]
[Footnote D: With this poem compare Frederick William Faber's "Hymn,"
which he called 'The Old Labourer', beginning:
What end doth he fulfil!
[Footnote D: With this poem compare Frederick William Faber's "Hymn,"
which he called 'The Old Labourer', beginning:
What end doth he fulfil!
Wordsworth - 1
5) implies the same.
--Ed.
]
* * * * *
SUB-FOOTNOTE ON THE VARIANT
[Sub-Footnote i: This change was made by S. T. C. --Ed. ]
* * * * *
THE OLD CUMBERLAND BEGGAR [A]
Composed 1798. --Published 1800.
The class of Beggars to which the old man here described
belongs, will probably soon be extinct. It consisted of poor,
and, mostly, old and infirm persons, who confined themselves to
a stated round in their neighbourhood, and had certain fixed
days, on which, at different houses, they regularly received
charity; sometimes in money, but mostly in provisions. -W. W.
1800.
[Observed, and with great benefit to my own heart, when I was a child.
Written at Racedown and Alfoxden in my twenty-third year. [B] The
Political Economists were about that time beginning their war upon
mendicity in all its forms, and by implication, if not directly, on
alms-giving also. This heartless process has been carried as far as it
can go by the AMENDED Poor Law Bill, tho' the inhumanity that prevails
in this measure is somewhat disguised by the profession that one of
its objects is to throw the poor upon the voluntary donations of their
neighbours; that is, if rightly interpreted, to force them into a
condition between relief in the Union Poor House and alms robbed of
their Christian grace and spirit, as being _forced_ rather from the
benevolent than given by them; while the avaricious and selfish, and
all, in fact, but the humane and charitable, are at liberty to keep
all they possess from their distressed brethren. --I. F. ]
Included among the "Poems referring to the Period of Old Age. "--Ed.
* * * * *
THE POEM
I saw an aged Beggar in my walk;
And he was seated, by the highway side,
On a low structure of rude masonry
Built at the foot of a huge hill, that they
Who lead their horses down the steep rough road 5
May thence remount at ease. The aged Man
Had placed his staff across the broad smooth stone
That overlays the pile; and, from a bag
All white with flour, the dole of village dames,
He drew his scraps and fragments, one by one; 10
And scanned them with a fixed and serious look
Of idle computation. In the sun,
Upon the second step of that small pile,
Surrounded by those wild unpeopled hills,
He sat, and ate [1] his food in solitude: 15
And ever, scattered from his palsied hand,
That, still attempting to prevent the waste,
Was baffled still, the crumbs in little showers
Fell on the ground; and the small mountain birds,
Not venturing yet to peck their destined meal, 20
Approached within the length of half his staff.
Him from my childhood have I known; and then
He was so old, he seems not older now;
He travels on, a solitary Man,
So helpless in appearance, that for him 25
The sauntering Horseman throws not with a slack
And careless hand [2] his alms upon the ground,
But stops,--that he may safely lodge the coin
Within the old Man's hat; nor quits him so,
But still, when he has given his horse the rein, 30
Watches the aged Beggar with a look [3]
Sidelong, and half-reverted. She who tends
The toll-gate, when in summer at her door
She turns her wheel, if on the road she sees
The aged beggar coming, quits her work, 35
And lifts the latch for him that he may pass.
The post-boy, when his rattling wheels o'ertake
The aged Beggar in the woody lane,
Shouts to him from behind; and, if thus warned [4]
The old man does not change his course, the boy 40
Turns with less noisy wheels to the roadside,
And passes gently by, without a curse
Upon his lips, or anger at his heart.
He travels on, a solitary Man;
His age has no companion. On the ground 45
His eyes are turned, and, as he moves along,
_They_ move along the ground; and, evermore,
Instead of common and habitual sight
Of fields with rural works, of hill and dale,
And the blue sky, one little span of earth 50
Is all his prospect. Thus, from day to day,
Bow-bent, his eyes for ever on the ground, [5]
He plies his weary journey; seeing still,
And seldom [6] knowing that he sees, some straw,
Some scattered leaf, or marks which, in one track, 55
The nails of cart or chariot-wheel have left
Impressed on the white road,--in the same line,
At distance still the same. Poor Traveller!
His staff trails with him; scarcely do his feet [7]
Disturb the summer dust; he is so still 60
In look and motion, that the cottage curs, [8]
Ere he has [9] passed the door, will turn away,
Weary of barking at him. Boys and girls,
The vacant and the busy, maids and youths,
And urchins newly breeched--all pass him by: 65
Him even the slow-paced waggon leaves behind.
But deem not this Man useless. --Statesmen! ye
Who are so restless in your wisdom, ye
Who have a broom still ready in your hands
To rid the world of nuisances; ye proud, 70
Heart-swoln, while in your pride ye contemplate
Your talents, power, or [10] wisdom, deem him not
A burthen of the earth! 'Tis nature's law
That none, the meanest of created things,
Of forms created the most vile and brute, 75
The dullest or most noxious, should exist
Divorced from good--a spirit and pulse of good,
A life and soul, to every mode of being
Inseparably linked. Then be assured
That least of all can aught--that ever owned 80
The heaven-regarding eye and front sublime [C]
Which man is born to--sink, howe'er depressed,
So low as to be scorned without a sin;
Without offence to God cast out of view;
Like the dry remnant of a garden-flower 85
Whose seeds are shed, or as an implement
Worn out and worthless. [11] While from door to door
This old Man creeps, [12] the villagers in him
Behold a record which together binds
Past deeds and offices of charity, 90
Else unremembered, and so keeps alive
The kindly mood in hearts which lapse of years,
And that half-wisdom half-experience gives,
Make slow to feel, and by sure steps resign
To selfishness and cold oblivious cares. 95
Among the farms and solitary huts,
Hamlets and thinly-scattered villages,
Where'er the aged Beggar takes his rounds,
The mild necessity of use compels
To acts of love; and habit does the work 100
Of reason; yet prepares that after-joy
Which reason cherishes. And thus the soul,
By that sweet taste of pleasure unpursued
Doth find herself [13] insensibly disposed
To virtue and true goodness. 105
Some there are,
By their good works exalted, lofty minds
And meditative, authors of delight
And happiness, which to the end of time
Will live, and spread, and kindle: even such minds [14] 110
In childhood, from this solitary Being,
Or from like wanderer, haply have received [15]
(A thing more precious far than all that books
Or the solicitudes of love can do! )
That first mild touch of sympathy and thought, 115
In which they found their kindred with a world
Where want and sorrow were. The easy man
Who sits at his own door,--and, like the pear
That [16] overhangs his head from the green wall,
Feeds in the sunshine; the robust and young, 120
The prosperous and unthinking, they who live
Sheltered, and flourish in a little grove
Of their own kindred;--all behold in him
A silent monitor, which on their minds
Must needs impress a transitory thought 125
Of self-congratulation, to the heart
Of each recalling his peculiar boons,
His charters and exemptions; and, perchance,
Though he to no one give the fortitude
And circumspection needful to preserve 130
His present blessings, and to husband up
The respite of the season, he, at least,
And 'tis no vulgar service, makes them felt.
Yet further. --Many, I believe, there are
Who live a life of virtuous decency, 135
Men who can hear the Decalogue and feel
No self-reproach; who of the moral law
Established in the land where they abide
Are strict observers; and not negligent
In acts of love to those with whom they dwell, [17] 140
Their kindred, and the children of their blood.
Praise be to such, and to their slumbers peace!
--But of the poor man ask, the abject poor;
Go, and demand of him, if there be here
In this cold abstinence from evil deeds, 145
And these inevitable charities,
Wherewith to satisfy the human soul?
No--man is dear to man; the poorest poor
Long for some moments in a weary life
When they can know and feel that they have been, 150
Themselves, the fathers and the dealers-out
Of some small blessings; have been kind to such
As needed kindness, for this single cause,
That we have all of us one human heart.
--Such pleasure is to one kind Being known, 155
My neighbour, when with punctual care, each week
Duly as Friday comes, though pressed herself
By her own wants, she from her store [18] of meal
Takes one unsparing handful for the scrip
Of this old Mendicant, and, from her door 160
Returning with exhilarated heart,
Sits by her fire, and builds her hope in heaven.
Then let him pass, a blessing on his head!
And while in that vast solitude to which
The tide of things has borne [19] him, he appears 165
To breathe and live but for himself alone,
Unblamed, uninjured, let him bear about
The good which the benignant law of Heaven
Has hung around him: and, while life is his,
Still let him prompt the unlettered villagers 170
To tender offices and pensive thoughts. [D]
--Then let him pass, a blessing on his head!
And, long as he can wander, let him breathe
The freshness of the valleys; let his blood
Struggle with frosty air and winter snows; 175
And let the chartered wind that sweeps the heath
Beat his grey locks against his withered face.
Reverence the hope whose vital anxiousness
Gives the last human interest to his heart.
May never HOUSE, misnamed of INDUSTRY, 180
Make him a captive! --for that pent-up din,
Those life-consuming sounds that clog the air,
Be his the natural silence of old age!
Let him be free of mountain solitudes;
And have around him, whether heard or not, 185
The pleasant melody of woodland birds.
Few are his pleasures: if his eyes have now
Been doomed so long to settle upon earth
That not without some effort they behold
The countenance of the horizontal sun, [20] 190
Rising or setting, let the light at least
Find a free entrance to their languid orbs.
And let him, _where_ and _when_ he will, sit down
Beneath the trees, or on a [21] grassy bank
Of highway side, and with the little birds 195
Share his chance-gathered meal; and, finally,
As in the eye of Nature he has lived,
So in the eye of Nature let him die! [E]
* * * * *
VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
[Variant 1:
1805.
. . . eat . . . 1800. ]
[Variant 2:
1837.
The sauntering horseman-traveller does not throw
With careless hand . . . 1800. ]
[Variant 3:
1827.
Towards the aged Beggar turns a look, 1800. ]
[Variant 4:
1827.
. . . and, if perchance 1800. ]
[Variant 5:
1800.
. . . and, evermore,
Instead of Nature's fair variety,]
Her ample scope of hill and dale, of clouds
And the blue sky, the same short span of earth
Is all his prospect. When the little birds
Flit over him, if their quick shadows strike
Across his path, he does not lift his head
Like one whose thoughts have been unsettled. So
Brow-bent, his eyes for ever . . . MS. ]
[Variant 6:
1827.
And never . . . 1800. ]
[Variant 7:
1800.
. . . his slow footsteps scarce MS. ]
[Variant 8:
1800.
. . . that the miller's dog
Is tired of barking at him. MS. ]
[Variant 9:
1837.
. . . have . . . 1800. ]
[Variant 10:
1837.
. . . and . . . 1800. ]
[Variant 11: The lines from "Then be assured" to "worthless" were added
in the edition of 1837. ]
[Variant 12:
1837.
. . . While thus he creeps
From door to door, . . . 1800. ]
[Variant 13:
1832.
. . . itself . . . 1800. ]
[Variant 14:
1827.
. . . ; minds like these, 1800. ]
[Variant 15:
1827.
This helpless wanderer, have perchance receiv'd, 1800. ]
[Variant 16:
1827.
Which . . . 1800. ]
[Variant 17:
1827.
. . . and not negligent,
Meanwhile, in any tenderness of heart
Or act of love . . . 1800. ]
[Variant 18:
1827.
