WRITTEN ON A BLANK LEAF OF HIS MEMOIRS. <br /> <br />Dear friends, who read the world aright, <br />And in its common forms discern <br />A beauty and a harmony <br />The many never learn! <br /> <br />Kindred in soul of him who found <br />In simple flower and leaf and stone <br />The impulse of the sweetest lays <br />Our Saxon tongue has known,-- <br /> <br />Accept this record of a life <br />As sweet and pure, as calm and good, <br />As a long day of blandest June <br />In green field and in wood. <br /> <br />How welcome to our ears, long pained <br />By strife of sect and party noise, <br />The brook-like murmur of his song <br />Of nature's simple joys! <br /> <br />The violet' by its mossy stone, <br />The primrose by the river's brim, <br />And chance-sown daffodil, have found <br />Immortal life through him. <br /> <br />The sunrise on his breezy lake, <br />The rosy tints his sunset brought, <br />World-seen, are gladdening all the vales <br />And mountain-peaks of thought. <br /> <br />Art builds on sand; the works of pride <br />And human passion change and fall; <br />But that which shares the life of God <br />With Him surviveth all.<br /><br />John Greenleaf Whittier<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/wordsworth-2/
