But if the valiant of this land

In reverential modesty demand

That all observance, due to them, be paid
Where their serene progenitors are laid;
Kings, warriors, high-souled poets, saint-like sages
England's illustrious sons of long, long ages;
Be it not unordained that solemn rites,
Within the circuit of those Gothic walls,
Shall be performed at pregnant intervals;
Commemoration holy, that unites
The living generations with the dead;
By the deep soul-moving sense

Of religious eloquence,

By visual pomp, and by the tie

Of sweet and threatening harmony;

Soft notes, awful as the omen
Of destructive tempests coming,
And escaping from that sadness
Into elevated gladness;

While the white-robed choir attendant,
Under mouldering banners pendant,
Provoke all potent symphonies to raise
Songs of victory and praise,
For them who bravely stood unhurt, or bled
With medicable wounds, or found their graves
Upon the battle-field, or under ocean's waves;
Or were conducted home in single state,
And long procession-there to lie,
Where their sons' sons, and all posterity,
Unheard by them, their deeds shall celebrate!

12.

Nor will the God of peace and love
Such martial service disapprove.
He guides the Pestilence- the cloud
Of locusts travels on his breath;

The region that in hope was ploughed

His drought consumes, his mildew taints with dest
He springs the hushed Volcano's mine;
He puts the Earthquake on her still design,
Darkens the sun, hath bade the forest sink,

Asl, drinking towns and cities, still can drink
Chy and towns-'t is Thou- the work is Thine!
-The fierce Tornado sleeps within thy courts-

And for the sway of equity renewed,
For liberty confirmed, and peace restored!

He hears the word - he flies

And navies perish in their ports; For Thou art angry with thine enemies! For these, and for our errors

And sins, that point their terrors,

We how our heads before Thee, and we laud
And magnify thy name, Almighty God!

But thy most dreaded instrument
In working out a pure intent,

Is Man arrayed for mutual slaughter,
Yea, Carnage is thy daughter!

Tan cloth'st the wicked in their dazzling mail,
Aal by thy just permission they prevail;

Thine arm from peril guards the coasts
Of them who in thy laws delight;

Ty presence turns the scale of doubtful fight,
Tremendous God of battles, Lord of Hosts!

13.

TO THEE-TO THEE

On this appointed day shall thanks ascend,
Tat Thou hast brought our warfare to an end,
And that we need no second victory!
Ha! what a ghastly sight for man to see!
And to the heavenly saints in peace who dwell,
For a brief moment, terrible;

to thy sovereign penetration, fair, Before whom all things are, that were,

dgments that have been, or e'er shall be;
Lake in the chain of thy tranquillity!
Ang the bosom of this favoured Nation,
Fathe Thou, this day, a vital undulation!
Let all who do this land inherit

Be conscious of Thy moving spirit!
's a goodly Ordinance, the sight,

7gh sprung from bleeding war, is one of pure delight;

Thou the hour, or ere the hour arrive,
When a whole people shall kneel down in prayer,
As at one moment, in one rapture, strive
th lip and heart to tell their gratitude

For Thy protecting care,

Ther solemn joy-praising the Eternal Lord
For tyranny subdued,

But hark

14.

the summons-down the placid Lake
Floats the soft cadence of the Church-tower bells;
Bright shines the Sun, as if his beams might wake
The tender insects sleeping in their cells;
Bright shines the Sun- and not a breeze to shake
The drops that tip the melting icicles.

O, enter now his temple gate!
Inviting words-perchance already flung,
(As the crowd press devoutly down the aisle
Of some old Minster's venerable pile)
From voices into zealous passion stung,
While the tubed engine feels the inspiring blast,
And has begun — its clouds of sound to cast
Towards the empyreal Heaven,

As if the fretted roof were riven.
Us, humbler ceremonies now await;
But in the bosom, with devout respect,
The banner of our joy we will erect,
And strength of love our souls shall elevate:
For to a few collected in his name,
Their heavenly Father will incline an ear
Gracious to service hallowed by its aim;-
Awake! the majesty of God revere !

Go-and with foreheads meekly bowed
Present your prayers go-and rejoice aloud -
The Holy One will hear!

66

COMPOSED AFTER READING A NEWSPAPER OF
THE DAY.

