Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.
By William Wordsworth (17701850)An Evening Voluntary
NOT in the lucid intervals of life | |
That come but as a curse to party strife; | |
Not in some hour when Pleasure with a sigh | |
Of languor puts his rosy garland by; | |
Not in the breathing-times of that poor slave | 5 |
Who daily piles up wealth in Mammon’s cave— | |
Is Nature felt, or can be; nor do words, | |
Which practised talent readily affords, | |
Prove that her hand has touched responsive chords; | |
Nor has her gentle beauty power to move | 10 |
With genuine rapture and with fervent love | |
The soul of genius, if he dare to take | |
Life’s rule from passion craved for passion’s sake; | |
Untaught that meekness is the cherished bent | |
Of all the truly great and all the innocent. | 15 |
But who is innocent? By grace divine, | |
Not otherwise, O Nature, we are thine, | |
Through good and evil thine, in just degree | |
Of rational and manly sympathy. | |
To all that earth from pensive hearts is stealing, | 20 |
And Heaven is now to gladdened eyes revealing, | |
Add every charm the universe can show | |
Through every change its aspects undergo; | |
Care may be respited, but not repealed; | |
No perfect cure grows on that bounded field. | 25 |
Vain is the pleasure, a false calm the peace, | |
If He, through whom alone our conflicts cease, | |
Our virtuous hopes without relapse advance, | |
Come not to speed the Soul’s deliverance; | |
To the distempered Intellect refuse | 30 |
His gracious help, or give what we abuse. | |