Shakspeare unlocked his heart;

* the melody

Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound ; †
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound; ‡
With it Camöens soothed 1 an exile's grief; §
The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante || crowned
His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp,

It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land

To struggle through dark ways; ¶ and, when a damp Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand

The Thing became a trumpet ; ** whence he blew Soul-animating strains-alas, too few!††

"FAIR PRIME OF LIFE! WERE IT ENOUGH TO GILD"

Composed 1827.-Published 1827

[Suggested by observation of the way in which a young friend, whom I do not choose to name, misspent his time and

1

1837.

Camöens soothed with it

1827.

* Shakespeare's sonnets are autobiographical: compare Nos. 24, 30, 39, 105, 116.-ED.

Petrarch's were all inspired by his devotion to Laura.-ED.

Tasso's works include two volumes of sonnets, first published in 1581 and 1592.-ED.

§ For his satire Disparates na India, Camöens was banished to Macao in 1556, where he wrote the Os Lusiadas, also many sonnets and lyric poems.-ED.

|| Compare the Vita Nuova, passim.-ED.

Spenser wrote ninety-two sonnets. From the eightieth sonnet it would seem that the writing of them was a relaxation, after the labour spent upon the Faerie Queene. It is to this sonnet that Wordsworth alludes.

After so long a race as I have run

Through Faery land, which these six books compile,
Give leave to rest me, being half foredone,
And gather to myself new breath awhile.

ED.

** Milton's twenty-three sonnets were written partly in English, partly in Italian. Compare Wordsworth's sonnet, addressed to him in 1802,

beginning:

Milton, thou should'st be living at this hour.

ED.

+ Compare the sonnet beginning

Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room,

ED.

RETIREMENT

165

misapplied his talents.

He took afterwards a better course,

and became a useful member of society, respected, I believe, wherever he has been known.-I. F.]

One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."-Ed.

FAIR Prime of life! were it enough to gild
With ready sunbeams every straggling shower;
And, if an unexpected cloud should lower,
Swiftly thereon a rainbow arch to build

For Fancy's errands, then, from fields half-tilled
Gathering green weeds to mix with poppy flower,
Thee might thy Minions crown, and chant thy power,
Unpitied by the wise, all censure stilled.

Ah! show that worthier honours are thy due;
Fair Prime of life! arouse the deeper heart;
Confirm the Spirit glorying to pursue
Some path of steep ascent and lofty aim;
And, if there be a joy that slights the claim
Of grateful memory, bid that joy depart.

5

ΙΟ

RETIREMENT

Composed 1827.-Published 1827

One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."-Ed.

IF the whole weight of what we think and feel,
Save only far as thought and feeling blend
With action, were as nothing, patriot Friend!
From thy remonstrance would be no appeal ;
But to promote and fortify the weal

Of our own Being is her paramount end;
A truth which they alone shall comprehend
Who shun the mischief which they cannot heal.
Peace in these feverish times is sovereign bliss:
Here, with no thirst but what the stream can slake,
And startled only by the rustling brake,

5

ΙΟ

Cool air I breathe; while the unincumbered Mind,
By some weak aims at services assigned

To gentle Natures, thanks not Heaven amiss.

"THERE IS A PLEASURE IN POETIC PAINS"

Composed 1827.-Published 1827

One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."-Ed.

THERE is a pleasure in poetic pains

Which only Poets know; *—'twas rightly said;

Whom could the Muses else allure to tread

Their smoothest paths, to wear their lightest chains ?

When happiest Fancy has inspired the strains,

How oft the malice of one luckless word
Pursues the Enthusiast to the social board,
Haunts him belated on the silent plains!

5

Yet he repines not, if his thought stand clear,
At last, of hindrance and obscurity,

Fresh as the star that crowns the brow of morn;
Bright, speckless, as a softly-moulded tear
The moment it has left the virgin's eye,

Or rain-drop lingering on the pointed thorn.

ΙΟ

RECOLLECTION OF THE PORTRAIT OF KING HENRY EIGHTH, TRINITY LODGE, CAMBRIDGE †

Composed 1827.-Published 1827

One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."-Ed.

THE imperial Stature, the colossal stride,
Are yet before me; yet do I behold

* See Cowper's Task, book ii. 1. 285.-ED. Trinity College, Cambridge, was founded by King Henry on the site of King's Hall, founded by Edward III. in 1337.

VIII. in 1546, Two of the gate

WHEN PHILOCTETES IN THE LEMNIAN ISLE 167

5

The broad full visage, chest of amplest mould,
The vestments 'broidered with barbaric pride:
And lo! a poniard, at the Monarch's side,
Hangs ready to be grasped in sympathy
With the keen threatenings of that fulgent eye,
Below the white-rimmed bonnet, far-descried.
Who trembles now at thy capricious mood?
'Mid those surrounding Worthies, haughty King, 10
We rather think, with grateful mind sedate,
How Providence educeth, from the spring
Of lawless will, unlooked-for streams of good,
Which neither force shall check nor time abate!

"WHEN PHILOČTETES IN THE LEMNIAN

ISLE"

Composed 1827.-Published 1827

One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."-Ed.

WHEN Philoctetes in the Lemnian isle *

Like a Form sculptured on a monument

ways of the latter remain, as parts of the great court of Trinity. Over one of these-the King's or entrance gateway-the statue of Henry VIII. is erected. The portrait, described in the sonnet, is in the Hall of the College.-ED.

*The original title of this sonnet in MS. was Suggested by the same Incident (referring to the previous sonnet); and its original form, with one line awanting, was as follows:

When Philoctetes, in the Lemnian Isle

Reclined with shaggy forehead earthward bent,
Lay silent like a weed-grown Monument,

Such Friend, for such brief moment as a smile
Asks to be born and die in, might beguile
The wounded Chief of pining discontent
From home affections, and heroic toil.
Seen, or unseen, beneath us, or above,
Are Powers that soften anguish, if not heal;
And toads and spiders have sufficed to prove

To fettered wretchedness that no Bastile

Is deep enough to exclude the light of Love,
Though man for Brother man have ceased to feel.

Philoctetes, one of the Argonauts, received from the dying Hercules his
Called by Menelaus to go with the Greeks to the Trojan war, he

arrows.

Lay couched; on him or his dread bow unbent 1
Some wild Bird oft might settle and beguile
The rigid features of a transient smile,
Disperse the tear, or to the sigh give vent,
Slackening the pains of ruthless banishment
From his lov'd home, and from heroic toil.
And trust that spiritual Creatures round us move,
Griefs to allay which 3 Reason cannot heal;
Yea, veriest reptiles have sufficed to prove
To fettered wretchedness, that no Bastile *
Is deep enough to exclude the light of love,
Though man for brother man has ceased to feel.

5

"WHILE ANNA'S PEERS AND EARLY PLAYMATES TREAD"

Composed 1827.-Published 1827

[This is taken from the account given by Miss Jewsbury of the pleasure she derived, when long confined to her bed by

Lay couched; upon that breathless Monument,
On him, or on his fearful bow unbent,

1827.

was sent to the island of Lemnos, owing to a wound in his foot. There he remained for ten years, till the oracle informed the Greeks that Troy could not be taken without the arrows of Hercules. The sonnet refers to the legend of his life in Lemnos.-ED.

Compare the sonnet To Toussaint l'Ouverture (vol. ii. p. 339).—ED.