The poems of william wordsworth

The Poems of
William Wordsworth
Collected Reading Texts
from

The Cornell Wordsworth
Edited by Jared Curtis
Volume III

HEB ☼ Humanities-Ebooks

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The Poems of
William Wordsworth
Collected Reading Texts
from

The Cornell Wordsworth Series
Volume III
Edited by Jared Curtis

HEB ☼ Humanities-Ebooks, LLP


© Jared Curtis, 2009
The Author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published by Humanities-Ebooks, LLP, Tirril Hall, Tirril, Penrith CA10
2JE.
Cover image, from Great Dodd, © Richard Gravil
The reading texts of Wordsworth’s poems used in this volume are from the
Cornell Wordsworth series, published by Cornell University Press, Sage House,
512 East State Street, Ithaca, NY 14850. Copyright © Cornell University.
Volumes are available at:
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Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Note on the Text
Shorter Poems (1807–1820)
The Prelude (1824–1839)
Sonnet Series and Itinerary Poems, (1820–1845)

The River Duddon. A Series of Sonnets, 1820
Ecclesiastical Sketches, 1822
Memorials of a Tour on the Continent, 1820
Yarrow Revisited, and Other Poems, Composed (two excepted)
during a Tour in Scotland, and on the English Border, in the
Autumn of 1831
Sonnets Composed or Suggested during a tour in Scotland, in the
Summer of 1833
Memorials of a Tour in Italy. 1837
Sonnets upon the Punishment of Death. In Series
Sonnets Dedicated to Liberty and Order

Last Poems (1821–1850)
Notes
Index to Poems in Volume III
Index to Poems in Volumes I to III

7
9
9
11
144
349
368
427
469
488
524
555
561

568
780
798
828

For a complete list of contents in each section,
please expand the bookmarks panel.

Contents of volumes I and II
Volume I
Early Poems and Fragments, 1785–1797
An Evening Walk (1793)
Descriptive Sketches (1793)

11

82
97


˘
Adventures on Salisbury Plain (1795–1799)
The Borderers (1797)
The Ruined Cottage and The Pedlar (1798, 1803–1804)
The Ruined Cottage (1798)
The Pedlar (1803–1804)
Lyrical Ballads, and Other Poems, 1797–1800
Lyrical Ballads and Other Poems (1798)
Lyrical Ballads and Other Poems, in Two Volumes (1800)
Other Poems, 1798–1800
Peter Bell, a Tale (1799)
The Prelude (1798–1799)
Home at Grasmere (1800–1806)
Poems, in Two Volumes, and Other Poems, 1800–1807
Poems, in Two Volumes (1807)
Other Poems, 1798–1800

123
151
270
286
312
377
476
487
530

558
587
718

Volume II
The Prelude (1805–1806)
11
250
Benjamin the Waggoner &c (1806)
The Tuft of Primroses, with Other Late Poems for The Recluse (1808–1828)
The Tuft of Primroses
274
To the Clouds
291
St. Paul’s
292
Composed when a probability existed of our being obliged to quit Rydal
Mount as a Residence
294
The Excursion (1808–1814)
The Excursion (1814)
298
The Peasant’s Life
568
The Shepherd of Bield Crag
570
The White Doe of Rylstone; Or the Fate of the Nortons. A Poem (1808) 572
Translations of Chaucer and Virgil (1801–1831)
Chaucer: The Prioress’s Tale
635

Chaucer: The Cuckoo and the Nightingale
643
Chaucer: Troilus and Cressida
654
Chaucer: The Manciple (from the Prologue) and his Tale
659
Virgil: Aeneid
667
Virgil: Georgics
751


