Selections from Wordsworth. By William Knight and other members of the Wordsworth Society. With preface and notes

Preface

AND NOTES. LONDON: KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, & CO., I PATERNOSTER SQUARE. MDCCCLXXXVIil.

PREFACE.

. This Selection from the Poems of Wordsworth is the result of a suggestion made to " The Wordsworth Society " some years ago. It seemed desirable that, in addition to the annual volume of Transactions, privately printed for its own members, the Society should issue a volume of Selections for general use, the choice and editing of which would be the joint work of those who had taken a chief part in the work of the Society. An earlier idea had been to ask some twenty or thirty of the members — whose critical opinion the rest might specially desire to have — to make out a list of the poems which they deemed of greatest value to the world, and to publish these lists in the Transactions. It was thought that, since the Society included several contemporary poets and men of letters, the selections made by them would have a permanent interest to students of literature.

Had it been carried out, however, the result would probably have been more curious than useful, and it was found that difficulties stood in the way of its realisation. That idea being abandoned, I undertook the respon sibility of fixing on the poems to be included in a volume of Selections ; and, sending the list to certain

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. VI members of the Society, I received their advice and co operation in various ways. The names of those who have helped me are printed at pages xiv. and xv. The following are the special features of this volume : — (i.) The poems are arranged chronologically, as in the library edition of the poet's works published at Edinburgh (1882-6.) 1 (2.) Certain years have been assigned to those who have assisted in the work, and their opinion has been asked as to the wisdom of the selection made from the poems written during these years. In some cases, poems which have been omitted by me have been added by them ; and in other instances, those selected by me have been cancelled. (3.) Brief notes have been written by the editors, where they have deemed it necessary. I am responsible for the selection of the text of the poems made use of in this edition.

Every reader of Wordsworth knows that his text varied very consider ably in the successive editions published during the poet's life-time ; and that neither was the first text in variably the best, nor the later always an improvement on the earlier. Mr. Matthew Arnold, in his volume of Selections, has kept throughout to the edition of 1832. Were we limited to a single text I would prefer that of the stereotyped edition of 1836, or the final text of 1849. But we are not thus limited ; and an attempt has been made in this volume to select the best text, in 1 Those referring to the tour in Scotland in 1803, however, are printed as if they all belonged to that year, although some were composed many years after.

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. VII the case of each poem included in it, although it would be impossible to state the grounds on which the selection has been made. It is not with the view of adding to Wordsworth's fame that this little book has been prepared, or that any new selection from his works is desirable ; but rather with the view of popularising him, and of extending his influence amongst the masses of the English-speaking race. Within a certain limited area that influence could scarcely be deeper than it is. By the suffrage of the wisest, and the ever-increasing recognition of the best of men, the place which he now fills, both as Teacher and Poet, is high up amongst the Immortals of Literature ; and to praise him is almost an impertinence. But the masses do not know him. And yet why should not the masses both know and appreciate him, as much as they appreciate Scott and Burns ?

Hartley Coleridge once said of Wordsworth that " he alone, of all the followers of Milton, had a right to appropriate his 'fit audience may I find, though few.' " But why should the audience now be few ? It has grown more numerous every year since the poet's death, and it should grow more numerous still. In one of his finest sonnets Wordsworth wrote of Milton — " Milton, thou should'st be living at this hour, England hath need of thee." The last of these two lines may certainly be applied to himself. We do not wish him back amongst us, but we desire that his influence should increase, for nothing is more needed in our time than the elevating and tranquillising influence of poetry of the first magnitude,

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. — such poetry as lifts us above ourselves to what is great, elemental, and enduring. The publication, in a convenient form, of the best things that Wordsworth has given us — issued with the sanction of representative members of a Society founded to promote the study of his works, and edited by several of them in concert — should help toward this end. Selection and compression are of course necessary, if the masses are to read Words worth, and find out the secret of his power ; but I think that the masses may yet come to endorse Mr. Arnold's judgment as to " the great and ample body of powerful work which remains, after all his inferior work has been cleared away," greater in amount and quality, Mr. Arnold thinks — and I humbly endorse his opinion — than that of any other English poet except Shakespeare and Milton.

