Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth

by William Wordsworth

  Long to protect her own. The man himself

  Departs; and soon is spent the line of those

  Who, in the bodily image, in the mind,

  In heart or soul, in station or pursuit,

  Did most resemble him. Degrees and ranks,

  Fraternities and orders—heaping high

  New wealth upon the burthen of the old, 990

  And placing trust in privilege confirmed

  And re-confirmed—are scoffed at with a smile

  Of greedy foretaste, from the secret stand

  Of Desolation, aimed: to slow decline

  These yield, and these to sudden overthrow:

  Their virtue, service, happiness, and state

  Expire; and nature’s pleasant robe of green,

  Humanity’s appointed shroud, enwraps

  Their monuments and their memory. The vast Frame

  Of social nature changes evermore 1000

  Her organs and her members, with decay

  Restless, and restless generation, powers

  And functions dying and produced at need,—

  And by this law the mighty whole subsists:

  With an ascent and progress in the main;

  Yet, oh! how disproportioned to the hopes

  And expectations of self-flattering minds!

  The courteous Knight, whose bones are here interred,

  Lived in an age conspicuous as our own

  For strife and ferment in the minds of men; 1010

  Whence alteration in the forms of things,

  Various and vast. A memorable age!

  Which did to him assign a pensive lot—

  To linger ‘mid the last of those bright clouds

  That, on the steady breeze of honour, sailed

  In long procession calm and beautiful.

  He who had seen his own bright order fade,

  And its devotion gradually decline,

  (While war, relinquishing the lance and shield,

  Her temper changed, and bowed to other laws) 1020

  Had also witnessed, in his morn of life,

  That violent commotion, which o’erthrew,

  In town and city and sequestered glen,

  Altar, and cross, and church of solemn roof,

  And old religious house—pile after pile;

  And shook their tenants out into the fields,

  Like wild beasts without home! Their hour was come;

  But why no softening thought of gratitude,

  No just remembrance, scruple, or wise doubt?

  Benevolence is mild; nor borrows help, 1030

  Save at worst need, from bold impetuous force,

  Fitliest allied to anger and revenge.

  But Human-kind rejoices in the might

  Of mutability; and airy hopes,

  Dancing around her, hinder and disturb

  Those meditations of the soul that feed

  The retrospective virtues. Festive songs

  Break from the maddened nations at the sight

  Of sudden overthrow; and cold neglect

  Is the sure consequence of slow decay. 1040

  Even,” said the Wanderer, “as that courteous Knight,

  Bound by his vow to labour for redress

  Of all who suffer wrong, and to enact

  By sword and lance the law of gentleness,

  (If I may venture of myself to speak,

  Trusting that not incongruously I blend

  Low things with lofty) I too shall be doomed

  To outlive the kindly use and fair esteem

  Of the poor calling which my youth embraced

  With no unworthy prospect. But enough; 1050

  —Thoughts crowd upon me—and ‘twere seemlier now

  To stop, and yield our gracious Teacher thanks

  For the pathetic records which his voice

  Hath here delivered; words of heartfelt truth,

  Tending to patience when affliction strikes;

  To hope and love; to confident repose

  In God; and reverence for the dust of Man.”

  BOOK EIGHTH

  THE PARSONAGE

  THE pensive Sceptic of the lonely vale

  To those acknowledgments subscribed his own,

  With a sedate compliance, which the Priest

  Failed not to notice, inly pleased, and said:—

  “If ye, by whom invited I began

  These narratives of calm and humble life,

  Be satisfied, ‘tis well,—the end is gained;

  And, in return for sympathy bestowed

  And patient listening, thanks accept from me.

  —Life, death, eternity! momentous themes 10

  Are they—and might demand a seraph’s tongue,

  Were they not equal to their own support;

  And therefore no incompetence of mine

  Could do them wrong. The universal forms

  Of human nature, in a spot like this,

  Present themselves at once to all men’s view:

  Ye wished for act and circumstance, that make

  The individual known and understood;

  And such as my best judgment could select

  From what the place afforded, have been given; 20

  Though apprehensions crossed me that my zeal

  To his might well be likened, who unlocks

  A cabinet stored with gems and pictures—draws

  His treasures forth, soliciting regard

  To this, and this, as worthier than the last,

  Till the spectator, who awhile was pleased

  More than the exhibitor himself, becomes

  Weary and faint, and longs to be released.

  —But let us hence! my dwelling is in sight,

  And there—”

  At this the Solitary shrunk 30

  With backward will; but, wanting not address

  That inward motion to disguise, he said

  To his Compatriot, smiling as he spake;

  —”The peaceable remains of this good Knight

  Would be disturbed, I fear, with wrathful scorn,

  If consciousness could reach him where he lies

  That one, albeit of these degenerate times,

  Deploring changes past, or dreading change

  Foreseen, had dared to couple, even in thought,

  The fine vocation of the sword and lance 40

  With the gross aims and body-bending toil

  Of a poor brotherhood who walk the earth

  Pitied, and, where they are not known, despised.

