Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth

by William Wordsworth

  But shrunk with apprehensive jealousy

  From every combination which might aid

  The tendency, too potent in itself,

  Of use and custom to bow down the soul

  Under a growing weight of vulgar sense,

  And substitute a universe of death 160

  For that which moves with light and life informed,

  Actual, divine, and true. To fear and love,

  To love as prime and chief, for there fear ends,

  Be this ascribed; to early intercourse,

  In presence of sublime or beautiful forms,

  With the adverse principles of pain and joy—

  Evil as one is rashly named by men

  Who know not what they speak. By love subsists

  All lasting grandeur, by pervading love;

  That gone, we are as dust.—Behold the fields 170

  In balmy spring-time full of rising flowers

  And joyous creatures; see that pair, the lamb

  And the lamb’s mother, and their tender ways

  Shall touch thee to the heart; thou callest this love,

  And not inaptly so, for love it is,

  Far as it carries thee. In some green bower

  Rest, and be not alone, but have thou there

  The One who is thy choice of all the world:

  There linger, listening, gazing, with delight

  Impassioned, but delight how pitiable! 180

  Unless this love by a still higher love

  Be hallowed, love that breathes not without awe;

  Love that adores, but on the knees of prayer,

  By heaven inspired; that frees from chains the soul,

  Lifted, in union with the purest, best,

  Of earth-born passions, on the wings of praise

  Bearing a tribute to the Almighty’s Throne.

  This spiritual Love acts not nor can exist

  Without Imagination, which, in truth,

  Is but another name for absolute power 190

  And clearest insight, amplitude of mind,

  And Reason in her most exalted mood.

  This faculty hath been the feeding source

  Of our long labour: we have traced the stream

  From the blind cavern whence is faintly heard

  Its natal murmur; followed it to light

  And open day; accompanied its course

  Among the ways of Nature, for a time

  Lost sight of it bewildered and engulphed;

  Then given it greeting as it rose once more 200

  In strength, reflecting from its placid breast

  The works of man and face of human life;

  And lastly, from its progress have we drawn

  Faith in life endless, the sustaining thought

  Of human Being, Eternity, and God.

  Imagination having been our theme,

  So also hath that intellectual Love,

  For they are each in each, and cannot stand

  Dividually.—Here must thou be, O Man!

  Power to thyself; no Helper hast thou here; 210

  Here keepest thou in singleness thy state:

  No other can divide with thee this work:

  No secondary hand can intervene

  To fashion this ability; ‘tis thine,

  The prime and vital principle is thine

  In the recesses of thy nature, far

  From any reach of outward fellowship,

  Else is not thine at all. But joy to him,

  Oh, joy to him who here hath sown, hath laid

  Here, the foundation of his future years! 220

  For all that friendship, all that love can do,

  All that a darling countenance can look

  Or dear voice utter, to complete the man,

  Perfect him, made imperfect in himself,

  All shall be his: and he whose soul hath risen

  Up to the height of feeling intellect

  Shall want no humbler tenderness; his heart

  Be tender as a nursing mother’s heart;

  Of female softness shall his life be full,

  Of humble cares and delicate desires, 230

  Mild interests and gentlest sympathies.

  Child of my parents! Sister of my soul!

  Thanks in sincerest verse have been elsewhere

  Poured out for all the early tenderness

  Which I from thee imbibed: and ‘tis most true

  That later seasons owed to thee no less;

  For, spite of thy sweet influence and the touch

  Of kindred hands that opened out the springs

  Of genial thought in childhood, and in spite

  Of all that unassisted I had marked 240

  In life or nature of those charms minute

  That win their way into the heart by stealth

  (Still to the very going-out of youth)

  I too exclusively esteemed ‘that’ love,

  And sought ‘that’ beauty, which, as Milton sings,

  Hath terror in it. Thou didst soften down

  This over-sternness; but for thee, dear Friend!

  My soul, too reckless of mild grace, had stood

  In her original self too confident,

  Retained too long a countenance severe; 250

  A rock with torrents roaring, with the clouds

  Familiar, and a favourite of the stars:

  But thou didst plant its crevices with flowers,

  Hang it with shrubs that twinkle in the breeze,

  And teach the little birds to build their nests

  And warble in its chambers. At a time

  When Nature, destined to remain so long

  Foremost in my affections, had fallen back

  Into a second place, pleased to become

  A handmaid to a nobler than herself, 260

  When every day brought with it some new sense

  Of exquisite regard for common things,

  And all the earth was budding with these gifts

  Of more refined humanity, thy breath,

  Dear Sister! was a kind of gentler spring

  That went before my steps. Thereafter came

  One whom with thee friendship had early paired;

  She came, no more a phantom to adorn

  A moment, but an inmate of the heart,

  And yet a spirit, there for me enshrined 270

  To penetrate the lofty and the low;

  Even as one essence of pervading light

  Shines, in the brightest of ten thousand stars

  And the meek worm that feeds her lonely lamp

  Couched in the dewy grass.