If this be so, Wordsworth's influence over the genera tions of the future is an assured influence. It will last, be cause it deals not with transient fashions but with abiding needs, because it touches the deepest springs of human life, and is therefore an inexhaustible fountain of inspira tion, strength, and joy. In further explanation of the order adopted in this volume, reference must be made to Wordsworth's own arrangement of his poems. It is an extremely artificial one, although many have come to like it from old associa tion, and from the interest attaching to the main distinction which he drew between poems of the Fancy and those of the Imagination ; but his groups were both arbitrary and very miscellaneous.1 i Sir William Rowan Hamilton wrote to Mr. Aubrey de Vere in 1835, that Wordsworth's daughter had hinted to him that her father himself "was sometimes at a loss whether to refer her to the Poems of

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. IX Mr. Arnold — who has given us by far the best volume of " Selections " hitherto issued — has divided the poems into classes, which appear to me to labour under the same disadvantage as Wordsworth's own. We have (i) Ballads, (2) Narrative poems, (3) Lyrics, (4) Poems akin to the antique, (5) Sonnets, (6) Reflective and elegiac poems. I do not criticise the arrangement, we are so grateful to Mr. Arnold for the services he has rendered. It would be a mistake, however, to attempt another classification of the poems ; it would be unwise to recast them in new groups, even were it possible to make the groups more adequate. It is in all respects more de sirable to keep to the chronological order, which will be of use as exhibiting the growth of Wordsworth's genius, and enabling the reader to follow its successive stages.

As to previous volumes of Selections, Mr. Joseph Hine prepared a volume during the poet's life-time which he called Selections from the Toems of William Wordsworth, Esq., chiefly for the use of Schools and Young Persons. It was first published in 1831, and a new edition appeared in 1834. This was in many respects a praiseworthy selection. Mr. Hine followed an order of his own, and included portions of four books of The Excursion. A short collection — (67 in all) — of Select Pieces from the Poems of William Wordsworth (illustrated) was published by Messrs. Moxon & Son during the poet's life, but the edition is undated — the motive, as explained in the "advertisement," being that it was "now high the Imagination or Poems of the Fancy for some particular passage ; " and Aubrey de Vere, in reply to Hamilton, spoke of Wordsworth's arrangement as a "parade of system," and adds, "I cannot help thinking that in it he mistakes classification for method." (See the Life of Sir W. R. Hamilton, vol. ii. pp. 132 and 135.)

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. X time to have recourse to the poetry of Wordsworth as one of our direct instruments in education." His " sense of the beauty of the world," and his " flexible command of the resources of the English tongue," are pointed out. The latter, the editor says, is " only surpassed by Shake speare, and is not surpassed by Spenser or by Milton." The selection is well made, but the author should not have given titles of his own to any of the poems. In 1857, Mr. William Johnston edited The Earlier Poems of William Wordsworth, corrected as in the latest editions. His arrangement is not chronological, nor does it follow Wordsworth's own classification, except in part. Some of the Sonnets, and the Poems on the Naming of Places, the Inscriptions, and the Poems referring to Old Age, are arranged as Wordsworth arranged them ; but the rest are mixed together arbitrarily.

There was greater reason for keeping the Poems of " the Fancy " distinct from those of " the Imagination," and those of " the Affections " from both, than for following Wordsworth's classification in the other instances. Mr. Johnston's preface is valuable, and the various readings of the text, though incomplete, add a distinct feature to his edition. In 1866, the Messrs. Moxon published a Selection from the Works of William Wordsworth, arranged by Francis Turner Palgrave. This is an excellent selection of 123 poems, arranged by Mr. Palgrave on a principle of his own. It contains much of Wordsworth's best work, and scarcely one poem— if there be one— that is not of absolute and permanent value. In 1874, the Messrs. Rivington published a small volume of Selections from the Poetical Works of William

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. XI Wordsworth, edited with notes by Hawes Turner. There are only thirty poems in this selection, and it was prepared for the use of schools. It follows Wordsworth's own plan of arrangement, without any reference, however, to his classification. To thirteen of them Mr. Turner has given titles of his own, a somewhat hazardous experi ment, and, in one case at least, unhappy as well as inaccurate, when Stone Arthur is called "Wordsworth Peak." A second edition of this little book was published in 1S81. In 1879, Mr. Arnold's Selection, already referred to, was issued by the Messrs. Macmillan. In 1883, Mr. Gardner of Paisley published a volume of Selections from Wordsworth, edited by J. S. Fletcher, with an introductory Memoir. (The latter cannot be commended, as the Selection can.) One hundred and five of the best poems are brought together, in the order of the poet's own arrangement, without allusion to his classification.

