Thou plaything of the child,
When from the water’s surface thou dost fall
In mazy dance, ethereal motion wild,
Like his own thoughts, upon the chamber wall;
Or through the dust darting in long thin streams! 
How I have played with thee, and longed to climb
On sloping ladders of thy moted beams! 
And how I loved thee falling from the moon! 
And most about the mellow harvest-time,
When night had softly settled down,
And thou from her didst flow, a sea of love. 
And then the stars, ah me! that flashed above
And the ghost-stars that shimmered in the tide! 
While here and there mysterious earthly shining
Came forth of windows from the hill and glen;
Each ray of thine so wondrously entwining
With household love and rest of weary men. 
And still I am a child, thank God!  To see
Thee streaming from a bit of broken glass,
That else on the brown earth lay undescried,
Is a high joy, a glorious thing to me,
A spark that lights the light of joy within,
A thought of Hope to Prophecy akin,
That from my spirit fruitless will not pass.

Thou art the joy of Age: 
The sun is dear even when long shadows fall. 
Forth to the sunlight the old man doth crawl,
Enlivened like the bird in his poor cage. 
Close by the door, no further, in his chair
The old man sits; and sitteth there
His soul within him, like a child that lies
Half dreaming, with his half-shut eyes,
At close of a long afternoon in summer;
High ruins round him, ancient ruins, where
The raven is almost the only comer;
And there he broods in wonderment
On the celestial glory sent
Through the rough loopholes, on the golden bloom
That waves above the cornice on the wall,
Where lately dwelt the echoes of the room;
And drinking in the yellow lights that lie
Upon the ivy tapestry. 
So dreams the old man’s soul, that is not old,
But sleepy ’mid the ruins that infold.

What meanings various thou callest forth
Upon the face of the still passive earth! 
Even like a lord of music bent
Over his instrument;
Whether, at hour of sovereign noon,
Infinite cataracts sheet silent down;
Or a strange yellow radiance slanting pass
Betwixt long shadows o’er the meadow grass,
When from the lower edge of a dark cloud
The sun at eve his blessing head hath bowed;
Whether the moon lift up her shining shield,
High on the peak of a cloud-hill revealed;
Or crescent, low, wandering sun-dazed away,
Unconscious of her own star-mingled ray,
Her still face seeming more to think than see,
She makes the pale world lie in dreams of thee. 
Each hour of day, each hour of thoughtful night,
Hath a new poem in the changing light.