Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth

by William Wordsworth

  Without a vital interest. At that time,

  Moreover, the first storm was overblown,

  And the strong hand of outward violence

  Locked up in quiet. For myself, I fear 110

  Now, in connection with so great a theme,

  To speak (as I must be compelled to do)

  Of one so unimportant; night by night

  Did I frequent the formal haunts of men,

  Whom, in the city, privilege of birth

  Sequestered from the rest, societies

  Polished in arts, and in punctilio versed;

  Whence, and from deeper causes, all discourse

  Of good and evil of the time was shunned

  With scrupulous care; but these restrictions soon 120

  Proved tedious, and I gradually withdrew

  Into a noisier world, and thus ere long

  Became a patriot; and my heart was all

  Given to the people, and my love was theirs.

  A band of military Officers,

  Then stationed in the city, were the chief

  Of my associates: some of these wore swords

  That had been seasoned in the wars, and all

  Were men well-born; the chivalry of France.

  In age and temper differing, they had yet 130

  One spirit ruling in each heart; alike

  (Save only one, hereafter to be named)

  Were bent upon undoing what was done:

  This was their rest and only hope; therewith

  No fear had they of bad becoming worse,

  For worst to them was come; nor would have stirred,

  Or deemed it worth a moment’s thought to stir,

  In anything, save only as the act

  Looked thitherward. One, reckoning by years,

  Was in the prime of manhood, and erewhile 140

  He had sate lord in many tender hearts;

  Though heedless of such honours now, and changed:

  His temper was quite mastered by the times,

  And they had blighted him, had eaten away

  The beauty of his person, doing wrong

  Alike to body and to mind: his port,

  Which once had been erect and open, now

  Was stooping and contracted, and a face,

  Endowed by Nature with her fairest gifts

  Of symmetry and light and bloom, expressed, 150

  As much as any that was ever seen,

  A ravage out of season, made by thoughts

  Unhealthy and vexatious. With the hour,

  That from the press of Paris duly brought

  Its freight of public news, the fever came,

  A punctual visitant, to shake this man,

  Disarmed his voice and fanned his yellow cheek

  Into a thousand colours; while he read,

  Or mused, his sword was haunted by his touch

  Continually, like an uneasy place 160

  In his own body. ‘Twas in truth an hour

  Of universal ferment; mildest men

  Were agitated, and commotions, strife

  Of passion and opinion, filled the walls

  Of peaceful houses with unquiet sounds.

  The soil of common life was, at that time,

  Too hot to tread upon. Oft said I then,

  And not then only, “What a mockery this

  Of history, the past and that to come!

  Now do I feel how all men are deceived, 170

  Reading of nations and their works, in faith,

  Faith given to vanity and emptiness;

  Oh! laughter for the page that would reflect

  To future times the face of what now is!”

  The land all swarmed with passion, like a plain

  Devoured by locusts,—Carra, Gorsas,—add

  A hundred other names, forgotten now,

  Nor to be heard of more; yet, they were powers,

  Like earthquakes, shocks repeated day by day,

  And felt through every nook of town and field. 180

  Such was the state of things. Meanwhile the chief

  Of my associates stood prepared for flight

  To augment the band of emigrants in arms

  Upon the borders of the Rhine, and leagued

  With foreign foes mustered for instant war.

  This was their undisguised intent, and they

  Were waiting with the whole of their desires

  The moment to depart.

  An Englishman,

  Born in a land whose very name appeared

  To license some unruliness of mind;

  A stranger, with youth’s further privilege, 190

  And the indulgence that a half-learnt speech

  Wins from the courteous; I, who had been else

  Shunned and not tolerated, freely lived

  With these defenders of the Crown, and talked,

  And heard their notions; nor did they disdain

  The wish to bring me over to their cause.

  But though untaught by thinking or by books

  To reason well of polity or law,

  And nice distinctions, then on every tongue,

  Of natural rights and civil; and to acts 200

  Of nations and their passing interests,

  (If with unworldly ends and aims compared)

  Almost indifferent, even the historian’s tale

  Prizing but little otherwise than I prized

  Tales of the poets, as it made the heart

  Beat high, and filled the fancy with fair forms,

  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, 210

  That dazzled me, but rather what I mourned

  And ill could brook, 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,

  Than any other nook of English ground,

  It was my fortune scarcely to have seen,

  Through the whole tenor of my school-day time,

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

  Was vested with attention or respect 220

  Through claims of wealth or blood; nor was it least

  Of many benefits, in later years

  Derived from academic institutes

  And rules, that they held something up to view

  Of a Republic, where all stood thus far

  Upon equal ground; that we were brothers all

  In honour, as in one community,

  Scholars and gentlemen; where, furthermore,

  Distinction open lay to all that came,

  And wealth and titles were in less esteem 230

  Than talents, worth, and prosperous industry,

  Add unto this, subservience from the first

  To presences of God’s mysterious power

  Made manifest in Nature’s sovereignty,

  And fellowship with venerable books,

  To sanction the proud workings of the soul,

  And mountain liberty. It could not be

  But that one tutored thus should look with awe

  Upon the faculties of man, receive

  Gladly the highest promises, and hail, 240

  As best, the government of equal rights

  And individual worth. And hence, O Friend!

