Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth

by William Wordsworth

Unbiassed, unbewildered, and unawed?

  The Poet’s soul was with me at that time;

  Sweet meditations, the still overflow

  Of present happiness, while future years

  Lacked not anticipations, tender dreams,

  No few of which have since been realised;

  And some remain, hopes for my future life.

  Four years and thirty, told this very week,

  Have I been now a sojourner on earth,

  By sorrow not unsmitten; yet for me 50

  Life’s morning radiance hath not left the hills,

  Her dew is on the flowers. Those were the days

  Which also first emboldened me to trust

  With firmness, hitherto but slightly touched

  By such a daring thought, that I might leave

  Some monument behind me which pure hearts

  Should reverence. The instinctive humbleness,

  Maintained even by the very name and thought

  Of printed books and authorship, began

  To melt away; and further, the dread awe 60

  Of mighty names was softened down and seemed

  Approachable, admitting fellowship

  Of modest sympathy. Such aspect now,

  Though not familiarly, my mind put on,

  Content to observe, to achieve, and to enjoy.

  All winter long, whenever free to choose,

  Did I by night frequent the College grove

  And tributary walks; the last, and oft

  The only one, who had been lingering there

  Through hours of silence, till the porter’s bell, 70

  A punctual follower on the stroke of nine,

  Rang with its blunt unceremonious voice;

  Inexorable summons! Lofty elms,

  Inviting shades of opportune recess,

  Bestowed composure on a neighbourhood

  Unpeaceful in itself. A single tree

  With sinuous trunk, boughs exquisitely wreathed,

  Grew there; an ash which Winter for himself

  Decked out with pride, and with outlandish grace:

  Up from the ground, and almost to the top, 80

  The trunk and every master branch were green

  With clustering ivy, and the lightsome twigs

  And outer spray profusely tipped with seeds

  That hung in yellow tassels, while the air

  Stirred them, not voiceless. Often have I stood

  Foot-bound uplooking at this lovely tree

  Beneath a frosty moon. The hemisphere

  Of magic fiction, verse of mine perchance

  May never tread; but scarcely Spenser’s self

  Could have more tranquil visions in his youth, 90

  Or could more bright appearances create

  Of human forms with superhuman powers,

  Than I beheld, loitering on calm clear nights

  Alone, beneath this fairy work of earth.

  On the vague reading of a truant youth

  ‘Twere idle to descant. My inner judgment

  Not seldom differed from my taste in books,

  As if it appertained to another mind,

  And yet the books which then I valued most

  Are dearest to me ‘now’; for, having scanned, 100

  Not heedlessly, the laws, and watched the forms

  Of Nature, in that knowledge I possessed

  A standard, often usefully applied,

  Even when unconsciously, to things removed

  From a familiar sympathy.—In fine,

  I was a better judge of thoughts than words,

  Misled in estimating words, not only

  By common inexperience of youth,

  But by the trade in classic niceties,

  The dangerous craft, of culling term and phrase 110

  From languages that want the living voice

  To carry meaning to the natural heart;

  To tell us what is passion, what is truth,

  What reason, what simplicity and sense.

  Yet may we not entirely overlook

  The pleasure gathered from the rudiments

  Of geometric science. Though advanced

  In these enquiries, with regret I speak,

  No farther than the threshold, there I found

  Both elevation and composed delight: 120

  With Indian awe and wonder, ignorance pleased

  With its own struggles, did I meditate

  On the relation those abstractions bear

  To Nature’s laws, and by what process led,

  Those immaterial agents bowed their heads

  Duly to serve the mind of earth-born man;

  From star to star, from kindred sphere to sphere,

  From system on to system without end.

  More frequently from the same source I drew

  A pleasure quiet and profound, a sense 130

  Of permanent and universal sway,

  And paramount belief; there, recognised

  A type, for finite natures, of the one

  Supreme Existence, the surpassing life

  Which—to the boundaries of space and time,

  Of melancholy space and doleful time,

  Superior and incapable of change,

  Nor touched by welterings of passion—is,

  And hath the name of, God. Transcendent peace

  And silence did await upon these thoughts 140

  That were a frequent comfort to my youth.

  ‘Tis told by one whom stormy waters threw,

  With fellow-sufferers by the shipwreck spared,

  Upon a desert coast, that having brought

  To land a single volume, saved by chance,

  A treatise of Geometry, he wont,

  Although of food and clothing destitute,

  And beyond common wretchedness depressed,

  To part from company and take this book

  (Then first a self-taught pupil in its truths) 150

  To spots remote, and draw his diagrams

  With a long staff upon the sand, and thus

  Did oft beguile his sorrow, and almost

  Forget his feeling: so (if like effect

  From the same cause produced, ‘mid outward things

  So different, may rightly be compared),

  So was it then with me, and so will be

  With Poets ever. Mighty is the charm

  Of those abstractions to a mind beset

  With images and haunted by herself, 160

  And specially delightful unto me

  Was that clear synthesis built up aloft

  So gracefully; even then when it appeared

  Not more than a mere plaything, or a toy

  To sense embodied: not the thing it is

  In verity, an independent world,

  Created out of pure intelligence.

