And not unfelt will prove the loss At their own fond belief. If still the reckless change we mourn, A reconciling thought may turn To harm that might lurk here, And strength to persevere. Not Fortune's slave is Man: our state On wishes just and wise, Of heaven-ward enterprise. 40 45 50 So taught, so trained, we boldly face 55 Whatever props may fail, Trust in that sovereign law can spread Fresh beauty through the vale. That truth informing mind and heart, Ungrieved, with charm and spell; Shall bid a kind farewell! 60 65 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 195 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 With memory left of shapes and things Ms. written by Dorothy Wordsworth. A studious forehead to incline The Mother-her thou must have seen, In spirit, ere she came To dwell these rifted rocks between, An image, too, of that sweet Boy,2 Thy inspirations give— Of playfulness,3 and love, and joy, Downcast, or shooting glances far, That blend the nature of the star With that of summer skies! Uncounted months are gone, 1 1835. I see the dark-brown curls, the brow, Refined, as with intent to show The holiness within ; * The grace of parting Infancy Age faithful to the mother's knee, ΙΟ 15 20 25 30 * Compare The Russian Fugitive, ll. 1-4.-Ed. A JEWISH FAMILY Two lovely Sisters, still and sweet As flowers, stand side by side ; Such beauty hath the Eternal poured Though of a lineage once abhorred, Mysterious safeguard, that, in spite Of poverty and wrong, Doth here preserve a living light, That gives this ragged group to cast Of Palestine, of glory past, And proud Jerusalem ! 197 35 40 45 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, 2 1835. 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 Where, without hurry, noiseless feet, is fled, MS. written by Dorothy Wordsworth. |