O’er the chilled heart—reflect; far, far within
Hers is a holy Being, freed from Sin.
She is not what she seems, a forlorn wretch;
But delegated Spirits comfort fetch
To Her from heights that Reason may not win.
Like Children, She is privileged to hold
Divine communion; both do live and move, 10
Whate’er to shallow Faith their ways unfold,
Inly illumined by Heaven’s pitying love;
Love pitying innocence not long to last,
In them—in Her our sins and sorrows past.
1838.
A PLEA FOR AUTHORS, MAY 1838
FAILING impartial measure to dispense
To every suitor, Equity is lame;
And social Justice, stript of reverence
For natural rights, a mockery and a shame;
Law but a servile dupe of false pretence,
If, guarding grossest things from common claim
Now and for ever, She, to works that came
From mind and spirit, grudge a short-lived fence.
“What! lengthened privilege, a lineal tie,
For ‘Books’!” Yes, heartless Ones, or be it proved 10
That ‘tis a fault in Us to have lived and loved
Like others, with like temporal hopes to die;
No public harm that Genius from her course
Be turned; and streams of truth dried up, even at their
source!
A POET TO HIS GRANDCHILD
SEQUEL TO THE FOREGOING
“SON of my buried Son, while thus thy hand
“Is clasping mine, it saddens me to think
“How Want may press thee down, and with thee sink
“Thy children left unfit, through vain demand
“Of culture, even to feel or understand
“My simplest Lay that to their memory
“May cling;—hard fate! which haply need not be
“Did Justice mould the statutes of the Land.
“A Book time-cherished and an honoured name
“Are high rewards; but bound they Nature’s claim 10
“Or Reason’s? No—hopes spun in timid line
“From out the bosom of a modest home
“Extend through unambitious years to come,
“My careless Little-one, for thee and thine!”
May 23, 1838.
BLEST STATESMAN HE, WHOSE MIND’S UNSELFISH WILL
BLEST Statesman He, whose Mind’s unselfish will
Leaves him at ease among grand thoughts: whose eye
Sees that, apart from magnanimity,
Wisdom exists not; nor the humbler skill
Of Prudence, disentangling good and ill
With patient care. What tho’ assaults run high,
They daunt not him who holds his ministry,
Resolute, at all hazards, to fulfil
Its duties;—prompt to move, but firm to wait,—
Knowing, things rashly sought are rarely found; 10
That, for the functions of an ancient State—
Strong by her charters, free because imbound,
Servant of Providence, not slave of Fate—
Perilous is sweeping change, all chance unsound.
1838.
VALEDICTORY SONNET
SERVING no haughty Muse, my hands have here
Disposed some cultured Flowerets (drawn from spots
Where they bloomed singly, or in scattered knots),
Each kind in several beds of one parterre;
Both to allure the casual Loiterer,
And that, so placed, my Nurslings may requite
Studious regard with opportune delight,
Nor be unthanked, unless I fondly err.
But metaphor dismissed, and thanks apart,
Reader, farewell! My last words let them be— 10
If in this book Fancy and Truth agree;
If simple Nature trained by careful Art
Through It have won a passage to thy heart;
Grant me thy love, I crave no other fee!
1838.
PROTEST AGAINST THE BALLOT
FORTH rushed from Envy sprung and Self-conceit,
A Power misnamed the SPIRIT of REFORM,
And through the astonished Island swept in storm,
Threatening to lay all orders at her feet
That crossed her way. Now stoops she to entreat
Licence to hide at intervals her head
Where she may work, safe, undisquieted,
In a close Box, covert for Justice meet.
St, George of England! keep a watchful eye
Fixed on the Suitor; frustrate her request— 10
Stifle her hope; for, if the State comply,
From such Pandorian gift may come a Pest
Worse than the Dragon that bowed low his crest,
Pierced by thy spear in glorious victory.
1838.
SONNETS: UPON THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH IN SERIES, 1839. SUGGESTED BY THE VIEW OF LANCASTER CASTLE (ON THE ROAD FROM THE SOUTH). I
THIS Spot—at once unfolding sight so fair
Of sea and land, with yon grey towers that still
Rise up as if to lord it over air—
Might soothe in human breasts the sense of ill,
Or charm it out of memory; yea, might fill
The heart with joy and gratitude to God
For all his bounties upon man bestowed:
Why bears it then the name of “Weeping Hill”?
Thousands, as toward yon old Lancastrian Towers,
A prison’s crown, along this way they past 10
For lingering durance or quick death with shame,
From this bare eminence thereon have cast
Their first look—blinded as tears fell in showers
Shed on their chains; and hence that doleful name.
