Now, to a maturer Audience, 25
Let me speak of this brave Child
Left among her native mountains
With wild Nature to run wild.
So, unwatched by love maternal,
Mother’s care no more her guide, 30
Fared this little bright-eyed Orphan
Even while at her father’s side.
Spare your blame,--remembrance makes him
Loth to rule by strict command;
Still upon his cheek are living 35
Touches of her infant hand,
Dear caresses given in pity,
Sympathy that soothed his grief,
As the dying mother witnessed
To her thankful mind’s relief. 40
Time passed on; the Child was happy,
Like a Spirit of air she moved,
Wayward, yet by all who knew her
For her tender heart beloved.
Scarcely less than sacred passions, 45
Bred in house, in grove, and field,
Link her with the inferior creatures,
Urge her powers their rights to shield.
Anglers, bent on reckless pastime,
Learn how she can feel alike 50
Both for tiny harmless minnow
And the fierce and sharp-toothed pike.
Merciful protectress, kindling
Into anger or disdain;
Many a captive hath she rescued, 55
Others saved from lingering pain.
Listen yet awhile;--with patience
Hear the homely truths I tell,
She in Grasmere’s old church-steeple
Tolled this day the passing-bell. 60
Yes, the wild Girl of the mountains
To their echoes gave the sound,
Notice punctual as the minute,
Warning solemn and profound.
She, fulfilling her sire’s office, 65
Rang alone the far-heard knell,
Tribute, by her hand, in sorrow,
Paid to One who loved her well.
When his spirit was departed
On that service she went forth; 70
Nor will fail the like to render
When his corse is laid in earth.[292]
What then wants the Child to temper,
In her breast, unruly fire,
To control the froward impulse 75
And restrain the vague desire?
Easily a pious training
And a stedfast outward power
Would supplant the weeds and cherish,
In their stead, each opening flower. 80
Thus the fearless Lamb-deliv’rer,
Woman-grown, meek-hearted, sage,
May become a blest example
For her sex, of every age.[293]
Watchful as a wheeling eagle, 85
Constant as a soaring lark,
Should the country need a heroine,
She might prove our Maid of Arc.
Leave that thought; and here be uttered
Prayer that Grace divine may raise 90
Her humane courageous spirit
Up to heaven, thro’ peaceful ways.[294]
[290] This Westmoreland Girl was Sarah Mackereth of Wyke Cottage,
Grasmere. She married a man named Davis, and died in 1872 at Broughton
in Furness. The swollen “flood” from which she rescued the lamb,
was Wyke Gill beck, which descends from the centre of Silver Howe.
The picturesque cottage, with round chimney,--a yew tree and Scotch
fir behind it,--is on the western side of the road from Grasmere
over to Langdale by Red Bank. The Mackereths have been a well-known
Westmoreland family for some hundred years. They belong to the “gentry
of the soil,” and have been parish clerks in Grasmere for generations.
One of them was the tenant of the Swan Inn referred to in _The
Waggoner_--the host who painted, with his own hand, the “famous swan,”
used as a sign. (See vol. iii. p. 81.)
The story of _The Blind Highland Boy_, which gave rise to the poem
bearing that name, was told to Wordsworth by one of these Mackereths
of Grasmere. (See the Fenwick note, vol. ii. p. 420.) In a letter to
Professor Henry Reed (31st July 1845) Wordsworth said this poem might
interest him “as exhibiting what sort of characters our mountains
breed. It is truth to the letter.”--ED.
[291] 1845.
… its simple dam.
MS.
[292] 1845.
… must lie in earth.
MS.
[293] Compare _Grace Darling_, p. 311 in this volume.--ED.
[294] 1845.
Leave that word--and here be offered
Prayer that Grace divine would raise
This humane courageous spirit
Up to Heaven through peaceful ways.
In a letter to Henry Reed, July 1845.
AT FURNESS ABBEY
Composed 1845.--Published 1845
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED.
Well have yon Railway Labourers to THIS ground
Withdrawn for noontide rest. They sit, they walk
Among the Ruins, but no idle talk
Is heard; to grave demeanour all are bound;
And from one voice a Hymn with tuneful sound 5
Hallows once more the long-deserted Quire[295]
And thrills the old sepulchral earth, around.
Others look up, and with fixed eyes admire
That wide-spanned arch, wondering how it was raised,
To keep, so high in air, its strength and grace: 10
All seem to feel the spirit of the place,
And by the general reverence God is praised:
Profane Despoilers, stand ye not reproved,
While thus these simple-hearted men are moved?
_June 21st, 1845._
[295] See the note to the previous sonnet on Furness Abbey, p. 168.--ED.
“YES! THOU ART FAIR, YET BE NOT MOVED”
Composed possibly in 1845.--Published 1845
One of the “Poems founded on the Affections.”--ED.
Yes! thou art fair, yet be not moved
To scorn the declaration,
That sometimes I in thee have loved
My fancy’s own creation.
Imagination needs must stir; 5
Dear Maid, this truth believe,
Minds that have nothing to confer
Find little to perceive.
Be pleased that nature made thee fit
To feed my heart’s devotion, 10
By laws to which all Forms submit
In sky, air, earth, and ocean.
“WHAT HEAVENLY SMILES! O LADY MINE”
Composed 1845.--Published 1845
One of the “Poems founded on the Affections.”--ED.
What heavenly smiles! O Lady mine
Through my[296] very heart they shine;
And, if my brow gives back their light,
Do thou look gladly on the sight;
As the clear Moon with modest pride
Beholds her own bright beams
Reflected from the mountain’s side
And from the headlong streams.
[296] 1845.
… this …
MS.
TO A LADY,
IN ANSWER TO A REQUEST THAT I WOULD WRITE HER A POEM UPON SOME DRAWINGS
THAT SHE HAD MADE OF FLOWERS IN THE ISLAND OF MADEIRA
Composed 1845.--Published 1845
One of the “Poems of the Fancy.”--ED.
Fair Lady! can I sing of flowers
That in Madeira bloom and fade,
I who ne’er sate within their bowers,
Nor through their sunny lawns have strayed?
How they in sprightly dance are worn 5
By Shepherd-groom or May-day queen,
Or holy festal pomps adorn,
These eyes have never seen.
Yet tho’ to me the pencil’s art
No like remembrances can give, 10
Your portraits still may reach the heart
And there for gentle pleasure live;
While Fancy ranging with free scope
Shall on some lovely Alien set
A name with us endeared to hope, 15
To peace, or fond regret.[297]
Still as we look with nicer care,
Some new resemblance we may trace:
A _Heart’s-ease_ will perhaps be there,
A _Speedwell_ may not want its place. 20
And so may we, with charmèd mind
Beholding what your skill has wrought,
Another _Star-of-Bethlehem_ find,
A new[298] _Forget-me-not_.
From earth to heaven with motion fleet 25
From heaven to earth our thoughts will pass,
A _Holy-thistle_ here we meet
And there a _Shepherd’s weather-glass_;
And haply some familiar name
Shall grace the fairest, sweetest, plant 30
Whose presence cheers the drooping frame
Of English Emigrant.
Gazing she feels its power beguile
Sad thoughts, and breathes with easier breath;
Alas! that meek that tender smile 35
Is but a harbinger of death:
And pointing with a feeble hand
She says, in faint words by sighs broken,
Bear for me to my native land
This precious Flower, true love’s last token. 40
[297] 1845.
And there in sweet communion live:
Yet those loved most, in which we own
A touching likeness which they bear
To flower or herb, by Nature sown,
To breathe our English air.
MS.
And there in sweet communion live
Admired for beauty of their own,
Loved for the likeness some may bear
To flower …
MS.
Thus tempted Fancy with free scope
Will range, and on these aliens set
Names among us endeared to none,
To hearts a fond regret.
MS.
So tempted …
May range, …
MS.
[298]
Nor miss …
MS.
TO THE PENNSYLVANIANS
Composed 1845.--Published 1845
One of the “Sonnets dedicated to Liberty and Order.”--ED.
Days undefiled by luxury or sloth,
Firm self-denial, manners grave and staid,
Rights equal, laws with cheerfulness obeyed,
Words that require no sanction from an oath,
And simple honesty a common growth-- 5
This high repute, with bounteous Nature’s aid,
Won confidence, now ruthlessly betrayed
At will, your power the measure of your troth!--
All who revere the memory of Penn
Grieve for the land on whose wild woods his name[299] 10
Was fondly grafted with a virtuous aim,
Renounced, abandoned by degenerate Men
For state-dishonour black as ever came
To upper air from Mammon’s loathsome den.[300]
[299] To William Penn, son of Admiral Sir W. Penn, a printer and
Quaker, Charles II. granted lands in America, to which he gave the name
of Pennsylvania.--ED.
[300] Mr. Ellis Yarnall wrote to me, April 27, 1885: “The three last
lines of the Sonnet _To the Pennsylvanians_, in regard to which you
inquire, I think refer to what at the time Wordsworth wrote was known
as the _repudiation_ by Pennsylvania of her State debt. The language,
however, is too strong, inasmuch as there was _no_ repudiation. For a
year or two the _interest_ on the debt was unpaid, then payment was
resumed. Members of Wordsworth’s family, or his near friends, held, I
believe, some of the Pennsylvania bonds. They held also, as appears
from the _Memoirs_, Mississippi bonds, and these _were_ repudiated, or
at least five million dollars of a certain class of Mississippi bonds.
No such wrong-doing is chargeable to Pennsylvania. I remember the
delight with which Professor Reed showed me the note on the fly-leaf at
the end of the fifth volume of the edition of 1850--words written at
his request, and the last sentences ever composed by the Poet for the
press.”--ED.
“YOUNG ENGLAND--WHAT IS THEN BECOME OF OLD”
Composed 1845.--Published 1845
One of the “Sonnets dedicated to Liberty and Order.”--ED.
Young England--what is then become of Old
Of dear Old England? Think they she is dead,
Dead to the very name? Presumption fed
On empty air! That name will keep its hold
In the true filial bosom’s inmost fold 5
For ever.--The Spirit of Alfred, at the head
Of all who for her rights watch’d, toil’d and bled,
Knows that this prophecy is not too bold.
What--how! shall she submit in will and deed
To Beardless Boys--an imitative race, 10
The _servum pecus_ of a Gallic breed?
