Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth

by William Wordsworth

Abroad on many nations, are no more

  For me that image of pure gladsomeness

  Which they were wont to be. Through kindred scenes,

  For purpose, at a time, how different!

  Thou tak’st thy way, carrying the heart and soul

  That Nature gives to Poets, now by thought

  Matured, and in the summer of their strength.

  Oh! wrap him in your shades, ye giant woods,

  On Etna’s side; and thou, O flowery field

  Of Enna! is there not some nook of thine, 420

  From the first play-time of the infant world

  Kept sacred to restorative delight,

  When from afar invoked by anxious love?

  Child of the mountains, among shepherds reared,

  Ere yet familiar with the classic page,

  I learnt to dream of Sicily; and lo,

  The gloom, that, but a moment past, was deepened

  At thy command, at her command gives way;

  A pleasant promise, wafted from her shores,

  Comes o’er my heart: in fancy I behold 430

  Her seas yet smiling, her once happy vales;

  Nor can my tongue give utterance to a name

  Of note belonging to that honoured isle,

  Philosopher or Bard, Empedocles,

  Or Archimedes, pure abstracted soul!

  That doth not yield a solace to my grief:

  And, O Theocritus, so far have some

  Prevailed among the powers of heaven and earth,

  By their endowments, good or great, that they

  Have had, as thou reportest, miracles 440

  Wrought for them in old time: yea, not unmoved,

  When thinking on my own beloved friend,

  I hear thee tell how bees with honey fed

  Divine Comates, by his impious lord

  Within a chest imprisoned; how they came

  Laden from blooming grove or flowery field,

  And fed him there, alive, month after month,

  Because the goatherd, blessed man! had lips

  Wet with the Muses’ nectar.

  Thus I soothe

  The pensive moments by this calm fire-side, 450

  And find a thousand bounteous images

  To cheer the thoughts of those I love, and mine.

  Our prayers have been accepted; thou wilt stand

  On Etna’s summit, above earth and sea,

  Triumphant, winning from the invaded heavens

  Thoughts without bound, magnificent designs,

  Worthy of poets who attuned their harps

  In wood or echoing cave, for discipline

  Of heroes; or, in reverence to the gods,

  ‘Mid temples, served by sapient priests, and choirs 460

  Of virgins crowned with roses. Not in vain

  Those temples, where they in their ruins yet

  Survive for inspiration, shall attract

  Thy solitary steps: and on the brink

  Thou wilt recline of pastoral Arethuse;

  Or, if that fountain be in truth no more,

  Then, near some other spring—which, by the name

  Thou gratulatest, willingly deceived—

  I see thee linger a glad votary,

  And not a captive pining for his home. 470

  BOOK TWELFTH

  IMAGINATION AND TASTE, HOW IMPAIRED AND RESTORED

  LONG time have human ignorance and guilt

  Detained us, on what spectacles of woe

  Compelled to look, and inwardly oppressed

  With sorrow, disappointment, vexing thoughts,

  Confusion of the judgment, zeal decayed,

  And, lastly, utter loss of hope itself

  And things to hope for! Not with these began

  Our song, and not with these our song must end.

  Ye motions of delight, that haunt the sides

  Of the green hills; ye breezes and soft airs, 10

  Whose subtle intercourse with breathing flowers,

  Feelingly watched, might teach Man’s haughty race

  How without Injury to take, to give

  Without offence; ye who, as if to show

  The wondrous influence of power gently used,

  Bend the complying heads of lordly pines,

  And, with a touch, shift the stupendous clouds

  Through the whole compass of the sky; ye brooks,

  Muttering along the stones, a busy noise

  By day, a quiet sound in silent night; 20

  Ye waves, that out of the great deep steal forth

  In a calm hour to kiss the pebbly shore,

  Not mute, and then retire, fearing no storm;

  And you, ye groves, whose ministry it is

  To interpose the covert of your shades,

  Even as a sleep, between the heart of man

  And outward troubles, between man himself,

  Not seldom, and his own uneasy heart:

  Oh! that I had a music and a voice

  Harmonious as your own, that I might tell 30

  What ye have done for me. The morning shines,

  Nor heedeth Man’s perverseness; Spring returns,—

  I saw the Spring return, and could rejoice,

  In common with the children of her love,

  Piping on boughs, or sporting on fresh fields,

  Or boldly seeking pleasure nearer heaven

  On wings that navigate cerulean skies.

  So neither were complacency, nor peace,

  Nor tender yearnings, wanting for my good

  Through these distracted times; in Nature still 40

  Glorying, I found a counterpoise in her,

  Which, when the spirit of evil reached its height,

  Maintained for me a secret happiness.

