Faith bore her up through pains in mercy given,
And troubles that were each a step to Heaven:
Two Babes were laid in earth before she died;
A third now slumbers at the Mother's side
Its Sister-twin survives, whose smiles afford
A trembling solace to her widowed Lord.

Reader! if to thy bosom cling the pain
Of recent sorrow combated in vain;

Or if thy cherished grief have failed to thwart
Time still intent on his insidious part,

Lulling the mourner's best good thoughts asleep,
Pilfering regrets we would, but cannot, keep;

Bear with him-judge Him gently who makes known
His bitter loss by this memorial Stone;

And pray that in his faithful breast the grace
Of resignation find a hallowed place.

SAID Secrecy to Cowardice and Fraud,

Falsehood and Treachery, in close council met,

Deep under ground, in Pluto's cabinet,

"The frost of England's pride will soon be thawed;

"Hooded the open brow that overawed

"Our schemes; the faith and honour, never yet

"By us with hope encountered, be upset;—
"For once I burst my bands, and cry, applaud!"

Then whispered she, "The Bill is carrying out!"

They heard, and, starting up, the Brood of Night Clapped hands, and shook with glee their matted locks; All Powers and Places that abhor the light

Joined in the transport, echoed back their shout,

*

Hurrah for, hugging his Ballot-box! *

* See the note to the sonnet entitled Protest against the Ballot, written in 1838. George Grote was the person satirized. "Since that time," adds Mr

"PEOPLE! your chains are severing link by link;
Soon shall the Rich be levelled down-the Poor
Meet them half-way." Vain boast! for These, the more
They thus would rise, must low and lower sink
Till, by repentance stung, they fear to think;
While all lie prostrate, save the tyrant few
Bent in quick turns each other to undo,
And mix the poison, they themselves must drink.
Mistrust thyself, vain Country! cease to cry,
"Knowledge will save me from the threatened woe."
For, if than other rash ones more thou know,
Yet on presumptuous wing as far would fly
Above thy knowledge as they dared to go,
Thou wilt provoke a heavier penalty.

1836.

So far as can be ascertained, only one sonnet was written in 1836.

EVEN So for me a Vision sanctified

The sway of Death; long ere mine eyes had seen
Thy countenance-the still rapture of thy mien-
When thou, dear Sister!* wert become Death's Bride:
No trace of pain or languor could abide

That change-age on thy brow was smoothed-thy cold

Reed, in a note to his American edition, "Mr Grote's political notoriety, as an advocate of the ballot, has been merged in the high reputation he has acquired as probably the most eminent modern historian of ancient Greece." -ED.

* See Note B in the Appendix to this volume.—Ed.

Wan cheek at once was privileged to unfold
A loveliness to living youth denied.

Oh! if within me hope should e'er decline,
The lamp of faith, lost Friend! too faintly burn
Then may that heaven-revealing smile of thine,
The bright assurance, visibly return:

And let my spirit in that power divine

Rejoice, as, through that power, it ceased to mourn.

1837.

The poems belonging to the year 1837 include the Memorials of a Tour in Italy with Henry Crabb Robinson in that year, and one or two additional sonnets.

Pub. 1837.

SIX months to six years added he remained
Upon this sinful earth, by sin unstained:
O blessed Lord! whose mercy then removed
A Child whom every eye that looked on loved;
Support us, teach us calmly to resign

What we possessed, and now is wholly thine!*

This refers to the poet's son Thomas, who died Dec. 1, 1812. He was buried in Grasmere churchyard, beside his sister Catherine; and Wordsworth placed these lines upon his tombstone. They may have been written much earlier than 1836, probably in 1813, but it is impossible to ascertain the date, and they were not published till 1837.—Ed.

1

MEMORIALS OF A TOUR IN ITALY.

Comp. 1837.

1837.

Pub. 1842.

[During my whole life I had felt a strong desire to visit Rome and the other celebrated cities and regions of Italy, but did not think myself justified in incurring the necessary expense till I received from Mr Moxon, the publisher of a large edition of my poems, a sum sufficient to enable me to gratify my wish without encroaching upon what I considered due to my family. My excellent friend H. C. Robinson readily consented to accompany me, and in March 1837, we set off from London, to which we returned in August, earlier than my companion wished or I should myself have desired had I been, like him, a bachelor. These Memorials of that tour touch upon but a very few of the places and objects that interested me, and, in what they do advert to, are for the most part much slighter than I could wish. More particularly do I regret that there is no notice in them of the South of France, nor of the Roman antiquities abounding in that district, especially of the Pont de Degard, which, together with its situation, impressed me full as much as any remains of Roman architecture to be found in Italy. Then there was Vaucluse, with its Fountain, its Petrarch, its rocks of all seasons, its small plots of lawn in their first vernal freshness, and the blossoms of the peach and other trees embellishing the scene on every side. The beauty of the stream also called forcibly for the expression of sympathy from one who, from his childhood, had studied the brooks and torrents of his native mountains. Between two and three hours did I run about climbing the steep and rugged crags from whose base the water of Vaucluse breaks forth. "Has Laura's Lover," often said I to myself, "ever sat down upon this stone? or has his foot ever pressed that turf ?" Some, especially of the female sex, would have felt sure of it: my answer was (impute it to my years) "I fear, not." Is it, not in fact obvious that many of his love verses must have flowed, I do not say from a wish to display his own talent, but from a habit of exercising his intellect in that way rather than from an impulse of his heart? It is otherwise with his Lyrical poems, and particularly with the one upon the degradation of his country: there he pours out his reproaches, lamentations, and aspirations like an ardent and sincere patriot. But enough it is time to turn to my own effusions such as they are.]

TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON.*

COMPANION! by whose buoyant Spirit cheered,
In' whose experience trusting, day by day
Treasures I gained with zeal that neither feared
The toils nor felt the crosses of the way,
These records take: and happy should I be
Were but the Gift a meet Return to thee
For kindnesses that never ceased to flow,
And prompt self-sacrifice to which I owe
Far more than any heart but mine can know.
W. WORDSWORTH.

RYDAL MOUNT. Feb. 14th, 1842.

The Tour of which the following Poems are very inadequate remembrances was shortened by report, too well founded, of the prevalence of Cholera at Naples. To make some amends for what was reluctantly left unseen in the South of Italy, we visited the Tuscan Sanctuaries among the Apennines, and the principal Italian Lakes among the Alps. Neither of those lakes, nor of Venice, is there any notice in these Poems, chiefly because I have touched upon them elsewhere. See, in particular, "Descriptive Sketches," "Memorials of a Tour on the Continent in 1820," and a Sonnet upon the extinction of the Venetian Republic.

Had his sunk eye kindled at those dear words

That spake of bards and minstrels."

His, Sir Walter Scott's, eye, did in fact kindle at them, for the lines, "Places forsaken now" and the two that follow, were adopted from a poem of mine which nearly forty years ago was in part read to him, and he never forgot them.

For Mr Robinson's 'Itinerary' of this Tour, see note B in the Appendix to this volume.-ED.