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A constant influence, a peculiar grace; But who, if he be called upon to face Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined

Great issues, good or bad for human kind,

Is happy as a Lover; and attired

With sudden brightness, like a Man inspired;

And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law

In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw;

Or if an unexpected call succeed,
Come when it will, is equal to the need:
-He who, though thus endued as with

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YES, IT WAS THE MOUNTAIN ECHO

YES, it was the mountain Echo, Solitary, clear, profound, Answering to the shouting Cuckoo, Giving to her sound for sound!

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To a babbling wanderer sent;
Like her ordinary cry,
Like-but oh, how different!

Hears not also mortal Life?
Hear not we, unthinking Creatures!
Slaves of folly, love, or strife-
Voices of two different natures?

Have not we too?-yes, we have Answers, and we know not whence; Echoes from beyond the grave, Recognized intelligence!

Such rebounds our inward ear Catches sometimes from afarListen, ponder, hold them dear; For of God,-of God they are.

1806. 1807.

NUNS FRET. NOT AT THEIR CON VENT'S NARROW ROOM

In the cottage, Town-end, Grasmere, one after. noon in 1801, my sister read to me the Sonnets of Milton. I had long been well acquainted with them, but I was particularly struck on that occa sion with the dignified simplicity and majestic harmony that runs through most of them,-in character so totally different from the Italian, and still more so from Shakspeare's fine Sonnets. I took fire, if I may be allowed to say so, and produced three Sonnets the same afternoon, the first I ever wrote except an irregular one at school. Of these three, the only one I distinctly remember is-"I grieved for Buonaparte." One was never written down: the third, which was, I believe, preserved, I cannot particularize. (Wordsworth.)

NUNS fret not at their convent's narrow

room;

And hermits are contented with their cells;

And students with their pensive citadels; Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his

loom,

Sit blithe and happy ; bees that soar for bloom,

High as the highest Peak of Furness-fells, Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells:

In truth the prison, unto which we doom Ourselves, no prison is: and hence for

me,

In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound

Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground;

Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be)

Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,

Should find brief solace there, as I have found. 1806 1807.

PERSONAL TALK

I

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 neighbors, daily, weekly, in my sight: And, for my chance-acquaintance, ladies bright,

Sons, mothers, maidens withering on the stalk,

These all wear out of me, like Forms, with chalk

Fainted 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.

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"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 fostered 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

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THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US

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; We have given our hearts away, a sor. did boon!

The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not.-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

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NOVEMBER, 1806

ANOTHER year!-another deadly blow! Another mighty Empire overthrown! And We are left, or shall be left, alone; The last that dare to struggle with the Foe.

'Tis well! from this day forward we

shall know

That in ourselves our safety must be sought;

That by our own right hands it must be wrought;

That we must stand unpropped, or be laid low.

O dastard whom such foretaste doth not cheer!

We shall exult, if they who rule the land

Be men who hold its many blessings dear,

Wise, upright, valiant; not a servile band,

Who are to judge of danger which they fear,

And honor which they do not understand. 1806. 1807.

THOUGHT OF A BRITON ON THE SUBJUGATION OF SWITZERLAND

Two Voices are there; one is of the

sea,

One of the mountains; each a mighty Voice:

In both from age to age thou didst re. joice,

They were thy chosen music, Liberty! There came a Tyrant, and with holy glee

Thou fought'st against him; but hast vainly striven:

Thou from thy Alpine holds at length art driven,

Where not a torrent murmurs heard by thee.

Of one deep bliss thine ear hath been bereft:

Then cleave, O cleave to that which still is left;

For, high-souled Maid, what sorrow would it be

That mountain floods should thunder as before,

And Ocean bellow from his rocky shore,

And neither awful Voice be heard by thee? 1807. 1807.

HERE PAUSE: THE POET CLAIMS

AT LEAST THIS PRAISE

HERE pause the poet claims at least this praise,

That virtuous Liberty hath been the Scope

Of his pure song, which did not shrink from hope

In the worst moment of these evil days; From hope, the paramount duty that Heaven lays,

For its own honor, on man's suffering heart.

Never may from our souls one truth depart

That an accursed thing it is to gaze On prosperous tyrants with a dazzled eye:

Nor-touched with due abhorrence of their guilt

For whose dire ends tears flow, and blood is spilt,

And justice labors in extremity-Forget thy weakness, upon which is built O wretched man, the throne of tyranny! 1811. 1815.

ed.

LAODAMIA

Written at Rydal Mount. The incident of the trees growing and withering put the subject into my thoughts, and I wrote with the hope of giving it a loftier tone than, so far as I know, has been given to it by any of the Ancients who have treated of it. It cost me more trouble than almost anything of equal length I have ever written. (Wordsworth.)

"Laodamia is a very original poem; I mean original with reference to your own manner. You have nothing like it. I should have seen it in a strange place, and greatly admired it, but not suspected its derivation. (Lamb to Wordsworth. Talfourd, Final Memories of Charles Lamb, p. 151.)

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Her countenance brightens-and her eye expands;

Her bosom heaves and spreads, her stature grows;

And she expects the issue in repose.

O terror! what hath she perceived?--O joy!

What doth she look on ?-whom doth she behold?

Her Hero slain upon the beach of Troy? His vital presence? his corporeal mould! It is--if sense deceive her not-'tis He? And a God leads him, wingéd Mercury!

Mild Hermes spake-and touched her with his wand That calms all fear; "Such grace hath crowned thy prayer,

Laodamía! that at Jove's command Thy Husband walks the paths of upper air:

He comes to tarry with thee three hours' space;

Accept the gift, behold him face to face!

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Again that consummation she essayed; But unsubstantial Form eludes her grasp As often as that eager grasp was made, The Phantom parts-but parts to re-unite, And re-assume his place before her sight.

"Protesiláus, lo! thy guide is gone! Confirm, I pray, the vision with thy voice:

This is our palace,-yonder is thy throne; Speak, and the floor thou tread'st on will rejoice.

Not to appal me have the gods bestowed This precious boon; and blest a sad abode."

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"Ah, wherefore ?-Did not Hercules by force

Wrest from the guardian Monster of the tomb

Alcestis, a reanimated corse,

Given back to dwell on earth in vernal bloom?

Medea's spells dispersed the weight of years,

And son stood a youth 'naid youthful

peers.

"The Gods to us are merciful-and they Yet further may relent: for mightier far

Than strength of nerve and 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.

"But if thou goest, I follow-"" Peace!" he said;

She looked upon him and was calmed and cheered;

The ghastly color from his lips had fled; In his deportment, shape, and mien, appeared

Elysian beauty, melancholy grace. Brought from a pensive though a happy place.

He spake of love, such love as Spirits feel

In worlds whose course is equable and

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