PEOPLE! your chains are severing link by link;
Soon shall the rich be levelled down the poor
Meet them half-way." Vain boast! for these, the more
They thus would rise, must low and lower sink
Till, by repentance stung, they fear to think;
While all lie prostrate, save the tyrant few
Bent in quick turns each other to undo,
And mix the poison they themselves must drink.
Mistrust thyself, vain country! cease to cry,
"Knowledge will save me from the threatened woe."
For, if than other rash ones more thou know,
Yet on presumptuous wing as far would fly
Above thy knowledge as they dared to go,
Thou wilt provoke a heavier penalty.

UPON THE LATE GENERAL FAST.
March, 1832.

RELUCTANT call it was; the rite delayed;
And in the Senate some there were who doffed
The last of their humanity, and scoffed
At providential judgments undismayed
By their own daring. But the people prayed

[* From "La Petite Chouannerie ou Histoire ďun lége Breton Sous l'Empire, par A. F. Rio Faris 1542 p. 62. Those stanzas were a contribution by Wordsworth to M. Rio's interesting narrative of the romantic rev the royalist udents of the College of Vannes in 1815 26 their battles with the soldiers of the French Empire -H. R.]

ta with one voice; their flinty heart grew soft With penitential sorrow, and aloft Ter spirit mounted, crying, "God us aid!"

that with aspirations more intense, sted by self-abasement more profound, Te people, once so happy, so renowned For Liberty, would seek from God defence Arust far heavier ill, the pestilence revolution, impiously unbound!

Secrecy to Cowardice and Fraud,

bood and Treachery, in close council met,
under ground, in Pluto's cabinet,

The frost of England's pride will soon be thawed;
xed the open brow that overa wed

vir schemes; the faith and honour, never yet y as with hope encountered, be upset ;

ice I burst my bands, and cry, applaud!"

* #tuspered she, "The bill is carrying out!" beard, and, starting up, the brood of night

"ged hands, and shook with glee their matted locks; covers and places that abhor the light

in the transport, echoed back their shout, rab for, hugging his ballot-box!*

That, for the functions of an ancient StateStrong by her charters, free because imbound, Servant of Providence, not slave of fatePerilous is sweeping change, all chance unsound.

IN ALLUSION TO VARIOUS RECENT HISTORIES AND
NOTICES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

PORTENTOUS change when History can appear
As the cool advocate of foul device;
Reckless audacity extol, and jeer

At consciences perplexed with scruples nice!
They who bewail not, must abhor, the sneer
Born of Conceit, Power's blind Idolater;
Or haply sprung from vaunting cowardice
Betrayed by mockery of holy fear.

Hath it not long been said the wrath of man
Works not the righteousness of God? Oh bend,
Bend, ye perverse! to judgments from on High,
Laws that lay under Heaven's perpetual ban
All principles of action that transcend
The sacred limits of humanity.

LOT statesman be, whose mind's unselfish will Les restum at ease among grand thoughts: whose eye heee that, apart from magnanimity,

an exists not; nor the humbler skill

* walence, disentangling good and ill
patent care. What tho' assaults run high,
daunt not him who holds his ministry,
ate, at all hazards, to fulfil

la saties; — prompt to move but firm to wait,-
ng, things rashly sought are rarely found;

Its sonnet originally appeared in the following note te separate Volume of Sonnets.

Having in this notice alluded only in general terms to schiet which, in my opinion, the Ballot would bring ht, without especially branding its immoral and ser al tendency, (for which no political advantages, aya thousand times greater than those presumed not be a compensation,) I have been impelled to 1 reprobation of it upon that score. In no part of wings have I mentioned the name of any cotempo

a of Buonaparte only excepted, but for the purfengy; and therefore, as in the concluding verse *ta: lows, there is a deviation from this rule, (for ank will be easily filled up) I have excluded this from the body of the collection, and placed it here

CONTINUED.

WHO ponders National events shall find
An awful balancing of loss and gain,
Joy based on sorrow, good with ill combined,
And proud deliverance issuing out of pain
And direful throes; as if the All-ruling mind,
With whose perfection it consists to ordain
Volcanic burst, earthquake, and hurricane,
Dealt in like sort with feeble human kind
By laws immutable. But woe for him
Who thus deceived shall lend an eager hand
To social havoc. Is not Conscience ours,
And Truth, whose eye guilt only can make dim;
And Will, whose office, by divine command,
Is to control and check disordered Powers?

CONCLUDED.

