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Where oft the swine from ambush warm and dry
Bolt out, and scamper headlong to their sty,
When Giles with well-known voice, already there,
Deigns them a portion of his evening care.

Him, though the cold may picice, and storms molest,

Succeeding hours shall cheer with warmth and rest;
Gladness to spread, and raise the grateful smile,
He hurls the fagot bursting from the pile,
And many a log and rifted trunk conveys,
To heap the fire, and wide extend the blaze,
That quivering strong through every opening flies,
Whilst smoky columns unobstructed rise.
For the rude architect, unknown to fame,
(Nor symmetry nor elegance his aim,)
Who spread his floors of solid oak on high,
On beams rough-hewn, from age to age that lie,
Bade his wide fabric unimpair'd sustain

The orchard's store, and cheese, and golden grain;
Bade, from its central base, capacious laid,
The well-wrought chimney rear its lofty head;
Where since hath many a savory ham been stored,
And tempests howl'd, and Christmas gambols roar'd.
Flat on the hearth the glowing embers lie,
And flames reflected dance in every eye:
There the long billet, forced at last to bend,
While gushing sap froths out at either end,
Throws round its welcome heat:—the ploughman
smiles,

And oft the joke runs hard on sheepish Giles,
Who sits joint tenant of the corner stool,
The converse sharing, though in duty's school;
For now attentively 'tis his to hear,
Interrogations from the master's chair.
"Left ye your bleating charge, when daylight fled,
Near where the haystack lifts its snowy head?
Whose fence of bushy furze, so close and warm,
May stop the slanting bullets of the storm.
For, hark! it blows; a dark and dismal night:
Heaven guide the traveller's fearful steps aright!
Now from the woods mistrustful and sharp-eyed,
The fox in silent darkness seems to glide,
Stealing around us, listening as he goes,
If chance the cock or stammering capon crows,
Or goose, or nodding duck, should darkling cry
As if apprized of lurking danger nigh:
Destruction waits them, Giles, if e'er you fail
To bolt their doors against the driving gale.
Strew'd you (still mindful of th' unshelter'd head)
Burdens of straw, the cattle's welcome bed? [see,
Thine heart should feel, what thou mayst hourly
That duty's basis is humanity.

Of pain's unsavory cup though thou mayst taste,
(The wrath of Winter from the bleak north-east,)
Thine utmost sufferings in the coldest day
A period terminates, and joys repay.
Perhaps e'en now, while here those joys we boast,
Full many a bark rides down the neighbouring coast,
Where the high northern waves tremendous roar,
Drove down by blasts from Norway's icy shore.
The seaboy there, less fortunate than thou,
Feels all thy pains in all the gusts that blow;
His freezing hands now drench'd, now dry, by turns;
Now lost, now seen, the distant light that burns,
On some tall cliff upraised a flaming guide,
That throws its friendly radiance o'er the tide.

His labours cease not with declining day,
But toils and perils mark his watery way;
And whilst in peaceful dreams secure we lie,
The ruthless whirlwinds rage along the sky,
Round his head whistling;-and shalt thou repine,
While this protecting roof still shelters thine!"

Mild as the vernal shower, his words prevail,
And aid the moral precept of his tale:
His wondering hearers learn, and ever keep
These first ideas of the restless deep;
And, as the opening mind a circuit tries,
Present felicities in value rise.

Increasing pleasures every hour they find,
The warmth more precious, and the shelter kind:
Warmth that long reigning bids the eyelids close,
As through the blood its balmy influence goes,
When the cheer'd heart forgets fatigues and cares,
And drowsiness alone dominion bears.

Sweet then the ploughman's slumbers, hale and

young,

When the last topic dies upon his tongue;
Sweet then the bliss his transient dreams inspire,
Till chilblains wake him, or the snapping fire.

