Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth

by William Wordsworth

All feeling of conviction, and, in fine,

  Sick, wearied out with contrarieties,

  Yielded up moral questions in despair.

  This was the crisis of that strong disease,

  This the soul’s last and lowest ebb; I drooped,

  Deeming our blessed reason of least use

  Where wanted most: “The lordly attributes

  Of will and choice,” I bitterly exclaimed 310

  “What are they but a mockery of a Being

  Who hath in no concerns of his a test

  Of good and evil; knows not what to fear

  Or hope for, what to covet or to shun;

  And who, if those could be discerned, would yet

  Be little profited, would see, and ask

  Where is the obligation to enforce?

  And, to acknowledged law rebellious, still,

  As selfish passion urged, would act amiss;

  The dupe of folly, or the slave of crime.” 320

  Depressed, bewildered thus, I did not walk

  With scoffers, seeking light and gay revenge

  From indiscriminate laughter, nor sate down

  In reconcilement with an utter waste

  Of intellect; such sloth I could not brook,

  (Too well I loved, in that my spring of life,

  Pains-taking thoughts, and truth, their dear reward)

  But turned to abstract science, and there sought

  Work for the reasoning faculty enthroned

  Where the disturbances of space and time— 330

  Whether in matters various, properties

  Inherent, or from human will and power

  Derived—find no admission. Then it was—

  Thanks to the bounteous Giver of all good!—

  That the beloved Sister in whose sight

  Those days were passed, now speaking in a voice

  Of sudden admonition—like a brook

  That did but ‘cross’ a lonely road, and now

  Is seen, heard, felt, and caught at every turn,

  Companion never lost through many a league— 340

  Maintained for me a saving intercourse

  With my true self; for, though bedimmed and changed

  Much, as it seemed, I was no further changed

  Than as a clouded and a waning moon:

  She whispered still that brightness would return;

  She, in the midst of all, preserved me still

  A Poet, made me seek beneath that name,

  And that alone, my office upon earth;

  And, lastly, as hereafter will be shown,

  If willing audience fail not, Nature’s self, 350

  By all varieties of human love

  Assisted, led me back through opening day

  To those sweet counsels between head and heart

  Whence grew that genuine knowledge, fraught with peace,

  Which, through the later sinkings of this cause,

  Hath still upheld me, and upholds me now

  In the catastrophe (for so they dream,

  And nothing less), when, finally to close

  And seal up all the gains of France, a Pope

  Is summoned in, to crown an Emperor— 360

  This last opprobrium, when we see a people,

  That once looked up in faith, as if to Heaven

  For manna, take a lesson from the dog

  Returning to his vomit; when the sun

  That rose in splendour, was alive, and moved

  In exultation with a living pomp

  Of clouds—his glory’s natural retinue—

  Hath dropped all functions by the gods bestowed,

  And, turned into a gewgaw, a machine,

  Sets like an Opera phantom.

  Thus, O Friend! 370

  Through times of honour and through times of shame

  Descending, have I faithfully retraced

  The perturbations of a youthful mind

  Under a long-lived storm of great events—

  A story destined for thy ear, who now,

  Among the fallen of nations, dost abide

  Where Etna, over hill and valley, casts

  His shadow stretching towards Syracuse,

  The city of Timoleon! Righteous Heaven!

  How are the mighty prostrated! They first, 380

  They first of all that breathe should have awaked

  When the great voice was heard from out the tombs

  Of ancient heroes. If I suffered grief

  For ill-requited France, by many deemed

  A trifler only in her proudest day;

  Have been distressed to think of what she once

  Promised, now is; a far more sober cause

  Thine eyes must see of sorrow in a land,

  To the reanimating influence lost

  Of memory, to virtue lost and hope, 390

  Though with the wreck of loftier years bestrewn.

  But indignation works where hope is not,

  And thou, O Friend! wilt be refreshed. There is

  One great society alone on earth:

  The noble Living and the noble Dead.

  Thine be such converse strong and sanative,

  A ladder for thy spirit to reascend

  To health and joy and pure contentedness;

  To me the grief confined, that thou art gone

  From this last spot of earth, where Freedom now 400

  Stands single in her only sanctuary;

  A lonely wanderer, art gone, by pain

  Compelled and sickness, at this latter day,

  This sorrowful reverse for all mankind.

  I feel for thee, must utter what I feel:

  The sympathies erewhile in part discharged,

  Gather afresh, and will have vent again:

  My own delights do scarcely seem to me

  My own delights; the lordly Alps themselves,

  Those rosy peaks, from which the Morning looks 410

  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, ble
ssed 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

  THE PRELUDE 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 feeling
s, 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