SONNETS: UPON THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH IN SERIES, 1839. II
TENDERLY do we feel by Nature’s law
For worst offenders: though the heart will heave
With indignation, deeply moved we grieve,
In after thought, for Him who stood in awe
Neither of God nor man, and only saw,
Lost wretch, a horrible device enthroned
On proud temptations, till the victim groaned
Under the steel his hand had dared to draw.
But oh, restrain compassion, if its course,
As oft befalls, prevent or turn aside 10
Judgments and aims and acts whose higher source
Is sympathy with the unforewarned, who died
Blameless—with them that shuddered o’er his grave,
And all who from the law firm safety crave.
SONNETS: UPON THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH IN SERIES, 1839. III
THE Roman Consul doomed his sons to die
Who had betrayed their country. The stern word
Afforded (may it through all time afford)
A theme for praise and admiration high.
Upon the surface of humanity
He rested not; its depths his mind explored;
He felt; but his parental bosom’s lord
Was Duty,—Duty calmed his agony.
And some, we know, when they by wilful act
A single human life have wrongly taken, 10
Pass sentence on themselves, confess the fact,
And, to atone for it, with soul unshaken
Kneel at the feet of Justice, and, for faith
Broken with all mankind, solicit death.
SONNETS: UPON THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH IN SERIES, 1839. IV
IS ‘Death’, when evil against good has fought
With such fell mastery that a man may dare
By deeds the blackest purpose to lay bare?
Is Death, for one to that condition brought,
For him, or any one, the thing that ought
To be ‘most’ dreaded? Lawgivers, beware,
Lest, capital pains remitting till ye spare
The murderer, ye, by sanction to that thought
Seemingly given, debase the general mind;
Tempt the vague will tried standards to disown, 10
Nor only palpable restraints unbind,
But upon Honour’s head disturb the crown,
Whose absolute rule permits not to withstand
In the weak love of life his least command.
SONNETS: UPON THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH IN SERIES, 1839. V
NOT to the object specially designed,
Howe’er momentous in itself it be,
Good to promote or curb depravity,
Is the wise Legislator’s view confined.
His Spirit, when most severe, is oft most kind;
As all Authority in earth depends
On Love and Fear, their several powers he blends,
Copying with awe the one Paternal mind.
Uncaught by processes in show humane,
He feels how far the act would derogate 10
From even the humblest functions of the State;
If she, self-shorn of Majesty, ordain
That never more shall hang upon her breath
The last alternative of Life or Death.
SONNETS: UPON THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH IN SERIES, 1839. VI
YE brood of conscience—Spectres! that frequent
The bad Man’s restless walk, and haunt his bed—
Fiends in your aspect, yet beneficent
In act, as hovering Angels when they spread
Their wings to guard the unconscious Innocent—
Slow be the Statutes of the land to share
A laxity that could not but impair
‘Your’ power to punish crime, and so prevent.
And ye, Beliefs! coiled serpent-like about
The adage on all tongues, “Murder will out,” 10
How shall your ancient warnings work for good
In the full might they hitherto have shown,
If for deliberate shedder of man’s blood
Survive not Judgment that requires his own?
SONNETS: UPON THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH IN SERIES, 1839. VII
BEFORE the world had past her time of youth
While polity and discipline were weak,
The precept eye for eye, and tooth for tooth,
Came forth—a light, though but as of daybreak,
Strong as could then be borne. A Master meek
Proscribed the spirit fostered by that rule,
Patience ‘his’ law, long-suffering ‘his’ school,
And love the end, which all through peace must seek.
But lamentably do they err who strain
His mandates, given rash impulse to control 10
And keep vindictive thirstings from the soul,
So far that, if consistent in their scheme,
They must forbid the State to inflict a pain,
Making of social order a mere dream.
SONNETS: UPON THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH IN SERIES, 1839. VIII
FIT retribution, by the moral code
Determined, lies beyond the State’s embrace,
Yet, as she may, for each peculiar case
She plants well-measured terrors in the road
Of wrongful acts. Downward it is and broad,
And, the main fear once doomed to banishment,
Far oftener then, bad ushering worse event,
Blood would be spilt that in his dark abode
Crime might lie better hid. And, should the change
Take from the horror due to a foul deed, 10
Pursuit and evidence so far must fail,
And, guilt escaping, passion then might plead
In angry spirits for her old free range,
And the “wild justice of revenge” prevail.
SONNETS: UPON THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH IN SERIES, 1839. IX
THOUGH to give timely warning and deter
Is one great aim of penalty, extend
Thy mental vision further and ascend
Far higher, else full surely shalt thou err.
