Encouraged of celestial power;
Power which the viewless Spirit shed
By whom we were first visited; 285
Whose voice we heard, whose hand and wings
Swept like a breeze the conscious strings,
When, left in solitude, erewhile
We stood before this ruined Pile,
And, quitting unsubstantial dreams, 290
Sang in this Presence kindred themes;
Distress and desolation spread
Through human hearts, and pleasure dead,--
Dead--but to live again on earth,
A second and yet nobler birth; 295
Dire overthrow, and yet how high
The re-ascent in sanctity!
From fair to fairer; day by day
A more divine and loftier way!
Even such this blessed Pilgrim trod, 300
By sorrow lifted towards her God;
Uplifted to the purest sky
Of undisturbed mortality.
Her own thoughts loved she; and could bend
A dear look to her lowly Friend; 305
There stopped; her thirst was satisfied
With what this innocent spring supplied:
Her sanction inwardly she bore,
And stood apart from human cares:
But to the world returned no more, 310
Although with no unwilling mind
Help did she give at need, and joined
The Wharfdale peasants in their prayers.
At length, thus faintly, faintly tied
To earth, she was set free, and died. 315
Thy soul, exalted Emily,
Maid of the blasted family,
Rose to the God from whom it came!
--In Rylstone Church her mortal frame
Was buried by her Mother's side. 320
Most glorious sunset! and a ray
Survives--the twilight of this day--
In that fair Creature whom the fields
Support, and whom the forest shields;
Who, having filled a holy place, 325
Partakes, in her degree, Heaven's grace;
And bears a memory and a mind
Raised far above the law of kind;[WW]
Haunting the spots with lonely cheer
Which her dear Mistress once held dear: 330
Loves most what Emily loved most--
The enclosure of this church-yard ground;
Here wanders like a gliding ghost,
And every sabbath here is found;
Comes with the people when the bells 335
Are heard among the moorland dells,
Finds entrance through yon arch, where way
Lies open on the sabbath-day;
Here walks amid the mournful waste
Of prostrate altars, shrines defaced, 340
And floors encumbered with rich show
Of fret-work imagery laid low;
Paces softly, or makes halt,
By fractured cell, or tomb, or vault;
By plate of monumental brass 345
Dim-gleaming among weeds and grass,
And sculptured Forms of Warriors brave:
But chiefly by that single grave,
That one sequestered hillock green,
The pensive visitant is seen. 350
There doth the gentle Creature lie
With those adversities unmoved;
Calm spectacle, by earth and sky
In their benignity approved!
And aye, methinks, this hoary Pile, 355
Subdued by outrage and decay,
Looks down upon her with a smile,
A gracious smile, that seems to say--
"Thou, thou art not a Child of Time,
But Daughter of the Eternal Prime!" 360
The following is the full text of the first "note" to _The White Doe of
Rylstone_, published in the quarto edition of 1815. The other notes to
that edition are printed in this, at the foot of the pages where they
occur:--
"The Poem of _The White Doe of Rylstone_ is founded on a local
tradition, and on the Ballad in Percy's Collection, entitled _The
Rising of the North_. The tradition is as follows: 'About this
time,' not long after the Dissolution, 'a White Doe, say the aged
people of the neighbourhood, long continued to make a weekly
pilgrimage from Rylstone over the fells of Bolton, and was
constantly found in the Abbey Church-yard during divine service;
after the close of which she returned home as regularly as the
rest of the congregation.'--Dr. WHITAKER'S _History of the Deanery
of Craven_.--Rylstone was the property and residence of the
Nortons, distinguished in that ill-advised and unfortunate
Insurrection, which led me to connect with this tradition the
principal circumstances of their fate, as recorded in the Ballad
which I have thought it proper to annex.
_The Rising in the North._
"The subject of this ballad is the great Northern Insurrection in
the 12th year of Elizabeth, 1569, which proved so fatal to Thomas
Percy, the seventh Earl of Northumberland.