He starts, and ever thoughtful of his team,
Along the glittering snow a feeble gleam
Shoots from his lantern, as he yawning goes
To add fresh comforts to their night's repose;
Diffusing fragrance as their food he moves,
And pats the jolly sides of those he loves.
Thus full replenish'd, perfect ease possess'd,
From night till morn alternate food and rest.
No rightful cheer withheld, no sleep debarr'd,
Their each day's labour brings its sure reward.
Yet when from plough or lumbering cart set free,
They taste a while the sweets of liberty:
E'en sober Dobbin lifts his clumsy heel
And kicks, disdainful of the dirty wheel:
But soon, his frolic ended, yields again,
To trudge the road, and wear the chinkling chain.
Shortsighted Dobbin !-thou canst only see
The trivial hardships that encompass thee:
Thy chains were freedom, and thy toils repose:
Could the poor post-horse tell thee all his woes:
Show thee his bleeding shoulders, and unfold
The dreadful anguish he endures for gold:
Hired at each call of business, lust, or rage,
That prompts the traveller on from stage to stage.
Still on his strength depends their boasted speed;
For them his limbs grow weak, his bare ribs
bleed;

And though he groaning quickens at command,
Their extra shilling in the rider's hand
Becomes his bitter scourge:-'tis he must feel
The double efforts of the lash and steel;
Till when, up hill, the destined inn he gains,
And trembling under complicated pains,
Prone from his nostrils, darting on the ground,
His breath emitted floats in clouds around:
Drops chase each other down his chest and sides,
And spatter'd mud his native colour hides:
Through his swoln veins the boiling torrent flows
And every nerve a separate torture knows.
His harness loosed, he welcomes, eager-eyed,
The pail's full draught that quivers by his side;
And joys to see the well-known stable door,
As the starved mariner the friendly shore.

Ah, well for him if here his sufferings ceased,
And ample hours of rest his pains appeased!
But roused again, and sternly bade to rise,
And shake refreshing slumber from his eyes,
Ere his exhausted spirits can return,

Or through his frame reviving ardour burn, [sore,
Come forth he must, though limping, maim'd, and
He hears the whip; the chaise is at the door;-
The collar tightens, and again he feels

His half-heal'd wounds inflamed; again the wheels
With tiresome sameness in his ears resound,
O'er blinding dust, or miles of flinty ground.
Thus nightly robb'd, and injured day by day,
His piecemeal murderers wear his life away.
What say'st thou, Dobbin? what though hounds
await

With open jaws the moment of thy fate,
No better fate attends his public race;
His life is misery, and his end disgrace.
Then freely bear thy burden to the mill:
Obey but one short law,-thy driver's will.
Affection to thy memory ever true,

Shall boast of mighty loads that Dobbin drew;
And back to childhood shall the mind with pride
Recount thy gentleness in many a ride
To pond, or field, or village fair, when thou
Heldst high thy braided mane and comely brow!
And oft the tale shall rise to homely fame
Upon thy generous spirit and thy name.

Though faithful to a proverb we regard
The midnight chieftain of the farmer's yard,
Beneath whose guardianship all hearts rejoice,
Woke by the echo of his hollow voice;
Yet as the hound may faltering quit the pack,
Snuff the fowl scent, and hasten yelping back;
And e'en the docile pointer know disgrace,
Thwarting the general instinct of his race;
E'en so the mastiff, or the meaner cur
At times will from the path of duty err,
(A pattern of fidelity by day:

By night a murderer, lurking for his prey ;)
And round the pastures or the fold will creep,
And coward-like, attack the peaceful sheep.
Alone the wanton mischief he pursues,
Alone in reeking blood his jaws imbrues;
Chasing amain his frighten'd victims round,
Till death in wild confusion strews the ground;
Then wearied out, to kennel sneaks away,
And licks his guilty paws till break of day.

