And there, along that bank, when I have passed 420
At evening, I believe that oftentimes
A full half-hour together I have stood
Mute, looking at the grave in which he lies.
Even now methinks I have before my sight
That self-same village church: I see her sit — 425
The thron`ed lady spoken of erewhile —
On her green hill, forgetful of this boy
Who slumbers at her feet, forgetful too
Of all her silent neighbourhood of graves,
And listening only to the gladsome sounds 430
That, from the rural school ascending, play
Beneath her and about her. May she long
Behold a race of young ones like to those
With whom I herded — easily, indeed,
We might have fed upon a fatter soil 435
Of Arts and Letters, but be that forgiven —
A race of real children, not too wise,
Too learned, or too good, but wanton, fresh,
And bandied up and down by love and hate;
Fierce, moody, patient, venturous, modest, shy, 440
Mad at their sports like withered leaves in winds;
Though doing wrong and suffering, and full oft
Bending beneath our life’s mysterious weight
Of pain and fear, yet still in happiness
Not yielding to the happiest upon earth. 445
Simplicity in habit, truth in speech,
Be these the daily strengtheners of their minds!
May books and Nature be their early joy,
And knowledge, rightly honored with that name —
Knowledge not purchased with the loss of power! 450
Well do I call to mind the very week
When I was first entrusted to the care
Of that sweet valley — when its paths, its shores
And brooks, were like a dream of novelty
To my half-infant thoughts — that very week, 455
While I was roving up and down alone
Seeking I knew not what, I chanced to cross
One of those open fields, which, shaped like ears,
Make green peninsulas on Esthwaite’s Lake.
Twilight was coming on, yet through the gloom 460
I saw distinctly on the opposite shore
A heap of garments, left as I supposed
By one who there was bathing. Long I watched,
But no one owned them; meanwhile the calm lake
Grew dark, with all the shadows on its breast, 465
And now and then a fish up-leaping snapped
The breathless stillness. The succeeding day —
Those unclaimed garments telling a plain tale —
Went there a company, and in their boat
Sounded with grappling-irons and long poles: 470
At length, the dead man, ‘mid that beauteous scene
Of trees and hills and water, bolt upright
Rose with his ghastly face, a spectre shape —
Of terror even. And yet no vulgar fear,
Young as I was, a child not nine years old, 475
Possessed me, for my inner eye had seen
Such sights before among the shining streams
Of fairyland, the forests of romance —
Thence came a spirit hallowing what I saw
With decoration and ideal grace, 480
A dignity, a smoothness, like the words
Of Grecian art and purest Poesy.
I had a precious treasure at that time,
A little yellow canvass-covered book,
A slender abstract of the Arabian Tales; 485
And when I learned, as now I first did learn
From my companions in this new abode,
That this dear prize of mine was but a block
Hewn from a mighty quarry — in a word,
That there were four large volumes, laden all 490
With kindred matter—’twas in truth to me
A promise scarcely earthly. Instantly
I made a league, a covenant with a friend
Of my own age, that we should lay aside
The monies we possessed, and hoard up more, 495
Till our joint savings had amassed enough
To make this book our own. Through several months
Religiously did we preserve that vow,
And spite of all temptation hoarded up,
And hoarded up; but firmness failed at length, 500
Nor were we ever masters of our wish.
And afterwards, when, to my father’s house
Returning at the holidays, I found
That golden store of books which I had left
Open to my enjoyment once again, 505
What heart was mine! Full often through the course
Of those glad respites in the summertime
When armed with rod and line we went abroad
For a whole day together, I have lain
Down by thy side, O Derwent, murmuring stream, 510
On the hot stones and in the glaring sun,
And there have read, devouring as I read,
Defrauding the day’s glory — desperate —
Till with a sudden bound of smart reproach
Such as an idler deals with in his shame, 515
I to my sport betook myself again.
A gracious spirit o’er this earth presides,
And o’er the heart of man: invisibly
It comes, directing those to works of love 520
Who care not, know not, think not, what they do.
The tales that charm away the wakeful night
In Araby — romances, legends penned
For solace by the light of monkish lamps;
Fictions, for ladies of their love, devised 525
By youthful squires; adventures endless, spun
By the dismantled warrior in old age
Out of the bowels of those very thoughts
In which his youth did first extravagate —
These spread like day, and something in the shape 530
Of these will live till man shall be no more.
