JULY. 241 



spring-gun ; death haunts our dells and copses, 

 and the poet complains, in regretful notes, that he 



Wanders away to the field and glen, 

 Far as he may for the gentlemen. 



I am not so much of a poet, and so little of a 

 political economist, as to lament over the pro- 

 gress of population. It is true that I see, with 

 a poetical regret, green fields and fresh beau- 

 tiful tracts swallowed up in cities; but my 

 joy in the increase of human life and happiness, 

 far outbalances that imaginative pain. But it 

 is when I see unnecessary and arbitrary en- 

 croachments upon the rural privileges of the 

 public, that I grieve. Exactly in the same 

 proportion as our population and commercial 

 habits gain upon us, do we need all possible 

 opportunities to keep alive in us the spirit of 

 Nature. ' , 



The world is too much with us ; late and soon, 

 G etting and spending, we lay waste our powers ; 

 Little there is in Nature that is ours. 



We give ourselves up to the artificial habits 

 and objects of ambition, till we endanger the 

 higher and better feelings and capacities of our 

 being ; and it is alone to the united influence of 

 religion, literature, and nature, that we must 