  Such dispositions then were mine unearned

  By aught, I fear, of genuine desert—

  Mine, through heaven’s grace and inborn aptitudes. 170

  And not to leave the story of that time

  Imperfect, with these habits must be joined,

  Moods melancholy, fits of spleen, that loved

  A pensive sky, sad days, and piping winds,

  The twilight more than dawn, autumn than spring;

  A treasured and luxurious gloom of choice

  And inclination mainly, and the mere

  Redundancy of youth’s contentedness.

  —To time thus spent, add multitudes of hours

  Pilfered away, by what the Bard who sang 180

  Of the Enchanter Indolence hath called

  “Good-natured lounging,” and behold a map

  Of my collegiate life—far less intense

  Than duty called for, or, without regard

  To duty, ‘might’ have sprung up of itself

  By change of accidents, or even, to speak

  Without unkindness, in another place.

  Yet why take refuge in that plea?—the fault,<
br />
  This I repeat, was mine; mine be the blame.

  In summer, making quest for works of art, 190

  Or scenes renowned for beauty, I explored

  That streamlet whose blue current works its way

  Between romantic Dovedale’s spiry rocks;

  Pried into Yorkshire dales, or hidden tracts

  Of my own native region, and was blest

  Between these sundry wanderings with a joy

  Above all joys, that seemed another morn

  Risen on mid noon; blest with the presence, Friend

  Of that sole Sister, her who hath been long

  Dear to thee also, thy true friend and mine, 200

  Now, after separation desolate,

  Restored to me—such absence that she seemed

  A gift then first bestowed. The varied banks

  Of Emont, hitherto unnamed in song,

  And that monastic castle, ‘mid tall trees,

  Low standing by the margin of the stream,

  A mansion visited (as fame reports)

  By Sidney, where, in sight of our Helvellyn,

  Or stormy Cross-fell, snatches he might pen

  Of his Arcadia, by fraternal love 210

  Inspired;—that river and those mouldering towers

  Have seen us side by side, when, having clomb

  The darksome windings of a broken stair,

  And crept along a ridge of fractured wall,

  Not without trembling, we in safety looked

  Forth, through some Gothic window’s open space,

  And gathered with one mind a rich reward

  From the far-stretching landscape, by the light

  Of morning beautified, or purple eve;

  Or, not less pleased, lay on some turret’s head, 220

  Catching from tufts of grass and hare-bell flowers

  Their faintest whisper to the passing breeze,

  Given out while mid-day heat oppressed the plains.

  Another maid there was, who also shed

  A gladness o’er that season, then to me,

  By her exulting outside look of youth

  And placid under-countenance, first endeared;

  That other spirit, Coleridge! who is now

  So near to us, that meek confiding heart,

  So reverenced by us both. O’er paths and fields 230

  In all that neighbourhood, through narrow lanes

  Of eglantine, and through the shady woods,

  And o’er the Border Beacon, and the waste

  Of naked pools, and common crags that lay

  Exposed on the bare fell, were scattered love,

  The spirit of pleasure, and youth’s golden gleam.

  O Friend! we had not seen thee at that time,

  And yet a power is on me, and a strong

  Confusion, and I seem to plant thee there.

  Far art thou wandered now in search of health 240

  And milder breezes,—melancholy lot!

  But thou art with us, with us in the past,

  The present, with us in the times to come.

  There is no grief, no sorrow, no despair,

  No languor, no dejection, no dismay,

  No absence scarcely can there be, for those

  Who love as we do. Speed thee well! divide

  With us thy pleasure; thy returning strength,

  Receive it daily as a joy of ours;

  Share with us thy fresh spirits, whether gift 250

  Of gales Etesian or of tender thoughts.

  I, too, have been a wanderer; but, alas!

  How different the fate of different men.

  Though mutually unknown, yea nursed and reared

  As if in several elements, we were framed

  To bend at last to the same discipline,

  Predestined, if two beings ever were,

  To seek the same delights, and have one health,

  One happiness. Throughout this narrative,

  Else sooner ended, I have borne in mind 260

  For whom it registers the birth, and marks the growth,

  Of gentleness, simplicity, and truth,

  And joyous loves, that hallow innocent days

  Of peace and self-command. Of rivers, fields,

  And groves I speak to thee, my Friend! to thee,

  Who, yet a liveried schoolboy, in the depths

  Of the huge city, on the leaded roof

  Of that wide edifice, thy school and home,

  Wert used to lie and gaze upon the clouds

  Moving in heaven; or, of that pleasure tired, 270

  To shut thine eyes, and by internal light

  See trees, and meadows, and thy native stream,

  Far distant, thus beheld from year to year

  Of a long exile. Nor could I forget,

  In this late portion of my argument,

  That scarcely, as my term of pupilage

  Ceased, had I left those academic bowers

  When thou wert thither guided. From the heart

  Of London, and from cloisters there, thou camest.

