The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth Volume Iii Part 65

With settling judgments now of what would last And what would disappear; prepared to find 65 Presumption, folly, madness, in the men Who thrust themselves upon the pa.s.sive world As Rulers of the world; to see in these, Even when the public welfare is their aim, Plans without thought, or built on theories 70 Vague and unsound; and having brought the books Of modern statists to their proper test, Life, human life, with all its sacred claims Of s.e.x and age, and heaven-descended rights, Mortal, or those beyond the reach of death; 75 And having thus discerned how dire a thing Is wors.h.i.+pped in that idol proudly named "The Wealth of Nations," _where_ alone that wealth Is lodged, and how increased; and having gained A more judicious knowledge of the worth 80 And dignity of individual man, No composition of the brain, but man Of whom we read, the man whom we behold With our own eyes--I could not but inquire-- Not with less interest than heretofore, 85 But greater, though in spirit more subdued-- Why is this glorious creature to be found One only in ten thousand? What one is, Why may not millions be? What bars are thrown By Nature in the way of such a hope? 90 Our animal appet.i.tes and daily wants, Are these obstructions insurmountable?

If not, then others vanish into air.

"Inspect the basis of the social pile: Inquire," said I, "how much of mental power 95 And genuine virtue they possess who live By bodily toil, labour exceeding far Their due proportion, under all the weight Of that injustice which upon ourselves Ourselves entail." Such estimate to frame 100 I chiefly looked (what need to look beyond?) Among the natural abodes of men, Fields with their rural works; [B] recalled to mind My earliest notices; with these compared The observations made in later youth, 105 And to that day continued.--For, the time Had never been when throes of mighty Nations And the world's tumult unto me could yield, How far soe'er transported and possessed, Full measure of content; but still I craved 110 An intermingling of distinct regards And truths of individual sympathy Nearer ourselves. Such often might be gleaned From the great City, else it must have proved To me a heart-depressing wilderness; 115 But much was wanting: therefore did I turn To you, ye pathways, and ye lonely roads; Sought you enriched with everything I prized, With human kindnesses and simple joys.

Oh! next to one dear state of bliss, vouchsafed 120 Alas! to few in this untoward world, The bliss of walking daily in life's prime Through field or forest with the maid we love, While yet our hearts are young, while yet we breathe Nothing but happiness, in some lone nook, 125 Deep vale, or any where, the home of both, From which it would be misery to stir: Oh! next to such enjoyment of our youth, In my esteem, next to such dear delight, Was that of wandering on from day to day 130 Where I could meditate in peace, and cull Knowledge that step by step might lead me on To wisdom; or, as lightsome as a bird Wafted upon the wind from distant lands, Sing notes of greeting to strange fields or groves, 135 Which lacked not voice to welcome me in turn: And, when that pleasant toil had ceased to please, Converse with men, where if we meet a face We almost meet a friend, on naked heaths With long long ways before, by cottage bench, 140 Or well-spring where the weary traveller rests.

Who doth not love to follow with his eye The windings of a public way? the sight, Familiar object as it is, hath wrought On my imagination since the morn 145 Of childhood, when a disappearing line, One daily present to my eyes, that crossed The naked summit of a far-off hill Beyond the limits that my feet had trod, Was like an invitation into s.p.a.ce 150 Boundless, or guide into eternity. [C]

Yes, something of the grandeur which invests The mariner who sails the roaring sea Through storm and darkness, early in my mind Surrounded, too, the wanderers of the earth; 155 Grandeur as much, and loveliness far more.

Awed have I been by strolling Bedlamites; From many other uncouth vagrants (pa.s.sed In fear) have walked with quicker step; but why Take note of this? When I began to enquire, 160 To watch and question those I met, and speak Without reserve to them, the lonely roads Were open schools in which I daily read With most delight the pa.s.sions of mankind, Whether by words, looks, sighs, or tears, revealed; 165 There saw into the depth of human souls, Souls that appear to have no depth at all To careless eyes. And-now convinced at heart How little those formalities, to which With overweening trust alone we give 170 The name of Education, have to do With real feeling and just sense; how vain A correspondence with the talking world Proves to the most; and called to make good search If man's estate, by doom of Nature yoked 175 With toil, be therefore yoked with ignorance; If virtue be indeed so hard to rear, And intellectual strength so rare a boon-- I prized such walks still more, for there I found Hope to my hope, and to my pleasure peace 180 And steadiness, and healing and repose To every angry pa.s.sion. There I heard, From mouths of men obscure and lowly, truths Replete with honour; sounds in unison With loftiest promises of good and fair. 185

There are who think that strong affection, love [D]

Known by whatever name, is falsely deemed A gift, to use a term which they would use, Of vulgar nature; that its growth requires Retirement, leisure, language purified 190 By manners studied and elaborate; That whoso feels such pa.s.sion in its strength Must live within the very light and air Of courteous usages refined by art.

