English poem
“Proud Were Ye, Mountains, When, In Times Of Old”
Composed 1844.--Published 1845
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED.
Proud were ye, Mountains, when, in times of old, Your patriot sons, to stem invasive war, Intrenched your brows; ye gloried in each scar: Now, for your shame, a Power, the Thirst of Gold, That rules o’er Britain like a baneful star, Wills that your peace, your beauty, shall be sold, And clear way made for her triumphal car Through the beloved retreats your arms enfold! Heard YE that Whistle? As her long-linked Train Swept onwards, did the vision cross your view? Yes, ye were startled;--and, in balance true, Weighing the mischief with the promised gain, Mountains, and Vales, and Floods, I call on you To share the passion of a just disdain.
The following by Canon Rawnsley--suggested by an attempt to introduce a mineral railway into Borrowdale--may be read in connection with Wordsworth’s two sonnets.--ED.
More by William Wordsworth
- “Oh Bounty Without Measure, While The Grace”
- “Oh What A Wreck! How Changed In Mien And Speech!”
- “Our Bodily Life, Some Plead, That Life The Shrine”
- “Peaceful Our Valley, Fair And Green”
- “Said Red-Ribboned Evans”
- “Said Secrecy To Cowardice And Fraud”
- “See The Condemned Alone Within His Cell”
- “Shall He Who Gives His Days To Low Pursuits”