Only a driving wreck,

And the pale master on his spar strewn-deck
With anguish'd face and flying hair

Grasping the rudder hard,

Still bent to make some port he knows not where,
Still standing for some false, impossible shore.
And sterner comes the roar

Of sea and wind, and through the deepening gloom
Fainter and fainter wreck and helmsmen loom,
And he too disappears, and comes no more.

Is there no life, but these alone?

Madman or slave, must man be one?

Plainness and clearness without shadow or stain! Clearness divine!

Ye heavens, whose pure dark regions have no sign Of languor, though so calm, and though so great, Are yet untroubled and unpassionate;

Who, though so noble, share in the world's toil,

And, though so mask'd, keep free from dust and soil! I will not say that your mild deeps retain

A tinge, it may be, of their silent pain

Who have long'd deeply once, and long'd in vain—
But I will rather say that you remain

A world above man's head, to let him see
How boundless might his soul's horizons be,
How vast, yet of what clear transparency!

How it were good to live there, and breathe free ;
How fair a lot to fill

Is left to each man still!

LINES WRITTEN IN KENSINGTON

GARDENS

In this lone, open glade I lie,

Screen'd by deep boughs on either hand;

And at its end, to stay the eye,

Those black-crown'd, red-boled pine-trees stand!

Birds here make song, each bird has his,

Across the girdling city's hum.

How green under the boughs it is!

How thick the tremulous sheep cries come !

Sometimes a child will cross the glade
To take his nurse his broken toy;
Sometimes a thrush flit overhead
Deep in her unknown day's employ.

Here at my feet what wonders pass,
What endless, active life is here!
What blowing daisies, fragrant grass!
And air-stirr'd forest, fresh and clear.

Scarce fresher is the mountain-sod
Where the tired angler lies, stretch'd out,
And, eased of basket and of rod,
Counts his day's spoil, the spotted trout.

In the huge world, which roars hard by,

Be others happy if they can!

But in my helpless cradle I

Was breathed on by the rural Pan.

I, on men's impious uproar hurl'd,
Think often, as I hear them rave,
That peace has left the upper world
And now keeps only in the grave.

Yet here is peace for ever new!
When I who watch them am away,
Still all things in this glade go through
The changes of their quiet day.

Then to their happy rest they pass!
The flowers upclose, the birds are fed,
The night comes down upon the grass,
The child sleeps warmly in his bed.

Calm soul of all things! make it mine
To feel, amid the city's jar,
That there abides a peace of thine,
Man did not make, and cannot mar.

The will to neither strive nor cry,
The power to feel with others give!
Calm, calm me more! nor let me die
Before I have begun to live.

MEMORIAL VERSES
(April 1850)

Goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece,
Long since, saw Byron's struggle cease,
But one such death remain'd to come;
The last poetic voice is dumb-

We stand to-day by Wordsworth's tomb.

When Byron's eyes were shut in death,
We bow'd our head, and held our breath.
He taught us little; but our soul
Had felt him like the thunder's roll.
With shivering heart the strife we saw
Of passion with eternal law;
And yet with reverential awe

We watch'd the fount of fiery life

Which served for that Titanic strife.

When Goethe's death was told, we said:
Sunk, then, is Europe's sagest head.
Physician of the iron age,

Goethe has done his pilgrimage.

He took the suffering human race,

He read each wound, each weakness clear; And struck his finger on the place,

And said: Thou ailest here, and here!

He looked on Europe's dying hour

Of fitful dream and feverish power;

His eye plunged down the weltering strife,

The turmoil of expiring life

He said: The end is everywhere,

Art still has truth, take refuge there!

And he was happy if to know

Causes of things, and far below

His feet to see the lurid flow

Of terror, and insane distress,

And headlong fate, be happiness.

And Wordsworth !-Ah, pale ghosts, rejoice! For never has such soothing voice

Been to your shadowy world convey'd,

Since erst, at morn, some wandering shade

Heard the clear song of Orpheus come
Through Hades, and the mournful gloom.
Wordsworth has gone from us—and ye.
Ah, may ye feel his voice as we!
He too upon a wintry clime
Had fallen-on this iron time

Of doubts, disputes, distractions, fears.

He found us when the age had bound
Our souls in its benumbing round;
He spoke, and loosed our heart in tears.
He laid us as we lay at birth,

Smiles broke from us, and we had ease;
The smiles were round us, and the breeze
On the cool flowery lap of earth,

Went o'er the sun-lit fields again;
Our foreheads felt the wind and rain.
Our youth return'd; for there was shed
On spirits that had long been dead,
Spirits dried up and closely furl'd,
The freshness of the early world.

Ah! since dark days still bring to light
Man's prudence and man's fiery might,
Time may restore us in his course
Goethe's sage mind and Byron's force;
But where will Europe's latter hour
Again find Wordsworth's healing power?
Others will teach us how to dare,
And against fear our breast to steel;
Others will strengthen us to bear-
But who, ah! who, will make us feel?
The cloud of mortal destiny,
Others will front it fearlessly-
But who, like him, will put it by?