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 A TREASURY OF ENGLISH SONNETS
 
 A TREASURY 
 
 ENGLISH SONNETS 
 
 EDITED 
 
 FROM THE ORIGINAL SOURCES WITH NOTES 
 AND ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 BY 
 
 DAVID M.,MAIN 
 
 NEW YORK 
 R. WORTHINGTON, 770 BROADWAY 
 
 MDCCCLXXXI
 
 Copyright, 
 
 1881, 
 
 Bv R. WORTHINGTON.
 
 Sable of (Eontents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface ----- vii. 
 
 Book First - - - - - i 
 
 Book Second - - - - 79 
 
 Notes to Book First - _ - - 237 
 
 Notes to Book Second - - 35 ^ 
 
 Index of Authors - - - 453 
 
 Index of Living Writers - - 45^ 
 
 Index of First Lines - - - 457
 
 ^, I]ob fairc frnfes mag jron ta mortall men 
 Jrrom iriisbomts gnrbcit gciu ? fjofo mauii man 
 ^jj jjou tl}£ foisfr aui) lljc better prone ? 
 
 Nicholas Grimauld. Totters Miscellany: 1557-
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The aim of this work is to provide students and lovers of good 
 poetry with a comprehensive Selection of the best original Son- 
 fiets known to the Editor, written by native English poets not 
 living; and to illustrate it from English poetical and prose 
 literature. 
 
 In pursuance of the pla7i adopted, the volwne falls into two 
 equal portions, — Text and Notes. The first is devoted to Son- 
 nets by those writers who have attained the highest, or nearly 
 the highest, excellence in this species of composition; and the 
 second, which is specially intended for studeiits, to a liberal 
 system of illustration, furnishing a complete critical apparatus 
 for the study of the Sonnets in the Text, and containing nume- 
 rous supplementary Sonnets by the same writers and others of 
 the past suggested by thejn. Throughout this portion also have 
 been interspersed, as occasion offered, examples from some of our 
 best living sonnet- writers; but it will be obvious that these, 
 which come in simply by the way, and form no essential part 
 of the work, are not submitted as affording any adequate repre- 
 sentation of our co7itemporary Sonnet-literature. 
 
 Definitions of the Sonnet have been so frequent since the 
 present work was first taken in hand, now some years ago, as 
 to determine the Editor not to encumber his volume with the 
 
 vii
 
 viii - PREFACE 
 
 analytical Essay on the Sonnet out of which it originally gre7V. 
 It may be mentioned, however, that the Selection, generally, has 
 been made in accordance with principles enforced in that Essay, 
 which — with all deference to such rigid disciplinarians as 
 Mr. Tomlinson — favoured a relaxation, so far as English 
 practice is concerned, of marly every law in the Italian code 
 except the two cardinal ones which demajid that the Sonnet 
 shall consist of fourteen rimed decasyllabic verses, and be a 
 develop?nejit of one idea, mood, feeling, or sentiment, — and ojie 
 only. 
 
 By reducing the contents of the Text to the orthography of 
 the present day — a wholesome test of poetic vitality — and 
 adhering, in all quotations in the Notes, to the successive contem- 
 porary modes of spelling and [when admissible) punctuation, 
 the Editor trusts that he has avoided offence to the advocates 
 either of the archaic method on the one hand, or of the modern 
 on the other. 
 
 To the respective owners by 7vhose liberality so large a 
 number of copyright Somiets are inserted ; and to the many 
 good friends who by word or deed have aided him in his labour 
 of love, the Editor takes this opportimity of repeating his 
 grateful acknowledgments. 
 
 D. M. M. 
 
 DouNE, Perthshire, 
 
 27/A November, jSjg.
 
 Treasitry <9 
 
 English Sonnets 
 
 IN TWO BOOKS 
 
 ^ooli J^irst 
 
 A RENOUNCING OF LOVE. 
 
 "PAREWELL, Love, and all fhy laws forever ! 
 
 Thy baited hooks shall tangle me no more : 
 Senec and Plato call me from thy lore 
 To perfect wealth my wit for to endeavour. 
 In blind error when I did persever, 
 Thy sharp repulse, that pricketh aye so sore, 
 Taught me in trifles that 1 set no store ; 
 But 'scaped forth thence, since, liberty is lever. 
 Therefore, farewell ! go trouble younger hearts. 
 And in me claim no more authority : 
 With idle youth go use thy property, 
 And thereon spend thy many brittle darts ; 
 For hitherto though I have lost my time, 
 Me list no longer rotten boughs to climb. 
 
 Sir Tho. Wyat 
 1503— 1542 
 
 ^
 
 2 A Treasury of 
 
 II 
 THE DESERTED LOVER CON SOLE TH HIMSELF 
 
 WITH REMEMBRANCE THAT ALL WOMEN AKE BY 
 NATURE FICKLE. 
 
 Sir Tho. wvat "pvlVERS doth use, as I have heard and know, 
 1503— 1542 ^-^ When that to change their ladies do begin, 
 To mourn, and wail, and never for to lynn ; 
 Hoping thereby to 'pease their painful woe. 
 And some there be that when it chanceth so 
 That women change, and hate where love hath been, 
 They call them false, and think with words to win 
 The hearts of them which otherwhere doth grow. 
 But as for me, though that by chance indeed 
 Change hath outworn the favour that I had, 
 I will not wail, lament, nor yet be sad, 
 Nor call her false that falsely did me feed ; 
 But let it pass, and think it is of kind 
 That often change doth please a woman's mind. 
 
 Ill 
 DESCRIPTION OF SPRING, 
 
 WHEREIN EACH THING RENEWS, SAVE ONLY THE LOVER. 
 
 Earl ofSurrey 'T^hE soote season, that bud and bloom furth brings, 
 1516?— 1547 -L With green hath clad the hill and eke the vale, 
 The nightingale with feathers new she sings ; 
 The turtle to her make hath told her tale. 
 Summer is come, for every spray now springs. 
 The hart hath hung his old head on the pale ; 
 The buck in brake his winter coat he flings ; 
 The fishes flete with new-repaired scale ; 
 The adder all her slough away she slings ; 
 The swift swallow pursueth the flies smale ; 
 The busy bee her honey now she mings ; 
 AVinter is worn that was the flowers' bale. 
 And thus I see among these pleasant things 
 Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs.
 
 English Sonnets 3 
 
 IV 
 VOW TO LOVE FAITHFULLY, 
 
 HOWSOEVER HE BE REWARDED. 
 
 QET me whereas the sun doth parch the green, Earlof Surrey 
 
 ^ Or Avhere his beams do not dissolve the ice ; i5i6?-i547 
 
 In temperate heat, where he is felt and seen ; 
 
 In presence prest of people mad or wise ; 
 
 Set me in high, or yet in low degree ; 
 
 In longest night, or in the shortest day ; 
 
 In clearest sky, or where clouds thickest be ; 
 
 In lusty youth, or when my hairs are gray : 
 
 Set me in heaven, in earth, or else in hell, 
 
 In hill, or dale, or in the foaming flood ; 
 
 Thrall, or at large, alive whereso I dwell, 
 
 Sick, or in health, in evil fame, or good, 
 
 Hers will I be ; and only with this thought 
 
 Content myself, although my chance be nought. 
 
 PRAISE OF CERTAIN PSALMS OF DA VID 
 
 TRANSLATED BY SIR T. \V. THE ELDER. 
 
 nPHE great Macedon that out of Persia chased 
 ^ Darius, of whose huge power all Asia rung. 
 In the rich ark Dan Homer's rimes he placed. 
 Who feigned gests of heathen princes sung. 
 What holy grave, what worthy sepulture. 
 To Wyat's Psalms should Christians then purchase ? 
 Where he doth paint the lively faith and pure. 
 The steadfast hope, the sweet return to grace 
 Of just David, by perfect penitence ; 
 Where rulers may see in a mirror clear 
 The bitter fruit of false concupiscence ; 
 How Jewry bought Uriah's death full dear. 
 In princes' hearts God's scourge imprinted deep. 
 Ought them awake out of their sinful sleep.
 
 4 A Treasury of 
 
 VI 
 AN EPITAPH. 
 
 EarlofSurrev 1^ ORFOLK sprung thee,Lambeth holds thee dead; 
 isi6?-i547 1 M Clere, of the Count of Cleremont, thou hight ; 
 Within the womb of Ormond's race thou bred, 
 And saw'st thy cousin crowned in thy sight. 
 Shelton for love, Surrey for lord thou chase, 
 (Ay me ! whilst life did last that league was tender) 
 Tracing whose steps thou sawest Kelsal blaze, 
 Landrecy burnt, and battered Boulogne render. 
 At Montreuil gates, hopeless of all recure, 
 Thine earl, half dead, gave in thy hand his will ; 
 Which cause did thee this pining death procure, 
 Ere summers four times seven thou couldst fulfil. 
 Ah, Clere ! if love had booted care or cost, 
 Heaven had not won, nor earth so timely lost. 
 
 VII 
 OF SAPDANAPALUS' DISHONOURABLE LIFE 
 
 AND MISERABLE UEATH. 
 
 ' I "H' Assyrian king, in peace, with foul desire 
 
 And filthy lusts that stained his regal heart ; 
 In war, that should set princely hearts on fire, 
 Did yield, vanquished for want of martial art. 
 The dint of swords from kisses seemed strange, 
 And harder than his lady's side his targe ; 
 From glutton feasts to soldier's fare a change ; 
 His helmet far above a garland's charge : 
 Who scarce the name of manhood did retain. 
 Drenched in sloth and womanish delight. 
 Feeble of spirit, impatient of pain. 
 When he had lost his honour and his right, 
 (Proud time of wealth, in storms appalled with dread,) 
 Murthered himself, to show some manful deed.
 
 English Sonnets 5 
 
 VIII 
 
 (O 
 
 TTAPPY, ye leaves ! whenas those lily hands, Edmund 
 
 ■^ -*■ Which hold my life in their dead-doing might, ""en^r 
 
 Shall handle you, and hold in love's soft bands, ^^^^ -^599 
 
 Like captives trembling at the victor's sight ; 
 
 And happy lines ! on which, with starry light. 
 
 Those lamping eyes will deign sometimes to look, 
 
 And read the sorrows of my dying spright. 
 
 Written v/ith tears in heart's close-bleeding book ; 
 
 And happy rimes ! bathed in the sacred brook 
 
 Of Helicon, whence she derived is ; — 
 
 When ye behold that Angel's blessed look, 
 
 My soul's long-lacked food, my heaven's bliss, 
 
 Leaves, lines, and rimes, seek her to please alone, 
 
 Whom if ye please, I care for other none. 
 
 IX 
 
 (5) 
 
 "D UDELY thou wrongest my dear heart's desire, 
 
 In finding fault with her too portly pride : 
 The thing which I do most in her admire. 
 Is of the world unworthy most envied ; 
 For in those lofty looks is close implied 
 Scorn of base things, and sdeign of foul dishonour, 
 Threatening rash eyes which gaze on her so wide, 
 That loosely they ne dare to look upon her. 
 Such pride is praise, such portliness is honour, 
 That boldened innocence bears in her eyes ; 
 And her fair countenance, like a goodly banner, 
 Spreads in defiance of all enemies. 
 Was never in this wc^i-ld ought worthy tried, 
 Without some spark of such self-pleasing pride.
 
 6 A Treasury of ^ 
 
 X 
 
 (8) 
 Edmund A /TORE than iTiost fair, full of the living fire 
 
 Sl'ENSKR 1 V I • 
 
 — Kindled above unto the Maker near : 
 
 1552?— 1599 
 
 No eyes but joys, in which all powers conspire 
 That to the world nought else be counted dear ! 
 Through your bright beams doth not the blinded guest 
 Shoot out his dart to base affections wound ; 
 But angels come to lead frail minds to rest 
 In chaste desires, on heavenly beauty bound. 
 You frame my thoughts, and fashion me within ; 
 You stop my tongue, and teach my heart to speak ; 
 You calm the storm that passion did begin, 
 Strong through your cause, but by your virtue weak. 
 Dark is the world where your light shined never ; 
 Well is he born that may behold you ever. 
 
 XI 
 
 (17) 
 
 T^HE glorious portrait of that Angel's face, 
 
 Made to amaze weak men's confused skill, 
 And this world's worthless glory to embase ; 
 What pen, what pencil, can express her fill ? 
 For though he colours could devise at will, 
 And eke his learned hand at pleasure guide, 
 Lest, trembling, it his workmanship should spill, 
 Yet many wondrous things there are beside : — 
 The sweet eye-glances that like arrows glide, 
 The charming smiles that rob sense from the hearty 
 The lovely pleasance, and the lofty pride, 
 Cannot expressed be by any art. 
 A greater craftsman's hand thereto doth need 
 That can express the life of things indeed.
 
 .. English Sonnets 
 
 xn 
 
 (22) 
 
 HTHIS holy season, fit to fast and pray, |°enser 
 
 Men to devotion ouprht to be inclined : -— - 
 
 o 1552?— 1599 
 
 Therefore I likewise on so holy day 
 
 For my sweet Saint some service fit will find. 
 
 Her temple fair is built within my mind, 
 
 In which her glorious image placed is. 
 
 On which my thoughts do day and night attend, 
 
 Like sacred priests that never think amiss ! 
 
 There I to her, as th' author of my bliss, 
 
 Will build an altar to appease her ire, 
 
 And on the same my heart will sacrifice, 
 
 Burning in flames of pure and chaste desire : 
 
 The which vouchsafe, O goddess, to accept. 
 
 Amongst thy dearest relics to be kept. 
 
 XIII 
 
 (34) 
 
 T IKE as a ship that through the ocean wide, 
 "^ By conduct of some star, doth make her way 
 Whenas a storm hath dimmed her trusty guide. 
 Out of her course doth wander far astray, — 
 So I, whose star, that wont with her bright ray 
 Me to direct, with clouds is overcast. 
 Do wander now in darkness and dismay. 
 Through hidden perils round about me placed ; 
 Yet hope I well that, when this storm is past, 
 My Helice, the lodestar of my life. 
 Will shine again, and look on me at last, 
 With lovely light to clear my cloudy grief. 
 Till then I wander gareful, comfortless. 
 In secret sorrow and sad pensiveness.
 
 1552?— 1599 
 
 8 A Treasury of * 
 
 XIV 
 
 (37) 
 Edmund "\ "\ 7"HAT guile is this, that those her golden tresses 
 She doth attire under a net of gold ; 
 And with sly skill so cunningly them dresses, 
 That which is ^old or hair may scarce be told ? 
 Is it that men's frail eyes which gaze too bold, 
 She may entangle in that golden snare ; 
 And being caught may craftily enfold 
 Their weaker hearts which are not well aware ? 
 Take heed, therefore, mine eyes, how ye do stare 
 Henceforth too rashly on that guileful net, 
 In which if ever ye entrapped are. 
 Out of her bands ye by no means shall get. 
 Fondness it were for any, being free. 
 To covet fetters, though they golden be ! 
 
 XV 
 
 (40) ^ 
 
 TV yfARK when she smiles with amiable cheer. 
 
 And tell me whereto can ye liken it, ; 
 
 When on each eyelid sweetly do appear 
 
 An hundred Graces as in shade to sit. ' 
 
 Likest it seemeth, in my simple wit. 
 
 Unto the fair sunshine in summer's day, i 
 
 That when a dreadful storm away is flit. 
 Through the broad world doth spread his goodly ray; 
 At sight whereof, each bird that sits on spray, 
 And every beast that to his den was fled. 
 Comes forth afresh out of their late dismay. 
 And ta the light lift up their drooping head. 
 So my storm-beaten heart likewise is cheered 
 With that sunshine, when cloudy looks are cleared.
 
 English Sonnets 
 
 XVI 
 
 (6i) 
 
 •y HE glorious image of the Maker's beauty, spTnser 
 
 My sovereign saint, the idol of my thought, — 
 
 Dare not henceforth above the bounds of duty 
 T' accuse of pride or rashly blame for ought. 
 For being as she is divinely wrought 
 And of the brood of angels heavenly born, 
 And with the crew of blessed saints upbrought, 
 Each of which did her with their gifts adorn ; 
 The bud of joy, the blossom of the morn, 
 The beam of light whom mortal eyes admire ; 
 What reason is it then but she should scorn 
 Base things, that to her love too bold aspire ! 
 Such heavenly forms ought rather worshipped be, 
 Than dare be loved by men of mean degree. 
 
 XVII 
 
 (65) 
 
 T^HE doubt which ye misdeem, fair Love, is vain. 
 
 That fondly fear to lose your liberty ; 
 When losing one, two liberties ye gain. 
 And make him bond that bondage erst did fly. 
 Sweet be the bands the which true love doth tie 
 Without constraint or dread of any ill : 
 The gentle bird feels no captivity 
 Within her cage, but sings, and feeds her fill ; — 
 There pride dare not approach, nor discord spill 
 The league 'twixt them that loyal love hath bound, 
 But simple truth and mutual good-will 
 Seeks with sweet peace to salve each other's Avound ; 
 There Faith doth fearless dwell in brazen tower. 
 And spotless Pleasure builds her sacred bower.
 
 Edmund 
 Spenser 
 
 1552?— 1599 
 
 10 A Treasury of 
 
 XVIII 
 
 (67) 
 
 T IKE as a huntsman after weary chase 
 "^ Seeing the game from hnn escaped away, 
 Sits down to rest him in some shady place, 
 With panting hounds beguiled of their prey, — 
 So, after long pursuit and vain assay. 
 When I all weary had the chase forsook. 
 The gentle deer returned the self-same way, 
 Thinking to quench her thirst at the next brook : 
 There she beholding me with milder look, 
 Sought not to fly, but fearless still did bide ; 
 Till I in hand her yet half trembling took. 
 And with her own good-will her firmly tied. 
 Strange thing, me seemed, to see a beast so wild 
 So goodly won, with her own will beguiled. 
 
 XIX I 
 
 ( 68 ) \ 
 
 1\ /TOST glorious Lord of life ! that on this day 
 
 Didst make thy triumph over death and sin, 
 
 And having harrowed hell didst bring away l 
 
 Captivity thence captive, us to win : 1 
 This joyous day, dear Lord, with joy begin ; 
 
 And grant that we, for whom Thou diddest die, '\ 
 
 Being with thy dear blood clean washed from sin, I 
 
 May live for ever in felicity ! 1 
 
 And that thy love we weighing worthily, ! 
 
 May likewise love Thee for the same again ; ' 
 
 And for thy sake, that all like dear didst buy, i 
 
 With love may one another entertain. ' ; 
 So let us love, dear Love, like as we ought : 
 Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.
 
 F 
 
 English Sonnets ii 
 
 XX \ 
 
 (70) j 
 
 RESH Spring, the herald of love's mighty king, ^^^^^^ ■ i 
 
 In whose coat-armour richly are displayed 
 
 . 1552''— 1599 
 
 All sorts of flowers the which on earth do sprmg, 
 
 In goodly colours gloriously arrayed ; 
 
 Go to my Love where she is careless laid 
 
 Yet in her winter's bower not well awake ; 
 
 Tell her the joyous time will not be stayed 
 
 Unless she do him by the forelock take ; 
 
 Bid her therefore herself soon ready make 
 
 To wait on Love amongst his lovely crev/ ; 
 
 Where every one that misseth then her make 
 
 Shall be by him amerced with penance due. 
 
 Make haste therefore, sweet Love, whilst it is prime ; 
 
 For none can call again the passed time. 
 
 XXI 
 
 (72) 
 
 /^FT when my spirit doth spread her bolder wings, 
 
 ^-^ In mind to mount up to the purest sky, 
 
 It down is weighed with thought of earthly things. 
 
 And clogged with burden of mortality ; 
 
 Where when that sovereign beauty it doth spy, 
 
 Resembling heaven's glory in her hght, 
 
 Drawn with sweet pleasure's bait it back doth fly, 
 
 And unto heaven forgets her former flight. 
 
 There my frail fancy, fed with full delight. 
 
 Doth bathe in bliss, and raantleth most at ease ; 
 
 Ne thinks of other heaven but how it might 
 
 Her heart's desire with most contentment please. 
 
 Heart need not wish none other happiness 
 
 But here on earth to have such heaven's bliss.
 
 1552 .—1599 
 
 12 A Ti'easury of 
 
 XXII 
 
 (75) 
 
 s°^n"ser r^^-^ ^^^ "'" wrote her name upon the strand ; 
 — ^-^ But came the waves and washed it away : 
 
 Again I Avrote it with a second hand, 
 But came the tide and made my pains his prey. 
 Vain man ! said she, that dost in vain assay 
 A mortal thing so to immortahze ; 
 For I myself shall like to this decay. 
 And eke my name be wiped out likewise. 
 Not so, quoth I ; let baser things devise 
 To die in dust, but you shall live by fame : 
 My verse your virtues rare shall eternize, 
 And in the heavens write your glorious name, — 
 Where, whenas death shall all the world subdue, 
 Our love shall live, and later life renew. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 (79) 
 TV yr EN call you fair, and you do credit it, 
 
 For that yourself ye daily such do see ; 
 But the true fair, that is the gentle wit 
 And virtuous mind, is much more praised of me. 
 For all the rest, however fair it be. 
 Shall turn to nought and lose that glorious hue ; 
 But only that is permanent and free 
 From frail corruption, that doth flesh ensue. 
 That is true beauty : that doth argue you 
 To be divine, and born of heavenly seed ; 
 Derived from that fair Spirit from whom all true 
 And perfect beauty did at first proceed. 
 He only fair, and what He fair hath made ; 
 All other fair, like flowers, untimely fade.
 
 Edmund 
 
 ENSE 
 1552?— 1599 
 
 English Sonnets 13 
 
 XXIV 
 
 (88) 
 
 T IKE as the culver on the bared bough IT^^^kk 
 
 ^ Sits maurning for the absence of her mate, 
 
 And in her songs sends many a wishful vow 
 
 For his return that seems to linger late : 
 
 So I alone, now left disconsolate. 
 
 Mourn to myself the absence of my Love, 
 
 And, wandering here and there all desolate. 
 
 Seek with my plaints to match that mournful dove ; 
 
 Ne joy of ought that under heaven doth hove 
 
 Can comfort me, but her own joyous sight ; 
 
 Whose sweet aspect both God and man can move 
 
 In her unspotted pleasance to delight. 
 
 Dark is my day whiles her fair light I miss, 
 
 And dead my life that wants such lively bliss. 
 
 XXV 
 A VISION UPON THE FAERY QUEEN. 
 
 A /[ ETHOUGHT I saw the grave where Laura lay, ^ir Walter 
 
 J-T 1 Within that temple where the vestal flame — 
 
 Was wont to burn ; and passing by that way 
 
 To see that buried dust of living fame, 
 
 Whose tomb fair Love and fairer Virtue kept. 
 
 All suddenly I saw the Faery Queen : 
 
 At whose approach the soul of Petrarch v/ept ; 
 
 And from thenceforth those Graces were not seen, 
 
 For they this Queen attended ; in whose stead 
 
 Oblivion laid him down on Laura's hearse. 
 
 Hereat the hardest stones were seen to bleed. 
 
 And groans of buried ghosts the heavens did pierce, 
 
 Where Homer's spright did tremble all for grief, 
 
 And cursed the access of that celestial thief. 
 
 1552 — 1618
 
 14 A Treasury of 
 
 XXVI 
 CONCERyiNG THE HONOUR OF BOOKS. 
 
 joHK Florio O IXCE honour from the honourer proceeds, 
 1553— 1625 ^-^ How well do they deserve, that njemorize 
 And leave in books for all posterities 
 The names of worthies and their virtuous deeds ; 
 ^\'hen all their glory else, like water-weeds 
 Without their element, presently dies 
 And all their greatness quite forgotten lies, 
 And when and how they flourished no man heeds I 
 How poor remembrances are statues, tombs, 
 And other monuments that men erect 
 To princes, which remain in closed rooms 
 ^ Where but a few behold them, in respect 
 Of Books, that to the universal eye 
 Show how they lived ; the other where they lie ! 
 
 XXVII 
 
 (15) 
 Sir Phiup V/'OU that do search for every purling spnng 
 
 SlE)VEY ■ 
 
 — Which from the ribs of old Parnassus flows, 
 
 '354 i3 And every flower, not sweet perhaps, which grows 
 
 Near thereabouts, into your posy wring ; 
 Ye that do dictionary's method bring 
 Into your rimes, running in rattling rows ; 
 You that poor Petrarch's long-deceased woes 
 With new-bom sighs and denizened wit do sing ; 
 You take wrong ways ! Those far-fet helps be such 
 As do bewray a want of invrard touch : 
 And sure at length stolen goods do come to light. 
 But if, both for your love and skill, your name 
 You seek to nurse at fullest breasts of Fame, 
 Stella behold, and then begin t' endite.
 
 SiDNKV 
 1554—1586 
 
 EnglisJi Sonnets 15 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 (31) 
 
 WITH how sad steps, O Moon ! thou dimb'st the Sir Phiup 
 skies ! 
 How silently, and with how wan a face ! 
 What ! may it be that even in heavenly place 
 That busy Archer his sharp arrows tries ? 
 Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes 
 Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case ; 
 T read it in thy looks : thy languished grace, 
 To me, that feel the like, thy state descries. 
 Then, even of fellowship, O Moon ! tell me, 
 Is constant love deemed there but want of wit ? 
 Are beauties there as proud as here they be ? 
 Do they above love to be loved, and yet 
 Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess ? — 
 Do they call virtue there ungratefulness ? 
 
 XXIX ; 
 
 (39) 
 
 /^^OME Sleep, O Sleep ! the certain knot of peace, 
 
 ^^ The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe, 
 
 The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release. 
 
 The indifferent judge between the high and low ; 
 
 With shield of proof shield me from out the prease 
 
 Of those fierce darts Despair at me doth throw : 
 
 Oh ! make in me those civil wars to cease ; 
 
 I will good tribute pay if thou do so. 
 
 Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed, 
 
 A chamber deaf of noise and blind of light, 
 
 A rosy garland and a weary head : 
 
 And if these things, as being thine by right, 
 
 Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me 
 
 Livelier than elsewhere Stella's image see.
 
 Sir Philip 
 Sidney 
 
 1 6 A Treasury of 
 
 XXX 
 
 (41) 
 TTAVING this day my horse, my hand, my lance 
 
 — „. Guided so well that I obtained the prize, 
 
 1354— 1580 ^ ' 
 
 Both by the judgment of the English eyes 
 And of some sent from that sweet enemy, France ; 
 Horsemen my skill in horsemanship advance ; 
 Townfolks my strength ; a daintier judge applies 
 His praise to sleight, which from good use doth rise ; 
 Some lucky wits impute it but to chance ; 
 Others, because of both sides I do take 
 My blood from them who did excel in this. 
 Think Nature me a man of arms did make. 
 How far they shot awry ! The true cause is, 
 Stella looked on ; and from her heavenly face 
 Sent forth the beams which made so fair my race. 
 
 XXXI 
 
 (54) 
 
 TI> ECAUSE I breathe not love to every one, 
 
 Nor do not use set colours for to wear, 
 Nor nourish special locks of vowed hair, 
 Nor give each speech a full point of a groan. 
 The courtly nymphs, acquainted with the moan 
 Of them who in their lips Love's standard bear : 
 ' What, he ! ' say they of me : * now I dare swear 
 He cannot love. No, no, let him alone.' — 
 And think so still, so Stella know my mind ! 
 Profess indeed I do not Cupid's art ; 
 But you, fair maids, at length this true shall find. 
 That his right badge is but worn in the heart : 
 Dumb swans, not chattering pies, do lovers prove ; 
 They love indeed who quake to say they love.
 
 N 
 
 English Sonnets 17 
 
 XXXII 
 
 (64) 
 O more, my dear, no more these counsels try ; ^Sidney"" 
 
 O give my passions leave to run their race ! 
 Let Fortune lay on me her worst disgrace, 
 Let folk o'ercharged with brain against me cry ; 
 Let clouds bedim my face, break in mine eye, 
 Let me no steps but of lost labour trace ; 
 Let all the earth with scorn recount my case ; 
 But do not will me from my love to fly. 
 I do not envy Aristotle's wit. 
 Nor do aspire to Ceesar's bleeding fame ; 
 Nor ought do care though some above me sit ; 
 Nor hope nor wish another course to frame. 
 But that which once may win thy cruel heart : 
 Thou art my wit, and thou my virtue art. 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 T EAVE me, O Love, which reachest but to dust, 
 — ' And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things ; 
 Grow rich in that which never taketh rust : 
 What ever fades but fading pleasure brings. 
 Draw in thy beams, and humble ail thy might 
 To that sweet yoke where lasting freedoms be, 
 ^^^lich breaks the clouds and opens forth the light 
 That doth both shine and give us sight to see. 
 Oh, take fast hold ! let that light be thy guide 
 In this small course which birth draws out to death, 
 And think how evil becometh him 'to slide 
 Who seeketh heaven, arid comes of heavenly breath. 
 Then farewell, world ; thy uttermost I see : 
 Eternal Love, maintain thy life in me. 
 
 1554— 1586 
 
 6 
 
 <7V 
 
 plcnbibis loucjum fcalibito nngts.
 
 1 8 A Treasury of 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 ^Sidney"" CINCE Nature's works be good, and death doth serve 
 ~7j86 As Nature's work, why should we fear to die ? 
 
 Since fear is vain but when it may preserve. 
 Why should we fear that which we cannot fly ? 
 Fear is more pain than is the pain it fears, 
 Disarming human minds of native might ; 
 While each conceit an ugly figure bears 
 Which were not evil, well viewed in reason's light. 
 Our owly eyes, which dimmed with passions be, 
 And scarce discern the dawn of coming day. 
 Let them be cleared, and now begin to see 
 Our life is but a step in dusty way. 
 Then let us hold the bHss of peaceful mind ; 
 Since this we feel, great loss we cannot find. 
 
 XXXV 
 OF HIS MISTJiESS: 
 
 UPON OCCASION OF HER WALKING IN A GARDEN. 
 
 Constable 1\/T^ lady's presence makes"the roses red. 
 
 Because to see her lips they blush for shame ; 
 The lily's leaves, for envy, pale became. 
 And her white hands in them this envy bred. 
 The marigold abroad her leaves doth spread, 
 Because the sun's and her power is the same ; 
 The violet of purple colour came. 
 Dyed with the blood she made my heart to shed. 
 In brief, all flowers from her their virtue take : 
 From her sweet breath their sweet smells do proceed. 
 The living heat which her eye-beams do make 
 Warmeth the ground, and quickeneth the seed. 
 The rain wherewith she watereth these flowers 
 Falls from mine eyes, which she dissolves in showers. 
 
 Henry 
 
 loNSTABl 
 1555 ?— 1610
 
 Constable 
 I3S5 ? — 1610 ? 
 
 English Sonnets 19 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 TDITY refusing my poor Love to feed, r^,c^Tr, 
 
 A beggar starved for want of help he Hes, 
 And at your mouth, the door of beauty, cries 
 That thence some ahxis of sweet grants may proceed. 
 But as he waiteth for some ahiies-deed 
 A cherry-tree before the door he spies^ 
 ' O dear ! ' quoth he, ' two cherries may suffice, 
 Two only life may save in this my need.' 
 But beggars, can they nought but cherries eat ? 
 Pardon my Love, he is a goddess' son, 
 And never feedeth but on dainty meat, 
 Else need he not to pine as he hath done : 
 For only the sweet fruit of this sweet tree 
 Can give food to my Love, and life to me. 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 TVJEEDS must I leave, and yet needs must I love ; 
 
 In vain my wit doth paint in verse my woe : 
 Disdain in thee despair in me doth show 
 How by my wit I do my folly prove. 
 All this my heart from love can never move ; 
 Love is not in my heart, no, lady, no : 
 My heart is love itself ; till I forego 
 My heart, I never can my love remove. 
 How shall I then leave love ? I do intend 
 Not to crave grace, but yet to wish it still ; 
 Not to praise thee, but beauty to commend, 
 And so by beauty's praise, praise thee I will. 
 For as my heart is love, love not in me. 
 So beauty thou, — beauty 'is not in thee.
 
 Henry 
 
 Constable 
 
 1555?— 1610? 
 
 20 A Treasury of 
 
 XXXVIII 
 TO SAINT KATHARINE. 
 
 "DECAUSE thou wast the daughter of a king, 
 
 Whose beauty did all Nature's works exceed, 
 And wisdom wonder to the world did breed, 
 A muse might rouse itself on Cupid's wing ; 
 But, sith the graces which from nature spring 
 Were graced by those which from grace did proceed, 
 And glory have deserved, my Muse doth need 
 An angel's feathers when thy praise I sing. 
 Eor all in thee became angelical : 
 An angel's face had angels' purity. 
 And thou an angel's tongue didst speak withal ; 
 Lo ! why thy soul, set free by martyrdom. 
 Was crowned by God in angels' company. 
 And angels' hands thy body did entomb. 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 Thomas Lodge 
 1556?— 1625 
 
 TIj'AIR art thou, Phyllis ; ay, so fair, sweet maid. 
 
 As nor the sun nor I have seen more fair ; 
 For in thy cheeks sweet roses are embayed, 
 And gold more pure than gold doth gild thy hair. 
 Sweet bees have hived their honey on thy tongue, 
 And Hebe spiced her nectar with thy breath : 
 About thy neck do all the graces throng. 
 And lay such baits as might entangle Death. 
 In such a breast what heart would not be thrall ? 
 From such sweet arms who would not wish embraces? 
 At thy fair hands who wonders not at all 
 Wonder itself through ignorance embases. 
 Yet natheless though wondrous gifts you call these 
 My faith is far more wonderful than all these.
 
 English Sonnets 
 
 21 
 
 XL 
 
 A /f USES that sing Love's sensual empery, 
 
 And lovers kindling your enraged fires 
 At Cupid's bonfires burning in the eye, 
 Blown with the empty breath of vain desires, — 
 You that prefer the painted cabinet 
 Before the wealthy jewels it doth store ye, 
 That all your joys in dying figures set. 
 And stain the living substance of your glory ; 
 Abjure those joys, abhor their memory. 
 And let my Love the honoured subject be 
 Of love, and honour's complete history ; 
 Your eyes were never yet let in to see 
 The majesty and riches of the mind. 
 But dwell in darkness ; for your god is bUnd. 
 
 George 
 Chapman 
 
 1557— 1^34 
 
 XLI 
 
 T SAW the object of my pining thought 
 
 Within a garden of sweet Nature's placing : 
 Wherein an arbour artificial wrought, 
 By workman's wondrous skill the garden gracing. 
 Did boast his glory, glory far renowned. 
 For in his shady boughs my mistress slept : 
 And with a garland of his branches crowned, 
 Her dainty forehead from the sun ykept. 
 Imperious Love upon her eyelids tending, 
 Playing his wanton sports at every beck, 
 And into'every finest limb descending, 
 From eyes to lips, from lips to ivory neck ; 
 And every limb supplied, and t' every part 
 Had free access, but durst not touch her heart. 
 
 Thomas 
 Watson 
 
 1560 — 1592
 
 2 2 A Treasury of 
 
 XLII 
 FRANCESCO'S SONNET, 
 
 CALLED HIS PARTING HLOW. 
 
 Robert Greene 73 EASON, that 4ong in prison of my will 
 1561 V— 1592 ■'-^ Hast wept thy mistress' wants and loss of time, 
 Thy wonted siege of honour safely climb ; 
 To thee I yield as guilty of mine ill. 
 Lo, fettered in their tears, mine eyes are prest 
 To pay due homage to their native guide : 
 My Avretched heart, wounded with bad betide. 
 To crave his peace from reason is addrest. 
 My thoughts ashamed, since by themselves consumed. 
 Have done their duty to repentant wit : 
 Ashamed of all, sweet guide, I sorry sit, 
 To see in youth how I too far presumed. 
 Thus he whom love and error did betray 
 Subscribes to thee and takes the better way. 
 
 XLIII 
 
 A 1 THAT meant the poets in invective verse 
 
 To sing Medea's shame, and Scylla's pride, 
 Calypso's charms by which so many died ? 
 Only for this their vices they rehearse : 
 That curious wits which in the world converse, 
 May shun the dangers and enticing shows 
 Of such false sirens, those home-breeding foes, 
 That from their eyes their venom do disperse. 
 So soon kills not the basilisk with sight ; 
 The viper's tooth is not so venomous ; 
 The adder's tongue not half so dangerou^, 
 As they that bear the shadow of delight. 
 Who chain blind youths in trammels of their hair, 
 Till waste brings woe, and sorrow hastes despair.
 
 English Sonnets 23 
 
 XLIV 
 
 T OOK, Delia, how \v' esteem the half-blown rose, Samuel Daxiei, 
 
 ■^ The image of thy blush and summer's honour, 1562— 1619 
 
 Whilst yet her tender bud doth undisclose 
 
 That full of beauty Time bestows upon her. 
 
 No sooner spreads her glory in the air, 
 
 But straight her wide-blown pomp comes to decline ; 
 
 She then is scorned that late adorned the fair ; 
 
 So fade the roses of those cheeks of thine. 
 
 No April can revive thy withered flowers, 
 
 Whose springing grace adorns thy glory now ; 
 
 Swift speedy Time, feathered with flying hours, 
 
 Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow. 
 
 Then do not thou such treasure waste in vain, 
 
 But love now whilst thou mayst be loved again. 
 
 XLV 
 
 "DEAUTY, sweet Love, is like the morning dew, 
 
 Whose short refresh upon the tender green 
 Cheers for a time but till the sun doth shew, 
 And straight 'tis gone as it had never been. 
 Soon doth it fade that makes the fairest flourish. 
 Short is the glory of the blushing rose ; 
 The hue which thou so carefully dost nourish. 
 Yet which at length thou must be forced to lose. 
 When thou, surcharged with burthen of thy years, 
 Shalt bend thy wrinkles homeward to the earth. 
 And that in beauty's lease, expired, appears 
 The date of age, the calends of our death, — 
 But ah, no more ! — this must not be foretold ; 
 For women grieve to think they must be old.
 
 24 A Treasury of 
 
 XLVI 
 
 Samuel Daniel 
 
 /^ARE-CHARMER Sleep, son of the sable Night, 
 1562-1619 v- Brother to Death, in silent darkness born, 
 Relieve my languish, and restore the light ; 
 With dark forgetting of my care return, 
 And let the day be time enough to mourn 
 The shipwreck of my ill-adventured youth : 
 Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn, 
 Without the torment of the night's untruth. 
 Cease, dreams, the images of day-desires, 
 To model forth the passions of the morrow ; 
 Never let rising Sun approve you liars. 
 To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow : 
 Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain, 
 And never wake to feel the day's disdain. 
 
 Drayton 
 1563— 1631 
 
 XLVII 
 
 Michael T^EAR, why should you Command me to my rest, 
 "^ When now the night doth summon all to sleep ? 
 
 Methinks this time becometh lovers best : 
 Night was ordained together friends to keep. 
 How happy are all other living things. 
 Which though the day disjoin by several flight, 
 The quiet Evening yet together brings. 
 And each returns unto his love at night ! 
 O thou that art so courteous unto all. 
 Why shouldst thou, Night, abuse me only thus, 
 That every creature to his kind dost call. 
 And yet 'tis thou dost only sever us ? 
 Well could I wish it would be ever day, 
 If when night comes, you bid me go away.
 
 English Sonnets 25 
 
 XLVIII 
 
 OINCE there's no help, come let us kiss and part, — dravton 
 Nay I have done, you get no more of me ; ^ —^^ ^ 
 
 And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart, 
 That thus so cleanly I myself can free ; 
 ghake hands for ever, cancel all our vows, 
 And when we meet at any time again, 
 Be it not seen in either of our brows 
 That we one jot of former love retain. 
 Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath, 
 When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies. 
 When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death, 
 And Innocence is closing up his eyes, — 
 Now if thou would'st, when all have given him over, 
 From death to life thou might'st him yet recover ! 
 
 XLIX 
 
 "1^7" ERE I as base as is the lowly plain, sylve"ter 
 
 And you, my Love, as high as heaven above, 156^618 
 Yet should the thoughts of me your humble swain 
 Ascend to heaven in honour of my Love. 
 Were I as high as heaven above the plain, 
 And you, my Love, as humble and as low 
 As are the deepest bottoms of the main, 
 Whereso'er you were, with you my love should go. 
 Were you the earth, dear Love, and I the skies. 
 My love should shine on you like to the sun, 
 And look upon you with ten thousand eyes. 
 Till heaven waxed blind, and till the world were done. 
 Whereso'er I am, below or else above you, 
 Whereso'er you are, my heart shall truly love you.
 
 1564 — i6i6 
 
 26 A Treasury of 
 
 (8) 
 William TV /T USIC to hear, whv hear'st thou music sadly ? 
 
 oH AKSPEARE ^Lj I 
 
 — Sweets with sweets war not, joy deUghts in joy. 
 
 Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly, 
 Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy ? * 
 
 If the true concord Of well-tuned sounds, 
 By unions married, do offend thine ear, 
 They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds 
 In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear. 
 Mark how one string, sweet husband to another. 
 Strikes each in each by mutual ordering. 
 Resembling sire and child and happy mother, 
 Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing : 
 Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one, 
 Sings this to thee : ' thou single wilt prove none.' 
 
 LI 
 
 (12) 
 
 "\ ^ THEN I do count the clock that tells the time. 
 And see the brave day sunk in hideous night ; 
 When I behold the violet past prime, 
 And sable curls all silvered o'er with white ; 
 When lofty trees I see barren of leaves. 
 Which erst from heat did canopy the herd, 
 And summer's green, all girded up in sheaves. 
 Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard : 
 Then of thy beauty do I question make, 
 That thou among the wastes of time must go, 
 Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake 
 And die as fast as they see others grow ; 
 And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence 
 Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.
 
 1564 — i6i6 
 
 English Sonnets 27 j 
 
 I 
 
 LII 
 
 WHEN I consider everythins; that grows William j 
 
 •' '-' _ ° Shakspeare 
 
 Holds in perfection but a little moment, — ' 
 
 That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows 
 
 Whereon the stars in secret influence comment ; 
 
 When I perceive that men as plants increase, 
 
 Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky. 
 
 Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease, 
 
 And wear their brave state out of memory : 
 
 Then the conceit of this inconstant stay 
 
 Sets you most rich in youth before my sight. 
 
 Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay, 
 
 To change your day of youth to sullied night ; 
 
 And all in war with Time for love of you, 
 
 As he takes from you, I engraft you new. 
 
 LIII 
 
 (17) 
 
 "X 7[ /"HO will believe my verse in time to come, 
 
 If it were filled with your most high deserts ? 
 Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb 
 Which hides your life and show's not half your parts. 
 If I could write the beauty of your eyes 
 And in fresh numbers number all your graces. 
 The age to come would say, * This poet lies ; 
 Such heavenly touches ne'er touched earthly faces.* 
 So should my papers, yellowed with their age, 
 Be scorned like old men of less truth than tongue, 
 And your true rights be termed a poet's rage. 
 And stretched metre of an antique song : 
 But were some child of yours alive that time, 
 You should live twice, — in it, and in my rime.
 
 28 A Treasury of 
 
 LIV 
 
 (i8) i 
 
 William OHALL I comparc thee to a summer's day ? i 
 
 Shakspeare ^^ *■ ■' ■( 
 
 — Thou art more lovely and more temperate : , ; 
 
 1564—1616 . ^ ^ • I 
 
 Rough wmds do shake the darlmg buds of May, 
 
 And summer's lease hath all too short a date : ' 
 
 Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, 
 
 And often is his gold complexion dimmed ; 
 
 And every fair from fair sometime declines, 
 
 By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed ; , 
 
 But thy eternal summer shall not fade I 
 
 Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st ; i 
 
 Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, \ 
 
 When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st.: 
 
 So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, j 
 
 So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. 
 
 LV , 
 
 (21) I 
 
 00 is it not with me as with that Muse, 
 
 Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse, i 
 
 Who heaven itself for ornament doth use, ^ 
 And every fair with his fair doth rehearse ; 
 
 Making a couplement of proud compare j 
 
 With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems, \ 
 
 With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare ] 
 
 That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems. ; 
 
 let me, true in love, but truly write. 
 And then believe me, my Love is as fair 
 
 As any mother's child, though not so bright ■■. 
 
 As those gold candles fixed in heaven's air : ; 
 
 Let them say more that like of hearsay well, ' 
 
 1 will not praise that purpose not to sell. "
 
 English Sotmets 29 
 
 LVI 
 
 ( 22 ) 
 
 MY glass shall not persuade me I am old, William 
 
 ° ' SUAKSPEARE 
 
 So lonor as youth and thou are of one date ; — 
 
 . , 1564— 1616 
 But when ni thee time's furrows I behold, 
 
 Then look I death my days should expiate. 
 
 For all that beauty that doth cover thee 
 
 Is but the seemly raiment of my heart, 
 
 Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me : 
 
 How can I then be elder than thou art ? 
 
 O, therefore. Love, be of thyself so wary 
 
 As I, not for myself, but for thee will ; 
 
 Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary 
 
 As tender nurse her babe from faring ill. 
 
 Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain ; 
 
 Thou gav'st me thine, not to give back again. 
 
 L 
 
 LVII 
 ( 25 ) 
 
 ET those who ^e in favour with their stars 
 Of public honour and proud titles boast, 
 Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars, 
 Unlooked for joy in that I honour most. 
 Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread 
 But as the marigold at the sun's eye, 
 And in themselves their pride lies buried, 
 For at a frown they in their glory die. 
 The painful warrior famoused for fight, 
 After a thousand victories,, once foiled, 
 Is from the book of honour razed quite, 
 And all the rest forgot for which he toiled ; 
 Then happy I, that love and am beloved 
 Where I may not remove nor be removed.
 
 $o A Treasury of 
 
 LVIII ■ 
 (27) 
 
 William T T /"E ARY With toil, I hastc me to mv bed, 
 
 ShaKSPEARE VVrT-.li /-i-i -1 1--1 
 
 — 1 he dear repose for hmbs with travel tired ; 
 
 But then begins a journey in my head, 
 To work my mind, when body's work's expired : 
 For then my thoughts, from far where I abide. 
 Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee, 
 And keep my drooping eyelids open wide. 
 Looking on darkness which the blind do see : 
 Save that my soul's imaginary sight 
 Presents thy shadow to my sightless view. 
 Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night. 
 Makes black Night beauteous and her old face new. 
 Lo ! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind 
 For thee and for myself no quiet find. 
 
 LIX 
 
 (29) 
 
 "\ ^THEN in disgrace with fo^ine and men's eyes, 
 
 I all alone bevveep my outcast state, 
 And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries. 
 And look upon myself and curse my fate. 
 Wishing me like to one more rich in hope. 
 Featured like him, like him with friends possest, 
 Desiring this man's art and that man's scope. 
 With what I most enjoy contented least ; 
 Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, 
 Haply I think on thee, — and then my state. 
 Like to the lark at break of day arising 
 From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate ; 
 For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings, 
 That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
 
 w 
 
 English Sonnets 31 
 
 (30) 
 HEN to the sessions of sweet silent thought Jyl^"p'' 
 
 I summon up remembrance of things past, 
 I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, 
 And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste 
 Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, 
 For precious friends hid in death's dateless nigl!t, 
 And weep afresh love's long-since-cancelled woe, 
 And moan the expense of many a vanished sight : 
 Then can I grieve at grievances foregone. 
 And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er 
 The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, 
 Which I new pay as if not paid before. 
 But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, 
 All losses are restored and sorrows end. 
 
 LXI 
 
 » (31) 
 
 'T'HY bosom is endeared with all hearts, 
 -^ Which I by lacking have supposed dead. 
 And there reigns love and all love's loving parts, 
 And all those friends which I thought buried. 
 How many a holy and obsequious tear 
 Hath dear-religious love stolen from mine eye 
 As interest of the dead, which now appear 
 But things removed, that hidden in thee lie ! 
 Thou art the grave where buried love doth live, 
 Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone. 
 Who all their parts of me to thqe did give ; 
 That due of many now is thine alone : 
 Their images I loved I view in thee. 
 And thou, all they, hast all the all of me. 
 
 s? Shakspkake 
 
 1564 — I6I6
 
 William 
 Shakspeare 
 
 1564 — 16 16 
 
 32 A Treasury of 
 
 LXII 
 (32) 
 
 TF thou survive my well-contented day, 
 
 ■^ When that cffiirl Death my bones with dust shall 
 
 cover, 
 
 And shalt by fortune once more re-survey 
 These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover, 
 Compare them with the bettering of the time ; 
 And though they be outstripped by every pen, 
 Reserve them for my love, not for their rime, 
 Exceeded by the height of happier men. 
 Oh then vouchsafe me but this loving thought, — 
 * Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age, 
 A dearer birth than this his love had brought. 
 To march in ranks of better equipage ; 
 But since he died, and poets better prove. 
 Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love.' 
 
 LXIII 
 
 F* 
 ULL many a glorious morning have I seen 
 Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye. 
 Kissing with golden face the meadows green. 
 Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy ; 
 Anon permit the basest clouds to ride 
 With ugly rack on his celestial face. 
 And from the forlorn world his visage hide. 
 Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace : 
 Even so my sun one early morn did shine 
 With all-triumphant splendour on my brow ; 
 But out, alack ! he was but one hour mine ; 
 The region cloud hath masked him from me now. 
 Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth ; 
 Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun 
 staineth.
 
 English Sonnets 2>Z 
 
 LXIV 
 
 (38) 
 T T OW can my Muse want subject to invent, Shakspeare 
 
 While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my 1564II7616 
 verse 
 Thine own sweet argument, too excellent 
 For every vulgar paper to rehearse ? 
 Oh give thyself the thanks, if ought in me 
 Worthy perusal stand against thy sight ; 
 For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee, 
 When thou thyself dost give invention light ? 
 Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth 
 Than those old nine which rimers invocate ; 
 And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth 
 Eternal numbers to outlive long date. 
 If my slight Muse do please these curious days, 
 The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise. 
 
 LXV 
 
 (5O 
 
 00 am I as the rich whose blessed key 
 
 Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure, 
 The which he will not every hour survey, 
 For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure. 
 Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare, 
 Since, seldom coming, in the long year set. 
 Like stones of worth they thinly placed are, 
 Or captain jewels in the carcanet. 
 So is the time that keeps you, as my chest. 
 Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide, 
 To make some special instant special-blest, 
 By new unfolding his imprisoned pride. 
 Blessed are you, whose worthiness gives scope, 
 Being had, to triumph, being lacked, to hope. 
 
 D
 
 William 
 
 Shakspeare 
 
 1564 — I6I6 
 
 34 A Treasury of 
 
 LXVI 
 
 (54) 
 
 /^H how much more doth beauty beauteous seem 
 
 ^^^ By that sweet ornament which truth doth give ! 
 
 The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem 
 
 For that sweet odour which doth in it Hve. 
 
 The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye 
 
 As the perfumed tincture of the roses, 
 
 Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly 
 
 When summer's breath their masked buds discloses : 
 
 But for their virtue only is their show, 
 
 They live unwooed, and unrespected fade — 
 
 Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so ; 
 
 Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made : 
 
 And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth. 
 
 When that shall vade, by verse distils your truth. 
 
 LXVII 
 
 (55) 
 "\TOT marble, nor the gilded monuments 
 
 Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rime ; 
 But you shall shine more bright in these contents 
 Than unswept stone •besmeared with sluttish time. 
 When wasteful war shall statues overturn. 
 And broils root out the work of masonry. 
 Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn 
 The living record of your memory. 
 'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity 
 Shall you pace forth ; your praise shall still find room 
 Even in the eyes of all posterity 
 That wear this world out to the ending doom. 
 So, till the judgment that yourself arise, 
 You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.
 
 Shakspeare 
 1564 — I6I6 
 
 JEngHsh Sonnets 35 
 
 LXVIII 
 
 <57) 
 
 BEING your slave, what should I do but tend William 
 
 Upon the hours and times of your desire ? 
 I have no precious time at all to spend, 
 Nor services to do, till you require. 
 Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour. 
 Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you, 
 Nor think the bitterness of absence sour, 
 When you have bid your servant once adieu ; 
 Nor dare I question with my jealous thought 
 Where you may be, or your affairs suppose. 
 But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought 
 Save where you are, how happy you make those. 
 So true a fool is love, that in your will 
 Though you do anything, he thinks no ill. 
 
 L 
 
 LXIX 
 (60) 
 
 IKE as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, 
 
 So do our minutes hasten to their end ; 
 Each changing place with that which goes before, 
 In sequent toil all forwards do contend. 
 Nativity, once in the main of light, 
 Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned, 
 Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight. 
 And Time, that gave, doth now his gift confound. 
 Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth, 
 And delves the parallels in beauty's brow, 
 Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth, 
 And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow : 
 And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand, 
 Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.
 
 William 
 Shakspeare 
 
 1564 — i6i5 
 
 36 A Treasury of \ 
 
 LXX ; 
 
 (61) I 
 
 TS it thy will thy image should keep open : 
 
 My heavy eyelids to the weary night ? j 
 
 Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken, 
 While shadows like to thee do mock my sight ? 
 Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee 
 So far from home into my deeds to pry ; 
 To find out shames and idle hours in me, 
 The scope and tenour of thy jealousy ? 
 O, no ! thy love, though much, is not so great : 
 It is my love that keeps mine eye awake ; 
 Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat, 
 To play the watchman ever for thy sake : 
 For thee watch I whilst thou dost wake elsewhere, 
 From me far off, with others all too near. 
 
 LXXI 
 
 A GAINST my Love shall be, as I am now. 
 
 With Time's injurious hand crushed and o'er- 
 worn ; 
 When hours have drained his blood and filled his brow 
 With lines and wrinkles ; when his youthful morn 
 Hath travelled on to age's steepy night ; 
 And all those beauties whereof now he's king 
 Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight, 
 Stealing away the treasure of his spring, — 
 For such a time do I now fortify 
 Against confounding age's cruel knife. 
 That he shall never cut from memory 
 My sweet Love's beauty, though my lover's life. 
 His beauty shall in these black lines be seen, 
 And they shall live, and he in them, still green.
 
 English Sonnets 37 
 
 LXXII 
 (64) 
 
 WHEN I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced William 
 
 , . , . , Shakspeare 
 
 The rich proud cost of outworn buried age ; — 
 
 1 1564 — 1616 
 When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed, 
 
 And brass eternal slave to mortal rage ; 
 
 When I have seen the hungry ocean gain 
 
 Advantage on the kingdom of the shore, 
 
 And the firm soil win of the watery main. 
 
 Increasing store with loss, and loss with store ; 
 
 When I have seen such interchange of state, 
 
 Or state itself confounded to decay ; 
 
 Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate. 
 
 That Time vv^ill come and take my Love away. 
 
 This thought is as a death, which cannot choose 
 
 But weep to have that which it fears to lose. 
 
 LXXIII 
 
 (65) 
 
 OINCE brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, 
 
 But sad mortality o'er- sways their power, 
 How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea. 
 Whose action is no stronger than a flower ? 
 O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out 
 Against the wreckful siege of battering days. 
 When rocks impregnable are not so stout, 
 Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays ? 
 O fearful meditation ! where, alack, 
 Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid ? 
 Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back ? 
 Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid ? 
 O, none, unless this miracle have might. 
 That in black ink my Love may still shine bright.
 
 38 ■ A Treasury of 
 
 Shakspeare I 
 
 1564 — I6I6 
 
 LXXIV 
 
 (66) 
 
 William ^ | "IRED With all thcsc, for restful death I cry, — 
 As, to behold desert a beggar born, 
 And needy nothing trimmed in jollity, 
 And purest faith unhappily forsworn, 
 And gilded honour shamefully misplaced. 
 And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, 
 And right perfection wrongfully disgraced, 
 And strength by limping sway disabled, 
 And art made tongue-tied by authority, 
 And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill, 
 And simple truth miscalled simplicity, 
 And captive good attending captain ill : 
 Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,- 
 Save that, to die, I leave my Love alone. 
 
 LXXV 
 
 (70) 
 
 'T^ HAT thou art blamed shall not be thy defect. 
 
 For slander's mark was ever yet the fair ; 
 The ornament of beauty is suspect, 
 A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air. 
 So thou be good, slander doth but approve 
 Thy worth the greater, being wooed of Time ; 
 For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love. 
 And thou present'st a puiie unstained prime. 
 Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days. 
 Either not assailed, or victor being charged ; 
 Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise. 
 To tie up envy, evermore enlarged : 
 If some suspect of ill masked not thy show. 
 Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.
 
 English Sonnets 39 
 
 LXXVI 
 
 (71) 
 
 V 
 
 1564 — I6I6 
 
 No longer mourn for me when I am dead William 
 
 _,, , ,, 1 1 ^ , 11 1 11 Shakspeare 
 
 Than you shall hear the ^irly sullen bell 
 
 Give warning; to the world that I am fled 
 
 From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell : 
 
 Nay, if you read this line, remember not 
 
 The hand that writ it ; for I love you so 
 
 That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot 
 
 If thinking on me then should make you woe. 
 
 O, if, I say, you look upon this verse 
 
 When I perhaps compoimded am with clay. 
 
 Do not so much as my poor name rehearse, 
 
 But let your love even with my life decay, — 
 
 Lest the wise world should look into your moan, 
 
 And mock you with me after I am gone. 
 
 LXXVII . : 
 
 (73) I 
 
 T^HAT time of year thou mayst in me behold ; 
 
 When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang \ 
 
 Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, ■: 
 Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang : 
 
 In me thou see'st the twilight of such day ; 
 
 As after sunset fadeth in the west, i 
 
 Which by and by black night doth take away, j 
 
 Death's setond self, that seals up all in rest. ' 
 
 In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire .j 
 
 That on the ashes of his youth doth lie \ 
 
 As the death-bed whereon it must expire, i 
 
 Consumed with that which it was nourished by : — j 
 
 This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, ] 
 
 To love that well which thou must leave ere long. I
 
 40 A Treasury of 
 
 LXXVIII 
 
 (74) 
 William "DUT be Contented : when that fell arrest 
 
 ShAKSPEARE IJ ,,^. , ,, , •, 1 n 
 
 — ■'^ Without all ball shall carry me away, 
 
 ^^ ^~^ ' My life hath in this line some interest, 
 
 Which for memorial still with thee shall stay. 
 
 When thou reviewest this, thou dost review 
 
 The very part was consecrate to thee : 
 
 The earth can have but earth, which is his due ; 
 
 My spirit is thine, the better part of me : 
 
 So then thou hast but lost -the dregs of life. 
 
 The prey of worms, my body being dead, 
 
 The coward conquest of a wretch's knife, 
 
 Too base of thee to be remembered. 
 
 The worth of that is that which it contains. 
 
 And that is this, and this with thee remains. 
 
 W 
 
 •LXXIX 
 (76) 
 
 HY is my verse so barren of new pride ? 
 
 So far from variation or quick change ? 
 Why with the time do I not glance aside 
 To new-found methods and to compounds strange ? 
 Why write I still all one, ever the same. 
 And keep invention in a noted weed, 
 That every word doth almost tell my name, 
 Showing their birth and where they did proceed ? 
 O, know, sweet Love, I always write of you, 
 And you and love are still my argument ; 
 So all my best is dressing old words new, 
 Spending again what is already spent : 
 For as the sun is daily new and old, 
 So is my love still telling what is told.
 
 English Sonnets 41 
 
 LXXX 
 
 (81) 
 
 C\^ I shall live your epitaph to make, SHrKs"EA'RE 
 
 ^^^ Or you survive when I in earth am rotten ; ^ 6~6i6 
 
 From hence your memory death cannot take, 
 
 Although in me each part will be forgotten. 
 
 Your name from hence immortal life shall have, 
 
 Though I, once gone, to all the world must die : 
 
 The earth can yield me but a common grave, 
 
 When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie. 
 
 Your monument shall be my gentle verse, 
 
 Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read. 
 
 And tongues to be your being shall rehearse 
 
 When all the breathers of this world are dead ; 
 
 You still shall live — such virtue hath my pen — 
 
 Where breath most breathes, — even in the mouths of men. 
 
 LXXXI 
 
 (87) . 
 
 » 
 
 T7 AREWELL ! thou art too dear for my possessing, 
 
 And like enough thou know'st thy estimate : 
 The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing ; 
 My bonds in thee are all determinate. 
 For how do I hold thee but by thy granting ? 
 And for that riches where is my deserving ? 
 The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting. 
 And so my patent back again is swerving. 
 Thyself thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing. 
 Or me, to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking ; 
 So thy great gift, upon misprision growing. 
 Comes home again, on better judgment making. 
 Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter ; 
 In sleep a king, but, waking, no such matter.
 
 '42 A T}-easiiry of 
 
 LXXXII 
 
 (90) 
 William H^HEN hate me when thou wilt ; if ever, now ; 
 
 Shakspeare I 
 
 — ■ Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross, 
 
 1564— 1616 ' . -^ ' 
 
 Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow, 
 
 And do not drop in for an after-loss : 
 
 Ah, do not, when my heart hath 'scaped this sorrow, 
 
 Come in the rearward of a conquered woe ; 
 
 Give not a windy night a rainy morrow, 
 
 To linger out a purposed overthrow. 
 
 If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last, 
 
 When other petty griefs have done their spite, 
 
 But in the onset come ; so shall I taste 
 
 At first the very worst of fortune's might ; 
 
 And other strains of woe, which now seem woe, 
 
 Compared with loss of thee will not seem so. 
 
 LXXXIII . 1 
 
 (91) \ 
 
 OOME glory in their birth, some in their skill. 
 
 Some in their wealth, some in their body's force, j 
 
 Some in their garments, though new-fangled ill, | 
 
 Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse ; 
 And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure. 
 Wherein it finds a joy above the rest : 
 
 But these particulars are not my measure ; \ 
 
 All these I better in one general best. j 
 
 Thy love is better than high birth to me, ; 
 
 Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' cost, 
 Of more delight than hawks or horses be ; \ 
 
 And having thee, of all men's pride I boast : 
 Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take \ 
 
 All this away, and me most wretched make. \
 
 1564 — i6i6 
 
 English Sonnets 43 
 
 LXXXIV 
 
 (92) 
 
 BUT do thy worst to steal thyself away, William 
 
 Shakspeare 
 For term of life thou art assured mine, 
 
 And life no longer than thy love will stay, 
 
 For it depends upon that love of thine. 
 
 Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs. 
 
 When in the least of them my life hath end. 
 
 1 see a better state to me belongs 
 
 Than that which on thy humour doth depend ; 
 
 Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind, 
 
 Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie. 
 
 Oh what a happy title do I find, 
 
 Happy to have thy love, happy to die ! 
 
 But what's so blessed-fair that fears no blot ? 
 
 Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not. 
 
 LXXXV 
 
 (93) 
 
 00 shall I live, supposing thou art true, 
 
 Like a deceived husband ; so love's face 
 May still seem love to me, though altered new ; 
 Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place : 
 For there can live no hatred in thine eye, 
 Therefore in that I cannot know thy change. 
 In many's looks the false heart's history 
 Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange ; 
 But heaven in thy creation did decree 
 That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell ; 
 Whate'er thy thoughts or thy heart's workings be. 
 Thy looks should nothing thence but sweetness tell. 
 How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow, 
 If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show !
 
 44 A Treasury of 
 
 LXXXVI j 
 
 (94) 
 William nPHEY that have powcr to hurt and will do none, 
 
 ShAKSPEARE I ,1-1 
 
 — That do not do the thing they most do show, 
 
 1564 — 1616 
 
 Who, moving others, are themselves as stone. 
 
 Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow, — 
 
 They rightly do inherit heaven's graces 
 
 Ana husband nature's riches from expense ; 
 
 They are the lords and owners of their faces, 
 
 Others but stewards of their excellence. 
 
 The summer's flower is to the summer sweet, 
 
 Though to itself it only live and die ; 
 
 But if that flower with base infection meet, 
 
 The basest weed outbraves his dignity : 
 
 Tor sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds ; 
 
 Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds. 
 
 LXXXVII 
 
 (97) 
 TJj'OW like a winter hath my absence been 
 •*^ From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year ! 
 What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen ! 
 What old December's bareness every where ! 
 And yet this time removed was summer's time ; 
 The teeming autumn, big with rich increase. 
 Bearing the wanton burthen of the prime. 
 Like widowed wombs after their lords' decease : 
 Yet this abundant issue seemed to me 
 But hope of orphans and unfathered fruit ; 
 For summer and his pleasures wait on thee. 
 And, thou away, the very birds are mute ; 
 Or, if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer, 
 That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.
 
 English Sonnets 45 
 
 LXXXVIII 
 
 (98) 
 
 cf'Tit in tViP> cnrincr 
 
 Shakspeare 
 
 ROM you have I been absent in the spring, William 
 
 F 
 
 •^ When proud-pied April, dressed m all his trnn, ^ ^ _^^^^ 
 
 Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing, | 
 
 That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him. j 
 
 Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell j 
 
 Of different flowers in odour and in hue I 
 
 Could make me any summer's story tell, ; 
 
 Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew ; ; 
 
 Nor did I wonder at the lily's white, j 
 
 Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose ; j 
 
 They were but sweet, but figures of delight, | 
 
 Drawn after you, you pattern of all those. j 
 
 Yet seemed it winter still, and, you away, •; 
 
 As with your shadow I with these did play. ' 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 LXXXIX 
 (99) 
 
 HTHE forward violet thus did I chide : i 
 
 -^ Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells. 
 If not from my Love's breath ? The purple pride 
 Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells 
 In my Love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed. i 
 
 The lily I condemned for thy hand, \ 
 
 And buds of marjoram had stolen thy hair : 
 
 The roses fearfully on thorns did stand, ] 
 
 One blushing shame, another white despair ; 
 
 A third, nor red nor white, had stolen of both, '■ 
 
 And to his robbery had annexed thy breath ; ; 
 
 But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth ^ 
 
 A vengeful canker eat him up to death. 
 More flowers I noted, yet I none could see 
 But sweet or colour it had stolen from thee.
 
 46 A Treasury of 
 
 xc 
 ( 102 ) 
 William TV /f Y lovc is Strengthened, though more weak 
 
 Shakspeare vI ' o 
 
 , — ^ ^ seeming ; 
 
 1564 — i6i6 * ' 
 
 m 
 
 I love not less, though less the show appear : 
 
 That love is merchandized whose rich esteeming 
 
 The owner's tongue doth publish every where. 
 
 Our love was new and then but in the spring 
 
 When I was wont to greet it with my lays, 
 
 As Philomel in summer's front doth sing. 
 
 And stops her pipe in growth of riper days : 
 
 Not that the summer is less pleasant now 
 
 Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night, 
 
 But that wild music burthens every bough 
 
 And sweets grown common lose their dear delight. 
 
 Therefore like her I sometime hold my tongue. 
 
 Because I would not dull you with my song. 
 
 xci 
 
 ( 104 ) 
 
 T^O me, fair Friend, you never can be old, 
 
 For as you were when first your eye I eyed, 
 Such seems your beauty still. *Three winters cold 
 Have from the forests shook three summers' pride, 
 Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned 
 In process of the seasons have I seen, 
 Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned. 
 Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green. 
 Ah ! yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand. 
 Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived ; 
 So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand. 
 Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived : 
 For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred, — 
 Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.
 
 English Sonnets 47 
 
 xcii 
 
 (105) 
 
 T ET not my love be called idolatry, William 
 
 -^ Nor my beloved as an idol show, — 
 
 Smce all alike my songs and praises be 
 
 To one, of one, still such, and ever so. 
 
 Kind is my Love to-day, to-morrow kind, 
 
 Still constant in a wondrous excellence ; 
 
 Therefore my verse, to constancy confined. 
 
 One thing expressing, leaves out difference. 
 
 ' Fair, kind, and true ' is all my argument, 
 
 ' Fair, kind, and true ' varying to other words ; 
 
 And in this change is my invention spent, 
 
 Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords. 
 
 'Fair, kind, and true,' have often lived alone, 
 
 Whictf three till now never kept seat in one. 
 
 XCIII 
 
 ( 106 ) 
 
 T 1[ /"HEN in the chronicle of wasted time 
 
 I see descriptions of the fairest wights, 
 And beauty making beautiful old rime 
 In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights ; 
 Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best, 
 Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, 
 I see their antique pen would have expressed 
 Even such a beauty as you master now. 
 So all their praises are but prophedes 
 Of this our time, all you prefiguring ; 
 And for they looked but with divining eyes. 
 They had not skill enough your worth to sing : 
 For we, which now behold these present days. 
 Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.
 
 1564 — i6i6 
 
 48 A Treasury of 
 
 Shakspeare I^ 
 
 XCIV 
 (107) 
 
 WiLUAM^^ IVT OT mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul 
 
 Of the wide world dreaming on things to come 
 Can yet the lease of my true Love controul, 
 Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom. 
 The mortal Moon hath her eclipse endured, 
 And the sad augurs mock their own presage ; 
 Incertainties now crown themselves assured, 
 And peace proclaims olives of endless age. 
 Now with the drops of this most balmy time 
 My Love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes. 
 Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rime. 
 While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes : 
 And thou in this shalt find thy monument. 
 When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are Tspent. 
 
 xcv 
 
 ( 109 ) 
 /^ NEVER say that I was false of heart, 
 ^"^ Though absence seemed my flame to qualify. 
 As easy might I from myself depart 
 As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie : 
 That is my home of love : if I have ranged, 
 Like him that travels I return again. 
 Just to the time, not with the time exchanged, — ' 
 So that myself bring water for my stain. 
 Never believe, though in my nature reigned 
 All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood. 
 That it could so preposterously be stained, 
 To leave for nothing all thy sum of good ; 
 For nothing this wide universe I call. 
 Save thou, my rose ; in it thou art my all.
 
 English Sonnets 49 
 
 xcvi 
 (no) 
 
 ALAS, 'tis true I have gone here and there William 
 
 * 1 1 ,/• , ■, • Shakspeaee 
 
 And made myself a motley to the view, — 
 
 Gored mine own thoughts,sold cheap what is most dear, ^5411 
 Made old offences of affections new '; 
 Most true it is that I have looked on truth 
 Askance and strangely : but, by all above, 
 These blenches gave my heart another youth, 
 And worse essays proved thee my best of love. 
 Now all is done, have what shall have no end : 
 Mine appetite I never more will grind 
 On newer proof, to try an older friend, 
 A god in love, to whom I am confined. 
 Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best, • 
 Even to thy pure and most most loving breast. 
 
 O 
 
 XCVII 
 
 (in) 
 FOR my sake do you with Fortune chide, 
 
 The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, 
 That did not better for my life provide 
 Than public means which public manners breeds. 
 Thence comes it that my name receives a brand, 
 And almost thence my nature is subdued 
 To what it works in, like the dyer's hand : 
 Pity me then, and wish I were renewed ; 
 Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink 
 Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection ; 
 No bitterness that I will bitter think, 
 Nor double penance, to correct correction. 
 Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye 
 Even that your pity is enough to cure me. 
 
 £
 
 50 A Treasujy of 
 
 XCVIII 
 
 (ii6) 
 William T ET me not to the marriage of true minds 
 
 Shakspeare 
 1564 — I6I6 
 
 '■b'- 
 
 Admit impediments. Love is not love 
 Which alters when it alteration finds, 
 Or bends with the remover to remove : 
 
 no ! it is an ever-fixed mark 
 
 That looks on tempests and is never shaken ; 
 
 It is the star to every v/andering bark, 
 
 Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. 
 
 Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks 
 
 Within his bending sickle's compass come ; 
 
 Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, 
 
 But bears it out even to the edge of doom. 
 
 If this be error, and upon me proved, 
 
 1 never writ, nor no man ever loved. 
 
 xcix 
 
 (117) 
 
 A CCUSE me thus : that I have scanted all 
 Wherein I should your great deserts repay, 
 Forgot upon your dearest love to call. 
 Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day ; 
 That I have frequent been with unknown minds 
 And given to time your own dear-purchased right ; 
 That I have hoisted sail to all the winds 
 Which should transport me farthest from your sight. 
 Book both my wilfulness and errors down, 
 And on just proof surmise accumulate ; 
 Bring me within the level of your frown, 
 But shoot not at me in your wakened hate ; 
 Since my appeal says, I did strive to prove 
 The constancy and virtue of your love.
 
 English Sonnets 51 
 
 (128) j 
 
 HOW oft, when thou, my music, music play'st, Wiu.iam | 
 
 oHAKSPEARE I 
 
 Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds , — ^ ^ ! 
 
 '■ 1504 — IDIO I 
 
 With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway'st 
 
 The wiry concord that mine ear confounds, ' 
 
 Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap I 
 
 To kiss the tender inward of thy hand, I 
 
 Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap, I 
 
 At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand ! i 
 
 To be so tickled, they would change their state ; 
 
 And situation with those dancing chips, i 
 
 O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait, 1 
 
 Making dead wood more blest than living lips. I 
 
 Since saucy jacks so happy are in this, \ 
 Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss. 
 
 CI 
 
 (129) 
 
 HE expense of spirit in a waste of shame 
 
 T 
 
 Is lust in action ; and till action, lust 
 Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame, 
 Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust ; 
 Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight ; 
 Past reason hunted ; and no sooner had, 
 Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait 
 On purpose laid to make the taker mad : 
 Mad in pursuit and in possession so ; 
 Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme ; 
 A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe ; 
 Before, a joy proposed ; behind, a dream. 
 All this the world well knows ; yet none knows well 
 To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
 
 1564 — i6i6 
 
 •1 
 
 52 A Treasury of 
 
 cii \ 
 
 i 
 
 (132) i 
 
 ShIks"eare 'X'HINE eyes I love, and they, as pitying me, | 
 
 — Knowing thy heart torments me with disdain, i 
 
 Have put on black, and loving mourners be, .1 
 
 Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain. 
 And truly not the morning sun of heaven : 
 
 Better becomes the gray cheeks of the east, \ 
 
 Nor that full star that ushers-in the even 
 Doth half that glory to the sober west, ' 
 
 As those two mourning eyes become thy face : ■ 
 
 O, let it then as well beseem thy heart 
 To mourn for me, since mourning doth thee grace, 
 And suit thy pity like in every part. 
 Then will I swear beauty herself is black 
 And all they foul that thy complexion lack. 
 
 cm 
 
 (138) 
 
 A'X fHEN my Love swears that she is made of truth 
 
 I do believe her, though I know she lies, 
 That she might think me some untutored youth. 
 Unlearned in the world's false subtleties. 
 Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young, 
 Although she knows my days are past the best, 
 Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue : 
 On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed. 
 But wherefore says she not she is unjust ? 
 And wherefore say not I that I am old ? 
 O, love's best habit is in seeming trust. 
 And age in love loves not to have years told : 
 Therefore I lie with her, and she with me, 
 And in our faults by lies we flattered be.
 
 English Sonnets 53 
 
 CIV 
 
 (139) ; 
 
 OCALL not me to justify the wrons: Wiluam ' 
 
 ^ ShaKSI'EAKR 
 
 That thy unkindness lays upon my heart ; — '^ 
 
 J . , . . 1564 — 1616 
 Wound me not with tnme eye, but with thy tongue ; 
 
 Use power with power, and slay me not by art. 
 
 Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere ; but in my sight, ' 
 
 Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside : 
 
 What need'st thou wound with cunning, when thy might 
 
 Is more than my o'er-pressed defence can bide ? 
 
 Let me excuse thee : ah ! my Love well knows 
 
 Her pretty looks have been mine enemies, 
 
 And therefore from my face she turns my foes, 
 
 That they elsewhere might dart their injuries : 
 
 Yet do not so ; but since I am near slain. 
 
 Kill me outright with looks, and rid my pain. 
 
 cv 
 
 ( 146 ) 
 
 "pOOR Soul, the centre of my sinful earth. 
 
 Fooled by these rebel powers that thee array, 
 Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth, 
 Painting thy outward walls so costly gay ? 
 W^hy so large cost, having so short a lease, 
 Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend ? 
 Shall worms, inheritors of this excess. 
 Eat up thy charge ? is this thy body's end ? 
 Then, Soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss, 
 And let that,pine to aggravate thy store ; 
 Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross ; 
 Within be fed, without be rich no more : 
 So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men, 
 And Death once dead, there's no more dying then !
 
 54 A Treasury of 
 
 I 
 i 
 I 
 
 CVI 
 
 1564 — I6I6 
 
 (148) 
 
 William /^ ME ! what cvcs hath Lovc put in my head, 
 
 Shakspeare \^ f . i. J 1 
 
 Which have no correspondence with true sight! 
 Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled, 
 That censures falsely what they see aright ? 
 If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote, 
 What means the world to say it is not so ? 
 If it be not, then Love doth well denote 
 Love's eye is not so true as all men's * no.' 
 How can it ? O, how can Love's eye be true, 
 That is so vexed with watching and with tears ? 
 No marvel then, though I mistake my view ; 
 The sun itself sees not till heaven clears. 
 O cunning Love ! with tears thou keep'st me blind, 
 Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find. 
 
 CVII 
 
 JohnDavies T^HE frosty beard, inclining all to white, 
 
 OF Hereford I 1111 1 • 1 
 
 The snowy head,or head more white than snow. 
 
 1560-5 — 1618 
 
 The crow-foot near the eyes, brows furrowed quite, 1 
 
 With trenches in the cheeks. Experience show. i 
 
 These are the emblems of Authority, \ 
 
 Which joined to those do much augment her might : i 
 
 These are the signs of Reason's sovereignty, . 
 
 And hieroglyphics, spelling Judgment right. ' | 
 
 These are the trophies reared by Time's left hand 
 Upon the spoil of Passion and her powers : 
 We, by these symbols. Wisdom understand, 
 
 That us directeth, and protecteth ours : ' j 
 
 All these in me begin to come in sight, ; 
 Yet can I hardly rule myself aright.
 
 A 
 
 English Sonnets 55 
 
 CVIII 
 
 H, sweet Content, where is thy mild abode ? Barnabe 
 
 ■' Barnes 
 
 Is it with shepherds and hght-hearted swains 
 Which sing upon the downs and pipe abroad, 
 Tending their flocks and cattle on the plains ? 
 Ah, sweet Content, where dost thou safely rest ? 
 In heaven, with angels which the praises sing 
 Of him that made, and rules at his behest, 
 The minds and hearts of every living thing ? 
 Ah, sweet Content, where doth thine harbour hold ? 
 Is it in churches with religious men 
 Which please the gods with prayers manifold. 
 And in their studies meditate it then ? — 
 Whether thou dost in heaven, or earth appear, 
 Be where thou wilt, thou will not harbour here. 
 
 1568-9 — 1609 
 
 cix • 
 
 T TNTO my spirit lend an angel's wing, 
 
 By which it might mount to that place of rest 
 Where Paradise may me relieve opprest ; 
 Lend to my tongue an angel's voice to sing 
 Thy praise my comfort, and for ever bring 
 My notes thereof from the bright east to west. 
 Thy mercy lend unto my soul distrest, 
 Thy grace unto my wits ; then shall the sling 
 Of righteousness that monster Satan kill, 
 Who with despair my dear salvation dared, 
 And like the Philistine stood breathing still 
 Proud threats against my soul for heaven prepared : 
 At length I like an angel shall appear, 
 In spotless white an angel's crown to wear.
 
 56 A Treasury of 
 
 ex 
 
 John Donne A g due by many titles, I resign 
 1573— 1631 "^ ■*■ Myself to Thee, O God. First I was made 
 By Thee and for Thee ; and, when I was decayed, 
 Thy blood bought that the which before was thine ; 
 I am thy son, made with thyself to shine. 
 Thy servant whose pains Thou hast still repaid, 
 Thy sheep, thine image, and, till I betrayed 
 Myself, a temple of thy Spirit divine. 
 Why doth the devil, then, usurp on me ? 
 Why doth he steal, nay, ravish that's thy right ? 
 Except Thou rise, and for thine own work fight, 
 Oh ! I shall soon despair, when I do see 
 That Thou lov'st mankind well,yet wilt not choose me, 
 And Satan hates me, yet is loth to lose me. 
 
 CXI 
 
 "pvEATH, be not proud, though some have called 
 
 ^ thee 
 
 Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so ; 
 
 Eor those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow 
 
 Die not, poor Death ; nor yet canst thou kill me. 
 
 From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, 
 
 Much pleasure : then from thee much more must flow, 
 
 And soonest our best men with thee do go — 
 
 Rest of their bones and souls' delivery ! 
 
 Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate 
 
 men, 
 And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell ; 
 And poppy or chariri* can make us sleep as well, 
 And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st thou then ? 
 One short sleep past, we wake eternally. 
 And death shall be no more : Death, thou shalt die.
 
 I 
 
 English Sonnets 57 
 
 CXII 
 
 KNOW that all beneath the moon decays, William 
 
 And what by mortals in this world is brought, ^^ 
 
 In Time's great periods shall return to nought ; 
 That fairest states have fatal nights and days ; 
 I know how all the Muse's heavenly lays, 
 With toil of spright which are so dearly bought. 
 As idle sounds of few or none are sought, 
 And that nought lighter is than airy praise. 
 I know frail beauty like the purple flower. 
 To which one morn oft birth and death affords ; 
 That love a jarring is of minds' accords. 
 Where sense and will invassal reason's power : 
 Know what I list, this all can not me move. 
 But that, O me ! I both must write and love. 
 
 CXIII 
 
 TVrOW while the Night her sable veil hath spread, 
 
 And silently her resty coach doth roll, 
 Rousing with her from Tethys' azure bed 
 Those starry nymphs which dance about the pole ; 
 While Cynthia, in purest cypress cled. 
 The Latmian shepherd in a trance descries. 
 And whiles looks pale from height of all the skies, 
 Whiles dyes her beauties in a bashful red ; 
 While Sleep in triumph closed hath all eyes, 
 And birds and beasts a silence sweet do keep. 
 And Proteus' monstrous people in the deep 
 The winds and waves hushed up to rest entice ; 
 I wake, muse, weep, and who my heart hath slain 
 See still before me to augment my pain.
 
 William 
 Drummond 
 
 1585—1649 
 
 58 A Treasury of 
 
 cxiv 
 
 Q LEEP, Silence' child, sweet father of soft rest, 
 
 ^-^ Prince whose approach peace to all mortals brings, 
 
 Indifferent host to shepherds and to kings, 
 
 Sole comforter of minds with grief opprest ; 
 
 Lo, by thy charming-rod all breathing things 
 
 Lie slumbering, with forgetfulness possest. 
 
 And yet o'er me to spread thy drowsy wings 
 
 Thou spares, alas ! who cannot be thy guest. 
 
 Since I am thine, O come, but with that face 
 
 To inward light which thou art wont to show ; 
 
 With feigned solace ease a true-felt woe ; 
 
 Or if, deaf god, thou do deny that grace, 
 
 Come as thou wilt, and what thou wilt bequeath, — 
 
 I long to kiss the image of my death. 
 
 cxv 
 
 A H ! burning thoughts, now let me take some rest. 
 And your tumultuous broils awhile appease ; 
 Is't not enough, stars, fortune, love molest 
 Me all at once, but ye must to displease ? 
 Let hope, though false, yet lodge within my breast ; 
 My high attempt, though dangerous, yet praise. 
 What though I trace not right heaven's steepy ways ? 
 It doth suffice my fall shall make me blest. 
 I do not doat on days, nor fear not death : 
 So that my life be brave, what though not long ? 
 Let me renowned live from the vulgar throng. 
 And when ye list. Heavens I take this borrowed breath. 
 Men but like visions are, Time all doth claim : 
 He lives who dies to win a lasting name.
 
 I 
 
 English Sonnets 59 
 
 cxvi 
 
 N vain I haunt the cold and silver springs, wilham 
 
 To quench the fever burning in my veins ; s^ITfi 
 
 In vain, love's pilgrim, mountains, dales, and plains, 
 
 I overrun ; vain help long absence brings : 
 
 In vain, my friends, your counsel me constrains 
 
 To fly, and place my thoughts on other things. 
 
 Ah ! like the bird that fired hath her wings. 
 
 The more I move, the greater are my pains. 
 
 Desire, alas ! Desire, a Zeuxis new, 
 
 From Indies borrowing gold, from western skies 
 
 Most bright cinoper, sets before mine eyes 
 
 In every place, her hair, sweet look, and hue ; 
 
 That fly, run, rest I, all doth prove but vain : 
 
 My life lies in those looks which have me slain. 
 
 CXVII 
 
 'THRUST not, sweet soul, those curled waves of gold 
 With gentle tides which on your temples flow, 
 Nor temples spread with flakes of virgin snow, 
 Nor snow of cheeks with Tyrian grain enrolled ; 
 Trust not those shining lights which wrought my woe. 
 When first I did their burning rays behold. 
 Nor voice, whose sounds more strange effects do show 
 Than of the Thracian harper have been told. 
 Look to this dying lily, fading rose, 
 Dark hyacinth, of late whose blushing beams 
 Made all the neighbouring herbs and grass rejoice, 
 And think how little is 'twixt life's extremes : 
 The cruel tyrant that did kill those flovrers 
 Shall once, ay me ! not spare that spring of yours.
 
 I5S5— 1649 
 
 6o A Treasury of 
 
 CXVIII 
 
 William Tp crost with all misliaps be my poor life, 
 
 Drummond I 
 
 If one short day I never spent in mirth, 
 If my spright with itself holds lasting strife, 
 If sorrow's death is but new sorrow's birth ; 
 If this vain world be but a sable stage 
 Where slave-born man plays to the scofifing stars ; 
 If youth be tossed with love, with weakness age. 
 If knowledge serve to hold our thoughts in wars ; 
 If time can close the hundred mouths of fame, 
 And make what long since passed like that to be ; 
 If virtue only be an idle name ; 
 If I when I was born was born to die ; 
 Why seek I to prolong these loathsome days ? 
 The fairest rose in shortest time decays. 
 
 cxix 
 
 "P\EAR wood, and you, sweet solitary place. 
 Where from the vulgar I estranged live, 
 Contented more with what your shades me give 
 Than if I had what Thetis doth embrace ; 
 What snaky eye, grown jealous of my pace. 
 Now from your silent horrors would me drive. 
 When Sun, progressing in his glorious race 
 Beyond the Twins, doth near our pole arrive ? 
 What sweet delight a quiet life affords, 
 And what it is to be of bondage free, 
 Far from the madding worldling's hoarse discords, 
 Sweet flowery place I first did learn of thee : 
 Ah ! if I were mine own, your dear resorts 
 I would not change with princes' stately courts.
 
 Ejiglish Sonnets 6i 
 
 cxx 
 
 ALEXIS, here she stayed ; among these pines, William 
 
 ' . -^ ' ° i ' Drummond 
 
 Sweet hermitress, she did alone repair ; 
 
 Here did she spread the treasure of her hair, 
 More rich than that brought from the Colchian mines; 
 She set her by these musked eglantines — 
 The happy place the print seems yet to bear ; 
 Her voice did sweeten here thy sugared lines, 
 To which winds, trees, beasts, birds, did lend their ear; 
 Me here she first perceived, and here a morn 
 Of bright carnations did o'erspread her face ; 
 Here did she sigh, here first my hopes were born, 
 And I first got a pledge of promised grace ; 
 But ah ! what served it to be happy so 
 Sith passed pleasures double but new woe ? 
 
 1585— 1649 
 
 CXXI 
 
 CWEET soul, which in the April of thy years 
 
 ^ So to enrich the heaven mad'st poor this round 
 
 And now with golden rays of glory crowned 
 
 Most blest abid'st above the sphere of spheres ; 
 
 If heavenly laws, alas ! have not thee bound 
 
 From looking to this globe that all upbears. 
 
 If ruth and pity there above be found, 
 
 O deign to lend a look unto those tears. 
 
 Do not disdain, dear ghost, this sacrifice ; 
 
 And though I raise not pillars to thy praise, 
 
 Mine offerings take ; let this for me sufiice : 
 
 My heart a living pyramid I raise ; 
 
 And whilst kings' tombs with laurels flourish green, 
 
 Thine shall with myrtles and these flowers be seen.
 
 I5S5— 1649 
 
 62 A T?'easi/ry of 
 
 CXXII 
 
 William TV /T Y lutc, be as tliou wast whcn thou didst grow 
 
 Drummond VI. . 
 
 — With thy green mother in some shady grove, 
 
 When immelodious winds but made thee move, 
 And birds on thee their ramage did bestow. 
 Sith that dear voice which did thy sounds approve. 
 Which used in such harmonious strains to flow, 
 Is reft from earth to tune those spheres above, 
 What art thou but a harbinger of woe ? 
 Thy pleasing notes be pleasing notes no more. 
 But orphan waitings to the fainting ear ; 
 Each stop a sigh, each' sound draws forth a tear ; 
 Be therefore silent as in woods before : 
 Or if that any hand to touch thee deign, 
 Like widowed turtle still her loss complain. 
 
 CXXIII 
 
 OWEET Spring, thou turn'st with all thy goodly train, 
 Thy head with flames, thy mantle bright with 
 flowers ; 
 The zephyrs curl the green locks of the plain. 
 The clouds for joy in pearls weep down their showers: 
 Thou turn'st, sweet youth; but ah! my pleasant hours 
 And happy days with thee come not again : 
 The sad memorials only of my pain 
 Do with thee turn, which turn my sweets in sours. 
 Thou art the same which still thou wast before, 
 Delicious, wanton, amiable, fair ; 
 But she, whose breath embalmed thy wholesome air, 
 Is gone ; nor gold, nor gems her can restore. 
 Neglected Virtue ! seasons go and come. 
 While thine, forgot, lie closed in a tomb.
 
 English Sonnets 63 
 
 ex XIV 
 HUMAN FRAILTY. 
 
 A GOOD that never satisfies the mind, Wh.liam 
 
 A beauty fading hke the April flowers, 
 
 1585— 1649 
 
 A sweet with floods of gall that runs combined, 
 
 A pleasure passing ere in thought made ours, 
 
 A honour that more fickle is than wind, 
 
 A glory at opinion's frown that lowers, 
 
 A treasury which bankrupt time devours, 
 
 A knowledge than grave ignorance more blind, 
 
 A vain delight our equals to command, 
 
 A style of greatness, in effect a dream, 
 
 A fabulous thought of holding sea and land, 
 
 A servile lot, decked with a pompous name : 
 
 Are the strange ends we toil for here below, 
 
 Till wisest death make us our errors know. 
 
 cxxv 
 
 NO TRUST IN TIME. 
 
 I 
 
 T OOK how the flower which lingeringly doth fade, ■ 
 
 ■^ The morning's darling late,the summer's queen, 
 
 Spoiled of that juice which kept it fresh and green, 
 
 As high as it did raise, bows low the head : 
 
 Right so my life, contentments being dead, . ] 
 
 Or in their contraries but only seen, \ 
 
 With swifter speed declines than erst it spread, ; 
 
 And blasted, scarce now shows what it hath been. 
 
 As doth the pilgrim therefore, whom the night 
 
 By darkness would imprison on his way, 
 
 Think on thy home, my soul, and think aright 
 
 Of what yet rests thee of life's wasting day ; 
 
 Thy sun posts westward, passed is thy morn, 
 
 And twice it is not given thee to be born.
 
 64 A Treasury of 
 
 CXXVI i 
 
 1 
 
 THE BOOK OF THE WORLD. 1 
 
 I 
 
 ■ I 
 
 William /^F this fair volume which we World do name 
 
 — ^^ If we the sheets and leaves could turn with ; 
 1585- 1649 
 
 care, i 
 
 Of him who it corrects and did it frame, 1 
 
 We clear might read the art and wisdom rare : i 
 Find out his power which wildest powers doth tame, 
 His providence extending everywhere, 
 
 His justice which proud rebels doth not spare, , ■ 
 In every page, no, period of the same. 
 But silly we, like foolish children, rest 
 
 W^ell pleased with coloured vellum, leaves of gold, ; 
 
 Fair dangling ribands, leaving what is best, ■ 
 
 On the great writer's sense ne'er taking hold ; i 
 
 Or if by chance our minds do muse on ought, ] 
 
 It is some picture on the margin wrought. 
 
 cxxvii 
 FOR THE BAPTIST. 
 
 nPHE last and greatest herald of Heaven's King, 
 Girt with rough skins, hies to the deserts wild, 
 Among that savage brood the woods forth bring. 
 Which he than man more harmless found and mild. 
 His food was blossoms, and what young doth spring, 
 W^ith honey that from virgin hives distilled ; 
 Parched body, hollow eyes, some uncouth thing 
 Made him appear, long since from earth exiled. 
 There bursts he forth : All ye whose hopes rely 
 On God, with me amidst these deserts mourn, 
 Repent, repent, and from old errors turn ! — 
 Who listened to his voice, obeyed his cry ? 
 Only the echoes, which he made relent, 
 Rung from their marble caves. Repent ! Repent !
 
 English So)mcts 65 
 
 CXXVIII 
 THE PRAISE OF A SOLITAR V LIFE. 
 
 THRICE happy he, who by some shady grove, Wiu.iam 
 
 Far from the clamorous world doth live his own ; — 
 
 1585 — 1649 
 
 Though solitary, who is not alone. 
 But doth converse with that Eternal Love. 
 O how more sweet is birds' harmonious moan, 
 Or the hoarse sobbings of the widowed dove, 
 Than those smooth whisperings near a prince's throne, 
 Which good make doubtful, do the evil approve ! 
 O how more sweet is Zephyr's wholesome breath, 
 And sighs embalmed which new-born flowers unfold, 
 Than that applause vain honour doth bequeath ! 
 How sweet are streams to poison drunk in gold ! 
 The world is full of horrors, troubles, slights ; 
 Woods' harmless shades have only true-deHghts. 
 
 CXXIX 
 
 TO A NIGHTINGALE. 
 
 OWEET bird, that sing'st away the early hours, 
 
 Of winters past or coming void of care. 
 Well pleased with delights which present are. 
 Fair seasons, budding sprays, sweet-smelling flowers ; 
 To rocks, to springs, to .rills, from leafy bowers 
 Thou thy Creator's goodness dost declare, 
 And what dear gifts on thee he did not spare, 
 A stain to human sense in sin that lowers. 
 What soul can be so sick which by thy songs, 
 Attired in sweetness, sweetly is not driven 
 Quite to forget earth's turmoils, spites, and wrongs. 
 And lift a reverend eye and thought to heaven ! 
 Sweet artless songster, thou my mind dost raise 
 To airs of spheres, yes, and to angels' lays. 
 
 F
 
 66 A Treasury of 
 
 ex XX 
 CONTENT AND RESOLUTE. 
 
 Drummond a S when it happeneth that some lovely town 
 158^649 Unto a barbarous besieger falls, 
 
 Who there by sword and flame himself instals, 
 And, cruel, it in tears and blood doth drown ; 
 Her beauty spoiled, her citizens made thralls, 
 His spite yet so cannot her all throw down 
 But that some statue, arch, fane of renown 
 Yet lurks unmaimed within her weeping walls : 
 So, after all the spoil, disgrace, and wrack, 
 That time, the world, and death, could bring com- 
 bined, 
 Amidst that mass of ruins they did make, 
 Safe and all scarless yet remains my mind. 
 From this so high transcending rapture springs, 
 That I, all else defaced, not envy kings. 
 
 cxxxi. 
 
 T^OTH then the world go thus, doth all thus move ? 
 
 Is this the justice which on earth we find ? 
 Is this that firm decree which all doth bind ? 
 Are these your influences. Powers above ? 
 Those souls which vice's moody mists most blind, 
 Blind Fortune, blindly, most their friend doth prove ; 
 And they who thee, poor idol Virtue ! love. 
 Ply like a feather tossed by storm and wind. 
 Ah ! if a Providence doth sway this All, 
 Why should best minds groan under most distress ? 
 Or why should pride humility make thrall. 
 And injuries the innocent oppress ? 
 Heavens ! hinder, stop this fate ; or grant a time 
 When good may have, as well as bad, their prime.
 
 English Somiets 67 
 
 CXXXII 
 BEFORE A POEM OF IRENE. 
 
 lyT OURN not, fair Greece, the ruin of thy kings, ^^'^^'^^ 
 Thy temples razed, thy forts with flames de- ^ g~g 
 voured. 
 Thy champions slain, thy virgins pure deflowered, 
 Nor all those griefs which stern Bellona brings : 
 But mourn, fair Greece, mourn that that sacred band 
 Which made thee once so famous by their songs, 
 Forced by outrageous fate, have left thy land. 
 And left thee scarce a voice to plain thy wrongs ! 
 Mourn that those climates which to thee appear 
 Beyond both Phoebus and his sister's ways. 
 To save thy deeds from death must lend thee lays, 
 And such as from Mus^us thou didst hear : 
 For now Irene hath attained such fame. 
 That Hero's ghost doth weep to hear her name. 
 
 CXXXIII 
 
 F 
 
 AIREST, when by the rules of palmistry, William 
 
 1 11 -r 11 Browne 
 
 You took my hand to try if you could guess, 
 
 By lines therein, if any wight there be 
 Ordained to make me know some happiness, 
 I wished that those characters could explain 
 Whom I will never wrong with hope to win ; 
 Or that by them a copy might be seen 
 By you, O Love, what thoughts I have within. 
 But since the hand of Nature did not set 
 (As providently loth to have it known) 
 The means to find that hidden alphabet, 
 Mine eyes shall be th' interpreters alone. 
 By them conceive my thoughts and tell me, fair. 
 If now you see her that, doth love me there ! 
 
 -1643 ?
 
 68 A Treasury of 
 
 William 
 Browne 
 
 I 
 
 cxxxiv i 
 
 A ROSE, as fair as ever saw the North, 
 gg^g , Grew in a little garden all alone : 
 
 A sweeter flower did Nature ne'er put forth, 
 
 Nor fairer garden yet was never known. 
 
 The maidens danced about it morn and noon. 
 
 And learned bards of it their ditties made ; 
 
 The nimble fairies, by the pale-faced moon. 
 
 Watered the root, and kissed her pretty shade. 
 
 But, welladay ! the gardener careless grew, 
 
 The maids and fairies both were kept away, 
 
 And in a drought the caterpillars threw 
 
 Themselves upon the bud and every spray. 
 
 God shield the stock ! If heav^i send no supplies, 
 
 The fairest blossom of the garden dies. 
 
 cxxxv 
 
 T^OWN in a valley, by a forest's side. 
 
 Near where the crystal Thames rolls on her waves, 
 I saw a mushroom stand in haughty pride, 
 As if the lilies grew to be his slaves. 
 The gentle daisy, with her silver crown. 
 Worn in the breast of many a shepherd's lass. 
 The humble violet, that lowly down 
 Salutes the gay nymphs as they trimly pass, — 
 These, with a many more, methought complained 
 That Nature should those needless things produce. 
 Which not alone the sun from others gained. 
 But turn it wholly to their proper use. 
 I could not choose but grieve that Nature made 
 So glorious flowers to live in such a shade.
 
 English Sowiets 69 
 
 cxxxvi 
 
 SIN. 
 
 LORD, with what care hast Thou begirt us round! George 
 Parents first season us ; then schoohiiasters — 
 
 Deliver us to laws ; they send us bound '^^■^~' ^^ 
 
 To rules of reason, holy messengers, 
 Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin, 
 Afflictions sorted, anguish of all sizes. 
 Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in. 
 Bibles laid open, millions of surprises ; 
 Blessings beforehand, ties of gratefulness, 
 The sound of glory ringing in our ears ; 
 Without, our shame ; within, our consciences ; 
 Angels and grace, eternal hopes and fears. 
 Yet all these fences and their whole array 
 One cunning bosom-sin blows quite away. 
 
 CXXXVII 
 LO VE'S ANNIVERSAR V. 
 
 TO THE SUN. 
 
 'X'HOU art returned, great light, to that blest hour William 
 In which I first by marriage, sacred power, abington 
 
 Joined with Castara hearts : and as the same 1605— 1645 
 
 Thy lustre is, as then, so is our flame ; 
 Which had increased, but that by love's decree 
 'Twas such at first it ne'er could greater be. 
 But tell me, glorious lamp, in thy survey 
 Of things below thee, what did not decay 
 By age to weakness ? I since that have seen 
 The rose bud forth and fade, the tree grow green 
 And wither, and the beauty of the field 
 With winter wrinkled. Even thyself dost yield 
 Something to time, and to thy grave fall nigher ; — 
 But virtuous love is one sweet endless fire.
 
 70 A Treasury of 
 
 CXXXVIII 
 
 joHN_MiLTON ^ NIGHTINGALE, that on yon bloomy spray 
 1608— 1674 v_y Warbles at eve, when all the woods are still, 
 Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill 
 While the jolly Hours lead on propitious May. 
 Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day, 
 First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill. 
 Portend success in love. O, if Jove's will 
 Have linked that amorous power to thy soft lay, 
 Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate 
 Foretell my hopeless doom in some grove nigh ; 
 As thou from year to year hast sung too late 
 For my relief, yet hadst no reason why : 
 Whether the Muse or Love call thee his mate, 
 Both them I serve, and of their train am I. 
 
 cxxxix. 
 
 T TOW soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth. 
 
 Stolen on his wing my three-and-twentieth year! 
 My hasting days fly on with full career. 
 But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th. 
 Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth 
 That I to manhood am arrived so near ; 
 And inward ripeness doth much less appear. 
 That some more timely-happy spirits indu'th. 
 Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow. 
 It shall be still in strictest measure even. 
 To that same lot, however mean or high, 
 Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven. 
 All is, if I have grace to use it so, 
 As ever in my great task-Master's eye.
 
 English Somiets 71 
 
 CXL 
 WHEN THE ASSAULT WAS INTENDED ■ 
 
 TO THE CITY. 
 
 /^APTAIN, or Colonel, or Knight in arms, John m.ltom 
 
 Whose chance on these defenceless doors may 1608—1674 
 seize, 
 If deed of honour did thee ever please. 
 Guard them, and him within protect from harms. 
 He can requite thee, for he knows the charms 
 That call fame on such gentle acts as these ; 
 And he can spread thy name o'er lands and seas, 
 Whatever clime the sun's bright circle warms. 
 Lift not thy spear against the Muses' bower : 
 The great Emathian conqueror bid spare 
 The house of Pindarus, wheii temple and tower 
 Went to the ground ; and the repeated air 
 Of sad Electra's poet had the power 
 To save the Athenian walls from ruin bare. 
 
 CXLI 
 
 T ADY, that in the prime of earliest youth 
 
 Wisely hast shunned the broad way and the green, 
 And with those few art eminently seen 
 That labour up the hill of heavenly truth. 
 The better part with Mary and with Ruth 
 Chosen thou hast ; and they that overween, 
 And at thy growing virtues fret their spleen. 
 No anger find in thee, but pity and ruth. 
 Thy care is fixed, and zealously attends 
 To fill thy odorous lamp with deeds of light, 
 And hope that reaps not shame. Therefore be sure 
 Thou, when the Bridegroom with his feastful friends 
 Passes to bliss at the mid-hour of nisrht. 
 Hast gained thy entrance. Virgin wise and pure.
 
 72 . A Treasury of 
 
 ex LI I 
 TO THE LADY MARGARET LEY. 
 
 John Mii.tox "pvAUGHTER to that good Earl, once President 
 1608— 1674 ^-^ Of England's Council and her Treasury, 
 Who lived in both, unstained with gold or fee, 
 And left them both, more in himself content, 
 Till the sad breaking of that Parliament 
 Broke him, as that dishonest victory 
 At Chaeronea, fatal to liberty. 
 Killed with report that old man eloquent, — 
 Though later born than to have known the days 
 Wherein your father flourished, yet by you, 
 Madam, methinks I see him living yet ; 
 So well your words his noble virtues praise. 
 That all both judge you to relate them true. 
 And to possess them, honoured Margaret. 
 
 CXLIII 
 TO MR. H. LA WES, ON HIS AIRS. 
 
 TTARRY, whose tuneful and well-measured song 
 
 First taught our English music how to span 
 Words with just note and accent, not to scan 
 With Midas ears, committing short and long, 
 Thy worth and skill exempts thee from the throng, 
 With praise enough for Envy to look wan ; 
 To after-age thou shalt be writ the man 
 That with smooth air couldst humour best our tongue. 
 Thou honour'st Verse, and Verse must lend her wing 
 To honour thee, the priest of Phoebus' quire. 
 That tun'st their happiest lines in hymn or story. 
 Dante shall give Fame leave to set thee higher 
 Than his Casella, whom he wooed to sing. 
 Met in the milder shades of Purgatory.
 
 English Sonnets 73 
 
 CXLIV 
 ON THE RELIGIOUS MEMORY OF 
 
 MRS. CATHERINE THOMSON, 
 MY CHRISTIAN FRIEND, DECEASED l6 DECEMBER, \t,i,'^. 
 
 ■\ "X rHEN Faith and Love, which parted from thee John Milton 
 never, 1608— 1674 
 
 Had ripened thy just soul to dwell with God, 
 Meekly thou didst resign this earthly load 
 Of death, called life, which us from_^life doth sever. 
 Thy works and alms and all thy good endeavour 
 Stayed not behind, nor in the grave were trod ; 
 But, as Faith pointed with her golden rod, i 
 
 Followed thee up to joy and bliss for ever. j 
 
 Love led them on, and Faith, who knew them best, ' 
 
 Thy handmaids, clad them o'er with purple beams 
 And azure wings, that up they flew so drest, j 
 
 And spake the truth of thee on glorious themes 
 Before the Judge ; who thenceforth bid thee rest, 
 And drink thy fill of pure immortal streams. \ 
 
 I 
 
 CXLV s 
 
 ON THE LORD GENERAL FAIRFAX, j 
 
 AT THE SIEGE OF COLCHESTER. ' \ 
 
 I 
 
 T^AIRFAX, whose name in arms through Europe rings. 
 
 Filling each mouth with envy or with praise, \ 
 
 And all her'jealous monarchs with amaze, j 
 
 And rumours loud that daunt remotest kings, 
 Thy firm unshaken virtue ever brings 
 Victory home, though new rebellions raise 
 Their Hydra-heads, and the false North displays 
 Her broken league to imp their serpent wings. ' 
 
 O yet a nobler task awaits thy hand ! 
 
 For what can war but endless war still breed, : 
 
 Till truth and right from violence be freed, \ 
 
 And public faith cleared from the shameful brand 
 Of public fraud ? In vain doth A^alour bleed - j 
 
 While Avarice and Rapine share the land. j
 
 74 A Treasury of 
 
 CXLVI 
 TO THE LORD GENERAL CROMWELL, MA V, 1652 ; 
 
 ON THE PROPOSALS OF CERTAIN MINISTERS AT THE COMMITTEE 
 FOR PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL. 
 
 John Milton ^ ROMWELL,our chief of men,who through a cloud 
 1608—1674 ^^-^ ]s[Qt; q[ ^ya^j- only, but detractions rude, 
 Guided by faith and matchless fortitude, 
 To peace and truth thy glorious way hast ploughed, 
 And on the neck of crowned Fortune proud 
 Hast reared God's trophies, and his work pursued ; 
 While Darwen stream, with blood of Scots imbrued, 
 And Dunbar field resounds thy praises loud, 
 And Worcester's laureate wreath : yet much remains 
 To conquer still ; Peace hath her victories 
 No less renowned than War : new foes arise. 
 Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains : — 
 Help us to save free conscience from the paw 
 Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw. 
 
 CXLVII 
 
 TO SLR HENRY VANE THE YOUNGER. 
 "X /"ANE, young in years, but in sage counsel old, 
 
 Than whom a better senator ne'er held 
 The helm of Rome, when gowns, not arms, repelled 
 The fierce Epirot and the African bold, 
 Whether to settle peace, or to unfold 
 The drift of hollow states hard to be spelled ; 
 Then to advise how War may best, upheld. 
 Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold. 
 In all her equipage ; besides to know 
 Both spiritual power and civil, what each means, 
 What severs each, thou hast learned, which few have 
 
 done : 
 The bounds of either sword to thee we owe : 
 Therefore on thy firm hand Religion leans 
 In peace and reckons thee her eldest son.
 
 English Sonnets 75 
 
 CXLVIII 
 
 ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT. 
 
 A VENGE, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose John Milton 
 bones 1608—1674 
 
 Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold ; 
 Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old, 
 When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones, 
 Forget not ; in thy book record their groans 
 Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold 
 Slain by the bloody Piemontese, that rolled 
 Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans 
 The vales redoubled to the hills, and they 
 To Heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow 
 O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway 
 The triple Tyrant ; that from these may grow 
 A hundredfold, who having learnt thy way, 
 Early may fly the Babylonian woe. 
 
 CXLIX 
 
 "\ ^/"HEN I consider how my light is spent 
 
 Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, 
 And that one talent, which is death to hide, 
 Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent 
 To serve therewith my Maker, and present 
 My true account, lest He, returning, chide ; 
 ' Doth God exact day-labour, light denied ? ' 
 I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent 
 That murmur, soon replies : ' God doth not need 
 Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best 
 Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state 
 Is kingly. Thousands, at his bidding, speed 
 And post o'er land and ocean without rest ; — 
 They also serve who only stand and wait.'
 
 76 A Treasury of 
 
 CL 
 
 John Milton T' AWRENCE, of virtuous father virtuous son, 
 1608— 1674 -*— ' Now that the fields are dank and ways are mire, 
 Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire 
 Help waste a sullen day, what may be won 
 From the hard season gaining ? Time will run 
 On smoother, till Favonius re-inspire 
 The frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attire 
 The lily and rose, that neither sowed nor spun. 
 What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice, 
 Of Attic taste, with wine ? whence we may rise 
 To hear the lute well touched, or artful voice 
 Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air. 
 He who of those delights can judge, and spare 
 To interpose them oft, is not unwise. 
 
 CLI 
 
 ^YRIACK, whose grandsire on the royal bench 
 
 Of British Themis, with no mean applause. 
 Pronounced, and in his volumes taught, our laws, 
 Which others at their bar so often wrench, 
 To-day deep thoughts resolve with me to drench 
 In mirth that after no repenting draws ; 
 Let Euclid rest and Archimedes pause, 
 And what the Swede intends, and what the French. 
 To measure life learn thou betimes, and know 
 Toward solid good what leads the nearest way ; 
 For other things mild Heaven a time ordains. 
 And disapproves that care, though wise in show. 
 That with superfluous burden loads the day, 
 And, when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains.
 
 English Sonnets 77 ; 
 
 1 
 
 CLII I 
 
 1 
 
 /^YRIACK, this three-years-day these eyes, though John Milton 
 
 ^^ clear, 1608— 1674 ^ 
 
 To outward view, of blemish or of spot, j 
 
 Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot ; ! 
 
 Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear 
 
 Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year, i 
 
 Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not 
 
 Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot j 
 
 Of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer 1 
 
 Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask ? 1 
 
 The conscience, friend, to have lost them overplied : 
 
 In Liberty's defence, my noble task, 
 
 Of which all Europe rings from side to side. 
 
 This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask, 
 
 Content though blind, had I no better guide. 
 
 1 
 
 \ 
 i 
 
 CLIII I 
 
 A/TETHOUGHT I saw my late espoused saint \ 
 
 Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave, 1 
 
 Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave, i 
 
 Rescued from Death by force, though pale and faint. I 
 
 Mine, as whom washed from spot of child-bed taint ' 
 
 Purification in the Old Law did save, i 
 
 And such, as yet once more I trust to have 
 Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint. 
 
 Came vested all in white, pure as her mind : 1 
 
 Her face was veiled ; yet to my fancied sight 
 Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shined 
 So clear, as in no face with more delight. 
 But oh ! as to embrace me she inclined, j 
 
 I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night. j 
 
 i 
 
 I
 
 ©nb of §0oh 4^}x5t
 
 Treasury of English So7ineis 
 
 ^ook Sccoub 
 
 CLIV 
 
 TO RICHARD OWEN CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 /^AMBRIDGE, with whom, my pilot and my guide, 
 ^^ Pleased I have traversed thy Sabrina's flood, 
 Both where she foams impetuous, soiled with mud, 
 And where she peaceful rolls her golden tide ; 
 Never, O never let ambition's pride, 
 (Too oft pretexed with our country's good,) 
 And tinselled prmp, despised when understood, 
 Or thirst of wealth thee from her banks divide ! 
 Reflect how calmly, like her infant wave, 
 Flows the clear current of a private life ; ' 
 See the wide public stream, by tempests tost, 
 Of every changing wind the sport or slave, 
 Soiled with corruption, vexed with party strife. 
 Covered with wrecks of peace and honour lost. 
 
 79 
 
 Thomas 
 Edwards 
 
 1699— 1757
 
 8o 
 
 A Treasury of 
 
 Benjamin 
 Stillingfleet 
 
 1702 — 1771 
 
 CLV 
 TO WILLIAMSON. 
 
 WHEN I behold thee, blameless Williamson, 
 Wrecked like an infant on a savage shore, 
 While others round on borrowed pinions soar, 
 My busy fancy calls thy thread misspun ; 
 Till Faith instructs me the deceit to shun. 
 While thus she speaks : ' Those wings that from the 
 
 store 
 Of virtue were not lent, howe'er they bore 
 In this gross air, will melt when near the sun. 
 The truly ambitious wait for Nature's time, 
 Content by certain though by slow degrees 
 To mount above the reach of vulgar flight ; 
 Nor is that man confined to this low clime 
 Who but the extremest skirts of glory sees, 
 And hears celestial echoes with delight.' 
 
 Thomas Gray 
 1716 — 1771 
 
 CLVI 
 ON THE DEATH OF MR. RICHARD WEST. 
 
 TN vain to me the smiling mornings shine, 
 ■*• And reddening Phoebus lifts his golden fire ; 
 The birds in vain their amorous descant join. 
 Or cheerful fields resume their green attire : 
 These ears, alas ! for other notes repine, 
 A different object do these eyes require ; 
 My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine. 
 And in my breast the imperfect joys expire. 
 Yet morning smiles the busy race to cheer, 
 And new-born pleasure brings to happier men ; 
 The fields to all their wonted tribute bear. 
 To warm their little loves the birds complain : 
 I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear. 
 And weep the more because I weep in vain.
 
 English Son?iets 
 
 8i 
 
 A 
 
 CLVII 
 ANNIVERSARY. 
 
 FEB. 23, 1795. 
 
 PLAINTIVE sonnet flowed from Milton's pen 
 When Time had stolen his three-and-twentieth 
 year : 
 Say, shall not I then shed one tuneful tear, 
 Robbed by the thief of three-score years and ten ? 
 No ! for the foes of all hfe-lengthened men, 
 Trouble and toil, approach not yet too near ; 
 Reason, meanwhile, and health, and memory dear 
 Hold unimpaired their weak yet wonted reign : 
 Still round my sheltered lawn I pleased can stray ; 
 Still trace my sylvan blessings to their spring : 
 Being of Beings ! yes, that silent lay 
 Which musing Gratitude delights to sing. 
 Still to thy sapphire throne shall Faith convey, 
 And Hope, the cherub of unwearied wing. 
 
 William 
 Mason 
 
 1725— 1797 
 
 CLVIII 
 WRITTEN AFTER SEEING WILTON-HOUSE. 
 
 "C'ROM Pembroke's princely dome, where mimic Art 
 Decks with a magic hand the dazzling bowers, 
 Its living hues where the warm pencil pours, 
 And breathing forms from the rude marble start, 
 How to life's humbler scene can I depart ! 
 My breast all glowing from those gorgeous towers, 
 In my low cell how cheat the sullen hours ! 
 Vain the complaint ; for Fancy can impart 
 (To Fate superior, and to Fortune's doom) 
 Whate'er adorns the stately-storied hall : ' 
 She, 'mid the dungeon's solitary gloom, 
 Can dress the Graces in their Attic pall ; 
 Bid the green landscape's vernal beauty bloom, 
 And in bright trophies clothe the twilight wall. 
 
 i 
 1 
 
 Thomas j 
 Warton ( 
 
 1728 — 1790 I
 
 A Treasury of- 
 
 Thomas 
 Warton 
 
 1728 — 1790 
 
 CLIX 
 
 WRITTEN A T WINSLADE IN HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 ■\ 1 riNSLADE, thy beech-capped hills, with wav- 
 ing grain 
 Mantled, thy chequered views of wood and lawn, 
 Whilom could charm, or when the gradual dawn 
 'Gan the gray mist with orient purple stain. 
 Or evening glimmered o'er the folded train : 
 The fairest landscapes whence my Muse has drawn. 
 Too free with servile courtly phrase to fawn, 
 Too weak to try the buskin's stately strain. 
 Yet now no more thy slopes of beech and corn, 
 Nor views invite, since he far distant strays 
 With whom I traced their sweets at eve and morn, 
 From Albion far, to cull Hesperian bays. 
 In this alone they please, howe'er forlorn. 
 That still they can recall those happier days. 
 
 CLX 
 
 WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF 
 
 dugdale's moxasticon. 
 
 lp\EEM not devoid of elegance the sage, 
 ^^^ By Fancy's genuine feelings unbeguiled. 
 Of painful pedantry the poring child. 
 Who turns of these proud domes the historic page, 
 Now sunk by Time and Henry's fiercer rage. 
 Think'st thou the warbling Muses never smiled 
 On his lone hours ? Ingenuous views engage 
 His thoughts, on themes, unclassic falsely styled, 
 Intent. While cloistered Piety displays 
 Her mouldering roll, the piercing eye explores 
 New manners, and the pomp of elder days. 
 Whence culls the pensive bard his pictured stores. 
 Nor rough nor barren are the winding ways . 
 Of hoar Antiquity, but strewn with flowers.
 
 English Sonnets ^t^ 
 
 CLXI 
 ON KING ARTHUR'S ROUND TABLE, 
 
 AT WINCHESTER. 
 
 WHERE Venta's Norman castle still uprears Thomas 
 
 ^ Wharton 
 
 Its raftered hall, that o'er the grassy foss - — 
 
 ° ^ 1728— 1790 
 And scattered flinty fragments clad in moss, 
 
 On yonder steep in naked state appears ; 
 
 High-hung remains, the pride of warlike years, 
 
 Old Arthur's Board : on the capacious round 
 
 Some British pen has sketched the names renowned, 
 
 In marks obscure, of his immortal peers. 
 
 Though joined by magic skill, with many a rime. 
 
 The Druid frame, unhonoured, falls a prey 
 
 To the slow vengeance of the wizard Time, 
 
 And fade the British characters away ; 
 
 Yet Spenser's page, that chaunts in verse sublime 
 
 Those chiefs, shall live, unconscious of decay. 
 
 CLXII 
 
 TO THE RIVER LODON. 
 
 A H ! what a weary race my feet have run, 
 
 Since first I trod thy banks with alders crowned, 
 And thought my way was all through fairy ground. 
 Beneath thy azure sky and golden sun : 
 Where first my Muse to lisp her notes begun ! 
 While pensive Memory traces back the round 
 Which fills the varied interval between ; 
 Much pleasure, more of sorrow, marks the scene. 
 Sweet native stream ! those skies and sun so pure 
 No more return, to cheer my evening road ! 
 Yet still one joy remains, — that not obscure, 
 Nor useless, all my vacant days have flowed. 
 From youth's gay dawn to manhood's prime mature ; 
 Nor with the Muse's laurel unbestowed.
 
 84 
 
 A Treasury of 
 
 William 
 
 COWPER 
 
 1731 — -,1800 
 
 CLXIII 
 
 TO MRS. UN WIN. 
 
 ly /TARY ! I want a lyre with other strings, 
 
 ^^^ Such aid from heaven as some have feigned 
 
 they drew, 
 An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new 
 And undebased by praise of meaner things ; 
 That, ere through age or woe I shed my wings, 
 I may record thy worth with honour due, 
 In verse as musical as thou art true. 
 And that immortalizes whom it sings. 
 But thou hast little need. There is a Book 
 By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light, 
 On which the eyes of God not rarely look, 
 A chronicle of actions just and bright ; — 
 There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine ; 
 And since thou own'st that praise, I spare thee mine. 
 
 Anna Seward 
 1747 — 1809 
 
 CLXIV 
 
 DECEMBER MORNING. 
 
 T LOVE to rise ere gleams the tardy light, 
 
 Winter's pale dawn ; and as warm fires illume, 
 And cheerful tapers shine around the room. 
 Through misty windows bend my musing sight. 
 Where, round the dusky lawn, the mansions white. 
 With shutters closed, peer faintly through the gloom 
 That slow recedes ; while yon grey spires assume. 
 Rising from their dark pile, an added height 
 By indistinctness given. — Then to decree 
 The grateful thoughts to God, ere they unfold 
 To friendship or the Muse, or seek with glee 
 Wisdom's rich page. O hours more worth than gold, 
 By whose blest use we lengthen life, and, free 
 From drear decays of age, outlive the old !
 
 English Sonnets 85 
 
 CXLV 
 WRITTEN AT THE CLOSE OF SPRING. 
 
 'X'HE garlands fade that Spring so lately wove, Charlotte 
 
 Each simple flower, which she had nursed in dew, — " 
 
 Anemonies, that spangled every grove, ''"^^ 
 
 The primrose wan, and harebell mildly blue. 
 No more shall violets linger in 'the dell, 
 Or purple orchis variegate the plain, 
 Till Spting again shall call forth every bell, 
 And dress with humid hands her wreaths again. 
 Ah, poor humanity ! so frail, so fair 
 Are the fond visions of thy early day. 
 Till tyrant passion and corrosive care, 
 Bid all thy fairy colours fade away. 
 Another May new buds and flowers shall bring : 
 Ah ! why has happiness no second Spring? 
 
 CLXVI 
 
 O HOULD the lone wanderer, fainting on his waj^, ; 
 
 Rest for a moment of the sultry hours, | 
 
 And though his path through thorns and roughness lay, 1 
 
 Pluck the wild rose or woodbine's gadding flowers, 
 Weaving gay wreaths beneath some sheltering tree, ' 
 
 The sense of sorrow he awhile may lose : 1 
 
 So have I sought thy flowers, fair Poesy ! 
 So charmed my way with friendship and the Muse. 
 But darker now grows life's unhappy day, j 
 
 Dark with new clouds of evil yet to come ; i 
 
 Her pencil sickening Fancy throws away, 
 And weary Hope reclines upon the tomb. 
 
 And points my wishes to that tranquil shore, i 
 
 Where the pale spectre Care pursues no more. *
 
 86 
 
 A Treasury of 
 
 William 
 RoscoE 
 
 1753— 1831 
 
 CLXVII 
 TO MY BOOKS ON PARTING WITH THEM. 
 
 A S one who, destined from his friends to part, 
 ■^^ Regrets his loss, yet hopes again erewhile 
 To share their converse and enjoy their smile. 
 And tempers as he may affliction's dart, — 
 Thus, loved associates ! chiefs of elder Art ! 
 Teachers of wisdom ! who could once beguile 
 My tedious hours, and lighten every toil, » 
 I now resign you : nor with fainting heart ; 
 For pass a few short years, or days, or hours, 
 And happier seasons may their dawn unfold, 
 And all your sacred fellowship restore ; 
 Vvlien, freed from earth, unlimited its powers, 
 Mind shall with mind direct communion hold, 
 And kindred spirits meet to part no more. 
 
 CLXVIII 
 
 Helen Maria 
 Williams 
 
 1762 — 1828 
 
 TO HOPE. 
 
