And is half pleased with things that are amiss, will be such joy to see them disappear.

An active partisan, I thus convoked From every object pleasant circuinstance To suit my ends; I moved among mankind With genial feelings still predominant; When erring, erring on the better part, And in the kinder spirit; placable, Indulgent, as not uninformed that men See as they have been taught — Antiquity ves rights to error; and aware, no less, That throwing off oppression must be work As well of License as of Liberty;

And above all for this was more than all-
Not caring if the wind did now and then
Blow keen upon an eminence that gave
Prospect so large into futurity;

In brief, a child of Nature, as at first,
Diffusing only those affections wider

That from the cradle had grown up with me, And losing, in no other way than light as lost in light, the weak in the more strong.

In the main outline such it might be said
Was my condition, till with open war
Britain opposed the liberties of France.
This threw me first out of the pale of love;
Soured and corrupted, upwards to the source,
My sentiments; was not, as hitherto,
A swallowing up of lesser things in great,
But change of them into their contraries;
And thus a way was opened for mistakes
And false conclusions, in degree as gross,

In kind more dangerous. What had been a pride,
Was now a shame; my likings and my loves

Ran in new channels, leaving old ones dry;

And hence a blow that, in maturer age,

But now, become oppressors in their turn, Frenchmen had changed a war of self-defence For one of conquest, losing sight of all Which they had struggled for: now mounted up, Openly in the eye of earth and heaven, The scale of liberty. I read her doom, With anger vexed, with disappointment sore, But not dismayed, nor taking to the shame Of a false prophet. While resentment rose Striving to hide, what nought could heal, the wounds Of mortified presumption, I adhered

More firmly to old tenets, and, to prove

Their temper, strained them more; and thus, in heat Of contest, did opinions every day

Grow into consequence, till round my mind

They clung, as if they were its life, nay more,
The very being of the immortal soul.

This was the time, when all things tending fast

To depravation, speculative schemes -
That promised to abstract the hopes of Man
Out of his feelings, to be fixed thenceforth
For ever in a purer element

Found ready welcome. Tempting region that
For Zeal to enter and refresh herself,
Where passions had the privilege to work,
And never hear the sound of their own names.
But, speaking more in charity, the dream
Flattered the young, pleased with extremes, nor least
With that which makes our Reason's naked self
The object of its fervour. What delight!
How glorious! in self-knowledge and self-rule,
To look through all the frailties of the world,
And, with a resolute mastery shaking off
Infirmities of nature, time, and place,
Build social upon personal Liberty,

Which, to the blind restraints of general laws
Superior, magisterially adopts

deep

into sensations near the heart: meantime,

As from the first, wild theories were afloat,
To whose pretensions, sedulously urged,
I had but lent a careless ear, assured
That time was ready to set all things right,
And that the multitude, so long oppressed,
Would be oppressed no more.

But when events
Brought less encouragement, and unto these
The immediate proof of principles no more
Could be intrusted, while the events themselves
Worn out in greatness, stripped of novelty,
Less occupied the mind, and sentiments
Could through my understanding's natural growth
No longer keep their ground, by faith maintained
Of inward consciousness, and hope that laid
Her hand upon her object-evidence
Safer, of universal application, such

As could not be impeached, was sought elsewhere.

Upon an independent intellect.

Thus expectation rose again; thus hope,

From her first ground expelled, grew proud once more.

Oft, as my thoughts were turned to human kind,

I scorned indifference; but, inflamed with thirst

Of a secure intelligence, and sick

Of other longing, I pursued what seemed
A more exalted nature; wished that Man
Should start out of his earthy, worm-like state,
And spread abroad the wings of Liberty,
Lord of himself in undisturbed delight —
A noble aspiration! yet I feel
(Sustained by worthier as by wiser thoughts)
The aspiration, nor shall ever cease
To feel it; but return we to our course.

Enough, 'tis true- could such a plea excuse Those aberrations - had the clamorous friends Of ancient Institutions said and done To bring disgrace upon their very names;

Disgrace, of which, custom and written law,
And sundry moral sentiments as props
Or emanations of those institutes,
Too justly bore a part. A veil had been
Uplifted; why deceive ourselves? in sooth,
'Twas even so; and sorrow for the man
Who either had not eyes wherewith to see,
Or, seeing, had forgotten! A strong shock
Was given to old opinions; all men's minds
Had felt its power, and mine was both let loose,
Let loose and goaded. After what hath been
Already said of patriotic love,

Suffice it here to add, that, somewhat stern
In temperament, withal a happy man,

And therefore bold to look on painful things,

Free likewise of the world, and thence more bold,

I summoned my best skill, and toiled, intent

To anatomize the frame of social life,

Yea, the whole body of society

Depressed, bewildered thus, I did not walk
With scoffers, seeking light and gay revenge
From indiscriminate laughter, nor sate down
In reconcilement with an utter waste

