THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, VOL. 8 (Completed)

"AN ALLUSION TO THE VARIOUS RECENT HISTORIES"

AND NOTICES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION"

Published 1842

One of the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty and Order."--ED.

Portentous change when History can appear

As the cool Advocate of foul device;[226]

Reckless audacity extol, and jeer

At consciences perplexed with scruples nice!

They who bewail not, must abhor, the sneer

Born of Conceit, Power's blind Idolater;

Or haply sprung from vaunting Cowardice

Betrayed by mockery of holy fear.

Hath it not long been said the wrath of Man

Works not the righteousness of God? Oh bend,

Bend, ye Perverse! to judgments from on High,

Laws that lay under Heaven's perpetual ban

All principles of action that transcend

The sacred limits of humanity.

[226] Wordsworth wrote this sonnet against Carlyle's French Revolution in particular. Carlyle knew it, and this may in part--although only in part--account for Carlyle's indifference to Wordsworth.--ED.

CONTINUED

Published 1842

One of the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty and Order."--ED.

Who ponders National events shall find

An awful balancing of loss and gain,

Joy based on sorrow, good with ill combined,

And proud deliverance issuing out of pain

And direful throes; as if the All-ruling Mind,

With whose perfection it consists to ordain

Volcanic burst, earthquake, and hurricane,

Dealt in like sort with feeble human kind

By laws immutable. But woe for him

Who thus deceived shall lend an eager hand

To social havoc. Is not Conscience ours,

And Truth, whose eye guilt only can make dim;

And Will, whose office, by divine command,

Is to control and check disordered Powers?

CONCLUDED

Published 1842

One of the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty and Order."--ED.

Long-favoured England! be not thou misled

By monstrous theories of alien growth,

Lest alien frenzy seize thee, waxing wroth,

Self-smitten till thy garments reek dyed red

With thy own blood, which tears in torrents shed

Fail to wash out, tears flowing ere thy troth

Be plighted, not to ease but sullen sloth,

Or wan despair--the ghost of false hope fled

Into a shameful grave. Among thy youth,

My Country! if such warning be held dear,

Then shall a Veteran's heart be thrilled with joy,

One who would gather from eternal truth,

For time and season, rules that work to cheer--

Not scourge, to save the People--not destroy.