SUPPLEMENT OF PIECES

NOT APPEARING IN THE EDITION

OF 1849-50.

SUPPLEMENT OF PIECES NOT APPEARING IN THE EDITION OF 1849-1850; ARRANGED IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER.

It is with some hesitation that I reprint, even in a Supplement, any pieces not included by Wordsworth himself in his last edition. But he anticipated the time when his works would be treated as those of a classic, and he was willing that others should do with them what he would not do himself. Of an omitted passage from one of his poems, he wrote in half-play and whole-earnest to Barron Field: "It may either be restored, or printed at the end of a volume, among notes and variations, when you edit the fifteenth edition."-ED.

LINES

WRITTEN AS A SCHOOL EXERCISE AT HAWKSHEAD, ANNO ÆTATIS 14.

to

"I was called upon, among other scholars," Wordsworth says, write verses upon the completion of the second centenary from the foundation of the school [at Hawkshead] in 1585 by Archbishop Sandys." Perhaps the Lines were written in anticipation of the bi-centenary, and so, as stated in the title, in his fourteenth year.-Ed.

"AND has the Sun his flaming chariot driven
Two hundred times around the ring of heaven,
Since Science first, with all her sacred train,
Beneath yon roof began her heavenly reign?
While thus I mused, methought, before mine eyes,
The Power of EDUCATION seemed to rise ;
Not she whose rigid precepts trained the boy

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Dead to the sense of every finer joy;

Nor that vile wretch who bade the tender age

Spurn Reason's law and humour Passion's rage; 10

But she who trains the generous British youth
In the bright paths of fair majestic Truth:
Emerging slow from Academus' grove
In heavenly majesty she seem'd to move.
Stern was her forehead, but a smile serene
'Soften'd the terrors of her awful mien.'
Close at her side were all the powers, design'd
To curb, exalt, reform the tender mind:
With panting breast, now pale as winter snows,
Now flush'd as Hebe, Emulation rose;
Shame follow'd after with reverted eye,
And hue far deeper than the Tyrian dye;
Last Industry appear'd with steady pace,
A smile sat beaming on her pensive face.
I gazed upon the visionary train,
Threw back my eyes, return'd, and gazed again.
When lo! the heavenly goddess thus began,
Through all my frame the pleasing accents ran.

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"When Superstition left the golden light And fled indignant to the shades of night; When pure Religion rear'd the peaceful breast And lull'd the warring passions into rest, Drove far away the savage thoughts that roll In the dark mansions of the bigot's soul, Enlivening Hope display'd her cheerful ray, And beam'd on Britain's sons a brighter day; So when on Ocean's face the storm subsides, Hush'd are the winds and silent are the tides; The God of day, in all the pomp of light, Moves through the vault of heaven, and dissipates

the night;

Wide o'er the main a trembling lustre plays,

The glittering waves reflect the dazzling blaze;
Science with joy saw Superstition fly

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Before the lustre of Religion's eye;

With rapture she beheld Britannia smile,

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Clapp'd her strong wings, and sought the cheerful

isle,

The shades of night no more the soul involve,
She sheds her beam, and, lo! the shades dissolve;
No jarring monks, to gloomy cell confined,

With mazy rules perplex the weary mind;
No shadowy forms entice the soul aside,
Secure she walks, Philosophy her guide.
Britain, who long her warriors had adored,
And deem'd all merit centred in the sword;
Britain, who thought to stain the field was fame,
Now honour'd Edward's less than Bacon's name.
Her sons no more in listed fields advance
To ride the ring, or toss the beamy lance;
No longer steel their indurated hearts
To the mild influence of the finer arts;
Quick to the secret grotto they retire

To court majestic truth, or wake the golden lyre;
By generous Emulation taught to rise,

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The seats of learning brave the distant skies.
Then noble Sandys, inspir'd with great design, 65
Reared Hawkshead's happy roof, and call'd it

mine.

There have I loved to show the tender age
The golden precepts of the classic page;
To lead the mind to those Elysian plains

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Where, throned in gold, immortal Science reigns;
Fair to the view is sacred Truth display'd,
In all the majesty of light array'd,

To teach, on rapid wings, the curious soul

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To roam from heaven to heaven, from pole to pole,

From thence to search the mystic cause of things
And follow Nature to her secret springs;
Nor less to guide the fluctuating youth
Firm in the sacred paths of moral truth,
To regulate the mind's disordered frame,

And quench the passions kindling into flame;
The glimmering fires of Virtue to enlarge,
And purge from Vice's dross my tender charge.
Oft have I said, the paths of Fame pursue,
And all that Virtue dictates, dare to do;
Go to the world, peruse the book of man,
And learn from thence thy own defects to scan;
Severely honest, break no plighted trust,
But coldly rest not here -be more than just;
Join to the rigours of the sires of Rome
The gentler manners of the private dome;

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