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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth,
+Vol. III, by William Wordsworth
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III
+
+Author: William Wordsworth
+
+Release Date: May 19, 2004 [EBook #12383]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIAM WORDSWORTH POETRY, III ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Clytie Siddall and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team!
+
+
+
+
+
+                              THE POETICAL WORKS
+
+                                     OF
+
+
+
+                              WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
+
+
+
+
+
+                                  EDITED BY
+                               WILLIAM KNIGHT
+
+
+                                   VOL. III
+
+
+                                    1896
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+1804
+
+  "She was a Phantom of delight"
+
+  "I wandered lonely as a cloud"
+
+  The Affliction of Margaret--
+
+  The Forsaken
+
+  Repentance
+
+  Address to my Infant Daughter, Dora
+
+  The Kitten and Falling Leaves
+
+  The Small Celandine
+
+  At Applethwaite, near Keswick
+
+  Vaudracour and Julia
+
+
+1805
+
+  French Revolution
+
+  Ode to Duty
+
+  To a Sky-Lark
+
+  Fidelity
+
+  Incident characteristic of a Favourite Dog
+
+  Tribute to the Memory of the same Dog
+
+  To the Daisy (#4)
+
+  Elegiac Stanzas
+
+  Elegiac Verses
+
+  "When, to the attractions of the busy world"
+
+  The Cottager to her Infant
+
+  The Waggoner
+
+  The Prelude; or, Growth of a Poet's Mind
+
+  From the Italian of Michael Angelo
+
+  From the Same
+
+  From the Same. To the Supreme Being
+
+
+APPENDICES
+
+         I
+
+        II
+
+       III
+
+        IV
+
+         V
+
+        VI
+
+       VII
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                      WORDSWORTH'S POETICAL WORKS
+
+
+
+
+
+1804
+
+The poems written in 1804 were not numerous; and, with the exception of
+'The Small Celandine', the stanzas beginning "I wandered lonely as a
+cloud," and "She was a Phantom of delight," they were less remarkable
+than those of the two preceding, and the three following years.
+Wordsworth's poetical activity in 1804 is not recorded, however, in
+Lyrical Ballads or Sonnets, but in 'The Prelude', much of which was
+thought out, and afterwards dictated to Dorothy or Mary Wordsworth, on
+the terrace walk of Lancrigg during that year; while the 'Ode,
+Intimations of Immortality' was altered and added to, although it did
+not receive its final form till 1806. In the sixth book of 'The
+Prelude', p. 222, the lines occur:
+
+  'Four years and thirty, told this very week,
+  Have I been now a sojourner on earth.'
+
+That part of the great autobiographical poem must therefore
+have been composed in April, 1804.--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+"SHE WAS A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT"
+
+
+Composed 1804.--Published 1807
+
+
+[Written at Town-end, Grasmere. The germ of this poem was four lines
+composed as a part of the verses on the 'Highland Girl'. Though
+beginning in this way, it was written from my heart, as is sufficiently
+obvious.--I. F.]
+
+One of the "Poems of the Imagination."--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+  She was a Phantom of delight
+  When first she gleamed upon my sight; [A]
+  A lovely Apparition, sent
+  To be a moment's ornament;
+  Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair;                               5
+  Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair;
+  But all things else about her drawn
+  From May-time and the cheerful Dawn; [1]
+  A dancing Shape, an Image gay,
+  To haunt, to startle, and way-lay.                               10
+
+  I saw her upon nearer view,
+  A Spirit, yet a Woman too!
+  Her household motions light and free,
+  And steps of virgin-liberty;
+  A countenance in which did meet                                  15
+  Sweet records, promises as sweet;
+  A Creature not too bright or good
+  For human nature's daily food;
+  For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
+  Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.                  20
+
+  And now I see with eye serene
+  The very pulse of the machine;
+  A Being breathing thoughtful breath,
+  A Traveller between [2] life and death;
+  The reason firm, the temperate will,                             25
+  Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
+  A perfect Woman, [3] nobly planned,
+  To warn, to comfort, and command;
+  And yet a Spirit still, and bright
+  With something of angelic light. [4]                             30
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
+
+[Variant 1:
+
+1807.
+
+  From May-time's brightest, liveliest dawn;    1836
+
+The text of 1840 returns to that of 1807.]
+
+
+[Variant 2:
+
+1832.
+
+  ... betwixt ...    1807.]
+
+
+[Variant 3:
+
+1815.
+
+  A perfect Woman; ...   1807.]
+
+
+[Variant 4:
+
+1845.
+
+  ... of an angel light.    1807.
+
+  ...       angel-light.    1836.]
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+FOOTNOTE ON THE TEXT
+
+[Footnote A: Compare two references to Mary Wordsworth in 'The Prelude':
+
+    'Another maid there was, who also shed
+  A gladness o'er that season, then to me,
+  By her exulting outside look of youth
+  And placid under-countenance, first endeared;'
+
+(Book vi. l. 224).
+
+  'She came, no more a phantom to adorn
+  A moment, but an inmate of the heart,
+  And yet a spirit, there for me enshrined
+  To penetrate the lofty and the low;'
+
+(Book xiv, l. 268).--Ed.]
+
+
+
+It is not easy to say what were the "four lines composed as a part of
+the verses on the 'Highland Girl'" which the Fenwick note tells us was
+"the germ of this poem." They may be lines now incorporated in those 'To
+a Highland Girl', vol. ii. p. 389, or they may be lines in the present
+poem, which Wordsworth wrote at first for the 'Highland Girl', but
+afterwards transferred to this one. They _may_ have been the first four
+lines of the later poem. The two should be read consecutively, and
+compared.
+
+After Wordsworth's death, a writer in the 'Daily News', January
+1859--then understood to be Miss Harriet Martineau--wrote thus:
+
+  "In the 'Memoirs', by the nephew of the poet, it is said that these
+  verses refer to Mrs. Wordsworth; but for half of Wordsworth's life it
+  was always understood that they referred to some other phantom which
+  'gleamed upon his sight' before Mary Hutchinson."
+
+This statement is much more than improbable; it is, I think, disproved
+by the Fenwick note. They cannot refer to the "Lucy" of the Goslar
+poems; and Wordsworth indicates, as plainly as he chose, to whom they
+actually do refer. Compare the Hon. Justice Coleridge's account of a
+conversation with Wordsworth ('Memoirs', vol. ii. p. 306), in which the
+poet expressly said that the lines were written on his wife. The
+question was, however, set at rest in a conversation of Wordsworth with
+Henry Crabb Robinson, who wrote in his 'Diary' on
+
+  "May 12 (1842).--Wordsworth said that the poems 'Our walk was far
+  among the ancient trees' [vol. ii. p. 167], then 'She was a Phantom of
+  delight,' [B] and finally the two sonnets 'To a Painter', should be
+  read in succession as exhibiting the different phases of his affection
+  to his wife."
+
+('Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson',
+vol. iii. p. 197.)
+
+The use of the word "machine," in the third stanza of the poem, has been
+much criticised, but for a similar use of the term, see the sequel to
+'The Waggoner' (p. 107):
+
+  'Forgive me, then; for I had been
+  On friendly terms with this Machine.'
+
+See also 'Hamlet' (act II. scene ii. l. 124):
+
+
+  'Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him.'
+
+The progress of mechanical industry in Britain since the beginning of
+the present century has given a more limited, and purely technical,
+meaning to the word, than it bore when Wordsworth used it in these two
+instances.--Ed.
+
+
+[Footnote B: The poet expressly told me that these verses were on his
+wife.--H. C. R.]
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+"I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD"
+
+
+Composed 1804.--Published 1807
+
+
+[Town-end, 1804. The two best lines in it are by Mary. The daffodils
+grew, and still grow, on the margin of Ullswater, and probably may be
+seen to this day as beautiful in the month of March, nodding their
+golden heads beside the dancing and foaming waves.--I. F.]
+
+This was No. VII. in the series of Poems, entitled, in the edition of
+1807, "Moods of my own Mind." In 1815, and afterwards, it was classed by
+Wordsworth among his "Poems of the Imagination."--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+  I wandered lonely as a cloud
+  That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
+  When all at once I saw a crowd,
+  A host, of golden [1] daffodils;
+  Beside the lake, beneath the trees,                          5
+  Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. [2]
+
+  Continuous as the stars that shine
+  And twinkle on the milky way,
+  They stretched in never-ending line
+  Along the margin of a bay:                                  10
+  Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
+  Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. [3]
+
+  The waves beside them danced; but they
+  Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
+  A poet could not but be gay, [4]                            15
+  In such a jocund [5] company:
+  I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
+  What wealth the show to me had brought:
+
+  For oft, when on my couch I lie
+  In vacant or in pensive mood,                               20
+  They flash upon that inward eye
+  Which is the bliss of solitude;
+  And then my heart with pleasure fills,
+  And dances with the daffodils.
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
+
+[Variant 1:
+
+1815.
+
+  ... dancing ...        1807.]
+
+
+[Variant 2:
+
+1815.
+
+  Along the Lake, beneath the trees,
+  Ten thousand dancing in the breeze.     1807]
+
+
+[Variant 3: This stanza was added in the edition of 1815.]
+
+
+[Variant 4:
+
+1807
+
+  ... be but gay,      1836.
+
+The 1840 edition returns to the text of 1807.]
+
+
+[Variant 5:
+
+1815.
+
+  ... laughing ...     1807.]
+
+
+
+The following is from Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, under date,
+Thursday, April 15, 1802:
+
+  "When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow Park, we saw a few
+  daffodils close to the water side. We fancied that the sea had floated
+  the seeds ashore, and that the little colony had so sprung up. But as
+  we went along there were more, and yet more; and, at last, under the
+  boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along
+  the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road. I never saw
+  daffodils so beautiful. They grew among the mossy stones, about and
+  above them; some rested their heads upon these stones, as on a pillow
+  for weariness; and the rest tossed and reeled and danced, and seemed
+  as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the
+  lake. They looked so gay, ever glancing, ever changing. This wind blew
+  directly over the lake to them. There was here and there a little
+  knot, and a few stragglers higher up; but they were so few as not to
+  disturb the simplicity, unity, and life of that one busy highway. We
+  rested again and again. The bays were stormy, and we heard the waves
+  at different distances, and in the middle of the water, like the
+  sea...."
+
+In the edition of 1815 there is a footnote to the lines
+
+  'They flash upon that inward eye
+  Which is the bliss of solitude'
+
+to the following effect:
+
+  "The subject of these Stanzas is rather an elementary feeling and
+  simple impression (approaching to the nature of an ocular spectrum)
+  upon the imaginative faculty, than an exertion of it. The one which
+  follows [A] is strictly a Reverie; and neither that, nor the next
+  after it in succession, 'Power of Music', would have been placed here
+  except for the reason given in the foregoing note."
+
+The being "placed here" refers to its being included among the "Poems of
+the Imagination." The "foregoing note" is the note appended to 'The Horn
+of Egremont Castle'; and the "reason given" in it is "to avoid a
+needless multiplication of the Classes" into which Wordsworth divided
+his poems. This note of 181? [B], is reprinted mainly to show the
+difficulties to which Wordsworth was reduced by the artificial method of
+arrangement referred to. The following letter to Mr. Wrangham is a more
+appropriate illustration of the poem of "The Daffodils." It was written,
+the late Bishop of Lincoln says, "sometime afterwards." (See 'Memoirs of
+Wordsworth', vol. i. pp. 183, 184); and, for the whole of the letter,
+see a subsequent volume of this edition.
+
+  "GRASMERE, Nov. 4.
+
+  "MY DEAR WRANGHAM,--I am indeed much pleased that Mrs. Wrangham and
+  yourself have been gratified by these breathings of simple nature. You
+  mention Butler, Montagu's friend; not Tom Butler, but the conveyancer:
+  when I was in town in spring, he happened to see the volumes lying on
+  Montagu's mantelpiece, and to glance his eye upon the very poem of
+  'The Daffodils.' 'Aye,' says he, 'a fine morsel this for the
+  Reviewers.' When this was told me (for I was not present) I observed
+  that there were 'two lines' in that little poem which, if thoroughly
+  felt, would annihilate nine-tenths of the reviews of the kingdom, as
+  they would find no readers. The lines I alluded to were these:
+
+    'They flash upon that inward eye
+    Which is the bliss of solitude.'"
+
+These two lines were composed by Mrs. Wordsworth. In 1877 the daffodils
+were still growing in abundance on the shore of Ullswater, below
+Gowbarrow Park.
+
+Compare the last four lines of James Montgomery's poem, 'The Little
+Cloud':
+
+  'Bliss in possession will not last:
+  Remembered joys are never past:
+  At once the fountain, stream, and sea,
+  They were--they are--they yet shall be.'
+
+Ed.
+
+
+[Footnote A:  It was 'The Reverie of Poor Susan'.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote B: This is an error in the original printed text. Evidently a
+year before the above-mentioned publication in 1815: one of 1810-1815.
+text Ed.]
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+THE AFFLICTION OF MARGARET--[A]
+
+
+Composed 1804.--Published 1807
+
+
+[Written at Town-end, Grasmere. This was taken from the case of a poor
+widow who lived in the town of Penrith. Her sorrow was well known to
+Mrs. Wordsworth, to my sister, and, I believe, to the whole town. She
+kept a shop, and when she saw a stranger passing by, she was in the
+habit of going out into the street to enquire of him after her
+son.--I. F.]
+
+Included by Wordsworth among his "Poems founded on the Affections."--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+  I        Where art thou, my beloved Son,
+           Where art thou, worse to me than dead?
+           Oh find me, prosperous or undone!
+           Or, if the grave be now thy bed,
+           Why am I ignorant of the same                        5
+           That I may rest; and neither blame
+           Nor sorrow may attend thy name?
+
+  II       Seven years, alas! to have received
+           No tidings of an only child;
+           To have despaired, have hoped, believed,            10
+           And been for evermore beguiled; [1]
+           Sometimes with thoughts of very bliss!
+           I catch at them, and then I miss;
+           Was ever darkness like to this?
+
+  III      He was among the prime in worth,                    15
+           An object beauteous to behold;
+           Well born, well bred; I sent him forth
+           Ingenuous, innocent, and bold:
+           If things ensued that wanted grace,
+           As hath been said, they were not base;              20
+           And never blush was on my face.
+
+  IV       Ah! little doth the young-one dream,
+           When full of play and childish cares,
+           What power is in [2] his wildest scream,
+           Heard by his mother unawares!                       25
+           He knows it not, he cannot guess:
+           Years to a mother bring distress;
+           But do not make her love the less.
+
+  V        Neglect me! no, I suffered long
+           From that ill thought; and, being blind,            30
+           Said, "Pride shall help me in my wrong:
+           Kind mother have I been, as kind
+           As ever breathed:" and that is true;
+           I've wet my path with tears like dew,
+           Weeping for him when no one knew.                   35
+
+  VI       My Son, if thou be humbled, poor,
+           Hopeless of honour and of gain,
+           Oh! do not dread thy mother's door;
+           Think not of me with grief and pain:
+           I now can see with better eyes;                     40
+           And worldly grandeur I despise,
+           And fortune with her gifts and lies.
+
+  VII      Alas! the fowls of heaven have wings,
+           And blasts of heaven will aid their flight;
+           They mount--how short a voyage brings               45
+           The wanderers back to their delight!
+           Chains tie us down by land and sea;
+           And wishes, vain as mine, may be
+           All that is left to comfort thee.
+
+  VIII     Perhaps some dungeon hears thee groan,              50
+           Maimed, mangled by inhuman men;
+           Or thou upon a desert thrown
+           Inheritest the lion's den;
+           Or hast been summoned to the deep,
+           Thou, thou and all thy mates, to keep               55
+           An incommunicable sleep.
+
+  IX       I look for ghosts; but none will force
+           Their way to me: 'tis falsely said
+           That there was ever intercourse
+           Between [3] the living and the dead;                60
+           For, surely, then I should have sight
+           Of him I wait for day and night,
+           With love and longings infinite.
+
+  X        My apprehensions come in crowds;
+           I dread the rustling of the grass;                  65
+           The very shadows of the clouds
+           Have power to shake me as they pass:
+           I question things and do not find
+           One that will answer to my mind;
+           And all the world appears unkind.                   70
+
+  XI       Beyond participation lie
+           My troubles, and beyond relief:
+           If any chance to heave a sigh,
+           They pity me, and not my grief.
+           Then come to me, my Son, or send                    75
+           Some tidings that my woes may end;
+           I have no other earthly friend!
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
+
+[Variant 1:
+
+1836.
+
+  To have despair'd, and have believ'd,
+  And be for evermore beguil'd;       1807.]
+
+
+[Variant 2:
+
+1832.
+
+  What power hath even ...        1807.]
+
+
+[Variant 3:
+
+1832.
+
+  Betwixt ...         1807.]
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+FOOTNOTE ON THE TEXT
+
+[Footnote A: In the edition of 1807, the title was 'The Affliction of
+Margaret--of--'; in 1820, it was 'The Affliction of Margaret'; and in
+1845, it was as above. In an early MS. it was 'The Affliction of
+Mary--of--'. For an as yet unpublished Preface to it, see volume viii.
+of this edition.--Ed.]
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+THE FORSAKEN
+
+
+Composed 1804.--Published 1842
+
+
+[This was an overflow from 'The Affliction of Margaret', and was
+excluded as superfluous there, but preserved in the faint hope that it
+may turn to account by restoring a shy lover to some forsaken damsel. My
+poetry has been complained of as deficient in interests of this sort,--a
+charge which the piece beginning, "Lyre! though such power do in thy
+magic live," will scarcely tend to obviate. The natural imagery of these
+verses was supplied by frequent, I might say intense, observation of the
+Rydal torrent. What an animating contrast is the ever-changing aspect of
+that, and indeed of every one of our mountain brooks, to the monotonous
+tone and unmitigated fury of such streams among the Alps as are fed all
+the summer long by glaciers and melting snows. A traveller observing the
+exquisite purity of the great rivers, such as the Rhone at Geneva, and
+the Reuss at Lucerne, when they issue out of their respective lakes,
+might fancy for a moment that some power in nature produced this
+beautiful change, with a view to make amends for those Alpine sullyings
+which the waters exhibit near their fountain heads; but, alas! how soon
+does that purity depart before the influx of tributary waters that have
+flowed through cultivated plains and the crowded abodes of men.--I. F.]
+
+Included by Wordsworth among his "Poems founded on the Affections."--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+  The peace which others seek they find;
+  The heaviest storms not longest last;
+  Heaven grants even to the guiltiest mind
+  An amnesty for what is past;
+  When will my sentence be reversed?                           5
+  I only pray to know the worst;
+  And wish as if my heart would burst.
+
+  O weary struggle! silent years
+  Tell seemingly no doubtful tale;
+  And yet they leave it short, and fears                      10
+  And hopes are strong and will prevail.
+  My calmest faith escapes not pain;
+  And, feeling that the hope is vain,
+  I think that he will come again.
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+REPENTANCE
+
+A PASTORAL BALLAD
+
+
+Composed 1804.--Published 1820
+
+
+[Written at Town-end, Grasmere. Suggested by the conversation of our
+next neighbour, Margaret Ashburner.--I. F.]
+
+This "next neighbour" is constantly referred to in Dorothy Wordsworth's
+Grasmere Journal.
+
+Included in 1820 among the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection"; in 1827,
+and afterwards, it was classed with those "founded on the
+Affections."--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+  The fields which with covetous spirit we sold,
+  Those beautiful fields, the delight of the day,
+  Would have brought us more good than a burthen of gold, [1]
+  Could we but have been as contented as they.
+
+  When the troublesome Tempter beset us, said I,                       5
+  "Let him come, with his purse proudly grasped in his hand;
+  But, Allan, be true to me, Allan,--we'll die [2]
+  Before he shall go with an inch of the land!"
+
+  There dwelt we, as happy as birds in their bowers;
+  Unfettered as bees that in gardens abide;                           10
+  We could do what we liked [3] with the land, it was ours;
+  And for us the brook murmured that ran by its side.
+
+  But now we are strangers, go early or late;
+  And often, like one overburthened with sin,
+  With my hand on the latch of the half-opened gate, [4]              15
+  I look at the fields, but [5] I cannot go in!
+
+  When I walk by the hedge on a bright summer's day,
+  Or sit in the shade of my grandfather's tree,
+  A stern face it puts on, as if ready to say,
+  "What ails you, that you must come creeping to me!"                 20
+
+  With our pastures about us, we could not be sad;
+  Our comfort was near if we ever were crost;
+  But the comfort, the blessings, and wealth that we had,
+  We slighted them all,--and our birth-right was lost. [6]
+
+  Oh, ill-judging sire of an innocent son                             25
+  Who must now be a wanderer! but peace to that strain!
+  Think of evening's repose when our labour was done,
+  The sabbath's return; and its leisure's soft chain!
+
+  And in sickness, if night had been sparing of sleep,
+  How cheerful, at sunrise, the hill where I stood, [7]               30
+  Looking down on the kine, and our treasure of sheep
+  That besprinkled the field; 'twas like youth in my blood!
+
+  Now I cleave to the house, and am dull as a snail;
+  And, oftentimes, hear the church-bell with a sigh,
+  That follows the thought--We've no land in the vale,                35
+  Save six feet of earth where our forefathers lie!
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
+
+[Variant 1:
+
+1820.
+
+  the delight of our day,                                  MS.
+
+  O fools that we were--we had land which we sold          MS.
+
+  O fools that we were without virtue to hold              MS.
+
+  The fields that together contentedly lay
+  Would have done us more good than another man's gold     MS.]
+
+
+[Variant 2:
+
+1820.
+
+  When the bribe of the Tempter beset us, said I,
+  Let him come with his bags proudly grasped in his hand.
+  But, Thomas, be true to me, Thomas, we'll die             MS.]
+
+
+[Variant 3:
+
+1836.
+
+  ... chose ...      1820 and MS.]
+
+
+[Variant 4:
+
+1820.
+
+  When my hand has half-lifted the latch of the gate,      MS.]
+
+
+[Variant 5:
+
+1820.
+
+  ... and ...      MS.]
+
+
+[Variant 6:
+
+1827.
+
+  But the blessings, and comfort, and wealth that we had,
+  We slighted them all,--and our birth-right was lost.
+                                                           1820 and MS.
+
+  But we traitorously gave the best friend that we had
+  For spiritless pelf--as we felt to our cost!             MS.]
+
+
+[Variant 7:
+
+1820.
+
+  When my sick crazy body had lain without sleep,
+  How cheering the sunshiny vale where I stood,      MS.]
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS TO MY INFANT DAUGHTER, DORA, [A]
+
+ON BEING REMINDED THAT SHE WAS A MONTH OLD THAT DAY, SEPTEMBER 16
+
+
+Composed September 16, 1804.--Published 1815
+
+
+Included by Wordsworth among his "Poems of the Fancy."--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+--Hast thou then survived--
+  Mild Offspring of infirm humanity,
+  Meek Infant! among all forlornest things
+  The most forlorn--one life of that bright star,
+  The second glory of the Heavens?--Thou hast;                         5
+  Already hast survived that great decay,
+  That transformation through the wide earth felt,
+  And by all nations. In that Being's sight
+  From whom the Race of human kind proceed,
+  A thousand years are but as yesterday;                              10
+  And one day's narrow circuit is to Him
+  Not less capacious than a thousand years.
+  But what is time? What outward glory? neither
+  A measure is of Thee, whose claims extend
+  Through "heaven's eternal year." [B]--Yet hail to Thee,             15
+  Frail, feeble, Monthling!--by that name, methinks,
+  Thy scanty breathing-time is portioned out
+  Not idly.--Hadst thou been of Indian birth,
+  Couched on a casual bed of moss and leaves,
+  And rudely canopied by leafy boughs,                                20
+  Or to the churlish elements exposed
+  On the blank plains,--the coldness of the night,
+  Or the night's darkness, or its cheerful face
+  Of beauty, by the changing moon adorned,
+  Would, with imperious admonition, then                              25
+  Have scored thine age, and punctually timed
+  Thine infant history, on the minds of those
+  Who might have wandered with thee.--Mother's love,
+  Nor less than mother's love in other breasts,
+  Will, among us warm-clad and warmly housed,                         30
+  Do for thee what the finger of the heavens
+  Doth all too often harshly execute
+  For thy unblest coevals, amid wilds
+  Where fancy hath small liberty to grace
+  The affections, to exalt them or refine;                            35
+  And the maternal sympathy itself,
+  Though strong, is, in the main, a joyless tie
+  Of naked instinct, wound about the heart.
+  Happier, far happier is thy lot and ours!
+  Even now--to solemnise thy helpless state,                          40
+  And to enliven in the mind's regard
+  Thy passive beauty--parallels have risen,
+  Resemblances, or contrasts, that connect,
+  Within the region of a father's thoughts,
+  Thee and thy mate and sister of the sky.                            45
+  And first;--thy sinless progress, through a world
+  By sorrow darkened and by care disturbed,
+  Apt likeness bears to hers, through gathered clouds,
+  Moving untouched in silver purity,
+  And cheering oft-times their reluctant gloom.                       50
+  Fair are ye both, and both are free from stain:
+  But thou, how leisurely thou fill'st thy horn
+  With brightness! leaving her to post along,
+  And range about, disquieted in change,
+  And still impatient of the shape she wears.                         55
+  Once up, once down the hill, one journey, Babe
+  That will suffice thee; and it seems that now
+  Thou hast fore-knowledge that such task is thine;
+  Thou travellest so contentedly, and sleep'st
+  In such a heedless peace. Alas! full soon                           60
+  Hath this conception, grateful to behold,
+  Changed countenance, like an object sullied o'er
+  By breathing mist; and thine appears to be
+  A mournful labour, while to her is given
+  Hope, and a renovation without end.                                 65
+  --That smile forbids the thought; for on thy face
+  Smiles are beginning, like the beams of dawn,
+  To shoot and circulate; smiles have there been seen;
+  Tranquil assurances that Heaven supports
+  The feeble motions of thy life, and cheers                          70
+  Thy loneliness: or shall those smiles be called
+  Feelers of love, put forth as if to explore
+  This untried world, and to prepare thy way
+  Through a strait passage intricate and dim?
+  Such are they; and the same are tokens, signs,                      75
+  Which, when the appointed season hath arrived,
+  Joy, as her holiest language, shall adopt;
+  And Reason's godlike Power be proud to own.
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT
+
+[Footnote A: The title from 1815 to 1845 was 'Address to my Infant
+Daughter, on being reminded that she was a Month old, on that Day'.
+After her death in 1847, her name was added to the title.--Ed.]
+
+[Footnote B: See Dryden's poem, 'To the pious memory of the accomplished
+young lady, Mrs. Anne Killigrew', I. l. 15.--Ed.]
+
+
+The text of this poem was never altered.--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+THE KITTEN AND FALLING LEAVES [A]
+
+
+Composed 1804.--Published 1807
+
+
+[Seen at Town-end, Grasmere. The elder-bush has long since disappeared;
+it hung over the wall near the cottage: and the kitten continued to leap
+up, catching the leaves as here described. The Infant was Dora.--J. F.]
+
+One of the "Poems of the Fancy." In Henry Crabb Robinson's 'Diary,
+etc.', under date Sept. 10, 1816, we find,
+
+  "He" (Wordsworth) "quoted from 'The Kitten and the Falling Leaves' to
+  show he had connected even the kitten with the great, awful, and
+  mysterious powers of Nature."
+
+Ed.
+
+
+
+
+  That way look, my Infant, [1] lo!
+  What a pretty baby-show!
+  See the Kitten on the wall,
+  Sporting with the leaves that fall,
+  Withered leaves--one--two--and three--5
+  From the lofty elder-tree!
+  Through the calm and frosty [2] air
+  Of this morning bright and fair,
+  Eddying round and round they sink
+  Softly, slowly: one might think,                          10
+  From the motions that are made,
+  Every little leaf conveyed
+  Sylph or Faery hither tending,--
+  To this lower world descending,
+  Each invisible and mute,                                  15
+  In his wavering parachute.
+----But the Kitten, how she starts,
+  Crouches, stretches, paws, and darts! [3]
+  First at one, and then its fellow
+  Just as light and just as yellow;                         20
+  There are many now--now one--
+  Now they stop and there are none:
+  What intenseness of desire
+  In her upward eye of fire!
+  With a tiger-leap half-way                                25
+  Now she meets the coming prey,
+  Lets it go as fast, and then
+  Has it in her power again:
+  Now she works with three or four,
+  Like an Indian conjurer;                                  30
+  Quick as he in feats of art,
+  Far beyond in joy of heart.
+  Were her antics played in the eye
+  Of a thousand standers-by,
+  Clapping hands with shout and stare,                      35
+  What would little Tabby care
+  For the plaudits of the crowd?
+  Over happy to be proud,
+  Over wealthy in the treasure
+  Of her own exceeding pleasure!                            40
+
+    'Tis a pretty baby-treat;
+  Nor, I deem, for me unmeet; [4]
+  Here, for neither Babe nor [5] me,
+  Other play-mate can I see.
+  Of the countless living things,                           45
+  That with stir of feet and wings
+  (In the sun or under shade,
+  Upon bough or grassy blade)
+  And with busy revellings,
+  Chirp and song, and murmurings,                           50
+  Made this orchard's narrow space,
+  And this vale so blithe a place;
+  Multitudes are swept away
+  Never more to breathe the day:
+  Some are sleeping; some in bands                          55
+  Travelled into distant lands;
+  Others slunk to moor and wood,
+  Far from human neighbourhood;
+  And, among the Kinds that keep
+  With us closer fellowship,                                60
+  With us openly abide,
+  All have laid their mirth aside.
+
+    Where is he that giddy [6] Sprite,
+  Blue-cap, with his colours bright,
+  Who was blest as bird could be,                           65
+  Feeding in the apple-tree;
+  Made such wanton spoil and rout,
+  Turning blossoms inside out;
+  Hung--head pointing towards the ground--[7]
+  Fluttered, perched, into a round                          70
+  Bound himself, and then unbound;
+  Lithest, gaudiest Harlequin!
+  Prettiest tumbler ever seen!
+  Light of heart and light of limb;
+  What is now become of Him?                                75
+  Lambs, that through the mountains went
+  Frisking, bleating merriment,
+  When the year was in its prime,
+  They are sobered by this time.
+  If you look to vale or [8] hill,                          80
+  If you listen, all is still,
+  Save a little neighbouring rill,
+  That from out the rocky ground
+  Strikes a solitary sound.
+  Vainly glitter [9] hill and plain,                        85
+  And the air is calm in vain;
+  Vainly Morning spreads the lure
+  Of a sky serene and pure;
+  Creature none can she decoy
+  Into open sign of joy:                                    90
+  Is it that they have a fear
+  Of the dreary season near?
+  Or that other pleasures be
+  Sweeter even than gaiety?
+
+    Yet, whate'er enjoyments dwell                          95
+  In the impenetrable cell
+  Of the silent heart which Nature
+  Furnishes to every creature;
+  Whatsoe'er we feel and know
+  Too sedate for outward show,                             100
+  Such a light of gladness breaks,
+  Pretty Kitten! from thy freaks,--
+  Spreads with such a living grace
+  O'er my little Dora's [10] face;
+  Yes, the sight so stirs and charms                       105
+  Thee, Baby, laughing in my arms,
+  That almost I could repine
+  That your transports are not mine,
+  That I do not wholly fare
+  Even as ye do, thoughtless pair! [11]                    110
+  And I will have my careless season
+  Spite of melancholy reason, [12]
+  Will walk through life in such a way
+  That, when time brings on decay,
+  Now and then I may possess                               115
+  Hours of perfect gladsomeness. [13]
+--Pleased by any random toy;
+  By a kitten's busy joy,
+  Or an infant's laughing eye
+  Sharing in the ecstasy;                                  120
+  I would fare like that or this,
+  Find my wisdom in my bliss;
+  Keep the sprightly soul awake,
+  And have faculties to take,
+  Even from things [14] by sorrow wrought,                 125
+  Matter for a jocund thought,
+  Spite of care, and spite of grief,
+  To gambol with Life's falling Leaf.
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
+
+[Variant 1:
+
+  ... Darling, ...    MS.]
+
+
+[Variant 2:
+
+  ... silent ...      MS.]
+
+
+[Variant 3:
+
+  Knows not what she would be at,
+  Now on this side, now on that.       MS.]
+
+
+[Variant 4:
+
+  One for me, too, as is meet.         MS.]
+
+
+[Variant 5:
+
+1815.
+
+  ... or ...      1807.]
+
+
+[Variant 6:
+
+  ... busy ...    MS.]
+
+
+[Variant 7:
+
+1836,
+
+  Hung with head towards the ground,     1807.]
+
+
+[Variant 8:
+
+  ... and ...     MS.]
+
+
+[Variant 9:
+
+1836.
+
+  ... glitters ...     1807.]
+
+
+[Variant 10:
+
+1849.
+
+  Laura's [a]    1807]
+
+
+[Variant 11: Additional lines:
+
+  But I'll take a hint from you,
+  And to pleasure will be true,         MS.]
+
+
+[Variant 12:
+
+  Be it songs of endless Spring
+  Which the frolic Muses sing,
+  Jest, and Mirth's unruly brood
+  Dancing to the Phrygian mood;
+  Be it love, or be it wine,
+  Myrtle wreath, or ivy twine,
+  Or a garland made of both;
+  Whether then Philosophy
+  That would fill us full of glee
+  Seeing that our breath we draw
+  Under an unbending law,
+  That our years are halting never;
+  Quickly gone, and gone for ever,
+  And would teach us thence to brave
+  The conclusion in the grave;
+  Whether it be these that give
+  Strength and spirit so to live,
+  Or the conquest best be made,
+  By a sober course and staid,
+  I would walk in such a way,           MS.]
+
+
+[Variant 13:
+
+  ... joyousness.     MS.]
+
+
+[Variant 14:
+
+  From the things by ...     MS.]
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+FOOTNOTE ON THE TEXT
+
+[Footnote A:  In the editions of 1807-1832 the title was 'The Kitten and
+the Falling Leaves'.--Ed.]
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+SUB-FOOTNOTE ON THE TEXT
+
+[Sub-Footnote a: Dora Wordsworth died in July 1847. Probably the change
+of text in 1849--one of the latest which the poet made--was due to the
+wish to connect this poem with memories of his dead daughter's
+childhood, and her "laughing eye."--Ed.]
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SMALL CELANDINE [A]
+
+
+Composed 1804.--Published 1807
+
+
+[Grasmere, Town-end. It is remarkable that this flower coming out so
+early in the spring as it does, and so bright and beautiful, and in such
+profusion, should not have been noticed earlier in English verse. What
+adds much to the interest that attends it, is its habit of shutting
+itself up and opening out according to the degree of light and
+temperature of the air.--I. F.]
+
+In pencil on opposite page "Has not Chaucer noticed it?"--W. W.
+
+This was classed by Wordsworth among his "Poems referring to the Period
+of Old Age."-Ed.
+
+
+
+
+  There is a Flower, the lesser Celandine,
+  That shrinks, like many more, from cold and rain;
+  And, the first moment that the sun may shine,
+  Bright as the sun himself, [1] 'tis out again!
+
+  When hailstones have been falling, swarm on swarm,                 5
+  Or blasts the green field and the trees distrest,
+  Oft have I seen it muffled up from harm,
+  In close self-shelter, like a Thing at rest.
+
+  But lately, one rough day, this Flower I passed
+  And recognised it, though an altered form,                        10
+  Now standing forth an offering to the blast,
+  And buffeted at will by rain and storm.
+
+  I stopped, and said with inly-muttered voice,
+  "It doth not love the shower, nor seek the cold:
+  This neither is its courage nor its choice,                       15
+  But its necessity in being old.
+
+  "The sunshine may not cheer [2] it, nor the dew;
+  It cannot help itself in its decay;
+  Stiff in its members, withered, changed of hue."
+  And, in my spleen, I smiled that it was grey.                     20
+
+  To be a Prodigal's Favourite--then, worse truth,
+  A Miser's Pensioner--behold our lot!
+  O Man, that from thy fair and shining youth
+  Age might but take the things Youth needed not!
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
+
+[Variant 1:
+
+1837.
+
+  ... itself, ... 1807.]
+
+
+[Variant 2:
+
+1827
+
+  ... bless ...   1807.]
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+FOOTNOTE ON THE TEXT
+
+[Footnote A: Common Pilewort.--W. W. 1807.]
+
+
+
+With the last stanza compare one from 'The Fountain', vol. ii. p. 93:
+
+  'Thus fares it still in our decay:
+  And yet the wiser mind
+  Mourns less for what age takes away
+  Than what it leaves behind.'
+
+Compare also the other two poems on the Celandine, vol. ii. pp. 300,
+303, written in a previous year.--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+AT APPLETHWAITE, NEAR KESWICK
+
+1804
+
+
+Composed 1804.--Published 1842
+
+
+[This was presented to me by Sir George Beaumont, with a view to the
+erection of a house upon it, for the sake of being near to Coleridge,
+then living, and likely to remain, at Greta Hall, near Keswick. The
+severe necessities that prevented this arose from his domestic
+situation. This little property, with a considerable addition that still
+leaves it very small, lies beautifully upon the banks of a rill that
+gurgles down the side of Skiddaw; and the orchard and other parts of the
+grounds command a magnificent prospect of Derwent Water, the mountains
+of Borrowdale and Newlands. Not many years ago I gave the place to my
+daughter.--I. F.]
+
+In pencil on the opposite page in Dora Wordsworth's (Mrs. Quillinan's)
+handwriting--"Many years ago, Sir; for it was given when she was a frail
+feeble monthling."
+
+One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+  BEAUMONT! it was thy wish that I should rear
+  A seemly Cottage in this sunny Dell,
+  On favoured ground, thy gift, where I might dwell
+  In neighbourhood with One to me most dear,
+  That undivided we from year to year                             5
+  Might work in our high Calling--a bright hope
+  To which our fancies, mingling, gave free scope
+  Till checked by some necessities severe.
+  And should these slacken, honoured BEAUMONT! still
+  Even then we may perhaps in vain implore                       10
+  Leave of our fate thy wishes [1] to fulfil.
+  Whether this boon be granted us or not,
+  Old Skiddaw will look down upon the Spot
+  With pride, the Muses love it evermore. [2] [A]
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
+
+[Variant 1:
+
+  ... pleasure ... MS.]
+
+
+[Variant 2:
+
+  ... will be proud, and that same spot
+  Be dear unto the Muses evermore.          MS.]
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+FOOTNOTE ON THE TEXT
+
+[Footnote A: In the edition of 1842 the following footnote is given by
+Wordsworth,
+
+  "This biographical Sonnet, if so it may be called, together with the
+  Epistle that follows, have been long suppressed from feelings of
+  personal delicacy."
+
+The "Epistle" was that addressed to Sir George Beaumont in 1811.--Ed.]
+
+
+This little property at Applethwaite now belongs to Mr. Gordon
+Wordsworth, the grandson of the poet. It is a "sunny dell" only in its
+upper reaches, above the spot where the cottage--which still bears
+Wordsworth's name--is built. This sonnet, and Sir George Beaumont's wish
+that Wordsworth and Coleridge should live so near each other, as to be
+able to carry on joint literary labour, recall the somewhat similar wish
+and proposal on the part of W. Calvert, unfolded in a letter from
+Coleridge to Sir Humphry Davy.--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+VAUDRACOUR AND JULIA
+
+
+Composed 1804.--Published 1820
+
+
+The following Tale was written as an Episode, in a work from which its
+length may perhaps exclude it. [A] The facts are true; no invention as
+to these has been exercised, as none was needed.--W. W. 1820.
+
+[Written at Town-end, Grasmere. Faithfully narrated, though with the
+omission of many pathetic circumstances, from the mouth of a French
+lady, [B] who had been an eye-and-ear witness of all that was done and
+said. Many long years after, I was told that Dupligne was then a monk in
+the Convent of La Trappe.--I. F.]
+
+This was included among the "Poems founded on the Affections."--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+  O happy time of youthful lovers (thus
+  My story may begin) O balmy time,
+  In which a love-knot on a lady's brow
+  Is fairer than the fairest star in heaven!
+  To such inheritance of blessed fancy                              5
+  (Fancy that sports more desperately with minds
+  Than ever fortune hath been known to do)
+  The high-born Vaudracour was brought, by years
+  Whose progress had a little overstepped
+  His stripling prime. A town of small repute,                     10
+  Among the vine-clad mountains of Auvergne,
+  Was the Youth's birth-place. There he wooed a Maid
+  Who heard the heart-felt music of his suit
+  With answering vows. Plebeian was the stock,
+  Plebeian, though ingenuous, the stock,                           15
+  From which her graces and her honours sprung:
+  And hence the father of the enamoured Youth,
+  With haughty indignation, spurned the thought
+  Of such alliance.--From their cradles up,
+  With but a step between their several homes,                     20
+  Twins had they been in pleasure; after strife
+  And petty quarrels, had grown fond again;
+  Each other's advocate, each other's stay;
+  And, in their happiest moments, not content,
+  If more divided than a sportive pair [1]                         25
+  Of sea-fowl, conscious both that they are hovering
+  Within the eddy of a common blast,
+  Or hidden only by the concave depth
+  Of neighbouring billows from each other's sight.
+
+    Thus, not without concurrence of an age                        30
+  Unknown to memory, was an earnest given
+  By ready nature for a life of love,
+  For endless constancy, and placid truth;
+  But whatsoe'er of such rare treasure lay
+  Reserved, had fate permitted, for support                        35
+  Of their maturer years, his present mind
+  Was under fascination;--he beheld
+  A vision, and adored the thing he saw.
+  Arabian fiction never filled the world
+  With half the wonders that were wrought for him.                 40
+  Earth breathed in one great presence of the spring;
+  Life turned the meanest of her implements,
+  Before his eyes, to price above all gold;
+  The house she dwelt in was a sainted shrine;
+  Her chamber-window did surpass in glory                          45
+  The portals of the dawn; all paradise
+  Could, by the simple opening of a door,
+  Let itself in upon him:--pathways, walks,
+  Swarmed with enchantment, till his spirit sank,
+  Surcharged, within him, overblest to move                        50
+  Beneath a sun that wakes a weary world
+  To its dull round of ordinary cares;
+  A man too happy for mortality!
+
+    So passed the time, till whether through effect
+  Of some unguarded moment that dissolved                          55
+  Virtuous restraint--ah, speak it, think it, not!
+  Deem rather that the fervent Youth, who saw
+  So many bars between his present state
+  And the dear haven where he wished to be
+  In honourable wedlock with his Love,                             60
+  Was in his judgment tempted to decline
+  To perilous weakness, [2] and entrust his cause
+  To nature for a happy end of all;
+  Deem that by such fond hope the Youth was swayed,
+  And bear with their transgression, when I add                    65
+  That Julia, wanting yet the name of wife,
+  Carried about her for a secret grief
+  The promise of a mother.
+                               To conceal
+  The threatened shame, the parents of the Maid                    70
+  Found means to hurry her away by night,
+  And unforewarned, that in some distant spot
+  She might remain shrouded in privacy,
+  Until the babe was born. When morning came,
+  The Lover, thus bereft, stung with his loss,                     75
+  And all uncertain whither he should turn,
+  Chafed like a wild beast in the toils; but soon
+  Discovering traces of the fugitives,
+  Their steps he followed to the Maid's retreat.
+  Easily may the sequel be divined--[3]                            80
+  Walks to and fro--watchings at every hour;
+  And the fair Captive, who, whene'er she may,
+  Is busy at her casement as the swallow
+  Fluttering its pinions, almost within reach,
+  About the pendent nest, did thus espy                            85
+  Her Lover!--thence a stolen interview,
+  Accomplished under friendly shade of night.
+
+    I pass the raptures of the pair;--such theme
+  Is, by innumerable poets, touched
+  In more delightful verse than skill of mine                      90
+  Could fashion; chiefly by that darling bard
+  Who told of Juliet and her Romeo,
+  And of the lark's note heard before its time,
+  And of the streaks that laced the severing clouds
+  In the unrelenting east.--Through all her courts                 95
+  The vacant city slept; the busy winds,
+  That keep no certain intervals of rest,
+  Moved not; meanwhile the galaxy displayed
+  Her fires, that like mysterious pulses beat
+  Aloft;--momentous but uneasy bliss!                             100
+  To their full hearts the universe seemed hung
+  On that brief meeting's slender filament!
+
+    They parted; and the generous Vaudracour
+  Reached speedily the native threshold, bent
+  On making (so the Lovers had agreed)                            105
+  A sacrifice of birthright to attain
+  A final portion from his father's hand;
+  Which granted, Bride and Bridegroom then would flee
+  To some remote and solitary place,
+  Shady as night, and beautiful as heaven,                        110
+  Where they may live, with no one to behold
+  Their happiness, or to disturb their love.
+  But _now_ of this no whisper; not the less,
+  If ever an obtrusive word were dropped
+  Touching the matter of his passion, still,                      115
+  In his stern father's hearing, Vaudracour
+  Persisted openly that death alone
+  Should abrogate his human privilege
+  Divine, of swearing everlasting truth,
+  Upon the altar, to the Maid he loved.                           120
+
+    "You shall be baffled in your mad intent
+  If there be justice in the court of France,"
+  Muttered the Father.--From these words the Youth [4]
+  Conceived a terror; and, by night or day,
+  Stirred nowhere without weapons, that full soon                 125
+  Found dreadful provocation: for at night [5]
+  When to his chamber he retired, attempt
+  Was made to seize him by three armed men,
+  Acting, in furtherance of the father's will,
+  Under a private signet of the State.                            130
+  One the rash Youth's ungovernable hand
+  Slew, and as quickly to a second gave [6]
+  A perilous wound--he shuddered to behold
+  The breathless corse; then peacefully resigned
+  His person to the law, was lodged in prison,                    135
+  And wore the fetters of a criminal.
+
+    Have you observed [7] a tuft of winged seed
+  That, from the dandelion's naked stalk,
+  Mounted aloft, is suffered not to use
+  Its natural gifts for purposes of rest,                         140
+  Driven by the autumnal whirlwind to and fro
+  Through the wide element? or have you marked
+  The heavier substance of a leaf-clad bough,
+  Within the vortex of a foaming flood,
+  Tormented? by such aid you may conceive                         145
+  The perturbation that ensued; [8]--ah, no!
+  Desperate the Maid--the Youth is stained with blood;
+  Unmatchable on earth is their disquiet! [9]
+  Yet [10] as the troubled seed and tortured bough
+  Is Man, subjected to despotic sway.                             150
+
+    For him, by private influence with the Court,
+  Was pardon gained, and liberty procured;
+  But not without exaction of a pledge,
+  Which liberty and love dispersed in air.
+  He flew to her from whom they would divide him--155
+  He clove to her who could not give him peace--
+  Yea, his first word of greeting was,--"All right
+  Is gone from me; my lately-towering hopes,
+  To the least fibre of their lowest root,
+  Are withered; thou no longer canst be mine,                     160
+  I thine--the conscience-stricken must not woo
+  The unruffled Innocent,--I see thy face,
+  Behold thee, and my misery is complete!"
+
+    "One, are we not?" exclaimed the Maiden--"One,
+  For innocence and youth, for weal and woe?"                     165
+  Then with the father's name she coupled words
+  Of vehement indignation; but the Youth
+  Checked her with filial meekness; for no thought
+  Uncharitable crossed his mind, no sense
+  Of hasty anger rising in the eclipse [11]                       170
+  Of true domestic loyalty, did e'er
+  Find place within his bosom.--Once again
+  The persevering wedge of tyranny
+  Achieved their separation: and once more
+  Were they united,--to be yet again                              175
+  Disparted, pitiable lot! But here
+  A portion of the tale may well be left
+  In silence, though my memory could add
+  Much how the Youth, in scanty space of time,
+  Was traversed from without; much, too, of thoughts              180
+  That occupied his days in solitude
+  Under privation and restraint; and what,
+  Through dark and shapeless fear of things to come,
+  And what, through strong compunction for the past,
+  He suffered--breaking down in heart and mind!                   185
+
+    Doomed to a third and last captivity,
+  His freedom he recovered on the eve
+  Of Julia's travail. When the babe was born,
+  Its presence tempted him to cherish schemes
+  Of future happiness. "You shall return,                         190
+  Julia," said he, "and to your father's house
+  Go with the child.--You have been wretched; yet
+  The silver shower, whose reckless burthen weighs
+  Too heavily upon the lily's head,
+  Oft leaves a saving moisture at its root.                       195
+  Malice, beholding you, will melt away.
+  Go!--'tis a town where both of us were born;
+  None will reproach you, for our truth is known;
+  And if, amid those once-bright bowers, our fate
+  Remain unpitied, pity is not in man.                            200
+  With ornaments--the prettiest, nature yields
+  Or art can fashion, shall you deck our [12] boy,
+  And feed his countenance with your own sweet looks
+  Till no one can resist him.--Now, even now,
+  I see him sporting on the sunny lawn;                           205
+  My father from the window sees him too;
+  Startled, as if some new-created thing
+  Enriched the earth, or Faery of the woods
+  Bounded before him;--but the unweeting Child
+  Shall by his beauty win his grandsire's heart                   210
+  So that it shall be softened, and our loves
+  End happily, as they began!"
+
+                                These gleams
+  Appeared but seldom; oftener was he seen
+  Propping a pale and melancholy face                             215
+  Upon the Mother's bosom; resting thus
+  His head upon one breast, while from the other
+  The Babe was drawing in its quiet food.
+--That pillow is no longer to be thine,
+  Fond Youth! that mournful solace now must pass                  220
+  Into the list of things that cannot be!
+  Unwedded Julia, terror-smitten, hears
+  The sentence, by her mother's lip pronounced,
+  That dooms her to a convent.--Who shall tell,
+  Who dares report, the tidings to the lord                       225
+  Of her affections? so they blindly asked
+  Who knew not to what quiet depths a weight
+  Of agony had pressed the Sufferer down:
+  The word, by others dreaded, he can hear
+  Composed and silent, without visible sign                       230
+  Of even the least emotion. Noting this,
+  When the impatient object of his love
+  Upbraided him with slackness, he returned
+  No answer, only took the mother's hand
+  And kissed it; seemingly devoid of pain,                        235
+  Or care, that what so tenderly he pressed
+  Was a dependant on [13] the obdurate heart
+  Of one who came to disunite their lives
+  For ever--sad alternative! preferred,
+  By the unbending Parents of the Maid,                           240
+  To secret 'spousals meanly disavowed.
+--So be it!
+
+              In the city he remained
+  A season after Julia had withdrawn
+  To those religious walls. He, too, departs--245
+  Who with him?--even the senseless Little-one.
+  With that sole charge he passed the city-gates,
+  For the last time, attendant by the side
+  Of a close chair, a litter, or sedan,
+  In which the Babe was carried. To a hill,                       250
+  That rose a brief league distant from the town,
+  The dwellers in that house where he had lodged
+  Accompanied his steps, by anxious love
+  Impelled;--they parted from him there, and stood
+  Watching below till he had disappeared                          255
+  On the hill top. His eyes he scarcely took,
+  Throughout that journey, from the vehicle
+  (Slow-moving ark of all his hopes!) that veiled
+  The tender infant: and at every inn,
+  And under every hospitable tree                                 260
+  At which the bearers halted or reposed,
+  Laid him with timid care upon his knees,
+  And looked, as mothers ne'er were known to look,
+  Upon the nursling which his arms embraced.
+
+    This was the manner in which Vaudracour                       265
+  Departed with his infant; and thus reached
+  His father's house, where to the innocent child
+  Admittance was denied. The young man spake
+  No word [14] of indignation or reproof,
+  But of his father begged, a last request,                       270
+  That a retreat might be assigned to him
+  Where in forgotten quiet he might dwell,
+  With such allowance as his wants required;
+  For wishes he had none. To a lodge that stood
+  Deep in a forest, with leave given, at the age                  275
+  Of four-and-twenty summers he withdrew;
+  And thither took with him his motherless Babe, [15]
+  And one domestic for their common needs,
+  An aged woman. It consoled him here
+  To attend upon the orphan, and perform                          280
+  Obsequious service to the precious child,
+  Which, after a short time, by some mistake
+  Or indiscretion of the Father, died.--
+  The Tale I follow to its last recess
+  Of suffering or of peace, I know not which:                     285
+  Theirs be the blame who caused the woe, not mine!
+
+    From this time forth he never shared a smile
+  With mortal creature. An Inhabitant
+  Of that same town, in which the pair had left
+  So lively a remembrance of their griefs,                        290
+  By chance of business, coming within reach
+  Of his retirement, to the forest lodge
+  Repaired, but only found the matron there, [16]
+  Who told him that his pains were thrown away,
+  For that her Master never uttered word                          295
+  To living thing--not even to her.--Behold!
+  While they were speaking, Vaudracour approached;
+  But, seeing some one near, as on the latch
+  Of the garden-gate his hand was laid, he shrunk--[17]
+  And, like a shadow, glided out of view.                         300
+  Shocked at his savage aspect, from the place
+  The visitor retired.
+
+                        Thus lived the Youth
+  Cut off from all intelligence with man,
+  And shunning even the light of common day;                      305
+  Nor could the voice of Freedom, which through France
+  Full speedily resounded, public hope,
+  Or personal memory of his own deep wrongs,
+  Rouse him: but in those solitary shades
+  His days he wasted, an imbecile mind!                           310
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
+
+[Variant 1:
+
+1836.
+
+  And strangers to content if long apart,
+  Or more divided ...                         1820.]
+
+
+[Variant 2:
+
+1827.
+
+  Was inwardly prepared to turn aside
+  From law and custom, ...                    1820.]
+
+
+[Variant 3:
+
+1836.
+
+  The sequel may be easily divined,--1820.]
+
+
+[Variant 4:
+
+1827.
+
+  ... From this time the Youth                1820.]
+
+
+[Variant 5:
+
+1827.
+
+  Stirred no where without arms. To their rural seat,
+  Meanwhile, his Parents artfully withdrew,
+  Upon some feigned occasion, and the Son
+  Remained with one attendant. At midnight         1820.]
+
+
+[Variant 6:
+
+1836.
+
+  One, did the Youth's ungovernable hand
+  Assault and slay;--and to a second gave          1820.]
+
+
+[Variant 7:
+
+1836.
+
+  ... beheld ...           1820.]
+
+
+[Variant 8:
+
+1836.
+
+  The perturbation of each mind;--...           1820.]
+
+
+[Variant 9: This line was added in 1836.]
+
+
+[Variant 10:
+
+1836.
+
+  But ...            1820.]
+
+
+[Variant 11:
+
+1845.
+
+  ... for no thought
+  Uncharitable, no presumptuous rising
+  Of hasty censure, modelled in the eclipse             1820.
+
+  ... for no thought
+  Undutifully harsh dwelt in his mind,
+  No proud resentment cherished in the eclipse          C.]
+
+
+[Variant 12:
+
+1840.
+
+  ... your ...              1820.]
+
+
+[Variant 13:
+
+1827.
+
+  ... upon ...                1820.]
+
+
+[Variant 14:
+
+1836.
+
+  No words ...       1820.]
+
+
+[Variant 15:
+
+1836.
+
+  ... infant Babe,   1820.]
+
+
+[Variant 16:
+
+1827.
+
+  ... to the spot repaired
+  With an intent to visit him. He reached
+  The house, and only found the Matron there,      1820]
+
+
+[Variant 17:
+
+1836.
+
+  But, seeing some one near, even as his hand
+  Was stretched towards the garden gate, he shrunk--1820]
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT
+
+[Footnote A: The work was 'The Prelude'. See book ix., p. 310 of this
+volume.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote B: Compare 'The Prelude', book ix. l. 548, p. 310, where
+Wordsworth says it was told him "by my Patriot friend."--Ed.]
+
+
+
+In the preface to his volume, "'Poems of Wordsworth' chosen and edited
+by Matthew Arnold," that distinguished poet and critic has said (p.
+xxv.), "I can read with pleasure and edification ... everything of
+Wordsworth, I think, except 'Vaudracour and Julia'."--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+1805
+
+
+During 1805, the autobiographical poem, which was afterwards named by
+Mrs. Wordsworth 'The Prelude', was finished. In that year also
+Wordsworth wrote the 'Ode to Duty', 'To a Sky-Lark', 'Fidelity', the
+fourth poem 'To the Daisy', the 'Elegiac Stanzas suggested by a Picture
+of Peele Castle in a Storm', the 'Elegiac Verses' in memory of his
+brother John, 'The Waggoner', and a few other poems.--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+FRENCH REVOLUTION,
+
+AS IT APPEARED TO ENTHUSIASTS AT ITS COMMENCEMENT
+
+REPRINTED FROM 'THE FRIEND'
+
+
+Composed 1805.--Published 1809
+
+
+[An extract from the long poem on my own poetical education. It was
+first published by Coleridge in his 'Friend', which is the reason of its
+having had a place in every edition of my poems since.--I. F.]
+
+These lines appeared first in 'The Friend', No. 11, October 26, 1809, p.
+163. They afterwards found a place amongst the "Poems of the
+Imagination," in all the collective editions from 1815 onwards. They are
+part of the eleventh book of 'The Prelude', entitled "France--
+(concluded)," ll. 105-144. Wordsworth gives the date 1805, but these
+lines possibly belong to the year 1804.--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+  Oh! pleasant exercise of hope and joy!
+  For mighty were [1] the auxiliars which then stood
+  Upon our side, we [2] who were strong in love!
+  Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
+  But to be young was very heaven!--Oh! times,                     5
+  In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways
+  Of custom, law, and statute, took at once
+  The attraction of a country in romance!
+  When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights,
+  When most intent on making of herself                           10
+  A prime Enchantress [3]--to assist the work,
+  Which then was going forward in her name!
+  Not favoured spots alone, but the whole earth,
+  The beauty wore of promise, that which sets
+  (As at some moment might not be unfelt [4]                      15
+  Among the bowers of paradise itself)
+  The budding rose above the rose full blown.
+  What temper at the prospect did not wake
+  To happiness unthought of? The inert
+  Were roused, and lively natures rapt away!                      20
+  They who had fed their childhood upon dreams,
+  The playfellows of fancy, who had made
+  All powers of swiftness, subtilty, and strength
+  Their ministers,--who in lordly wise had stirred [5]
+  Among the grandest objects of the sense,                        25
+  And dealt [6] with whatsoever they found there
+  As if they had within some lurking right
+  To wield it;--they, too, who, of gentle mood,
+  Had watched all gentle motions, and to these
+  Had fitted their own thoughts, schemers more mild,              30
+  And in the region of their peaceful selves;--
+  Now was it that both [7] found, the meek and lofty
+  Did both find, helpers to their heart's desire,
+  And stuff at hand, plastic as they could wish;
+  Were called upon to exercise their skill,                       35
+  Not in Utopia, subterranean [8] fields,
+  Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where!
+  But in the very world, which is the world
+  Of all of us,--the place where in the end
+  We find our happiness, or not at all!                           40
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
+
+[Variant 1: "were" omitted from the 1820 edition only.]
+
+
+[Variant 2:
+
+1809.
+
+  ... us ...        'The Prelude', 1850.]
+
+
+[Variant 3:
+
+1815.
+
+  ... Enchanter ...    1809.]
+
+
+[Variant 4:
+
+1832.
+
+  (To take an image which was felt no doubt        1809.
+
+  (As at some moments might not be unfelt          'The Prelude', 1850.]
+
+
+[Variant 5:
+
+1815.
+
+  Their ministers--used to stir in lordly wise      1809.]
+
+
+[Variant 6:
+
+1815.
+
+  And deal ...     1809.]
+
+
+[Variant 7: "both" 'italicised' from 1815 to 1832, and also in 'The
+Prelude'.]
+
+
+[Variant 8:
+
+1832
+
+    ... subterraneous ...            1809.]
+
+
+
+Compare Coleridge's remarks in 'The Friend', vol. ii. p. 38, before
+quoting this poem,
+
+  "My feelings and imagination did not remain unkindled in this general
+  conflagration; and I confess I should be more inclined to be ashamed
+  than proud of myself if they had! I was a sharer in the general
+  vortex, though my little world described the path of its revolution in
+  an orbit of its own," etc.
+
+Ed.
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+ODE TO DUTY
+
+
+Composed 1805.--Published 1807
+
+
+  "Jam non consilio bonus, sed more eo perductus, ut non tantum recte
+  facere possim, sed nisi recte facere non possim." [A]
+
+[This Ode is on the model of Gray's 'Ode to Adversity', which
+is copied from Horace's Ode to Fortune. Many and many a
+time have I been twitted by my wife and sister for having
+forgotten this dedication of myself to the stern law-giver.
+Transgressor indeed I have been from hour to hour, from day
+to day: I would fain hope, however, not more flagrantly, or
+in a worse way than most of my tuneful brethren. But these
+last words are in a wrong strain. We should be rigorous to
+ourselves, and forbearing, if not indulgent, to others; and, if
+we make comparison at all, it ought to be with those who have
+morally excelled us.--I. F.]
+
+In pencil on the MS.,
+
+  "But is not the first stanza of Gray's from a chorus of AEschylus? And
+  is not Horace's Ode also modelled on the Greek?"
+
+This poem was placed by Wordsworth among his "Poems of Sentiment and
+Reflection."--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+  Stern Daughter of the Voice of God!
+  O Duty! if that name thou love
+  Who art a light to guide, a rod
+  To check the erring, and reprove;
+  Thou, who art victory and law                                        5
+  When empty terrors overawe;
+  From vain temptations dost set free;
+  And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity! [1]
+
+  There are who ask not if thine eye
+  Be on them; who, in love and truth,                                 10
+  Where no misgiving is, rely
+  Upon the genial sense of youth: [B]
+  Glad Hearts! without reproach or blot;
+  Who do thy work, [2] and know it not:
+  Oh, if through confidence misplaced                                 15
+  They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power! around them cast. [3]
+
+  Serene will be our days and bright,
+  And happy will our nature be,
+  When love is an unerring light,
+  And joy its own security.                                           20
+  And they a blissful course may hold
+  Even now, who, not unwisely bold, [4]
+  Live in the spirit of this creed;
+  Yet seek thy firm support, [5] according to their need.
+
+  I, loving freedom, and untried;                                     25
+  No sport of every random gust,
+  Yet being to myself a guide,
+  Too blindly have reposed my trust:
+  And oft, when in my heart was heard
+  Thy timely mandate, I deferred                                      30
+  The task, in smoother walks to stray; [6]
+  But thee I now [7] would serve more strictly, if I may.
+
+  Through no disturbance of my soul,
+  Or strong compunction in me wrought,
+  I supplicate for thy control;                                       35
+  But in the quietness of thought:
+  Me this unchartered freedom tires; [C]
+  I feel the weight of chance-desires:
+  My hopes no more must change their name,
+  I long for a repose that [8] ever is the same.                      40
+  [9]
+  Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear
+  The Godhead's most benignant grace;
+  Nor know we any thing so [10] fair
+  As is the smile upon thy face: [D]
+  Flowers laugh before thee on their beds                             45
+  And fragrance in thy footing treads; [E]
+  Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;
+  And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong.
+
+  To humbler functions, awful Power!
+  I call thee: I myself commend                                       50
+  Unto thy guidance from this hour;
+  Oh, let my weakness have an end!
+  Give unto me, made lowly wise,
+  The spirit of self-sacrifice;
+  The confidence of reason give;                                      55
+  And in the light of truth thy Bondman let me live! [F]
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
+
+[Variant 1:
+
+1815
+
+  From strife and from despair; a glorious ministry.      1807.]
+
+
+[Variant 2:
+
+   ... the right ...        MS.
+
+   ... thy will ...         MS.]
+
+
+[Variant 3:
+
+1837.
+
+  May joy be theirs while life shall last!
+  And Thou, if they should totter, teach them to stand fast!      1807.
+
+  Long may the kindly impulse last!
