Madmoments: or First Verseattempts :: :: University of Virginia Library

Our Feelings make us rich, and how rich He
Into whose Eye the Daisy at his Feet
Can bring a Tear of Rapture! He will meet
Fresh Joy in all that He can hear and see.
Then learn thou to feel deeply, tho it be

Butfor a Flower. What can be more sweet
Than deep and simple Feelings, by the Heat
Of Nature herself nursed, like her own free,
Strong, racy Growths, upspringing everywhere
And yielding tenfold, oft where we no Seed
Have sown-So quickly natural Pleasures breed,
That where we pluck but one, we scatter there
The seeds of fifty sweeter ones, which need
Naught but a little natural warmth to bear.

2.

If then our Feelings make us rich, take Heed
To mould them rightly; to feel simply and
Yet grandly, and thy thoughts will be more grand,
The simpler and the truer that they be;
The Godlike art of seeing, is to see
Things as they are, as God has made them, as
He meant them, not as twisted in the Glass
Of human Prejudice. Thou with a Thought
Hast Heaven, nay God Himself, in spirit brought
Before thee, when thou feelst in its full Bliss
The Beauty of the smallest Flower, which is
Steeped in the Morningdew upon the sod;
Then in that Feeling thou enjoyest God,
Himself draws near: for in the least of Things,
There is no Littleness, when thus it brings
The full Sense of the Infinite: in all
God dwells, and thus the Flower, however small,
That scarce is stirred by the Eveningair
The overpowering Sense of him doth bear.
God is in all, and He is All, thus who
Feels Him within the Flower, feels there too
The Whole, and thus too in itself each Soul
Enjoying God, enjoys in Him the whole,
Tho but a Sandgrain to it-and how can
He be called poor, who has so wide a span

Of Pleasure, truly kinglike, as thus to
Possess the Whole, which the most poor can do?
And what more has the Monarch on his Throne?
The Show of that the Beggar calls his own!
Then school thy Feelings God in all to see,
And with this Feeling, fill thy Heart, till He
Alone possesses it; then thou wilt feel,
Like Him, Mankind's least Joy as thine own weal!
The Blessedness of all will thus be thine,
And if this be not Happiness divine,
I know not then what is-Oh! trust me, far,
Far more Imagination is required,
To see Things simply as they really are,
In their deep, sublime Truth, than éer inspired
The airy Visions of the Poet's Brain.
This Realdaylife is running o'er again
With Poesy, tho' seldom Poets Lip
Thereat unconsciously, has ta' en a Sip.
And for the Pilgrim on its dusty way,
The genuine Fount still gushes up for aye,
The Fount of Human Love, which needs no spell,
No Pegasean Hoof, no Miracle,
But flows hard by each Door, like its own Household well!