 | Three Hundred Sonnets |  |
162
WORDSWORTH.
We will not sorrow for the glorious dead,—Death is The Life to glory's hallow'd sons!
Above this body, in its prison-bed,
Soar the free spirits of those blessed ones,
Waiting in hope, on heavenly manna fed:
To such rich feast in beauteous raiment led,
Why should we wail for him, as those who wept
Some Lycidas or Bion of old time,
Mourning as dead the soul that only slept?
No! rather let the pæan rise sublime
For nature's poet-priest from nature's voice,—
Let sea and sky be glad, and field and fen,
And pastoral vale, and thunder-riven glen,
And dewy Rydal in her bard rejoice!
| Three Hundred Sonnets | |