+  But Thou, ...                                                   1827.
+
+  And may that genial sense remain, when youth is past.           MS.]
+
+
+[Variant 4:
+
+1827.
+
+  And bless'd are they who in the main
+  This faith, even now, do entertain:              1807.
+
+  Even now this creed do entertain                 MS.
+
+  This holy creed do entertain                     MS.]
+
+
+[Variant 5:
+
+1845.
+
+  Yet find that other strength,  ...  1807.
+
+  Yet find thy firm support,     ...  1837.]
+
+
+[Variant 6:
+
+1827.
+
+  Resolved that nothing e'er should press
+  Upon my present happiness,
+  I shoved unwelcome tasks away;                 1807.
+
+  Full oft, when in my heart was heard
+  Thy timely mandate, I deferred
+  The task imposed, from day to day;             1815.]
+
+
+[Variant 7:
+
+  But henceforth I would ...          MS.]
+
+
+[Variant 8:
+
+ 1827.
+
+  ... which ...     1807.]
+
+
+[Variant 9:
+
+  Yet not the less would I throughout
+  Still act according to the voice
+  Of my own wish; and feel past doubt
+  That my submissiveness was choice:
+  Not seeking in the school of pride
+  For "precepts over dignified,"
+  Denial and restraint I prize
+  No farther than they breed a second Will more wise.
+
+Only in the edition of 1807.]
+
+
+[Variant 10:
+
+  ... more ...     MS.]
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT
+
+[Footnote A: This motto was added in the edition of 1837.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote B: Compare S. T. C. in 'The Friend' (edition 1818, vol. iii.
+p. 62),
+
+  "Its instinct, its safety, its benefit, its glory is to love, to
+  admire, to feel, and to labour."
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote C: Compare Churchill's 'Gotham', i. 49:
+
+  'An Englishman in chartered freedom born.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote D: Compare in 'Sartor Resartus',
+
+  "Happy he for whom a kind of heavenly sun brightens it [Necessity]
+  into a ring of Duty, and plays round it with beautiful prismatic
+  refractions."
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote E: Compare Persius, 'Satura', ii. l. 38:
+
+  'Quidquic calcaverit hic, rosa fiat.'
+
+And Ben Jonson, in 'The Sad Shepherd', act I. scene i. ll. 8, 9:
+
+  'And where she went, the flowers took thickest root,
+  As she had sow'd them with her odorous foot.'
+
+Also, a similar reference to Aphrodite in Hesiod, 'Theogony', vv. 192
+'seq.'--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote F: Compare S. T. C. in 'The Friend' (edition 1818), vol. iii.
+p. 64.--Ed.]
+
+
+
+Mr. J. R. Tutin has supplied me with the text of a proof copy of the
+sheets of the edition of 1807, which was cancelled by Wordsworth, in
+which the following stanzas take the place of the first four of that
+edition:
+
+
+  'There are who tread a blameless way
+  In purity, and love, and truth,
+  Though resting on no better stay
+  Than on the genial sense of youth:
+  Glad Hearts! without reproach or blot;
+  Who do the right, and know it not:
+  May joy be theirs while life shall last
+  And may a genial sense remain, when youth is past.
+
+  Serene would be our days and bright;
+  And happy would our nature be;
+  If Love were an unerring light;
+  And Joy its own security.
+  And bless'd are they who in the main,
+  This creed, even now, do entertain,
+  Do in this spirit live; yet know
+  That Man hath other hopes; strength which elsewhere must grow.
+
+  I, loving freedom, and untried;
+  No sport of every random gust,
+  Yet being to myself a guide,
+  Too blindly have reposed my trust;
+  Resolv'd that nothing e'er should press
+  Upon my present happiness,
+  I shov'd unwelcome tasks away:
+  But henceforth I would serve; and strictly if I may.
+
+  O Power of DUTY! sent from God
+  To enforce on earth his high behest,
+  And keep us faithful to the road
+  Which conscience hath pronounc'd the best:
+  Thou, who art Victory and Law
+  When empty terrors overawe;
+  From vain temptations dost set free,
+  From Strife, and from Despair, a glorious Ministry! [G]'
+
+Ed.
+
+
+[Footnote G: In the original MS. sent to the printer, I find that this
+stanza was transcribed by Coleridge.--Ed.]
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+TO A SKY-LARK
+
+
+Composed 1805.--Published 1807
+
+
+[Rydal Mount, 1825. [A]--I. F.]
+
+In pencil opposite,
+
+  "Where there are no skylarks; but the poet is everywhere."
+
+In the edition of 1807 this is No. 2 of the "Poems, composed during a
+Tour, chiefly on foot." [B] In 1815 it became one of the "Poems of the
+Fancy."--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+  Up with me! up with me into the clouds!
+      For thy song, Lark, is strong;
+  Up with me, up with me into the clouds!
+        Singing, singing,
+  With clouds and sky [1] about thee ringing,                        5
+      Lift me, guide me till I find
+  That spot which seems so to thy mind!
+
+  I have walked through wildernesses dreary,
+  And [2] to-day my heart is weary;
+  Had I now the wings [3] of a Faery,                               10
+  Up to thee would I fly.
+  There is madness about thee, and joy divine
+  In that song of thine;
+  Lift me, guide me high and high [4]
+  To thy banqueting-place in the sky.                               15
+
+          Joyous as morning, [5]
+  Thou art laughing and scorning;
+  Thou hast a nest for thy love and thy rest,
+  And, though little troubled with sloth,
+  Drunken Lark! thou would'st be loth                               20
+  To be such a traveller as I.
+  Happy, happy Liver,
+  With a soul as strong as a mountain river
+  Pouring out praise to the almighty Giver,
+      Joy and jollity be with us both!                              25
+
+  Alas! my journey, rugged and uneven,
+  Through prickly moors or dusty ways must wind;
+  But hearing thee, or others of thy kind,
+  As full of gladness and as free of heaven,
+  I, with my fate contented, will plod on,                          30
+  And hope for higher raptures, when life's day is done. [6]
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
+
+[Variant 1:
+
+1827.
+
+  With all the heav'ns ...    1807]
+
+
+[Variant 2:
+
+  But ...    MS.]
+
+
+[Variant 3:
+
+1815.
+
+  the soul ...    1807.]
+
+
+[Variant 4:
+
+1832.
+
+  Up with me, up with me, high and high, ...    1807.]
+
+
+[Variant 5: This and the previous stanza were omitted in the edition of
+1827, but restored in that of 1832.]
+
+
+[Variant 6:
+
+1827.
+
+    Joy and jollity be with us both!
+    Hearing thee, or else some other,
+        As merry a Brother,
+  I on the earth will go plodding on,
+  By myself, chearfully, till the day is done.     1807.
+
+  What though my course be rugged and uneven,
+  To prickly moors and dusty ways confined,
+  Yet, hearing thee, or others of thy kind,
+  As full of gladness and as free of heaven,
+  I on the earth will go plodding on,
+  By myself, cheerfully, till the day is done.     1820.]
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT
+
+[Footnote A: So it is printed in the 'Prose Works of Wordsworth' (1876);
+but the date was 1805.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote B: In a MS. copy this series is called "Poems composed 'for
+amusement' during a Tour, chiefly on foot."--Ed.]
+
+
+
+Compare this poem with Shelley's 'Skylark', and with Wordsworth's poem,
+on the same subject, written in the year 1825, and the last five stanzas
+of his 'Morning Exercise' written in 1827; also with William Watson's
+'First Skylark of Spring', 1895.--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+FIDELITY
+
+
+Composed 1805.--Published 1807
+
+
+[The young man whose death gave occasion to this poem was named Charles
+Gough, and had come early in the spring to Patterdale for the sake of
+angling. While attempting to cross over Helvellyn to Grasmere he slipped
+from a steep part of the rock where the ice was not thawed, and
+perished. His body was discovered as described in this poem. Walter
+Scott heard of the accident, and both he and I, without either of us
+knowing that the other had taken up the subject, each wrote a poem in
+admiration of the dog's fidelity. His contains a most beautiful stanza:
+
+  "How long did'st thou think that his silence was slumber!
+  When the wind waved his garment how oft did'st thou start!"
+
+I will add that the sentiment in the last four lines of the last stanza
+of my verses was uttered by a shepherd with such exactness, that a
+traveller, who afterwards reported his account in print, was induced to
+question the man whether he had read them, which he had not.--I. F.]
+
+One of the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection."--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+  A barking sound the Shepherd hears,
+  A cry as of a dog or fox;
+  He halts--and searches with his eyes
+  Among the scattered rocks:
+  And now at distance can discern                          5
+  A stirring in a brake of fern;
+  And instantly a dog is seen,
+  Glancing through that covert green. [1]
+
+  The Dog is not of mountain breed;
+  Its motions, too, are wild and shy;                     10
+  With something, as the Shepherd thinks,
+  Unusual in its cry:
+  Nor is there any one in sight
+  All round, in hollow or on height;
+  Nor shout, nor whistle strikes his ear;                 15
+  What is the creature doing here?
+
+  It was a cove, a huge recess,
+  That keeps, till June, December's snow;
+  A lofty precipice in front,
+  A silent tarn [A] below! [B]                            20
+  Far in the bosom of Helvellyn,
+  Remote from public road or dwelling,
+  Pathway, or cultivated land;
+  From trace of human foot or hand.
+
+  There sometimes doth [2] a leaping fish                 25
+  Send through the tarn a lonely cheer;
+  The crags repeat the raven's croak, [C]
+  In symphony austere;
+  Thither the rainbow comes--the cloud--
+  And mists that spread the flying shroud;                30
+  And sunbeams; and the sounding blast,
+  That, if it could, would hurry past;
+  But that enormous barrier holds [3] it fast.
+
+  Not free from boding thoughts, [4] a while
+  The Shepherd stood; then makes his way                  35
+  O'er rocks and stones, following the Dog [5]
+  As quickly as he may;
+  Nor far had gone before he found
+  A human skeleton on the ground;
+  The appalled Discoverer with a sigh [6]                 40
+  Looks round, to learn the history.
+
+  From those abrupt and perilous rocks
+  The Man had fallen, that place of fear!
+  At length upon the Shepherd's mind
+  It breaks, and all is clear:                            45
+  He instantly recalled the name, [7]
+  And who he was, and whence he came;
+  Remembered, too, the very day
+  On which the Traveller passed this way.
+
+  But hear a wonder, for whose sake                       50
+  This lamentable tale I tell! [8]
+  A lasting monument of words
+  This wonder merits well.
+  The Dog, which still was hovering nigh,
+  Repeating the same timid cry,                           55
+  This Dog, had been through three months' space
+  A dweller in that savage place.
+
+  Yes, proof was plain that, since the day
+  When this ill-fated Traveller died, [9]
+  The Dog had watched about the spot,                     60
+  Or by his master's side:
+  How nourished here through such long time
+  He knows, who gave that love sublime;
+  And gave that strength of feeling, great
+  Above all human estimate!                               65
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
+
+[Variant 1:
+
+1820.
+
+  From which immediately leaps out
+  A Dog, and yelping runs about.      1807.
+
+  And instantly a Dog is seen,
+  Glancing from that covert green.    1815.]
+
+
+
+[Variant 2:
+
+1820.
+
+  ... does ...    1807.]
+
+
+[Variant 3:
+
+1837.
+
+  binds     1807.]
+
+
+[Variant 4:
+
+1815.
+
+  Not knowing what to think     1807.]
+
+
+[Variant 5:
+
+1837.
+
+  Towards the Dog, o'er rocks and stones,     1807.]
+
+
+[Variant 6:
+
+1815.
+
+  Sad sight! the Shepherd with a sigh     1807.]
+
+
+[Variant 7:
+
+  And signs and circumstances dawned
+  Till everything was clear;
+  He made discovery of his name.     MS.]
+
+
+[Variant 8:
+
+1815.
+
+  But hear a wonder now, for sake
+  Of which this mournful Tale I tell!     1807.]
+
+
+[Variant 9:
+
+1827.
+
+  On which the Traveller thus had died     1807.]
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT
+
+[Footnote A: Tarn is a _small_ Mere or Lake mostly high up in the
+mountains,--W. W.]
+
+[Footnote B: Compare the reference to Helvellyn, and its "deep coves,
+shaped by skeleton arms," in the 'Musings near Aquapendente' (1837).
+Wordsworth here describes Red Tarn, under Helvellyn, to the east; but
+Charles Gough was killed on the Kepplecove side of Swirell Edge, and not
+at Red Tarn. Bishop Watson of Llandaff, writing to Hayley (see
+'Anecdotes of the Life of Bishop Watson', p. 440), writes about Charles
+Gouche (evidently Gough). He had been lodging at "the Cherry Inn," near
+Wytheburn, sometime before his death.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote C: Compare 'The Excursion', book iv. ll. 1185-94.--Ed.]
+
+
+
+Thomas Wilkinson--referred to in the notes to 'The Solitary Reaper',
+vol. ii. pp. 399, 400, and the verses 'To the Spade of a Friend', in
+vol. iv.--alludes to this incident at some length in his poem, 'Emont
+Vale'. Wilkinson attended the funeral of young Gough, and writes of the
+incident with feeling, but without inspiration. Gough perished early in
+April, and his body was not found till July 22nd, 1805. A reference to
+his fate will be found in Lockhart's 'Life of Scott' (vol. ii. p. 274);
+also in a letter of Mr. Luff of Patterdale, to his wife, July 23rd,
+1805. Henry Crabb Robinson records (see his 'Diary, Reminiscences',
+etc., vol. ii. p. 25) a conversation with Wordsworth, in which he said
+of this poem, that "he purposely made the narrative as prosaic as
+possible, in order that no discredit might be thrown on the truth of the
+incident."--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+INCIDENT CHARACTERISTIC OF A FAVOURITE DOG [A]
+
+
+Composed 1805.--Published 1807
+
+
+[This dog I knew well. It belonged to Mrs. Wordsworth's brother, Mr.
+Thomas Hutchinson, who then lived at Sockburn-on-the-Tees, a beautiful
+retired situation, where I used to visit him and his sisters before my
+marriage. My sister and I spent many months there after my return from
+Germany in 1799--I. F.]
+
+One of the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection."--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+  On his morning rounds the Master
+  Goes to learn how all things fare;
+  Searches pasture after pasture,
+  Sheep and cattle eyes with care;
+  And, for silence or for talk,                                     5
+  He hath comrades in his walk;
+  Four dogs, each pair of different breed,
+  Distinguished two for scent, and two for speed.
+
+  See a hare before him started!
+--Off they fly in earnest chase;                                 10
+  Every dog is eager-hearted,
+  All the four are in the race:
+  And the hare whom they pursue,
+  Knows from instinct [1] what to do;
+  Her hope is near: no turn she makes;                             15
+  But, like an arrow, to the river takes.
+
+  Deep the river was, and crusted
+  Thinly by a one night's frost;
+  But the nimble Hare hath trusted
+  To the ice, and safely crost; so                                 20
+  She hath crost, and without heed
+  All are following at full speed,
+  When, lo! the ice, so thinly spread,
+  Breaks--and the greyhound, DART, is over-head!
+
+  Better fate have PRINCE and SWALLOW--25
+  See them cleaving to the sport!
+  MUSIC has no heart to follow,
+  Little MUSIC, she stops short.
+  She hath neither wish nor heart,
+  Hers is now another part:                                        30
+  A loving creature she, and brave!
+  And fondly strives [2] her struggling friend to save.
+
+  From the brink her paws she stretches,
+  Very hands as you would say!
+  And afflicting moans she fetches,                                35
+  As he breaks the ice away.
+  For herself she hath no fears,--
+  Him alone she sees and hears,--
+  Makes efforts with complainings; nor gives o'er
+  Until her fellow sinks to re-appear no more. [3]                 40
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
+
+[Variant 1:
+
+1837.
+
+  Hath an instinct ...         1807.]
+
+
+[Variant 2:
+
+1815.
+
+  And doth her best ...      1807.]
+
+
+[Variant 3:
+
+1837.
+
+  Makes efforts and complainings; nor gives o'er
+  Until her Fellow sunk, and reappear'd no more.      1807.
+
+  ... sank, ...                                       1820.]
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+FOOTNOTE ON THE TEXT
+
+[Footnote A: In 1807 and 1815 the title was 'Incident, Characteristic of
+a favourite Dog, which belonged to a Friend of the Author'.--Ed.]
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF THE SAME DOG
+
+
+Composed 1805.--Published 1807
+
+
+[Was written at the same time, 1805. The Dog Music died, aged and blind,
+by falling into a draw-well at Gallow] Hill, to the great grief of the
+family of the Hutchinsons, who, as has been before mentioned, had
+removed to that place from Sockburn.--I. F.]
+
+One of the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection."--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+  Lie [1] here, without a record of thy worth,
+  Beneath a [2] covering of the common earth!
+  It is not from unwillingness to praise,
+  Or want of love, that here no Stone we raise;
+  More thou deserv'st; but _this_ man gives to man,                    5
+  Brother to brother, _this_ is all we can.
+  Yet [3] they to whom thy virtues made thee dear
+  Shall find thee through all changes of the year:
+  This Oak points out thy grave; the silent tree
+  Will gladly stand a monument of thee.                               10
+
+    We grieved for thee, and wished thy end were past; [4]
+  And willingly have laid thee here at last:
+  For thou hadst lived till every thing that cheers
+  In thee had yielded to the weight of years;
+  Extreme old age had wasted thee away,                               15
+  And left thee but a glimmering of the day;
+  Thy ears were deaf, and feeble were thy knees,--
+  I saw thee stagger in the summer breeze,
+  Too weak to stand against its sportive breath,
+  And ready for the gentlest stroke of death.                         20
+  It came, and we were glad; yet tears were shed;
+  Both man and woman wept when thou wert dead;
+  Not only for a thousand thoughts that were,
+  Old household thoughts, in which thou hadst thy share;
+  But for some precious boons vouchsafed to thee,                     25
+  Found scarcely any where in like degree!
+  For love, that comes wherever life and sense
+  Are given by God, in thee was most intense; [5]
+  A chain of heart, a feeling of the mind,
+  A tender sympathy, which did thee bind                              30
+  Not only to us Men, but to thy Kind:
+  Yea, for thy fellow-brutes in thee we saw
+  A soul [6] of love, love's intellectual law:--
+  Hence, if we wept, it was not done in shame;
+  Our tears from passion and from reason came,                        35
+  And, therefore, shalt thou be an honoured name!
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
+
+[Variant 1: In the editions of 1807 to 1820 the following lines began
+the poem. They were withdrawn in 1827.
+
+  Lie here sequester'd:--be this little mound
+  For ever thine, and be it holy ground!]
+
+
+[Variant 2:
+
+1827.
+
+  Beneath the ...    1807.]
+
+
+[Variant 3:
+
+  But ...    MS.]
+
+
+[Variant 4:
+
+1837.
+
+  I pray'd for thee, and that thy end were past;       1807.
+
+  I grieved for thee, and wished thy end were past;    1820.]
+
+
+[Variant 5:
+
+1837.
+
+  For love, that comes to all; the holy sense,
+  Best gift of God, in thee was most intense;    1807.]
+
+
+[Variant 6:
+
+1837.
+
+  The soul ...    1807.]
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+TO THE DAISY (#4)
+
+
+Composed 1805.--Published 1815
+
+
+Placed by Wordsworth among his "Epitaphs and Elegiac Pieces."--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+  Sweet Flower! belike one day to have
+  A place upon thy Poet's grave,
+  I welcome thee once more:
+  But He, who was on land, at sea,
+  My Brother, too, in loving thee,                        5
+  Although he loved more silently,
+  Sleeps by his native shore.
+
+  Ah! hopeful, hopeful was the day
+  When to that Ship he bent his way,
+  To govern and to guide:                                10
+  His wish was gained: a little time
+  Would bring him back in manhood's prime
+  And free for life, these hills to climb;
+  With all his wants supplied.
+
+  And full of hope day followed day                      15
+  While that stout Ship at anchor lay
+  Beside the shores of Wight;
+  The May had then made all things green;
+  And, floating there, in pomp serene,
+  That Ship was goodly to be seen,                       20
+  His pride and his delight!
+
+  Yet then, when called ashore, he sought
+  The tender peace of rural thought:
+  In more than happy mood
+  To your abodes, bright daisy Flowers!                  25
+  He then would steal at leisure hours,
+  And loved you glittering in your bowers,
+  A starry multitude.
+
+  But hark the word!--the ship is gone;--
+  Returns from her long course: [1]--anon                30
+  Sets sail:--in season due,
+  Once more on English earth they stand:
+  But, when a third time from the land
+  They parted, sorrow was at hand
+  For Him and for his crew.                              35
+
+  Ill-fated Vessel!--ghastly shock!
+  --At length delivered from the rock,
+  The deep she hath regained;
+  And through the stormy night they steer;
+  Labouring for life, in hope and fear,                  40
+  To reach a safer shore [2]--how near,
+  Yet not to be attained!
+
+  "Silence!" the brave Commander cried;
+  To that calm word a shriek replied,
+  It was the last death-shriek.                          45
+  --A few (my soul oft sees that sight)
+  Survive upon the tall mast's height; [3]
+  But one dear remnant of the night--
+  For Him in vain I seek.
+
+  Six weeks beneath the moving sea                       50
+  He lay in slumber quietly;
+  Unforced by wind or wave
+  To quit the Ship for which he died,
+  (All claims of duty satisfied;)
+  And there they found him at her side;                  55
+  And bore him to the grave.
+
+  Vain service! yet not vainly done
+  For this, if other end were none,
+  That He, who had been cast
+  Upon a way of life unmeet                              60
+  For such a gentle Soul and sweet,
+  Should find an undisturbed retreat
+  Near what he loved, at last--
+
+  That neighbourhood of grove and field
+  To Him a resting-place should yield,                   65
+  A meek man and a brave!
+  The birds shall sing and ocean make
+  A mournful murmur for _his_ sake;
+  And Thou, sweet Flower, shalt sleep and wake
+  Upon his senseless grave. [4]                          70
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
+
+[Variant 1:
+
+1837.
+
+  From her long course returns:--...    1815.]
+
+
+[Variant 2:
+
+1837.
+
+  Towards a safer shore--...    1815.]
+
+
+[Variant 3:
+
+1837
+
+--A few appear by morning light,
+  Preserved upon the tall mast's height:
+  Oft in my Soul I see that sight;        1815.]
+
+
+[Variant 4: In the edition of 1827 and subsequent ones, Wordsworth here
+inserted a footnote, asking the reader to refer to No. VI. of the "Poems
+on the Naming of Places," beginning "When, to the attractions of the
+busy world," p. 66. His note of 1837 refers also to the poem which there
+precedes the present one, viz. the 'Elegiac Stanzas.'--Ed.]
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+ELEGIAC STANZAS [A]
+
+SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF PEELE CASTLE, IN A STORM,
+PAINTED BY SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT
+
+
+Composed 1805.--Published 1807
+
+
+[Sir George Beaumont painted two pictures of this subject, one of which
+he gave to Mrs. Wordsworth, saying she ought to have it; but Lady
+Beaumont interfered, and after Sir George's death she gave it to Sir
+Uvedale Price, at whose house at Foxley I have seen it.--I. F.]
+
+Placed by Wordsworth among his "Epitaphs and Elegiac Pieces."--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+  I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged Pile!
+  Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee:
+  I saw thee every day; and all the while
+  Thy Form was sleeping on a glassy sea.
+
+  So pure the sky, so quiet was the air!                         5
+  So like, so very like, was day to day!
+  Whene'er I looked, thy Image still was there;
+  It trembled, but it never passed away.
+
+  How perfect was the calm! it seemed no sleep;
+  No mood, which season takes away, or brings:                  10
+  I could have fancied that the mighty Deep
+  Was even the gentlest of all gentle Things.
+
+  Ah! THEN, if mine had been the Painter's hand,
+  To express what then I saw; and add the gleam,
+  The light that never was, on sea or land,                     15
+  The consecration, and the Poet's dream; [1]
+
+  I would have planted thee, thou hoary Pile
+  Amid a world how different from this!
+  Beside a sea that could not cease to smile;
+  On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss.                     20
+
+  Thou shouldst have seemed a treasure-house divine [2]
+  Of peaceful years; a chronicle of heaven;--
+  Of all the sunbeams that did ever shine
+  The very sweetest had to thee been given.
+
+  A Picture had it been of lasting ease,                        25
+  Elysian quiet, without toil or strife;
+  No motion but the moving tide, a breeze,
+  Or merely silent Nature's breathing life.
+
+  Such, in the fond illusion [3] of my heart,
+  Such Picture would I at that time have made:                  30
+  And seen the soul of truth in every part,
+  A stedfast peace that might not be betrayed. [4]
+
+  So once it would have been,--'tis so no more;
+  I have submitted to a new control:
+  A power is gone, which nothing can restore;                   35
+  A deep distress hath humanised my Soul.
+
+  Not for a moment could I now behold
+  A smiling sea, and be what I have been:
+  The feeling of my loss will ne'er be old;
+  This, which I know, I speak with mind serene.                 40
+
+  Then, Beaumont, Friend! who would have been the Friend,
+  If he had lived, of Him whom I deplore,
+  This work of thine I blame not, but commend;
+  This sea in anger, and that dismal shore.
+
+  O 'tis a passionate Work!--yet wise and well,                 45
+  Well chosen is the spirit that is here;
+  That Hulk which labours in the deadly swell,
+  This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear!
+
+  And this huge Castle, standing here sublime,
+  1 love to see the look with which it braves,                  50
+  Cased in the unfeeling armour of old time,
+  The lightning, the fierce wind, and trampling waves.
+
+  Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone,
+  Housed in a dream, at distance from the Kind!
+  Such happiness, wherever it be known,                         55
+  Is to be pitied; for 'tis surely blind.
+
+  But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer,
+  And frequent sights of what is to be borne!
+  Such sights, or worse, as are before me here.--
+  Not without hope we suffer and we mourn.                      60
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
+
+[Variant 1:
+
+1807.
+
+                and add a gleam,
+  The lustre, known to neither sea nor land,
+  But borrowed from the youthful Poet's dream;      1820.
+
+  ... the gleam,                                    1827.
+
+The edition of 1832 returns to the text of 1807. [a]]
+
+
+[Variant 2:
+
+1845.
+
+  ... a treasure-house, a mine        1807.
+
+The whole of this stanza was omitted in the editions of 1820-1843.]
+
+
+[Variant 3:
+
+1815.
+
+  ... delusion ...       1807.]
+
+
+[Variant 4:
+
+1837.
+
+  A faith, a trust, that could not be betray'd.      1807.]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FOOTNOTE ON THE TEXT
+
+[Footnote A: The original title, in MS, was 'Verses suggested',
+etc,--Ed.]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SUB-FOOTNOTE ON THE TEXT
+
+[Sub-Footnote a: Many years ago Principal Shairp wrote to me,
+
+  "Have you noted how the two lines, 'The light that never was,' etc.,
+  stood in the edition of 1827? I know no other such instance of a
+  change from commonplace to perfection of ideality."
+
+The Principal had not remembered at the time that the "perfection of
+ideality" was in the original edition of 1807. The curious thing is that
+the prosaic version of 1820 and 1827 ever took its place. Wordsworth's
+return to his original reading was one of the wisest changes he
+introduced into the text of 1832.--Ed.]
+
+
+
+There is a Peele Castle, on a small rocky island, close to the town of
+Peele, in the Isle of Man; yet separated from it, much as St. Michael's
+Mount in Cornwall is separated from the mainland. This castle was
+believed by many to be the one which Sir George painted, and which gave
+rise to the foregoing lines. I visited it in 1879, being then ignorant
+that any other Peele Castle existed; and although, the day being calm,
+and the season summer, I thought Sir George had idealized his subject
+much--(as I had just left Coleorton, where the picture still exists)--I
+accepted the customary opinion. But I am now convinced, both from the
+testimony of the Arnold family, [B] and as the result of a visit to Piel
+Castle, near Barrow in Furness, that Wordsworth refers to it. The late
+Bishop of Lincoln, in his uncle's 'Memoirs' (vol. i. p. 299), quotes the
+line
+
+  "I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged pile,"
+
+and adds,
+
+  "He had spent four weeks there of a college summer vacation at the
+  house of his cousin, Mr. Barker."
+
+This house was at Rampside, the village opposite Piel, on the coast of
+Lancashire. The "rugged pile," too, now "cased in the unfeeling armour
+of old time," painted by Beaumont, is obviously this Piel Castle near
+Barrow. I took the engraving of his picture with me, when visiting it:
+and although Sir George--after the manner of landscape artists of his
+day--took many liberties with his subjects, it is apparent that it was
+this, and not Peele Castle in Mona, that he painted. The "four summer
+weeks" referred to in the first stanza, were those spent at Piel during
+the year 1794.
+
+With the last verse of these 'Elegiac Stanzas' compare stanzas ten and
+eleven of the 'Ode, Intimations of Immortality', vol. viii.
+
+One of the two pictures of "Peele Castle in a Storm"--engraved by S. W.
+Reynolds, and published in the editions of Wordsworth's poems of 1815
+and 1820--is still in the Beaumont Gallery at Coleorton Hall.
+
+The poem is so memorable that I have arranged to make this picture of
+"Peele Castle in a Storm," the vignette to vol. xv. of this edition. It
+deserves to be noted that it was to the pleading of Barron Field that we
+owe the restoration of the original line of 1807,
+
+  'The light that never was, on sea or land.'
+
+An interesting account of Piel Castle will be found in Hearne and
+Byrne's 'Antiquities'. It was built by the Abbot of Furness in the first
+year of the reign of Edward III.--Ed.
+
+
+[Footnote B: Miss Arnold wrote to me, in December 1893:
+
+  "I have never doubted that the Peele Castle of Wordsworth is the Piel
+  off Walney Island. I know that my brother Matthew so believed, and I
+  went with him some years ago from Furness Abbey over to Piel, visiting
+  it as the subject of the picture and the poem."
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+ELEGIAC VERSES,
+
+IN MEMORY OF MY BROTHER, JOHN WORDSWORTH, COMMANDER OF THE E. I.
+COMPANY'S SHIP, 'THE EARL OF ABERGAVENNY', IN WHICH HE PERISHED BY
+CALAMITOUS SHIPWRECK, FEB. 6TH, 1805.
+
+
+Composed near the Mountain track, that leads from Grasmere through
+Grisdale Hawes, where it descends towards Patterdale.
+
+Composed 1805.--Published 1842
+
+[  "Here did we stop; and here looked round,
+   While each into himself descends."
+
+The point is two or three yards below the outlet of Grisedale Tarn, on a
+foot-road by which a horse may pass to Patterdale--a ridge of Helvellyn
+on the left, and the summit of Fairfield on the right.--I. F.]
+
+This poem was included among the "Epitaphs and Elegiac Pieces."--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+  I        The Sheep-boy whistled loud, and lo!
+           That instant, startled by the shock,
+           The Buzzard mounted from the rock
+           Deliberate and slow:
+           Lord of the air, he took his flight;                   5
+           Oh! could he on that woeful night
+           Have lent his wing, my Brother dear,
+           For one poor moment's space to Thee,
+           And all who struggled with the Sea,
+           When safety was so near.                              10
+
+  II       Thus in the weakness of my heart
+           I spoke (but let that pang be still)
+           When rising from the rock at will,
+           I saw the Bird depart.
+           And let me calmly bless the Power                     15
+           That meets me in this unknown Flower,
+           Affecting type of him I mourn!
+           With calmness suffer and believe,
+           And grieve, and know that I must grieve,
+           Not cheerless, though forlorn.                        20
+
+  III      Here did we stop; and here looked round
+           While each into himself descends,
+           For that last thought of parting Friends
+           That is not to be found.
+           Hidden was Grasmere Vale from sight,                  25
+           Our home and his, his heart's delight,
+           His quiet heart's selected home.
+           But time before him melts away,
+           And he hath feeling of a day
+           Of blessedness to come.                               30
+
+  IV       Full soon in sorrow did I weep,
+           Taught that the mutual hope was dust,
+           In sorrow, but for higher trust,
+           How miserably deep!
+           All vanished in a single word,                        35
+           A breath, a sound, and scarcely heard.
+           Sea--Ship--drowned--Shipwreck--so it came,
+           The meek, the brave, the good, was gone;
+           He who had been our living John
+           Was nothing but a name.                               40
+
+  V        That was indeed a parting! oh,
+           Glad am I, glad that it is past;
+           For there were some on whom it cast
+           Unutterable woe.
+           But they as well as I have gains;--45
+           From many a humble source, to pains
+           Like these, there comes a mild release;
+           Even here I feel it, even this Plant
+           Is in its beauty ministrant
+           To comfort and to peace.                              50
+
+  VI       He would have loved thy modest grace,
+           Meek Flower! To Him I would have said,
+           "It grows upon its native bed
+           Beside our Parting-place;
+           There, cleaving to the ground, it lies                55
+           With multitude of purple eyes,
+           Spangling a cushion green like moss;
+           But we will see it, joyful tide!
+           Some day, to see it in its pride,
+           The mountain will we cross."                          60
+
+  VII--Brother and friend, if verse of mine
+           Have power to make thy virtues known,
+           Here let a monumental Stone
+           Stand--sacred as a Shrine;
+           And to the few who pass this way,                     65
+           Traveller or Shepherd, let it say,
+           Long as these mighty rocks endure,--
+           Oh do not Thou too fondly brood,
+           Although deserving of all good,
+           On any earthly hope, however pure! [A]                70
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FOOTNOTE ON THE TEXT
+
+[Footnote A: See 2nd vol. of the Author's Poems, page 298, and 5th vol.,
+pages 311 and 314, among Elegiac Pieces.--W. W. 1842.
+
+These poems are those respectively beginning:
+
+  "When, to the attractions of the busy world ..."
+
+  "I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged Pile! ..."
+
+  "Sweet Flower! belike one day to have ..."
+
+Ed.
+
+
+The plant alluded to is the Moss Campion (Silene acaulis, of Linnaeus).
+See note at the end of the volume.--W. W. 1842.
+
+See among the "Poems on the Naming of Places," No. VI.--W. W. 1845.
+
+The note is as follows:
+
+  "Moss Campion ('Silene acaulis'). This most beautiful plant is scarce
+  in England, though it is found in great abundance upon the mountains
+  of Scotland. The first specimen I ever saw of it in its native bed was
+  singularly fine, the tuft or cushion being at least eight inches
+  diameter, and the root proportionably thick. I have only met with it
+  in two places among our mountains, in both of which I have since
+  sought for it in vain.
+
+  Botanists will not, I hope, take it ill, if I caution them against
+  carrying off inconsiderately rare and beautiful plants. This has often
+  been done, particularly from Ingleborough and other mountains in
+  Yorkshire, till the species have totally disappeared, to the great
+  regret of lovers of nature living near the places where they
+  grew."--W. W. 1842.
+
+See also 'The Prelude', book xiv. 1. 419, p. 379.--Ed.]
+
+
+
+This poem underwent no change in successive editions.
+
+At a meeting of "The Wordsworth Society" held at Grasmere, in July 1881,
+it was proposed by one of the members, the Rev. H. D. Rawnsley, then
+Vicar of Wray, to erect some memorial at the parting-place of the
+brothers. The brothers John and William Wordsworth parted at Grisedale
+Tarn, on the 29th September 1800. The originator of the idea wrote thus
+of it in June 1882:
+
+  "A proposition, made by one of its members to the Wordsworth Society
+  when it met in Grasmere in 1881, to mark the spot in the Grisedale
+  Pass of Wordsworth's parting from his brother John--and to carry out a
+  wish the poet seems to have hinted at in the last of his elegiac
+  verses in memory of that parting--is now being put into effect. It has
+  been determined, after correspondence with Lord Coleridge, Dr.
+  Cradock, Professor Knight, and Mr. Hills, to have inscribed--(on the
+  native rock, if possible)--the first four lines of Stanzas III. and
+  VII. of these verses:
+
+    'Here did we stop; and here looked round
+    While each into himself descends,
+    For that last thought of parting Friends
+    That is not to be found.
+    ...
+    Brother and friend, if verse of mine
+    Have power to make thy virtues known,
+    Here let a monumental Stone
+    Stand--sacred as a Shrine.'
+
+  The rock selected is a fine mass, facing the east, on the left of the
+  track as one descends from Grisedale Tarn towards Patterdale, and is
+  about 100 yards from the tarn. No more suitable one can be found, and
+  we have the testimony of Mr. David Richardson of Newcastle, who has
+  practical knowledge of engineering, that it is the fittest, both from
+  shape and from slight incline of plane.
+
+  It has been proposed to sink a panel in the face of the rock, that so
+  the inscription may be slightly protected, and to engrave the letters
+  upon the face of the panel thus obtained. But it is not quite certain
+  yet that the grain of the rock--volcanic ash--will admit of the
+  lettering. If this cannot be carried out, it has been determined to
+  have the letters engraved upon a slab of Langdale slate, and imbed it
+  in the Grisedale Rock.
+
+  It is believed that the simplicity of the design, the lonely isolation
+  of this mountain memorial, will appeal at once
+
+    ' ... to the few who pass this way,
+    Traveller or Shepherd.'
+
+  And we in our turn appeal to English tourists who may chance to see
+  it, to forego the wish of adding to it, or taking anything from it, by
+  engraving their own names; and to let the Monumental Stone stand, as
+  the poet wished it might
+
+    ' ... stand, SACRED as a Shrine.'
+
+  We owe great thanks to Mrs. Sturge for first surveying the place, to
+  ascertain the possibility of finding a mountain rock sufficiently
+  striking in position; to Mr. Richardson, jun., for his etching of the
+  rock, upon which the inscription is to be made; to his father for the
+  kind trouble he took in the measurement of the said rock; and
+  particularly to the seconder of the original proposal, and my
+  coadjutor in the task of final selection and superintending the work,
+  Mr. W. H. Hills.
+
+  H. D. RAWNSLEY.
+
+  _P. S._--When we came to examine the rock, we found the area for the
+  panel less than we had hoped for, owing to certain rock fissures,
+  which, by acting as drains for the rainwater on the surface, would
+  have much interfered with the durability of the inscription. The
+  available space for the panel remains 3 feet 7 in length by 1 foot 9
+  inches in depth. Owing to the fineness of the grain of the stone, it
+  may be quite possible to letter the native rock; but it has been
+  difficult to fix on a style of lettering for the inscription that
+  shall be at once in good taste, forcible, and plain. It was proposed
+  that the Script type of letter which was made use of in the
+  inscription cut on the rock, in the late Mr. Ball's garden grounds
+  below the Mount at Rydal, should be adopted; but a final decision has
+  been given in favour of a style of lettering which Mrs. Rawnsley has
+  designed. The panel is, from its position, certain to attract the eye
+  of the wanderer from Patterdale up to the Grisedale Pass.
+
+  H. D. R."
+
+See the note to 'The Waggoner', p. 112, referring to the Rock of Names,
+on the shore of Thirlmere.
+
+The following extract from 'Recollections from 1803 to 1837, with a
+Conclusion in 1868, by the Hon. Amelia Murray' (London: Longmans, Green,
+and Co. 1868)--refers to the loss of the 'Abergavenny':
+
+  "One morning, coming down early, I saw what I thought was a great big
+  ship without any hull. This was the 'Abergavenny', East Indiaman,
+  which had sunk with all sails set, hardly three miles from the shore,
+  and all on board perished.
+
+  Had any of the crew taken refuge in the main-top, they might have been
+  saved; but the bowsprit, which was crowded with human beings, gave a
+  lurch into the sea as the ship settled down, and thus all were washed
+  off--though the timber appeared again above water when the
+  'Abergavenny' touched the ground. The ship had sprung a leak off St.
+  Alban's Head; and in spite of pumps, she went to the bottom just
+  within reach of safety."    Pp. 12, 13.
+
+A 'Narrative of the loss of the "Earl of Abergavenny" East Indiaman, off
+Portland, Feb. 5, 1805', was published in pamphlet form (8vo, 1805), by
+Hamilton and Bird, 21 High Street, Islington.
+
+For much in reference to John Wordsworth, which illustrates both these
+'Elegiac Verses', and the poem "On the Naming of Places" which follows
+them, I must refer to his 'Life' to be published in another volume of
+this series; but there is one letter of Dorothy Wordsworth's, written to
+her friend Miss Jane Pollard (afterwards Mrs. Marshall), in reference to
+her brother's death, which may find a place here. For the use of it I am
+indebted to the kindness of Mrs. Marshall's daughter, the Dowager Lady
+Monteagle:
+
+  "March 16th, 1805. Grasmere.
+
+  "... It does me good to weep for him, and it does me good to find that
+  others weep, and I bless them for it. ... It is with me, when I write,
+  as when I am walking out in this vale, once so full of joy. I can turn
+  to no object that does not remind me of our loss. I see nothing that
+  he would not have loved, and enjoyed.... My consolations rather come
+  to me in gusts of feeling, than are the quiet growth of my mind. I
+  know it will not always be so. The time will come when the light of
+  the setting sun upon these mountain tops will be as heretofore a pure
+  joy; not the same _gladness_, that can never be--but yet a joy even
+  more tender. It will soothe me to know how happy he would have been,
+  could he have seen the same beautiful spectacle.... He was taken away
+  in the freshness of his manhood; pure he was, and innocent as a child.
+  Never human being was more thoroughly modest, and his courage I need
+  not speak of. He was 'seen speaking with apparent cheerfulness to the
+  first mate a few minutes before the ship went down;' and when nothing
+  more could be done, He said, 'the will of God be done.' I have no
+  doubt when he felt that it was out of his power to save his life he
+  was as calm as before, if some thought of what we should endure did
+  not awaken a pang.... He loved solitude, and he rejoiced in society.
+  He would wander alone amongst these hills with his fishing-rod, or led
+  on by the mere pleasure of walking, for many hours; or he would walk
+  with W. or me, or both of us, and was continually pointing out--with a
+  gladness which is seldom seen but in very young people--something
+  which perhaps would have escaped our observation; for he had so fine
+  an eye that no distinction was unnoticed by him, and so tender a
+  feeling that he never noticed anything in vain. Many a time has he
+  called out to me at evening to look at the moon or stars, or a cloudy
+  sky, or this vale in the quiet moonlight; but the stars and moon were
+  his chief delight. He made of them his companions when he was at sea,
+  and was never tired of those thoughts which the silence of the night
+  fed in him. Then he was so happy by the fireside. Any little business
+  of the house interested him. He loved our cottage. He helped us to
+  furnish it, and to make the garden. Trees are growing now which he
+  planted.... He staid with us till the 29th of September, having come
+  to us about the end of January. During that time Mary Hutchinson--now
+  Mary Wordsworth--staid with us six weeks. John used to walk with her
+  everywhere, and they were exceedingly attached to each other; so my
+  poor sister mourns with us, not merely because we have lost one who
+  was so dear to William and me, but from tender love to John and an
+  intimate knowledge of him. Her hopes as well as ours were fixed on
+  John.... I can think of nothing but of our departed Brother, yet I am
+  very tranquil to-day. I honour him, and love him, and glory in his
+  memory...."
+
+Southey, writing to his friend, C. W. W. Wynn, on the 3rd of April 1805,
+says:
+
+  "DEAR WYNN,
+
+  I have been grievously shocked this evening by the loss of the
+  'Abergavenny', of which Wordsworth's brother was captain. Of course
+  the news came flying up to us from all quarters, and it has disordered
+  me from head to foot. At such circumstances I believe we feel as much
+  for others as for ourselves; just as a violent blow occasions the same
+  pain as a wound, and he who breaks his shin feels as acutely at the
+  moment as the man whose leg is shot off. In fact, I am writing to you
+  merely because this dreadful shipwreck has left me utterly unable to
+  do anything else. It is the heaviest calamity Wordsworth has ever
+  experienced, and in all probability I shall have to communicate it to
+  him, as he will very likely be here before the tidings can reach him.
+  What renders any near loss of this kind so peculiarly distressing is,
+  that the recollection is perpetually freshened when any like event
+  occurs, by the mere mention of shipwreck, or the sound of the wind. Of
+  all deaths it is the most dreadful, from the circumstances of terror
+  which accompany it...."
+
+(See 'The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey', vol. ii. p. 321.)
+
+The following is part of a letter from Mary Lamb to Dorothy Wordsworth
+on the same subject. It is undated:
+
+  "MY DEAR MISS WORDSWORTH,--
+
+  I wished to tell you that you would one day feel the kind of peaceful
+  state of mind and sweet memory of the dead, which you so happily
+  describe, as now almost begun; but I felt that it was improper, and
+  most grating to the feelings of the afflicted, to say to them that the
+  memory of their affliction would in time become a constant part, not
+  only of their dreams, but of their most wakeful sense of happiness.
+  That you would see every object with and through your lost brother,
+  and that that would at last become a real and everlasting source of
+  comfort to you, I felt, and well knew, from my own experience in
+  sorrow; but till you yourself began to feel this, I did not dare to
+  tell you so; but I send you some poor lines, which I wrote under this
+  conviction of mind, and before I heard Coleridge was returning home.
+
+  ...
+
+    "Why is he wandering on the sea?--
+    Coleridge should now with Wordsworth be.
+    By slow degrees he'd steal away
+    Their woes, and gently bring a ray
+    (So happily he'd time relief,)
+    Of comfort from their very grief.
+    He'd tell them that their brother dead,
+    When years have passed o'er their head,
+    Will be remembered with such holy,
+    True and tender melancholy,
+    That ever this lost brother John
+    Will be their heart's companion.
+    His voice they'll always hear,
+      His face they'll always see;
+    There's naught in life so sweet
+      As such a memory."
+
+(See 'Final Memorials of Charles Lamb', by Thomas Noon Talfourd, vol.
+ii. pp. 233, 234.)--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+"WHEN, TO THE ATTRACTIONS OF THE BUSY WORLD"
+
+
+Composed 1800 to 1805.--Published 1815
+
+
+[The grove still exists; but the plantation has been walled in, and is
+not so accessible as when my brother John wore the path in the manner
+here described. The grove was a favourite haunt with us all while we
+lived at Town-end.--I. F.]
+
+This was No. VI. of the "Poems on the Naming of Places." For several
+suggested changes in MS. see Appendix I. p. 385.--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+  When, to the attractions of the busy world,
+  Preferring studious leisure, I had chosen
+  A habitation in this peaceful Vale,
+  Sharp season followed of continual storm
+  In deepest winter; and, from week to week,                         5
+  Pathway, and lane, and public road, were clogged
+  With frequent showers of snow. Upon a hill
+  At a short distance from my cottage, stands
+  A stately Fir-grove, whither I was wont
+  To hasten, for I found, beneath the roof                          10
+  Of that perennial shade, a cloistral place
+  Of refuge, with an unincumbered floor.
+  Here, in safe covert, on the shallow snow,
+  And, sometimes, on a speck of visible earth,
+  The redbreast near me hopped; nor was I loth                      15
+  To sympathise with vulgar coppice birds
+  That, for protection from the nipping blast,
+  Hither repaired.--A single beech-tree grew
+  Within this grove of firs! and, on the fork
+  Of that one beech, appeared a thrush's nest;                      20
+  A last year's nest, conspicuously built
+  At such small elevation from the ground
+  As gave sure sign that they, who in that house
+  Of nature and of love had made their home
+  Amid the fir-trees, all the summer long                           25
+  Dwelt in a tranquil spot. And oftentimes,
+  A few sheep, stragglers from some mountain-flock,
+  Would watch my motions with suspicious stare,
+  From the remotest outskirts of the grove,--
+  Some nook where they had made their final stand,                  30
+  Huddling together from two fears--the fear
+  Of me and of the storm. Full many an hour
+  Here did I lose. But in this grove the trees
+  Had been so thickly planted, and had thriven
+  In such perplexed and intricate array;                            35
+  That vainly did I seek, beneath [1] their stems
+  A length of open space, where to and fro
+  My feet might move without concern or care;
+  And, baffled thus, though earth from day to day
+  Was fettered, and the air by storm disturbed,                     40
+  I ceased the shelter to frequent, [2]--and prized,
+  Less than I wished to prize, that calm recess.
+
+    The snows dissolved, and genial Spring returned
+  To clothe the fields with verdure. Other haunts
+  Meanwhile were mine; till, one bright April day,                  45
+  By chance retiring from the glare of noon
+  To this forsaken covert, there I found
+  A hoary pathway traced between the trees,
+  And winding on with such an easy line
+  Along a natural opening, that I stood                             50
+  Much wondering how I could have sought in vain [3]
+  For what was now so obvious. [4] To abide,
+  For an allotted interval of ease,
+  Under my cottage-roof, had gladly come
+  From the wild sea a cherished Visitant; [5]                       55
+  And with the sight of this same path--begun,
+  Begun and ended, in the shady grove, [6]
+  Pleasant conviction flashed upon my mind [7]
+  That, to this opportune recess allured,
+  He had surveyed it with a finer eye,                              60
+  A heart more wakeful; and had worn the track [8]
+  By pacing here, unwearied and alone, [A]
+  In that habitual restlessness of foot
+  That haunts the Sailor measuring [9] o'er and o'er
+  His short domain upon the vessel's deck,                          65
+  While she pursues her course [10] through the dreary sea.
+
+  When thou hadst quitted Esthwaite's pleasant shore,
+  And taken thy first leave of those green hills
+  And rocks that were the play-ground of thy youth,
+  Year followed year, my Brother! and we two,                       70
+  Conversing not, knew little in what mould
+  Each other's mind was fashioned; [11] and at length
+  When once again we met in Grasmere Vale,
+  Between us there was little other bond
+  Than common feelings of fraternal love.                           75
+  But thou, a School-boy, to the sea hadst carried
+  Undying recollections; Nature there
+  Was with thee; she, who loved us both, she still
+  Was with thee; and even so didst thou become
+  A _silent_ Poet; from the solitude                                80
+  Of the vast sea didst bring a watchful heart
+  Still couchant, an inevitable ear,
+  And an eye practised like a blind man's touch.
+--Back to the joyless Ocean thou art gone;
+  Nor from this vestige of thy musing hours                         85
+  Could I withhold thy honoured name,--and now
+  I love the fir-grove [12] with a perfect love.
+  Thither do I withdraw when cloudless suns
+  Shine hot, or wind blows troublesome and strong;
+  And there I sit at evening, when the steep                        90
+  Of Silver-how, and Grasmere's peaceful [13] lake,
+  And one green island, gleam between the stems
+  Of the dark firs, a visionary scene!
+  And, while I gaze upon the spectacle
+  Of clouded splendour, on this dream-like sight                    95
+  Of solemn loveliness, I think on thee,
+  My Brother, and on all which thou hast lost.
+  Nor seldom, if I rightly guess, while Thou,
+  Muttering the verses which I muttered first
+  Among the mountains, through the midnight watch                  100
+  Art pacing thoughtfully [14] the vessel's deck
+  In some far region, here, while o'er my head,
+  At every impulse of the moving breeze,
+  The fir-grove murmurs with a sea-like sound, [B]
+  Alone I tread this path;--for aught I know,                      105
+  Timing my steps to thine; and, with a store
+  Of undistinguishable sympathies,
+  Mingling most earnest wishes for the day
+  When we, and others whom we love, shall meet
+  A second time, in Grasmere's happy Vale.                         110
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
+
+[Variant 1:
+
+1836.
+
+  ... between ...      1815.]
+
+
+[Variant 2:
+
+1836.
+
+  And, baffled thus, before the storm relaxed,
+  I ceased that Shelter to frequent,--1815.
+
+  ... the shelter ...                       1827.]
+
+
+[Variant 3:
+
+1827.
+
+  Much wondering at my own simplicity
+  How I could e'er have made a fruitless search      1815.]
+
+
+[Variant 4:
+
+  ... At the sight
+  Conviction also flashed upon my mind
+  That this same path (within the shady grove
+  Begun and ended) by my Brother's steps
+  Had been impressed.--...
+
+These additional lines appeared only in 1815 and 1820.]
+
+
+[Variant 5:
+
+1845.
+
+  ... To sojourn a short while
+  Beneath my roof He from the barren seas
+  Had newly come--a cherished Visitant!         1815.
+
+  ... To abide,
+  For an allotted interval of ease,
+  Beneath my cottage roof, had newly come
+  From the wild sea a cherished Visitant;       1827.
+
+  Beneath my cottage roof, had gladly come      1840.
+
+  ... had meanwhile come                        C. [a]]
+
+
+[Variant 6: This and the previous line were added in 1827.]
+
+
+[Variant 7:
+
+1827.
+
+  And much did it delight me to perceive     1815.]
+
+
+[Variant 8:
+
+1827.
+
+  A heart more wakeful; that, more both to part
+  From place so lovely, he had worn the track     1815.]
+
+
+[Variant 9:
+
+1845.
+
+  With which the Sailor measures ...     1815.]
+
+
+[Variant 10:
+
+1845.
+
+  While she is travelling ...      1815.]
+
+
+[Variant 11:
+
+1836.
+
+  ... minds were fashioned;...     1815.]
+
+
+[Variant 12:
+
+1827.
+
+  ... art gone;
+  And now I call the path-way by thy name,
+  And love the fir-grove          1815.]
+
+
+[Variant 13:
+
+1827.
+
+  ... placid ...       1815.]
+
+
+[Variant 14:
+
+1827.
+
+  Art pacing to and fro ...       1815.]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT
+
+[Footnote A: Compare Daniel's 'Hymens Triumph', ii. 4:
+
+  'And where no sun could see him, where no eye
+  Might overlook his lonely privacy;
+  There in a path of his own making, trod
+  Rare as a common way, yet led no way
+  Beyond the turns he made.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote B: Compare the line in Coleridge's 'Hymn before Sun-rise, in
+the Vale of Chamouni':
+
+  'Ye pine groves with your soft and soul-like sound,'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SUB-FOOTNOTE ON THE TEXT
+
+[Sub-Footnote a: In the late Lord Coleridge's copy of the edition of
+1836, there is a footnote in Wordsworth's handwriting to the word
+"meanwhile" which is substituted for "newly." "If 'newly' come, could he
+have traced a visible path?"--Ed.]
+
+
+
+This wish was not granted; the lamented Person, not long after, perished
+by shipwreck, in discharge of his duty as Commander of the Honourable
+East India Company's Vessel, the 'Earl of Abergavenny'.--W. W. 1815.
+
+For the date of this poem in the Chronological Tables given in the
+editions of 1815 and 1820, Wordsworth assigned the year 1802. But, in
+the edition of 1836, he assigned it to the year 1805, the date retained
+by Mr. Carter in the edition of 1857. Captain Wordsworth perished on the
+5th of February 1805; and if the poem was written in 1805, it must have
+been in the month of January of that year. The note to the poem is
+explicit--"Not long after" he "perished by shipwreck," etc. Thus the
+poem _may_ have been written in the beginning of 1805; but it is not at
+all certain that part of it at least does not belong to an earlier year.
+John Wordsworth lived with his brother and sister at the Town-end
+Cottage, Grasmere, during part of the winter, and during the whole of
+the spring, summer, and autumn of 1800, William and John going together
+on foot into Yorkshire from the 14th of May to the 7th of June. John
+left Grasmere on Michaelmas day (September 29th) 1800, and never
+returned to it again. The following is Miss Wordsworth's record of that
+day in her Journal of 1800:
+
+  "On Monday, 29th, John left us. William and I parted with him in sight
+  of Ullswater. It was a fine day, showery, but with sunshine and fine
+  clouds. Poor fellow, my heart was right sad, I could not help thinking
+  we should see him again, because he was only going to Penrith."
+
+In the spring of 1801, John Wordsworth sailed for China in the
+'Abergavenny'.  He returned from this voyage in safety, and the brothers
+met once again in London. He went to sea again in 1803, and returned to
+London in 1804, but could not visit Grasmere; and in the month of
+February 1805--shortly after he was appointed to the command of the
+'Abergavenny'--the ship was lost at the Bill of Portland, and every one
+on board perished. It is clear that the latter part of the poem, "When,
+to the attractions of the busy world," was written between John
+Wordsworth's departure from Grasmere and the loss of the 'Abergavenny',
+i. e. between September 1800 and February 1805, as there are references
+in it both to what his brother did at Grasmere and to his return to
+sea:
+
+  'Back to the joyless Ocean thou art gone.'
+
+There are some things in the earlier part of the poem that appear to
+negative the idea of its having been written in 1800. The opening lines
+seem to hint at an experience somewhat distant. He speaks of being
+"wont" to do certain things. But, on the other hand, I find an entry in
+Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, which leads me to believe that the poem
+may have been begun in 1800, and that the first part, ending (as it did
+then) with the line:
+
+  'While she is travelling through the dreary sea,'
+
+may have been finished before John Wordsworth left Grasmere;
+the second part being written afterwards, while he was at sea;
+and that this is the explanation of the date given in the editions
+of 1815 and 1820, viz. 1802.
+
+Passages occur in Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal to the
+following effect:
+
+  "Monday Morning, 1st September.--We walked in the wood by the lake.
+  William read 'Joanna' and 'the Firgrove' to Coleridge."
+
+A little earlier there is the record,
+
+  "Saturday, 22nd August.--William was composing all the morning....
+  William read us the poem of 'Joanna' beside the Rothay by the
+  roadside."
+
+Then, on Friday, the 25th August, there is the entry,
+
+  "We walked over the hill by the Firgrove, I sate upon a rock and
+  observed a flight of swallows gathering together high above my head.
+  We walked through the wood to the stepping stones, the lake of Rydale
+  very beautiful, partly still, I left William to compose an
+  inscription, that about the path...."
+
+Then, next day,
+
+  "Saturday morning, 30th August.--William finished his inscription of
+  the Pathway, then walked in the wood, and when John returned he sought
+  him, and they bathed together."
+
+To what poem Dorothy Wordsworth referred under the name of the
+"Inscription of the Pathway" has puzzled me much. There is no poem
+amongst his "Inscriptions" (written in or before August 1800) that
+corresponds to it in the least. But, if my conjecture is right that this
+"Poem on the Naming of Places," beginning:
+
+  'When, to the attractions of the busy world,'
+
+was composed at two different times, it is quite possible that "the
+Firgrove" which was read--along with 'Joanna'--to Coleridge on September
+1st, 1800, was the first part of this very poem.
+
+If this supposition is correct, some light is cast both on the
+"Inscription of the Pathway." and on the date assigned by Wordsworth
+himself to the poem. There is a certain fitness, however, in this poem
+being placed--as it now is--in sequence to the 'Elegiac Verses' in
+memory of John Wordsworth, beginning, "The Sheep-boy whistled loud," and
+near the fourth poem 'To the Daisy', beginning, "Sweet Flower! belike
+one day to have."
+
+The "Fir-grove" still exists. It is between Wishing Gate and White Moss
+Common, and almost exactly opposite the former. Standing at the gate and
+looking eastwards, the grove is to the left, not forty yards distant.
+Some of the firs (Scotch ones) still survive, and several beech trees,
+not "a single beech-tree," as in the poem. From this, one might infer
+that the present colony had sprung up since the beginning of the
+century, and that the special tree, in which was the thrush's nest, had
+perished; but Dr. Cradock wrote to me that "Wordsworth pointed out the
+tree to Miss Cookson a few days before Dora Wordsworth's death. The tree
+is near the upper wall and tells its own tale." The Fir-grove--"John's
+Grove"--can easily be entered by a gate about a hundred yards beyond
+the Wishing-gate, as one goes toward Rydal. The view from it, the
+"visionary scene,"
+
+                           'the spectacle
+  Of clouded splendour, ... this dream-like sight
+  Of solemn loveliness,'
+
+is now much interfered with by the new larch plantations immediately
+below the firs. It must have been very different in Wordsworth's time,
+and is constantly referred to in his sister's Journal as a favourite
+retreat, resorted to
+
+                           'when cloudless suns
+  Shone hot, or wind blew troublesome and strong.'
+
+In the absence of contrary testimony, it might be supposed that "the
+track" which the brother had "worn,"
+
+  'By pacing here, unwearied and alone,'
+
+faced Silver-How and the Grasmere Island, and that the single beech tree
+was nearer the lower than the upper wall. But Miss Cookson's testimony
+is explicit. Only a few fir trees survive at this part of the grove,
+which is now open and desolate, not as it was in those earlier days,
+when
+
+                                  'the trees
+  Had been so thickly planted, and had thriven
+  With such perplexed and intricate array,
+  That vainly did I seek, beneath their stems
+  A length of open space ...'
+
+Dr. Cradock remarks,
+
+  "As to there being more than one beech, Wordsworth would not have
+  hesitated to sacrifice servile exactness to poetical effect." He had a
+  fancy for "one"--
+
+    'Fair as a star when only one
+    Is shining in the sky;'
+
+  "'One' abode, no more;" Grasmere's "one green island;" "one green
+  field."
+
+Since the above note was printed, new light has been cast on the
+"Inscription of the Pathway," for which see volume viii. of this
+edition.--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+THE COTTAGER TO HER INFANT
+
+BY MY SISTER
+
+
+Composed 1805.--Published 1815
+
+
+[Suggested to her, while beside my sleeping children.--I. F.]
+
+One of the "Poems founded on the Affections."--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+  The days are cold, the nights are long,
+  The north-wind sings a doleful song;
+  Then hush again upon my breast;
+  All merry things are now at rest,
+    Save thee, my pretty Love!                          5
+
+  The kitten sleeps upon the hearth,
+  The crickets long have ceased their mirth;
+  There's nothing stirring in the house
+  Save one _wee_, hungry, nibbling mouse,
+    Then why so busy thou?                             10
+
+  Nay! start not at that sparkling light;
+  'Tis but the moon that shines so bright
+  On the window pane bedropped with rain:
+  Then, little Darling! sleep again,
+    And wake when it is day.                           15
+
+
+
+This poem underwent no change in successive editions. The title in all
+the earlier ones (1815 to 1843) was 'The Cottager to her Infant. By a
+Female Friend'; and in the preface to the edition of 1815, Wordsworth
+wrote,
+
+  "Three short pieces (now first published) are the work of a Female
+  Friend; ... if any one regard them with dislike, or be disposed to
+  condemn them, let the censure fall upon him, who, trusting in his own
+  sense of their merit, and their fitness for the place which they
+  occupy, _extorted_ them from the Authoress."
+
+In the edition of 1845, he disclosed the authorship; and gave the more
+natural title, 'By my Sister'. Other two poems by her were introduced
+into the edition of 1815, and subsequent ones, viz. the 'Address to a
+Child', and 'The Mother's Return'. In an appendix to a MS. copy of the
+'Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland', by Dorothy Wordsworth,
+transcribed by Mrs. Clarkson, I find the poem 'The Cottager to her
+Infant' with two additional stanzas, which are there attributed to
+Wordsworth. The appendix runs thus:
+
+  "To my Niece Dorothy, a sleepless Baby
+
+    THE COTTAGER TO HER INFANT
+
+  (The third and fourth stanzas which follow by W. W.)
+
+    'Ah! if I were a lady gay
+    I should not grieve with thee to play;
+    Right gladly would I lie awake
+    Thy lively spirits to partake,
+      And ask no better cheer.
+
+    But, Babe! there's none to work for me.
+    And I must rise to industry;
+    Soon as the cock begins to crow
+    Thy mother to the fold must go
+      To tend the sheep and kine.'"
+
+Ed.
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WAGGONER [A]
+
+
+Composed 1805.--Published 1819
+
+
+[Written at Town-end, Grasmere. The characters and story from fact.--I.
+F.]
+
+
+                  "In Cairo's crowded streets
+  The impatient Merchant, wondering, waits in vain,
+  And Mecca saddens at the long delay."
