HELEN MARIA WILLIAMS

(1762-1828)

TO HOPE

1

O EVER skilled to wear the form we love!
To bid the shapes of fear and grief depart,
Come, gentle Hope! with one gay smile remove
The lasting sadness of an aching heart:
Thy voice, benign Enchantress! let me hear;

Say that for me some pleasures yet shall bloom; That Fancy's radiance, Friendship's precious tear, Shall soften, or shall chase, misfortune's gloom. But come not glaring in the dazzling ray

Which once with dear illusions charmed my eye! O strew no more, sweet flatterer! on my way The flowers I fondly thought too bright to die. Visions less fair will sooth my pensive breast,

That asks not happiness, but longs for rest.

,

1 Wordsworth repeated this sonnet from memory, after many years, to the pleased author.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

(1770-1850)

WRITTEN IN VERY EARLY YOUTH

CALM is all nature as a resting wheel.

The kine are couched upon the dewy grass; The horse alone, seen dimly as I pass, Is cropping audibly his later meal: Dark is the ground; a slumber seems to steal O'er vale, and mountain, and the starless sky. Now, in this blank of things, a harmony, Home-felt and home-created, comes to heal That grief for which the senses still supply

Fresh food; for only then, when memory Is hushed, am I at rest. My Friends! restrain Those busy cares that would allay my pain;

Oh! leave me to myself, nor let me feel

The officious touch that makes me droop again.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGÉ, SEPT. 3, 1802

EARTH has not anything to show more fair:

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty :
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,

Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep

In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:

Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

(1770-1850)

WRITTEN IN VERY EARLY YOUTH

CALM is all nature as a resting wheel.

The kine are couched upon the dewy grass; The horse alone, seen dimly as I pass, Is cropping audibly his later meal : Dark is the ground; a slumber seems to steal O'er vale, and mountain, and the starless sky. Now, in this blank of things, a harmony, Home-felt and home-created, comes to heal That grief for which the senses still supply

Fresh food; for only then, when memory Is hushed, am I at rest. My Friends! restrain Those busy cares that would allay my pain;

Oh! leave me to myself, nor let me feel

The officious touch that makes me droop again.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE, SEPT. 3, 1802

EARTH has not anything to show more fair :

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty :
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,

Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep

In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will :

Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!