Poem by William Wordsworth

To the Supreme Being from the Italian of Michael Angelo

THE prayers I make will then be sweet indeed
If Thou the spirit give by which I pray:
My unassisted heart is barren clay,
That of its native self can nothing feed:
Of good and pious works thou art the seed,
That quickens only where thou say'st it may:
Unless Thou show to us thine own true way
No man can find it: Father! Thou must lead.
Do Thou, then, breathe those thoughts into my mind
By which such virtue may in me be bred
That in thy holy footsteps I may tread;
The fetters of my tongue do Thou unbind,
That I may have the power to sing of thee,
And sound thy praises everlastingly. 

1. Processions
2. Monastery of Old Bangor
3. On Revisiting Dunolly Castle
4. For the Spot Where the Hermitage Stood on St. Herbert’s Island, Derwent Water
5. Roman Antiquities

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