+
+  THOMSON. [B]
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES LAMB, ESQ.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND,
+
+When I sent you, a few weeks ago, the Tale of 'Peter Bell', you asked
+"why THE WAGGONER was not added?"--To say the truth,--from the higher
+tone of imagination, and the deeper touches of passion aimed at in the
+former, I apprehended, this little Piece could not accompany it without
+disadvantage. In the year 1806, if I am not mistaken, THE WAGGONER was
+read to you in manuscript; and, as you have remembered it for so long a
+time, I am the more encouraged to hope, that, since the localities on
+which it partly depends did not prevent its being interesting to you, it
+may prove acceptable to others. Being therefore in some measure the
+cause of its present appearance, you must allow me the gratification of
+inscribing it to you; in acknowledgment of the pleasure I have derived
+from your Writings, and of the high esteem with which
+I am
+Very truly yours,
+WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
+
+RYDAL MOUNT, _May 20th_, 1819.
+
+
+
+
+CANTO FIRST
+
+
+  'Tis spent--this burning day of June!
+  Soft darkness o'er its latest gleams is stealing;
+  The buzzing dor-hawk, round and round, is wheeling,--
+  That solitary bird
+  Is all that can be heard [1]                                       5
+  In silence deeper far than that of deepest noon!
+
+    Confiding Glow-worms, 'tis a night
+  Propitious to your earth-born light!
+  But, where the scattered stars are seen
+  In hazy straits the clouds between,                               10
+  Each, in his station twinkling not,
+  Seems changed into a pallid spot. [2]
+  The mountains against heaven's grave weight
+  Rise up, and grow to wondrous height. [3]
+  The air, as in a lion's den,                                      15
+  Is close and hot;--and now and then
+  Comes a tired [4] and sultry breeze
+  With a haunting and a panting,
+  Like the stifling of disease;
+  But the dews [5] allay the heat,                                  20
+  And the silence makes it sweet.
+
+    Hush, there is some one on the stir!
+  'Tis Benjamin the Waggoner;
+  Who long hath trod this toilsome way,
+  Companion of the night and [6] day.                               25
+  That far-off tinkling's drowsy cheer,
+  Mix'd with a faint yet grating sound
+  In a moment lost and found,
+  The Wain announces--by whose side
+  Along the banks of Rydal Mere                                     30
+  He paces on, a trusty Guide,--
+  Listen! you can scarcely hear!
+  Hither he his course is bending;--
+  Now he leaves the lower ground,
+  And up the craggy hill ascending                                  35
+  Many a stop and stay he makes,
+  Many a breathing-fit he takes;--[7]
+  Steep the way and wearisome,
+  Yet all the while his whip is dumb!
+
+    The Horses have worked with right good-will,                    40
+  And so [8] have gained the top of the hill;
+  He was patient, they were strong,
+  And now they smoothly glide along,
+  Recovering [9] breath, and pleased to win
+  The praises of mild Benjamin.                                     45
+  Heaven shield him from mishap and snare!
+  But why so early with this prayer?
+  Is it for threatenings in the sky?
+  Or for some other danger nigh?
+  No; none is near him yet, though he                               50
+  Be one of much infirmity; [10]
+  For at the bottom of the brow,
+  Where once the DOVE and OLIVE-BOUGH
+  Offered a greeting of good ale
+  To all who entered Grasmere Vale;                                 55
+  And called on him who must depart
+  To leave it with a jovial heart;
+  There, where the DOVE and OLIVE-BOUGH
+  Once hung, a Poet harbours now,
+  A simple water-drinking Bard;                                     60
+  Why need our Hero then (though frail
+  His best resolves) be on his guard?
+  He marches by, secure and bold;
+  Yet while he thinks on times of old,
+  It seems that all looks wondrous cold;                            65
+  He shrugs his shoulders, shakes his head,
+  And, for the honest folk within,
+  It is a doubt with Benjamin
+  Whether they be alive or dead!
+
+    _Here_ is no danger,--none at all!                              70
+  Beyond his wish he walks secure; [11]
+  But pass a mile--and _then_ for trial,--
+  Then for the pride of self-denial;
+  If he resist that tempting door,
+  Which with such friendly voice will call;                         75
+  If he resist those casement panes,
+  And that bright gleam which thence will fall
+  Upon his Leaders' bells and manes,
+  Inviting him with cheerful lure:
+  For still, though all be dark elsewhere,                          80
+  Some shining notice will be 'there'
+  Of open house and ready fare.
+
+    The place to Benjamin right well [12]
+  Is known, and by as strong a spell
+  As used to be that sign of love                                   85
+  And hope--the OLIVE-BOUGH and DOVE;
+  He knows it to his cost, good Man!
+  Who does not know the famous SWAN?
+  Object uncouth! and yet our boast, [13]
+  For it was painted by the Host;                                   90
+  His own conceit the figure planned,
+  'Twas coloured all by his own hand;
+  And that frail Child of thirsty clay,
+  Of whom I sing [14] this rustic lay,
+  Could tell with self-dissatisfaction                              95
+  Quaint stories of the bird's attraction! [C]
+
+    Well! that is past--and in despite
+  Of open door and shining light.
+  And now the conqueror essays
+  The long ascent of Dunmail-raise;                                100
+  And with his team is gentle here
+  As when he clomb from Rydal Mere;
+  His whip they do not dread--his voice
+  They only hear it to rejoice.
+  To stand or go is at _their_ pleasure;                           105
+  Their efforts and their time they measure
+  By generous pride within the breast;
+  And, while they strain, and while they rest,
+  He thus pursues his thoughts at leisure.
+
+    Now am I fairly safe to-night--110
+  And with proud cause my heart is light: [15]
+  I trespassed lately worse than ever--
+  But Heaven has blest [16] a good endeavour;
+  And, to my soul's content, [17] I find
+  The evil One is left behind.                                     115
+  Yes, let my master fume and fret,
+  Here am I--with my horses yet!
+  My jolly team, he finds that ye
+  Will work for nobody but me!
+  Full proof of this the Country gained;                           120
+  It knows how ye were vexed and strained,
+  And forced unworthy stripes to bear,
+  When trusted to another's care. [18]
+  Here was it--on this rugged slope,
+  Which now ye climb with heart and hope,                          125
+  I saw you, between rage and fear,
+  Plunge, and fling back a spiteful ear,
+  And ever more and more confused,
+  As ye were more and more abused: [19]
+  As chance would have it, passing by                              130
+  I saw you in that [20] jeopardy:
+  A word from me was like a charm; [D]
+  Ye pulled together with one mind; [21]
+  And your huge burthen, safe from harm,
+  Moved like a vessel in the wind!                                 135
+  --Yes, without me, up hills so high
+  'Tis vain to strive for mastery.
+  Then grieve not, jolly team! though tough
+  The road we travel, steep, and rough; [22]
+  Though Rydal-heights and Dunmail-raise,                          140
+  And all their fellow banks and braes,
+  Full often make you stretch and strain,
+  And halt for breath and halt again,
+  Yet to their sturdiness 'tis owing
+  That side by side we still are going!                            145
+
+    While Benjamin in earnest mood
+  His meditations thus pursued,
+  A storm, which had been smothered long,
+  Was growing inwardly more strong;
+  And, in its struggles to get free,                               150
+  Was busily employed as he.
+  The thunder had begun to growl--
+  He heard not, too intent of soul;
+  The air was now without a breath--
+  He marked not that 'twas still as death.                         155
+  But soon large rain-drops on his head [23]
+  Fell with the weight of drops of lead;--
+  He starts--and takes, at the admonition,
+  A sage survey of his condition. [24]
+  The road is black before his eyes,                               160
+  Glimmering faintly where it lies;
+  Black is the sky--and every hill,
+  Up to the sky, is blacker still--
+  Sky, hill, and dale, one dismal room, [25]
+  Hung round and overhung with gloom;                              165
+  Save that above a single height
+  Is to be seen a lurid light,
+  Above Helm-crag [E]--a streak half dead,
+  A burning of portentous red;
+  And near that lurid light, full well                             170
+  The ASTROLOGER, sage Sidrophel,
+  Where at his desk and book he sits,
+  Puzzling aloft [26] his curious wits;
+  He whose domain is held in common
+  With no one but the ANCIENT WOMAN,                               175
+  Cowering beside her rifted cell,
+  As if intent on magic spell;-
+  Dread pair, that, spite of wind and weather,
+  Still sit upon Helm-crag together!
+
+    The ASTROLOGER was not unseen                                  180
+  By solitary Benjamin;
+  But total darkness came anon,
+  And he and every thing was gone:
+  And suddenly a ruffling breeze,
+  (That would have rocked the sounding trees                       185
+  Had aught of sylvan growth been there)
+  Swept through the Hollow long and bare: [27]
+  The rain rushed down--the road was battered,
+  As with the force of billows shattered;
+  The horses are dismayed, nor know                                190
+  Whether they should stand or go;
+  And Benjamin is groping near them,
+  Sees nothing, and can scarcely hear them.
+  He is astounded,--wonder not,--
+  With such a charge in such a spot;                               195
+  Astounded in the mountain gap
+  With thunder-peals, clap after clap,
+  Close-treading on the silent flashes--
+  And somewhere, as he thinks, by crashes [28]
+  Among the rocks; with weight of rain,                            200
+  And sullen [29] motions long and slow,
+  That to a dreary distance go--
+  Till, breaking in upon the dying strain,
+  A rending o'er his head begins the fray again.
+
+    Meanwhile, uncertain what to do,                               205
+  And oftentimes compelled to halt,
+  The horses cautiously pursue
+  Their way, without mishap or fault;
+  And now have reached that pile of stones,
+  Heaped over brave King Dunmail's bones;                          210
+  He who had once supreme command,
+  Last king of rocky Cumberland;
+  His bones, and those of all his Power,
+  Slain here in a disastrous hour!
+
+    When, passing through this narrow strait,                      215
+  Stony, and dark, and desolate,
+  Benjamin can faintly hear
+  A voice that comes from some one near,
+  A female voice:--"Whoe'er you be,
+  Stop," it exclaimed, "and pity me!"                              220
+  And, less in pity than in wonder,
+  Amid the darkness and the thunder,
+  The Waggoner, with prompt command,
+  Summons his horses to a stand.
+
+    While, with increasing agitation,                              225
+  The Woman urged her supplication,
+  In rueful words, with sobs between--
+  The voice of tears that fell unseen; [30]
+  There came a flash--a startling glare,
+  And all Seat-Sandal was laid bare!                               230
+  'Tis not a time for nice suggestion,
+  And Benjamin, without a question,
+  Taking her for some way-worn rover, [31]
+  Said, "Mount, and get you under cover!"
+  Another voice, in tone as hoarse                                 235
+  As a swoln brook with rugged course,
+  Cried out, "Good brother, why so fast?
+  I've had a glimpse of you--'avast!'
+  Or, since it suits you to be civil,
+  Take her at once--for good and evil!"                            240
+
+  "It is my Husband," softly said
+  The Woman, as if half afraid:
+  By this time she was snug within,
+  Through help of honest Benjamin;
+  She and her Babe, which to her breast                            245
+  With thankfulness the Mother pressed;
+  And now the same strong voice more near
+  Said cordially, "My Friend, what cheer?
+  Rough doings these! as God's my judge,
+  The sky owes somebody a grudge!                                  250
+  We've had in half an hour or less
+  A twelvemonth's terror [32] and distress!"
+
+  Then Benjamin entreats the Man
+  Would mount, too, quickly as he can:
+  The Sailor--Sailor now no more,                                  255
+  But such he had been heretofore--
+  To courteous Benjamin replied,
+  "Go you your way, and mind not me;
+  For I must have, whate'er betide,
+  My Ass and fifty things beside,--260
+  Go, and I'll follow speedily!"
+
+  The Waggon moves--and with its load
+  Descends along the sloping road;
+  And the rough Sailor instantly
+  Turns to a little tent hard by: [33]                             265
+  For when, at closing-in of day,
+  The family had come that way,
+  Green pasture and the soft warm air
+  Tempted [34] them to settle there.--
+  Green is the grass for beast to graze,                           270
+  Around the stones of Dunmail-raise!
+
+  The Sailor gathers up his bed,
+  Takes down the canvass overhead;
+  And, after farewell to the place,
+  A parting word--though not of grace,                             275
+  Pursues, with Ass and all his store,
+  The way the Waggon went before.
+
+
+
+CANTO SECOND
+
+
+  If Wytheburn's modest House of prayer,
+  As lowly as the lowliest dwelling,
+  Had, with its belfry's humble stock,                             280
+  A little pair that hang in air,
+  Been mistress also of a clock,
+  (And one, too, not in crazy plight)
+  Twelve strokes that clock would have been telling
+  Under the brow of old Helvellyn--285
+  Its bead-roll of midnight,
+  Then, when the Hero of my tale
+  Was passing by, and, down the vale
+  (The vale now silent, hushed I ween
+  As if a storm had never been)                                    290
+  Proceeding with a mind at ease;
+  While the old Familiar of the seas [35]
+  Intent to use his utmost haste,
+  Gained ground upon the Waggon fast,
+  And gives another lusty cheer;                                   295
+  For spite of rumbling of the wheels,
+  A welcome greeting he can hear;--
+  It is a fiddle in its glee
+  Dinning from the CHERRY TREE!
+
+  Thence the sound--the light is there--300
+  As Benjamin is now aware,
+  Who, to his inward thoughts confined,
+  Had almost reached the festive door,
+  When, startled by the Sailor's roar, [36]
+  He hears a sound and sees the light,                             305
+  And in a moment calls to mind
+  That 'tis the village MERRY-NIGHT! [F]
+
+  Although before in no dejection,
+  At this insidious recollection
+  His heart with sudden joy is filled,--310
+  His ears are by the music thrilled,
+  His eyes take pleasure in the road
+  Glittering before him bright and broad;
+  And Benjamin is wet and cold,
+  And there are reasons manifold                                   315
+  That make the good, tow'rds which he's yearning,
+  Look fairly like a lawful earning.
+
+    Nor has thought time to come and go,
+  To vibrate between yes and no;
+  For, cries the Sailor, "Glorious chance                          320
+  That blew us hither!--let him dance,
+  Who can or will!--my honest soul,
+  Our treat shall be a friendly bowl!" [37]
+  He draws him to the door--"Come in,
+  Come, come," cries he to Benjamin!                               325
+  And Benjamin--ah, woe is me!
+  Gave the word--the horses heard
+  And halted, though reluctantly.
+
+    "Blithe souls and lightsome hearts have we,
+  Feasting at the CHERRY TREE!"                                    330
+  This was the outside proclamation,
+  This was the inside salutation;
+  What bustling--jostling--high and low!
+  A universal overflow!
+  What tankards foaming from the tap!                              335
+  What store of cakes in every lap!
+  What thumping--stumping--overhead!
+  The thunder had not been more busy:
+  With such a stir you would have said,
+  This little place may well be dizzy!                             340
+  'Tis who can dance with greatest vigour--
+  'Tis what can be most prompt and eager;
+  As if it heard the fiddle's call,
+  The pewter clatters on the wall;
+  The very bacon shows its feeling,                                345
+  Swinging from the smoky ceiling!
+
+    A steaming bowl, a blazing fire,
+  What greater good can heart desire?
+  'Twere worth a wise man's while to try
+  The utmost anger of the sky:                                     350
+  To _seek_ for thoughts of a gloomy cast,
+  If such the bright amends at last. [38]
+  Now should you say [39] I judge amiss,
+  The CHERRY TREE shows proof of this;
+  For soon of all [40] the happy there,                            355
+  Our Travellers are the happiest pair;
+  All care with Benjamin is gone--
+  A Caesar past the Rubicon!
+  He thinks not of his long, long strife;--
+  The Sailor, Man by nature gay,                                   360
+  Hath no resolves to throw away; [41]
+  And he hath now forgot his Wife,
+  Hath quite forgotten her--or may be
+  Thinks her the luckiest soul on earth,
+  Within that warm and peaceful berth, [42]                        365
+             Under cover,
+             Terror over,
+  Sleeping by her sleeping Baby.
+
+    With bowl that sped from hand to hand,
+  The gladdest of the gladsome band,                               370
+  Amid their own delight and fun, [43]
+  They hear--when every dance is done,
+  When every whirling bout is o'er--[44]
+  The fiddle's _squeak_ [G]--that call to bliss,
+  Ever followed by a kiss;                                         375
+  They envy not the happy lot,
+  But enjoy their own the more!
+
+    While thus our jocund Travellers fare,
+  Up springs the Sailor from his chair--
+  Limps (for I might have told before                              380
+  That he was lame) across the floor--
+  Is gone--returns--and with a prize;
+  With what?--a Ship of lusty size;
+  A gallant stately Man-of-war,
+  Fixed on a smoothly-sliding car.                                 385
+  Surprise to all, but most surprise
+  To Benjamin, who rubs his eyes,
+  Not knowing that he had befriended
+  A Man so gloriously attended!
+
+    "This," cries the Sailor, "a Third-rate is--390
+  Stand back, and you shall see her gratis!
+  This was the Flag-ship at the Nile,
+  The Vanguard--you may smirk and smile,
+  But, pretty Maid, if you look near,
+  You'll find you've much in little here!                          395
+  A nobler ship did never swim,
+  And you shall see her in full trim:
+  I'll set, my friends, to do you honour,
+  Set every inch of sail upon her."
+  So said, so done; and masts, sails, yards,                       400
+  He names them all; and interlards
+  His speech with uncouth terms of art,
+  Accomplished in the showman's part;
+  And then, as from a sudden check,
+  Cries out--"'Tis there, the quarter-deck                         405
+  On which brave Admiral Nelson stood--
+  A sight that would have roused your blood!
+  One eye he had, which, bright as ten,
+  Burned like a fire among his men;
+  Let this be land, and that be sea,                               410
+  Here lay the French--and _thus_ came we!" [H]
+
+    Hushed was by this the fiddle's sound,
+  The dancers all were gathered round,
+  And, such the stillness of the house,
+  You might have heard a nibbling mouse;                           415
+  While, borrowing helps where'er he may,
+  The Sailor through the story runs
+  Of ships to ships and guns to guns;
+  And does his utmost to display
+  The dismal conflict, and the might                               420
+  And terror of that marvellous [45] night!
+  "A bowl, a bowl of double measure,"
+  Cries Benjamin, "a draught of length,
+  To Nelson, England's pride and treasure,
+  Her bulwark and her tower of strength!"                          425
+  When Benjamin had seized the bowl,
+  The mastiff, from beneath the waggon,
+  Where he lay, watchful as a dragon,
+  Rattled his chain;--'twas all in vain,
+  For Benjamin, triumphant soul!                                   430
+  He heard the monitory growl;
+  Heard--and in opposition quaffed
+  A deep, determined, desperate draught!
+  Nor did the battered Tar forget,
+  Or flinch from what he deemed his debt:                          435
+  Then, like a hero crowned with laurel,
+  Back to her place the ship he led;
+  Wheeled her back in full apparel;
+  And so, flag flying at mast head,
+  Re-yoked her to the Ass:--anon,                                  440
+  Cries Benjamin, "We must be gone."
+  Thus, after two hours' hearty stay,
+  Again behold them on their way!
+
+
+CANTO THIRD
+
+  Right gladly had the horses stirred,
+  When they the wished-for greeting heard,                         445
+  The whip's loud notice from the door,
+  That they were free to move once more.
+  You think, those [46] doings must have bred
+  In them disheartening doubts and dread;
+  No, not a horse of all the eight,                                450
+  Although it be a moonless night,
+  Fears either for himself or freight;
+  For this they know (and let it hide,
+  In part, the offences of their guide)
+  That Benjamin, with clouded brains,                              455
+  Is worth the best with all their pains;
+  And, if they had a prayer to make,
+  The prayer would be that they may take
+  With him whatever comes in course,
+  The better fortune or the worse;                                 460
+  That no one else may have business near them,
+  And, drunk or sober, he may steer them.
+
+    So, forth in dauntless mood they fare,
+  And with them goes the guardian pair.
+
+    Now, heroes, for the true commotion,                           465
+  The triumph of your late devotion!
+  Can aught on earth impede delight,
+  Still mounting to a higher height;
+  And higher still--a greedy flight!
+  Can any low-born care pursue her,                                470
+  Can any mortal clog come to her? [J]
+  No notion have they--not a thought,
+  That is from joyless regions brought!
+  And, while they coast the silent lake,
+  Their inspiration I partake;                                     475
+  Share their empyreal spirits--yea,
+  With their enraptured vision, see--
+  O fancy--what a jubilee!
+  What shifting pictures--clad in gleams
+  Of colour bright as feverish dreams!                             480
+  Earth, spangled sky, and lake serene,
+  Involved and restless all--a scene
+  Pregnant with mutual exaltation,
+  Rich change, and multiplied creation!
+  This sight to me the Muse imparts;--485
+  And then, what kindness in their hearts!
+  What tears of rapture, what vow-making,
+  Profound entreaties, and hand-shaking!
+  What solemn, vacant, interlacing,
+  As if they'd fall asleep embracing!                              490
+  Then, in the turbulence of glee,
+  And in the excess of amity,
+  Says Benjamin, "That Ass of thine,
+  He spoils thy sport, and hinders mine:
+  If he were tethered to the waggon,                               495
+  He'd drag as well what he is dragging;
+  And we, as brother should with brother,
+  Might trudge it alongside each other!"
+
+    Forthwith, obedient to command,
+  The horses made a quiet stand;                                   500
+  And to the waggon's skirts was tied
+  The Creature, by the Mastiff's side,
+  The Mastiff wondering, and perplext
+  With dread of what will happen next;
+  And thinking it but sorry cheer,                                 505
+  To have such company so near! [47]
+
+    This new arrangement made, the Wain
+  Through the still night proceeds again;
+  No Moon hath risen her light to lend;
+  But indistinctly may be kenned                                   510
+  The VANGUARD, following close behind,
+  Sails spread, as if to catch the wind!
+
+    "Thy wife and child are snug and warm,
+  Thy ship will travel without harm;
+  I like," said Benjamin, "her shape and stature:                  515
+  And this of mine--this bulky creature
+  Of which I have the steering--this,
+  Seen fairly, is not much amiss!
+  We want your streamers, friend, you know;
+  But, altogether [48] as we go,                                   520
+  We make a kind of handsome show!
+  Among these hills, from first to last,
+  We've weathered many a furious blast;
+  Hard passage forcing on, with head
+  Against the storm, and canvass spread.                           525
+  I hate a boaster; but to thee
+  Will say't, who know'st both land and sea,
+  The unluckiest hulk that stems [49] the brine
+  Is hardly worse beset than mine,
+  When cross-winds on her quarter beat;                            530
+  And, fairly lifted from my feet,
+  I stagger onward--heaven knows how;
+  But not so pleasantly as now:
+  Poor pilot I, by snows confounded,
+  And many a foundrous pit surrounded!                             535
+  Yet here we are, by night and day
+  Grinding through rough and smooth our way;
+  Through foul and fair our task fulfilling;
+  And long shall be so yet--God willing!"
+
+    "Ay," said the Tar, "through fair and foul--540
+  But save us from yon screeching owl!"
+  That instant was begun a fray
+  Which called their thoughts another way:
+  The mastiff, ill-conditioned carl!
+  What must he do but growl and snarl,                             545
+  Still more and more dissatisfied
+  With the meek comrade at his side!
+  Till, not incensed though put to proof,
+  The Ass, uplifting a hind hoof,
+  Salutes the Mastiff on the head;                                 550
+  And so were better manners bred,
+  And all was calmed and quieted.
+
+    "Yon screech-owl," says the Sailor, turning
+  Back to his former cause of mourning,
+  "Yon owl!--pray God that all be well!                            555
+  'Tis worse than any funeral bell;
+  As sure as I've the gift of sight,
+  We shall be meeting ghosts to-night!"
+--Said Benjamin, "This whip shall lay
+  A thousand, if they cross our way.                               560
+  I know that Wanton's noisy station,
+  I know him and his occupation;
+  The jolly bird hath learned his cheer
+  Upon [50] the banks of Windermere;
+  Where a tribe of them make merry,                                565
+  Mocking the Man that keeps the ferry;
+  Hallooing from an open throat,
+  Like travellers shouting for a boat.
+--The tricks he learned at Windermere
+  This vagrant owl is playing here--570
+  That is the worst of his employment:
+  He's at the top [51] of his enjoyment!"
+
+    This explanation stilled the alarm,
+  Cured the foreboder like a charm;
+  This, and the manner, and the voice,                             575
+  Summoned the Sailor to rejoice;
+  His heart is up--he fears no evil
+  From life or death, from man or devil;
+  He wheels [52]--and, making many stops,
+  Brandished his crutch against the mountain tops;                 580
+  And, while he talked of blows and scars,
+  Benjamin, among the stars,
+  Beheld a dancing--and a glancing;
+  Such retreating and advancing
+  As, I ween, was never seen                                       585
+  In bloodiest battle since the days of Mars!
+
+
+
+CANTO FOURTH
+
+
+  Thus they, with freaks of proud delight,
+  Beguile the remnant of the night;
+  And many a snatch of jovial song
+  Regales them as they wind along;                                 590
+  While to the music, from on high,
+  The echoes make a glad reply.--
+  But the sage Muse the revel heeds
+  No farther than her story needs;
+  Nor will she servilely attend                                    595
+  The loitering journey to its end.
+--Blithe spirits of her own impel
+  The Muse, who scents the morning air,
+  To take of this transported pair
+  A brief and unreproved farewell;                                 600
+  To quit the slow-paced waggon's side,
+  And wander down yon hawthorn dell,
+  With murmuring Greta for her guide.
+--There doth she ken the awful form
+  Of Raven-crag--black as a storm--605
+  Glimmering through the twilight pale;
+  And Ghimmer-crag, [K] his tall twin brother,
+  Each peering forth to meet the other:--
+  And, while she roves [53] through St. John's Vale,
+  Along the smooth unpathwayed plain,                              610
+  By sheep-track or through cottage lane,
+  Where no disturbance comes to intrude
+  Upon the pensive solitude,
+  Her unsuspecting eye, perchance,
+  With the rude shepherd's favoured glance,                        615
+  Beholds the faeries in array,
+  Whose party-coloured garments gay
+  The silent company betray:
+  Red, green, and blue; a moment's sight!
+  For Skiddaw-top with rosy light                                  620
+  Is touched--and all the band take flight.
+--Fly also, Muse! and from the dell
+  Mount to the ridge of Nathdale Fell;
+  Thence, look thou forth o'er wood and lawn
+  Hoar with the frost-like dews of dawn;                           625
+  Across yon meadowy bottom look,
+  Where close fogs hide their parent brook;
+  And see, beyond that hamlet small,
+  The ruined towers of Threlkeld-hall,
+  Lurking in a double shade,                                       630
+  By trees and lingering twilight made!
+  There, at Blencathara's rugged feet,
+  Sir Lancelot gave a safe retreat
+  To noble Clifford; from annoy
+  Concealed the persecuted boy,                                    635
+  Well pleased in rustic garb to feed
+  His flock, and pipe on shepherd's reed
+  Among this multitude of hills,
+  Crags, woodlands, waterfalls, and rills;
+  Which soon the morning shall enfold,                             640
+  From east to west, in ample vest
+  Of massy gloom and radiance bold.
+
+    The mists, that o'er the streamlet's bed
+  Hung low, begin to rise and spread;
+  Even while I speak, their skirts of grey                         645
+  Are smitten by a silver ray;
+  And lo!--up Castrigg's naked steep
+  (Where, smoothly urged, the vapours sweep
+  Along--and scatter and divide,
+  Like fleecy clouds self-multiplied)                              650
+  The stately waggon is ascending,
+  With faithful Benjamin attending,
+  Apparent now beside his team--
+  Now lost amid a glittering steam: [54]
+  And with him goes his Sailor-friend,                             655
+  By this time near their journey's end;
+  And, after their high-minded riot,
+  Sickening into thoughtful quiet;
+  As if the morning's pleasant hour,
+  Had for their joys a killing power.                              660
+  And, sooth, for Benjamin a vein
+  Is opened of still deeper pain,
+  As if his heart by notes were stung
+  From out the lowly hedge-rows flung;
+  As if the warbler lost in light [L]                              665
+  Reproved his soarings of the night,
+  In strains of rapture pure and holy
+  Upbraided his distempered folly. [55]
+
+    Drooping is he, his step is dull; [56]
+  But the horses stretch and pull;                                 670
+  With increasing vigour climb,
+  Eager to repair lost time;
+  Whether, by their own desert,
+  Knowing what cause there is [57] for shame,
+  They are labouring to avert                                      675
+  As much as may be of the blame, [58]
+  Which, they foresee, must soon alight
+  Upon _his_ head, whom, in despite
+  Of all his failings, they love best; [59]
+  Whether for him they are distrest,                               680
+  Or, by length of fasting roused,
+  Are impatient to be housed:
+  Up against the hill they strain
+  Tugging at the iron chain,
+  Tugging all with might and main,                                 685
+  Last and foremost, every horse
+  To the utmost of his force!
+  And the smoke and respiration,
+  Rising like an exhalation,
+  Blend [60] with the mist--a moving shroud                        690
+  To form, an undissolving cloud;
+  Which, with slant ray, the merry sun
+  Takes delight to play upon.
+  Never golden-haired Apollo,
+  Pleased some favourite chief to follow                           695
+  Through accidents of peace or war,
+  In a perilous moment threw
+  Around the object of his care
+  Veil of such celestial hue; [61]
+  Interposed so bright a screen--700
+  Him and his enemies between!
+
+    Alas! what boots it?--who can hide,
+  When the malicious Fates are bent
+  On working out an ill intent?
+  Can destiny be turned aside?                                     705
+  No--sad progress of my story!
+  Benjamin, this outward glory
+  Cannot shield [62] thee from thy Master,
+  Who from Keswick has pricked forth,
+  Sour and surly as the north;                                     710
+  And, in fear of some disaster,
+  Comes to give what help he may,
+  And [63] to hear what thou canst say;
+  If, as needs he must forebode, [64]
+  Thou hast been loitering [65] on the road!                       715
+  His fears, his doubts, [66] may now take flight--
+  The wished-for object is in sight;
+  Yet, trust the Muse, it rather hath
+  Stirred him up to livelier wrath;
+  Which he stifles, moody man!                                     720
+  With all the patience that he can;
+  To the end that, at your meeting,
+  He may give thee decent greeting.
+
+    There he is--resolved to stop,
+  Till the waggon gains the top;                                   725
+  But stop he cannot--must advance:
+  Him Benjamin, with lucky glance,
+  Espies--and instantly is ready,
+  Self-collected, poised, and steady:
+  And, to be the better seen,                                      730
+  Issues from his radiant shroud,
+  From his close-attending cloud,
+  With careless air and open mien.
+  Erect his port, and firm his going;
+  So struts yon cock that now is crowing;                          735
+  And the morning light in grace
+  Strikes upon his lifted face,
+  Hurrying the pallid hue away
+  That might his trespasses betray.
+  But what can all avail to clear him,                             740
+  Or what need of explanation,
+  Parley or interrogation?
+  For the Master sees, alas!
+  That unhappy Figure near him,
+  Limping o'er the dewy grass,                                     745
+  Where the road it fringes, sweet,
+  Soft and cool to way-worn feet;
+  And, O indignity! an Ass,
+  By his noble Mastiffs side,
+  Tethered to the waggon's tail:                                   750
+  And the ship, in all her pride,
+  Following after in full sail!
+  Not to speak of babe and mother;
+  Who, contented with each other,
+  And snug as birds in leafy arbour,                               755
+  Find, within, a blessed harbour!
+
+    With eager eyes the Master pries;
+  Looks in and out, and through and through;
+  Says nothing--till at last he spies
+  A wound upon the Mastiff's head,                                 760
+  A wound, where plainly might be read
+  What feats an Ass's hoof can do!
+  But drop the rest:--this aggravation,
+  This complicated provocation,
+  A hoard of grievances unsealed;                                  765
+  All past forgiveness it repealed;
+  And thus, and through distempered blood
+  On both sides, Benjamin the good,
+  The patient, and the tender-hearted,
+  Was from his team and waggon parted;                             770
+  When duty of that day was o'er,
+  Laid down his whip--and served no more.--
+  Nor could the waggon long survive,
+  Which Benjamin had ceased to drive:
+  It lingered on;--guide after guide                               775
+  Ambitiously the office tried;
+  But each unmanageable hill
+  Called for _his_ patience and _his_ skill;--
+  And sure it is, that through this night,
+  And what the morning brought to light,                           780
+  Two losses had we to sustain,
+  We lost both WAGGONER and WAIN!
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Accept, O Friend, for praise or blame,
+  The gift of this adventurous song;
+  A record which I dared to frame,                                 785
+  Though timid scruples checked me long;
+  They checked me--and I left the theme
+  Untouched;--in spite of many a gleam
+  Of fancy which thereon was shed,
+  Like pleasant sunbeams shifting still                            790
+  Upon the side of a distant hill:
+  But Nature might not be gainsaid;
+  For what I have and what I miss
+  I sing of these;--it makes my bliss!
+  Nor is it I who play the part,                                   795
+  But a shy spirit in my heart,
+  That comes and goes--will sometimes leap
+  From hiding-places ten years deep;
+  Or haunts me with familiar face, [67]
+  Returning, like a ghost unlaid,                                  800
+  Until the debt I owe be paid.
+  Forgive me, then; for I had been
+  On friendly terms with this Machine: [M]
+  In him, while he was wont to trace
+  Our roads, through many a long year's space,                     805
+  A living almanack had we;
+  We had a speaking diary,
+  That in this uneventful place,
+  Gave to the days a mark and name
+  By which we knew them when they came.                            810
+--Yes, I, and all about me here,
+  Through all the changes of the year,
+  Had seen him through the mountains go,
+  In pomp of mist or pomp of snow,
+  Majestically huge and slow:                                      815
+  Or, with a milder grace [68] adorning
+  The landscape of a summer's morning;
+  While Grasmere smoothed her liquid plain
+  The moving image to detain;
+  And mighty Fairfield, with a chime                               820
+  Of echoes, to his march kept time;
+  When little other business stirred,
+  And little other sound was heard;
+  In that delicious hour of balm,
+  Stillness, solitude, and calm,                                   825
+  While yet the valley is arrayed,
+  On this side with a sober shade;
+  On that is prodigally bright--
+  Crag, lawn, and wood--with rosy light.
+--But most of all, thou lordly Wain!                             830
+  I wish to have thee here again,
+  When windows flap and chimney roars,
+  And all is dismal out of doors;
+  And, sitting by my fire, I see
+  Eight sorry carts, no less a train!                              835
+  Unworthy successors of thee,
+  Come straggling through the wind and rain:
+  And oft, as they pass slowly on,
+  Beneath my windows, [69] one by one,
+  See, perched upon the naked height                               840
+  The summit of a cumbrous freight,
+  A single traveller--and there
+  Another; then perhaps a pair--
+  The lame, the sickly, and the old;
+  Men, women, heartless with the cold;                             845
+  And babes in wet and starveling plight;
+  Which once, [70] be weather as it might,
+  Had still a nest within a nest,
+  Thy shelter--and their mother's breast!
+  Then most of all, then far the most,                             850
+  Do I regret what we have lost;
+  Am grieved for that unhappy sin
+  Which robbed us of good Benjamin;--
+  And of his stately Charge, which none
+  Could keep alive when He was gone!                               855
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
+
+[Variant 1:
+
+1819.
+
+  The Night-hawk is singing his frog-like tune,
+  Twirling his watchman's rattle about--1805. MS. [a]
+
+  The dor-hawk, solitary bird,
+  Round the dim crags on heavy pinions wheeling,
+  Buzzes incessantly, a tiresome tune;
+  That constant voice is all that can be heard     1820.
+
+  ... on heavy pinions wheeling,
+  With untired voice sings an unvaried tune;
+  Those burring notes are all that can be heard    1836.
+
+The text of 1845 returns to the first version of 1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 2:
+
+1819.
+
+    Now that the children are abed
+  The little glow-worms nothing dread,
+  Such prize as their bright lamps would be.
+  Sooth they come in company,
+  And shine in quietness secure,
+  On the mossy bank by the cottage door,
+  As safe as on the loneliest moor.
+  In the play, or on the hill,
+  Everything is hushed and still;
+  The clouds show here and there a spot
+  Of a star that twinkles not,
+  The air as in ...
+
+From a MS. copy of the poem in Henry Crabb Robinson's 'Diary, etc'.
+1812.
+
+    Now that the children's busiest schemes
+  Do all lie buried in blank sleep,
+  Or only live in stirring dreams,
+  The glow-worms fearless watch may keep;
+  Rich prize as their bright lamps would be,
+  They shine, a quiet company,
+  On mossy bank by cottage-door,
+  As safe as on the loneliest moor.
+  In hazy straits the clouds between,
+  And in their stations twinkling not,
+  Some thinly-sprinkled stars are seen,
+  Each changed into a pallid spot.              1836.
+
+The text of 1845 returns to that of 1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 3:
+
+1836.
+
+  The mountains rise to wond'rous height,
+  And in the heavens there is a weight;        1819.
+
+  And in the heavens there hangs a weight;     1827.
+
+In the editions of 1819 to 1832, these two lines follow the line "Like
+the stifling of disease."]
+
+
+[Variant 4:
+
+1819.
+
+  ... faint ...      1836.
+
+The text of 1845 returns to that of 1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 5:
+
+1819.
+
+
+  But welcome dews ...      1836.
+
+The text of 1845 returns to that of 1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 6:
+
+1819.
+
+  ... or ...      1836.
+
+The text of 1845 returns to that of 1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 7:
+
+1819.
+
+  Listen! you can hardly hear!
+  Now he has left the lower ground,
+  And up the hill his course is bending,
+  With many a stop and stay ascending;--1836.
+
+The text of 1845 returns to that of 1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 8:
+
+1836.
+
+  And now ...       1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 9:
+
+1836.
+
+  Gathering ...       1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 10:
+
+1819.
+
+  No;--him infirmities beset,
+  But danger is not near him yet;       1836.
+
+The text of 1845 returns to that of 1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 11:
+
+1836.
+
+  is he secure;     1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 12:
+
+1836.
+
+  full well         1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 13:
+
+1836.
+
+  Uncouth although the object be,
+  An image of perplexity;
+  Yet not the less it is our boast,    1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 14:
+
+1827.
+
+  ... I frame ...    1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 15:
+
+1836
+
+  And never was my heart more light.      1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 16:
+
+1836.
+
+   ... will bless ...     1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 17:
+
+1836.
+
+   ... delight, ...       1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 18:
+
+1836.
+
+  Good proof of this the Country gain'd,
+  One day, when ye were vex'd and strain'd--
+  Entrusted to another's care,
+  And forc'd unworthy stripes to bear.     1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 19:
+
+1836. (Expanding four lines into six.)
+
+  Here was it--on this rugged spot
+  Which now contented with our lot
+  We climb--that piteously abused
+  Ye plung'd in anger and confused:     1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 20:
+
+1836.
+
+    ... in your ...       1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 21:
+
+1836.
+
+  The ranks were taken with one mind;      1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 22:
+
+1819.
+
+  Our road be, narrow, steep, and rough;      1836.
+
+The text of 1845 returns to that of 1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 23:
+
+1836.
+
+  large drops upon his head       1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 24:
+
+1836.
+
+  He starts-and, at the admonition,
+  Takes a survey of his condition.       1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 25:
+
+1836.
+
+A huge and melancholy room,       1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 26:
+
+1836.
+
+  ...  on high ...   1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 27: 1836. The previous four lines were added in the edition of
+1820, where they read as follows:
+
+  And suddenly a ruffling breeze
+  (That would have sounded through the trees
+  Had aught of sylvan growth been there)
+  Was felt throughout the region bare:       1820.]
+
+
+[Variant 28:
+
+1836.
+
+  By peals of thunder, clap on clap!
+  And many a terror-striking flash;--
+  And somewhere, as it seems, a crash,     1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 29:
+
+1820.
+
+  And rattling  ...      1819,]
+
+
+[Variant 30:
+
+1836. (Compressing six lines into four.)
+
+  The voice, to move commiseration,
+  Prolong'd its earnest supplication--
+  "This storm that beats so furiously--
+  This dreadful place! oh pity me!"
+
+  While this was said, with sobs between,
+  And many tears, by one unseen;         1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 31:
+
+1845.
+
+  And Benjamin, without further question,
+  Taking her for some way-worn rover,          1819.
+
+  And, kind to every way-worn rover,
+  Benjamin, without a question,                1836.]
+
+
+[Variant 32:
+
+1820.
+
+  ... trouble ...      1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 33:
+
+1845.
+
+  And to a little tent hard by
+  Turns the Sailor instantly;         1819.
+
+  And to his tent-like domicile,
+  Built in a nook with cautious skill,
+  The Sailor turns, well pleased to spy
+  His shaggy friend who stood hard by
+  Drenched--and, more fast than with a tether,
+  Bound to the nook by that fierce weather,
+  Which caught the vagrants unaware:
+  For, when, ere closing-in ...       1836.]
+
+
+[Variant 34:
+
+1836.
+
+  Had tempted ...      1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 35:
+
+1836.
+
+  Proceeding with an easy mind;
+  While he, who had been left behind,      1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 36:
+
+1820.
+
+  Who neither heard nor saw--no more
+  Than if he had been deaf and blind,
+  Till, startled by the Sailor's roar,      1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 37:
+
+1819.
+
+  That blew us hither! dance, boys, dance!
+  Rare luck for us! my honest soul,
+  I'll treat thee to a friendly bowl!"      1836.
+
+The text of 1845 returns to that of 1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 38:
+
+1836.
+
+  To _seek_ for thoughts of painful cast,
+  If such be the amends at last.          1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 39:
+
+1836.
+
+   ... think ...       1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 40:
+
+1819.
+
+  For soon among ...        1836.
+
+The text of 1845 returns to that of 1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 41:
+
+1819.
+
+  And happiest far is he, the One
+  No longer with himself at strife,
+  A Caesar past the Rubicon!
+  The Sailor, Man by nature gay,
+  Found not a scruple in _his_ way;         1836.
+
+The text of 1845 returns to that of 1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 42:
+
+1836.
+
+  Deems that she is happier, laid
+  Within that warm and peaceful bed;       1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 43:
+
+1845.
+
+       With bowl in hand,
+       (It may not stand)
+  Gladdest of the gladsome band,
+  Amid their own delight and fun,       1819.
+
+    With bowl that sped from hand to hand,
+  Refreshed, brimful of hearty fun,
+  The gladdest of the gladsome band,       1836.]
+
+
+[Variant 44:
+
+1836.
+
+  They hear--when every fit is o'er--1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 45:
+
+1836.
+
+  ...  wondrous ...       1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 46:
+
+1836.
+
+  ... these ...           1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 47:
+
+1836.
+
+  ... the Mastiff's side,
+  (The Mastiff not well pleased to be
+  So very near such company.)     1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 48:
+
+1832.
+
+  ... all together, ...     1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 49:
+
+1836
+
+  ... sails ...     1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 50:
+
+1836.
+
+  On ...          1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 51:
+
+1836.
+
+  He's in the height ...       1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 52:
+
+1836.
+
+  He wheel'd--...      1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 53:
+
+1827.
+
+  And, rambling on ...        1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 54:
+
+1819.
+
+  Now hidden by the glittering steam:        1836.
+
+The text of 1845 returns to that of 1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 55:
+
+1845. The previous eight lines were added in 1836, when they read thus:
+
+  Say more: for by that power a vein
+  Seems opened of brow-saddening pain:
+  As if their hearts by notes were stung
+  From out the lowly hedge-rows flung;
+  As if the warbler lost in light
+  Reproved their soarings of the night;
+  In strains of rapture pure and holy
+  Upbraided their distempered folly.        1836.]
+
+
+[Variant 56:
+
+1845.
+
+  They are drooping, weak, and dull;           1819.
+
+  Drooping are they, and weak and dull;--1836.]
+
+
+[Variant 57:
+
+1836.
+
+  Knowing that there's cause ...      1819.
+
+  Knowing there is cause ...          1827.]
+
+
+[Variant 58:
+
+1845.
+
+  They are labouring to avert
+  At least a portion of the blame                1819.
+
+  They now are labouring to avert
+  (Kind creatures!) something of the blame,      1836.]
+
+
+[Variant 59:
+
+1836.
+
+  Which full surely will alight
+  Upon his head, whom, in despite
+  Of all his faults, they love the best;      1819.
+
+  Upon _his_ head, ...                        1820.]
+
+
+[Variant 60:
+
+1836.
+
+  Blends ...      1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 61:
+
+1845.
+
+  Never, surely, old Apollo,
+  He, or other God as old,
+  Of whom in story we are told,
+  Who had a favourite to follow
+  Through a battle or elsewhere,
+  Round the object of his care,
+  In a time of peril, threw
+  Veil of such celestial hue;          1819.
+
+  Never Venus or Apollo,
+  Pleased a favourite chief to follow
+  Through accidents of peace or war,
+  In a time of peril threw,
+  Round the object of his care,
+  Veil of such celestial hue;          1832.
+
+  Never golden-haired Apollo,
+  Nor blue-eyed Pallas, nor the Idalian Queen,
+  When each was pleased some favourite chief to follow
+  Through accidents of peace or war,
+  In a perilous moment threw
+  Around the object of celestial care
+  A veil so rich to mortal view.       1836.
+
+  Never Venus or Apollo,
+  Intent some favourite chief to follow
+  Through accidents of peace or war,
+  Round the object of their care
+  In a perilous moment threw
+  A veil of such celestial hue.        C.
+
+  Round each object of their care      C.]
+
+
+[Variant 62:
+
+1819.
+
+  Fails to shield ...      1836.
+
+The text of 1845 returns to that of 1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 63:
+
+1836.
+
+  Or ...       1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 64:
+
+1819.
+
+  If, as he cannot but forebode,      1836.
+
+The text of 1845 returns to that of 1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 65:
+
+1836.
+
+  Thou hast loitered ...       1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 66:
+
+1836.
+
+  His doubts--his fears ...       1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 67:
+
+1827. (Compressing two lines into one.)
+
+  Sometimes, as in the present case,
+  Will show a more familiar face;       1819.
+
+  Or, proud all rivalship to chase,
+  Will haunt me with familiar face;     1820.]
+
+
+[Variant 68:
+
+1819.
+
+  Or, with milder grace ...      1832.
+
+The edition of 1845 reverts to the text of 1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 69:
+
+1836.
+
+  ...  window ...      1819.]
+
+
+[Variant 70: "Once" 'italicised' in 1820 only.]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT
+
+[Footnote A: The title page of the edition of 1819 runs as follows: The
+Waggoner, A Poem. To which are added, Sonnets. By William Wordsworth.
+
+  "What's in a NAME?"
+  ...
+  "Brutus will start a Spirit as soon as Caesar!"
+
+London, etc. etc., 1819,--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote B: See 'The Seasons' (Summer), ll. 977-79.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote C: Such is the progress of refinement, this rude piece of
+self-taught art has been supplanted by a professional production.--W. W.
+1819.
+
+Mr. William Davies writes to me,
+
+  "I spent a week there (the Swan Inn) early in the fifties, and well
+  remember the sign over the door distinguishable from afar: the inn,
+  little more than a cottage (the only one), with clean well-sanded
+  floor, and rush-bottomed chairs: the landlady, good old soul, one day
+  afraid of burdening me with some old coppers, insisted on retaining
+  them till I should return from an uphill walk, when they were duly
+  tendered to me. Here I learnt many particulars of Hartley Coleridge,
+  dead shortly before, who had been a great favourite with the host and
+  hostess. The grave of Wordsworth was at that time barely grassed
+  over."--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote D: See Wordsworth's note [Note I to this poem, below], p.
+109.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote E: A mountain of Grasmere, the broken summit of which presents
+two figures, full as distinctly shaped as that of the famous cobler,
+near Arracher, in Scotland.--W. W. 1819.]
+
+
+[Footnote F: A term well known in the North of England, as applied to
+rural Festivals, where young persons meet in the evening for the purpose
+of dancing.--W. W. 1819.]
+
+
+[Footnote G: At the close of each strathspey, or jig, a particular note
+from the fiddle summons the Rustic to the agreeable duty of saluting his
+Partner.--W. W. 1819.]
+
+
+[Footnote H: Compare in 'Tristram Shandy':
+
+  "And this, said he, is the town of Namur, and this is the citadel: and
+  there lay the French, and here lay his honour and myself."--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote J: See Wordsworth's note [Note III to this poem, below], p.
+109.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote K: The crag of the ewe lamb.--W. W. 1820.]
+
+
+[Footnote L: Compare Tennyson's "Farewell, we lose ourselves in
+light."--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote M: Compare Wordsworth's lines, beginning, "She was a Phantom
+of delight," p. i, and Hamlet, act II. sc. ii. l. 124.--Ed.]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SUB-FOOTNOTE ON THE TEXT
+
+[Sub-Footnote a: See Wordsworth's note [Note II to the poem, below], p.
+109.--Ed.]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NOTES ON THE TEXT
+
+(Added in the edition of 1836)
+
+
+I
+
+Several years after the event that forms the subject of the foregoing
+poem, in company with my friend, the late Mr. Coleridge, I happened to
+fall in with the person to whom the name of Benjamin is given. Upon our
+expressing regret that we had not, for a long time, seen upon the road
+either him or his waggon, he said:--"They could not do without me; and
+as to the man who was put in my place, no good could come out of him; he
+was a man of no _ideas_."
+
+The fact of my discarded hero's getting the horses out of a great
+difficulty with a word, as related in the poem, was told me by an
+eye-witness.
+
+
+II
+
+  'The Dor-hawk, solitary bird.'
+
+When the Poem was first written the note of the bird was thus described:
+
+  'The Night-hawk is singing his frog-like tune,
+  Twirling his watchman's rattle about--'
+
+but from unwillingness to startle the reader at the outset by so bold a
+mode of expression, the passage was altered as it now stands.
+
+
+III
+
+After the line, 'Can any mortal clog come to her', followed in the MS.
+an incident which has been kept back. Part of the suppressed verses
+shall here be given as a gratification of private feeling, which the
+well-disposed reader will find no difficulty in excusing. They are now
+printed for the first time.
+
+  Can any mortal clog come to her?
+  It can: ...
+  ...
+  But Benjamin, in his vexation,
+  Possesses inward consolation;
+  He knows his ground, and hopes to find
+  A spot with all things to his mind,
+  An upright mural block of stone,
+  Moist with pure water trickling down.
+  A slender spring; but kind to man
+  It is, a true Samaritan;
+  Close to the highway, pouring out
+  Its offering from a chink or spout;
+  Whence all, howe'er athirst, or drooping
+  With toil, may drink, and without stooping.
+
+    Cries Benjamin, "Where is it, where?
+  Voice it hath none, but must be near."
+--A star, declining towards the west,
+  Upon the watery surface threw
+  Its image tremulously imprest,
+  That just marked out the object and withdrew:
+  Right welcome service! ...
+  ...
+
+                         ROCK OF NAMES!
+  Light is the strain, but not unjust
+  To Thee and thy memorial-trust,
+  That once seemed only to express
+  Love that was love in idleness;
+  Tokens, as year hath followed year,
+  How changed, alas, in character!
+  For they were graven on thy smooth breast
+  By hands of those my soul loved best;
+  Meek women, men as true and brave
+  As ever went to a hopeful grave:
+  Their hands and mine, when side by side
+  With kindred zeal and mutual pride,
+  We worked until the Initials took
+  Shapes that defied a scornful look.--
+  Long as for us a genial feeling
+  Survives, or one in need of healing,
+  The power, dear Rock, around thee cast,
+  Thy monumental power, shall last
+  For me and mine! O thought of pain,
+  That would impair it or profane!
+  Take all in kindness then, as said
+  With a staid heart but playful head;
+  And fail not Thou, loved Rock! to keep
+  Thy charge when we are laid asleep.
+
+W. W.
+
+
+
+There is no poem more closely identified with the Grasmere district of
+the English Lakes--and with the road from Grasmere to Keswick--than 'The
+Waggoner' is, and in none are the topographical allusions more minute
+and faithful.
+
+Wordsworth seemed at a loss to know in what "class" of his poems to
+place 'The Waggoner;' and his frequent changes--removing it from one
+group to another--shew the artificial character of these classes. Thus,
+in the edition of 1820, it stood first among the "Poems of the Fancy."
+In 1827 it was the last of the "Poems founded on the Affections." In
+1832 it was reinstated among the "Poems of the Fancy." In 1836 it had a
+place of its own, and was inserted between the "Poems of the Fancy" and
+those "Founded on the Affections;" while in 1845 it was sent back to its
+original place among the "Poems of the Fancy;" although in the table of
+contents it was printed as an independent poem, closing the series.
+
+The original text of 'The Waggoner' underwent little change, till the
+year 1836, when it was carefully revised, and altered throughout. The
+final edition of 1845, however, reverted, in many instances--especially
+in the first canto--to the original text of 1819.
+
+As this poem was dedicated to Charles Lamb, it may be of interest to
+note that, some six months afterwards, Lamb presented Wordsworth with a
+copy of the first edition of 'Paradise Regained' (the edition of 1671),
+writing on it the following sentence,
+
+  "Charles Lamb, to the best knower of Milton, and therefore the
+  worthiest occupant of this pleasant edition.--Jan. 2nd, 1820."
+
+The opening stanzas are unrivalled in their description of a sultry June
+evening, with a thunder-storm imminent.
+
+  ' 'Tis spent--this burning day of June!
+  Soft darkness o'er its latest gleams is stealing;
+  The buzzing dor-hawk, round and round, is wheeling,--
+  That solitary bird
+  Is all that can be heard
+  In silence deeper far than that of deepest noon!
+  ...
+  ...
+  The mountains against heaven's grave weight
+  Rise up, and grow to wondrous height.
+  The air, as in a lion's den,
+  Is close and hot;--and now and then
+  Comes a tired and sultry breeze
+  With a haunting and a panting,
+  Like the stifling of disease;
+  But the dews allay the heat,
+  And the silence makes it sweet.'
+
+
+The Waggoner takes what is now the middle road, of the three leading
+from Rydal to Grasmere (see the note to 'The Primrose of the Rock'). The
+"craggy hill" referred to in the lines
+
+  'Now he leaves the lower ground,
+  And up the craggy hill ascending
+  ...
+  Steep the way and wearisome,'
+
+is the road from Rydal Quarry up to White Moss Common, with the Glowworm
+rock on the right, and the "two heath-clad rocks," referred to in the
+last of the "Poems on the Naming of Places," on the left. He next passes
+"The Wishing Gate" on the left, John's Grove on the right, and descends
+by Dove Cottage--where Wordsworth lived--to Grasmere.
+
+  '... at the bottom of the brow,
+  Where once the DOVE and OLIVE-BOUGH
+  Offered a greeting of good ale
+  To all who entered Grasmere Vale;
+  And called on him who must depart
+  To leave it with a jovial heart;
+  There, where the DOVE and OLIVE-BOUGH
+  Once hung, a Poet harbours now,
+  A simple water-drinking Bard.'
+
+He goes through Grasmere, passes the Swan Inn,
+
+  'He knows it to his cost, good Man!
+  Who does not know the famous SWAN?
+  Object uncouth! and yet our boast,
+  For it was painted by the Host;
+  His own conceit the figure planned,
+  'Twas coloured all by his own hand.'
+
+As early as 1819, when the poem was first published, "this rude piece of
+self-taught art had been supplanted" by a more pretentious figure. The
+Waggoner passes the Swan,
+
+  'And now the conqueror essays
+  The long ascent of Dunmail-raise.'
+
+As he proceeds, the storm gathers, and "struggles to get free." Road,
+hill, and sky are dark; and he barely sees the well-known rocks at the
+summit of Helm-crag, where two figures seem to sit, like those on the
+Cobbler, near Arrochar, in Argyle.
+
+  'Black is the sky--and every hill,
+  Up to the sky, is blacker still--
+  Sky, hill, and dale, one dismal room,
+  Hung round and overhung with gloom;
+  Save that above a single height
+  Is to be seen a lurid light,
+  Above Helm-crag--a streak half dead,
+  A burning of portentous red;
+  And near that lurid light, full well
+  The ASTROLOGER, sage Sidrophel,
+  Where at his desk and book he sits,
+  Puzzling aloft his curious wits;
+  He whose domain is held in common
+  With no one but the ANCIENT WOMAN,
+  Cowering beside her rifted cell,
+  As if intent on magic spell;--
+  Dread pair, that, spite of wind and weather,
+  Still sit upon Helm-crag together!'
+
+At the top of the "raise"--the water-shed between the vales of Grasmere
+and Wytheburn--he reaches the familiar pile of stones, at the boundary
+between the shires of Westmoreland and Cumberland.
+
+  '... that pile of stones,
+  Heaped over brave King Dunmail's bones;
+  ...
+  Green is the grass for beast to graze,
+  Around the stones of Dunmail-raise!'
+
+The allusion to Seat-Sandal laid bare by the flash of lightning, and the
+description, in the last canto, of the ascent of the Raise by the
+Waggoner on a summer morning, are as true to the spirit of the place as
+anything that Wordsworth has written. He tells his friend Lamb, fourteen
+years after he wrote the poem of 'The Waggoner,'
+
+  'Yes, I, and all about me here,
+  Through all the changes of the year,
+  Had seen him through the mountains go,
+  In pomp of mist or pomp of snow,
+  Majestically huge and slow:
+  Or, with a milder grace adorning
+  The landscape of a summer's morning;
+  While Grasmere smoothed her liquid plain
+  The moving image to detain;
+  And mighty Fairfield, with a chime
+  Of echoes, to his march kept time;
+  When little other business stirred,
+  And little other sound was heard;
+  In that delicious hour of balm,
+  Stillness, solitude, and calm,
+  While yet the valley is arrayed,
+  On this side with a sober shade;
+  On that is prodigally bright--
+  Crag, lawn, and wood--with rosy light.'
+
+From Dunmail-raise the Waggoner descends to Wytheburn. Externally,
+
+  '... Wytheburn's modest House of prayer,
+  As lowly as the lowliest dwelling,'
+
+remains very much as it was in 1805; but the primitive simplicity and
+"lowliness" of the chapel was changed by the addition a few years ago of
+an apse, by the removal of some of the old rafters, and by the reseating
+of the pews.
+
+The Cherry Tree Tavern, where "the village Merry-night" was being
+celebrated, still stands on the eastern or Helvellyn side of the road.
+It is now a farm-house; but it will be regarded with interest from the
+description of the rustic dance, which recalls ('longo intervallo') 'The
+Jolly Beggars' of Burns. After two hours' delay at the Cherry Tree, the
+Waggoner and Sailor "coast the silent lake" of Thirlmere, and pass the
+Rock of Names.
+
+This rock was, until lately, one of the most interesting memorials of
+Wordsworth and his friends that survived in the Lake District; but the
+vale of Thirlmere is now a Manchester water-tank, and the place which
+knew the Rock of Names now knows it no more. It was a sort of trysting
+place of the poets of Grasmere and Keswick--being nearly half-way
+between the two places--and there, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and other
+members of their households often met. When Coleridge left Grasmere for
+Keswick, the Wordsworths usually accompanied him as far as this rock;
+and they often met him there on his way over from Keswick to Grasmere.
+Compare the Hon. Mr. Justice Coleridge's Reminiscences. ('Memoirs of
+Wordsworth,' vol. ii. p. 310.)
+
+The rock was on the right hand of the road, a little way past Waterhead,
+at the southern end of Thirlmere; and on it were cut the letters,
+
+  W. W.
+  M. H.
+  D. W.
+  S. T. C.
+  J. W.
+  S. H.
+
+the initials of William Wordsworth, Mary Hutchinson, Dorothy Wordsworth,
+Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Wordsworth, and Sarah Hutchinson. The
+Wordsworths settled at Grasmere at the close of the year 1799. As
+mentioned in a previous note, John Wordsworth lived with his brother and
+sister during most of that winter, and during the whole of the spring,
+summer, and autumn of 1800, leaving it finally on September 29, 1800.
+These names must therefore have been cut during the spring or summer of
+1800. There is no record of the occurrence, and no allusion to the rock,
+in Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal of 1800. But that Journal, so
+far as I have seen it, begins on the 14th of May 1800. Almost every
+detail of the daily life and ways of the household at Dove Cottage is so
+minutely recorded in it, that I am convinced that this incident of the
+cutting of names in the Thirlmere Rock would have been mentioned, had it
+happened between the 14th of May and John Wordsworth's departure from
+Grasmere in September. Such references as this, for example, occur in
+the Journal:
+
+  "Saturday, August 2.--William and Coleridge went to Keswick. John went
+  with them to Wytheburn, and staid all day fishing."
+
+I therefore infer that it was in the spring or early summer of 1800 that
+the names were cut.
+
+I may add that the late Dean of Westminster--Dean Stanley--took much
+interest in this Rock of Names; and doubt having been cast on the
+accuracy of the place and the genuineness of the inscriptions, in a
+letter from Dr. Fraser, then Bishop of Manchester, which he forwarded to
+me, he entered into the question with all the interest with which he was
+wont to track out details in the architecture or the history of a
+Church.
+
+There were few memorials connected with Wordsworth more worthy of
+preservation than this "upright mural block of stone." When one
+remembered that the initials on the rock were graven by the hands of
+William and John Wordsworth, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, possibly with
+the assistance of Dorothy Wordsworth, the two Hutchinsons (Mary and
+Sarah), and that Wordsworth says of it,
+
+  'We worked until the Initials took
+  Shapes that defied a scornful look,'
+
+this Thirlmere Rock was felt to be a far more interesting memento of the
+group of poets that used to meet beside it, than the Stone in the
+grounds of Rydal Mount, which was spared at Wordsworth's suit, "from
+some rude beauty of its own." There was simplicity, as well as strength,
+in the way in which the initials were cut. But the stone was afterwards
+desecrated by tourists, and others, who had the audacity to scratch
+their own names or initials upon it. In 1877 I wrote, "The rock is as
+yet wonderfully free from such; and its preservation is probably due to
+the dark olive-coloured moss, with which the 'pure water trickling down'
+has covered the face of the 'mural block,' and thus secured it from
+observation, even on that highway;" but I found in the summer of 1882
+that several other names had been ruthlessly added. When the Manchester
+Thirlmere scheme was finally resolved upon, an effort was made to remove
+the Stone, with the view of its being placed higher up the hill on the
+side of the new roadway. In the course of this attempt, the Stone was
+broken to pieces.
+
+There is a very good drawing of "The Rock of Names" by Mr. Harry
+Goodwin, in 'Through the Wordsworth Country, 1892'.
+
+"The Muse" takes farewell of the Waggoner as he is proceeding with the
+Sailor and his quaint model of the 'Vanguard' along the road toward
+Keswick. She "scents the morning air," and
+
+  'Quits the slow-paced waggon's side,
+  To wander down yon hawthorn dell,
+  With murmuring Greta for her guide.'
+
+The "hawthorn dell" is the upper part of the Vale of St. John.
+
+  '--There doth she ken the awful form
+  Of Raven-crag--black as a storm--
+  Glimmering through the twilight pale;
+  And Ghimmer-crag, his tall twin brother,
+  Each peering forth to meet the other.'
+
+Raven-crag is well known,--H.C. Robinson writes of it in his 'Diary' in
+1818, as "the most significant of the crags at a spot where there is not
+one insignificant,"--a rock on the western side of Thirlmere, where the
+Greta issues from the lake. But there is no rock in the district now
+called by the name of Ghimmer-crag, or the crag of the Ewe-lamb. I am
+inclined to think that Wordsworth referred to the "Fisher-crag" of the
+Ordnance Survey and the Guide Books. No other rock round Thirlmere can
+with any accuracy be called the "tall twin brother" of Raven-crag:
+certainly not Great How, nor any spur of High Seat or Bleaberry Fell.