  With such a theme,

  Coleridge! with this my argument, of thee

  Shall I be silent? O capacious Soul!

  Placed on this earth to love and understand,

  And from thy presence shed the light of love,

  Shall I be mute, ere thou be spoken of? 280

  Thy kindred influence to my heart of hearts

  Did also find its way. Thus fear relaxed

  Her overweening grasp; thus thoughts and things

  In the self-haunting spirit learned to take

  More rational proportions; mystery,

  The incumbent mystery of sense and soul,

  Of life and death, time and eternity,

  Admitted more habitually a mild

  Interposition—a serene delight

  In closelier gathering cares, such as become 290

  A human creature, howsoe’er endowed,

  Poet, or destined for a humbler name;

  And so the deep enthusiastic joy,

  The rapture of the hallelujah sent

  From all that breathes and is, was chastened, stemmed

  And balanced by pathetic truth, by trust

  In hopeful reason, leaning on the stay

  Of Providence; and in reverence for duty,

  Here, if need be, struggling with storms, and there

  Strewing in peace life’s humblest ground
with herbs, 300

  At every season green, sweet at all hours.

  And now, O Friend! this history is brought

  To its appointed close: the discipline

  And consummation of a Poet’s mind,

  In everything that stood most prominent,

  Have faithfully been pictured; we have reached

  The time (our guiding object from the first)

  When we may, not presumptuously, I hope,

  Suppose my powers so far confirmed, and such

  My knowledge, as to make me capable 310

  Of building up a Work that shall endure.

  Yet much hath been omitted, as need was;

  Of books how much! and even of the other wealth

  That is collected among woods and fields,

  Far more: for Nature’s secondary grace

  Hath hitherto been barely touched upon,

  The charm more superficial that attends

  Her works, as they present to Fancy’s choice

  Apt illustrations of the moral world,

  Caught at a glance, or traced with curious pains. 320

  Finally, and above all, O Friend! (I speak

  With due regret) how much is overlooked

  In human nature and her subtle ways,

  As studied first in our own hearts, and then

  In life among the passions of mankind,

  Varying their composition and their hue,

  Where’er we move, under the diverse shapes

  That individual character presents

  To an attentive eye. For progress meet,

  Along this intricate and difficult path, 330

  Whate’er was wanting, something had I gained,

  As one of many schoolfellows compelled,

  In hardy independence, to stand up

  Amid conflicting interests, and the shock

  Of various tempers; to endure and note

  What was not understood, though known to be;

  Among the mysteries of love and hate,

  Honour and shame, looking to right and left,

  Unchecked by innocence too delicate,

  And moral notions too intolerant, 340

  Sympathies too contracted. Hence, when called

  To take a station among men, the step

  Was easier, the transition more secure,

  More profitable also; for, the mind

  Learns from such timely exercise to keep

  In wholesome separation the two natures,

  The one that feels, the other that observes.

  Yet one word more of personal concern;—

  Since I withdrew unwillingly from France,

  I led an undomestic wanderer’s life, 350

  In London chiefly harboured, whence I roamed,

  Tarrying at will in many a pleasant spot

  Of rural England’s cultivated vales

  Or Cambrian solitudes. A youth—(he bore

  The name of Calvert—it shall live, if words

  Of mine can give it life,) in firm belief

  That by endowments not from me withheld

  Good might be furthered—in his last decay

  By a bequest sufficient for my needs

  Enabled me to pause for choice, and walk 360

  At large and unrestrained, nor damped too soon

  By mortal cares. Himself no Poet, yet

  Far less a common follower of the world,

  He deemed that my pursuits and labours lay

  Apart from all that leads to wealth, or even

  A necessary maintenance insures,

  Without some hazard to the finer sense;

  He cleared a passage for me, and the stream

  Flowed in the bent of Nature.

  Having now

  Told what best merits mention, further pains 370

  Our present purpose seems not to require,

  And I have other tasks. Recall to mind

  The mood in which this labour was begun,

  O Friend! The termination of my course

  Is nearer now, much nearer; yet even then,

  In that distraction and intense desire,

  I said unto the life which I had lived,

  Where art thou? Hear I not a voice from thee

  Which ‘tis reproach to hear? Anon I rose

  As if on wings, and saw beneath me stretched 380

  Vast prospect of the world which I had been

  And was; and hence this Song, which, like a lark,

  I have protracted, in the unwearied heavens

  Singing, and often with more plaintive voice

  To earth attempered and her deep-drawn sighs,

  Yet centring all in love, and in the end

  All gratulant, if rightly understood.

