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This People, once so happy, so renowned
For liberty, would seek from God defence
Against far heavier ill, the pestilence
Of revolution, impiously unbound!

1837.

Oh that with soul-aspirings more intense
And heart-humiliations more profound
This People, long

*

1832.

*The fast was appointed because of an outbreak of cholera in England.

-ED.

1833

THE most important of the poems written in 1833 were the Memorials of the Tour undertaken during the summer of that year. They refer to several Cumbrian localities, to the Isle of Man, to the Clyde, the Western Islands of Scotland, and again to Cumberland. -ED.

A WREN'S NEST

Composed 1833.-Published 1835

[Written at Rydal Mount. This nest was built, as described, in a tree that grows near the pool in Dora's field, next the Rydal Mount garden. * -I. F.]

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

AMONG the dwellings framed by birds
In field or forest with nice care,
Is none that with the little Wren's

In snugness may compare.

No door the tenement requires,

And seldom needs a laboured roof;

Yet is it to the fiercest sun

Impervious, and storm-proof.

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* Wrens still build (1896) in the same pollard oak tree, which survives in

"Dora's Field"; and primroses grow beneath it. -ED.

So warm, so beautiful withal,

In perfect fitness for its aim, That to the Kind by special grace Their instinct surely came.

And when for their abodes they seek

An opportune recess,

The hermit has no finer eye

For shadowy quietness.

These find, 'mid ivied abbey-walls,
A canopy in some still nook;
Others are pent-housed by a brae
That overhangs a brook.

There to the brooding bird her mate

Warbles by fits his low clear song ; And by the busy streamlet both

Are sung to all day long.

Or in sequestered lanes they build,
Where, till the flitting bird's return,
Her eggs within the nest repose,

Like relics in an urn.

But still, where general choice is good,
There is a better and a best ;
And, among fairest objects, some

Are fairer than the rest;

This, one of those small builders proved
In a green covert, where, from out

The forehead of a pollard oak,

The leafy antlers sprout;

For She who planned the mossy lodge,
Mistrusting her evasive skill,

Had to a Primrose looked for aid

Her wishes to fulfil.

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A WREN'S NEST

High on the trunk's projecting brow
And fixed an infant's span above

The budding flowers, peeped forth the nest,
The prettiest of the grove!

The treasure proudly did I show

To some whose minds without disdain

Can turn to little things; but once

Looked up for it in vain :

'Tis gone—a ruthless spoiler's prey,

Who heeds not beauty, love, or song,

'Tis gone! (so seemed it) and we grieved Indignant at the wrong.

Just three days after, passing by

In clearer light the moss-built cell

I saw, espied its shaded mouth;
And felt that all was well.

The Primrose for a veil had spread
The largest of her upright leaves;

And thus, for purposes benign,

A simple flower deceives.

Concealed from friends who might disturb

Thy quiet with no ill intent,

Secure from evil eyes and hands

On barbarous plunder bent,

Rest, Mother-bird! and when thy young
Take flight, and thou art free to roam,
When withered is the guardian Flower,

And empty thy late home,

Think how ye prospered, thou and thine,
Amid the unviolated grove

Housed near the growing Primrose-tuft
In foresight, or in love.

ΤΟ

UPON THE BIRTH OF HER FIRST-BORN CHILD,
MARCH, 1833

"Tum porro puer, ut sævis projectus ab undis

Navita, nudus humi jacet," etc.-LUCRETIUS.

Composed March 1833.—Published 1835

*

[Written at Moresby near Whitehaven, when I was on a visit to my son, then incumbent of that small living. While I am dictating these notes to my friend, Miss Fenwick, January 24, 1843, the child upon whose birth these verses were written is under my roof, and is of a disposition so promising that the wishes and prayers and prophecies which I then breathed forth in verse are, through God's mercy, likely to be realised.-I. F.]

One of the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection."-ED.

LIKE a shipwreck'd Sailor tost

By rough waves on a perilous coast,
Lies the Babe, in helplessness

And in tenderest nakedness,

Flung by labouring nature forth
Upon the mercies of the earth.
Can its eyes beseech ?—no more
Than the hands are free to implore:
Voice but serves for one brief cry;
Plaint was it? or prophecy

Of sorrow that will surely come?
Omen of man's grievous doom!

But, O Mother! by the close
Duly granted to thy throes;
By the silent thanks, now tending
Incense-like to Heaven, descending
Now to mingle and to move
With the gush of earthly love,
As a debt to that frail Creature,

*See De Rerum Naturae, lib. v. Il. 222-3.-Ed.

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