And, in the church-yard cottage, Dwell near them with my mother.'

'You say that two at Conway dwell, And two are gone to sea, Yet ye are seven!

I

pray you tell, Sweet maid, how this may be.'

Then did the little maid reply,
'Seven boys and girls are we;
Two of us in the church-yard lie,
Beneath the church-yard tree.'

Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born;
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight;
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.
Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine;
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.
It is right it should be so;

Man was made for joy and woe;
And, when this we rightly know,
Safely through the world we go.

We are led to believe a lie

When we see with not through the eye,

105

110

Which was born in a night to perish in a night
When the soul slept in beams of light.
God appears and God is light

To those poor souls who dwell in night;
But doth a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.

1863

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

WE ARE SEVEN

-A SIMPLE child,

That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?

I met a little cottage girl:

She was eight years old, she said;

Her hair was thick with many a curl That clustered round her head.

door,

125

And there upon the ground I sit,

She had a rustic, woodland air,

My brother John was forced to go,

And he lies by her side.'

60

Her eyes were fair, and very fair; Her beauty made me glad.

'How many are you, then,' said I,

'Sisters and brothers, little maid,

How many may you be?'

'How many? Seven in all,' she said, And wondering looked at me.

15

Quick was the little maid's reply,

'O master! we are seven.'

'But they are dead; those two are dead! 65 Their spirits are in heaven!'

'T was throwing words away; for still
The little maid would have her will,
And said, 'Nay, we are seven!'

1800

LINES

COMPOSED A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY

FIVE years have past; five summers, with the length

Of five long winters! and again I hear These waters, rolling from their mountainsprings

With a soft inland murmur.

5

- Once again Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, That on a wild secluded scene impress Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect

The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view 10
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-
tufts,

Which at this season, with their unripe fruits, Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves

'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines

15

Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire The Hermit sits alone.

These beauteous forms, Through a long absence, have not been to me As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din 25 Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; And passing even into my purer mind, With tranquil restoration:- feelings too 30 Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps, As have no slight or trivial influence On that best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremembered, acts Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, 35 To them I may have owed another gift, Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood, In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world,

40

Is lightened: that serene and blessed mood,

In which the affections gently lead us on, Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even the motion of our human blood

With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again:
While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing
thoughts

That in this moment there is life and food
For future years. And so I dare to hope, 65
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was

The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample

power

95

To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels 100
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am
I still

A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty
world

105

Of eye, and ear, both what they half create,

And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature and the language of the sense
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and
soul

Of all my moral being.

Nor perchance,

110

If I were not thus taught, should I the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
For thou art with me here upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou my dearest
Friend,

115

My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch

The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once,
My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I
make,

120

125

Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 't is her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil
tongues,

Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish

140

When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what healing
thoughts

Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, 145 And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance

If I should be where I no more can hear Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams

Of past existence wilt thou then forget That on the banks of this delightful

With quickening pace my horse drew nigh Those paths so dear to me.

All over the wide lea;

And now we reached the orchard-plot; And, as we climbed the hill,

The sinking moon to Lucy's cot Came near, and nearer still.

15

In one of those sweet dreams I slept,
Kind Nature's gentlest boon!
And all the while my eyes I kept

On the descending moon.

20