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Wordsworth, William, 1770-1850: [The Prelude (1850)]
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Volume
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Wordsworth, William, 1770-1850:
- THE PRELUDE,
OR GROWTH OF A POET'S MIND;
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL POEM; [The Prelude (1850)]
- THE PRELUDE,
Wordsworth, William, 1770-1850: THE PRELUDE,
OR
GROWTH OF A POET'S MIND;
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL POEM; [The Prelude (1850)]
OR GROWTH OF A POET'S MIND;
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL POEM; [The Prelude (1850)]
[Page 1 ]
BOOK I.
INTRODUCTION---CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOL-TIME.
[Page 3 ]
1 O there is blessing in this gentle breeze,
2 A visitant that while it fans my cheek
3 Doth seem half-conscious of the joy it brings
4 From the green fields, and from yon azure sky.
5 Whate'er its mission, the soft breeze can come
6 To none more grateful than to me; escaped
7 From the vast city, where I long had pined
8 A discontented sojourner: now free,
9 Free as a bird to settle where I will.
10 What dwelling shall receive me? in what vale
11 Shall be my harbour? underneath what grove
12 Shall I take up my home? and what clear stream
13 Shall with its murmur lull me into rest?
14 The earth is all before me. With a heart
15 Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty,
[Page 4 ]
16 I look about; and should the chosen guide
17 Be nothing better than a wandering cloud,
18 I cannot miss my way. I breathe again!
19 Trances of thought and mountings of the mind
20 Come fast upon me: it is shaken off,
21 That burthen of my own unnatural self,
22 The heavy weight of many a weary day
23 Not mine, and such as were not made for me.
24 Long months of peace (if such bold word accord
25 With any promises of human life),
26 Long months of ease and undisturbed delight
27 Are mine in prospect; whither shall I turn,
28 By road or pathway, or through trackless field,
29 Up hill or down, or shall some floating thing
30 Upon the river point me out my course?
31 Dear Liberty! Yet what would it avail
32 But for a gift that consecrates the joy?
33 For I, methought, while the sweet breath of heaven
34 Was blowing on my body, felt within
35 A correspondent breeze, that gently moved
36 With quickening virtue, but is now become
37 A tempest, a redundant energy,
38 Vexing its own creation. Thanks to both,
39 And their congenial powers, that, while they join
[Page 5 ]
40 In breaking up a long-continued frost,
41 Bring with them vernal promises, the hope
42 Of active days urged on by flying hours,---
43 Days of sweet leisure, taxed with patient thought
44 Abstruse, nor wanting punctual service high,
45 Matins and vespers of harmonious verse!
46 Thus far, O Friend! did I, not used to make
47 A present joy the matter of a song,
48 Pour forth that day my soul in measured strains
49 That would not be forgotten, and are here
50 Recorded: to the open fields I told
51 A prophecy: poetic numbers came
52 Spontaneously to clothe in priestly robe
53 A renovated spirit singled out,
54 Such hope was mine, for holy services.
55 My own voice cheered me, and, far more, the mind's
56 Internal echo of the imperfect sound;
57 To both I listened, drawing from them both
58 A cheerful confidence in things to come.
59 Content and not unwilling now to give
60 A respite to this passion, I paced on
61 With brisk and eager steps; and came, at length,
62 To a green shady place, where down I sate
[Page 6 ]
63 Beneath a tree, slackening my thoughts by choice,
64 And settling into gentler happiness.
65 'Twas autumn, and a clear and placid day,
66 With warmth, as much as needed, from a sun
67 Two hours declined towards the west; a day
68 With silver clouds, and sunshine on the grass,
69 And in the sheltered and the sheltering grove
70 A perfect stillness. Many were the thoughts
71 Encouraged and dismissed, till choice was made
72 Of a known Vale, whither my feet should turn,
73 Nor rest till they had reached the very door
74 Of the one cottage which methought I saw.
75 No picture of mere memory ever looked
76 So fair; and while upon the fancied scene
77 I gazed with growing love, a higher power
78 Than Fancy gave assurance of some work
79 Of glory there forthwith to be begun,
80 Perhaps too there performed. Thus long I mused,
81 Nor e'er lost sight of what I mused upon,
82 Save when, amid the stately grove of oaks,
83 Now here, now there, an acorn, from its cup
84 Dislodged, through sere leaves rustled, or at once
85 To the bare earth dropped with a startling sound.
86 From that soft couch I rose not, till the sun
87 Had almost touched the horizon; casting then
[Page 7 ]
88 A backward glance upon the curling cloud
89 Of city smoke, by distance ruralised;
90 Keen as a Truant or a Fugitive,
91 But as a Pilgrim resolute, I took,
92 Even with the chance equipment of that hour,
93 The road that pointed toward the chosen Vale.
94 It was a splendid evening, and my soul
95 Once more made trial of her strength, nor lacked
96 Æolian visitations; but the harp
97 Was soon defrauded, and the banded host
98 Of harmony dispersed in straggling sounds,
99 And lastly utter silence! "Be it so;
100 Why think of any thing but present good?"
101 So, like a home-bound labourer I pursued
102 My way beneath the mellowing sun, that shed
103 Mild influence; nor left in me one wish
104 Again to bend the Sabbath of that time
105 To a servile yoke. What need of many words?
106 A pleasant loitering journey, through three days
107 Continued, brought me to my hermitage.
108 I spare to tell of what ensued, the life
109 In common things---the endless store of things,
110 Rare, or at least so seeming, every day
111 Found all about me in one neighbourhood---
112 The self-congratulation, and, from morn
[Page 8 ]
113 To night, unbroken cheerfulness serene.
114 But speedily an earnest longing rose
115 To brace myself to some determined aim,
116 Reading or thinking; either to lay up
117 New stores, or rescue from decay the old
118 By timely interference: and there with
119 Came hopes still higher, that with outward life
120 I might endue some airy phantasies
121 That had been floating loose about for years,
122 And to such beings temperately deal forth
123 The many feelings that oppressed my heart.
124 That hope hath been discouraged; welcome light
125 Dawns from the east, but dawns to disappear
126 And mock me with a sky that ripens not
127 Into a steady morning: if my mind,
128 Remembering the bold promise of the past,
129 Would gladly grapple with some noble theme,
130 Vain is her wish; where'er she turns she finds
131 Impediments from day to day renewed.
132 And now it would content me to yield up
133 Those lofty hopes awhile, for present gifts
134 Of humbler industry. But, oh, dear Friend!
135 The Poet, gentle creature as he is,
136 Hath, like the Lover, his unruly times;
[Page 9 ]
137 His fits when he is neither sick nor well,
138 Though no distress be near him but his own
139 Unmanageable thoughts: his mind, best pleased
140 While she as duteous as the mother dove
141 Sits brooding, lives not always to that end,
142 But like the innocent bird, hath goadings on
143 That drive her as in trouble through the groves;
144 With me is now such passion, to be blamed
145 No otherwise than as it lasts too long.
146 When, as becomes a man who would prepare
147 For such an arduous work, I through myself
148 Make rigorous inquisition, the report
149 Is often cheering; for I neither seem
150 To lack that first great gift, the vital soul,
151 Nor general Truths, which are themselves a sort
152 Of Elements and Agents, Under-powers,
153 Subordinate helpers of the living mind:
154 Nor am I naked of external things,
155 Forms, images, nor numerous other aids
156 Of less regard, though won perhaps with toil
157 And needful to build up a Poet's praise.
158 Time, place, and manners do I seek, and these
159 Are found in plenteous store, but nowhere such
160 As may be singled out with steady choice;
[Page 10 ]
161 No little band of yet remembered names
162 Whom I, in perfect confidence, might hope
163 To summon back from lonesome banishment,
164 And make them dwellers in the hearts of men
165 Now living, or to live in future years.
166 Sometimes the ambitious Power of choice, mistaking
167 Proud spring-tide swellings for a regular sea,
168 Will settle on some British theme, some old
169 Romantic tale by Milton left unsung;
170 More often turning to some gentle place
171 Within the groves of Chivalry, I pipe
172 To shepherd swains, or seated harp in hand,
173 Amid reposing knights by a river side
174 Or fountain, listen to the grave reports
175 Of dire enchantments faced and overcome
176 By the strong mind, and tales of warlike feats,
177 Where spear encountered spear, and sword with sword
178 Fought, as if conscious of the blazonry
179 That the shield bore, so glorious was the strife;
180 Whence inspiration for a song that winds
181 Through ever changing scenes of votive quest
182 Wrongs to redress, harmonious tribute paid
183 To patient courage and unblemished truth,
184 To firm devotion, zeal unquenchable,
185 And Christian meekness hallowing faithful loves.
[Page 11 ]
186 Sometimes, more sternly moved, I would relate
187 How vanquished Mithridates northward passed,
188 And, hidden in the cloud of years, became
189 Odin, the Father of a race by whom
190 Perished the Roman Empire: how the friends
191 And followers of Sertorius, out of Spain
192 Flying, found shelter in the Fortunate Isles,
193 And left their usages, their arts and laws,
194 To disappear by a slow gradual death,
195 To dwindle and to perish one by one,
196 Starved in those narrow bounds: but not the soul
197 Of Liberty, which fifteen hundred years
198 Survived, and, when the European came
199 With skill and power that might not be withstood,
200 Did, like a pestilence, maintain its hold
201 And wasted down by glorious death that race
202 Of natural heroes: or I would record
203 How, in tyrannic times, some high-souled man,
204 Unnamed among the chronicles of kings,
205 Suffered in silence for Truth's sake: or tell,
206 How that one Frenchman, [End note 1: 1Kb]
through continued force
207 Of meditation on the inhuman deeds
208 Of those who conquered first the Indian Isles,
209 Went single in his ministry across
210 The Ocean; not to comfort the oppressed,
[Page 12 ]
211 But, like a thirsty wind, to roam about
212 Withering the Oppressor: how Gustavus sought
213 Help at his need in Dalecarlia's mines:
214 How Wallace fought for Scotland; left the name
215 Of Wallace to be found, like a wild flower,
216 All over his dear Country; left the deeds
217 Of Wallace, like a family of Ghosts,
218 To people the steep rocks and river banks,
219 Her natural sanctuaries, with a local soul
220 Of independence and stern liberty.
221 Sometimes it suits me better to invent
222 A tale from my own heart, more near akin
223 To my own passions and habitual thoughts;
224 Some variegated story, in the main
225 Lofty, but the unsubstantial structure melts
226 Before the very sun that brightens it,
227 Mist into air dissolving! Then a wish,
228 My best and favourite aspiration, mounts
229 With yearning toward some philosophic song
230 Of Truth that cherishes our daily life;
231 With meditations passionate from deep
232 Recesses in man's heart, immortal verse
233 Thoughtfully fitted to the Orphean lyre;
234 But from this awful burthen I full soon
235 Take refuge and beguile myself with trust
[Page 13 ]
236 That mellower years will bring a riper mind
237 And clearer insight. Thus my days are past
238 In contradiction; with no skill to part
239 Vague longing, haply bred by want of power,
240 From paramount impulse not to be withstood,
241 A timorous capacity from prudence,
242 From circumspection, infinite delay.
243 Humility and modest awe themselves
244 Betray me, serving often for a cloak
245 To a more subtle selfishness; that now
246 Locks every function up in blank reserve,
247 Now dupes me, trusting to an anxious eye
248 That with intrusive restlessness beats off
249 Simplicity and self-presented truth.
250 Ah! better far than this, to stray about
251 Voluptuously through fields and rural walks,
252 And ask no record of the hours, resigned
253 To vacant musing, unreproved neglect
254 Of all things, and deliberate holiday.
255 Far better never to have heard the name
256 Of zeal and just ambition, than to live
257 Baffled and plagued by a mind that every hour
258 Turns recreant to her task; takes heart again,
259 Then feels immediately some hollow thought
260 Hang like an interdict upon her hopes.
[Page 14 ]
261 This is my lot; for either still I find
262 Some imperfection in the chosen theme,
263 Or see of absolute accomplishment
264 Much wanting, so much wanting, in myself,
265 That I recoil and droop, and seek repose
266 In listlessness from vain perplexity,
267 Unprofitably travelling toward the grave,
268 Like a false steward who hath much received
269 And renders nothing back.
269 Was it for this
270 That one, the fairest of all rivers, loved
271 To blend his murmurs with my nurse's song,
272 And, from his alder shades and rocky falls,
273 And from his fords and shallows, sent a voice
274 That flowed along my dreams? For this, didst thou,
275 O Derwent! winding among grassy holms
276 Where I was looking on, a babe in arms,
277 Make ceaseless music that composed my thoughts
278 To more than infant softness, giving me
279 Amid the fretful dwellings of mankind
280 A foretaste, a dim earnest, of the calm
281 That Nature breathes among the hills and groves.
282 When he had left the mountains and received
283 On his smooth breast the shadow of those towers
284 That yet survive, a shattered monument
[Page 15 ]
285 Of feudal sway, the bright blue river passed
286 Along the margin of our terrace walk;
287 A tempting playmate whom we dearly loved.
288 Oh, many a time have I, a five years' child,
289 In a small mill-race severed from his stream,
290 Made one long bathing of a summer's day;
291 Basked in the sun, and plunged and basked again
292 Alternate, all a summer's day, or scoured
293 The sandy fields, leaping through flowery groves
294 Of yellow ragwort; or when rock and hill,
295 The woods, and distant Skiddaw's lofty height,
296 Were bronzed with deepest radiance, stood alone
297 Beneath the sky, as if I had been born
298 On Indian plains, and from my mother's hut
299 Had run abroad in wantonness, to sport
300 A naked savage, in the thunder shower.
301 Fair seed-time had my soul, and I grew up
302 Fostered alike by beauty and by fear:
303 Much favoured in my birth-place, and no less
304 In that beloved Vale to which erelong
305 We were transplanted---there were we let loose
306 For sports of wider range. Ere I had told
307 Ten birth-days, when among the mountain slopes
308 Frost, and the breath of frosty wind, had snapped
[Page 16 ]
309 The last autumnal crocus, 'twas my joy
310 With store of springes o'er my shoulder hung
311 To range the open heights where woodcocks run
312 Along the smooth green turf. Through half the night,
313 Scudding away from snare to snare, I plied
314 That anxious visitation;---moon and stars
315 Were shining o'er my head. I was alone,
316 And seemed to be a trouble to the peace
317 That dwelt among them. Sometimes it befel
318 In these night wanderings, that a strong desire
319 O'erpowered my better reason, and the bird
320 Which was the captive of another's toil
321 Became my prey; and when the deed was done
322 I heard among the solitary hills
323 Low breathings coming after me, and sounds
324 Of undistinguishable motion, steps
325 Almost as silent as the turf they trod.
326 Nor less when spring had warmed the cultured Vale,
327 Moved we as plunderers where the mother-bird
328 Had in high places built her lodge; though mean
329 Our object and inglorious, yet the end
330 Was not ignoble. Oh! when I have hung
331 Above the raven's nest, by knots of grass
332 And half-inch fissures in the slippery rock
[Page 17 ]
333 But ill sustained, and almost (so it seemed)
334 Suspended by the blast that blew amain,
335 Shouldering the naked crag, oh, at that time
336 While on the perilous ridge I hung alone,
337 With what strange utterance did the loud dry wind
338 Blow through my ear! the sky seemed not a sky
339 Of earth---and with what motion moved the clouds!
340 Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows
341 Like harmony in music; there is a dark
342 Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles
343 Discordant elements, makes them cling together
344 In one society. How strange that all
345 The terrors, pains, and early miseries,
346 Regrets, vexations, lassitudes interfused
347 Within my mind, should e'er have borne a part,
348 And that a needful part, in making up
349 The calm existence that is mine when I
350 Am worthy of myself! Praise to the end!
351 Thanks to the means which Nature deigned to employ;
352 Whether her fearless visitings, or those
353 That came with soft alarm, like hurtless light
354 Opening the peaceful clouds; or she may use
355 Severer interventions, ministry
356 More palpable, as best might suit her aim.
[Page 18 ]
357 One summer evening (led by her) I found
358 A little boat tied to a willow tree
359 Within a rocky cave, its usual home.
360 Straight I unloosed her chain, and stepping in
361 Pushed from the shore. It was an act of stealth
362 And troubled pleasure, nor without the voice
363 Of mountain-echoes did my boat move on;
364 Leaving behind her still, on either side,
365 Small circles glittering idly in the moon,
366 Until they melted all into one track
367 Of sparkling light. But now, like one who rows,
368 Proud of his skill, to reach a chosen point
369 With an unswerving line, I fixed my view
370 Upon the summit of a craggy ridge,
371 The horizon's utmost boundary; far above
372 Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky.
373 She was an elfin pinnace; lustily
374 I dipped my oars into the silent lake,
375 And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boat
376 Went heaving through the water like a swan;
377 When, from behind that craggy steep till then
378 The horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge,
379 As if with voluntary power instinct
380 Upreared its head. I struck and struck again,
381 And growing still in stature the grim shape
[Page 19 ]
382 Towered up between me and the stars, and still,
383 For so it seemed, with purpose of its own
384 And measured motion like a living thing,
385 Strode after me. With trembling oars I turned,
386 And through the silent water stole my way
387 Back to the covert of the willow tree;
388 There in her mooring-place I left my bark,---
389 And through the meadows homeward went, in grave
390 And serious mood; but after I had seen
391 That spectacle, for many days, my brain
392 Worked with a dim and undetermined sense
393 Of unknown modes of being; o'er my thoughts
394 There hung a darkness, call it solitude
395 Or blank desertion. No familiar shapes
396 Remained, no pleasant images of trees,
397 Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields;
398 But huge and mighty forms, that do not live
399 Like living men, moved slowly through the mind
400 By day, and were a trouble to my dreams.
[End note 2: 1Kb]
401 Wisdom and Spirit of the universe!
402 Thou Soul that art the eternity of thought,
403 That givest to forms and images a breath
404 And everlasting motion, not in vain
405 By day or star-light thus from my first dawn
[Page 20 ]
406 Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me
407 The passions that build up our human soul;
408 Not with the mean and vulgar works of man,
409 But with high objects, with enduring things---
410 With life and nature, purifying thus
411 The elements of feeling and of thought,
412 And sanctifying, by such discipline,
413 Both pain and fear, until we recognise
414 A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.
415 Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me
416 With stinted kindness. In November days,
417 When vapours rolling down the valley made
418 A lonely scene more lonesome, among woods,
419 At noon and 'mid the calm of summer nights,
420 When, by the margin of the trembling lake,
421 Beneath the gloomy hills homeward I went
422 In solitude, such intercourse was mine;
423 Mine was it in the fields both day and night,
424 And by the waters, all the summer long.
425 And in the frosty season, when the sun
426 Was set, and visible for many a mile
427 The cottage windows blazed through twilight gloom,
428 I heeded not their summons: happy time
429 It was indeed for all of us---for me
[Page 21 ]
430 It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud
431 The village clock tolled six,---I wheeled about,
432 Proud and exulting like an untired horse
433 That cares not for his home. All shod with steel,
434 We hissed along the polished ice in games
435 Confederate, imitative of the chase
436 And woodland pleasures,---the resounding horn,
437 The pack loud chiming, and the hunted hare.
438 So through the darkness and the cold we flew,
439 And not a voice was idle; with the din
440 Smitten, the precipices rang aloud;
441 The leafless trees and every icy crag
442 Tinkled like iron; while far distant hills
443 Into the tumult sent an alien sound
444 Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars
445 Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the west
446 The orange sky of evening died away.
447 Not seldom from the uproar I retired
448 Into a silent bay, or sportively
449 Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng,
450 To cut across the reflex of a star
451 That fled, and, flying still before me, gleamed
452 Upon the glassy plain; and oftentimes,
453 When we had given our bodies to the wind,
454 And all the shadowy banks on either side
[Page 22 ]
455 Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still
456 The rapid line of motion, then at once
457 Have I, reclining back upon my heels,
458 Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs
459 Wheeled by me---even as if the earth had rolled
460 With visible motion her diurnal round!
461 Behind me did they stretch in solemn train,
462 Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched
463 Till all was tranquil as a dreamless sleep.
464 Ye Presences of Nature in the sky
465 And on the earth! Ye Visions of the hills!
466 And Souls of lonely places! can I think
467 A vulgar hope was yours when ye employed
468 Such ministry, when ye through many a year
469 Haunting me thus among my boyish sports,
470 On caves and trees, upon the woods and hills,
471 Impressed upon all forms the characters
472 Of danger or desire; and thus did make
473 The surface of the universal earth
474 With triumph and delight, with hope and fear,
475 Work like a sea?
475 Not uselessly employed,
476 Might I pursue this theme through every change
477 Of exercise and play, to which the year
[Page 23 ]
478 Did summon us in his delightful round.
479 We were a noisy crew; the sun in heaven
480 Beheld not vales more beautiful than ours;
481 Nor saw a band in happiness and joy
482 Richer, or worthier of the ground they trod.
483 I could record with no reluctant voice
484 The woods of autumn, and their hazel bowers
485 With milk-white clusters hung; the rod and line,
486 True symbol of hope's foolishness, whose strong
487 And unreproved enchantment led us on
488 By rocks and pools shut out from every star,
489 All the green summer, to forlorn cascades
490 Among the windings hid of mountain brooks.
491 ---Unfading recollections! at this hour
492 The heart is almost mine with which I felt,
493 From some hill-top on sunny afternoons,
494 The paper kite high among fleecy clouds
495 Pull at her rein like an impetuous courser;
496 Or, from the meadows sent on gusty days,
497 Beheld her breast the wind, then suddenly
498 Dashed headlong, and rejected by the storm.
499 Ye lowly cottages wherein we dwelt,
500 A ministration of your own was yours;
[Page 24 ]
501 Can I forget you, being as you were
502 So beautiful among the pleasant fields
503 In which ye stood? or can I here forget
504 The plain and seemly countenance with which
505 Ye dealt out your plain comforts? Yet had ye
506 Delights and exultations of your own.
507 Eager and never weary we pursued
508 Our home-amusements by the warm peat-fire
509 At evening, when with pencil, and smooth slate
510 In square divisions parcelled out and all
511 With crosses and with cyphers scribbled o'er,
512 We schemed and puzzled, head opposed to head
513 In strife too humble to be named in verse:
514 Or round the naked table, snow-white deal,
515 Cherry or maple, sate in close array,
516 And to the combat, Loo or Whist, led on
517 A thick-ribbed army; not, as in the world,
518 Neglected and ungratefully thrown by
519 Even for the very service they had wrought,
520 But husbanded through many a long campaign.
521 Uncouth assemblage was it, where no few
522 Had changed their functions; some, plebeian cards
523 Which Fate, beyond the promise of their birth,
524 Had dignified, and called to represent
525 The persons of departed potentates.
[Page 25 ]
526 Oh, with what echoes on the board they fell!
527 Ironic diamonds,---clubs, hearts, diamonds, spades,
528 A congregation piteously akin!
529 Cheap matter offered they to boyish wit,
530 Those sooty knaves, precipitated down
531 With scoffs and taunts, like Vulcan out of heaven:
532 The paramount ace, a moon in her eclipse,
533 Queens gleaming through their splendour's last decay,
534 And monarchs surly at the wrongs sustained
535 By royal visages. Meanwhile abroad
536 Incessant rain was falling, or the frost
537 Raged bitterly, with keen and silent tooth;
538 And, interrupting oft that eager game,
539 From under Esthwaite's splitting fields of ice
540 The pent-up air, struggling to free itself,
541 Gave out to meadow grounds and hills a loud
542 Protracted yelling, like the noise of wolves
543 Howling in troops along the Bothnic Main.
544 Nor, sedulous as I have been to trace
545 How Nature by extrinsic passion first
546 Peopled the mind with forms sublime or fair,
547 And made me love them, may I here omit
548 How other pleasures have been mine, and joys
549 Of subtler origin; how I have felt,
[Page 26 ]
550 Not seldom even in that tempestuous time,
551 Those hallowed and pure motions of the sense
552 Which seem, in their simplicity, to own
553 An intellectual charm; that calm delight
554 Which, if I err not, surely must belong
555 To those first-born affinities that fit
556 Our new existence to existing things,
557 And, in our dawn of being, constitute
558 The bond of union between life and joy.
559 Yes, I remember when the changeful earth,
560 And twice five summers on my mind had stamped
561 The faces of the moving year, even then
562 I held unconscious intercourse with beauty
563 Old as creation, drinking in a pure
564 Organic pleasure from the silver wreaths
565 Of curling mist, or from the level plain
566 Of waters coloured by impending clouds.
567 The sands of Westmoreland, the creeks and bays
568 Of Cumbria's rocky limits, they can tell
569 How, when the Sea threw off his evening shade,
570 And to the shepherd's hut on distant hills
571 Sent welcome notice of the rising moon,
572 How I have stood, to fancies such as these
[Page 27 ]
573 A stranger, linking with the spectacle
574 No conscious memory of a kindred sight,
575 And bringing with me no peculiar sense
576 Of quietness or peace; yet have I stood,
577 Even while mine eye hath moved o'er many a league
578 Of shining water, gathering as it seemed
579 Through every hair-breadth in that field of light
580 New pleasure like a bee among the flowers.
581 Thus oft amid those fits of vulgar joy
582 Which, through all seasons, on a child's pursuits
583 Are prompt attendants, 'mid that giddy bliss
584 Which, like a tempest, works along the blood
585 And is forgotten; even then I felt
586 Gleams like the flashing of a shield;---the earth
587 And common face of Nature spake to me
588 Rememberable things; sometimes, 'tis true,
589 By chance collisions and quaint accidents
590 (Like those ill-sorted unions, work supposed
591 Of evil-minded fairies), yet not vain
592 Nor profitless, if haply they impressed
593 Collateral objects and appearances,
594 Albeit lifeless then, and doomed to sleep
595 Until maturer seasons called them forth
596 To impregnate and to elevate the mind.
[Page 28 ]
597 ---And if the vulgar joy by its own weight
598 Wearied itself out of the memory,
599 The scenes which were a witness of that joy
600 Remained in their substantial lineaments
601 Depicted on the brain, and to the eye
602 Were visible, a daily sight; and thus
603 By the impressive discipline of fear,
604 By pleasure and repeated happiness,
605 So frequently repeated, and by force
606 Of obscure feelings representative
607 Of things forgotten, these same scenes so bright,
608 So beautiful, so majestic in themselves,
609 Though yet the day was distant, did become
610 Habitually dear, and all their forms
611 And changeful colours by invisible links
612 Were fastened to the affections.
612 I began
613 My story early---not misled, I trust,
614 By an infirmity of love for days
615 Disowned by memory---ere the breath of spring
616 Planting my snowdrops among winter snows:
617 Nor will it seem to thee, O Friend! so prompt
618 In sympathy, that I have lengthened out
619 With fond and feeble tongue a tedious tale.
[Page 29 ]
620 Meanwhile, my hope has been, that I might fetch
621 Invigorating thoughts from former years;
622 Might fix the wavering balance of my mind,
623 And haply meet reproaches too, whose power
624 May spur me on, in manhood now mature,
625 To honourable toil. Yet should these hopes
626 Prove vain, and thus should neither I be taught
627 To understand myself, nor thou to know
628 With better knowledge how the heart was framed
629 Of him thou lovest; need I dread from thee
630 Harsh judgments, if the song be loth to quit
631 Those recollected hours that have the charm
632 Of visionary things, those lovely forms
633 And sweet sensations that throw back our life,
634 And almost make remotest infancy
635 A visible scene, on which the sun is shining?
636 One end at least hath been attained; my mind
637 Hath been revived, and if this genial mood
638 Desert me not, forth with shall be brought down
639 Through later years the story of my life.
640 The road lies plain before me;---'tis a theme
641 Single and of determined bounds; and hence
642 I choose it rather at this time, than work
[Page 30 ]
643 Of ampler or more varied argument,
644 Where I might be discomfited and lost:
645 And certain hopes are with me, that to thee
646 This labour will be welcome, honoured Friend!
[Page 31 ]
BOOK II.
SCHOOL-TIME.---(Continued.)
[Page 33 ]
1 Thus far, O Friend! have we, though leaving much
2 Unvisited, endeavoured to retrace
3 The simple ways in which my childhood walked;
4 Those chiefly that first led me to the love
5 Of rivers, woods, and fields. The passion yet
6 Was in its birth, sustained as might befal
7 By nourishment that came unsought; for still
8 From week to week, from month to month, we lived
9 A round of tumult. Duly were our games
10 Prolonged in summer till the day-light failed:
11 No chair remained before the doors; the bench
12 And threshold steps were empty; fast asleep
13 The labourer, and the old man who had sate
14 A later lingerer; yet the revelry
15 Continued and the loud uproar: at last,
[Page 34 ]
16 When all the ground was dark, and twinkling stars
17 Edged the black clouds, home and to bed we went,
18 Feverish with weary joints and beating minds.
19 Ah! is there one who ever has been young,
20 Nor needs a warning voice to tame the pride
21 Of intellect and virtue's self-esteem?
22 One is there, though the wisest and the best
23 Of all mankind, who covets not at times
24 Union that cannot be;---who would not give,
25 If so he might, to duty and to truth
26 The eagerness of infantine desire?
27 A tranquillising spirit presses now
28 On my corporeal frame, so wide appears
29 The vacancy between me and those days
30 Which yet have such self-presence in my mind,
31 That, musing on them, often do I seem
32 Two consciousnesses, conscious of myself
33 And of some other Being. A rude mass
34 Of native rock, left midway in the square
35 Of our small market village, was the goal
36 Or centre of these sports; and when, returned
37 After long absence, thither I repaired,
38 Gone was the old grey stone, and in its place
39 A smart Assembly-room usurped the ground
40 That had been ours. There let the fiddle scream,
[Page 35 ]
41 And be ye happy! Yet, my Friends! I know
42 That more than one of you will think with me
43 Of those soft starry nights, and that old Dame
44 From whom the stone was named, who there had sate,
45 And watched her table with its huckster's wares
46 Assiduous, through the length of sixty years.
47 We ran a boisterous course; the year span round
48 With giddy motion. But the time approached
49 That brought with it a regular desire
50 For calmer pleasures, when the winning forms
51 Of Nature were collaterally attached
52 To every scheme of holiday delight
53 And every boyish sport, less grateful else
54 And languidly pursued.
54 When summer came,
55 Our pastime was, on bright half-holidays,
56 To sweep along the plain of Windermere
57 With rival oars; and the selected bourne
58 Was now an Island musical with birds
59 That sang and ceased not; now a Sister Isle
60 Beneath the oaks' umbrageous covert, sown
61 With lilies of the valley like a field;
62 And now a third small Island, where survived
63 In solitude the ruins of a shrine
[Page 36 ]
64 Once to Our Lady dedicate, and served
65 Daily with chaunted rites. In such a race
66 So ended, disappointment could be none,
67 Uneasiness, or pain, or jealousy:
68 We rested in the shade, all pleased alike,
69 Conquered and conqueror. Thus the pride of strength,
70 And the vain-glory of superior skill,
71 Were tempered; thus was gradually produced
72 A quiet independence of the heart;
73 And to my Friend who knows me I may add,
74 Fearless of blame, that hence for future days
75 Ensued a diffidence and modesty,
76 And I was taught to feel, perhaps too much,
77 The self-sufficing power of Solitude.
78 Our daily meals were frugal, Sabine fare!
79 More than we wished we knew the blessing then
80 Of vigorous hunger---hence corporeal strength
81 Unsapped by delicate viands; for, exclude
82 A little weekly stipend, and we lived
83 Through three divisions of the quartered year
84 In penniless poverty. But now to school
85 From the half-yearly holidays returned,
86 We came with weightier purses, that sufficed
87 To furnish treats more costly than the Dame
[Page 37 ]
88 Of the old grey stone, from her scant board, supplied.
89 Hence rustic dinners on the cool green ground,
90 Or in the woods, or by a river side
91 Or shady fountains, while among the leaves
92 Soft airs were stirring, and the mid-day sun
93 Unfelt shone brightly round us in our joy.
94 Nor is my aim neglected if I tell
95 How sometimes, in the length of those half-years,
96 We from our funds drew largely;---proud to curb,
97 And eager to spur on, the galloping steed;
98 And with the courteous inn-keeper, whose stud
99 Supplied our want, we haply might employ
100 Sly subterfuge, if the adventure's bound
101 Were distant: some famed temple where of yore
102 The Druids worshipped, or the antique walls
103 Of that large abbey, where within the Vale
104 Of Nightshade, to St. Mary's honour built,
105 Stands yet a mouldering pile with fractured arch,
106 Belfry, and images, and living trees,
107 A holy scene! Along the smooth green turf
108 Our horses grazed. To more than inland peace
109 Left by the west wind sweeping overhead
110 From a tumultuous ocean, trees and towers
111 In that sequestered valley may be seen.
112 Both silent and both motionless alike;
[Page 38 ]
113 Such the deep shelter that is there, and such
114 The safeguard for repose and quietness.
115 Our steeds remounted and the summons given,
116 With whip and spur we through the chauntry flew
117 In uncouth race, and left the cross-legged knight,
118 And the stone-abbot, and that single wren
119 Which one day sang so sweetly in the nave
120 Of the old church, that---though from recent showers
121 The earth was comfortless, and touched by faint
122 Internal breezes, sobbings of the place
123 And respirations, from the roofless walls
124 The shuddering ivy dripped large drops---yet still
125 So sweetly 'mid the gloom the invisible bird
126 Sang to herself, that there I could have made
127 My dwelling-place, and lived for ever there
128 To hear such music. Through the walls we flew
129 And down the valley, and, a circuit made
130 In wantonness of heart, through rough and smooth
131 We scampered homewards. Oh, ye rocks and streams,
132 And that still spirit shed from evening air!
133 Even in this joyous time I sometimes felt
134 Your presence, when with slackened step we breathed
135 Along the sides of the steep hills, or when
136 Lighted by gleams of moonlight from the sea
[Page 39 ]
137 We beat with thundering hoofs the level sand.
138 Midway on long Winander's eastern shore,
139 Within the crescent of a pleasant bay,
140 A tavern stood; no homely-featured house,
141 Primeval like its neighbouring cottages,
142 But 'twas a splendid place, the door beset
143 With chaises, grooms, and liveries, and within
144 Decanters, glasses, and the blood-red wine.
145 In ancient times, and ere the Hall was built
146 On the large island, had this dwelling been
147 More worthy of a poet's love, a hut,
148 Proud of its own bright fire and sycamore shade.
149 But---though the rhymes were gone that once inscribed
150 The threshold, and large golden characters,
151 Spread o'er the spangled sign-board, had dislodged
152 The old Lion and usurped his place, in slight
153 And mockery of the rustic painter's hand---
154 Yet, to this hour, the spot to me is dear
155 With all its foolish pomp. The garden lay
156 Upon a slope surmounted by a plain
157 Of a small bowling-green; beneath us stood
158 A grove, with gleams of water through the trees
159 And over the tree-tops; nor did we want
160 Refreshment, strawberries and mellow cream.
[Page 40 ]
161 There, while through half an afternoon we played
162 On the smooth platform, whether skill prevailed
163 Or happy blunder triumphed, bursts of glee
164 Made all the mountains ring. But, ere night-fall,
165 When in our pinnace we returned at leisure
166 Over the shadowy lake, and to the beach
167 Of some small island steered our course with one,
168 The Minstrel of the Troop, and left him there,
169 And rowed off gently, while he blew his flute
170 Alone upon the rock---oh, then, the calm
171 And dead still water lay upon my mind
172 Even with a weight of pleasure, and the sky,
173 Never before so beautiful, sank down
174 Into my heart, and held me like a dream!
175 Thus were my sympathies enlarged, and thus
176 Daily the common range of visible things
177 Grew dear to me: already I began
178 To love the sun; a boy I loved the sun,
179 Not as I since have loved him, as a pledge
180 And surety of our earthly life, a light
181 Which we behold and feel we are alive;
182 Nor for his bounty to so many worlds---
183 But for this cause, that I had seen him lay
184 His beauty on the morning hills, had seen
185 The western mountain touch his setting orb,
[Page 41 ]
186 In many a thoughtless hour, when, from excess
187 Of happiness, my blood appeared to flow
188 For its own pleasure, and I breathed with joy.
189 And, from like feelings, humble though intense,
190 To patriotic and domestic love
191 Analogous, the moon to me was dear;
192 For I could dream away my purposes,
193 Standing to gaze upon her while she hung
194 Midway between the hills, as if she knew
195 No other region, but belonged to thee,
196 Yea, appertained by a peculiar right
197 To thee and thy grey huts, thou one dear Vale!
198 Those incidental charms which first attached
199 My heart to rural objects, day by day
200 Grew weaker, and I hasten on to tell
201 How Nature, intervenient till this time
202 And secondary, now at length was sought
203 For her own sake. But who shall parcel out
204 His intellect by geometric rules,
205 Split like a province into round and square?
206 Who knows the individual hour in which
207 His habits were first sown, even as a seed?
208 Who that shall point as with a wand and say
209 "This portion of the river of my mind
[Page 42 ]
210 Came from yon fountain?" Thou, my Friend! art one
211 More deeply read in thy own thoughts; to thee
212 Science appears but what in truth she is,
213 Not as our glory and our absolute boast,
214 But as a succedaneum, and a prop
215 To our infirmity. No officious slave
216 Art thou of that false secondary power
217 By which we multiply distinctions, then
218 Deem that our puny boundaries are things
219 That we perceive, and not that we have made.
220 To thee, unblinded by these formal arts,
221 The unity of all hath been revealed,
222 And thou wilt doubt, with me less aptly skilled
223 Than many are to range the faculties
224 In scale and order, class the cabinet
225 Of their sensations, and in voluble phrase
226 Run through the history and birth of each
227 As of a single independent thing.
228 Hard task, vain hope, to analyse the mind,
229 If each most obvious and particular thought,
230 Not in a mystical and idle sense,
231 But in the words of Reason deeply weighed,
232 Hath no beginning.
232 Blest the infant Babe,
233 (For with my best conjecture I would trace
[Page 43 ]
234 Our Being's earthly progress,) blest the Babe,
235 Nursed in his Mother's arms, who sinks to sleep
236 Rocked on his Mother's breast; who with his soul
237 Drinks in the feelings of his Mother's eye!
238 For him, in one dear Presence, there exists
239 A virtue which irradiates and exalts
240 Objects through widest intercourse of sense.
241 No outcast he, bewildered and depressed:
242 Along his infant veins are interfused
243 The gravitation and the filial bond
244 Of nature that connect him with the world.
245 Is there a flower, to which he points with hand
246 Too weak to gather it, already love
247 Drawn from love's purest earthly fount for him
248 Hath beautified that flower; already shades
249 Of pity cast from inward tenderness
250 Do fall around him upon aught that bears
251 Unsightly marks of violence or harm
252 Emphatically such a Being lives,
253 Frail creature as he is, helpless as frail,
254 An inmate of this active universe.
255 For feeling has to him imparted power
256 That through the growing faculties of sense
257 Doth like an agent of the one great Mind
258 Create, creator and receiver both,
[Page 44 ]
259 Working but in alliance with the works
260 Which it beholds.---Such, verily, is the first
261 Poetic spirit of our human life,
262 By uniform control of after years,
263 In most, abated or suppressed; in some,
264 Through every change of growth and of decay,
265 Pre-eminent till death.
265 From early days,
266 Beginning not long after that first time
267 In which, a Babe, by intercourse of touch
268 I held mute dialogues with my Mother's heart,
269 I have endeavoured to display the means
270 Whereby this infant sensibility,
271 Great birthright of our being, was in me
272 Augmented and sustained. Yet is a path
273 More difficult before me; and I fear
274 That in its broken windings we shall need
275 The chamois' sinews, and the eagle's wing:
276 For now a trouble came into my mind
277 From unknown causes. I was left alone
278 Seeking the visible world, nor knowing why.
279 The props of my affections were removed,
280 And yet the building stood, as if sustained
281 By its own spirit! All that I beheld
282 Was dear, and hence to finer influxes
[Page 45 ]
283 The mind lay open to a more exact
284 And close communion. Many are our joys
285 In youth, but oh! what happiness to live
286 When every hour brings palpable access
287 Of knowledge, when all knowledge is delight,
288 And sorrow is not there! The seasons came,
289 And every season wheresoe'er I moved
290 Unfolded transitory qualities,
291 Which, but for this most watchful power of love,
292 Had been neglected; left a register
293 Of permanent relations, else unknown.
294 Hence life, and change, and beauty, solitude
295 More active even than "best society"---
296 Society made sweet as solitude
297 By silent inobtrusive sympathies,
298 And gentle agitations of the mind
299 From manifold distinctions, difference
300 Perceived in things, where, to the unwatchful eye,
301 No difference is, and hence, from the same source,
302 Sublimer joy; for I would walk alone,
303 Under the quiet stars, and at that time
304 Have felt whate'er there is of power in sound
305 To breathe an elevated mood, by form
306 Or image unprofaned; and I would stand,
307 If the night blackened with a coming storm,
[Page 46 ]
308 Beneath some rock, listening to notes that are
309 The ghostly language of the ancient earth,
310 Or make their dim abode in distant winds.
311 Thence did I drink the visionary power;
312 And deem not profitless those fleeting moods
313 Of shadowy exultation: not for this,
314 That they are kindred to our purer mind
315 And intellectual life; but that the soul,
316 Remembering how she felt, but what she felt
317 Remembering not, retains an obscure sense
318 Of possible sublimity, whereto
319 With growing faculties she doth aspire,
320 With faculties still growing, feeling still
321 That whatsoever point they gain, they yet
322 Have something to pursue.
322 And not alone,
323 'Mid gloom and tumult, but no less 'mid fair
324 And tranquil scenes, that universal power
325 And fitness in the latent qualities
326 And essences of things, by which the mind
327 Is moved with feelings of delight, to me
328 Came, strengthened with a superadded soul,
329 A virtue not its own. My morning walks
330 Were early;---oft before the hours of school
331 I travelled round our little lake, five miles
[Page 47 ]
332 Of pleasant wandering. Happy time! more dear
333 For this, that one was by my side, a Friend, [End note 3: 1Kb]
334 Then passionately loved; with heart how full
335 Would he peruse these lines! For many years
336 Have since flowed in between us, and, our minds
337 Both silent to each other, at this time
338 We live as if those hours had never been.
339 Nor seldom did I lift our cottage latch
340 Far earlier, ere one smoke-wreath had risen
341 From human dwelling, or the vernal thrush
342 Was audible; and sate among the woods
343 Alone upon some jutting eminence,
344 At the first gleam of dawn-light, when the Vale,
345 Yet slumbering, lay in utter solitude.
346 How shall I seek the origin? where find
347 Faith in the marvellous things which then I felt?
348 Oft in these moments such a holy calm
349 Would overspread my soul, that bodily eyes
350 Were utterly forgotten, and what I saw
351 Appeared like something in myself, a dream,
352 A prospect in the mind.
352 'Twere long to tell
353 What spring and autumn, what the winter snows,
354 And what the summer shade, what day and night,
355 Evening and morning, sleep and waking, thought
[Page 48 ]
356 From sources inexhaustible, poured forth
357 To feed the spirit of religious love
358 In which I walked with Nature. But let this
359 Be not forgotten, that I still retained
360 My first creative sensibility;
361 That by the regular action of the world
362 My soul was unsubdued. A plastic power
363 Abode with me; a forming hand, at times
364 Rebellious, acting in a devious mood;
365 A local spirit of his own, at war
366 With general tendency, but, for the most,
367 Subservient strictly to external things
368 With which it communed. An auxiliar light
369 Came from my mind, which on the setting sun
370 Bestowed new splendour; the melodious birds,
371 The fluttering breezes, fountains that run on
372 Murmuring so sweetly in themselves, obeyed
373 A like dominion, and the midnight storm
374 Grew darker in the presence of my eye:
375 Hence my obeisance, my devotion hence,
376 And hence my transport.
376 Nor should this, perchance,
377 Pass unrecorded, that I still had loved
378 The exercise and produce of a toil,
379 Than analytic industry to me
[Page 49 ]
380 More pleasing, and whose character I deem
381 Is more poetic as resembling more
382 Creative agency. The song would speak
383 Of that interminable building reared
384 By observation of affinities
385 In objects where no brotherhood exists
386 To passive minds. My seventeenth year was come;
387 And, whether from this habit rooted now
388 So deeply in my mind, or from excess
389 In the great social principle of life
390 Coercing all things into sympathy,
391 To unorganic natures were transferred
392 My own enjoyments; or the power of truth
393 Coming in revelation, did converse
394 With things that really are; I, at this time,
395 Saw blessings spread around me like a sea.
396 Thus while the days flew by, and years passed on,
397 From Nature and her overflowing soul,
398 I had received so much, that all my thoughts
399 Were steeped in feeling; I was only then
400 Contented, when with bliss ineffable
401 I felt the sentiment of Being spread
402 O'er all that moves and all that seemeth still;
403 O'er all that, lost beyond the reach of thought
404 And human knowledge, to the human eye
[Page 50 ]
405 Invisible, yet liveth to the heart;
406 O'er all that leaps and runs, and shouts and sings,
407 Or beats the gladsome air; o'er all that glides
408 Beneath the wave, yea, in the wave itself,
409 And mighty depth of waters. Wonder not
410 If high the transport, great the joy I felt,
411 Communing in this sort through earth and heaven
412 With every form of creature, as it looked
413 Towards the Uncreated with a countenance
414 Of adoration, with an eye of love.
415 One song they sang, and it was audible,
416 Most audible, then, when the fleshly ear,
417 O'ercome by humblest prelude of that strain,
418 Forgot her functions, and slept undisturbed.
419 If this be error, and another faith
420 Find easier access to the pious mind,
421 Yet were I grossly destitute of all
422 Those human sentiments that make this earth
423 So dear, if I should fail with grateful voice
424 To speak of you, ye mountains, and ye lakes
425 And sounding cataracts, ye mists and winds
426 That dwell among the hills where I was born.
427 If in my youth I have been pure in heart,
428 If, mingling with the world, I am content
[Page 51 ]
429 With my own modest pleasures, and have lived
430 With God and Nature communing, removed
431 From little enmities and low desires,
432 The gift is yours; if in these times of fear,
433 This melancholy waste of hopes o'erthrown,
434 If, 'mid indifference and apathy,
435 And wicked exultation when good men
436 On every side fall off, we know not how,
437 To selfishness, disguised in gentle names
438 Of peace and quiet and domestic love,
439 Yet mingled not unwillingly with sneers
440 On visionary minds; if, in this time
441 Of dereliction and dismay, I yet
442 Despair not of our nature, but retain
443 A more than Roman confidence, a faith
444 That fails not, in all sorrow my support,
445 The blessing of my life; the gift is yours,
446 Ye winds and sounding cataracts! 'tis yours,
447 Ye mountains! thine, O Nature! Thou hast fed
448 My lofty speculations; and in thee,
449 For this uneasy heart of ours, I find
450 A never-failing principle of joy
451 And purest passion.
451 Thou, my Friend! wert reared
452 In the great city, 'mid far other scenes;
[Page 52 ]
453 But we, by different roads, at length have gained
454 The self-same bourne. And for this cause to thee
455 I speak, unapprehensive of contempt,
456 The insinuated scoff of coward tongues,
457 And all that silent language which so oft
458 In conversation between man and man
459 Blots from the human countenance all trace
460 Of beauty and of love. For thou hast sought
461 The truth in solitude, and, since the days
462 That gave thee liberty, full long desired,
463 To serve in Nature's temple, thou hast been
464 The most assiduous of her ministers;
465 In many things my brother, chiefly here
466 In this our deep devotion.
466 Fare thee well!
467 Health and the quiet of a healthful mind
468 Attend thee! seeking oft the haunts of men,
469 And yet more often living with thyself,
470 And for thyself, so haply shall thy days
471 Be many, and a blessing to mankind.
[Page 53 ]
BOOK III.
