William Wordsworth 1770-1850 John Bartlett


1
Oh, be wiser thou! Instructed that true knowledge leads to love.
Lines left upon a Seat in a Yew-tree.
2
And homeless near a thousand homes I stood, And near a thousand tables pined and wanted food.
Guilt and Sorrow. Stanza 41.
3
Action is transitory,—a step, a blow; The motion of a muscle, this way or that.
The Borderers. Act iii.
4
Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on, Through words and things, a dim and perilous way. 1
The Borderers. Act iv. Sc. 2.
5
A simple child That lightly draws its breath, And feels its life in every limb, What should it know of death?
We are Seven.
6
O Reader! had you in your mind Such stores as silent thought can bring, O gentle Reader! you would find A tale in everything.
Simon Lee.
7
I ’ve heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds With coldness still returning; Alas! the gratitude of men Hath oftener left me mourning.
Simon Lee.
8
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind.
Lines written in Early Spring.
9
And ’t is my faith, that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes.
Lines written in Early Spring.
10
Nor less I deem that there are Powers Which of themselves our minds impress; That we can feed this mind of ours In a wise passiveness.
Expostulation and Reply.



11
Up! up! my friend, and quit your books, Or surely you ’ll grow double! Up! up! my friend, and clear your looks! Why all this toil and trouble?
The Tables Turned.
12
Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher.
The Tables Turned.
13
One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can.
The Tables Turned.
14
The bane of all that dread the Devil.
The Idiot Boy.
15
Sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart.
Lines completed a few miles above Tintern Abbey.
16
That best portion of a good man’s life,— His little, nameless, unremembered acts Of kindness and of love.
Lines completed a few miles above Tintern Abbey.
17
That blessed mood, In which the burden of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world, Is lightened.
Lines completed a few miles above Tintern Abbey.
18
The fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world Have hung upon the beatings of my heart.
Lines completed a few miles above Tintern Abbey.
19
The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms, were then to me An appetite,—a feeling and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm By thoughts supplied, nor any interest Unborrowed from the eye.
Lines completed a few miles above Tintern Abbey.
20
But hearing oftentimes The still, sad music of humanity.
Lines completed a few miles above Tintern Abbey.
21
A sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air And the blue sky, and in the mind of man,— A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things.
Lines completed a few miles above Tintern Abbey.
22
Knowing that Nature never did betray The heart that loved her.
Lines completed a few miles above Tintern Abbey.
23
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all The dreary intercourse of daily life.
Lines completed a few miles above Tintern Abbey.
24
Men who can hear the Decalogue, and feel To self-reproach.
The Old Cumberland Beggar.
25
As in the eye of Nature he has lived, So in the eye of Nature let him die!
The Old Cumberland Beggar.
26
There ’s something in a flying horse, There ’s something in a huge balloon.
Peter Bell. Prologue. Stanza 1.
27
The common growth of Mother Earth Suffices me,—her tears, her mirth, Her humblest mirth and tears.
Peter Bell. Prologue. Stanza 27.
28
Full twenty times was Peter feared, For once that Peter was respected.
Peter Bell. Part i. Stanza 3.
29
A primrose by a river’s brim A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more.
Peter Bell. Part i. Stanza 12.
30
The soft blue sky did never melt Into his heart; he never felt The witchery of the soft blue sky!
Peter Bell. Part i. Stanza 15.
31
On a fair prospect some have looked, And felt, as I have heard them say, As if the moving time had been A thing as steadfast as the scene On which they gazed themselves away.
Peter Bell. Part i. Stanza 16.
32
As if the man had fixed his face, In many a solitary place, Against the wind and open sky!
Peter Bell. Part i. Stanza 16. 2
33
One of those heavenly days that cannot die.
Nutting.
34
She dwelt among the untrodden ways Beside the springs of Dove,— A maid whom there were none to praise And very few to love.
She dwelt among the untrodden ways.
35
A violet by a mossy stone Half hidden from the eye; Fair as a star, when only one Is shining in the sky.
She dwelt among the untrodden ways.
36