Dear Mother! if thou _must_ thy steps retrace,
Go where at least meek Innocency dwells;
Let Babes and Sucklings be thy oracles.
1846
The poems written in 1846 were six sonnets, the lines beginning, “I
know an aged man constrained to dwell,” an “Evening Voluntary,” and
other two short pieces.--ED.
SONNET[301]
Composed 1846.--Published 1850
This was placed among the “Epitaphs and Elegiac Poems.”--ED.
Why should we weep or mourn, Angelic boy,
For such thou wert ere from our sight removed,
Holy, and ever dutiful--beloved
From day to day with never-ceasing joy,
And hopes as dear as could the heart employ 5
In aught to earth pertaining? Death has proved
His might, nor less his mercy, as behoved--
Death conscious that he only could destroy
The bodily frame. That beauty is laid low
To moulder in a far-off field of Rome; 10
But Heaven is now, blest Child, thy Spirit’s home:
When such divine communion, which we know,
Is felt, thy Roman-burial place will be
Surely a sweet remembrancer of Thee.
[301] This sonnet refers to the poet’s grandchild, who died at Rome
in the beginning of 1846. Wordsworth wrote of it thus to Professor
Henry Reed, “_Jan. 23, 1846._ … Our daughter-in-law fell into bad
health between three and four years ago. She went with her husband to
Madeira, where they remained nearly a year; she was then advised to go
to Italy. After a prolonged residence there, her six children (whom her
husband returned to England for), went, at her earnest request, to that
country, under their father’s guidance; then he was obliged, on account
of his duty as a clergyman, to leave them. Four of the number resided
with their mother at Rome, three of whom took a fever there, of which
the youngest--as noble a boy of five years as ever was seen--died,
being seized with convulsions when the fever was somewhat subdued.”--ED.
“WHERE LIES THE TRUTH? HAS MAN, IN WISDOM’S CREED”
Composed 1846.--Published 1850
One of the “Evening Voluntaries.”--ED.
Where lies the truth? has Man, in wisdom’s creed,
A pitiable doom; for respite brief
A care more anxious, or a heavier grief?
Is he ungrateful, and doth little heed
God’s bounty, soon forgotten; or indeed, 5
Must Man, with labour born, awake to sorrow[302]
When Flowers rejoice and Larks with rival speed
Spring from their nests to bid the Sun good morrow?
They mount for rapture as their[303] songs proclaim
Warbled in hearing both of earth and sky; 10
But o’er the contrast wherefore heave a sigh?
Like those aspirants let us soar--our aim,
Through life’s worst trials, whether shocks or snares,
A happier, brighter, purer Heaven than theirs.[304]
[302] 1850.
Who that lies down and may not wake to sorrow
MS.
[303] 1850.
They mount for rapture; this their …
MS.
[304] This sonnet was suggested by the death of Wordsworth’s grandson
commemorated in the previous sonnet, and by the alarming illness of his
brother, the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and the expected
death of a nephew (John Wordsworth), at Ambleside, the only son of his
eldest brother, Richard.--ED.
TO LUCCA GIORDANO[305]
Composed 1846.--Published 1850
One of the “Evening Voluntaries.”--ED.
Giordano, verily thy Pencil’s skill
Hath here portrayed with Nature’s happiest grace
The fair Endymion couched on Latmos-hill;
And Dian gazing on the Shepherd’s face
In rapture,--yet suspending her embrace, 5
As not unconscious with what power the thrill
Of her most timid touch his sleep would chase,
And, with his sleep, that beauty calm and still.
O may this work have found its last retreat
Here in a Mountain-bard’s secure abode, 10
One to whom, yet a School-boy, Cynthia showed
A face of love which he in love would greet,
Fixed, by her smile, upon some rocky seat;
Or lured along where green-wood paths he trod.
RYDAL MOUNT, 1846.
[305] Lucca Giordano was born at Naples, in 1629. He was at first a
disciple of Spagnaletto, next of Pietro da Cortona; but after coming
under the influence of Correggio, he went to Venice, where Titian was
his inspiring master. In his own work the influence of all of these
predecessors may be traced, but chiefly that of Titian, whose style
of colouring and composition he followed so closely that many of his
works might be mistaken for those of his greatest master. The picture
referred to in this sonnet was brought from Italy by the poet’s eldest
son.--ED.
“WHO BUT IS PLEASED TO WATCH THE MOON ON HIGH”
Composed 1846.--Published 1850
One of the “Evening Voluntaries.”--ED.
Who but is pleased to watch the moon on high
Travelling where she from time to time enshrouds
Her head, and nothing loth her Majesty
Renounces, till among the scattered clouds
One with its kindling edge declares that soon 5
Will reappear before the uplifted eye
A Form as bright, as beautiful a moon,
To glide in open prospect through clear sky.
Pity that such a promise e’er should prove
False in the issue, that yon seeming space 10
Of sky should be in truth the stedfast face
Of a cloud flat and dense, through which must move
(By transit not unlike man’s frequent doom)
The Wanderer lost in more determined gloom.
ILLUSTRATED BOOKS AND NEWSPAPERS
Composed 1846.--Published 1850
One of the “Poems of Sentiment and Reflection.”--ED.
Discourse was deemed Man’s noblest attribute,
And written words the glory of his hand;
Then followed Printing with enlarged command
For thought--dominion vast and absolute
For spreading truth, and making love expand. 5
Now prose and verse sunk into disrepute
Must lacquey a dumb Art that best can suit
The taste of this once-intellectual Land.
A backward movement surely have we here,[306]
From manhood--back to childhood; for the age-- 10
Back towards caverned life’s first rude career.
Avaunt this vile abuse of pictured page!
Must eyes be all in all, the tongue and ear
Nothing? Heaven keep us from a lower stage!
[306] The _Illustrated London News_--the pioneer of illustrated
newspapers--was first issued on 14th May 1842. The painter and artist
may differ from the poet, in the judgment here pronounced; but had
Wordsworth known the degradation to which many newspapers would sink in
this direction, his censure would have been more severe.--ED.
SONNET
TO AN OCTOGENARIAN
Composed 1846.--Published 1850
Affections lose their object; Time brings forth
No successors; and, lodged in memory,
If love exist no longer, it must die,--
Wanting accustomed food must pass from earth,
Or never hope to reach a second birth.[307] 5
This sad belief, the happiest that is left
To thousands, share not Thou; howe’er bereft,
Scorned, or neglected, fear not such a dearth.
Though poor and destitute of friends thou art,
Perhaps the sole survivor of thy race, 10
One to whom Heaven assigns that mournful part
The utmost solitude of age to face,
Still shall be left some corner of the heart
Where Love for living Thing can find a place.
[307] Compare Tennyson’s _Lines to J.S._--
God gives us love. Something to love
He lends us; but, when love is grown
To ripeness, that on which it throve
Falls off, and love is left alone.
ED.
“I KNOW AN AGED MAN CONSTRAINED TO DWELL”
Composed 1846.--Published 1850
One of the “Miscellaneous Poems.”--ED.
I know an aged Man constrained to dwell
In a large house of public charity,
Where he abides, as in a Prisoner’s cell,
With numbers near, alas! no company.
When he could creep about, at will, though poor 5
And forced to live on alms, this old Man fed
A Redbreast, one that to his cottage door
Came not, but in a lane partook his bread.
There, at the root of one particular tree,
An easy seat this worn-out Labourer found 10
While Robin pecked the crumbs upon his knee
Laid one by one, or scattered on the ground.
Dear intercourse was theirs, day after day;
What signs of mutual gladness when they met!
Think of their common peace, their simple play, 15
The parting moment and its fond regret.
Months passed in love that failed not to fulfil,
In spite of season’s change, its own demand,
By fluttering pinions here and busy bill;
There by caresses from a tremulous hand. 20
Thus in the chosen spot a tie so strong
Was formed between the solitary pair,
That when his fate had housed him ’mid a throng
The Captive shunned all converse proffered there.
Wife, children, kindred, they were dead and gone; 25
But, if no evil hap his wishes crossed,
One living Stay was left, and on[308] that one
Some recompense for all that he had lost.
O that the good old Man had power to prove,
By message sent through air or visible token, 30
That still he loves the Bird, and still must love;
That friendship lasts though fellowship is broken!
[308] So all the editions have it; but, as Principal Greenwood
suggested to me, the true reading should be “in that one.”--ED.
“THE UNREMITTING VOICE OF NIGHTLY STREAMS”
Composed 1846.--Published 1850
One of the “Poems of Sentiment and Reflection.”--ED.
The unremitting voice of nightly streams
That wastes so oft, we think, its tuneful powers,
If neither soothing to the worm that gleams
Through dewy grass, nor small birds hushed in bowers,
Nor unto silent leaves and drowsy flowers,-- 5
That voice of unpretending harmony
(For who what is shall measure by what seems
To be, or not to be,[309]
Or tax high Heaven with prodigality?)
Wants not a healing influence that can creep 10
Into the human breast, and mix with sleep
To regulate the motion of our dreams
For kindly issues--as through every clime
Was felt near murmuring brooks in earliest time;
As at this day, the rudest swains who dwell 15
Where torrents roar, or hear the tinkling knell
Of water-breaks, with grateful heart could tell.
[309] _Hamlet_, act III. scene i. l. 56.--ED.
“HOW BEAUTIFUL THE QUEEN OF NIGHT, ON HIGH”
Composed 1846.--Published 1850
One of the “Miscellaneous Poems.”--ED.
How beautiful the Queen of Night, on high
Her way pursuing among scattered clouds,
Where, ever and anon, her head she shrouds
Hidden from view in dense obscurity.
But look, and to the watchful eye
A brightening edge will indicate that soon
We shall behold the struggling Moon
Break forth,--again to walk the clear blue sky.
ON THE BANKS OF A ROCKY STREAM
Composed 1846.--Published 1850
Behold an emblem of our human mind
Crowded with thoughts that need a settled home
Yet, like to eddying balls of foam
Within this whirlpool, they each other chase
Round and round, and neither find
An outlet nor a resting-place!
Stranger, if such disquietude be thine,
Fall on thy knees and sue for help divine.