"There had not long before been a secret negociation entered into
between some of the Scottish and English nobility, to bring about
a marriage between Mary Q. of Scots, at that time a prisoner in
England, and the Duke of Norfolk, a nobleman of excellent
character. This match was proposed to all the most considerable of
the English nobility, and among the rest to the Earls of
Northumberland and Westmoreland, two noblemen very powerful in the
North. As it seemed to promise a speedy and safe conclusion of the
troubles in Scotland, with many advantages to the crown of
England, they all consented to it, provided it should prove
agreeable to Queen Elizabeth. The Earl of Leicester (Elizabeth's
favourite) undertook to break the matter to her, but before he
could find an opportunity, the affair had come to her ears by
other hands, and she was thrown into a violent flame. The Duke of
Norfolk, with several of his friends, was committed to the Tower,
and summons were sent to the Northern Earls instantly to make
their appearance at court. It is said that the Earl of
Northumberland, who was a man of a mild and gentle nature,[XX] was
deliberating with himself whether he should not obey the message,
and rely upon the Queen's candour and clemency, when he was forced
into desperate measures by a sudden report at midnight, Nov. 14,
that a party of his enemies were come to seize his person. The
Earl was then at his house at Topcliffe in Yorkshire. When, rising
hastily out of bed, he withdrew to the Earl of Westmoreland at
Brancepeth, where the country came in to them, and pressed them to
take up arms in their own defence. They accordingly set up their
standards, declaring their intent was to restore the ancient
Religion, to get the succession of the crown firmly settled, and
to prevent the destruction of the ancient nobility, etc. Their
common banner (on which was displayed the cross, together with the
five wounds of Christ) was borne by an ancient gentleman, Richard
Norton, Esquire, who, with his sons (among whom, Christopher,
Marmaduke, and Thomas, are expressly named by Camden),
distinguished himself on this occasion. Having entered Durham,
they tore the Bible, etc., and caused mass to be said there; they
then marched on to Clifford-moor near Wetherby, where they
mustered their men.... The two Earls, who spent their large
estates in hospitality, and were extremely beloved on that
account, were masters of little ready money; the E. of
Northumberland bringing with him only 8000 crowns, and the E. of
Westmoreland nothing at all, for the subsistence of their forces,
they were not able to march to London, as they had at first
intended. In these circumstances, Westmoreland began so visibly to
despond, that many of his men slunk away, though Northumberland
still kept up his resolution, and was master of the field till
December 13, when the Earl of Sussex, accompanied with Lord
Hunsden and others, having marched out of York at the head of a
large body of forces, and being followed by a still larger army
under the command of Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick, the
insurgents retreated northward towards the borders, and there
dismissing their followers, made their escape into Scotland.
Though this insurrection had been suppressed with so little
bloodshed, the Earl of Sussex and Sir George Bowes, marshal of the
army, put vast numbers to death by martial law, without any
regular trial. The former of these caused at Durham sixty-three
constables to be hanged at once. And the latter made his boast,
that for sixty miles in length, and forty in breadth, betwixt
Newcastle and Wetherby, there was hardly a town or village wherein
he had not executed some of the inhabitants. This exceeds the
cruelties practised in the West after Monmouth's rebellion.
"Such is the account collected from Stow, Speed, Camden, Guthrie,
Carte, and Rapin; it agrees, in most particulars, with the
following Ballad, apparently the production of some northern
minstrel.--
"Listen, lively lordings all,
Lithe and listen unto mee,
And I will sing of a noble earle,
The noblest earle in the north countrie.
Earle Percy is into his garden gone,
And after him walks his fair leddie:
I heard a bird sing in mine ear,
That I must either fight, or flee.
Now heaven forefend, my dearest lord,
That ever such harm should hap to thee:
But goe to London to the court,
And fair fall truth and honestie.
Now nay, now nay, my ladye gay,
Alas! thy counsell suits not mee;
Mine enemies prevail so fast,
That at the court I may not bee.
O goe to the court yet, good my lord,
And take thy gallant men with thee;
If any dare to do you wrong,
Then your warrant they may bee.
Now nay, now nay, thou ladye faire,
The court is full of subtiltie:
And if I goe to the court, ladye,
Never more I may thee see.
Yet goe to the court, my lord, she sayes,
And I myselfe will ryde wi' thee:
At court then for my dearest lord,
His faithful borrowe I will bee.
Now nay, now nay, my ladye deare;
Far lever had I lose my life,
Than leave among my cruell foes
My love in jeopardy and strife.
But come thou hither, my little foot-page,
Come thou hither unto mee,
To Maister Norton thou must goe
In all the haste that ever may bee.
Commend me to that gentleman,
And beare this letter here fro mee;
And say that earnestly I praye,
He will ryde in my companie.
One while the little foot-page went,
And another while he ran;
Untill he came to his journey's end,
The little foot-page never blan.
