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"Tis morn, but scarce yon level sun
Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling dun,
Where furious Frank and fiery Hun
Shout in their sulph'rous canopy.

The combat deepens. On, ye brave, Who rush to glory, or the grave! Wave, Munich! all thy banners wave, And charge with all thy chivalry!

Few, few, shall part where many meet!
The snow shall be their winding-sheet,
And every turf beneath their feet
Shall be a soldier's sepulchre.

CHAPTER XXI.

WORDSWORTH, COLERIdge, southEY, AND OTHER
MODERN POETS.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 1770-1850. (Manual, pp. 420-424.)

FROM "THE EXCURSION."

294. THE GREEK MYTHOLOGY.

In that fair clime, the lonely herdsman, stretched
On the soft grass, through half a summer's day,
With music lulled his indolent repose:

And, in some fit of weariness, if he,

When his own breath was silent, chanced to hear
A distant strain, far sweeter than the sounds
Which his poor skill could make, his fancy fetched,
Even from the blazing chariot of the sun,
A beardless youth,' who touched a golden lute,
And filled th' illumined groves with ravishment.
The nightly hunter, lifting up his eyes
Towards the crescent moon, with grateful heart
Called on the lovely wanderer who bestowed
That timely light, to share his joyous sport:
And hence, a beaming goddess" with her nymphs,
Across the lawn and through the darksome grove
(Not unaccompanied with tuneful notes,

By echo multiplied from rock or cave),

Swept in the storm of chase, as moon and stars

Glance rapidly along the clouded heaven,

When winds are blowing strong. The traveller slaked
His thirst from rill or gushing fount, and thanked

The Naiad.3-Sunbeams, upon distant hills
Gliding apace, with shadows in their train,
Might, with small help from fancy, be transformed
Into fleet Oreads sporting visibly.

The Zephyrs, fanning, as they passed, their wings,
Lacked not, for love, fair objects, whom they wooed
With gentle whisper. Withered boughs grotesque,

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8 Naiads, the nymphs of the springs; Oreads, those of the mountains.

Stripped of their leaves and ́twigs by hoary age,
From depth of shaggy covert peeping forth,
In the low vale, or on steep mountain-side;
And sometimes intermixed with stirring horns
Of the live deer, or goat's depending beard,
These were the lurking Satyrs; a wild brood
Of gamesome deities; or Pan himself,
The simple shepherd's awe-inspiring god!

295. TINTERN ABBEY.'

Five years have passed; five summers with the length
Of five long winters; and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain springs
With a sweet inland murmur. Once again

Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
Which on a wild secluded scene impress

Thoughts of more deep seclusion, and connect

The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

The day is come when I again repose

Here, under this dark sycamore, and view

These plots of cottage ground, these orchard tufts,
Which, at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
Among the woods and copses, nor disturb
The wild green landscape. Once again I see
These hedgerows, hardly hedgerows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up in silence from among the trees,
With some uncertain notice, as might seem,
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some hermit's cave, where, by his fire,
The hermit sits alone.

Though absent long,
These forms of beauty have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart,
And passing even into my purer mind

1 This abbey was founded by the Cistercian monks, in 1131. It is now a celebrated ruin, on the west bank of the River Wye, which forms the boundary between the counties of Monmouth and Gloucester, England. It is about five miles above the junction of the Wye and Severn, and eighteen miles north of Bristol.

With tranquil restoration - feelings, too,
Of unremembered pleasure; such, perhaps,
As may have had no trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood
In which the burden of the mystery,

In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world

Is lightened; that serene and blessed mood
In which the affections gently lead us on,
Until the breath of this corporeal frame,
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul;
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.

For I have learned

To look on nature, not as in the hour

Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes
The still sad music of humanity,

Nor harsh, nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt

A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;

A motion and a spirit that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still

A lover of the meadows and the woods

And mountains, and of all that we behold

From this green earth: of all the mighty world
Of eye and ear, both what they half create
And what perceive; well pleased to recognize
In nature, and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.

Nor, perchance,

If I were not thus taught, should I the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay:

For thou art with me here, upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou, my dearest friend,
My dear, dear friend, and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. O! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once,
My dear, dear sister! And this prayer I make,
Knowing that nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life to lead,
From joy to joy; for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk!
And let the misty mountain winds be free
To blow against thee; and in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,

Thy memory be as a dwelling-place

For all sweet sounds and harmonies; O! then,

If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,

Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts

Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,

And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance,

If I should be where I no more can hear

Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams

Of past existence, wilt thou then forget

That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshipper of nature, hither came,
Unwearied in that service; rather say
With warmer love, O! with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake.

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