Is so unearthly, and what shape so fair?
So richly decked in variegated down,
Green, sable, shining yellow, shadowy brown,
Tints softly with each other blended,
Hues doubtfully begun and ended; 20
Or intershooting, and to sight
Lost and recovered, as the rays of light
Glance on the conscious plumes touched here and there?
Full surely, when with such proud gifts of life
Began the pencil’s strife,
O’erweening Art was caught as in a snare.
A sense of seemingly presumptuous wrong
Gave the first impulse to the Poet’s song;
But, of his scorn repenting soon, he drew
A juster judgment from a calmer view; 30
And, with a spirit freed from discontent,
Thankfully took an effort that was meant
Not with God’s bounty, Nature’s love to vie,
Or made with hope to please that inward eye
Which ever strives in vain itself to satisfy,
But to recall the truth by some faint trace
Of power ethereal and celestial grace,
That in the living Creature find on earth a place.
1845.
WHY SHOULD WE WEEP OR MOURN, ANGELIC BOY
WHY should we weep or mourn, Angelic boy,
For such thou wert ere from our sight removed,
Holy, and ever dutiful—beloved
From day to day with never-ceasing joy,
And hopes as dear as could the heart employ
In aught to earth pertaining? Death has proved
His might, nor less his mercy, as behoved—
Death conscious that he only could destroy
The bodily frame. That beauty is laid low
To moulder in a far-off field of Rome; 10
But Heaven is now, blest Child, thy Spirit’s home:
When such divine communion, which we know,
Is felt, thy Roman-burial place will be
Surely a sweet remembrancer of Thee.
1846.
WHERE LIES THE TRUTH? HAS MAN, IN WISDOM’S CREED
WHERE lies the truth? has Man, in wisdom’s creed,
A pitiable doom; for respite brief
A care more anxious, or a heavier grief?
Is he ungrateful, and doth little heed
God’s bounty, soon forgotten; or indeed,
Must Man, with labour born, awake to sorrow
When Flowers rejoice and Larks with rival speed
Spring from their nests to bid the Sun good morrow?
They mount for rapture as their songs proclaim
Warbled in hearing both of earth and sky; 10
But o’er the contrast wherefore heave a sigh?
Like those aspirants let us soar—our aim,
Through life’s worst trials, whether shocks or snares,
A happier, brighter, purer Heaven than theirs.
1846.
I KNOW AN AGED MAN CONSTRAINED TO DWELL
I KNOW an aged Man constrained to dwell
In a large house of public charity,
Where he abides, as in a Prisoner’s cell,
With numbers near, alas! no company.
When he could creep about, at will, though poor
And forced to live on alms, this old Man fed
A Redbreast, one that to his cottage door
Came not, but in a lane partook his bread.
There, at the root of one particular tree,
An easy seat this worn-out Labourer found 10
While Robin pecked the crumbs upon his knee
Laid one by one, or scattered on the ground.
Dear intercourse was theirs, day after day;
What signs of mutual gladness when they met!
Think of their common peace, their simple play,
The parting moment and its fond regret.
Months passed in love that failed not to fulfil,
In spite of season’s change, its own demand,
By fluttering pinions here and busy bill;
There by caresses from a tremulous hand. 20
Thus in the chosen spot a tie so strong
Was formed between the solitary pair,
That when his fate had housed him ‘mid a throng
The Captive shunned all converse proffered there.
Wife, children, kindred, they were dead and gone;
But, if no evil hap his wishes crossed,
One living Stay was left, and on that one
Some recompence for all that he had lost.
Oh that the good old Man had power to prove,
By message sent through air or visible token, 30
That still he loves the Bird, and still must love;
That friendship lasts though fellowship is broken!
1846.
HOW BEAUTIFUL THE QUEEN OF NIGHT
HOW beautiful the Queen of Night, on high
Her way pursuing among scattered clouds,
Where, ever and anon, her head she shrouds
Hidden from view in dense obscurity.
But look, and to the watchful eye
A brightening edge will indicate that soon
We shall behold the struggling Moon
Break forth,—again to walk the clear blue sky.
1846.
EVENING VOLUNTARIES: TO LUCCA GIORDANO
GIORDANO, verily thy Pencil’s skill
Hath here portrayed with Nature’s happiest grace
The fair Endymion couched on Latmos-hill;
And Dian gazing on the Shepherd’s face
In rapture,—yet suspending her embrace,
As not unconscious with what power the thrill
Of her most timid touch his sleep would chase,
And, with his sleep, that beauty calm and still.
Oh may this work have found its last retreat
Here in a Mountain-bard’s secure abode, 10
One to whom, yet a School-boy, Cynthia showed
A face of love which he in love would greet,
Fixed, by her smile, upon some rocky seat;
Or lured along where greenwood paths he trod.
RYDAL MOUNT, 1846.
WHO BUT IS PLEASED TO WATCH THE MOON ON HIGH
WHO but is pleased to watch the moon on high
Travelling where she from time to time enshrouds
Her head, and nothing loth her Majesty
Renounces, till among the scattered clouds
One with its kindling edge declares that soon
Will reappear before the uplifted eye
A Form as bright, as beautiful a moon,
To glide in open prospect through clear sky.
