Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth

by William Wordsworth

Glorious as e’er I had beheld—in front,

  The sea lay laughing at a distance; near,

  The solid mountains shone, bright as the clouds,

  Grain-tinctured, drenched in empyrean light;

  And in the meadows and the lower grounds

  Was all the sweetness of a common dawn— 330

  Dews, vapours, and the melody of birds,

  And labourers going forth to till the fields.

  Ah! need I say, dear Friend! that to the brim

  My heart was full; I made no vows, but vows

  Were then made for me; bond unknown to me

  Was given, that I should be, else sinning greatly,

  A dedicated Spirit. On I walked

  In thankful blessedness, which yet survives.

  Strange rendezvous! My mind was at that time

  A parti-coloured show of grave and gay, 340

  Solid and light, short-sighted and profound;

  Of inconsiderate habits and sedate,

  Consorting in one mansion unreproved.

  The worth I knew of powers that I possessed,

  Though slighted and too oft misused. Besides,

  That summer, swarming as it did with thoughts

  Transient and idle, lacked not intervals

  When Folly from the frown of fleeting Time

  Shrunk, and the mind experienced in herself

  Conformity as just as that of old 350

  To the end and written spirit of God’s works,

  Whether held forth in Nature or in Man,

  Through pregnant vision, separate or conjoined.

  When from our better selves we have too long

  Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop,

  Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired,

  How gracious, how benign, is Solitude;

  How potent a mere image of her sway;

  Most potent when impressed upon the mind

  With an appropriate human centre—hermit, 360

  Deep in the bosom of the wilderness;

  Votary (in vast cathedral, where no foot

  Is treading, where no other face is seen)

  Kneeling at prayers; or watchman on the top

  Of lighthouse, beaten by Atlantic waves;

  Or as the soul of that great Power is met

  Sometimes embodied on a public road,

  When, for the night deserted, it assumes

  A character of quiet more profound

  Than pathless wastes.

  Once, when those summer months 370

  Were flown, and autumn brought its annual show

  Of oars with oars contending, sails with sails,

  Upon Winander’s spacious breast, it chanced

  That—after I had left a flower-decked room

  (Whose in-door pastime, lighted up, survived

  To a late hour), and spirits overwrought

  Were making night do penance for a day

  Spent in a round of strenuous idleness—

  My homeward course led up a long ascent,

  Where the road’s watery surface, to the top 380

  Of that sharp rising, glittered to the moon

  And bore the semblance of another stream

  Stealing with silent lapse to join the brook

  That murmured in the vale. All else was still;

  No living thing appeared in earth or air,

  And, save the flowing water’s peaceful voice,

  Sound there was none—but, lo! an uncouth shape,

  Shown by a sudden turning of the road,

  So near that, slipping back into the shade

  Of a thick hawthorn, I could mark him well, 390

  Myself unseen. He was of stature tall,

  A span above man’s common measure, tall,

  Stiff, lank, and upright; a more meagre man

  Was never seen before by night or day.

  Long were his arms, pallid his hands; his mouth

  Looked ghastly in the moonlight: from behind,

  A mile-stone propped him; I could also ken

  That he was clothed in military garb,

  Though faded, yet entire. Companionless,

  No dog attending, by no staff sustained, 400

  He stood, and in his very dress appeared

  A desolation, a simplicity,

  To which the trappings of a gaudy world

  Make a strange back-ground. From his lips, ere long,

  Issued low muttered sounds, as if of pain

  Or some uneasy thought; yet still his form

  Kept the same awful steadiness—at his feet

  His shadow lay, and moved not. From self-blame

  Not wholly free, I watched him thus; at length

  Subduing my heart’s specious cowardice, 410

  I left the shady nook where I had stood

  And hailed him. Slowly from his resting-place

  He rose, and with a lean and wasted arm

  In measured gesture lifted to his head

  Returned my salutation; then resumed

  His station as before; and when I asked

  His history, the veteran, in reply,

  Was neither slow nor eager; but, unmoved,

  And with a quiet uncomplaining voice,

  A stately air of mild indifference, 420

  He told in few plain words a soldier’s tale—

  That in the Tropic Islands he had served,

  Whence he had landed scarcely three weeks past;

  That on his landing he had been dismissed,

  And now was travelling towards his native home.

  This heard, I said, in pity, “Come with me.”

  He stooped, and straightway from the ground took up

  An oaken staff by me yet unobserved—

  A staff which must have dropped from his slack hand

  And lay till now neglected in the grass. 430

  Though weak his step and cautious, he appeared

  To travel without pain, and I beheld,

  With an astonishment but ill suppressed,

  His ghostly figure moving at my side;

  Nor could I, while we journeyed thus, forbear

  To turn from present hardships to the past,

  And speak of war, battle, and pestilence,

  Sprinkling this talk with questions, better spared,

  On what he might himself have seen or felt.