+Fisher-crag resembles Raven-crag, as seen from Thirlmere Bridge, or from
+the high road above it; and it is somewhat remarkable that Green--in his
+Guide to the Lakes (a volume which the poet possessed)--makes use of the
+same expression as that which Wordsworth adopts regarding these two
+crags, Raven and Fisher.
+
+  "The margin of the lake on the Dalehead side has its charms of wood
+  and water; and Fischer Crag, twin brother to Raven Crag, is no bad
+  object, when taken near the island called Buck's Holm"
+
+('A Description of Sixty Studies from Nature', by William Green of
+Ambleside, 1810, p. 57). I cannot find any topographical allusion to a
+Ghimmer-crag in contemporary local writers. Clarke, in his 'Survey of
+the Lakes', does not mention it.
+
+The Castle Rock, in the Vale of Legberthwaite, between High Fell and
+Great How, is the fairy castle of Sir Walter Scott's 'Bridal of
+Triermain'. "Nathdale Fell" is the ridge between Naddle Vale (Nathdale
+Vale) and that of St. John, now known as High Rigg. The old Hall of
+Threlkeld has long been in a state of ruinous dilapidation, the only
+habitable part of it having been for many years converted into a
+farmhouse. The remaining local allusions in 'The Waggoner' are obvious
+enough: Castrigg is the shortened form of Castlerigg, the ridge between
+Naddle Valley and Keswick.
+
+In the "Reminiscences" of Wordsworth, which the Hon. Mr. Justice
+Coleridge wrote for the late Bishop of Lincoln, in 1850, there is the
+following reference to 'The Waggoner'. (See 'Memoirs', vol. ii. p. 310.)
+
+  "'The Waggoner' seems a very favourite poem of his. He said his object
+  in it had not been understood. It was a play of the fancy on a
+  domestic incident, and lowly character. He wished by the opening
+  descriptive lines to put his reader into the state of mind in which he
+  wished it to be read. If he failed in doing that, he wished him to lay
+  it down. He pointed out with the same view, the glowing lines on the
+  state of exultation in which Ben and his companions are under the
+  influence of liquor. Then he read the sickening languor of the morning
+  walk, contrasted with the glorious uprising of Nature, and the songs
+  of the birds. Here he has added about six most exquisite lines."
+
+The lines referred to are doubtless the eight (p. 101), beginning
+
+  'Say more; for by that power a vein,'
+
+which were added in the edition of 1836.
+
+The following is Sara Coleridge's criticism of 'The Waggoner'. (See
+'Biographia Literaria', vol. ii. pp. 183, 184, edition 1847.)
+
+  "Due honour is done to 'Peter Bell', at this time, by students of
+  poetry in general; but some, even of Mr. Wordsworth's greatest
+  admirers, do not quite satisfy me in their admiration of 'The
+  Waggoner', a poem which my dear uncle, Mr. Southey, preferred even to
+  the former. 'Ich will meine Denkungs Art hierin niemandem aufdringen',
+  as Lessing says: I will force my way of thinking on nobody, but take
+  the liberty, for my own gratification, to express it. The sketches of
+  hill and valley in this poem have a lightness, and spirit--an Allegro
+  touch--distinguishing them from the grave and elevated splendour which
+  characterises Mr. Wordsworth's representations of Nature in general,
+  and from the passive tenderness of those in 'The White Doe', while it
+  harmonises well with the human interest of the piece; indeed it is the
+  harmonious sweetness of the composition which is most dwelt upon by
+  its special admirers. In its course it describes, with bold brief
+  touches, the striking mountain tract from Grasmere to Keswick; it
+  commences with an evening storm among the mountains, presents a lively
+  interior of a country inn during midnight, and concludes after
+  bringing us in sight of St. John's Vale and the Vale of Keswick seen
+  by day-break--'Skiddaw touched with rosy light,' and the prospect from
+  Nathdale Fell 'hoar with the frost-like dews of dawn:' thus giving a
+  beautiful and well-contrasted Panorama, produced by the most delicate
+  and masterly strokes of the pencil. Well may Mr. Ruskin, a fine
+  observer and eloquent describer of various classes of natural
+  appearances, speak of Mr. Wordsworth as the great poetic landscape
+  painter of the age. But Mr. Ruskin has found how seldom the great
+  landscape painters are powerful in expressing human passions and
+  affections on canvas, or even successful in the introduction of human
+  figures into their foregrounds; whereas in the poetic paintings of Mr.
+  Wordsworth the landscape is always subordinate to a higher interest;
+  certainly, in 'The Waggoner', the little sketch of human nature which
+  occupies, as it were, the front of that encircling background, the
+  picture of Benjamin and his temptations, his humble friends and the
+  mute companions of his way, has a character of its own, combining with
+  sportiveness a homely pathos, which must ever be delightful to some of
+  those who are thoroughly conversant with the spirit of Mr.
+  Wordsworth's poetry. It may be compared with the ale-house scene in
+  'Tam o'Shanter', parts of Voss's Luise, or Ovid's Baucis and Philemon;
+  though it differs from each of them as much as they differ from each
+  other. The Epilogue carries on the feeling of the piece very
+  beautifully."
+
+The editor of Southey's 'Life and Correspondence'--his son, the Rev.
+Charles Cuthbert Southey--tells us, in a note to a letter from S.T.
+Coleridge to his father, that the Waggoner's name was Jackson; and that
+"all the circumstances of the poem are accurately correct." This
+Jackson, after retiring from active work as waggoner, became the tenant
+of Greta Hall, where first Coleridge, and afterwards Southey lived. The
+Hall was divided into two houses, one of which Jackson occupied, and the
+other of which he let to Coleridge, who speaks thus of him in the letter
+to Southey, dated Greta Hall, Keswick, April 13, 1801:
+
+  "My landlord, who dwells next door, has a very respectable library,
+  which he has put with mine; histories, encyclopedias, and all the
+  modern poetry, etc. etc. etc. A more truly disinterested man I never
+  met with; severely frugal, yet almost carelessly generous; and yet he
+  got all his money as a common carrier, by hard labour, and by pennies
+  and pennies. He is one instance among many in this country of the
+  salutary effect of the love of knowledge--he was from a boy a lover of
+  learning."
+
+(See 'Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey,' vol. ii. pp. 147,
+148.)
+
+Charles Lamb--to whom 'The Waggoner' was dedicated--wrote thus to
+Wordsworth on 7th June 1819:
+
+  "My dear Wordsworth,--You cannot imagine how proud we are here of the
+  dedication. We read it twice for once that we do the poem. I mean all
+  through; yet 'Benjamin' is no common favourite; there is a spirit of
+  beautiful tolerance in it. It is as good as it was in 1806; and it
+  will be as good in 1829, if our dim eyes shall be awake to peruse it.
+  Methinks there is a kind of shadowing affinity between the subject of
+  the narrative and the subject of the dedication.
+   ...
+  "I do not know which I like best,--the prologue (the latter part
+  especially) to 'P. Bell,' or the epilogue to 'Benjamin.' Yes, I tell
+  stories; I do know I like the last best; and the 'Waggoner' altogether
+  is a pleasanter remembrance to me than the 'Itinerant.'
+  ...
+  "C. LAMB."
+
+(See 'The Letters of Charles Lamb,' edited by Alfred Ainger, vol. ii.
+pp. 24-26.)
+
+To this may be added what Southey wrote to Mr. Wade Browne on 15th June
+1819:
+
+  "I think you will be pleased with Wordsworth's 'Waggoner', if it were
+  only for the line of road which it describes. The master of the waggon
+  was my poor landlord Jackson, and the cause of his exchanging it for
+  the one-horse cart was just as is represented in the poem; nobody but
+  Benjamin could manage it upon these hills, and Benjamin could not
+  resist the temptations by the wayside."
+
+(See 'The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey', vol. iv. p.
+318.)--Ed.
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+THE PRELUDE,
+
+OR, GROWTH OF A POET'S MIND;
+
+AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL POEM
+
+
+Composed 1799-1805.--Published 1850
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT
+
+The following Poem was commenced in the beginning of the year 1799, and
+completed in the summer of 1805.
+
+The design and occasion of the work are described by the Author in his
+Preface to the EXCURSION, first published in 1814, where he thus speaks:
+
+  "Several years ago, when the Author retired to his native mountains
+  with the hope of being enabled to construct a literary work that might
+  live, it was a reasonable thing that he should take a review of his
+  own mind, and examine how far Nature and Education had qualified him
+  for such an employment.
+
+  "As subsidiary to this preparation, he undertook to record, in verse,
+  the origin and progress of his own powers, as far as he was acquainted
+  with them.
+
+  "That work, addressed to a dear friend, most distinguished for his
+  knowledge and genius, and to whom the author's intellect is deeply
+  indebted, has been long finished; and the result of the investigation
+  which gave rise to it, was a determination to compose a philosophical
+  Poem, containing views of Man, Nature, and Society, and to be entitled
+  'The Recluse;' as having for its principal subject the sensations and
+  opinions of a poet living in retirement.
+
+  "The preparatory poem is biographical, and conducts the history of the
+  Author's mind to the point when he was emboldened to hope that his
+  faculties were sufficiently matured for entering upon the arduous
+  labour which he had proposed to himself; and the two works have the
+  same kind of relation to each other, if he may so express himself, as
+  the Ante-chapel has to the body of a Gothic Church. Continuing this
+  allusion, he may be permitted to add, that his minor pieces, which
+  have been long before the public, when they shall be properly
+  arranged, will be found by the attentive reader to have such
+  connection with the main work as may give them claim to be likened to
+  the little cells, oratories, and sepulchral recesses, ordinarily
+  included in those edifices."
+
+Such was the Author's language in the year 1814.
+
+It will thence be seen, that the present Poem was intended to be
+introductory to the RECLUSE, and that the RECLUSE, if completed, would
+have consisted of Three Parts. Of these, the Second Part alone, viz. the
+EXCURSION, was finished, and given to the world by the Author.
+
+The First Book of the First Part of the RECLUSE still remains in
+manuscript; but the Third Part was only planned. The materials of which
+it would have been formed have, however, been incorporated, for the most
+part, in the Author's other Publications, written subsequently to the
+EXCURSION.
+
+The Friend, to whom the present Poem is addressed, was the late SAMUEL
+TAYLOR COLERIDGE, who was resident in Malta, for the restoration of his
+health, when the greater part of it was composed.
+
+Mr. Coleridge read a considerable portion of the Poem while he was
+abroad; and his feelings, on hearing it recited by the Author (after his
+return to his own country) are recorded in his Verses, addressed to Mr.
+Wordsworth, which will be found in the 'Sibylline Leaves,' p. 197,
+edition 1817, or 'Poetical Works, by S. T. Coleridge,' vol. i. p. 206.
+
+RYDAL MOUNT, _July 13th_, 1850.
+
+
+This "advertisement" to the first edition of 'The Prelude,' published in
+1850--the year of Wordsworth's death--was written by Mr. Carter, who
+edited the volume. Mr. Carter was for many years the poet's secretary,
+and afterwards one of his literary executors. The poem was not only kept
+back from publication during Wordsworth's life-time, but it remained
+without a title; being alluded to by himself, when he spoke or wrote of
+it, as "the poem on my own poetical education," the "poem on my own
+life," etc.
+
+As 'The Prelude' is autobiographical, a large part of Wordsworth's life
+might be written in the notes appended to it; but, besides breaking up
+the text of the poem unduly, this plan has many disadvantages, and would
+render a subsequent and detailed life of the poet either unnecessary or
+repetitive. The notes which follow will therefore be limited to the
+explanation of local, historical, and chronological allusions, or to
+references to Wordsworth's own career that are not obvious without them.
+It has been occasionally difficult to decide whether some of the
+allusions, to minute points in ancient history, mediaeval mythology, and
+contemporary politics, should be explained or left alone; but I have
+preferred to err on the side of giving a brief clue to details, with
+which every scholar is familiar.
+
+'The Prelude' was begun as Wordsworth left the imperial city of Goslar,
+in Lower Saxony, where he spent part of the last winter of last century,
+and which he left on the 10th of February 1799. Only lines 1 to 45,
+however, were composed at that time; and the poem was continued at
+desultory intervals after the settlement at Grasmere, during 1800, and
+following years. Large portions of it were dictated to his devoted
+amanuenses as he walked, or sat, on the terraces of Lancrigg. Six books
+were finished by 1805.
+
+  "The seventh was begun in the opening of that year; ... and the
+  remaining seven were written before the end of June 1805, when his
+  friend Coleridge was in the island of Malta, for the restoration of
+  his health."
+
+(The late Bishop of Lincoln.)
+
+There is no uncertainty as to the year in which the later books were
+written; but there is considerable difficulty in fixing the precise date
+of the earlier ones. Writing from Grasmere to his friend Francis
+Wrangham--the letter is undated--Wordsworth says,
+
+  "I am engaged in writing a poem on my own earlier life, which will
+  take five parts or books to complete, three of which are nearly
+  finished."
+
+The late Bishop of Lincoln supposed that this letter to Wrangham was
+written "at the close of 1803, or beginning of 1804." (See 'Memoirs of
+Wordsworth,' vol. i. p. 303.) There is evidence that it belongs to 1804.
+At the commencement of the seventh book, p. 247, he says:
+
+  _Six changeful years_ have vanished since I first
+  Poured out (saluted by that quickening breeze
+  Which met me issuing from the City's walls)
+  _A glad preamble to this Verse:_ I sang
+  Aloud, with fervour irresistible
+  Of short-lived transport, like a torrent bursting,
+  From a black thunder-cloud, down Scafell's side
+  To rush and disappear. But soon broke forth
+  (So willed the Muse) _a less impetuous stream,
+  That flowed awhile with unabating strength,
+  Then stopped for years; not audible again
+  Before last primrose-time._
+
+I have _italicised_ the clauses which give some clue to the dates of
+composition. From these it would appear that the "glad preamble,"
+written on leaving Goslar in 1799 (which, I think, included only the
+first two paragraphs of book first), was a "short-lived transport"; but
+that "soon" afterwards "a less impetuous stream" broke forth, which,
+after the settlement at Grasmere, "flowed awhile with unabating
+strength," and then "stopped for years." Now the above passage,
+recording these things, was written in 1805, and in the late autumn of
+that year; (as is evident from the reference which immediately follows
+to the "choir of redbreasts" and the approach of winter). We must
+therefore assign the flowing of the "less impetuous stream," to 1802; in
+order to leave room for the intervening "years," in which it ceased to
+flow, till it was audible again in the spring of 1804, "last
+primrose-time."
+
+A second reference to date occurs in the sixth book, p. 224, entitled
+"Cambridge and the Alps," in which he says,
+
+  _Four years and thirty, told, this very week,_
+  Have I been now a sojourner on earth.
+
+This fixes definitely enough the date of the composition of _that_ part
+of the work, _viz._ April 1804, which corresponds exactly to the "last
+primrose-time" of the previous extract from the seventh book, in which
+he tells us that after its long silence, his Muse was heard again. So
+far Wordsworth's own allusions to the date of 'The Prelude.'
+
+But there are others supplied by his own, and his sister's letters, and
+also by the Grasmere Journal. In the Dove Cottage household it was
+known, and talked of, as "the Poem to Coleridge;" and Dorothy records,
+on 11th January 1803, that her brother was working at it. On 13th
+February 1804, she writes to Mrs. Clarkson that her brother was engaged
+on a poem on his own life, and was "going on with great rapidity." On
+the 6th of March 1804, Wordsworth wrote from Grasmere to De Quincey,
+
+  "I am now writing a poem on my own earlier life: I have just finished
+  that part of it in which I speak of my residence at the University."
+  ... It is "better than half complete, viz. four books, amounting to
+  about 2500 lines."[A]
+
+On the 24th of March, Dorothy wrote to Mrs. Clarkson, that since
+Coleridge left them (which was in January 1804), her brother had added
+1500 lines to the poem on his own life. On the 29th of April 1804,
+Wordsworth wrote to Richard Sharpe,
+
+  "I have been very busy these last ten weeks: having written between
+  two and three thousand lines--accurately near three thousand--in that
+  time; namely, four books, and a third of another. I am at present at
+  the Seventh Book."
+
+On the 25th December 1804, he wrote to Sir George Beaumont,
+
+  "I have written upwards of 2000 verses during the last ten weeks."
+
+We thus find that Books I. to IV. had been written by the 6th of March
+1804, that from the 19th February to the 29th of April nearly 3000 lines
+were written, that March and April were specially productive months, for
+by the 29th April he had reached Book VII. while from 16th October to
+25th December he wrote over 2000 lines.
+
+Dorothy and Mary Wordsworth transcribed the earlier books more than
+once, and a copy of some of them was given to Coleridge to take with him
+to Malta.
+
+It is certain that the remaining books of 'The Prelude' were all written
+in the spring and early summer of 1805; the seventh, eighth, ninth,
+tenth, eleventh, and part of the twelfth being finished about the middle
+of April; the last 300 lines of book twelfth in the last week of April;
+and the two remaining books--the thirteenth and fourteenth--before the
+20th of May. The following extracts from letters of Wordsworth to Sir
+George Beaumont make this clear, and also cast light on matters much
+more important than the mere dates of composition.
+
+  GRASMERE, Dec. 25, 1804.
+
+  "My dear Sir George,--You will be pleased to hear that I have been
+  advancing with my work: I have written upwards of 2000 verses during
+  the last ten weeks. I do not know if you are exactly acquainted with
+  the plan of my poetical labour: It is twofold; first, a Poem, to be
+  called 'The Recluse;' in which it will be my object to express in
+  verse my most interesting feelings concerning man, nature, and
+  society; and next, a poem (in which I am at present chiefly engaged)
+  on _my earlier life, or the growth of my own mind,_ taken up upon a
+  large scale. This latter work I expect to have finished before the
+  month of May; and then I purpose to fall with all my might on the
+  former, which is the chief object upon which my thoughts have been
+  fixed these many years. Of this poem, that of 'The Pedlar,' which
+  Coleridge read to you, is part; and I may have written of it
+  altogether about 2000 lines. It will consist, I hope, of about ten or
+  twelve thousand."
+
+
+  GRASMERE, May 1, 1805.
+
+  "Unable to proceed with this work, [B] I turned my thoughts again to
+  the 'Poem on my own Life', and you will be glad to hear that I have
+  added 300 lines to it in the course of last week. Two books more will
+  conclude it. It will not be much less than 9000 lines,--not hundred
+  but thousand lines long,--an alarming length! and a thing
+  unprecedented in literary history that a man should talk so much about
+  himself. It is not self-conceit, as you will know well, that has
+  induced me to do this, but real humility. I began the work because I
+  was _unprepared_ to treat _any more arduous subject_, and _diffident
+  of my own powers_. Here, at least, I hoped that to a certain degree I
+  should be sure of succeeding, as I had nothing to do but describe what
+  I had felt and thought, and therefore could not easily be bewildered.
+  This might have been done in narrower compass by a man of more
+  address; but I have done my best. If, when the work shall be finished,
+  it appears to the judicious to have redundancies, they shall be lopped
+  off, if possible; but this is very difficult to do, when a man has
+  written with thought; and this defect, whenever I have suspected it or
+  found it to exist in any writings of mine, I have always found it
+  incurable. The fault lies too deep, and is in the first conception."
+
+
+  GRASMERE, June 3, 1805.
+
+  "I have the pleasure to say that I _finished my poem_ about a
+  fortnight ago. I had looked forward to the day as a most happy one;
+  ... But it was not a happy day for me; I was dejected on many
+  accounts: when I looked back upon the performance, it seemed to have a
+  dead weight about it,--the reality so far short of the expectation. It
+  was the first long labour that I had finished; and the doubt whether I
+  should ever live to write 'The Recluse', and the sense which I had of
+  this poem being so far below what I seemed capable of executing,
+  depressed me much; above all, many heavy thoughts of my poor departed
+  brother hung upon me, the joy which I should have had in showing him
+  the manuscript, and a thousand other vain fancies and dreams. I have
+  spoken of this, because it was a state of feeling new to me, the
+  occasion being new. This work may be considered as a sort of _portico_
+  to 'The Recluse', part of the same building, which I hope to be able,
+  ere long, to begin with in earnest; and if I am permitted to bring it
+  to a conclusion, and to write, further, a narrative poem of the epic
+  kind, I shall consider the task of my life as over. I ought to add,
+  that I have the satisfaction of finding the present poem not quite of
+  so alarming a length as I apprehended."
+
+
+These letters explain the delay in the publication of 'The Prelude'.
+They show that what led Wordsworth to write so much about himself was
+not self-conceit, but self-diffidence. He felt unprepared as yet for the
+more arduous task he had set before himself. He saw its faults as
+clearly, or more clearly, than the critics who condemned him. He knew
+that its length was excessive. He tried to condense it; he kept it
+beside him unpublished, and occasionally revised it, with a view to
+condensation, in vain. The text received his final corrections in the
+year 1832.
+
+Wordsworth's reluctance to publish these portions of his great poem,
+'The Recluse', other than 'The Excursion', during his lifetime, was a
+matter of surprise to his friends; to whom he, or the ladies of his
+household, had read portions of it. In the year 1819, Charles Lamb wrote
+to him,
+
+  "If, as you say, 'The Waggoner', in some sort, came at my call, oh for
+  a potent voice to call forth 'The Recluse' from his profound
+  dormitory, where he sleeps forgetful of his foolish charge--the
+  world!"
+
+('The Letters of Charles Lamb', edited by Alfred Ainger, vol. ii. p.
+26.)
+
+The admission made in the letter of May 1st, 1805, is note-worthy:
+
+  "This defect" (of redundancy) "whenever I have suspected it or found
+  it to exist in any writings of mine, _I have always found incurable.
+  The fault lies too deep, and is in the first conception_."
+
+The actual result--in the Poem he had at length committed to
+writing--was so far inferior to the ideal he had tried to realise, that
+he could never be induced to publish it. He spoke of the MS. as forming
+a sort of _portico_ to his larger work--the poem on Man, Nature, and
+Society--which he meant to call 'The Recluse', and of which one portion
+only, _viz._ 'The Excursion', was finished. It is clear that throughout
+the composition of 'The Prelude', he felt that he was experimenting with
+his powers. He wished to find out whether he could construct "a literary
+work that might live," on a larger scale than his Lyrics; and it was on
+the writing of a "philosophical poem," dealing with Man and Nature, in
+their deepest aspects, that his thoughts had been fixed for many years.
+From the letter to Sir George Beaumont, December 25, 1804, it is evident
+that he regarded the autobiographical poem as a mere prologue to this
+larger work, to which he hoped to turn "with all his might" after 'The
+Prelude' was finished, and of which he had already written about a fifth
+or a sixth (see 'Memoirs', vol. i. p. 304). This was the part known in
+the Grasmere household as "The Pedlar," a title given to it from the
+character of the Wanderer, but afterwards happily set aside. He did not
+devote himself, however, to the completion of his wider purpose,
+immediately after 'The Prelude' was finished. He wrote one book of 'The
+Recluse' which he called "Home at Grasmere"; and, though detached from
+'The Prelude', it is a continuation of the narrative of his own life at
+the point where it is left off in the latter poem. It consists of 733
+lines. Two extracts from it were published in the 'Memoirs of
+Wordsworth' in 1851 (vol. i. pp. 151 and 155), beginning,
+
+  'On Nature's invitation do I come,'
+
+and
+
+  'Bleak season was it, turbulent and bleak.'
+
+These will be found in vol. ii. of this edition, pp. 118 and 121
+respectively.
+
+The autobiographical poem remained, as already stated, during
+Wordsworth's lifetime without a title. The name finally adopted--'The
+Prelude'--was suggested by Mrs. Wordsworth, both to indicate its
+relation to the larger work, and the fact of its having been written
+comparatively early.
+
+As the poem was addressed to Coleridge, it may be desirable to add in
+this place his critical verdict upon it; along with the poem which he
+wrote, on hearing Wordsworth read a portion of it to him, in the winter
+of 1806, at Coleorton.
+
+In his 'Table Talk' (London, 1835, vol. ii. p. 70), Coleridge's opinion
+is recorded thus:
+
+  "I cannot help regretting that Wordsworth did not first publish his
+  thirteen (fourteen) books on the growth of an individual
+  mind--superior, as I used to think, upon the whole to 'The Excursion'.
+  You may judge how I felt about them by my own Poem upon the occasion.
+  Then the plan laid out, and, I believe, partly suggested by me, was,
+  that Wordsworth should assume the station of a man in mental repose,
+  one whose principles were made up, and so prepared to deliver upon
+  authority a system of philosophy. He was to treat man as man,--a
+  subject of eye, ear, touch, and taste in contact with external nature,
+  and informing the senses from the mind, and not compounding a mind out
+  of the senses; then he was to describe the pastoral and other states
+  of society, assuming something of the Juvenalian spirit as he
+  approached the high civilisation of cities and towns, and opening a
+  melancholy picture of the present state of degeneracy and vice; thence
+  he was to infer and reveal the proof of, and necessity for, the whole
+  state of man and society being subject to, and illustrative of a
+  redemptive process in operation, showing how this idea reconciled all
+  the anomalies, and promised future glory and restoration. Something of
+  this sort was, I think, agreed on. It is, in substance, what I have
+  been all my life doing in my system of philosophy.
+
+  "I think Wordsworth possessed more of the genius of a great
+  Philosopher than any man I ever knew, or, as I believe, has existed in
+  England since Milton; but it seems to me that he ought never to have
+  abandoned the contemplative position which is peculiarly--perhaps, I
+  might say exclusively--fitted for him. His proper title is 'Spectator
+  ab extra'."
+
+The following are Coleridge's Lines addressed to Wordsworth:
+
+  TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
+
+  COMPOSED ON THE NIGHT AFTER HIS RECITATION OF A POEM ON THE GROWTH OF
+  AN INDIVIDUAL MIND
+
+
+  Friend of the wise! and teacher of the good!
+  Into my heart have I received that lay
+  More than historic, that prophetic lay
+  Wherein (high theme by thee first sung aright)
+  Of the foundations and the building up
+  Of a Human Spirit thou hast dared to tell
+  What may be told, to the understanding mind
+  Revealable; and what within the mind
+  By vital breathings secret as the soul
+  Of vernal growth, oft quickens in the heart
+  Thoughts all too deep for words!--
+             Theme hard as high,
+  Of smiles spontaneous, and mysterious fears
+  (The first-born they of Reason and twin-birth),
+  Of tides obedient to external force,
+  And currents self-determined, as might seem,
+  Or by some inner power; of moments awful,
+  Now in thy inner life, and now abroad,
+  When power streamed from thee, and thy soul received
+  The Light reflected, as a light bestowed--
+  Of fancies fair, and milder hours of youth,
+  Hyblean murmurs of poetic thought
+  Industrious in its joy, in vales and glens,
+  Native or outland, lakes and famous hills!
+  Or on the lonely high-road, when the stars
+  Were rising; or by secret mountain-streams,
+  The guides and the companions of thy way!
+  Of more than Fancy, of the Social Sense
+  Distending wide, and man beloved as man,
+  Where France in all her towns lay vibrating
+  Like some becalmed bark beneath the burst
+  Of Heaven's immediate thunder, when no cloud
+  Is visible, or shadow on the main.
+  For thou wert there, thine own brows garlanded,
+  Amid the tremor of a realm aglow,
+  Amid a mighty nation jubilant,
+  When from the general heart of humankind
+  Hope sprang forth like a full-born Deity!
+--Of that dear Hope afflicted and struck down,
+  So summoned homeward, thenceforth calm and sure,
+  From the dread watch-tower of man's absolute self,
+  With light unwaning on her eyes, to look
+  Far on--herself a glory to behold.
+  The Angel of the vision! Then (last strain)
+  Of Duty, chosen laws controlling choice,
+  Action and joy!--An Orphic song indeed,
+  A song divine of high and passionate thoughts
+  To their own music chanted!
+                             O great Bard!
+  Ere yet that last strain dying awed the air,
+  With stedfast eye I viewed thee in the choir
+  Of ever-enduring men. The truly great
+  Have all one age, and from one visible space
+  Shed influence! They, both in power and act,
+  Are permanent, and Time is not with them,
+  Save as it worketh for them, they in it.
+  Nor less a sacred roll, than those of old,
+  And to be placed, as they, with gradual fame
+  Among the archives of mankind, thy work
+  Makes audible a linked lay of Truth,
+  Of Truth profound a sweet continuous lay,
+  Not learnt, but native, her own natural notes!
+  Ah! as I listened with a heart forlorn,
+  The pulses of my being beat anew:
+  And even as life returns upon the drowned,
+  Life's joy rekindling roused a throng of pains--
+  Keen pangs of Love, awakening as a babe
+  Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart;
+  And fears self-willed, that shunned the eye of hope;
+  And hope that scarce would know itself from fear;
+  Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain,
+  And genius given, and knowledge won in vain;
+  And all which I had culled in wood-walks wild,
+  And all which patient toil had reared, and all,
+  Commune with thee had opened out--but flowers
+  Strewed on my corse, and borne upon my bier,
+  In the same coffin, for the self-same grave!
+
+  ...   Eve following eve,
+  Dear tranquil time, when the sweet sense of Home
+  Is sweetest! moments for their own sake hailed,
+  And more desired, more precious for thy song,
+  In silence listening, like a devout child,
+  My soul lay passive, by thy various strain
+  Driven as in surges now beneath the stars,
+  With momentary stars of my own birth,
+  Fair constellated foam, [C] still darting off
+  Into the darkness; now a tranquil sea,
+  Outspread and bright, yet swelling to the moon.
+
+    And when--O Friend! my comforter and guide!
+  Strong in thyself, and powerful to give strength!--
+  Thy long-sustained Song finally closed,
+  And thy deep voice had ceased--yet thou thyself
+  Wert still before my eyes, and round us both
+  That happy vision of beloved faces--
+  Scarce conscious, and yet conscious of its close
+  I sate, my being blended in one thought
+  (Thought was it? or aspiration? or resolve?)
+  Absorbed, yet hanging still upon the sound--
+  And when I rose I found myself in prayer.
+
+
+It was at Coleorton, in Leicestershire,--where the Wordsworths lived
+during the winter of 1806-7, in a farm-house belonging to Sir George
+Beaumont, and where Coleridge visited them,--that 'The Prelude' was read
+aloud by its author, on the occasion which gave birth to these
+lines.--Ed.
+
+
+[Footnote A: See the 'De Quincey Memorials,' vol. i. p. 125.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote B: A poem on his brother John.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote C: Compare
+
+  "A beautiful white cloud of foam at momentary intervals, coursed by
+  the side of the vessel with a roar, and little stars of flame danced
+  and sparkled and went out in it: and every now and then light
+  detachments of this white cloud-like foam darted off from the vessel's
+  side, each with its own small constellation, over the sea, and scoured
+  out of sight like a Tartar troop over a wilderness."
+
+S. T. C. in 'Biographia Literaria', Satyrane's Letters, letter i. p. 196
+(edition 1817).--Ed.]
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FIRST
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.--CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOL-TIME
+
+
+  O there is blessing in this gentle breeze,
+  A visitant that while it fans my cheek
+  Doth seem half-conscious of the joy it brings
+  From the green fields, and from yon azure sky.
+  Whate'er its mission, the soft breeze can come                       5
+  To none more grateful than to me; escaped
+  From the vast city, [A] where I long had pined
+  A discontented sojourner: now free,
+  Free as a bird to settle where I will.
+  What dwelling shall receive me? in what vale                        10
+  Shall be my harbour? underneath what grove
+  Shall I take up my home? and what clear stream
+  Shall with its murmur lull me into rest?
+  The earth is all before me. [B] With a heart
+  Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty,                              15
+  I look about; and should the chosen guide
+  Be nothing better than a wandering cloud,
+  I cannot miss my way. I breathe again!
+  Trances of thought and mountings of the mind
+  Come fast upon me: it is shaken off,                                20
+  That burthen of my own unnatural self,
+  The heavy weight of many a weary day [C]
+  Not mine, and such as were not made for me.
+  Long months of peace (if such bold word accord
+  With any promises of human life),                                   25
+  Long months of ease and undisturbed delight
+  Are mine in prospect; whither shall I turn,
+  By road or pathway, or through trackless field,
+  Up hill or down, or shall some floating thing
+  Upon the river point me out my course?                              30
+
+    Dear Liberty! Yet what would it avail
+  But for a gift that consecrates the joy?
+  For I, methought, while the sweet breath of heaven
+  Was blowing on my body, felt within
+  A correspondent breeze, that gently moved                           35
+  With quickening virtue, but is now become
+  A tempest, a redundant energy,
+  Vexing its own creation. Thanks to both,
+  And their congenial powers, that, while they join
+  In breaking up a long-continued frost,                              40
+  Bring with them vernal promises, the hope
+  Of active days urged on by flying hours,--
+  Days of sweet leisure, taxed with patient thought
+  Abstruse, nor wanting punctual service high,
+  Matins and vespers of harmonious verse!                             45
+
+    Thus far, O Friend! [D] did I, not used to make
+  A present joy the matter of a song,
+  Pour forth that day my soul in measured strains
+  That would not be forgotten, and are here
+  Recorded: to the open fields I told                                 50
+  A prophecy: poetic numbers came
+  Spontaneously to clothe in priestly robe
+  A renovated spirit singled out,
+  Such hope was mine, for holy services.
+  My own voice cheered me, and, far more, the mind's                  55
+  Internal echo of the imperfect sound;
+  To both I listened, drawing from them both
+  A cheerful confidence in things to come.
+
+    Content and not unwilling now to give
+  A respite to this passion, I paced on                               60
+  With brisk and eager steps; and came, at length,
+  To a green shady place, [E] where down I sate
+  Beneath a tree, slackening my thoughts by choice,
+  And settling into gentler happiness.
+  'Twas autumn, and a clear and placid day,                           65
+  With warmth, as much as needed, from a sun
+  Two hours declined towards the west; a day
+  With silver clouds, and sunshine on the grass,
+  And in the sheltered and the sheltering grove
+  A perfect stillness. Many were the thoughts                         70
+  Encouraged and dismissed, till choice was made
+  Of a known Vale, [F] whither my feet should turn,
+  Nor rest till they had reached the very door
+  Of the one cottage [G] which methought I saw.
+  No picture of mere memory ever looked                               75
+  So fair; and while upon the fancied scene
+  I gazed with growing love, a higher power
+  Than Fancy gave assurance of some work
+  Of glory there forthwith to be begun,
+  Perhaps too there performed. Thus long I mused,                     80
+  Nor e'er lost sight of what I mused upon,
+  Save when, amid the stately groves of oaks,
+  Now here, now there, an acorn, from its cup
+  Dislodged, through sere leaves rustled, or at once
+  To the bare earth dropped with a startling sound.                   85
+  From that soft couch I rose not, till the sun
+  Had almost touched the horizon; casting then
+  A backward glance upon the curling cloud
+  Of city smoke, by distance ruralised;
+  Keen as a Truant or a Fugitive,                                     90
+  But as a Pilgrim resolute, I took,
+  Even with the chance equipment of that hour,
+  The road that pointed toward the chosen Vale. [F]
+  It was a splendid evening, and my soul
+  Once more made trial of her strength, nor lacked                    95
+  AEolian visitations; but the harp
+  Was soon defrauded, and the banded host
+  Of harmony dispersed in straggling sounds,
+  And lastly utter silence! "Be it so;
+  Why think of any thing but present good?" [H]                      100
+  So, like a home-bound labourer I pursued
+  My way beneath the mellowing sun, that shed
+  Mild influence; nor left in me one wish
+  Again to bend the Sabbath of that time
+  To a servile yoke. What need of many words?                        105
+  A pleasant loitering journey, through three days
+  Continued, brought me to my hermitage, [I]
+  I spare to tell of what ensued, the life
+  In common things--the endless store of things,
+  Rare, or at least so seeming, every day                            110
+  Found all about me in one neighbourhood--
+  The self-congratulation, and, from morn
+  To night, unbroken cheerfulness serene. [K]
+  But speedily an earnest longing rose
+  To brace myself to some determined aim,                            115
+  Reading or thinking; either to lay up
+  New stores, or rescue from decay the old
+  By timely interference: and therewith
+  Came hopes still higher, that with outward life
+  I might endue some airy phantasies                                 120
+  That had been floating loose about for years,
+  And to such beings temperately deal forth
+  The many feelings that oppressed my heart.
+  That hope hath been discouraged; welcome light
+  Dawns from the east, but dawns to disappear                        125
+  And mock me with a sky that ripens not
+  Into a steady morning: if my mind,
+  Remembering the bold promise of the past,
+  Would gladly grapple with some noble theme,
+  Vain is her wish; where'er she turns she finds                     130
+  Impediments from day to day renewed.
+
+    And now it would content me to yield up
+  Those lofty hopes awhile, for present gifts
+  Of humbler industry. But, oh, dear Friend!
+  The Poet, gentle creature as he is,                                135
+  Hath, like the Lover, his unruly times;
+  His fits when he is neither sick nor well,
+  Though no distress be near him but his own
+  Unmanageable thoughts: his mind, best pleased
+  While she as duteous as the mother dove                            140
+  Sits brooding, lives not always to that end,
+  But like the innocent bird, hath goadings on
+  That drive her as in trouble through the groves; [L]
+  With me is now such passion, to be blamed
+  No otherwise than as it lasts too long.                            145
+
+    When, as becomes a man who would prepare
+  For such an arduous work, I through myself
+  Make rigorous inquisition, the report
+  Is often cheering; for I neither seem
+  To lack that first great gift, the vital soul,                     150
+  Nor general Truths, which are themselves a sort
+  Of Elements and Agents, Under-powers,
+  Subordinate helpers of the living mind:
+  Nor am I naked of external things,
+  Forms, images, nor numerous other aids                             155
+  Of less regard, though won perhaps with toil
+  And needful to build up a Poet's praise.
+  Time, place, and manners do I seek, and these
+  Are found in plenteous store, but nowhere such
+  As may be singled out with steady choice;                          160
+  No little band of yet remembered names
+  Whom I, in perfect confidence, might hope
+  To summon back from lonesome banishment,
+  And make them dwellers in the hearts of men
+  Now living, or to live in future years.                            165
+  Sometimes the ambitious Power of choice, mistaking
+  Proud spring-tide swellings for a regular sea,
+  Will settle on some British theme, some old
+  Romantic tale by Milton left unsung;
+  More often turning to some gentle place                            170
+  Within the groves of Chivalry, I pipe
+  To shepherd swains, or seated harp in hand,
+  Amid reposing knights by a river side
+  Or fountain, listen to the grave reports
+  Of dire enchantments faced and overcome                            175
+  By the strong mind, and tales of warlike feats,
+  Where spear encountered spear, and sword with sword
+  Fought, as if conscious of the blazonry
+  That the shield bore, so glorious was the strife;
+  Whence inspiration for a song that winds                           180
+  Through ever changing scenes of votive quest
+  Wrongs to redress, harmonious tribute paid
+  To patient courage and unblemished truth,
+  To firm devotion, zeal unquenchable,
+  And Christian meekness hallowing faithful loves.                   185
+  Sometimes, more sternly moved, I would relate
+  How vanquished Mithridates northward passed,
+  And, hidden in the cloud of years, became
+  Odin, the Father of a race by whom
+  Perished the Roman Empire: [M] how the friends                     190
+  And followers of Sertorius, [N] out of Spain
+  Flying, found shelter in the Fortunate Isles, [O]
+  And left their usages, their arts and laws,
+  To disappear by a slow gradual death,
+  To dwindle and to perish one by one,                               195
+  Starved in those narrow bounds: [P] but not the soul
+  Of Liberty, which fifteen hundred years
+  Survived, and, when the European came
+  With skill and power that might not be withstood,
+  Did, like a pestilence, maintain its hold                          200
+  And wasted down by glorious death that race
+  Of natural heroes: or I would record
+  How, in tyrannic times, some high-souled man,
+  Unnamed among the chronicles of kings,
+  Suffered in silence for Truth's sake: or tell,                     205
+  How that one Frenchman, [Q] through continued force
+  Of meditation on the inhuman deeds
+  Of those who conquered first the Indian Isles,
+  Went single in his ministry across
+  The Ocean; not to comfort the oppressed,                           210
+  But, like a thirsty wind, to roam about
+  Withering the Oppressor: how Gustavus sought
+  Help at his need in Dalecarlia's mines: [R]
+  How Wallace fought for Scotland; left the name
+  Of Wallace to be found, like a wild flower,                        215
+  All over his dear Country; [S] left the deeds
+  Of Wallace, like a family of Ghosts,
+  To people the steep rocks and river banks,
+  Her natural sanctuaries, with a local soul
+  Of independence and stern liberty.                                 220
+  Sometimes it suits me better to invent
+  A tale from my own heart, more near akin
+  To my own passions and habitual thoughts;
+  Some variegated story, in the main
+  Lofty, but the unsubstantial structure melts                       225
+  Before the very sun that brightens it,
+  Mist into air dissolving! Then a wish,
+  My best and favourite aspiration, mounts
+  With yearning toward some philosophic song
+  Of Truth that cherishes our daily life;                            230
+  With meditations passionate from deep
+  Recesses in man's heart, immortal verse [T]
+  Thoughtfully fitted to the Orphean lyre; [U]
+  But from this awful burthen I full soon
+  Take refuge and beguile myself with trust                          235
+  That mellower years will bring a riper mind
+  And clearer insight. Thus my days are past
+  In contradiction; with no skill to part
+  Vague longing, haply bred by want of power,
+  From paramount impulse not to be withstood,                        240
+  A timorous capacity from prudence,
+  From circumspection, infinite delay.
+  Humility and modest awe themselves
+  Betray me, serving often for a cloak
+  To a more subtle selfishness; that now                             245
+  Locks every function up in blank reserve,
+  Now dupes me, trusting to an anxious eye
+  That with intrusive restlessness beats off
+  Simplicity and self-presented truth.
+  Ah! better far than this, to stray about                           250
+  Voluptuously through fields and rural walks,
+  And ask no record of the hours, resigned
+  To vacant musing, unreproved neglect
+  Of all things, and deliberate holiday.
+  Far better never to have heard the name                            255
+  Of zeal and just ambition, than to live
+  Baffled and plagued by a mind that every hour
+  Turns recreant to her task; takes heart again,
+  Then feels immediately some hollow thought
+  Hang like an interdict upon her hopes.                             260
+  This is my lot; for either still I find
+  Some imperfection in the chosen theme,
+  Or see of absolute accomplishment
+  Much wanting, so much wanting, in myself,
+  That I recoil and droop, and seek repose                           265
+  In listlessness from vain perplexity,
+  Unprofitably travelling toward the grave,
+  Like a false steward who hath much received
+  And renders nothing back.
+                             Was it for this
+  That one, the fairest of all rivers, [V] loved                     270
+  To blend his murmurs with my nurse's song,
+  And, from his alder shades and rocky falls,
+  And from his fords and shallows, sent a voice
+  That flowed along my dreams? For this, didst thou,
+  O Derwent! winding among grassy holms                              275
+  Where I was looking on, a babe in arms,
+  Make ceaseless music that composed my thoughts
+  To more than infant softness, giving me
+  Amid the fretful dwellings of mankind
+  A foretaste, a dim earnest, of the calm                            280
+  That Nature breathes among the hills and groves?
+  When he had left the mountains and received
+  On his smooth breast the shadow of those towers [W]
+  That yet survive, a shattered monument
+  Of feudal sway, the bright blue river passed                       285
+  Along the margin of our terrace walk; [X]
+  A tempting playmate whom we dearly loved.
+  Oh, many a time have I, a five years' child,
+  In a small mill-race severed from his stream,
+  Made one long bathing of a summer's day;                           290
+  Basked in the sun, and plunged and basked again
+  Alternate, all a summer's day, or scoured
+  The sandy fields, leaping through flowery groves
+  Of yellow ragwort; or when rock and hill,
+  The woods, and distant Skiddaw's lofty height,                     295
+  Were bronzed with deepest radiance, stood alone
+  Beneath the sky, as if I had been born
+  On Indian plains, and from my mother's hut
+  Had run abroad in wantonness, to sport
+  A naked savage, in the thunder shower.                             300
+
+    Fair seed-time had my soul, and I grew up
+  Fostered alike by beauty and by fear:
+  Much favoured in my birth-place, and no less
+  In that beloved Vale to which erelong
+  We were transplanted [Y]--there were we let loose                  305
+  For sports of wider range. Ere I had told
+  Ten birth-days, [Z] when among the mountain slopes
+  Frost, and the breath of frosty wind, had snapped
+  The last autumnal crocus, [a] 'twas my joy
+  With store of springes o'er my shoulder hung                       310
+  To range the open heights where woodcocks run
+  Along the smooth green turf. [b] Through half the night,
+  Scudding away from snare to snare, I plied
+  That anxious visitation;--moon and stars
+  Were shining o'er my head. I was alone,                            315
+  And seemed to be a trouble to the peace
+  That dwelt among them. Sometimes it befel
+  In these night wanderings, that a strong desire
+  O'erpowered my better reason, and the bird
+  Which was the captive of another's toil                            320
+  Became my prey; and when the deed was done
+  I heard among the solitary hills
+  Low breathings coming after me, and sounds
+  Of undistinguishable motion, steps
+  Almost as silent as the turf they trod.                            325
+
+  Nor less when spring had warmed the cultured Vale, [c]
+  Moved we as plunderers where the mother-bird
+  Had in high places built her lodge; though mean
+  Our object and inglorious, yet the end
+  Was not ignoble. Oh! when I have hung                              330
+  Above the raven's nest, by knots of grass
+  And half-inch fissures in the slippery rock
+  But ill sustained, and almost (so it seemed)
+  Suspended by the blast that blew amain,
+  Shouldering the naked crag, [d] oh, at that time                    335
+  While on the perilous ridge I hung alone,
+  With what strange utterance did the loud dry wind
+  Blow through my ear! the sky seemed not a sky
+  Of earth--and with what motion moved the clouds!
+
+    Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows                         340
+  Like harmony in music; there is a dark
+  Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles
+  Discordant elements, makes them cling together
+  In one society. How strange that all
+  The terrors, pains, and early miseries,                             345
+  Regrets, vexations, lassitudes interfused
+  Within my mind, should e'er have borne a part,
+  And that a needful part, in making up
+  The calm existence that is mine when I
+  Am worthy of myself! Praise to the end!                             350
+  Thanks to the means which Nature deigned to employ;
+  Whether her fearless visitings, or those
+  That came with soft alarm, like hurtless light
+  Opening the peaceful clouds; or she may use
+  Severer interventions, ministry                                     355
+  More palpable, as best might suit her aim.
+
+    One summer evening (led by her) I found
+  A little boat tied to a willow tree
+  Within a rocky cave, [e] its usual home.
+  Straight I unloosed her chain, and stepping in                      360
+  Pushed from the shore. It was an act of stealth
+  And troubled pleasure, nor without the voice
+  Of mountain-echoes did my boat move on;
+  Leaving behind her still, on either side,
+  Small circles glittering idly in the moon,                          365
+  Until they melted all into one track
+  Of sparkling light. But now, like one who rows,
+  Proud of his skill, to reach a chosen point
+  With an unswerving line, I fixed my view
+  Upon the summit of a craggy ridge,                                  370
+  The horizon's utmost boundary; far above
+  Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky.
+  She was an elfin pinnace; lustily
+  I dipped my oars into the silent lake,
+  And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boat                             375
+  Went heaving through the water like a swan;
+  When, from behind that craggy steep till then
+  The horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge,
+  As if with voluntary power instinct
+  Upreared its head. [f] I struck and struck again,                   380
+  And growing still in stature the grim shape
+  Towered up between me and the stars, and still,
+  For so it seemed, with purpose of its own
+  And measured motion like a living thing,
+  Strode after me. With trembling oars I turned,                      385
+  And through the silent water stole my way
+  Back to the covert of the willow tree;
+  There in her mooring-place I left my bark,--
+  And through the meadows homeward went, in grave
+  And serious mood; but after I had seen                              390
+  That spectacle, for many days, my brain
+  Worked with a dim and undetermined sense
+  Of unknown modes of being; o'er my thoughts
+  There hung a darkness, call it solitude
+  Or blank desertion. No familiar shapes                              395
+  Remained, no pleasant images of trees,
+  Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields;
+  But huge and mighty forms, that do not live
+  Like living men, moved slowly through the mind
+  By day, and were a trouble to my dreams.                            400
+
+    Wisdom and Spirit of the universe!
+  Thou Soul that art the eternity of thought,
+  That givest to forms and images a breath
+  And everlasting motion, not in vain
+  By day or star-light thus from my first dawn                        405
+  Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me
+  The passions that build up our human soul;
+  Not with the mean and vulgar works of man,
+  But with high objects, with enduring things--
+  With life and nature, purifying thus                                410
+  The elements of feeling and of thought,
+  And sanctifying, by such discipline,
+  Both pain and fear, until we recognise
+  A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.
+  Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me                            415
+  With stinted kindness. In November days,
+  When vapours rolling down the valley made
+  A lonely scene more lonesome, among woods
+  At noon, and 'mid the calm of summer nights,
+  When, by the margin of the trembling lake,                          420
+  Beneath the gloomy hills homeward I went
+  In solitude, such intercourse was mine;
+  Mine was it in the fields both day and night,
+  And by the waters, all the summer long.
+
+    And in the frosty season, when the sun                            425
+  Was set, and visible for many a mile
+  The cottage windows blazed through twilight gloom,
+  I heeded not their summons: happy time
+  It was indeed for all of us--for me
+  It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud                            430
+  The village clock tolled six,--I wheeled about,
+  Proud and exulting like an untired horse
+  That cares not for his home. All shod with steel,
+  We hissed along the polished ice in games
+  Confederate, imitative of the chase                                 435
+  And woodland pleasures,--the resounding horn,
+  The pack loud chiming, and the hunted hare.
+  So through the darkness and the cold we flew,
+  And not a voice was idle; with the din
+  Smitten, the precipices rang aloud;                                 440
+  The leafless trees and every icy crag
+  Tinkled like iron; [g] while far distant hills
+  Into the tumult sent an alien sound
+  Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars
+  Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the west                      445
+  The orange sky of evening died away.
+  Not seldom from the uproar I retired
+  Into a silent bay, or sportively
+  Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng,
+  To cut across the reflex of a star                                  450
+  That fled, and, flying still before me, gleamed
+  Upon the glassy plain; and oftentimes,
+  When we had given our bodies to the wind,
+  And all the shadowy banks on either side
+  Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still                  455
+  The rapid line of motion, then at once
+  Have I, reclining back upon my heels,
+  Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs
+  Wheeled by me--even as if the earth had rolled
+  With visible motion her diurnal round!                              460
+  Behind me did they stretch in solemn train,
+  Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched
+  Till all was tranquil as a dreamless sleep. [h]
+
+    Ye Presences of Nature in the sky
+  And on the earth! Ye Visions of the hills!                          465
+  And Souls of lonely places! can I think
+  A vulgar hope was yours when ye employed
+  Such ministry, when ye through many a year
+  Haunting me thus among my boyish sports,
+  On caves and trees, upon the woods and hills,                       470
+  Impressed upon all forms the characters
+  Of danger or desire; and thus did make
+  The surface of the universal earth
+  With triumph and delight, with hope and fear,
+  Work like a sea?
+    Not uselessly employed,                                           475
+  Might I pursue this theme through every change
+  Of exercise and play, to which the year
+  Did summon us in his delightful round.
+
+    We were a noisy crew; the sun in heaven
+  Beheld not vales more beautiful than ours;                          480
+  Nor saw a band in happiness and joy
+  Richer, or worthier of the ground they trod.
+  I could record with no reluctant voice
+  The woods of autumn, and their hazel bowers
+  With milk-white clusters hung; the rod and line,                    485
+  True symbol of hope's foolishness, whose strong
+  And unreproved enchantment led us on
+  By rocks and pools shut out from every star,
+  All the green summer, to forlorn cascades
+  Among the windings hid of mountain brooks. [i]                      490
+  --Unfading recollections! at this hour
+  The heart is almost mine with which I felt,
+  From some hill-top on sunny afternoons, [j]
+  The paper kite high among fleecy clouds
+  Pull at her rein like an impetuous courser;                         495
+  Or, from the meadows sent on gusty days,
+  Beheld her breast the wind, then suddenly
+  Dashed headlong, and rejected by the storm.
+
+    Ye lowly cottages wherein we dwelt,
+  A ministration of your own was yours;                               500
+  Can I forget you, being as you were
+  So beautiful among the pleasant fields
+  In which ye stood? or can I here forget
+  The plain and seemly countenance with which
+  Ye dealt out your plain comforts? Yet had ye                        505
+  Delights and exultations of your own. [k]
+  Eager and never weary we pursued
+  Our home-amusements by the warm peat-fire
+  At evening, when with pencil, and smooth slate
+  In square divisions parcelled out and all                           510
+  With crosses and with cyphers scribbled o'er,
+  We schemed and puzzled, head opposed to head
+  In strife too humble to be named in verse:
+  Or round the naked table, snow-white deal,
+  Cherry or maple, sate in close array,                               515
+  And to the combat, Loo or Whist, led on
+  A thick-ribbed army; not, as in the world,
+  Neglected and ungratefully thrown by
+  Even for the very service they had wrought,
+  But husbanded through many a long campaign.                         520
+  Uncouth assemblage was it, where no few
+  Had changed their functions; some, plebeian cards [l]
+  Which Fate, beyond the promise of their birth, [m]
+  Had dignified, and called to represent
+  The persons of departed potentates.                                 525
+  Oh, with what echoes on the board they fell!
+  Ironic diamonds,--clubs, hearts, diamonds, spades,
+  A congregation piteously akin!
+  Cheap matter offered they to boyish wit,
+  Those sooty knaves, precipitated down                               530
+  With scoffs and taunts, like Vulcan out of heaven:
+  The paramount ace, a moon in her eclipse,
+  Queens gleaming through their splendour's last decay,
+  And monarchs surly at the wrongs sustained
+  By royal visages. Meanwhile abroad                                  535
+  Incessant rain was falling, or the frost
+  Raged bitterly, with keen and silent tooth;
+  And, interrupting oft that eager game,
+  From under Esthwaite's splitting fields of ice
+  The pent-up air, struggling to free itself,                         540
+  Gave out to meadow grounds and hills a loud
+  Protracted yelling, like the noise of wolves
+  Howling in troops along the Bothnic Main. [n]
+
+    Nor, sedulous as I have been to trace
+  How Nature by extrinsic passion first                               545
+  Peopled the mind with forms sublime or fair,
+  And made me love them, may I here omit
+  How other pleasures have been mine, and joys
+  Of subtler origin; how I have felt,
+  Not seldom even in that tempestuous time,                           550
+  Those hallowed and pure motions of the sense
+  Which seem, in their simplicity, to own
+  An intellectual charm; that calm delight
+  Which, if I err not, surely must belong
+  To those first-born affinities that fit                             555
+  Our new existence to existing things,
+  And, in our dawn of being, constitute
+  The bond of union between life and joy.
+
+    Yes, I remember when the changeful earth,
+  And twice five summers on my mind had stamped                       560
+  The faces of the moving year, even then
+  I held unconscious intercourse with beauty
+  Old as creation, drinking in a pure
+  Organic pleasure from the silver wreaths
+  Of curling mist, or from the level plain                            565
+  Of waters coloured by impending clouds. [o]
+
+    The sands of Westmoreland, the creeks and bays
+  Of Cumbria's rocky limits, they can tell
+  How, when the Sea threw off his evening shade,
+  And to the shepherd's hut on distant hills                          570
+  Sent welcome notice of the rising moon,
+  How I have stood, to fancies such as these
+  A stranger, linking with the spectacle
+  No conscious memory of a kindred sight,
+  And bringing with me no peculiar sense                              575
+  Of quietness or peace; yet have I stood,
+  Even while mine eye hath moved o'er many a league
+  Of shining water, gathering as it seemed
+  Through every hair-breadth in that field of light
+  New pleasure like a bee among the flowers.                          580
+
+    Thus oft amid those fits of vulgar joy
+  Which, through all seasons, on a child's pursuits
+  Are prompt attendants, 'mid that giddy bliss
+  Which, like a tempest, works along the blood
+  And is forgotten; even then I felt                                  585
+  Gleams like the flashing of a shield;--the earth
+  And common face of Nature spake to me
+  Rememberable things; sometimes, 'tis true,
+  By chance collisions and quaint accidents
+  (Like those ill-sorted unions, work supposed                        590
+  Of evil-minded fairies), yet not vain
+  Nor profitless, if haply they impressed
+  Collateral objects and appearances,
+  Albeit lifeless then, and doomed to sleep
+  Until maturer seasons called them forth                             595
+  To impregnate and to elevate the mind.
+--And if the vulgar joy by its own weight
+  Wearied itself out of the memory,
+  The scenes which were a witness of that joy
+  Remained in their substantial lineaments                            600
+  Depicted on the brain, and to the eye
+  Were visible, a daily sight; and thus
+  By the impressive discipline of fear,
+  By pleasure and repeated happiness,
+  So frequently repeated, and by force                                605
+  Of obscure feelings representative
+  Of things forgotten, these same scenes so bright,
+  So beautiful, so majestic in themselves,
+  Though yet the day was distant, did become
+  Habitually dear, and all their forms                                610
+  And changeful colours by invisible links
+  Were fastened to the affections.
+
+                                   I began
+  My story early--not misled, I trust,
+  By an infirmity of love for days
+  Disowned by memory--ere the breath of spring                        615
+  Planting my snowdrops among winter snows: [p]
+  Nor will it seem to thee, O Friend! so prompt
+  In sympathy, that I have lengthened out
+  With fond and feeble tongue a tedious tale.
+  Meanwhile, my hope has been, that I might fetch                     620
+  Invigorating thoughts from former years;
+  Might fix the wavering balance of my mind,
+  And haply meet reproaches too, whose power
+  May spur me on, in manhood now mature
+  To honourable toil. Yet should these hopes                          625
+  Prove vain, and thus should neither I be taught
+  To understand myself, nor thou to know
+  With better knowledge how the heart was framed
+  Of him thou lovest; need I dread from thee
+  Harsh judgments, if the song be loth to quit                        630
+  Those recollected hours that have the charm
+  Of visionary things, those lovely forms
+  And sweet sensations that throw back our life,
+  And almost make remotest infancy
+  A visible scene, on which the sun is shining? [q]                   635
+
+    One end at least hath been attained; my mind
+  Hath been revived, and if this genial mood
+  Desert me not, forthwith shall be brought down
+  Through later years the story of my life.
+  The road lies plain before me;--'tis a theme                        640
+  Single and of determined bounds; and hence
+  I choose it rather at this time, than work
+  Of ampler or more varied argument,
+  Where I might be discomfited and lost:
+  And certain hopes are with me, that to thee                         645
+  This labour will be welcome, honoured Friend!
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FOOTNOTES TO BOOK THE FIRST
+
+[Footnote A: On the authority of the poet's nephew, and others, the
+"city" here referred to has invariably been supposed to be Goslar, where
+he spent the winter of 1799. Goslar, however, is as unlike a "vast city"
+as it is possible to conceive. Wordsworth could have walked from end to
+end of it in ten minutes.
+
+One would think he was rather referring to London, but there is no
+evidence to show that he visited the metropolis in the spring of 1799.
+The lines which follow about "the open fields" (l. 50) are certainly
+more appropriate to a journey from London to Sockburn, than from Goslar
+to Gottingen; and what follows, the "green shady place" of l. 62, the
+"known Vale" and the "cottage" of ll. 72 and 74, certainly refer to
+English soil.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote B: Compare 'Paradise Lost', xii. l. 646.
+
+  'The world was all before them, where to choose.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote C: Compare 'Lines composed above Tintern Abbey', II. 52-5
+(vol. ii. p. 53.)--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote D: S. T. Coleridge.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote E: At Sockburn-on-Tees, county Durham, seven miles south-east
+of Darlington.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote F: Grasmere.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote G: Dove Cottage at Town-end.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote H: This quotation I am unable to trace.--Ed.]
+
+[Footnote I: Wordsworth spent most of the year 1799 (from March to
+December) at Sockburn with the Hutchinsons. With Coleridge and his
+brother John he went to Windermere, Rydal, Grasmere, etc., in the
+autumn, returning afterwards to Sockburn. He left it again, with his
+sister, on Dec. 19, to settle at Grasmere, and they reached Dove Cottage
+on Dec. 21, 1799.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote K: See Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, _passim._--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote L: Compare the 2nd and 3rd of the 'Stanzas written in my
+pocket-copy of Thomson's Castle of Indolence', vol. ii. p. 306, and the
+note appended to that poem.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote M: Mithridates (the Great) of Pontus, 131 B.C. to 63 B.C.
+Vanquished by Pompey, B.C. 65, he fled to his son-in-law, Tigranes, in
+Armenia. Being refused an asylum, he committed suicide. I cannot trace
+the legend of Mithridates becoming Odin. Probably Wordsworth means that
+he would invent, rather than "relate," the story. Gibbon ('Decline and
+Fall of the Roman Empire', chap. x.) says,
+
+  "It is supposed that Odin was the chief of a tribe of barbarians, who
+  dwelt on the banks of Lake Maeotis, till the fall of Mithridates, and
+  the arms of Pompey menaced the north with servitude; that Odin,
+  yielding with indignant fury to a power which he was unable to resist,
+  conducted his tribe from the frontiers of Asiatic Sarmatia into
+  Sweden."
+
+See also Mallet, 'Northern Antiquities', and Crichton and Wheaton's
+'Scandinavia' (Edinburgh Cabinet Library):
+
+  "Among the fugitive princes of Scythia, who were expelled from their
+  country in the Mithridatic war, tradition has placed the name of Odin,
+  the ruler of a potent tribe in Turkestan, between the Euxine and the
+  Caspian."
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote N: Sertorius, one of the Roman generals of the later
+Republican era (see Plutarch's biography of him, and Corneille's
+tragedy). On being proscribed by Sylla, he fled from Etruria to Spain;
+there he became the leader of several bands of exiles, and repulsed the
+Roman armies sent against him. Mithridates VI.--referred to in the
+previous note--aided him, both with ships and money, being desirous of
+establishing a new Roman Republic in Spain. From Spain he went to
+Mauritania. In the Straits of Gibraltar he met some sailors, who had
+been in the Atlantic Isles, and whose reports made him wish to visit
+these islands.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote O: Supposed to be the Canaries.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote P:
+
+  "In the early part of the fifteenth century there arrived at Lisbon an
+  old bewildered pilot of the seas, who had been driven by tempests he
+  knew not whither, and raved about an island in the far deep upon which
+  he had landed, and which he had found peopled, and adorned with noble
+  cities. The inhabitants told him that they were descendants of a band
+  of Christians who fled from Spain when that country was conquered by
+  the Moslems."
+
+(See Washington Irving's 'Chronicles of Wolfert's Roost', etc.; and
+Baring Gould's 'Curious Myths of the Middle Ages'.)--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Q: Dominique de Gourgues, a French gentleman, who went in 1568
+to Florida, to avenge the massacre of the French by the Spaniards there.
+(Mr. Carter, in the edition of 1850.)--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote R: Gustavus I. of Sweden. In the course of his war with
+Denmark he retreated to Dalecarlia, where he was a miner and field
+labourer.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote S: The name--both as Christian and surname--is common in
+Scotland, and towns (such as Wallacetown, Ayr) are named after him.
+
+  "Passed two of Wallace's caves. There is scarcely a noted glen in
+  Scotland that has not a cave for Wallace, or some other hero."
+
+Dorothy Wordsworth's 'Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland in 1803'
+(Sunday, August 21).--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote T: Compare 'L'Allegro', l. 137.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote U: Compare 'Paradise Lost', iii. 17.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote V: The Derwent, on which the town of Cockermouth is built,
+where Wordsworth was born on the 7th of April 1770.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote W: The towers of Cockermouth Castle.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote X: The "terrace walk" is at the foot of the garden, attached
+to the old mansion in which Wordsworth's father, law-agent of the Earl
+of Lonsdale, resided. This home of his childhood is alluded to in 'The
+Sparrow's Nest', vol. ii. p. 236. Three of the "Poems, composed or
+suggested during a Tour, in the Summer of 1833," refer to Cockermouth.
