Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth
Page 256
Aloft, beneath the moon’s pale beam,
A Champion worthy of the stream,
Yon grey tower’s living crest!
But clouds and envious darkness hide
A Form not doubtfully descried:—
Their transient mission o’er,
O say to what blind region flee
These Shapes of awful phantasy?
To what untrodden shore? 30
Less than divine command they spurn;
But this we from the mountains learn,
And this the valleys show;
That never will they deign to hold
Communion where the heart is cold
To human weal and woe.
The man of abject soul in vain
Shall walk the Marathonian plain;
Or thrid the shadowy gloom,
That still invests the guardian Pass, 40
Where stood, sublime, Leonidas
Devoted to the tomb.
And let no Slave his head incline,
Or kneel, before the votive shrine
By Uri’s lake, where Tell
Leapt, from his storm-vext boat, to land,
Heaven’s Instrument, for by his hand
That day the Tyrant fell.
MEMORIALS OF A TOUR IN SCOTLAND 1814 III.
EFFUSION IN THE PLEASURE-GROUND ON THE BANKS OF THE BRAN, NEAR DUNKELD
WHAT He—who, ‘mid the kindred throng
Of Heroes that inspired his song,
Doth yet frequent the hill of storms,
The stars dim-twinkling through their forms!
What! Ossian here—a painted Thrall,
Mute fixture on a stuccoed wall;
To serve—an unsuspected screen
For show that must not yet be seen;
And, when the moment comes, to part
And vanish by mysterious art; 10
Head, harp, and body, split asunder,
For ingress to a world of wonder;
A gay saloon, with waters dancing
Upon the sight wherever glancing;
One loud cascade in front, and lo!
A thousand like it, white as snow—
Streams on the walls, and torrent-foam
As active round the hollow dome,
Illusive cataracts! of their terrors
Not stripped, nor voiceless in the mirrors, 20
That catch the pageant from the flood
Thundering adown a rocky wood.
What pains to dazzle and confound!
What strife of colour, shape and sound
In this quaint medley, that might seem
Devised out of a sick man’s dream!
Strange scene, fantastic and uneasy
As ever made a maniac dizzy,
When disenchanted from the mood
That loves on sullen thoughts to brood! 30
O Nature—in thy changeful visions,
Through all thy most abrupt transitions
Smooth, graceful, tender, or sublime—
Ever averse to pantomime,
Thee neither do they know nor us
Thy servants, who can trifle thus;
Else verily the sober powers
Of rock that frowns, and stream that roars,
Exalted by congenial sway
Of Spirits, and the undying Lay, 40
And Names that moulder not away,
Had wakened some redeeming thought
More worthy of this favoured Spot;
Recalled some feeling—to set free
The Bard from such indignity!
The Effigies of a valiant Wight
I once beheld, a Templar Knight;
Not prostrate, not like those that rest
On tombs, with palms together prest,
But sculptured out of living stone, 50
And standing upright and alone,
Both hands with rival energy
Employed in setting his sword free
From its dull sheath—stern sentinel
Intent to guard St. Robert’s cell;
As if with memory of the affray
Far distant, when, as legends say,
The Monks of Fountain’s thronged to force
From its dear home the Hermit’s corse,
That in their keeping it might lie, 60
To crown their abbey’s sanctity.
So had they rushed into the grot
Of sense despised, a world forgot,
And torn him from his loved retreat,
Where altar-stone and rock-hewn seat
Still hint that quiet best is found,
Even by the ‘Living’, under ground;
But a bold Knight, the selfish aim
Defeating, put the monks to shame,
There where you see his Image stand 70
Bare to the sky, with threatening brand
Which lingering NID is proud to show
Reflected in the pool below.
Thus, like the men of earliest days,
Our sires set forth their grateful praise:
Uncouth the workmanship, and rude!
But, nursed in mountain solitude,
Might some aspiring artist dare
To seize whate’er, through misty air,
A ghost, by glimpses, may present 80
Of imitable lineament,
And give the phantom an array
That less should scorn the abandoned clay;
Then let him hew with patient stroke
An Ossian out of mural rock,
And leave the figurative Man—
Upon thy margin, roaring Bran!—
Fixed, like the Templar of the steep,
An everlasting watch to keep;
With local sanctities in trust, 90
More precious than a hermit’s dust;
And virtues through the mass infused,
Which old idolatry abused.
What though the Granite would deny
All fervour to the sightless eye;
And touch from rising suns in vain
Solicit a Memnonian strain;
Yet, in some fit of anger sharp,
The wind might force the deep-grooved harp
To utter melancholy moans 100
Not unconnected with the tones
Of soul-sick flesh and weary bones;
While grove and river notes would lend,
Less deeply sad, with these to blend!
