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. DEAR Fellow-travellers! think not that the Muse, RYDAL MOUNT, Nov. 1821. For they Earth's fairest daughters do excel; 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, O gentle Power of darkness! these mild hues; Obscure not yet these silent avenues III BRUGES 1820. 1822 THE Spirit of Antiquity - enshrined Hence Forms that glide with swan-like ease along, Hence motions, even amid the vulgar throng, To an harmonious decency confined: 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 VII IN THE CATHEDRAL AT COLOGNE 1810. 1822 O FOR the help of Angels to complete 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 Strains that call forth upon empyreal ground Immortal Fabrics, rising to the sound |