Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth
Page 91
A congregation in its budding-time
Of health, and hope, and beauty, all at once
So many divers samples of the growth
Of life’s sweet season, could have seen unmoved 225
That miscellaneous garland of wild flowers
Upon the matron temples of a place
So famous through the world? To me at least
It was a goodly prospect; for, through youth,
Though I had been trained up to stand unpropped, 230
And independent musings pleased me so
That spells seemed on me when I was alone,
Yet could I only cleave to solitude
In lonesome places — if a throng was near
That way I leaned by nature, for my heart 235
Was social and loved idleness and joy.
Not seeking those who might participate
My deeper pleasures — nay, I had not once,
Though not unused to mutter lonesome songs, 240
Even with myself divided such delight,
Or looked that way for aught that might be clothed
In human language — easily I passed
From the remembrances of better things,
And slipped into the weekday works of youth, 245
Unburthened, unalarmed, and unprofaned.
Caverns there were within my mind which sun
Could never penetrate, yet did there not
Want store of leafy arbours where the light
Might enter in at will. Companionships, 250
Friendships, acquaintances, were welcome all;
We sauntered, played, we rioted, we talked
Unprofitable talk at morning hours,
Drifted about along the streets and walks,
Read lazily in lazy books, went forth 255
To gallop through the country in blind zeal
Of senseless horsemanship, or on the breast
Of Cam sailed boisterously, and let the stars
Come out, perhaps without one quiet thought.
Such was the tenor of the opening act 260
In this new life. Imagination slept,
And yet not utterly: I could not print
Ground where the grass had yielded to the steps
Of generations of illustrious men,
Unmoved; I could not always lightly pass 265
Through the same gateways, sleep where they had slept,
Wake where they waked, range that enclosure old,
That garden of great intellects, undisturbed.
Place also by the side of this dark sense
Of nobler feeling, that those spiritual men, 270
Even the great Newton’s own etherial self,
Seemed humbled in these precincts, thence to be
The more beloved, invested here with tasks
Of life’s plain business, as a daily garb —
Dictators at the plough — a change that left 275
All genuine admiration unimpaired.
Beside the pleasant mills of Trompington
I laughed with Chaucer; in the hawthorn shade
Heard him, while birds were warbling, tell his tales
Of amorous passion. And that gentle bard 280
Chosen by the Muses for their Page of State,
Sweet Spencer, moving through his clouded heaven
With the moon’s beauty and the moon’s soft pace —
I called him brother, Englishman, and friend.
Yea, our blind poet, who, in his later day 285
Stood almost single, uttering odious truth,
Darkness before, and danger’s voice behind —
Soul awful, if the earth hath ever lodged
An awful soul — I seemed to see him here
Familiarly, and in his scholar’s dress 290
Bounding before me, yet a stripling youth,
A boy, no better, with his rosy cheeks
Angelical, keen eye, courageous look,
And conscious step of purity and pride.
Among the band of my compeers was one, 295
My class-fellow at school, whose chance it was
To lodge in the apartments which had been
Time out of mind honored by Milton’s name —
The very shell reputed of the abode
Which he had tenanted. O Temperate bard! 300
One afternoon, the first time I set foot
In this they innocent nest and oratory,
Seated with others in a festive ring
Of commonplace convention, I to thee
Poured out libations, to thy memory drank 305
Within my private thoughts, till my brain reeled,
Never so clouded by the fumes of wine
Before that hour, or since. Thence, forth I ran
From that assembly, through a length of streets
Ran ostrich-like to reach our chapel door 310
In not a desperate or opprobrious time,
Albeit long after the importunate bell
Had stopped, with wearisome Cassandra voice
No longer haunting the dark winter night.
Call back, O friend, a moment to thy mind 315
The place itself and fashion of the rites.
Upshouldering in a dislocated lump
With shallow ostentatious carelessness
My surplice, gloried in and yet despised,
I clove in pride through the inferior throng 320
Of the plain burghers, who in audience stood
On the last skirts of their permitted ground,
Beneath the pealing organ. Empty thoughts,
I am ashamed of them; and that great bard,
And thou, O friend, who in thy ample mind 325
Hast stationed me for reverence and love,
Ye will forgive the weakness of that hour,
In some of its unworthy vanities
Brother of many more.
In this mixed sort 330
The months passed on, remissly, not giving up
To wilful alienation from the right,
Or walks of open scandal, but in vague
And loose indifference, easy likings, aims
Of a low pitch — duty and zeal dismissed, 335
Yet Nature, or a happy course of things,
Not doing in their stead the needful work.