The deed discover'd, and the news once spread,
Vengeance hangs o'er the unknown culprit's head:
And careful shepherds extra hours bestow
In patient watchings for the common foe;
A foe most dreaded now, when rest and peace
Should wait the season of the flock's increase.
In part these nightly terrors to dispel,
Giles, ere he sleeps, his little flock must tell.
From the fireside with many a shrug he hies,
Glad if the full-orb'd moon salute his eyes,
And through th' unbroken stillness of the night
Shed on his path her beams of cheering light.
With sauntering step he climbs the distant stile,
Whilst all around him wears a placid smile;
There views the white-robed clouds in clusters
driven,

And all the glorious pageantry of heaven.

Low, on the utmost boundary of the sight,
The rising vapours catch the silver light;
Thence fancy measures, as they parting fly,
Which first will throw its shadow on the eye,
Passing the source of light; and thence away,
Succeeded quick by brighter still than they.
Far yet above these wafted clouds are seen
(In a remoter sky, still more serene,)
Others, detach'd in ranges through the air,
Spotless as snow, and countless as they're fair,
Scatter'd immensely wide from east to west,
The beauteous semblance of a flock at rest.
These, to the raptured mind, aloud proclaim
Their MIGHTY SHEPHERD's everlasting Name.

Whilst thus the loiterer's utmost stretch of soul Climbs the still clouds, or passes those that roll, And loosed imagination soaring goes

High o'er his home, and all his little woes,
Time glides away; neglected duty calls;
At once from plains of light to earth he falls,
And down a narrow lane, well known by day,
With all his speed pursues his sounding way,
In thought still half-absorb'd, and chill'd with cold,
When lo! an object frightful to behold;

A grisly spectre, clothed in silver-gray,
Around whose feet the waving shadow's play,
Stands in his path!-He stops, and not a breath
Heaves from his heart, that sinks almost to death.
Loud the owl halloos o'er his head unseen;
All else is silent, dismally serene:
Some prompt ejaculation, whisper'd low,
Yet bears him up against the threatening foe;
And thus poor Giles, though half inclined to fly,
Mutters his doubts, and strains his steadfast eye.
""Tis not my crimes thou comest here to reprove;
No murders stain my soul, no perjured love;
If thou'rt indeed what here thou seem'st to be,
Thy dreadful mission cannot reach to me.
By parents taught still to mistrust mine eyes,
Still to approach each object of surprise,
Lest fancy's formful visions should deceive
In moonlight paths, or glooms of falling eve,
This then's the moment when my mind should try
To scan thy motionless deformity;

But O, the fearful task! yet well I know
An aged ash, with many a spreading bough,
(Beneath whose leaves I've found a summer's bower,
Beneath whose trunk I've weather'd many a
shower,)

Stands singly down this solitary way,
But far beyond where now my footsteps stay.
'Tis true, thus far I've come with heedless haste;
No reckoning kept, no passing objects traced:
And can I then have reach'd that very tree?
Or is its reve end form assumed by thee?"
The happy thought alleviates his pain:
He creeps another step; then stops again:
Till slowly, as his noiseless feet draw near,
Its perfect lineaments at once appear;
Its crown of shivering ivy whispering peace,
And its white bark that fronts the moon's pale face.
Now, whilst his blood mounts upward, now he
knows

The solid gain that from conviction flows;
And strengthen'd confidence shall hence fulfil
(With conscious innocence more valued still

