‘The night was winter in his roughest mood; The morning sharp and clear. But now at noon Upon the southern side of the slant hills, And where the woods fence off the northern blast, The season smiles, resigning all its rage, And has the warmth of May. The vault is blue, Without a cloud, and white without a speck The dazzling splendour of the scene below. Again the harmony comes o’er the vale; And through the trees I view th’ embattled tow’r, Whence all the music. I again perceive The soothing influence of the wafted strains, And settle in soft musings as I tread The walk, still verdant, under oaks and elms, Whose outspread branches overarch the glade. The roof, though moveable through all its length, As the wind sways it, has yet well suffic’d, And, intercepting in their silent fall The frequent flakes, has kept a path for me. No noise is here, or none that hinders thought. The redbreast warbles still, but is content With slender notes, and more than half suppress’d. Pleas’d with his solitude, and flitting light From spray to spray, where’er he rests he shakes From many a twig the pendent drop of ice, That tinkle in the wither’d leaves below. Stillness, accompanied with sounds so soft, Charms more than silence. Meditation here May think down hours to moments. Here the heart May give a useful lesson to the head, And Learning wiser grow without his books. Knowledge and Wisdom, far from being one, Have oft-times no connection. Knowledge dwells In heads replete with thoughts of other men; Wisdom in minds attentive to their own. Books are not seldom talismans and spells, By which the magic art of shrewder wits Holds an unthinking multitude enthrall’d. Some to the fascination of a name Surrender judgment hood-wink’d. Some the style Infatuates, and through labyrinths and wilds Of error leads them, by a tune entranc’d, While sloth seduces more, too weak to bear The insupportable fatigue of thought, And swallowing therefore without pause or choice The total grist unsifted, husks and all. But trees, and rivulets whose rapid course Defies the check of winter, haunts of deer, And sheep-walks populous with bleating lambs, And lanes, in which the primrose ere her time Peeps through the moss that clothes the hawthorn root, Deceive no student. Wisdom there, and truth, Not shy, as in the world, and to be won By slow solicitation, seize at once The roving thought, and fix it on themselves.’