Of intellect; such sloth I could not brook,
(Too well I loved, in that my spring of life,
Pains-taking thoughts, and truth, their dear reward)
But turned to abstract science, and there sought
Work for the reasoning faculty enthroned
Where the disturbances of space and time-
Whether in matters various, properties
Inherent, or from human will and power
Derived - find no admission. Then it was
Thanks to the bounteous Giver of all good!-
That the beloved Sister in whose sight

Those days were passed, now speaking in a voice

Of sudden admonition—like a brook

That did but cross a lonely road, and now

Is seen, heard, felt, and caught at every turn,

That some dramatic tale, endued with shapes
Livelier, and flinging out less guarded words
Than suit the work we fashion, might set forth
What then I learned, or think I learned, of truth,
And the errors into which I fell, betrayed
By present objects, and by reasonings false
From their beginnings, inasmuch as drawn
Out of a heart that had been turned aside
From Nature's way by outward accidents,
And which was thus confounded, more and more
Misguided, and misguiding. So I fared,
Dragging all precepts, judgments, maxims, creeds,
Like culprits to the bar; calling the mind,
Suspiciously, to establish in plain day
Her titles and her honours; now believing,
Now disbelieving; endlessly perplexed

With impulse, motive, right and wrong, the ground
Of obligation, what the rule and whence
The sanction; till, demanding formal proof,
And seeking it in every thing, I lost
All feeling of conviction, and, in fine,
Sick, wearied out with contrarieties,
Yielded up moral questions in despair.

This was the crisis of that strong disease, This the soul's last and lowest ebb; I drooped, Deeming our blessed reason of least use Where wanted most: "The lordly attributes Of will and choice," I bitterly exclaimed, "What are they but a mockery of a Being Who hath in no concerns of his a test Of good and evil; knows not what to fear Or hope for, what to covet or to shun; And who, if those could be discerned, would yet Be little profited, would see, and ask Where is the obligation to enforce ? And, to acknowledged law rebellious, still, As selfish passion urged, would act amiss; "The dupe of folly, or the slave of crime."

Maintained for me a saving intercourse

With my true self; for, though bedimmed and changed
Much, as it seemed, I was no further changed
Than as a clouded and a waning moon:

She whispered still that brightness would return,

She, in the midst of all, preserved me still

A Poet, made me seek beneath that name,

And that alone, my office upon earth:
And, lastly, as hereafter will be shown,
If willing audience fail not, Nature's self,
By all varieties of human love

Assisted, led me back through opening day
To those sweet counsels between head and heart
Whence grew that genuine knowledge, fraught with
peace,

Which, through the later sinkings of this cause,
Hath still upheld me, and upholds me now
In the catastrophe (for so they dream,
And nothing less), when, finally to close
And seal up all the gains of France, a Pope
Is summoned in, to crown an Emperor -
This last opprobrium, when we see a people,
That once looked up in faith, as if to Heaven
For manna, take a lesson from the dog
Returning to his vomit; when the sun
That rose in splendour, was alive, and moved
In exultation with a living pomp

Of clouds his glory's natural retinue-
Hath dropped all functions by the gods bestowed,
And, turned into a gewgaw, a machine,
Sets like an Opera phantom.

Thus, O Friend! Through times of honour and through times of shame Descending, have I faithfully retraced

The perturbations of a youthful mind
Under a long-lived storm of great events—

A story destined for thy ear, who now,
Among the fallen of nations, dost abide
Where Etna, over hill and valley, casts

Hs shadow stretching towards Syracuse,
The city of Timoleon! Righteous Heaven!
How are the mighty prostrated! They first,

They first of all that breathe should have awaked
When the great voice was heard from out the tombs
Of ancient heroes. If I suffered grief
For ill-requited France, by many deemed
A trifler only in her proudest day;

Have been distressed to think of what she once
Promised, now is; a far more sober cause
Tine eyes must see of sorrow in a land,
To the reanimating influence lost

Of memory, to virtue lost and hope,

Though with the wreck of loftier years bestrewn.

But indignation works where hope is not,

And thou, O Friend! wilt be refreshed. There is The great society alone on earth:

The noble Living and the noble Dead.

