Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth

by William Wordsworth

  But I ne spake ne stirr’d!

  The Boat came close beneath the Ship,

  And strait a sound was heard!

  Under the water it rumbled on,

  Still louder and more dread:

  It reach’d the Ship, it split the bay;

  The Ship went down like lead.

  Stunn’d by that loud and dreadful sound,

  Which sky and ocean smote:

  Like one that hath been seven days drown’d

  My body lay afloat:

  But, swift as dreams, myself I found

  Within the Pilot’s boat.

  Upon the whirl, where sank the Ship,

  The boat spun round and round:

  And all was still, save that the hill

  Was telling of the sound.

  I mov’d my lips: the Pilot shriek’d

  And fell down in a fit.

  The Holy Hermit rais’d his eyes

  And pray’d where he did sit.

  I took the oars: the Pilot’s boy,

  Who now doth crazy go,

  Laugh’d loud and long, and all the while

  His eyes went to and fro,

  “Ha! ha!” quoth he — ”full plain I see,

  ”The devil knows how to row.”

  And now all in mine own Countrée

  I stood on the firm land!

  The Hermit stepp’d forth from the boat,

  And scarcely he could stand.

  “O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy Man!”

  The Hermit cross’d his brow —

  “Say quick,” quoth he, “I bid thee say

  ”What manner man art thou?”

  Forthwith this frame of mine was wrench’d

  With a woeful agony,

  Which forc’d me to begin my tale

  And then it left me free.

  Since then at an uncertain hour,

  Now oftimes and now fewer,

  That anguish comes and makes me tell

  My ghastly aventure.

  I pass, like night, from land to land;

  I have strange power of speech;

  The moment that his face I see

  I know the man that must hear me;

  To him my tale I teach.

  What loud uproar bursts from that door!

  The Wedding-guests are there;

  But in the Garden-bower the Bride

  And Bride-maids singing are:

  And hark the little Vesper-bell

  Which biddeth me to prayer.

  O Wedding-guest! this soul hath been

  Alone on a wide wide sea:

  So lonely ‘twas, that God himself

  Scarce seemed there to be.

  O sweeter than the Marriage-feast,

  ’Tis sweeter far to me

  To walk together to the Kirk

  With a goodly company.

  To walk together to the Kirk

  And all together pray,

  While each to his great father bends,

  Old men, and babes, and loving friends,

  And Youths, and Maidens gay.

  Farewell, farewell! but this I tell

  To thee, thou wedding-guest!

  He prayeth well who loveth well

  Both man and bird and beast.

  He prayeth best who loveth best,

  All things both great and small:

  For the dear God, who loveth us,

  He made and loveth all.

  The Marinere, whose eye is bright,

  Whose beard with age is hoar,

  Is gone; and now the wedding-guest

  Turn’d from the bridegroom’s door.

  He went, like one that hath been stunn’d

  And is of sense forlorn:

  A sadder and a wiser man

  He rose the morrow morn.

  THE FOSTER-MOTHER’S TALE (COLERIDGE)

  By Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  A DRAMATIC FRAGMENT.

  FOSTER-MOTHER.

  I never saw the man whom you describe.

  MARIA.

  ‘Tis strange! he spake of you familiarly

  As mine and Albert’s common Foster-mother.

  FOSTER-MOTHER.

  Now blessings on the man, whoe’er he be,

  That joined your names with mine! O my sweet lady,

  As often as I think of those dear times

  When you two little ones would stand at eve

  On each side of my chair, and make me learn

  All you had learnt in the day; and how to talk

  In gentle phrase, then bid me sing to you —

  ‘Tis more like heaven to come than what has been.

  MARIA.

  O my dear Mother! this strange man has left me

  Troubled with wilder fancies, than the moon

  Breeds in the love-sick maid who gazes at it,

  Till lost in inward vision, with wet eye

  She gazes idly! — But that entrance, Mother!

  FOSTER-MOTHER.

  Can no one hear? It is a perilous tale!

  MARIA.

  No one.

  FOSTER-MOTHER

  My husband’s father told it me,

  Poor old Leoni! — Angels rest his soul!

  He was a woodman, and could fell and saw

  With lusty arm. You know that huge round beam

  Which props the hanging wall of the old chapel?

  Beneath that tree, while yet it was a tree

  He found a baby wrapt in mosses, lined

  With thistle-beards, and such small locks of wool

  As hang on brambles. Well, he brought him home,

  And reared him at the then Lord Velez’ cost.

  And so the babe grew up a pretty boy,

  A pretty boy, but most unteachable —

  And never learnt a prayer, nor told a bead,

  But knew the names of birds, and mocked their notes,

  And whistled, as he were a bird himself:

  And all the autumn ‘twas his only play

  To get the seeds of wild flowers, and to plant them

  With earth and water, on the stumps of trees.

