Hail, Bards of mightier grasp! on you I chiefly call, the chosen Few, Who cast-not off the acknowledged guide, 55 Who faltered not, nor turned aside; Whose lofty genius could survive Privation, under sorrow thrive; In whom the fiery Muse revered The symbol of a snow-white beard, 60 Bedewed with meditative tears Dropped from the lenient cloud of years. Brothers in soul! though distant times Produced you nursed in various climes, Ye, when the orb of life had waned, 65 A plenitude of love retained: Hence, while in you each sad regret By corresponding hope was met, Ye lingered among human kind, Sweet voices for the passing wind; 70 Departing sunbeams, loth to stop, Though smiling on the last hill top![898] Such to the tender-hearted maid Even ere her joys begin to fade; Such, haply, to the rugged chief 75 By fortune crushed, or tamed by grief; Appears, on Morven's lonely shore, Dim-gleaming through imperfect lore, The Son of Fingal; such was blind Mæonides of ampler mind;[899] 80 Such Milton, to the fountain head Of glory by Urania led! FOOTNOTES: [892] This poem was first published among the _Poems of Sentiment and_ _Reflection_ in the edition of 1827. In the edition of 1836 Wordsworth gave 1824 as the year of its composition. It is here printed in the series to which it was finally assigned, although slightly out of its chronological place.--ED. [893] Hartley Coleridge.--ED. [894] See p. 117.--ED. [895] 1832. ... caught from fitful breeze 1827. [896] The genuine Orphic Literature included some Hymns, a Theogony, Oracles, Songs, and Sacred Legends, #hieroi logoi#: but none have come down to modern times. The _Orphica_ which have survived are spurious.--ED. [897] None of the fragments attributed to Musæus by the ancients--the #Chrêsmoi#, #Hypothêkai#, #Theogonia#, etc.--have survived.--ED. [898] Compare vol. ii. p. 163-- There is an Eminence,--of these our hills The last that parleys with the setting sun.--ED. [899] Homer; so called from the fact that Mæonia in Lydia was, by some, claimed as his birth-place.--ED. XXVIII CAVE OF STAFFA[900]