Whither is fled that Power whose frown severe
Awed sober Reason till she crouched in fear?
Awed sober Reason till she crouched in fear?
Wordsworth - 1
]
[Footnote N: I am unable to trace this quotation. --Ed. ]
[Footnote P: From Thomson: see Scott's 'Critical Essays'. --W. W. 1793.
It is difficult to know to what Wordsworth here alludes, but compare
'The Seasons', "Summer," l. 1467.
and now a golden curve,
Gives one bright glance, then total disappears. --Ed. ]
[Footnote Q: See a description of an appearance of this kind in Clark's
'Survey of the Lakes', accompanied with vouchers of its veracity, that
may amuse the reader. --W. W. 1793.
The passage in Clark's folio volume, 'A Survey of the Lakes', etc. ,
which suggested to Wordsworth the above lines in the 'Evening Walk', is
to be found in chapter i. of the second book, p. 55. It gives a weird
account of the appearance of horsemen being exercised in troops upon
"Southen-fell side, as seen on the 25th of June 1744 by William
Lancaster of Blakehills, and a farm servant, David Strichet:
"These visionary horsemen seemed to come from the lowest part of
Southen-fell, and became visible just at a place called Knott. They
then moved in regular troops along the side of the fell, till they
came opposite Blakehills, when they went over the mountain. Then they
described a kind of curvilinear path upon the side of the fell, and
both these first and last appearances were bounded by the top of the
mountain.
"Frequently the last, or last but one, in a troop would leave his
place, and gallop to the front, and then take the same pace with the
rest--a regular swift walk. Thus changes happened to every troop (for
many troops appeared) and oftener than once or twice, yet not at all
times alike. . . . Nor was this phenomenon seen at Blakehill only, it was
seen by every person at every cottage within the distance of a mile.
Neither was it confined to a momentary view, for from the time that
Strichet first observed it, the appearance must have lasted at least
two hours and a half, viz. from half past seven till the night coming
on prevented further view. "
This interesting optical illusion--which suggests the wonderful island
in the Atlantic, seen from the isles of Aran near Galway, alluded to in
the 'Chorographical description of West, or H-Ier-Connaught', of R.
O'Flaherty--was caused by the peculiar angle of the light from the
setting sun, the reflection of the water of the Solway, and the
refraction of the vapour and clouds above the Solway. These aerial and
visionary horsemen were being exercised somewhere above the
Kirkcudbright shore. It was not the first time the phenomenon had been
seen within historic times, on the same fell-side, and at the same time
of year. Canon Rawnsley writes to me,
"I have an idea that the fact that it took place at midsummer eve
(June 27), the eve of the Feast of St. John, upon which occasion the
shepherds hereabout used to light bonfires on the hills (no doubt a
relic of the custom of the Beltane fires of old Norse days, perhaps of
earlier sun-worship festivals of British times), may have had
something to do with the naming of the mountain Blencathara of which
Southen-fell (or Shepherd's-fell, as the name implies) is part.
Blencathara, we are told, may mean the Hill of Demons, or the haunted
hill. My suggestion is that the old sun-worshippers, who met in
midsummer eve on Castrigg at the Druid circle or Donn-ring, saw just
the same phenomenon as Strichet and Lancaster saw upon Southen-fell,
and hence the name. Nay, perhaps the Druid circle was built where it
is, because it was well in view of the Demon Hill. "
Ed. ]
[Footnote R: This is a fact of which I have been an eye-witness. --W. W.
1793. ]
[Footnote S: The quotation is from Collins' 'The Passions', l. 60.
Compare 'Personal Talk', l. 26. --Ed. ]
[Footnote T: Alluding to this passage of Spenser:
. . . Her angel face
As the great eye of Heaven shined bright,
And made a sunshine in that shady place. W. W. 1793.
This passage is in 'The Fairy Queen', book I. canto iii. stanza 4. --Ed. ]
[Footnote U: Compare Dr. John Brown:
But the soft murmur of swift-gushing rills,
Forth issuing from the mountain's distant steep
(Unheard till now, and now scarce heard), proclaim'd
All things at rest.
This Dr. John Brown--a singularly versatile English divine
(1717-1766)--was one of the first, as Wordsworth pointed put, to lead
the way to a true estimate of the English Lakes. His description of the
Vale of Keswick, in a letter to a friend, is as fine as anything in
Gray's 'Journal'. Wordsworth himself quotes the lines given in this
footnote in the first section of his 'Guide through the District of the
Lakes'. --Ed. ]
* * * * *
LINES WRITTEN WHILE SAILING IN A BOAT AT EVENING
Composed 1789. --Published 1798
[This title is scarcely correct. It was during a solitary walk on the
banks of the Cam that I was first struck with this appearance, and
applied it to my own feelings in the manner here expressed, changing
the scene to the Thames, near Windsor. This, and the three stanzas of
the following poem, 'Remembrance of Collins', formed one piece; but,
upon the recommendation of Coleridge, the three last stanzas were
separated from the other. --I. F. ]
The title of the poem in 1798, when it consisted of five stanzas, was
'Lines written near Richmond, upon the Thames, at Evening'. When, in the
edition of 1800, it was divided, the title of the first part was, 'Lines
written when sailing in a Boat at Evening'; that of the second part was
'Lines written near Richmond upon the Thames'.
From 1815 to 1843, both poems were placed by Wordsworth among those "of
Sentiment and Reflection. " In 1845 they were transferred to "Poems
written in Youth. "--Ed.
* * * * *
THE POEM
How richly glows the water's breast
Before us, tinged with evening hues, [1]
While, facing thus the crimson west,
The boat her silent course [2] pursues!
And see how dark the backward stream! 5
A little moment past so smiling!
And still, perhaps, with faithless gleam,
Some other loiterers [3] beguiling.
Such views the youthful Bard allure;
But, heedless of the following gloom, 10
He deems their colours shall endure
Till peace go with him to the tomb.
--And let him nurse his fond deceit,
And what if he must die in sorrow!
Who would not cherish dreams so sweet, 15
Though grief and pain may come to-morrow?
* * * * *
VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
[Variant 1:
1815.
How rich the wave, in front, imprest
With evening-twilight's summer hues, 1798. ]
[Variant 2:
1802.
. . . path . . . 1798. ]
[Variant 3:
1815.
. . . loiterer . . . 1798. ]
* * * * *
REMEMBRANCE OF COLLINS
COMPOSED UPON THE THAMES NEAR RICHMOND [A]
Composed 1789. --Published 1798
* * * * *
Glide gently, thus for ever glide,[B]
O Thames! that other bards may see
As lovely visions by thy side
As now, fair river! come to me.
O glide, fair stream! for ever so, 5
Thy quiet soul on all bestowing,
Till all our minds for ever flow
As thy deep waters now are flowing.
Vain thought! --Yet be as now thou art,
That in thy waters may be seen 10
The image of a poet's heart,
How bright, how solemn, how serene!
Such as did once the Poet bless, [1]
Who murmuring here a later [C] ditty, [2]
Could find no refuge from distress 15
But in the milder grief of pity.
Now let us, as we float along, [3]
For _him_ [4] suspend the dashing oar; [D]
And pray that never child of song
May know that Poet's sorrows more. [5] 20
How calm! how still! the only sound,
The dripping of the oar suspended!
--The evening darkness gathers round
By virtue's holiest Powers attended.
* * * * *
VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
[Variant 1:
1800.
Such heart did once the poet bless, 1798. ]
[Variant 2:
1815.
Who, pouring here a _later_ [i] ditty, 1798. ]
[Variant 3:
1802.
Remembrance, as we glide along, 1798.
. . . float . . . 1800. ]
[Variant 4:
1802.
For him . . . 1798. ]
[Variant 5:
1802.
May know his freezing sorrows more. 1798. ]
[Sub-Footnote i: The italics only occur in the editions of 1798 and
1800. --Ed. ]
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES TO THE TEXT
[Footnote A: The title in the editions 1802-1815 was 'Remembrance of
Collins, written upon the Thames near Richmond'. --Ed. ]
[Footnote B: Compare the 'After-thought' to "The River Duddon. A Series
of Sonnets":
Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide.
Ed. ]
[Footnote C: Collins's 'Ode on the Death of Thomson', the last written,
I believe, of the poems which were published during his life-time. This
Ode is also alluded to in the next stanza. --W. W. 1798. ]
[Footnote D: Compare Collins's 'Ode on the Death of Thomson', 'The Scene
on the Thames near Richmond':
Remembrance oft shall haunt the shore
When Thames in summer wreaths is drest.
And oft suspend the dashing oar
To bid his gentle spirit rest.
As Mr. Dowden suggests, the _him_ was probably italicised by Wordsworth,
"because the oar is suspended not for Thomson but for Collins. " The
italics were first used in the edition of 1802. --Ed. ]
* * * * *
DESCRIPTIVE SKETCHES TAKEN DURING A PEDESTRIAN TOUR AMONG THE ALPS
Composed 1791-2. [A]--Published 1793
TO THE REV. ROBERT JONES, FELLOW OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
DEAR SIR, [B]--However desirous I might have been of giving you proofs
of the high place you hold in my esteem, I should have been cautious
of wounding your delicacy by thus publicly addressing you, had not the
circumstance of our having been companions among the Alps, seemed to
give this dedication a propriety sufficient to do away any scruples
which your modesty might otherwise have suggested. [C]
In inscribing this little work to you, I consult my heart. You know
well how great is the difference between two companions lolling in a
post-chaise, and two travellers plodding slowly along the road, side
by side, each with his little knapsack of necessaries upon his
shoulders. How much more of heart between the two latter!
I am happy in being conscious that I shall have one reader who will
approach the conclusion of these few pages with regret. You they must
certainly interest, in reminding you of moments to which you can
hardly look back without a pleasure not the less dear from a shade of
melancholy. You will meet with few images without recollecting the
spot where we observed them together; consequently, whatever is feeble
in my design, or spiritless in my colouring, will be amply supplied by
your own memory.
With still greater propriety I might have inscribed to you a
description of some of the features of your native mountains, through
which we have wandered together, in the same manner, with so much
pleasure. But the sea-sunsets, which give such splendour to the vale
of Clwyd, Snowdon, the chair of Idris, the quiet village of
Bethgelert, Menai and her Druids, the Alpine steeps of the Conway, and
the still more interesting windings of the wizard stream of the Dee,
remain yet untouched. Apprehensive that my pencil may never be
exercised on these subjects, I cannot let slip this opportunity of
thus publicly assuring you with how much affection and esteem
I am, dear Sir,
Most sincerely yours,
W. WORDSWORTH.
LONDON, 1793.
[Much the greatest part of this poem was composed during my walks upon
the banks of the Loire, in the years 1791, 1792. I will only notice
that the description of the valley filled with mist, beginning--'In
solemn shapes'--was taken from that beautiful region of which the
principal features are Lungarn and Sarnen. Nothing that I ever saw in
Nature left a more delightful impression on my mind than that which I
have attempted, alas, how feebly! to convey to others in these lines.
Those two lakes have always interested me especially, from bearing in
their size and other features, a resemblance to those of the North of
England. It is much to be deplored that a district so beautiful should
be so unhealthy as it is. --I. F. ]
As the original text of the 'Descriptive Sketches' is printed in
Appendix I. (p. 309) to this volume--with all the notes to that edition
of 1793--it is not quoted in the footnotes to the final text in the
pages which follow, except in cases which will justify themselves.
