William Wordsworth

from the Prelude: Book 5

WHEN Contemplation, like the night—calm felt
         Through earth and sky, spreads widely, and sends deep
         Into the soul its tranquillising power,
         Even then I sometimes grieve for thee, O Man,
         Earth’s paramount Creature! not so much for woes
         That thou endurest; heavy though that weight be,
         Cloud—like it mounts, or touched with light divine
         Doth melt away; but for those palms achieved
         Through length of time, by patient exercise
         Of study and hard thought; there, there, it is              10
         That sadness finds its fuel. Hitherto,
         In progress through this Verse, my mind hath looked
         Upon the speaking face of earth and heaven
         As her prime teacher, intercourse with man
         Established by the sovereign Intellect,
         Who through that bodily image hath diffused,
         As might appear to the eye of fleeting time,
         A deathless spirit. Thou also, man! hast wrought,
         For commerce of thy nature with herself,
         Things that aspire to unconquerable life;                   20
         And yet we feel—we cannot choose but feel—
         That they must perish. Tremblings of the heart
         It gives, to think that our immortal being
         No more shall need such garments; and yet man,
         As long as he shall be the child of earth,
         Might almost “weep to have” what he may lose,
         Nor be himself extinguished, but survive,
         Abject, depressed, forlorn, disconsolate.
         A thought is with me sometimes, and I say,—
         Should the whole frame of earth by inward throes            30
         Be wrenched, or fire come down from far to scorch
         Her pleasant habitations, and dry up
         Old Ocean, in his bed left singed and bare,
         Yet would the living Presence still subsist
         Victorious, and composure would ensue,
         And kindlings like the morning—presage sure
         Of day returning and of life revived.
         But all the meditations of mankind,
         Yea, all the adamantine holds of truth
         By reason built, or passion, which itself                   40
         Is highest reason in a soul sublime;
         The consecrated works of Bard and Sage,
         Sensuous or intellectual, wrought by men,
         Twin labourers and heirs of the same hopes;
         Where would they be? Oh! why hath not the Mind
         Some element to stamp her image on
         In nature somewhat nearer to her own?
         Why, gifted with such powers to send abroad
         Her spirit, must it lodge in shrines so frail?
 
           One day, when from my lips a like complaint               50
         Had fallen in presence of a studious friend,
         He with a smile made answer, that in truth
         'Twas going far to seek disquietude;
         But on the front of his reproof confessed
         That he himself had oftentimes given way
         To kindred hauntings. Whereupon I told,
         That once in the stillness of a summer’s noon,
         While I was seated in a rocky cave
         By the sea—side, perusing, so it chanced,
         The famous history of the errant knight                     60
         Recorded by Cervantes, these same thoughts
         Beset me, and to height unusual rose,
         While listlessly I sate, and, having closed
         The book, had turned my eyes toward the wide sea.
         On poetry and geometric truth,
         And their high privilege of lasting life,
         From all internal injury exempt,
         I mused; upon these chiefly: and at length,
         My senses yielding to the sultry air,
         Sleep seized me, and I passed into a dream.                 70
         I saw before me stretched a boundless plain
         Of sandy wilderness, all black and void,
         And as I looked around, distress and fear
         Came creeping over me, when at my side,
         Close at my side, an uncouth shape appeared
         Upon a dromedary, mounted high.
         He seemed an Arab of the Bedouin tribes:
         A lance he bore, and underneath one arm
         A stone, and in the opposite hand a shell
         Of a surpassing brightness. At the sight                    80
         Much I rejoiced, not doubting but a guide
         Was present, one who with unerring skill
         Would through the desert lead me; and while yet
         I looked and looked, self—questioned what this freight
         Which the new—comer carried through the waste
         Could mean, the Arab told me that the stone
         (To give it in the language of the dream)
         Was “Euclid’s Elements,” and “This,” said he,
         “Is something of more worth;” and at the word
         Stretched forth the shell, so beautiful in shape,           90
         In colour so resplendent, with command
         That I should hold it to my ear. I did so,
         And heard that instant in an unknown tongue,
         Which yet I understood, articulate sounds,
         A loud prophetic blast of harmony;
         An Ode, in passion uttered, which foretold
         Destruction to the children of the earth
         By deluge, now at hand. No sooner ceased
         The song, than the Arab with calm look declared
         That all would come to pass of which the voice             100
         Had given forewarning, and that he himself
         Was going then to bury those two books:
         The one that held acquaintance with the stars,
         And wedded soul to soul in purest bond
         Of reason, undisturbed by space or time;
         The other that was a god, yea many gods,
         Had voices more than all the winds, with power
         To exhilarate the spirit, and to soothe,
         Through every clime, the heart of human kind.
         While this was uttering, strange as it may seem,           110
         I wondered not, although I plainly saw
         The one to be a stone, the other a shell;
         Nor doubted once but that they both were books,
         Having a perfect faith in all that passed.
         Far stronger, now, grew the desire I felt
         To cleave unto this man; but when I prayed
         To share his enterprise, he hurried on
         Reckless of me: I followed, not unseen,
         For oftentimes he cast a backward look,
         Grasping his twofold treasure.—Lance in rest,             120
         He rode, I keeping pace with him; and now
         He, to my fancy, had become the knight
         Whose tale Cervantes tells; yet not the knight,
         But was an Arab of the desert too;
         Of these was neither, and was both at once.
         His countenance, meanwhile, grew more disturbed;
         And, looking backwards when he looked, mine eyes
         Saw, over half the wilderness diffused,
         A bed of glittering light: I asked the cause:
         “It is,” said he, "the waters of the deep                  130
         Gathering upon us;" quickening then the pace
         Of the unwieldy creature he bestrode,
         He left me: I called after him aloud;
         He heeded not; but, with his twofold charge
         Still in his grasp, before me, full in view,
         Went hurrying o’er the illimitable waste,
         With the fleet waters of a drowning world
         In chase of him; whereat I waked in terror,
         And saw the sea before me, and the book,
         In which I had been reading, at my side.                   140
 