  Yet, by the good Knight’s leave, the two estates

  Are graced with some resemblance. Errant those,

  Exiles and wanderers—and the like are these;

  Who, with their burthen, traverse hill and dale,

  Carrying relief for nature’s simple wants.

  —What though no higher recompense be sought

  Than honest maintenance, by irksome toil 50

  Full oft procured, yet may they claim respect,

  Among the intelligent, for what this course

  Enables them to be and to perform.

  Their tardy steps give leisure to observe,

  While solitude permits the mind to feel;

  Instructs, and prompts her to supply defects

  By the division of her inward self

  For grateful converse: and to these poor men

  Nature (I but repeat your favourite boast)

  Is bountiful—go wheresoe’er they may; 60

  Kind nature’s various wealth is all their own.

  Versed in the characters of men; and bound,

  By ties of daily interest, to maintain

  Conciliatory manners and smooth speech;

  Such have been, and still are in their degree,

  Examples efficacious to refine

  Rude intercourse; apt agents to expel,

  By importation of unlooked-for arts,

  Barbarian torpor, and blind prejudice;

  Raising,
through just gradation, savage life 70

  To rustic, and the rustic to urbane.

  —Within their moving magazines is lodged

  Power that comes forth to quicken and exalt

  Affections seated in the mother’s breast,

  And in the lover’s fancy; and to feed

  The sober sympathies of long-tried friends.

  —By these Itinerants, as experienced men,

  Counsel is given; contention they appease

  With gentle language, in remotest wilds,

  Tears wipe away, and pleasant tidings bring; 80

  Could the proud quest of chivalry do more?”

  “Happy,” rejoined the Wanderer, “they who gain

  A panegyric from your generous tongue!

  But, if to these Wayfarers once pertained

  Aught of romantic interest, it is gone.

  Their purer service, in this realm at least,

  Is past for ever.—An inventive Age

  Has wrought, if not with speed of magic, yet

  To most strange issues. I have lived to mark

  A new and unforeseen creation rise 90

  From out the labours of a peaceful Land

  Wielding her potent enginery to frame

  And to produce, with appetite as keen

  As that of war, which rests not night or day,

  Industrious to destroy! With fruitless pains

  Might one like me ‘now’ visit many a tract

  Which, in his youth, he trod, and trod again,

  A lone pedestrian with a scanty freight,

  Wished-for, or welcome, wheresoe’er he came—

  Among the tenantry of thorpe and vill; 100

  Or straggling burgh, of ancient charter proud,

  And dignified by battlements and towers

  Of some stern castle, mouldering on the brow

  Of a green hill or bank of rugged stream.

  The foot-path faintly marked, the horse-track wild,

  And formidable length of plashy lane,

  (Prized avenues ere others had been shaped

  Or easier links connecting place with place)

  Have vanished—swallowed up by stately roads

  Easy and bold, that penetrate the gloom 110

  Of Britain’s farthest glens. The Earth has lent

  Her waters, Air her breezes; and the sail

  Of traffic glides with ceaseless intercourse,

  Glistening along the low and woody dale;

  Or, in its progress, on the lofty side,

  Of some bare hill, with wonder kenned from far.

  Meanwhile, at social Industry’s command,

  How quick, how vast an increase! From the germ

  Of some poor hamlet, rapidly produced

  Here a huge town, continuous and compact, 120

  Hiding the face of earth for leagues—and there,

  Where not a habitation stood before,

  Abodes of men irregularly massed

  Like trees in forests,—spread through spacious tracts,

  O’er which the smoke of unremitting fires

  Hangs permanent, and plentiful as wreaths

  Of vapour glittering in the morning sun.

  And, wheresoe’er the traveller turns his steps,

  He sees the barren wilderness erased,

  Or disappearing; triumph that proclaims 130

  How much the mild Directress of the plough

  Owes to alliance with these new-born arts!

  —Hence is the wide sea peopled,—hence the shores

  Of Britain are resorted to by ships

  Freighted from every climate of the world

  With the world’s choicest produce. Hence that sum

  Of keels that rest within her crowded ports,

  Or ride at anchor in her sounds and bays;

  That animating spectacle of sails

  That, through her inland regions, to and fro 140

  Pass with the respirations of the tide,

  Perpetual, multitudinous! Finally,

  Hence a dread arm of floating power, a voice

  Of thunder daunting those who would approach

  With hostile purposes the blessed Isle,

  Truth’s consecrated residence, the seat

  Impregnable of Liberty and Peace.

