XXXII.

It 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 broods o'er 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 worship'st at the Temple's inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.

XXXIII.

COMPOSED ON THE EVE OF THE MARRIAGE OF A FRIEND
IN THE VALE OF GRASMERE, 1812.

WHAT need of clamorous bells, or ribands gay,
These humble nuptials to proclaim or grace?
Angels of love, look down upon the place;
Shed on the chosen vale a sun-bright day!
Yet no proud gladness would the Bride display +
Even for such promise :-serious is her face,

* The gentleness of heaven is on the sea.-Edit. 1815.

Even for such omen would the Bride display

No mirthful gladness.-Edit. 1815.

Modest her mien; and she, whose thoughts keep pace
With gentleness, in that becoming way

Will thank you. Faultless does the Maid appear;
No disproportion in her soul, no strife:
But, when the closer view of wedded life
Hath shown that nothing human can be clear
From frailty, for that insight may the Wife
To her indulgent Lord become more dear.

XXXIV.

ON APPROACHING HOME.

FLY, some kind Harbinger, to Grasmere-dale!
Say that we come, and come by this day's light ;
Fly upon swiftest wing round field and height,
But chiefly let one Cottage hear the tale;
There let a mystery of joy prevail,
The kitten frolic, like a gamesome sprite,
And Rover whine, as at a second sight
Of near-approaching good that shall not fail :
And from that Infant's face let joy appear;
Yea, let our Mary's one companion child—
That hath her six weeks' solitude beguiled
With intimations manifold and dear,

While we have wandered over wood and wild

Smile on his Mother now with bolder cheer.

This sonnet was written between Dalston and Grasmere, in returning from a tour in Scotland, September, 1803.

XXXV.

FROM the dark chambers of dejection freed,
Spurning the unprofitable yoke of care,

Rise, GILLIES, rise: the gales of youth shall bear
Thy genius forward like a wingèd steed.
Though bold Bellerophon (so Jove decreed
In wrath) fell headlong from the fields of air,
Yet a rich guerdon waits on minds that dare,
If aught be in them of immortal seed,
And reason govern that audacious flight
Which heaven-ward they direct.
Erroneously renewing a sad vow

Then droop not thou,

In the low dell 'mid Roslin's faded grove :
A cheerful life is what the Muses love,
A soaring spirit is their prime delight.

XXXVI.

TO THE MEMORY OF RAISLEY CALVERT.

CALVERT! it must not be unheard by them
Who may respect my name, that I to thee
Owed many years of early liberty.

This care was thine when sickness did condemn

*

* Raisley Calvert was son of R. Calvert, Esq., Steward to the Duke of Norfolk. Wordsworth nursed the young man in a fatal illness, and after his death received what was for him a most important bequest of £900, to enable him to live without the drudgery of authorship for his daily bread, while cultivating his poetic genius.

Thy youth to hopeless wasting, root and stemThat I, if frugal and severe, might stray Where'er I liked; and finally array

My temples with the Muse's diadem.

Hence, if in freedom I have loved the truth;
If there be aught of pure, or good, or great,
In my past verse; or shall be, in the lays
Of higher mood, which now I meditate ;— .
It gladdens me, O worthy, short-lived, Youth!
To think how much of this will be thy praise.

SONNETS

DEDICATED TO NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE
AND LIBERTY.*

PART I.+

I.

COMPOSED BY THE SEA-SIDE, NEAR CALAIS,
AUGUST, 1802.

FAIR 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 a letter to Lady Beaumont, of May, 1807, Mr. Wordsworth says"The Sonnets to Liberty have a connection with, or a bearing upon each other, and therefore if individually they want weight, perhaps as a body, they may not be so deficient: but I would boldly say at once that these Sonnets, while they each fix the attention upon some important sentiment separately considered, do at the same time collectively make a Poem on the subject of Civil Liberty and National Independence, which either for simplicity of style, or grandeur of moral sentiment, is likely to have few parallels in the poetry of the present day."

+ Sara Coleridge says, in the notes to her father's Biographia Literaria, that the finest set of Wordsworth's Sonnets, is, in her opinion, Part I. of those dedicated to Liberty.