. . . chest . . . 1800. ]
[Variant 19:
1827.
. . . led . . . 1800. ]
[Variant 20:
1837.
. . . if his eyes, which now
Have been so long familiar with the earth,
No more behold the horizontal sun 1800.
. . . if his eyes have now
Been doomed so long to settle on the earth
That not without some effort they behold
The countenance of the horizontal sun, 1815. ]
[Variant 21:
1837.
. . . or by the . . . 1800. ]
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT
[Footnote A: In an early MS. the title of this poem is 'Description of a
Beggar', and in the editions 1800 to 1820 the title was 'The Old
Cumberland Beggar, a Description'. --Ed. ]
[Footnote B: Wordsworth went to Racedown in 1795, when he was
twenty-five years of age; and was at Alfoxden in his twenty-eighth
year. --Ed. ]
[Footnote C: Compare Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' I. 84:
Os homini sublime dedit, coelumque videre
Jussit et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus.
Ed.
]
[Footnote D: With this poem compare Frederick William Faber's "Hymn,"
which he called 'The Old Labourer', beginning:
What end doth he fulfil!
He seems without a will.
Ed. ]
[Footnote E: In January 1801 Charles Lamb thus wrote to Wordsworth of
his 'Old Cumberland Beggar':
"It appears to me a fault that the instructions conveyed in it are too
direct, and like a lecture: they don't slide into the mind of the
reader while he is imagining no such matter,"
At the same time he refers to
"the delicate and curious feeling in the wish of the Beggar that he
may have about him the melody of birds, although he hears them not. "
('The Letters of Charles Lamb', edited by Alfred Ainger, vol. i. p.
163. )--Ed. ]
* * * * *
ANIMAL TRANQUILLITY AND DECAY
Composed 1798. --Published 1798.
[If I recollect right, these verses were an overflowing from 'The Old
Cumberland Beggar'. --I. F. ]
They were published in the first edition of "Lyrical Ballads" (1798),
but 'The Old Cumberland Beggar' was not published till 1800. In an early
MS. , however, the two are incorporated.
In the edition of 1798, the poem was called, 'Old Man Travelling; Animal
Tranquillity and Decay, a Sketch'. In 1800, the title was 'Animal
Tranquillity and Decay. A Sketch'. In 1845, it was 'Animal Tranquillity
and Decay'.
It was included among the "Poems referring to the Period of Old
Age. "--Ed.
* * * * *
THE POEM
The little hedgerow birds,
That peck along the road, regard him not.
He travels on, and in his face, his step,
His gait, is one expression: every limb,
His look and bending figure, all bespeak 5
A man who does not move with pain, but moves
With thought. --He is insensibly subdued
To settled quiet: he is one by whom
All effort seems forgotten; one to whom
Long patience hath [1] such mild composure given, 10
That patience now doth seem a thing of which
He hath no need. He is by nature led
To peace so perfect that the young behold
With envy, what the Old Man hardly feels. [2]
* * * * *
VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
[Variant 1:
1805.
. . . has. . . 1798. ]
[Variant 2:
1815.
--I asked him whither he was bound, and what
The object of his journey; he replied
"Sir! I am going many miles to take
A last leave of my son, a mariner,
Who from a sea-fight has been brought to Falmouth,
And there is dying in an hospital. " 1798.
. . . he replied
That he was going many miles to take
A last leave of his son, a mariner,
Who from a sea-fight had been brought to Falmouth,
And there was dying [i] in an hospital. 1800 to 1805. ]
* * * * *
SUB-FOOTNOTE ON THE VARIANT
[Sub-Footnote i: The edition of 1800 has "lying," evidently a
misprint. --Ed. ]
* * * * *
APPENDIX
I
The following is the full text of the original edition of 'Descriptive
Sketches', first published in 1793:
DESCRIPTIVE SKETCHES
IN VERSE.
TAKEN DURING A
PEDESTRIAN TOUR
IN THE
ITALIAN, GRISON, SWISS, AND SAVOYARD
ALPS. BY
W. WORDSWORTH, B. A.
OF ST. JOHN'S, CAMBRIDGE.
"LOCA PASTORUM DESERTA ATQUE OTIA DIA. "
'Lucret'.
"CASTELLA IN TUMULIS--
ET LONGE SALTUS LATEQUE VACANTES. "
'Virgil'.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR J. JOHNSON, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD.
1793.
TO THE REV. ROBERT JONES, FELLOW OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
Dear sir, However desirous I might have been of giving you proofs of the
high place you hold in my esteem, I should have been cautious of
wounding your delicacy by thus publicly addressing you, had not the
circumstance of my having accompanied you amongst the Alps, seemed to
give this dedication a propriety sufficient to do away any scruples
which your modesty might otherwise have suggested.
In inscribing this little work to you I consult my heart. You know well
how great is the difference between two companions lolling in a post
chaise, and two travellers plodding slowly along the road, side by side,
each with his little knap-sack of necessaries upon his shoulders. How
much more of heart between the two latter!
I am happy in being conscious I shall have one reader who will approach
the conclusion of these few pages with regret. You they must certainly
interest, in reminding you of moments to which you can hardly look back
without a pleasure not the less dear from a shade of melancholy. You
will meet with few images without recollecting the spot where we
observed them together, consequently, whatever is feeble in my design,
or spiritless in my colouring, will be amply supplied by your own
memory.
With still greater propriety I might have inscribed to you a description
of some of the features of your native mountains, through which we have
wandered together, in the same manner, with so much pleasure. But the
sea-sunsets which give such splendour to the vale of Clwyd, Snowdon, the
chair of Idris, the quiet village of Bethkelert, Menai and her druids,
the Alpine steeps of the Conway, and the still more interesting windings
of the wizard stream of the Dee remain yet untouched. Apprehensive that
my pencil may never be exercised on these subjects, I cannot let slip
this opportunity of thus publicly assuring you with how much affection
and esteem,
I am Dear Sir,
Your most obedient very humble Servant
W. WORDSWORTH.
ARGUMENT
'Happiness (if she had been to be found on Earth) amongst the Charms of
Nature--Pleasures of the pedestrian Traveller--Author crosses France to
the Alps--Present state of the Grande Chartreuse--Lake of Como--Time,
Sunset--Same Scene, Twilight--Same Scene, Morning, it's Voluptuous
Character; Old Man and Forest Cottage Music--River Tusa--Via Mala and
Grison Gypsey. Valley of Sckellenen-thal--Lake of Uri, Stormy
Sunset--Chapel of William Tell--force of Local Emotion--Chamois
Chaser--View of the higher Alps--Manner of Life of a Swiss Mountaineer
interspersed with views of the higher Alps--Golden Age of the Alps--Life
and Views continued--Ranz des Vaches famous Swiss Air--Abbey of
Einsiedlen and it's Pilgrims--Valley of Chamouny--Mont Blanc--Slavery of
Savoy--Influence of Liberty on Cottage Happiness--France--Wish for the
extirpation of Slavery--Conclusion. '
DESCRIPTIVE SKETCHES [A]
Were there, below, a spot of holy ground,
By Pain and her sad family unfound,
Sure, Nature's GOD that spot to man had giv'n,
Where murmuring rivers join the song of ev'n;
Where falls the purple morning far and wide 5
In flakes of light upon the mountain-side;
Where summer Suns in ocean sink to rest,
Or moonlight Upland lifts her hoary breast;
Where Silence, on her night of wing, o'er-broods
Unfathom'd dells and undiscover'd woods; 10
Where rocks and groves the power of waters shakes
In cataracts, or sleeps in quiet lakes.
But doubly pitying Nature loves to show'r
Soft on his wounded heart her healing pow'r,
Who plods o'er hills and vales his road forlorn, 15
Wooing her varying charms from eve to morn.
No sad vacuities his heart annoy,
Blows not a Zephyr but it whispers joy;
For him lost flowers their idle sweets exhale;
He tastes the meanest note that swells the gale; 20
For him sod-seats the cottage-door adorn,
And peeps the far-off spire, his evening bourn!
Dear is the forest frowning o'er his head,
And dear the green-sward to his velvet tread;
Moves there a cloud o'er mid-day's flaming eye? 25
Upward he looks--and calls it luxury;
Kind Nature's charities his steps attend,
In every babbling brook he finds a friend,
While chast'ning thoughts of sweetest use, bestow'd
By Wisdom, moralize his pensive road. 30
Host of his welcome inn, the noon-tide bow'r,
To his spare meal he calls the passing poor;
He views the Sun uprear his golden fire,
Or sink, with heart alive like [B] Memnon's lyre;
Blesses the Moon that comes with kindest ray 35
To light him shaken by his viewless way.
With bashful fear no cottage children steal
From him, a brother at the cottage meal,
His humble looks no shy restraint impart,
Around him plays at will the virgin heart. 40
While unsuspended wheels the village dance,
The maidens eye him with inquiring glance,
Much wondering what sad stroke of crazing Care
Or desperate Love could lead a wanderer there.
Me, lur'd by hope her sorrows to remove, 45
A heart, that could not much itself approve,
O'er Gallia's wastes of corn dejected led,
[C] Her road elms rustling thin above my head,
Or through her truant pathway's native charms,
By secret villages and lonely farms, 50
To where the Alps, ascending white in air,
Toy with the Sun, and glitter from afar.
Ev'n now I sigh at hoary Chartreuse' doom
Weeping beneath his chill of mountain gloom.
Where now is fled that Power whose frown severe 55
Tam'd "sober Reason" till she crouch'd in fear?
That breath'd a death-like peace these woods around
Broke only by th' unvaried torrent's sound,
Or prayer-bell by the dull cicada drown'd.
The cloister startles at the gleam of arms, 60
And Blasphemy the shuddering fane alarms;
Nod the cloud-piercing pines their troubl'd heads,
Spires, rocks, and lawns, a browner night o'erspreads.
Strong terror checks the female peasant's sighs,
And start th' astonish'd shades at female eyes. 65
The thundering tube the aged angler hears,
And swells the groaning torrent with his tears.
From Bruno's forest screams the frighted jay,
And slow th' insulted eagle wheels away.
The cross with hideous laughter Demons mock, 70
By [D] angels planted on the aereal rock.
The "parting Genius" sighs with hollow breath
Along the mystic streams of [E] Life and Death.
Swelling the outcry dull, that long resounds
Portentous, thro' her old woods' trackless bounds, 75
Deepening her echoing torrents' awful peal
And bidding paler shades her form conceal,
[F] Vallombre, mid her falling fanes, deplores,
For ever broke, the sabbath of her bow'rs.
More pleas'd, my foot the hidden margin roves 80
Of Como bosom'd deep in chesnut groves.
No meadows thrown between, the giddy steeps
Tower, bare or sylvan, from the narrow deeps.
To towns, whose shades of no rude sound complain,
To ringing team unknown and grating wain, 85
To flat-roof'd towns, that touch the water's bound,
Or lurk in woody sunless glens profound,
Or from the bending rocks obtrusive cling,
And o'er the whiten'd wave their shadows fling;
Wild round the steeps the little [G] pathway twines, 90
And Silence loves it's purple roof of vines.
