THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, VOL. 8 (Completed)

TO THE PENNSYLVANIANS

Composed 1845.--Published 1845

One of the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty and Order."--ED.

Days undefiled by luxury or sloth,

Firm self-denial, manners grave and staid,

Rights equal, laws with cheerfulness obeyed,

Words that require no sanction from an oath,

And simple honesty a common growth--

This high repute, with bounteous Nature's aid,

Won confidence, now ruthlessly betrayed

At will, your power the measure of your troth!--

All who revere the memory of Penn

Grieve for the land on whose wild woods his name[299]

Was fondly grafted with a virtuous aim,

Renounced, abandoned by degenerate Men

For state-dishonour black as ever came

To upper air from Mammon's loathsome den.[300]

[299] To William Penn, son of Admiral Sir W. Penn, a printer and Quaker, Charles II. granted lands in America, to which he gave the name of Pennsylvania.--ED.

[300] Mr. Ellis Yarnall wrote to me, April 27, 1885: "The three last lines of the Sonnet To the Pennsylvanians, in regard to which you inquire, I think refer to what at the time Wordsworth wrote was known as the repudiation by Pennsylvania of her State debt. The language, however, is too strong, in as much as there was no repudiation. For a year or two the interest on the debt was unpaid, then payment was resumed. Members of Wordsworth's family, or his near friends, held, I believe, some of the Pennsylvania bonds. They held also, as appears from the Memoirs, Mississippi bonds, and these were repudiated, or at least five million dollars of a certain class of Mississippi bonds. No such wrong-doing is chargeable to Pennsylvania. I remember the delight with which Professor Reed showed me the note on the fly-leaf at the end of the fifth volume of the edition of 1850--words written at his request, and the last sentences ever composed by the Poet for the press."--ED.