Dumb yearnings, hidden appetites, are ours,
And they must have their foot. Our childhood sits,
Our simple childhood, sits upon a throne
That hath more power than all the elements. 535
I guess not what this tells of being past,
Nor what it augurs of the life to come,
But so it is, and in that dubious hour,
That twilight when we first begin to see
This dawning earth, to recognise, expect — 540
And in the long probation that ensues,
The time of trial ere we learn to live
In reconcilement with our stinted powers,
To endure this state of meagre vassalage,
Unwilling to forego, confess, submit, 545
Uneasy and unsettled, yoke-fellows
To custom, mettlesome and not yet tamed
And humbled down — oh, then we feel, we feel,
We know, when we have friends. Ye dreamers, then,
Forgers of lawless tales, we bless you then — 550
Impostors, drivellers, dotards, as the ape
Philosophy will call you — then we feel
With what, and how great might ye are in league,
Who make our wish our power, our thought a deed,
An empire, a possession. Ye whom time 555
And seasons serve — all faculties — to whom
Earth crouches, th’ elements are potter’s clay,
Space like a heaven filled up with northern lights,
Here, nowhere, there, and everywhere at once.
It might demand a more impassioned strain 560
To tell of later pleasures linked to these,
A tract of the same isthmus which we cross
In progress from our native continent
<
br /> To earth and human life — I mean to speak
Of that delightful time of growing youth 565
When cravings for the marvellous relent,
And we begin to love what we have seen;
And sober truth, experience, sympathy,
Take stronger hold of us; and words themselves
Move us with conscious pleasure. 570
I am sad
At thought of raptures now for ever flown,
Even unto tears I sometimes could be sad
To think of, to read over, many a page —
Poems withal of name — which at that time 575
Did never fail to entrance me, and are now
Dead in my eyes as is a theatre
Fresh emptied of spectators. Thirteen years,
Or haply less, I might have seen when first
My ears began to open to the charm 580
Of words in tuneful order, found them sweet
For their own sakes — a passion and a power —
And phrases pleased me, chosen for delight,
For pomp, or love. Oft in the public roads,
Yet unfrequented, while the morning light 585
Was yellowing the hilltops, with that dear friend
(The same whom I have mentioned heretofore)
I went abroad, and for the better part
Of two delightful hours we strolled along
By the still borders of the misty lake 590
Repeating favorite verses with one voice,
Or conning more, as happy as the birds
That round us chaunted. Well might we be glad,
Lifted above the ground by airy fancies
More bright than madness or the dreams of wine. 595
And though full oft the objects of our love
Were false and in their splendour overwrought,
Yet surely at such time no vulgar power
Was working in us, nothing less in truth
Than that most noble attribute of man — 600
Though yet untutored, and inordinate —
That wish for something loftier, more adorned,
Than is the common aspect, daily garb,
Of human life. What wonder then if sounds
Of exultation echoed through the groves — 605
For images, and sentiments, and words,
And every thing with which we had to do
In that delicious world of poesy,
Kept holiday, a never-ending show,
With music, incense, festival, and flowers! 610
Here must I pause: This only will I add
From heart-experience, and in humblest sense
Of modesty, that he who in his youth
A wanderer among the woods and fields 615
With living Nature hath been intimate,
Not only in that raw unpractised time
Is stirred to ecstasy, as others are,
By glittering verse, but he doth furthermore,
In measure only dealt out to himself, 620
Receive enduring touches of deep joy
From the great Nature that exists in works
Of mighty poets. Visionary power
Attends upon the motions of the winds
Embodied in the mystery of words; 625
There darkness makes abode, and all the host
Of shadowy things do work their changes there
As in a mansion like their proper home.
Even forms and substances are circumfused
By that transparent veil with light divine, 630
And through the turnings intricate of verse
Present themselves as objects recognised
In flashes, and with a glory scare their own.
Thus far a scanty record is deduced
Of what I owed to books in early life; 635
Their later influence yet remains untold,
But as this work was taking in my thoughts
Proportions that seemed larger than had first
Been meditated, I was indisposed
To any further progress at a time 640
When these acknowledgements were left unpaid.
BOOK SIXTH.
