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The Boy is in the arms of Wharf,
And strangled by a merciless force

;

For never more was young Romilly seen
Till he rose a lifeless corse.

Now there is stillness in the vale,
And long, unspeaking, sorrow :
Wharf shall be to pitying hearts
A name more sad than Yarrow.

If for a lover the Lady wept,
A solace she might borrow

From death, and from the passion of death ;-
Old Wharf might heal her sorrow.

She weeps not for the wedding-day
Which was to be to-morrow:

Her hope was a further-looking hope,
And hers is a mother's sorrow.

He was a tree that stood alone,
And proudly did its branches wave;
And the root of this delightful tree
Was in her husband's grave!

Long, long in darkness did she sit,
And her first words were, "Let there be

In Bolton, on the field of Wharf,

A stately Priory!"

The stately Priory was reared;

And Wharf, as he moved along,

To matins joined a mournful voice,
Nor failed at even-song.

And the Lady prayed in heaviness
That looked not for relief!

But slowly did her succour come,
And a patience to her grief.

Oh there is never sorrow of heart
That shall lack a timely end,

If but to God we turn, and ask

Of Him to be our friend!

1808.

FIDELITY.*

A BARKING Sound the Shepherd hears,
A cry as of a dog or fox;

He halts and searches with his eyes
Among the scattered rocks:

And now at distance can discern
A stirring in a brake of fern;
And instantly a dog is seen,
Glancing through that covert green.

The Dog is not of mountain breed ;
Its motions, too, are wild and shy;
With something, as the Shepherd thinks,
Unusual in its cry:

Nor is there any one in sight

All round, in hollow or on height;

*The young man whose death gave occasion to this poem was named Charles Gough. He had come early in the spring to Patterdale for the sake of angling. While attempting to cross over Helvellyn to Grasmere he slipped from a steep part of the rock where the ice was not thawed, and perished. His body was discovered as described in the poem. Sir Walter Scott heard of the accident, and he also wrote some verses in admiration of the dog's fidelity.

Nor shout, nor whistle strikes his ear;
What is the creature doing here?

It was a cove, a huge recess,

That keeps, till June, December's snow;
A lofty precipice in front,

A silent tarn * below!

Far in the bosom of Helvellyn,
Remote from public road or dwelling,
Pathway, or cultivated land;

From trace of human foot or hand.

There sometimes doth a leaping fish
Send through the tarn a lonely cheer; +
The crags repeat the raven's croak,

In symphony austere ;

Thither the rainbow comes- -the cloud-
And mists that spread the flying shroud;
And sunbeams; and the sounding blast,
That, if it could, would hurry past;
But that enormous barrier holds it fast.

Not free from boding thoughts, a while
The Shepherd stood; then makes his way
O'er rocks and stones, following the Dog
As quickly as he may ;

Nor far had gone before he found

A human skeleton on the ground;

*Tarn is a small Mere or Lake, mostly high up in the mountains.

Regarding this line, so remarkably expressive of loneliness, Mr. Wordsworth says, "This was branded by a critic of those days in a

review ascribed to Mrs. Barbauld as unnatural and absurd. I admire the genius of Mrs. Barbauld, and am certain that had her education been favourable to imaginative influences, no female of her day would have been more likely to sympathise with that image, and to acknowledge the truth of the sentiment."

The appalled Discoverer with a sigh
Looks round, to learn the history.

From those abrupt and perilous rocks
The Man had fallen, that place of fear!
At length upon the Shepherd's mind
It breaks, and all is clear:

He instantly recalled the name,

And who he was, and whence he came ;
Remembered, too, the very day

On which the Traveller passed this way.

But hear a wonder, for whose sake
This lamentable tale I tell !

A lasting monument of words

This wonder merits well.

The Dog, which still was hovering nigh,
Repeating the same timid cry,

This Dog, had been through three months' space

A dweller in that savage place.

Yes, proof was plain that, since the day

When this ill-fated Traveller died,*

The Dog had watched about the spot,
Or by his master's side:

How nourished here through such long time
He knows, who gave that love sublime ;
And gave that strength of feeling, great
Above all human estimate! †

* On which the traveller thus had died.-Edit. 1815.

1805.

↑ The sentiment in the last four lines was uttered by a shepherd with such exactness that a traveller who afterwards reported his account in print was induced to question the man whether he had read them, which he had not.-W. W.

ODE TO DUTY.*

'Jam non consilio bonus, sed more eò perductus, ut non tantum

rectè facere possim, sed nisi rectè facere non possim.'

STERN Daughter of the Voice of God!
O Duty! if that name thou love
Who art a light to guide, a rod
To check the erring, and reprove ;
Thou, who art victory and law

When empty terrors overawe;

From vain temptations dost set free;

And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity!

There are who ask not if thine eye

Be on them; who, in love and truth,
Where no misgiving is, rely

Upon the genial sense of youth:

Glad Hearts! without reproach or blot ;

Who do thy work, and know it not :

Oh! if through confidence misplaced

They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power! around them cast.t

Serene will be our days and bright,

And happy will our nature be,

When love is an unerring light,

And joy its own security.

* "In this year (1805) was produced the Ode to Duty on the model, as the author says, of Gray's Ode to Adversity, which is copied from Horace's Ode to Fortune."-Life, by Dr. Wordsworth, I., 314.

May joy be theirs while life shall last,

And Thou! if they should totter, teach them to stand fast.-Edit. 1815.

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