Dear spot! which we have watched with tender heed,
Bringing thee chosen plants and blossoms blown
Among the distant mountains, flower and weed,
Which thou hast taken to thee as thy own,
Making all kindness registered and known;
Thou for our sakes, though Nature's child indeed,
Fair in thyself and beautiful alone,

Hast taken gifts which thou dost little need.

And O most constant, yet most fickle Place,
That hast thy wayward moods, as thou dost show
To them who look not daily on thy face;1

Who, being loved, in love no bounds dost know,
And say'st, when we forsake thee, "Let them go!"
Thou easy-hearted Thing, with thy wild race
Of weeds and flowers, till we return be slow,
And travel with the year at a soft pace.

Help us to tell Her tales of years gone by,

And this sweet spring, the best beloved and best;

Joy will be flown in its mortality;

Something must stay to tell us of the rest.

Here, thronged with primroses, the steep rock's breast
Glittered at evening like a starry sky;

And in this bush our sparrow built her nest,
Of which I sang2 one song that will not die.

O happy Garden! whose seclusion deep
Hath been so friendly to industrious hours;
And to soft slumbers, that did gently steep

Our spirits, carrying with them dreams of flowers,

And wild notes warbled among leafy bowers;
Two burning months let summer overleap,
And, coming back with Her who will be ours,

Into thy bosom we again shall creep.

This "little nook of mountain-ground" is in very much the same condition as it was in 1802. The "flowering shrubs" and the "rocky well" still exist, and "the steep rock's breast" is "thronged with primroses" in spring, although the "Bower" is gone, and where it used to be a seat is now erected. "May 29.-W. wrote his poem on going to M. H. I wrote it out" (Dorothy Wordsworth's Diary).—ED.

THE SUN HAS LONG BEEN SET.

Comp. June 8, 1802.

Pub. 1807.

[This Impromptu appeared, many years ago, among the Author's poems, from which, in subsequent editions, it was excluded. It is reprinted, at the request of the Friend in whose presence the lines were thrown off.]

THE sun has long been set,

The stars are out by twos and threes,
The little birds are piping yet

Among the bushes and trees;

There's a cuckoo, and one or two thrushes,

And a far-off wind that rushes,

And a sound of water that gushes,1

And the cuckoo's sovereign cry

Fills all the hollow of the sky.
Who would "go parading'

In London, "and masquerading,"

On such a night of June

With that beautiful soft half-moon,

And all these innocent blisses?

On such a night as this is!

"June 8th (1802).-W. wrote the poem, 'The sun has long been set"" (Dorothy Wordsworth's Diary). The "Friend in whose presence the lines were thrown off," was his sister.-ED.

1 1836.

And a noise of wind that rushes,
With a noise of water that gushes;

1807.

SONNETS.

COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE, SEPTEMBER 3, 1802.

[Written on the roof of a coach, on my way to France.]

EARTH has not any thing to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep

In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

The date which Wordsworth gave to this poem on its first publication in 1807, and which he retained in all subsequent editions of his works, is inaccurate. He left London for Dover on his way to Calais on the 30th of July 1802. The sonnet was written that morning as he travelled towards Dover. The following is the record of the journey in his sister's diary :-"July 30.-Left London between five and six o'clock of the morning outside the Dover coach. A beautiful morning. The city, St Paul's, with the river-a multitude of little boats, made a beautiful sight as we crossed Westminster Bridge; the houses not overhung by their clouds of smoke, and were spread out endlessly; yet the sun shone so brightly, with such a pure light, that there was something like the purity of one of Nature's own grand spectacles." This sonnet underwent no change in the successive editions of the works.

In illustration of it, the following anecdote of the late Bishop of St David's may be quoted. It is reported by Lord Coleridge. "In the great debate on the abolition of the Irish Establishment in 1869, the Bishop of St David's, Dr Thirlwall, had made a very remarkable speech,

and had been kept till past daybreak in the House of Lords, before the division was over, and he was able to walk home. He was then an old man, and in failing health. Some days after, he was asked whether he had not run some risk to his health, and whether he did not feel much exhausted. 'Yes,' he said, 'perhaps so; but I was more than repaid by walking out upon Westminster Bridge after the division, seeing London in the morning light as Wordsworth saw it, and repeating to myself his noble sonnet as I walked home."" This anecdote was told to the Wordsworth Society, at its meeting on the 3rd of May 1882, after a letter recording the following somewhat similar experience had been read. ". . . As confirming the perfect truth of Wordsworth's description of the external aspects of a scene, and the way in which he reached its inmost soul, I may tell you what happened to me, and may have happened to many others. Many years ago, I think it was in 1859, I chanced to be passing (in a pained and depressed state of mind, occasioned by the death of a friend) over Waterloo Bridge at half-past three on a lovely June morning. It was broad daylight, and I was alone. Never when alone in the remotest recesses of the Alps, with nothing around me but the mountains, or upon the plains of Africa, alone with the wonderful glory of the southern night, have I seen anything to approach the solemnity-the soothing solemnity-of the city, sleeping under the early sun

'Earth hath not anything to show more fair.'

How simply, yet how perfectly Wordsworth has interpreted it! It was a happy thing for us that the Dover coach left at so untimely an hour. It was this sonnet, I think, that first opened my eyes to Wordsworth's greatness as a poet. Perhaps nothing that he has written shows more strikingly that vast sympathy which is his peculiar dower.”— (ROBERT SPENCE WATSON.)-ED.

COMPOSED BY THE SEA-SIDE, NEAR CALAIS, AUGUST, 1802.

FAIR Star of evening, Splendour of the west,
Star of my Country!-on the horizon's brink
Thou hangest, stooping, as might seem, to sink
On England's bosom; yet well pleased to rest,
Meanwhile, and be to her a glorious crest,
Conspicuous to the Nations. Thou, I think,

Should'st be my Country's emblem; and should'st wink,

數

Bright Star! with laughter on her banners, drest
In thy fresh beauty. There! that dusky spot
Beneath thee, that is England; there she lies.1
Blessings be on you both! one hope, one lot,
One life, one glory!-I, with many a fear
For my dear Country, many heartfelt sighs,
Among men who do not love her, linger here.

This sonnet, and the seven that follow it, were written during Wordsworth's residence at Calais, in the month of August, 1802. The following extract from his sister's journal illustrates it :- "Arrived at Calais at four in the morning of July 31st. Delightful walks in the evenings; seeing far off in the west the coast of England, like a cloud, crested with Dover Castle, the evening Star, and the glory of the sky : the reflections in the water were more beautiful than the sky itself; purple waves brighter than precious stones for ever melting away upon the sands."-ED.

Is it a reed that's shaken by the wind,

Or what is it that ye go forth to see?

Lords, lawyers, statesmen, squires of low degree,
Men known, and men unknown, sick, lame, and blind,
Post forward all, like creatures of one kind,

With first-fruit offerings crowd to bend the knee

In France, before the new-born Majesty.
'Tis ever thus. Ye men of prostrate mind,

A seemly reverence may be paid to power;

But that's a loyal virtue, never sown

In haste, nor springing with a transient shower:
When truth, when sense, when liberty were flown,
What hardship had it been to wait an hour?

Shame on you, feeble Heads, to slavery prone!

1

1836.

Beneath thee, it is England; there it lies.

1807.