Pity that such a promise e’er should prove
False in the issue, that yon seeming space 10
Of sky should be in truth the stedfast face
Of a cloud flat and dense, through which must move
(By transit not unlike man’s frequent doom)
The Wanderer lost in more determined gloom.
1846.
ILLUSTRATED BOOKS AND NEWSPAPERS
DISCOURSE was deemed Man’s noblest attribute,
And written words the glory of his hand;
Then followed Printing with enlarged command
For thought—dominion vast and absolute
For spreading truth, and making love expand.
Now prose and verse sunk into disrepute
Must lacquey a dumb Art that best can suit
The taste of this once-intellectual Land.
A backward movement surely have we here,
From manhood,—back to childhood; for the age— 10
Back towards caverned life’s first rude career.
Avaunt this vile abuse of pictured page!
Must eyes be all in all, the tongue and ear
Nothing? Heaven keep us from a lower stage!
1846.
THE UNRE
MITTING VOICE OF NIGHTLY STREAMS
THE unremitting voice of nightly streams
That wastes so oft, we think, its tuneful powers,
If neither soothing to the worm that gleams
Through dewy grass, nor small birds hushed in bowers,
Nor unto silent leaves and drowsy flowers,—
That voice of unpretending harmony
(For who what is shall measure by what seems
To be, or not to be,
Or tax high Heaven with prodigality?)
Wants not a healing influence that can creep 10
Into the human breast, and mix with sleep
To regulate the motion of our dreams
For kindly issues—as through every clime
Was felt near murmuring brooks in earliest time;
As at this day, the rudest swains who dwell
Where torrents roar, or hear the tinkling knell
Of water-breaks, with grateful heart could tell.
1846.
SONNET: TO AN OCTOGENARIAN
AFFECTIONS lose their object; Time brings forth
No successors; and, lodged in memory,
If love exist no longer, it must die,—
Wanting accustomed food, must pass from earth,
Or never hope to reach a second birth.
This sad belief, the happiest that is left
To thousands, share not Thou; howe’er bereft,
Scorned, or neglected, fear not such a dearth.
Though poor and destitute of friends thou art,
Perhaps the sole survivor of thy race, 10
One to whom Heaven assigns that mournful part
The utmost solitude of age to face,
Still shall be left some corner of the heart
Where Love for living Thing can find a place.
1846.
ON THE BANKS OF A ROCKY STREAM
BEHOLD an emblem of our human mind
Crowded with thoughts that need a settled home,
Yet, like to eddying balls of foam
Within this whirlpool, they each other chase
Round and round, and neither find
An outlet nor a resting-place!
Stranger, if such disquietude be thine,
Fall on thy knees and sue for help divine.
1846.
ODE ON THE INSTALLATION OF HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE ALBERT AS CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, JULY 1847
INTRODUCTION AND CHORUS
FOR thirst of power that Heaven disowns,
For temples, towers, and thrones,
Too long insulted by the Spoiler’s shock,
Indignant Europe cast
Her stormy foe at last
To reap the whirlwind on a Libyan rock.
SOLO—(TENOR)
War is passion’s basest game
Madly played to win a name;
Up starts some tyrant, Earth and Heaven to dare,
The servile million bow;
But will the lightning glance aside to spare
The Despot’s laurelled brow?
CHORUS
War is mercy, glory, fame,
Waged in Freedom’s holy cause;
Freedom, such as Man may claim
Under God’s restraining laws.
Such is Albion’s fame and glory:
Let rescued Europe tell the story.
RECIT. (accompanied)—(CONTRALTO)
But lo, what sudden cloud has darkened all
The land as with a funeral pall?
The Rose of England suffers blight,
The flower has drooped, the Isle’s delight,
Flower and bud together fall—
A Nation’s hopes lie crushed in Claremont’s desolate hall.
AIR—(SOPRANO)
Time a chequered mantle wears;—
Earth awakes from wintry sleep;
Again the Tree a blossom bears—
Cease, Britannia, cease to weep!
Hark to the peals on this bright May morn!
They tell that your future Queen is born.
SOPRANO SOLO AND CHORUS
A Guardian Angel fluttered
Above the Babe, unseen;
One word he softly uttered—
It named the future Queen:
And a joyful cry through the Island rang,
As clear and bold as the trumpet’s clang,
As bland as the reed of peace—
“VICTORIA be her name!”
For righteous triumphs are the base
Whereon Britannia rests her peaceful fame.
QUARTET
Time, in his mantle’s sunniest fold,
Uplifted in his arms the child;
And, while the fearless Infant smiled,
Her happier destiny foretold:—
“Infancy, by Wisdom mild,
Trained to health and artless beauty;
Youth, by pleasure unbeguiled
From the lore of lofty duty;
Womanhood is pure renown,
Seated on her lineal throne:
Leaves of myrtle in her Crown,
Fresh with lustre all their own.
