[i] 490
--Unfading recollections!
--Unfading recollections!
William Wordsworth
The fault lies too deep, and is in the first conception.
"
GRASMERE, June 3, 1805.
"I have the pleasure to say that I _finished my poem_ about a
fortnight ago. I had looked forward to the day as a most happy one;
. . . But it was not a happy day for me; I was dejected on many
accounts: when I looked back upon the performance, it seemed to have a
dead weight about it,--the reality so far short of the expectation. It
was the first long labour that I had finished; and the doubt whether I
should ever live to write 'The Recluse', and the sense which I had of
this poem being so far below what I seemed capable of executing,
depressed me much; above all, many heavy thoughts of my poor departed
brother hung upon me, the joy which I should have had in showing him
the manuscript, and a thousand other vain fancies and dreams. I have
spoken of this, because it was a state of feeling new to me, the
occasion being new. This work may be considered as a sort of _portico_
to 'The Recluse', part of the same building, which I hope to be able,
ere long, to begin with in earnest; and if I am permitted to bring it
to a conclusion, and to write, further, a narrative poem of the epic
kind, I shall consider the task of my life as over. I ought to add,
that I have the satisfaction of finding the present poem not quite of
so alarming a length as I apprehended. "
These letters explain the delay in the publication of 'The Prelude'.
They show that what led Wordsworth to write so much about himself was
not self-conceit, but self-diffidence. He felt unprepared as yet for the
more arduous task he had set before himself. He saw its faults as
clearly, or more clearly, than the critics who condemned him. He knew
that its length was excessive. He tried to condense it; he kept it
beside him unpublished, and occasionally revised it, with a view to
condensation, in vain. The text received his final corrections in the
year 1832.
Wordsworth's reluctance to publish these portions of his great poem,
'The Recluse', other than 'The Excursion', during his lifetime, was a
matter of surprise to his friends; to whom he, or the ladies of his
household, had read portions of it. In the year 1819, Charles Lamb wrote
to him,
"If, as you say, 'The Waggoner', in some sort, came at my call, oh for
a potent voice to call forth 'The Recluse' from his profound
dormitory, where he sleeps forgetful of his foolish charge--the
world! "
('The Letters of Charles Lamb', edited by Alfred Ainger, vol. ii. p.
26. )
The admission made in the letter of May 1st, 1805, is note-worthy:
"This defect" (of redundancy) "whenever I have suspected it or found
it to exist in any writings of mine, _I have always found incurable.
The fault lies too deep, and is in the first conception_. "
The actual result--in the Poem he had at length committed to
writing--was so far inferior to the ideal he had tried to realise, that
he could never be induced to publish it. He spoke of the MS. as forming
a sort of _portico_ to his larger work--the poem on Man, Nature, and
Society--which he meant to call 'The Recluse', and of which one portion
only, _viz. _ 'The Excursion', was finished. It is clear that throughout
the composition of 'The Prelude', he felt that he was experimenting with
his powers. He wished to find out whether he could construct "a literary
work that might live," on a larger scale than his Lyrics; and it was on
the writing of a "philosophical poem," dealing with Man and Nature, in
their deepest aspects, that his thoughts had been fixed for many years.
From the letter to Sir George Beaumont, December 25, 1804, it is evident
that he regarded the autobiographical poem as a mere prologue to this
larger work, to which he hoped to turn "with all his might" after 'The
Prelude' was finished, and of which he had already written about a fifth
or a sixth (see 'Memoirs', vol. i. p. 304). This was the part known in
the Grasmere household as "The Pedlar," a title given to it from the
character of the Wanderer, but afterwards happily set aside. He did not
devote himself, however, to the completion of his wider purpose,
immediately after 'The Prelude' was finished. He wrote one book of 'The
Recluse' which he called "Home at Grasmere"; and, though detached from
'The Prelude', it is a continuation of the narrative of his own life at
the point where it is left off in the latter poem. It consists of 733
lines. Two extracts from it were published in the 'Memoirs of
Wordsworth' in 1851 (vol. i. pp. 151 and 155), beginning,
'On Nature's invitation do I come,'
and
'Bleak season was it, turbulent and bleak. '
These will be found in vol. ii. of this edition, pp. 118 and 121
respectively.
The autobiographical poem remained, as already stated, during
Wordsworth's lifetime without a title. The name finally adopted--'The
Prelude'--was suggested by Mrs. Wordsworth, both to indicate its
relation to the larger work, and the fact of its having been written
comparatively early.
As the poem was addressed to Coleridge, it may be desirable to add in
this place his critical verdict upon it; along with the poem which he
wrote, on hearing Wordsworth read a portion of it to him, in the winter
of 1806, at Coleorton.
In his 'Table Talk' (London, 1835, vol. ii. p. 70), Coleridge's opinion
is recorded thus:
"I cannot help regretting that Wordsworth did not first publish his
thirteen (fourteen) books on the growth of an individual
mind--superior, as I used to think, upon the whole to 'The Excursion'.
You may judge how I felt about them by my own Poem upon the occasion.
Then the plan laid out, and, I believe, partly suggested by me, was,
that Wordsworth should assume the station of a man in mental repose,
one whose principles were made up, and so prepared to deliver upon
authority a system of philosophy. He was to treat man as man,--a
subject of eye, ear, touch, and taste in contact with external nature,
and informing the senses from the mind, and not compounding a mind out
of the senses; then he was to describe the pastoral and other states
of society, assuming something of the Juvenalian spirit as he
approached the high civilisation of cities and towns, and opening a
melancholy picture of the present state of degeneracy and vice; thence
he was to infer and reveal the proof of, and necessity for, the whole
state of man and society being subject to, and illustrative of a
redemptive process in operation, showing how this idea reconciled all
the anomalies, and promised future glory and restoration. Something of
this sort was, I think, agreed on. It is, in substance, what I have
been all my life doing in my system of philosophy.
"I think Wordsworth possessed more of the genius of a great
Philosopher than any man I ever knew, or, as I believe, has existed in
England since Milton; but it seems to me that he ought never to have
abandoned the contemplative position which is peculiarly--perhaps, I
might say exclusively--fitted for him. His proper title is 'Spectator
ab extra'. "
The following are Coleridge's Lines addressed to Wordsworth:
TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
COMPOSED ON THE NIGHT AFTER HIS RECITATION OF A POEM ON THE GROWTH OF
AN INDIVIDUAL MIND
Friend of the wise! and teacher of the good!
Into my heart have I received that lay
More than historic, that prophetic lay
Wherein (high theme by thee first sung aright)
Of the foundations and the building up
Of a Human Spirit thou hast dared to tell
What may be told, to the understanding mind
Revealable; and what within the mind
By vital breathings secret as the soul
Of vernal growth, oft quickens in the heart
Thoughts all too deep for words! --
Theme hard as high,
Of smiles spontaneous, and mysterious fears
(The first-born they of Reason and twin-birth),
Of tides obedient to external force,
And currents self-determined, as might seem,
Or by some inner power; of moments awful,
Now in thy inner life, and now abroad,
When power streamed from thee, and thy soul received
The Light reflected, as a light bestowed--
Of fancies fair, and milder hours of youth,
Hyblean murmurs of poetic thought
Industrious in its joy, in vales and glens,
Native or outland, lakes and famous hills!
Or on the lonely high-road, when the stars
Were rising; or by secret mountain-streams,
The guides and the companions of thy way!
Of more than Fancy, of the Social Sense
Distending wide, and man beloved as man,
Where France in all her towns lay vibrating
Like some becalmed bark beneath the burst
Of Heaven's immediate thunder, when no cloud
Is visible, or shadow on the main.
For thou wert there, thine own brows garlanded,
Amid the tremor of a realm aglow,
Amid a mighty nation jubilant,
When from the general heart of humankind
Hope sprang forth like a full-born Deity!
--Of that dear Hope afflicted and struck down,
So summoned homeward, thenceforth calm and sure,
From the dread watch-tower of man's absolute self,
With light unwaning on her eyes, to look
Far on--herself a glory to behold.
The Angel of the vision! Then (last strain)
Of Duty, chosen laws controlling choice,
Action and joy! --An Orphic song indeed,
A song divine of high and passionate thoughts
To their own music chanted!
O great Bard!
Ere yet that last strain dying awed the air,
With stedfast eye I viewed thee in the choir
Of ever-enduring men. The truly great
Have all one age, and from one visible space
Shed influence! They, both in power and act,
Are permanent, and Time is not with them,
Save as it worketh for them, they in it.
Nor less a sacred roll, than those of old,
And to be placed, as they, with gradual fame
Among the archives of mankind, thy work
Makes audible a linked lay of Truth,
Of Truth profound a sweet continuous lay,
Not learnt, but native, her own natural notes!
Ah! as I listened with a heart forlorn,
The pulses of my being beat anew:
And even as life returns upon the drowned,
Life's joy rekindling roused a throng of pains--
Keen pangs of Love, awakening as a babe
Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart;
And fears self-willed, that shunned the eye of hope;
And hope that scarce would know itself from fear;
Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain,
And genius given, and knowledge won in vain;
And all which I had culled in wood-walks wild,
And all which patient toil had reared, and all,
Commune with thee had opened out--but flowers
Strewed on my corse, and borne upon my bier,
In the same coffin, for the self-same grave!
. . . Eve following eve,
Dear tranquil time, when the sweet sense of Home
Is sweetest! moments for their own sake hailed,
And more desired, more precious for thy song,
In silence listening, like a devout child,
My soul lay passive, by thy various strain
Driven as in surges now beneath the stars,
With momentary stars of my own birth,
Fair constellated foam, [C] still darting off
Into the darkness; now a tranquil sea,
Outspread and bright, yet swelling to the moon.
And when--O Friend! my comforter and guide!
Strong in thyself, and powerful to give strength! --
Thy long-sustained Song finally closed,
And thy deep voice had ceased--yet thou thyself
Wert still before my eyes, and round us both
That happy vision of beloved faces--
Scarce conscious, and yet conscious of its close
I sate, my being blended in one thought
(Thought was it? or aspiration? or resolve? )
Absorbed, yet hanging still upon the sound--
And when I rose I found myself in prayer.
It was at Coleorton, in Leicestershire,--where the Wordsworths lived
during the winter of 1806-7, in a farm-house belonging to Sir George
Beaumont, and where Coleridge visited them,--that 'The Prelude' was read
aloud by its author, on the occasion which gave birth to these
lines. --Ed.
[Footnote A: See the 'De Quincey Memorials,' vol. i. p. 125. --Ed. ]
[Footnote B: A poem on his brother John. --Ed. ]
[Footnote C: Compare
"A beautiful white cloud of foam at momentary intervals, coursed by
the side of the vessel with a roar, and little stars of flame danced
and sparkled and went out in it: and every now and then light
detachments of this white cloud-like foam darted off from the vessel's
side, each with its own small constellation, over the sea, and scoured
out of sight like a Tartar troop over a wilderness. "
S. T. C. in 'Biographia Literaria', Satyrane's Letters, letter i. p. 196
(edition 1817). --Ed. ]
* * * * *
BOOK FIRST
INTRODUCTION. --CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOL-TIME
O there is blessing in this gentle breeze,
A visitant that while it fans my cheek
Doth seem half-conscious of the joy it brings
From the green fields, and from yon azure sky.
Whate'er its mission, the soft breeze can come 5
To none more grateful than to me; escaped
From the vast city, [A] where I long had pined
A discontented sojourner: now free,
Free as a bird to settle where I will.
What dwelling shall receive me? in what vale 10
Shall be my harbour? underneath what grove
Shall I take up my home? and what clear stream
Shall with its murmur lull me into rest?
The earth is all before me. [B] With a heart
Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty, 15
I look about; and should the chosen guide
Be nothing better than a wandering cloud,
I cannot miss my way. I breathe again!