She lived unknown, and few could know When Lucy ceased to be; But she is in her grave, and oh The difference to me!
She dwelt among the untrodden ways.
37
The stars of midnight shall be dear To her; and she shall lean her ear In many a secret place Where rivulets dance their wayward round, And beauty born of murmuring sound Shall pass into her face.
Three years she grew in Sun and Shower.
38
May no rude hand deface it, And its forlorn hic jacet!
Ellen Irwin.
39
She gave me eyes, she gave me ears; And humble cares, and delicate fears; A heart, the fountain of sweet tears; And love and thought and joy.
The Sparrow’s Nest.
40
The child is father of the man. 3
My heart leaps up when I behold.
41
The cattle are grazing, Their heads never raising; There are forty feeding like one!
The Cock is crowing.
42
Sweet childish days, that were as long As twenty days are now.
To a Butterfly. I ’ve watched you now a full half-hour.
43
Often have I sighed to measure By myself a lonely pleasure,— Sighed to think I read a book, Only read, perhaps, by me.
To the Small Celandine.
44
As high as we have mounted in delight, In our dejection do we sink as low.
Resolution and Independence. Stanza 4.
45
But how can he expect that others should Build for him, sow for him, and at his call Love him, who for himself will take no heed at all?
Resolution and Independence. Stanza 6.
46
I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous boy, The sleepless soul that perished in his pride; Of him who walked in glory and in joy, Following his plough, along the mountain-side. By our own spirits we are deified; We Poets in our youth begin in gladness, But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.
Resolution and Independence. Stanza 7.
47
That heareth not the loud winds when they call, And moveth all together, if it moves at all.
Resolution and Independence. Stanza 11.
48
Choice word and measured phrase above the reach Of ordinary men.
Resolution and Independence. Stanza 14.
49
And mighty poets in their misery dead.
Resolution and Independence. Stanza 17.
50
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!
Earth has not anything to show more fair.
51
The holy time is quiet as a nun Breathless with adoration.
It is a beauteous Evening.
52
Men are we, and must grieve when even the shade Of that which once was great is passed away.
On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic.
53
Thou has left behind Powers that will work for thee,—air, earth, and skies! There ’s not a breathing of the common wind That will forget thee; thou hast great allies; Thy friends are exultations, agonies, And love, and man’s unconquerable mind. 4
To Toussaint L’Ouverture.
54
One that would peep and botanize Upon his mother’s grave.
A Poet’s Epitaph. Stanza 5.
55
He murmurs near the running brooks A music sweeter than their own.
A Poet’s Epitaph. Stanza 10.
56
And you must love him, ere to you He will seem worthy of your love.
A Poet’s Epitaph. Stanza 11.
57
The harvest of a quiet eye, That broods and sleeps on his own heart.
A Poet’s Epitaph. Stanza 13.
58
Yet sometimes, when the secret cup Of still and serious thought went round, It seemed as if he drank it up, He felt with spirit so profound.
Matthew.
59
My eyes are dim with childish tears, My heart is idly stirred, For the same sound is in my ears Which in those days I heard.
The Fountain.
60
A happy youth, and their old age Is beautiful and free.
The Fountain.
61
And often, glad no more, We wear a face of joy because We have been glad of yore.
The Fountain.
62
The sweetest thing that ever grew Beside a human door.
Lucy Gray. Stanza 2.
63
A youth to whom was given So much of earth, so much of heaven.
Ruth.
64
Until a man might travel twelve stout miles, Or reap an acre of his neighbor’s corn.
The Brothers.
65
Something between a hindrance and a help.
Michael.
66
Drink, pretty creature, drink!
The Pet Lamb.
67
Lady of the Mere, Sole-sitting by the shores of old romance.
A narrow Girdle of rough Stones and Crags.
68
And he is oft the wisest man Who is not wise at all.
The Oak and the Broom.
69
“A jolly place,” said he, “in times of old! But something ails it now: the spot is cursed.”
Hart-leap Well. Part ii.
70
Hunt half a day for a forgotten dream.
Hart-leap Well. Part ii.
71
Never to blend our pleasure or our pride With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.
Hart-leap Well. Part ii.
72
Plain living and high thinking are no more. The homely beauty of the good old cause Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence, And pure religion breathing household laws.
O, Friend! I know not which way I must look.
73
Milton! thou should’st be living at this hour: England hath need of thee! . . . . . . Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart: So didst thou travel on life’s common way In cheerful godliness.
