“Her brow hath opened on me--see it there,
Brightening the umbrage of her hair;
So gleams the crescent moon, that loves
To be descried thro’ shady groves.
Tenderest bloom is on her cheek;
Wish not for a richer streak;
Nor _dread the depth of meditative eye_;
But let thy love, upon that azure field
Of thoughtfulness and beauty, yield
Its homage offered up in purity.
What would’st thou more? In sunny glade,
Or under leaves of thickest shade,
Was such a stillness e’er diffused
Since earth grew calm while angels mused?
Softly she treads, as if her foot were loth
To crush the mountain dew-drop--soon to melt,
On the flower’s breast; as if she felt
That flowers themselves, whate’er their hue,
With all their fragrance, all their glistening,
Call to the heart for inward listening--
And tho’ for bridal wreaths and tokens true
Welcomed wisely; tho’ a growth
Which the careless shepherd sleeps on,
As fitly spring from turf the mourner weeps on--
And without wrong are cropped the marble tomb to strew.
And now the charm is over;
----“the mute phantom’s gone,
Nor will return--but droop not, favoured youth,
The apparition that before thee shone
Obeyed a summons covetous of truth.
From these wild rocks thy footsteps I will guide
To bowers in which thy fortunes may be tried,
And one of the bright three become thy happy bride.”
A fairer subject than this, for the imagination of the true painter,
does scarcely exist in poetry. The gorgeous magnificence of Miss
Southey--the wild, bird-like nature of Dora, the mystic, spiritual,
meditative beauty of Miss Coleridge. Here is material enough for the
highest effort of art.
A number of poems followed this exquisite “Triad”--viz., “The Wishing
Gate,” in 1828--“The Lawn,” “Presentiments,” “The Primrose on the Rock,”
“Devotional Incitements;” these last were written between 1828 and ’32.
A number of gold and silver fishes presented to the poet by Miss H. J.
Jewsbury, who subsequently died of the cholera in India,--and afterwards
removed to the pond already alluded to, under the oak in “Dora’s field,”
suggested the verses “Gold and Silver Fishes in a Vase,” and likewise
“Liberty,” and “Humanity;” “The Poet and the caged Turtle Dove” was
likewise suggested by real circumstances. Miss Jewsbury had given Dora a
pair of these beautiful birds; one of them was killed by an
_un_-necessary cat, and not a “harmless one;” the other survived many
years, and had a habit of cooing the moment Wordsworth began “booing”
his poems, as the country people called it.
Wordsworth gives an amusing account of a visit which he paid about this
time to “Chatsworth.” He had undertaken to ride his daughter’s pony from
Westmoreland to Cambridge, that she might have the use of it during a
visit she was about to make to her uncle at Trinity; and on his way from
Bakewell to Matlock, he turned off to see the splendid mansion of the
great Duke of Devonshire. By-and-bye a tremendous storm came on, and the
poet was drenched through to the very skin, whilst the pony, to make his
rider’s seat the more easy, went “slantwise” all the way to Derby.
Notwithstanding this, however, and the pelting of the pitiless storm,
Wordsworth managed to hold sweet and sad converse with his muse, and
composed his “Lines to the Memory of Sir George Beaumont,” who died 7th
February, 1827. It is a picture which we cannot readily forget, and
shows how completely the poet was master of himself. Sir George Beaumont
and his lady were friends and benefactors of Wordsworth--he loved them
both intensely. Walking through the grounds and gardens of Coleorton
with Sir George--the successor in the Baronetcy to his friend--and after
the death of Lady Beaumont, which took place in 1822, he comes suddenly
to her ladyship’s grotto, near the fountain, and is overwhelmed with his
feelings, and the recollection of the dead, and the happy memories
which rush over his mind in connection with this place, so that he
cannot speak for tears. On his return home he wrote the elegiac musings,
already mentioned in these memoirs, which are full of love, and the
sanctity of a sweet sorrow. In the same year (1831) were composed “The
Armenian Lady’s Love,” “The Egyptian Maid,” and “The Russian Fugitive,”
poems in which all the beauties of language are pressed, along with the
simplicity which marks the old English ballads. Lines on his portrait,
painted by Pickersgill, and preserved with sacred veneration in St.
John’s College, Cambridge, were likewise written in this year, as well
as the inscription already quoted, for the stone at Rydal.
