'Think, gentle Lady, of a Harp so far

From its own country, and forgive the strings."
A simple answer! but even so forth springs,
From the Castalian fountain of the heart.*
The Poetry of Life, and all that Art

Divine of words quickening insensate things.
From the submissive necks of guiltless men
Stretched on the block, the glittering axe recoils:
Sun, moon, and stars, all struggle in the toils
Of mortal sympathy: what wonder then
That1 the poor Harp distempered music yields
To its sad Lord, far from his native fields?

EXCUSE is needless when with love sincere

Of occupation, not by fashion led,

Thou turn'st the Wheel that slept with dust o'erspread;
My nerves from no such murmur shrink,-tho' near,
Soft as the Dorhawk's to a distant ear,

When twilight shades darken the mountain's head.‡
Even She who toils to spin our vital thread3 §

Castalay (Castalius fons), a fountain near Parnassus sacred to the muses. Virg., Georg., iii. 293.-ED.

+ Sarah Hutchinson, Mrs Wordsworth's sister.-ED.

Wansfell, or Loughrigg.-ED.

§ Lachesis, the second of the three Parcæ, who was supposed to spin out the actions of our life.

"Clotho colum retinet, Lachesis net, et Atropos occat." -ED.

DECAY OF PIETY.

Might smile on work, O Lady, once so dear1

To household virtues. Venerable Art,

Torn from the Poor !* yet shall kind Heaven protect
Its own though Rulers, with undue respect,

Trusting to crowded factory and mart †

And proud discoveries of the intellect,

Heed not the pillage of man's ancient heart.

157

[Attendance at church on prayer-days, Wednesdays and Fridays and Holidays, received a shock at the Revolution. It is now, however, happily reviving. The ancient people described in this Sonnet were among the last of that pious class. May we hope that the practice, now in some degree renewed, will continue to spread.]

OFT have I seen, ere Time had ploughed my cheek,
Matrons and Sires-who punctual to the call

Of their loved Church, on fast or festival

Through the long year the House of Prayer would seek: By Christmas snows, by visitation bleak

Of Easter winds, unscared, from hut or hall

1 1837.

2

1837.

Might smile, O lady! on a task once dear

! yet will kind Heaven protect
Its own, not left without a guiding chart,
If rulers, trusting with undue respect
Το

1827.

1827.

Referring to the introduction of steam-looms, which displaced the handloom spinning of a previous generation.—ED.

+ Compare The Excursion, Book viii. 1. 166-186.-ED.

158 SCORN NOT THE SONNET; CRITIC, YOU HAVE FROWNED.

They came to lowly bench or sculptured stall,
But with one fervour of devotion meek.

I see the places where they once were known,
And ask, surrounded even by kneeling crowds,
Is ancient Piety for ever flown?

Alas! even then they seemed like fleecy clouds
That, struggling through the western sky, have won
Their pensive light from a departed sun!

[Composed, almost extempore, in a short walk on the western side of Rydal Lake.]

*

SCORN not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honours; with this key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound; †
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound; ‡
With it Camöens soothed1 an exile's grief
The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp,

It cheered mild Spencer, called from Faery-land

1

1837.

Camöens soothed with it

1827.

Shakespeare's sonnets are autobiographical: compare Nos. 24, 30, 39, 105, 116.-ED.

+ Petrarch's were all inspired by his devotion to Laura.-ED.

Tasso's works include two volumes of sonnets, first published in 1581 and 1592.-ED.

§ For his satire Disparates na India, Camöens was banished to Macao in 1556, where he wrote the Os Lusiades, also many sonnets and lyric poems. -ED.

Compare the Vita Nuova, passim.—ED.

FAIR PRIME OF LIFE! WERE IT ENOUGH TO GILD. 159

To struggle through dark ways;* 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 !‡

[Suggested by observation of the way in which a young friend, whom I do not choose to name, misspent his time and misapplied his talents. He took afterwards a better course, and became a useful member of society, respected, I believe, wherever he has been known.] FAIR Prime of life! were it enough to gild With ready sunbeams every straggling shower; And, if an unexpected cloud should lower, Swiftly thereon a rainbow arch to build

*

For Fancy's errands, then, from fields half-tilled
Gathering green weeds to mix with poppy flower,
Thee might thy Minions crown, and chant thy power,
Unpitied by the wise, all censure stilled.

Ah show that worthier honours are thy due:
Fair Prime of life! arouse the deeper heart;
Confirm the Spirit glorying to pursue

Some path of steep ascent and lofty aim;

And, if there be a joy that slights the claim

Of grateful memory, bid that joy depart.

Spencer wrote ninety-two sonnets. From the eightieth sonnet it would seem that the writing of them was a relaxtion, after the labour spent upon the "Faery Queen." It is to this sonnet that Wordsworth alludes. "After so long a race as I have run

Through Faery land, which these six books compile,
Give leave to rest me, being half foredone,

And gather to myself new breath awhile."-ED.

+ Milton's twenty-three sonnets were written partly in English, partly in Italian. Compare Wordsworth's sonnet addressed to him in 1802— Milton, Thou shouldst be living at this hour," &c.

(Vol. II. p. 300.)-ED.

Compare the sonnet beginning

"Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room."

(Vol. IV. p. 21.)—Ed.

IF the whole weight of what we think and feel,
Save only far as thought and feeling blend
With action, were as nothing, patriot Friend!
From thy remonstrance would be no appeal;
But to promote and fortify the weal

Of our own Being is her paramount end;
A truth which they alone shall comprehend
Who shun the mischief which they cannot heal.
Peace in these feverish times is sovereign bliss:
Here, with no thirst but what the stream can slake,
And startled only by the rustling brake,

Cool air I breathe; while the unincumbered Mind
By some weak aims at services assigned

To gentle Natures, thanks not Heaven amiss.

THERE is a pleasure in poetic pains

Which only Poets know ;—'twas rightly said
Whom could the Muses else allure to tread

Their smoothest paths, to wear their lightest chains?

When happiest Fancy has inspired the strains,

How oft the malice of one luckless word
Pursues the Enthusiast to the social board,
Haunts him belated on the silent plains!
Yet he repines not, if his thought stand clear,
At last, of hindrance and obscurity,

Fresh as the star that crowns the brow of morn;
Bright, speckless, as a softly-moulded tear
The moment it has left the virgin's eye,

Or rain-drop lingering on the pointed thorn.