Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth

by William Wordsworth

  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
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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,<
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  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,