The Complete Poetical Works of William Wordsworth

Yet mingled not unwillingly with sneers
On visionary minds; if, in this time
Of dereliction and dismay, I yet
Despair not of our nature, but retain
A more than Roman confidence, a faith
That fails not, in all sorrow my support,
The blessing of my life; the gift is yours,
Ye winds and sounding cataracts: 'tis yours,
Ye mountains ! thine, O Nature | Thou hast fed
My lofty speculations; and in thee,
For this uneasy heart of ours, I find

A never-failing principle of joy.
And purest passion. -

- Thou, my Friend, wert reared
In the great city, 'mid far other scenes;
But we, by different roads, at length have gained
The self-same bourne. And for this cause to thee
I speak, unapprehensive of contempt,

The insinuated scoff of coward tongues,
And all that silent language which so oft
In conversation between man and man
Blots from the human countenance all trace
Of beauty and of love. For thou hast sought
The truth in solitude, and, since the days
That gave thee liberty, full long desired
To serve in Nature's temple, thou hast been
The most assiduous of her ministers;
In many things my brother, chiefly here
In this our deep devotion.

Fare thee well! Health and the quiet of a healthful mind Attend thee! seeking oft the haunts of men, And yet more often living with thyself, And for thyself, so haply shall thy days

Be many, and a blessing to mankind.

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West me hung Trinity's loquacious clock, won never let the quarters, night or day, 5 by him unproclaimed, and told the hours Twce over with a male and female voice. Her pealing organ was my neighbour too; And from my pillow, looking forth by light or man or favouring stars, I could behold The antechapel where the statue stood 0. Newton with his prism and silent face, The marble index of a mind for ever Wonging through strange seas of Thought, alone.

of College labours, of the Lecturer's room A studded round, as thick as chairs could stand, With loyal students faithful to their books, Half-and-half idlers, hardy recusants, And honest dunces—of important days, Eraminations when the man was weighed As in a balance' of excessive hopes, Tremblings withal and commendable fears, Small jealousies, and triumphs good or bad, Let others that know more speak as they know. Such glory was but little sought by me, And little won. Yet from the first crude days of settling time in this untried abode, was disturbed at times by prudent thoughts, Wishing to hope without a hope, some fears About my future worldly maintenance, And, more than all, a strangeness in the mind, A feeling that I was not for that hour, Not for that place. But wherefore be cast down 3 For (not to speak of Reason and her pure Reflective acts to fix the moral law Deep in the conscience, nor of Christian Hope, Rowing her head before her sister Faith As one far mightier.) hither I had come, *ar witness Truth, endowed with holy powers And faculties, whether to work or feel. ** when the dazzling show no longer new Hind ceased to dazzle, ofttimes did I quit My comrades, leave the crowd, buildings and groves, And as I paced alone the level fields Far from those lovely sights and sounds sublime With which I had been conversant, the mind Toped not; but there into herself returning, W to prompt rebound seemed fresh as heretofore. At least I more distinctly recognized lier sative instincts: let me dare to speak A higher language, say that now I felt What independent solaces were mine, To mitigate the injurious sway of place * circumstance, how far soever changed a youth, or to be changed in manhood's prime; or fir the few who shall be called to look on the king shadows in our evening years, oaned precursors to the night of death. ** if awakened, summoned, roused, constrained, locked or universal things; perused The common countenance of earth and sky:

Earth, nowhere unembellished by some trace
Of that first Paradise whence man was driven;
And sky, whose beauty and bounty are expressed
|By the proud name she bears — the name of Heaven.
'I called on both to teach me what they might;
'Or turning the mind in upon herself
|Pored, watched, expected, listened, spread my thoughts
And spread them with a wider creeping; felt
Incumbencies more awful, visitings
Of the Upholder of the tranquil soul,
|That tolerates the indignities of Time,
And, from the centre of Eternity
All finite motions overruling, lives
|In glory immutable. But peace! enough
|Here to record that I was mounting now
To such community with highest truth –
A track pursuing, not untrod before,
|From strict analogies by thought supplied
'Or consciousnesses not to be subdued.
To every natural form, rock, fruit or flower,
Even the loose stones that cover the highway,
I gave a moral life: I saw them feel,
Or linked them to some feeling: the great mass
Lay bedded in a quickening soul, and all
That I beheld respired with inward meaning.
| Add that whate'er of Terror or of Love
Or Beauty, Nature's daily face put on
From transitory passion, unto this
I was as sensitive as waters are
|To the sky's influence in a kindred mood
Of passion; was obedient as a lute
|That waits upon the touches of the wind.
| Unknown, unthought of, yet I was most rich—
I had a world about me — 'twas my own;
I made it, for it only lived to me,
And to the God who sees into the heart.
Such sympathies, though rarely, were betrayed
By outward gestures and by visible looks:
Some called it madness — so indeed it was,
If childlike fruitfulness in passing joy
If steady moods of thoughtfulness matured
To inspiration, sort with such a name;
If prophecy be madness; if things viewed
By poets in old time, and higher up
By the first men, earth's first inhabitants,
May in these tutored days no more be seen
With undisordered sight. But leaving this,
It was no madness, for the bodily eye
Amid my strongest workings evermore
Was searching out the lines of difference
As they lie hid in all external forms,
Near or remote, minute or vast, an eye
Which from a tree, a stone, a withered leaf,
To the broad ocean and the azure heavens
Spangled with kindred multitudes of stars,
Could find no surface where its power might sleep;
Which spake perpetual logic to my soul,
And by an unrelenting agency
Did bind my feelings even as in a chain.

