Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth

by William Wordsworth

  And to the grove that holds it. She beguiles

  By intermingled work of house and field

  The summer’s day, and winter’s; with success 710

  Not equal, but sufficient to maintain,

  Even at the worst, a smooth stream of content,

  Until the expected hour at which her Mate

  From the far-distant quarry’s vault returns;

  And by his converse crowns a silent day

  With evening cheerfulness. In powers of mind,

  In scale of culture, few among my flock

  Hold lower rank than this sequestered pair:

  But true humility descends from heaven;

  And that best gift of heaven hath fallen on them; 720

  Abundant recompense for every want.

  —Stoop from your height, ye proud, and copy these!

  Who, in their noiseless dwelling-place, can hear

  The voice of wisdom whispering scripture texts

  For the mind’s government, or temper’s peace;

  And recommending for their mutual need,

  Forgiveness, patience, hope, and charity!”

  “Much was I pleased,” the grey-haired Wanderer said,

  “When to those shining fields our notice first

  You turned; and yet more pleased have from your lips 730

  Gathered this fair report of them who dwell

  In that retirement; whither, by such course

  Of evil hap and good as oft awaits

  A tired way-faring man, once ‘I’ was brought

  While traversing alone yon mountain pass.

  Dark on my road the autumnal evening fell,

  And night succeeded with unusual gloom,

  So hazardous that feet and hands became

  Guides better than mine eyes—until a light

  High in the gloom appeared, too high, methought, 740

  For human habitation; but I longed

  To reach it, destitute of other hope.

  I looked with steadiness as sailors look

  On the north star, or watch-tower’s distant lamp,

  And saw the light—now fixed—and shifting now—

  Not like a dancing meteor, but in line

  Of never-varying motion, to and fro.

  It is no night-fire of the naked hills,

  Thought I—some friendly covert must be near.

  With this persuasion thitherward my steps 750

  I turn, and reach at last the guiding light;

  Joy to myself! but to the heart of her

  Who there was standing on the open hill,

  (The same kind Matron whom your tongue hath praised)

  Alarm and disappointment! The alarm

  Ceased, when she learned through what mishap I came,

  And by what help had gained those distant fields.

  Drawn from her cottage, on that aery height,

  Bearing a lantern in her hand she stood,

  Or paced the ground—to guide her Husband home, 760

  By that unwearied signal, kenned afar;

  An anxious duty! which the lofty site,

  Traversed but by a few irregular paths,

  Imposes, whensoe’er untoward chance

  Detains him after his accustomed hour

  Till night lies black upon the ground. ‘But come,

  Come,’ said the Matron, ‘to our poor abode;

  Those dark rocks hide it!’ Entering, I beheld

  A blazing fire—beside a cleanly hearth

  Sate down; and to her office, with leave asked, 770

  The Dame returned.

  Or ere that glowing pile

  Of mountain turf required the builder’s hand

  Its wasted splendour to repair, the door

  Opened, and she re-entered with glad looks,

  Her Helpmate following. Hospitable fare,

  Frank conversation, made the evening’s treat:

  Need a bewildered traveller wish for more?

  But more was given; I studied as we sate

  By the bright fire, the good Man’s form, and face

  Not less than beautiful; an open brow 780

  Of undisturbed humanity; a cheek

  Suffused with something of a feminine hue;

  Eyes beaming courtesy and mild regard;

  But, in the quicker turns of the discourse,

  Expression slowly varying, that evinced

  A tardy apprehension. From a fount

  Lost, thought I, in the obscurities of time,

  But honoured once, those features and that mien

  May have descended, though I see them here.

  In such a man, so gentle and subdued, 790

  Withal so graceful in his gentleness,

  A race illustrious for heroic deeds,

  Humbled, but not degraded, may expire.

  This pleasing fancy (cherished and upheld

  By sundry recollections of such fall

  From high to low, ascent from low to high,

  As books record, and even the careless mind

  Cannot but notice among men and things)

  Went with me to the place of my repose.

  Roused by the crowing cock at dawn of day, 800

  I yet had risen too late to interchange

  A morning salutation with my Host,

  Gone forth already to the far-off seat

  Of his day’s work. ‘Three dark mid-winter months

  ‘Pass,’ said the Matron ‘and I never see,

  ‘Save when the sabbath brings its kind release,

  ‘My Helpmate’s face by light of day. He quits

  ‘His door in darkness, nor till dusk returns.

  ‘And, through Heaven’s blessing, thus we gain the bread

  ‘For which we pray; and for the wants provide 810

  ‘Of sickness, accident, and helpless age.

  ‘Companions have I many; many friends,

  ‘Dependants, comforters—my wheel, my fire,

  ‘All day the house-clock ticking in mine ear,

  ‘The cackling hen, the tender chicken brood,

  ‘And the wild birds that gather round my porch.