˘

Preface
The Cornell Wordsworth series, under the general editorship of Stephen
Parrish, began appearing in 1975. Through controversy and acclaim, the
editions have steadily appeared over three decades, coming to completion
in 2007 with the publication of the twenty-first volume—an edition of The
Excursion—and a supplementary volume of indexes and guides for the
series. The purpose of this edition is to collect all of the earliest complete
reading texts garnered from the twenty-one volumes in the series.
The earliest records of Wordsworth’s poetic composition date from
1785, when he was fifteen years old, and the latest date from 1847, when
he was seventy-seven. In the interim he composed hundreds of poems,
thousands of verses, not all of which reached—or survived in—a “completed” state. All of those that did are included here. If William Butler Yeats
was remarkable for reinventing his poetic self, Wordsworth might be said
to have constantly “revisited” his. Three of his lyrics bear the revealing
sequential titles, “Yarrow Unvisited” (1803), “Yarrow Visited” (1814), and
“Yarrow Revisited” (1831). In the first, the poet-traveler prefers his imagined Yarrow—the Yarrow of Scots balladeers Nicol Burne, John Logan,

and William Hamilton—to the physical one. In the second, the “genuine”
Yarrow engenders an image that



Will dwell with me—to heighten joy,
And cheer my mind in sorrow.

And the third pays tribute to his friend and fellow poet, Walter Scott,
with whom he toured the Yarrow valley before the ailing Scott departed
for Italy: in this time of “change and changing,” he prays that the valley
maintain its power to restore “brightness” to “the soul’s deep valley.”
Significant threads of Wordsworth’s development as a poet are embodied
in these three elegiac tributes. They are all written in a ballad stanza that
Wordsworth borrowed and adapted from the older Scots poets. A glance
through the pages of this volume will illustrate the varied verse forms the
poet adopted and transformed over his long career. Obvious favorites were
his own meditative style of blank verse and the sonnet in its various guises.
But he employed a variety of meters, stanzaic patterns, and rhyme schemes
in producing poems ranging from ballads to autobiography, satirical squibs
to verse romance, from epitaphs to royal tributes. The methods, too, of the
three “Yarrows” are instructive. The primacy of the imagination is sug-


˘â•… The Poems of William Wordsworth
gested in the poet’s reluctance to visit the famed valley; upon visiting the
place, the poet’s response is to preserve it in memory as a “spot of time” to
bind his days, “each to each” as a remedy for future sorrow; and on revisiting the valley he acknowledges that sorrow and attempts to recharge the
healing power of memory.
Another example of “revisiting” can be found in the restless energy that

Wordsworth displayed over his entire writing life in composing sonnets,
both singly, as apparently instant responses to present scene, public event,
or personal history, and in series, building both narrative and argument
through this highly adaptive form. And, occupying the center of this metaphor are the several attempts to write the story of his inner life as a poet,
here represented in the three versions of The Prelude.
Annotation is confined largely to reproducing the notes Wordsworth published with his poems. Editorial commentary has been kept to a minimum,
given the rich resource in each of the Cornell Wordsworth volumes, leaving
room instead for the poetry. For information about the source of the text, its
compositional history, its textual and interpretive annotation, and its social
and historical context, the reader is referred to the appropriate volumes in
the series, cited in the editor’s notes at the end of each volume.


˘

Acknowledgments
For the impetus to prepare such an edition and for his continuing and enthusiastic support for its completion I owe thanks to Stephen Parrish. I have
gained from fruitful discussions with James Butler, Stephen Gill, and Mark
Reed from the beginning stages, and for making my task easier by helping
with proofreading and other tasks, I especially thank James and Mark. I owe
thanks, too, to the editors who prepared each of the editions from which the
reading texts making up this edition were drawn. All of them are acknowledged by name, and their work cited, in the editor’s notes. None of these
generous scholars can be held responsible for any flaws in detail or judgment. I am pleased to acknowledge the Wordsworth Trust for graciously
permitting the use of materials from their collections and Cornell University
Press for both the permission and the assistance needed to prepare this gathering of reading texts from their landmark series of Wordsworth editions.
And for wise counsel and technical assistance in the enterprize of producing an electronic text of these volumes, I am grateful to Richard Gravil of
Humanities-Ebooks.