  If at the first great outbreak I rejoiced

  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 was come rather late than soon.

  No wonder, then, if advocates like these,

  Inflamed by passion, blind with prejudice,

  And stung with injury, at this riper day, 250

  Were impotent to make my hopes put on

  The s
hape of theirs, my understanding bend

  In honour to their honour: zeal, which yet

  Had slumbered, now in opposition burst

  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

  Maimed, spiritless; and, in their weakness strong, 260

  I triumphed.

  Meantime, day by day, the roads

  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

  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 270

  At dearest separation, patriot love

  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,

  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 280

  Was oftentimes uplifted, and they seemed

  Arguments sent from Heaven to prove the cause

  Good, pure, which no one could stand up against,

  Who was not lost, abandoned, selfish, proud,

  Mean, miserable, wilfully depraved,

  Hater perverse of equity and truth.

  Among that band of Officers was one,

  Already hinted at, of other mould—

  A patriot, thence rejected by the rest,

  And with an oriental loathing spurned, 290

  As of a different caste. A meeker man

  Than this lived never, nor a more benign,

  Meek though enthusiastic. Injuries

  Made ‘him’ more gracious, and his nature then

  Did breathe its sweetness out most sensibly,

  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 300

  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

  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 310

  Which he, a soldier, in his idler day

  Had paid to woman: somewhat vain he was,

  Or seemed so, yet it was not vanity,

  But fondness, and a kind of radiant joy

  Diffused around him, while he was intent

  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 320

  With him did I discourse about the end

  Of civil government, and its wisest forms;

  Of ancient loyalty, and chartered rights,

  Custom and habit, novelty and change;

  Of self-respect, and virtue in the few

  For patrimonial honour set apart,

  And ignorance in the labouring multitude.

  For he, to all intolerance indisposed,

  Balanced these contemplations in his mind;

  And I, who at that time was scarcely dipped 330

  Into the turmoil, bore a sounder judgment

  Than later days allowed; carried about me,

  With less alloy to its integrity,

  The experience of past ages, as, through help

  Of books and common life, it makes sure 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, nor obstinate to find

  Error without excuse upon the side 340

  Of them who strove 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

  Unfeeling, where the man who is of soul

  The meanest thrives the most; where dignity,

  True personal dignity, abideth not;

  A light, a cruel, and vain world cut off

  From the natural inlets of just sentiment,

  From lowly sympathy and chastening truth; 350

  Where good and evil interchange their names,

  And thirst for bloody spoils abroad is paired

  With vice at home. We added dearest themes—

  Man and his noble nature, as it is

  The gift which God has placed within his 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,

  Through knowledge spreading and imperishable, 360

  As just in regulation, and as pure

  As individual in the wise and good.

  We summoned up the honourable deeds

  Of ancient Story, thought of each bright spot,

  That would 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 multitudes of men will feed

  And fan each other; thought of sects, how keen

  They are to put the appropriate nature on, 370

  Triumphant over every obstacle

  Of custom, language, country, love, or hate,

  And what they do and suffer for their creed;

  How far they travel, and how long endure;

  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

  Did we appeal; and, finally, beheld 380

  A living confirmation of the whole

  Before us, in a people from the depth

  Of shameful imbecility uprisen,

  Fresh as the morning star. Elate we looked

  Upon their virtues; saw, in rudest men,

  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,

  Or such retirement, Friend! as we have known 390

  In the green dales beside our Rotha’s stream,

  Greta, or Derwent, or some nameless rill,

  To ruminate, with interchange of talk,

  On rational liberty, and hope in man,

  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 circumstancer />
  Hath called upon to embody his deep sense 400

  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

  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

  He, on that ministry already bound, 410

  Held with Eudemus and Timonides,

  Surrounded by adventurers in arms,

  When those two vessels with their daring freight,

  For the Sicilian Tyrant’s overthrow,

  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)

  Fashioned his life; and many a long discourse, 420

  With like persuasion honoured, we maintained:

  He, on his part, accoutred for the worst,

  He perished fighting, in supreme command,

  Upon the borders of the unhappy Loire,

  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.

  Along that very Loire, with festal mirth 430

  Resounding at all hours, and innocent yet

  Of civil slaughter, was our frequent walk;

  Or in wide forests of continuous shade,

  Lofty and over-arched, with open space

  Beneath the trees, clear footing many a mile—

  A solemn region. Oft amid those haunts,

  From earnest dialogues I slipped in thought,

  And let remembrance steal to other times,

  When, o’er those interwoven roots, moss-clad,

  And smooth as marble or a waveless sea, 440

  Some Hermit, from his cell forth-strayed, might pace

  In sylvan meditation undisturbed;

  As on the pavement of a Gothic church

  Walks a lone Monk, when service hath expired,

  In peace and silence. But if e’er was heard,—

  Heard, though unseen,—a devious traveller,

  Retiring or approaching from afar

  With speed and echoes loud of trampling hoofs

  From the hard floor reverberated, then

  It was Angelica thundering through the woods 450

  Upon her palfrey, or that gentle maid

  Erminia, fugitive as fair as she.

  Sometimes methought I saw a pair of knights

  Joust underneath the trees, that as in storm

  Rocked high above their heads; anon, the din