 /^ EVER skilled to wear the form we love ! 
 ^^^ To bid the shapes of fear and grief depart ; 
 Come, gentle Hope ! with one gay smile remove 
 The lasting sadness of an aching heart. 
 Thy voice, benign enchantress ! let me hear ; 
 Say that for me some pleasures yet shall bloom, — 
 That fancy's radiance, friendship's precious tear. 
 Shall soften, or shall chase, misfortune's gloom. 
 But cqme not glowing in the dazzling ray 
 Which once with dear illusions charmed my eye ; 
 O, strew no more, sweet flatterer ! on my way 
 The flowers I fondly thought too bright to die : 
 Visions less fair will soothe my pensive breast, 
 That asks not happiness, but longs for rest.
 
 Eitglish Sonnets 
 
 87 
 
 CLXIX 
 
 ON ECHO AND SILENCE. 
 
 TN eddying course when leaves began to fly, 
 
 And Autumn in her lap the store to strew, 
 As 'mid wild scenes I chanced the Muse to woo, 
 Through glens untrod and woods that frowned on high, 
 Two sleeping nymphs with wonder mute I spy ! — 
 And lo, she's gone ! — in robe of dark green hue, 
 'Twas Echo from her sister Silence flew : 
 For quick the hunter's horn resounded to the sky ! 
 In shade affrighted Silence melts away. 
 Not so her sister ! — hark, for onward still 
 With far-heard step she takes her listening way, 
 Bounding from rock to rock, and hill to hill ! 
 Ah, mark the merry maid in mockful play 
 With thousand mimic tones the laughing forest fill. 
 
 Sir Samuel 
 Egerton 
 Brydges 
 
 1762— 1837 
 
 CLXX 
 
 ^~\ TIME ! who know'st a lenient hand to lay 
 
 ^~^ Softest on sorrow's wound, and slowly thence, 
 
 Lulling to sad repose the weary sense. 
 
 The faint pang stealest unperceived away ; 
 
 On thee I rest my only hope at last. 
 
 And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tear 
 
 That flows in vain o'er all my soul held dear, 
 
 I may look back on every sorrow past. 
 
 And meet life's peaceful evening with a smile • — 
 
 As some lone bird, at day's departing hour, 
 
 Sings in the sunbeam, of the transient shower 
 
 Forgetful, though its wings are wet the while : — 
 
 Yet ah I how much must that poor heart endure. 
 
 Which hopes from thee, and thee alone, a cure ! 
 
 WlLLIAlI 
 
 Lisle Bowles 
 1762 — 1850
 
 88 A Treasury of 
 
 CLXXI 
 OS TEND : 
 
 ON HEARING THE BELLS AT SEA. 
 
 Lisle'To^wles LTOW sweet the tuneful bells' responsive peal ! 
 176^850 As when at opening dawn the fragrant breeze 
 
 Touches the trembling sense of pale disease, 
 So piercing to my heart their force I feel. 
 And hark ! with lessening cadence now they fall, 
 And now along the white and level tide 
 They fling their melancholy music wide ; 
 Bidding me many a tender thought recall 
 Of summer days, and those delightful years 
 When by my native streams, in life's fair prime. 
 The mournful magic of their mingling chime 
 First waked my wondering childhood into tears ! 
 But seeming now, when all those days are o'er, . 
 The sounds of joy once heard and heard no more. 
 
 CLXXII 
 
 NOVEMBER, 1793. 
 
 " I "HERE is strange music in the stirring wind. 
 
 When lowers the autumnal eve, and all alone 
 To the dark wood's cold covert thou art gone, 
 Whose ancient trees on the rough slope reclined 
 Rock, and at times scatter their tresses sere. 
 If in such shades, beneath their murmuring. 
 Thou late hast passed the happier hours of spring. 
 With sadness thou wilt mark the fading year ; 
 Chiefly if one, with whom such sweets at morn 
 Or evening thou hast shared, far off shall stray. 
 O Spring, return ! return, auspicious May ! 
 But sad will be thy coming, and forlorn. 
 If she return not with thy cheering ray, 
 Who from these shades is gone, gone far away.
 
 English Sonnets 89 
 
 CLXXIII 
 
 TO VALCLUSA. 
 
 Thomas 
 
 1762 — 1788 
 
 VyHAT though, Valclusa, the fond bard be fled S^l 
 
 That wooed his fair in thy sequestered bowers, 
 Long loved her Hving, long bemoaned her dead. 
 And hung her visionary shrine with flowers ? 
 What though no more he teach thy shades to mourn 
 The hapless chances that to love belong, 
 As erst, when drooping o'er her turf forlorn, 
 He charmed wild Echo with his plaintive song ? 
 Yet still, enamoured of the tender tale, 
 Pale Passion haunts thy grove's romantic gloom, 
 Yet still soft music breathes in every gale. 
 Still undecayed the fairy- garlands bloom, 
 Still heavenly incense fills each fragrant vale. 
 Still Petrarch's Genius weeps o'er Laura's tomb. 
 
 CLXXIV I 
 
 SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN A T LEMNOS. \ 
 
 /^N this lone isle, whose rugged rocks affright j 
 
 ^-^^ The cautious pilot, ten revolving years ! 
 
 Great Psean's son, unwonted erst to tears, | 
 
 Wept o'er his wound : alike each rolling light ! 
 
 Of heaven he watched, and blamed its lingering flight ; \ 
 
 By day the sea-mew screaming round his cave j 
 
 Drove slumber from his eyes ; the chiding wave ! 
 
 And savage bowlings chased his dreams by night. ■! 
 
 Hope still was his : in each low breeze that sighed ' 
 Through his rude grot he heard a coming oar. 
 
 In each white cloud a coming sail he spied ; \ 
 Nor seldom listened to the fancied roar 
 Of Oeta's torrents, or the hoarser tide 
 That parts famed Trachis from the Euboic shore.
 
 1770— 1850 
 
 9© A Treasury of 
 
 CLXXV 
 
 PERSONAL TALK. 
 
 I 
 
 William t ^M not One wlio much or oft delight 
 
 Wordsworth | o 
 
 — To season my fireside with personal talk, — 
 
 Of friends, who live within an easy walk, 
 Or neighbours, daily, weekly, in my sight : 
 And, for my chance-acquaintance, ladies bright, 
 Sons, mothers, maidens withering on the stalk. 
 These all wear out of me, like Forms with chalk 
 Painted on rich men's floors for one feast-night. 
 Better than such discourse doth silence long, 
 Long, barren silence, square with my desire ; 
 To sit without emotion, hope, or aim, 
 In the loved presence of my cottage-fire. 
 And listen to the flapping of the flame. 
 Or kettle whispering its faint undersong. 
 
 CLXXVI 
 
 ^^V^ET life,' you say, ' is life ; we have seen and see, 
 
 And with a living pleasure we describe ; 
 And fits of sprightly malice do but bribe 
 The languid mind into activity. 
 Sound sense, and love itself, and mirth and glee 
 Are fostered by the comment and the gibe.' 
 Even be it so : yet still among your tribe. 
 Our daily world's true Worldlings, rank not me ! 
 Children are blest, and powerful ; their world lies 
 More justly balanced ; partly at their feet. 
 And part far from them : — sweetest melodies 
 Are those that are by distance made more sweet ; 
 Whose mind is but the mind of his own eyes, 
 He is a Slave ; the meanest we can meet !
 
 English Sonnets 91 
 
 CLXXVII j 
 
 "\ \ 7INGS have we, — and as far as we can go William 
 
 
 Wordsworth 
 
 We may find pleasure : wilderness and wood, — „ 
 
 ■' '■ ' 1770 — 1850 
 
 Blank ocean and mere sky, support that mood 
 
 Which with the lofty sanctifies the low. 
 
 Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know, 
 
 Are a substantial world, both pure and good : 
 
 Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, 
 
 Our pastime and our happiness will grow. 
 
 There find I personal themes, a plenteous store, 
 
 Matter wherein right voluble I am, 
 
 To which I listen with a ready ear ; 
 
 Two shall be named, pre-eminently dear, — 
 
 The gentle Lady married to the Moor ; 
 
 And heavenly Una with her milk-white Lamb. 
 
 CLXXVIII 
 
 4 
 
 IVTOR can I not believe but that hereby 
 
 Great gains are mine ; for thus I live remote 
 From evil-speaking ; rancour, never sought. 
 Comes to me not ; malignant truth, or lie. 
 Hence have I genial seasons, hence have I 
 Smooth passions, smooth discourse, and joyous thought 
 And thus from day to day my little boat 
 Rocks in its harbour, lodging peaceably. 
 Blessings be with them — and eternal praise, 
 Who gave us nobler loves, and nobler cares — 
 The Poets, who on earth have made us heirs 
 Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays ! 
 Oh ! might my name be numbered among theirs, 
 Then gladly would I end my mortal days.
 
 92 A Treasury of 
 
 CLXXIX 
 
 William IVJUNS fret not at their convent's narrow room 
 
 Wordsworth 
 
 1770 — 1850 
 
 And hermits are contented with their cells ; 
 And students with their pensive citadels : 
 Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom, 
 Sit blithe and happy ; bees that soar for bloom, 
 High as the highest Peak of Furness-fells, 
 Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells : 
 In truth, the prison unto which we doom 
 Ourselves, no prison is : and hence for me. 
 In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound 
 Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground ; 
 Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be) 
 Who have felt the weight of too much liberty, 
 Should find brief solace there, as I have found. 
 
 CLXXX 
 
 ADMONITION. 
 
 "X/ES, there is holy pleasure in thine eye ! — 
 
 The lovely Cottage in the guardian nook 
 Hath stirred thee deeply ; with its own dear brook, 
 Its own small pasture, almost its own sky ! 
 But covet not the Abode ; — forbear to sigh. 
 As many do, repining while they look ; 
 Intruders — who would tear from Nature's book 
 This precious leaf, with harsh impiety. 
 Think what the Home must be if it were thine. 
 Even thine, though few thy wants ! — Roof, window, 
 
 door. 
 The very flowers are sacred to the Poor, 
 The roses to the porch which they entwine : 
 Yea, all, that now enchants thee, from the day 
 On which it should be touched, would melt away !
 
 Etiglish Sonnets 93 
 
 CLxxx'i 
 T'HERE is a little unpretending Rill William 
 
 Of limpid water, humbler far than aught 
 
 Wordsworth 
 1770 — 1850 
 
 That ever among Men or Naiads sought 
 
 Notice or name ! — It quivers down the hill, 1 
 
 Furrowing its shallow way with dubious will ; ; 
 
 Yet to my mind this scanty Stream is brought j 
 
 Oftener than Ganges or the Nile ; a thought \ 
 
 Of private recollection sweet and still ! i 
 
 Months perish with their moons ; year treads on year ; : 
 
 But, faithful Emma ! thou with me canst say ; 
 
 That, while ten thousand pleasures disappear, i 
 
 And flies their memory fast almost as they, ■ 
 
 The immortal Spirit of one happy day , 
 
 Lingers beside that Rill, in vision clear. \ 
 
 CLXXXII 
 UPON THE SIGHT OF A BEA UTIFUL PICTURE, 
 
 PAINTED BY SIR G. H. BEAUMONT, BART 
 
 TD RAISED be the Art whose subtle power could stay 
 
 Yon cloud, and fix it in that glorious shape ; j 
 
 Nor would permit the thin smoke to escape, ] 
 
 Nor those bright sunbeams to forsake the day ; | 
 
 Which stopped that band of travellers on their way, j 
 
 Ere they were lost within the shady wood ; ' 
 
 And showed the Bark upon the glassy flood 1 
 
 For ever anchored in her sheltering bay. 
 Soul-soothing Art ! whom Morning, Noon-tide, Even, 
 Do serve with all their changeful pageantry ; 
 Thou, with ambition modest yet sublime. 
 Here, for the sight of mortal man, hast given 
 To one brief moment caught from fleeting time 
 The appropriate calm of blest eternity.
 
 177° — 1850 
 
 94 ^ Treasury of 
 
 CLXXXIII 
 
 TO SLEEP. 
 
 William Tj'OND words have oft been spoken to thee, Sleep ! 
 oRDsvvoRTH _|^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^ ^lox^ of tendcicst names; 
 
 The very sweetest Fancy culls or frames, 
 When thankfulness of heart is strong and deep ! 
 Dear Bosom-child we call thee, that dost steep 
 In rich reward all suffering ; Balm that tames 
 All anguish ; Saint that evil thoughts and aims 
 Takest away, and into souls dost creep. 
 Like to a breeze from heaven. Shall I alone, 
 I surely not a man ungently made, 
 Call thee worst Tyrant by which Flesh is crost ? 
 Perverse, self-willed to own and to disown. 
 Mere slave of them who never for thee prayed. 
 Still last to come where thou art wanted most ! 
 
 CLXXXIV 
 TO SLEEP. 
 
 A FLOCK of sheep that leisurely pass by, 
 •^ One after one ; the sound of rain, and bees 
 Murmuring ; the fall of rivers, winds and seas. 
 Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky ; — 
 I've thought of all by turns, and yet do lie 
 Sleepless ; and soon the small birds' melodies 
 Must hear, first uttered from my orchard trees ; 
 And the first cuckoo's melancholy cry. 
 Even thus last night, and two nights more, I lay, 
 And could not win thee, Sleep ! by any stealth : 
 So do not let me wear to-night away : 
 Without Thee what is all the morning's wealth ? 
 Come, blessed barrier between day and day. 
 Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health !
 
 English Sonnets 95 
 
 CLXXXV 
 
 WRITTEN UPON A BLANK LEAF IN 
 "the complete angler." 
 
 WHILE flowinsf rivers yield a blameless sport, William 
 
 ° •' ^ . Wordsworth 
 
 Shall live the name of Walton : Sage benign! 
 
 Whose pen, the mysteries of the rod and line 
 
 Unfolding, did not fruitlessly exhort 
 
 To reverend watching of each still report 
 
 That Nature utters from her rural shrine. 
 
 Meek, nobly versed in simple discipline — 
 
 He found the longest summer day too short, 
 
 To his loved pastime given by sedgy Lee, 
 
 Or down the tempting maze of Shawford brook — 
 
 Fairer than life itself, in this sweet Book, 
 
 The cowslip-bank, and shady willow-tree ; 
 
 And the fresh meads — where flowed, from every nook 
 
 Of his full bosom, gladsome Piety ! 
 
 CLXXXVI 
 
 /~* RIEF, thou hast lost an ever ready friend 
 
 ^■^ Now that the cottage Spinning-wheel is mute; 
 
 And Care — a comforter that best could suit 
 
 Her froward mood, and softliest reprehend ; 
 
 And Love — a charmer's voice, that used to lend, 
 
 More efficaciously than aught that flows 
 
 From harp or lute, kind influence to compose 
 
 The throbbing pulse, — else troubled without end : 
 
 Even Joy could tell, Joy craving truce and rest 
 
 From her own overflow, what power sedate 
 
 On those revolving motions did await 
 
 Assiduously — to soothe her aching breast ; 
 
 And, to a point of just relief, abate 
 
 The mantling triumphs of a day too blest. 
 
 1770 — 1850
 
 William 
 Wordsworth 
 
 1770^1850 
 
 96 A Treasury of 
 
 CLXXXVII 
 
 CURPRISED by joy— impatient as the Wind 
 
 I turned to share the transport — Oh! with whom 
 But Thee, deep-buried in the silent tomb, 
 That spot which no vicissitude can find ? 
 Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind — 
 But how could I forget thee ? Through what power, 
 Even for the least division of an hour. 
 Have I been so beguiled as to be blind 
 To my most grievous loss ! — That thought's return 
 Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore, 
 Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn, 
 Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more ; 
 That neither present time, nor years unborn 
 Could to my sight that heavenly face restore. 
 
 CLXXXVIII 
 
 TT is a beauteous evening, calm and free ; 
 
 The holy time is quiet as a Nun 
 Breathless with adoration ; the broad sun 
 Is sinking down in its tranquillity ; 
 The gentleness of heaven is on the Sea : 
 Listen ! the mighty Being is awake, 
 And doth with his eternal motion make 
 A sound like thunder — everlastingly. 
 Dear Child ! dear Girl ! that walkest with me here, 
 If thou appear untouched by solemn thought, 
 Thy nature is not therefore less divine : 
 Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year ; 
 And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner shrine, 
 God being with thee when we know it not.
 
 English Sonnets 97 
 
 CLXXXIX 
 
 THE world is too much with us ; late and soon, William 
 
 . Wordsworth 
 
 Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: — 
 
 Little we see in Nature that is ours ; '770—1 5 
 
 We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon ! 
 
 This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon, 
 
 The winds that will be howling at all hours 
 
 And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers ; 
 
 For this, for every thing, we are out of tune : 
 
 It moves us not. — Great God ! I'd rather be 
 
 A pagan suckled in a creed outworn ; 
 
 So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 
 
 Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ; 
 
 Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea ; 
 
 Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. 
 
 cxc 
 
 A VOLANT Tribe of Bards on earth are found, j 
 
 Who, while the flattering Zephyrs round them play, ^ 
 
 On ' coignes of vantage ' hang their nests of clay ; \ 
 
 How quickly, from that aery hold unbound, i 
 
 Dust for oblivion !, To the solid ground i 
 
 Of nature trusts the Mind that builds for aye ; j 
 
 Convinced that there, there only, she can lay 1 
 
 Secure foundations. As the year runs round, 1 
 
 Apart she toils within the chosen ring ; j 
 
 While the stars shine, or while day's purple eye j 
 
 Is gently closing with the flowers of spring ; ^j 
 
 Where even the motion of an Angel's wing ! 
 
 Would interrupt the intense tranquillity ' 
 
 Of silent hills, and more than silent sky. 
 
 H • \
 
 William 
 
 Wordsworth 
 
 g8 A Treasury of 
 
 cxci 
 
 SCORN not the Sonnet ; Critic, you have frowned, 
 Mindless of its just honours : with this key 
 i77<^i85o gj^^],5pg^j.g unlocked his heart ; the melody 
 
 Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound ; 
 
 A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound ; 
 
 With it Camoens soothed an exile's grief ; 
 
 The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf 
 
 Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned 
 
 His visionary brow ; a glow-worm lamp 
 
 It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land 
 
 To struggle through dark ways ; and when a damp 
 
 Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand 
 
 The Thing became a trumpet, whence he blew 
 
 Soul-animating strains — alas, too few ! 
 
 CXCII 
 TO B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 HIGH is our calling, Friend !— Creative Art 
 (Whether the instrument of words she use, 
 Or pencil pregnant with ethereal hues,) 
 Demands the service of a mind and heart, 
 Though sensitive, yet, in their weakest part, 
 Heroically fashioned — to infuse 
 Faith in the whispers of the lonely Muse, 
 While the whole world seems adverse to desert. 
 And oh ! when Nature sinks, as oft she may. 
 Through long-lived pressure of obscure distress, 
 Still to be strenuous for the bright reward, 
 And in the soul admit of no decay. 
 Brook no continuance of weak-mindedness- 
 Great is the glory, for the strife is hard !
 
 English Sonnets 99 
 
 CXCIII 
 
 SEPTEMBER, 1815. 
 
 T 1 miLE not a leaf seems faded ; while the fields, wo^^'^^sworth 
 
 With ripening harvest prodigally fair, 177^850 
 
 In brightest sunshine bask ; this nipping air, 
 Sent from some distant clime where Winter wields 
 His icy scimitar, a foretaste yields 
 Of bitter change, and bids the flowers beware ; 
 And whispers to the silent birds, ' Prepare 
 Against the threatening foe your trustiest shields.' 
 For me, who under kindlier laws belong 
 To Nature's tuneful quire, this rustling dry 
 Through leaves yet green, and yon crystalline sky, 
 Announce a season potent to renew, 
 'Mid frost and snow, the instinctive joys of song, 
 And nobler cares than listless summer knew. 
 
 cxciv 
 
 * 'T'HERE is a pleasure in poetic pains 
 
 Which only Poets know : ' — 'twas rightly said ; 
 Whom could the Muses else allure to tread 
 Their smoothest paths, to wear their lightest chains ? 
 When happiest Fancy has inspired the strains, 
 How oft the malice of one luckless word 
 Pursues the Enthusiast to the social board, 
 Haunts him belated on the silent plains ! 
 Yet he repines not, if his thought stand clear, 
 At last, of hindrance and obscurity. 
 Fresh as the star that crowns the brow of morn ; 
 Bright, speckless, as a softly-moulded tear 
 The moment it has left the virgin's eye, 
 Or rain-drop lingering on the pointed thorn.
 
 loo A Treasiny of 
 
 cxcv 
 William T)R00K ! whose societv the Poet seeks, 
 
 WORDSVVOKTH Vy . 
 
 Intent his wasted spirits to renew ; 
 
 1770^1850 
 
 And whom the curious Painter doth pursue 
 Through rocky passes, among flowery creeks. 
 And tracks thee dancing down thy water-breaks ; 
 If wish were mine some type of thee to view, 
 Thee, and not thee thyself, I would not do 
 Like Grecian Artists, give thee human cheeks, 
 Channels for tears ; no Naiad should'st thou be, — 
 Have neither limbs, feet, feathers, joints nor hairs : 
 It seems the Eternal Soul is clothed in thee 
 With purer robes than those of flesh and blood, 
 And hath bestowed on thee a safer good ; 
 Unwearied joy, and life without its cares. 
 
 CXCVI 
 
 If- 
 
 COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE, 
 
 SEPTEMBER 3, 1802. 
 
 'C' ARTH has not anything to show more fair : 
 
 Dull would he be of soul who could pass by 
 A sight so touching in its majesty ; 
 This City now doth like a garment wear 
 The beauty of the morning ; silent, bare, 
 Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie 
 Open unto the fields and to the sky ; 
 All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. 
 Never did sun more beautifully steep 
 In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill ; 
 Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep ! 
 The river glideth at his own sweet will : 
 Dear God ! the very houses seem asleep ; 
 And all that mighty heart is lying still !
 
 English Satinets loi 
 
 CXCVII 
 A PARSONAGE IN OXFORDSHIRE. 
 
 Vy HERE holy ground begins, unhallowed ends, yi^^^^:^'^^^ 
 
 Is marked by no distinguishable line ; — ^ 
 
 J <-> ' 1770 — 1050 
 
 The turf unites, the pathways intertwine ; 
 And, wheresoe'er the stealing footstep tends, 
 Garden, and that Domain where kindred, friends, ^ 
 
 And neighbours rest together, here confound 
 Their several features, mingled like the sound 
 Of many waters, or as evening blends 
 With shady night. Soft airs from shrub and flower 
 Waft fragrant greetings to each silent grave ; 
 And while those lofty poplars gently wave 
 Their tops, between them comes and goes a sky- 
 Bright as the glimpses of eternity 
 To saints accorded in their mortal hour. 
 
 CXCVIII 
 TO LAD Y FITZGERALD, 
 
 IN HER SEVENTIETH YEAR. 
 
 OUCH age how beautiful ! O Lady bright, 
 
 ^ Whose mortal lineaments seem all refined 
 
 By favouring Nature and a saintly Mind 
 
 To something purer and more exquisite 
 
 Than flesh and blood; whene'er thou meet'st my sight. 
 
 When I behold thy blanched unwithered cheek, 
 
 Thy temples fringed with locks of gleaming white. 
 
 And head that droops because the soul is meek. 
 
 Thee with the welcome Snowdrop I compare ; 
 
 That child of winter, prompting thoughts that climb 
 
 From desolation toward the genial prime ; 
 
 Or with the Moon conquering earth's misty air, 
 
 And filling more and more with crystal light 
 
 As pensive Evening deepens into night.
 
 102 A Treasury of 
 
 cxcix 
 
 William ^ 1 TH Y art thou silent ! Is thy love a plant 
 
 Wordsworth V V 
 
 — „ Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air 
 
 1770 — 1850 
 
 Of absence withers what was once so fair ? 
 
 Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant ? 
 
 Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant — 
 
 Bound to thy service with unceasing care, 
 
 The mind's least generous wish a mendicant 
 
 For nought but what thy happiness could spare. 
 
 Speak! — though this soft warm heart,once free to hold 
 
 A thousand tender pleasures, thine and mine, 
 
 Be left more desolate, more dreary cold 
 
 Than a forsaken bird's-nest filled with snow 
 
 'Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine — 
 
 Speak, that my torturing doubts their end may know ! 
 
 cc 
 
 COMPOSED ON A MA V MORNING, 1838. 
 
 T IFE with yon Lambs, like day, is just begun, 
 ^ Yet Nature seems to them a heavenly guide. 
 Does joy approach ? they meet the coming tide ; 
 And sullenness avoid, as now they shun 
 Pale twilight's lingering glooms, — and in the sun 
 Couch near their dams, with quiet satisfied ; 
 Or gambol — each with his shadow at his side. 
 Varying its shape wherever he may run. 
 As they from turf yet hoar with sleepy dew 
 All turn, and court the shining and the green. 
 Where herbs look up, and opening flowers are seen • 
 Why to God's goodness cannot We be true, 
 And so. His gifts and promises between. 
 Feed to the last on pleasures ever new ?
 
 English Son7iets 103 
 
 cci 
 
 LO ! where she stands fixed in a saint-hke trance, William 
 r\ 111 T 1 11 Wordsworth 
 
 One upward hand, as if she needed rest — 
 
 From rapture, lying softly on her breast ! 1770— i 50 
 
 Nor wants her eyeball an ethereal glance ; 
 
 But not the less — nay more — that countenance, 
 
 While thus illumined, tells of painful strife 
 
 For a sick heart made weary of this life 
 
 By love, long crossed with adverse circumstance. — 
 
 Would She were now as when she hoped to pass 
 
 At God's appointed hour to them who tread 
 
 Heaven's sapphire pavement, yet breathed well content. 
 
 Well pleased her foot should print earth's common grass, 
 
 Lived thankful for day's light, for daily bread, 
 
 For health, and time in obvious duty spent. 
 
 ecu I 
 
 Y^ANSFELL! this Household has a favoured 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 i 
 
 From every object dear to mortal sight, . i 
 
 As soon we shall be, may these words attest \ 
 
 How oft, to elevate our spirits, shone ' i 
 
 Thy visionary majesties of light, ; 
 
 How in thy pensive glooms our hearts found rest. ■
 
 I04 
 
 A Treasury of 
 
 William 
 Wordsworth 
 
 1770^1850 
 
 CCIII 
 COMPOSED A T NEIDPA TH CASTLE. 
 ■p\EGENERATE Douglas ! oh, the unworthy 
 ^ " Lord ! 
 
 Whom mere despite of heart could so far please, 
 And love of havoc, (for with such disease 
 Fame taxes him,) that he could send forth word 
 To level with the dust a noble horde, 
 A brotherhood of venerable Trees, 
 Leaving an ancient dome, and towers like these. 
 Beggared and outraged ! — Many hearts deplored 
 The fate of those old Trees ; and oft with pain 
 The traveller, at this day, will stop and gaze 
 On wrongs, which Nature scarcely seems to heed : 
 For sheltered places, bosoms, nooks, and bays, 
 And the pure mountains, and the gentle Tweed, 
 And the green silent pastures, yet remain. 
 
 cciv 
 COMPOSED BY THE SEA-SIDE, NEAR CALAIS. 
 
 AUGUST, 1802. 
 
 TJ'AIR Star of evening. Splendour of the west. 
 
 Star of my Country ! — on the horizon's brink 
 Thou hangest, stooping, as might seem, to sink 
 On England's bosom ; yet well pleased to rest 
 Meanwhile, and be to her a glorious crest 
 Conspicuous to the Nations. Thou, I think, 
 Should'st be my Country's emblem ; and should'st 
 
 wink. 
 Bright Star ! with laughter on her banners, drest 
 In thy fresh beauty. There ! that dusky spot 
 Beneath thee, that is England ; there she lies. 
 Blessings be on you both ! one hope, one lot, 
 One life, one glory ! — I, with many a fear 
 For my dear Country, many heartfelt sighs, 
 Among men who do not love her, linger here.
 
 English Sonnets 105 
 
 ccv 
 ON THE EXTINCTION OF THE 
 
 VENETIAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 /^NCE did She hold the gorgeous east in fee, wSworth 
 
 ^"^^ And was the safeguard of the west : the worth — „ 
 
 ° 1770 — 1850 
 
 Of Venice did not fall below her birth, 
 
 Venice, the eldest Child of Liberty. 
 
 She was a maiden City, bright and free ; 
 
 No guile seduced, no force could violate ; 
 
 And when she took unto herself a Mate, 
 
 She must espouse the everlasting Sea. 
 
 And what if she had seen those glories fade. 
 
 Those titles vanish, and that strength decay ; 
 
 Yet shall some tribute of regret be paid ; 
 
 When her long life hath reached its final day : I 
 
 Men are we, and must grieve when even the Shade 
 
 Of that which once was great is passed away. 
 
 \ 
 
 \ 
 
 CCVI • \ 
 
 TO TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE. j 
 
 ' I "OUSSAINT, the most unhappy man of men ! i 
 
 Whether the whistling Rustic tend his plough | 
 Within thy hearing, or thy head be now 
 
 Pillowed in some deep dungeon's earless den ; — > 
 
 O miserable Chieftain ! where and when i 
 
 Wilt thou find patience ? Yet die not ; do thou I 
 
 Wear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow : \ 
 
 Though fallen thyself, never to rise again, : 
 
 Live, and take comfort. Thou hast left behind .1 
 
 Powers that will work for thee ; air, earth, and skies ; j 
 
 There's not a breathing of the common wind 1 
 
 That will forget thee ; thou hast great allies ; ' j 
 
 Thy friends are exultations, agonies, ■ 
 And love, and man's unconquerable mind.
 
 io6 A Treasury of 
 
 CCVII 
 SEPTEMBER, 1802. NEAR DOVER. 
 William INLAND, within a hollow vale, I stood ; 
 
 Wordsworth I ' ' ' 
 
 — And saw, while sea was calm and air was clear, 
 
 1770 — 1850 
 
 The coast of France — the coast of France how near ! 
 Drawn almost into frightful neighbourhood. 
 I shrunk ; for verily the barrier flood 
 Was like a lake, or river bright and fair, 
 A span of waters ; yet what power is there ! 
 What mightiness for evil and for good ! 
 Even so doth God protect us if we be 
 Virtuous and wise. Winds blow, and waters roll, 
 Strength to the brave, and Power, and Deity ; 
 Yet in themselves are nothing ! One decree 
 Spake laws to them, and said that by the soul 
 Only, the Nations shall be great and free. 
 
 CCVIII : 
 THOUGHT OF A BRITON 
 
 ON THE SUBJUGATION OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 '' I "WO Voices are there ; one is of the Sea, I 
 
 One of the Mountains ; each a mighty Voice ; i 
 In both from age to age thou didst rejoice, 
 
 They were thy chosen music. Liberty ! : 
 
 There came a Tyrant, and with holy glee ■ 
 
 Thou fought'st against him ; but hast vainly striven : ; 
 
 Thou from thy Alpine holds at length art driven \ 
 Where not a torrent murmurs heard by thee. 
 
 Of one deep bliss thine ear hath been bereft : ; 
 
 Then cleave, O cleave to that which still is left ; i 
 
 For, high-souled Maid, what sorrow would it be ■ 
 
 That Mountain floods should thunder as before, ] 
 And Ocean bellow from his rocky shore, . ] 
 
 And neither awful Voice be heard by thee ! | 
 
 i
 
 o 
 
 English Somiets 107 
 
 CCIX 
 WRITTEN IN LONDON, SEPTEMBER, 1802. 
 FRIEND ! I know not which way I must look wokdsworth 
 
 For comfort, being, as I am, opprest, ^ ^^-g ^ 
 
 To think that now our life is only drest 
 For show ; mean handiwork of craftsman, cook, 
 Or groom ! — We must run glittering like a brook 
 In the open sunshine, or we are unblest : 
 The wealthiest man among us is the best : 
 No grandeur now in nature or in book 
 Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense. 
 This is idolatry ; and these we adore : 
 Plain living and high thinking are no more •. 
 The homely beauty of the good old cause 
 Is gone ; our peace, our fearful innocence. 
 And pure religion breathing household laws. 
 
 ccx 
 
 LONDON, 1802^ 
 
 IV/riLTON ! thou should'st be living at this hour 
 
 England hath need of thee : she is a fen 
 Of stagnant waters : altar, sword, and pen, 
 Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, 
 Have forfeited their ancient English dower 
 Of inward happiness. We are selfish men ; 
 Oh ! raise us up, return to us again ; 
 And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. 
 Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart : 
 Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea : 
 Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, 
 So didst thou travel on life's common way. 
 In cheerful godliness ; and yet thy heart 
 The lowliest duties on herself did lay.
 
 I770 — 1850 
 
 io8 A Treasury of 
 
 CCXI 
 
 William JT is not to be thought of that the Flood 
 
 Wordsworth I 
 
 Of British freedom, which, to the open sea 
 Of the world's praise, from dark antiquity 
 Hath flowed, ' with pomp of waters, unwithstood,' 
 Roused though it be full often to a mood 
 Which spurns the check of salutary bands. 
 That this most famous Stream in bogs and sands 
 Should perish ; and to evil and to good 
 Be lost for ever. In our halls is hung 
 Armoury of the invincible Knights of old : 
 "VVe must be free or die, who speak the tongue 
 That Shakspeare spake ; the faith and morals hold 
 Which Milton held. — In every thing we are sprung 
 
 Of Earth's first blood, have titles manifold. \ 
 
 CCXII 
 
 I 
 
 j 
 
 "^ 7^ THEN I have borne in memory what has tamed « 
 
 Great Nations, how ennobling thoughts depart 
 
 When men change swords for ledgers, and desert | 
 
 The student's bower for gold, some fears unnamed | 
 
 I had, my Country ! — am I to be blamed ? 
 
 Now, when I think of thee, and what thou art, 
 
 Verily, in the bottom of my heart, j 
 
 Of those unfilial fears I am ashamed. : 
 
 For dearly must v/e prize thee ; we who find j 
 
 In thee a bulwark for the cause of men ; j 
 
 And I by my affection was beguiled : j 
 
 What wonder if a Poet now and then. 
 
 Among the many movements of his mind, 
 
 Felt for thee as a lover or a child ! ;
 
 English Sonnets 
 
 CCXXIII 
 
 NOVEMBER, 1806. 
 
 109 
 
 A NOTHER year !— another deadly blow ! 
 Another mighty Empire overthrown ! 
 And We are left, or shall be left, alone ; 
 The last that dare to struggle with the Foe. 
 'Tis well ! from this day forward we shall know 
 That in ourselves our safety must be sought ; 
 That by our own right hands it must be wrought ; 
 That we must stand unpropped, or be laid low. 
 O dastard whom such foretaste doth not cheer ! 
 We shall exult, if they who rule the land 
 Be men who hold its many blessings dear, 
 Wise, upright, valiant ; not a servile band, 
 Who are to judge of danger which they fear. 
 And honour which they do not understand. 
 
 William 
 Wordsworth 
 
 1770 — 1850 
 
 CCXIV 
 
 T) RAVE Schill ! by death delivered, take thy flight 
 
 From Prussia's timid region. Go, and rest 
 With heroes, 'mid the islands of the Blest, 
 Or in the fields of empyrean light. 
 A meteor wert thou crossing a dark night : 
 Yet shall thy name, conspicuous and sublime, 
 Stand in the spacious firmament of time. 
 Fixed as a star : such glory is thy right. 
 Alas ! it may not be : for earthly fame 
 Is Fortune's frail dependent ; yet there lives 
 A Judge, who, as man claims by merit, gives ; 
 To whose all-pondering mind a noble aim, 
 Faithfully kept, is as a noble deed ; 
 In whose pure sight all virtue doth succeed.
 
 1 
 
 Wordsworth Jj ^ 
 
 1770 — 1850 
 
 no A Treasury of 
 
 CCXV 
 SKY-PROSPECT 
 
 FROM THE PLAIN OF FRANCE. 
 
 William "f O ! in the burning west, the craggy nape 
 Of a proud Ararat ! and, thereupon, 
 The Ark, her melancholy voyage done ! 
 Yon rampant cloud mimics a lion's shape ; 
 There, combats a huge crocodile — agape 
 A golden spear to swallow ! and that brown 
 And massy grove, so near yon blazing town, 
 Stirs and recedes — destruction to escape ! 
 Yet all is harmless — as the Elysian shades 
 Where Spirits dwell in undisturbed repose — 
 Silently disappears, or quickly fades : 
 Meek Nature's evening comment on the shows 
 That for oblivion take their daily birth 
 From all the fuming vanities of Earth ! 
 
 ccxvi 
 
 ■jVTEAR Anio's stream, I spied a gentle Dove, 
 
 ^ ^ Perched on an olive branch, and heard her ; 
 
 cooing . j 
 'Mid new-born blossoms that soft airs were wooing, 
 
 While all things present told of joy and love, ] 
 
 But restless Fancy left that olive grove \ 
 
 To hail the exploratory Bird renewing ^i 
 
 Hope for the few, who, at the world's undoing, | 
 
 On the great flood were spared to live and move. \ 
 
 O bounteous Heaven ! signs true as dove and bough j 
 
 Brought to the Ark are coming evermore, j 
 
 Given though we seek them not, but, while we plough j 
 
 This sea of life without a visible shore, i 
 
 Do neither promise ask nor grace implore j 
 
 In what alone is ours, the living Now. '
 
 English Sonnets iii 
 
 CCXVII 
 THE RIVER DUDDON. 
 
 CHILD of the clouds \ remote from every taint Wiluam 
 
 Of sordid industry thy lot is cast ; 
 
 Thine are the honours of the lofty waste ; 
 
 Not seldom, when with heat the valleys faint, 
 
 Thy handmaid Frost with spangled tissue quaint 
 
 Thy cradle decks ; — to chant thy birth thou hast 
 
 No meaner Poet than the whistling Blast, 
 
 And Desolation is thy Patron-saint ! 
 
 She guards thee, ruthless Power! who would not spare 
 
 Those mighty forests, once the bison's screen, 
 
 Where stalked the huge deer to his shaggy lair 
 
 Through paths and alleys roofed with darkest green, 
 
 Thousands of years before the silent air 
 
 Was pierced by whizzing shaft of hunter keen ! 
 
 CCXVIII 
 
 O OLE listener, Duddon ! to the breeze that played 
 With thy clear voice, I caught the fitful sound 
 Wafted o'er sullen moss and craggy mound — 
 Unfruitful solitudes, that seemed to upbraid 
 The sun in heaven ! — but now, to form a shade 
 For Thee, green alders have together wound 
 Their foliage ; ashes flung their arms around ; 
 And birch-trees risen in silver colonnade. 
 And thou hast also tempted here to rise, 
 'Mid sheltering pines, this Cottage rude and grey ; 
 Whose ruddy children, by the mother's eyes 
 Carelessly watched, sport through the summer day, 
 Thy pleased associates : — light as endless May 
 On infant bosoms lonely Nature lies. 
 
 Wordsworth 
 1770 — 1850
 
 112 A Treasury of 
 
 ccxix 
 THE RIVER DUDDON. 
 
 3 
 FLOWERS. 
 
 Wordsworth TT-^^ ^^^ *-*"'* coursc was graced with social trees 
 
 1770 — 1850 
 
 ■^ It lacked not old remains of hawthorn bowers, 
 Where small birds warble to their paramours ; 
 And, earlier still, was heard the hum of bees ; 
 I saw them ply their harmless robberies, 
 And caught the fragrance which the sundry flowers, 
 Fed by the stream with soft perpetual showers, 
 Plenteously yielded to the vagrant breeze. 
 There bloomed the strawberry of the wilderness ; 
 The trembling eyebright showed her sapphire blue, 
 The thyme her purple, like the blush of Even ; 
 And if the breath of some to no caress 
 Invited, forth they peeped so fair to view. 
 All kinds alike seemed favourites of Heaven. 
 
 ccxx 
 4 
 ■\ ^ THAT aspect bore the Man who roved or fled. 
 First of his tribe, to this dark dell — who first 
 In this pellucid Current slaked his thirst ? 
 What hopes came with him? what designs were spread 
 Along his path ? His unprotected bed 
 What dreams encompassed? Was the intruder nursed 
 In hideous usages, and rites accursed, 
 That thinned the living and disturbed the dead ? 
 No voice replies ; — both air and earth are mute ; 
 And Thou, blue Streamlet, murmuring yield'st no 
 
 more 
 Than a soft record, that, whatever fruit 
 Of ignorance thou might'st witness heretofore. 
 Thy function was to heal and to restore, 
 To soothe and cleanse, not madden and pollute !
 
 o 
 
 English Sojinets 113 
 
 ccxxi 
 
 MOUNTAIN Stream ! the Shepherd and his Cot „ w.lliam 
 
 ^ Wordsworth 
 
 Are privileged Inmates of deep solitude ; 
 Nor would the nicest Anchorite exclude 
 A field or two of brighter green, or plot 
 Of tillage-ground, that seemeth like a spot 
 Of stationary sunshine : — thou hast viewed 
 These only, Duddon ! with their paths renewed 
 By fits and starts, yet this contents thee not. 
 Thee hath some awful Spirit impelled to leave, 
 Utterly to desert, the haunts of men. 
 Though simple thy companions were and few ; 
 And through this wilderness a passage cleave, 
 Attended but by thy own voice, save when 
 The clouds and fowls of the air thy way pursue ! 
 
 ccxxri 
 
 6 
 SEATHWAITE CHAPEL. 
 
 O ACRED Religion ! ' mother of form and fear/ 
 
 Dread arbitress of mutable respect, 
 New rites ordaining when the old are wrecked, 
 Or cease to please the fickle worshipper ; 
 Mother of Love ! (that name best suits thee here) 
 Mother of Love ! for this deep vale, protect 
 Truth's holy lamp, pure source of bright effect, 
 Gifted to purge the vapoury atmosphere 
 That seeks to stifle it ; — as in those days 
 When this low Pile a Gospel Teacher knew, 
 Whose good works formed an endless retinue : 
 A Pastor such as Chaucer's verse pourtrays. 
 Such as the heaven-taught skill of Herbert drew ; 
 And tender Goldsmith crowned with deathless praise !
 
 114 A Treasury of 
 
 CCXXIII 
 THE RIVER DUD DON. 
 
 7 
 AFTER-THOUGHT. 
 
 T THOUGHT of Thee, my partner and my guide, 
 As being past away. — Vain sympathies ! 
 
 For backward, Duddon ! as I cast my eyes, 
 
 I see what was, and is, and will abide ; 
 
 Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide ; 
 
 The Form remains, the Function never dies ; 
 
 While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise, 
 
 We Men, who in our morn of youth defied 
 
 The elements, must vanish ; — be it so ! 
 
 Enough, if something from our hands have power 
 
 To live, and act, and serve the future hour ; 
 
 And if, as toward the silent tomb we go. 
 
 Through love, through hope, and faith's transcend- 
 ent dower, 
 
 We feel that we are greater than we know. 
 
 ccxxiv 
 
 ON THE DEPARTURE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 
 
 FROM ABBOTSFORD, FOR NAPLES. 
 
 A 
 
 TROUBLE, not of clouds, or weeping rain, 
 Nor of the setting sun's pathetic light 
 Engendered, hangs o'er Eildon's triple height : 
 Spirits of Power, assembled there, complain 
 For kindred Power departing from their sight ; 
 While Tweed, best pleased in chanting a blithe strain. 
 Saddens his voice again, and yet again. 
 Lift up your hearts, ye Mourners ! for the might 
 Of the whole world's good wishes with him goes ; 
 Blessings and prayers, in nobler retinue 
 Than sceptered king or laurelled conqueror knows. 
 Follow this wondrous Potentate. Be true. 
 Ye winds of ocean, and the midland sea, 
 Wafting your Charge to soft Parthenope ! 
 
 \
 
 T 
 
 English Sonnets 115 
 
 ccxxv 
 THE TROSSACHS. 
 HERE'S not a nook within this solemn Pass, w}:^"'"^o. 
 
 But were an apt confessional for One 
 Taught by his summer spent, his autumn gone, 
 That life is but a tale of morning grass 
 Withered at eve. From scenes of art which chase 
 That thought away, turn, and with watchful eyes 
 Feed it 'midst Nature's old felicities. 
 Rocks, rivers, and smooth lakes more clear than glass 
 Untouched, unbreathed upon. Thrice happy quest, 
 If from a golden perch of aspen spray 
 (October's workmanshij) to rival May) 
 The pensive warbler of the ruddy breast 
 That moral sweeten by a heaven-taught lay, 
 Lulling the year, with all its cares, to rest ! 
 
 ccxxvi 
 
 ROMAN ANTIQUITIES. 
 
 (from the ROMAN STATION AT OLD PENRITH.) 
 
 T TOW profitless the relics that we cull. 
 
 Troubling the last holds of ambitious Rome, 
 Unless they chasten fancies that presume 
 Too high, or idle agitations lull ! 
 Of the world's flatteries if the brain be full. 
 To have no seat for thought were better doom 
 Like this old helmet, or the eyeless skull 
 Of him who gloried in its nodding plume. 
 Heaven out of view, our wishes what are they 
 Our fond regrets tenacious in their grasp ? 
 The Sage's theory ? the Poet's lay ? — 
 Mere Fibulae without a robe to clasp ; 
 Obsolete lamps, whose hght no time recalls ; 
 Urns without ashes, tearless lacrymals ! 
 
 Wordsworth 
 1770 — 1850
 
 ii6 A Treasury of 
 
 CCXXVII I 
 
 I 
 
 DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. 
 William T^HRE ATS come which no submission may assuage, 
 
 Wordsworth 
 1770— 1850 
 
 No sacrifice avert, no power dispute ; ■ 
 
 The tapers shall be quenched, the belfries mute. 
 And, 'mid their choirs unroofed by selfish rage. 
 The warbling wren shall find a leafy cage ; 
 The gadding bramble hang her purple fruit ; 
 And the green lizard and the gilded newt 
 Lead unmolested lives, and die of age. 
 The owl of evening and the woodland fox 
 For their abode the shrines of Waltham choose : 
 Proud Glastonbury can no more refuse 
 To stoop her head before these desperate shocks — 
 She whose high pomp displaced, as story tells, 
 Arimathean Joseph's wattled cells. 
 
 CCXXVIII 
 
 THE VIRGIN. 
 
 IV /T OTHER ! whose virgin bosom was uncrost 
 
 With the least shade of thought to sin allied ; 
 Woman ! above all women glorified, 
 Our tainted nature's solitary boast ; 
 Purer than foam on central ocean tost ; 
 Brighter than eastern skies at daybreak strewn 
 Witii fancied roses, than the unblemished moon 
 Before her wane begins on heaven's blue coast ; 
 Thy Image falls to earth. Yet some, I ween, 
 Not unforgiven the suppliant knee might bend^ 
 As to a visible Power, in which did blend 
 All that was mixed and reconciled in Thee 
 Of mother's love with maiden purity, 
 Of high with low, celestial with terrene !
 
 English Sonnets 117 
 
 CCXXIX 
 WALTON'S BOOK OF LIVES. 
 
 'y HERE are no colours in the fairest sky ■ woIdswortk 
 
 ^ So fair as these. The feather, whence the pen ,^^^850 
 Was shaped that traced the Hves of these good men, 
 Dropped from an Angel's wing. With moistened eye 
 We read of faith and purest charity 
 In Statesman, Priest, and humble Citizen : 
 O could we copy their mild virtues, then 
 What joy to live, what blessedness to die ! 
 Methinks their very names shine still and bright ; 
 Apart — like glow-worms on a summer night ; 
 Or lonely tapers when from far they fling 
 A guiding ray ; or seen — like stars on high, 
 Satellites burning in a lucid ring 
 Around meek Walton's heavenly memory. 
 
 ccxxx 
 
 MUTABILITY. 
 
 "PROM low to high doth dissolution climb, 
 
 And sink from high to low, along a scale 
 Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail ; 
 A musical but melancholy chime. 
 Which they can hear who meddle not with crime, 
 Nor avarice, nor over- anxious care. 
 Truth fails not ; but her outward forms that bear 
 The longest date do melt like frosty rime. 
 That in the morning whitened hill and plain 
 And is no more ; drop like the tower sublime 
 Of yesterday, which royally did wear 
 His crown of weeds, biit could not even sustain 
 Some casual shout that broke the silent air. 
 Or the unimaginable touch of Time.
 
 ii8 
 
 A Treasury of 
 
 ccxxxi 
 
 William 
 Wordsworth 
 
 1770—1850 
 
 INSIDE OF KING'S COILEGE CHAPEL, 
 
 CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 'T'AX not the royal Saint with vain expense, 
 
 With ill-matched aims the Architect who planned, 
 Albeit labouring for a scanty band 
 Of white-robed Scholars only — this immense 
 And glorious Work of fine intelligence ! 
 Give all thou canst ; high Heaven rejects the lore 
 Of nicely-calculated less or more ; 
 So deemed the man who fashioned for the sense 
 These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof 
 Self-poised, and scooped into ten thousand cells. 
 Where light and shade repose, where music dwells 
 Lingering — and wandering on as loth to die ; 
 Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof 
 That they were born for immortality. 
 
 ccxxxii 
 MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. 
 
 (landing at the mouth of the DERWENT, WORKINGTON.) 
 
 T^EAR to the Loves, and to the Graces vowed. 
 
 The Queen drew back the wimple that she wore ; 
 And to the throng, that on the Cumbrian shore 
 Her landing hailed, how touchingly she bowed ! 
 And like a Star (that, from a heavy cloud 
 Of pine-tree foliage poised in air, forth darts, 
 When a soft summer gale at evening parts 
 The gloom that did its loveliness enshroud) 
 She smiled ; but Time, the old Saturnian seer, 
 Sighed on the wing as her foot pressed the strand, 
 With step prelusive to a long array 
 Of woes and degradations hand in hand — 
 Weeping captivity, and shuddering fear 
 Stilled by the ensanguined block of Fotheringay !
 
 English Sonnets 119 
 
 CCXXXIII 
 CA VE OF STAFFA. 
 
 •T^HANKS for the lessons of this Spot— fit school wordswor- 
 
 
 For the presumptuous thoughts that would 
 
 Wordsworth 
 1770 — 1S50 
 
 assign 
 
 Mechanic laws to agency divine ; 
 And, measuring heaven by earth, would overrule 
 Infinite Power. The pillared vestibule, 
 Expanding yet precise, the roof embowed, 
 Might seem designed to humble man, when proud 
 Of his best workmanship by plan and tool. 
 Down-bearing with his whole Atlantic weight 
 Of tide and tempest on the Structure's base, 
 And flashing to that Structure's topmost height, 
 Ocean has proved its strength, and of its grace 
 In calms is conscious, finding for his freight 
 Of softest music some responsive place. 
 
 ccxxxiv 
 FLOWERS ON THE TOP OF THE PILLARS 
 
 AT THE ENTRANCE OF THE CAVE. 
 
 TT OPE smiled when your nativity was cast. 
 
 Children of Summer ! Ye fresh Flowers that brave 
 What Summer here escapes not, the fierce wave, 
 And whole artillery of the western blast, J 
 
 Battering the Temple's front, its long-drawn nave j 
 
 Smiting, as if each moment were their last. ! 
 
 But ye, bright Flowers, on frieze and architrave 
 Survive, and once again the Pile stands fast : i 
 
 Calm as the Universe, from specular towers 
 
 Of heaven contemplated by Spirits pure j 
 
 With mute astonishment, it stands sustained 
 
 Through every part in symmetry, to endure, i 
 
 Unhurt, the assault of Time with all his hours, 
 As the supreme Artificer ordained.
 
 William 
 Wordsworth 
 
 1770 — 1850 
 
 120 A Treasury of 
 
 ccxxxv 
 
 IV /TOST sweet it is with unuplifted eyes 
 
 To pace the ground, if path be there or none, 
 While a fair region round the traveller lies 
 Which he forbears again to look upon : 
 Pleased rather with some soft ideal scene, 
 The work of Fancy, or some happy tone 
 Of meditation, slipping in between 
 The beauty coming and the beauty gone. 
 If Thought and Love desert us, from that day 
 Let us break off all commerce with the Muse : 
 With Thought and Love companions of our way, 
 Whate'er the senses take or may refuse, 
 The Mind's internal heaven shall shed her dews 
 Of inspiration on the humblest lay. 
 
 ccxxxvi 
 
 TO THE AUTHOR OF "THE ROBBERS." 
 
 ^ColIr?dgI''°'' C CHILLER! that hour I would have wished to die, 
 ~g If through the shuddering midnight I had sent, 
 
 From the dark dungeon of the tower time-rent. 
 That fearful voice, a famished father's cry ; 
 Lest in some after moment aught more mean 
 Might stamp me mortal. A triumphant shout 
 Black Horror screamed, and all her goblin rout 
 Diminished shrunk from the more withering scene. 
 Ah ! bard tremendous in sublimity ! 
 Could I behold thee in thy loftier mood, 
 Wandering at eve with finely frenzied eye 
 Beneath some vast old tempest-swinging wood. 
 Awhile with mute awe gazing I would brood, 
 Then weep aloud in a wild ecstasy !
 
 English Sonnets I2i 
 
 CCXXXVII 
 TO THE RIVER OTTER. 
 
 DEAR native brook ! Avild streamlet of the West! Samuel Taylor 
 Coleridge 
 How many various-fated years have passed, — 
 
 1772 — 1834 
 
 What happy, and what mournful hours, smce last 
 
 I skimmed the smooth thin stone along thy breast, 
 
 Numbering its light leaps ! Yet so deep imprest 
 
 Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that ijiine eyes 
 
 I never shut amid the sunny ray. 
 
 But straight with all their tints thy waters rise, 
 
 Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows gray, 
 
 And bedded sand that, veined with various dyes. 
 
 Gleamed through thy bright transparence. On my way, 
 
 Visions of childhood ! oft have ye beguiled 
 
 Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs : 
 
 Ah ! that once more I were a careless child. 
 
 CCXXXVIII 
 FANCY IN NUB IB US: 
 
 OR THE POET IN TEIE CLOUDS. 
 
 /^ IT is pleasant, with a heart at ease, 
 
 ^^'^ Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies. 
 
 To make the shifting clouds be what you please, ' 
 
 Or let the easily-persuaded eyes . 
 
 Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould ' j 
 
 Of a friend's fancy : or, with head bent low j 
 
 And cheek aslant, see rivers flow of gold j 
 
 'Twixt crimson banks ; and then, a traveller, go ' 
 
 From mount to mount through Cloudland, gorgeous land ! 
 
 Or listening to the tide, with closed sight, ' 
 
 Be that blind bard who, on the Chian strand \ 
 
 By those deep sounds possessed with inward light, j 
 
 Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssee 1 
 
 Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea. j
 
 122 
 
 A Treasury of 
 
 Samuel Taylor 
 Coleridge 
 
 1772— 1834 
 
 CCXXXIX 
 
 TO NATURE. 
 
 TT may indeed be phantasy when I 
 
 Essay to draw from all created things 
 Deep, heartfelt, inward joy that closely clings ; 
 And trace in leaves and flowers that round me lie 
 Lessons of love and earnest piety. 
 So let it be ; and if the wide world rings 
 In mock of this belief, to me it brings 
 Nor fear, nor grief, nor vain perplexity. 
 So will I build my altar in the fields, 
 And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be, 
 And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields 
 Shall be the incense I will yield to Thee, 
 Thee only God ! and Thou shalt not despise 
 Even me, the priest of this poor sacrifice. 
 
 Mary Tighe 
 
 1773—1010 
 
 CCXL 
 TO TIME. 
 
 A/ES, gentle Time, thy gradual, healing hand 
 
 Hath stolen from Sorrow's grasp the enven- 
 omed dart ; 
 Submitting to thy skill, my passive heart 
 Feels that no grief can thy soft power Avithstand ; 
 And though my aching breast still heaves the sigh, 
 Though oft the tear swells silent in mine eye ; 
 Yet the keen pang, the agony is gone ; 
 Sorrow and I shall part ; and these faint throes 
 Are but the remnant of severer woes : 
 As when the furious tempest is o'erblown, 
 And when the sky has wept its violence. 
 The opening heavens will oft let fall a shower. 
 The poor o'ercharged boughs still drops dispense, 
 And still the loaded streams in torrents pour.
 
 English Sonnets 123 
 
 CCXLI 
 
 A WRINKLED, crabbed man they picture thee, Robert 
 
 _,, , ,,.. . , , - , SOUTHEY 
 
 Old Winter, with a rugged beard as grey — 
 
 As the long moss upon the apple-tree ; '774—1 43 
 
 Blue-lipt, an ice-drop at thy sharp blue nose, 
 Close muffled up, and on thy dreary way 
 Plodding alone through sleet and drifting snows. 
 They should have drawn thee by the high-heapt hearth, 
 Old Winter ! seated in thy great armed chair, 
 Watching the children at their Christmas mirth ; 
 Or circled by them as thy lips declare 
 Some merry jest, or tale of murder dire. 
 Or troubled spirit that disturbs the night. 
 Pausing at times to rouse the mouldering fire, 
 Or taste the old October brown and bright. 
 
 CCXLII 
 TO A FRIEND. 
 
 'P'RIEND of my earliest years and childish days, Charles Lamb 
 
 My joys, my sorrows, thou with me hast shared, 1775^834 
 Companion dear, and we alike have fared 
 (Poor pilgrims we) through life's unequal ways ; 
 It were unwisely done, should we refuse 
 To cheer our path as featly as we may. 
 Our lonely path to cheer, as travellers use. 
 With merry song, quaint tale, or roundelay ; 
 And we will sometimes talk past troubles o'er, 
 Of mercies shewn, and all our sickness healed. 
 And in his judgments God remembering love ; 
 And we will learn to praise God evermore 
 For those glad tidings of great joy revealed 
 By that sooth Messenger sent from above.
 
 124 A Treasury of 
 
 CCXLIII 
 WORK 
 
 Charles Lamb 
 
 ^"^ ^HO first invented Work, and bound the free 
 1775— 1834 And holyday-rejoicing spirit down 
 
 To the ever-haunting importunity 
 Of business in the green fields, and the town — 
 To plough, loom, anvil, spade — and oh ! most sad, 
 To that dry drudgery at the desk's dead wood ? 
 Who but the Being unblest, alien from good, 
 Sabbathless Satan ! he who his unglad 
 Task ever plies 'mid rotatory burnings. 
 That round and round incalculably reel — 
 For wrath divine hath made him like a wheel — 
 In that red realm from which are no returnings : 
 Where toiling, and turmoiling, ever and aye 
 He, and nis thoughts, keep pensive working-day. 
 
 ccxLiy 
 
 LEISURE. 
 
 T^HEY talk of Time, and of Time's galling yoke. 
 
 That like a millstone on man's mind doth press, 
 Which only works and business can redress ; 
 Of divine Leisure such foul lies are spoke. 
 Wounding her fair gifts with calumnious stroke ; 
 But might I, fed with silent meditation, 
 Assoiled live from that fiend Occupation — 
 Improbus Labor, which my spirits hath broke — 
 I'd drink of Time's rich cup, and never surfeit ; 
 Fling in more days than went to make the gem 
 That crowned the white top of Methusalem ; 
 Yea on my weak neck take, and never forfeit, 
 Like Atlas bearing up the dainty sky, 
 The heaven-sweet burthen of eternity. 
 
 ^eiis nobis I^aft otia imt
 
 English Sonnets 125 
 
 CCXLV 
 
 /^ LIFT with reverent hand that tarnished flower, Charles Lamb 
 
 ^■^ That shrines beneath her modest canopy 1775— 1834 
 
 Memorials dear to Romish piety ; 
 
 Dim specks, rude shapes, of Saints ! in fervent hour 
 
 The work perchance of some meek devotee 
 
 Who, poor in worldly treasures to set forth 
 
 The sanctities she worshipped to their worth, 
 
 In this imperfect tracery might see 
 
 Hints, that all Heaven did to her sense reveal. 
 
 Cheap gifts best fit poor givers. We are told 
 
 Of the lone mite, the cup of water cold, 
 
 That in their way approved the offerer's zeal. 
 
 True love shows costliest where the means are scant; 
 
 And, in her reckoning, they abound who want. 
 
 CCXLVI 
 
 NIGHT AND DBA TH. 
 
 MYSTERIOUS Night! when our first parent knew Joseph Blanco 
 • . V/hite 
 Thee from report divme, and heard thy name, 
 
 Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, 1775— i 41 
 
 This glorious canopy of light and blue ? 
 
 Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew. 
 
 Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, 
 
 Hesperus with the host of heaven came. 
 
 And lo ! Creation widened in man's view. 
 
 Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed 
 
 Within thy beams, O Sun ! or who could find. 
 
 Whilst fly and leaf and insect stood revealed, 
 
 That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind ! 
 
 Why do we then shun Death with anxious strife ? 
 
 If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life ?
 
 126 
 
 A Tj-easury of 
 
 CCXLVII 
 
 Horace Smith 
 1779— 1849 
 
 Tip TERN AL and Omnipotent Unseen ! 
 ■^ Who bad'st the world, with all its lives complete, 
 Start from the void and thrill beneath thy feet, 
 Thee I adore with reverence serene ; 
 Here, in the fields, thine own cathedral meet. 
 Built by thyself, star-roofed, and hung with green, 
 Wherein all breathing things in concord sweet, 
 Organed by winds, perpetual hymns repeat. 
 Here hast thou spread that book to every eye. 
 Whose tongue and truth all, all may read and prove. 
 On whose three blessed leaves, Earth, Ocean, Sky, 
 Thine own righthand hath stampedmight, justice, love: 
 Grand Trinity, which binds in due degree 
 God, man, and brute, in social unity. 
 
 CCXLVIII 
 
 Lord Thurlow "IT THEN in the woods I wander all alone, 
 1781— 1829 ^ The woods that are my solace and delight, 
 
 Which I more covet than a prince's throne. 
 My toil by day and canopy by night ; 
 (Light heart, light foot, light food, and slumber light. 
 These lights shall light us to old age's gate. 
 While monarchs, whom rebellious dreams affright, 
 Heavy with fear, death's fearful summons wait ;) 
 Whilst here I wander, pleased to be alone. 
 Weighing in thought the world's no-happiness, 
 I cannot choose but wonder at its moan. 
 Since so plain joys the woody life can bless : 
 Then live who may where honied words prevail, 
 I with the deer, and with the nightingale !
 
 English Sonnets 127 
 
 CCXLIX 
 THE HARVEST MOON. 
 
 nPHE crimson Moon, uprising from the sea, Lord Thurlow 
 
 With large dehght, foretells the harvest near : 1781— 1829 
 Ye shepherds, now prepare your melody 
 To greet the soft appearance of her sphere ; 
 And, like a page enamoured of her train. 
 The star of evening glimmers in the west : 
 Then raise, ye shepherds, your observant strain, 
 That so of the Great Shepherd here are blest. 
 Our fields are full with the time-ripened grain. 
 Our vineyards with the purple clusters swell ; 
 Her golden splendour glimmers on the main. 
 And vales and mountains her bright glory tell : 
 Then sing, ye shepherds, for the time is come 
 When we must bring the enriched harvest home. 
 
 CCL 
 TO A BIRD THAT HAUNTED THE WATERS 
 
 OF LAKEN, IN THE WINTER. 
 
 r\ MELANCHOLY bird !— a winter's day 
 ^^^ Thou standest by the margin of the pool, 
 And, taught by God, dost thy whole being school 
 To patience, which all evil can allay ; 
 God has appointed thee the fish thy prey ; 
 And given thyself a lesson to the fool 
 Unthrifty, to submit to moral rule. 
 And his unthinking course by thee to weigh. 
 There need not schools, nor the professor's chair, . 
 Though these be good, true wisdom to impart ; 
 He who has not enough for these to spare 
 Of time or gold, may yet amend his heart. 
 And teach his soul by brooks and rivers fair : 
 Nature is always wise in every part.
 
 Ebenezer 
 Elliott 
 
 1781— 1849 
 
 128 A Treasury of 
 
 CCLI 
 SPRING. 
 
 i:BENEZER A GAIN the violet of our early days 
 
 Elliott i\ 
 
 Drinks beauteous azure from the golden sun,- 
 And kindles into fragrance at his. blaze ; 
 The streams, rejoiced that winter's work is done, 
 Talk of to-morrow's cowslips as they run. 
 Wild apple ! thou art bursting into bloom ; 
 Thy leaves are coming, snowy-blossomed thorn ! 
 Wake, buried lily ! spirit, quit thy tomb ; 
 And thou, shade-loving hyacinth, be born ! 
 Then haste, sweet rose ! sweet woodbine, hymn the 
 
 morn, 
 Whose dew-drops shall illume with pearly light 
 Each grassy blade that thick embattled stands 
 From sea to sea ; while daisies infinite 
 Uplift in praise their little glowing hands. 
 O'er every hill that under heaven expands. 
 
 CCLII 
 FOUTAINS ABBEY. 
 
 A BBEY ! for ever smiling pensively, 
 ■^ How like a thing of Nature dost thou rise 
 Amid her loveliest works ! as if the skies, 
 Clouded with grief, were arched thy roof to be, 
 And the tall trees were copied all from thee ! 
 Mourning thy fortunes — while the waters dim 
 Flow like the memory of thy evening hymn, 
 Beautiful in their sorrowing sympathy ; 
 As if they with a weeping sister wept. 
 Winds name thy name! But thou,though sad,art calm, 
 And Time with thee his plighted troth hath kept ; 
 For harebells deck thy brow, and, at thy feet. 
 Where sleep the proud, the bee and redbreast meet, 
 Mixing thy sighs with Nature's lonely psalm.
 
 English Sonnets 129 
 
 CCLIII 
 TO THE HAR VEST MOON. 
 
 A GAIN thou reignest in thy golden hall, s^'^nlIsy 
 
 Rejoicing in thy sway, fair queen of night ! Roscoe 
 
 The ruddy reapers hail thee with delight : 1782— 1843 
 
 Theirs is the harvest, theirs the joyous call 
 For tasks well ended ere the season's fall. 
 Sweet orb, thou smilest from thy starry height ; 
 But whilst on them thy beams are shedding bright^ 
 To me thou com'st o'ershadowed with a pall : 
 To me alone the year hath fruitless flown ; 
 Earth hath fulfilled her trust through all her lands, 
 The good man gathereth now where he had sown, 
 And the Great Master in his vineyard stands ; 
 But I, as if my task were all unknown, . 
 Come to his gates, alas ! with empty hands. 
 
 CCLIV j 
 
 TO THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE CRICKET. \ 
 
 1 
 
 /^^ RE EN little vaulter in the sunny grass, Leigh Hunt | 
 
 ^~^ Catching your heart up at the feel of June, 178^^859 i 
 
 Sole voice that's heard amidst the lazy noon, j 
 
 When even the bees lag at the summoning brass ; 1 
 
 And you, warm little housekeeper, who class j 
 
 With those who think the candles come too soon, ! 
 
 Loving the fire, and with your tricksome tune 
 
 Nick the glad silent moments as they pass ; j 
 
 Oh sweet and tiny cousins, that belong. 
 
 One to the fields, the other to the hearth, -j 
 
 Both have your sunshine ; both though small are strong . ! 
 
 At your clear hearts ; and both wefe sent on earth > 
 
 To sing in thoughtful ears this natural song : j 
 
 In doors and out, summer and winter, Mirth. j 
 
 J i
 
 130 A Treasury of 
 
 CCLV 
 
 KiRKE White "^"X /"HAT art thou,MiGHTY One, and Avhere thy seat? 
 1785-1806 Thou broodest on the calm that cheers the lands, 
 
 And thou dost bear within thine awful hands 
 The rolling thunders and the lightnings fleet ; 
 Stern on thy dark-wrought car of cloud and wind 
 Thou guid'st the northern storm at night's dead noon, 
 Or on the red wing of the fierce monsoon 
 Uisturb'st the sleeping giant of the Ind. 
 In the drear silence of the polar span 
 Dost thou repose ? or in the solitude 
 Of sultry tracts, where the lone caravan 
 Hears nightly howl the tiger's hungry brood ? 
 Vain thought, the confines of his throne to trace 
 Who glows through all the fields of boundless space ! 
 
 CCLVI 
 
 A S thus oppressed with many a heavy care, 
 
 (Though young yet sorrowful,) I turn my feet 
 To the dark woodland, longing much to greet 
 The form of Peace, if chance she sojourn there ; 
 Deep thought and dismal, verging to despair. 
 Fills my sad breast, and tired with this vain coil, 
 I shrink dismayed before life's upland toil. 
 And as amid the leaves the evening air 
 Whispers still melody, — I think ere long. 
 When I no more can hear, these woods will speak ; 
 And then a sad smile plays upon my cheek, 
 And mournful phantasies upon me throng. 
 And I do ponder with most strange, delight 
 On the calm slumbers of the dead man's night.
 
 1785—1864 
 
 Etiglish Sonnets 131 
 
 ccLvn 
 
 IS this the spot where Rome's eternal foe Charles 
 
 '■ . . Strong 
 
 Into his snares the mighty legions drew, — 
 
 Whence from the carnage, spiritless and few, 
 
 A remnant scarcely reached her gates of woe ? 
 
 Is this the stream, thus gliding soft and slow. 
 
 That, from the gushing wounds of thousands, grew 
 
 So fierce a flood, that waves of crimson hue 
 
 Rushed on the bosom of the lake below ? 
 
 The mountains that gave back the battle-cry 
 
 Are silent now ; perchance yon hillocks green 
 
 Mark where the bones of those old warriors lie. 
 
 Heaven never gladdened a more peaceful scene ; 
 
 Never left softer breeze a fairer sky 
 
 To sport upon thy waters, Thrasymene ! 
 
 CCLVIII 
 THE EVENING-CLOUD. 
 
 A CLOUD lay cradled near the setting sun ; John Wilson 
 
 A gleam of crimson tinged its braided snow ; 1785—1854 
 Long had I watched the glory moving on, 
 O'er the still radiance of the lake below ; 
 Tranquil its spirit seemed and floated slow ; 
 Even in its very motion there was rest ; 
 While every breath of eve that chanced to blow 
 Wafted the traveller to the beauteous West. 
 Emblem, methought, of the departed soul. 
 To whose white robe the gleam of bliss is given ; 
 And by the breath of mercy made to roll 
 Right onward to the golden gates of Heaven ; 
 Where to the eye of Faith it peaceful lies, 
 And tells to man his glorious destinies.
 
 De Verb 
 1788—1846 
 
 132 A Treasury of 
 
 CCLIX 
 
 Sir Aubrey T^HERE is no remedy for time misspent ; 
 No healing for the waste of idleness, 
 Whose very languor is a punishment 
 Heavier than active souls can feel or guess. 
 O hours of indolence and discontent, 
 Not now to be redeemed ! ye sting not less 
 Because I know this span of life was lent 
 For lofty duties, not for selfishness. 
 Not to be whiled away in aimless dreams, 
 But to improve ourselves, and serve mankind, 
 Life and its choicest faculties were given. 
 Man should be ever better than he seems ; 
 And shape his acts, and discipline his mind, 
 To walk adorning earth, with hope of heaven. 
 
 CCLX 
 THE PA SSION-FL IVER. 
 
 A E.T thou a type of beauty, or of power, 
 Of sweet enjoyment, or disastrous sin ? 
 For each thy name denoteth, Passion-flower ! 
 O no ! thy pure corolla's depth within 
 We trace a holier symbol ; yea, a sign 
 'Twixt God and man ; a record of that hour 
 When the expiatory act divine 
 Cancelled that curse which was our mortal dower. 
 It is the Cross ! Never hath Psalmist's tongue 
 Fitlier of hope to human frailty sung 
 Than this mute teacher in a floret's breast 
 A star of guidance the wild woods among, 
 A page with more than lettered lore imprest, 
 A beacon to the havens of the blest.
 
 B 
 
 English Sonnets 133 
 
 . CCLXI 
 CASTLECONNELL. 
 
 ROAD, but not deep, along his rock-chafed bed, ^o/vERr 
 In many a sparkling eddy winds the flood, 1788^846 
 
 Clasped by a margin of green underwood : 
 
 A castled crag, with ivy garlanded. 
 
 Sheer o'er the torrent frowns : above the mead 
 
 De Burgho's towers, crumbling o'er many a rood, 
 
 Stand gauntly out in airy solitude, 
 
 Backed by yon furrowed mountain's tinted head. 
 
 Sounds of far people, mingling with the fall 
 
 Of waters, and the busy hum of bees. 
 
 And larks in air, and throstles in the trees, 
 
 Thrill the moist air with murmurs musical ; 
 
 While cottage smoke goes drifting on the breeze, 
 
 And sunny clouds are floating over all. 
 
 CCLXII 
 THE ROCK OF CASHEL. 
 
 T3 OYAL and saintly Cashel ! I would gaze 
 Upon the wreck of thy departed powers 
 Not in the dewy light of matin hours. 
 Nor the meridian pomp of summer's blaze, 
 But at the close of dim autumnal days, 
 When the sun's parting glance, through slanting showers, 
 Sheds o'er thy rock-throned battlements and towers 
 Such awful gleams as brighten o'er Decay's 
 Prophetic cheek. At such a time, methinks. 
 There breathes from thy lone courts and voiceless aisles 
 A melancholy' moral ; such as sinks 
 On the lone traveller's heart, amid the piles 
 Of vast Persepolis on her mountain-stand. 
 Or Thebes half-buried in the desert sand.
 
 134 
 
 A Treasury of 
 
 Lord Byron- 
 
 1788— 1824 
 
 CCLXIII 
 ON CHILLON. 
 
 T7 TERNAL Spirit of the chainless Mind ! 
 
 Brightest in dungeons, Liberty, thou art — 
 For there thy habitation is the heart — 
 The heart which love of thee alone can bind ; 
 And when thy sons to fetters are consigned, 
 To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom, 
 Their country conquers with their martyrdom, 
 And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind. 
 Chillon ! thy prison is a holy place. 
 And thy sad floor an altar, for 'twas trod, 
 Until his very steps have left a trace 
 Worn as if thy cold pavement were a sod, 
 By Bonnivard ! May none those marks efface ! 
 For they appeal from tyranny to God. 
 
 CCLXIV 
 
 KoBERT RoscoE A/TORTAL ! at last what will it thee bestead 
 1789— 1850 ■'■ -•- To stand aloft in Fame's proud vestibule. 
 When thou hast buffeted the long misrule 
 Of chance and trouble, and abroad hast spread 
 Thine earthly glory ? Hath it profited 
 That to the brave of old a laurel weed 
 The hand of Fame held forth, and did areed 
 The myrtle leaves to wreathe the Poet's head ? 
 Within the grave's dark cell how soon consume 
 Those myrtle leaves and wreaths of vanity. 
 When death's cold breath has sucked their rich 
 
 perfume ! 
 But in the blessed climate of the sky 
 Thou mayst attain those flowers that ever bloom. 
 And pour their fragrance through eternity.
 
 English Sonnets 135 
 
 CCLXV 
 
 r\ BLESSED be the tear that sadly rolled RobertRoscoe 
 
 ^~^^ For me, my mother ! down thy sacred cheek ; 1789— 1850 
 
 That with a silent fervour did bespeak 
 
 A fonder tale than language ever told ; 
 
 And poured such balm upon my spirit, weak 
 
 And wounded, in a world so harsh and cold, 
 
 As that Avherewith an angel would uphold 
 
 Those that astray heaven's holy guidance seek. 
 
 And though it passed away, and, soon as shed, 
 
 Seemed ever lost to vanish from thine eye, 
 
 Yet only to the dearest store it fled 
 
 Of my remembrance, where it now doth lie. 
 
 Like a thrice precious relic of the dead. 
 
 The chief est jewel of its treasury. 
 
 CCLXVI 
 
 T WILL not praise the often-flattered rose, Thomas 
 
 Or, virgin-like, with blushing charms half seen, bleda 
 
 Or when, in dazzling splendour, like a queen, ^^^° ' ^ 
 
 All her magnificence of state she shows ; 
 No, nor that nun-like lily which but blows 
 Beneath the valley's cool and shady screen ; 
 Nor yet the sun-flower, that with warrior mien 
 Still eyes the orb of glory where it glows ; 
 But thou, neglected Wall-flower ! to my breast 
 And Muse art dearest, wildest, sweetest flower ! 
 To whom alone the privilege is given 
 Proudly to root thyself above the rest. 
 As Genius does, and from thy rocky tower 
 Lend fragrance to the purest breath of heaven.
 
 136 
 
 A Treasury of 
 
 CCLXVII 
 
 THE SEA CAVE. 
 
 Thomas 
 doubledav 
 
 1790 — 1870 
 
 T T ARDLY we breathe, although the air be free 
 
 How massively doth awful Nature pile 
 The living rock, like some cathedral aisle, 
 Sacred to silence and the solemn sea. 
 How that clear pool lies sleeping tranquilly. 
 And under its glassed surface seems to smile, 
 With many hues, a mimic grove the while 
 Of foliage submarine — shrub, flower, and tree. 
 Beautiful scene ! and fitted to allure 
 The printless footsteps of some sea-born maid, 
 Who here, with her green tresses disarrayed, 
 'Mid the clear bath, unf earing and secure. 
 May sport at noontide in the caverned shade, 
 Cold as the shadow, as the waters pure. 
 
 Brvan Waller 
 Procter 
 
 1790 — 1874 
 
 CCLXVIII 
 
 A UT U M N . 
 
 T^HERE is a fearful spirit busy now : 
 
 Already have the elements unfurled 
 Their banners : the great sea-wave is upcurled : 
 The cloud comes : the fierce winds begin to blow 
 About, and blindly on their errands go, 
 And quickly will the pale red leaves be hurled 
 From their dry boughs, and all the forest world, 
 Stripped of its pride, be like a desert show. 
 I love that moaning music which I hear 
 In the bleak gusts of Autumn, for the soul 
 Seems gathering tidings from another sphere ; 
 And, in sublime mysterious sympathy, 
 Man's bounding spirit ebbs and swells more high, 
 Accordant to the billow's loftier roll
 
 o 
 
 English Sonnets 137 
 
 CCLXIX 
 
 IMAGINATION. 
 H, for that winched steed, Bellerophon ! Brvan waller 
 
 ' o ) r Procteu 
 
 That Pallas gave thee in her infinite grace 
 And love for innocence, when thou didst face 
 The treble-shaped Chimaera. But he is gone 
 That struck the sparkling stream from Helicon ; 
 And never hath one risen in his place, 
 Stamped with the features of that mighty race. 
 Yet wherefore grieve I — seeing how easily 
 The plumed spirit may its journey take 
 Through yon blue regions of the middle air, 
 And note all things below that own a grace : 
 Mountain, and cataract, and silent lake ; 
 And wander in the fields of poesy, 
 Where avarice never comes, and seldom care ! 
 
 CCLXX 
 TO THE SKY-LARK.. 
 
 r\ EARLIEST singer ! O care-charming bird ! 
 
 Married to morning, by a sweeter hymn 
 Than priest e'er chanted from his cloister dim 
 At midnight, — or veiled virgin's holier word 
 At sunrise or the paler evening heard ; 
 To which of all Heaven's young and lovely Hours, 
 Who wreathe soft light in hyacinthine bowers. 
 Beautiful spirit, is thy suit preferred ? 
 Unlike the creatures of this low dull earth. 
 Still dost thou woo, although thy suit be won ; 
 And thus thy mistress bright is pleased ever : 
 Oh ! lose not thou this mark of finer birth ; 
 So mayst thou yet live on, from sun to sun, 
 Thy joy unchecked, thy sweet song silent never 
 
 1790— 1874
 
 138 
 
 A Treasury of 
 
 CCLXXI 
 
 THE SEA— IN CALM. 
 
 Bryan Waller T OOK what immortal floods the sunset pours 
 — "^ Upon us ! — Mark how still (as though in dreams 
 
 Bound) the once wild and terrible Ocean seems ! 
 How silent are the winds ! No billow roars ; 
 But all is tranquil as Elysian shores. 
 The silver margin which aye runneth round 
 The moon-enchanted sea hath here no sound 
 Even Echo speaks not on these radiant moors. 
 What ! is the giant of the ocean dead, 
 Whose strength was all unmatched beneath the sun 
 No : he reposes. Now his toils are done, 
 More quiet than the babbling brooks is he. 
 So mightiest powers by deepest calms are fed. 
 And sleep, how oft, in things that gentlest be ! 
 
 Percy Bysshe 
 
 Shelley 
 
 1792 — 1822 
 
 CCLXXII 
 
 OZYMANDIAS. 
 
 T MET a traveller from an antique land 
 
 Who said : Two vast and trunkless legs of stone 
 Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, 
 Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown 
 And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command 
 Tell that its sculptor well those passions read 
 Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, 
 The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed ; 
 And on the pedestal these words appear : 
 ' My name is Ozymandias, king of kings : 
 Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair ! ' 
 Nothing beside remains. Round the decay 
 Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare 
 The lone and level sands stretch far away.
 
 English Sonnets 139 
 
 CCLXXIII 
 
 TO THE WEST WIND. 
 
 I 
 
 OWILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's Percy Bysshe 
 Shelley 
 being, — 
 
 jyq2^— 1022 
 
 Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead 
 Are driven, Hke ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, 
 Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red. 
 Pestilence-stricken multitudes : O thou 
 Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed 
 The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low 
 Each like a corpse within its grave, until 
 Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow 
 Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill 
 (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) 
 With living hues and odours plain and hill : 
 Wild Spirit, which art moving every where ; 
 Destroyer and preserver ; hear, O hear ! 
 
 CCLXXIV 
 
 'T'HOU on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, 
 
 Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed. 
 Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean, 
 Angels of rain and lightning : there are spread 
 On the blue surface of thine airy surge, 
 Like the bright hair uplifted from the head 
 Of some fierce Msenad, even from the dim verge 
 Of the horizon to the zenith's height. 
 The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge 
 Of the dying year, to which this closing night 
 Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre. 
 Vaulted with all thy congregated might 
 Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere 
 Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst : O hear !
 
 140 A Treasury of 
 
 CCLXXV 
 
 TO THE WEST WIND. 
 
 3 
 
 Percy bysshe 'T^HOU who didst wakeii from his summer dreams 
 
 Shelley I 
 
 The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, 
 
 1792 — 1822 
 
 Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams. 
 Beside a pumice isle in Baise's bay, 
 And saw in sleep old palaces and towers 
 Quivering within the wave's intenser day. 
 All overgrown with azure moss and flowers 
 So sweet the sense faints picturing them ! Thou 
 For whose path the Atlantic's level powers 
 Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below 
 The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear 
 The sapless foliage of the ocean, know 
 Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear. 
 And tremble and despoil themselves : O hear ! 
 
 CCLXXVI ■ 
 
 i 
 
 TF I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear ; ] 
 
 If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee ; 
 
 A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share | 
 
 The impulse of thy strength, only less free ] 
 Than thou, O uncontrollable ! If even 
 
 I were as in my boyhood, and could be j 
 
 The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, I 
 
 As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed i 
 
 Scarce seemed a vision, I would ne'er have striven | 
 
 As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. i 
 
 Oh ! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud ! ; 
 
 I fall upon the thorns of life ! I bleed ! \ 
 A heavy weight of hours has ^hained and bowed 
 
 One too like thee : tameless, and swift, and proud. i
 
 Efielish Sonnets 141 
 
 CCLXXVII 
 
 A/r AKE me thy lyre, even as the forest is : ^^"shel^ley "^ 
 
 ^ ^ What if my leaves are falling like its own ! 179^822 
 
 The tumult of thy mighty harmonies 
 
 Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, 
 
 Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce, 
 
 My spirit ! Be thou me, impetuous one ! 
 
 Drive my dead thoughts over the 'universe, 
 
 Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth ! 
 
 And, by the incantation of this verse. 
 
 Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth 
 
 Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind ! 
 
 Be through my lips to unawakened earth 
 
 The trumpet of a prophecy ! O wind, 
 
 If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind ? 
 
 CCLXXVIII 
 POLITICAL GREA TNESS. 
 
 "\TOR happiness, nor majesty, nor fame, 
 
 Nor peace, nor strength, nor skill in arms or arts, 
 Shepherd those herds whom tyranny makes tame ; 
 Verse echoes not one beating of their hearts. 
 History is but the shadow of their shame. 
 Art veils her glass, or from the pageant starts, 
 As to oblivion their blind millions fleet. 
 Staining that Heaven with obscene imagery 
 Of their own likeness. What are numbers knit 
 By force or custom ? Man who man would be, 
 Must rule the empire of himself ; in it 
 Must be supreme, establishing his throne 
 On vanquished will, quelling the anarchy 
 Of hopes and fears, being himself alone.
 
 142 
 
 A Treasury of 
 
 Percy Bysshe 
 
 Shelley 
 
 1792 — 1822 
 
 CCLXXIX 
 
 "Y^E hasten to the dead ! What seek ye there, 
 
 Ye restless thougjits and busy purposes 
 Of the idle brain, which the world's livery wear ? 
 O thou quick heart which pantest to possess 
 All that anticipation feigneth fair ! 
 Thou vainly curious mind, which wouldest guess 
 Whence thou didst come, and whither thou mayst go, 
 And that which never yet was known wouldst know — 
 O, whither hasten ye, that thus ye press 
 With such swift feet life's green and pleasant path, 
 Seeking alike from happiness and woe 
 A refuge in the cavern of grey death ? 
 O heart, and mind, and thoughts ! what thing do you 
 Hope to inherit in the grave below ? 
 
 Edward Irvlnc 
 1792— 1834 
 
 CCLXXX 
 TO THE MEMORY OF SAMUEL MARTIN, 
 
 MY VENERABLE GRANDFATHEK-1N-LA\V, WHO WAS TAKEN AWAY FROM US 
 
 IN THE NINETIETH YEAR OF HIS LIFE, AND THE 
 
 SIXTY-EIGHTH OF HIS MINISTRY. 
 
 T^ ARE WELL on man's dark journey o'er the deep, 
 Thou sire of sires ! whose bow in strength hath 
 stood 
 These threescore years and ten that thou hast wooed 
 Men's souls to heaven. In Jesus fall'n asleep. 
 Around thy couch three generations weep, 
 Reared on thy knees with wisdom's heavenly food, 
 And by thy counsels taught to choose the good ; 
 Who in thy footsteps press up Zion's steep, 
 To reach that temple which but now did ope 
 And let their father in. O'er his bier wake 
 No doleful strain, but high the note of hope 
 And praise uplift to God, who did him make 
 A faithful shepherd, of his Church a prop ; 
 And of his seed did faithful shepherds take.
 
 English Sonnets 143 j 
 
 I 
 
 CCLXXXI . I 
 
 T '^7'HEN I behold yon arch magnificent John Keble | 
 
 Spanning the gorgeous West, the autumnal bed 1792-1866 
 
 Where the great Sun now hides his weary head, J 
 
 With here and there a purple isle, that rent i 
 
 From that huge cloud, their solid continent, | 
 
 Seem floating in a sea of golden light, J 
 
 A fire is kindled in my musing sprite, 1 
 
 And Fancy whispers : Such the glories lent \ 
 
 To this our mortal life ; most glowing fair, I 
 
 But built on clouds, and melting while we gaze. i 
 Yet since those shadowy lights sure witness bear 
 
 Of One not seen, the undying Sun and Source \ 
 
 Of good and fair, who wisely them surveys ^; 
 Will use them well to cheer his heavenward course. 
 
 CCLXXXII 
 AT HOOKERS TOMB. 
 
 T^HE grey-eyed Morn was saddened with a shower, 
 
 A silent shower, that trickled down so still 
 Scarce drooped beneath its weight the tenderest flower. 
 Scarce could you trace it on the twinkling rill. 
 Or moss-stone bathed in dew. It was an hour 
 Most meet for prayer beside thy lowly grave. 
 Most for thanksgiving meet, that Heaven such power 
 To thy serene and humble spirit gave. 
 * Who sow good seed with tears shall reap in joy.' 
 So thought I as I watched the gracious rain, 
 And deemed it like that silent sad employ 
 Whence sprung thy glory's harvest, to remain 
 For ever. God hath sworn to lift on high 
 Who sinks himself by true humility.
 
 144 -^ Treasury of 
 
 CCLXXXIII 
 SPRING SHOWERS. 
 
 John Keble ' I ^HE lovelicst flowers the closest cling to earth, 
 1792—1866 And they first feel the sun : so violets blue ; 
 
 So the soft star-like primrose drenched in dew — 
 The happiest of Spring's happy, fragrant birth. 
 To gentlest touches sweetest tones reply. 
 Still humbleness with her low-breathed voice 
 Can steal o'er man's proud heart, and win his choice 
 From earth to heaven, with mightier witchery 
 Than eloquence or wisdom e'er could own. 
 Bloom on then in your shade, contented bloom, 
 Sweet flowers, nor deem yourselves to all unknown, — 
 Heaven knows you, by whose gales and dews ye thrive; 
 They know, who one day for their altered doom 
 Shall thank you, taught by you to abase themselves 
 and live. 
 
 CCLXXXIV 
 THE LAST OF APRIL. 
 
 John Clare /^LD April wancs, and her last dewy mom 
 1793— 1864 ^-^ Her death-bed steeps in tears ; to hail the May 
 New blooming blossoms 'neath the sun are born. 
 And all poor April's charms are swept away. 
 The early primrose, peeping once so gay. 
 Is now choked up with many a mounting weed, 
 And the poor violet we once admired 
 Creeps in the grass unsought for ; flowers succeed, 
 Gaudy and new, and more to be desired, 
 And of the old the schoolboy seemeth tired. 
 So with us all, poor April, as with thee I 
 Each hath his day ; — the future brings my fears : 
 Friends may grow weary, new flowers rising be, 
 And my last end, like thine, be steeped in tears.
 
 English Sonnets 145 
 
 CCLXXXV 
 THE THRUSH'S NEST. 
 
 V^ITHIN a thick and spreading hawthorn bush, John clare 
 That overhung a molehill large and round, 1793^864 
 I heard from morn to morn a merry thrush 
 Sing hymns to sunrise, and I drank the sound 
 With joy ; and, often an intruding guest, 
 I watched her secret toils from day to day, — 
 How true she warped the moss to form a nest, 
 And modelled it within with wood and clay ; 
 And by and by, like heath-bells gilt with dew. 
 There lay her shining eggs, as bright as flowers, 
 Ink-spotted-over shells of greeny blue ; 
 And there I witnessed, in the sunny hours, 
 A brood of nature's minstrels chirp and fly. 
 Glad as that sunshine and the laughing sky. 
 
 CCLXXXVI 
 THE SEDGE-BIRD'S NEST. 
 
 "CTXED in a white-thorn bush, its summer guest. 
 So low, e'en grass o'er-topped its tallest twig, 
 A sedge-bird built its little benty nest. 
 Close by the meadow pool and wooden brig, 
 Where schoolboys every morn and eve did pass, 
 In seeking nests, and finding, deeply skilled. 
 Searching each bush and taller clump of grass. 
 Where'er was likehhood of bird to build. 
 Yet did she hide her habitation long, 
 And keep her little brood from danger's eye, 
 Hidden as secret as a cricket's song. 
 Till they, well-fledged, o'er widest pools could fly : 
 Proving that Providence is ever nigh. 
 To guard the simplest of her charge from wrong. 
 
 K
 
 146 A Treasury of 
 
 CCLXXXVII 
 TO THE MEMORY OF BLOOMFIELD. 
 
 John Clare OWEET unassuming minstrel ! not to thee 
 1793— 1864 The dazzling fashions of the day belong ; 
 
 Nature's wild pictures, field, and cloud, and tree, 
 And quiet brooks, far distant from the throng, 
 In murmurs tender as the toiling bee. 
 Make the sweet music of thy gentle song. 
 Well ! Nature owns thee : let the crowd pass by ; 
 The tide of Fashion is a stream too strong 
 For pastoral brooks, that gently flow and sing : 
 But Nature is their source, and earth and sky 
 Their annual offering to her current bring. 
 Thy gentle muse and memory need no sigh ; 
 For thine shall murmur on to many a spring, 
 When prouder streams are summer-burnt and dry. 
 
 CCLXXXVIII 
 
 TO DE WINT. 
 
 ~p\EWINT ! I would not flatter, nor would I 
 
 Pretend to critic-skill in this thy art ; 
 Yet in thy landscapes I can well descry 
 The breathing hues as Nature's counterpart. 
 No painted peaks, no wild romantic sky, 
 No rocks, nor mountains, as the rich sublime, 
 Hath made thee famous ; but the sunny truth 
 Of Nature, that doth mark thee for all time, 
 Found on our level pastures : — spots, forsooth. 
 Where common skill sees nothing deemed divine ; 
 Yet here a worshipper was found in thee. 
 And thy young pencil worked such rich surprise. 
 That rushy flats, befringed with willow tree, 
 Rivalled the beauties of Italian skies.
 
 English Sonnets 147 
 
 CCLXXXIX 
 FIRST SIGHT OF SPRING. 
 
 'T'HE hazel-blooms, in threads of crimson hue, Jo"" Clare 
 
 Peep through the swelling buds, foretelling Spring, 1793-1864 
 Ere yet a white-thorn leaf appears in view, 
 Or March finds throstles pleased enough to sing 
 To the old touchwood tree woodpeckers cling 
 A moment, and their harsh-toned notes renew ; 
 In happier mood, the stockdove claps his wing ; 
 The squirrel sputters up the powdered oak, 
 With tail cocked o'er his head, and ears erect. 
 Startled to hear the woodman's understroke ; 
 And with the courage which his fears collect, 
 He hisses fierce half malice and half glee, 
 Leaping from branch to branch about the tree, 
 In winter's foliage, moss and lichens, deckt. 
 
 ccxc 
 THE HAPPY BIRD. 
 
 T^HE happy white-throat on the swaying bough, 
 Rocked by the impulse of the gadding wind 
 That ushers in the showers of April, now 
 Carols right joyously ; and now reclined. 
 Crouching, she clings close to her moving seat, 
 To keep her hold ; — and till the wind for rest 
 Pauses, she mutters inward melodies. 
 That seem her heart's rich thinkings to repeat. 
 But when the branch is still, her little breast 
 Swells out in rapture's gushing symphonies ; 
 And then, against her brown wing softly prest. 
 The wind comes playing, an enraptured guest ; 
 This way and that she swings — till gusts arise 
 More boisterous in their play, then off she flies.
 
 148 A Treasury of 
 
 ccxci 
 BUR THORP OAK. 
 
 John Clare /^LD notcd oak ! I SEW thee in a mood 
 1793— 1864 ^'-^ Of vague indifference ; and yet with me 
 Thy memory, like thy fate, hath lingering stood 
 For years, thou hermit, in the lonely sea 
 Of grass that waves around thee ! — Solitude 
 Paints not a lonelier picture to the view, 
 Burthorp ! than thy one melancholy tree, 
 Age-rent, and shattered to a stump. Yet new 
 Leaves come upon each rift and broken limb 
 With every spring ; and Poesy's visions swim 
 Around it, of old days and chivalry ; 
 And desolate fancies bid the eyes grow dim 
 With feelings, that earth's grandeur should decay, 
 And all its olden memories pass away. 
 
 CCXCII 
 THE CRAB-TREE. 
 
 OPRING comes anew, and brings each little pledge 
 *^ That still, as wont, my childish heart deceives : 
 I stoop again for violets in the hedge. 
 Among the ivy and old withered leaves ; 
 And often mark, amid the clumps of sedge, 
 The pooty-shells I gathered when a boy : 
 But cares have claimed me many an evil day, 
 And chilled the relish which I had for joy. 
 Yet when crab-blossoms blush among the May, 
 As erst in years gone by, I scramble now 
 Up 'mid the bramble for my old esteems. 
 Filling my hands with many a blooming bough ; 
 Till the heart-stirring past as present seems, 
 Save the bright sunshine of those fairy dreams.
 
 English Sonnets 149 
 
 CCXCIII 
 CARELESS RAMBLES. 
 
 T LOVE to wander at my idle will Joh>^are 
 
 In summer's joyous prime about the fields, 1793— 1864 
 
 To kneel when thirsty at the little rill, 
 And sip the draught its pebbly bottom yields ; 
 And where the maple bush its fountain shields. 
 To lie, and rest a sultry hour away. 
 Cropping the swelling peascod from the land ; 
 Or 'mid the sheltering woodland-walks to stray, 
 Where oaks for aye o'er their old shadows stand ; 
 'Neath whose dark foliage, with a Avelcome hand, 
 I pluck the luscious strawberry, ripe and red 
 As Beauty's lips ; — and in my fancy's dreams, 
 As 'mid the velvet moss I musing tread. 
 Feel Life as lovely as her picture seems. 
 
 ccxciv 
 THE LLLLES OF THE FLELD. 
 
 ' CONSIDER THE LILIES OF THE FIELD.' 
 
 FLOWERS ! when the Saviour's calm, benignant Felicia 
 Dorothea 
 eye Hemans 
 
 Fell on your gentle beauty ; when from you 1794— 1835 
 
 That heavenly lesson for all hearts He drew, 
 
 Eternal, universal, as the sky, — 
 
 Then in the bosom -of your purity 
 
 A voice He set as in a temple-shrine. 
 
 That life's quick travellers ne'er might pass y«u by 
 
 Unwarned of that sweet oracle divine. 
 
 And though too oft it's low, celestial sound 
 
 By the harsh notes of work-day care is drowned. 
 
 And the loud steps of vain, unlistening haste, 
 
 Yet the great ocean hath no tone of power 
 
 Mightier to reach the soul in thought's hushed hour, 
 
 Than yours, ye, Lilies I chosen thus and graced.
 
 150 A Treasury of 
 
 ccxcv 
 REPOSE OF A HOL V FAMIL V. 
 
 FROM AN OLD ITALIAN PICTURE. 
 
 jFelicia^ T T^DER a palm-tree, by the green old Nile, 
 Hemans ^^ Lulled on his mother's breast, the fair child lies, 
 
 1794—1835 With dove-like breathings, and a tender smile 
 Brooding above the slumber of his eyes ; 
 While, through the stillness of the burning skies, 
 Lo ! the dread works of Egypt's buried kings, 
 Temple and pyramid, beyond him rise, 
 Regal and still as everlasting things. 
 Vain pomps ! from him with that pure flowery cheek, 
 Soft shadow'd by his mother's drooping head, 
 A new-born spirit, mighty and yet meek, 
 O'er the whole world like vernal air shall spread, 
 And bid all earthly grandeurs cast the crown, 
 Before the suffering and the lowly, down. 
 
 ccxcvi 
 OJV A REMEMBERED PICTURE OF CHRIST: 
 
 AN ECCE HOMO BY LEONARDO DA VINCI. 
 
 T MET that image on a mirthful day 
 
 Of youth ; and, sinking with a stilled surprise, 
 The pride of life, before those holy eyes, . 
 In my quick heart died thoughtfully away, 
 Abashed to mute confession of a sway 
 Awful though meek ; and now that from the strings 
 Of my eoul's lyre the tempest's mighty wings 
 Have struck forth tones which then unwakened lay ; 
 Now that around the deep life of my mind 
 Affections deathless as itself have twined. 
 Oft does the pale bright vision still float by ; 
 But more divinely sweet, and speaking now 
 Of One whose pity, throned on that sad brow, 
 Sounded all depths of love, grief, death, humanity.
 
 English Sonnets 151 
 
 CCXCVII 
 FLIGHT OF rilE SPIRIT. 
 
 "\1 THITHER, oh ! whither wilt thou wing thy way? Dorothea 
 What solemn region first upon thy sight y^^'S' 
 
 Shall break, unveiled for terror or delight ? '794-1835 
 
 What hosts, magnificent in dread array, 
 My spirit ! when thy prison-house of clay 
 After long strife is rent ? Fond, fruitless quest ! 
 The unfledged bird, within his narrow nest, 
 Sees but a few green branches o'er him play. 
 And through their parting leaves, by fits revealed, 
 A glimpse of summer sky ; nor knows the field 
 Wherein his dormant powers must yet be tried. 
 Thou art that bird ! — of what beyond thee lies 
 Far in the untracked, immeasurable skies 
 Knowing but this — that thou shalt find thy Guide ! 
 
 CCXCVIII i 
 
 SABBATH SONNET. \ 
 
 I 
 
 T T OW many blessed groups this hour are bending, \ 
 
 Through England's primrose meadow-paths, their way ! 
 
 Towards spire and tower, 'midst shadowy elms ascending, i 
 
 Whence the sweet chimes proclaim the hallowed day ! ] 
 
 The halls from old heroic ages gray j 
 
 Pour their fair children forth ; and hamlets low, 1 
 
 With whose thick orchard-blooms the soft winds play, ! 
 
 Send out their inmates in a happy flow, j 
 
 Like a freed vernal stream. I may not tread ; 
 
 With them those pathways, to the feverish bed \ 
 
 Of sickness bound ; yet, O my God ! I bless I 
 
 Thy mercy, that with Sabbath peace hath filled | 
 
 My chastened heatt, and all its throbbings stilled ■ 
 
 To one deep calm of lowliest thankfulness. i
 
 *> 
 
 152 A Treasury of 
 
 ccxcix 
 
 John_Keats a-v solitude ! if I must with thee dwell, 
 179s— 1821 ^-^ Lgl; it j^Qt ]3g among the jumbled heap 
 
 Of murky buildings : climb with me the steep, — 
 
 Nature's observatory — whence the dell, 
 
 Its flowery slopes, its river's crystal swell, 
 
 May seem a span ; let me thy vigils keep 
 
 'Mongst boughs pavilioned, where the deer's swift 
 
 leap 
 
 Startles the wild bee from the foxglove bell. 1 
 
 But though I'll gladly trace these scenes with thee, j 
 
 Yet the sweet converse of an innocent mind, j 
 
 Whose words are images of thoughts refined, 1 
 
 Is my soul's pleasure ; and it sure must be i 
 
 Almost the highest bliss of human-kind, : 
 
 When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee. 
 
 I 
 
 T^O one who has been long in city pent j 
 "*■ 'Tis very sweet to look into the fair 
 
 And open face of heaven, — to breathe a prayer : 
 Full in the smile of the blue firmament. 
 
 AVho is more happy, when, with heart's content, ; 
 
 Fatigued he sinks into some pleasant lair '■ 
 
 Of wavy grass, and reads a debonair \ 
 
 And gentle tale of love and languishment ? | 
 
 Returning home at evening, with an ear j 
 
 Catching the notes of Philomel, — an eye \ 
 
 Watching the sailing cloudlet's bright career, •= 
 
 He mourns that day so soon has glided by : ! 
 
 Even like the passage of an angel's tear : 
 
 That falls through the clear ether silently. ;
 
 •• English Sonnets 153 
 
 ccci 
 ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN S HOMER. 
 
 IV/TUCH have I travelled in the realms of gold, Jo»n Keats 
 
 And many goodly states and kingdoms seen ; 1795—1821 
 Round many western islands have I been 
 Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. 
 Oft of one wide expanse had I been told 
 That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne : 
 Yet did T never breathe its pure serene 
 Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold : 
 Then felt I like some watcher of the skies 
 When a new planet swims into his ken ; 
 Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes 
 He stared at the Pacific — and all his men 
 Looked at each other with a wild surmise — 
 Silent, upon a peak in Darien. 
 
 CCCII 
 ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET. 
 
 ' I "HE poetry of earth is never dead : \ 
 
 When all the birds are faint with the hot sun. 
 
 And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run | 
 
 From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead ; ' 
 
 That is the grasshopper's — he takes the lead ■ 
 
 In summer luxury, — he has never done ; 
 With his delights ; for when tired out with fun, 
 
 He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. | 
 
 The poetry of earth is ceasing never : I 
 
 On a lone winter evening, when the frost ; 
 
 Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills \ 
 
 The cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever, j 
 
 And seems to one in drowsiness half lost, j 
 The grasshopper's among some grassy hills.
 
 154 -^ Treasury of \ 
 
 ccciii i 
 
 John Keats TTAPPY is England ! I could be content i 
 
 1795— 1821 To see no other verdure than its own : ! 
 
 To feel no other breezes than are blown ■ 
 
 ! 
 Through its tall woods with high romances blent : ■ 
 
 Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment \ 
 
 For skies Italian, and an inward groan ■ | 
 
 To sit upon an Alp as on a throne, | 
 
 And half forget what world or worldling meant. j 
 
 Happy is England ! sweet her artless daughters ; 1 
 
 Enough their simple loveliness for me, , 
 
 ftiough their whitest arms in silence clinging : j 
 
 Yet do I often warmly burn to see j 
 
 Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing, 
 
 And float with them about the summer waters. 
 
 ccciv ^ 
 
 THE HUMAN SEASONS. I 
 
 IC'OUR seasons fill the measure of the year ; 
 
 There are four seasons in the mind of man : 
 He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear 
 Takes in all beauty with an easy span ; 
 He has his Summer, when luxuriously 
 Spring's honeyed cud of youthful thought he loves 
 To ruminate, and by such dreaming high 
 Is nearest unto heaven ; quiet coves 
 His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings 
 He furleth close ; contented so to look 
 On mists in idleness — to let fair things 
 Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook. 
 He has his Winter, too, of pale misfeature. 
 Or else he would forego his mortal nature. 
 
 ti
 
 English Sonnets 155 
 
 cccv 
 
 TO AILSA ROCK. 
 
 TTEARKEN, thou craggy ocean-pyramid ! John Keats 
 
 Give answerby thy voice,the sea-fowls' screams: 1795— 1821 
 When were thy shoulders mantled in huge streams ? 
 When from the sun was thy broad forehead hid ? 
 How long is't since the mighty Power bid 
 Thee heave to airy sleep from fathom dreams — 
 Sleep in the lap of thunder or sunbeams, 
 Or when grey clouds are thy cold coverlid ? 
 Thou answer'st not ; for thou art dead asleep. 
 Thy life is but two dead eternities — 
 The last in air, the former in the deep ; 
 First with the whales, last with the eagle-skies ! 
 Drowned wast thou till an earthquake made thee steep; 
 Another cannot wake thy giant-size ! 
 
 cccvi 
 
 "\ TS /"HEN I have fears that I may cease to be 
 
 Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain, | 
 
 Before high-piled books, in charact'ry 
 Hold like rich garners the full-ripened grain ; 
 When I behold, upon the night's starred face, 
 
 Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, ; 
 
 And think that I may never live to trace ' 
 
 Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance ; I 
 
 And when I feel, fair creature of an hour ! I 
 
 That I shall never look upon thee more, j 
 
 Never have relish in the faery power -. 
 
 Of unreflecting love ! — then on the shore i 
 
 Of the wide world I stand alone, and think • 
 
 Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.
 
 156 A Treasury of 
 
 CCCVII 
 
 John Keats OLUE ! 'Tis the life of heaven, — the domain 
 1795— 1821 -L>' Qf Cynthia, — the wide palace of the sun, — 
 The tent of Hesperus, and all his train, — 
 The bosomer of clouds, gold, grey and dun. 
 Blue ! 'Tis the life of waters — ocean 
 And all its vassal streams : pools numberless 
 May rage, and foam, and fret, but never can 
 Subside, if not to dark-blue nativeness. 
 Blue ! gentle cousin of the forest-green, 
 Married to green in all the sweetest flowers — 
 Forget-me-not, the blue bell, and that queen 
 Of secrecy, the violet — what strange powers 
 Hast thou, as a mere shadow ! But how great, 
 When in an Eye thou art alive with fate ! 
 
 CCCVIII 
 TO SLEEP. 
 
 (~\ SOFT embalmer of the still midnight ! 
 
 ^"^ Shutting, with careful fingers and benign, 
 
 Our gloom-pleased eyes, embowered from the light, 
 
 Enshaded in forgetfulness divine : 
 
 O soothest Sleep ! if so it please thee, close. 
 
 In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes, 
 
 Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws 
 
 Around my bed its lulling charities ; 
 
 Then save me, or the passed day will shine 
 
 Upon my pillow, breeding many woes ; 
 
 Save me from curious conscience, that still lords 
 
 Its strength, for darkness burrowing like a mole ; 
 
 Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards, 
 
 And seal the hushed casket of my soul.
 
 English Sonnets 157 
 
 cccix 
 
 TF by dull rimes our English must be chained, John Keats 
 
 And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet 1795— 1821 
 
 Fettered, in spite of pained loveliness. 
 Let us find out, if we must be constrained, 
 Sandals more interwoven and complete 
 To fit the naked foot of Poesy ; 
 Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress 
 Of every chord, and see what may be gained 
 By ear industrious and attention meet ; 
 Misers of sound and syllable, no less 
 Than Midas of his coinage, let us be 
 Jealous of dead leaves in the bay wreath crown ; 
 So, if we may not let the Muse be free. 
 She will be bound with garlands of her own. 
 
 cccx 
 
 ' I ^HE day is gone, and all its sweets are gone ! 
 
 Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hand and softer breast ; 
 Warm breath, light whisper, tender semi-tone, 
 Bright eyes, accomplished shape, and lang'rous waist! 
 Faded the flower and all its budded charms. 
 Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes, 
 Faded the shape of beauty from my arms. 
 Faded the voice, warmth, whiteness, paradise — 
 Vanished unseasonably at shut of eve, 
 When the dusk holiday — or holinight 
 Of fragrant-curtained love begins to weave 
 The woof of darkness thick, for hid delight. 
 But, as I've read Love's missal through to-day, 
 He'll let me sleep, seeing I fast and pray.
 
 iS8 
 
 A Treasury of 
 cccxi 
 
 John Keats T3RIGHT Star ! would I Were steadfast as thou 
 1795— 1821 -*-^ art, — 
 
 Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night, 
 And watching, with eternal lids apart, 
 Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite, 
 The moving waters at their priestlike task 
 Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, 
 Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask 
 Of snow upon the mountains and the moors : — 
 No — yet still steadfast, still unchangeable. 
 Pillowed upon my fair Love's ripening breast, 
 To feel for ever its soft swell and fall, 
 Awake for ever in a sweet unrest ; 
 Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, 
 And so live ever, — or else swoon to death. 
 
 William 
 Sidney Walker 
 
 1795— 1846 
 
 CCCXII 
 
 TTHEY say that thou wert lovely on thy bier, 
 
 More lovely than in life ; that when the thrall 
 Of earth was loosed, it seemed as though a pall 
 Of years were lifted, and thou didst appear, 
 Such as of old amidst thy home's calm sphere 
 Thou sat'st, a kindly Presence felt by all 
 In joy or grief, from morn to evening-fall. 
 The peaceful Genius of that mansion dear. 
 Was it the craft of all-persuading Love 
 That wrought this marvel ? or is Death indeed 
 A mighty master, gifted from above 
 With alchemy benign, to wounded hearts 
 Minist'ring thus, by quaint and subtle arts. 
 Strange comfort, whereon after-thought may feed ?
 
 English Sotinets 159 
 
 CCCXIII 
 
 TO THE SOUTH AMERICAN PATRIOTS, 
 
 om the dispersion of the late expedition from spain : apkil, 181q. 
 
 Thomas Nooh 
 
 "D EJOICE, ye heroes I Freedom's old ally, — 
 
 Unchanging Nature, who hath seen the powers ^^^^ ' ^* 
 Of thousand tyrannies decline like flowers. 
 Your triumph aids with eldest sympathy : — 
 The breeze hath swept again the stormy sky 
 That wooed Athenian waves with tenderest kiss 
 And breathed, in glorious rage, o'er Salamis ! 
 Leaguing with deathless chiefs, whose spirits high 
 Shared in its freedom — now, from long repose 
 It wakes to dash unmastered Ocean's foam 
 O'er the proud navies of your tyrant foes ; 
 Nor shall it cease in ancient might to roam, 
 Till it hath borne your contest's glorious close 
 To every breast where freedom finds a home. 
 
 cccxiv 
 ON THE DEATH OF QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 "X "^ /"HO shall lament to know thy aching head 
 
 Hath found its pillow ? — that in long repose 
 Great Death, the noblest of thy kingly foes. 
 Hath laid thee, and, with sacred veil outspread, 
 Guards thee from basest insults ? Thou hast led 
 A solitary course, — among the great 
 A regal hermitress, despoiled of state, 
 Or mocked and fretted by one tattered shred 
 Of melancholy grandeur : thou didst wed 
 Only to be more mournfully alone ! 
 But now, thy sad regalities o'erthrown. 
 No more an alien from the common fate. 
 Thou hast one human blessing for thine own — 
 A place of rest in Nature's kindliest bed.
 
 i6o A Treasury of 
 
 cccxv 
 TO CHARLES DICKENS, 
 
 ON HIS ''OLIVER TWIST." 
 
 Thomas Noon 
 Talfourd 
 
 IVrOT only with the Author's happiest praise 
 
 ^ ^ Thy work should.be rewarded : 'tis akin 
 
 1795— I 54 rp^ Deeds of men who, scorning ease to win 
 A blessing for the wretched, pierce the maze 
 Which heedless ages spread around the ways 
 Where fruitful Sorrow tracks its parent Sin ; 
 Content to listen to the wildest din 
 Of passion, and on fellest shapes to gaze, 
 So they may earn the power which intercedes 
 With the bright world and melts it ; for within 
 Wan Childhood's squalid haunts, where basest needs 
 Make tyranny more bitter, at thy call 
 An angel face with patient sweetness pleads 
 For infant suffering to the heart of all. 
 
 cccxvi i 
 
 THE MEMORY OF THE POETS. 
 
 'T^HE fame of those pure bards whose fancies lie 
 
 Like glorious clouds in summer's calmest even, 
 Fringing the western skirts of darkening heaven. 
 And sprinkled o'er with hues of rainbow dye, 
 Awakes no voice of thunder, which may vie 
 With mighty chiefs' renown ; — from ages gone, 
 In low undying strain it lengthens on. 
 Earth's greenest solitudes with joy to fill, — 
 Felt breathing in the silence of the sky. 
 Or trembling in the gush of new-born rill, 
 Or whispering o'er the lake's undimpled breast ; 
 Yet blest to live when trumpet notes are still, 
 To wake a pulse of earth -bom ecstasy 
 In the deep bosom of eternal rest.
 
 English Sonnets i6i 
 
 CCCXVII 
 TO A FRIEND. 
 
 WHEN we were idlers with the loitering rills, Hartley 
 
 Coleridge 
 The need of human love we little noted : — 
 
 1796 — 1849 
 Our love was nature ; and the peace that floated 
 
 On the white mist, and dwelt upon the hills, 
 
 To sweet accord subdued our wayward wills : 
 
 One soul was ours, one mind, one heart devoted, 
 
 That, wisely doating, asked not why it doated, 
 
 And ours the unknown joy, which knowing kills. 
 
 But now I find how dear thou wert to me ; 
 
 That man is more than half of nature's treasure, 
 
 Of that fair beauty which no eye can see, • 
 
 Of that sweet music which no ear can measure ; 
 
 And now the streams may sing for others' pleasure, 
 
 The hills sleep on in their eternity. 
 
 CCCXVIII 
 
 '\ 'J^ 7"HAT was 't awakened first the untried ear 
 
 Of that sole man who was all human kind ? — 
 Was it the gladsome welcome of the wind, 
 Stirring the leaves that never yet were sere ? 
 The four mellifluous streams which flowed so near, 
 Their lulling murmurs all in one combined ? 
 The note of bird unnamed ? The startled hind 
 Bursting the brake — in wonder, not in fear, 
 Of her new lord ? Or did the holy ground 
 Send forth mysterious melody to greet 
 The gracious pressure of immaculate feet ? 
 Did viewless seraphs rustle all around, 
 Making sweet music out of air as sweet ? 
 Or his own voice awake him with its sound ?
 
 i62 A Treasury of , 
 
 • ) 
 
 CCCXIX ] 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 Tl^ /"HITHER is gone the wisdom and the power ' 
 
 Hartley * * That ancient sages scattered with the notes ''' 
 
 Coleridge ^, , ■ i -> mi ■ r, i 
 
 — Of thought-suggesting lyres ? The music floats | 
 
 In the void air ; even at this breathing hour, 
 In every cell and every blooming bower 
 The sweetness of old lays is hovering still ; 
 But the strong soul, the self-constraining will, 
 The rugged root that bare the winsome flower 
 Is weak and withered. Were we like the Fays 
 That sweetly nestle in the foxglove bells, 
 Or lurk and murmur in the rose- lipped shells i 
 
 » Which Neptune to the earth for quit-rent pays, ' 
 
 Then might our pretty modern Philomels 
 Sustain our spirits with their roundelays. 
 
 cccxx 
 
 T ONG time a child, and still a child, when years 
 Had painted manhood on my cheek, was I, — 
 For yet I lived like one not born to die ; 
 A thriftless prodigal of smiles and tears, 
 No hope I needed, and I knew no fears. 
 But sleep, though sweet, is only sleep ; and waking, 
 I waked to sleep no more ; at once o'ertaking 
 The vanguard of my age, with all arrears 
 Of duty on my back. Nor child, nor man, 
 Nor youth, nor sage, I find my head is gray, 
 For I have lost the race I never ran : 
 A rathe December blights my lagging May ; 
 And still I am a child, though I be old : 
 Time is my debtor for my years untold.
 
 1796 — 1849 I 
 
 English Sonnets 163 . : 
 
 cccxxi ' 
 
 TOO true it is my time of power was spent Hartley j 
 
 _ . ,, . Coleridge 
 
 In idly waternig weeds of casual growth, 
 That wasted energy to desperate sloth 
 Declined, and fond self-seeking discontent ; 
 That the huge debt for all that Nature lent 
 I sought to cancel, and was nothing loth 
 To deem myself an outlaw, severed both 
 From duty and from hope, — yea, JDlindly sent 
 Without an errand, where I would to stray :— 
 Too true it is that, knowing now my state, 
 I weakly mourn the sin I ought to hate, 
 Nor love the law I yet would fain obey : 
 But true it is, above all law and fate 
 Is Faith, abiding the appointed day. 
 
 CCCXXII 
 NOVEMBER. 
 
 npHE mellow year is hasting to its close ; 
 
 The little birds have almost sung their last, 
 Their small notes twitter in the dreary blast — 
 That shrill-piped harbinger of early snows ; 
 The patient beauty of the scentless rose. 
 Oft with the morn's hoar crystal quaintly glassed. 
 Hangs, a pale mourner for the summer past. 
 And make a little summer where it grows : 
 In the chill sunbeam of the faint brief day 
 The dusky waters shudder as they shine. 
 The russet leaves obstruct the straggling way 
 Of oozy brooks, which no deep banks define, 
 And the gaunt woods, in ragged scant array, 
 Wrap their old limbs with sombre ivy twine.
 
 Hartley 
 
 Coleridge 
 
 164 A Treasury of 
 
 CCCXXIII 
 NIGH T. 
 
 'T~'HE crackling embers on the hearth are dead ; 
 
 - — . The indoor note of industry is still ; 
 
 1796 — 1849 _ , J J 
 
 The latch is fast ; upon the window-sill 
 The small birds wait not for their daily bread ; 
 The voiceless flowers — how quietly they shed 
 Their nightly odours ; — and the household rill 
 Murmurs continuous dulcet sounds that fill 
 The vacant expectation, and the dread 
 Of listening night. And haply noAV She sleeps ; 
 For all the garrulous noises of the air 
 t Are hushed in peace ; the soft dew silent weeps, 
 Like hopeless lovers for a maid so fair ; — 
 Oh ! that I were the happy dream that creeps 
 To her soft heart, to find my image there. 
 
 cccxxiv 
 
 TF I have sinned in act, I may repent , 
 
 If I have erred in thought, I may disclaim 
 My silent error, and yet feel no shame ; 
 But if my soul, big with an ill intent, 
 Guilty in will, by fate be innocent. 
 Or being bad, yet murmurs at the curse 
 And incapacity of being worse. 
 That makes my hungry passion still keep Lent 
 In keen expectance of a Carnival, — 
 Where, in all worlds that round the sun revolve 
 And shed their influence on this passive ball. 
 Abides a power that can my soul absolve ? 
 Could any sin survive and be forgiven. 
 One sinful wish would make a hell of heaven.
 
 English Sounds 165 
 
 cccxxv 
 TO SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 n^HE soul of man is larger than the sky, c^LElmcE 
 
 -^ Deeper than ocean, or the abysmal dark 1796^849 
 
 Of the'unfathomed centre. Like that Ark, 
 Which in its sacred hold uplifted high. 
 O'er the drowned hills, the human family, 
 And stock reserved of every living kind ; 
 So, in the compass of the single mind. 
 The seeds and pregnant forms in essence lie 
 That make all worlds. Great poet, 'tAvas thy art 
 To know thyself, and in thyself to be 
 Whate'er love, hate, ambition, destiny. 
 Or the firm, fatal purpose of the heart. 
 Can make of Man. Yet thou wert still the same, 
 Serene of thought, unhurt by thy own flame. 
 
 cccxxvi 
 TO A LOFTY BE A UTY 
 
 FROJI HER POOR KINSMAN. 
 
 17 AIR maid, had I not heard thy baby cries, 
 
 Nor seen thy girlish, sweet vicissitude, 
 Thy mazy motions, striving to elude, 
 Yet wooing still a parent's watchful eyes. 
 Thy humours, many as the opal's dyes, 
 And lovely all ; — methinks thy scornful mood, 
 And bearing high of stately womanhood, — 
 Thy brow, where Beauty sits to tyrannize 
 O'er humble love, had made me sadly fear thee ; 
 For never sure was seen a royal bride 
 Whose gentleness gave grace to so much pride, — 
 My very thoughts would tremble to be near thee ; 
 But when I see thee at thy father's side, 
 Old times unqueen thee, and old loves endear thee.
 
 1796 — 1849 
 
 1 66 A Treasury of 
 
 CCCXXVIII 
 
 Coleridge ^^ 
 
 Hartley /^^OULD I but harmonize one kindly thought, 
 Fix one fair image in a snatch of song, 
 Which maids might warble as they tripped along'; 
 Or could I ease the labouring heart, o'erfraught 
 With passionate truths for which the mind untaught 
 Lacks form and utterance, with a single line ; 
 Might rustic lovers woo in phrase of mine", 
 I should not deem that I had lived for nought. 
 The world were welcome to forget my name. 
 Could I bequeath a few remembered words- 
 Like his, the bard that never dreamed of fame, 
 Whose rimes preserve from harm the pious birds ; 
 Or his, that dim full many a star-bright eye 
 With woe for Barbara Allen's cruelty. 
 
 CCCXXVIII 
 
 T ET me not deem that I was made in vain, 
 ^-^ Or that my being was an accident 
 Which Fate, in working its sublime intent, 
 Not wished to be, to hinder would not deign. 
 Each drop uncounted in a storm of rain 
 Hath its own mission, and is duly sent 
 To its own leaf or blade, not idly spent 
 'Mid myriad dimples on the shipless main. 
 The very shadow of an insect's wing, 
 For which the violet cared not while it stayed, 
 Yet felt the lighter for its vanishing. 
 Proved that the sun was shining by its shade. 
 Then can a drop of the eternal spring. 
 Shadow of living lights, in vain be made ?
 
 English Sonnets 167 
 
 CCCXXIX 
 
 HOMER. 
 
