With a keen eye and overflowing heart:
So genius triumph'd over seeming wrong,
And pour'd out truth in works by thoughtful love
Inspired, works potent over smiles and tears.
And, as round mountain-tops the lightning plays,
Thus innocently sported, breaking forth
As from a cloud of some grave sympathy,
Humour and wild instinctive wit, and all
The vivid flashes of his spoken words.

From the most gentle creature nursed in fields
Had been derived the name he bore, a name,
Wherever Christian altars have been raised,
Hallow'd to meekness and to innocence;
And if in him meekness at times gave way,
Provoked out of herself by troubles strange,
Many and strange, that hung about his life;
Still, at the centre of his being, lodged
A soul by resignation sanctified:

And if too often, self-reproach'd, he felt
That innocence belongs not to our kind,
A power that never ceased to abide in him,
Charity, 'mid the multitude of sins
That she can cover, left not his exposed
To an unforgiving judgment from just Heaven.
O, he was good, if e'er a good Man lived!

From a reflecting mind and sorrowing heart
Those simple lines flow'd with an earnest wish,
Though but a doubting hope, that they might serve
Fitly to guard the precious dust of him

Whose virtues call'd them forth. That aim is miss'd;
For much that truth most urgently required
Had from a faltering pen been ask'd in vain:
Yet, haply, on the printed page received,
Th' imperfect record, there, may stand unblamed
As long as verse of mine shall breathe the air
Of memory, or see the light of love.

Thou wert a scorner of the fields, my Friend,
But more in show than truth; and from the fields,
And from the mountains, to thy rural grave
Transported, my soothed spirit hovers o'er
Its green untrodden turf and blowing flowers;
And taking up a voice shall speak (though still
Awed by the theme's peculiar sanctity

Which words less free presumed not even to touch) Of that fraternal love whose Heaven-lit lamp

From infancy, through manhood, to the last
Of threescore years, and to thy latest hour,
Burnt on with ever-strengthening light, enshrined
Within thy bosom.

66

"Wonderful" hath been
The love establish'd between man and man,
Passing the love of women;" and between
Man and his help-mate in fast wedlock join'd
Through God, is raised a spirit and soul of love
Without whose blissful influence Paradise

Had been no Paradise; and Earth were now
A waste where creatures bearing human form,
Direst of savage beasts, would roam in fear,
Joyless and comfortless. Our days glide on;
And let him grieve who cannot choose but grieve,
That he hath been an Elm without his Vine,
And her bright dower of clustering charities,
That round his trunk and branches might have clung,
Enriching and adorning. Unto thee,

Not so enrich'd, not so adorn'd, to thee
Was given (say rather thou of later birth.
Wert given to her) a Sister, 'tis a word
Timidly utter'd, for she lives, the meck,
The self-restraining, and the ever-kind,-
In whom thy reason and intelligent heart
Found for all interests, hopes, and tender cares,
All softening, humanising, hallowing powers,
Whether withheld, or for her sake unsought-
More than sufficient recompense!".

Her love

(What weakness prompts the voice to tell it here?)
Was as the love of mothers; and when years,
Lifting the boy to man's estate, had call'd

The long-protected to assume the part

Of a protector, the first filial tie

Was undissolved; and, in or out of sight,

Remain'd imperishably interwoven

With life itself. Thus, 'mid a shifting world,

Did they together testify of time

And season's difference, a double tree

With two collateral stems sprung from one root;

Such were they; such thro' life they might have been

In union, in partition only such;

Otherwise wrought the will of the Most High;

Yet, through all visitations and all trials,

9 Wordsworth here delicately hints that Lamb refrained from matrimonial ties on account of his sister, whose sad infirmity seemed to him to invest her claim with peculiar sacredness. And such, I believe, was the fact.

Still they were faithful;1 like two vessels launch'd
From the same beach one ocean to explore
With mutual help, and sailing,

to their league

True, as inexorable winds, or bars
Floating or fix'd of polar ice, allow.

But turn we rather, let my spirit turn
With thine, O silent and invisible Friend!
To those dear intervals, nor rare nor brief,
When reunited, and by choice withdrawn
From miscellaneous converse, ye were taught
That the remembrance of foregone distress,
And the worse fear of future ill (which oft
Doth hang around it, as a sickly child
Upon its mother) may be both alike
Disarm'd of power to unsettle present good
So prized, and things inward and outward held
In such an even balance, that the heart
Acknowledges God's grace, His mercy feels,
And in its depth of gratitude is still.

O gift divine of quiet sequestration!
The hermit, exercised in prayer and praise,
And feeding daily on the hope of Heaven,
Is happy in his vow, and fondly cleaves
To life-long singleness; but happier far
Was to your souls, and, to the thoughts of others,
A thousand times more beautiful appear'd,
Your dual loneliness. The sacred tie

Is broken; yet why grieve? for Time but holds

His moiety in trust, till Joy shall lead

To the blest world where parting is unknown.

ECCLESIASTICAL SONNETS.

