William & Dorothy Wordsworth

by Gavin Herbertson

  “Where are your books?—that light bequeathed

  To Beings else forlorn and blind!

  Up! up! and drink the spirit breathed

  From dead men to their kind.

  “You look round on your Mother Earth,

  As if she for no purpose bore you;

  As if you were her first-born birth,

  And none had lived before you!”

  One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake,

  When life was sweet, I knew not why,

  To me my good friend Matthew spake,

  And thus I made reply.

  “The eye—it cannot choose but see;

  We cannot bid the ear be still;

  Our bodies feel, where’er they be,

  Against or with our will.

  “Nor less I deem that there are Powers

  Which of themselves our minds impress;

  That we can feed this mind of ours

  In a wise passiveness.

  “Think you,’mid all this mighty sum

  Of things for ever speaking,

  That nothing of itself will come,

  But we must still be seeking?

  “—Then ask not wherefore, here, alone,

  Conversing as I may,

  I sit upon this old grey stone,

  And dream my time away.”

  The Tables Turned: An Evening Scene on the Same Subject

  Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;

  Or surely you’ll grow double:

  Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;

  Why all this toil and trouble?

  The sun, above the mountain’s head,

  A freshening lustre mellow

  Through all the long green fields has spread,

  His first sweet evening yellow.

  Books! ’tis a dull and endless strife:

  Come, hear the woodland linnet,

  How sweet his music! on my life,

  There’s more of wisdom in it.

  And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!

  He, too, is no mean preacher:

  Come forth into the light of things,

  Let Nature be your Teacher.

  She has a world of ready wealth,

  Our minds and hearts to bless—

  Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,

  Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

  One impulse from a vernal wood

  May teach you more of man,

  Of moral evil and of good,

  Than all the sages can.

  Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;

  Our meddling intellect

  Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:—

  We murder to dissect.

  Enough of Science and of Art;

  Close up those barren leaves;

  Come forth, and bring with you a heart

  That watches and receives.

  Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey

  Five years have past; five summers, with the length

  Of five long winters! and again I hear

  These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs

  With a soft inland murmur.—Once again

  Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,

  That on a wild secluded scene impress

  Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect

  The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

  The day is come when I again repose

  Here, under this dark sycamore, and view

  These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,

  Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,

  Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves

  ’Mid groves and copses. Once again I see

  These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines

  Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,

  Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke

  Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!

  With some uncertain notice, as might seem

  Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,

  Or of some Hermit’s cave, where by his fire

  The Hermit sits alone.

  These beauteous forms,

  Through a long absence, have not been to me

  As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye:

  But oft, in lonely rooms, and ’mid the din

  Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,

  In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,

  Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;

  And passing even into my purer mind,

  With tranquil restoration:—feelings too

  Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,

  As have no slight or trivial influence

  On that best portion of a good man’s life,

  His little, nameless, unremembered, acts

  Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,

  To them I may have owed another gift,

  Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,

  In which the burthen of the mystery,

  In which the heavy and the weary weight

  Of all this unintelligible world,

  Is lightened:—that serene and blessed mood,

  In which the affections gently lead us on,—

  Until, the breath of this corporeal frame

  And even the motion of our human blood

  Almost suspended, we are laid asleep

  In body, and become a living soul:

  While with an eye made quiet by the power

  Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,

  We see into the life of things.

  If this

  Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft—

  In darkness and amid the many shapes

  Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir

  Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,

  Have hung upon the beatings of my heart—

  How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,

  O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro’ the woods,

  How often has my spirit turned to thee!

  And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,

  With many recognitions dim and faint,

  And somewhat of a sad perplexity,

  The picture of the mind revives again:

  While here I stand, not only with the sense

  Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts

  That in this moment there is life and food

  For future years. And so I dare to hope,

  Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first

  I came among these hills; when like a roe

  I bounded o’er the mountains, by the sides

  Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,

  Wherever nature led: more like a man

  Flying from something that he dreads, than one

  Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then

  (The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,

  And their glad animal movements all gone by)

  To me was all in all.—I cannot paint

  What then I was. The sounding cataract

  Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,

  The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,

  Their colours and their forms, were then to me

  An appetite; a feeling and a love,

  That had no need of a remoter charm,

  By thought supplied, nor any interest

  Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past,

  And all its aching joys are now no more,

  And all its dizzy raptures. Not for
this

  Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts

  Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,

  Abundant recompence. For I have learned

  To look on nature, not as in the hour

  Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes

  The still, sad music of humanity,

  Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power

  To chasten and subdue. And I have felt

  A presence that disturbs me with the joy

  Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

  Of something far more deeply interfused,

  Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,

  And the round ocean and the living air,

  And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:

  A motion and a spirit, that impels

  All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

  And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still

  A lover of the meadows and the woods,

  And mountains; and of all that we behold

  From this green earth; of all the mighty world

  Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create,

  And what perceive; well pleased to recognise

  In nature and the language of the sense,

  The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,

  The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul

  Of all my moral being.

