Yet tears to mortal suffering are due;

And mortal hopes defeated and o'erthrown

Are mourned by man, - and not by man alone,
As fondly he believes. Upon the side
Of Hellespont (such faith was entertained)
A knot of spiry trees for ages grew

From out the tomb of him for whom she died;
And ever, when such stature they had gained
That Ilium's walls were subject to their view,
The trees' tall summits withered at the sight;
A constant interchange of growth and blight.

In the same grand strain is very much especially of Wordsworth's later poetry. Indeed, while the Lyrical Ballads have been ridiculed for their simplicity, the objection that has been commonly taken to most of that is, that it is too magniloquent, and soars too far above the earth and the ordinary thoughts and concerns of men. At any rate neither puerility nor over-familiarity of diction, with whatever other faults they may be chargeable, can well be attributed to either the Excursion, or the Sonnets, or the Odes, or indeed to almost anything else that he produced subsequently to the two volumes which first brought him into notice, both published, as we have seen, before the commencement of the present century. But it is, on the other hand, a gross misconception to imagine that this later poetry of Wordsworth's is especially remarkable for anything of a mystic character, that it is for the most part enveloped in a haze through which the

The primary object of the remodelling seems to have been to accommodate the narrative to the account given by Virgil, who, as it is observed in a note, "places the shade of Laodamia in a mournful region, among unhappy lovers." We confess to so much of "weak pity," both for the stanza as it formerly stood, and for poor Laodamia, that we should have gladly accepted the authority of the modern as quite as good as that of the ancient poet upon this occasion: but, at any rate, surely the verses might have been reformed without the aid of so desperate an expedient as that by which the second has been enabled to preserve its rhyme at the cost of every other poetical quality it possessed. We cannot think, either, that the gods, however pitiless, could with any justice or consistency, after having granted to Laodamia's passionate affection the temporary restoration of her husband, have doomed her to a place of punishment for merely suffering herself to be slain by the strength of the same affection. To expect that the warning exhortation and reproof should have so soon aken full efficacy, and already reduced a passion so omnipotent to complete sub. jection, seems quite unreasonable.

meaning is only to be got at by initiated eyes. Nothing like this is the case. The Excursion, published in 1814, for instance, with the exception of a very few passages, is a poem that he who runs may read, and the greater part of which may be apprehended by readers of all classes as readily as almost any other poetry in the language. We may say the same even of The Prelude, or Introduction to the Recluse (intended to consist of three Parts, of which The Excursion is the second, the first remaining in manuscript, and the third having been only planned), which was begun in 1799 and completed in 1805, although not published till a few months after the author's death in 1850; an elaborate poem, in fourteen books, of eminent interest as the poet's history of himself, and of the growth of his own mind, as well as on other accounts, and long before characterized by Coleridge, to whom it is addressed, as

"An Orphic song indeed,

A song divine of high and passionate thoughts
To their own music chanted."

In some of his other compositions, again, Wordsworth showed his mastery over the most popular of all our poetic styles, that of the old romance, in its highest and most refined forms. The Feast of Brougham may be mentioned as one example; but his greatest poem in this kind is his Egyptian Maid, or, The Romance of the Water Lily, the concluding portion of which we will now give as our last specimen. The Maid, a daughter of the Egyptian monarch, and sent by him to Britain to be bestowed upon the worthiest Christian knight, having been found cast ashore from her shipwrecked vessel, has been brought by the enchanter Merlin to the court of King Arthur at Caerleon. The king, after lamenting her sad hap, has proposed to inter with the due rites the apparently lifeless corse :

"The tomb," said Merlin, "may not close
Upon her yet, earth hide her beauty;
Not froward to thy sovereign will
Esteem me, Liege! if I, whose skill
Wafted her hither, interpose

To check this pious haste of erring duty.

My books command me to lay bare
The secret thou art bent on keeping:

Here must a high attest be given,

What bridegroom was for her ordained by heaven:
And in my glass significants there are

Of things that may to gladness turn this weeping.