When to that gentleman he came,
Down he kneeled on his knee;
And took the letter betwixt his hands,
And lett the gentleman it see.
And when the letter it was redd,
Affore that goodlye companie,
I wis if you the truthe wold know,
There was many a weeping eye.
He sayd, Come thither, Christopher Norton,
A gallant youth thou seem'st to bee;
What dost thou counsell me, my sonne,
Now that good earle's in jeopardy?
Father, my counselle's fair and free;
That erle he is a noble lord,
And whatsoever to him you hight,
I would not have you breake your word.
Gramercy, Christopher, my sonne,
Thy counsell well it liketh mee,
And if we speed and 'scape with life,
Well advanced shalt thou bee.
Come you hither, my nine good sonnes,
Gallant men I trowe you bee:
How many of you, my children deare,
Will stand by that good erle and mee?
Eight of them did answer make,
Eight of them spake hastilie,
O Father, till the day we dye
We'll stand by that good erle and thee.
Gramercy, now, my children deare,
You shew yourselves right bold and brave,
And whethersoe'er I live or dye,
A father's blessing you shall have.
But what say'st thou, O Francis Norton,
Thou art mine eldest sonne and heire:
Somewhat lies brooding in thy breast;
Whatever it bee, to mee declare.
Father, you are an aged man,
Your head is white, your beard is gray;
It were a shame at these your years
For you to ryse in such a fray.
Now fye upon thee, coward Francis,
Thou never learned'st this of mee;
When thou wert young and tender of age,
Why did I make soe much of thee?
But, father, I will wend with you,
Unarm'd and naked will I bee;
And he that strikes against the crowne,
Ever an ill death may he dee.
Then rose that reverend gentleman,
And with him came a goodlye band
To join with the brave Earle Percy,
And all the flower o' Northumberland.
With them the noble Nevill came,
The erle of Westmoreland was hee;
At Wetherbye they mustered their host,
Thirteen thousand fair to see.
Lord Westmorland his ancyent raisde,
The Dun Bull he rays'd on hye,
And three Dogs with golden collars
Were there set out most royallye.
Erle Percy there his ancyent spread,
The Halfe Moone shining all soe faire;
The Nortons ancyent had the Crosse,
And the five wounds our Lord did beare.
Then Sir George Bowes he straitwaye rose,
After them some spoile to make:
Those noble erles turned back againe,
And aye they vowed that knight to take.
That baron he to his castle fled,
To Barnard castle then fled hee.
The uttermost walles were eathe to win.
The earles have wonne them presentlie.
The uttermost walles were lime and bricke;
But though they won them soon anone,
Long ere they wan their innermost walles,
For they were cut in rocke and stone.
Then news unto leeve London came
In all the speed that ever might bee,
And word is brought to our royall queene
Of the rysing in the North countrie.
Her grace she turned her round about,
And like a royall queene shee swore,
I will ordayne them such a breakfast,
As never was in the North before.
Shee caused thirty thousand men be rays'd,
With horse and harneis faire to see;
She caused thirty thousand men be raised
To take the earles i' th' North countrie.
Wi' them the false Erle Warwicke went,
The Erle Sussex and the Lord Hunsden,
Untill they to York castle came
I wiss they never stint ne blan.
Now spred thy ancyent, Westmoreland,
Thy dun Bull faine would we spye:
And thou, the Erle of Northumberland,
Now rayse thy Halfe Moone on hye.
But the dun bulle is fled and gone,
And the halfe moone vanished away:
The Erles, though they were brave and bold,
Against soe many could not stay.
Thee, Norton, wi' thine eight good sonnes,
They doomed to dye, alas! for ruth!
Thy reverend lockes thee could not save,
Nor them their faire and blooming youthe.
Wi' them full many a gallant wight
They cruellye bereav'd of life:
And many a child made fatherlesse,
And widowed many a tender wife.
"'Bolton Priory,' says Dr. Whitaker in his excellent book--_The
History and Antiquities of the Deanery of Craven_--'stands upon a
beautiful curvature of the Wharf, on a level sufficiently elevated
to protect it from inundations, and low enough for every purpose
of picturesque effect.
