UPON ITS HOLY REST: HOW BRIGHT A GREEN SLEEPS ROUND THE DWELLING OF TWO LOVING HEARTS!

66 MY SOUL, BEHOLD THE BEAUTY OF THE HOME! (WILSON)

And fast the miserable ship

Becomes a lifeless wreck.

Her keel hath struck on a hidden rock,
Her planks are torn asunder,

And down come her masts with a reeling shock
And a hideous crash like thunder.

Her sails are draggled in the brine
That gladdened late the skies,

And her pendant that kissed the fair moonshine
Down many a fathom lies.

Her beauteous sides, whose rainbow hues
Gleamed softly from below,

And flung a warm and sunny flush
O'er the wreaths of murmuring snow,
To the coral rocks are hurrying down
To sleep amid colours as bright as their own.

Oh! many a dream was in the ship
An hour before her death;

And sights of home with sighs disturbed
The sleeper's long-drawn breath.
Instead of the murmur of the sea
The sailor heard the humming tree
Alive through all its leaves,

The hum of the spreading sycamore
That grows before his cottage-door,
And the swallow's song in the eaves.
His arms enclosed a blooming boy,
Who listened with tears of sorrow and joy
To the dangers his father had passed;
And his wife- by turns she wept and
smiled,

As she looked on the father of her child
Returned to her heart at last.-

THE VERY HEAVENS LOOK DOWN WITH GRACIOUS SMILES

THE AIR LIES HUSHED ABOVE THE PEACEFUL ROOF, AS IF IT FELT THE SANCTITY WITHIN!"-WILSON.

DWELLS IN THE MIDST OF US, APPEARING OFT IN VISIBLE GLORY, WHILE OUR FILIAL SOULS,-(PROFESSOR WILSON)

480

"YEA, LIKE A FATHER SMILING ON A BAND

PROFESSOR WILSON.

He wakes at the vessel's sudden roll,
And the rush of waters is in his soul.

Astounded the reeling deck he paces,
'Mid hurrying forms and ghastly faces ;-
The whole ship's crew are there!
Wailings around and overhead,
Brave spirits stupified or dead,
And madness and despair.

Now is the Ocean's bosom bare,
Unbroken as the floating air;
The ship hath melted quite away,
Like a struggling dream at break of day.
No image meets my wandering eye

But the new-risen sun, and the sunny sky.
Though the night-shades are gone, yet a vapour

dull

Bedims the waves so beautiful;

While a low and melancholy moan
Mourns for the glory that hath flown.
Oh! that the wild and wailing strain
Were a dream that murmurs in my brain!
What happiness would then be mine,
When my eyes, as they felt the morning shine,
Instead of the unfathomed ocean-grave,
Should behold Winander's* peaceful wave,
And the isles that love her loving breast,
Each brooding like a halcyon's nest.
It may not be ;-too well I know
The real doom from fancied woe,
The black and dismal hue.
Yea, many a visage wan and pale

* Lake Windermere, or Winandermere.

OF HAPPY CHILDREN, THE ALMIGHTY ONE

MADE PURE BENEATH THE WATCHING OF HIS EYE, WALK STATELY IN THE CONSCIOUS PRAISE OF HEAVEN!"-WILSON.

OLD OCEAN THUNDERING O'ER HIS SOLEMN SHORE, OR THE FAINT HYMNING OF THE INFANT RILL?-(PROF. WILSON)

66

WHAT MEANS THE SILENT LAKE, THE CATARACT'S ROAK,

THE ISLES OF OCEAN.

Will hang at midnight o'er my tale,
And weep that it is true.

[From "The Isle of Palms," Canto i.]

481

SAY, CAN SUCH THINGS TH' IMMORTAL SPIRIT FILL WITH PERFECT VOICE OR SILENCE LIKE THEIR OWN?"-WILSON.

THE ISLES OF OCEAN.

H! many are the beauteous isles
Unknown to human eye,

That, sleeping 'mid the ocean smiles,

In happy silence lie.

The ship may pass them in the night,
Nor the sailors know what a lovely sight
Is resting on the main ;

Some wandering ship who hath lost her way,
And never, or by night or day,
Shall pass these isles again.