ODE
INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD
Composed 1803-6.--Published 1807
[This was composed during my residence at Town-end, Grasmere. Two years
at least passed between the writing of the four first stanzas and
the remaining part. To the attentive and competent reader the whole
sufficiently explains itself; but there may be no harm in adverting
here to particular feelings or _experiences_ of my own mind on which
the structure of the poem partly rests. Nothing was more difficult for
me in childhood than to admit the notion of death as a state applicable
to my own being. I have said elsewhere--
A simple child,
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death!--
But it was not so much from feelings of animal vivacity that my
difficulty came as from a sense of the indomitableness of the Spirit
within me. I used to brood over the stories of Enoch and Elijah, and
almost to persuade myself that, whatever might become of others, I
should be translated, in something of the same way, to heaven. With
a feeling congenial to this, I was often unable to think of external
things as having external existence, and I communed with all that I saw
as something not apart from, but inherent in, my own immaterial nature.
Many times while going to school have I grasped at a wall or tree to
recall myself from this abyss of idealism to the reality. At that
time I was afraid of such processes. In later periods of life I have
deplored, as we have all reason to do, a subjugation of an opposite
character, and have rejoiced over the remembrances, as is expressed in
the lines--
Obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings, etc.
To that dream-like vividness and splendour which invest objects of
sight in childhood, every one, I believe, if he would look back, could
bear testimony, and I need not dwell upon it here; but having in the
poem regarded it as presumptive evidence of a prior state of existence,
I think it right to protest against a conclusion, which has given
pain to some good and pious persons, that I meant to inculcate such a
belief. It is far too shadowy a notion to be recommended to faith, as
more than an element in our instincts of immortality. But let us bear
in mind that, though the idea is not advanced in revelation, there is
nothing there to contradict it, and the fall of man presents an analogy
in its favour. Accordingly, a pre-existent state has entered into the
popular creeds of many nations; and, among all persons acquainted with
classic literature, is known as an ingredient in Platonic philosophy.
Archimedes said that he could move the world if he had a point whereon
to rest his machine. Who has not felt the same aspirations as regards
the world of his own mind?[310] Having to wield some of its elements
when I was impelled to write this poem on the “Immortality of the
Soul,” I took hold of the notion of pre-existence as having sufficient
foundation in humanity for authorizing me to make for my purpose the
best use of it I could as a poet.--I.F.]
The Child is Father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.[311]
I
There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream. 5
It is not now as it hath[312] been of yore;--
Turn wheresoe’er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.
II
The Rainbow comes and goes, 10
And lovely is the Rose,
The Moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare,
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair; 15
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where’er I go,
That there hath passed away a glory from the earth.
III
Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,
And while the young lambs bound 20
As to the tabor’s sound,
To me alone there came a thought of grief:
A timely utterance gave that thought relief,
And I again am strong:
The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep; 25
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;
I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,
The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep,
And all the earth is gay;
Land and sea 30
Give themselves up to jollity,
And with the heart of May
Doth every Beast keep holiday;--
Thou Child of Joy,
Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Shepherd-boy! 35
IV
Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call
Ye to each other make; I see
The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;
My heart is at your festival,
My head hath its coronal,[313] 40
The fulness of your bliss, I feel--I feel it all.[314]
Oh evil day! if I were sullen
While Earth herself is adorning,[315]
This sweet May-morning,
And the Children are culling[316] 45
On every side,
In a thousand valleys far and wide,
Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm,
And the Babe leaps up on his Mother’s arm:--
I hear, I hear, with joy I hear! 50
--But there’s a Tree, of many, one,
A single Field which I have looked upon,
Both of them speak of something that is gone:
The Pansy at my feet
Doth the same tale repeat: 55
Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now,[317] the glory and the dream?
V
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting, 60
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home: 65
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But He beholds the light, and whence it flows
He sees it in his joy; 70
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature’s Priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it[318] die away, 75
And fade into the light of common day.[319]
VI
Earth fills her lap with pleasures[320] of her own;
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,
And, even with something of a Mother’s mind,
And no unworthy aim, 80
The homely Nurse doth all she can
To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man,
Forget the glories he hath known,
And that imperial palace whence he came.
VII
Behold the Child among his new-born blisses, 85
A six years’ Darling[321] of a pigmy size!
See, where ’mid work of his own hand he lies,
Fretted by sallies of his mother’s kisses,
With light upon him from his father’s eyes!
See, at his feet, some little plan or chart, 90
Some fragment from his dream of human life,
Shaped by himself with newly-learned art;
A wedding or a festival,
A mourning or a funeral;
And this hath now his heart, 95
And unto this he frames his song:
Then will he fit his tongue
To dialogues of business, love, or strife;
But it will not be long
Ere this be thrown aside, 100
And with new joy and pride
The little Actor cons another part;
Filling from time to time his “humorous stage”[322]
With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,
That Life brings with her in her equipage; 105
As if his whole vocation
Were endless imitation.
VIII
Thou, whose exterior semblance[323] doth belie
Thy Soul’s immensity;
Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep 110
Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind,
That, deaf and silent, read’st the eternal deep,
Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,--
Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!
On whom those truths do rest, 115
Which we are toiling all our lives to find,
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;[324]
Thou, over whom thy Immortality
Broods like the Day, a Master o’er a Slave,
A Presence which is not to be put by;[325] 120
Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being’s height,[326]
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
The years to bring the inevitable yoke,
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? 125
Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight,
And custom[327] lie upon thee with a weight,[328]
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!
IX
O joy! that in our embers
Is something that doth live, 130
That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!
The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction;[329] not indeed
For that which is most worthy to be blest; 135
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest,
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:--[330]
Not for these I raise
The song of thanks and praise; 140
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realised, 145
High instincts before which our mortal Nature
Did tremble like a guilty Thing surprised:
But for those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may, 150
Are yet the fountain light of all our day,
Are yet a master light of all our seeing;
Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make[331]
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake, 155
To perish never;
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
Nor Man nor Boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy! 160
Hence in a season of calm weather,
Though inland far we be,
Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither, 165
And see the Children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.
X
Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!
And let the young Lambs bound
As to the tabor’s sound! 170
We in thought will join your throng,
Ye that pipe and ye that play,
Ye that through your hearts to-day
Feel the gladness of the May!
What though the radiance which was once so bright 175
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind; 180
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death, 185
In years that bring the philosophic mind.
XI
And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,
Forebode not any severing[332] of our loves!
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquished one delight 190
To live beneath your more habitual sway.
I love the Brooks which down their channels fret,
Even more than when I tripped lightly as they;
The innocent brightness of a new-born Day
Is lovely yet; 195
The Clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o’er man’s mortality;
Another race hath been, and other palms are won.[333]
Thanks to the human heart by which we live, 200
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows[334] can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.[335]
This great _Ode_ was first printed as the last poem in the second
volume of the edition of 1807. At that date Wordsworth gave it the
simple title _Ode_, prefixing to it the motto, “Paulò majora canamus.”
In 1815, when he revised the poem throughout, he named it--in
the characteristic manner of many of his titles--diffuse and yet
precise, _Ode. Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early
Childhood_; and he then prefixed to it the lines of his own earlier
poem on the Rainbow (March 1802):--
The Child is Father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
It retained this longer title and motto in all subsequent editions. In
the editions 1807 to 1820, it was placed by itself at the end of the
poems, and formed their natural conclusion and climax. In the editions
1827 and 1832, it was inappropriately put amongst “Epitaphs and Elegiac
Poems.” The evident mistake of placing it amongst these seems to have
suggested to Wordsworth, in 1836, its having a place by itself,--which
he gave it then and retained in the subsequent editions of 1842 and
1849,--when it closed the series of minor poems in Volume V., and
preceded the _Excursion_ in Volume VI. The same arrangement was adopted
in the double-columned single volume edition of 1845.
Mr. Aubrey de Vere has urged me to take it out of its chronological
place, and let it conclude the whole series of Wordsworth’s poems, as
the greatest, and that to which all others lead up. Mr. De Vere’s wish
is based on conversations which he had with the poet himself.
The _Ode, Intimations of Immortality_, was written at intervals,
between the years 1803 and 1806; and it was subjected to frequent and
careful revision. No poem of Wordsworth’s bears more evident traces
in its structure at once of inspiration and elaboration; of original
flight of thought and _afflatus_ on the one hand, and on the other of
careful sculpture and fastidious choice of phrase. But it is remarkable
that there are very few changes of text in the successive editions.
Most of the alterations were made before 1815, and the omission of some
feeble lines which originally stood in stanza viii. in the editions
of 1807 and 1815, was a great advantage in disencumbering the poem.
The main revision and elaboration of this Ode, however--an elaboration
which suggests the passage of the glacier ice over the rocks of White
Moss Common, where the poem was murmured out stanza by stanza--was all
finished before it first saw the light in 1807. In form it is irregular
and original. And perhaps the most remarkable thing in its structure,
is the frequent change of the keynote, and the skill and delicacy with
which the transitions are made. “The feet throughout are iambic. The
lines vary in length from the Alexandrine to the line with two accents.
There is a constant ebb and flow in the full tide of song, but scarce
two waves are alike.” (Hawes Turner, _Selections from Wordsworth_.)
In the “notes” to the _Selections_ just referred to on Immortality,
there is an excellent commentary on this _Ode_, almost every line of
which is worthy of minute analysis and study. Some of the following are
suggested by Mr. Turner’s notes.
(1) _The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep._
The morning breeze blowing from the fields that were dark during the
hours of sleep.
(2) --_But there’s a Tree, of many, one._
Compare Browning’s _May and Death_--
Only one little sight, one plant
Woods have in May, etc.
(3) _The Pansy at my feet_
_Doth the same tale repeat._
French “Pensée.” “Pansies, that’s for thoughts.” Ophelia in _Hamlet_.
(4) _Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting._
This thought Wordsworth owed, consciously or unconsciously, to Plato.
Though he tells us in the Fenwick note that he did not mean to
_inculcate_ the belief, there is no doubt that he clung to the notion
of a life pre-existing the present, on grounds similar to those on
which he believed in a life to come. But there are some differences in
the way in which the idea commended itself to Plato and to Wordsworth.
The stress was laid by Wordsworth on the effect of terrestrial life
in putting the higher faculties to sleep, and making us “forget the
glories we have known.” Plato, on the other hand, looked upon the
mingled experiences of mundane life as inducing a gradual but slow
remembrance (ἀνάμνεσις) of the past. Compare Tennyson’s _Two Voices_,
and Wordsworth’s sonnet, beginning--
Man’s life is like a sparrow, mighty king.
