I.

VOL. I.

MILTON! THOU SHOULD'ST BE LIVING AT THIS HOUR:
ENGLAND HATH NEED OF THEE: SHE IS A FEN

OF STAGNANT WATERS: ALTAR, SWORD, AND PEN,
FIRESIDE, THE HEROIC WEALTH OF HALL AND BOWER,
HAVE FORFEITED THEIR ANCIENT ENGLISH DOWER
OF INWARD HAPPINESS. WE ARE SELFISH MEN;
OH! RAISE US UP, RETURN TO US AGAIN;

AND GIVE US MANNERS, VIRTUE, FREEDOM, POWER.
THY SOUL WAS LIKE A STAR AND DWELT APART:
THOU HADST A VOICE WHOSE SOUND WAS LIKE THE SEA:
PURE AS THE NAKED HEAVENS, MAJESTIC, FREE,

SO DIDST THOU TRAVEL ON LIFE'S COMMON WAY
IN CHEERFUL GODLINESS; AND YET THY HEART
THE LOWLIEST DUTIES ON HERSELF DID LAY.

Wordsworth. London, 1802.

I.

EARLY POEMS, 1624-1637.

A PARAPHRASE ON PSALM CXIV.

(1624.)

This and the following Psalm were done by the Author at fifteen years old.

WHEN the blest seed of Terah's faithful son
After long toil their liberty had won,
And past from Pharian fields to Canaan land,
Led by the strength of the Almighty's hand,
Jehovah's wonders were in Israel shown,
His praise and glory was in Israel known.
That saw the troubl'd sea, and shivering fled,
And sought to hide his froth-becurled head
Low in the earth; Jordan's clear streams recoil,
As a faint host that hath receiv'd the foil.
The high, huge-bellied mountains skip like rams
Amongst their ewes, the little hills like lambs.
Why fled the Ocean? and why skipt the mountains?
Why turned Jordan toward his crystal fountains ?
Shake Earth, and at the presence be agast
Of him that ever was, and aye shall last,
That glassy floods from rugged rocks can crush,
And make soft rills from fiery flint-stones gush.

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