I feel a change, — and yet I know not how
Or where or when, or what it doth betoken;
But sure I am that voices which have spoken
Daily within my soul are speechless now.
For thought or fancy, hope, joy, smile and tear,
My being is not what it was last year.
And a new power, which will not yet reveal
Its name and purpose, hath already gone
This way or that, as though it fain would steal
And climb unchallenged to some inward throne:
While I with fretful guess go sounding on
Depth after depth of my vexed mind, to dodge

Our thoughts are greater than ourselves, our dreams
Ofttimes more solid than our acts; our hope
With more of substance and of shadow teems
Than our thin joys, and hath a nobler scope.
O sons of men! there is a Presence here,
Here in our own undying spirits, which
With an unearthly wealth doth oft enrich
The reason hourly sanctified by fear.
Herewith men prophesy, herewith men press
To their own hearts in studious loneliness
Forms greater than they dare to tell: beneath
The shadow of their own imaginings

I.

What a noise in pit, boxes, and gall'ries, and all,
Have you lately heard made, about one Tiddi-dol .
Tiddi-dol , honest creature! took none of these airs,
'Till the wars of King Pantomime chang'd his affairs,
From a baker of gingerbread , (God bless the trade!)
Now the mark of the muse , by our malice's aid.
For the great and the small
Cry — all ,
Tiddi-doll — Tiddi-doll ,

'Mid summertime's fantastic heat,
When urban pavements parch the feet,
To some far loophole of retreat
Our drowsy thoughts go straying;
In bondage on each office-stool,
We dream of caverns dim and cool,
Of shady grots beside some pool
Where nymphs and fauns are playing,
Where timid dryads coyly scatter
In flight before the local satyr.

While some (the more romantic chaps)
May plan a walking-tour, perhaps,
Where coloured counties spread their maps

I.

O askest thou of me
What store of thoughtful glee
By mountain tarns is lying,
That I to such grim nooks
From my dull-hearted books
Should evermore be flying?

II.

Go thou, and spend an hour
In autumn fog and shower
Amid the thundering rills,
Or hear the breezy sigh
Of summer quiet die
Among the noonday hills.

III.

The eagle's royal soul
Is nurtured in the roll
And echo of the thunder,
And feeds for evermore
Amid the summits hoar
On sights and sounds of wonder.

IV.

Some Peers have noble skill to judge , 'tis true,
Yet, no poor prospect bounds the muse's view:
Firm, in your native strength, thus greatly shown,
Slight such delusive props , and stand alone:
Fruitless dependance, oft has prov'd, too late,
That greatness dwells not, always, with the Great .
Patrons are N ATURE ' nobles , not the S TATE'S ,
And Wit's a title, no broad seal creates:
E'en K INGS , from whose high source, all honours flow,
Are poor , in pow'r , when they would souls bestow.
He, who stoops safe , beneath a patron's shade,

Flame beaten to ash by the too-fierce wind of a day;
Flower torn at the roots, ere noon-tide drooping, gray;

Flower of a singing soul, laughing flame of a life —
But the laughter and song, where are they? Lost in that sore wind-strife.

Pray to the souls of men, ere the new day rises in power,
Pray to the souls of men: " Forget not the flame and the flower. "

The low-brow'd muse , that gives malignance birth,
As oft excites our anger , as our mirth ;
For gen'rous hearts would, usefully , correct,
Nor spare the fault , but still the man respect.
Touch'd, by a rev'rence, to the species due,
Fain would they laugh , without despising , too.
Rash, and by no such soft impressions, aw'd,
The scurril witling spreads his joke too broad:
Straining at humour , lets discernment fall,
And laughs at all, by turns, to laugh with all.
Not so, thy guardian scene — whose manlier end

By Ovid , among other wonders, we're told
What chanc'd to Philemon and Baucis of old;
How their Cot to a Temple was conjur'd by Jove ,
So a Chapel was chang'd to a Kitchen at Grove .

The Lord of the Mansion most rightly conceiting,
His guests lov'd good pray'rs much less than good eating;
And possess'd by the Devil, as some folks will tell ye,
What was meant for the soul, he assign'd to the belly.

The word was scarce giv'n — when down dropp'd the Clock,
And strait was seen fix'd in the form of a Jack;

As when the Merchant, to increase his store,
For dubious seas, advent'rous quits the shore;
Still anxious for his freight, he trembling sees
Rocks in each buoy, and tempests in each breeze;
The curling wave to mountain billows swells,
And ev'ry cloud a fancied storm foretells:
Thus rashly launch'd on this Theatric main,
Our All on board, each phantom gives us pain;
The Catcall's note seems thunder in our ears,
And ev'ry Hiss a hurricane appears;
In Journal Squibs we lightning's blast espy,
And meteors blaze in every Critic's eye.