Vain pleasures of luxurious life,
For ever with yourselves at strife;
Through town and country both deranged
By affectations interchanged,
And all the perishable gauds
That heaven-deserted man applauds; 110
When will your hapless patrons learn
To watch and ponder—to discern
The freshness, the everlasting youth,
Of admiration sprung from truth;
From beauty infinitely growing
Upon a mind with love o’erflowing—
To sound the depths of every Art
That seeks its wisdom through the heart?
Thus (where the intrusive Pile, ill-graced
With baubles of theatric taste, 120
O’erlooks the torrent breathing showers
On motley bands of alien flowers
In stiff confusion set or sown,
Till Nature cannot find her own,
Or keep a remnant of the sod
Which Caledonian Heroes trod)
I mused; and, thirsting for redress,
Recoiled into the wilderness.
MEMORIALS OF A TOUR IN SCOTLAND 1814 IV.
YARROW VISITED SEPTEMBER 1814
(See “Yarrow Unvisited.”)
AND is this—Yarrow?—’This’ the Stream
Of which my fancy cherished,
So faithfully, a waking dream?
An image that hath perished!
O that some Minstrel’s harp were near,
To utter notes of gladness,
/> And chase this silence from the air,
That fills my heart with sadness!
Yet why?—a silvery current flows
With uncontrolled meanderings; 10
Nor have these eyes by greener hills
Been soothed, in all my wanderings.
And, through her depths, Saint Mary’s Lake
Is visibly delighted;
For not a feature of those hills
Is in the mirror slighted.
A blue sky bends o’er Yarrow vale,
Save where that pearly whiteness
Is round the rising sun diffused,
A tender hazy brightness; 20
Mild dawn of promise! that excludes
All profitless dejection;
Though not unwilling here to admit
A pensive recollection.
Where was it that the famous Flower
Of Yarrow Vale lay bleeding?
His bed perchance was yon smooth mound
On which the herd is feeding:
And haply from this crystal pool,
Now peaceful as the morning, 30
The Water-wraith ascended thrice—
And gave his doleful warning.
Delicious is the Lay that sings
The haunts of happy Lovers,
The path that leads them to the grove,
The leafy grove that covers:
And Pity sanctifies the Verse
That paints, by strength of sorrow,
The unconquerable strength of love;
Bear witness, rueful Yarrow! 40
But thou, that didst appear so fair
To fond imagination,
Dost rival in the light of day
Her delicate creation:
Meek loveliness is round thee spread,
A softness still and holy;
The grace of forest charms decayed,
And pastoral melancholy.
That region left, the vale unfolds
Rich groves of lofty stature, 50
With Yarrow winding through the pomp
Of cultivated nature;
And, rising from those lofty groves,
Behold a Ruin hoary!
The shattered front of Newark’s Towers,
Renowned in Border story.
Fair scenes for childhood’s opening bloom,
For sportive youth to stray in;
For manhood to enjoy his strength;
And age to wear away in! 60
Yon cottage seems a bower of bliss,
A covert for protection
Of tender thoughts, that nestle there—
The brood of chaste affection.
How sweet, on this autumnal day,
The wild-wood fruits to gather,
And on my True-love’s forehead plant
A crest of blooming heather!
And what if I enwreathed my own!
‘Twere no offence to reason; 70
The sober Hills thus deck their brows
To meet the wintry season.
I see—but not by sight alone,
Loved Yarrow, have I won thee;
A ray of fancy still survives—
Her sunshine plays upon thee!
Thy ever-youthful waters keep
A course of lively pleasure;
And gladsome notes my lips can breathe,
Accordant to the measure. 80
The vapours linger round the Heights,
They melt, and soon must vanish;
One hour is theirs, nor more is mine—
Sad thought, which I would banish,
But that I know, where’er I go,
Thy genuine image, Yarrow!
Will dwell with me—to heighten joy,
And cheer my mind in sorrow.
FROM THE DARK CHAMBERS OF DEJECTION FREED
FROM the dark chambers of dejection freed,
Spurning the unprofitable yoke of care,
Rise, GILLIES, rise; the gales of youth shall bear
Thy genius forward like a winged steed.
Though bold Bellerophon (so Jove decreed
In wrath) fell headlong from the fields of air,
Yet a rich guerdon waits on minds that dare,
If aught be in them of immortal seed,
And reason govern that audacious flight
Which heavenward they direct.—Then droop not thou, 10
Erroneously renewing a sad vow
In the low dell ‘mid Roslin’s faded grove:
A cheerful life is what the Muses love,
A soaring spirit is their prime delight.
1814.
LINES WRITTEN ON A BLANK LEAF IN A COPY OF THE AUTHOR’S POEM THE EXCURSION, UPON HEARING OF THE DEATH OF THE LATE VICAR OF KENDAL.
