made For cottagers and spinners at the wheel And sunburnt travellers resting their tired limbs Stretched under wayside hedgerows, ballad tunes Food for the hungry ears of little ones And of old men who have survived their joys— ’Tis just that in behalf of these, the works, And of the men that framed them, whether known Or sleeping nameless in their scattered graves, That I should here assert their rights, attest Their honours, and should, once for all, pronounce p. 11Their benediction; speak of them as Powers For ever to be hallowed; only less, For what we are and what we may become, Than Nature’s self, which is the breath of God, Or His pure Word by miracle revealed.

p. 10

p. 11

Prelude, Book V. H. M.

p. 15MY BEAUTIFUL LADY. INTRODUCTION.

p. 15

In some there lies a sorrow too profound To find a voice or to reveal itself Throughout the strain of daily toil, or thought, Or during converse born of souls allied, As aught men understand. And though mayhap Their cheeks will thin or droop; and wane their eyes’ Frank lustre; hair may lose its hue, or fall; And health may slacken low in force; and they Are older than the warrant of their years; Yet they to others seem to gild their lives With cheerfulness, and every duty tend, As if their aspects told the truth within. But they are not as others: not for them The bounding pulse, and ardour of desire, p. 16The rapture and the wonder in things new; The hope that palpitating enters where Perfection smiles on universal life; Nor do they with elastic enterprise Forecast delight in compassing results; Nor, having won their ends, fall godlike back And taste the calm completion of content. But in a sober chilled grey atmosphere Work out their lives; more various though they are Than creatures in the unknown ocean depths, Yet each in whom this vital grief has root Is dull to what makes everything of worth. And though, may be, a shallow bodily joy Oft tingles through them at the breathing spring, Or first-heard exultation of the lark; Still that deep weight draws ever steadily Their thoughts and passions back to secret woe. Though, if endowed with light, heroic deeds May be 

 Prev. P 3/51 next