Thine be such converse strong and sanative,
A ladder for thy spirit to reascend

To health and joy and pure contentedness;
To me the grief confined, that thou art gone
From this last spot of earth, where Freedom now
Stands single in her only sanctuary;

A lonely wanderer art gone, by pain
Compelled and sickness, at this latter day,
This sorrowful reverse for all mankind.
I feel for thee, must utter what I feel:

The sympathies erewhile in part discharged,
Gather afresh, and will have vent again:
My own delights do scarcely seem to me

My own delights; the lordly Alps themselves,
Tuose rosy peaks, from which the Morning looks
Abroad on many nations, are no more

For me that image of pure gladsomeness

Ere yet familiar with the classic page,

I learnt to dream of Sicily; and lo,

The gloom, that, but a moment past, was deepened
At thy cominand, at her command gives way;
A pleasant promise, wafted from her shores,
Comes o'er my heart: in fancy I behold
Her seas yet smiling, her once happy vales;
Nor can my tongue give utterance to a name
Of note belonging to that honoured isle,
Philosopher or Bard, Empedocles,

Or Archimedes, pure abstracted soul!
That doth not yield a solace to my grief:
And, O Theocritus,* so far have some
Prevailed among the powers of heaven and earth,
By their endowments, good or great, that they
Have had, as thou reportest, miracles
Wrought for them in old time: yea, not unmoved,
When thinking on my own beloved friend,
I hear thee tell how bees with honey fed
Divine Comates, by his impious lord
Within a chest imprisoned; how they came
Laden from blooming grove or flowery field,
And fed him there, alive, month after month,
Because the goatherd, blessed man! had lips
Wet with the Muses' nectar.

Thus I soothe
The pensive moments by this calm fireside,
And find a thousand bounteous images

To cheer the thoughts of those I love, and mine..
Our prayers have been acepted; thou wilt stand
On Etna's summit, above earth and sea,
Triumphant, winning from the invaded heavens
Thoughts without bound, magnificent designs
Worthy of poets who attuned their harps
In wood or echoing cave, for discipline
Of heroes; or, in reverence to the gods,

For purpose, at a time, how different!

To tak'st thy way, carrying the heart and soul
Tat Nature gives to Poets, now by thought
Matured, and in the summer of their strength.
On! wrap him in your shades, ye giant woods,
On Etna's side: and thou, O flowery field
Of Enna! is there not some nook of thine,
Fran the first play-time of the infant world
Kept sacred to restorative delight,
When from afar invoked by anxious love?

Child of the mountains, among shepherds reared,

3 S

LONG time have human ignorance and guilt
Detained us, on what spectacles of woe
Compelled to look, and inwardly oppressed
With sorrow, disappointment, vexing thoughts
Confusion of the judgment, zeal decayed,
And, lastly, utter loss of hope itself

And things to hope for! Not with these began
Our song, and not with these our song must end.-
Ye motions of delight, that haunt the sides
Of the green hills; ye breezes and soft airs,
Whose subtle intercourse with breathing flowers,
Feelingly watched, might teach Man's haughty race
How without injury to take, to give
Without offence; ye who, as if to show
The wondrous influence of power gently used,
Bend the complying heads of lordly pines,
And, with a touch, shift the stupendous clouds
Through the whole compass of the sky; ye brooks,
Muttering along the stones, a busy noise
By day, a quiet sound in silent night;

Ye waves, that out of the great deep steal forth
In a calm hour to kiss the pebbly shore,
Not mute, and then retire, fearing no storm;
And you, ye groves, whose ministry it is
To interpose the covert of your shades,
Even as a sleep, between the heart of man
And outward troubles, between man himself,
Not seldom, and his own uneasy heart:
Oh! that I had a music and a voice
Harmonious as your own, that I might tell
What ye have done for me. The morning shines,
Nor heedeth Man's perverseness; Spring returns,—
I saw the Spring return, and could rejoice,
In common with the children of her love,
Piping on boughs, or sporting on fresh fields,
Or boldly seeking pleasure nearer heaven
On wings that navigate cerulean skies.
So neither were complacency, nor peace,
Nor tender yearnings, wanting for my good
Through these distracted times; in Nature still
Glorying, I found a counterpoise in her,
Which when the spirit of evil reached its height,
Maintained for me a secret happiness.

This narrative, my Friend! hath chiefly told Of intellectual power, fostering love, Dispensing truth, and, over men and things, Where reason yet might hesitate, diffusing

Prophetic sympathies of genial faith:
So was I favoured such my happy lot-
Until that natural graciousness of mind
Gave way to overpressure from the times
And their disastrous issues. What availed,
When spells forbade the voyager to land,
That fragrant notice of a pleasant shore
Wafted, at intervals, from many a bower
Of blissful gratitude and fearless love!
Dare I avow that wish was mine to see,
And hope that future times would surely see,
The man to come, parted, as by a gulf,
From him who had been; that I could no more
Trust the elevation which had made me one
With the great family that still survives
To illuminate the abyss of ages past,
Sage, warrior, patriot, hero; for it seemed

That their best virtues were not free from taint
Of something false and weak, that could not stand
The open eye of Reason. Then I said,
"Go to the Poets, they will speak to thee
More perfectly of purer creatures; — yet
If reason be nobility in man,

Can aught be more ignoble than the man
Whom they delight in, blinded as he is
By prejudice, the miserable slave
Of low ambition or distempered love?"