           Full often, taking from the world of sleep
         This Arab phantom, which I thus beheld,
         This semi—Quixote, I to him have given
         A substance, fancied him a living man,
         A gentle dweller in the desert, crazed
         By love and feeling, and internal thought
         Protracted among endless solitudes;
         Have shaped him wandering upon this quest!
         Nor have I pitied him; but rather felt
         Reverence was due to a being thus employed;                150
         And thought that, in the blind and awful lair
         Of such a madness, reason did lie couched.
         Enow there are on earth to take in charge
         Their wives, their children, and their virgin loves,
         Or whatsoever else the heart holds dear;
         Enow to stir for these; yea, will I say,
         Contemplating in soberness the approach
         Of an event so dire, by signs in earth
         Or heaven made manifest, that I could share
         That maniac’s fond anxiety, and go                         160
         Upon like errand. Oftentimes at least
         Me hath such strong entrancement overcome,
         When I have held a volume in my hand,
         Poor earthly casket of immortal verse,
         Shakespeare, or Milton, labourers divine!
 
           Great and benign, indeed, must be the power
         Of living nature, which could thus so long
         Detain me from the best of other guides
         And dearest helpers, left unthanked, unpraised,
         Even in the time of lisping infancy;                       170
         And later down, in prattling childhood even,
         While I was travelling back among those days,
         How could I ever play an ingrate’s part?
         Once more should I have made those bowers resound,
         By intermingling strains of thankfulness
         With their own thoughtless melodies; at least
         It might have well beseemed me to repeat
         Some simply fashioned tale, to tell again,
         In slender accents of sweet verse, some tale
         That did bewitch me then, and soothes me now.              180
         O Friend! O Poet! brother of my soul,
         Think not that I could pass along untouched
         By these remembrances. Yet wherefore speak?
         Why call upon a few weak words to say
         What is already written in the hearts
         Of all that breathe?—what in the path of all
         Drops daily from the tongue of every child,
         Wherever man is found? The trickling tear
         Upon the cheek of listening Infancy
         Proclaims it, and the insuperable look                     190
         That drinks as if it never could be full.
 
