Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth

by William Wordsworth

  Old heroes and their sufferings and their deeds —

  Yet in the regal sceptre, and the pomp

  Of orders and degrees, I nothing found

  Then, or had ever even in crudest youth,

  That dazzled me, but rather what my soul 215

  Mourned for, or loathed, beholding that the best

  Ruled not, and feeling that they ought to rule.

  For, born in a poor district, and which yet

  Retaineth more of ancient homeliness,

  Manners erect, and frank simplicity, 220

  Than any other nook of English land,

  It was my fortune scarcely to have seen

  Through the whole tenor of my schoolday time

  The face of one, who, whether boy or man,

  Was vested with attention or respect 225

  Through claims of wealth or blood. Nor was it least

  Of many debts which afterwards I owed

  To Cambridge and an academic life,

  That something there was holden up to view

  Of a republic, where all stood thus far 230

  Upon equal ground, that they were brothers all

  In honour, as of one community —

  Scholars and gentlemen — where, furthermore,

  Distinction lay open to all that came,

  And wealth and titles were in less esteem 235

  Than talents and successful industry.

  Add unto this, subservience from the first

  To God and Nature’s single sovereignty

  (Familiar presences of awful power),

  And fellowship with venerable books 240

  To sanction the proud workings of the soul,

  And mountain liberty. It could not be

  But that one tutored thus, who had been formed

  To thought and moral feeling in the way

  This story hath described, should look with awe 245

  Upon the faculties of man, receive

  Gladly the highest promises, and hail

  As best the government of equal rights

  And individual worth. And hence, O friend,

  If at the first great outbreak I rejoiced 250

  Less than might well befit my youth, the cause

  In part lay here, that unto me the events

  seemed nothing out of nature’s certain course —

  A gift that rather was come late than soon.

  No wonder then if advocates like these 255

  Whom I have mentioned, at this riper day

  Were impotent to make my hopes put on

  The shape of theirs, my understanding bend

  In honour to their honour. Zeal which yet

  Had slumbered, now in opposition burst 260

  Forth like a Polar summer. Every word

  They uttered was a dart by counter-winds

  Blown back upon themselves; their reason seemed

  Confusion-stricken by a higher power

  Than human understanding, their discourse 265

  Maimed, spiritless — and, in their weakness strong,

  I triumphed.

  Meantime day by day the roads,

  While I consorted with these royalists, 270

  Were crowded with the bravest youth of France

  And all the promptest of her spirits, linked

  In gallant soldiership, and posting on

  To meet the war upon her frontier-bounds.

  Yet at this very moment do tears start 275

  Into mine eyes — I do not say I weep,

  I wept not then, but tears have dimmed my sight —

  In memory of the farewells of that time,

  Domestic severings, female fortitude

  At dearest separation, patriot love 280

  And self-devotion, and terrestrial hope

  Encouraged with a martyr’s confidence.

  Even files of strangers merely, seen but once

  And for a moment, men from far, with sound

  Of music, martial tunes, and banners spread, 285

  Entering the city, here and there a face

  Or person singled out among the rest

  Yet still a stranger, and beloved as such —

  Even by these passing spectacles my heart

  Was oftentimes uplifted, and they seemed 290

  Like arguments from Heaven that ‘twas a cause

  Good, and which no one could stand up against

  Who was not lost, abandoned, selfish, proud,

  Mean, miserable, wilfully depraved,

  Hater perverse of equity and truth. 295

  Among that band of officers was one,

  Already hinted at, of other mold —

  A patriot, thence rejected by the rest,

  And with an oriental loathing spurned

  As of a different cast. A meeker man 300

  Than this lived never, or a more benign —

  Meek, though enthusiastic to the height

  Of highest expectation. Injuries

  Made him more gracious, and his nature then

  Did breathe its sweetness out most sensibly, 305

  As aromatic flowers on Alpine turf

  When foot hath crushed them. He through the events

  Of that great change wandered in perfect faith,

  As through a book, an old romance, or tale

  Of Fairy, or some dream of actions wrought 310

  Behind the summer clouds. By birth he ranked

  With the most noble, but unto the poor

  Among mankind he was in service bound

  As by some tie invisible, oaths professed

  To a religious order. Man he loved 315

  As man, and to the mean and the obscure,

  And all the homely in their homely works,

  Transferred a courtesy which had no air

  Of condescension, but did rather seem

  A passion and a gallantry, like that 320

  Which he, a soldier, in his idler day

  Had payed to woman. Somewhat vain he was,

  Or seemed so — yet it was not vanity,

  But fondness, and a kind of radiant joy

  That covered him about when he was bent 325

  On works of love or freedom, or revolved

  Complacently the progress of a cause

  Whereof he was a part — yet this was meek

  And placid, and took nothing from the man

  That was delightful. Oft in solitude 330

  With him did I discourse about the end

  Of civil government, and its wisest forms,

  Of ancient prejudice and chartered rights,

  Allegiance, faith, and laws by time matured,

  Custom and habit, novelty and change, 335

  Of self-respect, and virtue in the few

  For patrimonial honour set apart,

  And ignorance in the labouring multitude.

