GUNPOWDER PLOT

To heap disgust upon the worthier Cause:
Totters the Throne;1 the new-born Church is sad
For every wave against her peace unites.

XLII

GUNPOWDER PLOT†

FEAR hath a hundred eyes that all agree

To plague her beating heart; and there is one
(Nor idlest that!) which holds communion
With things that were not, yet were meant to be.
Aghast within its gloomy cavity

That eye (which sees as if fulfilled and done
Crimes that might stop the motion of the sun)
Beholds the horrible catastrophe

Of an assembled Senate unredeemed

From subterraneous Treason's darkling power:
Merciless act of sorrow infinite!

Worse than the product of that dismal night,
When gushing, copious as a thunder-shower,

The blood of Huguenots through Paris streamed. ‡

69

1822.

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pretended to be a Puritan minister; and, in his devotions, assumed the airs of madness. See in Strype's The Life and Acts of Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, vol. i. chaps. xiii. and xvi.-ED.

* See the note to the previous sonnet, No. XL.-ED.

Originated by Robert Catesby, the intention being to destroy King, Lords, and Commons, by an explosion at Westminster, when James I. went in person to open Parliament on the 5th November 1605.-ED.

The massacre of St. Bartholomew, which occurred on August 24, 1572. -ED.

XLIII

ILLUSTRATION

THE JUNG-FRAU AND THE FALL OF THE RHINE NEAR SCHAFFHAUSEN

THE Virgin Mountain,* wearing like a Queen

A brilliant crown of everlasting snow,

Sheds ruin from her sides; and men below
Wonder that aught of aspect so serene
Can link with desolation. Smooth and green,
And seeming, at a little distance, slow,
The waters of the Rhine; but on they go
Fretting and whitening, keener and more keen;
Till madness seizes on the whole wide Flood,
Turned to a fearful Thing whose nostrils breathe
Blasts of tempestuous smoke-wherewith he tries
To hide himself, but only magnifies ;

And doth in more conspicuous torment writhe,
Deafening the region in his ireful mood.†

*The Jung-frau.-W. W. 1822.

ΤΟ

This Sonnet was included among the "Memorials of a Tour on the Continent" (1822), and the following note was added: "This Sonnet belongs to another publication, but from its fitness for this place is inserted here also. 'Voilà un énfer d'eau,' cried out a German Friend of Ramond, falling on his knees on the scaffold in front of this Waterfall. See Ramond's Translation of Coxe."-W. W.

The following extracts from Mrs. Wordsworth's Journal of the Continental Tour in 1820 illustrate it. "Aug. 9.-I am seated before Jungfrau, in the green vale of Interlaken, 'green to the very door,' with rich shade of walnut trees, the river behind the house. . .. Mountains and that majestic Virgin closing up all. . . . By looking across into a nook at the entrance of the Vale of Lauterbrunnen, Jung-frau presses forward and seems to preside over and give a character to the whole of the vale that belongs only to this one spot." . . . "Aug. 10th.-.. Reached Grindelwald, by the pass close to Jung-frau (at least separated from it by a deep cleft only), which sent forth its avalanches,-one grand beyond all description. It was an awful and a solemn sound.' Aug. 1st.-. Nothing could exceed my delight when, through an opening between buildings at the skirts of the town, we unexpectedly hailed our old and side-byside companion, the Rhine, now roaring like a lion, along his rocky channel. Never beheld so soft, so lovely a green, as is here given to the waters of this lordly river; and then, how they glittered and heaved to meet the sunshine."-ED.

LAUD

71

XLIV

TROUBLES OF CHARLES THE FIRST

EVEN such the contrast that, where'er we move,1
To the mind's eye * Religion doth present;
Now with her own deep quietness content;
Then, like the mountain, thundering from above
Against the ancient pine-trees of the grove
And the Land's humblest comforts.
Recals the transformation of the flood,
Whose rage the gentle skies in vain reprove,
Earth cannot check.