[1835.

GLAD TIDINGS.

FOR ever hallow'd be this morning fair,

Blest be th' unconscious shore on which ye tread,

Since the publication of Talfourd's Final Memorials of Charles Lamb, in 1848, the mitter here referred to has become well known. Mary Lamb was subject to dreadful turns of insanity, during which she had to be separated from her brother, and kept in close confinement. In a letter to Coleridge, dated September 27, 1796, Lamb has the following: "My poor dear, dearest sister, in a fit of insanity, has been the death of her own mother. I was at hand only time enough to snatch the knife out of her grasp. She is at present in a madhouse, from whence I fear she must be moved to an hospital."

2 Of this series of Sonnets, much the greater number are not particularly suited to the purpose of this volume. But some of them, besides being exceedingly beautiful in themselves, are fully in keeping with that purpose, and are withal so mellow with Christian gentleness and wisdom, that I could not inake up my mind to leave

them out.

And blest the silver Cross, which ye, instead
Of martial banner, in procession bear;
The Cross preceding Him who floats in air,
The pictured Saviour!- By Augustin led,
They come, and onward travel without dread,
Chanting in barbarous ears a tuneful prayer, -
Sung for themselves, and those whom they would free!
Rich conquest waits them:- the tempestuous sea
Of Ignorance, that ran so rough and high,
And heeded not the voice of clashing swords,
These good men humble by a few bare words,
And calm with fear of God's divinity.

PAULINUS.

BUT, to remote Northumbria's royal Hall,
Where thoughtful Edwin, tutor'd in the school
Of sorrow, still maintains a heathen rule,
Who comes with functions apostolical ?

Mark him, of shoulders curved, and stature tall,
Black hair, and vivid eye, and meagre cheek,
His prominent feature like an eagle's beak;
A Man whose aspect doth at once appal

8

And strike with reverence. The Monarch leans
Toward the pure truths this Delegate propounds;
Repeatedly his own deep mind he sounds
With careful hesitation; then convenes
A synod of his Councillors:- give ear,
And what a pensive Sage doth utter, hear!

PERSUASION.

"MAN'S life is like a Sparrow, mighty King!
That while at banquet with your Chiefs you sit
Housed near a blazing fire- is seen to flit
Safe from the wintry tempest. Fluttering,
Here did it enter; there, on hasty wing,
Flies out, and passes on from cold to cold;
But whence it came we know not, nor behold
Whither it goes. Even such, that transient Thing,
The human Soul; not utterly unknown

While in the Body lodged, her warm abode;
But from what world She came, what woe or weal
On her departure waits, no tongue hath shown:

8 The person of Paulinus is thus described by Bede, from the memory of an eyewitness: "Longæ staturæ, paululum incurvus, nigro capillo, facie macilentâ, náso adunco, pertenui, venerabilis simul et terribilis aspectu."

This mystery if the Stranger can reveal,
His be a welcome cordially bestow'd!" 4

CONVERSION.

PROMPT transformation works the novel Lore:
The Council closed, the Priest in full career
Rides forth, an armèd man, and hurls a spear
To desecrate the Fane which heretofore
He served in folly. Woden falls, and Thor
Is overturn'd; the mace, in battle heaved
(So might they dream) till victory was achieved,
Drops, and the God himself is seen no more.
Temple and Altar sink, to hide their shame
Amid oblivious weeds. O, come to me,
Ye heavy laden! such th' inviting voice

Heard near fresh streams; and thousands, who rejoice
In the new Rite, the pledge of sanctity,
Shall, by regenerate life, the promise claim.

PRIMITIVE SAXON CLERGY.

How beautiful your presence, how benign,
Servants of God! who not a thought will share
With the vain world; who, outwardly as bare
As winter trees, yield no fallacious sign

That the firm soul is clothed with fruit divine!
Such Priest, when service worthy of his care
Has call'd him forth to breathe the common air,
Might seem a saintly Image from its shrine
Descended:- happy are the eyes that meet
The Apparition; evil thoughts are stay'd
At his approach, and low-bow'd necks entreat
A benediction from his voice or hand;

Whence grace, through which the heart can understand,
And vows, that bind the will, in silence made.

SECLUSION.

LANCE, shield, and sword relinquish'd, at his side

A bead-roll, in his hand a clasped book,

4 The original of this speech is given by Bede; and the Conversion of Edwin as related by him is highly interesting.

5 The carly propagators of Christianity were accustomed to preach near rivers, for the convenience of baptism.

6 Having spoken of the zeal, disinterestedness, and temperance of the clergy of those times, Bede thus proceeds: "Unde et in magna erat veneratione tempore illo religionis habitus, ita ut ubicunque clericus aliquis, aut monachus adveniret, gaudenter ab omnibus tanquam Dei famulus exciperetur. Etiam si in itinere pergens inveniretur, accurrebant, et flexâ cervice, vel manu signari, vel ore illius se benedici, gaudebant. Verbis quoque horum exhortatoriis diligenter auditum præbebant."