William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

(Suggested by a picture painted by Sir George Howland Beaumont, Bart.)

PRAISED be the Art whose subtle power could stay

Yon cloud, and fix it in that glorious shape;

Nor would permit the thin smoke to escape,

Nor those bright sunbeams to forsake the day;

Which stopped that band of travellers on their way,

Ere they were lost within the shady wood;

And showed the bark upon the glassy flood

Forever anchored in her sheltering bay.

Soul-soothing Art! which Morning, Noontide, Even,

Do serve with all their changeful pageantry;

Thou, with ambition modest yet sublime,

Here, for the sight of mortal man, hast given

To one brief moment caught from fleeting time

The appropriate calm of blest eternity.