+They are the fifth, sixth, and seventh in that series of Sonnets: and
+are entitled respectively 'To the River Derwent'; 'In sight of the Town
+of Cockermouth'; and the 'Address from the Spirit of Cockermouth
+Castle'. It was proposed some time ago that this house--which is known
+in Cockermouth as "Wordsworth House,"--should be purchased, and since
+the Grammar School of the place is out of repair, that it should be
+converted into a School, in memory of Wordsworth. This excellent
+suggestion has not yet been carried out--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Y: The Vale of Esthwaite.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Z: He went to Hawkshead School in 1778.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote a: About mid October the autumn crocus in the garden "snaps"
+in that district.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote b: Possibly in the Claife and Colthouse heights to the east of
+Esthwaite Water; but more probably the round-headed grassy hills that
+lead up and on to the moor between Hawkshead and Coniston, where the
+turf is always green and smooth.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote c: Yewdale: see next note. "Cultured Vale" exactly describes
+the little oat-growing valley of Yewdale.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote d: As there are no "naked crags" with "half-inch fissures in
+the slippery rocks" in the "cultured vale" of Esthwaite, the locality
+referred to is probably the Hohne Fells above Yewdale, to the north of
+Coniston, and only a few miles from Hawkshead, where a crag, now named
+Raven's Crag, divides Tilberthwaite from Yewdale. In his 'Epistle to Sir
+George Beaumont', Wordsworth speaks of Yewdale as a plain
+
+             'spread
+  Under a rock too steep for man to tread,
+  Where sheltered from the north and bleak north-west
+  Aloft the Raven hangs a visible nest,
+  Fearless of all assaults that would her brood molest.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote e: Dr. Cradock suggested the reading "rocky cove." Rocky cave
+is tautological, and Wordsworth would hardly apply the epithet to an
+ordinary boat-house.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote f: The "craggy steep till then the horizon's bound," is
+probably the ridge of Ironkeld, reaching from high Arnside to the Tom
+Heights above Tarn Hows; while the "huge peak, black and huge, as if
+with voluntary power instinct," may he either the summit of Wetherlam,
+or of Pike o'Blisco.  Mr. Rawnsley, however, is of opinion that if
+Wordsworth rowed off from the west bank of Fasthwaite, he might see
+beyond the craggy ridge of Loughrigg the mass of Nab-Scar, and Rydal
+Head would rise up "black and huge." If he rowed from the east side,
+then Pike o'Stickle, or Harrison Stickle, might rise above Ironkeld,
+over Borwick Ground.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote g: Compare S. T. Coleridge.
+
+  "When very many are skating together, the sounds and the noises give
+  an impulse to the icy trees, and the woods all round the lake
+  _tinkle_."
+
+'The Friend', vol. ii. p. 325 (edition 1818).--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote h: The two preceding paragraphs were published in 'The
+Friend', December 28, 1809, under the title of the 'Growth of Genius
+from the Influences of Natural Objects on the Imagination, in Boyhood
+and Early Youth', and were afterwards inserted in all the collective
+editions of Wordsworth's poems, from 1815 onwards. For the changes of
+the text in these editions, see vol. ii. pp. 66-69.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote i: The becks amongst the Furness Fells, in Yewdale, and
+elsewhere.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote j:  Possibly from the top of some of the rounded moraine hills
+on the western side of the Hawkshead Valley.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote k: The pupils in the Hawkshead school, in Wordsworth's time,
+boarded in the houses of village dames. Wordsworth lived with one Anne
+Tyson, for whom he ever afterwards cherished the warmest regard, and
+whose simple character he has immortalised. (See especially in the
+fourth book of 'The Prelude', p. 187, etc.) Wordsworth lived in her
+cottage at Hawkshead during nine eventful years. It still remains
+externally unaltered, and little, if at all, changed in the interior. It
+may be reached through a picturesque archway, near the principal inn of
+the village (The Lion); and is on the right of a small open yard, which
+is entered through this archway. To the left, a lane leads westwards to
+the open country. It is a humble dwelling of two storeys. The floor of
+the basement flat-paved with the blue flags of Coniston slate--is not
+likely to have been changed since Wordsworth's time. The present door
+with its "latch" (see book ii. l. 339), is probably the same as that
+referred to in the poem, as in use in 1776, and onwards. For further
+details see notes to book iv.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote l: Compare Pope's 'Rape of the Lock', canto iii. l. 54:
+
+  'Gained but one trump, and one plebeian card.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote m: Compare Walton's 'Compleat Angler', part i. 4:
+
+  'I was for that time lifted above earth,
+  And possess'd joys not promised in my birth.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote n: The notes to this edition are explanatory rather than
+critical; but as this image has been objected to--as inaccurate, and out
+of all analogy with Wordsworth's use and wont--it may be mentioned that
+the noise of the breaking up of the ice, after a severe winter in these
+lakes, when it cracks and splits in all directions, is exactly as here
+described. It is not of course, in any sense peculiar to the English
+lakes; but there are probably few districts where the peculiar noise
+referred to can be heard so easily or frequently. Compare Coleridge's
+account of the Lake of Ratzeburg in winter, in 'The Friend', vol. ii. p.
+323 (edition of 1818), and his reference to "the thunders and 'howlings'
+of the breaking ice."--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote o: I here insert a very remarkable MS. variation of the text,
+or rather (I think) one of these experiments in dealing with his theme,
+which were common with Wordsworth. I found it in a copy of the Poems
+belonging to the poet's son:
+
+  I tread the mazes of this argument, and paint
+  How nature by collateral interest
+  And by extrinsic passion peopled first
+  My mind with beauteous objects: may I well
+  Forget what might demand a loftier song,
+  For oft the Eternal Spirit, He that has
+  His Life in unimaginable things,
+  And he who painting what He is in all
+  The visible imagery of all the World
+  Is yet apparent chiefly as the Soul
+  Of our first sympathies--O bounteous power
+  In Childhood, in rememberable days
+  How often did thy love renew for me
+  Those naked feelings which, when thou would'st form
+  A living thing, thou sendest like a breeze
+  Into its infant being! Soul of things
+  How often did thy love renew for me
+  Those hallowed and pure motions of the sense
+  Which seem in their simplicity to own
+  An intellectual charm: That calm delight
+  Which, if I err not, surely must belong
+  To those first-born affinities which fit
+  Our new existence to existing things,
+  And, in our dawn of being, constitute
+  The bond of union betwixt life and joy.
+  Yes, I remember, when the changeful youth
+  And twice five seasons on my mind had stamped
+  The faces of the moving year, even then
+  A child, I held unconscious intercourse
+  With the eternal beauty, drinking in
+  A pure organic pleasure from the lines
+  Of curling mist, or from the smooth expanse
+  Of waters coloured by the clouds of Heaven.
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote p: Snowdrops still grow abundantly in many an orchard and
+meadow by the road which skirts the western side of Esthwaite
+Lake.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote q: Compare the 'Ode, Intimations of Immortality', stanza
+ix.--Ed.]
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK SECOND
+
+
+SCHOOL-TIME--continued ...
+
+
+  Thus far, O Friend! have we, though leaving much
+  Unvisited, endeavoured to retrace
+  The simple ways in which my childhood walked;
+  Those chiefly that first led me to the love
+  Of rivers, woods, and fields. The passion yet                        5
+  Was in its birth, sustained as might befal
+  By nourishment that came unsought; for still
+  From week to week, from month to month, we lived
+  A round of tumult. Duly were our games
+  Prolonged in summer till the day-light failed:                      10
+  No chair remained before the doors; the bench
+  And threshold steps were empty; fast asleep
+  The labourer, and the old man who had sate
+  A later lingerer; yet the revelry
+  Continued and the loud uproar: at last,                             15
+  When all the ground was dark, and twinkling stars
+  Edged the black clouds, home and to bed we went,
+  Feverish with weary joints and beating minds.
+  Ah! is there one who ever has been young,
+  Nor needs a warning voice to tame the pride                         20
+  Of intellect and virtue's self-esteem?
+  One is there, though the wisest and the best
+  Of all mankind, who covets not at times
+  Union that cannot be;--who would not give,
+  If so he might, to duty and to truth                                25
+  The eagerness of infantine desire?
+  A tranquillising spirit presses now
+  On my corporeal frame, so wide appears
+  The vacancy between me and those days
+  Which yet have such self-presence in my mind,                       30
+  That, musing on them, often do I seem
+  Two consciousnesses, conscious of myself
+  And of some other Being. A rude mass
+  Of native rock, left midway in the square
+  Of our small market village, was the goal                           35
+  Or centre of these sports; [A] and when, returned
+  After long absence, thither I repaired,
+  Gone was the old grey stone, and in its place
+  A smart Assembly-room usurped the ground
+  That had been ours. There let the fiddle scream,                    40
+  And be ye happy! Yet, my Friends! I know
+  That more than one of you will think with me
+  Of those soft starry nights, and that old Dame
+  From whom the stone was named, who there had sate,
+  And watched her table with its huckster's wares                     45
+  Assiduous, through the length of sixty years.
+
+    We ran a boisterous course; the year span round
+  With giddy motion. But the time approached
+  That brought with it a regular desire
+  For calmer pleasures, when the winning forms                        50
+  Of Nature were collaterally attached
+  To every scheme of holiday delight
+  And every boyish sport, less grateful else
+  And languidly pursued.
+                         When summer came,
+  Our pastime was, on bright half-holidays,                           55
+  To sweep, along the plain of Windermere
+  With rival oars; [B] and the selected bourne
+  Was now an Island musical with birds
+  That sang and ceased not; now a Sister Isle
+  Beneath the oaks' umbrageous covert, sown                           60
+  With lilies of the valley like a field; [C]
+  And now a third small Island, where survived
+  In solitude the ruins of a shrine
+  Once to Our Lady dedicate, and served
+  Daily with chaunted rites. [D] In such a race                       65
+  So ended, disappointment could be none,
+  Uneasiness, or pain, or jealousy:
+  We rested in the shade, all pleased alike,
+  Conquered and conqueror. Thus the pride of strength,
+  And the vain-glory of superior skill,                               70
+  Were tempered; thus was gradually produced
+  A quiet independence of the heart;
+  And to my Friend who knows me I may add,
+  Fearless of blame, that hence for future days
+  Ensued a diffidence and modesty,                                    75
+  And I was taught to feel, perhaps too much,
+  The self-sufficing power of Solitude.
+
+    Our daily meals were frugal, Sabine fare!
+  More than we wished we knew the blessing then
+  Of vigorous hunger--hence corporeal strength                        80
+  Unsapped by delicate viands; for, exclude
+  A little weekly stipend, and we lived
+  Through three divisions of the quartered year
+  In penniless poverty. But now to school
+  From the half-yearly holidays returned,                             85
+  We came with weightier purses, that sufficed
+  To furnish treats more costly than the Dame
+  Of the old grey stone, from her scant board, supplied.
+  Hence rustic dinners on the cool green ground,
+  Or in the woods, or by a river side                                 90
+  Or shady fountains, while among the leaves
+  Soft airs were stirring, and the mid-day sun
+  Unfelt shone brightly round us in our joy.
+  Nor is my aim neglected if I tell
+  How sometimes, in the length of those half-years,                   95
+  We from our funds drew largely;--proud to curb,
+  And eager to spur on, the galloping steed;
+  And with the courteous inn-keeper, whose stud
+  Supplied our want, we haply might employ
+  Sly subterfuge, if the adventure's bound                           100
+  Were distant: some famed temple where of yore
+  The Druids worshipped, [E] or the antique walls
+  Of that large abbey, where within the Vale
+  Of Nightshade, to St. Mary's honour built, [F]
+  Stands yet a mouldering pile with fractured arch,                  105
+  Belfry, [G] and images, and living trees,
+  A holy scene! Along the smooth green turf
+  Our horses grazed. To more than inland peace
+  Left by the west wind sweeping overhead
+  From a tumultuous ocean, trees and towers                          110
+  In that sequestered valley may be seen,
+  Both silent and both motionless alike;
+  Such the deep shelter that is there, and such
+  The safeguard for repose and quietness.
+
+    Our steeds remounted and the summons given,                      115
+  With whip and spur we through the chauntry flew
+  In uncouth race, and left the cross-legged knight,
+  And the stone-abbot, [H] and that single wren
+  Which one day sang so sweetly in the nave
+  Of the old church, that--though from recent showers                120
+  The earth was comfortless, and touched by faint
+  Internal breezes, sobbings of the place
+  And respirations, from the roofless walls
+  The shuddering ivy dripped large drops--yet still
+  So sweetly 'mid the gloom the invisible bird                       125
+  Sang to herself, that there I could have made
+  My dwelling-place, and lived for ever there
+  To hear such music. Through the walls we flew
+  And down the valley, and, a circuit made
+  In wantonness of heart, through rough and smooth                   130
+  We scampered homewards. Oh, ye rocks and streams,
+  And that still spirit shed from evening air!
+  Even in this joyous time I sometimes felt
+  Your presence, when with slackened step we breathed
+  Along the sides of the steep hills, or when                        135
+  Lighted by gleams of moonlight from the sea
+  We beat with thundering hoofs the level sand.
+
+    Midway on long Winander's eastern shore,
+  Within the crescent of a pleasant bay, [I]
+  A tavern stood; [K] no homely-featured house,                      140
+  Primeval like its neighbouring cottages,
+  But 'twas a splendid place, the door beset
+  With chaises, grooms, and liveries, and within
+  Decanters, glasses, and the blood-red wine.
+  In ancient times, and ere the Hall was built                       145
+  On the large island, had this dwelling been
+  More worthy of a poet's love, a hut,
+  Proud of its own bright fire and sycamore shade.
+  But--though the rhymes were gone that once inscribed
+  The threshold, and large golden characters,                        150
+  Spread o'er the spangled sign-board, had dislodged
+  The old Lion and usurped his place, in slight
+  And mockery of the rustic painter's hand--[L]
+  Yet, to this hour, the spot to me is dear
+  With all its foolish pomp. The garden lay                          155
+  Upon a slope surmounted by a plain
+  Of a small bowling-green; beneath us stood
+  A grove, with gleams of water through the trees
+  And over the tree-tops; [M] nor did we want
+  Refreshment, strawberries and mellow cream.                        160
+  There, while through half an afternoon we played
+  On the smooth platform, whether skill prevailed
+  Or happy blunder triumphed, bursts of glee
+  Made all the mountains ring. But, ere night-fall,
+  When in our pinnace we returned at leisure                         165
+  Over the shadowy lake, and to the beach
+  Of some small island steered our course with one,
+  The Minstrel of the Troop, and left him there, [N]
+  And rowed off gently, while he blew his flute
+  Alone upon the rock--oh, then, the calm                            170
+  And dead still water lay upon my mind
+  Even with a weight of pleasure, and the sky,
+  Never before so beautiful, sank down
+  Into my heart, and held me like a dream!
+  Thus were my sympathies enlarged, and thus                         175
+  Daily the common range of visible things
+  Grew dear to me: already I began
+  To love the sun; a boy I loved the sun,
+  Not as I since have loved him, as a pledge
+  And surety of our earthly life, a light                            180
+  Which we behold and feel we are alive; [O]
+  Nor for his bounty to so many worlds--
+  But for this cause, that I had seen him lay
+  His beauty on the morning hills, had seen
+  The western mountain [P] touch his setting orb,                    185
+  In many a thoughtless hour, when, from excess
+  Of happiness, my blood appeared to flow
+  For its own pleasure, and I breathed with joy.
+  And, from like feelings, humble though intense,
+  To patriotic and domestic love                                     190
+  Analogous, the moon to me was dear;
+  For I could dream away my purposes,
+  Standing to gaze upon her while she hung
+  Midway between the hills, as if she knew
+  No other region, but belonged to thee, [Q]                         195
+  Yea, appertained by a peculiar right
+  To thee and thy grey huts, thou one dear Vale! [R]
+
+    Those incidental charms which first attached
+  My heart to rural objects, day by day
+  Grew weaker, and I hasten on to tell                               200
+  How Nature, intervenient till this time
+  And secondary, now at length was sought
+  For her own sake. But who shall parcel out
+  His intellect by geometric rules,
+  Split like a province into round and square?                       205
+  Who knows the individual hour in which
+  His habits were first sown, even as a seed?
+  Who that shall point as with a wand and say
+  "This portion of the river of my mind
+  Came from yon fountain?" [S] Thou, my Friend! art one              210
+  More deeply read in thy own thoughts; to thee
+  Science appears but what in truth she is,
+  Not as our glory and our absolute boast,
+  But as a succedaneum, and a prop
+  To our infirmity. No officious slave                               215
+  Art thou of that false secondary power
+  By which we multiply distinctions; then,
+  Deem that our puny boundaries are things
+  That we perceive, and not that we have made.
+  To thee, unblinded by these formal arts,                           220
+  The unity of all hath been revealed,
+  And thou wilt doubt, with me less aptly skilled
+  Than many are to range the faculties
+  In scale and order, class the cabinet
+  Of their sensations, and in voluble phrase                         225
+  Run through the history and birth of each
+  As of a single independent thing.
+  Hard task, vain hope, to analyse the mind,
+  If each most obvious and particular thought,
+  Not in a mystical and idle sense,                                  230
+  But in the words of Reason deeply weighed,
+  Hath no beginning.
+                      Blest the infant Babe,
+  (For with my best conjecture I would trace
+  Our Being's earthly progress,) blest the Babe,
+  Nursed in his Mother's arms, who sinks to sleep                    235
+  Rocked on his Mother's breast; who with his soul
+  Drinks in the feelings of his Mother's eye!
+  For him, in one dear Presence, there exists
+  A virtue which irradiates and exalts
+  Objects through widest intercourse of sense.                       240
+  No outcast he, bewildered and depressed:
+  Along his infant veins are interfused
+  The gravitation and the filial bond
+  Of nature that connect him with the world.
+  Is there a flower, to which he points with hand                    245
+  Too weak to gather it, already love
+  Drawn from love's purest earthly fount for him
+  Hath beautified that flower; already shades
+  Of pity cast from inward tenderness
+  Do fall around him upon aught that bears                           250
+  Unsightly marks of violence or harm.
+  Emphatically such a Being lives,
+  Frail creature as he is, helpless as frail,
+  An inmate of this active universe.
+  For feeling has to him imparted power                              255
+  That through the growing faculties of sense
+  Doth like an agent of the one great Mind
+  Create, creator and receiver both,
+  Working but in alliance with the works
+  Which it beholds. Such, verily, is the first                       260
+  Poetic spirit of our human life,
+  By uniform control of after years,
+  In most, abated or suppressed; in some,
+  Through every change of growth and of decay,
+  Pre-eminent till death.
+
+                         From early days,                            265
+  Beginning not long after that first time
+  In which, a Babe, by intercourse of touch
+  I held mute dialogues with my Mother's heart,
+  I have endeavoured to display the means
+  Whereby this infant sensibility,                                   270
+  Great birthright of our being, was in me
+  Augmented and sustained. Yet is a path
+  More difficult before me; and I fear
+  That in its broken windings we shall need
+  The chamois' sinews, and the eagle's wing:                         275
+  For now a trouble came into my mind
+  From unknown causes. I was left alone
+  Seeking the visible world, nor knowing why.
+  The props of my affections were removed,
+  And yet the building stood, as if sustained                        280
+  By its own spirit! All that I beheld
+  Was dear, and hence to finer influxes
+  The mind lay open to a more exact
+  And close communion. Many are our joys
+  In youth, but oh! what happiness to live                           285
+  When every hour brings palpable access
+  Of knowledge, when all knowledge is delight,
+  And sorrow is not there! The seasons came,
+  And every season wheresoe'er I moved
+  Unfolded transitory qualities,                                     290
+  Which, but for this most watchful power of love,
+  Had been neglected; left a register
+  Of permanent relations, else unknown.
+  Hence life, and change, and beauty, solitude
+  More active even than "best society"--[T]                          295
+  Society made sweet as solitude
+  By silent inobtrusive sympathies--
+  And gentle agitations of the mind
+  From manifold distinctions, difference
+  Perceived in things, where, to the unwatchful eye,                 300
+  No difference is, and hence, from the same source,
+  Sublimer joy; for I would walk alone,
+  Under the quiet stars, and at that time
+  Have felt whate'er there is of power in sound
+  To breathe an elevated mood, by form                               305
+  Or image unprofaned; and I would stand,
+  If the night blackened with a coming storm,
+  Beneath some rock, listening to notes that are
+  The ghostly language of the ancient earth,
+  Or make their dim abode in distant winds.                          310
+  Thence did I drink the visionary power;
+  And deem not profitless those fleeting moods
+  Of shadowy exultation: not for this,
+  That they are kindred to our purer mind
+  And intellectual life; but that the soul,                          315
+  Remembering how she felt, but what she felt
+  Remembering not, retains an obscure sense
+  Of possible sublimity, whereto
+  With growing faculties she doth aspire,
+  With faculties still growing, feeling still                        320
+  That whatsoever point they gain, they yet
+  Have something to pursue.
+
+                                  And not alone,
+  'Mid gloom and tumult, but no less 'mid fair
+  And tranquil scenes, that universal power
+  And fitness in the latent qualities                                325
+  And essences of things, by which the mind
+  Is moved with feelings of delight, to me
+  Came, strengthened with a superadded soul,
+  A virtue not its own. My morning walks
+  Were early;--oft before the hours of school [U]                    330
+  I travelled round our little lake, [V] five miles
+  Of pleasant wandering. Happy time! more dear
+  For this, that one was by my side, a Friend, [W]
+  Then passionately loved; with heart how full
+  Would he peruse these lines! For many years                        335
+  Have since flowed in between us, and, our minds
+  Both silent to each other, at this time
+  We live as if those hours had never been.
+  Nor seldom did I lift--our cottage latch [X]
+  Far earlier, ere one smoke-wreath had risen                        340
+  From human dwelling, or the vernal thrush
+  Was audible; and sate among the woods
+  Alone upon some jutting eminence, [Y]
+  At the first gleam of dawn-light, when the Vale,
+  Yet slumbering, lay in utter solitude.                             345
+  How shall I seek the origin? where find
+  Faith in the marvellous things which then I felt?
+  Oft in these moments such a holy calm
+  Would overspread my soul, that bodily eyes
+  Were utterly forgotten, and what I saw                             350
+  Appeared like something in myself, a dream,
+  A prospect in the mind. [Z]
+                    'Twere long to tell
+  What spring and autumn, what the winter snows,
+  And what the summer shade, what day and night,
+  Evening and morning, sleep and waking, thought                     355
+  From sources inexhaustible, poured forth
+  To feed the spirit of religious love
+  In which I walked with Nature. But let this
+  Be not forgotten, that I still retained
+  My first creative sensibility;                                     360
+  That by the regular action of the world
+  My soul was unsubdued. A plastic power
+  Abode with me; a forming hand, at times
+  Rebellious, acting in a devious mood;
+  A local spirit of his own, at war                                  365
+  With general tendency, but, for the most,
+  Subservient strictly to external things
+  With which it communed. An auxiliar light
+  Came from my mind, which on the setting sun
+  Bestowed new splendour; the melodious birds,                       370
+  The fluttering breezes, fountains that run on
+  Murmuring so sweetly in themselves, obeyed
+  A like dominion, and the midnight storm
+  Grew darker in the presence of my eye:
+  Hence my obeisance, my devotion hence,                             375
+  And hence my transport.
+           Nor should this, perchance,
+  Pass unrecorded, that I still had loved
+  The exercise and produce of a toil,
+  Than analytic industry to me
+  More pleasing, and whose character I deem                          380
+  Is more poetic as resembling more
+  Creative agency. The song would speak
+  Of that interminable building reared
+  By observation of affinities
+  In objects where no brotherhood exists                             385
+  To passive minds. My seventeenth year was come;
+  And, whether from this habit rooted now
+  So deeply in my mind; or from excess
+  In the great social principle of life
+  Coercing all things into sympathy,                                 390
+  To unorganic ratures were transferred
+  My own enjoyments; or the power of truth
+  Coming in revelation, did converse
+  With things that really are; I, at this time,
+  Saw blessings spread around me like a sea.                         395
+  Thus while the days flew by, and years passed on,
+  From Nature and her overflowing soul,
+  I had received so much, that all my thoughts
+  Were steeped in feeling; I was only then
+  Contented, when with bliss ineffable                               400
+  I felt the sentiment of Being spread
+  O'er all that moves and all that seemeth still;
+  O'er all that, lost beyond the reach of thought
+  And human knowledge, to the human eye
+  Invisible, yet liveth to the heart;                                405
+  O'er all that leaps and runs, and shouts and sings,
+  Or beats the gladsome air; o'er all that glides
+  Beneath the wave, yea, in the wave itself,
+  And mighty depth of waters. Wonder not
+  If high the transport, great the joy I felt,                       410
+  Communing in this sort through earth and heaven
+  With every form of creature, as it looked
+  Towards the Uncreated with a countenance
+  Of adoration, with an eye of love.
+  One song they sang, and it was audible,                            415
+  Most audible, then, when the fleshly ear,
+  O'ercome by humblest prelude of that strain,
+  Forgot her functions, and slept undisturbed.
+
+    If this be error, and another faith
+  Find easier access to the pious mind,                              420
+  Yet were I grossly destitute of all
+  Those human sentiments that make this earth
+  So dear, if I should fail with grateful voice
+  To speak of you, ye mountains, and ye lakes
+  And sounding cataracts, ye mists and winds                         425
+  That dwell among the hills where I was born.
+  If in my youth I have been pure in heart,
+  If, mingling with the world, I am content
+  With my own modest pleasures, and have lived
+  With God and Nature communing, removed                             430
+  From little enmities and low desires,
+  The gift is yours; if in these times of fear,
+  This melancholy waste of hopes o'erthrown,
+  If, 'mid indifference and apathy,
+  And wicked exultation when good men                                435
+  On every side fall off, we know not how,
+  To selfishness, disguised in gentle names
+  Of peace and quiet and domestic love,
+  Yet mingled not unwillingly with sneers
+  On visionary minds; if, in this time                               440
+  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,                        445
+  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                                   450
+  And purest passion.
+                       Thou, my Friend! wert reared
+  In the great city, 'mid far other scenes; [a]
+  But we, by different roads, at length have gained
+  The self-same bourne. And for this cause to thee
+  I speak, unapprehensive of contempt,                               455
+  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                        460
+  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                            465
+  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                           470
+  Be many, and a blessing to mankind. [b]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT
+
+[Footnote A: The "square" of the "small market village" of Hawkshead
+still remains; and the presence of the new "assembly-room" does not
+prevent us from realising it as open, with the "rude mass of native rock
+left midway" in it--the "old grey stone," which was the centre of the
+village sports.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote B: Compare 'The Excursion', book ix. ll. 487-90:
+
+  'When, on thy bosom, spacious Windermere!
+  A Youth, I practised this delightful art;
+  Tossed on the waves alone, or 'mid a crew
+  Of joyous comrades.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote C: Compare 'The Excursion', book ix. l. 544, describing "a
+fair Isle with birch-trees fringed," where they gathered leaves of that
+shy plant (its flower was shed), the lily of the vale.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote D: These islands in Windermere are easily identified. In the
+Lily of the Valley Island the plant still grows, though not abundantly;
+but from Lady Holme the
+
+          'ruins of a shrine
+  Once to Our Lady dedicate'
+
+have disappeared as completely as the shrine in St. Herbert's Island,
+Derwentwater. The third island:
+
+        'musical with birds,
+  That sang and ceased not--'
+
+may have been House Holme, or that now called Thomson's Holme. It could
+hardly have been Belle Isle; since, from its size, it could not be
+described as a "Sister Isle" to the one where the lily of the valley
+grew "beneath the oaks' umbrageous covert."--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote E: Doubtless the circle was at Conishead Priory, on the
+Cartmell Sands; or that in the vale of Swinside, on the north-east side
+of Black Combe; more probably the former. The whole district is rich in
+Druidical remains, but Wordsworth would not refer to the Keswick circle,
+or to Long Meg and her Daughters in this connection; and the proximity
+of the temple on the Cartmell Shore to the Furness Abbey ruins, and the
+ease with which it could be visited on holidays by the boys from
+Hawkshead school, make it almost certain that he refers to it.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote F: Furness Abbey, founded by Stephen in 1127, in the glen of
+the deadly Nightshade--Bekansghyll--so called from the luxuriant
+abundance of the plant, and dedicated to St. Mary. (Compare West's
+'Antiquities of Furness'.)--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote G: What was the belfry is now a mass of detached ruins.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote H: Doubtless the Cartmell Sands beyond Ulverston, at the
+estuary of the Leven.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote I: At Bowness.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote K: The White Lion Inn at Bowness.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote L: Compare the reference to the "rude piece of self-taught
+art," at the Swan Inn, in the first canto of 'The Waggoner', p. 81.
+William Hutchinson, in his 'Excursion to the Lakes in 1773 and 1774'
+(second edition, 1776, p. 185), mentions "the White Lion Inn at
+Bownas."--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote M: Dr. Cradock told me that William Hutchinson--referred to in
+the previous note--describes "Bownas church and its cottages," as seen
+from the lake, arising "'above the trees'." Wordsworth, reversing the
+view, sees "gleams of water through the trees and 'over the tree
+tops'"--another instance of minutely exact description.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote N: Robert Greenwood, afterwards Senior Fellow of Trinity
+College, Cambridge.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote O: Compare 'Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey',
+vol. ii. p. 51.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote P: Wetherlam, or Coniston Old Man, or both.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Q:
+
+  "The moon, as it hung over the southernmost shore of Esthwaite, with
+  Gunner's How, as seen from Hawkshead rising up boldly to the
+  spectator's left hand, would be thus described."
+
+(H. D. Rawnsley.)--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote R: Esthwaite. Compare 'Peter Bell' (vol. ii. p. 13):
+
+  'Where deep and low the hamlets lie
+  Beneath their little patch of sky
+  And little lot of stars.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote S: See in the Appendix to this volume, Note II, p. 388.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote T: See 'Paradise Lost', ix. l. 249.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote U: The daily work in Hawkshead School began--by Archbishop
+Sandys' ordinance--at 6 A.M. in summer, and 7 A.M. in winter.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote V: Esthwaite.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote W: The Rev. John Fleming, of Rayrigg, Windermere, or,
+possibly, the Rev. Charles Farish, author of 'The Minstrels of
+Winandermere' and 'Black Agnes'. Mr. Carter, who edited 'The Prelude' in
+1850, says it was the former, but this is not absolutely certain.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote X: A "cottage latch"--probably the same as that in use in Dame
+Tyson's time--is still on the door of the house where she lived at
+Hawkshead.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Y: Probably on the western side of the Vale, above the
+village. There is but one "'jutting' eminence" on this side of the
+valley. It is an old moraine, now grass-covered; and, from this point,
+the view both of the village and of the vale is noteworthy. The jutting
+eminence, however, may have been a crag, amongst the Colthouse heights,
+to the north-east of Hawkshead.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Z: Compare in the 'Ode, Intimations of Immortality':
+
+  '... those obstinate questionings
+  Of sense and outward things,
+  Fallings from us, vanishings,' etc.
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote a: Coleridge's school days were spent at Christ's Hospital in
+London. With the above line compare S. T. C.'s 'Frost at Midnight':
+
+                          'I was reared
+  In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote b: Compare 'Stanzas written in my Pocket Copy of Thomsons
+"Castle of Indolence,"' vol. ii. p. 305.--Ed.]
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THIRD
+
+
+RESIDENCE AT CAMBRIDGE
+
+
+  It was a dreary morning when the wheels
+  Rolled over a wide plain o'erhung with clouds,
+  And nothing cheered our way till first we saw
+  The long-roofed chapel of King's College lift
+  Turrets and pinnacles in answering files,                            5
+  Extended high above a dusky grove, [A]
+
+    Advancing, we espied upon the road
+  A student clothed in gown and tasselled cap,
+  Striding along as if o'ertasked by Time,
+  Or covetous of exercise and air;                                    10
+  He passed--nor was I master of my eyes
+  Till he was left an arrow's flight behind.
+  As near and nearer to the spot we drew,
+  It seemed to suck us in with an eddy's force.
+  Onward we drove beneath the Castle; caught,                         15
+  While crossing Magdalene Bridge, a glimpse of Cam;
+  And at the 'Hoop' alighted, famous Inn. [B]
+
+    My spirit was up, my thoughts were full of hope;
+  Some friends I had, acquaintances who there
+  Seemed friends, poor simple school-boys, now hung round             20
+  With honour and importance: in a world
+  Of welcome faces up and down I roved;
+  Questions, directions, warnings and advice,
+  Flowed in upon me, from all sides; fresh day
+  Of pride and pleasure! to myself I seemed                           25
+  A man of business and expense, and went
+  From shop to shop about my own affairs,
+  To Tutor or to Tailor, as befel,
+  From street to street with loose and careless mind.
+
+    I was the Dreamer, they the Dream; I roamed                       30
+  Delighted through the motley spectacle;
+  Gowns, grave, or gaudy, doctors, students, streets,
+  Courts, cloisters, flocks of churches, gateways, towers:
+  Migration strange for a stripling of the hills,
+  A northern villager.
+                         As if the change                             35
+  Had waited on some Fairy's wand, at once
+  Behold me rich in monies, and attired
+  In splendid garb, with hose of silk, and hair
+  Powdered like rimy trees, when frost is keen.
+  My lordly dressing-gown, I pass it by,                              40
+  With other signs of manhood that supplied
+  The lack of beard.--The weeks went roundly on,
+  With invitations, suppers, wine and fruit,
+  Smooth housekeeping within, and all without
+  Liberal, and suiting gentleman's array.                             45
+
+    The Evangelist St. John my patron was:
+  Three Gothic courts are his, and in the first
+  Was my abiding-place, a nook obscure; [C]
+  Right underneath, the College kitchens made
+  A humming sound, less tuneable than bees,                           50
+  But hardly less industrious; with shrill notes
+  Of sharp command and scolding intermixed.
+  Near me hung Trinity's loquacious clock,
+  Who never let the quarters, night or day,
+  Slip by him unproclaimed, and told the hours                        55
+  Twice over with a male and female voice.
+  Her pealing organ was my neighbour too;
+  And from my pillow, looking forth by light
+  Of moon or favouring stars, I could behold
+  The antechapel where the statue stood                               60
+  Of Newton with his prism and silent face,
+  The marble index of a mind for ever
+  Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone.
+
+    Of College labours, of the Lecturer's room
+  All studded round, as thick as chairs could stand,                  65
+  With loyal students faithful to their books,
+  Half-and-half idlers, hardy recusants,
+  And honest dunces--of important days,
+  Examinations, when the man was weighed
+  As in a balance! of excessive hopes,                                70
+  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                       75
+  Of settling time in this untried abode,
+  I 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,                      80
+  A feeling that I was not for that hour,
+  Nor for that place. But wherefore be cast down?
+  For (not to speak of Reason and her pure
+  Reflective acts to fix the moral law
+  Deep in the conscience, nor of Christian Hope,                      85
+  Bowing her head before her sister Faith
+  As one far mightier), hither I had come,
+  Bear witness Truth, endowed with holy powers
+  And faculties, whether to work or feel.
+  Oft when the dazzling show no longer new                            90
+  Had 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                          95
+  Drooped not; but there into herself returning,
+  With prompt rebound seemed fresh as heretofore.
+  At least I more distinctly recognised
+  Her native instincts: let me dare to speak
+  A higher language, say that now I felt                             100
+  What independent solaces were mine,
+  To mitigate the injurious sway of place
+  Or circumstance, how far soever changed
+  In youth, or to be changed in manhood's prime;
+  Or for the few who shall be called to look                         105
+  On the long shadows in our evening years,
+  Ordained precursors to the night of death.
+  As if awakened, summoned, roused, constrained,
+  I looked for universal things; perused
+  The common countenance of earth and sky:                           110
+  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;                      115
+  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,                              120
+  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                             125
+  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,                      130
+  Even the loose stones that cover the high-way,
+  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.                        135
+  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                           140
+  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,                                145
+  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 child-like fruitfulness in passing joy,                         150
+  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,                       155
+  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                          160
+  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,                         165
+  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.
+
+    And here, O Friend! have I retraced my life                      170
+  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                        175
+  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,                        180
+  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                      185
+  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;                              190
+  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 god-like hours,
+  And feels not what an empire we inherit                            195
+  As natural beings in the strength of Nature.
+
+    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                           200
+  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                          205
+  Had failed, the mind returned into herself;
+  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                            210
+  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                             215
+  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,                        220
+  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                    225
+  That miscellaneous garland of wild flowers
+  Decking the matron temples of a place
+  So famous through the world? To me, at least,
+  It was a goodly prospect: for, in sooth,
+  Though I had learnt betimes to stand unpropped,                    230
+  And independent musings pleased me so
+  That spells seemed on me when I was alone,
+  Yet could I only cleave to solitude
+  In lonely places; if a throng was near
+  That way I leaned by nature; for my heart                          235
+  Was social, and loved idleness and joy.
+
+    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,                             240
+  Or looked that way for aught that might be clothed
+  In human language), easily I passed
+  From the remembrances of better things,
+  And slipped into the ordinary works
+  Of careless youth, unburthened, unalarmed.                         245
+  _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.                      250
+  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                        255
+  Of senseless horsemanship, or on the breast
+  Of Cam sailed boisterously, and let the stars
+  Come forth, perhaps without one quiet thought.
+
+    Such was the tenor of the second act
+  In this new life. Imagination slept,                               260
+  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,             265
+  Wake where they waked, range that inclosure old,
+  That garden of great intellects, undisturbed.
+  Place also by the side of this dark sense
+  Of noble feeling, that those spiritual men,
+  Even the great Newton's own ethereal self,                         270
+  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                                275
+  Of more distinct humanity, that left
+  All genuine admiration unimpaired.
+
+    Beside the pleasant Mill of Trompington [D]
+  I laughed with Chaucer in the hawthorn shade;
+  Heard him, while birds were warbling, tell his tales               280
+  Of amorous passion. And that gentle Bard,
+  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!                      285
+  Yea, our blind Poet, who, in his later day,
+  Stood almost single; uttering odious truth--
+  Darkness before, and danger's voice behind,
+  Soul awful--if the earth has ever lodged
+  An awful soul--I seemed to see him here                            290
+  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.                            295
+  Among the band of my compeers was one
+  Whom chance had stationed in the very room
+  Honoured by Milton's name. O temperate Bard!
+  Be it confest that, for the first time, seated
+  Within thy innocent lodge and oratory,                             300
+  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                      305
+  From the assembly; through a length of streets,
+  Ran, ostrich-like, to reach our chapel door
+  In not a desperate or opprobrious time,
+  Albeit long after the importunate bell
+  Had stopped, with wearisome Cassandra voice                        310
+  No longer haunting the dark winter night.
+  Call back, O Friend! [E] a moment to thy mind,
+  The place itself and fashion of the rites.
+  With careless ostentation shouldering up
+  My surplice, [F] through the inferior throng I clove               315
+  Of the plain Burghers, who in audience stood
+  On the last skirts of their permitted ground,
+  Under the pealing organ. Empty thoughts!
+  I am ashamed of them: and that great Bard,
+  And thou, O Friend! who in thy ample mind                          320
+  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                       325
+  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                            330
+  Not doing in their stead the needful work.
+  The memory languidly revolved, the heart
+  Reposed in noontide rest, the inner pulse
+  Of contemplation almost failed to beat.
+  Such life might not inaptly be compared                            335
+  To a floating island, an amphibious spot
+  Unsound, of spongy texture, yet withal
+  Not wanting a fair face of water weeds
+  And pleasant flowers. [G] The thirst of living praise,
+  Fit reverence for the glorious Dead, the sight                     340
+  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.                            345
+  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 blame                        350
+  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 'mid Nature's luxuries,
+  Was a spoiled child, and rambling like the wind,                   355
+  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,                     360
+  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,                          365
+  A winning power, beyond all other power.
+  Not that I slighted books, [H]--that were to lack
+  All sense,--but other passions in me ruled,
+  Passions more fervent, making me less prompt
+  To in-door study than was wise or well,                            370
+  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)                         375
+  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                             380
+  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.                                    385
+  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                        390
+  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                         395
+  Her trappings here, should strip them off abashed
+  Before antiquity and stedfast truth
+  And strong book-mindedness; and over all
+  A healthy sound simplicity should reign,
+  A seemly plainness, name it what you will,                         400
+  Republican or pious.
+                         If these thoughts
+  Are a gratuitous emblazonry
+  That mocks the recreant age _we_ live in, then
+  Be Folly and False-seeming free to affect
+  Whatever formal gait of discipline                                 405
+  Shall raise them highest in their own esteem--
+  Let them parade among the Schools at will,
+  But spare the House of God. Was ever known
+  The witless shepherd who persists to drive
+  A flock that thirsts not to a pool disliked?                       410
+  A weight must surely hang on days begun
+  And ended with such mockery. Be wise,
+  Ye Presidents and Deans, and, till the spirit
+  Of ancient times revive, and youth be trained
+  At home in pious service, to your bells                            415
+  Give seasonable rest, for 'tis a sound
+  Hollow as ever vexed the tranquil air;
+  And your officious doings bring disgrace
+  On the plain steeples of our English Church,
+  Whose worship, 'mid remotest village trees,                        420
+  Suffers for this. Even Science, too, at hand
+  In daily sight of this irreverence,
+  Is smitten thence with an unnatural taint,
+  Loses her just authority, falls beneath
+  Collateral suspicion, else unknown.                                425
+  This truth escaped me not, and I confess,
+  That having 'mid my native hills given loose
+  To a schoolboy's vision, I had raised a pile
+  Upon the basis of the coming time,
+  That fell in ruins round me. Oh, what joy                          430
+  To see a sanctuary for our country's youth
+  Informed with such a spirit as might be
+  Its own protection; a primeval grove,
+  Where, though the shades with cheerfulness were filled,
+  Nor indigent of songs warbled from crowds                          435
+  In under-coverts, yet the countenance
+  Of the whole place should bear a stamp of awe;
+  A habitation sober and demure
+  For ruminating creatures; a domain
+  For quiet things to wander in; a haunt                             440
+  In which the heron should delight to feed
+  By the shy rivers, and the pelican
+  Upon the cypress spire in lonely thought
+  Might sit and sun himself.--Alas! Alas!
+  In vain for such solemnity I looked;                               445
+  Mine eyes were crossed by butterflies, ears vexed
+  By chattering popinjays; the inner heart
+  Seemed trivial, and the impresses without
+  Of a too gaudy region.
+                            Different sight
+  Those venerable Doctors saw of old,                                450
+  When all who dwelt within these famous walls
+  Led in abstemiousness a studious life;
+  When, in forlorn and naked chambers cooped
+  And crowded, o'er the ponderous books they hung
+  Like caterpillars eating out their way                             455
+  In silence, or with keen devouring noise
+  Not to be tracked or fathered. Princes then
+  At matins froze, and couched at curfew-time,
+  Trained up through piety and zeal to prize
+  Spare diet, patient labour, and plain weeds.                       460
+  O seat of Arts! renowned throughout the world!
+  Far different service in those homely days
+  The Muses' modest nurslings underwent
+  From their first childhood: in that glorious time
+  When Learning, like a stranger come from far,                      465
+  Sounding through Christian lands her trumpet, roused
+  Peasant and king; when boys and youths, the growth
+  Of ragged villages and crazy huts,
+  Forsook their homes, and, errant in the quest
+  Of Patron, famous school or friendly nook,                         470
+  Where, pensioned, they in shelter might sit down,
+  From town to town and through wide scattered realms
+  Journeyed with ponderous folios in their hands;
+  And often, starting from some covert place,
+  Saluted the chance comer on the road,                              475
+  Crying, "An obolus, a penny give
+  To a poor scholar!" [I]--when illustrious men,
+  Lovers of truth, by penury constrained,
+  Bucer, Erasmus, or Melancthon, read
+  Before the doors or windows of their cells                         480
+  By moonshine through mere lack of taper light.
+
+    But peace to vain regrets! We see but darkly
+  Even when we look behind us, and best things
+  Are not so pure by nature that they needs
+  Must keep to all, as fondly all believe,                           485
+  Their highest promise. If the mariner,
+  When at reluctant distance he hath passed
+  Some tempting island, could but know the ills
+  That must have fallen upon him had he brought
+  His bark to land upon the wished-for shore,                        490
+  Good cause would oft be his to thank the surf
+  Whose white belt scared him thence, or wind that blew
+  Inexorably adverse: for myself
+  I grieve not; happy is the gowned youth,
+  Who only misses what I missed, who falls                           495
+  No lower than I fell.
+
+                           I did not love,
+  Judging not ill perhaps, the timid course
+  Of our scholastic studies; could have wished
+  To see the river flow with ampler range
+  And freer pace; but more, far more, I grieved                      500
+  To see displayed among an eager few,
+  Who in the field of contest persevered,
+  Passions unworthy of youth's generous heart
+  And mounting spirit, pitiably repaid,
+  When so disturbed, whatever palms are won.                         505
+  From these I turned to travel with the shoal
+  Of more unthinking natures, easy minds
+  And pillowy; yet not wanting love that makes
+  The day pass lightly on, when foresight sleeps,
+  And wisdom and the pledges interchanged                            510
+  With our own inner being are forgot.
+
+    Yet was this deep vacation not given up
+  To utter waste. Hitherto I had stood
+  In my own mind remote from social life,
+  (At least from what we commonly so name,)                          515
+  Like a lone shepherd on a promontory
+  Who lacking occupation looks far forth
+  Into the boundless sea, and rather makes
+  Than finds what he beholds. And sure it is,
+  That this first transit from the smooth delights                   520
+  And wild outlandish walks of simple youth
+  To something that resembles an approach
+  Towards human business, to a privileged world
+  Within a world, a midway residence
+  With all its intervenient imagery,                                 525
+  Did better suit my visionary mind,
+  Far better, than to have been bolted forth;
+  Thrust out abruptly into Fortune's way
+  Among the conflicts of substantial life;
+  By a more just gradation did lead on                               530
+  To higher things; more naturally matured,
+  For permanent possession, better fruits,
+  Whether of truth or virtue, to ensue.
+  In serious mood, but oftener, I confess,
+  With playful zest of fancy did we note                             535
+  (How could we less?) the manners and the ways
+  Of those who lived distinguished by the badge
+  Of good or ill report; or those with whom
+  By frame of Academic discipline
+  We were perforce connected, men whose sway                         540
+  And known authority of office served
+  To set our minds on edge, and did no more.
+  Nor wanted we rich pastime of this kind,
+  Found everywhere, but chiefly in the ring
+  Of the grave Elders, men unsecured, grotesque                      545
+  In character, tricked out like aged trees
+  Which through the lapse of their infirmity
+  Give ready place to any random seed
+  That chooses to be reared upon their trunks.
+
+    Here on my view, confronting vividly                             550
+  Those shepherd swains whom I had lately left,
+  Appeared a different aspect of old age;
+  How different! yet both distinctly marked,
+  Objects embossed to catch the general eye,
+  Or portraitures for special use designed,                          555
+  As some might seem, so aptly do they serve
+  To illustrate Nature's book of rudiments--
+  That book upheld as with maternal care
+  When she would enter on her tender scheme
+  Of teaching comprehension with delight,                            560
+  And mingling playful with pathetic thoughts.
+
+    The surfaces of artificial life
+  And manners finely wrought, the delicate race
+  Of colours, lurking, gleaming up and down
+  Through that state arras woven with silk and gold;                 565
+  This wily interchange of snaky hues,
+  Willingly or unwillingly revealed,
+  I neither knew nor cared for; and as such
+  Were wanting here, I took what might be found
+  Of less elaborate fabric. At this day                              570
+  I smile, in many a mountain solitude
+  Conjuring up scenes as obsolete in freaks
+  Of character, in points of wit as broad,
+  As aught by wooden images performed
+  For entertainment of the gaping crowd                              575
+  At wake or fair. And oftentimes do flit
+  Remembrances before me of old men--
+  Old humourists, who have been long in their graves,
+  And having almost in my mind put off
+  Their human names, have into phantoms passed                       580
+  Of texture midway between life and books.
+
+    I play the loiterer: 'tis enough to note
+  That here in dwarf proportions were expressed
+  The limbs of the great world; its eager strifes
+  Collaterally pourtrayed, as in mock fight,                         585
+  A tournament of blows, some hardly dealt
+  Though short of mortal combat; and whate'er
+  Might in this pageant be supposed to hit
+  An artless rustic's notice, this way less,
+  More that way, was not wasted upon me--590
+  And yet the spectacle may well demand
+  A more substantial name, no mimic show,
+  Itself a living part of a live whole,
+  A creek in the vast sea; for, all degrees
+  And shapes of spurious fame and short-lived praise                 595
+  Here sate in state, and fed with daily alms
+  Retainers won away from solid good;
+  And here was Labour, his own bond-slave; Hope,
+  That never set the pains against the prize;
+  Idleness halting with his weary clog,                              600
+  And poor misguided Shame, and witless Fear,
+  And simple Pleasure foraging for Death;
+  Honour misplaced, and Dignity astray;
+  Feuds, factions, flatteries, enmity, and guile
+  Murmuring submission, and bald government,                         605
+  (The idol weak as the idolater),
+  And Decency and Custom starving Truth,
+  And blind Authority beating with his staff
+  The child that might have led him; Emptiness
+  Followed as of good omen, and meek Worth                           610
+  Left to herself unheard of and unknown.
+
+    Of these and other kindred notices
+  I cannot say what portion is in truth
+  The naked recollection of that time,
+  And what may rather have been called to life                       615
+  By after-meditation. But delight
+  That, in an easy temper lulled asleep,
+  Is still with Innocence its own reward,
+  This was not wanting. Carelessly I roamed
+  As through a wide museum from whose stores                         620
+  A casual rarity is singled out
+  And has its brief perusal, then gives way
+  To others, all supplanted in their turn;
+  Till 'mid this crowded neighbourhood of things
+  That are by nature most unneighbourly,                             625
+  The head turns round and cannot right itself;
+  And though an aching and a barren sense
+  Of gay confusion still be uppermost,
+  With few wise longings and but little love,
+  Yet to the memory something cleaves at last,                       630
+  Whence profit may be drawn in times to come.
+
+    Thus in submissive idleness, my Friend!
+  The labouring time of autumn, winter, spring,
+  Eight months! rolled pleasingly away; the ninth
+  Came and returned me to my native hills.                           635
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT
+
+[Footnote A: Wordsworth went from York to Cambridge, entering it by the
+coach road from the north-west. This was doubtless the road which now
+leads to the city from Girton. "The long-roofed chapel of King's
+College" must have been seen from that road.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote B: The Hoop Inn still exists, not now so famous as in the end
+of last century.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote C: He entered St. John's College in October 1787. His rooms in
+the College were unknown to the officials a dozen years ago, although
+they are pretty clearly indicated by Wordsworth in this passage. They
+were in the first of the three courts of St. John's; they were above the
+College kitchens; and from the window of his bedroom he could look into
+the antechapel of Trinity, with its statue of Newton. They have been
+recently removed in connection with sundry improvements in the college
+kitchen. For details, see the 'Life of Wordsworth' which will follow
+this edition of his Works.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote D: A village two and a half miles south of Cambridge.
+
+  "There are still some remains of the mill here celebrated by Chaucer
+  in his Reve's Tale."
+
+(Lewis' 'Topographical Dictionary of England', vol. iv. p. 390.)--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote E: S. T. C., who entered Cambridge when Wordsworth left
+it.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote F: On certain days a surplice is worn, instead of a gown, by
+the undergraduates.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote G: Compare the poem 'Floating Island', by Dorothy
+Wordsworth.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote H: The following extract from a letter of Dorothy Wordsworth's
+illustrates the above and other passages of this book. It was written
+from Forncett, on the 26th of June, 1791. She is speaking of her two
+brothers, William and Christopher. Of Christopher she says:
+
+  "His abilities, though not so great, perhaps, as his brother's, may be
+  of more use to him, as he has not fixed his mind upon any particular
+  species of reading or conceived an aversion to any. He is not fond of
+  mathematics, but has resolution sufficient to study them; because it
+  will be impossible for him to obtain a fellowship without them.
+  William lost the chance, indeed the certainty, of a fellowship, by not
+  combating his inclinations. He gave way to his natural dislike to
+  studies so dry as many parts of the mathematics, consequently could
+  not succeed in Cambridge. He reads Italian, Spanish, French, Greek,
+  Latin, and English; but never opens a mathematical book.... Do not
+  think from what I have said that he reads not at all; for he does read
+  a great deal, and not only poetry, in these languages he is acquainted
+  with, but History also," etc. etc.
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote I: 'Date obolum Belisario'. Belisarius, a general of the
+Emperor Justinian's, died 564 A.D. The story of his begging charity is
+probably a legend, but the "begging scholar" was common in Christendom
+throughout the Middle Ages, and was met with in the last century.--Ed.]
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FOURTH
+
+
+SUMMER VACATION
+
+
+  Bright was the summer's noon when quickening steps
+  Followed each other till a dreary moor
+  Was crossed, a bare ridge clomb, upon whose top [A]
+  Standing alone, as from a rampart's edge,
+  I overlooked the bed of Windermere,                                  5
+  Like a vast river, stretching in the sun.
+  With exultation, at my feet I saw
+  Lake, islands, promontories, gleaming bays,
+  A universe of Nature's fairest forms
+  Proudly revealed with instantaneous burst,                          10
+  Magnificent, and beautiful, and gay.
+  I bounded down the hill shouting amain
+  For the old Ferryman; to the shout the rocks
+  Replied, and when the Charon of the flood
+  Had staid his oars, and touched the jutting pier, [B]               15
+  I did not step into the well-known boat
+  Without a cordial greeting. Thence with speed
+  Up the familiar hill I took my way [C]
+  Towards that sweet Valley [D] where I had been reared;
+  'Twas but a short hour's walk, ere veering round                    20
+  I saw the snow-white church upon her hill [E]
+  Sit like a throned Lady, sending out
+  A gracious look all over her domain. [F]
+  Yon azure smoke betrays the lurking town;
+  With eager footsteps I advance and reach                            25
+  The cottage threshold where my journey closed.
+  Glad welcome had I, with some tears, perhaps,
+  From my old Dame, so kind and motherly, [G]
+  While she perused me with a parent's pride.
+  The thoughts of gratitude shall fall like dew                       30
+  Upon thy grave, good creature! While my heart
+  Can beat never will I forget thy name.
+  Heaven's blessing be upon thee where thou liest
+  After thy innocent and busy stir
+  In narrow cares, thy little daily growth                            35
+  Of calm enjoyments, after eighty years,
+  And more than eighty, of untroubled life, [H]
+  Childless, yet by the strangers to thy blood
+  Honoured with little less than filial love.
+  What joy was mine to see thee once again,                           40
+  Thee and thy dwelling, and a crowd of things
+  About its narrow precincts all beloved, [I]
+  And many of them seeming yet my own!
+  Why should I speak of what a thousand hearts
+  Have felt, and every man alive can guess?                           45
+  The rooms, the court, the garden were not left
+  Long unsaluted, nor the sunny seat
+  Round the stone table under the dark pine, [K]
+  Friendly to studious or to festive hours;
+  Nor that unruly child of mountain birth,                            50
+  The famous brook, who, soon as he was boxed
+  Within our garden, [L] found himself at once,
+  As if by trick insidious and unkind,
+  Stripped of his voice [M] and left to dimple down
+  (Without an effort and without a will)                              55
+  A channel paved by man's officious care. [N]
+  I looked at him and smiled, and smiled again,
+  And in the press of twenty thousand thoughts, [O]
+  "Ha," quoth I, "pretty prisoner, are you there!"
+  Well might sarcastic Fancy then have whispered,                     60
+  "An emblem here behold of thy own life;
+  In its late course of even days with all
+  Their smooth enthralment;" but the heart was full,
+  Too full for that reproach. My aged Dame
+  Walked proudly at my side: she guided me;                           65
+  I willing, nay--nay, wishing to be led.
+--The face of every neighbour whom I met
+  Was like a volume to me; some were hailed
+  Upon the road, some busy at their work,
+  Unceremonious greetings interchanged                                70
+  With half the length of a long field between.
+  Among my schoolfellows I scattered round
+  Like recognitions, but with some constraint
+  Attended, doubtless, with a little pride,
+  But with more shame, for my habiliments,                            75
+  The transformation wrought by gay attire.
+  Not less delighted did I take my place
+  At our domestic table: and, [P] dear Friend
+  In this endeavour simply to relate
+  A Poet's history, may I leave untold                                80
+  The thankfulness with which I laid me down
+  In my accustomed bed, more welcome now
+  Perhaps than if it had been more desired
+  Or been more often thought of with regret;
+  That lowly bed whence I had heard the wind                          85
+  Roar and the rain beat hard, where I so oft
+  Had lain awake on summer nights to watch
+  The moon in splendour couched among the leaves
+  Of a tall ash, that near our cottage stood; [Q]
+  Had watched her with fixed eyes while to and fro                    90
+  In the dark summit of the waving tree
+  She rocked with every impulse of the breeze.
+
+    Among the favourites whom it pleased me well
+  To see again, was one by ancient right
+  Our inmate, a rough terrier of the hills;                           95
+  By birth and call of nature pre-ordained
+  To hunt the badger and unearth the fox
+  Among the impervious crags, but having been
+  From youth our own adopted, he had passed
+  Into a gentler service. And when first                             100
+  The boyish spirit flagged, and day by day
+  Along my veins I kindled with the stir,
+  The fermentation, and the vernal heat
+  Of poesy, affecting private shades
+  Like a sick Lover, then this dog was used                          105
+  To watch me, an attendant and a friend,
+  Obsequious to my steps early and late,
+  Though often of such dilatory walk
+  Tired, and uneasy at the halts I made.
+  A hundred times when, roving high and low                          110
+  I have been harassed with the toil of verse,
+  Much pains and little progress, and at once
+  Some lovely Image in the song rose up
+  Full-formed, like Venus rising from the sea;
+  Then have I darted forwards to let                                 115
+  My hand upon his back with stormy joy,
+  Caressing him again and yet again.
+  And when at evening on the public way
+  I sauntered, like a river murmuring
+  And talking to itself when all things                              120
+  Are still, the creature trotted on before;
+  Such was his custom; but whene'er he met
+  A passenger approaching, he would turn
+  To give me timely notice, and straightway,
+  Grateful for that admonishment, I                                  125
+  My voice, composed my gait, and, with the air
+  And mien of one whose thoughts are free, advanced
+  To give and take a greeting that might save
+  My name from piteous rumours, such as wait
+  On men suspected to be crazed in brain.                            130
+
+  Those walks well worthy to be prized and loved--
+  Regretted!--that word, too, was on my tongue,
+  But they were richly laden with all good,
+  And cannot be remembered but with thanks
+  And gratitude, and perfect joy of heart--135
+  Those walks in all their freshness now came back
+  Like a returning Spring. When first I made
+  Once more the circuit of our little lake,
+  If ever happiness hath lodged with man,
+  That day consummate happiness was mine,                            140
+  Wide-spreading, steady, calm, contemplative.
+  The sun was set, or setting, when I left
+  Our cottage door, and evening soon brought on
+  A sober hour, not winning or serene,
+  For cold and raw the air was, and untuned;                         145
+  But as a face we love is sweetest then
+  When sorrow damps it, or, whatever look
+  It chance to wear, is sweetest if the heart
+  Have fulness in herself; even so with me
+  It fared that evening. Gently did my soul                          150
+  Put off her veil, and, self-transmuted, stood
+  Naked, as in the presence of her God.
+  While on I walked, a comfort seemed to touch
+  A heart that had not been disconsolate:
+  Strength came where weakness was not known to be,                  155
+  At least not felt; and restoration came
+  Like an intruder knocking at the door
+  Of unacknowledged weariness. I took
+  The balance, and with firm hand weighed myself.
+--Of that external scene which round me lay,                       160
+  Little, in this abstraction, did I see;
+  Remembered less; but I had inward hopes
+  And swellings of the spirit, was rapt and soothed,
+  Conversed with promises, had glimmering views
+  How life pervades the undecaying mind;                             165
+  How the immortal soul with God-like power
+  Informs, creates, and thaws the deepest sleep
+  That time can lay upon her; how on earth,
+  Man, if he do but live within the light
+  Of high endeavours, daily spreads abroad                           170
+  His being armed with strength that cannot fail.
+  Nor was there want of milder thoughts, of love
+  Of innocence, and holiday repose;
+  And more than pastoral quiet, 'mid the stir
+  Of boldest projects, and a peaceful end                            175
+  At last, or glorious, by endurance won.
+  Thus musing, in a wood I sate me down
+  Alone, continuing there to muse: the slopes
+  And heights meanwhile were slowly overspread
+  With darkness, and before a rippling breeze                        180
+  The long lake lengthened out its hoary line,
+  And in the sheltered coppice where I sate,
+  Around me from among the hazel leaves,
+  Now here, now there, moved by the straggling wind,
+  Came ever and anon a breath-like sound,                            185
+  Quick as the pantings of the faithful dog,
+  The off and on companion of my walk;
+  And such, at times, believing them to be,
+  I turned my head to look if he were there;
+  Then into solemn thought I passed once more.                       190
+
+  A freshness also found I at this time
+  In human Life, the daily life of those
+  Whose occupations really I loved;
+  The peaceful scene oft filled me with surprise
+  Changed like a garden in the heat of spring                        195
+  After an eight-days' absence. For (to omit
+  The things which were the same and yet appeared
+  Fair otherwise) amid this rural solitude,
+  A narrow Vale where each was known to all,
+  'Twas not indifferent to a youthful mind                           200
+  To mark some sheltering bower or sunny nook,
+  Where an old man had used to sit alone,
+  Now vacant; pale-faced babes whom I had left
+  In arms, now rosy prattlers at the feet
+  Of a pleased grandame tottering up and down;                       205
+  And growing girls whose beauty, filched away
+  With all its pleasant promises, was gone
+  To deck some slighted playmate's homely cheek.
+
+    Yes, I had something of a subtler sense,
+  And often looking round was moved to smiles                        210
+  Such as a delicate work of humour breeds;
+  I read, without design, the opinions, thoughts,
+  Of those plain-living people now observed
+  With clearer knowledge; with another eye
+  I saw the quiet woodman in the woods,                              215
+  The shepherd roam the hills. With new delight,
+  This chiefly, did I note my grey-haired Dame;
+  Saw her go forth to church or other work
+  Of state, equipped in monumental trim;
+  Short velvet cloak, (her bonnet of the like),                      220
+  A mantle such as Spanish Cavaliers
+  Wore in old time. Her smooth domestic life,
+  Affectionate without disquietude,
+  Her talk, her business, pleased me; and no less
+  Her clear though shallow stream of piety                           225
+  That ran on Sabbath days a fresher course;
+  With thoughts unfelt till now I saw her read
+  Her Bible on hot Sunday afternoons,
+  And loved the book, when she had dropped asleep
+  And made of it a pillow for her head.                              230
+
+    Nor less do I remember to have felt,
+  Distinctly manifested at this time,
+  A human-heartedness about my love
+  For objects hitherto the absolute wealth
+  Of my own private being and no more:                               235
+  Which I had loved, even as a blessed spirit
+  Or Angel, if he were to dwell on earth,
+  Might love in individual happiness.