Therefore the various readings which follow begin with the edition of
1815, which was, however, a mere fragment of the original text. Almost
the whole of the poem of 1793 was reproduced in 1820, but there were
many alterations of the text in that edition, and in those of 1827,
1832, 1836 and 1845. Wordsworth's own footnotes here reproduced are
those which he retained in the edition of 1849.
'Descriptive Sketches' was ranked among the "Juvenile Pieces" from 1815
onwards: but in 1836 it was put in a class by itself along with the
'Female Vagrant'. [D]--Ed.
'Happiness (if she had been to be found on earth) among the charms of
Nature--Pleasures of the pedestrian Traveller--Author crosses France to
the Alps--Present state of the Grande Chartreuse--Lake of Como--Time,
Sunset--Same Scene, Twilight--Same Scene, Morning; its voluptuous
Character; Old man and forest-cottage music--River Tusa--Via Mala and
Grison Gipsy--Sckellenen-thal--Lake of Uri--Stormy sunset--Chapel of
William Tell--Force of local emotion--Chamois-chaser--View of the higher
Alps--Manner of Life of a Swiss mountaineer, interspersed with views of
the higher Alps--Golden Age of the Alps--Life and views continued--Ranz
des Vaches, famous Swiss Air--Abbey of Einsiedlen and its
pilgrims--Valley of Chamouny--Mont Blanc--Slavery of Savoy--Influence of
liberty on cottage-happiness--France--Wish for the Extirpation of
slavery--Conclusion'.
* * * * *
THE POEM
Were there, below, a spot of holy ground
Where from distress a refuge might be found,
And solitude prepare the soul for heaven;
Sure, nature's God that spot to man had given [1]
Where falls the purple morning far and wide 5
In flakes of light upon the mountain-side;
Where with loud voice the power of water shakes [2]
The leafy wood, or sleeps in quiet lakes.
Yet not unrecompensed the man shall roam,
Who at the call of summer quits his home, 10
And plods through some wide realm o'er vale and height,
Though seeking only holiday delight; [3]
At least, not owning to himself an aim
To which the sage would give a prouder name. [4]
No gains too cheaply earned his fancy cloy, 15
Though every passing zephyr whispers joy;
Brisk toil, alternating with ready ease,
Feeds the clear current of his sympathies. [5]
For him sod-seats the cottage-door adorn;
And peeps the far-off spire, his evening bourn! 20
Dear is the forest frowning o'er his head,
And dear the velvet green-sward to his tread: [6]
Moves there a cloud o'er mid-day's flaming eye?
Upward he looks--"and calls it luxury:" [E]
Kind Nature's charities his steps attend; 25
In every babbling brook he finds a friend;
While [7] chastening thoughts of sweetest use, bestowed
By wisdom, moralise his pensive road.
Host of his welcome inn, the noon-tide bower,
To his spare meal he calls the passing poor; 30
He views the sun uplift his golden fire,
Or sink, with heart alive like Memnon's lyre; [F]
Blesses the moon that comes with kindly ray,
To light him shaken by his rugged way. [8]
Back from his sight no bashful children steal; 35
He sits a brother at the cottage-meal; [9]
His humble looks no shy restraint impart;
Around him plays at will the virgin heart.
While unsuspended wheels the village dance,
The maidens eye him with enquiring glance, 40
Much wondering by what fit of crazing care,
Or desperate love, bewildered, he came there. [10]
A hope, that prudence could not then approve,
That clung to Nature with a truant's love,
O'er Gallia's wastes of corn my footsteps led; 45
Her files of road-elms, high above my head
In long-drawn vista, rustling in the breeze;
Or where her pathways straggle as they please
By lonely farms and secret villages.
But lo! the Alps ascending white in air, [11] 50
Toy with the sun and glitter from afar.
And now, emerging from the forest's gloom,
I greet thee, Chartreuse, while I mourn thy doom.
Whither is fled that Power whose frown severe
Awed sober Reason till she crouched in fear? [12] 55
_That_ Silence, once in deathlike fetters bound,
Chains that were loosened only by the sound
Of holy rites chanted in measured round? [13]
--The voice of blasphemy the fane alarms,
The cloister startles at the gleam of arms. [14] 60
The [15] thundering tube the aged angler hears, [G]
Bent o'er the groaning flood that sweeps away his tears. [16]
Cloud-piercing pine-trees nod their troubled heads, [17]
Spires, rocks, and lawns a browner night o'erspreads;
Strong terror checks the female peasant's sighs, 65
And start the astonished shades at female eyes.
From Bruno's forest screams the affrighted jay,
And slow the insulted eagle wheels away.
A viewless flight of laughing Demons mock
The Cross, by angels planted [H] on the aerial rock. [18] 70
The "parting Genius" [J] sighs with hollow breath
Along the mystic streams of Life and Death. [K]
Swelling the outcry dull, that long resounds
Portentous through her old woods' trackless bounds,
Vallombre, [L] 'mid her falling fanes deplores 75
For ever broke, the sabbath of her bowers.
More pleased, my foot the hidden margin roves
Of Como, bosomed deep in chestnut groves.
No meadows thrown between, the giddy steeps
Tower, bare or sylvan, from the narrow deeps. 80
--To towns, whose shades of no rude noise [19] complain,
From ringing team apart [20] and grating wain--
To flat-roofed towns, that touch the water's bound,
Or lurk in woody sunless glens profound,
Or, from the bending rocks, obtrusive cling, 85
And o'er the whitened wave their shadows fling--
The pathway leads, as round the steeps it twines; [21]
And Silence loves its purple roof of vines.
The loitering traveller [22] hence, at evening, sees
From rock-hewn steps the sail between the trees; 90
Or marks, 'mid opening cliffs, fair dark-eyed maids
Tend the small harvest of their garden glades;
Or stops the solemn mountain-shades to view
Stretch o'er the pictured mirror broad and blue,
And track the yellow lights from steep to steep, 95
As up the opposing hills they slowly creep. [23]
Aloft, here, half a village shines, arrayed
In golden light; [24] half hides itself in shade:
While, from amid the darkened roofs, the spire,
Restlessly flashing, seems to mount like fire: [25] 100
There, all unshaded, blazing forests throw
Rich golden verdure on the lake [26] below.
Slow glides the sail along the illumined shore,
And steals into the shade the lazy oar;
Soft bosoms breathe around contagious sighs, 105
And amorous music on the water dies.
How blest, delicious scene! the eye that greets
Thy open beauties, or thy lone retreats;
Beholds the unwearied sweep of wood that scales
Thy cliffs; the endless waters of thy vales; [27] 110
Thy lowly cots that sprinkle all the shore, [28]
Each with its [29] household boat beside the door;
[30] Thy torrents shooting from the clear-blue sky;
Thy towns, that cleave, like swallows' nests, on high; [31]
That glimmer hoar in eve's last light descried 115
Dim from the twilight water's shaggy side,
Whence lutes and voices down the enchanted woods
Steal, and compose the oar-forgotten floods;
[32]--Thy lake, that, streaked or dappled, blue or grey,
'Mid smoking woods gleams hid from morning's ray [33] 120
Slow-travelling down the western hills, to' enfold [34]
Its green-tinged margin in a blaze of gold;
Thy glittering steeples, whence the matin bell
Calls forth the woodman from his desert cell,
And quickens the blithe sound of oars that pass 125
Along the steaming lake, to early mass. [35]
But now farewell to each and all--adieu
To every charm, and last and chief to you, [36]
Ye lovely maidens that in noontide shade
Rest near your little plots of wheaten glade; [37] 130
To all that binds [38] the soul in powerless trance,
Lip-dewing song, and ringlet-tossing dance;
Where sparkling eyes and breaking smiles illume
The sylvan cabin's lute-enlivened gloom.
--Alas! the very murmur of the streams 135
Breathes o'er the failing soul voluptuous dreams,
While Slavery, forcing the sunk mind to dwell
On joys that might disgrace the captive's cell,
Her shameless timbrel shakes on Como's marge,
And lures [39] from bay to bay the vocal barge. 140
Yet are thy softer arts with power indued
To soothe and cheer the poor man's solitude.
By silent cottage-doors, the peasant's home
Left vacant for the day, I loved to roam. [40]
But once I pierced the mazes of a wood 145
In which a cabin undeserted stood; [41]
There an old man an olden measure scanned
On a rude viol touched with withered hand. [42]
As lambs or fawns in April clustering lie [43]
Under a hoary oak's thin canopy, 150
Stretched at his feet, with stedfast upward eye,
His children's children listened to the sound; [44]
--A Hermit with his family around!
But let us hence; for fair Locarno smiles
Embowered in walnut slopes and citron isles: 155
Or seek at eve the banks of Tusa's stream,
Where, [45] 'mid dim towers and woods, her [M] waters gleam.
From the bright wave, in solemn gloom, retire
The dull-red steeps, and, darkening still, aspire
To where afar rich orange lustres glow 160
Round undistinguished clouds, and rocks, and snow:
Or, led where Via Mala's chasms confine
The indignant waters of the infant Rhine,
Hang o'er the abyss, whose else impervious gloom [46]
His burning eyes with fearful light illume. 165
The mind condemned, without reprieve, to go
O'er life's long deserts with its charge of woe,
With sad congratulation joins the train
Where beasts and men together o'er the plain
Move on--a mighty caravan of pain: 170
Hope, strength, and courage, social suffering brings,
Freshening the wilderness with shades and springs.
--There be whose lot far otherwise is cast:
Sole human tenant of the piny waste, [47]
By choice or doom a gipsy wanders here, 175
A nursling babe her only comforter;
Lo, where she sits beneath yon shaggy rock,
A cowering shape half hid in curling smoke! [48]
When lightning among clouds and mountain-snows
Predominates, and darkness comes and goes, 180
And the fierce torrent, at the flashes broad
Starts, like a horse, beside the glaring road--
She seeks a covert from the battering shower
In the roofed bridge [N]; the bridge, in that dread hour,
Itself all trembling at the torrent's power. [49] 185
Nor is she more at ease on some _still_ night,
When not a star supplies the comfort of its light;
Only the waning moon hangs dull and red
Above a melancholy mountain's head,
Then sets. In total gloom the Vagrant sighs, 190
Stoops her sick head, and shuts her weary eyes;
Or on her fingers counts the distant clock,
Or, to the drowsy crow of midnight cock,
Listens, or quakes while from the forest's gulf
Howls near and nearer yet the famished wolf. [50] 195
From the green vale of Urseren smooth and wide
Descend we now, the maddened Reuss our guide; [51]
By rocks that, shutting out the blessed day,
Cling tremblingly to rocks as loose as they;
By cells [P] upon whose image, while he prays, 200
The kneeling peasant scarcely dares to gaze;
By many a votive death-cross [Q] planted near,
And watered duly with the pious tear,
That faded silent from the upward eye
Unmoved with each rude form of peril nigh; [52] 205
Fixed on the anchor left by Him who saves
Alike in whelming snows, and roaring waves.
But soon a peopled region on the sight
Opens--a little world of calm delight; [53]
Where mists, suspended on the expiring gale, 210
Spread roof like o'er the deep secluded vale, [54]
And beams of evening slipping in between,
Gently illuminate a sober scene:--[55]
Here, on the brown wood-cottages [R] they sleep, [56]
There, over rock or sloping pasture creep. [57] 215
On as we journey, in clear view displayed,
The still vale lengthens underneath its shade
Of low-hung vapour: on the freshened mead
The green light sparkles;--the dim bowers recede. [58]
While pastoral pipes and streams the landscape lull, 220
And bells of passing mules that tinkle dull,
In solemn shapes before the admiring eye
Dilated hang the misty pines on high,
Huge convent domes with pinnacles and towers,
And antique castles seen through gleamy [59] showers. 225
From such romantic dreams, my soul, awake!
