If I were not thus taught, should I the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay.
For thou wert with me here upon the banks
Of thy dear river: thou my dearest Friend—
My dear, dear Friend! and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes.
Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once,
My dear, dear Sister! And this prayer I make,
Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her. 'Tis her privilege
Through all the years of this one life, to lead
From joy to joy; for she can so inform
The mind that is within us-so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts-that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith that all which we behold
Is full of blessings.
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain winds be free
To blow against thee. And in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure-when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies-oh, then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations!
If I should be where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence-wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshipper of Nature, hither came
Unwearied in that service: rather say,
With warmer love, oh, with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget
That after many years of wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green, pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear both for themselves and for thy sake.
-From Lines Composed a Few Miles above
Tintern Abbey.
The possibility of future sorrow thus hinted at came indeed to be a reality. Thirty years afterward we catch occasional glimpses of Dorothy Wordsworth in the home of her brother, broken in health and weakened in mind-hardly a shadow of her glad youth. But those sad happenings were in the far future. In 1802 Wordsworth married Mary Hutchinson, whom he had known from boyhood; who died in 1859, after fortyeight years of wedded life, and nine years of widowhood, and of whom he wrote, two years after their marriage:
She was a Phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight
A lovely Apparition, sent
To be a moment's ornament.
Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair,
Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair,
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful Dawn;
A dancing Shape, an Image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and waylay.
I saw her, upon nearer view,
A Spirit, yet a Woman, too;
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin-liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A creature not too bright and good
For human nature's daily food,
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.
And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveller between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect Woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light.
The Prelude, a poem which had been slowly growing up for half a dozen years, was completed in 1805. It was addressed to Coleridge, to whom portions were sent from time to time, and to whom the whole was recited when finished-this recital giving occasion for one of the finest of Coleridge's poems. The Prelude, which was not published until 1850, concludes thus:
CLOSE OF THE "PRELUDE."
Oh! yet a few short years of useful life,
And all will be complete-thy race be run,
Thy monument of glory will be raised;
Then, though (too weak to tread the ways of truth)
This age fall back to old idolatry,
Though men return to servitude as fast
As the tide ebbs, to ignominy and shame
By nations sink together, we shall still
Find solace-knowing what we have learnt to know,
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