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A constant influence, a peculiar grace; But who, if he be called upon to face Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined

Great issues, good or bad for human kind,

Is happy as a Lover; and attired

With sudden brightness, like a Man inspired;

And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law

In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw:

Or if an unexpected call succeed,
Come when it will, is equal to the need:
He who, though thus endued as with

a sense

And faculty for storm and turbulence,
Is yet a Soul whose master-bias leans
To homefelt pleasures and to gentle
scenes:

Sweet images! which, wheresoe'er he be,

Are at his heart; and such fidelity
It is his darling passion to approve ;
More brave for this, that he hath much
to love :

"Tis, finally, the Man, who, lifted high,
Conspicuous object in a Nation's eye,
Or left unthought-of in obscurity,-
Who, with a toward or untoward lot,
Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or

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In the cottage, Town-end, Grasmere, one afternoon in 1801, my sister read to me the Sonnets of Milton. I had long been well acquainted with the n, but I was particularly struck on that occa sion with the dignified simplicity and majestic harmony that runs through most of them.-in character so totally different from the Italian, and still more so from Shakspeare's fine Sonnets. I took fire, if I may be allowed to say so, and produced three Sonrets the same afternoon, the Fist I ever wrote except an irregular one st school Of these three, the only one I distinctly remember is...“ I grieved for Buonaparte. Was Zever written down: the third, which was ete, preserved, I cannot particularize (W) visanurk,

De

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Are those that are by distance made more sweet;

Whose mind is but the mind of his own

eyes,

He is a Slave; the meanest we can meet !

III

Wings have we,-and as far as we can go,

We may find pleasure: wilderness and wood,

Blank ocean and mere sky, support that mood

Which with the lofty sanctifies the low. Dreams, books are each a world; and books, we know.

Are a substantial world, both pure and good:

Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,

Our pastime and our happiness will grow.

There find I personal themes, a plenteous store,

Matter wherein right voluble I am,
To which I listen with a ready ear;
Two shall be named, pre-eminently

dear,

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THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US

THE world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:

Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not.-Great God! I'd rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the

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Written at Rydal Mount. The incident of the trees growing and withering put the subject into tay thoughts, and I wrote with the hope of giving Ita loftier tone than, so far as I know, has been given to it by any of the Ancients who have treated of it. It cost me more trouble than almost anything of equal length I have ever writtro Wordsworth.)

Laodamia is a very original poem; I mean original with reference to your own manner. You have nothing like it. I should have seen it in a strange place, and greatly admired it, but not suspected its derivation.. (Lamb

t Wordsworth. Talfourd, Final Memories of Charles Lamb, p. 151.)

"WITH Sacrifice before the rising morn Vows have I made by fruitless hope inspired;

And from the infernal Gods, 'mid shades forlorn

Of night, my slaughtered Lord have I required:

Celestial pity I again implore:—
Restore him to my sight-great Jove,

restore!"

So speaking, and by fervent love en

dowed

With faith, the Suppliant heavenward lifts her hands;

While, like the sun emerging from a cloud,

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