Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth

by William Wordsworth

My fancy had shaped forth of sights and shows, 110

  Processions, equipages, lords and dukes,

  The King and the King’s palace, and not last

  Or least, heaven bless him! the renowned Lord Mayor —

  Dreams hardly less intense than those which wrought

  A change of purpose in young Whittington 115

  When he in fiendlessness, a drooping boy,

  Sate on a stone and heard the bells speak out

  Articulate music. Above all, one thought

  Baffled my understanding, how men lived

  Even next-door neighbours, as we say, yet still 120

  Strangers, and knowing not each other’s names.

  Oh wondrous power of words, how sweet they are

  According to the meaning which they bring —

  Vauxhall and Ranelagh, I then had heard

  Of your green groves and wilderness of lamps, 125

  Your gorgeous ladies, fairy cataracts,

  And pageant fireworks. Nor must we forget

  Those other wonders, different in kind

  Though scarcely less illustrious in degree,

  The river proudly bridged, the giddy top 130

  And Whispering Gallery of St. Paul’s, the tombs

  Of Westminster, the Giants of Guildhall,

  Bedlam and the two figures at its gates,

  Streets without end and churches numberless,

  Statues with flowery gardens in vast squares, 135

  The Monument, and Armoury of the Tower.

  These fond imaginations, of themselves,

  Had long before given way in season due,

  Leaving a throng of others in their stead;

  And now I looked upon the real scene, 140

  Familiarly perused it day by day,

  With keen and lively pleasure even there

  Where disappointment was the strongest, pleased

  Through courteous self-submission, as a tax

  Paid to the object by prescriptive right, 145

  A thing that ought to be. Shall I give way,

  Copying the impression of the memory —

  Though things remembered idly do half seem

  The work of fancy — shall I, as the mood

  Inclines me, here describe for pastime’s sake, 150

  Some portion of that motley imagery,

  A vivid pleasure of my youth, and now,

  Among the lonely places that I love,

  A frequent daydream for my riper mind?

  And first, the look and aspect of the place — 155

  The broad highway appearance, as it strikes

  On strangers of all ages, the quick dance

  Of colours, lights and forms, the Babel din,

  The endless stream of men and moving things,

  From hour to hour the illimitable walk 160

  Still among streets, with clouds and sky above,

  The wealth, the bustle and the eagerness,

  The glittering chariots with their pampered steeds,

  Stalls, barrows, porters, midway in the street

  The scavenger that begs with hat in hand, 165

  The labouring hackney-coaches, the rash speed

  Of coaches travelling far, whirled on with horn

  Loud blowing, and the sturdy drayman’s team

  Ascending from some alley of the Thames

  And striking right across the crowded Strand 170

  Till the fore-horse veer round with punctual skill;

  Here, there, and everywhere, a weary throng,

  That comers and the goers face to face —

  Face after face — the string of dazzling wares,

  Shop after shop, with symbols, blazoned names, 175

  And all the tradesman’s honours overhead:

  Here, fronts of houses, like a title-page

  With letters huge inscribed from top to toe;

  Stationed above the door like guardian saints,

  There, allegoric shapes, female or male, 180

  Or physiognomies of real men,

  Land-warriors, kings, or admirals of the sea,

  Boyle, Shakespear, Newton, or the attractive head

  Of some quack-doctor, famous in his day.

  Meanwhile the roar continues, till at length, 185

  Escaped as from an enemy, we turn

  Abruptly into some sequestered nook,

  Still as a sheltered place when winds blow loud.

  At leisure thence, through tracts of thin resort,

  And sights and sounds that come at intervals, 190

  We take our way — a raree-show is here

  With children gathered round, another street

  Presents a company of dancing dogs,

  Or dromedary with an antic pair

  Of monkies on his back, a minstrel-band 195

  Of Savoyards, single and alone,

  An English ballad-singer. Private courts,

  Gloomy as coffins, and unsightly lanes

  Thrilled by some female vendor’s scream — belike

  The very shrillest of all London cries — 200

  May then entangle us awhile,

  Conducted through those labyrinths unawares

  To privileged regions and inviolate,

  Where from their aery lodges studious lawyers

  Look out on waters, walks, and gardens green. 205

  Thence back into the throng, until we reach —

  Following the tide that slackens by degrees —

  Some half-frequented scene where wider streets

  Bring straggling breezes of suburban air.

  Here files of ballads dangle from dead walls, 210

  Advertisements of giant size, from high

  Press forward in all colours on the sight —

  These, bold in conscious merit — lower down,

  That, fronted with a most imposing word,

  Is peradventure one in masquerade. 215

  As on the broadening causeway we advance,

  Behold a face turned up towards us, strong

  In lineaments, and red with over-toil:

  ‘Tis one perhaps already met elsewhere,

  A travelling cripple, by the trunk cut short, 220

  And stumping with his arms. In sailor’s garb

  Another lies at length beside a range

  Of written characters, with chalk inscribed

  Upon the smooth flat stones. The nurse is here,

  The bachelor that loves to sun himself, 225

  The military idler, and the dame

  That field-ward takes her walk in decency.