London, 1802.
74
We must be free or die who speak the tongue That Shakespeare spake, the faith and morals hold Which Milton held.
It is not to be thought of.
75
A noticeable man, with large gray eyes.
Stanzas written in Thomson’s Castle of Indolence.
76
We meet thee, like a pleasant thought, When such are wanted.
To the Daisy.
77
The poet’s darling.
To the Daisy.
78
Thou unassuming commonplace Of Nature.
To the same Flower.
79
Oft on the dappled turf at ease I sit, and play with similes, Loose type of things through all degrees.
To the same Flower.
80
Sweet Mercy! to the gates of heaven This minstrel lead, his sins forgiven; The rueful conflict, the heart riven With vain endeavour, And memory of Earth’s bitter leaven Effaced forever.
Thoughts suggested on the Banks of the Nith.
81
The best of what we do and are, Just God, forgive!
Thoughts suggested on the Banks of the Nith.
82
For old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago.
The Solitary Reaper.
83
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain That has been, and may be again.
The Solitary Reaper.
84
The music in my heart I bore Long after it was heard no more.
The Solitary Reaper.
85
Yon foaming flood seems motionless as ice; Its dizzy turbulence eludes the eye, Frozen by distance.
Address to Kilchurn Castle.
86
A famous man is Robin Hood, The English ballad-singer’s joy.
Rob Roy’s Grave.
87
Because the good old rule Sufficeth them,—the simple plan, That they should take who have the power, And they should keep who can.
Rob Roy’s Grave.
88
The Eagle, he was lord above, And Rob was lord below.
Rob Roy’s Grave.
89
A brotherhood of venerable trees.
Sonnet composed at ———— Castle.
90
Let beeves and home-bred kine partake The sweets of Burn-mill meadow; The swan on still St. Mary’s Lake Float double, swan and shadow!
Yarrow Unvisited.
91
Every gift of noble origin Is breathed upon by Hope’s perpetual breath.
These Times strike Monied Worldlings.
92
A remnant of uneasy light.
The Matron of Jedborough.
93
Oh for a single hour of that Dundee Who on that day the word of onset gave! 5
Sonnet, in the Pass of Killicranky.
94
O Cuckoo! shall I call thee bird, Or but a wandering voice?
To the Cuckoo.
95
She was a phantom of delight When first she gleamed upon my sight, A lovely apparition, sent To be a moment’s ornament; Her eyes as stars of twilight fair, Like twilights too her dusky hair, But all things else about her drawn From May-time and the cheerful dawn.
She was a Phantom of Delight.
96
A creature not too bright or good For human nature’s daily food; For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.
She was a Phantom of Delight.
97
The reason firm, the temperate will, Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill; A perfect woman, nobly planned, To warn, to comfort, and command.
She was a Phantom of Delight.
98
That inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude.
I wandered lonely.
99
To be a Prodigal’s favourite,—then, worse truth, A Miser’s pensioner,—behold our lot!
The Small Celandine.
100
Stern Daughter of the Voice of God! 6
Ode to Duty.
101
A light to guide, a rod To check the erring, and reprove.
Ode to Duty.
102
Give unto me, made lowly wise, The spirit of self-sacrifice; The confidence of reason give, And in the light of truth thy bondman let me live!
Ode to Duty.
103
The light that never was, on sea or land; The consecration, and the Poet’s dream.
Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm. Stanza 4.
104
Shalt show us how divine a thing A woman may be made.
To a Young Lady. Dear Child of Nature.
105
But an old age serene and bright, And lovely as a Lapland night, Shall lead thee to thy grave.
To a Young Lady. Dear Child of Nature.
106
Where the statue stood Of Newton, with his prism and silent face, The marble index of a mind forever Voyaging through strange seas of thought alone.
The Prelude.Book iii.
107
Another morn Risen on mid-noon. 7
The Prelude.Book vi.
108
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!
The Prelude.Book xi.
109
The budding rose above the rose full blown.
The Prelude.Book xi.
110
There is One great society alone on earth: The noble living and the noble dead.
The Prelude.Book xi.
111
Who, doomed to go in company with Pain And Fear and Bloodshed,—miserable train!— Turns his necessity to glorious gain.
Character of the Happy Warrior.
112
Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves Of their bad influence, and their good receives.
Character of the Happy Warrior.
113
But who, if he be called upon to face Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined Great issues, good or bad for humankind, Is happy as a lover.