Besides these poetical compositions, however, Wordsworth interested
himself in public affairs; and having fixed principles of political and
social economy in his own mind, regarded all public measures at variance
with them, as fatal errors, and subversive in their consequences of the
highest human concerns. In 1806, he wrote a letter to a friend, who had
consulted him respecting the education of his daughter--in which he
gives some sound and excellent advice respecting the training and
development of youthful minds. For Wordsworth had at an early period
devoted his attention to the subject of education, and had his own views
respecting it--views which were marked by the spiritual peculiarity of
his mind. When he wrote “The Excursion,” he seems to have had the
highest hopes for man, when education should become universal; and
insisted that the State should teach those to obey, from whom she
exacted allegiance:--
“O for the coming of that glorious time,
When, prizing knowledge, as her noblest work
And best protection, this imperial realm
While she exacts allegiance, shall admit
An obligation on her part to _teach_
Them who are born to serve her and obey;
Binding herself, by statute, to secure
For all the children whom her soil maintains
The rudiments of letters, and inform
The mind with moral and religious truth,
Both understood, and practised.”
_Excursion_, Book ix.
He was an avowed enemy, however, at a later period--for his views
respecting the _modus operandi_ of teaching, had undergone some change
since “The Excursion” was written--to all Infant Schools, Madras
Systems, and Bell Systems. The former he regarded as usurping the
functions of motherly duty; the latter, as dead mechanism. Speaking of
the education of girls, he says:--“I will back Shenstone’s ‘School
Mistress,’ by her winter fire, and in her summer garden seat, against
all Dr. Bell’s sour-looking teachers in petticoats. What is the use of
pushing on the education of girls so fast, and moving by the stimulus of
Emulation, who, to say nothing worse of her, is cousin-german to Envy?
What are you to do with these girls? What demand is there for the
ability that they may have prematurely acquired? Will they not be
indisposed to bend to any kind of hard labour or drudgery? And yet many
of them must submit to it, or go wrong. The mechanism of the Bell System
is not required in small places; praying after the _fugleman_, is not
like praying at a mother’s knee. The Bellites overlook the difference:
they talk about moral discipline; but wherein does it encourage the
imaginative feelings? in short, what she practically understands is of
little amount, and too apt to become the slave of the bad passions. I
dislike _display_ in everything; above all, in education.... The old
dame (Shenstone’s) did not affect to make theologians and logicians; but
she taught to read; and she practised the memory, often no doubt by
rote, but still the faculty was improved; something, perhaps, she
explained, but trusted the _rest_ to parents and masters, and to the
pastor of the parish. I am sure as good daughters, as good servants, as
good mothers and wives, were brought up at that time as now, when the
world is so much less humble-minded. A hand full of employment, and a
head not above it, with such principles and habits as may be acquired
_without_ the Madras machine, are the best security for the chastity of
wives of the lower rank.”
The above extract is from a letter dated 1828, and addressed to the Rev.
Hugh Jones Rose, formerly principal of King’s College, London. It
exemplifies, in a very striking manner, the change which had come over
Wordsworth’s mind upon the subject of education, and does not strike me
as being particularly creditable to him.
On the 13th of April, 1836, Wordsworth took part in the ceremony of
laying the foundation-stone of certain new schools, about to be erected
at Bowness, Windermere, and made a speech upon the occasion; in which he
advocates a very humble kind of instruction for the working classes;
forgetting that man is to be educated because he _is a man_, and not
neglected because he happens to be one of the “lower orders.” I have no
sympathy with this foolish cant about educating people according to
their station, and am sorry that Wordsworth’s sanction can be quoted in
its favour. I must reserve what I have to say upon this subject,
however, for my analysis of the mind and writings of the poet.
In 1835, Wordsworth published his “Yarrow Revisited, and other Poems.”
