More brave for this, that he hath much to love :-
'Tis, finally, the man, who, lifted high,
Conspicuous object in a nation's eye,
Or left unthought of in obscurity—
Who, with a toward or untoward lot,
Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not-
Plays, in the many games of life, that one,
Where what he most doth value must be won;
Whom neither shape of danger can dismay,
Nor thought of tender happiness betray;
Who, not content that former worth stand fast,
Looks forward, persevering to the last,
From well to better, daily self-surpast:

Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth
For ever, and to noble deeds give birth,
Or he must fall, to sleep without his fame,
And leave a dead, unprofitable name--
Finds comfort in himself and in his cause;
And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws
His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause:
This is the happy warrior; this is he

Whom every man in arms should wish to be.

1806.

ODE TO DUTY.

STERN daughter of the voice of God!
O Duty! if that name thou love

Who art a light to guide, a rod

To check the erring, and reprove ;

Thou, who art victory and law

When empty terrors overawe,

From vain temptations dost set free,

And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity!

There are who ask not if thine eye

Be on them; who, in love and truth,

Where no misgiving is, rely

Upon the genial sense of youth:

Glad hearts, without reproach or blot,

Who do thy work and know it not

Long may the kindly impulse last!

But thou, if they should totter, teach them to

stand fast!

Serene will be our days and bright,
And happy will our nature be,
When love is an unerring light,

And joy its own security.

And they a blissful course may hold
Even now who, not unwisely bold,

Live in the spirit of this creed,

Yet seek thy firm support, according to their need.

I, loving freedom, and untried-
No sport of every random gust,
Yet being to myself a guide--

Too blindly have reposed my trust;
And oft, when in my heart was heard
Thy timely mandate, I deferred

The task, in smoother walks to stray;

But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may.

Through no disturbance of my soul,

Or strong compunction in me wrought, I supplicate for thy control;

But in the quietness of thought: Me this unchartered freedom tires;

I feel the weight of chance desires;

My hopes no more must change their name,
I long for a repose that ever is the same.

Stern lawgiver! yet thou dost wear

The Godhead's most benignant grace;

Nor know we anything so fair

As is the smile upon thy face;

Flowers laugh before thee on their beds;

And fragrance in thy footing treads;

Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;

And the most ancient heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong.

To humbler functions, awful Power!
I call thee: I myself commend

Unto thy guidance from this hour:

Oh! 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!

ELEGIAC STANZAS.

[Suggested by a picture of Peele Castle in a storm, painted by Sir George Beaumont.]

(Written after the death of Wordsworth's brother by drowning.)

I WAS thy neighbour once, thou rugged pile!
Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee,
I saw thee every day and all the while
Thy form was sleeping on a glassy sea.

So pure the sky, so quiet was the air!
So like, so very like, was day to day
Whene'er I look'd, thy image still was there;
It trembled, but it never passed away.

How perfect was the calm! It seemed no sleep,
No mood, which season takes away, or brings:
I could have fancied that the mighty deep
Was even the gentlest of all gentle things.

Ah! then if mine had been the painter's hand,
To express what then I saw; and add the gleam,
The light that never was, on sea or land,
The consecration, and the poet's dream ;

I would have planted thee, thou hoary pile
Amid a world how different from this!
Beside a sea that could not cease to smile;
On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss:

Thou shouldst have seemed a treasure-house divine
Of peaceful years: a chronicle of heaven;-

Of all the sunbeams that did ever shine
The very sweetest had to thee been given.

A picture had it been of lasting ease,
Elysian quiet, without toil or strife:
No motion but the moving tide, a breeze,
Or merely silent Nature's breathing life.

Such, in the fond illusion of my heart,
Such picture would I at that time have made;
And seen the soul of truth in every part;
A faith, a trust, that could not be betrayed.

So once it would have been-'tis so no more;
I have submitted to a new control;

A power is gone, which nothing can restore;
A deep distress hath humanised my soul.

Not for a moment could I now behold
A smiling sea, and be what I have been :
The feeling of my loss will ne'er be old;
This, which I know, I speak with mind serene.

Then, Beaumont, friend! who would have been
the friend,

If he had lived, of him whom I deplore,

This work of thine I blame not, but commend,
This sea in anger, and that dismal shore.

Oh, 'tis a passionate work!—yet wise and well,
Well chosen is the spirit that is here;
That hulk which labours in the deadly swell,
This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear!

And this huge castle, standing here sublime,
I love to see the look with which it braves,
Cased in the unfeeling armour of old time,
The lightning, the fierce wind, and trampling waves.

Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone,
Housed in a dream, at distance from the kind!
Such happiness, wherever it be known,

Is to be pitied; for 'tis surely blind.

But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer,
And frequent sights of what is to be borne!
Such sights, or worse, as are before me here.-
Not without hope we suffer and we mourn.

LINES.

1805.

[Composed at Grasmere, during a walk one evening, after a stormy day, the author having just read in a newspaper that the dissolution of Mr. Fox was hourly expected.]

LOUD is the Vale!-the voice is up

With which she speaks when storms are gone,

A mighty unison of streams!

Of all her voices, one!

Loud is the Vale !-this inland depth
In peace is roaring like the sea:
Yon star upon the mountain-top
Is listening quietly.

Sad was I, even to pain depresst,
Importunate and heavy load!
The Comforter hath found me here,
Upon this lonely road;

And many thousands now are sad-
Wait the fulfilment of their fear;
For he must die who is their stay,
Their glory disappear.

A power is passing from the earth
To breathless Nature's dark abyss;
And when the mighty pass away,
What is it more than this-

That man, who is from God sent forth,
Doth yet again to God return ?—

Such ebb and flow must ever be ;
Then wherefore should we mourn?

SELECTIONS FROM THE SONNETS.

1806

I.

SCORN not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honours; with this key
Shakspeare unlocked his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
With it Camöens soothed an exile's grief;
The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
His visionary brow; a glow-worm lamp,

It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land

To struggle through dark ways; and, when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand

The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew
Soul-animating strains-alas, too few!