Roused by the kindliest of May-showers, The spirit quickener of the flowers, That with moist virtue softly cleaves The buds, and freshens the young leaves, The birds pour forth their souls in notes Of rapture from a thousand throats— Here checked by too impetuous haste, While there the music runs to waste, With bounty more and more enlarged Till the whole air is overcharged. Give ear, O man, to their appeal, And thirst for no inferior zeal, Thou, who canst _think_ as well as _feel_. —— Alas! the sanctities combined By art to unsensualize the mind, Decay and languish; or, as creeds And humors change, are spurned like weeds: And priests are from their altars thrust; Temples are leveled with the dust; _And solemn rites and awful forms_ _Founder amid fanatic storms,_ Yet evermore, through years renewed In undisturbed vicissitude, Of seasons balancing their flight On the swift wings of day and night, _Kind Nature keeps a heavenly door_ _Wide open for the scattered Poor,_ _Where flower-breathed incense to the skies_ _Is wafted in mute harmonies;_ _And ground fresh cloven by the plough_ _Is fragrant with a humbler vow;_ _Where birds and brooks from leafy dells_ _Chime forth unwearied canticles,_ _And vapors magnify and spread_ _The glory of the sun’s bright head_— Still constant in her worship, still Conforming to the eternal Will, Whether men sow or reap the fields Divine monition Nature yields, That not by bread alone we live, Or what a hand of flesh can give; That every day should leave some part Free for a sabbath of the heart. On the death of Southey, Wordsworth was appointed Poet Laureate. The latter years of his life were passed in undisturbed serenity, and he appears to have retained his faculties to the last. His old age, like his youth and mature manhood, illustrated the truth of his poetic teachings, and proves that poetry had taught him the true theory of life. One cannot contemplate him during the last ten years of his existence, without being forcibly impressed with his own doctrine regarding the lover of nature: Thy thoughts and feelings shall not die, Nor leave thee when old age is nigh A melancholy slave; _But an old age serene and bright,_ _And lovely as a Lapland night,_ _Shall lead thee to thy grave._