The memory languidly revolved, the heart
Reposed in noontide rest, the inner pulse
Of contemplation almost failed to beat. 340
Rotted as by a charm, my life became
A floating island, an amphibious thing,
Unsound, of spungy texture, yet withal
Not wanting a fair face of water-weeds
And pleasant flowers. The thirst of living praise, 345
A reverence for the glorious dead, the sight
Of those long vistos, catacombs in which
Perennial minds lie visibly entombed,
Have often stirred the heart of youth, and bred
A fervent love of rigorous discipline. 350
Alas, such high commotion touched not me;
No look was in these walls to put to shame
My easy spirits, and discountenance
Their light composure — far less to instil
A calm resolve of mind, firmly addressed 355
To pleasant efforts. Nor was this the blame
Of others, but my own; I should in truth,
As far as doth concern my single self,
Misdeem most widely, lodging it elsewhere.
For I, bred in Nature’s lap, was even 360
As a spoiled child; and, rambling like the wind
As I had done in daily intercourse
With those delicious rivers, solemn heights,
And mountains, ranging like a fowl of the air,
I was ill-tutored for captivity — 365
To quit my pleasure, and from month to month
Take up a station calmly on the perch
Of sedentary peace. Those lovely forms
Had also left less space within my mind,
Which, wrought upon instinctively, had found 370
A freshness in those objects of its love,
A winning power beyond all other power.
Not that I slighted books — that were to lack
All sense — but other passions had been mine,
More fervent, making me less prompt perhaps 375
To indoor study than was wise or well,
Or suited to my years. Yet I could shape
The image of a place which — soothed and lulled
As I had been, trained up in paradise
Among sweet garlands and delightful sounds, 380
Accustomed in my loneliness to walk
With Nature magisterially — yet I
Methinks could shape the image of a place
Which with its aspect should have bent me down
To instantaneous service, should at once 385
Have made me pay to science and to arts
And written lore, acknowledged my liege lord,
A homage frankly offered up like that
Which I had paid to Nature. Toil and pains
In this recess which I have bodied forth 390
Should spread from heart to heart; and stately groves,
Majestic edifices, should not want
A corresponding dignity within.
The congregating temper which pervades
Our unripe years, not wasted, should be made 395
To minister to works of high attempt,
Which the enthusiast would perform with love.
Youth should be awed, possessed, as with a sense
Religious, of what holy joy there is
In knowledge if it be sincerely sought 400
For its own sake — in glory, and in praise,
If but by labour won, and to endure.
The passing day should learn to put aside
Her trappings here, should strip them off abashed
Before antiquity and stedfast truth, 405
And strong book-mindedness; and over all
Should be a healthy sound simplicity,
A seemly plainness — name it as you will,
Republican or pious.
If these thoughts 410
Be a gratuitous emblazonry
That does but mock this recreant age, at least
Let Folly and False-seeming (we might say)
Be free to affect whatever formal gait
Of moral or scholastic discipline 415
Shall raise them highest in their own esteem;
Let them parade among the schools at will,
But spare the house of God. Was ever known
The witless shepherd who would drive his flock
With serious repetition to a pool 420
Of which ‘tis plain to sight they never taste?
A weight must surely hang on days begun
And ended with worst mockery. Be wise,
Ye Presidents and Deans, and to your bells
Give seasonable rest, for ‘tis a sound 425
Hollow as ever vexed the tranquil air,
And your officious doings bring disgrace
On the plain steeples of our English Church,
Whose worship, ‘mid remotest village trees,
Suffers for this. Even science too, at hand 430
In daily sight of such irreverence,
Is smitten thence with an unnatural taint,
Loses her just authority, falls beneath
Collateral suspicion, else unknown.
This obvious truth did not escape me then, 435
Unthinking as I was, and I confess
That — having in my native hills given loose
To a schoolboy’s dreaming — I had raised a pile
Upon the basis of the coming time
Which now before me melted fast away, 440
Which could not live, scarcely had life enough
To mock the builder. Oh, what joy it were
To see a sanctuary for our country’s youth
With such a spirit in it as might be
Protection for itself, a virgin grove, 445
Primaeval in its purity and depth —
Where, though the shades were filled with chearfulness,
Nor indigent of songs warbled from crowds
In under-coverts, yet the countenance
Of the whole place should wear a stamp of awe — 450
A habitation sober and demure
For ruminating creatures, a domain
For quiet things to wander in, a haunt
In which the heron might delight to feed
By the shy rivers, and the pelican 455
Upon the cypress-spire in lonely thought
Might sit and sun himself. Alas, alas,
In vain for such solemnity we look;
Our eyes are crossed by butterflies, our ears
Hear chattering popinjays — the inner heart 460
Is trivial, and the impresses without
Are of a gaudy region.