To sterner pleasure, where, by Uri's lake
In Nature's pristine majesty outspread,
Winds neither road nor path for foot to tread: [60]
The rocks rise naked as a wall, or stretch, 230
Far o'er the water, hung with groves of beech; [61]
Aerial pines from loftier steeps ascend,
Nor stop but where creation seems to end. [62]
Yet here and there, if 'mid the savage scene
Appears a scanty plot of smiling green, 235
Up from the lake a zigzag path will creep
To reach a small wood-hut hung boldly on the steep. [63]
--Before those thresholds (never can they know [64]
The face of traveller passing to and fro,)
No peasant leans upon his pole, to tell 240
For whom at morning tolled the funeral bell;
Their watch-dog ne'er his angry bark foregoes,
Touched by the beggar's moan of human woes;
The shady porch ne'er offered a cool seat
To pilgrims overcome by summer's heat. [65] 245
Yet thither the world's business finds its way
At times, and tales unsought beguile the day,
And _there_ are those fond thoughts which Solitude, [66]
However stern, is powerless to exclude. [67]
There doth the maiden watch her lover's sail 250
Approaching, and upbraid the tardy gale;
At midnight listens till his parting oar,
And its last echo, can be heard no more. [68]
And what if ospreys, cormorants, herons cry,
Amid tempestuous vapours driving by, [69] 255
Or hovering over wastes too bleak to rear
That common growth of earth, the foodful ear; [70]
Where the green apple shrivels on the spray,
And pines the unripened pear in summer's kindliest ray; [71]
Contentment shares the desolate domain [72] 260
With Independence, child of high Disdain.
Exulting 'mid the winter of the skies,
Shy as the jealous chamois, Freedom flies,
And grasps by fits her sword, and often eyes;
And sometimes, as from rock to rock she bounds 265
The Patriot nymph starts at imagined sounds,
And, wildly pausing, oft she hangs aghast,
Whether some old Swiss air hath checked her haste
Or thrill of Spartan fife is caught between the blast. [73]
Swoln with incessant rains from hour to hour, [74] 270
All day the floods a deepening murmur pour:
The sky is veiled, and every cheerful sight:
Dark is the region as with coming night;
But what a sudden burst of overpowering light!
Triumphant on the bosom of the storm, 275
Glances the wheeling eagle's glorious form! [75]
Eastward, in long perspective glittering, shine
The wood-crowned cliffs that o'er the lake recline;
Those lofty cliffs a hundred streams unfold, [76]
At once to pillars turned that flame with gold: 280
Behind his sail the peasant shrinks, to shun
The _west_, [77] that burns like one dilated sun,
A crucible of mighty compass, felt
By mountains, glowing till they seem to melt. [78]
But, lo! the boatman, overawed, before 285
The pictured fane of Tell suspends his oar;
Confused the Marathonian tale appears,
While his eyes sparkle with heroic tears. [79]
And who, that walks where men of ancient days
Have wrought with godlike arm the deeds of praise, 290
Feels not the spirit of the place control,
Or rouse [80] and agitate his labouring soul?
Say, who, by thinking on Canadian hills,
Or wild Aosta lulled by Alpine rills,
On Zutphen's plain; or on that highland dell, 295
Through which rough Garry cleaves his way, can tell
What high resolves exalt the tenderest thought
Of him whom passion rivets to the spot, [81]
Where breathed the gale that caught Wolfe's happiest sigh,
And the last sunbeam fell on Bayard's eye; 300
Where bleeding Sidney from the cup retired,
And glad Dundee in "faint huzzas" [S] expired?
But now with other mind I stand alone
Upon the summit of this naked cone,
And watch the fearless chamois-hunter chase 305
His prey, through tracts abrupt of desolate space, [82]
[T] Through vacant worlds where Nature never gave
A brook to murmur or a bough to wave,
Which unsubstantial Phantoms sacred keep;
Thro' worlds where Life, and Voice, and Motion sleep; 310
Where silent Hours their death-like sway extend,
Save when the avalanche breaks loose, to rend
Its way with uproar, till the ruin, drowned
In some dense wood or gulf of snow profound,
Mocks the dull ear of Time with deaf abortive sound. [83] 315
--'Tis his, while wandering on from height to height,
To see a planet's pomp and steady light
In the least star of scarce-appearing night;
While the pale moon moves near him, on the bound
Of ether, shining with diminished round, [84] 320
And far and wide the icy summits blaze,
Rejoicing in the glory of her rays:
To him the day-star glitters small and bright,
Shorn of its beams, insufferably white,
And he can look beyond the sun, and view 325
Those fast-receding depths of sable blue
Flying till vision can no more pursue! [85]
--At once bewildering mists around him close,
And cold and hunger are his least of woes;
The Demon of the snow, with angry roar 330
Descending, shuts for aye his prison door.
Soon with despair's whole weight his spirits sink;
Bread has he none, the snow must be his drink;
And, ere his eyes can close upon the day, [86]
The eagle of the Alps o'ershades her prey. 335
Now couch thyself where, heard with fear afar, [87]
Thunders through echoing pines the headlong Aar;
Or rather stay to taste the mild delights
Of pensive Underwalden's [U] pastoral heights.
--Is there who 'mid these awful wilds has seen 340
The native Genii walk the mountain green?
Or heard, while other worlds their charms reveal,
Soft music o'er [88] the aerial summit steal?
While o'er the desert, answering every close,
Rich steam of sweetest perfume comes and goes. 345
--And sure there is a secret Power that reigns
Here, where no trace of man the spot profanes,
Nought but the _chalets_, [V] flat and bare, on high
Suspended 'mid the quiet of the sky;
Or distant herds that pasturing upward creep, 350
And, not untended, climb the dangerous steep. [89]
How still! no irreligious sound or sight
Rouses the soul from her severe delight.
An idle voice the sabbath region fills
Of Deep that calls to Deep across the hills, 355
And with that voice accords the soothing sound [90]
Of drowsy bells, for ever tinkling round;
Faint wail of eagle melting into blue
Beneath the cliffs, and pine-woods' steady _sugh_; [W]
The solitary heifer's deepened low; 360
Or rumbling, heard remote, of falling snow.
All motions, sounds, and voices, far and nigh,
Blend in a music of tranquillity; [91]
Save when, a stranger seen below [92] the boy
Shouts from the echoing hills with savage joy. 365
When, from the sunny breast of open seas,
And bays with myrtle fringed, the southern breeze
Comes on to gladden April with the sight
Of green isles widening on each snow-clad height; [93]
When shouts and lowing herds the valley fill, 370
And louder torrents stun the noon-tide hill,
[94] The pastoral Swiss begin the cliffs to scale,
Leaving to silence the deserted vale; [95]
And like the Patriarchs in their simple age
Move, as the verdure leads, from stage to stage; [96] 375
High and more high in summer's heat they go, [97]
And hear the rattling thunder far below;
Or steal beneath the mountains, half-deterred,
Where huge rocks tremble to the bellowing herd. [98]
One I behold who, 'cross the foaming flood, 380
Leaps with a bound of graceful hardihood;
Another high on that green ledge;--he gained
The tempting spot with every sinew strained; [99]
And downward thence a knot of grass he throws,
Food for his beasts in time of winter snows. [100] 385
--Far different life from what Tradition hoar
Transmits of happier lot in times of yore! [101]
Then Summer lingered long; and honey flowed
From out the rocks, the wild bees' safe abode: [102]
Continual waters [103] welling cheered the waste, 390
And plants were wholesome, now of deadly taste:
Nor Winter yet his frozen stores had piled,
Usurping where the fairest herbage smiled:
Nor Hunger driven the herds from pastures bare,
To climb the treacherous cliffs for scanty fare. [104] 395
Then the milk-thistle flourished through the land,
And forced the full-swoln udder to demand,
Thrice every day, the pail and welcome hand. [105]
Thus does the father to his children tell
Of banished bliss, by fancy loved too well. [106] 400
Alas! that human guilt provoked the rod [107]
Of angry Nature to avenge her God.
Still, Nature, ever just, to him imparts
Joys only given to uncorrupted hearts.
'Tis morn: with gold the verdant mountain glows; 405
More high, the snowy peaks with hues of rose.
Far-stretched beneath the many-tinted hills,
A mighty waste of mist the valley fills,
A solemn sea! whose billows wide around [108]
Stand motionless, to awful silence bound: 410
Pines, on the coast, through mist their tops uprear,
That like to leaning masts of stranded ships appear.
A single chasm, a gulf of gloomy blue,
Gapes in the centre of the sea--and through
That dark mysterious gulf ascending, sound 415
Innumerable streams with roar profound. [109]
Mount through the nearer vapours notes of birds,
And merry flageolet; the low of herds,
The bark of dogs, the heifer's tinkling bell,
Talk, laughter, and perchance a church-tower knell: [110] 420
Think not, the peasant from aloft has gazed
And heard with heart unmoved, with soul unraised: [111]
Nor is his spirit less enrapt, nor less
Alive to independent happiness, [112]
Then, when he lies, out-stretched, at even-tide 425
Upon the fragrant mountain's purple side: [113]
For as the pleasures of his simple day
Beyond his native valley seldom stray,
Nought round its darling precincts can he find
But brings some past enjoyment to his mind; 430
While Hope, reclining upon Pleasure's urn, [114]
Binds her wild wreaths, and whispers his return.
Once, Man entirely free, alone and wild,
Was blest as free--for he was Nature's child.
He, all superior but his God disdained, 435
Walked none restraining, and by none restrained:
Confessed no law but what his reason taught,
Did all he wished, and wished but what he ought.
As man in his primeval dower arrayed
The image of his glorious Sire displayed, 440
Even so, by faithful [115] Nature guarded, here
The traces of primeval Man appear;
The simple [116] dignity no forms debase;
The eye sublime, and surly lion-grace:
The slave of none, of beasts alone the lord, 445
His book he prizes, nor neglects his sword; [117]
--Well taught by that to feel his rights, prepared
With this "the blessings he enjoys to guard. " [X]
And, as his native hills encircle ground
For many a marvellous [118] victory renowned, 450
The work of Freedom daring to oppose,
With few in arms, [Y] innumerable foes,
When to those famous [119] fields his steps are led,
An unknown power connects him with the dead:
For images of other worlds are there; 455
Awful the light, and holy is the air.
Fitfully, and in flashes, through his soul,
Like sun-lit tempests, troubled transports roll;
His bosom heaves, his Spirit towers amain, [120]
Beyond the senses and their little reign. 460
And oft, when that dread vision hath past by, [121]
He holds with God himself communion high,
There where the peal [122] of swelling torrents fills
The sky-roofed temple of the eternal hills;
Or, when upon the mountain's silent brow 465
Reclined, he sees, above him and below,
Bright stars of ice and azure fields of snow;
While needle peaks of granite shooting bare
Tremble in ever-varying tints of air.
And when a gathering weight of shadows brown 470
Falls on the valleys as the sun goes down;
And Pikes, of darkness named and fear and storms, [Z]
Uplift in quiet their illumined forms, [123]
In sea-like reach of prospect round him spread,
Tinged like an angel's smile all rosy red-- 475
Awe in his breast with holiest love unites,
And the near heavens impart their own delights. [124]
When downward to his winter hut he goes,
Dear and more dear the lessening circle grows;
That hut which on the hills so oft employs 480
His thoughts, the central point of all his joys. [125]
And as a swallow, at the hour of rest,
Peeps often ere she darts into her nest,
So to the homestead, where the grandsire tends
A little prattling child, he oft descends, 485
To glance a look upon the well-matched pair; [126]
Till storm and driving ice blockade him there.