  For he, an upright man and tolerant,

  Balanced these contemplations in his mind, 340

  And I, who at that time was scarcely dipped

  Into the turmoil, had a sounder judgement

  Than afterwards, carried about me yet

  With less alloy to its integrity

  The experience of past ages, as through help 345

  Of books and common life it finds its way

  To youthful minds, by objects over near

  Not pressed upon, nor dazzled or misled

  By struggling with the crowd for present ends.

  But though not deaf and obstinate to find 350

  Error without apology on the side

  Of those who were against us, more delight

  We took, and let this freely be confessed,

  In painting to ourselves the miseries

  Of royal courts, and that voluptuous life 355

  Unfeeling where the man who is of soul

  The meanest thrives the most, where dignity,

  True personal dignity, abideth not —

  A light and cruel world, cut off from all<
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  The natural inlets of just sentiment, 360

  From lowly sympathy, and chastening truth,

  When good and evil never have the name,

  That which they ought to have, but wrong prevails,

  And vice at home. We added dearest themes,

  Man and his noble nature, as it is 365

  The gift of God and lies in his own power,

  His blind desires and steady faculties

  Capable of clear truth, the one to break

  Bondage, the other to build liberty

  On firm foundations, making social life, 370

  Through knowledge spreading and imperishable,

  As just in regulation, and as pure,

  As individual in the wise and good.

  We summoned up the honorable deeds

  Of ancient story, thought of each bright spot 375

  That could be found in all recorded time,

  Of truth preserved and error passed away,

  Of single spirits that catch the flame from heaven,

  And how the multitude of men will feed

  And fan each other — thought of sects, how keen 380

  They are to put the appropriate nature on,

  Triumphant over every obstacle

  Of custom, language, country, love and hate,

  And what they do and suffer for their creed,

  How far they travel, and how long endure — 385

  How quickly mighty nations have been formed

  From least beginnings, how, together locked

  By new opinions, scattered tribes have made

  One body, spreading wide as clouds in heaven.

  To aspirations then of our own minds 390

  Did we appeal; and, finally, beheld

  A living confirmation of the whole

  Before us in a people risen up

  Fresh as the morning star. Elate we looked

  Upon their virtues, saw in rudest men 395

  Self-sacrifice the firmest, generous love

  And continence of mind, and sense of right

  Uppermost in the midst of fiercest strife.

  Oh, sweet it is in academic groves — 400

  Or such retirement, friend, as we have known

  Among the mountains by our Rotha’s stream,

  Greta, or Derwent, or some nameless rill —

  To ruminate, with interchange of talk,

  On rational liberty and hope in man, 405

  Justice and peace. But far more sweet such toil

  (Toil, say I, for it leads to thoughts abstruse)

  If Nature then be standing on the brink

  Of some great trial, and we hear the voice

  Of one devoted, one whom circumstance 410

  Hath called upon to embody his deep sense

  In action, give it outwardly a shape,

  And that of benediction to the world.

  Then doubt is not, and truth is more than truth —

  A hope it is and a desire, a creed 415

  Of zeal by an authority divine

  Sanctioned, of danger, difficulty, or death.

  Such conversation under Attic shades

  Did Dion hold with Plato, ripened thus

  For a deliverer’s glorious task, and such 420

  He, on that ministry already bound,

  Held with Eudemus and Timonides,

  Surrounded by adventurers in arms,

  When those two vessels with their daring freight

  For the Sicilian tyrant’s overthrow 425

  Sailed from Zacynthus — philosophic war

  Led by philosophers. With harder fate,

  Though like ambition, such was he, O friend,

  Of whom I speak. So Beaupuis — let the name

  Stand near the worthiest of antiquity — 430

  Fashioned his life, and many a long discourse

  With like persuasion honored we maintained,

  He on his part accoutred for the worst.

  He perished fighting, in supreme command,

  Upon the borders of the unhappy Loire, 435

  For liberty, against deluded men,

  His fellow countrymen; and yet most blessed

  In this, that he the fate of later times

  Lived not to see, nor what we now behold

  Who have as ardent hearts as he had then. 440

  Along that very Loire, with festivals

  Resounding at all hours, and innocent yet

  Of civil slaughter, was our frequent walk,

  Or in wide forests of the neighbourhood,

  High woods and over-arched, with open space 445

  On every side, and footing many a mile,

  Inwoven roots, and moss smooth as the sea —

  A solemn region. Often in such place

  From earnest dialogues I slipped in thought,

  And let remembrance steal to other times 450

  When hermits, from their sheds and caves forth strayed,

  Walked by themselves, so met in shades like these,

  And if a devious traveller was heard

  Approaching from a distance, as might chance,

  With speed and echoes loud of trampling hoofs 455

  From the hard floor reverberated, then

  It was Angelica thundering through the woods

  Upon her palfrey, or that gentler maid

  Erminia, fugitive as fair as she.

