1 The incident described in this poem took ace in 1795-probably at Racedown-between e poet and his sister Dorothy.-ED.

This sonnet bears no signature in the Mornng Post, but Coleridge, in an unpublished letter, signs it to Wordsworth. Cf. line 12 with De 53 of the Poem, No. II., on September, 1819 Poems of Sentiment, XXVIII; p. 498), and with passage in the Essay on Epitaphs (page 929) which the story of this sonnet is related in Tose.-ED.

2 See De Quincey's Early Memorials of Grasere.-ED.

By night, upon these stormy fells,
Did wife and husband roam;
Six little ones at home had left,
And could not find that home.

For any dwelling-place of man
As vainly did they seek.
He perish'd; and a voice was heard-
The widow's lonely shriek.

Not many steps, and she was left
A body without life-

5

IO

A few short steps were the chain that bound

The husband to the wife.

Now do those sternly-featured hills
Look gently on this grave;
And quiet now are the depths of air,
As a sea without a wave.

But deeper lies the heart of peace
In quiet more profound;
The heart of quietness is here
Within this churchyard bound.

And from all agony of mind
It keeps them safe, and far
From fear and grief, and from all need
Of sun or guiding star.

O darkness of the grave! how deep,
After that living night-
That last and dreary living one
Of sorrow and affright?

O sacred marriage-bed of death,
That keeps them side by side
In bond of peace, in bond of love,
That may not be untied!

XI.

15

20

25

30

35

TRANSLATION OF PART OF THE FIRST BOOK OF THE ÆNEID. [Written c. 1816.-Published 1832 (The Philological Museum); not reprinted by W.] TO THE EDITORS OF THE "PHILOLOGICAL MUSEUM."

Your letter, reminding me of an expectation I some time since held out to you of aHowing some specimens of my translation from the Eneid to be printed in the "Philological Museum," was not very acceptable; for I had abandoned the thought of ever sending into the world any part of that experiment-for it was nothing more-an experiment begun for amusement, and I now think a less fortunate one than when I first named it to you. Having been displeased in modern translations with the additions of incongruous matter, I began to translate with a resolve to keep clear of that fault, by adding nothing; but I became con

thine own.

queen

move.

30

And when enraptured Dido shall receive
Thee to her arms, and kisses interweave
With many a fond embrace, while joy rutas
high,

And goblets crown the proud festivity,
Instil thy subtle poison, and inspire,
At every touch, an unsuspected fire."

Love, at the word, before his mother's sight

Puts off his wings, and walks, with proud
delight,

Like young Iulus; but the gentlest dews
Of slumber Venus sheds, to circumfuse
The true Ascanius steep'd in placid rest;
Then wafts him, cherish'd on her careful
breast,

Through upper air to an Idalian glade, sa
Where he on soft amaracus is laid,
With breathing flowers embraced,
fragrant shade.
But Cupid, following cheerily his guide
Achates, with the gifts to Carthage hied:
And, as the hall he entered, there, between
The sharers of her golden couch, was seen
Reclin'd in festal pomp the Tyrian queen.
The Trojans too (Eneas at their head,
On couches lie, with purple overspread:
Meantime in canisters is heap'd the bread
Pellucid water for the hands is borne,
And napkins of smooth texture, fi
shorn.

Within are fifty handmaids, who prepare,
As they in order stand, the dainty fare:
And fume the household deities with sto
Of odorous incense; while a hundred
Match'd with an equal number of like ag
But each of manly sex, a docile page,
Marshal the banquet, giving with due grac
To cup or viand its appointed place.
The Tyrians rushing in, an eager band.
Their painted couches seek, obedient
command.

They look with wonder on the gifts-they

gaze

Upon Ïulus, dazzled with the rays That from his ardent countenance

flung,

And charm'd to hear his simulating tong Nor pass unprais'd the robe and veil dir Round which the yellow flowers and wa dering foliage twine.

But chiefly Dido, to the coming ill Devoted, strives in vain her vast desires fill;

She views the gifts; upon the child the

turns

Insatiable looks, and gazing burns.
To ease a father's cheated love he hung
Upon Æneas, and around him clung;

[Published 1835 (Yarrow Revisited and other Poems); never reprinted by W.]

For printing [the following piece] some reason should be given, as not a word of it is original: it is simply a fine stanza of Akenside, connected with a still finer from Beattie, by a couplet from Thomson. This practice, in which the author sometimes indulges, of linking together, in his own mind, favourite passages from dif

ferent authors, seems in itself unobjectionable: but, as the publishing such compilations might lead to confusion in literature, he should deem himself inexcusable in giving this specimen, were it not from a hope that it might open to others a harmless source of private gratification.-W. W.

THRONED in the Sun's descending car
What Power unseen diffuses far
This tenderness of mind?

What Genius smiles on yonder flood?
What God in whispers from the wood
Bids every thought be kind?

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66

"SON of my buried Son, while thus thr

hand

Is clasping mine, it saddens me to think How Want may press thee down, and with thee sink

Thy Children left unfit, through vain de mand

Of culture, even to feel or understand
My simplest Lay that to their memory
May cling;-hard fate! which haply need

not be

Did Justice mould the Statutes of the Land.

MOUNT. (1838.)

name

Are high rewards; but bound they Nature claim

Or Reason's? No-hopes spun in timid line

1 See page 280.-ED.