written in the third year of his married life. From these verses let him proceed to the following lines in "The Prelude: "1

"When every day brought with it some new sense

Of exquisite regard for common things,

And all the earth was budding with these gifts
Of more refined humanity, thy breath,
Dear Sister! was a kind of gentler spring
That went before my steps. Thereafter came
One whom with thee friendship had early paired;

Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair;
Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May time and the cheerful Dawn ;
A dancing Shape, an Image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and way-lay.

"I saw her upon nearer view,
A Spirit, yet a Woman too!

Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin-liberty;

A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A Creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

"And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A Being breathing thoughtful breath,
A Traveller between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect Woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light."

She came, no more a Phantom to adorn
A moment, but an inmate of the heart,
And yet a spirit there for me enshrined
To penetrate the lofty and the low;
Even as one essence of pervading light

Shines in the brightest of ten thousand stars,

And the meek worm that feeds her lonely lamp
Couched in the dewy grass."

Next let him turn to those pathetic lines prefixed as a dedication of "The White Doe,"1 when domestic sorrow, in the loss of two beloved children, had put affection to the test, and had strengthened it with a holy power: let him read that dedication, and recognise there the sanctity and strength of wedded love.

Let him then pass to the two sonnets written at Oxford in 18202, when the Poet checks his fancy, which had almost transformed him into a youthful student, with cap and "fluttering gown:"

"She too at his side,

Who, with her heart's experience satisfied,
Maintains inviolate its slightest vow."

Other poems in succession will next present them

selves:

and

"Let other bards of angels sing,"

"Yes, thou art fair,"

written in 1824 3, and

"Oh, dearer far than life and light are dear!”

1 Vol. iv. p. 1.

3 Vol. i. p. 221–223.

2 Vol. ii. p. 297. 298.

the last of which will be read with peculiar interest, as showing, in a very touching manner, how the most powerful intellect may lean for support and guidance on the gentle meekness and unwavering faith of woman, and may derive strength and comfort from her fervent love and dutiful obedience.

The series may be closed with the inimitable lines "To a Painter,"1 lines written after thirty-six years of

1 Vol. ii. 312, 313.

"TO A PAINTER (Margaret Gillies).

"All praise the Likeness by thy skill portrayed;
But 'tis a fruitless task to paint for me,
Who, yielding not to changes Time has made,
By the habitual light of memory see

66

Eyes unbedimmed, see bloom that cannot fade,
And smiles that from their birthplace ne'er shall flee
Into the land where ghosts and phantoms be;
And, seeing this, own nothing in its stead.
Couldst thou go back into far-distant years,
Or share with me, fond thought! that inward eye,
Then, and then only, Painter! could thy Art
The visual powers of Nature satisfy,
Which hold, whate'er to common sight appears,
Their sovereign empire in a faithful heart."

"On the same Subject.

Though I beheld at first with blank surprise
This Work, I now have gazed on it so long

I see its truth with unreluctant eyes;

O, my Beloved! I have done thee wrong,
Conscious of blessedness, but, whence it sprung,
Ever too heedless, as I now perceive:
Morn into noon did pass, noon into eve,
And the old day was welcome as the young,
As welcome, and as beautiful. - in sooth
More beautiful as being a thing more holy :

wedded life, and testifying, in the language of the heart, that age does not impair true beauty, but adds new graces to it; in a word, that genuine beauty enjoys eternal youth.

Thanks to thy virtues, to the eternal youth
Of all thy goodness, never melancholy;
To thy large heart and humble mind, that cast
Into one vision, future, present, past."

207

CHAPTER XX.

TOUR IN SCOTLAND.

ON the 14th August, 1803, Wordsworth and his sister left Grasmere for Keswick, where they visited Mr. Coleridge, who accompanied them in the beginning of a short tour which they made in Scotland.

The following particulars were furnished by Mr. Wordsworth, concerning this excursion and the poems suggested by it:

Memorials of a Tour in Scotland, 1803.1-"Mr. Coleridge, my sister, and myself, started together from Town-End, to make a tour in Scotland, August 14th.

"Coleridge was at that time in bad spirits, and somewhat too much in love with his own dejection, and he departed from us, as is recorded in my sister's journal, soon after we left Loch Lomond. The verses that stand foremost among these memorials were not actually written for the occasion, but transplanted from my Epistle to Sir G. Beaumont."

To the Sons of Burns.2. "See, in connection with these verses, two other poems upon Burns, one composed actually at the time, and the other, though then felt, not put into words till several

years afterwards." Ellen Irwin, or the Braes of Kirtle.3.

"It may

be worth while to observe, that as there are Scotch poems on this subject, in the simple ballad strain, I thought it would be both presumptuous and super

1 MSS. I. F. See Poems, vol. iii. p. 1–39. 2 Vol. iii. p. 8.

3 Vol. iii. p. 10.