TO public notice, with reluctance strong,
Did I deliver this unfinished Song;
Yet for one happy issue;—and I look
With self-congratulation on the Book
Which pious, learned, MURFITT saw and read;—
Upon my thoughts his saintly Spirit fed;
He conned the new-born Lay with grateful heart—
Foreboding not how soon he must depart;
Unweeting that to him the joy was given
Which good men take with them from earth to heaven. 10
1814.
TO B. R. HAYDON
HIGH is our calling, Friend!—Creative Art
(Whether the instrument of words she use,
Or pencil pregnant with ethereal hues,)
Demands the service of a mind and heart,
Though sensitive, yet, in their weakest part,
Heroically fashioned—to infuse
Faith in the whispers of the lonely Muse,
While the whole world seems adverse to desert.
And, oh! when Nature sinks, as oft she may,
Through long-lived pressure of obscure distress, 10
Still to be strenuous for the bright reward,
And in the soul admit of no decay,
Brook no continuance of weak-mindedness—
Great is the glory, for the strife is hard!
1815.
ARTEGAL AND ELIDURE
(SEE THE CHRONICLE OF GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH AND MILTON’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND)
WHERE be the temples which, in Britain’s Isle,
For his paternal Gods, the Trojan raised?
Gone like a morning dream, or like a pile
Of clouds that in cerulean ether blazed!
Ere Julius landed on her white-cliffed shore,
They sank, delivered o’er
To fatal dissolution; and, I ween,
No vestige then was left that such had ever been.
Nathless, a British record (long concealed
In old Armorica, whose secret springs 10
No Gothic conqueror ever drank) revealed
The marvellous current of forgotten things;
How Brutus came, by oracles impelled,
And Albion’s giants quelled,
A brood whom no civility could melt,
“Who never tasted grace, and goodness ne’er had felt.”
By brave Corineus aided, he subdued,
And rooted out the intolerable kind;
And this too-long-polluted land imbued
With goodly arts and usages refined; 20
Whence golden harvests, cities, warlike towers,
And pleasure’s sumptuous bowers;
Whence all the fixed delights of house and home,
Friendships that will not break, and love that cannot roam.
O, happy Britain! region all too fair
For self-delighting fancy to endure
That silence only should inhabit there,
Wild beasts, or uncouth savages impure!
But, intermingled with the generous seed,
Grew many a poisonous weed; 30
Thus fares it still with all that takes its birth
From human care, or grows upon the breast of earth.
; Hence, and how soon! that war of vengeance waged
By Guendolen against her faithless lord;
Till she, in jealous fury unassuaged
Had slain his paramour with ruthless sword:
Then, into Severn hideously defiled,
She flung her blameless child,
Sabrina,—vowing that the stream should bear
That name through every age, her hatred to declare. 40
So speaks the Chronicle, and tells of Lear
By his ungrateful daughters turned adrift.
Ye lightnings, hear his voice!—they cannot hear,
Nor can the winds restore his simple gift.
But One there is, a Child of nature meek,
Who comes her Sire to seek;
And he, recovering sense, upon her breast
Leans smilingly, and sinks into a perfect rest.
There too we read of Spenser’s fairy themes,
And those that Milton loved in youthful years; 50
The sage enchanter Merlin’s subtle schemes;
The feats of Arthur and his knightly peers;
Of Arthur,—who, to upper light restored,
With that terrific sword
Which yet he brandishes for future war,
Shall lift his country’s fame above the polar star!
What wonder, then, if in such ample field
Of old tradition, one particular flower
Doth seemingly in vain its fragrance yield,
And bloom unnoticed even to this late hour? 60
Now, gentle Muses, your assistance grant,
While I this flower transplant
Into a garden stored with Poesy;
Where flowers and herbs unite, and haply some weeds be,
That, wanting not wild grace, are from all mischief free!
A KING more worthy of respect and love
Than wise Gorbonian ruled not in his day;
And grateful Britain prospered far above
All neighbouring countries through his righteous sway;
He poured rewards and honours on the good; 70
The oppressor he withstood;
And while he served the Gods with reverence due
Fields smiled, and temples rose, and towns and cities grew.
He died, whom Artegal succeeds—his son;
But how unworthy of that sire was he!
A hopeful reign, auspiciously begun,
Was darkened soon by foul iniquity.
From crime to crime he mounted, till at length
The nobles leagued their strength
With a vexed people, and the tyrant chased; 80
And, on the vacant throne, his worthier Brother placed.
From realm to realm the humbled Exile went,
Suppliant for aid his kingdom to regain;
In many a court, and many a warrior’s tent,
He urged his persevering suit in vain.