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of a pigmy size!
    See, where ’mid work of his own hand he lies,
    Fretted by sallies of his mother’s kisses,
    With light upon him from his father’s eyes!
    See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,
    Some fragment from his dream of human life,
    Shaped by himself with newly-learnèd art;
                   A wedding or a festival,
                   A mourning or a funeral;
                             And this hath now his heart,
                   And unto this he frames his song:
                             Then will he fit his tongue
    To dialogues of business, love, or strife;
                   But it will not be long
                   Ere this be thrown aside,
                   And with new joy and pride
    The little Actor cons another part;
    Filling from time to time his ‘humorous stage’
    With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,
    That Life brings with her in her equipage;
                   As if his whole vocation
                   Were endless imitation.
VIII
    Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
                   Thy Soul’s immensity;
    Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep
    Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind,
    That, deaf and silent, read’st the eternal deep,
    Haunted for ever by the eternal mind, –
                   Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!
                   On whom those truths do rest,
    Which we are toiling all our lives to find,
    In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;
    Thou, over whom thy Immortality
    Broods like the Day, a Master o’er a Slave,
    A Presence which is not to be put by;
    Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might
    Of heaven-born freedom on thy being’s height,
    Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
    The years to bring the inevitable yoke,
    Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
    Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight,
    And custom lie upon thee with a weight,
    Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!
IX
                   O joy! that in our embers
                   Is something that doth live,
                   That nature yet remembers
                   What was so fugitive!
    The thought of our past years in me doth breed
    Perpetual benediction: not indeed
    For that which is most worthy to be blest;
    Delight and liberty, the simple creed
    Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest,
    With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast: –
                   Not for these I raise
                   The song of thanks and praise;
        But for those obstinate questionings
        Of sense and outward things,
        Fallings from us, vanishings;
        Blank misgivings of a Creature
    Moving about in worlds not realized,
    High instincts before which our mortal Nature
    Did tremble like a guilty Thing surprised:
                   But for those first affections,
                   Those shadowy recollections,
        Which, be they what they may,
    Are yet the fountain light of all our day,
    Are yet a master light of all our seeing;
        Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make
    Our noisy years seem moments in the being
    Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,
                             To perish never;
    Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
                   Nor Man nor Boy,
    Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
    Can utterly abolish or destroy!
                   Hence in a season of calm weather
                   Though inland far we be,
    Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea
                   Which brought us hither,
        Can in a moment travel thither,
    And see the Children sport upon the shore,
    And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.
X
    Then sing, ye