It is done with care and success, and is praiseworthy. In 1885, a small volume entitled The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, was edited by Mr. A. J. Syming ton, and issued by Walter Scott. It is a selection of 134 of the poems, and it would have been better to have been called a Selection. In this book, as in Mr. Turner's, we find new titles given to the poems, a practice which must be condemned. One is called " University Life," another " Moral Truth," another " Life under the British Constitution," another "Loyalty to State and Church," another " Happy Cottage Homes." No student of Words worth need be told that these are not his titles, but " the general reader " should be told that he was incapable of

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. XII giving such titles. Yet they are printed alongside of others which are Wordsworth's own, with no indication of when the poet and when his editor is speaking. The Selection is, however, made by a genuine lover of the poet, and with discrimination. A few short extracts from the letters of one or two members of the Society who have assisted in this Volume may add to its interest. Mr. Browning wrote in August, 1885 : "I will, as you desire, attempt to pick out the twenty poems which strike me — and so as almost to take away my breath ! — as those worthiest of the Master." (Mr. Browning's reference to Wordsworth in The Lost Leader, and his letter to Mr. Grosart on the subject of that poem, are well known.) In November of the same year he wrote ; " The edition I shall use is that belonging to my wife, pencil marked throughout, in which circumstance there may lie some help to me."

In February, 1886, he wrote : " We remember few more commonplace admonitions to a poet than that he would wiselier have written but a quarter of the works which he has laboured at for a life time, unless it be this other, often coupled with it, that such works ought to be addressed to the general apprehension, not exclusively suited to the requirements of a (probably quite imaginary) few. Each precept contra dicts the other. Write on set purpose for the many, and you will soon enough be reminded of the old ' Tot homines ! ' Write as conscientiously for the few, your idealised ' double ' (it comes to that), and you may soon suit him with the extremely little that suits yourself. Now, in view of which of these objects should the maker of a Selection of the works of any poet worth the pains

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. XIII begin his employment? I have myself attempted the business, and know something of the achievements in this kind of my betters. They furnish a list of the pieces which these selectors have found most delight in : and I found also that others, playing the selector with apparently as good a right and reason, are dissatisfied with this unaccountable addition, that as inexplicable omission, — in short, that the sole selector was not him self. The only case in which no such stumbling-block occurs is that obvious one — if it has ever occurred — when a Public wholly unacquainted with an author is presumed to be accessible to a specimen of his altogether untried productions — for, by chance-medley the sample of the poetry of Brown and Jones may pierce the igno rance of somebody, say of Robinson.

It is quite another matter of interest to know what Matthew Arnold thinks most worthy in Wordsworth : but should anybody have curiosity to inquire which fifteen or twenty of his poems have most thoroughly impressed such an one as myself, all I can affirm is that I treasure as precious every poem written during about the first twenty years of the poet's life.1 After then the selection grows weaker, the crystals gleam more rarely, and the assiduous stirring up of the mixture is too apparent and obtrusive. To the end, crystals are to be come at; but my own ex perience resembles that of the old man, in the admirable Resolution and Independence — ' Once I could meet with them on every side, But they have dwindled long by slow decay — ■ Yet still I persevere, and find them where I may.' " 1 Doubtless his poetic life. — Ed.

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. Last year I sent a copy of the poems selected for this edition to Mr. Browning. He went over it, and expressed his approval of all that were proposed to be included, but added the following fifteen : — The Reverie of Poor Susan, Goody Blake, The Complaint of the Forsaken Indian Woman, The Danish Boy, Lucy Gray, The Pet Lamb, 'Tis said that some have died for Lave, The Childless father, Rob Roy's Grave, The Partner of Tilsbury Vale, The Power of Music, Star-gazers, Dion, The Eclipse of the Sun, and The Jewish Family. In reference to the last of these poems, — which belongs to the years which Lord Selborne has edited, — the latter writes : " I have hesitated about the Jewish Family, but I do not quite like ' that exquisite St. John,' or the last line of ' proud Jerusalem,' otherwise, I should have included it."

