ΤΟ

O DEARER far than light and life are dear,
Full oft our human foresight I deplore;
Trembling, through my unworthiness, with fear
That friends, by death disjoin'd, may meet no more!

Misgivings, hard to vanquish or control,
Mix with the day, and cross the hour of rest;
While all the future, for thy purer soul,
With "sober certainties" of love is blest.

That sigh of thine, not meant for human ear,
Tells that these words thy humbleness offend;
Yet bear me up,- - else faltering in the rear
Of a steep march: support me to the end.

Peace settles where the intellect is meek,
And Love is dutiful in thought and deed;
Through Thee communion with that Love I seek:
The faith Heaven strengthens where He moulds the Creel.'

[1824.

TO A SKY-LARK.

ETHEREAL minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!

Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?
Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye
Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?
Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will,
Those quivering wings composed, that music still!

Leave to the nightingale her shady wood:
A privacy of glorious light is thine;

Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood
Of harmony, with instinct more divine;

Type of the wise who soar, but never roam,

True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!" [1825.

6 This little piece also, like the preceding, was addressed to the author's wife. The last stanza is enough of itself to justify its insertion here.

7 The Diary of Henry Crabb Robinson furnishes an apt comment on this little gem of song: "Wordsworth has been able to exhibit that harmony in nature and the world of thought and sentiment, the detection of which is the great feat of the real poct. To take one single illustration. In his poem on the Sky-lark, he terminates his description of the bird mounting high, and yet never leaving her nest over which she hovers, with-True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home." Such a line as this is an acquisition; for here is admirably insinuated the connection between the domestic affections and the religious feelings, which is important in moral philoso phy, coupled with the fanciful analogy to an instinct in the bird. Wordsworth's poems abound in these beauties."

TO A SKY-LARK.

HAIL, blest above all kinds!-Supremely skill'd
Restless with fix'd to balance, high with low,
Thou leav'st the halcyon free her hopes to build
On such forbearance as the deep may show;
Perpetual flight, uncheck'd by earthly ties,
Leav'st to the wandering bird of paradise.

Faithful, though swift as lightning, the meek dove!
Yet more hath Nature reconciled in thee;
So constant with thy downward eye of love,
Yet, in aërial singleness, so free;

So humble, yet so ready to rejoice
In power of wing and never-wearied voice.

To the last point of vision, and beyond,

Mount, daring warbler!-that love-prompted strain
("Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond)
Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain:
Yet mightst thou seem, proud privilege! to sing
All independent of the leafy Spring.

How would it please old Ocean to partake,
With sailors longing for a breeze in vain,
The harmony thy notes most gladly make
Where earth resembles most his own domain!
Urania's self might welcome with pleased ear
These matins mounting towards her native sphere.
Chanter by Heaven attracted, whom no bars
To day-light known deter from that pursuit,
'Tis well that some sage instinct, when the stars
Come forth at evening, keeps Thee still and mute;
For not an eyelid could to sleep incline

Wert thou among them, singing as they shine!*

TIME flows, nor winds,

Nor stagnates, nor precipitates his course,
But many a benefit borne upon his breast
For human-kind sinks out of sight, is gone,
No one knows how; nor seldom is put forth
An angry arm that snatches good away,
Never perhaps to reappear. The Stream

[1828

8 These stanzas are from a poem entitled A Morning Erercise. The author himself says in his notes, “I could wish the last five stanzas of this to be read with the poem addressed to the sky-lark."

Has to our generation brought and brings
Innumerable gains; yet we, who now
Walk in the light of day, pertain full surely
To a chill'd age, most pitiably shut out
From that which is and actuates, by forms,
Abstractions, and by lifeless fact to fact
Minutely link'd with diligence uninspired,
Unrectified, unguided, unsustain❜d,

By godlike insight. To this fate is doom'd
Science, wide-spread and spreading still as be
Her conquests, in the world of sense made known.
So with th' internal mind it fares; and so
With morals, trusting, in contempt or fear
Of vital principle's controlling law,

To her purblind guide Expediency; and so
Suffers religious faith. Elate with view
Of what is won, we overlook or scorn

The best that should keep pace with it, and must,
Else more and more the general mind will droop,
Even as if bent on perishing. There lives
No faculty within us which the Soul

Can spare; and humblest earthly Weal demands,
For dignity not placed beyond her reach,
Zealous co-operation of all means

Given or acquired, to raise us from the mire,
And liberate our hearts from low pursuits.
By gross Utilities enslaved we need

More of ennobling impulse from the past,
If to the future aught of good must come
Sounder and therefore holier than the ends
Which, in the giddiness of self-applause,
We covet as supreme. O, grant the crown
That Wisdom wears, or take his treacherous staff
From Knowledge!

