Unto thy guidance from this hour;

O let my weakness have an end!
Give unto me, made lowly wise,
The spirit of self-sacrifice;

The confidence of reason give;
And in the light of Truth thy bondman let me live.

William Wordsworth

253 COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE

SEPTEMBER 3, 1802

E

:

ARTH has not anything 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, theaters, 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 splendor, 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!

William Wordsworth

254

SPEAK
PEAK low to me, my Savior, low and sweet

From out the hallelujahs, sweet and low,
Lest I should fear and fall, and miss thee so,
Who art not missed by any that entreat.
Speak to me as to Mary at thy feet!
And if no precious gums my hands bestow,

Let my tears drop like amber while I go
In reach of thy divinest voice complete
In humanest affection,—thus, in sooth,
To lose the sense of losing; as a child,
Whose song-bird seeks the wood forevermore,
Is sung to in its stead by mother's mouth
Till, sinking on her breast, love-reconciled,
He sleeps the faster that he wept before.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

255

CROSSING THE BAR1

SUNSI

UNSET and evening star,

And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,

When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep

Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,

When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.

Alfred Tennyson

IV

REFLECTIVE, DESCRIPTIVE AND

ELEGIAC POEMS

On Man, on Nature, and on Human Life .

-WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

56.

RUBÁIYÁT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM OF

NAISHÁPÚR1

A ges of Progress! These eight hundred years
Hath Europe shuddered with her hopes or fears,
And now!-she listens in the wilderness
To thee and half believeth what she hears!

Hadst thou the Secret? Ah, and who may tell?
“An hour we have,” thou saidst. "Ah, waste it well!"
An hour we have, and yet Eternity
Looms o’er us, and the thought of Heaven or Hell!

Nay, we can never be as wise as thou,
O idle singer 'neath the blossomed bough.
Nay, and we cannot be content to die.
We cannot shirk the questions “Where?” and “How?”