Mr. Russell Lowell writes : " The other day going into the country for a longer visit than usual, I took your list with me " (it was the whole list in this volume), " and studied it with attention. Assuming that such a selection should have two objects mainly in view, the choice of characteristic poems, and of fine ones, the former in subordination to the latter, I am of opinion that the list is altogether satisfactory." Those who have helped in the volume, whether by advice and suggestion, or the actual writing of notes, are the following. I arrange them alphabetically. Mr. Browning, Mr. Stopford Brooke, Lord Coleridge, Mr. Cotterill, Mr. Aubrey de Vere, Professor Dowden, Prin cipal Greenwood, Mr. Richard H. Hutton, Mr. Heard, the late Lord Houghton, Mr. Russell Lowell, Professor Nichol, Mr. Rawnsley, Mr. Rix, The Dean of Salisbury,

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. XV Lord Selborne, the late Principal Shairp, Professor Veitch, Mr. Spence Watson, and Bishop Wordsworth of St. Andrews. The time has surely come when a Selection from the poems of Wordsworth might be used as a class-book in the secondary schools of the country. For this pur pose the first book of The Excursion has been edited with notes, by Mr. H. Turner, in the " English School Classics " series, published by the Messrs. Rivington ; and Canon Robinson of York had edited the same book with notes. For the same purpose The Prelude will soon be published in America, and The White Doe of Rylstone in England. Mr. Arnold's volume of Selec tions is equally suited for private reading, and for school purposes. This one may, in course of time, fulfil a similar function. The portrait prefixed to the Poems is from the first of the four miniatures taken by the late Miss Margaret Gillies, which is now in the possession of Sir Henry Doulton.

Sir Henry has very kindly had it engraved for use in this volume. WILLIAM KNIGHT. St. Andrews, September, 1888. CONTENTS. 1786. tr PAGE Extract from the Conclusion of a Poem, composed in Anticipation of leaving School ........ i Written in very Early Youth I Lines left upon a Seat in a Yew-tree 2 I789. Remembrance of Collins, composed upon the Thames near Richmond .......... 1797. The Reverie of Poor Susan 5 1798. A Night-Piece 5 We are Seven 6 The Thorn 8 " Her eyes are wild " ......... 16 The Complaint of a Forsaken Indian Woman . . . .19 The Last of the Flock 22 Simon Lee, the Old Huntsman 25 The Old Cumberland Beggar 28 Animal Tranquillity and Decay 33 From the Prologue to Peter Bell 34 Lines written in Early Spring ....... 36 To my Sister 36 Expostulation and Reply 39 The Tables Turned 40 Lines, composed a few Miles above Tintern Abbey . . 41 b CONTENTS.

XVIII 1799. PAGE The Simplon Pass 45 Influence of Natural Objects 46 " There was a Boy " ......... 48 Nutting 49 " Strange fits of passion have I known " 50 " Three years she grew in sun and shower " .... 51 " She dwelt among the untrodden ways " 53 " I travelled among unknown men " 53 " A slumber did my spirit seal " 54 A Poet's Epitaph 54 Matthew 56 The Fountain .......... 57 The two April Mornings 59 Address to the Scholars of the Village School of 61 1800. ' ' On Nature's invitation do I come " 63 " Bleak season was it, turbulent and wild" 64 Hart-Leap Well 65 " It was an April morning : fresh and clear " .... 71 To Joanna 72 Michael 75 The Idle Shepherd-Boys ; or, Dungeon-Ghyll Force ... 88 " When, to the attractions of the busy world " . . 90 " 'Tis said, that some have died for love" 93 I80I. The Sparrow's Nest 95 1802.

Beggars 96 To a Butterfly 97 To the Cuckoo 98 " My heart leaps up " 99 The Glow-Worm 99 Written in March, while resting on the Bridge at the Foot of Brother's Water _ _ 100 The Redbreast chasing the Butterfly CONTENTS. XIX PAGE To a Butterfly 102 To the Small Celandine ........ 102 To the Same Flower 104 The Leech-Gatherer ; or, Resolution and Independence . . 106 Stanzas written in my Pocket-Copy of Thomson's Castle of Indolence in A Farewell ........... 113 " The sun has long been set " 115 Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 . . 116 " It is a beauteous evening, calm and free " .... 116 On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic .... 117 To Toussaint l'Ouverture . . . . . . . .117 Written in London, September 1S02 118 London, 1802 .......... 118 " It is not to be thought of that the Flood " . . . . n3 " When I have borne in memory what has tamed " . . .119 To H. C 119 To the Daisy 120 To the Same Flower ......... *23 To the Daisy 124 l803.

