Lines Written in Kensington Gardens

In this lone, open glade I lie,Screened by deep boughs on either hand;And at its end, to stay the eye,Those black-crowned, red-boled pine-trees stand.

Birds here make song, each bird has his,Across the girdling city’s hum.How green under the boughs it is!How thick the tremulous sheep-cries come!

Sometimes a child will cross the gladeTo take his nurse his broken toy;Sometimes a thrush flit overheadDeep in her unknown day’s employ.

Here at my feet what wonders pass!What endless, active life is here!What blowing daisies, fragrant grass!An air-stirred forest, fresh and clear.

Scarce fresher is the mountain sodWhere the tired angler lies, stretched out,And, eased of basket and of rod,Counts his day’s spoil, the spotted trout.

In the huge world which roars hard by,Be others happy if they can!But in my helpless cradle IWas breathed on by the rural Pan.

I, on men’s impious uproar hurled,Think often, as I hear them rave,That peace has left the upper world,And now keeps only in the grave.

Yet here is peace forever new!When I who watch them am away,Still all things in this glade go throughThe changes of their quiet day.

Then to their happy rest they pass;The flowers upclose, the birds are fed,The night comes down upon the grass,The child sleeps warmly in his bed.

Calm soul of all things! make it mineTo feel, amid the city’s jar,That there abides a peace of thine,Man did not make, and cannot mar.

The will to neither strive nor cry,The power to feel with others, give!Calm, calm me more! nor let me dieBefore I have begun to live.