"What flower in meadow-ground or garden grows

"That to the towering lily doth not yield?

"Let both meet only on thy royal shield!

"Go forth, great King! claim what thy birth bestows; "Conquer the Gallic lily which thy foes

"Dare to usurp;-thou hast a sword to wield, "And Heaven will crown the right."-The mitred Sire Thus spake and lo! a Fleet, for Gaul addrest, Ploughs her bold course across the wondering seas; For, sooth to say, ambition, in the breast

Of youthful heroes, is no sullen fire,

But one that leaps to meet the fanning breeze.

*

XVI.

WARS OF YORK AND LANCASTER.

THUS is the storm abated by the craft

Of a shrewd Counsellor, eager to protect

The Church, whose power hath recently been checked,
Whose monstrous riches threatened.

So the shaft

Of victory mounts high, and blood is quaffed
In fields that rival Cressy and Poictiers—†

Pride to be washed away by bitter tears!
For deep as Hell itself, the avenging draught1
Of civil slaughter. Yet, while temporal power

But mark the dire effect in coming years!
Deep, deep as hell itself, the future draught

1822.

* Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury in 1414, persuaded Henry V. to carry on war with France, and helped to raise money for the purpose. Henry crossed to Harfleur, Chichele accompanying him, with an army of 30,000, and won the battle of Agincourt.-ED.

+ E.g., the battles of St Alban's, Wakefield, Mortimer's Cross, Towton, Barnet, Tewkesbury, Bosworth.-ED.

WICLIFFE.

Is by these shocks exhausted, spiritual truth
Maintains the else endangered gift of life;
Proceeds from infancy to lusty youth;
And, under cover of this woeful strife,

1

Gathers unblighted strength from hour to hour.

47

XVII.

WICLIFFE.

ONCE more the Church is seized with sudden fear,

And at her call is Wicliffe disinhumed;

Yea, his dry bones to ashes are consumed

And flung into the brook that travels near.

Forthwith, that ancient Voice which Streams can hear
Thus speaks (that Voice which walks upon the wind,
Though seldom heard by busy human kind)—
"As thou these ashes, little Brook! wilt bear
"Into the Avon, Avon to the tide

Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas,
"Into main Ocean they, this deed accurst

"An emblem yields to friends and enemies

"How the bold Teacher's Doctrine, sanctified

"

'By truth, shall spread, throughout the world dispersed." *

1 1827.

that

66

1822.

* The Council of Constance condemned Wicliffe as a heretic, and issued an order that his remains should be exhumed, and burnt. 'Accordingly, by order of the Bishop of Lincoln, as Diocesan of Lutherworth, his grave, which was in the chancel of the church, was opened, forty years after his death; the bones were taken out and burnt to ashes, and the ashes thrown into a neighbouring brook called the Swift."-(Southey, Vol I., p. 384). "This brook," says Fuller, "conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main ocean; and thus the ashes of Wicliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over." In the note to the 11th Sonnet of Part I., Wordsworth acknowledges his obligations to Fuller in this Sonnet on Wicliffe.-ED.

XVIII.

CORRUPTIONS OF THE HIGHER CLERGY. "WOE to you, Prelates! rioting in ease

And cumbrous wealth-the shame of your estate;
You, on whose progress dazzling trains await
Of pompous horses; whom vain titles please;
Who will be served by others on their knees,
Yet will yourselves to God no service pay;
Pastors who neither take nor point the way
To Heaven; for, either lost in vanities
Ye have no skill to teach, or if ye know
And speak the word" Alas! of fearful things
'Tis the most fearful when the people's eye
Abuse hath cleared from vain imaginings;
And taught the general voice to prophesy
Of Justice armed, and Pride to be laid low.

XIX.

ABUSE OF MONASTIC POWER.

AND what is penance with her knotted thong,
Mortification with the shirt of hair,

Wan cheek, and knees indùrated with prayer,
Vigils, and fastings rigorous as long;
If cloistered Avarice scruple not to wrong
The pious, humble, useful Secular,*

And rob1 the people of his daily care,

1 1827.

and robs

1822.

* The secular clergy are the priests of the Roman church, who belong to no special religious order, but have the charge of parishes, and so live in the world (seculum). The regularc lergy are the monks belonging to one or other of the monastic orders, and are subject to its rules (regulæ).—ED.

MONASTIC VOLUPTUOUSNESS.

49

Scorning that world whose blindness makes her strong?
Inversion strange that, unto One who lives1
For self, and struggles with himself alone,
The amplest share of heavenly favour gives;
That to a Monk allots, both in the esteem
Of God and man, place higher than to him2
Who on the good of others builds his own!

XX.

MONASTIC VOLUPTUOUSNESS.

YET more,-round many a Convent's blazing fire
Unhallowed threads of revelry are spun;

There Venus sits disguised like a Nun,—
While Bacchus, clothed in semblance of a Friar,
Pours out his choicest beverage high and higher
Sparkling, until it cannot choose but run.
Over the bowl, whose silver lip hath won

An instant kiss of masterful desire

To stay the precious waste. Through every brain
The domination of the sprightly juice

Spreads high conceits to madding Fancy dear,3
Till the arched roof, with resolute abuse

1 1827.

Scorning their wants because her arm is strong?
Inversion strange ! that to a Monk, who lives

1822.

VII.

Spreads the dominion of the sprightly juice,
Through the wide world to madding Fancy dear, 1822.

Ꭰ

Of its grave echoes, swells a choral strain,

Whose votive burthen is-" OUR KINGDOM'S HERE!"

XXI.

DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES.

THREATS come which no submission may assuage,
No sacrifice avert, no power dispute;

The tapers shall be quenched, the belfries mute,
And, 'mid their choirs unroofed by selfish rage,
The warbling wren shall find a leafy cage;
The gadding bramble hang her purple fruit ;
And the green lizard and the gilded newt
Lead unmolested lives, and die of age.†
The owl of evening and the woodland fox
For their abode the shrines of Waltham choose:
Proud Glastonbury can no more refuse

To stoop her head before these desperate shocks-
She whose high pomp displaced, as story tells,
Arimathean Joseph's wattled cells. §

XXII.

THE SAME SUBJECT.

THE lovely Nun (submissive, but more meek
Through saintly habit than from effort due

* See Wordsworth's note to the next Sonnet.-ED.

+ These two lines are adopted from a MS., written about the year 1770, which accidentally fell into my possession. The close of the preceding Sonnet on monastic voluptuousness is taken from the same source, as is the verse, "Where Venus sits," &c., and the line, "Once ye were holy, ye are holy still," in a subsequent Sonnet.-W. W., 1822.

Waltham Abbey is in Essex, on the Lea.-ED.

§ Alluding to the Roman legend that Joseph of Arimathea brought Christianity into Britain, and built Glastonbury Church. See note to Sonnet V.-ED.