The dreariest task that winter nights can bring,
By churchyard dark, or grove, or fairy ring;
Still buoying up the timid mind of youth,
Till loitering reason hoists the scale of truth.
With these blest guardians Giles his course pursues,
Till numbering his heavy-sided ewes,
Surrounding stillness tranquillize his breast,
And shape the dreams that wait his hours of rest.
As when retreating tempests we behold,
Whose skirts at length the azure sky unfold,
And full of murmurings and mingled wrath,
Slowly unshroud the smiling face of earth,
Bringing the bosom joy; so Winter flies!--
And see the source of life and light uprise!
A heightening arch o'er southern hills he bends;
Warm on the cheek the slanting beam descends,
And gives the reeking mead a brighter hue,
And draws the modest primrose bud to view.
Yet frosts succeed, and winds impetuous rush,
And hailstorms rattle through the budding bush;
And nigh-fall'n lambs require the shepherd's care,
And teeming ewes, that still their burdens bear;
Beneath whose sides to-morrow's dawn may see
The milk-white strangers bow the trembling knee;
At whose first birth the powerful instinct's seen
That fills with champions the daisied green:
For ewes that stood aloof with fearful eye,
With stamping foot now men and dogs defy,
And obstinately faithful to their young,
Guard their first steps to join the bleating throng.
But casualties and death from damps and cold
Will still attend the well-conducted fold:
Her tender offspring dead, the dam aloud
Calls, and runs wild amidst th' unconscious crowd;
And orphan'd sucklings raise the piteous cry;
No wool to warm them, no defenders nigh.
And must her streaming milk then flow in vain?
Must unregarded innocence complain?
No-ere this strong solicitude subside,
Maternal fondness may be fresh applied,
And the adopted stripling still may find
A parent most assiduously kind.

For this he's doom'd awhile disguised to range,
(For fraud or force must work the wish'd-for
change ;)

For this his predecessor's skin he wears,
Till, cheated into tenderness and cares,
The unsuspecting dam, contented grown,
Cherish and guard the foundling as her own.

Thus all by turns to fair perfection rise;
Thus twins are parted to increase their size:
Thus instinct yields as interest points the way,
Till the bright flock, augmenting every day,
On sunny hills and vales of springing flowers,
With ceaseless clamour greet the vernal hours.

The humbler shepherd here with joy beholds
Th' approved economy of crowded folds,
And, in his small contracted round of cares,
Adjusts the practice of each hint he hears:
For boys with emulation learn to glow,
And boast their pastures, and their healthful show
Of well-grown lambs, the glory of the Spring;
And field to field in competition bring.

E'en Giles, for all his cares and watchings past,
And all his contests with the wintry blast,
Claims a full share of that sweet praise bestow'd
By gazing neighbours, when along the road,
Or village green, his curly-coated throng
Suspends the chorus of the spinner's song;
When admiration's unaffected grace
Lisps from the tongue, and beams in every face.
Delightful moments!-Sunshine, health, and joy,
Play round, and cheer the elevated boy!
"Another spring!" his heart exulting cries;
"Another year! with promised blessings rise!-
ETERNAL POWER! from whom those blessings
flow,

Teach me still more to wonder, more to know!
Seed-time and harvest let me see again;
Wander the leaf-strewn wood, the frozen plain :
Let the first flower, corn-waving field, plain, tree,
Here round my home, still lift my soul to THEE;
And let me ever, midst thy bounties, raise
An humble note of thankfulness and praise!"

