Part 2 / Book 6 — Book vi. Winter Walk at Noon.
Reading edition
There is in souls a sympathy with sounds; And as the mind is pitched, the ear is pleased With melting airs, or martial, brisk or grave; Some chord in unison with what we hear Is touched within us, and the heart replies.
Here the heart May give a useful lesson to the head, And Learning wiser grow without his books.
Tirocinium.
Shine by the side of every path we tread With such a lustre, he that runs may read.
Retirement.
Built God a church, and laughed His word to scorn.
How sweet, how passing sweet is solitude! But grant me still a friend in my retreat, Whom I may whisper, Solitude is sweet.
Conversation.
A fool must now and then be right, by chance.
John Gilpin.
That, though on pleasure she was bent, She had a frugal mind.
To dash through thick and thin.
A hat not much the worse for wear
Lines to his Mother's Picture.
O that those lips had language! Life has passed With me but roughly since I heard thee last.
Walking with God.
What peaceful hours I once enjoyed? How sweet their memory still! But they have left an aching void, The world can never fill.
VERSES, Supposed to be Written by Alexander Selkirk.
I am monarch of all I survey, My right there is none to dispute.
O Solitude! where are the charms That sages have seen in thy face?
But the sound of the church-going bell Those valleys and rocks never heard, Never sighed at the sound of a knell, Or smiled when a Sabbath appeared.
How fleet is a glance of the mind! Compared with the speed of its flight, The tempest itself lags behind, And the swift-winged arrows of light.