There, [127] safely guarded by the woods behind,
He hears the chiding of the baffled wind,
Hears Winter calling all his terrors round, 490
And, blest within himself, he shrinks not from the sound. [128]
Through Nature's vale his homely pleasures glide,
Unstained by envy, discontent, and pride;
The bound of all his vanity, to deck,
With one bright bell, a favourite heifer's neck; 495
Well pleased [129] upon some simple annual feast,
Remembered half the year and hoped the rest,
If dairy-produce, from his inner hoard,
Of thrice ten summers dignify [130] the board.
--Alas! in every clime a flying ray 500
Is all we have to cheer our wintry way;
[131]
And here the unwilling mind [132] may more than trace
The general sorrows of the human race:
The churlish gales of penury, that blow
Cold as the north-wind o'er a waste of snow, [133] 505
To them [134] the gentle groups of bliss deny
That on the noon-day bank of leisure lie.
Yet more;--compelled by Powers which only deign
That _solitary_ man disturb their reign,
Powers that support an unremitting [135] strife 510
With all the tender charities of life,
Full oft the father, when his sons have grown
To manhood, seems their title to disown; [136]
And from his nest [137] amid the storms of heaven
Drives, eagle-like, those sons as he was driven; 515
With stern composure [138] watches to the plain--
And never, eagle-like, beholds again!
When long familiar joys are all resigned,
Why does their sad remembrance haunt the mind? [139]
Lo! where through flat Batavia's willowy groves, 520
Or by the lazy Seine, the exile roves;
O'er the curled waters Alpine measures swell,
And search the affections to their inmost cell;
Sweet poison spreads along the listener's veins,
Turning past pleasures into mortal pains; [140] 525
Poison, which not a frame of steel can brave,
Bows his young head with sorrow to the grave. [Aa]
Gay lark of hope, thy silent song resume!
Ye flattering eastern lights, once more the hills illume! [141]
Fresh [142] gales and dews of life's delicious morn, 530
And thou, lost fragrance of the heart, return!
Alas! the little joy to man allowed,
Fades like the lustre of an evening cloud; [143]
Or like the beauty in a flower installed,
Whose season was, and cannot be recalled. 535
Yet, when opprest by sickness, grief, or care,
And taught that pain is pleasure's natural heir,
We still confide in more than we can know;
Death would be else the favourite friend of woe. [144]
'Mid savage rocks, and seas of snow that shine, 540
Between interminable tracts of pine,
Within a temple stands an awful shrine, [145]
By an uncertain light revealed, that falls
On the mute Image and the troubled walls.
Oh! give not me that eye of hard disdain 545
That views, undimmed, Ensiedlen's [Bb] wretched fane.
While ghastly faces through the gloom appear, [146]
Abortive joy, and hope that works in fear; [147]
While prayer contends with silenced agony, [148]
Surely in other thoughts contempt may die. 550
If the sad grave of human ignorance bear
One flower of hope--oh, pass and leave it there! [Cc]
The tall sun, pausing [149] on an Alpine spire,
Flings o'er the wilderness a stream of fire:
Now meet we other pilgrims ere the day [150] 555
Close on the remnant of their weary way;
While they are drawing toward the sacred floor
Where, so they fondly think, the worm shall gnaw no more. [151]
How gaily murmur and how sweetly taste
The fountains [Dd] reared for them [152] amid the waste! 560
Their thirst they slake:--they wash their toil-worn feet,
And some with tears of joy each other greet. [153]
Yes, I must [154] see you when ye first behold
Those holy turrets tipped with evening gold,
In that glad moment will for you a sigh 565
Be heaved, of charitable sympathy; [155]
In that glad moment when your [156] hands are prest
In mute devotion on the thankful breast!
Last, let us turn to Chamouny that shields [157]
With rocks and gloomy woods [158] her fertile fields: 570
Five streams of ice amid her cots descend,
And with wild flowers and blooming orchards blend;--[Ee]
A scene more fair than what the Grecian feigns
Of purple lights and ever-vernal plains;
Here all the seasons revel hand in hand: 575
'Mid lawns and shades by breezy rivulets fanned [159]
[160] They sport beneath that mountain's matchless height [161]
That holds no commerce with the summer night. [Ee]
From age to age, throughout [162] his lonely bounds
The crash of ruin fitfully resounds; 580
Appalling [163] havoc! but serene his brow,
Where daylight lingers on [164] perpetual snow;
Glitter the stars, and all is black below. [Ee]
What marvel then if many a Wanderer sigh,
While roars the sullen Arve in anger by, [165] 585
That not for thy reward, unrivall'd [166] Vale! [Ff]
Waves the ripe harvest in the autumnal gale;
That thou, the slave of slaves, art doomed to pine
And droop, while no Italian arts are thine,
To soothe or cheer, to soften or refine. [167] 590
Hail Freedom! whether it was mine to stray,
With shrill winds whistling round my lonely way, [168]
On [169] the bleak sides of Cumbria's heath-clad moors,
Or where dank sea-weed lashes Scotland's shores;
To scent the sweets of Piedmont's breathing rose, 595
And orange gale that o'er Lugano blows;
Still have I found, where Tyranny prevails,
That virtue languishes and pleasure fails, [170]
While the remotest hamlets blessings share
In thy loved [171] presence known, and only there; 600
_Heart_-blessings--outward treasures too which the eye
Of the sun peeping through the clouds can spy,
And every passing breeze will testify. [172]
There, to the porch, belike with jasmine bound
Or woodbine wreaths, a smoother path is wound; [173] 605
The housewife there a brighter garden sees,
Where hum on busier wing her happy bees; [174]
On infant cheeks there fresher roses blow;
And grey-haired men look up with livelier brow,--[175]
To greet the traveller needing food and rest; 610
Housed for the night, or but a half-hour's guest. [176]
And oh, fair France! though now the traveller sees
Thy three-striped banner fluctuate on the breeze;[177]
Though martial songs have banished songs of love,
And nightingales desert the village grove, [178] 615
Scared by the fife and rumbling drum's alarms,
And the short thunder, and the flash of arms;
That cease not till night falls, when far and nigh,
Sole sound, the Sourd [Gg] prolongs his mournful cry! [179]
--Yet, hast thou found that Freedom spreads her power 620
Beyond the cottage-hearth, the cottage-door:
All nature smiles, and owns beneath her eyes
Her fields peculiar, and peculiar skies.
Yes, as I roamed where Loiret's waters glide
Through rustling aspens heard from side to side, 625
When from October clouds a milder light
Fell where the blue flood rippled into white;
Methought from every cot the watchful bird
Crowed with ear-piercing power till then unheard;
Each clacking mill, that broke the murmuring streams, 630
Rocked the charmed thought in more delightful dreams;
Chasing those pleasant dreams, [180] the falling leaf
Awoke a fainter sense [181] of moral grief;
The measured echo of the distant flail
Wound in more welcome cadence down the vale; 635
With more majestic course the water rolled,
And ripening foliage shone with richer gold. [182]
--But foes are gathering--Liberty must raise
Red on the hills her beacon's far-seen blaze;
Must bid the tocsin ring from tower to tower! -- 640
Nearer and nearer comes the trying hour! [183]
Rejoice, brave Land, though pride's perverted ire
Rouse hell's own aid, and wrap thy fields in fire:
Lo, from the flames a great and glorious birth;
As if a new-made heaven were hailing a new earth! [184] 645
--All cannot be: the promise is too fair
For creatures doomed to breathe terrestrial air:
Yet not for this will sober reason frown
Upon that promise, not the hope disown;
She knows that only from high aims ensue 650
Rich guerdons, and to them alone are due. [185]
Great God! by whom the strifes of men are weighed
In an impartial balance, give thine aid
To the just cause; and, oh! do thou preside
Over the mighty stream now spreading wide: [Hh] 655
So shall its waters, from the heavens supplied
In copious showers, from earth by wholesome springs,
Brood o'er the long-parched lands with Nile-like wings!
And grant that every sceptred child of clay
Who cries presumptuous, "Here the flood shall stay," [186] 660
May in its progress see thy guiding hand,
And cease the acknowledged purpose to withstand; [187]
Or, swept in anger from the insulted shore,
Sink with his servile bands, to rise no more! [188]
To-night, my Friend, within this humble cot 665
Be scorn and fear and hope alike forgot [189]
In timely sleep; and when, at break of day,
On the tall peaks the glistening sunbeams play, [190]
With a light heart our course we may renew,
The first whose footsteps print the mountain dew. [191] 670
* * * * *
VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
[Variant 1:
1827.
. . . a spot of holy ground,
By Pain and her sad family unfound,
Sure, Nature's God that spot to man had given,
Where murmuring rivers join the song of even;
Where falls . . . 1820. ]
[Variant 2:
1836.
Where the resounding power of water shakes 1820.
Where with loud voice the power of waters shakes 1827. ]
[Variant 3:
1836.
And not unrecompensed the man shall roam,
Who, to converse with Nature, quits his home,
And plods o'er hills and vales his way forlorn,
Wooing her various charms from eve to morn. 1820.
Yet not unrecompensed the man shall roam,
Who at the call of summer quits his home,
And plods through some far realm o'er vale and height,
Though seeking only holiday delight; 1827. ]
[Variant 4: Lines 13 and 14 were introduced in 1827. ]
[Variant 5:
1827.
No sad vacuities [i] his heart annoy;--
Blows not a Zephyr but it whispers joy;
For him lost flowers their idle sweets exhale;
He tastes the meanest note that swells the gale;
For him sod-seats . . . 1815.
Breathes not a zephyr but it whispers joy;
For him the loneliest flowers their sweets exhale;
He marks "the meanest note that swells the [ii] gale;" 1820. ]
[Variant 6:
1820.
And dear the green-sward to his velvet tread; 1815. ]
[Variant 7:
1815.
Whilst . . . Only in 1820. ]
[Variant 8:
1820.
. . . with kindest ray
To light him shaken by his viewless way. 1815. ]
[Variant 9:
1836.
With bashful fear no cottage children steal
From him, a brother at the cottage meal, 1815. ]
[Variant 10:
1845.
Much wondering what sad stroke of crazing Care,
Or desperate Love could lead a wanderer there. 1815.
Much wondering in what fit of crazing care,
Or desperate love, a wanderer came there. 1836. ]
[Variant 11:
1836.
Me, lured by hope her sorrows to remove,
A heart that could not much itself approve,
O'er Gallia's wastes of corn dejected led,
Her road elms rustling high above my head,
Or through her truant pathways' native charms,
By secret villages and lonely farms,
To where the Alps . . . 1820.
. . . could not much herself approve, 1827.
. . . lured by hope its sorrows to remove, 1832.
The lines 46, 47, were expanded in the edition of 1836 from one line in
the editions of 1820-1832. ]
[Variant 12:
1836.
I sigh at hoary Chartreuse' doom.
Where now is fled that Power whose frown severe
Tamed "sober Reason" till she crouched in fear?
That breathed a death-like peace these woods around;
The cloister startles . . . 1815.
Even now, emerging from the forest's gloom,
I heave a sigh at hoary Chartreuse' doom.
Where now is fled that Power whose frown severe
Tamed "sober Reason" till she crouched in fear? 1820. ]
[Variant 13:
1836.
That breathed a death-like silence wide around,
Broke only by the unvaried torrent's sound,
Or prayer-bell by the dull cicada drown'd. 1820.