(5) _Filling from time to time his “humorous stage”_
_With all the Persons,_
_i.e._ with the _dramatis personæ_.
(6) … _thou Eye among the blind,_
_That, deaf and silent, read’st the eternal deep._
There is an admirable parallel illustration of Wordsworth’s use of this
figure (describing one sense in terms of another), in the lines in
_Airey-Force Valley_--
A soft eye-music of slow-waving boughs.
(7) _Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight,_
_And custom lie upon thee with a weight,_
_Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!_
Compare with this, the lines in the fourth book of _The Excursion_,
beginning--
Alas! the endowment of immortal power
Is matched unequally with custom, time.
(8) _Fallings from us, vanishings._
The outward sensible universe, visible and tangible, seeming to
fall away from us, as unreal, to vanish in unsubstantially. See the
explanation of this youthful experience in the Fenwick note. That
confession of his boyish days at Hawkshead, “many times, while going to
school, have I grasped at a wall or tree, _to recall myself from this
abyss of idealism to the reality_” (by which he explains those--
Fallings from us, vanishings, etc.),
suggests a similar experience and confession of Cardinal Newman’s in
his _Apologia_ (see p. 67).
The late Rev. Robert Perceval Graves, of Windermere, and afterwards of
Dublin, wrote to me in 1850:--“I remember Mr. Wordsworth saying, that
at a particular stage of his mental progress, he used to be frequently
so rapt into an unreal transcendental world of ideas that the external
world seemed no longer to exist in relation to him, and he _had to
reconvince himself of its existence by clasping a tree, or something
that happened to be near him_. I could not help connecting this fact
with that obscure passage in his great _Ode on the Intimations of
Immortality_, in which he speaks of--
Those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things;
Fallings from us, vanishings; etc.”
Professor Bonamy Price further confirms the explanation which
Wordsworth gave of the passage, in a letter written to me in 1881,
giving an account of a conversation he had with the poet, as follows:--
“OXFORD, _April 21, 1881_.
“MY DEAR SIR,--You will be glad, I am sure, to receive an
interpretation, which chance enabled me to obtain from
Wordsworth himself of a passage in the immortal _Ode on
Immortality_.…
“It happened one day that the poet, my wife, and I were taking
a walk together by the side of Rydal Water. We were then by the
sycamores under Nab Scar. The aged poet was in a most genial
mood, and it suddenly occurred to me that I might, without
unwarrantable presumption, seize the golden opportunity thus
offered, and ask him to explain these mysterious words. So
I addressed him with an apology, and begged him to explain,
what my own feeble mother-wit was unable to unravel, and for
which I had in vain sought the assistance of others, what
were those ‘fallings from us, vanishings,’ for which, above
all other things, he gave God thanks. The venerable old man
raised his aged form erect; he was walking in the middle,
and passed across me to a five-barred gate in the wall which
bounded the road on the side of the lake. He clenched the top
bar firmly with his right hand, pushed strongly against it,
and then uttered these ever-memorable words: ‘There was a time
in my life when I had to push against something that resisted,
to be sure that there was anything outside of me. I was sure
of my own mind; everything else fell away, and vanished into
thought.’ Thought, he was sure of; matter for him, at the
moment, was an unreality--nothing but a thought. Such natural
spontaneous idealism has probably never been felt by any other
man.
“BONAMY PRICE.”
This, however, was not an experience peculiar to Wordsworth, as
Professor Price imagined--and its value would be much lessened if it
had been so--but was one to which (as the poet said to Miss Fenwick)
“every one, if he would look back, could bear testimony.”
The following is from S.T. Coleridge’s _Biographia Literaria_ (chap.
xxii. p. 29, edition 1817)--
“To the _Ode on the Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of
Early Childhood_, the poet might have prefixed the lines which Dante
addresses to one of his own Canzoni--
Canzone, i’ credo, che saranno radi
Color che tua ragione intendan bene:
Tanto lor sei faticoso ed alto.
O lyric song, there will be few, think I,
Who may thy import understand aright:
Thou art for them so arduous and so high!
But the Ode was intended for such readers only as had been accustomed
to watch the flux and reflux of their inmost nature, to venture
at times into the twilight realms of consciousness, and to feel a
deep interest in modes of inmost being, to which they know that the
attributes of time and space are inapplicable and alien, but which yet
cannot be conveyed, save in symbols of time and space. For such readers
the sense is sufficiently plain, and they will be as little disposed to
charge Mr. Wordsworth with believing the Platonic pre-existence in the
ordinary interpretation of the words, as I am to believe, that Plato
himself ever meant or taught it.
πολλά μοι ὑπ’ ἀγκῶνος ὠκέα βέλη
ἔνδον ἐντὶ φαρέτρας
φωνᾶντα συνετοῖσιν ἐς
δὲ τὸ πᾶν ἑρμηνέων
χατίζει. σοφὸς ὁ πολλὰ εἰδὼς φυᾷ.
μαθόντες δὲ λάβροι
παγγλωσσίᾳ, κόρακες ὥς,
ἄκραντα γαρύετον
Διὸς πρὸς ὄρνιχα θεῖον.
PINDAR, OLYMP. ii.”[336]
The following parallel passages from _The Excursion_, _The Prelude_,
Ruskin’s _Modern Painters_, Keble’s _Praelectiones de Poeticae vi
Medica_ (p. 788, Prael. xxxix.), and the _Silex Scintillans_ of
Henry Vaughan, are quoted, in an interesting note to the _Ode_ on
Immortality, in Professor Henry Reed’s American edition of the Poems
(1851).
I
Ah! why in age
Do we revert so fondly to the walks
Of childhood--but that there the Soul discerns
The dear memorial footsteps unimpaired
Of her own native vigour--thence can hear
Reverberations; and a choral song,
Commingling with the incense that ascends,
Undaunted, toward the imperishable heavens,
From her own lonely altar?
_The Excursion_, book ix. ll. 36-44.
II
Our childhood sits,
Our simple childhood, sits upon a throne
That hath more power than all the elements.
I guess not what this tells of Being past,
Nor what it augurs of the life to come; etc.
_The Prelude_, book v. ll. 507-511.
III
“ … There was never yet the child of any promise (so far as the
theoretic faculties are concerned) but awaked to the sense of beauty
with the first gleam of reason; and I suppose there are few, among
those who love Nature otherwise than by profession and at second-hand,
who look not back to their youngest and least learned days as those of
the most intense, superstitious, insatiable, and beatific perception of
her splendours. And the bitter decline of this glorious feeling, though
many note it not, partly owing to the cares and weight of manhood,
which leave them not the time nor the liberty to look for their lost
treasure, and partly to the human and divine affections which are
appointed to take its place, yet have formed the subject, not indeed of
lamentation, but of holy thankfulness for the witness it bears to the
immortal origin and end of our nature, to one whose authority is almost
without appeal in all questions relating to the influence of external
things upon the pure human soul.
Not for these I raise
The song of thanks and praise
But for those obstinate questionings, etc. etc.
And if it were possible for us to recollect all the unaccountable and
happy instincts of the careless time, and to reason upon them with the
maturer judgment, we might arrive at more right results than either
the philosophy or the sophisticated practice of art has yet attained.
But we love the perceptions before we are capable of methodising or
comparing them.” (Ruskin’s _Modern Painters_, vol. ii. p. 36, part iii.
ch. v. sec. i.)
“ … Etenim qui velit acutius indagare causas propensae in antiqua
saecula voluntatis, mirum ni conjectura incidat aliquando in commentum
illud Pythagorae, docentis, animarum nostrarum non tum fieri initium,
cum in hoc mundo nascimur; immo ex ignota quadam regione venire eas,
in sua quamque corpora; neque tam penitus Lethaeo potu imbui, quin
permanet quasi quidam anteactae aetatis sapor; hunc autem excitari
identidem, et nescio quo sensu percipi, tacito quidem illo et obscuro,
sed percipi tamen. Atque hac ferme sententia extat summi hac memoria
Poetae nobilissimum carmen; nempe non aliam ob causam tangi pueritiae
recordationem exquisita illa ac pervagata dulcedine, quam propter
debilem quendam prioris aevi Deique propioris sensum.
Quamvis autem hanc opinionem vix ferat divinae philosophiae ratio,
fatemur tamen eam eatenus ad verum accedere, quo sanctum aliquod
et grave tribuit memoriae et caritati puerilium annorum. Nosmet
certe infantes novimus quam prope tetigerit Divina benignitas; quis
porro scit, an omnis illa temporis anteacti dulcedo habeat quandam
significationem Illius Praesentiae?” (Keble, _Praelectiones de Poeticae
vi Medica_, p. 788, Prael. xxxix.)
“CORRUPTION
Sure, it was so. Man in those early days
Was not all stone and earth;
He shined a little, and by those weak rays,
Had some glimpse of his birth.
He saw Heaven o’er his head, and knew from whence
He came condemned hither,
And, as first Love draws strongest, so from hence
His mind sure progressed thither.”
Henry Vaughan, _Silex Scintillans_.
Mr. Reed also quotes a passage from Vaughan’s poem _Childehood_; but
a more apposite passage may be found in _The Retreate_, in _Silex
Scintillans_.
Happy those early dayes, when I
Shined in my Angell-infancy!
Before I understood this place
Appointed for my second race,
Or taught my soul to fancy ought
But a white celestiall thought;
When yet I had not walkt above
A mile or two from my first Love,
And looking back, at that short space,
Could see a glimpse of his bright face;
When on some _gilded Cloud or Flowre_
My gazing soul would dwell an houre,
And in those weaker glories spy
Some shadows of eternity;
…
But felt through all this fleshly dresse
Bright _shootes_ of everlastingnesse.
The extent of Wordsworth’s debt to Vaughan has been discussed a good
deal. There was no copy of the _Silex Scintillans_ in the Rydal
Mount sale-catalogue. I believe that he had read _The Retreate_, and
forgotten it more completely perhaps than Coleridge forgot Sir John
Davies’ _Orchestra, a Poem on Dancing_, when he wrote _The Ancient
Mariner_.
