Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth

by William Wordsworth

Urged by his Mother, he essayed to teach

  A village-school—but wandering thoughts were then

  A misery to him; and the Youth resigned

  A task he was unable to perform.

  That stern yet kindly Spirit, who constrains

  The Savoyard to quit his naked rocks,

  The free-born Swiss to leave his narrow vales,

  (Spirit attached to regions mountainous

  Like their own stedfast clouds) did now impel 320

  His restless mind to look abroad with hope.

  —An irksome drudgery seems it to plod on,

  Through hot and dusty ways, or pelting storm,

  A vagrant Merchant under a heavy load,

  Bent as he moves, and needing frequent rest;

  Yet do such travellers find their own delight;

  And their hard service, deemed debasing now

  Gained merited respect in simpler times;

  When squire, and priest, and they who round them dwelt

  In rustic sequestration—all dependent 330

  Upon the PEDLAR’S toil—supplied their wants,

  Or pleased their fancies, with the wares he brought.

  Not ignorant was the Youth that still no few

  Of his adventurous countrymen were led

  By perseverance in this track of life

  To competence and ease:—to him it offered

  Attractions manifold;—and this he chose.

  —His Parents on the enterprise bestowed

  Their farewell benediction, but with hearts

  Foreboding evil. From his native hills 340

  He wandered far; much did he see of men,

  Their manners, their enjoyments, and pursuits,

  Their passions and their feelings; chiefly those

  Essential and eternal in the heart,

  That, ‘mid the simpler forms of rural life,

  Exist more simple in their elements,

  And speak a plainer language. In the woods,

  A lone Enthusiast, and among the fields,

  Itinerant in this labour, he had passed

  The better portion of his time; and there 350

  Spontaneously had his affections thriven

  Amid the bounties of the year, the peace

  And liberty of nature; there he kept

  In solitude and solitary thought

  His mind in a just equipoise of love.

  Serene it was, unclouded by the cares

  Of ordinary life; unvexed, unwarped

  By partial bondage. In his steady course,

  No piteous revolutions had he felt,

  No wild varieties of joy and grief. 360

  Unoccupied by sorrow of its own,

  His heart lay open; and, by nature tuned

  And constant disposition of his thoughts

  To sympathy with man, he was alive

  To all that was enjoyed where’er he went,

  And all that was endured; for, in himself

  Happy, and quiet in his cheerfulness,

  He had no painful pressure from without

  That made him turn aside from wretchedness

  With coward fears. He could ‘afford’ to suffer 370

  With those whom he saw suffer. Hence it came

  That in our best experience he was rich,

  And in the wisdom of our daily life.

  For hence, minutely, in his various rounds,

  He had observed the progress and decay

  Of many minds, of minds and bodies too;

  The history of many families;

  How they had prospered; how they were o’erthrown

  By passion or mischance, or such misrule

  Among the unthinking masters of the earth 380

  As makes the nations groan.

  This active course

  He followed till provision for his wants

  Had been obtained;—the Wanderer then resolved

  To pass the remnant of his days, untasked

  With needless services, from hardship free.

  His calling laid aside, he lived at ease:

  But still he loved to pace the public roads

  And the wild paths; and, by the summer’s warmth

  Invited, often would he leave his home

  And journey far, revisiting the scenes 390

  That to his memory were most endeared.

  —Vigorous in health, of hopeful spirits, undamped

  By worldly-mindedness or anxious care;

  Observant, studious, thoughtful, and refreshed

  By knowledge gathered up from day to day;

  Thus had he lived a long and innocent life.

  The Scottish Church, both on himself and those

  With whom from childhood he grew up, had held

  The strong hand of her purity; and still

  Had watched him with an unrelenting eye. 400

  This he remembered in his riper age

  With gratitude, and reverential thoughts.

  But by the native vigour of his mind,

  By his habitual wanderings out of doors,

  By loneliness, and goodness, and kind works,

  Whate’er, in docile childhood or in youth,

  He had imbibed of fear or darker thought

  Was melted all away; so true was this,

  That sometimes his religion seemed to me

  Self-taught, as of a dreamer in the woods; 410

  Who to the model of his own pure heart

  Shaped his belief, as grace divine inspired,

  And human reason dictated with awe.

  —And surely never did there live on earth

  A man of kindlier nature. The rough sports

  And teasing ways of children vexed not him;

  Indulgent listener was he to the tongue

  Of garrulous age; nor did the sick man’s tale,

  To his fraternal sympathy addressed,

  Obtain reluctant hearing.

  Plain his garb; 420

  Such as might suit a rustic Sire, prepared

  For sabbath duties; yet he was a man

  Whom no one could have passed without remark.

  Active and nervous was his gait; his limbs

  And his whole figure breathed intelligence.

