document.write("(Composed at Clevedon, Somersetshire)<br /><br />My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined<br />Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is<br />To sit beside our Cot, our Cot o\\\'ergrown<br />With white-flower\\\'d Jasmin, and the broad-leav\\\'d Myrtle,<br />(Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!)<br />And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light,<br />Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve<br />Serenely brilliant (such should Wisdom be)<br />Shine opposite! How exquisite the scents<br />Snatch\\\'d from yon bean-field! and the world so hushed!<br />The stilly murmur of the distant Sea<br />Tells us of silence.<br />And that simplest Lute,<br />Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark!<br />How by the desultory breeze caress\\\'d,<br />Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover,<br />It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs<br />Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now, its strings<br />Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes<br />Over delicious surges sink and rise,<br />Such a soft floating witchery of sound<br />As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve<br />Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land,<br />Where Melodies round honey-dripping flowers,<br />Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise,<br />Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untam\\\'d wing!<br />O! the one Life within us and abroad,<br />Which meets all motion and becomes its soul,<br />A light in sound, a sound-like power in light,<br />Rhythm in all thought, and joyance every where-<br />Methinks, it should have been impossible<br />Not to love all things in a world so fill\\\'d;<br />Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air<br />Is Music slumbering on her instrument.<br /><br />And thus, my Love! as on the midway slope<br />Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon,<br />Whilst through my half-clos\\\'d eye-lids I behold<br />The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main.<br />And tranquil muse upon tranquillity;<br />Full many a thought uncall\\\'d and undetain\\\'d,<br />And many idle flitting phantasies,<br />Traverse my indolent and passive brain,<br />As wild and various as the random gales<br />That swell and flutter on this subject Lute!<br />And what if all of animated nature<br />Be but organic Harps diversely fram\\\'d,<br />That tremble into thought, as o\\\'er them sweeps<br />Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,<br />At once the Soul of each, and God of all?<br /><br />But thy more serious eye a mild reproof<br />Darts, O belov?d Woman! nor such thoughts<br />Dim and unhallow\\\'d dost thou not reject,<br />And biddest me walk humbly with my God.<br />Meek Daughter in the family of Christ!<br />Well hast thou said and holily disprais\\\'d<br />These shapings of the unregenerate mind;<br />Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break<br />On vain Philosophy\\\'s aye-babbling spring.<br />For never guiltless may I speak of him,<br />The Incomprehensible! save when with awe<br />I praise him, and with Faith that inly feels;<br />Who with his saving mercies heal?d me,<br />A sinful and most miserable man,<br />Wilder\\\'d and dark, and gave me to possess<br />Peace, and this Cot, and thee, heart-honour\\\'d Maid!");