The mother, in her turns of anguish, worse
Than desolate; for ofttimes from the sound
Of the survivor's sweetest voice (dear child,
He knew it not) and from his happiest looks,
Did she extract the food of self-reproach,
As one that lived ungrateful for the stay
By Heaven afforded to uphold her maimed
And tottering spirit. And full oft the boy,
Now first acquainted with distress and grief,

So clear, so bright, our fathers said
He wears a jewel in his head!
And when, upon some showery day,
Into a path or public way

A frog leaps out from bordering grass,
Startling the timid as they pass,
Do you observe him, and endeavour
To take the intruder into favour;
Learning from him to find a reason

Shrunk from his mother's presence, shunned with fear For a light heart in a dull season.
Her sad approach, and stole away to find,

In his known haunts of joy where'er he might,
A more congenial object. But, as time
Softened her pangs and reconciled the child
To what he saw, he gradually returned,
Like a scared bird encouraged to renew
A broken intercourse; and, while his eyes
Were yet with pensive fear and gentle awe
Turned upon her who bore him, she would stoop
To imprint a kiss that lacked not power to spread
Faint colour over both their pallid cheeks,
And stilled his tremulous lip. Thus they were calmed
And cheered; and now together breathe fresh air
In open fields; and when the glare of day
Is gone, and twilight to the mother's wish
Befriends the observance, readily they join

In walks whose boundary is the lost one's grave,
Which he with flowers hath planted, finding there
Amusement, where the mother does not miss
Dear consolation, kneeling on the turf
In prayer, yet blending with that solemn rite
Of pious faith the vanities of grief;
For such, by pitying Angels and by Spirits
Transferred to regions upon which the clouds
Of our weak nature rest not, must be deemed
Those willing tears, and unforbidden sighs,
And all those tokens of a cherished sorrow,

And you may love him in the pool,
That is for him a happy school,
In which he swims as taught by nature,
Fit pattern for a human creature,
Glancing amid the water bright,
And sending upward sparkling light.

Nor blush if o'er your heart be stealing
A love for things that have no feeling:
The Spring's first rose by you espied,
May fill your breast with joyful pride;
And you may love the strawberry-flower,
And love the strawberry in its bower;
But when the fruit, so often praised
For beauty, to your lip is raised,
Say not you love the delicate treat,
But like it, enjoy it, and thankfully eat.

Long may you love your pensioner mouse,
Though one of a tribe that torment the house:
Nor dislike for her cruel sport the cat,
Deadly foe both of mouse and rat;
Remember she follows the law of her kind,
And instinct is neither wayward nor blind.
Then think of her beautiful gliding form,
Her tread that would scarcely crush a worm,
And her soothing song by the winter fire,

Which, soothed and sweetened by the grace of Heaven Soft as the dying throb of the lyre.

NOTES

ΤΟ

POEMS FOUNDED ON THE AFFECTIONS.

Note, p. 87.

"The Brothers."

[Extract from a letter addressed by Wordsworth to Charles James Fox in 1802, and accompanying a copy of the Poems:

"In the two poems, 'The Brothers' and 'Michael,' I have attempted to draw a picture of the domestic affections, as I know they exist amongst a class of men who are now almost confined to the north of England. They are small independent proprietors of land, here called statesmen,' men of respectable education, who daily labour on their own little properties. The domestic affections will always be strong amongst men who live in a country not crowded with population; if these men are placed above poverty. But, if they are proprietors of small estates which have descended to them from

The letter from which this extract is made, was published in 1838, by Sir Henry Bunbury, among some miscellaneous letters in his "Correspondence of Sir Thomas Hanmer, etc.," p. 436.

It is this poem of which Coleridge said "THE BROTHERS, that model of English pastoral, which I never yet read with unclouded eye." Biographia Literaria, Vol. II., chap. v., p. 85, Note, Edit. of 1847. And Southey, writing to Coleridge, July 11, 1801, says :"God bless Wordsworth for that poem! (THE BROTHERS.")" Life and Correspondence of Southey, Vol. II., p. 150, chap. viii. — H. R.]

Page 96.

'I travelled among unknown men.'
["Amongst the Poems founded on the Affections is
one called, from its first line, 'I travelled among un-
known men,' which ends with these lines, wherein the
poet addresses his native land :

Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed
The bowers where Lucy played;
And thine too is the last green field

That Lucy's eyes surveyed.

their ancestors, the power which these affections will acquire amongst such men, is inconceivable by those who have only had an opportunity of observing hired labourers, farmers, and the manufacturing poor. Their little tract of land serves as a kind of permanent rallying point for their domestic feelings, as a tablet upon which they are written, which makes them objects of memory in a thousand instances when they would A friend, a true poet himself, to whom I owe some new otherwise be forgotten. It is a fountain fitted to the insight into the merits of Mr. Wordsworth's poetry, nature of social man, from which supplies of affection and who showed me to my surprise, that there were as pure as his heart was intended for, are daily drawn. nooks in that rich and varied region, some of the shy This class of men is rapidly disappearing. You, Sir, treasures of which I was not perfectly acquainted with, have a consciousness, upon which every good man will first made me feel the great beauty of this stanza; in congratulate you, that the whole of your public conduct which the poet, as it were, spreads day and night over has in one way or other been directed to the preservation the object of his affections, and seems, under the influof this class of men, and those who hold similar situa-ence of passionate feeling, to think of England, whether tions. You have felt that the most sacred of all pro- in light or darkness, only as her play-place and verdant perty is the property of the poor. The two poems home.-S. C." (Sara Coleridge.) Biographia Litethat I have mentioned were written with a view to raria of S. T. Coleridge, Vol. II., chap. ix., p. 173, Note, show that men who do not wear fine cloaths can feel Edit. of 1847.-H. R.] deeply. Pectus enim est quod disertos facit, et vis mentis. Ideoque imperitis quoque, si modo sint aliquo affectu concitati, verba non desunt.' The poems are faithful copies from nature; and I hope whatever effect [In his editions of 1845 and 1850, the author has exthey may have upon you, you will at least be able to perceive that they may excite profitable sympathies included the following stanza, which was the second in many kind and good hearts; and may in some small this piece in the earlier editions, to the readers of which degree enlarge our feelings of reverence for our species, it had become familiar, and is therefore preserved in and our knowledge of human nature, by showing that our best qualities are possessed by men whom we are too apt to consider, not with reference to the points in which they resemble us, but to those in which they manifestly differ from us."

R

this note:

Page 98.

'Let other bards of angels sing.

Such if thou wert in all men's view,

A universal show,

What would my fancy have to do?

My feelings to bestow? - H. R.]