+  But now there opened on me other thoughts
+  Of change, congratulation or regret,                               240
+  A pensive feeling! It spread far and wide;
+  The trees, the mountains shared it, and the brooks,
+  The stars of Heaven, now seen in their old haunts--
+  White Sirius glittering o'er the southern crags,
+  Orion with his belt, and those fair Seven,                         245
+  Acquaintances of every little child,
+  And Jupiter, my own beloved star!
+  Whatever shadings of mortality,
+  Whatever imports from the world of death
+  Had come among these objects heretofore,                           250
+  Were, in the main, of mood less tender: strong,
+  Deep, gloomy were they, and severe; the scatterings
+  Of awe or tremulous dread, that had given way
+  In later youth to yearnings of a love
+  Enthusiastic, to delight and hope.                                 255
+
+    As one who hangs down-bending from the side
+  Of a slow-moving boat, upon the breast
+  Of a still water, solacing himself
+  With such discoveries as his eye can make
+  Beneath him in the bottom of the deep,                             260
+  Sees many beauteous sights--weeds, fishes, flowers.
+  Grots, pebbles, roots of trees, and fancies more,
+  Yet often is perplexed and cannot part
+  The shadow from the substance, rocks and sky,
+  Mountains and clouds, reflected in the depth                       265
+  Of the clear flood, from things which there abide
+  In their true dwelling; now is crossed by gleam
+  Of his own image, by a sun-beam now,
+  And wavering motions sent he knows not whence,
+  Impediments that make his task more sweet;                         270
+  Such pleasant office have we long pursued
+  Incumbent o'er the surface of past time
+  With like success, nor often have appeared
+  Shapes fairer or less doubtfully discerned
+  Than these to which the Tale, indulgent Friend!                    275
+  Would now direct thy notice. Yet in spite
+  Of pleasure won, and knowledge not withheld,
+  There was an inner falling off--I loved,
+  Loved deeply all that had been loved before,
+  More deeply even than ever: but a swarm                            280
+  Of heady schemes jostling each other, gawds,
+  And feast and dance, and public revelry,
+  And sports and games (too grateful in themselves,
+  Yet in themselves less grateful, I believe,
+  Than as they were a badge glossy and fresh                         285
+  Of manliness and freedom) all conspired
+  To lure my mind from firm habitual quest
+  Of feeding pleasures, to depress the zeal
+  And damp those yearnings which had once been mine--
+  A wild, unworldly-minded youth, given up                           290
+  To his own eager thoughts. It would demand
+  Some skill, and longer time than may be spared,
+  To paint these vanities, and how they wrought
+  In haunts where they, till now, had been unknown.
+  It seemed the very garments that I wore                            295
+  Preyed on my strength, and stopped the quiet stream
+  Of self-forgetfulness.
+                         Yes, that heartless chase
+  Of trivial pleasures was a poor exchange
+  For books and nature at that early age.
+  'Tis true, some casual knowledge might be gained                   300
+  Of character or life; but at that time,
+  Of manners put to school I took small note,
+  And all my deeper passions lay elsewhere.
+  Far better had it been to exalt the mind
+  By solitary study, to uphold                                       305
+  Intense desire through meditative peace;
+  And yet, for chastisement of these regrets,
+  The memory of one particular hour
+  Doth here rise up against me. 'Mid a throng
+  Of maids and youths, old men, and matrons staid,                   310
+  A medley of all tempers, I had passed
+  The night in dancing, gaiety, and mirth,
+  With din of instruments and shuffling feet,
+  And glancing forms, and tapers glittering,
+  And unaimed prattle flying up and down; [R]                        315
+  Spirits upon the stretch, and here and there
+  Slight shocks of young love-liking interspersed,
+  Whose transient pleasure mounted to the head,
+  And tingled through the veins. Ere we retired,
+  The cock had crowed, and now the eastern sky                       320
+  Was kindling, not unseen, from humble copse
+  And open field, through which the pathway wound,
+  And homeward led my steps. Magnificent
+  The morning rose, in memorable pomp,
+  Glorious as e'er I had beheld--in front,                           325
+  The sea lay laughing at a distance; near,
+  The solid mountains shone, bright as the clouds,
+  Grain-tinctured, drenched in empyrean light;
+  And in the meadows and the lower grounds
+  Was all the sweetness of a common dawn--330
+  Dews, vapours, and the melody of birds, [S]
+  And labourers going forth to till the fields.
+  Ah! need I say, dear Friend! that to the brim
+  My heart was full; I made no vows, but vows
+  Were then made for me; bond unknown to me                          335
+  Was given, that I should be, else sinning greatly,
+  A dedicated Spirit. On I walked
+  In thankful blessedness, which yet survives. [T]
+
+    Strange rendezvous! My mind was at that time
+  A parti-coloured show of grave and gay,                            340
+  Solid and light, short-sighted and profound;
+  Of inconsiderate habits and sedate,
+  Consorting in one mansion unreproved.
+  The worth I knew of powers that I possessed,
+  Though slighted and too oft misused. Besides,                      345
+  That summer, swarming as it did with thoughts
+  Transient and idle, lacked not intervals
+  When Folly from the frown of fleeting Time
+  Shrunk, and the mind experienced in herself
+  Conformity as just as that of old                                  350
+  To the end and written spirit of God's works,
+  Whether held forth in Nature or in Man,
+  Through pregnant vision, separate or conjoined.
+
+    When from our better selves we have too long
+  Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop,                      355
+  Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired,
+  How gracious, how benign, is Solitude;
+  How potent a mere image of her sway;
+  Most potent when impressed upon the mind
+  With an appropriate human centre--hermit,                          360
+  Deep in the bosom of the wilderness;
+  Votary (in vast cathedral, where no foot
+  Is treading, where no other face is seen)
+  Kneeling at prayers; or watchman on the top
+  Of lighthouse, beaten by Atlantic waves;                           365
+  Or as the soul of that great Power is met
+  Sometimes embodied on a public road,
+  When, for the night deserted, it assumes
+  A character of quiet more profound
+  Than pathless wastes.
+                      Once, when those summer months                 370
+  Were flown, and autumn brought its annual show
+  Of oars with oars contending, sails with sails,
+  Upon Winander's spacious breast, it chanced
+  That--after I had left a flower-decked room
+  (Whose in-door pastime, lighted up, survived                       375
+  To a late hour), and spirits overwrought
+  Were making night do penance for a day
+  Spent in a round of strenuous idleness--[U]
+  My homeward course led up a long ascent,
+  Where the road's watery surface, to the top                        380
+  Of that sharp rising, glittered to the moon
+  And bore the semblance of another stream
+  Stealing with silent lapse to join the brook
+  That murmured in the vale. [V] All else was still;
+  No living thing appeared in earth or air,                          385
+  And, save the flowing water's peaceful voice,
+  Sound there was none--but, lo! an uncouth shape,
+  Shown by a sudden turning of the road,
+  So near that, slipping back into the shade
+  Of a thick hawthorn, I could mark him well,                        390
+  Myself unseen. He was of stature tall,
+  A span above man's common measure, tall,
+  Stiff, lank, and upright; a more meagre man
+  Was never seen before by night or day.
+  Long were his arms, pallid his hands; his mouth                    395
+  Looked ghastly in the moonlight: from behind,
+  A mile-stone propped him; I could also ken
+  That he was clothed in military garb,
+  Though faded, yet entire. Companionless,
+  No dog attending, by no staff sustained,                           400
+  He stood, and in his very dress appeared
+  A desolation, a simplicity,
+  To which the trappings of a gaudy world
+  Make a strange back-ground. From his lips, ere long,
+  Issued low muttered sounds, as if of pain                          405
+  Or some uneasy thought; yet still his form
+  Kept the same awful steadiness--at his feet
+  His shadow lay, and moved not. From self-blame
+  Not wholly free, I watched him thus; at length
+  Subduing my heart's specious cowardice,                            410
+  I left the shady nook where I had stood
+  And hailed him. Slowly from his resting-place
+  He rose, and with a lean and wasted arm
+  In measured gesture lifted to his head
+  Returned my salutation; then resumed                               415
+  His station as before; and when I asked
+  His history, the veteran, in reply,
+  Was neither slow nor eager; but, unmoved,
+  And with a quiet uncomplaining voice,
+  A stately air of mild indifference,                                420
+  He told in few plain words a soldier's tale--
+  That in the Tropic Islands he had served,
+  Whence he had landed scarcely three weeks past:
+  That on his landing he had been dismissed,
+  And now was travelling towards his native home.                    425
+  This heard, I said, in pity, "Come with me."
+  He stooped, and straightway from the ground took up
+  An oaken staff by me yet unobserved--
+  A staff which must have dropt from his slack hand
+  And lay till now neglected in the grass.                           430
+  Though weak his step and cautious, he appeared
+  To travel without pain, and I beheld,
+  With an astonishment but ill suppressed,
+  His ghostly figure moving at my side;
+  Nor could I, while we journeyed thus, forbear                      435
+  To turn from present hardships to the past,
+  And speak of war, battle, and pestilence,
+  Sprinkling this talk with questions, better spared,
+  On what he might himself have seen or felt.
+  He all the while was in demeanour calm,                            440
+  Concise in answer; solemn and sublime
+  He might have seemed, but that in all he said
+  There was a strange half-absence, as of one
+  Knowing too well the importance of his theme,
+  But feeling it no longer. Our discourse                            445
+  Soon ended, and together on we passed
+  In silence through a wood gloomy and still.
+  Up-turning, then, along an open field,
+  We reached a cottage. At the door I knocked,
+  And earnestly to charitable care                                   450
+  Commended him as a poor friendless man,
+  Belated and by sickness overcome.
+  Assured that now the traveller would repose
+  In comfort, I entreated that henceforth
+  He would not linger in the public ways,                            455
+  But ask for timely furtherance and help
+  Such as his state required. At this reproof,
+  With the same ghastly mildness in his look,
+  He said, "My trust is in the God of Heaven,
+  And in the eye of him who passes me!"                              460
+
+    The cottage door was speedily unbarred,
+  And now the soldier touched his hat once more
+  With his lean hand, and in a faltering voice,
+  Whose tone bespake reviving interests
+  Till then unfelt, he thanked me; I returned                        465
+  The farewell blessing of the patient man,
+  And so we parted. Back I cast a look,
+  And lingered near the door a little space,
+  Then sought with quiet heart my distant home.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT
+
+[Footnote A: On the road from Kendal to Windermere.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote B: At the Ferry below Bowness.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote C: From the Ferry over the ridge to Sawrey.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote D: The Vale of Esthwaite.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote E: Hawkshead Church; an old Norman structure, built in 1160,
+the year of the foundation of Furness Abbey. It is no longer
+"snow-white," a so-called Restoration having taken place within recent
+years, on architectural principles. The plaster is stripped from the
+outside of the church, which is now of a dull stone colour.
+
+  "Apart from poetic sentiment," wrote Dr. Cradock (the late Principal
+  of Brasenose College, Oxford), "it may be doubted whether the pale
+  colour, still preserved at Grasmere and other churches in the
+  district, does not better harmonize with the scenery and atmosphere of
+  the Lake country.".
+
+The most interesting feature in the interior is the private chapel of
+Archbishop Sandys.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote F: Hawkshead Church is a conspicuous object as you approach
+the town, whether by the Ambleside road, or from Sawrey. It is the
+latter approach that is here described.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote G: Anne Tyson,--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote H: Anne Tyson seems to have removed from Hawkshead village to
+Colthouse, on the opposite side of the Vale, and lived there for some
+time before her death. Along with Dr. Cradock I examined the Parish
+Registers of Hawkshead in the autumn of 1882, and we found the following
+entry belonging to the year 1796.
+
+  "Anne Tyson of Colthouse, widow, died May 25th buried 28th, in
+  Churchyard, aged 83."
+
+Her removal to Colthouse is confirmed, in a curious way, by a
+reminiscence of William Wordsworth's (the poet's son), who told me that
+if asked where the dame's house was, he would have pointed to a spot on
+the eastern side of the valley, and out of the village altogether; his
+father having taken him from Rydal Mount to Hawkshead when a mere boy,
+and pointed out that spot. Doubtless Wordsworth took his son to the
+cottage at Colthouse, where Anne Tyson died, as the earlier abode in
+Hawkshead village is well known, and its site is indisputable.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote I: Compare book i. ll. 499-506, p. 148.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote K: There is no trace and no tradition at Hawkshead of the
+"stone table under the dark pine," For a curious parallel to this
+
+             'sunny seat
+  Round the stone table under the dark pine,'
+
+I am indebted to Dr. Cradock. He points out that in the prologue to
+'Peter Bell', vol. ii p.9, we have the lines,
+
+  'To the stone-table in my garden,
+  Loved haunt of many a summer hour,'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote L: There can be little doubt as to the identity of "the famous
+brook" "within our garden" boxed, which gives the name of Flag Street to
+one of the alleys of Hawkshead.
+
+  "Persons have visited the cottage," wrote Dr. Cradock, "without
+  discovering it; and yet it is not forty yards distant, and is still
+  exactly as described. On the opposite side of the lane leading to the
+  cottage, and a few steps above it, is a narrow passage through some
+  new stone buildings. On emerging from this, you meet a small garden,
+  the farther side of which is bounded by the brook, confined on both
+  sides by larger flags, and also covered by flags of the same Coniston
+  formation, through the interstices of which you may see and hear the
+  stream running freely. The upper flags are now used as a footpath, and
+  lead by another passage back into the village. No doubt the garden has
+  been reduced in size, by the use of that part of it fronting the lane
+  for building purposes. The stream, before it enters the area of
+  buildings and gardens, is open by the lane side, and seemingly comes
+  from the hills to the westwards. The large flags are extremely hard
+  and durable, and it is probably that the very flags which paved the
+  channel in Wordsworth's time may still be doing the same duty."
+
+The house adjoining this garden was not Dame Tyson's but a Mr. Watson's.
+Possibly, however, some of the boys had free access to the latter, so
+that Wordsworth could speak of it as "our garden;" or, Dame Tyson may
+have rented it. See Note II. in the Appendix to this volume, p.
+386.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote M: Not wholly so.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote N: See note  on preceding page.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote O: Compare the sonnet in vol. iv.:
+
+  'Beloved Vale!' I said, 'when I shall con
+  ...
+  By doubts and thousand petty fancies crost.'
+
+There can be little doubt that it is to the "famous brook" of 'The
+Prelude' that reference is made in the later sonnet, and still more
+significantly in the earlier poem 'The Fountain', vol. ii. p. 91.
+Compare the MS. variants of that poem, printed as footnotes, from Lord
+Coleridge's copy of the Poems:
+
+  'Down to the vale with eager speed
+  Behold this streamlet run,
+  From subterranean bondage freed,
+  And glittering in the sun.'
+
+with the lines in 'The Prelude':
+
+  'The famous brook, who, soon as he was boxed
+  Within our garden, found himself at once,
+  ...
+  Stripped of his voice and left to dimple down, etc.'
+
+This is doubtless the streamlet called Town Beck; and it is perhaps the
+most interesting of all the spots alluded to by Wordsworth which can be
+traced out in the Hawkshead district, I am indebted to Mr. Rawnsley for
+the following note:
+
+  "From the village, nay, from the poet's very door when he lived at
+  Anne Tyson's, a good path leads on, past the vicarage, quite to its
+  upland place of birth. It has eaten its way deeply into the soil; in
+  one place there is a series of still pools, that overflow and fall
+  into others, with quiet sound; at other spots, it is bustling and
+  busy. Fine timber is found on either side of it, the roots of the
+  trees often laid bare by the passing current. In one or two places by
+  the side of this beck, and beneath the shadow of lofty oaks, may be
+  found boulder stones, grey and moss-covered. Birds make hiding-places
+  for themselves in these oak and hazel bushes by the stream. Following
+  it up, we find it receives, at a tiny ford, the tribute of another
+  stream from the north-west, and comes down between the adjacent hills
+  (well wooded to the summit) from meadows of short-cropped grass, and
+  to these from the open moorland, where it takes its rise. Every
+  conceivable variety of beauty of sound and sight in streamlet life is
+  found as we follow the course of this Town Beck. We owe much of
+  Wordsworth's intimate acquaintance with streamlet beauty to it."
+
+Compare 'The Fountain' in detail with this passage in 'The Prelude'.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote P: So it is in the editions of 1850 and 1857; but it should
+evidently be "nor, dear Friend!"--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Q: The ash tree is gone, but there is no doubt as to the place
+where it grew. Mr. Watson, whose father owned and inhabited the house
+immediately opposite to Mrs. Tyson's cottage in Wordsworth's time (see a
+previous note), told me that a tall ash tree grew on the proper right
+front of the cottage, where an outhouse is now built. If this be so,
+Wordsworth's bedroom must have been that on the proper left, with the
+smaller of the two windows. The cottage faces nearly south-west. In the
+upper flat there are two bedrooms to the front, with oak flooring, one
+of which must have been Wordsworth's. See Note II. (p. 386) in Appendix
+to this volume.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote R: In one of the small mountain farm-houses near
+Hawkshead.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote S: Compare 'Paradise Lost', book viii. l. 528:
+
+  'Walks, and the melody of birds.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote T: Dr. Cradock has suggested to me the probable course of that
+morning walk.
+
+  "All that can be safely said as to the course of that memorable
+  morning walk is that, in that neighbourhood, a view of the sea can
+  only be obtained at a considerable elevation; also that if the words
+  'in _front_ the sea lay laughing' are to be taken as rigidly exact,
+  the poet's progress towards Hawkshead must have been in a direction
+  mainly southerly, and therefore from the country north of that place.
+  These and all other conditions of the description are answered in
+  several parts of the range of hills lying between Elterwater and
+  Hawkshead."
+
+See Appendix, Note III. p. 389.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote U: Compare the sixth line of the poem, beginning
+
+  'This Lawn, a carpet all alive.'
+
+(1829.) And Horace, 'Epistolae', lib. i. ep. xi. l. 28:
+
+  'Strenua nos exercet inertia.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote V: The "brook" is Sawrey beck, and the "long ascent" is the
+second of the two, in crossing from Windermere to Hawkshead, and going
+over the ridge between the two Sawreys. It is only at that point that a
+brook can be heard "murmuring in the vale." The road is the old one,
+above the ferry, marked in the Ordnance Survey Map, by the Briers, not
+the new road which makes a curve to the south, and cannot be described
+as a "sharp rising."--Ed.]
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FIFTH
+
+
+BOOKS
+
+
+  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                     5
+  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,                             15
+  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,                          25
+  Might almost "weep to have" [A] 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,                              35
+  And kindlings like the morning--presage sure
+  Of day returning and of life revived. [B]
+  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                      45
+  Some element to stamp her image on
+  In nature somewhat nearer to her own? [C]
+  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                            55
+  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,                                      65
+  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                         75
+  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                       85
+  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;                                  95
+  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;                           105
+  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                          115
+  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.                        125
+  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,                       135
+  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. [D]                       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                             145
+  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;                           155
+  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 enhancement overcome,
+  When I have held a volume in my hand,
+  Poor earthly casket of immortal verse,
+  Shakespeare, or Milton, labourers divine!                          165
+
+    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                           175
+  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                              185
+  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                                195
+  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, [E]                    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                          205
+  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,                    215
+  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                   225
+  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                     235
+  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. [F]                           245
+
+    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,                     255
+  Which they partake at pleasure. Early died
+  My honoured Mother, she who was the heart
+  And hinge of all our learnings and our loves: [G]
+  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,                           265
+  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;                       275
+  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                         285
+  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,                          295
+  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,                          305
+  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,                                      315
+  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                            325
+  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,                    335
+  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                 345
+  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                        355
+  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? [H]
+
+  There was a Boy: ye knew him well, ye cliffs
+  And islands of Winander!--many a time                              365
+  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 [I]; and they would shout
+  Across the watery vale, and shout again,                           375
+  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,                                385
+  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, [K]
+  And through that churchyard when my way has led
+  On summer evenings, I believe that there                           395
+  A long half hour together I have stood
+  Mute, looking at the grave in which he lies! [L]
+  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, [M] play                    405
+  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; [N] but wanton, fresh,
+  And bandied up and down by love and hate;
+  Not unresentful where self-justified;
+  Fierce, moody, patient, venturous, modest, shy;                    415
+  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!                      425
+
+    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 [O] 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                      435
+  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. [P] 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,                             445
+  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.                              455
+  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--465
+  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,                         475
+  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,                         485
+  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.                    495
+  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.                      505
+  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; [Q]
+  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,                             515
+  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                         525
+  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                   535
+  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                          545
+  At thought of raptures now for ever flown; [R]
+  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                        555
+  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, [S] and for the better part
+  Of two delightful hours we strolled along
+  By the still borders of the misty lake, [T]
+  Repeating favourite verses with one voice,
+  Or conning more, as happy as the birds                             565
+  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, [U]                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,                     575
+  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                       585
+  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 extasy, 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                                   595
+  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.                          605
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
+
+[Footnote A: This quotation I am unable to trace.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote B: Compare Emily Bronte's statement of the same, in the last
+verse she wrote:
+
+    'Though Earth and Man were gone,
+  And suns and universes ceased to be,
+    And Thou wert left alone,
+  Every existence would exist in Thee.
+
+    There is not room for Death,
+  Nor atom that His might could render void;
+   Thou--THOU art Being and Breath,
+  And what THOU art may never be destroyed.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote C:
+
+  "Because she would then become farther and farther removed from the
+  source of essential life and being, diffused instead of concentrated."
+
+(William Davies).--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote D: Mr. A. J. Duffield, the translator of Don Quixote, wrote me
+the following letter on Wordsworth and Cervantes, which I transcribe in
+full.
+
+  "So far as I can learn Wordsworth had not read any critical work on
+  Don Quixote before he wrote the fifth book of 'The Prelude', [a] nor
+  for that matter had any criticism of the master-piece of Cervantes
+  then appeared. Yet Wordsworth,
+
+                     'by patient exercise
+    Of study and hard thought,'
+
+  has given us not only a most poetical insight into the real nature of
+  the 'Illustrious Hidalgo of La Mancha'; he has shown us that it was a
+  nature compacted of the madman and the poet, and this in language so
+  appropriate, that the consideration of it cannot fail to give pleasure
+  to all who have found a reason for weighing Wordsworth's words.
+
+  "He demands
+
+           'Oh! why hath not the Mind
+    Some element to stamp her image on?'
+
+  then falls asleep, 'his senses yielding to the sultry air,' and he
+  sees before him
+
+                '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 ...'
+
+  Here we have the plains of Montiel, and the poet realising all that
+  Don Quixote felt on that day of July, 'the hottest of the year,' when
+  he first set out on his quest and met with nothing worth recording.
+
+    'The uncouth shape'
+
+  is of course the Don himself,
+
+    the 'dromedary'
+
+  is Rozinante, and
+
+    the 'Arab'
+
+  doubtless is Cid Hamete Benengeli.
+
+  "Taking such an one for the guide,
+
+             'who with unerring skill
+    Would through the desert lead me,'
+
+  is a most sweet play of humour like to the lambent flame of his whose
+  satire was as a summer breath, and who smiled all the time he wrote,
+  although he wrote chiefly in a prison.
+
+    'The loud prophetic blast of harmony'
+
+  is doubtless a continuation of this humour, down to the lines
+
+    'Nor doubted once but that they both were books,
+    Having a perfect faith in all that passed.'
+
+  "Our poet now becomes positive,
+
+                           'Lance in rest,
+    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.'
+
+  This is absolutely true, and was one of the earliest complaints made a
+  century and a half ago, when Spaniards began to criticise their one
+  great book. They could not tell at times whether Don Quixote was
+  speaking, or Cervantes, or Cid Hamete Benengeli.
+
+    'A bed of glittering light'
+
+  is a delightful description of the attitude of Don Quixote's mind
+  towards external nature while passing through the desert.
+
+    'It is,' said he, 'the waters of the deep
+    Gathering upon us.'
+
+  "It was, of course, only the mirage; but this he changed to suit his
+  own purpose into the 'waters of the deep,' as he changed the row of
+  Castilian wind-mills into giants, and the roar of the fulling mills
+  into the din of war.
+
+  "Wordsworth is now awake from his dream, but turning all he saw in it
+  into a reality, as only the poet can, he feels that
+
+    'Reverence was due to a being thus employed;
+    And thought that, _in the blind and awful lair
+    Of such a madness, reason did lie couched._'
+
+  Here again is a most profound description of the creation of
+  Cervantes. Don Quixote was mad, but his was a madness that proceeded
+  from that 'blind and awful lair,' a disordered stomach, rather than
+  from an injured brain. Had Don Quixote not forsaken the exercise of
+  the chase and early rising, if he had not taken to eating chestnuts at
+  night, cold spiced meat, together with onions and 'ollas podridas',
+  then proceeding to read exciting, unnatural tales of love and war, he
+  would not have gone mad.
+
+  "But his reason only lay 'couched,' not overthrown. Only give him a
+  dose of the balsam of Fierabras, his reason shall spring out of its
+  lair, like a lion from out its hiding-place, as indeed it did; and you
+  then have that wonderful piece of rhetoric, which describes the army
+  of Alifanfaron in the eighteenth chapter, Part I.
+
+  "There are many other things worthy of note, such as
+
+                               'crazed
+    By love and feeling, and internal thought
+    Protracted among endless solitudes,'
+
+  all of which are 'fit epithets blessed in the marriage of pure words,'
+  which the author of 'The Prelude', without any special learning, or
+  personal knowledge of Spain, has given us, and are so striking as to
+  compel us once again to go to Wordsworth and say, 'we do not all
+  understand thee yet, not all that thou hast given us.'
+
+  Very truly yours, A. J. Duffield."
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote E: Compare 'Paradise Lost', v. 1. 150:
+
+  'In prose or numerous verse.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote F: Wordsworth's earliest teachers, before he was sent to
+Hawkshead School, were his mother and the Rev. Mr. Gilbanks at
+Cockermouth, and Mrs. Anne Birkett at Penrith. His mother and Dame
+Birkett taught him to read, and trained his infant memory. Mr. Gilbanks
+also gave him elementary instruction; while his father made him commit
+to memory portions of the English poets. At Hawkshead he read English
+literature, learned Latin and Mathematics, and wrote both English and
+Latin verse. There was little or no method, and no mechanical or
+artificial drill in his early education. Though he was taught both
+languages and mathematics he was left as free to range the "happy
+pastures" of literature, as to range the Hawkshead woods on autumn
+nights in pursuit of woodcocks. It is likely that the reference in the
+above passage is to his education both in childhood and in youth,
+although specially to the former. In his 'Autobiographical Memoranda',
+Wordsworth says,
+
+  "Of my earliest days at School I have little to say, but that they
+  were very happy ones, chiefly because I was left at liberty, then and
+  in the vacations, to read whatever books I liked. For example, I read
+  all Fielding's works, 'Don Quixote',  'Gil Blas', and any part of
+  Swift that I liked; 'Gulliver's Travels' and the 'Tale of a Tub' being
+  both much to my taste."
+
+As Wordsworth alludes to Coleridge's education, along with his own, "in
+the season of unperilous choice," the reference is probably to
+Coleridge's early time at the vicarage of Ottery St. Mary's, Devonshire,
+and at the Grammar School there, as well as at Christ's Hospital in
+London, where (with Charles Lamb as school-companion) he was as
+enthusiastic in his exploits in the New River, as he was an eager
+student of books.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote G: Mrs. Wordsworth died at Penrith, in the year 1778, the
+poet's eighth year.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote H: Compare, in 'Expostulation and Reply' (vol. i. p. 273),
+
+  'Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum
+  Of things for ever speaking,
+  That nothing of itself will come,
+  But we must still be seeking?'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote I: See the Fenwick note to the poem, 'There was a Boy', vol.
+ii. p. 57, and Wordsworth's reference to his schoolfellow William
+Raincock.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote K: Hawkshead Grammar School.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote L: Lines 364-97 were first published in "Lyrical Ballads,"
+1800, and appeared in all the subsequent collective editions of the
+poems, standing first in the group of "Poems of the Imagination."
+
+The grave of this "immortal boy" cannot be identified. His name, and
+everything about him except what is here recorded, is unknown; but he
+was, in all likelihood, a school companion of Wordsworth's at Hawkshead.
+
+  'And through that churchyard when my way has led
+  On summer evenings.'
+
+One may localize the above description almost anywhere at
+Hawkshead--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote M: Hawkshead School, in which Wordsworth was taught for eight
+years--from 1778 to 1786--was founded by Archbishop Sandys of York, in
+1585, and the building is still very much as it was in Wordsworth's
+time. The main school-room is on the ground floor. One small chamber on
+the first floor was used, in the end of last century, by the head
+master, as a private class-room, for teaching a few advanced pupils. In
+another is a small library, formed in part by the donations of the
+scholars; it having been a custom for each pupil to present a volume on
+leaving the school, or to send one afterwards. Very probably one of the
+volumes now in the library was presented by Wordsworth. There are
+several which were presented by his school-fellows, during the years in
+which Wordsworth was at Hawkshead. The master, in 1877, promised me that
+he would search through his somewhat musty treasures, to see if he could
+discover a book with the poet's autograph; but I never heard of his
+success. On the wall of the room containing the library is a tablet,
+recording the names of several masters. There also, in an old oak chest,
+is kept the original charter of the school. The oak benches downstairs
+are covered with the names or initials of the boys, deeply cut; and,
+amongst them, the name of William Wordsworth--but not those of his
+brothers Richard, John, or Christopher--may be seen. For further details
+as to the Hawkshead School, see the 'Life' of the Poet in this edition.
+Towards the close of last century, when Wordsworth and his three
+brothers were educated there, the school was one of the best educational
+institutions in the north of England.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote N: Compare in the lines beginning "She was a Phantom of
+delight" p. 2:
+
+  'Creature not too bright or good
+  For human nature's daily food.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote O: Compare book iv. ll. 50 and 383, with relative notes--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote P: Compare in 'Fidelity', p. 45:
+
+  'There sometimes doth a leaping fish
+  Send through the tarn a lonely cheer.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Q: Compare the 'Ode, Intimations of Immortality', stanza
+v.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote R: Compare, in 'Tintern Abbey', vol. ii. p.54:
+
+                      'That time is past,
+  And all its aching joys are now no more,
+  And all its dizzy raptures.'
+
+And in the 'Ode, Intimations of Immortality', vol. viii.:
+
+  'What though the radiance which was once so bright
+  Be now for ever taken from my sight.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote S: This friend of his boyhood, with whom Wordsworth spent
+these "delightful hours," is as unknown as is the immortal Boy of
+Windermere, who blew "mimic hootings to the silent owls," and who sleeps
+in the churchyard "above the village school" of Hawkshead, and the Lucy
+of the Goslar poems. Compare, however, p. 163. Wordsworth _may_ refer to
+John Fleming of Rayrigg, with whom he used to take morning walks round
+Esthwaite:
+
+    '... five miles
+  Of pleasant wandering ...'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote T: Esthwaite.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote U: Probably they were passages from Goldsmith, or Pope, or
+writers of their school. The verses which he wrote upon the completion
+of the second century of the foundation of the school were, as he
+himself tells us, "a tame imitation of Pope's versification, and a
+little in his style."--Ed.]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SUB-FOOTNOTE ON THE TEXT
+
+[Sub-Footnote a: Wordsworth studied Spanish during the winter he spent
+at Orleans (1792). Don Quixote was one of the books he had read when at
+the Hawkshead school.--Ed.]
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK SIXTH
+
+
+CAMBRIDGE AND THE ALPS
+
+
+  The leaves were fading when to Esthwaite's banks
+  And the simplicities of cottage life
+  I bade farewell; and, one among the youth
+  Who, summoned by that season, reunite
+  As scattered birds troop to the fowler's lure,                       5
+  Went back to Granta's cloisters, [A] not so prompt
+  Or eager, though as gay and undepressed
+  In mind, as when I thence had taken flight
+  A few short months before. I turned my face
+  Without repining from the coves and heights                         10
+  Clothed in the sunshine of the withering fern; [B]
+  Quitted, not both, the mild magnificence
+  Of calmer lakes and louder streams; and you,
+  Frank-hearted maids of rocky Cumberland,
+  You and your not unwelcome days of mirth,                           15
+  Relinquished, and your nights of revelry,
+  And in my own unlovely cell sate down
+  In lightsome mood--such privilege has youth
+  That cannot take long leave of pleasant thoughts.
+  The bonds of indolent society                                       20
+  Relaxing in their hold, henceforth I lived
+  More to myself. Two winters may be passed
+  Without a separate notice: many books
+  Were skimmed, devoured, or studiously perused,
+  But with no settled plan. [C] I was detached                        25
+  Internally from academic cares;
+  Yet independent study seemed a course
+  Of hardy disobedience toward friends
+  And kindred, proud rebellion and unkind.
+  This spurious virtue, rather let it bear                            30
+  A name it now deserves, this cowardice,
+  Gave treacherous sanction to that over-love
+  Of freedom which encouraged me to turn
+  From regulations even of my own
+  As from restraints and bonds. Yet who can tell--35
+  Who knows what thus may have been gained, both then
+  And at a later season, or preserved;
+  What love of nature, what original strength
+  Of contemplation, what intuitive truths,
+  The deepest and the best, what keen research,                       40
+  Unbiassed, unbewildered, and unawed?
+
+  The Poet's soul was with me at that time;
+  Sweet meditations, the still overflow
+  Of present happiness, while future years
+  Lacked not anticipations, tender dreams,                            45
+  No few of which have since been realised;
+  And some remain, hopes for my future life.
+  Four years and thirty, told this very week, [D]
+  Have I been now a sojourner on earth,
+  By sorrow not unsmitten; yet for me                                 50
+  Life's morning radiance hath not left the hills,
+  Her dew is on the flowers. Those were the days
+  Which also first emboldened me to trust
+  With firmness, hitherto but lightly touched
+  By such a daring thought, that I might leave                        55
+  Some monument behind me which pure hearts
+  Should reverence. The instinctive humbleness,
+  Maintained even by the very name and thought
+  Of printed books and authorship, began
+  To melt away; and further, the dread awe                            60
+  Of mighty names was softened down and seemed
+  Approachable, admitting fellowship
+  Of modest sympathy. Such aspect now,
+  Though not familiarly, my mind put on,
+  Content to observe, to achieve, and to enjoy.                       65
+
+    All winter long, whenever free to choose,
+  Did I by night frequent the College groves
+  And tributary walks; the last, and oft
+  The only one, who had been lingering there
+  Through hours of silence, till the porter's bell,                   70
+  A punctual follower on the stroke of nine,
+  Rang with its blunt unceremonious voice,
+  Inexorable summons! Lofty elms,
+  Inviting shades of opportune recess,
+  Bestowed composure on a neighbourhood                               75
+  Unpeaceful in itself. A single tree
+  With sinuous trunk, boughs exquisitely wreathed,
+  Grew there; [E] an ash which Winter for himself
+  Decked out with pride, and with outlandish grace:
+  Up from the ground, and almost to the top,                          80
+  The trunk and every master branch were green
+  With clustering ivy, and the lightsome twigs
+  And outer spray profusely tipped with seeds
+  That hung in yellow tassels, while the air
+  Stirred them, not voiceless. Often have I stood                     85
+  Foot-bound uplooking at this lovely tree
+  Beneath a frosty moon. The hemisphere
+  Of magic fiction, verse of mine perchance
+  May never tread; but scarcely Spenser's self
+  Could have more tranquil visions in his youth,                      90
+  Or could more bright appearances create
+  Of human forms with superhuman powers,
+  Than I beheld loitering on calm clear nights
+  Alone, beneath this fairy work of earth.
+
+    On the vague reading of a truant youth [F]                        95
+  'Twere idle to descant. My inner judgment
+  Not seldom differed from my taste in books.
+  As if it appertained to another mind,
+  And yet the books which then I valued most
+  Are dearest to me _now_; for, having scanned,                      100
+  Not heedlessly, the laws, and watched the forms
+  Of Nature, in that knowledge I possessed
+  A standard, often usefully applied,
+  Even when unconsciously, to things removed
+  From a familiar sympathy.--In fine,                                105
+  I was a better judge of thoughts than words,
+  Misled in estimating words, not only
+  By common inexperience of youth,
+  But by the trade in classic niceties,
+  The dangerous craft of culling term and phrase                     110
+  From languages that want the living voice
+  To carry meaning to the natural heart;
+  To tell us what is passion, what is truth,
+  What reason, what simplicity and sense.
+
+    Yet may we not entirely overlook                                 115
+  The pleasure gathered from the rudiments
+  Of geometric science. Though advanced
+  In these inquiries, with regret I speak,
+  No farther than the threshold, [G] there I found
+  Both elevation and composed delight:                               120
+  With Indian awe and wonder, ignorance pleased
+  With its own struggles, did I meditate
+  On the relation those abstractions bear
+  To Nature's laws, and by what process led,
+  Those immaterial agents bowed their heads                          125
+  Duly to serve the mind of earth-born man;
+  From star to star, from kindred sphere to sphere,
+  From system on to system without end.
+
+    More frequently from the same source I drew
+  A pleasure quiet and profound, a sense                             130
+  Of permanent and universal sway,
+  And paramount belief; there, recognised
+  A type, for finite natures, of the one
+  Supreme Existence, the surpassing life
+  Which--to the boundaries of space and time,                        135
+  Of melancholy space and doleful time,
+  Superior, and incapable of change,
+  Nor touched by welterings of passion--is,
+  And hath the name of, God. Transcendent peace
+  And silence did await upon these thoughts                          140
+  That were a frequent comfort to my youth.
+
+    'Tis told by one whom stormy waters threw,
+  With fellow-sufferers by the shipwreck spared,
+  Upon a desert coast, that having brought
+  To land a single volume, saved by chance,                          145
+  A treatise of Geometry, he wont,
+  Although of food and clothing destitute,
+  And beyond common wretchedness depressed,
+  To part from company and take this book
+  (Then first a self-taught pupil in its truths)                     150
+  To spots remote, and draw his diagrams
+  With a long staff upon the sand, and thus
+  Did oft beguile his sorrow, and almost
+  Forget his feeling: so (if like effect
+  From the same cause produced, 'mid outward things                  155
+  So different, may rightly be compared),
+  So was it then with me, and so will be
+  With Poets ever. Mighty is the charm
+  Of those abstractions to a mind beset
+  With images, and haunted by herself,                               160
+  And specially delightful unto me
+  Was that clear synthesis built up aloft
+  So gracefully; even then when it appeared
+  Not more than a mere plaything, or a toy
+  To sense embodied: not the thing it is                             165
+  In verity, an independent world,
+  Created out of pure intelligence.
+
+    Such dispositions then were mine unearned
+  By aught, I fear, of genuine desert--
+  Mine, through heaven's grace and inborn aptitudes.                 170
+  And not to leave the story of that time
+  Imperfect, with these habits must be joined,
+  Moods melancholy, fits of spleen, that loved
+  A pensive sky, sad days, and piping winds,
+  The twilight more than dawn, autumn than spring; [H]               175
+  A treasured and luxurious gloom of choice
+  And inclination mainly, and the mere
+  Redundancy of youth's contentedness.
+--To time thus spent, add multitudes of hours
+  Pilfered away, by what the Bard who sang                           180
+  Of the Enchanter Indolence hath called
+  "Good-natured lounging," [I] and behold a map
+  Of my collegiate life--far less intense
+  Than duty called for, or, without regard
+  To duty, _might_ have sprung up of itself                          185
+  By change of accidents, or even, to speak
+  Without unkindness, in another place.
+  Yet why take refuge in that plea?--the fault,
+  This I repeat, was mine; mine be the blame.
+
+    In summer, making quest for works of art,                        190
+  Or scenes renowned for beauty, I explored
+  That streamlet whose blue current works its way
+  Between romantic Dovedale's spiry rocks; [K]
+  Pried into Yorkshire dales, [L] or hidden tracts
+  Of my own native region, and was blest                             195
+  Between these sundry wanderings with a joy
+  Above all joys, that seemed another morn
+  Risen on mid noon; [M] blest with the presence, Friend!
+  Of that sole Sister, her who hath been long
+  Dear to thee also, thy true friend and mine, [N]                   200
+  Now, after separation desolate,
+  Restored to me--such absence that she seemed
+  A gift then first bestowed. [O] The varied banks
+  Of Emont, hitherto unnamed in song, [P]
+  And that monastic castle, 'mid tall trees,                         205
+  Low-standing by the margin of the stream, [Q]
+  A mansion visited (as fame reports)
+  By Sidney, [R] where, in sight of our Helvellyn,
+  Or stormy Cross-fell, snatches he might pen
+  Of his Arcadia, by fraternal love                                  210
+  Inspired;--that river and those mouldering towers
+  Have seen us side by side, when, having clomb
+  The darksome windings of a broken stair,
+  And crept along a ridge of fractured wall,
+  Not without trembling, we in safety looked                         215
+  Forth, through some Gothic window's open space,
+  And gathered with one mind a rich reward
+  From the far-stretching landscape, by the light
+  Of morning beautified, or purple eve;
+  Or, not less pleased, lay on some turret's head,                   220
+  Catching from tufts of grass and hare-bell flowers
+  Their faintest whisper to the passing breeze,
+  Given out while mid-day heat oppressed the plains.
+
+    Another maid there was, [S] who also shed
+  A gladness o'er that season, then to me,                           225
+  By her exulting outside look of youth
+  And placid under-countenance, first endeared;
+  That other spirit, Coleridge! who is now
+  So near to us, that meek confiding heart,
+  So reverenced by us both. O'er paths and fields                    230
+  In all that neighbourhood, through narrow lanes
+  Of eglantine, and through the shady woods,
+  And o'er the Border Beacon, and the waste [T]
+  Of naked pools, and common crags that lay
+  Exposed on the bare felt, were scattered love,                     235
+  The spirit of pleasure, and youth's golden gleam.
+  O Friend! we had not seen thee at that time,
+  And yet a power is on me, and a strong
+  Confusion, and I seem to plant thee there.
+  Far art thou wandered now in search of health                      240
+  And milder breezes,--melancholy lot! [U]
+  But thou art with us, with us in the past,
+  The present, with us in the times to come.
+  There is no grief, no sorrow, no despair,
+  No languor, no dejection, no dismay,                               245
+  No absence scarcely can there be, for those
+  Who love as we do. Speed thee well! divide
+  With us thy pleasure; thy returning strength,
+  Receive it daily as a joy of ours;
+  Share with us thy fresh spirits, whether gift                      250
+  Of gales Etesian or of tender thoughts. [V]
+
+    I, too, have been a wanderer; but, alas!
+  How different the fate of different men.
+  Though mutually unknown, yea nursed and reared
+  As if in several elements, we were framed                          255
+  To bend at last to the same discipline,
+  Predestined, if two beings ever were,
+  To seek the same delights, and have one health,
+  One happiness. Throughout this narrative,
+  Else sooner ended, I have borne in mind                            260
+  For whom it registers the birth, and marks the growth,
+  Of gentleness, simplicity, and truth,
+  And joyous loves, that hallow innocent days
+  Of peace and self-command. Of rivers, fields,
+  And groves I speak to thee, my Friend! to thee,                    265
+  Who, yet a liveried schoolboy, in the depths
+  Of the huge city, [W] on the leaded roof
+  Of that wide edifice, [X] thy school and home,
+  Wert used to lie and gaze upon the clouds
+  Moving in heaven; or, of that pleasure tired,                      270
+  To shut thine eyes, and by internal light
+  See trees, and meadows, and thy native stream, [Y]
+  Far distant, thus beheld from year to year
+  Of a long exile. Nor could I forget,
+  In this late portion of my argument,                               275
+  That scarcely, as my term of pupilage
+  Ceased, had I left those academic bowers
+  When thou wert thither guided. [Z] From the heart
+  Of London, and from cloisters there, thou camest,
+  And didst sit down in temperance and peace,                        280
+  A rigorous student. [a] What a stormy course
+  Then followed. [b] Oh! it is a pang that calls
+  For utterance, to think what easy change
+  Of circumstances might to thee have spared
+  A world of pain, ripened a thousand hopes,                         285
+  For ever withered. Through this retrospect
+  Of my collegiate life I still have had
+  Thy after-sojourn in the self-same place
+  Present before my eyes, have played with times
+  And accidents as children do with cards,                           290
+  Or as a man, who, when his house is built,
+  A frame locked up in wood and stone, doth still,
+  As impotent fancy prompts, by his fireside,
+  Rebuild it to his liking. I have thought
+  Of thee, thy learning, gorgeous eloquence,                         295
+  And all the strength and plumage of thy youth,
+  Thy subtle speculations, toils abstruse
+  Among the schoolmen, and Platonic forms
+  Of wild ideal pageantry, shaped out
+  From things well-matched or ill, and words for things,             300
+  The self-created sustenance of a mind
+  Debarred from Nature's living images,
+  Compelled to be a life unto herself,
+  And unrelentingly possessed by thirst
+  Of greatness, love, and beauty. Not alone,                         305
+  Ah! surely not in singleness of heart
+  Should I have seen the light of evening fade
+  From smooth Cam's silent waters: had we met,
+  Even at that early time, needs must I trust
+  In the belief, that my maturer age,                                310
+  My calmer habits, and more steady voice,
+  Would with an influence benign have soothed,
+  Or chased away, the airy wretchedness
+  That battened on thy youth. But thou hast trod
+  A march of glory, which doth put to shame                          315
+  These vain regrets; health suffers in thee, else
+  Such grief for thee would be the weakest thought
+  That ever harboured in the breast of man.
+
+    A passing word erewhile did lightly touch
+  On wanderings of my own, that now embraced                         320
+  With livelier hope a region wider far.
+
+    When the third summer freed us from restraint,
+  A youthful friend, he too a mountaineer, [c]
+  Not slow to share my wishes, took his staff,
+  And sallying forth, we journeyed side by side,                     325
+  Bound to the distant Alps. [d] A hardy slight
+  Did this unprecedented course imply
+  Of college studies and their set rewards;
+  Nor had, in truth, the scheme been formed by me
+  Without uneasy forethought of the pain,                            330
+  The censures, and ill-omening of those
+  To whom my worldly interests were dear.
+  But Nature then was sovereign in my mind,
+  And mighty forms, seizing a youthful fancy,
+  Had given a charter to irregular hopes.                            335
+  In any age of uneventful calm
+  Among the nations, surely would my heart
+  Have been possessed by similar desire;
+  But Europe at that time was thrilled with joy,
+  France standing on the top of golden hours, [e]                    340
+  And human nature seeming born again. [f]
+
+    Lightly equipped, [g] and but a few brief looks
+  Cast on the white cliffs of our native shore
+  From the receding vessel's deck, we chanced
+  To land at Calais on the very eve                                  345
+  Of that great federal day; [h] and there we saw,
+  In a mean city, and among a few,
+  How bright a face is worn when joy of one
+  Is joy for tens of millions. [h] Southward thence
+  We held our way, direct through hamlets, towns, [i]                350
+  Gaudy with reliques of that festival,
+  Flowers left to wither on triumphal arcs,
+  And window-garlands. On the public roads,
+  And, once, three days successively, through paths
+  By which our toilsome journey was abridged, [k]                    355
+  Among sequestered villages we walked
+  And found benevolence and blessedness
+  Spread like a fragrance everywhere, when spring
+  Hath left no corner of the land untouched:
+  Where elms for many and many a league in files                     360
+  With their thin umbrage, on the stately roads
+  Of that great kingdom, rustled o'er our heads, [m]
+  For ever near us as we paced along:
+  How sweet at such a time, with such delight
+  On every side, in prime of youthful strength,                      365
+  To feed a Poet's tender melancholy
+  And fond conceit of sadness, with the sound
+  Of undulations varying as might please
+  The wind that swayed them; once, and more than once,
+  Unhoused beneath the evening star we saw                           370
+  Dances of liberty, and, in late hours
+  Of darkness, dances in the open air
+  Deftly prolonged, though grey-haired lookers on
+  Might waste their breath in chiding.
+                                       Under hills--
+  The vine-clad hills and slopes of Burgundy,                        375
+  Upon the bosom of the gentle Saone
+  We glided forward with the flowing stream, [n]
+  Swift Rhone! thou wert the _wings_ on which we cut
+  A winding passage with majestic ease
+  Between thy lofty rocks. [o] Enchanting show                       380
+  Those woods and farms and orchards did present
+  And single cottages and lurking towns,
+  Reach after reach, succession without end
+  Of deep and stately vales! A lonely pair
+  Of strangers, till day closed, we sailed along,                    385
+  Clustered together with a merry crowd
+  Of those emancipated, a blithe host
+  Of travellers, chiefly delegates returning
+  From the great spousals newly solemnised
+  At their chief city, in the sight of Heaven.                       390
+  Like bees they swarmed, gaudy and gay as bees;
+  Some vapoured in the unruliness of joy,
+  And with their swords flourished as if to fight
+  The saucy air. In this proud company
+  We landed--took with them our evening meal,                        395
+  Guests welcome almost as the angels were
+  To Abraham of old. The supper done,
+  With flowing cups elate and happy thoughts
+  We rose at signal given, and formed a ring
+  And, hand in hand, danced round and round the board;               400
+  All hearts were open, every tongue was loud
+  With amity and glee; we bore a name
+  Honoured in France, the name of Englishmen,
+  And hospitably did they give us hail,
+  As their forerunners in a glorious course;                         405
+  And round and round the board we danced again.
+  With these blithe friends our voyage we renewed
+  At early dawn. The monastery bells
+  Made a sweet jingling in our youthful ears;
+  The rapid river flowing without noise,                             410
+  And each uprising or receding spire
+  Spake with a sense of peace, at intervals
+  Touching the heart amid the boisterous crew
+  By whom we were encompassed. Taking leave
+  Of this glad throng, foot-travellers side by side,                 415
+  Measuring our steps in quiet, we pursued
+  Our journey, and ere twice the sun had set
+  Beheld the Convent of Chartreuse, and there
+  Rested within an awful _solitude_: [p]
+  Yes, for even then no other than a place                           420
+  Of soul-affecting _solitude_ appeared
+  That far-famed region, though our eyes had seen,
+  As toward the sacred mansion we advanced,
+  Arms flashing, and a military glare
+  Of riotous men commissioned to expel                               425
+  The blameless inmates, and belike subvert
+  That frame of social being, which so long
+  Had bodied forth the ghostliness of things
+  In silence visible and perpetual calm.
+
+--"Stay, stay your sacrilegious hands!"--The voice                 430
+  Was Nature's, uttered from her Alpine throne;
+  I heard it then and seem to hear it now--
+  "Your impious work forbear, perish what may,
+  Let this one temple last, be this one spot
+  Of earth devoted to eternity!"                                     435
+  She ceased to speak, but while St. Bruno's pines [q]
+  Waved their dark tops, not silent as they waved,
+  And while below, along their several beds,
+  Murmured the sister streams of Life and Death, [r]
+  Thus by conflicting passions pressed, my heart                     440
+  Responded; "Honour to the patriot's zeal!
+  Glory and hope to new-born Liberty!
+  Hail to the mighty projects of the time!
+  Discerning sword that Justice wields, do thou
+  Go forth and prosper; and, ye purging fires,                       445
+  Up to the loftiest towers of Pride ascend,
+  Fanned by the breath of angry Providence.
+  But oh! if Past and Future be the wings,
+  On whose support harmoniously conjoined
+  Moves the great spirit of human knowledge, spare                   450
+  These courts of mystery, where a step advanced
+  Between the portals of the shadowy rocks
+  Leaves far behind life's treacherous vanities,
+  For penitential tears and trembling hopes
+  Exchanged--to equalise in God's pure sight                         455
+  Monarch and peasant: be the house redeemed
+  With its unworldly votaries, for the sake
+  Of conquest over sense, hourly achieved
+  Through faith and meditative reason, resting
+  Upon the word of heaven-imparted truth,                            460
+  Calmly triumphant; and for humbler claim
+  Of that imaginative impulse sent
+  From these majestic floods, yon shining cliffs,
+  The untransmuted shapes of many worlds,
+  Cerulean ether's pure inhabitants,                                 465
+  These forests unapproachable by death,
+  That shall endure as long as man endures,
+  To think, to hope, to worship, and to feel,
+  To struggle, to be lost within himself
+  In trepidation, from the blank abyss                               470
+  To look with bodily eyes, and be consoled."
+  Not seldom since that moment have I wished
+  That thou, O Friend! the trouble or the calm
+  Hadst shared, when, from profane regards apart,
+  In sympathetic reverence we trod                                   475
+  The floors of those dim cloisters, till that hour,
+  From their foundation, strangers to the presence
+  Of unrestricted and unthinking man.
+  Abroad, how cheeringly the sunshine lay
+  Upon the open lawns! Vallombre's groves                            480
+  Entering, [s] we fed the soul with darkness; thence
+  Issued, and with uplifted eyes beheld,
+  In different quarters of the bending sky,
+  The cross of Jesus stand erect, as if
+  Hands of angelic powers had fixed it there, [t]                    485
+  Memorial reverenced by a thousand storms;
+  Yet then, from the undiscriminating sweep
+  And rage of one State-whirlwind, insecure.
+
+    'Tis not my present purpose to retrace
+  That variegated journey step by step.                              490
+  A march it was of military speed, [u]
+  And Earth did change her images and forms
+  Before us, fast as clouds are changed in heaven.
+  Day after day, up early and down late,
+  From hill to vale we dropped, from vale to hill                    495
+  Mounted--from province on to province swept,
+  Keen hunters in a chase of fourteen weeks, [u]
+  Eager as birds of prey, or as a ship
+  Upon the stretch, when winds are blowing fair:
+  Sweet coverts did we cross of pastoral life,                       500
+  Enticing valleys, greeted them and left
+  Too soon, while yet the very flash and gleam [v]
+  Of salutation were not passed away.
+  Oh! sorrow for the youth who could have seen
+  Unchastened, unsubdued, unawed, unraised                           505
+  To patriarchal dignity of mind,
+  And pure simplicity of wish and will,
+  Those sanctified abodes of peaceful man,
+  Pleased (though to hardship born, and compassed round
+  With danger, varying as the seasons change),                       510
+  Pleased with his daily task, or, if not pleased,
+  Contented, from the moment that the dawn
+  (Ah! surely not without attendant gleams
+  Of soul-illumination) calls him forth
+  To industry, by glistenings flung on rocks,                        515
+  Whose evening shadows lead him to repose, [w]
+  Well might a stranger look with bounding heart
+  Down on a green recess, [x] the first I saw
+  Of those deep haunts, an aboriginal vale,
+  Quiet and lorded over and possessed                                520
+  By naked huts, wood-built, and sown like tents
+  Or Indian cabins over the fresh lawns
+  And by the river side.
+
+                             That very day,
+  From a bare ridge [y] we also first beheld
+  Unveiled the summit of Mont Blanc, and grieved                     525
+  To have a soulless image on the eye
+  That had usurped upon a living thought
+  That never more could be. The wondrous Vale
+  Of Chamouny stretched far below, and soon
+  With its dumb cataracts and streams of ice,                        530
+  A motionless array of mighty waves,
+  Five rivers broad and vast, [z] made rich amends,
+  And reconciled us to realities;
+  There small birds warble from the leafy trees,
+  The eagle soars high in the element,                               535
+  There doth the reaper bind the yellow sheaf,
+  The maiden spread the haycock in the sun,
+  While Winter like a well-tamed lion walks,
+  Descending from the mountain to make sport
+  Among the cottages by beds of flowers.                             540
+
+    Whate'er in this wide circuit we beheld,
+  Or heard, was fitted to our unripe state
+  Of intellect and heart. With such a book
+  Before our eyes, we could not choose but read
+  Lessons of genuine brotherhood, the plain                          545
+  And universal reason of mankind,
+  The truths of young and old. Nor, side by side
+  Pacing, two social pilgrims, or alone
+  Each with his humour, could we fail to abound
+  In dreams and fictions, pensively composed:                        550
+  Dejection taken up for pleasure's sake,
+  And gilded sympathies, the willow wreath,
+  And sober posies of funereal flowers,
+  Gathered among those solitudes sublime
+  From formal gardens of the lady Sorrow,                            555
+  Did sweeten many a meditative hour.
+
+    Yet still in me with those soft luxuries
+  Mixed something of stem mood, an under-thirst
+  Of vigour seldom utterly allayed.
+  And from that source how different a sadness                       560
+  Would issue, let one incident make known.
+  When from the Vallais we had turned, and clomb
+  Along the Simplon's steep and rugged road, [Aa]
+  Following a band of muleteers, we reached
+  A halting-place, where all together took                           565
+  Their noon-tide meal. Hastily rose our guide,
+  Leaving us at the board; awhile we lingered,
+  Then paced the beaten downward way that led
+  Right to a rough stream's edge, and there broke off;
+  The only track now visible was one                                 570
+  That from the torrent's further brink held forth
+  Conspicuous invitation to ascend
+  A lofty mountain. After brief delay
+  Crossing the unbridged stream, that road we took,
+  And clomb with eagerness, till anxious fears                       575
+  Intruded, for we failed to overtake
+  Our comrades gone before. By fortunate chance,
+  While every moment added doubt to doubt,
+  A peasant met us, from whose mouth we learned
+  That to the spot which had perplexed us first                      580
+  We must descend, and there should find the road,
+  Which in the stony channel of the stream
+  Lay a few steps, and then along its banks;
+  And, that our future course, all plain to sight,
+  Was downwards, with the current of that stream.                    585
+  Loth to believe what we so grieved to hear,
+  For still we had hopes that pointed to the clouds,
+  We questioned him again, and yet again;
+  But every word that from the peasant's lips
+  Came in reply, translated by our feelings,                         590
+  Ended in this,--'that we had crossed the Alps'.
+
+    Imagination--here the Power so called
+  Through sad incompetence of human speech,
+  That awful Power rose from the mind's abyss
+  Like an unfathered vapour that enwraps,                            595
+  At once, some lonely traveller. I was lost;
+  Halted without an effort to break through;
+  But to my conscious soul I now can say--
+  "I recognise thy glory:" in such strength
+  Of usurpation, when the light of sense                             600
+  Goes out, but with a flash that has revealed
+  The invisible world, doth greatness make abode,
+  There harbours; whether we be young or old,
+  Our destiny, our being's heart and home,
+  Is with infinitude, and only there;                                605
+  With hope it is, hope that can never die,
+  Effort, and expectation, and desire,
+  And something evermore about to be.
+  Under such banners militant, the soul
+  Seeks for no trophies, struggles for no spoils                     610
+  That may attest her prowess, blest in thoughts
+  That are their own perfection and reward,
+  Strong in herself and in beatitude
+  That hides her, like the mighty flood of Nile
+  Poured from his fount of Abyssinian clouds                         615
+  To fertilise the whole Egyptian plain.
+
+    The melancholy slackening that ensued
+  Upon those tidings by the peasant given
+  Was soon dislodged. Downwards we hurried fast,
+  And, with the half-shaped road which we had missed,                620
+  Entered a narrow chasm. The brook and road [1]
+  Were fellow-travellers in this gloomy strait, [Bb]
+  And with them did we journey several hours
+  At a slow pace. [2] The immeasurable height
+  Of woods decaying, never to be decayed,                            625
+  The stationary blasts of waterfalls,
+  And in the narrow rent at every turn
+  Winds thwarting winds, bewildered and forlorn,
+  The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky,
+  The rocks that muttered close upon our ears,                       630
+  Black drizzling crags that spake by the way-side
+  As if a voice were in them, the sick sight
+  And giddy prospect of the raving stream,
+  The unfettered clouds and region of the Heavens,
+  Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light--635
+  Were all like workings of one mind, the features
+  Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree;
+  Characters of the great Apocalypse,
+  The types and symbols of Eternity,
+  Of first, and last, and midst, and without end.                    640
+
+    That night our lodging was a house that stood
+  Alone within the valley, at a point
+  Where, tumbling from aloft, a torrent swelled
+  The rapid stream whose margin we had trod;
+  A dreary mansion, large beyond all need, [Cc]                      645
+  With high and spacious rooms, deafened and stunned
+  By noise of waters, making innocent sleep
+  Lie melancholy among weary bones.
+
+    Uprisen betimes, our journey we renewed,
+  Led by the stream, ere noon-day magnified                          650
+  Into a lordly river, broad and deep,
+  Dimpling along in silent majesty,
+  With mountains for its neighbours, and in view
+  Of distant mountains and their snowy tops,
+  And thus proceeding to Locarno's Lake, [Dd]                        655
+  Fit resting-place for such a visitant.
+  Locarno! spreading out in width like Heaven,
+  How dost thou cleave to the poetic heart,
+  Bask in the sunshine of the memory;
+  And Como! thou, a treasure whom the earth                          660
+  Keeps to herself, confined as in a depth
+  Of Abyssinian privacy. I spake
+  Of thee, thy chestnut woods, [Ee] and garden plots
+  Of Indian corn tended by dark-eyed maids;
+  Thy lofty steeps, and pathways roofed with vines,                  665
+  Winding from house to house, from town to town,
+  Sole link that binds them to each other; [Ff] walks,
+  League after league, and cloistral avenues,
+  Where silence dwells if music be not there:
+  While yet a youth undisciplined in verse,                          670
+  Through fond ambition of that hour I strove
+  To chant your praise; [Gg] nor can approach you now
+  Ungreeted by a more melodious Song,
+  Where tones of Nature smoothed by learned Art
+  May flow in lasting current. Like a breeze                         675
+  Or sunbeam over your domain I passed
+  In motion without pause; but ye have left
+  Your beauty with me, a serene accord
+  Of forms and colours, passive, yet endowed
+  In their submissiveness with power as sweet                        680
+  And gracious, almost might I dare to say,
+  As virtue is, or goodness; sweet as love,
+  Or the remembrance of a generous deed,
+  Or mildest visitations of pure thought,
+  When God, the giver of all joy, is thanked                         685
+  Religiously, in silent blessedness;
+  Sweet as this last herself, for such it is.
+
+    With those delightful pathways we advanced,
+  For two days' space, in presence of the Lake,
+  That, stretching far among the Alps, assumed                       690
+  A character more stern. The second night,
+  From sleep awakened, and misled by sound
+  Of the church clock telling the hours with strokes
+  Whose import then we had not learned, we rose
+  By moonlight, doubting not that day was nigh,                      695
+  And that meanwhile, by no uncertain path,
+  Along the winding margin of the lake,
+  Led, as before, we should behold the scene
+  Hushed in profound repose. We left the town
+  Of Gravedona [Hh] with this hope; but soon                         700
+  Were lost, bewildered among woods immense,
+  And on a rock sate down, to wait for day.
+  An open place it was, and overlooked,
+  From high, the sullen water far beneath,
+  On which a dull red image of the moon                              705
+  Lay bedded, changing oftentimes its form
+  Like an uneasy snake. From hour to hour
+  We sate and sate, wondering, as if the night
+  Had been ensnared by witchcraft. On the rock
+  At last we stretched our weary limbs for sleep,                    710
+  But _could not_ sleep, tormented by the stings
+  Of insects, which, with noise like that of noon,
+  Filled all the woods; the cry of unknown birds;
+  The mountains more by blackness visible
+  And their own size, than any outward light;                        715
+  The breathless wilderness of clouds; the clock
+  That told, with unintelligible voice,
+  The widely parted hours; the noise of streams,
+  And sometimes rustling motions nigh at hand,
+  That did not leave us free from personal fear;                     720
+  And, lastly, the withdrawing moon, that set
+  Before us, while she still was high in heaven;--
+  These were our food; and such a summer's night [Ii]
+  Followed that pair of golden days that shed
+  On Como's Lake, and all that round it lay,                         725
+  Their fairest, softest, happiest influence.