 TIJ^AR from the sight of earth, yet bright and plain c^LEKm^E 
 
 As the clear noon-day sun, an ' orb of song ' ^ — g 
 
 Lovely and bright is seen amid the throng 
 Of lesser stars, that rise, and wax, and wane, 
 The transient rulers of the fickle main ; 
 One constant light gleams through the dark and long 
 And narrow aisle of memory. How strong, 
 How fortified with all the numerous train 
 Of truths wert thou, great poet of mankind, 
 Who told'st in verse as mighty as the sea, 
 And various as the voices of the wind, 
 The strength of passion rising in the glee 
 Of battle. Fear was glorified by thee, 
 And Death is lovely in thy tale enshrined. 
 
 cccxxx 
 
 TO MISS MARTHA H- 
 
 \J\ ARTHA, thy maiden foot is still so light, 
 
 It leaves no legible trace on virgin snows, 
 And yet I ween that busily it goes 
 In duty's path from happy morn to night. 
 Thy dimpled cheek is gay, and softly bright 
 As the fixed beauty of the mossy rose ; 
 Yet will it change its hue for others' woes, 
 And native red contend with piteous white. 
 Thou bear'st a name by Jesus known and loved, 
 And Jesus gently did the maid reprove 
 For too much haste to show her eager love. 
 But blest is she that may be so reproved. 
 Be Martha still in deed and good endeavour, 
 In faith like Mary, at his feet for ever.
 
 Coleridge 
 1796 — I 
 
 168 A Treasury of 
 
 cccxxxi 
 PR A YER. 
 
 Hartley HPHERE is an awful quict in the air, 
 
 And the sad earth, with moist imploring eye, 
 Looks wide and wakeful at the pondering sky, 
 Like Patience slow subsiding to Despair. 
 But see, the blue smoke as a voiceless prayer, 
 Sole witness of a secret sacrifice. 
 Unfolds its tardy wreaths, and multiplies 
 Its soft chameleon breathings in the rare 
 Capacious ether, — so it fades away. 
 And nought is seen beneath the pendent blue, 
 The undistinguishable waste of day. 
 So have I dreamed ! — oh, may the dream be true ! — 
 That praying souls are purged from mortal hue. 
 And grow as pure as He to whom they pray. 
 
 cccxxxii ^ 
 
 P RA YER. 
 
 T) E not afraid to pray — to pray is right. 
 
 Pray, if thou canst, with hope ; but ever pray, ) 
 Though hope be weak, or sick with long delay ; 
 
 Pray in the darkness, if there be no light. 1 
 
 Far is the time, remote from human sight, j 
 
 When war and discord on the earth shall cease ; ] 
 
 Yet every prayer for universal peace j 
 
 Avails the blessed time to expedite. j 
 
 Whate'er is good to wish, ask that of Heaven, ; 
 
 Though it be what thou canst not hope to see : ; 
 
 Pray to be perfect, though material leaven \ 
 Forbid the spirit so on earth to be ; 
 
 But if for any wish thou darest not pray, : 
 
 Then pray to God to cast that wish away. ;
 
 English Sonnets 169 
 
 CCCXXXIII 
 
 SEPTEMBER. 
 
 T 
 
 Coleridge 
 1796 — 1849 
 
 'HE dark green Summer, with its massive hues, ^Hartley 
 Fades into Autumn's tincture manifold ; 
 A gorgeous garniture of fire and gold 
 The high slope of the ferny hill indues ; 
 The mists of morn in slumbering layers diffuse 
 O'er glimmering rock, smooth lake, and spiked array 
 Of hedgerow thorns, a unity of gray ; 
 All things appear their tangible form to lose 
 In ghostly vastness. But anon the gloom 
 Melts, as the Sun puts off his muddy veil ; 
 And now the birds their twittering songs resume, 
 All Summer silent in the leafy dale. 
 In Spring they piped of love on every tree. 
 But now they sing the song of memory. 
 
 cccxxxiv 
 ' MULTUM DILEXIT: 
 
 OHE sat and wept beside His feet ; the weight 
 
 Of sin oppressed her heart ; for all the blame, 
 And the poor malice of the worldly shame. 
 To her was past, extinct, and out of date : 
 Only the sin remained, — the leprous state ; 
 She would be melted by the heat of love. 
 By fires far fiercer than are blown to prove 
 And purge the silver ore adulterate. 
 She sat and wept, and with her untressed hair 
 Still wiped the feet she was so blest to touch ; 
 And He wiped off the soiling of despair 
 From her sweet soul, because she loved so much. 
 I am a sinner, full of doubts and fears : 
 Make me a humble thing of love and tears.
 
 lyo 
 
 Charles 
 Johnston 
 
 Died 1823 
 
 A Treasury of 
 cccxxxv 
 
 nPHERE is a virtue which to fortune's height 
 
 Follows us not, but in the vale below, 
 Where dwell the ills of life, disease and woe, 
 Holds on its steady course, serenely bright : 
 So some lone star, whose softly-beaming light 
 We mark not in the blaze of solar day. 
 Comes forth with pure and ever-constant ray, 
 That makes even beautiful the gloom of night. 
 Thou art that star, so beauteous and so lone, 
 That virtue of distress. Fidelity ! 
 And thou, when every joy and hope is flown, 
 Cling'st to the relics of humanity ; 
 Making with all its sorrows life still dear, 
 And death, with all its terrors, void of fear. 
 
 Thomas Hood 
 1798—1845 
 
 CCCXXXVI 
 WRITTEN IN A VOLUME OF SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 TLTOW bravely Autumn paints upon the sky 
 
 The gorgeous fame of Summer which is fled ! 
 Hues of all flowers that in their ashes lie, 
 Trophied in that fair light whereon they fed, 
 Tulip, and hyacinth, and sweet rose red, — 
 Like exhalations from the leafy mould. 
 Look here how honour glorifies the dead, 
 And warms their scutcheons with a glance of gold ! 
 Such is the memory of poets old. 
 Who on Parnassus hill have bloomed elate ; 
 Now they are laid under their marbles cold. 
 And turned to clay, whereof they were create ; 
 But god Apollo hath them all enrolled, 
 And blazoned on the very clouds of fate.
 
 English Sonnets 171 
 
 CCCXJCXVII 
 
 TO A SLEEPING CHILD. 
 
 /~\H, 'tis a touching thing, to make one weep, — Thomas Hood 
 
 ^-^ A tender infant, with its curtained eye, 1798—1843 
 
 Breathing as it would neither Hve nor die 
 
 With that unchanging countenance of sleep ! 
 
 As if its silent dream, serene and deep. 
 
 Had lined its slumber with a still blue sky, 
 
 So that the passive cheeks unconscious lie 
 
 With no more life than roses — just to keep 
 
 The blushes warm, and the mild, odorous breath. 
 
 O blossom boy ! so calm is thy repose. 
 
 So sweet a compromise of life and death, 
 
 'Tis pity those fair buds should e'er unclose 
 
 For memory to stain their inward leaf. 
 
 Tinging thy dreams with unacquainted grief. 
 
 CCCXXXVIII 
 TO AN ENTHUSIAST. 
 
 "VT'OUNG ardent soul, graced with fair Nature's truth, 
 
 Spring warmth of heart, and fervency of mind, 
 And still a large late love of all thy kind. 
 Spite of the world's cold practice and Time's tooth, — 
 For all these gifts I know not, in fair sooth, 
 Whether to give thee joy, or bid thee blind 
 Thine eyes with tears, — that thou hast not resigned 
 The passionate fire and fierceness of thy youth : 
 For as the current of thy life shall flow. 
 Gilded by shine of sun or shadow-stained. 
 Through flowery valley or unwholesome fen, 
 Thrice blessed in thy joy, or in thy woe 
 Thrice cursed of thy race, thou art ordained 
 To share beyond the lot of common men.
 
 172 A Treasitry of 
 
 cccxxxix 
 
 Thomas Hood 
 
 TT is not death, that sometime in a sigh 
 1798— 184s J- -pi^jg eloquent breath shall take its speechless 
 flight ; 
 That sometime these bright stars, that now reply 
 In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night ; 
 That this warm conscious flesh shall perish quite, 
 And all life's ruddy springs forget to flow ; 
 That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal sprite 
 Be lapped in alien clay and laid below ; 
 It is not death to know this, — but to know 
 That pious thoughts, which visit at new graves 
 In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go 
 So duly and so oft, — and when grass waves 
 Over the past-away, there may be then 
 No resurrection in the minds of men. 
 
 CCCXL 
 
 SILENCE. 
 
 '' I ""HERE is a silence where hath been no sound, 
 
 There is a silence where no sound may be. 
 In the cold grave — under the deep deep sea, 
 Or in wide desert where no life is found. 
 Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound; 
 No voice is hushed — no life treads silently, 
 But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free, 
 That never spoke, over the idle ground : 
 But in green ruins, in the desolate walls 
 Of antique palaces, where Man hath been, 
 Though the dun fox, or wild hyena, calls. 
 And owls, that flit continually between, 
 Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan, 
 There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone.
 
 English Sonnets 173 
 
 CCCXLI 
 
 T OVE, dearest lady, such as I would speak, Thomas Hood 
 
 "^ Lives not within the humour of the eye, 1798—1845 
 
 Not being but an outward phantasy, 
 
 That skims the surface of a tinted cheek ; 
 
 Else it would wane with beauty, and grow weak — 
 
 As if the rose made summer — and so lie 
 
 Amongst the perishable things that die. 
 
 Unlike the love which I would give and seek : 
 
 Whose health is of no hue — to feel decay 
 
 With cheeks' decay, that have a rosy prime. 
 
 Love is its own great loveliness alway. 
 
 And takes new lustre from the touch of time ; 
 
 Its bough owns no December and no May, 
 
 But bears its blossom into Winter's clime. • 
 
 CCCXLII ] 
 
 ' I ^HE hand of Death lay heavy on her eyes, — John Moultrie 
 
 For weeks and weeks her vision had not borne 1799— 1874 
 To meet the tenderest light of eve or morn. 
 
 To see the crescent moonbeam set or rise, ■; 
 
 Or palest twilight creep across the skies : 
 She lay in darkness, seemingly forlorn, 
 With sharp and ceaseless anguish racked and torn, 
 Yet calm with that one peace which never dies. ' 
 
 Closed was for her the gate of visual sense, 
 
 This world and all its beauty lost in night ; : 
 
 But the pure soul was all ablaze with light, 
 
 And through that gloom she saw, with gaze intense, \ 
 
 Celestial glories, hid from fleshly sight, 1 
 
 And heard angelic voices call her hence. j
 
 174 
 
 A Treasury of 
 
 CCCXLIII 
 
 TOWNSHEND 
 1800 — l£ 
 
 '"t\™k^L^^''^ /'^IVE me thy joy in sorrow, gracious Lord, 
 
 ^^ And sorrow's self shall like to joy appear ! 
 Although the world should waver in its sphere 
 I tremble not if Thou thy peace afford ; 
 But, Thou withdrawn, I am but as a chord 
 That vibrates to the pulse of hope and fear : 
 Nor rest I more than harps which to the air 
 Must answer when we place their tuneful board 
 Against the blast, which thrill unmeaning woe 
 Even in their sweetness. So no earthly wing 
 E'er sweeps me but to sadden. Oh, place Thou 
 My heart beyond the world's sad vibrating — 
 And where but in Thyself ? Oh, circle me, 
 That I may feel no touches save of Thee. 
 
 CCCXLIV 
 
 Isaac Williams 
 1802—1865 
 
 ORIGEN. 
 
 (ON READING HIS COMMENTARIES ON SCRIPTURE.) 
 
 TNTO God's word, as in a palace fair, • 
 
 Thou leadest on and on, while still beyond 
 Each chamber, touched by holy wisdom's wand, 
 Another opes, more beautiful and rare ; 
 And thou in each art kneeling down in prayer, 
 From link to link of that mysterious bond 
 Seeking for Christ : but oh, I fear thy fond 
 And beautiful torch, that with so bright a glare 
 Lighteth up all things, lest the heaven-lit brand 
 Of thy serene Philosophy divine 
 Should take the colourings of earthly thought, 
 And I, by their sweet images o'er-wrought, 
 Led by weak Fancy should let go Truth's hand 
 And miss the way into the inner shrine.
 
 English Sontiets i75 
 
 CCCXLV 
 
 TTEED not a \\ox\d that neither thee can keep, Isaac Williams 
 
 ■"^ Nor vestige of thee, whatsoe'er thy lot — 1S02-1865 
 
 Of thee or thine, nor mark when thou art not. 
 
 No more ! — engulfed within the sounding deep, 
 
 Faint and more faint the billowy circles sweep, 
 
 And trembling own the shock ; then 'tis forgot : 
 
 The leaf's still image anchors on the spot, 
 
 The wave is in its noonday couch asleep. 
 
 We marked the eddying whirlpools close around 
 
 Where he had been ; but who the path profound — 
 
 What thought can follow 'neath the watery floor, 
 
 'Mid sights of strangeness and untravelled caves, 
 
 Ocean's wild deeps of ever-moving waves, 
 
 A boundless, new horizon spreading round ? 
 
 1 
 
 CCCXLVI < 
 
 nPHE good — they drop around us, one by one, 
 ■^ Like stars when morning breaks ; though lost 
 
 to sight, 
 Around us are they still in Heaven's own light, 
 Building their mansions in the purer zone 
 Of the invisible : when round are thrown 
 Shadows of sorrow, still serenely bright 
 To faith they gleam ; and blest be sorrow's night 
 That brings the o'er-arching heavens in silence down, 
 A mantle set with orbs unearthly fair ! 
 Alas ! to us they are not, though they dwell, 
 Divinely well in memory ; while life's sun 
 Declining, bids us for the night prepare ; 
 That we, with urns of light, and our task done, 
 May stand with them in lot unchangeable.
 
 176 
 
 A Treasury of 
 
 Thomas 
 
 I.OVELL 
 
 Beddoes 
 1803 — 1849 
 
 CCCXLVII 
 TO TARTAR, A TERRIER BEAUTY. 
 
 SNOW-DROP of dogs, with ear of brownest dye, 
 Like the last orphan leaf of naked tree 
 Which shudders in bleak autumn ; though by thee, 
 Of hearing careless and untutored eye. 
 Not understood articulate speech of men, 
 Nor marked the artificial mind of books — 
 The mortal's voice eternized by the pen — 
 Yet hast thou thought and language all unknown 
 To Babel's scholars ; oft intensest looks, 
 Long scrutiny o'er some dark- veined stone 
 Dost thou bestow, learning dead mysteries 
 Of the world's birth-day ; oft in eager tone 
 With quick-tailed fellows handiest prompt replies, 
 Solicitudes canine, four-footed amities. 
 
 Samuel 
 
 Laman 
 
 Blanchard 
 
 1804— 1845 
 
 CCCXLVIII 
 WISHES OF YOUTH. 
 
 r^KlLY and greenly let my seasons run : 
 
 ^-^ And should the war-winds of the world uproot 
 
 The sanctities of life, and its sweet fruit 
 
 Cast forth as fuel for the fiery sun ; 
 
 The dews be turned to ice— fair days begun 
 
 In peace wear out in pain, and sounds that suit 
 
 Despair and discord keep Hope's harpstring mute ; 
 
 Still let me live as Love and Life were one : 
 
 Still let me turn on earth a childlike gaze 
 
 And trust the whispered charities that bring 
 
 Tidings of human truth ; with inward praise 
 
 Watch the weak motion of each common thing 
 
 And find it glorious— still let me raise 
 
 On wintry wrecks an altar to the Spring.
 
 English Sonnets 177 
 
 CCCXLIX 
 HIDDEN JOYS. 
 
 PLEASURES lie thickest where no pleasures seem; Samuel 
 , ■ Laman 
 
 There s not a leaf that falls upon the ground Blanchard 
 
 But holds some joy, of silence or of sound, 1804— 1845 
 
 Some sprite begotten of a summer dream. 
 
 The very meanest things are made supreme 
 
 With innate ecstasy. No grain of sand 
 
 But moves a bright and million-peopled land, 
 
 And hath its Edens and its Eves, I deem. 
 
 For Love, though blind himself, a curious eye 
 
 Hath lent me, to behold the hearts of things, 
 
 And touched mine ear with power. Thus, far or nigh, 
 
 Minute or mighty, fixed or free with wings. 
 
 Delight from many a nameless covert sly 
 
 Peeps sparkling, and in tones familiar sings. 
 
 CCCL 
 DELIGHT NOT DISTANT. 
 
 A ROUND man's hearth his dearest blessings meet 
 Why look we for a fruit that grows afar 
 Planted in peril, when free pastures are. 
 Like promises, spread round our calm retreat ? 
 Man flies the land to range where billows beat, 
 Forsakes his hut to track the conqueror's car ; 
 Yet he whose eyes but watch some wandering star 
 May crush the steadier glowworm at his feet. 
 And thus who idly grasp a doubtful good, 
 In thoughts obscure and passions wild and vain, 
 Neglect the native pleasures of the blood. 
 And turn its health and hopes to present pain ; 
 Missing, for gems deep fixed within the flood, 
 The readier riches of the fragrant plaia 
 
 M 

 
 178 A Treasury of 
 
 CCCLI 
 ' PATER VESTER PASCIT ILLA: 
 
 Robert /^UR bark is on the waters ! Avide around ■ 
 
 Stephen V^ , 
 
 Hawker ^-^ The wandcrmg wave ; above, the lonely sky : 
 1804— 187s Hush ! a young sea-bird floats, and that quick cry 
 Shrieks to the levelled weapon's echoing sound : 
 Grasp its lank wing, and on, with reckless bound ! 
 Yet, creature of the surf, a sheltering breast 
 To-night shall haunt in vain thy far-off nest, 
 A call unanswered search the rocky ground. 
 Lord of leviathan ! when Ocean heard 
 Thy gathering voice, and sought his native breeze ; 
 When whales first plunged with life, and the proud 
 
 deep 
 Felt unborn tempests heave in troubled sleep, 
 Thou didst provide, even for this nameless bird, 
 Home and a natural love amid the surging seas. 
 
 CCCLII 
 THE VINE. 
 
 T T EARKEN I there is in old Morwenna's shrine, 
 
 A lonely sanctuary of the Saxon days 
 Reared by the Severn sea for prayer and praise, 
 Amid the carved work of the roof, a vine. 
 Its root is where the eastern sunbeams fall 
 First in the chancel ; then along the wall 
 Slowly it travels on, a leafy line. 
 With here and there a cluster, and anon 
 More and more grapes, until the growth hath gone 
 Through arch and aisle. Hearken ! and heed the sign : 
 See at the altar-side the steadfast root, 
 Mark well the branches, count the summer fruit ; 
 So let a meek and faithful heart be thine, 
 And gather from that tree a parable divine.
 
 English Sonnets 179 
 
 CCCLIII 
 THE TWAIN. 
 
 'T^WO sunny children wandered, hand in hand, Itephe^ 
 
 ''■ By the blue waves of far Gennesaret, Hawker 
 
 For there their Syrian father drew the net, 1804-1875 
 
 With multitudes of fishes, to the land. 
 One was the Twin, even he whose blessed name 
 Hath in ten thousand shrines this day a fame — 
 Thomas the Apostle, one of the ethereal band ; 
 But he, his Hebrew brother, who can trace 
 His name, the city where he dwelt, his place. 
 Or grave ? We know not, none may understand. 
 There were two brethren in the field : the one 
 Shall have no memory underneath the sun ; 
 The other shines, beacon of many a strand, 
 A star upon the brow of night, here in the rocky land. 
 
 CCCLIV 
 
 THE WELL OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 HTHEY dreamed not in old Hebron, when the sound 
 -*■ Went through the city that the promised son 
 Was born to Zachary, and his name was John, — 
 They little thought that here, in this far ground 
 Beside the Severn sea, that Hebrew child 
 Would be a cherished memory of the wild ; 
 Here, where the pulses of the ocean bound 
 Whole centuries away, while one meek cell. 
 Built by the fathers o'er a lonely well. 
 Still breathes the Baptist's sweet remembrance round. 
 A spring of silent waters, with his name 
 That from the angel's voice in music came. 
 Here in the wilderness so faithful found. 
 It freshens to this day the Levite's grassy mound.
 
 i8o A Treasury of 
 
 CCCLV 
 A PRAYER. 
 
 Sir William /^ BROODING Spirit of Wisdom and of Love, 
 Hamilton ^^ Whose mighty wings even now o'ershadow me, 
 180^865 Absorb me in thine own immensity, 
 
 And raise me far my finite self above ! 
 
 Purge vanity away, and the weak care 
 
 That name or fame of me may widely spread ; 
 
 And the deep wish keep burning in their stead, 
 
 Thy blissful influence afar to bear, — 
 
 Or see it borne ! Let no desire of ease. 
 
 No lack of courage, faith, or love, delay 
 
 Mine own steps on that high thought-paven way 
 
 In which my soul her clear commission sees : 
 
 Yet with an equal joy let me behold 
 
 Thy chariot o'er that way by others rolled ! 
 
 CCCLVI 
 TO ADAMS, 
 
 DISCOVERER OF THE PLANET NEPTUNE. 
 
 ■\ "^ yTHEN Vulcan cleft the labouring brain of Jove 
 ^ ^ With his keen axe, and set Minerva free, 
 The unimprisoned maid, exultingly. 
 Bounded aloft, and to the Heaven above 
 Turned her clear eyes, while the grim workman strove 
 To claim the virgin Wisdom for his fee. 
 His private wealth, his property to be, 
 And hide in Lemnian cave her light of love. 
 If some new truth, O friend, thy toil discover, 
 If thine eyes first by some fair form be blest. 
 Love it for what it is, and as a lover 
 Gaze, or with joy receive thine honoured guest : 
 The new-found Thought, set free, awhile may hover 
 Gratefully near thee, but it cannot rest.
 
 N 
 
 English Sonnets 18 1 
 
 CCCLVII 
 NOT TO THE MULTITUDE. 
 OT to the multitude, oh ! not to them, Henry 
 
 ' _ ' Glassford 
 
 But to the sacred few, the circle small Bell 
 
 Which formed thy world and was thy all-in-all, 1805— 1874 
 
 Entrust thy memory ; and like a gem 
 Love's gift, worn ever next the heart, 'twill lie 
 Imbedded in delight, deep, stainless, warm ; 
 For if thy living voice, aspect, and form 
 Gladdened the ear and pleased thewatchful eye 
 Of old affection, doubt not thou that death 
 Will make thee doubly dear, and that no voice 
 Will e'er again those constant souls rejoice, 
 Like that which God took from them with thy breath. 
 Thou diest to the crowd, but not to these : 
 They see thee in the mist, and hear thee in the breeze. 
 
 CCCLVIII 
 THE COTTAGE-DOOR. 
 
 T T OW softly Summer's breath is wafted here 
 
 From the high peaks of green and silent hills! 
 How gently warble at their own sweet wills 
 The song-birds nestled trustingly and near ! 
 Nor is thy song less sweet, O streamlet clear, 
 That wimples through this quiet beloved glen ; — 
 What other water in the world again 
 Will be to me so musical, so dear ? 
 Yet softer, sweeter, dearer than all these, 
 The household voices at my cottage-door, 
 With joy enriching every passing breeze, 
 Till the full heart with thankfulness runs o'er. 
 And pensive Fancy with no sadness sees 
 Lost faces smiling from the shadowy shore.
 
 l82 
 
 A Treasury of 
 
 CCCLIX 
 A MEDITATION AT NETLEY ABBEY. 
 
 John Sterling "[V[0W dcwy twilight o'er these shattered walls 
 1806— 1844 ^ ^ Breathes from the closing eyelids of the skies ; 
 The blessed night, with starry influence, falls 
 O'er carved remains, and boughs that heavenward rise; 
 The healing gentleness of evening sighs 
 From arch to arch, and thrills the slumbering trees ; 
 And, like the memory of dead centuries. 
 The shadows stride before the lingering breeze. 
 The pinions of the heavens, with fleckered gloom, 
 Enfold the world, and the adoring earth 
 To all religion ; here there is no tomb, 
 But holy promise of that second birth, 
 When o'er man's ruin Beauty shall retufn. 
 And perfect Love shall light his funeral urn. 
 
 Helena 
 
 Clarissa 
 
 Von Ranke 
 
 1808— 1871 
 
 CCCLX 
 LOVE. 
 
 PARTLY SUGGESTED BY A GERMAN SONG. 
 
 TTEART of my heart ! of Love let us commune. 
 
 And tell me ' how it comes ? ' and ' what it is ? ' 
 " Love comes ! and it is there, replete with bliss ; 
 A sun of light, bringing eternal noon, 
 New life to life ; new powers, fresh flowers, its boon." 
 But what in sooth ? *' Two souls in sweet accord, 
 Each for each caring and each self unheard, 
 Bringing life's discords into perfect tune ; 
 True to true feeling, and to nature living. 
 Plighting no faith, nor needing proof nor proving, 
 Taking for granted, never asking, giving. 
 Not doubting and not fearing ' how ? ' or ' where ? ' 
 Not caring if less bright or young or fair ; 
 Sure to be ever loved, and sure of loving."
 
 English Sonnets 183 
 
 CCCLXI 
 
 THE OCEAN. 
 
 THE Ocean, at the bidding of the Moon, Charles 
 
 ' *^ \\ ENNYSONj 
 
 For ever changes with his restless tide ; turner 
 
 Flung shoreward now, to be regathered soon iSoS— 1879 
 
 With kingly pauses of reluctant pride, 
 
 And semblance of return. Anon from home 
 
 He issues forth again, high-ridged and free. 
 
 The seething hiss of his tumultuous foam 
 
 Like armies whispering where great echoes be ! 
 
 Oh ! leave me here upon this beach to rove. 
 
 Mute listener to that sound so grand and lone — • 
 
 A glorious sound, deep-drawn and strongly thrown, 
 
 And reaching those on mouhtain-heights above ; 
 
 To British ears, as who shall scorn to own, 
 
 A tutelar fond voice, a saviour-tone of love ! 
 
 CCCLXII 
 A SUMMER TWILIGHT. 
 
 TT is a summer twilight, balmy-sweet, 
 
 A twilight brightened by an infant moon, 
 Fraught with the fairest light of middle June ; 
 The lonely garden echoes to my feet, 
 And hark ! O hear I not the gentle dews. 
 Fretting the silent forest in his sleep ? 
 Or does the stir of housing insects creep 
 Thus faintly on mine ear ? Day's many hues . 
 Waned with the paling light and are no more, 
 And none but reptile pinions beat the air : 
 The bat is hunting softly by my door, 
 And, noiseless as the snow-flake, leaves his lair ; 
 O'er the still copses flitting here and there, 
 Wheeling the self-same circuit o'er and o'er.
 
 184 A Treasury of 
 
 CCCLXIII 
 THE RAINBOW. 
 
 Charles TTUNG OH the shower that fronts the golden West, 
 'I'uRNER -L "Yht rainbow bursts Hke magic on mine eyes ! 
 
 1808—1879 jn hues of ancient promise there imprest ; 
 Frail in its date, eternal in its guise ; 
 The vision is so lovely, that I feel 
 My heart imbued with beauty like its own, 
 And taking an indissoluble seal 
 From what is here a moment, and is gone ; 
 It lies so soft on the full-breasted storm, 
 New-born o' the middle air, and dewy-pure, 
 And tricked in Nature's choicest garniture ; 
 What can be seen of lovelier dye or form ? 
 While all the groves assume a ghastly stain, 
 Caught from the leaden rack and shining rain ! 
 
 CCCLXIV 
 A FOREST LAKE. \ 
 
 O 
 
 LAKE of sylvan shore ! when gentle Spring 
 
 Slopes down upon thee from the mountain-side, 
 When birds begin to build and brood and sing ; 
 Or, in maturer season, when the pied 
 And fragrant turf is thronged with blossoms rare ; 
 In the frore sweetness of the breathing morn, 
 When the loud echoes of the herdsman's horn 
 Do sally forth upon the silent air 
 Of thy thick forestry, may I be there, 
 While the wood waits to see its phantom born 
 At clearing twilight, in thy glassy breast ; 
 Or, when cool eve is busy, on thy shores, 
 With trails of purple shadow from the West, 
 Or dusking in the wake of tardy oars.
 
 English Sonnets 185 
 
 CCCLXV 
 ON STARTLING SOME PIGEONS. 
 
 A HUNDRED wings are dropt as soft as one, (Te"ny^on) 
 
 "^ Now ye are lighted ! Pleasing to my sight turner 
 
 The fearful circle of your wondering flight, 1808-1879 
 
 Rapid and loud, and drawing homeward soon ; 
 And then, the sober chiding of your tone, 
 As there ye sit, from your own roofs arraigning 
 My trespass on your haunts, so boldly done, 
 Sounds like a solemn and a just complaining : 
 O happy, happy race ! for though there clings 
 A feeble fear about your timid cl^n. 
 Yet are ye blest ! with not a thought that brings 
 Disquietude, — while proud and sorrowing man, 
 An eagle, weary of his mighty wings. 
 With anxious inquest fills his mortal span ! 
 
 CCCLXVI 
 GOD, IMPART THY BLESSING. 
 
 f~\ GOD, impart Thy blessing to my cries ! 
 
 ^^^ I trust but faintly, and I dail)'' err ; 
 
 The waters of my heart are oft astir. 
 
 An angel's there ! and yet I cannot rise ! 
 
 Ah ! would my Lord were here amongst us still, 
 
 Proffering his bosom to his servant's brow ; 
 
 Too oft that holy life comes o'er us now 
 
 tike twilight echoes from a distant hill ; 
 
 We long for his pure looks and words sublime ; 
 
 His lowly-lofty innocence and grace ; 
 
 The talk sweet-toned, and blessing all the time ; 
 
 The mountain sermon and the ruthful gaze ; 
 
 The cheerly credence gathered from his face ; 
 
 His voice" in village groups at eve or prime !
 
 Charles 
 
 (Tennyson) 
 
 Turner 
 
 1808 — 1879 
 
 186 A Treasury of 
 
 CCCLXVII 
 
 AUT UMN. 
 
 ' I "HE softest shadows mantle o'er his form, 
 
 And the curved sickle in his grasp appears, 
 Glooming and brightening ; while a wreath of ears 
 Circles his sallow brow, which the angry storm 
 Gusts down at intervals ; about him stray 
 The volant sweets o' the trailing migonnette, 
 And odours vague that haunt the year's decay ; 
 The crush of leaves is heard beneath his feet, 
 Mixed, as he onward goes, with softer sound, 
 As though his heel were sinking into snows : 
 Full soon a sadder landscape opens round, 
 With, here and there, a latter-flowering rose. 
 Child of the summer hours, though blooming here 
 Far down the vista of the fading year. 
 
 CCCLXVIII 
 TO THE NIGHTINGALE. 
 
 f~\ HONEY-throated warbler of the grove ! 
 
 ^^^ That in the glooming woodland art so proud 
 
 Of answering thy sweet mates in soft or loud, 
 
 Thou dost not own a note we do not love ; 
 
 The moon is o'er thee, laying out the lawn 
 
 In mighty shadows — but the western skies 
 
 Are kept awake, to see the sun arise. 
 
 Though earth and heaven would fain put back the 
 
 dawn ! 
 While, wandering for the dreams such seasons give. 
 With lonely steps, and many a pause between. 
 The lover listens to thy songs unseen ; 
 And if, at times, the pure -notes seem to grieve, 
 Why lo ! he weeps himself, and must believe 
 That sorrow is a part of what they mean !
 
 English Sonnets 187 
 
 CCCLXIX 
 THE TRAVELLER AND HIS WIFE'S RINGLET. 
 
 I 
 
 HAVE a circlet of thy sunny hair, Charles 
 
 ■' (Tennyson) 
 
 A hght from home, a blessing to mine eyes ; Turner 
 
 Though grave and mournful thoughts will often rise, 1808-1879 
 As I behold it mutely glistening there, 
 So still, so passive ! like a treasure's key. 
 Unconscious of the dreams it doth compel, 
 Of gems and gold, high-piled in secret cell. 
 Too royal for a vulgar gaze to see ! 
 If they were stolen, the key could never tell ; 
 If thou wert dead, what should thy ringlet say ? 
 It shows the same, betide thee ill or well, 
 Smiling in love, or shrouded in decay ; 
 It cannot darken for dead Isabel, 
 Nor blanch if thy young head grew white to-day ! 
 
 CCCLXX 
 THE BUOY-BELL. 
 
 TTOW like the leper, with his own sad cry 
 
 Enforcing his own solitude, it tolls ! 
 That lonely bell set in the rushing shoals, 
 To warn us from the place of jeopardy ! 
 O friend of man ! sore-vexed by Ocean's power, 
 The changing tides wash o'er thee day by day ; 
 Thy trembling mouth is filled with bitter spray, 
 Yet still thou ringest on from hour to hour ; 
 High is thy mission, though thy lot is wild — 
 To be in danger's realm a guardian sound ; 
 In seamen's dreams a pleasant part to bear. 
 And earn their blessing as the year goes round ; 
 And strike the key-note of each grateful prayer. 
 Breathed in their distant homes by wife or child !
 
 1 88 A Treasury of 
 
 CCCLXXI 
 
 MORNING. 
 Charles jx IS the fairest Sight in Nature's realms, 
 
 (Tennyson) I . 
 
 Turner "^ To see OH Summer morning, dewy-sweet, 
 1808— 1879 That very type of freshness, the green wheat, 
 
 Surging through shadows of the hedgerow elms ; 
 How the eye revels in the many shapes 
 And colours which the risen day restores ! 
 How the wind blows the poppy's scarlet capes 
 About his urn ! and how the lark upsoars ! 
 Not like the timid corn-craik scudding fast 
 From his own voice, he with him takes his song 
 Heavenward, then, striking sideways, shoots along, 
 Happy as sailor-boy that, from the mast, 
 Runs out upon the yard-arm, till at last 
 He sinks into his nest, those clover tufts among. 
 
 CCCLXXII 
 
 WIND ON THE CORN. ' \ 
 
 ■1 
 "PULL often as I rove by path or stile, j 
 
 To watch the harvest ripening in the vale, \ 
 
 Slowly and sweetly, like a growing smile — 
 A smile that ends in laughter — the quick gale ; 
 
 Upon the breadths of gold-green wheat descends ; j 
 
 "While still the swallow, with unbaffled grace, I 
 
 About his viewless quarry dips and bends — j 
 
 And all the fine excitement of the chase ■• 
 
 Lies in the hunter's beauty : in the eclipse ' 
 
 Of that brief shadow, how the barley's beard : 
 
 Tilts at the passing gloom, and wild-rose dips , 
 
 Among the white-tops in the ditches reared : ] 
 
 And hedgerow's flowery breast of lacework stirs 1 
 
 Faintly in that full wind that rocks the outstanding firs. ■
 
 English Sonnets 189 
 
 CCCLXXIII 
 THE FOREST GLADE. 
 
 A S one dark morn I trod a forest glade, (Tennyson) 
 
 ■^^ A sunbeam entered at the further end, Turner 
 
 And ran to meet me through the yielding shade — 1808—1879 
 
 As one, who in the distance sees a friend, 
 And, smiling, hurries to him ; but mine eyes. 
 Bewildered by the change from dark to bright, 
 Received the greeting with a quick surprise 
 At first, and then with tears of pure delight ; 
 For sad my thoughts had been — the tempest's wrath 
 Had gloomed the night, and made the morrow gray : 
 That heavenly guidance humble sorrow hath, 
 Had turned my feet into that forest-way. 
 Just when His morning light came down the path, 
 Among the lonely woods at early day. 
 
 CCCLXXIV 
 THE LA TTICE A T SUNRLSE. 
 
 A S on my bed at dawn I mused and prayed, 
 "^ I saw my lattice prankt upon the wall, 
 The flaunting leaves and flitting birds withal — 
 A sunny phantom interlaced with shade ; 
 ' Thanks be to heaven ! ' in happy mood I said, 
 * What sweeter aid my matins could befall 
 Than this fair glory from the East hath made ? 
 What holy sleights hath God, the Lord of all. 
 To bid us feel and see ! we are not free 
 To say we see not, for the glory comes 
 Nightly and daily, like the flowing sea ; 
 His lustre pierceth through the midnight glooms ; 
 And, at prime hour, behold ! He follows me 
 With golden shadows to my secret room^ !
 
 1 9° A Treasury of 
 
 CCCLXXV 
 THE PROCESS OF COMPOSITION. \ 
 
 AN ILLUSTRATION. • j 
 
 Charles f"^'^'^ ^^ °^^ fancy an Uncertain thought ; 
 
 ^Turner"^ ^~^^ Hangs colourless, like dew on bents of grass, i 
 
 i8o8l^S79 Before the morning o'er the field doth pass ; 
 
 But soon it glows and brightens ; all unsought 
 
 A sudden glory flashes through the dream, 
 
 Our purpose deepens and our wit grows brave, 
 
 The thronging hints a richer utterance crave, 
 
 And tongues of fire approach the new-won theme ; 
 
 A subtler process now begins — a claim 
 
 Is urged for order, a well-balanced scheme 
 
 Of words and numbers, a consistent aim ; 
 
 The dew dissolves before the warming beam ; 
 
 But that fair thought consolidates its flame, 
 
 And keeps its colours, hardening to a gem. ! 
 
 CCCLXXVI ' 
 
 IN AND OUT OF THE PINE-WOOD. J 
 
 A SIMILE. 
 
 "DEYOND the pine-wood all looked bright and ; 
 
 -*-^ clear — \ 
 
 And, ever by our side, as on we drove, 
 
 The star of eve ran glimpsing through the grove 
 
 To meet us in the open atmosphere ; ; 
 
 As some fair thought of heavenly light and force I 
 
 Will move and flash behind a transient screen I 
 
 Of dim expression, glittering in its course 
 
 Through many loop-holes, till its face is seen ; 
 
 Some thoughts ne'er pass beyond their close confines; \ 
 
 Theirs is the little taper's homely lot, ] 
 
 A woodside glimmer, distanced and forgot — ; 
 
 Whose trivial gleam, that twinkles more than shines, \ 
 
 Is left behind to die among the pines ; ' 
 
 Our stars ape carried out, and vanish not !
 
 w 
 
 English Sonnets 191 
 
 CCCLXXVII 
 THE GOLD-CRESTED WREN. 
 
 HIS RELATION TO THE SONNET. 
 
 HEN my hand closed upon thee, worn and spent Charles 
 
 . . '^ _ '■ (lENNVSON) 
 
 With idly dashing on the window-pane, Turner 
 
 Or clinging to the cornice — I, that meant 1808— 1879 
 
 At once to free thee, could not but detain ; 
 I dropt my pen, I left th' unfinished lay, 
 To give thee back to freedom ; but I took — 
 Oh, charm of sweet occasion ! — one brief look 
 At thy bright eyes and innocent dismay ; 
 Then forth I sent thee on thy homeward quest, 
 My lesson learnt — thy beauty got by heart : 
 And if, at times, my sonnet-muse would rest 
 Short of her topmost skill, her little best, 
 The memory of thy delicate gold crest 
 Shall plead for one last touch, — the crown of Art. 
 
 CCCLXXVIII 
 TO THE GOSSAMER-LIGHT. 
 
 /^UICK gleam ! that ridest on the gossamers ! 
 -=i^ How oft I see thee, with thy wavering lance. 
 Tilt at the midges in their evening dance, 
 A gentle joust set on by summer airs ! 
 How oft I watch thee from my garden-chair ! 
 And, failing that, I search the lawns and bowers, 
 To find thee floating o'er the fruits and flowers, 
 And doing thy sweet work in silence there : 
 Thou art the poet's darfing, ever sought 
 In the fair garden or the breezy mead ; 
 The wind dismounts thee not ; thy buoyant thread 
 Is as the sonnet, poising one bright thought. 
 That moves but does not vanish ! borne alona: 
 Like light, — a golden drift through all the song !
 
 192 A Treasury of \ 
 
 CCCLXXIX j 
 
 i 
 AN APRIL DA V. J 
 
 Charles ' I "HE lark sung loud ; the music at his heart 
 
 fTENNYSON) 1 -TT 1 11 1 1 • 1 1-11 i 
 
 Turner "^ Had called him early ; upward straight he went, 
 
 1808— 1879 And bore in nature's quire the merriest part, 
 As to the lake's broad shore my steps I bent ; 
 The waterflies with glancing motion drove ] 
 
 Their dimpling eddies in among the blooms 
 Shed by the flowering poplars from above ; 1 
 
 While, overhead, the rooks, on sable plumes, 1 
 
 Floated and dipt about the gleaming haze ■ 
 
 Of April, crost anon by April glooms, 
 
 As is the fashion of her changeful days ; j 
 
 When, what the rain-cloud blots, the sun relumes j 
 
 O' the instant, and the shifting landscape shows j 
 
 Each change, and, like a tide, the distance comes and '• 
 
 goes ! ' ; 
 
 CCCLXXX 
 A BRILLIANT DAY. ' 
 
 C~\ KEEN pellucid air ! nothing can lurk 
 Or disavow itself on this bright day ; 
 The small rain-plashes shine from far away. 
 The tiny emmet glitters at his work ; 
 The bee looks blithe and gay, and as she plies 
 Her task, and moves and sidles round the cup 
 Of this spring flower, to drink its honey up, 
 Her glassy wings, like oars that dip and rise. 
 Gleam momently. Pure-bosomed, clear of fog, j 
 
 The long lake glistens, while the glorious beam 1 
 
 Bespangles the wet joints and floating leaves j 
 
 Of water-plants, whose every point receives \ 
 
 His light ; and jellies of the spawning frog, : 
 
 Unmarked before, like piles of jewels seem !
 
 English Sonnets 193 
 
 CCCLXXXI 
 THE HOME-FIELD. EVENING. 
 
 TIS sweet, when slanting light the field adorns, Charles 
 
 ' ° ^ . (Tennyson) 
 
 To see the new-shorn flocks recline or browse ; Turner 
 
 While swallows flit among the restful cows, 1808— 1879 
 
 Their gurgling dew-laps, and their harmless horns ; 
 
 Or flirt the aged hunter, in his doze. 
 
 With passing wing ; yet with no thought to grieve 
 
 His mild, unjealous, innocent repose. 
 
 With those keen contrasts our sad hearts conceive. 
 
 And then, perchance, the evening wind awakes 
 
 With sudden tumult, and the bowery ash 
 
 Goes storming o'er the golden moon, whose flash 
 
 Fills and refills its breezy gaps and breaks ; 
 
 The weeping-willow at her neighbour floats, 
 
 And busy rustlings stir the wheat and oats. 
 
 CCCLXXXII 
 MAGGIES STAR. 
 
 TO THE WHITE STAR ON THE FOREHEAD OF A FAVOURITE OLD MARE. 
 
 "\yl /"HITE star ! that travellest at old Maggie's pace 
 About my field, where'er a wandering mouth, 
 And foot, that slowly shifts from place to place. 
 Conduct thee, — East or West, or North or South ; 
 A loving eye is my best chart to find 
 Thy whereabouts at dawn or dusk ; but when • 
 She dreams at noon, with heel a-tilt behind, 
 And pendent lip, I mark thee fairest then ; 
 I see thee dip and vanish, when she rolls 
 On earth, supine, then with one rousing shake 
 Reculminate ; but, most, thou lov'st to take 
 A quiet onward course — Heaven's law controls 
 The mild, progressive motion thou dost make, 
 Albeit thy path is scarce above the mole's.
 
 194 ^ Treasury of 
 
 CCCLXXXIII 
 A SUMMER NIGHT IN THE BEEHIVE. 
 
 riVNOT^^i T^HE little bee returns with evening's gloom, 
 Turner Xo join her comrades in the braided hive, 
 
 1808— 1879 Where, housed beside their mighty honeycomb, 
 They dream their polity shall long survive. 
 Still falls the summer night — the browsing horse 
 Fills the low portal with a grassy sound 
 From the near paddock, while the water-course 
 Sends them sweet murmurs from the meadow-ground: 
 None but such peaceful noises break the hush, 
 Save Pussy, growling, in the thyme and sage, 
 Over the thievish mouse, in happy rage : 
 At last, the flowers against the threshold brush 
 In morning airs — fair shines the uprisen sun ; 
 Another day of honey has begun ! 
 
 CCCLXXXIV 
 THE BEE- WISP. 
 
 /^UR window-panes enthral our summer bees ; 
 ^-^ (To insect woes I give this little page) — 
 We hear them threshing in their idle rage 
 Those crystal floors of famine, while, at ease, 
 Their outdoor comrades probe the nectaries 
 Qf flowers, and into all sweet blossoms dive ; 
 Then home, at sundown, to the happy hive, 
 On forward wing, straight through the dancing flies 
 For such poor strays a full-plumed wisp I keep, 
 And when I see them pining, worn, and vext, 
 I brush them softly with a downward sweep 
 To the raised sash — all-angered and perplext : 
 So man, the insect, stands on his defense 
 Against the very hand of Providence.
 
 T 
 
 English Sonnets 195 
 
 CCCLXXXV 
 MINNIE AND HER DOVE. 
 
 WO days she missed her dove, and then, alas ! c^^^^^^^ 
 
 •' ' ' (lENNYSON) 
 
 A knot of soft gray feathers met her view, turner 
 
 So light, their stirring hardly broke the dew iSos— 1879 
 
 That hung on the blue violets and the grass ; 
 A kite had struck her fondling as he passed ; 
 And o'er that fleeting, downy epitaph 
 The poor child lingered, weeping ; her gay laugh 
 Was mute that day, her little heart o'ercast. 
 Ah ! Minnie, if. thou livest, thou wilt prove 
 Intenser pangs— less tearful, though less brief ; 
 Thou'lt weep for dearer death and' sweeter love, 
 And spiritual woe, of woes the chief, 
 Until the full-grown wings of human grief 
 Eclipse thy memory of the kite and dove. 
 
 CCCLXXXVI 
 THE HOLY EMERALD, 
 
 SAID TO BE THE ONLY TRUE LIKENESS OF CHRIST. 
 
 'T'HE gem, to which the artist did entrust 
 
 That face which now outshines the Cherubim, 
 Gave up, full willingly, its emerald dust. 
 To take Christ's likeness — to make room for him. 
 So must it be, if thou wouldst bear about 
 Thy Lord — thy shining surface must be lowered. 
 Thy goodly prominence be chipt and scored. 
 Till those deep scars have brought his features out : 
 Sharp be the stroke and true, make no complaipts ; 
 For heavenly lines thou givest earthly grit : 
 But oh ! how oft our coward spirit faints. 
 When we are called our jewels to submit 
 To this keen graver, which so oft hath writ 
 The Saviour's image on his wounded saints !
 
 196 A Treasury of 
 
 CCCLXXXVII 
 OUR MARY AND THE CHILD-MUMMY. 
 
 Charles T 1 /"HEN the four quarters of the world shall rise, 
 
 rENNYSON) VV 
 
 Turner ♦ * Men, women, children, at the Judgment-time, 
 
 1808— 1879 Perchance this Memphian girl, dead ere her prime. 
 Shall drop her mask, and with dark new-born eyes 
 Salute our English Mary, loved and lost ; 
 The Father knows her little scroll of prayer, 
 And life as pure as the Egyptian air ; 
 For, though she knew not Jesus, nor the cost 
 At which He won the world, she learned to pray ; 
 And though our own sweet babe on Christ's good name 
 Spent her last breath, premonished and advised 
 Of him, and in his glorious Church baptized. 
 She will not spurn this old-world child away, 
 Nor put her poor embalmed heart to shame. 
 
 CCCLXXXVIII 
 ON FINDING A SMALL FL Y CRUSHED IN A BOOK. 
 
 OOME hand, that never meant to do thee hurt, 
 
 Has crushed thee here between these pages pent ; 
 But thou hast left thine own fair monument. 
 Thy wings gleam out and tell me what thou wert : 
 Oh ! that the memories which survive us here 
 Were half as lovely as these wings of thine ! 
 Pure relics of a blameless life, that shine 
 Now thou art gone : Our doom is ever near : 
 The peril is beside us day by day ; 
 The book will close upon us, it may be, 
 Just as we lift ourselves to soar away 
 Upon the summer-airs. But, unlike thee, 
 The closing book may stop our vital breath, 
 Yet leave no lustre on our page of death.
 
 o 
 
 English Sonnets 197 
 
 CCCLXXXIX 
 TO A RED- WHEA T FIELD. 
 
 RICH red wheat ! thou wilt not lone defer Charles 
 
 (Tennvson) 
 
 i hy beauty, though thou art not wholly grown ; Turner 
 The fair blue distance and the moorland fir 1808-1879 
 
 Long for thy golden laughter ! Four years gone, 
 How oft ! with eager foot, I scaled the top 
 Of this long rise, to give mine eye full range ; 
 And, now again, rotation brings the change 
 From seeds and clover, to my favourite crop ; 
 How oft Fve watched thee from my garden, charmed 
 With thy noon-stillness, or thy morning tears ! 
 Or, when the wind clove and the sunset warmed 
 Thine amber-shafted depths and russet ears ; 
 O ! all ye cool green stems 1 improve the time, 
 Fulfil your beauty ! justify my rime ! 
 
 cccxc 
 
 THE HARVEST MOON. 
 
 TTOW peacefully the broad and golden moon 
 Comes up to gaze upon the reaper's toil ! 
 That they who own the land for many a mile, 
 May bless her beams, and they who take the boon 
 Of scattered ears ; Oh ! beautiful ! how soon 
 The dusk is turned to silver without soil, 
 Which makes the fair sheaves fairer than at noon, 
 And guides the gleaner to his slender spoil ; 
 So, to our souls, the Lord of love and might 
 Sends harvest-hours, when daylight disappears ; 
 When age and sorrow, like a coming night. 
 Darken our field of work with doubts and fears. 
 He times the presence of his heavenly light 
 To rise up softly o'er our silver hairs.
 
 , 198 A Treasury of 
 
 cccxci 
 THE SPARRO W AND THE BE W-DROP. 
 
 (Tenn^ys^n) AA/'^^''^ ^° ^^ birds their morning meal I threw, 
 Turner V V gggi^jg one perky candidate for bread 
 
 1808-1879 There flashed and winked a tiny drop of dew, 
 But while I gazed, I lost them, — both had fled ; 
 His careless tread had struck the blade-hung tear, 
 And all its silent beauty fell away, 
 And left, sole relic of the twinkling sphere, 
 A sparrow's dabbled foot upon a spray ; 
 Bold bird ! that did'st efface a lovely thing 
 Before a poet's eyes ! I've half a mind. 
 Could I but single thee from out thy kind, 
 To mulct thee in a crumb ; a crumb to thee 
 Is not more sweet than that fair drop to me ; 
 Fie on thy little foot and thrumming wing ! 
 
 CCCXCII 
 GOUT AND WINGS. 
 
 ' I ''HE pigeons fluttered fieldward, one and all, 
 ■*■ I saw the swallows wheel, and soar, and dive, 
 The little bees hung poised before the hive, 
 Even Partlet hoised herself across the wall : 
 I felt my earth-bound lot in every limb, 
 And, in my envious mood, I half-rebelled. 
 When lo ! an insect crossed the page I held, 
 A little helpless minim, slight and slim ; 
 Ah ! sure, there was no room for envy there, 
 But gracious aid and condescending care ; 
 Alas ! my pride and pity were misspent, 
 The atopi knew his strength, and rose in air ! 
 My gout came tingling back, as off he went : 
 A wing was opened at me everywhere !
 
 English Sonnets 199 
 
 CCCXCIII 
 THE SEASIDE, 
 
 IN AND OUT OF THE SEASON. 
 
 I 
 
 N summer-time it was a paradise 
 
 Of mountain, frith, and bay, and shinins sand ; Charles 
 
 •^ " (Tennyson) 
 
 Our outward rowers sang towards the land, turner 
 
 Followed by waving hands and happy cries ; iSoS— 1S79 
 
 By the full flood the groups no longer roam ; 
 
 And when, at ebb, the glistening beach grows wide. 
 
 No barefoot children race into the foam. 
 
 But passive jellies wait the turn of tide. 
 
 Like some forsaken lover, lingering there. 
 
 The boatman stands ; the maidens trip no more 
 
 With loosened locks ; far from the billows' roar 
 
 The Mauds and Maries knot their tresses fair. 
 
 Where not a foam-flake from the enamoured shore 
 
 Comes down the sea-wind on the golden hair. 
 
 cccxciv 
 OUR I^EW CHURCH CLOCK. 
 
 XT ENCEFORWARD shall our time be plainly read- 
 
 Down in the nave I catch the twofold beat 
 Of those full-weighted moments overhead ; 
 And hark ! the hour goes clanging down the street 
 To the open plain ! How sweet at eventide 
 Will that clear music be to toil-worn men ! 
 Calling them home, each to his own fire-side ; 
 How sweet the toll of all the hours till then ! 
 The cattle, too, the self-same sound shall hear. 
 But they can never know the power it wields 
 O'er human hearts, that labour, hope, and fear ; 
 Our village-clock means nought to steed or steer ; 
 The call of Time will share each twinkling'ear 
 With summer flies and voices from the fields !
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 200 A Treasury of : 
 
 \ 
 cccxcv I 
 
 THE FELLED OAK. | 
 
 GRASBY VICARAGE, SEPTEMBER 5TH, 1 874. j 
 
 Turner" W ^y^j^^ 
 
 t8o8— 1879 Wert seen beyond it, we were so slow to take ' 
 
 The lesson taught ; for our old neighbour's sake 
 
 We found thy distant presence wan and cold, 
 
 And gave thee no warm welcome, for whene'er 
 
 We tried to dream him back into the place 
 
 Where once he stood, the giant of his race, 
 
 'Twas but to lift an eye and thou wert there. 
 
 His sad remembrancer, the monument 
 
 That told us he was sfone. But thou hast blent \ 
 
 1 
 
 Thy beauty with our loss so long and well, i 
 
 That in all future grief we may foretell 
 
 Some lurking good behind each seeming ill, : 
 
 Beyond each fallen tree some fair blue hill. 
 
 cccxcvi 
 LET TV'S GLOBE, 
 
 OR SOME IRREGULARITiaS IN A FIRST LESSON IN GEOGRAPHY. i 
 
 "\ 7[ /"HEN Letty had scarce passed her third glad i 
 
 year, , 
 
 And her young artless words began to flow. 
 
 One day we gave the child a coloured sphere \ 
 
 Of the wide Earth, that she might mark and know i 
 
 By tint and outline, all its sea and land. 
 
 She patted all the world ; old Empires peeped ; 
 
 Between her baby-fingers ; her soft hand 
 
 Was welcome at all frontiers ; how she leaped, j 
 
 And laughed, and prattled, in her pride of bliss I ] 
 
 But when we turned her sweet unlearned eye : 
 
 On our own Isle, she raised a joyous cry, -j 
 
 * O yes ! I see it, Letty's home is there ! * \ 
 
 And while she hid all England with a kiss. 
 
 Bright over Europe fell her golden hair. ;
 
 English Somiets 201 
 
 CCCXCVII 
 THE SOUL'S EXPRESSION, 
 
 ■\ 1 7ITH stammering lips and insufficient sound, '^■bIkkItt 
 
 * ^ I strive and struggle to deliver right Browning 
 
 That music of my nature, day and night . 1809— 1861 
 
 With dream and thought and feeling interwound, 
 And inly answering all the senses round 
 With octaves of a mystic depth and height 
 Which step out grandly to the infinite 
 From the dark edges of the sensual ground. 
 This song of soul I struggle to outbear 
 Through portals of the sense, sublime and whole, 
 And utter all myself into the air : 
 But if I did it, — as the thunder-roll 
 Breaks its own cloud, my flesh would perish there, 
 Before that dread apocalypse of soul. 
 
 cccxcvm 
 BEREA VEMENT. ' 
 
 "VXTHEN some Beloveds, 'neath whose eyelids lay 
 ^ The sweet lights of my childhood, one by one 
 Did leave me dark before the natural sun, 
 And I astonied fell, and could not pray, — 
 A thought within me to myself did say, 
 ' Is God less God, that ^/lou art left undone ? 
 Rise, worship, bless him, in this sackcloth spun, 
 As in that purple ! ' — But I answered. Nay ! 
 What child his filial heart in words can loose 
 If he behold his tender father raise 
 The hand that chastens sorely ? can he choose 
 But sob in silence with an upward gaze ? — 
 And my great Father, thinking fit to bruise. 
 Discerns in speechless tears both prayer and praise.
 
 202 A Treasury of 
 
 cccxcix 
 
 COX SOLA TIOX. \ 
 
 Eij-^EHTH A LL are not taken : there are left behind I 
 
 Basrett AA ' 1 
 
 Bsow>nxG ^ *- Lmngr Beloveds, tender looks to bring ' 
 
 1800— iSci 
 
 And make the daylight still a happy thing, : 
 
 And tender voices, to make soft the wind : ^ 
 
 But if it were not so — if I could find 1 
 No love in all the world for comforting, 
 
 Nor any path but hollowly did ring, I 
 
 "\Miere ' dust to dust ' the love from life disjoined, ' 
 
 And if, before those sepulchres unmo^-ing \ 
 
 I stood alone, (as some forsaken lamb | 
 
 Goes bleating up the moors in weary dearth) j 
 
 Crying ' Where are ye, O my loved and lo^-ing ? ' — j 
 
 I know a Voice would sound, * Daughter, I A\r. I 
 Can I suffice for Hea\"ex and not for earth ? ' 
 
 cccc 
 
 IRREPARABLEKESS. 
 
 I 
 
 HAVE been in the meadows all the day 
 And gathered there the nosegay that you see, 
 
 Singing within myself as bird or bee , 
 
 "VMien such do field-work on a mom of May. 
 But now I look upon my flowers, decay 
 Has met them in my hands more fatally 
 Because more warmly clasped, — and sobs are free 
 To come instead of songs. "VMiat do vou say, 
 Sweet counsellors, dear friends ? that I should go 
 Back straightway to the fields and gather more ? 
 Another, sooth, may do it, but not I ! 
 My heart is very tired, my strength is low. 
 My hands are full of blossoms plucked before, 
 Held dead within them tijl myself shall die. 
 
 5 
 
 «■
 
 T 
 
 £ngltsh Sonruts 203 
 
 CCCCI 
 
 TEARS. 
 
 HAXK God, bless God, all ye who suflter not Ei^zabsth 
 
 More grief than ye can weep for. That is well — Bh.tvmkg 
 That is light grie\-ing ! lighter none befell iSoT^ssi 
 
 Since Adam forfeited the primal lot. 
 Tears I what are tears ? The babe weeps in its cot, 
 The mother singing ; at her marriage-bell 
 The bride weeps, and before the oracle 
 Of high-faned hills the poet has forgot 
 Such moisture on his cheeks. Thank God for grace, 
 Ye who weep only ! If, as some have done. 
 Ye grope tear-blinded in a desert place 
 And touch but tombs, — look up ! those tears will run 
 Soon in long rivers down the lifted face, 
 And leave the vision clear for stars and sun. 
 
 ccccn 
 SUBSTITUTION. 
 
 "\ ^ rHEN some beloved voice that was to you 
 
 Both sound and sweetness, faileth suddenly. 
 And silence, against which you dare not cry. 
 Aches round you like a strong disease and new — 
 "WTiat hope ? what help ? what music will undo 
 That sUence to your sense ? Not friendship's sigh. 
 Not reason's subtle count ; not melody 
 Of \-iols, nor of pipes that Faunus blew ; 
 Not songs of poets, nor of nightingales 
 ^^^lose hearts leap upward through the cypress-trees 
 To the clear moon ; nor yet the spheric laws 
 Self-chanted, nor the angels' sweet All hails, 
 Met in the smile of God : nay, none of these. 
 Speak Thou, availing Christ ! — and fill this pause.
 
 204 A Treasury of 
 
 CCCCIII 
 COMFORT. 
 
 ^efRRm^ CPEAK low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet 
 Browning *^ From out the hallelujahs, sweet and low, 
 1S09— 1861 Lest I should fear and fall, and miss Thee so 
 Who art not missed by any that entreat. 
 Speak to me as to Marj' at Thy feet ! 
 And if no precious gums my hands bestow, 
 Let my tears drop like amber while I go 
 In reach of Thy divinest voice complete 
 In humanest affection — thus, in sooth, 
 To lose the sense of losing. As a child, 
 AMiose song-bird seeks the wood for evermore, 
 Is sung to in its stead by mother's mouth 
 Till, sinking on her breast, love-reconciled, 
 He sleeps the faster that he wept before. 
 
 cccciv 
 PERPLEXED MUSIC. 
 
 "PXPERIENCE, like a pale musician, holds 
 
 ■^ A dulcimer of patience in his hand, 
 
 "Whence harmonies we cannot understand. 
 
 Of God's will in his worlds, the strain unfolds 
 
 In sad, perplexed minors : deathly colds 
 
 Fall on us while we hear, and countermand 
 
 Our sanguine heart back from the fancy-land 
 
 With nightingales in yisionary wolds. 
 
 We murmur, ' Where is any certain tune 
 
 Or measured music in such notes as these ? 
 
 But angels, leaning from the golden seat, 
 
 Are not so minded ; their fine ear hath won 
 
 The issue of completed cadences, 
 
 And, smiling dovvTi the stars, they whisper — Sweet.
 
 English Sonnets 205 
 
 ccccv 
 WORK. 
 
 Elizabeth 
 Barrett 
 
 "\ "\ rHAT are we set on earth for ? Say, to toil ; 
 
 Nor seek to leave thy tending of the vines Browxixg 
 
 For all the heat o' the day, till it declines, 1809— 1861 
 
 And Death's mild curfew shall from work assoil. 
 God did anoint thee with his odorous oil 
 To wrestle, not to reign ; and He assigns 
 All thy tears over, like pure cr}-stallines, 
 For younger fellow- workers of the soil 
 To wear for amulets. So others shall 
 Take patience, labour, to their heart and hand. 
 From thy hand and thy heart and thy brave cheer. 
 And God's grace fructify through thee to all. 
 The least flower, with a brimming cup may stand, 
 And share its dew-drop ^nth another near. 
 
 ccccvi 
 
 FUTURITY. 
 
 A ND, O beloved voices, upon which 
 ■^ ^ Ours passionately call because erelong 
 Ye brake off in the middle of that song 
 We sang together softly, to enrich 
 The poor world with the sense of love, and witch 
 The heart out of things e^-il, — I am strong. 
 Knowing ye are not lost for aye among 
 The hills, with last year's thrush. God keeps a niche 
 In Heaven to hold our idols : and albeit 
 He brake them to our faces and denied 
 That our close kisses should impair their white, 
 I know we shall behold them raised, complete, 
 The dust swept from their beaut)% — glorified 
 New Memnons singing in the great God-light.
 
 2o6 A Treastaj of 
 
 CCCCVII 
 WORK AND CONTEMPLATION. 
 
 Elizabeth npHE woman singeth at her spinning-wheel 
 
 Barrett I •■ ,i i i 
 
 Browning -^ A pleasant chant, Dallad or barcarole ; 
 
 1809-1861 She thinketh of her song, upon the whole, 
 Far more than of her flax ; and yet the reel 
 Is full, and artfully her fingers feel 
 With quick adjustment, provident control, 
 The lines, too subtly twisted to unroll. 
 Out to a perfect thread. I hence appeal 
 To the dear Christian church — that we may do 
 Our Father's business in these temples mirk. 
 Thus swift and steadfast, thus intent and strong ; 
 While thus, apart from toil, our souls pursue 
 Some high, calm, spheric tune, and prove our work 
 The better for the sweetness of our song. 
 
 ccccvni \ 
 
 I 
 
 FLUSH OR FAUN US. \ 
 
 ■\7^0U see this dog ; it was but yesterday i 
 
 ^ I mused forgetful of his presence here | 
 
 Till thought on thought drew downward tear on tear: ; 
 
 When from the pillow where wet-cheeked I lay, ^ 
 
 A head as hairy as Faunus thrust its way 
 Right sudden against my face, two golden-clear : 
 
 Great eyes astonished mine, a drooping ear i 
 
 Did flap me on either cheek to dry the spray ! j 
 
 I started first as some Arcadian j 
 
 Amazed by goatly god in twilight grove ; i 
 
 But as the bearded vision closelier ran 
 My tears off, I knew Flush, and rose above 
 Surprise and sadness, — thanking the true Pan 
 Who by low creatures leads to heights of love.
 
 English Sonnets 207 
 
 ccccix 
 CHEERFULNESS TA UGHT B V REASON. 
 
 I THINK we are too ready with complaint Euzabeth 
 
 •' -t Barrett 
 
 In this fair world of God's. Had we no hope Browning 
 
 Indeed beyond the zenith and the slope 1809— 1861 
 
 Of yon grey blank of sky, we might grow faint 
 
 To muse upon eternity's constraint 
 
 Round our aspirant souls ; but since the scope 
 
 Must widen early, is it well to droop, 
 
 For a few days consumed in loss and taint ? 
 
 O pusillanimous heart, be comforted 
 
 And, like a cheerful traveller, take the road. 
 
 Singing beside the hedge. What if the bread 
 
 Be bitter in thine inn, and thou unshod 
 
 To meet the flints ? At least it may be said, 
 
 * Because the way is shorty I thank thee, God.' 
 
 ccccx 
 ADEQUACY. 
 
 TVrOW, by the verdure on thy thousand hills. 
 Beloved England, doth the earth appear 
 Quite good enough for men to overbear 
 The will of God in, with rebellious wills ! 
 We cannot say the morning-sun fulfils 
 Ingloriously its course, nor that the clear 
 Strong stars without significance insphere 
 Our habitation : we, meantime, our ills 
 Heap up against this good and lift a cry 
 Against this work-day world, this ill-spread feast, 
 As if ourselves were better certainly 
 Than what we come to. Maker and High Priest, 
 I ask thee not my joys to multiply, — 
 Only to make me worthier of the least.
 
 2o8 A Treasury of 
 
 ccccxi 1 
 THE PROSPECT. 
 
 E™^ETO TV /T ETHINKS we do as fretful children do, i 
 
 Browning -'-^-*- Leaning their faces on the window-pane i 
 
 1809— 1861 To sigh the glass dim with their own breath's stain, i 
 
 And shut the sky and landscape from their view : \ 
 
 And thus, alas, since God the Maker drew ] 
 
 A mystic separation 'twixt those twain, j 
 The life beyond us, and our souls in pain, 
 
 We miss the prospect which we are called unto ; 
 
 By grief we are fools to use. Be still and strong, 1 
 
 O man, my brother ! hold thy sobbing breath, \ 
 
 And keep thy soul's large window pure from wrong ; , 
 That so, as life's appointment issueth, 
 Thy vision may be clear to watch along 
 
 The sunset consummation-lights of death. ' 
 
 ccccxii 
 SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE. 
 
 I 
 
 T THOUGHT once how Theocritus had sung 
 
 Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years, 
 Who each one in a gracious hand appears 
 To bear a gift for mortals, old or young : 
 And, as I mused it in his antique tongue, 
 I saw, in gradual vision through my tears, 
 The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years, 
 Those of my own life, who by turns had flung 
 A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware. 
 So weeping, how a mystic shape did move 
 Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair ; 
 And a voice said in mastery, while I strove, — 
 * Guess now who holds thee ? ' — ' Death,' I said. But, 
 
 there, 
 The silver answer rang, — ' Not Death, but Love.'
 
 I 
 
 English Sonnets 209 
 
 CCCCXIII 
 
 F thou must love me, let it be for nought Elizabeth 
 
 Barrett 
 
 Except for love s sake only. Do not say browning 
 
 * I love her for her smile — her look — her way 1809—1861 
 
 Of speaking gently, — for a trick of thought 
 That falls in well with mine, and certes brought 
 A sense of pleasant ease on such a day ; ' — 
 For these things in themselves, Beloved, may 
 Be changed, or change for thee, — and love, so wrought, 
 May be unwrought so. Neither love me for 
 Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry, — 
 A creature might forget to weep, who bore 
 Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby ! 
 But love me for love's sake, that evermore 
 Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity. 
 
 ccccxiv 
 
 A CCUSE me not, beseech thee, that I wear 
 
 Too calm and sad a face in front of thine ; 
 For we two look two ways, and cannot shine 
 With the same sunlight on our brow and hair. 
 On me thou lookest with no doubting care. 
 As on a bee shut in a crystalline ; 
 Since sorrow hath shut me safe in love's divine, 
 And to spread wing and fly in the outer air 
 Were most impossible failure, if I strove 
 To fail so. But I look on thee — on thee — 
 Beholding, besides love, the end of love, 
 Hearing oblivion beyond memory ; 
 As one who sits and gazes from above, 
 Over the rivers to the bitter sea.
 
 2IO A Treasury of 
 
 ccccxv . 
 SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE. 
 
 4 
 
 e™eth J NEVER gave a lock of hair away 
 Browning A To a man, Dcarcst, except this to thee, 
 1809— 1861 Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully 
 I ring out to the full brown length and say 
 ' Take it.' My day of youth went yesterday ; 
 My hair no longer bounds to my foot's glee, 
 Nor plant I it from rose or myrtle-tree, 
 As girls do, any more : it only may 
 Now shade on two pale cheeks the mark of tears, 
 Taught drooping from the head that hangs aside 
 Through sorrow's trick. I thought the funeral- 
 shears 
 Would take this first, but Love is justified, — 
 Take it thou, — finding pure, from all those years, 
 The kiss my mother left here when she died. 
 
 ccccxvi 
 
 5 
 
 TS it indeed so ? If I lay here dead, 
 
 Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine ? 
 And would the sun for thee more coldly shine 
 Because of grave-damps falling round my head ? 
 I marvelled, my Beloved, when I read 
 Thy thought so in the letter. I am thine — 
 But . . so much to thee ? Can I pour thy wine 
 While my hands tremble ? Then my soul, instead 
 Of dreams of death, resumes life's lower range. 
 Then, love me, Love ! look on me — breathe on me ! 
 As brighter ladies do not count it strange, 
 For love, to give up acres and degree, 
 I yield the grave for thy sake, and exchange 
 My near sweet view of Heaven for earth with thee !
 
 English Sonnets 211 
 
 CCCCXVII 
 6 
 
 IF I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange Elizabeth 
 
 P Barrett 
 
 And be all to me ? Shall I never miss Bkowning 
 
 Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss ■ 1809— 1861 
 
 That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange, 
 
 When I look up, to drop on a new range 
 
 Of walls and floors, another home than this ? 
 
 Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is 
 
 Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change ? 
 
 That's hardest. If to conquer love, has tried. 
 
 To conquer grief, tries more, as all things prove ; 
 
 For grief indeed is love and grief beside. 
 
 Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love. 
 
 Yet love me — wilt thou ? Open thine heart wide, 
 
 And fold within the wet wings of thy dove. 
 
 ccccxvm j 
 
 ! 
 
 TTOW do I love thee ? Let me count the ways. ■ 
 
 I love thee to the depth and breadth and height 
 My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight ; 
 
 For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. 
 
 I love thee to the level of everyday's 1 
 
 Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. ; 
 
 I love thee freely, as men strive for Right ; 
 
 I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise ; ; 
 
 I love thee with the passion put to use 1 
 
 In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. j 
 
 I love thee with a love I seemed to lose i 
 
 With my lost saints, — I love thee with the breath, 
 Smiles, tears, of all my life ! — and, if God choose, 
 I shall but love thee better after death.
 
 212 A Treasury of | 
 
 ccccxix . 
 
 GLASTONBURY. ^ 
 
 Henry alford (~\^ thy green marge, thou vale of Avalon, | 
 
 181^871 ^^ Not for that thou art crowned with ancient | 
 
 towers I 
 
 And shafts and clustered pillars many a one, ; 
 
 Love I to dream away the sunny hours ; 
 Not for that here in charmed slumber lie 
 The holy rehcs of that British king 
 Who was the flower of knightly chivalry, 
 Do I stand blest past power of uttering ;— 
 But for that on thy cowslip-sprinkled sod ! 
 
 Alit of old the olive-bearing bird, 
 Meek messenger of purchased peace with God ; 
 And the first hymns that Britain ever heard 
 Arose, the low preluding melodies 
 To the sweetest anthem that hath reached the skies. 
 
 ccccxx 
 
 RISE, said the Master, come unto the feast : — 
 She heard the call and rose with willing feet ; 
 But thinking it not otherwise than meet 
 For such a bidding to put on her best, 
 She is gone from us for a few short hours 
 Into her bridal closet, there to wait 
 For the unfolding of the palace gate. 
 That gives her entrance to the blissful bowers. 
 We have not seen her yet, though we have been 
 Full often to her chamber door, and oft 
 Have listened underneath the postern green, 
 And laid fresh flowers, and whispered short and soft ; 
 But she hath made no answer ; and the day 
 From the clear west is fading fast away.
 
 English Sonnets 213 
 
 ccccxxi 
 
 /^H blessing and delight of my young heart, Arthur Henry 
 
 ^^^ Maiden, who was so lovely and so pure, — 
 
 . , . , 1811— 1833 
 
 I know not in what region now thou art, 
 
 Or whom thy gentle eyes in joy assure. 
 
 Not the old hills on which we gazed together, 
 
 Not the old faces which we both did love, 
 
 Not the old books whence knowledge we did gather — 
 
 Not these, but others now thy fancies move. 
 
 I would I knew thy present hopes and fears, 
 
 All thy companions, with their pleasant talk. 
 
 And the clear aspect which thy dwelling wears ; 
 
 So, though in body absent, I might walk 
 
 With thee in thought and feeling, till thy mood 
 
 Did sanctify mine own to peerless good. 
 
 CCCCXXII 
 
 WRITTEN IN EDINBURGH. 
 
 "PVEN thus, methinks, a city reared should be, 
 
 ■^ Yea, an imperial city, that might hold 
 
 Five times a hundred noble towns in fee, 
 
 And either with their might of Babel old, 
 
 Or the rich Roman pomp of empery 
 
 Might stand compare, highest in arts enrolled. 
 
 Highest in arms ; brave tenement for the free, 
 
 Who never crouch to thrones, or sin for gold. 
 
 Thus should her towers be raised — with vicinage 
 
 Of clear bold hills, that curve her very streets, 
 
 As if to vindicate 'mid choicest seats 
 
 Of art, abiding Nature's majesty ; 
 
 And the broad sea beyond, in calm or rage 
 
 Chainless aUke, and teaching Liberty.
 
 214 A Treasury of 
 
 CCCCXXIII 
 
 ^^^nl^u''^'' A ^^^ • ^^^^ sometimes even a duteous life, 
 3- If uninspired by love, and love-born joy, 
 
 Grows fevered in the world's unholy strife, 
 And sinks destroyed by that it would destroy ! 
 Beloved, from the boisterous deeds that fill 
 The measure up of this unquiet time, 
 The dull monotonies of Faction's chime, 
 And irrepressible thoughts foreboding ill, 
 I turn to thee as to a heaven apart — 
 Oh ! not apart, not distant, near me ever. 
 So near my soul that nothing can thee sever ! 
 How shall I fear, knowing there is for me 
 A city of refuge, builded pleasantly 
 Within the silent places of the heart ? 
 
 ccccxxiv 
 
 T ADY, I bid thee to a sunny dome 
 ■^^ Ringing with echoes of Italian song : 
 Henceforth to thee these magic halls belong, 
 And all the pleasant place is like a home. 
 Hark, on the right with full piano tone 
 Old Dante's voice encircles all the air ; 
 Hark yet again, like flute-tones mingling rare, 
 Comes the keen sweetness of Petrarca's moan. 
 Pass thou the lintel freely : without fear 
 Feast on the music : I do better know thee. 
 Than to suspect this pleasure thou dost owe me 
 Will wrong thy gentle spirit, or make less dear 
 That element whence thou must draw thy life, — 
 An English maiden and an English wife.
 
 English Sonnets 215 
 
 ccccxxv 
 
 OPEED ye, warm hours, along the appointed path, ^^1"^'''' 
 
 Speed, though ye bring but pain, slow pain to me; 181^833 
 I will not much bemoan your heavy wrath, 
 So ye will make my lady glad and free. 
 AVhat is't that I must here confined be, 
 If she may roam the summer's sweets among, 
 See the full-cupped flower, the laden tree, 
 Hear from deep groves the thousand-voiced song ? 
 Sometimes in that still chamber will she sit 
 Trim-ranged with books, and cool with dusky blinds 
 That keep the moon out, there, as seemed fit, 
 To sing, or play, or read — what sweet hope finds 
 Way to my heart ? perchance some verse of mine — 
 O happy I ! speed on, ye hours divine ! 
 
 ccccxxvi 
 
 'T'HE garden trees are busy with the shower 
 
 That fell ere sunset : now methinks they talk, 
 Lowly and sweetly as befits the hour. 
 One to another down the grassy walk. 
 Hark the laburnum from his opening flower 
 This cherry-creeper greets in whisper light. 
 While the grim fir, rejoicing in the night, 
 Hoarse mutters to the murmuring sycamore. 
 What shall I deem their converse ? Would they hail 
 The wild grey light that fronts yon massive cloud. 
 Or the half-bow, rising like pillared fire ? 
 Or are they sighing faintly for desire 
 That with May dawn their leaves may be o'erflowed. 
 And dews about their feet may never fail ?
 
 2i6 A Treasury of . 
 
 CCCCXXVII 
 
 THE FOUR RELIGIOUS HEATHENS. 
 
 I 
 
 HE RO DO TUS. 
 
 ' CONVERSE IN FEAR, DURING THE TIME OF YOUR SOJOURNING HERE.' 
 
 Frederick T T E was a mild old man, and cherished much 
 
 William | | ' 
 
 Faber ■■- -*- The weight dark Egypt on his spirit laid ; 
 
 1814— 1863 And with a sinuous eloquence would touch 
 For ever at that haven of the dead. 
 Single romantic words by him were thrown, 
 As types, on men and places, with a power 
 Like that of shifting sunlight after shower 
 Kindling the cones of hills and journeying on. 
 He feared the gods and heroes, and spake low. 
 That Echo might not hear in her light room : 
 He was a dweller underground ; for gloom 
 Fitted old heathen goodness more than glow ; 
 And, where love was not, faith might gather mirth 
 From ore that glistened in pale beds of earth. 
 
 CCCCXXVIII 
 
 2 
 
 N I CI A S . 
 
 'IN ALL THESE THINGS JOB SINNED NOT BY HIS LIPS, NOR SPOKE HE 
 ANY FOOLISH THINGS AGAINST GOD.' 
 
 TVT URSLING of heathen fear ! thy woful being, 
 
 Was steeped in gentleness by long disease. 
 Though round thine awestruck mind were ever fleeing 
 Omens, and signs, and direful presages. 
 One might believe in frames so gently stern 
 Some Christian thoughts before their time did burn. 
 Sadness was unto thee for love ; thy spirit 
 Rose loftily like some hard-featured stone, 
 Which summer sunbeam never makes its throne. 
 E'en while it fills the skirts of vapour near it. 
 One wert thou, Nicias ! of the few who urge 
 Their stricken souls where far-seen Death doth hover 
 In vision on them, nor may they diverge 
 From the black line his chilling shadows cover.
 
 English Sonnets 217 
 
 CCCCXXIX 
 3 
 
 so CR A T E S . 
 
 ' OF MAKING MANY BOOKS THERE IS NO END ; AND MUCH STUDY IS 
 AN AFFLICTION OF THE FLESH.' 
 
 THOU, mighty Heathen, wert not^o bereft Frederick 
 
 ' o J William 
 
 Of heavenly helps to thy great-hearted deeds, ^'aber 
 
 That thou shouldst dig for truths in broken creeds, 1S14— 1S63 
 
 'Mid the loose sands of four old empires left. 
 
 Motions and shadows dimly glowing fell 
 
 On thy broad soul from forms invisible. 
 
 With its plain grandeur, simple, calm, and free, 
 
 What wonder was it that thy life should merit 
 
 Sparkles of grace, and angel ministry. 
 
 With jealous glimpses of the world of spirit ? 
 
 Greatest and best in this — that thy pure mind, 
 
 Upon its saving mission all intent, . 1 
 
 Scorned the untruth of leaving books behind, i 
 
 To claim for thine what through thy lips was sent. ' 
 
 ccccxxx ' "". I 
 
 4 ' 
 
 SENECA. 
 
 'when peter came, his SHAOOW AT THE LEAST MIGHT OVERSHADOW ; 
 
 ANY OF THEM.' ,j 
 
 /^FT in the crowd and crossings of old Rome ' 
 
 ^-^^ The Christ-like shadow of the gifted Paul, j 
 
 As he looked forth betimes from his hired home, I 
 
 Might at this Gentile's hurrying footsteps fall, \ 
 
 When, from his mournings in the Caesar's hall, ' j 
 
 Spurred by great thoughts, the troubled sage might come. 1 
 
 Some balmy truths most surely did he borrow ; 
 
 From the sweet neighbourhood of Christ, to bring j 
 
 The harsh, hard waters of his heathen spring j 
 
 In softening ducts o'er wastes of pagan sorrow. \ 
 
 As slips of green from fertile confines shoot \ 
 
 Into the tracts of sand, so heathen duty \ 
 Caught from his guided pen a cold, bright beauty, 
 
 Where flowers might all but blossom into fruit. \
 
 2l8 
 
 A Treasu7-y of 
 
 Frederick 
 
 %VlLUAM 
 
 Faber 
 1814— 1863 
 
 CCCCXXXI 
 ON THE RAMPARTS A T ANGOULEME. 
 
 "A "X THY art thou speechless, O thou setting Sun ? 
 Speak ^to this earth, speak to this Hstening 
 scene, 
 Where Charente flows among the meadows green, 
 And in his gilded waters, one by one. 
 The inverted minarets of poplar quake 
 With expectation, until thou shalt break 
 The intolerable silence. See ! he sinks 
 Without a word ; and his ensanguined bier 
 Is vacant in the west, while far and near 
 Behold ! each coward shadow eastward shrinks. 
 Thou dost not strive, O sun, nor dost thou cry 
 Amid thy cloud-built streets ;, but meek and still 
 Thou dost the type of Jesus best fulfil, 
 A noiseless revelation in the sky. 
 
 John Forster 
 1812— 1876 
 
 CCCCXXXII 
 TO CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 /'^ENIUS and its rewards are briefly told : 
 ^^ A liberal nature and a niggard doom, 
 A difficult journey to a splendid tomb. 
 New-writ, nor lightly weighed, that story old 
 In gentle Goldsmith's life I here unfold : 
 Through other than lone wild or desert-gloom. 
 In its mere joy and pain, its blight and bloom. 
 Adventurous. Come with me and behold, 
 O friend with heart as gentle for distress. 
 As resolute with fine wise thoughts to bind 
 The happiest to the unhappiest of our kind, 
 That there is fiercer crowded misery 
 In garret-toil and London loneliness 
 Than in cruel islands 'mid the far-off sea.
 
 T 
 
 English Sonnets 219 
 
 CCCCXXXIII 
 
 HOUGH to the vilest things beneath the moon Arthur Hugh 
 
 ° Clough 
 
 For poor Ease' sake I give away my heart, 
 And for the moment's sympathy let part 
 My sight and sense of truth, Thy precious boon, 
 My painful earnings, lost, all lost, as soon 
 Almost as gained ; and though aside I start, 
 Belie Thee daily, hourly, — still Thou art. 
 Art surely as in heaven the sun at noon : 
 How much soe'er I sin, whate'er I do 
 Of evil, still the sky above is blue, 
 The stars look down in beauty as before : . 
 Is it enough to walk as best we may, 
 To walk, and, sighing, dream of that blest day 
 When ill we cannot quell shall be ng more ? 
 
 ccccxxxiv 
 TO THE AUTHORESS OF " OUR VILLAGE." 
 
 T 
 
 Well pleased to recognize in lowliest shade 
 Some glimmer of its parent beam, and made 
 By daily draughts of brightness, inly bright. 
 The taste severe, yet graceful, trained aright 
 In classic depth and clearness, and repaid 
 By thanks and honour from the wise and staid, 
 By pleasant skill to blame, and yet delight. 
 And high communion with the eloquent throng 
 Of those who purified our speech and song — ■ 
 All these are yours. The same examples lure 
 You in each woodland, me on breezy moor — 
 With kindred aim the same sweet path along. 
 To knit in loving knowledge rich and poor. 
 
 1S19 — 1861 
 
 HE single eye, the daughter of the light ; Charles 
 
 rs.IXGSLEY 
 
 1819 — 1875
 
 2 20 A Treasury of 
 
 ccccxxxv 
 William T IKE a musician that with flying finger 
 
 Caldwell I . ^ o o 
 
 RoscoE Startles the voice of some new instrument, 
 
 1823— 1859 And, though he know that in one string are blent 
 All its extremes of sound, yet still doth linger 
 Among the lighter threads, fearing to start 
 The deep soul of that one melodious wire, 
 Lest it, unanswering, dash his high desire. 
 And spoil the hopes of his expectant heart ; — 
 Thus, with my mistress oft conversing, I 
 Stir every lighter theme with careless voice, 
 Gathering sweet music and celestial joys 
 From the harmonious soul o'er which I fly ; 
 Yet o'er the one deep master-chord I hover, 
 And dare not stoop, fearing to tell — I love her. 
 
 ccccxxxvi 
 
 TO MY MOTHER. 
 
 A S winter, in some mild autumnal days. 
 
 Breathes such an air as youngest spring discloses. 
 So age in thee renews an infant's grace, 
 And clothes thy cheek in soft November roses. 
 Time hath made friends with Beauty in thy face. 
 And, since the wheeling Fates must be obeyed, 
 White rime upon thy gracious head he lays, 
 But whispers gently not to be afraid ; 
 And tenderly, like one that leads the blind, 
 He soothes thy lingering footsteps to the gate. 
 While that great Angel, who there keeps his state. 
 Smiles to behold with what slow feet he moves. 
 Move slower, gentlier yet, O Time ! or find 
 A way to fix her here, bound by our filial loves.
 
 English Sonnets 221 
 
 CCCCXXXVII 
 TO A FRIEND. 
 
 William 
 Caldwell 
 
 O AD soul, whom God, resuming what Hq gave, 
 
 *^ Medicines with bitter anguish of the tomb, Roscoe 
 
 Cease to oppress the portals of the grave, 1823— 1859 
 
 And strain thy aching sight across the gloom. 
 
 The surged Atlantic's winter-beaten wave 
 
 Shall sooner pierce the purpose of the wind 
 
 Than thy storm-tossed and heavy-swelling mind 
 
 Grasp the full import of his means to save. 
 
 Through the dark night lie still ; God's faithful grace 
 
 Lies hid, like morning, underneath the sea. 
 
 Let thy slow hours roll, like these weary stars, * 
 
 Down to the level ocean patiently ; 
 
 Till his loved hand shall touch the Eastern bars. 
 
 And his full glory shine upon thy face. 
 
 CCCCXXXVIII 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN HAMILTON THOM. 
 
 IVr ATURE'S least worthy growths have quickest spring. 
 
 And soonest answering service readiest meed, 
 And undiscerning glory's shining wing 
 Lights earliest on an ill-deserving head. 
 Winter o'er autumn-scattered wheat doth fling 
 A white oblivion that keeps warm the seed ; 
 And wisest thought needs deepest burying, 
 Before its ripe effect begins to breed. 
 Therefore, O spiritual seedsman, cast 
 With unregretful hand thy rich grain forth, 
 Nor think thy word's regenerating birth 
 Dead, that so long lies locked in human breast. 
 Time, slow to foster things of lesser worth, 
 Broods o'er thy work, and God permits no waste.
 
 222 A Treasury of 
 
 William 
 Caldwell 
 
 CCCCXXXIX 
 DA YBREAK IN FEBRUARY. 
 
 /^VER the ground white snow, and in the air 
 Roscoe" ^~^ Silence. The stars, Hke lamps soon to expire 
 1823—1859 Gleam tremblingly ; serene and heavenly fair, 
 The eastern hanging crescent climbeth higher. 
 See, purple on the azure softly steals, 
 And Morning, faintly touched with quivering fire; 
 Leans on the frosty summits of the hills, 
 Like a young girl over her hoary sire. 
 Oh, such a dawning over me has come, — 
 The daybreak of thy purity and love ; — 
 ♦ The sadness of the never-satiate tomb 
 
 Thy countenance hath power to remove ; 
 
 And from the sepulchre of Hope thy palm 
 
 Can roll the stone, and raise her bright and calm. 
 
 CCCCXL 
 
 'X'HE bubble of the silver-springing waves, 
 
 Castalian music, and that flattering sound, 
 Low rustling of the loved Apollian leaves. 
 With which my youthful hair was to be crowned. 
 Grow dimmer in my ears ; while Beauty grieves 
 Over her votary, less frequent found ; 
 And, not untouched by storms, my life-boat heaves 
 Through the splashed ocean-waters, outward bound. 
 And as the leaning mariner, his hand 
 Clasped on his ear, stri\tes trembling to reclaim 
 Some loved lost echo from the fleeting strand, 
 So lean I back to the poetic land ; 
 And in my heart a sound, a voice, a name 
 Hangs, as above the lamp hangs the expiring flame.
 
 R 
 
 English Sonnets 223 
 
 CCCCXLI 
 BY THE SEA-SIDE. 
 UN in, glad waves, scooped in transparent shells, dJummond 
 
 Which catch soft lights of emerald ere they break; nui<Ns 
 Let the small ripple fret the sand, and make 1823— 1864 
 
 The faintest chime of music, such as dwells 
 Far down within the sea-conch's murmuring cells, 
 While, hovering o'er the spray, the white birds wet 
 Their wings, and shouting fishers draw the net i 
 
 To land, and far sails glitter on the swells. i 
 
 'Tis bliss to rest, the while these soft blue skies i 
 
 Breathe over earth their benison of peace, 1 
 
 To feel these lowly forms enchant the eyes, ^ : 
 
 And grow into .the mind by slow degrees, ; 
 
 Till, breathless as a woodland pool, it lies 1 
 
 And sleeps above its sleeping images. 
 
 CCCCXLII 
 
 ' omens: 
 
 A yT ETHINKS the innumerable eyes of ours, Sydney Dobell 
 
 That must untimely close in endless night, 1824— 1874 
 
 Take in one sum their natural due of light : 
 Feathered like summer birds, their unlived hours 
 Sing to them : at their prison pitying flowers 
 Push through the bars a Future red and white, 
 Purple and gold : for them, for them, yon bright 
 Star, as an eye, exstils and fills, and pours 
 Its tear, and fills and weeps, to fill and weep : 
 For them that Moon from her wild couch on high 
 Now stretches arms that wooed Endymion, 
 Now swooning back against the sky stares down 
 Like some white mask of ancient tragedy, 
 With orbless lids that neither wake nor sleep.
 
 224 -^ Treasury of 
 
 CCCCXLIII 
 
 HOME, IN WAR-TIME. 
 
 Sydney Dobell OHE tumcd the fair page with her fairer hand — 
 182^874 ^ More fair and frail than it Avas wont to be ; 
 O'er each remembered thing he loved to see 
 She lingered, and as with a fairy's wand 
 Enchanted it to order. Oft she fanned 
 New motes into the sun ; and as a bee 
 Sings through a brake of bells, so murmured she, 
 And so her patient love did understand 
 The reliquary room. Upon the sill 
 She fed his favourite bird. ' Ah, Robin, sing ! 
 He loves thee.' Then she touches a sweet string 
 Of soft recall, and towards the Eastern hill 
 Smiles all her soul — for him who cannot hear 
 The raven croaking at his carrion ear. 
 
 CCCCXLIV 
 THE ARMY SURGEON. 
 
 /^VER that breathing waste of friends and foes, 
 
 ^^ The wounded and the dying, hour by hour, 
 
 In will a thousand, yet but one in power. 
 
 He labours through the red and groaning day. 
 
 The fearful moorland where the myriads lay 
 
 Moved as a moving field of mangled worms. 
 
 And as a raw brood, orphaned in the storms, 
 
 Thrust up their heads if the wind bend a spray 
 
 Above them, but when the bare branch performs 
 
 No sweet parental office, sink away 
 
 With helpless chirp of woe, — so, as he goes, 
 
 Around his feet in clamorous agony 
 
 They rise and fall ; and all the seething plain 
 
 Bubbles a cauldron vast of many-coloured pain.
 
 English Sonnets 225 
 
 CCCCXLV 
 AMERICA. 
 
 "XT OR force nor fraud shall sunder us ! Oh ye Sydney Dobell 
 -^ ^ Who north or south, on east or western land, 1824—1874 
 Native to noble sounds, say truth for truth, 
 Freedom for freedom, love for love, and God 
 For God ; Oh ye who in eternal youth 
 Speak with a living and creative flood 
 This universal English, and do stand 
 Its breathing book ; live worthy of that grand 
 Heroic utterance — parted, yet a whole. 
 Far, yet unsevered, — children brave and free 
 Of the great mother-tongue, and ye shall be 
 Lords of an empire wide as Shakspeare's soul, 
 Sublime as Milton's immemorial theme. 
 And rich as Chaucer's speech, aixi fair as Spenser's 
 dream. 
 
 CCCCXLVI ; 
 
 TO A FRIEND IN BEREA VEMENT. I 
 
 I 
 
 IVTO comfort, nay, no comfort. Yet would I j 
 
 In Sorrow's cause with Sorrow intercede \ 
 
 Burst not the great heart, — this is all I plead ; 
 Ah, sentence it to suffer, not to die. 
 ' Comfort ? ' If Jesus wept at Bethany — 
 That doze and nap of Death — how may we bleed 
 Who watch the long sleep that is sleep indeed ! 
 Pointing to Heaven I but remind you why 
 On earth you still must mourn. He who, being bold 
 For life-to-come, is false to the past sweet 
 Of mortal life, hath killed the world above. 
 For why to live again if not to meet ? 
 And why to meet if not to meet in love ? , 
 And why in love if not in that dear love of old ? 
 p
 
 226 
 
 A Treasury of 
 
 Mortimer 
 
 Collins 
 
 1827 — 1876 
 
 CCCCXLVII 
 CA TULL US. 
 
 OTUDENT who weariest o'er syntactic rules, 
 
 *^ Prosodial guesses, etymons profound, 
 
 The crabbed thorns that grow on classic ground, 
 
 Cacophonous jargon of the grammar schools. 
 
 The pedagogue's inevitable tools 
 
 To interpret ancient verse, — yet gaze around 
 
 On English woodlands ; wander where abound 
 
 Calm-gliding rivers, dusky forest-pools 
 
 Where the deer drink ; and verily believe 
 
 That this Catullus, when by Sirmio 
 
 His pinnace flashed along the Lydian Lake, 
 
 Thoughts from immortal Nature did receive 
 
 Fresh as the winds are, perfect as the glow 
 
 Of the Orient hills when Morning doth awake. 
 
 Julian Fane 
 1827 — 1870 
 
 CCCCXLVIII 
 AD MA THEM. 
 
 MARCH 13, 1862. 
 
 /^FT in the after-days, when thou and I 
 ^-^^ Have fallen from the scope of human view, 
 When, both together, under the sweet sky 
 We sleep beneath the daisies and the dew. 
 Men will recall thy gracious presence bland. 
 Conning the pictured sweetness of thy face ; 
 Will pore o'er paintings by thy plastic hand. 
 And vaunt thy skill, and tell thy deeds of grace. 
 Oh may they then, who crown thee with true bays. 
 Saying, ' What love unto her son she bore ! ' 
 Make this addition to thy perfect praise, 
 * Nor ever yet was mother worshipped more ! ' 
 So shall I live with thee, and thy dear fame 
 Shall link my love unto thine honoured name.
 
 English Sonnets 
 
 227 
 
 CCCCXLIX 
 AD MA TREM. 
 
 MARCH 13, 1863. 
 
 /^H what a royalty of song should greet 
 
 ^^ The unclouded advent of thy natal day ! 
 
 All things of musical utterance should meet 
 
 In concord of a many-sounding lay ; — 
 
 Let the proud trumpet tongue thy noble praise, 
 
 The rolling drum reverberate thy fame, 
 
 Let fifes and flutes their fluttering voices raise, 
 
 And the glad cymbals tinkle to thy name ; 
 
 Let the clear horn play tribute to thy truth. 
 
 The deep-based viol tenderly intone 
 
 Thy womanly pity and large heart of ruth ; 
 
 But of my love let my voice sing alone : 
 
 Theme to my jealous lips most dear, most meet, 
 
 If that my voice to voice it were more sweet. 
 
 Julian Fane 
 1827 — 1870 
 
 CCCCL 
 AD MA TREM. 
 
 MARCH 13, 1864. 
 
 IV /TUSIC, and frankincense of flowers, belong 
 
 To this sweet festival of all the year. 
 Take, then, the latest blossom of my song, 
 And to Love's canticle incline thine ear. 
 What is it that Love chaunts ? thy perfect praise. 
 What is it that Love prays ? worthy to prove. 
 What is it Love desires ? thy length of days. 
 What is it that Love asks ? return of love. 
 Ah, what requital can Love ask more dear 
 Than by Love's priceless self to be repaid ? 
 Thy liberal love, increasing year by year. 
 Hath granted more than all my heart hath prayed. 
 And, prodigal as Nature, makes me pine 
 To think how poor my love compared with thine !
 
 228 A Treasury of 
 
 CCCCLI 
 
 AD MA TREM 
 
 MARCH 13, 1870. 
 
 I 
 
 Julian Fake "IT THEN the vast heaven is dark with ominous 
 1827-1870 V V clouds, 
 
 That lower their gloomful faces to the earth ; 
 When all things sweet and fair are cloaked in shrouds, 
 And dire calamity and care have birth ; 
 When furious tempests strip the woodland green, 
 And from bare boughs the hapless songsters sing ; 
 When Winter stalks, a spectre, on the scene. 
 And breathes a blight on every living thing ; 
 Then, when the spirit of man, by sickness tried. 
 Half fears, half hopes, that Death be at his side, 
 Outleaps the sun, and gives him life again. 
 O Mother, I clasped Death ; but, seeing thy face. 
 Leapt from his dark arms to thy dear embrace. 
 
 CCCCLII 
 
 2 
 
 O, like a wanderer from the world of shades. 
 
 Back to the firm earth and familiar skies, 
 Back to that light of love that never fades — 
 The unbroken sunshine of thy blissful eyes, 
 
 1 come — to greet thee on this happy day 
 That lets a fresh pearl on thy life appear ; 
 That decks thy jewelled age with fresh array 
 Of good deeds done within the circled year ; 
 So art thou robed in majesty of grace, 
 
 In regal purple of pure womanhood ; 
 Throned in thy high pre-eminence of place ; 
 Sceptred and crowned, a very Queen of Good. 
 Receive my blessing, perfect as thou art, 
 Queen of all good, and sovereign of my heart.
 
 English Sonnets 229 
 
 CCCCLIII 
 
 BEAUTY still walketh on the earth and air : Alexander 
 
 Smith 
 
 Our present sunsets are as rich in gold — 
 
 . . ° 1830— 1867 
 
 As ere the Iliad's music was out-rolled, 
 
 The roses of the Spring are ever fair, 
 
 'Mong branches green still ring-doves coo and pair, 
 
 And the deep sea still foams its music old ; 
 
 So, if we are at all divinely souled, 
 
 This beauty will unloose our bonds of care. 
 
 'Tis pleasant, when blue skies are o'er us bending 
 
 Within old starry-gated Poesy, 
 
 To meet a soul set to no worldly tune. 
 
 Like thine, sweet Friend ! Oh, dearer this to me 
 
 Than are the dewy trees, the sun, the moon, 
 
 Or noble music with a golden ending. 
 
 CCCCLIV 
 
 T AST night my cheek was wetted with warm tears, 
 ■^ Each worth a world. They fell from eyes divine. 
 Last night a loving lip was pressed to mine 
 And at its touch fled all the barren years ; 
 And softly couched upon a bosom white. 
 Which came and went beneath me like a sea. 
 An emperor I lay in empire bright. 
 Lord of the beating heart, while tenderly 
 Love-words were glutting my love-greedy ears. 
 Kind Love, I thank thee for that happy night ! 
 Richer this cheek with those warm tears of thine 
 Than the vast midnight with its gleaming spheres, 
 Leander toiling through the moonlight brine, 
 Kingdomless Anthony, were scarce my peers.
 
 Alexander 
 Smith 
 
 1830 — 1867 
 
 230 A Treasury of 
 
 ! 
 
 CCCCLV j 
 
 QHEATHED is the river as it glideth by, i 
 
 "^ Frost-pearled are all the boughs in forests old, \ 
 
 The sheep are huddling close upon the wold, ] 
 
 And over them the stars tremble on high. j 
 
 Pure joys these winter nights around me lie ; — ' 
 
 'Tis fine to loiter through the lighted street ] 
 
 At Christmas time, and guess from brow and pace \ 
 
 The doom and history of each one we meet, 
 
 What kind of heart beats in each dusky case • 
 
 Whiles startled by the beauty of a face 
 
 In a shop-light a moment. Or instead, 
 
 To dream of silent fields where calm and deep 
 
 The sunshine lieth like a golden sleep — 
 
 Recalling sweetest looks of Summers dead. 
 
 CCCCLVI 
 MISS NIGHTINGALE. 
 
 T TOW must the soldier's tearful heart expand, 
 
 •^ -*• Who from a long and obscure dream of pain, — 
 
 His foeman's frown imprinted in his brain, — 
 
 Wakes to thy healing face and dewy hand ! 
 
 When this great noise hath rolled from off the land. 
 
 When all those fallen Englishmen of ours 
 
 Have bloomed and faded in Crimean flowers, 
 
 Thy perfect charity unsoiled shall stand. 
 
 Some pitying student of a nobler age. 
 
 Lingering o'er this year's half-forgotten page, 
 
 Shall see its beauty smiling ever there ; 
 
 Surprised to tears his beating heart he stills, 
 
 Like one who finds among Athenian hills 
 
 A Temple like a lily white and fair.
 
 English Sonnets 231 
 
 CCCCLVII 
 
 OWEET Mavis ! at this cool delicious hour david Gray 
 
 Of gloaming, when a pensive quietness iSasHTsei 
 
 Hushes the odorous air, — with what a power 
 Of impulse unsubdued dost thou express 
 Thyself a spirit ! While the silver dew 
 Holy as manna on the meadow falls. 
 Thy song's impassioned clarity, trembling through 
 This omnipresent stillness, disenthrals 
 The soul to adoration. First I heard 
 A low thick lubric gurgle, soft as love. 
 Yet sad as memory, through the silence poured 
 Like starlight. But the mood intenser grows, 
 Precipitate rapture quickens, move on move 
 Lucidly linked together, till the close. 
 
 CCCCLVIII ; 
 
 j\ DEEP unlovely brooklet, moaning slow ! 
 
 Through moorish fen in utter loneliness ! 
 The partridge cowers beside thy loamy flow j 
 
 In pulseful tremor, when with sudden press ' 
 
 The huntsman fluskers through the rustled heather. 
 In March thy sallow-buds from vermeil shells \ 
 
 Break, satin-tinted, downy as the feather ! 
 
 Of moss-chat, that among the purplish bells | 
 
 Breasts into fresh new life her three unborn. 
 The plover hovers o'er thee, uttering clear 
 
 And mournful, strange, his human cry forlorn ; ; 
 
 While wearily, alone, and void of cheer, j 
 
 Thou guid'st thy nameless waters from the fen, 
 To sleep unsunned in an untrampled glen.
 
 232 A Treasury of 
 
 CCCCLIX 
 IN THE SHADOWS. 
 
 David Gray TF it must be ; if it must be, O God ! 
 
 1838^861 •*- That I die young, and make no further moans ; 
 That underneath the unrespective sod. 
 In unescutcheoned privacy, my bones 
 Shall crumble soon, — then give me strength to bear 
 The last convulsive throe of too sweet breath ! 
 I tremble from the edge of life, to dare 
 The dark and fatal leap, having no faith. 
 No glorious yearning for the Apocalypse. 
 But like a child that in the night-time cries 
 For light, I cry ; forgetting the eclipse 
 Of knowledge and our human destinies. 
 O peevish and uncertain soul ! obey 
 The law of life in patience till the Day. 
 
 CCCCLX 
 
 TVTOW, while the long-delaying ash assumes 
 -•- ^ The delicate April green, and, loud and clear. 
 Through the cool, yellow, mellow twilight glooms, 
 The thrush's song enchants the captive ear ; 
 Now, while a shower is pleasant in the falling. 
 Stirring the still perfume that wakes around ; 
 Now that doves mourn, and from the distance cal- 
 ling, 
 The cuckoo answers Avith a sovereign sound, — 
 Come, with thy native heart, O true and tried ! 
 But leave all books ; for what with converse high. 
 Flavoured with Attic wit, the time shall glide 
 On smoothly, as a river floweth by. 
 Or as on stately pinion, through the gray 
 Evening, the culver cuts his liquid way.
 
 English Sonnets 233 
 
 CCCCLXI 
 IN THE SHADOWS. 
 3 
 /^CTOBER'S gold is dim— the forests rot, DAvmGRAv 
 
 ^^ The weary rain falls ceaseless, while the day 1838—1861 
 Is wrapped in damp. In mire of village way 
 The hedge-row leaves are stamped ; and, all forgot, 
 The broodless nest sits visible in the thorn. 
 Autumn, among her drooping marigolds, 
 Weeps all her garnered sheaves, and empty folds. 
 And dripping orchards — plundered and forlorn. 
 The season is a dead one, and I die ! 
 No more, no more for me the Spring shall make 
 A resurrection in the earth, and take 
 The death from out her heart — O God, I die ! 
 The cold throat-mist creeps nearer, till I breathe 
 Corruption. Drop, stark night, upon my death ! 
 
 CCCCLXII 
 
 4 
 
 T^IE down, O dismal day ! and let me live ; 
 
 And come, blue deeps ! magnificently strown 
 With coloured clouds — large, light, and fugitive — 
 By upper winds through pompous motions blown. 
 Now it is death in life — a vapour dense 
 Creeps round my window till I cannot see 
 The far snow- shining mountains, and the glens 
 Shagging the mountain-tops. O God ! make free 
 This barren, shackled earth, so deadly cold — 
 Breathe gently forth Thy Spring, till Winter flies 
 In rude amazement, fearful and yet bold. 
 While she performs her 'customed charities. 
 I weigh the loaded hours till life is bare — 
 O God ! for one clear day, a snowdrop, and sweet air !
 
 1855—1874 
 
 234 A Treasury of English Sonnets. 
 
 CCCCLXIII 
 
 „» ^"Yf'' 1\.T0 more these passion-worn faces shall men's eyes 
 
 Madox Brown I ^ . . 
 
 — Behold in life. Death leaves no trace behind 
 
 Of their wild hate and wilder love, grown blind 
 In desperate longing, more than the foam which lies 
 Splashed up awhile where the showered spray descries 
 The waves whereto their cold limbs were resigned ; 
 Yet ever doth the sea-wind's undefined 
 Vague wailing shudder with their dying sighs. 
 For all men's souls 'twixt sorrow and love are cast, 
 As on the earth each lingers his brief space. 
 While surely nightfall comes, where each man's face 
 In death's obliteration sinks at last 
 As a deserted wind-tossed sea's foam-trace — 
 Life's chilled boughs emptied by death's autumn-blast.
 
 NOTES
 
 NOTES 
 
 Sir (Tkmits Mmt airb tlje @arl of Sitrreg. 
 
 ' In the latter end of the same kings raigne ' (Heniy VIII's), writes 
 Puttenham, ' sprong up a new company of courtly makers, of whom 
 Sir T/iomas Wyat th' elder & Henry Earle of Surrey were the two chief- 
 taines, who having travailed into Italic, and there tasted the sweete and 
 stately measures and stile of the Italian Poesie as novices newly crept 
 out of the schooles of Dante, Aiioste, and Petrarch, they greatly pollished 
 our rude & homely maner of vulgar Poesie, from that it had bene 
 before, and for that cause may justly be sayd the first reformers of our 
 English meetre and stile.' ' The poems of Wyat and Surrey, fellow- 
 singers whose 'sweet breath,' more immediately than Dan Chaucer's, 
 
 ' Preluded those melodious bursts, that fill 
 The spacious times of great Elizabeth,' 
 
 though extensively circulated in manuscript, and possibly on loose 
 printed sheets also, during the lives of their authors, were not published 
 in the ordinary sense of the word until 1557, when they appeared, with 
 others, in TotteVs Miscellany} The two poets have often been elabo- 
 rately compared, but by none better than Mr. Stopford Brooke, thus 
 succinctly : ' The subjects of Wyatt and Surrey were chiefly lyrical, and 
 the fact that they imitated the same model has made some likeness 
 between them. Like their personal characters, however, the poetry of 
 Wyatt is the more thoughtful and the more strongly felt, but Surrey's has 
 a sweeter movement and a livelier fancy. Both did this great thing for 
 English verse — they chose an exquisite model, and in imitating it " cor- 
 rected the ruggedness of English poetry." ' ^ One consequence of this 
 difference in character and temperament was that Wyat easily excelled 
 Surrey in song-writing, of which he possessed the true gift ; and it has 
 
 1 The Arte of English Poesie, 1589, Lib. i, chap, xxxi, p. 48. 
 
 ^ Song-es and Soncttcs, written by the ryght honorable Lor de Henry Haward 
 late Earle of Surrey, and other. 1557. 
 
 3 English Literature Primer, 1876, p. 58. 
 
 237
 
 238 Notes 
 
 §ir (lIjoiuhs S^^gat nub tbc Carl of ^urrrg. 
 
 been justly remarked by Mr. Palgrave, whose Golden Treasury conta.ms 
 two of Wyat's songs, while Surrey is unrepresented, that it was long 
 before English poetry returned to his ' charming simplicity.' In reading 
 the poetry of this time it is necessary to remember that the language 
 being in an imperfectly developed condition, pronunciation was some- 
 what unsettled and arbitrary. But if the more ordinary variances from 
 modern practice be kept in view — the tendency of the accent to fall 
 towards the end rather than the beginning of words, especially those of 
 recent acquisition ; and the frequent necessity of giving such words as 
 passion, impatient, &.C., the value of three and four syllables respec- 
 tively — Wyat and Surrey's metre will be found comparatively legular. 
 
 PACE 
 
 I — I. From Tottel's Miscellany, ed. Arber, 1870. perfect: 'parfit' 
 (1557) ; persevere- persevere, continue — then so accentuated, as in 
 Spenser's Amo7-etti 9, 1. g {infra, p. 243) ; 'scaped : ' scape ' (1557) ; 
 lever, or lieffer = dearer ; property = qualities or powers ; longer : 
 ' lenger ' (1557). 
 
 2 — II. From the Devonshire MS. apud Dr. G. F. Nott's edition of 
 
 Wyat, 1816. lyiin = cease, desist — in use as late as Milton ; been : 
 
 qu. 'bin'? LI. 13-14. How like Bums's sarcasm (^/i/j _/az> aW 
 
 fause) : 
 
 ' Nae ferlie 'tis, though fickle she prove — 
 A woman has't by kind ' ! 
 
 Wyat repeats the sentiment in one of his songs (p. 139, Aldine ed. 
 
 1831): 
 
 ' And though she change it is no shame. 
 Their kind it is, and hath been long.' 
 
 III. soote = sweet. So Barnabe Barnes {Parthenophil and Par. 
 thenophe, 1593, ed. Grosart, 1S75, Son. 40, 1. 12) ' songes soote' : 
 
 ' Thou with thy notes harmonius, and songes soote 
 Allur'd my sunne, to fier mine harts soft roote.' 
 
 make — mate ; flete, or flote — float, swim ; slings — casts off ; 
 smale = s'mall — pronounced as spelt ; viings — mingles, mixes. 
 This sonnet may be compared with Petrarca's 269th, ' Zefiro 
 torna,' of which it is partly imitative ; and something very like a 
 recollection of it is perceptible in the opening lines of Pope's 
 TetJiple of Fame. 
 3— IV. Mr. Tomlinson i^The Sonnet: its Origin, Structure, and 
 Place in Poetry, 1874, p. 81) draws attention to the circumstance 
 that this sonnet is not original to Surrey, but really a pretty close 
 rendering of Petrarca's. 113th, 'Pommi ove '1 Sol occide i fiori e
 
 Notes 239 
 
 PAGE 
 
 r erba' (cf. Horace, Lib. i, Ode 22). It may be said that it is the 
 exception when Surrey's sonnets are not translations or adaptations 
 from Petrarca ; while almost as small a proportion of Wyat's is 
 original. Among the poems of ' Uncertaine Auctours ' printed in 
 Tottel's Miscellany there occurs an interesting early tribute in 
 sonnet-form to the great master, which may not be out of place 
 here (edn. 1585, fol. 74) : — 
 
 A PRAISE OF PETRARCHE AND LAURA HIS LAD YE. 
 
 O |l£irarcljc, Ijrab anb piiiue of ^ofts all, 
 
 2t!lhosc libchj q'lft of flotn'mg fIot]urnce 
 
 5,i!lcll maji ioc srchc but finbc not bofaj or inljcncf, 
 
 ^0 iiiK a C(ift Initlj tijce bib list anb fall, 
 
 ^rate to Ibn bouts aub glorj) rmmorlall 
 
 |3c to tbn uamt, nub to brr rvtcllcucc 
 
 Mlbose bcautie ligbtucb iu tbn timr aub scucc, 
 
 §0 to be set foitb as uouc olljcr sljall. 
 
 SSll^iT batlj not our pcitts rimrs so prrfct forougbtc, 
 
 l^c IdIjit our time fortlj briucictb bcautie suclj : 
 
 (To trn our foits as golbc is bn tbc toucb, 
 
 |f to the stile tbe matter aibeb ouqbt : 
 
 ^ul tberc teas nebcr ITaura more tbeu one, 
 
 ^nb \ti Ijab petrarcli for Ijis |^aragou£. 
 
 Petrarca's sonnet has been frequently translated later ; e.g. , anony- 
 mously in T/ie Phcenix Nest, 1593 (Park's Heliconia, 181 5, vol. ii., 
 
 p. 116): 
 
 ' Set me where Phoebus heate the flowers slaieth ; ' 
 
 by Drummond of Hawthornden {Poems, 1616, sig. g) : 
 ' Place me where angry Titan burnes the More ; ' 
 
 Philip Ayres (Lyric Poems, Szc, 1687, p. 78) : 
 
 ' Place mee where Sol dryes up the Flow'ry Fields ; ' 
 
 Charlotte Smith {Elegiac Sonnets, Szc, 1795, p. 13) ; Charles John- 
 ston (Sonnets, &c., 1823, p. 85) ; and lastly Mr. Tomlinson him- 
 self, though without acknowledgment to an anonymous version 
 (Sonnets and Odes Translated from the Ltalian of Petrarch. Lond. 
 1777. P- 21) from which he varies in no appreciable degree. Put- 
 tenham, inadvertently no doubt, ascribes Surrey's sonnet to Sir 
 Thomas Wyat (Arte of Eng. Poesie, p. 186). 
 3 — V. Sir T. IF. the Elder = Sir Thomas Wyat, who paraphrased 
 the Seven Penitential Psalms ; ark = coffer, or casket ; gests = 
 heroic deeds ; ferfect : 'perfite' (1557) ; imprijited : ' y-printed'
 
 240 Notes 
 
 Sir O^Iiomas ©nat anb \\)t €arl of Sitrreg. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 (Haiington MS.). Had we the precise dates at which Surrey's 
 various poems were written, it could with more certitude be deter- 
 mined whether such words as those in the closing verses of this 
 sonnet bore allusion to the king. As it is, there can be little 
 doubt that they did ; and that being so, it hardly required the thun- 
 derbolt fiiat followed in another (vii) to seal the doom of that vir- 
 tuous nobleman. The pretext on which Surrey was condemned 
 and executed was his assumption of a portion of the royal arms. 
 
 4 — VI. hight = wert named ; thy cousin = Anne Boleyn ; chase = 
 didst choose; r^«fli?r= surrender; timely = early. Clere, Surrey's 
 faithful friend and follower, while succouring his master in ex- 
 tremity during an attempt of the English to storm Montreuil, 
 received a wound which eventually caused his death. It does not 
 appear that the lady, a daughter of Sir John Shelton of Shelton in 
 Norfolk, whom 'for love' he 'chase,' ever became his bride. 
 ' This sonnet,' says Leigh Hunt {Book 0/ t/ie Sonnet, 1867, i. 140), 
 ' is^ complete of its kind. There is not a sentence which does not 
 contain information ; not a word too much ; no want of increased 
 interest ; all is strong, simple, and affecting.' 
 VII. See reference under V. 
 
 2-4 — iii-vil. Of these examples from Surrey one only does not occur 
 in TotteVs Miscellany: viz. vi, which is here given, slightly amended, 
 from Camden's Remains Concernijtg Britain, ed. 1674, p. 514. 
 
 (C-bmuiib Sptnscr. 
 Spenser's own love-story forms the subject of the Amoretti (1595). 
 Amid so much fruitless sonnet-wooing as was then in vogue, one wel- 
 comes the advent of a poet who to many higher merits adds the very 
 rare one of having prosecuted a successful suit ; though it is not in 
 the Amoretti, but in the glorious nuptial ode published with them, the 
 Epithalatniott, that Spenser celebrates his triumph most divinely. Not- 
 withstanding the exceptional feature referred to, however, and the oft- 
 recurring signature of his genius throughout, unprejudiced readers must 
 acknowledge that these sonnets are disappointing. They fall short of 
 what we should have expected of the author of The Faerie Qiieene. 
 Regarding their peculiar form, Leigh Hunt has pointed out that Spenser, 
 with all his Italianate proclivities, was the first who deliberately aban- 
 doned the archetypal pattern of the sonnet. It is interesting to note 
 his several experiments. The earliest was in blank verse, of which the 
 following is a favourable example. It forms one of a series of trans- 
 lations from Du Bellay, contributed by Spenser to Vander Noodt's
 
 Notes 241 
 
 Theatre for Worldlings, a little work which appeared in 1569, while 
 the poet was yet in his seventeenth year, and just entered of Pembroke- 
 ' Hall,' Cambridge :— 
 
 I saw a fresh spring rise out of a rocke, 
 
 Clere as Christall against the Sunny beames, 
 
 The bottome yellow like the shining land 
 
 That golden Pactol drives upon the plaine. 
 
 It seemed that arte and nature strived to joyne 
 
 There in one place all pleasures of the eye. 
 
 There was to heare a noise alluring slepe 
 
 Of many accordes more swete than Mermaids song, 
 
 The seates and benches shone as Ivorie, 
 
 An hundred Nymphes sate side by side about, 
 
 When from nie hilles a naked rout of Faunes 
 
 With hideous cry assembled on the place, 
 
 Which with their feete uncleane the water fouled. 
 
 Threw down the seats, and drove the Nimphs to flight. 
 
 His next was in the common illegitimate form of three elegiac quatrains 
 and a rimed couplet, and will be illustrated best in the same poem, as 
 it appeared, with others similarly transformed, in the 1591 volume of 
 Complaints, Sec, under the title of ' The Visions of Bellay.' 
 
 I saw a spring out of a rocke forth rayle. 
 
 As cleare as Christall gainst the Sunnie beames, 
 
 The bottome yeallow, like the golden grayle 
 
 That bright Pactolus washeth with his streames ; 
 
 It seem'd that Art and Nature had assembled 
 
 All pleasure there, for which mans hart could long ; 
 
 And there a noyse alluring sleepe soft trembled, 
 
 Of manie accords more sweete than Memiaids song : 
 
 The seates and benches shone as yvorie. 
 
 And hundred Nymphes sate side by side about ; 
 
 When from nigh hills with hideous outcrie, 
 
 A troupe of Satyres in the place did rout. 
 
 Which with their villeine feete the streame did ray, 
 
 Threw down the seats, and drove the Nymphs away. 
 
 In his third and final experiment the three quatrains are interlaced by 
 means of a rime common to each — a method which seems to have satis- 
 fied his maturer judgment, since it is that on which the Amoretti are 
 constructed ; as here : — 
 
 (26) 
 
 Sweet is the Rose, but growes upon a brere ; 
 Sweet is the Junipere, but sharpe his bough ; 
 Sweet is the Eglantine, but pricketh nere ; 
 Sweet is the firbloome, but his braunches rough : 
 Sweet is the Cypresse, but his rynd is tough, 
 Sweet is the nut, but bitter is his pill ; 
 Sweet is the broome-flowre, but yet sowre enough ; 
 And sweet is Moly, but his root is ill.
 
 *» 
 
 242 Notes 
 
 €bmiinb ^ptuscr. 
 
 So every sweet with soure is tempred still, 
 That maketh it be coveted the more : 
 For easie things that may be got at will 
 Most sorts of men doe set but little store. 
 Why then should I accoumpt of little paine, 
 That endlesse pleasure shall unto me gaine ? ' 
 
 Of this last form Leigh Hunt justly remarks that ' It is surely not so 
 happy as that of the Italian sonnet. The rhyme seems at once less 
 responsive and always interfering ; and the music has no longer its 
 major and minor divisions.' (Book of the Sonnet, i, 74.) 
 
 PAGE 
 
 5 — VIII, 8. Cf. Tho. Heywood (^ Woman Kilde with Kindnesse, 
 ed. Lond. 1874, p. XI2) whose Wendoll cries : 
 
 ' O speake no more, 
 For more then this I know, & have recorded 
 Within the red-leav'd Table of my heart.' 
 
 IX. portly . . . portliness : 'There lies in "portly" a certain 
 
 sense of digjiity of demeanour still, but always connoted with this 
 
 a cumbrousness and weight, such as Spenser . . . would never 
 
 have ascribed to his bride.' — Trench's Select Glossmy, s. v. sdeign 
 
 = disdain, scorn. 13-14 Cf. A. H. Clough's poem The Higher 
 
 Courage : 
 
 ' He who would climb and soar aloft 
 Must needs keep ever at his side 
 The tonic of a wholesome pride.' 
 
 In a MS. note under this sonnet in his copy of Spenser, Leigh 
 Hunt says : ' The sonnet, saving the repeated i's in the rhymes, 
 is good ; but I must beg leave not to like the woman.' See also 
 Book of the Sonnet, i, 151. 
 6 — X. Lord Brooke begins one of his pieces {Ccelica, ' Sonnet ' 3, 
 Works, 1633, P- 162) : 
 
 ' More than most faire, full of that heavenly fire, 
 Kindled above to shew the Makers glory ; ' 
 
 a coincidence which, together with the circumstance noted by Dr. 
 Hannah {Courtly Poets, 1870, p. 244) that this sonnet of Spenser's 
 is ascribed to Sir Edward Dyer in the Kawlinson MS. in the Bod- 
 leian Library, points to the literary fellowship of these writers. 
 Spenser thus pursues his theme in the next, or 9th, of the Anioretti, 
 which, with the 15th (' Ye tradefuU Merchants,' &c.) and 64th 
 ('Comming to kisse her lyps,' &c.), may recall Shakspeare and 
 others (lv, lxxxix, and under) : — 
 
 > //// := peel.
 
 Notes 
 
 243 
 
 Long-while I sought to what I might compare 
 Those powrefuU eies, which lighten my dark spright, 
 Yet find I nought on earth to which I dare 
 Resemble th' ymage of their goodly light. 
 Not to the Sun : for they doo shine by night ; 
 Nor to the Moone : for they are changed never ; 
 Nor to the Starres : for they have purer sight ; 
 Nor to the fire : for they consume not ever ; 
 Nor to the lightning : for they still persever ; 
 Nor to the Diamond : for they are more tender ; 
 Nor unto Christall : for nought may them sever ; 
 Nor unto glasse : such basenesse mought offend her ; 
 Then to the Maker selfe they likest be, 
 Whose light doth lighten all that here we see. 
 