"'Opposite to the East window of the Priory Church, the river
washes the foot of a rock nearly perpendicular, and of the richest
purple, where several of the mineral beds, which break out,
instead of maintaining their usual inclination to the horizon, are
twisted by some inconceivable process, into undulating and spiral
lines. To the South all is soft and delicious; the eye reposes
upon a few rich pastures, a moderate reach of the river,
sufficiently tranquil to form a mirror to the sun, and the
bounding hills beyond, neither too near nor too lofty to exclude,
even in winter, any portion of his rays.
"'But, after all, the glories of Bolton are on the North. Whatever
the most fastidious taste could require to constitute a perfect
landscape is not only found here, but in its proper place. In
front, and immediately under the eye, is a smooth expanse of
park-like enclosure, spotted with native elm, ash, etc. of the
finest growth: on the right a skirting oak wood, with jutting
points of grey rock; on the left a rising copse. Still forward are
seen the aged groves of Bolton Park, the growth of centuries; and
farther yet, the barren and rocky distances of Simon-seat and
Barden Fell contrasted with the warmth, fertility, and luxuriant
foliage of the valley below.
"'About half a mile above Bolton the Valley closes, and either
side of the Wharf is overhung by solemn woods, from which huge
perpendicular masses of grey rock jut out at intervals.
"'This sequestered scene was almost inaccessible till of late,
that ridings have been cut on both sides of the River, and the
most interesting points laid open by judicious thinnings in the
woods. Here a tributary stream rushes from a waterfall, and bursts
through a woody glen to mingle its waters with the Wharf: there
the Wharf itself is nearly lost in a deep cleft in the rock, and
next becomes a horned flood enclosing a woody island--sometimes it
reposes for a moment, and then resumes its native character,
lively, irregular, and impetuous.
"'The cleft mentioned above is the tremendous STRID. This chasm,
being incapable of receiving the winter floods, has formed, on
either side, a broad strand of naked gritstone full of
rock-basons, or "pots of the Linn," which bear witness to the
restless impetuosity of so many Northern torrents. But, if here
Wharf is lost to the eye, it amply repays another sense by its
deep and solemn roar, like "the Voice of the angry Spirit of the
Waters," heard far above and beneath, amidst the silence of the
surrounding woods.
"'The terminating object of the landscape is the remains of Barden
Tower, interesting from their form and situation, and still more
so from the recollections which they excite.'"
* * * * *
_The White Doe of Rylstone_ has been assigned chronologically to the
year 1808; although part of it--probably the larger half--was written
during the autumn of the previous year, and it remained unfinished in
1810, while the Dedication was not written till 1815. In the Fenwick
note, Wordsworth tells us that the "earlier half" was written at
Stockton-on-Tees "at the close" of 1807, and "proceeded with" at Dove
Cottage, after his return to Grasmere, which was in April 1808. But on
the 28th February, 1810, Dorothy Wordsworth, writing from Allan Bank to
Lady Beaumont, says, "Before my brother turns to any other labour, I
hope he will have finished three books of _The Recluse_. He seldom
writes less than 50 lines every day. After this task is finished he
hopes to complete _The White Doe_, and proud should we all be if it
should be honoured by a frontispiece from the pencil of Sir George
Beaumont. Perhaps this is not impossible, if you come into the north
next summer."
A frontispiece was drawn by Sir George Beaumont for the quarto edition
of 1815.
When part of the poem was finished, Wordsworth showed it to Southey; and
Southey, writing to Walter Scott, in February 1808, said,--
"Wordsworth has just completed a most masterly poem upon the fate
of the Nortons; two or three lines in the old ballad of _The
Rising of the North_ gave him the hint. The story affected me more
deeply than I wish to be affected; younger readers, however, will
not object to the depth of the distress, and nothing was ever more
ably treated. He is looking, too, for a narrative subject, pitched
in a lower key."
