Whatever the well-fought fight may have been, rest
is the same for all.
Retirement then might hourly look
Upon a soothing scene;
Age steal to his allotted nook
Contented and serene;
With heart as calm as lakes that sleep,
In frosty moonlight glistening,
Or mountain torrents, where they creep
Along a channel smooth and deep,
To their own far-off murmurs listening.
What touch has given to these lines their impress of an unfathomable
peace? For there speaks from them a tranquillity which seems to
overcome our souls; which makes us feel in the midst of toil and
passion that we are disquieting ourselves in vain; that we are
travelling to a region where these things shall not be; that
"so shall immoderate fear leave us, and inordinate love shall die."
Wordsworth's last days were absolutely tranquil. A cold caught on a
Sunday afternoon walk brought on a pleurisy. He lay for some weeks
in a state of passive weakness; and at last Mrs. Wordsworth said to
him, "William, you are going to Dora." "He made no reply at the time,
and the words seem to have passed unheeded; indeed, it was not
certain that they had been even heard. More than twenty-four hours
afterwards one of his nieces came into his room, and was drawing
aside the curtain of his chamber, and then, as if awakening from a
quiet sleep, he said, 'Is that Dora?'"
On Tuesday, April 23, 1850, as his favourite cuckoo-clock struck the
hour of noon, his spirit passed away.
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