 XI. Can Spenser have been thinking of Bamabe Barnes in this 
 sonnet ? I fancy I detect in it a double allusion to the Parthenophil 
 and Parthcnophe published two years before .- with 11. 4-7 cf. the 
 Madrigal under LV and with 1. g the Sonnet * If Cupid keepe,' &c., 
 under CVIII. 
 7 — XIII. Helice^^ ' 'EXlktj, or the Circumvolver, — the Greek name for 
 the constellation Ursa Major. Hence perhaps Shakspeare's " load- 
 stars" of eyes, and Milton's idea of his " Cynosure." ' — MS. note 
 by Leigh Hunt in his copy of Spenser. 
 8 — XIV. Fondness = foolishness. 
 
 XV, 6-12. The imagery may have been present to Wordsworth 
 {Ecclesiastical Sonnets, Pt. i, 7). 
 9 — XVII, 5-6. The unconscious action of love has been expressed in 
 a fine metaphor by one of our truest living poets {Poems by Henry 
 S. Sutton, 1848, p. 40) : 
 
 ' Oh, 'tis young Love ; — for he a nest can raise 
 In hearts that never guess his busy wings.' 
 
 10 — XIX. ' Those who have never felt the need of the divine, entering 
 by the channel of will and choice and prayer, for the upholding, 
 purifying, and glorifying of that which itself first created human, 
 will consider this poem untrue, having its origin in religious affec- 
 tation. Others will think otherwise.' — Dr. George MacDonald 
 {England's Antiphon, p. 65). 
 1 1 — XX. ' I insert this sonnet on account of the picture at the begin- 
 ning, which is agreeably in the taste of the age. The sonnet looks 
 like a " Valentine." ' — Leigh Yi\xn.t{Book of the Sonnet, i, 152). 
 With 11. 1-4 cf. Amoretti, 4, 9-12 : 
 
 ' For lusty spring now in his timely howre. 
 Is ready to come forth him to receive : 
 And warnes the Earth with divers colord flowre 
 To decke hir selfe, and her faire mantle weave ; '
 
 244 " Notes 
 
 PAGE 
 
 stanza 28 of the 2nd of the Two (Santos of Mutabilitie ; and 
 Drummond, cxxiii, 1-2, on which see note, 11 /«ai^ =: mate. 
 See note under CXLI. 
 
 12 — XXII. The reader will compare this with similar vaticinations by 
 Shakspeare and others (lxvii, &c.). 
 
 xxiii. ensue = follow (intrans.) — more frequently transitive in 
 Spenser := pursue, as in his dedicatory sonnet under CXLV. 
 
 13 — XXIV. culver z= dove. In the first and all the early editions this 
 sonnet, the last of the Amoi-etti, is numbered ' LXXXIX' instead of 
 Lxxxviii, the 35th (' My hungry eyes through greedy covetize ') 
 having been repeated by mistake as the 83rd. It may be noted 
 that Todd (1805), who claims and has heretofore been allowed the 
 credit of having first rectified this blunder, was anticipated by 
 Hughes in 1715. 
 5-13 — viii-xxiv. From Amoretti and Epitkalamion. Written not 
 long since by Edimatde Spenser. 1595. Prefixed to these ' sweete 
 conceited Sonets,' as Ponsonby the publisher calls them in the Epis- 
 tle Dedicatory \.o Sir Robert Needham, who had come over from Ire- 
 land in the same ship that brought the MS. from Spen'ser, are two 
 commendatory sonnets by ' G. W. senior' and ' G. W. I.' (conjec- 
 turally George Whetstone senior and junior) which Prof. Child 
 therefore errs in stating to have been 'first printed' in the 161 1 folio. 
 
 13 — XXV. Appended to Spenser's Faerie Qtieene, 1590 (Books i-lll), 
 and entitled in full A Vision upon this conceipt of the Faery (^ueene. 
 'This noble sonnet,' says Dr. Hannah ( 7",^^ Courtly Poets, from 
 Raleigh to Montrose, 1870, p. 215), ' is alone sufficient to place 
 Raleigh in the rank of those few original writers who can introduce 
 and perpetuate a new type in a literature ; a type distinct from 
 the "Visions" which Spenser translated. The highest tribute 
 which it has received is the imitation of Milton : — 
 
 " Methought I saw my late espoused saint." ' 
 But Mr. Todd quotes a sorvnet, printed as early as 1 594, beginning: — 
 
 " Methought I saw upon Matilda's tomb."^ 
 
 Waldron gives another, signed " E. S.," which was printed in 
 1612 : — 
 
 ' See CLill, p. 77. 
 
 " flte Vision 0/ Matilda, prefixed to Drayton's Matilda, 1594, and signed 'H.G. 
 tsquire.
 
 Notes 245 
 
 " Metnouglit I saw in dead of silent night." ' 
 And the echo is still repeated by poets nearer our own times . — 
 " Methought I saw the footsteps of a throne." 
 
 Wordsworth : Miscellaneous Sonneis. 
 
 " Methought I saw a face divinely fair, 
 With nought of earthly passion." 
 
 Lyra. Apost. No. xcii. 
 
 " Methought there was around me a strange light." 
 
 Williams : Thoughts in Past 1 ears. No. Iv. &c.' 
 
 Raleigh is here employing a style — truly the very hyperbole of praise — 
 which the reader will avoid the error of accepting in too prosaic a 
 spirit. It were in Horatio's language to ' consider too curiously ' to 
 interpret the poem as a piece of deliberate critical appraisement, and 
 thus have to qualify our admiration of it with Dr. Trench's protest 
 that ' the great poets of the past lose no whit of their glory because later 
 poets are found worthy to share it ; ' that ' Petrarch in his lesser, and 
 Homer in his greater sphere, are just as illustrious since Spenser ap- 
 peared as before.' {A Household Book of English Poetiy, ed. 1S70, p. 
 392). Surrey, earlier, had only exercised a poet's privilege, presuma- 
 bly without slighting the ' Morning Star,' when he sang of his deceased 
 friend Wyat that his hand had 
 
 ' reft Chaucer the glory of his wit ; ' 
 and Drummond of Hawthornden furnishes a later example of the same 
 figure in CXXXII. Raleigh has another noble sonnet which must find a 
 place here. It is prefixed to Sir Arthur Gorges' translation of Lucans 
 Fha7-salia: containing the Civill Warres betweene Cccsar and Pcnipey,\t\^. 
 
 TO THE TRANSLATORS 
 
 Had Lucan hid the truth to please the time, 
 
 He had beene too unworthy of thy Penne, 
 
 Who never sought, nor ever car'd to clime 
 
 By flattery, or seeking worthlesse men. 
 
 For this thou hast been bruis'd ; but yet those scarres 
 
 Do beautifie no lesse than those wounds do 
 
 Receiv'd in just and in religious warres ; 
 
 Though thou hast bled by both, and bearst them too, 
 
 Change not : to change thy fortune tis too late : 
 
 Who with a manly faith resolves to dye. 
 
 May promise to himself e a lasting state, 
 
 Though not so great, yet free from infamy. 
 
 Such was thy Lucan, whom so to translate 
 
 Nature thy Muse (like Lucans) did create, 
 
 W. R. 
 
 " A Vision npon this his Minerva, prefixed to Henry Peacham's Minen'a Bri- 
 tanna [1612]. The sonnet has a distinctly Spenserian ring. 
 
 2 'Sir Arthur Gorges was Raleigh's kinsman ; had been captain of Raleigh's own 
 ship in the Island voyage, when he was wounded by his side in the landing of Fayal ;
 
 246 Notes 
 
 Sir ©taltcr llalciglr. 
 
 From a large number of examples read in the wide and, as was fancied, 
 promising field of Elizabethan and Jacobean encomiastic verse, where 
 Raleif^h shines with a natural and characteristic brilliance, the four fol- 
 lowing may be subjoined here as at least approximately satisfying the 
 necessary conditions of interest and poetic merit for a popular collection. 
 Curiously enough, three of them lie clustered in one booklet : namely, 
 prefixed to John Bodenham's Belvedere : or. The Garden of the Muses, 
 1600. The first of the triad has been attributed with much probability to 
 Anthony Munday (i553?-i633), 'poet-laureate to the city of London,' 
 and the third, with its companion To the Univcrsitie of Cambridge (with- 
 held), to Bodenham himself; while the graceful panegyrist of the second, 
 who is doubtless identical with the 'A. B.' of the prefatory sonnet to 
 England's Helicon, 1600, from which Bodenham is ascertained to have 
 been the editor of that more famous miscellany also, remains unknown. 
 
 TO HIS LOVING AND APPROOVED GOOD FRIEND, 
 
 M. JOHN BODENHAM. 
 
 To thee that art Arts lover. Learnings friend, 
 First causer and collectour of these floures : 
 Thy paines just merit I in right commend. 
 Costing whole years, months, weeks, and daily hours. 
 Like to the Bee, thou every where didst rome. 
 Spending thy spirits in laborious care : 
 And nightly brought'st thy gather'd hony home, 
 As a true worke-man in so great affaire. 
 First, of thine owne deserving, take the fame ; 
 Next, of thy friends, his due he gives to thee : 
 That love of learning may renowme thy name. 
 And leave it richly to posterity. 
 Where others (who might better) yet forslow it. 
 May see their sliame, and times hereafter know it.* 
 
 A.M. 
 
 OF THIS GARDEN OF THE MUSES. 
 
 Thou which delight'st to view this goodly plot. 
 Here take such flowres as best shal serve thy use, 
 
 and has left a history of that expedition which is of material importance in Raleigh's 
 biography. He is the " Alcyon " of "Colin Clout's come home again:" Collier's 
 "Spenser," vol. v., p. 45 : cf " Daphnaida," ib., 229.' — Note. p. 222 Courtly Poets, 
 as before. For some of his original verses see Sir E. Brydges' Restituta, vol. iv,, 
 1816. Excepting JMr. F"ry (Bihlio. Memoranda, Bristol, 1816, p. 27^). the biblio- 
 graphers .seem to ignore a little work by the chevalier — TJie Wiscdome of the Ancients, 
 written in Latine by the Ri^ht Honourable Sir Francis Bacon Knight. Baron of 
 yeru'.am, and Lor H Chancellor of England. Done into English by Sir Arthur Gorges 
 Knight, l.ond. sm. 8vo, 1619 : a copy of which, the reader may remember, was one 
 of Hugh Miller's early possessions {My Schools and Schoolmasters, 1854, chap. xi.). 
 ^/>aines = pains-taking .forslow = to delay, waste in sloth : 
 
 ' Forslow no time, sweet Lancaster ; let's march.' 
 
 itlaxlowe's Edward II., p. 199, ed. Dyce, 1862.
 
 Notes 247 
 
 Where thou maist find in every curious knot, 
 
 Of speciall vertue, and most precious juyce, 
 
 Set by Apollo in their severall places, 
 
 And nourished with his celestiall Beames, "I 
 
 And watered by the Muses and the Graces, 
 
 With the fresh dew of those Castalian streames. 
 
 What sente or colour canst thou but devise \ 
 
 That is not here, that may delight the sense ? i 
 
 Or what can Art or Industry comprize, ' 
 
 That in aboundance is not gather'd hence ? 
 
 No Garden yet was ever halfe so sweet, 
 
 As where Apollo and the Muses meet. 
 
 A. B. 
 
 TO THE UNIVERSITIE OF OXENFORD. 
 Thou eye of Honour, Nurserie of Fame, 
 Still-teeming Mother of immortall seed : 
 
 Receive these blessed Orphanes of thy breed, I 
 
 As from thy happie issue first they came. 
 Those flowing wits that bathed in thy foord, 
 
 And suck't the honie dew from thy pure pap : j 
 
 Returne their tribute backe into thy lap, 
 In rich-wrought lines, that yeelde no idle woord. 
 
 O let thy Sonnes from time to time supplie i 
 
 This Garden of the Muses, where dooth want | 
 
 Such Flowers as are not, or come short, or scant I 
 
 Of that perfection may be had thereby : 1 
 
 So shall thy name live still, their fame ne're dye, ■ ■ 
 
 Though under ground whole worlds of time they lie. \ 
 
 Stat sine inorte deciis. ' 
 
 The fourth example referred to, doubtless the work of Sir John Beau- 
 mont (being subscribed 'I. B.,' and prefixed to the Sabnacis and 
 
 Jlermaph-oditus, i6o2, an anonymous work now confidently ascribed to I 
 
 his famous younger brother, Francis), must be regarded as the high- | 
 
 water-mark of a style which was then deemed the most elegant vehicle j 
 
 of adulation. The reader will most readily find it among the poems in 1 
 
 laudem auctoris, Dyce's edition of Beaumont and Fletcher, xi, 1846, j 
 
 443 ; or in Dr. Grosart's Fuller Worthies' Library, TJie Poems of Sir 1 
 yohn Beaumont, Bart., 1869, p. 205, from which latter it is here given: — 
 
 TO THE AUTHOUR. 
 Eyther the goddesse drawes her troupe of loves 
 From Paphos, where she erst was held divine, 
 And doth unyoke her tender-necked doves, 
 Placing her seat in this small papry shrine ; 
 Or the sweet Graces through the Idalian grove 
 Led the blest Author in their daunced rings ; 
 
 Or wanton Nymphs in watry bowres have wove, j 
 
 With fine Mylesian threds, the verse he sings ; j 
 
 Or curious Pallas once againe doth strive 
 With proud Arachne for illustrious glory, I
 
 248 Notes 
 
 And once againe doth loves of gods revive, 
 Spinning in silken twists a lasting story : 
 If none of these, then Venus chose his sight 
 To leade the steps of her blind sonne aright. 
 
 Sir John Beaumont. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 |o^n Jflorio. 
 
 14 — XXVI. This sonnet, v^'ith nothing to indicate its authorship, was 
 first printed prefixed to Essayes written in French by Michael Lord 
 of Montaigne, &'c., Done into English by "John Flotio. Second 
 Edition. Lond. fol. 1613 : whence it is here given. It reappears 
 in the third edition of the same work, 1632, but, so far as I am 
 aware, has not since been reprinted, except by Henry Brown in his 
 Sonnets of Shakespeare Solved, 1870, who was content to give it 
 corruptly as he found it, and, on what authority I know not, 
 describes it as ' attributed to Shakespeare.' Its present ascription 
 to the ' Resolute ' himself is, it must be confessed, purely conjec- 
 tural ; and since in both editions of the Montaigne the sonnet imme- 
 diately follows (separated, however, by a line extending right across 
 the page) a longish commendatory poem of a kindred character 
 addressed by Samuel Daniel To my deare brother^ and friend 
 M. John Florio, it is just possible that the real author was Daniel, 
 of whom it is abundantly worthy, and indeed most characteristic in 
 sentiment and diction, if not in structure.^ A claim must also in 
 justice be recognized for each of those other tuneful friends of 
 Florio's who were wont to bring him their votive wreaths, in sonnet- 
 form for the most part, as often as he challenged public attention ; 
 especially the anonymous writer of that well-turned sonnet prefixed 
 to Queen Anna's New World of Words, fol. 1611, and subscribed 
 with the three stars [***], beginning 
 
 ' Kinde friend, the strictnesse of these few-few lines,' — 
 a writer, by the way, whom probably we ought to identify with the' 
 friendly ' gentleman ' referred to by Florio in that famous address of 
 his To the Reader in the first edition of the work just named (A 
 Worlde of Wordes, 4to, 159S), where he is understood by some com- 
 mentators" to be wincing under Shakspeare's supposed caricature of 
 
 1 That is, brother in office, as one of the Gentlemen of the Royal Privy Chamber. 
 The oft-asserted relationship of Florio and Daniel as brothers-in-law was disproved by 
 the late Bolton Corney in Notes and Queries, 3rd S. viii, July i, 1865. 
 
 ^ Only three per cent, of the sonnets composing Delia are built on the principle of 
 the one in question. 
 
 ' See Variorum Shaksjieare, ed. Malone, 1821, iv, 479-483.
 
 Notes 
 
 249 
 
 him in the Holofernes of Love's Labour s Lost, acted in the previous 
 year. ' There is,' complains Florio, 'another sort of leering curs, 
 that rather snarle then bite, whereof I coulde instance in one, who 
 lighting upon a good sonnet of a gentlemans, a friend of mine,' that 
 loved better to be a Poet then to be counted so, called the auctor 
 a rymer, notwithstanding he had more skill in good POetrie, then 
 my slie gentleman seemed to have in good manners or humanitie.' 
 But for none of these, any more than for Florio or Daniel, does 
 there exist the slightest particle of direct evidence. Such being the 
 case, it seems only justice to assign the poem to the author of the 
 book containing it. Nor will this hypothesis appear unreasonable 
 to those who can recall Florio's mastery in our English speech, his 
 affectedly archaic but idiomatic style, and his persistent poetical 
 ambition. It has also the advantage of explaining, satisfactorily as 
 I think, the complete anonymity of the poem, — the entire absence of 
 initials or mark of any kind, which it would almost certainly have 
 borne, had anyone other than Florio been responsible for it. 
 Looking at the position of the sonnet in relation to Daniel's elo- 
 quent and friendly lines, which, as was stated above, had appeared 
 in the first edition unaccompanied by the sonnet, I should suggest 
 that Florio took advantage of the opportunity which this second edi- 
 tion afforded him of paying a responsive tribute to the man who had 
 done his book honour, and who, be it remembered, as the author of 
 The Civile Warres and The Historie of England, was the most dis- 
 tinguished living representative of those who 
 
 ' memorize 
 And leave in bookes for all posterities 
 The names of worthyes, and their vertuous deedes.'^ 
 
 Unfortunately the materials for a study of Florio in his poetical ca- 
 pacity are alike scanty and inaccessible; but there seem to be two 
 things about which we may feel pretty certain: first, that, as befitted 
 the accredited representative of Italian culture at the English court, 
 he occasionally practised in the sonnet-form ; " and, second, that 
 whatever his weakness of character, he cannot have been the fool 
 
 ' I am aware that Warburton held the sonnet to have been Florio's own ; but he can 
 hardly be allowed to have made good his position by assuming of a thing he ner'er saiu 
 that it 'affected the letter' and was 'parodied ' in the aditerative 'sonnet' (as he calls 
 It) spoken by Holofernes in Love's Lahoitr''s Lost, iv, 2, 58. Nor is Farmer any more 
 conclusive than Warburton, the sonnet he cites as one of Florio's 'to his patrons' not 
 being Florio's at all, but one of a series by // Candida, who is now known to have been 
 Matthew Gwinne. 
 
 * 'Samuel Daniel, the most noted poet and historian of his time,' as Anthony a 
 Wood describes him {Athoi. 0.ron., ed. Bliss, ii, 1815, col. 268). 
 
 ' See, for example, a reference to one of Florio's sonnets in the heading of a sonnet 
 addressed to him by // Candida, prefixed to the first edition of the Montaigne, 1603.
 
 250 Notes 
 
 |oI)n J[Iorio. 
 familiar to us in commentarial tradition, as there seems indeed to be 
 a disposition on tlie part of modern critics to own.' We have seen 
 how Samuel Daniel addresses him. That he had the honour and 
 love of other friends, poets some of them whose names we would fain 
 know, th-e following beautiful sonnet will here fitly attest. It is pre- 
 fixed to Florios Second Frutes, To be gathered of twelve Trees, ^c. , 
 4to, 1591, and bespeaks in the writer an almost Shakspearian deli- 
 cacy and freshness of touch. The ' ever greene Laurell ' is of course 
 
 Spenser. 
 
 PHOTON TO HIS FRIEND FLORIO. 
 
 Sweete friend whose name agrees with thy increase, 
 
 How fit a rivall art thou of the Spring? 
 
 For when each branche hath left his flourishing. 
 
 And green-lockt Sommers shadie pleasures cease, 
 
 She makes the Winters stormes repose in peace, 
 
 And spends her franchise on each living thing : 
 
 The dazies sprout, the little birds doo sing, 
 
 Hearbes, gummes, and plants do vaunt of their release. 
 
 So when that all our English witts lay dead, 
 
 (Excepit the Laurell that is ever greene,) 
 
 Thou with thy Frutes our barrennes o're-spread, 
 
 And set thy flowrie pleasance to be seene. 
 
 Sutch frutes, sutch flowrets of moralitie. 
 
 Were nere before brought out of Italy. 
 
 Phceton. 
 
 piemorize = to commemorate, or cause to be remembered. The old 
 copies have the disastrous misprint ' memorie ' here, the printer 
 having evidently been put out by the intransitive use of the verb 
 'deserve.' I have doubtless recovered the true lection. Cp. 
 Spenser's sonnet to Lord Buckhust, prefixed to The Faetie Qiieene : 
 
 ' In vain I thinke, right honourable Lord, 
 By this rude rime to memorize thy name ; ' 
 
 and John Davies of Hereford's to Sr. yohn Popham, subjoined to 
 his Alicrocosmos, 1603 (Complete Works, ed. Grosart, Chertsey 
 Worthies Lib., 1878, i, gS) : 
 
 ' If best deservers of the publike weale 
 Should not be memorized of the Muse, 
 Shee should her proper vertue so conceale, 
 And so conceal'd, should that and them abuse.' 
 
 For other instances see Shakspeare {Macbeth, i, 2, 40) ; Drayton 
 {Polyolbion, S. 5, 41) ; Sonnet initialed ' S. S.,' prefixed to Sir A. 
 
 1 See Joseph Hunter's Nein Illustrations 0/ the Life, Studies, and Writings of 
 Shakespeare, 1845, i, 261, 273-281. Mr. Massey must cast about for some other 'fitting 
 candidate' for identification as the ' heavy ignorance ' of Shakspeare 's 78th Sonnet.
 
 Notes ■ 
 
 25' 
 
 Gorges' translation of Lticmi's Pharsalia, 1614 ; &c. LI, 7-8, Cp. 
 Eccles. ix, 5-6. 1-8 Florio, who in the Epistle Dedicatorie of his 
 Second Frutes calls Spenser ' the sweetest singer of all our westerne 
 shepheards,' seems to have been haunted by a passage in the Teares 
 of the Muses here (Globe Spenser, p. 502, col. i). in respect Of^= in 
 comparison with — a rare usage ; e.g. Hackluyt's Voyages, iii, 33 
 («/?^^ Richardson, ed. 1875) : ' To whose diligence imminent dan- 
 gers and difficult attempts seemed nothing, in respect of his willing 
 mind, for the commoditie of his prince and countrey.' 
 
 CVi 
 
 With an exception perhaps in favour of Raleigh's prose, general 
 opinion seems to confirm the verdict of Hallam, that ' the first good prose 
 writer, in any positive sense of the word, is Sir Philip Sidney.' ' An im- 
 partial judgment will probably accord him a like distinction in sonnet- 
 writing. He made a special study of Italian metres and modes of ex- 
 pression at a time when it was of peculiar importance that good models 
 should be kept in view ; and his most beautiful poems take the form of 
 the sonnet. Those both of the Arcadia and Astrophel and Stella unite 
 with rare charms of speech a rhythmical melody previously all but 
 unknown in our literature, many of them having the veritable ' sweete 
 attractive kinde of grace ' ascribed by old Matthew Roydon to the much- 
 loved poet himself — a grace which their frequent quaintness rather en- 
 hances than impairs, as one sings to-day of the Silurist's poems : 
 
 ' So quaintly fashioned as to add a grace 
 To the sweet fancies which they bear. 
 Even as a bronze delved from some ancient place 
 For very rust shows fair. ' ^ 
 
 How Charles Lamb delighted in their veiy extravagancies ! — the ' glori- 
 ous vanities ' so pathetically abjured at last in xxxiii. ' They are stuck 
 full of amorous fancies — far-fetched conceits, befitting his occupation ; 
 for True Love thinks no labour to send out Thoughts upon the vast, and 
 more than Indian voyages, to bring home rich pearls, outlandish wealth, 
 gums, jewels, spicery, to sacrifice in self-depreciating similitudes, as 
 shadows of true amiabilities in the Beloved.' ^ They contain whole 
 passages of sustained beauty, and ' abound,' as Elia again puts it, ' in 
 felicitous phrases : ' 
 
 ' O heav'nly foole, thy most kisse-worthie face.* 
 
 1 Literature 0/ Europe, 5th ed. 1855, ii, 296. 
 
 ^ To an Unknown Poet (Songs 0/ Two Worlds, by a New Writer, 2nd series, 
 1874, p. 3). 
 ' The Last Essays of Elia, 1833, p. 139.
 
 252 Notes 
 
 ' Smooth pillowes, sweetest bed, 
 A chamber deafe of noise and blind of light, 
 O rosie garland and a wearie hed.' 
 
 ' that sweet enemy, Fraunce.' 
 
 ' my Muse, to some eares not unsweet, 
 Tempers her words to trampling horses' feete 
 More oft than to a chamber melodic.' 
 
 ' Not by rude force, but sweetest soveraigntie 
 Of reason.' ' 
 
 But Sidney's sonnets have strength as well as sweetness ; and the 
 thoughtfulness and earnestness of spirit by which they are imbued ought 
 effectually to distinguish them from those vehicles of spurious and inane 
 passion wherewith they have sometimes inconsiderately been classed. 
 How far different they are from mere literary exercises or pastimes the 
 reader will best learn from a study of the complete poems, Songs as well 
 as Sonnets, in connection with those facts in the poet's life of which we 
 may reasonably recognize the impress on his verse ; and it is no more 
 than the truth to say that this has only of late been rendered practicable 
 for ordinary students by the publication of Dr. Grosart's edition of 
 Sidney (3 vols., Lond., 1877). A passage in Milton's Eikonoklastes 
 (Works, ed. Mitford, 1851, iii, 346) is frequently cited as impugning the 
 moral character of Sidney's chief work, — ' the vaine amatorious Poem of 
 Sir Philip Sidneys Arcadia.^ It ought to be borne in mind that Milton's 
 criticism was made, and is therefore to be understood, not in an absolute 
 but in a relative sense — entirely with reference to the circumstances in 
 which the book had been used by the king : a book in kind ' full of 
 worth and witt,' as he continues, but not worthy ' in time of trouble 
 and affliction to be a Christians Prayer-Book.' A modern worshipper 
 and imitator of the ' starry paladin,' as Mr. Browning has called Sidney, 
 bestows the following united tribute on him and Spenser (6V/^<://'f^;«j, 
 1821, p. 9) :— 
 
 ON BEHOLDING THE PORTRAITURE OF 
 
 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY IN THE GALLERY AT PENSHURST. 
 
 The man that looks, sweet Sidney, in thy face, 
 Beholding there love's truest majesty. 
 And the soft image of departed grace. 
 Shall fill his mind with magnanimity : 
 There may he read unfeign'd humility. 
 And golden pity, born of heav'nly brood. 
 Unsullied thoughts of immortality. 
 And musing virtue, prodigal of blood : 
 
 * Cp. the phrase ' sweet reasonableness.'
 
 Notes 253 
 
 Yes, in this map of what is fair and good, 
 This glorious index of a heav'nly book, 
 Not seldom, as in youthful years he stood, 
 Divinest Spenser would admiring look ; 
 And, framing thence high wit and pure desire, 
 Imagin'd deeds, that set the world on fire. 
 
 Lord Thurlow} 
 
 PAGE 
 
 14 — XXVII. posy: first 4to 1591 and fol. 1598 ' Poesie,' second 4to 
 1591 'Poems.' 5-6. ' Alliteration is " dictionary's " or alphabetical 
 method ; and 1. 6 sarcastically illustrates this. Dryden has a similar 
 conjunction of rhyming and rattling, though he is not attacking 
 Doeg-Settle on the score of alliteration : 
 
 " He was too warm on picking-work to dwell. 
 But faggoted his notions as they fell. 
 And, if they rhymed and rattled, all was well." 
 
 {Abs. andAchit. , Pt. II, 418). Sidney himself is alliterative beyond 
 what one would expect from these lines.' — Grosart. denizened = 
 Naturalized in English ; far-fet = far-fetched. 
 15— XXVIII. ivan. Other texts read ' meane,' which Dr. Grosart 
 observes may ' in Sidney's time have been an adjectival use of 
 mean or w^«^ = lamenting,' however intolerable in our present 
 sense. But the epithet wan, applied to the moon, has passed into 
 our ordinary poetical vocabulary ; e.g., Mr. Ruskin's early poem 
 of The Months {Poems. J. R., Collected 1S50, p. 23) : 
 
 ' the wan and weary moon ; ' 
 and Cornelius Webbe's Lyric Leaves, 1832, p. 119 : 
 
 ' Oh Moon, it is a passionate delight 
 To pore upon thy beautiful wan face.' 
 
 1-2 Wordsworth {Miscellaneous Satinets, Pt. 11, 17) borrows more of 
 
 these lines than he acknowledges. 14 ' The last line of this poem 
 
 is a little obscured by transposition. He means, Do they call 
 
 ungratefulness there a virtue?' — Charles Lamb. Sidney has been 
 
 beautifully echoed in one of Shelly's fragments (ed. Fonnan, 1877, 
 
 iv, 61) : 
 
 ' TO THE MOON. 
 
 Art thou pale for M'eariness 
 Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth, 
 
 Wandering companionless 
 Among the stars that have a different birth, — 
 And ever changing, like a joyless eye 
 That finds no object worth its constancy?' 
 
 1 First printed in his lordship's private edition of Sidney's Defence of Poesy, iSio. 
 A biographer of Sidney (' S. M, D,', Boston, 3rd ed., 1859, p. 278) mistakenly quotes 
 it as Campbell's,
 
 254 Notef 
 
 An obscure contemporary of Sidney has an address to the Moon 
 which an undue licence in the rimes scarcely disqualifies from a 
 place among the best (Davison's Poeticall Rapsodie, 1602, The 
 Fourth Impression, 1621, p. 83) : 
 
 A SONNET OF THE MO ONE. 
 Looke how the pale Queene of the silent night 
 Doth cause the Ocean to attend upon her, 
 And he as long as she is in his sight, 
 With his full tide is ready her to honor ; 
 But when the silver wagon of the Moone 
 Is mounted up so high he cannot follow, 
 The sea cals home his christall waves to mone, 
 - And with low ebbe doth manifest his sorrow : 
 So you that are the soveraigne of my heart. 
 Have all my joyes attending on your will. 
 My joyes low ebbing when you doe depart. 
 When you returne, their tide my heart doth fill. 
 So as you come, and as you doe depart • 
 
 Joyes ebbe and flow within my tender heart. 
 
 Charles Best.^ 
 
 XXIX, 4. Cf. Drummond, cxiv, 3. prease = press, throng. 10. 
 of . . . of : adopted from the texts of 1591 as preferable to the 
 ' to . . . to ' of 1598. Perhaps Dr. Trench's via viedia, ' to . . . of,' 
 is best {Household Book of Eiig. Poetr)', p. 29). 11. ' " rosie gar- 
 land" as the garland of silence ( j«/^ rosa ) — a pun that would have 
 delighted Thomas Fuller, and Charles Lamb if he had noticed it.' — 
 Grosart. This invocation should be compared with those of Daniel 
 (XLVI), Drummond (cxiv), Wordsworth (cLXXXill-CLXXXiv), Keats 
 (cccviii), and others. The sonnet immediately preceding it in 
 Astrophel and Sella is worth quoting here : 
 
 (38) 
 This night, while sleepe begins with heavy wings 
 To hatch mine eyes, and that unbitted thought 
 Doth fall to stray, and my chiefe powres are brought 
 To leave the scepter of all subject things ; 
 The first that straight my fancies error brings 
 Unto my mind is Stellas image, wrought 
 By Loves owne selfe, but with so curious drought 
 
 > Except that he contributed a handful of verses to the old miscellany named, 
 hardly anything is known of Best. See, however, some particulars in Joseph Hunter's 
 Chorus Vatttm Anglicanortim, 1851, v, 497 (Addit. MSS. Mus. Brit.. 24,491) and 
 the miscellaneous volume 24,493, p. 226. An anonymous writer in The London 
 Magazine for October, 1823— possibly Charles Lamb— called attention to the sonnet, 
 introducing it thus : ' Among our older poets are some whose genius was perfect in one 
 or two smaller instances, but whose powers were never exerted on any larger 
 •work, — at least no proof of it has been put on record : of this number was Charles 
 Best, the author of the following sonnet.'
 
 Notes 255 
 
 PAGE 
 
 That she, methinks, not onely shines but sings. 
 
 I start, looke, hearke ; but what in closde up sence 
 
 Was held, in opend sense it flies away, 
 
 Leaving me nought but wailing eloquence. 
 
 I, seeing better sights in sights decay, 
 
 Cald it anew, and wooed sleepe againe ; 
 
 But him her host that unkind guest had slaine. 
 
 • 
 
 16 — XXX. For an account of this jousting, doubtless that which took 
 
 place 15-16 May, 1581, and for many other particulars regarding 
 the probable circumstances and dates of these sonnets, see Mr. 
 Arber's English Gamer, vol. i, 1877. 
 
 XXX, 6. who : 'which' (1591). 14. Cf. the close of Petrarca's 
 137th Sonnet, and, for comment, Shakspeare (Z'tc^ Gentlemen of 
 Verona, ii, 2, 16) : 
 
 ' What ! gone without a word ? 
 Ay, so true love should do : it cannot speak ; 
 For truth hath better deeds than words to grace it.' 
 
 In a copy of the first edition of Astrophel and Stella which once 
 belonged to Anthony a Wood there is written over against this 
 sonnet, in the antiquary's own beautiful handwriting : ' Amor 
 levis loquif, ingens silet ; ' and on the title-page : 
 
 ' Well in the Ring there is the Ruby sett, 
 Where comly shape, & vertue both are mett.' 
 
 A fourteen-lined poem of Herrick's (' sonnet ' one hesitates to call 
 it, like his Dean-hoiirn, also of fourteen lines) suggests some inter- 
 esting parallels {Poems, ed. Grosart, 1876, i, 25) : 
 
 TO HIS MISTRESSE OBJECTING TO HIM NEITHER 
 
 TOYING NOR TALKING. 
 
 You say I love not, 'cause I doe not play 
 
 Still with your curies, and kisse the time away. 
 
 You blame me too, because I cann't devise 
 
 Some sport, to please those Babies in your eyes : 
 
 By Loves Religion, I must here confesse it, 
 
 The most I love, when I the least expresse it. 
 
 Small griefs find tongues : Full Casques are ever found 
 
 To give, (if any, yet) but little sound. 
 
 Deepe waters noyse-lesse are ; And this we know, 
 
 That chiding streams betray small depth below. 
 
 So when Love speechlesse is, she doth expresse 
 
 A depth in love, and that depth, bottomlesse. 
 
 Now since my love is tongue-lesse, know me such, 
 
 Who speak but little, 'cause I love so much. 
 
 Robert Herri ck. ' 
 
 1 L. 4. For examples of this ' sportive conceit ' see Grosart's ed. of Marvell, i, 
 1872, 114, and add T. Lodge (Sciilaes Metamorphosis, 1589, p. 24, Hiinterian Club 
 ed. 1876), N. Breton (Pasquils Fooles-Cap, 1600, p. 20, ed. Grosart, 1876), and R. 
 Chester {Loire's Martyr, 1601, p. 4, New ShaJc. Soc. ed. 1878). 7 Seneca's ' Curae
 
 256 Notes 
 
 PAGE 
 
 17— XXXII. I cannot forbear appending the two following additional 
 examples, the latter of which, and the two on page 15, were the three 
 special favourites of Sidney's gentle apologist, Charles Lamb : — 
 
 (84) ,1 
 
 Highway, since you my chiefe Pemassus be, * ' 
 
 And that my Muse, to some eares not unsweet, j 
 
 Tempers her words to trampling horses feet ! 
 
 More oft then to a chamber melodic. j 
 
 Now blessed you, beare onward blessed me = 
 
 To her, where I my heart safeleft shall meet, | 
 
 My Muse and I must you of dutie greet ' 
 
 With thankes and wishes, wishing thankfully. | 
 
 Be you still carefull kept by publike heed, , 
 
 By no encrochment wrongd, nor time forgot : j 
 
 Nor blam'd for bloud, nor sham'd for sinfull deed. 1 
 And that you know I envy you no lot 
 
 Of highest wish, I wish you so much blisse, \ 
 
 Hundreds of yeares you Stellas feet may kisse.' j 
 
 ( 103 ) \ 
 
 happie Tems, that didst my Stella beare, \ 
 
 1 saw thee with full many a smiling line ■ ! 
 Upon thy cheerefuU face joy's livery weare : I 
 While those faire planets on thy streames did shine. 
 
 The bote for joy could not to daunce forbeare, 
 
 While wanton winds with beauties so devine j 
 
 leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent : ' cf. Shakspeare (Macbeth, iv, 3. 209), S. Daniel ! 
 
 (Co)iiplaint 0/ Rosamond, 1593, st. 114, ed. 1602, sig. Niiii) : i 
 
 ' Striving to tell his woes, words would not come ; \ 
 
 For light cares speak, when mighty griefs are dombe.' i 
 
 Webster {White Devil, ed. Dyce, 1830, i, 43), and Dekker-and- Webster {Fatnous j 
 Hist. 0/ Sir Tho. Wyatt, ed. Dyce. 1857, p. 201). Casques := casks. 9-10 ' A clas- 
 sical common-place from Ovid onward, and frequent in the Elizabethan poets' (Gro- ] 
 sart) ; e.g., Sidney's Eclogue [Arcadia., Lib. i, p. 74, ed. 1598) ; Raleigh's Silent \ 
 Lorver (Dr. Hannah's Courtly Poets, 1870, p. 20) : ] 
 
 ' Passions are likened best to floods and streams : ' 
 
 The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb ; \ 
 
 So, when affections yield discourse, it seems , ] 
 
 The bottom is but shallow whence they come ; ' 
 Earl of Sterline's Aurora, 1604, Song i : 
 
 'The deepest rivers make least din. 
 The silent soule doth most abound in care ; ' 
 
 and W. Browne's Britannia''s Pastorals, 1625, Booke i. Song 5, p. ii8. For other 
 examples see Dr. Hannah's earlier volume, Poems by Sir Henry IVotton, Sir Walter 
 Raleigh, and Others, 1845, p. xli, Intro. LI. 13-14 Echoed to-day in JNIr. Browning's 
 song: 
 
 ' I touch 
 But cannot praise, I love so much' — 
 doubtless in both cases recollected from Shakspeare's io6th Sonnet (xciii, 14 : supra, 
 p. 47). 
 
 * L. 9. Adopted from eds. of 1 591 as better than 1598 : 
 
 ' Be you still faire, honourd by publike heed.'
 
 257 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Notes 
 
 Ravisht, staid not, till in her golden haire 
 They did themselves (O sweetest prison) twine. 
 And faine those yEols youth there would their stay 
 Have made, but forst by Nature still to flie. 
 First did with puffing kisse those lockes display : 
 She, so discheveld, blusht ; from window I 
 With sight thereof cride out, O faire disgrace, 
 Let honor selfe to thee graunt highest place.' 
 
 14-17 — xxvii-xxxil. First printed in 4to. Sir P. S. his A strop hel and 
 Stella. Wherein the excellence of sweete Poesie is concluded. 1591. 
 
 17 — xxxill. One of Certaine Sonets written by Sir Philip Sidney : 
 N^ever before priitied. Arcadia, 1598. Dr. Grosart has doubtless 
 assigned it its proper place as concluding the Asirophel and Stella 
 series. L. i. Cf. Drummond's Song {Poems, 1616, sig. I4) : 
 
 ' O leave that Love which reacheth but to Dust, 
 And in that Love eternall only trust. 
 And Beautie, which, when once it is possest, 
 Can only fill the Soule, and make it blest.' 
 
 rich. It is perhaps unnecessary to remind the reader of Stella's 
 married name — Lady Rich, evil : pronounced as a monosyllable, 
 and ultimately contracted to ill. The sonnet should be compared 
 with Shakspeare's 146th (see cv, with note). 
 18-xxxiv, 5. Cf. Shakspeare (Macbeth, i, 3, 137) : 
 
 ' Present fears 
 Are less than horrible imaginings ; ' ^ 
 
 and Wordsworth (Ecclesiastical Sonnets, Pt. 1,7): 
 
 ' For all things are less dreadful than they seem.' 
 
 evil : see remark under xxxiil. The thoughts, and too often per- 
 haps the very language of Sidney's sonnet — of which the opening 
 argument is, as Leigh Hunt observes, a favourite one of M. Aure- 
 lius Antoninus (Meditations, transl. Long, 1862, ii, 17 ; vi, 10, 44 ; 
 ix, 28 ; X, I, 6) — are reiterated by Drummond in his Cypresse Grove : 
 e.g., ' If Death bee good, why should it bee feared, and if it bee 
 the worke of Nature, how should it not bee good ? ' (ed. 1630, p. 76). 
 It ought to be read in connection with the noble dialogue in the 5th 
 Book of the Arcadia where it occurs. The friends Musidorus and 
 Pyrocles, on the eve of what seemed certain doom, comfort each 
 other in speculations on the condition of the soul after death ; and 
 Musidorus, 'looking with a heavenly joy upon him,' sings the 
 'Song' to his companion. — Arcadia, p. 445, ed. 1598. 
 
 > L. 2. thee ■with/till (1591) : ' thy selfe with' (1598). 
 ^ fears = objects of fear. 
 
 R
 
 258 Notes 
 
 PAGE 
 
 14-18— XXVII-XXXIV. Unless otherwise stated, the text followed in all 
 the examples from Sidney is that of The Countesse of Pembrokes 
 Arcadia. Written by Sir Philip Sidney, Knight. Noiu the Third 
 Time published, with sundry new additions of the same Author. 
 1598, fol. 
 
 ^cnrg Constable. 
 
 18 — XXXV. This first example from the Diana (1594) of him who won 
 ' rare Ben's ' praise, ^whose 
 
 ' ambrosiack muse 
 Made Dian not his notes refuse ' — 
 
 bears a noticeable resemblance to Shakspeare's ggth Sonnet (see 
 LXXXIX, with note). A Scottish contemporary, William Alexander 
 of Menstrie (Earl of Sterline to be) could extol his Aurora's beauty 
 in such like delicate fancies, and with almost equal grace {Aurora, 
 1604, Song 7) : 
 
 ' The Roses did the rosie hue envy 
 Of those sweet lips that did the Bees deceave, 
 That colour oft the Lillies wish'd to have, 
 Which did the Alablaster piller dye, 
 On which all beauties glorie did rely ; 
 Her breath so sweetly smell'd. 
 The Violets, as excell'd. 
 To looke downe wer6 compell'd ; 
 And so contest what foile they did receave.' 
 
 5. her: ' the ' (MS.) 
 19 — XXXVI. ' The most exquisite of his sonnets for sweet colour and 
 
 winning fancy.' — W. Minto {Characteristics of English Poets from 
 
 Chaucer to Shirley, 1874, p. 257). 
 20 — XXXVIII. One of the Spii-ituall Sonnettes to the Honour of God 
 
 and Hys Sayntes, first printed by T. Park, Heliconia, ii, 181 5. LI. 
 
 5-7. ' A slight deviation from the MS. has here been hazarded. 
 
 The latter reads : — 
 
 But syth, they'r graced which from nature sprynge. 
 We're grac'd by those which from grace dyd proceede, 
 And glory hath deserved ; — 
 
 which is perfectly unintelligible.' — W. C. Hazlitt. For a beautiful 
 narration of the legend of St. Katharine, see Mrs. Jameson's Sacred 
 and Legendary Art. 2nd ed. 1850, p. 276. Two other examples 
 from the same series may be added here, on the former of which a 
 Catholic writer remarks {Dublin Review, October, 1876, p. 421) 
 that ' in comparing it with Wordsworth's beautiful sonnet on- The 
 Virgin [page 116], the Catholic reader will be struck by the accuracy
 
 Notes 259 
 
 PAGE 
 
 with which Constable presents the Catholic doctrine of the Im- 
 maculate Conception, where Wordsworth dwells only on the 
 personal sinlessness of Mary,' 
 
 TO OUR BLESSED LADY. 
 In that, O Queene of queenes ! thy byrth was free 
 From guylt, which others do of grace bereave, 
 "When in theyr mothers wombe they lyfe receave, 
 God, as his sole-borne daughter loved thee ; 
 To matche thee lyke thy byrthes nobillitye, 
 He thee hys Spyryt for thy spouse dyd leave 
 Of whome thou dydd'st his onely Sonne conceave, 
 And so was lynk'd to all the Trinitye. 
 Cease then, O queenes ! who earthly crownes do weare. 
 To glory in the pompe of worldly thynges : 
 If men such hyghe respect unto you beare. 
 Which daughters, wyves, and mothers ar of kynges ; 
 What honour sliould unto that Queene be donne 
 Who had your God for father, spowse, and sonne ? ' 
 
 TO OUR BLESSED LADY. 
 Why should I any love, O queene ! but thee, 
 If favour past a thankfull love should breed ? 
 Thy wombe did beare, thy brest my Saviour feede, 
 And thou dydd'st never cease to succour me. 
 If love doe followe worth and dignitye. 
 Thou all in thy perfections doest exceede ; • 
 
 If Love be ledd by hope of future meede, 
 What pleasure more then thee in heaven to see ? 
 An earthly syght doth onely please the eye, 
 And breedes desyre, but dcth not satisfye : 
 Thy sight gyves us possession of all joye. 
 And with such full delyghtes ech sense shall fyll. 
 As harte shall wyshe but for to see thee styll. 
 And ever seeyng, ever shall injoye." 
 
 18-20 — xxxv-xxxviii. Given from W. C. Hazlitt's ed. of Constable's 
 Poems, 1859. As a last specimen from this fine sonneteer take this 
 first of four sonnets prefixed to Sidney's Apologie for Poetrie, 1595: — 
 
 TO SIR PHILLIP SIDNEYS SOULE. 
 Give pardon (blessed Soule) to my bold cryes. 
 If they (importund) interrupt thy song. 
 Which nowe with joyfull notes thou sing'st, among 
 The Angel-Quiristers of heav'nly skyes : 
 
 1 This sonnet, with a few immaterial variations, appears in Dr. Grosart's ed. of 
 Donne's Poeiiis, 2 vols., 187-23, ii, 291, annotated thus: 'Written, I assume, while 
 Donne was yet a Roman Catholic, as he receives the dogma of the immaculate con- 
 ception. We Protestants, on the other hand, forget, in our panic, what " is written " 
 in St. Luke i, 28, 42. From Stephens' MS.' Surely the internal evidence alone for 
 Constable is such as to leave little doubt of the character of the document on which 
 Donne's claim rests. 
 
 * meede — rewaid. Hazlitt prints 'meedes.'
 
 26o Notes 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Penrg Constable. 
 
 Give pardon eake (sweet Soule) to my slow cries, 
 
 That since I saw thee now it is so long, 
 
 And yet the teares that unto thee belong. 
 
 To thee as yet they did not sacrifice ; 
 
 I did not know that thou wert dead before, 
 
 I did not feele the griefe I did susteine, 
 
 " The greater stroke astonisheth the more, 
 
 "Astonishment takes from us sence of paine ; 
 
 I stood amaz'd when others teares begun. 
 
 And now begin to weepe, when they have doone,' 
 
 S^bomas ITobge. 
 
 20 — XXXIX. The 22nd Sonnet of Phillis • Honoured with Pastorall 
 Sonnets, Elegies, and a/norous delights. &c. 1593. ' Lodge's love- 
 poems have an exquisite delicacy and grace : they breathe a tenderer 
 and truer passion than we find in any of his contemporaries. His 
 sonnet^ are more loose and straggling, slighter and less compactly 
 built, than Constable's or Daniel's ; but they have a wonderful charm 
 of sweet fancy and unaffected tenderness. His themes are the usual 
 praises of beauty and complaints of unkindness ; but he contrives to 
 impart to them a most unusual air of sincere devotion and graceful 
 fervour. None of his rivals can equal the direct and earnest simpli- 
 city and grace of his adoration of Phyllis, and avowal of faith in her 
 constancy. There is a seeming artlessness in Lodge's sonnets, a 
 winning directness, that constitutes a great part of their charm. 
 They seem to be uttered through a clear and pure medium straight 
 from the heart : their tender fragrance and music come from the 
 heart itself.' W. Minto {Characteristics, Sec, as before, p. 259). 
 Unhappily in the sonnets these graces go hand in hand with very 
 grievous deformities ; else a single specimen would hardly suffice 
 here from the author of J?osaline — that ' gorgeous Vision of Beauty,' 
 as Mr. Palgrave justly calls it — the charming Rosalind's Madrigal, 
 and the equally charming lyrics in honour of Phyllis. All the son- 
 nets in the Phillis, a work of the most tantalizing inequality, suffer 
 more or less from Lodge's caprices of style ; so that while only a 
 necessary discretion is exercised in limiting the selection to a single 
 sonnet, it has been too frequently at a sacrifice of beauties which 
 one would fain pluck from their commonplace environment. How 
 infinitely tender is the opening of the 5th Sonnet, for example : — 
 
 ' Ah pale and dying infant of the springe, 
 How rightly now do I resemble thee : 
 
 • L. 2 {importund) = importune, in the sense of violent, as in Spenser, Faerie 
 Queene, i, xi, 53. LI. n-12 See foot-note 1. 7 of Herrick's sonnet, supra, p. 255.
 
 Notes 261 
 
 That selfesame hand that thee from stalke did wringe, 
 Hath rent my breast and robd my heart from mee.' 
 
 or that of the 7th :— 
 
 ' How languisheth the Primrose of loves garden ? 
 
 Ah Roses, loves faire Roses do not languish, 
 
 Blush through the milk-white vaile that holdes you covered.' 
 
 The 9th will bear to be quoted entire : it is only at the very close 
 that it breaks down : — 
 
 The dewie-Roseate morne had with hir haires 
 
 In sundrie sorts the Indian Clime adornd, 
 
 And now hir eies apparrailed in teares. 
 
 The losse of lovely Memnon long had moomd ; 
 
 When as she spide the Nimph whom I admire, 
 
 Kembinge hir locks, of which the yelow golde 
 
 Made blush the beauties of hir curled wire, 
 
 Which heaven it selfe with wonder might beholde. 
 
 Then redd with shame, hir reverend locks she rent, 
 
 And weeping hid the beauty of hir face ; 
 
 The flower of fancie wrought such discontent. 
 
 The sighes which midst the aire she breathd a space, 
 
 A three daies stormie tempest did maintaine, 
 
 Hir shame a fire, hir eies a swelling raine. 
 
 There seems no reason to question Mr. Minto's opinion that Lodge's 
 temperament was not specially fitted for the sonnet form of compo- 
 sition. The two examples given are by much his best. Mr. Collier 
 {Biblio. Acct. Eng. Lit., i, 1865, 468), animadverting on Dyce for 
 not having represented Lodge in his Specimens of English Sonnets, 
 1833, overstates, I think, the value of the Phillis for the purposes of 
 such a work. With one or two exceptions Lodge's books have long 
 been practically inaccessible. It was therefore well-timed energy 
 recently on the part of the Hunterian Club, Glasgow, to print a 
 complete edition of our poet's original works. As Mr. Collier 
 asked many years ago {Gentleman s Magazine, December, 1850), 
 * Who does not wish to know all that can be known of an author 
 who could write such stanzas as the following ? ' — 
 
 ' See where the babes of memorie are laid 
 Under the shadow of Apollos tree, 
 That pleit their garlands fresh, and well apaid. 
 And breath foorth lines of daintie poecie : 
 
 Ah world farewell, the sight hereof dooth tell, 
 That true content dooth in the desert dwell. 
 • • • . • 
 
 Sweete solitarie life, thou true repose, 
 Wherein the wise contemplate heaven aright,
 
 262 Notes 
 
 Cbomas ^obge. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 In thee no dread of warre or worldly foes, 
 In thee no pompe seduceth mortall sight, 
 
 In thee no wanton eares to win with words, 
 Nor lurking toyes, which Citie life affoords. 
 
 At peepe of day, when in her crimson pride, 
 The Morne bespreds with roses all the waie 
 Where Phcebus coach with radiant course must glide, 
 The Hermit bends his humble knees to pray : 
 
 Blessing that God, whose bountie did bestow 
 Such beauties on the earthly things below.' ' 
 
 (itorgc Cbapmait. 
 
 21 — XL. The first in a corona, or crown, of ten sonnets, entitled A 
 Coronet for his Mistresse Philosophie, published with Ovids Banquet 
 of Sence, &c., 1595. A selection from the sixteen sonnets attached 
 to Chapman's translation of Homer may not be unacceptable to the 
 reader here. Coleridge, writing to Wordsworth in 1807 with a copy 
 of the volume, in allusion to the Dedication to Prince Henry and 
 these Homer sonnets (though erroneously speaking of the latter as 
 prefixed to the Odyssey instead of affixed to the Iliad), says : ' Chap- 
 man, in his moral heroic verse . . . stands above Ben Jonson ; 
 there is more dignity, more lustre, and equal strength ; but not mid- 
 way quite between him and the sonnets of Milton. I do not know 
 whether I give him the higher praise, in that he reminds me of 
 Ben Jonson with a sense of his superior excellence, or that he 
 brings Milton to memory notwithstanding his inferiority. His moral 
 poems are not quite out of books like Jonson's, nor yet do the sen- 
 timents so wholly grow up out of his own natural habit and grandeur 
 of thought, as in Milton. The sentiments have been attracted to 
 him by a natural affinity of his intellect, and so combined ; — ^but 
 Jonson has taken them by individual and successive acts of choice.' 
 {Literary Remains, 1836, i, 261). Of these sonnets specially 
 marked by Coleridge (ist, nth, and 15th) the following are the two 
 last {The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets : &c. [161 1] fol.) : — 
 
 1 From a poem In Commendation of a Solitarie Life (Scillaes Mftamorphosis, &c., 
 1589). L. I babes o/metnorie. So Milton On Shakespear. lOjo (Poems, 1645, p. 27) : 
 ' Dear son of memory, great heir of Fame ; ' 
 
 anticipated by Alexander Gardyne in his Theatre of Scottish Worthies, 1626 ? 
 
 (Hunterian Club edn., 1878, p. 8) : 
 
 ' The heire of Honor & the chyld of Fame.'
 
 Notes 263 
 
 TO THE HAPPY STARKE, DISCOVERED /TV OUR 
 
 SYDNEIAN ASTERISME, COMFORT OF LEARNING, SPHERE 
 OF ALL THE VERTHES, THE LADY VVROTHE. 
 
 When all our other Starres set in their skies 
 
 To Vertue, and all honor of her kind, 
 
 That you, rare Lady, should so clearcly rise, 
 
 Makes all the vertuous glorifie your mind. 
 
 And let true Reason and Religion trie 
 
 If it be Fancie, not judiciall Right, 
 
 In you t' oppose the times Apostasie, 
 
 To take the soules part, and her saving Light, 
 
 While others blinde and burie both in Sense, 
 
 When tis the onely end for which all live. 
 
 And could those soules in whom it dies dispense 
 
 As much with their Religion, they would give 
 
 That as small grace. Then shun their course, faire Starre, 
 
 And still keepe your way pure and circular. ' 
 
 TO THE EIGHT NOBLE AND HEROICALL, 
 
 MY SINGULAR GOOD LORD, THE LORD OF WALDEN, ETC. 
 
 Nor let the vulgar sway Opinion beares, 
 
 Rare Lord, that Poesies favor shewes men vaine, 
 
 Ranke you amongst her sterne disfavourers ; 
 
 She all things worthy favour dotlvmaintaine. 
 
 Vertue in all tilings else at best she betters. 
 
 Honour she heightens, and gives Life in Death, 
 
 She is the ornament and soule of letters, 
 
 The worlds deceipt before her vanisheth ; 
 
 Simple she is as Doves, like Serpents wise, 
 
 Sharp, grave, and sacred ; nought but things divine, 
 
 ' The Lady l\Iary Wrothe was the daughter of Robert Sidney, Earl of Leicester, 
 and wife of Sir Robert Wrothe. Her Urania (1621) is a prose romance, written in 
 imitation of her uncle Sir P. Sidney's y^nrrt^/rt, interspersed with regular sonnets 
 and other verses, specimens of which may be seen in Sir E. Brydges' Restituta, ii, 
 1S15, 260-275. Jt was not an ungraceful compliment to this lady on the part of Ben 
 Jonson, who hated rime in general — 
 
 • Rime the rack of finest wits, 
 That e.\presseth but by fits 
 
 True Conceipt' — 
 
 and, Drummond tells us, ' cursed Petrarch for redacting verses into sonnets,' to make so 
 unwonted a surrender ofhis prejudice when addressing her ( Und eriuood s , ed. 1640) : — 
 
 TO THE NOBLE LADY, THE LADY MART WROTH. 
 
 I that have beene a lover, and could shew it, 
 
 Though not in these, in rithmes not wholly dumbe, 
 
 Since I exscribe your Sonnets, am become 
 
 A better lover, and much better Poet. 
 
 Nor is my Muse or I asham'd to owe it. 
 
 To those true numerous Graces, whereof some 
 
 But charme the Senses, others over-come 
 
 Both braines and hearts, and mine now best doe know it : 
 
 For in your verse all Cupids Armorie, 
 
 His flames, his shafts, his Quiver, and his Bow, 
 
 His very eyes are yours to overthrow. 
 
 But then his Mothers sweets you so apply. 
 
 Her joyes, her smiles, her loves, as readers take 
 
 For Venus Ceston every line you make. 
 
 Ben Johnson.
 
 264 Notes 
 
 #£orgc Cljirpmrnt. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 And things divining, fit her faculties, 
 Accepting her as she is genuine. 
 If she be vaine then, all things else are vile ; 
 If virtuous, still be Patrone of her stile.' 
 
 21 — XLi. The most perfect sympathy with the time fails to explain, or 
 at all events to justify, the extraordinary measure of favour with 
 which Watson was regarded by his contemporaries. With every wish 
 to appreciate a writer known and esteemed by such men as Sidney, 
 Lyly, and Spenser, and mourned, as is supposed, by the last-named 
 in Colin Clouts come home againe as the ' floure of shepheards pride 
 
 forlorne ' — 
 
 * the noblest swaine 
 That ever piped in an oaten quill ' — 
 
 I have been unable to gather, either from his lachrymary or his 
 ' passionate ' collection, more than one example suited to the pre- 
 sent purpose. Even that one is accepted less for its intrinsic than 
 its representative value. It belongs to The Tears of Fancie, or Love 
 Disdained, a series of sixty sonnets published in 1593, of which a 
 single perusal will demonstrate that it is not always without reason 
 that Fortune neglects her favourites. The perusal should also have 
 the effect of moderating any feeling of disappointment which other- 
 wise might have arisen from the fact that by some accident of the 
 press eight of these sixty sonnets are wanting in the only copy at 
 present known ; and that the ' sonnets,' so-called, composing Wat- 
 son's earlier and larger work, the EKarujiiTtaQia, or Passionate Cen- 
 turie of Love, 1582, are constructed on a principle which precludes 
 themf rom consideration as sonnets at all. But the estimate put upon 
 this forgotten poet by certain moderns is still more unaccountable. 
 George Steevens pronounced him ' a more elegant sonneteer than 
 Shakspeare; ' and Professor Henry Morley, at whose suggestion Mr. 
 Arber in his admirable reprint (1870) has placed within every stu- 
 dent's reach an author hitherto inaccessible, claims for him the merit 
 of being the sweetest of the purely amatory poets of Elizabeth's 
 reign ; while Mr. Arber ranks him next to Spenser : ' that is,' he 
 says, ' before Sidney as a Poet.' The most unfeigned gratitude for 
 all Mr. Arber's services to literature cannot prevent one from smiling 
 at such a judgment, or marvelling at the perverse enthusiasm which 
 
 > The Lord of IValden = Theophilus Howard, Lord Howard of Walden.
 
 Notes 265 
 
 in the nineteenth century seeks to reinstate a writer whose whole 
 known 'effects,' fascinating as they may have been to ' ingenious 
 men in the latter end of Q. Elizabeth,' as Wood puis it, do not 
 yield a dozen verses possessing one jot of human interest ; unless 
 perhaps we except the really beautiful Eglogue upon the Death of 
 Sir Francis Walsingham (1590), which has an occasional remote 
 resemblance to Milton's Lycidas. That Watson was sometimes 
 dainty and graceful as a translator, however, the following example 
 of his eighteen-lined stanzas will show. It is the 53rd of the 
 'UxarojiiTtaOia, the theme being borrowed, the old annotator tells 
 us, from the Greek of Theocritus, through the Latin version of C. 
 Ursinus Velius, a Roman epigrammatist : 
 
 Where tender Love had laide him downe to sleepe, 
 A little Bee so stong his fingers end. 
 That burning ache enforced him to weepe 
 And call for Phebus Sonne to stand his frend ; 
 To whome he cride, I muse so small a thing 
 Can pricke thus deepe with suche a little Sting. 
 Why so, sweet Boy, quoth Venus sitting by? 
 Thy selfe is yong, tliy arrowes are but small 
 And yet thy shotte makes hardest harts to cry? 
 To Phebus Sunne she turned therewithall. 
 
 And prayde him shew his skill to cure the sore, 
 Whose like her Boy had neuer felt before. 
 Then he with Herbes recured soone the wound, 
 Which being done, he threw the Herbes away, 
 Whose force, through touching Love, in selfe same ground, 
 By haplesse hap did breede my hartes decay : 
 
 f'or there they fell, where long my hart had li'ne 
 To waite for Love, and what he should assigne.* 
 
 Mr. Minto quotes two of Watson's sonnets (19th and 20th of The Tears 
 of Fancie) as deriving a certain interest from their having apparently 
 been imitated in Shakspeare's 46th and 47th. 
 
 Ilobcrt incite. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 22 — XLII. From Francescos Fortunes : or the Second Part of Greenes 
 Never too late, &c., 1590. 
 
 siege=%&2X ; /r^j/= prepared, ready — as in his Alphonsus, King of 
 Arragon, indicated by Dyce (Greene's Works, 1831, ii, 45): 
 
 ' Belinus comes, in glittering armour clad. 
 All ready prest for to revenge the wrong 
 W^hich, not long since, you ofler'd unto him.' 
 
 • Phebus Sonne = ^Esculapius.
 
 266 Notes 
 
 llobcrt Greene. 
 
 sorry = full of sorrow, as it was then — cf. George Herbert's Sinnes 
 Rotmd {N\.^\r^& ed., p. 157): 
 
 ' Sorrie I am, my God, sorrie I am.' 
 
 subscribes = submits — as in Shakspeare's loyth Sonnet (xciv, 10). 
 XLiii. First printed in Greenes Groatsworth of IVitte : bought 
 
 ■with a million of Repentaiue, &c., 1592. Given here from the 
 
 corrected quarto of 1637. 
 These prose romances of Greene's, which it is well known are largely- 
 autobiographical, our two sonnets in particular being uttered truly ' from 
 the depths,' suggest here the famous pamphlet in which his former 
 friend, Gabriel Harvey, narrates the sad story of the poor dramatist's last 
 hours, and in which occur ' certaine Sonnets ' of an exceptional character. 
 This was Fonre Letters, and certaine Sonnets : especially touching Robert 
 Greene, and other parties by him abused : &c., published in 1592, imme- 
 diately after Greene's death. The sonnets, of which the 2nd and 5th 
 may be quoted here, occupy the last portion of the volume, under the 
 general title of Greenes Memoriall. 
 
 HIS MISFORTUN, IN BEING SPITEFULLY IN JUKI ED 
 
 BY SOJIE, WHOM HE PARTIALLY COMMENDED. 
 
 Unlucky I, "unhappiest on Earth, 
 
 That fondly doting upon dainty witts. 
 
 And deepely ravish'd with their luring fitts, 
 
 Of gentle favours find so hard a Dearth ! 
 
 Is it my Fate, or Fault, that such fine men 
 
 Should their Commender so unkindly bite. 
 
 That looves to loove, in spite of rankest Spite, 
 
 And hates to hate, with Hart, or Tongue, or Pen? 
 
 Sweet Writers, as yee covet to be sweet. 
 
 Nor me, nor other, nor your selves abuse ; 
 
 Humanity doth courteously peruse 
 
 Each act of frend, or foe, with favour meet. 
 
 Foul Divel, and fouler Malice, cease to rave : 
 
 For every fault I twenty pardons crave. 
 
 Gabriel Harvey. 
 
 THE LEARNED SHOULD LOVINGLY AFFECT THE LEARNED. 
 
 I am not to instruct where I may learne, 
 
 But where I may persuasively exhort ; 
 
 Nor over-dissolute, nor over-sterne, 
 
 A courteous Honesty I would extort. 
 
 Good loathes to damage or upbraid the good ; 
 
 Gentle how loovely to the gentle wight ! 
 
 Who seeith not how every blooming budd 
 
 Smileth on every flower fairely dyght. 
 
 And biddeth fowle illfavouredness God-night? 
 
 Would Alciats Embleme, or sum scarlet whood.
 
 Notes 267 
 
 Could teach the Pregnant sonnes of shiny Light 
 To interbrace each other with delight ! 
 Fine Mercury conducts a dainty band 
 Of Charites and Muses, hand in hand.' 
 
 Gabriel Harvey, 
 
 Siimucl ^auicl. 
 
 'This poet's well-merited epithet,' says Coleridge, ' is that of the 
 " well-languaged Daniel; " '• but, likewise, and by the consent of his con- 
 temporaries, no less than all succeeding critics, the " prosaic Daniel." 
 Yet those who thus designate this wise and amiable writer, from the fre- 
 quent incorrespondency of his diction with his metre, in the majority of 
 his compositions, not only deem them valuable and interesting on other 
 accounts, but willingly admit that there are to be found throughout his 
 poems, and especially in his Epistles and in his Hymens Triumph, many 
 and exquisite specimens of that style, which, as the neutral ground of 
 prose and verse, is common to both.' ^ Knowing his solid worth, Cole- 
 ridge missed few opportunities of commending this admirable poet, whom 
 Southey also held in equal respect and affection, quoting him often, and 
 that usually with a special word of praise : in The Doctor, for example, 
 where on one occasion (p. 121, ed. 1848) he calls him ' one of the sweetest 
 and tenderest of English poets,' and on another ' the tenderest of all 
 tender poets,' the incredulous reader being referred to ' Leigh Hunt, 
 or Wordsworth, or Charles Lamb,' for confirmation ; while in the Speci- 
 mens{i82^) there occurs this succinct estimate of poet and man : ' Daniel 
 frequently writes below his subject and his strength ; but always in a 
 strain of tender feeling, and in language as easy and natural as it is pure. 
 For his diction alone he would deserve to be studied by all students or 
 lovers of poetry, even if his works did not abound with passages of sin- 
 gular beauty. Thoughtful, grateful, right-minded, and gentle-hearted, 
 there is no poet, in any language, of whom it may be inferred with 
 more certainty, from his writings, that he was an amiable, and wise, and 
 good man.' Next to his stainless moral purity,'' perhaps what most dis- 
 
 1 L. 3 dissolztte — weak, lax — the original sense. Alciats Embleine. In allusion to 
 one of the 'Concordia' emblems in Andrea Alciati's once-popular book, imitated 
 among ourselves by such writers as Francis Quarles, Wither, and Bunyan. Prof. 
 Henry IMorley gives a wood-cut and description of one of Alciati's emblems in his 
 Shorter Etiglish Poe»!s. L. 10 scarlet wkood = monk, ecclesiastic. 
 
 2 William Browne {^Brit. Past., 1625, Bk. ii. Song 2, p. 49). 
 
 ' Biographia Literaria, 2nd ed. 1S47, ii, 83. See also two letters of Coleridge to 
 Charles Lamb, written on the fly-leaf of Lamb's copy of Daniel, and printed in the Life 
 of Daniel in yohnsons Lives 0/ the British Poets, Completed by William Hazlitt, 
 4 vols. 1854. 
 
 * Richard Barnfield, a contemporary, in his Retnembrance of Some English Poets, 
 1598, discriminates Daniel's 'sweet-chast verse ' as his special praise ; and Winstanley 
 (Lives of the Most Famous English Poets ,t(>Z-j , p. 109'), quoting Fuller, describes him 
 quaintly as ' one of the Darlings of the Muses, a most excellent poet, whose Wings of
 
 268 Notes 
 
 Samuel panirl. 
 tinguishes Daniel from the majority of his contemporaries — the ' sage and 
 serious ' Daniel, as one might call him, appropriating Milton's character 
 of Spenser — is the singular niodernness of his style, his love of our lan- 
 guage and literature for their own sakes, and the almost Wordsworthian 
 nobleness of spirit in which he followed the Poet's calling. Witness 
 these memorable words in his Musophilus, which Professor Lowell has 
 recently declared to be ' the best poem of its kind in the language ' 
 {Among My Books, 2nd Series, Boston, 1876, p. 138) : 
 
 ' Be it that my unseasonable Song 
 
 Come out of time, that fault is in the Time, 
 And I must not doe Vertue so much wrong, 
 As love her aught the worse for others crime : 
 
 • ■ • • • • 
 
 4 
 
 And for my part, if onely one allow 
 
 The care my labouring spirits take in this, 
 He is to me a Theater large enow. 
 And his applause onely sufficient is : 
 All my respect is bent but to his brow, 
 That is my All, and all I am, is his. 
 
 And if some worthy spirits be pleased too. 
 
 It shall more comfort breede, but not more will. 
 But what if none ? It cannot yet undoo 
 The love I beare unto this holy skill : 
 This is the thing that I was borne to doo, 
 This is my Scene, this part must I fulfill.' 
 
 And the prescient passage further on in which he foretells the destinies 
 awaiting his beloved English tongue. Professor Lowell acknowledges 
 the ' kindly prophetic word for us Occidentals.' 
 
 ' And who, in time, knowes whither we may vent 
 
 The treasure of our tongue, to what strange shores 
 This gaine of our best glory shall be sent, 
 T' enrich unknowing Nations with our stores? 
 What worlds in th' yet unformed Occident 
 May come refin'd with th' accents that are ours ? 
 
 Or, who can tell for what great worke in hand 
 The greatnesse of our stile is now ordain'd ? 
 What powrs it shall bring in, what spirits command, 
 What thoughts let out, what humours keepe restrain'd. 
 What mischiefe it may powrefully withstand, 
 And what faire ends may thereby be attain'd.' 
 
 It is matter for regret that so little of the work of his hand appears in 
 
 Fancy displayed the Flags of highest Invention : Carrying in his Christian and Sir- 
 name the Names of two holy Prophets ; which, as they were Monitors to him, for 
 avoyding Scurrility, so he qualified his Raptures to such a strain, as therein he ab- 
 horred all Debauchery and Prophaness.'
 
 Notes 269 
 
 these pages ; but the truth is that the deplorable misconceptions re- 
 specting the nature and special function of the sonnet, which Daniel 
 shared in common with his contemporaries — Shakespeare (always ex- 
 ceptional) excepted — cramped and perverted his natural powers as 
 often he essayed this form, leaving his achievements in it but sorry 
 witnesses to his great qualities. One of the examples chosen, how- 
 ever — that on page 24 — cannot but be regarded as entirely worthy of 
 his or any genius, and abundantly justifies the eulogy of a critic in 
 The Quarterly Revietu (Art. ' The Sonnet,' January, 1873, P- IQS). that 
 for ' mellifluous tenderness and pensive grace of expression ' it ' miglit 
 rank amongst the first in the language.' 
 
 PAGE 
 
 23 — XLIV, 10. thy : so all eds. except 1623, which reads ' the ', pos- 
 sibly intended rather for the ' thy ' of 1. 9. The two sonnets imme- 
 diately succeeding this in Delia may find a place here. They should 
 be compared with the 58th and 5gth of Barnabe Barnes's Partheno- 
 philand Parthenophe, 1593 (ed. Grosart, 1875, pp. 39-4o)- 
 
 (37) 
 But love whilst that thou maist be lov'd againe, 
 Now whilst thy May hath fild thy lap with flowres, 
 Now whilst thy beauty beares without a staine ; 
 Now use the Sommer smiles, ere Winter lowers. 
 And whilst thou spreadst unto the rising sunne 
 The fairest flowre that ever saw the light, 
 Now joy thy time before thy sweet be done, 
 And (Delia) thinke thy morning must have night, 
 And that thy brightnes sets at length to West, 
 When thou wilt close up that which now thou show'st, 
 And thinke the same becomes thy fading best, 
 Which then shall most invaile and shadow most. 
 Men do not wey the stalke for that it was, 
 When once they find her flowre her glory pas. 
 
 (3S) 
 When men shall find thy flower, thy glory passe, 
 And thou with carefull brow sitting alone. 
 Received hast this message from thy glasse. 
 That tells the truth, and sayes that all is gone ; 
 Fresh shalt thou see in me the wounds thou madst, 
 Though spent thy flame, in me the heat remaining ; 
 1 that have lov'd thee thus before thou fadst. 
 My faith shall waxe, when thou art in thy waining. 
 The world shall finde this myracle in me. 
 That fire can burne when all the matter's spent : 
 Then what my faith hath bene thy selfe shall see, 
 And that thou wast unkinde, thou mayst repent. 
 Thou maist repent that thou hast scornd my teares, 
 When winter snowes upon thy sable haires.
 
 2^0 'Notes 
 
 SamutI gjtitkl. 
 
 XLV, 11-14. The 3rd ed. of Delia (i594) reads: 
 
 ' When time hath made a pasport for thy feares, 
 Dated in age, the Kalends of our death. 
 But ah ! no more, this hath beene often tolde. 
 And women,' &c. 
 
 24— XLVi. Care-charmer Sleep. Appropriated, as Mr. Collier pointed 
 
 out {Biblio. Acct. Eng. Lit., 1865, ii, 556), by B. Griffin in the 15th 
 
 Sonnet of his Fidessa, 1596— an appropriation conceded by Dr. 
 
 Grosart, Griffin's latest editor (1876), who however acquits his 
 
 author of all the other charges of plagiarism which Mr. Collier 
 
 brings against him from Daniel, Gascoigne, and Shakspeare.' I 
 
 subjoin Griffin's sonnet for the reader's gratification, though he 
 
 may hardly endorse Dr. Grosart's opinion that it ' more than holds 
 
 its own ' beside Daniel's : — 
 
 Care-charmer Sleepe, sweet ease in restles miserie, 
 
 The captives libertie, and his freedomes song ; 
 
 Balm of the brused heart, mans chiefe felicitie. 
 
 Brother of quiet death, when life is too too long. 
 
 A Comedie it is, and now an Historic — • 
 
 What is not sleepe unto the feeble minde ? 
 
 It easeth him t4iat toyles, and him that's sorrie, 
 
 It makes the deaffe to heare, to see the blinde. 
 
 Ungentle sleepe, thou helpest all but me, 
 
 For when I sleepe my sole is vexed most ; 
 
 It is Fidessa that doth master thee : 
 
 If she approach (alas) thy power is lost. 
 
 But here she is : see how he runnes amaine ; 
 
 I feare at night he will not come againe. 
 
 Bartholomew Griffin. 
 
 A little poem of ineffable softness and beauty, sung to music in 
 Beaumont and Fletcher's tragedy of Valentinian, may also be 
 quoted for its points of resemblance (ed. Dyce, 1844, v, 297) : 
 
 ' Care-charming Sleep, thou easer of all woes, 
 Brother to Death, sweetly thyself dispose 
 On this afflicted prince ; fall, like a cloud. 
 In gentle showers; give nothing that is loud 
 Or painful to his slumbers ; easy, sweet. 
 And as a purling stream, thou son of Night, 
 
 1 Dr. Grosart has effectually vindicated Griffin's authorship of the sonnet in The 
 Passionate Pilgrime (1599) — an unauthoritative miscellany never in any way ac- 
 knowledged by Shakspeare — beginning 
 
 ' Venus, with Adonis sitting by her.' 
 of which the 3rd in the Fidessa, beginning 
 
 ' Venus, and yong Adonis sitting by her,' 
 is a superior as well as earlier version.
 
 Notes 271 
 
 Pass by his troubled senses ; sing his pain, 
 Like hollow murmuring wind or silver rain; 
 Into this prince gently, oh, gently slide, 
 And kiss him into slumbers like a bride.' ' 
 
 The late Mr. Corser notes {Collectanea Anglo-Poetica, Pt. 11, 1861, 
 p. 369) that Daniel's sonnet has been made rather free with by 
 Richard Brathwaite too, in his poem A Grief e {Time's Curtaine 
 Drawne, &c., 162 1) : — 
 
 ' Care charming sleepe, thou sonne of sable night. 
 That cheares our drowping spirits with delight. 
 Making us forget care, as if kept under 
 By some sweete spell, or some Lethean slumber : 
 Away and leave me,' &c. 
 
 and an instance of the initial phrase occurs in Sylvester's Du Bartas 
 {Fifth Day of First Week, p. 46, fol. 1641) : 
 
 ' And when the honey of care-charming sleep 
 Sweetly begins through all their veines to creep.' 
 
 Brother to Death : an immemorial classical common-place of fre- 
 quent recurrence in our elder as in our later literature, of which the 
 following selection of examples, in addition to those from Grifhn and 
 Beaumont and Fletcher as above, may be useful to the student : — 
 Geo. Chapman's Ccesar and Pompey (ed. Lond. 1873, iii> i^^) • 
 
 ' but when death 
 (Sleepes naturall brother) comes ; ' 
 
 John Webster's White Devil {-p. 40, ed. Dyce, 1857: 
 ' O thou soft natural death, that art joint-twin 
 To sweetest slumber ; ' 
 Drummond of Hawthornden {Poems, p. 46, ed. TumbuU, 1856) : 
 ' If Death Sleep's brother be ; 
 
 Sir Tho. Browne, in allusion to sleep {Hydtiotaphia, § 4) : ' Since 
 the brother of death daily haunts us with dying mementos ; ' Tho. 
 . Washbourne {Poems, p. 230, ed. Grosart, 186S) : 
 
 ' let Death suceed 
 His elder brother. Sleep ; ' 
 
 Hon. W. Herbert (quoted by Scott, Woodstock, chap, vi, motto) : 
 
 ' Sleep steals on us even like his brother Death ; ' 
 
 > It maj' be noticed in passing that these lines have been included, as ' never before 
 printed,' in our best edition of Donne (/'oc;«Joy7o//«Z>i7««^,Z>.Z>.,ed. Grosart, 1872-3, 
 ii, 246), on theslrength ofthe discovery ofan inacctirate transcript of them, signed' Dr. 
 Donn,' in the library of Trinity Coll., Cambridge (MS. B.14. 22). Nor is this the 
 less curious from the circumstance that Daniel's sonnet was itself once the subject of a 
 similar mistake ; tor a draft of it having been found among the papers of his friend 
 and correspondent Drummond of Hawthornden, Phillips gave it a place (p. 185) in 
 the posthumous edition ofthe Scottish poet edited by him in 1656. In that case, how- 
 ever, there was no obvious incongruity between the work and the putative workman.
 
 272 Notes 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Shelley {Queen Mab, i) : 
 
 ' How wonderful is Death — 
 Death, and his brother Sleep ! ' 
 
 Tennyson {In Memoriam, Ixviii) : 
 
 ' When in the down I sink my head, 
 Sleep, Death's twin-brother, times my breath ; ' 
 
 'Lz.ndor {Last Fruit off an Old Tree, 1853, p. 402): 
 
 ' That gentle Power, 
 Gentle as Death, Death's brother ; ' 
 
 and R. S. Hawker {Poetical Works, 1879, p. 161) : 
 
 ' When darkness fills the western sky, 
 And sleep, the twin of death, is nigh, 
 What soothes the soul at set of sun ? 
 The pleasant thought of duty done.' 
 
 Cf. also Sackville {Induction, 1563, xli), R. Southwell {St. Peter's 
 Complaint, 1596? st. 121, p. 41, ed. Grosart, 1872), and Davies of 
 Hereford {Scourge of Folly, 1610-11, p. 33, ed. Grosart, 1876) ; 
 and see under cxiv, 14. L. 4 care : earlier eds. ' cares,' 
 23-24 — XLIV-XLVI. From Delia, first published 1592. The text used 
 is that of the collective quarto, edited by John Daniel, the poet's 
 brother : The Whole Workes of Samuel Daniel Esquire, In Poetrie. 
 1623.' 
 
 24-XLVil. The 37th Sonnet of Idea (1593) : Poems. Newly cotrected 
 by the Author, 1608. In ed. of 1619 tmto (1. 9) becomes ' else to '. 
 This sonnet, which might have as title the beautiful Scotch saying 
 ' The E'en brings a' hame,' ^ I select chiefly for its magical realiza- 
 tion of the feeling of evening. The spirit of the hour, with all its 
 kindliness and peace, was never more perfectly breathed into Eng- 
 lish verse. It may be linked here with one by that other true 
 Arcadian, the ' sweet singer ' of Bntannia's PastoralsC Caelia,' 13 : 
 La7isdozvne MSS., Brit. Mus., 777, Art. 1, fol. 17) : 
 
 1 This is the text adopted in an elaborate edition of Daniel, in 4 vols., on which 
 Dr. Grosart, assisted by eminent collaborators, has been engaged for some years; and 
 it is gratifying to learn that the work, a real desideratum, will now not long be de- 
 ferred. Are not the poet's own sanguine words being verified? {Certaine Small 
 Workes hereto/ore divulged, &c., 1607 : To the Reader) :— 
 
 ' I know 1 shalbe read among the rest 
 So long as men speake english, and so long 
 As verse and vertue shalbe in request, 
 Or grace to honest industry belong.' 
 
 2 This has been spritualized in a poem of much beauty by the author (or authoress, 
 I believe) of an anonymous little volume of verse, entitled Spring Songs. By a 
 West Highlander, 1865. (Macmillan).
 
 Notes 273 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Night, stcale not on too fast : wee have not yet 
 Shed all our parting teares, nor paid the kisses, 
 Which foure dayes absence made us run in debt, 
 (O, who would absent be where growe such blisses?) 
 The Rose, which but this morning spred her leaves, 
 Kist not her neighbour flower more chast then wee ; 
 Nor are the timelye Eares bound up in sheaves 
 More strict then in our Amies we twisted be ; 
 O who would part us then, and disunite 
 Twoo harmeles soules, so innocent and true, 
 That were all honest Love forgotten quite, 
 By our Example men might Learne Anew. 
 Night severs us, but pardon her she maye. 
 And will once make us happy er then the daye. 
 
 William Browne, 
 
 25 — XLViil. The 6ist, /i5/^. Poems. With Sondry Peeces inserted never 
 before Imprinted, i6ig. ' From Anacreon down to Moore,' says 
 Henry Reed, speaking of this sonnet {Lectures on the Btitish Poets, 
 VII : i, 241, Philadelphia, 1857), ' I know of no lines on the old 
 subject of lovers' quarrels, distinguished for equal tenderness of 
 sentiment and richness of fancy. Especially may be observed the 
 exquisite gracefulness in the transition from the familiar tone in 
 the first part of the sonnet to the deeper feeling and the higher 
 strain of imagination at the close.' 
 24-25 — XLVii-XLViii. As in the case of Samuel Daniel, with whom, 
 somehow, he is commonly associated, only a scant selection has 
 been made from Michael Drayton—*' that Panegyrist of my native 
 Earth ; who has gone over her soil (in his Polyolbioii) with the 
 fidelity of a herald, and the painful love of a son ; who has not left 
 a rivulet (so narrow that it may be stept over) without honourable 
 mention ; and has animated Hills and Streams with life and passion 
 above the dreams of old mythology ' ' — the two examples given 
 being perhaps as many out of the ' Sixtie Three Sonnets ' com- 
 posing his Idea as may with perfect safety be transplanted hither. 
 Not that many of the others have not their portion of rememberable 
 beauty, or that any of them is undeserving of study. Take the two 
 following, for example, so perfect in their verbal mechanism : — 
 
 ( 23 ) 
 Love, banish'd Heav'n, in Earth was held in scome, 
 Wand'ring abroad in need and Beggerie ; 
 And wanting Friends, though of a Goddesse borne, 
 Yet crav'd the Almes of such as passed by : 
 I, like a Man, devout and charitable, 
 Clothed the Naked, lodg'd this wand'ring Ghest, 
 
 1 Charles Lamb {Dramatic Specimens, i, 49, ed. 1849).
 
 274 Notes 
 
 With Sighes and Teares still furnishing his Table, 
 
 With what might make the Miserable blest. 
 
 But this ungratefull, for my good desert, 
 
 Intic'd my Thoughts, against me to conspire. 
 
 Who gave consent to steale away my Heart, 
 
 And set my Brest, his Lodging, on a fire. 
 
 Well, well, my Friends, when Beggers grow thus bold, 
 
 No marvell then though Charitie grow cold. 
 
 (47) 
 In pride of Wit, when high desire of Fame 
 Gave Life and Courage to my lab'ring Pen, 
 And first the sound and vertue of my Name 
 Wonne grace and credite in the Fares of Men ; 
 With those the thronged Theaters that presse, 
 I in the Circuit for the Lawrell strove. 
 Where the full Prayse I freely must confesse. 
 In heat of Bloud, a modest Mind might move : 
 With Showts and Claps at ev'ry little pawse, 
 When the proud Round on ev'ry side hath rung, 
 Sadly I sit, unmov'd with the Applause, 
 As though to me it nothing did belong : 
 No publique Glorie vainely I pursue — 
 All that I seeke, is to eternize you. 
 
 And the beautiful 53rd too, which contains some of Drayton's pic- 
 turesque and luscious epithets, and has the special interest of 
 being a full-hearted tribute in sonnet-form to that native stream 
 which he loved more than all those he was afterwards to celebrate, 
 and which had doubtless been to him what the Derwent was to be 
 two centuries later to Wordsworth, who sings how 
 
 ' One, the fairest of all rivers, loved 
 To blend his murmurs, with my nurse's song, 
 And from his alder shades and rocky falls, 
 And from his fords and shallows, sent a voice 
 That flowed along my dreams.' ^ 
 
 By help of the little poem moreover we shall be able to revisit in 
 
 imagination the haunt of that melancholy one whom Amiens and 
 
 his companion overheard moralizing 
 
 ' as he lay along 
 Under an oak whose antique root peeps out 
 Upon the brook that brawls along this wood.'^ 
 
 In the edition used, that of 1619, it is entitled in the margin 
 Another to the River Ankor, a previous sonnet, the 32nd, having 
 been addressed to the same stream : — 
 
 ' The Prelude. Book i. 
 * As You Like It, ii, i, 30.
 
 Notes 275 
 
 Cleere Ankor, on whose silver-sanded shore 
 
 My Soule-shrin'd Saint, my faire Idea lies, 
 
 O blessed Brooke, whose milke-white Swans adore 
 
 Thy Cristall streame refined by her Eyes, 
 
 Where sweet Myrrh-breathing Zephire in the Spring 
 
 Gently distills his Nectar-dropping showres. 
 
 Where Niglitingales in Arden sit and sing. 
 
 Amongst the daintie Dew-impearled flowres ; 
 
 Say thus faire Brooke, when thou shalt see thy Queene, 
 
 Loe, heere thy Shepheard spent his wandring yeeres ; 
 
 And in these Shades, deare Nymph, he oft hath beene, 
 
 And heere to Thee he sacrific'd his Teares : 
 
 Faire Arden, thou my Tempe art alone. 
 
 And thou, sweet Ankor, art my Helicon. 
 
 None of these, not to mention the two masterpieces in the text, can have 
 been remembered by Mrs. Jameson when she took it upon herself to 
 say that Drayton's sonnets ' have neither poetry, nor passion, nor even 
 elegance.' ' 
 
 |0slnra Sjilbcstcr. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 25 — XLIX. From T>z.visoviS Poetical Raps ody, 1602, and attributed to 
 Sylvester from the signature /. S. affixed to it. Sir Egerton Brydges 
 in his edition of the Rhapsody, 1814-17, followed by Sir Harris 
 Nicolas in his, 1826, makes the misleading statement that the signa- 
 ture was withdrawn in the fourth edition of 1621. The explanation 
 is not far to seek. In the first three editions this sonnet and another, 
 beginning ' The Poets fayne that when the world beganne,' each 
 bearing the signature /. S., are separated by a couple of anonymous 
 madrigals (one of them the well-known ' My Love in her Attyre 
 doth shew her witt '), while in the fourth edition, in which the con- 
 tents underwent an entire re-arrangement and classification, the two 
 sonnets are simply brought together, and the initials in question 
 placed at the end of the second sonnet so as \o sei-ve for both. It 
 may be mentioned, however, that neither of these sonnets was 
 included in the collected Sylvester folio of 1641, from which the 
 three following additional specimens are extracted. The two first 
 belong to that section of the volume to which the old editor (John 
 Vicars ?) has prefixed a title whereon the ' fantastick eye ' of the 
 dead poet himself must look with pleasure : — Fosthumi. Or Syl- 
 vesters Remains : containing Divers Sonnets, Epistles, Elegies, Epi- 
 taphs, Epigrams, and other Delight full Devises, Revised out of the 
 Ashes of that Silvej-- Tongiied Translatour and Divine Poet-Laureat, 
 Master Josiiah Sylvester, N'ever, Till Now, Imprinted. 
 
 ' Romance of Biography : or Memoirs 0/ Women Loved and Celebrated by 
 Poets, 3rd ed., 1837, i, 263.
 
 276 Notes 
 
 (16) 
 
 They say that shadowes of deceased ghosts 
 Doe haunt the houses and the graves about, 
 Of such whose lives-lamp went untimely out, 
 Delighting still in their forsaken hostes : 
 So, in the place where cruell love doth shoote 
 The fatall shaft that slue my loves delight, 
 I stalke and walke and wander day and night, 
 Even like a ghost with unperceived foote. 
 But those light ghosts are happier far then I, 
 For, at their pleasure, they can come and goe 
 Unto the place that hides their treasure, so. 
 And see the same with their fantastick eye ; 
 Where I (alas) dare not approach the cruell 
 Proud Monument that doth inclose my Jewell. 
 
 (20) 
 
 Thrice tosse these oaken ashes in the aire, 
 
 And thrice three times tie-up this true Loves knot ; 
 
 Thrice sit thee downe in this enchanted chaire, 
 
 And murmure soft, slice will or shee will not. 
 
 Goe burn these poys'ned weeds in that blew fire. 
 
 This Cipresse gath'red at a dead man's grave, 
 
 These Scriech-owles feathers, and this pricking bryer. 
 
 That all thy thorny Cares an end may have. 
 
 Then come you Fairies, dance with mee a round : 
 
 Dance in this circle, let my love be center. 
 
 Melodiously breath out a charming sound ; 
 
 Melt her hard heart, that some remorse may enter. 
 
 In vain are all the charmes I can devise, 
 
 Shee hath an Arte to breake them with her eyes. 
 
 Like so many other things which have been attributed to Sylvester, 
 the curious love-incantation last given must be regarded as of doubtful 
 authenticity. It is one (Son. 22, p. 634, beginning ' Thou art not faire 
 for all thy red and white,' being another) of those pieces from the post- 
 humous additions to the Sylvester folio which Sir Egerton Brydges, 
 ' on the authority of cotemporary MSS. of the British Museum,' prints 
 as Thomas Campion's {Excerpta Tudoriana, i, 18 14, 36). The dififi-_ 
 culty is to believe that two productions of so strongly-marked a physi- 
 ognomy as it and its associate above are not from one and the same pen. 
 A specimen of a different order may now be given illustrating Sylves- 
 ter's more characteristic style ; for it was hardly by pictures so ghastly- 
 grim as these that the English Du Bartas earned his appellation of 
 ' the silver-tongued,' but by such qualities as are shewn in this first of 
 two isolated sonnets occupying the page directly following the quaintly- 
 beautiful Ode to Astraa in an eaflier portion of the folio : —
 
 JVotcs 277 
 
 Sweet mouth, that sendst a muskic-rosed breath, 
 Fountain of Nectar, and delightful! Balm ; 
 Eyes cloudy-clear, smile-frowning, stormy-calm, 
 Whose eveiy glance darts mee a living-death ; 
 Brows, bending quaintly your round Eben Arks, 
 Smile, that then Venus sooner Mars besots ; 
 Locks more then golden, curl'd in curious knots. 
 Where, in close ambush, wanton Cupid lurks ; 
 Grace Angel-like, fair fore -head, smoth and high, 
 Pure white, that dimm'st the Lillies of the Vale ; 
 Vermilion Rose, that mak'st Aurora pale : 
 Rare spirit, to rule this beauties Emperie, 
 If in your force Divine effects I view, 
 Ah, who can blame me, if I worship you ? 
 
 With this compare a similar piece of fancy portraiture by the author of 
 Parthenophil and Parthenophe (Son. 71, ed. Grosart, p. 47) : — 
 
 Those haires of Angels gold, thy natures treasure, 
 
 (For thou by nature Angellike art framed) 
 
 Those lovely browes, broade bridges of sweet pleasure, 
 
 Arche two cleare springs of graces gratious named ; 
 
 There graces infinite do bathe and sporte : 
 
 Under on both sides those two pretious hilles 
 
 Where Phoeb'e and Venus have a severall forte : 
 
 Her couche with snowie lillyes Phcebe filles. 
 
 But Venus with redde Roses her's adorneth ; 
 
 There they with silent tokens doe dispute, 
 
 Whilst Phoebe Venus, Venus Phoebe scorneth. 
 
 And all the graces Judgers there sit mute 
 
 To give their verdict, till great Jove said this — 
 
 Dianaes arrowes wounde not like thy kisse. 
 
 Barnabe Barnes, 
 
 SSilliam S'balisjjcarc. 
 
 The controversy on the Sonnets attributed to Shakspeare is a conse- 
 quence of the obscurity in which everything about him is involved. His 
 day and generation are not so veiy remote from our own, yet for all that 
 we know of the personal history of this greatest among the children of 
 men, he might almost as -well be one of the shadowy figures in Arthurian 
 legend. Hence not a little of what we habitually accept as Shakspeare's 
 biography rests wholly on surmise. If, however, eveiy attempt towards 
 the elucidation, by biographical means, of these ' deep-brained sonnets ' ' 
 must proceed upon the unstable ground of conjecture only, there is one 
 thing of which we may feel absolutely certain, — that they were written 
 by Shakspeare. With a few trifling exceptions every Sonnet bears, in 
 high relief, the image and superscription of him who (without irreverence) 
 
 1 Shakspeare's own epithet : A Lovers complaint, 209 (printed at the end of the 
 Sonnets).
 
 27S Notes 
 
 wrote as never man wrote ; while, so far as is known, he never once dis- 
 avowed the authorship during the seven years which intervened between 
 their surreptitious publication with his name, and his death in 1616. It 
 is when we come to contemplate the feelings and the passions forming 
 the substance of the poems, with the strange, sad, equivocal story told 
 there, and venture on the identification of the person or persons whom 
 the poet addresses or feigns to address, that the grand difficulty con- 
 fronts us. ' Shake-Speares Sonnets. Never before Imprinted,' were 
 published in a small-quarto volume in 1609 by Thomas Thorpe, a 
 bookseller of some note. Prefixed was the following dedication (reduced 
 from the original edition), the enigmatical character of which has occa- 
 sioned much learned embarrassment, and seems not even yet to have 
 quite lost its power of setting critics by the ears : 
 
 TO. THE. ONLIE. begetter. OF. 
 
 THESE. INSVING. SONNETS. 
 
 M"". W. H. ALL.HAPPINESSE. 
 
 AND.THAT.ETERNITIE. 
 
 PROMISED. 
 
 BY. 
 
 OVR. EVER-LIVING. POET. 
 
 W I S H E T H . 
 
 THE. WELL-WISHING. 
 
 ADVENTVRER.IN. 
 
 SETTING. 
 
 FORTH. 
 
 T. T. 
 
 It were idle to describe the various cuts which have been made at this 
 Gordian knot. Suffice it to say that the initials ' T. T.' have always 
 been understood to be those of the publisher, Thomas Thorpe, and that 
 authorities are now pretty well agreed on the more crucial ' Mr. W. H.' 
 as veiling the fam'ily name of the Earl of Pembroke— William Herbert ; ' 
 the inscription reading thus : Thomas Thorpe, the well-wishing adven- 
 
 > This important identification was made by B. Heywood Bright in or about 1819, 
 but first publicly announced by James Boaden in The Gentleman's Mag-azine, Oct. 
 1832, on independent discovery. See Boadcn's work On the Sonnets of Shakespeare 
 (1837)-
 
 Notes 
 
 279 
 
 turer,^ in setting forth, ivisheth to Mr. W. H., the only begetter of these 
 insuiiig Sonnets, all happiness and that eternity promised by our ever- 
 living poet. There does not seem to be so insuperable a difficulty in the 
 expression ' onlie begetter ' as the quantity of ink which has been shed 
 over it would bespeak. It can bear but two meanings. If, on the one 
 hand, it means that Herbert was the %o\q. procurer oi the Sonnets for the 
 piratical Thorpe, it is simply a statement of fact on the best authority, 
 which, even if it were not entirely credible, we should be bound to accept. 
 Moreover, it furnishes the only clue we possess as to how the poems 
 ever found their way out of that ' private ' circle within which we learn 
 on Meres's testimony they were known prior to 1598,'-' and beyond which 
 Shakspeare doubtless never intended them to go. If, on the other, we 
 are to take ' begetter ' in its ordinary and more obvious sense of the per- 
 son to who?n the poems owed their existence, the solution is equally simple. 
 In all likelihood Thorpe was not ignorant of the part played by Herbert 
 in the secret drama of the Sonnets, and itched to blab it. True his 
 ' onlie ' exaggerates that part, whatever its real extent may have been ; 
 but it seems ridiculous to stickle for verbal precision where the writer had 
 so obvious a motive for exaggeration. ' Onlie ' was but a bit of flattering 
 homage on the part of the grateful pirate to his noble procurer. ' The 
 onlie begetter ' ! — Thorpe's expression implies both senses — procurer and 
 originator — and was no doubt chosen for that reason. 
 
 Turning to the more important question of the groundwork or sub- 
 ject-matter of the Sonnets, it will be obvious to those who have any 
 idea of its dimensions that it cannot be discussed within the limits of an 
 Anthology. The reader must pursue it for himself in the elaborate and 
 exhaustive works devoted to die subject, especially those of Mr. Charles 
 Armitage Brown ^ and Mr. Gerald Massey,'' the protagonists of the two 
 great opposite theories of the Sonnets, as, according to the former. Auto- 
 biographic or Personal, and, according to the latter, Dramatic (vicari- 
 ous) or Impersonal. Whichever of these works may ultimately determine 
 his faith — and I cannot doubt that it will be Mr. Massey's masterly and 
 
 1 On ihe particular use of the word ' adventurer ' about this time, in relation to its 
 occurrence in the inscription, consult Dr. Grosart's Essay prefixed to his edition of 
 Donne's Poems (i, 1873, pp. xlv-xlvii). 
 
 2 Francis Meres {Palladis Tainia. WHs Treasury, &c., 1598, f. 281-2) : ■ As the 
 soule of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras : so the sweete wittiesoule of 
 Ovid lives in mellifluous & hony-tongued Shakespeare, witnes his Venus and 
 Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugred Sonnets among his private friends, &c.' 
 
 ^ Shakespeare's A utobiographical Poems. Being his Sonnets clearly developed : 
 •with his Character draiun chiejly fro7n his 7i'orks. 1838. 
 
 * Shakspeare' s Sonnets never before interpreted, &c.,i866 ; and a second edition, 
 The Secret Drama 0/ Shakspeare' s Sonnets Unfolded, luith the Characters Identi- 
 fied, 1S72, containing a valuable Supplementary Chapter. The most noteworthy 
 among recent contributions to this literature are the papers of Mr. F. G. Fleay ('On 
 the Motive of Shakspere's Sonnets,' 1-125 ; Macmillan's Magazine, March, 1875), 
 and Mr. T. A. Spalding (Gentleman s Magazitie, iMarch, 1S78;.
 
 2 So JVoies 
 
 Slilliam Sljaksprarc. 
 
 luminous exposition — there is one grand principle, insufficiently recog- 
 nised in either, which the reader embarking on this vast and perilous in- 
 quiry will do well to keep steadfastly before him. It was well put by the 
 late Robert Bell in an introduction to the Sonnets : ' All poetry is auto- 
 biographical. But the particle of actual life out of which verse is wrought 
 may be, and almost always is, wholly incommensurate to the emotion 
 depicted, and remote from the forms into which it is ultimately shaped. 
 We should remember, also, that poets draw upon two sources — expe- 
 rience and observation ; and who shall undertake to separate the realities 
 from the creations ? ' ' Mr. Bell said an equally true thing some ten years 
 later when he said of the Shakspeare theories generally, that they ' help 
 materiallytospoilour enjoyment of him.' "^ That the poems themselves, 
 and not the excogitations of theorists on them, are his primary and proper 
 concern, is a score on which the reader need have no misgivings. An 
 earnest study of any portion of them will teach him more of the mind 
 and heart of Shakspeare and bear him further into the poet's inmost 
 soul than all the brain-spun systems that ever were written. So Shelley 
 seems to have been taught, if, entertaining a recent happy suggestion,'' 
 we take that most exquisite fragment of his to have been evoked by 
 the Sonnets : — 
 
 ' I am as a spirit who has dwelt 
 Within his heart of hearts ; and I have felt 
 His feelings, and have thought his thoughts, and known 
 The inmost converse of his soul, the tone 
 -■ Unheard but in the silence of his blood. 
 
 When all the pulses in their multitude 
 Image the trembling calm of summer seas. 
 I have unlocked the golden melodies 
 Of his deep soul, as with a master-key, 
 And loosened them, and bathed myself therein — 
 Even as an eagle in a thunder-mist 
 Clothing his wings with lightning.' * 
 
 The following are a few of the more noteworthy opinions which have 
 been recorded of Shakspeare's Sonnets. ' There is extant a small Volume 
 of miscellaneous Poems in which Shakespeare expresses his own feelings 
 in his own Person. It is not difficult to conceive that the Editor, George 
 Steevens, should have been insensible to the beauties of one portion of 
 that Volume, the Sonnets ; * though there is not a part of the writings of 
 
 ' The Poems of William Shakspeare. Edited by Robert Bell. 1855, p. 152. 
 The Fortnightly Review. August ist, 1866 :' Art. ' Shakespeare's Sonnets.' 
 
 3 Notes and Queries. 5th S. VI, Nov. 4, 1876. 
 * Mr. Garnett^s Relics 0/ Shelley, lE 
 
 862, p. 81. 
 
 Steevens ?, Advertisement to {he 1793 edition of the Plays, vol. i, p.vii : ' We have 
 not reprinted the Sonnets, &c., of Shakspeare, because the strongest act of Parliament
 
 Notes 281 
 
 this Poet where is found in an equal compass a greater number of ex- 
 quisite feelings felicitously expressed.' — IVordsioorth.^ 
 
 ' These Sonnets, like the Venus and Adonis, and the Rape of Lucrece, 
 are characterized by boundless fertility and laboured condensation of 
 thought, with perfection of sweetness in rhythm and metre.' — Coleridge.'^ 
 
 'The transcendent beauty of Shakespeare's Sonnets is now univer- 
 sally felt and acknowledged ; and the insolent contempt with which 
 Steevens presumed to speak of them, is only remembered to the injury 
 of the critic's reputation. They contain such a quantity of profound 
 thought as must astonish every reflecting reader ; they are adorned by 
 splendid and delicate imagery ; they are sublime, pathetic, tender, or 
 sweetly playful ; while they delight the ear by their fluency, and their 
 varied harmonies of rhythm. Amid so much excellence, their occasional 
 conceits and quaintness are forgotten.' — Dyce.'^ 
 
 ' There is nothing more remarkable or fascinating in English poetry. 
 . . . We read them again and again, and find each time some new proof 
 of his almost superhuman insight into human nature ; of his unrivalled 
 mastery over all the tones of love. We cannot bring ourselves to wish 
 that " Shakspeare had never written them," ^ or that the world should 
 have wanted perhaps the most powerful and certainly the most singular, 
 utterances of passion which Poetry has yet supplied.' — F. T. Palgrave.^ 
 
 ' Shakespeare's Sonnets are so heavily laden with meaning, so 
 double-shotted, if one may so speak, with thought, so penetrated and 
 pervaded with a repressed passion, that, packed as all this is into nar- 
 rowest limits, it sometimes imparts no little obscurity to them ; and 
 they often require to be heard or read not once but many times, in fact 
 to be studied, before they reveal to us all the treasures of thought and 
 feeling which they contain.' — Dr. Trench.^ 
 
 1 conclude these introductory remarks with a word-portrait of Shak- 
 speare by Ben Jonson which is much less generally known than it 
 deserves to be. Mr. Massey quoting it in his later work on the Sonnets, 
 observes : ' If it had not been for the persistent endeavour to prove 
 Shakspeare a lawyer, and too confidently assumed that the character, 
 or rather the name of "Ovid," in the i'^^^aj^^;' (produced at Shak- 
 
 th.-it could be framed, would fail to compel readers into their service.' Steevens had 
 reproduced the Sonnets with commendable accuracy seven-and-twenty years Delore 
 (Tuienty of the Flays of Shakespeare, h.c.,^,\■o\■!,.,l.^(>li). 
 
 ' Essay, Supplementary to the Preface. Wordsworth s Poems, 1815, 1, 352- 
 
 2 Speciviens of the Table Talk of S. T. C. 1835, 11, 181. 
 
 3 Specimens of English Sonnets, 1S33, p. 213. . „•,,,„ 
 <■ Notwithstanding the frequent beauties of these Sonnets . . . it is impossible to 
 
 wish that Shakspearehadnever written them.'— Hallam'sZ.zV(Praif«r?<;/£7<r<7/f,iii.2&4- 
 
 5 Son^s and Sonnets by William Shakespeare. Edited by Francis Turner i al- 
 
 grave. i86^, p. 24^. , , „ / i- ^r uj, 
 
 « A Household Book of English Poetry, 2nd ed., 1870, p. 39S (earlier. The His- 
 tory of the English Sonnet : Dublin Afternoon Lectures, [1866], iv, 144).
 
 282 Notes 
 
 speare's theatre, 1601), was intended for Shakspeare, it would have 
 been seen that it is in the character of " Virgil " that Jonson has rendered 
 the nature of the man, the quality of his learning, the affluence of his 
 poetry, the height at which the poet himself stood above his work, in 
 the truest, best likeness of Shakspeare extant.' The interlocutors are 
 Ciesar, Horace, Gallus, and Tibullus. Note that ' Horace ' represents 
 Ben himself, and is singled out by Csesar for his opinion as being ' the 
 poorest, and likelyest to envie, or to detract ' [Poetaster, Or his Arraigne- 
 ment, Act v, sc. i : Workcs, folio, 1616, p. 332) : — 
 
 C^SAR. 
 
 Say then, lov'd Horace, thy true thought of Virgil. 
 
 HORACE. 
 I judge him of a rectified spirit, 
 By many revolutions of discourse 
 (In his bright reasons influence) refin'd 
 From all the tartarous moodes of common men ; 
 Bearing the nature and similitude 
 Of a right heavenly bodie : most severe 
 In fashion and collection of himselfe. 
 And then as cleare and confident as Jove. 
 
 GALLUS. 
 
 And yet so chaste and tender is his eare 
 In suffering any syllable to passe 
 That he thinkes may become the honour'd name 
 Of issue to his so-examin'd selfe, 
 That all the lasting fruits of his full merit 
 In his owne Poemes he doth still distaste : 
 As if his mindes peece, which he strove to paint, 
 Could not with fleshly pencils have her right. 
 
 TIBULLUS. 
 But, to approve his workes of soveraigne worth, 
 This observation (me thinkes) more then sei-ves, 
 And is not vulgar : That which he hath writ 
 Is with such judgement labour'd and distill'd 
 Through all the needful uses of our lives, 
 That could a man remember but his lines, 
 He should not touch at any serious point, 
 But he might breathe his spirit out of him. 
 
 C^SAR. 
 You meane, he might repeat part of his workes, 
 As fit for any conference he can use ? 
 
 TIBULLUS. 
 True, royall Csesar. 
 
 C^SAR. 
 
 Worthily observ'd : 
 And a most worthie vertue in his workes. 
 What thinks materiall Horace of his learning ?
 
 Notes 283 
 
 HORACE. 
 
 His learning savours not the schoole-like glosse 
 That most consists in ecchoing wordes and terms, 
 And soonest wins a man an empty name ; 
 Nor any long or far-fetcht circumstance, 
 Wrapt in the curious generalties of artes : 
 But a direct and analyticke summe 
 Of all the worth and first effects of artes. 
 And for his Poesie, 'tis so ramm'd with life. 
 That it shall gather strength of life with being, 
 And live hereafter more admir'd then now.' 
 
 As Mr. Massey well says on citing these lines, how cordially one can 
 repeat their author's epitaph — 
 
 ' O Rare Ben Jonson ! ' 
 
 PAGE 
 
 26 — L. Music to hear, &c. = O thou whom it is music to hear, why 
 
 hear'st thou, &c. confounds = confoundest — an inflection dictated 
 
 by euphony in the case of verbs ending in d or t. So 2 Hen. VI, 
 
 i, I, 19: 
 
 ' O Lord that lends me life.' 
 
 9. ' If two strings are tuned in perfect unison, and one only is struck, 
 a very sensible vibration takes place in the other. This is called 
 sympathetic vibration.'— A'«?|^/2/. See Mr. Massey's interesting 
 chapter in which he contends that this and other sentiments and 
 arguments in the earliest group of the Sonnets were derived from 
 the 3rd Book of Sidney's Arcadia. 
 
 27 — Lll, 3-4. Cp. Drummond, cxviil, 5-6, and Wordsworth, ccxv, 
 12-14. 
 
 Liii. ' Compare this sonnet with In Memoriam Ixxv-lxxvii ' [ = 
 Ixxiv-lxxvi, the earlier eds.] — Tennysoniana, 2nd ed., 1S79, p. 59- 
 
 28 — Liv. that fair thou ozu'st = that beauty thou ownest. 
 
 LV. Making a cotiplement, &c. E.g.,^^tT\i^r'%Amoretti,<^ (supra, 
 p. 243) and 64 ; and the following : Daniel's Delia, 19 : — 
 
 Restore thy tresses to the golden Ore, 
 
 Yeeld Cithereas sonne those Arkes of love ; 
 
 Bequeath the heavens the starres that I adore, 
 
 And to th' Orient do thy Pearles remove ; 
 
 Yeeld thy hands pride unto th' Ivor}' white, 
 
 T' Arabian odors give thy breathing sweete. 
 
 Restore thy blush unto Aurora bright. 
 
 To Thetis give the honour of thy feete ; 
 
 Let Venus have thy graces her resign'd, 
 
 And thy sweet voice give back unto the Spheares ; 
 
 * L. 31 savours (1640) ; ' labours ' (1616).
 
 284 Notes 
 
 SJUlliam ^bahspcnrc. 
 
 But yet restore thy fierce and cmell mind 
 To Hyrcan Tygres, and to ruthles Beares. 
 Yeeld to the Marble thy hard hart againe ; 
 So shalt thou cease to plague, and I to paine. 
 
 Samuel Daniel. 
 
 'B&mes's Partkenopkil and Fartkeiiophe, Son.48,ed.Grosart,p.32 : — 
 
 I wish no rich-refinde Arabian gold, 
 
 Nor Orient Indian pearle, rare natures wonder, 
 
 No Diamondes th' Aegiptian surges under, 
 
 No Rubyes of America deare sold, 
 
 Nor Saphyres which rich Affrike sandes enfold — 
 
 Treasures far distant, from thise Isle asunder ; 
 
 Barbarian Ivories in contempt I hold ; 
 
 But onely this, this onely Venus graunt. 
 
 That I my sweet Parthenophe may get : 
 
 Her heires no grace of golden wyers want, 
 
 Pure pearles with perfect Rubines are in set. 
 
 True Dyamondes in eyes, Saphires in vaynes, 
 
 Nor can I that soft Ivory skinne forget : 
 
 England in one small subject such containes, 
 
 Bamabe Barnes. 
 
 Madrigal 4, Ibid, p. 10 : — 
 
 There had my Zeuxes place and time to draw 
 
 My mistresse pourtraict, which on plantane table 
 With nature matching colours as he saw 
 Her leaning on her elbow, tho not able. 
 He gan with vermil, gold, white, and sable 
 To shadow forth : and with a skilful! knuckle 
 
 Lively set out my fortunes fable. 
 On lippes a rose, on hand an hony-suckle. 
 For nature fram'd that arbour in such orders 
 
 That roses did with woodbynes buckle, 
 Whose shadow trembling on her lovely face 
 Pie left unshadow'd : there arte lost his grace, 
 And that white lillie leafe with fringed borders 
 Of Angels gold vayled the skyes 
 Of myne heavens hierarchic which clos'd her eyes. 
 
 Bamabe Barnes. 
 
 and Davies of Hereford's Wittes Pilgrimage, [1610?], Son. 73 :— 
 
 Thy Beauties blush, like fairest Morne in Maie, 
 
 (Faire-Honied Sweet) doth so intrance mine Eies 
 
 That while thou dost those Roses rich display 
 
 They see Heav'ns hue through thy skins Christal skies ; 
 
 And did my fault nor thine enforce the same, 
 
 I stil could wish to see that Heav'nly Blush : 
 
 Yea, I would see that glory to my shame. 
 
 So that my faces shame would cause that flush. 
 
 Then blame me not if (when thy Cheeks I see 
 
 Died in a Tincture that is so divine)
 
 Notes 285 
 
 PAGE , 
 
 My Cheeks in selfsame Colour Dyed be 
 To make thine spread their Dy, by dying mine : 
 Then, blush thou not, for blushing in this wise 
 Sith that Hue from, and for thy grace doth rise. 
 
 John Davies. 
 
 2g_LVl. Cp. Sidney's song in the 3rd Book of the Arcadia, beginning 
 
 ' My true love hath my heart, and I have his, 
 By just exchange one for the other giv'ne,' ' 
 
 and the 47th Son. of Barnes's Parthenophil and ParthenopJu. Read 
 also Spenser's Amoretti, 45. 
 
 XSW. fight : quarto 'worth.' The present reading was supplied 
 by Theobald, who also suggested that if 'worth' were retained, 
 forth should be substituted for ' quite ' in 1. II. 
 30 — LViil, 1-2. Mr. Fleay (article named, p. 279, foot-note) sees in 
 this passage an allusion to what he maintains was Shakspeare's 
 own occasional employment about the time when it is supposed 
 the first series of the Sonnets (1-125) was written : 1594-1596. 
 ' Here,' he observes, ' the double meaning of "travel", as then 
 spelt [' travaill '], is clearly played on by the poet. . . . Travel- 
 ling is clearly what we should call strolling.' See under LXXXVII, 
 p. 295. 11-12. Cp. Romeo and Juliet, i, 5, 47 : 
 
 ' She hangs upon the cheek of Night 
 Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear.' 
 
 LIX, 7. Cp. LXII, 8 (with note). 11-12. Cp. Cymbeline, ii, 3 : 
 
 ' Hark, hark ! the lark at heaven's gate sings.' 
 
 13-14. Cp. Dnimmond (cxxx, 13-14) : 
 
 ' From this so high transcending rapture springs, 
 That I, all else defaced, not envy kings ; ' 
 
 1 I subjoin the version of this ' ditty made by the noble knight Sir Philip Sidney,' 
 as given in Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie, 1589 (Lib. iii, chap, xix, p. 188), 
 and adopted by Ellis (Specimens, 4th ed. 1811, ii, 263) and Mr. Palgrave {Golden. 
 
 TV^ajKry, 1861, p. 15) :— , , ^ , t ,. ,.• 
 
 • My true love hath my heart and I have his, 
 i5y just exchange one for another geven : 
 I holde his deare, and mine he cannot misse, 
 There never was a better bargaine driven. 
 
 My true love hath my heart and I have his. 
 
 My heart in me keepes him and me in one, 
 
 My heart in him his thoughts and sences guides : 
 
 He loves my heart, for once it was his owne, 
 
 I cherish his because in me it bides. 
 
 My true love hath my heart, and I have his.' 
 Puttenham adduces the song as an example of ^Epimone, or the Love-burden,' 
 whence Mr. Palgrave infers {Academy,}v\y 7th, 1877) that he had Sidneian authority 
 for his text, which certainly ' differs greatly in poetical effect from that of the ^rcrt- 
 dia : ' but to me it seems more probable that the old critic altered the origmal 
 arrangement to suit his own immediate purpose.
 
 286 Notes 
 
 S®;illiam Sljahspeare. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 on which see note, p. 330. 14. Cp. S. Daniel {Civile Wars, 1595, 
 Bk. iii, St. 64, fol. 55): 
 
 ' Nor chaung his state with him that Scepters weildes.' 
 31 — LX, 5. Cp. B. Griffin {Fidessa, 1596, Son. 30) : 
 
 . . . ' eyes . . . drowned 
 In your own teares.' 
 
 And moan the expense of 7nany a vanished sight : i.e., the loss or 
 disappearance of, &c. ; ' expense ' being used in precisely the same 
 sense as the verb-form terminating the 107th Son. (xciv, p. 48) : 
 
 ' When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.' 
 The passage has been overlaid by the perverse ingenuity of com- 
 mentators, who have insisted on regarding sight as an instance of 
 the old form of ' sigh.' Only a pedant could ever for a moment 
 mistake the poet's meaning. Cp. Tennyson's 
 
 ' touch of a vanish'd hand, 
 And the sound of a voice that is still.' 
 
 In this affecting sonnet — keeping out its glad ending — we recog- 
 nize the same sad mood as that which finds such unique expression 
 in Charles Lamb's Old Fa7ni liar Faces, or the 'Tears, idle tears' 
 of the Laureate. But modem poetry is only too full of such sor- 
 rowing. In connexion with the passage specially under notice 
 and the ' ladies dead ' of xciii (p. 47) we may recall Browning's 
 pathetic cry {A Toccata of Galuppi's) : 
 
 ' Dear dead women, with such hair, too — what's become 
 
 of all the gold 
 Used to hang and brush their bosoms ? ' 
 
 LXI. obsequious tear ' Besides the obvious sense, is here used 
 with reference to the obsequies oi the dead.' — F. T. Palgrave. So 
 Lucius to Marcus {Titus Andronicus, v, 3, 151) : 
 
 ' draw you near. 
 To shed obsequious tears upon this trunk.' 
 
 dear-religious love. ' That is, "love making a religion of its affec- 
 tions," says Walker {Ciit. Exam. &c., vol. i, p. 36), at whose sug- 
 gestion I have inserted the hyphen. He compares our author's 
 Lover's Complaint [247-250] : 
 
 " The accident which brought me to her eye 
 Upon the moment did her force subdue. 
 And now she would the cag^d cloister fly : 
 Religious love put out Religion's eye."' — Dyce.
 
 Notes 287 
 
 PAGE 
 
 32 — LXII. ^^Ji?;-7V = preserve, keep. 8. Cp. LIX, 7. Shakspeare, when 
 occasion offers, does not hesitate to speak out boldly his assurance 
 of fame. He /•wt'-chehad ' laid great bases for eternity ' (Son. 125) ; 
 and that he valued the lasting remembrance of posterity as his dear- 
 est inheritance is as plainly evidenced in the Sonnets as if, with a 
 later immortal, he had only chanted the prayer ( The Legend of 
 Juhal and Other Poems, by George Eliot, 2nd ed. 1S74) : 
 
 ' O may I join the choir invisible 
 Of those immortal dead who live again 
 In. minds made belter by their presence : live 
 In pulses stirred to generosity. 
 In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn 
 For miserable aims that end with self, 
 In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, 
 And with their mild persistence urge man's search 
 To vaster issues.' 
 
 But from such passages as these we see that with that assurance was 
 joined an ardent recognition of the merits of others. It will pro- 
 bably never be conclusively demonstrated who the ' better spirit ' 
 of the 80th Sonnet was ; but to whomsoever we choose to assign 
 the honour, — whether to Daniel with Boaden, Marlowe with Mr. 
 Massey, Chapman with Mr. Minto, or Nash with Mr. Fleay — it 
 furnishes us with a memorable instance of that noble modesty, that 
 exaggerated sense of intellectual indebtedness which would seem 
 to be characteristic of the very greatest natures. The reader will 
 call to mind Burns's tribute to Robert Fergusson, Coleridge's to 
 Bowles, Scott's to Miss Ferrier, &c. 
 
 LXlii. rack. ' The winds in the upper region (which move the 
 clouds above, which we call the rack, and are not perceived below) 
 pass without noise.' — Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum, cent, ii, § 115 
 (quoted by Clark and Wright : Hamkt, Clarendon Press ed.). So 
 Hamlet, ii, 2, 468 : 
 
 ' But as we often see, against some storm, 
 A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still. 
 The bold winds speechless, and the orb below 
 As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder 
 Doth rend the region,' &c. 
 and Fairfax, quoted in England's Parnassus (Park's Heliconia, iii, 
 
 448) : 
 
 'Still was the ayre, the racke nor came nor went. 
 
 It would seem to include in its meaning also the motion of the 
 
 clouds, or what in Scotland is known as 'the carry,' used with 
 
 poetical licence by Tannahill for the firmament : 
 
 ' No a starn in a' the carry ; '
 
 288 Notes 
 
 ■m 
 PAGE 
 
 with which cp. a passage in The Raigne of King Edward the 
 Third, ii, i, 3 (Capell's Prolusions, 1760, Pt. II, p. 15) : 
 
 ' And changing passions, like inconstant clouds, — 
 
 That, rackt upon the carriage of the winds, 
 
 Increase, and die.' 
 
 Elsewhere in Shakspeare the word is employed as an intransitive 
 verb, to stretch or separate, as clouds with the wind, — ' the racking 
 clouds ' (<? Hen. VI. ii, i, 27) — a particular sense in which it is still 
 current in Scotland. But the word has not yet dropped out of 
 English poetry : Shelley's fragment (ed. Rossetti, 1870, ii, 335) : 
 ' Driving along a rack of winged Clouds ; ' 
 
 Keats {Hyperion, Bk. i, 302) : 
 
 ' And all along a dismal rack of clouds ; ' 
 
 and M . Arnold ( Stanzas in Memory of the A uthor of ' Obermann ') / 
 
 ' The autumn storm-winds drive the rack.' 
 The region cloud = that overspreading the region or domain of the 
 air ; as in Milton {Paradise Lost, vii, 425) : 
 
 ' Part loosely wing the region.' 
 Observe the coincidence of the words ' region ' and ' rack ' in close 
 proximity in Bacon and Shakspeare, as quoted above. Prof. Holmes 
 might have included it in his chapter of parallelisms {Authorship of 
 Shakespeare. New York : 1866). j^am is a neuter verb here. With 
 Shakspeare's sonnet may be compared Wordsworth's, beginning 
 ' Who but is pleased to watch the moon on high.' 
 
 34 — Lxvi. canker-blooms = dog or hedge-roses, which, beautiful as 
 they are, yet lack the rich perfume of the damask roses, and can- 
 not therefore like these be used for the purpose of distilling. 6. 
 Cp. Barnabe Barnes ( The Devil's Charter, 1607, quoted by Dr. 
 Grosart, Intro, to the Poems, 1875, p. xxxvi) who has as constant 
 and loving references to roses as Shakspeare himself : 
 
 ' Lticretia. I must delay this colour ; is it carnation right? 
 Motticilla. Oh, the true tincture of a damask i^ose.' 
 
 unrespected = unregarded. So B. GrifHn {Fidessa, Son. 37) : 
 
 'Wayling alone my unrespected love.' 
 fade . . . vade. One of many examples of the distinction between 
 these words may be cited from R. Barnfield's Complaint of Chas- 
 titie, 1594, St. 9 : 
 
 ' For what are Pleasures but still-vading joyes ? 
 Fading as flowers.'
 