  ‘This honest sheep-dog’s countenance I read;

  ‘With him can talk; nor blush to waste a word

  ‘On creatures less intelligent and shrewd.

  ‘And if the blustering wind that drives the clouds 820

  ‘Care not for me, he lingers round my door,

  ‘And makes me pastime when our tempers suit;—

  ‘But, above all, my thoughts are my support,

  ‘My comfort:—would that they were oftener fixed

  ‘On what, for guidance in the way that leads

  ‘To heaven, I know, by my Redeemer taught.’

  The Matron ended—nor could I forbear

  To exclaim—’O happy! yielding to the law

  Of these privations, richer in the main!—

  While thankless thousands are opprest and clogged 830

  By ease and leisure; by the very wealth

  And pride of opportunity made poor;

  While tens of thousands falter in their path,

  And sink, through utter want of cheering light;

  For you the hours of labour do not flag;

  For you each evening hath its shining star,

  And every sabbath-day its golden sun.’“

  “Yes!” said the Solitary with a smile

  That seemed to break from an expanding heart,

  “The untutored bird may found, and so construct, 840

  And with such soft materials line, her nest

  Fixed in the centre of a prickly brake,

  That the thorns wound her not; they only guard,

  Powers not unjustly likened to those gifts

  Of happy instinct which the woodland bird

  Shares with her species, nature’s grace sometimes

  Upon the individual doth confer,

  Among her higher creatures born and trained

&n
bsp; To use of reason. And, I own that, tired

  Of the ostentatious world—a swelling stage 850

  With empty actions and vain passions stuffed,

  And from the private struggles of mankind

  Hoping far less than I could wish to hope,

  Far less than once I trusted and believed—

  I love to hear of those, who, not contending

  Nor summoned to contend for virtue’s prize,

  Miss not the humbler good at which they aim,

  Blest with a kindly faculty to blunt

  The edge of adverse circumstance, and turn

  Into their contraries the petty plagues 860

  And hindrances with which they stand beset.

  In early youth, among my native hills,

  I knew a Scottish Peasant who possessed

  A few small crofts of stone-encumbered ground;

  Masses of every shape and size, that lay

  Scattered about under the mouldering walls

  Of a rough precipice; and some, apart,

  In quarters unobnoxious to such chance,

  As if the moon had showered them down in spite.

  But he repined not. Though the plough was scared 870

  By these obstructions, ‘round the shady stones

  ‘A fertilising moisture,’ said the Swain,

  ‘Gathers, and is preserved; and feeding dews

  ‘And damps, through all the droughty summer day

  ‘From out their substance issuing, maintain

  ‘Herbage that never fails; no grass springs up

  ‘So green, so fresh, so plentiful, as mine!’

  But thinly sown these natures; rare, at least,

  The mutual aptitude of seed and soil

  That yields such kindly product. He, whose bed 880

  Perhaps yon loose sods cover, the poor Pensioner

  Brought yesterday from our sequestered dell

  Here to lie down in lasting quiet, he,

  If living now, could otherwise report

  Of rustic loneliness: that grey-haired Orphan—

  So call him, for humanity to him

  No parent was—feelingly could have told,

  In life, in death, what solitude can breed

  Of selfishness, and cruelty, and vice;

  Or, if it breed not, hath not power to cure. 890

  —But your compliance, Sir! with our request

  My words too long have hindered.”

  Undeterred,

  Perhaps incited rather, by these shocks,

  In no ungracious opposition, given

  To the confiding spirit of his own

  Experienced faith, the reverend Pastor said,

  Around him looking; “Where shall I begin?

  Who shall be first selected from my flock

  Gathered together in their peaceful fold?”

  He paused—and having lifted up his eyes 900

  To the pure heaven, he cast them down again

  Upon the earth beneath his feet; and spake:—

  “To a mysteriously-united pair

  This place is consecrate; to Death and Life,

  And to the best affections that proceed

  From their conjunction; consecrate to faith

  In him who bled for man upon the cross;

  Hallowed to revelation; and no less

  To reason’s mandates: and the hopes divine

  Of pure imagination;—above all, 910

  To charity, and love, that have provided,

  Within these precincts, a capacious bed

  And receptacle, open to the good

  And evil, to the just and the unjust;

  In which they find an equal resting-place:

  Even as the multitude of kindred brooks

  And streams, whose murmur fills this hollow vale,

  Whether their course be turbulent or smooth,

  Their waters clear or sullied, all are lost

  Within the bosom of yon crystal Lake, 920

  And end their journey in the same repose!

  And blest are they who sleep; and we that know,

  While in a spot like this we breathe and walk,

  That all beneath us by the wings are covered

  Of motherly humanity, outspread

  And gathering all within their tender shade,

  Though loth and slow to come! A battlefield,

  In stillness left when slaughter is no more,

  With this compared, makes a strange spectacle!