Different sight
Those venerable doctors saw of old 465
When all who dwelt within these famous walls
Led in abstemiousness a studious life,
When, in forlorn and naked chambers cooped
And crowded, o’er their ponderous books they sate
Like caterpillars eating out their way 470
In silence, or with keen devouring noise
Not to be tracked or fathered. Princes then
At matins froze, and couched at curfew-time,
Trained up through piety and zeal to prize
Spare diet, patient labour, and plain weeds. 475
O seat of Arts, renowned throughout the world,
Far different service in those homely days
The nurslings of the Muses underwent
From their first childhood. In that glorious time
When Learning, like a stranger come from far, 480
Sounding through Christian lands her trumpet, rouzed
The peasant and the king; when boys and youths,
The growth of ragged villages and huts,
Forsook their homes and — errant in the quest
Of patron, famous school or friendly nook, 485
Where, pensioned, they in shelter might sit down —
From town to town and through wide scattered realms
Journeyed with their huge folios in their hands,
And often, starting from some covert place,
Saluted the chance comer on the road, 490
Crying, ‘An obolus, a penny give
To a poor scholar’; when illustrious men,
Lovers of truth, by penury constrained,
Bucer, Erasmus, or Melancthon, read
Before the doors or windows of their cells 495
By moonshine through mere lack of taper light.
But peace to vain regrets. We see but darkly
Even when we look behind us; and best things
Are not so pure by nature that they needs
Must keep to all — as fondly all believe — 500
Their highest promise. If the mariner,
When at reluctant distance he hath passed
Some fair enticing island, did but know
What fate might have been his, could he have brought
His bark to land upon the wished-for spot, 505
Good cause full often would he have to bless
The belt of churlish surf that scared him thence,
Or haste of the inexorable wind.
For me, I grieve not; happy is the man
Who only misses what I missed, who falls 510
No lower than I fell. I did not love,
As hath been notice heretofore, the guise
Of our scholastic studies — could have wished
The river to have had an ampler range
And freer pace. But this I tax not; far, 5
15
Far more I grieved to see among the band
Of those who in the field of contest stood
As combatants, passions that did to me
Seem low and mean — from ignorance of mine,
In part, and want of just forbearance; yet 520
My wiser mind grieves now for what I saw.
Willingly did I part from these, and turn
Out of their track to travel with the shoal
Of more unthinking natures, easy minds
And pillowy, and not wanting love that makes 525
The day pass lightly on, when foresight sleeps,
And wisdom and the pledges interchanged
With our own inner being, are forgot.
To books, our daily fare prescribed, I turned
With sickly appetite; and when I went, 530
At other times, in quest of my own food,
I chaced not steadily the manly deer,
But laid me down to any casual feast
Of wild wood-honey; or with truant eyes
Unruly, peeped about for vagrant fruit. 535
And as for what pertains to human life,
The deeper passions working round me here —
Whether of envy, jealousy, pride, shame,
Ambition, emulation, fear, or hope,
Or those of dissolute pleasure — were by me 540
Unshared, and only now and then observed,
So little was their hold upon my being,
As outward things that might administer
To knowledge or instruction. Hushed meanwhile
Was the under-soul, locked up in such a calm, 545
That not a leaf of the great nature stirred.
Yet was this deep vacation not given up
To utter waste. Hitherto I had stood
In my own mind remote from human life,
At least from what we commonly so name, 550
Even as a shepherd on a promontory,
Who, lacking occupation, looks far forth
Into the endless sea, and rather makes
Than finds what he beholds. And sure it is,
That this first transit from the smooth delights 555
And wild outlandish walks of simple youth
To something that resembled an approach
Towards mortal business, to a privileged world
Within a world, a midway residence
With all its intervenient imagery, 560
Did better suit my visionary mind —
Far better, than to have been bolted forth,
Thrust out abruptly into fortune’s way
Among the conflicts of substantial life —
By a more just gradation did lead on 565
To higher things, more naturally matured
For permanent possession, better fruits,
Whether of truth or virtue, to ensue.
In playful zest of fancy did we note —
How could we less? — the manners and the ways 570