 Notes 289 
 
 PAGE 
 
 See also Dr. Grosart's complete eds. of Barnfield, printed for the 
 Roxburghe Club, 1876, p. 55, and John Davies of Hereford, Chcrtsey 
 Worthies' Liby., 1878, Glossarial Index, s. v. 14. by : ' my ' (Malone). 
 34 — Lxvii, 1-2. Cp. Florio, xxvi, 9-11. 
 
 25 — Lxviii, 13. 7i>i//. Mr. Massey classes this sonnet in the Herbert 
 series, and accordingly prints the word in capitals as a proper name. 
 The quarto has ' Will.' 
 
 LXIX, 1-3. Imitated by William Roscoe in his Sonnet to Dr. 
 Currie {Poetical Works, Liverpool, 1853, p. 92) : 
 
 ' As, on the margin of the breezy shore, 
 Waves after waves successive rise and die. 
 Thus pass the transient race of human kind.' 
 
 5. ' When a star has risen and entered on the full stream of light.' — 
 F. T. Palgrave. 6. Formerly, periods of eclipse, especially of the 
 moon, were held to be peculiarly unpropitious for the conception or 
 execution of lawful, and favourable to evil enterprises ; hence 
 ^crooked eclipses.' So Milton of the ill-fated ship in which his 
 friend was lost {Lycidas, 100) : 
 
 ' It was that fatal and perfidious bark, 
 Built in th' eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark, 
 That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.' 
 
 parallels. Cp. the beginning of the 2nd Sonnet : 
 
 ' When fortie Winters shall beseige thy brow. 
 And digge deep trenches in thy beauties field.' 
 
 times in hope = the future, the ' age unbred ' (xci, 13, p. 46), times 
 as yet only in promise, as in Lxxxvii, 10 (p. 44) ' hope of orphans,' 
 &c., in the sense oi promise of orphans, &c. 
 36 — Lxx, 7. According to the theory enunciated by Mr. Fleay (foot- 
 note, supra, p. 279), the ' shame ' which Shakspeare so often speaks 
 of as attaching to him is ' nothing more than the feeling produced 
 by unfavourable critical opinions concerning his productions ; such, 
 for instance, as that the Romeo and Juliet or Richard //was inferior 
 to the contemporaneous poem of Venus and Adonis, or that the 
 Lucrece was far superior in kind and quality to the dramatic works 
 that succeeded it, probably Richard III, if not the refashioned 
 Henry VI. . . . We must remember that Shakspere's poems were 
 for a considerable time thought superior to his plays.' Mr. Fleay 
 thus explains the 'idle hours' : — ' In the Epistle to Henry Wriothesley, 
 Earl of Southampton, prefixed to the Venus and Adonis, Shakspere 
 says : " I vow to take advantage of all idle hours till I have honoured 
 you with some graver labour ; " and in the similar document pre- 
 fixed to the Rape of Lucrece, he says : ' ' What I have done is yours " 
 T
 
 290 
 
 Notes 
 
 PAGE 
 
 (that is, the two poems just mentioned) ; "what I have to do is 
 yours : being part- in all I have, devoted yours." And he never 
 dedicated any work to any other person. Hence Southampton was 
 the only person who had a right to have any ' ' jealousy " as to Shak- 
 spere's idleness : to " pry into his deeds, " to " find out in him shames 
 and idle hours." Shakspere had promised him another poem, and 
 had not fulfilled his promise ; he had been writing for the theatre 
 instead.' 8. tenour (Malone) : quarto ' tenure '. 
 36 — LXXi. Observe that there is no grammatical subject, or nomina- 
 tive, here ; the predicate being extended to such a length (11. 1-8) as 
 to necessitate a fresh presentment of the thought with-1. 9. Failing 
 to analyse the sonnet correctly, Mr. Bulloch {Stttdies on the Text of 
 Shakespeare: Aberdeen, 1878) has been tempted into the fatal 
 ' emendation ' of ' Aghast' for Against in 1. i. 
 37 — LXXii, 5-7. The author of 7>/7;;)w«2a«a matches this passage with 
 In Memoriam, cxxiii : 
 
 ' There rolls the deep where grew the tree. 
 O earth, what changes hast thou seen ! 
 There where the long street roars, hath been 
 The stillness of the central sea.' 
 Drummond finely amplifies the thought in sonnet-form {Flowres of 
 Sion, ed, 1630, p. 23) : 
 
 EARTH, AND ALL ON IT, CHANGEABLE. 
 That space where raging Waves doe now divide 
 From the great Continent our happie Isle, 
 Was some-time Land ; and where tall Shippes doe glide, 
 Once with deare Arte the crooked Plough did tyle : 
 Once those faire Bounds stretcht out so farre and wide. 
 Where Townes, no. Shires enwall'd, endeare.each mile, 
 Were all ignoble Sea and marish vile. 
 Where Proteus Flockes danc'd measures to the Tyde. 
 So Age, transforming all, still forward runncs ; 
 No wonder though the Earth doth change her face ! 
 New Manners, Pleasures new, turne with new Sunnes, 
 Lockes now like Gold grow to an hoarie grace : 
 Nay, Mindes rare shape doth change, that lyes despis'd, 
 Which was so deare of late, and highlie pris'd. 
 
 Williain Drummond} 
 
 Cp. Shakspeare again, 2 Hen. IV, iii, i, 45-51 ; John Davies of 
 Hereford {The Muses Saaifce, 1612, ed. Grosart, ii, 51) : 
 ' Now swels the Sea, wliere erst faire Cities stood ; 
 
 So, where Men walkt, now huge Sea-monsters swim : 
 And, where the Earth was cover'd with her Floud, 
 
 Now Citties stand, unneere the Oceans Brim/ ^ 
 
 1 deare Arte the crooked : ' laborious Art the' (1623).
 
 Notes 291 
 
 PAGE 
 
 and Mr. Swinburne's Erectkeus, 1876, 33 : 
 
 ' But now 
 Would this day's ebb of their spent wave of strife 
 Sweep it to sea, wash it on wreck, and leave 
 A costless thing contemned ; and in our stead, 
 Where these walls were and sounding streets of men, 
 Make wide a waste for tongueless water-herds 
 And spoil of ravening fishes ; that no more. 
 Sliould men say. Here was Athens.' 
 
 37 — LXXIII. Observe the ellipsis of tke>-e is neither after ' Since ' in 
 
 1. I ; for other instances of which see Abbott's Shakespearian 
 
 Grammar, § 403. Times chest : in which he is feigned to conceal 
 
 "his treasures. So Ulysses {Troi/us anct Cressida, iii, 3, 145) : 
 
 ' Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, 
 Wherein he puts alms for oblivion.' 
 
 Leigh Hunt varies the metaphor in his pretty rondeau, "Jenny 
 
 kiss'd me : 
 
 ' Time, you thief, who love to get 
 
 Sweets into your list, put that in.' 
 
 38 — LXXIV, II. Cp. Spenser {Colin Clouts come home againe, 1595, 
 sig. D 3) : _ 
 
 ' Whiles single Truth and simple honestie 
 Do wander up and downe despys'd of all.' 
 
 The anomalies enumerated in this sonnet (which should be compared 
 with the great soliloquy in the 3rd act of //aw/^/) are unhappily too 
 common to require illustration by specific examples ; yet it may be 
 remarked how appositely Prof. Lowell applies 11. 8-9 to the case of 
 Keats and his critics, and 1. 11 to Wordsworth's. {Among My Books, 
 2nd Series, as before, p. 312). Mr. Hales, quoting the sonnet in 
 his Introduction to the Clarendon Pressed. of MWion's A reopagitica, 
 1874, says : ' Not other are the visions Milton sees in his Areopa- 
 gitica : — " What is it but a servitude, like that imposed by the 
 Philistines, not to be allowed the sharpening of our own axes and 
 coulters, but we must repair from all quarters to twenty licensing 
 forges ? . . . What advantage is it to be a man over it is to be a 
 boy at school, if we have only scapt the ferular to come under the 
 fescue of an imprimatur ?" But these things do not "tire " and dis- 
 hearten Milton. Rather they inflame him with a noble rage.' 
 37-38 — Lxxii-Lxxiv. ' These three sonnets form one poem of mar- 
 vellous power, insight, and beauty.' — F. T. Palgrave. 
 38 — Lxxv. suspect = suspicion — as in the Hamburg pseudo-Shak- 
 spearian poem (Collier's New Particulars, &.C., 1836, p. 66; or, 
 Memoir of T. L. Beddoes, prefixed to Poems, 1851, p. Ixx) : 
 ' And love is sweetest, seasoned with suspect.'
 
 292 Notes 
 
 PAGE 
 
 There seems to be something of the sentiment as well as of the 
 phraseology of this sonnet in the following passage from Humfrey 
 Gifford's Fosie of Gillojlowers (1580), ed. Grosart, 1875, p. 40: 'I 
 coulde heere bring to your memorie, with how many hatred[s] and 
 enimities *he worldly promotions are invironed, so that nothing is 
 sure in them, nothing without suspect,' &c. {An Epistle of Claudius 
 Ptholomwus dj'c. englished by N. G.). 6. Thy (Capell MS.) : quarto 
 'Their', being wooed of Time : that is, unless I wholly misapprehend 
 the phrase (of which, observe, the subject is thou understood, not 
 ' worth ' as Malone, or ' slander ' as Steevens misjudged) = being 
 still in the season of youth, passing through that time of life in 
 which the allurements {wooings) to evil are strongest : — 
 
 ' For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love.' 
 
 For Time the late Mr. Staunton (Unsuspected Corruptions of Shak- 
 
 speare's Text : Athenaum, Jan. 31, 1874) proposed to read * crime,' 
 
 and strengthened his conjecture (possibly suggested by Malone's 
 
 * void of crime ') by pointing to the 144th Sonnet, which he believed 
 
 to have some affinity with this 70th, particularly in the lines : 
 
 ' To win me soon to hell, my female evil 
 Tempteth my better angel from my side, 
 And would corrupt my saint to be a devil, 
 Wooing his purity with her foul pride.' ' 
 
 kingdoms of hearts. Cp. the ' worldes of harts ' of B. Barnes's sonnet 
 under cii (p. 300), and H. Constable's Diana, Son. 27 : 
 
 ' Thou of a world of hearts in time shalt be 
 A monarch great ; ' 
 
 of which Shakspeare's phrase was possibly a reminiscence, owe = 
 own. 
 39— Lxxvi. Cp. Miss Rossetti's fine sonnet {Poems, 1875, p. 105) : 
 
 REMEMBER. 
 
 Remember me when I am gone away. 
 
 Gone far away into the silent land ; 
 
 When you can no more hold me by the hand. 
 
 Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay. 
 
 Remember me when no more day by day 
 
 You tell me of our future that you planned : 
 
 Only remember me ; you understand 
 
 It will be late to counsel then or pray. 
 
 ' Cp. Drayton (Idea, Son. 20) : 
 
 ' An evill spirit your beautie haunts Me still, 
 Wherewith (alas) I have beene long possest. 
 Which ceaseth not to tempt Me unto 111, 
 Nor gives Me once hut one poore minutes rest.'
 
 Notes 293 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Yet if you should forget me for a while 
 And afterwards remember, do not grieve : 
 For if the darkness and corruption leave 
 A vestige of the thoughts that once I had, 
 Better by far you should forget and smile 
 Than that you should remember and be sad. 
 
 Christina G. A^ossef/i. 
 39— Lxxvii. ' How exquisitely worthy of him who told of Macbeth's 
 " way of life, fallen into the sere and yellow leaf," is such a sonnet 
 as this ! '—Henry Reed. LI. 5-8 recall an unpublished sonnet by 
 a young living poet in which similar imagery is employed with 
 equal naturalness and beauty. It is entitled 
 
 VANISHINGS. 
 As one whose eyes have watched the stricken day 
 Swoon to its crimson death adown the sea, 
 Turning his face to eastward suddenly 
 Sees a lack-lustre M'orld all cliill and gray, — 
 Then, wandering sunless whitherso he may. 
 Feels the first dubious dumb obscurity, 
 And vague foregloomings of the Dark to be, 
 Close like a sadness round his glimmering way • 
 So I from drifting dreambound on and on 
 About strange isles of utter bliss, in seas 
 Whose waves are unimagined melodies, 
 Rose and beheld the dreamless world anew : 
 Sad were the fields, and dim with splendours gone 
 The strait sky-glimpses fugitive and few. 
 
 William Watson. 
 
 40 — LXXVII. consecrate. For a list of verbs which, ending in te, t, and 
 d, do not take ed in the participle, see Abbott's Shakespearian 
 Grammar, § 342. A modem instance occurs in Shelley's sonnet 
 To Wordstvorth given under CCLXXii : 
 
 ' Songs consecrate to truth and liberty.' 
 
 With 1. 10 cp. cv, 7 ; and with 11, Lxxi, 9-12. 
 
 LXXIX. a noted weed = a familiar dress. The sonnet breaks a 
 sequence observable in the three preceding and the one succeeding 
 it in the text. It should be read with Sonnets 105 (xcii, p. 47) 
 and 108, in which the poet falls back into the same strain. 
 41 — LXXX, 1-8. The following sonnet affords an interesting comment 
 on this and other passages in Shakspeare's writings from which it 
 has sometimes been supposed that he was unconscious of the im- 
 mortality that awaited him. {Dublin University Review and 
 Quarterly Magazine, January, 1833) : — 
 SHAKSPEARE. 
 Who says that Shakspeare did not know his lot, 
 But deem'd that in time's manifold decay
 
 294 
 
 Notes 
 
 His memory should die and pass away, 
 
 And that within the shrine of human thought 
 
 To him no altar should be'rear'd ? O hush ! 
 
 O veil thyself awhile in solemn awe ! 
 
 Nor dream that all man's mighty spirit-law 
 
 Thou know'st ; how all the hidden fountains gush 
 
 Of the soul's silent prophesying power. 
 
 For as deep Love, 'mid all its wayward pain. 
 
 Cannot believe but it is loved again. 
 
 Even so strong Genius, with its ample dower 
 
 Of a world-grasping love, from that deep feeling 
 
 Wins of its own wide sway the clear revealing. 
 
 Sir Win. K. Hainilton. 
 
 lo. The author of Tennysoniana notes the parallel in In Memonam 
 
 (Conclusion) : 
 
 ' Which shall be read 
 By village eyes as yet unborn.' 
 
 It may here be remarked that throughout the Sonnets there are 
 evidences of Shakspeare's having read those in which, as Meres 
 describes them, ' Daniel hath divinely sonetted the matchlesse 
 beauty of his Delia.'' Through this Lxxx, for example, he can be 
 pretty clearly traced to the 41st and 52nd of that collection, the 
 latter of which may find a place here for comparison, notwith- 
 standing its somewhat ungracious glance at ' the poets' poet,' 
 whose Faerie Queeiie was then a new book. ( Whole Workes in 
 Foetrie, as before, 1623) : — 
 
 Let others sing of Knights and Palladines 
 
 In aged accents and untimely words, 
 
 Paint shadowes in imaginary lines. 
 
 Which well the reach of their high wits records ; 
 
 But I must sing of thee and those faire eies 
 
 Autentique shall my verse in time to come. 
 
 When yet th' unborne, shall say, Lo where she lies 
 
 Whose beauty made him speake that else was dombe. 
 
 These are the Arkes, the Trophies I erect. 
 
 That fortifie thy name against old age ; 
 
 And these thy sacred vertues must protect 
 
 Against the darke and times consuming rage. 
 
 Though th' error of my youth in them appeare. 
 
 Suffice they shew I liv'd, and lov'd thee deare. 
 
 Samuel Daniel. 
 
 Cp. also Drayton's Idea, Son. 44. Hartley Coleridge {Essays and 
 Marginalia, 1851, i, 123) on quoting the sonnet under notice, ex- 
 claims : ' Alas ! the greatest poets are but indifferent prophets after 
 all, and often fail in securing the immortality o.f their subjects, even 
 •while they achieve their own.' According to a learned theory of
 
 Notes • 295 
 
 PAfiE 
 
 the Sonnets, however, in which it is sought to prove that they and 
 the principal contemporaneous sonnet-systems were written in 
 conformity to the recondite love-philosophy of the schools, such 
 sentiments as those in the text merely express a step in the scala 
 anioris. I refer to the late Richard Simpson's Philosophy of Shake- 
 speare s Sonnets, 1868, of which, in this connexion, see page 50. 
 41 — LXXXI. dcteriniiiate : alegal word applied to a bond. 3-4. The legal 
 style recalls Barnes again {Partheitophil and Farthcnophe, Son. 15) : 
 
 ' So shalt thou pawne to me signe for a signe 
 Of thy sweete conscience, when I shall resigne 
 Thy loves large Charter, and thy bondes againe.' 
 
 upoji misprision growing = given unadvisedly, unintentionally, or 
 
 in error. The author of Tennysoniana places this sonnet over 
 
 against the 62nd section of In Memotiam (' Tho' if an eye,' &c.), 
 
 and notes as remarkable that the last stanza of the immediately 
 
 preceding section closes with Shakspeare's name. 13-14. Cp. 
 
 Cymbelinc, v, 4, 123-9. 
 
 43 — LXXXV, 5-10. Cp. In Mernoriam, cxi, 2, 5. — {Tennysoniatia). 
 
 44 — Lxxx\'i. base . . . basest. For base, Staunton, suspecting that 
 it had been caught from basest, would read 'foul'; while Sidney 
 Walker suggests ' barest ' for basest. 14. This entire line, and the 
 • expression ' basest weed ' as well, occur in The Raigne of King 
 Edward the Third, ii, I — a play first published in 1596, included 
 by Capcll in his Prolusions (1760) as probably Shakspeare's, and 
 recently re -claimed for him, wholly or in part, by Mr. Collier, Mr. 
 Fleay and others. The truth as to its parentage has doubtless been 
 found for us by Mr. Swinburne {Gentleman's Magazine, August, 
 1879), who argues that the author was some now indistinguishable 
 'devout student and humble follower of Christopher Marlowe,' 
 Shakspeare, we know, would borrow the master's words on occa- 
 sion, no less happily than tenderly {As You Like It, iii, 5, 81) : 
 ' Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might, 
 " Who ever loved that loved not afr first sight? "' 
 then wherefore not those of so worthy a disciple when they served ? 
 'With the tone of this Sonnet compare Hamlet's "Give me that 
 man That is not passion's slave," &c. Shakespeare's writings 
 show the deepest sensitiveness to passion : — hence the attraction 
 he felt in the contrasting effects of apathy.' — F. T. Palgrave. 
 
 LXXXVII. One of Mr. Fleay's propositions is — 'That the "ab- 
 sence", the "journey", the "travel" [see note on LViii, p. 2S5], 
 so largely dwelt on in these compositions, do not refer to any actual 
 journey at all ; but merely to the separation between Southampton 
 and Shakspere caused by the metaphorical unfaithfulness of the
 
 296 Notes 
 
 William ^bakspenre. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 latter to the former, in producing, not poems dedicated to him, but 
 only dramas destined for the multitude instead.' hope of orphans 
 — promise of, &c. (see note on LXix, 13, p. 289). Staunton, fail- 
 ing ' to make any good sense ' of this expression, asks if we should 
 not read ^ crop of orphans.' The emendation is surely needless. 
 45 — LXXXVill. heavy Saturn = ' The gloomy side of Nature ; or, the 
 saturnine spirit in life.' — A T. Palgrave. 
 
 Lxxxix, 6 = 1 accused the lily of stealing its whiteness from thy 
 hand. The late Prof. George Wilson, illustrating from many pas- 
 sages Shakspeare's perception of the power which odours, agreeable 
 or disagreeable, possess of exciting in us feelings of pain and of 
 pleasure, gives this sonnet as ' the most exquisite of all ' — ' it so 
 beautifully weaves together the eye, the nostril, and the ear, each 
 as it were like instruments in an orchestra, in turn playing the air, 
 and then falling back into an accompaniment, so that now it is 
 colour which is most prominent before .us, and then smell, and then 
 sound, and thereafter through colour we return to sound and frag- 
 rance again.' {The Five Gateivays of Knowledge, p. 78, 2nd ed. 
 1857). It has points of contact with Constable's sonnet Of his 
 Mistress (p. 18), Spenser's Amoj-etti, 64, and Shakspeare's own 
 2ist (lv, with note p. 283) and 130th. Mr. Palgrave observes : 
 ' This Sonnet contains fifteen lines : a variation which suggests 
 how the sonnet-form might be judiciously expanded.' The pre- 
 cedent of Shakspeare was probably recollected by Procter, who 
 has some unpublished lines, evidently intended for a sonnet, in 
 which he avails himself of a similar latitude : — 
 TO JOHN FORSTER. 
 I do not know a man who better reads 
 Or weighs the great thoughts of the Book I send, — 
 Better than he whom I have called my friend 
 For twenty years and upwards. He who feeds 
 Upon'Shakesperian pastures never needs 
 The humbler food which springs from plains below ; 
 Yet may he love the little flowers that blow. 
 And him excuse who for their beauty pleads. 
 Take then my Shakespeare to some sylvan nook ; 
 And pray thee, in the name of Days of Old, 
 Good-will and Friendship, never bought or sold, 
 Give me assurance thou wilt always look 
 With kindness still on Spirits of humbler mould ; 
 Kept firm by resting on that Wondrous Book, 
 Wherein the Dream of Life is all unrolled. 
 
 1856. Bar^y Cornwall.^ 
 
 * Inscribed in his autograph on the fly-leaf of a gift-copy of the second folio 
 Shakspeare (1632), now in the Forster Collection at South Kensington.
 
 Notes 297 
 
 PACE 
 
 Other instances of this license are not wanting : e.g., Henry Sut- 
 ton, under cccxxxi-CCCXXXll, and Tennyson's early poem, Love 
 and Death. 
 44-45 — LXXXVII-LXXXIX. These three sonnets form one perfect love- 
 poem. 
 46 — xc, 8. her : quarto ' his'. The late Mr. Housman was the first to 
 
 supply the right word. (A Collection of English Sonnets, 1835). 
 47 — xcil. See remark under Lxxix (supra, p. 293). 
 
 xciil. Dr. Grosart in his reprint of Barnes (Intro, p. xvi) marks 
 the following passage (Canzon i) as a Shakspearian reminiscence : 
 ' These papers . . . 
 Whose lasting Chronicles shall time out-weare ; ' 
 
 and indicates another in the dedicatory sonnet to the Earl of 
 Northumberland : 
 
 . . . ' your thrise noble house : which shall out weare 
 Devouring time it selfe, if my poor muse 
 Devine aright ' — 
 
 which, it will be noticed, contains the initial phrase of Shakspeare's 
 19th Sonnet. With 9-10 cp. Constable's 7th Sonnet : — 
 
 ' Miracle of the world ! I never will denye 
 That former poets prayse the beautie of theyre dayes ; 
 But all those beauties were but figures of thy prayse, 
 And all those poets did of thee but prophecye.' 
 
 14. Cp. Herrick and Browning as under xxxi, pp. 255-6. 
 
 48 — xciv. subscribes ^■iwhuvii'i, — as in Greene, XLli, 14. For a startling 
 elucidation of this sonnet see Mr, Massey's work on the Sonnets. 
 The argument is that the poem was Shakspeare's congratulation to 
 the Earl of Southampton upon his release from the Tower on the 
 death of Elizabeth — the mortal Moon (' Cynthia ') — to which he had 
 been committed for participation in the Essex conspiracy. 
 
 XCV, II. ' The word preposterotisly admonishes us to read 
 '^ sixdiintdi" ; preposterous, in its old and true sense, meaning a 
 deviation from the rational order of procedure, as here, by giving 
 all for nothing. The misprint is probably due to the appearance 
 of stain just above.' — Statmfon. 
 
 49 — xcvi. blenches = deviations. Apropos of this sonnet, Henry Reed 
 in his essay on English Sonnets {Lectures, &c., as before, ii, 262), 
 remarking on the special uses to which the sonnet-form has been 
 put, observes : ' When Shakspeare meditated upon his theatrical 
 profession, it was in the sonnet that he breathed out his sense of 
 degradation in that beautiful lament, of which the tone is a little 
 louder than a sigh and yet not so harsh as a murmur. It is here
 
 298 ~ Notes 
 
 William Sljahsparc. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 that his genius, no longer embodied in its creations, appears to us in 
 its individual nature ; — he walks upon the earth in his own personal 
 form. What poem can boast of greater interest ? ' 
 4g — xcvil, 6-7. It was doubtless a recollection of this characteristi- 
 cally Shakspearian image (not to mention Paradise Lost, iv, 425-6) 
 that gave form to Shelley's ( The Cetui, iii, i) : 
 
 ' Should the offender live ? 
 Triumph in his misdeed ? and make by use 
 His crime, whate'er it is (dreadful, no doubt), 
 Thine element ? until thou mayst become 
 Utterly lost, subdued even to the hue 
 Of that which thou permittest ? ' 
 
 Indeed it is somewhat significant that Shelley (Gamett's Relics, 
 p. 81) has 'a note on the original MS. of the preface' to his 
 tragedy, in which these very words of Shakspeare's are quoted from 
 memory, and which, though in all likelihood originally meant, as 
 Mr. Forman presumes, to form part of the passage in that preface 
 on style in dramatic composition, may not be without some bearing 
 on the note on another passage in which one conscious plagiarism 
 is acknov/ledged. See Mr. Forman's Shelley, ii, 14-15. For other 
 imitations of Shakspeare in The Ceiui, see an article by 'J. B. B.* 
 in the (old) Shakespeare Society's Papers, Vol. i, 1844, p. 54. 
 10. eisel (quarto ' Eysell ") = vinegar. To quote Henry Reed again 
 {ibid., ii, 263) : ' This would be sweet language from any lips ; but 
 what can be deeper than the pathos of it, when you reflect that it is 
 the grief of one whose wisdom, for more than two centuries, has been 
 reverently quoted by statesmen, philosophers, and divines, whose 
 plots have wound round so many hearts and moistened so many eyes, 
 whose pictures of passions have moved such sympathies, and whose 
 wit has gladdened so many faces ? It is in his sonnets that you find 
 the conclusive proof that he was " the gentle Shakspeare." ' 
 50 — xcviii. // is the star: 'Apparently, whose stellar influence is 
 unknown, although his angular altitude has been determined.' — 
 F. T. Palgrave. ' It would be difficult, ' says Henry Reed {Lectures, 
 &c., as before, ii, 253^ ' to cite a finer passage of m^oral poetry 
 than this description of the master-passion. How true and how 
 ennobling to our nature ! We at once recognise in it the abstrac- 
 tion of that conception which has found a dwelling and name in 
 the familiar forms of Desdemona, Juliet, Imogen, Cordelia, — of 
 Romeo, and of Othello too, if that character be correctly under- 
 stood. If this sonnet was written before his dramas, then it was 
 the pregnant thought from which were destined to spring those
 
 Notes 299 
 
 PAGE 
 
 inimitable creations of female character that have been loved, as if 
 they were living beings, by thousands. If, as is most probable, it 
 was written afterwards, it is Shakspeare's own comment, and might 
 be prefixed as a most apposite motto to those dramas in which he 
 has given life and motion to the conception.' ' 
 
 50 — xcix, 6. time. Staunton would read 'them'. — Unsuspected Cor- 
 ruptions, &c., Athenoeum, Jan. 31, 1S74. 
 
 51 — c. jacks = keys of the virginals, or spinnet, the prototype of the 
 piano. 
 
 CI, 3-4. Cp. Pericles, i, i, 137 : 
 
 ' One sin, I know, another doth provoke ; 
 Murder's' as near to lust as flame to smoke : 
 Poison and treason are the hands of sin.' 
 
 In the Lecture before quoted (^jide foot-note 6, p. 2S1) Dr. Trench 
 marks out this sonnet for special comment : — ' The subject, the 
 bitter delusion of all sinful pleasures, the reaction of a swift remorse 
 which inevitably dogs them, Shakespeare must have most deeply 
 felt, as he has expressed himself upon it most profoundly. I know- 
 no picture of this at all so terrible in its truth as in The Rape of 
 Lucrece the description of Tarquin after he has successfully wrought 
 his deed of shame. But this sonnet on the same theme is worthy 
 to stand by its side.' ^ 
 
 52— cii. Probably a reminiscence of Sidney's Astrophel a>ul Stella, 7, 
 beginning: 
 
 'When Nature made her chiefe worke, Stellas ej'es. 
 In colour blacke why wrapt she beames so bright ? ' 
 
 Indeed Mr. Massey contends that -both poems were addresed to 
 one and the same person — the illustrious Stella. It is not a little 
 remarkable that in a sonnet addressed directly to her by Barnes, 
 whose sonnets abound in analogies to those of Shakspeare, there 
 occurs an almost equally beautiful characterization of the evening 
 &ic!ir {Part henop hi I, &c.. Son. 95): — 
 
 Thou bright beame-spreading loves thrise happy starre, 
 
 Th' arcadian shepheard Astrophills cleare guide : 
 
 Thou that on swift wing'd Pegasus doest ride, 
 
 Auroraes harbenger, surpassing farre 
 
 Aurora caried in her rosie carre : 
 
 Bright Planet, teller of cleare evening-tide, 
 
 Starre of all starres, fayre favor'd nightes cheefe pride 
 
 Which day from night, and night from day doest barre : 
 
 1 I am not aware whether it has ever been pointed out that in T/ie Book of the 
 Sonnet, edited by Leigh Hunt and S. Adams Lee (2 vols. Boston and London : 1867), 
 this and many other portions of Reed's admirable Lectures appear as foot-notes, with- 
 out quotation-marks or any species of acknowledgment whatever.
 
 300 Notes 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Thou that hast worldes of harts with thine eyes glaunce 
 
 To thy loves pleasing bondage taken thrall ; 
 
 Behold where graces in loves circles daunce, 
 
 Of two cleare starres, out-sparkling Pianettes all : ' 
 
 For starres her bewties arrow-bearers bee ; 
 
 Then be the subjectes, and superiour shee. 
 
 Barnabe Barnes. 
 
 52 — cm. Cp. another version in The Passionate Pilgrime, 1599, 
 adopted in the second edition of the Sonnets {Poems : IVntten by 
 Wil. Shakespeare. Gent. 1640. l2mo. sig. B). I avail myself of 
 this reference to The Passionate Pilgrime, the surreptitious char- 
 acter of which is well known, to present the following sonnet, erro- 
 neously printed therein as Shakspeare's, and frequently attributed 
 to him still. The real author was Richard Barnfield, whose poems 
 have recently been edited by Dr. Grosart for the Roxburghe Club, 
 4to, 1876. The sonnet, given here from that reprint (page 189), 
 stands first among the Poems : In divers humors (1598), and is 
 not, as in the old miscellany, without a heading : — 
 
 TO HIS FRIEND MAISTER R. L. IN PRAISE OF 
 
 MUSIQUE AND POETRIE. 
 
 If Musique and sweet Poetrie agree, 
 * As they must needes (the Sister and the Brother), 
 Then must the Love be great twixt thee and mee, 
 Because thou lov'st the one, and I the other. 
 Dowland to thee is deare, whose heavenly tuch 
 Upon the Lute doeth ravish humaine sense ; 
 Spenser to mee, whose deepe Conceit is such 
 As, passing all Conceit, needs no defence. 
 Thou lov'st to heare the sweete melodious sound 
 That Phoibus Lute (the Queene of Musique) makes ; 
 And I in deepe Delight am chiefly drownd. 
 When as himselfe to singing he betakes. 
 One God is God of Both (as Poets faigne), 
 One Knight loves Both, and Both in thee remaine. 
 
 Richard Barnfield. ' 
 
 53 — CIV, 14. Cp. Barnes {Parthenophil, &c.. Son. 87) : 
 
 ' And kill me with thy lookes, if they would kill.' 
 cv, T-2. The quarto has : 
 
 ' Poore soule the center of my sinfull earth. 
 My sinfull earth these rebbell powres that thee array.* 
 
 1 Maister R. L. = ^ Probably Richard Linch or Lynch, whose " Diella : certaine 
 Sonnets" (1596) deserves revival.' — Grosart. Dr. Grosart has since performed this 
 task himself (t vol. 4to, 1877). Do7tiland — '■io'hn Dowland. whose "P.ookes" of 
 " Songs or Ayres," 1597 onward, are still renowned.' — G. Onr Kniglit. ' One longs to 
 know who he was.' — G. The sonnet shoidd be compared with Milton's to H. Lawes 
 (CXLIII, p. 72), and those on modern composers given under it in the Notes.
 
 Notes 
 
 \o\ 
 
 For the repeated phrase (evidently a printer's blunder) Malone pro- 
 posed to read in 1. 2 Fool'd by those, and Steevens Starvd by the. 
 Others have since suggested Thrall to these. Slave to these, FoiTdby 
 these. Hemmed with these, — the last the proposal of Mr. Furnivall 
 (^Academy, Sept. 11, 1875), who quotes Femts and Adonis, 1022, 
 for the expression : 
 
 ' Fie, fie, fond love, thou art so full of fear 
 As one with treasure lad&n, hemm'd with thieves ; ' 
 
 while Mr. Massey, simply by the excision of the words that thee, 
 considers that he has restored the true reading, ' without losing the 
 added touch of solemnity that is given, and obviously intended, by 
 the repetition of my sinful earth.' The correction of Mr. Bulloch 
 of Aberdeen ought also to be noted {Studies on the Text of Shake- 
 spare, 1878, p. 294) : which consists in the substitution of the single 
 word ' sins ' for the second sin full earth, thus putting 1. 2 in appo- 
 sition to 1. I. I follow Malone as amended by Dyce. 7. Cp. 
 Lxxviii, 10. aggravate — augment, increase. 14. Cp. Donne, cxi, 
 14 (with note). An anonymous sonnet printed by Joseph Hunter 
 has a special interest in this connexion {N'ew Illustrations, &c., as 
 before, i, 113) : ' There is in the church of Abington a regular son- 
 net which appears to me of great beauty, so that it might almost be 
 attributed to Milton, which I will cite for the double purpose of 
 drawing it forth from its obscurity, and for the illustration it affords 
 of the character of Sir John Bernard's mother,' on whose tomb it 
 
 is inscribed ' — 
 
 SCIO CUI CREDIDI. 
 Earth unto Earth is now returned : a doom 
 Long since decreed ; yet what was more divine 
 In me — my purer soul — this narrow room 
 Nor can, nor must this hollow vault confine. 
 Only to God that gave 't I that resign. 
 Reposing here my Dust, whose smallest grain 
 Even He that bought it will revive again. 
 How long and when shall that blest union be, 
 And I enjoy that I do most aspire. 
 Most sure it is ; and I will wait to see 
 Performed that promise, nor will I inquire : 
 Death cannot rob or frustrate my desire. 
 Eternal life will come with Christ mine Head ; 
 Nor can I then but live that now am dead. ' 
 
 Anon. 
 
 ' This lady died in 1634. Her son. Sir John Bernard, became, in 1640, the husband 
 of Elizabeth Hall, Shakspeare's granddaughter and last surviving descendant. Lady 
 Bernard had no issue, and on her death in 1670 ' there was,' as Hunter remarks, ' an 
 utter extinction of the progeny of William Shakespeare, which thus endured only 
 fifty-four years after his decease.'
 
 302 
 
 Notes 
 
 ©tillinm ^Ijalispcarc. 
 
 Shakspeare's sonnet should be compared with Sidney's ' Leave me, 
 
 O Love ' (xxxill, p. 17), Barnes's Divine Centurie, 49 and 97, 
 
 Griffin's Fidessa, 27 and 29, and others presenting the same spiritual 
 
 attitude ; as, for example, the two following : Davies of Hereford 
 
 (^Wittes Pilgrimage, Son. 13, sig. K i) : 
 
 Whiles in my Soule I feel the soft warme Hand 
 
 Of Grace, to thaw the Frozen dregs of Sin, 
 
 She, Angell (arm'd,) on Edens Walls doth stand 
 
 To keep out outward Joyes that would come in : 
 
 But, when that holy Hand is tane away. 
 
 And that my Soult congealeth (as before), 
 
 She outward Comfous seeks (with Care) each way, 
 
 And runs to meete them at each Sences Doore. 
 
 Yet they but at the iirst sight only please ; 
 
 Then shrink, or breed abhor'd Satiety : 
 
 But divine Comforts (far unlike to These) 
 
 Do please the more, the more they stay, and Be : 
 
 Then, outward Joyes I inwardly detest, 
 
 Sith they stay not, or stay but in unrest. 
 
 yolin Davies.^ 
 
 and Nicholas Breton (7"^^ Souks Harmony, 1602, ed. Grosart, 1876, 
 
 P- 5) : 
 
 The worldly prince doeth in his Septer hold 
 
 A kind of heaven in his authorities : 
 
 The wealthy miser, in his masse of gold, 
 
 Makes to his soule a kind of Paradice : 
 
 The Epicure that eates and drinkes all day. 
 
 Accounts no Heaven, but in his hellish rowtes : 
 
 And she, whose beauty seemes a sunny day. 
 
 Makes up her heaven but in her babies clowtes. 
 
 But my sweete God, I seeke no Princes power, 
 
 No misers wealth, nor beauties fading glosse ; 
 
 Which pamper sin, whose sweetes are inward sowre, 
 
 And sorry gaynes, that breed the spirits losse. 
 
 No, my deare Lord, let my Heaven onely bee 
 
 In my Loves service, but to live to thee. 
 
 Nicholas Breton.'^ 
 
 54 — cvi. censures = judges. 8. So punctuated by Dyce and the ' Globe' 
 
 editors (Lettsom's conjecture) — " taking eye as a pun on 'Ay'" 
 
 (for an instance of which practice see the close of Son. 100, 
 
 Barnes's Parthenophil, &c.). The usual reading, in agreement 
 
 * 
 
 with the quarto, is 
 
 ' Love's eye is not so true as all men's : no. 
 How can it ? ' &c. 
 
 ' Cp. Shelley (Adonais, xl) : 
 
 ' And that unrest which men miscall delight.' 
 " babies dozuies — childish clothes.
 
 Notes 303 
 
 PAGE 
 
 of which, as Sidney Walker observes (CrzV. Exam., iii, 368), 'the 
 flow seems not to be Shakesperian.' 
 26-54— L-cvi. From Shake-Speares Sonnets. Never before Imprinted. 
 1609. In addition to those particularized, I have silently adopted 
 a few corrections by Malone, Sewell, and others, where the old 
 copy was palpably corrupt. 
 
 loljit gables flf |)crrforb. 
 54— cvii. From Wittes Pilgrimage, {by Poeticall Essaies) Through a 
 World of amorous Sonnets, Soule-passions, and other Passages, 
 Divine, Philosophcall, Mo7-all, Poeticall, and Politicall. n.d. (Son. 
 30, sig. Li, Grenville copy). Davies's ' Complete Works ' have just 
 been ' for the first time collected and edited ' by Dr. Grosart 
 {Chertsey Worthies' Li by., 2 vols., 1878), who in his Memorial- 
 Introduction (p. xviii) justly characterizes the present sonnet as 
 ' noble, almost Shakespearean-ringing lines.' « 
 
 55 — cviii. Now that Barnes's secular poems are removed from the 
 category of unattainable things, and a study of them becomes 
 practicable, Dr. Grosart having recently (1875) reprinted and edited, 
 from the unique exemplar in the possession of the Duke of Devon- 
 shire at Chatsworth, the long-hidden and all but unheard-of Par- 
 thenophil and Parthenophe {\^()fj, there can be little doubt that 
 this fine old singer, hitherto so strangely neglected, and known only 
 to the few by his later Divine Centtirie (also reprinted by Dr. 
 Grosart) as a minor but sweet and fervid voice in England's antiphon, 
 is at length on the eve of having justice rendered him. It may 
 be predicted with some confidence that it is on the recovered treas- 
 ure that Barnes's fame will henceforth mainly rest. The Sonnets, 
 of which it largely consists, are of special importance in a study of 
 the development of that species of composition in our literature. 
 Apart from their essential poetical qualities, which, though consid- 
 erable and undoubted, are surpassed by those of the Odes and Mad- 
 rigals, with their passionate adoration of beauty, their sensuous de- 
 light, their glories of pure and lovely colour, and fragrance of choice 
 flowers, they entitle Barnes to rank as one of the most artistic son- 
 neteers of Elizabeth's reign ; for while on every side the sonnet- 
 form was deteriorating, we find this poet habitually, though not 
 invariably, employing in the service of his Parthenophe a stanza as 
 obedient to technical prescription — the inevitable riming couplet of 
 the period always excepted — as those in which Laura's name is laid
 
 304 Notes 
 
 up for ever, or those Mr. Rossetti has given us towards The House 
 of Life. The Parthenophil and PartheiiopJie has therefore a two- 
 fold claim on the attention of the literary historian ; and the ulti- 
 mate verdict will probably confirm that of Professor Dowden.who 
 {Academy, 2nd September, 1876) congratulates Dr. Grosart on 
 having brought into notice ' a volume of Renaissance poetry far 
 more a work of genius than the' EHaro/iTtaOia of Watson, or Con- 
 stable's sonnets.' An additional interest attaches to this important 
 reproduction from the circumstance, which no one with any percep- 
 tion of analogies will doubt, that it was probably studied by Shak- 
 speare, and not infrequently in his thoughts when writing the 
 immortal Sonnets given to the world sixteen years later. This 
 conjecture is founded, not on a few superficial resemblances observ- 
 able between the two collections, but on a striking community of 
 sentiment and mood, together with numerous verbal coincidences 
 of which even those falling in our way are not easily explicable on 
 any hypothesis but that the one writer was read by the other. Of 
 course it may reasonably enough be contended that since, as we 
 saw on page 279, Shakspeare's Sonnets had a limited circulation 
 long before they came into print, Barnes may have been the reader, 
 and Shakspeare, as usual, the read ; but until an earlier date than 
 that of the Parthenophil and Partheuophe can be made out for that 
 circulation, and some species of evidence transpires linking Barnes 
 with the coterie of ' private friends ' whose eyes were blessed with 
 a sight of the 'sugred Sonnets' in MS., we must disclaim that as- 
 sumption, and abide by the respective dates of publication as set- 
 tling the point. To the sensitive ear even subtler analogies than 
 thdse we have marked will be audible, — in the movement and 
 music of the verse, and the characteristic manner in which the 
 sense overflows and spreads from one poem to another, sonnet 
 upon sonnet coming away from the poet's bosom, as Coleridge 
 finely said of Shakspeare's, 'sigh after sigh.' Take the close of 
 the sSlh and the opening of the 59th for example : — 
 
 ' Then love betimes ; these withered flowers of yore 
 Revive : thy bewtie lost retumes no more.' 
 
 ' Ah me, sweet bewtie lost retumes no more.' 
 In addition to ' Ah, sweet Content ' (Barnes's 66th), which, as Dr. 
 Grosart truly says (Intro, p. xvi), might have gone into the Arcadia 
 for its ' sweet, soft simpleness,' and with which the reader may have 
 had a previous acquaintance, in a mutilated form, from Beloe," 
 
 • Anecdotes 0/ Literature, &c., 1807, ii, 77.
 
 Notes 305 
 
 Bliss,' or Willmott,'' the three following examples — Sons. 60, 65, 
 and 67 of the Parthenophil — may not be unacceptable, since for 
 many readers the reprint must be as inaccessible as the original ; 
 and I place 65 first in order, since it directly precedes and is pre- 
 lusive of the sonnet in our text. Notwithstanding its language of 
 conventional pastoralism, let us not doubt that the very emotions 
 of Bums are finding voice in it — the same passionate love and regret: 
 
 ' Nad lue 7iever loved sae kindly. 
 Had ime never loved sae blindly. 
 Never tnet — or never parted. 
 We had ne'er been broketi-hearted .' 
 
 Oh that I had no hart, as I have none, 
 
 (For thou mine hartes full spirite hast possessed,) 
 
 Then should myne argument be not of mone. 
 
 Then under loves yoke should I not be pressed : 
 
 Oh that without myne eyes I had been borne. 
 
 Then had I not my mistresse bewtie vewed. 
 
 Then had I never been so farre forlorne, 
 
 Then had I never wep't, then never rewed : 
 
 Oh that I never had been borne at all. 
 
 Or beeing, had been borne of shepheardes broode, 
 
 Then should I not in such mischances fall, * 
 
 Quyet my water and content my foode : 
 
 But now disquieted, and still tormented, 
 
 With adverse fate perfoice must rest contented. 
 
 Whilst some the Trojane warres in verse recount, 
 
 And all the Grecian Conquerours in fight. 
 
 Some valiant Romaine warres bove starres do mount, 
 
 With all their warlike leaders, men of might : 
 
 Whilst some of Bryttish Arthures valure sing, 
 
 And register the prayse of Charlemayne : 
 
 And some of doughtie Godfrey tydinges bring, 
 
 And some the Germaine broyles, and warres of Spayne : 
 
 In none of those, my selfe I wounded finde. 
 
 Neither with horseman, nor with man on foote : 
 
 But from a cleare bright eye, one captaine blinde 
 
 (Whose puisance to resist did nothing boote) 
 
 With men in golden armes, and dartes of golde, 
 
 Wounded my hart, and all which did beholde. 
 
 If Cupid keepe his quiver in thine eye. 
 And shoote at over-daring gasers hartes, 
 Alas, why be not men afrayde, and fllye 
 As from Medusaes, doubting after smartes ? 
 
 1 Wood's AihencF Oxon., 1815. ii, col. 48-49. Bhss notes: 'Having never seen 
 any of Barnes's poetical works in their original form, I am cornpelled to be satisfied 
 with the following lines from his Parthenophel {sic\ extracted by Beloe 1 hey give 
 so favourable an idea of his style, that it is to be lamented the editor of the Anecdotes 
 of Literature did not oblige his readers with a more particular analysis ot, and 
 further specimens from, a volume of as great merit as rarity.' 
 
 " Lives of the Sacred Poets, 1834, p. 17. 
 
 U
 
 3o6 Notes 
 
 ^fTrnnbc §fintts, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Ah, when he drawes his string, none sees his bow, 
 Nor heares his golden fethred arrowes sing ; 
 Ay me, till it be shot no man doth know, 
 Untill his hart be pricked with the sting : 
 Like semblance beares the musket in the field 
 It hittes, and killes imseene, till unawares 
 To death the wounded man his body yeeld ; 
 And thus a pesant Caesars glorie dares : 
 This diffrence left, twixt Mars his field, and loves, 
 That Cupids souldior shot, more torture proves.' 
 
 55— cix. The 70th of A Divine Centurie of Spiritnall Sonnets, 1595. 
 I subjoin the 88th also, on which Park, their first editor {Heliconia, 
 1815, ii, 62), having connected 1. 4 with Psalm xix, 5, annotates : 
 ' This is an excellent sonnet. It blends the liquid sweetness of 
 rhyme with the varied cadence of blank verse, and dignity of 
 thought with felicity of expression.' 
 
 The worldes bright comforter (whose beamesome light 
 Poore creatures cheereth) mounting from the deepe, 
 * His course doth in prefixed compasse keepe. 
 And as courageous Gyant takes delight 
 To runne his race, and exercise his might. 
 Till him downe galloping the mountaynes steepe, 
 Cleerc Hesperus, smoothe messenger of sleepe. 
 Views ; and the silver ornament of night 
 Foorth bringes, with starres past number in her trayne : 
 All which with Sunnes long borrowed splendour shine. 
 The Seas (with full tyde swelling) ebbe agayne ; 
 All yeeres to their olde quarters newe resigne ; 
 The windes forsake their mountayne-chambers wilde, 
 And all in all thinges with Gods vertue filde. 
 
 These favourably exemplify Barnes's religious muse, and, with the 
 fe-# others of a similar character belonging to the reigns of Elizabeth 
 and James I., given elsewhere, represent a vast body of devotional 
 literature produced at that time in sonnet-form which can be turned 
 to little account by the anthologist; and which unfortunately appears 
 to all the greater disadvantage by the side of the contemporaneous 
 secular poetry with which one involuntarily contrasts it. To the 
 reader who desires a typical example of this alleged disproportion 
 of quantity and quality — 'mass versus genius,' in Mr. Emerson's 
 phrase — I recommend with all confidence the Sundrie Sonnets of 
 Chnstian Passions (over three hundred and twenty in number) of 
 Henry Lok (1597). There is one nameless singer, however, to 
 whom we must listen here for a moment {Ancient Devotional Poetry : 
 > ' Dainty and quaint ' assuredly, as Dr. Grosart remarks (Intro, p. xvi).
 
 Notes 307 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Now first published from a Manuscript of the XVIth or XV lit h 
 Century. Loud. 1846) : ' 
 
 Up, sluggish Soule, awake, slumber no more, 
 This is no time to sleepe in sin secure ; 
 If once the Bridegroome passe and shutt the dore 
 No entrance will be gaind, thou maist bee sure. 
 Now thou art up, fill up thy lampe with oile, 
 Hast thee and light it at the fire of love ; 
 Watch, and attend ; what is a little toile 
 To gaine thee entrance to the joies above ? 
 Go, meete the Bridegroome with low i-everence, 
 Humbly, with patience, waite upon his grace, 
 Follow his steppes with love and diligence. 
 Leave all for Him, and only Him embrace : 
 So shalt thou enter with him into rest, 
 And at his heavenlie table sit and feast. 
 
 Ation. 
 
 Sonne of the Virgin most immaculate, 
 
 Who, to sett ope the heavenlie kingdome's gate 
 
 To true beleevers, diddest tread alone 
 
 The winepresse, and so God and man attone ; 
 
 O let one drop of that most pretious juice. 
 
 Which from thy side did flow as from a sluce, 
 
 Fall to my share : one drop will satisfie 
 
 My soule, O Lord ; do not a drop denie. 
 
 Give to my thirstie soule, that waites on thee, 
 
 A tast how sweete thy saving mercies bee. 
 
 Give, for I meritt not ; my faith relies 
 
 On thy free grace which never did despise 
 
 The sinner that repented, and forsooke 
 
 The evill waies that fomierly hee tooke. 
 
 Atton. 
 
 56 — ex. Dr. Trench has a note on this sonnet, which contains an admi- 
 rable summary of Donne's character {A Household Book of English 
 
 ' In the Catalogue of the Collection 0/ Manuscripts formed by the late Benja- 
 min Heyivood Bright, Esg.. sold in June, 1844, by Messrs. S. Leigh, Sotheby, and 
 Co., the article No. 1S6 is thus described :— ' Poems of the time of Queen Eliz.nbeth, 
 written in a beautiful clear hand on vellum ; they are of a religious character, and 
 appear not to have been printed.' The MS., which consists of one hundred and six 
 poems, chiefly sonnets of the native English type, subsequently became the property 
 of George Stokes, Esq., of Cheltenham, by whom it was edited for the Religious Tract 
 Society, the poems being regarded as valuably illustrative of the principles of the 
 immediate successors of the English Reformers. He justly observes : ' The general 
 tone of doctrine, with the sentiments pervading the whole, will, it is trusted, amply 
 satisfy the reader, if any part should not fully meet his wishes, either as to the matter 
 or the manner in which it is set forth. The rhythm is often rugged, as is usual in 
 other poetry of that day ; but it is free from the false glitter, affected antithesis, and 
 laborious pedantry, which characterize most of the contemporaneous versification, 
 while the force, beauty, and simplicity of many e.vpressions, give this little work a 
 high place among ancient English poetry.' The writer of an article on this publica- 
 tion in The Gentleman's Magazine for March, 1847, thinks the poems bear stronger 
 marks of the early part of the 17th than the i6th century.
 
 3o8 Notes 
 
 l^obit Sonne. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Poetry, 1868, p. 403) : — ' A rough ragged piece of verse, as indeed 
 almost all Donne's poetry is imperfect in form and workmanship ; 
 but it is the genuine cry of one engaged in that most terrible of all 
 straggles, wherein, as we are winners or losers, we have won all 
 or lost all. There is indeed much in Donne, in the unfolding of 
 his moral and spiritual life, which often reminds us of St. Augus- 
 tine. I do not mean that, noteworthy as on many accounts he 
 was, and in the language of Carew, one of his contemporaries, 
 
 " A king who ruled as he thought fit 
 The universal monarchy of wit," 
 
 he at all approached in intellectual or spiritual stature to the great 
 Doctor of the Western Church. But still there was in Donne the 
 same tumultuous youth, the same entanglement in youthful lusts, 
 the same conflict with these, and the same final deliverance from 
 them ; and then the same passionate and personal grasp of the cen- 
 tral truths of Christianity, linking itself as this did with all that he 
 had suffered, and all that he had sinned, and all through which by 
 God's grace he had victoriously struggled.' It may be added that 
 whereas it has been usual to assign Donne's principal Divine Poems 
 to his 'last best dayes,' his latest editor, Dr. Grosart, demonstrates 
 that most of them belong, not to the close, but to the commence- 
 ment of his poetic period, while he was still a Roman Catholic. 
 56 — CXI, 5. Cp. cxiv, 14. 5-6. He is thinking of Cicero's argument 
 {Tuscul. Disput., i, 38) : ' Habes somnum imaginem mortis,' &c. 
 Cp. Shakspeare {Measw'e for Measure, iii, i, 17): 
 
 ' Thy best of rest is sleep, 
 And that thou oft provok'st ; yet grossly fear'st 
 Thy death, which is no more.' 
 
 j<7<>«^j^ = most willingly {rathest, as he might have said, had not 
 the form already been allowed to drop. Or did he mean (literally) 
 earliest, in allusion to the proverbial 'Whom the gods love die 
 young?' Jw^Z/'j/ r= boastest — or 'brag', as Shakspeare's word 
 was in Liv (p. 28) : 
 
 ' Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade. 
 
 An instance of the adjectival form, as in Scripture and in Shak- 
 speare frequently, may be cited from the posthumous version of 
 Drammond's sonnet, cxxiv {Poems, ed. 1656, p. 103) : 
 
 ' A swelling Thought of holding Sea and Land.' 
 14. Cp. Pev. xxi, 4, and the metrical Paraphrase thereof, together
 
 Notes 309 
 
 PAGE 
 
 with Shakspeare again, Son, 146 (cv, 14, with note). Later, in his 
 Ehgie on Mris. Boulstred, we have Donne's palinode : 
 
 ' Death, I recant, and say. Unsaid by mee 
 What ere hath slip'd that might diminish thee.' 
 
 On the fly-leaf of his copy of Donne (first ed.) the late Mr. Dyce 
 notes in reference to the present sonnet : ' When I was preparing 
 my Specimens of English Sonnets, Wordsworth wrote to me to re- 
 quest that I would not overlook this one, which he thought very fine.' 
 Wordsworth's words were {Prose Works, 1876, iii, 332) : ' The loth 
 sonnet of Donne, beginning "Death, be not proud," is so eminently 
 characteristic of his manner, and at the same time so weighty in the 
 thought, and vigorous in the expression, that I would entreat you to 
 insert it, though to modern taste it may be repulsive, quaint, and 
 laboured.' 
 56 — CX-CXI. Nos. I and 6 of a group of twelve ' Holy Sonnets ' (aug- 
 mented to sixteen in later editions) : Poems, by y. D. With Elegies 
 on the Authors Death, 1633. 
 
 ^.(Rillicnn Jlnimmoiii). 
 
 ' Shall I be thought fantastical, if I confess, that the names of some 
 of our poets sound sweeter, and have a finer relish to the ear — to mine 
 at least — than that of Milton or of Shakspeare? It may be, that the 
 latter are more staled and rung upon in common discourse. The sweetest 
 names, and which carry a perfume in the mention, are, Kit Marlowe, 
 Drayton, Drummond of Hawthornden, and Cowley.' — Charles Lamb? 
 
 ' The next best sonnet-writer to Shakespeare, in point of time, is 
 Drummond of Hawthornden ; and he has a value of his own. I use the 
 old local designation in speaking of him, forwe have not too manysuch, 
 and it would be an especial pity in his case to let it drop, for he was a 
 genuine lover of trees and bowers, and deserved the good fortune — rare 
 for a poet — of possessing an estate in the bosom of them. Drummond's 
 sonnets, for the most part, are not only of the legitimate order, but they 
 are the earliest in the language that breathe what may be called the habit 
 of mind observable in the best Italian writers of sonnets ; that is to say, a 
 mixture of tenderness, elegance, love of countr)',seclusion,and conscious 
 sweetness of verse. We scent his " musked eglantines," listen to his 
 birds, and catch glimpses of the " sweet hermitress " whose loss he de- 
 plored. Drummond was not without the faults of prototypes inferior to 
 those writers. His Italian scholarship in some measure seduced, as well 
 as inspired him ; but upon the whole his taste was excellent ; and he 
 
 ' The Last Essays 0/ Elia, 1S33, p. 49.
 
 3IO Notes 
 
 SftlilUnm gnimmcuiJ. 
 
 leaves upon his readers the impression of an elegant-minded and affec- 
 tionate man.' — Leigh Hunt} 
 
 ,' His Sonnets are in the highest degree elegant, harmonious, and 
 striking. It appears to me that they are more in the manner of Petrarch 
 than any others that we have. * . . I cannot but think that [they] come 
 as near as almost any others to the perfection of this kind of writing.' — 
 Hazlitt} 
 
 ' Exquisitely tender, picturesque, and harmonious.' — Dyce.'' 
 
 ' Through the greater part of his verse we hear a certain muffled 
 tone of the sweetest, like the music that ever threatens to break out clear 
 from the brook, from the pines, from the rain-shower, — never does break 
 out clear, but remains a suggested, etherially vanishing tone. His is a 
 voix voih'e, or veiled voice of song.' — Dr. George Mac Donald} 
 
 Professor Masson in his recent monograph observes : ' What strikes us 
 throughout in Drummond's pieces is the combination of a certain poetic 
 sensuousness , or delight in the beauty of scenery, colours, forms, and 
 sounds, with a tender and rather elevated thought fulness} Having exem- 
 plified the former by quotations,he continues : ' It is an essential element 
 of poetic genius ; but in some poets it is so pronounced as almost to seem 
 in excess. Keats's poetry, for example, is a perfect maze, an endlessly- 
 rich v.'ilderness, of such luxuriances of sound and colour, such sensuous 
 verbal sweets. Drummond, with more of monotony, is yet Keats-like in 
 as far as he possessed, in a pleasing degree, and in sufficient variety, that 
 love of delicious imagery and phraseology which almost always marks a 
 real poet. At the same time the general effect was tempered, redeemed 
 from mere lusciousness, and perhaps thinned, by a considerable presence 
 in his mind of the other, and more intellectual, element (which Keats 
 also possessed in no ordinary degree) of pensive reason, or thoughtfulness. 
 In many of his poems this domination of the artistic sensuousness by a 
 philosophical pensiveness may be distinctly observed, and not least in 
 some of his sonnets. Drummond, whether from his intimacy with the 
 Italian poets, or from other causes, was especially fond of tins form of 
 composition, and wrote so much in it, and so well, that he came to be 
 named, even in his life-time, " the Scottish Petrarch."'^ 
 
 Drummond has often been blamed for appropriation ; and it must be 
 confessed that both the matter and the manner of others are somewhat 
 freely reproduced in his writings. But was the practice in degree or in 
 
 ' The Book of the Sonnet^ i, 78. 
 
 * Lectures on ike Literature 0/ the Age of Elizabeth^ ed. 1S70, pp. 177-181. 
 ' Specijiiens of English Sonnets, 1833, p. 214. 
 
 * England's Antiplion, p. 146. 
 
 ' Drummond ofHavjthornden : The Story of his Life and lVritings,i^Ti,^M.
 
 Notes 311 
 
 kind such as to justify the charge of literary theft against him? Assuredly 
 not. The truth is that Drummond's mind was peculiarly plastic and 
 imitative, and, like some greater writers whose originality will hardly be 
 questioned — Milton and Coleridge, for example — he habitually nermit- 
 ted, consciously and intentionally no doubt, recollections of his reading 
 to shape and colour much that he wrote. This mental trait in men of such 
 calibre, is rather an amiability than a reproach. In Dmmmond's case at 
 all events it must be attributed to something very different from necessity. 
 He was only too diffident, too modest ! and the occasions on which, 
 losing sight of his foreign models, he expresses his own thoughts and 
 feelings in his own way, make us regret that he ever saw one of them, or 
 at least that he did not think less of them and more of himself. From a 
 passage in the Eikoiioklastes (chap, xxiii) we learn incidentally what 
 Milton recognized as the necessary condition of legitimate ' new-dress- 
 ing,' as contradistinguished from' plagiary,' — that the thing ' borrowed ' 
 be 'bettered by the borrower.' Now, with the exception perhaps of 
 Milton himself, who was a great ' borrower' — our poet not the least of 
 his creditors — it would be difficult to name any writer between Shak- 
 speare and Tennyson who fulfils that condition more perfectly than 
 Drummond. Tried by the principle that 
 
 ' The thought is his at last who says it best,' 
 
 he has infinitely more to gain than to lose in a comparison with those 
 writers to whom he is alleged to have been so much indebted. The 
 Italian, French, and Spanish sources from which he drew have been 
 more particularly cited against him ; but his writings evince an equal 
 affection for our ' homely wits,' of whose works, as we know from his 
 library-catalogue which has been preserved, he owned a considerable 
 collection. Of these none gained such an ascendency over him as Sir 
 Philip Sidney, whom he held to have ' surpast Petrarch.'. Yet if it can- 
 not be denied that he did repair rather frequently to that fountain — 
 drenching himself (to apply Crashaw's metaphor) in 
 
 ' Sydnsean showers 
 Of sweet discourse ' — 
 
 it must be conceded that he gave them off again sublimated and beauti- 
 fied by his own genius, — ' quintessenced in a finer substance,' as he puts 
 it himself in some remarks on this very question.' Nor ought it to be 
 
 ' Heads of a Conversation betwixt the Famous Poet Ben Johnson, and Willinin 
 Drutnvtond 0/ Nawthornden, January, i6ig : -p^-'-irMed in The Works ofWilliavi 
 Drummond of Hawthornden. Consisting of those which %vere formerly /'rinted, 
 and those luhick tuere design d for the Press. Now Published from the A uthors 
 Original Copies. Edinburgh, fol.. ijii.p. 226. This edition was published under the 
 superintendence of Bishop Sage (who wrote the Life) and Thomas Ruddiman. See 
 also the ' Shakespeare Society ' ed. of the Conversations, edited by the late David 
 Laing, 1842, p. 49.
 
 312 
 
 Notes 
 
 SliUinm Qrummonir. 
 
 forgotten that in thus excelling his English master, Drummond achieved 
 for Scotland the distinction of having brought to perfection the style 
 inaugurated by Wyat and Surrey a hundred years before. 
 
 Drummond's collection of books, gifted by him to the University of 
 Edinburgh in 1627-1630, included two of Shakspeare's plays, from 
 which, as Prof. Masson points out, he made appropriations ' almost bor- 
 dering on plagiarism.' One of these cases may be particularized by way 
 of illustration, — the powerful image employed in a description of sun- 
 rise (Poems, 1616, sig. E2) : 
 
 ' Night like a Drunkard reeles 
 Beyond the Hills to shunne his flaming Wheeles.' 
 
 This will be instantly recognizable by many who may never have 
 read a line of Drummond ; yet even here it might fairly be questioned 
 whether the Scottish poet has not improved on his original {Komeo and 
 Juliet, 1599, sig. D4) : 
 
 ' And fleckeld darknesse like a drunkard reeles, 
 From forth dales path, and Titans burning wheeles.' ' 
 
 Prof. Masson, like others earlier, inclines to think that Drummond 
 knew Shakspeare's Sonnets also ; but, excepting a reminder that these 
 had been published in 1609, he offers nothing in support of his opinion. 
 I have however marked several passages apparently confirmatory of it, 
 one of which in particular (cxxx, 13-14, note, p. 330) it is difficult to re- 
 gard otherwise than as reminiscent of the close of Shakspeare's 29th Son- 
 net (p. 30) ; though perhaps no evidence was needed further than what, 
 to me at least, has always seemed a very obvious allusion to the famous 
 quarto of 1609 : viz. in the ' Character of several Authors, given by Mr. 
 Drummond' (1613-1616?), where Sir William Alexander ' and Shake- 
 spear ' are included in an enumeration of English amatory sonneteers, 
 and described as having ' lately published their Works.' - 
 
 1 I quote from Drummond's own copy, preserved in the Library of the University 
 of Edinburgh. Like many of the other volumes in that most interesting collection, it 
 contains numerous markings in the poet's handwriting, but there is none at this pas- 
 sage. Dr. Grosart notes a remembrance of the Friar's words, in the opening of Cra- 
 shaw's poem On a Foule Morning {Complete Works, i, 1S72, 235) : 
 
 ' Where art thou Sol, while thus the blind-fold Day 
 Staggers out of the East, loses her way 
 Stumbling on Night?' 
 
 ' JVofes of Ben Jonson's Conversations, &c., Shak. Soc. ed., p. 48. A specific 
 parallel of the most decisive character is pointed out in Notes and Queries, 28 Oct., 
 1876 : viz. between stanza 3 of ^ Lovers complaint (printed with the Sonnets, 1609) : 
 
 ' Oft did she heave her Napkin to her eyne, 
 Which on it had conceited charecters : 
 Laundring the silken figures in the brine. 
 That seasoned woe had pelleted in teares ' —
 
 Notes 213 
 
 Drummond, like ' a true worke-man in so great affaire,' showed much 
 solicitude as to the verbal niceties of his art ; and the various readings 
 printed duringhis lifetime justify, in some measure, the conclusion that 
 the numerous and imiDortant textual changes of the London posthumous 
 edition of 1656, (edited by Milton's nephew, Edward Phillips,' and 
 generally followed in the Edinburgh folio of 1711,) were of the poet's 
 own making. For this reason, and because it is, me judice, a case of 
 exceptional interest, I had carefully collated all the printed texts, together 
 with, in many instances, by courteous permission, Drummond's own 
 MSS., as preserved by the late Mr. Laing's good care in the Library of 
 the Society of Scottish Antiquaries ; but an increasing scepticism as to 
 the perfect authenticity of these editions — especially the later, which 
 frequently emits a distinctly eighteenth century sound — determines me 
 on adhering exclusively (a word or two excepted) to those that last passed 
 under the poet's own hand. They are, almost invariably, the best. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 57— cxii, 10. oft (1656) : 'of ' (1616). 
 
 cxiii. An eloquent critic {Retrospective Review, 1824, ix, 359) 
 characterizes this sonnet as 'one of the finest in the language.' 
 
 58 — cxiv, 3. This fine characterization of Sleep— with which cp. Sid- 
 ney's (xxix, 4, p. 15)— recalls the King's invocation, 2 Hen. IV, 
 iii, I, as perhaps its most appropriate comment. Drummond 
 almost repeats himself, speaking of Death (An Hymne of the 
 Fairest Faire : Flozures of Sion, 1623, p. 36) : 
 
 ' Indifferent Umpire unto Clownes and Kings.' 
 spares— ■s^zx'i'L — in the sense of refrain, as in Milton (CL, 13, p. 76), 
 the image of my death. The thought (see under CXI, 5-6, p. 308) may 
 have been familiarized to many English readers through T. Warton's 
 famous epigram,' Somne levis, quanquam certissima mortis imago,' 
 &c., which was originally written for a statue of Somnus in the 
 
 and a sonnet of Drummond's {Poems, 1616, sig. H3) : 
 
 . . . ' deare Napkin, doe not grieve 
 That I this Tribute pay thee from mine Eine, 
 And that (these posting Houres I am to live) 
 I iaundre thy faire Figures in this Brine.' 
 
 1 There seems something of the irony of fate in the circumstance that the task of 
 editing the Tory Drummond's poems should fall into the hands of the kinsman of 
 Milton, — into Milton's own, in a sense. It was no doubt to his uncle that Phillips pri- 
 marily owed his acquaintance with and admiration of the poems ; and to me Milton's 
 in piration — if not his very language — is as clearly discernible in his nephew's eulo- 
 gistic preface to Drummond as in the article on Shakspeare in the subsequent Thca- 
 triiii! Poctarum (1675). Phillips's notice of Drummond in the latter may be quoted, 
 as it is brief, and not without force still (p. 192) : ' William Drummond of Hawthorn- 
 den, a Scotch Gentleman of considerable note and esteem. Flourishing in K.James 
 his Reign ; who imitating the Italian manner of versifying, vented his Amours in 
 Sonnets, Canzonets and Madrigals, and to my thinking, in a style sufficiently smooth 
 and delightful ; and therefore why so utterly disregarded, and layd aside at present, 
 I leave to the more curious palats in Poetry.'
 
 314 Notes 
 
 ffililliam §lr«mmonb, 
 
 garden of Harris, the philologist, and of which many translations 
 have been made, that by Wolcot — ' produced in a few minutes, ' says 
 Polwhele, for whom it was done (see his Theocritus, i8ll, ii, 1 13) — 
 being as graceful as any, if about the least literal : 
 
 Come, gentle sleep, attend thy votary's prayer, 
 And, though death's image, to my couch repair ; 
 How sweet, thus lifeless, yet with life to lie, 
 Thus, without dying, O how sweet to die ! ' 
 
 DiTimmond, who as usual may have had a verse of Sir Philip's in 
 
 • his memory {Arcadia, Lib. 3, p. 260, ed. 1598) : 
 
 ' A dull desire to kisse the image of our death,' 
 
 repeats the expression {Poans, 1616, sig. I) : 
 
 ' When I, whose Eyes no drowsie Night could close. 
 In Sleepes soft Armes did quietly repose. 
 And, for that Heavens to die mee did denie, 
 Deaths Image kissed, and as dead did lie.' 
 
 The following list of instances, which, like that under XLVI, might 
 be indefinitely extended, may prove useful : — Virgil {The ALneids, 
 transl. William Morris, 1876, vi, 522), who describes Sleep as a 
 
 ' Deep rest and sweet, most like indeed to death's 
 own quietness ; ' 
 
 Shakspeare {Macbeth, ii, 3, 81): 
 
 ' Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit ; 
 {A Midsummer Night's Dream, iii, 2, 364) : 
 
 ' Death-counterfeiting sleep ; ' 
 {Cymbeline, ii, 2, 31) : 
 
 ' O sleep, thou ape of death, lie dull upon her ! ' 
 John Dowland's {First Booke of Songes or Ayres, 1597, xx) : 
 
 ' Come, heavy sleepe, the image of true death ; ' 
 John Davies.of YL^x&iox^ {Microcosmos , 1603, ed. Grosart, i, 33): 
 
 ' Dead sleepe, Deathe's other name and Image true ; ' 
 Earl of Sterline {Aurora, 1604, Son. 29) : 
 
 ' Whil'st I embrac'd the shadow of my death ; ' 
 Donne (cxi, 4-5, p. 56) : 
 
 . . . ' rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be ; ' 
 ( Woman's Constancy, ed. Grosart, ii, 1873, p. 161) : 
 
 ' Sleepe, Death's image ; '
 
 Notes 315 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sir Thomas Browne {Religio Medici, § 12) : ' In fine, so like death, 
 I dare not trust it without my prayers ; ' and, lastly, Cowley (fin the 
 Death of Mr. William Hervey : Works, 168 1, p. 18) : 
 
 'When Sleep, Death's image, left my troubled breast.' 
 
 The whole invocation, an imitation of the ' O del Silentio figlio ' 
 of Marini, whose Rime had been read by Drummond in 1613, 
 should be compared with XXIX, and those enumerated under it, 
 p. 254. The melancholy which pervades the greater part of Drum- 
 mond's writings was not the factitious emotion of a riming amourist, 
 but came of a real experience, the bereavement referred to under 
 cxx, p. 319 ; and some of his most inimitable little pieces were pro- 
 duced under its shadow, — in moods when he seems to have been, 
 like Keats, ' half in love with easeful Death.' One highly charac- 
 teristic ' Madrigall ' may be quoted {Poems, 1616, sig. H4) : 
 
 ' My Thoughts hold mortall Strife, 
 
 I doe detest my Life, 
 
 And with lamenting Cries, 
 
 (Peace to my Soule to bring) 
 
 Oft calles that Prince which here doth Monarchise ; 
 
 But Hee, grimme grinning King, 
 
 Who Catives scornes, and doth the Blest surprise. 
 Late having deckt with Beauties Rose his Tombe, 
 Disdaines to croppe a Weede, and will not come.' 
 
 58 — cxv, 4. to : ' too ' (1656). sfeepy : ' steppie ' (1616) = steep, de- 
 clining : as in R. Chester's Love's Martyr (1601), ed. Grosart, 1878, 
 
 P- 5 • ' Environ'd with a high and steeple mountaine ; ' 
 
 and Shakspeare's 23rd Son. (p. 36) : 
 
 ' when his youthfull morne 
 Hath travailed on to Ages steeple night.' 
 
 10. Cp. his Cypresse Grove (p. 81, ed. 1630) : ' Dayes are not to bee 
 esteemed after the number of them, but after the goodnesse. ' Read 
 in this connexion Whately's annotation on the opening sentence of 
 Bacon's Essay Of Youth and Age. 
 59— cxvi. ««i7/<?r = cinnabar. Nares quotes Ben 1ovi%ox\. {The Alche- 
 mist, i, 3) : 
 
 ' I know you have arsnike, 
 Vitriol, sal-tartre, argaile, alkaly, 
 Cinoper.' 
 
 See also Blount's Glossographia, 1656, s. v., and a note by Park, 
 Heliconia, 1815, ii, 151. Among some charming inedited criticisms 
 contributed by Leigh Hunt to The True Sun daily newspaper, 
 between August 19th and December 25th, 1833, there is one on 
 Cunningham's edition of Drummond, in which he remarks : ' Drum-
 
 3 1 6 Notes 
 
 Sdlilliant ,5nimmonb. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 mond had the eye of a painter. He is fond of colours, and knows 
 where to lay one colour upon another ; which is a secret of the art 
 of a higher cast than that of mere contrast and opposition.' He 
 instances the following ' pretty picture ' {Poems, l6i6, sig. N3) : 
 
 OF PHIL LIS. 
 In Peticote of Greene, 
 Her Haire about her Eine, 
 Phillis beneath an Oake 
 Sate milking her faire Flocke : 
 Among that strained Moysture (rare Delight !) 
 Her Hand seem'd Milke in Milke, it was so white. 
 
 Between the present sonnet and the next in the text comes one 
 which seems to have caught Milton's ear {Poems, 1616, sig. D2) : 
 
 Deare Quirister, who from those Shaddowes sends 
 
 (Ere that the blushing Dawne dare show her Light) 
 
 Such sad lamenting Straines, that Night attends, 
 
 Become all Eare, Starres stay to heare thy Plight ; 
 
 If one whose Griefe even Reach of Thought transcends. 
 
 Who ne're (not in a Dreame) did taste Delight, 
 
 Mfiy thee importune who like Case pretends, 
 
 And seemes to joy in Woe, in Woes Despight ; 
 
 Tell me (so may thou Fortune milder trie, 
 
 And long long sing) for what thou thus complaines, 
 
 Sith (Winter gone) the Sunne in dapled Skie 
 
 Now smiles on Meadowes, Mountaines, Woods, and Plaines ? 
 
 The Bird, as if my questions did her move. 
 
 With trembling Wings sobb'd forth, ' I love, I love.' * 
 
 59 — CXVli. grain = colour, dye. So B. Barnes (Sestine 2) : 
 
 ' Thy cheekes and forhead disaray 
 
 The rose and lillyes of their grayne ; ' 
 
 and Milton {Comus, 750) of colourless cheeks : 
 
 ' Cheeks of sorry grain.' 
 
 ' It has the Epithet of Tyriufn, because Tyre, a City of Phoenicia, 
 was famous for the Fishery of the Murex, which was the Shell-fish 
 yielding this Purple Liquor. ' — Note in Lord Preston' s translation of 
 Boethius, 2nd ed., 17 12, p. 80. lo. Elsewhere {Teares on the Death 
 of Moeliades, 1613) Drummond thus refers to the hyacinth in its 
 mythological character {Poems, Maitland Club ed., 1832, p. 8) : 
 
 • Become all Eare : an orientalism, as in Milton (Par. Lost, iv, 410, 2nd ed. 1674); 
 
 ' When Adam first of men 
 To first of women Eve thus moving speech, 
 Turnd him all eare to hear new utterance flow.'
 
 Notes 317 
 
 ?AGE 
 
 ' O hyacinths, for ay your Ai keepe still : 
 Nay, with moe markes of woe your leaves now fill ; ' 
 
 again, in the later Epitaph (p. 83) : 
 
 ' Th' immortall amaranthus, princely rose. 
 Sad violet, and that sweet flowre that beares 
 In sanguine spots the tenor of our woes ; ' 
 
 which of course Milton remembered when he assimilated the mark- 
 ings on the sedge with those of the hyacinth — oci oci = alas ! alas ! — 
 {Lycidas, 106) : 
 
 ' Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe,' 
 
 Cp. also the flower-passage further on in Lycidas, where Drummond 
 is not less evidently recalled. 
 60 — cxviil. With 1. 5 cp. Shakspeare's ' All the world's a stage,' &c. 
 {As You Like It, ii, 7) ; Thos. Newtop's recommendatory verses 
 prefixed to The Mirour for Magistrates, 1597: 
 
 ' Certes this worlde a stage may well be calde. 
 Whereon is playde the parte of ev'ry wight ; ' 
 
 Spenser's sonnet to .Gabriel Harvey, dated 1586, printed at the end 
 of Harvey's FoM-e Letters, &c., 1592: 'this worlds stage;' and 
 Amoretti, 54 : ' this worlds Theatre ; ' and with II. 5-6, Shak- 
 speare's Son. 15, 3-4 (p- 27) : 
 
 ' When I consider everf thing that growes 
 Holds in perfection but a little moment, 
 That this huge stage presenteth nought but showes 
 Whereon the Stars in secret influence comment.' 
 
 In another early sonnet (/'^^wj, 1616, sig. L4) Drummond speaks of 
 
 ' those blacke Artes 
 By which base Mortalles vildely play their Parts, 
 And staine with horride Actes Earths stately Stage.' 
 
 12. Not the only instance in Drummond of this thought, which, 
 clothed in almost exactly the same words, was common among 
 writers in and about his time. See an interesting note, with exam- 
 ples, by Dr. Hannah, on Bacon's use of it {Courtly Poets, p. 235). 
 14. Cp. Shakspeare {Two Gentlemen of Verona, i, i, 42) : 
 
 ' In the sweetest bud 
 The eating canker dwells ; ' 
 
 and Son. 70 (p. 38) : 
 
 ' For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love.' 
 With this sonnet read another a little further on, unequalled for 
 pathos {Poems, 1616, sig. G4) :
 
 3i8 Notes 
 
 WMxxm. Srummonb. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 O ! it is not to mee, bright Lampe of Day, 
 That in the East thou shew'st thy rosie Face ; 
 O ! it is not to mee thou leav'st that Sea, 
 And in these azure Lists beginst thy Race. 
 Thou shin'st not to the Dead in any Place, 
 And I (dead) from this World am gone away. 
 Or if I seeme (a Shadow) yet to stay, 
 It is a while but to bemone my Case. 
 My Mirth is lost, my Comforts are dismay'd, 
 And unto sad Mis-haps their place doe yeeld ; 
 My Knowledge doth resemble a bloudie field, . 
 Where I my Hopes and Helps see prostrate layd. 
 So painefuU is Lifes Course w-hich I have runne, 
 That I doe wish it never had begunne. 
 
 60 — CXIX, 5. stiaky eye : a Sidneian phrase. But indeed the entire 
 materials of this sonnet, as of cxxviii, will be found in the ' Ascle- 
 piadikes' sung by Dorus at the close of the second book of the 
 Arcadia (p. 233, ed. 159S) : 
 
 ' O sweet woods the delight of solitarinesse ! ' 
 themselves taken from Pietro Bembo. With Drummond's version 
 cp. one by the author of CCLVII {Sonnets by Rev. Charles Strong, 
 No. xciii, 2nd ed., 1862). pace (1656) : ' Peace ' (1616 and 1711). 
 silent horrors : the emotion produced by the silence, not less than 
 the sound, of a forest being that of a kind of horror or awe. Dryden 
 (Astroea Redux, 7) has ' horrid stillness ; ' and the phrase ' horrid 
 shade ' — with which cp. the ' horrific woods ' of Thomson {Au- 
 tumn) — is quite classical. ' Horror ' is derived from hon-eo, to bris- 
 tle, or stand erect, as hair, &c. ; hence its so frequent use in poeti- 
 cal descriptions of trees and, with equal propriety, of warriors' 
 plumed helmets. Cp. IsiWion {Comus, ist ed., 1637, p. 2) : 
 
 ' their way 
 Lies through the perplex't paths of this dreare wood. 
 The nodding horror of whose shadie brows 
 Threats the forlome and wandring Passinger.' 
 
 Chapman {Iliades of Homere, bk. iii, 346, ed. Hooper, 1857) : 
 
 ' And on his head his glorious helm he set, 
 Topp'd with a plume of horse's hair, that horribly did dance. 
 And seem'd to threaten as he mov'd.' 
 
 Fairfax {Godfrey of Boulogne, i, 39, p. 9, 2nd ed., 1624) : 
 
 ' And horrid helmes high on their heads they beare, 
 WTien their fierce courage they to war incline.' 
 
 ^ II. Cp. Gray's Elegy, 73 : 
 
 ' Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife.*
 
 Notes 3 1 9 
 
 PAGE 
 
 This is the neuter verb=to be mad, as in Wiclif {Dedis, c. 26, apud 
 Richardson) : ' Festus seide with greet voice, Poul, thou maddest, 
 many lettres turnen thee to woodnesse. And Poul seide, I madde 
 not, thou best Festus, but I speak out the wordes of treuthe and 
 sobrenesse.' So too Sir Tho. Browne {Hydriotapkia, § 4) : ' Vaine 
 ashes . . . emblems of mortal vanities, antidotes against pride, 
 vain-gloiy, and madding vices.' The leading sentiment of this son- 
 net and CXXVIII — the joy of freedom, the blessedness of the man 
 who, ' of bondage free,' ' doth live his own ' — should be compared 
 with the keynote of Sir Henry Wotton's noble lines on The Charac- 
 ter of a Happy Life [Reliquics IVottoniancs, 1651, p. 522), beginning 
 
 ' How happy is he born and taught 
 That serveth not another's will ! ' 
 
 which, Drummond tells us, Ben Jonson had 'by heart.' 
 61 — cxx. vuiskcd : ' musket ' (1616). The Sweet hermitress — Miss Cun- 
 ninghame of Barns, ' a fine Beautiful young Lady ' — was betrothed 
 to Drummond ; but ' when the Day for the Marriage was appointed, 
 and all Things ready for the Solemnization of it, she took a Fever, 
 and was suddenly snatched away by it, to his great Grief and Sor- 
 row ' {Life, prefixed to the folio, p. iii). 14. This familiar sentiment, 
 not ungracefully expressed by Drummond, was most probably recol- 
 lected from Dante {Inferno, V, 12 1-3) — himself indebted, it is sup- 
 posed, to Boethius {De Consol. Phil., Lib. ii, Prosa 4) : 'In omni 
 adversitate fortunas infelicissimum genus est infortunii fuisse 
 
 felicem et non esse ' — ' 
 
 ' Nessun maggior' dolore, 
 Che ricordarsi del tempo felice 
 Nella miseria.' " 
 
 1 Old Sir Richard Earckley gives it even an earlier parentage {A Discourse of tlie 
 Feliciiie of Man, 1598, bk. v, p. 522) : 'Alexander Sever us was used to say : There 
 is no kind of mis-hap so unfortunate, as for a man to call to remembrance, that in times 
 past hee had beene fortunate. Adversity never dismayed any but such as prosperity 
 deceaved.' A memorable modern instance may be recalled from the brief soldier-life 
 of Coleridge, who was only expressmg his own experience when he inscribed on his 
 stable wall, or door : • Eheu ! quam infortunii miserrimum est fuisse felicem ! ' 
 
 ^ But cp. the higher philosophy of a living poet {Laurella and Other Poems, 1876, 
 p. 228) : 
 
 NESSUN M.IGGIOW DOLORE! 
 No greater grief! Is it then always grief 
 Remembering happier times in times of sorrow? 
 Does one day of delight ne'er bring relief 
 To the sick soul on a despairful morrow? 
 Past joys are a possession. Oft we borrow 
 Strength for our present pain from out the brief 
 Bright moments garnered long in memory's sheaf — 
 August's rich grains make glad December's furrow. 
 Have once mine eyes beheld in vision blest 
 Beauty's dread form, or Love's death-conquering face, 
 My heart leaped up transfigured, as she sung, * 
 
 Who raised to life my life, whose gentle breast 
 From the world's rush was my one resting-place, — 
 Blind, deaf, and old — I see, hear, still am young. 
 
 yohn Todhunter.
 
 320 Notes 1 
 
 William grnmntonb'. : 
 
 Dante is reproduced thus by Chaucer ( Troylus and Cryseyde, Lib. ' 
 
 3, ccxxvi) : i 
 
 - ' For of fortunes scharp adversite ; 
 
 The worste kinde of infortune is this — \ 
 
 A man to han ben in prosperite, ; 
 
 And it remembren when it passid is.' 
 
 Cp. The Misfortunes of Artktir, by Tho. Hughes, 1587 (Dodsley's 
 Old English Plays, ed. Hazlitt, iv, 336, 1874) : 
 
 ' Of all misfortunes and unhappy fates : 
 
 Th' unhappiest seemes to have been happy once ; * j 
 
 Lord Brooke ( Workes, 1633, p. 233) : i 
 
 . . . ' he most wretched is 
 That once most happy was ' ' 
 
 • Ccelica, ' Sonnet' 83 (= 84), of which Sir Edward Dyer's Fancy — imitated, in its ; 
 
 turn, or, as the quaint old heading has it, ' turned to a sinner's complaint,' by South- I 
 
 well — is an adaptation. For all three poems see Dr. Grosart's edition of Brooke (4 vols. • 
 
 1870), I, xlviii, II, ixxi, and in, 104-112, 145-154 ; or Dr. Hannah's Courtly /'t>its,pp. ! 
 
 154-173, where Dyer's poem, not Brooke'.s, is treated as the original. While this ; 
 
 ' deep-brauied ' old writer (whom Wordsworth knew how to value) is before us, he may j 
 
 be brought imder contribution to a small extent here. The greater number of the | 
 
 hundred and ten pieces — ' Sonnets ' as their author calls them — composing the Cielica, \ 
 
 of which the three following are the i6th, 17th, and 88th (misnumbered 87 in old copy), 1 
 
 forfeit all rightto that denomination by their informalities of structure ; but they have j 
 a representative value, and seem to supply a kind of link between the Italian form 
 
 employed by his friend Sidney, with whom they were ' written in familiar exercise,' '■ 
 
 and the domestic English or Shakspearian type. They have also, as Dr. Grosart notes, J 
 
 'all that belongs to the Cumberland word " sonn," which means to think deeply.' 1 
 
 Fye foolish Earth, thinke you the heaven wants glory, 1 
 
 Because your .shadowes doe your selfe benight? 
 
 All's darke unto the blind; let them be sory ; ; 
 
 The heavens in themselves are ever bright. 
 Fye fond De.sire, thinke you that Love wants glory. 
 Because your shadowes doe your selfe benight? 
 
 The hopes and feares of lust, may make men sorie, ■ 
 
 But Love still in her selfe finds her delight. 
 
 Then Earth stand fast, the skye that you benight i 
 
 Will turne againe, and so restore your glory ; \ 
 
 Desire be steady, hope is your delight, ' 1 
 
 An orbe wherein no creature can be sorie ; | 
 
 Love being plac'd above these middle regions. 
 
 Where every passion virarres it selfe with legions. \ 
 
 Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke. \ 
 
 Cynthia, whose glories are at full for ever, ' j 
 
 Whose beauties draw forth teares, and kindle fires, . I 
 
 Fires which kindled once are quenched never : 
 
 So beyond hope your worth beares up desires. ' 
 
 Why cast you clouds on your sweet-looking eyes? 
 Are you afraid they shew me too much pleasure? 
 Strong Nature decks the grave wherein it lyes ; 
 Excellence can never be exprest in measure. 
 
 Are you afraid, because my heart adores you, • 
 
 The world will thinke I hold Endymion's place ? 
 
 Hippolytus, sweet Cynthia, kneel'd before you, 1 
 
 ^ Yet did you not come downe to kisse his face. . 
 
 ' Angells enjoy the heavens' inward quires : 1 
 
 Starre-gazers only multiply desires. j 
 
 Fulke Cre2<ille, Lord Brooke. i
 
 Notes 321 
 
 and as noted by Mr. Collier from Evordanus Prince of Denmark, 
 1605 {Biblio. Acct., i, 264) : ' In misery there is no greater griefe 
 than to call to minde forepassed pleasure.' Keats also glances at 
 it in one of his lesser poems (' In a drear-nighted December ') : 
 
 ' But were there ever any 
 Writhed not at passed joy ? ' — 
 
 and it has been beautifully woven into Thomas Davidson's song 
 The Auld Ash Tree {Life of a Scottish Probationer, ike, 2nd ed. 
 1878, p. 69) : 
 
 ' Oh, I wad fain forget them a' ; 
 
 Remembered guid but deepens ill, 
 As gleids o' licht far seen by nicht 
 Mak' the near mirk but mirker still ; ' 
 
 but it will doubtless be identified henceforth with him who has at 
 length fixed it in imperishable English verse (Tennyson's Locksley 
 Hall) : 
 
 'A sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.' 
 Elsewhere (in the song ' Sad Damon beeing come : ' Poetns, 1616, 
 sig. H) Drummond exclaims pathetically : 
 
 ' O ! that the Cause which doth consume our Joy 
 Remembrance of it too would too destroy ! 
 What doth this Life bestow 
 But Flowrs on Thornes which grow ? 
 Which though they sometime blandishing delighte, 
 Yet afterwards us smite ? 
 And if the rising Sunne them faire doth see, 
 That Planet setting, too beholdes them die.' 
 
 The sonnet before us — with which cp. Petrarca's 85th, 'Avventuroso 
 piu d'altro terreno' — is addressed to William Alexander, Earl of 
 Sterline, who was Secretary of State for Scotland from 1626 to 
 1640, and himself a poet of a masculine order. Drummond and he 
 
 When as Man's life, the light of humane lust. 
 
 In soacket of his earthly lanthorne burnes. 
 
 That all his glory unto ashes must : 
 
 And generations to corruption turnes ; 
 
 Then fond desires that onely feare their end, 
 
 Doe vainly wish for life, but to amend. 
 
 But when this life is from the body fled. 
 
 To see it selfe in that eternal glasse, 
 
 Where Time doth end, and thoughts accuse the dead. 
 
 Where all to come is one with all that was ; 
 
 Then living men aske how he left his breath. 
 
 That while he lived never thought of death. 
 
 Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, 
 
 With the phrase ' eternal glasse ' in this last, cp. st. 58 of his Treatise of Religion 
 (ed. Grosart, i, 258), where the Bible is described as i 
 
 ' that eternal glass 
 Where all men's souls behold the/ace they bring.'
 
 322 Notes 
 
 S&Iilliam ^rummorti). i 
 
 were fast friends through life, and called each other by the pastoral 
 
 names of Damon and Alexis in their correspondence and poems. i 
 
 Besides his tragedies, two of which were read and remembered by ; 
 Shakspeare, the Earl wrote many sonnets and other short lyrical 
 
 pieces in which Campbell {Specimens, p. 159, ed. 1841) might, to \ 
 
 say the least, have found something more than mere ' elegance of j 
 expression,' as the three following examples will show. They are 
 
 the loth, 33rd, and loyc A oi Aurora : Containing the first fancies . 
 
 of the Authors youth, William Alexander of Menstrie, 1604: — j 
 
 I sweare, Aurora, by thy starrie eyes. 
 And by those golden lockes whose locke none slips 
 And by the Corall of thy rosie lippes. 
 And by the naked snowes which beautie dyes ; 
 I sweare by all the jewels of thy mind. 
 Whose like yet never worldly treasure bought. 
 Thy solide judgement and thy generous thought, ' 
 
 Which in this darkened age have clearely shin'd : 
 I sweare by those, and by my spotlesse love, ; 
 
 And by my secret, yet most fervent fires, I 
 
 That I have never nurc'd but chast desires, " 1 
 
 And such as modestie might well approve. ■ 
 
 Then since I love those vertuous parts in thee, 
 Shouldst thou not love this vertuous mind in me ? | 
 
 W. Alexander, Earl of Sterline.^ \ 
 
 O if thou knew'st how thou thy selfe dost harme. 
 
 And dost prejudge thy blisse, and spoile my rest ; 
 
 Then thou would'st melt the yce out of thy brest, \ 
 
 And thy relenting heart would kindly warme. 
 
 O if thy pride did not our joyes controule. 
 
 What world of loving wonders should'st thou see ! ' 
 
 For if I saw thee once transform'd in me, \ 
 
 Then in thy bosome I would poure my soule. 
 
 Then all thy thoughts should in my visage shine ; '■ 
 
 > Cp. Wither, Son. 3 {Faire-Virtue, The Mistresse 0/ Phir Arete. Written by \ 
 
 ' Him-Sel/e, 1622, sig. K4) : ; 
 
 Faire, since thy Virtues my affections move, j 
 
 And I have vowd, my purpose is to joyne, ' 
 (In an eternall Band of chastest Love) 
 
 Our Soules, to make a Mariage most divine. • 
 Why (thou maist thinke) then, seemeth he to prize. 
 An outward Beauties fading hew so much ? 
 
 Why doth he read such Lectures in mine eyes? i 
 And often strive my tender palme to touch? 
 Oh pardon my presuming : For I sweare 
 
 My Love is soylSd with no histftdl spot : | 
 
 Thy Soules perfections through those vailes appeare, i 
 
 And I halfe faint that 1 embrace them not. ' 
 
 No foule Desires doth make thy touches sweet : ' 
 
 But, my Soule striveth with thy Soule to meet. • 
 
 George Wither. \
 
 Notes • 323 
 
 And if that ought mischanc'd, thou should'st not mone 
 Nor beare the burthen of thy griefes alone ; 
 No, I would have my share in what were thine. 
 And whil'st we thus should make our sorrowes one, 
 This happie harmonie would make them none. 
 
 IV. Alexander, Earl of Ster line} 
 
 To yeeld to those I cannot but disdaine, 
 
 Whose face doth but entangle foolish hearts ; 
 
 It is the beautie of the better parts 
 
 With which I mind my fancies for to chaine. 
 
 Those that have nought wherewith mens mindes to gaine, 
 
 But onely curled lockes and wanton lookes. 
 
 Are but like fleeting baites that have no hookes, 
 
 Which may well take, but cannot well retaine. 
 
 He that began to yeeld to th' outward grace, 
 
 And then the treasures of the mind doth prove : 
 
 He who as 't were was with the maske in love, 
 
 What doth he thinke when as he sees the face ? 
 
 No doubt being lim'd by th' outward colours so. 
 
 That inward worth would never let him go. 
 
 W. Alexander, Earl of Sterline. 
 
 Here too may be presented a good sonnet by another contemporary 
 Scottish poet, the common friend of Drummond and Alexander, Sir 
 Robert Ayton of Kinaldie, in Fifeshire, who was private secretary 
 to James's queen, Anne of Denmark, and of whose friendship for 
 Ben Jonson there is a brief record in the Hawthornden Conversa- 
 tiojis : ' That Sir R. Alton loved him dearly.' Author of a number 
 of sonnets, ^nd of some very beautiful lyrics not in sonnet-form, 
 ' he was,' says Professor Masson, ' perhaps the first Scotchman who 
 wrote verses in the genuine English of Spenser and his contempo- 
 raries.' I might refer the reader to a recent paper on this poet in 
 the London Quarterly Reviexu, July, 1878. Our specimen is given 
 from his Poems, edited by Dr. Charles Rogers, 1871, p. 73 : — 
 
 ON THE LOSS OF HIS MISTRESS. 
 
 Lo ! how the sailor in a stormy night 
 
 Wails and complains till he the star perceive 
 
 Whose situation and assured height 
 
 Should guide him through the strong and wat'ry wave. 
 
 As many motives, wretched soul, I have 
 
 For to regret, as few as to rejoice, 
 
 In seeing all things, once this sight I crave. 
 
 Since I the load-star of my life did lose, — 
 
 And what is worse, amidst those many woes, 
 
 Amidst my pain, which passes all compare, 
 
 1 Mr. Palgrave transposes the thy and ;;y of 1. 9, printing thus (Golden Treasury, 
 
 p. 15} : — 
 
 ' Then all my thoughts should in thy visage shine.'
 
 324 
 
 Notes 
 
 No help, no hope, no comfort, no repose, 
 No sun appears to clear these clouds of care, 
 Save this, that fortune neither may nor dare 
 Make my mishaps more hapless than they are. 
 
 Sir Robert Ayton. 
 
 6i — cxxi. Cp. Petrarca's 296th Sonnet, ' Dolce mio caro,' &c. 
 62 — cxxii. ramage — wild-song, wood-song : see Blount's Glossographia 
 and Nares's Glossary, s.v. 11. Cp. Dorus's song in the Arcadia 
 referred to under cxix, p. 318 : ' Each sight [ = sigh] draws on a 
 thought.' 12. Cp. Cowley's use of a similar i^ea. I^Tke Mistress, 
 Spring, 2, p. 6, ed. 1681) : 
 
 ' How could it be so fair, and you away ? 
 How could the Trees be beauteous. Flowers so gay? 
 Could they remember but last year 
 How you did Them, they you, delight. 
 The sprouting leaves which saw you here, 
 And called their Fellows to the sight, 
 Would, looking round for the same sight in vain, 
 Creep back into their silent Barks again.' 
 
 and Shelley's exquisite expansion in the lines To a Lady, with a 
 Guitar. When composing this sonnet Drummond may as usual have 
 had Sidney in his thoughts {Arcadia, Lib. iii, p. 356, ed. 1598) : 
 ' My Lute, within thy selfe thy tunes enclose, 
 Thy mistresse song is now a sorows crie ; ' 
 but its sombre beauty is all his own. 
 
 cxxiii. thy mantle bright with flowers. Cp. the opening of Spen- 
 ser's 70th Son. (xx, p. 1 1), to which, however, it would be too much 
 to say that Drummond was indebted primarily for the image. Among 
 his posthumous papers there is one containing brief notes of his 
 reading — written, according to Masson, mainly between 1613 and 
 1616 — in which he speaks thus disparagingly of the Amoretti : ' As 
 to" that which Spenser calleth his Amoretti, I am not of their opinion 
 who think them his ; for they are so childish, that it were not well 
 to give them so honourable a father ' {Conversations ,7i.% before, p. 50). 
 1-5. turn'st—re\Mx\\i\.. The sonnet immediately succeeding this 
 contains some fine verses {Poejus, 1616, sig. H3) : 
 
 What doth it serve to see Sunnes burning Face, 
 
 And Skies enamell'd with both the Indies Gold, 
 
 Or Moone at Night in jetlie Charriot roU'd, 
 
 And all the Glorie of that starrie Place ? 
 
 What doth it serve Earths Beautie to behold — 
 
 The Mountaines Pride, the Meadowes flowrie Grace, 
 
 The statelie Comelinesse of Forrests old. 
 
 The Sport of Flouds which would themselves embrace ?
 
 Notes 325 
 
 PACE , 
 
 What doth it serve to heare the Sylvans Songs, 
 The wanton Mearle, the Nightingallcs sad Straines, 
 Which in darke Shades seeme to deplore my Wrongs ? 
 For what doth serve all that this World containes, 
 Sith shee for whome those once to mee were deare 
 No Part of them can have now with mee heere ? ' 
 
 57-62 — cxii-cxxiii. From Poems : By William Drummond, of Ilaw- 
 tJionie-denne. The Second Impression. Edinburgh, 1616. 
 
 63 — cxxiv. fabulous : ' fabling ' (1623). 
 
 cxxv. By darkness would : ' Hastes darkely to' (1623). 
 
 64 — cxxvi, I. So the admirable Samuel Daniel, in a tract which, 
 
 though wanting in this instance, ordinarily forms part of one of 
 
 the volumes presented by Drummond to his College (Works, 
 
 1602 : A Defence of Byrne, sig. G6) : ' It is notbookes, but onely 
 
 that great booke of the world, and the all-overspreading grace of 
 
 heaven that makes men truely judiciall.' And George Wither 
 
 {Withers Motto, 1621, sig. D) : 
 
 ' For many bookes I care not ; and my store 
 Might now suffice me, though I had no more 
 Then Gods two Testaments, and therewithall 
 That mighty Volume, which the World we call.' 
 
 13. our minds do tnuse : ' we stay our Mindes ' (1623). 9-14. Drum- 
 mond seems to have so thoroughly steeped his mind in Sidney's 
 sweets that he probably reproduced them sometimes unconsciously 
 to himself. Cp. A strop hel and Stella, 11 : 
 
 ' ' In truth, O Love, with what a boyish kind 
 Thou doest proceed in thy most serious wayes : 
 That when the heav'n to thee his best displayes. 
 Yet of that best thou leav'st the best behinde. 
 For like a child that some faire booke doth find, 
 With guilded leaves or colourd Velume playes, 
 Or at the most on some fine picture stayes. 
 But never heeds the fruit of writers mind ; 
 So when thou saw'st in Natures cabinet 
 Stella," &c. 
 The present sonnet is wanting in TurnbuU's edition of Drummond 
 (1856). -_ 
 
 1 1. both the Indies : 'the Indian' (1656). 10. Drummond's association of these 
 •Sylvans' recalls The Merle and the Nyclititigaill of grand old Dunbar, wherein 
 occurs one of the truest notes that ever came from poet's lips (Poems, ed. Laing, 
 1834, i, 217) : ,,.,,, 
 
 ' Nevir suetar noys wes hard with levand man 
 Na maid this mirry gentill Nychtingaill ; 
 Hir sound went with the rever as it ran 
 
 Out throw the fresche and flureist lusty vaill : 
 O Merle ! quoth scho, O fule ! stynt of thy taill, 
 For in thy song gud sentens is thair none. 
 
 For boith is tynt, the tyme and the travaill 
 Of every Luve bot upone God allone.'
 
 326 Notes 
 
 SStUImm ^rummoitb. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 64 — CXXVII. blossoms : ' Locusts' ; yoimg : ' there ' ; marble : ' flintie ' 
 (1623). In this arresting sonnet Drummond himself is, uncon- 
 sciously, the herald of a king, — of Song. On reading it we inevi- 
 tably bethink us of the greater than he who is at hand ; and it has 
 always appeared to me one of the felicities of arrangement visible 
 in every page of Mr, Palgrave's Golden Treasury that Drummond 
 is there presented in this relation to Milton. But even before 
 Drummond a stem Voice had been heard crying in Scottish poetry, 
 — one with which we have proof that he was not unacquainted, and 
 of which indeed the influence is quite apparent in his verse : that, 
 namely, of Alexander Montgomery, whose sonnets are not un- 
 worthy of the author of The Cherrie a?id the Slae (1597). How 
 like Drummond is this solemn adjuration 
 
 TO M. P. GALLOWAY. 
 Sound, Galloway, the trompet of the Lord ; 
 The blissit brethren sail obey thy blast ; 
 Then thunder out the thretnings of the word 
 Aganst the wicked that auay ar cast. 
 Pray that the faithfuU in the fight stand fast. 
 Suppose the Divill the wickeds hairts obdure, 
 Zit perseveir, as in thy preichins past. 
 For to discharge thy conscience and cure. 
 Quhat Justice sauld ! vhat pilling of the pure ! 
 Quhat bluidy murthers ar for gold forgivin ! 
 God is not sleipand, thoght he tholde, be sure. 
 Cry out, and he shall heir the from the Hevin ; 
 And wish the king, his court, and counsell clenge. 
 Or then the Lord will, in his wrath, revenge. 
 
 A lexander Montgomery. ' 
 
 This ' Baptist ' sonnet belongs to a little group of Scriptural poems 
 from which I take the two following sonnets : old-fashioned and 
 quaint a little, may be, but truly amongst ' the sweetest anthems 
 that have reached the skies.' {Flowres of Sion, ed. 1630, pp. 5-6). 
 They are the only ' Flowres ' of Drunimond's selected by Mr. 
 Emerson for his charming anthology, Parnassus (Boston, 1S75). 
 
 » The Poems of Alexander Montgomery : ■with Biographical Notices, by David 
 Irving, LL.D. Edin., 1821, p. 66. The real editor of the volume was the late Mr. 
 Laing ; and the most of the miscellaneous poems, including the sonnets, are printed 
 therein for the first time from a manuscript in which alone they are supposed to exist, 
 part of Drummond's munificent gift of books and MSS. to h\?, Anna Mater. A con- 
 siderable selection of the sonnets had been given in Dr. Irving's earlier work, The 
 Lives 0/ the Scoiish Poets, &c., 2 vols., Edin., 1804 ; and in Sibbald's Chronicle 0/ 
 Scottish Poetry, &c.,4 vols., Edin., 1802. It occasions some surprise that a poet who 
 formerly received special attention at Dr. Irving's hands .should be all but ignored 
 in his posthumous work, The History 0/ Scotish Poetry, Edited by John Aitken 
 Carlyle, i86i.
 
 Notes 327 
 
 FOR THE NATIl'ITIE OF OUR LORD. 
 THE ANGELS. 
 
 Runne (Sheepheards) run where Bethleme blest appeares ; 
 Wee bring the best of newes, bee not dismay'd— 
 A Saviour tliere is borne, more olde than yeares, 
 Amidst Heavens rolling hights this Earth who stay'd : 
 In a poore Cotage Inn'd, a Virgine Maide 
 A weakling did him beare, who all upbeares ; 
 There is hee poorelie swadl'd, in Manger lai'd, 
 To whom too narrow Swadlings are our Spheares : 
 Runne (Sheepheards) runne, and solemnize his Birth ; 
 This is that Night, no, Day growne great with Blisse, 
 In which the power of Sathan broken is ; 
 In Heaven bee glorie. Peace unto the Earth. 
 Thus singing through the Aire the Angels swame, 
 And Cope of Starres re-echoed the same.' 
 
 THE SHEEPHEARDS. 
 
 O than the fairest Day, thrice fairer Night ! 
 
 Night to best Dayes in which a Sunne doth rise, 
 
 Of which that golden Eye, which cleares the Skies, 
 
 Is but a sparkling Ray, a Shadow light : 
 
 And blessed yee (in sillie Pastors sight) 
 
 Milde Creatures, in whose warme Cribe now lyes 
 
 That Heaven-sent Yongling, holie-Maide -borne Wight, 
 
 Midst, end, beginning of our Prophesies : 
 
 Blest Cotage that hath Flo'wres in Winter spred ; 
 
 Though withered, blessed Grasse, that hath the grace 
 
 To decke and bee a Carpet to tliat Place. 
 
 Thus sang, unto the Soundes of oaten Reed, 
 
 Before the Babe, the Sheepheards bow'd on knees ; 
 
 And Springs ranne Nectar, Honey dropt from Trees.^ 
 
 Passing to our next selected ' Flowre,' some profoundly thought- 
 ful and impressive verse challenges notice. I give two of the 
 sonnets (ibid., pp. 22-24) : — 
 
 1 Heavens rolling hights : 'the rolling Heaven;' is hee poorelie swaclVd : 'he 
 is swadl'd in Cloathes' (1623). 1-9. Masson notes the echo in Milton {On the Morn- 
 ing 0/ Christ's Nativity, 24 : Poems, 1645, p. 2) : 
 
 ' See how from far upon the Eastern rode 
 The Star-led Wisards haste with odours sweet : 
 O run, prevent them with thy humble ode, 
 And lay it lowly at his blessed feet.' 
 
 " I have ventured to supply the title in this instance for the sake of uniformity. 
 It may be observed that these Floxvres of Sion titles appear in the 1630 edition only, 
 and are placed, not over the respective poems, but in .-J Table of the Hynmes and 
 Sonnetes, imth their Argujiicnts, at the end of the volume. Hence perhaps the 
 ' For ' with which they occasionally begin. 14. One of Drummond's frequent recol- 
 lections of Daniel, whom he read much, and discriminatingly ' censured ' as ' for 
 sweetness in ryming second to none.' Cp. the lovely ' Pastorall (Delia, p. 30, ed. 
 (1602) ; 
 
 ' O happie golden Age ! 
 
 Not for that Rivers ranne 
 
 With streames of milke, and hunny dropt from trees,' &c.
 
 328 Notes 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MAN'S KNOWLEDGE. IGNORANCE IN THE 
 
 MISTERIES OF GOD. 
 
 Beneath a sable vaile, and Shadowes deepe, 
 
 Of Unaccessible and dimming light, 
 
 In Silence ebane Clouds more blacke than Night, 
 
 The Worlds great King his secrets hidde doth keepe : 
 
 Through those Thicke Mistes v/hen any Mortall Wight 
 
 Aspires, with halting pace, and Eyes that weepe. 
 
 To pore, and in his Misteries to creepe. 
 
 With Thunders hee and Lightnings Wastes their Sight. 
 
 O Sunne invisible, that dost abide 
 
 Within thy bright abysmes, most faire, most darke. 
 
 Where with thy proper Rayes thou dost thee hide ; 
 
 O ever-shining, never full-seen marke. 
 
 To guide mee in Lifes Night, thy light mee show : 
 
 The more I search of thee, the lesse I know.' 
 
 THE COURT OF TRUE HONOUR. 
 
 Why (worldlings) do ye trust fraile honours dreams, 
 
 And leane to guilted Glories which decay ? 
 
 Why doe yee toyle to registrate your Names 
 
 On ycie Pillars, which soone melt away ? 
 
 True Honour is not heere : that place it clames, 
 
 Where blacke-brow'd Night doth not exile the Day, 
 
 Nor no farre-shining Lamp dives in the Sea, 
 
 But an eternall Sunne spreades lasting Beames ; 
 
 There it attendeth you, where spotlesse Bands 
 
 Of Spirits stand gazing on their Soveraigne Blisse, 
 
 Where yeeres not hold it in their canckring hands. 
 
 But who once noble, ever noble is. 
 
 Looke home, lest hee your weakned Wit make thrall, 
 
 Who Edens foolish Gardner earst made fall.^ 
 
 65 — CXXViii. solitary : ' solitare, yet ' (1616). ^Ntinquam minus solus, 
 
 ' King: ' IMinde '; /or^ .• 'prye ' (1623). 
 
 J guilted : ' guilded ' ; On ycie Pillars: 'In ycie Columnes' (1616). farre- 
 shinitig Lamp = planet — as in his Cypresse Grove (Flowres of Sion, p. 85): ' But 
 (my Soule) what aileth thee, to bee thus backward and astonished at the remem- 
 brance of Death, sith it doth not reach Thee, more than Darknesse doth those farre- 
 shining Lampes above ? ' 8-12. Cp. his Shadow 0/ the Judgement (ibid., p. 47) : 
 
 'About his Throne 
 (Like to those Beames Days golden Lamp hath on) 
 Angelike Splendors glance, more swift than ought 
 Reveal'd to sence, nay, than the winged Thought, 
 His will to practise : here doe Seraphines 
 Burne with immortall love, there Cherubines, 
 With other noble people of the Lizht, 
 As Eaglets in the Sunne, delight their Sight.' 
 
 See a remark on this sonnet under cxxviii. Some may consider that its closing 
 couplet alone were sufficient to disqualify it for an anthology ; but the Editor will be 
 content with the approval of those to whom the noble and inspiring thought and per- 
 fect simplicity of expression of the nth and 12th verses fully compensate any medi- 
 ocrity elsewhere. 
 
 i
 
 Notes 329 
 
 'AGE 
 
 quam czim solus,' says Cowley in his charming Essay Of Solitude 
 (Works, ed. 1700, p. 83), 'is now become a very vulgar Saying. 
 Every Man, and almost every Boy, for these seventeen hundred 
 years, has had it in his mouth. But it was at first spoken by the 
 Excellent Scipio, who was without question a most Eloquent and 
 Witty Person, as well as the most Wise, most Worthy, most Happy, 
 and the Greatest of all Mankind.' hoarse : ' soft ' (1616); evil = ill 
 (as under xxxiii, p. 257) ; embalmed : ' perfum'd ' ; new-born : 'doe 
 the'; troubles: ' Falshoods ' ; harmless: 'silent' (1616). This 
 sonnet (and ' Why, worldlings,' under cxxvii) had already ap- 
 peared, with the slight variations specified, in that portion of the 
 Poems, 1616, entitled Urania, or Spirituall Poems. It and cxix 
 may be compared with CCXLVIII (p. 126) and another of Lord 
 Thurlow's sonnets in praise of the sylvan life {Poems on Several 
 Occasions, 2nd ed., 1813, p. 199). 
 65 — cxxix. This sonnet is partly an echo of Petrarca's 317th, ' Vago 
 augeletto,' &c. 10-14. 'aQa.AlQy {Select Beauties of Ancient English 
 Poetry, 1810, ii, 125) notes the parallel in Walton's Compleat Angler, 
 1653, chap, i (5th ed., 1676, p. 11) : ' But the Nightingale (another 
 of my Airy Creatures) breaths such sweet loud musick out of her 
 little instrumental throat, that it might make mankiiid to think Mira- 
 cles are not ceased. He that at midnight (when the very labourer 
 sleeps securely) should hear (as I have very often) the clear airs, the 
 sweet descants, the natural rising and falling, the redoubling and re- 
 doubling of her voice," might well be lifted above earth, and say : 
 Lord, what Musick hast thou provided for the Saints in Heaven, 
 when thou aflordest bad men such musick on Earth ! ' Dr. Nathan 
 Drake {Mornings in Spring, 1828, i, 272) has described Drum- 
 mond's sonnet as ' a strain of hallowed gratitude which seems worthy 
 of ascending to the throne of heaven.' We had occasion (p. 326) to 
 bring Drummond and Montgomery together. It is interesting to 
 find them again associated, and in so pretty a theme as this of tlie 
 nightingale and her song (Montgomery's Poems, as before, p. 88): 
 
 Suete Nichtingale ! in holene grene that han[ts,] 
 To sport thy self, and speciall in the spring ; 
 
 1 Cp. kindred descriptions in the contest between the lutanist and the nightingale 
 (from Strada's original) in Ford's Lovers Melancholy (1629) and Crashaw's Mustek's 
 Duell (1646). In'daintiness, vigour, and quaint fancy, they are all surpassed by the 
 anonymous author—' H. A.' (= A. Hawkins ?), an English Catholic— of a little prose 
 volume published at Paris in 16^-}, Partkeneia Sacra, or The Mysterious and Deli- 
 cious Garden 0/ the Sacred Parthenes (p. 138). Very possibly both Walton and 
 Crashawsaw the book, especially the latter, being a fellow-churchman of the author's. 
 See an article on and extracts from it, under the heading ' Flowers from a Neglected 
 Garden,' pp. 58-65, Deliciae Literariae : A New Volume of Table-Talk [by Dr. 
 Joseph Robertson], 1840.
 
 330 Notes 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Thy chivring chirlis, vhilks chan [ginglie thou chants,] 
 
 Maks all the roches round about the ring ; 
 
 Vhilk slaiks my sorou, so to heir the sing, 
 
 And lights my louing langour at the leist ; 
 
 Zit thoght thou sees not, sillie, saikles thing ! 
 
 The piercing pykis brods at thy bony breist, 
 
 Euin so am I, by plesur lykuyis preist. 
 
 In gritest danger vhair I most delyte : 
 
 But since thy song, for shoring, hes not ceist, 
 
 Suld feble I, for feir, my conqueis quyt ? 
 
 Na, na, — I love the, freshest Phoenix fair, 
 
 In beuty, birth, in bounty but compair. 
 
 Alexander Montgomery. ' 
 
 66 — cxxx. cruel: ' (shamelesse) ' ; so cannot: 'can not so' (1623). 
 13-14. If, as we have seen, Drummond was acquainted with 
 Shakspeare's Sonnets, there need be no difficulty in tracing this 
 couplet to its fountainhead — Lix, 13-14, p. 30: 
 
 ' For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings. 
 That then I scorn to change my state with kings.' 
 
 ' holene^= holly. The words in brackets are supplied from conjecture, the MS. 
 having been mutilated by the binder. Montgomery's was a name to invoke with in 
 Drummond's day. Among the specimens from the sonnets and other poems of his 
 contemporary, Sir William Moore, of Rowallan (author of The True Criicijixe /or 
 True Catholickes, Edin., 1629, to which Drummond prefixed a daintily-touched com- 
 mendatory sonnet), given in Thomas Lyle's Ancient Ballads and Songs, &c., Lond. 
 and Glasgow, 1827, there are some lines in which Rowallan describes his own muse 
 as one 
 
 ' quhich noght doth challenge worthy fame. 
 Save from Montgomery sche her birth doth clayme ; ' 
 
 and printed with them Tun Sonets sent by iny Freind, A. S., two remarkably 
 spirited poems, in the second of which he is thus charged : 
 
 ' Sprang thou from Maxwell and Montgomeries muse 
 
 To let our poets perisch in the West? 
 
 No, no ! brave youth, continow in thy kynd ; 
 
 No sueitar subject sail thy Muses fynd ! ' 
 It has been conjectured by Fullarton, the editor of the section of Lyle's book in 
 which these sonnets occur, that the initials A. S. were those of Alexander Sempill, a 
 connexion of the Sempills of Beltrees, who has a sonnet, similarly constructed, m Sir 
 James Sempill's Pack-Man's Paternoster, 1669 {Poems of the Sempills 0/ Beltrees. 
 edited by James Paterson, 1849, p. 11) ; but that would require confirmation. As the 
 first of the Tua Sonets is not only spirited, but beautiful, and contains an early tri- 
 bute to a river which carries poetry ' in the mention,' I subjoin it here ; 
 
 Thou kno's, brave gallant, that our Scottich braines 
 
 Have ay bein England's equals every way ; 
 
 Quhair als rair muse, and martiall myndis remaines, 
 
 With als renouned records to this day. 
 
 Thoght we be not enrol'd so rich as they, 
 
 Zit have we wits of worth enrich'd more rare : 
 
 As for thair Sidneyes science, quhich they say 
 
 Surpasseth all in his Arcadian air, — 
 
 Cum, I have found our westerne feelds als fair ; 
 
 Go thou to work, and I schall be thy guyde. 
 
 And schew the of a sueitar subject thair — 
 
 Borne Beuties wonder on the banks of Clyd I 
 
 Philocle and Pamela, those sueit twain, 
 
 Quho lake hot thee to eternize thair name. 
 
 A.S,
 
 Notes 3^ 
 
 I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 But he had Daniel also in his library {Works, 1602, fol. 42) : 
 
 Other then what he is he would not bee, 
 
 Nor chaunge his state with him tliat Scepters weildes.' 
 
 This noble sonnet, of Miltonic grandeur and power, anticipates 
 Coleridge's sublime consolation, that notwithstanding he had been 
 through a large portion of his life a sufferer, ' sorely afflicted with 
 bodily pains, languors, and manifold infirmities,' his intellect had 
 ever remained unclouded ; or, as in the Table Talk it is recorded : 
 ' For one mercy I owe thanks beyond all utterance, — that, with all 
 my gastric and bowel distempers, my head hath ever been like the 
 head of a mountain, in blue air and sunshine.' I cull one more 
 (the last) of these sacred sonnet-' Flowres ' (ibid., p. 28) : 
 
 THE BLESSEDNESSE OF FAITHFULL SOULES 
 
 B'/ DEATH. 
 
 Let us each day enure our selves to dye. 
 
 If this (and not our Feares) be tniely Death — 
 
 Above the Circles both of Hope and Faith 
 
 With faire immortall pinniones to flie ; 
 
 If this be Death— our best Part to untie, 
 
 (By ruining the Jaile) from Lust and Wrath, 
 
 And every drowsie languor heere beneath 
 
 It turning deniz'd Citizen of Skie ; 
 
 To have more knowledge than all Bookes containe, 
 
 All Pleasures even surmounting wishing Powre, 
 
 The fellowship of Gods immortall Traine, 
 
 And these that Time nor force shall er'e devour : 
 
 If this be Death, what Joy, what golden care 
 
 Of Life, ,can witli Deaths ouglinesse compare ? ' 
 
 63-66 — cxxiv-cxxx. From the second, or 1630 impression oi Flowres 
 of Sioii: by William Drummond of Hawthonie-denne. To which 
 is adjoyned his Cypresse Grove. [Eden-Bourgh] 1623." Following 
 the Cypresse Grove in both editions are several short poems, among 
 them this sonnet to his friend Sir William Alexander, ' the pathos 
 of which,' observes Professor Masson, ' and its autobiographic pre- 
 cision have made it oftener quoted in sketches of Drummond than 
 any other : ' — 
 
 * deniz'd, i.e., denizened = naturalized — as in Sidney, xxvii, 8, p. 14. With 1. 9 cp. 
 
 Sh^Wey CIo a Skylark) : „ l „ 
 
 ' Better than all treasures 
 
 That in books are found.' 
 
 ^ These two editions show interesting variations in the text, and as it is just a 
 question whether the later readings were always improvements, I have given the 
 results of a collation. Throughout the copy of the first edition ' Giiien to the Colledge 
 of King James in EdenbroiSgh by the Author, 1624,' narrow slips of paper with the 
 1630 readings printed thereon have in many instances been neatly pasted over the 
 original ones, apparently by the poet himself.
 
 332 Notes 
 
 PAGE 
 
 TO S. W. A. 
 Thougli I have twice beene at the Doores of Death, 
 And twice found slioote those Gates wliich ever mourne, 
 This but a lightning is, Truce tane to Breath ; 
 For late borne Sorrowes augure fleete returne. 
 Amidst thy sacred Cares and courtlie Toyles, 
 Alexis, when thou shalt heare v\'andring Fame 
 Tell Death hath triumph'd o're my mortall Spoyles, 
 And that on Earth I am but a sad Name ; 
 If thou e're helde mee deare, by all our Love, 
 By all that Blisse, those Joyes Heaven heere us gave, 
 I conjure Thee, and by the Maides of Jove, 
 To grave this short Remembrance on my Grave : 
 Heere Damon lyes, whose Songes did some-time grace 
 The murmuring Eske ; may Roses shade the place. 
 
 66 — cxxxi. From Poems, by that most Famous Wit, William Drum, 
 mond of Hawthornden. London: 1656. This sonnet — with that 
 on The Baptist finely exemplifying Drummond's native strength, 
 freed from Petrarcan bands — will recall more than one of Shak- 
 speare's thoughtfullest utterances in like form. It and another 
 • among the posthumous Aliscellaiiies, beginning ' All good hath left 
 this age,' possess peculiar biographic and historic interest, being 
 referable to the last year of Drummond's life, when, political events 
 having culminated in the awful tragedy at Whitehall, the poet, a 
 staunch and sincere Royalist, had in consequence fallen into a state 
 of deep and settled despondency, which it is difficult to regard as 
 altogether unconnected *with his death. I may note that the word 
 Ply in 1. 8, very distinctly ' Plye ' in the Hawthornden MSS. {Ex. 
 Lib. Anti. Soci. Scot., vol. x), and correctly printed by Phillips, is 
 unwarrantably altered to ' Fly ' in the folio of 1711, and also in the 
 sumptuous quarto edited for the Maitland Club in 1832 by Lord 
 Dundrennan and Dr. Irving, who profess to follow the original edi- 
 tions. Drummond seems to have bestowed even more than his usual 
 pains on the sonnet, there being several tentative drafts of it through- 
 out the MSS. In one of these (vol. x, fol. 13) the line runs 
 ' Are like a feather set to stoi'me and wind.' 
 
