For I have learned to look on nature, not as in the hour of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes the still, sad music of humanity.

And through the heat of conflict keeps the law In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw.

This solitary Tree! a living thing Produced too slowly ever to decay; Of form and aspect too magnificent To be destroyed.

For nature then to me was all in all.

Ah, what a warning for a thoughtless man, Could field or grove, could any spot of earth, Show to his eye an image of the pangs Which it hath witnessed,-render back an echo Of the sad steps by which it hath been trod!

But who, if he be called upon to face Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined Great issues, good or bad for humankind, Is happy as a lover.

The first cuckoo's melancholy cry.