  A Friar, who gathered simples in the wood,

  A grey-haired man — he loved this little boy,

  The boy loved him — and, when the Friar taught him,

  He soon could write with the pen: and from that time,

  Lived chiefly at the Convent or the Castle.

  So he became a very learned youth.

  But Oh! poor wretch! — he read, and read, and read,

  ‘Till his brain turned — and ere his twentieth year,

  He had unlawful thoughts of many things:

  And though he prayed, he never loved to pray

  With holy men, nor in a holy place —

  But yet his speech, it was so soft and sweet,

  The late Lord Velez ne’er was wearied with him.

  And once, as by the north side of the Chapel

  They stood together, chained in deep discourse,

  The earth heaved under them with such a groan,

  That the wall tottered, and had well-nigh fallen

  Right on their heads. My Lord was sorely frightened;

  A fever seized him, and he made confession

  Of all the heretical and lawless talk

  Which brought this judgment: so the youth was seized

  And cast into that hole. My husband’s father

  Sobbed like a child — it almost broke his heart:

  And once as he was working in the cellar,

  He heard a voice distinctly; ‘twas the youth’s,

  Who sung a doleful song about green fields,

  How sweet it were on lake or wild savannah,

  To hunt for food, and be a naked man,

  And wander up and down at liberty.

  He always doted on the youth, and now

  His love grew desperate; and defying death,

  He made that cunning entrance I described:

  And the young man escaped.

  MAR
IA.

  ’Tis a sweet tale:

  Such as would lull a listening child to sleep,

  His rosy face besoiled with unwiped tears. —

  And what became of him?

  FOSTER-MOTHER.

  He went on ship-board

  With those bold voyagers, who made discovery

  Of golden lands. Leoni’s younger brother

  Went likewise, and when he returned to Spain,

  He told Leoni, that the poor mad youth,

  Soon after they arrived in that new world,

  In spite of his dissuasion, seized a boat,

  And all alone, set sail by silent moonlight

  Up a great river, great as any sea,

  And ne’er was heard of more: but ‘tis supposed,

  He lived and died among the savage men.

  LINES LEFT UPON A SEAT IN A YEW-TREE WHICH STANDS NEAR THE LAKE OF ESTHWAITE, ON A DESOLATE PART OF THE SHORE, YET COMMANDING A BEAUTIFUL PROSPECT.

  — Nay, Traveller! rest. This lonely yew-tree stands

  Far from all human dwelling: what if here

  No sparkling rivulet spread the verdant herb;

  What if these barren boughs the bee not loves;

  Yet, if the wind breathe soft, the curling waves,

  That break against the shore, shall lull thy mind

  By one soft impulse saved from vacancy.

  — Who he was

  That piled these stones, and with the mossy sod

  First covered o’er, and taught this aged tree,

  Now wild, to bend its arms in circling shade,

  I well remember. — He was one who own’d

  No common soul. In youth, by genius nurs’d,

  And big with lofty views, he to the world

  Went forth, pure in his heart, against the taint

  Of dissolute tongues, ‘gainst jealousy, and hate,

  And scorn, against all enemies prepared,

  All but neglect: and so, his spirit damped

  At once, with rash disdain he turned away,

  And with the food of pride sustained his soul

  In solitude. — Stranger! these gloomy boughs

  Had charms for him; and here he loved to sit,

  His only visitants a straggling sheep,

  The stone-chat, or the glancing sand-piper;

  And on these barren rocks, with juniper,

  And heath, and thistle, thinly sprinkled o’er,

  Fixing his downward eye, he many an hour

  A morbid pleasure nourished, tracing here

  An emblem of his own unfruitful life:

  And lifting up his head, he then would gaze

  On the more distant scene; how lovely ‘tis

  Thou seest, and he would gaze till it became

  Far lovelier, and his heart could not sustain

  The beauty still more beauteous. Nor, that time,

  Would he forget those beings, to whose minds,

  Warm from the labours of benevolence,

  The world, and man himself, appeared a scene

  Of kindred loveliness: then he would sigh

  With mournful joy, to think that others felt

  What he must never feel: and so, lost man!

  On visionary views would fancy feed,

  Till his eye streamed with tears. In this deep vale

  He died, this seat his only monument.

  If thou be one whose heart the holy forms

  Of young imagination have kept pure,

  Stranger! henceforth be warned; and know, that pride,

  Howe’er disguised in its own majesty,

  Is littleness; that he, who feels contempt

  For any living thing, hath faculties

  Which he has never used; that thought with him

  Is in its infancy. The man, whose eye

  Is ever on himself, doth look on one,

  The least of nature’s works, one who might move

  The wise man to that scorn which wisdom holds

  Unlawful, ever. O, be wiser thou!

  Instructed that true knowledge leads to love,

  True dignity abides with him alone

  Who, in the silent hour of inward thought,

  Can still suspect, and still revere himself,

  In lowliness of heart.

  THE NIGHTINGALE. (COLERIDGE)

  By Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  A CONVERSATIONAL POEM, WRITTEN IN APRIL, 1798.