Trances of thought and mountings of the mind
Come fast upon me: it is shaken off, 20
That burthen of my own unnatural self,
The heavy weight of many a weary day [C]
Not mine, and such as were not made for me.
Long months of peace (if such bold word accord
With any promises of human life), 25
Long months of ease and undisturbed delight
Are mine in prospect; whither shall I turn,
By road or pathway, or through trackless field,
Up hill or down, or shall some floating thing
Upon the river point me out my course? 30
Dear Liberty! Yet what would it avail
But for a gift that consecrates the joy?
For I, methought, while the sweet breath of heaven
Was blowing on my body, felt within
A correspondent breeze, that gently moved 35
With quickening virtue, but is now become
A tempest, a redundant energy,
Vexing its own creation. Thanks to both,
And their congenial powers, that, while they join
In breaking up a long-continued frost, 40
Bring with them vernal promises, the hope
Of active days urged on by flying hours,--
Days of sweet leisure, taxed with patient thought
Abstruse, nor wanting punctual service high,
Matins and vespers of harmonious verse! 45
Thus far, O Friend! [D] did I, not used to make
A present joy the matter of a song,
Pour forth that day my soul in measured strains
That would not be forgotten, and are here
Recorded: to the open fields I told 50
A prophecy: poetic numbers came
Spontaneously to clothe in priestly robe
A renovated spirit singled out,
Such hope was mine, for holy services.
My own voice cheered me, and, far more, the mind's 55
Internal echo of the imperfect sound;
To both I listened, drawing from them both
A cheerful confidence in things to come.
Content and not unwilling now to give
A respite to this passion, I paced on 60
With brisk and eager steps; and came, at length,
To a green shady place, [E] where down I sate
Beneath a tree, slackening my thoughts by choice,
And settling into gentler happiness.
'Twas autumn, and a clear and placid day, 65
With warmth, as much as needed, from a sun
Two hours declined towards the west; a day
With silver clouds, and sunshine on the grass,
And in the sheltered and the sheltering grove
A perfect stillness. Many were the thoughts 70
Encouraged and dismissed, till choice was made
Of a known Vale, [F] whither my feet should turn,
Nor rest till they had reached the very door
Of the one cottage [G] which methought I saw.
No picture of mere memory ever looked 75
So fair; and while upon the fancied scene
I gazed with growing love, a higher power
Than Fancy gave assurance of some work
Of glory there forthwith to be begun,
Perhaps too there performed. Thus long I mused, 80
Nor e'er lost sight of what I mused upon,
Save when, amid the stately groves of oaks,
Now here, now there, an acorn, from its cup
Dislodged, through sere leaves rustled, or at once
To the bare earth dropped with a startling sound. 85
From that soft couch I rose not, till the sun
Had almost touched the horizon; casting then
A backward glance upon the curling cloud
Of city smoke, by distance ruralised;
Keen as a Truant or a Fugitive, 90
But as a Pilgrim resolute, I took,
Even with the chance equipment of that hour,
The road that pointed toward the chosen Vale. [F]
It was a splendid evening, and my soul
Once more made trial of her strength, nor lacked 95
AEolian visitations; but the harp
Was soon defrauded, and the banded host
Of harmony dispersed in straggling sounds,
And lastly utter silence! "Be it so;
Why think of any thing but present good? " [H] 100
So, like a home-bound labourer I pursued
My way beneath the mellowing sun, that shed
Mild influence; nor left in me one wish
Again to bend the Sabbath of that time
To a servile yoke. What need of many words? 105
A pleasant loitering journey, through three days
Continued, brought me to my hermitage, [I]
I spare to tell of what ensued, the life
In common things--the endless store of things,
Rare, or at least so seeming, every day 110
Found all about me in one neighbourhood--
The self-congratulation, and, from morn
To night, unbroken cheerfulness serene. [K]
But speedily an earnest longing rose
To brace myself to some determined aim, 115
Reading or thinking; either to lay up
New stores, or rescue from decay the old
By timely interference: and therewith
Came hopes still higher, that with outward life
I might endue some airy phantasies 120
That had been floating loose about for years,
And to such beings temperately deal forth
The many feelings that oppressed my heart.
That hope hath been discouraged; welcome light
Dawns from the east, but dawns to disappear 125
And mock me with a sky that ripens not
Into a steady morning: if my mind,
Remembering the bold promise of the past,
Would gladly grapple with some noble theme,
Vain is her wish; where'er she turns she finds 130
Impediments from day to day renewed.
And now it would content me to yield up
Those lofty hopes awhile, for present gifts
Of humbler industry. But, oh, dear Friend!
The Poet, gentle creature as he is, 135
Hath, like the Lover, his unruly times;
His fits when he is neither sick nor well,
Though no distress be near him but his own
Unmanageable thoughts: his mind, best pleased
While she as duteous as the mother dove 140
Sits brooding, lives not always to that end,
But like the innocent bird, hath goadings on
That drive her as in trouble through the groves; [L]
With me is now such passion, to be blamed
No otherwise than as it lasts too long. 145
When, as becomes a man who would prepare
For such an arduous work, I through myself
Make rigorous inquisition, the report
Is often cheering; for I neither seem
To lack that first great gift, the vital soul, 150
Nor general Truths, which are themselves a sort
Of Elements and Agents, Under-powers,
Subordinate helpers of the living mind:
Nor am I naked of external things,
Forms, images, nor numerous other aids 155
Of less regard, though won perhaps with toil
And needful to build up a Poet's praise.
Time, place, and manners do I seek, and these
Are found in plenteous store, but nowhere such
As may be singled out with steady choice; 160
No little band of yet remembered names
Whom I, in perfect confidence, might hope
To summon back from lonesome banishment,
And make them dwellers in the hearts of men
Now living, or to live in future years. 165
Sometimes the ambitious Power of choice, mistaking
Proud spring-tide swellings for a regular sea,
Will settle on some British theme, some old
Romantic tale by Milton left unsung;
More often turning to some gentle place 170
Within the groves of Chivalry, I pipe
To shepherd swains, or seated harp in hand,
Amid reposing knights by a river side
Or fountain, listen to the grave reports
Of dire enchantments faced and overcome 175
By the strong mind, and tales of warlike feats,
Where spear encountered spear, and sword with sword
Fought, as if conscious of the blazonry
That the shield bore, so glorious was the strife;
Whence inspiration for a song that winds 180
Through ever changing scenes of votive quest
Wrongs to redress, harmonious tribute paid
To patient courage and unblemished truth,
To firm devotion, zeal unquenchable,
And Christian meekness hallowing faithful loves. 185
Sometimes, more sternly moved, I would relate
How vanquished Mithridates northward passed,
And, hidden in the cloud of years, became
Odin, the Father of a race by whom
Perished the Roman Empire: [M] how the friends 190
And followers of Sertorius, [N] out of Spain
Flying, found shelter in the Fortunate Isles, [O]
And left their usages, their arts and laws,
To disappear by a slow gradual death,
To dwindle and to perish one by one, 195
Starved in those narrow bounds: [P] but not the soul
Of Liberty, which fifteen hundred years
Survived, and, when the European came
With skill and power that might not be withstood,
Did, like a pestilence, maintain its hold 200
And wasted down by glorious death that race
Of natural heroes: or I would record
How, in tyrannic times, some high-souled man,
Unnamed among the chronicles of kings,
Suffered in silence for Truth's sake: or tell, 205
How that one Frenchman, [Q] through continued force
Of meditation on the inhuman deeds
Of those who conquered first the Indian Isles,
Went single in his ministry across
The Ocean; not to comfort the oppressed, 210
But, like a thirsty wind, to roam about
Withering the Oppressor: how Gustavus sought
Help at his need in Dalecarlia's mines: [R]
How Wallace fought for Scotland; left the name
Of Wallace to be found, like a wild flower, 215
All over his dear Country; [S] left the deeds
Of Wallace, like a family of Ghosts,
To people the steep rocks and river banks,
Her natural sanctuaries, with a local soul
Of independence and stern liberty. 220
Sometimes it suits me better to invent
A tale from my own heart, more near akin
To my own passions and habitual thoughts;
Some variegated story, in the main
Lofty, but the unsubstantial structure melts 225
Before the very sun that brightens it,
Mist into air dissolving! Then a wish,
My best and favourite aspiration, mounts
With yearning toward some philosophic song
Of Truth that cherishes our daily life; 230
With meditations passionate from deep
Recesses in man's heart, immortal verse [T]
Thoughtfully fitted to the Orphean lyre; [U]
But from this awful burthen I full soon
Take refuge and beguile myself with trust 235
That mellower years will bring a riper mind
And clearer insight. Thus my days are past
In contradiction; with no skill to part
Vague longing, haply bred by want of power,
From paramount impulse not to be withstood, 240
A timorous capacity from prudence,
From circumspection, infinite delay.
Humility and modest awe themselves
Betray me, serving often for a cloak
To a more subtle selfishness; that now 245
Locks every function up in blank reserve,
Now dupes me, trusting to an anxious eye
That with intrusive restlessness beats off
Simplicity and self-presented truth.
Ah! better far than this, to stray about 250
Voluptuously through fields and rural walks,
And ask no record of the hours, resigned
To vacant musing, unreproved neglect
Of all things, and deliberate holiday.
Far better never to have heard the name 255
Of zeal and just ambition, than to live
Baffled and plagued by a mind that every hour
Turns recreant to her task; takes heart again,
Then feels immediately some hollow thought
Hang like an interdict upon her hopes. 260
This is my lot; for either still I find
Some imperfection in the chosen theme,
Or see of absolute accomplishment
Much wanting, so much wanting, in myself,
That I recoil and droop, and seek repose 265
In listlessness from vain perplexity,
Unprofitably travelling toward the grave,
Like a false steward who hath much received
And renders nothing back.
Was it for this
That one, the fairest of all rivers, [V] loved 270
To blend his murmurs with my nurse's song,
And, from his alder shades and rocky falls,
And from his fords and shallows, sent a voice
That flowed along my dreams? For this, didst thou,
O Derwent! winding among grassy holms 275
Where I was looking on, a babe in arms,
Make ceaseless music that composed my thoughts
To more than infant softness, giving me
Amid the fretful dwellings of mankind
A foretaste, a dim earnest, of the calm 280
That Nature breathes among the hills and groves?
When he had left the mountains and received
On his smooth breast the shadow of those towers [W]
That yet survive, a shattered monument
Of feudal sway, the bright blue river passed 285
Along the margin of our terrace walk; [X]
A tempting playmate whom we dearly loved.
Oh, many a time have I, a five years' child,
In a small mill-race severed from his stream,
Made one long bathing of a summer's day; 290
Basked in the sun, and plunged and basked again
Alternate, all a summer's day, or scoured
The sandy fields, leaping through flowery groves
Of yellow ragwort; or when rock and hill,
The woods, and distant Skiddaw's lofty height, 295
Were bronzed with deepest radiance, stood alone
Beneath the sky, as if I had been born
On Indian plains, and from my mother's hut
Had run abroad in wantonness, to sport
A naked savage, in the thunder shower. 300
Fair seed-time had my soul, and I grew up
Fostered alike by beauty and by fear:
Much favoured in my birth-place, and no less
In that beloved Vale to which erelong
We were transplanted [Y]--there were we let loose 305
For sports of wider range. Ere I had told
Ten birth-days, [Z] when among the mountain slopes
Frost, and the breath of frosty wind, had snapped
The last autumnal crocus, [a] 'twas my joy
With store of springes o'er my shoulder hung 310
To range the open heights where woodcocks run
Along the smooth green turf. [b] Through half the night,
Scudding away from snare to snare, I plied
That anxious visitation;--moon and stars
Were shining o'er my head. I was alone, 315
And seemed to be a trouble to the peace
That dwelt among them. Sometimes it befel
In these night wanderings, that a strong desire
O'erpowered my better reason, and the bird
Which was the captive of another's toil 320
Became my prey; and when the deed was done
I heard among the solitary hills
Low breathings coming after me, and sounds
Of undistinguishable motion, steps
Almost as silent as the turf they trod. 325
Nor less when spring had warmed the cultured Vale, [c]
Moved we as plunderers where the mother-bird
Had in high places built her lodge; though mean
Our object and inglorious, yet the end
Was not ignoble. Oh! when I have hung 330
Above the raven's nest, by knots of grass
And half-inch fissures in the slippery rock
But ill sustained, and almost (so it seemed)
Suspended by the blast that blew amain,
Shouldering the naked crag, [d] oh, at that time 335
While on the perilous ridge I hung alone,
With what strange utterance did the loud dry wind
Blow through my ear! the sky seemed not a sky
Of earth--and with what motion moved the clouds!
Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows 340
Like harmony in music; there is a dark
Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles
Discordant elements, makes them cling together
In one society. How strange that all
The terrors, pains, and early miseries, 345
Regrets, vexations, lassitudes interfused
Within my mind, should e'er have borne a part,
And that a needful part, in making up
The calm existence that is mine when I
Am worthy of myself! Praise to the end! 350
Thanks to the means which Nature deigned to employ;
Whether her fearless visitings, or those
That came with soft alarm, like hurtless light
Opening the peaceful clouds; or she may use
Severer interventions, ministry 355
More palpable, as best might suit her aim.
One summer evening (led by her) I found
A little boat tied to a willow tree
Within a rocky cave, [e] its usual home.
Straight I unloosed her chain, and stepping in 360
Pushed from the shore. It was an act of stealth
And troubled pleasure, nor without the voice
Of mountain-echoes did my boat move on;
Leaving behind her still, on either side,
Small circles glittering idly in the moon, 365
Until they melted all into one track
Of sparkling light. But now, like one who rows,
Proud of his skill, to reach a chosen point
With an unswerving line, I fixed my view
Upon the summit of a craggy ridge, 370
The horizon's utmost boundary; far above
Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky.
She was an elfin pinnace; lustily
I dipped my oars into the silent lake,
And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boat 375
Went heaving through the water like a swan;
When, from behind that craggy steep till then
The horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge,
As if with voluntary power instinct
Upreared its head. [f] I struck and struck again, 380
And growing still in stature the grim shape
Towered up between me and the stars, and still,
For so it seemed, with purpose of its own
And measured motion like a living thing,
Strode after me. With trembling oars I turned, 385
And through the silent water stole my way
Back to the covert of the willow tree;
There in her mooring-place I left my bark,--
And through the meadows homeward went, in grave
And serious mood; but after I had seen 390
That spectacle, for many days, my brain
Worked with a dim and undetermined sense
Of unknown modes of being; o'er my thoughts
There hung a darkness, call it solitude
Or blank desertion. No familiar shapes 395
Remained, no pleasant images of trees,
Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields;
But huge and mighty forms, that do not live
Like living men, moved slowly through the mind
By day, and were a trouble to my dreams. 400
Wisdom and Spirit of the universe!
Thou Soul that art the eternity of thought,
That givest to forms and images a breath
And everlasting motion, not in vain
By day or star-light thus from my first dawn 405
Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me
The passions that build up our human soul;
Not with the mean and vulgar works of man,
But with high objects, with enduring things--
With life and nature, purifying thus 410
The elements of feeling and of thought,
And sanctifying, by such discipline,
Both pain and fear, until we recognise
A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.
Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me 415
With stinted kindness. In November days,
When vapours rolling down the valley made
A lonely scene more lonesome, among woods
At noon, and 'mid the calm of summer nights,
When, by the margin of the trembling lake, 420
Beneath the gloomy hills homeward I went
In solitude, such intercourse was mine;
Mine was it in the fields both day and night,
And by the waters, all the summer long.
And in the frosty season, when the sun 425
Was set, and visible for many a mile
The cottage windows blazed through twilight gloom,
I heeded not their summons: happy time
It was indeed for all of us--for me
It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud 430
The village clock tolled six,--I wheeled about,
Proud and exulting like an untired horse
That cares not for his home. All shod with steel,
We hissed along the polished ice in games
Confederate, imitative of the chase 435
And woodland pleasures,--the resounding horn,
The pack loud chiming, and the hunted hare.
So through the darkness and the cold we flew,
And not a voice was idle; with the din
Smitten, the precipices rang aloud; 440
The leafless trees and every icy crag
Tinkled like iron; [g] while far distant hills
Into the tumult sent an alien sound
Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars
Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the west 445
The orange sky of evening died away.
Not seldom from the uproar I retired
Into a silent bay, or sportively
Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng,
To cut across the reflex of a star 450
That fled, and, flying still before me, gleamed
Upon the glassy plain; and oftentimes,
When we had given our bodies to the wind,
And all the shadowy banks on either side
Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still 455
The rapid line of motion, then at once
Have I, reclining back upon my heels,
Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs
Wheeled by me--even as if the earth had rolled
With visible motion her diurnal round! 460
Behind me did they stretch in solemn train,
Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched
Till all was tranquil as a dreamless sleep. [h]
Ye Presences of Nature in the sky
And on the earth! Ye Visions of the hills! 465
And Souls of lonely places! can I think
A vulgar hope was yours when ye employed
Such ministry, when ye through many a year
Haunting me thus among my boyish sports,
On caves and trees, upon the woods and hills, 470
Impressed upon all forms the characters
Of danger or desire; and thus did make
The surface of the universal earth
With triumph and delight, with hope and fear,
Work like a sea?
Not uselessly employed, 475
Might I pursue this theme through every change
Of exercise and play, to which the year
Did summon us in his delightful round.
We were a noisy crew; the sun in heaven
Beheld not vales more beautiful than ours; 480
Nor saw a band in happiness and joy
Richer, or worthier of the ground they trod.
I could record with no reluctant voice
The woods of autumn, and their hazel bowers
With milk-white clusters hung; the rod and line, 485
True symbol of hope's foolishness, whose strong
And unreproved enchantment led us on
By rocks and pools shut out from every star,
All the green summer, to forlorn cascades
Among the windings hid of mountain brooks.
[i] 490
--Unfading recollections! at this hour
The heart is almost mine with which I felt,
From some hill-top on sunny afternoons, [j]
The paper kite high among fleecy clouds
Pull at her rein like an impetuous courser; 495
Or, from the meadows sent on gusty days,
Beheld her breast the wind, then suddenly
Dashed headlong, and rejected by the storm.
Ye lowly cottages wherein we dwelt,
A ministration of your own was yours; 500
Can I forget you, being as you were
So beautiful among the pleasant fields
In which ye stood? or can I here forget
The plain and seemly countenance with which
Ye dealt out your plain comforts? Yet had ye 505
Delights and exultations of your own. [k]
Eager and never weary we pursued
Our home-amusements by the warm peat-fire
At evening, when with pencil, and smooth slate
In square divisions parcelled out and all 510
With crosses and with cyphers scribbled o'er,
We schemed and puzzled, head opposed to head
In strife too humble to be named in verse:
Or round the naked table, snow-white deal,
Cherry or maple, sate in close array, 515
And to the combat, Loo or Whist, led on
A thick-ribbed army; not, as in the world,
Neglected and ungratefully thrown by
Even for the very service they had wrought,
But husbanded through many a long campaign. 520
Uncouth assemblage was it, where no few
Had changed their functions; some, plebeian cards [l]
Which Fate, beyond the promise of their birth, [m]
Had dignified, and called to represent
The persons of departed potentates. 525
Oh, with what echoes on the board they fell!
Ironic diamonds,--clubs, hearts, diamonds, spades,
A congregation piteously akin!
Cheap matter offered they to boyish wit,
Those sooty knaves, precipitated down 530
With scoffs and taunts, like Vulcan out of heaven:
The paramount ace, a moon in her eclipse,
Queens gleaming through their splendour's last decay,
And monarchs surly at the wrongs sustained
By royal visages. Meanwhile abroad 535
Incessant rain was falling, or the frost
Raged bitterly, with keen and silent tooth;
And, interrupting oft that eager game,
From under Esthwaite's splitting fields of ice
The pent-up air, struggling to free itself, 540
Gave out to meadow grounds and hills a loud
Protracted yelling, like the noise of wolves
Howling in troops along the Bothnic Main. [n]
Nor, sedulous as I have been to trace
How Nature by extrinsic passion first 545
Peopled the mind with forms sublime or fair,
And made me love them, may I here omit
How other pleasures have been mine, and joys
Of subtler origin; how I have felt,
Not seldom even in that tempestuous time, 550
Those hallowed and pure motions of the sense
Which seem, in their simplicity, to own
An intellectual charm; that calm delight
Which, if I err not, surely must belong
To those first-born affinities that fit 555
Our new existence to existing things,
And, in our dawn of being, constitute
The bond of union between life and joy.
Yes, I remember when the changeful earth,
And twice five summers on my mind had stamped 560
The faces of the moving year, even then
I held unconscious intercourse with beauty
Old as creation, drinking in a pure
Organic pleasure from the silver wreaths
Of curling mist, or from the level plain 565
Of waters coloured by impending clouds. [o]
The sands of Westmoreland, the creeks and bays
Of Cumbria's rocky limits, they can tell
How, when the Sea threw off his evening shade,
And to the shepherd's hut on distant hills 570
Sent welcome notice of the rising moon,
How I have stood, to fancies such as these
A stranger, linking with the spectacle
No conscious memory of a kindred sight,
And bringing with me no peculiar sense 575
Of quietness or peace; yet have I stood,
Even while mine eye hath moved o'er many a league
Of shining water, gathering as it seemed
Through every hair-breadth in that field of light
New pleasure like a bee among the flowers. 580
Thus oft amid those fits of vulgar joy
Which, through all seasons, on a child's pursuits
Are prompt attendants, 'mid that giddy bliss
Which, like a tempest, works along the blood
And is forgotten; even then I felt 585
Gleams like the flashing of a shield;--the earth
And common face of Nature spake to me
Rememberable things; sometimes, 'tis true,
By chance collisions and quaint accidents
(Like those ill-sorted unions, work supposed 590
Of evil-minded fairies), yet not vain
Nor profitless, if haply they impressed
Collateral objects and appearances,
Albeit lifeless then, and doomed to sleep
Until maturer seasons called them forth 595
To impregnate and to elevate the mind.
--And if the vulgar joy by its own weight
Wearied itself out of the memory,
The scenes which were a witness of that joy
Remained in their substantial lineaments 600
Depicted on the brain, and to the eye
Were visible, a daily sight; and thus
By the impressive discipline of fear,
By pleasure and repeated happiness,
So frequently repeated, and by force 605
Of obscure feelings representative
Of things forgotten, these same scenes so bright,
So beautiful, so majestic in themselves,
Though yet the day was distant, did become
Habitually dear, and all their forms 610
And changeful colours by invisible links
Were fastened to the affections.
I began
My story early--not misled, I trust,
By an infirmity of love for days
Disowned by memory--ere the breath of spring 615
Planting my snowdrops among winter snows: [p]
Nor will it seem to thee, O Friend! so prompt
In sympathy, that I have lengthened out
With fond and feeble tongue a tedious tale.
Meanwhile, my hope has been, that I might fetch 620
Invigorating thoughts from former years;
Might fix the wavering balance of my mind,
And haply meet reproaches too, whose power
May spur me on, in manhood now mature
To honourable toil. Yet should these hopes 625
Prove vain, and thus should neither I be taught
To understand myself, nor thou to know
With better knowledge how the heart was framed
Of him thou lovest; need I dread from thee
Harsh judgments, if the song be loth to quit 630
Those recollected hours that have the charm
Of visionary things, those lovely forms
And sweet sensations that throw back our life,
And almost make remotest infancy
A visible scene, on which the sun is shining? [q] 635
One end at least hath been attained; my mind
Hath been revived, and if this genial mood
Desert me not, forthwith shall be brought down
Through later years the story of my life.
