reproach implied in the question could not be warded off, if youth were incapable of being delighted with what is truly excellent; or, if these errors always terminated of themselves in due season. But, with the majority, though their force be abated, they continue through life. Moreover, the fire of youth is too vivacious an element to be extinguished or damped by a philosophical remark; and, while there is no danger that what has been said will be injurious or painful to the ardent and the confident, it may prove beneficial to those who, being enthusiastic, are, at the same time, modest and ingenuous. The intimation may unite with their own misgivings to regulate their sensibility, and to bring in, sooner than it would otherwise have arrived, a more discreet and sound judgment. If it should excite wonder that men of ability, in later life, whose understandings have been rendered acute by practice in affairs, should be so easily and so far imposed upon when they happen to take up a new work in verse, this appears to be the cause — - that, having discontinued their attention to poetry, whatever progress may have been |