THE GOLD-FISH. 11] 



Renewed renewed incessantly 



Within your quiet range. 

 Is it that ye, with conscious skill, 



For mutual pleasure glide ; 

 And sometimes not without your will, 



Are dwarfed and magnified ? 



The happy prisoners here immortalised, having 

 been removed to a pool in the pleasure-ground of 

 Rydal Mount, 



Removed in kindness from their glassy cell 

 To the fresh waters of a living well, 



the poet proceeds to cast upon them, from his 

 magic mirror, " the light that never was on sea or 

 land," 



There swims, of blazing sun and beating shower, 



Fearless (but how obscured !) the golden power, 



That from his bauble prison used to cast 



Gleams by the richest jewel unsurpast ; 



And near him, darkling like a sullen gnome, 



The silver tenant of the chrystal dome ; 



Dissevered both from all the mysteries 



Of hue and altering shape that charmed all eyes. 



They pined, perhaps they languished, while they shone ; 



And, if not so, what matters beauty gone, 



And admiration lost, by change of place, 



That brings to the inward creature no disgrace ? 



But if the change restore his birthright, then, 



Whate'er the difference, boundless is the gain. 



Who can divine what impulses from God 



Reach the caged lark, within a town abode, 



From his poor inch or two of daisied sod \ 



Oh, yield him back his privilege ! No sea 



Swells like the bosom of a man set free 



A wilderness is rich with liberty. 



Roll on, ye spouting whales, who die or keep 



Your independence in the fathomless deep ! 



Spread, tiny Nautilus, the living sail ; 



Dive, at thy choice, or brave the freshening gale ! 



If unreproved the ambitious eagle mount 



Sunward to seek the daylight in its fount, 



