932 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 1803. 
These plots of cottage ground, these orchard tufts, 
Which, at this season, with their unripe fruits, 
Among the woods and copses lose themselves ; 
Nor, with their green and simple hue, disturb 
The wild green landscape. Once again I see 
These hedge rows, hardly hedge rows, little lines, 
Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms 
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke 
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees, 
And the low copses—coming from the trees 
With some uncertain notice, as might seem, 
Of vagrant dwellers in the houscless woods, 
Or of some hermit’s cave, where by his fire 
The hermit sits alones 
Though absent Jong, 
These forms of beauty have not been to me, 
As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye : 
But oft, in lonely rooms, and ’mid the din 
Of towns and cities, I have ow’d to them, 
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, 
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart, 
And passing even into my purer mind 
With tranquil restoration :—feelings, too, 
Of unremember’d pleasure ; such, perhaps, 
As may have had no trivial influence 
On that best portion of a good man’s life ; 
His little, nameless, unremembered acts 
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, 
To them I may have ow’d another gift, 
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood, 
In which the burthen of the mystery, 
In which the heavy and the weary weight 
Of all this unintelligible world 
Is lightened :—that serene and blessed mood, > 
In which th’ affeétions gently lead us on, 
Until the breath of this corporeal frame, 
And even the motion of our human blood 
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep 
In body, and become a living soul ; 
While with an eye made quiet by the power 
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, 
We see into the life of things. 
If this 
Be but a vain belief; yet, oh! how oft, 
In darkness, and amid the many shapes 
Of joyless day-light, when the fretful stir, 
Unprofitable, 