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

scription of the Scenery of the Lakes in the North of England, with illustrative remarks on the scenery of the Alps. His last publication was Yarrow Revisited, which appeared in 1834.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, the founder of what is | morials of a Tour on the Continent; also a Decalled the Lake school of poetry, was born in 1770, of a respectable family, at Cockermouth, in Cumberland. He received his early education at the grammar-school of Hawkshead, where he greatly excelled in his classical studies, and was remark- The genius of Mr. Wordsworth has been a matter able for his thoughtful disposition, and taste for of critical dispute ever since he first made pretension poetry, in which he made his first attempt, when at to any, and it is yet a question with some, whether the age of thirteen. In 1787, he was removed to his productions are not those of " an inspired idiot." St. John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated It would be, however, useless to deny him the B. A. and M. A.; and, in 1793, he published a reputation of a poet, though between the equally poetical account of a pedestrian tour on the conti- extravagant adoration and censure, of which he has nent, entitled Descriptive Sketches in Verse, &c., been the object, it is difficult to define the exact followed by the Evening Walk, an epistle, in verse, position which will be ultimately assigned him in addressed to a young lady. In alluding to the De- the rank of literature. Coleridge, who, as might be scriptive Sketches, says Coleridge," seldom, if ever, expected, is one of his most enthusiastic admirers, was the emergence of an original poetic genius says that, "in imaginative powers, Wordsworth above the literary horizon more evidently an- stands nearest of all modern writers to Shakspeare nounced." After wandering about in various parts and Milton, and yet in a kind perfectly unborrowed, of England, our author took a cottage at Alforton, and his own." The author of an essay on his in Somersetshire, near the then residence of Cole- theory and writings, printed in Blackwood's Maridge, where they were regarded by the good peo- gazine for 1830, gives a very fair estimate of his ple of the neighbourhood as spies and agents of the poetical genius. "The variety of subjects," he French Directory. Our benevolent author, however, observes, "which Wordsworth has touched; the appears to have been considered the more dangerous varied powers which he has displayed; the passages character of the two. "As to Coleridge," one of the of redeeming beauty interspersed even amongst the parish authorities is said to have remarked, "there worst and dullest of his productions; the originis not so much harm in him, for he is a wild brain ality of detached thoughts, scattered throughout that talks whatever comes uppermost; but that works, to which, on the whole, we must deny the (Wordsworth) he is the dark traitor. You praise of originality; the deep pathos, and occanever hear him say a syllable on the subject." In sional grandeur of his style; the real poetical 1798, he published a volume of his Lyrical Ballads, feeling which generally runs through its many which met with much abuse and few admirers, but modulations; his accurate observation of external those who applauded, applauded enthusiastically. nature; and the success with which he blends the purest and most devotional thoughts with the glories of the visible universe-all these are merits, which so far make up in number what they want in weight,' that, although insufficient to raise him to the shrine, they fairly admit him within the sacred temple of poesy." For our own parts, though we are not among those who call, as some of his admirers do, the poetry of Wordsworth “an actual revelation," we admit to have found in his works beauties which no other poet, perhaps, could have struck out of the peculiar sphere to which he has confined his imagination. His Recollections of Early Childhood, and a few others, are sublime compositions; whilst, on the other hand, his lines to a Glow-worm, et id omne genus, are despicable and ridiculous.

In 1803, he married a Miss Mary Hutchinson, of Penrith, and settled at Grassmere, in Westmoreland, for which county, as well as that of Cumberland, he was subsequently appointed distributor of stamps. In 1807, he gave to the public a second volume of his Ballads; and, in 1809, with an intention to recommend a vigorous prosecution of the war with Spain, he published his only prose production, concerning the relations of Great Britain, Spain, and Portugal to each other. In 1814, appeared, in quarto, his Excursion, a poem, which has been highly extolled, and is undoubtedly one of his most original and best compositions. It was followed, in 1815, by the White Doe of Rylstone; and, in 1819, by his Peter Bell, to the merits of which we must confess ourselves strangers. During the same year, he published his Wagonner, a tale; followed, in 1820, by the River Duddon, a series of sonnets; and Vaudracour and Julia, with other pieces; and Ecclesiastical Sketches. In 1822, he printed Me

The private character of Mr. Wordsworth has never been impeached by his most virulent enemies, if he has any; and no man is more esteemed and respected for his amiable qualities.

THE EXCURSION,

BEING A PORTION OF THE RECLUSE.

PREFACE.

he had not thought that the labour bestowed by him upon what he has heretofore and now laid before the public, entitled him to candid attention for such a statement as he thinks necessary to throw light upon his endeavours to please, and he would hope, to benefit his countrymen.-Nothing further need be added, than that the first and third parts of the Recluse will consist chiefly of meditations in the author's own person; and that in the intermediate part (the Excursion) the intervention of characters speaking is employed, and something of a dramatic form adopted.

It is not the author's intention formally to announce a system: it was more animating to him to proceed in a different course; and if he shall succeed in conveying to the mind clear thoughts, lively images, and strong feelings, the reader will have no difficulty in extracting the system for himself. And in the mean time the following passage, taken from the conclusion of the first book of the Recluse, may be acceptable as a kind of prospectus of the design and scope of the whole poem.

