FAREWELL LINES.

With patience merit the reward of peace,
Peace ye deserve; and may the solid good,
Sought by a wise though late exchange, and here
With bounteous hand beneath a cottage-roof
To you accorded, never be withdrawn,
Nor for the world's best promises renounced.
Most soothing was it for a welcome Friend,
Fresh from the crowded city, to behold
That lonely union, privacy so deep,

Such calm employments, such entire content.
So when the rain is over, the storm laid,
A pair of herons oft-times have I seen,
Upon a rocky islet, side by side,

Drying their feathers in the sun, at ease;

151

And so, when night with grateful gloom had fallen,
Two glow-worms in such nearness that they shared,
As seemed, their soft self-satisfying light,

Each with the other, on the dewy ground,
Where he that made them blesses their repose.-
When wandering among lakes and hills I note,
Once more, those creatures thus by nature paired,
And guarded in their tranquil state of life,
Even, as your happy presence to my mind.
Their union brought, will they repay the debt,

And send a thankful spirit back to you,

With hope that we, dear Friends! shall meet again.

eternity. . . . I wandered about, thinking I was happy, but feeling I was not. But that tumultuousness is passing off, and I begin to understand the nature of the gift. Holidays, even the annual month, were always uneasy joys their conscious fugitiveness; the craving after making the most of them. Now, when all is holiday, there is no holiday. I can sit at home, in rain or shine, without a restless impulse for walkings. I am daily steadying, and shall soon find it as natural to me to be my own master, as it has been irksome to have had a master. Mary wakes every morning with an obscure feeling that some good has happened to us."-ED.

152 ON SEEING A NEEDLECASE IN THE FORM OF A HARP.

1827.

The poems composed in 1827 were for the most part sonnets. But several of the sonnets first published in 1827 evidently belong to an earlier year, the date of which it is impossible to discover.

ON SEEING A NEEDLECASE IN THE FORM OF A

HARP.

THE WORK OF E. M. 8.*

Comp. 1827.

Pub. 1827.

FROWNS are on every Muse's face,

Reproaches from their lips are sent,
That mimicry should thus disgrace
The noble Instrument.

A very Harp in all but size!

Needles for strings in apt gradation !
Minerva's self would stigmatize

The unclassic profanation.

Even her own needle that subdued

Arachne's rival spirit, †

Though wrought in Vulcan's happiest mood,

Such honour 1 could not merit.

1 1845.

Like station

1827.

* Edith May Southey.-ED.

+ Arachne, daughter of a dyer of Colophon, skilful with her needle, challenged Minerva to a trial of skill. Minerva defeated her, and committing suicide, she was changed by the goddess into a spider.—ED.

ON SEEING A NEEDLECASE IN THE FORM OF A HARP. 153

And this, too, from the Laureate's Child,

A living lord of melody!
How will her Sire be reconciled

To the refined indignity?

I spake, when whispered a low voice,

"Bard! moderate your ire;

Spirits of all degrees rejoice
In presence of the lyre.

The Minstrels of Pygmean bands, *
Dwarf Genii, moonlight-loving Fays,
Have shells to fit their tiny hands
And suit their slender lays.

Some, still more delicate of ear,
Have lutes (believe my words)
Whose framework is of gossamer,
While sunbeams are the chords.

Gay Sylphs this miniature will court,
Made vocal by their brushing wings,
And sullen Gnomes † will learn to sport
Around its polished strings;

Whence strains to love-sick maiden dear,
While in her lonely bower she tries
To cheat the thought she cannot cheer,
By fanciful embroideries.

Pygmæi, the nation of Lilliputian dwarfs, fabled to dwell in India, or Ethiopia. (See Ovid, Meta., vi. 90; Aristotle De Anima, viii. 12.)—ED. + According to medieval belief, the Sylphs were elemental spirits of the air; the Gnomes the elemental spirits of the earth. "The gnomes, or demons of the earth, delight in mischief; but the sylphs, whose habitation is in the air, are the best conditioned creatures imaginable.”—(Pope, Rape of the Lock, Preface.)--ED.

Trust, angry Bard! a knowing Sprite,

Nor think the Harp her lot deplores;
Though 'mid the stars the Lyre shine 1 bright,
Love stoops as fondly as he soars." 2

MISCELLANEOUS SONNETS.

DEDICATION.

Comp. 1827.

Pub. 1827.

[In the cottage, Town-end, Grasmere, one afternoon in 1801, my sister read to me the Sonnets of Milton. I had long been well acquainted with them, but I was particularly struck on that occasion by the dignified simplicity and majestic harmony that runs through most of them,-in character so totally different from the Italian, and still more so from Shakespeare's fine Sonnets. I took fire, if I may be allowed to say so, and produced three Sonnets the same afternoon, the first I ever wrote except an irregular one at school. Of these three, the only one I distinctly remember is "I grieved for Buonapartè.” One was never written down: the third, which was, I believe, preserved, I cannot particularise.]

HAPPY the feeling from the bosom thrown

In perfect shape (whose beauty Time shall spare
Though a breath made it) like a bubble blown

For summer pastime into wanton air;

Happy the thought best likened to a stone

Of the sea-beach, when, polished with nice care,
Veins it discovers exquisite and rare,

Which for the loss of that moist gleam atone
That tempted first to gather it. That here,

O chief of Friends!* such feelings I present,

He probably refers to his sister, whose reading of Milton's sonnets in 1801 first led him (as the Fenwick note tells us) to write Sonnets. -ED.

HER ONLY PILOT THE SOFT BREEZE.

To thy regard, with thoughts so fortunate,

Were a vain notion; but the hope is dear,1

That thou, if not with partial joy elate,

155

Wilt smile upon this gift with more than mild content!*

HER only pilot the soft breeze, the boat

Lingers, but Fancy is well satisfied;

With keen-eyed Hope, with Memory, at her side,
And the glad Muse at liberty to note
All that to each is precious, as we float
Gently along: regardless who shall chide

If the heavens smile, and leave us free to glide,
Happy Associates breathing air remote
From trivial cares. But, Fancy and the Muse,
Why have I crowded this small bark with you
And others of your kind, ideal crew!

While here sits One whose brightness owes its hues
To flesh and blood; no Goddess from above,
No fleeting Spirit, but my own true Love?†

WHY, Minstrel, these untuneful murmurings-
Dull, flagging notes that with each other jar?"

1 1837.

gather it. O chief

Of friends! such feelings if I here present,

Such thoughts, with others mixed less fortunate;
Then smile into my heart a fond belief,

That thou

2 1837.

Receiv'st the gift for

1827.

1827.

* "Something less than joy, but more than dull content."

-COUNTESS OF WINCHILSEA.-W.W., 1827.

† A reminiscence of a day on Grasmere Lake with Mrs Wordsworth.-ED.