At their own vices. We have been too long
Dupes of a deep delusion! Some, belike,
Groaning with restless enmity, expect

All change from change of constituted power;
As if a Government had been a robe,

On which our vice and wretchedness were tagg'd

robe

Like fancy-points and fringes, with the rob

Pull'd off at pleasure. Fondly these attach
A radical causation to a few

Poor drudges of chastising Providence,

Who borrow all their hues and qualities

From our own folly and rank wickedness,

Which gave them birth and nurse them. Others, mean

while,

Dote with a mad idolatry; and all

Who will not fall before their images,

And yield them worship, they are enemies

Even of their country!

Such have I been deem'd-

But, O dear Britain! O my Mother Isle!

Needs must thou prove a name most dear and holy

To me, a son, a brother, and a friend,

A husband, and a father! who revere

All bonds of natural love, and find them all

Within the limits of thy rocky shores.

O native Britain! O my Mother Isle !

How shouldst thou prove aught else but dear and holy
To me, who from thy lakes and mountain-hills,

Thy clouds, thy quiet dales, thy rocks and seas,
Have drunk in all my intellectual life,

All sweet sensations, all ennobling thoughts,
All adoration of the God in Nature,

All lovely and all honorable things,
Whatever makes this mortal spirit feel
The joy and greatness of its future being?
There lives nor form nor feeling in my soul
Unborrow'd from my country. O divine
And beauteous island! thou hast been my sole
And most magnificent temple, in the which
I walk with awe, and sing my stately songs,
Loving the God that made me!

May my fears,

My filial fears, be vain! and may the vaunts
And menace of the vengeful enemy

Pass like the gust, that roar'd and died away

In the distant tree: which heard, and only heard.

In this low dell, bow'd not the delicate grass.

But now the gentle dew-fall sends abroad The fruit-like perfume of the golden furze: The light has left the summit of the hill, Though still a sunny gleam lies beautiful Aslant the ivied beacon. Now farewell,

Farewell, awhile, O soft and silent spot!
On the green sheep-track, up the heathy hill,
Homeward I wind my way; and, lo! recall'd
From bodings that have well nigh wearied me,
I find myself upon the brow, and pause
Startled! And after lonely sojourning

In such a quiet and surrounded nook,

This burst of prospect, here the shadowy Main,
Dim tinted, there the mighty majesty

Of that huge amphitheatre of rich
And elmy Fields, seems like society-
Conversing with the mind, and giving it
A livelier impulse and a dance of thought!
And now, beloved Stowey! I behold

Thy church-tower, and, methinks, the four huge elms Clustering, which mark the mansion of my friend;

And close behind them, hidden from my view,

Is my own lowly cottage, where my babe

And my babe's mother dwell in peace! With light

And quicken'd footsteps thitherward I tend,

Remembering thee, O green and silent dell!

And grateful, that by nature's quietness

And solitary musings, all my heart

Is soften'd, and made worthy to indulge

Love, and the thoughts that yearn for human kind.

RECANTATION.

Illustrated in the Story of the Mad Ox.

I.

AN Ox, long fed with musty hay,
And work'd with yoke and chain,

Was turn'd out on an April day,

When fields are in their best array,

And growing grasses sparkle gay

At once with Sun and rain.

II.

The grass was fine, the Sun was bright:

With truth I may aver it;

The Ox was glad, as well he might, Thought a green meadow no bad sight, And frisked, to shew his huge delight, Much like a beast of spirit.