INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. xi\ 



The soul and source of music, which makes known 

 Eternal harmony and sheds a charm, 

 Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone, 

 Binding all things with beauty ; 'twould disarm 

 The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm. 



Not vainly did the early Persian make 

 His altar the high places, and the peak 

 Of earth-o'ergazing mountains, and thus take 

 A fit and unwalled temple, thete to seek 

 The spirit, in whose honour shrines are weak, 

 Upreared of human hands. Come and compare 

 Columns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek, 

 With Nature's realms of worship, earth and air, 

 2s or fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy prayer. 



Childe Harold, Canto in. 



To particularize amongst our recent or living 

 poets those who have displayed a deep sense of 

 the beauty and power of Nature, would be to 

 enumerate all who are by any means distin- 

 guished ; but Scott, Southey, Coleridge, Camp- 

 bell, and Rogers, who were amongst the first to 

 call back our poetry from Art to Nature, must 

 not be passed in silence ;— Bloomfield must 

 have his own appropriate niche; the names of 

 Mrs. Hemans and Miss Mitford, amongst our 

 female writers, claim in this, as in other re- 

 spects, the highest honours ; and Wordsworth 

 has so gazed upon Nature, not only with the 

 eyes of love, but of philosophy, he has so com- 

 pletely retired to the perpetual contemplation of 

 her charms, and the communion with her spirit ; 