RESIDENCE AT CAMBRIDGE.
[Page 55 ]
1 It was a dreary morning when the wheels
2 Rolled over a wide plain o'erhung with clouds,
3 And nothing cheered our way till first we saw
4 The long-roofed chapel of King's College lift
5 Turrets and pinnacles in answering files,
6 Extended high above a dusky grove.
7 Advancing, we espied upon the road
8 A student clothed in gown and tasselled cap,
9 Striding along as if o'ertasked by Time,
10 Or covetous of exercise and air;
11 He passed---nor was I master of my eyes
12 Till he was left an arrow's flight behind.
13 As near and nearer to the spot we drew,
14 It seemed to suck us in with an eddy's force.
[Page 56 ]
15 Onward we drove beneath the Castle; caught,
16 While crossing Magdalene Bridge, a glimpse of Cam;
17 And at the Hoop alighted, famous Inn.
18 My spirit was up, my thoughts were full of hope;
19 Some friends I had, acquaintances who there
20 Seemed friends, poor simple school-boys, now hung round
21 With honour and importance: in a world
22 Of welcome faces up and down I roved;
23 Questions, directions, warnings and advice,
24 Flowed in upon me, from all sides; fresh day
25 Of pride and pleasure! to myself I seemed
26 A man of business and expense, and went
27 From shop to shop about my own affairs,
28 To Tutor or to Tailor, as befel,
29 From street to street with loose and careless mind.
30 I was the Dreamer, they the Dream; I roamed
31 Delighted through the motley spectacle;
32 Gowns grave, or gaudy, doctors, students, streets,
33 Courts, cloisters, flocks of churches, gateways, towers:
34 Migration strange for a stripling of the hills,
35 A northern villager.
35 As if the change
[Page 57 ]
36 Had waited on some Fairy's wand, at once
37 Behold me rich in monies, and attired
38 In splendid garb, with hose of silk, and hair
39 Powdered like rimy trees, when frost is keen.
40 My lordly dressing-gown, I pass it by,
41 With other signs of manhood that supplied
42 The lack of beard.---The weeks went roundly on,
43 With invitations, suppers, wine and fruit,
44 Smooth housekeeping within, and all without
45 Liberal, and suiting gentleman's array.
46 The Evangelist St. John my patron was:
47 Three Gothic courts are his, and in the first
48 Was my abiding-place, a nook obscure;
49 Right underneath, the College kitchens made
50 A humming sound, less tuneable than bees,
51 But hardly less industrious; with shrill notes
52 Of sharp command and scolding intermixed.
53 Near me hung Trinity's loquacious clock,
54 Who never let the quarters, night or day,
55 Slip by him unproclaimed, and told the hours
56 Twice over with a male and female voice.
57 Her pealing organ was my neighbour too;
58 And from my pillow, looking forth by light
59 Of moon or favouring stars, I could behold
[Page 58 ]
60 The antechapel where the statue stood
61 Of Newton with his prism and silent face,
62 The marble index of a mind for ever
63 Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone.
64 Of College labours, of the Lecturer's room
65 All studded round, as thick as chairs could stand,
66 With loyal students faithful to their books,
67 Half-and-half idlers, hardy recusants,
68 And honest dunces---of important days,
69 Examinations, when the man was weighed
70 As in a balance! of excessive hopes,
71 Tremblings withal and commendable fears,
72 Small jealousies, and triumphs good or bad,
73 Let others that know more speak as they know.
74 Such glory was but little sought by me,
75 And little won. Yet from the first crude days
76 Of settling time in this untried abode,
77 I was disturbed at times by prudent thoughts,
78 Wishing to hope without a hope, some fears
79 About my future worldly maintenance,
80 And, more than all, a strangeness in the mind,
81 A feeling that I was not for that hour,
82 Nor for that place. But wherefore be cast down?
83 For (not to speak of Reason and her pure
[Page 59 ]
84 Reflective acts to fix the moral law
85 Deep in the conscience, nor of Christian Hope,
86 Bowing her head before her sister Faith
87 As one far mightier), hither I had come,
88 Bear witness Truth, endowed with holy powers
89 And faculties, whether to work or feel.
90 Oft when the dazzling show no longer new
91 Had ceased to dazzle, ofttimes did I quit
92 My comrades, leave the crowd, buildings and groves,
93 And as I paced alone the level fields
94 Far from those lovely sights and sounds sublime
95 With which I had been conversant, the mind
96 Drooped not; but there into herself returning,
97 With prompt rebound seemed fresh as heretofore.
98 At least I more distinctly recognised
99 Her native instincts: let me dare to speak
100 A higher language, say that now I felt
101 What independent solaces were mine,
102 To mitigate the injurious sway of place
103 Or circumstance, how far soever changed
104 In youth, or to be changed in manhood's prime;
105 Or for the few who shall be called to look
106 On the long shadows in our evening years,
107 Ordained precursors to the night of death.
108 As if awakened, summoned, roused, constrained,
[Page 60 ]
109 I looked for universal things; perused
110 The common countenance of earth and sky:
111 Earth, nowhere unembellished by some trace
112 Of that first Paradise whence man was driven;
113 And sky, whose beauty and bounty are expressed
114 By the proud name she bears---the name of Heaven.
115 I called on both to teach me what they might;
116 Or turning the mind in upon herself
117 Pored, watched, expected, listened, spread my thoughts
118 And spread them with a wider creeping; felt
119 Incumbencies more awful, visitings
120 Of the Upholder of the tranquil soul,
121 That tolerates the indignities of Time,
122 And, from the centre of Eternity
123 All finite motions overruling, lives
124 In glory immutable. But peace! enough
125 Here to record that I was mounting now
126 To such community with highest truth---
127 A track pursuing, not untrod before,
128 From strict analogies by thought supplied
129 Or consciousnesses not to be subdued.
130 To every natural form, rock, fruit or flower,
131 Even the loose stones that cover the high-way,
132 I gave a moral life: I saw them feel,
133 Or linked them to some feeling: the great mass
[Page 61 ]
134 Lay bedded in a quickening soul, and all
135 That I beheld respired with inward meaning.
136 Add that whate'er of Terror or of Love
137 Or Beauty, Nature's daily face put on
138 From transitory passion, unto this
139 I was as sensitive as waters are
140 To the sky's influence in a kindred mood
141 Of passion; was obedient as a lute
142 That waits upon the touches of the wind.
143 Unknown, unthought of, yet I was most rich---
144 I had a world about me---'twas my own;
145 I made it, for it only lived to me,
146 And to the God who sees into the heart.
147 Such sympathies, though rarely, were betrayed
148 By outward gestures and by visible looks:
149 Some called it madness---so indeed it was,
150 If child-like fruitfulness in passing joy,
151 If steady moods of thoughtfulness matured
152 To inspiration, sort with such a name;
153 If prophecy be madness; if things viewed
154 By poets in old time, and higher up
155 By the first men, earth's first inhabitants,
156 May in these tutored days no more be seen
157 With undisordered sight. But leaving this,
158 It was no madness, for the bodily eye
[Page 62 ]
159 Amid my strongest workings evermore
160 Was searching out the lines of difference
161 As they lie hid in all external forms,
162 Near or remote, minute or vast, an eye
163 Which from a tree, a stone, a withered leaf,
164 To the broad ocean and the azure heavens
165 Spangled with kindred multitudes of stars,
166 Could find no surface where its power might sleep;
167 Which spake perpetual logic to my soul,
168 And by an unrelenting agency
169 Did bind my feelings even as in a chain.
170 And here, O Friend! have I retraced my life
171 Up to an eminence, and told a tale
172 Of matters which not falsely may be called
173 The glory of my youth. Of genius, power,
174 Creation and divinity itself
175 I have been speaking, for my theme has been
176 What passed within me. Not of outward things
177 Done visibly for other minds, words, signs,
178 Symbols or actions, but of my own heart
179 Have I been speaking, and my youthful mind.
180 O Heavens! how awful is the might of souls,
181 And what they do within themselves while yet
182 The yoke of earth is new to them, the world
[Page 63 ]
183 Nothing but a wild field where they were sown.
184 This is, in truth, heroic argument,
185 This genuine prowess, which I wished to touch
186 With hand however weak, but in the main
187 It lies far hidden from the reach of words.
188 Points have we all of us within our souls
189 Where all stand single; this I feel, and make
190 Breathings for incommunicable powers;
191 But is not each a memory to himself,
192 And, therefore, now that we must quit this theme,
193 I am not heartless, for there's not a man
194 That lives who hath not known his god-like hours,
195 And feels not what an empire we inherit
196 As natural beings in the strength of Nature.
197 No more: for now into a populous plain
198 We must descend. A Traveller I am,
199 Whose tale is only of himself; even so,
200 So be it, if the pure of heart be prompt
201 To follow, and if thou, my honoured Friend!
202 Who in these thoughts art ever at my side,
203 Support, as heretofore, my fainting steps.
204 It hath been told, that when the first delight
205 That flashed upon me from this novel show
[Page 64 ]
206 Had failed, the mind returned into herself;
207 Yet true it is, that I had made a change
208 In climate, and my nature's outward coat
209 Changed also slowly and insensibly.
210 Full oft the quiet and exalted thoughts
211 Of loneliness gave way to empty noise
212 And superficial pastimes; now and then
213 Forced labour, and more frequently forced hopes;
214 And, worst of all, a treasonable growth
215 Of indecisive judgments, that impaired
216 And shook the mind's simplicity.---And yet
217 This was a gladsome time. Could I behold---
218 Who, less insensible than sodden clay
219 In a sea-river's bed at ebb of tide,
220 Could have beheld,---with undelighted heart,
221 So many happy youths, so wide and fair
222 A congregation in its budding-time
223 Of health, and hope, and beauty, all at once
224 So many divers samples from the growth
225 Of life's sweet season---could have seen unmoved
226 That miscellaneous garland of wild flowers
227 Decking the matron temples of a place
228 So famous through the world? To me, at least,
229 It was a goodly prospect: for, in sooth,
230 Though I had learnt betimes to stand unpropped,
[Page 65 ]
231 And independent musings pleased me so
232 That spells seemed on me when I was alone,
233 Yet could I only cleave to solitude
234 In lonely places; if a throng was near
235 That way I leaned by nature; for my heart
236 Was social, and loved idleness and joy.
237 Not seeking those who might participate
238 My deeper pleasures (nay, I had not once,
239 Though not unused to mutter lonesome songs,
240 Even with myself divided such delight,
241 Or looked that way for aught that might be clothed
242 In human language), easily I passed
243 From the remembrances of better things,
244 And slipped into the ordinary works
245 Of careless youth, unburthened, unalarmed.
246 Caverns there were within my mind which sun
247 Could never penetrate, yet did there not
248 Want store of leafy arbours where the light
249 Might enter in at will. Companionships,
250 Friendships, acquaintances, were welcome all.
251 We sauntered, played, or rioted; we talked
252 Unprofitable talk at morning hours;
253 Drifted about along the streets and walks,
254 Read lazily in trivial books, went forth
[Page 66 ]
255 To gallop through the country in blind zeal
256 Of senseless horsemanship, or on the breast
257 Of Cam sailed boisterously, and let the stars
258 Come forth, perhaps without one quiet thought.
259 Such was the tenor of the second act
260 In this new life. Imagination slept,
261 And yet not utterly. I could not print
262 Ground where the grass had yielded to the steps
263 Of generations of illustrious men,
264 Unmoved. I could not always lightly pass
265 Through the same gateways, sleep where they had slept,
266 Wake where they waked, range that inclosure old,
267 That garden of great intellects, undisturbed.
268 Place also by the side of this dark sense
269 Of noble feeling, that those spiritual men,
270 Even the great Newton's own ethereal self,
271 Seemed humbled in these precincts thence to be
272 The more endeared. Their several memories here
273 (Even like their persons in their portraits clothed
274 With the accustomed garb of daily life)
275 Put on a lowly and a touching grace
276 Of more distinct humanity, that left
277 All genuine admiration unimpaired.
[Page 67 ]
278 Beside the pleasant Mill of Trompington
279 I laughed with Chaucer in the hawthorn shade;
280 Heard him, while birds were warbling, tell his tales
281 Of amorous passion. And that gentle Bard,
282 Chosen by the Muses for their Page of State---
283 Sweet Spenser, moving through his clouded heaven
284 With the moon's beauty and the moon's soft pace,
285 I called him Brother, Englishman, and Friend!
286 Yea, our blind Poet, who, in his later day,
287 Stood almost single; uttering odious truth---
288 Darkness before, and danger's voice behind
289 Soul awful---if the earth has ever lodged
290 An awful soul---I seemed to see him here
291 Familiarly, and in his scholar's dress
292 Bounding before me, yet a stripling youth---
293 A boy, no better, with his rosy cheeks
294 Angelical, keen eye, courageous look,
295 And conscious step of purity and pride.
296 Among the band of my compeers was one
297 Whom chance had stationed in the very room
298 Honoured by Milton's name. O temperate Bard!
299 Be it confest that, for the first time, seated
300 Within thy innocent lodge and oratory,
301 One of a festive circle, I poured out
302 Libations, to thy memory drank, till pride
[Page 68 ]
303 And gratitude grew dizzy in a brain
304 Never excited by the fumes of wine
305 Before that hour, or since. Then, forth I ran
306 From the assembly; through a length of streets,
307 Ran, ostrich-like, to reach our chapel door
308 In not a desperate or opprobrious time,
309 Albeit long after the importunate bell
310 Had stopped, with wearisome Cassandra voice
311 No longer haunting the dark winter night.
312 Call back, O Friend! a moment to thy mind
313 The place itself and fashion of the rites.
314 With careless ostentation shouldering up
315 My surplice, through the inferior throng I clove
316 Of the plain Burghers, who in audience stood
317 On the last skirts of their permitted ground,
318 Under the pealing organ. Empty thoughts!
319 I am ashamed of them: and that great Bard,
320 And thou, O Friend! who in thy ample mind
321 Hast placed me high above my best deserts,
322 Ye will forgive the weakness of that hour,
323 In some of its unworthy vanities,
324 Brother to many more.
324 In this mixed sort
325 The months passed on, remissly, not given up
326 To wilful alienation from the right,
[Page 69 ]
327 Or walks of open scandal, but in vague
328 And loose indifference, easy likings, aims
329 Of a low pitch---duty and zeal dismissed,
330 Yet Nature, or a happy course of things
331 Not doing in their stead the needful work.
332 The memory languidly revolved, the heart
333 Reposed in noontide rest, the inner pulse
334 Of contemplation almost failed to beat.
335 Such life might not inaptly be compared
336 To a floating island, an amphibious spot
337 Unsound, of spongy texture, yet withal
338 Not wanting a fair face of water weeds
339 And pleasant flowers. The thirst of living praise,
340 Fit reverence for the glorious Dead, the sight
341 Of those long vistas, sacred catacombs,
342 Where mighty minds lie visibly entombed,
343 Have often stirred the heart of youth, and bred
344 A fervent love of rigorous discipline.---
345 Alas! such high emotion touched not me.
346 Look was there none within these walls to shame
347 My easy spirits, and discountenance
348 Their light composure, far less to instil
349 A calm resolve of mind, firmly addressed
350 To puissant efforts. Nor was this the blame
351 Of others but my own; I should, in truth,
[Page 70 ]
352 As far as doth concern my single self,
353 Misdeem most widely, lodging it elsewhere:
354 For I, bred up 'mid Nature's luxuries,
355 Was a spoiled child, and rambling like the wind,
356 As I had done in daily intercourse
357 With those crystalline rivers, solemn heights,
358 And mountains, ranging like a fowl of the air,
359 I was ill-tutored for captivity;
360 To quit my pleasure, and, from month to month,
361 Take up a station calmly on the perch
362 Of sedentary peace. Those lovely forms
363 Had also left less space within my mind,
364 Which, wrought upon instinctively, had found
365 A freshness in those objects of her love,
366 A winning power, beyond all other power.
367 Not that I slighted books,---that were to lack
368 All sense,---but other passions in me ruled,
369 Passions more fervent, making me less prompt
370 To in-door study than was wise or well,
371 Or suited to those years. Yet I, though used
372 In magisterial liberty to rove,
373 Culling such flowers of learning as might tempt
374 A random choice, could shadow forth a place
375 (If now I yield not to a flattering dream)
376 Whose studious aspect should have bent me down
[Page 71 ]
377 To instantaneous service; should at once
378 Have made me pay to science and to arts
379 And written lore, acknowledged my liege lord,
380 A homage frankly offered up, like that
381 Which I had paid to Nature. Toil and pains
382 In this recess, by thoughtful Fancy built,
383 Should spread from heart to heart; and stately groves,
384 Majestic edifices, should not want
385 A corresponding dignity within.
386 The congregating temper that pervades
387 Our unripe years, not wasted, should be taught
388 To minister to works of high attempt---
389 Works which the enthusiast would perform with love.
390 Youth should be awed, religiously possessed
391 With a conviction of the power that waits
392 On knowledge, when sincerely sought and prized
393 For its own sake, on glory and on praise
394 If but by labour won, and fit to endure
395 The passing day; should learn to put aside
396 Her trappings here, should strip them off abashed
397 Before antiquity and stedfast truth
398 And strong book-mindedness; and over all
399 A healthy sound simplicity should reign,
400 A seemly plainness, name it what you will,
401 Republican or pious.
[Page 72 ]
401 If these thoughts
402 Are a gratuitous emblazonry
403 That mocks the recreant age we live in, then
404 Be Folly and False-seeming free to affect
405 Whatever formal gait of discipline
406 Shall raise them highest in their own esteem---
407 Let them parade among the Schools at will,
408 But spare the House of God. Was ever known
409 The witless shepherd who persists to drive
410 A flock that thirsts not to a pool disliked?
411 A weight must surely hang on days begun
412 And ended with such mockery. Be wise,
413 Ye Presidents and Deans, and, till the spirit
414 Of ancient times revive, and youth be trained
415 At home in pious service, to your bells
416 Give seasonable rest, for 'tis a sound
417 Hollow as ever vexed the tranquil air;
418 And your officious doings bring disgrace
419 On the plain steeples of our English Church,
420 Whose worship, 'mid remotest village trees,
421 Suffers for this. Even Science, too, at hand
422 In daily sight of this irreverence,
423 Is smitten thence with an unnatural taint,
424 Loses her just authority, falls beneath
425 Collateral suspicion, else unknown.
[Page 73 ]
426 This truth escaped me not, and I confess,
427 That having 'mid my native hills given loose
428 To a schoolboy's vision, I had raised a pile
429 Upon the basis of the coming time,
430 That fell in ruins round me. Oh, what joy
431 To see a sanctuary for our country's youth
432 Informed with such a spirit as might be
433 Its own protection; a primeval grove,
434 Where, though the shades with cheerfulness were filled,
435 Nor indigent of songs warbled from crowds
436 In under-coverts, yet the countenance
437 Of the whole place should bear a stamp of awe;
438 A habitation sober and demure
439 For ruminating creatures; a domain
440 For quiet things to wander in; a haunt
441 In which the heron should delight to feed
442 By the shy rivers, and the pelican
443 Upon the cypress spire in lonely thought
444 Might sit and sun himself.---Alas! Alas!
445 In vain for such solemnity I looked;
446 Mine eyes were crossed by butterflies, ears vexed
447 By chattering popinjays; the inner heart
448 Seemed trivial, and the impresses without
449 Of a too gaudy region.
449 Different sight
[Page 74 ]
450 Those venerable Doctors saw of old,
451 When all who dwelt within these famous walls
452 Led in abstemiousness a studious life;
453 When, in forlorn and naked chambers cooped
454 And crowded, o'er the ponderous books they hung
455 Like caterpillars eating out their way
456 In silence, or with keen devouring noise
457 Not to be tracked or fathered. Princes then
458 At matins froze, and couched at curfew-time,
459 Trained up through piety and zeal to prize
460 Spare diet, patient labour, and plain weeds.
461 O seat of Arts! renowned throughout the world!
462 Far different service in those homely days
463 The Muses' modest nurslings underwent
464 From their first childhood: in that glorious time
465 When Learning, like a stranger come from far,
466 Sounding through Christian lands her trumpet, roused
467 Peasant and king; when boys and youths, the growth
468 Of ragged villages and crazy huts,
469 Forsook their homes, and, errant in the quest
470 Of Patron, famous school or friendly nook,
471 Where, pensioned, they in shelter might sit down,
472 From town to town and through wide scattered realms
473 Journeyed with ponderous folios in their hands;
474 And often, starting from some covert place,
[Page 75 ]
475 Saluted the chance comer on the road,
476 Crying, "An obolus, a penny give
477 To a poor scholar!"---when illustrious men,
478 Lovers of truth, by penury constrained,
479 Bucer, Erasmus, or Melancthon, read
480 Before the doors or windows of their cells
481 By moonshine through mere lack of taper light.
482 But peace to vain regrets! We see but darkly
483 Even when we look behind us, and best things
484 Are not so pure by nature that they needs
485 Must keep to all, as fondly all believe,
486 Their highest promise. If the mariner,
487 When at reluctant distance he hath passed
488 Some tempting island, could but know the ills
489 That must have fallen upon him had he brought
490 His bark to land upon the wished-for shore,
491 Good cause would oft be his to thank the surf
492 Whose white belt scared him thence, or wind that blew
493 Inexorably adverse: for myself
494 I grieve not; happy is the gownèd youth,
495 Who only misses what I missed, who falls
496 No lower than I fell.
496 I did not love,
497 Judging not ill perhaps, the timid course
[Page 76 ]
498 Of our scholastic studies; could have wished
499 To see the river flow with ampler range
500 And freer pace; but more, far more, I grieved
501 To see displayed among an eager few,
502 Who in the field of contest persevered,
503 Passions unworthy of youth's generous heart
504 And mounting spirit, pitiably repaid,
505 When so disturbed, whatever palms are won.
506 From these I turned to travel with the shoal
507 Of more unthinking natures, easy minds
508 And pillowy; yet not wanting love that makes
509 The day pass lightly on, when foresight sleeps,
510 And wisdom and the pledges interchanged
511 With our own inner being are forgot.
512 Yet was this deep vacation not given up
513 To utter waste. Hitherto I had stood
514 In my own mind remote from social life,
515 (At least from what we commonly so name,)
516 Like a lone shepherd on a promontory
517 Who lacking occupation looks far forth
518 Into the boundless sea, and rather makes
519 Than finds what he beholds. And sure it is,
520 That this first transit from the smooth delights
521 And wild outlandish walks of simple youth
[Page 77 ]
522 To something that resembles an approach
523 Towards human business, to a privileged world
524 Within a world, a midway residence
525 With all its intervenient imagery,
526 Did better suit my visionary mind,
527 Far better, than to have been bolted forth,
528 Thrust out abruptly into Fortune's way
529 Among the conflicts of substantial life;
530 By a more just gradation did lead on
531 To higher things; more naturally matured,
532 For permanent possession, better fruits,
533 Whether of truth or virtue, to ensue.
534 In serious mood, but oftener, I confess,
535 With playful zest of fancy did we note
536 (How could we less?) the manners and the ways
537 Of those who lived distinguished by the badge
538 Of good or ill report; or those with whom
539 By frame of Academic discipline
540 We were perforce connected, men whose sway
541 And known authority of office served
542 To set our minds on edge, and did no more.
543 Nor wanted we rich pastime of this kind,
544 Found everywhere, but chiefly in the ring
545 Of the grave Elders, men unscoured, grotesque
546 In character, tricked out like aged trees
[Page 78 ]
547 Which through the lapse of their infirmity
548 Give ready place to any random seed
549 That chooses to be reared upon their trunks.
550 Here on my view, confronting vividly
551 Those shepherd swains whom I had lately left,
552 Appeared a different aspect of old age;
553 How different! yet both distinctly marked,
554 Objects embossed to catch the general eye,
555 Or portraitures for special use designed,
556 As some might seem, so aptly do they serve
557 To illustrate Nature's book of rudiments---
558 That book upheld as with maternal care
559 When she would enter on her tender scheme
560 Of teaching comprehension with delight,
561 And mingling playful with pathetic thoughts.
562 The surfaces of artificial life
563 And manners finely wrought, the delicate race
564 Of colours, lurking, gleaming up and down
565 Through that state arras woven with silk and gold:
566 This wily interchange of snaky hues,
567 Willingly or unwillingly revealed,
568 I neither knew nor cared for; and as such
569 Were wanting here, I took what might be found
[Page 79 ]
570 Of less claborate fabric. At this day
571 I smile, in many a mountain solitude
572 Conjuring up scenes as obsolete in freaks
573 Of character, in points of wit as broad,
574 As aught by wooden images performed
575 For entertainment of the gaping crowd
576 At wake or fair. And oftentimes do flit
577 Remembrances before me of old men---
578 Old humourists, who have been long in their graves,
579 And having almost in my mind put off
580 Their human names, have into phantoms passed
581 Of texture midway between life and books.
582 I play the loiterer: 'tis enough to note
583 That here in dwarf proportions were expressed
584 The limbs of the great world; its eager strifes
585 Collaterally pourtrayed, as in mock fight,
586 A tournament of blows, some hardly dealt
587 Though short of mortal combat; and whate'er
588 Might in this pageant be supposed to hit
589 An artless rustic's notice, this way less,
590 More that way, was not wasted upon me---
591 And yet the spectacle may well demand
592 A more substantial name, no mimic show,
593 Itself a living part of a live whole,
[Page 80 ]
594 A creek in the vast sea; for, all degrees
595 And shapes of spurious fame and short-lived praise
596 Here sate in state, and fed with daily alms
597 Retainers won away from solid good;
598 And here was Labour, his own bond-slave; Hope,
599 That never set the pains against the prize;
600 Idleness halting with his weary clog,
601 And poor misguided Shame, and witless Fear,
602 And simple Pleasure foraging for Death;
603 Honour misplaced, and Dignity astray;
604 Feuds, factions, flatteries, enmity, and guile
605 Murmuring submission, and bald government,
606 (The idol weak as the idolator,)
607 And Decency and Custom starving Truth,
608 And blind Authority beating with his staff
609 The child that might have led him; Emptiness
610 Followed as of good omen, and meek Worth
611 Left to herself unheard of and unknown.
612 Of these and other kindred notices
613 I cannot say what portion is in truth
614 The naked recollection of that time,
615 And what may rather have been called to life
616 By after-meditation. But delight
617 That, in an easy temper lulled asleep,
[Page 81 ]
618 Is still with Innocence its own reward,
619 This was not wanting. Carelessly I roamed
620 As through a wide museum from whose stores
621 A casual rarity is singled out
622 And has its brief perusal, then gives way
623 To others, all supplanted in their turn;
624 Till 'mid this crowded neighbourhood of things
625 That are by nature most unneighbourly,
626 The head turns round and cannot right itself;
627 And though an aching and a barren sense
628 Of gay confusion still be uppermost,
629 With few wise longings and but little love,
630 Yet to the memory something cleaves at last,
631 Whence profit may be drawn in times to come.
632 Thus in submissive idleness, my Friend!
633 The labouring time of autumn, winter, spring,
634 Eight months! rolled pleasingly away; the ninth
635 Came and returned me to my native hills.
[Page 83 ]
BOOK IV.
SUMMER VACATION.
[Page 85 ]
1 Bright was the summer's noon when quickening steps
2 Followed each other till a dreary moor
3 Was crossed, a bare ridge clomb, upon whose top
4 Standing alone, as from a rampart's edge,
5 I overlooked the bed of Windermere,
6 Like a vast river, stretching in the sun.
7 With exultation, at my feet I saw
8 Lake, islands, promontories, gleaming bays,
9 A universe of Nature's fairest forms
10 Proudly revealed with instantaneous burst,
11 Magnificent, and beautiful, and gay.
12 I bounded down the hill shouting amain
13 For the old Ferryman; to the shout the rocks
14 Replied, and when the Charon of the flood
15 Had staid his oars, and touched the jutting pier,
[Page 86 ]
16 I did not step into the well-known boat
17 Without a cordial greeting. Thence with speed
18 Up the familiar hill I took my way
19 Towards that sweet Valley [End note 4: 1Kb]
where I had been reared;
20 'Twas but a short hour's walk, ere veering round
21 I saw the snow-white church upon her hill
22 Sit like a thronèd Lady, sending out
23 A gracious look all over her domain.
24 Yon azure smoke betrays the lurking town;
25 With eager footsteps I advance and reach
26 The cottage threshold where my journey closed.
27 Glad welcome had I, with some tears, perhaps,
28 From my old Dame, so kind and motherly,
29 While she perused me with a parent's pride.
30 The thoughts of gratitude shall fall like dew
31 Upon thy grave, good creature! While my heart
32 Can beat never will I forget thy name.
33 Heaven's blessing be upon thee where thou liest
34 After thy innocent and busy stir
35 In narrow cares, thy little daily growth
36 Of calm enjoyments, after eighty years,
37 And more than eighty, of untroubled life,
38 Childless, yet by the strangers to thy blood
39 Honoured with little less than filial love.
40 What joy was mine to see thee once again,
[Page 87 ]
41 Thee and thy dwelling, and a crowd of things
42 About its narrow precincts all beloved,
43 And many of them seeming yet my own!
44 Why should I speak of what a thousand hearts
45 Have felt, and every man alive can guess?
46 The rooms, the court, the garden were not left
47 Long unsaluted, nor the sunny seat
48 Round the stone table under the dark pine,
49 Friendly to studious or to festive hours;
50 Nor that unruly child of mountain birth,
51 The famous brook, who, soon as he was boxed
52 Within our garden, found himself at once,
53 As if by trick insidious and unkind,
54 Stripped of his voice and left to dimple down
55 (Without an effort and without a will)
56 A channel paved by man's officious care.
57 I looked at him and smiled, and smiled again,
58 And in the press of twenty thousand thoughts,
59 "Ha," quoth I, "pretty prisoner, are you there!"
60 Well might sarcastic Fancy then have whispered,
61 "An emblem here behold of thy own life;
62 In its late course of even days with all
63 Their smooth enthralment;" but the heart was full,
64 Too full for that reproach. My aged Dame
65 Walked proudly at my side: she guided me;
[Page 88 ]
66 I willing, nay---nay, wishing to be led.
67 ---The face of every neighbour whom I met
68 Was like a volume to me; some were hailed
69 Upon the road, some busy at their work,
70 Unceremonious greetings interchanged
71 With half the length of a long field between.
72 Among my schoolfellows I scattered round
73 Like recognitions, but with some constraint
74 Attended, doubtless, with a little pride,
75 But with more shame, for my habiliments,
76 The transformation wrought by gay attire.
77 Not less delighted did I take my place
78 At our domestic table: and, dear Friend!
79 In this endeavour simply to relate
80 A Poet's history, may I leave untold
81 The thankfulness with which I laid me down
82 In my accustomed bed, more welcome now
83 Perhaps than if it had been more desired
84 Or been more often thought of with regret;
85 That lowly bed whence I had heard the wind
86 Roar and the rain beat hard, where I so oft
87 Had lain awake on summer nights to watch
88 The moon in splendour couched among the leaves
89 Of a tall ash, that near our cottage stood;
90 Had watched her with fixed eyes while to and fro
[Page 89 ]
91 In the dark summit of the waving tree
92 She rocked with every impulse of the breeze.
93 Among the favourites whom it pleased me well
94 To see again, was one by ancient right
95 Our inmate, a rough terrier of the hills;
96 By birth and call of nature pre-ordained
97 To hunt the badger and unearth the fox
98 Among the impervious crags, but having been
99 From youth our own adopted, he had passed
100 Into a gentler service. And when first
101 The boyish spirit flagged, and day by day
102 Along my veins I kindled with the stir,
103 The fermentation, and the vernal heat
104 Of poesy, affecting private shades
105 Like a sick Lover, then this dog was used
106 To watch me, an attendant and a friend,
107 Obsequious to my steps early and late,
108 Though often of such dilatory walk
109 Tired, and uneasy at the halts I made.
110 A hundred times when, roving high and low,
111 I have been harassed with the toil of verse,
112 Much pains and little progress, and at once
113 Some lovely Image in the song rose up
114 Full-formed, like Venus rising from the sea;
[Page 90 ]
115 Then have I darted forwards to let loose
116 My hand upon his back with stormy joy,
117 Caressing him again and yet again.
118 And when at evening on the public way
119 I sauntered, like a river murmuring
120 And talking to itself when all things else
121 Are still, the creature trotted on before;
122 Such was his custom; but whene'er he met
123 A passenger approaching, he would turn
124 To give me timely notice, and straightway,
125 Grateful for that admonishment, I hushed
126 My voice, composed my gait, and, with the air
127 And mien of one whose thoughts are free, advanced
128 To give and take a greeting that might save
129 My name from piteous rumours, such as wait
130 On men suspected to be crazed in brain.
131 Those walks well worthy to be prized and loved---
132 Regretted!---that word, too, was on my tongue,
133 But they were richly laden with all good,
134 And cannot be remembered but with thanks
135 And gratitude, and perfect joy of heart---
136 Those walks in all their freshness now came back
137 Like a returning Spring. When first I made
138 Once more the circuit of our little lake,
[Page 91 ]
139 If ever happiness hath lodged with man,
140 That day consummate happiness was mine,
141 Wide-spreading, steady, calm, contemplative.
142 The sun was set, or setting, when I left
143 Our cottage door, and evening soon brought on
144 A sober hour, not winning or serene,
145 For cold and raw the air was, and untuned;
146 But as a face we love is sweetest then
147 When sorrow damps it, or, whatever look
148 It chance to wear, is sweetest if the heart
149 Have fulness in herself; even so with me
150 It fared that evening. Gently did my soul
151 Put off her veil, and, self-transmuted, stood
152 Naked, as in the presence of her God.
153 While on I walked, a comfort seemed to touch
154 A heart that had not been disconsolate:
155 Strength came where weakness was not known to be,
156 At least not felt; and restoration came
157 Like an intruder knocking at the door
158 Of unacknowledged weariness. I took
159 The balance, and with firm hand weighed myself.
160 ---Of that external scene which round me lay,
161 Little, in this abstraction, did I see;
162 Remembered less; but I had inward hopes
163 And swellings of the spirit, was rapt and soothed,
[Page 92 ]
164 Conversed with promises, had glimmering views
165 How life pervades the undecaying mind;
166 How the immortal soul with God-like power
167 Informs, creates, and thaws the deepest sleep
168 That time can lay upon her; how on earth,
169 Man, if he do but live within the light
170 Of high endeavours, daily spreads abroad
171 His being armed with strength that cannot fail.
172 Nor was there want of milder thoughts, of love
173 Of innocence, and holiday repose;
174 And more than pastoral quiet, 'mid the stir
175 Of boldest projects, and a peaceful end
176 At last, or glorious, by endurance won.
177 Thus musing, in a wood I sate me down
178 Alone, continuing there to muse: the slopes
179 And heights meanwhile were slowly overspread
180 With darkness, and before a rippling breeze
181 The long lake lengthened out its hoary line,
182 And in the sheltered coppice where I sate,
183 Around me from among the hazel leaves,
184 Now here, now there, moved by the straggling wind,
185 Came ever and anon a breath-like sound,
186 Quick as the pantings of the faithful dog,
187 The off and on companion of my walk;
188 And such, at times, believing them to be,
[Page 93 ]
189 I turned my head to look if he were there;
190 Then into solemn thought I passed once more.
191 A freshness also found I at this time
192 In human Life, the daily life of those
193 Whose occupations really I loved;
194 The peaceful scene oft filled me with surprise
195 Changed like a garden in the heat of spring
196 After an eight-days' absence. For (to omit
197 The things which were the same and yet appeared
198 Far otherwise) amid this rural solitude,
199 A narrow Vale where each was known to all,
200 'Twas not indifferent to a youthful mind
201 To mark some sheltering bower or sunny nook,
202 Where an old man had used to sit alone,
203 Now vacant; pale-faced babes whom I had left
204 In arms, now rosy prattlers at the feet
205 Of a pleased grandame tottering up and down;
206 And growing girls whose beauty, filched away
207 With all its pleasant promises, was gone
208 To deck some slighted playmate's homely cheek.
209 Yes, I had something of a subtler sense,
210 And often looking round was moved to smiles
211 Such as a delicate work of humour breeds;
[Page 94 ]
