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Helen Darbishire and Ernest De Selincourt (eds), The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. 4: Evening Voluntaries; Itinerary Poems of 1833; Poems of Sentiment and Reflection; Sonnets Dedicated to Liberty and Order; Miscellaneous Poems; Inscriptions; Selections From Chaucer; Poems Referring to the Period of Old Age; Epitaphs and Elegiac Pieces; Ode-Intimations of Immortality (Second Edition)
Main Text
Editor’s NoteEditor’s NoteXIV
[Composed?.—Published: vol. of 1842.]
- 1Feel for the wrongs to universal ken
- 2Daily exposed, woe that unshrouded lies;
- 3And seek the Sufferer in his darkest den,
- 4Whether conducted to the spot by sighs
- 5And moanings, or he dwells (as if the wren
- 6Taught him concealment) hidden from all eyes
- 7In silence and the awful modesties
- 8Of sorrow;—feel for all, as brother Men!
- Critical Apparatus9Rest not in hope want's icy chain to thaw
- 10By casual boons and formal charities;
- 11Learn to be just, just through impartial law;
- 12Far as ye may, erect and equalise;
- 13And, what ye cannot reach by statute, draw
- 14Each from his fountain of self-sacrifice!
Editor’s Note
p. 134. XIV. Feel for the wrongs to universal ken: "This sonnet is recommended to the perusal of the Anti-Corn Law Leaguers, the Political Economists, and of all those who consider that the Evils under which we groan are to be removed or palliated by measures ungoverned by moral and religious principles."—I. F.
Critical Apparatus
XIV. 9–10 so 1845:
1842
- Feel for the Poor,—but not to still your qualms
- By formal charity or dole of alms;
