A violet by a mossy stone

Half hidden from the eye

-Fair as a star, when only one

Is shining in the sky.

 

She lived unknown and few could know

When Lucy ceased to be:

But she is in her grave, and, oh,

The difference to me!

 

++++++++++++++++++++++

 

A slumber did my spirit seal;

I had no human fears:

She seemed a thing that could not feel

The touch of earthly years.

 

No motion has she now, no force;

She neither hears nor sees;

Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course,

With rocks, and stones, and trees.

‘My heart leaps up when I behold’

 

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began:

So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!

The child is father of the man;

And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.