Up with me! up with me into the clouds!
For thy song, Lark, is strong;

Up with me, up with me into the clouds!
Singing, singing,

5 With clouds and sky about thee ringing,
Lift me, guide me, till I find
That spot which seems so to thy mind!

I have walked through wildernesses dreary, And today my heart is weary;

10 Had I now the wings of a Faery, Up to thee would I fly.

ELEGIAC STANZAS

SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF PEELE CASTLE, IN A STORM, PAINTED BY SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT 1805 1807

I was thy neighbor once, thou rugged Pile! Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee:

I saw thee every day; and all the while Thy Form was sleeping on a glassy sea.

5 So pure the sky, so quiet was the air! So like, so very like, was day to day! Whene'er I looked, thy Image still was there;

It trembled, but it never passed away.

How perfect was the calm! it seemed no sleep;

10 No mood, which season takes away, or brings:

I could have fancied that the mighty Deep Was even the gentlest of all gentle Things.

Ah! then, if mine had been the painter's hand,

To express what then I saw; and add the gleam,

15 The light that never was, on sea or land, The consecration, and the poet's dream;

I would have planted thee, thou hoary Pile, Amid a world how different from this!1 Beside a sea that could not cease to smile;

divine

In that song of thine;

Lift me, guide me, high and high 16 To thy banqueting place in the sky.

25

Happy, happy Liver,

With a soul as strong as a mountain river

Such, in the fond illusion of my heart,

Joy and jollity be with us both!

Alas! my journey, rugged and uneven, Through prickly moors or dusty ways must

wind;

But hearing thee, or others of thy kind, 30 1, with my fate contented, will plod on, As full of gladness and as free of heaven, And hope for higher raptures, when life's

day is done.

made:

35 A power is gone, which nothing can restore;

A deep distress hath humanized my soul.

Not for a moment could I now behold A smiling sea, and be what I have been : The feeling of my loss will ne'er be old; 40 This, which I know, I speak with mind

serene.

Then, Beaumont, friend! who would have been the friend,

If he had lived, of him whom I deplore,1 This work of thine I blame not, but commend;

This sea in anger, and that dismal shore.

45 O'tis a passionate Work!-yet wise and well,

Well chosen is the spirit that is here;

That Hulk which labors in the deadly swell,
This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear!

And this huge Castle, standing here sublime,

50 I love to see the look with which it braves, Cased in the unfeeling armor of old time, The lightning, the fierce wind, and trampling waves.

Farewell, farewell the heart that lives
alone,

Housed in a dream, at distance from the
Kind!2

55 Such happiness, wherever it be known, Is to be pitied; for 'tis surely blind.

But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer,
And frequent sights of what is to be borne!
Such sights, or worse, as are before me
here.-

60 Not without hope we suffer and we mourn.

CHARACTER OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR
1806
1807

Who is the happy warrior? Who is he
That every man in arms should wish to be?
-It is the generous Spirit, who, when
brought

Among the tasks of real life, hath
wrought

5 Upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought:

Whose high endeavors are an inward light That makes the path before him always bright:

Who, with a natural instinct to discern What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn;

10 Abides by this resolve, and stops not there, But makes his moral being his prime care; Who, doomed to go in company with Pain, And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train! Turns his necessity to glorious gain; 15 In face of these doth exercise a power Which is our human nature's highest dower;

Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves

Of their bad influence, and their good receives:

By objects, which might force the soul to
abate

20 Her feeling, rendered more compassionate;
Is placable-because occasions rise
So often that demand such sacrifice;
More skilful in self-knowledge, even more

pure,

As tempted more; more able to endure, 25 As more exposed to suffering and distress; Thence, also, more alive to tenderness.

'Tis he whose law is reason; who depends Upon that law as on the best of friends; Whence, in a state where men are tempted

still

30 To evil for a guard against worse ill,
And what in quality or act is best
Doth seldom on a right foundation rest,
He labors good on good to fix, and owes
To virtue every triumph that he knows:

35 - Who, if he rise to station of command,
Rises by open means; and there will stand
On honorable terms, or else retire,
And in himself possess his own desire;
Who comprehends his trust, and to the

same

40 Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim; And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait

For wealth, or honors, or for worldly state;

Whom they must follow; on whose head

must fall,

Like showers of manna, if they come at all:

Whose powers shed round him in the common strife,

Or mild concerns of ordinary life,
A constant influence, a peculiar grace;
But who, if he be called upon to face
Some awful moment to which Heaven has
joined

50 Great issues, good or bad for human kind,

Is happy as a lover; and attired

With sudden brightness, like a man in

spired;

And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law

In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw;

55 Or if an unexpected call succeed,

Come when it will, is equal to the need: He who, though thus endued as with a

sense

And faculty for storm and turbulence,
Is yet a Soul whose master-bias leans

60 To homefelt pleasures and to gentle

scenes;

Sweet images! which, wheresoe'er he be,
Are at his heart; and such fidelity
It is his darling passion to approve;
More brave for this, that he hath much
to love:-

65 'Tis, finally, the man, who, lifted high,
Conspicuous object in a nation's eye,
Or left unthought-of in obscurity,-
Who, with a toward or untoward lot,
Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not-
70 Plays, in the many games of life, that one
Where what he most doth value must be