The Green Linnet 125 Yew-Trees 127 At the Grave of Burns 128 Thoughts suggested the Day following, on the Banks of Nith, near the Poet's Residence 130 To a Highland Girl 132 Glen-Almain ; or, The Narrow Glen 135 Stepping Westward 130 The Solitary Reaper 137 Address to Kilchurn Castle, upon Loch Awe .... 138 Yarrow Unvisited 139 Anticipation. October 1803 141 18O4. " She was a Phantom of delight " 142 The Daffodils ; or, " I wandered lonely as a cloud " . . . 143 The Affliction of Margaret 144 Address to my Infant Daughter, Dora 145 The Small Celandine CONTENTS. XX 1805. PAGE Ode to Duty 149 To a Sky-Lark 151 Fidelity 152 To the Daisy 154 Elegiac Stanzas, suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle, in a Storm 156 Elegiac Verses, in Memory of my Brother, John Wordsworth . 158 To a Young Lady 160 1806.

Character of the Happy Warrior 161 The Horn of Egremont Castle . 164 A Complaint 167 " Yes, it was the mountain Echo " 167 " Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room " . . . .168 Personal Talk 169 " Beloved Vale !" . 170 Composed by the side of Grasmere Lake 171 "Where lies the Land to which yon Ship must go?" . . .171 " The world is too much with us ; late and soon " . . .172 To Sleep 172 To Sleep 173 To Sleep 173 Lines composed at Grasmere, during a Walk one Evening, after a Stormy Day 174 Ode, Intimations of Immortality 175 1807. Thought of a Briton on the Subjugation of Switzerland . . 181 To Thomas Clarkson, on the final Passing of the Bill for the Abolition of the Slave-Trade 181 Gipsies 182 " O Nightingale ! thou surely art " 183 To Lady Beaumont 183 Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle 184 From the White Doe of Rylstone 189 The Force of Prayer ; or, The Founding of Bolton Priory . .

CONTENTS. XXI 1810. PAGE " Even as a dragon's eye that feels the stress " 202 1S11. Characteristics of a Child Three Years Old 203 1814. Laodamia 204 Yarrow Visited 209 l8lS. To B. R. Haydon 212 " How clear, how keen, how marvellously bright " . . . 212 " Surprised by joy — impatient as the Wind " .... 213 l8l6. To , on her first Ascent to the Summit of Helvellyn . . 213 1817. Ode to Lycoris 214 The Longest Day 216 The Pass of Kirkstone 218 I8l8. Inscriptions supposed to be found in and near a Hermit's Cell . 221 " Hast thou seen, with flash incessant " 223 Near the Spring of the Hermitage 223 Composed upon an Evening of Extraordinary Splendour and Beauty 224 1819. To the River Derwent 226 September 1819 CONTENTS. XXII 1820. PAGE Composed in one of the Catholic Cantons 229 The Eclipse of the Sun, 1820 229 Echo, upon the Gemmi ........ 232 The River Duddon 233 " The Minstrels played their Christmas tune " . . .233 " Child of the clouds ! remote from every taint " . . . 234 " Take, cradled Nursling of the mountain, take " . . . 234 "Sole listener, Duddon ! to the breeze that played " . . 235 " The struggling Rill insensibly is grown " .... 235 " O Mountain Stream ! the Shepherd and his Cot " . . 236 " Sacred Religion ! ' mother of form and fear ' " . . . 236 " My frame hath often trembled with delight " . . . 237 " The old inventive Poets, had they seen " .... 237 " Return, Content ! for fondly I pursued " .... 238 " I rose while yet the cattle, heat-opprest " .... 238 " Not hurled precipitous from steep to steep " . . .239 ' ' But here no cannon thunders to the gale " . . . . 239 "I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide " . . . 239 1821.