           That portion of my story I shall leave
         There registered: whatever else of power
         Or pleasure sown, or fostered thus, may be
         Peculiar to myself, let that remain
         Where still it works, though hidden from all search
         Among the depths of time. Yet is it just
         That here, in memory of all books which lay
         Their sure foundations in the heart of man,
         Whether by native prose, or numerous verse,                200
         That in the name of all inspired souls—
         From Homer the great Thunderer, from the voice
         That roars along the bed of Jewish song,
         And that more varied and elaborate,
         Those trumpet—tones of harmony that shake
         Our shores in England,—from those loftiest notes
         Down to the low and wren—like warblings, made
         For cottagers and spinners at the wheel,
         And sun—burnt travellers resting their tired limbs,
         Stretched under wayside hedge—rows, ballad tunes,          210
         Food for the hungry ears of little ones,
         And of old men who have survived their joys—
         'Tis just that in behalf of these, the works,
         And of the men that framed them, whether known
         Or sleeping nameless in their scattered graves,
         That I should here assert their rights, attest
         Their honours, and should, once for all, pronounce
         Their benediction; speak of them as Powers
         For ever to be hallowed; only less,
         For what we are and what we may become,                    220
         Than Nature’s self, which is the breath of God,
         Or His pure Word by miracle revealed.
 
           Rarely and with reluctance would I stoop
         To transitory themes; yet I rejoice,
         And, by these thoughts admonished, will pour out
         Thanks with uplifted heart, that I was reared
         Safe from an evil which these days have laid
         Upon the children of the land, a pest
         That might have dried me up, body and soul.
         This verse is dedicate to Nature’s self,                   230
         And things that teach as Nature teaches: then,
         Oh! where had been the Man, the Poet where,
         Where had we been, we two, beloved Friend!
         If in the season of unperilous choice,
         In lieu of wandering, as we did, through vales
         Rich with indigenous produce, open ground
         Of Fancy, happy pastures ranged at will,
         We had been followed, hourly watched, and noosed,
         Each in his several melancholy walk
         Stringed like a poor man’s heifer at its feed,             240
         Led through the lanes in forlorn servitude;
         Or rather like a stalled ox debarred
         From touch of growing grass, that may not taste
         A flower till it have yielded up its sweets
         A prelibation to the mower’s scythe.
 
           Behold the parent hen amid her brood,
         Though fledged and feathered, and well pleased to part
         And straggle from her presence, still a brood,
         And she herself from the maternal bond
         Still undischarged; yet doth she little more               250
         Than move with them in tenderness and love,
         A centre to the circle which they make;
         And now and then, alike from need of theirs
         And call of her own natural appetites,
         She scratches, ransacks up the earth for food,
         Which they partake at pleasure. Early died
         My honoured Mother, she who was the heart
         And hinge of all our learnings and our loves:
         She left us destitute, and, as we might,
         Trooping together. Little suits it me                      260
         To break upon the sabbath of her rest
         With any thought that looks at others’ blame;
         Nor would I praise her but in perfect love.
         Hence am I checked: but let me boldly say,
         In gratitude, and for the sake of truth,
         Unheard by her, that she, not falsely taught,
         Fetching her goodness rather from times past,
         Than shaping novelties for times to come,
         Had no presumption, no such jealousy,
         Nor did by habit of her thoughts mistrust                  270
         Our nature, but had virtual faith that He
         Who fills the mother’s breast with innocent milk,
         Doth also for our nobler part provide,
         Under His great correction and control,
         As innocent instincts, and as innocent food;
         Or draws, for minds that are left free to trust
         In the simplicities of opening life,
         Sweet honey out of spurned or dreaded weeds.
         This was her creed, and therefore she was pure
         From anxious fear of error or mishap,                      280
         And evil, overweeningly so called;
         Was not puffed up by false unnatural hopes,
         Nor selfish with unnecessary cares,
         Nor with impatience from the season asked
         More than its timely produce; rather loved
         The hours for what they are, than from regard
         Glanced on their promises in restless pride.
         Such was she—not from faculties more strong
         Than others have, but from the times, perhaps,
         And spot in which she lived, and through a grace           290
         Of modest meekness, simple—mindedness,
         A heart that found benignity and hope,
         Being itself benign.
                               My drift I fear
         Is scarcely obvious; but, that common sense
         May try this modern system by its fruits,
         Leave let me take to place before her sight
         A specimen pourtrayed with faithful hand.
         Full early trained to worship seemliness,
         This model of a child is never known
         To mix in quarrels; that were far beneath                  300
         Its dignity; with gifts he bubbles o’er
         As generous as a fountain; selfishness
         May not come near him, nor the little throng
         Of flitting pleasures tempt him from his path;
         The wandering beggars propagate his name,
         Dumb creatures find him tender as a nun,
         And natural or supernatural fear,
         Unless it leap upon him in a dream,
         Touches him not. To enhance the wonder, see
         How arch his notices, how nice his sense                   310
         Of the ridiculous; not blind is he
         To the broad follies of the licensed world,
         Yet innocent himself withal, though shrewd,
         And can read lectures upon innocence;
         A miracle of scientific lore,
         Ships he can guide across the pathless sea,
         And tell you all their cunning; he can read
         The inside of the earth, and spell the stars;
         He knows the policies of foreign lands;
         Can string you names of districts, cities, towns,          320
         The whole world over, tight as beads of dew
         Upon a gossamer thread; he sifts, he weighs;
         All things are put to question; he must live
         Knowing that he grows wiser every day
         Or else not live at all, and seeing too
         Each little drop of wisdom as it falls
         Into the dimpling cistern of his heart:
         For this unnatural growth the trainer blame,
         Pity the tree.—Poor human vanity,
         Wert thou extinguished, little would be left               330
         Which he could truly love; but how escape?
         For, ever as a thought of purer birth
         Rises to lead him toward a better clime,
         Some intermeddler still is on the watch
         To drive him back, and pound him, like a stray,
         Within the pinfold of his own conceit.
         Meanwhile old grandame earth is grieved to find
         The playthings, which her love designed for him,
         Unthought of: in their woodland beds the flowers
         Weep, and the river sides are all forlorn.                 340
         Oh! give us once again the wishing—cap
         Of Fortunatus, and the invisible coat
         Of Jack the Giant—killer, Robin Hood,
         And Sabra in the forest with St. George!
         The child, whose love is here, at least, doth reap
         One precious gain, that he forgets himself.
 