212 I read, without design, the opinions, thoughts,
213 Of those plain-living people now observed
214 With clearer knowledge; with another eye
215 I saw the quiet woodman in the woods,
216 The shepherd roam the hills. With new delight,
217 This chiefly, did I note my grey-haired Dame;
218 Saw her go forth to church or other work
219 Of state, equipped in monumental trim;
220 Short velvet cloak, (her bonnet of the like),
221 A mantle such as Spanish Cavaliers
222 Wore in old time. Her smooth domestic life,
223 Affectionate without disquietude,
224 Her talk, her business, pleased me; and no less
225 Her clear though shallow stream of piety
226 That ran on Sabbath days a fresher course;
227 With thoughts unfelt till now I saw her read
228 Her Bible on hot Sunday afternoons,
229 And loved the book, when she had dropped asleep
230 And made of it a pillow for her head.
231 Nor less do I remember to have felt,
232 Distinctly manifested at this time,
233 A human-heartedness about my love
234 For objects hitherto the absolute wealth
235 Of my own private being and no more:
[Page 95 ]
236 Which I had loved, even as a blessed spirit
237 Or Angel, if he were to dwell on earth,
238 Might love in individual happiness.
239 But now there opened on me other thoughts
240 Of change, congratulation or regret,
241 A pensive feeling! It spread far and wide;
242 The trees, the mountains shared it, and the brooks,
243 The stars of Heaven, now seen in their old haunts---
244 White Sirius glittering o'er the southern crags,
245 Orion with his belt, and those fair Seven,
246 Acquaintances of every little child,
247 And Jupiter, my own beloved star!
248 Whatever shadings of mortality,
249 Whatever imports from the world of death
250 Had come among these objects heretofore,
251 Were, in the main, of mood less tender: strong,
252 Deep, gloomy were they, and severe; the scatterings
253 Of awe or tremulous dread, that had given way
254 In later youth to yearnings of a love
255 Enthusiastic, to delight and hope.
256 As one who hangs down-bending from the side
257 Of a slow-moving boat, upon the breast
258 Of a still water, solacing himself
259 With such discoveries as his eye can make
[Page 96 ]
260 Beneath him in the bottom of the deep,
261 Sees many beauteous sights---weeds, fishes, flowers,
262 Grots, pebbles, roots of trees, and fancies more,
263 Yet often is perplexed and cannot part
264 The shadow from the substance, rocks and sky,
265 Mountains and clouds, reflected in the depth
266 Of the clear flood, from things which there abide
267 In their true dwelling; now is crossed by gleam
268 Of his own image, by a sun-beam now,
269 And wavering motions sent he knows not whence,
270 Impediments that make his task more sweet;
271 Such pleasant office have we long pursued
272 Incumbent o'er the surface of past time
273 With like success, nor often have appeared
274 Shapes fairer or less doubtfully discerned
275 Than these to which the Tale, indulgent Friend!
276 Would now direct thy notice. Yet in spite
277 Of pleasure won, and knowledge not withheld,
278 There was an inner falling off---I loved,
279 Loved deeply all that had been loved before,
280 More deeply even than ever: but a swarm
281 Of heady schemes jostling each other, gawds,
282 And feast and dance, and public revelry,
283 And sports and games (too grateful in themselves,
284 Yet in themselves less grateful, I believe,
[Page 97 ]
285 Than as they were a badge glossy and fresh
286 Of manliness and freedom) all conspired
287 To lure my mind from firm habitual quest
288 Of feeding pleasures, to depress the zeal
289 And damp those yearnings which had once been mine
290 A wild, unworldly-minded youth, given up
291 To his own eager thoughts. It would demand
292 Some skill, and longer time than may be spared,
293 To paint these vanities, and how they wrought
294 In haunts where they, till now, had been unknown.
295 It seemed the very garments that I wore
296 Preyed on my strength, and stopped the quiet stream
297 Of self-forgetfulness.
297 Yes, that heartless chase
298 Of trivial pleasures was a poor exchange
299 For books and nature at that early age.
300 'Tis true, some casual knowledge might be gained
301 Of character or life; but at that time,
302 Of manners put to school I took small note,
303 And all my deeper passions lay elsewhere.
304 Far better had it been to exalt the mind
305 By solitary study, to uphold
306 Intense desire through meditative peace;
307 And yet, for chastisement of these regrets,
308 The memory of one particular hour
[Page 98 ]
309 Doth here rise up against me. 'Mid a throng
310 Of maids and youths, old men, and matrons staid,
311 A medley of all tempers, I had passed
312 The night in dancing, gaiety, and mirth,
313 With din of instruments and shuffling feet,
314 And glancing forms, and tapers glittering,
315 And unaimed prattle flying up and down;
316 Spirits upon the stretch, and here and there
317 Slight shocks of young love-liking interspersed,
318 Whose transient pleasure mounted to the head,
319 And tingled through the veins. Ere we retired,
320 The cock had crowed, and now the eastern sky
321 Was kindling, not unseen, from humble copse
322 And open field, through which the pathway wound,
323 And homeward led my steps. Magnificent
324 The morning rose, in memorable pomp,
325 Glorious as e'er I had beheld---in front,
326 The sea lay laughing at a distance; near,
327 The solid mountains shone, bright as the clouds,
328 Grain-tinctured, drenched in empyrean light;
329 And in the meadows and the lower grounds
330 Was all the sweetness of a common dawn---
331 Dews, vapours, and the melody of birds,
332 And labourers going forth to till the fields.
333 Ah! need I say, dear Friend! that to the brim
[Page 99 ]
334 My heart was full; I made no vows, but vows
335 Were then made for me; bond unknown to me
336 Was given, that I should be, else sinning greatly,
337 A dedicated Spirit. On I walked
338 In thankful blessedness, which yet survives.
339 Strange rendezvous! My mind was at that time
340 A parti-coloured show of grave and gay,
341 Solid and light, short-sighted and profound;
342 Of inconsiderate habits and sedate,
343 Consorting in one mansion unreproved.
344 The worth I knew of powers that I possessed,
345 Though slighted and too oft misused. Besides,
346 That summer, swarming as it did with thoughts
347 Transient and idle, lacked not intervals
348 When Folly from the frown of fleeting Time
349 Shrunk, and the mind experienced in herself
350 Conformity as just as that of old
351 To the end and written spirit of God's works,
352 Whether held forth in Nature or in Man,
353 Through pregnant vision, separate or conjoined.
354 When from our better selves we have too long
355 Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop,
356 Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired,
[Page 100 ]
357 How gracious, how benign, is Solitude;
358 How potent a mere image of her sway;
359 Most potent when impressed upon the mind
360 With an appropriate human centre---hermit,
361 Deep in the bosom of the wilderness;
362 Votary (in vast cathedral, where no foot
363 Is treading, where no other face is seen)
364 Kneeling at prayers; or watchman on the top
365 Of lighthouse, beaten by Atlantic waves;
366 Or as the soul of that great Power is met
367 Sometimes embodied on a public road,
368 When, for the night deserted, it assumes
369 A character of quiet more profound
370 Than pathless wastes.
370 Once, when those summer months
371 Were flown, and autumn brought its annual show
372 Of oars with oars contending, sails with sails,
373 Upon Winander's spacious breast, it chanced
374 That---after I had left a flower-decked room
375 (Whose in-door pastime, lighted up, survived
376 To a late hour), and spirits overwrought
377 Were making night do penance for a day
378 Spent in a round of strenuous idleness---
379 My homeward course led up a long ascent,
380 Where the road's watery surface, to the top
[Page 101 ]
381 Of that sharp rising, glittered to the moon
382 And bore the semblance of another stream
383 Stealing with silent lapse to join the brook
384 That murmured in the vale. All else was still;
385 No living thing appeared in earth or air,
386 And, save the flowing water's peaceful voice,
387 Sound there was none---but, lo! an uncouth shape,
388 Shown by a sudden turning of the road,
389 So near that, slipping back into the shade
390 Of a thick hawthorn, I could mark him well,
391 Myself unseen. He was of stature tall,
392 A span above man's common measure, tall,
393 Stiff, lank, and upright; a more meagre man
394 Was never seen before by night or day.
395 Long were his arms, pallid his hands; his mouth
396 Looked ghastly in the moonlight: from behind,
397 A mile-stone propped him; I could also ken
398 That he was clothed in military garb,
399 Though faded, yet entire. Companionless,
400 No dog attending, by no staff sustained,
401 He stood, and in his very dress appeared
402 A desolation, a simplicity,
403 To which the trappings of a gaudy world
404 Make a strange back-ground. From his lips, ere long,
405 Issued low muttered sounds, as if of pain
[Page 102 ]
406 Or some uneasy thought; yet still his form
407 Kept the same awful steadiness---at his feet
408 His shadow lay, and moved not. From self-blame
409 Not wholly free, I watched him thus; at length
410 Subduing my heart's specious cowardice,
411 I left the shady nook where I had stood
412 And hailed him. Slowly from his resting-place
413 He rose, and with a lean and wasted arm
414 In measured gesture lifted to his head
415 Returned my salutation; then resumed
416 His station as before; and when I asked
417 His history, the veteran, in reply,
418 Was neither slow nor eager; but, unmoved,
419 And with a quiet uncomplaining voice,
420 A stately air of mild indifference,
421 He told in few plain words a soldier's tale---
422 That in the Tropic Islands he had served,
423 Whence he had landed scarcely three weeks past;
424 That on his landing he had been dismissed,
425 And now was travelling towards his native home.
426 This heard, I said, in pity, "Come with me."
427 He stooped, and straightway from the ground took up
428 An oaken staff by me yet unobserved---
429 A staff which must have dropt from his slack hand
430 And lay till now neglected in the grass.
[Page 103 ]
431 Though weak his step and cautious, he appeared
432 To travel without pain, and I beheld,
433 With an astonishment but ill suppressed,
434 His ghostly figure moving at my side;
435 Nor could I, while we journeyed thus, forbear
436 To turn from present hardships to the past,
437 And speak of war, battle, and pestilence,
438 Sprinkling this talk with questions, better spared,
439 On what he might himself have seen or felt.
440 He all the while was in demeanour calm,
441 Concise in answer; solemn and sublime
442 He might have seemed, but that in all he said
443 There was a strange half-absence, as of one
444 Knowing too well the importance of his theme,
445 But feeling it no longer. Our discourse
446 Soon ended, and together on we passed
447 In silence through a wood gloomy and still.
448 Up-turning, then, along an open field,
449 We reached a cottage. At the door I knocked,
450 And earnestly to charitable care
451 Commended him as a poor friendless man,
452 Belated and by sickness overcome.
453 Assured that now the traveller would repose
454 In comfort, I entreated that henceforth
455 He would not linger in the public ways,
[Page 104 ]
456 But ask for timely furtherance and help
457 Such as his state required. At this reproof,
458 With the same ghastly mildness in his look,
459 He said, "My trust is in the God of Heaven,
460 And in the eye of him who passes me!"
461 The cottage door was speedily unbarred,
462 And now the soldier touched his hat once more
463 With his lean hand, and in a faltering voice,
464 Whose tone bespake reviving interests
465 Till then unfelt, he thanked me; I returned
466 The farewell blessing of the patient man,
467 And so we parted. Back I cast a look,
468 And lingered near the door a little space,
469 Then sought with quiet heart my distant home.
[Page 105 ]
BOOK V.
BOOKS.
[Page 107 ]
1 When Contemplation, like the night-calm felt
2 Through earth and sky, spreads widely, and sends deep
3 Into the soul its tranquillising power,
4 Even then I sometimes grieve for thee, O Man,
5 Earth's paramount Creature! not so much for woes
6 That thou endurest; heavy though that weight be,
7 Cloud-like it mounts, or touched with light divine
8 Doth melt away; but for those palms achieved,
9 Through length of time, by patient exercise
10 Of study and hard thought; there, there, it is
11 That sadness finds its fuel. Hitherto,
12 In progress through this Verse, my mind hath looked
13 Upon the speaking face of earth and heaven
14 As her prime teacher, intercourse with man
15 Established by the sovereign Intellect,
16 Who through that bodily image hath diffused,
[Page 108 ]
17 As might appear to the eye of fleeting time,
18 A deathless spirit. Thou also, man! hast wrought,
19 For commerce of thy nature with herself,
20 Things that aspire to unconquerable life;
21 And yet we feel---we cannot choose but feel---
22 That they must perish. Tremblings of the heart
23 It gives, to think that our immortal being
24 No more shall need such garments; and yet man,
25 As long as he shall be the child of earth,
26 Might almost "weep to have" what he may lose,
27 Nor be himself extinguished, but survive,
28 Abject, depressed, forlorn, disconsolate.
29 A thought is with me sometimes, and I say,---
30 Should the whole frame of earth by inward throes
31 Be wrenched, or fire come down from far to scorch
32 Her pleasant habitations, and dry up
33 Old Ocean, in his bed left singed and bare,
34 Yet would the living Presence still subsist
35 Victorious, and composure would ensue,
36 And kindlings like the morning---presage sure
37 Of day returning and of life revived.
38 But all the meditations of mankind,
39 Yea, all the adamantine holds of truth
40 By reason built, or passion, which itself
41 Is highest reason in a soul sublime;
[Page 109 ]
42 The consecrated works of Bard and Sage,
43 Sensuous or intellectual, wrought by men,
44 Twin labourers and heirs of the same hopes;
45 Where would they be? Oh! why hath not the Mind,
46 Some element to stamp her image on
47 In nature somewhat nearer to her own?
48 Why, gifted with such powers to send abroad
49 Her spirit, must it lodge in shrines so frail?
50 One day, when from my lips a like complaint
51 Had fallen in presence of a studious friend,
52 He with a smile made answer, that in truth
53 'Twas going far to seek disquietude;
54 But on the front of his reproof confessed
55 That he himself had oftentimes given way
56 To kindred hauntings. Whereupon I told,
57 That once in the stillness of a summer's noon,
58 While I was seated in a rocky cave
59 By the sea-side, perusing, so it chanced,
60 The famous history of the errant knight
61 Recorded by Cervantes, these same thoughts
62 Beset me, and to height unusual rose,
63 While listlessly I sate, and, having closed
64 The book, had turned my eyes toward the wide sea.
65 On poetry and geometric truth,
[Page 110 ]
66 And their high privilege of lasting life,
67 From all internal injury exempt,
68 I mused, upon these chiefly: and at length,
69 My senses yielding to the sultry air,
70 Sleep seized me, and I passed into a dream.
71 I saw before me stretched a boundless plain
72 Of sandy wilderness, all black and void,
73 And as I looked around, distress and fear
74 Came creeping over me, when at my side,
75 Close at my side, an uncouth shape appeared
76 Upon a dromedary, mounted high.
77 He seemed an Arab of the Bedouin tribes:
78 A lance he bore, and underneath one arm
79 A stone, and in the opposite hand a shell
80 Of a surpassing brightness. At the sight
81 Much I rejoiced, not doubting but a guide
82 Was present, one who with unerring skill
83 Would through the desert lead me; and while yet
84 I looked and looked, self-questioned what this freight
85 Which the new-comer carried through the waste
86 Could mean, the Arab told me that the stone
87 (To give it in the language of the dream)
88 Was "Euclid's Elements;" and "This," said he,
89 "Is something of more worth;" and at the word
90 Stretched forth the shell, so beautiful in shape,
[Page 111 ]
91 In colour so resplendent, with command
92 That I should hold it to my ear. I did so,
93 And heard that instant in an unknown tongue,
94 Which yet I understood, articulate sounds,
95 A loud prophetic blast of harmony;
96 An Ode, in passion uttered, which foretold
97 Destruction to the children of the earth
98 By deluge, now at hand. No sooner ceased
99 The song, than the Arab with calm look declared
100 That all would come to pass of which the voice
101 Had given forewarning, and that he himself
102 Was going then to bury those two books:
103 The one that held acquaintance with the stars,
104 And wedded soul to soul in purest bond
105 Of reason, undisturbed by space or time;
106 The other that was a god, yea many gods,
107 Had voices more than all the winds, with power
108 To exhilarate the spirit, and to soothe,
109 Through every clime, the heart of human kind.
110 While this was uttering, strange as it may seem,
111 I wondered not, although I plainly saw
112 The one to be a stone, the other a shell;
113 Nor doubted once but that they both were books,
114 Having a perfect faith in all that passed.
115 Far stronger, now, grew the desire I felt
[Page 112 ]
116 To cleave unto this man; but when I prayed
117 To share his enterprise, he hurried on
118 Reckless of me: I followed, not unseen,
119 For oftentimes he cast a backward look,
120 Grasping his twofold treasure.---Lance in rest,
121 He rode, I keeping pace with him; and now
122 He, to my fancy, had become the knight
123 Whose tale Cervantes tells; yet not the knight,
124 But was an Arab of the desert too;
125 Of these was neither, and was both at once.
126 His countenance, meanwhile, grew more disturbed;
127 And, looking backwards when he looked, mine eyes
128 Saw, over half the wilderness diffused,
129 A bed of glittering light: I asked the cause:
130 "It is," said he, "the waters of the deep
131 Gathering upon us;" quickening then the pace
132 Of the unwieldly creature he bestrode,
133 He left me: I called after him aloud;
134 He heeded not; but, with his twofold charge
135 Still in his grasp, before me, full in view,
136 Went hurrying o'er the illimitable waste,
137 With the fleet waters of a drowning world
138 In chase of him; whereat I waked in terror,
139 And saw the sea before me, and the book,
140 In which I had been reading, at my side.
[Page 113 ]
141 Full often, taking from the world of sleep
142 This Arab phantom, which I thus beheld,
143 This semi-Quixote, I to him have given
144 A substance, fancied him a living man,
145 A gentle dweller in the desert, crazed
146 By love and feeling, and internal thought
147 Protracted among endless solitudes;
148 Have shaped him wandering upon this quest!
149 Nor have I pitied him; but rather felt
150 Reverence was due to a being thus employed;
151 And thought that, in the blind and awful lair
152 Of such a madness, reason did lie couched.
153 Enow there are on earth to take in charge
154 Their wives, their children, and their virgin loves,
155 Or whatsoever else the heart holds dear;
156 Enow to stir for these; yea, will I say,
157 Contemplating in soberness the approach
158 Of an event so dire, by signs in earth
159 Or heaven made manifest, that I could share
160 That maniac's fond anxiety, and go
161 Upon like errand. Oftentimes at least
162 Me hath such strong entrancement overcome,
163 When I have held a volume in my hand,
164 Poor earthly casket of immortal verse,
165 Shakespeare, or Milton, labourers divine!
[Page 114 ]
166 Great and benign, indeed, must be the power
167 Of living nature, which could thus so long
168 Detain me from the best of other guides
169 And dearest helpers, left unthanked, unpraised,
170 Even in the time of lisping infancy;
171 And later down, in prattling childhood even,
172 While I was travelling back among those days,
173 How could I ever play an ingrate's part?
174 Once more should I have made those bowers resound,
175 By intermingling strains of thankfulness
176 With their own thoughtless melodies; at least
177 It might have well beseemed me to repeat
178 Some simply fashioned tale, to tell again,
179 In slender accents of sweet verse, some tale
180 That did bewitch me then, and soothes me now.
181 O Friend! O Poet! brother of my soul,
182 Think not that I could pass along untouched
183 By these remembrances. Yet wherefore speak?
184 Why call upon a few weak words to say
185 What is already written in the hearts
186 Of all that breathe?---what in the path of all
187 Drops daily from the tongue of every child,
188 Wherever man is found? The trickling tear
189 Upon the cheek of listening Infancy
190 Proclaims it, and the insuperable look
[Page 115 ]
191 That drinks as if it never could be full.
192 That portion of my story I shall leave
193 There registered: whatever else of power
194 Or pleasure sown, or fostered thus, may be
195 Peculiar to myself, let that remain
196 Where still it works, though hidden from all search
197 Among the depths of time. Yet is it just
198 That here, in memory of all books which lay
199 Their sure foundations in the heart of man,
200 Whether by native prose, or numerous verse,
201 That in the name of all inspirèd souls,
202 From Homer the great Thunderer, from the voice
203 That roars along the bed of Jewish song,
204 And that more varied and elaborate,
205 Those trumpet-tones of harmony that shake
206 Our shores in England,---from those loftiest notes
207 Down to the low and wren-like warblings, made
208 For cottagers and spinners at the wheel,
209 And sun-burnt travellers resting their tired limbs,
210 Stretched under wayside hedge-rows, ballad tunes,
211 Food for the hungry ears of little ones,
212 And of old men who have survived their joys:
213 'Tis just that in behalf of these, the works,
214 And of the men that framed them, whether known,
[Page 116 ]
215 Or sleeping nameless in their scattered graves,
216 That I should here assert their rights, attest
217 Their honours, and should, once for all, pronounce
218 Their benediction; speak of them as Powers
219 For ever to be hallowed; only less,
220 For what we are and what we may become,
221 Than Nature's self, which is the breath of God,
222 Or His pure Word by miracle revealed.
223 Rarely and with reluctance would I stoop
224 To transitory themes; yet I rejoice,
225 And, by these thoughts admonished, will pour out
226 Thanks with uplifted heart, that I was reared
227 Safe from an evil which these days have laid
228 Upon the children of the land, a pest
229 That might have dried me up, body and soul.
230 This verse is dedicate to Nature's self,
231 And things that teach as Nature teaches: then,
232 Oh! where had been the Man, the Poet where,
233 Where had we been, we two, beloved Friend!
234 If in the season of unperilous choice,
235 In lieu of wandering, as we did, through vales
236 Rich with indigenous produce, open ground
237 Of Fancy, happy pastures ranged at will,
238 We had been followed, hourly watched, and noosed,
[Page 117 ]
239 Each in his several melancholy walk
240 Stringed like a poor man's heifer at its feed,
241 Led through the lanes in forlorn servitude;
242 Or rather like a stallèd ox debarred
243 From touch of growing grass, that may not taste
244 A flower till it have yielded up its sweets
245 A prelibation to the mower's scythe.
246 Behold the parent hen amid her brood,
247 Though fledged and feathered, and well pleased to part
248 And straggle from her presence, still a brood,
249 And she herself from the maternal bond
250 Still undischarged; yet doth she little more
251 Than move with them in tenderness and love,
252 A centre to the circle which they make;
253 And now and then, alike from need of theirs
254 And call of her own natural appetites,
255 She scratches, ransacks up the earth for food,
256 Which they partake at pleasure. Early died
257 My honoured Mother, she who was the heart
258 And hinge of all our learnings and our loves:
259 She left us destitute, and, as we might,
260 Trooping together. Little suits it me
261 To break upon the sabbath of her rest
262 With any thought that looks at others' blame;
[Page 118 ]
263 Nor would I praise her but in perfect love.
264 Hence am I checked: but let me boldly say,
265 In gratitude, and for the sake of truth,
266 Unheard by her, that she, not falsely taught,
267 Fetching her goodness rather from times past,
268 Than shaping novelties for times to come,
269 Had no presumption, no such jealousy,
270 Nor did by habit of her thoughts mistrust
271 Our nature, but had virtual faith that He
272 Who fills the mother's breast with innocent milk,
273 Doth also for our nobler part provide,
274 Under His great correction and control,
275 As innocent instincts, and as innocent food;
276 Or draws for minds that are left free to trust
277 In the simplicities of opening life
278 Sweet honey out of spurned or dreaded weeds.
279 This was her creed, and therefore she was pure
280 From anxious fear of error or mishap,
281 And evil, overweeningly so called;
282 Was not puffed up by false unnatural hopes,
283 Nor selfish with unnecessary cares,
284 Nor with impatience from the season asked
285 More than its timely produce; rather loved
286 The hours for what they are, than from regard
287 Glanced on their promises in restless pride.
[Page 119 ]
288 Such was she---not from faculties more strong
289 Than others have, but from the times, perhaps,
290 And spot in which she lived, and through a grace
291 Of modest meekness, simple-mindedness,
292 A heart that found benignity and hope,
293 Being itself benign.
293 My drift I fear
294 Is scarcely obvious; but, that common sense
295 May try this modern system by its fruits,
296 Leave let me take to place before her sight
297 A specimen pourtrayed with faithful hand.
298 Full early trained to worship seemliness,
299 This model of a child is never known
300 To mix in quarrels; that were far beneath
301 Its dignity; with gifts he bubbles o'er
302 As generous as a fountain; selfishness
303 May not come near him, nor the little throng
304 Of flitting pleasures tempt him from his path;
305 The wandering beggars propagate his name,
306 Dumb creatures find him tender as a nun,
307 And natural or supernatural fear,
308 Unless it leap upon him in a dream,
309 Touches him not. To enhance the wonder, see
310 How arch his notices, how nice his sense
311 Of the ridiculous; not blind is he
[Page 120 ]
312 To the broad follies of the licensed world,
313 Yet innocent himself withal, though shrewd,
314 And can read lectures upon innocence;
315 A miracle of scientific lore,
316 Ships he can guide across the pathless sea,
317 And tell you all their cunning; he can read
318 The inside of the earth, and spell the stars;
319 He knows the policies of foreign lands;
320 Can string you names of districts, cities, towns,
321 The whole world over, tight as beads of dew
322 Upon a gossamer thread; he sifts, he weighs;
323 All things are put to question; he must live
324 Knowing that he grows wiser every day
325 Or else not live at all, and seeing too
326 Each little drop of wisdom as it falls
327 Into the dimpling cistern of his heart:
328 For this unnatural growth the trainer blame,
329 Pity the tree.---Poor human vanity,
330 Wert thou extinguished, little would be left
331 Which he could truly love; but how escape?
332 For, ever as a thought of purer birth
333 Rises to lead him toward a better clime,
334 Some intermeddler still is on the watch
335 To drive him back, and pound him, like a stray,
336 Within the pinfold of his own conceit.
[Page 121 ]
337 Meanwhile old grandame earth is grieved to find
338 The playthings, which her love designed for him,
339 Unthought of: in their woodland beds the flowers
340 Weep, and the river sides are all forlorn.
341 Oh! give us once again the wishing cap
342 Of Fortunatus, and the invisible coat
343 Of Jack the Giant-killer, Robin Hood,
344 And Sabra in the forest with St. George!
345 The child, whose love is here, at least, doth reap
346 One precious gain, that he forgets himself.
347 These mighty workmen of our later age,
348 Who, with a broad highway, have overbridged
349 The froward chaos of futurity,
350 Tamed to their bidding; they who have the skill
351 To manage books, and things, and make them act
352 On infant minds as surely as the sun
353 Deals with a flower; the keepers of our time,
354 The guides and wardens of our faculties,
355 Sages who in their prescience would control
356 All accidents, and to the very road
357 Which they have fashioned would confine us down,
358 Like engines; when will their presumption learn,
359 That in the unreasoning progress of the world
360 A wiser spirit is at work for us.
[Page 122 ]
361 A better eye than theirs, most prodigal
362 Of blessings, and most studious of our good,
363 Even in what seem our most unfruitful hours?
[End note 5: 1Kb]
364 There was a Boy: ye knew him well, ye cliffs
365 And islands of Winander!---many a time
366 At evening, when the earliest stars began
367 To move along the edges of the hills,
368 Rising or setting, would he stand alone
369 Beneath the trees or by the glimmering lake,
370 And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands
371 Pressed closely palm to palm, and to his mouth
372 Uplifted, he, as through an instrument,
373 Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls,
374 That they might answer him; and they would shout
375 Across the watery vale, and shout again,
376 Responsive to his call, with quivering peals,
377 And long halloos and screams, and echoes loud,
378 Redoubled and redoubled, concourse wild
379 Of jocund din; and, when a lengthened pause
380 Of silence came and baffled his best skill,
381 Then sometimes, in that silence while he hung
382 Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise
383 Has carried far into his heart the voice
384 Of mountain torrents; or the visible scene
[Page 123 ]
385 Would enter unawares into his mind,
386 With all its solemn imagery, its rocks,
387 Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, received
388 Into the bosom of the steady lake.
389 This Boy was taken from his mates, and died
390 In childhood, ere he was full twelve years old.
391 Fair is the spot, most beautiful the vale
392 Where he was born; the grassy churchyard hangs
393 Upon a slope above the village school,
394 And through that churchyard when my way has led
395 On summer evenings, I believe that there
396 A long half hour together I have stood
397 Mute, looking at the grave in which he lies!
398 Even now appears before the mind's clear eye
399 That self-same village church; I see her sit
400 (The thronèd Lady whom erewhile we hailed)
401 On her green hill, forgetful of this Boy
402 Who slumbers at her feet,---forgetful, too,
403 Of all her silent neighbourhood of graves,
404 And listening only to the gladsome sounds
405 That, from the rural school ascending, play
406 Beneath her and about her. May she long
407 Behold a race of young ones like to those
408 With whom I herded!---(easily, indeed,
[Page 124 ]
409 We might have fed upon a fatter soil
410 Of arts and letters---but be that forgiven)---
411 A race of real children; not too wise,
412 Too learned, or too good; but wanton, fresh,
413 And bandied up and down by love and hate;
414 Not unresentful where self-justified;
415 Fierce, moody, patient, venturous, modest, shy;
416 Mad at their sports like withered leaves in winds;
417 Though doing wrong and suffering, and full oft
418 Bending beneath our life's mysterious weight
419 Of pain, and doubt, and fear, yet yielding not
420 In happiness to the happiest upon earth.
421 Simplicity in habit, truth in speech,
422 Be these the daily strengtheners of their minds;
423 May books and Nature be their early joy!
424 And knowledge, rightly honoured with that name---
425 Knowledge not purchased by the loss of power!
426 Well do I call to mind the very week
427 When I was first intrusted to the care
428 Of that sweet Valley; when its paths, its shores,
429 And brooks were like a dream of novelty
430 To my half-infant thoughts; that very week,
431 While I was roving up and down alone,
432 Seeking I knew not what, I chanced to cross
[Page 125 ]
433 One of those open fields, which, shaped like ears,
434 Make green peninsulas on Esthwaite's Lake:
435 Twilight was coming on, yet through the gloom
436 Appeared distinctly on the opposite shore
437 A heap of garments, as if left by one
438 Who might have there been bathing. Long I watched,
439 But no one owned them; meanwhile the calm lake
440 Grew dark with all the shadows on its breast,
441 And, now and then, a fish up-leaping snapped
442 The breathless stillness. The succeeding day,
443 Those unclaimed garments telling a plain tale
444 Drew to the spot an anxious crowd; some looked
445 In passive expectation from the shore,
446 While from a boat others hung o'er the deep,
447 Sounding with grappling irons and long poles.
448 At last, the dead man, 'mid that beauteous scene
449 Of trees and hills and water, bolt upright
450 Rose, with his ghastly face, a spectre shape
451 Of terror; yet no soul-debasing fear,
452 Young as I was, a child not nine years old,
453 Possessed me, for my inner eye had seen
454 Such sights before, among the shining streams
455 Of faëry land, the forest of romance.
456 Their spirit hallowed the sad spectacle
457 With decoration of ideal grace;
[Page 126 ]
458 A dignity, a smoothness, like the works
459 Of Grecian art, and purest poesy.
460 A precious treasure had I long possessed,
461 A little yellow, canvas-covered book,
462 A slender abstract of the Arabian tales;
463 And, from companions in a new abode,
464 When first I learnt, that this dear prize of mine
465 Was but a block hewn from a mighty quarry---
466 That there were four large volumes, laden all
467 With kindred matter, 'twas to me, in truth,
468 A promise scarcely earthly. Instantly,
469 With one not richer than myself, I made
470 A covenant that each should lay aside
471 The moneys he possessed, and hoard up more,
472 Till our joint savings had amassed enough
473 To make this book our own. Through several months,
474 In spite of all temptation, we preserved
475 Religiously that vow; but firmness failed,
476 Nor were we ever masters of our wish.
477 And when thereafter to my father's house
478 The holidays returned me, there to find
479 That golden store of books which I had left,
480 What joy was mine! How often in the course
[Page 127 ]
481 Of those glad respites, though a soft west wind
482 Ruffled the waters to the angler's wish
483 For a whole day together, have I lain
484 Down by thy side, O Derwent! murmuring stream,
485 On the hot stones, and in the glaring sun,
486 And there have read, devouring as I read,
487 Defrauding the day's glory, desperate!
488 Till with a sudden bound of smart reproach,
489 Such as an idler deals with in his shame,
490 I to the sport betook myself again.
491 A gracious spirit o'er this earth presides,
492 And o'er the heart of man: invisibly
493 It comes, to works of unreproved delight,
494 And tendency benign, directing those
495 Who care not, know not, think not what they do.
496 The tales that charm away the wakeful night
497 In Araby, romances; legends penned
498 For solace by dim light of monkish lamps;
499 Fictions, for ladies of their love, devised
500 By youthful squires; adventures endless, spun
501 By the dismantled warrior in old age,
502 Out of the bowels of those very schemes
503 In which his youth did first extravagate;
504 These spread like day, and something in the shape
[Page 128 ]
505 Of these will live till man shall be no more.
506 Dumb yearnings, hidden appetites, are ours,
507 And they must have their food. Our childhood sits,
508 Our simple childhood, sits upon a throne
509 That hath more power than all the elements.
510 I guess not what this tells of Being past,
511 Nor what it augurs of the life to come;
512 But so it is, and, in that dubious hour,
513 That twilight when we first begin to see
514 This dawning earth, to recognise, expect,
515 And in the long probation that ensues,
516 The time of trial, ere we learn to live
517 In reconcilement with our stinted powers;
518 To endure this state of meagre vassalage,
519 Unwilling to forego, confess, submit,
520 Uneasy and unsettled, yoke-fellows
521 To custom, mettlesome, and not yet tamed
522 And humbled down; oh! then we feel, we feel,
523 We know where we have friends. Ye dreamers, then,
524 Forgers of daring tales! we bless you then,
525 Impostors, drivellers, dotards, as the ape
526 Philosophy will call you: then we feel
527 With what, and how great might ye are in league,
528 Who make our wish, our power, our thought a deed,
529 An empire, a possession,---ye whom time
[Page 129 ]
530 And seasons serve; all Faculties to whom
531 Earth crouches, the elements are potter's clay,
532 Space like a heaven filled up with northern lights,
533 Here, nowhere, there, and everywhere at once.
534 Relinquishing this lofty eminence
535 For ground, though humbler, not the less a tract
536 Of the same isthmus, which our spirits cross
537 In progress from their native continent
538 To earth and human life, the Song might dwell
539 On that delightful time of growing youth,
540 When craving for the marvellous gives way
541 To strengthening love for things that we have seen;
542 When sober truth and steady sympathies,
543 Offered to notice by less daring pens,
544 Take firmer hold of us, and words themselves
545 Move us with conscious pleasure.
545 I am sad
546 At thought of raptures now for ever flown;
547 Almost to tears I sometimes could be sad
548 To think of, to read over, many a page,
549 Poems withal of name, which at that time
550 Did never fail to entrance me, and are now
551 Dead in my eyes, dead as a theatre
552 Fresh emptied of spectators. Twice five years
[Page 130 ]
553 Or less I might have seen, when first my mind
554 With conscious pleasure opened to the charm
555 Of words in tuneful order, found them sweet
556 For their own sakes, a passion, and a power;
557 And phrases pleased me chosen for delight,
558 For pomp, or love. Oft, in the public roads
559 Yet unfrequented, while the morning light
560 Was yellowing the hill tops, I went abroad
561 With a dear friend, and for the better part
562 Of two delightful hours we strolled along
563 By the still borders of the misty lake,
564 Repeating favourite verses with one voice,
565 Or conning more, as happy as the birds
566 That round us chaunted. Well might we be glad,
567 Lifted above the ground by airy fancies,
568 More bright than madness or the dreams of wine;
569 And, though full oft the objects of our love
570 Were false, and in their splendour overwrought,
571 Yet was there surely then no vulgar power
572 Working within us,---nothing less, in truth,
573 Than that most noble attribute of man,
574 Though yet untutored and inordinate,
575 That wish for something loftier, more adorned,
576 Than is the common aspect, daily garb,
577 Of human life. What wonder, then, if sounds
[Page 131 ]
578 Of exultation echoed through the groves!
579 For, images, and sentiments, and words,
580 And everything encountered or pursued
581 In that delicious world of poesy,
582 Kept holiday, a never-ending show,
583 With music, incense, festival, and flowers!
584 Here must we pause: this only let me add,
585 From heart-experience, and in humblest sense
586 Of modesty, that he, who in his youth
587 A daily wanderer among woods and fields
588 With living Nature hath been intimate,
589 Not only in that raw unpractised time
590 Is stirred to extasy, as others are,
591 By glittering verse; but further, doth receive,
592 In measure only dealt out to himself,
593 Knowledge and increase of enduring joy
594 From the great Nature that exists in works
595 Of mighty Poets. Visionary power
596 Attends the motions of the viewless winds,
597 Embodied in the mystery of words:
598 There, darkness makes abode, and all the host
599 Of shadowy things work endless changes,---there,
600 As in a mansion like their proper home,
601 Even forms and substances are circumfused
[Page 132 ]
602 By that transparent veil with light divine,
603 And, through the turnings intricate of verse,
604 Present themselves as objects recognised,
605 In flashes, and with glory not their own.
[Page 133 ]
BOOK VI.
CAMBRIDGE AND THE ALPS.