[1837.

PERSONAL TALK.

I AM not One who much or oft delight
To season my fireside with personal talk,
Of friends, who live within an easy walk,
Or neighbours, daily, weekly, in my sight:
And, for my chance-acquaintance, ladies bright,

9 These lines are a small part of a poem entitled Musings near Aquapendente. The whole poem is too long for this place, and is written in the author's severest style. The narrowing and dwarfing and drying effect of science exclusively pursued, while the world of moral and imaginative reason's discarded or lost sight of, was a favourite theme with Wordsworth.

Sons, mothers, maidens withering on the stalk,-
These all wear out of me, like Forms, with chalk
Painted on rich men's floors, for one feast-night.
Better than such discourse doth silence long,
Long, barren silence, square with my desire;
To sit without emotion, hope, or aim,
In the loved presence of my cottage-fire,
And listen to the flapping of the flame,
Or kettle whispering its faint undersong.1

"Yet life," you say, "is life; we have seen and see,
And with a living pleasure we describe;
And fits of sprightly malice do but bribe

The languid mind into activity.

Sound sense, and love itself, and mirth and glee
Are foster'd by the comment and the gibe.”
Even be it so yet still among your tribe,
Our daily world's true Worldlings, rank not me!
Children are blest, and powerful; their world lies
More justly balanced; partly at their feet,
And part far from them:-sweetest melodies
Are those that are by distance made more sweet;
Whose mind is but the mind of his own eyes,
He is a Slave; the meanest we can meet!

Wings have we, and as far as we can go
We may find pleasure: wilderness and wood,
Blank ocean and mere sky, support that mood
Which with the lofty sanctifies the low.

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.

There find I personal themes, a plenteous store,
Matter wherein right voluble I am,

To which I listen with a ready ear;

Two shall be named, pre-eminently dear,
The gentle Lady married to the Moor,

And heavenly Una with her milk-white Lamb.

Nor can I not believe but that hereby
Great gains are mine: for thus I live remote

1 Written at Townend, Grasmere. The last line but two stood, at first, better and more characteristically, thus: "By my half-kitchen and half-parlour fire." My sister and I were in the habit of having the tea-kettle in our little sitting-room. - By the by, I have a spite at one of this series of sonnets, (I will leave the reader to discover which,) as having been the means of nearly putting off for ever our acquaintance with dear Miss Fenwick, who has always stigmatised one line of it as vulgar, and worthy only of having been composed by a country squire.-Author's Notes.

From evil-speaking; rancour, never sought,
Comes to me not; malignant truth, or lie.
Hence have I genial seasons, hence have I

Smooth passions, smooth discourse, and joyous thought.
And thus from day to day my little boat
Rocks in its harbour, lodging peaceably.
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!
O! might my name be number'd among theirs,
Then gladly would I end my mortal days.

GRACE DARLING.

AMONG the dwellers in the silent fields
The natural heart is touch'd, and public way
And crowded street resound with ballad strains,
Inspired by ONE whose very name bespeaks
Favour divine, exalting human love;

Whom, since her birth on bleak Nothumbria's coast,
Known unto few but prized as far as known,

A single Act endears to high and low

Through the whole land, to Manhood, moved in spite
Of the world's freezing cares, to generous Youth,-
To Infancy, that lisps her praise, to Age
Whose eye reflects it, glistening through a tear
Of tremulous admiration. Such true fame
Awaits her now; but, verily, good deeds
Do no imperishable record find

Save in the rolls of Heaven, where hers may live
A theme for angels, when they celebrate

The high-soul'd virtues which forgetful Earth

Has witness'd. O, that winds and waves could speak
Of things which their united power call'd forth
From the pure depths of her humanity!

A Maiden gentle, yet, at duty's call,

Firm and unflinching, as the Lighthouse rear'd
On th' Island-rock, her lonely dwelling-place;
Or like th' invincible Rock itself that braves,
Age after age, the hostile elements,

As when it guarded holy Cuthbert's cell.

All night the storm had raged, nor ceased nor paused, When, as day broke, the Maid through misty air Espies far off a Wreck amid the surf