I
Nor judge me light, though light at times I seem, And lightly in the stress of fortune bear The innumerable flaws of changeful care— Nor judge me light for this, nor rashly deem (Office forbid to mortals, kept supreme And separate the prerogative of God!) That seaman idle who is borne abroad To the far haven by the favouring stream. Not he alone that to contrarious seas Opposes, all night long, the unwearied oar, Not he alone, by high success endeared, Shall reach the Port; but, winged, with some light breeze Shall they, with upright keels, pass in before Whom easy Taste, the golden pilot, steered.
II
So shall this book wax like unto a well, Fairy with mirrored flowers about the brim, Or like some tarn that wailing curlews skim, Glassing the sallow uplands or brown fell; And so, as men go down into a dell (Weary with noon) to find relief and shade, When on the uneasy sick-bed we are laid, We shall go down into thy book, and tell The leaves, once blank, to build again for us Old summer dead and ruined, and the time Of later autumn with the corn in stook. So shalt thou stint the meagre winter thus Of his projected triumph, and the rime Shall melt before the sunshine in thy book.
III
I have a hoard of treasure in my breast; The grange of memory steams against the door, Full of my bygone lifetime’s garnered store— Old pleasures crowned with sorrow for a zest, Old sorrow grown a joy, old penance blest, Chastened remembrance of the sins of yore That, like a