ONE THOUSAND FAMOUS THINGS 178
Which neither iistlessness, nor mad endeavour,
Nor Man nor Boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy !
Hence in a season of calm weather.
Though inland far we be,
Our souk have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.
Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song !
And let the young Lambs bound
As to the tabor's sound I
And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,
Forebode not any severing of our loves !
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquished one delight
To live beneath your more habitual sway.
I love the Brooks which down their channels fret,
Even more than when I tripped lightly as they |
The innocent brightness of a new-born Day
Is lovely yet;
The Clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality,
Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joyss and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
From Wordsworth's Ode to Immortality
The Most Magnificent Faces Since The Golden Age
LET those who are disposed to follow the present evil fashion of
disparaging the great Victorians make a collection of their
heads in photographs or engravings and compare them with those
of their own little favourites. Let them set up in a row good portraits
of Tennyson, Charles Darwin, Gladstone, Manning, Newman,
Martineau, Lord Lawrence, Burne-Jones, and, if they like, a dozen
lesser luminaries, and ask themselves candidly whether men of this
stature are any longer among us.
I will not speculate on the causes which, from time to time,
throw up a large number of great men in a single generation. I will
only ask you to agree with me that since the Golden Age of Greece
no age can boast so many magnificent types of the human counten-
ance as the reign of Queen Victoria* W. R. Inge