Down Rydal-cove from Fairfield's side,1
Should move the tenor of his song

Who means to charity no wrong;
Whose offering gladly would accord

With this day's work, in thought and word.

X

Heaven prosper it! may peace, and love,
And hope, and consolation, fall,
Through its meek influence, from above,
And penetrate the hearts of all ;
All who, around the hallowed Fane,
Shall sojourn in this fair domain ;
Grateful to Thee, while service pure,
And ancient ordinance, shall endure,
For opportunity bestowed

To kneel together, and adore their God! *

90

95

100

ON THE SAME OCCASION

Composed 1822.-Published 1827

One of the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection" from the edition of 1827 to that of 1843. In 1835 transferred to the "Miscellaneous Poems."-Ed.

1 1832.

Oh! gather whencesoe'er ye safely may
The help which slackening Piety requires ;
Nor deem that he perforce must go astray
Who treads upon the footmarks of his sires.

Through Rydal Cove from Fairfield's side,

MS. to Lady Beaumont. 1827.

Through Mosedale-Cove from Carrock's side,

* Dorothy Wordsworth wrote to Henry Crabb Robinson (December 21, 1822), "William has just written a poem upon the Foundation of a Church, which Lady Fleming is about to erect at Rydal. It is about 80 lines. I like it much." This letter was obviously written before the poem reached its final form.-ED.

ON THE SAME OCCASION

115

Our churches, invariably perhaps, stand east and west, but why is by few persons exactly known; nor, that the degree of deviation from due east often noticeable in the ancient ones was determined, in each particular case, by the point in the horizon, at which the sun rose upon the day of the saint to whom the church was dedicated.* These observances of our ancestors, and the causes of them, are the subject of the following

stanzas.

WHEN in the antique age of bow and spear
And feudal rapine clothed with iron mail,
Came ministers of peace, intent to rear
The Mother Church in yon sequestered vale ; †

Then, to her Patron Saint a previous rite
Resounded with deep swell and solemn close,
Through unremitting vigils of the night,
Till from his couch the wished-for Sun uprose.

He rose, and straight-as by divine command,
They, who had waited for that sign to trace
Their work's foundation, gave with careful hand
To the high altar its determined place;

Mindful of Him who in the Orient born

There lived, and on the cross his life resigned,
And who, from out the regions of the morn,
Issuing in pomp, shall come to judge mankind.

So taught their creed ;— —nor failed the eastern sky,
'Mid these more awful feelings, to infuse
The sweet and natural hopes that shall not die,
Long as the sun his gladsome course renews.

*St. Oswald's Day is the 8th of August in the Calendar.-Ed.

5

ΙΟ

15

20

Doubtless Grasmere Church (itself originally a chapelry under Kendal), the advowson of which was sold in 1573 to the Le Flemings of Rydal. The date of the foundation is prehistoric. There is a thirteenth century window in it, but the tower is older. The church is dedicated to St. Oswald, King of Northumbria.-ED.

For us hath such prelusive vigil ceased;
Yet still we plant, like men of elder days,
Our christian altar faithful to the east,
Whence the tall window drinks the morning rays;

That obvious emblem giving to the eye
Of meek devotion, which erewhile it gave,
That symbol of the day-spring from on high,
Triumphant o'er the darkness of the grave.*

* Compare Ode, Intimations of Immortality, l. 117-
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave.

ED.

25

1823

ONLY one poem and two sonnets were written in 1823.-ED.

MEMORY

Composed 1823.-Published 1827

One of the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection." See the Fenwick note to the lines Written in a Blank Leaf of Macpherson's Ossian (p. 373 of this volume), where Wordsworth says that the poem was suggested from apprehensions of the fate of his friend, H. C." (Hartley Coleridge).—ED.

66

A PEN- -to register; a key—
That winds through secret wards;
Are well assigned to Memory
By allegoric Bards.

As aptly, also, might be given.

A Pencil to her hand;

That, softening objects, sometimes even
Outstrips the heart's demand;

That smooths foregone distress, the lines
Of lingering care subdues,

Long-vanished happiness refines,

And clothes in brighter hues ;

5

ΙΟ

Yet, like a tool of Fancy, works
Those Spectres to dilate

That startle Conscience, as she lurks
Within her lonely seat.

O! that our lives, which flee so fast,
In purity were such,

That not an image of the past

Should fear that pencil's touch!

Retirement then might hourly look
Upon a soothing scene,

Age steal to his allotted nook
Contented and serene;

15

20

With heart as calm as lakes that sleep,
In frosty moonlight glistening;

25

Or mountain rivers, where they creep
Along a channel smooth and deep,
To their own far-off murmurs listening.

"NOT LOVE, NOT WAR, NOR THE
TUMULTUOUS SWELL"

Composed 1823.-Published 1827

One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."-ED.

NOT Love, not 1 War, nor the tumultuous swell
Of civil conflict, nor the wrecks of change,
Nor 2 Duty struggling with afflictions strange-

1 1832.

nor

2 1827. And

1823.

1823. *

* See the same reading in The Poetical Album, 1829, vol. i. p. 43, edited by Alaric Watts.-ED.