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Poems

By William Bell Scott

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172

VI.WORDSWORTH. ON READING THE MEMOIRS BY DR. C. WORDSWORTH.

FIRST SONNET.

Too much of “Tours,” productive more or less;
Too much of “Nature,” meaning thereby hills,
Trees, hedges, landscapes rich with woods and rills;
Too little of the dark divine recess
Beneath the white shirt,—nothing of the press
Of our own age so full of glorious cares,
And men that call, new lamps for old! good wares
For potsherds given! in this book I confess.
Yet through it evermore appears in sight
A poet travelling homeward who was still
A poet every day, with common tread
Who walked on common shoes up Life's high hill
Self-center'd, God-directed, till the light
Of this world and the next met round his head.