Yet more assurance of the thing he hates;

How oft he leaves misanthropy behind,

New folly found, of former folly prates:

Needs but some precept, touch, face, form, or word

To dam the current, and to turn its course;

Earth, in her loveliness, or music heard,

While low sweet voices harmonize its force:

There’s nought so small in Nature, but can sum

Earth’s total process, which it seems to numb.

{53}

{53}

LIII.

Lo! thus, that life, which seem’d to me a void,

E’er thou my sun did’st gild it with thy light,

Now looks as merry, as the bubble buoy’d

On summer’s billow, whose quick glory’s bright:

My scouted woe now glares as sourly-strange,

As once joy show’d to my grief-fashioned breast;

Each act, each thought, as through the world I range,

Finds new commencement, in young vigour drest:

 Prev. P 45/118 next