VII. Behold the Child among his new-born blisses, A six years' Darling of a pigmy size! See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies, With light upon him from his Father's eyes! A mourning or a funeral; And this hath now his heart, To dialogues of business, love, or strife; 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" That Life brings with her in her Equipage; Were endless imitation. VIII. Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie 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, Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? 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, The song of thanks and praise; Of sense and outward things, Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may, Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour, 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, X. Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song! As to the tabor's sound! We in thought will join your throng, Ye that through your hearts to-day What though the radiance which was once so bright Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower In Strength in what remains behind; Which having been must ever be; In the faith that looks through death, years that bring the philosophic mind. XI. And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, Forebode not any severing of our loves! Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might; I only have relinquished one delight To live beneath your more habitual sway. I loved the Brooks which down their channels fret, The Clouds that gather round the setting sun That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON.-HOW "HISTORIES" ARE WRITTEN. BY THOMAS CARLYLE. RITICS insist much on the Poet that he should communicate an "Infinitude" to his delineation; that by intensity of conception, by that gift of "transcendental Thought," which is fitly named genius, and inspiration, he should inform the Finite with a certain Infinitude of significance; or as they sometimes say, ennoble the Actual into Idealness. their precept; they mean rightly. They are right in But in cases like |