Love, the treasure worth possessing,
More than all the world beside,
This shall be her choicest blessing,
Oft to royal hearts denied.”
RECIT. (accompanied)—(BASS)
That eve, the Star of Brunswick shone
With stedfast ray benign
On Gotha’s ducal roof, and on
The softly flowing Leine;
Nor failed to gild the spires of Bonn,
And glittered on the Rhine—
Old Camus, too, on that prophetic night
Was conscious of the ray;
And his willows whispered in its light,
Not to the Zephyr’s sway,
But with a Delphic life, in sight
Of this auspicious day:
CHORUS
This day, when Granta hails her chosen Lord,
And proud of her award,
Confiding in the Star serene,
Welcomes the Consort of a happy Queen.
AIR—(CONTRALTO)
Prince, in these Collegiate bowers,
Where Science, leagued with holier truth,
Guards the sacred heart of youth,
Solemn monitors are ours.
These reverend aisles, these hallowed towers,
Raised by many a hand august,
Are haunted by majestic Powers,
The memories of the Wise and Just,
Who, faithful to a pious trust,
Here, in the Founder’s spirit sought
To mould and stamp the ore of thought
In that bold form and impress high
That best betoken patriot loyalty.
Not in vain those Sages taught,—
True disciples, good as great,
Have pondered here their country’s weal,
Weighed the Future by the Past,
Learned how social frames may last,
And how a Land may rule its fate
By constancy inviolate,
Though worlds to their foundations reel
The sport of factious Hate or godless Zeal.
AIR—(BASS)
Albert, in thy race we cherish
A Nation’s strength that will not perish
While England’s sceptred Line
True to the King of Kings is found;
Like that Wise ancestor of thine
Who threw the Saxon shield o’er Luther’s life,
When first above the yells of bigot strife
The trumpet of the Living Word
Assumed a voice of deep portentous sound,
From gladdened Elbe to startled Tiber heard.
CHORUS
What shield more sublime
E’er was blazoned or sung?
And the PRINCE whom we greet
From its Hero is sprung.
Resound, resound the strain,
That hails him for our own!
Again, again, and yet again,
For the Church, the State, the Throne!
And that Presence fair and bright,
Ever blest wherever seen,
Who deigns to grace our festal rite,
The pride of the Islands, VICTORIA THE QUEEN.
The Prose Works
Allan Bank, Grasmere — Wordsworth’s home from 1808 till 1811. As Dove Cottage was too small to accommodate the large family and long-staying guests, the Wordsworths moved to this large house that the poet had previously condemned as an ‘eyesore’.
LIST OF PROSE WORKS
CONTENTS
VOLUME I: POLITICAL AND ETHICAL.
I. POLITICAL.
I. APOLOGY FOR THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 1793.
II. THE CONVENTION OF CINTRA 1809.
III. VINDICATION OF OPINIONS IN THE TREATISE ON THE ‘CONVENTION OF CINTRA’
IV. TWO ADDRESSES TO THE FREEHOLDERS OF WESTMORELAND. 1818.
V. OF THE CATHOLIC RELIEF BILL, 1829.
II. ETHICAL.
I. OF LEGISLATION FOR THE POOR, THE WORKING CLASSES, AND THE CLERGY: APPENDIX TO POEMS.
II. ADVICE TO THE YOUNG.
III. OF EDUCATION.
(A) ON THE EDUCATION OF THE YOUNG.
(B) OF THE PEOPLE, THEIR WAYS AND NEEDS.
(C.) EDUCATION.
(D) EDUCATION OF DUTY.
(E) SPEECH ON LAYING THE FOUNDATION-STONE OF THE NEW SCHOOL IN THE VILLAGE OF BOWNESS, WINDERMERE, 1836.
VOLUME II: AESTHETICAL AND LITERARY.
I. OF LITERARY BIOGRAPHY AND MONUMENTS.
(A) A LETTER TO A FRIEND OF ROBERT BURNS.
(B) OF MONUMENTS TO LITERARY MEN.
(C) OF SIR THOMAS BROWNE, A MONUMENT TO SOUTHEY, &C.
II. UPON EPITAPHS.
(A) UPON EPITAPHS.
(B) THE COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD, AND CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF ANCIENT EPITAPHS
(C) CELEBRATED EPITAPHS CONSIDERED.
III. ESSAYS, LETTERS, AND NOTES ELUCIDATORY AND CONFIRMATORY OF THE POEMS.
(A) OF THE PRINCIPLES OF POETRY AND THE ‘LYRICAL BALLADS’ (1798-1802).
(B) OF POETIC DICTION.
(C) POETRY AS A STUDY.
(D) OF POETRY AS OBSERVATION AND DESCRIPTION.
(E) OF ‘THE EXCURSION.’
(F) LETTERS TO SIR GEORGE AND LADY BEAUMONT AND
(G) LETTER TO THE RIGHT HON. CHARLES JAMES FOX.
(H) OF THE PRINCIPLES OF POETRY AND HIS OWN POEMS.
IV. DESCRIPTIVE.
Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth Page 304