  This narrative, my Friend! hath chiefly told

  Of intellectual power, fostering love,

  Dispensing truth, and, over men and things,

  Where reason yet might hesitate, diffusing

  Prophetic sympathies of genial faith:

  So was I favoured—such my happy lot—

  Until that natural graciousness of mind 50

  Gave way to overpressure from the times

  And their disastrous issues. What availed,

  When spells forbade the voyager to land,

  That fragrant notice of a pleasant shore

  Wafted, at intervals, from many a bower

  Of blissful gratitude and fearless love?

  Dare I avow that wish was mine to see,

  And hope that future times ‘would’ surely see,

  The man to come, parted, as by a gulph,

  From him who had been; that I could no more 60

  Trust the elevation which had made me one

  With the great family that still survives

  To illuminate the abyss of ages past,

  Sage, warrior, patriot, hero; for it seemed

  That their best virtues were not free from taint

  Of something false and weak, that could not stand

  The open eye of Reason. Then I said,

  “Go to the Poets, they will speak to thee

  More perfectly of purer creatures;—yet

  If reason be nobility in man, 70

  Can aught be more ignoble than the man

  Whom they delight in, blinded as he is

  By prejudice, the miserable slave

  Of low ambition or distempered love?”

  In such strange passion, if I may once more

  Review the past, I warred against myself—

  A bigot to a new idolatry—

  Like a cowled monk who hath forsworn the world,

  Zealously laboured to cut off my heart

  From all the sources of her former strength; 80

  And as, by simple waving of a wand,

  The wizard instantaneously dissolves

  Palace or grove, even so could I unsoul

  As readily by syllogistic words

  Those mysteries of being
which have made,

  And shall continue evermore to make,

  Of the whole human race one brotherhood.

  What wonder, then, if, to a mind so far

  Perverted, even the visible Universe

  Fell under the dominion of a taste 90

  Less spiritual, with microscopic view

  Was scanned, as I had scanned the moral world?

  O Soul of Nature! excellent and fair!

  That didst rejoice with me, with whom I, too,

  Rejoiced through early youth, before the winds

  And roaring waters, and in lights and shades

  That marched and countermarched about the hills

  In glorious apparition, Powers on whom

  I daily waited, now all eye and now

  All ear; but never long without the heart 100

  Employed, and man’s unfolding intellect:

  O Soul of Nature! that, by laws divine

  Sustained and governed, still dost overflow

  With an impassioned life, what feeble ones

  Walk on this earth! how feeble have I been

  When thou wert in thy strength! Nor this through stroke

  Of human suffering, such as justifies

  Remissness and inaptitude of mind,

  But through presumption; even in pleasure pleased

  Unworthily, disliking here, and there 110

  Liking; by rules of mimic art transferred

  To things above all art; but more,—for this,

  Although a strong infection of the age,

  Was never much my habit—giving way

  To a comparison of scene with scene,

  Bent overmuch on superficial things,

  Pampering myself with meagre novelties

  Of colour and proportion; to the moods

  Of time and season, to the moral power,

  The affections and the spirit of the place, 120

  Insensible. Nor only did the love

  Of sitting thus in judgment interrupt

  My deeper feelings, but another cause,

  More subtle and less easily explained,

  That almost seems inherent in the creature,

  A twofold frame of body and of mind.

  I speak in recollection of a time

  When the bodily eye, in every stage of life

  The most despotic of our senses, gained

  Such strength in ‘me’ as often held my mind 130

  In absolute dominion. Gladly here,

  Entering upon abstruser argument,

  Could I endeavour to unfold the means

  Which Nature studiously employs to thwart

  This tyranny, summons all the senses each

  To counteract the other, and themselves,

  And makes them all, and the objects with which all

  Are conversant, subservient in their turn

  To the great ends of Liberty and Power.

  But leave we this: enough that my delights 140

  (Such as they were) were sought insatiably.

  Vivid the transport, vivid though not profound;

  I roamed from hill to hill, from rock to rock,

  Still craving combinations of new forms,

  New pleasure, wider empire for the sight,

  Proud of her own endowments, and rejoiced

  To lay the inner faculties asleep.

  Amid the turns and counterturns, the strife

  And various trials of our complex being,

  As we grow up, such thraldom of that sense 150

  Seems hard to shun. And yet I knew a maid,

  A young enthusiast, who escaped these bonds;

  Her eye was not the mistress of her heart;

  Far less did rules prescribed by passive taste,

  Or barren intermeddling subtleties,

  Perplex her mind; but, wise as women are

  When genial circumstance hath favoured them,

  She welcomed what was given, and craved no more;

  Whate’er the scene presented to her view

  That was the best, to that she was attuned 160

  By her benign simplicity of life,

  And through a perfect happiness of soul,

  Whose variegated feelings were in this

  Sisters, that they were each some new delight.

