Her lily and rose, her sea and land display. 
Read the celestial sign! 
Lo! the south answers to the north;
Bookworm, break this sloth urbane;
A greater spirit bids thee forth
Than the gray dreams which thee detain. 
Mark how the climbing Oreads
Beckon thee to their arcades;
Youth, for a moment free as they,
Teach thy feet to feel the ground,
Ere yet arrives the wintry day
When Time thy feet has bound. 
Take the bounty of thy birth,
Taste the lordship of the earth.’

  I heard, and I obeyed,—­
Assured that he who made the claim,
Well known, but loving not a name,
  Was not to be gainsaid. 
Ere yet the summoning voice was still,
I turned to Cheshire’s haughty hill. 
From the fixed cone the cloud-rack flowed
Like ample banner flung abroad
To all the dwellers in the plains
Round about, a hundred miles,
With salutation to the sea and to the bordering isles. 
In his own loom’s garment dressed,
By his proper bounty blessed,
Fast abides this constant giver,
Pouring many a cheerful river;
To far eyes, an aerial isle
Unploughed, which finer spirits pile,
Which morn and crimson evening paint
For bard, for lover and for saint;
An eyemark and the country’s core,
Inspirer, prophet evermore;
Pillar which God aloft had set
So that men might it not forget;
It should be their life’s ornament,
And mix itself with each event;
Gauge and calendar and dial,
Weatherglass and chemic phial,
Garden of berries, perch of birds,
Pasture of pool-haunting herds,
Graced by each change of sum untold,
Earth-baking heat, stone-cleaving cold.

The Titan heeds his sky-affairs,
Rich rents and wide alliance shares;
Mysteries of color daily laid
By morn and eve in light and shade;
And sweet varieties of chance,
And the mystic seasons’ dance;
And thief-like step of liberal hours
Thawing snow-drift into flowers. 
O, wondrous craft of plant and stone
By eldest science wrought and shown!

‘Happy,’ I said, ’whose home is here! 
Fair fortunes to the mountaineer! 
Boon Nature to his poorest shed
Has royal pleasure-grounds outspread.’ 
Intent, I searched the region round,
And in low hut the dweller found: 
Woe is me for my hope’s downfall! 
Is yonder squalid peasant all
That this proud nursery could breed
For God’s vicegerency and stead? 
Time out of mind, this forge of ores;
Quarry of spars in mountain pores;
Old cradle, hunting-ground and bier
Of wolf and otter, bear and deer;
Well-built abode of many a race;
Tower of observance searching space;
Factory of river and of rain;
Link in the Alps’ globe-girding chain;
By million changes skilled to tell
What in the Eternal standeth well,
And what obedient Nature can;—­
Is this colossal talisman
Kindly to plant and blood and kind,