At length the long vacation, which the good Alma Mater allows for the
refreshment of the minds and bodies of her dear children, came to set
Wordsworth at liberty; and, in the summer of 1788, he revisited his
native scenes at Esthwaite. The old cramp of University life, with its
dissipations, and frivolous pleasures, fell from him like an evil
enchantment, the first moment when he beheld the bed of Windermere,
“Like a vast river stretching in the sun.
With exultation at my feet I saw
Lake, islands, promontories, gleaming bays,
A universe of Nature’s finest forms,
Proudly revealed with instantaneous burst,
Magnificent, and beautiful, and gay.
I bounded down the hill, shouting amain
For the old ferryman; to the shout the rocks
Replied; and when the Charon of the flood
Had stay’d his oars, and touched the jutting pier,
I did not step into the well-known boat
Without a cordial greeting.”
There is something very delightful and refreshing in this burst of
enthusiasm, and it shews clearly enough, which was the University
Wordsworth loved best. At Cambridge he was a prisoner, with his dark
heart yearning for the sunshine of his native hills; but here he was
free, his heart no longer dark nor sad, but flooding with light and joy,
and exulting in the delicious beauty of Nature.
And what strikes me as very touching and beautiful in the poet’s
relation of this visit to his birthplace, is the fact that he did not
forget his old dame,--although certain critics have of late declared
that he had no heart,--but that on the contrary he went straight to her
cottage, and so closed his journey from Cambridge. Hear how he speaks of
her and her reception of him:
“Glad welcome had I, with some tears, perhaps,
From my old dame, so kind and motherly,
While she perused me with a parent’s pride.
The thoughts of gratitude shall fall like dew
Upon thy grave, good creature! While my heart
Can beat, never will I forget thy name.
Heaven’s blessings be upon thee where thou liest
After thy innocent and busy stir
In narrow cares, thy little daily growth
Of calm enjoyment, after eighty years,
And more than eighty of untroubled life,
Childless; yet, by the strangers to thy blood
Honoured with little less than filial love.”
Such is the affectionate tribute which Wordsworth pays to her memory.
And if the reader be anxious to know all the small and large delights
which the poet felt in renewing his acquaintance with the scenes of his
childhood, I must refer him to the “Prelude.” He will there read how the
old dame led him--he “willing, nay, wishing to be led,” through the
village and its neighbourhood. How each face of the ancient neighbours
was like a volume to him; how he hailed the labourers at their work
“with half the length of a long field between,” how he shook hands with
his quondam schoolfellows; proud and yet ashamed of his fine Cambridge
clothes, doing everything in the way of recognition, in short, which a
kind generous, and loving heart could dictate. The brook in the garden,
which had been imprisoned there until it had lost its voice--he hailed
also, with the delight of many remembrances, and much present pleasure.
And then how his heart overflows at the sight of his favourite dog--the
rough terrier of the hills--an inmate of the dame’s cottage by ancient
right!--a brave fellow, that could hunt the badger, or unearth the
fox--making no bones about either business. The poet slept, too, during
this visit, in his old sleeping room;
“That lowly bed, where I had heard the wind
Roar, and the rain beat hard, where I so oft
Had lain awake on summer nights to watch
The moon in splendour couched among the leaves
Of a tall ash that near our cottage stood;
Had watch’d her with fixed eyes, while to and fro
In the dark summit of the waving tree
She rock’d with every impulse of the breeze.”
The poet then describes the refreshing influence which Nature spread,
like a new element of life, over his spirit, and quotes even the time
and place--viz., one evening at sunset, when taking his first walk,
these long months, round the lake of Esthwaite, when his soul
“Put off her veil, and self-transmuted, stood
Naked in the presence of her God;”
whilst a comfort seemed to “touch a heart that had not been
disconsolate;” and “strength came where weakness was not known to be--at
least not felt.” Then he took the balance, and weighed himself:
“Conversed with promises, had glimmering views
How life pervades the undecaying mind;
How the immortal soul, with godlike power
Informs, creates, and thaws the deepest sleep
That time can lay upon her; how on earth
Man, if he do but live within the light
Of high endeavours, daily spreads abroad,
His being armed with strength that cannot fail.”
Here was evidence that the soul of the poet was settling down, if we may
say so, to something like repose, preparatory to the grand aim and
purpose of his life. He begins to see that idleness and pleasure will
not last--will not serve any end in the world; and that man must be a
worker, with high endeavours, if he is indeed to be or do anything
worthy of a man.--And this light breaking in upon him, through the
twilight of Nature and his own soul, is soothing, consolatory, and
hopeful to him. He begins, likewise, to take a fresh interest in the
daily occupations of the people around him; read the opinions and
thoughts of these plain living people, “now observed with clearer
knowledge;” and saw “with another eye” “the quiet woodman in the woods,”
and the shepherd roaming over the hills. His love for the grey-headed
old dame returns to him again and again in these latter pages of the
“Prelude,” and he pictures her as a dear object in the landscape, as she
goes to church,
----“Equipped in monumental trim;
Short velvet cloak, (her bonnet of the like,)
A mantle, such as cavaliers
Wore in old time.”