LONG-FAVOURED England! be not thou misled
By monstrous theories of alien growth,
Lest alien frenzy seize thee, waxing wroth,
Self-smitten till thy garments reek dyed red
With thy own blood, which tears in torrents shed
Fail to wash out, tears flowing ere thy troth
Be plighted, not to ease but sullen sloth,
Or wan despair-the ghost of false hope fled
Into a shameful grave. Among thy youth,
My country! if such warning be held dear,
Then shall a veteran's heart be thrilled with joy
One who would gather from eternal truth,
For time and season, rules that work to cheer-
Not scourge, to save the people—not destroy.

MEN of the Western World! in Fate's dark book
Whence these opprobrious leaves of dire portent?
Think ye your British ancestors forsook
Their native land, for outrage provident;
From unsubmissive necks the bridle shook
To give, in their descendants, freer vent
And wider range to passions turbulent,
To mutual tyranny a deadlier look?

Nay, said a voice, soft as the south wind's breath,
Dive through the stormy surface of the flood
To the great current flowing underneath;
Explore the countless springs of silent good;
So shall the truth be better understood,
And thy grieved spirit brighten strong in faith.*

TO THE PENNSYLVANIANS.

DAYS undefiled by luxury or sloth,
Firm self-denial, manners grave and staid,
Rights equal, laws with cheerfulness obeyed,
Words that require no sanction from an oath,
And simple honesty a common growth-
This high repute, with bounteous nature's aid,
Won confidence, now ruthlessly betrayed
At will, your power the measure of your troth!-
All who revere the memory of Penn

Grieve for the land on whose wild woods his name
Was fondly grafted with a virtuous aim,
Renounced, abandoned by degenerate men
For state-dishonour black as ever came
To upper air from Mammon's loathsome den.

* These lines were written several years ago, when reports prevailed of cruelties committed in many parts of America, by men making a law of their own passions. A far more formidable, as being a more deliberate mischief, has appeared among those States, which have lately broken faith with the public creditor in a manner so infamous. I cannot, however, but look at both evils under a similar relation to inherent good, and hope that the time is not distant when our brethren of the West will wipe off this stain from their name and nation.

ADDITIONAL NOTE.

"Men of the Western World."

I am happy to add that this anticipation is already partly realized; and that the reproach addressed to the Pennsylvanians in the next sonnet is no longer applicable to them. I trust that those other states to which it may yet apply

will soon follow the example now set them in Philadelphia, and redeem their credit with the world. 1850.

[This additional note is on a fly-leaf at the end of the fifth volume of the edition, which was completed only a short time before the Poet's death. It contains probably the last sentences composed by him for the press. It was promptly added by him in consequence of a suggestion from me, that the sonnet addressed" To Pennsylvanians" was no longer just a fact which is mentioned to show that the fine sense of truth and justice which distinguishes his writings was active to the last. — H. R.]

-

AT BOLOGNA, IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE LATE I SURRECTIONS, 1837.

I.

AH why deceive ourselves! by no mere fit
Of sudden passion roused shall men attain
True freedom where for ages they have lain
Bound in a dark abominable pit,

With life's best sinews more and more unknit.
Here, there, a banded few who loathe the chain
May rise to break it: effort worse than vain
For thee, O great Italian nation, split
Into those jarring fractions. Let thy scope
Be one fixed mind for all; thy rights approve
To thy own conscience gradually renewed;
Learn to make Time the father of wise Hope;
Then trust thy cause to the arm of Fortitude,
The light of Knowledge, and the warmth of Lov

CONTINUED.

II.

HARD task! exclaim the undisciplined, to lean On patience coupled with such slow endeavour, That long-lived servitude must last for ever. Perish the grovelling few, who, prest between Wrongs and the terror of redress, would wean Millions from glorious aims. Our chains to sever Let us break forth in tempest now or never!— What, is there then no space for golden mean And gradual progress? - Twilight leads to day, And, even within the burning zones of earth, The hastiest sunrise yields a temperate ray; The softest breeze to fairest flowers gives birth: Think not that prudence dwells in dark abodes, She scans the future with the eye of gods.

As leaves are to the tree whereon they grow
And wither, every human generation
Is to the being of a mighty nation,
Locked in our world's embrace through weal and w
Thought that should teach the zealot to forego
Rash schemes, to abjure all selfish agitation,
And seek through noiseless pains and moderation
The unblemished good they only can bestow.
Alas! with most, who weigh futurity
Against time present, passion holds the scales:
Hence equal ignorance of both prevails.
And nations sink; or, struggling to be free,
Are doomed to flounder on, like wounded whales
Tossed on the bosom of a stormy sea.