'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountain in its azure hue.
Thus, with delight we linger to survey
The promised joys of life's unmeasured way;
Thus from afar, each dim-discover'd scene
More pleasing seems than all the past hath been;
And every form, that Fancy can repair
From dark oblivion, glows divinely there.
What potent spirit guides the raptured eye
To pierce the shades of dim futurity?
Can Wisdom lend, with all her heavenly power,
The pledge of Joy's anticipated hour?
Ah, no! she darkly sees the fate of man-
Her dim horizon bounded to a span;

Or, if she hold an image to the view,
'Tis Nature pictured too severely true!

With thee, sweet, Hope, resides the heavenly light,
That pours remotest rapture on the sight:
Thine is the charm of life's bewilder'd way,
That calls each slumbering passion into play.
Waked by thy touch, I see the sister band,
On tiptoe watching, start at thy command,
And fly where'er thy mandate bids them steer,
To Pleasure's path, or Glory's bright career.

Auspicious Hope! in thy sweet garden grow
Wreaths for each toil, a charm for every woe;
Won by their sweets, in Nature's languid hour,
The way-worn pilgrim seeks thy summer bower:
There, as the wild bee murmurs on the wing,
What peaceful dreams thy handmaid spirits bring!
What viewless forms the Eolian organ play,

And sweep the furrow'd lines of anxious thought away!
The Pleasures of Hope.

'VE VICTIS.'

Он, bloodiest picture in the book of time!
Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime;
Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe,
Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her woe!
Dropp'd from her nerveless grasp the shatter'd spear,
Closed her bright eye, and curb'd her high career:
Hope for a season bade the world farewell,
And Freedom shriek'd as Kosciusko fell!
The sun went down, nor ceased the carnage there;
Tumultuous murder shook the midnight air-
On Prague's proud arch the fires of ruin glow,
His blood-dyed waters murmuring far below.
The storm prevails, the rampart yields a way,
Bursts the wild cry of horror and dismay!
Hark! as the smouldering piles with thunder fall,
A thousand shrieks for hopeless mercy call!
Earth shook, red meteors flash'd along the sky,
And conscious Nature shudder'd at the cry!

ODE TO WINTER.

WHEN first the fiery-mantled Sun
His heavenly race began to run,
Round the earth and ocean blue

His children four the Seasons flew :-
First, in green apparel dancing,

The young Spring smiled with angel-grace;
Rosy Summer, next advancing,

Rush'd into her sire's embrace

Id.

Her bright-hair'd sire, who bade her keep

For ever nearest to his smiles, On Calpe's olive-shaded steep

Or India's citron-cover'd isles. More remote, and buxom-brown,

The Queen of vintage bow'd before his throne; A rich pomegranate gemm'd her crown,

A ripe sheaf bound her zone.

But howling Winter fled afar
To hills that prop the polar star;
And loves on deer-borne car to ride
With barren darkness at his side
Round the shore where loud Lofoden
Whirls to death the roaring whale,
Round the hall where Runic Odin
Howls his war-song to the gale-
Save when adown the ravaged globe
He travels on his native storm,
Deflowering Nature's grassy robe

And trampling on her faded form;

Till Light's returning Lord assume

The shaft that drives him to his northern field, Of power to pierce his raven plume

And crystal-cover'd shield.

O sire of storms! whose savage ear
The Lapland drum delights to hear,
When Frenzy with her bloodshot eye
Implores thy dreadful deity—
Archangel! Power of desolation!

Fast descending as thou art,

Say, hath mortal invocation

Spells to touch thy stony heart :

Then, sullen Winter! hear my prayer,
And gently rule the ruin'd year;

Nor chill the wanderer's bosom bare
Nor freeze the wretch's falling tear:
To shuddering Want's unmantled bed

Thy horror-breathing agues cease to lend,
And gently on the orphan head

Of Innocence descend.

But chiefly spare, O king of clouds,

The sailor on his airy shrouds,

When wrecks and beacons strew the steep

And spectres walk along the deep,
Milder yet thy snowy breezes

Pour on yonder tented shores,
Where the Rhine's broad billow freezes,
Or the dark-brown Danube roars.

O winds of Winter! list ye there
To many a deep and dying groan?

Or start, ye demons of the midnight air,

At shrieks and thunders louder than your own?

Alas! e'en your unhallow'd breath

May spare the victim fallen low;

But Man will ask no truce to death,

No bounds to human woe.

(Germany, December 1800.)

WORDSWORTH.

1770-1850.

PRINCIPAL WORKS :-The Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches, 1793. -Lyrical Ballads, 1798, a production in which he joined with Coleridge, 'designed by him as an experiment how far a simpler kind of poetry than that in use would afford permanent interest to readers. The humblest subjects, he contended, were fit for poetry, and the language should be that "really used by men." The fine fabric of poetic diction which generations of the tuneful tribe had been laboriously rearing, he proposed to destroy altogether. The language of humble and rustic life, arising out of repeated experience and regular feelings, he considered to be a more permanent, a far more philosophical language than that which is frequently substituted for it by the poets. The attempt of Wordsworth was either totally neglected or assailed with ridicule. The transition from the refined and sentimental school of verse, with select and polished diction, to such themes as "The Idiot Boy," and a style of composition disfigured by colloquial plainness, and by the mixture of ludicrous images and associations with passages of tenderness and pathos, was too violent to escape ridicule or ensure general success.'Two more volumes were published in 1807.-The Excursion, 1814, his most considerable work. In this poem, though with considerable modifications, he repeated his earlier theories as to the suitableness of everyday life and language to the character of poetry.-The White Doe of Rylstone, Peter Bell, Yarrow Revisited, &c., are among the most pretentious of his remaining productions. Unfortunately for immediate success, the more brilliant genius of the new school- of Scott and Byron, in their differing styles, had almost exclusively preoccupied the public admiration and patronage; and the new and somewhat prosaic style of his metaphysical poetry was little adapted then, or is indeed even now, to attract any but a very limited number of readers. In six years not more than 500 copies of The Excursion were called for. The less brilliant, but perhaps more substantial, merits of Wordsworth in course of time gradually gained a wider circle of admirers and disciples. Without detracting from the general value of The Excursion, his miscellanous and shorter pieces, particularly his Poems of the Fancy, and Poems of the Imagination, may justly be considered his happiest