| Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867. | | | | VII. Personal Talk (continued) | | By William Wordsworth (1770–1850) |
| | | “YET life,” you say, “is life; we have seen and see, | |
| And with a living pleasure we describe; | |
| And fits of sprightly malice do but bribe | |
| The languid mind into activity. | |
| Sound sense, and love itself, and mirth and glee | 5 |
| Are fostered by the comment and the gibe.” | |
| Even be it so: yet still among your tribe, | |
| Our daily world’s true worldlings, rank not me! | |
| Children are blest, and powerful; their world lies | |
| More justly balanced; partly at their feet, | 10 |
| And part far from them:—sweetest melodies | |
| Are those that are by distance made more sweet; 1 | |
| Whose mind is but the mind of his own eyes, | |
| He is a slave; the meanest we can meet. | |
| | | Note 1. “In notes by distance made more sweet.”—COLLINS. [back] | | |
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