 67 — cxxxii. ' It would have been very gratifying to .have been able to 
 ascertain on what Poem this very beautiful Sonnet was written. For 
 solemn grandeur, it may be compared with the best of Milton's son- 
 nets ; and the mention of the " Sacred Band " may suggest to the 
 Reader his fine words, 
 
 " And the repeated air 
 Of sad Electra's Poet had the power 
 To save the Athenian walls from ruin bare." '
 
 Notes 333 
 
 These words are from a Paper read by the late Mr. Laing before the ' 
 Society of Scottish Antiquaries, I4lh ^January, 1828 [Archicologia 
 Scotica, iv, 1831, 102) ; and, as he informed me not long before his 
 death, no further light was ever thrown on the subject. Mr. Laing 
 recalled a conversation with Wordsworth on the Hawthornden ' treasure- 
 trove,' when the poet made particular enquiry regarding this sonnet, 
 which he greatly admired. 
 
 fiftii Ilium IJi'Dfnnc. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 67— cxxxiii. — The 3rd of a group of fourteen remarkable sonnets of 
 the native English type, entitled ' Cselia,' by the poet of Britannia's 
 Pastorals and The Shepheard's Pipe, whose collected works were 
 edited by Mr. W. C. Hazlitt in 1868-9 (2 vols. 4to). ' Perhaps,' 
 says Mr. Hazlitt, in reference to the ' Cselia,' ' on the whole, of all 
 Browne's minor poems these may be regarded as the best, whether 
 ■ we regard their harmony of versification, command of language, 
 chastity of style and sentiment, or fervent sincerity of tone.' I 
 subjoin the 1st of the group, which opens in his revered master 
 Spenser's manner, with the 2nd, 5th, and 6th also, merely remarking 
 that the lady celebrated under the pseudonym of Ctelia appears to 
 be the same whom the poet apostrophizes in his own shepherdess 
 Marina's name in the Third Book of the Pastorals, which, unlike 
 Books I and II, published in 1613 and 1616 respectively, and 
 republished together in 1625, still during the author's lifetime, 
 remained in MS. until 1852, when it was edited for the Percy 
 Society by T. Crofton Croker ; and mat, notwithstanding the pau- 
 city of biographical materials, there would seem to be in the case of 
 this poet more than ordinaiy reason for suspecting that the conven- 
 tional exterior of his verse veils a real love-history. 
 
 ' For collide I thincke she some Idea lueare, 
 I still might lo%ie,forgett, and have her heere ; 
 Bttt such she is not.' 
 
 Brit. Past., Booke 3, Song I. 
 
 Loe, I the man, that whilome lov'd and lost, 
 Not dreading losse, doe sing againe of love ; 
 And like a man but latelie tempest-tost. 
 Try if my starres still inauspicious prove : 
 Not to make good that poets never can 
 Long time without a chosen Mistris be 
 Doe I sing thus, or my affections ran 
 "Within the Maze of Mutabilitie ; 
 What best I lov'de was beauty of the mind, 
 And that lodgd in a Temple truely faire. 
 Which ruyn'd now by death, if I can finde 
 The Saint that livd therein some othervvhere,
 
 334 ^otes 
 
 SSilliam profane. 
 
 I may adore it there, and love the Cell 
 For entertaining what I lov'd so well. 
 
 Why might I not for once be of that Sect, 
 
 Which hold that soules, when Nature hath her right, 
 
 Some other bodyes to themselves elect ; 
 
 And sunlike make the daye, and license Night? 
 
 That soul, whose setting in one Hemispheare 
 
 Was to enlighten streight another part, 
 
 In that Horizon, if I see yt there. 
 
 Calls for my first respect and its desert ; 
 
 Her vertue is the same and may be more ; 
 
 For as the Sun is distant, so his powre 
 
 In operation differs, and the store 
 
 Of thick clowds interposed make him lesse owr. 
 
 And verely I thinke her clymate such. 
 
 Since to my former flame it adds soe much.' 
 
 Wer't not for you, here should my pen have rest 
 And take a long leave of sweet Poesye ; 
 Britannias swaynes, and rivers far by west. 
 Should heare no more mine oaten melodye ; 
 Yet shall the song I sing of them, awhile 
 Unpei'fect lye, and make noe further knowne 
 The happy loves of this our pleasant He, 
 Till I have left some record of mine owne. 
 You are the subject now, and, writing you, 
 I well may versify, not poetize : 
 Heere needs no fiction ; for the graces true 
 And vertues clipj^not with base flatteryes. 
 Heere should I write what you deserve of praise, 
 Others might weare, but I should win the bayes. 
 
 Sing soft, ye pretty Birds, while Cselia sleepes. 
 
 And gentle gales play gently with the leaves ; 
 
 Learne of the neighbour brookes, whose silent deepes 
 
 Would teach him feare that her soft sleep bereaves. 
 
 Mine Oaten reed, devoted to her praise, 
 
 (A theame that would befit the Delphian lyre) 
 
 Give way, that I in silence may admire. 
 
 Is not her sleepe like that of innocents. 
 
 Sweet as her selfe ? and is she not more faire, 
 
 Almost in death, then are the Ornaments 
 
 Of f ruitfull trees which newly budding are ? 
 
 She is, and tell it. Truth, when she shall lye 
 
 And sleep for ever — for she cannot dye ! ' 
 
 1 12, owr = ours — 'and perhaps the correcter form.' — Hazlitt. 
 
 * Drummond has ' neighbour Brookes' (Poems, i6i6, sig. K3). It will be observed 
 that there are only thirteen lines in this sonnet. The seventh line, which should rime 
 with ' praise,' is wanting in the MS. I could not bring myself to exclude it on that 
 account. It is so like Burns's ' Flow gently, sweet Afton.'
 
 PAGE 
 
 Notes 335 
 
 68— cxxxv, 5-6. Browne's favourite flower: cp. Brit. Past., Booke 
 2, Song 3, ed. 1625 : 
 
 ' The Daizy scattred on each Mead and Downe, 
 A golden tuft within a silver Crowne, — 
 Faire fall that dainty flowre ! and may there be 
 No Shepherd grac'd that doth not honour thee ! ' 
 
 cxxxiv-cxxxv. The 5th and 6th of a group of seven (one lost) 
 dainty and charming little poetical apologues, which every lover 
 of poetry will read with delight. It was doubtless in imitation of 
 his master Spenser that the poet entitled them Visions. I select 
 two more, the 3rd and 7th : — 
 
 I saw a silver swan swim downe the Lee, 
 
 Singing a sad Farwell unto the Vale, 
 
 While fishes leapt to hear her melodic, 
 
 And on each thorne a gentle Nightingale, 
 
 And many other Birds forbore their notes, 
 
 Leaping from tree to tree, as she along 
 
 The panting bosome of the torrent floates. 
 
 Rapt with the musick of her dyeing Song : 
 
 When from a thick and all-entangled spring 
 
 A neatheard rude came with noe small adoe, 
 
 (Dreading an ill presage to heare her sing,) 
 
 And quickly strooke her slender neck in two ; 
 
 Whereat the Birds (me thought) flew thence with speed, 
 
 And inly griev'd for such a cruell deed. 
 
 A Gentle shepherd, borne in Arcadye, 
 That well could tune his pipe, and deftly playe 
 The Nimphs asleepe with rurall minstralsye. 
 Me thought I saw, upon a summer's daye. 
 Take up a little Satyre in a wood. 
 All masterlesse forlorne as none did kno\v him, 
 And nursing him with those of his owne blood, 
 On mightye Pan he lastlie did bestowe him ; 
 But with the god he long time had not been. 
 Ere he the shepherd and himselfe forgott. 
 And most ingratefull. ever stept between 
 Pan and all good befell the poore mans lott : 
 Whereat all good men griev'd, and strongly swore 
 They never would be fosterfathers more. 
 
 The credit of having first printed Browne's sonnets and other minor 
 poems, from the Lansdowne MSS. in the British Museum, belongs to 
 SirEgertonBrydges(<9;2]§/«a//'f^wj, never before published, by William 
 Browne, of the Inner Temple, Gent. With a Preface and Notes. Lee 
 Priory Press : 181 5, 4to), who in his ' Advertisement ' observes : ' There 
 is a simplicity, a chasteness, a grace, a facility, a sweetness, in some of 
 the present short poems, which to me is full of attraction and delight ; 
 and is the more surprising when it is contrasted with the corrupt and
 
 336 Notes 
 
 ^illinm |^rofan:e. 
 
 absurdly-metaphysical style of most of Browne's cotemporaries.' It is 
 to be regretted that the only existing editions of this charming poet's 
 minor pieces are so incorrectly printed. I have found it necessary, 
 even for these few examples, to go to the originals. They are there- 
 fore given, I trust with absolute accuracy, from the poet's own man- 
 uscript {_MSS. Lansdowtie, Brit. Mus., 777, Art. 1, fol. U-10). 
 
 George Pcrkrt. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 69— cxxxvi, 8. Cp. Drummond's Hymne of the Fairest Faire {Flowres 
 of Sioti, 1623, p. 34) : 
 
 ' The Organes of thy Providence divine, 
 Bookes ever open, Signes that clearelie shine.' 
 
 George Herbert, 'that sweet singer of The Temple,' ihe^vaozt 
 familiar and best-beloved of the five Worthies whose biographies 
 engaged Piscator's ' antique pen ' — 
 
 ' Satellites burning in a lucid ring 
 Around meek Walton's heavenly memory ' — 
 
 wrote but few sonnets, and these of the illegitimate order ; but the 
 unique excellences of the one in our text {TheTemple. Sacred 
 Poems and Private Ejaculatio7is. Cambridge, 1633, p. 37) will 
 ensure a welcome for the following additional specimen, which, if 
 not one of his very best poems, is yet very good, and eminently 
 characteristic of its author {ibid., p. 162) : — 
 
 THE SONNE. 
 Let forrain nations of their language boast 
 What fine varietie each tongue affords ; 
 I like our language, as our men and coast ; 
 Who cannot dress'e it well, want wit, not words. 
 How neatly doe we give one onely name 
 To parents issue and the sunnes bright starre ! 
 A Sonne is light and fruit ; a fruitfuU flame 
 Chasing the fathers dimnesse, carri'd farre 
 From the first man in th' East, to fresh and new 
 Western discov'ries of posteritie. 
 So in one word our Lords humilitie 
 We turn upon him in a sense most true ; 
 For what Christ once in humblenesse began, 
 We him in glorie call, The Sonne of Man.' 
 
 ' coast = land, country (z't'de Eastwood and Wright's Bi'Me Word-Book, Davies's 
 Bible English, and Grosart's Sidney, 1877, i, 43, note 3). 14. &««<• = the Sun. 
 ' There was nothing irreverent in this kind of serious punning.' — Grosart [yi\voz^ 
 ' Aldine ' ed. of Herbert, 1876, p. cxiii, consult for further instances).
 
 Notes 337 
 
 Coleridge {Biographia Literaria, 2nd ed., 1847, ii, 102), illustrating 
 the perfection of simplicity of style in poetry, adduces the sonnet on 
 Sitinc, and remarks of it that it is ' equally admirable for the weight, 
 number, and expression of the thoughts, and for the simple dignity of 
 the language ; unless, indeed, a fastidious taste should object to the lat- 
 ter half of the sixth line.' YA&Qwh.ere {The Friend, 4th ed., 1850, i, 52) he 
 writes: ' Having mentioned the name of Herbert, that model of a man, 
 a gentleman, and a clergyman, let me add that the quaintness of some 
 of his thoughts (not of his diction, than which nothing can be more pure, 
 manly, and unaffected) has blinded modern readers to the great general 
 merit of his poems, which are for the most part exquisite in their kind.' 
 And again [Notes and Lectures upon Shakespeare, &c., 1849, ii, 264): 
 ' I find more substantial comfort now in pious George Herbert's Temple, 
 which I used to read to amuse myself with his quaintness, in short, 
 only to laugh at, than in all the poetry since the poems of Milton.' 
 
 SttUlliiTin |);ibiaqtoit. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 69 — cxxxvii. From Casta7-a : The Third Edition. Corrected and Aug- 
 mented. 1640. This work, ' one of the most elegant monuments 
 ever raised by genius to conjugal affection, ' says Mrs. Jameson {Loves 
 of the Poets, 1829, ii, iio), was first published in 1634. For an 
 account of Habington's life and writings see \^ ood! •iAthence Oxo- 
 nienses, ed. Bliss, vol. iii, 1817, Brydges's Censtira Literaria, vol. 
 viii, 2nd ed., 1815, and the editions of Castara edited by Charles 
 A. Elton (Bristol : 1812) and Mr. Arber (1870) ; and for a critical 
 estimate of his poetry, Masson's Life of Milton, i, 1859, 453-8. 
 
 ' Milton's English Sonnets are only seventeen in all : 
 " Soul-animating strains, alas ! too few." 
 
 They are so far beyond all question the noblest in the language that it 
 is a matter of curious interest to note the utter incapacity of Johnson to 
 recognize any greatness in them at all. The utmost which he will allow 
 is that "three of them are not bad ; " and he and Hannah More once 
 set themselves to investigate the causes of their badness, the badness 
 itself being taken for granted. Johnson's explanation of this contains 
 a lively illustration : " Why, Madam," he said, " Milton's was a genius 
 that could hew a Colossus out of a rock, but could not carve heads on 
 cherry-stones.'" — Dr. Trench} 
 
 1 A Household Book of English Poetry, p. 397, ed. 1870. It seems that Milton's 
 sonnets are one less 'few' than we ordinarily reckon them, — at least if Wordsworth
 
 338 Notes 
 
 ' The sonnets of Milton are few ; but they rendered this important 
 service : — that they enlarged the sphere of that form of verse, showing 
 that it was not confined to amatory poetry ; that it was fitted not only 
 for the expression of tender emotions, but for the utterance of a states- 
 manly philosophy, dignified rebuke, the deep. Christian meditation, and 
 whatever else belongs to poetry's grandest and most majestic tones.' — 
 
 Henry Reed'} 
 
 ' Few his words, but strong, 
 And sounding through all ages and all climes. 
 He caught the Sonnet from the dainty hand 
 Of Love, who cried to lose it ; and he gave 
 The notes to Glory.' 
 
 Walter Savage Landor!'' 
 
 PAGE 
 
 70 — CXXXVIII, I. An unnoted recollection of Sylvester may be men- 
 tioned {Fift Day of First Weeke, ed. 1613, p. 132): 
 
 ' Thence thirty steps, amid the leafie Sprayes, 
 Another Nightingale repeats her Layes.' 
 
 ' Warblest is printed " Warbl'st " in the First and Second editions, 
 and is to be pronounced accordingly.' — Masson (Milton's Poetical 
 Works, 1874, iii, 465). 5-7. Newton cites Chaucer on this super- 
 stition (Ctickow and Nightingale , 46-50), and under an instance in 
 Webster's comedy, A Cure for a Cuckold, act iv, sc. i, ed. 1857, 
 Dyce quotes Milton and noies : ' He who happened to hear the 
 cuckoo sing before the nightingale was supposed not to prosper in 
 his love-affairs.' As the sonnet is' supposed to have been written 
 in 1633, either the species of augury professed is somewhat faulty, 
 or in Milton's case the ' twofold shout ' continued for ten years 
 longer to forestall the nightingale's song : he remained unmarried 
 until 1643. Mr. Keightley goes into raptures over this sonnet 
 {Life of Miltoit, 1855, p. 270) : ' In our eyes [it] is absolute per- 
 fection, and most certainly equal to anything of the kind in the 
 Italian or any other language.' 
 
 CXXXIX. This sonnet occurs in a letter of Milton's written , accord- 
 ing to Masson, in December, 1631, or in the early part of 1631-2, 
 which ' was sent, or meant to be sent, to some friend in Cambridge, 
 his senior in years, who had been remonstrating with him on his 
 
 was right in what he is reported to have said about one being hidden away somewhere 
 in the Paradise Lost. ' I wish.' says Henry Crabb Robinson {Diary, 1869, iii, 86), 
 ' I could here write down all that Wordsworth has said about the Sonnet lately, or 
 record here the fine fourteen lines of Milton's " Paradise Lost," which he says are a 
 perfect sonnet without rime, and essentially one in unity of thought.' Milton's Italian 
 sonnets, six in number, were last translated by Dr. George MacDonald (^Exotics, 1S76). 
 
 ' Lectures, &c., as before, i, 221. 
 
 * Last Fruit off an Old Tree, 1853, p. 473.
 
 Notes 339 
 
 PAGE 
 
 aimeless' course of life at the University.' It is thus introduced : 
 ' Yet, that you may see that I am something suspicious of myself, 
 and do take notice of a certain belatedness in me, I am the bolder 
 to send you some of my nightward thoughts some while since, be- 
 cause they come in not altogether unfitly, made up in a Petrarchian 
 stanza, which I told you of.' {Life of Milton, i, 291). I. Keightlcy 
 (Rliltons Poems, 1859, i, 37) compares Shakspeare (Son. 77) : 
 
 ' Times theevish progresse to eternitie.' 
 8. Possibly the fame of Cowley's precocious genius had reached 
 Milton's ears. The Poetical Blossoms, by A. C. did not appear until 
 1633, his fifteenth year, but the prodigy had actually written an 
 epical romance on the story of Pyramus and Thisbe as early as his 
 eleventh. 9-14. ' The It which is the subject of the last six lines 
 is his Ripeness : it will keep pace with his approaching lot ; when 
 it arrives he will be ready for it, whatever it may be. The will of 
 heaven is his happy fate. Even at three-and-twenty, "he that be- 
 lieveth shall not make haste." Calm and open-eyed, he works 
 to be ripe, and waits for the work that shall follow.' — England's 
 Antipkon, p. 197. 
 71 — CXL. The occasion was when the King, having after the battle of 
 Edgehill succeeded in occupying Brentford, seemed determined 
 with Prince Rupert en an immediate assault upon London; and the 
 citizens made their famous march to Turnham Green to arrest his 
 approach (November, 1642). The poet's house was then in Alders- 
 gate Street. In the Milton MS. folio preserved in the Library of 
 ■ Trinity College, Cambridge, an amanuensis has headed the sonnet 
 ' On his dore when ye citty expected an assault ; ' but that title is 
 scored through, and the present one substituted in Milton's own 
 hand. The Emathian conqueror = Alexander, at the sack of 
 Thebes, B.C. 335. repeated — recited, sung. ' Plutarch relates that 
 when the Lacedemonian general Lysander took Athens [b.c. 404], 
 it was proposed in a council of war intirely to rase the city, and 
 convert its site into a desert. But during the debate, at a banquet 
 of the chief officers, a certain Phocian sung some fine anastrophics 
 from a chorus of the Electra of Euripides ; which so affected the 
 hearers, that they declared it an unworthy act to reduce a place so 
 celebrated for the production of illustrious men, to total ruin and 
 desolation.' — T. Warton {Milton's Minor Poertis, 2nd ed., 1791, p. 
 335). Todd notes in his edition of Milton (1801, v, p. 464) that 
 the epithet sad had already been applied to Electra by Drummond 
 ( Teares on the Death of Mceliades) : 
 
 ' And sad Electras sisters which still weepe.'
 
 34© Notes 
 
 loljit ililtoiv. 
 
 PAGE ... 
 
 Keightley remarks that Collins in his Ode to Simplicity uses the 
 phrase more correctly of Sophocles. 
 71 — cLXi. Ruth . . . ruth. In Italian and other Latin languages, 
 words identical in sound, and even in orthography, are permissible 
 as rimes, provided the sense be different. Chaucer and Spenser 
 \e.g. XX, p. II, make . . make) frequently used the license of 
 which Milton here avails himself. Even Mr. Tennyson in the 
 earlier editions of In Menioriani makes 
 
 ' This holly by the cottage eave ' 
 rime with 
 
 ' And sadly falls our Christmas eve.' 
 
 pity and ruth. Chaucer and Spenser again, and Drummond (cxxi, 
 p. 61), have this combination ; as also Julian Fane (ccccxLix, p. 
 227). growing virtues : ' blooming vertue ' (MS.). 11-14. Cp. the 
 first of the anonymous sonnets on page 307. See under CLiii for a 
 remark on this and other sonnets of Milton's addressed to women.- 
 
 72— CXLii. The title is from the Cambridge MS. ' This Lady,' 
 Phillips tells us {Life of Mr. John Milton, 1694, p. xxiii), ' being a 
 Woman of great Wit and Ingenuity, had a particular Honour for 
 him [Milton], and took much delight in his Company, as likewise 
 her Husband Captain Hobson [of the Isle of Wight], a very Accom- 
 plish'd Gentleman.' She was the fifth daughter of Sir James Ley, 
 the eminent lawyer, afterwards first Earl of Marlborough, who died 
 at Lincoln's Inn, March 14th, 1628-9, — 'exactly four days,' ob- 
 serves Masson, ' after that ominous dissolution of Charles's third 
 Parliament which announced his determination to have done with 
 Parliaments and begin the reign of " Thorough." ' that old man 
 eloquent = Isocrates, the Athenian orator, who is said to have 
 voluntarily starved himself, unable to survive the defeat of his 
 countrymen by Philip of Macedon at Chseroneia, B.C. 338 ; and the 
 same whose AuyoZ "'ApEoitayttiKoi suggested the form and title 
 of Milton's own glorious Areopagitica. 
 
 70-72 — cxxxvili-CXLli. These constitute the English sonnet-portion 
 of Poems of Mr. John Milton, both English and Latin, Compos' d 
 at several times. Printed by his true Copies. 1645. This was the first 
 edition of Milton's poems. Immediately succeeding our cxLil in the 
 next edition, published twenty-eight years later, which I use for text 
 throughout, come two sonnets, headed in the Cambridge MS. ' On 
 the Detraction which followed upon my writing certain Treatises,' 
 the second of which may be given here. They were probably 
 written towards the close of 1645, about a year after the pub-
 
 Notes 241 
 
 PAGE 
 
 lication of the Tetrachordon and Colastenon, the last of the tracts 
 on Divorce, and, as Masson remarks, may be regarded as Milton's 
 'poetical farewell' to that subject. (Poeftis, 1673, p. 56): — 
 
 I did but prompt the age to quit their cloggs 
 
 By the known rules of antient libertie, 
 
 When strait a barbarous noise environs me 
 
 Of Owles and Cuckoes, Asses, Apes and Doggs. 
 
 As when those Hinds that were transform 'd to Froggs 
 
 Raild at Latona's twin-born progenie 
 
 Which after held the Sun and Moon in fee. 
 
 But this is got by casting Pearl to Hoggs ; 
 
 That bawle for freedom in their senceless mood, 
 
 And still revolt when truth would set them free. 
 
 Licence they mean when they cry libertie ; 
 
 For who loves that, must first be wise and good ; 
 
 But from that mark how far they roave we see 
 
 For all this wast of wealth, and loss of blood.* 
 
 72— CXLlli. Henry Lawes, ' Gentleman of the King's Chappel, and 
 one of His Majesties private Musick,' was perhaps the most popular 
 musical composer of his time. He composed the music of the 
 songs in Comus and other masques, and part of that of the magni- 
 ficent one ' got up by the lawyers of the four Inns of Court in 
 February, 1633-4,' under the management of Selden, Attorney- 
 General Noy, Bulstrode Whitlocke, Hyde, and others. Lyrics by 
 Carew, Herrick, Waller, Cartwright, and other poets were also set 
 to music by him. The reader will remember Herrick's tribute- 
 verses, ' Touch but thy Lire, my Harrie,' and those to his brother 
 also, ' M, William Lawes, the rare Musitian. ' Henry died in 1662, 
 and was buried in Westminster Abbey, ' after having lived,' says 
 Masson, ' to see the Restoration, to have the honour of composing 
 the Coronation Ode for Charles II, and to be replaced in his posi- 
 tion near Royalty, while his friend Milton, then the blind ex-Secre- 
 tary of Cromwell, was in danger and disgrace.' tiot to scan With 
 Midas ears. ' That is, not to mis-match short syllables with long 
 syllables (from the Latin sense of committere in such a phrase as 
 committere pugiles, to match gladiators in the circus) ; which was 
 the kind of scanning of which Midas [Ovid, Metam, xi] may be 
 supposed to have been guilty when he decided in favour of Pan in 
 the musical contest between that god and Apollo, and had his 
 faulty ears changed into those of an ass in consequence. The 
 reference seems to be to the common fault of musical composers in 
 
 ' 5-7. Ovid, yi/f/a?;?. vi, 337-381. 11-12. Cp. a passage towards the beginning of 
 The Tcnu7-e of Kings and Magistrates (164S— 9) : ' For indeed none can love freedom 
 heartily, but good men : the rest love not freedom, but licence.' The thought has 
 been amplified in sonnet-form by Hartley Coleridge {Poems, 2nd ed., 1851, i, 149, and 
 ii, 5°)-
 
 342 
 
 Notes 
 
 loijit pUtoit. 
 paying no attention to the words they are setting, and so laying the 
 musical stress often on insignificant and non-emphatic syllables ; 
 from which fault Lawes is declared to be free.' — Masson. L. 9. 
 lend (MS.) : ' send ' (1673). 13-14. ' Dante, on his arrival in Pur- 
 gatory [from Hell, — hence ' milder shades 'J sees a vessel approach- 
 ing the shore, freighted with souls under the conduct of an angel, 
 to be cleansed from their sins and made fit for Paradise. When 
 they are disembarked, the poet recognizes in the crowd his' old 
 friend Casella the musician. The interview is strikingly imagined, 
 and in the course of an affectionate dialogue, the poet requests a 
 soothing air ; and Casella sings, with the most ravishing sweetness, 
 Dante's second Canzone, "Amor, che nella mente mi ragiona.".' — 
 T. Warton. The sonnet, which had previously appeared in the 
 brothers' Choice Psalms, &c., i648,*and of which one of the MS. 
 headings is 'To my friend Mr. Hen. Laws, Feb. g, 1645,' should 
 ' be compared with Barnfield's To his friend Maister R. L., page 
 300, and the two following on modern composers. 
 TO BEETHOVEN. 
 O Master, if Immortals suffer aught 
 Of sadness like to ours, and in like sighs 
 And with like overflow of darkened eyes 
 Disburden them, I know not ; but methought. 
 What time to-day mine ear the utterance caught 
 Whereby in manifold melodious wise 
 Thy heart's unrestful infelicities 
 Rose like a" sea with easeless winds distraught. 
 That thine seemed angel's lamentation, heard 
 Down inaccessible midnight wandering : 
 Nay, as some soul's from forth her star unspliered 
 Of utmost heaven, and through the unknown of Space 
 Foredoomed to roam as roams the wind, and sing 
 Of her lost glories and lost dwelling-place. 
 
 William Watson.^ 
 TO MENDELSSOHN: 
 
 [ON HEARING ONE OF HIS CONCERTOS.] 
 
 O for a spell-built palace, by the craft 
 
 Of Afreets reared, with sumptuous chambers high, 
 
 Upheld on many a quaintly-carven shaft. 
 
 And arabesqued witli cunningest tracery ; 
 
 Where tempered sunshine should fall dreamily. 
 
 Charming a crystal fountain to repose. 
 
 And the celestial fragrance of the rose 
 
 Should wafted come from shadowy courts hard by. 
 
 There let thy music wake with fervid flow 
 
 Of rhythmic undulations — like the sweep 
 
 ' From an unpublished MS.
 
 Notes 
 
 343 
 
 Of wind through midnight tree-tops, — murmuring low, 
 In tenderest melancholy, or trances deep 
 Of utterless joy ; sweet songs of long ago. 
 Sealing the eyes in happy-visioned sleep. 
 
 John Todhtmter} 
 73 — CXLiv. The title from the Cambridge MS. L. 12. spake i^'$>^: 
 ' speak ' (i673\ 
 
 CXLV. ' To the Lord General Fairfax ' is the usual title ; but the 
 MS. shows that originally the sonnet was headed ' On y<^ Lord 
 Gen. Fairfax at y^ Siege of Colchester ' ( = June I2 — August 28, 
 1648). ivip = graft — a term in falconry. Cp. Drummond ( Teares 
 on the Death of Mixliades : Poems, 1616, sig. K3) : 
 
 'While some new Homer, imping Pennes [=;feathers] to Fame.' 
 7 — 8. In allusion to the Scottish ' Engagement 'with the King, and 
 the Duke of Hamilton's subsequent march into England, July, 
 1648. This sonnet, the two succeeding it, and CLii, for obvious 
 political reasons withheld from the volume of 1673, originally ap- 
 peared, somewhat corruptly, at the end of Phillips's Life of his 
 uncle, prefixed to the English translation of yiWions Letters of State, 
 i694,and were first given in their present form (excepting titles and 
 punctuation, and a single word, in which I follow the MS.) by New- 
 ton (1752). The one to Vane, however, had appeared anonymously 
 as early as 1662, in the Life and Death of that extraordinary man, 
 where it is introduced (p. 93) as ' a paper of Verses, composed by 
 a learned Gentleman, and sent him, July 3, 1652.' All four illus- 
 trate the axiom that even the most original style has its pedigree. 
 It would be difficult to name an equal number of Milton's other 
 minor poems exhibiting so marked a Miltonic physiognomy ; yet 
 there seems little doubt that he caught their tone from his prede- 
 cessors in English poetry : Spenser notably, but also, in a lesser 
 degree, Sylvester and Chapman. I do not refer to Spenser's better 
 known sonnets, but to those accompanying the Faerie Queene, 
 which many critics besides Sir Egerton Br)'dges {Bjit. Biblio., iv., 
 1814, p. 2) have regarded as his best. ' These sonnets,' observes 
 Professor Lowell in an essay on Spenser {Among My Books, 2nd 
 series, Eng. ed., p. 186), ' are of a much stronger build than the 
 Ainoretti, and some of them recall the firm tread of Milton's, 
 though differing in structure.' He specializes the following, which, 
 it may be added, also strikingly foreshows that other characteristic 
 of Milton— his effective employment of proper names {Spenser's 
 Works, folio, 1611) : 
 
 ' Lauretta and Other Poems, 1876, p. 217.
 
 344 Notes 
 
 PAGE 
 
 loljit Uliltoir. 
 
 TO THE RIGHT NOBLE LORD AND MOST VALIANT 
 
 CAPTAINE, SIR JOHN NORRIS, KNIGHT, LORD PRESIDENT OF JIOUNSTER. 
 
 Who ever gave more honourable prize 
 To the sweet Muse then did the Martiall crew, 
 That their brave deeds she might immortalize 
 In her shrill tromp, and sound their praises dew? 
 Who then ought more to favour her then you, 
 Moste noble Lord, the honor of this age, 
 And Precedent of all that Amies ensue ? 
 Whose warlike prowesse and manly courage, 
 Tempred with reason and advizement sage. 
 Hath fild sad Belgick with victorious spoile ; 
 In France and Ireland left a famous gage ; 
 And lately shak't the Lusitanian soile. 
 Sith then each where thou hast disspred thy fame, 
 L'ove him that hath eternized your name. 
 
 Edmund Spenser. 
 As to Sylvester and Chapman's part in the genesis of Milton's 
 style I must refer the reader to Dunster on the former {Considera- 
 tions on Milton's Early Readings and the Prima Stajnina of his 
 Paradise Lost, &c., 1800), and Coleridge on the luiier (supra, p. 
 262). 
 74— CXLVi, 13-14. The Presbyterians are meant here. Cp. the great 
 passage in Lycidas (beginning ' Blind mouths ! ') as expounded by 
 Mr. Ruskin (Sesame and Lilies, p. 23, ed, 1871). In this instance 
 only has Milton terminated an English sonnet in a rimed couplet ; 
 nor could he have done it with less effect, or in worse taste. 
 
 CXLVII, I. Dunster cites Sylvester here {Du Bartas, p. 160, ed. 
 1033) : ' Isaac, in years young, but in wisdome grown.' 
 4. ' Pyrrhus [king of Epirus] and Hannibal are intended. Their 
 attacks on Rome were frustrated by the wisdom of the Senate 
 rather than by the repelling force of arms.' — R. C. Browne 
 (Milton's English Poems, Clar. Press, Revised ed., 1S73). 13-14. 
 Phillips's reading — ' infinitely better ' in Newton's opinion — is 
 ' Therefore on thy Right hand Religion leans. 
 And reckons thee in chief her Eldest Son.' 
 ' This Sonnet breathes the same spirit as the last, and may have 
 been writen at the same time, or perhaps somewhat earlier. If it 
 was written in 1652, Vane was in his fortieth year when it was 
 addressed to him, and was one of the Council of State ; but, as his 
 father was still alive, he was always known as the Younger Vane. 
 It was recollected, moreover, how he had entered the Long Parlia- 
 ment at the age of twenty-seven, having already distinguished him-
 
 Notes 345 
 
 PAGE 
 
 self in America, and how all through the Parliament he had acted 
 and been regarded as one of the subtlest and boldest theorists of 
 the extreme Revolutionary party. In his style of mind he was 
 what would now be called a doctrinaire, or abstract thinker, with 
 perhaps a dash of the fanatic ; and, as Milton hints, he had exercised 
 himself very particularly on the question of the relations and mutual 
 limits of the Church and State, having had practical occasion to 
 consider that question as early as 1636, when he was Governor of 
 Massachusetts. After the Restoration he was brought to the 
 scaffold. June 14, 1662.' — Masson. 
 
 74 — CXLVi — CXLVII. See reference to these under CXLV (p. 343). 
 
 75 — CXLViii, 2. Warton noted the interesting echo here from Fairfax's 
 Tasso (Godfrey of Bulloigne, xiii, 60, p. 246, 2nd ed., 1624) : 
 
 . . . ' falling streamed which to the valleys greene 
 Distill'd from tops of Alpine mountaines cold.' 
 
 ' This day [June 3d, 1655] come sad news out of Piedmont ; con- 
 firmation of bad rumours there had been, which deeply affects all 
 pious English hearts, and the Protector's most of all. It appears 
 the Duke of Savoy had, not long since, decided on having certain 
 poor Protestant subjects of his converted at last to the Catholic 
 Religion. Poor Protestant people, who dwell in the obscure valleys 
 of " Lucerna, of Perosa, and St. Martin," among the feeders of 
 the Po, in the Savoy Alps : they are thought to be descendants of 
 the old Waldenses ; a pious, inoffensive people : dear to the hearts 
 and imaginations of all Protestant men. These, it would appear, 
 the Duke of Savoy, in the past year, undertook to himself to get 
 converted ; for which object he sent friars to preach among them. 
 The friars could convert nobody ; one of the friars, on the contrary, 
 was found assassinated, — signal to the rest that they had better take 
 themselves away. The Duke thereupon sent other missionaries : 
 six regiments of Catholic soldiers ; and an order to the People of 
 the Valleys either to be converted straightway, or quit the country 
 at once. They could not be converted all at once : neither could 
 ■ they quit the country well ; the month was December ; among the 
 Alps ; and it was their home for immemorial years ! . . . Pity is 
 perennial: "Ye have compassion on one another, " — is it not notable, 
 beautiful ? . . . The Lord Protector is melted into tears, and 
 roused into sacred fire. This day the French Treaty, not unimpor- 
 tant to him, was to be signed : this day he refuses to sign it till the 
 King and Cardinal undertake to assist him in getting right done in 
 these poor Valleys. He sends the poor exiles 2,000/. from his own 
 purse ; appoints a Day of Humiliation and a general Collection
 
 346 Notes 
 
 lobit ililton. 
 
 over England for that object ; — has, in short, decided that he will 
 bring help to these poor men ; that England and he will see them 
 helped and righted. How Envoys were sent ; how blind Milton 
 wrote Letters to all Protestant States, calling on them for coopera- 
 tion ; how the French Cardinal was shy to meddle, and yet had to 
 meddle, and compel the Duke of Savoy, much astonished at th^ 
 business, to do justice and not what he liked with his own :' etseq. — 
 Thomas Carlyle {Oliver Crotrnvell's Letters and Speeches : zvith 
 Ehuidations, iv, pp. 116-118, ed. 1871). Of the despatches which 
 as Latin Secretary Milton wrote, Henry Reed remarks how there 
 seems to be a tone of imagination in their very address — ' a Miltonic 
 aggregation of vague geographical names ; — "Oliver, Protector of 
 the Commonwealth of England, to the Emperor of all Russia and 
 all the Northern climes ; " or to " the King of the Swedes, Goths, 
 and Vandals ; " calling to their remembrance how the valleys of 
 Piedmont were besmeared with the blood and slaughter of the 
 miserable victims, and the mountains filled with the houseless wan- 
 derers,— women and children perishing with hunger and cold and 
 the sword of the persecutor. . . . The spirit of Milton was so 
 stirred by the sufferings of the Waldenses, that he felt the need of 
 more even than high-toned mandates to earthly monarchs ; and 
 therefore there went up from the depths of his poet's heart, in one 
 of his mighty sonnets, the fervid imprecation, "Avenge, O Lord," 
 — a note so fearful and so loud, that we can almost fancy it echoing 
 over the valleys in which the bones of the martyrs lay covered with 
 snow.' {Lectures, as before, i, p. 223). Well might Lord Macaulay 
 describe this great sonnet as a ' collect in verse.'- We have doubt- 
 less Landor's own opinion when he makes Southey, in response to 
 Person's allusion to it as a ' magnificent psalrri,' observe, ' This is 
 indeed the noblest of sonnets ; ' and Mr. Palgrave characterizes it 
 as the most mighty sonnet in any language known to him. It is 
 with a sinking at the heart that one turns from such glorious co- 
 operation in righteousness, of Poet and Prince, of Parliament and 
 People, to certain episodes in modern England's foreign policy. 
 But let us rejoice that the Poet at least is still 'faithful found.' 
 {Poems, 1870, p. 275) : — 
 
 ON REFUSAL OF AID BETWEEN NATIONS. 
 
 Not that the earth is changing, O my God ! 
 
 Nor that the seasons totter in their walk, — 
 
 Not that the virulent ill of act and talk 
 
 Seethes ever as a v/inepress ever trod, — 
 
 Not therefore are we certain that the rod
 
 Notes 247 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Weighs in thine hand to smite thy world : though now 
 
 Beneath thine hand so many nations bow, 
 
 So many kings : — not therefore, O my God ! — 
 
 But because Man is parcelled out in men 
 
 Even thus ; because, for any wrongful blow, 
 
 No man not stricken asks, ' I would be told ' 
 
 Why thou dost strike ; ' but his heart whispers then, 
 
 ' He is he, I am I.' By this we know 
 
 That the earth falls asunder, being old. 
 
 Dante Gabnel Rossetti. 
 75 — CXLix. This sonnet is usually placed as though most probably 
 written in 1652 ; but it. may well have been done at any time 
 between that and 1655. In Milton's own edition it comes after \S\q. 
 sonnet on the Piedmontese Massacre. L. 3. On this allusion by 
 Milton to the Parable, Matt, xxv, Newton remarks : ' And he 
 speaks with great modesty of himself, as if he had not five, or two, 
 but only one talent.' As to what Milton signifies by ' that one 
 talent ' a most inexplicable misapprehension exists amongst his ex- 
 positors, not excepting Masson, the last and best of all, who anno- 
 tates {Poetical Works, as before, iii. 481) : ' Milton speaks of his 
 eyesight as the " one talent " he had received.' How any person 
 acquainted with Milton's prose works should miss the significance 
 of the sonnet passes comprehension. Otherwise it would have been 
 superfluous to observe that by the ' one talent ' Milton means his 
 literary, his poetical talent, the employment of which to some high 
 end he conceived to be his appointed work in life. Had he not 
 said {Reason of Church-Government, 1641, bk. ii, Intro.): . . . ' by 
 labour and intent study, which I take to be my portion in this 
 life, joined with the strong propensity of nature [= "though my 
 soul more bent," &c.], I might perhaps leave something so written 
 to aftertimes as they should not willingly let it die ? ' He had long 
 been ' covenating ' with his ' knowing ' readers for the performance 
 of that work which a patriotic devotion to public duties prevented. 
 But now, his grand purpose still unfulfilled — nay, the work perhaps 
 not yet even begun — simultaneously with the prospect of leisure, 
 blindness is come upon him, — the long-impending ' damp ' has 
 fallen at last thick and deep ' round his path ; ' and though in this, 
 as in all things, he bows with sublime patience and submission to 
 God's will, his ' glorious great intent ' and a pathetic sense of his 
 infirmity are seen burning together henceforward at his mighty heart. 
 
 ' Nor sometimes forget 
 Those other two equalled with me in fate, 
 So were I equalled with them in renown, 
 Blind Thamyris and blind Mseonides, 
 And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old.'
 
 348 Notes 
 
 loljit ililtoit. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The day was yet in store when, ' amidst the hymns and hallelujahs 
 of saints,' he should 'be heard offering at high strains in new and 
 lofty measures to sing and celebrate ' the ' divine mercies and mar- 
 vellous judgments' of God {Of Reformation in England, 1641, bk. 
 ii). It is deeply instructive to note that what even Milton him- 
 self could not but regard as a disqualification for that work should 
 prove a positive qualification for it. On this point see Macaulay's 
 essay on Dryden {Miscellaneous Writings, ed. i860, i, 209") ; and, 
 for some interesting speculations as to the influence of Milton's 
 blindness on his poetry, Masson's edition of the Poetical Works, 
 as before, i, 104-111. 
 76 — CL. ' Of the virtuous son,' says Warton, ' nothing has transpired.* 
 Masson includes him in his list of Milton's pupils, and informs us 
 that he was the second son of Henry Lawrence, of St. Ives, Hunts, 
 member for Westmoreland in the Long Parliament, known in 1647 
 as a thoughtful man, and author of a treatise Of our Communion 
 and Warre with Angells (1646), afterwards a staunch Oliverian, 
 President of Cromwell's Council, and one of his Lords. For some 
 further interesting particulars regarding President Lawrence and his 
 writings see a communication by Mr. J, E. Bailey in Notes and 
 Queries, 28 June, 1879. The sonnet was addressed to the younger 
 Lawrence subsequent to 1655, and when Milton had become totally 
 blind. Favonius = the Spring wind. Ben Jonson was fond of the 
 synonym {A Private Entertainment, &c., 1604 : Workes, 1616, p. 
 
 ' Favonius here shall blow 
 New flowers.' 
 
 10-12. Cp. a companion passage in the Tractate of Education 
 (1644), where, having prescribed certain active exercises for the 
 pupils of his ideal Academy, he goes on to say (p. 113, ed. 1673) : 
 ' The interim of unsweating themselves regularly, and convenient 
 rest before meat, may, both with profit and delight, be taken up in 
 recreating and composing their travail'd spirits with the Solemn 
 and divine harmonies of Musick, heard or learnt ; either while the' 
 skilful Organist plies his grave and fancied descant, in lofty fugues, 
 or the whole Symphony with artful and unimaginable touches 
 adorn and grace the well-studied chords of some choice Composer ; 
 sometimes the Lute or soft Organ-stop waiting on elegant Voices, 
 either to Religious, martial, or civil Ditties ; which, if wise men and 
 Prophets be not extreamly out, have a great power over dispositions 
 and manners, to smooth and make them gentle frum rustick harsh- 
 ness and distemper'd passions.' Cp. also Paradise Lost, xi, 561—
 
 Notes 349 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ' his volant touch 
 Instinct through all proportions low and high 
 Fled and pursued transverse the resonant fugue ' — 
 on which the Clarendon editor notes : ' Professor Taylor's opinion 
 of this passage was that its pregnant meaning can be fully appre- 
 ciated only by a musician. ' ' AH other poets but Milton and Shake- 
 speare make blunders about music ; they never."' 13-14. spare To 
 interpose them oft. ' Interpreted by Mr. Keightley to mean " spare 
 time to interpose them oft ; " buj surely rather the opposite — refrain 
 from interposing them oft.' — Masson. See Drummond, cxiv, 8, 
 for an instance of the word in precisely the same sense. 
 76— CLi. Cyriack Skinner, one of Milton's Aldersgate Street pupils, 
 and his friend through after-years, was the grandson of the famous 
 lawyer and judge, Sir Edward Coke, Chief Justice of England. 
 The sonnet may be supposed to have been written somewhere 
 about 1655. L. 6. ' This is the decent mirth of Martial : 
 " Nox non ebria, sed soluta curis." ' — T. Warton. 
 Cp. Shakspeare {Romeo and Juliet, ii, 6, 81) : 
 
 ' So smile the heavens upon this holy act, 
 That after-hours with sorrow chide us not ! * 
 i7itends (MS.) : ' intend ' (1673). 
 77 — CLii, 1-2. So in the Defensio Secunda (1654), transl. Symmons : 
 ' The spirit and the power which I [formerly] possessed continue un- 
 impaired to the present day; my eyes only are not the same; and 
 they are as unblemished in appearance, as lucid and free from spot, as 
 those which are endued with the sharpest vision : in this instance 
 alone, and much against my own inclination, am I a deceiver. ' Hazlitt 
 {Table Talk, p. 245, ed. 1869) remarks what seems to be a trait of 
 character in these verses : that Milton had not yet given up all regard 
 to personal appearance — 'a feeling to which his singular beauty at an 
 earlier age might be supposed natually enough to lead.' 4-6. Cp. 
 Paradise Lost, iii, 22-26,40 j^^r.y and Samson A gonistes, ?>oseq. L. 7. 
 Heaven's : ' God's ' deleted (MS.) ; « .• ' one ' (Phillips) ; 8-g. Ivar . . . 
 onward : ' attend to steer Uphillward ' deleted (MS.). ' Well might 
 he, who, after five years of blindness, had the courage to undertake 
 these two vast works, [his treatise on Christian Doctrine, and pro- 
 jected Latin dictionary,] along with Paradise Lost, declare that he 
 did "not bate a jot Of heart or hope, but still bore up and steered 
 Uphilhuard." For this is the word which Milton at first used in 
 his noble sonnet ; though for the sake of correctness, steering np hi II- 
 wardhting a kind of pilotage which he alone practist,or which at all 
 events is only practicable where the clogs of this material world are 
 not dragging us down, he altered it into 7ight onward.' —{Guesses at
 
 55° 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Notes 
 
 foljit piltoit. 
 
 Truth, p. 75, First Series, 3rd ed., 1847). coriscience = conscious- 
 ness ; as e.g., our authorized Version, 1 Cor. viii, 7 ; and Heb. x, 2. 
 Perhaps Keats furnishes a late instance in cccvill, 11. LI. lo-ii. 
 As early as 1644 Milton's sight had begun to decline, and in 1650, 
 while engaged on the (first) Dcfensio pro Poptdo Anglicano (1651), 
 one of his eyes being almost gone, he was warned by his physicians 
 that total blindness would certainly ensue if he proceeded with his 
 task. Our liberties know whether or not he did proceed ; and after- 
 wards, in his, Dcfensio Secunda, published in 1654 (the year before 
 that in which it is supposed the sonnet was written) in reply to the 
 Regit Sanguinis Clamor, &c. (1652), he could tell his coarse and 
 unfeeling adversary, who had mocked at his blindness, that the 
 dread penalty had been cheerfully incurred in preference to the de- 
 sertion of a sacred duty. 12. rings (Phillips) : ' talks ' (MS., adopted 
 by Newton). The echo from Sir John Harington's Orlando Furioso 
 (1591) seems to have escaped notice (Booke xlvi, st. 55, p. 399) : 
 ' Nor feates of Amies, in which he wan the prise, 
 And of the which all Europe now did ring.' 
 vain mask. Cp. Ps. xxxix, 6 : ' Surely every man walketh in a vain 
 sh.Qv/.'—Keightley. Cp. also Lii, 3, and cxviii, 5. See reference 
 to this sonnet under CXLV (p. 343X 
 77 — CLiil. This sonnet is assigned by Keightley to February, 1658, 
 Milton's second and best-beloved wife, Catherine Woodcock, hav- 
 ing died in childbed in the early part of that month in that year. 2-4. 
 See the ^/c^j^w of Euripides, or Mr. Browning's transcript, Balaiis- 
 tion' s Adventure (\%']'i). 5-6. 'It is nowhere said in the Scriptures 
 that the Hebrew women were washed, or wore white at their purifi- 
 cation after childbed: see Lev. xii. Perhaps however Milton does 
 not make the latter assertion.' — Keightley. Milton does not do so: 
 he refers to English usage. Speaking of the sonnets, in his admirable 
 little handbook on Milton (1879, P- 69), Mr. Stopford Brooke justly 
 observes : ' Because Milton was bitter against the bad woman in 
 Dalila, because he held strong views on the supremacy of man, it 
 has been too much forgotten how much he loved and honoured 
 women ... in the sonnets, he sketches, with all the care and con- 
 centration the sonnet demands, and each distinctively, four beauti- 
 ful types of womanhood — the "virgin wise and pure; " the noble 
 matron, "honoured Margaret ; " the Christian woman, his friend, 
 whose "works, and alms, and good endeavour" followed her to 
 the pure immortal streams ; the perfect wife, whom he looked to 
 see in heaven—
 
 Notes 351 
 
 PAGE 
 
 " Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shine 
 So clear, as in no face with more delight." ' 
 
 72-77 — CXLlll-CLiii. These, with the exception of CXLV and the three 
 
 specified under it (p. 343), are given from Poems, Cs^c, Upon Sevo-al 
 
 Occasio!7s. By Mr. John Milton : Both English and Latin, ^'c. 
 
 Composed at several times. With a small Tractate of Education To 
 
 Mr. IlariUb. 1673 : where they first appeared. 
 
 79 — CLiv. The author of The Canons of Criticism, at whom Pope made 
 an impotent thrust in the Dunciad for his Shakspearian studies, ex- 
 celled much more as a critic than as a poet ; yet he shares with Gray 
 and Stillingfleet the honour of having preserved the tradition of the 
 Sonnet at a time when it seemed threatened with absolute extinc- 
 tion. His experiments belong to that class of verse, usually the pro- 
 duction of thoughtful and highly-cultivated minds, in which the lack 
 of poetry's diviner attributes is in some measure compensated by 
 what Coleridge calls 'weighty bullion sense.' In this instance mustbe 
 added much practical wisdom, patriotism, and a manly, unaffected 
 piety. Dyce, who takes five of his sonnets nevertheless, denies 
 Edwards genius ; nor perhaps does he possess genius in the strict 
 sense ; but, like Stillingfleet, he was a true disciple of Milton, and 
 it really argues something akin to genius to have had in liis day the 
 sagacity to choose and the ability to eclio such a master. His Sonnets, 
 numbering about fifty in all, a moiety of which had apppeared in dif- 
 ferent editions of Dodsley's Collection of Poems (3rd ed., 1751), were 
 collected and appended to The Canons of Criticism, 6th ed. , with Ad- 
 ditions, 1758, from which I select other two examples, in the former 
 of which, Dyce remarks, Edwards ' rises to pathos and grandeur.' 
 ON A FAMILY-PICTURE. 
 When pensive on that Portraiture I gaze, 
 Where my four Brothers round about me stand, 
 And four fair Sisters smile with graces bland, 
 The goodly monument of happier days ; 
 And think how soon insatiate Death, who preys 
 On all, has cropp'd the rest with ruthless hand, 
 While only I survive of all that band. 
 Which one chaste bed did to my Father raise ; 
 It seems that like a Column left alone, 
 The tottering remnant of some splendid Fane, 
 'Scap'd from the fury of the barbarous Gaul, 
 And wasting Time, which has the rest o'erthro^vn, 
 Amidst our House's ruins I remain 
 Single, unpropp'd, and nodding to my fall.
 
 352 Notes 
 
 TO THE AUTHOR OF OBSERVATIONS ON THE 
 
 CONVERSION AND APOSTLESHIP OF ST. PAUL. 
 
 O Lyttleton, great meed shalt thou receive, 
 
 Great meed of fame, Thou and thy learn'd Compeer, 
 
 Who, 'gainst the Sceptic's doubt and Scorner's sneer, 
 
 Assert those Heav'n-born truths which you believe ! 
 
 In elder times thus Heroes wont t' atchieve 
 
 Renown ; they held the faith of Jesus dear, 
 
 And round their Ivy crown or Laurell'd spear 
 
 Blush'd not Religion's Olive branch to weave ; 
 
 Thus Ralegh, thus immortal Sidney shone, 
 
 (Illustrious names !) in great Elisa's days. 
 
 Nor doubt his promise firm, that such who own 
 
 In evil times, undaunted, though alone. 
 
 His glorious truth, such He will crown with praise, 
 
 And glad agnize before his Father's throne. 
 
 The person to whom the sonnet in the text is addressed was the 
 author of The Scribleriad {\-]^\), of whom see a notice in Gary's Lives of 
 English Poets, from fohnson to Kirke White. Designed as a Continua- 
 tion of Johnsons Lives. 1846. Gambridge retired about 1750 to his 
 villa at Twickenham, where he died in i8o2. 
 
 I^fiijamiir ^tillingflat. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 80 — CLV, 14. echoes : ' tidings ' (Coxe). This noble sonnet, by much the 
 best of the few written by ' Blue Stocking ' Stillingfleet, grandson of 
 the Bishop, was first printed by Todd in his edition of Milton's 
 Poetical Works (iSoi, v, p. 445), where it is dated 1746. From the 
 Literary Life h^ Goxe prefixed to Stillingfleet's Select Works, 1811, 
 we learn that the amiable and eccentric person commemorated in it 
 was the Rev. John Williamson, a man of great learning and varied 
 accomplishments, whose extreme simplicity of character and igno- 
 rance of the world hindered his preferment. By the departure from 
 Scotland of Lord Haddington and his brother Mr. Baillie, to whom 
 he had formerly been travelling companion, Williamson was thrown 
 out of employment ; and Stillingfleet, his congenial and attached 
 friend, amid many troubles of his own, made unceasing efforts to 
 procure him some permanent establishment, but without much or 
 any immediate success. Ultimately, however, Williamson received 
 the appointment of Chaplain to the Factory at Lisbon. Coxe further 
 informs us that among the memoTanda for his History of Htisbandry, 
 Stillingfleet has an affectionate tribute to his friend's memory in 
 which he compares him with — Xenophon : 'He was not inferior to the 
 Grecian in simplicity, parts, or knowledge, as he might have shewn,
 
 Notes 353 
 
 PAGE 
 
 had not a general calamity [the Earthquake at Lisbon, on which 
 Stillingfleet published a small quarto of moral reflections in verse, 
 1750] deprived the world of his ingenious writings.' He seems to 
 have been universally beloved. Neville, one of his friends, thus 
 records his death : ' Early in the year 1763, this godlike man was, 
 about his 50th year, relieved from all his infirmities, and gath- 
 ered to his kindred angels. He left just enough to buiy him, and 
 would have left no more if he had been Archbishop of Canterbury.' 
 Capel Lofft inserted the sonnet in his Laura (5 vols., 1813-14), 
 with the remark that had Stillingfleet left nothing else behind him, 
 it would have been sufficient to immortalize his name. Todd 
 justly observes that it proves how attentively and how successfully 
 Milton was studied at this time. So also, in its degree, does his 
 sonnet {Select Works, ii, 163) 
 
 TO DAM PIER. 
 Thrice worthy guardian of that sacred spring, 
 That erst with copious stream enrich'd this land. 
 When C^sar taught our nobles to command, 
 Tully to speak, Maeonides to sing ; 
 Till Fashion, stealing with unheeded wing 
 Into this realm, with touch of foreign hand. 
 Our girls embolden'd, and our boys unmann'd, 
 And drew all ages to her magic ring. 
 Yet shalt not thou be backward in thy sphere 
 To thwart a sickly world ; the sceptre giv'n 
 Thou know'st to wield, and force the noble youth 
 To merit titles they were born to bear. 
 Thou know'st that every sceptre is from Heaven 
 That guides mankind to virtue and to truth.' 
 
 80— CLVI. From The Poems of Mr. Gray. To -which are prefixed Me- 
 moirs of his Life and Writings, by W.Mason, M.A. York : 1775. 
 L. 2. 'I believe,' says Lowell {My Study Windows, Boston, 1871, 
 p. 388), ' it has not been noticed that among the verses in Gray's 
 " Sonnet on the Death of West,y which Wordsworth condemns as 
 of no value, the second is one of Gray's happy reminiscences from 
 a poet in some respects greater than either of them {Lucrct., iv, 
 405-6) :— 
 
 Jamque rubrum tremulis jubar ignibus erigere alte 
 
 Cum ccEptat natura.' 
 14. Park {Heliconia, 1815, ii, 154) notes the following parallel m 
 Fitzgeffrey's Life and Death of Sir Francis D rake, which was pub- 
 
 » ' Rev. Dr. Dampier, then one of the upper masters of Eton School, and afterwards 
 Dean of Durham, an intimate and much respected friend of Mr. Stilhngfleet. —Coxe.
 
 354 ^(^^^^ 
 
 PAGE 
 
 lished in 1596, ' and which,' he adds, ' from its rareness, it is very 
 unlikely that Mr. Gray had ever seen : ' — 
 
 ' O therefore do we plaine, 
 And therefore weepe, because we weepe in vaine.' 
 
 ' Both Wordsworth and Coleridge have found fault with Gray's 
 sonnet on Richard West, asserting that the diction is artificial, and 
 the images incongruous. Leigh Hunt, on the contrary \^Book of 
 the Sonnet, i, 81-3], defends it on the same ground that he would 
 defend the Lycidas of Milton, and avers that men so imbued with the 
 classics can speak from their hearts in such language. Gray was a 
 purist, but he never threw off entirely the conventional phrase- 
 ology which was at one time regarded as the language of poetry. 
 His odes, for example, abound with terms which a third-rate poet 
 of our day would reject as turgid or artificial, but we think with 
 Hunt, that this sonnet, the only one Gray ever produced, is very 
 beautiful, and that the allusion in it to Phoebus may be justi- 
 fied. "We are too much in the habit," he writes, " of losing a 
 living notion of the sun. . . . Phoebus in this instance, is not a 
 word out of the dictionaries, but a living celestial presence."' — 
 John Dennis {English Sonnets : A Selection. 1873). 
 
 81 — CLVii. 'Exoxa.Mxi Poems. Now First Published. York : 1797. One 
 of three sonnets, composed by Mason on his three last birthdays, 
 of which Sou they in The Doctor observes, that for their sentiment 
 and their beauty they ought to be inserted in every volume of se- 
 lect poems for popular use. Here at least we have none of the 
 falsetto of which Coleridge {Table Talk, p. 201, ed. 1S51) came to 
 detect so much in the Caractacus. 
 
 (Cljomas SSartoit. 
 
 One of the firstfruits of the revival of a taste for Italian and our own 
 early literature was the resumption of the sonnet-form as a literary in- 
 strument. Like many other beautiful things this ' fair consummate 
 flower ' had died with Milton, and would not ' recover greenness ' till 
 the freezing-rod of France had been lifted from off the land.' 
 
 1 An amusing illustration of the contempt into which the depravity of the national 
 
 t;iste had brought the Sonnet and ' things of that nature ' during this inauspicious 
 
 period, IS furnished in the apologetic tone which it behoved Philip Ayres to adopt in 
 
 siibmming to the public his Lyric Foems, made in imitation of the Italians (1687). 
 
 If any quarrel,' says this worthy in his Preface, ' at the Oeconomy, or Structure of
 
 Notes 355 
 
 ' It was gone 
 Quite under ground ; as flowers depart 
 To see their mother-root, when they have blown ; 
 Where they together 
 All the hard weather, 
 Dead to the world, keep house unknown.' 
 
 It rose, as we have seen, with Gray, Edwards, and Stillingflect, midway 
 in the centuiy, and immediately thereafter we find it receiving express 
 cultivation, just where one naturally seeks — in the Warton family. T. 
 Warton's sonnets are constructed on the Italian or Proven9al model ; and 
 Hazlitt, with whom they were eminent favourites, has described them as 
 ' undoubtedly exquisite, both in style and matter : poetical and philoso- 
 phical effusions of very delightful sentiment ;' elsewhere declaring that 
 he 'could not help preferring them to any in the language.' ' And 
 Leight Hunt again : ' Some of them express real feelings with an ele- 
 gance so scholarly, so simple, and so full of faith, that no universalist in 
 the love of poetry who has once read them chooses to part with them.' * 
 They were praised also by Coleridge, who, however, regarded the greater 
 part of them as not strictly sonnets at all, but ' severe and masterly 
 likenesses of the style of the Greek ETCiypo ui-iata.' '^ 'But,' says 
 Dyce on citing Coleridge's opinion, ' I must be allowed to think that 
 they want the great charm of the ancient epigrams, — simplicity.''' 
 
 PAGE 
 
 8i — CLVili. landscape's : 'landskip's' (1777). ' " Landskip " is less 
 divergent fro:n the old Anglo-Saxon form of the word, " land- 
 scipe," than the " landscape" of our modern orthography.' — T. 
 Arnold {Addison's Papers, Clar. Press, 1875, p. 4S9). Warton's 
 editor, Bishop Mant, prints along with this a pleasing sonnet by 
 old Dr. Warton, the poet's father, written after a visit to Windsor 
 Castle with his sons in their early youth, which was evidently the 
 germ from which the laureate's afterwards sprung. (PoetlcallVorks, 
 1802, ii, 154). 
 
 these Poems, manv of them heing Sonnets, Canzons, Madrigals, &c., objecting that 
 none of our great Men, either Mr. Waller, Mr. Cowley, or Mr. Dryden, whom it was 
 most proper to have followed, have everstoop'd to any thing of this sort ; I shall very 
 readily acknowledge, that being sensible of my own Weakness and Inability of ever 
 attaining to the performance of one thing equal to the worst piece of theirs, it easily 
 disswaded me from that attempt, and put me on this : which is not without President ; 
 For many eminent Persons have published several thirgs of this nature, and in this 
 method, both Translations and Poems of their own ; As the famous Mr. Spencer, Sir 
 Philip Sidney, Sir Richard Fanshaw, Mr. Milton, and some few others ; Ihe success 
 of all which, in these things, I must needs say, cannot much be boasted of ; and though 
 1 have little reason after it, to expect Credit from these my slight Miscellanies, yet has 
 it not discouraged me from adventuring on what my Genius prompted me to. 
 
 1 Table Talk, p. 242, ed. 1869, and Select Poets, 1825, p. xv. 
 
 " Book 0/ the Sonnet, i, 84. 
 
 5 Poevts. 2nd ed., 1797, Intro, to the Sonnets, p. 72, 
 
 '^ Specimens oy English Sonnets, p. 216.
 
 356 Notes 
 
 PAGE 
 
 5^I)omas ©lartoit. 
 
 82 — CLIX. he = his brother, Dr. Joseph Warton. This sonnet, written 
 about 1750, was first published in the iv'" vol. of Dodsley's Collec- 
 tion of Foe>?is, 1755 ; as also this {Poems, I777> P- 76), which seems 
 to have been Coleridge's favourite in early days, as it was the only 
 one of Warton's chosen by him for the little privately-printed 
 selection described in foot-note, page 362. 
 ON BA THING. 
 When late the trees were stript by winter pale, 
 Young Health, a dryad-maid in vesture green, 
 Or like the forest's silver-quiver'd queen, 
 On airy uplands met the piercing gale ; 
 And, ere its earliest echo shook the vale, 
 Watching the hunter's joyous horn was seen. 
 But since, gay-thron'd in fiery chariot sheen. 
 Summer has smote each daisy-dappled dale ; 
 She to the cave retires, high-arch 'd beneath 
 The fount that laves proud Isis' towered brim : 
 And now, all glad the temperate air to breathe, 
 While cooling drops distill from arches dim, 
 Binding her dewy locks with sedgy wreath. 
 She sits beneath the quire of Naiads trim. 
 
 CLX, 5. Alluding to the dissolution of the monasteries under 
 Henry VIII. This sonnet, which Crabb Robinson in his Diary 
 tells us Charles Lamb praised as of ' first-rate excellence,' seems to 
 to have been the prototype followed, consciously or unconsciously, 
 by some later poets in dealing with similar themes ; by Keats, for 
 example, in his sonnet on Leigh Hunt's liberation from prison 
 {Poems, 1817, p. 81), and Thomas Doubleday in the following 
 (Literary Souve'iiir, 1827, p. 202) : — 
 
 THE FOETS SOLITUDE. 
 
 Think not the Poet's life, although his cell 
 
 Be seldom printed by the stranger's feet, 
 
 Hath not its silent plenitude of sweet. 
 
 Look at yon lone and solitary dell ; — 
 
 The stream that loiters 'mid its stones can tell 
 
 What flowerets its unnoted waters meet. 
 
 What odours o'er its narrow margin fleet ; 
 
 Ay, and the Poet can repeat as well, — 
 
 The fox-glove, closing inly, like the shell ; 
 
 The hyacinth ; the rose, of buds the chief ; 
 
 The thorn, be-diamonded with dewy showers ; 
 
 The thyme's wild fragrance, and the heather-bell : 
 
 All, all, are there. So vain is the belief 
 
 That the sequestered path hath fewest flowers. 
 
 Thomas Doubleday. 
 81-83— CLViii-CLXii. From his Poems, 1777.
 
 Notes 
 
 357 
 
 SKillram Cofaptr. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 84 — CLXIII. This little masterpiece, first printed in Hayley's Life and 
 Fost/nimous Writings of the poet (1803, ii, 43), and given here 
 from the Poems, 1815, iii, 222, has called forth the following fine 
 criticism from Mr. Palgrave {Golden Treasury, p. 319) : ' The Ed- 
 itor knows no Sonnet more remarkable than this, which records 
 Cowper's gratitude to the Lady whose affectionate care for many 
 years gave what sweetness he could enjoy to a life radically wretched. 
 Petrarch's sonnets have a more ethereal grace and a more perfect 
 finish ; Shakespeare's more passion ; Milton's stand supreme in state- 
 liness, Wordsworth's in depth and delicacy. But Cowper's unites with 
 an exquisiteness in the turn of thought which the ancients would 
 have called Irony, an intensity of pathetic tenderness peculiar to his 
 loving and ingenuous nature. — There is much mannerism, much 
 that is unimportant or of now exhausted interest in his poems : but 
 where he is great, it is with that elementary greatness which rests 
 on the most universal human feelings. Cowper is our highest 
 master in simple pathos.' I add another sonnet (also first printed 
 by Hayley), addressed to the ' kinsman beloved ' who edited the 
 volumes from which that in the text was given. Both sonnets are 
 dated May, 1793. {Poetns, 1815, iii, 223): 
 TO JOHN JOHNSON. 
 
 ON HIS PRESENTING ME WITH AN ANTIQUE BUST OF HOMER. 
 
 Kinsman belov'd, and as a son, by me ! 
 
 When I behold this fruit of thy regard, 
 
 The sculptur'd form of my old fav'rite bard, 
 
 I rev'rence feel for him, and love for thee. 
 
 Joy too, and grief. Much joy that there should be 
 
 Wise men and learn'd, who grudge not to reward 
 
 With some applause my bold attempt and hard, 
 
 Which others scorn : Critics by courtesy. 
 
 The grief is this, that sunk in Homer's mine 
 
 I lose my precious years, now soon to fail, 
 
 Handling this gold, which, howsoe'er it shine, 
 
 Proves dross when balanced in the Christian scale. 
 
 Be wiser thou ! — like our forefather Donne, 
 
 Seek heav'nly wealth, and work for God alone. 
 
 CXXIV. From Original Sonnets on Various Subjects, &c. , 2nd ed., 
 1799. In a letter to a friend, dated Lichfield, Dec. 29, 1795 {Let- 
 ters, iv, 1811, 142-8), the authoress recalls the circumstances of the 
 composition of this sonnet. Having wished her correspondent the 
 compliments of the season, and quoted (or rather misquoted) ^az^ 
 let thus :
 
 358 Notei 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ' The bird of dawning singeth all night long ; 
 No ghost can walk, no witch hath power to harm, 
 So hallow'd, and so gracious is the time ' — 
 
 she says : ' I awoke at six on Christmas-day ; and, on hearing the 
 cocks of the neighbourhood cheerily answering each other, recol- 
 lected that passage with thrills of delight. It chased the mists 
 of slumber, so I rang for my fire and arose. My dressing-room 
 windows look upon the cathedral area, which is a green lawn, en- 
 circled by prebendal houses, and they are rough-cast. The glim- 
 mer of the scene, through the dusk of a December morning at seven, 
 produced the following sonnet, several years ago [Dec. 19, 1782], 
 from my pen.' Wordsworth, writing to Dyce {Prose IVorks, iii, 
 301), notes the ' fine verses ' at the close of another sonnet (Oft^inal 
 Sonnets, &c., p. 43 : Invitation to a Friend) : 
 
 ' Come, that I may not hear the winds of Night, 
 Nor count the heavy eave-drops as they fall ' — 
 
 an image doubtless borrowed from Bampfylde (as under CCXLI) : 
 
 'Counting the frequent drop from reeded eaves.' 
 
 Cbarlotte ^mitlj. 
 
 85 — CLXV. Aneinonies-— 'Anemony Numeroso: the Wood Anemony.' — 
 ' S. L. 14. Echoed by Barry Cornwall (Dedicatory Sonnet: A Sici- 
 lian Story, &c., 1820) : 
 
 ' O, why has happiness so short a day ! ' 
 
 From Elegiac Sonnets, and Other Essays. 1784. 
 
 CLXVI. lay. An instance of the vulgar confusion of the verbs lie 
 
 and lay, of which even Pope and Byron are not guiltless. From 
 
 Elegiac Sonnets. The Third Edition. With Twenty Additiotial 
 
 Sonnets. [1786.] 
 The unmitigable woe with which Mrs. Smith's poems are filled, 
 together with their factitious and second-hand phraseology, renders them 
 unpalatable to a generation so much healthier than that in which they 
 were produced ; yet we must respect the opinion of so admirable a critic 
 as Wordsworth, who described her as ' a lady to whom English verse is 
 under greater obligations than are likely to be either acknowledged or 
 remembered.' ' She wrote little,' he continues, 'and that little unam- 
 bitiously, but with true feeling for rural Nature, at a time when Nature 
 was not much regarded by English Poets ; for in point of time her earlier 
 writings preceded, I believe, those of Cowper and Burns. ' ' Her Sonnets, 
 
 * Prose Works, 1876, iii, 151,
 
 Notes 
 
 359 
 
 about which some of their old sweetness still lingers, like the perfume of 
 dried flowers, have been repeatedly praised by Dyce. They are ' not 
 framed,' he remarks, ' on the Italian model, and exhibit little of concen- 
 trated thought; but they are "most musical, most melancholy," and 
 abound with touches of tenderness, grace, and beauty. , . . Her love 
 of botany, from the study of which she derived the greatest pleasure, has 
 led her, in several of her pieces, to paint a variety of flowers with a 
 minuteness and delicacy rarely equalled. ' ' Later, he characterizes them 
 as poems ' in which softly-coloured description and touching sentiment 
 are most happily combined."- I had marked several sonnets illustrating 
 these qualities, but space being limited, confine myself to an example of 
 a different order, if not in all respects the best, certainly the most mas- 
 culine and interesting of her poems (^Elegiac Sonnets and Other Poems, 
 2 vols., 1795-7, ii, p. 23) :— 
 
 TO THE SHADE OF BURNS. 
 \ Mute is thy wild harp now, O Bard Sublime ! 
 Whom, amid Scotia's mountain solitude. 
 Great Nature taught to 'build the lofty rhyme,' 
 And, even beneath the daily pressure rude 
 Of labouring Poverty, thy generous blood 
 Fired with the love of freedom — Not subdued 
 Wert thou by thy low fortune : But a time 
 Like this we live in, when the abject chime 
 Of echoing Parasite is best approved. 
 Was not for thee. Indignantly is fled 
 Thy noble Spirit, and, no longer moved 
 By all the ills o'er which thine heart has bled, 
 Associate worthy of the illustrious dead. 
 Enjoys with them ' the Liberty it loved.' ^ 
 
 PAGE 
 
 86-CLXVil. This sonnet, of which the earliest printed impression known 
 to me is in The Geiitleman s Magazine, September, 1816, probably 
 made its first appearance in one of the Liverpool newspapers. 
 Excepting the title, which I adopt from a contemporaneous draft, 
 it is here given from his Poetical Works, Liverpool, 1853. Those 
 
 ' Sped metis 0/ British Poetesses, 1827, p. 254. 
 
 2 Specimens 0/ English Sonnets, 1833, p. 220. See also a pleasing tribute by David 
 Lester Richardson (Literary Leaves. Calcutta : 1836, pp. 377-386)- 
 
 ' 14. 'the Liberty it loved.'— Vop^ (Epitaph on Sir WilliamTrumbal.) The 
 poetess has a note as follows: ' Whoever has tasted the charm of original genius so 
 evident in the composition of this genuine Poet, 
 
 A Poet "of nature's own creation," 
 cannot surely fail to lament his unhappy life, (latterly passed, as I have understood, in 
 an employmentto which such a mind as his musthave been averse, > nor hispremature 
 death. For one, herself made the object o{subscription^f•'^'^\>''o^^e.x to add, that whoever 
 has thus been delighted with the wild notes of the Scottish bard, must have a melan- 
 choly pleasure in relieving by their benevolence the unfortunate family he has left?'
 
 360 ' Notes 
 
 WMxvca llostof. 
 
 only of the present generation will need to be informed that the 
 event which called forth this noble expression of feeling and philo- 
 sophic resignation was the dispersion of the Roscoe Collection 
 (August — September, 1816). ' To the necessity of at once rendering 
 available not only the assets of the concern, but likewise the private 
 property of the partners, Mr. Roscoe cheerfully yielded, and he 
 resolved to offer to public sale, without delay, the whole of his 
 personal effects, including his library, pictures, and other works of 
 art, which he had employed himself in collecting for nearly half a 
 century. The loss of other portions of his property occasioned 
 him, personally, little regret, but he could not avoid regarding 
 with some grief the prospect of parting with those literary treasures 
 which had contributed so largely both to his happiness and his 
 fame. It was under the influence of these feelings that [the] sonnet 
 was written.' {^The Life of William Roscoe, by his Son, Henry 
 Roscoe, 1833, ii, 112). It is somewhat remarkable that a form of 
 verse so peculiarly the favourite of studious men as the Sonnet 
 should not more frequently have been dedicated to ' the honour of 
 books.' Sublime in conception, and perfect in form, Roscoe's 
 sonnet is unapproached by anything in the language on a similar 
 theme. An affinity of subject therefore is my only reason for coupling 
 it here with the following by a gifted lady who preferred to write 
 her sonnets in the ' Shakspearian stanza,' as to her mind 'abetter 
 English model than that adopted by Milton' {The Dream, and 
 Other Poems. By the Honble. Airs. Norton, 1840, p. 290) : — 
 TO MV BOOKS. 
 Silent companions of the lonely hour. 
 Friends, who can never alter or forsake, 
 Who for inconstant roving have no power, 
 And all neglect, perforce, must calmly take, — 
 Let me return to You ; this turmoil ending 
 Which worldly cares have in my spirit wrought. 
 And, o'er your old familiar pages bending. 
 Refresh my mind with many a tranquil thought : 
 Till, haply meeting there, from time to time, 
 Fancies, the audible echo of my own, 
 'Twill be like hearing in a foreign clime 
 Aly native language spoke in friendly tone. 
 And with a sort of welcome I shall dwell 
 On these, my unripe musings, told so well. 
 
 Caroline E. S. Stirling-Maxwell.^ 
 
 ' 2-3. Cp. Barry Cornwall to his Books (Bryan Waller Procter: An Autobio- 
 graphical Fragment, &c., 1877, p. 236) ; 
 
 ' O friends, whom chance and change can never harm.'
 
 Notes 361 
 
 f elat paria Scilillhtms. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 86 — CLXVIII. From Julia, A Novel ; interspersed with some Poetical 
 Pieces, 1790, i, 204. In a foot-note on this sonnet, to the 'great 
 merit ' of which Wordsworth repeatedly testified, the authoress says 
 {Poems on Various Subjects, &c., 1823, p. 203) : ' I commence the 
 Sonnets with that to Hope, from a predilection in its favour, for 
 which I have a proud reason : it is that of Mr. Wordsworth, who 
 lately honoured me with his visits while at Paris, having repeated 
 it to me from memory, after a lapse of many years.' 
 
 ^rr ^amiTcl ©gcrtoit ^rnbgcs. 
 
 87 — CLXix. First published among his Sonnets and other Poems, 1785, 
 where it is dated Oct. 20, 1782 : given here from the 4th edition of 
 his Poems, 1807. Sir Egerton, whose sonnet, like his pedigree, 
 occasioned him much solicitude during life, never lost an oppor- 
 tunity of telling all about it. In \{\'!, Autobiography {I'i^iA, i, 63) he 
 records : ' About the year 1782 a small pamphlet of poems fell into 
 my hands, by the Rev. John Walters, who had gained an Oxford 
 prize for English verses, of which I forget the title, unless it was 
 " The Bodleian Library." A few short inscriptions, after the 
 Greek manner, pleased me very much ; and there was one line, 
 
 Echo and Silence, sister-maids, 
 which suggested my own sonnet on Echo and Silence.' Elsewhere 
 {Recollections of Foreign Travel, 1825, ii, 17) we find him vindicating 
 his ownership, Coleridge having by mistake assigned the sonnet to 
 ' Henry Brooks [= Brooke], the Author of the Fool of Quality,' 
 [and Custavus Vasa\, in his little Bowles-supplement. ' It ought 
 Xo be original,' says Sir Egerton, ' for it cost me intensity of 
 thought to bring it into so narrow a shape.' Very possibly the 
 pains it cost its author have been but imperfectly appreciated ; but 
 it has surely had more than justice done its poetical merits at the 
 hands of his contemporaries, especially Southey, Wordsworth, and 
 Leigh Hunt, whose commendations ' have not a little availed it for 
 a place in this Anthology. 
 
 87-88 — CLXX-CLXXi. Two of Fourteen Somtets, &c., published anony- 
 mously at Bath, 1789. Bowles's sonnets are still prized in some 
 
 ' Vide Brydges's Autobiography, 1834, ii, 262 ; Wordsworth's Prose Works, 1876, 
 iii, 333 ; and Leigh Hunt's Tendon yournat, ]u\y 23, 1834, p. 134.
 
 362 Notes 
 
 SKilliam IT isle ^ofelcs. 
 
 measure for their own charms as plaintive and graceful effusions, 
 but they possess an interest greatly exceeding their intrinsic value, 
 in virtue of the important influence they chanced to exercise on the 
 poetical taste of his youthful contemporary, S. T. Coleridge, whose 
 instinct was neither untrue nor exceptional ' in hailing Bowles as a 
 pioneer of the coming reform in English poetry, though his ardent 
 temperament led him into an excess of homage at times. '^ His 
 early sonnet-tribute to his poetical benefactor is very fine in its 
 best form, and does his head as well as his heart credit {Poetical 
 Works, 1829, i, 55) : 
 
 My heart has thanked thee; Bowles ! for those soft strains 
 
 Whose sadness soothes me, like the murmuring 
 
 Of wild-bees in the sunny showers of spring ! 
 
 For hence not callous to the mourner's pains 
 
 Through Youth's gay prime and thornless paths I went : 
 
 And when the mightier throes of mind began, 
 
 And drove me forth, a thought-bewildered man ! 
 
 Their mild and manliest melancholy lent 
 
 A mingled charm, such as the pang consigned 
 
 To slumber, though the big tear it renewed ; 
 
 Bidding a strange mysterious Pleasure brood 
 
 Over the wavy and tumultuous mind. 
 
 As the great Spirit erst with plastic sweep 
 
 Moved on the darkness of the unformed deep. 
 
 S. T. Coleridge. 
 
 The following sonnet may be read as a sequel to CLXXi {Sonnets, 
 &c., 2nd ed., Bath, 1789, p. 22): 
 
 1 'We shall never forget,' says another witness (Gefitleinaji's Magazine, 1833, Ft. 
 i, p. 618), 'the delight with which, in our youthful days, the sonnets of J>fr. Boivles 
 were first read by us ; we admired the purity, the tenderness of their thoughts, the fine 
 and delicate selection of the imagery, the touching pathos of the sentiments. Their 
 single fault was that in their subject and flow of verse they were too elegiac' 
 
 2 A copy of the fourth edition of Bowles's Sonnets and Other Poems, ij()6, pre- 
 served in the South Kensington Museum (Dyce Collection), is thus inscribed : 
 
 ' Dear Mrs. Thelwall, 
 
 'I entreat your acceptance of this volume, which has given me more pleasure, 
 and done my heart more good, than all the other books I ever read, excepting my 
 Eible. Whether you approve or condemn my poetical taste, the book will at least 
 serve to remind you of your unseen, yet not the less sincere friend, 
 
 ' Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 
 ' Sunday Morning, 
 
 ' December the eighteenth, 1796.' 
 
 Bound up at the end of the volume is a privately-printed pamphlet of si.xteen pages, 
 containing twenty-eight ' Sonnets from various Authors,' selected by Coleridge 'for the 
 purpose ofbinding them up with the Sonnets of the Rev. W. L. Bowles ; ' and prefaced 
 by some observations on sonnet-writing, which he put forth again the following year 
 in the second edition of his Poems (1797), by way of Introduction to the .Sonnets, which 
 are there humbly introduced as ' attempted in the manner of the Rev. W. L. Bowles.' 
 For fuller details of this very interesting brochure, sse the excellent edition of Cole- 
 ridge's /'(^^'/zcrt/ ^wrf Z'>-a;K«;'/ir M'orks, published by Pickering in 1877 (vol. ii. Ap- 
 pendix, pp. 375-9).
 
 • Notes 363 
 
 PAGE , 
 
 ON LANDING AT OSTEND, JULY 2i, 1787. 
 
 The orient beam illumes the parting oar ; 
 From yonder azure track, emerging white, 
 The earliest sail slow gains upon the sight, 
 And the blue wave comes rippling to the shore ; 
 Meantime far off the rear of darkness flies : 
 Yet 'mid the beauties of the morn, unmov'd, 
 Like one for ever torn from all he lov'd, 
 Towards Albion's heights I turn my longing eyes, 
 Where every pleasure seem'd erevvhile to dwell : 
 Yet boots it not to think or to complain, 
 Musing sad ditties to the reckless main : — 
 To dreams like these, adieu ! — the pealing bell 
 Speaks of the hour that stays not — and the day 
 To life's sad turmoil calls my heart away. 
 
 88 — CLXXII. From Sonnets a7id Other Poems, 6th ed., 1798. Down to 
 a late period of his long life {Scejies and Shadows of Days Departed, 
 &c., 1837) Bowles continued to potter at the text of his sonnets, 
 sometimes for the better, often for the worse. I have mostly ad- 
 hered to the earlier readings. 
 
 Sbomas |liisscll 
 
 Was a young clergyman of remarkable attainments, who died in 1788, 
 while yet in his twenty-sixth year, having been bom at Beaminster, 
 Dorsetshire, in 1762. A story goes that Russell had a weakness for tuft- 
 hunting, and that he died of a broken heart (see The Lounger's Common- 
 place Book, iii, 121, 3rd ed., 1805, and Forster's Life of Landor, 1869, i, 
 194) ; but the anonymous editor of his remains — the Rev. W. Howley, af- 
 tervi'ards Archbishop of Canterbury — mentions consumption as the cause 
 of his death, which took place at the Hotwells, Bristol, whither he had 
 gone for the restoration of his health. Bowles, in an .£'/^^ written there, 
 and inscribed to Howley, recalls Russell sadly as ' the gay companion of 
 our stripling prime,' who had ' sunk unwept into the tomb,' and says : 
 
 ' Hither he came, a wan and weary guest, 
 
 A softening balm for many a wound to crave ; 
 And woo'd the sunshine to his aching breast, 
 Which now seems smiling on his verdant grave.' 
 
 Unmerited neglect would seem to be the natural penalty of unmerited or 
 exaggerated praise, and that Russell is paying. Southey once named him 
 ' the best English Sonnet-writer,' and Bishop Mant in his edition of 
 Warton's Poetical tVorks {1802, ii, 23) avers that ' there are no better 
 sonnets in the English language than Russell's ; ' while Landor in his 
 Simonidea, 1806 (quoted by Forster — Walter Savage Landor : A Bio- 
 graphy, 1869, ii, 8), describes our second example as ' a poem on Phil- 
 octetes by a Mr. Russell which would authorise him to join the shades of
 
 364 Notes • 
 
 eljontHS Russell. 
 
 Sophocles and Euripides,' — praise in which Wordsworth, who touches 
 on the subject in a letter to Landor {ibid., p. 9), seems to have concurred. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 89 — CLXXiii. This sonnet, the only one of Russell's given by Capel 
 Lofft in his copious but inaccurate and ill-assorted anthology Zaz^nz 
 (1813-1814), may be taken as a good example of the purely elegiac 
 type. 
 
 CLXXiv. ' The whole of this is exquisite. Nothing can be more 
 like Milton' than the close of it. When the first seats are taken by 
 the great masters in the poetical art, we shall often be more grati- 
 fied by those who are contented to place themselves and sing at 
 their feet, than by others whose only ambition it is to have a chair of 
 their own.' — H. F. Cary {Notices of Miscellaneous English Poets : 
 Memoir, &c., by his Son, 1847, ii, 297). 
 Wordsworth, writing to Dyce in 1833, has some excellent remarks 
 on sonnet-writing which find an appropriate place under the illustration 
 he adduces {Prose Works, iii, 333) : ' It should seem that the sonnet, 
 like every other legitimate composition, ought to have a beginning, a 
 middle, and an end ; in other words, to consist of three parts, like the 
 three propositions of a syllogism, if such an illustration may be used. But 
 the frame of metre adopted by the Italians does not accord with this 
 view ; and, as adhered to by them, it seems to be, if not arbitrary, best 
 fitted to a division of the sense into two parts, of eight and six lines each. 
 Milton, however, has not submitted to this ; in the better half of his son- 
 nets the sense does not close with the rhyme at the eighth line, but over- 
 flows into the second portion of the metre. Now it has struck me that this 
 is not done merely to gratify the ear by variety and freedom of sound, but 
 also to aid in giving that pervading sense of intense unity in which the ex- 
 cellence of the sonnet has always seemed to me mainly to consist. Instead 
 of looking at this composition as a piece of architecture, making a whole 
 out of three parts, I have been much in the habit of preferring the image 
 of an orbicular body, — a sphere, or a dew-drop. All this will appear to 
 you a little fanciful ; and I am well aware that a sonnet will often be 
 found excellent, where the beginning, the middle, and the end are dis- 
 tinctly marked, and also where it is distinctly separated into t7vo parts, 
 to which, as I before observed, the strict Italian model, as they write it, 
 is favourable. Of this last construction of sonnet, Russell's upon " Phil- 
 octetes " is a fine specimen : the first eight lines give the hardship of the 
 case, the six last the consolation, or the per-co7itra.' With Russell's 
 
 ' In a copy of Russell which has been preserved, containing MS. marginalia by 
 Gary's friend and correspondent Anna Seward, the present sonnet is marked — ' A fine 
 and truly Miltonic sonnet,' and line 6 — 'A fine picture.'
 
 Notes 365 
 
 compare Wordsworth's own sonnet on Philoctetes {Poetical Works, 
 1832, ii, 194), beginning 
 
 'When Philoctetes in the Lemnian Isle,' 
 in which the subject receives characteristically different treatment. I 
 add a third example from Russell {Sonnets and Miscellaneous Poems , by 
 the late Thomas Russell, Fellow of New College ; Oxford, 17S9, p. 10). 
 It is one to which Wordsworth draws Dyce's special attention in the 
 same letter, and of which he borrowed the closing lines for one of his 
 lona sonnets, composed or suggested in 1S33. Miss Seward in her 
 copy of Russell calls it ' A sweet sonnei:,' and Coleridge seems to have 
 regarded it as constituting its author's sole title to the honour of asso- 
 ciation with Mr. Bowles. 
 
 Could then the Babes from yon unshelter'd cot 
 Implore thy passing charity in vain ? 
 Too thoughtless Youth ! what tho' thy liappier lot 
 Insult their life of poverty and pain ! 
 What tho' their Maker doom'd them thus forlorn 
 To brook the mockery of the taunting throng, 
 Beneath th' Oppressor's iron scourge to mourn. 
 To mourn, but not to murmur at his wrong ! 
 Yet when their last late evening shall decline, 
 Their evening chearful, tho' their day distrest, 
 A Hope perhaps more heavenly-bright than thine, 
 A Grace by thee unsought, and unpossest, 
 A Faith more fix'd, a Rapture more divine 
 Shall gild their passage to eternal Rest. 
 
 ISUlliam SSlorbsborllj. 
 
 ' The Sonnets (with the exception of the Ecclesiastical series) bear 
 witness more directly perhaps than any of Mr.' Wordsworth's other 
 writings, to a principle which he has asserted of poetical, as strongly as 
 Lord Bacon of physical philosophy— the principle that the Muse is to 
 be the servant and interpreter of Nature. Some fact, transaction, ornat- 
 tural object, gives birth to almost every one of them. He does not search 
 his mind for subjects; he goes forth into the world and they present them- 
 selves. His mind lies open to nature with an ever^wakeful susceptibility, 
 and an impulse from without will send it far into the regions of thought; 
 but it seldom goes to work upon itself. It is not celibate, but 
 " wedded to this goodly universe 
 In love and holy passion " — 
 of which union poetry is the legitimate offspring ; and it is owing to 
 
 1 ' In the year 1834 Wordsworth was naturally so designated. In this year of 1878 
 to write of ^/r. Wordsworth would be as absurd as to write oiMr. Milton. —Note, 1878-
 
 366 Notes 
 
 this love and passion that the most ordinary incidents and objects have 
 inspired an interest in the poet, and that so soon as the impassioned 
 character of his mind had made itself felt and understood, he was 
 enabled to convey the same interest to his readers. . , . The Sonnets 
 have not, like many of the other poems, peculiarities of manner which 
 whilst they charm one reader will repel another; they are highly-finished 
 compositions distinguished, as regards the diction, only by an aptitude 
 which can hardly fail to be approved, whatever may be the particular 
 taste of the reader ; and they are at the same time so varied in subject 
 and sentiment, that specimens might be adduced from them of almost 
 every kind of serious poetry to which the sonnet can lend itself. . . . 
 Yet bright and ornate as many of them are, there is in them, no less 
 than in his other poems, an invariable abstinence from antitheses and 
 false effects. There is hardly one of these three or four hundred Son- 
 nets ' which ends in a point. Pointed lines will sometimes occur in the 
 course of them, as thought will sometimes naturally take a pointed shape 
 in the mind ; but whether it takes that shape or another is obviously 
 treated as a matter of indifference; nothing is sacrificed to it; and at the 
 close of the sonnet, where the adventitious effect of the point might be 
 apt to outshine the intrinsic value of the subject, it seems to have been 
 studiously avoided. Mr. Wordsworth's sonnet never goes off, as it were, 
 with a clap or repercussion at the close ; but is thrown up like a rocket, 
 breaks into light, and falls in a soft shower of brightness.'— &>A^mrv 
 Taylor. From two critical Essays on Wordsworth (written in 1834 and 
 1841) : Notes from Books, 1849, as revised in his Works, vol. v, 1878. 
 
 ' Wordsworth, the greatest of modem poets, is perhaps the greatest 
 of English sonnet writers. Not only has he composed a larger number 
 of sonnets than any other of our poets ; he has also written more that are 
 of first-rate excellence. There is no intensity of passion in Wordsworth's 
 sonnets; andhereinhediffersfrom Shakespeare, andfrom Mrs.Browning, 
 for whose sonnets the reader may feel an enthusiastic admiration that 
 Wordsworth's thoughtful and calm verse rarely excites ; neither has he 
 attained the " dignified simplicity " which marks the sonnets of Milton; 
 but for purity of language, for variety and strength of thought, for the 
 curiosa felicitas of poetical diction, for the exquisite skill with which he 
 associates the emotions of the mind and the aspects of nature, we know of 
 no sonnet writer who can take precedence of Wordsworth. In his larger 
 poems his language is sometimes slovenly, and occasionally, as Sir Walter 
 Scott said, he chooses to walk on all-fours ; but this is rarely the case in 
 the sonnets, and though he wrote upwards of four hundred, there are few, 
 
 • ' That is, those which had been published before \Z\T..'—Note, 1878.
 
 Notes 367 
 
 save those on the Punishment of Death ' and some of those called Eccle- 
 siastical (for neither argument nor dogma find a fitting place in verse) 
 that we could willingly part with. Wordsworth's belief that the language 
 of the common people may be used as the language of poetry was totally 
 inoperative when he composed a sonnet. He wrote at such times in the 
 best diction he could command, and the language like the thought is tliat 
 of a great master. The sonnets embrace almost every theme, except the 
 one to which this branch of the poetical art has been usually dedicated. 
 Some of the noblest are consecrated to liberty, some describe with incom- 
 parable felicity the personal feelings of the writer; some might be termed 
 simply descriptive, were it not that even these are raised above the rank 
 of descriptive poetry by the pure and lofty imagination of the poet. The 
 light that never was on sea or land pervades the humblest of these 
 pieces, and throughout them there is inculcated a cheerful, because 
 divine, philosophy.' — John Dennis^ 
 
 Unless stated otherwise, the text adopted in these selections is that 
 of the Trustees' edition of the Poetical Works, six volumes, 1857 ; while 
 the order obsei-ved (except in the case of the four Personal Talk sonnets, 
 pp. 90-gi, which I have restored to their original independent position) 
 is that of the six-volumed edition of 1858 — an order partly classificatory 
 and partly chronological. As regards sources, it has been thought suffi- 
 cient to cite the author's own books, and not the various periodicals, 
 in which the poems first appeared, — information which, when not 
 given in separate notes, is indicated by italicised figures in parentheses 
 after the marginal numerals. 
 
 PAGE . 
 
 90 — CLXXV. With this may be read a sonnet by the author of Mill and 
 Carlyle, which I find hidden away in an old number of Howitt'5 
 People's Journal (July, 1846). It is an echo such as Words- 
 worth's lines might have called forth from Charles Lamb's 
 
 FIRESIDE. 
 The pur-pur-purring of my lonely fire 
 As of a creature pleased, for me this night 
 Beloved of gentle thoughts, hath strange delight ; 
 And as its voice and warmth do win me nigher, 
 Forth from my breast is gone all vain desire — 
 Which souls may cherish in their own despite — 
 Of Fame, or meaner Wealth, or Worldly might. 
 And I have breath in humbler air, yet higher. 
 
 » It is in reference to these that Mrs. Browning says truly (Enghsh Foets,T'&(n„ 
 p. 204) : 'We turn away from them to other sonnets— to forget aught in Mr. Words- 
 worth's poetry we must turn to his poetry :-and however the greatest poets of our 
 country ,-theShakespeares, Spensers, Miltons.-worked upon high sonnet-ground, 
 not one opened over it such broad and pouring sluices of various thought, imagery, 
 and emphatic eloquence as he has done.' 
 
 2 English Sonnets: A Selection., 1873, p. 220.
 
 368 Notes 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ^aiiHrn Ktorbsbod^. 
 
 A world of Household peace is in this sound, 
 A sound in many a home now haply heard, 
 Like intermitted warblings of a bird, 
 Between the shouts of happy children round ; 
 Let not in me so stern a heart be found 
 But thinking thus it should be gently stirred. 
 
 Patrick Proctor Alexander. 
 Ql — CLXXVII, 13. ' I have heard him pronounce that the Tragedy of 
 Othello, Plato's records of the last scenes of the career of Socrates, 
 and Izaak Walton's Life of George Herbert, were in his opinion the 
 most pathetic of human compositions.' — Rev. R. P. Graves {Me- 
 moirs of William Wordsworth, by Christopher Wordsworth, D.D., 
 1851, ii, 482 ; or Prose Works, 1876, iii, 468). 
 90-91 — CLXXV-CLXXViii {1807). 'Written at Town-End. The last 
 line but two [CLXXV] stood at first, better and more characteris- 
 tically, thus : 
 
 " By my half-kitchen and half-parlour fire." 
 My sister and I were in the habit of having the tea-kettle in our 
 little sitting-room ; and we toasted the bread ourselves, which 
 reminds me of a little circumstance not unworthy of being set down 
 among these minutiae. Happening both of us to be engaged a few 
 minutes one morning, when we had a young prig of a Scotch lawyer 
 to breakfast with us, my dear sister, with her usual simplicity put 
 the toasting-fork with a slice of bread into the hands of this Edin- 
 burgh genius. Our little book-case stood on one side of the fire. 
 To prevent loss of time, he took down a book, and fell to reading, 
 to the neglect of the toast, which was burnt to a cinder. Many a 
 time have we laughed at this circumstance and other cottage sim- 
 plicities of that day. By the bye, I have a spite at one of this 
 series of sonnets (I will leave the reader to discover which), as 
 having been the means of nearly putting off for ever our acquaint- 
 ance with dear Miss Fenwick, who has always stigmatised one line 
 of it as vulgar, and worthy only of having been composed by a 
 country squire.' — Pjvse Works, 1876, iii, 162. 
 92 — CLXXIX {1807), 13. So in the Ode to Duty : 
 
 ' Me this unchartered freedom tires ; 
 I feel the weight of chance-desires.' 
 With Wordsworth's verse compare Daniel's prose {A Defence of 
 Ryme, ed. 1603, sm. 8vo.) : ' And indeede I have wished there 
 were not that multiplicity of Rymes as is used by many in Sonets, 
 which yet wee see in some so happily to succeede, and hath bin so 
 farre from hindring their inventions, as it hath begot conceit beyond
 
 Notes 369 
 
 PAGE 
 
 expectation, and comparable to the best inventions of the world : 
 for sure in an eminent spirite whom nature hath fitted for that 
 mystery, Ryme is no impediment to his conceile, but rather gives 
 him wings to mount, and carries him not out of his course, but as 
 it were beyonde his power to a farre happyer flight. All excel- 
 lencies beeing solde us at the harde price of labour, it followcs, 
 where we bestow most thereof, we buy the best successe : and Ryme 
 being farre more laborious than loose measures (whatsoever is ob- 
 jected) must needes, meeting with wit and industry, breed greater 
 and worthier effects in our language. So that if our labours have 
 wrought out a manumission from bondage, and that wee go at 
 liberty, notwithstanding these ties, we are no longer the slaves of 
 Ryme, but we make it a most excellent instrument to serve us. 
 Nor is this certaine limit observed in Sonnets, any tyrannicall 
 bounding of the conceit, but rather a reducing it in girum, and a 
 just forme, neither too long for the shortest project, nor too short 
 for the longest, being but only imploied for a present passion. For 
 the body of our imagination, being as an unformed Chaos, without 
 fashion, without day, if by the divine power of the spirit it be 
 wrought into an Orbe of order & forme, is it not more pleasing to 
 nature, that desires a certainty, & comports not with that which 
 is infinit, to have these clozes, rather than not to know where to 
 end, or how far to go, especially seeing our passions are often with- 
 out measure : & we finde the best of the Latines many times, either 
 not concluding, or els otherwise in the end then they began. Be- 
 sides, is it not most delightfuU to see much excellently ordered in 
 a smal roome, or little gallantly disposed and made to fill up a 
 space of like capacity in such sort, that the one would not appeare 
 so beautiful in a larger circuit, nor the other doe well in a lesse : 
 which often we finde to be so, according to the powers of nature, in 
 the workeman. And these limited proportions, & rests of Stanzes: 
 consisting of 6, 7, or 8 lines, are of that happines, both for the 
 disposition of the matter, the apt planting the sentence where 
 it may best stand to hit the certaine close of delight with the full 
 body of a just period well carried, is such as neither the Greekes 
 or Latines ever attained unto. For their boundlesse running on, 
 often so confounds the Reeder, that having once lost himself e, must 
 eyther give off unsatisfied, or uncertainely cast backe to retrive the 
 escaped sence, and to finde way againe into his matter.' 
 92 — CLXXx(i507). Version of 1827 — except 1. 14. ' Intended more par- 
 ticularly for the perusal of those who have happened to be enamoured 
 of some beautiful place of retreat in the Country of the Lakes.' — 
 Pr. IV., iii, 53. Cp. another of the itinerary sonnets, in which the 
 Y
 
 370 Notes 
 
 SStillmm SStorbsfaort^. 
 
 PAGE . 
 
 subject is treated in Wordsworth's later and inferior manner ( Yar- 
 row Revisited, &c., 1835, p. 21) : 
 
 HIGHLAND HUT. 
 See what gay wild flowers deck this earth-built Cot, 
 "Whose smoke, forth-issuing whence and how it may, 
 Shines in the greeting of the Sun's first ray 
 Like wreathes of vapour without stain or blot. 
 The limpid mountain rill avoids it not ; 
 And why shouldst thou ? — If rightly trained and bred, 
 Humanity is humble, — finds no spot 
 Which her Heaven-guided feet refuse to tread. 
 The walls are cracked, sunk is the flowery roof, 
 Undressed the pathway leading to the door ; 
 But love, as Nature loves, the lonely poor ; 
 Search for their worth, some gentle heart wrong-proof, 
 Meek, patient, kind ; and, were its trials fewer. 
 Belike less happy. — Stand no more aloof ! ^ 
 g3— CLXXXI {1827). ' This rill trickles down the hillside into Winder- 
 mere near Lowood. My sister and I, on our first visit together to 
 this part of the country, walked from Kendal, and we rested to 
 refresh ourselves by the side of the Lake where the streamlet falls 
 into it. This sonnet was written some years after in recollection of 
 that happy ramble, that most happy day and hour.'— /'r. W., iii, 53. 
 Prof. Knight's identification of this 'rill' {English Lake District as 
 hiterpreted in the Poems of Wordsworth, 1878, p. 135) is corrected 
 by Dr. Dowden in The Academy, Feb. i, 1879 : ' I learn from the 
 Rev. R. P. Graves, on the authority of either Wordsworth or Mrs. 
 Wordsworth, that the little rill is one which comes down from 
 Wansfell, and which may be found at the left-hand side of the 
 approach leading to Dovenest from the road.' L. 5. Cp. CXCVI, 
 12. L. 13. Cp. Nutting : 
 
 ' One of those heavenly days that cannot die.' 
 CLXXXii {1815). ' This was written when we dwelt in the Parson- 
 age at Grasmere. The principal features of the picture are Bredon 
 Hill and Cloud Hill, near Coleorton. I shall never forget the happy 
 feeling with which my heart was filled when I was impelled to com- 
 pose this sonnet. We resided only two years in this house ; and 
 during the last half of this time, which was after this poem had been 
 written, we lost our two children, Thomas and Catherine. Our 
 
 ' In a note on this sonnet, which, as will be observed, describes the exterior of a 
 Highland hut, the poet extracts from the (then) MS. journal of his fellow-traveller a 
 fine description of the interior of one of these dwellings, which will be found at pp. 
 102-105 of the now published Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland, A. D. 1803, 
 by Dorothy Wordsworth. Edin., 1874.
 
 Notes -J -J I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 sorrow upon these events often brought it to my mind, and cast me 
 upon the support to which the last line of it gives expression : 
 
 " The appropriate calm of blest eternity." 
 It is scarcely necessary to add that we still possess the picture.'— 
 Fr. IV., iii, 54. An earlier reference to the same picture and poem 
 occurs in a letter from the author to the artist, dated ' August 28, 
 1811, Cottage, 7 minutes' walk from the seaside, near Bootle. Cum- 
 berland: ' — 'Over the chimney-piece is hung your little picture, from 
 the neighbourhood of Coleorton. In our other house, on account 
 of the frequent fits of smoke from the chimneys, both the pictures 
 which I have from your hand were confined to bed-rooms. A few 
 days after I had enjoyed the pleasure of seeing, in different moods 
 of mind, your Coleorton landscape from my fire-side, it suggested io 
 me the following sonnet, which, having walked out to the side of 
 Grasmere brook, where it murmurs through the meadows near the 
 church, I composed immediately.' — Id., ii, 159. 
 94— CLXXxiv, 2-3. In ' Morpheus house ' as described by Spenser 
 {Faerie Queene, i, i, 41), there was heard ' no other noyse ' than 
 
 ' A trickling streame from high rock tumbling downe. 
 And ever-drizling raine upon the loft, 
 Mixt with a murmuring winde, much like the sowne 
 Of swarming Bees.' 
 
 The sleep-allurements enumerated in this sonnet are not all tradi- 
 tional poetical property. I've (1807) : preferable here to the ' I 
 have ' of other versions. 
 
 CLXXXiii-CLXXXiv {mOT). See reference p. 254. 
 95— CLXXXV {1819). 
 
 CLXXXVi {1819). ' I could write a treatise of lamentation upon 
 the changes brought about among the cottages of Westmoreland by 
 the silence of the spinning-wheel. During long winter's nights and 
 wet days, the wheel upon which wool was spun gave employment 
 to a great part of a family. The old man, however infirm, was able 
 to card the wool, as he sate in the corner by the fire-side; and often, 
 when a boy, have I admired the cylinders of carded wool which 
 were softly laid upon each other by his side. Tv/o wheels were 
 often at work on the same floor, and others of the family, chiefly the 
 little children, were occupied in teazing and clearing the wool to fit 
 it for the hand of the carder. So that all, except the infants, were 
 contributing to mutual support. Such was the employment that pre- 
 vailed in the pastoral vales. Where wool was not at hand, in the 
 small rural towns, the wheel for spinning flax was almost in as con- 
 stant use, if knitting was not preferred ; which latter occupation had
 
 372 
 
 Notes 
 
 PAGE 
 
 the advantage (in some cases disadvantage) that not being of neces- 
 sity stationary, it allowed of gossiping about from house^to house, 
 which good housewives reckoned an idle thing.' — Pr. IV., iii, 55. 
 In connection with this and the sonnet which follows it in the same 
 series, beginning ' Excuse is needless,' read the 8th and gth Books 
 of T/ie Excursion, where the subject of mechanical labour is dis- 
 cussed, and the favourable and unfavourable effects of the ' manu- 
 facturing spirit ' set forth. 
 96 — CLXXXVii {1815). ' This was in fact suggested by my daughter 
 Catherine long after her death.' — Fr. IV., iii, 56. 
 
 CLXXXViiI (i5C7-version adopted). ' This was coi^jposed on the 
 beach near Calais, in the autumn of 1802.' — Fr. IV., iii, 56, The 
 very characteristic sonnet immediately following this in the series 
 may be given here {Foems, 1807, i, 106) : 
 
 . Where lies the Land to which yon Ship must go ? 
 Festively she puts forth in trim array, 
 As vigorous as a Lark at break of day : • 
 Is she for tropic suns, or polar snow ? 
 What boots the enquiry ? — Neither friend nor foe 
 She cares for ; let her travel where she may, 
 She finds familiar names, a beaten way 
 Ever before her, and a wind to blow. 
 Yet still I ask, what Haven is her mark ? 
 And, almost as it was when ships were rare, 
 (From time to time, like Pilgrims, here and there 
 Crossing the waters), doubt, and something dark. 
 Of the old Sea some reverential fear. 
 Is with me at thy farewell, joyous Bark ! ' 
 97 — cLXXXix {1807), 10-14. Note the repeated recollections of Spen- 
 ser here {Colin Clouts come home againe, 245) : 
 
 . . . ' Triton, blowing loud his wreathed home.' 
 Line 248 introduces Proteus, and 283 ends with 'pleasant lea.' 
 Wordsworth's penultimate line recalls Milton also {Paradise Lost, 
 
 iii, 603) : . . . ' and call up unbound 
 
 In various shapes old Proteus from the sea.' 
 
 ' The latter part of this sonnet has been misapprehended by some 
 persons, who have supposed that pagan superstitions were com- 
 mended absolutely, and not merely as being better thair a total 
 absence of devotional and natural sentiment. All that Mr. Words- 
 worth contends for, is a preference for Triton or Proteus to Mam- 
 mon.' — Sir Henry Taylor's Notes from Books, 1849, p. 154. 
 
 ' I may remind the reader of the fine echo which thissonnet evoked from Arthur Hugh 
 Clough half a century later, on the bosom of the Atlantic. {Poems, 2nd ed., 1863, p. 82.)
 
 Notes 373 
 
 PAGE 
 
 97 — CXC {1837). Cp. Hartley Coleridge, cccxix, p. 162, 
 
 98 — CXCI {1827), 7-9. One of the most remarkable English poems on 
 
 Dante with which I am acquainted is in sonnet-form {lo in Egypt, 
 
 and Other Poems, 1859, p. 58): 
 
 Poet, whose unscarr'd feet have trodden Hell, 
 
 By what grim path and dread environing 
 
 Of fire couldst thou that dauntless footstep bring 
 
 And plant it firm amid the dolorous cell 
 
 Of darkness where perpetually dwell 
 
 The spirits cursed beyond imagining ? • 
 
 Or else is thine a visionary wing, 
 
 And all thy terror but a tale to tell ? 
 
 Neither and both, thou seeker ! I have been 
 
 No wilder path than thou thyself dost go, 
 
 Close mask'd in an impenetrable screen, 
 
 Which having rent I gaze around, and know 
 
 What tragic wastes of gloom, before unseen. 
 
 Curtain the soul that strives and sins below. 
 
 Richard Gamett. 
 
 A very interesting echo of Wordsworth's sonnet in like form occurs 
 in a recent volume of American verse {The Poet and his Master, 
 and Other Poems. New York, 1879) : 
 
 What is a Sonnet ? 'Tis the pearly shell 
 
 That murmurs of the far-off, murmuring sea ; 
 
 A precious jewel carved most curiously ; 
 
 It is a little picture painted well. 
 
 What is a Sonnet ? 'Tis the tear that fell 
 
 From a great poet's hidden ecstasy ; 
 
 A two-edged sword, a star, a song — ah me ! 
 
 Sometimes a heavy tolling funeral bell. 
 
 This was the flame that shook with Dante's breath ; 
 
 The solemn organ whereon Milton played, 
 
 And the clear glass where Shakspeare's shadow falls : 
 
 A sea this is — beware who ventureth ! 
 
 For like a fjord the narrow floor is laid 
 
 Deep as mid ocean to the sheer mountain walls. 
 
 Richard IVatson Gilder. 
 
 98 — CXCII {1816). . . . ' Many of Wordsworth's so-called sonnets are 
 not sonnets at all, according to the Italian definition ; but it must 
 also be added, that whenever he submits to that definition, whether 
 consciously or not, and has some respect for the harmony of the 
 form, the thought becomes more sharply defined and elaborated, 
 and the result is not only Wordsworth's best sonnet, but an English 
 sonnet deserving of the name. If I were called upon to justify 
 this statement by an example, I should be disposed to cite the 
 sonnet to Haydon. It is regularly built up according to the first 
 type [as expressed by the formula 122 i, 1221; 345, 34 5]—
 
 374 
 
 Notes 
 
 ^rllinm '^orbsborllr. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 the second quatrain terminates in a full point, and the tercets in 
 alternate rhjine lead happily to a noble conclusion.' — Charles 
 Tomlinson {The Sonnet : its Origin, &c., 1874, p. 78). 
 gg — CXCili {1816), 9-14. ' This conclusion has more than once, to my 
 great regret, excited painfully sad feelings in the hearts of young 
 persons fond of poetry and poetic composition by contrast of their 
 feeble and declining health with that state of robust constitution 
 which proApted me to rejoice in a season of frost and snow as 
 more favourable to the Muses than summer itself.' — Fr. IV., iii, 58. 
 cxciv {1827). ' Written on a journey from Brinsop Court, Here- 
 fordshire.' — Pr. IV., iii, 59. LI. 1-2. The words quoted are Cow- 
 per's {The Task, ii, 2S5). Compare the different treatment of a 
 li\-ing master of the sonnet {Poems, 1870, p. 210) : 
 BROKEN MUSIC. 
 The mother will not turn, who thinks she hears 
 Her nursling's speech first grow articulate ; 
 But breathless with averted eyes elate 
 She sits, with open lips and open ears, 
 That it may call her twice. 'Mid doubts and fears 
 Thus oft my soul has hearkened ; till the song, 
 A central moan for days, at length found tongue, 
 And the sweet music welled and the sweet tears. 
 But now, whatever while the soul is fain 
 To list that wonted murmur, as it were 
 The speech-bound sea-shell's low importunate strain, — 
 No breath of song, thy voice alone is there, 
 O bitterly beloved ! and all her gain 
 Is but the pang of unpermitted prayer. 
 
 Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 
 
 100 — cxcv {I8I0). . . . ' Composed on the roof of a coach, on my way 
 to France, September, 1802.'— /"n W., iii, 60. Wordsworth was 
 on his way home from France in September, 1802 : see succeeding 
 note. 
 
 CXCTT {ISOT), 4-5. Ps. civ, 2 : ' Thou coverest thyself with light 
 as with a garment.' 12. Cf. CLXXXI, 5, for a variation of the 
 personal metaphor, or 'pathetic fallacy,' as Mr. Ruskin terms it 
 {Modern Painters, iii, chap. xii). This sonnet, though ' composed' 
 on the return journey in September, was doubtless cmueived on the 
 roof of the Dover coach, as the poet and his sister were on their 
 way to the Continent. In a diary which she kept on the journey, 
 Miss Wordsworth thus describes the scene under date July 30, 1802 
 {Memoirs of William Wordsworth, i, 186):—' Left London between 
 five and six o'clock of the morning outside the Dover coach. A 
 beautiful morning. The city, St. Paul's, with the river— a multi-
 
 Notes 375 
 
 PAGE 
 
 tude of little boats, made a beautiful sight as we crossed WestminsUr 
 Bridge, the houses not overhung by their clouds of smoke, and were 
 spread out endlessly ; yet the sun shone so brightly, with such a 
 pure light, that there was something like the purity of one of 
 Nature's own grand spectacles.' 
 lOi — cxcvii {1827). ' This parsonage was the residence of my friend 
 Jones, and is particularly described in another note.' — Fr. IV., iii, 
 60. For the description see ibid., 136. Henry Reed {Lectures, 
 &c. , ii, 248) remarks the great merit of this sonnet as ' a piece of 
 landscape description, illuminated with a verj- rich moral light.' 
 
 cxcviii {1S37). ' Lady Fitzgerald as described to me by Lady 
 Beaumont.' — Fr. IF., iii, 62. The sonnet maybe paired with the 
 next in the series {Foetical Works, 1827, ii, 346, as amended 1S32) : 
 TO ROTH A QUILLINAN. 
 Rotha, my Spiritual Child ! this head was grey 
 When at the sacred Font for Thee I stood : 
 Pledged till thou reach the verge of womanhood. 
 And shalt become thy own sufficient stay : 
 Too late, I feel, sweet Orphan ! was the day 
 For stedfast hope the contract to fulfil ; 
 Yet shall my blessing hover o'er thee still, 
 Embodied in the music of this Lay, 
 Breathed forth beside the peaceful mountain Stream 
 Whose murmur soothed thy languid Mother's ear 
 After her throes, this Stream of name more dear 
 Since thou dost bear it, — a memorial theme 
 For others ; for thy future self, a spell 
 To summon fancies out of Time's dark cell.' 
 
 102 — cxcix {1835). ' In the month of January [blank], when Dora and 
 I were walking from Town-End, Grasmere, across the vale, snow 
 being on the ground, she espied in the thick though leafless hedge 
 a bird's-nest half filled with snow. Out of this comfortless appear- 
 ance arose this Sonnet, which was, in fact, Avritten without the least 
 reference to any individual object, but merely to prove to myself that 
 I could, if I thought fit, write in a strain that poets have been fond 
 of. On the 14th of February in the same year, my daughter, in a 
 sportive mood, sent it as a Valentine under a fictitious name to her 
 cousin C. W.' — Fr. IV., iii, 64. ' Wordsworth, who had to guard 
 against a tendency to be redundant and discursive, found the form 
 convenient, and gathered his thoughts into sonnets, as a reaper 
 gathers the corn into sheaves : and though his nature was vehement, 
 it was a governed ardour only that was permitted to appear in his 
 verse; and when he sang of love, it was " such love as spirits feel," — 
 
 * ' Rotha, the daughter of my son-in-law Mr. Quillinan.' L. 9. ' The river Rotha, 
 that flows into Windermere from the Lakes of Grasmere and Rydal.' — /V. H'., iii, 62,
 
 PAGE 
 
 376 Notes ^ 
 
 MHIiam lEorbsborllj. 
 
 too impersonal tobeimpassioned. I ventured once to askhim whether 
 it was not otherwise in the case of the sonnet beginning, " Why art 
 thou silent ? " " No," he said, " merely an act of the intellect." ' — 
 Sir Henry Taylor (Essay on Aubrey De Vere's Poems : Works, v, 
 1878, p. 140). In an article on Charles Tennyson Turner in The 
 Nineteenth a'«/z<;7 for September, 1879, Mr. Spedding adduces this 
 sonnet in illustration of his proposition that ' the necessity of forcing 
 the thought into the frame has spoiled many good sonnets ; ' con- 
 tending that the last six lines, which he believes were composed first, 
 are the essential portion of the sonnet, and would be much better 
 without the first eight, which he believes ' were put in after, not 
 because the expression of the thought, but only because the form of 
 the sonnet, required them.' Mr. Spedding's criticism involves a con- 
 tradiction of terms— in fact, a bull. Before a sonnet can be ' spoiled ' 
 it must be a sonnet. A sonnet consists of fourteen lines. Discard 
 any one of the objectionable eight lines, and where is the sonnet? 
 
 102— cc {1838 : The Sonnets. Collected in one volume, with a few addi- 
 tional ones, now first published). 
 
 103 — cci {I842). Manifestly descriptive of Miss Gillies's portrait of 
 Dora Wordsworth (Mrs. Quillinan), of which an engraving by 
 Armytage is prefixed to the second volume of the Memoirs, 1851. 
 At page 342 of same volume we learn that the next two sonnets in 
 the series refer to a portrait of Mrs. Wordsworth. {Poems, Chiefly 
 of Eaj'ly and Late Years; &c., 1842, pp. 227-8): 
 
 TO A PAINTER. 
 I. 
 
 All praise the Likeness by thy skill portrayed ; 
 
 But 'tis a fruitless task to paint for me, 
 
 Who, yielding not to changes Time has made. 
 
 By the habitual light of memory see 
 
 Eyes unbedimmed, see bloom that cannot fade. 
 
 And smiles that from their birth-place ne'er shall flee 
 
 Into the land where ghosts and phantoms be ; 
 
 And, seeing this, own nothing in its stead. 
 
 Couldst thou go back into far-distant years. 
 
 Or share with me, fond thought ! that inward eye — 
 
 Then, and then only, Painter ! could thy Art 
 
 The visual powers of Nature satisfy. 
 
 Which hold, whate'er to common sight appears, 
 
 Their sovereign empire in a faithful heart.' 
 
 1 'The picture which gave occasion to this and the following Sonnet was from the 
 pencil of Miss M. Gillies, who resided for several weeks under our roof at Rydal 
 Mount.'— /'r.;r.,iii, 65. ' Written after thirty-six years of wedded life,' they testify, 
 'in the language of the heart, that age does not impair true beauty., but adds new 
 graces to it ; in a word, that genuine beauty enjoys eternal youth.' {Memoirs, i, 205).
 
 Notes 377 
 
 ON THE SAME SUBJECT. 
 
 2 
 
 Though I beheld at first with blank surprise J 
 
 This Work, I now have gazed on it so long 
 I see its truth with unreluctant eyes : 
 
 my Beloved ! I have done thee wrong, 
 Conscious of blessedness, but, whence it sprung, 
 Ever too heedless, as I now perceive : 
 
 Morn into noon did pass, noon into eve, * 
 
 And the old day was welcome as the young, 
 As welcome, and as beautiful — in sooth 
 More beautiful, as being a thing more holy : 
 Thanks to thy virtues, to the eternal youth 
 Of all thy goodness, never melancholy ; 
 To thy large heart and humble mind, that cast 
 Into one vision, future, present, past.' 
 103— ecu {mitS). Dated Dec. 24, 1842. ' The Hill that rises to the 
 
 south-east, above Ambleside.'— /'r. W., iii, 65. 
 90-103 — CLXXV-ccii. With the exception of the four first, which 
 belong to the Poems of Sentiment and Reflection, these are 
 from the Miscellaneous Sonnets in Three Parts, of which I 
 subjoin two additional examples. i^The. Waggoner, a Poem. To 
 which are added, Sonnets. i8ig, p. 66) : 
 
 1 watch, and long have watch'd, with calm regret 
 Yon slowly-sinking Star, — immortal Sire 
 
 (So might he seem) of all the glittering quire ! 
 
 Blue ether still surrounds him — yet — and yet ; 
 
 But now the horizon's rocky parapet 
 
 Is reach'd, where, forfeiting his bright attire. 
 
 He burns — transmuted to a sullen fire. 
 
 That droops and dwindles ; and, the appointed debt 
 
 To the flying moments paid, is seen no more. 
 
 Angels and gods ! we struggle with our fate. 
 
 While health, power, glory, pitiably decline, 
 
 Depress'd, and then extinguish'd : and our state 
 
 In this how different, lost Star, from thine. 
 
 That no to-morrow shall our beams restore 1 * 
 
 1 'The tender Palinodia is beyond Petrarch. . . . That " more beautiful" is most 
 beautiful : all human love's cunning is in it. besides the full glorifying smile of Chris- 
 tian love.' — Mrs. Browning {^The Greek Christian Poets, and the English Poets, 
 1863, p. 205). 
 
 * ' Suggested in front of Rydal Mount, the rocky parapet being the summit of 
 Loughrigg Fell opposite. Not once only but a hundred times have the feelings of 
 this sonnet been awakened by the same objects from the same place.' — Pr. W., iii, 
 57. Few poets have expressed the closing sentiment with the simplicity and pathos 
 of Drummond (Poems, 1616, sig. H) : 
 
 ' Woods cut againe doe grow, 
 Budde doth the Rose and Dazie, Winter done. 
 But wee once dead no more doe see the Sunne.' 
 
 Cp. Daniel also, as in the ' Pastorall ' already quoted {ante, p. 327) : 
 ' the sun doth set. and rise againe. 
 But when as our short light 
 Comes once to set, it makes eternall night.'
 
 378 Notes 
 
 PAGE 
 
 {Ibid., p. 62, as amended 1827) : 
 
 TO A SNOW-DROP. 
 
 Lone Flower, hemmed in with snows and white as they, 
 
 But hardier far, once more I see thee bend 
 
 Thy forehead, as if fearful to offend. 
 
 Like an unbidden guest. Though day by day, 
 
 Storms, sallying from the mountain-tops, waylay 
 
 The rising sun, and on the plains descend ; 
 
 Yet art thou welcome, welcome as a friend 
 
 Whose zeal outruns his promise ! Blue-eyed May 
 
 Shall soon behold this border thickly set 
 
 With bright jonquils, their odours lavishing 
 
 On the soft west-wind and his frolic peers ; 
 
 Nor will I then thy modest grace forget. 
 
 Chaste Snow-drop, venturous harbinger of Spring, 
 
 And pensive monitor of fleeting years ! 
 
