Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Volume 2: A Character

A Character

_A CHARACTER_,
  _In the antithetical Manner_.

  I marvel how Nature could ever find space
  For the weight and the levity seen in his face:
  There's thought and no thought, and there's paleness and bloom,
  And bustle and sluggishness, pleasure and gloom.
  There's weakness, and strength both redundant and vain;
  Such strength, as if ever affliction and pain
  Could pierce through a temper that's soft to disease,
  Would be rational peace--a philosopher's ease.
  There's indifference, alike when he fails and succeeds,
  And attention full ten times as much as there needs,
  Pride where there's no envy, there's so much of joy;
  And mildness, and spirit both forward and coy.
  There's freedom, and sometimes a diffident stare
  Of shame scarcely seeming to know that she's there.
  There's virtue, the title it surely may claim,
  Yet wants, heaven knows what, to be worthy the name.
  What a picture! 'tis drawn without nature or art,
  --Yet the Man would at once run away with your heart,
  And I for five centuries right gladly would be
  Such an odd, such a kind happy creature as he.

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