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

PROTEST AGAINST THE BALLOT, 1838[404]

Composed 1838.--Published 1838

Forth rushed, from Envy sprung and Self-conceit,

A Power misnamed the SPIRIT OF REFORM,

And through the astonished Island swept in storm,

Threatening to lay all Orders at her feet

That crossed her way. Now stoops she to entreat

Licence to hide at intervals her head,

Where she may work, safe, undisquieted,

In a close Box, covert for Justice meet.

St. George of England! keep a watchful eye

Fixed on the Suitor; frustrate her request--

Stifle her hope; for, if the State comply,

From such Pandorian gift may come a Pest

Worse than the Dragon that bowed low his crest,

Pierced by thy spear in glorious victory.

[404] In his notes to the volume of Collected Sonnets (1838), Wordsworth writes:--"'Protest against the Ballot.' Having in this notice alluded only in general terms to the mischief which, in my opinion, the Ballot would bring along with it, without especially branding its immoral and antisocial tendency (for which no political advantages, were they a thousand times greater than those presumed upon, could be a compensation), I have been impelled to subjoin are probation of it upon that score. In no part of my writings have I mentioned the name of any contemporary, that of Buonaparte only excepted, but for the purpose of eulogy; and therefore, as in the concluding verse of what follows, there is a deviation from this rule(for the blank will be easily filled up) I have excluded the sonnet from the body of the collection, and placed it here as a public record of my detestation, both as a man and a citizen, of the proposed contrivance."


Then follows the sonnet beginning--

Said Secrecy to Cowardice and Fraud.

ED.