Character of the Happy Warrior.
114
And through the heat of conflict keeps the law In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw.
Character of the Happy Warrior.
115
Whom neither shape of danger can dismay, Nor thought of tender happiness betray.
Character of the Happy Warrior.
116
Like,—but oh how different!
Yes, it was the Mountain Echo.
117
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.
Miscellaneous Sonnets. Part i. xxxiii.
118
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 rising from the sea, Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
Miscellaneous Sonnets. Part i. xxxiii.
119
Maidens withering on the stalk. 8
Personal Talk. Stanza 1.
120
Sweetest melodies Are those that are by distance made more sweet. 9
Personal Talk. Stanza 2.
121
Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know, Are a substantial world, both pure and good. Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, Our pastime and our happiness will grow.
Personal Talk. Stanza 3.
122
The gentle Lady married to the Moor, And heavenly Una with her milk-white lamb.
Personal Talk. Stanza 3.
123
Blessings be with them, and eternal praise, Who gave us nobler loves, and nobler cares!— The Poets, who on earth have made us heirs Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays.
Personal Talk. Stanza 4.
124
A power is passing from the earth.
Lines on the expected Dissolution of Mr. Fox.
125
The rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the rose.
Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 2.
126
The sunshine is a glorious birth; But yet I know, where’er I go, That there hath passed away a glory from the earth.
Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 2.
127
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?
Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 5.
128
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The soul that rises with us, our life’s star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar. Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory, do we come From God, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy.
Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 5.
129
At length the man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day.
Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 5.
130
The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction.
Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 9.
131
Those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Fallings from us, vanishings, Blank misgivings of a creature Moving about in worlds not realized, High instincts before which our mortal nature Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised.
Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 9.
132
Truths that wake, To perish never.
Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 9.
133
Though inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Which brought us hither.
Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 9.
134
Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower.
Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 10.
135
In years that bring the philosophic mind.
Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 10.
136
The clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober colouring from an eye That hath kept watch o’er man’s mortality.
Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 11.
137
To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 11.
138
Two voices are there: one is of the sea, One of the mountains,—each a mighty voice.
Thought of a Briton on the Subjugation of Switzerland.
139
Earth helped him with the cry of blood. 10
Song at the Feast of Broughton Castle.
140
The silence that is in the starry sky.
Ibid.
141
The monumental pomp of age Was with this goodly personage; A stature undepressed in size, Unbent, which rather seemed to rise In open victory o’er the weight Of seventy years, to loftier height.
The White Doe of Rylstone. Canto iii.
142
“What is good for a bootless bene?” With these dark words begins my tale; And their meaning is, Whence can comfort spring When prayer is of no avail?
Force of Prayer.
143
A few strong instincts, and a few plain rules.
Alas! what boots the long laborious Quest?
144
Of blessed consolations in distress.
Preface to the Excursion. (Edition, 1814.)
145
The vision and the faculty divine; Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse.
The Excursion.Book i.
146
The imperfect offices of prayer and praise.
The Excursion.Book i.
147
That mighty orb of song, The divine Milton.
The Excursion.Book i.
148
The good die first, 11 And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust Burn to the socket.