"On man, on nature, and on human life,
Musing in solitude, I oft perceive
Fair trains of imagery before me rise,
Accompanied by feelings of delight
Pure, or with no unpleasing sadness mixt;
And I am conscious of affecting thoughts
And dear remembrances whose presence soothes
Or elevates the mind, intent to weigh
The good and evil of our mortal state.

Whether from breath of outward circumstance,
Or from the soul-an impulse to herself,
I would give utterance in numerous verse.

THE title announces that this is only a portion of a poem ; and the reader must be here apprized that it belongs to the second part of a long and laborious work which is to consist of three parts. -The author will candidly acknowledge that, if the first of these had been completed, and in such a manner as to satisfy his own mind, he should have preferred the natural order of publication, and have given that to the world first; but, as the second division of the work was designed to refer more to passing events, and to an existing state of things, than the others were meant to do, more continuous exertion was naturally bestowed upon it, and greater progress made here than in the rest of the poem; and as this part does not depend upon the preceding, to a degree which will materially injure its own peculiar interest, the author, complying with the earnest entreaties of some valued friends, presents the following pages to the public. It may be proper to state whence the poem, of which the Excursion is a part, derives its title of the Recluse. Several years ago, when the author retired to his native mountains, with the hope of being enabled to construct a literary work that might live, it was a reasonable thing that he should take a review of his own mind, and examine how-To these emotions, whensoe'er they come, far nature and education had qualified him for such employment. As subsidiary to this preparation, he undertook to record, in verse, the origin and progress of his own powers, as far as he was acquaint-Of truth, of grandeur, beauty, love, and hopeed with them. That work, addressed to a dear friend, most distinguished for his knowledge and genius, and to whom the author's intellect is deeply indebted, has been long finished; and the result of the investigation which gave rise to it was a determination to compose a philosophical poem, containing views of man, nature, and society; and to be entitled, the Recluse; as having for its principal subject the sensations and opinions of a poet living in retirement.-The preparatory poem is biographical, and conducts the history of the author's mind to the point when he was imboldened to hope that his faculties were sufficiently matured for entering upon the arduous labour which he had proposed to himself; and the two works have the same kind of relation to each other, if he may so express himself, as the antichapel has to the body of a Gothic church. Continuing this allusion, he may be permitted to add, that his minor pieces, which have been long before the public, when they shall be properly arranged, will be found by the attentive reader to have such connexion with the main work as may give them claim to be likened to the little cells, oratories, and sepulchral recesses, ordinarily included in those edifices.

And melancholy fear subdued by faith;
Of blessed consolations in distress;
Of moral strength, and intellectual power;
Of joy in widest commonalty spread;
Of the individual mind that keeps her own
Inviolate retirement, subject there
To conscience only, and the law supreme
Of that Intelligence which governs all ;
I sing: fit audience let me find though few!'
"So pray'd, more gaining than he ask'd, the
bard,

Holiest of men.-Urania, I shall need
Thy guidance, or a greater muse, if such
Descend to earth or dwell in highest heaven!
For I must tread on shadowy ground, must sink
Deep-and, aloft ascending, breathe in world
To which the heaven of heavens is but a veil.
All strength-all terror, single or in bands,
That ever was put forth in personal form;
Jehovah with his thunder, and the choir
Of shouting angels, and the empyreal thrones-
I pass them unalarm'd. Not chaos, not
The darkest pit of lowest Erebus,
Nor aught of blinder vacancy-scoop'd out
By help of dreams, can breed such fear and awe
As fall upon us often when we look
The author would not have deemed himself Into our minds, into the mind of man,
justified in saying, upon this occasion, so much of My haunt, and the main region of my song.
performances either unfinished, or unpublished, if | —Beauty—a living presence of the earth,

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