THE VISION OF THE STONE AND THE SHELL. 157

Close at my side, an uncouth shape appeared
Upon a dromedary, mounted high,

He seemed an Arab, of the Bedouin tribes:
A lance he bore, and underneath one arm
A Stone, and in the opposite hand a Shell
Of a surpassing brightness. At the sight
Much I rejoiced, not doubting but a guide
Was present, one who with unerring skill
Would through the desert lead me; and while yet
I looked and looked, self-questioned what this freight
Which the new-comer carried through the waste
the Arab told me that the stone

Could mean,
(To give it in the language of the dream)
Was Euclid's Elements;' and 'This,' said he,
'Is something of more worth;' and at the word
Stretched forth the shell, so beautiful in shape,
In colour so resplendent, with command

That I should hold it to my ear.
I did so,
And heard that instant in an unknown tongue,
Which yet I understood, articulate sounds,

A loud prophetic blast of harmony;

An Ode, in passion uttered, which foretold
Destruction to the children of the earth

By deluge, now at hand. No sooner ceased
The song, than the Arab with calm look declared
That all would come to pass of which the voice
Had given forewarning, and that he himself
Was going then to bury those two books:
The one that held acquaintance with the stars,
And wedded soul to soul in purest bond
Of reason, undisturbed by space or time;
The other that was a god, yea many gods,
Had voices more than all the winds, with power,
To exhilarate the spirit, and to soothe,
Through every clime, the heart of human kind.
While this was uttering, strange as it may seem,

I wondered not, although I plainly saw

P

158

THE STONE AND THE SHELL.

The one to be a Stone, the other a Shell;

Nor doubted once but that they both were Books,
Having a perfect faith in all that passed.
Far stronger, now, grew the desire I felt
To cleave unto this man; but when I prayed
To share his enterprise, he hurried on
Reckless of me: I followed, not unseen,
For oftentimes he cast a backward look,
Grasping his twofold treasures.-Lance in rest,
He rode, I keeping pace with him; and now
He, to my fancy, had become the knight
Whose tale Cervantes tells; yet not the knight,
But was an Arab of the desert too;

Of these was neither, and was both at once.

His countenance, meanwhile, grew more disturbed;
And, looking backwards, when he looked, mine eyes
Saw, over half the wilderness diffused,

A bed of glittering light; I asked the cause:
It is,' said he, the waters of the deep
Gathering upon us;' quickening then the pace
Of the unwieldy creature he bestrode,
He left me: I called after him aloud;
He heeded not; but, with his twofold charge
Still in his grasp, before me, full in view,
Went hurrying over the illimitable waste,
With the fleet waters of a drowning world
In chase of him; whereat I waked in terror,
And saw the sea before me, and the book,
In which I had been reading, at my side."

Wordsworth was

But we must hasten forward. smitten by two great griefs in his life in 1805—he lost his brother, Captain John Wordsworth; he stood high in his brother's esteem and regard. He writes to Sir George Beammat: "My poor sister, and my wife who loved him al, as much as we did (for he was one of

DEATH OF CAPTAIN WORDSWORTH.

159

the most amiable of men) are in miserable affliction, which I do all in my power to alleviate; but heaven knows, I want consolation myself, I can say nothing higher of my ever dear brother, than that he was worthy of his sister who is now weeping beside me, and of the friendship of Coleridge; meek, affectionate, silently enthusiastic, loving all quiet things, and a Poet in every thing but words." Some of the passages from Wordsworth's letters at this time and in connection with this event greatly interest us, they show how capable he was of acute sorrow and suffering; the following is very interesting. "As I have said, your last letter affected me much. A thousand times I have asked myself, why was he taken away? and I have answered the question as you have done. In fact, there is no other answer which can satisfy and lay the mind at rest. Why have we a choice and a will, and a notion of justice and injustice, enabling us to be moral agents? Why have we sympathies that make the best of us so afraid of inflicting pain and sorrow, which yet we see dealt about so lavishly by the supreme governor? Why should our notions of right towards each other and to all sentient beings within our influence differ so widely from what appears to be his notion and rule, if every thing were to end here? Would it not be blasphemy to say that upon the supposition of the thinking principle being destroyed by death, however inferior we may be to the great cause and ruler of things we have more of love in our nature than he has. The thought is monstrous, and yet how to get rid of it, except upon the

160

CAPTAIN WORDSWORTH.

supposition of another and a better world, I do not see. As to my departed brother, who leads our minds at present to these reflections, he walked all his life pure among the impure, except a little hastiness of temper, when any thing was done in a clumsy or bungling manner, or when improperly contradicted upon occasions of not much importance, he had not one vice of his profession. I never heard an oath or even an indelicate expression or allusion, from him in my life; his modesty was equal to that of the purest woman. In prudence, in meekness, in self-denial, in fortitude, in just desires, and elegant and refined enjoyments with an entire simplicity of manners, life, and habit, he was all that could be wished for in man, strong in health, and of a noble person, with every hope about him that could render life dear, thinking and living for others, and we see what has been his end! So good must be better, so high must be destined to be higher."*

Life. vol. i. 293..

CHAPTER VI.

THE LAND OF WORDSWORTH.

art.

(( 'SOLE KING OF ROCKY CUMBERLAND."

"But most of the subjects of Mr. Wordsworth, though not arrayed in any adventitious pomp, have a real and innate grandeur. True it is, that he moves not among the regalities, but among the humanities of his True it is, that his poetry does not make its bed and procreant cradle' in the jutting frieze, cornice, or architrave of the glorious edifices of human power. The universe in its naked majesty, and man in the plain dignity of his nature, are his favorite themes. And is there no might, no glory, no sanctity, in these; Earth has her own venerablenesses, her awful forests, which have darkened her hills for ages with tremendous gloom; her mysterious springs, pouring out everlasting waters from unsearchable recesses, her wrecks of elemental contests; her jagged rocks, monumental of an earlier world. The lowliest of her beauties has an antiquity beyond that of Pyramids. The evening breeze has the old sweetness which it shed over the fields of Canaan, when Isaac went out to meditate. The Nile swells with its rich waters towards the bulrushes of Egypt, as when the infant Moses nestled among them, watched by the sisterly love of Miriam. Zion's hill, has not passed away with its temple, nor lost its sanctity amidst its tumultuous changes around it, not even by the accomplishment of that awful religion of types and symbols, which once was enthroned on its steeps. The sun to which the Poet turns his eye is the same which shone over Thermopyla; and the wind to which he listens swept over Salamis, and scattered the armaments of Xerxes." SIR T. N. TALFOURD.-Lectures on Wordsworth.

FROM what has been said, and from the reader's personal knowledge of these Poems, he will gather that they overflow with allusions to the whole country in which the writer had ever lived. The land of Wordsworth is