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Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;

And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh

and strong.

To humbler functions, awful Power!
I call thee: I myself commend
Unto thy guidance from this hour;
Oh, let my weakness have an end!
Give unto me, made lowly wise,
The spirit of self-sacrifice;
The confidence of reason give;

And in the light of truth thy Bondman let me live!

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Mr. J. R. Tutin has supplied me with the text of a proof copy of the sheets of the edition of 1807, which was cancelled by Wordsworth, in which the following stanzas take the place of the first four of that edition :

There are who tread a blameless way
In purity, and love, and truth,
Though resting on no better stay
Than on the genial sense of youth:

Glad Hearts! without reproach or blot;
Who do the right, and know it not :

May joy be theirs while life shall last

And may a genial sense remain, when youth is past.

Serene would be our days and bright;

And happy would our nature be;

If Love were an unerring light;

And Joy its own security.

And bless'd are they who in the main,

This creed, even now, do entertain,

Do in this spirit live; yet know

That Man hath other hopes; strength which elsewhere

must grow.

I, loving freedom, and untried;

No sport of every random gust,

Yet being to myself a guide,

Too blindly have reposed my trust;

* Compare S. T. C. in The Friend (edition 1818), vol. iii. p. 64.-ED.

Resolv'd that nothing e'er should press
Upon my present happiness,

I shov'd unwelcome tasks away:

But henceforth I would serve; and strictly if I may.

O Power of DUTY! sent from God

To enforce on earth his high behest,

And keep us faithful to the road

Which conscience hath pronounc'd the best :

Thou, who art Victory and Law

When empty terrors overawe;

From vain temptations dost set free,

From Strife, and from Despair, a glorious Ministry ! *

ED.

TO A SKY-LARK

Composed 1805.—Published 1807

[Rydal Mount, 1825.†-I. F.] In pencil opposite, "Where there are no skylarks; but the poet is everywhere."

In the edition of 1807 this is No. 2 of the "Poems, composed during a Tour, chiefly on foot." In 1815 it became one of the "Poems of the Fancy."--ED.

UP with me! up with me into the clouds !

For thy song, Lark, is strong;

Up with me, up with me into the clouds!
Singing, singing,

With clouds and sky1 about thee ringing,
Lift me, guide me till I find

That spot which seems so to thy mind!

5

1

1827.

With all the heav'ns

1807.

In the original MS. sent to the printer, find that this stanza was transcribed by Coleridge.-Ed.

So it is printed in the Prose Works of Wordsworth (1876); but the date was 1805.-ED.

In a MS. copy this series is called "Poems composed for amusement during a Tour, chiefly on foot."-ED.

I have walked through wildernesses dreary,
And1 to-day my heart is weary;

Had I now the wings 2 of a Faery,

Up to thee would I fly.

There is madness about thee, and joy divine
In that song of thine;

Lift me, guide me high and high

3

To thy banqueting-place in the sky.

Joyous as morning,4

Thou art laughing and scorning;

Thou hast a nest for thy love and thy rest,

And, though little troubled with sloth,
Drunken Lark! thou would'st be loth

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To be such a traveller as I.

Happy, happy Liver,

With a soul as strong as a mountain river
Pouring out praise to the almighty Giver,
Joy and jollity be with us both!

Alas! my journey, rugged and uneven,

Through prickly moors or dusty ways must wind;
But hearing thee, or others of thy kind,

As full of gladness and as free of heaven,

I, with my fate contented, will plod on,

And hope for higher raptures, when life's day is done.5

1 But

2 1815.

MS.

25

30

the soul

3 1832.

Up with me, up with me, high and high,

1807.

1807.

4 This and the previous stanza were omitted in the edition of

1827, but restored in that of 1832.

5 1827.

Joy and jollity be with us both!
Hearing thee, or else some other,

As merry a Brother,

I on the earth will go plodding on,
By myself, chearfully, till the day is done.

1807.

Compare this poem with Shelley's Skylark, and with Wordsworth's poem, on the same subject, written in the year 1825, and the last five stanzas of his Morning Exercise written in 1827; also with William Watson's First Skylark of Spring, 1895.-ED.

FIDELITY

Composed 1805.-Published 1807

[The young man whose death gave occasion to this poem was named Charles Gough, and had come early in the spring to Patterdale for the sake of angling. While attempting to cross over Helvellyn to Grasmere he slipped from a steep part of the rock where the ice was not thawed, and perished. His body was discovered as described in this poem. Walter Scott heard of the accident, and both he and I, without either of us knowing that the other had taken up the subject, each wrote a poem in admiration of the dog's fidelity. His contains a most beautiful stanza :

"How long did'st thou think that his silence was slumber! When the wind waved his garment how oft did'st thou start !"'

I will add that the sentiment in the last four lines of the last stanza of my verses was uttered by a shepherd with such exactness, that a traveller, who afterwards reported his account in print, was induced to question the man whether he had read them, which he had not.-I. F.]

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

A BARKING Sound the Shepherd hears,

A cry as of a dog or fox;

He halts—and searches with his eyes
Among the scattered rocks:

What though my course be rugged and uneven,
To prickly moors and dusty ways confined,
Yet, hearing thee, or others of thy kind,
As full of gladness and as free of heaven,
I on the earth will go plodding on,
By myself, cheerfully, till the day is done.

1820.

And now at distance can discern
A stirring in a brake of fern;
And instantly a dog is seen,
Glancing through that covert green.1

The Dog is not of mountain breed ;

Its motions, too, are wild and shy ;

With something, as the Shepherd thinks,
Unusual in its cry:

1 1820.

Nor is there any one in sight

All round, in hollow or on height;

Nor shout, nor whistle strikes his ear;
What is the creature doing here?

It was a cove, a huge recess,

That keeps, till June, December's snow;
A lofty precipice in front,

A silent tarn* below! †

Far in the bosom of Helvellyn,

Remote from public road or dwelling,
Pathway, or cultivated land ;
From trace of human foot or hand.

There sometimes doth 2 a leaping fish
Send through the tarn a lonely cheer;

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* Tarn is a small Mere or Lake mostly high up in the mountains.-W. W. 1807.

+ Compare the reference to Helvellyn, and its "deep coves, shaped by skeleton arms," in the Musings near Aquapendente (1837). Wordsworth here describes Red Tarn, under Helvellyn, to the east; but Charles Gough was killed on the Kepplecove side of Swirell Edge, and not at Red Tarn. Bishop Watson of Llandaff, writing to Hayley (see Anecdotes of the Life of Bishop Watson, p. 440), writes about Charles Gouche (evidently Gough). He had been lodging at "the Cherry Inn," near Wytheburn, sometime before his death.-ED.

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