mmer
Retreat in the style I have described; as his Taste would have set an
example how buildings, with all the accommodations modern society
requires, might be introduced even into the most secluded parts of this
country without injuring their native character. The design was not
abandoned from failure of inclination on his part, but in consequence of
local untowardnesses which need not be particularised.--W. W. 1842.

UPON THE SIGHT OF A BEAUTIFUL PICTURE,

PAINTED BY SIR G. H. BEAUMONT, BART.

Composed 1811.--Published 1815

[This was written when we dwelt in the Parsonage at Grasmere. The
principal features of the picture are Bredon Hill and Cloud Hill near
Coleorton. I shall never forget the happy feeling with which my heart
was filled when I was impelled to compose this Sonnet. We resided only
two years in this house, and during the last half of the time, which was
after this poem had been written, we lost our two children, Thomas and
Catherine. Our sorrow upon these events often brought it to my mind, and
cast me upon the support to which the last line of it gives expression--

"The appropriate calm of blest eternity."

It is scarcely necessary to add that we still possess the Picture.--I.F.]

Included among the "Miscellaneous Sonnets." In 1815 the title was simply
_Upon the Sight of a Beautiful Picture_.--ED.

Praised be the Art whose subtle power could stay
Yon cloud, and fix it in that glorious shape;
Nor would permit the thin smoke to escape,[A]
Nor those bright sunbeams to forsake the day;
Which stopped that band of travellers on their way, 5
Ere they were lost within the shady wood;
And showed the Bark upon the glassy flood
For ever anchored in her sheltering bay.
Soul-soothing Art! whom[1] Morning, Noon-tide, Even,
Do serve with all their changeful pageantry; 10
Thou, with ambition modest yet sublime,
Here, for the sight of mortal man, hast given
To one brief moment caught from fleeting time
The appropriate calm of blest eternity,[B]

Compare the _Elegiac Stanzas, suggested by a picture of Peele Castle, in
a Storm, painted by Sir George Beaumont_--especially the first three,
and the fifth, sixth, and seventh stanzas. (See vol. iii. p. 54.)

In the letter written to Sir George Beaumont from Bootle, in
1811--partly quoted in the note to the previous poem (p.
268)--Wordsworth says, "A few days after