[Page 135 ]
1 The leaves were fading when to Esthwaite's banks
2 And the simplicities of cottage life
3 I bade farewell; and, one among the youth
4 Who, summoned by that season, reunite
5 As scattered birds troop to the fowler's lure,
6 Went back to Granta's cloisters, not so prompt
7 Or eager, though as gay and undepressed
8 In mind, as when I thence had taken flight
9 A few short months before. I turned my face
10 Without repining from the coves and heights
11 Clothed in the sunshine of the withering fern;
12 Quitted, not loth, the mild magnificence
13 Of calmer lakes and louder streams; and you,
14 Frank-hearted maids of rocky Cumberland,
15 You and your not unwelcome days of mirth,
[Page 136 ]
16 Relinquished, and your nights of revelry,
17 And in my own unlovely cell sate down
18 In lightsome mood---such privilege has youth
19 That cannot take long leave of pleasant thoughts.
20 The bonds of indolent society
21 Relaxing in their hold, henceforth I lived
22 More to myself. Two winters may be passed
23 Without a separate notice: many books
24 Were skimmed, devoured, or studiously perused,
25 But with no settled plan. I was detached
26 Internally from academic cares;
27 Yet independent study seemed a course
28 Of hardy disobedience toward friends
29 And kindred, proud rebellion and unkind.
30 This spurious virtue, rather let it bear
31 A name it now deserves, this cowardice,
32 Gave treacherous sanction to that over-love
33 Of freedom which encouraged me to turn
34 From regulations even of my own
35 As from restraints and bonds. Yet who can tell---
36 Who knows what thus may have been gained, both then
37 And at a later season, or preserved;
38 What love of nature, what original strength
39 Of contemplation, what intuitive truths,
[Page 137 ]
40 The deepest and the best, what keen research,
41 Unbiassed, unbewildered, and unawed?
42 The Poet's soul was with me at that time;
43 Sweet meditations, the still overflow
44 Of present happiness, while future years
45 Lacked not anticipations, tender dreams,
46 No few of which have since been realised;
47 And some remain, hopes for my future life.
48 Four years and thirty, told this very week,
49 Have I been now a sojourner on earth,
50 By sorrow not unsmitten; yet for me
51 Life's morning radiance hath not left the hills,
52 Her dew is on the flowers. Those were the days
53 Which also first emboldened me to trust
54 With firmness, hitherto but lightly touched
55 By such a daring thought, that I might leave
56 Some monument behind me which pure hearts
57 Should reverence. The instinctive humbleness,
58 Maintained even by the very name and thought
59 Of printed books and authorship, began
60 To melt away; and further, the dread awe
61 Of mighty names was softened down and seemed
62 Approachable, admitting fellowship
63 Of modest sympathy. Such aspect now,
[Page 138 ]
64 Though not familiarly, my mind put on,
65 Content to observe, to achieve, and to enjoy.
66 All winter long, whenever free to choose,
67 Did I by night frequent the College groves
68 And tributary walks; the last, and oft
69 The only one, who had been lingering there
70 Through hours of silence, till the porter's bell,
71 A punctual follower on the stroke of nine,
72 Rang with its blunt unceremonious voice,
73 Inexorable summons! Lofty elms,
74 Inviting shades of opportune recess,
75 Bestowed composure on a neighbourhood
76 Unpeaceful in itself. A single tree
77 With sinuous trunk, boughs exquisitely wreathed,
78 Grew there; an ash which Winter for himself
79 Decked as in pride, and with outlandish grace:
80 Up from the ground, and almost to the top,
81 The trunk and every master branch were green
82 With clustering ivy, and the lightsome twigs
83 And outer spray profusely tipped with seeds
84 That hung in yellow tassels, while the air
85 Stirred them, not voiceless. Often have I stood
86 Foot-bound uplooking at this lovely tree
87 Beneath a frosty moon. The hemisphere
[Page 139 ]
88 Of magic fiction, verse of mine perchance
89 May never tread; but scarcely Spenser's self
90 Could have more tranquil visions in his youth,
91 Or could more bright appearances create
92 Of human forms with superhuman powers,
93 Than I beheld loitering on calm clear nights
94 Alone, beneath this fairy work of earth.
95 On the vague reading of a truant youth
96 'Twere idle to descant. My inner judgment
97 Not seldom differed from my taste in books,
98 As if it appertained to another mind,
99 And yet the books which then I valued most
100 Are dearest to me now; for, having scanned,
101 Not heedlessly, the laws, and watched the forms
102 Of Nature, in that knowledge I possessed
103 A standard, often usefully applied,
104 Even when unconsciously, to things removed
105 From a familiar sympathy.---In fine,
106 I was a better judge of thoughts than words,
107 Misled in estimating words, not only
108 By common inexperience of youth,
109 But by the trade in classic niceties,
110 The dangerous craft of culling term and phrase
111 From languages that want the living voice
[Page 140 ]
112 To carry meaning to the natural heart;
113 To tell us what is passion, what is truth,
114 What reason, what simplicity and sense.
115 Yet may we not entirely overlook
116 The pleasure gathered from the rudiments
117 Of geometric science. Though advanced
118 In these inquiries, with regret I speak,
119 No farther than the threshold, there I found
120 Both elevation and composed delight:
121 With Indian awe and wonder, ignorance pleased
122 With its own struggles, did I meditate
123 On the relation those abstractions bear
124 To Nature's laws, and by what process led,
125 Those immaterial agents bowed their heads
126 Duly to serve the mind of earth-born man;
127 From star to star, from kindred sphere to sphere,
128 From system on to system without end.
129 More frequently from the same source I drew
130 A pleasure quiet and profound, a sense
131 Of permanent and universal sway,
132 And paramount belief; there, recognised
133 A type, for finite natures, of the one
134 Supreme Existence, the surpassing life
[Page 141 ]
135 Which---to the boundaries of space and time,
136 Of melancholy space and doleful time,
137 Superior, and incapable of change,
138 Nor touched by welterings of passion---is,
139 And hath the name of, God. Transcendent peace
140 And silence did await upon these thoughts
141 That were a frequent comfort to my youth.
142 'Tis told by one whom stormy waters threw,
143 With fellow-sufferers by the shipwreck spared,
144 Upon a desert coast, that having brought
145 To land a single volume, saved by chance,
146 A treatise of Geometry, he wont,
147 Although of food and clothing destitute,
148 And beyond common wretchedness depressed,
149 To part from company and take this book
150 (Then first a self-taught pupil in its truths)
151 To spots remote, and draw his diagrams
152 With a long staff upon the sand, and thus
153 Did oft beguile his sorrow, and almost
154 Forget his feeling: so (if like effect
155 From the same cause produced, 'mid outward things
156 So different, may rightly be compared),
157 So was it then with me, and so will be
158 With Poets ever. Mighty is the charm
[Page 142 ]
159 Of those abstractions to a mind beset
160 With images, and haunted by herself,
161 And specially delightful unto me
162 Was that clear synthesis built up aloft
163 So gracefully; even then when it appeared
164 Not more than a mere plaything, or a toy
165 To sense embodied: not the thing it is
166 In verity, an independent world,
167 Created out of pure intelligence.
168 Such dispositions then were mine unearned
169 By aught, I fear, of genuine desert---
170 Mine, through heaven's grace and inborn aptitudes.
171 And not to leave the story of that time
172 Imperfect, with these habits must be joined,
173 Moods melancholy, fits of spleen, that loved
174 A pensive sky, sad days, and piping winds,
175 The twilight more than dawn, autumn than spring;
176 A treasured and luxurious gloom of choice
177 And inclination mainly, and the mere
178 Redundancy of youth's contentedness.
179 ---To time thus spent, add multitudes of hours
180 Pilfered away, by what the Bard who sang
181 Of the Enchanter Indolence hath called
182 "Good-natured lounging," and behold a map
[Page 143 ]
183 Of my collegiate life---far less intense
184 Than duty called for, or, without regard
185 To duty, might have sprung up of itself
186 By change of accidents, or even, to speak
187 Without unkindness, in another place.
188 Yet why take refuge in that plea?---the fault,
189 This I repeat, was mine; mine be the blame.
190 In summer, making quest for works of art,
191 Or scenes renowned for beauty, I explored
192 That streamlet whose blue current works its way
193 Between romantic Dovedale's spiry rocks;
194 Pried into Yorkshire dales, or hidden tracts
195 Of my own native region, and was blest
196 Between these sundry wanderings with a joy
197 Above all joys, that seemed another morn
198 Risen on mid noon; blest with the presence, Friend!
199 Of that sole Sister, her who hath been long
200 Dear to thee also, thy true friend and mine,
201 Now, after separation desolate,
202 Restored to me---such absence that she seemed
203 A gift then first bestowed. The varied banks
204 Of Emont, hitherto unnamed in song,
205 And that monastic castle, 'mid tall trees,
206 Low-standing by the margin of the stream,
[Page 144 ]
207 A mansion visited (as fame reports)
208 By Sidney, where, in sight of our Helvellyn,
209 Or stormy Cross-fell, snatches he might pen
210 Of his Arcadia, by fraternal love
211 Inspired;---that river and those mouldering towers
212 Have seen us side by side, when, having clomb
213 The darksome windings of a broken stair,
214 And crept along a ridge of fractured wall,
215 Not without trembling, we in safety looked
216 Forth, through some Gothic window's open space,
217 And gathered with one mind a rich reward
218 From the far-stretching landscape, by the light
219 Of morning beautified, or purple eve;
220 Or, not less pleased, lay on some turret's head,
221 Catching from tufts of grass and hare-bell flowers
222 Their faintest whisper to the passing breeze,
223 Given out while mid-day heat oppressed the plains.
224 Another maid there was, who also shed
225 A gladness o'er that season, then to me,
226 By her exulting outside look of youth
227 And placid under-countenance, first endeared;
228 That other spirit, Coleridge! who is now
229 So near to us, that meek confiding heart,
230 So reverenced by us both. O'er paths and fields
[Page 145 ]
231 In all that neighbourhood, through narrow lanes
232 Of eglantine, and through the shady woods,
233 And o'er the Border Beacon, and the waste
234 Of naked pools, and common crags that lay
235 Exposed on the bare fell, were scattered love,
236 The spirit of pleasure, and youth's golden gleam.
237 O Friend! we had not seen thee at that time,
238 And yet a power is on me, and a strong
239 Confusion, and I seem to plant thee there.
240 Far art thou wandered now in search of health
241 And milder breezes,---melancholy lot!
242 But thou art with us, with us in the past,
243 The present, with us in the times to come.
244 There is no grief, no sorrow, no despair,
245 No languor, no dejection, no dismay,
246 No absence scarcely can there be, for those
247 Who love as we do. Speed thee well! divide
248 With us thy pleasure; thy returning strength,
249 Receive it daily as a joy of ours;
250 Share with us thy fresh spirits, whether gift
251 Of gales Etesian or of tender thoughts.
252 I, too, have been a wanderer; but, alas!
253 How different the fate of different men.
254 Though mutually unknown, yea nursed and reared
[Page 146 ]
255 As if in several elements, we were framed
256 To bend at last to the same discipline,
257 Predestined, if two beings ever were,
258 To seek the same delights, and have one health,
259 One happiness. Throughout this narrative,
260 Else sooner ended, I have borne in mind
261 For whom it registers the birth, and marks the growth,
262 Of gentleness, simplicity, and truth,
263 And joyous loves, that hallow innocent days
264 Of peace and self-command. Of rivers, fields,
265 And groves I speak to thee, my Friend! to thee,
266 Who, yet a liveried schoolboy, in the depths
267 Of the huge city, on the leaded roof
268 Of that wide edifice, thy school and home,
269 Wert used to lie and gaze upon the clouds
270 Moving in heaven; or, of that pleasure tired,
271 To shut thine eyes, and by internal light
272 See trees, and meadows, and thy native stream,
273 Far distant, thus beheld from year to year
274 Of a long exile. Nor could I forget,
275 In this late portion of my argument,
276 That scarcely, as my term of pupilage
277 Ceased, had I left those academic bowers
278 When thou wert thither guided. From the heart
279 Of London, and from cloisters there, thou camest,
[Page 147 ]
280 And didst sit down in temperance and peace,
281 A rigorous student. What a stormy course
282 Then followed. Oh! it is a pang that calls
283 For utterance, to think what easy change
284 Of circumstances might to thee have spared
285 A world of pain, ripened a thousand hopes,
286 For ever withered. Through this retrospect
287 Of my collegiate life I still have had
288 Thy after-sojourn in the self-same place
289 Present before my eyes, have played with times
290 And accidents as children do with cards,
291 Or as a man, who, when his house is built,
292 A frame locked up in wood and stone, doth still,
293 As impotent fancy prompts, by his fireside,
294 Rebuild it to his liking. I have thought
295 Of thee, thy learning, gorgeous eloquence,
296 And all the strength and plumage of thy youth,
297 Thy subtle speculations, toils abstruse
298 Among the schoolmen, and Platonic forms
299 Of wild ideal pageantry, shaped out
300 From things well-matched or ill, and words for things,
301 The self-created sustenance of a mind
302 Debarred from Nature's living images,
303 Compelled to be a life unto herself,
304 And unrelentingly possessed by thirst
[Page 148 ]
305 Of greatness, love, and beauty. Not alone,
306 Ah! surely not in singleness of heart
307 Should I have seen the light of evening fade
308 From smooth Cam's silent waters: had we met,
309 Even at that early time, needs must I trust
310 In the belief, that my maturer age,
311 My calmer habits, and more steady voice,
312 Would with an influence benign have soothed,
313 Or chased away, the airy wretchedness
314 That battened on thy youth. But thou hast trod
315 A march of glory, which doth put to shame
316 These vain regrets; health suffers in thee, else
317 Such grief for thee would be the weakest thought
318 That ever harboured in the breast of man.
319 A passing word erewhile did lightly touch
320 On wanderings of my own, that now embraced
321 With livelier hope a region wider far.
322 When the third summer freed us from restraint,
323 A youthful friend, he too a mountaineer,
324 Not slow to share my wishes, took his staff,
325 And sallying forth, we journeyed side by side,
326 Bound to the distant Alps. A hardy slight
327 Did this unprecedented course imply
[Page 149 ]
328 Of college studies and their set rewards;
329 Nor had, in truth, the scheme been formed by me
330 Without uneasy forethought of the pain,
331 The censures, and ill-omening of those
332 To whom my worldly interests were dear.
333 But Nature then was sovereign in my mind,
334 And mighty forms, seizing a youthful fancy,
335 Had given a charter to irregular hopes.
336 In any age of uneventful calm
337 Among the nations, surely would my heart
338 Have been possessed by similar desire;
339 But Europe at that time was thrilled with joy,
340 France standing on the top of golden hours,
341 And human nature seeming born again.
342 Lightly equipped, and but a few brief looks
343 Cast on the white cliffs of our native shore
344 From the receding vessel's deck, we chanced
345 To land at Calais on the very eve
346 Of that great federal day; and there we saw,
347 In a mean city, and among a few,
348 How bright a face is worn when joy of one
349 Is joy for tens of millions. Southward thence
350 We held our way, direct through hamlets, towns,
351 Gaudy with reliques of that festival,
[Page 150 ]
352 Flowers left to wither on triumphal arcs,
353 And window-garlands. On the public roads,
354 And, once, three days successively, through paths
355 By which our toilsome journey was abridged,
356 Among sequestered villages we walked
357 And found benevolence and blessedness
358 Spread like a fragrance everywhere, when spring
359 Hath left no corner of the land untouched:
360 Where elms for many and many a league in files
361 With their thin umbrage, on the stately roads
362 Of that great kingdom, rustled o'er our heads,
363 For ever near us as we paced along:
364 How sweet at such a time, with such delight
365 On every side, in prime of youthful strength,
366 To feed a Poet's tender melancholy
367 And fond conceit of sadness, with the sound
368 Of undulations varying as might please
369 The wind that swayed them; once, and more than once,
370 Unhoused beneath the evening star we saw
371 Dances of liberty, and, in late hours
372 Of darkness, dances in the open air
373 Deftly prolonged, though grey-haired lookers on
374 Might waste their breath in chiding.
374 Under hills---
375 The vine-clad hills and slopes of Burgundy,
[Page 151 ]
376 Upon the bosom of the gentle Saone
377 We glided forward with the flowing stream.
378 Swift Rhone! thou wert the wings on which we cut
379 A winding passage with majestic ease
380 Between thy lofty rocks. Enchanting show
381 Those woods and farms and orchards did present,
382 And single cottages and lurking towns,
383 Reach after reach, succession without end
384 Of deep and stately vales! A lonely pair
385 Of strangers, till day closed, we sailed along,
386 Clustered together with a merry crowd
387 Of those emancipated, a blithe host
388 Of travellers, chiefly delegates returning
389 From the great spousals newly solemnised
390 At their chief city, in the sight of Heaven.
391 Like bees they swarmed, gaudy and gay as bees;
392 Some vapoured in the unruliness of joy,
393 And with their swords flourished as if to fight
394 The saucy air. In this proud company
395 We landed---took with them our evening meal,
396 Guests welcome almost as the angels were
397 To Abraham of old. The supper done,
398 With flowing cups elate and happy thoughts
399 We rose at signal given, and formed a ring
400 And, hand in hand, danced round and round the board;
[Page 152 ]
401 All hearts were open, every tongue was loud
402 With amity and glee; we bore a name
403 Honoured in France, the name of Englishmen,
404 And hospitably did they give us hail,
405 As their forerunners in a glorious course;
406 And round and round the board we danced again.
407 With these blithe friends our voyage we renewed
408 At early dawn. The monastery bells
409 Made a sweet jingling in our youthful ears;
410 The rapid river flowing without noise,
411 And each uprising or receding spire
412 Spake with a sense of peace, at intervals
413 Touching the heart amid the boisterous crew
414 By whom we were encompassed. Taking leave
415 Of this glad throng, foot-travellers side by side,
416 Measuring our steps in quiet, we pursued
417 Our journey, and ere twice the sun had set
418 Beheld the Convent of Chartreuse, and there
419 Rested within an awful solitude:
420 Yes, for even then no other than a place
421 Of soul-affecting solitude appeared
422 That far-famed region, though our eyes had seen,
423 As toward the sacred mansion we advanced,
424 Arms flashing, and a military glare
425 Of riotous men commissioned to expel
[Page 153 ]
426 The blameless inmates, and belike subvert
427 That frame of social being, which so long
428 Had bodied forth the ghostliness of things
429 In silence visible and perpetual calm.
430 ---"Stay, stay your sacrilegious hands!"---The voice
431 Was Nature's, uttered from her Alpine throne;
432 I heard it then and seem to hear it now---
433 "Your impious work forbear, perish what may,
434 Let this one temple last, be this one spot
435 Of earth devoted to eternity!"
436 She ceased to speak, but while St. Bruno's pines
437 Waved their dark tops, not silent as they waved,
438 And while below, along their several beds,
439 Murmured the sister streams of Life and Death,
440 Thus by conflicting passions pressed, my heart
441 Responded; "Honour to the patriot's zeal!
442 Glory and hope to new-born Liberty!
443 Hail to the mighty projects of the time!
444 Discerning sword that Justice wields, do thou
445 Go forth and prosper; and, ye purging fires,
446 Up to the loftiest towers of Pride ascend,
447 Fanned by the breath of angry Providence.
448 But oh! if Past and Future be the wings
449 On whose support harmoniously conjoined
450 Moves the great spirit of human knowledge, spare
[Page 154 ]
451 These courts of mystery, where a step advanced
452 Between the portals of the shadowy rocks
453 Leaves far behind life's treacherous vanities,
454 For penitential tears and trembling hopes
455 Exchanged---to equalise in God's pure sight
456 Monarch and peasant: be the house redeemed
457 With its unworldly votaries, for the sake
458 Of conquest over sense, hourly achieved
459 Through faith and meditative reason, resting
460 Upon the word of heaven-imparted truth,
461 Calmly triumphant; and for humbler claim
462 Of that imaginative impulse sent
463 From these majestic floods, yon shining cliffs,
464 The untransmuted shapes of many worlds,
465 Cerulean ether's pure inhabitants,
466 These forests unapproachable by death,
467 That shall endure as long as man endures,
468 To think, to hope, to worship, and to feel,
469 To struggle, to be lost within himself
470 In trepidation, from the blank abyss
471 To look with bodily eyes, and be consoled."
472 Not seldom since that moment have I wished
473 That thou, O Friend! the trouble or the calm
474 Hadst shared, when, from profane regards apart,
475 In sympathetic reverence we trod
[Page 155 ]
476 The floors of those dim cloisters, till that hour,
477 From their foundation, strangers to the presence
478 Of unrestricted and unthinking man.
479 Abroad, how cheeringly the sunshine lay
480 Upon the open lawns! Vallombre's groves
481 Entering, we fed the soul with darkness; thence
482 Issued, and with uplifted eyes beheld,
483 In different quarters of the bending sky,
484 The cross of Jesus stand erect, as if
485 Hands of angelic powers had fixed it there,
486 Memorial reverenced by a thousand storms;
487 Yet then, from the undiscriminating sweep
488 And rage of one State-whirlwind, insecure.
489 'Tis not my present purpose to retrace
490 That variegated journey step by step.
491 A march it was of military speed,
492 And Earth did change her images and forms
493 Before us, fast as clouds are changed in heaven.
494 Day after day, up early and down late,
495 From hill to vale we dropped, from vale to hill
496 Mounted---from province on to province swept,
497 Keen hunters in a chase of fourteen weeks,
498 Eager as birds of prey, or as a ship
499 Upon the stretch, when winds are blowing fair:
[Page 156 ]
500 Sweet coverts did we cross of pastoral life,
501 Enticing valleys, greeted them and left
502 Too soon, while yet the very flash and gleam
503 Of salutation were not passed away.
504 Oh! sorrow for the youth who could have seen
505 Unchastened, unsubdued, unawed, unraised
506 To patriarchal dignity of mind,
507 And pure simplicity of wish and will,
508 Those sanctified abodes of peaceful man,
509 Pleased (though to hardship born, and compassed round
510 With danger, varying as the seasons change),
511 Pleased with his daily task, or, if not pleased,
512 Contented, from the moment that the dawn
513 (Ah! surely not without attendant gleams
514 Of soul-illumination) calls him forth
515 To industry, by glistenings flung on rocks,
516 Whose evening shadows lead him to repose.
517 Well might a stranger look with bounding heart
518 Down on a green recess, the first I saw
519 Of those deep haunts, an aboriginal vale,
520 Quiet and lorded over and possessed
521 By naked huts, wood-built, and sown like tents
522 Or Indian cabins over the fresh lawns
523 And by the river side.
[Page 157 ]
523 That very day,
524 From a bare ridge we also first beheld
525 Unveiled the summit of Mont Blanc, and grieved
526 To have a soulless image on the eye
527 That had usurped upon a living thought
528 That never more could be. The wondrous Vale
529 Of Chamouny stretched far below, and soon
530 With its dumb cataracts and streams of ice,
531 A motionless array of mighty waves,
532 Five rivers broad and vast, made rich amends,
533 And reconciled us to realities;
534 There small birds warble from the leafy trees,
535 The eagle soars high in the element,
536 There doth the reaper bind the yellow sheaf,
537 The maiden spread the haycock in the sun,
538 While Winter like a well-tamed lion walks,
539 Descending from the mountain to make sport
540 Among the cottages by beds of flowers.
541 Whate'er in this wide circuit we beheld,
542 Or heard, was fitted to our unripe state
543 Of intellect and heart. With such a book
544 Before our eyes, we could not choose but read
545 Lessons of genuine brotherhood, the plain
546 And universal reason of mankind,
[Page 158 ]
547 The truths of young and old. Nor, side by side
548 Pacing, two social pilgrims, or alone
549 Each with his humour, could we fail to abound
550 In dreams and fictions, pensively composed:
551 Dejection taken up for pleasure's sake,
552 And gilded sympathies, the willow wreath,
553 And sober posies of funereal flowers,
554 Gathered among those solitudes sublime
555 From formal gardens of the lady Sorrow,
556 Did sweeten many a meditative hour.
557 Yet still in me with those soft luxuries
558 Mixed something of stern mood, an under-thirst
559 Of vigour seldom utterly allayed.
560 And from that source how different a sadness
561 Would issue, let one incident make known.
562 When from the Vallais we had turned, and clomb
563 Along the Simplon's steep and rugged road,
564 Following a band of muleteers, we reached
565 A halting-place, where all together took
566 Their noon-tide meal. Hastily rose our guide,
567 Leaving us at the board; awhile we lingered,
568 Then paced the beaten downward way that led
569 Right to a rough stream's edge, and there broke off;
570 The only track now visible was one
[Page 159 ]
571 That from the torrent's further brink held forth
572 Conspicuous invitation to ascend
573 A lofty mountain. After brief delay
574 Crossing the unbridged stream, that road we took,
575 And clomb with eagerness, till anxious fears
576 Intruded, for we failed to overtake
577 Our comrades gone before. By fortunate chance,
578 While every moment added doubt to doubt,
579 A peasant met us, from whose mouth we learned
580 That to the spot which had perplexed us first
581 We must descend, and there should find the road,
582 Which in the stony channel of the stream
583 Lay a few steps, and then along its banks;
584 And, that our future course, all plain to sight,
585 Was downwards, with the current of that stream.
586 Loth to believe what we so grieved to hear,
587 For still we had hopes that pointed to the clouds,
588 We questioned him again, and yet again;
589 But every word that from the peasant's lips
590 Came in reply, translated by our feelings,
591 Ended in this,---that we had crossed the Alps.
592 Imagination---here the Power so called
593 Through sad incompetence of human speech,
594 That awful Power rose from the mind's abyss
[Page 160 ]
595 Like an unfathered vapour that enwraps,
596 At once, some lonely traveller. I was lost;
597 Halted without an effort to break through;
598 But to my conscious soul I now can say---
599 "I recognise thy glory:" in such strength
600 Of usurpation, when the light of sense
601 Goes out, but with a flash that has revealed
602 The invisible world, doth greatness make abode,
603 There harbours; whether we be young or old,
604 Our destiny, our being's heart and home,
605 Is with infinitude, and only there;
606 With hope it is, hope that can never die,
607 Effort, and expectation, and desire,
608 And something evermore about to be.
609 Under such banners militant, the soul
610 Seeks for no trophies, struggles for no spoils
611 That may attest her prowess, blest in thoughts
612 That are their own perfection and reward,
613 Strong in herself and in beatitude
614 That hides her, like the mighty flood of Nile
615 Poured from his fount of Abyssinian clouds
616 To fertilise the whole Egyptian plain.
617 The melancholy slackening that ensued
618 Upon those tidings by the peasant given
[Page 161 ]
619 Was soon dislodged. Downwards we hurried fast,
620 And, with the half-shaped road which we had missed,
621 Entered a narrow chasm. [End note 6: 1Kb]
The brook and road
622 Were fellow-travellers in this gloomy strait,
623 And with them did we journey several hours
624 At a slow pace. The immeasurable height
625 Of woods decaying, never to be decayed,
626 The stationary blasts of waterfalls,
627 And in the narrow rent at every turn
628 Winds thwarting winds, bewildered and forlorn,
629 The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky,
630 The rocks that muttered close upon our ears,
631 Black drizzling crags that spake by the way-side
632 As if a voice were in them, the sick sight
633 And giddy prospect of the raving stream,
634 The unfettered clouds and region of the Heavens,
635 Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light---
636 Were all like workings of one mind, the features
637 Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree;
638 Characters of the great Apocalypse,
639 The types and symbols of Eternity,
640 Of first, and last, and midst, and without end.
641 That night our lodging was a house that stood
642 Alone within the valley, at a point
[Page 162 ]
643 Where, tumbling from aloft, a torrent swelled
644 The rapid stream whose margin we had trod;
645 A dreary mansion, large beyond all need,
646 With high and spacious rooms, deafened and stunned
647 By noise of waters, making innocent sleep
648 Lie melancholy among weary bones.
649 Uprisen betimes, our journey we renewed,
650 Led by the stream, ere noon-day magnified
651 Into a lordly river, broad and deep,
652 Dimpling along in silent majesty,
653 With mountains for its neighbours, and in view
654 Of distant mountains and their snowy tops,
655 And thus proceeding to Locarno's Lake,
656 Fit resting-place for such a visitant.
657 Locarno! spreading out in width like Heaven,
658 How dost thou cleave to the poetic heart,
659 Bask in the sunshine of the memory;
660 And Como! thou, a treasure whom the earth
661 Keeps to herself, confined as in a depth
662 Of Abyssinian privacy. I spake
663 Of thee, thy chestnut woods, and garden plots
664 Of Indian corn tended by dark-eyed maids;
665 Thy lofty steeps, and pathways roofed with vines,
666 Winding from house to house, from town to town,
[Page 163 ]
667 Sole link that binds them to each other; walks,
668 League after league, and cloistral avenues,
669 Where silence dwells if music be not there:
670 While yet a youth undisciplined in verse,
671 Through fond ambition of that hour, I strove
672 To chant your praise; nor can approach you now
673 Ungreeted by a more melodious Song,
674 Where tones of Nature smoothed by learned Art
675 May flow in lasting current. Like a breeze
676 Or sunbeam over your domain I passed
677 In motion without pause; but ye have left
678 Your beauty with me, a serene accord
679 Of forms and colours, passive, yet endowed
680 In their submissiveness with power as sweet
681 And gracious, almost might I dare to say,
682 As virtue is, or goodness; sweet as love,
683 Or the remembrance of a generous deed,
684 Or mildest visitations of pure thought,
685 When God, the giver of all joy, is thanked
686 Religiously, in silent blessedness;
687 Sweet as this last herself, for such it is.
688 With those delightful pathways we advanced,
689 For two days' space, in presence of the Lake,
690 That, stretching far among the Alps, assumed
[Page 164 ]
691 A character more stern. The second night,
692 From sleep awakened, and misled by sound
693 Of the church clock telling the hours with strokes
694 Whose import then we had not learned, we rose
695 By moonlight, doubting not that day was nigh,
696 And that meanwhile, by no uncertain path,
697 Along the winding margin of the lake,
698 Led, as before, we should behold the scene
699 Hushed in profound repose. We left the town
700 Of Gravedona with this hope; but soon
701 Were lost, bewildered among woods immense,
702 And on a rock sate down, to wait for day.
703 An open place it was, and overlooked,
704 From high, the sullen water far beneath,
705 On which a dull red image of the moon
706 Lay bedded, changing oftentimes its form
707 Like an uneasy snake. From hour to hour
708 We sate and sate, wondering, as if the night
709 Had been ensnared by witchcraft. On the rock
710 At last we stretched our weary limbs for sleep,
711 But could not sleep, tormented by the stings
712 Of insects, which, with noise like that of noon,
713 Filled all the woods; the cry of unknown birds;
714 The mountains more by blackness visible
715 And their own size, than any outward light;
[Page 165 ]
716 The breathless wilderness of clouds; the clock
717 That told, with unintelligible voice,
718 The widely parted hours; the noise of streams,
719 And sometimes rustling motions nigh at hand,
720 That did not leave us free from personal fear;
721 And, lastly, the withdrawing moon, that set
722 Before us, while she still was high in heaven;---
723 These were our food; and such a summer's night
724 Followed that pair of golden days that shed
725 On Como's Lake, and all that round it lay,
726 Their fairest, softest, happiest influence.
727 But here I must break off, and bid farewell
728 To days, each offering some new sight, or fraught
729 With some untried adventure, in a course
730 Prolonged till sprinklings of autumnal snow
731 Checked our unwearied steps. Let this alone
732 Be mentioned as a parting word, that not
733 In hollow exultation, dealing out
734 Hyperboles of praise comparative;
735 Not rich one moment to be poor for ever;
736 Not prostrate, overborne, as if the mind
737 Herself were nothing, a mere pensioner
738 On outward forms---did we in presence stand
739 Of that magnificent region. On the front
[Page 166 ]
740 Of this whole Song is written that my heart
741 Must, in such Temple, needs have offered up
742 A different worship. Finally, whate'er
743 I saw, or heard, or felt, was but a stream
744 That flowed into a kindred stream; a gale,
745 Confederate with the current of the soul,
746 To speed my voyage; every sound or sight,
747 In its degree of power, administered
748 To grandeur or to tenderness,---to the one
749 Directly, but to tender thoughts by means
750 Less often instantaneous in effect;
751 Led me to these by paths that, in the main,
752 Were more circuitous, but not less sure
753 Duly to reach the point marked out by Heaven.
754 Oh, most belovèd Friend! a glorious time,
755 A happy time that was; triumphant looks
756 Were then the common language of all eyes;
757 As if awaked from sleep, the Nations hailed
758 Their great expectancy: the fife of war
759 Was then a spirit-stirring sound indeed,
760 A black-bird's whistle in a budding grove.
761 We left the Swiss exulting in the fate
762 Of their near neighbours; and, when shortening fast
763 Our pilgrimage, nor distant far from home,
[Page 167 ]
764 We crossed the Brabant armies on the fret
765 For battle in the cause of Liberty.
766 A stripling, scarcely of the household then
767 Of social life, I looked upon these things
768 As from a distance; heard, and saw, and felt,
769 Was touched, but with no intimate concern;
770 I seemed to move along them, as a bird
771 Moves through the air, or as a fish pursues
772 Its sport, or feeds in its proper element;
773 I wanted not that joy, I did not need
774 Such help; the ever-living universe,
775 Turn where I might, was opening out its glories,
776 And the independent spirit of pure youth
777 Called forth, at every season, new delights
778 Spread round my steps like sunshine o'er green fields.
[Page 169 ]
BOOK VII.
RESIDENCE IN LONDON
[Page 171 ]
1 Six changeful years have vanished since I first
2 Poured out (saluted by that quickening breeze
3 Which met me issuing from the City's [End note 7: 1Kb]
walls)
4 A glad preamble to this Verse: I sang
5 Aloud, with fervour irresistible
6 Of short-lived transport, like a torrent bursting,
7 From a black thunder-cloud, down Scafell's side
8 To rush and disappear. But soon broke forth
9 (So willed the Muse) a less impetuous stream,
10 That flowed awhile with unabating strength,
11 Then stopped for years; not audible again
12 Before last primrose-time. Belovèd Friend!
13 The assurance which then cheered some heavy thoughts
14 On thy departure to a foreign land
15 Has failed; too slowly moves the promised work.
[Page 172 ]
16 Through the whole summer have I been at rest,
17 Partly from voluntary holiday,
18 And part through outward hindrance. But I heard,
19 After the hour of sunset yester-even,
20 Sitting within doors between light and dark,
21 A choir of redbreasts gathered somewhere near
22 My threshold,---minstrels from the distant woods
23 Sent in on Winter's service, to announce,
24 With preparation artful and benign,
25 That the rough lord had left the surly North
26 On his accustomed journey. The delight,
27 Due to this timely notice, unawares
28 Smote me, and, listening, I in whispers said,
29 "Ye heartsome Choristers, ye and I will be
30 Associates, and, unscared by blustering winds,
31 Will chant together." Thereafter, as the shades
32 Of twilight deepened, going forth, I spied
33 A glow-worm underneath a dusky plume
34 Or canopy of yet unwithered fern,
35 Clear-shining, like a hermit's taper seen
36 Through a thick forest. Silence touched me here
37 No less than sound had done before; the child
38 Of Summer, lingering, shining, by herself,
39 The voiceless worm on the unfrequented hills,
40 Seemed sent on the same errand with the choir
[Page 173 ]
41 Of Winter that had warbled at my door,
42 And the whole year breathed tenderness and love.
43 The last night's genial feeling overflowed
44 Upon this morning, and my favourite grove,
45 Tossing in sunshine its dark boughs aloft,
46 As if to make the strong wind visible,
47 Wakes in me agitations like its own,
48 A spirit friendly to the Poet's task,
49 Which we will now resume with lively hope,
50 Nor checked by aught of tamer argument
51 That lies before us, needful to be told.
52 Returned from that excursion, [End note 8: 1Kb]
soon I bade
53 Farewell for ever to the sheltered seats
54 Of gownèd students, quitted hall and bower,
55 And every comfort of that privileged ground,
56 Well pleased to pitch a vagrant tent among
57 The unfenced regions of society.
58 Yet, undetermined to what course of life
59 I should adhere, and seeming to possess
60 A little space of intermediate time
61 At full command, to London first I turned,
62 In no disturbance of excessive hope,
[Page 174 ]
63 By personal ambition unenslaved,
64 Frugal as there was need, and, though self-willed,
65 From dangerous passions free. Three years had flown
66 Since I had felt in heart and soul the shock
67 Of the huge town's first presence, and had paced
68 Her endless streets, a transient visitant:
69 Now, fixed amid that concourse of mankind
70 Where Pleasure whirls about incessantly,
71 And life and labour seem but one, I filled
72 An idler's place; an idler well content
73 To have a house (what matter for a home?)
74 That owned him; living cheerfully abroad
75 With unchecked fancy ever on the stir,
76 And all my young affections out of doors.
77 There was a time when whatsoe'er is feigned
78 Of airy palaces, and gardens built
79 By Genii of romance; or hath in grave
80 Authentic history been set forth of Rome,
81 Alcairo, Babylon, or Persepolis;
82 Or given upon report by pilgrim friars,
83 Of golden cities ten months' journey deep
84 Among Tartarian wilds---fell short, far short,
85 Of what my fond simplicity believed
86 And thought of London---held me by a chain
[Page 175 ]
87 Less strong of wonder and obscure delight.
88 Whether the bolt of childhood's Fancy shot
89 For me beyond its ordinary mark,
90 'Twere vain to ask; but in our flock of boys
91 Was One, a cripple from his birth, whom chance
92 Summoned from school to London; fortunate
93 And envied traveller! When the Boy returned,
94 After short absence, curiously I scanned
95 His mien and person, nor was free, in sooth,
96 From disappointment, not to find some change
97 In look and air, from that new region brought,
98 As if from Fairy-land. Much I questioned him;
99 And every word he uttered, on my ears
100 Fell flatter than a cagèd parrot's note,
101 That answers unexpectedly awry,
102 And mocks the prompter's listening. Marvellous things
103 Had vanity (quick Spirit that appears
104 Almost as deeply seated and as strong
105 In a Child's heart as fear itself) conceived
106 For my enjoyment. Would that I could now
107 Recal what then I pictured to myself,
108 Of mitred Prelates, Lords in ermine clad,
109 The King, and the King's Palace, and, not last,
110 Nor least, Heaven bless him! the renowned Lord Mayor:
111 Dreams not unlike to those which once begat
[Page 176 ]
112 A change of purpose in young Whittington,
113 When he, a friendless and a drooping boy,
114 Sate on a stone, and heard the bells speak out
115 Articulate music. Above all, one thought
116 Baffled my understanding: how men lived
117 Even next-door neighbours, as we say, yet still
118 Strangers, not knowing each the other's name.
119 O, wond'rous power of words, by simple faith
120 Licensed to take the meaning that we love!
121 Vauxhall and Ranelagh! I then had heard
122 Of your green groves, and wilderness of lamps
123 Dimming the stars, and fireworks magical,
124 And gorgeous ladies, under splendid domes,
125 Floating in dance, or warbling high in air
126 The songs of spirits! Nor had Fancy fed
127 With less delight upon that other class
128 Of marvels, broad-day wonders permanent:
129 The River proudly bridged; the dizzy top
130 And Whispering Gallery of St. Paul's; the tombs
131 Of Westminster; the Giants of Guildhall;
132 Bedlam, and those carved maniacs at the gates,
133 Perpetually recumbent; Statues---man,
134 And the horse under him---in gilded pomp
135 Adorning flowery gardens, 'mid vast squares;
[Page 177 ]
136 The Monument, and that Chamber of the Tower
137 Where England's sovereigns sit in long array,
138 Their steeds bestriding,---every mimic shape
139 Cased in the gleaming mail the monarch wore,
140 Whether for gorgeous tournament addressed,
141 Or life or death upon the battle-field.
142 Those bold imaginations in due time
143 Had vanished, leaving others in their stead:
144 And now I looked upon the living scene;
145 Familiarly perused it; oftentimes,
146 In spite of strongest disappointment, pleased
147 Through courteous self-submission, as a tax
148 Paid to the object by prescriptive right.
149 Rise up, thou monstrous ant-hill on the plain
150 Of a too busy world! Before me flow,
151 Thou endless stream of men and moving things!
152 Thy every-day appearance, as it strikes---
153 With wonder heightened, or sublimed by awe---
154 On strangers, of all ages; the quick dance
155 Of colours, lights, and forms; the deafening din;
156 The comers and the goers face to face,
157 Face after face; the string of dazzling wares,
158 Shop after shop, with symbols, blazoned names,
159 And all the tradesman's honours overhead:
[Page 178 ]
160 Here, fronts of houses, like a title-page,
161 With letters huge inscribed from top to toe,
162 Stationed above the door, like guardian saints;
163 There, allegoric shapes, female or male,
164 Or physiognomies of real men,
165 Land-warriors, kings, or admirals of the sea,
166 Boyle, Shakspeare, Newton, or the attractive head
167 Of some quack-doctor, famous in his day.
168 Meanwhile the roar continues, till at length,
169 Escaped as from an enemy, we turn
170 Abruptly into some sequestered nook,
171 Still as a sheltered place when winds blow loud!
172 At leisure, thence, through tracts of thin resort,
173 And sights and sounds that come at intervals,
174 We take our way. A raree-show is here,
175 With children gathered round; another street
176 Presents a company of dancing dogs,
177 Or dromedary, with an antic pair
178 Of monkeys on his back; a minstrel band
179 Of Savoyards; or, single and alone,
180 An English ballad-singer. Private courts,
181 Gloomy as coffins, and unsightly lanes
182 Thrilled by some female vendor's scream, belike
183 The very shrillest of all London cries,
[Page 179 ]
184 May then entangle our impatient steps;
185 Conducted through those labyrinths, unawares,
186 To privileged regions and inviolate,
187 Where from their airy lodges studious lawyers
188 Look out on waters, walks, and gardens green.
189 Thence back into the throng, until we reach,
190 Following the tide that slackens by degrees,
191 Some half-frequented scene, where wider streets
192 Bring straggling breezes of suburban air.
193 Here files of ballads dangle from dead walls;
194 Advertisements, of giant-size, from high
195 Press forward, in all colours, on the sight;
196 These, bold in conscious merit, lower down;
197 That, fronted with a most imposing word,
198 Is, peradventure, one in masquerade.
199 As on the broadening causeway we advance,
200 Behold, turned upwards, a face hard and strong
201 In lineaments, and red with over-toil.
202 'Tis one encountered here and everywhere;
203 A travelling cripple, by the trunk cut short,
204 And stumping on his arms. In sailor's garb
205 Another lies at length, beside a range
206 Of well-formed characters, with chalk inscribed
207 Upon the smooth flat stones: the Nurse is here,
[Page 180 ]
208 The Bachelor, that loves to sun himself,
209 The military Idler, and the Dame,
210 That field-ward takes her walk with decent steps.
211 Now homeward through the thickening hubbub, where
212 See, among less distinguishable shapes,
213 The begging scavenger, with hat in hand;
214 The Italian, as he thrids his way with care,
215 Steadying, far-seen, a frame of images
216 Upon his head; with basket at his breast
217 The Jew; the stately and slow-moving Turk,
218 With freight of slippers piled beneath his arm!
219 Enough;---the mighty concourse I surveyed
220 With no unthinking mind, well pleased to note
221 Among the crowd all specimens of man,
222 Through all the colours which the sun bestows,
223 And every character of form and face:
224 The Swede, the Russian; from the genial south,
225 The Frenchman and the Spaniard; from remote
226 America, the Hunter-Indian; Moors,
227 Malays, Lascars, the Tartar, the Chinese,
228 And Negro Ladies in white muslin gowns.
229 At leisure, then, I viewed, from day to day,
[Page 181 ]
230 The spectacles within doors,---birds and beasts
231 Of every nature, and strange plants convened
232 From every clime; and, next, those sights that ape
233 The absolute presence of reality,
234 Expressing, as in mirror, sea and land,
235 And what earth is, and what she has to shew.
236 I do not here allude to subtlest craft,
237 By means refined attaining purest ends,
238 But imitations, fondly made in plain
239 Confession of man's weakness and his loves.
240 Whether the Painter, whose ambitious skill
241 Submits to nothing less than taking in
242 A whole horizon's circuit, do with power,
243 Like that of angels or commissioned spirits,
244 Fix us upon some lofty pinnacle,
245 Or in a ship on waters, with a world
246 Of life, and life-like mockery beneath,
247 Above, behind, far stretching and before;
248 Or more mechanic artist represent
249 By scale exact, in model, wood or clay,
250 From blended colours also borrowing help,
251 Some miniature of famous spots or things,---
252 St. Peter's Church; or, more aspiring aim,
253 In microscopic vision, Rome herself;
254 Or, haply, some choice rural haunt,---the Falls
[Page 182 ]
255 Of Tivoli; and, high upon that steep,
256 The Sibyl's mouldering Temple! every tree,
257 Villa, or cottage, lurking among rocks
258 Throughout the landscape; tuft, stone scratch minute---
259 All that the traveller sees when he is there.
260 And to these exhibitions, mute and still,
261 Others of wider scope, where living men,
262 Music, and shifting pantomimic scenes,
263 Diversified the allurement. Need I fear
264 To mention by its name, as in degree,
265 Lowest of these and humblest in attempt,
266 Yet richly graced with honours of her own,
267 Half-rural Sadler's Wells? Though at that time
268 Intolerant, as is the way of youth
269 Unless itself be pleased, here more than once
270 Taking my seat, I saw (nor blush to add,
271 With ample recompense) giants and dwarfs,
272 Clowns, conjurors, posture-masters, harlequins,
273 Amid the uproar of the rabblement,
274 Perform their feats. Nor was it mean delight
275 To watch crude Nature work in untaught minds;
276 To note the laws and progress of belief;
277 Though obstinate on this way, yet on that
278 How willingly we travel, and how far!
[Page 183 ]
279 To have, for instance, brought upon the scene
280 The champion, Jack the Giant-killer: Lo!
281 He dons his coat of darkness; on the stage
282 Walks, and achieves his wonders, from the eye
283 Of living Mortal covert, "as the moon
284 Hid in her vacant interlunar cave."
285 Delusion bold! and how can it be wrought?
286 The garb he wears is black as death, the word
287 "Invisible" flames forth upon his chest.
