Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth

by William Wordsworth

  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

  Of these memorials:—

  One Christmas-time,

  On the glad eve of its dear holidays,

  Feverish, and tired, and restless, I went forth

  Into the fields, impatient for the sight 290

  Of those led palfreys that should bear us home;

  My brothers and myself. There rose a crag,

  That, from the meeting-point of two highways

  Ascending, overlooked them both, far stretched;

  Thither, uncertain on which road to fix

  My expectation, thither I repaired,

  Scout-like, and gained the summit; ‘twas a day

  Tempestuous, dark, and wild, and on the grass

  I sate half-sheltered by a naked wall;

  Upon my right hand couched a single sheep, 300

  Upon my left a blasted hawthorn stood;

  With those companions at my side, I watched

  Straining my eyes intensely, as the mist

  Gave intermitting prospect of the copse

  And plain beneath. Ere we to school returned,—

  That dreary time,—ere we had been ten days

  Sojourners in my father’s house, he died;

  And I and my three brothers, orphans then,

  Followed his body to the grave. The event,

  With all the sorrow that it brought, appeared 310

  A chastisement; and when I called to mind

  That day so lately past, when from the crag

  I looked in such anxiety of hope;

  With trite reflections of morality,

  Yet in the deepest passion, I bowed low

  To God, Who thus corrected my desires;

  And, afterwards, the wind and sleety rain,

  And all the business of the elements,

  The single sheep, and the one blasted tree,

  And the bleak music from that old stone wall, 320

  The noise of wood and water, and the mist

  That on the line of each of those two roads

  Advanced in such i
ndisputable shapes;

  All these were kindred spectacles and sounds

  To which I oft repaired, and thence would drink,

  As at a fountain; and on winter nights,

  Down to this very time, when storm and rain

  Beat on my roof, or, haply, at noon-day,

  While in a grove I walk, whose lofty trees,

  Laden with summer’s thickest foliage, rock 330

  In a strong wind, some working of the spirit,

  Some inward agitations thence are brought,

  Whate’er their office, whether to beguile

  Thoughts over busy in the course they took,

  Or animate an hour of vacant ease.

  THE PRELUDE BOOK THIRTEENTH

  IMAGINATION AND TASTE, HOW IMPAIRED AND RESTORED (concluded)

  FROM Nature doth emotion come, and moods

  Of calmness equally are Nature’s gift:

  This is her glory; these two attributes

  Are sister horns that constitute her strength.

  Hence Genius, born to thrive by interchange

  Of peace and excitation, finds in her

  His best and purest friend; from her receives

  That energy by which he seeks the truth,

  From her that happy stillness of the mind

  Which fits him to receive it when unsought. 10

  Such benefit the humblest intellects

  Partake of, each in their degree; ‘tis mine

  To speak, what I myself have known and felt;

  Smooth task! for words find easy way, inspired

  By gratitude, and confidence in truth.

  Long time in search of knowledge did I range

  The field of human life, in heart and mind

  Benighted; but, the dawn beginning now

  To re-appear, ‘twas proved that not in vain

  I had been taught to reverence a Power 20

  That is the visible quality and shape

  And image of right reason; that matures

  Her processes by steadfast laws; gives birth

  To no impatient or fallacious hopes,

  No heat of passion or excessive zeal,

  No vain conceits; provokes to no quick turns

  Of self-applauding intellect; but trains

  To meekness, and exalts by humble faith;

  Holds up before the mind intoxicate

  With present objects, and the busy dance 30

  Of things that pass away, a temperate show

  Of objects that endure; and by this course

  Disposes her, when over-fondly set

  On throwing off incumbrances, to seek

  In man, and in the frame of social life,

  Whate’er there is desirable and good

  Of kindred permanence, unchanged in form

  And function, or, through strict vicissitude

  Of life and death, revolving. Above all

  Were re-established now those watchful thoughts 40

  Which, seeing little worthy or sublime

  In what the Historian’s pen so much delights

  To blazon—power and energy detached

  From moral purpose—early tutored me

  To look with feelings of fraternal love

  Upon the unassuming things that hold

  A silent station in this beauteous world.

  Thus moderated, thus composed, I found

  Once more in Man an object of delight,

  Of pure imagination, and of love; 50

  And, as the horizon of my mind enlarged,

  Again I took the intellectual eye

  For my instructor, studious more to see

  Great truths, than touch and handle little ones.

  Knowledge was given accordingly; my trust

  Became more firm in feelings that had stood

  The test of such a trial; clearer far

  My sense of excellence—of right and wrong:

  The promise of the present time retired

  Into its true proportion; sanguine schemes, 60

  Ambitious projects, pleased me less; I sought

  For present good in life’s familiar face,

  And built thereon my hopes of good to come.

