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[First published 1852. Reprinted 1867.]
IN this lone open glade I lie, | |
| Screen’d by deep boughs 1 on either hand; | |
| And at its head, to stay the eye, | |
| Those black-crown’d, 2 red-boled pine-trees stand. 3 | |
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| Birds here make song, each bird has his, 4 | 5 |
| Across the girdling city’s hum. | |
| How green under the boughs it is! | |
| How thick the tremulous sheep-cries come! | |
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| Sometimes a child will cross the glade | |
| To take his nurse his broken toy; | 10 |
| Sometimes a thrush flit overhead | |
| Deep in her unknown day’s employ. | |
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| Here at my feet what wonders pass, | |
| What endless, active life is here! | |
| What blowing daisies, fragrant grass! | 15 |
| An air-stirr’d forest, fresh and clear. | |
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| Scarce fresher is the mountain sod | |
| Where the tired angler lies, stretch’d out, | |
| And, eased of basket and of rod, | |
| Counts his day’s spoil, the spotted trout. | 20 |
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| In 5 the huge world which roars hard by | |
| Be others happy, if they can! | |
| But in my helpless cradle I | |
| Was breathed on by the rural Pan. | |
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| I, on men’s impious uproar hurl’d, | 25 |
| Think often, 6 as I hear them rave, | |
| That peace has left the upper world, | |
| And now keeps only in the grave. | |
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| Yet here is peace for ever new! | |
| When I, who watch them, am away, | 30 |
| Still all things in this glade go through | |
| The changes of their quiet day. | |
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| Then to their happy rest they pass; | |
| The flowers close, the birds are fed, | |
| The night comes down upon the grass, | 35 |
| The child sleeps warmly in his bed. | |
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| Calm soul of all things! make it mine | |
| To feel, amid the city’s jar, | |
| That there abides a peace of thine, | |
| Man did not make, and cannot mar! | 40 |
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| The will to neither strive nor cry, | |
| The power to feel with others give! | |
| Calm, calm me more! nor let me die | |
| Before I have begun to live. | |