           These mighty workmen of our later age,
         Who, with a broad highway, have overbridged
         The froward chaos of futurity,
         Tamed to their bidding; they who have the skill            350
         To manage books, and things, and make them act
         On infant minds as surely as the sun
         Deals with a flower; the keepers of our time,
         The guides and wardens of our faculties,
         Sages who in their prescience would control
         All accidents, and to the very road
         Which they have fashioned would confine us down,
         Like engines; when will their presumption learn,
         That in the unreasoning progress of the world
         A wiser spirit is at work for us,                          360
         A better eye than theirs, most prodigal
         Of blessings, and most studious of our good,
         Even in what seem our most unfruitful hours?
 
           There was a Boy: ye knew him well, ye cliffs
         And islands of Winander!—many a time
         At evening, when the earliest stars began
         To move along the edges of the hills,
         Rising or setting, would he stand alone
         Beneath the trees or by the glimmering lake,
 
         And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands             370
         Pressed closely palm to palm, and to his mouth
         Uplifted, he, as through an instrument,
         Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls,
         That they might answer him; and they would shout
         Across the watery vale, and shout again,
         Responsive to his call, with quivering peals,
         And long halloos and screams, and echoes loud,
         Redoubled and redoubled, concourse wild
         Of jocund din; and, when a lengthened pause
         Of silence came and baffled his best skill,                380
         Then sometimes, in that silence while he hung
         Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise
         Has carried far into his heart the voice
         Of mountain torrents; or the visible scene
         Would enter unawares into his mind,
         With all its solemn imagery, its rocks,
         Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, received
         Into the bosom of the steady lake.
 