 104 — can {1807). From Memorials of a Tour in Scotland, 1803. 
 ' The castle here mentioned was Nidpath, near Peebles. The per- 
 son alluded to was the then Duke of Queensberry. The fact was 
 toldmeby Walter Scott." — Pr. ^F., iii, 68. The circumstances in 
 which the sonnet was written are related, and its scene described, in 
 Dorothy Wordsworth's Recollections of a Tour made iti Scotland, 
 A.D. 1803. Edin., 1S74, pp. 248-9. It was a great favourite with 
 Sir Walter, — 'Few lines in the language,' says Lockhart, 'were 
 more frequently in his mouth.' Nor can it indeed be much other- 
 wise with anyone of keen sympathies and true simplicity of heart ; 
 while, on the other hand, persons of coarser sensibilities will hardly 
 understand the degree of emotion displayed, — will at least consider 
 it greatly out of proportion to the exciting cause. Not so grand old 
 Michael Drayton, that true-lover of Nature, under like provocation 
 {Poly-Olbion, 1613, p. 107. The Seaventh Song) : 
 
 ' our Trees so hackt above the ground. 
 That where their lof tie tops their neighboring Countries crown'd, 
 Their Trunkes (like aged folkes) now bare and naked stand. 
 As for revenge to heaven each held a withered hand.' 
 
 Nor Charles Tennyson in our own day {Small Tableaux, 1868, p. 78). 
 CCIV. Miss Wordsworth's diary, quoted under CXCVI (pp. 374-5), 
 continues {Memoirs, i, 187): 'Arrived at Calais at four in the morning 
 of July 31st. Delightful walks in the evenings : seeing far off in the 
 west the coast of England, like a cloud, crested with Dover Castle, 
 the evening star, and the glory of the sky: the reflections in the water 
 
 1 For particulars of ' Old Q.,' as he was called, and his acts of spoliation, see W. 
 Chambers's History 0/ Peeblesshire, 1864, p. 323.
 
 Notes ^yg 
 
 PAGE 
 
 were more beautiful than the sky itself ; purple waves brighter than 
 precious stones for ever melting away upon the sands.' 
 105— CCV. Title : i.e., by the French and the Emperor Francis, in 1797. 
 Buonaparte annexed Venice to the crown of Italy in 1S05. L. 9. 
 had : query, has? 
 
 ccvi. 'Among the noblest of Wordsworth's sonnets.' — IV. S. 
 Landor. LI. 2-4. Up till 1827 these lines stood (1807) : 
 
 ' Whether the rural Milk-maid by her Cow 
 Sing in thy hearing, or thou liest now 
 Alone in some deep dungeon's earless den ; ' 
 and (181 5) : 
 
 ' Whether the all-cheering sun be free to shed 
 His beams around thee, or thou rest thy head 
 Pillowed in some dark dungeon's noisome den.' 
 
 The restoration of the original epithet earless for ' noisome ' in 1. 4 
 was an undoubted improvement ; but it may be questioned whether 
 conformity to the Italian law was not somewhat dearly purchased 
 for IL 2-3 at the cost of the more obvious antithesis of the 1815 lec- 
 tion. As Coleridge shrewdly urged in justification of his own prac- 
 tice {Poems, 2nd ed., 1797. Page 73, Introduction to the Sonnets) : 
 ' A sameness in the final sound of its words is the great and grievous 
 defect of the Italian language. That rule therefore, which the 
 Italians have established, of exactly four different sounds in the 
 Sonnet, seems to have arisen from their wish to have as many, not 
 from any dread of finding more. But surely it is ridiculous to make 
 the defect of a foreign language a reason for our not availing our- 
 selves of one of the marked excellences of our own.' L. 14. Gray 
 has ' Th' unconquerable Mind ' {Progress of Poesy, ii, 2, 65). The 
 deliverer of Hayti died in a French prison in 1803. For Words- 
 worth's note on this and another sonnet, see Pr. W., iii, 71. 
 106 — ccvii. This was written on the return of Wordsworth and his 
 sister from France, and may be referred to the occasion noted in the 
 journal of the latter under 29th August, [1802], {Memoirs, i, 187): 
 ' Left Calais at twelve in the morning for Dover . . . bathed, and 
 sat on the Dover cliffs, and looked upon France : we could see the 
 shores almost as plain as if it were but an English lake. . . . Stayed 
 in London till 22d September.' 
 
 CCVIII. In allusion to the usurpation of Switzerland by the French, 
 under Buonaparte in 1800. ' This was composed while pacing to 
 and fro between the Hall of Coleorton, then rebuilding, and the 
 principal Farm-house of the Estate, in which we lived for nine or 
 ten months.' — Pr. W., iii, 71. The opening recalls Byron's
 
 380 Notes 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ' The mountains look on Marathon, 
 And Marathon looks on the sea ; 
 
 and Tennyson's 
 
 ' Of old sat Freedom on the heights, 
 The thunders breaking at her feet : 
 Above her shook the starry lights : 
 She heard the torrents meet ; ' 
 
 while the personification of liberty as a maid of the mountains was 
 
 no doubt a recollection of the line in Milton's L! Allegro : 
 
 ' The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty.' 
 
 It is the glory of mountains that they have been in all ages the 
 
 asylums and strongholds of the resisters of tyranny and oppression ; 
 
 that on them, to use Laman Blanchard's fine metaphor, 
 
 ' have mortal footsteps found , 
 The eagle-nest of Freedom.' 
 
 But the poet's apprehensions for the mountain-maid were veritably 
 those of ' a lover or a child ' (ccxii, p. 108). Not 'till a' the seas . 
 gang dry' shall her ear be 'bereft' of the 'deep bliss' of the mountain- 
 voice. Listen, for example, to a recent ' soul-animating ' sonnet by 
 the present wearer of England's bays, — 'greener from the brows 
 Of him that utter'd nothing base ' — which seems to carry an echo 
 of this very sonnet, as well as of Milton's mighty imprecation. 
 {The Nhieteenth Century, May, 1877): — 
 MONTENEGRO. 
 They rose to where their sovran eagle sails. 
 They kept their faith, their freedom, on the height, 
 Chaste, frugal, savage, arm'd by day and night 
 Against the Turk ; whose inroad nowhere scales 
 Their headlong passes, but his footstep fails. 
 And red with blood the Crescent reels from fight 
 Before their dauntless hundreds, in prone flight 
 By thousands down the crags and thro' the vales. 
 O smallest among peoples ! rough rock-throne 
 Of Freedom ! warriors beating back the swarm 
 Of Turkish Islam for five hundred years. 
 Great Tsernogora! never since thine own 
 Black ridges drew the cloud and brake the storm 
 Has breathed a race of mightier mountaineers. 
 
 Alfred Tennyson. 
 
 107 — CCIX. ' This was written immediately after my return from France 
 to London, when I could not but be struck, aS here described, with 
 the vanity and parade of our own country, especially in great towns 
 and cities, as contrasted with the quiet, and I may say the desolation, 
 that the Revolution had produced in France. This must be borne in
 
 Notes 381 
 
 PAGE 
 
 mind, or else the reader may think that in this and succeeding son- 
 nets I have exaggerated the mischief engendered and fostered among 
 us by undisturbed wealth.' — /*;-. W., iii, 72. In connection with it 
 and CLXXXIX should be read (but not without ccxil) other sonnets 
 of Wordsworth's expressing similar sentiments, particularly the fol- 
 lowing, in which sudden and precarious riches are denounced for 
 the fears which they generate ; the immediate occasion of the poet's 
 . rebuke being the very different spirit in which, as he believed, the 
 impending conflict with Buonaparte was contemplated by the dif- 
 ferent classes in this country. {Poems, 1807, i, 146) : 
 
 OCTOBER, 18.03. 
 These times touch money'd Worldlings with dismay : 
 
 Even rich men, brave by nature, taint the air 1 
 
 With words of apprehension and despair : 1 
 
 Wliile tens of thousands, thinking on the affray, ' 
 
 Men unto whom sufficient for the day \ 
 
 And minds not stinted or untill'd are given, , 
 Sound, healthy Children of the God of Heaven, ' > 
 
 . Are cheerful as the rising Sun in May. \ 
 
 What do we gather hence but firmer faith i 
 
 That every gift of noble origin i 
 
 Is breathed upon by Hope's perpetual breath ; 1 
 That virtue and the faculties within 
 Are vital, — and that riches are akin 
 To fear, to change, to cowardice, and death ! 
 
 107 — CCX, 9. In one of his copies of Wordsworth Dyce has noted a 
 couplet from Cowley under this passage {Clad all in White : The* 
 
 Mistress) : < xhy soul, which does itself display 
 Like a star plac'd i' th' Milky Way.' 
 
 The subject of Milton is thus worthily treated in sonnet-form by a -j 
 
 young living poet {Poems, 1877, p. 11^) : 
 
 MIL TON. I 
 
 He left the upland lawns and serene air 1 
 
 Wherefrom his soul her noble nurture drew, ' 
 
 And reared his helm among the unquiet crew 
 Battling beneath ; the morning radiance rare 
 Of his young brow amid the tumult there 
 Grew grim with sulphurous dust and sanguine dew ; 
 
 Yet through all soilure they who marked him knew I 
 
 The signs of his life's dayspring, calm and fair. j 
 
 But when peace came, peace fouler far than war, j 
 
 And mirth more dissonant than battle's tone, j 
 
 He, with a scornful sigh of his clear soul, j 
 
 Back to his mountain clomb, now bleak and frore, ! 
 
 And with the awful Night he dwelt alone, •' 
 
 In darkness, listening to the thunder's roll. 
 
 Ernest Myers.
 
 382 Notes 
 
 PAGE 
 
 108— CCXI, 5-6. Prior to 1827 these lines read : 
 
 ' Road by which all might come and go that would, 
 And bear out freights of worth to foreign lands.' 
 
 CCXli, 2-4. Cp. Goldsmith ( 7>aw//^r, 91-2): 
 
 ' contentment fails 
 And honour sinks where commerce long prevails.' 
 
 See reference under ccix. 
 109— ccxill, 13-14- '" Danger which they fear, and honour which they 
 understand not." — Words in Lord Brooke's Life of Sir Philip 
 Sidney.'— /'r. ^., iii, 72. In pleasing contrast with these anxious 
 forebodings is the sonnet ' composed by the side of Grasmere Lake : 
 1807.' {The Waggoner, &c., 1819, p. 68) : 
 
 Eve's lingering clouds extend in solid bars 
 
 Through the grey west ; and lo ! these waters, steeled 
 
 By breezeless air to smoothest polish, yield 
 
 A vivid repetition of the stars ; 
 
 Jove, Venus, and the ruddy crest of Mars, 
 
 Amid his fellows, beauteously revealed 
 
 At happy distance from earth's groaning field, 
 
 Where ruthless mortals wage incessant wars. 
 
 Is it a mirror? — or the nether sphere 
 
 Opening its vast abyss, while fancy feeds 
 
 On the rich show ! — But list ! a voice is near ; 
 
 Great Pan himself low-whispering through the reeds, 
 
 ' Be thankful, thou ; for, if unholy deeds 
 
 Ravage the world, tranquillity is here ! ' 
 
 The following two sonnets will complete our selection from this 
 series. The first possesses a special interest, since it marks the 
 commencement of Wordsworth's sonnet-writing, thus recorded in 
 the Fenwick MSS. {Pr. IV., iii, 52) :— 'In the cottage of Town- 
 End, [Grasmere], one afternoon in 1801, my sister read to me the 
 sonnets of Milton.' I had long been well acquainted with them, 
 but I was particularly struck on fliat occasion with the dignified 
 simplicity and majestic harmony that runs through most of them — in 
 character so totally different from the Italian, and still more so from 
 , Shakespeare's fine sonnets. I took fire, if I may be allowed to say 
 so, and produced three sonnets the same afternoon — the first I ever 
 wrote, except an irregular one at school [Qu., that beginning ' Calm 
 is all nature as a resting wheel ? ']. Of these three, the only one I dis- 
 tinctly remember is " I grieved for Buonaparte," &c. One was never 
 
 ' ' My admiration of some of the Sonnets of Milton first tempted me to write in that 
 form. The fact is not mentioned from a notion that it will be deemed of any importance 
 by the reader, but merely as a public acknowledgment of one of the numerous obli- 
 gations which, as a Poet and a Man, I am under to our great fellow-countryman.' — 
 Advertisement to the collected edition o/the Sonnets, 1838.
 
 Notes 383 
 
 PAGE 
 
 written down ; the third, which was I believe preserved, I cannot 
 particularise.' (Poems, 1S07, i, 130, as amended ined. of 1836-7): 
 
 ISOl. 
 I grieved for Buonaparte, with a vain 
 And an unthinking grief ! The tenderest mood 
 Of that Man's mind — what can it be? what food 
 Fed his first hopes ? what knowledge could he gain ? 
 'Tis not in battles that from youth we train 
 The Governor who must be wise and good, 
 And temper with the sternness of the brain 
 Thoughts motherly, and meek as womanhood. 
 Wisdom doth live with children round her knees : 
 Books, leisure, perfect freedom, and the talk 
 Man holds with week-day man in the hourly walk 
 Of the mind's business : these are the degrees 
 By which true Sway doth mount ; this is the stalk 
 True Power doth grow on ; and her rights are these. 
 
 The second, later by ten years, should be compared with the last 
 part of the sonnet which begins, ' What if our numbers.' The prin- 
 ciple asserted in them — the superiority of moral to merely physical 
 might — had been again and again enforced with great eloquence 
 and power in the author's prose tract occasioned by the so-called 
 Convention of Cintra (see Pr. W., i, 45, 49, 63, 136, and 146), 
 published in May, 1809, and characterized in another sonnet as 
 ' the impassioned strain 
 Which, without aid of numbers, I sustain.' 
 
 (Poems, 1815, ii, 256, as amended 1827) : 
 
 1811. 
 The power of Armies is a visible thing, 
 Formal, and circumscribed in time and space ; 
 But who the limits of that power shall trace 
 Which a brave People into light can bring 
 Or hide, at will, — for Freedom combating. 
 By just revenge inflamed? No foot may chase, 
 No eye can follow, to a fatal place 
 That power, that spirit, whether on the wing 
 Like the strong wind, or sleeping like the wind 
 Within its awful caves. — From year to year 
 Springs this indigenous produce far and near ; 
 No craft this subtle element can bind, 
 Rising like water from the soil, to find 
 In every nook a lip that it may cheer. 
 109— CCXV {1815). Frederick Schill, the German patriot, fell at Stral- 
 
 sund in l8og. 
 104-109— cciv-ccxiv. These, of which all except the last one were 
 
 published in 1807, belong to the Poems Dedicated to National 
 
 Independence and Liberty, in Two Parts.
 
 384 Notes 
 
 I'AGE 
 
 iio— CCXV, 12-14. Cp. Shakspeare, Lli, 3-4, This sonnet, from the 
 Memorials of a Tour on the Continent, 1820, will serve to 
 exemplify a special feature of Wordsworth's verse : his frequent 
 notices and expositions of the aerial pageantry of 
 
 ' Cloudland, gorgeous land ! ' — 
 a domain of Poetry which he has nearly all to himself, if indeed he 
 did not actually discover it. (See De Quincey's Works, 1862, v, 
 pp. 262-5). Another in the series contains some masterly land- 
 scape-painting {Memorials of a Tour on the Continent, 1820. 
 Lond. 1822, p. 5) : 
 
 SCENERY BETWEEN NAMUR AND LIEGE. 
 What lovelier home could gentle Fancy chuse ? 
 Is this the Stream, whose cities, heights, and plains, 
 War's favorite playground, are with crimson stains 
 Familiar, as the Morn with pearly dews ? 
 The Morn, that now, along the silver Meuse, 
 Spreading her peaceful ensigns, calls the Swains 
 To tend their silent boats and ringing wains. 
 Or strip the bough whose mellow fruit bestrews 
 The ripening com beneath it. As mine eyes 
 Turn from the fortified and threatening hill, 
 How sweet the prospect of yon watery glade. 
 With its grey rocks clustering in pensive shade, 
 That, shaped like old monastic turrets, rise 
 From the smooth meadow-ground, serene and still ! ' 
 
 ccxvi {,181^2). From Memorials of a Tour in Italy, 1837. 
 
 Ill — ccxvii. ' The River Duddon rises upon Wrynose Fell, on the con- 
 fines of Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Lancashire : and, having 
 served as a boundary to the two last counties for the space of about 
 twenty-five miles, enters the Irish Sea, between the Isle of Walney 
 and the Lordship of Milium.'— /'r. W., iii, 97. See the same 
 volume (pp. 97-101) for Wordsworth's general remarks on the series, 
 and notices of his visits to the stream. L. 11. ' The deer alluded 
 to is the Leigh, a gigantic species long since extinct.' — W. 
 
 112 — ccxx. ' How simple and yet how full is the diction of this sonnet ! 
 How much of the wildness and insecurity of savage life is in those 
 words "roved or fled," and in the presentation to the fancy of the 
 one sole man wandering or fugitive ! Then the darkness and cruelty 
 of Druidical superstition and barbarian warfare are alluded to in a 
 
 > For Wordsworth's note on this sonnet, see Pr. W., iii, 77. Sir Henry Taylor 
 remarks ; ' This seems pure description ; yet what a serious satire is expressed in one 
 word, " War's iiLvawcxte. playground ! " ' So in other sonnets : ' the game which fac- 
 tion breeds,' and ' practised in V^slt'^ gaiiic.^
 
 Notes 
 
 385 
 
 tone of almost fearful inquiry ; and after the pause of silence in 
 the ninth line, how beautifully and with what an expressive change 
 of the music is the mind turned to the perennial influences of 
 Nature, as healing, soothing, and restorative in all times, whatever 
 be the condition of Man ! This sonnet is a study in versification 
 throughout ; and observe especially the use of duplicate, tripli- 
 cate, and even quadruplicate consonants in our language, — how 
 admirably they may be made to serve the purposes of rhythmical 
 melody which they are often supposed to thwart — 
 
 " And thou, blue streamlet, murmuring y'l&ld'st no more," &c. 
 How the slight check, delay, and resistance of the fourfold conso- 
 nant makes the flow of the verse to be-still more musically felt ! ' — 
 Sir Henry Taylor, 
 113 — CCXXI {1S07). 
 
 CCXXII, I. Not merely the portion marked, but this entire line, 
 one of Wordsworth's borrowings from Samuel Daniel {Musophilus, 
 p. gi, ed. 1623). The whole apostrophe is worth quoting : 
 * Sacred Religion, mother of Forme and Feare, 
 
 How gorgeously sometimes dost thou sit deckt ? 
 
 What pompous vestures doe we make thee weare ? 
 
 What stately piles we prodigall erect ? 
 
 How sweet perfum'd thou art, how shining cleare ? 
 
 How solemnely observ'd, with what respect ? 
 Another time, all plaine, all quite thread-bare. 
 
 Thou must have all within, and nought without, 
 
 Sit poorely without light, disrob'd, no care 
 
 Of outward grace, to amuze the poore devout, 
 
 Powrelesse, unfollowed, scarcely men can spare 
 
 The necessary rites to set thee out.' 
 
 Another instance of Wordsworth's indebtedness to Daniel, of 
 which, so far as I am aware, the source has not hitherto been traced, 
 occurs in the sonnet entitled Saxon Gjw^m^j/ (Ecclesiastical Sonnets, 
 Pt. I. xi), where 11. 9-14 are a recollection of a passage in his His- 
 totie of England {1612, Y>. 2^). lo. The Reverend Robert Walker, 
 the ' Pastor ' of The Excursion (Book vii), buried in Seathwaite 
 churchyard, of whom see an extended memoir by Wordsworth 
 among the Notes to the Poems ; or, Pr. W., iii, 105. 
 114— CCXXIII, 8-9. Cp. Shakspeare, Lii, 7-8, and LXXI, 4-7. L. 14. 
 ' " And feel that I am happier than I know." 
 
 Milton [Paradise Lost, viii, 2S2]. 
 
 The allusion to the Greek Poet will be obvious to the classical 
 reader.' — Pr. W., iii, 120.' 
 
 * Much fruitless labour has been expended in the endeavour to identify the 'ob- 
 vious allusion.' One correspondent suggests a passage in the Protagoras of Plato 
 (Cap. x.\.\viii, P. 358, c), of which the sense is, ' But a man's inferiority to himself is
 
 386 Notes 
 
 Page 
 
 111-114— ccxvii-ccxxiii. From The River Duddon. a series of 
 SONNETS. ( The River Duddon, A Series of Sonnets : Vaudracour 
 and Julia: and Other Poems. To -which is anjiexed, A Topo- 
 graphical Description of the Country of the Lakes, in the N^orth of 
 England. 1820). 
 
 ccxxiv. During a visit by Wordsworth and his daughter to 
 Abbotsford in the autumn of 1 831, Sir Walter accompanied them 
 and his other guests to Newark Castle, on the Yarrow. ' On our 
 return in the afternoon, we had to cross the Tweed, directly oppo- 
 site Abbotsford. The wheels of our carriage grated upon the peb- 
 bles in the bed of the stream, that there flows somewhat rapidly. A 
 rich, but sad light, of rather a purple than a golden hue, was spread 
 over the Eildon Hills at that moment; and, thinking it probable that 
 it might be the last time Sir Walter would cross the stream, I was 
 not a little moved, and expressed some of my feelings in the sonnet 
 beginning, << a trouble, not of clouds," &c.'— 
 
 Pr. W., iii, 140. 
 
 115 — ccxxv, g. A list of errata issued with the first edition has this cor- 
 rection : ' For " Guest " read " quest ; " ' but the printers only suc- 
 ceeded in changing it to ' guest ' in the second edition which was 
 set-up afresh in the following year (1836). Mr. Arnold has fallen into 
 this trap in his recent exquisite little volume {Poems of Wordsworth. 
 Chosen and Edited by Mattheiu Arnold. 1879). The correction was 
 ultimately effected in the edition of 1836-7. 11. ' How skilfully 
 does that suggestion in the parenthesis, of the sunshiny colouring of 
 the aspen in October, adumbrate the cheerfulness to be bestowed 
 by natural piety upon the decline of life ! preparing for the princi- 
 pal illustration of the same idea in the song of the redbreast, which 
 only begins to sing when other birds have ceased.' — Sir Henry 
 Taylor. Perhaps old George Chapman's description {Tears of 
 Peace) is the most felicitous in all English poetry of the bird 
 
 ' that loves humans best, 
 That hath the bugle eyes and rosy breast, 
 And is the yellow autumn's nightingale.' 
 
 ' Compare with this Sonnet the poem composed about thirty years 
 
 simply ignorance, as his superiority to himself is knowledge.'' Cp. Mr. Emerson's 
 poem 'The Problem' \Poeitts. Boston, 1865. p. 18) : 
 
 ' The hand that rounded Peter's dome, 
 
 And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, 
 
 Wrought in a sad sincerity ; 
 
 Himself from God he could not free ; 
 
 He builded better than he knew ; 
 
 The conscious stone to beauty grew.'
 
 Notes 387 
 
 PAGE 
 
 earlier on nearly the same spot of ground, " What! you are stepping 
 westward ? " This earlier poem, one of the most truly etherial and 
 ideal Wordsworth ever wrote, is filled with the overflowing spirit 
 of life and hope. In every line of it we feel the exulting pulse of the 
 " traveller through the world that lay 
 Before him on his endless way." 
 
 The later one is stilled down to perfect autumnal quiet. There is 
 in it the chastened pensiveness of one to whom all things now 
 " do take a sober colouring from an eye 
 That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality." 
 
 But the sadness has at the heart of it peaceful hope. This is 
 Wordsworth's own comment : — "As recorded in my Sister's Jour- 
 nal, I had first seen the Trossachs in her and Coleridge's company. 
 The sentiment that runs through this sonnet was natural to the 
 season in which I again visited this beautiful spot ; but this, and 
 some other sonnets that follow, were coloured by the remembrance 
 of my recent visit to Sir Walter Scott, and the melancholy errand 
 on which he was going."' \Pr. W., iii, 142] — Principal Shairp 
 (Appendix to Dorothy Wordsworth's Recollections of a Tour in 
 Scotland, A.D. 1S03. Edin. 1874). A most interesting contrast 
 may also be suggested between Wordsworth's and a very powerful 
 sonnet by a living poet {Poems, 1876, p. 93) : 
 IN A MOUNTAIN PASS. 
 
 (in SCOTLAND.) 
 
 To what wild blasts of tyrannous harmony 
 
 Uprose these rocky walls, mass threatening mass, 
 
 Dusk, shapeless shapes, around a desolate pass ? 
 
 What deep hearts of the ancient hills set free 
 
 The passion, the desire, the destiny 
 
 Of this lost stream ? Yon clouds that break and form, 
 
 Light vanv/ard squadrons of the joyous storm, 
 
 They gather hither from what untrack'd sea? 
 
 Primeval kindied ! here the mind regains 
 
 Its vantage ground against the world ; here thought 
 
 Wings up the silent waste of air on broad 
 
 Undaunted pinions ; man's imperial pains 
 
 Are ours, and visiting fears, and joy unsought. 
 
 Native resolve, and partnership with God. 
 
 Edward Dowden. ' 
 
 115 — ccxxvi. Compare the following pair of sonnets {Small Tableaux, 
 1868, pp. 14-15) : 
 
 ON AN OLD ROMAN SHIELD 
 
 FOUND IN THE THAMES. 
 
 Drowned for long ages, lost to human reach, 
 At last the Roman buckler reappears, 
 
 1 LI. 12-13. Cp. Wordsworth (Laodaineia) : 
 
 • Calm pleasures there abide— majestic pains.'
 
 388 Notes 
 
 PAGE 
 
 liliHtam (iftlorbsborflj. \ 
 
 And makes an old-world clang upon the beach, ' 
 
 Its first faint voice for many a hundred years ; ; 
 
 Not the weird noises on the battle-field ' 
 
 Of Marathon, as thrilling legends tell, ; 
 
 Could speak more sadly than this ancient shield, \ 
 
 As ringing at the fisher's feet it fell. \ 
 
 How cam'st thou to be grappled thus, and hauled .j 
 
 To shore, when other prey was sought, not thou? \ 
 
 How strangely was thy long-lost chime recalled, ' 
 
 As when the arrows struck thee ! Then, as now, " 
 
 The tented plain was thronged with armed men ; ] 
 
 Our weapons change, we quarrel now as then ! i 
 
 ON THE SAME. \ 
 He drew it home — he heaved it to the bank — 
 
 No modern waif, but an old Roman targe ; ; 
 
 The mild familiar swan in terror shrank \ 
 
 From the rude plash, and left the weltering marge. ' 
 
 Low rang the iron boss ; the fisher stared x 
 
 At his new capture, while, in mystic tones, \ 
 
 The lost shield exiled its legion, whose death-groans \ 
 
 And clash of onset it had seen and heard. \ 
 
 Oh ! when shall better thoughts be dear to man, \ 
 
 Than rapine and ambition, fraud and hate ? '' 
 
 Oh ! when shall War, like this old buckler, fall j 
 
 Into disuse, drowned by its own dead weight ? j 
 
 And Commerce, buoyant as the living swan, .\ 
 
 Push boldly to the shore, the friend of all ? "^ 
 
 Charles ( Tennyson) Turner. \ 
 
 114-115 — ccxxiv-ccxxvi. From Yarrow Revisited, and Other 
 Poems. Published under that title in 1835. 
 
 116 — ccxxvii. 'These two lines are adopted from a MS., written 
 about 1770, which accidentally fell into my possession . . .' — 
 Pr. IV., iii, 134. 
 
 ccxxviii. ' Wordsworth was a "high churchman," and also, in 
 
 his prose mind, strongly anti-Roman Catholic, partly on political <. 
 
 grounds ; but that it was otherwise as regards his mind poetic is ] 
 
 obvious from many passages in his Christian poetry, especially ;. 
 those which refer to the monastic system, and the Schoolmen, and 
 his sonnet on the Blessed Virgin, whom he addresses as 
 
 " Our tainted nature's solitary boast." 
 He used to say that the idea of one who was both Virgin and 
 Mother had sunk so deep into the heart of Humanity, that there 
 it must ever remain.' — Afr. Aubrey de Vere's Recollections of 
 Wordsworth, in Pr. W., iii, 491. Cp. Henry Constable's two 
 sonnets {supra, p. 259). 
 
 ^
 
 Notes 389 
 
 PAGE 
 
 117— ccxxix, 2-4. An Elizabethan commonplace not wholly in disuse 
 still. Cp. H. Constable's sonnet To the King of Scots {z^. Hazlitt, 
 P- 33) : ' The pen wherewith thou dost so heavenly singe 
 Made of a quill pluck't from an angell's wingc' 
 R. Barnfield's Cassandra, 1595 (ed. Roxburghe Club, p. 119) ; 
 
 ' No pen can paint thy commendations due: 
 Save only that pen, which no pen can be, 
 An Angels quill, to make a pen for thee.' 
 
 and H. S. Sutton to-day {Poems, 1848, p. 12) : 
 
 ' a quill from out an angel's wing. 
 Held in an angel's hand, could ne'er set down 
 The sum of wonders that are met in thee.' 
 
 iiS — CCXXXI. The royal saint is Henry VI. 
 
 116 — 118— ccxxvii-ccxxxi. From the Ecclesiastical Sonnets, in 
 Three Parts. {Ecclesiastical Sketches, 1822). For Advertisement 
 and Notes see Pr. W., ii, 126. 
 
 ccxxxii. ' I will mention for the sake of the friend [Miss Fen- 
 wick] who is writing down these Notes that it was among the fine 
 Scotch firs near Ambleside, and particularly Lhose near Green Bank, 
 that I have over and over again paused at the sight of this image. 
 Long may they stand to afford a like gratification to others ! This 
 wish is not uncalled for — several of their brethren having already 
 disappeared.' — Pr. IF., iii, 150. Wordsworth, like some other 
 poets, had a particular liking for the pine species, and made several 
 contributions to its literature, one of them in sonnet-form {Poems, 
 Chi ejly of Early and Late Years, 1842, p. II3) : 
 
 THE PINE OF MONTE MARIO AT ROME. 
 I saw far off the dark top of a Pine 
 Look like a cloud — a slender stem the tie 
 That bound it to its native earth — poised high 
 'Mid evening hues, along the horizon line. 
 Striving in peace each other to outshine. 
 But when I learned the Tree was living there. 
 Saved from the sordid axe by Beaumont's care. 
 Oh, what a gush of tenderness was mine ! 
 The rescued Pine-tree, with its sky so bright 
 And cloud-like beauty, rich in thoughts of home, 
 Death-parted friends, and days too swift in flight, 
 Supplanted the whole majesty of Rome 
 (Then first apparent from the Pincian Height) 
 Crowned with St. Peter's everlasting Dome.' 
 
 ' ' Within a couple of hours of my arrival at Rome, I saw from Monte Pincio the 
 Pine tree as described in the sonnet; and, while expressing admiration at the beauty 
 of its appearance, I was told by an acquaintance of my fellow-traveller, who happened 
 to join us at the moment, that a price had been paid for it by the late Sir G. Beaumont,
 
 PAGE 
 
 2 go Notes 
 
 The following picture by a living sonneteer will not be out of place 
 in this connexion {Sonnets. By Sir John Hanmer, Bart. 1840) : 
 THE PINE IVOODS. 
 We stand upon the moorish mountain side, 
 From age to age, a solemn company ; 
 There are no voices in our paths, but we 
 Hear the great whirlwinds roaring loud and wide ; 
 And like the sea-waves have our boughs replied, 
 From the beginning, to their stormy glee ; 
 The thunder rolls above us, and some tree 
 Smites with his bolt, yet doth the race abide ; 
 Answering all times ; but joyous, when the sun 
 Glints on the peaks that clouds no longer bear ; 
 And the young shoots to flourish have begun ; 
 And the quick seeds through the blue odorous air 
 From the expanding cones fall one by one ; 
 And silence as in temples dwelleth there. 
 
 Lord Hanmer, 
 
 Jig — ccxxxiil, II. Mr. Emerson, who gives both of these Stafia son- 
 nets a place in his Parnassus, perhaps improves this line by mak- 
 ing it read simply 
 
 ' And flashing upwards to its topmost height.' 
 
 This and the next sonnet are the second and last of a group of 
 four on Staffa, in the first of which the poet complains of having 
 been unable to enjoy the sight of the cave by reason of the crowd of 
 visitors. ' The reader maybe tempted to exclaim, " How came this 
 and the two following Sonnets to be written, after the dissatisfaction 
 expressed in the preceding one ?" In fact, at the risk of incurring the 
 reasonable displeasure of the master of the steam-boat, I returned 
 to the cave, and explored it under circumstances more favourable 
 to those imaginative impressions which it is so wonderfully fitted 
 to make upon the mind.' — Fr. W., iii, 155. 
 
 ccxxxiv. ' Upon the head of the columns which form the front 
 of the cave, rests a body of decomposed basaltic matter, which was 
 richly decorated with that large bright flower, the ox-eyed daisy. I 
 had noticed the same flower growing with profusion among the bold 
 rocks on the western coast of the Isle of Man ; making a brilliant 
 contrast with their black and gloomy surfaces.' — Pr. IV., iii, 155. 
 118-120— ccxxxii-ccxxxv. From the Poems, Composed or Sug- 
 gested DURING A Tour, in the Summer of 1833. (Yarrow 
 Revisited, &c., 1B35.) 
 
 upon condition that the proprietor should not act upon his known intention of cut- 
 ting it down.' — Pr, IK, iii, 89 (which see also for further remarks).
 
 Notes 391 
 
 PACE 
 
 120 — CCXXXVI. From Poems on Various Subjects, by S. T. Coleridge 
 late of yesus College, Cambridge. 1796. ' One night in Winter, on 
 leaving a College-friend's room, with whom I had supped, I care- 
 lessly took away with me "The Robbers" a drama, the very 
 name of which I had never before heard of : — A Winter mid-night 
 — the wind high — and " The Robbers " for the first time ! — The 
 readers of Schiller will conceive what I felt. Schiller introduces 
 no supernatural beings ; yet his human beings agitate and astonish, 
 more than all the goblin rout — even of Shakespeare.' — .S*. T. C. 
 L. 4. ' The Father of the Moor, in the Play of The Robbers,' 
 — S. T. C. Writing to Dyce in 1833 acknowledging a copy of 
 the Specimens of Etzglis/i Sonnets, published that year and dedi- 
 cated to him, W' ordsworth says {Prose Works, iii, 336) : ' The 
 selection of sonnets appears to me to be very judicious. If I were 
 inclined to make an exception, it would be in the single case of 
 the sonnet of Coleridge upon " Schiller," which is too much of a 
 rant for my taste. The one by him upon " Linley's Music " is 
 much superior in execution ; indeed, as a strain of feeling, and 
 for unity of effect, it is very happily done.' The reader can judge 
 for himself. {Sibylline Leaves, 1817, p. 255) : 
 LI^^ES TO IF. L., ESQ., 
 
 WHILE HE SANG A SONG TO PURCELl's MUSIC. 
 
 WTiile my young cheek retains its healthful hues, 
 And I have many friends who hold me dear ; 
 Linley ! mcthinks I would not often hear 
 Such melodies as thine, lest I should lose 
 All memoiy of the wrongs and sore distress 
 For* which my miserable brethren weep ! 
 But should uncomforted misfortunes steep 
 My daily bread in tears and bitterness ; 
 And if at death's dread moment I should lie 
 With no beloved face at my bed-side. 
 To fix the last glance of my closing eye, 
 Methinks such strains, breath'd by my angel-guide, 
 Would make me pass the cup of anguish by. 
 Mix with the blest, nor know that I had died ! 
 Coleridge's own estimate of his Schiller sonnet was not quite so 
 humble. He gave it a place among the Bowles elect, and in the copy 
 of that pamphlet described on p. 362 there is this note under it in his 
 handwriting : ' I affirm, John Thelwall! that the six last lines of this 
 Sonnet to Schiller are strong and fiery; and you are the only one who 
 thinks otherwise. — There's a spurt of author-like vanity for you ! ' 
 121 — ccxxxvii. This sonnet is not in the first edition of the Poems, as 
 above ; but it appears in the Bowles-pamphlet and in the second
 
 392 Notes 
 
 PACE 
 
 ^amntl OTaglor Cokribge. 
 
 edition of the Poems (1797), which were nearly simultaneous. I 
 give it as finally amended in the errata-list of the Sibylline Leaves. 
 
 121— ccxxxviii. From the Poetical Works, 1829. First printed in 
 Blackwood' s Magazine, November, 1819. ' This sonnet is very 
 characteristic of the rich indolence of the author's temperament. 
 The very toning of the rhymes is as careless as the mood in which 
 he is indulging.' — Leigh Hunt. 
 
 122 — ccxxxix. From the Letters, Conversations, atid Recollections of 
 S. T. Coleridge, 1836, i, 144, as amended in Mr. Shepherd's edition. 
 'How it came into my possession,' says the anonymous editor 
 [Thomas Allsop], ' I have now forgotten; though I have some faint 
 impression that I wrote it down from dictation, and that it was the 
 transcript of an early, a very early sonnet, written probably at the 
 time when the author's heart, as well as his head, was with Spinoza.' 
 
 CCXL. From Psyche, tenth other Poems. By the late Airs. Henry 
 Tighe : 1811. Under date January 27th, 1812, Sir James Mack- 
 intosh writes in his journal : ' Sorrow seems to be the muse of 
 song, and from Philomela to Mrs. Tighe the most plaintive notes 
 are the most melodious. I have read " Psyche " ; I am sorry that 
 Mrs. Tighe chose such a story : it is both too mystical and too 
 much exhausted. For the first three cantos I felt a sort of languid 
 elegance and luscious sweetness, which had something of the same 
 effect as if I had been overpowered by perfumes ; but the three 
 last are of such exquisite beauty that they quite silence me. They 
 are beyond all doubt the most faultless series of verses ever pro- 
 duced by a woman.' (^Memoirs, &c. Edited by his Son : 1836, ii, 
 195). Considerable extracts from this lady's principal poem {^Psyche; 
 or. The Legend of Lave : 1805) and her admirable lyric The Lily 
 entire, are given in Chambers's Cyclopccdia of English Literature, 
 Dyce's Specimens of British Poetesses (1827), and Rowton's Female 
 Poets of Great Btitain (1848) ; but, strangely enough, none of her 
 Sonnets, which number over twenty, and deserve to be classed 
 with the very best that had been written by women up to her time. 
 I therefore make a second selection (ibid. , p. 233) : 
 WRITTEN AT KILLARNEY. 
 
 JULY 29, 1800. 
 
 How soft the pause ! the notes melodious cease, 
 Which from each feeling could an echo call ; 
 Rest on your oars, that not a sound may fall 
 To interrupt the stillness of our peace :
 
 Notes 393 
 
 The fanning west-wind breathes upon our cheeks, 
 
 Yet glowing with the sun's departed beams. 
 
 Through the blue heavens the cloudless moon pours streams 
 
 Of pure resplendent light, in silver streaks 
 
 Reflected on the still, unruthed lake. 
 
 The Alpine hills in solemn silence frown, 
 
 While the dark woods night's deepest shades embrown. 
 
 And now once more that soothing strain awake ! 
 
 Oh, ever to my heart, with magic po\('er, 
 
 Shall those sweet sounds recall this rapturous hour ! 
 Mrs. Tighe ought not to be omitted in an enumeration of the writers 
 ■who were read by Keats, and from whom consequently his poetry may 
 be supposed to have taken some of its colour. He names her in his 
 early lines 'To Some Ladies* {Poems, 1817, p. 30). 
 
 PAGE Robert ^oulbejT.- 
 
 123 — CCXLI. — Wordsworth, in the letter to Dyee before quoted (ante, p. 
 391), says : ' I was glad to see Mr. Southey's " Sonnet to Winter." . 
 A lyrical poem of my own, upon the disasters of the French army 
 in Russia,' has so striking a resemblance to it, in contemplating 
 winter under two aspects, that, in justice to Mr. Southey, who pre- 
 ceded me, I ought to have acknowledged it in a note ; and I shall 
 do so upon some future occasion.' 
 This sonnet, written in r799, and given here from the Minor Poems, 
 
 18 15, was very probably suggested by one of the unfortunate Bamp- 
 
 fylde's, in whom, as is well known, Southey took a special interest.* 
 
 {Sixteen Sonnets, 1778, p. 15) : 
 
 OiV CHRISTMAS. 
 With footstep slow, in furry pall yclad, 
 His brows enwreath'd with holly never-sere, 
 Old Christmas comes, to close the waned year ; 
 And aye the Shepherd's heart to make right glad ; 
 Who, when his teeming flocks are homeward had. 
 To blazing hearth repairs, and nut-brown beer, 
 And views, well-pleas'd, the ruddy prattlers dear 
 Hug the grey mongrel ; meanwhile maid and lad 
 Squabble for roasted crabs. Thee, Sire, we hail. 
 Whether thine aged limbs thou dost enshroud 
 In vest of snowy white and hoary veil, 
 Or wrapp'st thy visage in a sable cloud ; 
 Thee we proclaim with mirth and cheer, nor fail 
 To greet thee well with many a carol loud.^ 
 
 yohn Bampfylde. 
 
 1 Poetical Works, ed. 1858, iii, 87. 
 
 2 See Southey's Specimens of the Later English Poets, 1807, iii, 434 ; Sir E. 
 Brydges's Censura Litcraria, 2nd ed., 1815, vii, 309 ; and a most interesting account 
 of Bampfylde in a Letter from Southey to Sir E. Brydges, printed in Brydges's A itto- 
 biograpJiy, 1834, ii, 257. and in Dyce's Specimens of English Sonnets, 1833, 216. 
 
 2 Cp. also Barry Cornwall's sonnet on Winter, as under ccLXViii.
 
 394 Notes 
 
 ■*• 
 
 Hokrt SoutljfjT. 
 
 Bampfylde's sonnets have little of the divine afflatus, but they are all 
 regular as regards form, and attest considerable power of realistic descrip- 
 tion, with occasional pathos ; as in the following {ibid., pp. 1-16) : 
 
 TO THE RED-BREAST. 
 When that the fields put on their gay attire, 
 Thou silent sitst near brake or river's brim, 
 "Whilst the gay Thrush sings loud from covert dim ; 
 But when pale Winter lights the social fire. 
 And meads with slime are sprent and ways with mire, 
 Thou charm'st us with thy soft and solemn hymn 
 From battlement, or barn, or hay-stack trim ; 
 And now not seldom tun'st, as if for hire. 
 Thy thrilling pipe to me, waiting to catch 
 The pittance due to thy well-warbled song : 
 Sweet bird ! sing on ; for oft near lonely hatch, 
 Like thee. Myself have pleas'd the rustic throng, 
 And oft for entrance 'neath the peaceful thatch, 
 Full many a tale have told and ditty long. 
 
 yohn Batnpfylde. 
 
 ON A WET SUMMER. 
 
 All ye who far from town, in rural hall. 
 
 Like me, were wont to dwell near pleasant field, 
 
 Enjoying all the sunny day did yield. 
 
 With me the change lament, in irksome thrall 
 
 By rains incessant held ; for now no call 
 
 From early Swain invites my hand to wield 
 
 The scythe ; in parlour dim I sit conceal'd. 
 
 And mark the lessening sand from hour-glass fall, 
 
 Or 'neath my window view the wistful train 
 
 Of dripping poultry, whom tlie vine's broad leaves 
 
 Shelter no more. Mute is the mournful plain. 
 
 Silent the swallow sits beneath the thatch, 
 
 And vacant hind hangs pensive o'er his hatch. 
 
 Counting the frequent drop from reeded eaves. 
 
 John Batnpfylde. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 123 — CCXLII. This early sonnet of Lamb's— one of his 'ewe lambs,' as he 
 so feelingly called his sonnets when pleading with Coleridge to stay 
 his critical knife ' — was sent in a letter, dated 2 Jan., 1797, for in- 
 sertion in the joint Coleridge-Lamb-Lloyd volume oi Poems (1797), 
 with a request that it might be printed ' next after my other Sonnet 
 to my Sister' {Life, Letters, and Writings, ed. Fitzgerald, 1876, i, 
 354) ; but Coleridge, probably for reasons deducible from Lamb's 
 letter dated eight days later {ibid., i, 362), and other portions of 
 their correspondence, excluded it. It afterwards appeared in The 
 
 > Lamb to Coleridge, 10 June, 1796 (Li/e, Letters, &c., as above, i, 308): ' I charge 
 you, Coleridge, spare my ewe lambs.'
 
 Notes 395 
 
 Monthly Magazine for October of that year, and was next printed, 
 I believe, by Talfourd in the Letters (1837, i, 59). A second ex- 
 ample will show that Coleridge by no means always had it his own 
 way with the 'ewe lambs.' The letter containing Elia's remon- 
 strance continues : ' I do not know that I entirely agree with you 
 in your stricture upon my Sonnet "To Innocence." To men whose 
 hearts are not quite deadened by their commerce with the world, 
 innocence (no longer familiar) becomes an awful idea. So I felt 
 when I wrote it.' Not only was the sonnet inserted in the joint- 
 volume as Lamb wished, but we find it also in the Bowles-supple- 
 ment, with a foot-note on its eleventh line which looks very like 
 Coleridge's amends to Lamb: — ' Innocence, which while we possess 
 it, is playful as a babe, becomes awful when it has departed from 
 us. This is the sentiment of the line, — ^a fine sentiment, and nobly 
 expressed.' The sonnet is as follows {Poems, &c., 1797, p. 223) : 
 
 "We were two pretty babes ; the youngest she, 
 The youngest, and the loveliest far (I ween) 
 And Innocence her name : the time has been 
 We two did love each other's company ; 
 Time was, we two had wept to have been apart. 
 But when, by shew of seeming good beguil'd, 
 I left the garb and manners of a child, 
 And my first love, for man's society. 
 Defiling with the world my virgin heart — 
 My lov'd companion dropt a tear, and fled, 
 And hid in deepest shades her awful head. 
 Beloved ! who shall tell me, where thou art 
 In what delicious Eden to be found ? 
 That I may seek thee, the wide world around. 
 1795-' 
 
 1 In an earlier letter to Coleridge, Lamb says of this sonnet (ibid., i, 292) : ' The 
 next and last I value most of all. 'Twas composed close upon the heels of the last 
 in th-it very wood 1 had in mind when I wrote " Methmks how dainty sweet 
 (Coleridge's Poevis, 1796. P- 56] • • • Since writing it,^I have found in a poem by 
 Hamilton of Bangour, these two lines to " Happiness: 
 
 " Nun, sober and devout, where art thou fled 
 To hide in shades thy meek, contented head ? " 
 Lines eminently beautiful ; but I do not remember having read them previously, 
 for the credit of my tenth and eleventh lines. Parnell has two lines (which probably 
 suggested the above) to " Contentment : " 
 
 " Whither, ah ! whither art thou fled, ^_ 
 To hide thy meek, contented head V " 
 Cowley's exquisite " Elegy on the Death of his friend Harvey," suggested the phrase 
 
 of" we two : " , j- j ^ 1 
 
 " Was there a tree that did not know 
 The love betwixt us two ''." ' 
 May not Lamb have had Marvell's beautiful ' Garden ' in his thoughts too ?-(a;;«- 
 plete IVorks. ed. Grosart, 1872, i, 61) : 
 
 ' Fair Quiet, have I found thee here. 
 And Innocence, thy sister dear ! 
 Mistaken long, I sought you then 
 In busie companies of men.'
 
 396 Notes 
 
 p^GE Ckrlcs f amb-. 
 
 124 — CCXLIII. The original version {Examiner, June 20, 1819) has the 
 more personal ' this ' for that in 1. 6 : 
 
 ' To this dry drudgery of the desk's dead wood.' 
 
 CCXLIV. In a letter from Lamb to Miss Betham, written, it is 
 believed, in 1815, and printed in Eraser's Magazine, July, 1S78, 
 there occurs this very characteristic outburst : ' O darling laziness ! 
 heaven of Epicurus ! Saints' Everlasting Rest ! that I could drink 
 vast potations of thee thro' unmeasured Eternity — Otium cum vel 
 sine dignitate. Scandalous, dishonourable, any kind of repose. I 
 stand not upon the dignified sort. Accursed, damned desks, trade, 
 commerce, business. Inventions of that old original busybody, 
 brain-working Satan — Sabbathless, restless Satan. A curse re- 
 lieves : do you ever try it ?' 
 
 ccxLiii-ccxLiv. From Album Verses, with a few Others : 1830. 
 ' In closing my enumeration of the capabilities of the sonnet,' says 
 Henry Reed {Lectures, &c., as before, ii, 269), ' there is one other 
 purpose to which it was equal. It could express the feelings of 
 Charles Lamb. Why of Charles Lamb more than of any one 
 else ? Reader, if you ask that question, you have not yet learned 
 the dear mystery of those two monosyllables, " Charles Lamb." 
 But if you have been more fortunate, how much of the spirit of 
 " Elia " will you not recognise in these two brief poems ! ' 
 125 — CCXLV. ' In a leaf of a quarto edition of the " Lives of the 
 Saints, written in Spanish by the learned and reverend father, 
 Alfonso Villegas, Divine, of the Order of St. Dominick, set forth 
 in English by John Heigham, Anno 1630," bought at a Catholic 
 book-shop in Duke-street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, I found, carefully 
 inserted, a painted flower, seemingly coeval with the book itself ; 
 and did not, for some time, discover that it opened in the middle, 
 and was the cover to a very humble draught of a St. Anne, with 
 the Virgin and Child ; doubtless the performance of some poor 
 but pious Catholic, whose meditations it assisted.' — C. L. It is a 
 satisfaction to be able to give this fine sonnet as Lamb wrote it 
 {AtheticEttm, February 15, 1834). Only in one edition of his Poems 
 — that published by Moxon in 1836 — will it be found free of a 
 disastrous corruption in the last line. 
 The lovers of Elia, especially those of them who may have visited the 
 sweet little country church-yard of Edmonton, where brother and sister 
 lie in one grave together, will need no apology for the following sonnet, 
 addressed to Mary Lamb after her brother's death, by his friend and pub- 
 lisher, and the husband of his foster-child Emma Isola : ' It so beau-
 
 Notes 307 
 
 tifully embodies,' says Talfourd {Final Memorials, 1848, ii, 236), 'the 
 reverential love with which the sleeping and the mourning were regarded 
 by one of their nearest Ix'mnds.' {Sonneis by Edzuard Moxon. Part Second, 
 1835, p. 18) : 
 
 Here sleeps beneath this bank, where daisies grow, 
 The kindliest sprite earth holds within her breast ; 
 In such a spot I would this frame should rest. 
 When I to join my friend far hence shall go. 
 His only mate is now the minstrel lark, 
 Who chaunts her morning music o'er his bed. 
 Save she who comes each evening, ere the bark 
 Of watch-dog gathers drowsy folds, to shed 
 A sister's tears. Kind Heaven, upon her head 
 Do thou in dove-like guise thy spirit pour. 
 And in her aged path some flow'rets spread 
 Of earthly joy, should Time for her in store 
 Have weary days and nights, ere she shall greet 
 Him whom she longs in Paradise to meet. 
 
 Edward Moxon, 
 
 lostulr lliiivto Kilbik. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 125— CCXLVI. From the Life of the Rev. Joseph Blanco White, Written 
 by Himself: with Portions of his Correspondence. Edited by John 
 Hamilton Thorn. 1845, iii, 48 : under this entry in the author's 
 Journal — ' October 16th, 1838. In copying my Sonnet on Night 
 and Death for a friend, I have made some corrections. It is now 
 as follows.' Two letters from Coleridge to White {ibid., i, 439-443) 
 have an important bearing on the sonnet. In the first of these, 
 dated from Mr. Gillman's house, 'Grove, Highgate, 2Sth Nov., 
 1827,' Coleridge writes : ' I have now before me two fragments of 
 Letters begun, the one in acknowledgment of the finest and most 
 grandly conceived Sonnet in our Language,— (at least, it is only in 
 Milton's and in Wordsworth's Sonnets that I recollect any rival, — 
 and this is not my judgment alone, but that of the man hcxxI tqoxrjv 
 <pz/lo«aAou John Hookham Frere,)'&c. In the second letter, with- 
 out date, but written some time subsequently to the other, we find 
 him disavowing with astonishment and concern the charge of having 
 unauthorisedly published a sonnet of White's. We need be at no loss 
 as to the common subject of these references ; and the alleged publi- 
 cation, if true, was doubtless the first appearance in print of the great 
 sonnet on A^'ight and Death. Unluckily the correspondence affords 
 no clue whatever to the locality of that publication ; nor, so far as I 
 am aware, has it ever been traced. This disappearance, which would 
 be sufficiently regrettable had it no other consequence than that of 
 depriving us of the satisfaction of seeing the poem precisely as first
 
 398 Notes 
 
 lostplj ^laitco S2tl)itc. 
 
 cast by its author, and as seen by Coleridge when he characterized 
 it so highly, is all the more unfortunate from the circumstance that 
 at the period White made his final version he was in such a state of 
 bodily anguish as specially unfitted him for that work of alteration 
 which is so rarely successful. It is therefore with no ordinary plea- 
 sure that I am able to present the reader with the sonnet in its 
 original form, showing important variations from the received text. 
 For this the public is indebted to the Rev. Robert Perceval Graves, 
 of Dublin, — name linked with precious memories ! — who has 
 favoured me with a transcript which he took many years ago, cer- 
 tainly some time between 1832-1834, and almost certainly from an 
 autograph, having then been personally acquainted with the author. 
 
 It is as follows : — 
 
 NIGHT AND DEATH. 
 
 • Mysterious Night ! when the first Man but knew 
 
 Thee by report, unseen, and heard thy name, 
 Did he not tremble for this lovely Frame, 
 This glorious canopy of Light and Blue ? 
 Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew, 
 Bathed in the rays of the great setting Flame, 
 Hesperus with the Host of Heaven came, * 
 
 And lo ! Creation widened on his view ! • 
 Who could have thought what Darkness lay concealed 
 Within thy beams, O Sun ? or who could find. 
 Whilst fly and leaf and insect stood revealed, 
 That to such endless Orbs thou mad'st us blind ? 
 Weak man ! why to shun Death this anxious strife ? 
 If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life ?' 
 
 Opinion will of course be divided on the comparative merit of the two 
 versions. For my own part, though feeling obliged to recognize the later as 
 the authoritative text still, I cannotbut on the whole agree with Mr. Graves 
 in preferring the earlier ; and for the following reasons, which arewell put 
 in his own words: — 'L. i."the first Man" brings more simply before the 
 mind the dominant idea ; /ar^wi* embarrasses it. 2. Against the intro- 
 duction of the word divine, it may be urged that we do not want, it is 
 
 1 Note that in this and the only other sonnet he is known to have written [Life, 
 &c., i, 430— 'On hearins; myself called an Old Man for the first time, at the age of 
 fifty :' first printed in The Casket, 1829), White disposes the rimes of his tercets in the 
 order for which he indicates a preference in an article by him on ' The Sonnet ' ( The 
 Christian Teacher, New Series, vol. i, 1839) : ' The best English writers of Sonnets 
 perceiving not the unsuitableness of that Form of poetry to the " English Language," 
 but the weakness of sound under which English rhymes generally labour, have fre- 
 quently approximated them lo each other in the last six lines of the Sonnet, making 
 the first four to rhyme alternately, and reducing the two last to a couplet.' Samuel 
 Rogers has some lines (Written at Midnight, Sept. 3, 1848), beginning 
 
 ' If Day reveals such wonders by her Light,' 
 which were evidently suggested by White's famous sonnet.
 
 Notes 399 
 
 rather incumbering, to be told the origin of the report. But being told 
 that it is divine interferes with the thought ; for information from such a 
 source would be calculated to take away dread of the approaching change. 
 If the word is inserted merely to justify the word report, no other man 
 but Adam then being in existence, it indicates a fault in both versions. 
 Perhaps it would have been simpler and better if the approach of the 
 sun to the horizon as observed by the first man, and the decreasing light, 
 had been given as the cause of his imagined terror. 8. in tnan's view : 
 a change for the worse in every way. It is most harsh in sound, and 
 the poet has no right to speak of man in the abstract in connexion with 
 the momentary effect upon the one man, indicated by the lo ! at the 
 beginning of the line. "On his view " reads smoothly, and just says 
 what is wanted, [ii. It were to be wished that the recovered version 
 had removed the tautological blemish from which this line suffers, as 
 might easily and happily be done by the substitution of ' flower ' for 
 y?y.] 12. "endless" seems better to describe the action of the first 
 man's mind as he observes, rather traversing space and the bright 
 objects it contains, than counting, or attempting to count, them; which 
 would be an exercise of the mind less simple and less likely to be imme- 
 diate. 13. Here again both sound and sense are in favour of the 
 original line. Nothing can be more prosaic and poor than the first five 
 monosyllables in the corrected line ; ?.nd then and shun follow each 
 other most cacophonously. The original line, if not much superior — it 
 is superior — in sound, has a pathos which the corrected line has not ; 
 and it is properly addressed to the whole family of man.' 
 
 Of this great sonnet Leigh Hunt well said {Book oftlie Sonnet, i, 25S) 
 that in point of thought it ' stands supreme, perhaps above all in any 
 language : nor can we ponder it too deeply, or with too hopeful a reve- 
 rence.' Other criticisms will be found in Forster's Biography oi Landor, 
 ii, 517-8 ; Archbishop Trench's Household Book of English Poetry, p. 
 413 ; and The Spectator of December 20, 1873. 
 
 The following lines, written in 1845 by the daughter of S. T. Cole- 
 ridge, find an appropriate place here. {Memoir and Letters of Sara 
 Coleridge, Edited by h^r Daughter, 1873, ii, 186): 
 
 BLANCO WHITE. 
 Couldst thou in calmness yield thy mortal breath, 
 Without the Christian's sure and certain hope ? 
 Didst thou to earth confine our being's scope. 
 Yet, fixed on One Supreme with fervent faith, 
 Prompt to obey what conscience witnesseth, 
 As one intent to fly the eternal wrath. 
 Decline the ways of sin that downward slope ! 
 O thou light-searching spirit,- that didst grope 
 In such bleak shadows here, 'twixt life and death,
 
 400 Notes 
 
 losfplj §I;rnro ^lilbifc. 
 
 To thee dare I bear witness, though in ruth — 
 Brave witness like thine own — dare hope and pray 
 That thou, set free from this imprisoning clay, 
 Now clad in raiment of pci^petual youth, 
 Mayst find -that bliss untold 'mid endless day 
 Awaits each earnest soul that lives for Truth. 
 
 Sara Coleridge. 
 
 Since writing the above note I have discovered what, until White's 
 charge against Coleridge is substantiated, must be regarded as the first 
 appearance on the typographical horizon of the Night and Death sonnet; 
 viz., in TJie Gentlema7i s Magazine for May, 1835, where it appears ver- 
 batim et literatim as preserved by Mr. Graves from an earlier date. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 126 — CCXLVII. From the anonymous y^;«arv«//2Mi', the Nympholept : &c. 
 With Other Poenis. 1821 — as amended in his Poetical Works, 1846. 
 
 ITorb Sljurlok 
 
 CCXLVIII. Given, with the next in the text, from his Poems on 
 Several Occasions. Second Edition. \^\th. Appendix. 1813. The 
 issue of 1822 is also called ' Second Edition.' With Thurlow cp. 
 Drummond, cxix and cxxviii (pp. 60-65). 
 127 — CCXLix. One of a series of sonnets written on a journey in the south 
 of England. I have substituted the present for the author's title. 
 
 CCL. This fine example of the didactic sonnet, given from the 
 Select Poems, 1821, was held in peculiar esteem by ' the gentle Elia.' 
 At the passage ' a thin diet of dainty words ' in his essay on Some 
 Sonnets of Sir Philip Sidney, as originally printed in The London 
 Magazine, September, 1823, he thus introduces it in a foot-note : 
 * A profusion of verbal dainties, with a disproportionate lack of 
 matter and circumstance, is I think one reason of the coldness with 
 which the public has received the poetry of a nobleman now living; 
 which, upon the score of exquisite diction alotie, is entitled to some- 
 thing better than neglect.* I will venture to copy one of his Son- 
 nets in this place, which for quiet sweetness, and unaffected morality, 
 has scarcely its parallel in our language.' And De Quincey records 
 {Recollections of Charles Lamb, Boston, 1851, i, 121): ' That I might 
 not go off with the notion that he read only his own verses, after- 
 wards he read, and read beautifully — for of all our poets Lamb only 
 and WoBdsworth read well — ^amost beautiful sonnet of Lord Thurlow, 
 on " Lacken Water."' Dyce remarks its 'moral beauty, 'and Arch-
 
 Notes 4CI 
 
 bishop Trench characterizes it as ' a sonnet of stately and thoughful 
 beauty— one which no anthology of English sonnets ought hence- 
 forward ever to omit.' It is perhaps in the fresh and vivid nature- 
 picture it presents that the chief merit of Thurlow's sonnet consists ; 
 and, as such, it may be compared with one on a curiously similar 
 subject from the pen of the learned historian of Devon (/'()^/wj,i788): 
 THE WOODCOCK. 
 While not a Wing of Insect-Being floats, 
 And not a Murmur moves the frozen Air, 
 Yon' Ice-clad Sedge, with tremulous Wave, denotes 
 Amid the leafless Copse, that Life is there. 
 And lo, half-seen, the Bird of russet Breast > 
 And duskier Pinion, that had cleft the Skies 
 Of wild inhospitable Climes in quest 
 Of the warm Spring, his plashy Labor plies. 
 Feed on, jDoor Bird, beneath the sheltering Copse ; 
 And near thee may no wanton Spaniel stray ! 
 Or rising, when dim Eve her Curtain drops, 
 Ah ! may no Net arrest thy darkling Way ! 
 But long unpent by Frost, o'erflow the Rill — 
 And many an Insect meet thy delving Bill ! 
 
 Kichard Polwhele. 
 LI. 9-14. Cp. his sonnet beginning 
 
 ' This forest is to me the sweetest college.' 
 I do not remember having seen it noticed that this much-ridiculed 
 nobleman appears to have anticipated a famous sentiment of Words- 
 worth's in one of his sonnets {Poevis, &c., as above, p. 197 : 
 
 ' Souls that have fed upon divinest thought. 
 Yet lacking utt'rance of their musick's store. 
 
 ' 1 
 
 PAGE 
 
 128 — CCLI. The Village Patriarch, Love, and Other Poems : 1834, 
 
 CCLII. One of a series entitled ' Rhymed Rambles ' (Poetical 
 Works of the Corn-Law Phymer : 1840), of which the Preface de- 
 serves to be quoted for its bearing on our subject. ' If Mr. Hous- 
 man of Lune Bank had not sent me a copy of his collection of 
 English sonnets, I should have been the author of one sonnet only. 
 I never liked the measure of the legitimate or Petrarchan sonnet. 
 There is a disagreeable break in the melody, after the eighth line. 
 That Milton felt this, is proved by the fact, that he frequently ran 
 
 ' Cp. The Excursion, 18 14, Bk. i : 
 
 ' Oh ! many are the Poets that are sown 
 By Nature ; Men endow'd with highest gifts. 
 The vision and the faculty divine. 
 Yet wanting the accomplishment of Verse.' 
 
 AA
 
 402 Notes 
 
 ©kiu^er €IIiotf. 
 
 the eighth line into the ninth, contrary to law. Nor can I agree 
 with Mr. Housman, that a sonnet ending with a couplet is therefore 
 faulty ; on the contrary, a couplet at the close of a sonnet has often 
 a fine effect. So thought and so proved Cowper, and our elder 
 poets ; and there are in Mr. Housman's collection five most harmo- 
 nious, yet not Petrarchan sonnets, by Fitzadam, composed of three 
 elegiac stanzas and a couplet, all disconnected in rhyme, but not in 
 metre ; which fully shew that the measure of the sonnet, as he has 
 managed it, is as proper for a long and serious poem as the Spen- 
 serian stanza itself. The sonnet, I believe, has become popular in 
 those languages only in which it is more diilScult to avoid similar 
 rhymes than to find them.' The Spenserian stanza, requiring four 
 rhymes, is quite as difficult as the'Petrarchan sonnet, the latter being 
 little mor-e than a series of couplets and triplets ; and I venture to 
 suggest that — preceded by five lines linked to it in melody, and con- 
 cluding occasionally with an Alexandrine — or preceded by four lines 
 only, if concluding with a triplet — the far-famed measure of Spenser 
 is the best which the English sonneteer can employ. Of this the 
 reader may judge for himself ; as, in these sonnets, (if sonnets they 
 are,) I have used the legitimate, the Spenserian, and other forms.' 
 Later, in a note on the concluding sonnet of a series written in 1848, 
 entitled ' The Year of Seeds ' {More Verse and Prose by the Cortilaw 
 Rhymer, 1850), he says : ' After much theory, and some practice, I 
 venture to propose the measure of this sonnet as a pattern to english 
 sonneteers ; for while, to me, the Petrarchan, in our language is at 
 once immelodious and inharmonious, the music of this, in its linked 
 unity, is both sweet and various, and when closed by an alexandrine, 
 majestic' I subjoin the sonnet : — 
 
 And to the Father of Eternal days. 
 
 And fairest things, that fairer yet will be, 
 
 Shall I no song of adoration raise. 
 
 While Passion's world, and Life's great agony, 
 
 Are one dread hymn, dread Progresser ! to Thee? 
 
 Thou, Love, art Progress ! And be thine the praise 
 
 If I have ever lov'd thy voice divine. 
 
 And o'er the sadness of my slander'd lays 
 
 Flings its redeeming charm a note of thine. 
 
 Oh, Gentlest INIight Almighty ! if of mine 
 
 One strain shall live, let it thy impress bear ; 
 
 And please wherever humble virtues twine 
 
 The rose and woodbine with the thorns of care. 
 
 Thriving because they love ! Thy temple, Lord, is there ! 
 
 > See Coleridge's observation under ccvi {ante, p. 379).
 
 Notes 403 
 
 These extracts from Elliott are now given from the new and revised 
 edition of his Poetical Works, edited by his Son, Edwin Elliott, Rec- 
 tor of St. John's, Antigua. 2 vols. 1876. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Milliam ^tanlcir |ioscoc. 
 
 129 — CCLlli. From his Poems, 1834 : a little volume by the eldest son 
 of the historian, and father of William Caldwell Roscoe, which 
 deserved the very friendly reception accorded it by ' Blackwood ' 
 (February, 1835). 
 
 CCLIV. Yxova. Foliage J or Poems Original and Translated : 1818. 
 
 This sonnet, so characteristic of a writer who cannot be more truly 
 
 or happily described than in his own words to Haydon, as 
 
 ' One of the spirits chosen by heaven to turn 
 The sunny side of things to human eyes,' 
 
 was written in competition with Keats, as under cccii (p. 419), on 
 the night of 30th December, 1816, and appeared in Tin Examiner 
 of September 21st, 1817, together with Keats's sonnet, extracted 
 from his maiden volume. L. 4. Mr. Patmore refers to the same 
 artifice in a fine simile ( Tamerton Church- Tower, iv, 3) : 
 ' About the West the gilt vane reel'd 
 And poised ; and, with sweet art. 
 The sudden, jangling changes peal'd, 
 
 Until, around my heart. 
 Conceits of brighter times, of times 
 
 The brighter for past storms. 
 Clung thick as bees, when brazen chimes 
 Call down the hiveless swarms.' 
 
 I add a latter sonnet {Poetical Works, edited by Thornton Hunt, 
 i860, p. 277), which appeared originally in The Seer ; or Common- 
 Places Refreshed, 1840, Pt. I) : 
 
 AN ANGEL IN THE HOUSE. 
 How sweet it were if, without feeble fright, 
 Or dying of the dreadful beauteous sight. 
 An angel came to us, and we could bear 
 To see him issue from the silent air 
 At evening in our room, and bend on ours 
 His divine eyes, and bring us fi'om his bowers 
 News of dear friends and children who have never 
 Been dead indeed, — as we shall know for ever. 
 Alas ! we think not what we daily see 
 About our hearths — angels that are to be. 
 Or may be if they will, and we prepare 
 Their souls and ours to meet in happy air ; — 
 A child, a friend, a wife whose soft heart sings 
 In unison with ours, breeding its future wings.
 
 404 Notes 
 
 P^irrg I'lirhc SlMfe. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 130 — CCLV-CCLVI. From his Remains, edited by Southey. 3 vols. 
 1808-1822. I have been unable to discover on what authority 
 Professor F. \V. Newman prints ' dread ' for dead in 1. 6 of the 
 former of these sonnets, in his little Collection of Poetry for the 
 Practice of Elocution, 1850. 
 
 (H^arks Siroiig. 
 
 131 — CCLVII. From Sonnets, by Rev. Charles Strong, J.M., Formerly 
 Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, 1835, of which a second and 
 enlarged edition, including some contributions by a friend (the late 
 Rev. Carrington Ley, Vicar of Bere Regis, Dorsetshire), was pub- 
 lished in 1862. This elegant sonnet-writer, and accomplished and 
 delightful man, as he is described to me by a friend who knew him 
 well, was born at Tiverton, Devonshire, 4 May, 1785, and received 
 his early education at Blundell's School there. He became Rector 
 of Broughton Gifford, Wilts, in 1812, which he resigned in 1848 ; 
 and died at Dawlish, Devonshire, 27 January, 1864. Besides his 
 original sonnets, he published (anonymously) Specimens of Somiets 
 from the Most Celebrated Italiati Poets, with Translations (1827), 
 the firstfruits of a love for the arts and literature of Italy, imbibed 
 during a visit to that country in 1821-2. It is to Strong that the 
 distich in Elton's metrical epistle to Clare refers (Cherry's Xzy^aW 
 Retnains of John Clare, 1873, p. 71) : 
 
 ' Our English Petrarch trundles down 
 To Devon's valley.' 
 
 |obit 2(>UIsoit. 
 
 CCLVIII. From The Isle of Palms, atid Other Poems : l8l2. 
 
 132 — CCLIX. Compare Mr. Rossetti's fervent and solemn sonnet (/'^^•wj, 
 
 1870, p. 228): 
 
 LOST DAYS. 
 
 The lost days of my life until to-day. 
 What were they, could I see them on the street 
 Lie as they fell ? Would they be ears of wheat 
 Sown once for food but trodden into clay? 
 Or golden coins squandered and still to pay? 
 Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet ? 
 Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheat 
 The throats of men in Hell, who thirst alway? 
 I do not see them here ; but after death 
 God knows I know the faces I shall see,
 
 Notes 405 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Each one a murdered self, with low last breath : 
 ' I am thyself, — what hast thou done to me?' 
 'And I — and I — thyself,' (lo ! each one saith,) 
 'And thou thyself to all eternity !' 
 
 Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 
 
 133 — CCLXII, 13. An early poem of the laureate's {Poems by Two 
 Brothers, 1827, p. 64) has — 
 
 ' high Persepolis of old.' 
 
 CCLXI-CCLXII. To these illustrations of Sir Aubrey de Vere's 
 rare descriptive powers I add part of the exquisite reminiscence, 
 ' Rydal with Wordsworth ' (p. 20S), which in The Literary Souvenir 
 for 1834, where it originally appeared, is dated ' Ambleside, July 
 30th, 1833.' He recalls — 
 
 ' Lone lakes ; rills gushing through rock-rooted trees ; 
 
 Peaked mountains, shadowing vales of peacefulness ; 
 
 Glens, echoing to the flashing waterfall. 
 
 Then that sweet twilight isle, with friends delayed 
 
 Beside a ferny bank, 'neath oaks and yews ; 
 
 The moon between two mountain peaks embayed ; 
 
 Heaven and the waters dyed with sunset hues : 
 
 And He, the Poet of the age and land. 
 
 Discoursing, as we wandered, hand in hand.' 
 
 132-133 — CCLix-CCLXii. From^ Song of Faith, Devout Exercises, and 
 Sonnets : 1842. These ' Sonnets,' which Wordsworth, whose friend- 
 ship Sir Aubrey properly esteemed one of the chief honours of his 
 later life, pronounced to be ' the best of modern times,' ^ and his 
 admirable drama Mary Tudor (1847), were republished in 1875, 
 each with a Memoir by his distinguished son, Mr. Aubrey de Vere, 
 who has nobly employed the lyrical and dramatic talents bequeathed 
 him by his father, and ranks among the very foremost living sonnet- 
 writers. It may be permitted me therefore to link the younger 
 with the elder in this place, by means of the following magnificent 
 sonnet, which is such as Landor himself, to whom the series is 
 dedicated, might have written, had he not unfortunately ' sworn a 
 great oath ' never to write a sonnet 1 {The Search after Proserpine, 
 Recollections of Greece, and Other Poems : 1843, p. 133, as amended 
 
 1877) : 
 
 THE SUN GOD. 
 
 I saw the Master of the Sun. He stood 
 High in his luminous car, himself more bright ; 
 An Archer of immeasurable might : 
 On his left shoulder hung his quivered load ; 
 
 1 ' In the case of a certain poet since dead, and never popular, he said to me, " I 
 consider his sonnets to be the best of modern times ; " adding. " Of course I am not 
 including my own in any comparison with those of others." '—Mr. Aubrey De Vere's 
 Recollections, &c., as before (Wordsworth's Prose IVorks, iii, 492).
 
 4o6 Notes 
 
 Sir ^ttbrtg \z ^nt. ■> 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Spurned by his Steeds the eastern mountain glowed ; 
 
 Forward his eager eye, and brow of light 
 
 He bent ; and, while both hands that arch embowed, 
 
 Shaft after shaft pursued the flying Night. 
 
 No wings profaned that godlike form : around 
 
 His neck high held an ever-moving crowd 
 
 Of locks hung glistening : while such perfect sound 
 
 Fell from his bowstring, that th' etherial dome 
 
 Thrilled as a dewdrop ; and each passing cloud 
 
 Expanded, whitening like the ocean foam. 
 
 Aubrey de Vere} 
 
 ITorb ^gron. 
 
 134 — CCLXIII. From The Prisoner of Chilian, and Other Poems : 1816. 
 ' Bonnivard, a Genevese, was imprisoned by the Duke of Savoy in 
 Chillon on the lake of Geneva for his courageous defence of his 
 country against the tyranny with which Piedmont threatened it 
 during the first half of the seventeenth century. — This noble Sonnet 
 
 1 It may help to preserve an uncollected criticism of Leigh Hunt's (one of those 
 referred to, ante, p. 315, as having been contributed to The True Sun newspaper in 
 1833), if I note here that the pretty sonnet at p. 258 of Mr. De Vere's volume of 1843 
 (p. 50, ed. 1877), which originally appeared in the same issue of The Litera7-y Souvenir 
 with his father's sonnet as above, was, by a very excusable mistake, which must have 
 often happened since, printed as Sir Aubrey's. Leigh Hunt, reviewing the annual, 
 and not aware that an error had been made, says : 
 
 ' The laureate of the present volume is Sir Aubrey de Vere, who is worthy to be 
 the friend of Wordsworth. He has a sonnet here, recording a visit he paid to the 
 great poet ; but love is a still greater inspirer than the love of poetry, and the follow- 
 ing sonnet is so good that we could not help extracting it. The passages in particular 
 ■which we have marked in italics, are very beautiful. Sir Aubrey might repeat them, 
 if he had written nothing else, as his title-deeds to the name of a poet : 
 She whom this heart must ever hold most dear 
 (This heart in happy bondage held so long) 
 Began to sing. At first a gentle fear 
 Rosied her countenance ; for she is young. 
 And he who loves her most of all was near : 
 But when at last her voice grew full and strong, 
 O ! from their ambush sweet, how rich and clear 
 Leaped the bright notes abroad — a rapturous throng 1 
 Her little hands were sometimes flung apart. 
 And sometimes palm to palm together prest ; . 
 While wave-like blushes rising /rojn her breast, 
 
 ^We see here the bosom and the blushes rising together, — the one, as it were, throw- 
 ing up the other, as it breathes) 
 
 Kept time with that aerial melody ; 
 . A music to the sight ! — / standing nigh 
 Received tlie falling fountain in my heart. 
 
 This is a beautiful and perfect image, expressed with the force and simplicity of true 
 feeling.' Earlier (in The Tatlcr, March 3, 1831), criticizing Charles Tennyson's 
 maiden volume, Leigh Hunt had remarked as ' delicate and picturesque ' a passage in 
 one of the sonnets, of which Mr. De Vere's eleventh verse seems to me to be a recol- 
 lection, as his thirteenth is of Wordsworth's ' soft eye-music' (Sonnets and Fugitive 
 Pieces, by Charles Tennyson, 1830, p. 25) : 
 
 ' See'st thou her blushes, that like shadows sweet 
 Pass upward from the silence of the heart.'
 
 Notes 407 
 
 PAGE 
 
 is worthy to stand near Milton's on the Vaudois massacre.' — F. T. 
 Palgrave. Mr. Swinburne {Essays atid Studies, 1875, p. 250), who 
 justly names this as one of Byron's ' noblest andcompletest poems,' 
 says that ' his few sonnets are all good ; ' but, as was evidently the 
 case with himself when editing the little volume in which his cri- 
 ticism first appeared {A Selection from the IVorks of Lord Byron. 
 Edited and Prefaced by Algernon Chas. Swiiibiirne : 1866), I have 
 been unable to find a second example perfectly suited to my pur- 
 pose. 
 
 iokrt JosroE. 
 
 134-135— CCLXIV-CCLXV. These two sonnets, by the third son of 
 William Roscoe, are given, the former from his anonymous Chevy 
 Chase, a Poem. Founded oh the Ancient Ballad. With Other 
 Poems ; and the latter from Poems for Youth. By a Family Circle : 
 both volumes bearing date 1820. 
 
 (Lljomas ^Dublcbng. 
 
 CCLXVI. From an anonymous little volume of verse published in 
 1818, and entitled Sixty-Five Sonnets. With Prefatory Remarks on 
 the accordance of the Sonnet with the powers of the English Lan- 
 guage. Also a few Miscellaneous Poems : the joint performance of 
 Mr. Doubleday and his cousin, Mr. William Greene. Mr. Double- 
 day afterwards rose to eminence as a writer on political, social, and 
 financial subjects ; but besides his works in these departments he 
 wrote The Italian Wife, a Tragedy (1823) ; Babington, a Tragedy 
 (1825) ; Dioclesian, a Dramatic Poem (1829) ; Caius Maritis, an 
 Historical Drama (1836) ; &c. The two kinsmen occupy a promi- 
 nent place as song-writers in Mr. Joseph Crawhall's Collection of 
 Right Merrie Garlands for NoJ-th Cotmtiy Anglers (Newcastle- 
 upon-Tyne, 1864), v/hich see for a brief notice of Mr. Greene, who 
 died in 1861, leaving, I believe, a considerable number of unpub- 
 lished sonnets to which I have failed to obtain access. 
 136 — CCLXVn. From The Literary Souvenir for 1827. 
 
 ^rjTHit l^alkr l^rotter. 
 
 For recent criticisms on Barry Cornwall and his poetry the student 
 may be referred to Mr. E. C. Stedman's Victorian Poets, 1876, The 
 Edinburgh Review for April and The Nitteteenth Century for October, 
 1878. An early one by Hazlitt, bearing on the Sonnets, may be quoted 
 for its brevity : ' It only remains to speak of Mr. Barry Cornwall, who, 
 both in the Drama, and in his other poems, has shewn brilliancy and 
 tenderness of fancy, and a fidelity to truth and nature, in conceiving the
 
 4o8 Notes 
 
 ^rgatt dialler ^rocte. 
 
 finer movements of the mind equal to the felicity of his execution in 
 expressing them.' ' 
 
 PAGE 
 
 136 — ccLXVlll. From A Siciliati Story, with Diego De Moniilla, and 
 Other Poems : 1820. It is to this sonnet that Leigh Hunt alludes 
 in his delicious little book The Months, 1821, p. 115 : ' The chief 
 business of October, in the great economy of nature, is dissemina- 
 tion, which is performed among other means by tlie high winds 
 which now return. Their effect upon the imagination, or that other 
 utility of pleasure which nature produces upon the mind in moments 
 apparently the most dreary, is almost universally felt, though every- 
 body cannot express it like the poet.' Had Leigh Hunt been 
 writing five-and-thirty-years later, I have little doubt that he would 
 have drawn upon another poet-friend for an additional illustration. 
 (Day and Night Songs, 1854, as amended 1877) : 
 AUTUMNAL SONNET. 
 Now Autumn's fire bums slowly along the woods, 
 And day by day the dead leaves fall and melt. 
 And night by night the monitory blast 
 Wails in the key-hole, telling how it pass'd 
 O'er empty fields, or upland solitudes, 
 * Or grim wide wave ; and now the power is felt 
 
 Of melancholy, tenderer in its moods 
 Than any joy indulgent summer dealt. 
 Dear friends, together in the glimmering eve, 
 Pensive and glad, with tones that recognize 
 The soft invisible dew in each one's eyes. 
 It may be, somewhat thus we shall have leave 
 To walk with memory, when distant lies 
 Poor Earth, where we were wont to live and grieve. 
 
 William Allingham^ 
 
 ■ Select British Poets, or New Elegant Extracts, from Chaucer to the Present 
 Time, vuith Critical Remarks. By William Hazlitt. Lond., 1824. This work, the 
 original issn^ of Hazlitt's Select Poets of Great Britain, 1825, is among the rarest of 
 modern books, having been rigidly suppressed on publication. The latter, ending with 
 Burns, was simply a reissue of the earlier portion of the former, which, in addition to 
 the portion so reissued, contains copious extracts from and sententious criticisms on 
 Rogers, Campbell, Bloomfield, Crabbe, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey, Scott, Lamb, 
 Montgomery, Byron, INIoore, Leigh Hunt, Shelley, Lord Thurlow, Keats, Milman, 
 Bowles, and Barry Cornwall. These criticisms by Hazlitt have since been reprinted in 
 his son's valuable edition oi jfohnson's Lives of the British Poets (1854). Lamb, by 
 whom the sheets of the original work were seen through the press, receives this notice: 
 ' Mr. C. Lamb has produced no poems equal to his prose writings : but I could not 
 resist the temptation of transferring into this collection h\9, Farezvell to Tobacco, and 
 some of the sketches in his John Woodvil ; the first of which is rarely surpassed in 
 quaint wit, and the last in pure feeling.' And Keats this : ' Mr. Keats is also dead. He 
 g.-»ve the greatest promise of genius of any poet of his day. He displayed extreme ten- 
 derness,beauty,originality and delicacy offancy; all he wanted was manly strength and 
 fortitude to reject the temptations of singularity in sentiment and e.xpression. Some of 
 his shorter and later pieces are, however, as free from faults as they are full of beauties.' 
 
 * L. 8. Cp. Wordsworth (cxciii, p. 99) : 
 
 ' the instinctive joys of song. 
 And nobler cares than listless summer knew.'
 
 Notes 409 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The sonnet in the text is one of four on the seasons, of which I 
 
 subjoin that on 
 
 WINTER. 
 
 This is the eldest of the seasons : he ! 
 
 Moves not, like Spring, with gradual step, nor grows I 
 
 From bud to beauty ; but with all his snows 1 
 
 Comes down at once in hoar antiquity. , 
 
 No rains, nor loud proclaiming tempests flee 
 
 Before him ; nor unto his time belong i 
 
 The suns of Summer, nor the charms of song, 
 
 That with May's gentle smiles so well agree. 
 
 But he, made perfect in his birth-day cloud, 
 
 Starts into sudden life with scarce a sound, j 
 
 And with a gentle footstep prints the ground, • \ 
 
 As tho' to cheat man's ear ; yet while he stays, | 
 
 He seems as 'twere to prompt our merriest days, | 
 
 And bid the dance and joke be long and loud.' j 
 
 137 — CCLXIX. Yxoviv Dramatic Scenes and Other Poems : i8ig. j 
 
 CCLXX. From The Flood of Thessaly, The Girl of Provence, and I 
 
 Other Poems : 1823. 1 
 
 138 — CCLXXi. Yrom. English Songs and Other Small Poems : 1832. : 
 
 ^£rra I^DSsIjc S'ljcllcw. '• 
 
 CCLXXII. From Rosalind and Helen, a Modem Eclogue ; with 
 Other Poems : 1 8 19. In the Life, Letters, and Literary Remains , 
 
 of John Keats, edited by Lord Houghton (1848, i, 98), there is a I 
 
 letter from Keats to his brothers, dated Feb. 16, [181S], in which he j 
 
 says : ' The Wednesday before last, Shelley, Hunt, and I, wrote '. 
 
 each a sonnet on the river Nile : some day you shall read them 
 all ; ' and the editor thereupon gives the two following sonnets, and 
 Ozymandias, as the three poems alluded to, remarking with truth 
 how very characteristic they are of their respective authors. 1 
 
 TO THE NILE. 
 Son of the old moon-mountains African ! 
 Stream of the -Pyramid and Crocodile ! 
 We call thee fruitful, and that very while 
 A desert fills our seeing's inward span : 
 
 Nurse of swart nations since the world began, 1 
 
 Art thou so fruitful ? or dost thou beguile ] 
 
 Those men to honour thee, who, worn with toil, | 
 
 Rest them a space 'twixt Cairo and Decan ? j 
 
 O may dark fancies err ! They surely do ; , 
 
 'Tis ignorance that makes a barren waste 1 
 
 Of all beyond itself. Thou dost bedew i 
 
 Green rushes like our rivers, and dost taste j 
 
 1 Cp. Barapfylde's sonnet ' On Christmas ' {ante, p. 393).
 
 4IO Notes 
 
 The pleasant sun-rise. Green isles hast thou too, 
 And to the sea as happily dost haste. 
 
 John Keats. 
 
 I print Hunt's as in his own Foliage, 1818, (p. cxxxiv) : 
 
 THE NILE. 
 It flows through old hushed ^gypt and its sands, 
 Like some grave mighty thought threading a dream, 
 And times and things, as in that vision, seem 
 Keeping along it their eternal stands, — 
 Caves, pillars, pyramids, the shepherd bands 
 That roamed tlirough the young world, the glory extreme 
 Of high Sesostris, and that southern beam, 
 The laughing queen that caught the world's great hands. 
 Then comes a mightier silence, stern and strong, 
 As of a world left empty of its throng, 
 And the void weighs on us ; and then we wake, 
 And hear the fruitful stream lapsing along 
 'Twixt villages, and think how we shall take 
 Our own calm journey on for human sake. 
 
 Leigh Hunt. 
 Now the authority for this account being of so unimpeachable a 
 character, no one ever suspected its accuracy ; though at the same 
 time many must have remarked it as singular that Shelly did not 
 keep closer to the subject proposed. It appears, however, that 
 Lord Houghton must have been misinformed, or guessing, when 
 he gave Ozymandias as Shelley's contribution ; for in the Aldine 
 edition of Keats recently edited by his lordship (1876), another and 
 very different sonnet is substituted, with the remark subjoined : 
 ' Up to the discovery of this sonnet among Shelley's MSS., in the 
 possession of Mr. Townshend Mayer, the sonnet entitled Ozyman- 
 dias was believed to be that written in competition with Keats.' 
 For details of this interesting discovery I refer the reader to Mr. 
 Mayer's own account in the March and April issues of St. James's 
 Magazi7te, 1876 ; and, for a facsimile of the recovered sonnet, which 
 internal and external proofs unite in identifying as the one pro- 
 duced by Shelley on the occasion mentioned in Keats's letter, to 
 Mr. Forman's edition of Shelley, from which it is here given 
 
 (iii, 411) : 
 
 TO THE NILE. 
 
 Month after month the gathered rains descend 
 
 Drenching yon secret ^tliiopian dells, 
 
 And from the desart's ice-girt pinnacles 
 
 Where Frost and Heat in strange embraces blend 
 
 On Atlas, fields of moist snow half depend. 
 
 Girt there with blasts and meteors Tempest dwells 
 
 By Nile's aerial urn, with rapid spells 
 
 Urging those waters to their mighty end.
 
 Notes 411 
 
 O'er Egypt's land of Memory floods are level 
 And they are thine O Nile — and well thou knowest 
 That soul-sustaining airs and blasts of evil 
 And fruits and poisons spring where'er thou flowest. 
 Beware O man — for knowledge must to thee 
 Like the great flood to Egypt ever be.' 
 
 With those of Shelley, Keats, and Hunt, as above, read two Nile 
 sonnets by Chauncy Hare Townshend (^Sermons in Sonnets, 185 1, 
 p. 310) ; while with Ozymandias, which was printed originally over 
 the signature ' Glirastes ' in The Examiner of 11 Jan., 1818, may 
 be compared, or contrasted rather, one on the same subject by his 
 friend Horace Smith (Amarynthus the Nympholcpt, Sec, 1821, p. 
 213), which made its appearance in the same paper shortly after 
 Shelley's (l Feb.), with a brief note by Smith which conveys the 
 impression that these also, like the Nile sonnets, had been written 
 in concert. This confirms, while it also partly invalidates, Mr. 
 Forman's conjectures on this subject. (See his ' Shelley,' iii, 410). 
 I add another of Shelley's early sonnets, which should, be com- 
 pared with Mr. Browning's noble dramatic lyric The Lost Leader^ 
 both poems having been evoked more or less directly by Words- 
 worth's defection from the Republican cause. {Alastor; or. The 
 Spirit of Solitude : and Other Poems. 18 16, p. 67): 
 TO irORDSirOKTH. 
 
 Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to know 
 
 That things depart which never may return : 
 
 Childhood and youth, friendship and love's first glow, 
 
 Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn. 
 
 These common woes I feel. One loss is mine 
 
 Which thou too feel'st, yet I alone deplore. 
 
 Thou wert as a lone star, whose light did shine 
 
 On some frail bark in winter's midnight roar : 
 
 Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood 
 
 Above the blind and battling multitude : 
 
 In honoured poverty thy voice did weave 
 
 Songs consecrate to truth and liberty, — 
 
 Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve. 
 
 Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be.' 
 
 • LI. 13-14. Mr. Forman notes th^ reminiscence of Shelley's work of the previous 
 summer : Laon and Cythna, vi, 40-41. 
 
 ''■ For the precise extent to which we are warranted in identifying Wordsworth with 
 the ' Lost Leader,' see Mr. Browning's letter to Dr. Grosa-t, printed in Wordsworth's 
 Prose Works, i, p. xxxvii. 
 
 3 With 1. 7 op. Wordsworth's own sonnet, ante, p. 107, ccx, g ; and with 1. 10 11. 
 ■ 3-4 of E. Myers's sonnet on Milton, given under it (p. 381). Ll. 13-14. It was to 
 
 Wordsworth that Leigh Hunt allude^ in his sonnet. To , M.D. On his giving 
 
 me a lock of Milton^ s luiir, as it originally stood in Foliage (p. cxxxi). 
 
 ' (For there is one, whom had he kept his art 
 For Freedom still, nor left her for the crew 
 Of lucky slaves in his misgiving heart, 
 I would have begged thy leave to give it to).'
 
 412 Notes 
 
 ^ertg ^nsslje SIkHcit. 
 
 PACE 
 
 139-141 — CCLXXIII-CCLXXVII. From Prometheus Unbound, a Lytical 
 Dra77ia ; tuith Other Poems : 1820. ' This poem was conceived and 
 chiefly written in a wood that skirts the Arno, near Florence, and 
 on a day when that tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once 
 mild and animating, was collecting the vapours which pour down 
 the autumnal rains. They began, as I foresaw, at sunset with a 
 violent tempest of hail and rain, attended by that magnificent 
 thunder and lightning peculiar to the Cisalpine regions. The pheno- 
 menon alluded to at the conclusion of the third stanza is well known 
 to naturalists. The vegetation at the bottom of the sea, of rivers, 
 and of lakes, sympathises with that of the land in the change of sea- 
 sons, and is consequently influenced by the winds which announce 
 it.' — P. B. S. The reader may desire to know the grounds on which 
 Shelley's well-known Ode has been included in a collection of Son- 
 nets. A very brief examination will show that it is really made up 
 of five exquisitepoems in the English or Shakspearian sonnet-stanza, 
 each having that single-thoughted character which is necessary to 
 the true idea of the sonnet ; while the metrical conditions are suffi- 
 ciently fulfilled by the application of the principle on which Cole- 
 ridge maintained the regularity of the metre of Christabel : that, 
 namely, of counting in each line the accents, not the syllables. 
 
 141— CCLXXVIII, 3. ' " Shepherd^," in lieu of "shepherds," is a grammati- 
 cal laxity which Shelley probably fell into without reflecting about it: 
 but which, had he reflected, he would perhaps have retained, rather 
 than incur the cacophony of " shepherds " and "herds " in the same 
 line.' — IV. Af. Rossetti. LI. g-io. Wordsworth's favourite argument: 
 see his sonnet beginning ' The power of Armies,' with remark, ante, 
 p. 383. 9-14. Shelley seems to have had Samuel Daniel in his 
 thoughts here (.4 Pane^mke Congratulatofie, &c., 1603, sig. D3) : 
 
 ' Knowing the hart of man is set to be 
 The centre of his world, about the which 
 These revolutions of disturbances 
 Still roule, where all th' aspects of misery 
 Predominate, whose strong effects are such 
 As he must beare, being powrelesse to redresse, 
 And that unlesse above himselfe he can 
 Erect himselfe, how poore a thing is man.' ' 
 
 141-142 — CCLXXVIII-CCLXXIX. From the Posthumous Poems : 1824. 
 
 Shelley's snnnet should be compared with anotlier of his own, a translation of Guido 
 Cavalcanti's to Dante Alighieri, found among Mr. TownshencI Mayer's Hunt papers, 
 and printed for the first time in Mr. Forman's ' Shelley ' (iv, 248). 
 
 1 Cp. Ben Jonson earlier {Cynthia's Reriels, i6oo, i, 5 : Workes, 1616, p. 196) : 
 ' O how despisde and base a thing is a man, 
 If he not strive t' erect his groveling thoughts 
 Above the straine of flesh ! '
 
 Notes 413 
 
 Cbfeavb Irdhrg. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 142 — CCLXXX. From his Exposition of the Book of Revelation, in a Series 
 of Lectures : 1831, i, 193, as corrected on p. 28S. Introducing the 
 little group of sonnets to which this belongs, Irving says : ' In the 
 writing of these Lectures I have felt my soul at times so stirred with 
 the sublimity of the subject, as to long for other forms of expression 
 than those which are proper to exact and rigid exposition : and 
 though I find it to have been customary with the best of our divines 
 to intersperse their prose with poetical utterances, I rather prefer to 
 keep those emotions of my soul, and present them, apart ; lest I 
 should lose at any time that perfect controul of the mind which is 
 proper to an interpreter of Prophecy. I am no poet, and have 
 never studied the laws of poetry ; but I do desire devoutly to express 
 those harmonious moods of my spirit, with which God doth visit 
 me, in harmonious numbers.' 
 
 |o^n Jicblt. 
 
 143 — CCLXXXi. Dated 'Sunday, Oct. 20, 1816.' 
 
 CCLXXXII. ,, ' August, 1817. " The original MS. is on a half- 
 sheet of foolscap paper, folded, with a piece of dried wall-rue in it, 
 no doubt gathered on the spot.' — G. M. 
 
 144 — CCLXXXIII. Dated 'April, 1820.' These examples are given 
 from Keble's Miscellaneous Poems, 1869. [Edited by ' G. M.' = 
 G. Moberly.] 
 
 |oI)it Clare. 
 
 CCLXXXiv. From The Village Minstrel, and Other Poems : 1821. 
 
 145 — CCLXXXVI. benty = composed of bent, a coarse grass. 
 
 147 — CCLXXXIX. deckt. Clare has ' drest,' an obvious slip. 
 
 148 — ccxcil. pooty-shells = girdled snail-shells. In this sonnet, as else- 
 where throughout his latest and best work — truly ' the fine handy- 
 worke of excellent nature and excellenter arte combined,' in an old 
 critic's words — Clare seems to be the echo, not of Wordsworth so 
 much, as of that ablest and sweetest-voiced of Wordsworth's disci- 
 ples, Henry Ellison ; who, although nearly half a century has elapsed 
 since he addressed his Madmoments to ' the lightheaded of society at 
 large,' ' is still among us, the living witness of much of the human 
 
 1 Madmoments, or First Verseattempts by a Bornnatural. Addressed respectfully 
 to the lightheaded of society at large : but intended more particularly/or the use of 
 that Worldsmadhouse, London, by Henry Ellison, of Christchurch, Oxford. 2 Vols. 
 Malta : 1833. His later works in verse are, Touches on the Harp of Nature (1839), 
 The Poetry of Real Life (1844), and a pseudonymous one of which I am unable to give 
 the title.
 
 414 Notes 
 
 PAGE 
 
 progress he so bravely advocated both in his prose and his verse. 
 
 Why is the Harp of Nature silent ? It must have yet many strings 
 
 ' Untouched, that God intended Man to hear.' 
 
 Mr. Ellison's little books, especially the earliest, named above, are 
 
 now among bibliographical rareties ; yet, as the beloved author of 
 
 Rab and his Friends said of them many years ago, notwithstanding 
 
 the eccentricities and whimsicalities with which they abound, they 
 
 are as ' full of poetry as is an " impassioned grape "of its noble liquor. ' 
 
 Much of that poetiy is cast in sonnet-form ; and as the poem which 
 
 Clare's brought to my memory happens to be a sonnet, and a most 
 
 lovely one, I give it here. It answers to his own stirring words 
 
 {On hearittg an Eld-time Song) : 
 
 ' And ever as that note I hear, 
 
 My soul with its far echoes shakes ; 
 It strikes not on the clay-coarse ear, 
 But a far deeper sense awakes.' 
 
 {Aladmoments, 1833, i, 102): 
 
 r//E DAYS EYE. 
 Sweet flower, thou art a link of memory. 
 An emblem to the heart of bright days flown ; 
 And in thy silence too there is a tone 
 That stirs the inmost soul, more potently 
 Than if a trumpet's-voice had rent the sky ! 
 I love thee much, for when I stray alone. 
 Stealing from Nature her calm thoughts, which own 
 No self-disturbance, and my curious' eye 
 Catches thy magic glance, methinks a spell 
 Has touched my soul ; once more I grow a boy ; 
 Once more my thoughts, that, as a passing-bell, 
 Seemed to toll o'er departed shapes of joy. 
 Change to old chimes, and in my bosom swell 
 Fresh pulses of a bliss without alloy. 
 
 Henry Ellison} 
 
 149 — CCXClli. joyous. This was Clare's first word {Friendship's Offering 
 for 1833), and seems preferable on the whole to 'luscious' (1835), 
 which, it will be observed, recurs (1. 11). 
 
 145-149 — ccLXXXV-ccxciii. From The Rural Muse, Poems : 1835. 
 
 JftlttiE ^oi'otljfit Ijtmans. 
 149-150 — ccxciv-ccxcvi. Yxom Scenes and Hymns of Life J -with Other 
 Religious Foetns : 1834. 
 
 ' LI. 7-8. A recollection of Wordsworth's sonnet beginning ' The stars are mansions ' 
 of which the concluding line is — 
 
 ' Abodes where self-disturbance hath no part.'
 
 Notes 
 
 415 
 
 151 — CCXCVII. This sonnet should be compared with.W. C. Bryant's 
 fine stanzas To a IVaterfozvl, which conclude — 
 
 ' He who, from zone to zone, 
 Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight. 
 In the long way that I must tread alone, 
 Will lead my steps aright.' 
 
 CCXCVIII. Composed by the authoress, April 26th, 1835, a few 
 days before her death, and dictated to her brother. This and the 
 previous sonnet belong to the series entitled ' Thoughts during Sick- 
 ness,' and are given from the last volume of The Works of Mrs. 
 Hemans ; with a Memoir of her Life by her Sister (7 vols.) : 1839. 
 
 loIjiT lirats. 
 
 152 — CCXCIX. This sonnet — Keats's first published verse {Examiner, 
 5 May, 1816) — and even the other on the same page with it, seem 
 to have taken their tone from one by an obscure provincial poet 
 who died in 1789, which it is probable that Keats had read. I 
 extract it from Freeman's Kentish Poets, 1821, ii, 403 (which see 
 for an account of the author) : 
 
 ON SOLITUDE. 
 
 Let the lone hermit praise the darkling dell 
 
 O'erhung with pine, with foliage thick embrown'd, 
 
 The bosky bourn, cool grot, and cave profound, 
 
 Where solitude and silence ever dwell. 
 
 Save where the Fairies weave their magic round, 
 
 Unseen by vulgar eyes, as poets tell ; 
 
 Or save, while echo's voice returns the sound, 
 
 Night listens to the song of Philomel. 
 
 But me nor woody vale nor shadowy pine 
 
 Delights, unless to chear the dull serene, 
 
 Some jovial youths and merry maidens join, 
 
 And more than echo talks along the green, — 
 
 Unless that ever and anon, between 
 
 The foliage, peeps 'the human face divine.' 
 
 William Jackson} 
 
 153 — CCCI. Lord Houghton, remarking on Keats's sonnets {Life, Letters, 
 and Literal-)' Remains of John Keats, 1848, i, 18), says : 'They are 
 as noble in thought, rich in expression, and harmonious in rhythm 
 as any in the language, and among the best may be ranked that 
 " On first looking into Chapman's Homer." Unable as he was to 
 read the original Greek, Homer had as yet been to him a name of 
 solemn significance, and nothing more. His friend and literary 
 
 1 L. 12. ' And more thnn echoes talk along the walls.' — Pope's Eloisa to Abelard, 
 306. 14. Milton, Paradise Lost, iii, 44.
 
 41 6 Notes 
 
 |obit Jlrats. 
 
 counsellor, Mr. Clarke, happened to borrow Chapman's translation, 
 and having invited Keats to read it with him one evening, they con- 
 tinued their study till daylight. He describes Keats's delight as 
 intense, even to shouting aloud, as some passage of especial energy 
 struck his imagination. It was fortunate that he was introduced to 
 that heroic company through an interpretation which preserves 
 so much of the ancient simplicity, and in a metre that, after all 
 various attempts, including that of the hexameter, still appears the 
 best adapted, from its pauses and its length, to represent in English 
 the Greek epic verse. . . . The Sonnet in which these his first im- 
 pressions are concentrated, was left the following day,' — or, as in 
 the Aldine edition, more circumstantially — 'at ten o'clock the 
 next morning, on Mr. Clarke's breakfast-table.' 
 Writing nearly sixty years after the event, Keats's friend records 
 {Recollections of Writers, &c., by Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke, 
 1878, p. 130) : 'The original which he sent mc had the phrase [1. 7] — 
 
 Yet could I never tell what men could mean ; 
 which he said was bald, and too simply wondering. No one could more 
 earnestly chastise his thoughts than Keats.' In the first /r/«/^^ version, 
 dated October, 1816 {Examiner, Dec. i, 1816), he \\s.s judge for 'tell', 
 in that line, and 'But' for Oft in 1. 5. LI. 11-12. Leigh Hunt remarks 
 {Jmagination and Fattcy, p. 345, 3rd ed,, 1846) : ' " Stared" has been 
 thought by some too violent, but it is precisely the word required by the 
 occasion. The Spaniard was too original and ardent a man either to 
 look, or to affect to look, coldly superior to it. His "eagle eyes " are 
 from life, as may be seen by Titian's portrait of him.' (See also the 
 chapter on Keats in Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries, 
 2nd ed., 1828, i, 412). It should be observed, however, as has been 
 pointed out (apparently by Mr. Tennyson) in Mr, Palgrave's Golden 
 Treasury' (p. 320), that history requires BalbJa for ' Cortez.' 
 
 The following sonnet on the pseudo-Chaucerian tale of 71u' Floureand 
 the Leaf e,\\x\\.ien by Keats about the same period with that in the text, but 
 not included in his virgin volume, though inferior both in conception and 
 execution to that on Chapman's Homer, is hardly less interesting as a 
 memorial of Keats's studies in our elder literature. As Archbishop 
 Trench remarks of it {Dublitt Afternoon Lectures, as before) : ' It is more 
 of an impromptu than that other, and wants something of its finished 
 stateliness ; but Chaucer himself would have read it with delight ; above 
 all, the exquisite allusion to the Babes in the Wood with which it con- 
 cludes.' This dainty sonnet, which was first printed in Leigh Hunt's 
 Examiner, 16 March, 1817, I transcribe from the poet's own MS.
 
 Notes 417 
 
 This pleasant Tale is like a little copse : 
 The honied Lines do freshly interlace 
 To keep the Reader in so sweet a place, 
 So that he here and there full-hearted stops ; 
 And oftentimes he feels the dewy drops 
 Come cool and suddenly against his face, 
 And by the wandring Melody may trace 
 Which way the tender-legged Linnet hops — 
 
 what a Power hath white Simplicity ! 
 What mighty Power has this gentle Story ! 
 
 1 that for ever feel athirst for glory 
 Could at this moment be content to lie 
 Meekly upon the Grass, as those whose sobbings 
 Were heard of None beside the mournful Robins. 
 
 J. K. Feby 1817.- 
 
 Mr. Clarke thus tells the pretty story in his Riches of Chaucer, 1835, i, 
 52 : ' The poem of the " Flower and the Leaf " was especially favoured 
 by the young poet, John Keats. The author may perhaps be pardoned 
 for making a short digression upon the present occasion, to record an 
 anecdote in corroboration of the pleasure testified by that vivid intellect 
 upon his first perasal of the composition. It happened at the period 
 when Keats was about publishing his first little volume of poems (in the 
 year 1817) ; he was then living in the second floor of a house in the 
 Poultry, at the corner of the court leading to the Queen's Arms tavern — 
 the corner nearest to Bow church. The author had called upon him 
 here, and finding his young friend engaged, took possession of a sofa, 
 and commenced reading, from his then pocket-companion, Chaucer's 
 " Flower and the Leaf." The fatigue ot a long walk, however, pre- 
 vailed over the fascination of the verses, and he fell asleep. Upon 
 awaking, the book was still at his side ; but the reader may conceive the 
 author's delight upon finding the following elegant sonnet written in his 
 book at the close of the poem. During my sleep, Keats had read it for 
 the first time ; and, knowing that it would gratify me, had subjoined a 
 testimony to its merit, that might have delighted Chaucer himself.' In 
 the later Recollections, Mr. Clarke records further that, at his request, 
 Keats ' retraced the poem, confirming and denoting with his pen those 
 
 ' L. 9, Keats's friend, J. H. Reynolds, in one of his sonnets (7-4s Garden of 
 
 Florence, &c., 1821, p. 132), has 
 
 ' But white Simplicity doth lead with care.' 
 Drummond loved the epithet (Poems, p. 40, folio 1711) : 
 
 ' Men's Sp'rits with white Simplicity indue ; ' 
 and again (' An Hymn on the Fairest Fair,' ibid., p. 30) : 
 
 'Simplicity, more white than Gelsomine.' 
 
 13-14. Perhaps it was the authority of Wordsworth that tempted Keats into this un- 
 fortunate double rime : ' 'I'he Redbreast and the Butterfly ' (Poems, 1807, i, i6) ; 
 
 'Our little English Robin ; 
 The Bird that comes about our doors 
 When Autumn winds are sobbing.' 
 BB
 
 41 8 Notes 
 
 passages which were congenial with his own feeling and judgment ; ' and 
 adds : ' These two circumstances, associated with the literary career of 
 this cherished object of his friend's esteem and love, have stamped a 
 priceless value upon that friend's miniature i8mo. copy of Chaucer.' It 
 may interest the lovers of Keats to know that the edition of Chaucer in 
 question was that 'printed by the Martins at the Apollo Press,' Edin- 
 burgh, 14 vols, (in 7), 1782. The sonnet, or, more precisely, the firsf 
 twelve lines of it, written in a neat and clear hand, and without the 
 alteration of a single word, occupies the blank space at the end of The 
 Floure and the Leafe on page 104 of volume xii ; the closing couplet, 
 with initials and date, being carried to the margin at foot of page 105 
 opposite, OH which The Court of Love begins. This precious relic has 
 fit keeping in the hands of Mr. Alexander Ireland, of Manchester, the 
 bibliographer of Hazlitt and Hunt,* to whom it was bequeathed by Mr. 
 Clarke at his death, which took place at Genoa, 13th March, 1877, in 
 his ninetieth year. As might be expected of one who passed all his 
 days in a musical atmosphere — 
 
 ' In harmony I've lived ; — so let me die ' — 
 Charles Cowden Clarke occasionally threw off the yoke of prose. Among 
 his Carmina Minima {i859),modestly mottoed from his beloved Chaucer 
 as but ' Motes in the Sonne beame,' are some pleasing lyrics, including 
 several sonnets — a form which never ceased to be a favourite with him. 
 Indeed I believe the very last bit of verse he pennedwas a sonnet ; and 
 as that sonnet is perhaps on the whole his most remarkable one, I adopt 
 it as a nexus between the two friends here, — the veteran author who has 
 but left us, and the divine poet whom, seventy years before, he ' first 
 taught all the sweets of song,' and among these — 
 
 ' the Sonnet swelling loudly 
 Up to its climax and then dying proudly.' 
 
 Keats' s Epistle To Charles Cowden Clarke : Poems, 1817, p. 71, 
 
 {An Idyl of London Streets, by Mary Cowden Clarke : [and] Sonnet on 
 the Course of Time, by Charles Cowden Clarke. Rome : 1875, p. 22) : 
 
 THE COURSE OF TIME. 
 
 No ! no arresting the vast wheel of time, 
 Tliat round and round still turns with onward might, 
 Stern, dragging thousands to the dreaded night 
 Of an unknown hereafter. Faith to climb 
 
 ^ List of the Writings of William Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt, chronologically 
 arranged : with Notes, Descriptive, Critical, and Explanatory, and a Selection of 
 Opinions, regarding their Genius and Characteristics, by distinguished contem- 
 poraries and friends, as well as by subsequent critics : preceded by a Review of 
 a}id Extracts from, Barry CormualV s ''Memorials of Charles Lamb: ' with a 
 Few Words on William Hazlitt and his Writings, and a Chronological List of 
 the Works of Charles Lamb. By Alexander Ireland. Privately printed. 1868.
 
 Notes 4 1 (J 
 
 PAGE 
 
 In thought to that supernal Force sublime, 
 Who guides the circling of the wheel aright, 
 Alone can steady our dismay at sight 
 Of that huge radius imaged in my rhyme. 
 Some swept resistless through a mire of sin, 
 Some carried smoothly on in downy ease, 
 Some whirled to swift destruction 'mid the din 
 And crash of sudden end ! Oh, may it please 
 The Guider merciful to will my course 
 Shall be in peace and trust, devoid remorse. 
 
 Charles Cozvden Clarke. ' 
 153— CCCil. We are indebted to Mr. Clarke again, who relates how 
 during a visit paid by Keats and himself to Leigh Hunt at his cot- 
 tage in the Vale of Health, Hampstead Heath (December 30,1816), 
 the host proposed to Keats ' the challenge of writing then, there, 
 and to time,' a sonnet ' On the Grasshopper and the Cricket ; ' and 
 how this and CCLIV (p. 129) were the result of their friendly strife. 
 Keats won as to time. 'But the event of the after-scrutiny,' the 
 narrator continues, ' was one of many such occurrences which have 
 riveted the memory of Leigh Hunt in my affectionate regard and 
 admiration for unaffected generosity and perfectly unpretentious 
 encouragement. His sincere look of pleasure at the first line — 
 
 The poetry of earth is never dead — 
 " Such a prosperous opening ! " he said ; and when he came to the 
 tenth and eleventh lines : — 
 
 On a lone winter evening, when the frost 
 Has wrought a silence — 
 
 "Ah ! that's perfect ! Bravo, Keats ! '' And then he went on in a 
 
 dilation upon the dumbness of Nature during the season's torpidity. 
 
 With all the kind and gratifying things that were said to him, 
 
 Keats protested to me, as we were afterwards walking home, that 
 
 he preferred Hunt's treatment to his own.' 
 
 1 This evoked the following beautiful response in sonnet-form from a friend m 
 England, who desires to remain anonymous : 
 
 TO CHARLES COW DEN CLARKE: 
 
 ON HIS SONNET, ' THE COURSE OF TIME.' 
 
 Amen ! my brave old friend, to all thy prayer; 
 Amen, I say : and may thy faith still stand 
 Serenely trustful to the Guider's hand 
 Which, tempering ruthless force with ruthful care. 
 May shatter empires, yet each silver hair 
 Touch kindly on a brow where memories grand 
 Of genius clustered in thy dear old land 
 Make age with youth's immortal graces fair. - 
 O happy he who, ere his prayer be spoken. 
 For answer sweet finds ever at his side 
 A loving wife, Heaven's best and purest token 
 Of purposed good, whatever may betide. 
 So stands thy Mary, ' peace and trust' unbroken 
 By Time's dread wheel, — thy own perennial Bride ! 
 April, 1876. y.M.
 
 42 o Notes 
 
 Icljit Juats. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 152-154 — ccxcix-ccciii. To these specimens from Keats's first volume 
 {Poems, by John Keats : 1817 ') may be added, tlie Dedication to 
 Leigh Hunt, and the sonnet to another friend, Wells, author of 
 Joseph atid his Brethren. 
 
 TO LEIGH HUNT, ESQ. 
 Glory and loveliness have passed away ; 
 For if we wander out in early morn, 
 No wreathed incense do we see upborne 
 Into the east, to meet the smiling day : 
 No crowd of nymphs soft-voic'd and young and gay. 
 In woven baskets bringing ears of corn, 
 Roses, and pinks, and violets, to adorn 
 The shrine of Flora in her early May. 
 But there are left delights as high as these ; 
 And I shall ever bless my destiny, 
 That in a time, when under pleasant trees 
 Pan is no longer sought, I feel a free, 
 A leafy luxury, seeing I could please 
 With these poor offerings, a man like thee.* 
 {Poems, 1817, p. 83) : 
 
 TO A FRIEND WHO SENT ME SOME ROSES. 
 As late I rambled in the happy fields. 
 What time the sky-lark shakes the tremulous dew 
 From his lush clover covert ; — when anew 
 Adventurous knights take up their dinted shields ; 
 I saw the sweetest flower wild nature yields, 
 A fresh-blown musk-rose ; 'twas the first that threw 
 Its sweets upon the summer : graceful it grew 
 As is the wand that queen Titania wields. 
 And, as I feasted on its fragrancy, 
 I thouglit the garden-rose it far excell'd ; 
 But when, O Wells ! thy roses came to me 
 My sense with their deliciousness was spell'd : 
 Soft voices had they, that with tender plea 
 Whisper'd of peace, and truth, and friendliness unquell'd.^ 
 
 ' On the fly-leaf of a copy formerly belonging to Mr. Locker, and now in the 
 British Museum, there is this inscription : ' Robert Browning dined with me to-day, 
 and looking at this volume he said that it was a copy of this edition of John Keats' 
 Poems that was found in the bosom of the dead body of Shelley. 
 
 F. Locker, 20 Feb. i86g.' 
 
 * ' On the evening when the last proof-sheet was brought from the printer, it was 
 accompanied by the information that if a " dedication to the book was intended, it 
 must be sent forthwith." Whereupon [Keab] withdrew to a side-table, and, in the 
 buzz of a mixed conversation (for there were several friends in the room) he com- 
 posed and brought to Charles Oilier, the publisher, the Dedication Sonnet to Leigh 
 Hunt.'— C C. Clarke. 
 
 ^ Charles J. Wells, author of Stories after Nature, and the Scriptural drama of 
 yoseph and his Brethren, the former published anonymously in 1822, and the latter 
 issued under the pseudonym of H. L. Howard, in 1824, and reissued in his own name, 
 with an introduction by Mr. Swinburne, in 1876, was born in 1800 and died in 1879. 
 A Sonnet to Chaucer, hearing date 1823, contributed by Wells to Chaucer Modernized, 
 edited by his friend Mr. R. H. Home (1841), seems to have been written with an eye
 
 Notes 421 
 
 PAGE 
 
 154 — CCCIV. This sonnet, of which I have seen no earlier imprint than 
 that of the Paris edition of 1829, was written not later than Sep- 
 tember, 1818. With the last portion of it raad the following fine 
 sonnet (Jo in Egypt, and Other Poems : 1859, p. 106) : 
 
 I will not rail, or grieve when torpid eld 
 
 Frosts the slow-journeying blood, for I shall see 
 
 The lovelier leaves hang yellow on the tree, 
 
 The nimbler brooks in icy fetters held. 
 
 Methinks the aged eye that first beheld 
 
 The fitful ravage of December wild. 
 
 Then knew himself indeed dear Nature's child, 
 
 Seeing the common doom, that all compell'd. 
 
 No kindred we to her beloved broods. 
 
 If, dying these, we drew a selfish breath ; 
 
 But one path travel all her multitudes, 
 
 And none dispute the solemn Voice that saith : 
 
 ' Sun to thy setting ; to your autumn, woods ; 
 
 Stream to thy sea : and man unto thy death ! ' 
 
 Richard Gamett, 
 
 155 — CCCV. During the summer of 18 18, Keats and his friend Charles 
 A. Brown, author of the work on Shakspeare's Sonnets referred to 
 ante, p. 279), made a tour in Scotland, of which this sonnet, which 
 I take from the Paris edition of the Poetical Work^ (1829), is a 
 memorial. It was written, says Lord Houghton, at the Inn at 
 Girvan, Ayrshire. It is not uninteresting to compare Keats's impres- 
 sion of Ailsa Craig with that of a native poet, John Wilson, writing 
 fifty years earlier (C/j'd'i?.- a /'^d';;/, 1764 : ed. J. Leyden, 1803, Pt. II, 
 
 575) • ' See towering Ailsa o'er the waters rise ; 
 
 Beneath the seas his deep foundation lies : 
 Hoarse round his rugged roots the ocean roars. 
 And high above the clouds his summit soars : 
 White wreaths of mist o'er his huge sho'dders hang ; 
 Round his strong sides unnumbered sea-fowls clang ; 
 The royal falcon, and the bird of Jove, 
 Dare only scale the steep, and spread their wings above.' 
 
 CCCVI. Written late in 1S17. L. 8. Mr. '?yT^t^(!{\ng(Bacon's Works, 
 vi, 1858, p. 479) quotes these words with their context as showing 
 that Keats seems to have felt to be true likewise of Poetry what 
 Lord Bacon affinns respecting Painting and Music (Essayes : Of 
 Beaut)') : ' Not but I thinke a Painter may make a better Face then 
 ever was ; But he must doe it by a kinde of Felicity,^ (As a Musician 
 that maketh an excellent Ay re in Musicke) And not by Rule.' 
 
 to Keats's on Chapman's Homer, to which, as needs hardly be said, it is immeasurably 
 inferior. The burning words on Hazlitt's tombstone in St. Anne's churchyard, Soho, 
 were written by Wells. 
 
 1 Or, as in the posthumous Latin text of 1638 : Felicitate quad am, et casu = ^ hy 
 a kind of felicity and chance.'' — Vide Arber's Hartnony 0/ Bacons Essays, 1871.
 
 42 2 Notes 
 
 lob IT lirats. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 156 — CCCVII. Written Feb., 1818, in answer to a sonnet by his friend 
 John Hamilton Reynolds, ending thus ( The Garden of Florence, 
 and Other Poems. By John Hamilto7i : 1821, p. 129) : 
 
 ' dark eyes are dearer far 
 Than orbs that mock the hyacinthine-bell.' 
 
 cccvill. ci7«j-«V«c^=consciousness? (see under Milton, CLii, ante, 
 p. 350). L. 10. Cp. a passage in one of Thomas Doubleday's son- 
 nets (^Sixty-Five Sonnets, &c., 1818, p. 27), not improbably seen by 
 Keats, who wrote his in 1819, in which the same effect of sleep is 
 invoked on his enemies : 
 
 ' The while thou mak'st their waking conscience see 
 Crimes that the noise and glare of day can hide.' 
 
 This exquisite invocation cost its author much ' toil of spright ' 
 
 before it was brought to its final perfection. (See an interesting 
 
 communication in The Athenceum of 26 Oct., 1872, giving an early 
 
 autograph draft of the sonnet in facsimile from Keats's copy of 
 
 Paradise Lost,^ in which he inscribed it). It should be compared 
 
 with Sidney's (xxix), and those indicated under it (p. 254) ; to which 
 
 add theVollowing by Ireland's youngest minstrel {Songs ofKillar- 
 
 ney, 1873, p. 156) : 
 
 SLEEPLESS. 
 
 Pale Queen, that from thy bower Elysian 
 
 In slow sweet state supremely issuing forth. 
 
 Of thy dear pity to the day-worn man 
 
 Dispenses t dreams through all the darkened earth ; 
 
 Hast thou no ray of softliest-silvered span. 
 
 To tempt coy Slumber hither ? O, if thou hast, 
 
 By all the love of thy Endymion 
 
 Spare it, that I, even I, may rest at last ! 
 
 Yea, that for me, sad Present, cruel Past, 
 
 Dark Future blend in blest oblivion ; 
 
 Speed downy Slumber to these aching eyes. 
 
 That he with wings of balmiest breath may fan 
 
 My cares to rest, confuse each haunting plan, 
 
 And steal my spirit with a sweet surprise. 
 
 Alfred Perceval Graves. 
 
 157 — cccix. In a letter to his brother and sister in America (May, 1819), 
 Keats introduces this sonnet thus (Life, Letters, &c, i, 273): ' I have 
 been endeavouring to discover a better Sonnet stanza than we have. 
 The legitimate does not suit the language well, from the pouncing 
 
 1 This priceless relic contains also the ' Remarks on John Milton, by John Keats, 
 written in the fly-leaf of Paradise Lost,' which were published in the American maga- 
 zine 77«(?Z)?a/ (Boston, 1843, vol. iii), at the end of an article on George Keats, signed 
 'J. F. C [=Rev. J. F. Clarke).
 
 Notes 423 
 
 PAGE 
 
 rhymes ; the other appears too elegiac, and the couplet at the end 
 of it has seldom a pleasing effect. I do not pretend to have suc- 
 ceeded. It will explain itself.' 
 
 157 — cccx. Dated 1819. 
 
 158 — CCCXI. N'ature's Eremite =' like a solitary thing in Nature.' — F, 
 T. Palgrave. 'L. ix. swell and fall. So in the facsimile of Keats's 
 MS. referred to below. Lord Houghton prints ' fall and swell.' 
 L. 14. Aliter : — 
 
 ' Half-passionless, and so swoon on to death.' 
 In September, 1820, Keats, accompanied by his friend the late Mr. 
 Severn, set out on the voyage to Italy. ' It was then,' records Lord 
 Houghton all too briefly {Life, &c., ii, 72), ' that he composed that 
 sonnet of solemn tenderness — 
 
 *' Bright star ! would I were stedfast as thou art," &c., 
 and wrote it out in a copy of Shakspeare's Poems he had given to 
 Severn a few days before. I know of nothing written afterwards.' 
 It first appeared, in facsimile, in the number for Februar}', 1846, 
 of a brief-lived monthly. The Union Magazine, accompanied by 
 the following deeply interesting letter from Severn to the editor : 
 
 ' 21, James Street, Jan. 21st, 1846. 
 Sir, 
 
 Through the medium of the Union Magazine, I have the gratifica- 
 tion to present the public with an unpublished MS. poem of Keats', 
 (the last he ever wrote,) which I trust may be admired and well re- 
 ceived, as the harbinger of many other unpublished works of the illus- 
 trious young poet, now editing by Mr. R. Monckton Milnes. 
 