The editions of 1827 and 1832 omit these lines. ]
[Variant 14:
1836.
[Footnote N: I am unable to trace this quotation. --Ed. ]
[Footnote P: From Thomson: see Scott's 'Critical Essays'. --W. W. 1793.
It is difficult to know to what Wordsworth here alludes, but compare
'The Seasons', "Summer," l. 1467.
and now a golden curve,
Gives one bright glance, then total disappears. --Ed. ]
[Footnote Q: See a description of an appearance of this kind in Clark's
'Survey of the Lakes', accompanied with vouchers of its veracity, that
may amuse the reader. --W. W. 1793.
The passage in Clark's folio volume, 'A Survey of the Lakes', etc. ,
which suggested to Wordsworth the above lines in the 'Evening Walk', is
to be found in chapter i. of the second book, p. 55. It gives a weird
account of the appearance of horsemen being exercised in troops upon
"Southen-fell side, as seen on the 25th of June 1744 by William
Lancaster of Blakehills, and a farm servant, David Strichet:
"These visionary horsemen seemed to come from the lowest part of
Southen-fell, and became visible just at a place called Knott. They
then moved in regular troops along the side of the fell, till they
came opposite Blakehills, when they went over the mountain. Then they
described a kind of curvilinear path upon the side of the fell, and
both these first and last appearances were bounded by the top of the
mountain.
"Frequently the last, or last but one, in a troop would leave his
place, and gallop to the front, and then take the same pace with the
rest--a regular swift walk. Thus changes happened to every troop (for
many troops appeared) and oftener than once or twice, yet not at all
times alike. . . . Nor was this phenomenon seen at Blakehill only, it was
seen by every person at every cottage within the distance of a mile.
Neither was it confined to a momentary view, for from the time that
Strichet first observed it, the appearance must have lasted at least
two hours and a half, viz. from half past seven till the night coming
on prevented further view. "
This interesting optical illusion--which suggests the wonderful island
in the Atlantic, seen from the isles of Aran near Galway, alluded to in
the 'Chorographical description of West, or H-Ier-Connaught', of R.
O'Flaherty--was caused by the peculiar angle of the light from the
setting sun, the reflection of the water of the Solway, and the
refraction of the vapour and clouds above the Solway. These aerial and
visionary horsemen were being exercised somewhere above the
Kirkcudbright shore. It was not the first time the phenomenon had been
seen within historic times, on the same fell-side, and at the same time
of year. Canon Rawnsley writes to me,
"I have an idea that the fact that it took place at midsummer eve
(June 27), the eve of the Feast of St. John, upon which occasion the
shepherds hereabout used to light bonfires on the hills (no doubt a
relic of the custom of the Beltane fires of old Norse days, perhaps of
earlier sun-worship festivals of British times), may have had
something to do with the naming of the mountain Blencathara of which
Southen-fell (or Shepherd's-fell, as the name implies) is part.
Blencathara, we are told, may mean the Hill of Demons, or the haunted
hill. My suggestion is that the old sun-worshippers, who met in
midsummer eve on Castrigg at the Druid circle or Donn-ring, saw just
the same phenomenon as Strichet and Lancaster saw upon Southen-fell,
and hence the name. Nay, perhaps the Druid circle was built where it
is, because it was well in view of the Demon Hill. "
Ed. ]
[Footnote R: This is a fact of which I have been an eye-witness. --W. W.
1793. ]
[Footnote S: The quotation is from Collins' 'The Passions', l. 60.
Compare 'Personal Talk', l. 26. --Ed. ]
[Footnote T: Alluding to this passage of Spenser:
. . . Her angel face
As the great eye of Heaven shined bright,
And made a sunshine in that shady place. W. W. 1793.
This passage is in 'The Fairy Queen', book I. canto iii. stanza 4. --Ed. ]
[Footnote U: Compare Dr. John Brown:
But the soft murmur of swift-gushing rills,
Forth issuing from the mountain's distant steep
(Unheard till now, and now scarce heard), proclaim'd
All things at rest.
This Dr. John Brown--a singularly versatile English divine
(1717-1766)--was one of the first, as Wordsworth pointed put, to lead
the way to a true estimate of the English Lakes. His description of the
Vale of Keswick, in a letter to a friend, is as fine as anything in
Gray's 'Journal'. Wordsworth himself quotes the lines given in this
footnote in the first section of his 'Guide through the District of the
Lakes'. --Ed. ]
* * * * *
LINES WRITTEN WHILE SAILING IN A BOAT AT EVENING
Composed 1789. --Published 1798
[This title is scarcely correct. It was during a solitary walk on the
banks of the Cam that I was first struck with this appearance, and
applied it to my own feelings in the manner here expressed, changing
the scene to the Thames, near Windsor. This, and the three stanzas of
the following poem, 'Remembrance of Collins', formed one piece; but,
upon the recommendation of Coleridge, the three last stanzas were
separated from the other. --I. F. ]
The title of the poem in 1798, when it consisted of five stanzas, was
'Lines written near Richmond, upon the Thames, at Evening'. When, in the
edition of 1800, it was divided, the title of the first part was, 'Lines
written when sailing in a Boat at Evening'; that of the second part was
'Lines written near Richmond upon the Thames'.
From 1815 to 1843, both poems were placed by Wordsworth among those "of
Sentiment and Reflection. " In 1845 they were transferred to "Poems
written in Youth. "--Ed.
* * * * *
THE POEM
How richly glows the water's breast
Before us, tinged with evening hues, [1]
While, facing thus the crimson west,
The boat her silent course [2] pursues!
And see how dark the backward stream! 5
A little moment past so smiling!
And still, perhaps, with faithless gleam,
Some other loiterers [3] beguiling.
Such views the youthful Bard allure;
But, heedless of the following gloom, 10
He deems their colours shall endure
Till peace go with him to the tomb.
--And let him nurse his fond deceit,
And what if he must die in sorrow!
Who would not cherish dreams so sweet, 15
Though grief and pain may come to-morrow?
* * * * *
VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
[Variant 1:
1815.
How rich the wave, in front, imprest
With evening-twilight's summer hues, 1798. ]
[Variant 2:
1802.
. . . path . . . 1798. ]
[Variant 3:
1815.
. . . loiterer . . . 1798. ]
* * * * *
REMEMBRANCE OF COLLINS
COMPOSED UPON THE THAMES NEAR RICHMOND [A]
Composed 1789. --Published 1798
* * * * *
Glide gently, thus for ever glide,[B]
O Thames! that other bards may see
As lovely visions by thy side
As now, fair river! come to me.
O glide, fair stream! for ever so, 5
Thy quiet soul on all bestowing,
Till all our minds for ever flow
As thy deep waters now are flowing.
Vain thought! --Yet be as now thou art,
That in thy waters may be seen 10
The image of a poet's heart,
How bright, how solemn, how serene!
Such as did once the Poet bless, [1]
Who murmuring here a later [C] ditty, [2]
Could find no refuge from distress 15
But in the milder grief of pity.
Now let us, as we float along, [3]
For _him_ [4] suspend the dashing oar; [D]
And pray that never child of song
May know that Poet's sorrows more. [5] 20
How calm! how still! the only sound,
The dripping of the oar suspended!
--The evening darkness gathers round
By virtue's holiest Powers attended.
* * * * *
VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
[Variant 1:
1800.
Such heart did once the poet bless, 1798. ]
[Variant 2:
1815.
Who, pouring here a _later_ [i] ditty, 1798. ]
[Variant 3:
1802.
Remembrance, as we glide along, 1798.
. . . float . . . 1800. ]
[Variant 4:
1802.
For him . . . 1798. ]
[Variant 5:
1802.
May know his freezing sorrows more. 1798. ]
[Sub-Footnote i: The italics only occur in the editions of 1798 and
1800. --Ed. ]
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES TO THE TEXT
[Footnote A: The title in the editions 1802-1815 was 'Remembrance of
Collins, written upon the Thames near Richmond'. --Ed. ]
[Footnote B: Compare the 'After-thought' to "The River Duddon. A Series
of Sonnets":
Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide.
Ed. ]
[Footnote C: Collins's 'Ode on the Death of Thomson', the last written,
I believe, of the poems which were published during his life-time. This
Ode is also alluded to in the next stanza. --W. W. 1798. ]
[Footnote D: Compare Collins's 'Ode on the Death of Thomson', 'The Scene
on the Thames near Richmond':
Remembrance oft shall haunt the shore
When Thames in summer wreaths is drest.
And oft suspend the dashing oar
To bid his gentle spirit rest.
As Mr. Dowden suggests, the _him_ was probably italicised by Wordsworth,
"because the oar is suspended not for Thomson but for Collins. " The
italics were first used in the edition of 1802. --Ed. ]
* * * * *
DESCRIPTIVE SKETCHES TAKEN DURING A PEDESTRIAN TOUR AMONG THE ALPS
Composed 1791-2. [A]--Published 1793
TO THE REV. ROBERT JONES, FELLOW OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
DEAR SIR, [B]--However desirous I might have been of giving you proofs
of the high place you hold in my esteem, I should have been cautious
of wounding your delicacy by thus publicly addressing you, had not the
circumstance of our having been companions among the Alps, seemed to
give this dedication a propriety sufficient to do away any scruples
which your modesty might otherwise have suggested. [C]
In inscribing this little work to you, I consult my heart. You know
well how great is the difference between two companions lolling in a
post-chaise, and two travellers plodding slowly along the road, side
by side, each with his little knapsack of necessaries upon his
shoulders. How much more of heart between the two latter!
I am happy in being conscious that I shall have one reader who will
approach the conclusion of these few pages with regret. You they must
certainly interest, in reminding you of moments to which you can
hardly look back without a pleasure not the less dear from a shade of
melancholy. You will meet with few images without recollecting the
spot where we observed them together; consequently, whatever is feeble
in my design, or spiritless in my colouring, will be amply supplied by
your own memory.
With still greater propriety I might have inscribed to you a
description of some of the features of your native mountains, through
which we have wandered together, in the same manner, with so much
pleasure. But the sea-sunsets, which give such splendour to the vale
of Clwyd, Snowdon, the chair of Idris, the quiet village of
Bethgelert, Menai and her Druids, the Alpine steeps of the Conway, and
the still more interesting windings of the wizard stream of the Dee,
remain yet untouched. Apprehensive that my pencil may never be
exercised on these subjects, I cannot let slip this opportunity of
thus publicly assuring you with how much affection and esteem
I am, dear Sir,
Most sincerely yours,
W. WORDSWORTH.
LONDON, 1793.
[Much the greatest part of this poem was composed during my walks upon
the banks of the Loire, in the years 1791, 1792. I will only notice
that the description of the valley filled with mist, beginning--'In
solemn shapes'--was taken from that beautiful region of which the
principal features are Lungarn and Sarnen. Nothing that I ever saw in
Nature left a more delightful impression on my mind than that which I
have attempted, alas, how feebly! to convey to others in these lines.
Those two lakes have always interested me especially, from bearing in
their size and other features, a resemblance to those of the North of
England. It is much to be deplored that a district so beautiful should
be so unhealthy as it is. --I. F. ]
As the original text of the 'Descriptive Sketches' is printed in
Appendix I. (p. 309) to this volume--with all the notes to that edition
of 1793--it is not quoted in the footnotes to the final text in the
pages which follow, except in cases which will justify themselves.
Therefore the various readings which follow begin with the edition of
1815, which was, however, a mere fragment of the original text. Almost
the whole of the poem of 1793 was reproduced in 1820, but there were
many alterations of the text in that edition, and in those of 1827,
1832, 1836 and 1845. Wordsworth's own footnotes here reproduced are
those which he retained in the edition of 1849.