The road lies plain before me;--'tis a theme 640
Single and of determined bounds; and hence
I choose it rather at this time, than work
Of ampler or more varied argument,
Where I might be discomfited and lost:
And certain hopes are with me, that to thee 645
This labour will be welcome, honoured Friend!
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES TO BOOK THE FIRST
[Footnote A: On the authority of the poet's nephew, and others, the
"city" here referred to has invariably been supposed to be Goslar, where
he spent the winter of 1799. Goslar, however, is as unlike a "vast city"
as it is possible to conceive. Wordsworth could have walked from end to
end of it in ten minutes.
One would think he was rather referring to London, but there is no
evidence to show that he visited the metropolis in the spring of 1799.
The lines which follow about "the open fields" (l. 50) are certainly
more appropriate to a journey from London to Sockburn, than from Goslar
to Gottingen; and what follows, the "green shady place" of l. 62, the
"known Vale" and the "cottage" of ll. 72 and 74, certainly refer to
English soil. --Ed. ]
[Footnote B: Compare 'Paradise Lost', xii. l. 646.
'The world was all before them, where to choose. '
Ed. ]
[Footnote C: Compare 'Lines composed above Tintern Abbey', II. 52-5
(vol. ii. p. 53. )--Ed. ]
[Footnote D: S. T. Coleridge. --Ed. ]
[Footnote E: At Sockburn-on-Tees, county Durham, seven miles south-east
of Darlington. --Ed. ]
[Footnote F: Grasmere. --Ed. ]
[Footnote G: Dove Cottage at Town-end. --Ed. ]
[Footnote H: This quotation I am unable to trace. --Ed. ]
[Footnote I: Wordsworth spent most of the year 1799 (from March to
December) at Sockburn with the Hutchinsons. With Coleridge and his
brother John he went to Windermere, Rydal, Grasmere, etc. , in the
autumn, returning afterwards to Sockburn. He left it again, with his
sister, on Dec. 19, to settle at Grasmere, and they reached Dove Cottage
on Dec. 21, 1799. --Ed. ]
[Footnote K: See Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, _passim. _--Ed. ]
[Footnote L: Compare the 2nd and 3rd of the 'Stanzas written in my
pocket-copy of Thomson's Castle of Indolence', vol. ii. p. 306, and the
note appended to that poem. --Ed. ]
[Footnote M: Mithridates (the Great) of Pontus, 131 B. C. to 63 B. C.
Vanquished by Pompey, B. C. 65, he fled to his son-in-law, Tigranes, in
Armenia. Being refused an asylum, he committed suicide. I cannot trace
the legend of Mithridates becoming Odin. Probably Wordsworth means that
he would invent, rather than "relate," the story. Gibbon ('Decline and
Fall of the Roman Empire', chap. x. ) says,
"It is supposed that Odin was the chief of a tribe of barbarians, who
dwelt on the banks of Lake Maeotis, till the fall of Mithridates, and
the arms of Pompey menaced the north with servitude; that Odin,
yielding with indignant fury to a power which he was unable to resist,
conducted his tribe from the frontiers of Asiatic Sarmatia into
Sweden. "
See also Mallet, 'Northern Antiquities', and Crichton and Wheaton's
'Scandinavia' (Edinburgh Cabinet Library):
"Among the fugitive princes of Scythia, who were expelled from their
country in the Mithridatic war, tradition has placed the name of Odin,
the ruler of a potent tribe in Turkestan, between the Euxine and the
Caspian. "
Ed. ]
[Footnote N: Sertorius, one of the Roman generals of the later
Republican era (see Plutarch's biography of him, and Corneille's
tragedy). On being proscribed by Sylla, he fled from Etruria to Spain;
there he became the leader of several bands of exiles, and repulsed the
Roman armies sent against him. Mithridates VI. --referred to in the
previous note--aided him, both with ships and money, being desirous of
establishing a new Roman Republic in Spain. From Spain he went to
Mauritania. In the Straits of Gibraltar he met some sailors, who had
been in the Atlantic Isles, and whose reports made him wish to visit
these islands. --Ed. ]
[Footnote O: Supposed to be the Canaries. --Ed. ]
[Footnote P:
"In the early part of the fifteenth century there arrived at Lisbon an
old bewildered pilot of the seas, who had been driven by tempests he
knew not whither, and raved about an island in the far deep upon which
he had landed, and which he had found peopled, and adorned with noble
cities. The inhabitants told him that they were descendants of a band
of Christians who fled from Spain when that country was conquered by
the Moslems. "
(See Washington Irving's 'Chronicles of Wolfert's Roost', etc. ; and
Baring Gould's 'Curious Myths of the Middle Ages'. )--Ed. ]
[Footnote Q: Dominique de Gourgues, a French gentleman, who went in 1568
to Florida, to avenge the massacre of the French by the Spaniards there.
(Mr. Carter, in the edition of 1850. )--Ed. ]
[Footnote R: Gustavus I. of Sweden. In the course of his war with
Denmark he retreated to Dalecarlia, where he was a miner and field
labourer. --Ed. ]
[Footnote S: The name--both as Christian and surname--is common in
Scotland, and towns (such as Wallacetown, Ayr) are named after him.
"Passed two of Wallace's caves. There is scarcely a noted glen in
Scotland that has not a cave for Wallace, or some other hero. "
Dorothy Wordsworth's 'Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland in 1803'
(Sunday, August 21). --Ed. ]
[Footnote T: Compare 'L'Allegro', l. 137. --Ed. ]
[Footnote U: Compare 'Paradise Lost', iii. 17. --Ed. ]
[Footnote V: The Derwent, on which the town of Cockermouth is built,
where Wordsworth was born on the 7th of April 1770. --Ed. ]
[Footnote W: The towers of Cockermouth Castle. --Ed. ]
[Footnote X: The "terrace walk" is at the foot of the garden, attached
to the old mansion in which Wordsworth's father, law-agent of the Earl
of Lonsdale, resided. This home of his childhood is alluded to in 'The
Sparrow's Nest', vol. ii. p. 236. Three of the "Poems, composed or
suggested during a Tour, in the Summer of 1833," refer to Cockermouth.
They are the fifth, sixth, and seventh in that series of Sonnets: and
are entitled respectively 'To the River Derwent'; 'In sight of the Town
of Cockermouth'; and the 'Address from the Spirit of Cockermouth
Castle'. It was proposed some time ago that this house--which is known
in Cockermouth as "Wordsworth House,"--should be purchased, and since
the Grammar School of the place is out of repair, that it should be
converted into a School, in memory of Wordsworth. This excellent
suggestion has not yet been carried out--Ed. ]
[Footnote Y: The Vale of Esthwaite. --Ed. ]
[Footnote Z: He went to Hawkshead School in 1778. --Ed. ]
[Footnote a: About mid October the autumn crocus in the garden "snaps"
in that district. --Ed. ]
[Footnote b: Possibly in the Claife and Colthouse heights to the east of
Esthwaite Water; but more probably the round-headed grassy hills that
lead up and on to the moor between Hawkshead and Coniston, where the
turf is always green and smooth. --Ed. ]
[Footnote c: Yewdale: see next note. "Cultured Vale" exactly describes
the little oat-growing valley of Yewdale. --Ed. ]
[Footnote d: As there are no "naked crags" with "half-inch fissures in
the slippery rocks" in the "cultured vale" of Esthwaite, the locality
referred to is probably the Hohne Fells above Yewdale, to the north of
Coniston, and only a few miles from Hawkshead, where a crag, now named
Raven's Crag, divides Tilberthwaite from Yewdale. In his 'Epistle to Sir
George Beaumont', Wordsworth speaks of Yewdale as a plain
'spread
Under a rock too steep for man to tread,
Where sheltered from the north and bleak north-west
Aloft the Raven hangs a visible nest,
Fearless of all assaults that would her brood molest. '
Ed. ]
[Footnote e: Dr. Cradock suggested the reading "rocky cove. " Rocky cave
is tautological, and Wordsworth would hardly apply the epithet to an
ordinary boat-house. --Ed. ]
[Footnote f: The "craggy steep till then the horizon's bound," is
probably the ridge of Ironkeld, reaching from high Arnside to the Tom
Heights above Tarn Hows; while the "huge peak, black and huge, as if
with voluntary power instinct," may he either the summit of Wetherlam,
or of Pike o'Blisco. Mr. Rawnsley, however, is of opinion that if
Wordsworth rowed off from the west bank of Fasthwaite, he might see
beyond the craggy ridge of Loughrigg the mass of Nab-Scar, and Rydal
Head would rise up "black and huge. " If he rowed from the east side,
then Pike o'Stickle, or Harrison Stickle, might rise above Ironkeld,
over Borwick Ground. --Ed. ]
[Footnote g: Compare S. T. Coleridge.
"When very many are skating together, the sounds and the noises give
an impulse to the icy trees, and the woods all round the lake
_tinkle_. "
'The Friend', vol. ii. p. 325 (edition 1818). --Ed. ]
[Footnote h: The two preceding paragraphs were published in 'The
Friend', December 28, 1809, under the title of the 'Growth of Genius
from the Influences of Natural Objects on the Imagination, in Boyhood
and Early Youth', and were afterwards inserted in all the collective
editions of Wordsworth's poems, from 1815 onwards. For the changes of
the text in these editions, see vol. ii. pp. 66-69. --Ed. ]
[Footnote i: The becks amongst the Furness Fells, in Yewdale, and
elsewhere. --Ed. ]
[Footnote j: Possibly from the top of some of the rounded moraine hills
on the western side of the Hawkshead Valley. --Ed. ]
[Footnote k: The pupils in the Hawkshead school, in Wordsworth's time,
boarded in the houses of village dames. Wordsworth lived with one Anne
Tyson, for whom he ever afterwards cherished the warmest regard, and
whose simple character he has immortalised. (See especially in the
fourth book of 'The Prelude', p. 187, etc. ) Wordsworth lived in her
cottage at Hawkshead during nine eventful years. It still remains
externally unaltered, and little, if at all, changed in the interior. It
may be reached through a picturesque archway, near the principal inn of
the village (The Lion); and is on the right of a small open yard, which
is entered through this archway. To the left, a lane leads westwards to
the open country. It is a humble dwelling of two storeys. The floor of
the basement flat-paved with the blue flags of Coniston slate--is not
likely to have been changed since Wordsworth's time. The present door
with its "latch" (see book ii. l. 339), is probably the same as that
referred to in the poem, as in use in 1776, and onwards. For further
details see notes to book iv. --Ed. ]
[Footnote l: Compare Pope's 'Rape of the Lock', canto iii. l. 54:
'Gained but one trump, and one plebeian card. '
Ed. ]
[Footnote m: Compare Walton's 'Compleat Angler', part i. 4:
'I was for that time lifted above earth,
And possess'd joys not promised in my birth. '
Ed. ]
[Footnote n: The notes to this edition are explanatory rather than
critical; but as this image has been objected to--as inaccurate, and out
of all analogy with Wordsworth's use and wont--it may be mentioned that
the noise of the breaking up of the ice, after a severe winter in these
lakes, when it cracks and splits in all directions, is exactly as here
described. It is not of course, in any sense peculiar to the English
lakes; but there are probably few districts where the peculiar noise
referred to can be heard so easily or frequently. Compare Coleridge's
account of the Lake of Ratzeburg in winter, in 'The Friend', vol. ii. p.
323 (edition of 1818), and his reference to "the thunders and 'howlings'
of the breaking ice. "--Ed. ]
[Footnote o: I here insert a very remarkable MS.
