"
Wordsworth, for the times in which he lived, traveled a good
deal, and in his comings and goings he made many new friends and
met all the great literary men of his day. And by slow degrees
his poetry won its way, and the younger men looked up to him as
to a master. The great, too, came to see in him a power. Since
1813 Southey had been Laureate, and when in 1843 he died, the
honor was given to Wordsworth. He was now an old man of seventy-
three, and although he still wrote a few poems, he wrote nothing
as Laureate, except an ode in honor of the Prince Consort when he
became Chancellor of Cambridge University. Now, as he grew old,
one by one death bade his friends to leave him--
"Like clouds that rake the mountain summits,
Or waves that own no curbing hand,
How fast has brother followed brother,
From sunshine to the sunless land!
"Yet I whose lids from infant slumber
Were earlier raised, remain to hear
A timid voice, that asks in whispers
'Who next will drop and disappear?'"*
*Upon the Death of James Hogg.
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