What is a State? The wise behold in her
A creature born of time, that keeps one eye
Fixed on the statutes of Eternity,
To which her judgments reverently defer.
Speaking through Law’s dispassionate voice the State
Endues her conscience with external life 10
And being, to preclude or quell the strife
Of individual will, to elevate
The grovelling mind, the erring to recall,
And fortify the moral sense of all.
SONNETS: UPON THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH IN SERIES, 1839. X
OUR bodily life, some plead, that life the shrine
Of an immortal spirit, is a gift
So sacred, so informed with light divine,
That no tribunal, though most wise to sift
Deed and intent, should turn the Being adrift
Into that world where penitential tear
May not avail, nor prayer have for God’s ear
A voice—that world whose veil no hand can lift
For earthly sight. “Eternity and Time,”
‘They’ urge, “have interwoven claims and rights 10
Not to be jeopardised through foulest crime:
The sentence rule by mercy’s heaven-born lights.”
Even so; but measuring not by finite sense
Infinite Power, perfect Intelligence.
SONNETS: UPON THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH IN SERIES, 1839. XI
AH, think how one compelled for life to abide
Locked in a dungeon needs must eat the heart
Out of his own humanity, and part
With every hope that mutual cares provide;
And, should a less unnatural doom confide
In life-long exile on a savage coast,
Soon the relapsing penitent may boast
Of yet more heinous guilt, with fiercer pride.
Hence thoughtful Mercy, Mercy sage and pure,
Sanctions the forfeiture that Law demands, 10
Leaving the final issue in ‘His’ hands
Whose goodness knows no change, whose love is sure,
Who sees, foresees; who cannot judge amiss,
And wafts at will the contrite soul to bliss.
SONNETS: UPON THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH IN SERIES, 1839. XII
SEE the Condemned alone within his cell
And prostrate at some moment when remorse
Stings to the quick, and, with resistless force,
Assaults the pride she strove in vain to quell.
Then mark him, him who could so long rebel,
The crime confessed, a kneeling Penitent
Before the Altar, where the Sacrament
Softens his heart, till from his eyes outwell
Tears of salvation. Welcome death! while Heaven
Does in this change exceedingly rejoice; 10
While yet the solemn heed the State hath given
Helps him to meet the last Tribunal’s voice
In faith, which fresh offences, were he cast
On old temptations, might for ever blast.
SONNETS: UPON THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH IN SERIES, 1839. XIII. CONCLUSION
YES, though He well may tremble at the sound
Of his own voice, who from the judgment-seat
Sends the pale Convict to his last retreat
In death; though Listeners shudder all around,
They know the dread requital’s source profound;
Nor is, they feel, its wisdom obsolete—
(Would that it were!) the sacrifice unmeet
For Christian Faith. But hopeful signs abound;
The social rights of man breathe purer air,
Religion deepens her preventive care; 10
Then, moved by needless fear of past abuse,
Strike not from Law’s firm hand that awful rod,
Oh, speed the blessed hour, Almighty God!
SONNETS: UPON THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH IN SERIES, 1839. XIV. APOLOGY
THE formal World relaxes her cold chain
For One who speaks in numbers; ampler scope
His utterance finds; and, conscious of the gain,
Imagination works with bolder hope
The cause of grateful reason to sustain;
And, serving Truth, the heart more strongly beats
Against all barriers which his labour meets
In lofty place, or humble Life’s domain.
Enough;—before us lay a painful road,
And guidance have I sought in duteous love 10
From Wisdom’s heavenly Father. Hence hath flowed
Patience, with trust that, whatsoe’er the way
Each takes in this high matter, all may move
Cheered with the prospect of a brighter day.
ON A PORTRAIT OF I. F., PAINTED BY MARGARET GILLIES
WE gaze—nor grieve to think that we must die,
But that the precious love this friend hath sown
Within our hearts, the love whose flower hath blown
Bright as if heaven were ever in its eye,
Will pass so soon from human memory;
And not by strangers to our blood alone,
But by our best descendants be unknown,
Unthought of—this may surely claim a sigh.
Yet, blessed Art, we yield not to dejection;
Thou against Time so feelingly dost strive. 10
Where’er, preserved in this most true reflection,
An image of her soul is kept alive,
Some lingering fragrance of the pure affection,
Whose flower with us will vanish, must survive.
RYDAL MOUNT,
New Year’s Day, 1840.
TO I. F.
THE star which comes at close of day to shine
More heavenly bright than when it leads the morn,
Is friendship’s emblem, whether the forlorn
She visiteth, or, shedding light benign
Through shades that solemnize Life’s calm decline,
Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth Page 299