If thou wouldst stay, e'en as thou art,

All cold and all serene-
I still might press thy silent heart,

And where thy smiles have been.
While e'en thy chill, bleak corpse I have,

Thou seemest still mine own ;
But there—I lay thee in thy grave,

And I am now alone!
I do not think, where'er thou art,

Thou hast forgotten me;
And I, perhaps, may soothe this heart

In thinking too of thee :
Yet there was round thee such a dawn

Of light ne'er seen before,
As fancy never could have drawn,

And never can restore !

C. WOLFE.

1081. THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE AT CORUNNA

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,

As his corpse to the rampart we hurried ;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot

O'er the grave where our hero we buried.
We buried him darkly at dead of night,

The sods with our bayonets turning ;
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light

And the lantern dimly burning.
No useless coffin enclosed his breast,

Not in sheet nor in shroud we wound him ;
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest

With his martial cloak around him.
Few and short were the prayers we said,

And. we spoke not a word of sorrow;
But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead,

And we bitterly thought of the morrow.
We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed

And smoothed down his lonely pillow,
That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head,

And we far away on the billow !
Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone

And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him,-
But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on

In the grave where a Briton has laid him.
But half of our heavy task was done

When the clock struck the hour for retiring :
And we heard the distant and random gun

That the foe was sullenly firing.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

From the field of his fame fresh and gory ;
We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone,
But we left him alone with his glory.

C. WOLFE.

1082. DAWN O LILY with the heavenly sun The darkness of our universe

Shining upon thy breast ! Smothered my soul in night; My scattered passions toward thee Thy glory shone; whereat the run,

curse And poise to awful rest.

Passed molten into light.
Raised over envy; freed from pain ;

Beyond the storms of chance
Blessed king of my own world I reign,
Controlling circumstance.

T. WOOLNER (My Beautiful Lady).

1083. THE REVERIE OF POOR SUSAN
At the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears,
Hangs a Thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three years :
Poor Susan has passed by the spot, and has heard
In the silence of morning the song of the Bird.
'Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? She sees
A mountain ascending, a vision of trees ;
Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide,
And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.
Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale
Down which she so often has tripped with her pail ;
And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove's,
The one only dwelling on earth that she loves.
She looks, and her heart is in heaven: but they fade,
The mist and the river, the hill and the shade :
The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,
And the colours have all passed away from her eyes !

W. WORDSWORTH.

1084. THE SOLITARY REAPER BEHOLD her, single in the field, No Nightingale did ever chaunt Yon solitary Highland Lass! More welcomenotesto weary bands Reaping and singing by herself ; Of travellers in some shady haunt, Stop here, or gently pass ! Among Arabian sands : Alone she cuts and binds the A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard grain,

In Spring-time from the CuckooAnd sings a melancholy strain ; bird, O listen! for the Vale profound Breaking the silence of the seas Is overflowing with the sound. Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sings ?

Sang Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow As if hersongcould havenoending; For old, unhappy, far-off things, I saw her singing at her work, And battles long ago :

And o'er the sickle bending ;Or is it some more humble lay, I listened, motionless, and still ; Familiar matter of to-day ? And, as I mounted up the hill, Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, The music in my heart I bore, That has been, and may be again ? | Long after it was heard no more.

W. WORDSWORTH.

1085. FROM A POET'S EPITAPH'
But who is He, with modest looks,
And clad in homely russet brown ?
He murmurs near the running brooks
A music sweeter than their own.
He is retired as noontide dew,
Or fountain in a noon-day grove ;
And you must love him, ere to you
He will seem worthy of your love.
The outward shows of sky and earth,
Of hill and valley, he has viewed ;
And impulses of deeper birth
Have come to him in solitude.
In common things that round us lie
Some random truths he can impart,-
The harvest of a quiet eye
That broods and sleeps on his own heart.
But he is weak ; both Man and Boy,
Hath been an idler in the land ;
Contented if he might enjoy
The things which others understand.

W. WORDSWORTH.

1086. TO A YOUNG LADY WHO HAD BEEN REPROACHED FOR TAKING LONG WALKS IN THE COUNTRY

DEAR Child of Nature, let them rail !

- There is a nest in a green dale,
A harbour and a hold ;
Where thou, a Wife and Friend, shalt see
Thy own heart-stirring days, and be
A light to young and old.

There, healthy as a shepherd boy,
And treading among flowers of joy
Which at no season fade,
Thou, while thy babes around thee cling,
Shalt show us how divine a thing
A Woman may be made.
Thy thoughts and feelings shall not die,
Nor leave thee, when grey hairs are nigh,
A melancholy slave;
But an old age serene and bright,
And lovely as a Lapland night,
Shall lead thee to thy grave.

W. WORDSWORTH.

1087. BOOKS
DREAMS, books, are each a world ; and books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good :
Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
Our pastime and our happiness will grow.
There find I personal themes, a plenteous store,
Matter wherein right voluble I am,
To which I listen with a ready ear ;
Two shall be named, pre-eminently dear,-
The gentle Lady married to the Moor ;
And heavenly Una with her milk-white Lamb.

W. WORDSWORTH (Personal Talk).

1088. COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE

Sept. 3, 1802
EARTH has not anything to show more fair :
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning: silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky,
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill ;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep !
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still !

W. WORDSWORTH.

1089. I TRAVELLED AMONG UNKNOWN MEN I TRAVELLED among unknown Among thy mountains did I feel men,

The joy of my desire ; In lands beyond the sea ; And she I cherished turned her Nor, England ! did I know till wheel then

Beside an English fire. What love I bore to thee.

Thy mornings showed, thy nights 'Tis past, that melancholy dream ! concealed, Nor will I quit thy shore

The bowers where Lucy played ; A second time; for still I seem And thine too is the last

green

field To love thee more and more. That Lucy's eyes surveyed.

W. WORDSWORTH. 1090. I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD I WANDERED lonely as a cloud The waves beside them danced ; That floats on high o'er vales and but they hills,

Out-did the sparkling wavesin glee: When all at once I saw a crowd, A poet could not but be gay A host, of golden daffodils ; In such a jocund company : Beside the lake, beneath the trees, I gazed—and gazed—but little Fluttering and dancing in the thought breeze.

What wealth the show to me had Continuous as the stars that shine

brought : And twinkle on the milky way, For oft, when on my couch I lie They stretched in never-ending In vacant or in pensive mood, line

They flash upon that inward eye Along the margin of a bay : Which is the bliss of solitude ; Ten thousand saw I at a glance And then my heart with pleasure Tossing their heads in sprightly fills, dance.

And dances with the daffodils.

W. WORDSWORTH. 1091. COMPOSED UPON THE BEACH NEAR CALAIS, 1802

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration ; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquillity;
The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea :
Listen! the mighty Being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder-everlastingly.
Dear Child ! dear Girl ! that walkest with me here,
If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,
Thy nature is not therefore less divine :
Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year ;
And worshipp’st at the Temple's inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.

W. WORDSWORTH.

T