  Time had compressed the freshness of his cheek

  Into a narrower circle of deep red,

  But had not tamed his eye; that, under brows

  Shaggy and grey, had meanings which it brought

  From years of youth; which, like a Being made 430

  Of many Beings, he had wondrous skill

  To blend with knowledge of the years to come,

  Human, or such as lie beyond the grave.

  So was He framed; and such his course of life

  Who now, with no appendage but a staff,

  The prized memorial of relinquished toils,

  Upon that cottage-bench reposed his limbs,

  Screened from the sun. Supine the Wanderer lay,

  His eyes as if in drowsiness half shut,

  The shadows of the breezy elms above 440

  Dappling his face. He had not heard the sound

  Of my approaching steps, and in the shade

  Unnoticed did I stand some minutes’ space.

  At length I hailed him, seeing that his hat

  Was moist with water-drops, as if the brim

  Had newly scooped a running stream. He rose,

  And ere our lively greeting into peace

  Had settled, “‘Tis,” said I, “a burning day:

  My lips are parched with thirst, but you, it seems

  Have somewhere found relief.” He, at the word, 450

  Pointing towards a sweet-briar, bade me climb

  The fence where that aspiring shrub looked out

  Upon the public way. It was a plot

  Of garden ground run wild, its matted weeds

  Marked with the steps of those, whom, as they passed,

  The gooseberry trees that shot in long lank sl
ips,

  Or currants, hanging from their leafless stems,

  In scanty strings, had tempted to o’erleap

  The broken wall. I looked around, and there,

  Where two tall hedge-rows of thick alder boughs 460

  Joined in a cold damp nook, espied a well

  Shrouded with willow-flowers and plumy fern.

  My thirst I slaked, and, from the cheerless spot

  Withdrawing, straightway to the shade returned

  Where sate the old Man on the cottage-bench;

  And, while, beside him, with uncovered head,

  I yet was standing, freely to respire,

  And cool my temples in the fanning air,

  Thus did he speak. “I see around me here

  Things which you cannot see: we die, my Friend, 470

  Nor we alone, but that which each man loved

  And prized in his peculiar nook of earth

  Dies with him, or is changed; and very soon

  Even of the good is no memorial left.

  —The Poets, in their elegies and songs

  Lamenting the departed, call the groves,

  They call upon the hills and streams, to mourn,

  And senseless rocks; nor idly; for they speak,

  In these their invocations, with a voice

  Obedient to the strong creative power 480

  Of human passion. Sympathies there are

  More tranquil, yet perhaps of kindred birth,

  That steal upon the meditative mind,

  And grow with thought. Beside yon spring I stood,

  And eyed its waters till we seemed to feel

  One sadness, they and I. For them a bond

  Of brotherhood is broken: time has been

  When, every day, the touch of human hand

  Dislodged the natural sleep that binds them up

  In mortal stillness; and they ministered 490

  To human comfort. Stooping down to drink,

  Upon the slimy foot-stone I espied

  The useless fragment of a wooden bowl,

  Green with the moss of years, and subject only

  To the soft handling of the elements:

  There let it lie—how foolish are such thoughts!

  Forgive them;—never—never did my steps

  Approach this door but she who dwelt within

  A daughter’s welcome gave me, and I loved her

  As my own child. Oh, Sir! the good die first, 500

  And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust

  Burn to the socket. Many a passenger

  Hath blessed poor Margaret for her gentle looks,

  When she upheld the cool refreshment drawn

  From that forsaken spring; and no one came

  But he was welcome; no one went away

  But that it seemed she loved him. She is dead,

  The light extinguished of her lonely hut,

  The hut itself abandoned to decay,

  And she forgotten in the quiet grave. 550

  I speak,” continued he, “of One whose stock

  Of virtues bloomed beneath this lonely roof.

  She was a Woman of a steady mind,

  Tender and deep in her excess of love;

  Not speaking much, pleased rather with the joy

  Of her own thoughts: by some especial care

  Her temper had been framed, as if to make

  A Being, who by adding love to peace

  Might live on earth a life of happiness.

  Her wedded Partner lacked not on his side 560

  The humble worth that satisfied her heart:

  Frugal, affectionate, sober, and withal

  Keenly industrious. She with pride would tell

  That he was often seated at his loom,

  In summer, ere the mower was abroad

  Among the dewy grass,—in early spring,

  Ere the last star had vanished.—They who passed

  At evening, from behind the garden fence

  Might hear his busy spade, which he would ply,

  After his daily work, until the light 570

  Had failed, and every leaf and flower were lost

  In the dark hedges. So their days were spent

  In peace and comfort; and a pretty boy

  Was their best hope, next to the God in heaven.