Of headstrong will!

Now her mood

O terrible excess

Can this be Piety?

No some fierce Maniac hath usurped her name;
And scourges England struggling to be free:
Her peace destroyed! her hopes a wilderness !
Her blessings cursed-her glory turned to shame!

1

XLV

LAUD †

PREJUDGED by foes determined not to spare,2
An old weak Man for vengeance thrown aside,

1832.

Such contrast, in whatever track we move,
Such is the contrast, which, where'er we move,

1822.

1827.

2 1827.

Pursued by Hate, debarred from friendly care;

1822.

5

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* Compare Hamlet, act 1. scene i. l. 112.-ED.
See the Fenwick note preceding the Series.-ED.

In this age a word cannot be said in praise of Laud, or even in compassion for his fate, without incurring a charge of bigotry; but fearless of such imputation, I concur with Hume, "that it is sufficient for his vindication to

Laud,1 “in the painful art of dying" tried,

(Like a poor bird entangled in a snare

Whose heart still flutters, though his wings forbear 5
To stir in useless struggle) hath relied

On hope that conscious innocence supplied,2
And in his prison breathes 3 celestial air.

Why tarries then thy chariot?* Wherefore stay,
O Death the ensanguined yet triumphant wheels, 10
Which thou prepar'st, full often, to convey

(What time a State with madding faction reels)
The Saint or Patriot to the world that heals
All wounds, all perturbations doth allay ?

XLVI

AFFLICTIONS OF ENGLAND

HARP! could'st thou venture, on thy boldest string, The faintest note to echo which the blast

observe that his errors were the most excusable of all those which prevailed during that zealous period." A key to the right understanding of those parts of his conduct that brought the most odium upon him in his own time, may be found in the following passage of his speech before the bar of the House of Peers:-"Ever since I came in place, I have laboured nothing more than that the external publick worship of God, so much slighted in divers parts of this kingdom, might be preserved, and that with as much decency and uniformity as might be. For I evidently saw that the public neglect of God's service in the outward face of it, and the nasty lying of many places dedicated to that service, had almost cast a damp upon the true and inward worship of God, which while we live in the body, needs external helps, and all little enough to keep it in any vigour."-W. W. 1827. *In his address, before his execution, Archbishop Laud said, "I am not in love with this passage through the Red Sea, and I have prayed ut transiret calix iste, but if not, God's will be done."-ED.

ECCLESIASTICAL SONNETS

Caught from the hand of Moses as it pass'd
O'er Sinai's top, or from the Shepherd-king,
Early awake, by Siloa's brook, to sing

Of dread Jehovah; then, should wood and waste
Hear also of that name, and mercy cast
Off to the mountains, like a covering

Of which the Lord was weary. Weep, oh! weep,
Weep with the good,1 beholding King and Priest
Despised by that stern God to whom they raise
Their suppliant hands; but holy is the feast
He keepeth; like the firmament his ways:
His statutes like the chambers of the deep.*

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PART III

FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE

PRESENT TIMES

[WHEN I came to this part of the series I had the dream described in this Sonnet. The figure was that of my daughter, and the whole passed exactly as here represented. The Sonnet was composed on the middle road leading from Grasmere to Ambleside it was begun as I left the last house of the vale, and finished, word for word as it now stands, before I came in view of Rydal. I wish I could say the same of the five or six hundred I have written: most of them were frequently retouched in the course of composition, and, not a few, laboriously.

I have only further to observe that the intended Church which prompted these Sonnets was erected on Coleorton Moor towards the centre of a very populous parish between three and four miles from Ashby-de-la-Zouch, on the road to Loughborough, and has proved, I believe, a great benefit to the neighbourhood.——I. F.]

1 1827.

As good men wept,

* See Psalm xxxvi. 5, 6.-ED.

1822.

The first of Part III. p. 74.-ED.