Of rural England's cultivated vales

Or Cambrian solitudes.* A youth-(he bore
The name of Calvert †-it shall live, if words
Of mine can give it life,) in firm belief
That by endowments not from me withheld
Good might be furthered—in his last decay
By a bequest sufficient for my needs
Enabled me to pause for choice, and walk

At large and unrestrained, nor damped too soon
By mortal cares. Himself no Poet, yet
Far less a common follower of the world,

He deemed that my pursuits and labours lay
Apart from all that leads to wealth, or even
A necessary maintenance insures,
Without some hazard to the finer sense;
He cleared a passage for me, and the stream
Flowed in the bent of Nature. ‡

Having now

Told what best merits mention, further pains
Our present purpose seems not to require,
And I have other tasks. Recall to mind
The mood in which this labour was begun,
O Friend! The termination of my course
Is nearer now, much nearer; yet even then,
In that distraction and intense desire,

I said unto the life which I had lived,
Where art thou? Hear I not a voice from thee
Which 'tis reproach to hear? Anon I rose
As if on wings, and saw beneath me stretched
Vast prospect of the world which I had been

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360

365

370

375

380

*After leaving London, he went to the Isle of Wight and to Salisbury Plain with Calvert; then to Bristol, the Valley of the Wye, and Tintern Abbey, alone on foot; thence to Jones' residence in North Wales at Plas-ynllan in Denbighshire; with him to other places in North Wales, thence to Halifax; and with his sister to Kendal, Grasmere, Keswick, Whitehaven, and Penrith.-ED.

Raisley Calvert.-ED.

His friend, dying in January 1795, bequeathed to Wordsworth a legacy of £900. Compare the sonnet, in vol. iv., beginning

Calvert! it must not be unheard by them, and the Life of Wordsworth in this edition.-ED.

And was; and hence this Song, which like a lark
I have protracted, in the unwearied heavens
Singing, and often with more plaintive voice
To earth attempered and her deep-drawn sighs,
Yet centring all in love, and in the end

All gratulant, if rightly understood.

Whether to me shall be allotted life,

385

And, with life, power to accomplish aught of worth, That will be deemed no insufficient plea

390

For having given the story of myself,

Is all uncertain: but, beloved Friend!

When, looking back, thou seest, in clearer view
Than any liveliest sight of yesterday,
That summer, under whose indulgent skies,
Upon smooth Quantock's airy ridge we roved
Unchecked, or loitered 'mid her sylvan combs,*
Thou in bewitching words, with happy heart,
Didst chaunt the vision of that Ancient Man,
The bright-eyed Mariner,* and rueful woes
Didst utter of the Lady Christabel ; *
And I, associate with such labour, steeped
In soft forgetfulness the livelong hours,

395

400

Murmuring of him who, joyous hap, was found,
After the perils of his moonlight ride,

405

Near the loud waterfall; * or her who sate

*

In misery near the miserable Thorn;
When thou dost to that summer turn thy thoughts,
And hast before thee all which then we were,

To thee, in memory of that happiness,

It will be known, by thee at least, my Friend!
Felt, that the history of a Poet's mind

410

* The Wordsworths went to Alfoxden in the end of July, 1797. It was in the autumn of that year that, with Coleridge,

Upon smooth Quantock's airy ridge they roved
Unchecked, or loitered 'mid her sylvan combs ;

when the latter chaunted his Ancient Mariner and Christabel, and Wordsworth composed The Idiot Boy and The Thorn. The plan of a joint publication was sketched out in November 1797. (See the Fenwick note to We are Seven, vol. i. p. 228.)—ED.

Is labour not unworthy of regard:

To thee the work shall justify itself.

The last and later portions of this gift

Have been prepared, not with the buoyant spirits
That were our daily portion when we first
Together wantoned in wild Poesy,

But, under pressure of a private grief,*

415

Keen and enduring, which the mind and heart,
That in this meditative history

420

Have been laid open, needs must make me feel
More deeply, yet enable me to bear
More firmly; and a comfort now hath risen

From hope that thou art near, and wilt be soon
Restored to us in renovated health;
When, after the first mingling of our tears,
'Mong other consolations, we may draw
Some pleasure from this offering of my love.

Oh! yet a few short years of useful life, And all will be complete, thy race be run, Thy monument of glory will be raised;

Then, though (too weak to tread the ways of truth) This age fall back to old idolatry,

Though men return to servitude as fast

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430

435

As the tide ebbs, to ignominy and shame
By nations sink together, we shall still

(Should Providence such grace to us vouchsafe) Of their deliverance, surely yet to come.

Prophets of Nature, we to them will speak
A lasting inspiration, sanctified

445

By reason, blest by faith: what we have loved,

*The death of his brother John. Compare the Elegiac Verses in memory of him, p. 58.-ED.

Others will love, and we will teach them how;
Instruct them how the mind of man becomes
A thousand times more beautiful than the earth
On which he dwells, above this frame of things
(Which, 'mid all revolution in the hopes

And fears of men, doth still remain unchanged)
In beauty exalted, as it is itself

Of quality and fabric more divine.

450

FROM THE ITALIAN OF MICHAEL ANGELO

Translated 1805 ?-Published 1807

[Translations from Michael Angelo, done at the request of Mr. Duppa, whose acquaintance I made through Mr. Southey. Mr. Duppa was engaged in writing the life of Michael Angelo, and applied to Mr. Southey and myself to furnish some specimens of his poetic genius.—I. F.]

Compare the two sonnets entitled At Florence-from Michael Angelo, in the "Memorials of a Tour in Italy " in 1837.

The following extract from a letter of Wordsworth's to Sir George Beaumont, dated October 17, 1805, will cast light on the next three sonnets. "I mentioned Michael Angelo's poetry some time ago; it is the most difficult to construe I ever met with, but just what you would expect from such a man, shewing abundantly how conversant his soul was with great things. There is a mistake in the world concerning the Italian language; the poetry of Dante and Michael Angelo proves, that if there be little majesty and strength in Italian verse, the fault is in the authors, and not in the tongue. I can translate, and have translated two books of Ariosto, at the rate, nearly, of one hundred lines a day; but so much meaning has been put by Michael Angelo into so little room, and that meaning sometimes so excellent in itself, that I found the difficulty of translating him insurmountable. I attempted, at least, fifteen of the sonnets, but could not anywhere succeed.

I have sent

you the only one I was able to finish; it is far from being the best, or most characteristic, but the others were too much for me."

The last of the three sonnets probably belongs to the

year 1804, as it is quoted in a letter to Sir George Beaumont, dated Grasmere, August 6. The year is not given, but I think it must have been 1804, as he says that "within the last month," he had written, ". '700 additional lines" of The Prelude; and that poem was finished in May 1805.

The titles given to them make it necessary to place these Sonnets in the order which follows.

One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."-ED.

I

YES! hope may with my strong desire keep pace,
And I be undeluded, unbetrayed ;

For if of our affections none finds 1 grace

In sight of Heaven, then, wherefore hath God made
The world which we inhabit? Better plea

Love cannot have, than that in loving thee
Glory to that eternal Peace is paid,
Who such divinity to thee imparts

As hallows and makes pure all gentle hearts.
His hope is treacherous only whose love dies
With beauty, which is varying every hour;
But, in chaste hearts uninfluenced by the power
Of outward change, there blooms a deathless flower,
That breathes on earth the air of paradise.

FROM THE SAME

Translated 1805?-Published 1807

One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."-Ed.

II

No mortal object did these eyes behold
When first they met the placid light of thine,
And my Soul felt her destiny divine,2

5

ΙΟ