[I griev’d for Buonaparte] William Wordsworth

I GRIEVED for Buonaparte, with a vain

And an unthinking grief! The tenderest mood

Of that Man’s mind–what can it be? what food

Fed his first hopes? what knowledge could ‘he’ gain?

‘Tis not in battles that from youth we train

The Governor who must be wise and good,

And temper with the sternness of the brain

Thoughts motherly, and meek as womanhood.

Wisdom doth live with children round her knees:

Books, leisure, perfect freedom, and the talk

Man holds with week-day man in the hourly walk

Of the mind’s business: these are the degrees

By which true Sway doth mount; this is the stalk