GRASMERE, June 3, 1805.
"I have the pleasure to say that I _finished my poem_ about a
fortnight ago. I had looked forward to the day as a most happy one;
. . . But it was not a happy day for me; I was dejected on many
accounts: when I looked back upon the performance, it seemed to have a
dead weight about it,--the reality so far short of the expectation. It
was the first long labour that I had finished; and the doubt whether I
should ever live to write 'The Recluse', and the sense which I had of
this poem being so far below what I seemed capable of executing,
depressed me much; above all, many heavy thoughts of my poor departed
brother hung upon me, the joy which I should have had in showing him
the manuscript, and a thousand other vain fancies and dreams. I have
spoken of this, because it was a state of feeling new to me, the
occasion being new. This work may be considered as a sort of _portico_
to 'The Recluse', part of the same building, which I hope to be able,
ere long, to begin with in earnest; and if I am permitted to bring it
to a conclusion, and to write, further, a narrative poem of the epic
kind, I shall consider the task of my life as over. I ought to add,
that I have the satisfaction of finding the present poem not quite of
so alarming a length as I apprehended. "
These letters explain the delay in the publication of 'The Prelude'.
They show that what led Wordsworth to write so much about himself was
not self-conceit, but self-diffidence. He felt unprepared as yet for the
more arduous task he had set before himself. He saw its faults as
clearly, or more clearly, than the critics who condemned him. He knew
that its length was excessive. He tried to condense it; he kept it
beside him unpublished, and occasionally revised it, with a view to
condensation, in vain. The text received his final corrections in the
year 1832.
Wordsworth's reluctance to publish these portions of his great poem,
'The Recluse', other than 'The Excursion', during his lifetime, was a
matter of surprise to his friends; to whom he, or the ladies of his
household, had read portions of it. In the year 1819, Charles Lamb wrote
to him,
"If, as you say, 'The Waggoner', in some sort, came at my call, oh for
a potent voice to call forth 'The Recluse' from his profound
dormitory, where he sleeps forgetful of his foolish charge--the
world! "
('The Letters of Charles Lamb', edited by Alfred Ainger, vol. ii. p.
26. )
The admission made in the letter of May 1st, 1805, is note-worthy:
"This defect" (of redundancy) "whenever I have suspected it or found
it to exist in any writings of mine, _I have always found incurable.
The fault lies too deep, and is in the first conception_. "
The actual result--in the Poem he had at length committed to
writing--was so far inferior to the ideal he had tried to realise, that
he could never be induced to publish it. He spoke of the MS. as forming
a sort of _portico_ to his larger work--the poem on Man, Nature, and
Society--which he meant to call 'The Recluse', and of which one portion
only, _viz. _ 'The Excursion', was finished. It is clear that throughout
the composition of 'The Prelude', he felt that he was experimenting with
his powers. He wished to find out whether he could construct "a literary
work that might live," on a larger scale than his Lyrics; and it was on
the writing of a "philosophical poem," dealing with Man and Nature, in
their deepest aspects, that his thoughts had been fixed for many years.
From the letter to Sir George Beaumont, December 25, 1804, it is evident
that he regarded the autobiographical poem as a mere prologue to this
larger work, to which he hoped to turn "with all his might" after 'The
Prelude' was finished, and of which he had already written about a fifth
or a sixth (see 'Memoirs', vol. i. p. 304). This was the part known in
the Grasmere household as "The Pedlar," a title given to it from the
character of the Wanderer, but afterwards happily set aside. He did not
devote himself, however, to the completion of his wider purpose,
immediately after 'The Prelude' was finished. He wrote one book of 'The
Recluse' which he called "Home at Grasmere"; and, though detached from
'The Prelude', it is a continuation of the narrative of his own life at
the point where it is left off in the latter poem. It consists of 733
lines. Two extracts from it were published in the 'Memoirs of
Wordsworth' in 1851 (vol. i. pp. 151 and 155), beginning,
'On Nature's invitation do I come,'
and
'Bleak season was it, turbulent and bleak. '
These will be found in vol. ii. of this edition, pp. 118 and 121
respectively.
The autobiographical poem remained, as already stated, during
Wordsworth's lifetime without a title. The name finally adopted--'The
Prelude'--was suggested by Mrs. Wordsworth, both to indicate its
relation to the larger work, and the fact of its having been written
comparatively early.
As the poem was addressed to Coleridge, it may be desirable to add in
this place his critical verdict upon it; along with the poem which he
wrote, on hearing Wordsworth read a portion of it to him, in the winter
of 1806, at Coleorton.
In his 'Table Talk' (London, 1835, vol. ii. p. 70), Coleridge's opinion
is recorded thus:
"I cannot help regretting that Wordsworth did not first publish his
thirteen (fourteen) books on the growth of an individual
mind--superior, as I used to think, upon the whole to 'The Excursion'.
You may judge how I felt about them by my own Poem upon the occasion.
Then the plan laid out, and, I believe, partly suggested by me, was,
that Wordsworth should assume the station of a man in mental repose,
one whose principles were made up, and so prepared to deliver upon
authority a system of philosophy. He was to treat man as man,--a
subject of eye, ear, touch, and taste in contact with external nature,
and informing the senses from the mind, and not compounding a mind out
of the senses; then he was to describe the pastoral and other states
of society, assuming something of the Juvenalian spirit as he
approached the high civilisation of cities and towns, and opening a
melancholy picture of the present state of degeneracy and vice; thence
he was to infer and reveal the proof of, and necessity for, the whole
state of man and society being subject to, and illustrative of a
redemptive process in operation, showing how this idea reconciled all
the anomalies, and promised future glory and restoration. Something of
this sort was, I think, agreed on. It is, in substance, what I have
been all my life doing in my system of philosophy.
"I think Wordsworth possessed more of the genius of a great
Philosopher than any man I ever knew, or, as I believe, has existed in
England since Milton; but it seems to me that he ought never to have
abandoned the contemplative position which is peculiarly--perhaps, I
might say exclusively--fitted for him. His proper title is 'Spectator
ab extra'. "
The following are Coleridge's Lines addressed to Wordsworth:
TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
COMPOSED ON THE NIGHT AFTER HIS RECITATION OF A POEM ON THE GROWTH OF
AN INDIVIDUAL MIND
Friend of the wise! and teacher of the good!
Into my heart have I received that lay
More than historic, that prophetic lay
Wherein (high theme by thee first sung aright)
Of the foundations and the building up
Of a Human Spirit thou hast dared to tell
What may be told, to the understanding mind
Revealable; and what within the mind
By vital breathings secret as the soul
Of vernal growth, oft quickens in the heart
Thoughts all too deep for words! --
Theme hard as high,
Of smiles spontaneous, and mysterious fears
(The first-born they of Reason and twin-birth),
Of tides obedient to external force,
And currents self-determined, as might seem,
Or by some inner power; of moments awful,
Now in thy inner life, and now abroad,
When power streamed from thee, and thy soul received
The Light reflected, as a light bestowed--
Of fancies fair, and milder hours of youth,
Hyblean murmurs of poetic thought
Industrious in its joy, in vales and glens,
Native or outland, lakes and famous hills!
Or on the lonely high-road, when the stars
Were rising; or by secret mountain-streams,
The guides and the companions of thy way!
Of more than Fancy, of the Social Sense
Distending wide, and man beloved as man,
Where France in all her towns lay vibrating
Like some becalmed bark beneath the burst
Of Heaven's immediate thunder, when no cloud
Is visible, or shadow on the main.
For thou wert there, thine own brows garlanded,
Amid the tremor of a realm aglow,
Amid a mighty nation jubilant,
When from the general heart of humankind
Hope sprang forth like a full-born Deity!
--Of that dear Hope afflicted and struck down,
So summoned homeward, thenceforth calm and sure,
From the dread watch-tower of man's absolute self,
With light unwaning on her eyes, to look
Far on--herself a glory to behold.
The Angel of the vision! Then (last strain)
Of Duty, chosen laws controlling choice,
Action and joy! --An Orphic song indeed,
A song divine of high and passionate thoughts
To their own music chanted!
O great Bard!
Ere yet that last strain dying awed the air,
With stedfast eye I viewed thee in the choir
Of ever-enduring men. The truly great
Have all one age, and from one visible space
Shed influence! They, both in power and act,
Are permanent, and Time is not with them,
Save as it worketh for them, they in it.
Nor less a sacred roll, than those of old,
And to be placed, as they, with gradual fame
Among the archives of mankind, thy work
Makes audible a linked lay of Truth,
Of Truth profound a sweet continuous lay,
Not learnt, but native, her own natural notes!
Ah! as I listened with a heart forlorn,
The pulses of my being beat anew:
And even as life returns upon the drowned,
Life's joy rekindling roused a throng of pains--
Keen pangs of Love, awakening as a babe
Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart;
And fears self-willed, that shunned the eye of hope;
And hope that scarce would know itself from fear;
Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain,
And genius given, and knowledge won in vain;
And all which I had culled in wood-walks wild,
And all which patient toil had reared, and all,
Commune with thee had opened out--but flowers
Strewed on my corse, and borne upon my bier,
In the same coffin, for the self-same grave!
. . . Eve following eve,
Dear tranquil time, when the sweet sense of Home
Is sweetest! moments for their own sake hailed,
And more desired, more precious for thy song,
In silence listening, like a devout child,
My soul lay passive, by thy various strain
Driven as in surges now beneath the stars,
With momentary stars of my own birth,
Fair constellated foam, [C] still darting off
Into the darkness; now a tranquil sea,
Outspread and bright, yet swelling to the moon.
And when--O Friend! my comforter and guide!
Strong in thyself, and powerful to give strength! --
Thy long-sustained Song finally closed,
And thy deep voice had ceased--yet thou thyself
Wert still before my eyes, and round us both
That happy vision of beloved faces--
Scarce conscious, and yet conscious of its close
I sate, my being blended in one thought
(Thought was it? or aspiration? or resolve? )
Absorbed, yet hanging still upon the sound--
And when I rose I found myself in prayer.
It was at Coleorton, in Leicestershire,--where the Wordsworths lived
during the winter of 1806-7, in a farm-house belonging to Sir George
Beaumont, and where Coleridge visited them,--that 'The Prelude' was read
aloud by its author, on the occasion which gave birth to these
lines. --Ed.
[Footnote A: See the 'De Quincey Memorials,' vol. i. p. 125. --Ed. ]
[Footnote B: A poem on his brother John. --Ed. ]
[Footnote C: Compare
"A beautiful white cloud of foam at momentary intervals, coursed by
the side of the vessel with a roar, and little stars of flame danced
and sparkled and went out in it: and every now and then light
detachments of this white cloud-like foam darted off from the vessel's
side, each with its own small constellation, over the sea, and scoured
out of sight like a Tartar troop over a wilderness. "
S. T. C. in 'Biographia Literaria', Satyrane's Letters, letter i. p. 196
(edition 1817). --Ed. ]
* * * * *
BOOK FIRST
INTRODUCTION. --CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOL-TIME
O there is blessing in this gentle breeze,
A visitant that while it fans my cheek
Doth seem half-conscious of the joy it brings
From the green fields, and from yon azure sky.
Whate'er its mission, the soft breeze can come 5
To none more grateful than to me; escaped
From the vast city, [A] where I long had pined
A discontented sojourner: now free,
Free as a bird to settle where I will.
What dwelling shall receive me? in what vale 10
Shall be my harbour? underneath what grove
Shall I take up my home? and what clear stream
Shall with its murmur lull me into rest?
The earth is all before me. [B] With a heart
Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty, 15
I look about; and should the chosen guide
Be nothing better than a wandering cloud,
I cannot miss my way. I breathe again!