288 Here, too, were "forms and pressures of the time,"
289 Rough, bold, as Grecian comedy displayed
290 When Art was young; dramas of living men,
291 And recent things yet warm with life; a sea-fight,
292 Shipwreck, or some domestic incident
293 Divulged by Truth and magnified by Fame,
294 Such as the daring brotherhood of late
295 Set forth, too serious theme for that light place---
296 I mean, O distant Friend! a story drawn
297 From our own ground,---the Maid of Buttermere,---
298 And how, unfaithful to a virtuous wife
299 Deserted and deceived, the spoiler came
300 And wooed the artless daughter of the hills,
301 And wedded her, in cruel mockery
302 Of love and marriage bonds. These words to thee
[Page 184 ]
303 Must needs bring back the moment when we first,
304 Ere the broad world rang with the maiden's name,
305 Beheld her serving at the cottage inn,
306 Both stricken, as she entered or withdrew,
307 With admiration of her modest mien
308 And carriage, marked by unexampled grace.
309 We since that time not unfamiliarly
310 Have seen her,---her discretion have observed,
311 Her just opinions, delicate reserve,
312 Her patience, and humility of mind
313 Unspoiled by commendation and the excess
314 Of public notice---an offensive light
315 To a meek spirit suffering inwardly.
316 From this memorial tribute to my theme
317 I was returning, when, with sundry forms
318 Commingled---shapes which met me in the way
319 That we must tread---thy image rose again,
320 Maiden of Buttermere! She lives in peace
321 Upon the spot where she was born and reared;
322 Without contamination doth she live
323 In quietness, without anxiety:
324 Beside the mountain chapel, sleeps in earth
325 Her new-born infant, fearless as a lamb
326 That, thither driven from some unsheltered place,
[Page 185 ]
327 Rests underneath the little rock-like pile
328 When storms are raging. Happy are they both---
329 Mother and child!---These feelings, in themselves
330 Trite, do yet scarcely seem so when I think
331 On those ingenuous moments of our youth
332 Ere we have learnt by use to slight the crimes
333 And sorrows of the world. Those simple days
334 Are now my theme; and, foremost of the scenes,
335 Which yet survive in memory, appears
336 One, at whose centre sate a lovely Boy,
337 A sportive infant, who, for six months' space,
338 Not more, had been of age to deal about
339 Articulate prattle---Child as beautiful
340 As ever clung around a mother's neck,
341 Or father fondly gazed upon with pride.
342 There, too, conspicuous for stature tall
343 And large dark eyes, beside her infant stood
344 The mother; but, upon her cheeks diffused,
345 False tints too well accorded with the glare
346 From play-house lustres thrown without reserve
347 On every object near. The Boy had been
348 The pride and pleasure of all lookers-on
349 In whatsoever place, but seemed in this
350 A sort of alien scattered from the clouds.
351 Of lusty vigour, more than infantine
[Page 186 ]
352 He was in limb, in cheek a summer rose
353 Just three parts blown---a cottage-child---if e'er,
354 By cottage-door on breezy mountain side,
355 Or in some sheltering vale, was seen a babe
356 By Nature's gifts so favoured. Upon a board
357 Decked with refreshments had this child been placed,
358 His little stage in the vast theatre,
359 And there he sate surrounded with a throng
360 Of chance spectators, chiefly dissolute men
361 And shameless women, treated and caressed;
362 Ate, drank, and with the fruit and glasses played,
363 While oaths and laughter and indecent speech
364 Were rife about him as the songs of birds
365 Contending after showers. The mother now
366 Is fading out of memory, but I see
367 The lovely Boy as I beheld him then
368 Among the wretched and the falsely gay,
369 Like one of those who walked with hair unsinged
370 Amid the fiery furnace. Charms and spells
371 Muttered on black and spiteful instigation
372 Have stopped, as some believe, the kindliest growths.
373 Ah, with how different spirit might a prayer
374 Have been preferred, that this fair creature, checked
375 By special privilege of Nature's love,
376 Should in his childhood be detained for ever!
[Page 187 ]
377 But with its universal freight the tide
378 Hath rolled along, and this bright innocent,
379 Mary! may now have lived till he could look
380 With envy on thy nameless babe that sleeps,
381 Beside the mountain chapel, undisturbed.
382 Four rapid years had scarcely then been told
383 Since, travelling southward from our pastoral hills,
384 I heard, and for the first time in my life,
385 The voice of woman utter blasphemy---
386 Saw woman as she is, to open shame
387 Abandoned, and the pride of public vice;
388 I shuddered, for a barrier seemed at once
389 Thrown in, that from humanity divorced
390 Humanity, splitting the race of man
391 In twain, yet leaving the same outward form.
392 Distress of mind ensued upon the sight
393 And ardent meditation. Later years
394 Brought to such spectacle a milder sadness,
395 Feelings of pure commiseration, grief
396 For the individual and the overthrow
397 Of her soul's beauty; farther I was then
398 But seldom led, or wished to go; in truth
399 The sorrow of the passion stopped me there.
[Page 188 ]
400 But let me now, less moved, in order take
401 Our argument. Enough is said to show
402 How casual incidents of real life,
403 Observed where pastime only had been sought,
404 Outweighed, or put to flight, the set events
405 And measured passions of the stage, albeit
406 By Siddons trod in the fulness of her power.
407 Yet was the theatre my dear delight;
408 The very gilding, lamps and painted scrolls,
409 And all the mean upholstery of the place,
410 Wanted not animation, when the tide
411 Of pleasure ebbed but to return as fast
412 With the ever-shifting figures of the scene,
413 Solemn or gay: whether some beauteous dame
414 Advanced in radiance through a deep recess
415 Of thick entangled forest, like the moon
416 Opening the clouds; or sovereign king, announced
417 With flourishing trumpet, came in full-blown state
418 Of the world's greatness, winding round with train
419 Of courtiers, banners, and a length of guards;
420 Or captive led in abject weeds, and jingling
421 His slender manacles; or romping girl
422 Bounced, leapt, and pawed the air; or mumbling sire,
423 A scare-crow pattern of old age dressed up
424 In all the tatters of infirmity
[Page 189 ]
425 All loosely put together, hobbled in,
426 Stumping upon a cane with which he smites,
427 From time to time, the solid boards, and makes them
428 Prate somewhat loudly of the whereabout
429 Of one so overloaded with his years.
430 But what of this! the laugh, the grin, grimace,
431 The antics striving to outstrip each other,
432 Were all received, the least of them not lost,
433 With an unmeasured welcome. Through the night,
434 Between the show, and many-headed mass
435 Of the spectators, and each several nook
436 Filled with its fray or brawl, how eagerly
437 And with what flashes, as it were, the mind
438 Turned this way---that way! sportive and alert
439 And watchful, as a kitten when at play,
440 While winds are eddying round her, among straws
441 And rustling leaves. Enchanting age and sweet!
442 Romantic almost, looked at through a space,
443 How small, of intervening years! For then,
444 Though surely no mean progress had been made
445 In meditations holy and sublime,
446 Yet something of a girlish child-like gloss
447 Of novelty survived for scenes like these;
448 Enjoyment haply handed down from times
449 When at a country-playhouse, some rude barn
[Page 190 ]
450 Tricked out for that proud use, if I perchance
451 Caught, on a summer evening through a chink
452 In the old wall, an unexpected glimpse
453 Of daylight, the bare thought of where I was
454 Gladdened me more than if I had been led
455 Into a dazzling cavern of romance,
456 Crowded with Genii busy among works
457 Not to be looked at by the common sun.
458 The matter that detains us now may seem,
459 To many, neither dignified enough
460 Nor arduous, yet will not be scorned by them,
461 Who, looking inward, have observed the ties
462 That bind the perishable hours of life
463 Each to the other, and the curious props
464 By which the world of memory and thought
465 Exists and is sustained. More lofty themes,
466 Such as at least do wear a prouder face,
467 Solicit our regard; but when I think
468 Of these, I feel the imaginative power
469 Languish within me; even then it slept,
470 When, pressed by tragic sufferings, the heart
471 Was more than full; amid my sobs and tears
472 It slept, even in the pregnant season of youth.
473 For though I was most passionately moved
[Page 191 ]
474 And yielded to all changes of the scene
475 With an obsequious promptness, yet the storm
476 Passed not beyond the suburbs of the mind;
477 Save when realities of act and mien,
478 The incarnation of the spirits that move
479 In harmony amid the Poet's world,
480 Rose to ideal grandeur, or, called forth
481 By power of contrast, made me recognise,
482 As at a glance, the things which I had shaped,
483 And yet not shaped, had seen and scarcely seen,
484 When, having closed the mighty Shakspeare's page,
485 I mused, and thought, and felt, in solitude.
486 Pass we from entertainments, that are such
487 Professedly, to others titled higher,
488 Yet, in the estimate of youth at least,
489 More near akin to those than names imply,---
490 I mean the brawls of lawyers in their courts
491 Before the ermined judge, or that great stage
492 Where senators, tongue-favoured men, perform,
493 Admired and envied. Oh! the beating heart,
494 When one among the prime of these rose up,---
495 One, of whose name from childhood we had heard
496 Familiarly, a household term, like those,
497 The Bedfords, Glosters, Salsburys, of old
[Page 192 ]
498 Whom the fifth Harry talks of. Silence! hush!
499 This is no trifler, no short-flighted wit,
500 No stammerer of a minute, painfully
501 Delivered. No! the Orator hath yoked
502 The Hours, like young Aurora, to his car:
503 Thrice welcome Presence! how can patience e'er
504 Grow weary of attending on a track
505 That kindles with such glory! All are charmed,
506 Astonished; like a hero in romance,
507 He winds away his never-ending horn;
508 Words follow words, sense seems to follow sense:
509 What memory and what logic! till the strain
510 Transcendent, superhuman as it seemed,
511 Grows tedious even in a young man's ear.
512 Genius of Burke! forgive the pen seduced
513 By specious wonders, and too slow to tell
514 Of what the ingenuous, what bewildered men,
515 Beginning to mistrust their boastful guides,
516 And wise men, willing to grow wiser, caught,
517 Rapt auditors! from thy most eloquent tongue---
518 Now mute, for ever mute in the cold grave.
519 I see him,---old, but vigorous in age,---
520 Stand like an oak whose stag-horn branches start
521 Out of its leafy brow, the more to awe
[Page 193 ]
522 The younger brethren of the grove. But some---
523 While he forewarns, denounces, launches forth,
524 Against all systems built on abstract rights,
525 Keen ridicule; the majesty proclaims
526 Of Institutes and Laws, hallowed by time;
527 Declares the vital power of social ties
528 Endeared by Custom; and with high disdain,
529 Exploding upstart Theory, insists
530 Upon the allegiance to which men are born---
531 Some---say at once a froward multitude---
532 Murmur (for truth is hated, where not loved)
533 As the winds fret within the Æolian cave,
534 Galled by their monarch's chain. The times were big
535 With ominous change, which, night by night, provoked
536 Keen struggles, and black clouds of passion raised;
537 But memorable moments intervened,
538 When Wisdom, like the Goddess from Jove's brain,
539 Broke forth in armour of resplendent words,
540 Startling the Synod. Could a youth, and one
541 In ancient story versed, whose breast had heaved
542 Under the weight of classic eloquence,
543 Sit, see, and hear, unthankful, uninspired?
544 Nor did the Pulpit's oratory fail
545 To achieve its higher triumph. Not unfelt
[Page 194 ]
546 Were its admonishments, nor lightly heard
547 The awful truths delivered thence by tongues
548 Endowed with various power to search the soul;
549 Yet ostentation, domineering, oft
550 Poured forth harangues, how sadly out of place!---
551 There have I seen a comely bachelor,
552 Fresh from a toilette of two hours, ascend
553 His rostrum, with seraphic glance look up,
554 And, in a tone elaborately low
555 Beginning, lead his voice through many a maze
556 A minuet course; and, winding up his mouth,
557 From time to time, into an orifice
558 Most delicate, a lurking eyelet, small,
559 And only not invisible, again
560 Open it out, diffusing thence a smile
561 Of rapt irradiation, exquisite.
562 Meanwhile the Evangelists, Isaiah, Job,
563 Moses, and he who penned, the other day,
564 The Death of Abel, Shakspeare, and the Bard
565 Whose genius spangled o'er a gloomy theme
566 With fancies thick as his inspiring stars,
567 And Ossian (doubt not, 'tis the naked truth)
568 Summoned from streamy Morven---each and all
569 Would, in their turns, lend ornaments and flowers
570 To entwine the crook of eloquence that helped
[Page 195 ]
571 This pretty Shepherd, pride of all the plains,
572 To rule and guide his captivated flock.
573 I glance but at a few conspicuous marks,
574 Leaving a thousand others, that, in hall,
575 Court, theatre, conventicle, or shop,
576 In public room or private, park or street,
577 Each fondly reared on his own pedestal,
578 Looked out for admiration. Folly, vice,
579 Extravagance in gesture, mien, and dress,
580 And all the strife of singularity,
581 Lies to the ear, and lies to every sense---
582 Of these, and of the living shapes they wear,
583 There is no end. Such candidates for regard,
584 Although well pleased to be where they were found,
585 I did not hunt after, nor greatly prize,
586 Nor made unto myself a secret boast
587 Of reading them with quick and curious eye;
588 But, as a common produce, things that are
589 To-day, to-morrow will be, took of them
590 Such willing note, as, on some errand bound
591 That asks not speed, a Traveller might bestow
592 On sea-shells that bestrew the sandy beach,
593 Or daisies swarming through the fields of June.
[Page 196 ]
594 But foolishness and madness in parade,
595 Though most at home in this their dear domain,
596 Are scattered everywhere, no rarities,
597 Even to the rudest novice of the Schools.
598 Me, rather, it employed, to note, and keep
599 In memory, those individual sights
600 Of courage, or integrity, or truth,
601 Or tenderness, which there, set off by foil,
602 Appeared more touching. One will I select;
603 A Father---for he bore that sacred name---
604 Him saw I, sitting in an open square,
605 Upon a corner-stone of that low wall,
606 Wherein were fixed the iron pales that fenced
607 A spacious grass-plot; there, in silence, sate
608 This One Man, with a sickly babe outstretched
609 Upon his knee, whom he had thither brought
610 For sunshine, and to breathe the fresher air.
611 Of those who passed, and me who looked at him,
612 He took no heed; but in his brawny arms
613 (The Artificer was to the elbow bare,
614 And from his work this moment had been stolen)
615 He held the child, and, bending over it,
616 As if he were afraid both of the sun
617 And of the air, which he had come to seek,
618 Eyed the poor babe with love unutterable.
[Page 197 ]
619 As the black storm upon the mountain top
620 Sets off the sunbeam in the valley, so
621 That huge fermenting mass of human-kind
622 Serves as a solemn back-ground, or relief,
623 To single forms and objects, whence they draw,
624 For feeling and contemplative regard,
625 More than inherent liveliness and power.
626 How oft, amid those overflowing streets,
627 Have I gone forward with the crowd, and said
628 Unto myself, "The face of every one
629 That passes by me is a mystery!"
630 Thus have I looked, nor ceased to look, oppressed
631 By thoughts of what and whither, when and how,
632 Until the shapes before my eyes became
633 A second-sight procession, such as glides
634 Over still mountains, or appears in dreams;
635 And once, far-travelled in such mood, beyond
636 The reach of common indication, lost
637 Amid the moving pageant, I was smitten
638 Abruptly, with the view (a sight not rare)
639 Of a blind Beggar, who, with upright face,
640 Stood, propped against a wall, upon his chest
641 Wearing a written paper, to explain
642 His story, whence he came, and who he was.
643 Caught by the spectacle my mind turned round
[Page 198 ]
644 As with the might of waters; an apt type
645 This label seemed of the utmost we can know,
646 Both of ourselves and of the universe;
647 And, on the shape of that unmoving man,
648 His steadfast face and sightless eyes, I gazed,
649 As if admonished from another world.
650 Though reared upon the base of outward things,
651 Structures like these the excited spirit mainly
652 Builds for herself; scenes different there are,
653 Full-formed, that take, with small internal help,
654 Possession of the faculties,---the peace
655 That comes with night; the deep solemnity
656 Of nature's intermediate hours of rest,
657 When the great tide of human life stands still;
658 The business of the day to come, unborn,
659 Of that gone by, locked up, as in the grave;
660 The blended calmness of the heavens and earth,
661 Moonlight and stars, and empty streets, and sounds
662 Unfrequent as in deserts; at late hours
663 Of winter evenings, when unwholesome rains
664 Are falling hard, with people yet astir,
665 The feeble salutation from the voice
666 Of some unhappy woman, now and then
667 Heard as we pass, when no one looks about,
[Page 199 ]
668 Nothing is listened to. But these, I fear,
669 Are falsely catalogued; things that are, are not,
670 As the mind answers to them, or the heart
671 Is prompt, or slow, to feel. What say you, then,
672 To times, when half the city shall break out
673 Full of one passion, vengeance, rage, or fear?
674 To executions, to a street on fire,
675 Mobs, riots, or rejoicings? From these sights
676 Take one,---that ancient festival, the Fair,
677 Holden where martyrs suffered in past time,
678 And named of St. Bartholomew; there, see
679 A work completed to our hands, that lays,
680 If any spectacle on earth can do,
681 The whole creative powers of man asleep!---
682 For once, the Muse's help will we implore,
683 And she shall lodge us, wafted on her wings,
684 Above the press and danger of the crowd,
685 Upon some showman's platform. What a shock
686 For eyes and ears! what anarchy and din,
687 Barbarian and infernal,---a phantasma,
688 Monstrous in colour, motion, shape, sight, sound!
689 Below, the open space, through every nook
690 Of the wide area, twinkles, is alive
691 With heads; the midway region, and above,
692 Is thronged with staring pictures and huge scrolls,
[Page 200 ]
693 Dumb proclamations of the Prodigies;
694 With chattering monkeys dangling from their poles,
695 And children whirling in their roundabouts;
696 With those that stretch the neck and strain the eyes,
697 And crack the voice in rivalship, the crowd
698 Inviting; with buffoons against buffoons
699 Grimacing, writhing, screaming,---him who grinds
700 The hurdy-gurdy, at the fiddle weaves,
701 Rattles the salt-box, thumps the kettle-drum,
702 And him who at the trumpet puffs his cheeks,
703 The silver-collared Negro with his timbrel,
704 Equestrians, tumblers, women, girls, and boys,
705 Blue-breeched, pink-vested, with high-towering plumes.---
706 All moveables of wonder, from all parts,
707 Are here---Albinos, painted Indians, Dwarfs,
708 The Horse of knowledge, and the learned Pig,
709 The Stone-eater, the man that swallows fire,
710 Giants, Ventriloquists, the Invisible Girl,
711 The Bust that speaks and moves its goggling eyes,
712 The Wax-work, Clock-work, all the marvellous craft
713 Of modern Merlins, Wild Beasts, Puppet-shows,
714 All out-o'-the-way, far-fetched, perverted things,
715 All freaks of nature, all Promethean thoughts
716 Of man, his dullness, madness, and their feats
717 All jumbled up together, to compose
[Page 201 ]
718 A Parliament of Monsters. Tents and Booths
719 Meanwhile, as if the whole were one vast mill,
720 Are vomiting, receiving on all sides,
721 Men, Women, three-years' Children, Babes in arms.
722 Oh, blank confusion! true epitome
723 Of what the mighty City is herself,
724 To thousands upon thousands of her sons,
725 Living amid the same perpetual whirl
726 Of trivial objects, melted and reduced
727 To one identity, by differences
728 That have no law, no meaning, and no end---
729 Oppression, under which even highest minds
730 Must labour, whence the strongest are not free.
731 But though the picture weary out the eye,
732 By nature an unmanageable sight,
733 It is not wholly so to him who looks
734 In steadiness, who hath among least things
735 An under-sense of greatest; sees the parts
736 As parts, but with a feeling of the whole.
737 This, of all acquisitions first awaits
738 On sundry and most widely different modes
739 Of education, nor with least delight
740 On that through which I passed. Attention springs,
741 And comprehensiveness and memory flow,
[Page 202 ]
742 From early converse with the works of God
743 Among all regions; chiefly where appear
744 Most obviously simplicity and power.
745 Think, how the everlasting streams and woods,
746 Stretched and still stretching far and wide, exalt
747 The roving Indian, on his desert sands:
748 What grandeur not unfelt, what pregnant show
749 Of beauty, meets the sun-burnt Arab's eye:
750 And, as the sea propels, from zone to zone,
751 Its currents; magnifies its shoals of life
752 Beyond all compass; spreads, and sends aloft
753 Armies of clouds,---even so, its powers and aspects
754 Shape for mankind, by principles as fixed,
755 The views and aspirations of the soul
756 To majesty. Like virtue have the forms
757 Perennial of the ancient hills; nor less
758 The changeful language of their countenances
759 Quickens the slumbering mind, and aids the thoughts,
760 However multitudinous, to move
761 With order and relation. This, if still,
762 As hitherto, in freedom I may speak,
763 Not violating any just restraint,
764 As may be hoped, of real modesty,---
765 This did I feel, in London's vast domain.
766 The Spirit of Nature was upon me there;
[Page 203 ]
767 The soul of Beauty and enduring Life
768 Vouchsafed her inspiration, and diffused,
769 Through meagre lines and colours, and the press
770 Of self-destroying, transitory things,
771 Composure, and ennobling Harmony.
[Page 205 ]
BOOK VIII.
RETROSPECT.---LOVE OF NATURE LEADING TO
LOVE OF MAN.
[Page 207 ]
1 What sounds are those, Helvellyn, that are heard
2 Up to thy summit, through the depth of air
3 Ascending, as if distance had the power
4 To make the sounds more audible? What crowd
5 Covers, or sprinkles o'er, yon village green?
6 Crowd seems it, solitary hill! to thee,
7 Though but a little family of men,
8 Shepherds and tillers of the ground---betimes
9 Assembled with their children and their wives,
10 And here and there a stranger interspersed.
11 They hold a rustic fair---a festival,
12 Such as, on this side now, and now on that,
13 Repeated through his tributary vales,
14 Helvellyn, in the silence of his rest,
15 Sees annually, if clouds towards either ocean
[Page 208 ]
16 Blown from their favourite resting-place, or mists
17 Dissolved, have left him an unshrouded head.
18 Delightful day it is for all who dwell
19 In this secluded glen, and eagerly
20 They give it welcome. Long ere heat of noon,
21 From byre or field the kine were brought; the sheep
22 Are penned in cotes; the chaffering is begun.
23 The heifer lows, uneasy at the voice
24 Of a new master; bleat the flocks aloud.
25 Booths are there none; a stall or two is here;
26 A lame man or a blind, the one to beg,
27 The other to make music; hither, too,
28 From far, with basket, slung upon her arm,
29 Of hawker's wares---books, pictures, combs, and pins---
30 Some aged woman finds her way again,
31 Year after year, a punctual visitant!
32 There also stands a speech-maker by rote,
33 Pulling the strings of his boxed raree-show;
34 And in the lapse of many years may come
35 Prouder itinerant, mountebank, or he
36 Whose wonders in a covered wain lie hid.
37 But one there is, the loveliest of them all,
38 Some sweet lass of the valley, looking out
39 For gains, and who that sees her would not buy?
40 Fruits of her father's orchard, are her wares,
[Page 209 ]
41 And with the ruddy produce, she walks round
42 Among the crowd, half pleased with half ashamed
43 Of her new office, blushing restlessly.
44 The children now are rich, for the old to-day
45 Are generous as the young; and, if content
46 With looking on, some ancient wedded pair
47 Sit in the shade together, while they gaze,
48 "A cheerful smile unbends the wrinkled brow,
49 The days departed start again to life,
50 And all the scenes of childhood reappear,
51 Faint, but more tranquil, like the changing sun
52 To him who slept at noon and wakes at eve." [End note 9: 1Kb]
53 Thus gaiety and cheerfulness prevail,
54 Spreading from young to old, from old to young,
55 And no one seems to want his share.---Immense
56 Is the recess, the circumambient world
57 Magnificent, by which they are embraced:
58 They move about upon the soft green turf:
59 How little they, they and their doings, seem,
60 And all that they can further or obstruct!
61 Through utter weakness pitiably dear,
62 As tender infants are: and yet how great!
63 For all things serve them: them the morning light
64 Loves, as it glistens on the silent rocks;
65 And them the silent rocks, which now from high
[Page 210 ]
66 Look down upon them; the reposing clouds;
67 The wild brooks prattling from invisible haunts;
68 And old Helvellyn, conscious of the stir
69 Which animates this day their calm abode.
70 With deep devotion, Nature, did I feel,
71 In that enormous City's turbulent world
72 Of men and things, what benefit I owed
73 To thee, and those domains of rural peace,
74 Where to the sense of beauty first my heart
75 Was opened; tract more exquisitely fair
76 Than that famed paradise of ten thousand trees,
77 Or Gehol's matchless gardens, for delight
78 Of the Tartarian dynasty composed
79 (Beyond that mighty wall, not fabulous,
80 China's stupendous mound) by patient toil
81 Of myriads and boon nature's lavish help;
82 There, in a clime from widest empire chosen,
83 Fulfilling (could enchantment have done more?)
84 A sumptuous dream of flowery lawns, with domes
85 Of pleasure sprinkled over, shady dells
86 For eastern monasteries, sunny mounts
87 With temples crested, bridges, gondolas,
88 Rocks, dens, and groves of foliage taught to melt
89 Into each other their obsequious hues,
[Page 211 ]
90 Vanished and vanishing in subtle chase,
91 Too fine to be pursued; or standing forth
92 In no discordant opposition, strong
93 And gorgeous as the colours side by side
94 Bedded among rich plumes of tropic birds;
95 And mountains over all, embracing all;
96 And all the landscape, endlessly enriched
97 With waters running, falling, or asleep.
98 But lovelier far than this, the paradise
99 Where I was reared; in Nature's primitive gifts
100 Favoured no less, and more to every sense
101 Delicious, seeing that the sun and sky,
102 The elements, and seasons as they change,
103 Do find a worthy fellow-labourer there---
104 Man free, man working for himself, with choice
105 Of time, and place, and object; by his wants,
106 His comforts, native occupations, cares,
107 Cheerfully led to individual ends
108 Or social, and still followed by a train
109 Unwooed, unthought-of even---simplicity,
110 And beauty, and inevitable grace.
111 Yea, when a glimpse of those imperial bowers
112 Would to a child be transport over-great,
[Page 212 ]
113 When but a half-hour's roam through such a place
114 Would leave behind a dance of images,
115 That shall break in upon his sleep for weeks;
116 Even then the common haunts of the green earth,
117 And ordinary interests of man,
118 Which they embosom, all without regard
119 As both may seem, are fastening on the heart
120 Insensibly, each with the other's help.
121 For me, when my affections first were led
122 From kindred, friends, and playmates, to partake
123 Love for the human creature's absolute self,
124 That noticeable kindliness of heart
125 Sprang out of fountains, there abounding most
126 Where sovereign Nature dictated the tasks
127 And occupations which her beauty adorned,
128 And Shepherds were the men that pleased me first;
129 Not such as Saturn ruled 'mid Latian wilds,
130 With arts and laws so tempered, that their lives
131 Left, even to us toiling in this late day,
132 A bright tradition of the golden age;
133 Not such as, 'mid Arcadian fastnesses
134 Sequestered, handed down among themselves
135 Felicity, in Grecian song renowned;
136 Nor such as, when an adverse fate had driven,
137 From house and home, the courtly band whose fortunes
[Page 213 ]
138 Entered, with Shakspeare's genius, the wild woods
139 Of Arden, amid sunshine or in shade,
140 Culled the best fruits of Time's uncounted hours,
141 Ere Phoebe sighed for the false Ganymede;
142 Or there where Perdita and Florizel
143 Together danced, Queen of the feast, and King;
144 Nor such as Spenser fabled. True it is,
145 That I had heard (what he perhaps had seen)
146 Of maids at sunrise bringing in from far
147 Their May-bush, and along the street in flocks
148 Parading with a song of taunting rhymes,
149 Aimed at the laggards slumbering within doors;
150 Had also heard, from those who yet remembered,
151 Tales of the May-pole dance, and wreaths that decked
152 Porch, door-way, or kirk-pillar; and of youths,
153 Each with his maid, before the sun was up,
154 By annual custom, issuing forth in troops,
155 To drink the waters of some sainted well,
156 And hang it round with garlands. Love survives;
157 But, for such purpose, flowers no longer grow:
158 The times, too sage, perhaps too proud, have dropped
159 These lighter graces; and the rural ways
160 And manners which my childhood looked upon
161 Were the unluxuriant produce of a life
162 Intent on little but substantial needs,
[Page 214 ]
163 Yet rich in beauty, beauty that was felt.
164 But images of danger and distress,
165 Man suffering among awful Powers and Forms;
166 Of this I heard, and saw enough to make
167 Imagination restless; nor was free
168 Myself from frequent perils; nor were tales
169 Wanting,---the tragedies of former times,
170 Hazards and strange escapes, of which the rocks
171 Immutable and everflowing streams,
172 Where'er I roamed, were speaking monuments.
173 Smooth life had flock and shepherd in old time,
174 Long springs and tepid winters, on the banks
175 Of delicate Galesus; and no less
176 Those scattered along Adria's myrtle shores:
177 Smooth life had herdsman, and his snow-white herd
178 To triumphs and to sacrificial rites
179 Devoted, on the inviolable stream
180 Of rich Clitumnus; and the goat-herd lived
181 As calmly, underneath the pleasant brows
182 Of cool Lucretilis, where the pipe was heard
183 Of Pan, Invisible God, thrilling the rocks
184 With tutelary music, from all harm
185 The fold protecting. I myself, mature
186 In manhood then, have seen a pastoral tract
[Page 215 ]
187 Like one of these, where Fancy might run wild,
188 Though under skies less generous, less serene:
189 There, for her own delight had Nature framed
190 A pleasure-ground, diffused a fair expanse
191 Of level pasture, islanded with groves
192 And banked with woody risings; but the Plain
193 Endless, here opening widely out, and there
194 Shut up in lesser lakes or beds of lawn
195 And intricate recesses, creek or bay
196 Sheltered within a shelter, where at large
197 The shepherd strays, a rolling hut his home.
198 Thither he comes with spring-time, there abides
199 All summer, and at sunrise ye may hear
200 His flageolet to liquid notes of love
201 Attuned, or sprightly fife resounding far.
202 Nook is there none, nor tract of that vast space
203 Where passage opens, but the same shall have
204 In turn its visitant, telling there his hours
205 In unlaborious pleasure, with no task
206 More toilsome than to carve a beechen bowl
207 For spring or fountain, which the traveller finds,
208 When through the region he pursues at will
209 His devious course. A glimpse of such sweet life
210 I saw when, from the melancholy walls
211 Of Goslar, once imperial, I renewed
[Page 216 ]
212 My daily walk along that wide champaign,
213 That, reaching to her gates, spreads east and west,
214 And northwards, from beneath the mountainous verge
215 Of the Hercynian forest. Yet, hail to you
216 Moors, mountains, headlands, and ye hollow vales,
217 Ye long deep channels for the Atlantic's voice,
218 Powers of my native region! Ye that seize
219 The heart with firmer grasp! Your snows and streams
220 Ungovernable, and your terrifying winds,
221 That howl so dismally for him who treads
222 Companionless your awful solitudes!
223 There, 'tis the shepherd's task the winter long
224 To wait upon the storms: of their approach
225 Sagacious, into sheltering coves he drives
226 His flock, and thither from the homestead bears
227 A toilsome burden up the craggy ways,
228 And deals it out, their regular nourishment
229 Strewn on the frozen snow. And when the spring
230 Looks out, and all the pastures dance with lambs,
231 And when the flock, with warmer weather, climbs
232 Higher and higher, him his office leads
233 To watch their goings, whatsoever track
234 The wanderers choose. For this he quits his home
235 At day-spring, and no sooner doth the sun
236 Begin to strike him with a fire-like heat,
[Page 217 ]
237 Than he lies down upon some shining rock,
238 And breakfasts with his dog. When they have stolen,
239 As is their wont, a pittance from strict time,
240 For rest not needed or exchange of love,
241 Then from his couch he starts; and now his feet
242 Crush out a livelier fragrance from the flowers
243 Of lowly thyme, by Nature's skill enwrought
244 In the wild turf: the lingering dews of morn
245 Smoke round him, as from hill to hill he hies,
246 His staff protending like a hunter's spear,
247 Or by its aid leaping from crag to crag,
248 And o'er the brawling beds of unbridged streams.
249 Philosophy, methinks, at Fancy's call,
250 Might deign to follow him through what he does
251 Or sees in his day's march; himself he feels,
252 In those vast regions where his service lies,
253 A freeman, wedded to his life of hope
254 And hazard, and hard labour interchanged
255 With that majestic indolence so dear
256 To native man. A rambling school-boy, thus
257 I felt his presence in his own domain,
258 As of a lord and master, or a power,
259 Or genius, under Nature, under God,
260 Presiding; and severest solitude
261 Had more commanding looks when he was there.
[Page 218 ]
262 When up the lonely brooks on rainy days
263 Angling I went, or trod the trackless hills
264 By mists bewildered, suddenly mine eyes
265 Have glanced upon him distant a few steps,
266 In size a giant, stalking through thick fog,
267 His sheep like Greenland bears; or, as he stepped
268 Beyond the boundary line of some hill-shadow,
269 His form hath flashed upon me, glorified
270 By the deep radiance of the setting sun:
271 Or him have I descried in distant sky,
272 A solitary object and sublime,
273 Above all height! like an aerial cross
274 Stationed alone upon a spiry rock
275 Of the Chartreuse, for worship. Thus was man
276 Ennobled outwardly before my sight,
277 And thus my heart was early introduced
278 To an unconscious love and reverence
279 Of human nature; hence the human form
280 To me became an index of delight,
281 Of grace and honour, power and worthiness.
282 Meanwhile this creature---spiritual almost
283 As those of books, but more exalted far;
284 Far more of an imaginative form
285 Than the gay Corin of the groves, who lives
286 For his own fancies, or to dance by the hour,
[Page 219 ]
287 In coronal, with Phyllis in the midst---
288 Was, for the purposes of kind, a man
289 With the most common; husband, father; learned,
290 Could teach, admonish; suffered with the rest
291 From vice and folly, wretchedness and fear;
292 Of this I little saw, cared less for it,
293 But something must have felt.
293 Call ye these appearances---
294 Which I beheld of shepherds in my youth,
295 This sanctity of Nature given to man---
296 A shadow, a delusion, ye who pore
297 On the dead letter, miss the spirit of things;
298 Whose truth is not a motion or a shape
299 Instinct with vital functions, but a block
300 Or waxen image which yourselves have made,
301 And ye adore! But blessed be the God
302 Of Nature and of Man that this was so;
303 That men before my inexperienced eyes
304 Did first present themselves thus purified,
305 Removed, and to a distance that was fit:
306 And so we all of us in some degree
307 Are led to knowledge, wheresoever led,
308 And howsoever; were it otherwise,
309 And we found evil fast as we find good
310 In our first years, or think that it is found,
[Page 220 ]
311 How could the innocent heart bear up and live!
312 But doubly fortunate my lot; not here
313 Alone, that something of a better life
314 Perhaps was round me than it is the privilege
315 Of most to move in, but that first I looked
316 At Man through objects that were great or fair;
317 First communed with him by their help. And thus
318 Was founded a sure safeguard and defence
319 Against the weight of meanness, selfish cares,
320 Coarse manners, vulgar passions, that beat in
321 On all sides from the ordinary world
322 In which we traffic. Starting from this point
323 I had my face turned toward the truth, began
324 With an advantage furnished by that kind
325 Of prepossession, without which the soul
326 Receives no knowledge that can bring forth good,
327 No genuine insight ever comes to her.
328 From the restraint of over-watchful eyes
329 Preserved, I moved about, year after year,
330 Happy, and now most thankful that my walk
331 Was guarded from too early intercourse
332 With the deformities of crowded life,
333 And those ensuing laughters and contempts,
334 Self-pleasing, which, if we would wish to think
335 With a due reverence on earth's rightful lord,
[Page 221 ]
336 Here placed to be the inheritor of heaven,
337 Will not permit us; but pursue the mind,
338 That to devotion willingly would rise,
339 Into the temple and the temple's heart.
340 Yet deem not, Friend! that human kind with me
341 Thus early took a place pre-eminent;
342 Nature herself was, at this unripe time,
343 But secondary to my own pursuits
344 And animal activities, and all
345 Their trivial pleasures; and when these had drooped
346 And gradually expired, and Nature, prized
347 For her own sake, became my joy, even then---
348 And upwards through late youth, until not less
349 Than two-and-twenty summers had been told---
350 Was Man in my affections and regards
351 Subordinate to her, her visible forms
352 And viewless agencies: a passion, she,
353 A rapture often, and immediate love
354 Ever at hand; he, only a delight
355 Occasional, an accidental grace,
356 His hour being not yet come. Far less had then
357 The inferior creatures, beast or bird, attuned
358 My spirit to that gentleness of love
359 (Though they had long been carefully observed),
[Page 222 ]
360 Won from me those minute obeisances
361 Of tenderness, which I may number now
362 With my first blessings. Nevertheless, on these
363 The light of beauty did not fall in vain,
364 Or grandeur circumfuse them to no end.
365 But when that first poetic faculty
366 Of plain Imagination and severe,
367 No longer a mute influence of the soul,
368 Ventured, at some rash Muse's earnest call,
369 To try her strength among harmonious words;
370 And to book-notions and the rules of art
371 Did knowingly conform itself; there came
372 Among the simple shapes of human life
373 A wilfulness of fancy and conceit;
374 And Nature and her objects beautified
375 These fictions, as in some sort, in their turn,
376 They burnished her. From touch of this new power
377 Nothing was safe: the elder-tree that grew
378 Beside the well-known charnel-house had then
379 A dismal look: the yew-tree had its ghost,
380 That took his station there for ornament:
381 The dignities of plain occurrence then
382 Were tasteless, and truth's golden mean, a point
383 Where no sufficient pleasure could be found.
[Page 223 ]
384 Then, if a widow, staggering with the blow
385 Of her distress, was known to have turned her steps
386 To the cold grave in which her husband slept,
387 One night, or haply more than one, through pain
388 Or half-insensate impotence of mind,
389 The fact was caught at greedily, and there
390 She must be visitant the whole year through,
391 Wetting the turf with never-ending tears.
392 Through quaint obliquities I might pursue
393 These cravings; when the fox-glove, one by one,
394 Upwards through every stage of the tall stem,
395 Had shed beside the public way its bells,
396 And stood of all dismantled, save the last
397 Left at the tapering ladder's top, that seemed
398 To bend as doth a slender blade of grass
399 Tipped with a rain-drop, Fancy loved to seat,
400 Beneath the plant despoiled, but crested still
401 With this last relic, soon itself to fall,
402 Some vagrant mother, whose arch little ones,
403 All unconcerned by her dejected plight,
404 Laughed as with rival eagerness their hands
405 Gathered the purple cups that round them lay,
406 Strewing the turf's green slope.
406 A diamond light
[Page 224 ]
407 (Whene'er the summer sun, declining, smote
408 A smooth rock wet with constant springs) was seen
409 Sparkling from out a copse-clad bank that rose
410 Fronting our cottage. Oft beside the hearth
411 Seated, with open door, often and long
412 Upon this restless lustre have I gazed,
413 That made my fancy restless as itself.
414 'Twas now for me a burnished silver shield
415 Suspended over a knight's tomb, who lay
416 Inglorious, buried in the dusky wood:
417 An entrance now into some magic cave
418 Or palace built by fairies of the rock;
419 Nor could I have been bribed to disenchant
420 The spectacle, by visiting the spot.
421 Thus wilful Fancy, in no hurtful mood,
422 Engrafted far-fetched shapes on feelings bred
423 By pure Imagination: busy Power
424 She was, and with her ready pupil turned
425 Instinctively to human passions, then
426 Least understood. Yet, 'mid the fervent swarm
427 Of these vagaries, with an eye so rich
428 As mine was through the bounty of a grand
429 And lovely region, I had forms distinct
430 To steady me: each airy thought revolved
431 Round a substantial centre, which at once
[Page 225 ]
432 Incited it to motion, and controlled.
433 I did not pine like one in cities bred,
434 As was thy melancholy lot, dear Friend!
435 Great Spirit as thou art, in endless dreams
436 Of sickliness, disjoining, joining, things
437 Without the light of knowledge. Where the harm,
438 If, when the woodman languished with disease
439 Induced by sleeping nightly on the ground
440 Within his sod-built cabin, Indian-wise,
441 I called the pangs of disappointed love,
442 And all the sad etcetera of the wrong,
443 To help him to his grave. Meanwhile the man,
444 If not already from the woods retired
445 To die at home, was haply as I knew,
446 Withering by slow degrees, 'mid gentle airs,
447 Birds, running streams, and hills so beautiful
448 On golden evenings, while the charcoal pile
449 Breathed up its smoke, an image of his ghost
450 Or spirit that full soon must take her flight.
451 Nor shall we not be tending towards that point
452 Of sound humanity to which our Tale
453 Leads, though by sinuous ways, if here I shew
454 How Fancy, in a season when she wove
455 Those slender cords, to guide the unconscious Boy
456 For the Man's sake, could feed at Nature's call
[Page 226 ]
457 Some pensive musings which might well beseem
458 Maturer years.
458 A grove there is whose boughs
459 Stretch from the western marge of Thurston-mere,
460 With length of shade so thick, that whoso glides
461 Along the line of low-roofed water, moves
462 As in a cloister. Once---while, in that shade
463 Loitering, I watched the golden beams of light
464 Flung from the setting sun, as they reposed
465 In silent beauty on the naked ridge
466 Of a high eastern hill---thus flowed my thoughts
467 In a pure stream of words fresh from the heart: [End note 10: 1Kb]
468 Dear native Regions, wheresoe'er shall close
469 My mortal course, there will I think on you;
470 Dying, will cast on you a backward look;
471 Even as this setting sun (albeit the Vale
472 Is no where touched by one memorial gleam)
473 Doth with the fond remains of his last power
474 Still linger, and a farewell lustre sheds
475 On the dear mountain-tops where first he rose.
476 Enough of humble arguments; recal,
477 My Song! those high emotions which thy voice
478 Has heretofore made known; that bursting forth
479 Of sympathy, inspiring and inspired,
[Page 227 ]
480 When everywhere a vital pulse was felt,
481 And all the several frames of things, like stars,
482 Through every magnitude distinguishable,
483 Shone mutually indebted, or half lost
484 Each in the other's blaze, a galaxy
485 Of life and glory. In the midst stood Man,
486 Outwardly, inwardly contemplated,
487 As, of all visible natures, crown, though born
488 Of dust, and kindred to the worm; a Being,
489 Both in perception and discernment, first
490 In every capability of rapture,
491 Through the divine effect of power and love;
492 As, more than anything we know, instinct
493 With godhead, and, by reason and by will,
494 Acknowledging dependency sublime.
495 Ere long, the lonely mountains left, I moved,
496 Begirt, from day to day, with temporal shapes
497 Of vice and folly thrust upon my view,
498 Objects of sport, and ridicule, and scorn,
499 Manners and characters discriminate,
500 And little bustling passions that eclipse,
501 As well they might, the impersonated thought,
502 The idea, or abstraction of the kind.
[Page 228 ]
