Clapped hands, and shook with glee their matted locks;
All Powers and Places that abhor the light
Joined in the transport, echoed back their shout,
Hurrah for ——, hugging his Ballot-box![406]
[405] This was first published in a note to the sonnet entitled Protest against the Ballot, in the volume of 1838. It was never republished by Wordsworth.
[406] See the note to the previous sonnet. George Grote was the person satirised. “Since that time,” adds Mr. Reed, in a note to his American edition, “Mr. Grote’s political notoriety, as an advocate of the ballot, has been merged in the high reputation he has acquired as probably the most eminent modern historian of ancient Greece”—Ed.
A POET TO HIS GRANDCHILD
(SEQUEL TO THE FOREGOING)[407]
Published 1838
“Son of my buried Son, while thus thy hand