The viewless lingerer hence, at evening, sees
From rock-hewn steps the sail between the trees;
Or marks, mid opening cliffs, fair dark-ey'd maids
Tend the small harvest of their garden glades, 95
Or, led by distant warbling notes, surveys,
With hollow ringing ears and darkening gaze,
Binding the charmed soul in powerless trance,
Lip-dewing Song and ringlet-tossing Dance,
Where sparkling eyes and breaking smiles illume 100
The bosom'd cabin's lyre-enliven'd gloom;
Or stops the solemn mountain-shades to view
Stretch, o'er their pictur'd mirror, broad and blue,
Tracking the yellow sun from steep to steep,
As up th' opposing hills, with tortoise foot, they creep. 105
Here half a village shines, in gold array'd,
Bright as the moon, half hides itself in shade.
From the dark sylvan roofs the restless spire
Inconstant glancing, mounts like springing fire.
There, all unshaded, blazing forests throw no 110
Rich golden verdure on the waves below.
Slow glides the sail along th' illumin'd shore,
And steals into the shade the lazy oar.
Soft bosoms breathe around contagious sighs,
And amourous music on the water dies. 115
Heedless how Pliny, musing here, survey'd
Old Roman boats and figures thro' the shade,
Pale Passion, overpower'd, retires and woos
The thicket, where th' unlisten'd stock-dove coos.
How bless'd, delicious Scene! the eye that greets 120
Thy open beauties, or thy lone retreats;
Th' unwearied sweep of wood thy cliffs that scales,
The never-ending waters of thy vales;
The cots, those dim religious groves enbow'r,
Or, under rocks that from the water tow'r 125
Insinuated, sprinkling all the shore,
Each with his household boat beside the door,
Whose flaccid sails in forms fantastic droop,
Bright'ning the gloom where thick the forests stoop;
--Thy torrents shooting from the clear-blue sky, 130
Thy towns, like swallows' nests that cleave on high;
That glimmer hoar in eve's last light, descry'd
Dim from the twilight water's shaggy side,
Whence lutes and voices down th' enchanted woods
Steal, and compose the oar-forgotten floods, 135
While Evening's solemn bird melodious weeps,
Heard, by star-spotted bays, beneath the steeps;
--Thy lake, mid smoking woods, that blue and grey
Gleams, streak'd or dappled, hid from morning's ray
Slow-travelling down the western hills, to fold 140
It's green-ting'd margin in a blaze of gold;
From thickly-glittering spires the matin-bell
Calling the woodman from his desert cell,
A summons to the sound of oars, that pass,
Spotting the steaming deeps, to early mass; 145
Slow swells the service o'er the water born,
While fill each pause the ringing woods of morn.
Farewel! those forms that, in thy noon-tide shade,
Rest, near their little plots of wheaten glade;
Those stedfast eyes, that beating breasts inspire 150
To throw the "sultry ray" of young Desire;
Those lips, whose tides of fragrance come, and go,
Accordant to the cheek's unquiet glow;
Those shadowy breasts in love's soft light array'd,
And rising, by the moon of passion sway'd. 155
--Thy fragrant gales and lute-resounding streams,
Breathe o'er the failing soul voluptuous dreams;
While Slavery, forcing the sunk mind to dwell
On joys that might disgrace the captive's cell,
Her shameless timbrel shakes along thy marge, 160
And winds between thine isles the vocal barge.
Yet, arts are thine that rock th' unsleeping heart,
And smiles to Solitude and Want impart.
I lov'd, mid thy most desert woods astray,
With pensive step to measure my slow way, [H] 165
By lonely, silent cottage-doors to roam,
The far-off peasant's day-deserted home;
Once did I pierce to where a cabin stood,
The red-breast peace had bury'd it in wood,
There, by the door a hoary-headed sire 170
Touch'd with his wither'd hand an aged lyre;
Beneath an old-grey oak as violets lie,
Stretch'd at his feet with stedfast, upward eye,
His children's children join'd the holy sound,
A hermit--with his family around. 175
Hence shall we seek where fair Locarno smiles
Embower'd in walnut slopes and citron isles,
Or charms that smile on Tusa's evening stream,
While mid dim towers and woods her [I] waters gleam;
From the bright wave, in solemn gloom, retire 180
The dull-red steeps, and darkening still, aspire,
To where afar rich orange lustres glow
Round undistinguish'd clouds, and rocks, and snow;
Or, led where Viamala's chasms confine
Th' indignant waters of the infant Rhine, 185
Bend o'er th' abyss? --the else impervious gloom
His burning eyes with fearful light illume.
The Grison gypsey here her tent has plac'd,
Sole human tenant of the piny waste;
Her tawny skin, dark eyes, and glossy locks, 190
Bend o'er the smoke that curls beneath the rocks.
--The mind condemn'd, without reprieve, to go
O'er life's long deserts with it's charge of woe,
With sad congratulation joins the train,
Where beasts and men together o'er the plain 195
Move on,--a mighty caravan of pain;
Hope, strength, and courage, social suffering brings,
Freshening the waste of sand with shades and springs.
--She solitary through the desert drear
Spontaneous wanders, hand in hand with Fear. 200
A giant moan along the forest swells
Protracted, and the twilight storm foretells,
And, ruining from the cliffs their deafening load
Tumbles, the wildering Thunder slips abroad;
On the high summits Darkness comes and goes, 205
Hiding their fiery clouds, their rocks, and snows;
The torrent, travers'd by the lustre broad,
Starts like a horse beside the flashing road;
In the roof'd [J] bridge, at that despairing hour,
She seeks a shelter from the battering show'r. 210
--Fierce comes the river down; the crashing wood
Gives way, and half it's pines torment the flood;
[K] Fearful, beneath, the Water-spirits call,
And the bridge vibrates, tottering to its fall.
--Heavy, and dull, and cloudy is the night, 215
No star supplies the comfort of it's light,
Glimmer the dim-lit Alps, dilated, round,
And one sole light shifts in the vale profound;
While, opposite, the waning moon hangs still,
And red, above her melancholy hill. 220
By the deep quiet gloom appall'd, she sighs,
Stoops her sick head, and shuts her weary eyes.
--Breaking th' ascending roar of desert floods,
And insect buzz, that stuns the sultry woods,
She hears, upon the mountain forest's brow, 225
The death-dog, howling loud and long, below;
On viewless fingers counts the valley-clock,
Followed by drowsy crow of midnight cock.
--Bursts from the troubl'd Larch's giant boughs
The pie, and chattering breaks the night's repose. 230
Low barks the fox; by Havoc rouz'd the bear,
Quits, growling, the white bones that strew his lair;
The dry leaves stir as with the serpent's walk,
And, far beneath, Banditti voices talk;
Behind her hill the Moon, all crimson, rides, 235
And his red eyes the slinking Water hides;
Then all is hush'd; the bushes rustle near,
And with strange tinglings sings her fainting ear.
--Vex'd by the darkness, from the piny gulf
Ascending, nearer howls the famish'd wolf, 240
While thro' the stillness scatters wild dismay,
Her babe's small cry, that leads him to his prey.
Now, passing Urseren's open vale serene,
Her quiet streams, and hills of downy green,
Plunge with the Russ embrown'd by Terror's breath, 245
Where danger roofs the narrow walks of death;
By floods, that, thundering from their dizzy height,
Swell more gigantic on the stedfast sight;
Black drizzling craggs, that beaten by the din,
Vibrate, as if a voice complain'd within; 250
Bare steeps, where Desolation stalks, afraid,
Unstedfast, by a blasted yew upstay'd;
By [L] cells whose image, trembling as he prays,
Awe-struck, the kneeling peasant scarce surveys;
Loose-hanging rocks the Day's bless'd eye that hide, 255
And [M] crosses rear'd to Death on every side,
Which with cold kiss Devotion planted near,
And, bending, water'd with the human tear,
Soon fading "silent" from her upward eye,
Unmov'd with each rude form of Danger nigh, 260
Fix'd on the anchor left by him who saves
Alike in whelming snows and roaring waves.
On as we move, a softer prospect opes,
Calm huts, and lawns between, and sylvan slopes.
While mists, suspended on th' expiring gale, 265
Moveless o'er-hang the deep secluded vale,
The beams of evening, slipping soft between,
Light up of tranquil joy a sober scene;
Winding it's dark-green wood and emerald glade,
The still vale lengthens underneath the shade; 270
While in soft gloom the scattering bowers recede,
Green dewy lights adorn the freshen'd mead,
Where solitary forms illumin'd stray
Turning with quiet touch the valley's hay,
On the low [N] brown wood-huts delighted sleep 275
Along the brighten'd gloom reposing deep.
While pastoral pipes and streams the landscape lull,
And bells of passing mules that tinkle dull,
In solemn shapes before th' admiring eye
Dilated hang the misty pines on high, 280
Huge convent domes with pinnacles and tow'rs,
And antique castles seen tho' drizzling show'rs.
From such romantic dreams my sould awake,
Lo! Fear looks silent down on Uri's lake,
By whose unpathway'd margin still and dread 285
Was never heard the plodding peasant's tread.
Tower like a wall the naked rocks, or reach
Far o'er the secret water dark with beech,
More high, to where creation seems to end,
Shade above shade the desert pines ascend, 290
And still, below, where mid the savage scene
Peeps out a little speck of smilgin green,
There with his infants man undaunted creeps
And hangs his small wood-hut upon the steeps.
A garden-plot the desert air perfumes, 295
Mid the dark pines a little orchard blooms,
A zig-zag path from the domestic skiff
Threading the painful cragg surmounts the cliff.
--Before those hermit doors, that never know
The face of traveller passing to and fro, 300
No peasant leans upon his pole, to tell
For whom at morning toll'd the funeral bell,
Their watch-dog ne'er his angry bark forgoes,
Touch'd by the beggar's moan of human woes,
The grass seat beneath their casement shade 305
The pilgrim's wistful eye hath never stay'd.
--There, did the iron Genius not disdain
The gentle Power that haunts the myrtle plain,
There might the love-sick maiden sit, and chide
Th' insuperable rocks and severing tide, 310
There watch at eve her lover's sun-gilt sail
Approaching, and upbraid the tardy gale,
There list at midnight till is heard no more,
Below, the echo of his parting oar,
There hang in fear, when growls the frozen stream, 315
To guide his dangerous tread the taper's gleam.
Mid stormy vapours ever driving by,
Where ospreys, cormorants, and herons cry,
Where hardly giv'n the hopeless waste to chear,
Deny'd the bread of life the foodful ear, 320
Dwindles the pear on autumn's latest spray,
And apple sickens pale in summer's ray,
Ev'n here Content has fix'd her smiling reign
With Independance child of high Disdain.
Exulting mid the winter of the skies, 325
Shy as the jealous chamois, Freedom flies,
And often grasps her sword, and often eyes,
Her crest a bough of Winter's bleakest pine,
Strange "weeds" and alpine plants her helm entwine,
And wildly-pausing oft she hangs aghast, 330
While thrills the "Spartan fife" between the blast.
'Tis storm; and hid in mist from hour to hour
All day the floods a deeper murmur pour,
And mournful sounds, as of a Spirit lost,
Pipe wild along the hollow-blustering coast, 335
'Till the Sun walking on his western field
Shakes from behind the clouds his flashing shield.
Triumphant on the bosom of the storm,
Glances the fire-clad eagle's wheeling form;
Eastward, in long perspective glittering, shine 340
The wood-crown'd cliffs that o'er the lake recline;
Wide o'er the Alps a hundred streams unfold,
At once to pillars turn'd that flame with gold;
Behind his sail the peasant strives to shun
The west that burns like one dilated sun, 345
Where in a mighty crucible expire
The mountains, glowing hot, like coals of fire. [O]
But lo! the boatman, over-aw'd, before
The pictur'd fane of Tell suspends his oar;
Confused the Marathonian tale appears, 350
While burn in his full eyes the glorious tears.