'Descriptive Sketches' was ranked among the "Juvenile Pieces" from 1815
onwards: but in 1836 it was put in a class by itself along with the
'Female Vagrant'. [D]--Ed.
'Happiness (if she had been to be found on earth) among the charms of
Nature--Pleasures of the pedestrian Traveller--Author crosses France to
the Alps--Present state of the Grande Chartreuse--Lake of Como--Time,
Sunset--Same Scene, Twilight--Same Scene, Morning; its voluptuous
Character; Old man and forest-cottage music--River Tusa--Via Mala and
Grison Gipsy--Sckellenen-thal--Lake of Uri--Stormy sunset--Chapel of
William Tell--Force of local emotion--Chamois-chaser--View of the higher
Alps--Manner of Life of a Swiss mountaineer, interspersed with views of
the higher Alps--Golden Age of the Alps--Life and views continued--Ranz
des Vaches, famous Swiss Air--Abbey of Einsiedlen and its
pilgrims--Valley of Chamouny--Mont Blanc--Slavery of Savoy--Influence of
liberty on cottage-happiness--France--Wish for the Extirpation of
slavery--Conclusion'.
* * * * *
THE POEM
Were there, below, a spot of holy ground
Where from distress a refuge might be found,
And solitude prepare the soul for heaven;
Sure, nature's God that spot to man had given [1]
Where falls the purple morning far and wide 5
In flakes of light upon the mountain-side;
Where with loud voice the power of water shakes [2]
The leafy wood, or sleeps in quiet lakes.
Yet not unrecompensed the man shall roam,
Who at the call of summer quits his home, 10
And plods through some wide realm o'er vale and height,
Though seeking only holiday delight; [3]
At least, not owning to himself an aim
To which the sage would give a prouder name. [4]
No gains too cheaply earned his fancy cloy, 15
Though every passing zephyr whispers joy;
Brisk toil, alternating with ready ease,
Feeds the clear current of his sympathies. [5]
For him sod-seats the cottage-door adorn;
And peeps the far-off spire, his evening bourn! 20
Dear is the forest frowning o'er his head,
And dear the velvet green-sward to his tread: [6]
Moves there a cloud o'er mid-day's flaming eye?
Upward he looks--"and calls it luxury:" [E]
Kind Nature's charities his steps attend; 25
In every babbling brook he finds a friend;
While [7] chastening thoughts of sweetest use, bestowed
By wisdom, moralise his pensive road.
Host of his welcome inn, the noon-tide bower,
To his spare meal he calls the passing poor; 30
He views the sun uplift his golden fire,
Or sink, with heart alive like Memnon's lyre; [F]
Blesses the moon that comes with kindly ray,
To light him shaken by his rugged way. [8]
Back from his sight no bashful children steal; 35
He sits a brother at the cottage-meal; [9]
His humble looks no shy restraint impart;
Around him plays at will the virgin heart.
While unsuspended wheels the village dance,
The maidens eye him with enquiring glance, 40
Much wondering by what fit of crazing care,
Or desperate love, bewildered, he came there. [10]
A hope, that prudence could not then approve,
That clung to Nature with a truant's love,
O'er Gallia's wastes of corn my footsteps led; 45
Her files of road-elms, high above my head
In long-drawn vista, rustling in the breeze;
Or where her pathways straggle as they please
By lonely farms and secret villages.
But lo! the Alps ascending white in air, [11] 50
Toy with the sun and glitter from afar.
And now, emerging from the forest's gloom,
I greet thee, Chartreuse, while I mourn thy doom.
Whither is fled that Power whose frown severe
Awed sober Reason till she crouched in fear? [12] 55
_That_ Silence, once in deathlike fetters bound,
Chains that were loosened only by the sound
Of holy rites chanted in measured round? [13]
--The voice of blasphemy the fane alarms,
The cloister startles at the gleam of arms. [14] 60
The [15] thundering tube the aged angler hears, [G]
Bent o'er the groaning flood that sweeps away his tears. [16]
Cloud-piercing pine-trees nod their troubled heads, [17]
Spires, rocks, and lawns a browner night o'erspreads;
Strong terror checks the female peasant's sighs, 65
And start the astonished shades at female eyes.
From Bruno's forest screams the affrighted jay,
And slow the insulted eagle wheels away.
A viewless flight of laughing Demons mock
The Cross, by angels planted [H] on the aerial rock. [18] 70
The "parting Genius" [J] sighs with hollow breath
Along the mystic streams of Life and Death. [K]
Swelling the outcry dull, that long resounds
Portentous through her old woods' trackless bounds,
Vallombre, [L] 'mid her falling fanes deplores 75
For ever broke, the sabbath of her bowers.
More pleased, my foot the hidden margin roves
Of Como, bosomed deep in chestnut groves.
No meadows thrown between, the giddy steeps
Tower, bare or sylvan, from the narrow deeps. 80
--To towns, whose shades of no rude noise [19] complain,
From ringing team apart [20] and grating wain--
To flat-roofed towns, that touch the water's bound,
Or lurk in woody sunless glens profound,
Or, from the bending rocks, obtrusive cling, 85
And o'er the whitened wave their shadows fling--
The pathway leads, as round the steeps it twines; [21]
And Silence loves its purple roof of vines.
The loitering traveller [22] hence, at evening, sees
From rock-hewn steps the sail between the trees; 90
Or marks, 'mid opening cliffs, fair dark-eyed maids
Tend the small harvest of their garden glades;
Or stops the solemn mountain-shades to view
Stretch o'er the pictured mirror broad and blue,
And track the yellow lights from steep to steep, 95
As up the opposing hills they slowly creep. [23]
Aloft, here, half a village shines, arrayed
In golden light; [24] half hides itself in shade:
While, from amid the darkened roofs, the spire,
Restlessly flashing, seems to mount like fire: [25] 100
There, all unshaded, blazing forests throw
Rich golden verdure on the lake [26] below.
Slow glides the sail along the illumined shore,
And steals into the shade the lazy oar;
Soft bosoms breathe around contagious sighs, 105
And amorous music on the water dies.
How blest, delicious scene! the eye that greets
Thy open beauties, or thy lone retreats;
Beholds the unwearied sweep of wood that scales
Thy cliffs; the endless waters of thy vales; [27] 110
Thy lowly cots that sprinkle all the shore, [28]
Each with its [29] household boat beside the door;
[30] Thy torrents shooting from the clear-blue sky;
Thy towns, that cleave, like swallows' nests, on high; [31]
That glimmer hoar in eve's last light descried 115
Dim from the twilight water's shaggy side,
Whence lutes and voices down the enchanted woods
Steal, and compose the oar-forgotten floods;
[32]--Thy lake, that, streaked or dappled, blue or grey,
'Mid smoking woods gleams hid from morning's ray [33] 120
Slow-travelling down the western hills, to' enfold [34]
Its green-tinged margin in a blaze of gold;
Thy glittering steeples, whence the matin bell
Calls forth the woodman from his desert cell,
And quickens the blithe sound of oars that pass 125
Along the steaming lake, to early mass. [35]
But now farewell to each and all--adieu
To every charm, and last and chief to you, [36]
Ye lovely maidens that in noontide shade
Rest near your little plots of wheaten glade; [37] 130
To all that binds [38] the soul in powerless trance,
Lip-dewing song, and ringlet-tossing dance;
Where sparkling eyes and breaking smiles illume
The sylvan cabin's lute-enlivened gloom.
--Alas! the very murmur of the streams 135
Breathes o'er the failing soul voluptuous dreams,
While Slavery, forcing the sunk mind to dwell
On joys that might disgrace the captive's cell,
Her shameless timbrel shakes on Como's marge,
And lures [39] from bay to bay the vocal barge. 140
Yet are thy softer arts with power indued
To soothe and cheer the poor man's solitude.
By silent cottage-doors, the peasant's home
Left vacant for the day, I loved to roam. [40]
But once I pierced the mazes of a wood 145
In which a cabin undeserted stood; [41]
There an old man an olden measure scanned
On a rude viol touched with withered hand. [42]
As lambs or fawns in April clustering lie [43]
Under a hoary oak's thin canopy, 150
Stretched at his feet, with stedfast upward eye,
His children's children listened to the sound; [44]
--A Hermit with his family around!
But let us hence; for fair Locarno smiles
Embowered in walnut slopes and citron isles: 155
Or seek at eve the banks of Tusa's stream,
Where, [45] 'mid dim towers and woods, her [M] waters gleam.
From the bright wave, in solemn gloom, retire
The dull-red steeps, and, darkening still, aspire
To where afar rich orange lustres glow 160
Round undistinguished clouds, and rocks, and snow:
Or, led where Via Mala's chasms confine
The indignant waters of the infant Rhine,
Hang o'er the abyss, whose else impervious gloom [46]
His burning eyes with fearful light illume. 165
The mind condemned, without reprieve, to go
O'er life's long deserts with its charge of woe,
With sad congratulation joins the train
Where beasts and men together o'er the plain
Move on--a mighty caravan of pain: 170
Hope, strength, and courage, social suffering brings,
Freshening the wilderness with shades and springs.
--There be whose lot far otherwise is cast:
Sole human tenant of the piny waste, [47]
By choice or doom a gipsy wanders here, 175
A nursling babe her only comforter;
Lo, where she sits beneath yon shaggy rock,
A cowering shape half hid in curling smoke! [48]
When lightning among clouds and mountain-snows
Predominates, and darkness comes and goes, 180
And the fierce torrent, at the flashes broad
Starts, like a horse, beside the glaring road--
She seeks a covert from the battering shower
In the roofed bridge [N]; the bridge, in that dread hour,
Itself all trembling at the torrent's power. [49] 185
Nor is she more at ease on some _still_ night,
When not a star supplies the comfort of its light;
Only the waning moon hangs dull and red
Above a melancholy mountain's head,
Then sets. In total gloom the Vagrant sighs, 190
Stoops her sick head, and shuts her weary eyes;
Or on her fingers counts the distant clock,
Or, to the drowsy crow of midnight cock,
Listens, or quakes while from the forest's gulf
Howls near and nearer yet the famished wolf. [50] 195
From the green vale of Urseren smooth and wide
Descend we now, the maddened Reuss our guide; [51]
By rocks that, shutting out the blessed day,
Cling tremblingly to rocks as loose as they;
By cells [P] upon whose image, while he prays, 200
The kneeling peasant scarcely dares to gaze;
By many a votive death-cross [Q] planted near,
And watered duly with the pious tear,
That faded silent from the upward eye
Unmoved with each rude form of peril nigh; [52] 205
Fixed on the anchor left by Him who saves
Alike in whelming snows, and roaring waves.
But soon a peopled region on the sight
Opens--a little world of calm delight; [53]
Where mists, suspended on the expiring gale, 210
Spread roof like o'er the deep secluded vale, [54]
And beams of evening slipping in between,
Gently illuminate a sober scene:--[55]
Here, on the brown wood-cottages [R] they sleep, [56]
There, over rock or sloping pasture creep. [57] 215
On as we journey, in clear view displayed,
The still vale lengthens underneath its shade
Of low-hung vapour: on the freshened mead
The green light sparkles;--the dim bowers recede. [58]
While pastoral pipes and streams the landscape lull, 220
And bells of passing mules that tinkle dull,
In solemn shapes before the admiring eye
Dilated hang the misty pines on high,
Huge convent domes with pinnacles and towers,
And antique castles seen through gleamy [59] showers. 225
From such romantic dreams, my soul, awake!