CAMBRIDGE AND THE ALPS
THE leaves were yellow when to Furness Fells,
The haunt of shepherds, and to cottage life
I bade adieu, and, one among the flock
Who by that season are convened, like birds
Trooping together at the fowler’s lure, 5
Went back to Granta’s cloisters — not so fond
Or eager, though as gay and undepressed
In spirit, as when I thence had taken flight
A few short months before. I turned my face
Without repining from the mountain pomp 10
Of autumn and its beauty (entered in
With calmer lakes and louder streams); and you,
Frank-hearted maids of rocky Cumberland,
You and your not unwelcome days of mirth
I quitted, and your nights of revelry, 15
And in my own unlovely cell sate down
In lightsome mood — such privilege has youth,
That cannot take long leave of pleasant thoughts.
We need not linger o’er the ensuing time,
But let me add at once that now, the bonds 20
Of indolent and vague society
Relaxing in their hold, I lived henceforth
More to myself, read more, reflected more,
Felt more, and settled daily into habits
More promising. Two winters may be passed 25
Without a separate notice; many books
Were read in process of this time — devoured,
Tasted or skimmed, or studiously perused —
Yet with no settled plan. I was detached
Internally from academic cares, 30
From every hope of prowess and reward,
And wished to be a lodger in that house
Of letters, and no more — and should have been
Even such, but for some personal concerns
That hung about me in my own despite 35
Perpetually, no heavy weight, but still
A baffling and a hindrance, a controul
Which made the thought of planning for myself
A course of independent study seem
An act of disobedience towards them 40
Who loved me, proud rebellion and unkind.
This bastard virtue — rather let it have
A name it more deserves, this cowardise —
Gave treacherous sanction to that over-love
Of freedom planted in me from the very first, 45
And indolence, by force of which I turned
From regulations even of my own
As from restraints and bonds. And who can tell,
Who knows what thus may have been gained, both then
And at a later season, or preserved — 50
What love of Nature, what original strength
Of contemplation, what intuitive truths,
The deepest and the best, and what research
Unbiassed, unbewildered, and unawed?
The poet’s soul was with me at that time, 55
Sweet meditations, the still overflow
Of happiness and truth. A thousand hopes
Were mine, a thousand tender dreams, of which
No few have since been realized, and some
Do yet remain, hopes for my future life. 60
Four years and thirty, told this very week,
Have I been now a sojourner on earth,
And yet the morning gladness is not gone
Which then was in my mind. Those were the days
Which also first encouraged me to trust 65
With firmness, hitherto but lightly touched
With such a daring thought, that I might leave
Some monument behind me which pure hearts
Should reverence. The instinctive humbleness,<
br />
Uphelp even by the very name and thought 70
Of printed books and authorship, began
To melt away; and further, the dread awe
Of mighty names was softened down, and seemed
Approachable, admitting fellowship
Of modest sympathy. Such aspect now, 75
Though not familiarly, my mind put on;
I loved and I enjoyed — that was my chief
And ruling business, happy in the strength
And loveliness of imagery and thought.
All winter long, whenever free to take 80
My choice, did I at nights frequent our groves
And tributary walks — the last, and oft
The only one, who had been lingering there
Through hours of silence till the porter’s bell,
A punctual follower on the stroke of nine, 85
Rang with its blunt unceremonious voice,
Inexorable summons. Lofty elms,
Inviting shades of opportune recess,
Did give composure to a neighbourhood
Unpeaceful in itself. A single tree 90
There was, no doubt yet standing there, an ash,
With sinuous trunk, boughs exquisitely wreathed:
Up from the ground and almost to the top
The trunk and master branches everywhere
Were green with ivy, and the lightsome twigs 95
And outer spray profusely tipped with seeds
That hung in yellow tassels and festoons,
Moving or still — a favorite trimmed out
By Winter for himself, as if in pride,
And with outlandish grace. Oft have I stood 100
Foot-bound uplooking at this lovely tree
Beneath a frosty moon. The hemisphere
Of magic fiction, verse of mine perhaps
May never tread, but scarcely Spenser’s self
Could have more tranquil visions in his youth, 105
More bright appearances could scarcely see
Of human forms and superhuman powers,
Than I beheld standing on winter nights
Alone beneath this fairy work of earth.
‘Twould be a waste of labour to detail 110
The rambling studies of a truant youth —
Which further may be easily divined,
What, and what kind they were. My inner knowledge
(This barely will I note) was oft in depth
And delicacy like another mind, 115
Sequestered from my outward taste in books —
And yet the books which then I loved the most
Are dearest to me now; for, being versed
In living Nature, I had there a guide
Which opened frequently my eyes, else shut, 120
A standard which was usefully applied,
Even when unconsciously, to other things
Which less I understood. In general terms,
I was a better judge of thoughts than words,
Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth Page 95