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And here, O Friend! have I retraced my life
Up to an eminence, and told a tale
Of matters which not falsely may be called
The glory of my youth. Of genius, power,
Creation and divinity itself
I have been speaking, for my theme has been
What passed within me. Not of outward things
Done visibly for other minds, words, signs,
Symbols or actions, but of my own heart
Have I been speaking, and my youthful mind.
O Heavens! how awful is the might of souls,
And what they do within themselves while yet
The yoke of earth is new to them, the world
Nothing but a wild field where they were sown.
This is, in truth, heroic argument,
This genuine prowess, which I wished to touch
With hand however weak, but in the main
It lies far hidden from the reach of words.
Points have we all of us within our souls
Where all stand single; this I feel, and make
Breathings for incommunicable powers;
But is not each a memory to himself,
And, therefore, now that we must quit this theme,
I am not heartless, for there's not a man
That lives who hath not known his godlike hours,
And feels not what an empire we inherit
As natural beings in the strength of Nature.

Not seeking those who might participate
My deeper pleasures (nay, I had not once,
Though not unused to mutter lonesome songs,
Even with myself divided such delight

,
Or looked that way for aught that might be clothel
In human language), easily I passed
From the remembrances of better things,
And slipped into the ordinary works
Of careless youth, unburthened, upalarmed.
Caverns there were within my mind which sun
Could never penetrate, yet did there not
Want store of leafy arbours where the light
Might enter in at will. Companionships,
Friendships, acquaintances, were welcome all

.
We sauntered, played, or rioted; we talked
Unprofitable talk at morning hours;
Drifted about along the streets and walks,
Read lazily in trivial books, went forth
To gallop through the country in blind zeal
Of senseless horsemanship, or on the breast
Of Cam sailed boisterously, and let the stars
Come forth, perhaps without one quiet thought.

No more: for now into a populous plain
We must descend. A Traveller I am,
Whose tale is only of himself; even so,
So be it, if the pure of heart be prompt
To follow, and if thou, my honoured Friend!
Who in these thoughts art ever at my side,
Support, as heretofore, my fainting steps.

It hath been told, that when the first delight
That flashed upon me from this novel show
Had failed, the mind returned into herselt;
Yet true it is, that I had made a change
In climate, and my nature's outward coat
Changed also slowly and insensibly.
Full oft the quiet and exalted thoughts
Of loneliness gave way to empty noise
And superficial pastimes; now and then
Forced labour, and more frequently forced hopes;
And, worst of all, a treasonable growth
Of indecisive judgments, that impaired
And shook the mind's simplicity. — And yet
This was a gladsome time. Could I behold
Who, less insensible than sodden clay
In a sea-river's bed at ebb of tide,
Could have beheld, — with undelighted heart,
So many happy youths, so wide and fair
A congregation in its budding-time
Of health, and hope, and beauty, all at once
So many divers samples from the growth
Of life's sweet season - could have seen unmoved
That miscellaneous garland of wild flowers

Such was the tenor of the second act
In this new life. Imagination slept,
And yet not utterly. I could not print
Ground where the grass had yielded to the steps
Of generations of illustrious men,
Unmoved. I could not always lightly pass
Through the same gateways, sleep where they had

slept,
Wake where they waked, range that inclosure old,
That garden of great intellecis

, undisturbed.
Place also by the side of this dark sense
Of noble feeling, that those spiritnal men,
Even the great Newton's own ethereal self,
Seemed humbled in these precincts thence to be
The more endeared. Their several memories here
(Even like their persons in their portraits clothed
With the accustomed garb of daily life)
Put on a lowly and a touching grace
Of more distinct humanity, that left
All genuine admiration unimpaired.