Note on the Text
The source for each poem is the earliest and most complete reading text

presented in the volume in the Cornell Wordsworth series that contains that
poem. With the few exceptions noted below, no attempt has been made to
include the many alternate readings and revisions that these volumes provide. Early evidence of Wordsworth revisiting his own work is found in the
two versions of Pity (“Now too while o’er the heart we feel”) and in the
“extracts” from The Vale of Esthwaite; both the original poems and their
later development are included. In the case of The Prelude, each of the
three versions that stood as complete is represented. In 1799 Wordsworth
revised the ending to The Ruined Cottage, within a year of composing the
first ending, and in 1803–1804 incorporated much of the earlier poem in
an expanded portrait of the Pedlar in The Pedlar. Wordsworth then incorporated large parts of both poems into The Excursion in 1814. These three
distinct poems are included. Wordsworth occasionally folded a free-standing sonnet into a subsequent sonnet series or sequence, in which case the


10â•… The Poems of William Wordsworth
free-standing sonnet is repeated in its later context.
The aim throughout has been to present clean reading texts of
Wordsworth’s poems. In most cases the poet’s and his earliest printers’
orthography has not been altered, though some exceptions have been made
for consistency. To distinguish a poem originally published without a title
from poems that immediately precede or follow it, I have used the familiar
anthologist’s convention of quoting the first line of the poem as its “title,”
even though neither Wordsworth nor his publishers did so.
A few editorial devices have proven necessary, especially where the
source for the reading text is a manuscript. For further comment on the
gaps and irregularities in the manuscript sources, see the original Cornell
editions.
[â•…â•… ]

A gap in the source, either left by the poet, or caused by a damaged manuscript.

[word]

Within the brackets are missing letters or words, supplied from
a different authorial source, or by the editor; in a few instances,
brackets enclose lines that Wordsworth apparently canceled,
but without indicating a substitute.

** —

Asterisks and solid lines, employed by Wordsworth to indicate
omissions or breaks in the text.

___

A double solid line, used by the editor to indicate an interruption in the text.

Wordsworth’s long notes, prose dedications, and other prose writings connected to the poems, are gathered in the “Notes” section at the end of the
volume, and their presence is indicated in the on-page notes.
Jared Curtis
Seattle, Washington


11

Shorter Poems (1807–1820)
“Mark the concentred Hazels that enclose”
Mark the concentred Hazels that enclose
Yon old grey Stone, protected from the ray
Of noontide suns:—and even the beams that play
And glance, while wantonly the rough wind blows,

Are seldom free to touch the moss that grows
Upon that roof—amid embowering gloom
The very image framing of a Tomb,
In which some ancient Chieftain finds repose
Among the lonely mountains.—Live, ye Trees!
And Thou, grey Stone, the pensive likeness keep
Of a dark chamber where the Mighty sleep:
For more than Fancy to the influence bends
When solitary Nature condescends
To mimic Time’s forlorn humanities.

5

10

“The Shepherd, looking eastward, softly said”
The Shepherd, looking eastward, softly said,
“Bright is thy veil, O Moon, as thou art bright!”
Forthwith, that little Cloud, in ether spread,
And penetrated all with tender light,
She cast away, and shewed her fulgent head
Uncover’d;—dazzling the Beholder’s sight
As if to vindicate her beauty’s right,
Her beauty thoughtlessly disparaged.
Meanwhile that Veil, removed or thrown aside,
Went, floating from her, darkening as it went;
And a huge Mass, to bury or to hide,
Approached this glory of the firmament;
Who meekly yields, and is obscur’d;—content
With one calm triumph of a modest pride.

5

10

  For the sources of the reading texts and the editor’s commentary see Shorter Poems,
1807–1820, ed. Carl H. Ketcham (1989).


12â•… The Poems of William Wordsworth
“Eve’s lingering clouds extend in solid bars”
Eve’s lingering clouds extend in solid bars
Through the grey west; and lo! these waters, steeled
By breezeless air to smoothest polish, yield
A vivid repetition of the stars;
Jove—Venus—and the ruddy crest of Mars,
Amid his fellows, beauteously revealed
At happy distance from earth’s groaning field,
Where ruthless mortals wage incessant wars.
Is it a mirror?—or the nether sphere
Opening its vast abyss, while fancy feeds
On the rich show!—But list! a voice is near;
Great Pan himself low-whispering through the reeds,
“Be thankful thou; for, if unholy deeds
Ravage the world, tranquillity is here!”

