Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth

by William Wordsworth

  Within my mind, should e’er have borne a part,

  And that a needful part, in making up

  The calm existence that is mine when I

  Am worthy of myself! Praise to the end! 350

  Thanks to the means which Nature deigned to employ;

  Whether her fearless visitings, or those

  That came with soft alarm, like hurtless light

  Opening the peaceful clouds; or she would use

  Severer interventions, ministry

  More palpable, as best might suit her aim.

  One summer evening (led by her) I found

  A little boat tied to a willow tree

  Within a rocky cave, its usual home.

  Straight I unloosed her chain, and stepping in 360

  Pushed from the shore. It was an act of stealth

  And troubled pleasure, nor without the voice

  Of mountain-echoes did my boat move on;

  Leaving behind her still, on either side,

  Small circles glittering idly in the moon,

  Until they melted all into one track

  Of sparkling light. But now, like one who rows,

  Proud of his skill, to reach a chosen point

  With an unswerving line, I fixed my view

  Upon the summit of a craggy ridge, 370

  The horizon’s utmost boundary; far above

  Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky.

  She was an elfin pinnace; lustily

  I dipped my oars into the silent lake,

  And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boat

  Went heaving through the water like a swan;

  When, from behind that craggy steep till then

  The horizon’s bound, a huge peak, black and huge,

  As if with voluntary power instinct,

  Upreared its head. I struck and struck again, 380

  And growing still in stature the grim shape

  Towered up between me and the stars, and still,

  For so it seemed, with purpose of its own

  And measured motion like a living thing,

  Strode after me. With trembling oars I turned,

  And through the silent water stole my way

  Back to the covert of the willow tree;

  There in her mooring-place I left my bark,—

  And through the meadows homeward went, in grave

  And serious mood; but after I had seen 390

  That spectacle, for many days, my brain

  Worked with a dim and undetermined sense

  Of unknown modes of being; o’er my thoughts

  There hung a darkness, call it solitude

  Or blank desertion. No familiar shapes

  Remained, no pleasant images of trees,

  Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields;

  But huge and mighty forms, that do not live

  Like living men, moved slowly through the mind

  By day, and were a trouble to my dreams. 400

  Wisdom and Spirit of the universe!

  Thou Soul that art the eternity of thought

  That givest to forms and images a breath

  And everlasting motion, not in vain

  By day or star-light thus from my first dawn

  Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me

  The passions that build up our human soul;

  Not with the mean and vulgar works of man,

  But with high objects, with enduring things—

  With life and nature—purifying thus 410

  The elements of feeling and of thought,

  And sanctifying, by such discipline,

  Both pain and fear, until we recognise

  A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.

  Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me

  With stinted kindness. In November days,

  When vapours rolling down the valley made

  A lonely scene more lonesome, among woods,

  At noon and ‘mid the calm of summer nights,

  When, by the margin of the trembling lake, 420

  Beneath the gloomy hills homeward I went

  In solitude, such intercourse was mine;

  Mine was it in the fields both day and night,

  And by the waters, all the summer long.

  And in the frosty season, when the sun

  Was set, and visible for many a mile

  The cottage windows blazed through twilight gloom,

  I heeded not their summons: happy time

  It was indeed for all of us—for me

  It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud 430

  The village clock tolled six,—I wheeled about,

  Proud and exulting like an untired horse

  That cares not for his home. All shod with steel,

  We hissed along the polished ice in games

  Confederate, imitative of the chase

  And woodland pleasures,—the resounding horn,

  The pack loud chiming, and the hunted hare.

  So through the darkness and the cold we flew,

  And not a voice was idle; with the din

  Smitten, the precipices rang aloud; 440

  The leafless trees and every icy crag

  Tinkled like iron; while far distant hills

  Into the tumult sent an alien sound

  Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars

  Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the west

  The orange sky of evening died away.

  Not seldom from the uproar I retired

  Into a silent bay, or sportively

  Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng,

  To cut across the reflex of a star 450

  That fled, and, flying still before me, gleamed

  Upon the glassy plain; and oftentimes,

  When we had given our bodies to the wind,

  And all the shadowy banks on either side

  Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still

  The rapid line of motion, then at once

  Have I, reclining back upon my heels,

  Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs

  Wheeled by me—even as if the earth had rolled

  With visible motion her diurnal round! 460

  Behind me did they stretch in solemn train,

  Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched

  Till all was tranquil as a dreamless sleep.

  Ye Presences of Nature in the sky

  And on the earth! Ye Visions of the hills!