  Whether to me shall be allotted life,

  And, with life, power to accomplish aught of worth,

  That will be deemed no insufficient plea 390

  For having given the story of myself,

  Is all uncertain: but, beloved Friend!

  When, looking back, thou seest, in clearer view

  Than any liveliest sight of yesterday,

  That summer, under whose indulgent skies,

  Upon smooth Quantock’s airy ridge we roved

  Unchecked, or loitered ‘mid her sylvan combs,

  Thou in bewitching words, with happy heart,

  Didst chaunt the vision of that Ancient Man,

  The bright-eyed Mariner, and rueful woes 400

  Didst utter of the Lady Christabel;

  And I, associate with such labour, steeped

  In soft forgetfulness the livelong hours,

  Murmuring of him who, joyous hap, was found,

  After the perils of his moonlight ride,

  Near the loud waterfall; or her who sate

  In misery near the miserable Thorn—

  When thou dost to that summer turn thy thoughts,

  And hast before thee all which then we were,

  To thee, in memory of that happiness, 410

  It will be known, by thee at least, my Friend!

  Felt, that the history of a Poet’s mind

  Is labour not unworthy of regard;

  To thee the work shall justify itself.

  The last and later portions of this gift

  Have been prepared, not with the buoyant spirits

  That were our daily portion when we first

  Together wantoned in wild Poesy,

  But, under pressure of a private grief,

  Keen and enduring, which the mind and heart, 420

  That in this meditative history

  Have been laid open, needs must make me feel

  More deeply, yet enable me to bear

  More firmly; and a comfort now hath risen

  From hope that thou art near, and wilt be soon

  Restored to us in renovated health;

  When, after the first mingling of our tears,

  ‘Mong other consolations, we may draw

  Some pleasure from this offering of my love.

  Oh! yet a few short years of useful life, 430

  And all will be complete, thy race be run,

  Thy monument of glory will be raised;

  Then, though (too weak to tread the ways of truth)

  This age fall back to old idolatry,

  Though men return to servitude as fast

  As the tide ebbs, to ignominy and shame,

  By nations, sink together, we shall still

  Find solace—knowing what we have learnt to know,

  Rich in true happiness if allowed to be

  Faithful alike in forwarding a day 440

  Of firmer trust, joint labourers in the work

  (Should Providence such grace to us vouchsafe)

  Of their deliverance, surely yet to come.

  Prophets of Nature, we to them will speak

  A lasting inspiration, sanctified

  By reason, blest by faith: what we have loved,

  Others will love, and
we will teach them how;

  Instruct them how the mind of man becomes

  A thousand times more beautiful than the earth

  On which he dwells, above this frame of things 450

  (Which, ‘mid all revolution in the hopes

  And fears of men, doth still remain unchanged)

  In beauty exalted, as it is itself

  Of quality and fabric more divine.

  1799-1805.

  THE RECLUSE PART FIRST

  BOOK FIRST—HOME AT GRASMERE

  ONCE to the verge of yon steep barrier came

  A roving school-boy; what the adventurer’s age

  Hath now escaped his memory—but the hour,

  One of a golden summer holiday,

  He well remembers, though the year be gone—

  Alone and devious from afar he came;

  And, with a sudden influx overpowered

  At sight of this seclusion, he forgot

  His haste, for hasty had his footsteps been

  As boyish his pursuits; and sighing said, 10

  “What happy fortune were it here to live!

  And, if a thought of dying, if a thought

  Of mortal separation, could intrude

  With paradise before him, here to die!”

  No Prophet was he, had not even a hope,

  Scarcely a wish, but one bright pleasing thought,

  A fancy in the heart of what might be

  The lot of others, never could be his.

  The station whence he looked was soft and green,

  Not giddy yet aerial, with a depth 20

  Of vale below, a height of hills above.

  For rest of body perfect was the spot,

  All that luxurious nature could desire;

  But stirring to the spirit; who could gaze

  And not feel motions there? He thought of clouds

  That sail on winds: of breezes that delight

  To play on water, or in endless chase

  Pursue each other through the yielding plain

  Of grass or corn, over and through and through,

  In billow after billow, evermore 30

  Disporting—nor unmindful was the boy

  Of sunbeams, shadows, butterflies and birds;

  Of fluttering sylphs and softly-gliding Fays,

  Genii, and winged angels that are Lords

  Without restraint of all which they behold.

  The illusion strengthening as he gazed, he felt

  That such unfettered liberty was his,

  Such power and joy; but only for this end,

  To flit from field to rock, from rock to field,

  From shore to island, and from isle to shore, 40

  From open ground to covert, from a bed

  Of meadow-flowers into a tuft of wood;

  From high to low, from low to high, yet still

  Within the bound of this huge concave; here

  Must be his home, this valley be his world.