Of his dark, lofty eye, and bended brow, Might quell the lion. He led on; but thoughts Seemed gathering round which troubled him. The veins Grew visible upon his swarthy brow; And his proud lip was pressed as if with pain. He trod less firmly; and his restless eye Glanced forward frequently, as if some ill He dared not meet, were there. His home was near; And he had reached his home; when, lo! there sprang he heeded not. As if the sight had withered him. She threw - but he answered not. She stood and gazed upon him. — Was he wroth? Had sickness seized him? She unclasped his helm, And the large veins felt stiff and hard, like chords. - She knew that he was stricken, then; and rushed Of tears she could not bridle, sobbed a prayer Shot o'er her countenance; and then the soul Calmly and nobly up, and said 'twas well And she would die. * * The sun had well-nigh set. The fire was on the altar; and the priest Of the High God was there. A wasted man In Israel at that hour, stood up alone, The sun set; And she was dead, — but not by violence. EXERCISE CXC. SUBLIMITY OF WORDSWORTH. Talfourd. To the consideration of Wordsworth's sublimities we come with trembling steps, and feel, as we approach, that we are entering upon holy ground. At first, indeed, he seems only to win and to allure us, to resign the most astonishing trophies of the poet, and humbly to indulge, among the beauties of the creation, the sweetest and the lowliest of human affections. We soon, however, feel how faint an idea of his capacities we have entertained by classing him with the loveliest of descriptive poets, and how subservient the sweetest of his domestic pictures are to the grandeur of his lofty conceptions. He has enlarged the resources of the mind, and discovered new dignities in our species. The most searching eyes observe in his productions a depth of thought which they are unable to fathom,-eminences rising far into an imaginative glory which they cannot penetrate. Above all others he has discerned and traced out the line by which the high qualities of intellectual greatness are intimately united with the most generous exertions, and the holiest principles of moral goodness. His perceptions of truth, derived as they are from the intuitive feelings of his heart, are clear and unclouded, except by the shadows which are thrown from the vast creations of his fancy. - sweeps Set before him the meanest and most disgusting of all earthly objects, and he immediately traces the chain by which it is linked to the great harmonies of nature, through the most beautiful and touching of all human feelings, in order to show their mysterious connection, and at last enables us to perceive the union of all orders of animated being, and the universal workings of the Spirit that lives and breathes in them all. His theories may rather be regarded as prophetic of what we may be in a loftier state of being, than as descriptive of what we are on earth. No man of feeling ever perused his nobler poems, for the first time, without finding that he breathed in a purer and more elevated region of poetical delight, than any which he had before explored. To feel, for the first time, a communion with his mind, is to discover loftier faculties in our own. EXERCISE CXCI. ODE. Wordsworth. [Immortality intimated by Recollections of Childhood.] THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, To me did seem The glory and the freshness of a dream. By night or day, The things which I have seen, I now can see no more. The rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the rose, The Moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare; Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair; The sunshine is a glorious birth; But yet I know, where'er I go, That there hath passed away a glory from the earth. Now, while the birds thus síng a joyous song, As to the tabor's sound, To me alone there came a thought of grief: The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep, Give themselves up to jollity; Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy shepherd boy! Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; My head hath its coronal, The fulness of your bliss, I feel I feel it all. This sweet May-morning; And the children are pulling, On every side, In a thousand valleys far and wide, Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm; -But there's a tree, of many one, A single field which I have looked upon, Doth the same tale repeat: Not for these I raise The song of thanks and praise; Blank misgivings of a creature Moving about in worlds not realized, Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain light of all our day, Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Though inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Can in a moment travel thither, And see the children sport upon the shore, And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song! As to the tabor's sound! We, in thought, will join your throng, Ye that through your hearts to-day What though the radiance which was once so bright Though nothing can bring back the hour Strength in what remains behind, |