  With settling judgments now of what would last

  And what would disappear; prepared to find

  Presumption, folly, madness, in the men

  Who thrust themselves upon the passive world

  As Rulers of the world; to see in these,

  Even when the public welfare is their aim,

  Plans without thought, or built on theories 70

  Vague and unsound; and having brought the books

  Of modern statists to their proper test,

  Life, human life, with all its sacred claims

  Of sex and age, and heaven-descended rights,

  Mortal, or those beyond the reach of death;

  And having thus discerned how dire a thing

  Is worshipped in that idol proudly named

  “The Wealth of Nations,” ‘where’ alone that wealth

  Is lodged, and how increased; and having gained

  A more judicious knowledge of the worth 80

  And dignity of individual man,

  No composition of the brain, but man

  Of whom we read, the man whom we behold

  With our own eyes—I could not but inquire—

  Not with less interest than heretofore,

  But greater, though in spirit more subdued—

  Why is this glorious creature to be found

  One only in ten thousand? What one is,

  Why may not millions be? What bars are thrown

  By Nature in the way of such a hope? 90

  Our animal appetites and daily wants,

  Are these obstructions insurmountable?

  If not, then others vanish into air.

  “Inspect the basis of the social pile:

  Inquire,” said I, “how much of mental power

  And genuine virtue they possess who live

  By bodily toil, labour exceeding far

  Their due proportion, under all the weight

  Of that injustice which upon ourselves

  Ourselves entail.” Such estimate to frame 100

  I chiefly looked (what need to look beyond?)

  Among the natural abodes of men,

  Fields with their rural works; recalled to mind

  My earliest notices; with these compared

  The observations made in later youth,

  And to that day continued.—For, the time

  Had never been when throes of mighty Nations

  And the world’s tumult unto me could yield,

  How far soe’er transported and possessed,

  Full measure of content; but still I craved 110

  An intermingling of distinct regards

  And truths of individual sympathy

  Nearer ourselves. Such often might be gleaned

  From the great City, else it must have proved

  To me a heart-depressing wilderness;

  But much was wanting: therefore did I turn

  To you, ye pathways, and ye lonely roads;

  Sought you enriched with everything I prized,

  With human kindnesses and simple joys.

  Oh! next to one dear state of bliss, vouchsafed, 120

  Alas! to few in this untoward world,

  The bliss of walking daily in life’s prime

  Through field or forest with the maid we love,

  While yet our hearts are young, while yet we breathe

  Nothing but happiness, in some lone nook,

  Deep vale, or anywhere, the home of both,

  From which it would be misery to stir:

  Oh! next to such enjoyment of our youth,

  In my esteem, next to such dear delight,

  Was that of wandering on from day to day 130

  Where I could meditate in peace, and cull

  Knowledge that step by step might lead me on


  To wisdom; or, as lightsome as a bird

  Wafted upon the wind from distant lands,

  Sing notes of greeting to strange fields or groves,

  Which lacked not voice to welcome me in turn:

  And, when that pleasant toil had ceased to please,

  Converse with men, where if we meet a face

  We almost meet a friend, on naked heaths

  With long long ways before, by cottage bench, 140

  Or well-spring where the weary traveller rests.

  Who doth not love to follow with his eye

  The windings of a public way? the sight,

  Familiar object as it is, hath wrought

  On my imagination since the morn

  Of childhood, when a disappearing line,

  One daily present to my eyes, that crossed

  The naked summit of a far-off hill

  Beyond the limits that my feet had trod,

  Was like an invitation into space 150

  Boundless, or guide into eternity.

  Yes, something of the grandeur which invests

  The mariner, who sails the roaring sea

  Through storm and darkness, early in my mind

  Surrounded, too, the wanderers of the earth;

  Grandeur as much, and loveliness far more.

  Awed have I been by strolling Bedlamites;

  From many other uncouth vagrants (passed

  In fear) have walked with quicker step; but why

  Take note of this? When I began to enquire, 160

  To watch and question those I met, and speak

  Without reserve to them, the lonely roads

  Were open schools in which I daily read

  With most delight the passions of mankind,

  Whether by words, looks, sighs, or tears, revealed;

  There saw into the depth of human souls,

  Souls that appear to have no depth at all

  To careless eyes. And—now convinced at heart

  How little those formalities, to which

  With overweening trust alone we give 170

  The name of Education, have to do

  With real feeling and just sense; how vain

  A correspondence with the talking world

  Proves to the most; and called to make good search

  If man’s estate, by doom of Nature yoked

  With toil, be therefore yoked with ignorance;

  If virtue be indeed so hard to rear,

  And intellectual strength so rare a boon—

  I prized such walks still more, for there I found

  Hope to my hope, and to my pleasure peace 180

  And steadiness, and healing and repose

  To every angry passion. There I heard,

  From mouths of men obscure and lowly, truths

  Replete with honour; sounds in unison

  With loftiest promises of good and fair.

  There are who think that strong affection, love