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

ILLUSTRATED BOOKS AND NEWSPAPERS

Composed 1846.--Published 1850

One of the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection."--ED.

Discourse was deemed Man's noblest attribute,

And written words the glory of his hand;

Then followed Printing with enlarged command

For thought--dominion vast and absolute

For spreading truth, and making love expand.

Now prose and verse sunk into disrepute

Must lacquey a dumb Art that best can suit

The taste of this once-intellectual Land.

A backward movement surely have we here,[306]

From manhood--back to childhood; for the age--

Back towards caverned life's first rude career.

Avaunt this vile abuse of pictured page!

Must eyes be all in all, the tongue and ear

Nothing? Heaven keep us from a lower stage!

[306] The Illustrated London News--the pioneer of illustrated newspapers--was first issued on 14th May 1842. The painter and artist may differ from the poet, in the judgment here pronounced; but had Wordsworth known the degradation to which many newspapers would sink in this direction, his censure would have been more severe.--ED.