Beside the pleasant Mill of Trompington
I laughed with Chaucer in the hawthorn snade;
Heard him, while birds were warbling, tell his tnies
Of amorous passion.

grentle Berd,

Chosen by the Muses for their Page of State -
Sweet Spenser, moving through his clouded heaven
With the moon's beauty and the moon's soft pace,
I called him Brother, Englishman, and Friend !
Yex, our blind Poet, who, in bis later day,
Stond almost single; uttering odious truth

Darkness before, and danger's voice behind, lente Soul awful — if the earth has ever lodged

An awful soul - I seemed to see him here
Familiarly, and in his scholar's dress
Bounding before me, yet a stripling youth
A boy, no better, with his rosy cheeks
Angelical, keen eye, courageous look,
And conscious step of purity and pride.
Among the band of my compeers was one
Whom chance had stationed in the very room
Honoured by Milton's name. O lemperate Bard!
Be it confest that, for the first time, seated
Within thy innocent lodge and oratory,
One of a festive circle, I poured out
Libations, to thy memory drank, till pride
And gratitude grew dizzy in a brain
Never excited by the fumes of wine
Before that hour, or since. Then, forth I ran

From the assembly; through a length of streets, 1,0Ran, ostrich-like, to reach our chapel door

In not a desperate or opprobrious time,
Albeit long after the importunale bell
Had stopped, with wearisome Cassandra voice
No longer haunting the dark winter night.
Call back, 0 Friend! a moment to thy mind
The place itself and fashion of the rites.
With careless ostentation shouldering up
My surplice, through the inferior throng I clove
Of the plain Burghers, who in audience stood
On the last skirts of their permitted ground,
Under the pealing organ. Empty thoughts!
I am ashained of them: and that great Bard,
And thou, O Friend! who in thy ample mind
Hast placed me high above my best deserts,
Ye will forgive the weakness of that hour,
In some of its unworthy vanities,
Brother to many more.

In this mixed sort
The months passed on, remissly, not given up
To wilful alienation from the right,
Or walks of open scandal, but in vague
And loose indifference, easy likings, aims
Of a low pitch – duty and zeal dismissed,
Yet nature, or a happy course of things
Not doing in their stead the needful work.
The memory languidly revolved, the heart
Repnsed in noontide rest, the inner pulse
Of contemplation almost failed to beat.
Such life might not inaptly be compared
To a floating island, an amphibious spot
Unsound, of spongy texture, yet withal
Not wanting a fair face of water weeds

3M

And pleasant flowers.* The thirst of living praise,
Fit reverence for the glorious Dead, the sight
Of those long vistas, sacred catacombs,
Where mighty minds lie visibly entombed,
Have often stirred the heart of youth, and bred
A fervent love of rigorous discipline.-
Alas! such high emotion touched not me.
Look was there none within these walls to shame
My easy spirits, and discountenance
Their light composure, far less to instil
A calm resolve of mind, firmly addressed
To puissant efforts. Nor was this the blanie
Of others but my own; I should, in truth,
As far as doth concern my single self,
Misdeem most widely, lodging it elsewhere:
For I, bred up ʼmid Nature's luxuries,
Was a spoiled child, and rambling like the wind,
As I had done in daily intercourse
With those crystalline rivers, solemn heights,
And mountains, ranging like a fowl of the air,
I was ill-tutored for captivity ;
To quit my pleasure, and, from month to month,
Take up a station calmly on the perch
Of sedentary peace. Those lovely forms
Had also left less space within my mind,
Which, wrought upon instinctively, had found
A freshness in those objects of her love,
A winning power, beyond all other power.
Not that I slighted books, that were to lack

- but other passions in me ruled,
Passions more fervent, making me less prompt
To in-door study than was wise or well,
Or suited to those years. 'Yet I, though used
In magisterial liberty to rove,
Culling such flowers of learning as might tempt
A random choice, could shadow forth a place
(If now I yield not to a flattering dream)
Whose studious aspect should have bent me down
To instantaneous service; should at once
Have made me pay to science and to arts
And written lore, acknowledged my liege lord,
A homage frankly offered up, like that
Which I had paid to Nature. Toil and pains
In this recess, by thoughtful Fancy built,
Should spread from heart to heart; and stately groves,
Majestic edifices, should not want
A corresponding dignity within.
The congregating temper that pervades
Our unripe years, not wasted, should be taught
To minister to works of high attempt —
Works which the enthusiast would perform with love.
Youth should be awed, religiously possessed
With a conviction of the power that waits
On knowledge, when sincerely sought and prized
For its own sake, on glory and on praise

If but by labour won, and fit to endure The passing day; should learn to put aside

All sense,

(* See ante, p. 419.-H. R.)