           This Boy was taken from his mates, and died
         In childhood, ere he was full twelve years old.            390
         Fair is the spot, most beautiful the vale
         Where he was born; the grassy churchyard hangs
         Upon a slope above the village school,
         And through that churchyard when my way has led
         On summer evenings, I believe that there
         A long half hour together I have stood
         Mute, looking at the grave in which he lies!
         Even now appears before the mind’s clear eye
         That self—same village church; I see her sit
         (The throned Lady whom erewhile we hailed)                 400
         On her green hill, forgetful of this Boy
         Who slumbers at her feet,—forgetful, too,
         Of all her silent neighbourhood of graves,
         And listening only to the gladsome sounds
         That, from the rural school ascending, play
         Beneath her and about her. May she long
         Behold a race of young ones like to those
         With whom I herded!—(easily, indeed,
         We might have fed upon a fatter soil
         Of arts and letters—but be that forgiven)—              410
         A race of real children; not too wise,
         Too learned, or too good; but wanton, fresh,
         And bandied up and down by love and hate;
         Not unresentful where self—justified;
         Fierce, moody, patient, venturous, modest, shy;
         Mad at their sports like withered leaves in winds;
         Though doing wrong and suffering, and full oft
         Bending beneath our life’s mysterious weight
         Of pain, and doubt, and fear, yet yielding not
         In happiness to the happiest upon earth.                   420
         Simplicity in habit, truth in speech,
         Be these the daily strengtheners of their minds;
         May books and Nature be their early joy!
         And knowledge, rightly honoured with that name—
         Knowledge not purchased by the loss of power!
 
           Well do I call to mind the very week
         When I was first intrusted to the care
         Of that sweet Valley; when its paths, its shores,
         And brooks were like a dream of novelty
         To my half—infant thoughts; that very week,                430
         While I was roving up and down alone,
         Seeking I knew not what, I chanced to cross
         One of those open fields, which, shaped like ears,
         Make green peninsulas on Esthwaite’s Lake:
         Twilight was coming on, yet through the gloom
         Appeared distinctly on the opposite shore
         A heap of garments, as if left by one
         Who might have there been bathing. Long I watched,
         But no one owned them; meanwhile the calm lake
         Grew dark with all the shadows on its breast,              440
         And, now and then, a fish up—leaping snapped
         The breathless stillness. The succeeding day,
         Those unclaimed garments telling a plain tale
         Drew to the spot an anxious crowd; some looked
         In passive expectation from the shore,
         While from a boat others hung o’er the deep,
         Sounding with grappling irons and long poles.
         At last, the dead man, 'mid that beauteous scene
         Of trees and hills and water, bolt upright
         Rose, with his ghastly face, a spectre shape               450
         Of terror; yet no soul—debasing fear,
         Young as I was, a child not nine years old,
         Possessed me, for my inner eye had seen
         Such sights before, among the shining streams
         Of faery land, the forest of romance.
         Their spirit hallowed the sad spectacle
         With decoration of ideal grace;
         A dignity, a smoothness, like the works
         Of Grecian art, and purest poesy.
 
           A precious treasure had I long possessed,                460
         A little yellow, canvas—covered book,
         A slender abstract of the Arabian tales;
         And, from companions in a new abode,
         When first I learnt, that this dear prize of mine
         Was but a block hewn from a mighty quarry—
         That there were four large volumes, laden all
         With kindred matter, 'twas to me, in truth,
         A promise scarcely earthly. Instantly,
         With one not richer than myself, I made
         A covenant that each should lay aside                      470
         The moneys he possessed, and hoard up more,
         Till our joint savings had amassed enough
         To make this book our own. Through several months,
         In spite of all temptation, we preserved
         Religiously that vow; but firmness failed,
         Nor were we ever masters of our wish.
 
           And when thereafter to my father’s house
         The holidays returned me, there to find
         That golden store of books which I had left,
         What joy was mine! How often in the course                 480
         Of those glad respites, though a soft west wind
         Ruffled the waters to the angler’s wish,
         For a whole day together, have I lain
         Down by thy side, O Derwent! murmuring stream,
         On the hot stones, and in the glaring sun,
         And there have read, devouring as I read,
         Defrauding the day’s glory, desperate!
         Till with a sudden bound of smart reproach,
         Such as an idler deals with in his shame,
         I to the sport betook myself again.                        490
 