To sterner pleasure, where, by Uri's lake
In Nature's pristine majesty outspread,
Winds neither road nor path for foot to tread: [60]
The rocks rise naked as a wall, or stretch, 230
Far o'er the water, hung with groves of beech; [61]
Aerial pines from loftier steeps ascend,
Nor stop but where creation seems to end. [62]
Yet here and there, if 'mid the savage scene
Appears a scanty plot of smiling green, 235
Up from the lake a zigzag path will creep
To reach a small wood-hut hung boldly on the steep. [63]
--Before those thresholds (never can they know [64]
The face of traveller passing to and fro,)
No peasant leans upon his pole, to tell 240
For whom at morning tolled the funeral bell;
Their watch-dog ne'er his angry bark foregoes,
Touched by the beggar's moan of human woes;
The shady porch ne'er offered a cool seat
To pilgrims overcome by summer's heat. [65] 245
Yet thither the world's business finds its way
At times, and tales unsought beguile the day,
And _there_ are those fond thoughts which Solitude, [66]
However stern, is powerless to exclude. [67]
There doth the maiden watch her lover's sail 250
Approaching, and upbraid the tardy gale;
At midnight listens till his parting oar,
And its last echo, can be heard no more. [68]
And what if ospreys, cormorants, herons cry,
Amid tempestuous vapours driving by, [69] 255
Or hovering over wastes too bleak to rear
That common growth of earth, the foodful ear; [70]
Where the green apple shrivels on the spray,
And pines the unripened pear in summer's kindliest ray; [71]
Contentment shares the desolate domain [72] 260
With Independence, child of high Disdain.
Exulting 'mid the winter of the skies,
Shy as the jealous chamois, Freedom flies,
And grasps by fits her sword, and often eyes;
And sometimes, as from rock to rock she bounds 265
The Patriot nymph starts at imagined sounds,
And, wildly pausing, oft she hangs aghast,
Whether some old Swiss air hath checked her haste
Or thrill of Spartan fife is caught between the blast. [73]
Swoln with incessant rains from hour to hour, [74] 270
All day the floods a deepening murmur pour:
The sky is veiled, and every cheerful sight:
Dark is the region as with coming night;
But what a sudden burst of overpowering light!
Triumphant on the bosom of the storm, 275
Glances the wheeling eagle's glorious form! [75]
Eastward, in long perspective glittering, shine
The wood-crowned cliffs that o'er the lake recline;
Those lofty cliffs a hundred streams unfold, [76]
At once to pillars turned that flame with gold: 280
Behind his sail the peasant shrinks, to shun
The _west_, [77] that burns like one dilated sun,
A crucible of mighty compass, felt
By mountains, glowing till they seem to melt. [78]
But, lo! the boatman, overawed, before 285
The pictured fane of Tell suspends his oar;
Confused the Marathonian tale appears,
While his eyes sparkle with heroic tears. [79]
And who, that walks where men of ancient days
Have wrought with godlike arm the deeds of praise, 290
Feels not the spirit of the place control,
Or rouse [80] and agitate his labouring soul?
Say, who, by thinking on Canadian hills,
Or wild Aosta lulled by Alpine rills,
On Zutphen's plain; or on that highland dell, 295
Through which rough Garry cleaves his way, can tell
What high resolves exalt the tenderest thought
Of him whom passion rivets to the spot, [81]
Where breathed the gale that caught Wolfe's happiest sigh,
And the last sunbeam fell on Bayard's eye; 300
Where bleeding Sidney from the cup retired,
And glad Dundee in "faint huzzas" [S] expired?
But now with other mind I stand alone
Upon the summit of this naked cone,
And watch the fearless chamois-hunter chase 305
His prey, through tracts abrupt of desolate space, [82]
[T] Through vacant worlds where Nature never gave
A brook to murmur or a bough to wave,
Which unsubstantial Phantoms sacred keep;
Thro' worlds where Life, and Voice, and Motion sleep; 310
Where silent Hours their death-like sway extend,
Save when the avalanche breaks loose, to rend
Its way with uproar, till the ruin, drowned
In some dense wood or gulf of snow profound,
Mocks the dull ear of Time with deaf abortive sound. [83] 315
--'Tis his, while wandering on from height to height,
To see a planet's pomp and steady light
In the least star of scarce-appearing night;
While the pale moon moves near him, on the bound
Of ether, shining with diminished round, [84] 320
And far and wide the icy summits blaze,
Rejoicing in the glory of her rays:
To him the day-star glitters small and bright,
Shorn of its beams, insufferably white,
And he can look beyond the sun, and view 325
Those fast-receding depths of sable blue
Flying till vision can no more pursue! [85]
--At once bewildering mists around him close,
And cold and hunger are his least of woes;
The Demon of the snow, with angry roar 330
Descending, shuts for aye his prison door.
Soon with despair's whole weight his spirits sink;
Bread has he none, the snow must be his drink;
And, ere his eyes can close upon the day, [86]
The eagle of the Alps o'ershades her prey. 335
Now couch thyself where, heard with fear afar, [87]
Thunders through echoing pines the headlong Aar;
Or rather stay to taste the mild delights
Of pensive Underwalden's [U] pastoral heights.
--Is there who 'mid these awful wilds has seen 340
The native Genii walk the mountain green?
Or heard, while other worlds their charms reveal,
Soft music o'er [88] the aerial summit steal?
While o'er the desert, answering every close,
Rich steam of sweetest perfume comes and goes. 345
--And sure there is a secret Power that reigns
Here, where no trace of man the spot profanes,
Nought but the _chalets_, [V] flat and bare, on high
Suspended 'mid the quiet of the sky;
Or distant herds that pasturing upward creep, 350
And, not untended, climb the dangerous steep. [89]
How still! no irreligious sound or sight
Rouses the soul from her severe delight.
An idle voice the sabbath region fills
Of Deep that calls to Deep across the hills, 355
And with that voice accords the soothing sound [90]
Of drowsy bells, for ever tinkling round;
Faint wail of eagle melting into blue
Beneath the cliffs, and pine-woods' steady _sugh_; [W]
The solitary heifer's deepened low; 360
Or rumbling, heard remote, of falling snow.
All motions, sounds, and voices, far and nigh,
Blend in a music of tranquillity; [91]
Save when, a stranger seen below [92] the boy
Shouts from the echoing hills with savage joy. 365
When, from the sunny breast of open seas,
And bays with myrtle fringed, the southern breeze
Comes on to gladden April with the sight
Of green isles widening on each snow-clad height; [93]
When shouts and lowing herds the valley fill, 370
And louder torrents stun the noon-tide hill,
[94] The pastoral Swiss begin the cliffs to scale,
Leaving to silence the deserted vale; [95]
And like the Patriarchs in their simple age
Move, as the verdure leads, from stage to stage; [96] 375
High and more high in summer's heat they go, [97]
And hear the rattling thunder far below;
Or steal beneath the mountains, half-deterred,
Where huge rocks tremble to the bellowing herd. [98]
One I behold who, 'cross the foaming flood, 380
Leaps with a bound of graceful hardihood;
Another high on that green ledge;--he gained
The tempting spot with every sinew strained; [99]
And downward thence a knot of grass he throws,
Food for his beasts in time of winter snows. [100] 385
--Far different life from what Tradition hoar
Transmits of happier lot in times of yore! [101]
Then Summer lingered long; and honey flowed
From out the rocks, the wild bees' safe abode: [102]
Continual waters [103] welling cheered the waste, 390
And plants were wholesome, now of deadly taste:
Nor Winter yet his frozen stores had piled,
Usurping where the fairest herbage smiled:
Nor Hunger driven the herds from pastures bare,
To climb the treacherous cliffs for scanty fare. [104] 395
Then the milk-thistle flourished through the land,
And forced the full-swoln udder to demand,
Thrice every day, the pail and welcome hand. [105]
Thus does the father to his children tell
Of banished bliss, by fancy loved too well. [106] 400
Alas! that human guilt provoked the rod [107]
Of angry Nature to avenge her God.
Still, Nature, ever just, to him imparts
Joys only given to uncorrupted hearts.
'Tis morn: with gold the verdant mountain glows; 405
More high, the snowy peaks with hues of rose.
Far-stretched beneath the many-tinted hills,
A mighty waste of mist the valley fills,
A solemn sea! whose billows wide around [108]
Stand motionless, to awful silence bound: 410
Pines, on the coast, through mist their tops uprear,
That like to leaning masts of stranded ships appear.
A single chasm, a gulf of gloomy blue,
Gapes in the centre of the sea--and through
That dark mysterious gulf ascending, sound 415
Innumerable streams with roar profound. [109]
Mount through the nearer vapours notes of birds,
And merry flageolet; the low of herds,
The bark of dogs, the heifer's tinkling bell,
Talk, laughter, and perchance a church-tower knell: [110] 420
Think not, the peasant from aloft has gazed
And heard with heart unmoved, with soul unraised: [111]
Nor is his spirit less enrapt, nor less
Alive to independent happiness, [112]
Then, when he lies, out-stretched, at even-tide 425
Upon the fragrant mountain's purple side: [113]
For as the pleasures of his simple day
Beyond his native valley seldom stray,
Nought round its darling precincts can he find
But brings some past enjoyment to his mind; 430
While Hope, reclining upon Pleasure's urn, [114]
Binds her wild wreaths, and whispers his return.
Once, Man entirely free, alone and wild,
Was blest as free--for he was Nature's child.
He, all superior but his God disdained, 435
Walked none restraining, and by none restrained:
Confessed no law but what his reason taught,
Did all he wished, and wished but what he ought.
As man in his primeval dower arrayed
The image of his glorious Sire displayed, 440
Even so, by faithful [115] Nature guarded, here
The traces of primeval Man appear;
The simple [116] dignity no forms debase;
The eye sublime, and surly lion-grace:
The slave of none, of beasts alone the lord, 445
His book he prizes, nor neglects his sword; [117]
--Well taught by that to feel his rights, prepared
With this "the blessings he enjoys to guard. " [X]
And, as his native hills encircle ground
For many a marvellous [118] victory renowned, 450
The work of Freedom daring to oppose,
With few in arms, [Y] innumerable foes,
When to those famous [119] fields his steps are led,
An unknown power connects him with the dead:
For images of other worlds are there; 455
Awful the light, and holy is the air.
Fitfully, and in flashes, through his soul,
Like sun-lit tempests, troubled transports roll;
His bosom heaves, his Spirit towers amain, [120]
Beyond the senses and their little reign. 460
And oft, when that dread vision hath past by, [121]
He holds with God himself communion high,
There where the peal [122] of swelling torrents fills
The sky-roofed temple of the eternal hills;
Or, when upon the mountain's silent brow 465
Reclined, he sees, above him and below,
Bright stars of ice and azure fields of snow;
While needle peaks of granite shooting bare
Tremble in ever-varying tints of air.
And when a gathering weight of shadows brown 470
Falls on the valleys as the sun goes down;
And Pikes, of darkness named and fear and storms, [Z]
Uplift in quiet their illumined forms, [123]
In sea-like reach of prospect round him spread,
Tinged like an angel's smile all rosy red-- 475
Awe in his breast with holiest love unites,
And the near heavens impart their own delights. [124]
When downward to his winter hut he goes,
Dear and more dear the lessening circle grows;
That hut which on the hills so oft employs 480
His thoughts, the central point of all his joys. [125]
And as a swallow, at the hour of rest,
Peeps often ere she darts into her nest,
So to the homestead, where the grandsire tends
A little prattling child, he oft descends, 485
To glance a look upon the well-matched pair; [126]
Till storm and driving ice blockade him there.
