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

A POET TO HIS GRAND-CHILD(SEQUEL TO THE FOREGOING)[407]

Published 1838

"Son of my buried Son, while thus thy hand

Is clasping mine, it saddens me to think

How Want may press thee down, and with thee sink

Thy Children left unfit, through vain demand

Of culture, even to feel or understand

My simplest Lay that to their memory

May cling;--hard fate! which haply need not be

Did Justice mould the Statutes of the Land.

A Book time-cherished and an honoured name

Are high rewards; but bound they Nature's claim

Or Reason's? No--hopes spun in timid line

From out the bosom of a modest home

Extend through unambitious years to come,

My careless Little-one, for thee and thine!"[408][409]

[407] "The foregoing" was the Sonnet named A Plea for Authors, May 1838.--ED.

[408] 1836.

Son of my buried Son, whose tiny hand

Thus clings to mine, it {saddens} me to think
                                              {troubles}

That thou pressed down by poverty mayst sink

Even till thy children shall in vain demand

{Culture and neither feel nor} understand

{Culture required to feel and}

{My simplest lay that to their memory}

{My least recondite lay, which memory}

{Perchance may cleave}; hard fate, which need not be

{May keep in trust }

Did justice mould the statutes of the land.

{A book time-cherished} and an honoured name

{A cherished volume }

Are high rewards, but bound not {Reason's} claim.

                                                                   {Nature's}

No--hopes {in fond hereditary line }

                      {and wishes in a living line}

Spun from the bosom of a modest home

Extend thro' unambitious years to come,

My careless Little-one, for thee and thine!

MS.

[409] The author of an animated article, printed in the Law Magazine,in favour of the principle of Serjeant Talfourd's Copyright Bill, precedes me in the public expression of this feeling; which had been forced too often upon my own mind, by remembering how few descendants of men eminent in literature are even known to exist.--W.W. 1838.

This sonnet was not addressed to any grandson of the Poet's.--ED.