JONES! AS FROM CALAIS SOUTHWARD YOU AND I.

COMPOSED NEAR CALAIS, ON THE ROAD LEADING TO ANDRES.
Comp. August, 1802.
Pub. 1807.

JONES! as from Calais southward you and I1
Went pacing side by side, this public Way
Streamed with the pomp of a too-credulous day.*
When faith was pledged to new-born Liberty :2
A homeless sound of joy was in the sky:
From hour to hour the antiquated Earth 3

Beat like the heart of Man: songs, garlands, mirth,*
Banners and happy faces, far and nigh!

And now, sole register that these things were,

Two solitary greetings have I heard,

"Good-morrow, Citizen !" a hollow word,

As if a dead man spake it!

Yet despair

1 1836.

2

1836.

when from Calais

while

Travelled on foot together; then this way,
Which I am pacing now, was like the May
With festivals of new-born Liberty:

Urged our ascendant steps, this public way
Streamed with the pomp of a too-credulous day,
When faith was pledged to new-born Liberty :

The antiquated Earth, as one might say,
The antiquated Earth, hopeful and gay,

1807.

1820.

1807.

1820.

1807.

1836.

Touches me not, though pensive as a bird

Whose vernal coverts winter hath laid bare. 1

This sonnet is addressed to Robert Jones, of Plas-yn-llan, near Ruthin, Denbighshire, a brother collegian at Cambridge, and afterwards a fellow of St John's College, and incumbent of Soulderne, near Deddington, in Oxfordshire. It was to this friend that Wordsworth dedicated his Descriptive Sketches, which record their wanderings together in Switzerland; and it is to the pedestrian tour, undertaken by the two friends in the long vacation of 1790, that he refers in the above sonnet. The character of his friend is sketched in the poem, written in 1800, beginning,

"I marvel how Nature could ever find space," and his parsonage in Oxfordshire is described in the sonnet, "Where holy ground begins, unhallowed ends, Is marked by no distinguishable line."

CALAIS, AUGUST 15, 1802.

Comp. August 15, 1802.

Pub. 1807.

FESTIVALS have I seen that were not names:

This is young Buonaparte's natal day,
And his is henceforth an established sway-
Consul for life. With worship France proclaims
Her approbation, and with pomps and games.
Heaven grant that other Cities may be gay!
Calais is not and I have bent my way
To the sea-coast, noting that each man frames
His business as he likes. Far other show

My youth here witnessed, in a prouder time:2

Yet despair

I feel not happy am I as a Bird;
Fair seasons yet will come, and hopes as fair.
Yet despair

I feel not: jocund as a warbling Bird ;

-ED.

1807.

1820.

1827.

Another time

That was, when I was here long years ago :
Far different time

1807.

That was, which here I witnessed long ago:

1820

The senselessness of joy was then sublime!
Happy is he, who, caring not for Pope,
Consul, or King, can sound himself to know
The destiny of Man, and live in hope.

COMPOSED ON THE BEACH NEAR CALAIS.

Comp. August, 1802.

Pub. 1807.

Ir is a beauteous evening, calm and free,1
The holy time is quiet as a Nun

Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquillity;

The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea: 2
Listen! the mighty Being is awake,

And doth with his eternal motion make

A sound like thunder-everlastingly.

Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,

If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,

Thy nature is not therefore less divine:
Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year;
And worship'st at the Temple's inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.

[This was composed on the beach near Calais, in the autumn of 1802.] The above is the Fenwick note to this sonnet. It is to his sister that Wordsworth refers, in the line beginning "Dear child.”—ED.

Air sleeps, from strife or stir the clouds are free, 1836.

A fairer face of evening cannot be,

1842.

ON THE EXTINCTION OF THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC.

Comp. August, 1802.

Pub. 1807.

ONCE did She hold the gorgeous east in fee;
And was the safeguard of the west: the worth
Of Venice did not fall below her birth,
Venice, the eldest Child of Liberty.
She was a maiden City, bright and free;
No guile seduced, no force could violate;
And, when she took unto herself a mate,
She must espouse the everlasting Sea.
And what if she had seen those glories fade,
Those titles vanish, and that strength decay;
Yet shall some tribute of regret be paid

When her long life hath reached its final day:
Men are we, and must grieve when even the Shade
Of that which once was great, is passed away.

"Once did She hold the gorgeous east in fee."

The special glory of Venice dates from the conquest of Constantinople by the Latins in 1202. The fourth Crusade-in which the French and Venetians alonė took part—started from Venice, in October 1202, under the command of the Doge, Henry Dandolo. Its destiny, however, was not the recovery of Palestine, but the conquest of Constantinople. At the close of the crusade, Venice received the Morea, part of Thessaly, the Cyclades, many of the Bysantine cities, and the coasts of the Hellespont, with three-eighths of the city of Constantinople itself, the Doge taking the curious title of Duke of three-eighths of the Roman Empire.

"And was the safeguard of the west."

This may refer to the prominent part which Venice took in the Crusades, or to the development of her naval power, which made her mistress of the Mediterranean for many years, and an effective bulwark against invasions from the East.

"The eldest Child of Liberty."

The origin of the Venetian State was the flight of many of the inhabitants of the mainland-on the invasion of Italy by Attila-to the chain of islands that lie at the head of the Adriatic. "In the midst of the waters, free, indigent, laborious, and inaccessible, they gradually

coalesced into a republic: the first foundations of Venice were laid in the island of Rialto. . . . On the verge of the two empires the Venetians exult in the belief of primitive and perpetual independence."-Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. lx.

"And, when she took unto herself a mate,

She must espouse the everlasting Sea."

In 1177, Pope Alexander III. appealed to the Venetian Republic for protection against the German Emperor. The Venetians were successful in a naval battle at Saboro, against Otho, the son of Frederick Barbarrossa. In return, the Pope presented the Doge Liani with a ring, with which he told him to wed the Adriatic, that posterity might know that the sea was subject to Venice, "as a bride is to her husband."

In September 1796, nearly five years before this sonnet was written, the fate of the old Venetian Republic was sealed by the treaty of Campo Formio. The French army under Napoleon had subdued Italy, and, having crossed the Alps, threatened Vienna. To avert impending disaster, the Emperor Francis arranged a treaty which extinguished the Venetian Republic. He divided its territory between himself and Napoleon, Austria retaining Istria, Dalmatia, and the left bank of the Adige in the Venetian State, with the "maiden city" itself; France receiving the rest of the territory and the Ionian Islands. Since the date of that treaty the city has twice been annexed to Italy.-ED.

THE Voice of song from distant lands shall call

To that great King; shall hail the crownèd Youth
Who, taking counsel of unbending Truth,

By one example hath set forth to all

How they with dignity may stand; or fall,

If fall they must. Now, whither doth it tend?

And what to him and his shall be the end?

That thought is one which neither can appal

Nor cheer him; for the illustrious Swede hath done
The thing which ought to be; is raised above1

1

1846.

he stands above

All consequences

1807.