There, groves that bloom in endless spring
Are rustling to the radiant wing
Of birds, in various plumage bright,
As rainbow hues, or dawning light.
Soft-falling showers of blossoms fair
Float ever on the fragrant air,
Like showers of vernal snow,
And from the fruit-tree spreading tall
The richly ripened clusters fall
Oft as sea-breezes blow.

The sun and clouds alone possess
The joy of all that loveliness;
And sweetly to each other smile
The livelong day-sun, cloud, and isle.

How silent lies each sheltered bay!

No other visitors have they

THE SNOW-LIKE MOONSHINE ON THE SUMMER-HILL,-(WILSON

OF THOUGHTS SO FIXED BEFORE!-WHEN HEAVEN'S OWN FACE IS TINGED WITH BLOOD!

AND FRIENDS CROSS O'ER OUR SOLITUDE, NOW FRIENDS OF OURS NO MORE!"-WILSON.

"HOW PLEASANT, AS THE SUN DECLINES, TO VIEW THE SPACIOUS LANDSCAPE CHANGE IN FORM AND HUE!

"6 HARMONIOUS THOUGHTS, A SOUL BY TRUTH REFINED,

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

William Wordsworth.

[WILLIAM WORDSWORTH was born at Cockermouth, in Cumberland, on the 7th April 1770. He received the rudiments of education at Penrith, whence, at the age of eight, he was removed to the grammar-school of Hawkshead, in Lancashire. Here he was surrounded by scenery of a picturesque and lovely character, which powerfully impressed his youthful imagination, and whose influences are discernible in his later poetry. He had already displayed a literary bias, learning little Latin and less Greek, but poring indefatigably over the works of Cervantes, Swift, Pope, Gray, Goldsmith, and Fielding. He pursued a similar course of study on entering St. John's College, Cambridge, and, consequently, earned there no peculiar scholastic distinctions, though taking his degree of B.A. in 1791.

He made his first public appearance as a poet in 1793, when he published "An Evening Walk," and "Descriptive Sketches." Novel in tone and construction, they passed unnoticed by the great body of the reading public; but their fine spirit was recognized by a few sympathizing critics, and among others, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who observed that "seldom, if ever, was the emergence of an original poetical genius above the literary horizon more evidently announced." In conjunction with Coleridge he produced in 1798 the "Lyrical Ballads," which brought down upon the two poets the severest judgments of the Aristarchus of the public press, unwilling to believe that any choice flowers could blow in the new ways trodden by these original geniuses.

On his return from a tour in France and Germany, Wordsworth married Mary Hutchinson, who had been one of his childhood's friends, and whose marvellously sweet temper secured him a happy home to the very end of her tranquil and virtuous life. In 1808 he took up his residence at Allan Bank, near Grasmere, removing in 1813 to Rydal Mount, where, amid the romantic lakes, the deep valleys and lonely mountains of Cumberland, he remained until the day of his death. Slowly but surely his reputation extended, and his genius obtained a warmer and wider recognition, though he had to encounter the ridicule of the Edinburgh Reviewers, and the storms of sarcasm and abuse directed at this so-called "Lake School," of which he was presumed to be the inspiring vates. Much of this ridicule was due to the false theory of poetical expression which he had adopted and set forth in his earlier poems, and to his choice of such subjects as "Peter Bell," and Goody Blake and Harry Gill." But as he successively gave to the world his "White Doe of Rylstone" (1814), his noble strain of "Laodamia" (1816), the magnificent music of "Dion" (1817), and the deep insight into nature and calm philosophical meditation of "The Excursion,"-to say nothing of countless lyrics, ballads, songs, odes, and sonnets, each of which is distinguished by some happy touch of feeling or fine felicity of phrase,detraction became dumb, satire flung aside its arrows, and England acknowledged the reign of a poet greater in all the purest and highest attributes of genius than any who had touched an English harp since Milton.

ENTIRE AFFECTION FOR ALL HUMAN-KIND.' -WORDSWORTH.

483

HERE VANISH, AS IN MIST, BEFORE A FLOOD OF BRIGHT OBSCURITY, HILL, LAWN, AND WOOD."-WORDSWORTH.