They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills

And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth.

From How the Water comes down at Lodore

(English Lakes)

ERE it comes sparkling,

HERE

And there it lies darkling,

Here smoking and frothing,

Its tumult and wrath in.

It hastens along conflicting strong;

Now striking and raging,

As if a war waging,

Its caverns and rocks among;

Rising and leaping,

Sinking and creeping,

Swelling and flinging,

Showering and springing,

Eddying and whisking,

Spouting and frisking,

Turning and twisting

Around and around,
Collecting, disjecting,
With endless rebound;
Smiting and fighting,
A sight to delight in,

Godiva

Confounding, astounding,
Dizzying and deafening
The ear with its sound.

Robert Southey.

(Coventry)

I

WAITED for the train at Coventry;

I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge, To watch the three tall spires; and there I shaped The city's ancient legend into this:—

Not only we, the latest seed of Time,
New men, that in the flying of a wheel
Cry down the past, not only we, that prate
Of rights and wrongs, have loved the people well,
And loathed to see them overtax'd; but she
Did more, and underwent, and overcame,
The woman of a thousand summers back,
Godiva, wife to that grim Earl, who ruled
In Coventry: for when he laid a tax

Upon his town, and all the mothers brought
Their children, clamoring, “If we pay, we starve!”
She sought her lord, and found him, where he strode
About the hall, among his dogs, alone,

His beard a foot before him, and his hair
A yard behind. She told him of their tears,
And pray'd him, "If they pay this tax they starve.”
Whereat he stared, replying, half-amazed,
"You would not let your little finger ache

For such as these?" "But I would die," said she.

He laugh'd, and swore by Peter and by Paul:
Then fillip'd at the diamond in her ear;
“O, ay, ay, ay, you talk!"
"Alas!" she said,

"But prove me what it is I would not do."
And from a heart as rough as Esau's hand,
He answer'd, "Ride you naked thro' the town,
And I repeal it; " and nodding, as in scorn,
He parted, with great strides among his dogs.
So left alone, the passions of her mind,
As winds from all the compass shift and blow,
Made war upon each other for an hour,
Till pity won. She sent a herald forth,
And bade him cry, with sound of trumpet, all
The hard condition, but that she would loose
The people; therefore, as they loved her well,
From then till noon no foot should pace the street,
No eye look down, she passing; but that all
Should keep within, door shut, and window barr'd.
Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there
Unclasp'd the wedded eagles of her belt,
The grim Earl's gift; but ever at a breath
She linger'd, looking like a summer moon
Half-dipt in cloud: anon she shook her head,
And shower'd the rippled ringlets to her knee;
Unclad herself in haste; adown the stair
Stole on; and, like a creeping sunbeam, slid
From pillar unto pillar, until she reach'd
The gateway; there she found her palfrey trapt
In purple blazon'd with armorial gold.

Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity. The deep air listen'd round her as she rode, And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear. The little wide-mouth'd heads upon the spout Had cunning eyes to see; the barking cur Made her cheek flame; her palfrey's footfall shot Light horrors thro' her pulses; the blind walls Were full of chinks and holes; and overhead Fantastic gables, crowding, stared; but she Not less thro' all bore up, till, last, she saw The white-flower'd elder-thicket from the field Gleam thro' the Gothic archway in the wall.

Then she rode back, clothed on with chastity. And one low churl, compact of thankless earth, The fatal byword of all years to come,

Boring a little auger-hole in fear,

Peep'd but his eyes, before they had their will,
Were shrivell'd into darkness in his head,
And dropt before him. So the Powers, who wait
On noble deeds, cancell'd a sense misused;

And she, that knew not, pass'd; and all at once
With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless

noon

Was clash'd and hammer'd from a hundred towers,
One after one; but even then she gain'd

Her bower, whence reissuing, robed and crown'd,
To meet her lord, she took the tax away
And built herself an everlasting name.

Alfred Tennyson.

D

Lines written at Warwick

(Warwick)

HAIL! centre-county of our land, and known

For matchless worth and valor all thine

own,

Warwick renowned for him who best could write, Shakespeare the Bard, and him so fierce in fight, Guy, thy brave Earl, who made whole armies fly, And giants fall, who has not heard of Guy?

Him sent his Lady, matchless in her charms,
To gain immortal glory by his arms,
Felice the fair, who, as her bard maintained,
The prize of beauty over Venus gained;
For she, the goddess, had some trivial blot

That marred some beauty, which our nymph had

not:

But this apart,

for in a favorite theme

Poets and lovers are allowed to dream,
Still we believe the lady and her knight

Were matchless both, he in the glorious fight, She in the bower by day, and festive hall by night.

Urged by his love, the adventurous Guy proceeds, And Europe wonders at his warlike deeds; Whatever prince his potent arm sustains, However weak, the certain conquest gains; On every side the routed legions fly, Numbers are nothing in the sight of Guy: