These tears?--and fall they for thy wretched friend? Or’----but I cease; I cannot paint the bliss, From a confession soft and kind as this; Nor where we walk’d, nor how our friends we met, } 350 Or what their wonder--I am wondering yet; } For he who nothing heeds has nothing to forget. } “All thought, yet thinking nothing--all delight In every thing, but nothing in my sight! Nothing I mark or learn, but am possess’d } Of joys I cannot paint, and I am bless’d } In all that I conceive--whatever is, is best. } Ready to aid all beings, I would go The world around to succour human wo; Yet am so largely happy, that it seems 360 There are no woes, and sorrows are but dreams. “There is a college joy, to scholars known, When the first honours are proclaim’d their own; There is ambition’s joy, when in their race A man surpassing rivals gains his place; There is a beauty’s joy, amid a crowd To have that beauty her first fame allow’d; And there’s the conqueror’s joy, when, dubious held And long the fight, he sees the foe repell’d. “But what are these, or what are other joys, 370 That charm kings, conquerors, beauteous nymphs and boys, Or greater yet, if greater yet be found, To that delight when love’s dear hope is crown’d? To the first beating of a lover’s heart, When the loved maid endeavours to impart, Frankly yet faintly, fondly yet in fear, The kind confession that he holds so dear? Now in the morn of our return how strange Was this new feeling, this delicious change; That sweet delirium, when I gazed in fear, 380 That all would yet be lost and disappear. “Such was the blessing that I sought for pain, In some degree to be myself again; And when we met a shepherd old and lame, Cold and diseased, it seem’d my blood to tame; And I was thankful for the moral sight, That soberized the vast and wild delight.” TALES OF THE HALL. BOOK VII. _THE ELDER BROTHER_. Conversation--Story of the elder Brother--His romantic Views and Habits--The Scene of his Meditations--Their Nature--Interrupted by an Adventure--The Consequences of it--A strong and permanent Passion--Search of its Object--Long ineffectual--How found--The first Interview--The second--End of the Adventure--Retirement. TALES OF THE HALL. BOOK VII. _THE ELDER BROTHER._