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With Thought and Love companions of our way
Whate'er the senses take or may refuse-

The Mind's internal heaven shall shed her dews
Of inspiration on the humblest lay.

William Wordsworth

9 WITHIN KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL,

CAMBRIDGE

AX not the royal Saint with vain expense,

TAX

Twith ill-matched aims the Architect who planned

(Albeit laboring for a scanty band

Of white-robed Scholars only) this immense
And glorious work of fine intelligence!

Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore
Of nicely-calculated less or more:

So deemed the man who fashioned for the sense
These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof
Self-poised, and scooped into ten thousand cells,
Where light and shade repose, where music dwells
Lingering—and wandering on as loath to die;
Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof
That they were born for immortality.

William Wordsworth

Y

THE SCHOLAR

My days among the Dead are past;

Around me I behold,

Where'er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old:
My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.

With them I take delight in weal
And seek relief in woe;

And while I understand and feel
How much to them I owe,

My cheeks have often been bedewed
With tears of thoughtful gratitude.

My thoughts are with the Dead; with them.
I live in long-past years,

Their virtues love, their faults condemn,
Partake their hopes and fears,

And from their lessons seek and find
Instruction with an humble mind.

My hopes are with the Dead; anon
My place with them will be,
And I with them shall travel on
Through all Futurity;

Yet leaving here a name, I trust,
That will not perish in the dust.

Robert Southey

181

I

THE ANGLER'S WISH

IN these flowery meads would be,
These crystal streams should solace me;
To whose harmonious bubbling noise

I, with my angle, would rejoice,

Sit here, and see the turtle-dove
Court his chaste mate to acts of love;

Or, on that bank, feel the west wind
Breathe health and plenty; please my mind,

To see sweet dewdrops kiss these flowers,
And then washed off by April showers;
Here, hear my kenna sing a song:
There, see a blackbird feed her young,

Or a laverock build her nest;

Here, give my weary spirits rest,

And raise my low-pitched thoughts above
Earth, or what poor mortals love.

Thus, free from lawsuits, and the noise
Of princes' courts, I would rejoice;

Or, with my Bryan and a book,
Loiter long days near Shawford brook;
There sit by him, and eat my meat;
There see the sun both rise and set;
There bid good morning to next day;
There meditate my time away;

And angle on; and beg to have
A quiet passage to a welcome grave.

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Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,

Whose flocks supply him with attire;

Whose trees in summer yield him shade,

In winter fire.

1 Said by the author to have been written when he was about twelve ears old.

Blest, who can unconcernedly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day,

Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mixed; sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most does please
With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.

Alexander Pope

183

A'

TO SLEEP

FLOCK of sheep that leisurely pass by,

One after one; the sound of rain, and bees Murmuring; the fall of rivers, winds and seas, Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky; I have thought of all by turns, and yet do lie

Sleepless; and soon the small birds' melodies

Must hear, first uttered from my orchard trèes,
And the first cuckoo's melancholy cry.

Even thus last night, and two nights more, I lay,
And could not win thee, Sleep! by any stealth:
So do not let me wear to-night away:

Without Thee what is all the morning's wealth?
Come, blessèd barrier between day and day,
Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!
William Wordsworth

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ROUGH

A DIRGE

wind, that moanest loud Grief too sad for song;

Wild wind, when sullen cloud

Knells all the night long;
Sad storm, whose tears are vain,
Bare woods, whose branches strain,

Deep caves and dreary main,

Wail, for the world's wrong!

Percy Bysshe Shelley

186 ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT 2

VENGE, O Lord! Thy slaughtered Saints, whose bones

Αν

Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;

Even them who kept Thy truth so pure of old,

When all our fathers worshipt stocks and stones,

1 Sung by "a girl, Pippa, from the silk mills," in Pippa Passes, a drama. 2 The massacre, in 1655, of the Vaudois, or Waldenses, a Christian community living amid the high Alps of Piedmont, in the northwestern part of Italy. This "pious, inoffensive people: dear to the hearts and imaginations of all Protestant men" (Carlyle) was in the past repeatedly subjected to persecution because of its refusal to unite with the Roman Catholic Church-the "triple tyrant" of the poem.

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