The following may be added from _The Friend_ (the edition of 1818),
vol. i. p. 183:--“To find no contradiction in the union of old and new
to contemplate the Ancient of Days with feelings as fresh as if they
then sprang forth at his own fiat, this characterizes the minds that
feel the riddle of the world, and may help to unravel it! To carry on
the feelings of childhood into the powers of manhood, to combine the
child’s sense of wonder and novelty with the appearances which every
day, for perhaps 40 years, had rendered familiar,
With sun and moon and stars throughout the year
And man and woman----
This is the character and privilege of genius, and one of the marks
which distinguish genius from talent.”--ED.
[310] Compare the Atman of the Vedanta Philosophy.--ED.
[311] See vol. ii. p. 292.--ED.
[312] 1820.
… has …
1807.
[313] Compare _The Idle Shepherd Boys_, ll. 28-30 (vol. ii. p.
138).--ED.
[314] 1807.
Even yet more gladness, I can hold it all.
MS.
[315] 1836.
While the Earth herself …
1807.
… itself …
1827.
The text of 1832 returns to that of 1807.
[316] 1836.
… pulling
1807.
[317]
Where is it gone, …
MS.
[318] 1807.
… beholds it …
MS.
[319] Compare, in Bacon’s Essay _Of Youth and Age_, “A certaine Rabbine
upon the Text, _Your Young Men shall see visions, and your Old Men
shall dream dreames_, inferreth that Young Men are admitted nearer to
God than Old, because _Vision_ is a clearer Revelation than a Dreame.”
See Professor Max Müller’s note to his translation of the Upanishads
(_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xv. p. 164), beginning “Drivudagomga
uses a curious argument in support of the existence of another
world.”--ED.
[320] 1807.
… pleasure …
MS.
[321] 1815.
A four years’ Darling …
1807.
[322] See, in Daniel’s _Musophilus_, the introductory sonnet to Fulke
Greville, l. 1.--ED.
[323] 1807.
… presence …
MS.
[324] This line is not in the editions of 1807 and 1815.
[325] The editions of 1807 and 1815 have, after “put by”:
To whom the grave
Is but a lowly bed without the sense or sight
Of day or the warm light,
A place of thought where we in waiting lie;
MS.
The subsequent omission of these lines was due to Coleridge’s
disapproval of them, expressed in _Biographia Literaria_.--ED.
[326] 1815.
Of untamed pleasures, on thy Being’s height,
1807.
[327] 1807.
The world upon thy noble nature seize
With all its vanities,
And custom …
MS.
[328] Compare _The Excursion_, book iv. ll. 205, 206--
Alas! the endowment of immortal power
Is matched unequally with custom, time.
ED.
[329] 1827.
Perpetual benedictions: …
1807.
[330] 1815.
Of Childhood, whether fluttering or at rest,
With new-born hope for ever in his breast:
1807.
[331] 1815.
Uphold us, cherish us, and make
1807.
[332] 1836.
Think not of any severing …
1807.
[333] Professor Dowden writes of this line: “It is a sunset reflection,
natural to one who has ‘kept watch o’er man’s mortality’: the day is
closing, as human lives have closed; the sun went forth out of his
chamber as a strong man to run a race, and now the race is over and the
palm has been won: all things have their hour of fulfilment.” (See vol.
v. p. 365, of his edition of Wordsworth’s Poems.)--ED.
[334] Compare the introduction to the first canto of _Marmion_--
The vernal sun new life bestows
Upon the meanest flower that blows,
ED.
[335] Compare Wither’s _The Shepherds Hunting_, the fourth eclogue, ll.
368-380.--ED.
[336] The text of Pindar, as given by S.T.C., is corrected in the above
quotation.--ED.
POEMS BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH AND BY DOROTHY WORDSWORTH NOT INCLUDED IN
THE EDITION OF 1849-50
1787
SONNET, ON SEEING MISS HELEN MARIA WILLIAMS WEEP AT A TALE OF
DISTRESS[337]
She wept.--Life’s purple tide began to flow
In languid streams through every thrilling vein;
Dim were my swimming eyes--my pulse beat slow,
And my full heart was swell’d to dear delicious pain.
Life left my loaded heart, and closing eye; 5
A sigh recall’d the wanderer to my breast;
Dear was the pause of life, and dear the sigh
That call’d the wanderer home, and home to rest.
That tear proclaims--in thee each virtue dwells,
And bright will shine in misery’s midnight hour; 10
As the soft star of dewy evening tells
What radiant fires were drown’d by day’s malignant pow’r,
That only wait the darkness of the night
To chear the wand’ring wretch with hospitable light.
AXIOLOGUS.
[European Magazine, 1787, vol. xi. p. 302.]
S.T.C. addressed some lines to Wordsworth under the name Axiologus. The
following is a sample, sent to me by the late Mr. Dykes Campbell, _Ad
Vilmum Axiologum_.--ED.[338]
AD VILMUM AXIOLOGUM
This be the meed, that thy song creates a thousand-fold echo!
Sweet as the warble of woods, that awakes at the gale of the morning!
List! the Hearts of the Pure, like caves in the ancient mountains
Deep, deep _in_ the Bosom, and _from_ the Bosom resound it,
Each with a different tone, complete or in musical fragments--
All have welcomed thy Voice, and receive and retain and prolong it!
This is the word of the Lord! it is spoken and Beings Eternal
Live and are borne as an Infant, the Eternal begets the Immortal--
Love is the Spirit of Life, and Music the Life of the Spirit!
[337] The only justification for republishing this sonnet is that it is
the earliest authoritative record of Wordsworth’s attempts in Verse. It
is a much more authentic one than the _Extract from the conclusion of
a Poem, composed in anticipation of leaving School_, or than the lines
_Written in very early Youth_, and beginning
Calm is all nature as a resting wheel.
Wordsworth dated the former of these poems 1786, but I do not believe
that he wrote that poem, and still less that he wrote “Calm is all
nature,” etc., _as we now have it_, in that year. Doubtless he wrote
verses on these two subjects; but the best evidence against the notion
that the text, as we now have it, was written in 1786, is this 1787
sonnet on Miss Maria Williams. It is not only dated authoritatively,
but it was _published_ in 1787; and therefore serves (as nothing else
can until we come to 1793) as evidence in regard to the development of
his poetic power. The translation of Francis Wrangham’s lines--which
he called _The Birth of Love_--in 1795, is further evidence in the
same direction. No doubt there were many poor poetic utterances by
Wordsworth later in life--failures in his manhood, as dismal as the
“Walford Tragedy” was in his youth--but I think that the _Lines written
in very early Youth_, and the _Extract from the Poem composed in
anticipation of leaving School_, were rehandled by him, and the text
greatly improved before they were first published. The late Mr. J.
Dykes Campbell wrote to me in 1892: “Poets tell dreadful fibs about
their early verses--as witness S.T.C. who declared he wrote _The Advent
of Love_ at fifteen! I _know_ he didn’t, and am going to print one or
two of his prize school verses of that age, which I have found in his
own fifteen-year-old fist.”--ED.
[338] I should add, in a footnote, that I have no knowledge of the
source whence Mr. Campbell derived this; but I am sure that it must
have reached him from an authentic one.--ED.
LINES WRITTEN BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH AS A SCHOOL EXERCISE AT HAWKSHEAD,
ANNO ÆTATIS 14
In the “Autobiographical Memoranda”--dictated at Rydal Mount in
1847--Wordsworth said, “The first verses which I wrote were a task
imposed by my master: the subject _The Summer Vacation_, and of my
own accord I added others upon _Return to School_. There was nothing
remarkable in either poem; but I was called upon, among other scholars,
to write verses upon the completion of the second century from the
foundation of the school in 1585, by Archbishop Sandys. These verses
were much admired, far more than they deserved, for they were but a
tame imitation of Pope’s versification, and a little in his style.
This exercise, however, put it into my head to compose verses from the
impulse of my own mind; and I wrote, while yet a schoolboy, a long poem
running upon my own adventures, and the scenery of the county in which
I was brought up.”
The _Summer Vacation_, and the _Return to School_, were destroyed by
Wordsworth.--ED.
And has the Sun his flaming chariot driven
Two hundred times around the ring of heaven,
Since Science first, with all her sacred train,
Beneath yon roof began her heavenly reign?
While thus I mused, methought, before mine eyes, 5
The Power of EDUCATION seemed to rise;
Not she whose rigid precepts trained the boy
Dead to the sense of every finer joy;
Nor that vile wretch who bade the tender age
Spurn Reason’s law and humour Passion’s rage; 10
But she who trains the generous British youth
In the bright paths of fair majestic Truth:
Emerging slow from Academus’ grove
In heavenly majesty she seem’d to move.
Stern was her forehead, but a smile serene 15
“Soften’d the terrors of her awful mien.”[339]
Close at her side were all the powers, design’d
To curb, exalt, reform the tender mind:
With panting breast, now pale as winter snows,
Now flushed as Hebe, Emulation rose; 20
Shame follow’d after with reverted eye,
And hue far deeper than the Tyrian dye;
Last Industry appear’d with steady pace,
A smile sat beaming on her pensive face.
I gazed upon the visionary train, 25
Threw back my eyes, return’d, and gazed again.
When lo! the heavenly goddess thus began,
Through all my frame the pleasing accents ran.
When Superstition left the golden light
And fled indignant to the shades of night; 30
When pure Religion rear’d the peaceful breast
And lull’d the warring passions into rest,
Drove far away the savage thoughts that roll
In the dark mansions of the bigot’s soul,
Enlivening Hope display’d her cheerful ray, 35
And beam’d on Britain’s sons a brighter day,
So when on Ocean’s face the storm subsides,
Hush’d are the winds and silent are the tides;
The God of day, in all the pomp of light,
Moves through the vault of heaven, and dissipates the night; 40
Wide o’er the main a trembling lustre plays,
The glittering waves reflect the dazzling blaze;
Science with joy saw Superstition fly
Before the lustre of Religion’s eye;
With rapture she beheld Britannia smile, 45
Clapp’d her strong wings, and sought the cheerful isle.
The shades of night no more the soul involve,
She sheds her beam, and, lo! the shades dissolve;
No jarring monks, to gloomy cell confined,
With mazy rules perplex the weary mind; 50
No shadowy forms entice the soul aside,
Secure she walks, Philosophy her guide.
Britain, who long her warriors had adored,
And deemed all merit centred in the sword;
Britain, who thought to stain the field was fame, 55
Now honour’d Edward’s less than Bacon’s name.
