MODERN BRITISH POETS.
97
Foes might hang upon their path, snakes rustle near, |
But nothing from their inward selves had they to fear. |
“Thought infirm ne’er came between them, |
“ Whether printing desert sands |
“With accordant steps, or gathering |
“ Forest fruit with social hands; |
Or whispering like two reeds that in the cold moonbeam |
Bend with the breeze their heads beside a crystal stream.” |
The Evening Voluntaries are very beautiful in manner, and full of suggestions. The second is worth extracting as a forcible exhibition of one of Wordsworth’s leading opinions.
“Not in the lucid intervals of life |
“That come but as a curse to party strife; |
“Not in some hour when pleasure with a sigh |
“Of languor, puts his rosy garland by; |
“Not in the breathing times of that poor slave |
“Who daily piles up wealth in Mammon’s cave, |
“Is nature felt, or can be; nor do words |
“Which practised talent readily affords |
“Prove that her hands have touched responsive chords. |
“Nor has her gentle beauty power to move |
“With genuine rapture and with fervent love |
“The soul of genius, if he dares to take |
“Life’s rule from passion craved for passion’s sake; |
“Untaught that meekness is the cherished bent |
“Of all the truly great and all the innocent; |
“But who is innocent? By grace divine, |
“Not otherwise, O Nature! we are thine, |
“Through good and evil thine, or just degree |
“Of rational and manly sympathy, |
“To all that earth from pensive hearts is stealing, |
“And heaven is now to gladdened eyes revealing, |
“Add every charm the universe can show |
“Through every change its aspects undergo, |
“Care may be respited, but not repealed; |
“No perfect cure grows on that bounded field, |