Speaking of “Yarrow Re-visited,” he says: “In the autumn of 1831, my
daughter and I set off from Rydal, to visit Sir Walter Scott, before his
departure for Italy. This journey had been delayed by an inflammation in
my eyes, till we found that the time appointed for his leaving home
would be too near for him to receive us without considerable
inconvenience. Nevertheless we proceeded, and reached Abbotsford on
Monday. I was then scarcely able to lift up my eyes to the light. How
sadly changed did I find him from the man I had seen so healthy, gay,
and hopeful, a few years before, when he said, at the inn at Patterdale,
in my presence, his daughter, Ann, also being there, with Mr. Lockhart,
my own wife and daughter, and Mr. Quillinan: ‘I mean to live till I am
eighty, and shall write as long as I live.’ Though we had none of us the
least thought of the cloud of misfortune which was then going to break
upon his head, I was startled, and almost shocked, at that bold saying,
which could scarcely be uttered by such a man, without a momentary
forgetfulness of the instability of human life. But to return to
Abbotsford. The inmates and guests we found there, were Sir Walter,
Major Scott, Anne Scott, and Mr. and Mrs. Lockhart; Mr. Laidlaw, a very
old friend of Sir Walter’s; one of Burns’s sons, an officer of the
Indian service, had left the house the day before, and had kindly
expressed his regret that he could not wait my arrival, a regret that I
may truly say was mutual. In the evening, Mr. and Mrs. Liddell sang, and
Mrs. Lockhart chaunted old ballads to her harp; and Mr. Allan, hanging
over the back of a chair, told, and acted, odd stories in a humourous
way. With this exhibition, and his daughters’ singing, Sir Walter was
much amused, and, indeed, so were we all, as far as circumstances would
allow.”
On the following morning (Tuesday) Sir Walter accompanied Wordsworth,
and most of his friends, to Newark Castle, on the Yarrow, and it was
upon this occasion that the lines, “Yarrow Revisited,” were written. On
the morning of Thursday following, when the poet left Abbotsford, he had
a serious conversation with Sir Walter, who spoke with gratitude of the
happy life he had led. Sir Walter wrote also a few lines in Dora’s
album, addressed to her; and when he presented her with the book, in his
study, he said: “I should not have done a thing of this kind, but for
your father’s sake; they are probably the last verses I shall ever
write.” “They shew,” says, Wordsworth, “how much his mind was impaired;
not by the strain of thought, but by the execution--some of the lines
being imperfect, and one stanza wanting corresponding rhymes.” Poor Sir
Walter!--what a spectacle it was to see that colossal intellect
tumbling into ruins.
Several poems were the result of this short tour, beside the “Yarrow
Revisited,”--such as “The Place of Burial,” “On the Sight of a Manse in
the South of Scotland,” &c., &c.--Wordsworth’s health, too, was much
improved by this tour, and a violent inflammation of the eyes--a
complaint to which he was much subject,--left him whilst walking through
the Highlands, by the side of his “open carriage,” driven by Dora!
Amongst the poems contained in the volume entitled, “Yarrow Revisited,”
were many of a political character, for they were written between the
years 1830 and 1834, when the Revolution of France, and the Reform party
in England, were agitating society to its centre. Wordsworth now hated
revolution, and reform also; was opposed to a large and enlightened
system of education; and to the admission of Dissenters to the
Universities. His plea was the old constitution of things, which could
not, he thought, be mended without being broken up and destroyed. “Since
the introduction of the Reform Bill, I have been persuaded,” he says,
“that the Constitution of England cannot be preserved. It is a question,
however, of time.” The poem entitled, “The Warning,” will give the best
idea of Wordsworth’s strong political opinions and feelings at this
time. As a contrast, however, to these narrow yet patriotic views, we
turn to the “Evening Voluntaries,” a collection of sweet poems, which
were published in the same volume as the “Yarrow.” They were written on
a high part of the coast of Cumberland, on April 7th (Easter Sunday),
the author’s 63rd birth-day, between Moresby and Whitehaven, whilst he
was on a visit to his son, who was then rector of Moresby.--Very
beautiful, indeed, are these poems, which read like twilight vespers in
some old abbey’s chancel. Wordsworth says of them--“With the exception
of the eighth and ninth, this succession of voluntaries originated in
the concluding lines of the last paragraph of this poem, [i.e. of the
poem, written on the author’s birth-day, and marked No. 2, in the
“Voluntaries,” commencing, “The sun that seemed so mildly to retire.”]
With this coast I have been familiar from my earliest childhood, and
remember being struck, for the first time, by the town and port of
Whitehaven, and the white waves breaking against its quays and piers, as
the whole came into my view from the top of the high ground, down which
the road, that has since been altered, descended abruptly. My sister,
when she first heard the voice of the sea from this point, and beheld
the scene spread before her, burst into tears. Our family then lived at
Cockermouth, and this fact was often mentioned amongst us, indicating
the sensibility for which she was remarkable.”