Her sons no more in listed fields advance
To ride the ring, or toss the beamy lance;
No longer steel their indurated hearts
To the mild influence of the finer arts; 60
Quick to the secret grotto they retire
To court majestic truth, or wake the golden lyre;
By generous Emulation taught to rise,
The seats of learning brave the distant skies.
Then noble Sandys, inspir’d with great design, 65
Rear’d Hawkshead’s happy roof, and call’d it mine;
There have I loved to show the tender age
The golden precepts of the classic page;
To lead the mind to those Elysian plains
Where, throned in gold, immortal Science reigns; 70
Fair to the view is sacred Truth display’d,
In all the majesty of light array’d,
To teach, on rapid wings, the curious soul
To roam from heaven to heaven, from pole to pole,
From thence to search the mystic cause of things 75
And follow Nature to her secret springs;
Nor less to guide the fluctuating youth
Firm in the sacred paths of moral truth,
To regulate the mind’s disorder’d frame,
And quench the passions kindling into flame; 80
The glimmering fires of Virtue to enlarge,
And purge from Vice’s dross my tender charge.
Oft have I said, the paths of Fame pursue,
And all that virtue dictates, dare to do;
Go to the world, peruse the book of man, 85
And learn from thence thy own defects to scan;
Severely honest, break no plighted trust,
But coldly rest not here--be more than just;
Join to the rigours of the sires of Rome
The gentler manners of the private dome; 90
When Virtue weeps in agony of woe,
Teach from the heart the tender tear to flow;
If Pleasure’s soothing song thy soul entice,
Or all the gaudy pomp of splendid Vice,
Arise superior to the Siren’s power, 95
The wretch, the short-lived vision of an hour;
Soon fades her cheek, her blushing beauties fly,
As fades the chequer’d bow that paints the sky,
So shall thy sire, whilst hope his breast inspires,
And wakes anew life’s glimmering trembling fires, 100
Hear Britain’s sons rehearse thy praise with joy,
Look up to heaven, and bless his darling boy.
If e’er these precepts quell’d the passions’ strife,
If e’er they smooth’d the rugged walks of life,
If e’er they pointed forth the blissful way 105
That guides the spirit to eternal day,
Do thou, if gratitude inspire thy breast,
Spurn the soft fetters of lethargic rest.
Awake, awake! and snatch the slumbering lyre,
Let this bright morn and Sandys the song inspire. 110
I look’d obedience: the celestial Fair
Smiled like the morn, and vanished into air.
[339] This quotation I am unable to trace--ED.
1792 (or earlier)
“SWEET WAS THE WALK ALONG THE NARROW LANE”
This sonnet is found in one of Dorothy Wordsworth’s letters to her
friend Miss Jane Polland, written from Forncett Rectory, on 6th May
1792. She wrote:--
“I promised to transcribe some of William’s compositions. As I made
the promise I will give you a little sonnet, but all the same I charge
you, as you value our friendship, not to read it, or to show it to
any one--to your sister, or any other person.… I take the first that
offers. It is only valuable to me because the lane which gave birth to
it was the favourite evening walk of my dear William and me.” … “I have
not chosen this sonnet because of any particular beauty it has; it was
the first I laid my hands upon.”--ED.
Sweet was the walk along the narrow lane
At noon, the bank and hedgerows all the way
Shagged with wild pale green tufts of fragrant hay,
Caught by the hawthorns from the loaded wain
Which Age, with many a slow stoop, strove to gain; 5
And Childhood seeming still more busy, took
His little rake with cunning sidelong look,
Sauntering to pluck the strawberries wild unseen.
_Now_ too, on melancholy’s idle dream
Musing, the lone spot with my soul agrees 10
Quiet and dark; for through the thick-wove trees
Scarce peeps the curious star till solemn gleams
The clouded moon, and calls me forth to stray
Through tall green silent woods and ruins grey.
“WHEN LOVE WAS BORN OF HEAVENLY LINE”
Composed 1795 (or earlier).--Published 1795
Translated from some French stanzas by Francis Wrangham, and Printed
in _Poems by Francis Wrangham_, M.A., Member of Trinity College,
Cambridge, London (1795), Sold by J. Mawman, 22 Poultry, pp. 106-111.
In the edition of 1795, the original French lines are printed side by
side with Wordsworth’s translation, which closes the volume.--ED.
When Love was born of heavenly line,
What dire intrigues disturb’d Cythera’s joy!
Till Venus cried, “A mother’s heart is mine;
None but myself shall nurse my boy.”
But, infant as he was, the child 5
In that divine embrace enchanted lay;
And, by the beauty of the vase beguiled,
Forgot the beverage--and pined away.
“And must my offspring languish in my sight?”
(Alive to all a mother’s pain, 10
The Queen of Beauty thus her court address’d)
“No: Let the most discreet of all my train
Receive him to her breast:
Think all, he is the God of young delight.”
Then TENDERNESS with CANDOUR join’d, 15
And GAIETY the charming office sought;
Nor even DELICACY stay’d behind:
But none of those fair Graces brought
Wherewith to nurse the child--and still he pined.
Some fond hearts to COMPLIANCE seem’d inclined; 20
But she had surely spoil’d the boy:
And sad experience forbade a thought
On the wild Goddess of VOLUPTUOUS JOY.
Long undecided lay th’ important choice,
Till of the beauteous court, at length, a voice 25
Pronounced the name of HOPE:--The conscious child
Stretch’d forth his little arms, and smiled.[340]
’Tis said ENJOYMENT (who averr’d
The charge belong’d to her alone)
Jealous that HOPE had been preferr’d 30
Laid snares to make the babe her own.
Of INNOCENCE the garb she took,
The blushing mien and downcast look;
And came her services to proffer:
And HOPE (what has not Hope believed!) 35
By that seducing air deceived,
Accepted of the offer.
It happen’d that, to sleep inclined,
Deluded HOPE for one short hour
To that false INNOCENCE’S power 40
Her little charge consign’d.
The Goddess then her lap with sweetmeats fill’d
And gave, in handfuls gave, the treacherous store:
A wild delirium first the infant thrill’d;
But soon upon her breast he sunk--to wake no more. 45
[340] Compare Gray’s _Progress of Poesy_, iii. I. 87--
The dauntless child
Stretch’d forth his little arms, and smiled.
ED.
THE CONVICT
Composed (?).--Published 1798
The glory of evening was spread through the west;
--On the slope of a mountain I stood,
While the joy that precedes the calm season of rest
Rang loud through the meadow and wood.
“And must we then part from a dwelling so fair?” 5
In the pain of my spirit I said,
And with a deep sadness I turned, to repair
To the cell where the convict is laid.
The thick-ribbed walls that o’ershadow the gate
Resound; and the dungeons unfold: 10
I pause; and at length, through the glimmering grate,
That outcast of pity behold.
His black matted hair on his shoulder is bent,
And deep is the sigh of his breath,
And with stedfast dejection his eyes are intent 15
On the fetters that link him to death.
’Tis sorrow enough on that visage to gaze,
That body dismiss’d from his care;
Yet my fancy has pierced to his heart, and pourtrays
More terrible images there. 20
His bones are consumed, and his life-blood is dried,
With wishes the past to undo;
And his crime, through the pains that o’erwhelm him, descried,
Still blackens and grows on his view.
When from the dark synod, or blood-reeking field, 25
To his chamber the monarch is led,
All soothers of sense their soft virtue shall yield,
And quietness pillow his head.
But if grief, self-consumed, in oblivion would doze,
And conscience her tortures appease, 30
’Mid tumult and uproar this man must repose,
In the comfortless vault of disease.
When his fetters at night have so press’d on his limbs,
That the weight can no longer be borne,
If, while a half-slumber his memory bedims, 35
The wretch on his pallet should turn,
While the jail-mastiff howls at the dull clanking chain,
From the roots of his hair there shall start
A thousand sharp punctures of cold-sweating pain,
And terror shall leap at his heart. 40
But now he half-raises his deep-sunken eye,
And the motion unsettles a tear;
The silence of sorrow it seems to supply,
And asks of me why I am here.
“Poor victim! no idle intruder has stood 45
With o’erweening complacence our state to compare,
But one, whose first wish is the wish to be good,
Is come as a brother thy sorrows to share.
“At thy name though compassion her nature resign,
Though in virtue’s proud mouth thy report be a stain, 50
My care, if the arm of the mighty were mine,
Would plant thee where yet thou might’st blossom again.”
1798
“THE SNOW-TRACKS OF MY FRIENDS I SEE”
The following incomplete stanzas were evidently written when _The
Complaint of a Forsaken Indian Woman_ was being composed. They were all
discarded, but have a biographical interest. I assign them to the year
1798.--ED.
The snow-tracks of my friends I see,
Their foot-marks do not trouble me,
For ever left alone am I.
Then wherefore should I fear to die?
They to the last my friends did cherish 5
And to the last were good and kind,
Methinks ’tis strange I did not perish
The moment I was left behind.
Why do I watch those running deer?
And wherefore, wherefore come they here? 10
And wherefore do I seem to love
The things that live, the things that move?
Why do I look upon the sky?
I do not live for what I see.
Why open thus mine eyes? To die 15
Is all that now is left for me,
If I could smother up my heart
My life would then at once depart.
My friends, you live, and yet you seem
To me the people of a dream; 20
A dream in which there is no love,
And yet, my friends, you live and move.
When I could live without a pain,
And feel no wish to be alive,
In quiet hopelessness I sleep, 25
Alas! how quiet, and how deep!
Oh no! I do not, cannot rue,
I did not strive to follow you.
I might have dropp’d, and died alone
On unknown snows, a spot unknown. 30
This spot to me must needs be dear,
Of my dear friends I see the trace.
You saw me, friends, you laid me here,
You know where my poor bones shall be,
Then wherefore should I fear to die? 35
Alas that one beloved, forlorn,
Should lie beneath the cold starlight!
With them I think I could have borne
The journey of another night,
And with my friends now far away 40
I could have lived another day.
THE OLD CUMBERLAND BEGGAR
MS. Variants, not inserted in Vol. I.
(l. 3) On a small pile of humble masonry
Placed at the foot of …
(l. 24) He travels on, a solitary man.