5

10

Sonnet on Milton
Amid the dark control of lawless sway,
Ambitions, rivalry, fanatic hate
And various ills that shook the unsettled State,
The dauntless Bard pursued his studious way,
Not more his lofty genius to display,
Than raise and dignify our mortal date,
And sing the blessings which the Just await,
That Man might hence in humble hope obey.
Thus on a rock in Norway’s bleak domain,
Nature impels the stately Pine to grow;
[
]
And restless Ocean dashes all below:
Still he preserves his firm majestic reign
While added strength his spreading branches shew.

5

10

  “The subject from Symonds’s Life.” WW’s MS. note. DW left a gap in the manuscript 
at l. 11.


Shorter Poems (1807–1820)â•… 13
Elegiac Stanzas,
composed in the churchyard of grasmere, westmorland,
a few days after the interment there, of a man and
his wife, inhabitants of the vale, who were lost

upon the neighbouring mountains, on the night
of the nineteenth of march last

Who weeps for Strangers?—Many wept
For George and Sarah Green;
Wept for that Pair’s unhappy end,
Whose Grave may here be seen.
By night, upon these stormy Heights
Did Wife and Husband roam:
Six little-Ones the Pair had left
And could not find their Home.
For any Dwelling-place of men
As vainly did they seek.—
He perish’d, and a voice was heard,
The Widow’s lonely shriek.
Down the dark precipice he fell,
And she was left alone,
Not long to think of her Children dear,
Not long to pray or groan!
A few wild steps—she too was left,
A Body without life!
The chain of but a few wild steps
To the Husband bound the Wife.

5

10

15

20

Now lodge they in one Grave, this Grave,
A House with two-fold Roof,
Two Hillocks but one Grave, their own,
A covert tempest-proof.
And from all agony of mind
It keeps them safe and far,

25


14â•… The Poems of William Wordsworth
From fear, and from all need of hope,
From sun, or guiding Star.
Our peace is of the immortal Soul,
Our anguish is of clay;
Such bounty is in Heaven, so pass
The bitterest pangs away.
Three days did teach the Mother’s Babe
Forgetfully to rest
In reconcilement how serene!
Upon another’s breast.
The trouble of the elder Brood
I know not that it stay’d
So long—they seiz’d their joy, and They
Have sung, and danc’d, and play’d.

30

35

40

Now do the sternly-featur’d Hills
Look gently on this Grave,
And quiet now is the depth of air
As a sea without a wave.
But deeper lies the heart of peace,
In shelter more profound;
The heart of quietness is here,
Within this Church-yard ground.
O Darkness of the Grave! how calm
After that living night,
That last and dreary living one
Of sorrow and affright!
O sacred Marriage-bed of Death
That holds them side by side,
In bond of love, in bond of God,
Which may not be untied!

45

50

55


Shorter Poems (1807–1820)â•… 15
“A few bold Patriots, Reliques of the Fight”

A few bold Patriots, Reliques of the Fight
That crush’d the Gothic sovereignty of Spain,
Beneath Pelayo’s banner did unite;
In hope they from the Arabian crescent fled,
And when their steps had measured [â•… ] Plain,
Cross’d Deva’s [â•… ] flood and [â•… ] snow-clad Height,
And wound through depth of many a sunless Vale
On which the noontide dew lay wet and pale,
And now had reach’d Auseva’s rugged breast,
The Leader turn’d, and from a jutting rock,
Calm as a Shepherd beck’ning to his flock,
The little band addrest.
“Stop, Christian Warriors, faithful and undaunted!
This Hill shall be our Fortress and the gloom
Of yon wide Cave our harbour or our tomb.
Yet if the Saints and pitying Angels bless
The efforts of the brave in their distress,
Not vainly shall your Standard here be planted!
With swords to guard our Virtue are we come
To these Asturian Wilds, a proud retreat
Where Friends surround us in their antient seat,
An inextinguishable people’s home.
Aloft while here we hover, night and day
Shall multiply our host and strengthen our array.
—What earthly power can check the gathering clouds
When from afar, along the craggy chain
Of these huge mountains they appear in crowds?
What mortal enmity the work restrain?
Which an impenetrable darkness shrouds
While steadfastly embodied they remain,

Feeding a silent force of thunder, wind, and rain,
Which at the sovereign word
Of their almighty Lord
Breaks forth and spreads in ravage o’er the plain—

5

10

15

20

25

30

  This version is the earliest recoverable beneath later revisions. The poem was left
incomplete.


