When soft September brings again To yonder gorse its golden glow, And Snowdon sends its autumn rain To bid thy current livelier flow; Amid that ashen foliage light When scarlet beads are glistering bright, While alder boughs unchanged are seen In summer livery of green; When clouds before the cooler breeze Are flying, white and large; with these Returning, so may I return, And find thee changeless, Pont-y-wern. 1840 _A RIVER POOL._ Sweet streamlet bason! at thy side Weary and faint within me cried My longing heart,—In such pure deep How sweet it were to sit and sleep; To feel each passage from without Close up,—above me and about, Those circling waters crystal clear, That calm impervious atmosphere! There on thy pearly pavement pure, To lean, and feel myself secure, Or through the dim-lit inter-space, Afar at whiles upgazing trace The dimpling bubbles dance around Upon thy smooth exterior face; Or idly list the dreamy sound Of ripples lightly flung, above That home, of peace, if not of love. 1840 _IN A LECTURE-ROOM._ Away, haunt thou not me, Thou vain Philosophy! Little hast thou bestead, Save to perplex the head, And leave the spirit dead. Unto thy broken cisterns wherefore go, While from the secret treasure-depths below, Fed by the skiey shower, And clouds that sink and rest on hill-tops high, Wisdom at once, and Power, Are welling, bubbling forth, unseen, incessantly? Why labour at the dull mechanic oar, When the fresh breeze is blowing, And the strong current flowing, Right onward to the Eternal Shore? 1840 ‘_Blank Misgivings of a Creature moving about in Worlds not realised._’ I Here am I yet, another twelvemonth spent, One-third departed of the mortal span, Carrying on the child into the man, Nothing into reality. Sails rent, And rudder broken,—reason impotent,— Affections all unfixed; so forth I fare On the mid seas unheedingly, so dare To do and to be done by, well content. So was it from the first, so is it yet; Yea, the first kiss that by these lips was set On any human lips, methinks was sin— Sin, cowardice, and falsehood; for the will Into a deed e’en then advanced, wherein God, unidentified, was thought-of still. II Though to the vilest things beneath the moon For poor Ease’ sake I give away my heart, And for the moment’s sympathy let part My sight and sense of truth, Thy precious boon, My painful earnings, lost, all lost, as soon, Almost, as gained; and though aside I start, Belie Thee daily, hourly,—still Thou art, Art surely as in heaven the sun at noon; How much so e’er I sin, whate’er I do Of evil, still the sky above is blue, The stars look down in beauty as before: It is enough to walk as best we may, To walk, and, sighing, dream of that blest day When ill we cannot quell shall be no more. III