           A gracious spirit o’er this earth presides,
         And o’er the heart of man; invisibly
         It comes, to works of unreproved delight,
         And tendency benign, directing those
         Who care not, know not, think not, what they do.
         The tales that charm away the wakeful night
         In Araby, romances; legends penned
         For solace by dim light of monkish lamps;
         Fictions, for ladies of their love, devised
         By youthful squires; adventures endless, spun              500
         By the dismantled warrior in old age,
         Out of the bowels of those very schemes
         In which his youth did first extravagate;
         These spread like day, and something in the shape
         Of these will live till man shall be no more.
         Dumb yearnings, hidden appetites, are ours,
         And 'they must’ have their food. Our childhood sits,
         Our simple childhood, sits upon a throne
         That hath more power than all the elements.
         I guess not what this tells of Being past,                 510
         Nor what it augurs of the life to come;
         But so it is; and, in that dubious hour—
         That twilight—when we first begin to see
         This dawning earth, to recognise, expect,
         And, in the long probation that ensues,
         The time of trial, ere we learn to live
         In reconcilement with our stinted powers;
         To endure this state of meagre vassalage,
         Unwilling to forego, confess, submit,
         Uneasy and unsettled, yoke—fellows                         520
         To custom, mettlesome, and not yet tamed
         And humbled down—oh! then we feel, we feel,
         We know where we have friends. Ye dreamers, then,
         Forgers of daring tales! we bless you then,
         Impostors, drivellers, dotards, as the ape
         Philosophy will call you: 'then’ we feel
         With what, and how great might ye are in league,
         Who make our wish, our power, our thought a deed,
         An empire, a possession,—ye whom time
         And seasons serve; all Faculties to whom                   530
         Earth crouches, the elements are potter’s clay,
         Space like a heaven filled up with northern lights,
         Here, nowhere, there, and everywhere at once.
 
           Relinquishing this lofty eminence
         For ground, though humbler, not the less a tract
         Of the same isthmus, which our spirits cross
         In progress from their native continent
         To earth and human life, the Song might dwell
         On that delightful time of growing youth,
         When craving for the marvellous gives way                  540
         To strengthening love for things that we have seen;
         When sober truth and steady sympathies,
         Offered to notice by less daring pens,
         Take firmer hold of us, and words themselves
         Move us with conscious pleasure.
                                           I am sad
         At thought of rapture now for ever flown;
         Almost to tears I sometimes could be sad
         To think of, to read over, many a page,
         Poems withal of name, which at that time
         Did never fail to entrance me, and are now                 550
         Dead in my eyes, dead as a theatre
         Fresh emptied of spectators. Twice five years
         Or less I might have seen, when first my mind
         With conscious pleasure opened to the charm
         Of words in tuneful order, found them sweet
         For their own 'sakes’, a passion, and a power;
         And phrases pleased me chosen for delight,
         For pomp, or love. Oft, in the public roads
         Yet unfrequented, while the morning light
         Was yellowing the hill tops, I went abroad                 560
         With a dear friend, and for the better part
         Of two delightful hours we strolled along
         By the still borders of the misty lake,
         Repeating favourite verses with one voice,
         Or conning more, as happy as the birds
         That round us chaunted. Well might we be glad,
         Lifted above the ground by airy fancies,
         More bright than madness or the dreams of wine;
         And, though full oft the objects of our love
         Were false, and in their splendour overwrought,            570
         Yet was there surely then no vulgar power
         Working within us,—nothing less, in truth,
         Than that most noble attribute of man,
         Though yet untutored and inordinate,
         That wish for something loftier, more adorned,
         Than is the common aspect, daily garb,
         Of human life. What wonder, then, if sounds
         Of exultation echoed through the groves!
         For, images, and sentiments, and words,
         And everything encountered or pursued                      580
         In that delicious world of poesy,
         Kept holiday, a never—ending show,
         With music, incense, festival, and flowers!
 
           Here must we pause: this only let me add,
         From heart—experience, and in humblest sense
         Of modesty, that he, who in his youth
         A daily wanderer among woods and fields
         With living Nature hath been intimate,
         Not only in that raw unpractised time
         Is stirred to ecstasy, as others are,                      590
         By glittering verse; but further, doth receive,
         In measure only dealt out to himself,
         Knowledge and increase of enduring joy
         From the great Nature that exists in works
         Of mighty Poets. Visionary power
         Attends the motions of the viewless winds,
         Embodied in the mystery of words:
         There, darkness makes abode, and all the host
         Of shadowy things work endless changes,—there,
         As in a mansion like their proper home,                    600
         Even forms and substances are circumfused
         By that transparent veil with light divine,
         And, through the turnings intricate of verse,
         Present themselves as objects recognised,
         In flashes, and with glory not their own.
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