503 An idler among academic bowers,
504 Such was my new condition, as at large
505 Has been set forth; yet here the vulgar light
506 Of present, actual, superficial life,
507 Gleaming through colouring of other times,
508 Old usages and local privilege,
509 Was welcome, softened, if not solemnised.
510 This notwithstanding, being brought more near
511 To vice and guilt, forerunning wretchedness,
512 I trembled,---thought, at times, of human life
513 With an indefinite terror and dismay,
514 Such as the storms and angry elements
515 Had bred in me; but gloomier far, a dim
516 Analogy to uproar and misrule,
517 Disquiet, danger, and obscurity.
518 It might be told (but wherefore speak of things
519 Common to all?) that, seeing, I was led
520 Gravely to ponder---judging between good
521 And evil, not as for the mind's delight
522 But for her guidance---one who was to act,
523 As sometimes to the best of feeble means
524 I did, by human sympathy impelled:
525 And, through dislike and most offensive pain,
526 Was to the truth conducted; of this faith
[Page 229 ]
527 Never forsaken, that, by acting well,
528 And understanding, I should learn to love
529 The end of life, and every thing we know.
530 Grave Teacher, stern Preceptress! for at times
531 Thou canst put on an aspect most severe;
532 London, to thee I willingly return.
533 Erewhile my verse played idly with the flowers
534 Enwrought upon thy mantle; satisfied
535 With that amusement, and a simple look
536 Of child-like inquisition now and then
537 Cast upwards on thy countenance, to detect
538 Some inner meanings which might harbour there.
539 But how could I in mood so light indulge,
540 Keeping such fresh remembrance of the day,
541 When, having thridded the long labyrinth
542 Of the suburban villages, I first
543 Entered thy vast dominion? On the roof
544 Of an itinerant vehicle I sate,
545 With vulgar men about me, trivial forms
546 Of houses, pavement, streets, of men and things,---
547 Mean shapes on every side: but, at the instant,
548 When to myself it fairly might be said,
549 The threshold now is overpast, (how strange
550 That aught external to the living mind
[Page 230 ]
551 Should have such mighty sway! yet so it was),
552 A weight of ages did at once descend
553 Upon my heart; no thought embodied, no
554 Distinct remembrances, but weight and power,---
555 Power growing under weight: alas! I feel
556 That I am trifling: 'twas a moment's pause,---
557 All that took place within me came and went
558 As in a moment; yet with Time it dwells,
559 And grateful memory, as a thing divine.
560 The curious traveller, who, from open day,
561 Hath passed with torches into some huge cave,
562 The Grotto of Antiparos, or the Den
563 In old time haunted by that Danish Witch,
564 Yordas; he looks around and sees the vault
565 Widening on all sides; sees, or thinks he sees,
566 Erelong, the massy roof above his head,
567 That instantly unsettles and recedes,---
568 Substance and shadow, light and darkness, all
569 Commingled, making up a canopy
570 Of shapes and forms and tendencies to shape
571 That shift and vanish, change and interchange
572 Like spectres,---ferment silent and sublime!
573 That after a short space works less and less,
574 Till, every effort, every motion gone,
[Page 231 ]
575 The scene before him stands in perfect view
576 Exposed, and lifeless as a written book!---
577 But let him pause awhile, and look again,
578 And a new quickening shall succeed, at first
579 Beginning timidly, then creeping fast,
580 Till the whole cave, so late a senseless mass,
581 Busies the eye with images and forms
582 Boldly assembled,---here is shadowed forth
583 From the projections, wrinkles, cavities,
584 A variegated landscape,---there the shape
585 Of some gigantic warrior clad in mail,
586 The ghostly semblance of a hooded monk,
587 Veiled nun, or pilgrim resting on his staff:
588 Strange congregation! yet not slow to meet
589 Eyes that perceive through minds that can inspire.
590 Even in such sort had I at first been moved,
591 Nor otherwise continued to be moved,
592 As I explored the vast metropolis,
593 Fount of my country's destiny and the world's;
594 That great emporium, chronicle at once
595 And burial-place of passions, and their home
596 Imperial, their chief living residence.
597 With strong sensations teeming as it did
[Page 232 ]
598 Of past and present, such a place must needs
599 Have pleased me, seeking knowledge at that time
600 Far less than craving power; yet knowledge came,
601 Sought or unsought, and influxes of power
602 Came, of themselves, or at her call derived
603 In fits of kindliest apprehensiveness,
604 From all sides, when whate'er was in itself
605 Capacious found, or seemed to find, in me
606 A correspondent amplitude of mind;
607 Such is the strength and glory of our youth!
608 The human nature unto which I felt
609 That I belonged, and reverenced with love,
610 Was not a punctual presence, but a spirit
611 Diffused through time and space, with aid derived
612 Of evidence from monuments, erect,
613 Prostrate, or leaning towards their common rest
614 In earth, the widely scattered wreck sublime
615 Of vanished nations, or more clearly drawn
616 From books and what they picture and record.
617 'Tis true, the history of our native land,
618 With those of Greece compared and popular Rome,
619 And in our high-wrought modern narratives
620 Stript of their harmonising soul, the life
621 Of manners and familiar incidents,
[Page 233 ]
622 Had never much delighted me. And less
623 Than other intellects had mine been used
624 To lean upon extrinsic circumstance
625 Of record or tradition; but a sense
626 Of what in the Great City had been done
627 And suffered, and was doing, suffering, still,
628 Weighed with me, could support the test of thought;
629 And, in despite of all that had gone by,
630 Or was departing never to return,
631 There I conversed with majesty and power
632 Like independent natures. Hence the place
633 Was thronged with impregnations like the Wilds
634 In which my early feelings had been nursed---
635 Bare hills and valleys, full of caverns, rocks,
636 And audible seclusions, dashing lakes,
637 Echoes and waterfalls, and pointed crags
638 That into music touch the passing wind.
639 Here then my young imagination found
640 No uncongenial element; could here
641 Among new objects serve or give command,
642 Even as the heart's occasions might require,
643 To forward reason's else too scrupulous march.
644 The effect was, still more elevated views
645 Of human nature. Neither vice nor guilt,
646 Debasement undergone by body or mind,
[Page 234 ]
647 Nor all the misery forced upon my sight,
648 Misery not lightly passed, but sometimes scanned
649 Most feelingly, could overthrow my trust
650 In what we may become; induce belief
651 That I was ignorant, had been falsely taught,
652 A solitary, who with vain conceits
653 Had been inspired, and walked about in dreams.
654 From those sad scenes when meditation turned,
655 Lo! every thing that was indeed divine
656 Retained its purity inviolate,
657 Nay brighter shone, by this portentous gloom
658 Set off; such opposition as aroused
659 The mind of Adam, yet in Paradise
660 Though fallen from bliss, when in the East he saw [End note 11: 1Kb]
661 Darkness ere day's mid course, and morning light
662 More orient in the western cloud, that drew
663 O'er the blue firmament a radiant white,
664 Descending slow with something heavenly fraught.
665 Add also, that among the multitudes
666 Of that huge city, oftentimes was seen
667 Affectingly set forth, more than elsewhere
668 Is possible, the unity of man,
669 One spirit over ignorance and vice
670 Predominant, in good and evil hearts;
[Page 235 ]
671 One sense for moral judgments, as one eye
672 For the sun's light. The soul when smitten thus
673 By a sublime idea, whencesoe'er
674 Vouchsafed for union or communion, feeds
675 On the pure bliss, and takes her rest with God.
676 Thus from a very early age, O Friend!
677 My thoughts by slow gradations had been drawn
678 To human-kind, and to the good and ill
679 Of human life: Nature had led me on;
680 And oft amid the "busy hum" I seemed
681 To travel independent of her help,
682 As if I had forgotten her; but no,
683 The world of human-kind outweighed not hers
684 In my habitual thoughts; the scale of love,
685 Though filling daily, still was light, compared
686 With that in which her mighty objects lay.
[Page 237 ]
BOOK IX.
RESIDENCE IN FRANCE.
[Page 239 ]
1 Even as a river,---partly (it might seem)
2 Yielding to old remembrances, and swayed
3 In part by fear to shape a way direct,
4 That would engulph him soon in the ravenous sea---
5 Turns, and will measure back his course, far back,
6 Seeking the very regions which he crossed
7 In his first outset; so have we, my Friend!
8 Turned and returned with intricate delay.
9 Or as a traveller, who has gained the brow
10 Of some aerial Down, while there he halts
11 For breathing-time, is tempted to review
12 The region left behind him; and, if aught
13 Deserving notice have escaped regard,
14 Or been regarded with too careless eye,
15 Strives, from that height, with one and yet one more
[Page 240 ]
16 Last look, to make the best amends he may:
17 So have we lingered. Now we start afresh
18 With courage, and new hope risen on our toil.
19 Fair greetings to this shapeless eagerness,
20 Whene'er it comes! needful in work so long,
21 Thrice needful to the argument which now
22 Awaits us! Oh, how much unlike the past!
23 Free as a colt at pasture on the hill,
24 I ranged at large, through London's wide domain,
25 Month after month. Obscurely did I live,
26 Not seeking frequent intercourse with men,
27 By literature, or elegance, or rank,
28 Distinguished. Scarcely was a year thus spent
29 Ere I forsook the crowded solitude,
30 With less regret for its luxurious pomp,
31 And all the nicely-guarded shows of art,
32 Than for the humble book-stalls in the streets,
33 Exposed to eye and hand where'er I turned.
34 France lured me forth; the realm that I had crossed
35 So lately, journeying toward the snow-clad Alps.
36 But now, relinquishing the scrip and staff,
37 And all enjoyment which the summer sun
38 Sheds round the steps of those who meet the day
[Page 241 ]
39 With motion constant as his own, I went
40 Prepared to sojourn in a pleasant town,
41 Washed by the current of the stately Loire.
42 Through Paris lay my readiest course, and there
43 Sojourning a few days, I visited,
44 In haste, each spot of old or recent fame,
45 The latter chiefly; from the field of Mars
46 Down to the suburbs of St. Antony,
47 And from Mont Martyr southward to the Dome
48 Of Geneviève. In both her clamorous Halls,
49 The National Synod and the Jacobins,
50 I saw the Revolutionary Power
51 Toss like a ship at anchor, rocked by storms;
52 The Arcades I traversed, in the Palace huge
53 Of Orleans; coasted round and round the line
54 Of Tavern, Brothel, Gaming-house, and Shop,
55 Great rendezvous of worst and best, the walk
56 Of all who had a purpose, or had not;
57 I stared and listened, with a stranger's ears,
58 To Hawkers and Haranguers, hubbub wild!
59 And hissing Factionists with ardent eyes,
60 In knots, or pairs, or single. Not a look
61 Hope takes, or Doubt or Fear is forced to wear,
62 But seemed there present; and I scanned them all,
[Page 242 ]
63 Watched every gesture uncontrollable,
64 Of anger, and vexation, and despite,
65 All side by side, and struggling face to face,
66 With gaiety and dissolute idleness.
67 Where silent zephyrs sported with the dust
68 Of the Bastille, I sate in the open sun,
69 And from the rubbish gathered up a stone,
70 And pocketed the relic, in the guise
71 Of an enthusiast; yet, in honest truth,
72 I looked for something that I could not find,
73 Affecting more emotion than I felt;
74 For 'tis most certain, that these various sights,
75 However potent their first shock, with me
76 Appeared to recompense the traveller's pains
77 Less than the painted Magdalene of Le Brun,
78 A beauty exquisitely wrought, with hair
79 Dishevelled, gleaming eyes, and rueful cheek
80 Pale and bedropped with everflowing tears.
81 But hence to my more permanent abode
82 I hasten; there, by novelties in speech,
83 Domestic manners, customs, gestures, looks,
84 And all the attire of ordinary life,
85 Attention was engrossed; and, thus amused,
[Page 243 ]
86 I stood, 'mid those concussions, unconcerned,
87 Tranquil almost, and careless as a flower
88 Glassed in a green-house, or a parlour shrub
89 That spreads its leaves in unmolested peace,
90 While every bush and tree, the country through,
91 Is shaking to the roots: indifference this
92 Which may seem strange: but I was unprepared
93 With needful knowledge, had abruptly passed
94 Into a theatre, whose stage was filled
95 And busy with an action far advanced.
96 Like others, I had skimmed, and sometimes read
97 With care, the master pamphlets of the day;
98 Nor wanted such half-insight as grew wild
99 Upon that meagre soil, helped out by talk
100 And public news; but having never seen
101 A chronicle that might suffice to show
102 Whence the main organs of the public power
103 Had sprung, their transmigrations, when and how
104 Accomplished, giving thus unto events
105 A form and body; all things were to me
106 Loose and disjointed, and the affections left
107 Without a vital interest. At that time,
108 Moreover, the first storm was overblown,
109 And the strong hand of outward violence
110 Locked up in quiet. For myself, I fear
[Page 244 ]
111 Now in connection with so great a theme
112 To speak (as I must be compelled to do)
113 Of one so unimportant; night by night
114 Did I frequent the formal haunts of men,
115 Whom, in the city, privilege of birth
116 Sequestered from the rest, societies
117 Polished in arts, and in punctilio versed;
118 Whence, and from deeper causes, all discourse
119 Of good and evil of the time was shunned
120 With scrupulous care; but these restrictions soon
121 Proved tedious, and I gradually withdrew
122 Into a noisier world, and thus ere long
123 Became a patriot; and my heart was all
124 Given to the people, and my love was theirs.
125 A band of military Officers,
126 Then stationed in the city, were the chief
127 Of my associates: some of these wore swords
128 That had been seasoned in the wars, and all
129 Were men well-born; the chivalry of France.
130 In age and temper differing, they had yet
131 One spirit ruling in each heart; alike
132 (Save only one, hereafter to be named)
133 Were bent upon undoing what was done:
134 This was their rest and only hope; therewith
[Page 245 ]
135 No fear had they of bad becoming worse,
136 For worst to them was come; nor would have stirred,
137 Or deemed it worth a moment's thought to stir,
138 In any thing, save only as the act
139 Looked thitherward. One, reckoning by years,
140 Was in the prime of manhood, and erewhile
141 He had sate lord in many tender hearts;
142 Though heedless of such honours now, and changed:
143 His temper was quite mastered by the times,
144 And they had blighted him, had eaten away
145 The beauty of his person, doing wrong
146 Alike to body and to mind: his port,
147 Which once had been erect and open, now
148 Was stooping and contracted, and a face,
149 Endowed by Nature with her fairest gifts
150 Of symmetry and light and bloom, expressed,
151 As much as any that was ever seen,
152 A ravage out of season, made by thoughts
153 Unhealthy and vexatious. With the hour,
154 That from the press of Paris duly brought
155 Its freight of public news, the fever came,
156 A punctual visitant, to shake this man,
157 Disarmed his voice and fanned his yellow cheek
158 Into a thousand colours; while he read,
159 Or mused, his sword was haunted by his touch
[Page 246 ]
160 Continually, like an uneasy place
161 In his own body. 'Twas in truth an hour
162 Of universal ferment; mildest men
163 Were agitated; and commotions, strife
164 Of passion and opinion, filled the walls
165 Of peaceful houses with unquiet sounds.
166 The soil of common life, was, at that time,
167 Too hot to tread upon. Oft said I then,
168 And not then only, "What a mockery this
169 Of history, the past and that to come!
170 Now do I feel how all men are deceived,
171 Reading of nations and their works, in faith,
172 Faith given to vanity and emptiness;
173 Oh! laughter for the page that would reflect
174 To future times the face of what now is!"
175 The land all swarmed with passion, like a plain
176 Devoured by locusts,---Carra, Gorsas,---add
177 A hundred other names, forgotten now,
178 Nor to be heard of more; yet, they were powers,
179 Like earthquakes, shocks repeated day by day,
180 And felt through every nook of town and field.
181 Such was the state of things. Meanwhile the chief
182 Of my associates stood prepared for flight
183 To augment the band of emigrants in arms
[Page 247 ]
184 Upon the borders of the Rhine, and leagued
185 With foreign foes mustered for instant war.
186 This was their undisguised intent, and they
187 Were waiting with the whole of their desires
188 The moment to depart.
188 An Englishman,
189 Born in a land whose very name appeared
190 To license some unruliness of mind;
191 A stranger, with youth's further privilege,
192 And the indulgence that a half-learnt speech
193 Wins from the courteous; I, who had been else
194 Shunned and not tolerated, freely lived
195 With these defenders of the Crown, and talked,
196 And heard their notions; nor did they disdain
197 The wish to bring me over to their cause.
198 But though untaught by thinking or by books
199 To reason well of polity or law,
200 And nice distinctions, then on every tongue,
201 Of natural rights and civil; and to acts
202 Of nations and their passing interests,
203 (If with unworldly ends and aims compared)
204 Almost indifferent, even the historian's tale
205 Prizing but little otherwise than I prized
206 Tales of the poets, as it made the heart
[Page 248 ]
207 Beat high, and filled the fancy with fair forms,
208 Old heroes and their sufferings and their deeds;
209 Yet in the regal sceptre, and the pomp
210 Of orders and degrees, I nothing found
211 Then, or had ever, even in crudest youth,
212 That dazzled me, but rather what I mourned
213 And ill could brook, beholding that the best
214 Ruled not, and feeling that they ought to rule.
215 For, born in a poor district, and which yet
216 Retaineth more of ancient homeliness,
217 Than any other nook of English ground,
218 It was my fortune scarcely to have seen,
219 Through the whole tenor of my school-day time,
220 The face of one, who, whether boy or man,
221 Was vested with attention or respect
222 Through claims of wealth or blood; nor was it least
223 Of many benefits, in later years
224 Derived from academic institutes
225 And rules, that they held something up to view
226 Of a Republic, where all stood thus far
227 Upon equal ground; that we were brothers all
228 In honour, as in one community,
229 Scholars and gentlemen; where, furthermore,
230 Distinction open lay to all that came,
[Page 249 ]
231 And wealth and titles were in less esteem
232 Than talents, worth, and prosperous industry.
233 Add unto this, subservience from the first
234 To presences of God's mysterious power
235 Made manifest in Nature's sovereignty,
236 And fellowship with venerable books,
237 To sanction the proud workings of the soul,
238 And mountain liberty. It could not be
239 But that one tutored thus should look with awe
240 Upon the faculties of man, receive
241 Gladly the highest promises, and hail,
242 As best, the government of equal rights
243 And individual worth. And hence, O Friend!
244 If at the first great outbreak I rejoiced
245 Less than might well befit my youth, the cause
246 In part lay here, that unto me the events
247 Seemed nothing out of nature's certain course,
248 A gift that was come rather late than soon.
249 No wonder, then, if advocates like these,
250 Inflamed by passion, blind with prejudice,
251 And stung with injury, at this riper day,
252 Were impotent to make my hopes put on
253 The shape of theirs, my understanding bend
254 In honour to their honour: zeal, which yet
255 Had slumbered, now in opposition burst
[Page 250 ]
256 Forth like a Polar summer: every word
257 They uttered was a dart, by counter-winds
258 Blown back upon themselves; their reason seemed
259 Confusion-stricken by a higher power
260 Than human understanding, their discourse
261 Maimed, spiritless; and, in their weakness strong,
262 I triumphed.
262 Meantime, day by day, the roads
263 Were crowded with the bravest youth of France,
264 And all the promptest of her spirits, linked
265 In gallant soldiership, and posting on
266 To meet the war upon her frontier bounds.
267 Yet at this very moment do tears start
268 Into mine eyes: I do not say I weep---
269 I wept not then,---but tears have dimmed my sight,
270 In memory of the farewells of that time,
271 Domestic severings, female fortitude
272 At dearest separation, patriot love
273 And self-devotion, and terrestrial hope,
274 Encouraged with a martyr's confidence;
275 Even files of strangers merely seen but once,
276 And for a moment, men from far with sound
277 Of music, martial tunes, and banners spread,
278 Entering the city, here and there a face,
279 Or person singled out among the rest,
[Page 251 ]
280 Yet still a stranger and beloved as such;
281 Even by these passing spectacles my heart
282 Was oftentimes uplifted, and they seemed
283 Arguments sent from Heaven to prove the cause
284 Good, pure, which no one could stand up against,
285 Who was not lost, abandoned, selfish, proud,
286 Mean, miserable, wilfully depraved,
287 Hater perverse of equity and truth.
288 Among that band of Officers was one,
289 Already hinted at, of other mould---
290 A patriot, thence rejected by the rest,
291 And with an oriental loathing spurned,
292 As of a different caste. A meeker man
293 Than this lived never, nor a more benign,
294 Meek though enthusiastic. Injuries
295 Made him more gracious, and his nature then
296 Did breathe its sweetness out most sensibly,
297 As aromatic flowers on Alpine turf,
298 When foot hath crushed them. He through the events
299 Of that great change wandered in perfect faith,
300 As through a book, an old romance, or tale
301 Of Fairy, or some dream of actions wrought
302 Behind the summer clouds. By birth he ranked
303 With the most noble, but unto the poor
[Page 252 ]
304 Among mankind he was in service bound,
305 As by some tie invisible, oaths professed
306 To a religious order. Man he loved
307 As man; and, to the mean and the obscure,
308 And all the homely in their homely works,
309 Transferred a courtesy which had no air
310 Of condescension; but did rather seem
311 A passion and a gallantry, like that
312 Which he, a soldier, in his idler day
313 Had paid to woman: somewhat vain he was,
314 Or seemed so, yet it was not vanity,
315 But fondness, and a kind of radiant joy
316 Diffused around him, while he was intent
317 On works of love or freedom, or revolved
318 Complacently the progress of a cause,
319 Whereof he was a part: yet this was meek
320 And placid, and took nothing from the man
321 That was delightful. Oft in solitude
322 With him did I discourse about the end
323 Of civil government, and its wisest forms;
324 Of ancient loyalty, and chartered rights,
325 Custom and habit, novelty and change;
326 Of self-respect, and virtue in the few
327 For patrimonial honour set apart,
328 And ignorance in the labouring multitude.
[Page 253 ]
329 For he, to all intolerance indisposed,
330 Balanced these contemplations in his mind;
331 And I, who at that time was scarcely dipped
332 Into the turmoil, bore a sounder judgment
333 Than later days allowed; carried about me,
334 With less alloy to its integrity,
335 The experience of past ages, as, through help
336 Of books and common life, it makes sure way
337 To youthful minds, by objects over near
338 Not pressed upon, nor dazzled or misled
339 By struggling with the crowd for present ends.
340 But though not deaf, nor obstinate to find
341 Error without excuse upon the side
342 Of them who strove against us, more delight
343 We took, and let this freely be confessed,
344 In painting to ourselves the miseries
345 Of royal courts, and that voluptuous life
346 Unfeeling, where the man who is of soul
347 The meanest thrives the most; where dignity,
348 True personal dignity, abideth not;
349 A light, a cruel, and vain world cut off
350 From the natural inlets of just sentiment,
351 From lowly sympathy and chastening truth;
352 Where good and evil interchange their names,
[Page 254 ]
353 And thirst for bloody spoils abroad is paired
354 With vice at home. We added dearest themes---
355 Man and his noble nature, as it is
356 The gift which God has placed within his power,
357 His blind desires and steady faculties
358 Capable of clear truth, the one to break
359 Bondage, the other to build liberty
360 On firm foundations, making social life,
361 Through knowledge spreading and imperishable,
362 As just in regulation, and as pure
363 As individual in the wise and good.
364 We summoned up the honourable deeds
365 Of ancient Story, thought of each bright spot,
366 That would be found in all recorded time,
367 Of truth preserved and error passed away;
368 Of single spirits that catch the flame from Heaven,
369 And how the multitudes of men will feed
370 And fan each other; thought of sects, how keen
371 They are to put the appropriate nature on,
372 Triumphant over every obstacle
373 Of custom, language, country, love, or hate,
374 And what they do and suffer for their creed;
375 How far they travel, and how long endure;
376 How quickly mighty Nations have been formed,
[Page 255 ]
377 From least beginnings; how, together locked
378 By new opinions, scattered tribes have made
379 One body, spreading wide as clouds in heaven.
380 To aspirations then of our own minds
381 Did we appeal; and, finally, beheld
382 A living confirmation of the whole
383 Before us, in a people from the depth
384 Of shameful imbecility uprisen,
385 Fresh as the morning star. Elate we looked
386 Upon their virtues; saw, in rudest men,
387 Self-sacrifice the firmest; generous love,
388 And continence of mind, and sense of right,
389 Uppermost in the midst of fiercest strife.
390 Oh, sweet it is, in academic groves,
391 Or such retirement, Friend! as we have known
392 In the green dales beside our Rotha's stream,
393 Greta, or Derwent, or some nameless rill,
394 To ruminate, with interchange of talk,
395 On rational liberty, and hope in man,
396 Justice and peace. But far more sweet such toil---
397 Toil, say I, for it leads to thoughts abstruse---
398 If nature then be standing on the brink
399 Of some great trial, and we hear the voice
400 Of one devoted,---one whom circumstance
[Page 256 ]
401 Hath called upon to embody his deep sense
402 In action, give it outwardly a shape,
403 And that of benediction, to the world.
404 Then doubt is not, and truth is more than truth,---
405 A hope it is, and a desire; a creed
406 Of zeal, by an authority Divine
407 Sanctioned, of danger, difficulty, or death.
408 Such conversation, under Attic shades,
409 Did Dion hold with Plato; ripened thus
410 For a Deliverer's glorious task,---and such
411 He, on that ministry already bound,
412 Held with Eudemus and Timonides,
413 Surrounded by adventurers in arms,
414 When those two vessels with their daring freight,
415 For the Sicilian Tyrant's overthrow,
416 Sailed from Zacynthus,---philosophic war,
417 Led by Philosophers. With harder fate,
418 Though like ambition, such was he, O Friend!
419 Of whom I speak. So Beaupuis (let the name
420 Stand near the worthiest of Antiquity)
421 Fashioned his life; and many a long discourse,
422 With like persuasion honoured, we maintained:
423 He, on his part, accoutred for the worst.
424 He perished fighting, in supreme command,
425 Upon the borders of the unhappy Loire,
[Page 257 ]
426 For liberty, against deluded men,
427 His fellow country-men; and yet most blessed
428 In this, that he the fate of later times
429 Lived not to see, nor what we now behold,
430 Who have as ardent hearts as he had then.
431 Along that very Loire, with festal mirth
432 Resounding at all hours, and innocent yet
433 Of civil slaughter, was our frequent walk;
434 Or in wide forests of continuous shade,
435 Lofty and over-arched, with open space
436 Beneath the trees, clear footing many a mile---
437 A solemn region. Oft amid those haunts,
438 From earnest dialogues I slipped in thought,
439 And let remembrance steal to other times,
440 When, o'er those interwoven roots, moss-clad,
441 And smooth as marble or a waveless sea,
442 Some Hermit, from his cell forth-strayed, might pace
443 In sylvan meditation undisturbed;
444 As on the pavement of a Gothic church
445 Walks a lone Monk, when service hath expired,
446 In peace and silence. But if e'er was heard,---
447 Heard, though unseen,---a devious traveller,
448 Retiring or approaching from afar
449 With speed and echoes loud of trampling hoofs
[Page 258 ]
450 From the hard floor reverberated, then
451 It was Angelica thundering through the woods
452 Upon her palfrey, or that gentle maid
453 Erminia, fugitive as fair as she.
454 Sometimes methought I saw a pair of knights
455 Joust underneath the trees, that as in storm
456 Rocked high above their heads; anon, the din
457 Of boisterous merriment, and music's roar,
458 In sudden proclamation, burst from haunt
459 Of Satyrs in some viewless glade, with dance
460 Rejoicing o'er a female in the midst,
461 A mortal beauty, their unhappy thrall.
462 The width of those huge forests, unto me
463 A novel scene, did often in this way
464 Master my fancy while I wandered on
465 With that revered companion. And sometimes---
466 When to a convent in a meadow green,
467 By a brook-side, we came, a roofless pile,
468 And not by reverential touch of Time
469 Dismantled, but by violence abrupt---
470 In spite of those heart-bracing colloquies,
471 In spite of real fervour, and of that
472 Less genuine and wrought up within myself---
473 I could not but bewail a wrong so harsh,
474 And for the Matin-bell to sound no more
[Page 259 ]
475 Grieved, and the twilight taper, and the cross
476 High on the topmost pinnacle, a sign
477 (How welcome to the weary traveller's eyes!)
478 Of hospitality and peaceful rest.
479 And when the partner of those varied walks
480 Pointed upon occasion to the site
481 Of Romorentin, home of ancient kings,
482 To the imperial edifice of Blois,
483 Or to that rural castle, name now slipped
484 From my remembrance, where a lady lodged,
485 By the first Francis wooed, and bound to him
486 In chains of mutual passion, from the tower,
487 As a tradition of the country tells,
488 Practised to commune with her royal knight
489 By cressets and love-beacons, intercourse
490 'Twixt her high-seated residence and his
491 Far off at Chambord on the plain beneath;
492 Even here, though less than with the peaceful house
493 Religious, 'mid those frequent monuments
494 Of Kings, their vices and their better deeds,
495 Imagination, potent to inflame
496 At times with virtuous wrath and noble scorn,
497 Did also often mitigate the force
498 Of civic prejudice, the bigotry,
499 So call it, of a youthful patriot's mind;
[Page 260 ]
500 And on these spots with many gleams I looked
501 Of chivalrous delight. Yet not the less,
502 Hatred of absolute rule, where will of one
503 Is law for all, and of that barren pride
504 In them who, by immunities unjust,
505 Between the sovereign and the people stand,
506 His helper and not theirs, laid stronger hold
507 Daily upon me, mixed with pity too
508 And love; for where hope is, there love will be
509 For the abject multitude. And when we chanced
510 One day to meet a hunger-bitten girl,
511 Who crept along fitting her languid gait
512 Unto a heifer's motion, by a cord
513 Tied to her arm, and picking thus from the lane
514 Its sustenance, while the girl with pallid hands
515 Was busy knitting in a heartless mood
516 Of solitude, and at the sight my friend
517 In agitation said, "'Tis against that
518 That we are fighting," I with him believed
519 That a benignant spirit was abroad
520 Which might not be withstood, that poverty
521 Abject as this would in a little time
522 Be found no more, that we should see the earth
523 Unthwarted in her wish to recompense
524 The meek, the lowly, patient child of toil,
[Page 261 ]
525 All institutes for ever blotted out
526 That legalised exclusion, empty pomp
527 Abolished, sensual state and cruel power,
528 Whether by edict of the one or few;
529 And finally, as sum and crown of all,
530 Should see the people having a strong hand
531 In framing their own laws; whence better days
532 To all mankind. But, these things set apart,
533 Was not this single confidence enough
534 To animate the mind that ever turned
535 A thought to human welfare? That henceforth
536 Captivity by mandate without law
537 Should cease; and open accusation lead
538 To sentence in the hearing of the world,
539 And open punishment, if not the air
540 Be free to breathe in, and the heart of man
541 Dread nothing. From this height I shall not stoop
542 To humbler matter that detained us oft
543 In thought or conversation, public acts,
544 And public persons, and emotions wrought
545 Within the breast, as ever-varying winds
546 Of record or report swept over us;
547 But I might here, instead, repeat a tale, [End note 12: 1Kb]
548 Told by my Patriot friend, of sad events,
549 That prove to what low depth had struck the roots,
[Page 262 ]
550 How widely spread the boughs, of that old tree
551 Which, as a deadly mischief, and a foul
552 And black dishonour, France was weary of.
553 Oh, happy time of youthful lovers, (thus
554 The story might begin). Oh, balmy time,
555 In which a love-knot, on a lady's brow,
556 Is fairer than the fairest star in Heaven!
557 So might---and with that prelude did begin
558 The record; and, in faithful verse, was given
559 The doleful sequel.
559 But our little bark
560 On a strong river boldly hath been launched;
561 And from the driving current should we turn
562 To loiter wilfully within a creek,
563 Howe'er attractive, Fellow voyager!
564 Would'st thou not chide? Yet deem not my pains lost:
565 For Vaudracour and Julia (so were named
566 The ill-fated pair) in that plain tale will draw
567 Tears from the hearts of others, when their own
568 Shall beat no more. Thou, also, there mayst read,
569 At leisure, how the enamoured youth was driven,
570 By public power abased, to fatal crime,
571 Nature's rebellion against monstrous law;
572 How, between heart and heart, oppression thrust
[Page 263 ]
573 Her mandates, severing whom true love had joined,
574 Harassing both; until he sank and pressed
575 The couch his fate had made for him; supine,
576 Save when the stings of viperous remorse,
577 Trying their strength, enforced him to start up,
578 Aghast and prayerless. Into a deep wood
579 He fled, to shun the haunts of human kind;
580 There dwelt, weakened in spirit more and more;
581 Nor could the voice of Freedom, which through France
582 Full speedily resounded, public hope,
583 Or personal memory of his own worst wrongs,
584 Rouse him; but, hidden in those gloomy shades,
585 His days he wasted,---an imbecile mind.
[Page 265 ]
BOOK X.
RESIDENCE IN FRANCE.---(Continued.)
[Page 267 ]
1 It was a beautiful and silent day
2 That overspread the countenance of earth,
3 Then fading with unusual quietness,---
4 A day as beautiful as e'er was given
5 To soothe regret, though deepening what it soothed,
6 When by the gliding Loire I paused, and cast
7 Upon his rich domains, vineyard and tilth,
8 Green meadow-ground, and many-coloured woods,
9 Again, and yet again, a farewell look;
10 Then from the quiet of that scene passed on,
11 Bound to the fierce Metropolis. From his throne
12 The King had fallen, and that invading host---
13 Presumptuous cloud, on whose black front was written
14 The tender mercies of the dismal wind
15 That bore it---on the plains of Liberty
[Page 268 ]
16 Had burst innocuous. Say in bolder words,
17 They---who had come elate as eastern hunters
18 Banded beneath the Great Mogul, when he
19 Erewhile went forth from Agra or Lahore,
20 Rajahs and Omrahs in his train, intent
21 To drive their prey enclosed within a ring
22 Wide as a province, but, the signal given,
23 Before the point of the life-threatening spear
24 Narrowing itself by moments---they, rash men,
25 Had seen the anticipated quarry turned
26 Into avengers, from whose wrath they fled
27 In terror. Disappointment and dismay
28 Remained for all whose fancies had run wild
29 With evil expectations; confidence
30 And perfect triumph for the better cause.
31 The State, as if to stamp the final seal
32 On her security, and to the world
33 Show what she was, a high and fearless soul,
34 Exulting in defiance, or heart-stung
35 By sharp resentment, or belike to taunt
36 With spiteful gratitude the baffled League,
37 That had stirred up her slackening faculties
38 To a new transition, when the King was crushed,
39 Spared not the empty throne, and in proud haste
[Page 269 ]
40 Assumed the body and venerable name
41 Of a Republic. Lamentable crimes,
42 'Tis true, had gone before this hour, dire work
43 Of massacre, in which the senseless sword
44 Was prayed to as a judge; but these were past,
45 Earth free from them for ever, as was thought,---
46 Ephemeral monsters, to be seen but once!
47 Things that could only show themselves and die.
48 Cheered with this hope, to Paris I returned,
49 And ranged, with ardour heretofore unfelt,
50 The spacious city, and in progress passed
51 The prison where the unhappy Monarch lay,
52 Associate with his children and his wife
53 In bondage; and the palace, lately stormed
54 With roar of cannon by a furious host.
55 I crossed the square (an empty area then!)
56 Of the Carrousel, where so late had lain
57 The dead, upon the dying heaped, and gazed
58 On this and other spots, as doth a man
59 Upon a volume whose contents he knows
60 Are memorable, but from him locked up,
61 Being written in a tongue he cannot read,
62 So that he questions the mute leaves with pain,
63 And half upbraids their silence. But that night
[Page 270 ]
64 I felt most deeply in what world I was,
65 What ground I trod on, and what air I breathed.
66 High was my room and lonely, near the roof
67 Of a large mansion or hotel, a lodge
68 That would have pleased me in more quiet times;
69 Nor was it wholly without pleasure then.
70 With unextinguished taper I kept watch,
71 Reading at intervals; the fear gone by
72 Pressed on me almost like a fear to come.
73 I thought of those September massacres,
74 Divided from me by one little month,
75 Saw them and touched: the rest was conjured up
76 From tragic fictions or true history,
77 Remembrances and dim admonishments.
78 The horse is taught his manage, and no star
79 Of wildest course but treads back his own steps;
80 For the spent hurricane the air provides
81 As fierce a successor; the tide retreats
82 But to return out of its hiding-place
83 In the great deep; all things have second birth;
84 The earthquake is not satisfied at once;
85 And in this way I wrought upon myself,
86 Until I seemed to hear a voice that cried,
87 To the whole city, "Sleep no more." The trance
88 Fled with the voice to which it had given birth;
[Page 271 ]
89 But vainly comments of a calmer mind
90 Promised soft peace and sweet forgetfulness.
91 The place, all hushed and silent as it was,
92 Appeared unfit for the repose of night,
93 Defenceless as a wood where tigers roam.
94 With early morning towards the Palace-walk
95 Of Orleans eagerly I turned; as yet
96 The streets were still; not so those long Arcades;
97 There, 'mid a peal of ill-matched sounds and cries,
98 That greeted me on entering, I could hear
99 Shrill voices from the hawkers in the throng,
100 Bawling, "Denunciation of the Crimes
101 Of Maximilian Robespierre;" the hand,
102 Prompt as the voice, held forth a printed speech,
103 The same that had been recently pronounced,
104 When Robespierre, not ignorant for what mark
105 Some words of indirect reproof had been
106 Intended, rose in hardihood, and dared
107 The man who had an ill surmise of him
108 To bring his charge in openness; whereat,
109 When a dead pause ensued, and no one stirred,
110 In silence of all present, from his seat
111 Louvet walked single through the avenue,
112 And took his station in the Tribune, saying,
[Page 272 ]
113 "I, Robespierre, accuse thee!" Well is known
114 The inglorious issue of that charge, and how
115 He, who had launched the startling thunderbolt,
116 The one bold man, whose voice the attack had sounded,
117 Was left without a follower to discharge
118 His perilous duty, and retire lamenting
119 That Heaven's best aid is wasted upon men
120 Who to themselves are false.
120 But these are things
121 Of which I speak, only as they were storm
122 Or sunshine to my individual mind,
123 No further. Let me then relate that now---
124 In some sort seeing with my proper eyes
125 That Liberty, and Life, and Death would soon
126 To the remotest corners of the land
127 Lie in the arbitrement of those who ruled
128 The capital City; what was struggled for,
129 And by what combatants victory must be won;
130 The indecision on their part whose aim
131 Seemed best, and the straightforward path of those
132 Who in attack or in defence were strong
133 Through their impiety---my inmost soul
134 Was agitated; yea, I could almost
135 Have prayed that throughout earth upon all men,
136 By patient exercise of reason made
[Page 273 ]
137 Worthy of liberty, all spirits filled
138 With zeal expanding in Truth's holy light,
139 The gift of tongues might fall, and power arrive
140 From the four quarters of the winds to do
141 For France, what without help she could not do,
142 A work of honour; think not that to this
143 I added, work of safety: from all doubt
144 Or trepidation for the end of things
145 Far was I, far as angels are from guilt.
146 Yet did I grieve, nor only grieved, but thought
147 Of opposition and of remedies:
148 An insignificant stranger and obscure,
149 And one, moreover, little graced with power
150 Of eloquence even in my native speech,
151 And all unfit for tumult or intrigue,
152 Yet would I at this time with willing heart
153 Have undertaken for a cause so great
154 Service however dangerous. I revolved,
155 How much the destiny of Man had still
156 Hung upon single persons; that there was,
157 Transcendent to all local patrimony,
158 One nature, as there is one sun in heaven;
159 That objects, even as they are great, thereby
160 Do come within the reach of humblest eyes;
[Page 274 ]
161 That Man is only weak through his mistrust
162 And want of hope where evidence divine
163 Proclaims to him that hope should be most sure;
164 Nor did the inexperience of my youth
165 Preclude conviction, that a spirit strong
166 In hope, and trained to noble aspirations,
167 A spirit throughly faithful to itself,
168 Is for Society's unreasoning herd
169 A domineering instinct, serves at once
170 For way and guide, a fluent receptacle
171 That gathers up each petty straggling rill
172 And vein of water, glad to be rolled on
173 In safe obedience; that a mind, whose rest
174 Is where it ought to be, in self-restraint,
175 In circumspection and simplicity,
176 Falls rarely in entire discomfiture
177 Below its aim, or meets with, from without,
178 A treachery that foils it or defeats;
179 And, lastly, if the means on human will,
180 Frail human will, dependent should betray
181 Him who too boldly trusted them, I felt
182 That 'mid the loud distractions of the world
183 A sovereign voice subsists within the soul,
184 Arbiter undisturbed of right and wrong,
185 Of life and death, in majesty severe
[Page 275 ]
186 Enjoining, as may best promote the aims
187 Of truth and justice, either sacrifice,
188 From whatsoever region of our cares
189 Or our infirm affections Nature pleads,
190 Earnest and blind, against the stern decree.
191 On the other side, I called to mind those truths
192 That are the common-places of the schools---
193 (A theme for boys, too hackneyed for their sires,)
194 Yet, with a revelation's liveliness,
195 In all their comprehensive bearings known
196 And visible to philosophers of old,
197 Men who, to business of the world untrained,
198 Lived in the shade; and to Harmodius known
199 And his compeer Aristogiton, known
200 To Brutus---that tyrannic power is weak,
201 Hath neither gratitude, nor faith, nor love,
202 Nor the support of good or evil men
203 To trust in; that the godhead which is ours
204 Can never utterly be charmed or stilled;
205 That nothing hath a natural right to last
206 But equity and reason; that all else
207 Meets foes irreconcilable, and at best
208 Lives only by variety of disease.
[Page 276 ]
209 Well might my wishes be intense, my thoughts
210 Strong and perturbed, not doubting at that time
211 But that the virtue of one paramount mind
212 Would have abashed those impious crests---have quelled
213 Outrage and bloody power, and, in despite
214 Of what the People long had been and were
215 Through ignorance and false teaching, sadder proof
216 Of immaturity, and in the teeth
217 Of desperate opposition from without---
218 Have cleared a passage for just government,
219 And left a solid birthright to the State,
220 Redeemed, according to example given
221 By ancient lawgivers.
221 In this frame of mind,
222 Dragged by a chain of harsh necessity,
223 So seemed it,---now I thankfully acknowledge,
224 Forced by the gracious providence of Heaven,---
225 To England I returned, else (though assured
226 That I both was and must be of small weight,
227 No better than a landsman on the deck
228 Of a ship struggling with a hideous storm)
229 Doubtless, I should have then made common cause
230 With some who perished; haply perished too,
231 A poor mistaken and bewildered offering,---
232 Should to the breast of Nature have gone back,
[Page 277 ]
233 With all my resolutions, all my hopes,
234 A Poet only to myself, to men
235 Useless, and even, beloved Friend! a soul
236 To thee unknown!
236 Twice had the trees let fall
237 Their leaves, as often Winter had put on
238 His hoary crown, since I had seen the surge
239 Beat against Albion's shore, since ear of mine
240 Had caught the accents of my native speech
241 Upon our native country's sacred ground.
242 A patriot of the world, how could I glide
243 Into communion with her sylvan shades,
244 Erewhile my tuneful haunt? It pleased me more
245 To abide in the great City, where I found
246 The general air still busy with the stir
247 Of that first memorable onset made
248 By a strong levy of humanity
249 Upon the traffickers in Negro blood;
250 Effort which, though defeated, had recalled
251 To notice old forgotten principles,
252 And through the nation spread a novel heat
253 Of virtuous feeling. For myself, I own
254 That this particular strife had wanted power
255 To rivet my affections; nor did now
256 Its unsuccessful issue much excite
[Page 278 ]
257 My sorrow; for I brought with me the faith
258 That, if France prospered, good men would not long
259 Pay fruitless worship to humanity,
260 And this most rotten branch of human shame,
261 Object, so seemed it, of superfluous pains,
262 Would fall together with its parent tree.
263 What, then, were my emotions, when in arms
264 Britain put forth her free-born strength in league,
265 Oh, pity and shame! with those confederate Powers!
266 Not in my single self alone I found,
267 But in the minds of all ingenuous youth,
268 Change and subversion from that hour. No shock
269 Given to my moral nature had I known
270 Down to that very moment; neither lapse
271 Nor turn of sentiment that might be named
272 A revolution, save at this one time;
273 All else was progress on the self-same path
274 On which, with a diversity of pace,
275 I had been travelling: this a stride at once
276 Into another region. As a light
277 And pliant harebell, swinging in the breeze
278 On some grey rock---its birth-place---so had I
279 Wantoned, fast rooted on the ancient tower
280 Of my beloved country, wishing not
281 A happier fortune than to wither there:
[Page 279 ]
282 Now was I from that pleasant station torn
283 And tossed about in whirlwind. I rejoiced,
284 Yea, afterwards---truth most painful to record!---
285 Exulted, in the triumph of my soul,
286 When Englishmen by thousands were o'erthrown,
287 Left without glory on the field, or driven,
288 Brave hearts! to shameful flight. It was a grief,---
289 Grief call it not, 'twas anything but that,---
290 A conflict of sensations without name,
291 Of which he only, who may love the sight
292 Of a village steeple, as I do, can judge,
293 When, in the congregation bending all
294 To their great Father, prayers were offered up,
295 Or praises for our country's victories;
296 And, 'mid the simple worshippers, perchance
297 I only, like an uninvited guest
298 Whom no one owned, sate silent, shall I add,
299 Fed on the day of vengeance yet to come.
300 Oh! much have they to account for, who could tear,
301 By violence, at one decisive rent,
302 From the best youth in England their dear pride,
303 Their joy, in England; this, too, at a time
304 In which worst losses easily might wean
305 The best of names, when patriotic love
[Page 280 ]
306 Did of itself in modesty give way,
307 Like the Precursor when the Deity
308 Is come Whose harbinger he was; a time
309 In which apostasy from ancient faith
310 Seemed but conversion to a higher creed;
311 Withal a season dangerous and wild,
312 A time when sage Experience would have snatched
313 Flowers out of any hedge-row to compose
314 A chaplet in contempt of his grey locks.
315 When the proud fleet that bears the red-cross flag
316 In that unworthy service was prepared
317 To mingle, I beheld the vessels lie,
318 A brood of gallant creatures, on the deep;
319 I saw them in their rest, a sojourner
320 Through a whole month of calm and glassy days
321 In that delightful island which protects
322 Their place of convocation---there I heard,
323 Each evening, pacing by the still sea-shore,
324 A monitory sound that never failed,---
325 The sunset cannon. While the orb went down
326 In the tranquillity of nature, came
327 That voice, ill requiem! seldom heard by me
328 Without a spirit overcast by dark
329 Imaginations, sense of woes to come,
[Page 281 ]
330 Sorrow for human kind, and pain of heart.
331 In France, the men, who, for their desperate ends,
332 Had plucked up mercy by the roots, were glad
333 Of this new enemy. Tyrants, strong before
334 In wicked pleas, were strong as demons now;
335 And thus, on every side beset with foes,
336 The goaded land waxed mad; the crimes of few
337 Spread into madness of the many; blasts
338 From hell came sanctified like airs from heaven.
339 The sternness of the just, the faith of those
340 Who doubted not that Providence had times
341 Of vengeful retribution, theirs who throned
342 The human Understanding paramount
343 And made of that their God, the hopes of men
344 Who were content to barter short-lived pangs
345 For a paradise of ages, the blind rage
346 Of insolent tempers, the light vanity
347 Of intermeddlers, steady purposes
348 Of the suspicious, slips of the indiscreet,
349 And all the accidents of life were pressed
350 Into one service, busy with one work.
351 The Senate stood aghast, her prudence quenched,
352 Her wisdom stifled, and her justice scared,
353 Her frenzy only active to extol
[Page 282 ]
354 Past outrages, and shape the way for new,
355 Which no one dared to oppose or mitigate.
356 Domestic carnage now filled the whole year
357 With feast-days; old men from the chimney-nook,
358 The maiden from the bosom of her love,
359 The mother from the cradle of her babe,
360 The warrior from the field---all perished, all---
361 Friends, enemies, of all parties, ages, ranks,
362 Head after head, and never heads enough
363 For those that bade them fall. They found their joy,
364 They made it proudly, eager as a child,
365 (If like desires of innocent little ones
366 May with such heinous appetites be compared),
367 Pleased in some open field to exercise
368 A toy that mimics with revolving wings
369 The motion of a wind-mill; though the air
370 Do of itself blow fresh, and make the vanes
371 Spin in his eyesight, that contents him not,
372 But, with the plaything at arm's length, he sets
373 His front against the blast, and runs amain,
374 That it may whirl the faster.
374 Amid the depth
375 Of those enormities, even thinking minds
376 Forgot, at seasons, whence they had their being;
[Page 283 ]
377 Forgot that such a sound was ever heard
378 As Liberty upon earth: yet all beneath
379 Her innocent authority was wrought,
380 Nor could have been, without her blessed name.
381 The illustrious wife of Roland, in the hour
382 Of her composure, felt that agony,
383 And gave it vent in her last words. O Friend!
384 It was a lamentable time for man,
385 Whether a hope had e'er been his or not;
386 A woful time for them whose hopes survived
387 The shock; most woful for those few who still
388 Were flattered, and had trust in human kind:
389 They had the deepest feeling of the grief.
390 Meanwhile the Invaders fared as they deserved:
391 The Herculean Commonwealth had put forth her arms,
392 And throttled with an infant godhead's might
393 The snakes about her cradle; that was well,
394 And as it should be; yet no cure for them
395 Whose souls were sick with pain of what would be
396 Hereafter brought in charge against mankind.
397 Most melancholy at that time, O Friend!
398 Were my day-thoughts,---my nights were miserable;
399 Through months, through years, long after the last beat
400 Of those atrocities, the hour of sleep
401 To me came rarely charged with natural gifts,
[Page 284 ]
402 Such ghastly visions had I of despair
403 And tyranny, and implements of death;
404 And innocent victims sinking under fear,
405 And momentary hope, and worn-out prayer,
406 Each in his separate cell, or penned in crowds
407 For sacrifice, and struggling with fond mirth
408 And levity in dungeons, where the dust
409 Was laid with tears. Then suddenly the scene
410 Changed, and the unbroken dream entangled me
411 In long orations, which I strove to plead
412 Before unjust tribunals,---with a voice
413 Labouring, a brain confounded, and a sense,
414 Death-like, of treacherous desertion, felt
415 In the last place of refuge---my own soul.
416 When I began in youth's delightful prime
417 To yield myself to Nature, when that strong
418 And holy passion overcame me first,
419 Nor day nor night, evening or morn, was free
420 From its oppression. But, O Power Supreme!
421 Without Whose call this world would cease to breathe,
422 Who from the fountain of Thy grace dost fill
423 The veins that branch through every frame of life,
424 Making man what he is, creature divine,
425 In single or in social eminence,
[Page 285 ]
426 Above the rest raised infinite ascents
427 When reason that enables him to be
428 Is not sequestered---what a change is here!
429 How different ritual for this after-worship,
430 What countenance to promote this second love!
431 The first was service paid to things which lie
432 Guarded within the bosom of Thy will.
433 Therefore to serve was high beatitude;
434 Tumult was therefore gladness, and the fear
435 Ennobling, venerable; sleep secure,
436 And waking thoughts more rich than happiest dreams.
437 But as the ancient Prophets, borne aloft
438 In vision, yet constrained by natural laws
439 With them to take a troubled human heart,
440 Wanted not consolations, nor a creed
441 Of reconcilement, then when they denounced,
442 On towns and cities, wallowing in the abyss
443 Of their offences, punishment to come;
444 Or saw, like other men, with bodily eyes,
445 Before them, in some desolated place,
446 The wrath consummate and the threat fulfilled;
447 So, with devout humility be it said,
448 So, did a portion of that spirit fall
449 On me uplifted from the vantage-ground
[Page 286 ]
450 Of pity and sorrow to a state of being
451 That through the time's exceeding fierceness saw
452 Glimpses of retribution, terrible,
453 And in the order of sublime behests:
454 But, even if that were not, amid the awe
455 Of unintelligible chastisement,
456 Not only acquiescences of faith
457 Survived, but daring sympathies with power,
458 Motions not treacherous or profane, else why
459 Within the folds of no ungentle breast
460 Their dread vibration to this hour prolonged?
461 Wild blasts of music thus could find their way
462 Into the midst of turbulent events;
463 So that worst tempests might be listened to.
464 Then was the truth received into my heart,
465 That, under heaviest sorrow earth can bring,
466 If from the affliction somewhere do not grow
467 Honour which could not else have been, a faith,
468 An elevation and a sanctity,
469 If new strength be not given nor old restored,
470 The blame is ours, not Nature's. When a taunt
471 Was taken up by scoffers in their pride,
472 Saying, "Behold the harvest that we reap
473 From popular government and equality,"
474 I clearly saw that neither these nor aught
[Page 287 ]
475 Of wild belief engrafted on their names
476 By false philosophy had caused the woe,
477 But a terrific reservoir of guilt
478 And ignorance filled up from age to age,
479 That could no longer hold its loathsome charge,
480 But burst and spread in deluge through the land.
481 And as the desert hath green spots, the sea
482 Small islands scattered amid stormy waves,
483 So that disastrous period did not want
484 Bright sprinklings of all human excellence,
485 To which the silver wands of saints in Heaven
486 Might point with rapturous joy. Yet not the less,
487 For those examples in no age surpassed
488 Of fortitude and energy and love,
489 And human nature faithful to herself
490 Under worst trials, was I driven to think
491 Of the glad times when first I traversed France
492 A youthful pilgrim; above all reviewed
493 That eventide, when under windows bright
494 With happy faces and with garlands hung,
495 And through a rainbow-arch that spanned the street,
496 Triumphal pomp for liberty confirmed,
497 I paced, a dear companion at my side,
498 The town of Arras, whence with promise high
[Page 288 ]
499 Issued, on delegation to sustain
500 Humanity and right, that Robespierre,
501 He who thereafter, and in how short time!
502 Wielded the sceptre of the Atheist crew.
503 When the calamity spread far and wide---
504 And this same city, that did then appear
505 To outrun the rest in exultation, groaned
506 Under the vengeance of her cruel son,
507 As Lear reproached the winds---I could almost
508 Have quarrelled with that blameless spectacle
509 For lingering yet an image in my mind
510 To mock me under such a strange reverse.
511 O Friend! few happier moments have been mine
512 Than that which told the downfall of this Tribe
513 So dreaded, so abhorred. The day deserves
514 A separate record. Over the smooth sands
515 Of Leven's ample estuary lay
516 My journey, and beneath a genial sun,
517 With distant prospect among gleams of sky
518 And clouds, and intermingling mountain tops,
519 In one inseparable glory clad,
520 Creatures of one ethereal substance met
521 In consistory, like a diadem
522 Or crown of burning seraphs as they sit
[Page 289 ]
523 In the empyrean. Underneath that pomp
524 Celestial, lay unseen the pastoral vales
525 Among whose happy fields I had grown up
526 From childhood. On the fulgent spectacle,
527 That neither passed away nor changed, I gazed
528 Enrapt; but brightest things are wont to draw
529 Sad opposites out of the inner heart,
530 As even their pensive influence drew from mine.
531 How could it otherwise? for not in vain
532 That very morning had I turned aside
533 To seek the ground where, 'mid a throng of graves,
534 An honoured teacher of my youth was laid,
535 And on the stone were graven by his desire
536 Lines from the churchyard elegy of Gray.
537 This faithful guide, speaking from his death-bed,
538 Added no farewell to his parting counsel,
539 But said to me, "My head will soon lie low;"
540 And when I saw the turf that covered him,
541 After the lapse of full eight years, those words,
542 With sound of voice and countenance of the Man,
543 Came back upon me, so that some few tears
544 Fell from me in my own despite. But now
545 I thought, still traversing that widespread plain,
546 With tender pleasure of the verses graven
547 Upon his tombstone, whispering to myself:
[Page 290 ]
548 He loved the Poets, and, if now alive,
549 Would have loved me, as one not destitute
550 Of promise, nor belying the kind hope
551 That he had formed, when I, at his command,
552 Began to spin, with toil, my earliest songs.
553 As I advanced, all that I saw or felt
554 Was gentleness and peace. Upon a small
555 And rocky island near, a fragment stood
556 (Itself like a sea rock) the low remains
557 (With shells encrusted, dark with briny weeds)
558 Of a dilapidated structure, once
559 A Romish chapel, where the vested priest
560 Said matins at the hour that suited those
561 Who crossed the sands with ebb of morning tide.
562 Not far from that still ruin all the plain
563 Lay spotted with a variegated crowd
564 Of vehicles and travellers, horse and foot,
565 Wading beneath the conduct of their guide
566 In loose procession through the shallow stream
567 Of inland waters; the great sea meanwhile
568 Heaved at safe distance, far retired. I paused,
569 Longing for skill to paint a scene so bright
570 And cheerful, but the foremost of the band
571 As he approached, no salutation given
[Page 291 ]
572 In the familiar language of the day,
573 Cried, "Robespierre is dead!"---nor was a doubt,
574 After strict question, left within my mind
575 That he and his supporters all were fallen.
576 Great was my transport, deep my gratitude
577 To everlasting Justice, by this fiat
578 Made manifest. "Come now, ye golden times,"
579 Said I forth-pouring on those open sands
580 A hymn of triumph: "as the morning comes
581 From out the bosom of the night, come ye:
582 Thus far our trust is verified; behold!
583 They who with clumsy desperation brought
584 A river of Blood, and preached that nothing else
585 Could cleanse the Augean stable, by the might
586 Of their own helper have been swept away;
587 Their madness stands declared and visible;
588 Elsewhere will safety now be sought, and earth
589 March firmly towards righteousness and peace."---
590 Then schemes I framed more calmly, when and how
591 The madding factions might be tranquillised,
592 And how through hardships manifold and long
593 The glorious renovation would proceed.
594 Thus interrupted by uneasy bursts
595 Of exultation, I pursued my way
[Page 292 ]
596 Along that very shore which I had skimmed
597 In former days, when---spurring from the Vale
598 Of Nightshade, and St. Mary's mouldering fane,
599 And the stone abbot, after circuit made
600 In wantonness of heart, a joyous band
601 Of school-boys hastening to their distant home
602 Along the margin of the moonlight sea---
603 We beat with thundering hoofs the level sand.
[Page 293 ]
BOOK XI.
FRANCE.---(Concluded.)
[Page 295 ]
1 From that time forth, Authority in France
2 Put on a milder face; Terror had ceased,
3 Yet every thing was wanting that might give
4 Courage to them who looked for good by light
5 Of rational Experience, for the shoots
6 And hopeful blossoms of a second spring:
7 Yet, in me, confidence was unimpaired;
8 The Senate's language, and the public acts
9 And measures of the Government, though both
10 Weak, and of heartless omen, had not power
11 To daunt me; in the People was my trust:
12 And, in the virtues which mine eyes had seen,
13 I knew that wound external could not take
14 Life from the young Republic; that new foes
15 Would only follow, in the path of shame,
[Page 296 ]
16 Their brethren, and her triumphs be in the end
17 Great, universal, irresistible.
18 This intuition led me to confound
19 One victory with another, higher far,---
20 Triumphs of unambitious peace at home,
21 And noiseless fortitude. Beholding still
22 Resistance strong as heretofore, I thought
23 That what was in degree the same was likewise
24 The same in quality,---that, as the worse
25 Of the two spirits then at strife remained
26 Untired, the better, surely, would preserve
27 The heart that first had roused him. Youth maintains,
28 In all conditions of society,
29 Communion more direct and intimate
30 With Nature,---hence, ofttimes, with reason too---
31 Than age or manhood, even. To Nature, then,
32 Power had reverted: habit, custom, law,
33 Had left an interregnum's open space
34 For her to move about in, uncontrolled.
35 Hence could I see how Babel-like their task,
36 Who, by the recent deluge stupified,
37 With their whole souls went culling from the day
38 Its petty promises, to build a tower
39 For their own safety; laughed with my compeers
40 At gravest heads, by enmity to France
[Page 297 ]
41 Distempered, till they found, in every blast
42 Forced from the street-disturbing newsman's horn,
43 For her great cause record or prophecy
44 Of utter ruin. How might we believe
45 That wisdom could, in any shape, come near
46 Men clinging to delusions so insane?
47 And thus, experience proving that no few
48 Of our opinions had been just, we took
49 Like credit to ourselves where less was due,
50 And thought that other notions were as sound,
51 Yea, could not but be right, because we saw
52 That foolish men opposed them.
52 To a strain
53 More animated I might here give way,
54 And tell, since juvenile errors are my theme,
55 What in those days, through Britain, was performed
56 To turn all judgments out of their right course;
57 But this is passion over-near ourselves,
58 Reality too close and too intense,
59 And intermixed with something, in my mind,
60 Of scorn and condemnation personal,
61 That would profane the sanctity of verse.
62 Our Shepherds, this say merely, at that time
63 Acted, or seemed at least to act, like men
64 Thirsting to make the guardian crook of law
[Page 298 ]
65 A tool of murder; they who ruled the State,
66 Though with such awful proof before their eyes
67 That he, who would sow death, reaps death, or worse,
68 And can reap nothing better, child-like longed
69 To imitate, not wise enough to avoid;
70 Or left (by mere timidity betrayed)
71 The plain straight road, for one no better chosen
72 Than if their wish had been to undermine
73 Justice, and make an end of Liberty.
74 But from these bitter truths I must return
75 To my own history. It hath been told
76 That I was led to take an eager part
77 In arguments of civil polity,
78 Abruptly, and indeed before my time:
79 I had approached, like other youths, the shield
80 Of human nature from the golden side,
81 And would have fought, even to the death, to attest
82 The quality of the metal which I saw.
83 What there is best in individual man,
84 Of wise in passion, and sublime in power,
85 Benevolent in small societies,
86 And great in large ones, I had oft revolved,
87 Felt deeply, but not thoroughly understood
88 By reason: nay, far from it; they were yet,
[Page 299 ]
89 As cause was given me afterwards to learn,
90 Not proof against the injuries of the day;
91 Lodged only at the sanctuary's door,
92 Not safe within its bosom. Thus prepared,
93 And with such general insight into evil,
94 And of the bounds which sever it from good,
95 As books and common intercourse with life
96 Must needs have given---to the inexperienced mind,
97 When the world travels in a beaten road,
98 Guide faithful as is needed---I began
99 To meditate with ardour on the rule
100 And management of nations; what it is
101 And ought to be; and strove to learn how far
102 Their power or weakness, wealth or poverty,
103 Their happiness or misery, depends
104 Upon their laws, and fashion of the State.
[End note 13: 1Kb]
105 O pleasant exercise of hope and joy!
106 For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood
107 Upon our side, us who were strong in love!
108 Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
109 But to be young was very Heaven! O times,
110 In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways
111 Of custom, law, and statute, took at once
112 The attraction of a country in romance!
[Page 300 ]
113 When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights
114 When most intent on making of herself
115 A prime enchantress---to assist the work,
116 Which then was going forward in her name!
117 Not favoured spots alone, but the whole Earth,
118 The beauty wore of promise---that which sets
119 (As at some moments might not be unfelt
120 Among the bowers of Paradise itself)
121 The budding rose above the rose full blown.
122 What temper at the prospect did not wake
123 To happiness unthought of? The inert
124 Were roused, and lively natures rapt away!
125 They who had fed their childhood upon dreams,
126 The play-fellows of fancy, who had made
127 All powers of swiftness, subtilty, and strength
128 Their ministers,---who in lordly wise had stirred
129 Among the grandest objects of the sense,
130 And dealt with whatsoever they found there
131 As if they had within some lurking right
132 To wield it;---they, too, who of gentle mood
133 Had watched all gentle motions, and to these
134 Had fitted their own thoughts, schemers more mild,
135 And in the region of their peaceful selves;---
136 Now was it that both found, the meek and lofty
137 Did both find helpers to their hearts' desire,
[Page 301 ]
138 And stuff at hand, plastic as they could wish,---
139 Were called upon to exercise their skill,
140 Not in Utopia,---subterranean fields,---
141 Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where!
142 But in the very world, which is the world
143 Of all of us,---the place where, in the end,
144 We find our happiness, or not at all!
145 Why should I not confess that Earth was then
146 To me, what an inheritance, new-fallen,
147 Seems, when the first time visited, to one
148 Who thither comes to find in it his home?
149 He walks about and looks upon the spot
150 With cordial transport, moulds it and remoulds,
151 And is half pleased with things that are amiss,
152 'Twill be such joy to see them disappear.
153 An active partisan, I thus convoked
154 From every object pleasant circumstance
155 To suit my ends; I moved among mankind
156 With genial feelings still predominant;
157 When erring, erring on the better part,
158 And in the kinder spirit; placable,
159 Indulgent, as not uninformed that men
160 See as they have been taught---Antiquity
[Page 302 ]
161 Gives rights to error; and aware, no less,
162 That throwing off oppression must be work
163 As well of License as of Liberty;
164 And above all---for this was more than all---
165 Not caring if the wind did now and then
166 Blow keen upon an eminence that gave
167 Prospect so large into futurity;
168 In brief, a child of Nature, as at first,
169 Diffusing only those affections wider
170 That from the cradle had grown up with me,
171 And losing, in no other way than light
172 Is lost in light, the weak in the more strong.
173 In the main outline, such it might be said
174 Was my condition, till with open war
175 Britain opposed the liberties of France.
176 This threw me first out of the pale of love;
177 Soured and corrupted, upwards to the source,
178 My sentiments; was not, as hitherto,
179 A swallowing up of lesser things in great,
180 But change of them into their contraries;
181 And thus a way was opened for mistakes
182 And false conclusions, in degree as gross,
183 In kind more dangerous. What had been a pride,
184 Was now a shame; my likings and my loves
[Page 303 ]
185 Ran in new channels, leaving old ones dry;
186 And hence a blow that, in maturer age,
187 Would but have touched the judgment, struck more deep
188 Into sensations near the heart: meantime,
189 As from the first, wild theories were afloat,
190 To whose pretensions, sedulously urged,
191 I had but lent a careless ear, assured
192 That time was ready to set all things right,
193 And that the multitude, so long oppressed,
194 Would be oppressed no more.
194 But when events
195 Brought less encouragement, and unto these
196 The immediate proof of principles no more
197 Could be entrusted, while the events themselves,
198 Worn out in greatness, stripped of novelty,
199 Less occupied the mind, and sentiments
200 Could through my understanding's natural growth
201 No longer keep their ground, by faith maintained
202 Of inward consciousness, and hope that laid
203 Her hand upon her object---evidence
204 Safer, of universal application, such
205 As could not be impeached, was sought elsewhere.
206 But now, become oppressors in their turn,
207 Frenchmen had changed a war of self-defence
[Page 304 ]
208 For one of conquest, losing sight of all
209 Which they had struggled for: now mounted up,
210 Openly in the eye of earth and heaven,
211 The scale of liberty. I read her doom,
212 With anger vexed, with disappointment sore,
213 But not dismayed, nor taking to the shame
214 Of a false prophet. While resentment rose
215 Striving to hide, what nought could heal, the wounds
216 Of mortified presumption, I adhered
217 More firmly to old tenets, and, to prove
218 Their temper, strained them more; and thus, in heat
219 Of contest, did opinions every day
220 Grow into consequence, till round my mind
221 They clung, as if they were its life, nay more,
222 The very being of the immortal soul.
223 This was the time, when, all things tending fast
224 To depravation, speculative schemes---
225 That promised to abstract the hopes of Man
226 Out of his feelings, to be fixed thenceforth
227 For ever in a purer element---
228 Found ready welcome. Tempting region that
229 For Zeal to enter and refresh herself,
230 Where passions had the privilege to work,
231 And never hear the sound of their own names.
[Page 305 ]
232 But, speaking more in charity, the dream
233 Flattered the young, pleased with extremes, nor least
234 With that which makes our Reason's naked self
235 The object of its fervour. What delight!
236 How glorious! in self-knowledge and self-rule,
237 To look through all the frailties of the world,
238 And, with a resolute mastery shaking off
239 Infirmities of nature, time, and place,
240 Build social upon personal Liberty,
241 Which, to the blind restraints of general laws
242 Superior, magisterially adopts
243 One guide, the light of circumstances, flashed
244 Upon an independent intellect.
245 Thus expectation rose again; thus hope,
246 From her first ground expelled, grew proud once more.
247 Oft, as my thoughts were turned to human kind,
248 I scorned indifference; but, inflamed with thirst
249 Of a secure intelligence, and sick
250 Of other longing, I pursued what seemed
251 A more exalted nature; wished that Man
252 Should start out of his earthy, worm-like state,
253 And spread abroad the wings of Liberty,
254 Lord of himself, in undisturbed delight---
255 A noble aspiration! yet I feel
256 (Sustained by worthier as by wiser thoughts)
[Page 306 ]
257 The aspiration, nor shall ever cease
258 To feel it;---but return we to our course.
259 Enough, 'tis true---could such a plea excuse
260 Those aberrations---had the clamorous friends
261 Of ancient Institutions said and done
262 To bring disgrace upon their very names;
263 Disgrace, of which, custom and written law,
264 And sundry moral sentiments as props
265 Or emanations of those institutes,
266 Too justly bore a part. A veil had been
267 Uplifted; why deceive ourselves? in sooth,
268 'Twas even so; and sorrow for the man
269 Who either had not eyes wherewith to see,
270 Or, seeing, had forgotten! A strong shock
271 Was given to old opinions; all men's minds
272 Had felt its power, and mine was both let loose,
273 Let loose and goaded. After what hath been
274 Already said of patriotic love,
275 Suffice it here to add, that, somewhat stern
276 In temperament, withal a happy man,
277 And therefore bold to look on painful things,
278 Free likewise of the world, and thence more bold,
279 I summoned my best skill, and toiled, intent
280 To anatomise the frame of social life,
[Page 307 ]
281 Yea, the whole body of society
282 Searched to its heart. Share with me, Friend! the wish
283 That some dramatic tale, endued with shapes
284 Livelier, and flinging out less guarded words
285 Than suit the work we fashion, might set forth
286 What then I learned, or think I learned, of truth,
287 And the errors into which I fell, betrayed
288 By present objects, and by reasonings false
289 From their beginnings, inasmuch as drawn
290 Out of a heart that had been turned aside
291 From Nature's way by outward accidents,
292 And which was thus confounded, more and more
293 Misguided, and misguiding. So I fared,
294 Dragging all precepts, judgments, maxims, creeds,
295 Like culprits to the bar; calling the mind,
296 Suspiciously, to establish in plain day
297 Her titles and her honours; now believing,
298 Now disbelieving; endlessly perplexed
299 With impulse, motive, right and wrong, the ground
300 Of obligation, what the rule and whence
301 The sanction; till, demanding formal proof,
302 And seeking it in every thing, I lost
303 All feeling of conviction, and, in fine,
304 Sick, wearied out with contrarieties,
305 Yielded up moral questions in despair.
[Page 308 ]
306 This was the crisis of that strong disease,
307 This the soul's last and lowest ebb; I drooped,
308 Deeming our blessed reason of least use
309 Where wanted most: "The lordly attributes
310 Of will and choice," I bitterly exclaimed,
311 "What are they but a mockery of a Being
312 Who hath in no concerns of his a test
313 Of good and evil; knows not what to fear
314 Or hope for, what to covet or to shun;
315 And who, if those could be discerned, would yet
316 Be little profited, would see, and ask
317 Where is the obligation to enforce?
318 And, to acknowledged law rebellious, still,
319 As selfish passion urged, would act amiss;
320 The dupe of folly, or the slave of crime."
321 Depressed, bewildered thus, I did not walk
322 With scoffers, seeking light and gay revenge
323 From indiscriminate laughter, nor sate down
324 In reconcilement with an utter waste
325 Of intellect; such sloth I could not brook,
326 (Too well I loved, in that my spring of life,
327 Pains-taking thoughts, and truth, their dear reward)
328 But turned to abstract science, and there sought
329 Work for the reasoning faculty enthroned
[Page 309 ]
330 Where the disturbances of space and time---
331 Whether in matters various, properties
332 Inherent, or from human will and power
333 Derived---find no admission. Then it was---
334 Thanks to the bounteous Giver of all good!---
335 That the beloved Sister in whose sight
336 Those days were passed, now speaking in a voice
337 Of sudden admonition---like a brook
338 That did but cross a lonely road, and now
339 Is seen, heard, felt, and caught at every turn,
340 Companion never lost through many a league---
341 Maintained for me a saving intercourse
342 With my true self; for, though bedimmed and changed
343 Much, as it seemed, I was no further changed
344 Than as a clouded and a waning moon:
345 She whispered still that brightness would return,
346 She, in the midst of all, preserved me still
347 A Poet, made me seek beneath that name,
348 And that alone, my office upon earth;
349 And, lastly, as hereafter will be shown,
350 If willing audience fail not, Nature's self,
351 By all varieties of human love
352 Assisted, led me back through opening day
353 To those sweet counsels between head and heart
354 Whence grew that genuine knowledge, fraught with peace,
[Page 310 ]
355 Which, through the later sinkings of this cause,
356 Hath still upheld me, and upholds me now
357 In the catastrophe (for so they dream,
358 And nothing less), when, finally to close
359 And seal up all the gains of France, a Pope
360 Is summoned in, to crown an Emperor---
361 This last opprobrium, when we see a people,
362 That once looked up in faith, as if to Heaven
363 For manna, take a lesson from the dog
364 Returning to his vomit; when the sun
365 That rose in splendour, was alive, and moved
366 In exultation with a living pomp
367 Of clouds---his glory's natural retinue---
368 Hath dropped all functions by the gods bestowed,
369 And, turned into a gewgaw, a machine,
370 Sets like an Opera phantom.
370 Thus, O Friend!
371 Through times of honour and through times of shame
372 Descending, have I faithfully retraced
373 The perturbations of a youthful mind
374 Under a long-lived storm of great events---
375 A story destined for thy ear, who now,
376 Among the fallen of nations, dost abide
377 Where Etna, over hill and valley, casts
378 His shadow stretching towards Syracuse,
[Page 311 ]
379 The city of Timoleon! Righteous Heaven!
380 How are the mighty prostrated! They first,
381 They first of all that breathe should have awaked
382 When the great voice was heard from out the tombs
383 Of ancient heroes. If I suffered grief
384 For ill-requited France, by many deemed
385 A trifler only in her proudest day;
386 Have been distressed to think of what she once
387 Promised, now is; a far more sober cause
388 Thine eyes must see of sorrow in a land,
389 To the reanimating influence lost
390 Of memory, to virtue lost and hope,
391 Though with the wreck of loftier years bestrewn.
392 But indignation works where hope is not,
393 And thou, O Friend! wilt be refreshed. There is
394 One great society alone on earth:
395 The noble Living and the noble Dead.
396 Thine be such converse strong and sanative,
397 A ladder for thy spirit to reascend
398 To health and joy and pure contentedness;
399 To me the grief confined, that thou art gone
400 From this last spot of earth, where Freedom now
401 Stands single in her only sanctuary;
[Page 312 ]
402 A lonely wanderer art gone, by pain
403 Compelled and sickness, at this latter day,
404 This sorrowful reverse for all mankind.
405 I feel for thee, must utter what I feel:
406 The sympathies erewhile in part discharged,
407 Gather afresh, and will have vent again:
408 My own delights do scarcely seem to me
409 My own delights; the lordly Alps themselves,
410 Those rosy peaks, from which the Morning looks
411 Abroad on many nations, are no more
412 For me that image of pure gladsomeness
413 Which they were wont to be. Through kindred scenes,
414 For purpose, at a time, how different!
415 Thou tak'st thy way, carrying the heart and soul
416 That Nature gives to Poets, now by thought
417 Matured, and in the summer of their strength.
418 Oh! wrap him in your shades, ye giant woods,
419 On Etna's side; and thou, O flowery field
420 Of Enna! is there not some nook of thine,
421 From the first play-time of the infant world
422 Kept sacred to restorative delight,
423 When from afar invoked by anxious love?
424 Child of the mountains, among shepherds reared,
425 Ere yet familiar with the classic page,
[Page 313 ]
426 I learnt to dream of Sicily; and lo,
427 The gloom, that, but a moment past, was deepened
428 At thy command, at her command gives way;
429 A pleasant promise, wafted from her shores,
430 Comes o'er my heart: in fancy I behold
431 Her seas yet smiling, her once happy vales;
432 Nor can my tongue give utterance to a name
433 Of note belonging to that honoured isle,
434 Philosopher or Bard, Empedocles,
435 Or Archimedes, pure abstracted soul!
436 That doth not yield a solace to my grief:
437 And, O Theocritus, [End note 14: 1Kb]
so far have some
438 Prevailed among the powers of heaven and earth,
439 By their endowments, good or great, that they
440 Have had, as thou reportest, miracles
441 Wrought for them in old time: yea, not unmoved,
442 When thinking on my own beloved friend,
443 I hear thee tell how bees with honey fed
444 Divine Comates, by his impious lord
445 Within a chest imprisoned; how they came
446 Laden from blooming grove or flowery field,
447 And fed him there, alive, month after month,
448 Because the goatherd, blessed man! had lips
449 Wet with the Muses' nectar.
449 Thus I soothe
[Page 314 ]
450 The pensive moments by this calm fire-side,
451 And find a thousand bounteous images
452 To cheer the thoughts of those I love, and mine.
453 Our prayers have been accepted; thou wilt stand
454 On Etna's summit, above earth and sea,
455 Triumphant, winning from the invaded heavens
456 Thoughts without bound, magnificent designs,
457 Worthy of poets who attuned their harps
458 In wood or echoing cave, for discipline
459 Of heroes; or, in reverence to the gods,
460 'Mid temples, served by sapient priests, and choirs
461 Of virgins crowned with roses. Not in vain
462 Those temples, where they in their ruins yet
463 Survive for inspiration, shall attract
464 Thy solitary steps: and on the brink
465 Thou wilt recline of pastoral Arethuse;
466 Or, if that fountain be in truth no more,
467 Then, near some other spring, which, by the name
468 Thou gratulatest, willingly deceived,
469 I see thee linger a glad votary,
470 And not a captive pining for his home.
[Page 315 ]
BOOK XII.
IMAGINATION AND TASTE, HOW IMPAIRED AND
RESTORED.
[Page 317 ]
1 Long time have human ignorance and guilt
2 Detained us, on what spectacles of woe
3 Compelled to look, and inwardly oppressed
4 With sorrow, disappointment, vexing thoughts,
5 Confusion of the judgment, zeal decayed,
6 And, lastly, utter loss of hope itself
7 And things to hope for! Not with these began
8 Our song, and not with these our song must end.---
9 Ye motions of delight, that haunt the sides
10 Of the green hills; ye breezes and soft airs,
11 Whose subtle intercourse with breathing flowers,
12 Feelingly watched, might teach Man's haughty race
13 How without injury to take, to give
14 Without offence; ye who, as if to show
15 The wondrous influence of power gently used,
[Page 318 ]
16 Bend the complying heads of lordly pines,
17 And, with a touch, shift the stupendous clouds
18 Through the whole compass of the sky; ye brooks,
19 Muttering along the stones, a busy noise
20 By day, a quiet sound in silent night;
21 Ye waves, that out of the great deep steal forth
22 In a calm hour to kiss the pebbly shore,
23 Not mute, and then retire, fearing no storm;
24 And you, ye groves, whose ministry it is
25 To interpose the covert of your shades,
26 Even as a sleep, between the heart of man
27 And outward troubles, between man himself,
28 Not seldom, and his own uneasy heart:
29 Oh! that I had a music and a voice
30 Harmonious as your own, that I might tell
31 What ye have done for me. The morning shines,
32 Nor heedeth Man's perverseness; Spring returns,---
33 I saw the Spring return, and could rejoice,
34 In common with the children of her love,
35 Piping on boughs, or sporting on fresh fields,
36 Or boldly seeking pleasure nearer heaven
37 On wings that navigate cerulean skies.
38 So neither were complacency, nor peace,
39 Nor tender yearnings, wanting for my good
40 Through these distracted times; in Nature still
[Page 319 ]
41 Glorying, I found a counterpoise in her,
42 Which, when the spirit of evil reached its height,
43 Maintained for me a secret happiness.
44 This narrative, my Friend! hath chiefly told
45 Of intellectual power, fostering love,
46 Dispensing truth, and, over men and things,
47 Where reason yet might hesitate, diffusing
48 Prophetic sympathies of genial faith:
49 So was I favoured---such my happy lot---
50 Until that natural graciousness of mind
51 Gave way to overpressure from the times
52 And their disastrous issues. What availed,
53 When spells forbade the voyager to land,
54 That fragrant notice of a pleasant shore
55 Wafted, at intervals, from many a bower
56 Of blissful gratitude and fearless love?
57 Dare I avow that wish was mine to see,
58 And hope that future times would surely see,
59 The man to come, parted, as by a gulph,
60 From him who had been; that I could no more
61 Trust the elevation which had made me one
62 With the great family that still survives
63 To illuminate the abyss of ages past,
64 Sage, warrior, patriot, hero; for it seemed
[Page 320 ]
65 That their best virtues were not free from taint
66 Of something false and weak, that could not stand
67 The open eye of Reason. Then I said,
68 "Go to the Poets, they will speak to thee
69 More perfectly of purer creatures;---yet
70 If reason be nobility in man,
71 Can aught be more ignoble than the man
72 Whom they delight in, blinded as he is
73 By prejudice, the miserable slave
74 Of low ambition or distempered love?"
75 In such strange passion, if I may once more
76 Review the past, I warred against myself---
77 A bigot to a new idolatry---
78 Like a cowled monk who hath forsworn the world,
79 Zealously laboured to cut off my heart
80 From all the sources of her former strength;
81 And as, by simple waving of a wand,
82 The wizard instantaneously dissolves
83 Palace or grove, even so could I unsoul
84 As readily by syllogistic words
85 Those mysteries of being which have made,
86 And shall continue evermore to make,
87 Of the whole human race one brotherhood.
[Page 321 ]
88 What wonder, then, if, to a mind so far
89 Perverted, even the visible Universe
90 Fell under the dominion of a taste
91 Less spiritual, with microscopic view
92 Was scanned, as I had scanned the moral world?
93 O Soul of Nature! excellent and fair!
94 That didst rejoice with me, with whom I, too,
95 Rejoiced through early youth, before the winds
96 And roaring waters, and in lights and shades
97 That marched and countermarched about the hills
98 In glorious apparition, Powers on whom
99 I daily waited, now all eye and now
100 All ear; but never long without the heart
101 Employed, and man's unfolding intellect:
102 O Soul of Nature! that, by laws divine
103 Sustained and governed, still dost overflow
104 With an impassioned life, what feeble ones
105 Walk on this earth! how feeble have I been
106 When thou wert in thy strength! Nor this through stroke
107 Of human suffering, such as justifies
108 Remissness and inaptitude of mind,
109 But through presumption; even in pleasure pleased
110 Unworthily, disliking here, and there
111 Liking; by rules of mimic art transferred
[Page 322 ]
112 To things above all art; but more,---for this,
113 Although a strong infection of the age,
114 Was never much my habit---giving way
115 To a comparison of scene with scene,
116 Bent overmuch on superficial things,
117 Pampering myself with meagre novelties
118 Of colour and proportion; to the moods
119 Of time and season, to the moral power,
120 The affections and the spirit of the place,
121 Insensible. Nor only did the love
122 Of sitting thus in judgment interrupt
123 My deeper feelings, but another cause,
124 More subtle and less easily explained,
125 That almost seems inherent in the creature,
126 A twofold frame of body and of mind.
127 I speak in recollection of a time
128 When the bodily eye, in every stage of life
129 The most despotic of our senses, gained
130 Such strength in me as often held my mind
131 In absolute dominion. Gladly here,
132 Entering upon abstruser argument,
133 Could I endeavour to unfold the means
134 Which Nature studiously employs to thwart
135 This tyranny, summons all the senses each
136 To counteract the other, and themselves,
[Page 323 ]
137 And makes them all, and the objects with which all
138 Are conversant, subservient in their turn
139 To the great ends of Liberty and Power.
140 But leave we this: enough that my delights
141 (Such as they were) were sought insatiably.
142 Vivid the transport, vivid though not profound;
143 I roamed from hill to hill, from rock to rock,
144 Still craving combinations of new forms,
145 New pleasure, wider empire for the sight,
146 Proud of her own endowments, and rejoiced
147 To lay the inner faculties asleep.
148 Amid the turns and counterturns, the strife
149 And various trials of our complex being,
150 As we grow up, such thraldom of that sense
151 Seems hard to shun. And yet I knew a maid,
152 A young enthusiast, who escaped these bonds;
153 Her eye was not the mistress of her heart;
154 Far less did rules prescribed by passive taste,
155 Or barren intermeddling subtleties,
156 Perplex her mind; but, wise as women are
157 When genial circumstance hath favoured them,
158 She welcomed what was given, and craved no more;
159 Whate'er the scene presented to her view,
160 That was the best, to that she was attuned
161 By her benign simplicity of life,
[Page 324 ]
162 And through a perfect happiness of soul,
163 Whose variegated feelings were in this
164 Sisters, that they were each some new delight.
165 Birds in the bower, and lambs in the green field,
166 Could they have known her, would have loved; methought
167 Her very presence such a sweetness breathed,
168 That flowers, and trees, and even the silent hills,
169 And every thing she looked on, should have had
170 An intimation how she bore herself
171 Towards them and to all creatures. God delights
172 In such a being; for her common thoughts
173 Are piety, her life is gratitude.
174 Even like this maid, before I was called forth
175 From the retirement of my native hills,
176 I loved whate'er I saw: nor lightly loved,
177 But most intensely; never dreamt of aught
178 More grand, more fair, more exquisitely framed
179 Than those few nooks to which my happy feet
180 Were limited. I had not at that time
181 Lived long enough, nor in the least survived
182 The first diviner influence of this world,
183 As it appears to unaccustomed eyes.
184 Worshipping then among the depth of things.
185 As piety ordained; could I submit
[Page 325 ]
186 To measured admiration, or to aught
187 That should preclude humility and love?
188 I felt, observed, and pondered; did not judge,
189 Yea, never thought of judging; with the gift
190 Of all this glory filled and satisfied.
191 And afterwards, when through the gorgeous Alps
192 Roaming, I carried with me the same heart:
193 In truth, the degradation---howsoe'er
194 Induced, effect, in whatsoe'er degree,
195 Of custom that prepares a partial scale
196 In which the little oft outweighs the great;
197 Or any other cause that hath been named;
198 Or lastly, aggravated by the times
199 And their impassioned sounds, which well might make
200 The milder minstrelsies of rural scenes
201 Inaudible---was transient; I had known
202 Too forcibly, too early in my life,
203 Visitings of imaginative power
204 For this to last: I shook the habit off
205 Entirely and for ever, and again
206 In Nature's presence stood, as now I stand,
207 A sensitive being, a creative soul.
208 There are in our existence spots of time,
209 That with distinct pre-eminence retain
[Page 326 ]
210 A renovating virtue, whence, depressed
211 By false opinion and contentious thought,
212 Or aught of heavier or more deadly weight,
213 In trivial occupations, and the round
214 Of ordinary intercourse, our minds
215 Are nourished and invisibly repaired;
216 A virtue, by which pleasure is enhanced,
217 That penetrates, enables us to mount,
218 When high, more high, and lifts us up when fallen.
219 This efficacious spirit chiefly lurks
220 Among those passages of life that give
221 Profoundest knowledge to what point, and how,
222 The mind is lord and master---outward sense
223 The obedient servant of her will. Such moments
224 Are scattered everywhere, taking their date
225 From our first childhood. I remember well,
226 That once, while yet my inexperienced hand
227 Could scarcely hold a bridle, with proud hopes
228 I mounted, and we journeyed towards the hills:
229 An ancient servant of my father's house
230 Was with me, my encourager and guide:
231 We had not travelled long, ere some mischance
232 Disjoined me from my comrade; and, through fear
233 Dismounting, down the rough and stony moor
234 I led my horse, and, stumbling on, at length
[Page 327 ]
235 Came to a bottom, where in former times
236 A murderer had been hung in iron chains.
237 The gibbet-mast had mouldered down, the bones
238 And iron case were gone; but on the turf,
239 Hard by, soon after that fell deed was wrought,
240 Some unknown hand had carved the murderer's name.
241 The monumental letters were inscribed
242 In times long past; but still, from year to year,
243 By superstition of the neighbourhood,
244 The grass is cleared away, and to this hour
245 The characters are fresh and visible:
246 A casual glance had shown them, and I fled,
247 Faltering and faint, and ignorant of the road:
248 Then, reascending the bare common, saw
249 A naked pool that lay beneath the hills,
250 The beacon on the summit, and, more near,
251 A girl, who bore a pitcher on her head,
252 And seemed with difficult steps to force her way
253 Against the blowing wind. It was, in truth,
254 An ordinary sight; but I should need
255 Colours and words that are unknown to man,
256 To paint the visionary dreariness
257 Which, while I looked all round for my lost guide,
258 Invested moorland waste, and naked pool,
259 The beacon crowning the lone eminence,
[Page 328 ]
260 The female and her garments vexed and tossed
261 By the strong wind. When, in the blessed hours
262 Of early love, the loved one at my side,
263 I roamed, in daily presence of this scene,
264 Upon the naked pool and dreary crags,
265 And on the melancholy beacon, fell
266 A spirit of pleasure and youth's golden gleam;
267 And think ye not with radiance more sublime
268 For these remembrances, and for the power
269 They had left behind? So feeling comes in aid
270 Of feeling, and diversity of strength
271 Attends us, if but once we have been strong.
272 Oh! mystery of man, from what a depth
273 Proceed thy honours. I am lost, but see
274 In simple childhood something of the base
275 On which thy greatness stands; but this I feel,
276 That from thyself it comes, that thou must give,
277 Else never canst receive. The days gone by
278 Return upon me almost from the dawn
279 Of life: the hiding-places of man's power
280 Open; I would approach them, but they close.
281 I see by glimpses now; when age comes on,
282 May scarcely see at all; and I would give,
283 While yet we may, as far as words can give,
[Page 329 ]
284 Substance and life to what I feel, enshrining,
285 Such is my hope, the spirit of the Past
286 For future restoration.---Yet another
287 Of these memorials:---
287 One Christmas-time,
288 On the glad eve of its dear holidays,
289 Feverish, and tired, and restless, I went forth
290 Into the fields, impatient for the sight
291 Of those led palfreys that should bear us home;
292 My brothers and myself. There rose a crag,
293 That, from the meeting-point of two highways
294 Ascending, overlooked them both, far stretched;
295 Thither, uncertain on which road to fix
296 My expectation, thither I repaired,
297 Scout-like, and gained the summit; 'twas a day
298 Tempestuous, dark, and wild, and on the grass
299 I sate half-sheltered by a naked wall;
300 Upon my right hand couched a single sheep,
301 Upon my left a blasted hawthorn stood;
302 With those companions at my side, I watched,
303 Straining my eyes intensely, as the mist
304 Gave intermitting prospect of the copse
305 And plain beneath. Ere we to school returned,---
306 That dreary time,---ere we had been ten days
[Page 330 ]
307 Sojourners in my father's house, he died,
308 And I and my three brothers, orphans then,
309 Followed his body to the grave. The event,
310 With all the sorrow that it brought, appeared
311 A chastisement; and when I called to mind
312 That day so lately past, when from the crag
313 I looked in such anxiety of hope;
314 With trite reflections of morality,
315 Yet in the deepest passion, I bowed low
316 To God, Who thus corrected my desires;
317 And, afterwards, the wind and sleety rain,
318 And all the business of the elements,
319 The single sheep, and the one blasted tree,
320 And the bleak music from that old stone wall,
321 The noise of wood and water, and the mist
322 That on the line of each of those two roads
323 Advanced in such indisputable shapes;
324 All these were kindred spectacles and sounds
325 To which I oft repaired, and thence would drink,
326 As at a fountain; and on winter nights,
327 Down to this very time, when storm and rain
328 Beat on my roof, or, haply, at noon-day,
329 While in a grove I walk, whose lofty trees,
330 Laden with summer's thickest foliage, rock
[Page 331 ]
331 In a strong wind, some working of the spirit,
332 Some inward agitations thence are brought,
333 Whate'er their office, whether to beguile
334 Thoughts over busy in the course they took,
335 Or animate an hour of vacant ease.
[Page 333 ]
BOOK XIII.
IMAGINATION AND TASTE, HOW IMPAIRED AND
RESTORED.---(Concluded.)
[Page 335 ]
1 From Nature doth emotion come, and moods
2 Of calmness equally are Nature's gift:
3 This is her glory; these two attributes
4 Are sister horns that constitute her strength.
5 Hence Genius, born to thrive by interchange
6 Of peace and excitation, finds in her
7 His best and purest friend; from her receives
8 That energy by which he seeks the truth,
9 From her that happy stillness of the mind
10 Which fits him to receive it when unsought.
11 Such benefit the humblest intellects
12 Partake of, each in their degree; 'tis mine
13 To speak, what I myself have known and felt;
14 Smooth task! for words find easy way, inspired
[Page 336 ]
15 By gratitude, and confidence in truth.
16 Long time in search of knowledge did I range
17 The field of human life, in heart and mind
18 Benighted; but, the dawn beginning now
19 To re-appear, 'twas proved that not in vain
20 I had been taught to reverence a Power
21 That is the visible quality and shape
22 And image of right reason; that matures
23 Her processes by steadfast laws; gives birth
24 To no impatient or fallacious hopes,
25 No heat of passion or excessive zeal,
26 No vain conceits; provokes to no quick turns
27 Of self-applauding intellect; but trains
28 To meekness, and exalts by humble faith;
29 Holds up before the mind intoxicate
30 With present objects, and the busy dance
31 Of things that pass away, a temperate show
32 Of objects that endure; and by this course
33 Disposes her, when over-fondly set
34 On throwing off incumbrances, to seek
35 In man, and in the frame of social life,
36 Whate'er there is desirable and good
37 Of kindred permanence, unchanged in form
38 And function, or, through strict vicissitude
39 Of life and death, revolving. Above all
[Page 337 ]
40 Were re-established now those watchful thoughts
41 Which, seeing little worthy or sublime
42 In what the Historian's pen so much delights
43 To blazon---power and energy detached
44 From moral purpose---early tutored me
45 To look with feelings of fraternal love
46 Upon the unassuming things that hold
47 A silent station in this beauteous world.
48 Thus moderated, thus composed, I found
49 Once more in Man an object of delight,
50 Of pure imagination, and of love;
51 And, as the horizon of my mind enlarged,
52 Again I took the intellectual eye
53 For my instructor, studious more to see
54 Great truths, than touch and handle little ones.
55 Knowledge was given accordingly; my trust
56 Became more firm in feelings that had stood
57 The test of such a trial; clearer far
58 My sense of excellence---of right and wrong:
59 The promise of the present time retired
60 Into its true proportion; sanguine schemes,
61 Ambitious projects, pleased me less; I sought
62 For present good in life's familiar face,
63 And built thereon my hopes of good to come.
[Page 338 ]
64 With settling judgments now of what would last
65 And what would disappear; prepared to find
66 Presumption, folly, madness, in the men
67 Who thrust themselves upon the passive world
68 As Rulers of the world; to see in these,
69 Even when the public welfare is their aim,
70 Plans without thought, or built on theories
71 Vague and unsound; and having brought the books
72 Of modern statists to their proper test,
73 Life, human life, with all its sacred claims
74 Of sex and age, and heaven-descended rights,
75 Mortal, or those beyond the reach of death;
76 And having thus discerned how dire a thing
77 Is worshipped in that idol proudly named
78 "The Wealth of Nations," where alone that wealth
79 Is lodged, and how increased; and having gained
80 A more judicious knowledge of the worth
81 And dignity of individual man,
82 No composition of the brain, but man
83 Of whom we read, the man whom we behold
84 With our own eyes---I could not but inquire---
85 Not with less interest than heretofore,
86 But greater, though in spirit more subdued---
87 Why is this glorious creature to be found
88 One only in ten thousand? What one is,
[Page 339 ]
89 Why may not millions be? What bars are thrown
90 By Nature in the way of such a hope?
91 Our animal appetites and daily wants,
92 Are these obstructions insurmountable?
93 If not, then others vanish into air.
94 "Inspect the basis of the social pile:
95 Inquire," said I, "how much of mental power
96 And genuine virtue they possess who live
97 By bodily toil, labour exceeding far
98 Their due proportion, under all the weight
99 Of that injustice which upon ourselves
100 Ourselves entail." Such estimate to frame
101 I chiefly looked (what need to look beyond?)
102 Among the natural abodes of men,
103 Fields with their rural works; recalled to mind
104 My earliest notices; with these compared
105 The observations made in later youth,
106 And to that day continued.---For, the time
107 Had never been when throes of mighty Nations
108 And the world's tumult unto me could yield,
109 How far soe'er transported and possessed,
110 Full measure of content; but still I craved
111 An intermingling of distinct regards
112 And truths of individual sympathy
113 Nearer ourselves. Such often might be gleaned
[Page 340 ]
114 From the great City, else it must have proved
115 To me a heart-depressing wilderness;
116 But much was wanting: therefore did I turn
117 To you, ye pathways, and ye lonely roads;
118 Sought you enriched with everything I prized,
119 With human kindnesses and simple joys.
120 Oh! next to one dear state of bliss, vouchsafed
121 Alas! to few in this untoward world,
122 The bliss of walking daily in life's prime
123 Through field or forest with the maid we love,
124 While yet our hearts are young, while yet we breathe
125 Nothing but happiness, in some lone nook,
126 Deep vale, or any where, the home of both,
127 From which it would be misery to stir:
128 Oh! next to such enjoyment of our youth,
129 In my esteem, next to such dear delight,
130 Was that of wandering on from day to day
131 Where I could meditate in peace, and cull
132 Knowledge that step by step might lead me on
133 To wisdom; or, as lightsome as a bird
134 Wafted upon the wind from distant lands,
135 Sing notes of greeting to strange fields or groves,
136 Which lacked not voice to welcome me in turn:
137 And, when that pleasant toil had ceased to please,
[Page 341 ]
138 Converse with men, where if we meet a face
139 We almost meet a friend, on naked heaths
140 With long long ways before, by cottage bench,
141 Or well-spring where the weary traveller rests.
142 Who doth not love to follow with his eye
143 The windings of a public way? the sight,
144 Familiar object as it is, hath wrought
145 On my imagination since the morn
146 Of childhood, when a disappearing line,
147 One daily present to my eyes, that crossed
148 The naked summit of a far-off hill
149 Beyond the limits that my feet had trod,
150 Was like an invitation into space
151 Boundless, or guide into eternity.
152 Yes, something of the grandeur which invests
153 The mariner who sails the roaring sea
154 Through storm and darkness, early in my mind
155 Surrounded, too, the wanderers of the earth;
156 Grandeur as much, and loveliness far more.
157 Awed have I been by strolling Bedlamites;
158 From many other uncouth vagrants (passed
159 In fear) have walked with quicker step; but why
160 Take note of this? When I began to enquire,
161 To watch and question those I met, and speak
[Page 342 ]
162 Without reserve to them, the lonely roads
163 Were open schools in which I daily read
164 With most delight the passions of mankind,
165 Whether by words, looks, sighs, or tears, revealed;
166 There saw into the depth of human souls,
167 Souls that appear to have no depth at all
168 To careless eyes. And---now convinced at heart
169 How little those formalities, to which
170 With overweening trust alone we give
171 The name of Education, have to do
172 With real feeling and just sense; how vain
173 A correspondence with the talking world
174 Proves to the most; and called to make good search
175 If man's estate, by doom of Nature yoked
176 With toil, be therefore yoked with ignorance;
177 If virtue be indeed so hard to rear,
178 And intellectual strength so rare a boon---
179 I prized such walks still more, for there I found
180 Hope to my hope, and to my pleasure peace
181 And steadiness, and healing and repose
182 To every angry passion. There I heard,
183 From mouths of men obscure and lowly, truths
184 Replete with honour; sounds in unison
185 With loftiest promises of good and fair.
[Page 343 ]
186 There are who think that strong affection, love
187 Known by whatever name, is falsely deemed
188 A gift, to use a term which they would use,
189 Of vulgar nature; that its growth requires
190 Retirement, leisure, language purified
191 By manners studied and elaborate;
192 That whose feels such passion in its strength
193 Must live within the very light and air
194 Of courteous usages refined by art.
195 True is it, where oppression worse than death
196 Salutes the being at his birth, where grace
197 Of culture hath been utterly unknown,
198 And poverty and labour in excess
199 From day to day pre-occupy the ground
200 Of the affections, and to Nature's self
201 Oppose a deeper nature; there, indeed,
202 Love cannot be; nor does it thrive with ease
203 Among the close and overcrowded haunts
204 Of cities, where the human heart is sick,
205 And the eye feeds it not, and cannot feed.
206 ---Yes, in those wanderings deeply did I feel
207 How we mislead each other; above all,
208 How books mislead us, seeking their reward
209 From judgments of the wealthy Few, who see
210 By artificial lights; how they debase
[Page 344 ]
211 The Many for the pleasure of those Few;
212 Effeminately level down the truth
213 To certain general notions, for the sake
214 Of being understood at once, or else
215 Through want of better knowledge in the heads
216 That framed them; flattering self-conceit with words,
217 That, while they most ambitiously set forth
218 Extrinsic differences, the outward marks
219 Whereby society has parted man
220 From man, neglect the universal heart.
221 Here, calling up to mind what then I saw,
222 A youthful traveller, and see daily now
223 In the familiar circuit of my home,
224 Here might I pause, and bend in reverence
225 To Nature, and the power of human minds,
226 To men as they are men within themselves.
227 How oft high service is performed within,
228 When all the external man is rude in show,---
229 Not like a temple rich with pomp and gold,
230 But a mere mountain chapel, that protects
231 Its simple worshippers from sun and shower.
232 Of these, said I, shall be my song; of these,
233 If future years mature me for the task,
234 Will I record the praises, making verse
[Page 345 ]
235 Deal boldly with substantial things; in truth
236 And sanctity of passion, speak of these,
237 That justice may be done, obeisance paid
238 Where it is due: thus haply shall I teach,
239 Inspire, through unadulterated ears
240 Pour rapture, tenderness, and hope,---my theme
241 No other than the very heart of man,
242 As found among the best of those who live,
243 Not unexalted by religious faith,
244 Nor uninformed by books, good books, though few,
245 In Nature's presence: thence may I select
246 Sorrow, that is not sorrow, but delight;
247 And miserable love, that is not pain
248 To hear of, for the glory that redounds
249 Therefrom to human kind, and what we are.
250 Be mine to follow with no timid step
251 Where knowledge leads me: it shall be my pride
252 That I have dared to tread this holy ground,
253 Speaking no dream, but things oracular;
254 Matter not lightly to be heard by those
255 Who to the letter of the outward promise
256 Do read the invisible soul; by men adroit
257 In speech, and for communion with the world
258 Accomplished; minds whose faculties are then
259 Most active when they are most eloquent,
[Page 346 ]
260 And elevated most when most admired.
261 Men may be found of other mould than these,
262 Who are their own upholders, to themselves
263 Encouragement, and energy, and will,
264 Expressing liveliest thoughts in lively words
265 As native passion dictates. Others, too,
266 There are among the walks of homely life
267 Still higher, men for contemplation framed,
268 Shy, and unpractised in the strife of phrase;
269 Meek men, whose very souls perhaps would sink
270 Beneath them, summoned to such intercourse:
271 Theirs is the language of the heavens, the power,
272 The thought, the image, and the silent joy:
273 Words are but under-agents in their souls;
274 When they are grasping with their greatest strength,
275 They do not breathe among them: this I speak
276 In gratitude to God, Who feeds our hearts
277 For His own service; knoweth, loveth us,
278 When we are unregarded by the world.
279 Also, about this time did I receive
280 Convictions still more strong than heretofore,
281 Not only that the inner frame is good,
282 And graciously composed, but that, no less,
283 Nature for all conditions wants not power
[Page 347 ]
284 To consecrate, if we have eyes to see,
285 The outside of her creatures, and to breathe
286 Grandeur upon the very humblest face
287 Of human life. I felt that the array
288 Of act and circumstance, and visible form,
289 Is mainly to the pleasure of the mind
290 What passion makes them; that meanwhile the forms
291 Of Nature have a passion in themselves,
292 That intermingles with those works of man
293 To which she summons him; although the works
294 Be mean, have nothing lofty of their own;
295 And that the Genius of the Poet hence
296 May boldly take his way among mankind
297 Wherever Nature leads; that he hath stood
298 By Nature's side among the men of old,
299 And so shall stand for ever. Dearest Friend!
300 If thou partake the animating faith
301 That Poets, even as Prophets, each with each
302 Connected in a mighty scheme of truth,
303 Have each his own peculiar faculty,
304 Heaven's gift, a sense that fits him to perceive
305 Objects unseen before, thou wilt not blame
306 The humblest of this band who dares to hope
307 That unto him hath also been vouchsafed
308 An insight that in some sort he possesses,
[Page 348 ]
309 A privilege whereby a work of his,
310 Proceeding from a source of untaught things,
311 Creative and enduring, may become
312 A power like one of Nature's. To a hope
313 Not less ambitious once among the wilds
314 Of Sarum's Plain, my youthful spirit was raised;
315 There, as I ranged at will the pastoral downs
316 Trackless and smooth, or paced the bare white roads
317 Lengthening in solitude their dreary line,
318 Time with his retinue of ages fled
319 Backwards, nor checked his flight until I saw
320 Our dim ancestral Past in vision clear;
321 Saw multitudes of men, and, here and there,
322 A single Briton clothed in wolf-skin vest,
323 With shield and stone-axe, stride across the wold;
324 The voice of spears was heard, the rattling spear
325 Shaken by arms of mighty bone, in strength,
326 Long mouldered, of barbaric majesty.
327 I called on Darkness---but before the word
328 Was uttered, midnight darkness seemed to take
329 All objects from my sight; and lo! again
330 The Desert visible by dismal flames;
331 It is the sacrificial altar, fed
332 With living men---how deep the groans! the voice
333 Of those that crowd the giant wicker thrills
[Page 349 ]
334 The monumental hillocks, and the pomp
335 Is for both worlds, the living and the dead.
336 At other moments (for through that wide waste
337 Three summer days I roamed) where'er the Plain
338 Was figured o'er with circles, lines, or mounds,
339 That yet survive, a work, as some divine,
340 Shaped by the Druids, so to represent
341 Their knowledge of the heavens, and image forth
342 The constellations; gently was I charmed
343 Into a waking dream, a reverie
344 That, with believing eyes, where'er I turned,
345 Beheld long-bearded teachers, with white wands
346 Uplifted, pointing to the starry sky,
347 Alternately, and plain below, while breath
348 Of music swayed their motions, and the waste
349 Rejoiced with them and me in those sweet sounds.
350 This for the past, and things that may be viewed
351 Or fancied in the obscurity of years
352 From monumental hints: and thou, O Friend!
353 Pleased with some unpremeditated strains
354 That served those wanderings to beguile, hast said
355 That then and there my mind had exercised
356 Upon the vulgar forms of present things,
357 The actual world of our familiar days,
[Page 350 ]
358 Yet higher power; had caught from them a tone,
359 An image, and a character, by books
360 Not hitherto reflected. Call we this
361 A partial judgment---and yet why? for then
362 We were as strangers; and I may not speak
363 Thus wrongfully of verse, however rude,
364 Which on thy young imagination, trained
365 In the great City, broke like light from far.
366 Moreover, each man's Mind is to herself
367 Witness and judge; and I remember well
368 That in life's every-day appearances
369 I seemed about this time to gain clear sight
370 Of a new world---a world, too, that was fit
371 To be transmitted, and to other eyes
372 Made visible; as ruled by those fixed laws
373 Whence spiritual dignity originates,
374 Which do both give it being and maintain
375 A balance, an ennobling interchange
376 Of action from without and from within;
377 The excellence, pure function, and best power
378 Both of the object seen, and eye that sees.
[Page 351 ]
BOOK XIV.
CONCLUSION.
[Page 353 ]
1 In one of those excursions (may they ne'er
2 Fade from remembrance!) through the Northern tracts
3 Of Cambria ranging with a youthful friend,
4 I left Bethgelert's huts at couching-time,
5 And westward took my way, to see the sun
6 Rise from the top of Snowdon. To the door
7 Of a rude cottage at the mountain's base
8 We came, and roused the shepherd who attends
9 The adventurous stranger's steps, a trusty guide;
10 Then, cheered by short refreshment, sallied forth.
11 It was a close, warm, breezeless summer night,
12 Wan, dull, and glaring, with a dripping fog
13 Low-hung and thick that covered all the sky;
14 But, undiscouraged, we began to climb
[Page 354 ]
15 The mountain-side. The mist soon girt us round,
16 And, after ordinary travellers' talk
17 With our conductor, pensively we sank
18 Each into commerce with his private thoughts:
19 Thus did we breast the ascent, and by myself
20 Was nothing either seen or heard that checked
21 Those musings or diverted, save that once
22 The shepherd's lurcher, who, among the crags,
23 Had to his joy unearthed a hedgehog, teased
24 His coiled-up prey with barkings turbulent.
25 This small adventure, for even such it seemed
26 In that wild place and at the dead of night,
27 Being over and forgotten, on we wound
28 In silence as before. With forehead bent
29 Earthward, as if in opposition set
30 Against an enemy, I panted up
31 With eager pace, and no less eager thoughts.
32 Thus might we wear a midnight hour away,
33 Ascending at loose distance each from each,
34 And I, as chanced, the foremost of the band;
35 When at my feet the ground appeared to brighten,
36 And with a step or two seemed brighter still;
37 Nor was time given to ask or learn the cause,
38 For instantly a light upon the turf
39 Fell like a flash, and lo! as I looked up,
[Page 355 ]
40 The Moon hung naked in a firmament
41 Of azure without cloud, and at my feet
42 Rested a silent sea of hoary mist.
43 A hundred hills their dusky backs upheaved
44 All over this still ocean; and beyond,
45 Far, far beyond, the solid vapours stretched,
46 In headlands, tongues, and promontory shapes,
47 Into the main Atlantic, that appeared
48 To dwindle, and give up his majesty,
49 Usurped upon far as the sight could reach.
50 Not so the ethereal vault; encroachment none
51 Was there, nor loss; only the inferior stars
52 Had disappeared, or shed a fainter light
53 In the clear presence of the full-orbed Moon,
54 Who, from her sovereign elevation, gazed
55 Upon the billowy ocean, as it lay
56 All meek and silent, save that through a rift---
57 Not distant from the shore whereon we stood,
58 A fixed, abysmal, gloomy, breathing-place---
59 Mounted the roar of waters, torrents, streams
60 Innumerable, roaring with one voice!
61 Heard over earth and sea, and, in that hour,
62 For so it seemed, felt by the starry heavens.
63 When into air had partially dissolved
[Page 356 ]
64 That vision, given to spirits of the night
65 And three chance human wanderers, in calm thought
66 Reflected, it appeared to me the type
67 Of a majestic intellect, its acts
68 And its possessions, what it has and craves,
69 What in itself it is, and would become.
70 There I beheld the emblem of a mind
71 That feeds upon infinity, that broods
72 Over the dark abyss, intent to hear
73 Its voices issuing forth to silent light
74 In one continuous stream; a mind sustained
75 By recognitions of transcendent power,
76 In sense conducting to ideal form,
77 In soul of more than mortal privilege.
78 One function, above all, of such a mind
79 Had Nature shadowed there, by putting forth,
80 'Mid circumstances awful and sublime,
81 That mutual domination which she loves
82 To exert upon the face of outward things,
83 So moulded, joined, abstracted, so endowed
84 With interchangeable supremacy,
85 That men, least sensitive, see, hear, perceive,
86 And cannot choose but feel. The power, which all
87 Acknowledge when thus moved, which Nature thus
88 To bodily sense exhibits, is the express
[Page 357 ]
89 Resemblance of that glorious faculty
90 That higher minds bear with them as their own.
91 This is the very spirit in which they deal
92 With the whole compass of the universe:
93 They from their native selves can send abroad
94 Kindred mutations; for themselves create
95 A like existence; and, whene'er it dawns
96 Created for them, catch it, or are caught
97 By its inevitable mastery,
98 Like angels stopped upon the wing by sound
99 Of harmony from Heaven's remotest spheres.
100 Them the enduring and the transient both
101 Serve to exalt; they build up greatest things
102 From least suggestions; ever on the watch,
103 Willing to work and to be wrought upon,
104 They need not extraordinary calls
105 To rouse them; in a world of life they live,
106 By sensible impressions not enthralled,
107 But by their quickening impulse made more prompt
108 To hold fit converse with the spiritual world,
109 And with the generations of mankind
110 Spread over time, past, present, and to come,
111 Age after age, till Time shall be no more.
112 Such minds are truly from the Deity,
113 For they are Powers; and hence the highest bliss
[Page 358 ]
114 That flesh can know is theirs---the consciousness
115 Of Whom they are, habitually infused
116 Through every image and through every thought,
117 And all affections by communion raised
118 From earth to heaven, from human to divine;
119 Hence endless occupation for the Soul,
120 Whether discursive or intuitive;
121 Hence cheerfulness for acts of daily life,
122 Emotions which best foresight need not fear,
123 Most worthy then of trust when most intense.
124 Hence, amid ills that vex and wrongs that crush
125 Our hearts---if here the words of Holy Writ
126 May with fit reverence be applied---that peace
127 Which passeth understanding, that repose
128 In moral judgments which from this pure source
129 Must come, or will by man be sought in vain.
130 Oh! who is he that hath his whole life long
131 Preserved, enlarged, this freedom in himself?
132 For this alone is genuine liberty:
133 Where is the favoured being who hath held
134 That course unchecked, unerring, and untired,
135 In one perpetual progress smooth and bright?---
136 A humbler destiny have we retraced,
137 And told of lapse and hesitating choice,
[Page 359 ]
138 And backward wanderings along thorny ways:
139 Yet---compassed round by mountain solitudes,
140 Within whose solemn temple I received
141 My earliest visitations, careless then
142 Of what was given me; and which now I range,
143 A meditative, oft a suffering man---
144 Do I declare---in accents which, from truth
145 Deriving cheerful confidence, shall blend
146 Their modulation with these vocal streams---
147 That, whatsoever falls my better mind,
148 Revolving with the accidents of life,
149 May have sustained, that, howsoe'er misled,
150 Never did I, in quest of right and wrong,
151 Tamper with conscience from a private aim;
152 Nor was in any public hope the dupe
153 Of selfish passions; nor did ever yield
154 Wilfully to mean cares or low pursuits,
155 But shrunk with apprehensive jealousy
156 From every combination which might aid
157 The tendency, too potent in itself,
158 Of use and custom to bow down the soul
159 Under a growing weight of vulgar sense,
160 And substitute a universe of death
161 For that which moves with light and life informed,
162 Actual, divine, and true. To fear and love,
[Page 360 ]
163 To love as prime and chief, for there fear ends,
164 Be this ascribed; to early intercourse,
165 In presence of sublime or beautiful forms,
166 With the adverse principles of pain and joy---
167 Evil as one is rashly named by men
168 Who know not what they speak. By love subsists
169 All lasting grandeur, by pervading love;
170 That gone, we are as dust.---Behold the fields
171 In balmy spring-time full of rising flowers
172 And joyous creatures; see that pair, the lamb
173 And the lamb's mother, and their tender ways
174 Shall touch thee to the heart; thou callest this love,
175 And not inaptly so, for love it is,
176 Far as it carries thee. In some green bower
177 Rest, and be not alone, but have thou there
178 The One who is thy choice of all the world:
179 There linger, listening, gazing, with delight
180 Impassioned, but delight how pitiable!
181 Unless this love by a still higher love
182 Be hallowed, love that breathes not without awe;
183 Love that adores, but on the knees of prayer,
184 By heaven inspired; that frees from chains the soul,
185 Lifted, in union with the purest, best,
186 Of earth-born passions, on the wings of praise
187 Bearing a tribute to the Almighty's Throne.
[Page 361 ]
188 This spiritual Love acts not nor can exist
189 Without Imagination, which, in truth,
190 Is but another name for absolute power
191 And clearest insight, amplitude of mind,
192 And Reason in her most exalted mood.
193 This faculty hath been the feeding source
194 Of our long labour: we have traced the stream
195 From the blind cavern whence is faintly heard
196 Its natal murmur; followed it to light
197 And open day; accompanied its course
198 Among the ways of Nature, for a time
199 Lost sight of it bewildered and engulphed:
200 Then given it greeting as it rose once more
201 In strength, reflecting from its placid breast
202 The works of man and face of human life;
203 And lastly, from its progress have we drawn
204 Faith in life endless, the sustaining thought
205 Of human Being, Eternity, and God.
206 Imagination having been our theme,
207 So also hath that intellectual Love,
208 For they are each in each, and cannot stand
209 Dividually.---Here must thou be, O Man!
210 Power to thyself; no Helper hast thou here;
211 Here keepest thou in singleness thy state:
[Page 362 ]
212 No other can divide with thee this work:
213 No secondary hand can intervene
214 To fashion this ability; 'tis thine,
215 The prime and vital principle is thine
216 In the recesses of thy nature, far
217 From any reach of outward fellowship,
218 Else is not thine at all. But joy to him,
219 Oh, joy to him who here hath sown, hath laid
220 Here, the foundation of his future years!
221 For all that friendship, all that love can do,
222 All that a darling countenance can look
223 Or dear voice utter, to complete the man,
224 Perfect him, made imperfect in himself,
225 All shall be his: and he whose soul hath risen
226 Up to the height of feeling intellect
227 Shall want no humbler tenderness; his heart
228 Be tender as a nursing mother's heart;
229 Of female softness shall his life be full,
230 Of humble cares and delicate desires,
231 Mild interests and gentlest sympathies.
232 Child of my parents! Sister of my soul!
233 Thanks in sincerest verse have been elsewhere
234 Poured out for all the early tenderness
235 Which I from thee imbibed: and 'tis most true
[Page 363 ]
236 That later seasons owed to thee no less;
237 For, spite of thy sweet influence and the touch
238 Of kindred hands that opened out the springs
239 Of genial thought in childhood, and in spite
240 Of all that unassisted I had marked
241 In life or nature of those charms minute
242 That win their way into the heart by stealth
243 (Still to the very going-out of youth),
244 I too exclusively esteemed that love,
245 And sought that beauty, which, as Milton sings,
246 Hath terror in it. Thou didst soften down
247 This over-sternness; but for thee, dear Friend!
248 My soul, too reckless of mild grace, had stood
249 In her original self too confident,
250 Retained too long a countenance severe;
251 A rock with torrents roaring, with the clouds
252 Familiar, and a favourite of the stars:
253 But thou didst plant its crevices with flowers,
254 Hang it with shrubs that twinkle in the breeze,
255 And teach the little birds to build their nests
256 And warble in its chambers. At a time
257 When Nature, destined to remain so long
258 Foremost in my affections, had fallen back
259 Into a second place, pleased to become
260 A handmaid to a nobler than herself,
[Page 364 ]
261 When every day brought with it some new sense
262 Of exquisite regard for common things,
263 And all the earth was budding with these gifts
264 Of more refined humanity, thy breath,
265 Dear Sister! was a kind of gentler spring
266 That went before my steps. Thereafter came
267 One whom with thee friendship had early paired;
268 She came, no more a phantom to adorn
269 A moment, but an inmate of the heart,
270 And yet a spirit, there for me enshrined
271 To penetrate the lofty and the low;
272 Even as one essence of pervading light
273 Shines, in the brightest of ten thousand stars,
274 And, the meek worm that feeds her lonely lamp
275 Couched in the dewy grass.
275 With such a theme,
276 Coleridge! with this my argument, of thee
277 Shall I be silent? O capacious Soul!
278 Placed on this earth to love and understand,
279 And from thy presence shed the light of love,
280 Shall I be mute, ere thou be spoken of?
281 Thy kindred influence to my heart of hearts
282 Did also find its way. Thus fear relaxed
283 Her overweening grasp; thus thoughts and things
284 In the self-haunting spirit learned to take
[Page 365 ]
285 More rational proportions; mystery,
286 The incumbent mystery of sense and soul,
287 Of life and death, time and eternity,
288 Admitted more habitually a mild
289 Interposition---a serene delight
290 In closelier gathering cares, such as become
291 A human creature, howsoe'er endowed,
292 Poet, or destined for a humbler name;
293 And so the deep enthusiastic joy,
294 The rapture of the hallelujah sent
295 From all that breathes and is, was chastened, stemmed
296 And balanced by pathetic truth, by trust
297 In hopeful reason, leaning on the stay
298 Of Providence; and in reverence for duty,
299 Here, if need be, struggling with storms, and there
300 Strewing in peace life's humblest ground with herbs,
301 At every season green, sweet at all hours.
302 And now, O Friend! this history is brought
303 To its appointed close: the discipline
304 And consummation of a Poet's mind,
305 In everything that stood most prominent,
306 Have faithfully been pictured; we have reached
307 The time (our guiding object from the first)
308 When we may, not presumptuously, I hope,
[Page 366 ]
309 Suppose my powers so far confirmed, and such
310 My knowledge, as to make me capable
311 Of building up a Work that shall endure.
312 Yet much hath been omitted, as need was;
313 Of books how much! and even of the other wealth
314 That is collected among woods and fields,
315 Far more: for Nature's secondary grace
316 Hath hitherto been barely touched upon,
317 The charm more superficial that attends
318 Her works, as they present to Fancy's choice
319 Apt illustrations of the moral world,
320 Caught at a glance, or traced with curious pains.
321 Finally, and above all, O Friend! (I speak
322 With due regret) how much is overlooked
323 In human nature and her subtle ways,
324 As studied first in our own hearts, and then
325 In life among the passions of mankind,
326 Varying their composition and their hue,
327 Where'er we move, under the diverse shapes
328 That individual character presents
329 To an attentive eye. For progress meet,
330 Along this intricate and difficult path,
331 Whate'er was wanting, something had I gained,
332 As one of many schoolfellows compelled,
[Page 367 ]
333 In hardy independence, to stand up
334 Amid conflicting interests, and the shock
335 Of various tempers; to endure and note
336 What was not understood, though known to be;
337 Among the mysteries of love and hate,
338 Honour and shame, looking to right and left,
339 Unchecked by innocence too delicate,
340 And moral notions too intolerant,
341 Sympathies too contracted. Hence, when called
342 To take a station among men, the step
343 Was easier, the transition more secure,
344 More profitable also; for, the mind
345 Learns from such timely exercise to keep
346 In wholesome separation the two natures,
347 The one that feels, the other that observes.
348 Yet one word more of personal concern---
349 Since I withdrew unwillingly from France,
350 I led an undomestic wanderer's life,
351 In London chiefly harboured, whence I roamed,
352 Tarrying at will in many a pleasant spot
353 Of rural England's cultivated vales
354 Or Cambrian solitudes. A youth---(he bore
355 The name of Calvert---it shall live, if words
356 Of mine can give it life,) in firm belief
[Page 368 ]
357 That by endowments not from me withheld
358 Good might be furthered---in his last decay
359 By a bequest sufficient for my needs
360 Enabled me to pause for choice, and walk
361 At large and unrestrained, nor damped too soon
362 By mortal cares. Himself no Poet, yet
363 Far less a common follower of the world,
364 He deemed that my pursuits and labours lay
365 Apart from all that leads to wealth, or even
366 A necessary maintenance insures,
367 Without some hazard to the finer sense;
368 He cleared a passage for me, and the stream
369 Flowed in the bent of Nature.
369 Having now
370 Told what best merits mention, further pains
371 Our present purpose seems not to require,
372 And I have other tasks. Recall to mind
373 The mood in which this labour was begun,
374 O Friend! The termination of my course
375 Is nearer now, much nearer; yet even then,
376 In that distraction and intense desire,
377 I said unto the life which I had lived,
378 Where art thou? Hear I not a voice from thee
379 Which 'tis reproach to hear? Anon I rose
380 As if on wings, and saw beneath me stretched
[Page 369 ]
381 Vast prospect of the world which I had been
382 And was; and hence this Song, which like a lark
383 I have protracted, in the unwearied heavens
384 Singing, and often with more plaintive voice
385 To earth attempered and her deep-drawn sighs,
386 Yet centring all in love, and in the end
387 All gratulant, if rightly understood.
388 Whether to me shall be allotted life,
389 And, with life, power to accomplish aught of worth,
390 That will be deemed no insufficient plea
391 For having given the story of myself,
392 Is all uncertain: but, beloved Friend!
393 When, looking back, thou seest, in clearer view
394 Than any liveliest sight of yesterday,
395 That summer, under whose indulgent skies,
396 Upon smooth Quantock's airy ridge we roved
397 Unchecked, or loitered 'mid her sylvan combs,
398 Thou in bewitching words, with happy heart,
399 Didst chaunt the vision of that Ancient Man,
400 The bright-eyed Mariner, and rueful woes
401 Didst utter of the Lady Christabel;
402 And I, associate with such labour, steeped
403 In soft forgetfulness the livelong hours,
404 Murmuring of him who, joyous hap, was found,
[Page 370 ]
405 After the perils of his moonlight ride,
406 Near the loud waterfall; or her who sate
407 In misery near the miserable Thorn;
408 When thou dost to that summer turn thy thoughts,
409 And hast before thee all which then we were,
410 To thee, in memory of that happiness,
411 It will be known, by thee at least, my Friend!
412 Felt, that the history of a Poet's mind
413 Is labour not unworthy of regard:
414 To thee the work shall justify itself.
415 The last and later portions of this gift
416 Have been prepared, not with the buoyant spirits
417 That were our daily portion when we first
418 Together wantoned in wild Poesy,
419 But, under pressure of a private grief,
420 Keen and enduring, which the mind and heart,
421 That in this meditative history
422 Have been laid open, needs must make me feel
423 More deeply, yet enable me to bear
424 More firmly; and a comfort now hath risen
425 From hope that thou art near, and wilt be soon
426 Restored to us in renovated health;
427 When, after the first mingling of our tears,
[Page 371 ]
428 'Mong other consolations, we may draw
429 Some pleasure from this offering of my love.
430 Oh! yet a few short years of useful life,
431 And all will be complete, thy race be run,
432 Thy monument of glory will be raised;
433 Then, though (too weak to tread the ways of truth)
434 This age fall back to old idolatry,
435 Though men return to servitude as fast
436 As the tide ebbs, to ignominy and shame
437 By nations sink together, we shall still
438 Find solace---knowing what we have learnt to know,
439 Rich in true happiness if allowed to be
440 Faithful alike in forwarding a day
441 Of firmer trust, joint labourers in the work
442 (Should Providence such grace to us vouchsafe)
443 Of their deliverance, surely yet to come.
444 Prophets of Nature, we to them will speak
445 A lasting inspiration, sanctified
446 By reason, blest by faith: what we have loved,
447 Others will love, and we will teach them how;
448 Instruct them how the mind of man becomes
449 A thousand times more beautiful than the earth
450 On which he dwells, above this frame of things
[Page 372 ]
451 (Which, 'mid all revolution in the hopes
452 And fears of men, doth still remain unchanged)
453 In beauty exalted, as it is itself
454 Of quality and fabric more divine.