His age has no companion. He is weak,
So helpless in appearance that, for him
The sauntering horseman-traveller does not throw
With careless hand his pence upon the ground
But stops that he may lodge the coin
Safe in the old man’s hat: nor quits him so,
But as he goes towards him turns a look
Sidelong and half-reverted.…
1800
ANDREW JONES
Composed 1800.--Published 1800
_Andrew Jones_ was included in the “Lyrical Ballads” of 1800, 1802,
1805, and in the Poems of 1815. It was also printed in _The Morning
Post_, February 10, 1801. It was not republished after 1815. With this
poem compare _The Old Cumberland Beggar_.--ED.
I hate that Andrew Jones; he’ll breed
His children up to waste and pillage.
I wish the press-gang or the drum
Would with its rattling music come,[341]
And sweep him from the village! 5
I said not this, because he loves
Through the long day to swear and tipple;
But for the poor dear sake of one
To whom a foul deed he had done,
A friendless man, a travelling cripple! 10
For this poor crawling helpless wretch
Some horseman who was passing by,[342]
A penny on the ground had thrown;
But the poor cripple was alone
And could not stoop--no help was nigh. 15
Inch-thick the dust lay on the ground
For it had long been droughty weather;
So with his staff the cripple wrought
Among the dust till he had brought
The half-pennies together. 20
It chanced that Andrew passed that way
Just at the time; and there he found
The cripple in the mid-day heat
Standing alone, and at his feet
He saw the penny on the ground. 25
He stooped and took the penny up:[343]
And when the cripple nearer drew,
Quoth Andrew, “Under half-a-crown,
What a man finds is all his own,
And so, my friend, good-day to you.” 30
And _hence_ I said, that Andrew’s boys
Will all be trained to waste and pillage:
And wished the press-gang, or the drum
Would with its rattling music come,[344]
And sweep him from the village! 35
[341] 1815.
With its tantara sound would come,
1800.
[342]
It chanc’d some Traveller passing by,
MS.
[343] In the text of 1800, this line is, “He stopped and took the
penny up,” but in the list of _errata_, “stooped” is substituted for
“stopped.”--ED.
[344] 1815.
With its tantara sound would come
1800.
“THERE IS A SHAPELESS CROWD OF UNHEWN STONES”
Numerous fragments of verse, more or less unfinished, occur in the
Grasmere Journals, written by Dorothy Wordsworth. One of these--which
is broken up into irregular fragments, and very incomplete--is
evidently part of the material which was written about the old Cumbrian
shepherd Michael. The successive alterations of the text of the poem
_Michael_ are in the Grasmere Journal. These fragments have a special
topographical interest, from their description of Helvellyn, and its
spring, the fountain of the mists, and the stones on the summit. On the
outside leather cover of the MS. book there is written, “May to Dec.
1802.”
The following lines come first:--
There is a shapeless crowd of unhewn stones[345]
That lie together, some in heaps, and some
In lines, that seem to keep themselves alive
In the last dotage of a dying form.
At least so seems it to a man who stands
In such a lonely place.
These are followed by a few lines, some of which were afterwards used
in _The Prelude_ (see vol. iii. p. 269):--
Shall he who gives his days to low pursuits,
Amid the undistinguishable crowd
Of cities, ’mid the same eternal flow
Of the same objects, melted and reduced
To one identity, by differences
That have no law, no meaning, and no end,
Shall he feel yearning to those lifeless forms,
And shall we think that Nature is less kind
To those, who all day long, through a long life,
Have walked within her sight? It cannot be.
Mary Wordsworth, Dorothy Wordsworth,
William Wordsworth.
Sat. Eve., 20 past 6, May 29.
Other fragments follow, less worthy of preservation. Then the passage,
which occurs in book xiii. of _The Prelude_, beginning--
There are who think that strong affection, love,
(see vol. iii. p. 361), with one or two variations from the final text,
which were not improvements.
Five lines on Helvellyn, afterwards included in the _Musings near
Aquapendente_ (see vol. viii. p. 47, ll. 61-65), come next.
The fragments referring to _Michael_ are written down, probably just
as the brother dictated them to his sister, and would be--if not
unintelligible--certainly without any literary connection or unity,
were they printed in the order in which they occur. I therefore
transpose them slightly, to give something like continuity to the
whole; which remains, of course, a torso.
I will relate a tale for those who love
To lie beside the lonely mountain brooks,
And hear the voices of the winds and flowers.
…
… It befell
At the first falling of the autumnal snows,
Old Michael and his son one day went forth
In search of a stray sheep. It was the time
When from the heights our shepherds drive their flocks
To gather all their mountain family
Into the homestalls, ere they send them back
There to defend themselves the winter long.
Old Michael for this purpose had driven down
His flock into the vale, but as it chanced,
A single sheep was wanting. They had sought
The straggler during all the previous day
All over their own pastures, and beyond.
And now at sunrise, sallying forth again
Far did they go that morning: with their search
Beginning towards the south, where from Dove Crag
(Ill home for bird so gentle), they looked down
On Deep-dale-head, and Brothers water (named
From those two Brothers that were drowned therein);
Thence northward did they pass by Arthur’s seat,[346]
And Fairfield’s highest summit, on the right
Leaving St. Sunday’s Crag, to Grisdale tarn
They shot, and over that cloud-loving hill,
Seat-Sandal, a fond lover of the clouds;
Thence up Helvellyn, a superior mount,
With prospect underneath of Striding edge,
And Grisdale’s houseless vale, along the brink
Of Sheep-cot-cove, and those two other coves,
Huge skeletons of crags which from the coast
Of old Helvellyn spread their arms abroad
And make a stormy harbour for the winds.
Far went these shepherds in their devious quest,
From mountain ridges peeping as they passed
Down into every nook; …
… and many a sheep
On height or bottom[347] did they see, in flocks
Or single. And although it needs must seem
Hard to believe, yet could they well discern
Even at the utmost distance of two miles
(Such strength of vision to the shepherd’s eye
Doth practice give) that neither in the flocks
Nor in the single sheep was what they sought.
So to Helvellyn’s eastern side they went,
Down looking on that hollow, where the pool
Of Thirlmere flashes like a warrior’s shield
His light high up among the gloomy rocks,
With sight of now and then a straggling gleam
On Armath’s[348] pleasant fields. And now they came,
To that high spring which bears no human name,
As one unknown by others, aptly called
The fountain of the mists. The father stooped
To drink of the clear water, laid himself
Flat on the ground, even as a boy might do,
To drink of the cold well. When in like sort
His son had drunk, the old man said to him
That now he might be proud, for he that day
Had slaked his thirst out of a famous well,
The highest fountain known on British land.
Thence, journeying on a second time, they passed
Those small flat stones, which, ranged by traveller’s hands
In cyphers on Helvellyn’s highest ridge,
Lie loose on the bare turf, some half-o’ergrown
By the grey moss, but not a single stone
Unsettled by a wanton blow from foot
Of shepherd, man or boy. They have respect
For strangers who have travelled far perhaps,
For men who in such places, feeling there
The grandeur of the earth, have left inscribed
Their epitaph, which rain and snow
And the strong wind have reverenced.
…
But soon as Luke, full ten years old, could stand
Against the mountain blasts, and to the heights
Not fearing toil, nor length of weary ways,
He with his Father daily went, and they
Were as companions, why should I relate
That objects which the shepherd lov’d before
Were dearer now? that from the Boy there came
Feelings and emanations, things which were
Light to the sun and music to the wind;
And that the old man’s heart seem’d born again?
Thus in his Father’s sight the Boy grew up;
And now when he had reached his eighteenth year,
He was his comfort and his daily hope.
…
Though often thus industriously they passed[349]
Whole hours with but small interchange of speech,
Yet were there times in which they did not want
Discourse both wise and pleasant,[350] shrewd remarks
Of moral prudence,[351] clothed in images
Lively and beautiful, in rural forms,
That made their conversation fresh and fair
As is a landscape; and the shepherd oft
Would draw out of his heart the mysteries[352]
And admirations that were there, of God
And of his works: or, yielding to the bent
Of his peculiar humour, would let loose
His tongue, and give it the wind’s freedom; then,
Discoursing on remote imaginations, strong
Conceits, devices, plans, and schemes,[353]
Of alterations human hands might make
Among the mountains, fens which might be drained,
Mines opened, forests planted, and rocks split,
The fancies of a solitary man.[354]
Not with a waste of words, but for the sake
Of pleasure which I know that I shall give
To many living now, have I described
Old Michael’s manners and discourse, and thus
Minutely spoken of that aged Lamp
Round which the Shepherd and his household sate
--The light was famous in the neighbourhood
And was a public symbol …
Then follow four pages of Dorothy Wordsworth’s Journal (May 4th and
5th, 1802); and then, irregularly written, and with numerous erasures,
the remainder of these unpublished lines.
… At length the boy
Said, “Father, ’tis lost labour; with your leave
I will go back and range a second time
The grounds which we have hunted through before.”
So saying, homeward, down the hill the boy
Sprang like a gust of wind: [and with a heart
Brimful of glory said within himself,
“I know where I shall find him, though the storm
Have driven him twenty miles.”
For ye must know][355] that though the storm
Drive one of those poor creatures miles and miles,
If he can crawl, he will return again
To his own hills, the spots where when a lamb
He learned to pasture at his mother’s side.
Bethinking him of this, again the boy
Pursued his way toward a brook, whose course
Was through that unfenced tract of mountain ground
Which to his father’s little farm belonged,
The home and ancient birthright of their flock.
Down the deep channel of the stream he went,
Prying through every nook. Meanwhile the rain
Began to fall upon the mountain tops,
Thick storm, and heavy, which for three hours’ space
Abated not; and all that time the boy
Was busy in his search, until at length
He spied the sheep upon a plot of grass,
An island in the brook. It was a place
Remote and deep, piled round with rocks, where foot
Of man or beast was seldom used to tread.
But now, when everywhere the summer grass
Began to fail, this sheep by hunger pressed
Had left his fellows, made his way alone
To the green plot of pasture in the brook.
Before the boy knew well what he had seen
He leapt upon the island, with proud heart,
And with a shepherd’s joy. Immediately
The sheep sprang forward to the further shore,
And was borne headlong by the roaring flood.
At this the boy looked round him, and his heart
Fainted with fear. Thrice did he turn his face
To either bank, nor could he summon up
The courage that was needful to leap back
’Cross the tempestuous torrent; so he stood
A prisoner on the island, not without
More than one thought of death, and his last hour.