The Excursion.Book i.
149
This dull product of a scoffer’s pen.
The Excursion.Book ii.
150
With battlements that on their restless fronts Bore stars.
The Excursion.Book ii.
151
Wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop Than when we soar.
The Excursion.Book iii.
152
Wrongs unredressed, or insults unavenged.
The Excursion.Book iii.
153
Monastic brotherhood, upon rock Aerial.
The Excursion.Book iii.
154
The intellectual power, through words and things, Went sounding on a dim and perilous way! 12
The Excursion.Book iii.
155
Society became my glittering bride, And airy hopes my children.
The Excursion.Book iii.
156
And the most difficult of tasks to keep Heights which the soul is competent to gain.
The Excursion.Book iv.
157
There is a luxury in self-dispraise; And inward self-disparagement affords To meditative spleen a grateful feast.
The Excursion.Book iv.
158
Recognizes ever and anon The breeze of Nature stirring in his soul.
The Excursion.Book iv.
159
Pan himself, The simple shepherd’s awe-inspiring god!
The Excursion.Book iv.
160
I have seen A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract Of inland ground, applying to his ear The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell, To which, in silence hushed, his very soul Listened intensely; and his countenance soon Brightened with joy, for from within were heard Murmurings, whereby the monitor expressed Mysterious union with his native sea. 13
The Excursion.Book iv.
161
So build we up the being that we are.
The Excursion.Book iv.
162
One in whom persuasion and belief Had ripened into faith, and faith become A passionate intuition.
The Excursion.Book iv.
163
Spires whose “silent finger points to heaven.” 14
The Excursion.Book vi.
164
Ah, what a warning for a thoughtless man, Could field or grove, could any spot of earth, Show to his eye an image of the pangs Which it hath witnessed,—render back an echo Of the sad steps by which it hath been trod!
The Excursion.Book vi.
165
And when the stream Which overflowed the soul was passed away, A consciousness remained that it had left Deposited upon the silent shore Of memory images and precious thoughts That shall not die, and cannot be destroyed.
The Excursion.Book vii.
166
Wisdom married to immortal verse. 15
The Excursion.Book vii.
167
A man he seems of cheerful yesterdays And confident to-morrows.
The Excursion.Book vii.
168
The primal duties shine aloft, like stars; The charities that soothe and heal and bless Are scattered at the feet of man like flowers.
The Excursion.Book ix.
169
By happy chance we saw A twofold image: on a grassy bank A snow-white ram, and in the crystal flood Another and the same! 16
The Excursion.Book ix.
170
The gods approve The depth, and not the tumult, of the soul.
Laodamia.
171
Mightier far Than strength of nerve or sinew, or the sway Of magic potent over sun and star, Is Love, though oft to agony distrest, And though his favorite seat be feeble woman’s breast.
Laodamia.
172
Elysian beauty, melancholy grace, Brought from a pensive though a happy place.
Laodamia.
173
He spake of love, such love as spirits feel In worlds whose course is equable and pure; No fears to beat away, no strife to heal,— The past unsighed for, and the future sure.
Laodamia.
174
Of all that is most beauteous, imaged there In happier beauty; more pellucid streams, An ampler ether, a diviner air, And fields invested with purpureal gleams.
Laodamia.
175
Yet tears to human suffering are due; And mortal hopes defeated and o’erthrown Are mourned by man, and not by man alone.
Laodamia.
176
But shapes that come not at an earthly call Will not depart when mortal voices bid.
Dion.
177
But thou that didst appear so fair To fond imagination, Dost rival in the light of day Her delicate creation.
Yarrow Visited.
178
’T is hers to pluck the amaranthine flower Of faith, and round the sufferer’s temples bind Wreaths that endure affliction’s heaviest shower, And do not shrink from sorrow’s keenest wind.
Weak is the Will of Man.
179
We bow our heads before Thee, and we laud And magnify thy name Almighty God! But man is thy most awful instrument In working out a pure intent.
Ode. Imagination before Content.
180
Sad fancies do we then affect, In luxury of disrespect To our own prodigal excess Of too familiar happiness.
Ode to Lycoris.
181
That kill the bloom before its time, And blanch, without the owner’s crime, The most resplendent hair.
Lament of Mary Queen of Scots.
182
The sightless Milton, with his hair Around his placid temples curled; And Shakespeare at his side,—a freight, If clay could think and mind were weight, For him who bore the world!
The Italian Itinerant.
183
