In quietness, without anxiety: 
  Beside the mountain chapel, sleeps in earth
  Her new-born infant, fearless as a lamb 325
  That, thither driven from some unsheltered place,
  Rests underneath the little rock-like pile
  When storms are raging.  Happy are they both—­
  Mother and child!—­These feelings, in themselves
  Trite, do yet scarcely seem so when I think 330
  On those ingenuous moments of our youth
  Ere we have learnt by use to slight the crimes
  And sorrows of the world.  Those simple days
  Are now my theme; and, foremost of the scenes,
  Which yet survive in memory, appears 335
  One, at whose centre sate a lovely Boy,
  A sportive infant, who, for six months’ space,
  Not more, had been of age to deal about
  Articulate prattle—­Child as beautiful
  As ever clung around a mother’s neck, 340
  Or father fondly gazed upon with pride. 
  There, too, conspicuous for stature tall
  And large dark eyes, beside her infant stood
  The mother; but, upon her cheeks diffused,
  False tints too well accorded with the glare 345
  From play-house lustres thrown without reserve
  On every object near.  The Boy had been
  The pride and pleasure of all lookers-on
  In whatsoever place, but seemed in this
  A sort of alien scattered from the clouds. 350
  Of lusty vigour, more than infantine
  He was in limb, in cheek a summer rose
  Just three parts blown—­a cottage-child—­if e’er,
  By cottage-door on breezy mountain side,
  Or in some sheltering vale, was seen a babe 355
  By Nature’s gifts so favoured.  Upon a board
  Decked with refreshments had this child been placed,
  His little stage in the vast theatre,
  And there he sate surrounded with a throng
  Of chance spectators, chiefly dissolute men 360
  And shameless women, treated and caressed;
  Ate, drank, and with the fruit and glasses played,
  While oaths and laughter and indecent speech
  Were rife about him as the songs of birds
  Contending after showers.  The mother now 365
  Is fading out of memory, but I see
  The lovely Boy as I beheld him then
  Among the wretched and the falsely gay,
  Like one of those who walked with hair unsinged
  Amid the fiery furnace.  Charms and spells 370
  Muttered on black and spiteful instigation
  Have stopped, as some believe, the kindliest growths. 
  Ah, with how different spirit might a prayer
  Have been preferred, that this fair creature, checked
  By special privilege of Nature’s love, 375
  Should in his childhood be detained for ever! 
  But with its universal freight the tide
  Hath rolled along, and this bright innocent,
  Mary! may now have lived till he could look
  With envy on thy nameless babe that sleeps, 380
  Beside the mountain chapel, undisturbed.