DAYS undefiled by luxury or sloth,
Firm self-denial, manners grave and staid,
Rights equal, laws with cheerfulness obeyed,
Words that require no sanction from an oath,
And simple honesty a common growth-
This high repute, with bounteous Nature's aid,
Won confidence, now ruthlessly betrayed

At will, your power the measure of your troth !---
All who revere the memory of Penn

Grieve for the land on whose wild woods his name
Was fondly grafted with a virtuous aim,
Renounced, abandoned by degenerate Men
For state-dishonour black as ever came

Το upper air from Mammon's loathesome den.

the landscape, with the Langdale Pikes soaring above, and the bright tarn shining beneath; and when the poet's eyes were satisfied with their feast on the beauties familiar to them, they sought relief in the search, to them a happy vital habit, for new beauty in the flower-enamelled turf at his feet. There his attention was arrested by a fair smooth stone, of the size of an ostrich's egg, seeming to imbed at its centre, and at the same time to display a dark star-shaped fossil of most distinct outline. Upon closer inspection this proved to be the shadow of a daisy projected upon it with extraordinary precision by the intense light of an almost vertical sun. The poet drew the attention of the rest of the party to the minute but beautiful phenomenon, and gave expression at the time to thoughts suggested by it, which so interested our friend Professor Butler, that he plucked the tiny flower, and, saying that it should be not only the theme but the memorial of the thought they had heard,' bestowed it somewhere carefully for preservation. The little poem, in which some of these thoughts were afterwards crystallized, commences with the stanza, –

'So fair, so sweet, withal so sensitive,

Would that the little flowers were born to live,
Conscious of half the pleasure that they give.'

Memoir, pp. 27, 28.-Ed.

*To William Penn, son of Admiral Sir W. Penn, a printer and quaker, Charles II. granted lands in America, to which he gave the name of Pennsylvania.-ED.

YOUNG ENGLAND-what is then become of Old,
Of dear Old England? Think they she is dead,
Dead to the very name? Presumption fed
On empty air! That name will keep its hold
In the true filial bosom's inmost fold

For ever. The Spirit of Alfred at the head

Of all who for her rights watch'd, toiled and bled,
Knows that this prophecy is not too bold.
What-how! shall she submit in will and deed
To Beardless Boys-an imitative race,

The servum pecus of a Gallic breed?

Dear Mother! if thou must thy steps retrace,
Go where at least meek Innocency dwells;
Let Babes and Sucklings be thy oracles.

THOUGH the bold wings of Poesy affect

The clouds, and wheel around the mountain tops

Rejoicing, from her loftiest height she drops

Well pleased to skim the plain with wild flowers deckt,

Or muse in solemn grove whose shades protect

The lingering dew-there steals along, or stops
Watching the least small bird that round her hops,
Or creeping worm, with sensitive respect.

Her functions are they therefore less divine,
Her thoughts less deep, or void of grave intent
Her simplest fancies?

Should that fear be thine,

Aspiring Votary, ere thy hand present

One offering, kneel before her modest shrine,
With brow in penitential sorrow bent!

166 SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF THE BIRD OF PARADISE.

SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF THE BIRD OF PARADISE.

[This subject has been treated of in another note. I will here only, by way of comment, direct attention to the fact, that pictures of animals and other productions of Nature, as seen in conservatories, menageries, and museums, &c., would do little for the national mind, nay, they would be rather injurious to it, if the imagination were excluded by the presence of the object, more or less out of a state of Nature. If it were not that we learn to talk and think of the lion and the eagle, the palm-tree, and even the cedar, from the impassioned introduction of them so frequently into Holy Scripture, and by great poets, and divines who wrote as poets, the spiritual part of our nature, and therefore the higher part of it, would derive no benefit from such intercourse with such subjects.]

THE gentlest poet, with free thoughts endowed,
And a true master of the glowing strain,
Might scan the narrow province with disdain
That to the Painter's skill is here allowed.

This, this the Bird of Paradise! disclaim
The daring thought, forget the name:

This the Sun's Bird, whom Glendoveers might own
As no unworthy Partner in their flight
Through seas of ether, where the ruffling sway

Of nether air's rude billows is unknown;

Whom Sylphs, if e'er for casual pastime they
Through India's spicy regions wing their way,
Might bow as to their Lord. What character,

O sovereign Nature! I appeal to thee,

Of all thy feathered progeny

Is so unearthly, and what shape so fair?

So richly decked in variegated down,

Green, sable, shining yellow, shadowy brown,
Tints softly with each other blended,

Hues doubtfully begun and ended;

Or intershooting, and to sight

Lost and recovered, as the rays of light

Glance on the conscious plumes touched here and there? Full surely, when with such proud gifts of life

Began the pencil's strife,

O'erweening Art was caught as in a snare.

A sense of seemingly presumptuous wrong
Gave the first impulse to the Poet's song;
But, of his scorn repenting soon, he drew
A juster judgment from a calmer view;
And, with a spirit freed from discontent,
Thankfully took an effort that was meant
Not with God's bounty, Nature's love, to vie,
Or made with hope to please that inward eye
Which ever strives in vain itself to satisfy,
But to recal the truth by some faint trace
Of power ethereal and celestial grace,

That in the living Creature find on earth a place.

1846.

The Poems of 1846, were limited to the lines beginning, "I know an aged man constrained to dwell," an "Evening Voluntary," six sonnets, and other two short pieces.

WHY should we weep or mourn, angelic boy,

For such thou wert ere from our sight removed,

This sonnet refers to the poet's grandchild, who died at Rome in the beginning of 1846. Wordsworth wrote of it thus to Professor Henry Reed, "Jan. 23, 1846. . . . Our daughter-in-law fell into bad health between three and four years ago. She went with her husband to Madeira, where they remained nearly a year; she was then advised to go to Italy.

After

a prolonged residence there, her six children (whom her husband returned

Holy, and ever dutiful-beloved

From day to day, with never-ceasing joy,
And hopes as dear as could the heart employ
In aught to earth pertaining? Death has proved

His might, nor less his mercy, as behoved—
Death, conscious that he only could destroy
The bodily frame. That beauty is laid low
To moulder in a far-off field of Rome;

But Heaven is now, blest Child, thy Spirit's home:
When such divine communion, which we know,
Is felt, thy Roman-burial place will be
Surely a sweet remembrancer of Thee.

WHERE LIES THE TRUTH? HAS MAN, IN
WISDOM'S CREED.

WHERE lies the truth? has man, in wisdom's creed,

A pitiable doom; for respite brief

A care more anxious, or a heavier grief?

Is he ungrateful, and doth little heed

1

God's bounty, soon forgotten; or indeed,
Must Man, with labour born, awake to sorrow
When flowers rejoice, and larks with rival speed
Spring from their nests to bid the sun good-morrow ?
They mount for rapture as their songs proclaim 2

1 Who that lies down and may not wake to sorrow.
2 They mount for rapture; this their

MS.

MS.

to England for), went, at her earnest request, to that country, under their father's guidance; then he was obliged, on account of his duty as a clergyman, to leave them. Four of the number resided with their mother at Rome, three of whom took a fever there, of which the youngest-as noble a boy of five years as ever was seen-died, being seized with convulsions when the fever was somewhat subdued."-Ed.