And who but feels a power of strong controul,
Felt only there, oppress his labouring soul,
Who walks, where honour'd men of ancient days
Have wrought with god-like arm the deeds of praise? 355
Say, who, by thinking on Canadian hills,
Or wild Aosta lulled by Alpine rills,
On Zutphen's plain; or where with soften'd gaze
The old grey stones the plaided chief surveys,
Can guess the high resolve, the cherish'd pain 360
Of him whom passion rivets to the plain,
Where breath'd the gale that caught Wolfe's happiest sigh,
And the last sun-beam fell on Bayard's eye,
Where bleeding Sydney from the cup retir'd,
And glad Dundee in "faint huzzas" expir'd. 365
But now with other soul I stand alone
Sublime upon this far-surveying cone,
And watch from [P] pike to pike amid the sky
Small as a bird the chamois-chaser fly.
'Tis his with fearless step at large to roam 370
Thro' wastes, of Spirits wing'd the solemn home,
[Q] Thro' vacant worlds where Nature never gave
A brook to murmur or a bough to wave,
Which unsubstantial Phantoms sacred keep;
Thro' worlds where Life and Sound, and Motion sleep, 375
Where Silence still her death-like reign extends,
Save when the startling cliff unfrequent rends:
In the deep snow the mighty ruin drown'd,
Mocks the dull ear of Time with deaf abortive sound;
--To mark a planet's pomp and steady light 380
In the least star of scarce-appearing night,
And neighbouring moon, that coasts the vast profound,
Wheel pale and silent her diminish'd round,
While far and wide the icy summits blaze
Rejoicing in the glory of her rays; 385
The star of noon that glitters small and bright,
Shorn of his beams, insufferably white,
And flying fleet behind his orb to view
Th' interminable sea of sable blue.
--Of cloudless suns no more ye frost-built spires 390
Refract in rainbow hues the restless fires!
Ye dewy mists the arid rocks o'er-spread
Whose slippery face derides his deathful tread!
--To wet the peak's impracticable sides
He opens of his feet the sanguine tides, 395
Weak and more weak the issuing current eyes
Lapp'd by the panting tongue of thirsty skies. [R]
--At once bewildering mists around him close,
And cold and hunger are his least of woes;
The Demon of the snow with angry roar 400
Descending, shuts for aye his prison door.
Craz'd by the strength of hope at morn he eyes
As sent from heav'n the raven of the skies,
Then with despair's whole weight his spirits sink,
No bread to feed him, and the snow his drink, 405
While ere his eyes can close upon the day,
The eagle of the Alps o'ershades his prey.
--Meanwhile his wife and child with cruel hope
All night the door at every moment ope;
Haply that child in fearful doubt may gaze, 410
Passing his father's bones in future days,
Start at the reliques of that very thigh,
On which so oft he prattled when a boy.
Hence shall we turn where, heard with fear afar,
Thunders thro' echoing pines the headlong Aar? 415
Or rather stay to taste the mild delights
Of pensive [S] Underwalden's pastoral heights?
--Is there who mid these awful wilds has seen
The native Genii walk the mountain green?
Or heard, while other worlds their charms reveal, 420
Soft music from th' aereal summit steal?
While o'er the desert, answering every close,
Rich steam of sweetest perfume comes and goes.
--And sure there is a secret Power that reigns
Here, where no trace of man the spot profanes, 425
Nought but the herds that pasturing upward creep,
Hung dim-discover'd from the dangerous steep,
[T] Or summer hamlet, flat and bare, on high
Suspended, mid the quiet of the sky.
How still! no irreligious sound or sight 430
Rouzes the soul from her severe delight.
An idle voice the sabbath region fills
Of Deep that calls to Deep across the hills,
Broke only by the melancholy sound
Of drowsy bells for ever tinkling round; 435
Faint wail of eagle melting into blue
Beneath the cliffs, and pine-woods steady sugh; [U]
The solitary heifer's deepen'd low;
Or rumbling heard remote of falling snow.
Save that, the stranger seen below, the boy 440
Shouts from the echoing hills with savage joy.
When warm from myrtle bays and tranquil seas,
Comes on, to whisper hope, the [V] vernal breeze,
When hums the mountain bee in May's glad ear,
And emerald isles to spot the heights appear, 445
When shouts and lowing herds the valley fill,
And louder torrents stun the noon-tide hill,
When fragrant scents beneath th' enchanted tread
Spring up, his little all around him spread,
The pastoral Swiss begins the cliffs to scale 450
To silence leaving the deserted vale,
Up the green mountain tracking Summer's feet,
Each twilight earlier call'd the Sun to meet,
With earlier smile the ray of morn to view
Fall on his shifting hut that gleams mid smoking dew; 455
Bless'd with his herds, as in the patriarch's age,
The summer long to feed from stage to stage;
O'er azure pikes serene and still, they go,
And hear the rattling thunder far below;
Or lost at eve in sudden mist the day 460
Attend, or dare with minute-steps their way;
Hang from the rocks that tremble o'er the steep,
And tempt the icy valley yawning deep,
O'er-walk the chasmy torrent's foam-lit bed,
Rock'd on the dizzy larch's narrow tread, 465
Whence Danger leans, and pointing ghastly, joys
To mock the mind with "desperation's toys";
Or steal beneath loose mountains, half deterr'd,
That sigh and shudder to the lowing herd.
--I see him, up the midway cliff he creeps 470
To where a scanty knot of verdure peeps,
Thence down the steep a pile of grass he throws
The fodder of his herds in winter snows.
Far different life to what tradition hoar
Transmits of days more bless'd in times of yore. [W] 475
Then Summer lengthen'd out his season bland,
And with rock-honey flow'd the happy land.
Continual fountains welling chear'd the waste,
And plants were wholesome, now of deadly taste.
Nor Winter yet his frozen stores had pil'd 480
Usurping where the fairest herbage smil'd;
Nor Hunger forc'd the herds from pastures bare
For scanty food the treacherous cliffs to dare.
Then the milk-thistle bad those herds demand
Three times a day the pail and welcome hand. 485
But human vices have provok'd the rod
Of angry Nature to avenge her God.
Thus does the father to his sons relate,
On the lone mountain top, their chang'd estate.
Still, Nature, ever just, to him imparts 490
Joys only given to uncorrupted hearts.
--'Tis morn: with gold the verdant mountain glows,
More high, the snowy peaks with hues of rose.
Far stretch'd beneath the many-tinted hills
A mighty waste of mist the valley fills, 495
A solemn sea! whose vales and mountains round
Stand motionless, to awful silence bound.
A gulf of gloomy blue, that opens wide
And bottomless, divides the midway tide.
Like leaning masts of stranded ships appear 500
The pines that near the coast their summits rear;
Of cabins, woods, and lawns a pleasant shore
Bounds calm and clear the chaos still and hoar;
Loud thro' that midway gulf ascending, sound
Unnumber'd streams with hollow roar profound. 505
Mounts thro' the nearer mist the chaunt of birds,
And talking voices, and the low of herds,
The bark of dogs, the drowsy tinkling bell,
And wild-wood mountain lutes of saddest swell.
Think not, suspended from the cliff on high 510
He looks below with undelighted eye.
--No vulgar joy is his, at even tide
Stretch'd on the scented mountain's purple side.
For as the pleasures of his simple day
Beyond his native valley hardly stray, 515
Nought round it's darling precincts can he find
But brings some past enjoyment to his mind,
While Hope that ceaseless leans on Pleasure's urn
Binds her wild wreathes, and whispers his return.
Once Man entirely free, alone and wild, 520
Was bless'd as free--for he was Nature's child.
He, all superior but his God disdain'd,
Walk'd none restraining, and by none restrain'd,
Confess'd no law but what his reason taught,
Did all he wish'd, and wish'd but what he ought. 525
As Man in his primaeval dower array'd
The image of his glorious sire display'd,
Ev'n so, by vestal Nature guarded, here
The traces of primaeval Man appear.
The native dignity no forms debase, 530
The eye sublime, and surly lion-grace.
The slave of none, of beasts alone the lord,
He marches with his flute, his book, and sword,
Well taught by that to feel his rights, prepar'd
With this "the blessings he enjoys to guard. " 535
And as on glorious ground he draws his breath,
Where Freedom oft, with Victory and Death,
Hath seen in grim array amid their Storms
Mix'd with auxiliar Rocks, three [X] hundred Forms;
While twice ten thousand corselets at the view 540
Dropp'd loud at once, Oppression shriek'd, and flew.
Oft as those sainted Rocks before him spread,
An unknown power connects him with the dead.
For images of other worlds are there,
Awful the light, and holy is the air. 545
Uncertain thro' his fierce uncultur'd soul
Like lighted tempests troubled transports roll;
To viewless realms his Spirit towers amain,
Beyond the senses and their little reign.
And oft, when pass'd that solemn vision by, 550
He holds with God himself communion high,
When the dread peal of swelling torrents fills
The sky-roof'd temple of th' eternal hills,
And savage Nature humbly joins the rite,
While flash her upward eyes severe delight. 555
Or gazing from the mountain's silent brow,
Bright stars of ice and azure worlds of snow,
Where needle peaks of granite shooting bare
Tremble in ever-varying tints of air,
Great joy by horror tam'd dilates his heart, 560
And the near heav'ns their own delights impart.
--When the Sun bids the gorgeous scene farewell,
Alps overlooking Alps their state upswell;
Huge Pikes of Darkness nam'd, of [Y] Fear and Storms
Lift, all serene, their still, illumin'd forms, 565
In sea-like reach of prospect round him spread,
Ting'd like an angel's smile all rosy red.
When downward to his winter hut he goes,
Dear and more dear the lessening circle grows,
That hut which from the hills his eyes employs 570
So oft, the central point of all his joys.
And as a swift by tender cares oppress'd
Peeps often ere she dart into her nest,
So to th' untrodden floor, where round him looks
His father helpless as the babe he rocks, 575
Oft he descends to nurse the brother pair,
Till storm and driving ice blockade him there;
There hears, protected by the woods behind,
Secure, the chiding of the baffled wind,
Hears Winter, calling all his Terrors round, 580
Rush down the living rocks with whirlwind sound.
Thro' Nature's vale his homely pleasures glide
Unstain'd by envy, discontent, and pride,
The bound of all his vanity to deck
With one bright bell a favourite heifer's neck; 585
Content upon some simple annual feast,
Remember'd half the year, and hop'd the rest,
If dairy produce, from his inner hoard,
Of thrice ten summers consecrate the board.
--Alas! in every clime a flying ray 590
Is all we have to chear our wintry way,
Condemn'd, in mists and tempests ever rife,
To pant slow up the endless Alp of life.
"Here," cried a swain, whose venerable head
Bloom'd with the snow-drops of Man's narrow bed, 595
Last night, while by his dying fire, as clos'd
The day, in luxury my limbs repos'd,
"Here Penury oft from misery's mount will guide
Ev'n to the summer door his icy tide,
And here the avalanche of Death destroy 600
The little cottage of domestic Joy.