  And yet, O happy Pastor of a flock

  Faithfully watched, and, by that loving care

  And Heaven’s good providence, preserved from taint! 150

  With you I grieve, when on the darker side

  Of this great change I look; and there behold

  Such outrage done to nature as compels

  The indignant power to justify herself;

  Yea, to avenge her violated rights,

  For England’s bane.—When soothing darkness spreads

  O’er hill and vale,” the Wanderer thus expressed

  His recollections, “and the punctual stars,

  While all things else are gathering to their homes,

  Advance, and in the firmament of heaven 160

  Glitter—but undisturbing, undisturbed;

  As if their silent company were charged

  With peaceful admonitions for the heart

  Of all-beholding Man, earth’s thoughtful lord;

  Then, in full many a region, once like this

  The assured domain of calm simplicity

  And pensive quiet, an unnatural light

  Prepared for never-resting Labour’s eyes

  Breaks from a many-windowed fabric huge;

  And at the appointed hour a bell is heard— 170

  Of harsher import than the curfew-knoll

  That spake the Norman Conqueror’s stern behest—

  A local summons to unceasing toil!

  Disgorged are now the ministers of day;

  And, as they issue from the illumined pile,

  A fresh band meets them, at the crowded door—

  And in the courts—and where the rumbling stream,

  That turns the multitude of dizzy wheels,

  Glares, like a troubled spirit, in its bed

  Among the rocks below. Men, maidens, youths, 180

  Mother and little children, boys and girls,

  Enter, and each the wonted task resumes

  Within this temple, where is offered up

  To Gain, the master idol of the realm,

  Perpetual sacrifice. Even thus of old

  Our ancestors, within the still domain

  Of vast cathedral or conventual church,

  Their vigils kept; where tapers day and might

  On the dim altar burned continually,

  In token that the House was evermore 190

  Watching to God. Religious men were they;

  Nor would their reason, tutored to aspire

  Above this transitory world, allow

  That there should pass a moment of the year,

  When in their land the Almighty’s service ceased.

  Triumph who will in these profaner rites

  Which we, a generation self-extolled,

  As zealously perform! I cannot share

  His proud complacency:—yet do I exult,

  Casting reserve away, exult to see 200

  An intellectual mastery exercised

  O’er the blind elements; a purpose given,

  A perseverance fed; almost a soul

  Imparted—to brute matter. I rejoice,

  Measuring the force of those gigantic powers

  That, by the thinking mind, have been compelled

  To serve the will of feeble-bodied Man.

  For with the sense of admiration blends

  The animating hope that time may come

  When, strengthened, yet not dazzled, by the might 210

  Of this dominion over nature gained,

  Men of all lands shall exercise the same

  In due proportion to their country’s need;

  Learning, though late, that all true glory rests,

  All praise, a
ll safety, and all happiness,

  Upon the moral law. Egyptian Thebes,

  Tyre, by the margin of the sounding waves,

  Palmyra, central in the desert, fell;

  And the Arts died by which they had been raised.

  —Call Archimedes from his buried tomb 220

  Upon the grave of vanished Syracuse,

  And feelingly the Sage shall make report

  How insecure, how baseless in itself,

  Is the Philosophy whose sway depends

  On mere material instruments;—how weak

  Those arts, and high inventions, if unpropped

  By virtue.—He, sighing with pensive grief,

  Amid his calm abstractions, would admit

  That not the slender privilege is theirs

  To save themselves from blank forgetfulness!” 230

  When from the Wanderer’s lips these words had fallen,

  I said, “And, did in truth those vaunted Arts

  Possess such privilege, how could we escape

  Sadness and keen regret, we who revere,

  And would preserve as things above all price,

  The old domestic morals of the land,

  Her simple manners, and the stable worth

  That dignified and cheered a low estate?

  Oh! where is now the character of peace,

  Sobriety, and order, and chaste love, 240

  And honest dealing, and untainted speech,

  And pure good-will, and hospitable cheer;

  That made the very thought of country-life

  A thought of refuge, for a mind detained

  Reluctantly amid the bustling crowd?

  Where now the beauty of the sabbath kept

  With conscientious reverence, as a day

  By the almighty Lawgiver pronounced

  Holy and blest? and where the winning grace

  Of all the lighter ornaments attached 250

  To time and season, as the year rolled round?”

  “Fled!” was the Wanderer’s passionate response,

  “Fled utterly! or only to be traced

  In a few fortunate retreats like this;

  Which I behold with trembling, when I think

  What lamentable change, a year—a month—

  May bring; that brook converting as it runs

  Into an instrument of deadly bane

  For those, who, yet untempted to forsake

  The simple occupations of their sires, 260

  Drink the pure water of its innocent stream

  With lip almost as pure.—Domestic bliss

  (Or call it comfort, by a humbler name,)

  How art thou blighted for the poor Man’s heart!

  Lo! in such neighbourhood, from morn to eve,

  The habitations empty! or perchance

  The Mother left alone,—no helping hand

  To rock the cradle of her peevish babe;

  No daughters round her, busy at the wheel,