There's a peculiar sense of the fitting that in mid-April we're in a period between the anniversary dates of the birth and the death of William Wordsworth, whose long life -- he was the first of England's great Romantic poets to be born, and the last to die -- began at Cockermouth near the Lake District in Cumbria on 7 April 1770, in a Georgian home now called Wordsworth House. The eminent man died of pleurisy at a great age on the Feast of St. George, 23 April, in 1850 and is buried in the churchyard of the Church of St. Oswald at Grasmere.



I've posted the words of a great many hymns here, and, among the immense output of his mind and pen, Wordsworth wrote a hymn that's widely known, The Laborer's Noon-Day Hymn, which includes the following fine lines:



Blest are the moments, doubly blest,

That, drawn from this one hour of rest,

Are with a ready heart bestowed

Upon the service of our God!



But here is one of the sonnets of the great poet, on a theme with which we're still wrestling.



UPON THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH



IN SERIES, 1839



VII



BEFORE the world had past her time of youth

While polity and discipline were weak,

The precept eye for eye, and tooth for tooth,

Came forth--a light, though but as of daybreak,

Strong as could then be borne. A Master meek

Proscribed the spirit fostered by that rule,

Patience 'his' law, long-suffering 'his' school,

And love the end, which all through peace must seek.

But lamentably do they err who strain

His mandates, given rash impulse to control

And keep vindictive thirstings from the soul,

So far that, if consistent in their scheme,

They must forbid the State to inflict a pain,

Making of social order a mere dream.