The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth — Volume 8 (of 8)

Name: The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth — Volume 8 (of 8)
Author: Wordsworth, William

Wordsworth, William

English poetry -- 18th century; English poetry -- 19th century

O still belov’d (for thine, meek Power, are charms
    That fascinate the very Babe in arms,
    While he, uplifted towards thee, laughs outright,
    Spreading his little palms in his glad Mother’s sight)            20
    O still belov’d, once worshipped! Time, that frowns
    In his destructive flight on earthly crowns,
    Spares thy mild splendour; still those far-shot beams
    Tremble on dancing waves and rippling streams
    With stainless touch, as chaste as when thy praise                25
    Was sung by Virgin-choirs in festal lays;
    And through dark trials still dost thou explore
    Thy way for increase punctual as of yore,
    When teeming Matrons--yielding to rude faith
    In mysteries of birth and life and death                          30
    And painful struggle and deliverance--prayed
    Of thee to visit them with lenient aid.
    What though the rites be swept away, the fanes
    Extinct that echoed to the votive strains;
    Yet thy mild aspect does not, cannot, cease                       35
    Love to promote and purity and peace;
    And Fancy, unreproved, even yet may trace
    Faint types of suffering in thy beamless face.

      Then, silent Monitress! let us--not blind
    To worlds unthought of till the searching mind                    40
    Of Science laid them open to mankind--
    Told, also, how the voiceless heavens declare
    God’s glory; and acknowledging thy share
    In that blest charge; let us--without offence
    To aught of highest, holiest, influence--                         45
    Receive whatever good ’tis given thee to dispense.
    May sage and simple, catching with one eye
    The moral intimations of the sky,
    Learn from thy course, where’er their own be taken,
    “To look on tempests, and be never shaken”;[20]                   50
    To keep with faithful step the appointed way
    Eclipsing or eclipsed, by night or day,
    And from example of thy monthly range
    Gently to brook decline and fatal change;
    Meek, patient, stedfast, and with loftier scope,                  55
    Than thy revival yields, for gladsome hope![21]

[19] Compare _The Triad_, vol. vii. p. 181.--ED.

[20] Compare l. 6 of Shakespeare’s sonnet, beginning--

    Let me not to the marriage of true minds.

ED.

[21] See a fragment of ten lines, which was written by Wordsworth in
MS. after the above, in a copy of his poems. They are printed in the
Appendix to this volume.--ED.


WRITTEN AFTER THE DEATH OF CHARLES LAMB

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth — Volume 8 (of 8)

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