+
+    But here I must break off, and bid farewell
+  To days, each offering some new sight, or fraught
+  With some untried adventure, in a course
+  Prolonged till sprinklings of autumnal snow                        730
+  Checked our unwearied steps. Let this alone
+  Be mentioned as a parting word, that not
+  In hollow exultation, dealing out
+  Hyperboles of praise comparative;
+  Not rich one moment to be poor for ever;                           735
+  Not prostrate, overborne, as if the mind
+  Herself were nothing, a mere pensioner
+  On outward forms--did we in presence stand
+  Of that magnificent region. On the front
+  Of this whole Song is written that my heart                        740
+  Must, in such Temple, needs have offered up
+  A different worship. Finally, whate'er
+  I saw, or heard, or felt, was but a stream
+  That flowed into a kindred stream; a gale,
+  Confederate with the current of the soul,                          745
+  To speed my voyage; every sound or sight,
+  In its degree of power, administered
+  To grandeur or to tenderness,--to the one
+  Directly, but to tender thoughts by means
+  Less often instantaneous in effect;                                750
+  Led me to these by paths that, in the main,
+  Were more circuitous, but not less sure
+  Duly to reach the point marked out by Heaven.
+
+    Oh, most beloved Friend! a glorious time,
+  A happy time that was; triumphant looks                            755
+  Were then the common language of all eyes;
+  As if awaked from sleep, the Nations hailed
+  Their great expectancy: the fife of war
+  Was then a spirit-stirring sound indeed,
+  A black-bird's whistle in a budding grove.                         760
+  We left the Swiss exulting in the fate
+  Of their near neighbours; and, when shortening fast
+  Our pilgrimage, nor distant far from home,
+  We crossed the Brabant armies on the fret [Kk]
+  For battle in the cause of Liberty.                                765
+  A stripling, scarcely of the household then
+  Of social life, I looked upon these things
+  As from a distance; heard, and saw, and felt,
+  Was touched, but with no intimate concern;
+  I seemed to move along them, as a bird                             770
+  Moves through the air, or as a fish pursues
+  Its sport, or feeds in its proper element;
+  I wanted not that joy, I did not need
+  Such help; the ever-living universe,
+  Turn where I might, was opening out its glories,                   775
+  And the independent spirit of pure youth
+  Called forth, at every season, new delights
+  Spread round my steps like sunshine o'er green fields.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
+
+[Variant 1:
+
+... gloomy Pass,    1845.]
+
+
+[Variant 2:
+
+At a slow step      1845.]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT
+
+[Footnote A: To Cambridge. The Anglo-Saxons called it 'Grantabridge', of
+which Cambridge may be a corruption, Granta and Cam being different
+names for the same stream. Grantchester is still the name of a village
+near Cambridge. It is uncertain whether the village or the city itself
+is the spot of which Bede writes, "venerunt ad civitatulam quandam
+desolatam, quae lingua Anglorum 'Grantachester' vocatur." If it was
+Cambridge itself it had already an alternative name, _viz._
+'Camboricum'. Compare 'Cache-cache', a Tale in Verse, by William D.
+Watson. London: Smith, Elder, and Co. 1862:
+
+  "Leaving our woods and mountains for the plains
+  Of treeless level Granta." (p. 103.)
+         ...
+                     "'Twas then the time
+  When in two camps, like Pope and Emperor,
+  Byron and Wordsworth parted Granta's sons."
+
+(p. 121.) Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote B: Note the meaning, as well as the 'curiosa felicitas', of
+this phrase.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote C: His Cambridge studies were very miscellaneous, partly owing
+to his strong natural disinclination to work by rule, partly to
+unmethodic training at Hawkshead, and to the fact that he had already
+mastered so much of Euclid and Algebra as to have a twelvemonth's start
+of the freshmen of his year.
+
+  "Accordingly," he tells us, "I got into rather an idle way, reading
+  nothing but Classic authors, according to my fancy, and Italian
+  poetry. As I took to these studies with much interest my Italian
+  master was proud of the progress I made. Under his correction I
+  translated the Vision of Mirza, and two or three other papers of the
+  'Spectator' into Italian."
+
+Speaking of her brother Christopher, then at Cambridge, Dorothy
+Wordsworth wrote thus in 1793:
+
+  "He is not so ardent in any of his pursuits as William is, but he is
+  yet particularly attached to the same pursuits which have so
+  irresistible an influence over William, _and deprive him of the power
+  of chaining his attention to others discordant to his feelings._"
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote D: April 1804.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote E: There is no ash tree now in the grove of St. John's
+College, Cambridge, and no tradition as to where it stood. Covered as it
+was--trunk and branch--with "clustering ivy" in 1787, it survived till
+1808 at any rate. See Note IV. in the Appendix to this volume, p.
+390.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote F: See notes on pp. 210 [Footnote F to Book V] and 223
+Footnote C to this Book, above].--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote G: Before leaving Hawkshead he had mastered five books of
+Euclid, and in Algebra, simple and quadratic equations. See note, p. 223
+[Footnote C to this Book, above].--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote H: Compare the second stanza of the 'Ode to Lycoris':
+
+  'Then, Twilight is preferred to Dawn,
+  And Autumn to the Spring.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote I: Thomson. See the 'Castle of Indolence', canto I. stanza
+xv.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote K: Dovedale, a rocky chasm, rather more than two miles long,
+not far from Ashburn, in Derbyshire. Thomas Potts writes of it
+thus:
+
+  "The rugged, dissimilar, and frequently grotesque and fanciful
+  appearance of the rocks distinguish the scenery of this valley from
+  perhaps every other in the kingdom. In some places they shoot up in
+  detached masses, in the form of spires or conical pyramids, to the
+  height of 30 or 40 yards.... One rock, distinguished by the name of
+  the Pike, from its spiry form and situation in the midst of the
+  stream, was noticed in the second part of 'The Complete Angler', by
+  Charles Cotton," etc. etc.
+
+('The Beauties of England and Wales,' Derbyshire, vol. iii, pp. 425,
+426, and 431. London, 1810.) Potts speaks of the "pellucid waters" of
+the Dove. "It is transparent to the bottom." (See Whately, 'Observations
+on Modern Gardening', p. 114.)--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote L: Doubtless Wharfedale, Wensleydale, and Swaledale.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote M: Compare 'Paradise Lost', v. 310, and in Chapman's 'Blind
+Beggar of Alexandria':
+
+  'Now see a morning in an evening rise.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote N: For glimpses of the friendship of Dorothy Wordsworth and
+Coleridge, see the 'Life' of the poet in the last volume of this
+edition.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote O: The absence referred to--"separation desolate"--may refer
+both to the Hawkshead years, and to those spent at Cambridge; but
+doubtless the brother and sister met at Penrith, in vacation time from
+Hawkshead School; and, after William Wordsworth had gone to the
+university, Dorothy visited Cambridge, while the brother spent the
+Christmas holidays of 1790 at Forncett Rectory in Norfolk, where his
+sister was then staying, and where she spent several years with their
+uncle Cookson, the Canon of Windsor. It is more probable that the
+"separation desolate" refers to the interval between this Christmas of
+1790 and their reunion at Halifax in 1794. In a letter dated Forncett,
+August 30, 1793, Dorothy says, referring to her brother, "It is nearly
+three years since we parted."--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote P: Thomas Wilkinson's poem on the River Emont had been written
+in 1787, but was not published till 1824.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Q: Brougham Castle, at the junction of the Lowther and the
+Emont, about a mile out of Penrith, south-east, on the Appleby road.
+This castle is associated with other poems. See the 'Song at the Feast
+of Brougham Castle'.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote R: Sir Philip Sidney, author of 'Arcadia'.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote S: Mary Hutchinson.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote T: The Border Beacon is the hill to the north-east of Penrith.
+It is now covered with wood, but was in Wordsworth's time a "bare
+fell."--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote U: He had gone to Malta, "in search of health."--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote V: The Etesian gales are the mild north winds of the
+Mediterranean, which are periodical, lasting about six weeks in spring
+and autumn.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote W: A blue-coat boy in London.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote X: Christ's Hospital. Compare Charles Lamb's 'Christ's
+Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago'.
+
+  "Come back into memory, like as thou wert in the dayspring of thy
+  fancies, with hope like a fiery column before thee--the dark pillar
+  not yet turned--Samuel Taylor Coleridge--Logician, Metaphysician,
+  Bard!--How have I seen the casual passer through the cloisters stand
+  still, entranced with admiration (while he weighed the disproportion
+  between the _speech_ and the _garb_ of the young Mirandula), to hear
+  thee unfold, in thy deep and sweet intonations, the mysteries of
+  Jamblichus, or Plotinus (for even in those years thou waxedst not pale
+  at such philosophic draughts), or reciting Homer in his Greek, or
+  Pindar--while the walls of the old Grey Friars re-echoed to the
+  accents of the _inspired charity boy_!"
+
+('Essays of Elia.')--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Y: The river Otter, in Devon, thus addressed by Coleridge in
+one of his early poems:
+
+  'Dear native Brook! wild Streamlet of the West!
+    How many various-fated years have passed,
+    What blissful and what anguished hours, since last
+  I skimmed the smooth thin stone along thy breast,
+    Numbering its light leaps! Yet so deep imprest
+  Sink the sweet scenes of Childhood, that mine eyes
+  I never shut amid the sunny haze,
+    But straight with all their tints, thy waters rise,
+  Thy crowning plank, thy margin's willowy maze,
+    And bedded sand that veined with various dyes
+  Gleamed through thy bright transparence to the gaze!
+    Visions of childhood! oft have ye beguiled
+  Lone Manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs,
+    Ah! that once more I were a careless child!'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Z: Coleridge entered Jesus College, Cambridge, in February
+1791, just a month after Wordsworth had taken his B. A. degree, and left
+the university.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote a: Coleridge worked laboriously but unmethodically at
+Cambridge, studying philosophy and politics, besides classics and
+mathematics. He lost his scholarship however.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote b: Debt and despondency; flight to London; enlistment in the
+Dragoons; residence in Bristol; Republican lectures; scheme, along with
+Southey, for founding a new community in America; its abandonment; his
+marriage; life at Nether Stowey; editing 'The Watchman'; lecturing on
+Shakespeare; contributing to 'The Morning Chronicle'; preaching in
+Unitarian pulpits; publishing his 'Juvenile Poems', etc. etc.; and
+throughout eccentric, impetuous, original--with contagious enthusiasm
+and overflowing genius--but erratic, self-confident, and unstable.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote c: Robert Jones, of Plas-yn-llan, near Ruthin, Denbighshire,
+to whom the 'Descriptive Sketches', which record the tour, were
+dedicated.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote d: See 'Descriptive Sketches', vol. i. p. 35.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote e: Compare Shakespeare, 'Sonnets', 16:
+
+  'Now stand you on the top of happy hours.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote f: In 1790, most of what could be shaken in the order of
+European, and especially of French society and government, _was_ shaken
+and changed. By the new constitution of 1790, to which the French king
+took an oath of fidelity, his power was reduced to a shadow, and two
+years later France became a Republic.
+
+  "We crossed at the time," wrote Wordsworth to his sister, "when the
+  whole nation was mad with joy in consequence of the Revolution."
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote g:
+
+  "We went staff in hand, without knapsacks, and carrying each his
+  needments tied up in a pocket handkerchief, with about twenty pounds
+  a-piece in our pockets."
+
+W. W. ('Autobiographical Memoranda.)--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote h: July 14, 1790.
+
+  "We crossed from Dover and landed at Calais, on the eve of the day
+  when the King was to swear fidelity to the new constitution: an event
+  which was solemnised with due pomp at Calais."
+
+W. W. ('Autobiographical Memoranda.') See also the sonnet "dedicated to
+National Independence and Liberty," vol. ii. p. 332. beginning,
+
+      'Jones! as from Calais southward you and I,
+  and compare the human nature seeming born again'
+
+of 'The Prelude', book vi. I, 341, with "the pomp of a too-credulous
+day" and the "homeless sound of joy" of the sonnet.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote i: They went by Ardres, Peronne, Soissons, Chateau Thierry,
+Sezanne, Bar le Duc, Chatillon-sur-Seine, Nuits, to Chalons-sur-Saone;
+and thence sailed down to Lyons. See Fenwick note to 'Stray Pleasures'
+(vol. iv.)
+
+  "The town of Chalons, where my friend Jones and I halted a day, when
+  we crossed France, so far on foot. There we embarqued, and floated
+  down to Lyons."
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote k: Compare 'Descriptive Sketches', vol. i. p 40:
+
+  'Or where her pathways straggle as they please
+  By lonely farms and secret villages.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote m:
+
+  "Her road elms rustling thin above my head."
+
+(See 'Descriptive Sketches', vol. i. pp. 39, 40, and compare the two
+passages in detail.)--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote n: On the 29th July 1790.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote o: They were at Lyons on the 30th July.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote p: They reached the Chartreuse on the 4th of August, and spent
+two days there "contemplating, with increasing pleasure," says
+Wordsworth, "its wonderful scenery."--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote q: The forest of St. Bruno, near the Chartreuse.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote r: "Names of rivers at the Chartreuse."--W. W. 1793.
+
+They are called in 'Descriptive Sketches', vol. i. p. 41, "the mystic
+streams of Life and Death."--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote s: "Name of one of the vallies of the Chartreuse."--W. W.
+1793.]
+
+
+[Footnote t: "Alluding to crosses seen on the spiry rocks of the
+Chartreuse, which have every appearance of being inaccessible."--W. W.
+1793.]
+
+
+[Footnote u: It extended from July 13 to September 29. See the detailed
+Itinerary, vol. i. p. 332, and Wordsworth's letter to his sister, from
+Keswill, describing the trip.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote v: See the account of "Urseren's open vale serene," and the
+paragraph which follows it in 'Descriptive Sketches', vol. i. pp. 50,
+51.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote w: See the account of these "abodes of peaceful man," in
+'Descriptive Sketches', ll. 208-253.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote x: Probably the valley between Martigny and the Col de
+Balme.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote y: Wordsworth and Jones crossed from Martigny to Chamouni on
+the 11th of August. The "bare ridge," from which they first "beheld
+unveiled the summit of Mont Blanc," and were disenchanted, was doubtless
+the Col de Balme. The first view of the great mountain is not impressive
+as seen from that point, or indeed from any of the possible routes to
+Chamouni from the Rhone valley, until the village is almost reached. The
+best approach is from Sallanches by St. Gervais.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote z: Compare Coleridge's 'Hymn before sun-rise in the Vale of
+Chamouni', and Shelley's 'Mont Blanc', with Wordsworth's description of
+the Alps, here in 'The Prelude', in 'Descriptive Sketches', and in the
+'Memorials of a Tour on the Continent'.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Aa: August 17, 1790.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Bb: This passage beginning, "The brook and road," was first
+published, amongst the "Poems of the Imagination," in the edition of
+1845, under the title of 'The Simplon Pass' (see vol. ii. p. 69). It is
+doubtless to this walk down the Italian side of the Simplon route that
+Wordsworth refers in the letter to his sister from Keswill, in which he
+says,
+
+  "The impression of there hours of our walk among these Alps will never
+  be effaced."
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Cc: The old hospice in the Simplon, which is beside a torrent
+below the level of the road, about 22 miles from Duomo d'Ossola.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Dd:
+
+  "From Duomo d'Ossola we proceeded to the lake of Locarno,
+to visit the Boromean Islands, and thence to Como."
+
+(W. W. to his sister.) The lake of Locarno is now called Lago
+Maggiore.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Ee:
+
+  "The shores of the lake consist of steeps, covered with large sweeping
+  woods of chestnut, spotted with villages."
+
+(W. W. to his sister.)--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Ff:
+
+  "A small footpath is all the communication by land between one village
+  and another on the side along which we passed, for upwards of thirty
+  miles. We entered on this path about noon, and, owing to the steepness
+  of the banks, were soon unmolested by the sun, which illuminated the
+  woods, rocks, and villages of the opposite shore."
+
+(See letter of W. W. from Keswill.)--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Gg: See 'Descriptive Sketches', vol. i. pp. 42-46.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Hh: They followed the lake of Como to its head, leaving
+Gravedona on the 20th August.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Ii: August 21, 1790.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Kk: They reached Cologne on the 28th September, having floated
+down the Rhine in a small boat; and from Cologne went to Calais, through
+Belgium.--Ed.]
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK SEVENTH
+
+
+RESIDENCE IN LONDON
+
+
+  Six changeful years have vanished since I first
+  Poured out (saluted by that quickening breeze
+  Which met me issuing from the City's [A] walls)
+  A glad preamble to this Verse: [B] I sang
+  Aloud, with fervour irresistible                                     5
+  Of short-lived transport, like a torrent bursting,
+  From a black thunder-cloud, down Scafell's side
+  To rush and disappear. But soon broke forth
+  (So willed the Muse) a less impetuous stream,
+  That flowed awhile with unabating strength,                         10
+  Then stopped for years; not audible again
+  Before last primrose-time, [C] Beloved Friend!
+  The assurance which then cheered some heavy thoughts
+  On thy departure to a foreign land [D]
+  Has failed; too slowly moves the promised work.                     15
+  Through the whole summer have I been at rest, [E]
+  Partly from voluntary holiday,
+  And part through outward hindrance. But I heard,
+  After the hour of sunset yester-even,
+  Sitting within doors between light and dark,                        20
+  A choir of redbreasts gathered somewhere near
+  My threshold,--minstrels from the distant woods
+  Sent in on Winter's service, to announce,
+  With preparation artful and benign,
+  That the rough lord had left the surly North                        25
+  On his accustomed journey. The delight,
+  Due to this timely notice, unawares
+  Smote me, and, listening, I in whispers said,
+  "Ye heartsome Choristers, ye and I will be
+  Associates, and, unscared by blustering winds,                      30
+  Will chant together." Thereafter, as the shades
+  Of twilight deepened, going forth, I spied
+  A glow-worm underneath a dusky plume
+  Or canopy of yet unwithered fern,
+  Clear-shining, like a hermit's taper seen                           35
+  Through a thick forest. Silence touched me here
+  No less than sound had done before; the child
+  Of Summer, lingering, shining, by herself,
+  The voiceless worm on the unfrequented hills,
+  Seemed sent on the same errand with the choir                       40
+  Of Winter that had warbled at my door,
+  And the whole year breathed tenderness and love.
+
+    The last night's genial feeling overflowed
+  Upon this morning, and my favourite grove,
+  Tossing in sunshine its dark boughs aloft, [F]                      45
+  As if to make the strong wind visible,
+  Wakes in me agitations like its own,
+  A spirit friendly to the Poet's task,
+  Which we will now resume with lively hope,
+  Nor checked by aught of tamer argument                              50
+  That lies before us, needful to be told.
+
+    Returned from that excursion, [G] soon I bade
+  Farewell for ever to the sheltered seats [H]
+  Of gowned students, quitted hall and bower,
+  And every comfort of that privileged ground,                        55
+  Well pleased to pitch a vagrant tent among
+  The unfenced regions of society.
+
+    Yet, undetermined to what course of life
+  I should adhere, and seeming to possess
+  A little space of intermediate time                                 60
+  At full command, to London first I turned, [I]
+  In no disturbance of excessive hope,
+  By personal ambition unenslaved,
+  Frugal as there was need, and, though self-willed,
+  From dangerous passions free. Three years had flown [K]             65
+  Since I had felt in heart and soul the shock
+  Of the huge town's first presence, and had paced
+  Her endless streets, a transient visitant: [K]
+  Now, fixed amid that concourse of mankind
+  Where Pleasure whirls about incessantly,                            70
+  And life and labour seem but one, I filled
+  An idler's place; an idler well content
+  To have a house (what matter for a home?)
+  That owned him; living cheerfully abroad
+  With unchecked fancy ever on the stir,                              75
+  And all my young affections out of doors.
+
+    There was a time when whatsoe'er is feigned
+  Of airy palaces, and gardens built
+  By Genii of romance; or hath in grave
+  Authentic history been set forth of Rome,                           80
+  Alcairo, Babylon, or Persepolis;
+  Or given upon report by pilgrim friars,
+  Of golden cities ten months' journey deep
+  Among Tartarian wilds--fell short, far short,
+  Of what my fond simplicity believed                                 85
+  And thought of London--held me by a chain
+  Less strong of wonder and obscure delight.
+  Whether the bolt of childhood's Fancy shot
+  For me beyond its ordinary mark,
+  'Twere vain to ask; but in our flock of boys                        90
+  Was One, a cripple from his birth, whom chance
+  Summoned from school to London; fortunate
+  And envied traveller! When the Boy returned,
+  After short absence, curiously I scanned
+  His mien and person, nor was free, in sooth,                        95
+  From disappointment, not to find some change
+  In look and air, from that new region brought,
+  As if from Fairy-land. Much I questioned him;
+  And every word he uttered, on my ears
+  Fell flatter than a caged parrot's note,                           100
+  That answers unexpectedly awry,
+  And mocks the prompter's listening. Marvellous things
+  Had vanity (quick Spirit that appears
+  Almost as deeply seated and as strong
+  In a Child's heart as fear itself) conceived                       105
+  For my enjoyment. Would that I could now
+  Recal what then I pictured to myself,
+  Of mitred Prelates, Lords in ermine clad,
+  The King, and the King's Palace, and, not last,
+  Nor least, Heaven bless him! the renowned Lord Mayor:              110
+  Dreams not unlike to those which once begat
+  A change of purpose in young Whittington,
+  When he, a friendless and a drooping boy,
+  Sate on a stone, and heard the bells speak out
+  Articulate music. [L] Above all, one thought                       115
+  Baffled my understanding: how men lived
+  Even next-door neighbours, as we say, yet still
+  Strangers, not knowing each the other's name.
+
+    O, wond'rous power of words, by simple faith
+  Licensed to take the meaning that we love!                         120
+  Vauxhall and Ranelagh! I then had heard
+  Of your green groves, [M] and wilderness of lamps
+  Dimming the stars, and fireworks magical,
+  And gorgeous ladies, under splendid domes,
+  Floating in dance, or warbling high in air                         125
+  The songs of spirits! Nor had Fancy fed
+  With less delight upon that other class
+  Of marvels, broad-day wonders permanent:
+  The River proudly bridged; the dizzy top
+  And Whispering Gallery of St. Paul's; the tombs                    130
+  Of Westminster; the Giants of Guildhall;
+  Bedlam, and those carved maniacs at the gates, [N]
+  Perpetually recumbent; Statues--man,
+  And the horse under him--in gilded pomp
+  Adorning flowery gardens, 'mid vast squares;                       135
+  The Monument, [O] and that Chamber of the Tower [P]
+  Where England's sovereigns sit in long array,
+  Their steeds bestriding,--every mimic shape
+  Cased in the gleaming mail the monarch wore,
+  Whether for gorgeous tournament addressed,                         140
+  Or life or death upon the battle-field.
+  Those bold imaginations in due time
+  Had vanished, leaving others in their stead:
+  And now I looked upon the living scene;
+  Familiarly perused it; oftentimes,                                 145
+  In spite of strongest disappointment, pleased
+  Through courteous self-submission, as a tax
+  Paid to the object by prescriptive right.
+
+    Rise up, thou monstrous ant-hill on the plain
+  Of a too busy world! Before me flow,                               150
+  Thou endless stream of men and moving things!
+  Thy every-day appearance, as it strikes--
+  With wonder heightened, or sublimed by awe--
+  On strangers, of all ages; the quick dance
+  Of colours, lights, and forms; the deafening din;                  155
+  The comers and the goers face to face,
+  Face after face; the string of dazzling wares,
+  Shop after shop, with symbols, blazoned names,
+  And all the tradesman's honours overhead:
+  Here, fronts of houses, like a title-page,                         160
+  With letters huge inscribed from top to toe,
+  Stationed above the door, like guardian saints;
+  There, allegoric shapes, female or male,
+  Or physiognomies of real men,
+  Land-warriors, kings, or admirals of the sea,                      165
+  Boyle, Shakespeare, Newton, or the attractive head
+  Of some quack-doctor, famous in his day.
+
+  Meanwhile the roar continues, till at length,
+  Escaped as from an enemy, we turn
+  Abruptly into some sequestered nook,                               170
+  Still as a sheltered place when winds blow loud!
+  At leisure, thence, through tracts of thin resort,
+  And sights and sounds that come at intervals,
+  We take our way. A raree-show is here,
+  With children gathered round; another street                       175
+  Presents a company of dancing dogs,
+  Or dromedary, with an antic pair
+  Of monkeys on his back; a minstrel band
+  Of Savoyards; or, single and alone,
+  An English ballad-singer. Private courts,                          180
+  Gloomy as coffins, and unsightly lanes
+  Thrilled by some female vendor's scream, belike
+  The very shrillest of all London cries,
+  May then entangle our impatient steps;
+  Conducted through those labyrinths, unawares,                      185
+  To privileged regions and inviolate,
+  Where from their airy lodges studious lawyers
+  Look out on waters, walks, and gardens green.
+
+    Thence back into the throng, until we reach,
+  Following the tide that slackens by degrees,                       190
+  Some half-frequented scene, where wider streets
+  Bring straggling breezes of suburban air.
+  Here files of ballads dangle from dead walls;
+  Advertisements, of giant-size, from high
+  Press forward, in all colours, on the sight;                       195
+  These, bold in conscious merit, lower down;
+  _That_, fronted with a most imposing word,
+  Is, peradventure, one in masquerade.
+  As on the broadening causeway we advance,
+  Behold, turned upwards, a face hard and strong                     200
+  In lineaments, and red with over-toil.
+  'Tis one encountered here and everywhere;
+  A travelling cripple, by the trunk cut short,
+  And stumping on his arms. In sailor's garb
+  Another lies at length, beside a range                             205
+  Of well-formed characters, with chalk inscribed
+  Upon the smooth flat stones: the Nurse is here,
+  The Bachelor, that loves to sun himself,
+  The military Idler, and the Dame,
+  That field-ward takes her walk with decent steps.                  210
+
+    Now homeward through the thickening hubbub, where
+  See, among less distinguishable shapes,
+  The begging scavenger, with hat in hand;
+  The Italian, as he thrids his way with care,
+  Steadying, far-seen, a frame of images                             215
+  Upon his head; with basket at his breast
+  The Jew; the stately and slow-moving Turk,
+  With freight of slippers piled beneath his arm!
+
+    Enough;--the mighty concourse I surveyed
+  With no unthinking mind, well pleased to note                      220
+  Among the crowd all specimens of man,
+  Through all the colours which the sun bestows,
+  And every character of form and face:
+  The Swede, the Russian; from the genial south,
+  The Frenchman and the Spaniard; from remote                        225
+  America, the Hunter-Indian; Moors,
+  Malays, Lascars, the Tartar, the Chinese,
+  And Negro Ladies in white muslin gowns.
+
+    At leisure, then, I viewed, from day to day,
+  The spectacles within doors,--birds and beasts                     230
+  Of every nature, and strange plants convened
+  From every clime; and, next, those sights that ape
+  The absolute presence of reality,
+  Expressing, as in mirror, sea and land,
+  And what earth is, and what she has to shew.                       235
+  I do not here allude to subtlest craft,
+  By means refined attaining purest ends,
+  But imitations, fondly made in plain
+  Confession of man's weakness and his loves.
+  Whether the Painter, whose ambitious skill                         240
+  Submits to nothing less than taking in
+  A whole horizon's circuit, do with power,
+  Like that of angels or commissioned spirits,
+  Fix us upon some lofty pinnacle,
+  Or in a ship on waters, with a world                               245
+  Of life, and life-like mockery beneath,
+  Above, behind, far stretching and before;
+  Or more mechanic artist represent
+  By scale exact, in model, wood or clay,
+  From blended colours also borrowing help,                          250
+  Some miniature of famous spots or things,--
+  St. Peter's Church; or, more aspiring aim,
+  In microscopic vision, Rome herself;
+  Or, haply, some choice rural haunt,--the Falls
+  Of Tivoli; and, high upon that steep,                              255
+  The Sibyl's mouldering Temple! every tree,
+  Villa, or cottage, lurking among rocks
+  Throughout the landscape; tuft, stone scratch minute--
+  All that the traveller sees when he is there.
+
+    Add to these exhibitions, mute and still,                        260
+  Others of wider scope, where living men,
+  Music, and shifting pantomimic scenes,
+  Diversified the allurement. Need I fear
+  To mention by its name, as in degree,
+  Lowest of these and humblest in attempt,                           265
+  Yet richly graced with honours of her own,
+  Half-rural Sadler's Wells? [Q] Though at that time
+  Intolerant, as is the way of youth
+  Unless itself be pleased, here more than once
+  Taking my seat, I saw (nor blush to add,                           270
+  With ample recompense) giants and dwarfs,
+  Clowns, conjurors, posture-masters, harlequins,
+  Amid the uproar of the rabblement,
+  Perform their feats. Nor was it mean delight
+  To watch crude Nature work in untaught minds;                      275
+  To note the laws and progress of belief;
+  Though obstinate on this way, yet on that
+  How willingly we travel, and how far!
+  To have, for instance, brought upon the scene
+  The champion, Jack the Giant-killer: Lo!                           280
+  He dons his coat of darkness; on the stage
+  Walks, and achieves his wonders, from the eye
+  Of living Mortal covert, "as the moon
+  Hid in her vacant interlunar cave." [R]
+  Delusion bold! and how can it be wrought?                          285
+  The garb he wears is black as death, the word
+  "_Invisible_" flames forth upon his chest.
+
+    Here, too, were "forms and pressures of the time," [S]
+  Rough, bold, as Grecian comedy displayed
+  When Art was young; dramas of living men,                          290
+  And recent things yet warm with life; a sea-fight,
+  Shipwreck, or some domestic incident
+  Divulged by Truth and magnified by Fame,
+  Such as the daring brotherhood of late
+  Set forth, too serious theme for that light place--295
+  I mean, O distant Friend! a story drawn
+  From our own ground,--the Maid of Buttermere,--[T]
+  And how, unfaithful to a virtuous wife
+  Deserted and deceived, the spoiler came
+  And wooed the artless daughter of the hills,                       300
+  And wedded her, in cruel mockery
+  Of love and marriage bonds. [U] These words to thee
+  Must needs bring back the moment when we first,
+  Ere the broad world rang with the maiden's name,
+  Beheld her serving at the cottage inn,                             305
+  Both stricken, as she entered or withdrew,
+  With admiration of her modest mien
+  And carriage, marked by unexampled grace.
+  We since that time not unfamiliarly
+  Have seen her,--her discretion have observed,                      310
+  Her just opinions, delicate reserve,
+  Her patience, and humility of mind
+  Unspoiled by commendation and the excess
+  Of public notice--an offensive light
+  To a meek spirit suffering inwardly.                               315
+
+    From this memorial tribute to my theme
+  I was returning, when, with sundry forms
+  Commingled--shapes which met me in the way
+  That we must tread--thy image rose again,
+  Maiden of Buttermere! She lives in peace                           320
+  Upon the spot where she was born and reared;
+  Without contamination doth she live
+  In quietness, without anxiety:
+  Beside the mountain chapel, sleeps in earth
+  Her new-born infant, fearless as a lamb                            325
+  That, thither driven from some unsheltered place,
+  Rests underneath the little rock-like pile
+  When storms are raging. Happy are they both--
+  Mother and child!--These feelings, in themselves
+  Trite, do yet scarcely seem so when I think                        330
+  On those ingenuous moments of our youth
+  Ere we have learnt by use to slight the crimes
+  And sorrows of the world. Those simple days
+  Are now my theme; and, foremost of the scenes,
+  Which yet survive in memory, appears                               335
+  One, at whose centre sate a lovely Boy,
+  A sportive infant, who, for six months' space,
+  Not more, had been of age to deal about
+  Articulate prattle--Child as beautiful
+  As ever clung around a mother's neck,                              340
+  Or father fondly gazed upon with pride.
+  There, too, conspicuous for stature tall
+  And large dark eyes, beside her infant stood
+  The mother; but, upon her cheeks diffused,
+  False tints too well accorded with the glare                       345
+  From play-house lustres thrown without reserve
+  On every object near. The Boy had been
+  The pride and pleasure of all lookers-on
+  In whatsoever place, but seemed in this
+  A sort of alien scattered from the clouds.                         350
+  Of lusty vigour, more than infantine
+  He was in limb, in cheek a summer rose
+  Just three parts blown--a cottage-child--if e'er,
+  By cottage-door on breezy mountain side,
+  Or in some sheltering vale, was seen a babe                        355
+  By Nature's gifts so favoured. Upon a board
+  Decked with refreshments had this child been placed,
+  _His_ little stage in the vast theatre,
+  And there he sate surrounded with a throng
+  Of chance spectators, chiefly dissolute men                        360
+  And shameless women, treated and caressed;
+  Ate, drank, and with the fruit and glasses played,
+  While oaths and laughter and indecent speech
+  Were rife about him as the songs of birds
+  Contending after showers. The mother now                           365
+  Is fading out of memory, but I see
+  The lovely Boy as I beheld him then
+  Among the wretched and the falsely gay,
+  Like one of those who walked with hair unsinged
+  Amid the fiery furnace. Charms and spells                          370
+  Muttered on black and spiteful instigation
+  Have stopped, as some believe, the kindliest growths.
+  Ah, with how different spirit might a prayer
+  Have been preferred, that this fair creature, checked
+  By special privilege of Nature's love,                             375
+  Should in his childhood be detained for ever!
+  But with its universal freight the tide
+  Hath rolled along, and this bright innocent,
+  Mary! may now have lived till he could look
+  With envy on thy nameless babe that sleeps,                        380
+  Beside the mountain chapel, undisturbed.
+
+  Four rapid years had scarcely then been told [V]
+  Since, travelling southward from our pastoral hills,
+  I heard, and for the first time in my life,
+  The voice of woman utter blasphemy--385
+  Saw woman as she is, to open shame
+  Abandoned, and the pride of public vice;
+  I shuddered, for a barrier seemed at once
+  Thrown in, that from humanity divorced
+  Humanity, splitting the race of man                                390
+  In twain, yet leaving the same outward form.
+  Distress of mind ensued upon the sight
+  And ardent meditation. Later years
+  Brought to such spectacle a milder sadness.
+  Feelings of pure commiseration, grief                              395
+  For the individual and the overthrow
+  Of her soul's beauty; farther I was then
+  But seldom led, or wished to go; in truth
+  The sorrow of the passion stopped me there.
+
+  But let me now, less moved, in order take                          400
+  Our argument. Enough is said to show
+  How casual incidents of real life,
+  Observed where pastime only had been sought,
+  Outweighed, or put to flight, the set events
+  And measured passions of the stage, albeit                         405
+  By Siddons trod in the fulness of her power.
+  Yet was the theatre my dear delight;
+  The very gilding, lamps and painted scrolls,
+  And all the mean upholstery of the place,
+  Wanted not animation, when the tide                                410
+  Of pleasure ebbed but to return as fast
+  With the ever-shifting figures of the scene,
+  Solemn or gay: whether some beauteous dame
+  Advanced in radiance through a deep recess
+  Of thick entangled forest, like the moon                           415
+  Opening the clouds; or sovereign king, announced
+  With flourishing trumpet, came in full-blown state
+  Of the world's greatness, winding round with train
+  Of courtiers, banners, and a length of guards;
+  Or captive led in abject weeds, and jingling                       420
+  His slender manacles; or romping girl
+  Bounced, leapt, and pawed the air; or mumbling sire,
+  A scare-crow pattern of old age dressed up
+  In all the tatters of infirmity
+  All loosely put together, hobbled in,                              425
+  Stumping upon a cane with which he smites,
+  From time to time, the solid boards, and makes them
+  Prate somewhat loudly of the whereabout [W]
+  Of one so overloaded with his years.
+  But what of this! the laugh, the grin, grimace,                    430
+  The antics striving to outstrip each other,
+  Were all received, the least of them not lost,
+  With an unmeasured welcome. Through the night,
+  Between the show, and many-headed mass
+  Of the spectators, and each several nook                           435
+  Filled with its fray or brawl, how eagerly
+  And with what flashes, as it were, the mind
+  Turned this way--that way! sportive and alert
+  And watchful, as a kitten when at play,
+  While winds are eddying round her, among straws                    440
+  And rustling leaves. Enchanting age and sweet!
+  Romantic almost, looked at through a space,
+  How small, of intervening years! For then,
+  Though surely no mean progress had been made
+  In meditations holy and sublime,                                   445
+  Yet something of a girlish child-like gloss
+  Of novelty survived for scenes like these;
+  Enjoyment haply handed down from times
+  When at a country-playhouse, some rude barn
+  Tricked out for that proud use, if I perchance                     450
+  Caught, on a summer evening through a chink
+  In the old wall, an unexpected glimpse
+  Of daylight, the bare thought of where I was
+  Gladdened me more than if I had been led
+  Into a dazzling cavern of romance,                                 455
+  Crowded with Genii busy among works
+  Not to be looked at by the common sun.
+
+  The matter that detains us now may seem,
+  To many, neither dignified enough
+  Nor arduous, yet will not be scorned by them,                      460
+  Who, looking inward, have observed the ties
+  That bind the perishable hours of life
+  Each to the other, and the curious props
+  By which the world of memory and thought
+  Exists and is sustained. More lofty themes,                        465
+  Such as at least do wear a prouder face,
+  Solicit our regard; but when I think
+  Of these, I feel the imaginative power
+  Languish within me; even then it slept,
+  When, pressed by tragic sufferings, the heart                      470
+  Was more than full; amid my sobs and tears
+  It slept, even in the pregnant season of youth.
+  For though I was most passionately moved
+  And yielded to all changes of the scene
+  With an obsequious promptness, yet the storm                       475
+  Passed not beyond the suburbs of the mind;
+  Save when realities of act and mien,
+  The incarnation of the spirits that move
+  In harmony amid the Poet's world,
+  Rose to ideal grandeur, or, called forth                           480
+  By power of contrast, made me recognise,
+  As at a glance, the things which I had shaped,
+  And yet not shaped, had seen and scarcely seen,
+  When, having closed the mighty Shakespeare's page,
+  I mused, and thought, and felt, in solitude.                       485
+
+  Pass we from entertainments, that are such
+  Professedly, to others titled higher,
+  Yet, in the estimate of youth at least,
+  More near akin to those than names imply,--
+  I mean the brawls of lawyers in their courts                       490
+  Before the ermined judge, or that great stage [X]
+  Where senators, tongue-favoured men, perform,
+  Admired and envied. Oh! the beating heart,
+  When one among the prime of these rose up,--
+  One, of whose name from childhood we had heard                     495
+  Familiarly, a household term, like those,
+  The Bedfords, Glosters, Salsburys, of old
+  Whom the fifth Harry talks of. [Y] Silence! hush!
+  This is no trifler, no short-flighted wit,
+  No stammerer of a minute, painfully                                500
+  Delivered. No! the Orator hath yoked
+  The Hours, like young Aurora, to his car:
+  Thrice welcome Presence! how can patience e'er
+  Grow weary of attending on a track
+  That kindles with such glory! All are charmed,                     505
+  Astonished; like a hero in romance,
+  He winds away his never-ending horn;
+  Words follow words, sense seems to follow sense:
+  What memory and what logic! till the strain
+  Transcendent, superhuman as it seemed,                             510
+  Grows tedious even in a young man's ear.
+
+    Genius of Burke! forgive the pen seduced
+  By specious wonders, and too slow to tell
+  Of what the ingenuous, what bewildered men,
+  Beginning to mistrust their boastful guides,                       515
+  And wise men, willing to grow wiser, caught,
+  Rapt auditors! from thy most eloquent tongue--
+  Now mute, for ever mute in the cold grave.
+  I see him,--old, but Vigorous in age,--
+  Stand like an oak whose stag-horn branches start                   520
+  Out of its leafy brow, the more to awe
+  The younger brethren of the grove. But some--
+  While he forewarns, denounces, launches forth,
+  Against all systems built on abstract rights,
+  Keen ridicule; the majesty proclaims                               525
+  Of Institutes and Laws, hallowed by time;
+  Declares the vital power of social ties
+  Endeared by Custom; and with high disdain,
+  Exploding upstart Theory, insists
+  Upon the allegiance to which men are born--530
+  Some--say at once a froward multitude--
+  Murmur (for truth is hated, where not loved)
+  As the winds fret within the AEolian cave,
+  Galled by their monarch's chain. The times were big
+  With ominous change, which, night by night, provoked               535
+  Keen struggles, and black clouds of passion raised;
+  But memorable moments intervened,
+  When Wisdom, like the Goddess from Jove's brain,
+  Broke forth in armour of resplendent words,
+  Startling the Synod. Could a youth, and one                        540
+  In ancient story versed, whose breast had heaved
+  Under the weight of classic eloquence,
+  Sit, see, and hear, unthankful, uninspired?
+
+    Nor did the Pulpit's oratory fail
+  To achieve its higher triumph. Not unfelt                          545
+  Were its admonishments, nor lightly heard
+  The awful truths delivered thence by tongues
+  Endowed with various power to search the soul;
+  Yet ostentation, domineering, oft
+  Poured forth harangues, how sadly out of place!--550
+  There have I seen a comely bachelor,
+  Fresh from a toilette of two hours, ascend
+  His rostrum, with seraphic glance look up,
+  And, in a tone elaborately low
+  Beginning, lead his voice through many a maze                      555
+  A minuet course; and, winding up his mouth,
+  From time to time, into an orifice
+  Most delicate, a lurking eyelet, small,
+  And only not invisible, again
+  Open it out, diffusing thence a smile                              560
+  Of rapt irradiation, exquisite.
+  Meanwhile the Evangelists, Isaiah, Job,
+  Moses, and he who penned, the other day,
+  The Death of Abel, [Z] Shakespeare, and the Bard
+  Whose genius spangled o'er a gloomy theme                          565
+  With fancies thick as his inspiring stars, [a]
+  And Ossian (doubt not, 'tis the naked truth)
+  Summoned from streamy Morven [b]--each and all
+  Would, in their turns, lend ornaments and flowers
+  To entwine the crook of eloquence that helped                      570
+  This pretty Shepherd, pride of all the plains,
+  To rule and guide his captivated flock.
+
+  I glance but at a few conspicuous marks,
+  Leaving a thousand others, that, in hall,
+  Court, theatre, conventicle, or shop,                              575
+  In public room or private, park or street,
+  Each fondly reared on his own pedestal,
+  Looked out for admiration. Folly, vice,
+  Extravagance in gesture, mien, and dress,
+  And all the strife of singularity,                                 580
+  Lies to the ear, and lies to every sense--
+  Of these, and of the living shapes they wear,
+  There is no end. Such candidates for regard,
+  Although well pleased to be where they were found,
+  I did not hunt after, nor greatly prize,                           585
+  Nor made unto myself a secret boast
+  Of reading them with quick and curious eye;
+  But, as a common produce, things that are
+  To-day, to-morrow will be, took of them
+  Such willing note, as, on some errand bound                        590
+  That asks not speed, a Traveller might bestow
+  On sea-shells that bestrew the sandy beach,
+  Or daisies swarming through the fields of June.
+
+    But foolishness and madness in parade,
+  Though most at home in this their dear domain,                     595
+  Are scattered everywhere, no rarities,
+  Even to the rudest novice of the Schools.
+  Me, rather, it employed, to note, and keep
+  In memory, those individual sights
+  Of courage, or integrity, or truth,                                600
+  Or tenderness, which there, set off by foil,
+  Appeared more touching. One will I select;
+  A Father--for he bore that sacred name--
+  Him saw I, sitting in an open square,
+  Upon a corner-stone of that low wall,                              605
+  Wherein were fixed the iron pales that fenced
+  A spacious grass-plot; there, in silence, sate
+  This One Man, with a sickly babe outstretched
+  Upon his knee, whom he had thither brought
+  For sunshine, and to breathe the fresher air.                      610
+  Of those who passed, and me who looked at him,
+  He took no heed; but in his brawny arms
+  (The Artificer was to the elbow bare,
+  And from his work this moment had been stolen)
+  He held the child, and, bending over it,                           615
+  As if he were afraid both of the sun
+  And of the air, which he had come to seek,
+  Eyed the poor babe with love unutterable.
+
+    As the black storm upon the mountain top
+  Sets off the sunbeam in the valley, so                             620
+  That huge fermenting mass of human-kind
+  Serves as a solemn back-ground, or relief,
+  To single forms and objects, whence they draw,
+  For feeling and contemplative regard,
+  More than inherent liveliness and power.                           625
+  How oft, amid those overflowing streets,
+  Have I gone forward with the crowd, and said
+  Unto myself, "The face of every one
+  That passes by me is a mystery!"
+  Thus have I looked, nor ceased to look, oppressed                  630
+  By thoughts of what and whither, when and how,
+  Until the shapes before my eyes became
+  A second-sight procession, such as glides
+  Over still mountains, or appears in dreams;
+  And once, far-travelled in such mood, beyond                       635
+  The reach of common indication, lost
+  Amid the moving pageant, I was smitten
+  Abruptly, with the view (a sight not rare)
+  Of a blind Beggar, who, with upright face,
+  Stood, propped against a wall, upon his chest                      640
+  Wearing a written paper, to explain
+  His story, whence he came, and who he was.
+  Caught by the spectacle my mind turned round
+  As with the might of waters; an apt type
+  This label seemed of the utmost we can know,                       645
+  Both of ourselves and of the universe;
+  And, on the shape of that unmoving man,
+  His steadfast face and sightless eyes, I gazed,
+  As if admonished from another world.
+
+    Though reared upon the base of outward things,                   650
+  Structures like these the excited spirit mainly
+  Builds for herself; scenes different there are,
+  Full-formed, that take, with small internal help,
+  Possession of the faculties,--the peace
+  That comes with night; the deep solemnity                          655
+  Of nature's intermediate hours of rest,
+  When the great tide of human life stands still;
+  The business of the day to come, unborn,
+  Of that gone by, locked up, as in the grave;
+  The blended calmness of the heavens and earth,                     660
+  Moonlight and stars, and empty streets, and sounds
+  Unfrequent as in deserts; at late hours
+  Of winter evenings, when unwholesome rains
+  Are falling hard, with people yet astir,
+  The feeble salutation from the voice                               665
+  Of some unhappy woman, now and then
+  Heard as we pass, when no one looks about,
+  Nothing is listened to. But these, I fear,
+  Are falsely catalogued; things that are, are not,
+  As the mind answers to them, or the heart                          670
+  Is prompt, or slow, to feel. What say you, then,
+  To times, when half the city shall break out
+  Full of one passion, vengeance, rage, or fear?
+  To executions, to a street on fire,
+  Mobs, riots, or rejoicings? From these sights                      675
+  Take one,--that ancient festival, the Fair,
+  Holden where martyrs suffered in past time,
+  And named of St. Bartholomew; [c] there, see
+  A work completed to our hands, that lays,
+  If any spectacle on earth can do,                                  680
+  The whole creative powers of man asleep!--
+  For once, the Muse's help will we implore,
+  And she shall lodge us, wafted on her wings,
+  Above the press and danger of the crowd,
+  Upon some showman's platform. What a shock                         685
+  For eyes and ears! what anarchy and din,
+  Barbarian and infernal,--a phantasma,
+  Monstrous in colour, motion, shape, sight, sound!
+  Below, the open space, through every nook
+  Of the wide area, twinkles, is alive                               690
+  With heads; the midway region, and above,
+  Is thronged with staring pictures and huge scrolls,
+  Dumb proclamations of the Prodigies;
+  With chattering monkeys dangling from their poles,
+  And children whirling in their roundabouts;                        695
+  With those that stretch the neck and strain the eyes,
+  And crack the voice in rivalship, the crowd
+  Inviting; with buffoons against buffoons
+  Grimacing, writhing, screaming,--him who grinds
+  The hurdy-gurdy, at the fiddle weaves,                             700
+  Rattles the salt-box, thumps the kettle-drum,
+  And him who at the trumpet puffs his cheeks,
+  The silver-collared Negro with his timbrel,
+  Equestrians, tumblers, women, girls, and boys,
+  Blue-breeched, pink-vested, with high-towering plumes.--705
+  All moveables of wonder, from all parts,
+  Are here--Albinos, painted Indians, Dwarfs,
+  The Horse of knowledge, and the learned Pig,
+  The Stone-eater, the man that swallows fire,
+  Giants, Ventriloquists, the Invisible Girl,                        710
+  The Bust that speaks and moves its goggling eyes,
+  The Wax-work, Clock-work, all the marvellous craft
+  Of modern Merlins, Wild Beasts, Puppet-shows,
+  All out-o'-the-way, far-fetched, perverted things,
+  All freaks of nature, all Promethean thoughts                      715
+  Of man, his dullness, madness, and their feats
+  All jumbled up together, to compose
+  A Parliament of Monsters. Tents and Booths
+  Meanwhile, as if the whole were one vast mill,
+  Are vomiting, receiving on all sides,                              720
+  Men, Women, three-years' Children, Babes in arms.
+
+    Oh, blank confusion! true epitome
+  Of what the mighty City is herself,
+  To thousands upon thousands of her sons,
+  Living amid the same perpetual whirl                               725
+  Of trivial objects, melted and reduced
+  To one identity, by differences
+  That have no law, no meaning, and no end--
+  Oppression, under which even highest minds
+  Must labour, whence the strongest are not free. [d]                730
+  But though the picture weary out the eye,
+  By nature an unmanageable sight,
+  It is not wholly so to him who looks
+  In steadiness, who hath among least things
+  An under-sense of greatest; sees the parts                         735
+  As parts, but with a feeling of the whole.
+  This, of all acquisitions, first awaits
+  On sundry and most widely different modes
+  Of education, nor with least delight
+  On that through which I passed. Attention springs,                 740
+  And comprehensiveness and memory flow,
+  From early converse with the works of God
+  Among all regions; chiefly where appear
+  Most obviously simplicity and power.
+  Think, how the everlasting streams and woods,                      745
+  Stretched and still stretching far and wide, exalt
+  The roving Indian, on his desert sands:
+  What grandeur not unfelt, what pregnant show
+  Of beauty, meets the sun-burnt Arab's eye:
+  And, as the sea propels, from zone to zone,                        750
+  Its currents; magnifies its shoals of life
+  Beyond all compass; spreads, and sends aloft
+  Armies of clouds,--even so, its powers and aspects
+  Shape for mankind, by principles as fixed,
+  The views and aspirations of the soul                              755
+  To majesty. Like virtue have the forms
+  Perennial of the ancient hills; nor less
+  The changeful language of their countenances
+  Quickens the slumbering mind, and aids the thoughts,
+  However multitudinous, to move                                     760
+  With order and relation. This, if still,
+  As hitherto, in freedom I may speak,
+  Not violating any just restraint,
+  As may be hoped, of real modesty,--
+  This did I feel, in London's vast domain.                          765
+  The Spirit of Nature was upon me there;
+  The soul of Beauty and enduring Life
+  Vouchsafed her inspiration, and diffused,
+  Through meagre lines and colours, and the press
+  Of self-destroying, transitory things,                             770
+  Composure, and ennobling Harmony.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT
+
+[Footnote A: Goslar, February 10th, 1799. Compare Mr. Carter's note to
+'The Prelude', book vii. l. 3.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote B: The first two paragraphs of book i.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote C: April 1804: see the reference in book vi. l. 48.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote D: Before he left for Malta, Coleridge had urged Wordsworth to
+complete this work.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote E: The summer of 1804.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote F: Doubtless John's Grove, below White Moss Common. On
+November 24, 1801, Dorothy Wordsworth wrote in her Journal,
+
+  "As we were going along, we were stopped at once, at the distance
+  perhaps of fifty yards from our favourite birch tree. It was yielding
+  to the gusty wind with all its tender twigs. The sun shone upon it,
+  and it glanced in the wind like a flying sunshiny shower. It was a
+  tree in shape, with stem and branches, but it was like a spirit of
+  water. The sun went in, and it resumed its purplish appearance, the
+  twigs still yielding to the wind, but not so visibly to us. The other
+  birch trees that were near it looked bright and cheerful, but it was a
+  Creation by itself amongst them."
+
+This does not refer to John's Grove, but it may be interesting to
+compare the sister's description of a birch tree "tossing in sunshine,"
+with the brother's account of a grove of fir trees similarly
+moved.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote G: The visit to Switzerland with Jones in 1790, described in
+book vi.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote H: He took his B. A. degree in January 1791, and immediately
+afterwards left Cambridge.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote I: Going to Forncett Rectory, near Norwich, he spent six weeks
+with his sister, and then went to London, where he stayed four
+months.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote K: From the hint given in this passage, it would seem that he
+had gone up to London for a few days in 1788. Compare book viii. l. 543,
+and note [Footnote o].--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote L: The story of Whittington, hearing the bells ring out the
+prosperity in store for him,
+
+  'Turn again, Whittington,
+  Thrice Lord Mayor of London,'
+
+is well known.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote M: Tea-gardens, till well on in this century; now built
+over.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote N: Bedlam, a popular corruption of Bethlehem, a lunatic
+hospital, founded in 1246. The old building, with its "carved maniacs at
+the gates," was taken down in 1675, and the hospital removed to
+Moorfields. The second building--the one to which Wordsworth
+refers--was demolished in 1814.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote O: The London "Monument," erected from a design by Sir
+Christopher Wren, on the spot where the great London Fire of 1666
+began.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote P: The historic Tower of London.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Q: A theatre in St. John's Street Road, Clerkenwell, erected
+in 1765.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote R: See 'Samson Agonistes', l. 88.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote S: See 'Hamlet', act I. sc. v. l. 100.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote T: The story of Mary, "The Maid of Buttermere," as told in the
+guidebooks, is as follows:
+
+  'She was the daughter of the inn-keeper at the Fish Inn. She was much
+  admired, and many suitors sought her hand in vain. At last a stranger,
+  named Hatfield, who called himself the Hon. Colonel Hope, brother of
+  Lord Hopetoun, won her heart, and married her. Soon after the
+  marriage, he was apprehended on a charge of forgery, surreptitiously
+  franking a letter in the name of a Member of Parliament, tried at
+  Carlisle, convicted, and hanged. It was discovered during the trial,
+  that he had a wife and family, and had fled to these sequestered parts
+  to escape the arm of the law.'
+
+See 'Essays on his own Times', by S. T. Coleridge, edited by his
+daughter Sara. A melodrama on the story of the Maid of Buttermere was
+produced in all the suburban London theatres; and in 1843 a novel was
+published in London by Henry Colburn, entitled 'James Hatfield and the
+Beauty of Buttermere, a Story of Modern Times', with illustrations by
+Robert Cruikshank.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote U: Compare S. T. C.'s 'Essays on his own Times', p. 585.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote V: He first went south to Cambridge, in October 1787; and he
+left London, at the close of his second visit to Town, in the end of May
+1791.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote W: Compare 'Macbeth', act II. sc. i. l. 58:
+
+  'Thy very stones prate of my whereabout.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote X: The Houses of Parliament.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Y: See Shakespeare's 'King Henry the Fifth', act IV. sc. iii.
+l. 53.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Z: Solomon Gesner (or Gessner), a landscape artist, etcher,
+and poet, born at Zuerich in 1730, died in 1787. His 'Tod Abels' (the
+death of Abel), though the poorest of all his works, became a favourite
+in Germany, France, and England. It was translated into English by Mary
+Collyer, a 12th edition of her version appearing in 1780. As 'The Death
+of Abel' was written before 1760, in the line "he who penned, the other
+day," Wordsworth probably refers to some new edition of the
+translation.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote a: Edward Young, author of 'Night Thoughts, on Life, Death,
+and Immortality'.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote b: In Argyleshire.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote c: Permission was given by Henry I. to hold a "Fair" on St.
+Bartholomew's day.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote d: In one of the MS. books in Dorothy Wordsworth's
+handwriting, on the outside leather cover of which is written, "May to
+December 1802," there are some lines which were evidently dictated to
+her, or copied by her, from the numerous experimental efforts of her
+brother in connection with this autobiographical poem. They are as
+follows:
+
+  'Shall he who gives his days to low pursuits
+  Amid the undistinguishable crowd
+  Of cities, 'mid the same eternal flow
+  Of the same objects, melted and reduced
+  To one identity, by differences
+  That have no law, no meaning, and no end,
+  Shall he feel yearning to those lifeless forms,
+  And shall we think that Nature is less kind
+  To those, who all day long, through a busy life,
+  Have walked within her sight? It cannot be.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK EIGHT
+
+
+RETROSPECT--LOVE OF NATURE LEADING TO LOVE OF MAN
+
+
+  What sounds are those, Helvellyn, that [1] are heard
+  Up to thy summit, through the depth of air
+  Ascending, as if distance had the power
+  To make the sounds more audible? What crowd
+  Covers, or sprinkles o'er, yon village green? [2]                    5
+  Crowd seems it, solitary hill! to thee,
+  Though but a little family of men,
+  Shepherds and tillers of the ground--betimes
+  Assembled with their children and their wives,
+  And here and there a stranger interspersed.                         10
+  They hold a rustic fair--a festival,
+  Such as, on this side now, and now on that, [3]
+  Repeated through his tributary vales,
+  Helvellyn, in the silence of his rest,
+  Sees annually, [A] if clouds towards either ocean                   15
+  Blown from their favourite resting-place, or mists
+  Dissolved, have left him [4] an unshrouded head.
+  Delightful day it is for all who dwell
+  In this secluded glen, and eagerly
+  They give it welcome. [5] Long ere heat of noon,                    20
+  From byre or field the kine were brought; the sheep [6]
+  Are penned in cotes; the chaffering is begun.
+  The heifer lows, uneasy at the voice
+  Of a new master; bleat the flocks aloud.
+  Booths are there none; a stall or two is here;                      25
+  A lame man or a blind, the one to beg,
+  The other to make music; hither, too,
+  From far, with basket, slung upon her arm,
+  Of hawker's wares--books, pictures, combs, and pins--
+  Some aged woman finds her way again,                                30
+  Year after year, a punctual visitant!
+  There also stands a speech-maker by rote,
+  Pulling the strings of his boxed raree-show;
+  And in the lapse of many years may come [7]
+  Prouder itinerant, mountebank, or he                                35
+  Whose wonders in a covered wain lie hid.
+  But one there is, [8] the loveliest of them all,
+  Some sweet lass of the valley, looking out
+  For gains, and who that sees her would not buy?
+  Fruits of her father's orchard, are her wares,                      40
+  And with the ruddy produce, she walks round [9]
+  Among the crowd, half pleased with, half ashamed
+  Of her new office, [10] blushing restlessly.
+  The children now are rich, for the old to-day
+  Are generous as the young; and, if content                          45
+  With looking on, some ancient wedded pair
+  Sit in the shade together, while they gaze,
+  "A cheerful smile unbends the wrinkled brow,
+  The days departed start again to life,
+  And all the scenes of childhood reappear,                           50
+  Faint, but more tranquil, like the changing sun
+  To him who slept at noon and wakes at eve." [B]
+  Thus gaiety and cheerfulness prevail,
+  Spreading from young to old, from old to young,
+  And no one seems to want his share.--Immense [11]                   55
+  Is the recess, the circumambient world
+  Magnificent, by which they are embraced:
+  They move about upon the soft green turf: [12]
+  How little they, they and their doings, seem,
+  And all that they can further or obstruct! [13]                     60
+  Through utter weakness pitiably dear,
+  As tender infants are: and yet how great!
+  For all things serve them: them the morning light
+  Loves, as it glistens on the silent rocks;
+  And them the silent rocks, which now from high                      65
+  Look down upon them; the reposing clouds;
+  The wild brooks prattling from [14] invisible haunts;
+  And old Helvellyn, conscious of the stir
+  Which animates this day [15] their calm abode.
+
+  With deep devotion, Nature, did I feel,                             70
+  In that enormous City's turbulent world
+  Of men and things, what benefit I owed
+  To thee, and those domains of rural peace,
+  Where to the sense of beauty first my heart
+  Was opened; [C] tract more exquisitely fair                         75
+  Than that famed paradise often thousand trees, [D]
+  Or Gehol's matchless gardens, [E] for delight
+  Of the Tartarian dynasty composed
+  (Beyond that mighty wall, not fabulous,
+  China's stupendous mound) by patient toil                           80
+  Of myriads and boon nature's lavish help; [F]
+  There, in a clime from widest empire chosen,
+  Fulfilling (could enchantment have done more?)
+  A sumptuous dream of flowery lawns, with domes
+  Of pleasure [G] sprinkled over, shady dells                         85
+  For eastern monasteries, sunny mounts
+  With temples crested, bridges, gondolas,
+  Rocks, dens, and groves of foliage taught to melt
+  Into each other their obsequious hues,
+  Vanished and vanishing in subtle chase,                             90
+  Too fine to be pursued; or standing forth
+  In no discordant opposition, strong
+  And gorgeous as the colours side by side
+  Bedded among rich plumes of tropic birds;
+  And mountains over all, embracing all;                              95
+  And all the landscape, endlessly enriched
+  With waters running, falling, or asleep.
+
+  But lovelier far than this, the paradise
+  Where I was reared; [H] in Nature's primitive gifts
+  Favoured no less, and more to every sense                          100
+  Delicious, seeing that the sun and sky,
+  The elements, and seasons as they change,
+  Do find a worthy fellow-labourer there--
+  Man free, man working for himself, with choice
+  Of time, and place, and object; by his wants,                      105
+  His comforts, native occupations, cares,
+  Cheerfully led to individual ends
+  Or social, and still followed by a train
+  Unwooed, unthought-of even--simplicity,
+  And beauty, and inevitable grace.                                  110
+
+  Yea, when a glimpse of those imperial bowers
+  Would to a child be transport over-great,
+  When but a half-hour's roam through such a place
+  Would leave behind a dance of images,
+  That shall break in upon his sleep for weeks;                      115
+  Even then the common haunts of the green earth,
+  And ordinary interests of man,
+  Which they embosom, all without regard
+  As both may seem, are fastening on the heart
+  Insensibly, each with the other's help.                            120
+  For me, when my affections first were led
+  From kindred, friends, and playmates, to partake
+  Love for the human creature's absolute self,
+  That noticeable kindliness of heart
+  Sprang out of fountains, there abounding most                      125
+  Where sovereign Nature dictated the tasks
+  And occupations which her beauty adorned,
+  And Shepherds were the men that pleased me first; [I]
+  Not such as Saturn ruled 'mid Latian wilds,
+  With arts and laws so tempered, that their lives                   130
+  Left, even to us toiling in this late day,
+  A bright tradition of the golden age; [K]
+  Not such as, 'mid Arcadian fastnesses
+  Sequestered, handed down among themselves
+  Felicity, in Grecian song renowned; [L]                            135
+  Nor such as--when an adverse fate had driven,
+  From house and home, the courtly band whose fortunes
+  Entered, with Shakespeare's genius, the wild woods
+  Of Arden--amid sunshine or in shade,
+  Culled the best fruits of Time's uncounted hours,                  140
+  Ere Phoebe sighed for the false Ganymede; [M]
+  Or there where Perdita and Florizel
+  Together danced, Queen of the feast, and King; [N]
+  Nor such as Spenser fabled. True it is,
+  That I had heard (what he perhaps had seen)                        145
+  Of maids at sunrise bringing in from far
+  Their May-bush [O], and along the streets in flocks
+  Parading with a song of taunting rhymes,
+  Aimed at the laggards slumbering within doors;
+  Had also heard, from those who yet remembered,                     150
+  Tales of the May-pole dance, and wreaths that decked
+  Porch, door-way, or kirk-pillar; [O] and of youths,
+  Each with his maid, before the sun was up,
+  By annual custom, issuing forth in troops,
+  To drink the waters of some sainted well,                          155
+  And hang it round with garlands. Love survives;
+  But, for such purpose, flowers no longer grow:
+  The times, too sage, perhaps too proud, have dropped
+  These lighter graces; and the rural ways
+  And manners which my childhood looked upon                         160
+  Were the unluxuriant produce of a life
+  Intent on little but substantial needs,
+  Yet rich in beauty, beauty that was felt.
