Reluctant call it was; the rite delayed; And in the Senate some there were who doffed The last of their humanity, and scoffed At providential judgments,[764] undismayed By their own daring. But the People prayed 5 As with one voice; their flinty heart grew soft With penitential sorrow, and aloft Their spirit mounted, crying, "God us aid!" Oh that with aspirations more intense, Chastised by self-abasement more profound, 10 This People, once[765] so happy, so renowned For liberty, would seek from God defence Against far heavier ill, the pestilence[766] Of revolution, impiously unbound! FOOTNOTES: [763] 1837. The title in 1832 was SONNET ON THE LATE GENERAL FAST, MARCH 21, 1832. [764] 1840. ... judgment, ... 1832. [765] 1837. Oh that with soul-aspirings more intense And heart-humiliations more profound This People, long ... 1832. [766] The fast was appointed because of an outbreak of cholera in England.--ED. 1833 The most important of the poems written in 1833 were the Memorials of the Tour undertaken during the summer of that year. They refer to several Cumbrian localities, to the Isle of Man, to the Clyde, the Western Islands of Scotland, and again to Cumberland.--ED. A WREN'S NEST Composed 1833.--Published 1835 [Written at Rydal Mount. This nest was built, as described, in a tree that grows near the pool in Dora's field, next the Rydal Mount garden.[767]--I. F.] One of the "Poems of the Fancy."--ED. Among the dwellings framed by birds In field or forest with nice care, Is none that with the little Wren's In snugness may compare. No door the tenement requires, 5 And seldom needs a laboured roof; Yet is it to the fiercest sun Impervious, and storm-proof. So warm, so beautiful withal, In perfect fitness for its aim, 10 That to the Kind by special grace Their instinct surely came. And when for their abodes they seek An opportune recess, The hermit has no finer eye 15 For shadowy quietness. These find, 'mid ivied abbey-walls, A canopy in some still nook; Others are pent-housed by a brae That overhangs a brook. 20 There to the brooding bird her mate Warbles by fits his low clear song; And by the busy streamlet both Are sung to all day long. Or in sequestered lanes they build, 25 Where, till the flitting bird's return, Her eggs within the nest repose, Like relics in an urn. But still, where general choice is good, There is a better and a best; 30 And, among fairest objects, some Are fairer than the rest;