But, ah! th' unwilling mind may more than trace
The general sorrows of the human race:
The churlish gales, that unremitting blow
Cold from necessity's continual snow, 605
To us the gentle groups of bliss deny
That on the noon-day bank of leisure lie.
* * * * *
SUB-FOOTNOTE ON THE VARIANT
[Sub-Footnote i: This change was made by S. T. C. --Ed. ]
* * * * *
THE OLD CUMBERLAND BEGGAR [A]
Composed 1798. --Published 1800.
The class of Beggars to which the old man here described
belongs, will probably soon be extinct. It consisted of poor,
and, mostly, old and infirm persons, who confined themselves to
a stated round in their neighbourhood, and had certain fixed
days, on which, at different houses, they regularly received
charity; sometimes in money, but mostly in provisions. -W. W.
1800.
[Observed, and with great benefit to my own heart, when I was a child.
Written at Racedown and Alfoxden in my twenty-third year. [B] The
Political Economists were about that time beginning their war upon
mendicity in all its forms, and by implication, if not directly, on
alms-giving also. This heartless process has been carried as far as it
can go by the AMENDED Poor Law Bill, tho' the inhumanity that prevails
in this measure is somewhat disguised by the profession that one of
its objects is to throw the poor upon the voluntary donations of their
neighbours; that is, if rightly interpreted, to force them into a
condition between relief in the Union Poor House and alms robbed of
their Christian grace and spirit, as being _forced_ rather from the
benevolent than given by them; while the avaricious and selfish, and
all, in fact, but the humane and charitable, are at liberty to keep
all they possess from their distressed brethren. --I. F. ]
Included among the "Poems referring to the Period of Old Age. "--Ed.
* * * * *
THE POEM
I saw an aged Beggar in my walk;
And he was seated, by the highway side,
On a low structure of rude masonry
Built at the foot of a huge hill, that they
Who lead their horses down the steep rough road 5
May thence remount at ease. The aged Man
Had placed his staff across the broad smooth stone
That overlays the pile; and, from a bag
All white with flour, the dole of village dames,
He drew his scraps and fragments, one by one; 10
And scanned them with a fixed and serious look
Of idle computation. In the sun,
Upon the second step of that small pile,
Surrounded by those wild unpeopled hills,
He sat, and ate [1] his food in solitude: 15
And ever, scattered from his palsied hand,
That, still attempting to prevent the waste,
Was baffled still, the crumbs in little showers
Fell on the ground; and the small mountain birds,
Not venturing yet to peck their destined meal, 20
Approached within the length of half his staff.
Him from my childhood have I known; and then
He was so old, he seems not older now;
He travels on, a solitary Man,
So helpless in appearance, that for him 25
The sauntering Horseman throws not with a slack
And careless hand [2] his alms upon the ground,
But stops,--that he may safely lodge the coin
Within the old Man's hat; nor quits him so,
But still, when he has given his horse the rein, 30
Watches the aged Beggar with a look [3]
Sidelong, and half-reverted. She who tends
The toll-gate, when in summer at her door
She turns her wheel, if on the road she sees
The aged beggar coming, quits her work, 35
And lifts the latch for him that he may pass.
The post-boy, when his rattling wheels o'ertake
The aged Beggar in the woody lane,
Shouts to him from behind; and, if thus warned [4]
The old man does not change his course, the boy 40
Turns with less noisy wheels to the roadside,
And passes gently by, without a curse
Upon his lips, or anger at his heart.
He travels on, a solitary Man;
His age has no companion. On the ground 45
His eyes are turned, and, as he moves along,
_They_ move along the ground; and, evermore,
Instead of common and habitual sight
Of fields with rural works, of hill and dale,
And the blue sky, one little span of earth 50
Is all his prospect. Thus, from day to day,
Bow-bent, his eyes for ever on the ground, [5]
He plies his weary journey; seeing still,
And seldom [6] knowing that he sees, some straw,
Some scattered leaf, or marks which, in one track, 55
The nails of cart or chariot-wheel have left
Impressed on the white road,--in the same line,
At distance still the same. Poor Traveller!
His staff trails with him; scarcely do his feet [7]
Disturb the summer dust; he is so still 60
In look and motion, that the cottage curs, [8]
Ere he has [9] passed the door, will turn away,
Weary of barking at him. Boys and girls,
The vacant and the busy, maids and youths,
And urchins newly breeched--all pass him by: 65
Him even the slow-paced waggon leaves behind.
But deem not this Man useless. --Statesmen! ye
Who are so restless in your wisdom, ye
Who have a broom still ready in your hands
To rid the world of nuisances; ye proud, 70
Heart-swoln, while in your pride ye contemplate
Your talents, power, or [10] wisdom, deem him not
A burthen of the earth! 'Tis nature's law
That none, the meanest of created things,
Of forms created the most vile and brute, 75
The dullest or most noxious, should exist
Divorced from good--a spirit and pulse of good,
A life and soul, to every mode of being
Inseparably linked. Then be assured
That least of all can aught--that ever owned 80
The heaven-regarding eye and front sublime [C]
Which man is born to--sink, howe'er depressed,
So low as to be scorned without a sin;
Without offence to God cast out of view;
Like the dry remnant of a garden-flower 85
Whose seeds are shed, or as an implement
Worn out and worthless. [11] While from door to door
This old Man creeps, [12] the villagers in him
Behold a record which together binds
Past deeds and offices of charity, 90
Else unremembered, and so keeps alive
The kindly mood in hearts which lapse of years,
And that half-wisdom half-experience gives,
Make slow to feel, and by sure steps resign
To selfishness and cold oblivious cares. 95
Among the farms and solitary huts,
Hamlets and thinly-scattered villages,
Where'er the aged Beggar takes his rounds,
The mild necessity of use compels
To acts of love; and habit does the work 100
Of reason; yet prepares that after-joy
Which reason cherishes. And thus the soul,
By that sweet taste of pleasure unpursued
Doth find herself [13] insensibly disposed
To virtue and true goodness. 105
Some there are,
By their good works exalted, lofty minds
And meditative, authors of delight
And happiness, which to the end of time
Will live, and spread, and kindle: even such minds [14] 110
In childhood, from this solitary Being,
Or from like wanderer, haply have received [15]
(A thing more precious far than all that books
Or the solicitudes of love can do! )
That first mild touch of sympathy and thought, 115
In which they found their kindred with a world
Where want and sorrow were. The easy man
Who sits at his own door,--and, like the pear
That [16] overhangs his head from the green wall,
Feeds in the sunshine; the robust and young, 120
The prosperous and unthinking, they who live
Sheltered, and flourish in a little grove
Of their own kindred;--all behold in him
A silent monitor, which on their minds
Must needs impress a transitory thought 125
Of self-congratulation, to the heart
Of each recalling his peculiar boons,
His charters and exemptions; and, perchance,
Though he to no one give the fortitude
And circumspection needful to preserve 130
His present blessings, and to husband up
The respite of the season, he, at least,
And 'tis no vulgar service, makes them felt.
Yet further. --Many, I believe, there are
Who live a life of virtuous decency, 135
Men who can hear the Decalogue and feel
No self-reproach; who of the moral law
Established in the land where they abide
Are strict observers; and not negligent
In acts of love to those with whom they dwell, [17] 140
Their kindred, and the children of their blood.
Praise be to such, and to their slumbers peace!
--But of the poor man ask, the abject poor;
Go, and demand of him, if there be here
In this cold abstinence from evil deeds, 145
And these inevitable charities,
Wherewith to satisfy the human soul?
No--man is dear to man; the poorest poor
Long for some moments in a weary life
When they can know and feel that they have been, 150
Themselves, the fathers and the dealers-out
Of some small blessings; have been kind to such
As needed kindness, for this single cause,
That we have all of us one human heart.
--Such pleasure is to one kind Being known, 155
My neighbour, when with punctual care, each week
Duly as Friday comes, though pressed herself
By her own wants, she from her store [18] of meal
Takes one unsparing handful for the scrip
Of this old Mendicant, and, from her door 160
Returning with exhilarated heart,
Sits by her fire, and builds her hope in heaven.
Then let him pass, a blessing on his head!
And while in that vast solitude to which
The tide of things has borne [19] him, he appears 165
To breathe and live but for himself alone,
Unblamed, uninjured, let him bear about
The good which the benignant law of Heaven
Has hung around him: and, while life is his,
Still let him prompt the unlettered villagers 170
To tender offices and pensive thoughts. [D]
--Then let him pass, a blessing on his head!
And, long as he can wander, let him breathe
The freshness of the valleys; let his blood
Struggle with frosty air and winter snows; 175
And let the chartered wind that sweeps the heath
Beat his grey locks against his withered face.
Reverence the hope whose vital anxiousness
Gives the last human interest to his heart.
May never HOUSE, misnamed of INDUSTRY, 180
Make him a captive! --for that pent-up din,
Those life-consuming sounds that clog the air,
Be his the natural silence of old age!
Let him be free of mountain solitudes;
And have around him, whether heard or not, 185
The pleasant melody of woodland birds.
Few are his pleasures: if his eyes have now
Been doomed so long to settle upon earth
That not without some effort they behold
The countenance of the horizontal sun, [20] 190
Rising or setting, let the light at least
Find a free entrance to their languid orbs.
And let him, _where_ and _when_ he will, sit down
Beneath the trees, or on a [21] grassy bank
Of highway side, and with the little birds 195
Share his chance-gathered meal; and, finally,
As in the eye of Nature he has lived,
So in the eye of Nature let him die! [E]
* * * * *
VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
[Variant 1:
1805.
. . . eat . . . 1800. ]
[Variant 2:
1837.
The sauntering horseman-traveller does not throw
With careless hand . . . 1800. ]
[Variant 3:
1827.
Towards the aged Beggar turns a look, 1800. ]
[Variant 4:
1827.
. . . and, if perchance 1800. ]
[Variant 5:
1800.
. . . and, evermore,
Instead of Nature's fair variety,]
Her ample scope of hill and dale, of clouds
And the blue sky, the same short span of earth
Is all his prospect. When the little birds
Flit over him, if their quick shadows strike
Across his path, he does not lift his head
Like one whose thoughts have been unsettled. So
Brow-bent, his eyes for ever . . . MS. ]
[Variant 6:
1827.
And never . . . 1800. ]
[Variant 7:
1800.
. . . his slow footsteps scarce MS. ]
[Variant 8:
1800.
. . . that the miller's dog
Is tired of barking at him. MS. ]
[Variant 9:
1837.
. . . have . . . 1800. ]
[Variant 10:
1837.
. . . and . . . 1800. ]
[Variant 11: The lines from "Then be assured" to "worthless" were added
in the edition of 1837. ]
[Variant 12:
1837.
. . . While thus he creeps
From door to door, . . . 1800. ]
[Variant 13:
1832.
. . . itself . . . 1800. ]
[Variant 14:
1827.
. . . ; minds like these, 1800. ]
[Variant 15:
1827.
This helpless wanderer, have perchance receiv'd, 1800. ]
[Variant 16:
1827.
Which . . . 1800. ]
[Variant 17:
1827.
. . . and not negligent,
Meanwhile, in any tenderness of heart
Or act of love . . . 1800. ]
[Variant 18:
1827.
. . . chest . . . 1800. ]
[Variant 19:
1827.
. . . led . . . 1800. ]
[Variant 20:
1837.