Meek Nature’s evening comment on the shows That for oblivion take their daily birth From all the fuming vanities of earth.
Sky-Prospect from the Plain of France.
184
Turning, for them who pass, the common dust Of servile opportunity to gold.
Desultory Stanza.
185
Babylon, Learned and wise, hath perished utterly, Nor leaves her speech one word to aid the sigh That would lament her.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets. Part i. xxv.Missions and Travels.
186
As thou these ashes, little brook, wilt bear Into the Avon, Avon to the tide Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas, Into main ocean they, this deed accursed An emblem yields to friends and enemies How the bold teacher’s doctrine, sanctified By truth, shall spread, throughout the world dispersed. 17
Ecclesiastical Sonnets. Part ii. xvii.To Wickliffe.
187
The feather, whence the pen Was shaped that traced the lives of these good men, Dropped from an angel’s wing. 18
Ecclesiastical Sonnets. Part iii. v.Walton’s Book of Lives.
188
Meek Walton’s heavenly memory.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets. Part iii. v.Walton’s Book of Lives.
189
But who would force the soul tilts with a straw Against a champion cased in adamant.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets. Part iii. vii.Persecution of the Scottish Covenanters.
190
Where music dwells Lingering and wandering on as loth to die, Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof That they were born for immortality.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets. Part iii. xliii.Inside of King’s Chapel, Cambridge.
191
Or shipwrecked, kindles on the coast False fires, that others may be lost.
To the Lady Fleming.
192
But hushed be every thought that springs From out the bitterness of things.
Elegiac Stanzas. Addressed to Sir G. H. B.
193
To the solid ground Of Nature trusts the mind that builds for aye.
A Volant Tribe of Bards on Earth.
194
Soft is the music that would charm forever; The flower of sweetest smell is shy and lowly.
Not Love, not War.
195
True beauty dwells in deep retreats, Whose veil is unremoved Till heart with heart in concord beats, And the lover is beloved.
To ———. Let other Bards of Angels sing.
196
Type of the wise who soar but never roam, True to the kindred points of heaven and home.
To a Skylark.
197
A Briton even in love should be A subject, not a slave!
Ere with Cold Beads of Midnight Dew.
198
Scorn not the sonnet. Critic, you have frowned, Mindless of its just honours; with this key Shakespeare unlocked his heart. 19
Scorn not the Sonnet.
199
And when a damp Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand The thing became a trumpet; whence he blew Soul-animating strains,—alas! too few.
Scorn not the Sonnet.
200
But he is risen, a later star of dawn.
A Morning Exercise.
201
Bright gem instinct with music, vocal spark.
A Morning Exercise.
202
When his veering gait And every motion of his starry train Seem governed by a strain Of music, audible to him alone.
The Triad.
203
Alas! how little can a moment show Of an eye where feeling plays In ten thousand dewy rays: A face o’er which a thousand shadows go!
The Triad.
204
Stern Winter loves a dirge-like sound.
On the Power of Sound. xii.
205
The bosom-weight, your stubborn gift, That no philosophy can lift.
Presentiments.
206
Nature’s old felicities.
The Trosachs.
207
Myriads of daisies have shone forth in flower Near the lark’s nest, and in their natural hour Have passed away; less happy than the one That by the unwilling ploughshare died to prove The tender charm of poetry and love.
Poems composed during a Tour in the Summer of 1833.xxxvii.
208
Small service is true service while it lasts. Of humblest friends, bright creature! scorn not one: The daisy, by the shadow that it casts, Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun.
To a Child. Written in her Album.
209
Since every mortal power of Coleridge Was frozen at its marvellous source, The rapt one, of the godlike forehead, The heaven-eyed creature sleeps in earth: And Lamb, the frolic and the gentle, Has vanished from his lonely hearth.
Extempore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg.
210
How fast has brother followed brother, From sunshine to the sunless land!
Extempore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg.
211
Those old credulities, to Nature dear, Shall they no longer bloom upon the stock Of history?
Memorials of a Tour in Italy. iv.
212
How does the meadow-flower its bloom unfold? Because the lovely little flower is free Down to its root, and in that freedom bold.
A Poet! He hath put his Heart to School.
213
Minds that have nothing to confer Find little to perceive.
Yes, Thou art Fair.

