—Of coats and of jackets grey, scarlet, and green, On the slopes of the pastures all colours were seen; With their comely blue aprons, and caps white as snow, The girls on the hills made a holiday show. The basin of boxwood, {244} just six months before, Had stood on the table at Timothy’s door; A coffin through Timothy’s threshold had passed; One child did it bear, and that child was his last. Now fast up the dell came the noise and the fray, The horse and the horn, and the ‘hark! hark away!’ Old Timothy took up his staff, and he shut, With a leisurely motion, the door of his hut. Perhaps to himself at that moment he said, ‘The key I must take, for my Helen is dead.’ But of this in my ears not a word did he speak, And he went to the chase with a tear on his cheek. ODE ON INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore;— Turn wheresoe’er I may, By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more. The rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the rose; The moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare; Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair; The sunshine is a glorious birth; But yet I know, where’er I go, That there hath past away a glory from the earth. Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, And while the young lambs bound As to the tabor’s sound, To me alone there came a thought of grief: A timely utterance gave that thought relief, And I again am strong. The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;— No more shall grief of mine the season wrong: I hear the echoes through the mountains throng, The winds come to me from the fields of sleep, And all the earth is gay; Land and sea Give themselves up to jollity, And with the heart of May Doth every beast keep holiday;— Thou child of joy Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Shepherd-boy!