  Now homeward through the thickening hubbub, where

  See — among less distinguishable shapes —

  The Italian, with his frame of images 230

  Upon his head; with basket at his waist,

  The Jew; the stately and slow-moving Turk,

  With freight of slippers piled beneath his arm.

  Briefly, we find (if tired of random sights,

  And haply to that search our thoughts should turn) 235

  Among the crowd, conspicuous less or more

  As we proceed, all specimens of man

  Through all the colours which the sun bestows,

  And every character of form and face:

  The Swede, the Russian; from the genial south, 240

  The Frenchman and the Spaniard; from remote

  America, the hunter Indian; Moors,

  Malays, Lascars, the Tartar and Chinese,

  And Negro ladies in white muslin gowns.

  At leisure let us view from day to day, 245

  As they present themselves, the spectacles

  Within doors: troops of wild beasts, birds and beasts

  Of every nature from all climes convened,

  And, next to these, those mimic sights that ape

  The absolute presence of reality, 250

  Expressing as in mirror sea and land,

  And what earth is, and what she hath to shew —


  I do not here allude to subtlest craft,

  By means refined attaining purest ends,

  But imitations fondly made in plain 255

  Confession of man’s weakness and his loves.

  Whether the painter — fashioning a work

  To Nature’s circumambient scenery,

  And with his greedy pencil taking in

  A whole horizon on all sides — with power 260

  Like that of angels or commissioned spirits,

  Plant us upon some lofty pinnacle

  Or in a ship on waters, with a world

  Of life and lifelike mockery to east,

  To west, beneath, behind us, and before, 265

  Or more mechanic artist represent

  By scale exact, in model, wood or clay,

  From shading colours also borrowing help,

  Some miniature of famous spots and things,

  Domestic, or the boast of foreign realms: 270

  The Firth of Forth, and Edinburgh, throned

  On crags, fit empress of that mountain land;

  St Peter’s Church; or, more aspiring aim,

  In microscopic vision, Rome itself;

  Or else, perhaps, some rural haunt, the Falls 275

  Of Tivoli, and dim Frescati’s bowers,

  And high upon the steep that mouldering fane,

  The Temple of the Sibyl — every tree

  Through all the landscape, tuft, stone, scratch minute,

  And every cottage, lurking in the rocks — 280

  All that the traveller sees when he is there.

  And to these exhibitions mute and still

  Others of wider scope, where living men,

  Music, and shifting pantomimic scenes, 285

  Together joined their multifarious aid

  To heighten the allurement. Need I fear

  To mention by its name, as in degree

  Lowest of these, and humblest in attempt —

  Yet richly graced with honours of its own — 290

  Half-rural Sadler’s Wells? Though at that time

  Intolerant, as is the way of youth

  Unless itself be pleased, I more than once

  Here took my seat, and, maugre frequent fits

  Of irksomeness, with ample recompense 295

  Saw singes, rope-dancers, giants and dwarfs,

  Clowns, conjurors, posture-masters, harlequins,

  Amid the uproar of the rabblement,

  Perform their feats. Nor was it mean delight

  To watch crude Nature work in untaught minds, 300

  To note the laws and progress of belief —

  Though obstinate on this way, yet on that

  How willingly we travel, and how far! —

  To have, for instance, brought upon the scene

  The champion, Jack the Giant-killer; lo, 305

  He dons his coat of darkness, on the stage

  Walks, and atchieves his wonders, from the eye

  Of living mortal safe as is the moon

  ‘Hid in her vacant interlunar cave’.

  Delusion bold (and faith must needs be coy) 310

  How is it wrought? — his garb is black, the word

  INVISIBLE flames forth upon his chest.

  Nor was it unamusing here to view

  Those samples, as of the ancient comedy

  And Thespian times, dramas of living men 315

  And recent things yet warm with life: a sea-fight,

  Shipwreck, or some domestic incident

  The fame of which is scattered through the land,

  Such as this daring brotherhood of late

  Set forth — too holy theme for such a place, 320

  And doubtless treated with irreverence,

  Albeit with their very best of skill —

  I mean, O distant friend, a story drawn

  From our own ground, the Maid of Buttermere,

  And how the spoiler came, ‘a bold bad man’ 325

  To God unfaithful, children, wife, and home,

  And wooed the artless daughter of the hills,

  And wedded her, in cruel mockery

  Of love and marriage bonds. O friend, I speak

  With tender recollection of that time 330

  When first we saw the maiden, then a name

  By us unheard of — in her cottage-inn

  Were welcomed, and attended on by her,

  Both stricken with one feeling of delight,

  An admiration of her modest mien 335

  And carriage, marked by unexampled grace.

