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Home  »  The English Poets  »  Thoughts Suggested the Day Following

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. IV. The Nineteenth Century: Wordsworth to Rossetti

William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

Thoughts Suggested the Day Following

On the Banks of Nith, near the Poet’s Residence

TOO frail to keep the lofty vow

That must have followed when his brow

Was wreathed—‘The Vision’ tells us how—

With holly spray,

He faltered, drifted to and fro,

And passed away.

Well might such thoughts, dear Sister, throng

Our minds when, lingering all too long,

Over the grave of Burns we hung

In social grief—

Indulged as if it were a wrong

To seek relief.

But, leaving each unquiet theme

Where gentlest judgments may misdeem,

And prompt to welcome every gleam

Of good and fair,

Let us beside this limpid Stream

Breathe hopeful air.

Enough of sorrow, wreck, and blight;

Think rather of those moments bright

When to the consciousness of right

His course was true,

When Wisdom prospered in his sight

And virtue grew.

Yes, freely let our hearts expand,

Freely as in youth’s season bland,

When side by side, his Book in hand,

We wont to stray,

Our pleasure varying at command

Of each sweet Lay.

How oft inspired must he have trode

These pathways, yon far-stretching road!

There lurks his home; in that Abode,

With mirth elate,

Or in his nobly-pensive mood,

The Rustic sate.

Proud thoughts that Image overawes,

Before it humbly let us pause,

And ask of Nature, from what cause

And by what rules

She trained her Burns to win applause

That shames the Schools.

Through busiest street and loneliest glen

Are felt the flashes of his pen:

He rules mid winter snows, and when

Bees fill their hives:

Deep in the general heart of men

His power survives.

What need of fields in some far clime

Where Heroes, Sages, Bards sublime,

And all that fetched the flowing rhyme

From genuine springs,

Shall dwell together till old Time

Folds up his wings?

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 for ever.

But why to Him confine the prayer,

When kindred thoughts and yearnings bear

On the frail heart the purest share

With all that live?—

The best of what we do and are,

Just God, forgive!