Back towards caverned life’s first rude career.
Avaunt this vile abuse of pictured page!
Must eyes be all in all, the tongue and ear
Nothing? Heaven keep us from a lower stage!
[306] The Illustrated London News—the pioneer of illustrated newspapers—was first issued on 14th May 1842. The painter and artist may differ from the poet, in the judgment here pronounced; but had Wordsworth known the degradation to which many newspapers would sink in this direction, his censure would have been more severe.—Ed.
SONNET
To an Octogenarian
Composed 1846.—Published 1850
Affections lose their object; Time brings forth
No successors; and, lodged in memory,
If love exist no longer, it must die,—