This pleasant tale is like a little copse: The honied lines so freshly interlace, To keep the reader in so sweet a place, So that he here and there full-hearted stops; And oftentimes he feels the dewy drops Come cool and suddenly against his face, And, by the wandering melody, may trace Which way the tender-legged linnet hops. Oh! what a power has white Simplicity! What mighty power has this gentle story! I, that do ever feel athirst for glory, Could at this moment be content to lie Meekly upon the grass, ...

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Haydon! forgive me that I cannot speak Definitively of these mighty things; Forgive me, that I have not eagle's wings, That what I want I know not where to seek, And think that I would not be over-meek, In rolling out upfollowed thunderings, Even to the steep of Heliconian springs, Were I of ample strength for such a freak. Think, too, that all these numbers should be thine; Whose else? In this who touch thy vesture's hem? For, when men stared at what was most divine With brainless idiotism and o'erwise ...

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Hearken, thou craggy ocean-pyramid, Give answer by thy voice—the sea-fowls' screams! When were thy shoulders mantled in huge streams? When from the sun was thy broad forehead hid? How long is't since the mighty Power bid Thee heave to airy sleep from fathom dreams— Sleep in the lap of thunder or sunbeams— Or when grey clouds are thy cold coverlid! Thou answer'st not; for thou art dead asleep. Thy life is but two dead eternities, The last in air, the former in the deep! First with the whales, last with the ...

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