The Project Gutenberg eBook, Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson, by William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson, et al, Edited by Pelham Edgar

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Title: Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson

Author: William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson

Release Date: February 7, 2005 [eBook #14952]

Language: English

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SELECTIONS FROM WORDSWORTH AND TENNYSON***

E-text prepared by Al Haines

SELECTIONS FROM WORDSWORTH AND TENNYSON

Edited, with Introduction and Notes

by

PELHAM EDGAR, Ph.D.

Professor of English, Victoria Coll., Univ. of Toronto

Toronto
The Macmillan Company of Canada, Limited

1917

PREFACE

The poems contained in this volume are those required for Junior
Matriculation, Ontario 1918.

CONTENTS

Wordsworth

  Michael
  To the Daisy
  To the Cuckoo
  Nutting
  Influence of Natural Objects
  To the Rev. Dr. Wordsworth
  Elegiac Stanzas
  "It is Not to be Thought of"
  Written in London, September, 1802
  London, 1802
  "Dark and More Dark the Shades of Evening Fell"
  "Surprised by Joy—Impatient as the Wind"
  "Hail, Twilight, Sovereign of One Peaceful Hour"
  "I Thought of Thee, My Partner and My Guide"
  "Such Age, How Beautiful!"

Tennyson

  Oenone
  The Epic
  Morte d'Arthur
  The Brook
  In Memoriam

Wordsworth

  Biographical Sketch
  Chronological Table
  Appreciations
  References on Life and Works
  Notes

Tennyson

  Biographical Sketch
  Chronological Table
  Appreciations
  References on Life and Works
  Notes

WORDSWORTH

MICHAEL

A PASTORAL POEM

  If from the public way you turn your steps
  Up the tumultuous brook of Green-head Ghyll,
  You will suppose that with an upright path
  Your feet must struggle; in such bold ascent
  The pastoral mountains front you, face to face.
  But, courage! for around that boisterous brook
  The mountains have all opened out themselves,
  And made a hidden valley of their own.
  No habitation can be seen; but they
  Who journey thither find themselves alone 10
  With a few sheep, with rocks and stones, and kites
  That overhead are sailing in the sky.
  It is in truth an utter solitude;
  Nor should I have made mention of this Dell
  But for one object which you might pass by, 15
  Might see and notice not. Beside the brook
  Appears a straggling heap of unhewn stones,
  And to that simple object appertains
  A story,—unenriched with strange events,
  Yet not unfit, I deem, for the fireside, 20
  Or for the summer shade. It was the first
  Of those domestic tales that spake to me
  Of Shepherds, dwellers in the valleys, men
  Whom I already loved:—not verily
  For their own sakes, but for the fields and hills 25
  Where was their occupation and abode.
  And hence this Tale, while I was yet a Boy
  Careless of books, yet having felt the power
  Of Nature, by the gentle agency
  Of natural objects, led me on to feel 30
  For passions that were not my own, and think
  (At random and imperfectly indeed)
  On man, the heart of man, and human life.
  Therefore, although it be a history
  Homely and rude, I will relate the same 35
  For the delight of a few natural hearts;
  And, with yet fonder feeling, for the sake
  Of youthful Poets, who among these hills
  Will be my second self when I am gone.

  Upon the forest-side in Grasmere Vale 40
  There dwelt a Shepherd, Michael was his name;
  An old man, stout of heart, and strong of limb.
  His bodily frame had been from youth to age
  Of an unusual strength: his mind was keen,
  Intense, and frugal, apt for all affairs, 45
  And in his shepherd's calling he was prompt
  And watchful more than ordinary men.
  Hence had he learned the meaning of all winds,
  Of blasts of every tone; and oftentimes,
  When others heeded not, he heard the South 50
  Make subterraneous music, like the noise
  Of bagpipers on distant Highland hills.
  The Shepherd, at such warning, of his flock
  Bethought him, and he to himself would say,
  "The winds are now devising work for me!" 55
  And, truly, at all times, the storm, that drives
  The traveller to a shelter, summoned him
  Up to the mountains: he had been alone
  Amid the heart of many thousand mists,
  That came to him, and left him, on the heights. 60
  So lived he till his eightieth year was past.
  And grossly that man errs, who should suppose
  That the green valleys, and the streams and rocks,
  Were things indifferent to the Shepherd's thoughts.
  Fields, where with cheerful spirits he had breathed 65
  The common air; hills, which with vigorous step
  He had so often climbed; which had impressed
  So many incidents upon his mind
  Of hardship, skill or courage, joy or fear;
  Which, like a book, preserved the memory 70
  Of the dumb animals whom he had saved,
  Had fed or sheltered, linking to such acts
  The certainty of honorable gain;
  Those fields, those hills—what could they less?—had laid
  Strong hold on his affections, were to him 75
  A pleasurable feeling of blind love,
  The pleasure which there is in life itself.

  His days had not been passed in singleness.
  His Helpmate was a comely matron, old—
  Though younger than himself full twenty years. 80
  She was a woman of a stirring life,
  Whose heart was in her house: two wheels she had
  Of antique form; this large, for spinning wool;
  That small, for flax; and if one wheel had rest,
  It was because the other was at work. 85
  The Pair had but one inmate in their house,
  An only Child, who had been born to them
  When Michael, telling o'er his years, began
  To deem that he was old,—in shepherd's phrase,
  With one foot in the grave. This only Son, 90
  With two brave sheep-dogs tried in many a storm,
  The one of an inestimable worth,