How men lived Even next-door neighbours, as we say, yet still Strangers, not knowing each the other's name. — William Wordsworth

And Como! thou, a treasure whom the earth

Keeps to herself, confined as in a depth

Of Abyssinian privacy. I spake

Of thee, thy chestnut woods, and garden plots

Of Indian-corn tended by dark-eyed maids;

Thy lofty steeps, and pathways roofed with vines,

Winding from house to house, from town to town,

Sole link that binds them to each other; walks,

League after league, and cloistral avenues,

Where silence dwells if music be not there:

While yet a youth undisciplined in verse,

Through fond ambition of that hour, I strove

To chant your praise; nor can approach you now

Ungreeted by a more melodious song,

Where tones of nature smoothed by learned art

May flow in lasting current. Like a breeze

Or sunbeam over your domain I passed

In motion without pause; but ye have left

Your beauty with me, a serene accord

Of forms and colors, passive, yet endowed

In their submissiveness with power as sweet

And gracious, almost might I dare to say,

As virtue is, or goodness; sweet as love,

Or the remembrance of a generous deed,

Or mildest visitation of pure thought,

When God, the giver of all joy, is thanked

Religiously, in silent blessedness;

Sweet as this last herself, for such it is.

A day

Spent in a round of strenuous idleness.

Nor was it mean delight

To watch crude Nature work in untaught minds;

To note the laws and progress of belief;

Though obstinate on this way, yet on that

How willingly we travel, and how far!

To have, for instance, brought upon the scene

The champion, Jack the Giant-killer: Lo!

He dons his coat of darkness; on the stage

Walks, and achieves his wonders, from the eye

Of living Mortal covert, "as the moon

Hid in her vacant interlunar cave."

Delusion bold! and how can it be wrought?

The garb he wears is black as death, the word

"Invisible" flames forth upon his chest.