Classic Poem

A valley—and a stream of purest white
Trailing its serpent form within the breast
Of that embracing dale—three sinuous hills
Imminent in calm beauty, and trees thereon,
Crest above crest, uprising to the noon,
Which dallies with their topmost tracery,
Like an old playmate, whose soft welcomings
Have less of ardor, because more of custom.
It is an English Scene: and yet methinks
Did not yon cottage dim with azure curls
Of vapor the bright air, and that neat fence
Gird in the comfort of its quiet walls,
Or did not yon gay troop of carollers
Press on the passing breeze a native rhyme,
I might have deemed me in a foreign land.
For, as I gaze, old visions of delight,
That died with th' hour their parent, are reflected
From the mysterious mirror of the mind,
Mingling their forms with these, which I behold.
Nay, the old feelings in their several states
Come up before me, and entwine with these
Of younger birth in strangest unity.
And yet who bade them forth? Who spake to Time,
That he should strike the fetters from his slaves?
Or hath he none? Is the drear prison-house
To which, 'twould seem, our spiritual acts
Pass one by one, a phantom—a dim mist
Enveloping our sphere of agency?
A guess, which we do hold for certainty?
I do but mock me with these questionings.
Dark, dark, yea, “irrecoverably dark,”
Is the soul's eye: yet how it strives and battles
Thorough th' impenetrable gloom to fix
That master light, the secret truth of things,
Which is the body of the infinite God.