True is it, where oppression worse than death 195 Salutes the being at his birth, where grace Of culture hath been utterly unknown, And poverty and labour in excess From day to day pre-occupy the ground Of the affections, and to Nature's self 200 Oppose a deeper nature; there, indeed, Love cannot be; nor does it thrive with ease Among the close and overcrowded haunts Of cities, where the human heart is sick, And the eye feeds it not, and cannot feed. 205 --Yes, in those wanderings deeply did I feel How we mislead each other; above all, How books mislead us, seeking their reward From judgments of the wealthy Few, who see By artificial lights; how they debase 210 The Many for the pleasure of those Few; Effeminately level down the truth To certain general notions, for the sake Of being understood at once, or else Through want of better knowledge in the heads 215 That framed them; nattering self-conceit with words, That, while they most ambitiously set forth Extrinsic differences, the outward marks Whereby society has parted man From man, neglect the universal heart. 220

Here, calling up to mind what then I saw, A youthful traveller, and see daily now In the familiar circuit of my home, Here might I pause, and bend in reverence To Nature, and the power of human minds, 225 To men as they are men within themselves.

How oft high service is performed within, When all the external man is rude in show,-- Not like a temple rich with pomp and gold, But a mere mountain chapel, that protects 230 Its simple wors.h.i.+ppers from sun and shower.

Of these, said I, shall be my song; of these, If future years mature me for the task, Will I record the praises, making verse Deal boldly with substantial things; in truth 235 And sanct.i.ty of pa.s.sion, speak of these, That justice may be done, obeisance paid Where it is due: thus haply shall I teach, Inspire, through unadulterated ears Pour rapture, tenderness, and hope,--my theme 240 No other than the very heart of man, As found among the best of those who live, Not unexalted by religious faith, Nor uninformed by books, good books, though few, In Nature's presence: thence may I select 245 Sorrow, that is not sorrow, but delight; And miserable love, that is not pain To hear of, for the glory that redounds Therefrom to human kind, and what we are.

Be mine to follow with no timid step 250 Where knowledge leads me: it shall be my pride That I have dared to tread this holy ground, Speaking no dream, but things oracular; Matter not lightly to be heard by those Who to the letter of the outward promise 255 Do read the invisible soul; by men adroit In speech, and for communion with the world Accomplished; minds whose faculties are then Most active when they are most eloquent, And elevated most when most admired. 260 Men may be found of other mould than these, Who are their own upholders, to themselves Encouragement, and energy, and will, Expressing liveliest thoughts in lively words As native pa.s.sion dictates. Others, too, 265 There are among the walks of homely life Still higher, men for contemplation framed, Shy, and unpractised in the strife of phrase; Meek men, whose very souls perhaps would sink Beneath them, summoned to such intercourse: 270 Theirs is the language of the heavens, the power, The thought, the image, and the silent joy: Words are but under-agents in their souls; When they are grasping with their greatest strength, They do not breathe among them: this I speak 275 In grat.i.tude to G.o.d, Who feeds our hearts For His own service; knoweth, loveth us, When we are unregarded by the world.

Also, about this time did I receive Convictions still more strong than heretofore, 280 Not only that the inner frame is good, And graciously composed, but that, no less, Nature for all conditions wants not power To consecrate, if we have eyes to see, The outside of her creatures, and to breathe 285 Grandeur upon the very humblest face Of human life. I felt that the array Of act and circ.u.mstance, and visible form, Is mainly to the pleasure of the mind What pa.s.sion makes them; that meanwhile the forms 290 Of Nature have a pa.s.sion in themselves, That intermingles with those works of man To which she summons him; although the works Be mean, have nothing lofty of their own; And that the Genius of the Poet hence 295 May boldly take his way among mankind Wherever Nature leads; that he hath stood By Nature's side among the men of old, And so shall stand for ever. Dearest Friend!