Note 1.
The intellectual power, through words and things,
Went sounding on a dim and perilous way!
The Excursion, book iii. [back]

Note 2.
The original edition (London, 1819, 8vo) had the following as the fourth stanza from the end of Part i., which was omitted in all subsequent editions:—

Is it a party in a parlour?
Crammed just as they on earth were crammed,—
Some sipping punch, some sipping tea,
But, as you by their faces see,
All silent and all damned. [back]

Note 3.
See Milton, Quotation 207. [back]

Note 4.
See Gray, Quotation 15. [back]

Note 5.
It was on this occasion [the failure in energy of Lord Mar at the battle of Sheriffmuir] that Gordon of Glenbucket made the celebrated exclamation, “Oh for an hour of Dundee!”—Mahon: History of England, vol. i. p. 184.

Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo,
The octogenarian chief, Byzantium’s conquering foe!
Lord Byron: Childe Harold, canto iv. stanza 12. [back]

Note 6.
See Milton, Quotation 185. [back]

Note 7.
See Milton, Quotation 132. [back]

Note 8.
See Shakespeare, Quotation 1. [back]

Note 9.
See Collins, Quotation 8. [back]

Note 10.
This line is from Sir John Beaumont’s “Battle of Bosworth Field.” [back]

Note 11.
Heaven gives its favourites—early death.—Lord Byron: Childe Harold, canto iv. stanza 102. Also Don Juan, canto iv. stanza 12.

Quem Di diligunt
Adolescens moritur
(He whom the gods favor dies in youth).
Plautus: Bacchides, act iv. sc. 7. [back]

Note 12.
See Quotation 4. [back]

Note 13.
But I have sinuous shell of pearly hue;
. . . . .
Shake one, and it awakens; then apply
Its polisht lips to your attentive ear,
And it remembers its august abodes,
And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there.
Walter Savage Landor: Gebir, book v. [back]

Note 14.
An instinctive taste teaches men to build their churches in flat countries with spire steeples, which, as they cannot be referred to any other object, point as with silent finger to the sky and stars.—Samuel Taylor Coleridge: The Friend, No. 14. [back]

Note 15.
See Milton, Quotation 297. [back]

Note 16.
Another and the same.—Darwin: The Botanic Garden. [back]

Note 17.
In obedience to the order of the Council of Constance (1415), the remains of Wickliffe were exhumed and burned to ashes, and these cast into the Swift, a neighbouring brook running hard by; and “thus this brook hath conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main ocean. And thus the ashes of Wickliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over.”—Thomas Fuller: Church History, sect. ii. book iv. paragraph 53.

What Heraclitus would not laugh, or what Democritus would not weep?… For though they digged up his body, burned his bones, and drowned his ashes, yet the word of God and truth of his doctrine, with the fruit and success thereof, they could not burn.—Fox: Book of Martyrs, vol. i. p. 606 (edition, 1611).

“Some prophet of that day said,—
“‘The Avon to the Severn runs,
The Severn to the sea;
And Wickliffe’s dust shall spread abroad
Wide as the waters be.’”
Daniel Webster: Address before the Sons of New Hampshire, 1849.

These lines are similarly quoted by the Rev. John Cumming in the “Voices of the Dead.” [back]

Note 18.
The pen wherewith thou dost so heavenly sing
Made of a quill from an angel’s wing.
Henry Constable: Sonnet.

Whose noble praise
Deserves a quill pluckt from an angel’s wing.
Dorothy Berry: Sonnet. [back]

Note 19.
With this same key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart.
Robert Browning: House. [back]

Contents -AUTHOR INDEX -CONCORDANCE INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD