own purpose into the 'waters of the deep,' as he changed the row of
Castilian wind-mills into giants, and the roar of the fulling mills
into the din of war.
"Wordsworth is now awake from his dream, but turning all he saw in it
into a reality, as only the poet can, he feels that
'Reverence was due to a being thus employed;
And thought that, _in the blind and awful lair
Of such a madness, reason did lie couched._'
Here again is a most profound description of the creation of
Cervantes. Don Quixote was mad, but his was a madness that proceeded
from that 'blind and awful lair,' a disordered stomach, rather than
from an injured brain. Had Don Quixote not forsaken the exercise of
the chase and early rising, if he had not taken to eating chestnuts at
night, cold spiced meat, together with onions and 'ollas podridas',
then proceeding to read exciting, unnatural tales of love and war, he
would not have gone mad.
"But his reason only lay 'couched,' not overthrown. Only give him a
dose of the balsam of Fierabras, his reason shall spring out of its
lair, like a lion from out its hiding-place, as indeed it did; and you
then have that wonderful piece of rhetoric, which describes the army
of Alifanfaron in the eighteenth chapter, Part I.
"There are many other things worthy of note, such as
'crazed
By love and feeling, and internal thought
Protracted among endless solitudes,'
all of which are 'fit epithets blessed in the marriage of pure words,'
which the author of 'The Prelude', without any special learning, or
personal knowledge of Spain, has given us, and are so striking as to
compel us once again to go to Wordsworth and say, 'we do not all
understand thee yet, not all that thou hast given us.'
Very truly yours, A. J. Duffield."
Ed.]
[Footnote E: Compare 'Paradise Lost', v. 1. 150:
'In prose or numerous verse.'
Ed.]
[Footnote F: Wordsworth's earliest teachers, before he was sent to
Hawkshead School, were his mother and the Rev. Mr. Gilbanks at
Cockermouth, and Mrs. Anne Birkett at Penrith. His mother and Dame
Birkett taught him to read, and trained his infant memory. Mr. Gilbanks
also gave him elementary instruction; while his father made him commit
to memory portions of the English poets. At Hawkshead he read English
literature, learned Latin and Mathematics, and wrote both English and
Latin verse. There was little or no method, and no mechanical or
artificial drill in his early education. Though he was taught both
languages and mathematics he was left as free to range the "happy
pastures" of literature, as to range the Hawkshead woods on autumn
nights in pursuit of woodcocks. It is likely that the reference in the
above passage is to his education both in childhood and in youth,
although specially to the former. In his 'Autobiographical Memoranda',
Wordsworth says,
"Of my earliest days at School I have little to say, but that they
were very happy ones, chiefly because I was left at liberty, then and
in the vacations, to read whatever books I liked. For example, I read
all Fielding's works, 'Don Quixote', 'Gil Blas', and any part of
Swift that I liked; 'Gulliver's Travels' and the 'Tale of a Tub' being
both much to my taste."
As Wordsworth alludes to Coleridge's education, along with his own, "in
the season of unperilous choice," the reference is probably to
Coleridge's early time at the vicarage of Ottery St. Mary's, Devonshire,
and at the Grammar School there, as well as at Christ's Hospital in
London, where (with Charles Lamb as school-companion) he was as
enthusiastic in his exploits in the New River, as he was an eager
student of books.--Ed.]
[Footnote G: Mrs. Wordsworth died at Penrith, in the year 1778, the
poet's eighth year.--Ed.]
[Footnote H: Compare, in 'Expostulation and Reply' (vol. i. p. 273),
'Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum
Of things for ever speaking,
That nothing of itself will come,
But we must still be seeking?'
Ed.]
[Footnote I: See the Fenwick note to the poem, 'There was a Boy', vol.
ii. p. 57, and Wordsworth's reference to his schoolfellow William
Raincock.--Ed.]
[Footnote K: Hawkshead Grammar School.--Ed.]
[Footnote L: Lines 364-97 were first published in "Lyrical Ballads,"
1800, and appeared in all the subsequent collective editions of the
poems, standing first in the group of "Poems of the Imagination."
The grave of this "immortal boy" cannot be identified. His name, and
everything about him except what is here recorded, is unknown; but he
was, in all likelihood, a school companion of Wordsworth's at Hawkshead.
'And through that churchyard when my way has led
On summer evenings.'
One may localize the above description almost anywhere at
Hawkshead--Ed.]
[Footnote M: Hawkshead School, in which Wordsworth was taught for eight
years--from 1778 to 1786--was founded by Archbishop Sandys of York, in
1585, and the building is still very much as it was in Wordsworth's
time. The main school-room is on the ground floor. One small chamber on
the first floor was used, in the end of last century, by the head
master, as a private class-room, for teaching a few advanced pupils. In
another is a small library, formed in part by the donations of the
scholars; it having been a custom for each pupil to present a volume on
leaving the school, or to send one afterwards. Very probably one of the
volumes now in the library was presented by Wordsworth. There are
several which were presented by his school-fellows, during the years in
which Wordsworth was at Hawkshead. The master, in 1877, promised me that
he would search through his somewhat musty treasures, to see if he could
discover a book with the poet's autograph; but I never heard of his
success. On the wall of the room containing the library is a tablet,
recording the names of several masters. There also, in an old oak chest,
is kept the original charter of the school. The oak benches downstairs
are covered with the names or initials of the boys, deeply cut; and,
amongst them, the name of William Wordsworth--but not those of his
brothers Richard, John, or Christopher--may be seen. For further details
as to the Hawkshead School, see the 'Life' of the Poet in this edition.
Towards the close of last century, when Wordsworth and his three
brothers were educated there, the school was one of the best educational
institutions in the north of England.--Ed.]
[Footnote N: Compare in the lines beginning "She was a Phantom of
delight" p. 2:
'Creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food.'
Ed.]
[Footnote O: Compare book iv. ll. 50 and 383, with relative notes--Ed.]
[Footnote P: Compare in 'Fidelity', p. 45:
'There sometimes doth a leaping fish
Send through the tarn a lonely cheer.'
Ed.]
[Footnote Q: Compare the 'Ode, Intimations of Immortality', stanza
v.--Ed.]
[Footnote R: Compare, in 'Tintern Abbey', vol. ii. p.54:
'That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures.'
And in the 'Ode, Intimations of Immortality', vol. viii.:
'What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight.'
Ed.]
[Footnote S: This friend of his boyhood, with whom Wordsworth spent
these "delightful hours," is as unknown as is the immortal Boy of
Windermere, who blew "mimic hootings to the silent owls," and who sleeps
in the churchyard "above the village school" of Hawkshead, and the Lucy
of the Goslar poems. Compare, however, p. 163. Wordsworth _may_ refer to
John Fleming of Rayrigg, with whom he used to take morning walks round
Esthwaite:
'... five miles
Of pleasant wandering ...'
Ed.]
[Footnote T: Esthwaite.--Ed.]
[Footnote U: Probably they were passages from Goldsmith, or Pope, or
writers of their school. The verses which he wrote upon the completion
of the second century of the foundation of the school were, as he
himself tells us, "a tame imitation of Pope's versification, and a
little in his style."--Ed.]
* * * * *
SUB-FOOTNOTE ON THE TEXT
[Sub-Footnote a: Wordsworth studied Spanish during the winter he spent
at Orleans (1792). Don Quixote was one of the books he had read when at
the Hawkshead school.--Ed.]
* * * * *
BOOK SIXTH
CAMBRIDGE AND THE ALPS
The leaves were fading when to Esthwaite's banks
And the simplicities of cottage life
I bade farewell; and, one among the youth
Who, summoned by that season, reunite
As scattered birds troop to the fowler's lure, 5
Went back to Granta's cloisters, [A] not so prompt
Or eager, though as gay and undepressed
In mind, as when I thence had taken flight
A few short months before. I turned my face
Without repining from the coves and heights 10
Clothed in the sunshine of the withering fern; [B]
Quitted, not both, the mild magnificence
Of calmer lakes and louder streams; and you,
Frank-hearted maids of rocky Cumberland,
You and your not unwelcome days of mirth, 15
Relinquished, and your nights of revelry,
And in my own unlovely cell sate down
In lightsome mood--such privilege has youth
That cannot take long leave of pleasant thoughts.
The bonds of indolent society 20
Relaxing in their hold, henceforth I lived
More to myself. Two winters may be passed
Without a separate notice: many books
Were skimmed, devoured, or studiously perused,
But with no settled plan. [C] I was detached 25
Internally from academic cares;
Yet independent study seemed a course
Of hardy disobedience toward friends
And kindred, proud rebellion and unkind.
This spurious virtue, rather let it bear 30
A name it now deserves, this cowardice,
Gave treacherous sanction to that over-love
Of freedom which encouraged me to turn
From regulations even of my own
As from restraints and bonds. Yet who can tell--35
Who knows what thus may have been gained, both then
And at a later season, or preserved;
What love of nature, what original strength
Of contemplation, what intuitive truths,
The deepest and the best, what keen research, 40
Unbiassed, unbewildered, and unawed?
The Poet's soul was with me at that time;
Sweet meditations, the still overflow
Of present happiness, while future years
Lacked not anticipations, tender dreams, 45
No few of which have since been realised;
And some remain, hopes for my future life.
Four years and thirty, told this very week, [D]
Have I been now a sojourner on earth,
By sorrow not unsmitten; yet for me 50
Life's morning radiance hath not left the hills,
Her dew is on the flowers. Those were the days
Which also first emboldened me to trust
With firmness, hitherto but lightly touched
By such a daring thought, that I might leave 55
Some monument behind me which pure hearts
Should reverence. The instinctive humbleness,
Maintained even by the very name and thought
Of printed books and authorship, began
To melt away; and further, the dread awe 60
Of mighty names was softened down and seemed
Approachable, admitting fellowship
Of modest sympathy. Such aspect now,
Though not familiarly, my mind put on,
Content to observe, to achieve, and to enjoy. 65
All winter long, whenever free to choose,
Did I by night frequent the College groves
And tributary walks; the last, and oft
The only one, who had been lingering there
Through hours of silence, till the porter's bell, 70
A punctual follower on the stroke of nine,
Rang with its blunt unceremonious voice,
Inexorable summons! Lofty elms,
Inviting shades of opportune recess,
Bestowed composure on a neighbourhood 75
Unpeaceful in itself. A single tree
With sinuous trunk, boughs exquisitely wreathed,
Grew there; [E] an ash which Winter for himself
Decked out with pride, and with outlandish grace:
Up from the ground, and almost to the top, 80
The trunk and every master branch were green
With clustering ivy, and the lightsome twigs
And outer spray profusely tipped with seeds
That hung in yellow tassels, while the air
Stirred them, not voiceless. Often have I stood 85
Foot-bound uplooking at this lovely tree
Beneath a frosty moon. The hemisphere
Of magic fiction, verse of mine perchance
May never tread; but scarcely Spenser's self
Could have more tranquil visions in his youth, 90
Or could more bright appearances create
Of human forms with superhuman powers,
Than I beheld loitering on calm clear nights
Alone, beneath this fairy work of earth.
On the vague reading of a truant youth [F] 95
'Twere idle to descant. My inner judgment
Not seldom differed from my taste in books.
As if it appertained to another mind,
And yet the books which then I valued most
Are dearest to me _now_; for, having scanned, 100
Not heedlessly, the laws, and watched the forms
Of Nature, in that knowledge I possessed
A standard, often usefully applied,
Even when unconsciously, to things removed
From a familiar sympathy.--In fine, 105
I was a better judge of thoughts than words,
Misled in estimating words, not only
By common inexperience of youth,
But by the trade in classic niceties,
The dangerous craft of culling term and phrase 110
From languages that want the living voice
To carry meaning to the natural heart;
To tell us what is passion, what is truth,
What reason, what simplicity and sense.
Yet may we not entirely overlook 115
The pleasure gathered from the rudiments
Of geometric science. Though advanced
In these inquiries, with regret I speak,
No farther than the threshold, [G] there I found
Both elevation and composed delight: 120
With Indian awe and wonder, ignorance pleased
With its own struggles, did I meditate
On the relation those abstractions bear
To Nature's laws, and by what process led,
Those immaterial agents bowed their heads 125
Duly to serve the mind of earth-born man;
From star to star, from kindred sphere to sphere,
From system on to system without end.
More frequently from the same source I drew
A pleasure quiet and profound, a sense 130
Of permanent and universal sway,
And paramount belief; there, recognised
A type, for finite natures, of the one
Supreme Existence, the surpassing life
Which--to the boundaries of space and time, 135
Of melancholy space and doleful time,
Superior, and incapable of change,
Nor touched by welterings of passion--is,
And hath the name of, God. Transcendent peace
And silence did await upon these thoughts 140
That were a frequent comfort to my youth.
'Tis told by one whom stormy waters threw,
With fellow-sufferers by the shipwreck spared,
Upon a desert coast, that having brought
To land a single volume, saved by chance, 145
A treatise of Geometry, he wont,
Although of food and clothing destitute,
And beyond common wretchedness depressed,
To part from company and take this book
(Then first a self-taught pupil in its truths) 150
To spots remote, and draw his diagrams
With a long staff upon the sand, and thus
Did oft beguile his sorrow, and almost
Forget his feeling: so (if like effect
From the same cause produced, 'mid outward things 155
So different, may rightly be compared),
So was it then with me, and so will be
With Poets ever. Mighty is the charm
Of those abstractions to a mind beset
With images, and haunted by herself, 160
And specially delightful unto me
Was that clear synthesis built up aloft
So gracefully; even then when it appeared
Not more than a mere plaything, or a toy
To sense embodied: not the thing it is 165
In verity, an independent world,
Created out of pure intelligence.
Such dispositions then were mine unearned
By aught, I fear, of genuine desert--
Mine, through heaven's grace and inborn aptitudes. 170
And not to leave the story of that time
Imperfect, with these habits must be joined,
Moods melancholy, fits of spleen, that loved
A pensive sky, sad days, and piping winds,
The twilight more than dawn, autumn than spring; [H] 175
A treasured and luxurious gloom of choice
And inclination mainly, and the mere
Redundancy of youth's contentedness.
--To time thus spent, add multitudes of hours
Pilfered away, by what the Bard who sang 180
Of the Enchanter Indolence hath called
"Good-natured lounging," [I] and behold a map
Of my collegiate life--far less intense
Than duty called for, or, without regard
To duty, _might_ have sprung up of itself 185
By change of accidents, or even, to speak
Without unkindness, in another place.
Yet why take refuge in that plea?--the fault,
This I repeat, was mine; mine be the blame.
In summer, making quest for works of art, 190
Or scenes renowned for beauty, I explored
That streamlet whose blue current works its way
Between romantic Dovedale's spiry rocks; [K]
Pried into Yorkshire dales, [L] or hidden tracts
Of my own native region, and was blest 195
Between these sundry wanderings with a joy
Above all joys, that seemed another morn
Risen on mid noon; [M] blest with the presence, Friend!
Of that sole Sister, her who hath been long
Dear to thee also, thy true friend and mine, [N] 200
Now, after separation desolate,
Restored to me--such absence that she seemed
A gift then first bestowed. [O] The varied banks
Of Emont, hitherto unnamed in song, [P]
And that monastic castle, 'mid tall trees, 205
Low-standing by the margin of the stream, [Q]
A mansion visited (as fame reports)
By Sidney, [R] where, in sight of our Helvellyn,
Or stormy Cross-fell, snatches he might pen
Of his Arcadia, by fraternal love 210
Inspired;--that river and those mouldering towers
Have seen us side by side, when, having clomb
The darksome windings of a broken stair,
And crept along a ridge of fractured wall,
Not without trembling, we in safety looked 215
Forth, through some Gothic window's open space,
And gathered with one mind a rich reward
From the far-stretching landscape, by the light
Of morning beautified, or purple eve;
Or, not less pleased, lay on some turret's head, 220
Catching from tufts of grass and hare-bell flowers
Their faintest whisper to the passing breeze,
Given out while mid-day heat oppressed the plains.
Another maid there was, [S] who also shed
A gladness o'er that season, then to me, 225
By her exulting outside look of youth
And placid under-countenance, first endeared;
That other spirit, Coleridge! who is now
So near to us, that meek confiding heart,
So reverenced by us both. O'er paths and fields 230
In all that neighbourhood, through narrow lanes
Of eglantine, and through the shady woods,
And o'er the Border Beacon, and the waste [T]
Of naked pools, and common crags that lay
Exposed on the bare felt, were scattered love, 235
The spirit of pleasure, and youth's golden gleam.
O Friend! we had not seen thee at that time,
And yet a power is on me, and a strong
Confusion, and I seem to plant thee there.
Far art thou wandered now in search of health 240
And milder breezes,--melancholy lot! [U]
But thou art with us, with us in the past,
The present, with us in the times to come.
There is no grief, no sorrow, no despair,
No languor, no dejection, no dismay, 245
No absence scarcely can there be, for those
Who love as we do. Speed thee well! divide
With us thy pleasure; thy returning strength,
Receive it daily as a joy of ours;
Share with us thy fresh spirits, whether gift 250
Of gales Etesian or of tender thoughts. [V]
I, too, have been a wanderer; but, alas!
How different the fate of different men.
Though mutually unknown, yea nursed and reared
As if in several elements, we were framed 255
To bend at last to the same discipline,
Predestined, if two beings ever were,
To seek the same delights, and have one health,
One happiness. Throughout this narrative,
Else sooner ended, I have borne in mind 260
For whom it registers the birth, and marks the growth,
Of gentleness, simplicity, and truth,
And joyous loves, that hallow innocent days
Of peace and self-command. Of rivers, fields,
And groves I speak to thee, my Friend! to thee, 265
Who, yet a liveried schoolboy, in the depths
Of the huge city, [W] on the leaded roof
Of that wide edifice, [X] thy school and home,
Wert used to lie and gaze upon the clouds
Moving in heaven; or, of that pleasure tired, 270
To shut thine eyes, and by internal light
See trees, and meadows, and thy native stream, [Y]
Far distant, thus beheld from year to year
Of a long exile. Nor could I forget,
In this late portion of my argument, 275
That scarcely, as my term of pupilage
Ceased, had I left those academic bowers
When thou wert thither guided. [Z] From the heart
Of London, and from cloisters there, thou camest,
And didst sit down in temperance and peace, 280
A rigorous student. [a] What a stormy course
Then followed. [b] Oh! it is a pang that calls
For utterance, to think what easy change
Of circumstances might to thee have spared
A world of pain, ripened a thousand hopes, 285
For ever withered. Through this retrospect
Of my collegiate life I still have had
Thy after-sojourn in the self-same place
Present before my eyes, have played with times
And accidents as children do with cards, 290
Or as a man, who, when his house is built,
A frame locked up in wood and stone, doth still,
As impotent fancy prompts, by his fireside,
Rebuild it to his liking. I have thought
Of thee, thy learning, gorgeous eloquence, 295
And all the strength and plumage of thy youth,
Thy subtle speculations, toils abstruse
Among the schoolmen, and Platonic forms
Of wild ideal pageantry, shaped out
From things well-matched or ill, and words for things, 300
The self-created sustenance of a mind
Debarred from Nature's living images,
Compelled to be a life unto herself,
And unrelentingly possessed by thirst
Of greatness, love, and beauty. Not alone, 305
Ah! surely not in singleness of heart
Should I have seen the light of evening fade
From smooth Cam's silent waters: had we met,
Even at that early time, needs must I trust
In the belief, that my maturer age, 310
My calmer habits, and more steady voice,
Would with an influence benign have soothed,
Or chased away, the airy wretchedness
That battened on thy youth. But thou hast trod
A march of glory, which doth put to shame 315
These vain regrets; health suffers in thee, else
Such grief for thee would be the weakest thought
That ever harboured in the breast of man.
A passing word erewhile did lightly touch
On wanderings of my own, that now embraced 320
With livelier hope a region wider far.
When the third summer freed us from restraint,
A youthful friend, he too a mountaineer, [c]
Not slow to share my wishes, took his staff,
And sallying forth, we journeyed side by side, 325
Bound to the distant Alps. [d] A hardy slight
Did this unprecedented course imply
Of college studies and their set rewards;
Nor had, in truth, the scheme been formed by me
Without uneasy forethought of the pain, 330
The censures, and ill-omening of those
To whom my worldly interests were dear.
But Nature then was sovereign in my mind,
And mighty forms, seizing a youthful fancy,
Had given a charter to irregular hopes. 335
In any age of uneventful calm
Among the nations, surely would my heart
Have been possessed by similar desire;
But Europe at that time was thrilled with joy,
France standing on the top of golden hours, [e] 340
And human nature seeming born again. [f]