  Not unfamiliarly we since that time

  Have seen her, her discretion have observed,

  Her just opinions, female modesty,

  Her patience, and retiredness of mind 340

  Unspoiled by commendation and excess

  Of public notice. This memorial verse

  Comes from the poet’s heart, and is her due;

  For we were nursed — as almost might be said —

  On the same mountains, children at one time, 345

  Must haply often on the self-same day

  Have from our several dwellings gone abroad

  To gather daffodils on Coker’s stream.

  These last words uttered, to my argument

  I was returning, when — with sundry forms 350

  Mingled, that in the way which I must tread

  Before me stand — thy image rose again,

  Mary of Buttermere! She lives in peace

  Upon the spot where she as born and reared;

  Without contamination does she live 355

  In quietness, without anxiety.

  Beside the mountain chapel sleeps in earth

  Her new-born infant, fearless as a lamb

  That thither comes from some unsheltered place

  To rest beneath the little rock-like pile 360

  When storms are blowing. Happy are they both,

  Mother and child! These feelings, in themselves

  Trite, do yet scarcely seem so when I think

  Of those ingenuous moments of our youth

  Ere yet by use we have learnt to slight the crimes 365

  And sorrows of the world. Those days are now

  My theme, and, ‘mid the numerous scenes which they

  Have left behind them, foremost I am crossed

  Here by remembrance of two figures: one

  A rosy babe, who for a twelvemonth’s space 370

  Perhaps had been of age to deal about

  Articulate prattle, child as beautiful

  As ever sate upon a mother’s knee;

  The other was the parent of that babe —

  But on the mother’s cheek the tints were false, 375

  A painted bloom. ‘Twas at a theatre

  That I beheld this pair; the boy had been

  The pride and pleasure of all lookers-on

  In whatsoever place, but seemed in this

  A sort of alien scattered from the clouds. 380

  Of lusty vigour, more than infantine,

  He was in limbs, in face a cottage rose

  Just three part blown — a cottage-child, but ne’er

  Saw I by cottage or elsewhere a babe

  By Nature’s gifts so honored. Upon a board, 385

  Whence an attendant of the theatre

  Served out refreshments, had this child been placed,

  And there he sate environed with a ring

  Of chance spectators, chiefly dissolute men

  And shameless women — treated and caressed — 390

  Ate, drank, and with the fruit and glasses played,

  While oaths, indecent speech, and ribaldry

  Were rife about him as are songs of birds

  In springtime after showers. The mother, too,

  Was present, but of her I know no more 395

  Than hath been said, and scarcely at this time

  Do I remember her; but I behold

  The lovely boy as I beheld him then,

  Among the wretched
and the falsely gay,

  Like one of those who walked with hair unsinged 400

  Amid the fiery furnace. He hath since

  Appeared to me ofttimes as if embalmed

  By Nature — through some special privilege

  Stopped at the growth he had — destined to live,

  To be, to have been, come, and go, a child 405

  And nothing more, no partner in the years

  That bear us forward to distress and guilt,

  Pain and abasement; beauty in such excess

  Adorned him in that miserable place.

  So have I thought of him a thousand times — 410

  And seldom otherwise — but he perhaps,

  Mary, may now have lived till he could look

  With envy on thy nameless babe that sleeps

  Beside the mountain chapel undisturbed.

  It was but little more than three short years 415

  Before the season which I speak of now

  When first, a traveller from our pastoral hills,

  Southward two hundred miles I had advanced,

  And for the first time in my life did hear

  The voice of woman utter blasphemy — 420

  Saw woman as she is to open shame

  Abandoned, and the pride of public vice.

  Full surely from the bottom of my heart

  I shuddered; but the pain was almost lost,

  Absorbed and buried in the immensity 425

  Of the effect: a barrier seemed at once

  Thrown in, that from humanity divorced

  The human form, splitting the race of man

  In twain, yet leaving the same outward shape.

  Distress of mind ensued upon this sight, 430

  And ardent meditation — afterwards

  A milder sadness on such spectacles

  Attended: thought, commiseration, grief,

  For the individual and the overthrow

  Of her soul’s beauty — farther at that time 435

  Than this I was but seldom led; in truth

  The sorrow of the passion stopped me here.

  I quit this painful theme, enough is said

  To shew what thoughts must often have been mine

  At theatres, which then were my delight — 440

  A yearning made more strong by obstacles

  Which slender funds imposed. Life then was new,

  The senses easily pleased; the lustres, lights,

  The carving and the gilding, paint and glare,

  And all the mean upholstery of the place, 445

  Wanted not animation in my sight,

  Far less the living figures on the stage,

  Solemn or gay — whether some beauteous dame

  Advanced in radiance through a deep recess

  Of thick-entangled forest, like the moon 450

  Opening the clouds; or sovereign king, announced

  With flourishing trumpets, came in full-blown state

  Of the world’s greatness, winding round with train