. . . if his eyes, which now
Have been so long familiar with the earth,
No more behold the horizontal sun 1800.
. . . if his eyes have now
Been doomed so long to settle on the earth
That not without some effort they behold
The countenance of the horizontal sun, 1815. ]
[Variant 21:
1837.
. . . or by the . . . 1800. ]
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT
[Footnote A: In an early MS. the title of this poem is 'Description of a
Beggar', and in the editions 1800 to 1820 the title was 'The Old
Cumberland Beggar, a Description'. --Ed. ]
[Footnote B: Wordsworth went to Racedown in 1795, when he was
twenty-five years of age; and was at Alfoxden in his twenty-eighth
year. --Ed. ]
[Footnote C: Compare Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' I. 84:
Os homini sublime dedit, coelumque videre
Jussit et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus.
Ed.
]
[Footnote D: With this poem compare Frederick William Faber's "Hymn,"
which he called 'The Old Labourer', beginning:
What end doth he fulfil!
He seems without a will.
Ed. ]
[Footnote E: In January 1801 Charles Lamb thus wrote to Wordsworth of
his 'Old Cumberland Beggar':
"It appears to me a fault that the instructions conveyed in it are too
direct, and like a lecture: they don't slide into the mind of the
reader while he is imagining no such matter,"
At the same time he refers to
"the delicate and curious feeling in the wish of the Beggar that he
may have about him the melody of birds, although he hears them not. "
('The Letters of Charles Lamb', edited by Alfred Ainger, vol. i. p.
163. )--Ed. ]
* * * * *
ANIMAL TRANQUILLITY AND DECAY
Composed 1798. --Published 1798.
[If I recollect right, these verses were an overflowing from 'The Old
Cumberland Beggar'. --I. F. ]
They were published in the first edition of "Lyrical Ballads" (1798),
but 'The Old Cumberland Beggar' was not published till 1800. In an early
MS. , however, the two are incorporated.
In the edition of 1798, the poem was called, 'Old Man Travelling; Animal
Tranquillity and Decay, a Sketch'. In 1800, the title was 'Animal
Tranquillity and Decay. A Sketch'. In 1845, it was 'Animal Tranquillity
and Decay'.
It was included among the "Poems referring to the Period of Old
Age. "--Ed.
* * * * *
THE POEM
The little hedgerow birds,
That peck along the road, regard him not.
He travels on, and in his face, his step,
His gait, is one expression: every limb,
His look and bending figure, all bespeak 5
A man who does not move with pain, but moves
With thought. --He is insensibly subdued
To settled quiet: he is one by whom
All effort seems forgotten; one to whom
Long patience hath [1] such mild composure given, 10
That patience now doth seem a thing of which
He hath no need. He is by nature led
To peace so perfect that the young behold
With envy, what the Old Man hardly feels. [2]
* * * * *
VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
[Variant 1:
1805.
. . . has. . . 1798. ]
[Variant 2:
1815.
--I asked him whither he was bound, and what
The object of his journey; he replied
"Sir! I am going many miles to take
A last leave of my son, a mariner,
Who from a sea-fight has been brought to Falmouth,
And there is dying in an hospital. " 1798.
. . . he replied
That he was going many miles to take
A last leave of his son, a mariner,
Who from a sea-fight had been brought to Falmouth,
And there was dying [i] in an hospital. 1800 to 1805. ]
* * * * *
SUB-FOOTNOTE ON THE VARIANT
[Sub-Footnote i: The edition of 1800 has "lying," evidently a
misprint. --Ed. ]
* * * * *
APPENDIX
I
The following is the full text of the original edition of 'Descriptive
Sketches', first published in 1793:
DESCRIPTIVE SKETCHES
IN VERSE.
TAKEN DURING A
PEDESTRIAN TOUR
IN THE
ITALIAN, GRISON, SWISS, AND SAVOYARD
ALPS. BY
W. WORDSWORTH, B. A.
OF ST. JOHN'S, CAMBRIDGE.
"LOCA PASTORUM DESERTA ATQUE OTIA DIA. "
'Lucret'.
"CASTELLA IN TUMULIS--
ET LONGE SALTUS LATEQUE VACANTES. "
'Virgil'.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR J. JOHNSON, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD.
1793.
TO THE REV. ROBERT JONES, FELLOW OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
Dear sir, However desirous I might have been of giving you proofs of the
high place you hold in my esteem, I should have been cautious of
wounding your delicacy by thus publicly addressing you, had not the
circumstance of my having accompanied you amongst the Alps, seemed to
give this dedication a propriety sufficient to do away any scruples
which your modesty might otherwise have suggested.
In inscribing this little work to you I consult my heart. You know well
how great is the difference between two companions lolling in a post
chaise, and two travellers plodding slowly along the road, side by side,
each with his little knap-sack of necessaries upon his shoulders. How
much more of heart between the two latter!
I am happy in being conscious I shall have one reader who will approach
the conclusion of these few pages with regret. You they must certainly
interest, in reminding you of moments to which you can hardly look back
without a pleasure not the less dear from a shade of melancholy. You
will meet with few images without recollecting the spot where we
observed them together, consequently, whatever is feeble in my design,
or spiritless in my colouring, will be amply supplied by your own
memory.
With still greater propriety I might have inscribed to you a description
of some of the features of your native mountains, through which we have
wandered together, in the same manner, with so much pleasure. But the
sea-sunsets which give such splendour to the vale of Clwyd, Snowdon, the
chair of Idris, the quiet village of Bethkelert, Menai and her druids,
the Alpine steeps of the Conway, and the still more interesting windings
of the wizard stream of the Dee remain yet untouched. Apprehensive that
my pencil may never be exercised on these subjects, I cannot let slip
this opportunity of thus publicly assuring you with how much affection
and esteem,
I am Dear Sir,
Your most obedient very humble Servant
W. WORDSWORTH.
ARGUMENT
'Happiness (if she had been to be found on Earth) amongst the Charms of
Nature--Pleasures of the pedestrian Traveller--Author crosses France to
the Alps--Present state of the Grande Chartreuse--Lake of Como--Time,
Sunset--Same Scene, Twilight--Same Scene, Morning, it's Voluptuous
Character; Old Man and Forest Cottage Music--River Tusa--Via Mala and
Grison Gypsey. Valley of Sckellenen-thal--Lake of Uri, Stormy
Sunset--Chapel of William Tell--force of Local Emotion--Chamois
Chaser--View of the higher Alps--Manner of Life of a Swiss Mountaineer
interspersed with views of the higher Alps--Golden Age of the Alps--Life
and Views continued--Ranz des Vaches famous Swiss Air--Abbey of
Einsiedlen and it's Pilgrims--Valley of Chamouny--Mont Blanc--Slavery of
Savoy--Influence of Liberty on Cottage Happiness--France--Wish for the
extirpation of Slavery--Conclusion. '
DESCRIPTIVE SKETCHES [A]
Were there, below, a spot of holy ground,
By Pain and her sad family unfound,
Sure, Nature's GOD that spot to man had giv'n,
Where murmuring rivers join the song of ev'n;
Where falls the purple morning far and wide 5
In flakes of light upon the mountain-side;
Where summer Suns in ocean sink to rest,
Or moonlight Upland lifts her hoary breast;
Where Silence, on her night of wing, o'er-broods
Unfathom'd dells and undiscover'd woods; 10
Where rocks and groves the power of waters shakes
In cataracts, or sleeps in quiet lakes.
But doubly pitying Nature loves to show'r
Soft on his wounded heart her healing pow'r,
Who plods o'er hills and vales his road forlorn, 15
Wooing her varying charms from eve to morn.
No sad vacuities his heart annoy,
Blows not a Zephyr but it whispers joy;
For him lost flowers their idle sweets exhale;
He tastes the meanest note that swells the gale; 20
For him sod-seats the cottage-door adorn,
And peeps the far-off spire, his evening bourn!
Dear is the forest frowning o'er his head,
And dear the green-sward to his velvet tread;
Moves there a cloud o'er mid-day's flaming eye? 25
Upward he looks--and calls it luxury;
Kind Nature's charities his steps attend,
In every babbling brook he finds a friend,
While chast'ning thoughts of sweetest use, bestow'd
By Wisdom, moralize his pensive road. 30
Host of his welcome inn, the noon-tide bow'r,
To his spare meal he calls the passing poor;
He views the Sun uprear his golden fire,
Or sink, with heart alive like [B] Memnon's lyre;
Blesses the Moon that comes with kindest ray 35
To light him shaken by his viewless way.
With bashful fear no cottage children steal
From him, a brother at the cottage meal,
His humble looks no shy restraint impart,
Around him plays at will the virgin heart. 40
While unsuspended wheels the village dance,
The maidens eye him with inquiring glance,
Much wondering what sad stroke of crazing Care
Or desperate Love could lead a wanderer there.
Me, lur'd by hope her sorrows to remove, 45
A heart, that could not much itself approve,
O'er Gallia's wastes of corn dejected led,
[C] Her road elms rustling thin above my head,
Or through her truant pathway's native charms,
By secret villages and lonely farms, 50
To where the Alps, ascending white in air,
Toy with the Sun, and glitter from afar.
Ev'n now I sigh at hoary Chartreuse' doom
Weeping beneath his chill of mountain gloom.
Where now is fled that Power whose frown severe 55
Tam'd "sober Reason" till she crouch'd in fear?
That breath'd a death-like peace these woods around
Broke only by th' unvaried torrent's sound,
Or prayer-bell by the dull cicada drown'd.
The cloister startles at the gleam of arms, 60
And Blasphemy the shuddering fane alarms;
Nod the cloud-piercing pines their troubl'd heads,
Spires, rocks, and lawns, a browner night o'erspreads.
Strong terror checks the female peasant's sighs,
And start th' astonish'd shades at female eyes. 65
The thundering tube the aged angler hears,
And swells the groaning torrent with his tears.
From Bruno's forest screams the frighted jay,
And slow th' insulted eagle wheels away.
The cross with hideous laughter Demons mock, 70
By [D] angels planted on the aereal rock.
The "parting Genius" sighs with hollow breath
Along the mystic streams of [E] Life and Death.
Swelling the outcry dull, that long resounds
Portentous, thro' her old woods' trackless bounds, 75
Deepening her echoing torrents' awful peal
And bidding paler shades her form conceal,
[F] Vallombre, mid her falling fanes, deplores,
For ever broke, the sabbath of her bow'rs.
More pleas'd, my foot the hidden margin roves 80
Of Como bosom'd deep in chesnut groves.
No meadows thrown between, the giddy steeps
Tower, bare or sylvan, from the narrow deeps.
To towns, whose shades of no rude sound complain,
To ringing team unknown and grating wain, 85
To flat-roof'd towns, that touch the water's bound,
Or lurk in woody sunless glens profound,
Or from the bending rocks obtrusive cling,
And o'er the whiten'd wave their shadows fling;
Wild round the steeps the little [G] pathway twines, 90
And Silence loves it's purple roof of vines.
The viewless lingerer hence, at evening, sees
From rock-hewn steps the sail between the trees;
Or marks, mid opening cliffs, fair dark-ey'd maids
Tend the small harvest of their garden glades, 95
Or, led by distant warbling notes, surveys,
With hollow ringing ears and darkening gaze,
Binding the charmed soul in powerless trance,
Lip-dewing Song and ringlet-tossing Dance,
Where sparkling eyes and breaking smiles illume 100
The bosom'd cabin's lyre-enliven'd gloom;
Or stops the solemn mountain-shades to view
Stretch, o'er their pictur'd mirror, broad and blue,
Tracking the yellow sun from steep to steep,
As up th' opposing hills, with tortoise foot, they creep. 105
Here half a village shines, in gold array'd,
Bright as the moon, half hides itself in shade.