  And Souls of lonely places! can I think

  A vulgar hope was yours when ye employed

  Such ministry, when ye, through many a year

  Haunting me thus among my boyish sports,

  On caves and trees, upon the woods and hills, 470

  Impressed, upon all forms, the characters

  Of danger or desire; and thus did make

  The surface of the universal earth,

  With triumph and delight, with hope and fear,

  Work like a sea?

  Not uselessly employed,

  Might I pursue this theme through every change

  Of exercise and play, to which the year

  Did summon us in his delightful round.

  We were a noisy crew; the sun in heaven

  Beheld not vales more beautiful than ours;

  Nor saw a band in happiness and joy 480

  Richer, or worthier of the ground they trod.

  I could record with no reluctant voice

  The woods of autumn, and their hazel bowers

  With milk-white clusters hung; the rod and line,

  True symbol of hope’s foolishness, whose strong

  And unreproved enchantment led us on

  By rocks and pools shut out from every star,

  All the green summer, to forlorn cascades

  Among the windings hid of mountain brooks.

  —Unfading recollections! at this hour 490

  The heart is almost mine with which I felt,

>   From some hill-top on sunny afternoons,

  The paper kite high among fleecy clouds

  Pull at her rein like an impetuous courser;

  Or, from the meadows sent on gusty days,

  Beheld her breast the wind, then suddenly

  Dashed headlong, and rejected by the storm.

  Ye lowly cottages wherein we dwelt,

  A ministration of your own was yours;

  Can I forget you, being as you were 500

  So beautiful among the pleasant fields

  In which ye stood? or can I here forget

  The plain and seemly countenance with which

  Ye dealt out your plain comforts? Yet had ye

  Delights and exultations of your own.

  Eager and never weary we pursued

  Our home-amusements by the warm peat-fire

  At evening, when with pencil, and smooth slate

  In square divisions parcelled out and all

  With crosses and with cyphers scribbled o’er, 510

  We schemed and puzzled, head opposed to head

  In strife too humble to be named in verse:

  Or round the naked table, snow-white deal,

  Cherry or maple, sate in close array,

  And to the combat, Loo or Whist, led on

  A thick-ribbed army; not, as in the world,

  Neglected and ungratefully thrown by

  Even for the very service they had wrought,

  But husbanded through many a long campaign.

  Uncouth assemblage was it, where no few 520

  Had changed their functions: some, plebeian cards

  Which Fate, beyond the promise of their birth,

  Had dignified, and called to represent

  The persons of departed potentates.

  Oh, with what echoes on the board they fell!

  Ironic diamonds,—clubs, hearts, diamonds, spades,

  A congregation piteously akin!

  Cheap matter offered they to boyish wit,

  Those sooty knaves, precipitated down

  With scoffs and taunts, like Vulcan out of heaven: 530

  The paramount ace, a moon in her eclipse,

  Queens gleaming through their splendour’s last decay,

  And monarchs surly at the wrongs sustained

  By royal visages. Meanwhile abroad

  Incessant rain was falling, or the frost

  Raged bitterly, with keen and silent tooth;

  And, interrupting oft that eager game,

  From under Esthwaite’s splitting fields of ice

  The pent-up air, struggling to free itself,

  Gave out to meadow grounds and hills a loud 540

  Protracted yelling, like the noise of wolves

  Howling in troops along the Bothnic Main.

  Nor, sedulous as I have been to trace

  How Nature by extrinsic passion first

  Peopled the mind with forms sublime or fair,

  And made me love them, may I here omit

  How other pleasures have been mine, and joys

  Of subtler origin; how I have felt,

  Not seldom even in that tempestuous time,

  Those hallowed and pure motions of the sense 550

  Which seem, in their simplicity, to own

  An intellectual charm; that calm delight

  Which, if I err not, surely must belong

  To those first-born affinities that fit

  Our new existence to existing things,

  And, in our dawn of being, constitute

  The bond of union between life and joy.

  Yes, I remember when the changeful earth,

  And twice five summers on my mind had stamped

  The faces of the moving year, even then 560

  I held unconscious intercourse with beauty

  Old as creation, drinking in a pure

  Organic pleasure from the silver wreaths

  Of curling mist, or from the level plain

  Of waters coloured by impending clouds.

  The sands of Westmoreland, the creeks and bays

  Of Cumbria’s rocky limits, they can tell

  How, when the Sea threw off his evening shade,

  And to the shepherd’s hut on distant hills

  Sent welcome notice of the rising moon, 570

  How I have stood, to fancies such as these

  A stranger, linking with the spectacle

  No conscious memory of a kindred sight,

  And bringing with me no peculiar sense

  Of quietness or peace; yet have I stood,

  Even while mine eye hath moved o’er many a league

  Of shining water, gathering as it seemed,

  Through every hair-breadth in that field of light,

  New pleasure like a bee among the flowers.