  No cloud, no relique of the sunken day

  Distinguishes the West, no long thin slip

  Of sullen Light, no obscure trembling hues.

  Come, we will rest on this old mossy Bridge!

  You see the glimmer of the stream beneath,

  But hear no murmuring: it flows silently

  O’er its soft bed of verdure. All is still,

  A balmy night! and tho’ the stars be dim,

  Yet let us think upon the vernal showers

  That gladden the green earth, and we shall find

  A pleasure in the dimness of the stars.

  And hark! the Nightingale begins its song,

  “Most musical, most melancholy” Bird!

  A melancholy Bird? O idle thought!

  In nature there is nothing melancholy.

  — But some night-wandering Man, whose heart was pierc’d

  With the remembrance of a grievous wrong,

  Or slow distemper or neglected love,

  (And so, poor Wretch! fill’d all things with himself

  And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale

  Of his own sorrows) he and such as he

  First nam’d these notes a melancholy strain;

  And many a poet echoes the conceit,

  Poet, who hath been building up the rhyme

  When he had better far have stretch’d his limbs

  Beside a brook in mossy forest-dell

  By sun or moonlight, to the influxes

  Of shapes and sounds and shifting elements

  Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song

  And of his fame forgetful! so his fame

  Should share in nature’s immortality,

  A venerable thing! and so his song

  Should make all nature lovelier, and itself

  Be lov’d, like nature! — But ‘twill not be so;

  And youths and maidens most poetical

  Who lose the deep’ning twilights of the spring

  In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still

  Full of meek sympathy must heave their sighs

  O’er Philomela’s pity-pleading strains.

  My Friend, and my Friend’s Sister! we have learnt

  A different lore: we may not thus profane

  Nature’s sweet voices always full of love

  And joyance! ‘Tis the merry Nightingale

  That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates

  With fast thick warble his delicious notes,

  As he were fearful, that an April night

  Would be too short for him to utter forth

  His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul

  Of all its music! And I know a grove

  Of large extent, hard by a castle huge

  Which the great lord inhabits not: and so

  This grove is wild with tangling underwood,

  And the trim walks are broken up, and grass,

  Thin grass and king-cups grow within the paths.

  But never elsewhere in one place I knew

  So many Nightingales: and far and near

  In wood and thicket over the wide grove

  They answer and provoke each other’s songs —

  With skirmish and capricious passagings,

  And murmurs musical and swift jug jug

  And one low piping sound more sweet than all —

  Stirring the air with such an harmony,

  That should you close your eyes, you might almost

  Forget it was not day! On moonlight bushes,

  Whose dewy leafits are but half disclo
s’d,

  You may perchance behold them on the twigs,

  Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full,

  Glistning, while many a glow-worm in the shade

  Lights up her love-torch.

  A most gentle maid

  Who dwelleth in her hospitable home

  Hard by the Castle, and at latest eve,

  (Even like a Lady vow’d and dedicate

  To something more than nature in the grove)

  Glides thro’ the pathways; she knows all their notes,

  That gentle Maid! and oft, a moment’s space,

  What time the moon was lost behind a cloud,

  Hath heard a pause of silence: till the Moon

  Emerging, hath awaken’d earth and sky

  With one sensation, and those wakeful Birds

  Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy,

  As if one quick and sudden Gale had swept

  An hundred airy harps! And she hath watch’d

  Many a Nightingale perch giddily

  On blosmy twig still swinging from the breeze,

  And to that motion tune his wanton song,

  Like tipsy Joy that reels with tossing head.

  Farewell, O Warbler! till to-morrow eve,

  And you, my friends! farewell, a short farewell!

  We have been loitering long and pleasantly,

  And now for our dear homes. — That strain again!

  Full fain it would delay me! — My dear Babe,

  Who, capable of no articulate sound,

  Mars all things with his imitative lisp,

  How he would place his hand beside his ear,

  His little hand, the small forefinger up,

  And bid us listen! And I deem it wise

  To make him Nature’s playmate. He knows well

  The evening star: and once when he awoke

  In most distressful mood (some inward pain

  Had made up that strange thing, an infant’s dream)

  I hurried with him to our orchard plot,

  And he beholds the moon, and hush’d at once

  Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently,

  While his fair eyes that swam with undropt tears

  Did glitter in the yellow moon-beam! Well —

  It is a father’s tale. But if that Heaven

  Should give me life, his childhood shall grow up

  Familiar with these songs, that with the night

  He may associate Joy! Once more farewell,

  Sweet Nightingale! once more, my friends! farewell.

  THE FEMALE VAGRANT.

  By Derwent’s side my Father’s cottage stood,

  (The Woman thus her artless story told)

  One field, a flock, and what the neighbouring flood

  Supplied, to him were more than mines of gold.

  Light was my sleep; my days in transport roll’d:

  With thoughtless joy I stretch’d along the shore