fain hope, however, not more flagrantly or in a worse way than most of my tuneful brethren. But these last words are in a wrong strain. We should be rigorous to ourselves and forbearing, if not indulgent, to others, and, if we make comparisons at all, it ought to be with those who have morally excelled us.

Jam non consilio bonus, sed more eò perductus, ut non tantum rectè facere possim, sed nisi rectè facere non possim."

STERN Daughter of the Voice of God!
O Duty! if that name thou love
Who art a light to guide, a rod
To check the erring, and reprove;
Thou, who art victory and law

When empty terrors overawe;

From vain temptations dost set free;

And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity!

The young man whose death gave occasion to this poem was named Charles Gough, and had come early in the spring to Paterdale for the sake of angling. While attempting to cross over Helvellyn to Grasmere he slipped from a steep part of the rock where the ice was not thawed, and perished. His body was discovered as is told in this poem. Walter Scott heard of the accident, and both he and I, without either of us knowing that the other had taken up the subject, each wrote a poem in admiration of the dog's fidelity. His contains a most beautiful stanza:

"How long didst thou think that his silence was slum. ber,

When the wind waved his garment how oft didst thou start."

A BARKING Sound the Shepherd hears,
A cry as of a dog or fox;

He halts and searches with his eyes
Among the scattered rocks:

And now at distance can discern
A stirring in a brake of fern;
And instantly a dog is seen,
Glancing through that covert green.

The Dog is not of mountain breed;
Its motions, too, are wild and shy;
With something, as the Shepherd thinks,
Unusual in its cry:

The Dog had watched about the spot, Or by his master's side:

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How nourished here through such long time He knows, who gave that love sublime; And gave that strength of feeling, great Above all human estimate!

CHARACTER OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR

[Publ. 1807]

WHO is the happy Warrior? Who is he That every man in arms should wish to be? -It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought

Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought Upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought:

Whose high endeavours are an inward light That makes the path before him always bright:

Who, with a natural instinct to discern What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn;

Abides by this resolve, and stops not there, But makes his moral being his prime care; Who, doomed to go in company with Pain, And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train! Turns his necessity to glorious gain;

9

In face of these doth exercise a power Which is our human nature's highest dower; Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves

Of their bad influence, and their good receives:

By objects, which might force the soul to

abate

19

Her feeling, rendered more compassionate;
Is placable- because occasions rise
So often that demand such sacrifice;
More skilful in self-knowledge, even more
pure,

As tempted more; more able to endure,
As more exposed to suffering and distress;
Thence, also, more alive to tenderness.
-'Tis he whose law is reason; who de-
pends

Upon that law as on the best of friends;
Whence, in a state where men are tempted

still

To evil for a guard against worse ill,
And what in quality or act is best
Doth seldom on a right foundation rest,

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He labours good on good to fix, and owes To virtue every triumph that he knows:

Who, if he rise to station of command, Rises by open means; and there will stand On honourable terms, or else retire, And in himself possess his own desire; Who comprehends his trust, and to the

same

Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim; 40 And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait For wealth, or honours, or for worldly state; Whom they must follow; on whose head must fall,

Like showers of manna, if they come at all: Whose powers shed round him in the common strife,

Or mild concerns of ordinary life,
A constant influence, a peculiar grace;
But who, if he be called upon to face

Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined

Great issues, good or bad for human kind, Is happy as a Lover; and attired

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With sudden brightness, like a man inspired;

And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law

In calmness made, and sees what he fore

NUNS fret not at their convent's narrow room;

And hermits are contented with their cells; And students with their pensive citadels; Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom, Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom,

High as the highest Peak of Furness-fells, Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells: In truth the prison, into which we doom Ourselves, no prison is: and hence for me, In sundry moods, 't was pastime to be bound Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground; Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be)

Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,

Should find brief solace there, as I have found.

COMPOSED BY THE SIDE OF GRASMERE LAKE

[Publ. 1820]

CLOUDS, lingering yet, extend in solid bars Through the grey west; and lo! these waters, steeled

By breezeless air to smoothest polish, yield
A vivid repetition of the stars;

Jove, Venus, and the ruddy crest of Mars
Amid his fellows beauteously revealed
At happy distance from earth's groaning
field,

Where ruthless mortals wage incessant

wars.

"THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US; LATE AND SOON" [Publ. 1807]

THE world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of

Crossing the waters) doubt, and something dark,

Of the old Sea some reverential fear,
Is with me at thy farewell, joyous Bark!

ODE

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD

[Publ. 1807]

This was composed during my residence at Town-end, Grasmere. Two years at least passed between the writing of the four first stanzas and the remaining part. To the attentive and competent reader the whole sufficiently explains itself; but there may be no harm in adverting here to particular feelings or experiences of my own mind on which the structure of the poem partly rests. Nothing was more difficult for me in childhood than to admit the notion of death as a state applicable to my own being. I have said elsewhere

"A simple child,

That lightly draws its breath, And feels its life in every limb, What should it know of death!"

But it was not so much from feelings of animal vivacity that my difficulty came as from a sense of the indomitableness of the Spirit within me. I used to brood over the stories of Enoch and Elijah, and almost to persuade my self that, whatever might become of others, I should be translated, in something of the same way, to heaven. With a feeling congenial to this, I was often unable to think of external things as having external existence, and I communed with all that I saw as something not apart from, but inherent in, my own immaterial nature. Many times while going to school have I grasped at a wall or tree to recall myself from this abyss of idealism to the reality. At that time I was afraid of such processes. In later periods of life I have deplored, as we have all reason to do, a subjugation of an opposite character, and have rejoiced over the remembrances, as is expressed in the lines

"Obstinate questionings

Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings; " etc.

To that dream-like vividness and splendour which invest objects of sight in childhood, every one, I believe, if he would look back, could bear testimony, and I need not dwell upon it here: but having in the poem regarded it as presumptive evidence of a prior state of existence, I think it right to protest against a conclusion, which has given pain to some good and pious persons, that I meant to inculcate

such a belief. It is far too shadowy a notion to be recommended to faith, as more than an element in our instincts of immortality. But let us bear in mind that, though the idea is not advanced in revelation, there is nothing there to contradict it, and the fall of Man presents an analogy in its favour. Accordingly, a pre-existent state has entered into the popular creeds of many nations; and, among all persons acquainted with classic literature, is known as an ingredient in Platonic philosophy. Archimedes said that he could move the world if he had a point whereon to rest his machine. Who has not felt the same aspirations as regards the world of his own mind? Having to wield some of its elements when I was impelled to write this poem on the "Immortality of the Soul," I took hold of the notion of preexistence as having sufficient foundation in humanity for authorising me to make for my purpose the best use of it I could as a poet.

"The Child is Father of the Man;

And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety."

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:

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