The Boy is in the arms of Wharf, ; For never more was young Romilly seen Now there is stillness in the vale, If for a lover the Lady wept, From death, and from the passion of death ;- She weeps not for the wedding-day Her hope was a further-looking hope, He was a tree that stood alone, Long, long in darkness did she sit, In Bolton, on the field of Wharf, A stately Priory!" The stately Priory was reared; And Wharf, as he moved along, To matins joined a mournful voice, And the Lady prayed in heaviness But slowly did her succour come, Oh there is never sorrow of heart If but to God we turn, and ask Of Him to be our friend! 1808. FIDELITY.* A BARKING Sound the Shepherd hears, He halts and searches with his eyes And now at distance can discern The Dog is not of mountain breed ; Nor is there any one in sight All round, in hollow or on height; *The young man whose death gave occasion to this poem was named Charles Gough. He had come early in the spring to Patterdale for the sake of angling. While attempting to cross over Helvellyn to Grasmere he slipped from a steep part of the rock where the ice was not thawed, and perished. His body was discovered as described in the poem. Sir Walter Scott heard of the accident, and he also wrote some verses in admiration of the dog's fidelity. Nor shout, nor whistle strikes his ear; It was a cove, a huge recess, That keeps, till June, December's snow; A silent tarn * below! Far in the bosom of Helvellyn, From trace of human foot or hand. There sometimes doth a leaping fish In symphony austere ; Thither the rainbow comes- -the cloud- Not free from boding thoughts, a while Nor far had gone before he found A human skeleton on the ground; *Tarn is a small Mere or Lake, mostly high up in the mountains. Regarding this line, so remarkably expressive of loneliness, Mr. Wordsworth says, "This was branded by a critic of those days in a review ascribed to Mrs. Barbauld as unnatural and absurd. I admire the genius of Mrs. Barbauld, and am certain that had her education been favourable to imaginative influences, no female of her day would have been more likely to sympathise with that image, and to acknowledge the truth of the sentiment." The appalled Discoverer with a sigh From those abrupt and perilous rocks He instantly recalled the name, And who he was, and whence he came ; On which the Traveller passed this way. But hear a wonder, for whose sake A lasting monument of words This wonder merits well. The Dog, which still was hovering nigh, This Dog, had been through three months' space A dweller in that savage place. Yes, proof was plain that, since the day When this ill-fated Traveller died,* The Dog had watched about the spot, How nourished here through such long time * On which the traveller thus had died.-Edit. 1815. 1805. ↑ The sentiment in the last four lines was uttered by a shepherd with such exactness that a traveller who afterwards reported his account in print was induced to question the man whether he had read them, which he had not.-W. W. ODE TO DUTY.* 'Jam non consilio bonus, sed more eò perductus, ut non tantum rectè facere possim, sed nisi rectè facere non possim.' STERN Daughter of the Voice of God! When empty terrors overawe; From vain temptations dost set free; And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity! There are who ask not if thine eye Be on them; who, in love and truth, Upon the genial sense of youth: Glad Hearts! without reproach or blot ; Who do thy work, and know it not : Oh! if through confidence misplaced They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power! around them cast.t Serene will be our days and bright, And happy will our nature be, When love is an unerring light, And joy its own security. * "In this year (1805) was produced the Ode to Duty on the model, as the author says, of Gray's Ode to Adversity, which is copied from Horace's Ode to Fortune."-Life, by Dr. Wordsworth, I., 314. May joy be theirs while life shall last, And Thou! if they should totter, teach them to stand fast.-Edit. 1815. BB |