There, [127] safely guarded by the woods behind,
He hears the chiding of the baffled wind,
Hears Winter calling all his terrors round, 490
And, blest within himself, he shrinks not from the sound. [128]
Through Nature's vale his homely pleasures glide,
Unstained by envy, discontent, and pride;
The bound of all his vanity, to deck,
With one bright bell, a favourite heifer's neck; 495
Well pleased [129] upon some simple annual feast,
Remembered half the year and hoped the rest,
If dairy-produce, from his inner hoard,
Of thrice ten summers dignify [130] the board.
--Alas! in every clime a flying ray 500
Is all we have to cheer our wintry way;
[131]
And here the unwilling mind [132] may more than trace
The general sorrows of the human race:
The churlish gales of penury, that blow
Cold as the north-wind o'er a waste of snow, [133] 505
To them [134] the gentle groups of bliss deny
That on the noon-day bank of leisure lie.
Yet more;--compelled by Powers which only deign
That _solitary_ man disturb their reign,
Powers that support an unremitting [135] strife 510
With all the tender charities of life,
Full oft the father, when his sons have grown
To manhood, seems their title to disown; [136]
And from his nest [137] amid the storms of heaven
Drives, eagle-like, those sons as he was driven; 515
With stern composure [138] watches to the plain--
And never, eagle-like, beholds again!
When long familiar joys are all resigned,
Why does their sad remembrance haunt the mind? [139]
Lo! where through flat Batavia's willowy groves, 520
Or by the lazy Seine, the exile roves;
O'er the curled waters Alpine measures swell,
And search the affections to their inmost cell;
Sweet poison spreads along the listener's veins,
Turning past pleasures into mortal pains; [140] 525
Poison, which not a frame of steel can brave,
Bows his young head with sorrow to the grave. [Aa]
Gay lark of hope, thy silent song resume!
Ye flattering eastern lights, once more the hills illume! [141]
Fresh [142] gales and dews of life's delicious morn, 530
And thou, lost fragrance of the heart, return!
Alas! the little joy to man allowed,
Fades like the lustre of an evening cloud; [143]
Or like the beauty in a flower installed,
Whose season was, and cannot be recalled. 535
Yet, when opprest by sickness, grief, or care,
And taught that pain is pleasure's natural heir,
We still confide in more than we can know;
Death would be else the favourite friend of woe. [144]
'Mid savage rocks, and seas of snow that shine, 540
Between interminable tracts of pine,
Within a temple stands an awful shrine, [145]
By an uncertain light revealed, that falls
On the mute Image and the troubled walls.
Oh! give not me that eye of hard disdain 545
That views, undimmed, Ensiedlen's [Bb] wretched fane.
While ghastly faces through the gloom appear, [146]
Abortive joy, and hope that works in fear; [147]
While prayer contends with silenced agony, [148]
Surely in other thoughts contempt may die. 550
If the sad grave of human ignorance bear
One flower of hope--oh, pass and leave it there! [Cc]
The tall sun, pausing [149] on an Alpine spire,
Flings o'er the wilderness a stream of fire:
Now meet we other pilgrims ere the day [150] 555
Close on the remnant of their weary way;
While they are drawing toward the sacred floor
Where, so they fondly think, the worm shall gnaw no more. [151]
How gaily murmur and how sweetly taste
The fountains [Dd] reared for them [152] amid the waste! 560
Their thirst they slake:--they wash their toil-worn feet,
And some with tears of joy each other greet. [153]
Yes, I must [154] see you when ye first behold
Those holy turrets tipped with evening gold,
In that glad moment will for you a sigh 565
Be heaved, of charitable sympathy; [155]
In that glad moment when your [156] hands are prest
In mute devotion on the thankful breast!
Last, let us turn to Chamouny that shields [157]
With rocks and gloomy woods [158] her fertile fields: 570
Five streams of ice amid her cots descend,
And with wild flowers and blooming orchards blend;--[Ee]
A scene more fair than what the Grecian feigns
Of purple lights and ever-vernal plains;
Here all the seasons revel hand in hand: 575
'Mid lawns and shades by breezy rivulets fanned [159]
[160] They sport beneath that mountain's matchless height [161]
That holds no commerce with the summer night. [Ee]
From age to age, throughout [162] his lonely bounds
The crash of ruin fitfully resounds; 580
Appalling [163] havoc! but serene his brow,
Where daylight lingers on [164] perpetual snow;
Glitter the stars, and all is black below. [Ee]
What marvel then if many a Wanderer sigh,
While roars the sullen Arve in anger by, [165] 585
That not for thy reward, unrivall'd [166] Vale! [Ff]
Waves the ripe harvest in the autumnal gale;
That thou, the slave of slaves, art doomed to pine
And droop, while no Italian arts are thine,
To soothe or cheer, to soften or refine. [167] 590
Hail Freedom! whether it was mine to stray,
With shrill winds whistling round my lonely way, [168]
On [169] the bleak sides of Cumbria's heath-clad moors,
Or where dank sea-weed lashes Scotland's shores;
To scent the sweets of Piedmont's breathing rose, 595
And orange gale that o'er Lugano blows;
Still have I found, where Tyranny prevails,
That virtue languishes and pleasure fails, [170]
While the remotest hamlets blessings share
In thy loved [171] presence known, and only there; 600
_Heart_-blessings--outward treasures too which the eye
Of the sun peeping through the clouds can spy,
And every passing breeze will testify. [172]
There, to the porch, belike with jasmine bound
Or woodbine wreaths, a smoother path is wound; [173] 605
The housewife there a brighter garden sees,
Where hum on busier wing her happy bees; [174]
On infant cheeks there fresher roses blow;
And grey-haired men look up with livelier brow,--[175]
To greet the traveller needing food and rest; 610
Housed for the night, or but a half-hour's guest. [176]
And oh, fair France! though now the traveller sees
Thy three-striped banner fluctuate on the breeze;[177]
Though martial songs have banished songs of love,
And nightingales desert the village grove, [178] 615
Scared by the fife and rumbling drum's alarms,
And the short thunder, and the flash of arms;
That cease not till night falls, when far and nigh,
Sole sound, the Sourd [Gg] prolongs his mournful cry! [179]
--Yet, hast thou found that Freedom spreads her power 620
Beyond the cottage-hearth, the cottage-door:
All nature smiles, and owns beneath her eyes
Her fields peculiar, and peculiar skies.
Yes, as I roamed where Loiret's waters glide
Through rustling aspens heard from side to side, 625
When from October clouds a milder light
Fell where the blue flood rippled into white;
Methought from every cot the watchful bird
Crowed with ear-piercing power till then unheard;
Each clacking mill, that broke the murmuring streams, 630
Rocked the charmed thought in more delightful dreams;
Chasing those pleasant dreams, [180] the falling leaf
Awoke a fainter sense [181] of moral grief;
The measured echo of the distant flail
Wound in more welcome cadence down the vale; 635
With more majestic course the water rolled,
And ripening foliage shone with richer gold. [182]
--But foes are gathering--Liberty must raise
Red on the hills her beacon's far-seen blaze;
Must bid the tocsin ring from tower to tower! -- 640
Nearer and nearer comes the trying hour! [183]
Rejoice, brave Land, though pride's perverted ire
Rouse hell's own aid, and wrap thy fields in fire:
Lo, from the flames a great and glorious birth;
As if a new-made heaven were hailing a new earth! [184] 645
--All cannot be: the promise is too fair
For creatures doomed to breathe terrestrial air:
Yet not for this will sober reason frown
Upon that promise, not the hope disown;
She knows that only from high aims ensue 650
Rich guerdons, and to them alone are due. [185]
Great God! by whom the strifes of men are weighed
In an impartial balance, give thine aid
To the just cause; and, oh! do thou preside
Over the mighty stream now spreading wide: [Hh] 655
So shall its waters, from the heavens supplied
In copious showers, from earth by wholesome springs,
Brood o'er the long-parched lands with Nile-like wings!
And grant that every sceptred child of clay
Who cries presumptuous, "Here the flood shall stay," [186] 660
May in its progress see thy guiding hand,
And cease the acknowledged purpose to withstand; [187]
Or, swept in anger from the insulted shore,
Sink with his servile bands, to rise no more! [188]
To-night, my Friend, within this humble cot 665
Be scorn and fear and hope alike forgot [189]
In timely sleep; and when, at break of day,
On the tall peaks the glistening sunbeams play, [190]
With a light heart our course we may renew,
The first whose footsteps print the mountain dew. [191] 670
* * * * *
VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
[Variant 1:
1827.
. . . a spot of holy ground,
By Pain and her sad family unfound,
Sure, Nature's God that spot to man had given,
Where murmuring rivers join the song of even;
Where falls . . . 1820. ]
[Variant 2:
1836.
Where the resounding power of water shakes 1820.
Where with loud voice the power of waters shakes 1827. ]
[Variant 3:
1836.
And not unrecompensed the man shall roam,
Who, to converse with Nature, quits his home,
And plods o'er hills and vales his way forlorn,
Wooing her various charms from eve to morn. 1820.
Yet not unrecompensed the man shall roam,
Who at the call of summer quits his home,
And plods through some far realm o'er vale and height,
Though seeking only holiday delight; 1827. ]
[Variant 4: Lines 13 and 14 were introduced in 1827. ]
[Variant 5:
1827.
No sad vacuities [i] his heart annoy;--
Blows not a Zephyr but it whispers joy;
For him lost flowers their idle sweets exhale;
He tastes the meanest note that swells the gale;
For him sod-seats . . . 1815.
Breathes not a zephyr but it whispers joy;
For him the loneliest flowers their sweets exhale;
He marks "the meanest note that swells the [ii] gale;" 1820. ]
[Variant 6:
1820.
And dear the green-sward to his velvet tread; 1815. ]
[Variant 7:
1815.
Whilst . . . Only in 1820. ]
[Variant 8:
1820.
. . . with kindest ray
To light him shaken by his viewless way. 1815. ]
[Variant 9:
1836.
With bashful fear no cottage children steal
From him, a brother at the cottage meal, 1815. ]
[Variant 10:
1845.
Much wondering what sad stroke of crazing Care,
Or desperate Love could lead a wanderer there. 1815.
Much wondering in what fit of crazing care,
Or desperate love, a wanderer came there. 1836. ]
[Variant 11:
1836.
Me, lured by hope her sorrows to remove,
A heart that could not much itself approve,
O'er Gallia's wastes of corn dejected led,
Her road elms rustling high above my head,
Or through her truant pathways' native charms,
By secret villages and lonely farms,
To where the Alps . . . 1820.
. . . could not much herself approve, 1827.
. . . lured by hope its sorrows to remove, 1832.
The lines 46, 47, were expanded in the edition of 1836 from one line in
the editions of 1820-1832. ]
[Variant 12:
1836.
I sigh at hoary Chartreuse' doom.
Where now is fled that Power whose frown severe
Tamed "sober Reason" till she crouched in fear?
That breathed a death-like peace these woods around;
The cloister startles . . . 1815.
Even now, emerging from the forest's gloom,
I heave a sigh at hoary Chartreuse' doom.
Where now is fled that Power whose frown severe
Tamed "sober Reason" till she crouched in fear? 1820. ]
[Variant 13:
1836.
That breathed a death-like silence wide around,
Broke only by the unvaried torrent's sound,
Or prayer-bell by the dull cicada drown'd. 1820.
The editions of 1827 and 1832 omit these lines. ]
[Variant 14:
1836.