  He all the while was in demeanour calm, 440

  Concise in answer; solemn and sublime

  He might have seemed, but that in all he said

  There was a strange half-absence, as of one

  Knowing too well the importance of his theme,

  But feeling it no longer. Our discourse

  Soon ended, and together on we passed

  In silence through a wood gloomy and still.

  Up-turning, then, along an open field,

  We reached a cottage. At the door I knocked,

  And earnestly to charitable care 450

  Commended him as a poor friendless man,

  Belated and by sickness overcome.

  Assured that now the traveller would repose

  In comfort, I entreated that henceforth

  He would not linger in the public ways,

  But ask for timely furtherance and help

  Such as his state required. At this reproof,

  With the same ghastly mildness in his look,

  He said, “My trust is in the God of Heaven,

  And in the eye of him who passes me!” 460

  The cottage door was speedily unbarred,

  And now the soldier touched his hat once more

  With his lean hand, and in a faltering voice,

  Whose tone bespake reviving interests

  Till then unfelt, he thanked me; I returned

  The farewell blessing of the patient man,

  And so we parted. Back I cast a look,

  And lingered near the door a little space,

  Then sought with quiet heart my distant home.<
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  THE PRELUDE BOOK FIFTH

  BOOKS

  WHEN Contemplation, like the night-calm felt

  Through earth and sky, spreads widely, and sends deep

  Into the soul its tranquillising power,

  Even then I sometimes grieve for thee, O Man,

  Earth’s paramount Creature! not so much for woes

  That thou endurest; heavy though that weight be,

  Cloud-like it mounts, or touched with light divine

  Doth melt away; but for those palms achieved

  Through length of time, by patient exercise

  Of study and hard thought; there, there, it is 10

  That sadness finds its fuel. Hitherto,

  In progress through this Verse, my mind hath looked

  Upon the speaking face of earth and heaven

  As her prime teacher, intercourse with man

  Established by the sovereign Intellect,

  Who through that bodily image hath diffused,

  As might appear to the eye of fleeting time,

  A deathless spirit. Thou also, man! hast wrought,

  For commerce of thy nature with herself,

  Things that aspire to unconquerable life; 20

  And yet we feel—we cannot choose but feel—

  That they must perish. Tremblings of the heart

  It gives, to think that our immortal being

  No more shall need such garments; and yet man,

  As long as he shall be the child of earth,

  Might almost “weep to have” what he may lose,

  Nor be himself extinguished, but survive,

  Abject, depressed, forlorn, disconsolate.

  A thought is with me sometimes, and I say,—

  Should the whole frame of earth by inward throes 30

  Be wrenched, or fire come down from far to scorch

  Her pleasant habitations, and dry up

  Old Ocean, in his bed left singed and bare,

  Yet would the living Presence still subsist

  Victorious, and composure would ensue,

  And kindlings like the morning—presage sure

  Of day returning and of life revived.

  But all the meditations of mankind,

  Yea, all the adamantine holds of truth

  By reason built, or passion, which itself 40

  Is highest reason in a soul sublime;

  The consecrated works of Bard and Sage,

  Sensuous or intellectual, wrought by men,

  Twin labourers and heirs of the same hopes;

  Where would they be? Oh! why hath not the Mind

  Some element to stamp her image on

  In nature somewhat nearer to her own?

  Why, gifted with such powers to send abroad

  Her spirit, must it lodge in shrines so frail?

  One day, when from my lips a like complaint 50

  Had fallen in presence of a studious friend,

  He with a smile made answer, that in truth

  ‘Twas going far to seek disquietude;

  But on the front of his reproof confessed

  That he himself had oftentimes given way

  To kindred hauntings. Whereupon I told,

  That once in the stillness of a summer’s noon,

  While I was seated in a rocky cave

  By the sea-side, perusing, so it chanced,

  The famous history of the errant knight 60

  Recorded by Cervantes, these same thoughts

  Beset me, and to height unusual rose,

  While listlessly I sate, and, having closed

  The book, had turned my eyes toward the wide sea.

  On poetry and geometric truth,

  And their high privilege of lasting life,

  From all internal injury exempt,

  I mused; upon these chiefly: and at length,

  My senses yielding to the sultry air,

  Sleep seized me, and I passed into a dream. 70

  I saw before me stretched a boundless plain

  Of sandy wilderness, all black and void,

  And as I looked around, distress and fear

  Came creeping over me, when at my side,

  Close at my side, an uncouth shape appeared

  Upon a dromedary, mounted high.