For this, approaching one by one,

Thy knights must touch the cold hand of the Virgin; So, for the favoured one, the flower may bloom

Once more but, if unchangeable her doom,

If life departed be for ever gone,

Some blest assurance, from this cloud emerging,

May teach him to bewail his loss;

Not with a grief that, like a vapour, rises
And melts; but grief devout that shall endure,
And a perpetual growth secure

Of purposes which no false thought shall cross,
A harvest of high hopes and noble enterprises."

"So be it," said the King; - anon,
Here, where the princess lies, begin the trial;
Knights, each in order as ye stand

Step forth." To touch the pallid hand

Sir Agravaine advanced; no sign he won

From heaven or earth; — Sir Kaye had like denial.

Abashed, Sir Dinas turned away;

Even for Sir Percival was no disclosure;

Though he, devoutest of all champions, ere

He reached that ebon car, the bier

Whereon diffused like snow the damsel lay,

Full thrice had crossed himself in meek composure.

Imagine (but, ye saints! who can ?)

How in still air the balance trembled

The wishes, peradventure the despites,

That overcame some not ungenerous knights;

And all the thoughts that lengthened out a span

Of time to lords and ladies thus assembled.

What patient confidence was here!

And there how many bosoms panted!

While, drawing towards the car, Sir Gawaine, mailed

For tournament, his beaver vailed,

And softly touched; but to his princely cheer
And high expectancy no sign was granted.

Next, disencumbered of his harp,

Sir Tristram, dear to thousands as a brother,
Came to the proof, nor grieved that there ensued
No change;- the fair Izonda he had wooed
With love too true, a love with pangs too sharp,
From hope too distant, not to dread another!

Not so, Sir Launcelot ; - from heaven's grace
A sign be craved, tired slave of vain contrition;
The royal Guinever looked passing glad

When his touch failed. Next came Sir Galahad;

He paused, and stood entranced by that still face
Whose features he had seen in noontide vision.

For late, as near a murmuring stream
He rested 'mid an arbour green and shady,
Nina, the good enchantress, shed

A light around his mossy bed;

And, at her call, a waking dream

Prefigured to his sense the Egyptian lady.

Now, while his bright-haired front he bowed,

And stood, far-kenned by mantle furred with ermine,
As o'er the insensate body hung

The enrapt, the beautiful, the young,

Belief sank deep into the crowd

That he the solemn issue would determine.

Nor deem it strange; the youth had worn

That very mantle on a day of glory,

The day when he achieved that matchless feat,

The marvel of the PERILOUS SEAT,

Which whosoe'er approached of strength was shorn,
Though king or knight the most renowned in story.

And lo! those birds, far-famed through love's dominions, The swans, in triumph clap their wings;

And their necks play, involved in rings,

Like sinless snakes in Eden's happy land;

"Mine is she!" cried the knight;-again they clapped their pinions.

"Mine was she-mine she is, though dead,

And to her name my soul shall cleave in sorrow;"

Whereat, a tender twilight streak

Of colour dawned upon the damsel's cheek;

And her lips, quickening with uncertain red,
Seemed from each other a faint warmth to borrow.

Deep was the awe, the rapture high,

Of love emboldened, hope with dread entwining,
When, to the mouth, relenting death
Allowed a soft and flower-like breath,
Precursor to a timid sigh,

To lifted eyelids, and a doubtful shining.

This will be admitted by all to be most graceful as well as expressive writing, and it has little or nothing of what are commonly regarded as the characteristic peculiarities of Wordsworth's manner, nothing of the undignified or over-familiar phraseology on the one hand, or of the soaring out of sight or comprehension on the other, with which he has been charged, only his easy power, the full flow and commanding sweep of his diction and his verse. Yet it is for its inner spirit that Wordsworth's poetry is admirable, rather than for its formal qualities. His style is for the most part direct and natural; when the occasion requires, it rises to splendor and magnificence; if it be sometimes too colloquial, it is often also dignified and solemn; still, with all its merits, it has not in general much of true artistic exquisiteness. In only a few of his poems, indeed, is his diction throughout of any tolerable elaboration and exactness; generally, both in his more familiar and in his loftier style, it is diffuse and unequal, a brittle mixture of poetical and prosaic forms, like the image of iron and clay in Nebuchadnezzar's dream. The music of his verse, too, though almost always pleasing, and sometimes impassioned or majestic, has rarely or never much either of subtlety or originality.