Oh, it is pleasant, with a heart at ease, Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies, To make the shifting clouds be what you please, Or let the easily-persuaded eyes Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould 5 Of a friend’s fancy; or, with head bent low, And cheek aslant, see rivers flow of gold, ’Twixt crimson banks; and then a traveller go From mount to mount, through Cloudland, gorgeous land! Or, listening to the tide with closèd sight, 10 Be that blind Bard, who on the Chian strand, By those deep sounds possessed with inward light, Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssee Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea. _Samuel Taylor Coleridge._ CLXXX _EVENING._ It is a beauteous evening, calm and free; The holy time is quiet as a nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquillity; The gentleness of heaven is on the sea: 5 Listen! the mighty Being is awake, And doth with his eternal motion make A sound like thunder--everlastingly. Dear child! dear girl! that walkest with me here, If thou appear’st untouched by solemn thought, 10 Thy nature is not therefore less divine: Thou liest in Abraham’s bosom all the year; And worshipp’st at the temple’s inner shrine, God being with thee when we know it not. _William Wordsworth._ CLXXXI _THE WALL-FLOWER._ I will not praise the often-flattered rose, Or, virgin-like, with blushing charms half seen, Or when, in dazzling splendour, like a queen, All her magnificence of state she shows; No, nor that nun-like lily which but blows 5 Beneath the valley’s cool and shady screen; Nor yet the sun-flower, that with warrior mien Still eyes the orb of glory where it glows; But thou, neglected Wall-flower! to my breast And Muse art dearest, wildest, sweetest flower! 10 To whom alone the privilege is given Proudly to root thyself above the rest; As Genius does, and from thy rocky tower Lend fragrance to the purest breath of heaven. _Thomas Doubleday._ CLXXXII _THE SEA-CAVE._