 The present exquisite Sonnet was written under such interesting 
 circumstances that I cannot forbear making them public. Keats and 
 myself were beating about in the British Channel in the autumn of 1820, 
 anxiously waiting for a wind to take us to Italy, which place, together 
 with the sea-voyage, were deemed likely to preserve his life ; for he was 
 then in a state of consumption, which left but the single hope of an 
 Italian sojourn to save him. The stormy British sea, after a fortnight, 
 had exhausted him ; and on our arrival off the Dorsetshire coast, hav- 
 ing at last the charm of a fine and tranquil day, we landed to recruit. 
 
 The shores with the beautiful grottoes which opened to fine verdure 
 and cottages, were the means of transporting Keats once more into the 
 regions of poetry; — he shewed me these things exultingly, as though they 
 had^been his birthright. The change in him was wonderful, and con- 
 tinued even after our return to the ship, when he took a volume (which 
 he had a few days before given me) of Shakespeare's Poems, and in it he 
 wrote me the subjoined Sonnet, which at the time I thought the most
 
 424 
 
 Notes 
 
 |oljit JUats. 
 
 enchanting of all his efforts. Twenty-five years have passed away, and 
 I have by degrees (in the love I bear to his memory) placed it in my 
 mind as amongst the most enchanting poetry of the world. 
 
 After writing this Sonnet, Keats sank down into a melancholy state, 
 and never wrote again, save one painful letter on the same subject as the 
 Sonnet — for the love so rapturously sung in it was then hastening the 
 poet's death : it was a real and honourable love, which, but for the 
 separation occasioned by his direful illness, would have been blessed in 
 a happy and advantageous marriage. Alas ! for Italy — he only went 
 there to die. I remain, Sir, 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Joseph Severn.' 
 
 ' Do you remember that last sonnet ? Let us repeat it solemnly, and 
 let the words wander down with the waters of the river to the sea . . . 
 How the star-sheen on the tremulous tide, and that white death-like 
 "mask," haunt the imagination ! Had the poet, who felt the grass grow 
 over him ere he was five-and twenty, been crowned with a hundred 
 summers, could he have done anything more consummate? I doubt 
 \i:—NiigcB Critica:. By 'Shirley' [=John Skelton] : 1862, p. 236. 
 
 ' This beautiful Sonnet was the last word of a poet deserving the 
 title " marvellous boy " in a much higher sense than Chatterton. If 
 the fulfilment may ever safely be prophesied from the promise, England 
 appears to have lost in Keats one whose gifts in Poetry have rarely 
 been surpassed. Shakespeare, Milton, and Wordsworth, had their 
 lives been closed at twenty-five, would (so far as we know) have left 
 poems of less excellence and hope than the youth who, from the petty 
 school and the London surgery, passed at once to a place with them of 
 "high collateral glory."' — F. T. Palgrave. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 155-158 — cccvi-cccxi. First collected in the Life, Letters, &c., edited 
 by Lord Houghton : 2 vols., 1848. 
 
 aBiHmm §ibnrn ©lalkcr. 
 cccxii. From his Poetical Ronains. Edited, with a Memoir, by 
 the Rev. John Moultrie, M.A., Rector of Rugby : 1852. 
 
 (E^Ijonras l^ooit Salfomir. 
 
 159 — CCCXIII. This noble sonnet, evoked by the ignominious collapse of 
 the famous ' Cadiz Expedition ' equipped by, Spain for the recovery 
 of her transatlantic possessions (see The Annual Register for 1S19 
 and 1820, Ixi, 35, 66, &c., andlxii, 221; or The Gentleman's Maga-
 
 Notes 43 r 
 
 PAGE 
 
 zine, 1 8 19, Pt. I, 473, and Pt. II, 169), appeared over Talfourd's 
 initials in John Thehvall's paper, The Champion, 11 April, 1819, 
 and was afterwards reprinted by him in The Poetical Recreations of 
 The Champion and his Literary Correspondents (1822), from which 
 it is here given. It may be of interest to compare it with one which 
 Talfourd addressed to the same men nearly two years previously 
 {Examiner, 7 Sept., 1817) : 
 
 TO THE SOUTH AMERICAN PA TRIOTS. 
 Think not, undaunted Champions ! that the sea 
 With all its waves can part us from the cause 
 In which you struggle — that 'neath English laws 
 We sit in cold and mute tranquillity. 
 While Freedom's Sons contend in 'holiest glee': — 
 No ! the same pure and uncorrupted blood 
 Beats in our veins with yours — and we have stood 
 A sacred band in Earth's Thermopylje ! 
 E'en Nature blends our sympathies from far, — 
 The ocean and the winds and clouds are free ; 
 The golden courses of the eternal sun. 
 And the sweet moon, and every silent star — 
 All that both Continents may look upon 
 Breathe in a gladsome voice of Liberty ! 
 
 T. N. T. 
 159 — CCCXiv. Also contributed to Thehvall's paper (15 Sept., 1821), 
 and reprinted in the Recreations as above. Neither of these son- 
 nets — the former unquestionably his best — has ever been included 
 among Talfourd's writings, whether here or in America. 
 160 — CCCXV-CCCXVI. From Tragedies ; to -which ai-e added a few Sonnets 
 and Verses : 1844. At the end of a copy of the 4th edition of /on : 
 to which are added Sonnets (1837), presented by Talfourd to the late 
 John Forster, 24 December, 1838, and now in the Forster Collection 
 in the South Kensington Museum, there is an autograph transcript 
 of these two sonnets and the one to Macready, which were then 
 unpublished, showing numerous variations from the printed ver- 
 sions. The sonnet to Dickens is dated 16 February, 1839, ^""^^ 
 that to The Memory of the Poets inscribed : ' Written i8ig. Revised 
 and copied here, Shakespeare's Birthday, 23 April, 1S39.' 
 
 partku Colcribge. 
 
 ' The influence of Wordsworth's peculiar genius is more discernible 
 in the productions of Hartley Coleridge than that of his father, more 
 especially in the Sonnets, which, I venture to think, may sustain a 
 comparison with those of the elder writer. Their port is indeed less 
 majestic, they have less dignity of purpose, and, particularly in com- 
 bination, are less weighty in effect ; but taken as single compositions,
 
 426 Notes 
 
 fiartlcg Cflkribgf. 
 
 they are not less graceful, or less fraught with meaning ; they possess 
 a softer if not a deeper pathos, they have at least as easy a flow and as 
 perfect an arrangement. A tender and imaginative fancy plays about 
 the thought, and as it were lures it forward, raising an expectation which 
 is fully satisfied. Indeed, if I am not wholly mistaken, there will be 
 found among these sonnets, models of composition comparable to those 
 of the greatest masters. ' — Rev. Derwent Coleridge. ' 
 
 ' That infirmity of will which is so touchingly acknowledged and 
 deplored in the poetry of Hartley Cole^dge was the cause doubtless of 
 his not reaching a far higher place in literature. His poems are excel- 
 lent alike for soundness of thought, descriptive power, fancy, and felicity 
 of diction ; and their moral tone is elevating. His Sonnets are very 
 remarkable. They are the most imaginative part of his writings, as well 
 as the most highly finished ; and possess that indescribable union of 
 sweetness and subtle pathos for which the sonnets of Shakespeare are so 
 remarkable.' — Aubrey de Vere."^ 
 
 PAGE 
 
 161 — cccxvil, 3-4. Cp. Wordsworth's Song at the Feast of Broiigham 
 
 Castle : < -pj^g silence that is in the starry sky, 
 
 The sleep that is among the lonely hills.' 
 This and the sonnet given under cccxx were written not later than 
 February, 1823. They appeared in The London Magazine of that 
 date, addressed to R. S. Jameson, husband of Mrs. Jameson, 
 authoress of The Loves of the Poets, &c. 
 162 — cccxix. Cp. Wordsworth's sonnet, cxc (p. 97). 
 
 cccxx. With this most pathetic sonnet read another of the same 
 series, evidently reminiscent of the beautiful lines, full of a prescient 
 tenderness, which Wordsworth had written on Hartley as a child 
 thirty years before ( To LL. C. Six Years Old) : 
 
 ' O Thou ! whose fancies from afar are brought ; 
 
 Who of thy words dost make a mock apparel. 
 
 And fittest to unutterable thought 
 
 The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol ; 
 
 Thou faery Voyager ! that dost float 
 
 In such clear water, that thy boat 
 
 May rather seem 
 
 To brood on air than on an earthly stream ; 
 
 Suspended in a stream as clear as sky. 
 
 Where earth and heaven do make one imagery ; 
 
 O blessed Vision ! happy Child, 
 
 Thou art so exquisitely wild, 
 
 1 Memoir prefixed to the Poems, i, clxi. 
 
 "^Select Specimens of the English Poets, -with Biographical Notices, &c., 1858, 
 p. 218.
 
 Notes 
 
 PAGE 
 
 427 
 
 I think of thee with many fears 
 
 For what may be thy lot in future years. 
 
 Thou art a Dew-drop, which the morn brings forth, 
 111 fitted to sustain unlcindly shocks, 
 Or to be trailed along the soiling earth ; 
 A gem that glitters while it lives, 
 And no forewarning gives ; 
 But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife 
 Slips in a moment out of life.' 
 This is the sonnet {Poems, p. 11) : 
 
 How long I sail'd, and never took a thought 
 To what port I was bound ! Secure as sleep, 
 I dwelt upon the bosom of the deep 
 ■ And perilous sea. And though my ship was fraught 
 With rare and precious fancies, jewels brought 
 From fairy-land, no course I cared to keep. 
 Nor changeful wind nor tide I heeded ought. 
 But joy'd to feel the merry billows leap. 
 And watch the sunbeams dallying with the waves ; 
 Or haply dream what realms beneath may lie 
 Where the clear ocean is an emerald sky, 
 And mermaids warble in their coral caves, 
 Yet vainly woo me to their secret home ; — 
 And sweet it were for ever so to roam. 
 162-163— cccxx-cccxxi. Quoting these and other illustrations from this 
 series in an analysis of Hartley Coleridge, the late Walter Bagehot 
 remarks {Literaiy Studies, edited by R. H. Hutton, 1879, i, 63) : 
 ' It is in this self-delineative species of poetry that, in our judgment, 
 Hartley Coleridge has attained to nearly, if not quite the highest 
 excellence ; it pervades his writings everywhere. . . . Indeed the 
 whole series of sonnets with which the earliest and best work of 
 Hartley began is (with a casual episode on others), mainly and 
 essentially a series on himself. Perhaps there is something in the 
 structure of the sonnet rather adapted to this species of composition. 
 It is too short for narrative, too artificial for the intense passions, 
 too complex for the simple, too elaborate for the domestic ; but in 
 an impatient world where there is not a premium on self-describing, 
 whoso would speak of himself must be wise and brief, artful and 
 composed — and in these respects he will be aided by the concise 
 dignity of the tranquil sonnet.' 
 165-^cccxxv. ' In all respects adequate to its high theme.'— ^wrj/ 
 Reed. Compare Mr. Arnold's treatment {Poems, ed. 1877, i, 5) : 
 
 SHAKSPEARE. 
 Others abide our question. Thou art free. 
 We ask and ask — Thou smilest and art still, 
 Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill 
 Who to the stars upcrowns his majesty, -
 
 428 Notes 
 
 « 
 
 pHrllfg Coleribgc. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Plantirf^ his stedfast footsteps in the sea, 
 
 Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place, 
 
 Spares but the cloudy border of his base 
 
 To the foil'd searching of mortality ; 
 
 And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know, 
 
 Self-school'd, self-scann'd, self-honour'd, self-secure, 
 
 Didst stand on earth unguess'd at. — Better so ! 
 
 All pains the immortal spirit must endure, 
 
 All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow. 
 
 Find their sole voice in that victorious brow. 
 
 Matthew Arnold. 
 
 161-165 — cccxvii-cccxxvi. From the /'t^d'wj ; 1833. 
 
 166 — cccxxvii. Dated ' Spring Cottage, Feb. 12,1841.' This charming 
 and highly characteristic sonnet, now first printed, I draw forth from 
 the obscurity of a private MS. album (containing many other most 
 interesting autographs) which, at the time our sonnet was written into 
 it, belonged to Charles Swain the poet. It is now the property of 
 Dr. Coveney of Prestwich, to whose courtesy I am indebted for 
 the privilege of adding this grain of Hartley Coleridge's gold dust 
 to my Ttrasury. The sonnet, verbatim as given in the text, is 
 written, dated, and signed in the undoubted autograph of Hartley 
 Coleridge. I presume the youngest reader would resent any fur- 
 ther information than the allusion itself supplies (1. 12) touching 
 the ' birds ' that wrought the 
 
 ' good and pious deed 
 Of which we in the Ballad read.' 
 
 Curiously enough, the two ballads of The Children in the Wood and 
 Barbara Alletis Cruelty stand in close proximity in Percy (Reliques, 
 ed. Wheatley, 1877, vol. iii, Book the Second, p. 128-169). 
 167— cccxxix. L. 2. Wordsworth (Exmrsion , Bk, I) : 
 
 ' that mighty orb of song, 
 The divine Milton.' 
 
 A liter (Toems, 1833, p. 134) : 
 
 HOMER. 
 Far from all measured space, yet clear and plain 
 As sun at noon, ' a mighty orb of song ' 
 Illumes extremest Heaven. Beyond the throng 
 Of lesser stars, that rise, and wex, and wane. 
 The transient rulers of the fickle main. 
 One steadfast light gleams through the dark and long 
 And narrowing aisle of memory. How strong, 
 How fortified with all the numerous train 
 Of human truths. Great Poet of thy kind, 
 Wert thou, whose verse, capacious as the sea,
 
 Notes 
 
 429 
 
 And various as the voices of the wind, 
 Swell'd with the gladness of the battle's glee — 
 And yet could glorify infirmity, 
 When Priam wept, or shame-struck Helen pined. 
 167— CCCXXX, 13-14. Cp. Mr. Patmore's delineation of his ' Ruth ' 
 ( Tamerton Church- Tower, iv, 4) : 
 
 ' A girl of fullest heart she was ; 
 Her spirit's lovely flame 
 Nor dazzled nor surprised, because 
 
 It always burned the same ; 
 And in the maiden path she trod 
 Fair was the wife foreshown, 
 A Mary in the house of God, 
 A Martha in her own.' 
 While Mr. Patmore's little volume is in my hand, let us secure his 
 voice for our Sonnet-Antiphon. i^Tamerton Church-Tower and 
 Other Poems : 1853, p. 21S) : 
 
 My childhood was a vision heavenly wrought ; 
 
 High joys of which I sometimes dream, yet fail 
 
 To recollect sufficient to bewail, 
 
 And now for ever seek, came then unsought. 
 
 But thoughts denying feeling, every thought 
 
 Some buried feeling's ghost, a spirit pale. 
 
 Sprang up, and wordy nothings could prevail 
 
 And juggle with my soul ; since, better taught : 
 
 The Christian's apprehension, light that solves 
 
 Doubt without logic, rose in logic's room ; 
 
 Sweet faith came back, sweet faith that hope involves, 
 
 And joys, like stars, which, though they not illume 
 
 This mortal night, have glory that dissolves 
 
 And strikes to quick transparence all its gloom. 
 
 Coventry Pattnore. 
 168 — cccxxxi, 5. Cp. Polwhele's use of a similar image in one of his 
 sonnets, — smoke rising from a thatch-roofed cottage on a calm 
 evening {Pictures from Nature, 2nd ed. [1786], p. 17) : 
 ' With its grey Column to yon' sapphire Cloud 
 Stealing in Stillness the calm Mind ascends — 
 The unruffled Line, tho' lost amid the Shroud 
 Of Heaven, in Fancy rising, never ends ! 
 Thus ever may my tranquil Spirit rise 
 Free from the Gust of Passion — to the Skies ! ' 
 cccxxxil. The title is supplied. 
 
 cccxxxi-cccxxxii. Compare the different modes in which 
 several living writers have presented the subject of Prayer. The 
 first illustration I select is from the pen of one who has identified 
 himself with the literature of the Sonnet not only by many highly- 
 finished compositions of his own in that kind, but as one of its 
 most charming historians. {Sabbatioii ; Honor Ahale ; and Other 
 Poetns : 1838, p. 162, as amended 1865) :
 
 43° Notes 
 
 fiarikg Colcribge. 
 
 Lord, what a change within us one short hour 
 Spent in thy presence will prevail to make, 
 What heavy burdens from our bosoms take, 
 
 What parched grounds refresh, as with a shower ! '^^ 
 
 We kneel, and all around us seems to lower ; ':-. 
 
 We rise, and all, the distant and the near, .% 
 
 Stands forth in sunny outline, brave and clear ; \ 
 
 We kneel how weak, we rise how full of power. 'i 
 
 Why therefore should we do ourselves this wrong, 1 
 
 Or others — that we are not always strong, ** 
 
 That we are ever overborne with care, . | 
 
 That we should ever weak or heartless be, \ 
 
 Anxious or troubled, when with us is prayer, 
 And joy and strength and courage are with Thee ? 
 
 Richai'd Chenevix Trench. 
 It may be observed with regard to the second — one of the series of 
 short poems composing ' Rose's Diary,' printed with one of the author's 
 prose works — that, like Shakspeare's 99th Sonnet, Sara Coleridge's 
 verses on Blanco White, and other abnonnal examples that might be 
 mentioned, it consists of fifteen lines, and that it and others of the series 
 furnish an interesting and, so far as I can recollect, unique variety of 
 what Mr. Palgrave regards as a judicious expansion of the sonnet-form 
 {stip7-a, p. 296). The Silurist himself never echoed George Herbert 
 more perfectly than does this 'sweet singer' in the nineteenth century 
 {Quinquinergia, 1854, p. 321) : 
 
 Prayer is the world-plant's purpose, the bright flower, 
 
 The ultimate meaning of the stem and leaves : — 
 
 The spire of the church ; and it receives 
 
 Such lightning calm as comforts, not aggrieves. 
 
 And with it brings the fructifying shower. 
 
 Prayer is the hand that catcheth hold on peace : 
 
 The living heart of good and nobleness. 
 
 Whose pulses are the measure of the stress 
 
 Wherewith He us doth, we do Him, possess : 
 
 When these do fail, our very lives decease. 
 
 Who uses prayer, a friend shall never miss ; 
 
 If he should slip, a timely staff and kind 
 
 Placed in his grasp by hands unseen shall find ; 
 
 Sometimes upon his forehead a soft kiss ; 
 
 And arms cast round him gently from behind. 
 
 Henry Septimus Sutton. 
 The third and last illustration I will select is taken from the Devo- 
 tional section of Ambarvalia: Poems by Thomas Burbidge and Arthur 
 H. Clough, 1849, P- 155 : 
 
 O leave thyself to God ! and if indeed 
 'Tis given thee to perform so vast a task, 
 « Think not at all — think not, but kneel and ask. 
 
 O friend, by thought was never creature freed
 
 Notes 43 1 
 
 PAGE 
 
 From any sin, from any mortal need : 
 
 Be patient ! not by thouf^ht canst thou devise 
 
 What course of life for thee is right and wise ; 
 
 It will be written up, and thou wilt read. 
 
 Oft like a sudden pencil of rich light, 
 
 Piercing the thickest umbrage of the wood. 
 
 Will shoot, amidst our troubles infinite, 
 
 The Spii'it's voice : oft, like the balmy flood 
 
 Of morn, surprise the universal night 
 
 With glory, and make all things sweet and good ! 
 
 Thomas Burbidge. 
 
 169 — cccxxxiii. One of a series of eighteen ' Sonnets suggested by the 
 Seasons,' of which I subjoin a second example, together with a 
 sonnet descriptive of Spring by a living poet. {Poems, ii, 62) : 
 
 FEBRUARY ist, 1842, 
 One month is past, another is begun, 
 Since merry bells rung out the dying year, 
 
 And buds of rarest green begin to peer, ^ 
 
 As if impatient for a warmer sun ; 
 And though the distant hills are bleak and dun, 
 The virgin snowdrop, like a lambent fire, 
 Pierces the cold earth with its green-sheath'd spire ; 
 And in dark woods the wandering little one j 
 
 May find a primrose. Thus the better mind 
 Puts forth some flowers, escaped from Paradise, 
 Though faith be dim as faintest wintry skies. 
 And passion fierce as January wind. 
 
 O God, vouchsafe a sunbeam clear and kind , 
 
 To cheer the pining flow'ret ere it dies. i 
 
 Cova^2iXQ {Laurella and Other Poems, 1876, p. 218): 
 
 THE FIRST SPRING DAY. j 
 
 But one short week ago the trees were bare, i 
 
 And winds were keen, and violets pinched with frost ; I 
 
 Winter was with us ; but the larches tost | 
 
 Lightly their crimson buds, and here and there i 
 
 Rooks cawed. To-day the Spring is in the air l 
 
 And in the blood : sweet sun-gleams come and go ; 
 
 Upon the hills, in lanes the wild-flowers blow, ; 
 
 And tender leaves are bursting everywhere. 
 About the hedge the small birds peer and dart, 
 Each bush is full of amorous flutterings 
 And little rapturous cries. The thrush apart 
 Sits throned, and loud his ripe contralto rings. 
 Music is on the wind, and in my heart 
 Infinite love for all created things. 
 
 yohn Tod hunter.^ 
 
 ^ LI. 3 and II. Cp. Tennyson {In Memoriam, xci) : 
 
 ' When rosy plumelets tuft the larch, ! 
 
 And rarely pipes the mounted thrush.' \
 
 43 2 Notes 
 
 PAGE 
 
 partkg doltribge. 
 
 169 — CCCXXXIV. Compare on the same theme Scotland's sweetest and 
 tenderest old poet {Flowres of Sion, ed. 1630, p. 7) : 
 
 FOR THE MAGDALENE. 
 These Eyes (deare Lord) once Brandons of Desire, 
 Fraile Scoutes betraying what they had to keepe, 
 Which their owne heart, then others set on fire. 
 Their traitrous blacke before thee heere out-weepe : 
 These Lockes, of blushing deedes the faire attire, 
 Smooth-frizled Waves, sad Shelfes which shadow deepe, 
 Soule-stinging Serpents in gilt curies which creepe, 
 To touch thy sacred Feete doe now aspire. 
 In Seas of Care behold a sinking Barke, 
 By windes of sharpe Remorse unto thee driven, 
 O let mee not expos'd be Ruines marke ; 
 My faults contest (Lord) say they are forgiven. 
 Thus sigh'd to Jesus the Bethanian faire, 
 His teare-wet Feete still drying with her Haire. 
 
 PVilliavt Drunimond} 
 
 166-169— CCCXXVlll-cccxxxiv, From the posthumous Poems by Hart- 
 ley Coleridge. With a Memoir by his Brother: 1851. 
 
 Cljarlfs loljitstmt. 
 
 170 — cccxxxv. From Sonnets, Original and Translated, by the late 
 Charles Johnston, Esq., of Danson, Kent : 1823. It had appeared 
 shortly before as one of his contributions to A Collection of Poems, 
 chiefly Manuscript, and from Living Authors, Edited for the Benefit 
 of a Friend, by Joanna Baillie (1823), in a foot-note to which the 
 editress announces that the author, a nephew of Professor William 
 Smyth of Cambridge, had just sunk into an early grave. 
 
 Gliomas poob. 
 
 171 — CCCXXXVli. The first of two sonnets on the same subject. 
 170-173— cccxxxvi-CCCXLi. Given from his /'^^ww .• 1846. They had 
 all appeared in serials, chiefly The London Magazine, between 1822 
 
 and 1827. 
 
 loljit Utottltra. 
 
 CCCXLII. From the collected edition of his Poems : with a Me- 
 moir by the Rev. Prebendary Coleridge, &c., 1876 (ii, 407). 
 
 ' L. I. Brandons (= torches) : ' Tapers' (1656) ; $. /aire : 'gilt' ; 6-7. 
 ' Waves curling, wrackefull shelfes to shadow deepe, 
 ^ Rings wedding Soules to Sinnes lethargicke sleepe,' (1623) ; 
 
 expos d be Ruines : ' be Ruines aym'd-at' (1656).
 
 Notes 433 
 
 Cljamttg Pare Siofonsljtnb. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 174 — cccxLlii. From Sermons in Sonnets, &c., 1851, Text, 2 Corinth. 
 vi. 10. 'As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.' 
 
 Isaac MUIliams. 
 
 CCCXLIV. This sonnet, given from The Catfiedral, or the Catholic 
 and Apostolic Church in England, 1838, had already appeared in 
 the Lyra Apostolica, 1836, under the signature ?. F. W. Faber, in 
 one of his sonnets (' Favourite Books '), describes Origen as ' my 
 dear and perilous guide.' 
 175 — CCCXLV-CCCXLVI. From Thoughts in Past Years, 1838. 
 
 STIjomas ITottcIl |3ci)bocs. 
 
 176 — CCCXLVII. Given from the posthumous volume of Poems by the 
 author of The Brides' Tragedy (1822) and Death's Jest-Book, or The 
 Fool's Tragedy (1850), published with a Memoir in 1851. I have 
 ventured to alter ' eyes ' to eye in 1. 4. 
 
 ^amurl ITamaii l^fe^tte'-"'^' 
 
 \lt^\T] — CCCXLViii-cccL. From his Z>r/<r (9^^;mo-j.- 1828. Charles 
 Lamb, writing in acknowledgment of a gift-copy of this little volume, 
 which was dedicated to him, said : ' I have been much pleased with 
 it throughout, but am most taken with the peculiar delicacy of some 
 of the Sonnets.' (Memoir prefixed to Blanchard's Poetical Works, 
 1876). It may be mentioned that an inferior version of cccxLix 
 makes its appearance in the recent Aldine edition of Keats as a 
 'Sonnet of doubtful authenticity,' the editor, Lord Houghton, re- 
 marking in a foot-note that he believes it to be ' one of George 
 Byron's forgeries.' 
 
 ^okrf ^kpljnt Pafoher. 
 
 178 — CCCLI. Yxom. Records of the Western Shore. Second Series. By the 
 Reverend R. S. Harvker, M.A., Vicar of Morwe^istow, Cornwall: 
 1836 ; but with the heading (Vulgate, St. Matt, vi, 26) as in The 
 Cornish Ballads, 1869. The volume last named, and the collected 
 Poems, 1879, read ' Grasps ' for Grasp in 1. 5, completely destroying 
 the sense. The sonnet appears also in Mr. Hawker's Ecclesia : A 
 Volume of Poems, 1840, with 'waves' for wave in 1. 2. In a very 
 interesting presentation-copy of that work, containing numerous 
 notes and corrections in the author's own hand, described by Mr. 
 J. E. Bailey in Notes and Queries, 15 July, 1876, this ' Sonnet of the 
 cc
 
 434 Notes 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sea,' as its title stood until 1869, is marked as having been ' wit ^t 
 Boscastle : Stephens of Calver, Wife, and Wife's Sister on the Sea.' 
 The recent edition supplies the date, 'August 25, 1835.' 
 
 178 — CCCLii. Dated 1840. From Reeds Shaken with thelVmd, 1843 ; 
 but title of i86g as above, in lieu of ' Ecclesiography ' as here, or 
 ' The Stem and the Boughs,' as it became in the later Echoes from 
 Old Cormuall, 1846. 
 
 lyg CCCLIII. Dated 1842. The following extract from a letter of Mr. 
 
 Hawker's, dated June 15, 1856, is appended to this sonnet in the 
 posthumous edition : ' I inserted in my sermon an account of the 
 discovery of St. Thomas the Apostle's death and burial in India. 
 Thus the sole question ever was, Is it apostolic ? Then it must 
 endure. Was it from one of the Twelve ? Then it will never pass 
 away. A small company of Christian men found in Upper India 
 among the mountains, origin unknown ; afterwards a tomb, with 
 staff and cross, a legend that there lived, laboured, and was slain, 
 St. Thomas the Apostle. St. Thomas the Twin, even in his ashes, 
 survived the apostolic fire, and whole ages after he was dust virtue 
 went out of the dust of St. Thomas of India.' 
 
 CCCLiv. Dated in the collective edition ' Feast of St. John the 
 Baptizer, 1843,' and introduced as follows : ' The well of St. John 
 in the Wilderness stands and flows softly in the eastern boundary 
 of Morwenstow Glebe. In the old Latin Endowment, still pre- 
 served in Bishop Brentingham's Register in the Archives of Exeter, 
 A.D. 1296, the Church land is said to extend eastward, ad que n dam 
 fo7ttem Johaniiis. Water wherewithal to fill the font for baptism 
 is always drawn from this well by the Sacristan in pitchers set apart 
 for this purpose.' 
 
 CCCLIII-CCCLIV. From Echoes from Old Cornwall : 1846. 
 
 Sir SiJlHIram |iofaan: famrltoit. 
 
 180— CCCLV. This sonnet, the sublime and holy aspiration of one of the 
 greatest and best men of any age,' is given from the biographical 
 Memoir of Hamilton written by his friend the Rev. R. P. Graves 
 of Dublin, which appeared in The Dublin University Magazine for 
 
 > Mr. Aubrey de Vere, in his Recollections, &c., as before (Wordsworth's Prose 
 IVorks, iii, 492), says : ' Wordsworth's estimate of his contemporaries was not gene- 
 rally high. I remember his once saying to me, " I have known many that might be 
 called very clever men, and a good many of real and vigorous abilities, but few of 
 genius; and only one whom I should call ' wonderful.' That one was Coleridge. . . . 
 The only man like Coleridge whom I have known is Sir William Hamilton, Astrono- 
 mer Royal of Dublin." '
 
 Notes 455 
 
 PAGE 
 
 January, 1842. Its composition, however, must be assigned to a 
 much earlier date. Ticknor, who justly regarded it as one of the 
 finest sonnets in the English language, speaks in a letter (Z/y^, Let- 
 ters, &c., 1876, ii, 471) of his daughter's having had a copy of it 
 given her by Sir William in August, 1835, a few days after they had 
 witnessed him receive the honour of knighthood ; but he errs in sup- 
 posing that it was evoked by that event. I have seen documentary 
 proof that it was written in November, 1831 ; and it arose out of 
 a conversation with the friend named above, in whose forthcoming 
 Lifeoi Hamilton the incident will be duly related. I take the head- 
 ing only from Ticknor's version, which, it may be remarked, has 
 ' leave ' for keep in 1. 7. It is gratifying to know that the Life and 
 Correspondetice of Hamilton on which Mr. Graves has been so long 
 engaged, and which will include, besides other remains, many beau- 
 tiful sonnets hitherto uncollected, may now be expected shortly. 
 180 — CCCLVi. Discoverer, &c. : more accurately ' with Le Verrier, co- 
 discoverer,' &c. This second example, selected partly as affording 
 a fine proof of the great mathematician's sense of the duty of unsel- 
 fishness in the pursuit and communication of truth, applying to a 
 brother discoverer in science what the earlier sonnet had expressed 
 for himself, is given from a paper on Hamilton, written, I believe, 
 by Professor P. G. Tait, of Edinburgh, and printed in Tke North 
 British Review iox September, 1866. Dr. C. M. Ingleby (' Modem 
 Metaphysicians : ' British Controversialist, September, 1869) calls 
 it ' the pearl of Hamilton's sonnets.' 
 
 f citrg ^lassforb ||cll. 
 
 181 — CCCLVII-CCCLVIII. Yrora. Romances and Minor Poems : 1866. 
 
 |oljtt Stcrlhrg, 
 
 182 — CCCLIX. This sonnet and one or two others of lesser merit, excluded 
 for some reason from the little volume of Poems published by Moxon 
 in 1839, make up, so far as is known to me, the sum of Sterling's 
 experiments in this species of composition. They all appeared in 
 The Athenczum during 1828, and were reprinted by Archdeacon 
 Hare, with the prose narratives of which they form part — ' A Medi- 
 tation at Netley Abbey ' and ' The Isle of Wight ' ( Travels of Theo- 
 dore Elbert, a young Swede) — in the second of the memorial volumes 
 of 1848. I append one of these others, descriptive of the sandstone 
 cliffs ' which run behind Steephill, and are continued the whole 
 way from Niton to Eastend ' {Essays and Tales by John Sterling, 
 1848, ii, 87) :
 
 436 Notes 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The hills in rude tremendous beauty rise, 
 
 With frost and storm through countless ages rent ; 
 
 Of yellow, brown, and red, a thousand dyes 
 
 On each rough crag and airy ledge are blent. 
 
 These giant walls a haunt secure have lent 
 
 And natural dwelling to the ivy's green ; 
 
 And none along these rocks their gaze have sent, 
 
 Nor blest with softened heart its living sheen. 
 
 Like it, along the steep, man's daily way, 
 
 All high resolves and gentle feelings climb. 
 
 Each sympathy that hallows human clay. 
 
 Impulse of love, and Godward thought sublime. 
 
 Beyond that toilsome mountain's summit grey 
 
 Is nought but gales of joy and heavan's unclouded day. 
 
 pdcra Clarissn; iron |lank£. 
 
 182 — CCCLX. From y^ Coronal of English Verse ; or, A Selection from 
 English and American Poets, by Thomas Solly, Professor, and Lec- 
 turer on English Literature at the University of Berlin. Berlin : 
 1864. This gifted lady, the wife of the eminent historian, has 
 another poem in the same volume, under the title of ' Wishes for a 
 Supposed Admirer,' which is not unworthy of association with Cra- 
 shaw's ' Wishes for the Supposed Mistress,' to which it was com- 
 posed as a companion-piece. 
 
 Cljarks (3^£itn:j|S0n) "^xawti. 
 
 Archbishop Trench, lecturing in 1866 on the history of the English 
 Sonnet, observed : ' Alfred Tennyson never seems to have cared much 
 for the Sonnet ; at least, he has very rarely clothed his own thoughts in 
 
 this form But although he has given us little in this kind, there 
 
 was a tiny volume of Sonnets published by his brother Charles, between 
 thirty and forty years ago, which shows plainly that, however the poet- 
 ical gift may have come to its head in Alfred, he is not the only poet 
 of the family. In this volume . . . there are some Sonnets of rare and 
 excellent workmanship.' ' 
 
 Charles Tennyson, like his illustrious elder brother Alfred, was bom 
 at his father's rectory, Somersby, in Lincolnshire, and received his early 
 education at the Grammar School of Louth, from which in 1827, the two 
 youths put forth the now famous joint-volume. Poems by Two Brothers, 
 so prized by book-hunters as containing the poet-laureate's earliest 
 verses. Subsequently, they removed to Trinity College, Cambridge, 
 
 1 Dublin Afternoon Lectures, as before, iv, 163.
 
 437 
 
 Notes 
 
 whither another brother, Frederick, the eldest of this family of poets 
 for he too is a poet — had preceded them ; and it was while there that 
 Charles published the ' tiny volume ' ' of which the lecturer speaks, and 
 to which an eminent college-companion of the poet's, writing about 
 him the other day, pays this charming tribute : that it ' has never, during 
 the fifty years save one that have followed, lost for me any part of its 
 charm : but I can take it up at any hour of the day, sure of finding all 
 within it as fresh and bright as when I was an undergraduate.' - Some 
 time after leaving college, Charles Tennyson, for family reasons, assumed 
 his grandmother's name of Turner. He took holy orders, and, either in 
 1S35 or the year following, became vicar of Grasby, in his native county, 
 where he ministered until his lamented death, which occurred at Chel- 
 tenham on the 25th df April last, in the 71st year of his age. 
 
 Mr. Henry G. Hewlett, in an article on English Sonneteers, written 
 in 1873 apropos of Mr. Turner's little volumes,^ remarks : ' No contem- 
 porary poet has shown a more persistent preference for the Sonnet as a 
 mode of artistic expression than Mr. Charles Turner. Since the first 
 appearance of a volume with his name, in 1830, to the present year, 
 when we welcome a fourth, his thoughts have rarely been crystallized in 
 any other shape,* Though far less known than they deserve to be, 
 these volumes have not escaped the recognition of discerning eyes. A 
 copy of the first which came into the possession of Coleridge was liberally 
 scored with his marginal annotations, and his high opinion of the poetic 
 promise it displayed is recorded in his Table-Talk.^ Although for more 
 than thirty years afterwards, Mr. Turner took little pains to keep his 
 name remembered, it was not forgotten." A second volume, issued in 
 1864, and a third in 1868, were greeted as gifts from an acknowledged 
 
 ' Sonnets and Fugitive Pieces, by Charles Tennyson, Trin. Coil. — Cambridge : 
 1830. Pp. 83. 
 
 2 The Nineteenth Century, Sept., 1879. Art., ' Charles Tennyson Turner,' by- 
 James Spedding, p. 464. 
 
 ^ The Conieinporary Review, 'Sift-pt., i?>T2.V- ^2,7- The student may be referred 
 also to the following articles : Leigh Hunt's Tatlcr. Feb. 24 — Mar. 3, 1831 ; The 
 International Feview (New York), Sept., 1875 ; St. James's Magazine, July, 1879; 
 and The Leisure Hour, "i^ow. 6, i?>js. This last, written by Dr. Grosart, is accom- 
 panied by a faithful and well-executed wood-cut portrait of the poet. 
 
 * There are no sonnets in the earlier Poenis by Two Brothers. 
 ^ See under ccclxii, p. 439. 
 
 * Five-and-thirty years .'igo the now venerable author of ' Orion ' remarked {A 
 New Spirit 0/ the Age. Edited by K. H. Home, :844, i, 270): ' There is something 
 peculiarly touching in the withdrawal of Charles Tennyson from the pathway to the 
 temple of Poesy, as though he would prefer to see his brother's name enshrined with 
 an undivided fame. One little volume ofsweet and unpretending poetry comprises all 
 we know of him. It has long been out of print. His feeling of the "use and service" 
 of poetry in the world may be comprised in a few lines, which may also be regarded 
 as the best comment upon his own : — 
 
 "We must have music while we languish here. 
 To make t"ne Soul with plea.sant fancies rife 
 And soothe the stranger from another sphere." 
 
 Sonnet 15.'
 
 438 Notes 
 
 Cljarks ((Lcitngsoit) Zxximx. 
 
 benefactor, and must have prepared a larger audience for the reception 
 of his newest offering. The dominant charm of all these Sonnets is the 
 pervading presence of the vv'riter's personality, never obtruded, but al- 
 ways impalpably diffused. The light of a devout, gentle, and kindly 
 spirit, a delicate and graceful fancy, a keen, if not very broad, intelli- 
 gence, irradiates their thoughts, while to the language in which they 
 are condensed. Art lends a power that 
 
 " Consolidates the flame. 
 And keeps its colours, hardening to a gem." ' 
 The article thus concludes : ' Now and then Mr. Turner has been tempted 
 to lavish good workmanship upon material scarcely worthy of it. Weeded 
 of any such examples, and of the polemical sonnets, his three little books 
 might well be collected into one, and brought within the reach of a wider 
 circle. That such poetry needs only to be known to be welcomed, we 
 cannot doubt, since it appeals to a healthy national taste to which 
 Chaucer, Spenser and Wordsworth have successively ministered, and 
 which no infection of 
 
 " Poisonous honey stolen from France " 
 has yet succeeded in vitiating.' 
 
 It will be no breach of confidence here to state that such a design as 
 Mr. Hewlett suggests is being carried out at the present moment by Mr. 
 Turner's literary executors. The forthcoming volume, besides including 
 some uncollected sonnets and the ' many more in manuscript ' which 
 Mr. Spedding announces (and taps) in The Nineteenth Century, will be 
 enriched with Coleridge's marginal annotations referred to above, repro- 
 duced — with a few deductions for frayed margins and faded characters — 
 from the original copy, which fortunately came into Mr. Turner's own 
 hands at an early date, and is still a treasured possession of his family. 
 By the kindness of its present owner I have had an opportunity of 
 examining that copy, and am permitted to use one or two of the ' S.T. 
 C pencillings, which are thus printed here for the first time. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 183 — CCCLXi. On this sonnet, Coleridge, having marked admiringly in 
 the margin the first eight lines, and written ' dele ' opposite the 
 word fond in 1. 14, annotates : ' A noble sonnet. But the last dis- 
 tich is inferior to my— 
 
 And Ocean 'mid his uproar wild 
 Speaks safety to his Island-child ! 
 
 Ode on Dep. Year. 
 
 I notice this, only because it is too inferior for the resemblance. 
 The parenthesis [=last clause of 1. 13] is weak, and of an atientone 
 of feeling — a metabasis eii aXXo yevoZ, tho', I admit, not £t5
 
 Notes • 439 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ETEpov. But it is a noble strain, «^« <j^j/a«/^.' He then marks 
 11. 10-12, and says : ' Might I recommend Mr. T. to substitute : 
 " To that lone Sound mute Listener and alone — 
 And yet a Sound of Commune, strongly thrown 
 That meets the Pine-grove on the cliffs above." ' 
 It may be observed that any alterations which the sonnet did un- 
 dergo afterwards were wisely confined to the first portion of it. 
 183 — CCCLXii. It is upon this sonnet that Coleridge makes the remark 
 (in slightly different form) printed in the Table- Talk (3rd ed, 1851, 
 p. 57) : ' Mr. Tennyson's sonnets, such as I have seen, have many 
 of the characteristic excellences of those of Wordsworth and 
 Southey.' In addition, Coleridge indulges in some observations on 
 the beautiful word * gloaming ' (Mr. Turner's original expression 
 for twilight in 1. i) which, for his own sake, I hardly regret that 
 I am not at liberty to quote. 
 185 — CCCLXV, 14. mortal: ' little ' (1830). Over this sonnet Coleridge 
 has written : ' A sweet Sonnet : and with the exception of the one 
 vi^ord " little," faultless.' At the bottom of the page, so far as an 
 amputated dog's-ear will allow me, I make out this after-thought: 
 ' " Little " may be a proper word if Man has been here contem- 
 plated positively — he is not little, comparatively, in his Eagle 
 relation to the Pigeons.' 
 183-187 — cccLXi-CCCLXix. From Sonnets and Fugitive Pieces, 1830, as 
 altered in Small Tableaux, 1868 (Macmillan & Co.), and in Sonnets, 
 Lyrics, and Translations, 1873 (H. S. King & Co.). Of these ex- 
 amples, besides those already specified, the following are scored 
 or annotated by Coleridge in the old' copy : cccLXiii-iv, CCCLXVI- 
 VII, and cccLXix. 
 189 — CCCLXXIV. ' Breathes a kindred spirit to George Herbert's, with- 
 out the excess of quaintness which so often mars his utterances.' — 
 H. G. Hewlett. 
 187-199 — CCCLXX-CCCXCIV. From Sonnets, 1864, and the two later 
 volumes of 1868 and 1873, as above. The volume of 1864 is affec- 
 tionately dedicated to his brother, the poet-laureate, whose In 
 Memofiam is thus exquisitely described in that of 1868 {Small 
 Tableaux, p. 40) : 
 
 ' that Book of memory. 
 Which is to grieving hearts like the sweet south 
 To the parched meadow, or the dying tree ; 
 Which fills with elegy the craving mouth 
 Of sorrow — slakes with song her piteous drouth. 
 And leaves her calm, though weeping silently ! ' 
 
 200 — cccxcv. Printed in Dr. Grosart's paper in The Leisure Hour, 
 Nov. 6, 1875, and thus introduced : ' Here is a sonnet that reached
 
 440 ' Notes 
 
 Cljarlcs ((Ltnnjrson) S^nrnxr. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 me the other week from the friend to whom it was sent, and I 
 print it with the modestly-put consent of its author. It will re- 
 pay to pause over its quaint realism of observation — all the realism 
 of John Clare, but with an added glow of Tintoretto-colour he 
 rtever could impart.' 
 200 — cccxcvi. From Macmillan's Magazine, December, 1876. 
 
 Having mentioned Mr. Frederick Tennyson as a poet — a name to 
 which even his single /m3//j/^^^ volume (' Days and Hours,' 1854) gives 
 him an indefeasible title — I am happy to be able to associate him with 
 his brothers in these pages, by means of the following Keats-like son- 
 net, which, though written forty years ago, has never, I believe, been 
 
 put in type until now. * 
 
 SONNET. * 
 
 'Tis not for golden eloquence I pray, 
 A godlike tongue to move a stony heart — 
 Methinks it were full well to be apart 
 In solitary uplands far away, 
 Betwixt the blossoms of a rosy spray. 
 Dreaming upon the wonderful sweet face 
 Of Nature, in a wild and pathless place. 
 And if it chanced that I did once array, 
 In words of magic woven curiously. 
 All the deep gladness of a summer's morn, 
 Or rays of evening that light up the lea 
 On dewy days of spring, or shadows borne 
 Across the forehead of an autumn noon, — 
 Then would I die and ask no better boon. 
 
 Frederick Tennyson. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 201-207 — CCCXCVII-CCCCX. Poems. By Elizabeth Barrett Barrett. 1844. 
 208 — ccccxil, 1-4. The passage in Theocritus alluded to (Syracusan 
 Gossips, 102) is thus imitated by the great modern idyllist {Love 
 and Duty, 56) : 
 
 ' The slow sweet hours that bring us all things good, 
 The slow sad hours that bring us all things ill, 
 And all good things from evil.' 
 
 209-ccccxiii. ' This has been said before, but never more touchingly 
 or eloquently.' Frederick Locker {Patchwork, 1879, p. 12). Com- 
 pare the old song (Wilbye's Madrigales, xii. The Second Set, 1609): 
 ' Love not me for comely grace, 
 For my pleasing eye or face, 
 Nor for any outward part. 
 No, nor for my constant heart, — 
 For those may faile, or turne to ill. 
 So thou and I shall sever :
 
 Notes 441 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Keepe therefore a true womans eye, 
 And love me still, but know not why — 
 So hast thou the same reason still 
 To dote upon me ever ! ' 
 and a little poem in the same key by Alexander Brome (1620-1666), 
 beginning ' 'Tis Rot her birth, her friends, nor yet her treasure ; ' both 
 of which, together with Mrs. Browning's sonnet, may be found in 
 juxtaposition in Mr. Davenport Adams's Lyrics of Love (1874). 
 208-211 — ccccxi-ccccxviii. Poems. By Elizabeth Barrett Browning : 
 1850. I presume it is almost unnecessary to observe that the seven 
 last examples belong to a series of which the title (a purely fictitious 
 one) was doubtless assumed as a screen proper to the sacredly per- 
 sonal -character of the poems ; for of these far more truly than of 
 Shakspeare's Sonnets may it be affirmed that ' each is an autobio- 
 graphical confession.' 'A passionate tenderness,' says the late 
 William Caldwell Roscoe, ' finds a voice in the Forttiguese SoJtnets. 
 Nay, so passionate and so tender are they, that one half shrinks 
 from the perusal of them, and reads M'ith some such feelings as 
 one opens the love-letters of those long dead, and can scarcely 
 reconcile oneself to an intrusion into the innermost secrets of 
 another heart.' Like all work of the highest originality, these 
 sonnets have had a marked assimilative effect on contemporary 
 verse. I recall one very perfect echo in sonnet-form, which might 
 pass unchallenged among Mrs. Browning's sonnets, and may even 
 be read with those of Shakspeare devoted to the subject of love in 
 absence. It occurs in a little volume of refined and thoughtful 
 essays and poems collected under the title of The Pelican Papers 
 
 . (1873, p. 19S) •• 
 
 LOVE AND ABSENCE. 
 
 Let it not grieve thee, dear, to hear me say 
 ^ 'Tis false that absence maketh the fond heart 
 
 More fond ; that when alone and far apart 
 From thee I love thee more from day to day. 
 . Not so ; for then my heart would ever pray 
 For longer separation, that I might 
 In absence from thee gain the utmost height 
 Of love unrealized ; nor would I stay 
 In my swift course, but ever onward press 
 Until mine eager hand should touch the goal 
 Of possible passion. Did I love thee less. 
 Then might I love thee more ; but now my soul 
 Is filled throughout with perfect tenderness : 
 No part of me thou hast, but the full whole. 
 
 yaines As hero ft Noble. 
 
 These examples from Mrs. Browning are given as finally amended 
 in the Fourth Edition of her Poems : 1856.
 
 442 Notes 
 
 f nrrn %\{qi\ 
 
 PAGE 
 
 212 — CCCCXIX, 6-7. ' Flos regum Arthurus.' — ^Joseph of Exeter (Frag- 
 ment of Antiocheis '). 
 
 ccccxx. One of a series of sonnets suggested by the death of a 
 young mother. The funeral sermon was on •he text, ' The Master 
 is come, and calleth for thee.' — St. John xi, 28. 
 
 ccccxix-ccccxx. Given from his Poetical Works : 1845. 
 
 ^rtljur ptnrg pallam. 
 
 213-214 — ccccxxi-ccccxxiii. Dated respectively April and July, 1829, 
 
 and May, 1831. 
 215 — ccccxxvi. Dated 1831. 
 213-215 — ccccxxi-ccccxxvi. From his Remains, in Verse and Prose : 
 
 1834. 
 
 Jfrfkrick ^illmm Jfabcr. 
 
 216-217 — ccccxxvil-ccccxxx. From The Cherzvell Water-Lily, and 
 Other Poems : 1840; butwith theScriptural mottoes from the Douay 
 (inplace of the Authorized) Version, as in his collected Poems : 1857. 
 Besides these mottoes (from 1 Pet. i, 17, yob i, 22, Eccles. xii, 12, and 
 Acts V, 15), there is also the general one (Ps. ix, 20): 'Arise, O 
 Lord, let not man be strengthened : let the gentiles be judged in 
 Thy sight.' The Catholic writer before quoted {ante, p. 258), refer- 
 ring to Father Faber in the second portion of his valuable Critical 
 History of the Sonnet (DiM/n Revieiv, Jan., 1877, p. 158), says : 
 ' ATnong the multiform triumphs of the versatile genius of this 
 gifted man' may be reckoned remarkable success in sonnet-writ- 
 ing. Father Faber's sonnets are numerous, and of a high order 
 of merit. They are almost all regular in form, and they are free 
 from what is a fault in Father Faber's poetry generally, the ten- 
 dency to exuberance of language and to excess in illustration. . . . 
 We know few more striking poems in the language than the son- 
 nets on the " Four Religious Heathens." ' 
 
 218 — ccccxxxi. From The Rosary, and Other Poems : l'S:^S- 
 
 A peculiarity in the structure of many of Father Faber's sonnets is 
 that the pause or turn in the thought is made to take place in the 
 eleventh verse, instead of in the ninth as the rule enjoins. 
 
 1 Mr. Aubrey de Vere in his Recollections, as before, reports Wordsworth's having 
 said in conversation : ' I have hardly ever known any one bvit myself who had a true 
 eye for Nature, one that thoroughly understood her meanings and her teachings — 
 except ' (here he interrupted himself) ' one person. There was a young clergyman, 
 called Frederick Faber, who resided at Ambleside. He had not only as good an eye 
 for Nature as I have, but even a better one, and sometimes pointed out to me on the 
 mountains effects which, with all my great experience, I had never detected.' — Words- 
 worth's Prose IVorks, iii, 488.
 
 Notes 443 
 
 PAGE 
 
 2i8 — CCCCXXXII. This sonnet, the only one published, but not, I under- 
 stand, the only one written, by the late Mr. Forster, bears date 
 ' March, 1848,' and forms the Dedication of The Life ajid Advai- 
 tures of Oliver Goldsmith (1848), as the title of his biography ran 
 originally. Hence the epithet ' adventurous ' in 1. 8. 
 
 ^rtljur iuglj Clouglj. 
 
 219 — ccccxxxiii. One of a set of poems under the motto, 'Blank Mis- 
 givings of a Creature moving about in Worlds not realised.' Given 
 from Afitbarvalia : Poems by Thomas Burbidge and Arthur H. 
 Clough : 1849. In all subsequent English impressions of Clough's 
 poems the three last lines of this sonnet are printed, not as a ques- 
 tion, but as a statement, thus : 
 
 ' It is enough to walk as best we may, 
 To walk, and, sighing, dream of that blest day 
 When ill we cannot quell shall be no tnore. 
 
 dLIjHdcs llritgsIciT. 
 
 CCCCXXXiv. From the collected edition of his Poems ; including 
 The Saint's Tragedy, Andromeda, Songs, Ballads, (s'c.: 1878. 
 
 Mill'mm dTalbbcH IIoscdc. 
 
 220 — CCCCXXXVi. Dated ' Richmond, 1852.' 
 
 221 — ccccxxxvil. The pre-eminently perfect workmanship and beauty 
 of this sonnet suggest the remark — otherwise hardly necessary, I 
 presume — that these exquisite productions had not the advantage 
 of their author's final revision. Had he lived to finish the studies 
 in sonnet-form contained in Mr. Hutton's memorial volumes, my 
 selection from his sonnets would have been much less limited. Not 
 a few of these studies possess the mournful interest and value of 
 unfinished masterpieces. I select two examples {Poems and Essays, 
 
 i, 75) : 
 
 A WET AUTUMN, 
 
 Behold the melancholy season's wane ! 
 Oppressed with clouds and with the rainy days, 
 And the great promise of that lavish gain 
 All shattered, which his shining youth did raise, 
 In misty fields the dripping harvest-grain 
 Hangs its dank head ; the sorrowing reaper stays 
 From day to day his sickling, chiding in vain 
 His unused sunshine and unwise delays. 
 Thus when I see this bright youth aged in tears,. 
 With bitter drops I wash my wasting prime,
 
 444 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Notes 
 
 WxXXxxm ^albfotU ^oscoe. 
 
 And sadly see mine own unharvested years 
 In the unprofited past their dark hours wave, 
 And the great visions of my early time 
 Wax fainter, and my face grows to the grave. 
 Ha/od linos, I S 4^ . 
 
 M. S. 
 
 Like morning, or the early buds in spring, 
 Or voice of children laughing in dark streets, 
 Or that quick leap with which the spirit gr'eets 
 The old revisited mountains — some such thing 
 She seemed in her bright home. Joy and Delight 
 And full-eyed Innocence with folded wing 
 Sat in her face ; and from her happy smiling 
 Clear air she shook, like star-lit summer night. 
 What needed pain to purge a spirit so pure ? 
 Like fire it came, — what less than fire can be 
 The cleansing Spirit of God ? Oh, happy she, 
 Able with holy patience to endure ! 
 Her joy made peace, and those bright ores of nature 
 Subdued to purest gold of piety. 
 Ha/od unos, lSj2. 
 
 221 — ccccxxxviii. Dated ' 1852.' 
 
 222 — ccccxxxix. Dated ' Bryn Rhedyn, 1854.' 
 
 CCCCXL. This pathetic sonnet forms the epilogue to the author's 
 Vioknzia, a very noble tragedy published anonymously in 1851, of 
 which his biographer, writing nearly ten years later, said with per- 
 fect truth that, excepting Kingsley's Saint's T^-agedy, no drama 
 which had appeared since the publication of Shelley's Ccncl was 
 worthy to be compared to it in power and beauty. L. 5. while : 
 ' white '(1851 and i860). I trust it may be regarded simply as an 
 error of judgment if I have erred in acting on the belief that the 
 poet's alteration of xvhile to ' white ' in the margin of his proof-sheet 
 (which I have had the opportunity of examining) was unintentional. 
 
 220-222— CCCCXXXV-CCCCXL. From Poems and Essays by the late Wil- 
 liam Caldwell Roscoe. Edited, zvith a Prefatory Memoir, by his 
 BrotJier-in-law, Richard Holt Htitton : i860. 
 
 |am£S ^ramuioitb ^urits. 
 
 223 — CCCCXLI. Written at Hastings, in the autumn of i860. From 
 Memoir and Reinains of the Rev. James D. Bums, M.A.,of Hamp- 
 stead. By the late Rev. James Hamilton, D.D.: 1869. 
 
 CCCCXLil. This profoundly impressive sonnet — 3rd in a group of
 
 Notes 445 
 
 PAGE 
 
 five titled as below — is at an obvious disadvantage isolated from its 
 fellows, especially the ist and 2nd of the group, which are there- 
 fore subjoined {^Poetical Works, ii, 354) : 
 
 TO 18b 2. 
 
 (in prospect of war with AMERICA.) 
 « I. 
 
 Oh worst of years, by what signs shall we know 
 
 So dire an advent ? Let thy New-Year's-day 
 
 Be night. At the east gate let the sun lay 
 
 His crown : as thro' a temple hung with woe 
 
 Unkinged by mortal sorrow let him go 
 
 Down the black noon, whose wan astrology 
 
 Peoples the skyey windows with dismay. 
 
 To that dark charnel in the west where lo ! 
 
 The mobled Moon ! For so, at the dread van 
 
 Of wars like ours, the great humanity 
 
 In things not human should be wrought and wrung 
 
 Into our sight, and creatures without tongue 
 
 By the dumb passion of a visible cry 
 
 Confess the coming agony of Man. 
 
 Even now, this spring in winter, like some young 
 
 Fair Babe of Empire, ere his birth-bells ring, 
 
 Shewn to the people by a hoary King, 
 
 Stirs me with omens. What fine shock hath sprung 
 
 The fairy mines of buried life among 
 
 The clods ? Above spring's flow'rs a bird of spring 
 
 Makes Februaiy of the winds that sing 
 
 Yule-chants : while March, thro' Christmas brows, rime-hung, 
 
 Looks violets : and on yon grave-like knoll 
 
 A girlish season sheds her April soul. 
 
 Ah is this day that strains the exquisite 
 
 Strung sense to finer fibres of delight 
 
 An aimless sport of Time ? Or do its show'rs 
 
 Smiles, birds and blooms Betray the heart of conscious Pow'rs? 
 
 From this 2nd I have taken the liberty of borrowing a word as a 
 
 title for the sonnet in the text. 
 224-225 — CCCCXLIII-CCCCXLV. Sonnets on the War. By Alexander 
 
 Smith, and by the author of ''Balder ' and ' The Roman: ' 1855. 
 223-225 — ccccxLii-ccccxLVi. From the posthumous collection of his 
 
 Poetical Works, with Introductory Notice and Metnoir by "John 
 
 Nichol, M.A. Oxon. LL.D., 2 vols., 1875. 
 Out of several beautiful tributes that have been paid inverse to Do- 
 bell's memory, I select the following sonnet by his friend Professor 
 Blackie, which appeared in The Scotsman newspaper (issue of 15th 
 September, 1874) shortly after the poet's death.
 
 44^ Notes 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF SYDNEY DOBELL. 
 And thou, too, gone ! one more bright soul away 
 To swell the mighty sleepers 'neath the sod ; 
 One less to honour and to love, and say. 
 Who lives with thee doth live half-way to God. 
 My chaste-souled Sydney ! thou wert carved too fine 
 For coarse observance of the general eye ; 
 But who might look into thy soul's fair shrine 
 Saw bright gods there, and felt their presence nigh. 
 O ! if we owe warm thanks to Heaven, 'tis when 
 In the slow progress of the struggling years 
 Our touch is blest to feel the pulse of men 
 Who walk in light and love above their peers 
 White-robed, and forward point with guiding hand. 
 Breathing a heaven around them where they stand ! 
 
 Johji Stuart Blackie. 
 
 Portimcr €oIIhts. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 226 — CCCCXLVII. Yxora.\v\'i Summer Songs : i860. 
 
 The writer on the Sonnet repeatedly quoted above makes the remark 
 {Dublin Review, Jan., 1877, p. 179) : ' We believe we are correct in 
 stating that no sonnet has ever graced the pages of our witty contempo- 
 rary Punch; ' and he adds in a foot-note : ' The spell has at last been 
 broken. Mr. Punch, we learn, has at length joined the rank of son- 
 neteers. His first essay in this line, we believe, appears in the number 
 for June 17th, 1876, three " Sonnets for the Sex," strictly regular and 
 Petrarchan in form.' This, as a friend points out to me, is not strictly 
 accurate. A sonnet, the germ of the charming triad named — in which it 
 was not difficult to detect the deft hand of Mortimer Collins (see his 
 Letters, &c., 1877, ii, igo) — had appeared in that journal as far back as 
 
 December, 1846. See Punch, vol. xi, p. 237. 
 
 »i 
 
 |ulran Jfaitc. 
 
 The Hon. Julian Fane's sonnets are close and masterly imitations of 
 Shakspeare's, which, his biographer Lord Lytton informs us, ' he loved 
 and studied, till he became saturated with the spirit of them.' I subjoin 
 an example of Fane's sonnet-work, written before he had abandoned the 
 Petrarcan for the Shakspearian method. Lord Lytton (Memoir, p. 45) 
 questions ' if it be possible to select from the boyish versification of any 
 man whose name is not recorded amongst those of acknowledged poets, 
 a specimen of verse more chastened in expression, or more carefully 
 completed in form.' {Poems, Second Edition, with additional Poems, 
 1852, p. 27) :
 
 Notes 447 
 
 TO A CANARY-BIRD, 
 
 TRAINED TO DRAW SEED AND WATER FROM A GLASS-WELL 
 SUSPENDED TO ITS CAGE. 
 
 Thou should'st be carolling thy Maker's praise, 
 . Poor bird ! now fetter'd, and here set to draw, 
 With graceless toil of beak and added claw. 
 The meagre food that scarce thy want allays ! 
 And this — to gratify the gloating gaze 
 Of fools, who value Nature not a straw, 
 But know to prize the infraction of her law 
 And hard perversion of her creature's ways ! 
 Thee the wild woods await, in leaves attired. 
 Where notes of liquid utterance should engage 
 Thy bill, that now with pain scant forage earns ; 
 So art thou like that bard who, God-inspired 
 To charm the world with song, was set to gauge 
 Beer-barrels for his bread — half-famish'd Burns ! 
 
 PAGE 
 
 226— CCCCXLVlli. The 3rd of a series of four sonnets dated Vienna. 
 
 227 — CCCCXLIX. The 1st of a series of six dated London. 
 ccccL. The last of a series of six dated Vienna. 
 
 228 — ccccLi. It will be observed that this sonnet contains only thirteen 
 lines. 
 
 CCCCLI-CCCCLH. Dated London. A melancholy interest attaches 
 to these two beautiful tributes of filial love, from their having been 
 written by the poet during the agony of mortal illness. ' On the 
 evening of the 12th of March, 1870,' writes Lord Lytton (p. 291), 
 ' his physical suffering was excessive. The following day was the 
 birthday of his mother. That day had never yet dawned upon a 
 deeper sorrow than it now reawakened in the soul of her he loved so 
 well. For the first time in all the long course of their tender inter- 
 course she could not look forward to that accustomed and treasured 
 tribute of dedicated song wherewith her son had never yet failed to 
 honour the advent of this day. Yet she found what she dared not, 
 could not, anticipate. There lay upon her table, when she rose on 
 that saddest of all her birthday anniversaries, a letter in the old 
 beloved hand-writing ; which, with a few simple utterances of 
 devoted affection, contained the two following sonnets. They are 
 the last words ever written by Julian Fane. But this golden chain 
 of votive verse into which from his earliest years he had woven, with 
 religious devotion, the annual record of a lifelong affection, was not 
 broken till life itself had left the hand that wrought it.' 
 
 226-228— CCCCXLVlli— ccccLii. Yrom J uHan Fane. A Mefttoir. By 
 Robert Lytton : 1 8 7 1 . 
 
 229 — CCCCLIV. With the modern sonnet compare the following piece of
 
 448 Notes 
 
 PAGE 
 
 quaint old handiwork by Dr. Giles Fletcher, father of the famous 
 Giles, which may be - regarded as its Elizabethan correlative. 
 ' Marlowe himself, 'says his editor, ' might have written the twelfth 
 verse.' {Licia, 1593, Son. 12, ed. Grosart, 1876) : 
 
 I wish sometimes, although a worthlesse thing, 
 Spurd by ambition, glad for to aspyre. 
 My selfe a Monarch, or some mightie King : 
 And then my thoughtes doe wish for to be hyer. 
 But when I view what windes the Cedars tosse. 
 What stormes men feele that covet for renowne, 
 I blame my selfe that I have wisht my losse, 
 And scorne a kingdome, though it give a crowne. 
 Ah ! Licia thou, the wonder of my thought, 
 My heartes content, procurer of my blisse. 
 For whom a crowne I doe esteeme as nought. 
 And Asias wealth too meane to buy a kisse : 
 Kisse me, sweete love, this favour doe for me. 
 Then Crownes and Kingdomes shall I scorne for thee. 
 
 Giles Fletcher, 
 229-230 — CCCCLIII-CCCCLV. From his Poems : 1853. 
 
 CCCCLVi. Surprised to tears. . ' Flatter'd to tears ' (Keats's Eve of 
 St. Agnes, iii, 3). This fine sonnet is one of Smith's contributions 
 to the little pamphlet, Sonnets on the War, published by him and 
 Dobell in 1855. 
 
 ^aHit ^rag. 
 
 These selections from David Gray — with William Caldwell Roscoe, 
 
 and Oliver Madox Brown later, the most deeply deplored since Keats of 
 
 * Those dying hearts that come to go, 
 And sing their swan-song flying home ' — 
 
 are from his only volume. The Luggie and Other Poems. With a Memoir 
 by James Hedderwick, and a Prefatory Notice by R. M. Milnes, AI.P. — 
 Cambridge : 1862 ; of which a second and enlarged edition, without 
 the Memoir, was published by Mr. Maclehose, Glasgow, in 1874. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 232 — CCCCLIX, 10. A recollection of In Memoriam, Liv — and, I pre- 
 sume, an instance of that ' direct and seemingly unconscious trans- 
 ference of some of the best known lines or phrases from such ob- 
 scure authors as Shakespeare and Wordsworth into the somewhat 
 narrow and barren field of his own verse,' which Mr. Swinburne 
 contemptuously asserts to be one of the two most remarkable points 
 in the ' poor little book' of this ' poor young Scotchman ' ! {Essays 
 and Studies, 1875, p. 153, foot-note). 
 
 ccccLX, I. Cp. Tennyson's Princess (p. 79, 4th ed., 1851) :
 
 Notes 449 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ' Delaying as the tender ash delays 
 To clothe herself, when all the woods are green.' 
 
 This sonnet was addressed to his brother-poet, Robert Buchanan. 
 See Mr. Buchanan's David Gray, and Other Essays, i86S, p. 117. 
 233 — CCCCLXII. There is something infinitely touching in the fondness 
 with which young poets passing through ' the shadows ' have looked 
 to this little flower as the emblem of hope for them. One of our 
 latest ' inheritors of unfulfilled renown ' thus glorifies it in sonnet- 
 form ( The Life of a Scottish Probationer : being a Memoir of 
 Thomas Davidson. IVith his Poems and Extracts from his Letters. 
 By Dr. James Brown, of Paisley : 1878, 2nd ed., p. 226) : 
 A SICK MAN TO THE EARLIEST SNOWDROP. 
 From off the chill and misty lower verge 
 Of Autumn, when the flowers were all gone past, 
 Looks, that were prayers, o'er Winter I did cast. 
 To see beyond thy fancied form emerge : 
 Thy advent was my dream, while storms did surge, 
 And if Hope walked with me 'tween blast and blast. 
 With phantom Snowdrops her pale brows were graced. 
 And now thy presence and my heart's fulness urge 
 This word of hail to thee. Emblem of meekness, — 
 Yet in thy meekness brave and militant. 
 Leading flower-armies from the bloomy South, 
 Hard on the heels of Frost and Cold and Bleakness ! 
 O when I spied thee in this yearly haunt 
 ' Life ! Life ! I shall not die ! ' brake from my mouth. 
 
 Thomas Davidson. 
 
 It was probably the reference in the text to the snowdrop that sug- 
 gested the exquisitely tender episode in Mr. Buchanan's Poet Andrew, 
 which manifestly depicts the brief sad life of David Gray. Age cannot 
 wither such poetry as that in which Andrew's father, the simple-hearted 
 handloom weaver, tells the story of his son's death {Ldyls and Legends 
 
 of Inverbum, 1865, p. 59) : 
 
 * One Sabbath day— 
 The last of winter, for the caller air 
 W^as drawing sweetness from the bark of trees — 
 When down the lane, I saw to my surprise 
 A snowdrop blooming underneath a birk. 
 And gladly pluckt the flower to carry home 
 To Andrew. 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 Saying nought. 
 Into his hand I put the year's first flower. 
 And turn'd awa' to hide my face ; and he . . 
 . . He smiled, .and at the smile, I know not why, 
 It swam upon us in a frosty pain. 
 The end was come at last, at last, and Death 
 Was creeping ben, his shadow on our hearts. 
 
 DD
 
 45© Notes 
 
 We gazed on Andrew, call'd him by his name, 
 
 And touch'd him softly . . and he lay awhile, 
 
 His een upon the snow, in a dark dream. 
 
 Yet neither heard nor saw ; but suddenly. 
 
 He shook awa' the vision wi' a smile. 
 
 Raised lustrous een, still smiling, to the sky, 
 
 Next upon us, then dropt them to the flower 
 
 That trembled in his hand, and murmur'd low, 
 
 Like one that gladly murmurs to himsel' — 
 
 " Out of the Snow, the Snowdrop — out of Death 
 
 Comes Life ; " then closed his eyes and made a moan. 
 
 And never spake another word again.' 
 
 The following tribute in sonnet-form to David Gray's memory from 
 the pen of another living writer, originally printed in Hedderwick's Mis- 
 cellany, 7 March, 1863, will fittingly close our selection from Luggie's 
 poet. {A Scholar s Day-Dream, Sonnets, and Other Poems, 1870, p. 190): 
 
 IN MEMORIAM' 
 
 DAVID GRAY.' 
 
 Oh, rare young soul ! Thou wast of such a mould 
 As could not bear the poet's painful dower ! 
 Hence, in the sweet spring-tide of opening power, 
 Ere yet the gathering breeze of song had roll'd 
 Out on the world its music manifold, 
 Death gently hushed the harp, lest storm or shower — 
 Which surely life had brought some later hour — 
 Should snap the quivering strings or dim their gold. 
 Yet not the less shall tender memories dwell 
 In those sweet notes — and sad as sweet they seem — 
 Which from the burning touch of boyhood fell ; 
 For long as little Luggie winds her stream. 
 And the twin Bothlin prattles down the dell. 
 Thither shall many a pilgrim turn and dream ! 
 
 Alsager Hay Hill. 
 
 (Dlikr p[a:tJo« l^rofoit. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 234 — CCCCLXIII. descries : used in the old sense = marks, points out. 
 From The Dwale Bliith, Hebditch's Legacy, and other Literary 
 Feniains of Oliver Madox Brorvn, Author of^Gabiiel Denver.' 
 Edited by William M. Rossetti and F. Hueffer. With a Memoir and 
 Two Portraits : 1876. The editors note that the sonnet was found 
 prefixed to the first MS. of ' The Black Swan,' a tale written in the 
 winter of 1871-2 and published in an altered form under the title 
 of 'Gabriel Denver,' in 1873; and that there were duplicate readings 
 to several of the lines. They record also that even some years 
 earlier, while in his fourteenth year, and before it had ever been 
 supposed by his family that he so much as understood the meaning
 
 Notes 
 
 451 
 
 of the word sonnet, this truly ' marvellous boy ' had produced a 
 number of. sonnets, which he unfortunately destroyed 'in a fit of 
 morbid irritability or bashfulness caused by their being shown to a 
 few friends.' One of these, however, written for a picture by Mrs. 
 Stillman (then Miss Spartali), and printed on the gilt of the frame, 
 has survived. It is as follows : — 
 
 Leaning against the window, rapt in thought. 
 
 Of what sweet past do thy soft brown eyes dream, 
 
 That so expressionlessly sweet they seem ? 
 
 Or what great image hath thy fancy wrought 
 
 To wonder round and gaze at ? or doth aught 
 
 Of legend move thee, o'er which eyes oft stream, 
 
 Telling of some sweet saint who rose supreme 
 
 From martyrdom to God, with glory fraught ? 
 
 Or art thou listening to the gondolier, 
 
 Whose song is dying o'er the waters wide, 
 
 Trying the faintly-sounding tune to hear 
 
 Before it mixes with the rippling tide ? 
 
 Or dost thou think of one that comes not near, 
 
 And whose false heart, in thine, thine own doth chide?
 
 I 
 
 ©nir of tlje 'gottB 

 
 INDEX OF AUTHORS 
 
 WITH DATES OF BIRTH AND DEATH 
 
 The Roman numerals denote the numbers in the Text, the figures the 
 pages of the Notes. 
 
 Alexander, William, Earl of Sterline (1580 — 1640) 322, 323 
 Alford, Henry (1810 — 1871) ccccxix— ccccxx 
 Ayton, Robert (1570 — 1638) 323 
 
 BAMPFYLDE.John Codrington Warwick (1754 — 1796) 393, 394 
 
 Barnes, Barnabe (1568-g — 1609) cviu — cix, 277, 284, 299, 305, 306 
 
 Barnfield, Richard (1574 — 1627) 300 
 
 Beaumont. John (1582-3 — 1627) 247 
 
 Beddoes, Thomas Lovell (1803 — 1849) CCCXLVII 
 
 Bell, Henry Glassford (1805 — 1874) CCCLVII — ccCLvm 
 
 Best, Charles (temp. Elizabeth) 254 
 
 Blanchard, Samuel Laman (1804 — 1845) cccxLViii — cccl 
 
 Bowles, William Lisle (1762— 1850) clxx— clxxii, 363 
 
 Breton, Nicholas (1555 — 1624) 302 
 
 Brown, Oliver Madox (1855—1874) ccccLXiii, 451 
 
 Browne, William' (1588 ?— 1643 ?) cxxxiii— cxxxv, 273, 333, 334, 335 
 
 Browning, Elizabeth Barrett (1809— 1861) cccxcvii— ccccxviii 
 
 Brydges, Samuel Egerton (1762 — 1837) CLXix 
 
 Burns, James Drummond (1823— 1864) ccccxli 
 
 Byron, George Gordon Noel (1788—1824) cclxiii 
 
 Chapman, George (1557 — 1634) xl, 263 
 
 Clare, John (1793—1864) cclxxxiv — ccxciii 
 
 Clarke, Charles Cowden (1787 — 1877) 418 
 
 Clough, Arthur Hugh (1819— 1861) ccccxxxiii 
 
 Coleridge, Hartley (1796-1849) cccxvii— cccxxxiv, 427, 428, 431 
 
 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772— 1834) ccxxxvi— ccxxxix, 362, 391 
 
 Coleridge, Sara (1803 — 1852) 399 
 
 Collins, Mortimer (1827— 1876) ccccxLVii 
 
 Constable, Henry (1555 ?— 1610 ?) xxxv— xxxviii, 259 
 
 CowPER, William (1731— 1800) clxiii, 357 
 
 453
 
 AC A Index of Authors 
 
 Daniel, Samuel (1562 — 1619) xliv — xlvi, 269, 283, 294 
 Davies, John, of Hereford (1560-5 — 1618) cvii, 284, 302 
 Davidson, Ihomas (1838 — 1870) 449 
 De Vere, Kwhx^y^ater (1788 — 1846) CCLIX — CCLXII 
 DoBELL, Sydney Thompson {1824 — 1874) CCCCXLII — CCCCXLVI, 445 
 Donne, John (1573 — 1631) ex — cxi 
 
 Doubleday, Thomas (1790 — 1870) CCLXVI — CCLXVII, 356 
 Drayton, Michael (1563 — 1631) xlvii — xLviii, 273, 274, 275 
 Drummond, William (1585 — 1649) cxii— cxxxii, 290, 316, 318, 324, 327, 328, 331, 
 332) 432 
 
 Edwards, Thomas (1699 — 1757) cliv, 351, 352 
 Elliott, Ebenezer (1781 — 1849) ecu — ceLii, 402 
 
 Faber, Frederick William (1814 — 1863) eeccxxvii — ccccxxxi 
 Fane, Julian Charles Henry (1827 — 1870) eceexLViii — cccclii, 447 
 Fletcher, GW^'i— pater (1548 ? — 1610-11) 448 
 Florid, John (1553 — 1625) xxvi 
 Forster, John (1812 — 1876) ccccxxxii 
 
 Gray, David (1838 — 1861) ceccLvii — ccecLXii 
 Gray, Thomas (1716 — 1771) eLVi 
 Greene, Robert (1561 ? — 1592) xlii — xliii 
 Greville, Fulke, Lord Brooke (1554 — 1628) 320, 321 
 Griffin, Bartholomew (? — 1602) 270 
 
 Habington, William (1605— 1645) cxxxvii 
 
 Hallam, Arthur Henry (1811 — 1833) ccccxxi — ccecxxvi 
 
 Hamilton, William Rowan (1805 — 1865) cceLV — ccclvi, 293 
 
 Harvey, Gabriel (1545 — 1630) 266 
 
 Hawker, Robert Stephen (1804 — 1875) cccli — cecLiv 
 
 Hemans, Felicia Dorothea (1794 — 1835) cexeiv — cexcviu 
 
 Herbert, George (1593 — 1633) cxxxvi, 336 
 
 Herrick, Robert (1591 — 1674) 255 
 
 Hood, Thomas (1798 — 1845) eccxxxvi — cccxLi 
 
 Howard, Henry, Earl of Surrey (1516? — 1547) m — vii 
 
 HuNTjJames Henry Leigh (1784 — 1859) cenv, 403, 410 
 
 Irving, Edward (1792 — 1834) ceLxxx 
 
 Jackson, William (1757 — 1789) 415 
 Johnston, Charles (1791 — 1823) cccxxxv 
 JoNSON, Ben (1574 — 1637) 263 
 
 Keats, John (1795—1821) ccxcix— ccexi, 409, 417, 420 
 
 KEBLE,John (1792 — 1866) CCLXXXI — CCLXXXIII 
 
 KiNGSLEY, Charles (1819— 1875) eeecxxxiv 
 
 Lamb, Charles (1775— 1834) ccxlii— ccxlv, 395 
 Lodge, Thomas (1556 ? — 1625) xxxix, 261 
 
 Mason, William (1725 — 1797) clvii 
 
 Milton, John (1608 — 1674) cxxxviii— cliii, 341 
 
 Montgomery, Alexander (1535 ? — 1605 ?) 326, 329 
 
 I
 
 Index of Authors acc 
 
 Moultrie, John (1799— 1874) cccxLii i 
 
 MoxoN, Edward (1801 — 1858) 397 
 
 Norton, Hon. Mrs. (under Stirling-Maxwell) 
 
 PoLWHELE, Richard (1760 — 1838) 401 
 
 Procter, Bryan Waller (1790— 1S74) ccLXvni— cclxxi, 296, 409 ^ 
 
 I 
 Raleigh, Walter (1552 — 1618) xxv, 245 
 Ranke, Helena Clarissa von (1808 — 1871) CCCLX 
 
 RoscoE, Robert (1789 — 1850) ccLXiv— CCLXV | 
 
 RoscoE, William (1753—1831) CLXvii 
 
 RoscoE, William Caldwell (1823— 1859) ccccxxxv— CCCCXL, 443, 444 I 
 
 RoscoE, William Stanley (1782 — 1843) ccLiii 
 Russell, Thomas (1762— 1788) clxxiii— clxxiv, 365 
 
 Seward, Anna (1747 — 1809) clxiv 
 
 Shakspeare, William (1564 — 1616) l — cvi ; 
 
 Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792— 1822) CCLXXII— CCLXXIX, 410,411 I 
 
 Sidney, Philip (1554— 1586) xxvii—xxxiv, 254, 256 < 
 
 Smith, Alexander (1830 — 1867) ccccLiii— ccccLvi J 
 
 Smith, Charlotte (1749 — 1806) clxv — clxvi, 359 ! 
 
 Smith, Horace (1779 — 1849) ccxLvii ] 
 
 Southey, Robert (1774 — 1843) ccxli | 
 
 Spenser, Edmund (1552?— 1599) viii— xxiv, 241, 24.3, 344 ^ 
 
 Sterling, John (i8o5 — 1844) ccclix, 436 
 
 Stillingfleet, Benjamin (1702 — 1771) CLV, 353 
 
 Stirling-Maxwell, Caroline Elizabeth Sarah (1808— 1877) 360 i 
 
 Strong, Charles (1785 — 1864) cclvii 
 
 Sylvester, Joshua (1563— 1618) xlix, 276, 277 : 
 
 Talfourd, Thomas Noon (179s — 1854) cccxiii — cccxvi, 425 
 
 Tennyson, Charles (under Turner) 
 
 Thurlow, Edward Hovel (1781— 1829) ccxLviii— CCL, 252 
 
 Tighe, Mary (1773 — 1810) CCXL, 392 
 
 TowNSHEND, Chauncy Hare (1800— 1868) cccxLiii 
 
 Turner, Charles.Tennyson (1808— 1879) ccclxi— cccxcvi, 387, 388 
 
 Walker, William Sidney (1795 — 1846) cccxii • 
 
 Warton, Thomas (1728 — 1790) CLViii — clxii, 356 : 
 
 Watson, Thomas (1560 — 1592) xli, 265 
 
 White, Henry Kirke (1785 — 1806) CCLV — CCLVI j 
 
 White, Joseph Blanco (1775—1841) ccxlvi, 398 ^! 
 
 Williams, Helen Maria (1762 — 1828) clxviii ' 
 
 Williams, Isaac (1802 — 1865) cccxliv — cccxlvi 
 
 Wilson, John (1785 — 1854) cclviii ! 
 
 Wither, George (1588— 1667) 322 i 
 
 Wordsworth, William (1770— 1850) clxxv— ccxxxv, 370, 372, 375, 376, 377, 378, 
 
 381, 382, 383, 384, 3S9 . j 
 
 Wyat, Thomas (1503 — 1542) i — 11 \ 
 
 Anonymous : 239, 246, 247, 250, 301, 307, 330
 
 (mC-^ 
 
 INDEX OF LIVING WRITERS 
 
 INCIDENTALLY REPRESENTED IN THE NOTES 
 
 Alexander, Patrick Proctor - 
 
 Allingham, William 
 
 Arnold, Matthew - . . 
 
 Blackie, John Stuart 
 
 BuRBiDGE, Thomas . . . 
 
 De Verb, Aubrey - -, - 
 
 DowDEN, Edward - . . 
 
 Ellison, Henry ... 
 
 Garnett, Richard . . . 
 
 Graves, Alfred Perceval - 
 
 Hanmer, Lord - . . . 
 
 Hill, Alsager Hay - - . 
 
 Myers, Ernest - . - . 
 
 Noble, James Ashcroft 
 
 Patmore, Coventry Kearsey Dighton 
 
 RosSETTi, Christina Gabriela 
 ROSSETTI, Dante Gabriel 
 
 Sutton, Henry Septimus - 
 
 Tennyson, Alfred ... 
 
 Tennyson, Frederick 
 Todhunter, John ... 
 
 Trench, Richard Cbenevix 
 
 Watson, William 
 
 Anonymous ... 
 
 page 
 
 - 367 
 
 408 
 
 - 427 
 
 446 
 
 - 430 
 
 405, 406 
 
 - 387 
 
 414 
 
 
 373 
 
 421 
 
 - 
 
 
 422 
 
 
 - 
 
 390 
 
 - 
 
 
 450 
 
 
 - 
 
 381 
 
 # 
 
 
 441 
 
 
 - 
 
 429 
 
 - 
 
 
 292 
 
 346, 
 
 374 
 
 404 
 
 - 
 
 
 430 
 
 
 - 
 
 380 
 
 - 
 
 
 440 
 
 319. 
 
 342. 
 
 431 
 
 - 
 
 
 430 
 
 
 293. 
 
 342 
 
 • 
 
 
 419
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES " 
 
 Those in the Notes are distinguished by an Asterisk 
 
 Abbey ! for ever smiling pensively 
 Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear 
 Accuse me thus : that I have scanted all 
 A cloud lay cradled near the setting sun - 
 A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by 
 Against my Love shall be, as I am now - 
 Again the violet of our early days 
 Again thou reignest in thy golden hall - 
 
 *A gentle shepherd, borne in Arcadye - 
 A good that never satisfies the mind 
 Ah ! burning thoughts, now let me take some rest 
 Ah, sweet Content, where is thy mild abode ? - 
 A hundred wings are dropt as soft as one 
 Ah 1 what a weary race my feet have run 
 Alas ! that sometimes even a duteous life 
 Alas, 'tis true I have gone here and there 
 Alexis, here she stayed ; among these pines - 
 All are not taken ; there are left behind - 
 
 *A11 praise the Likeness by thy skill portrayed 
 
 *A11 ye who far from town, in rural hall - 
 
 *Amen ! my brave old friend, to all thy prayer 
 And, O beloved voices, upon which 
 
 *And thou, too, gone ! one more bright soul away 
 
 *And to the Father of Eternal days 
 Another year ! — another deadly blow ! 
 A plaintive sonnet flowed from Milton's pen 
 A rose, as fair as ever saw the North - 
 Around man's hearth his dearest blessings meet 
 Art thou a type of beauty, or of power 
 As due by many titles, I resign - . . 
 
 *As late I rambled in the happy fields 
 As one dark morn I trod a forest glade - 
 As one who, destined from his friends to part 
 
 *As one whose eyes have watched the stricken day 
 As on my bed at dawn I mused and prayed - 
 
 PAGE 
 
 - 128 
 
 209 
 
 - 50 
 131 
 
 - 94 
 36 
 
 - 128 
 129 
 
 - 335 
 
 63 
 
 - S8 
 55 
 
 - 185 
 
 83 
 
 - 214 
 
 49 
 
 - 61 
 202 
 
 - 376 
 394 
 
 - 419 
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 - 446 
 402 
 
 - 109 
 
 81 
 
 - 68 
 177 
 
 - 132 
 
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 - 420 
 189 
 
 - 86 
 
 293 
 
 - 189 
 
 457
 
 Ac^ Index of First Lines 
 
 PAGE 
 
 As thus oppressed with many a heavy care ... - 130 
 
 As when it happeneth that some lovely town - - - - 66 
 
 As winter, in some mild autumnal days - ... - 220 
 A trouble, not of clouds, or weeping rain ..... 114 
 
 Avenge„0 Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones - - - 75 
 
 A volant Tribe of Bards on earth are found - - - - - 97 
 
 A wrinkled, crabbed man they picture thee .... 123 
 
 Beauty still walketh on the earth and air .... 229 
 
 Beauty, sweet Love, is like the morning dew - - - - 23 
 
 Because I breathe not love to every one ..... 16 
 
 Because thou wast the daughter of a king - - - - .20 
 
 ♦Behold the melancholy season's wane ! - . . - - 443 
 
 Being your slave, what should I do but tend - - - - - 3S 
 
 ♦Beneath a sable vaile, and Shadowes deepe .... 328 
 
 Be not afraid to pray — to pray is right ... - - 168 
 
 Beyond the pine-wood all looked bright and clear ... igo 
 Blue! 'Tis the life of heaven, — the domain ----- 156 
 
 Brave Schill ! by death delivered, take thy flight - - - log 
 
 Bright star ! would I were steadfast as thou art - - - - 158 
 
 Broad, but not deep, along his rock-chafed bed - - - - 133 
 
 Brook ! whose society the Poet seeks ------ 100 
 
 But be contented : when that fell arrest ----- 40 
 
 But do thy worst to steal thyself away - - - - - - 43 
 
 ♦But love whilst that thou maist be lov'd againe - - . - 269 
 
 ♦But one short week ago the trees were bare .... - 431 
 
 Cambridge, with whom, my pilot and my guide - - - - 79 
 
 Captain, or Colonel, or Knight in arms - - - - - 7^ 
 
 Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night .... 24 
 
 ♦Care-charmer Sleepe, sweet ease in restles miserie - - - - 270 
 
 Child of the clouds ! remote from every taint - . . - iii 
 
 ♦Cleere Ankor, on whose Silver-sanded shore . - - - 275 
 
 Come, Sleep, O Sleep ! the certain knot of peace - - - 15 
 Could I but harmonize one kindly thought ----- 166 
 
 ♦Couldst thou in calmness yield thy mortal breath - - - 399 
 
 ♦Could then the Babes from yon unshelter'd cot - - - - S^S 
 
 Cromwell, our chief of men, who through a cloud - - - 74 
 
 ♦Cynthia, whose glories are at full for ever ... - - 320 
 
 Cyriack, this three-years-day these eyes, though clear - - - 77 
 
 Cyriack, whose grandsire on the royal bench - - - - 7° 
 
 Daughter to that good Earl, once President ... - 72 
 
 ♦Deare Quirister, who from those Shadowes sends ... - 316 
 
 Dear native brook 1 wild streamlet of the West ! . - . 121 
 
 Dear to the Loves, and to the Graces vowed - - - - - 118 
 
 Dear, why should you command me to my rest - - - - 24 
 
 Dear wood, and you, sweet solitary place - - - - - 60 
 
 Death, be not proud, though some have called thee - - - 56 
 
 Deem not devoid of elegance the sage - - - - - 82 
 
 Degenerate Douglas ! oh, the unworthy Lord ! - - - - I04 
 
 Dewint ! I would not flatter, nor would I - - - - - ^4^
 
 Index of First Lines ^eq 
 
 Die down, O dismal day ! and let me live .... 233 
 
 Divers doth use, as I have heard and know - - ... 2 
 
 Doth then the world go thus, doth all thus move! ... 66 
 
 Down in a valley, by a forest's side . . . - . -68 
 
 ♦Drowned for long ages, lost to human reach .... 387 
 
 301 
 112 
 
 Earth has not anything to show more fair - . . . . 100 
 ♦Earth unto Earth is now returned : a doom .... 
 
 Ere yet our course was graced with social trees ... 
 
 Eternal and Omnipotent Unseen 1 . - . . . . 126 
 
 Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind ! - . . .• . . 134 
 
 ♦Even now, this spring in winter, like some young ... ^^5 
 
 Even thus, methinks, a city reared should be .... 213 
 
 ♦Eve's lingering clouds extend in solid bars .... 382 
 
 Experience, like a pale musician, holds ..... 204 
 
 ♦Eyther the goddesse drawes her troupe of loves . ... 247 
 
 Fair art thou, Phyllis ; ay, so fair, sweet maid .... 20 
 
 ♦Faire, since thy Virtues my affections move ..... 322 
 
 Fairest, when by the rules of palmistry ..... 67 
 
 Fairfax, whose name in arms through Europe rings . . - - 73 
 
 Fair maid, had I not heard thy baby cries .... 165 
 
 Fair Star of evening. Splendour of the west ..... 104 
 
 Farewell, Love, and all thy laws for ever ! . - - . j 
 
 Farewell on man's dark journey o'er the deep .... 1^2 
 
 Farewell ! thou art too dear for my possessing .... 41 
 
 ♦Far from all measured space, yet clear and plain .... 428 
 
 Far from the sight of earth, yet bright and plain ... 167 
 
 Fixed in a white-thorn bush, its summer guest .... 145 
 
 Flowers ! when the Saviour's calm, benignant eye ... 14^ 
 
 Fond words have oft been spoken to thee. Sleep 1 . . - - 94 
 
 Four seasons fill the measure of the year ..... 154 
 Fresh Spring, the herald of love's mighty king . . . .11 
 
 Friend of my earliest years and childish days .... 123 
 
 From low to high doth dissolution climb - . . . - 117 
 
 ♦From off the chill and misty lower verge ..... 440 
 From Pembroke's princely dome, where mimic Art - . . .81 
 
 From you have I been absent in the spring .... 45 
 
 Full many a glorious morning have I seen - . . . - 32 
 
 Full often as I rove by path or stile ..... 188 
 
 ♦Fye foolish Earth, thinke you the heaven wants glory ... 320 
 
 Gaily and greenly let my seasons run ..... 176 
 
 Genius and its rewards are briefly told ..... 218 
 
 Give me thy joy in sorrow, gracious Lord .... 174 
 
 ♦Give pardon (blessed Soule) to my bold cryes .... 259 
 
 ♦Glory and loveliness have passed away ..... 420 
 
 Green little vaulter in the sunny grass ..... 129 
 
 Grief, thou hast lost an ever ready friend ..... 95 
 
 ♦Had Lucan hid the truth to please the time .... 245 
 
 Happy is England ! I could be content ..... 154
 
 460 
 
 Index of First Lines 
 
 Happy, ye leaves ! whenas those lily hands 
 Hardly we breathe, although the air be free - 
 Harry, whose tuneful and well-measured song. - 
 Having this day my horse, my hand, my lance 
 Hearken ! there is in old Morwenna's shrine 
 Hearken, thou craggy ocean-pyramid ! 
 Heart of my heart ! of Love let us commune 
 
 *He drew it home — he heaved it to the bank - 
 Heed not a world that neither thee can keep 
 
 *He left the upland lawns and serene air 
 Henceforward shall our time be plainly read 
 
 *Here sleeps beneath this bank, where daisies grow 
 He was a mild old man, and cherished much 
 High is our calling. Friend ! — Creative Art - 
 
 *Highway, since you my chiefe Pernassus be 
 Hope smiled when your nativity was cast 
 How bravely Autumn paints upon the sky 
 How can my Muse want subject to invent 
 How do I love thee? Let me count the ways - 
 How like a winter hath my absence been 
 How like the leper, with his own sad cry - 
 
 *How long I sail'd, and never took a thought - 
 How many blessed groups this hour are bending 
 How must the soldier's tearful heart expand - 
 How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st - 
 How peacefully the broad and golden moon - 
 How profitless the relics that we cull 
 How softly Summer's breath is wafted here - 
 
 *How soft the pause ! the notes melodious cease - 
 How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth 
 
 ♦How sweet it were if, without feeble fright 
 How sweet the tuneful bells' responsive peal ! 
 Hung on the shower that fronts the golden West 
 
 PAGE 
 
 5 
 
 136 
 
 72 
 
 16 
 
 178 
 
 IS5 
 i8z 
 388 
 17s 
 381 
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 397 
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 98 
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 33 
 
 ZII 
 
 44 
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 427 
 
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 230 
 
 SI 
 197 
 
 "5 
 
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 392 
 
 70 
 
 403 
 
 88 
 
 184 
 
 I am not One who much or oft delight 
 *I am not to instruct where I may learne - 
 *I did but prompt the age to quit their cloggs 
 *1 do not know a man who better reads 
 If by dull rimes our English must be chained 
 Tf crost with all mishaps be my poor life - 
 *If Cupid keepe his quiver in thine eye 
 If I have sinned in act, I may repent 
 If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange 
 If it must be ; if it must be, O God ! 
 If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear 
 "'If Musique and sweet Poetrie agree 
 If thou must love me, let it be for nought 
 If thou survive my well-contented day - 
 *I grieved for Buonaparte, with a vain 
 I have a circlet of thy sunny hair - 
 1 have been in the meadows all the day 
 I know that all beneath the moon decays 
 
 90 
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 341 
 296 
 
 IS7 
 60 
 
 30s 
 164 
 2x1 
 232 
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 300 
 209 
 
 32 
 383 
 187 
 202 
 
 S7
 
 Index of First Lines 46 1 < 
 
 FACE 
 
 I love to rise ere gleams the tardy light - - . . .84 
 
 I love to wander at my idle will --.... i^g 
 
 I met a traveller from an antique land - - . - - 138 
 
 I met that image on a mirthful day - . . . . 150 
 
 In eddying course when leaves began to fly - - - - - 87 
 
 I never gave a lock of hair away - - - - - . 210 
 
 Inland, within a hollow vale, I stood ---.-. 106 
 
 *In pride of Wit, when high desire of Fame .... 274 
 
 In summer-time it was a paradise ...... icjt) 
 
 *ln that, O Queene ofqueenes! thy byrth was free . . - 259 
 
 Into God's word, as in a palace fair -.--.. 174 
 
 In vain I haunt the cold and silver springs - - - -, 59 
 
 In vain to me the smiling mornings shine - - - - - 80 
 
 *I .saw a fresh spring rise out of a rocke ----- 241 
 
 *I saw a silver swan swim downe the Lee ----- 335 
 
 *I saw a spring out of a rocke forth ray le ----- 241 
 
 ♦I saw far off the dark top of a Pine ------ 389 
 
 *I saw the Master of the Sun. He stood - - - - - 405 
 
 I saw the object of my pining thought - - - - - 21 
 
 Is it indeed so ? If I lay here dead ----- 210 
 
 Is it thy will thy image should keep open - - - - - 36 
 
 Is this the spot where Rome's eternal foe .... 131 
 
 *I sweare, Aurora, by thy starrie eyes - - - - - ' - 322 
 
 *It flows through old hushed jEgypt and its sands ... 410 
 
 *1 that have beene a lover, and could shew it - - - - - 263 
 
 I think we are too ready with complaint - ... - 207 
 
 I thought of Thee,' my partner and my guide - - - .114 
 
 I thought once how Theocritus had sung . . . . 208 
 
 It is a beauteous Evening, calm and free - - - - - 96 
 
 It is a summer twilight, balmy-sweet ..... 183 
 
 It is not death, that sometime in -a. sigh . - - . - 172 
 
 It is not to be thought of that the Flood ..... 108 
 
 It is the fairest sight in Nature's realms -.---- 188 
 
 It may indeed be phantasy when I .... - 122 
 
 *I watch, and long have watch'd, with calm regret - - - - 377 
 
 I will not praise the often -flattered rose ----- 135 
 
 *I will not rail, or grieve when torpid eld - - . . - 421 
 
 *I wish no rich-refinde Arabian gold - - - - - 284 
 
 *I wish sometimes, although a worthlesse thing . . - - 448 
 
 ♦Kinsman belov'd, and as a son, by me ! - - - - - 357 
 
 Lady, that in the prime of earliest youth .... 71 
 
 Lady, I bid thee to a sunny dome --...- 214 
 
 Last night my cheek was wetted with warm tears - - . 229 
 
 Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son - - - - - 7° 
 
 ♦Leaning against the window, rapt in thought - - - - 451 
 
 Leave me, O Love, which reachest but to dust - - - - 17 
 
 *Let forrain nations of their language boast - - - - 336 
 
 *Let it not grieve thee, dear, to hear me say - . . - - 441 
 
 Let me not deem that I was made in vain - - - ■ - 166
 
 462 
 
 Index of First Lines 
 
 Let me not to the marriage of true minds 
 
 Let not my love be called idolatry ... 
 
 ♦Let others sing of Knights and Palladines 
 
 ♦Let the lone hermit praise the darkling dell 
 Let those who are in favour with their stars . 
 
 *Lct us each day enure our selves to dye - - . 
 
 Life with yon Lambs, like day, is just begun 
 Like a musician that with flying finger ... 
 Like as a huntsman after weary chase 
 Like as a ship that through the ocean wide 
 Like as the culver on the bardd bough 
 Like as jhe waves make towards the pebbled shore 
 
 ♦Like morning, or the early buds in spring 
 
 ♦Loe, I the man, that whilome lov'd and lost 
 
 *Lo ! how the sailor in a stormy night - . . 
 
 Lo ! in the burning west, the craggy nape 
 
 ♦Lone Flower, hemmed in with snows and white as they 
 Long time a child, and still a child, when years 
 
 ♦Long-while I sought to what I might compare 
 Look, Delia, how w' esteem the half-blown rose 
 
 ♦Looke how the pale Queene of the silent night 
 Look how the flower which lingeringly doth fade 
 Look what immortal floods the sunset pours . 
 
 ♦Lord, what a change within us one short hour - 
 Lord, with what care hast Thou begirt us round I 
 
 ♦Love, banish'd Heav'n, in Earth was held in scorne 
 Love, dearest lady, such as I would speak 
 Lo ! where she stands fixed in a saint-like trance 
 
 Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is - - 
 
 Mark when she smiles with amiable cheer 
 
 Martha, thy maiden foot is still so light 
 
 Mary ! I want a lyre with other strings ... 
 
 Men call you fair, and you do credit it - . 
 
 Methinks the innumerable eyes of ours . - - 
 
 Methinks we do as fretful children do . - 
 
 Methought I saw my late espoused saint 
 
 Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay 
 
 Milton ! thou should'st be living at this hour 
 
 ♦Month after month the gathered rains descend 
 More than most fair, full of the living fire 
 Mortal ! at last what will it thee bestead 
 Most glorious Lord of life ! that on this day 
 Most sweet it is with unuplifted eyes ... 
 Mother! whose virgin bosom was uncrost 
 Mourn not, fair Greece, the ruin of thy kings 
 Much have I travelled in the realms of gold 
 Muses that sing Love's sensual empery 
 Music, and frankincense of flowers, belong 
 Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly? 
 
 ♦Mute is thy wild harp now, O Bard sublime ! . 
 
 ♦My childhood was a vision heavenly wrought 
 
 PAGE 
 
 50 
 
 47 
 
 294 
 
 415 
 29 
 
 331 
 102 
 
 220 
 ID 
 
 7 
 
 13 
 
 35 
 444 
 333 
 323 
 no 
 
 378 
 162 
 
 243 
 23 
 
 254 
 63 
 
 138 
 
 430 
 
 69 
 
 273 
 
 173 
 103 
 
 141 
 
 8 
 
 167 
 
 84 
 
 12 
 
 223 
 
 20S 
 
 77 
 13 
 
 107 
 
 410 
 
 6 
 
 134 
 
 10 
 120 
 116 
 
 67 
 
 153 
 
 21 
 227 
 
 26 
 
 359 
 429
 
 Index of First Lines 
 
 My glass shall not persuade me I am old 
 
 *My heart ha^thanked thee, Bowles ! for those soft strains 
 My lady's presence makes the roses red - - . 
 
 My love is strengthened, though more weak in seeming 
 My lute, be as thou wast when thou didst grow - 
 Mysterious Night ! when our first parent knew 
 
 ♦Mysterious Night! when the first Man but knew 
 
 PAGE 
 29 
 
 362 
 
 18 
 
 46 
 
 62 
 
 I2S 
 
 398 
 
 Nature's least worthy growths have quickest spring - 
 Near Anio's stream, I spied a gentle Dove 
 Needs must I leave, and yet needs must I love 
 
 ♦Night, steale not on too fast : wee have not yet - 
 No comfort, nay, no comfort. Yet would I - 
 
 ♦No greater grief ! Is it then always grief 
 No longer mourn for me when I am dead 
 No more, my dear, no more these counsels try - 
 No more these passion-worn faces shall men's eyes - 
 
 ♦No ! no arresting the vast wheel of time 
 Nor can I not believe but that hereby 
 Norfolk sprung thee, Lambeth holds thee dead - 
 Nor force nor fraud shall sunder us ! Oh ye - 
 Nor happiness, nor majesty, nor fame 
 '♦Nor let the vulgar sway Opinion beares 
 Not marble, nor the gilded monuments - 
 Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul - 
 Not only with the Author's happiest praise 
 
 ♦Not that the earth is changing, O my God ! - 
 Not to the multitude, oh ! not to them 
 
 ♦Now Autumn's fire burns slowly along the woods 
 Now, by the verdure on thy thousand hills 
 Now dewy twilight o'er these shattered walls 
 Now, while the long-delaying ash assumes 
 Now while the Night her sable veil hath spread 
 Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room 
 Nursling of heathen fear ! thy woful being - 
 
 221 
 
 no 
 
 19 
 
 273 
 
 225 
 
 319 
 
 39 
 
 17 
 
 234 
 
 418 
 
 91 
 
 4 
 
 225 
 
 141 
 
 263 
 
 34 
 48 
 160 
 346 
 i8i 
 408 
 207 
 182 
 232 
 
 57 
 
 92 
 
 216 
 
 O blessed be the tear that sadly rolled 
 O brooding Spirit of Wisdom and of Love 
 O call not me to justify the wrong 
 October's gold is dim — the forests rot 
 O deep unlovely brooklet, moaning slow 
 O earliest singer ! O care-charming bird ! 
 O ever skilled to wear the form we love ! 
 ♦O for a spell-built palace, by the craft 
 O for my sake do you with Fortune chide 
 O Friend ! 1 know not which way I must look - 
 Of this fair volume which we World do name 
 Oft in our fancy an uncertain thought 
 Oft in the after-days, when thou and I 
 Oft in the crowd and crossings of old Rome 
 Oft when my spirit doth spread her bolder wings 
 
 135 
 
 180 
 
 53 
 233 
 231 
 137 
 
 86 
 
 342 
 
 49 
 
 107 
 
 64 
 
 190 
 
 226 
 
 217 
 
 II
 
 464 Index of First Lines 
 
 PAGE 
 
 O God, impart Thy blessing to my cries I - - -" - - 185 
 
 *0 happie Tems, that didst my Stella beare - - - » • 256 
 
 Oh blessing and delight of my young heart - - - - - 213 
 
 Oh, for that winged steed, Bellerophon ! - . . ^ - - 137 
 
 Oh how much more doth beauty beauteous seem - - - - 34 
 
 O honey-throated warbler of the grove ! - ... - 186 
 
 *Oh, rare young soul ! Thou wast of such a mould - - - - 450 
 
 *Oh that I had no hart, as I have none ..... 305 
 
 Oh, 'tis a touching thing, to make one weep - - - - -171 
 
 Oh what a royalty of song should greet .... - 227 
 
 *Oh worst of years, by what signs shall we know .... 445 
 
 *0 if thou knew'st how thou thy selfe dost harme ... 322 
 
 *0 ! it is not to mee, bright Lampe of Day . - - . . 318 
 
 O it is pleasant, with a heart at ease . . - - . 121 
 
 O keen pellucid air ! nothing can lurk - - - - - 192 
 
 O lake of sylvan shore! when gentle Spring .... 184 
 
 Old April wanes, and her last dewy morn - - - - - 144 
 
 Old noted oak ! I saw thee in a mood ..... 148 
 
 *0 leave thyself to God 1 and if indeed ..... 430 
 
 O lift with reverent hand that tarnished flower - . - . 125 
 
 *0 Lyttleton, great meed shalt thou receive . - . . - 352 
 
 *0 Master, if Immortals suffer aught ..... 342 
 
 O melancholy bird ! — a winter's day ...... 127 
 
 O me ! what eyes hath Love put in my head .... 54 
 
 O mountain Stream ! the Shepherd and his Cot - - - - "3 
 
 Once did She hold the gorgeous east in fee .... 105 
 
 One day I wrote her name upon the strand - ■ - - - - 12 
 
 *One month is past, another is begun ..... 431 
 
 O never say that 1 was false of heart - - - - - - 48 
 
 O Nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray .... 70 
 
 On this lone isle, whose rugged rocks affright - - - - 89 
 
 On thy green marge, thou vale of Avalon .... 212 
 
 *0 Petrarche, head and prince of Poets all . - - - - 239 
 
 O rich red wheat ! thou wilt not long defer .... 197 
 
 Or I shall live your epitaph to make - - - - - - 4' 
 
 O soft embalmer of the still midnight! ..... 156 
 
 O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell - - - - - 152 
 
 *0 than the fairest Day, thrice fairer Night ! - - - - 3^7 
 
 ■"Others abide our question. Thou art free ..... 427 
 
 O Time ! who know'st a lenient hand to lay .... 87 
 
 Our bark is on the waters ! wide around ..... 178 
 
 Our window-panes enthral our summer bees .... 194 
 
 Over that breathing waste of friends and foes .... 224 
 
 Over the ground white snow, and in the air - . - - 222 
 
 O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being .... 139 
 
 *Pale Queen, that from thy bower Elysian ..... 422 
 
 Pity refusing my poor Love to feed ..... 19 
 
 Pleasures lie thickest where no pleasures seem ... - 177 
 
 *Poet of Nature, thJfe hast wept to know - - - - - \^^ 
 
 *Poet, whose unscarr'd feet have trodden Hell .... 373 
 
 Poor Soul, the centre of my sinful earth ... - - 53
 
 Index of First Lines 
 
 Praised be the Art whose subtle power could stay - 
 ♦Prayer is the world-plant's purpose, the bright flower - 
 
 Quick gleam ! that ridest on the gossamers ! - 
 
 Reason, that long in prison of my will - . - 
 
 • Rejoice, ye heroes ! Freedom's old ally 
 
 ♦Remember me when I am gone away - - . 
 
 ♦Restore thy tresses to the golden Ore 
 Rise, said the Master, come unto the feast 
 
 ♦Rotha, my Spiritual Child ! this head was grey 
 Royal and saintly Cashel I I would gaze 
 Rudely thou wrongest my dear heart's desire 
 Run in, glad waves, scooped in transparent shells 
 
 *Runne (Sheepheards) run where Bethleme blest appeares 
 
 Sacred Religion ! 'mother of form and fear ' 
 Sad soul, whom God, resuming what He gave 
 Schiller! that hour I would have wished to die - 
 Scorn not the Sonnet ; Critic, you have frowned 
 
 ♦See what gay wild flowers deck this earth-built Cot 
 Set me whereas the sun doth parch the green 
 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day ? - - 
 
 Sheathed is the river as it glideth by - . . 
 
 She sat and wept beside His feet ; the weight - 
 She turned the fair page with her fairer hand 
 
 ♦She whom this heart must ever hold most dear - 
 Should the lone wanderer, fainting on his way 
 
 ♦Silent companions of the lonely hour ... 
 Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea . 
 Since honour from the honourer proceeds 
 Since Nature's works be good, and death doth serve 
 Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part - 
 
 ♦Sing soft, ye pretty Birds, while Caelia sleepes 
 Sleep, Silence' child, sweet father of soft rest 
 Snow-drop of dogs, with ear of brownest dye 
 So am I as the rich whose blessed key - - . 
 
 So is it not with me as with that Muse 
 Sole listener, Duddon ! to the breeze that played 
 So, like a wanderer from the world of shades . 
 Some glory in their birth, some in their skill 
 Some hand, that never meant to do thee hurt 
 
 ♦Sonne of the Virgin most immaculate ... 
 
 ♦Son of the old moon-mountains African ! 
 So shall I live, supposing thou art true - - - 
 
 ♦Sound, Galloway, the trompet of the Lord 
 Speak low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet 
 Speed ye, warm hours, along the appointed path 
 Spring comes anew, and brings each little pledge 
 Student who weariest o'er syntactic rules 
 Such age how beautiful ! O Lady bright 
 
 ♦Suete Nichtingale ! in holene grene that hants 
 
 EE 
 
 I'AGE 
 
 93 
 
 430 
 
 191 
 22 
 
 '59 
 292 
 283 
 212 
 375 
 133 
 5 
 223 
 327 
 
 113 
 221 
 120 
 98 
 370 
 
 3 
 
 28 
 230 
 
 169 
 224 
 406 
 
 85 
 360 
 
 37 
 14 
 18 
 
 25 
 
 334 
 
 58 
 
 176 
 
 33 
 28 
 
 III 
 228 
 42 
 196 
 307 
 409 
 
 43 
 326 
 204 
 215 
 148 
 226 
 
 lOI 
 
 329
 
 ^66 Index of First Lines 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Surprised by joy — impatient as the Wind .... 96 
 
 Sweet bird, that sing'st away the early hours - - - - 65 
 
 *Sweete friend whose name agrees with thy increase ... 250 
 
 ♦Sweet flower, thou art a link of memory . - - . . 414 
 
 ♦Sweet is the Rose, but growes upon a brere .... 241 
 
 Sweet Mavis ! at this cool delicious hour ..... 231 
 
 ♦Sweet mouth, that sendst a rauskie-rosfed breath ... 277 
 
 Sweet soul, which in the April of thy years - - . - - 61 
 
 Sweet Spring, thou turn'st with all thy goodly train ... 62 
 
 Sweet unassuming minstrel I not to thee ..... 146 
 
 Tax not the royal Saint with vain expense - - - - ,118 
 
 Thank God, bless God, all ye who suffer not ..... 203 
 
 Thanks for the lessons of this Spot — fit school .... 119 
 
 Th' Assyrian king, in peace, with foul desire ... .4 
 
 ♦That space where raging Waves doe now divide - - - 290 
 That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect . - - - -38 
 
 That time of year thou mayst in me behold .... 39 
 
 The bubble of the silver-springing waves ..... 222 
 
 The crackling embers on the hearth are dead ... - 164 
 
 The crimson Moon, uprising from the sea ..... 127 
 
 The dark green Summer, with its massive hues .... 169 
 
 The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone ! .... 157 
 
 ♦The dewie-Roseate morne had with hir haires . . - - 261 
 
 The doubt which ye misdeem, fair Love, is vain .... 9 
 
 The expense of spirit in a waste of shame .... 51 
 
 The fame of those pure bards whose fancies lie .... 160 
 
 The forward violet thus did I chide - ... - 45 
 
 The frosty beard, inclining all to white - - - - - 54 
 
 The garden trees are busy with the shower .... 215 
 
 The garlands fade that Spring so lately wove - - - - 85 
 
 The gem, to which the artist did entrust ... - - 19s 
 
 The glorious image of the Maker's beauty .... - 9 
 
 The glorious portrait of that Angel's face .... 6 
 
 The good — they drop around us, one by one ... - - 17s 
 
 The great Macedon that out of Persia chased ... - 3 
 
 The grey-eyed Morn was saddened with a shower . - - . 143 
 
 The hand of Death lay heavy on her eyes .... 173 
 
 The happy white-throat on the swaying bough .... 147 
 
 The hazel-blooms, in threads of crimson hue . . - • 147 
 
 ♦The hills in rude tremendous beauty rise .... - 436 
 
 The lark sung loud : the music at his heart ... - 192 
 
 The last and greatest herald of Heaven's King - - - - 64 
 
 The little bee returns with evening's gloom .... 194 
 
 ♦The lost days of my life until to-day ------ 4°4 
 
 The loveliest flowers the closest cling to earth ... - 144 
 
 ♦The man that looks, sweet Sidney, in thy face .... 252 
 
 The mellow year is hasting to its close .... - 103 
 
 ♦The mother will not turn, who thinks she hears ... - 374 
 
 Then hate me when thou wilt ; if ever, now .... 42 
 
 The Ocean, at the bidding of the Moon ..... 183 
 
 ♦The orient beam illumes the parting oar . . • - . 363
 
 Index of First Lines 
 
 The pigeons fluttered fieldward, one and all 
 The poetry of earth is never dead - . . 
 
 ♦The power of Armies is a visible thing - . . 
 
 *'X\^^ pur-pur-pitrri7tg oixny lonely fire 
 There are no colours in the fairest sky - . . 
 
 There is a fearful spirit busy nov/ ... 
 
 There is a little unpretending Rill ... 
 
 There is an awful quiet in the air - . . 
 
 'There IS a pleasure in poetic pains - . . 
 
 There is a silence where hath been no sound - 
 There is a virtue which to fortune's height 
 There is no remedy for time misspent ... 
 There is strange music in the stirring wind 
 There's not a nook within this solemn Pass - 
 *These Eyes (deare Lord) once Brandons of Desire 
 ♦These times touch money'd Worldlings with dismay 
 The single eye, the daughter of the light 
 The softest shadows mantle o'er his form 
 The soote season, that bud and bloom furth brings 
 The soul of man is larger than the sky 
 The woman singeth at her spinning-wheel 
 ♦The worldes bright comforter (whose beamesome light 
 The world is too much with us : late and soon - 
 ♦The worldly prince doeth in his Septer hold - 
 They dreamed not in old Hebron, when the sound 
 ♦They rose to where their sovran eagle sails - 
 ♦They say that shadowes of deceased ghosts 
 They say that thou wert lovely on thy bier - 
 They talk of Time, and of Time's galling yoke - 
 They that have power to hurt and will do none 
 Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me 
 ♦Think not the Poet's life, although his cell 
 ♦Think not, undaunted Champions! that the sea - 
 This holy season, fit to fast and pray . . , 
 
 ♦This is the eldest of the seasons : he . . . 
 
 ♦This night, while sleepe begins with heavy wings 
 ♦This pleasant Tale is like a little copse - - - 
 
 ♦Those haires of Angels gold, thy natures treasure 
 Thou art returned, great light, to that blest hour 
 ♦Thou bright beame-spreading loves thrise happy starre 
 ♦Thou eye of Honour, Nurserie of Fame - - - 
 
 ♦Though I beheld at first with blank surprise - 
 ♦Though I have twice beene at the Doores of Death 
 Though to the vilest things beneath the moon 
 ♦Thou kno's, brave gallant, that our Scottich braines 
 Thou, mighty Heathen, wert not so bereft 
 Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion 
 ♦Thou should'st be carolling thy Maker's praise 
 ♦Thou which delight'st to view this goodly plot - 
 Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams 
 Threats come which no submission may assuage 
 Thrice happy he, who by some shady grove - 
 
 467 
 
 PAGE 
 198 
 
 IS3 
 
 383 
 367 
 
 1:7 
 136 
 
 93 
 iC3 
 
 99 
 172 
 170 
 
 132 
 88 
 
 "5 
 432 
 3S1 
 219 
 186 
 2 
 165 
 206 
 306 
 
 97 
 
 302 
 179 
 
 3S0 
 276 
 158 
 124 
 
 44 
 52 
 
 356 
 
 425 
 
 7 
 
 409 
 
 254 
 417 
 277 
 69 
 299 
 247 
 377 
 332 
 219 
 
 330 
 217 
 
 139 
 447 
 246 
 140 
 116 
 65
 
 468 
 
 Index of First Lines 
 
 *Thrice tosse these oaken ashes in the aire 
 
 ♦Thrice worthy guardian of that sacred spring . 
 
 *Thy Beauties blush, like fairest Morne in Maie 
 Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts - 
 Tired with all these, for restful death I cry - 
 
 *'Tis not for golden eloquence I pray 
 'Tis sweet, when slanting light the field adorns 
 To me, fair Friend, you never can be old 
 To one who has been long in city pent 
 Too true it is my time of power was spent 
 
 *To thee that art Arts lover. Learnings friend - 
 Toussaint, the most unhappy man of men ! 
 
 *To what wild blasts of tyrannous harmony 
 
 *To yeeld to those I cannot but disdaine - 
 Trust not, sweet soul, those curled waves of gold 
 Two days she missed her dove, and then, alas ! - 
 Two sunny children wandered, hand in hand 
 Two Voices are there ^ one is of the Sea - 
 
 PAGE 
 
 276 
 
 353 
 284 
 
 31 
 
 38 
 440 
 193 
 
 46 
 152 
 
 163 
 246 
 105 
 
 387 
 
 323 
 
 59 
 
 195 
 179 
 106 
 
 Under a palm-tree, by the green old Nile 
 ♦Unlucky I, unhappiest on Earth - 
 
 Unto my spirit lend an angel's wing - 
 *Up, sluggish Soule, awake, slumber no more 
 
 ISO 
 
 266 
 
 55 
 
 307 
 
 Vane, young in years, but in sage counsel old 
 
 74 
 
 Wansfell ! this Household has a favoured lot 
 Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed 
 Were I as base as is the lowly plain 
 *Wer't not for you, here should my pen have rest 
 *We stand upon the moorish mountain side 
 *We were two pretty babes ; the youngest she 
 What are we set on earth for ? Say, to toil 
 What art thou. Mighty One, and where thy seat? - 
 What aspect bore the Man who roved or fled 
 ♦What doth it serve to see Sunnes burning Face 
 What guile is this, that those her golden tresses 
 ♦What is a Sonnet ? 'Tis the pearly shell 
 ♦What lovelier home could gentle Fancy chuse? - 
 What meant the poets in invective verse 
 What though, Valclusa, the fond bard be fled 
 What was 't awakened first the untried ear - 
 ♦When all our other Starres set in their skies 
 ♦When as Man's life, the light of humane lust 
 When Faith and Love, which parted from thee never 
 When I behold thee, blameless Williamson - 
 When I behold yon arch magnificent 
 When I consider everything that grows 
 When I consider how my light is spent - 
 When I do count the clock that tells the time 
 When I have borne in memory what has tamed 
 
 103 
 30 
 25 
 334 
 390 
 395 
 205 
 130 
 112 
 
 324 
 8 
 
 373 
 384 
 22 
 89 
 161 
 263 
 321 
 
 73 
 80 
 
 143 
 
 27 
 
 7S 
 
 26 
 
 108
 
 Index of First Lines 
 
 When I have fears that I may cease to be - 
 When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced - 
 When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes 
 When in the chronicle of wasted time . . . 
 
 When in the woods I wander all alone 
 
 ♦When late the trees were stript by winter pale - 
 When Letty had scarce passed her third glad year - 
 
 ♦When men shall find thy flower, thy glory passe 
 When my hand closed upon thee, worn and spent - 
 When my Love swears that she is made of truth 
 
 *When pensive on that Portraiture I gaze 
 When some Beloveds, 'neath whose eyeli-ds lay - 
 When some beloved voice that was to you 
 
 ♦When that the fields put on their gay attire 
 When the four quarters of the world shall rise 
 When the storm felled our Oak, and thou, fair Wold - 
 When the vast heaven is dark with ominous clouds - 
 When to the birds their morning meal I threw - 
 When to the sessions of sweet silent thought - 
 When Vulcan cleft the labouring brain of Jove - 
 When we were idlers with the loitering rills - 
 Where holy ground begins, unhallowed ends 
 
 ♦Where lies the Land to which yon ship must go? - 
 
 ♦Where tender Love had laide him downe to sleepe 
 Where Venta's Norman castle still uprears - 
 While flowing rivers yield a blameless sport 
 
 ♦While my young cheek retains its healthful hues 
 While not a leaf seems faded ; while the fields - 
 
 ♦While not a Wing of Insect-Being floats 
 
 ♦Whiles in my Soule I feel the soft warme Hand - 
 
 ♦Whilst some the Trojane warres in verse recount 
 White star 1 that travellest at old Maggie's pace 
 Whither is gone the wisdom and the power - 
 Whither, oh ! whither wilt thou wing thy way ? 
 
 ♦Who ever gave more honourable prize 
 Who first invented Work, and bound the free - 
 
 ♦Who says that Shakspeare did not know his lot 
 Who shall lament to know thy aching head 
 Who will believe my verse in time to come - 
 Why art thou silent ? Is thy love a plant 
 Why art thou speechless, O thou setting Sun ? 
 Why is my verse so barren of new pride? 
 
 ♦Why might I not for once be of that Sect 
 
 ♦Why should I any love, O queene ! but thee 
 
 ♦Why (worldlings) do ye trust fraile honours dreams - 
 Wings have we, — and as far as we can go - - 
 
 Winslade, thy beech-capped hills, with waving grain 
 
 ♦With footstep slow, in furry pall yclad - - - 
 
 With how sad steps, O Moon ! thou climb'st the skies ! 
 Within a thick and spreading hawthorn bush 
 With stammering lips and insufficient sound - 
 
 469 
 
 PAGE 
 
 IS5 
 
 37 
 
 30 
 
 47 
 
 126 
 
 356 
 
 200 
 
 269 
 
 191 
 
 52 
 
 351 
 
 201 
 203 
 
 394 
 196 
 200 
 228 
 198 
 
 31 
 180 
 161 
 
 lOI 
 
 372 
 265 
 
 83 
 95 
 391 
 99 
 401 
 302 
 305 
 193 
 162 
 151 
 344 
 124 
 
 293 
 159 
 
 27 
 102 
 218 
 
 40 
 334 
 259 
 328 
 
 91 
 82 
 
 393 
 
 15 
 
 145 
 
 201. 
 
 U
 
 47° 
 
 Index of First Lines 
 
 Ye hasten to the dead ! What seek ye there - 
 Yes, gentle Time, thy gradual, healing hand - 
 Yes, there is holy pleasure in thine eye ! 
 ' Yet life,' you say, ' is life ; we have seen and see - 
 Young ardent soul, graced with fair Nature's truth 
 *You say I love not, 'cause I doe not play 
 You see this dog ; it was but yesterday - 
 You that do search for every purling spring - 
 
 PAGE 
 
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 122 
 
 92 
 
 90 
 
 171 
 
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 14 
 
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