If thou partake the animating faith 300 That Poets, even as Prophets, each with each Connected in a mighty scheme of truth, Have each his own peculiar faculty, Heaven's gift, a sense that fits him to perceive Objects unseen before, thou wilt not blame 305 The humblest of this band who dares to hope That unto him hath also been vouchsafed An insight that in some sort he possesses, A privilege whereby a work of his, Proceeding from a source of untaught things, 310 Creative and enduring, may become A power like one of Nature's. To a hope Not less ambitious once among the wilds Of Sarum's Plain, [E] my youthful spirit was raised; There, as I ranged at will the pastoral downs 315 Trackless and smooth, or paced the bare white roads Lengthening in solitude their dreary line, Time with his retinue of ages fled Backwards, nor checked his flight until I saw Our dim ancestral Past in vision clear; 320 Saw mult.i.tudes of men, and, here and there, A single Briton clothed in wolf-skin vest, With s.h.i.+eld and stone-axe, stride across the wold; The voice of spears was heard, the rattling spear Shaken by arms of mighty bone, in strength, 325 Long mouldered, of barbaric majesty.

I called on Darkness--but before the word Was uttered, midnight darkness seemed to take All objects from my sight; and lo! again The Desert visible by dismal flames; 330 It is the sacrificial altar, fed With living men--how deep the groans! the voice Of those that crowd the giant wicker thrills The monumental hillocks, and the pomp Is for both worlds, the living and the dead. 335 At other moments (for through that wide waste Three summer days I roamed) where'er the Plain Was figured o'er with circles, lines, or mounds, [F]

That yet survive, a work, as some divine, Shaped by the Druids, so to represent 340 Their knowledge of the heavens, and image forth The constellations; gently was I charmed Into a waking dream, a reverie That, with believing eyes, where'er I turned, Beheld long-bearded teachers, with white wands 345 Uplifted, pointing to the starry sky, Alternately, and plain below, while breath Of music swayed their motions, and the waste Rejoiced with them and me in those sweet sounds.

This for the past, and things that may be viewed 350 Or fancied in the obscurity of years From monumental hints: and thou, O Friend!

Pleased with some unpremeditated strains That served those wanderings to beguile, [G] hast said That then and there my mind had exercised 355 Upon the vulgar forms of present things, The actual world of our familiar days, Yet higher power; had caught from them a tone, An image, and a character, by books Not hitherto reflected. [H] Call we this 360 A partial judgment--and yet why? for _then_ We were as strangers; and I may not speak Thus wrongfully of verse, however rude, Which on thy young imagination, trained In the great City, broke like light from far. 365 Moreover, each man's Mind is to herself Witness and judge; and I remember well That in life's every-day appearances I seemed about this time to gain clear sight Of a new world--a world, too, that was fit 370 To be transmitted, and to other eyes Made visible; as ruled by those fixed laws Whence spiritual dignity originates, Which do both give it being and maintain A balance, an enn.o.bling interchange 375 Of action from without and from within; The excellence, pure function, and best power Both of the object seen, and eye that sees.

FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A: Compare 'Expostulation and Reply', vol. i. p. 273:

'Nor less I deem that there are Powers Which of themselves our minds impress; That we can feed this mind of ours In a wise pa.s.siveness.

Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum Of things for ever speaking, That nothing of itself will come, But we must still be seeking?'

Mr. William Davies writes:

"Is he absolutely right in attributing these powers to the objects of Nature, which are only symbols after all? Is there not a more penetrative and ethereal perceptive power in the human mind, which is able to transfer itself immediately to the spiritual plane, transcending that of visible Nature? Plato saw it; the old Vedantist still more clearly--and what is more--reached it. He arrived at the knowledge and perception of essential Being: though he could neither define nor limit, in a human formula, because it is undefinable and illimitable, but positive and abstract, universally diffused, 'smaller than small, greater than great,' the internal Light, Monitor, Guide, Rest, waiting to be seen, recognised, and known in every heart; not depending on the powers of Nature for enlightenment and instruction, but itself enlightening and instructing: not merely a receptive, but the motive power of Nature; which bestows _itself_ upon Nature, and only receives from it that which it bestows. Is it not, as he says farther on, better 'to see great truths,' even if not so strictly in line and form, 'touch and handle little ones,' to take the highest point of view we can reach, not a lower one? And surely it is a higher thing to rule over and subdue Nature, than to lie ruled and subdued by it? The highest form of Religion has always done this."

