or, or unseen,
A thousand pleasures doe me blesse,
And crowne my soul with happiness
All my joyes to this are follie;--
None soe sweet as melanchollie."

When I remember how my happiness was enhanced by every little bird that
burst out into sudden song among the trees, and then as suddenly became
silent, or by every bright-scaled fish that went darting through the
topaz-coloured depths of the water, or rose for a moment over its calm
surface--how the blue sheets of hyacinths that carpeted the openings in
the wood delighted me, and every golden-tinted cloud that gleamed over
the setting sun, and threw its bright flush on the river, seemed to
inform the heart of a heaven beyond--I marvel, in looking over the
scraps of verse produced at the time, to find how little of the
sentiment in which I so luxuriated, or of the nature which I so enjoyed,
found their way into them. But what Wordsworth well terms "the
accomplishment of verse," given to but few, is as distinct from the
poetic faculty vouchsafed to many, as the ability of relishing exquisite
music is distinct from the power of producing it. Nay, there are cases
in which the "faculty" may be very high, and yet the "accomplishment"
comparatively low, or altogether wanting. I have been told by the late
Dr. Chalmers, whose Astronomical Discourses form one of the finest
philosophical poems in any language, that he never succeeded in
achieving a readable stanza; and Dr. Thomas Brown, whose metaphysics
glow with poetry, might, though he produced whole volumes of verse,
have said nearly the same thing of himself. But, like the Metaphysician,
who would scarce have published his verses unless he had thought them
good ones, my rhymes pleased me at this period, and for some time after,
wonderfully well: they came to be so associated in my mind with the
scenery amid which they were composed, and the mood which it rarely
failed of inducing, that though they neither breathed the mood nor
reflected the scenery, they always suggested both; on the principle, I
suppose, that a pewter spoon, bearing the London stamp, suggested to a
crew of poor weather-beaten sailors in one of the islands of the
Pacific, their far-distant home and its enjoyments. One of the pieces
suggested at this time I shall, however, venture on submitting to the
reader. The few simple thoughts which it embodies arose in the solitary
churchyard among the woods, beside the aged, lichen-incrusted
di