From this appropriate Court renowned Lu CERNE 55 Calls me to pace her honoured Bridge'—that cheers The Patriot's heart with pictures rude and stern, 60 Just at the point of issue, where it fears 65 Volumes of sound, from the Cathedral rolled, 75 Our pride misleads, our timid likings kill. 80 Filling the soul with sentiments august- No more; 1 See Note. Nor turns, nor winds, as doth the liquid flood; 85 Go forth, my little Book! pursue thy way; Go forth, and please the gentle and the good; Nor be a whisper stifled, if it say That treasures, yet untouched, may grace some future Lay. 90 MEMORIALS OF A TOUR IN ITALY. 1837. TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON. COMPANION! by whose buoyant Spirit cheered, In whose experience trusting, day by day Treasures I gained with zeal that neither feared The toils nor felt the crosses of the way, These records take, and happy should I be Were but the Gift a meet Return to thee For kindnesses that never ceased to flow, And prompt self-sacrifice to which I owe Far more than any heart but mine can know. W. WORDSWORTH. RYDAL MOUNT, Feb. 14th, 1842. The Tour of which the following Poems are very inadequate remembrances was shortened by report, too well founded, of the prevalence of Cholera at Naples. To make some amends for what was reluctantly left unseen in the South of Italy, we visited the Tuscan Sanctuaries among the Apennines, and the principal Italian Lakes among the Alps. Neither of those lakes, nor of Venice, is there any notice in these Poems, chiefly because I have touched upon them elsewhere. See, in particular, "Descriptive Sketches,' Memorials of a Tour on the Continent in 1820," and a Sonnet upon the extinction of the Venetian Republic. I. MUSINGS NEAR AQUAPENDENTE. APRIL, 1837. YE Apennines! with all your fertile vales Deeply embosomed, and your winding shores Of either sea, an Islander by birth, claims 5 Bestowed by Nature, or from man's great deeds Inherited: presumptuous thought!-it fled Like vapour, like a towering cloud, dissolved. Not, therefore, shall my mind give way to sadness; Yon snow-white torrent-fall, plumb down it drops IO Yet ever hangs or seems to hang in air, Lulling the leisure of that high perched town, AQUAPENDENTE, in her lofty site Its neighbour and its namesake-town, and flood Forth flashing out of its own gloomy chasm 15 Bright sunbeams-the fresh verdure of this lawn Strewn with grey rocks, and on the horizon's verge, O'er intervenient waste, through glimmering haze, Unquestionably kenned, that cone-shaped hill 25 Close at my side! She bids me fly to greet 31 Of old companionship, Time counts not minutes Ere, from accustomed paths, familiar fields, The local Genius hurries me aloft, 35 Transported over that cloud-wooing hill, Of visual sovereignty-hills multitudinous, 40 trunk Extended, clasp the winds, with mutual moan Struggling for liberty, while undismayed 46 The shepherd struggles with them. Onward thence 50 And downward by the skirt of Greenside fell, 61 Had flown with mine to old Helvellyn's brow, |