From the " Ecclesiastical Sonnets" — Persuasion .......... 240 Canute ........... 24r Waldenses 241 Walton's Book of Lives 242 " Down a swift Stream, thus far, a bold design " . . . 242 Mutability 243 Old Abbeys 243 Inside of King's College Chapel, Cambridge . . . 244 Continued 244 1823. Memory 245 1824. " Let other bards of angels sing " 246 " O dearer far than light and life are dear " 246 " How rich that forehead's calm expanse ! " 247 Written in a Blank Leaf of Macpherson's Ossian . . .248 CONTENTS. XXIII 1825. PAGE To a Sky-Lark .... 250 1826. " Ere with cold beads of midnight dew " 251 To May 251 1827. " Scorn not the Sonnet ; Critic, you have frowned " . . . 254 To , in her Seventieth Year ....... 255 "If thou indeed derive thy light from Heaven " . . . .255 1828. A Jewish Family .......... 256 Incident at Bruges 258 On the Power of Sound 259 The Triad ........... 266 The Wishing-Gate 272 The Wishing-Gate Destroyed ....... 274 1831* The Primrose of the Rock 276 Yarrow Revisited 278 The Trossachs . ......... 282 Eagles, composed at Dunollie Castle in the Bay of Oban . . 282 On the Departure of Sir Walter Scott from Abbotsford, for Naples 283 I333* " If this great world of joy and pain" 283 In Sight of the Town of Cockermouth 284 CaveofStaffa 284 Cave of Staffa, after the Crowd had Departed .... 285 " Most sweet it is with unuplifted eyes " ..... 285 By the Sea-side 286 The Labourer's Noon-day Hymn ...... 287 " Soft as a cloud is yon blue Ridge " 287 By the Side of Rydal Mere 288 To a Child CONTENTS.

I«35- PAGE Written after the Death of Charles Lamb 290 Extempore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg . . .294 I84I. To a Painter 296 On the Same Subject 296 1842. Airey-Force Valley 297 " A Poet ! — He hath put his heart to school " . . . . 297 To the Clouds 298 1845. ' ' Forth from a jutting ridge, around whose base " . . .301 " What heavenly smiles 1 O Lady mine" 302 " Glad sight wherever new with old " 302 ' ' So fair, so sweet, withal so sensitive " 302 I846. " The unremitting voice of nightly streams " .... 1786. EXTRACT FROM THE CONCLUSION OF A POF.M, COMPOSED IN ANTIC1PAT10N OF LEAVING SCHOOL. Composed 1786. Published 1815. Dear native regions, I foretell, From what I feel at this farewell, That, wheresoe'er my steps may tend, And whensoe'er my course shall end, If in that hour a single tie Survive of local sympathy, My soul will cast the backward view, The longing look alone on you.

Thus, while the Sun sinks down to rest Far in the regions of the west, Though to the vale no parting beam Be given, not one memorial gleam, A lingering light he fondly throws On the dear hills where first he rose. WRITTEN IN VERY EARLY YOUTH. Composed 17S6 (probably). Published 1807. Calm is all nature as a resting wheel. The kine are couched upon the dewy grass ; The horse alone, seen dimly as I pass, Is cropping audibly his later meal : It, A Dark is the ground ; a slumber seems to steal O'er vale, and mountain, and the starless sky. Now, in this blank of things, a harmony, Home-felt, and home-created, comes to heal That grief for which the senses still supply Fresh food ; for only then, when memory Is hushed, am I at rest. My Friends ! restrain Those busy cares that would allay my pain ; Oh ! leave me to myself, nor let me feel The officious touch that makes me droop again.

LINES LEFT UPON A SEAT IN A YEW-TREE, (!) WHICH STANDS NEAR THE LAKE OF ESTHWAITE, ON A DESOLATE PART OF THE SHORE, COMMANDING A BEAUTIFUL PROSPECT. Composed 1786-1795. Published 1798. Nay, Traveller ! rest. This lonely Yew-tree stands Far from all human dwelling : what if here No sparkling rivulet spread the verdant herb ? What if the bee love not these barren boughs ? Yet, if the wind breathe soft, the curling waves, That break against the shore, shall lull thy mind By one soft impulse saved from vacancy. Who he was That piled these stones, and with the mossy sod First covered, and here taught this aged Tree With its dark arms to form a circling bower, I well remember. — He was one who owned No common soul. In youth by science nursed, And led by nature into a wild scene Of lofty hopes, he to the world went forth A favoured Being, knowing no desire Which genius did not hallow ; 'gainst the taint Of dissolute tongues, and jealousy, and hate, And scorn,— against all enemies prepared, All but neglect.