O dastard whom such foretaste doth not cheer!

We shall exult, if they who rule the land Be men who hold its many blessings dear, Wise, upright, valiant; not a servile band, Who are to judge of danger which they fear,

And honour which they do not understand

ADDRESS TO A CHILD

DURING A BOISTEROUS WINTER EVENING BY MY SISTER

1806. 1815

Written at Town-end, Grasmere. WHAT way does the wind come? What way does he go?

He rides over the water, and over the snow, Through wood, and through vale; and, o'er rocky height

Which the goat cannot climb, takes his sounding flight;

He tosses about in every bare tree,
As, if you look up, you plainly may see;
But how he will come, and whither he gues,
There's never a scholar in England knows.

He will suddenly stop in a cunning nook And ring a sharp larum; - but, if yea should look,

This was composed during my residence at Town-end, Grasmere. Two years at least passed between the writing of the four first stanzas and the remaining part. To the attentive and competent reader the whole sufficiently explains itself; but there may be no harm in adverting here to particular feelings or experiences of my own mind on which the structure of the poem partly rests. Nothing was more difficult for me in childhood than to admit the notion of death as a state applicable to my own being. I have said elsewhere

way, to heaven. With a feeling congenial to
this, I was often unable to think of external
things as having external existence, and I com-
muned with all that I saw as something not
apart from, but inherent in, my own immate-
rial nature. Many times while going to school
have I grasped at a wall or tree to recall myself
from this abyss of idealism to the reality. At
that time I was afraid of such processes. In
later periods of life I have deplored, as we have
all reason to do, a subjugation of an opposite
character, and have rejoiced over the remem-
brances, as is expressed in the lines-
"Obstinate questionings

Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings; " etc.

To that dream-like vividness and splendour which invest objects of sight in childhood, every one, I believe, if he would look back, could bear testimony, and I need not dwell upon it here: but having in the poem regarded it as presumptive evidence of a prior state of existence, I think it right to protest against a conclusion, which has given pain to some good and pious persons, that I meant to inculcate such a belief. It is far too shadowy a notion to be recommended to faith, as more than an element in our instincts of immortality. But let us bear in mind that, though the idea is not advanced in revelation, there is nothing there to contradict it, and the fall of Man presents an analogy in its favour. Accordingly, a pre-existent state has entered into the popular creeds of many nations; and, among all persons acquainted with classic literature, is known an ingredient in Platonic philosophy. Archimedes said that he could move the world if he had a point whereon to rest his machine. Who has not felt the same aspirations as regards the world of his own mind? Having to wield some of its elements when I was impelled to write this poem on the "Immortality of the Soul," I took hold of the notion of preexistence as having sufficient foundation in humanity for authorising me to make for my purpose the best use of it I could as a poet.

as

"The Child is Father of the Man; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety."

I

THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,

The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem

Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;-

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our life's tal Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing Boy,

But He beholds the light, and whence flows,

He sees it in his joy;

The Youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is Nature's Priest

And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended;

At length the Man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day.

VI

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own; Yearnings she hath in her own natural kini. And, even with something of a Mother's mind,

And no unworthy aim,

The homely Nurse doth all she can To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Ma Forget the glories he hath known, And that imperial palace whence he came.

VII

Behold the Child among his new-born

blisses,

A six years' Darling of a pigmy size!
See, where 'mid work of his own hand he

lies,

Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses,

All power was given her in the dreadful trance;

Those new-born Kings he withered like a flame."

Woe to them all! but heaviest woe and

shanie

To that Bavarian who could first advance His banner in accursed league with France First open traitor to the German name!

THOUGHT OF A BRITON ON THE SUBJUGATION OF SWITZER

LAND

1807. 1807

This was composed while pacing to and fro between the Hall of Coleorton, then rebuilding, and the principal Farm-house of the Estate. in which we lived for nine or ten months. I will here mention that the Song on the Restoration of Lord Clifford, as well as that on the feast of Brougham Castle, were produced on the same ground.

Two Voices are there; one is of the sea, One of the mountains; each a mighty Voice: In both from age to age thou didst rejoice, They were thy chosen music, Liberty! There came a Tyrant, and with holy glee Thou fought'st against him; but hast vainly striven:

Thou from thy Alpine holds at length art driven,

Where not a torrent murmurs heard by thee. Of one deep bliss thine ear hath been be