Ed.]

[Footnote B: Compare 'The Old c.u.mberland Beggar', l. 49 (vol. i. p.

301).--Ed.]

[Footnote C: For a hint in reference to this road, I am indebted to the late Dr. Henry Dodgson of c.o.c.kermouth. Referring to my suggestion that it might be the road from c.o.c.kermouth to Bridekirk, he wrote (July 1878),

"I scarcely think that road answers to the description. The hill over which it goes is not naked but well wooded, and has probably been so for many years. Besides, it is not visible from Wordsworth's house, nor from the garden behind it. This garden extends from the house to the river Derwent, from which it is separated by a wall, with a raised terraced walk on the inner side, and nearly on a level with the top. I understand that this terrace was in existence in the poet's time....

Its direction is nearly due east and west; and looking eastward from it, there is a hill which bounds the view in that direction, and which fully corresponds to the description in 'The Prelude'. It is from one and a half to two miles distant, of considerable height, is bare and dest.i.tute of trees, and has a road going directly over its summit, as seen from the terrace in Wordsworth's garden. This road is now used only as a footpath; but, fifty or sixty years ago it was the highroad to Isel, a hamlet on the Derwent, about three and a half miles from c.o.c.kermouth, in the direction of Ba.s.senthwaite Lake. The hill is locally called 'the Hay,' but on the Ordnance map it is marked 'Watch Hill.'"

There can be little doubt as to the accuracy of this suggestion. No other hill-road is visible from the house or garden at c.o.c.kermouth. The view from the front of the old mansion is limited by houses, doubtless more so now than in last century; but there is no hill towards the Lorton Fells on the south or south-east, with a road over it, visible from any part of the town. Besides, as this was a very early experience of Wordsworth's--it was in "the morn of childhood" that the road was "daily present to his sight"--it must have been seen, either from the house or from the garden. It is almost certain that he refers to the path over the Hay or Watch Hill, which he and his "sister Emmeline"

could see daily from the high terrace, at the foot of their garden in c.o.c.kermouth, where they used to "chase the b.u.t.terfly" and visit the "sparrow's nest" in the "impervious shelter" of privet and roses.

Dr. Cradock wrote to me (January 1886),

"an old map of the county round about Keswick, including c.o.c.kermouth, dated 1789, entirely confirms Dr. Dodgson's statement. The road over 'Hay Hill' is marked clearly as a carriage road to Isel. The miles are marked on the map. The 'summit' of the hill is 'naked': for the map marks woods, where they existed, and none are marked on Hay Hill."--Ed.]

[Footnote D: A part of the following paragraph is written with sundry variations of text, in Dorothy Wordsworth's MS. book, dated May to December 1802.--Ed.]

[Footnote E: In the summer of 1793, on his return from the Isle of Wight, and before proceeding to Bristol and Wales, he wandered with his friend William Calvert over Salisbury plain for three days.--Ed.]

[Footnote F: Compare the reference to "Sarum's naked plain" in the third book of 'The Excursion', l. 148.--Ed.]

[Footnote G: The reference is to 'Guilt and Sorrow'. See the introductory, and the Fenwick, note to this poem, in vol. i. pp.

77-79.--Ed.]

[Footnote H: Coleridge read 'Descriptive Sketches' when an undergraduate at Cambridge in 1793--before the two men had met--and wrote thus of them:

"Seldom, if ever, was the emergence of a great and original poetic genius above the literary horizon more evidently announced."

See 'Biographia Literaria', i. p. 25 (edition 1842).--Ed.]

BOOK FOURTEENTH

CONCLUSION

In one of those excursions (may they ne'er Fade from remembrance!) through the Northern tracts Of Cambria ranging with a youthful friend, [A]

I left Bethgelert's huts at couching-time, And westward took my way, to see the sun 5 Rise from the top of Snowdon. To the door Of a rude cottage at the mountain's base We came, and roused the shepherd who attends The adventurous stranger's steps, a trusty guide; Then, cheered by short refreshment, sallied forth. 10