In such strange passion, if I may once more Review the past, I warred against myselfA bigot to a new idolatry Like a cowled monk who hath forsworn the world, Zealously laboured to cut off my heart From all the sources of her former strength; And as, by simple waving of a wand, The wizard instantaneously dissolves Palace or grove, even so could I unsoul As readily by syllogistic words Those mysteries of being which have made, And shall continue evermore to make. Of the whole human race one brotherhood.

What wonder, then, if, to a mind so far Perverted, even the visible Universe Fell under the dominion of a taste Less spiritual, with microscopic view Was scanned, as I had scanned the moral word!

0 Soul of Nature! excellent and fair!

at didst rejoice with me, with whom I, too, Eed through early youth, before the winds And roaring waters, and in lights and shades That marched and countermarched about the hills lag nous apparition, Powers on whom aly waited, now all eye and now Lear; but never long without the heart Employed, and man's unfolding intellect: Seal of Nature! that, by laws divine & waned and governed, still dost overflow With an impassioned life, what feeble ones Walk on this earth! how feeble have I been

When thou wert in thy strength! Nor this through stroke

Of human suffering, such as justifies

Remsness and inaptitude of mind,

But through presumption; even in pleasure pleased
Inworthily, disliking here, and there
Lang; by rules of minic art transferred
Tothings above all art; but more, for this,
A though a strong infection of the age,
Was never much my habit-giving way
Tia comparison of scene with scene,
Beat overmuch on superficial things,
Pampering myself with meagre novelties
colour and proportion; to the moods
Of time and season, to the moral power,
The affections and the spirit of the place,
Insible. Nor only did the love
Of sitting thus in judgment interrupt
My deeper feelings, but another cause,
More subtle and less easily explained,
That almost seems inherent in the creature,
A twofold frame of body and of mind.
Leak in recollection of a time
Waen the bodily eye, in every stage of life
The most despotic of our senses, gained
Such strength in me as often held my mind
In absolute dominion. Gladly here,
Entering upon abstruser argument,
fid I endeavour to unfold the means
Which Nature studiously employs to thwart
This tyranny, summons all the senses each
To counteract the other, and themselves,

And makes them all, and the objects with which all
Are conversant, subservient in their turn
To the great ends of Liberty and Power.
But leave we this: enough that my delights
Soch as they were) were sought insatiably.
Vind the transport, vivid though not profound;
Imamed from hill to hill, from rock to rock,
Full craving combinations of new forms,
New pleasure, wider empire for the sight,
Proud of her own endowments, and rejoiced
To lay the inner faculties asleep.
Amid the turns and counterturns, the strife
And various trials of our complex being,
As we grow up, such thraldom of that sense

Seems hard to shun. And yet I knew a maid, A young enthusiast, who escaped these bonds; Her eye was not the mistress of her heart; Far less did rules prescribed by passive taste, Or barren intermeddling subtleties,

Perplex her mind; but, wise as women are
When genial circumstance hath favoured them,
She welcomed what was given and craved no more;
Whate'er the scene presented to her view,
That was the best, to that she was attuned
By her benign simplicity of life.

And through a perfect happiness of soul,
Whose variegated feelings were in this
Sisters, that they were each some new delight.
Birds in the bower, and lambs in the green field,
Could they have known her, would have loved; me-

thought

Her very presence such a sweetness breathed,
That flowers, and trees, and even the silent hills,
And every thing she looked on, should have had
An intimation how she bore herself
Towards them and to all creatures. God delights
In such a being; for her common thoughts
Are piety, her life is gratitude.

Even like this maid, before I was called forth
From the retirement of my native hills,

I loved whate'er I saw: nor lightly loved,
But most intensely; never dreamt of aught
More grand, more fair, more exquisitely framed
Than those few nooks to which my happy feet
Were limited. I had not at that time
Lived long enough, nor in the least survived
The first diviner influence of this world,

As it appears to unaccustomed eyes.
Worshipping then among the depth of things,
As piety ordained; could I submit
To measured admiration, or to aught
That should preclude humility and love?

I felt, observed, and pondered; did not judge,
Yea, never thought of judging; with the gift
Of all this glory filled and satisfied.
And afterwards, when through the gorgeous Alps
Roaming, I carried with me the same heart:
In truth, the degradation - howsoe'er
Induced, effect, in whatsoe'er degree,
Of custom that prepares a partial scale

In which the little oft outweighs the great;

Or any other cause that hath been named;
Or lastly, aggravated by the times

And their impassioned sounds, which well might make
The milder minstrelsies of rural scenes
Inaudible was transient; I had known
Too forcibly, too early in my life,
Visitings of imaginative power
For this to last: I shook the habit off
Entirely and for ever, and again

In Nature's presence stood, as now I stand,
A sensitive being, a creative soul.