  Birds in the bower, and lambs in the green field,

  Could they have known her, would have loved; methought

  Her very presence such a sweetness breathed,

  That flowers, and trees, and even the silent hills,

  And everything she looked on, should have had

  An intimation how she bore herself 170

  Towards them and to all creatures. God delights

  In such a being; for, her common thoughts

  Are piety, her life is gratitude.

  Even like this maid, before I was called forth

  From the retirement of my native hills,

  I loved whate’er I saw: nor lightly loved,

  But most intensely; never dreamt of aught

  More grand, more fair, more exquisitely framed

  Than those few nooks to which my happy feet

  Were limited. I had not at that time 180

  Lived long enough, nor in the least survived

  The first diviner influence of this world,

  As it appears to unaccustomed eyes.

  Worshipping them among the depth of things,

  As piety ordained, could I submit

  To measured admiration, or to aught

  That should preclude humility and love?

  I felt, observed, and pondered; did not judge,

  Yea, never thought of judging; with the gift

  Of all this glory filled and satisfied. 190

  And afterwards, when through the gorgeous Alps

  Roaming, I carried with me the same heart:

  In truth, the degradation—howsoe’er

  Induced, effect, in whatsoe’er degree,

  Of custom that prepares a partial scale

  In which the little oft outweighs the great;

  Or any other cause that hath been named;

  Or lastly, aggravated by the times

  And their impassioned sounds, which well might make

  The milder minstrelsies of rural scenes 200

  Inaudible—was transient; I had known

  Too forcibly, too early in my life,

  Visitings of imaginative power

  For this to last: I shook the habit off

  Entirely and for ever, and again

  In Nature’s presence stood, as now I stand,

  A sensitive being, a ‘creative’ soul.

  There are in our existence spots of time,

  That with distinct pre-eminence retain

  A renovating virtue, whence—depressed 210

  By false opinion and contentious thought,

  Or aught of heavier or more deadly weight,

  In trivial occupations, and the round

  Of ordinary intercourse—our minds

  Are nourished and invisibly repaired;

  A virtue, by which pleasure is enhanced,

  That penetrates, enables us to mount,

  When high, more high, and lifts us up when fallen.

  This efficacious spirit chiefly lurks

  Among those passages of life that give 220

  Profoundest knowledge to what point, and how,

  The mind is lord and master—outward sense

  The obedient servant of her will. Such moments

  Are scattered everywhere, taking their date

  From our first childhood. I remember well,

  That once, while yet my inexperienced hand

  Could scarcely hold a bridle, with proud hopes

  I mounted, and we journeyed towards the hills:

  An ancient servant of my father’s house

  Was with me, my encourager and guide: 230

  We had not travelled long, ere some mischance

  Disjoined me from my comrade; and
, through fear

  Dismounting, down the rough and stony moor

  I led my horse, and, stumbling on, at length

  Came to a bottom, where in former times

  A murderer had been hung in iron chains.

  The gibbet-mast had mouldered down, the bones

  And iron case were gone; but on the turf,

  Hard by, soon after that fell deed was wrought,

  Some unknown hand had carved the murderer’s name. 240

  The monumental letters were inscribed

  In times long past; but still, from year to year

  By superstition of the neighbourhood,

  The grass is cleared away, and to this hour

  The characters are fresh and visible:

  A casual glance had shown them, and I fled,

  Faltering and faint, and ignorant of the road:

  Then, reascending the bare common, saw

  A naked pool that lay beneath the hills,

  The beacon on the summit, and, more near, 250

  A girl, who bore a pitcher on her head,

  And seemed with difficult steps to force her way

  Against the blowing wind. It was, in truth,

  An ordinary sight; but I should need

  Colours and words that are unknown to man,

  To paint the visionary dreariness

  Which, while I looked all round for my lost guide,

  Invested moorland waste and naked pool,

  The beacon crowning the lone eminence,

  The female and her garments vexed and tossed 260

  By the strong wind. When, in the blessed hours

  Of early love, the loved one at my side,

  I roamed, in daily presence of this scene,

  Upon the naked pool and dreary crags,

  And on the melancholy beacon, fell

  A spirit of pleasure and youth’s golden gleam;

  And think ye not with radiance more sublime

  For these remembrances, and for the power

  They had left behind? So feeling comes in aid

  Of feeling, and diversity of strength 270

  Attends us, if but once we have been strong.

  Oh! mystery of man, from what a depth

  Proceed thy honours. I am lost, but see

  In simple childhood something of the base

  On which thy greatness stands; but this I feel,

  That from thyself it comes, that thou must give,

  Else never canst receive. The days gone by

  Return upon me almost from the dawn

  Of life: the hiding-places of man’s power

  Open; I would approach them, but they close. 280

  I see by glimpses now; when age comes on,

  May scarcely see at all; and I would give,

  While yet we may, as far as words can give,

  Substance and life to what I feel, enshrining,

  Such is my hope, the spirit of the Past

  For future restoration.—Yet another