"WELL PLEASED TO RECOGNIZE IN NATURE AND THE LANGUAGE OF THE SENSE, THE ANCHOR OF MY THOUGHTS,

"THE BURTHEN OF THE MYSTERY, THE WEARY WEIGHT

SONNETS.

These moralists could act and comprehend:
They knew how genuine glory was put on;

Taught us how rightfully a nation shone

In splendour: what strength was, that would not

bend

But in magnanimous meekness.

strange,

France, 'tis

Hath brought forth no such souls as we had then.

Perpetual emptiness! unceasing change!
No single volume paramount, no code,
No master spirit, no determined road;
But equally a want of books and men !

[Written about 1802-3.]

489

V. THE SLEEPING CITY.

EARTH has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty.
This city now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields and to the sky,

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill!
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will.
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep,
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
[Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1803.]

OF ALL THIS UNINTELLIGIBLE WORLD."-WORDSWORTH.

THE NURSE, THE GUIDE, THE GUARDIAN OF MY HEART, AND SOUL OF ALL MY MORAL BEING."-WORDSWORTH.

"NO GREETINGS WHERE NO KINDNESS IS, NOR ALL THE DREARY INTERCOURSE OF DAILY LIFE, WILLIAM WORDSWORTH)

["The broad sun is sinking down in its tranquillity."]

VI. BY THE SEA-SHORE.

IT is a beauteous evening, calm and free:
The holy time is quiet as a nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquillity;

The gentleness of heaven is on the sea.

"THY MEMORY A DWELLING-PLACE FOR ALL SWEET SOUNDS."-WORDSWORTH.

"

THY MIND A MANSION OF ALL LOVELY FORMS."-WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

SHALL E'ER DISTURB OUR CHEERFUL FAITH THAT ALL WHICH WE BEHOLD IS FULL OF BLESSINGS."-W. WORDSWORTH.

"HIS HOPE IS TREACHEROUS ONLY WHOSE love dies-(wORDSWORTH)

Listen! the mighty being is awake,

And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder everlastingly.

Dear child! dear girl! that walkest with me here,-
If thou appear'st untouched by solemn thought,

Thy nature therefore is not less divine:
Thou liestin Abraham's bosom" all the year,
And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner shrine-
God being with thee when we know it not.

"AND NOT IN VAIN, WHEN THOUGHTS ARE CAST UPON AN INEXORABLE PAST, SOME PENITENT SINCERE (WORDSWORTH)

VII. AGAINST WORLDLINESS.

THE world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.
Little we see in Nature that is ours:

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This sea that bares her bosom to the moon-
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are upgathered now like sleeping flowers,—
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I'd rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn,
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn-
Have sight of Proteus* coming from the sea,
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

MAY FOR A WORTHIER FUTURE SIGH, WHILE TRICKLES FROM HIS DOWNCAST EYE NO UNAVAILING TEAR."-WORDSWORTH.

VIII. THE BROOK.

BROOK! whose society the poet seeks,
Intent his wasted spirits to renew ;

* "Proteus represented the everlasting changes, united with the everrecurrent sameness, of the sea."-F. T. PALGRAVE.

WITH BEAUTY, WHICH IS VARYING EVERY HOUR."-w. WORDSWORTH.

"NOT FORTUNE'S SLAVE IS MAN; OUR STATE ENJOINS, WHILE FIRM RESOLVES AWAIT ON WISHES JUST AND WISE,-(WORDSWORTH)

"TIS SENSE, UNBRIDLED WILL, AND NOT TRUE LOVE, WORDSWORTH)

THAT STRENUOUS ACTION FOLLOW BOTH, AND LIFE BE ONE PERPETUAL GROWTH OF HEAVENWARD ENTERPRISE."-WORDSWORTH.

["Through rocky passes, among flowery creeks."]

And whom the curious painter doth pursue
Through rocky passes, among flowery creeks,
And tracks thee dancing down thy water-breaks;
If I some type of thee did wish to view,-

THAT KILLS THE SOUL: LOVE BETTERS WHAT IS BEST."-WORDSWORTH.

"SIN-BLIGHTED THOUGH WE ARE, WE TOO, THE REASONING SONS OF MEN,-(WORDSWORTH)

66 STILL TO BE STRENUOUS FOR THE BRIGHT REWARD,

SONNETS.

Thee, and not thee thyself, I would not do
Like Grecian artists, give thee human cheeks,
Channels for tears: no Naiad shouldst thou be-
Have neither limbs, feet, feathers, joints, nor hairs.
It seems the eternal soul is clothed in thee

With purer robes than those of flesh and blood,
And hath bestowed on thee a better good--

Unwearied joy, and life without its cares.

493

FROM ONE OBLIVIOUS WINTER CALLED, SHALL RISE, AND BREATHE AGAIN."-WORDSWORTH.

IX. THE SHIP.

WITH ships the sea was sprinkled far and nigh,
Like stars in heaven; and joyously it showed,-
Some lying fast at anchor in the road,

Some veering up and down, one knew not why.
A goodly vessel did I then espy
Come like a giant from a haven broad;
And lustily along the bay she strode,
"Her tackling rich, and of apparel high."
This ship was nought to me, nor I to her;
Yet I pursued her with a lover's look :
This ship to all the rest did I prefer.

When will she turn, and whither? She will brook
No tarrying; where she comes the winds must stir.
On went she,—and due north her journey took.

[I cannot here resist the temptation of quoting the following passage :-
"Of all the works of man's hands, except those that belong to art, a boat
is the loveliest, and, in the old sense of the word, the liveliest. Why is
this? Is it that it is born between Wind and Water?-Wind, the father,
ever casting himself into multitudinous shapes of invisible tides, taking
beauteous form in the sweep of a 'lazy-paced cloud,' or embodying a
transient informing freak in the waterspout, which he draws into his life
from the bosom of his mate;-Water, the mother, visible she, sweeping
and swaying, ever making and ever unmade, the very essence of her
being, beauty-yet having no form of her own, and yet again manifesting
herself in the ceaseless generation of passing forms? If the boat be the

AND IN THE SOUL ADMIT OF NO DECAY."-WORDSWORTH.