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And not unfelt will prove the loss
'Mid trivial care and petty cross
And each day's shallow grief;
Though the most easily beguiled
Were oft among the first that smiled

At their own fond belief.

If still the reckless change we mourn,

A reconciling thought may turn

To harm that might lurk here,
Ere judgment prompted from within
Fit aims, with courage to begin,

And strength to persevere.

Not Fortune's slave is Man: our state
Enjoins, while firm resolves await

On wishes just and wise,
That strenuous action follow both,
And life be one perpetual growth

Of heaven-ward enterprise.

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So taught, so trained, we boldly face
All accidents of time and place;

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Whatever props may fail,

Trust in that sovereign law can spread
New glory o'er the mountain's head,

Fresh beauty through the vale.

That truth informing mind and heart,
The simplest cottager may part,

Ungrieved, with charm and spell;
And yet, lost Wishing-gate, to thee
The voice of grateful memory

Shall bid a kind farewell!

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A gate-though not the "moss-grown bar" of 1828—still stands at the old place, where Wordsworth tells us one had stood "time out of mind;" so that a "blank wall" does not now shut out the "bright landscape," at the old, and classic, spot. Long may this gate stand, defying wind and weather!—ED.

A JEWISH FAMILY

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A JEWISH FAMILY

(IN A SMALL VALLEY OPPOSITE ST. GOAR, UPON THE RHINE)

Composed 1828.-Published 1835

[Coleridge, my daughter, and I, in 1828, passed a fortnight upon the banks of the Rhine, principally under the hospitable roof of Mr. Aders of Gotesburg, but two days of the time we spent at St. Goar in rambles among the neighbouring valleys. It was at St. Goar that I saw the Jewish family here described. Though exceedingly poor, and in rags, they were not less beautiful than I have endeavoured to make them appear. We had taken a little dinner with us in a basket, and invited them to partake of it, which the mother refused to do, both for herself and children, saying it was with them a fast-day; adding, diffidently, that whether such observances were right or wrong, she felt it her duty to keep them strictly. The Jews, who are numerous on this part of the Rhine, greatly surpass the German peasantry in the beauty of their features and in the intelligence of their countenances. But the lower classes of the German peasantry have, here at least, the air of people grievously opprest. Nursing mothers, at the age of seven or eight-andtwenty, often look haggard and far more decayed and withered than women of Cumberland and Westmoreland twice their age. This comes from being under-fed and over-worked in their vineyards in a hot and glaring sun.-I. F.]

One of the "Poems of the Imagination."-ED.

GENIUS of Raphael! if thy wings

Might bear thee to this glen,

With faithful memory left of things 1

1 1835.

To pencil dear and pen,

Thou would'st forego the neighbouring Rhine, 5
And all his majesty—

With memory left of shapes and things

Ms. written by Dorothy Wordsworth.

A studious forehead to incline
O'er 1 this poor family.

The Mother-her thou must have seen,

In spirit, ere she came

To dwell these rifted rocks between,
Or found on earth a name;

An image, too, of that sweet Boy,2

Thy inspirations give—

Of playfulness,3 and love, and joy,
Predestined here to live.

Downcast, or shooting glances far,
How beautiful his eyes,

That blend the nature of the star

With that of summer skies!
I speak as if of sense beguiled;

Uncounted months are gone,
Yet am I with the Jewish Child,
That exquisite Saint John.

1 1835.

I see the dark-brown curls, the brow,
The smooth transparent skin,

Refined, as with intent to show

The holiness within ; *

The grace of parting Infancy
By blushes yet untamed;

Age faithful to the mother's knee,
Nor of her arms ashamed.

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* Compare The Russian Fugitive, ll. 1-4.-Ed.

A JEWISH FAMILY

Two lovely Sisters, still and sweet

As flowers, stand side by side ;
Their soul-subduing looks1 might cheat
The Christian of his pride:

Such beauty hath the Eternal poured
Upon them not forlorn,2

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Though of a lineage once abhorred,
Nor yet redeemed from scorn.

Mysterious safeguard, that, in spite

Of poverty and wrong,

Doth here preserve a living light,
From Hebrew fountains sprung;

That gives this ragged group to cast
Around the dell a gleam

Of Palestine, of glory past,

And proud Jerusalem !

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The title given to this poem by Dorothy Wordsworth, in the letter to Lady Beaumont in which the different MS. readings occur, is "A Jewish Family, met with in a Dingle near the Rhine." During the Continental Tour of 1820,-in which Wordsworth was accompanied by his wife and sister and other friends, they went up the Rhine (see the notes to the poems recording that Tour). An extract from Mrs. Wordsworth's Journal, referring to the road from St. Goar to Bingen, may illustrate this poem, written in 1828. "From St. Goar to Bingen, castles commanding innumerable small fortified villages. Nothing could exceed the delightful variety, and at first the postilions whisked us too fast through these scenes; and afterwards, the same variety so often repeated, we became quite exhausted, at least D. and I were; and, beautiful as the road continued to be, we could scarcely keep our eyes open; but, on

1 1835.

Fair Creatures, in this lone retreat

By happy chance espied,
Your soul-subduing looks

2 1835.
Upon you-not forlorn,

Ms. by Dorothy Wordsworth.

MS. by Dorothy Wordsworth.

my being roused from one of these slumbers, no eye wide-awake ever beheld such celestial pictures as gleamed before mine, like visions belonging to dreams. The castles seemed now almost stationary, a continued succession always in sight, rarely without two or three before us at once. There they rose from the craggy cliffs, out of the centre of the stately river, from a green island, or a craggy rock, etc., etc."

In Dorothy Wordsworth's record of the same Tour, the following occurs :-"July 24.-We looked down into one of the vales tributary to the Rhine, which, in memory of the mountain recesses of Ullswater, I named Deep-dale, a green quiet place, spotted with villages and single houses, and enlivened by a sinuous brook. "A lovely dell runs

behind one of these hills. At its opening, where it pours out its stream into the Rhine, we espied a one-arched Borrowdale bridge; and, behind the bridge, a village almost buried between the abruptly rising steeps."—ED.

INCIDENT AT BRUGÈS

Composed 1828.-Published 1835

[This occurred at Brugès in 1828. Mr. Coleridge, my daughter, and I made a tour together in Flanders, upon the Rhine, and returned by Holland. Dora and I, while taking a walk along a retired part of the town, heard the voice as here described, and were afterwards informed it was a convent in which were many English. We were both much touched, I might say affected, and Dora moved verses.-I. F.]

as appears in the

One of the "Memorials of a Tour on the Continent."-ED.

1 1835.

IN Brugès town is many a street
Whence busy life hath fled;1

Where, without hurry, noiseless feet,
The grass-grown pavement tread.

is fled,

MS. written by Dorothy Wordsworth.

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