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Her trappings here, should strip them off abashed When, in forlorn and naked chambers cooped
Before antiquity and steadfast truth

And crowded, o'er the ponderous books they hung
And strong book-mindedness; and over all

Like caterpillars eating out their way
A healthy sound simplicity should reign,

In silence, or with keen devouring noise
A seemly plainness, name it what you will,

Not to be tracked or fathered. Princes then
Republican or pious.

At matins froze, and couched at curfew-rime,
If these thoughts

Trained up through piety and zeal to prize
Are a gratuitous emblazonry

Spare diet, patient labour, and plain weeds.
That mocks the recreant age we live in, then O seat of Arts! renowned throughout the world!
Be Folly and False-seeming free to affect

Far different service in those homely days
Whatever formal gait of discipline

The Muses' modest nurslings underwent
Shall raise them highest in their own esteem

From their first childhood: in that glorious time
Let them parade among the Schools at will,

When Learning, like a stranger come from fer

, But spare the House of God. Was ever known Sounding through Christian lands her trumpet, roused The witless shepherd who persists to drive

Peasant and king; when boys and youths, the growth
A flock that thirsts not to a pool disliked ?

Of ragged villages and crazy huts,
A weight must surely hang on days begun

Forsook their homes, and errant in the quest
And ended with such mockery. Be wise,

Of Patron, famous school or friendly nook.
Ye Presidents and Deans, and, till the spirit

Where, pensioned, they in shelter might sit down,
Of ancient times revive, and youth be trained

From town to town and through wide scattered realms At home in pious service, to your bells

Journeyed with ponderous folios in their hands;
Give seasonable rest, for 'tis a sound

And often, starting from some covert place,
Hollow as ever vexed the tranquil air;

Saluted the chance comer on the road,
And your officious doings bring disgrace

Crying, “ An obolus, a penny give
On the plain steeples of our English Church,

To a poor scholar!" — when illustrious men,
Whose worship, 'mid remotest village trees,

Lovers of truth, by penury constrained,
Suffers for this. Even Science, too, at hand

Bucer, Erasmus, or Melancthon, read.
In daily sight of this irreverence,

Before the doors or windows of their cells
Is smitten thence with an unnatural taint,

By moonshine through mere lack of taper light

. Loses her just authority, falls beneath Collateral suspicion, else unknown.

But peace to vain regrets! We see but darkly
This truth escaped me not, and I confess,

Even when we look behind us, and best things
That having 'mid my native hills given loose

Are not so pure by nature that they needs
To a schoolboy's vision, I had raised a pile

Must keep to all, as fondly all believe,
Upon the basis of the coming time,

| Their highest promise. If the mariner,
That fell in ruins round me. Oh, what joy

When at reluctant distance he hath passed
To see a sanctuary for our country's youth

Some tempting island, could but know the ills
Informed with such a spirit as might be

That must have fallen upon him had he brought Its own protection; a primeval grove,

His bark to land upon the wished-for shore, Where, though the shades with cheerfulness were filled, Good cause would oft be his to thank the surf Nor indigent of songs warbled from crowds

Whose white belt scared him thence, or wind that blew In under-coverts, yet the countenance

Inexorably adverse: for myself Of the whole place should bear a stamp of awe;

I grieve not; happy is the gowned youth, A habitation sober and demure

Who only misses what I missed, who falls For ruminating creatures; a domain

No lower than I fell. For quiet things to wander in; a haunt

I did not love, In which the heron should delight to feed

Judging not ill perhaps, the timid course By the shy rivers, and the pelican

Of our scholastic studies ; could have wished Upon the cypress spire in lonely thought

To see the river flow with ampler range Might sit and sun himself. — Alas! Alas!

And freer pace; but more, far more, I grieved In vain for such solemnity I looked;

To see displayed among an eager few, Mine eyes were crossed by butterflies, ears vexed

Who in the field of contest perserered, By chattering popinjays; the inner heart

Passions unworthy of youth's generous heart Seemed trivial, and the impresses without

And mounting spirit, pitiably repaid,
Of a too gaudy region.

When so disturbed, whatever palms are won,
Different sight

From these I turned to travel with the shoal
Those venerable Doctors saw of old,

Of more unthinking nalures, easy minds When all who dwelt within these famous walls

And pillowy; yet not wanting love that makes Led in abstemiousness a studious life

The day pass lightly on.'

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