  Thus oft amid those fits of vulgar joy 580

  Which, through all seasons, on a child’s pursuits

  Are prompt attendants, ‘mid that giddy bliss

  Which, like a tempest, works along the blood

  And is forgotten; even then I felt

  Gleams like the flashing of a shield;—the earth

  And common face of Nature spake to me

  Rememberable things; sometimes, ‘tis true,

  By chance collisions and quaint accidents

  (Like those ill-sorted unions, work supposed

  Of evil-minded fairies), yet not vain 590

  Nor profitless, if haply they impressed

  Collateral objects and appearances,

  Albeit lifeless then, and doomed to sleep

  Until maturer seasons called them forth

  To impregnate and to elevate the mind.

  —And if the vulgar joy by its own weight

  Wearied itself out of the memory,

  The scenes which were a witness of that joy

  Remained in their substantial lineaments

  Depicted on the brain, and to the eye 600

  Were visible, a daily sight; and thus

  By the impressive discipline of fear,

  By pleasure and repeated happiness,

  So frequently repeated, and by force

  Of obscure feelings representative

  Of things forgotten, these same scenes so bright,

  So beautiful, so majestic in themselves,

  Though yet the day was distant, did become

  Habitually dear, and all their forms

  And changeful colours by invisible links 610

  Were fastened to the affections.

  I began

  My story early—not misled, I trust,

  By an infirmity of love for days

  Disowned by memory—ere the breath of spring

  Planting my snowdrops among winter snows:

  Nor will it seem to thee, O Friend! so prompt

  In sympathy, that I have lengthened out

  With fond and feeble tongue a tedious tale.

  Meanwhile, my hope has been, that I might fetch

  Invigorating thoughts from former years; 620

  Might fix the wavering balance of my mind,

  And haply meet reproaches too, whose power

  May spur me on, in manhood now mature

  To honourable toil. Yet should these hopes

  Prove vain, and thus should neither I be taught

  To understand myself, nor thou to know

  With better knowledge how the heart was framed

  Of him thou lovest; need I dread from thee

  Harsh judgments, if the song be loth to quit

  Those recollected hours that have the charm 630

  Of visionary things, those lovely forms

  And sweet sensations that throw back our life,

  And almost make remotest infancy

  A visible scene, on which the sun is shining?

  One end at least hath been attained; my mind

  Hath been revived, and if this genial mood

  Desert me not, forthwith shall be brought down

  Through later years the
story of my life.

  The road lies plain before me;—’tis a theme

  Single and of determined bounds; and hence 640

  I choose it rather at this time, than work

  Of ampler or more varied argument,

  Where I might be discomfited and lost:

  And certain hopes are with me, that to thee

  This labour will be welcome, honoured Friend!

  THE PRELUDE BOOK SECOND

  SCHOOL-TIME (continued)

  THUS far, O Friend! have we, though leaving much

  Unvisited, endeavoured to retrace

  The simple ways in which my childhood walked;

  Those chiefly that first led me to the love

  Of rivers, woods, and fields. The passion yet

  Was in its birth, sustained as might befall

  By nourishment that came unsought; for still

  From week to week, from month to month, we lived

  A round of tumult. Duly were our games

  Prolonged in summer till the daylight failed: 10

  No chair remained before the doors; the bench

  And threshold steps were empty; fast asleep

  The labourer, and the old man who had sate

  A later lingerer; yet the revelry

  Continued and the loud uproar: at last,

  When all the ground was dark, and twinkling stars

  Edged the black clouds, home and to bed we went,

  Feverish with weary joints and beating minds.

  Ah! is there one who ever has been young,

  Nor needs a warning voice to tame the pride 20

  Of intellect and virtue’s self-esteem?

  One is there, though the wisest and the best

  Of all mankind, who covets not at times

  Union that cannot be;—who would not give

  If so he might, to duty and to truth

  The eagerness of infantine desire?

  A tranquillising spirit presses now

  On my corporeal frame, so wide appears

  The vacancy between me and those days

  Which yet have such self-presence in my mind, 30

  That, musing on them, often do I seem

  Two consciousnesses, conscious of myself

  And of some other Being. A rude mass

  Of native rock, left midway in the square

  Of our small market village, was the goal

  Or centre of these sports; and when, returned

  After long absence, thither I repaired,

  Gone was the old grey stone, and in its place

  A smart Assembly-room usurped the ground

  That had been ours. There let the fiddle scream, 40

  And be ye happy! Yet, my Friends! I know

  That more than one of you will think with me

  Of those soft starry nights, and that old Dame

  From whom the stone was named, who there had sate,

  And watched her table with its huckster’s wares