16â•… The Poems of William Wordsworth
No otherwise shall we descend and quell
The astounded Infidel.
“Meanwhile till Heav’n, O patient Warriors, call
Our Valor to the onset, yon wide Cave
Which opens like a ready grave
For desperate Fugitives, to us shall be
A Legislative Hall
Chear’d by the gladsome voice of Liberty;

And to that Sanctuary dark
Will we entrust the holy Ark,
The Covenant of the faith
That saves the soul from death,
And shall uphold our frail and mortal hands
Till we, or men as brave, the favored bands
Of our exalted Countrymen, regain
For Lordship without end the fields of Universal Spain.”
Thus spake Pelayo on his chosen Hill;
And shall at this late [â•… ] the Heavens belie
The heroic prophecy
And put to shame the great Diviner’s skill?
The Power which, issuing like a slender rill
From those high places, waxed by slow degrees,
Swoln with access of many sovereignties,
And gained a River’s strength and rolled a mighty wave—
The Stream which in Pelayo’s Cave
Upon the illustrious Mountain took its birth—
Has disappeared from earth:
A foreign Tyrant speaks his impious will,
And Spain hath own’d the Monarch which he gave.
Most horrible attempt! unthought-of hour
Of human shame and black indignity!
Alas, not unprovoked those Tempests low’r,
Not uninvited this malignity.
Full long relinquishing a precious dower
By Gothic Virtue won, secured by oath
Of king and people pledged in mutual troth,
The Spaniard hath approached on servile knee
The native Ruler; all too willingly

35

40

45

50

55

60

65

70


Shorter Poems (1807–1820)â•… 17
Full many an age in that degenerate Land
The rightful Master hath betrayed his trust.
Earthward the Imperial flower was bent
In mortal languishment;
This knew the Spoiler whose victorious hand
Hath snapp’d th’enfeebled Stalk and laid its head in dust.

75

“Say, what is Honour?—Tis the finest sense”
Say, what is Honour?—Tis the finest sense

Of justice which the human mind can frame,
Intent each lurking frailty to disclaim,
And guard the way of life from all offence
Suffered or done. When lawless violence
A Kingdom doth assault, and in the scale
Of perilous war her weightiest Armies fail,
Honour is hopeful elevation—whence
Glory—and Triumph. Yet with politic skill
Endangered States may yield to terms unjust,
Stoop their proud heads;—but not unto the dust,—
A Foe’s most favourite purpose to fulfil!
Happy occasions oft by self-mistrust
Are forfeited; but infamy doth kill.

5

10

Composed while the Author was Engaged in Writing a Tract, Occasioned
by the Convention of Cintra, 1808
Not ’mid the World’s vain objects that enslave
The free-born Soul,—that world whose vaunted skill
In selfish interest perverts the will,
Whose factions lead astray the wise and brave;
Not there! but in dark wood and rocky cave,
And hollow vale which foaming torrents fill
With omnipresent murmur as they rave
Down their steep beds that never shall be still:
Here, mighty Nature!—in this school sublime
I weigh the hopes and fears of suffering Spain:

For her consult the auguries of time,
And through the human heart explore my way,
And look and listen,—gathering where I may
Triumph, and thoughts no bondage can restrain.

5

10


18â•… The Poems of William Wordsworth
Composed at the Same Time, and on the Same Occasion
I dropped my pen;—and listened to the wind
That sang of trees up-torn and vessels tost;
—A midnight harmony, and wholly lost
To the general sense of men by chains confined
Of business, care, or pleasure,—or resigned
To timely sleep.— Thought I, the impassioned strain,
Which, without aid of numbers, I sustain,
Like acceptation from the World will find.
Yet some with apprehensive ear shall drink
A dirge devoutly breathed o’er sorrows past,
And to the attendant promise will give heed,
The prophecy,—like that of this wild blast,
Which, while it makes the heart with sadness shrink,
Tells also of bright calms that shall succeed.