  He seemed an Arab of the Bedouin tribes:

  A lance he bore, and underneath one arm

  A stone, and in the opposite hand a shell

  Of a surpassing brightness. At the sight 80

  Much I rejoiced, not doubting but a guide

  Was present, one who with unerring skill

  Would through the desert lead me; and while yet

  I looked and looked, self-questioned what this freight

  Which the new-comer carried through the waste

  Could mean, the Arab told me that the stone

  (To give it in the language of the dream)

  Was “Euclid’s Elements,” and “This,” said he,

  “Is something of more worth;” and at the word

  Stretched forth the shell, so beautiful in shape, 90

  In colour so resplendent, with command

  That I should hold it to my ear. I did so,

  And heard that instant in an unknown tongue,

  Which yet I understood, articulate sounds,

  A loud prophetic blast of harmony;

  An Ode, in passion uttered, which foretold

  Destruction to the children of the earth

  By deluge, now at hand. No sooner ceased

  The song, than the Arab with calm look declared

  That all would come to pass of which the voice 100

  Had given forewarning, and that he himself

  Was going then to bury those two books:

  The one that held acquaintance with the stars,

  And wedded soul to soul in purest bond

  Of reason, undisturbed by space or time;

  The other that was a god, yea many gods,

  Had voices more than all the winds, with power

  To exhilarate the spirit, and to soothe,

  Through every clime, the heart of human kind.

  While this was uttering, strange as it may seem, 110

  I wondered not, although I plainly saw

  The one to be a stone, the other a shell;

  Nor doubted once but that they both were books,

  Having a perfect faith in all that passed.

  Far stronger, now, grew the desire I felt

  To cleave unto this man; but when I prayed

  To share his enterprise, he hurried on

  Reckless of me: I followed, not unseen,

  For oftentimes he cast a backward look,

  Grasping his twofold treasure.—Lance in rest, 120

  He rode, I keeping pace with him; and now

  He, to my fancy, had become the knight

  Whose tale Cervantes tells; yet not the knight,

  But was an Arab of the desert too;

  Of these was neither, and was both at once.

  His countenance, meanwhile, grew more disturbed;

  And, looking backwards when he looked, mine eyes

  Saw, over half the wilderness diffused,

  A bed of glittering light: I asked the cause:

  “It is,” said he, “the waters of the deep 130

  Gathering upon us;” quickening then the pace

  Of the unwieldy creature he bestrode,

  He left me: I called after him aloud;

  He heeded not; but, with his twofold charge

  Still in his grasp, before me, full in view,

  Went hurrying o’er the illimitable waste,

  With the fleet waters of a drowning world

  In chase of him; whereat I waked in terror,

  And saw the sea before me, and the book,

  In which I had been reading, at my side. 140

  Full often, taking from the world of sleep

  This Arab phantom, which I thus beheld,

  This semi-Quixote, I to him have g
iven

  A substance, fancied him a living man,

  A gentle dweller in the desert, crazed

  By love and feeling, and internal thought

  Protracted among endless solitudes;

  Have shaped him wandering upon this quest!

  Nor have I pitied him; but rather felt

  Reverence was due to a being thus employed; 150

  And thought that, in the blind and awful lair

  Of such a madness, reason did lie couched.

  Enow there are on earth to take in charge

  Their wives, their children, and their virgin loves,

  Or whatsoever else the heart holds dear;

  Enow to stir for these; yea, will I say,

  Contemplating in soberness the approach

  Of an event so dire, by signs in earth

  Or heaven made manifest, that I could share

  That maniac’s fond anxiety, and go 160

  Upon like errand. Oftentimes at least

  Me hath such strong entrancement overcome,

  When I have held a volume in my hand,

  Poor earthly casket of immortal verse,

  Shakespeare, or Milton, labourers divine!

  Great and benign, indeed, must be the power

  Of living nature, which could thus so long

  Detain me from the best of other guides

  And dearest helpers, left unthanked, unpraised,

  Even in the time of lisping infancy; 170

  And later down, in prattling childhood even,

  While I was travelling back among those days,

  How could I ever play an ingrate’s part?

  Once more should I have made those bowers resound,

  By intermingling strains of thankfulness

  With their own thoughtless melodies; at least

  It might have well beseemed me to repeat

  Some simply fashioned tale, to tell again,

  In slender accents of sweet verse, some tale

  That did bewitch me then, and soothes me now. 180

  O Friend! O Poet! brother of my soul,

  Think not that I could pass along untouched

  By these remembrances. Yet wherefore speak?

  Why call upon a few weak words to say

  What is already written in the hearts

  Of all that breathe?—what in the path of all

  Drops daily from the tongue of every child,

  Wherever man is found? The trickling tear

  Upon the cheek of listening Infancy

  Proclaims it, and the insuperable look 190

  That drinks as if it never could be full.

  That portion of my story I shall leave

  There registered: whatever else of power

  Or pleasure sown, or fostered thus, may be

  Peculiar to myself, let that remain

  Where still it works, though hidden from all search

  Among the depths of time. Yet is it just