For natural rights, a mockery and a shame;
Law but a servile dupe of false pretence,
If, guarding grossest things from common claim
Now and for ever, she, to works that came
From mind and spirit, grudge a short-lived fence.
"What! lengthened privilege, a lineal tie,
For Books!" Yes, heartless Ones, or be it proved
That 't is a fault in Us to have lived and loved
Like others, with like temporal hopes to die;
No public harm that Genius from her course
Be turned; and streams of truth dried up, even at
their source !

XXXIX.

VALEDICTORY SONNET.

Closing the Volume of Sonnets published in 1888. SERVING no haughty Muse, my hands have here Disposed some cultured Flowerets (drawn from spots

Where they bloomed singly, or in scattered knots),
Each kind in several beds of one parterre;
Both to allure the casual Loiterer,

And that, so placed, my Nurslings may requite
Studious regard with opportune delight,
Nor be unthanked, unless I fondly err.
But metaphor dismissed, and thanks apart,
Reader, farewell! My last words let them be, -
If in this book Fancy and Truth agree;
If simple Nature trained by careful Art

Through It have won a passage to thy heart;
Grant me thy love, I crave no other fee!

XL.

TO THE REV. CHRISTOPHER WORDSWORTH, D.D., MASTER OF HARROW SCHOOL,

After the perusal of his Theophilus Anglicanus, recently published.

ENLIGHTENED Teacher, gladly from thy hand
Have I received this proof of pains bestowed
By thee to guide thy Pupils on the road
That, in our native isle, and every land,
The Church, when trusting in divine command
And in her Catholic attributes, hath trod:
O may these lessons be with profit scanned
To thy heart's wish, thy labor blest by God!
So the bright faces of the young and gay

Shall look more bright, the happy, happier still;

Catch, in the pauses of their keenest play,
Motions of thought which elevate the will,
And, like the Spire that from your classic Hill
Points heavenward, indicate the end and way.
Rydal Mount, Dec. 11, 1843.

XLI.

TO THE PLANET VENUS,

Upon its approximation (as an Evening Star) to the Earth, Jan. 1838.

WHAT strong allurement draws, what spirit guides, Thee, Vesper! brightening still, as if the nearer

Thou com'st to man's abode the spot grew dearer
Night after night? True is it Nature hides
Her treasures less and less. · Man now presides
In power, where once he trembled in his weakness;
Science advances with gigantic strides ;

But are we aught enriched in love and meekness?
Aught dost thou see, bright Star! of pure and wise
More than in humbler times graced human story;
That makes our hearts more apt to sympathize
With heaven, our souls more fit for future glory,
When earth shall vanish from our closing eyes,
Ere we lie down in our last dormitory?

XLII.

WANSFELL!* this Household has a favored lot, Living with liberty on thee to gaze,

To watch while Morn first crowns thee with her

rays,

Or when along thy breast serenely float
Evening's angelic clouds. Yet ne'er a note

Hath sounded (shame upon the Bard!) thy praise
For all that thou, as if from heaven, hast brought
Of glory lavished on our quiet days.
Bountiful Son of Earth! when we are gone
From every object dear to mortal sight,
As soon we shall be, may these words attest
How oft, to elevate our spirits, shone

* The Hill that rises to the southeast, above Ambleside.

.

Thy visionary majesties of light,

How in thy pensive glooms our hearts found rest.

Dec. 24, 1842.

XLIII.

WHILE beams of orient light shoot wide and high, Deep in the vale a little rural Town*

Breathes forth a cloud-like creature of its own,
That mounts not toward the radiant morning sky,
But, with a less ambitious sympathy,

Hangs o'er its Parent waking to the cares,
Troubles, and toils that every day prepares.
So Fancy, to the musing Poet's eye,

Endears that Lingerer. And how blest her sway
Like influence never may my soul reject)
If the calm Heaven, now to its zenith decked
With glorious forms in numberless array,

To the lone shepherd on the hills disclose
Gleams from a world in which the saints repose.

ly my mind's eye a Temple, like a cloud Slowy surmounting some invidious hill

Kose out of darkness: the bright Work stood still; And might of its own beauty have been proud,

Ambleside.

But it was fashioned and to God was vowed
By Virtues that diffused, in every part,
Spirit divine through forms of human art :
Faith had her arch, - her arch, when winds blow
loud,

Into the consciousness of safety thrilled;

And Love her towers of dread foundation laid Under the grave of things; Hope had her spire Star-high, and pointing still to something higher: Trembling I gazed, but heard a voice, it said, "Hell-gates are powerless Phantoms when we build."

XLV.

ON THE PROJECTED KENDAL AND WINDERMERE RAILWAY

Is then no nook of English ground secure
From rash assault?* Schemes of retirement sown
In youth, and 'mid the busy world kept pure
As when their earliest flowers of hope were blown,
Must perish;
how can they this blight endure?

* The degree and kind of attachment which many of the yeomanry feel to their small inheritances can scarcely be overrated. Near the house of one of them stands a magnificent tree, which a neighbor of the owner advised him to fell for profit's sake. "Fell it!" exclaimed the yeoman, “ I had rather fall on my knees and worship it." It happens, I believe, that the intended railway would pass through this little property, and I hope that an apology for the answer will not be thought necessary by one who enters into the strength of the feeling.