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574 "THE STARS ARE MANSIONS BUILT BY NATURE'S HAND"

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I set out in company with my Wife and Sister, and Mr. and Mrs. Monkhouse, then just married, and Miss Horrocks. These two ladies, sisters, we left at Berne, while Mr, Monkhouse took the opportunity of making an excursion with us among the Alps as far as Milan. Mr. H. C. Robinson joined us at Lucerne, and when this ramble was completed we rejoined at Geneva the two ladies we had left at Berne and proceeded to Paris, where Mr. Monkhouse and H. C. R. left us, and where we spent five weeks, of which there is not a record in these poems.

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DEAR Fellow-travellers! think not that the Muse,
To You presenting these memorial Lays,
Can hope the general eye thereon would gaze,
As on a mirror that gives back the hues
Of living Nature; no- though free to choose
The greenest bowers, the most inviting ways,
The fairest landscapes and the brightest days
Her skill she tried with less ambitious views.
For You she wrought: Ye only can supply
The life, the truth, the beauty: she confides
In that enjoyment which with You abides,
Trusts to your love and vivid memory;
Thus far contented, that for You her verse
Shall lack not power the "meeting soul to pierce!"
W. WORDSWORTH.

RYDAL MOUNT, Nov. 1821.

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For they Earth's fairest daughters do excel;
Pure undecaying beauty is their lot;
Their voices into liquid music swell,
Thrilling each pearly cleft and sparry grot,
The undisturbed abodes where Sea-nymphs
dwell!

II

BRUGES

1820. 1822

BRUGES I saw attired with golden light (Streamed from the west) as with a robe of

power:

The splendour fled; and now the sunless hour,

That, slowly making way for peaceful night,
Best suits with fallen grandeur, to my sight
Offers the beauty, the magnificence,
And sober graces, left her for defence
Against the injuries of time, the spite
Of fortune, and the desolating storms
Of future war. Advance not- spare to
hide,

O gentle Power of darkness! these mild hues;

Obscure not yet these silent avenues
Of stateliest architecture, where the Forms
Of nun-like females, with soft motion,
glide!

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III BRUGES

1820. 1822

THE Spirit of Antiquity - enshrined
In sumptuous buildings, vocal in sweet song,
In picture, speaking with heroic tongue,
And with devout solemnities entwined-
Mounts to the seat of grace within the
mind:

Hence Forms that glide with swan-like ease along,

Hence motions, even amid the vulgar

throng,

To an harmonious decency confined:
As if the streets were consecrated ground,
The city one vast temple, dedicate
To mutual respect in thought and deed;
To leisure, to forbearances sedate;
To social cares from jarring passions freed;
A deeper peace than that in deserts found!

BETWEEN NAMUR AND LIEGE

1820. 1822

The scenery on the Meuse pleases me more, upon the whole, than that of the Rhine, though the river itself is much inferior in grandeur. The rocks both in form and colour, especially between Namur and Liege, surpass any upon the Rhine, though they are in several places disfigured by quarries, whence stones were taken for the new fortifications. This is much to be regretted, for they are useless, and the scars will remain perhaps for thousands of years. A like injury to a still greater degree has been inflicted, in my memory, upon the beautiful rocks of Clifton on the banks of the Avon. There is probably in existence a very long letter of mine to Sir Uvedale Price, in which was given a description of the landscapes on the Meuse as compared with those on the Rhine.

Details in the spirit of these sonnets are given both in Mrs. Wordsworth's Journals and my Sister's, and the re-perusal of them has

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VII

IN THE CATHEDRAL AT COLOGNE

1810. 1822

O FOR the help of Angels to complete
This Temple Angels governed by a plan
Thus far pursued (how gloriously!) by
Man,

Studious that He might not disdain the seat

Who dwells in heaven! But that aspiring heat

Hath failed; and now, ye Powers! whose gorgeous wings

And splendid aspect yon emblazonings
But faintly picture, 't were an office meet
For you, on these unfinished shafts to try
The midnight virtues of your harmony:
This vast design might tempt you to re-
peat

Strains that call forth upon empyreal ground

Immortal Fabrics, rising to the sound
Of penetrating harps and voices sweet!

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