5

10

“Hail, Zaragoza! If with unwet eye”
Hail, Zaragoza! If with unwet eye
We can approach, thy sorrow to behold,
Yet is the heart not pitiless nor cold;
Such spectacle demands not tear or sigh.
These desolate Remains are trophies high
Of more than martial courage in the breast
Of peaceful civic virtue: they attest
Thy matchless worth to all posterity.
Blood flowed before thy sight without remorse;
Disease consumed thy vitals; War upheaved
The ground beneath thee with volcanic force;
Dread trials! yet encountered and sustained
Till not a wreck of help or hope remained,
And Law was from necessity received.

5

10

1810
Ah! where is Palafox? Nor tongue nor pen
Reports of him, his dwelling or his grave!
Does yet the unheard-of Vessel ride the wave?
Or is she swallowed up—remote from ken
Of pitying human nature? Once again

5

Shorter Poems (1807–1820)â•… 19
Methinks that we shall hail thee, Champion brave,
Redeemed to baffle that imperial Slave;
And through all Europe cheer desponding men
With new-born hope. Unbounded is the might
Of martyrdom, and fortitude, and right.
Hark, how thy Country triumphs!—Smilingly
The Eternal looks upon her sword that gleams,
Like his own lightning, over mountains high,
On rampart, and the banks of all her streams.

10

“Call not the royal Swede unfortunate”
Call not the royal Swede unfortunate
Who never did to Fortune bend the knee;
Who slighted fear,—rejected steadfastly
Temptation; and whose kingly name and state
Have “perished by his choice, and not his fate!”
Hence lives He, to his inner self endeared;
And hence, wherever virtue is revered,
He sits a more exalted Potentate,
Throned in the hearts of men. Should Heaven ordain
That this great Servant of a righteous cause
Must still have sad or vexing thoughts to endure,
Yet may a sympathizing spirit pause,
Admonished by these truths, and quench all pain
In thankful joy and gratulation pure.

5

10

“Look now on that Adventurer who hath paid”
Look now on that Adventurer who hath paid
His vows to Fortune; who, in cruel slight
Of virtuous hope, of liberty, and right,
Hath followed wheresoe’er a way was made
By the blind Goddess;—ruthless, undismayed;
And so hath gained at length a prosperous Height,
Round which the Elements of worldly might
Beneath his haughty feet, like clouds, are laid.
O joyless power that stands by lawless force!
Curses are his dire portion, scorn, and hate,
Internal darkness and unquiet breath;
And, if old judgments keep their sacred course,

5

10


20â•… The Poems of William Wordsworth
Him from that Height shall Heaven precipitate
By violent and ignominious death.
“Is there a Power that can sustain and cheer”
Is there a Power that can sustain and cheer
The captive Chieftain—by a Tyrant’s doom
Forced to descend alive into his tomb,

A dungeon dark!—where he must waste the year,
And lie cut off from all his heart holds dear;
What time his injured Country is a stage
Whereon deliberate Yalour and the Rage
Of righteous Vengeance side by side appear,—
Filling from morn to night the heroic scene
With deeds of hope and everlasting praise:
Say can he think of this with mind serene
And silent fetters?— Yes, if visions bright
Shine on his soul, reflected from the days
When he himself was tried in open light.

