More deeply, yet enable me to bear

risen

From hope that thou art near, and wilt

be soon

Restored to us in renovated health;

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things

tears

Of quality and fabric more divine.

THE Title-page announces that this is only a portion of a poem; and the Reader must be here apprised that it belongs to the second part of a long and laborious Work, which is to consist of three parts.The Author will candidly acknowledge that, if the first of these had been completed, and in such a manner as to satisfy his own mind, he should have preferred the natural order of publication, and have given that to the world first; but, as the second division of the Work was designed to refer more to passing events, and to an existing state of things, than the others were meant to do, more continuous exertion was naturally bestowed upon it, and greater progress made here than in the rest of the poem; and as this part does not depend upon the preceding, to a degree which will materially injure its own peculiar interest, the Author, complying with the earnest entreaties of some valued Friends, presents the following pages to the Public.

It may be proper to state whence the poem, of which "The Excursion" is a part, derives its Title of THE RECLUSE. Several years ago, when the Author retired to his native mountains, with the hope of being enabled to construct a literary Work that might live, it was a reasonable thing that he should take a review of his own mind, and examine how far Nature and Education had qualified him for such employment. As subsidiary to this preparation, he undertook to record, in verse, the origin and progress of his own powers, as far as he was acquainted with them. That Work, addressed to a dear Friend, most distinguished for his knowledge and genius, and to whom the Author's Intellect is deeply indebted, has been long finished; and the result of the investigation which gave rise to it was a determination to compose a philosophical poem, containing views of Man, Nature, and Society; and to be entitled, "The Recluse;" as having for

its principal subject the sensations and opinions of a poet living in retirement.The preparatory poem is biographical, and conducts the history of the Author's mind to the point when he was embold ened to hope that his faculties wer sufficiently matured for entering upon the arduous labour which he had proposed to himself; and the two Works have the same kind of relation to each other, if be may so express himself, as the ante-chape has to the body of a gothic church Continuing this allusion, he may be per mitted to add, that his minor Pieces which have been long before the Public when they shall be properly arranged, will be found by the attentive Reader to have such connection with the main Work as may give them claim to be likened to the little cells, oratories, and sepuletr recesses, ordinarily included in the edifices.

The Author would not have deemed himself justified in saying, upon tas occasion, so much of performances either unfinished, or unpublished, if he had thought that the labour bestowed by ba upon what he has heretofore and now is before the Public, entitled him to cand attention for such a statement as br thinks necessary to throw light upon endeavours to please and, he would hor to benefit his countrymen.-Nothing ther need be added, than that the firs and third parts of "The Recluse" w consist chiefly of meditations in the Author's own person; and that in the intermediate part ("The Excursion") the intervention of characters speaking employed, and something of a dramati form adopted.

It is not the Author's intention forms to announce a system: it was more s mating to him to proceed in a differe. course; and if he shall succeed in conve ing to the mind clear thoughts, Ive images, and strong feelings, the Res will have no difficulty in extracting

-To these emotions, whencesoe'er they come, 10 Whether from breath of outward circumstance, ir from the Soul-an impulse to herself--would give utterance in numerous verse. f Truth, of Grandeur, Beauty, Love, and Hope, and melancholy Fear subdued by Faith; if blessed consolations in distress;

of moral strength, and intellectual Power; fjoy in widest commonalty spread;

f the individual Mind that keeps her own aviolate retirement, subject there

• Conscience only, and the law supreme f that Intelligence which governs all—sing:-'fit audience let me find though few!'

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20

Or a mere fiction of what never was?

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60

65

For the discerning intellect of Man,
When wedded to this goodly universe
A simple produce of the common day.
In love and holy passion, shall find these
-I, long before the blissful hour arrives,
Would chant, in lonely peace, the spousal verse
Of this great consummation :—and, by words
Which speak of nothing more than what we are,
Would I arouse the sensual from their sleep
Of Death, and win the vacant and the vain
To noble raptures; while my voice proclaims
How exquisitely the individual Mind
(And the progressive powers perhaps no less
Of the whole species) to the external World
Is fitted:-and how exquisitely, too-
Theme this but little heard of among men-
The external World is fitted to the Mind;
And the creation (by no lower name
Can it be called) which they with blended might
Accomplish:-this is our high argument.
-Such grateful haunts foregoing, if I oft
Must turn elsewhere-to travel near the tribes
And fellowships of men, and see ill sights
Of madding passions mutually inflamed;
Must hear Humanity in fields and groves
Pipe solitary anguish; or must hang
Brooding above the fierce confederate storm
Of sorrow, barricadoed evermore

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75

Bard

25

The human Soul of universal earth,
Dreaming on things to come; and dost possess
A metropolitan temple in the hearts

86

30

I holiest mood. Urania, I shall need by guidance, or a greater Muse, if such escend to earth or dwell in highest heaven! or I must tread on shadowy ground, must sink eep-and, aloft ascending, breathe in worlds 3 which the heaven of heavens is but a veil. Il strength-all terror, single or in bands, hat ever was put forth in personal formhovah with his thunder, and the choir !shouting Angels, and the empyreal thronespass them unalarmed. Not Chaos, not ie darkest pit of lowest Erebus,

3 fall upon us often when we look

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or aught of blinder vacancy, scooped out 7 help of dreams-can breed such fear and awe

Of those mutations that extend their sway Throughout the nether sphere!--And if with