Trances of thought and mountings of the mind
Come fast upon me: it is shaken off, 20
That burthen of my own unnatural self,
The heavy weight of many a weary day [C]
Not mine, and such as were not made for me.
Long months of peace (if such bold word accord
With any promises of human life), 25
Long months of ease and undisturbed delight
Are mine in prospect; whither shall I turn,
By road or pathway, or through trackless field,
Up hill or down, or shall some floating thing
Upon the river point me out my course? 30
Dear Liberty! Yet what would it avail
But for a gift that consecrates the joy?
For I, methought, while the sweet breath of heaven
Was blowing on my body, felt within
A correspondent breeze, that gently moved 35
With quickening virtue, but is now become
A tempest, a redundant energy,
Vexing its own creation. Thanks to both,
And their congenial powers, that, while they join
In breaking up a long-continued frost, 40
Bring with them vernal promises, the hope
Of active days urged on by flying hours,--
Days of sweet leisure, taxed with patient thought
Abstruse, nor wanting punctual service high,
Matins and vespers of harmonious verse! 45
Thus far, O Friend! [D] did I, not used to make
A present joy the matter of a song,
Pour forth that day my soul in measured strains
That would not be forgotten, and are here
Recorded: to the open fields I told 50
A prophecy: poetic numbers came
Spontaneously to clothe in priestly robe
A renovated spirit singled out,
Such hope was mine, for holy services.
My own voice cheered me, and, far more, the mind's 55
Internal echo of the imperfect sound;
To both I listened, drawing from them both
A cheerful confidence in things to come.
Content and not unwilling now to give
A respite to this passion, I paced on 60
With brisk and eager steps; and came, at length,
To a green shady place, [E] where down I sate
Beneath a tree, slackening my thoughts by choice,
And settling into gentler happiness.
'Twas autumn, and a clear and placid day, 65
With warmth, as much as needed, from a sun
Two hours declined towards the west; a day
With silver clouds, and sunshine on the grass,
And in the sheltered and the sheltering grove
A perfect stillness. Many were the thoughts 70
Encouraged and dismissed, till choice was made
Of a known Vale, [F] whither my feet should turn,
Nor rest till they had reached the very door
Of the one cottage [G] which methought I saw.
No picture of mere memory ever looked 75
So fair; and while upon the fancied scene
I gazed with growing love, a higher power
Than Fancy gave assurance of some work
Of glory there forthwith to be begun,
Perhaps too there performed. Thus long I mused, 80
Nor e'er lost sight of what I mused upon,
Save when, amid the stately groves of oaks,
Now here, now there, an acorn, from its cup
Dislodged, through sere leaves rustled, or at once
To the bare earth dropped with a startling sound. 85
From that soft couch I rose not, till the sun
Had almost touched the horizon; casting then
A backward glance upon the curling cloud
Of city smoke, by distance ruralised;
Keen as a Truant or a Fugitive, 90
But as a Pilgrim resolute, I took,
Even with the chance equipment of that hour,
The road that pointed toward the chosen Vale. [F]
It was a splendid evening, and my soul
Once more made trial of her strength, nor lacked 95
AEolian visitations; but the harp
Was soon defrauded, and the banded host
Of harmony dispersed in straggling sounds,
And lastly utter silence! "Be it so;
Why think of any thing but present good? " [H] 100
So, like a home-bound labourer I pursued
My way beneath the mellowing sun, that shed
Mild influence; nor left in me one wish
Again to bend the Sabbath of that time
To a servile yoke. What need of many words? 105
A pleasant loitering journey, through three days
Continued, brought me to my hermitage, [I]
I spare to tell of what ensued, the life
In common things--the endless store of things,
Rare, or at least so seeming, every day 110
Found all about me in one neighbourhood--
The self-congratulation, and, from morn
To night, unbroken cheerfulness serene. [K]
But speedily an earnest longing rose
To brace myself to some determined aim, 115
Reading or thinking; either to lay up
New stores, or rescue from decay the old
By timely interference: and therewith
Came hopes still higher, that with outward life
I might endue some airy phantasies 120
That had been floating loose about for years,
And to such beings temperately deal forth
The many feelings that oppressed my heart.
That hope hath been discouraged; welcome light
Dawns from the east, but dawns to disappear 125
And mock me with a sky that ripens not
Into a steady morning: if my mind,
Remembering the bold promise of the past,
Would gladly grapple with some noble theme,
Vain is her wish; where'er she turns she finds 130
Impediments from day to day renewed.
And now it would content me to yield up
Those lofty hopes awhile, for present gifts
Of humbler industry. But, oh, dear Friend!
The Poet, gentle creature as he is, 135
Hath, like the Lover, his unruly times;
His fits when he is neither sick nor well,
Though no distress be near him but his own
Unmanageable thoughts: his mind, best pleased
While she as duteous as the mother dove 140
Sits brooding, lives not always to that end,
But like the innocent bird, hath goadings on
That drive her as in trouble through the groves; [L]
With me is now such passion, to be blamed
No otherwise than as it lasts too long. 145
When, as becomes a man who would prepare
For such an arduous work, I through myself
Make rigorous inquisition, the report
Is often cheering; for I neither seem
To lack that first great gift, the vital soul, 150
Nor general Truths, which are themselves a sort
Of Elements and Agents, Under-powers,
Subordinate helpers of the living mind:
Nor am I naked of external things,
Forms, images, nor numerous other aids 155
Of less regard, though won perhaps with toil
And needful to build up a Poet's praise.
Time, place, and manners do I seek, and these
Are found in plenteous store, but nowhere such
As may be singled out with steady choice; 160
No little band of yet remembered names
Whom I, in perfect confidence, might hope
To summon back from lonesome banishment,
And make them dwellers in the hearts of men
Now living, or to live in future years. 165
Sometimes the ambitious Power of choice, mistaking
Proud spring-tide swellings for a regular sea,
Will settle on some British theme, some old
Romantic tale by Milton left unsung;
More often turning to some gentle place 170
Within the groves of Chivalry, I pipe
To shepherd swains, or seated harp in hand,
Amid reposing knights by a river side
Or fountain, listen to the grave reports
Of dire enchantments faced and overcome 175
By the strong mind, and tales of warlike feats,
Where spear encountered spear, and sword with sword
Fought, as if conscious of the blazonry
That the shield bore, so glorious was the strife;
Whence inspiration for a song that winds 180
Through ever changing scenes of votive quest
Wrongs to redress, harmonious tribute paid
To patient courage and unblemished truth,
To firm devotion, zeal unquenchable,
And Christian meekness hallowing faithful loves. 185
Sometimes, more sternly moved, I would relate
How vanquished Mithridates northward passed,
And, hidden in the cloud of years, became
Odin, the Father of a race by whom
Perished the Roman Empire: [M] how the friends 190
And followers of Sertorius, [N] out of Spain
Flying, found shelter in the Fortunate Isles, [O]
And left their usages, their arts and laws,
To disappear by a slow gradual death,
To dwindle and to perish one by one, 195
Starved in those narrow bounds: [P] but not the soul
Of Liberty, which fifteen hundred years
Survived, and, when the European came
With skill and power that might not be withstood,
Did, like a pestilence, maintain its hold 200
And wasted down by glorious death that race
Of natural heroes: or I would record
How, in tyrannic times, some high-souled man,
Unnamed among the chronicles of kings,
Suffered in silence for Truth's sake: or tell, 205
How that one Frenchman, [Q] through continued force
Of meditation on the inhuman deeds
Of those who conquered first the Indian Isles,
Went single in his ministry across
The Ocean; not to comfort the oppressed, 210
But, like a thirsty wind, to roam about
Withering the Oppressor: how Gustavus sought
Help at his need in Dalecarlia's mines: [R]
How Wallace fought for Scotland; left the name
Of Wallace to be found, like a wild flower, 215
All over his dear Country; [S] left the deeds
Of Wallace, like a family of Ghosts,
To people the steep rocks and river banks,
Her natural sanctuaries, with a local soul
Of independence and stern liberty. 220
Sometimes it suits me better to invent
A tale from my own heart, more near akin
To my own passions and habitual thoughts;
Some variegated story, in the main
Lofty, but the unsubstantial structure melts 225
Before the very sun that brightens it,
Mist into air dissolving! Then a wish,
My best and favourite aspiration, mounts
With yearning toward some philosophic song
Of Truth that cherishes our daily life; 230
With meditations passionate from deep
Recesses in man's heart, immortal verse [T]
Thoughtfully fitted to the Orphean lyre; [U]
But from this awful burthen I full soon
Take refuge and beguile myself with trust 235
That mellower years will bring a riper mind
And clearer insight. Thus my days are past
In contradiction; with no skill to part
Vague longing, haply bred by want of power,
From paramount impulse not to be withstood, 240
A timorous capacity from prudence,
From circumspection, infinite delay.
Humility and modest awe themselves
Betray me, serving often for a cloak
To a more subtle selfishness; that now 245
Locks every function up in blank reserve,
Now dupes me, trusting to an anxious eye
That with intrusive restlessness beats off
Simplicity and self-presented truth.
Ah! better far than this, to stray about 250
Voluptuously through fields and rural walks,
And ask no record of the hours, resigned
To vacant musing, unreproved neglect
Of all things, and deliberate holiday.
Far better never to have heard the name 255
Of zeal and just ambition, than to live
Baffled and plagued by a mind that every hour
Turns recreant to her task; takes heart again,
Then feels immediately some hollow thought
Hang like an interdict upon her hopes. 260
This is my lot; for either still I find
Some imperfection in the chosen theme,
Or see of absolute accomplishment
Much wanting, so much wanting, in myself,
That I recoil and droop, and seek repose 265
In listlessness from vain perplexity,
Unprofitably travelling toward the grave,
Like a false steward who hath much received
And renders nothing back.
Was it for this
That one, the fairest of all rivers, [V] loved 270
To blend his murmurs with my nurse's song,
And, from his alder shades and rocky falls,
And from his fords and shallows, sent a voice
That flowed along my dreams? For this, didst thou,
O Derwent! winding among grassy holms 275
Where I was looking on, a babe in arms,
Make ceaseless music that composed my thoughts
To more than infant softness, giving me
Amid the fretful dwellings of mankind
A foretaste, a dim earnest, of the calm 280
That Nature breathes among the hills and groves?
When he had left the mountains and received
On his smooth breast the shadow of those towers [W]
That yet survive, a shattered monument
Of feudal sway, the bright blue river passed 285
Along the margin of our terrace walk; [X]
A tempting playmate whom we dearly loved.
Oh, many a time have I, a five years' child,
In a small mill-race severed from his stream,
Made one long bathing of a summer's day; 290
Basked in the sun, and plunged and basked again
Alternate, all a summer's day, or scoured
The sandy fields, leaping through flowery groves
Of yellow ragwort; or when rock and hill,
The woods, and distant Skiddaw's lofty height, 295
Were bronzed with deepest radiance, stood alone
Beneath the sky, as if I had been born
On Indian plains, and from my mother's hut
Had run abroad in wantonness, to sport
A naked savage, in the thunder shower. 300
Fair seed-time had my soul, and I grew up
Fostered alike by beauty and by fear:
Much favoured in my birth-place, and no less
In that beloved Vale to which erelong
We were transplanted [Y]--there were we let loose 305
For sports of wider range. Ere I had told
Ten birth-days, [Z] when among the mountain slopes
Frost, and the breath of frosty wind, had snapped
The last autumnal crocus, [a] 'twas my joy
With store of springes o'er my shoulder hung 310
To range the open heights where woodcocks run
Along the smooth green turf. [b] Through half the night,
Scudding away from snare to snare, I plied
That anxious visitation;--moon and stars
Were shining o'er my head. I was alone, 315
And seemed to be a trouble to the peace
That dwelt among them. Sometimes it befel
In these night wanderings, that a strong desire
O'erpowered my better reason, and the bird
Which was the captive of another's toil 320
Became my prey; and when the deed was done
I heard among the solitary hills
Low breathings coming after me, and sounds
Of undistinguishable motion, steps
Almost as silent as the turf they trod. 325
Nor less when spring had warmed the cultured Vale, [c]
Moved we as plunderers where the mother-bird
Had in high places built her lodge; though mean
Our object and inglorious, yet the end
Was not ignoble. Oh! when I have hung 330
Above the raven's nest, by knots of grass
And half-inch fissures in the slippery rock
But ill sustained, and almost (so it seemed)
Suspended by the blast that blew amain,
Shouldering the naked crag, [d] oh, at that time 335
While on the perilous ridge I hung alone,
With what strange utterance did the loud dry wind
Blow through my ear! the sky seemed not a sky
Of earth--and with what motion moved the clouds!
Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows 340
Like harmony in music; there is a dark
Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles
Discordant elements, makes them cling together
In one society. How strange that all
The terrors, pains, and early miseries, 345
Regrets, vexations, lassitudes interfused
Within my mind, should e'er have borne a part,
And that a needful part, in making up
The calm existence that is mine when I
Am worthy of myself! Praise to the end! 350
Thanks to the means which Nature deigned to employ;
Whether her fearless visitings, or those
That came with soft alarm, like hurtless light
Opening the peaceful clouds; or she may use
Severer interventions, ministry 355
More palpable, as best might suit her aim.
One summer evening (led by her) I found
A little boat tied to a willow tree
Within a rocky cave, [e] its usual home.
Straight I unloosed her chain, and stepping in 360
Pushed from the shore. It was an act of stealth
And troubled pleasure, nor without the voice
Of mountain-echoes did my boat move on;
Leaving behind her still, on either side,
Small circles glittering idly in the moon, 365
Until they melted all into one track
Of sparkling light. But now, like one who rows,
Proud of his skill, to reach a chosen point
With an unswerving line, I fixed my view
Upon the summit of a craggy ridge, 370
The horizon's utmost boundary; far above
Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky.
She was an elfin pinnace; lustily
I dipped my oars into the silent lake,
And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boat 375
Went heaving through the water like a swan;
When, from behind that craggy steep till then
The horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge,
As if with voluntary power instinct
Upreared its head. [f] I struck and struck again, 380
And growing still in stature the grim shape
Towered up between me and the stars, and still,
For so it seemed, with purpose of its own
And measured motion like a living thing,
Strode after me. With trembling oars I turned, 385
And through the silent water stole my way
Back to the covert of the willow tree;
There in her mooring-place I left my bark,--
And through the meadows homeward went, in grave
And serious mood; but after I had seen 390
That spectacle, for many days, my brain
Worked with a dim and undetermined sense
Of unknown modes of being; o'er my thoughts
There hung a darkness, call it solitude
Or blank desertion. No familiar shapes 395
Remained, no pleasant images of trees,
Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields;
But huge and mighty forms, that do not live
Like living men, moved slowly through the mind
By day, and were a trouble to my dreams. 400
Wisdom and Spirit of the universe!
Thou Soul that art the eternity of thought,
That givest to forms and images a breath
And everlasting motion, not in vain
By day or star-light thus from my first dawn 405
Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me
The passions that build up our human soul;
Not with the mean and vulgar works of man,
But with high objects, with enduring things--
With life and nature, purifying thus 410
The elements of feeling and of thought,
And sanctifying, by such discipline,
Both pain and fear, until we recognise
A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.
Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me 415
With stinted kindness. In November days,
When vapours rolling down the valley made
A lonely scene more lonesome, among woods
At noon, and 'mid the calm of summer nights,
When, by the margin of the trembling lake, 420
Beneath the gloomy hills homeward I went
In solitude, such intercourse was mine;
Mine was it in the fields both day and night,
And by the waters, all the summer long.
And in the frosty season, when the sun 425
Was set, and visible for many a mile
The cottage windows blazed through twilight gloom,
I heeded not their summons: happy time
It was indeed for all of us--for me
It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud 430
The village clock tolled six,--I wheeled about,
Proud and exulting like an untired horse
That cares not for his home. All shod with steel,
We hissed along the polished ice in games
Confederate, imitative of the chase 435
And woodland pleasures,--the resounding horn,
The pack loud chiming, and the hunted hare.
So through the darkness and the cold we flew,
And not a voice was idle; with the din
Smitten, the precipices rang aloud; 440
The leafless trees and every icy crag
Tinkled like iron; [g] while far distant hills
Into the tumult sent an alien sound
Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars
Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the west 445
The orange sky of evening died away.
Not seldom from the uproar I retired
Into a silent bay, or sportively
Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng,
To cut across the reflex of a star 450
That fled, and, flying still before me, gleamed
Upon the glassy plain; and oftentimes,
When we had given our bodies to the wind,
And all the shadowy banks on either side
Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still 455
The rapid line of motion, then at once
Have I, reclining back upon my heels,
Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs
Wheeled by me--even as if the earth had rolled
With visible motion her diurnal round! 460
Behind me did they stretch in solemn train,
Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched
Till all was tranquil as a dreamless sleep. [h]
Ye Presences of Nature in the sky
And on the earth! Ye Visions of the hills! 465
And Souls of lonely places! can I think
A vulgar hope was yours when ye employed
Such ministry, when ye through many a year
Haunting me thus among my boyish sports,
On caves and trees, upon the woods and hills, 470
Impressed upon all forms the characters
Of danger or desire; and thus did make
The surface of the universal earth
With triumph and delight, with hope and fear,
Work like a sea?
Not uselessly employed, 475
Might I pursue this theme through every change
Of exercise and play, to which the year
Did summon us in his delightful round.
We were a noisy crew; the sun in heaven
Beheld not vales more beautiful than ours; 480
Nor saw a band in happiness and joy
Richer, or worthier of the ground they trod.
I could record with no reluctant voice
The woods of autumn, and their hazel bowers
With milk-white clusters hung; the rod and line, 485
True symbol of hope's foolishness, whose strong
And unreproved enchantment led us on
By rocks and pools shut out from every star,
All the green summer, to forlorn cascades
Among the windings hid of mountain brooks.
[i] 490
--Unfading recollections! at this hour
The heart is almost mine with which I felt,
From some hill-top on sunny afternoons, [j]
The paper kite high among fleecy clouds
Pull at her rein like an impetuous courser; 495
Or, from the meadows sent on gusty days,
Beheld her breast the wind, then suddenly
Dashed headlong, and rejected by the storm.
Ye lowly cottages wherein we dwelt,
A ministration of your own was yours; 500
Can I forget you, being as you were
So beautiful among the pleasant fields
In which ye stood? or can I here forget
The plain and seemly countenance with which
Ye dealt out your plain comforts? Yet had ye 505
Delights and exultations of your own. [k]
Eager and never weary we pursued
Our home-amusements by the warm peat-fire
At evening, when with pencil, and smooth slate
In square divisions parcelled out and all 510
With crosses and with cyphers scribbled o'er,
We schemed and puzzled, head opposed to head
In strife too humble to be named in verse:
Or round the naked table, snow-white deal,
Cherry or maple, sate in close array, 515
And to the combat, Loo or Whist, led on
A thick-ribbed army; not, as in the world,
Neglected and ungratefully thrown by
Even for the very service they had wrought,
But husbanded through many a long campaign. 520
Uncouth assemblage was it, where no few
Had changed their functions; some, plebeian cards [l]
Which Fate, beyond the promise of their birth, [m]
Had dignified, and called to represent
The persons of departed potentates. 525
Oh, with what echoes on the board they fell!
Ironic diamonds,--clubs, hearts, diamonds, spades,
A congregation piteously akin!
Cheap matter offered they to boyish wit,
Those sooty knaves, precipitated down 530
With scoffs and taunts, like Vulcan out of heaven:
The paramount ace, a moon in her eclipse,
Queens gleaming through their splendour's last decay,
And monarchs surly at the wrongs sustained
By royal visages. Meanwhile abroad 535
Incessant rain was falling, or the frost
Raged bitterly, with keen and silent tooth;
And, interrupting oft that eager game,
From under Esthwaite's splitting fields of ice
The pent-up air, struggling to free itself, 540
Gave out to meadow grounds and hills a loud
Protracted yelling, like the noise of wolves
Howling in troops along the Bothnic Main. [n]
Nor, sedulous as I have been to trace
How Nature by extrinsic passion first 545
Peopled the mind with forms sublime or fair,
And made me love them, may I here omit
How other pleasures have been mine, and joys
Of subtler origin; how I have felt,
Not seldom even in that tempestuous time, 550
Those hallowed and pure motions of the sense
Which seem, in their simplicity, to own
An intellectual charm; that calm delight
Which, if I err not, surely must belong
To those first-born affinities that fit 555
Our new existence to existing things,
And, in our dawn of being, constitute
The bond of union between life and joy.
Yes, I remember when the changeful earth,
And twice five summers on my mind had stamped 560
The faces of the moving year, even then
I held unconscious intercourse with beauty
Old as creation, drinking in a pure
Organic pleasure from the silver wreaths
Of curling mist, or from the level plain 565
Of waters coloured by impending clouds. [o]
The sands of Westmoreland, the creeks and bays
Of Cumbria's rocky limits, they can tell
How, when the Sea threw off his evening shade,
And to the shepherd's hut on distant hills 570
Sent welcome notice of the rising moon,
How I have stood, to fancies such as these
A stranger, linking with the spectacle
No conscious memory of a kindred sight,
And bringing with me no peculiar sense 575
Of quietness or peace; yet have I stood,
Even while mine eye hath moved o'er many a league
Of shining water, gathering as it seemed
Through every hair-breadth in that field of light
New pleasure like a bee among the flowers. 580
Thus oft amid those fits of vulgar joy
Which, through all seasons, on a child's pursuits
Are prompt attendants, 'mid that giddy bliss
Which, like a tempest, works along the blood
And is forgotten; even then I felt 585
Gleams like the flashing of a shield;--the earth
And common face of Nature spake to me
Rememberable things; sometimes, 'tis true,
By chance collisions and quaint accidents
(Like those ill-sorted unions, work supposed 590
Of evil-minded fairies), yet not vain
Nor profitless, if haply they impressed
Collateral objects and appearances,
Albeit lifeless then, and doomed to sleep
Until maturer seasons called them forth 595
To impregnate and to elevate the mind.
--And if the vulgar joy by its own weight
Wearied itself out of the memory,
The scenes which were a witness of that joy
Remained in their substantial lineaments 600
Depicted on the brain, and to the eye
Were visible, a daily sight; and thus
By the impressive discipline of fear,
By pleasure and repeated happiness,
So frequently repeated, and by force 605
Of obscure feelings representative
Of things forgotten, these same scenes so bright,
So beautiful, so majestic in themselves,
Though yet the day was distant, did become
Habitually dear, and all their forms 610
And changeful colours by invisible links
Were fastened to the affections.
I began
My story early--not misled, I trust,
By an infirmity of love for days
Disowned by memory--ere the breath of spring 615
Planting my snowdrops among winter snows: [p]
Nor will it seem to thee, O Friend! so prompt
In sympathy, that I have lengthened out
With fond and feeble tongue a tedious tale.
Meanwhile, my hope has been, that I might fetch 620
Invigorating thoughts from former years;
Might fix the wavering balance of my mind,
And haply meet reproaches too, whose power
May spur me on, in manhood now mature
To honourable toil. Yet should these hopes 625
Prove vain, and thus should neither I be taught
To understand myself, nor thou to know
With better knowledge how the heart was framed
Of him thou lovest; need I dread from thee
Harsh judgments, if the song be loth to quit 630
Those recollected hours that have the charm
Of visionary things, those lovely forms
And sweet sensations that throw back our life,
And almost make remotest infancy
A visible scene, on which the sun is shining? [q] 635
One end at least hath been attained; my mind
Hath been revived, and if this genial mood
Desert me not, forthwith shall be brought down
Through later years the story of my life.
