Why loves the soul on earlier years to dwell, When memory spreads around her saddening spell; When discontent, with sullen gloom o'ercast, Loaths at the present, and prefers the past? Why calls reflection to my pensive view Each trifling act of infancy anew-- Each trifling act with pleasure pondering o'er, Even at the time when trifles please no more! Day follows day, yet leaves no trace behind, When one sole thought engrosses all the mind; When anxious reason claims her painful sway, And for to-morrow's prospect glooms to-day! Ill fares the wanderer in this vale of life, When each new stage affords succeeding strife; In every stage he feels supremely curst, Yet still the present evil seems the worst: On as he goes the vision'd prospect flies, And, grasping still at bliss, unblest at last he dies. Yet is remembrance sweet; though well I know The days of childhood are but days of woe; Some rude restraint, some petty tyrant sours The tranquil calm of childhood's easy hours; Some trifling fault committed calls the tear, Some trifling task neglected prompts to fear: Yet is it sweet to call to mind the hour, Ere searching reason gain'd her saddening power; Ere future prospects could the soul distress, When even ignorance was happiness. Such was my state in those remember'd years, When one small acre bounded all my fears: And even now with pleasure I recall The tapestry'd school, the bright-brown boarded hall; The murmuring brook, that every morning saw The due observance of the cleanly law; The walnuts, where, when favour would allow, Full oft I wont to search each well-stript bough; The crab-tree, whence we hid the secret hoard, With roasted crabs to deck the wintry board. These trifling pastimes then my soul possest, These trifling objects still remain imprest: So when, with unskill'd hand, the rustic hind Carves the rude legend on the growing rind, In after years the peasant lives to see The expanded legend grow as grows the tree. Though every winter's desolating sway Shake the hoarse grove, and sweep the leaves away; Deep in its trunk the legend still will last, Defy the storm, and brave the wintry blast.