Of sense and outward things, 5 High instincts, before which our mortal nature Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may, 10 Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, Are yet a master-light of all our seeing; 15 20 Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make To perish never; Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Hence, in a season of calm weather Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Can in a moment travel thither- 30 Then, sing ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song! As to the tabor's sound! We, in thought, will join your throng What though the radiance which was once so bright 35 Be now for ever taken from my sight, 40 Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; Which having been must ever be; In the soothing thoughts that spring In the faith that looks through death, 5 And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, Forbode not any severing of our loves! Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might; To live beneath your more habitual sway: 10 I love the brooks which down their channels fret The clouds that gather round the setting sun 15 Do take a sober colouring from an eye That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; Another race hath been, and other palms are won. Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, 20 To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. W. Wordsworth CCCXXXIX Music, when soft voices die, Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, And so thy thoughts, when Thou art gone, P. B. Shelley NOTES (1861-1891) Summary of Book First THE Elizabethan Poetry, as it is rather vaguely termed, forms the substance of this Book, which contains pieces from Wyat under Henry VIII to Shakespeare midway through the reign of James I, and Drummond who carried on the early manner to a still later period. There is here a wide range of style;from simplicity expressed in a language hardly yet broken-in to verse, through the pastoral fancies and Italian conceits of the strictly Elizabethan time, to the passionate reality of Shakespeare: yet a general uniformity of tone prevails. Few readers can fail to observe the natural sweetness of the verse, the singlehearted straightforwardness of the thoughts:-nor less, the limitation of subject to the many phases of one passion, which then characterized our lyrical poetry,-unless when, as in especial with Shakespeare, the 'purple light of Love' is tempered by a spirit of sterner reflection. For the didactic verse of the century, although lyrical in form, yet very rarely rises to the pervading emotion, the golden cadence, proper to the lyric. It should be observed that this and the following Summaries apply in the main to the Collection here presented, in which (besides its restriction to Lyrical Poetry) a strictly representative or historical Anthology has not been aimed at. Great excellence, in human art as in human character, has from the beginning of things been even more uniform than mediocrity, by virtue of the closeness of its approach to Nature:-and so far as the standard of Excellence kept in view has been attained in this volume, a comparative absence of extreme or temporary phases in style, a similarity of tone and manner, will be found throughout:-something neither modern nor ancient, but true and speaking to the heart of man alike throughout all ages. 399 |