5

10

“Brave Schill! by death delivered, take thy flight”
Brave Schill! by death delivered, take thy flight
From Prussia’s timid region. Go, and rest
With Heroes ’mid the Islands of the Blest,
Or in the Fields of empyrean light.
A Meteor wert thou in a darksome night;
Yet shall thy name, conspicuous and sublime,
Stand in the spacious firmament of time,
Fixed as a star: such glory is thy right.
Alas! it may not be: for earthly fame
Is Fortune’s frail dependant; yet there lives
A Judge, who, as man claims by merit, gives;
To whose all-pondering mind a noble aim,
Faithfully kept, is as a noble deed;

In whose pure sight all virtue doth succeed.
Feelings of the Tyrolese
The Land we from our Fathers had in trust,
And to our Children will transmit, or die:
This is our maxim, this our piety;

5

10


Shorter Poems (1807–1820)â•… 21
And God and Nature say that it is just.
That which we would perform in arms—we must!
We read the dictate in the Infant’s eye;
In the Wife’s smile; and in the placid sky;
And, at our feet, amid the silent dust
Of them that were before us.—Sing aloud
Old Songs, the precious music of the heart!
Give, Herds and Flocks! your voices to the wind!
While we go forth, a self-devoted crowd,
With weapons in the fearless hand, to assert
Our virtue, and to vindicate mankind.

5

10

“Alas! what boots the long, laborious quest”
Alas! what boots the long, laborious quest

Of moral prudence, sought through good and ill,
Or pains abstruse, to elevate the will,
And lead us on to that transcend ant rest
Where every passion shall the sway attest
Of Reason seated on her sovereign hill;—
What is it but a vain and curious skill,
If sapient Germany must lie deprest,
Beneath the brutal sword?—Her haughty Schools
Shall blush; and may not we with sorrow say,
A few strong instincts and a few plain rules,
Among the herdsmen of the Alps, have wrought
More for mankind at this unhappy day
Than all the pride of intellect and thought.

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“And is it among rude untutored Dales”
And is it among rude untutored Dales,
There, and there only, that the heart is true?
And, rising to repel or to subdue,
Is it by rocks and woods that man prevails?
Ah, no!—though Nature’s dread protection fails
There is a bulwark in the soul.— This knew
Iberian Burghers when the sword they drew
In Zaragoza, naked to the gales
Of fiercely-breathing war. The truth was felt
By Palafox, and many a brave Compeer,

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22â•… The Poems of William Wordsworth
Like him of noble birth and noble mind;
By Ladies, meek-eyed Women without fear;
And Wanderers of the street, to whom is dealt
The bread which without industry they find.
“O’er the wide earth, on mountain and on plain”
O’er the wide earth, on mountain and on plain,
Dwells in the affections and the soul of man
A Godhead, like the universal Pan,
But more exalted, with a brighter train.
And shall his bounty be dispensed in vain,
Showered equally on City and on Field,
And neither hope nor steadfast promise yield
In these usurping times of fear and pain?
Such doom awaits us.—Nay, forbid it Heaven!
We know the arduous strife, the eternal laws
To which the triumph of all good is given,
High sacrifice, and labour without pause,
Even to the death:—else wherefore should the eye
Of man converse with immortality?

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“Advance—come forth from thy Tyrolean ground”
Advance—come forth from thy Tyrolean ground
Dear Liberty!—stern Nymph of soul untamed,
Sweet Nymph, Oh! rightly of the mountains named!
Through the long chain of Alps from mound to mound
And o’er the eternal snows, like Echo, bound,—
Like Echo, when the Hunter-train at dawn
Have rouzed her from her sleep: and forest-lawn,
Cliffs, woods, and caves her viewless steps resound
And babble of her pastime!—On, dread Power,
With such invisible motion speed thy flight,
Through hanging clouds, from craggy height to height,
Through the green vales and through the Herdsman’s bower,
That all the Alps may gladden in thy might,
Here, there, and in all places at one hour.
Hôffer
Of mortal Parents is the Hero born

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Shorter Poems (1807–1820)â•… 23
By whom the undaunted Tyrolese are led?
Or is it Tell’s great Spirit, from the dead
Returned to animate an age forlorn?
He comes like Phœbus through the gates of morn
When dreary darkness is discomfited:
Yet mark his modest state!—upon his head,

That simple crest—a heron’s plume—is worn.
O Liberty! they stagger at the shock;
The Murderers are aghast; they strive to flee
And half their Host is buried:—rock on rock
Descends:—beneath this godlike Warrior, see!
Hills, Torrents, Woods, embodied to bemock
The Tyrant, and confound his cruelty.

