faithfulness to truth? You
never can imagine but they knew more of nature than any of us, or
that they had less reverence for her.

In reference to Painting, the Public are taught to look with delight
upon murky old masters, with dismally demoniac trees, and dull waters
of lead, colourless and like ice; upon rocks that make geologists
wonder, their angles are so impossible, their fractures are so new.
Thousands are given for uncomfortable Dutch sun-lights; but if you
are shown a transcript of day itself, with the purple shadow upon the
mountains, and across the still lake, you know nothing of it because
your fathers never bought such: so you look for nothing in it; nay,
let me set you in the actual place, let the water damp your feet,
stand in the chill of the shadow itself, and you will never tell me
the colour on the hill, or where the last of the crows caught the
sinking sunlight. Letting observation sleep, what can you know of
nature? and you _are_ a judge of landscape indeed. So it is that the
world is taught to think of nature, as seen through other men's eyes,
without any reference to its own original powers of perception, and
much natural beauty is lost.

To the Castle Ramparts

The Castle is erect on the hill's top,
To moulder there all day and night: it stands
With the long shadow lying at its foot.
That is a weary height which you must climb
Before you reach it; and a dizziness
Turns in your eyes when you look down from it,
So standing clearly up into the sky.

I rose one day, having a mind to see it.
'Twas on a clear Spring morning, and a blackbird
Awoke me with his warbling near my window:
My dream had fashioned this into a song
That some one with grey eyes was singing me,
And which had drawn me so into myself
That all the other shapes of sleep were gone:
And then, at last, it woke me, as I said.
The sun shone fully in on me; and brisk
Cool airs, that had been cold but for his warmth,
Blow thro' the open casement, and sweet smells
Of flowers with the dew yet fresh upon them,--
Rose-buds, and showery lilacs, and what stayed
Of April wallflowers.

I set early forth,
Wishing to reach the Castle when the heat
Should weigh upon it, vertical at noon.
My path lay thro' green open fields at first,
With now and then trees rising statelily
Out of the grass; and afterwards came lanes
Closed in by hedges smelling of the may,
And ov