  Not twenty years ago, but you I think

  Can scarcely bear it now in mind, there came

  Two blighting seasons, when the fields were left

  With half a harvest. It pleased Heaven to add

  A worse affliction in the plague of war:

  This happy Land was stricken to the heart! 580

  A Wanderer then among the cottages,

  I, with my freight of winter raiment, saw

  The hardships of that season: many rich

  Sank down, as in a dream, among the poor;

  And of the poor did many cease to be,

  And their place knew them not. Meanwhile, abridged

  Of daily comforts, gladly reconciled

  To numerous self-denials, Margaret

  Went struggling on through those calamitous years

  With cheerful hope, until the second autumn, 590

  When her life’s Helpmate on a sick-bed lay,

  Smitten with perilous fever. In disease

  He lingered long; and, when his strength returned,

  He found the little he had stored, to meet

  The hour of accident or crippling age,

  Was all consumed. A second infant now

  Was added to the troubles of a time

  Laden, for them and all of their degree,

  With care and sorrow; shoals of artisans

  From ill-requited labour turned adrift 600

  Sought daily bread from public charity,

  They, and their wives and children—happier far

  Could they have lived as do the little birds

  That peck along the hedge-rows, or the kite

  That makes her dwelling on the mountain rocks!

  A sad reverse it was for him who long

  Had filled with plenty, and possessed in peace,

  This lonely Cottage. At the door he stood,

  And whistled many a snatch of merry tunes

  That had no mirth in them; or with his knife 610

  Carved uncouth figures on the heads of sticks—

  Then, not less idly, sought, through every nook

  In house or garden, any casual work

  Of use or ornament; and with a strange,

  Amusing, yet uneasy, novelty,

  He mingled, where he might, the various tasks

  Of summer, autumn, winter, and of spring.

  But this endured not; his good humour soon

  Became a weight in which no pleasure was:

  And poverty brought on a petted mood 620

  And a sore temper: day by day he drooped,

  And he would leave his work—and to the town

  Would turn without an errand his slack steps;

  Or wander here and there among the fields.

  One while he would speak lightly of his babes,

  And with a cruel tongue: at other times

  He tossed them with a false unnatural joy:

  And ‘twas a rueful thing to see the looks

  Of the poor innocent children. ‘Every smile,’

  Said Margaret to me, here beneath these trees,

  ‘Made my heart bleed.’“

  At this the Wanderer paused; 630

  And, looking up to those enormous elms,

  He said, “‘Tis now the hour of deepest noon.

  At this still season of repose and peace,

  This hour when all things which are not at rest

  Are cheerful; while this multitude of flies

  With tuneful hum is filling all the air;

  Why should a tear be on an old Man’s cheek?

  Why should we thus, with an untoward mind,

  And in the weakness of humanity,
/>
  From natural wisdom turn our hearts away; 640

  To natural comfort shut our eyes and ears;

  And, feeding on disquiet, thus disturb

  The calm of nature with our restless thoughts?”

  HE spake with somewhat of a solemn tone:

  But, when he ended, there was in his face

  Such easy cheerfulness, a look so mild,

  That for a little time it stole away

  All recollection; and that simple tale

  Passed from my mind like a forgotten sound.

  A while on trivial things we held discourse, 650

  To me soon tasteless. In my own despite,

  I thought of that poor Woman as of one

  Whom I had known and loved. He had rehearsed

  Her homely tale with such familiar power,

  With such an active countenance, an eye

  So busy, that the things of which he spake

  Seemed present; and, attention now relaxed,

  A heart-felt chillness crept along my veins.

  I rose; and, having left the breezy shade,

  Stood drinking comfort from the warmer sun, 660

  That had not cheered me long—ere, looking round

  Upon that tranquil Ruin, I returned,

  And begged of the old Man that, for my sake,

  He would resume his story.

  He replied,

  “It were a wantonness, and would demand

  Severe reproof, if we were men whose hearts

  Could hold vain dalliance with the misery

  Even of the dead; contented thence to draw

  A momentary pleasure, never marked

  By reason, barren of all future good. 670

  But we have known that there is often found

  In mournful thoughts, and always might be found,

  A power to virtue friendly; were’t not so,

  I am a dreamer among men, indeed

  An idle dreamer! ‘Tis a common tale,

  An ordinary sorrow of man’s life,

  A tale of silent suffering, hardly clothed

  In bodily form.—But without further bidding

  I will proceed.

  While thus it fared with them,

  To whom this cottage, till those hapless years, 680

  Had been a blessed home, it was my chance

  To travel in a country far remote;

  And when these lofty elms once more appeared

  What pleasant expectations lured me on

  O’er the flat Common!—With quick step I reached

  The threshold, lifted with light hand the latch;

  But, when I entered, Margaret looked at me

  A little while; then turned her head away

  Speechless,—and, sitting down upon a chair,

  Wept bitterly. I wist not what to do, 690

  Nor how to speak to her. Poor Wretch! at last

  She rose from off her seat, and then,—O Sir!

  I cannot ‘tell’ how she pronounced my name:—