  A dismal prospect yields the wild shore strewn 930

  With wrecks, and trod by feet of young and old

  Wandering about in miserable search

  Of friends or kindred, whom the angry sea

  Restores not to their prayer! Ah! who would think

  That all the scattered subjects which compose

  Earth’s melancholy vision through the space

  Of all her climes—these wretched, these depraved,

  To virtue lost, insensible of peace,

  From the delights of charity cut off,

  To pity dead, the oppressor and the opprest; 940

  Tyrants who utter the destroying word,

  And slaves who will consent to be destroyed—

  Were of one species with the sheltered few,

  Who, with a dutiful and tender hand,

  Lodged, in a dear appropriated spot,

  This file of infants; some that never breathed

  The vital air; others, which, though allowed

  That privilege, did yet expire too soon,

  Or with too brief a warning, to admit

  Administration of the holy rite 950

  That lovingly consigns the babe to the arms

  Of Jesus, and his everlasting care.

  These that in trembling hope are laid apart;

  And the besprinkled nursling, unrequired

  Till he begins to smile upon the breast

  That feeds him; and the tottering little-one

  Taken from air and sunshine when the rose

  Of infancy first blooms upon his cheek;

  The thinking, thoughtless, school-boy; the bold youth

  Of soul impetuous, and the bashful maid 960

  Smitten while all the promises of life

  Are opening round her; those of middle age,

  Cast down while confident in strength they stand,

  Like pillars fixed more firmly, as might seem,

  And more secure, by very weight of all

  That, for support, rests on them; the decayed

  And burthensome; and lastly, that poor few

  Whose light of reason is with age extinct;

  The hopeful and the hopeless, first and last,

  The earliest summoned and the longest spared— 970

  Are here deposited, with tribute paid

  Various, but unto each some tribute paid;

  As if, amid these peaceful hills and groves,

  Society were touched with kind concern,

  And gentle ‘Nature grieved, that one should die;’

  Or, if the change demanded no regret,

  Observed the liberating stroke—and blessed.

  And whence that tribute? wherefore these regards?

  Not from the naked ‘Heart’ alone of Man

  (Though claiming high distinction upon earth 980

  As the sole spring and fountain-head of tears,

  His own peculiar utterance for distress

  Or gladness)—No,” the philosophic Priest

  Continued, “‘tis not in the vital seat

  Of feeling to produce them, without aid

  From the pure soul, the soul sublime and pure;

  With her two faculties of eye and ear,

  The one by which a creature, whom his sins

  Have rendered prone, can upward look to heaven;

  The other that empowers him to perceive 990

  The voice of Deity, on height and plain,

  Whispering those truths in stillness, whic
h the WORD,

  To the four quarters of the winds, proclaims.

  Not without such assistance could the use

  Of these benign observances prevail:

  Thus are they born, thus fostered, thus maintained;

  And by the care prospective of our wise

  Forefathers, who, to guard against the shocks

  The fluctuation and decay of things,

  Embodied and established these high truths 1000

  In solemn institutions:—men convinced

  That life is love and immortality,

  The being one, and one the element.

  There lies the channel, and original bed,

  From the beginning, hollowed out and scooped

  For Man’s affections—else betrayed and lost

  And swallowed up ‘mid deserts infinite!

  This is the genuine course, the aim, and end

  Of prescient reason; all conclusions else

  Are abject, vain, presumptuous, and perverse. 1010

  The faith partaking of those holy times,

  Life, I repeat, is energy of love

  Divine or human; exercised in pain,

  In strife, and tribulation; and ordained,

  If so approved and sanctified, to pass,

  Through shades and silent rest, to endless joy.”

  NOTES

  646 ‘Or rather, as we stand on holy earth,

  And have the dead around us.’

  Leo. You, Sir, could help me to the history

  Of half these graves?

  Priest.For eight-score winters past,

  With what I’ve witnessed, and with what I’ve heard

  Perhaps I might; . . . . .

  By turning o’er these hillocks one by one,

  We two could travel, Sir, through a strange round;

  Yet all in the broad highway of the world.

  ‘See the Brothers’.

  975 ‘And suffering Nature grieved that one should die.’

  “Southey’s Retrospect.”

  978 ‘And whence that tribute? wherefore these regards?’

  The sentiments and opinions here uttered are in unison with

  those expressed in the following Essay upon Epitaphs, which was

  furnished by me for Mr. Coleridge’s periodical work, “The Friend”;

  and as they are dictated by a spirit congenial to that which

  pervades this and the two succeeding books, the sympathising

  reader will not be displeased to see the Essay here annexed.

  ESSAY UPON EPITAPHS

  IT needs scarcely be said, that an Epitaph presupposes a Monument,

  upon which it is to be engraven. Almost all Nations have wished

  that certain external signs should point out the places where

  their dead are interred. Among savage tribes unacquainted with

  letters this has mostly been done either by rude stones placed

  near the graves, or by mounds of earth raised over them. This