Meantime the father had returned alone
To his own home, and now at the approach
Of evening he went forth to meet his son,
Nor could he guess the cause for which the boy
Had stayed so long. The shepherd took his way
Up his own mountain grounds, where, as he walked
Along the steep that overhung the brook,
He seemed to hear a voice, which was again
Repeated, like the whistling of a kite.
At this, not knowing why--as often-times
The old man afterwards was heard to say--
Down to the brook he went, and tracked its course
Upwards among the o’erhanging rocks; nor
Had he gone far ere he espied the boy
Right in the middle of the roaring stream.
Without distress or fear the shepherd heard
The outcry of his son: he stretched his staff
Towards him, bade him leap, which word scarce said
The boy was safe.…
…
Of Michael it is said--
No doubt if you in terms direct had asked
Whether he loved the mountains, true it is
That with blunt repetition of your words
He might have stared at you, and said that they
Were frightful to behold, but had you then
Discoursed with him …
Of his own business, and the goings on
Of earth and sky, then truly had you seen
That in his thoughts there were obscurities,
Wonder, and admiration, things that wrought
Not less than a religion in his heart.
And if it was his fortune to converse
With any who could talk of common things
In an unusual way, and give to them
Unusual aspects, or by questions apt
Wake sudden recognitions, that were like
Creations in the mind (and were indeed
Creations often), then when he discoursed
Of mountain sights, this untaught shepherd stood
Before the man with whom he so conversed
And looked at him as with a poet’s eye.
But speaking of the vale in which he dwelt,
And those bare rocks, if you had asked if he
For other pastures would exchange the same
And dwell elsewhere, …
… you then had seen
At once what spirit of love was in his heart.
…
I have related that this Shepherd loved
The fields and mountains, not alone for this
That from his very childhood he had lived
Among them, with a body hale and stout,
And with a vigorous mind …
… But exclude
Such reasons, and he had less cause to love
His native vale and patrimonial fields
Than others have, for Michael had liv’d on
Childless, until the time when he began
To look towards the shutting in of life.
In this MS. book there are also some of the original stanzas of _Ruth_,
with a few variations of text.--ED.
[345] Compare the first line of those _Written with a Slate Pencil upon
a Stone, the largest of a Heap lying near a deserted Quarry, upon one
of the Islands at Rydal_, vol. ii. p. 63.--ED.
[346] Stone Arthur. See, in the “Poems on the Naming of Places,” the
one beginning--
There is an Eminence,
ED.
[347] Bottom is a common Cumbrian word for valley.--ED.
[348] Armboth, on the western side of Thirlmere.--ED.
[349] Though in these occupations they would pass†
[350] … prudent, …†
[351] Of daily Providence …†
[352] … obscurities†
[353] Day-dreams, thoughts, and schemes.†
† These variants occur in a letter of Dorothy Wordsworth to Thomas
Poole.--ED.
[354] All doubt as to these fragments being originally intended to form
part of _Michael_ is set at rest by a letter from Wordsworth to Thomas
Poole, of Nether Stowey, written from Grasmere on the 9th of April
1801, in which he gives first some new lines to be added to _Michael_,
at pp. 210 and 211 of vol. ii. of the “Lyrical Ballads” (ed. 1800); to
which letter Dorothy Wordsworth added the postscript, “My brother has
written the following lines, to be inserted page 206, after the ninth
line--
Murmur as with the sound of summer flies;”
and then follow--
Though in these occupations they would pass
Whole hours, etc.
as printed above.
Dorothy Wordsworth adds, “Tell whether you think the insertion of these
lines an improvement.”--ED.
[355] An erased version.--ED.
1802
“AMONG ALL LOVELY THINGS MY LOVE HAD BEEN”
Composed April 12, 1802.--Published 1807
This poem--known in the Wordsworth household as _The Glowworm_--was
written on the 12th of April 1802, during a ride from Middleham to
Barnard Castle, and was published in the edition of 1807. It was never
reproduced. The “Lucy” of this and other poems was his sister Dorothy.
In a letter to Coleridge, written in April 1802, he thus refers to
the poem, and to the incident which gave rise to it:--“I parted from
M---- on Monday afternoon, about six o’clock, a little on this side
Rushyford. Soon after I missed my road in the midst of the storm.…
Between the beginning of Lord Darlington’s park at Raby, and two or
three miles beyond Staindrop, I composed the poem the opposite page. I
reached Barnard Castle about half-past ten.… The incident of this poem
took place about seven years ago between my sister and me.”
I think it probable that the “incident” occurred near Racedown,
Dorsetshire, where, in the autumn of 1795 Wordsworth settled with his
sister. The following is Dorothy’s account of the composition of the
poem:--“Tuesday, April 20, 1802.--We sate in the orchard and repeated
_The Glowworm_, and other poems. Just when William came to a well, or
trough, which there is in Lord Darlington’s park, he began to write
that poem of _The Glowworm_; interrupted in going through the town of
Staindrop, finished it about two miles and a-half beyond Staindrop. He
did not feel the jogging of the horse while he was writing; but, when
he had done, he felt the effect of it.… So much for _The Glowworm_. It
was written coming from Middleham, on Monday, April 12, 1802.”--ED.
Among all lovely things my Love had been;
Had noted well the stars, all flowers that grew
About her home; but she had never seen
A glow-worm, never one, and this I knew.
While riding near her home one stormy night 5
A single glow-worm did I chance to espy;
I gave a fervent welcome to the sight,
And from my horse I leapt; great joy had I.
Upon a leaf the glow-worm did I lay,
To bear it with me through the stormy night: 10
And, as before, it shone without dismay;
Albeit putting forth a fainter light.
When to the dwelling of my Love I came,
I went into the orchard quietly;
And left the glow-worm, blessing it by name, 15
Laid safely by itself, beneath a tree.
The whole next day I hoped, and hoped with fear;
At night the glow-worm shone beneath the tree;
I led my Lucy to the spot, “Look here,”
Oh! joy it was for her, and joy for me! 20
“ALONG THE MAZES OF THIS SONG I GO”
This, and the next two fragments, by Wordsworth, are extracted from his
sister’s Grasmere Journal.--ED.
Along the mazes of this song I go
As inward motions of the wandering thought
Lead me, or outward circumstance impels.
Thus do I urge a never-ending way
Year after year, with many a sleep between,
Through joy and sorrow; if my lot be joy
More joyful if it be with sorrow sooth’d.
“THE RAINS AT LENGTH HAVE CEAS’D, THE WINDS ARE STILL’D”
The rains at length have ceas’d, the winds are still’d,
The stars shine brightly between clouds at rest,
And as a cavern is with darkness fill’d,
The vale is by a mighty sound possess’d
“WITNESS THOU”
Witness thou
The dear companion of my lonely walk,
My hope, my joy, my sister, and my friend,
Or something dearer still, if reason knows
A dearer thought, or in the heart of love
There be a dearer name.[356]
[356] Compare Byron’s _Epistle to Augusta_--
My sister! my sweet sister! if a name
Dearer and purer were, it should be thine.
It is a mere coincidence, as Byron could not have seen the Wordsworth
MS.--ED.
WILD-FOWL
The order’d troops
In spiral circles mount aloft, and soar
In prospect far above the denser air
That hangs o’er the moist plain. Again they view
The glorious sun, and while the light of day
Still gleams upon their polish’d plumes--the bright
Sonorous squadrons sing their evening hymn.
WRITTEN IN A GROTTO
Published in _The Morning Post_, March 9, 1802
I cannot affirm, with any certainty, that these lines were written by
Wordsworth; but I agree with Mr. Ernest Coleridge in thinking that they
were. He showed them to his relative--the late Chief Justice--who said
that he did not know who else _could_ have written them, at that time.
Lord Coleridge said the same to myself.--ED.
O moon! if e’er I joyed when thy soft light
Danc’d to the murmuring rill on Lomond’s wave,
Or sighed for thy sweet presence some dark night
When thou wert hidden in thy monthly grave,[357]
If e’er on wings which active fancy gave 5
I sought thy golden vale with dancing flight
Then stretcht at ease in some sequestered cave
Gaz’d on thy lovely Nymphs with fond delight,
Thy Nymphs with more than earthly beauty bright,
If e’er thy beam, as Smyrna’s shepherds tell, 10
Soft as the gentle kiss of amorous maid
On the closed eye of young Endymion fell[358]
That he might wake to clasp thee in the shade,
Each night while I recline within this cell
Guide hither, O sweet Moon, the maid I love so well. 15
The shepherds of Smyrna show a cave, where, as they say, Luna descended
to Endymion, laid on a bed under a large oak which was the scene of
their loves. See Chandler’s _Travels in Asia Minor_.
[357] Compare _To the Moon_, vol. viii. p. 15, l. 64.--ED.
[358] Compare, in the “Evening Voluntaries,” _To Lucca Giordano_
(1846), p. 183.--ED.
HOME AT GRASMERE
The canto of Wordsworth’s autobiographical poem, unpublished in _The
Prelude_ (1851), and first given to the world in 1888, is appropriately
entitled “Home at Grasmere.”
The introduction to _The Recluse_ was not only kept back by him during
his lifetime, but was omitted by his representatives--with what must be
regarded as true critical insight--when _The Prelude_ was published in
1850. As a whole, it is not equal to _The Prelude_. Certain passages
are very inferior, but there are others that posterity must cherish,
and “not willingly let die.” It was probably a conviction of its
inequality and inferiority that led Wordsworth to give only one or two
selected extracts from this canto to the world, in his own lifetime.
Two passages were printed in his _Guide to the District of the Lakes_;
another--a description of the flight and movement of birds--was
published in 1827, and subsequent editions, under the title of
_Water-Fowl_; while the Bishop of Lincoln published other two passages
in the _Memoirs_ of his uncle, beginning respectively--
On Nature’s invitation do I come,
and
Bleak season was it, turbulent and bleak.
Internal evidence (see the numerous allusions to Dorothy, and the
reference to John Wordsworth) shows that this canto of _The Recluse_
was written at Grasmere, not long after Wordsworth’s arrival there,
and certainly before his marriage. The text, as now printed, has been
carefully compared with the original MS. by Mr. Gordon Wordsworth. The
MS. heading is--THE RECLUSE. BOOK FIRST, PART FIRST.
HOME AT GRASMERE