  Nor perchance,

  If I were not thus taught, should I the more

  Suffer my genial spirits to decay:

  For thou art with me here upon the banks

  Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend,

  My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch

  The language of my former heart, and read

  My former pleasures in the shooting lights

  Of thy wild eyes, Oh! yet a little while

  May I behold in thee what I was once,

  My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make,

  Knowing that Nature never did betray

  The heart that loved her; ’tis her privilege,

  Through all the years of this our life, to lead

  From joy to joy: for she can so inform

  The mind that is within us, so impress

  With quietness and beauty, and so feed

  With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,

  Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,

  Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all

  The dreary intercourse of daily life,

  Shall e’er prevail against us, or disturb

  Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold

  Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon

  Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;

  And let the misty mountain-winds be free

  To blow against thee: and, in after years,

  When these wild ecstasies shall be matured

  Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind

  Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,

  Thy memory be as a dwelling-place

  For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,

  If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,

  Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts

  Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,

  And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance—

  If I should be where I no more can hear

  Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams

  Of past existence—wilt thou then forget

  That on the banks of this delightful stream

  We stood together; and that I, so long

  A worshipper of Nature, hither came

  Unwearied in that service: rather say

  With warmer love—oh! with far deeper zeal

  Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,

  That after many wanderings, many years

  Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,

  And this green pastoral landscape, were to me

  More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!

  The Old Cumberland Beggar

  I saw an aged Beggar in my walk;

  And he was seated, by the highway side,

  On a low structure of rude masonry

  Built at the foot of a huge hill, that they

  Who lead their horses down the steep rough road

  May thence remount at ease. The aged Man

  Had placed his staff across the broad smooth stone

  That overlays the pile; and, from a bag

  All white with flour, the dole of village dames,

  He drew his scraps and fragments, one by one;

  And scanned them with a fixed and serious look

  Of idle computation. In the sun,

  Upon the second step of that small pile,

  Surrounded by those wild unpeopled hills,

  He sat, and ate his food in solitude:

  And ever, scattered from his palsied hand,

  That, still attempting to prevent the waste,

  Was baffled still, the crumbs in little showers

  Fell on the ground; and the small mountain birds,

  Not venturing yet to peck their destined meal,

  Approached within the length of half his staff.

  Him from my childhood have I known; and then

  He was so old, he seems not older now;

  He travels on, a solitary Man,

  So helpless in appearance, that for him

  The sauntering Horseman throws not with a slack

  And careless hand his alms upon the ground,

  But stops,—that he may safely lodge the coin

  Within the old Man’s hat; nor quits him so,

  But still, when he has given his horse the rein,

  Watches the aged Beggar with a look

  Sidelong, and half-reverted. She who tends

  The toll-gate, when in summer at her door

  She turns her wheel, if on the road she sees

  The aged beggar coming, quits her work,

  And lifts the latch for him that he may pass.

  The post-boy, when his rattling wheels o’ertake

  The aged Beggar in the woody lane,

  Shouts to him from behind; and, if thus warned

  The old man does not change his course, the boy

  Turns with less noisy wheels to the roadside,

  And passes gently by, without a curse

  Upon his lips, or anger at his heart.

  He travels on, a solitary Man;

  His age has no companion. On the ground

  His eyes are turned, and, as he moves along,

  ‘They’ move along the ground; and, evermore,

  Instead of common and habitual sight

  Of fields with rural works, of hill and dale,

  And the blue sky, one little span of earth

  Is all his prospect. Thus, from day to day,

  Bow-bent, his eyes for ever on the ground,

  He plies his weary journey; seeing still,

  And seldom knowing that he sees, some straw,

  Some scattered leaf, or marks which, in one track,

  The nails of cart or chariot-wheel have left

  Impressed on the white road,—in the same line,

  At distance still the same. Poor Traveller!

  His staff trails with him; scarcely do his feet

  Disturb the summer dust; he is so still

  In look and motion, that the cottage curs,

  Ere he has passed the door, will turn away,

  Weary of barking at him. Boys and girls,

  The vacant and the busy, maids
and youths,

  And urchins newly breeched—all pass him by:

  Him even the slow-paced waggon leaves behind.

  But deem not this Man useless.—Statesmen! ye

  Who are so restless in your wisdom, ye

  Who have a broom still ready in your hands

  To rid the world of nuisances; ye proud,

  Heart-swoln, while in your pride ye contemplate

  Your talents, power, or wisdom, deem him not

  A burthen of the earth! ’Tis nature’s law

  That none, the meanest of created things,

  Of forms created the most vile and brute,

  The dullest or most noxious, should exist

  Divorced from good—a spirit and pulse of good,

  A life and soul, to every mode of being

  Inseparably linked. Then be assured

  That least of all can aught—that ever owned

  The heaven-regarding eye and front sublime

  Which man is born to—sink, howe’er depressed,

  So low as to be scorned without a sin;

  Without offence to God cast out of view;

  Like the dry remnant of a garden-flower

  Whose seeds are shed, or as an implement

  Worn out and worthless. While from door to door

  This old Man creeps, the villagers in him

  Behold a record which together binds

  Past deeds and offices of charity,

  Else unremembered, and so keeps alive

  The kindly mood in hearts which lapse of years,

  And that half-wisdom half-experience gives,

  Make slow to feel, and by sure steps resign

  To selfishness and cold oblivious cares.

  Among the farms and solitary huts,

  Hamlets and thinly-scattered villages,

  Where’er the aged Beggar takes his rounds,

  The mild necessity of use compels

  To acts of love; and habit does the work

  Of reason; yet prepares that after-joy

  Which reason cherishes. And thus the soul,

  By that sweet taste of pleasure unpursued

  Doth find herself insensibly disposed

  To virtue and true goodness.

  Some there are,

  By their good works exalted, lofty minds

  And meditative, authors of delight

  And happiness, which to the end of time

  Will live, and spread, and kindle: even such minds

  In childhood, from this solitary Being,

  Or from like wanderer, haply have received

  (A thing more precious far than all that books

  Or the solicitudes of love can do!)

  That first mild touch of sympathy and thought,