pon the blue lake silently,
That lifts her tall neck higher as she views
Her shadow in the stream! Such ladies bright
May reign unrivalled in their proud parterres!
Thou wouldst not live with them; but if a voice, 210
Fancy, in shaping mood, might give to thee,
To the forsaken primrose thou wouldst say--
Come, live with me, and we two will rejoice:
Nor want I company; for when the sea 214
Shines in the silent moonlight, elves and fays,
Gentle and delicate as Ariel,
That do their spiritings on these wild holts,
Circle me in their dance, and sing such songs
As human ear ne'er heard! But cease the strain,
Lest wisdom and severer truth should chide. 220
Behind that windmill, sailing round and round,
Like days on days revolving, Bleadon lies,
Where first I pondered on the grammar-lore,
Sad as the spelling-book, beneath the roof
Of its secluded parsonage; Brean Down
Emerges o'er the edge of Hutton Hill,
Just seen in paler light! And Weston there,
Where I remember a few cottages
Sprinkling the sand, uplifts its tower, and shines,
As if in conscious beauty, o'er the scene. 230
And I have seen a far more welcome sight,
The living line of population stream--
Children, and village maids, and gray old men--
Stream o'er the sands to church: such change has been
In the brief compass of one hastening life!
And yet that hill, the light, is to my eyes
Familiar as those sister isles that sit
In the mid channel! Look, how calm they sit,
As listening each to the tide's rocking roar!
Of different aspects--this, abrupt and high, 240
And desolate, and cold, and bleak, uplifts
Its barren brow--barren, but on its steep
One native flower is seen, the peony;
One flower, which smiles in sunshine or in storm,
There sits companionless, but yet not sad:
She has no sister of the summer-field,
None to rejoice with her when spring returns,
None that, in sympathy, may bend its head, 248
When evening winds blow hollow o'er the rock,
In autumn's gloom! So Virtue, a fair flower,
Blooms on the rock of Care, and, though unseen,
So smiles in cold seclusion; while, remote
From the world's flaunting fellowship, it wears,
Like hermit Piety, one smile of peace,
In sickness