One of the most interesting letters of S. T. Coleridge to Wordsworth is
an undated one, sent from London in the spring of 1808, containing a
characteristic criticism of _The White Doe_. The Wordsworth family had
asked Coleridge to discuss the subject of the publication of the poem
with the Longmans' firm. It is more than probable that it was
Coleridge's criticism of the structural defects in the poem, that led
Wordsworth to postpone its publication. The following is part of the
letter:--
"... In my reperusals of the poem, it seemed always to strike on
my feeling as well as judgment, that if there were any serious
defect, it consisted in a disproportion of the Accidents to the
spiritual Incidents; and, closely connected with this,--if it be
not indeed the same,--that Emily is indeed talked of, and once
appears, but neither speaks nor acts, in all the first
three-fourths of the poem. Then, as the outward interest of the
poem is in favour of the old man's religious feelings, and the
filial heroism of his band of sons, it seemed to require something
in order to place the two protestant malcontents of the family in
a light that made them beautiful as well as virtuous. In short, to
express it far more strongly than I mean or think, in order (in
the present anguish of my spirits) to be able to express it at
all, that three-fourths of the work is everything rather _than_
Emily; and then, the last--almost a separate and doubtless an
exquisite poem--wholly _of_ Emily. The whole of the rest, and the
delivering up of the family by Francis, I never ceased to find,
not only comparatively heavy, but to me quite obscure as to
Francis's motives. On the few, to whom, within my acquaintance,
the poem has been read, either by yourself or me (I have, I
believe, read it only at the Beaumonts'), it produced the same
effect.
"Now I have conceived two little incidents, the introduction of
which, joined to a little abridgment, and lyrical precipitation of
the last half of the third, I had thought would have removed this
defect, so seeming to me, and bring to a finer balance the
_business_ with the _action_ of the tale. But after my receipt of
your letter, concerning Lamb's censures, I felt my courage fail,
and that what I deemed a harmonizing would disgust you as a
_materialization_ of the plan, and appear to you like
insensibility to the power of the history in the mind. Not that I
should have shrunk back from the mere fear of giving transient
pain, and a temporary offence, from the want of sympathy of
feeling and coincidence of opinions. I rather envy than blame that
deep interest in a production, which is inevitable perhaps, and
certainly not dishonourable to such as feel poetry their calling
and their duty, and which no man would find much fault with if the
object, instead of a poem, were a large estate or a title. It
appears to me to become a foible only when the poet denies, or is
unconscious of its existence, but I did not deem myself in such a
state of mind as to entitle me to rely on my own opinion when
opposed to yours, from the heat and bustle of these disgusting
lectures."
. . . . .
"From most of these causes I was suffering, so as not to allow me
any rational confidence in my opinions when contrary to yours,
which had been formed in calmness and on long reflection. Then I
received your sister's letter, stating the wish that I would give
up the thought of proposing the means of correction, and merely
point out the things to be corrected, which--as they could be of
no great consequence--you might do in a day or two, and the
publication of the poem--for the immediacy of which she expressed
great anxiety--be no longer retarded. The merely verbal
_alteranda_ did appear to me very few and trifling. From your
letter on L----, I concluded that you would not have the incidents
and action interfered with, and therefore I sent it off; but soon
retracted it, in order to note down the single words and phrases
that I disliked in the books, after the two first, as there would
be time to receive your opinion of them during the printing of the
two first, in which I saw nothing amiss, except the one passage we
altered together, and the two lines which I scratched out, because
you yourself were doubtful. Mrs. Shepherd told me that she had
felt them exactly as I did--namely, as interrupting the spirit of
the continuous tranquil motion of _The White Doe_."
It will be seen from this letter that Wordsworth had gone over the poem
with Coleridge, and that they had altered some passages "together"; that
Coleridge had read a copy of it sent to the Beaumonts, doubtless at
Dunmow in Essex; that he had thought of a plan by which the poem could
be immensely improved, both by addition and subtraction; but that
hearing from Wordsworth, or more probably from his sister Dorothy, that
Charles Lamb had also criticised its structure, he gave up his intention
of sending to his friend suggestions, which evidently implied a radical
alteration of "the incidents and action" of the tale. It would have been
extremely interesting to know how the author of _Christabel_ and _The
Ancient Mariner_ proposed to recast _The White Doe of Rylstone_. It is,
alas! impossible for posterity to know this, although it is not
difficult to conjecture the line which the alterations would take.
Wordsworth's genius was not great in construction, as in imagination;
and he valued a story only as giving him a "point of departure" for a
flight of fancy or of idealization. Early in 1808 he wrote to Walter
Scott asking him for facts about the Norton family. Scott supplied him
with them, and the following was Wordsworth's reply.
"GRASMERE, May 14, 1808.
"MY DEAR SCOTT--Thank you for the interesting particulars about
the Nortons. I like them much for their own sakes; but so far from
being serviceable to my poem, they would stand in the way of it,
as I have followed (as I was in duty bound to do) the traditionary
and common historic account. Therefore I shall say, in this case,
a plague upon your industrious antiquarians, that have put my fine
story to confusion."