O fields and streams, and places undefiled,

Let your sweet airs be ever on his brow,

[9]

Remember still your child.

Thou too, O human world, if old desires,

If thoughts, not alien once, can move thee now,

Teach him not yet that idly he aspires

Where thou hast fail'd; not soon let it be plain,

That all who seek in thee for nobler fires,

For generous passion, spend their hopes in vain:

Lest that insidious Fate, foe of mankind,

Who ever waits upon our weakness, try

With whispers his unnerved and faltering mind,

Palsy his powers; for she has spells to dry,

Like the March blast, his blood, turn flesh to stone,

And, conjuring action with necessity,

Freeze the quick will, and make him all her own.

Come, then, as ever, like the Wind at morning!

Joyous, O Youth, in the aged world renew

Freshness to feel the eternities around it,

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