From the dark sylvan roofs the restless spire
Inconstant glancing, mounts like springing fire.
There, all unshaded, blazing forests throw no 110
Rich golden verdure on the waves below.
Slow glides the sail along th' illumin'd shore,
And steals into the shade the lazy oar.
Soft bosoms breathe around contagious sighs,
And amourous music on the water dies. 115
Heedless how Pliny, musing here, survey'd
Old Roman boats and figures thro' the shade,
Pale Passion, overpower'd, retires and woos
The thicket, where th' unlisten'd stock-dove coos.
How bless'd, delicious Scene! the eye that greets 120
Thy open beauties, or thy lone retreats;
Th' unwearied sweep of wood thy cliffs that scales,
The never-ending waters of thy vales;
The cots, those dim religious groves enbow'r,
Or, under rocks that from the water tow'r 125
Insinuated, sprinkling all the shore,
Each with his household boat beside the door,
Whose flaccid sails in forms fantastic droop,
Bright'ning the gloom where thick the forests stoop;
--Thy torrents shooting from the clear-blue sky, 130
Thy towns, like swallows' nests that cleave on high;
That glimmer hoar in eve's last light, descry'd
Dim from the twilight water's shaggy side,
Whence lutes and voices down th' enchanted woods
Steal, and compose the oar-forgotten floods, 135
While Evening's solemn bird melodious weeps,
Heard, by star-spotted bays, beneath the steeps;
--Thy lake, mid smoking woods, that blue and grey
Gleams, streak'd or dappled, hid from morning's ray
Slow-travelling down the western hills, to fold 140
It's green-ting'd margin in a blaze of gold;
From thickly-glittering spires the matin-bell
Calling the woodman from his desert cell,
A summons to the sound of oars, that pass,
Spotting the steaming deeps, to early mass; 145
Slow swells the service o'er the water born,
While fill each pause the ringing woods of morn.
Farewel! those forms that, in thy noon-tide shade,
Rest, near their little plots of wheaten glade;
Those stedfast eyes, that beating breasts inspire 150
To throw the "sultry ray" of young Desire;
Those lips, whose tides of fragrance come, and go,
Accordant to the cheek's unquiet glow;
Those shadowy breasts in love's soft light array'd,
And rising, by the moon of passion sway'd. 155
--Thy fragrant gales and lute-resounding streams,
Breathe o'er the failing soul voluptuous dreams;
While Slavery, forcing the sunk mind to dwell
On joys that might disgrace the captive's cell,
Her shameless timbrel shakes along thy marge, 160
And winds between thine isles the vocal barge.
Yet, arts are thine that rock th' unsleeping heart,
And smiles to Solitude and Want impart.
I lov'd, mid thy most desert woods astray,
With pensive step to measure my slow way, [H] 165
By lonely, silent cottage-doors to roam,
The far-off peasant's day-deserted home;
Once did I pierce to where a cabin stood,
The red-breast peace had bury'd it in wood,
There, by the door a hoary-headed sire 170
Touch'd with his wither'd hand an aged lyre;
Beneath an old-grey oak as violets lie,
Stretch'd at his feet with stedfast, upward eye,
His children's children join'd the holy sound,
A hermit--with his family around. 175
Hence shall we seek where fair Locarno smiles
Embower'd in walnut slopes and citron isles,
Or charms that smile on Tusa's evening stream,
While mid dim towers and woods her [I] waters gleam;
From the bright wave, in solemn gloom, retire 180
The dull-red steeps, and darkening still, aspire,
To where afar rich orange lustres glow
Round undistinguish'd clouds, and rocks, and snow;
Or, led where Viamala's chasms confine
Th' indignant waters of the infant Rhine, 185
Bend o'er th' abyss? --the else impervious gloom
His burning eyes with fearful light illume.
The Grison gypsey here her tent has plac'd,
Sole human tenant of the piny waste;
Her tawny skin, dark eyes, and glossy locks, 190
Bend o'er the smoke that curls beneath the rocks.
--The mind condemn'd, without reprieve, to go
O'er life's long deserts with it's charge of woe,
With sad congratulation joins the train,
Where beasts and men together o'er the plain 195
Move on,--a mighty caravan of pain;
Hope, strength, and courage, social suffering brings,
Freshening the waste of sand with shades and springs.
--She solitary through the desert drear
Spontaneous wanders, hand in hand with Fear. 200
A giant moan along the forest swells
Protracted, and the twilight storm foretells,
And, ruining from the cliffs their deafening load
Tumbles, the wildering Thunder slips abroad;
On the high summits Darkness comes and goes, 205
Hiding their fiery clouds, their rocks, and snows;
The torrent, travers'd by the lustre broad,
Starts like a horse beside the flashing road;
In the roof'd [J] bridge, at that despairing hour,
She seeks a shelter from the battering show'r. 210
--Fierce comes the river down; the crashing wood
Gives way, and half it's pines torment the flood;
[K] Fearful, beneath, the Water-spirits call,
And the bridge vibrates, tottering to its fall.
--Heavy, and dull, and cloudy is the night, 215
No star supplies the comfort of it's light,
Glimmer the dim-lit Alps, dilated, round,
And one sole light shifts in the vale profound;
While, opposite, the waning moon hangs still,
And red, above her melancholy hill. 220
By the deep quiet gloom appall'd, she sighs,
Stoops her sick head, and shuts her weary eyes.
--Breaking th' ascending roar of desert floods,
And insect buzz, that stuns the sultry woods,
She hears, upon the mountain forest's brow, 225
The death-dog, howling loud and long, below;
On viewless fingers counts the valley-clock,
Followed by drowsy crow of midnight cock.
--Bursts from the troubl'd Larch's giant boughs
The pie, and chattering breaks the night's repose. 230
Low barks the fox; by Havoc rouz'd the bear,
Quits, growling, the white bones that strew his lair;
The dry leaves stir as with the serpent's walk,
And, far beneath, Banditti voices talk;
Behind her hill the Moon, all crimson, rides, 235
And his red eyes the slinking Water hides;
Then all is hush'd; the bushes rustle near,
And with strange tinglings sings her fainting ear.
--Vex'd by the darkness, from the piny gulf
Ascending, nearer howls the famish'd wolf, 240
While thro' the stillness scatters wild dismay,
Her babe's small cry, that leads him to his prey.
Now, passing Urseren's open vale serene,
Her quiet streams, and hills of downy green,
Plunge with the Russ embrown'd by Terror's breath, 245
Where danger roofs the narrow walks of death;
By floods, that, thundering from their dizzy height,
Swell more gigantic on the stedfast sight;
Black drizzling craggs, that beaten by the din,
Vibrate, as if a voice complain'd within; 250
Bare steeps, where Desolation stalks, afraid,
Unstedfast, by a blasted yew upstay'd;
By [L] cells whose image, trembling as he prays,
Awe-struck, the kneeling peasant scarce surveys;
Loose-hanging rocks the Day's bless'd eye that hide, 255
And [M] crosses rear'd to Death on every side,
Which with cold kiss Devotion planted near,
And, bending, water'd with the human tear,
Soon fading "silent" from her upward eye,
Unmov'd with each rude form of Danger nigh, 260
Fix'd on the anchor left by him who saves
Alike in whelming snows and roaring waves.
On as we move, a softer prospect opes,
Calm huts, and lawns between, and sylvan slopes.
While mists, suspended on th' expiring gale, 265
Moveless o'er-hang the deep secluded vale,
The beams of evening, slipping soft between,
Light up of tranquil joy a sober scene;
Winding it's dark-green wood and emerald glade,
The still vale lengthens underneath the shade; 270
While in soft gloom the scattering bowers recede,
Green dewy lights adorn the freshen'd mead,
Where solitary forms illumin'd stray
Turning with quiet touch the valley's hay,
On the low [N] brown wood-huts delighted sleep 275
Along the brighten'd gloom reposing deep.
While pastoral pipes and streams the landscape lull,
And bells of passing mules that tinkle dull,
In solemn shapes before th' admiring eye
Dilated hang the misty pines on high, 280
Huge convent domes with pinnacles and tow'rs,
And antique castles seen tho' drizzling show'rs.
From such romantic dreams my sould awake,
Lo! Fear looks silent down on Uri's lake,
By whose unpathway'd margin still and dread 285
Was never heard the plodding peasant's tread.
Tower like a wall the naked rocks, or reach
Far o'er the secret water dark with beech,
More high, to where creation seems to end,
Shade above shade the desert pines ascend, 290
And still, below, where mid the savage scene
Peeps out a little speck of smilgin green,
There with his infants man undaunted creeps
And hangs his small wood-hut upon the steeps.
A garden-plot the desert air perfumes, 295
Mid the dark pines a little orchard blooms,
A zig-zag path from the domestic skiff
Threading the painful cragg surmounts the cliff.
--Before those hermit doors, that never know
The face of traveller passing to and fro, 300
No peasant leans upon his pole, to tell
For whom at morning toll'd the funeral bell,
Their watch-dog ne'er his angry bark forgoes,
Touch'd by the beggar's moan of human woes,
The grass seat beneath their casement shade 305
The pilgrim's wistful eye hath never stay'd.
--There, did the iron Genius not disdain
The gentle Power that haunts the myrtle plain,
There might the love-sick maiden sit, and chide
Th' insuperable rocks and severing tide, 310
There watch at eve her lover's sun-gilt sail
Approaching, and upbraid the tardy gale,
There list at midnight till is heard no more,
Below, the echo of his parting oar,
There hang in fear, when growls the frozen stream, 315
To guide his dangerous tread the taper's gleam.
Mid stormy vapours ever driving by,
Where ospreys, cormorants, and herons cry,
Where hardly giv'n the hopeless waste to chear,
Deny'd the bread of life the foodful ear, 320
Dwindles the pear on autumn's latest spray,
And apple sickens pale in summer's ray,
Ev'n here Content has fix'd her smiling reign
With Independance child of high Disdain.
Exulting mid the winter of the skies, 325
Shy as the jealous chamois, Freedom flies,
And often grasps her sword, and often eyes,
Her crest a bough of Winter's bleakest pine,
Strange "weeds" and alpine plants her helm entwine,
And wildly-pausing oft she hangs aghast, 330
While thrills the "Spartan fife" between the blast.
'Tis storm; and hid in mist from hour to hour
All day the floods a deeper murmur pour,
And mournful sounds, as of a Spirit lost,
Pipe wild along the hollow-blustering coast, 335
'Till the Sun walking on his western field
Shakes from behind the clouds his flashing shield.
Triumphant on the bosom of the storm,
Glances the fire-clad eagle's wheeling form;
Eastward, in long perspective glittering, shine 340
The wood-crown'd cliffs that o'er the lake recline;
Wide o'er the Alps a hundred streams unfold,
At once to pillars turn'd that flame with gold;
Behind his sail the peasant strives to shun
The west that burns like one dilated sun, 345
Where in a mighty crucible expire
The mountains, glowing hot, like coals of fire. [O]
But lo! the boatman, over-aw'd, before
The pictur'd fane of Tell suspends his oar;
Confused the Marathonian tale appears, 350
While burn in his full eyes the glorious tears.