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On the Final Submission of the Tyrolese
It was a moral end for which they fought;
Else how, when mighty Thrones were put to shame,
Could they, poor Shepherds, have preserved an aim,
A resolution, or enlivening thought?
Nor hath that moral good been vainly sought;
For in their magnanimity and fame
Powers have they left—an impulse—and a claim
Which neither can be overturned nor bought.
Sleep, Warriors, sleep! among your hills repose!
We know that ye, beneath the stern controul
Of awful prudence, keep the unvanquished soul.
And when, impatient of her guilt and woes
Europe breaks forth; then, Shepherds! shall ye rise
For perfect triumph o’er your Enemies.
[Epitaphs Translated from Chiabrera]
“True is it that Ambrosio Salinero”
True is it that Ambrosio Salinero

With an untoward fate was long involved
In odious litigation; and full long,
Fate harder still! had he to endure assaults
  Gabriello Chiabrera (1552–1638).

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24â•… The Poems of William Wordsworth
Of racking malady. And true it is
That not the less a frank courageous heart
And buoyant spirit triumphed over pain;
And he was strong to follow in the steps
Of the fair Muses. Not a covert path
Leads to the dear Parnassian forest’s shade,
That might from him be hidden; not a track
Mounts to pellucid Hippocrene, but he
Had traced its windings.— This Savona knows,
Yet no sepulchral honors to her Son
She paid, for in our age the heart is ruled
Only by gold. And now a simple stone
Inscribed with this memorial here is raised
By his bereft, his lonely, Chiabrera.
Think not, O Passenger! who read’st the lines
That an exceeding love hath dazzled me;
No—he was One whose memory ought to spread
Where’er Permessus bears an honoured name,
And live as long as its pure stream shall flow.

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20

“Not without heavy grief of heart did He”
Not without heavy grief of heart did He,
On whom the duty fell, (for at that time
The Father sojourned in a distant Land)
Deposit in the hollow of this Tomb
A Brother’s Child, most tenderly beloved!
Francesco was the name the Youth had borne,
Pozzobonnelli his illustrious House;
And when beneath this stone the Corse was laid
The eyes of all Savona streamed with tears.
Alas! the twentieth April of his life
Had scarcely flowered: and at this early time,
By genuine virtue he inspired a hope
That greatly cheered his Country: to his Kin
He promised comfort; and the flattering thoughts
His Friends had in their fondness entertained,
He suffered not to languish or decay.
  “In justice to the Author I subjoin the original.
—————e degli amici
Non lasciava languire i bei pensieri.” WW

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Shorter Poems (1807–1820)â•… 25
Now is there not good reason to break forth
Into a passionate lament?—O Soul!
Short while a Pilgrim in our nether world,
Do thou enjoy the calm empyreal air;
And round this earthly tomb let roses rise,
An everlasting spring! in memory
Of that delightful fragrance which was once,
From thy mild manners, quietly exhaled.

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“Pause, courteous Spirit!—Balbi supplicates”
Pause, courteous Spirit!—Balbi supplicates
That Thou, with no reluctant voice, for him
Here laid in mortal darkness, wouldst prefer
A prayer to the Redeemer of the world.
This to the Dead by sacred right belongs;
All else is nothing.—Did occasion suit
To tell his worth, the marble of this tomb
Would ill suffice: for Plato’s lore sublime
And all the wisdom of the Stagyrite
Enriched and beautified his studious mind:

With Archimedes also he conversed
As with a chosen Friend, nor did he leave
Those laureat wreaths ungathered which the Nymphs
Twine on the top of Pindus.—Finally,
Himself above each lower thought uplifting,
His ears he closed to listen to the Song
Which Sion’s Kings did consecrate of old;
And fixed his Pindus upon Lebanon.
A blessed Man! who of protracted days
Made not, as thousands do, a vulgar sleep;
But truly did He live his life.—Urbino
Take pride in him;—O Passenger farewell!

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“There never breathed a man who when his life”
There never breathed a man who when his life
Was closing might not of that life relate
Toils long and hard.— The Warrior will report
Of wounds, and bright swords flashing in the field,
And blast of trumpets. He, who hath been doomed

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