V

Large dowries doth the raptured eye

To the young spirit present

When first she is wed;

And like a bride of old

In triumph led,

With music and sweet showers

Of festal flowers,

Unto the dwelling she must sway.

Well hast thou done, great artist Memory,

In setting round thy first experiment

With royal framework of wrought gold;

Needs must thou dearly love thy first essay,

And foremost in thy various gallery

Place it, where sweetest sunlight falls

Upon the storied walls,

For the discovery

And newness of thine art so pleased thee,

That all which thou hast drawn of fairest

Or boldest since, but lightly weighs

With thee unto the love thou bearest

The firstborn of thy genius. Artistlike,

Ever retiring thou dost gaze

On the prime labour of thine early days:

No matter what the sketch might be;

Whether the high field on the bushless Pike,

Or even a sandbuilt ridge

Of heapéd hills that mound the sea,

Overblown with murmurs harsh,

Or even a lowly cottage whence we see

Stretched wide and wild the waste enormous marsh,

Where from the frequent bridge,

Emblems or glimpses of eternity,

The trenchéd waters run from sky to sky;

Or a garden bowered close

With pleachéd alleys of the trailing rose,

Long alleys falling down to twilight grots,

Or opening upon level plots

Of crownéd lilies, standing near

Purplespikéd lavender:

Whither in after life retired

From brawling storms,

From weary wind,

With youthful fancy reinspired,

We may hold converse with all forms

Of the manysided mind,

The few whom passion hath not blinded,

Subtlethoughted, myriadminded.

My friend, with thee to live alone,

Methinks were better than to own

A crown, a sceptre, and a throne.

O strengthen me, enlighten me!

I faint in this obscurity,

Thou dewy dawn of memory.