...How sublime Upon a time-blanch’d cliff to muse, and, while The eagle glories in a sea of air, To mingle with the scene around!—Survey The sun-warm heaven...

Beneath our feet a fairy pathway flows, The grass still glitters in the summer breeze, The dusky wood, and distant copse appear, And that lone stream, upon whose chequer’d face We mused, when noon-rays made the pebbles gleam, Is mirror’d to the mind: though all around Be rattling hoofs and roaring wheels, the eye Is wand’ring where the heart delights to dwell.

Say, care-worn man, Whom Duty chains within the city walls, Amid the toiling crowd, how grateful plays The fresh wind o’er thy sickly brow, when free To tread the springy turf,— to hear the trees Communing with the gales,—to catch the voice Of waters, gushing from their rocky womb, And singing as they wander... Spring-hours will come again, and feelings rise With dewy freshness o’er thy wither’d heart.

...but when The Spirit speaks,—or beauty from the sky Descends into my being,—when I hear The storm-hymns of the mighty ocean roll, Or thunder sound,—the champion of the storm!— Then I feel envy for immortal words, The rush of living thought; oh! then I long To dash my feelings into deathless verse, That may administer to unborn time, And tell some lofty soul how I have lived A worshipper of Nature and of Thee!