Then, never less alone than when alone.1 Human Life. Those that he loved so long and sees no more, Loved and still loves, not dead, but gone before,2 He gathers round him. That very law which moulds a tear Ibid. To a Tear. She was good as she was fair. The good are better made by ill, As odours crushed are sweeter still.* Ibid. St. 3. 1 Numquam se minus otiosum esse, quam quum otiosus, nec minus solum, quam quum solus esset.Cicero, De Officiis, L. iii. c. 1.; compare Gibbon, ante, p. 389. 2 In a collection of Epitaphs published by Lackington & Co. (Vol. ii. p. 143), an epitaph is given "On Mary Angell at Stepney, who died 1693," in which this line appears, "Not lost, but gone before."- Notes and Queries, 3d Ser. x. p. 404. This is literally from Seneca, Epist. 63. 16. 3 To see her is to love her. Burns, Bonny Lesley. None knew thee but to love thee. Halleck, On the Death of Drake. 4 Compare Bacon, Of Adversity; Goldsmith, The Captivity; Wordsworth's Prelude, Book ix. Go-you may call it madness, folly; Mine be a cot beside the hill; To A beehive's hum shall soothe my ear; A willowy brook, that turns a mill, With many a fall, shall linger near. A Wish. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.1 1770-1850. And homeless near a thousand homes I stood, And near a thousand tables pined and wanted Guilt and Sorrow. Stanza 41. food. Action is transitory-a step, a blow, The motion of a muscle- this way or that. The Borderers. Act iii. Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on, Through words and things, a dim and perilous Ibid. Activ. Sc. 2. way. The Child is father of the Man.2 My Heart Leaps Up. 1 Coleridge said to Wordsworth, "Since Milton I know of no poet with so many felicities and unforgetable lines and stanzas as you."— Wordsworth's Memoirs, ii. 74. 2 Compare Milton, Par. Regained, Book iv. L. 220. She gave me eyes, she gave me ears; The Sparrow's Nest. The sweetest thing that ever grew Beside a human door. Lucy Gray. Stanza 2. A simple Child, That lightly draws its breath, We are Seven. Drink, pretty creature, drink! The Pet Lamb. Until a man might travel twelve stout miles, Or reap an acre of his neighbour's corn. The Brothers. Sweet childish days, that were as long To a Butterfly. A noticeable Man with large gray eyes. Stanzas written in Thomson. She dwelt among the untrodden ways A maid whom there were none to praise She dwelt among the untrodden ways. A violet by a mossy stone Half hidden from the eye! Fair as a star, when only one Is shining in the sky. Ibid. She lived unknown, and few could know When Lucy ceased to be ; But she is in her grave, and oh! The difference to me! She dwelt among the untrodden ways. A Briton, even in love, should be Ere with cold beads of midnight dew. True beauty dwells in deep retreats, Whose veil is unremoved Till heart with heart in concord beats, . And the lover is beloved. Minds that have nothing to confer Find little to perceive. To Yes! thou art fair. That kill the bloom before its time; And blanch, without the owner's crime, The most resplendent hair. Lament of Mary Queen of Scots. The bane of all that dread the Devil. The Idiot Boy. Something between a hindrance and a help. Lady of the Mere, Michael. Sole-sitting by the shores of old romance. A Narrow Girdle of Rough Stones. But He is risen, a later star of dawn. A Morning Exercise. Bright gem instinct with music, vocal spark. And he is oft the wisest man, Who is not wise at all. The Oak and the Broom. We meet thee, like a pleasant thought, When such are wanted. The poet's darling. Thou unassuming Commonplace Of Nature. To the Daisy. Ibid. To the same Flower. Oft on the dappled turf at ease I sit, and play with similes, Loose types of things through all degrees. Often have I sighed to measure By myself a lonely pleasure, Only read, perhaps, by me. Ibid. When first she gleamed upon my sight; A lovely apparition, sent To be a moment's ornament. She was a phantom of delight. But all things else about her drawn From May-time and the cheerful Dawn. Ibid. |