And who but feels a power of strong controul,
Felt only there, oppress his labouring soul,
Who walks, where honour'd men of ancient days
Have wrought with god-like arm the deeds of praise? 355
Say, who, by thinking on Canadian hills,
Or wild Aosta lulled by Alpine rills,
On Zutphen's plain; or where with soften'd gaze
The old grey stones the plaided chief surveys,
Can guess the high resolve, the cherish'd pain 360
Of him whom passion rivets to the plain,
Where breath'd the gale that caught Wolfe's happiest sigh,
And the last sun-beam fell on Bayard's eye,
Where bleeding Sydney from the cup retir'd,
And glad Dundee in "faint huzzas" expir'd. 365
But now with other soul I stand alone
Sublime upon this far-surveying cone,
And watch from [P] pike to pike amid the sky
Small as a bird the chamois-chaser fly.
'Tis his with fearless step at large to roam 370
Thro' wastes, of Spirits wing'd the solemn home,
[Q] Thro' vacant worlds where Nature never gave
A brook to murmur or a bough to wave,
Which unsubstantial Phantoms sacred keep;
Thro' worlds where Life and Sound, and Motion sleep, 375
Where Silence still her death-like reign extends,
Save when the startling cliff unfrequent rends:
In the deep snow the mighty ruin drown'd,
Mocks the dull ear of Time with deaf abortive sound;
--To mark a planet's pomp and steady light 380
In the least star of scarce-appearing night,
And neighbouring moon, that coasts the vast profound,
Wheel pale and silent her diminish'd round,
While far and wide the icy summits blaze
Rejoicing in the glory of her rays; 385
The star of noon that glitters small and bright,
Shorn of his beams, insufferably white,
And flying fleet behind his orb to view
Th' interminable sea of sable blue.
--Of cloudless suns no more ye frost-built spires 390
Refract in rainbow hues the restless fires!
Ye dewy mists the arid rocks o'er-spread
Whose slippery face derides his deathful tread!
--To wet the peak's impracticable sides
He opens of his feet the sanguine tides, 395
Weak and more weak the issuing current eyes
Lapp'd by the panting tongue of thirsty skies. [R]
--At once bewildering mists around him close,
And cold and hunger are his least of woes;
The Demon of the snow with angry roar 400
Descending, shuts for aye his prison door.
Craz'd by the strength of hope at morn he eyes
As sent from heav'n the raven of the skies,
Then with despair's whole weight his spirits sink,
No bread to feed him, and the snow his drink, 405
While ere his eyes can close upon the day,
The eagle of the Alps o'ershades his prey.
--Meanwhile his wife and child with cruel hope
All night the door at every moment ope;
Haply that child in fearful doubt may gaze, 410
Passing his father's bones in future days,
Start at the reliques of that very thigh,
On which so oft he prattled when a boy.
Hence shall we turn where, heard with fear afar,
Thunders thro' echoing pines the headlong Aar? 415
Or rather stay to taste the mild delights
Of pensive [S] Underwalden's pastoral heights?
--Is there who mid these awful wilds has seen
The native Genii walk the mountain green?
Or heard, while other worlds their charms reveal, 420
Soft music from th' aereal summit steal?
While o'er the desert, answering every close,
Rich steam of sweetest perfume comes and goes.
--And sure there is a secret Power that reigns
Here, where no trace of man the spot profanes, 425
Nought but the herds that pasturing upward creep,
Hung dim-discover'd from the dangerous steep,
[T] Or summer hamlet, flat and bare, on high
Suspended, mid the quiet of the sky.
How still! no irreligious sound or sight 430
Rouzes the soul from her severe delight.
An idle voice the sabbath region fills
Of Deep that calls to Deep across the hills,
Broke only by the melancholy sound
Of drowsy bells for ever tinkling round; 435
Faint wail of eagle melting into blue
Beneath the cliffs, and pine-woods steady sugh; [U]
The solitary heifer's deepen'd low;
Or rumbling heard remote of falling snow.
Save that, the stranger seen below, the boy 440
Shouts from the echoing hills with savage joy.
When warm from myrtle bays and tranquil seas,
Comes on, to whisper hope, the [V] vernal breeze,
When hums the mountain bee in May's glad ear,
And emerald isles to spot the heights appear, 445
When shouts and lowing herds the valley fill,
And louder torrents stun the noon-tide hill,
When fragrant scents beneath th' enchanted tread
Spring up, his little all around him spread,
The pastoral Swiss begins the cliffs to scale 450
To silence leaving the deserted vale,
Up the green mountain tracking Summer's feet,
Each twilight earlier call'd the Sun to meet,
With earlier smile the ray of morn to view
Fall on his shifting hut that gleams mid smoking dew; 455
Bless'd with his herds, as in the patriarch's age,
The summer long to feed from stage to stage;
O'er azure pikes serene and still, they go,
And hear the rattling thunder far below;
Or lost at eve in sudden mist the day 460
Attend, or dare with minute-steps their way;
Hang from the rocks that tremble o'er the steep,
And tempt the icy valley yawning deep,
O'er-walk the chasmy torrent's foam-lit bed,
Rock'd on the dizzy larch's narrow tread, 465
Whence Danger leans, and pointing ghastly, joys
To mock the mind with "desperation's toys";
Or steal beneath loose mountains, half deterr'd,
That sigh and shudder to the lowing herd.
--I see him, up the midway cliff he creeps 470
To where a scanty knot of verdure peeps,
Thence down the steep a pile of grass he throws
The fodder of his herds in winter snows.
Far different life to what tradition hoar
Transmits of days more bless'd in times of yore. [W] 475
Then Summer lengthen'd out his season bland,
And with rock-honey flow'd the happy land.
Continual fountains welling chear'd the waste,
And plants were wholesome, now of deadly taste.
Nor Winter yet his frozen stores had pil'd 480
Usurping where the fairest herbage smil'd;
Nor Hunger forc'd the herds from pastures bare
For scanty food the treacherous cliffs to dare.
Then the milk-thistle bad those herds demand
Three times a day the pail and welcome hand. 485
But human vices have provok'd the rod
Of angry Nature to avenge her God.
Thus does the father to his sons relate,
On the lone mountain top, their chang'd estate.
Still, Nature, ever just, to him imparts 490
Joys only given to uncorrupted hearts.
--'Tis morn: with gold the verdant mountain glows,
More high, the snowy peaks with hues of rose.
Far stretch'd beneath the many-tinted hills
A mighty waste of mist the valley fills, 495
A solemn sea! whose vales and mountains round
Stand motionless, to awful silence bound.
A gulf of gloomy blue, that opens wide
And bottomless, divides the midway tide.
Like leaning masts of stranded ships appear 500
The pines that near the coast their summits rear;
Of cabins, woods, and lawns a pleasant shore
Bounds calm and clear the chaos still and hoar;
Loud thro' that midway gulf ascending, sound
Unnumber'd streams with hollow roar profound. 505
Mounts thro' the nearer mist the chaunt of birds,
And talking voices, and the low of herds,
The bark of dogs, the drowsy tinkling bell,
And wild-wood mountain lutes of saddest swell.
Think not, suspended from the cliff on high 510
He looks below with undelighted eye.
--No vulgar joy is his, at even tide
Stretch'd on the scented mountain's purple side.
For as the pleasures of his simple day
Beyond his native valley hardly stray, 515
Nought round it's darling precincts can he find
But brings some past enjoyment to his mind,
While Hope that ceaseless leans on Pleasure's urn
Binds her wild wreathes, and whispers his return.
Once Man entirely free, alone and wild, 520
Was bless'd as free--for he was Nature's child.
He, all superior but his God disdain'd,
Walk'd none restraining, and by none restrain'd,
Confess'd no law but what his reason taught,
Did all he wish'd, and wish'd but what he ought. 525
As Man in his primaeval dower array'd
The image of his glorious sire display'd,
Ev'n so, by vestal Nature guarded, here
The traces of primaeval Man appear.
The native dignity no forms debase, 530
The eye sublime, and surly lion-grace.
The slave of none, of beasts alone the lord,
He marches with his flute, his book, and sword,
Well taught by that to feel his rights, prepar'd
With this "the blessings he enjoys to guard. " 535
And as on glorious ground he draws his breath,
Where Freedom oft, with Victory and Death,
Hath seen in grim array amid their Storms
Mix'd with auxiliar Rocks, three [X] hundred Forms;
While twice ten thousand corselets at the view 540
Dropp'd loud at once, Oppression shriek'd, and flew.
Oft as those sainted Rocks before him spread,
An unknown power connects him with the dead.
For images of other worlds are there,
Awful the light, and holy is the air. 545
Uncertain thro' his fierce uncultur'd soul
Like lighted tempests troubled transports roll;
To viewless realms his Spirit towers amain,
Beyond the senses and their little reign.
And oft, when pass'd that solemn vision by, 550
He holds with God himself communion high,
When the dread peal of swelling torrents fills
The sky-roof'd temple of th' eternal hills,
And savage Nature humbly joins the rite,
While flash her upward eyes severe delight. 555
Or gazing from the mountain's silent brow,
Bright stars of ice and azure worlds of snow,
Where needle peaks of granite shooting bare
Tremble in ever-varying tints of air,
Great joy by horror tam'd dilates his heart, 560
And the near heav'ns their own delights impart.
--When the Sun bids the gorgeous scene farewell,
Alps overlooking Alps their state upswell;
Huge Pikes of Darkness nam'd, of [Y] Fear and Storms
Lift, all serene, their still, illumin'd forms, 565
In sea-like reach of prospect round him spread,
Ting'd like an angel's smile all rosy red.
When downward to his winter hut he goes,
Dear and more dear the lessening circle grows,
That hut which from the hills his eyes employs 570
So oft, the central point of all his joys.
And as a swift by tender cares oppress'd
Peeps often ere she dart into her nest,
So to th' untrodden floor, where round him looks
His father helpless as the babe he rocks, 575
Oft he descends to nurse the brother pair,
Till storm and driving ice blockade him there;
There hears, protected by the woods behind,
Secure, the chiding of the baffled wind,
Hears Winter, calling all his Terrors round, 580
Rush down the living rocks with whirlwind sound.
Thro' Nature's vale his homely pleasures glide
Unstain'd by envy, discontent, and pride,
The bound of all his vanity to deck
With one bright bell a favourite heifer's neck; 585
Content upon some simple annual feast,
Remember'd half the year, and hop'd the rest,
If dairy produce, from his inner hoard,
Of thrice ten summers consecrate the board.
--Alas! in every clime a flying ray 590
Is all we have to chear our wintry way,
Condemn'd, in mists and tempests ever rife,
To pant slow up the endless Alp of life.
"Here," cried a swain, whose venerable head
Bloom'd with the snow-drops of Man's narrow bed, 595
Last night, while by his dying fire, as clos'd
The day, in luxury my limbs repos'd,
"Here Penury oft from misery's mount will guide
Ev'n to the summer door his icy tide,
And here the avalanche of Death destroy 600
The little cottage of domestic Joy.
But, ah! th' unwilling mind may more than trace
The general sorrows of the human race:
The churlish gales, that unremitting blow
Cold from necessity's continual snow, 605
To us the gentle groups of bliss deny
That on the noon-day bank of leisure lie.