  Sometimes I saw methought a pair of knights 460

  Joust underneath the trees, that as in storm

  Did rock above their heads, anon the din

  Of boisterous merriment and music’s roar,

  With sudden proclamation, burst from haunt

  Of satyrs in some viewless glade, with dance 465

  Rejoicing o’er a female in the midst,

  A mortal beauty, their unhappy thrall.

  The width of those huge forests, unto me

  A novel scene, did often in this way

  Master my fancy while I wandered on 470

  With that revered companion. And sometimes

  When to a convent in a meadow green

  By a brook-side we came — a roofless pile,

  And not by reverential touch of time

  Dismantled, but by violence abrupt — 475

  In spite of those heart-bracing colloquies,

  In spite of real fervour, and of that

  Less genuine and wrought up within myself,

  I could not but bewail a wrong so harsh,

  And for the matin-bell — to sound no more — 480

  Grieved, and the evening taper, and the cross

  High on the topmost pinnacle, a sign

  Admonitory to the traveller,

  First seen above the woods.

  And when my friend 485

  Pointed upon occasion to the site

  Of Romarentin, home of ancient kings,

  To the imperial edifice of Blois,

  Or to that rural castle, name now slipped

  From my remembrance, where a lady lodged 490

  By the first Francis wooed, and bound to him

  In chains of mutual passion — from the tower,

  As a tradition of the country tells,

  Practised to commune with her royal knight

  By cressets and love-beacons, intercourse 495

  ‘Twixt her high-seated residence and his

  Far off at Chambord on the plain beneath —

  Even here, though less than with the peaceful house

  Religious, ‘mid these frequent monuments

  Of kings, their vices and their better deeds, 500

  Imagination, potent to enflame

  At times with virtuous wrath and noble scorn,

  Did also often mitigate the force

  Of civic prejudice, the bigotry,

  So call it, of a youthful patriot’s mind, 505

  And on these spots with many gleams I looked

  Of chivalrous delight. Yet not the less,

  Hatred of absolute rule, wh
ere will of one

  Is law for all, and of that barren pride

  In those who by immunities unjust 510

  Betwixt the sovereign and the people stand,

  His helpers and not theirs, laid stronger hold

  Daily upon me — mixed with pity too,

  And love, for where hope is, there love will be

  For the abject multitude. And when we chanced 515

  One day to meet a hunger-bitten girl

  Who crept along fitting her languid self

  Unto a heifer’s motion — by a cord

  Tied to her arm, and picking thus from the lane

  Its sustenance, while the girl with her two hands 520

  Was busy knitting in a heartless mood

  Of solitude — and at the sight my friend

  In agitation said, ‘‘Tis against that

  Which we are fighting’, I with him believed

  Devoutly that a spirit was abroad 525

  Which could not be withstood, that poverty,

  At least like this, would in a little time

  Be found no more, that we should see the earth

  Unthwarted in her wish to recompense

  The industrious, and the lowly child of toil, 530

  All institutes for ever blotted out

  That legalized exclusion, empty pomp

  Abolished, sensual state and cruel power,

  Whether by edict of the one or few —

  And finally, as sum and crown of all, 535

  Should see the people having a strong hand

  In making their own laws, whence better days

  To all mankind. But, these things set apart,

  Was not the single confidence enough

  To animate the mind that ever turned 540

  A thought to human welfare? — that henceforth

  Captivity by mandate without law

  Should cease, and open accusation lead

  To sentence in the hearing of the world,

  And open punishment, if not the air 545

  Be free to breathe in, and the heart of man

  Dread nothing. Having touched this argument

  I shall not, as my purpose was, take note

  Of other matters which detained us oft

  In thought or conversation — public acts, 550

  And public persons, and the emotions wrought

  Within our minds by the ever-varying wind

  Of record and report which day by day

  Swept over us — but I will here instead

  Draw from obscurity a tragic tale, 555

  Not in its spirit singular, indeed,

  But haply worth memorial, as I heard

  The events related by my patriot friend

  And others who had borne a part therein.

  Oh, happy time of youthful lovers — thus 560

  My story may begin — oh, balmy time

  In which a love-knot on a lady’s brow

  Is fairer than the fairest star in heaven!

  To such inheritance of blessedness