The road lies plain before me;--'tis a theme 640
Single and of determined bounds; and hence
I choose it rather at this time, than work
Of ampler or more varied argument,
Where I might be discomfited and lost:
And certain hopes are with me, that to thee 645
This labour will be welcome, honoured Friend!
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES TO BOOK THE FIRST
[Footnote A: On the authority of the poet's nephew, and others, the
"city" here referred to has invariably been supposed to be Goslar, where
he spent the winter of 1799. Goslar, however, is as unlike a "vast city"
as it is possible to conceive. Wordsworth could have walked from end to
end of it in ten minutes.
One would think he was rather referring to London, but there is no
evidence to show that he visited the metropolis in the spring of 1799.
The lines which follow about "the open fields" (l. 50) are certainly
more appropriate to a journey from London to Sockburn, than from Goslar
to Gottingen; and what follows, the "green shady place" of l. 62, the
"known Vale" and the "cottage" of ll. 72 and 74, certainly refer to
English soil. --Ed. ]
[Footnote B: Compare 'Paradise Lost', xii. l. 646.
'The world was all before them, where to choose. '
Ed. ]
[Footnote C: Compare 'Lines composed above Tintern Abbey', II. 52-5
(vol. ii. p. 53. )--Ed. ]
[Footnote D: S. T. Coleridge. --Ed. ]
[Footnote E: At Sockburn-on-Tees, county Durham, seven miles south-east
of Darlington. --Ed. ]
[Footnote F: Grasmere. --Ed. ]
[Footnote G: Dove Cottage at Town-end. --Ed. ]
[Footnote H: This quotation I am unable to trace. --Ed. ]
[Footnote I: Wordsworth spent most of the year 1799 (from March to
December) at Sockburn with the Hutchinsons. With Coleridge and his
brother John he went to Windermere, Rydal, Grasmere, etc. , in the
autumn, returning afterwards to Sockburn. He left it again, with his
sister, on Dec. 19, to settle at Grasmere, and they reached Dove Cottage
on Dec. 21, 1799. --Ed. ]
[Footnote K: See Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, _passim. _--Ed. ]
[Footnote L: Compare the 2nd and 3rd of the 'Stanzas written in my
pocket-copy of Thomson's Castle of Indolence', vol. ii. p. 306, and the
note appended to that poem. --Ed. ]
[Footnote M: Mithridates (the Great) of Pontus, 131 B. C. to 63 B. C.
Vanquished by Pompey, B. C. 65, he fled to his son-in-law, Tigranes, in
Armenia. Being refused an asylum, he committed suicide. I cannot trace
the legend of Mithridates becoming Odin. Probably Wordsworth means that
he would invent, rather than "relate," the story. Gibbon ('Decline and
Fall of the Roman Empire', chap. x. ) says,
"It is supposed that Odin was the chief of a tribe of barbarians, who
dwelt on the banks of Lake Maeotis, till the fall of Mithridates, and
the arms of Pompey menaced the north with servitude; that Odin,
yielding with indignant fury to a power which he was unable to resist,
conducted his tribe from the frontiers of Asiatic Sarmatia into
Sweden. "
See also Mallet, 'Northern Antiquities', and Crichton and Wheaton's
'Scandinavia' (Edinburgh Cabinet Library):
"Among the fugitive princes of Scythia, who were expelled from their
country in the Mithridatic war, tradition has placed the name of Odin,
the ruler of a potent tribe in Turkestan, between the Euxine and the
Caspian. "
Ed. ]
[Footnote N: Sertorius, one of the Roman generals of the later
Republican era (see Plutarch's biography of him, and Corneille's
tragedy). On being proscribed by Sylla, he fled from Etruria to Spain;
there he became the leader of several bands of exiles, and repulsed the
Roman armies sent against him. Mithridates VI. --referred to in the
previous note--aided him, both with ships and money, being desirous of
establishing a new Roman Republic in Spain. From Spain he went to
Mauritania. In the Straits of Gibraltar he met some sailors, who had
been in the Atlantic Isles, and whose reports made him wish to visit
these islands. --Ed. ]
[Footnote O: Supposed to be the Canaries. --Ed. ]
[Footnote P:
"In the early part of the fifteenth century there arrived at Lisbon an
old bewildered pilot of the seas, who had been driven by tempests he
knew not whither, and raved about an island in the far deep upon which
he had landed, and which he had found peopled, and adorned with noble
cities. The inhabitants told him that they were descendants of a band
of Christians who fled from Spain when that country was conquered by
the Moslems. "
(See Washington Irving's 'Chronicles of Wolfert's Roost', etc. ; and
Baring Gould's 'Curious Myths of the Middle Ages'. )--Ed. ]
[Footnote Q: Dominique de Gourgues, a French gentleman, who went in 1568
to Florida, to avenge the massacre of the French by the Spaniards there.
(Mr. Carter, in the edition of 1850. )--Ed. ]
[Footnote R: Gustavus I. of Sweden. In the course of his war with
Denmark he retreated to Dalecarlia, where he was a miner and field
labourer. --Ed. ]
[Footnote S: The name--both as Christian and surname--is common in
Scotland, and towns (such as Wallacetown, Ayr) are named after him.
"Passed two of Wallace's caves. There is scarcely a noted glen in
Scotland that has not a cave for Wallace, or some other hero. "
Dorothy Wordsworth's 'Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland in 1803'
(Sunday, August 21). --Ed. ]
[Footnote T: Compare 'L'Allegro', l. 137. --Ed. ]
[Footnote U: Compare 'Paradise Lost', iii. 17. --Ed. ]
[Footnote V: The Derwent, on which the town of Cockermouth is built,
where Wordsworth was born on the 7th of April 1770. --Ed. ]
[Footnote W: The towers of Cockermouth Castle. --Ed. ]
[Footnote X: The "terrace walk" is at the foot of the garden, attached
to the old mansion in which Wordsworth's father, law-agent of the Earl
of Lonsdale, resided. This home of his childhood is alluded to in 'The
Sparrow's Nest', vol. ii. p. 236. Three of the "Poems, composed or
suggested during a Tour, in the Summer of 1833," refer to Cockermouth.
They are the fifth, sixth, and seventh in that series of Sonnets: and
are entitled respectively 'To the River Derwent'; 'In sight of the Town
of Cockermouth'; and the 'Address from the Spirit of Cockermouth
Castle'. It was proposed some time ago that this house--which is known
in Cockermouth as "Wordsworth House,"--should be purchased, and since
the Grammar School of the place is out of repair, that it should be
converted into a School, in memory of Wordsworth. This excellent
suggestion has not yet been carried out--Ed. ]
[Footnote Y: The Vale of Esthwaite. --Ed. ]
[Footnote Z: He went to Hawkshead School in 1778. --Ed. ]
[Footnote a: About mid October the autumn crocus in the garden "snaps"
in that district. --Ed. ]
[Footnote b: Possibly in the Claife and Colthouse heights to the east of
Esthwaite Water; but more probably the round-headed grassy hills that
lead up and on to the moor between Hawkshead and Coniston, where the
turf is always green and smooth. --Ed. ]
[Footnote c: Yewdale: see next note. "Cultured Vale" exactly describes
the little oat-growing valley of Yewdale. --Ed. ]
[Footnote d: As there are no "naked crags" with "half-inch fissures in
the slippery rocks" in the "cultured vale" of Esthwaite, the locality
referred to is probably the Hohne Fells above Yewdale, to the north of
Coniston, and only a few miles from Hawkshead, where a crag, now named
Raven's Crag, divides Tilberthwaite from Yewdale. In his 'Epistle to Sir
George Beaumont', Wordsworth speaks of Yewdale as a plain
'spread
Under a rock too steep for man to tread,
Where sheltered from the north and bleak north-west
Aloft the Raven hangs a visible nest,
Fearless of all assaults that would her brood molest. '
Ed. ]
[Footnote e: Dr. Cradock suggested the reading "rocky cove. " Rocky cave
is tautological, and Wordsworth would hardly apply the epithet to an
ordinary boat-house. --Ed. ]
[Footnote f: The "craggy steep till then the horizon's bound," is
probably the ridge of Ironkeld, reaching from high Arnside to the Tom
Heights above Tarn Hows; while the "huge peak, black and huge, as if
with voluntary power instinct," may he either the summit of Wetherlam,
or of Pike o'Blisco. Mr. Rawnsley, however, is of opinion that if
Wordsworth rowed off from the west bank of Fasthwaite, he might see
beyond the craggy ridge of Loughrigg the mass of Nab-Scar, and Rydal
Head would rise up "black and huge. " If he rowed from the east side,
then Pike o'Stickle, or Harrison Stickle, might rise above Ironkeld,
over Borwick Ground. --Ed. ]
[Footnote g: Compare S. T. Coleridge.
"When very many are skating together, the sounds and the noises give
an impulse to the icy trees, and the woods all round the lake
_tinkle_. "
'The Friend', vol. ii. p. 325 (edition 1818). --Ed. ]
[Footnote h: The two preceding paragraphs were published in 'The
Friend', December 28, 1809, under the title of the 'Growth of Genius
from the Influences of Natural Objects on the Imagination, in Boyhood
and Early Youth', and were afterwards inserted in all the collective
editions of Wordsworth's poems, from 1815 onwards. For the changes of
the text in these editions, see vol. ii. pp. 66-69. --Ed. ]
[Footnote i: The becks amongst the Furness Fells, in Yewdale, and
elsewhere. --Ed. ]
[Footnote j: Possibly from the top of some of the rounded moraine hills
on the western side of the Hawkshead Valley. --Ed. ]
[Footnote k: The pupils in the Hawkshead school, in Wordsworth's time,
boarded in the houses of village dames. Wordsworth lived with one Anne
Tyson, for whom he ever afterwards cherished the warmest regard, and
whose simple character he has immortalised. (See especially in the
fourth book of 'The Prelude', p. 187, etc. ) Wordsworth lived in her
cottage at Hawkshead during nine eventful years. It still remains
externally unaltered, and little, if at all, changed in the interior. It
may be reached through a picturesque archway, near the principal inn of
the village (The Lion); and is on the right of a small open yard, which
is entered through this archway. To the left, a lane leads westwards to
the open country. It is a humble dwelling of two storeys. The floor of
the basement flat-paved with the blue flags of Coniston slate--is not
likely to have been changed since Wordsworth's time. The present door
with its "latch" (see book ii. l. 339), is probably the same as that
referred to in the poem, as in use in 1776, and onwards. For further
details see notes to book iv. --Ed. ]
[Footnote l: Compare Pope's 'Rape of the Lock', canto iii. l. 54:
'Gained but one trump, and one plebeian card. '
Ed. ]
[Footnote m: Compare Walton's 'Compleat Angler', part i. 4:
'I was for that time lifted above earth,
And possess'd joys not promised in my birth. '
Ed. ]
[Footnote n: The notes to this edition are explanatory rather than
critical; but as this image has been objected to--as inaccurate, and out
of all analogy with Wordsworth's use and wont--it may be mentioned that
the noise of the breaking up of the ice, after a severe winter in these
lakes, when it cracks and splits in all directions, is exactly as here
described. It is not of course, in any sense peculiar to the English
lakes; but there are probably few districts where the peculiar noise
referred to can be heard so easily or frequently. Compare Coleridge's
account of the Lake of Ratzeburg in winter, in 'The Friend', vol. ii. p.
323 (edition of 1818), and his reference to "the thunders and 'howlings'
of the breaking ice. "--Ed. ]
[Footnote o: I here insert a very remarkable MS.