  And didst sit down in temperance and peace, 280

  A rigorous student. What a stormy course

  Then followed. Oh! it is a pang that calls

  For utterance, to think what easy change

  Of circumstances might to thee have spared

  A world of pain, ripened a thousand hopes,

  For ever withered. Through this retrospect

  Of my collegiate life I still have had

  Thy after-sojourn in the self-same place

  Present before my eyes, have played with times

  And accidents as children do with cards, 290

  Or as a man, who, when his house is built,

  A frame locked up in wood and stone, doth still,

  As impotent fancy prompts, by his fireside,

  Rebuild it to his liking. I have thought

  Of thee, thy learning, gorgeous eloquence,

  And all the strength and plumage of thy youth,

  Thy subtle speculations, toils abstruse

  Among the schoolmen, and Platonic forms

  Of wild ideal pageantry, shaped out

  From things well-matched or ill, and words for things, 300

  The self-created sustenance of a mind

  Debarred from Nature’s living images,

  Compelled to be a life unto herself,

  And unrelentingly possessed by thirst

  Of greatness, love, and beauty. Not alone,

  Ah! surely not in singleness of heart

  Should I have seen the light of evening fade

  From smooth Cam’s silent waters: had we met,

  Even at that early time, needs must I trust

  In the belief, that my maturer age, 310

  My calmer habits, and more steady voice,

  Would with an influence benign have soothed,

  Or chased away, the airy wretchedness

  That battened on thy youth. But thou hast trod

  A march of glory, which doth put to shame

  These vain regrets; health suffers in thee, else

  Such grief for thee would be the weakest thought

  That ever harboured in the breast of man.

  A passing word erewhile did lightly touch

  On wanderings of my own, that now embraced 320

  With livelier hope a region wider far.

  When the third summer freed us from restraint,

  A youthful friend, he too a mountaineer,

  Not slow to share my wishes, took his staff,

  And sallying forth, we journeyed side by side,

  Bound to the distant Alps. A hardy slight,

  Did this unprecedented course imply,

  Of college studies and their set rewards;

  Nor had, in truth, the scheme been formed by me

  Without uneasy forethought of the pain, 330

  The censures, and ill-omening, of those

  To whom my worldly interests were dear.
r />   But Nature then was sovereign in my mind,

  And mighty forms, seizing a youthful fancy,

  Had given a charter to irregular hopes.

  In any age of uneventful calm

  Among the nations, surely would my heart

  Have been possessed by similar desire;

  But Europe at that time was thrilled with joy,

  France standing on the top of golden hours, 340

  And human nature seeming born again.

  Lightly equipped, and but a few brief looks

  Cast on the white cliffs of our native shore

  From the receding vessel’s deck, we chanced

  To land at Calais on the very eve

  Of that great federal day; and there we saw,

  In a mean city, and among a few,

  How bright a face is worn when joy of one

  Is joy for tens of millions. Southward thence

  We held our way, direct through hamlets, towns, 350

  Gaudy with reliques of that festival,

  Flowers left to wither on triumphal arcs,

  And window-garlands. On the public roads,

  And, once, three days successively, through paths

  By which our toilsome journey was abridged,

  Among sequestered villages we walked

  And found benevolence and blessedness

  Spread like a fragrance everywhere, when spring

  Hath left no corner of the land untouched;

  Where elms for many and many a league in files 360

  With their thin umbrage, on the stately roads

  Of that great kingdom, rustled o’er our heads,

  For ever near us as we paced along:

  How sweet at such a time, with such delight

  On every side, in prime of youthful strength,

  To feed a Poet’s tender melancholy

  And fond conceit of sadness, with the sound

  Of undulations varying as might please

  The wind that swayed them; once, and more than once,

  Unhoused beneath the evening star we saw 370

  Dances of liberty, and, in late hours

  Of darkness, dances in the open air

  Deftly prolonged, though grey-haired lookers on

  Might waste their breath in chiding.

  Under hills—

  The vine-clad hills and slopes of Burgundy,

  Upon the bosom of the gentle Saone

  We glided forward with the flowing stream.

  Swift Rhone! thou wert the ‘wings’ on which we cut

  A winding passage with majestic ease

  Between thy lofty rocks. Enchanting show 380

  Those woods and farms and orchards did present,

  And single cottages and lurking towns,

  Reach after reach, succession without end

  Of deep and stately vales! A lonely pair

  Of strangers, till day closed, we sailed along

  Clustered together with a merry crowd

  Of those emancipated, a blithe host