+  But images of danger and distress,
+  Man suffering among awful Powers and Forms;                        165
+  Of this I heard, and saw enough to make
+  Imagination restless; nor was free
+  Myself from frequent perils; nor were tales
+  Wanting,--the tragedies of former times,
+  Hazards and strange escapes, of which the rocks                    170
+  Immutable and overflowing streams,
+  Where'er I roamed, were speaking monuments.
+
+    Smooth life had flock and shepherd in old time,
+  Long springs and tepid winters, on the banks
+  Of delicate Galesus [P]; and no less                               175
+  Those scattered along Adria's myrtle shores: [Q]
+  Smooth life had herdsman, and his snow-white herd
+  To triumphs and to sacrificial rites
+  Devoted, on the inviolable stream
+  Of rich Clitumnus [R]; and the goat-herd lived                     180
+  As calmly, underneath the pleasant brows
+  Of cool Lucretilis [S], where the pipe was heard
+  Of Pan, Invisible God, thrilling the rocks
+  With tutelary music, from all harm
+  The fold protecting. I myself, mature                              185
+  In manhood then, have seen a pastoral tract
+  Like one of these, where Fancy might run wild,
+  Though under skies less generous, less serene:
+  There, for her own delight had Nature framed
+  A pleasure-ground, diffused a fair expanse                         190
+  Of level pasture, islanded with groves
+  And banked with woody risings; but the Plain [T]
+  Endless, here opening widely out, and there
+  Shut up in lesser lakes or beds of lawn
+  And intricate recesses, creek or bay                               195
+  Sheltered within a shelter, where at large
+  The shepherd strays, a rolling hut his home.
+  Thither he comes with spring-time, there abides
+  All summer, and at sunrise ye may hear
+  His flageolet to liquid notes of love                              200
+  Attuned, or sprightly fife resounding far.
+  Nook is there none, nor tract of that vast space
+  Where passage opens, but the same shall have
+  In turn its visitant, telling there his hours
+  In unlaborious pleasure, with no task                              205
+  More toilsome than to carve a beechen bowl
+  For spring or fountain, which the traveller finds,
+  When through the region he pursues at will
+  His devious course. A glimpse of such sweet life
+  I saw when, from the melancholy walls                              210
+  Of Goslar, once imperial, I renewed
+  My daily walk along that wide champaign, [U]
+  That, reaching to her gates, spreads east and west,
+  And northwards, from beneath the mountainous verge
+  Of the Hercynian forest, [V] Yet, hail to you                      215
+  Moors, mountains, headlands, and ye hollow vales,
+  Ye long deep channels for the Atlantic's voice, [W]
+  Powers of my native region! Ye that seize
+  The heart with firmer grasp! Your snows and streams
+  Ungovernable, and your terrifying winds,                           220
+  That howl so dismally for him who treads
+  Companionless your awful solitudes!
+  There, 'tis the shepherd's task the winter long
+  To wait upon the storms: of their approach
+  Sagacious, into sheltering coves he drives                         225
+  His flock, and thither from the homestead bears
+  A toilsome burden up the craggy ways,
+  And deals it out, their regular nourishment
+  Strewn on the frozen snow. And when the spring
+  Looks out, and all the pastures dance with lambs,                  230
+  And when the flock, with warmer weather, climbs
+  Higher and higher, him his office leads
+  To watch their goings, whatsoever track
+  The wanderers choose. For this he quits his home
+  At day-spring, and no sooner doth the sun                          235
+  Begin to strike him with a fire-like heat,
+  Than he lies down upon some shining rock,
+  And breakfasts with his dog. When they have stolen,
+  As is their wont, a pittance from strict time,
+  For rest not needed or exchange of love,                           240
+  Then from his couch he starts; and now his feet
+  Crush out a livelier fragrance from the flowers
+  Of lowly thyme, by Nature's skill enwrought
+  In the wild turf: the lingering dews of morn
+  Smoke round him, as from hill to hill he hies,                     245
+  His staff protending like a hunter's spear,
+  Or by its aid leaping from crag to crag,
+  And o'er the brawling beds of unbridged streams.
+  Philosophy, methinks, at Fancy's call,
+  Might deign to follow him through what he does                     250
+  Or sees in his day's march; himself he feels,
+  In those vast regions where his service lies,
+  A freeman, wedded to his life of hope
+  And hazard, and hard labour interchanged
+  With that majestic indolence so dear                               255
+  To native man. A rambling school-boy, thus
+  I felt his presence in his own domain,
+  As of a lord and master, or a power,
+  Or genius, under Nature, under God,
+  Presiding; and severest solitude                                   260
+  Had more commanding looks when he was there.
+  When up the lonely brooks on rainy days
+  Angling I went, or trod the trackless hills
+  By mists bewildered, [X] suddenly mine eyes
+  Have glanced upon him distant a few steps,                         265
+  In size a giant, stalking through thick fog,
+  His sheep like Greenland bears; or, as he stepped
+  Beyond the boundary line of some hill-shadow,
+  His form hath flashed upon me, glorified
+  By the deep radiance of the setting sun:                           270
+  Or him have I descried in distant sky,
+  A solitary object and sublime,
+  Above all height! like an aerial cross
+  Stationed alone upon a spiry rock
+  Of the Chartreuse, for worship. [Y] Thus was man                   275
+  Ennobled outwardly before my sight,
+  And thus my heart was early introduced
+  To an unconscious love and reverence
+  Of human nature; hence the human form
+  To me became an index of delight,                                  280
+  Of grace and honour, power and worthiness.
+  Meanwhile this creature--spiritual almost
+  As those of books, but more exalted far;
+  Far more of an imaginative form
+  Than the gay Corin of the groves, [Z] who lives                    285
+  For his own fancies, or to dance by the hour,
+  In coronal, with Phyllis in the midst--[Z]
+  Was, for the purposes of kind, a man
+  With the most common; husband, father; learned,
+  Could teach, admonish; suffered with the rest                      290
+  From vice and folly, wretchedness and fear;
+  Of this I little saw, cared less for it,
+  But something must have felt.
+                               Call ye these appearances
+  Which I beheld of shepherds in my youth,
+  This sanctity of Nature given to man,                              295
+  A shadow, a delusion? ye who pore
+  On the dead letter, miss the spirit of things;
+  Whose truth is not a motion or a shape
+  Instinct with vital functions, but a block
+  Or waxen image which yourselves have made,                         300
+  And ye adore! But blessed be the God
+  Of Nature and of Man that this was so;
+  That men before my inexperienced eyes
+  Did first present themselves thus purified,
+  Removed, and to a distance that was fit:                           305
+  And so we all of us in some degree
+  Are led to knowledge, wheresoever led,
+  And howsoever; were it otherwise,
+  And we found evil fast as we find good
+  In our first years, or think that it is found,                     310
+  How could the innocent heart bear up and live!
+  But doubly fortunate my lot; not here
+  Alone, that something of a better life
+  Perhaps was round me than it is the privilege
+  Of most to move in, but that first I looked                        315
+  At Man through objects that were great or fair;
+  First communed with him by their help. And thus
+  Was founded a sure safeguard and defence
+  Against the weight of meanness, selfish cares,
+  Coarse manners, vulgar passions, that beat in                      320
+  On all sides from the ordinary world
+  In which we traffic. Starting from this point
+  I had my face turned toward the truth, began
+  With an advantage furnished by that kind
+  Of prepossession, without which the soul                           325
+  Receives no knowledge that can bring forth good,
+  No genuine insight ever comes to her.
+  From the restraint of over-watchful eyes
+  Preserved, I moved about, year after year,
+  Happy, [a] and now most thankful that my walk                      330
+  Was guarded from too early intercourse
+  With the deformities of crowded life,
+  And those ensuing laughters and contempts,
+  Self-pleasing, which, if we would wish to think
+  With a due reverence on earth's rightful lord,                     335
+  Here placed to be the inheritor of heaven,
+  Will not permit us; but pursue the mind,
+  That to devotion willingly would rise,
+  Into the temple and the temple's heart.
+
+    Yet deem not, Friend! that human kind with me                    340
+  Thus early took a place pre-eminent;
+  Nature herself was, at this unripe time,
+  But secondary to my own pursuits
+  And animal activities, and all
+  Their trivial pleasures; [b] and when these had drooped            345
+  And gradually expired, and Nature, prized
+  For her own sake, became my joy, even then--[b]
+  And upwards through late youth, until not less
+  Than two-and-twenty summers had been told--[c]
+  Was Man in my affections and regards                               350
+  Subordinate to her, her visible forms
+  And viewless agencies: a passion, she,
+  A rapture often, and immediate love
+  Ever at hand; he, only a delight
+  Occasional, an accidental grace,                                   355
+  His hour being not yet come. Far less had then
+  The inferior creatures, beast or bird, attuned
+  My spirit to that gentleness of love
+  (Though they had long been carefully observed),
+  Won from me those minute obeisances                                360
+  Of tenderness, [d] which I may number now
+  With my first blessings. Nevertheless, on these
+  The light of beauty did not fall in vain,
+  Or grandeur circumfuse them to no end.
+
+    But when that first poetic faculty                               365
+  Of plain Imagination and severe,
+  No longer a mute influence of the soul,
+  Ventured, at some rash Muse's earnest call,
+  To try her strength among harmonious words; [e]
+  And to book-notions and the rules of art                           370
+  Did knowingly conform itself; there came
+  Among the simple shapes of human life
+  A wilfulness of fancy and conceit; [e]
+  And Nature and her objects beautified
+  These fictions, as in some sort, in their turn,                    375
+  They burnished her. From touch of this new power
+  Nothing was safe: the elder-tree that grew
+  Beside the well-known charnel-house had then
+  A dismal look: the yew-tree had its ghost,
+  That took his station there for ornament:                          380
+  The dignities of plain occurrence then
+  Were tasteless, and truth's golden mean, a point
+  Where no sufficient pleasure could be found.
+  Then, if a widow, staggering with the blow
+  Of her distress, was known to have turned her steps                385
+  To the cold grave in which her husband slept,
+  One night, or haply more than one, through pain
+  Or half-insensate impotence of mind,
+  The fact was caught at greedily, and there
+  She must be visitant the whole year through,                       390
+  Wetting the turf with never-ending tears.
+
+    Through quaint obliquities I might pursue
+  These cravings; when the fox-glove, one by one,
+  Upwards through every stage of the tall stem,
+  Had shed beside the public way its bells,                          395
+  And stood of all dismantled, save the last
+  Left at the tapering ladder's top, that seemed
+  To bend as doth a slender blade of grass
+  Tipped with a rain-drop, Fancy loved to seat,
+  Beneath the plant despoiled, but crested still                     400
+  With this last relic, soon itself to fall,
+  Some vagrant mother, whose arch little ones,
+  All unconcerned by her dejected plight,
+  Laughed as with rival eagerness their hands
+  Gathered the purple cups that round them lay,                      405
+  Strewing the turf's green slope.
+                                  A diamond light
+  (Whene'er the summer sun, declining, smote
+  A smooth rock wet with constant springs) was seen
+  Sparkling from out a copse-clad bank that rose
+  Fronting our cottage. [f] Oft beside the hearth                    410
+  Seated, with open door, often and long
+  Upon this restless lustre have I gazed,
+  That made my fancy restless as itself.
+  'Twas now for me a burnished silver shield
+  Suspended over a knight's tomb, who lay                            415
+  Inglorious, buried in the dusky wood:
+  An entrance now into some magic cave
+  Or palace built by fairies of the rock;
+  Nor could I have been bribed to disenchant
+  The spectacle, by visiting the spot.                               420
+  Thus wilful Fancy, in no hurtful mood,
+  Engrafted far-fetched shapes on feelings bred
+  By pure Imagination: busy Power [g]
+  She was, and with her ready pupil turned
+  Instinctively to human passions, then                              425
+  Least understood. Yet, 'mid the fervent swarm
+  Of these vagaries, with an eye so rich
+  As mine was through the bounty of a grand
+  And lovely region, [h] I had forms distinct
+  To steady me: each airy thought revolved                           430
+  Round a substantial centre, which at once
+  Incited it to motion, and controlled.
+  I did not pine like one in cities bred,
+  As was thy melancholy lot, dear Friend! [i]
+  Great Spirit as thou art, in endless dreams                        435
+  Of sickliness, disjoining, joining, things
+  Without the light of knowledge. Where the harm,
+  If, when the woodman languished with disease
+  Induced by sleeping nightly on the ground
+  Within his sod-built cabin, Indian-wise,                           440
+  I called the pangs of disappointed love,
+  And all the sad etcetera of the wrong,
+  To help him to his grave? Meanwhile the man,
+  If not already from the woods retired
+  To die at home, was haply as I knew,                               445
+  Withering by slow degrees, 'mid gentle airs,
+  Birds, running streams, and hills so beautiful
+  On golden evenings, while the charcoal pile
+  Breathed up its smoke, an image of his ghost
+  Or spirit that full soon must take her flight.                     450
+  Nor shall we not be tending towards that point
+  Of sound humanity to which our Tale
+  Leads, though by sinuous ways, if here I shew
+  How Fancy, in a season when she wove
+  Those slender cords, to guide the unconscious Boy                  455
+  For the Man's sake, could feed at Nature's call
+  Some pensive musings which might well beseem
+  Maturer years.
+                A grove there is whose boughs
+  Stretch from the western marge of Thurston-mere, [k]
+  With length of shade so thick, that whoso glides                   460
+  Along the line of low-roofed water, moves
+  As in a cloister. Once--while, in that shade
+  Loitering, I watched the golden beams of light
+  Flung from the setting sun, as they reposed
+  In silent beauty on the naked ridge                                465
+  Of a high eastern hill--thus flowed my thoughts
+  In a pure stream of words fresh from the heart:
+  Dear native Regions, [m] wheresoe'er shall close
+  My mortal course, there will I think on you;
+  Dying, will cast on you a backward look;                           470
+  Even as this setting sun (albeit the Vale
+  Is no where touched by one memorial gleam)
+  Doth with the fond remains of his last power
+  Still linger, and a farewell lustre sheds
+  On the dear mountain-tops where first he rose.                     475
+
+  Enough of humble arguments; recal,
+  My Song! those high emotions which thy voice
+  Has heretofore made known; that bursting forth
+  Of sympathy, inspiring and inspired,
+  When everywhere a vital pulse was felt,                            480
+  And all the several frames of things, like stars,
+  Through every magnitude distinguishable,
+  Shone mutually indebted, or half lost
+  Each in the other's blaze, a galaxy
+  Of life and glory. In the midst stood Man,                         485
+  Outwardly, inwardly contemplated,
+  As, of all visible natures, crown, though born
+  Of dust, and kindred to the worm; a Being,
+  Both in perception and discernment, first
+  In every capability of rapture,                                    490
+  Through the divine effect of power and love;
+  As, more than anything we know, instinct
+  With godhead, and, by reason and by will,
+  Acknowledging dependency sublime.
+
+  Ere long, the lonely mountains left, I moved,                      495
+  Begirt, from day to day, with temporal shapes
+  Of vice and folly thrust upon my view,
+  Objects of sport, and ridicule, and scorn,
+  Manners and characters discriminate,
+  And little bustling passions that eclipse,                         500
+  As well they might, the impersonated thought,
+  The idea, or abstraction of the kind.
+
+  An idler among academic bowers,
+  Such was my new condition, as at large
+  Has been set forth; [n] yet here the vulgar light                  505
+  Of present, actual, superficial life,
+  Gleaming through colouring of other times,
+  Old usages and local privilege,
+  Was welcome, softened, if not solemnised.
+
+  This notwithstanding, being brought more near                      510
+  To vice and guilt, forerunning wretchedness
+  I trembled,--thought, at times, of human life
+  With an indefinite terror and dismay,
+  Such as the storms and angry elements
+  Had bred in me; but gloomier far, a dim                            515
+  Analogy to uproar and misrule,
+  Disquiet, danger, and obscurity.
+
+  It might be told (but wherefore speak of things
+  Common to all?) that, seeing, I was led
+  Gravely to ponder--judging between good                            520
+  And evil, not as for the mind's delight
+  But for her guidance--one who was to _act_,
+  As sometimes to the best of feeble means
+  I did, by human sympathy impelled:
+  And, through dislike and most offensive pain,                      525
+  Was to the truth conducted; of this faith
+  Never forsaken, that, by acting well,
+  And understanding, I should learn to love
+  The end of life, and every thing we know.
+
+  Grave Teacher, stern Preceptress! for at times                     530
+  Thou canst put on an aspect most severe;
+  London, to thee I willingly return.
+  Erewhile my verse played idly with the flowers
+  Enwrought upon thy mantle; satisfied
+  With that amusement, and a simple look                             535
+  Of child-like inquisition now and then
+  Cast upwards on thy countenance, to detect
+  Some inner meanings which might harbour there.
+  But how could I in mood so light indulge,
+  Keeping such fresh remembrance of the day,                         540
+  When, having thridded the long labyrinth
+  Of the suburban villages, I first
+  Entered thy vast dominion? [o] On the roof
+  Of an itinerant vehicle I sate,
+  With vulgar men about me, trivial forms                            545
+  Of houses, pavement, streets, of men and things,--
+  Mean shapes on every side: but, at the instant,
+  When to myself it fairly might be said,
+  The threshold now is overpast, (how strange
+  That aught external to the living mind                             550
+  Should have such mighty sway! yet so it was),
+  A weight of ages did at once descend
+  Upon my heart; no thought embodied, no
+  Distinct remembrances, but weight and power,--
+  Power growing under weight: alas! I feel                           555
+  That I am trifling: 'twas a moment's pause,--
+  All that took place within me came and went
+  As in a moment; yet with Time it dwells,
+  And grateful memory, as a thing divine.
+
+  The curious traveller, who, from open day,                         560
+  Hath passed with torches into some huge cave,
+  The Grotto of Antiparos, [p] or the Den
+  In old time haunted by that Danish Witch,
+  Yordas; [q] he looks around and sees the vault
+  Widening on all sides; sees, or thinks he sees,                    565
+  Erelong, the massy roof above his head,
+  That instantly unsettles and recedes,--
+  Substance and shadow, light and darkness, all
+  Commingled, making up a canopy
+  Of shapes and forms and tendencies to shape                        570
+  That shift and vanish, change and interchange
+  Like spectres,--ferment silent and sublime!
+  That after a short space works less and less,
+  Till, every effort, every motion gone,
+  The scene before him stands in perfect view                        575
+  Exposed, and lifeless as a written book!--
+  But let him pause awhile, and look again,
+  And a new quickening shall succeed, at first
+  Beginning timidly, then creeping fast,
+  Till the whole cave, so late a senseless mass,                     580
+  Busies the eye with images and forms
+  Boldly assembled,--here is shadowed forth
+  From the projections, wrinkles, cavities,
+  A variegated landscape,--there the shape
+  Of some gigantic warrior clad in mail,                             585
+  The ghostly semblance of a hooded monk.
+  Veiled nun, or pilgrim resting on his staff:
+  Strange congregation! yet not slow to meet
+  Eyes that perceive through minds that can inspire.
+
+    Even in such sort had I at first been moved,                     590
+  Nor otherwise continued to be moved,
+  As I explored the vast metropolis,
+  Fount of my country's destiny and the world's;
+  That great emporium, chronicle at once
+  And burial-place of passions, and their home                       595
+  Imperial, their chief living residence.
+
+    With strong sensations teeming as it did
+  Of past and present, such a place must needs
+  Have pleased me, seeking knowledge at that time
+  Far less than craving power; yet knowledge came,                   600
+  Sought or unsought, and influxes of power
+  Came, of themselves, or at her call derived
+  In fits of kindliest apprehensiveness,
+  From all sides, when whate'er was in itself
+  Capacious found, or seemed to find, in me                          605
+  A correspondent amplitude of mind;
+  Such is the strength and glory of our youth!
+  The human nature unto which I felt
+  That I belonged, and reverenced with love,
+  Was not a punctual presence, but a spirit                          610
+  Diffused through time and space, with aid derived
+  Of evidence from monuments, erect,
+  Prostrate, or leaning towards their common rest
+  In earth, the widely scattered wreck sublime
+  Of vanished nations, or more clearly drawn                         615
+  From books and what they picture and record.
+
+    'Tis true, the history of our native land,
+  With those of Greece compared and popular Rome,
+  And in our high-wrought modern narratives
+  Stript of their harmonising soul, the life                         620
+  Of manners and familiar incidents,
+  Had never much delighted me. And less
+  Than other intellects had mine been used
+  To lean upon extrinsic circumstance
+  Of record or tradition; but a sense                                625
+  Of what in the Great City had been done
+  And suffered, and was doing, suffering, still,
+  Weighed with me, could support the test of thought;
+  And, in despite of all that had gone by,
+  Or was departing never to return,                                  630
+  There I conversed with majesty and power
+  Like independent natures. Hence the place
+  Was thronged with impregnations like the Wilds
+  In which my early feelings had been nursed--
+  Bare hills and valleys, full of caverns, rocks,                    635
+  And audible seclusions, dashing lakes,
+  Echoes and waterfalls, and pointed crags
+  That into music touch the passing wind.
+  Here then my young imagination found
+  No uncongenial element; could here                                 640
+  Among new objects serve or give command,
+  Even as the heart's occasions might require,
+  To forward reason's else too scrupulous march.
+  The effect was, still more elevated views
+  Of human nature. Neither vice nor guilt,                           645
+  Debasement undergone by body or mind,
+  Nor all the misery forced upon my sight,
+  Misery not lightly passed, but sometimes scanned
+  Most feelingly, could overthrow my trust
+  In what we _may_ become; induce belief                             650
+  That I was ignorant, had been falsely taught,
+  A solitary, who with vain conceits
+  Had been inspired, and walked about in dreams.
+  From those sad scenes when meditation turned,
+  Lo! every thing that was indeed divine                             655
+  Retained its purity inviolate,
+  Nay brighter shone, by this portentous gloom
+  Set off; such opposition as aroused
+  The mind of Adam, yet in Paradise
+  Though fallen from bliss, when in the East he saw                  660
+  [r] Darkness ere day's mid course, and morning light
+  More orient in the western cloud, that drew
+  O'er the blue firmament a radiant white,
+  Descending slow with something heavenly fraught.
+  Add also, that among the multitudes                                665
+  Of that huge city, oftentimes was seen
+  Affectingly set forth, more than elsewhere
+  Is possible, the unity of man,
+  One spirit over ignorance and vice
+  Predominant, in good and evil hearts;                              670
+  One sense for moral judgments, as one eye
+  For the sun's light. The soul when smitten thus
+  By a sublime _idea_, whencesoe'er
+  Vouchsafed for union or communion, feeds
+  On the pure bliss, and takes her rest with God.                    675
+  Thus from a very early age, O Friend!
+  My thoughts by slow gradations had been drawn
+  To human-kind, and to the good and ill
+  Of human life: Nature had led me on;
+  And oft amid the "busy hum" I seemed [s]                           680
+  To travel independent of her help,
+  As if I had forgotten her; but no,
+  The world of human-kind outweighed not hers
+  In my habitual thoughts; the scale of love,
+  Though filling daily, still was light, compared                    685
+  With that in which _her_ mighty objects lay.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
+
+[Variant 1:
+
+  ... which ...
+
+MS. letter to Sir George Beaumont, 1805.]
+
+
+[Variant 2:
+
+  Is yon assembled in the gay green field?
+
+MS. letter to Sir George Beaumont, 1805.]
+
+
+[Variant 3:
+
+  ... family of men,
+  Twice twenty with their children and their wives,
+  And here and there a stranger interspersed.
+  Such show, on this side now, ...
+
+MS. to Sir George Beaumont, 1805.]
+
+
+[Variant 4:
+
+  Sees annually; if storms be not abroad
+  And mists have left him  ...
+
+MS. to Sir George Beaumont, 1805.]
+
+
+[Variant 5:
+
+  It is a summer Festival, a Fair,
+  The only one which that secluded Glen
+  Has to be proud of ...
+
+MS. to Sir George Beaumont, 1805.]
+
+
+[Variant 6:
+
+  ...    heat of noon,
+  Behold! the cattle are driven down, the sheep
+  That have for this day's traffic been call'd out
+
+MS. to Sir George Beaumont, 1805.]
+
+
+[Variant 7:
+
+  ...    visitant!
+  The showman with his freight upon his back,
+  And once, perchance, in lapse of many years
+
+MS. to Sir George Beaumont, 1805.]
+
+
+[Variant 8:
+
+  But one is here,   ...
+
+MS. to Sir George Beaumont, 1805.]
+
+
+[Variant 9:
+
+  ... orchard, apples, pears,
+  (On this day only to such office stooping)
+  She carries in her basket and walks round
+
+MS. to Sir George Beaumont, 1805.]
+
+
+[Variant 10:
+
+  ... calling, ...
+
+MS. to Sir George Beaumont, 1805.]
+
+
+[Variant 11:
+
+  ... rich, the old man now                    (l. 44)
+  Is generous, so gaiety prevails
+  Which all partake of, young and old. Immense (l. 55)
+
+MS. to Sir George Beaumont, 1805.]
+
+
+[Variant 12:
+
+  ... green field:
+
+MS. to Sir George Beaumont, 1805.]
+
+
+[Variant 13:
+
+  ... seem,
+  Their herds and flocks about them, they themselves
+  And all which they can further ...
+
+MS. to Sir George Beaumont, 1805.]
+
+
+[Variant 14:
+
+  The lurking brooks for their ...
+
+MS. to Sir George Beaumont, 1805.]
+
+
+[Variant 15:
+
+  And the blue sky that roofs ...
+
+MS. to Sir George Beaumont, 1805.]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT
+
+[Footnote A: Dorothy Wordsworth alludes to one of these "Fairs" in her
+Grasmere Journal, September 2, 1800. Her brothers William and John, with
+Coleridge, were all at Dove Cottage at that time.
+
+  "They all went to Stickle Tarn. A very fine, warm, sunny, beautiful
+  morning. We walked to the fair. ... It was a lovely moonlight night.
+  We talked much about our house on Helvellyn. The moonlight shone only
+  upon the village. It did not eclipse the village lights; and the sound
+  of dancing and merriment came along the still air. I walked with
+  Coleridge and William up the lane and by the church...."
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote B: These lines are from a descriptive Poem--'Malvern
+Hills'--by one of Wordsworth's oldest friends, Mr. Joseph Cottle of
+Bristol. Cottle was the publisher of the first edition of "Lyrical
+Ballads," 1798 (Mr. Carter 1850).--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote C: The district round Cockermouth.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote D: Possibly an allusion to the hanging gardens of Babylon,
+said to have been constructed by Nebuchadnezzar for his Median queen.
+Berosus in Joseph, _contr. Ap._ I. 19, calls it a hanging _Paradise_
+(though Diodorus Siculus uses the term [Greek: kaepos]).--Ed.
+
+The park of the Emperor of China at Gehol, is called 'Van-shoo-yuen',
+"the paradise of ten thousand trees." Lord Macartney concludes his
+description of that "wonderful garden" by saying,
+
+  "If any place can be said in any respect to have similar features to
+  the western park of 'Van-shoo-yuen,' which I have seen this day, it is
+  at Lowther Hall in Westmoreland, which (when I knew it many years ago)
+  ... I thought might be reckoned ... the finest scene in the British
+  dominions."
+
+See Barrow's 'Travels in China', p. 134.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote E: 150 miles north-east of Pekin. See a description of them in
+Sir George Stanton's 'Authentic Account of an Embassy from the King of
+Great Britain to the Emperor of China' (from the papers of Lord
+Macartney), London, 1797, vol. ii. ch. ii. See also 'Encyclopaedia
+Britannica', ninth edition, article "Gehol."--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote F: Compare 'Paradise Lost', iv. l. 242.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote G: Compare 'Kubla Khan', ll. 1, 2:
+
+  'In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
+  A stately pleasure-dome decree.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote H: The Hawkshead district.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote I: Compare 'Michael', vol. ii. p. 215, 'Fidelity', p. 44 of
+this vol., etc.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote K: See Virgil, 'AEneid' viii. 319.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote L: See Polybius, 'Historiarum libri qui supersunt', vi. 20,
+21; and Virgil, 'Eclogue' x. 32.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote M: See 'As You Like It', act III. scene v.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote N: See 'The Winter's Tale', act IV. scene iii.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote O: See Spenser, 'The Shepheard's Calendar (May)'.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote P: An Italian river in Calabria, famous for its groves and the
+fine-fleeced sheep that pastured on its banks. See Virgil, 'Georgics'
+iv. 126; Horace, 'Odes' II. vi. 10.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Q: The Adriatic Sea. See Acts xxvii. 27.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote R: An Umbrian river whose waters, when drunk, were supposed to
+make oxen white. See Virgil, 'Georgics' ii. 146; Pliny, 'Historia
+Naturalis', ii. 103.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote S: A hill in the Sabine country, overhanging a pleasant
+valley. Near it were the house and farm of Horace. See his 'Odes' I.
+xvii. 1.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote T: The plain at the foot of the Harz Mountains, near
+Goslar.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote U: In the Fenwick note to the poem 'Written in Germany', vol.
+ii. p. 73, he says that he "walked daily on the ramparts."--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote V: 'Hercynian forest'.--(See Caesar, 'B. G.'  vi. 24, 25.)
+According to Caesar it commenced on the east bank of the Rhine,
+stretching east and north, its breadth being nine days' journey, and its
+length sixty. Strabo (iv. p. 292) included within the Hercynia Silva all
+the mountains of southern and central Germany, from the Danube to
+Transylvania. Later, it was limited to the mountains round Bohemia and
+extending to Hungary. (See Tacitus, 'Germania', 28, 30; and Pliny,
+'Historia Naturalis', iv. 25, 28.) A trace of the ancient name is
+retained in the 'Harz' mountains, which are clothed everywhere with
+conifers, Harz=resin.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote W: Yewdale, Duddondale, Eskdale, Wastdale, Ennerdale.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote X: Compare the sonnet in "Yarrow Revisited," etc., No. XI.,
+'Suggested at Tyndrum in a Storm'.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Y: See book vi. l. 485 and note [Footnote Z, below].--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Z: Corin=Corydon? the shepherd referred to in the pastorals of
+Virgil and Theocritus. Phyllis, see Virgil, 'Eclogue' x. 37, 41.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote a: While living in Anne Tyson's Cottage at Hawkshead.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote b: Compare 'Tintern Abbey', vol. ii. p. 54:
+
+       'Nature then,
+  To me was all in all, etc.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote c: He spent his twenty-second summer at Blois, in
+France.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote d: Compare 'Hart-Leap Well', vol. ii. p. 128, and 'The Green
+Linnet', vol. ii. p. 367.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote e: The 'Evening Walk', and 'Descriptive Sketches', published
+1793. See especially the original text of the latter, in the appendix to
+vol. 1. p. 309.--Ed.]TWO FOOTNOTES
+
+
+[Footnote f: It is difficult to say where this "smooth rock wet with
+constant springs" and the "copse-clad bank" were. There is no copse-clad
+bank fronting Anne Tyson's cottage at Hawkshead. It may have been a rock
+on the wooded slope of the rounded hill that rises west of Cowper
+Ground, north-west of Hawkshead. A rock "wet with springs" existed
+there, till it was quarried for road-metal a few years since. But it is
+quite possible that the cottage referred to is Dove Cottage, Grasmere.
+In that case the "rock" and "copse-clad bank" may have been on
+Loughrigg, or more probably on Silver How. The "summer sun" goes down
+behind Silver How, so that it might smite a wet rock either on Hammar
+Scar or on the wooded crags above Red Bank. These could be seen from the
+window of one of the rooms of Dove Cottage. Seated beside the hearth of
+the "half-kitchen and half-parlour fire" in that cottage, and looking
+along the passage through the low door, the eye would rest on Hammar
+Scar, the wooded hill behind Allan Bank. The context of the poem points
+to Hawkshead; but the details of the description suggest the Grasmere
+cottage rather than Anne Tyson's.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote g: See the distinction drawn by Wordsworth between Fancy and
+Imagination in the Preface to "Lyrical Ballads" (1800 and subsequent
+editions), and embodied in his classification of the Poems.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote h: Westmoreland.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote i: See note [Footnote a], book ii. l. 451.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote k: Coniston lake; see note [Footnote m below] on the following
+page.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote m: The eight lines which follow are a recast, in the blank
+verse of 'The Prelude', of the youthful lines entitled 'Extract from the
+Conclusion of a Poem, composed in Anticipation of leaving School'. These
+were composed in Wordsworth's sixteenth year. As the contrast is
+striking, the earlier lines may be transcribed:
+
+  'Dear native regions, I foretell,
+  From what I feel at this farewell,
+  That, wheresoe'er my steps may tend,
+  And whensoe'er my course shall end,
+  If in that hour a single tie
+  Survive of local sympathy,
+  My soul will cast the backward view,
+  The longing look alone on you.
+
+  Thus, while the Sun sinks down to rest
+  Far in the regions of the west,
+  Though to the vale no parting beam
+  Be given, not one memorial gleam,
+  A lingering light he fondly throws
+  On the dear hills where first he rose.'
+
+The Fenwick note to this poem is as follows:
+
+  "The beautiful image with which this poem concludes suggested itself
+  to me while I was resting in a boat along with my companions under the
+  shade of a magnificent row of sycamores, which then extended their
+  branches from the shore of the promontory upon with stands the
+  ancient, and at that time the more picturesque, Hall of Coniston."
+
+There is nothing in either poem definitely to connect "Thurstonmere"
+with Coniston, although their identity is suggested by the Fenwick note.
+I find, however, that Thurston was the ancient name of Coniston; and
+this carries us back to the time of the worship of Thor. (See Lewis's
+'Topographical Dictionary of England', vol. i. p. 662; also the
+'Edinburgh Gazetteer' (1822), articles "Thurston" and "Coniston.") The
+site of the grove "on the shore of the promontory" at Coniston Lake is
+easily identified, but the grove itself is gone.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote n: Compare book iii. ll. 30 and 321-26; also book vi, ll. 25
+and 95, both text and notes.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote o: Probably in 1788. Compare book vii. ll. 61-68, and note
+[Footnote K].--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote p: A stalactite cave, in a mountain in the south coast of the
+island of Antiparos, which is one of the Cyclades. It is six miles from
+Paros, was famous in ancient times, and was rediscovered in 1673.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote q: There is a cave, called Yordas Cave, four and a half miles
+from Ingleton in Lonsdale, Yorkshire. It is a limestone cavern, rich in
+stalactites, like the grotto of Antiparos; and is at the foot of the
+slopes of Gragreth, formerly called Greg-roof. It gets its name from a
+traditional giant 'Yordas'; some of its recesses being called "Yordas'
+bed-chamber," "Yordas' oven," etc. See Allen's 'County of York', iii. p.
+359; also Bigland's "Yorkshire" in 'The Beauties of England and Wales',
+vol. xvi. p. 735, and Murray's 'Handbook for Yorkshire', p. 392.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote r: From Milton, 'Paradise Lost', book xi. 1. 204:
+
+  'Why in the East
+  Darkness ere day's mid-course, and Morning light
+  More orient in yon Western Cloud, that draws
+  O'er the blue Firmament a radiant white,
+  And slow descends, with something heav'nly fraught?'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote s: See 'L'Allegro', l. 118.--Ed.]
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK NINTH
+
+
+RESIDENCE IN FRANCE
+
+
+  Even as a river,--partly (it might seem)
+  Yielding to old remembrances, and swayed
+  In part by fear to shape a way direct,
+  That would engulph him soon in the ravenous sea--
+  Turns, and will measure back his course, far back,                   5
+  Seeking the very regions which he crossed
+  In his first outset; so have we, my Friend!
+  Turned and returned with intricate delay.
+  Or as a traveller, who has gained the brow
+  Of some aerial Down, while there he halts                           10
+  For breathing-time, is tempted to review
+  The region left behind him; and, if aught
+  Deserving notice have escaped regard,
+  Or been regarded with too careless eye,
+  Strives, from that height, with one and yet one more                15
+  Last look, to make the best amends he may:
+  So have we lingered. Now we start afresh
+  With courage, and new hope risen on our toil
+  Fair greetings to this shapeless eagerness,
+  Whene'er it comes! needful in work so long,                         20
+  Thrice needful to the argument which now
+  Awaits us! Oh, how much unlike the past!
+
+   Free as a colt at pasture on the hill,
+  I ranged at large, through London's wide domain,
+  Month after month [A]. Obscurely did I live,                        25
+  Not seeking frequent intercourse with men,
+  By literature, or elegance, or rank,
+  Distinguished. Scarcely was a year thus spent [A]
+  Ere I forsook the crowded solitude,
+  With less regret for its luxurious pomp,                            30
+  And all the nicely-guarded shows of art,
+  Than for the humble book-stalls in the streets,
+  Exposed to eye and hand where'er I turned.
+
+    France lured me forth; the realm that I had crossed
+  So lately [B], journeying toward the snow-clad Alps.                35
+  But now, relinquishing the scrip and staff,
+  And all enjoyment which the summer sun
+  Sheds round the steps of those who meet the day
+  With motion constant as his own, I went
+  Prepared to sojourn in a pleasant town, [C]                         40
+  Washed by the current of the stately Loire.
+
+    Through Paris lay my readiest course, and there
+  Sojourning a few days, I visited,
+  In haste, each spot of old or recent fame,
+  The latter chiefly; from the field of Mars                          45
+  Down to the suburbs of St. Antony,
+  And from Mont Martyr southward to the Dome
+  Of Genevieve [D]. In both her clamorous Halls,
+  The National Synod and the Jacobins,
+  I saw the Revolutionary Power                                       50
+  Toss like a ship at anchor, rocked by storms; [E]
+  The Arcades I traversed, in the Palace huge
+  Of Orleans; [F] coasted round and round the line
+  Of Tavern, Brothel, Gaming-house, and Shop,
+  Great rendezvous of worst and best, the walk                        55
+  Of all who had a purpose, or had not;
+  I stared and listened, with a stranger's ears,
+  To Hawkers and Haranguers, hubbub wild!
+  And hissing Factionists with ardent eyes,
+  In knots, or pairs, or single. Not a look                           60
+  Hope takes, or Doubt or Fear is forced to wear,
+  But seemed there present; and I scanned them all,
+  Watched every gesture uncontrollable,
+  Of anger, and vexation, and despite,
+  All side by side, and struggling face to face,                      65
+  With gaiety and dissolute idleness.
+
+    Where silent zephyrs sported with the dust
+  Of the Bastille, I sate in the open sun,
+  And from the rubbish gathered up a stone,
+  And pocketed the relic, [G] in the guise                            70
+  Of an enthusiast; yet, in honest truth,
+  I looked for something that I could not find,
+  Affecting more emotion than I felt;
+  For 'tis most certain, that these various sights,
+  However potent their first shock, with me                           75
+  Appeared to recompense the traveller's pains
+  Less than the painted Magdalene of Le Brun, [H]
+  A beauty exquisitely wrought, with hair
+  Dishevelled, gleaming eyes, and rueful cheek
+  Pale and bedropped with everflowing tears.                          80
+
+  But hence to my more permanent abode
+  I hasten; there, by novelties in speech,
+  Domestic manners, customs, gestures, looks,
+  And all the attire of ordinary life,
+  Attention was engrossed; and, thus amused,                          85
+  I stood, 'mid those concussions, unconcerned,
+  Tranquil almost, and careless as a flower
+  Glassed in a green-house, or a parlour shrub
+  That spreads its leaves in unmolested peace,
+  While every bush and tree, the country through,                     90
+  Is shaking to the roots: indifference this
+  Which may seem strange: but I was unprepared
+  With needful knowledge, had abruptly passed
+  Into a theatre, whose stage was filled
+  And busy with an action far advanced.                               95
+  Like others, I had skimmed, and sometimes read
+  With care, the master pamphlets of the day;
+  Nor wanted such half-insight as grew wild
+  Upon that meagre soil, helped out by talk
+  And public news; but having never seen                             100
+  A chronicle that might suffice to show
+  Whence the main organs of the public power
+  Had sprung, their transmigrations, when and how
+  Accomplished, giving thus unto events
+  A form and body; all things were to me                             105
+  Loose and disjointed, and the affections left
+  Without a vital interest. At that time,
+  Moreover, the first storm was overblown,
+  And the strong hand of outward violence
+  Locked up in quiet. For myself, I fear                             110
+  Now in connection with so great a theme
+  To speak (as I must be compelled to do)
+  Of one so unimportant; night by night
+  Did I frequent the formal haunts of men,
+  Whom, in the city, privilege of birth                              115
+  Sequestered from the rest, societies
+  Polished in arts, and in punctilio versed;
+  Whence, and from deeper causes, all discourse
+  Of good and evil of the time was shunned
+  With scrupulous care; but these restrictions soon                  120
+  Proved tedious, and I gradually withdrew
+  Into a noisier world, and thus ere long
+  Became a patriot; and my heart was all
+  Given to the people, and my love was theirs.
+
+  A band of military Officers,                                       125
+  Then stationed in the city, were the chief
+  Of my associates: some of these wore swords
+  That had been seasoned in the wars, and all
+  Were men well-born; the chivalry of France.
+  In age and temper differing, they had yet                          130
+  One spirit ruling in each heart; alike
+  (Save only one, hereafter to be named) [I]
+  Were bent upon undoing what was done:
+  This was their rest and only hope; therewith
+  No fear had they of bad becoming worse,                            135
+  For worst to them was come; nor would have stirred,
+  Or deemed it worth a moment's thought to stir,
+  In any thing, save only as the act
+  Looked thitherward. One, reckoning by years,
+  Was in the prime of manhood, and erewhile                          140
+  He had sate lord in many tender hearts;
+  Though heedless of such honours now, and changed:
+  His temper was quite mastered by the times,
+  And they had blighted him, had eaten away
+  The beauty of his person, doing wrong                              145
+  Alike to body and to mind: his port,
+  Which once had been erect and open, now
+  Was stooping and contracted, and a face,
+  Endowed by Nature with her fairest gifts
+  Of symmetry and light and bloom, expressed,                        150
+  As much as any that was ever seen,
+  A ravage out of season, made by thoughts
+  Unhealthy and vexatious. With the hour,
+  That from the press of Paris duly brought
+  Its freight of public news, the fever came,                        155
+  A punctual visitant, to shake this man,
+  Disarmed his voice and fanned his yellow cheek
+  Into a thousand colours; while he read,
+  Or mused, his sword was haunted by his touch
+  Continually, like an uneasy place                                  160
+  In his own body. 'Twas in truth an hour
+  Of universal ferment; mildest men
+  Were agitated; and commotions, strife
+  Of passion and opinion, filled the walls
+  Of peaceful houses with unquiet sounds.                            165
+  The soil of common life, was, at that time,
+  Too hot to tread upon. Oft said I then,
+  And not then only, "What a mockery this
+  Of history, the past and that to come!
+  Now do I feel how all men are deceived,                            170
+  Reading of nations and their works, in faith,
+  Faith given to vanity and emptiness;
+  Oh! laughter for the page that would reflect
+  To future times the face of what now is!"
+  The land all swarmed with passion, like a plain                    175
+  Devoured by locusts,--Carra, Gorsas,--add
+  A hundred other names, forgotten now, [K]
+  Nor to be heard of more; yet, they were powers,
+  Like earthquakes, shocks repeated day by day,
+  And felt through every nook of town and field.                     180
+
+  Such was the state of things. Meanwhile the chief
+  Of my associates stood prepared for flight
+  To augment the band of emigrants in arms [L]
+  Upon the borders of the Rhine, and leagued
+  With foreign foes mustered for instant war.                        185
+  This was their undisguised intent, and they
+  Were waiting with the whole of their desires
+  The moment to depart.
+                       An Englishman,
+  Born in a land whose very name appeared
+  To license some unruliness of mind;                                190
+  A stranger, with youth's further privilege,
+  And the indulgence that a half-learnt speech
+  Wins from the courteous; I, who had been else
+  Shunned and not tolerated, freely lived
+  With these defenders of the Crown, and talked,                     195
+  And heard their notions; nor did they disdain
+  The wish to bring me over to their cause.
+
+    But though untaught by thinking or by books
+  To reason well of polity or law,
+  And nice distinctions, then on every tongue,                       200
+  Of natural rights and civil; and to acts
+  Of nations and their passing interests,
+  (If with unworldly ends and aims compared)
+  Almost indifferent, even the historian's tale
+  Prizing but little otherwise than I prized                         205
+  Tales of the poets, as it made the heart
+  Beat high, and filled the fancy with fair forms,
+  Old heroes and their sufferings and their deeds;
+  Yet in the regal sceptre, and the pomp
+  Of orders and degrees, I nothing found                             210
+  Then, or had ever, even in crudest youth,
+  That dazzled me, but rather what I mourned
+  And ill could brook, beholding that the best
+  Ruled not, and feeling that they ought to rule.
+
+    For, born in a poor district, and which yet                      215
+  Retaineth more of ancient homeliness,
+  Than any other nook of English ground,
+  It was my fortune scarcely to have seen,
+  Through the whole tenor of my school-day time,
+  The face of one, who, whether boy or man,                          220
+  Was vested with attention or respect
+  Through claims of wealth or blood; nor was it least
+  Of many benefits, in later years
+  Derived from academic institutes
+  And rules, that they held something up to view                     225
+  Of a Republic, where all stood thus far
+  Upon equal ground; that we were brothers all
+  In honour, as in one community,
+  Scholars and gentlemen; where, furthermore,
+  Distinction open lay to all that came,                             230
+  And wealth and titles were in less esteem
+  Than talents, worth, and prosperous industry.
+  Add unto this, subservience from the first
+  To presences of God's mysterious power
+  Made manifest in Nature's sovereignty,                             235
+  And fellowship with venerable books,
+  To sanction the proud workings of the soul,
+  And mountain liberty. It could not be
+  But that one tutored thus should look with awe
+  Upon the faculties of man, receive                                 240
+  Gladly the highest promises, and hail,
+  As best, the government of equal rights
+  And individual worth. And hence, O Friend!
+  If at the first great outbreak I rejoiced
+  Less than might well befit my youth, the cause                     245
+  In part lay here, that unto me the events
+  Seemed nothing out of nature's certain course,
+  A gift that was come rather late than soon.
+  No wonder, then, if advocates like these,
+  Inflamed by passion, blind with prejudice,                         250
+  And stung with injury, at this riper day,
+  Were impotent to make my hopes put on
+  The shape of theirs, my understanding bend
+  In honour to their honour: zeal, which yet
+  Had slumbered, now in opposition burst                             255
+  Forth like a Polar summer: every word
+  They uttered was a dart, by counter-winds
+  Blown back upon themselves; their reason seemed
+  Confusion-stricken by a higher power
+  Than human understanding, their discourse                          260
+  Maimed, spiritless; and, in their weakness strong,
+  I triumphed.
+
+               Meantime, day by day, the roads
+  Were crowded with the bravest youth of France, [M]
+  And all the promptest of her spirits, linked
+  In gallant soldiership, and posting on                             265
+  To meet the war upon her frontier bounds.
+  Yet at this very moment do tears start
+  Into mine eyes: I do not say I weep--
+  I wept not then,--but tears have dimmed my sight,
+  In memory of the farewells of that time,                           270
+  Domestic severings, female fortitude
+  At dearest separation, patriot love
+  And self-devotion, and terrestrial hope,
+  Encouraged with a martyr's confidence;
+  Even files of strangers merely seen but once,                      275
+  And for a moment, men from far with sound
+  Of music, martial tunes, and banners spread,
+  Entering the city, here and there a face,
+  Or person singled out among the rest,
+  Yet still a stranger and beloved as such;                          280
+  Even by these passing spectacles my heart
+  Was oftentimes uplifted, and they seemed
+  Arguments sent from Heaven to prove the cause
+  Good, pure, which no one could stand up against,
+  Who was not lost, abandoned, selfish, proud,                       285
+  Mean, miserable, wilfully depraved,
+  Hater perverse of equity and truth.
+
+    Among that band of Officers was one,
+  Already hinted at, [N] of other mould--
+  A patriot, thence rejected by the rest,                            290
+  And with an oriental loathing spurned,
+  As of a different caste. A meeker man
+  Than this lived never, nor a more benign,
+  Meek though enthusiastic. Injuries
+  Made _him_ more gracious, and his nature then                      295
+  Did breathe its sweetness out most sensibly,
+  As aromatic flowers on Alpine turf,
+  When foot hath crushed them. He through the events
+  Of that great change wandered in perfect faith,
+  As through a book, an old romance, or tale                         300
+  Of Fairy, or some dream of actions wrought
+  Behind the summer clouds. By birth he ranked
+  With the most noble, but unto the poor
+  Among mankind he was in service bound,
+  As by some tie invisible, oaths professed                          305
+  To a religious order. Man he loved
+  As man; and, to the mean and the obscure,
+  And all the homely in their homely works,
+  Transferred a courtesy which had no air
+  Of condescension; but did rather seem                              310
+  A passion and a gallantry, like that
+  Which he, a soldier, in his idler day
+  Had paid to woman: somewhat vain he was,
+  Or seemed so, yet it was not vanity,
+  But fondness, and a kind of radiant joy                            315
+  Diffused around him, while he was intent
+  On works of love or freedom, or revolved
+  Complacently the progress of a cause,
+  Whereof he was a part: yet this was meek
+  And placid, and took nothing from the man                          320
+  That was delightful. Oft in solitude
+  With him did I discourse about the end
+  Of civil government, and its wisest forms;
+  Of ancient loyalty, and chartered rights,
+  Custom and habit, novelty and change;                              325
+  Of self-respect, and virtue in the few
+  For patrimonial honour set apart,
+  And ignorance in the labouring multitude.
+  For he, to all intolerance indisposed,
+  Balanced these contemplations in his mind;                         330
+  And I, who at that time was scarcely dipped
+  Into the turmoil, bore a sounder judgment
+  Than later days allowed; carried about me,
+  With less alloy to its integrity,
+  The experience of past ages, as, through help                      335
+  Of books and common life, it makes sure way
+  To youthful minds, by objects over near
+  Not pressed upon, nor dazzled or misled
+  By struggling with the crowd for present ends.
+
+    But though not deaf, nor obstinate to find                       340
+  Error without excuse upon the side
+  Of them who strove against us, more delight
+  We took, and let this freely be confessed,
+  In painting to ourselves the miseries
+  Of royal courts, and that voluptuous life                          345
+  Unfeeling, where the man who is of soul
+  The meanest thrives the most; where dignity,
+  True personal dignity, abideth not;
+  A light, a cruel, and vain world cut off
+  From the natural inlets of just sentiment,                         350
+  From lowly sympathy and chastening truth;
+  Where good and evil interchange their names,
+  And thirst for bloody spoils abroad is paired
+  With vice at home. We added dearest themes--
+  Man and his noble nature, as it is                                 355
+  The gift which God has placed within his power,
+  His blind desires and steady faculties
+  Capable of clear truth, the one to break
+  Bondage, the other to build liberty
+  On firm foundations, making social life,                           360
+  Through knowledge spreading and imperishable,
+  As just in regulation, and as pure
+  As individual in the wise and good.
+
+    We summoned up the honourable deeds
+  Of ancient Story, thought of each bright spot,                     365
+  That would be found in all recorded time,
+  Of truth preserved and error passed away;
+  Of single spirits that catch the flame from Heaven,
+  And how the multitudes of men will feed
+  And fan each other; thought of sects, how keen                     370
+  They are to put the appropriate nature on,
+  Triumphant over every obstacle
+  Of custom, language, country, love, or hate,
+  And what they do and suffer for their creed;
+  How far they travel, and how long endure;                          375
+  How quickly mighty Nations have been formed,
+  From least beginnings; how, together locked
+  By new opinions, scattered tribes have made
+  One body, spreading wide as clouds in heaven.
+  To aspirations then of our own minds                               380
+  Did we appeal; and, finally, beheld
+  A living confirmation of the whole
+  Before us, in a people from the depth
+  Of shameful imbecility uprisen,
+  Fresh as the morning star. Elate we looked                         385
+  Upon their virtues; saw, in rudest men,
+  Self-sacrifice the firmest; generous love,
+  And continence of mind, and sense of right,
+  Uppermost in the midst of fiercest strife.
+
+    Oh, sweet it is, in academic groves,                             390
+  Or such retirement, Friend! as we have known
+  In the green dales beside our Rotha's stream,
+  Greta, or Derwent, or some nameless rill,
+  To ruminate, with interchange of talk,
+  On rational liberty, and hope in man,                              395
+  Justice and peace. But far more sweet such toil--
+  Toil, say I, for it leads to thoughts abstruse--
+  If nature then be standing on the brink
+  Of some great trial, and we hear the voice
+  Of one devoted, one whom circumstance                              400
+  Hath called upon to embody his deep sense
+  In action, give it outwardly a shape,
+  And that of benediction, to the world.
+  Then doubt is not, and truth is more than truth,--
+  A hope it is, and a desire; a creed                                405
+  Of zeal, by an authority Divine
+  Sanctioned, of danger, difficulty, or death.
+  Such conversation, under Attic shades,
+  Did Dion hold with Plato; [O] ripened thus
+  For a Deliverer's glorious task,--and such                         410
+  He, on that ministry already bound,
+  Held with Eudemus and Timonides, [P]
+  Surrounded by adventurers in arms,
+  When those two vessels with their daring freight,
+  For the Sicilian Tyrant's overthrow,                               415
+  Sailed from Zacynthus,--philosophic war,
+  Led by Philosophers. [Q] With harder fate,
+  Though like ambition, such was he, O Friend!
+  Of whom I speak. So Beaupuis (let the name
+  Stand near the worthiest of Antiquity)                             420
+  Fashioned his life; and many a long discourse,
+  With like persuasion honoured, we maintained:
+  He, on his part, accoutred for the worst.
+  He perished fighting, in supreme command,
+  Upon the borders of the unhappy Loire,                             425
+  For liberty, against deluded men,
+  His fellow country-men; and yet most blessed
+  In this, that he the fate of later times
+  Lived not to see, nor what we now behold,
+  Who have as ardent hearts as he had then.                          430
+
+  Along that very Loire, with festal mirth
+  Resounding at all hours, and innocent yet
+  Of civil slaughter, was our frequent walk;
+  Or in wide forests of continuous shade,
+  Lofty and over-arched, with open space                             435
+  Beneath the trees, clear footing many a mile--
+  A solemn region. Oft amid those haunts,
+  From earnest dialogues I slipped in thought,
+  And let remembrance steal to other times,
+  When, o'er those interwoven roots, moss-clad,                      440
+  And smooth as marble or a waveless sea,
+  Some Hermit, from his cell forth-strayed, might pace
+  In sylvan meditation undisturbed;
+  As on the pavement of a Gothic church
+  Walks a lone Monk, when service hath expired,                      445
+  In peace and silence. But if e'er was heard,--
+  Heard, though unseen,--a devious traveller,
+  Retiring or approaching from afar
+  With speed and echoes loud of trampling hoofs
+  From the hard floor reverberated, then                             450
+  It was Angelica [R] thundering through the woods
+  Upon her palfrey, or that gentle maid
+  Erminia, [S] fugitive as fair as she.
+  Sometimes methought I saw a pair of knights
+  Joust underneath the trees, that as in storm                       455
+  Rocked high above their heads; anon, the din
+  Of boisterous merriment, and music's roar,
+  In sudden proclamation, burst from haunt
+  Of Satyrs in some viewless glade, with dance
+  Rejoicing o'er a female in the midst,                              460
+  A mortal beauty, their unhappy thrall.
+  The width of those huge forests, unto me
+  A novel scene, did often in this way
+  Master my fancy while I wandered on
+  With that revered companion. And sometimes--465
+  When to a convent in a meadow green,
+  By a brook-side, we came, a roofless pile,
+  And not by reverential touch of Time
+  Dismantled, but by violence abrupt--
+  In spite of those heart-bracing colloquies,                        470
+  In spite of real fervour, and of that
+  Less genuine and wrought up within myself--
+  I could not but bewail a wrong so harsh,
+  And for the Matin-bell to sound no more
+  Grieved, and the twilight taper, and the cross                     475
+  High on the topmost pinnacle, a sign
+  (How welcome to the weary traveller's eyes!)
+  Of hospitality and peaceful rest.
+  And when the partner of those varied walks
+  Pointed upon occasion to the site                                  480
+  Of Romorentin, home of ancient kings, [T]
+  To the imperial edifice of Blois, [U]
+  Or to that rural castle, name now slipped
+  From my remembrance, where a lady lodged, [V]
+  By the first Francis wooed, and bound to him                       485
+  In chains of mutual passion, from the tower,
+  As a tradition of the country tells,
+  Practised to commune with her royal knight
+  By cressets and love-beacons, intercourse
+  'Twixt her high-seated residence and his                           490
+  Far off at Chambord on the plain beneath; [W]
+  Even here, though less than with the peaceful house
+  Religious, 'mid those frequent monuments
+  Of Kings, their vices and their better deeds,
+  Imagination, potent to inflame                                     495
+  At times with virtuous wrath and noble scorn,
+  Did also often mitigate the force
+  Of civic prejudice, the bigotry,
+  So call it, of a youthful patriot's mind;
+  And on these spots with many gleams I looked                       500
+  Of chivalrous delight. Yet not the less,
+  Hatred of absolute rule, where will of one
+  Is law for all, and of that barren pride
+  In them who, by immunities unjust,
+  Between the sovereign and the people stand,                        505
+  His helper and not theirs, laid stronger hold
+  Daily upon me, mixed with pity too
+  And love; for where hope is, there love will be
+  For the abject multitude. And when we chanced
+  One day to meet a hunger-bitten girl,                              510
+  Who crept along fitting her languid gait
+  Unto a heifer's motion, by a cord
+  Tied to her arm, and picking thus from the lane
+  Its sustenance, while the girl with pallid hands
+  Was busy knitting in a heartless mood                              515
+  Of solitude, and at the sight my friend
+  In agitation said, "'Tis against 'that'
+  That we are fighting," I with him believed
+  That a benignant spirit was abroad
+  Which might not be withstood, that poverty                         520
+  Abject as this would in a little time
+  Be found no more, that we should see the earth
+  Unthwarted in her wish to recompense
+  The meek, the lowly, patient child of toil,
+  All institutes for ever blotted out                                525
+  That legalised exclusion, empty pomp
+  Abolished, sensual state and cruel power,
+  Whether by edict of the one or few;
+  And finally, as sum and crown of all,
+  Should see the people having a strong hand                         530
+  In framing their own laws; whence better days
+  To all mankind. But, these things set apart,
+  Was not this single confidence enough
+  To animate the mind that ever turned
+  A thought to human welfare? That henceforth                        535
+  Captivity by mandate without law
+  Should cease; and open accusation lead
+  To sentence in the hearing of the world,
+  And open punishment, if not the air
+  Be free to breathe in, and the heart of man                        540
+  Dread nothing. From this height I shall not stoop
+  To humbler matter that detained us oft
+  In thought or conversation, public acts,
+  And public persons, and emotions wrought
+  Within the breast, as ever-varying winds                           545
+  Of record or report swept over us;
+  But I might here, instead, repeat a tale, [X]
+  Told by my Patriot friend, of sad events,
+  That prove to what low depth had struck the roots,
+  How widely spread the boughs, of that old tree                     550
+  Which, as a deadly mischief, and a foul
+  And black dishonour, France was weary of.
+
+    Oh, happy time of youthful lovers, (thus
+  The story might begin). Oh, balmy time,
+  In which a love-knot, on a lady's brow,                            555
+  Is fairer than the fairest star in Heaven! [Y]
+  So might--and with that prelude _did_ begin
+  The record; and, in faithful verse, was given
+  The doleful sequel.
+
+                        But our little bark
+  On a strong river boldly hath been launched;                       560
+  And from the driving current should we turn
+  To loiter wilfully within a creek,
+  Howe'er attractive, Fellow voyager!
+  Would'st thou not chide?  Yet deem not my pains lost:
+  For Vaudracour and Julia (so were named                            565
+  The ill-fated pair) in that plain tale will draw
+  Tears from the hearts of others, when their own
+  Shall beat no more.  Thou, also, there may'st read,
+  At leisure, how the enamoured youth was driven,
+  By public power abased, to fatal crime,                            570
+  Nature's rebellion against monstrous law;
+  How, between heart and heart, oppression thrust
+  Her mandates, severing whom true love had joined,
+  Harassing both; until he sank and pressed
+  The couch his fate had made for him; supine,                       575
+  Save when the stings of viperous remorse,
+  Trying their strength, enforced him to start up,
+  Aghast and prayerless. Into a deep wood
+  He fled, to shun the haunts of human kind;
+  There dwelt, weakened in spirit more and more;                     580
+  Nor could the voice of Freedom, which through France
+  Full speedily resounded, public hope,
+  Or personal memory of his own worst wrongs,
+  Rouse him; but, hidden in those gloomy shades,
+  His days he wasted,--an imbecile mind. [Z]                         585
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT
+
+[Footnote A: This must either mean a year from the time at which he took
+his degree at Cambridge, or it is inaccurate as to date. He graduated in
+January 1791, and left Brighton for Paris in November 1791. In London he
+only spent four months, the February, March, April, and May of 1791.
+Then followed the Welsh tour with Jones, and his return to Cambridge in
+September 1791.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote B: With Jones in the previous year, 1790.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote C: Orleans.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote D: The Champ de Mars is in the west, the Rue du Faubourg St.
+Antoine (the old suburb of St. Antony) in the east, Montmartre in the
+north, and the dome of St. Genevieve, commonly called the Pantheon, in
+the south of Paris.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote E: The clergy, noblesse, and the 'tiers etat' met at Notre
+Dame on the 4th May 1789. On the following day, at Versailles, the
+'tiers etat' assumed the title of the 'National Assembly'--constituting
+themselves the sovereign power--and invited others to join them. The
+club of the Jacobins was instituted the same year. It leased for itself
+the hall of the Jacobins' convent: hence the name.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote F: The Palais Royal, built by Cardinal Richelieu in 1636,
+presented by Louis XIV. to his brother, the Duke of Orleans, and
+thereafter the property of the house of Orleans (hence the name). The
+"arcades" referred to were removed in 1830, and the brilliant 'Galerie
+d'Orleans' built in their place.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote G: On the 14th July 1789, the Bastille was taken, and
+destroyed by the Revolutionists. The stones were used, for the most
+part, in the construction of the Pont de la Concorde.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote H: Charles Lebrun, Court painter to Louis XIV. of France
+(1619-1690)--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote I: The Republican general, Michel Beaupuy. See p. 302
+[Footnote N below], and the note upon him by Mons. Emile Legouis of
+Lyons, in the appendix [Note VII] to this volume, p. 401.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote K:  Carra and Gorsas were journalist deputies in the first
+year of the French Republic. Gorsas was the first of the deputies who
+died on the scaffold. Carlyle thus refers to them, and to the "hundred
+other names forgotten now," in his 'French Revolution' (vol. iii. book
+i. chap. 7):
+
+  "The convention is getting chosen--really in a decisive spirit. Some
+  two hundred of our best Legislators may be re-elected, the Mountain
+  bodily. Robespierre, with Mayor Petion, Buzot, Curate Gregoire and
+  some threescore Old Constituents; though we men had only _thirty
+  voices._ All these and along with them friends long known to the
+  Revolutionary fame: Camille Desmoulins, though he stutters in speech,
+  Manuel Tallein and Company; Journalists Gorsas, Carra, Mersier, Louvet
+  of _Faubias_; Clootz, Speaker of Mankind, Collet d'Herbois, tearing a
+  passion to rags; Fahre d'Egalantine Speculative Pamphleteer; Legendre,
+  the solid Butcher; nay Marat though rural France can hardly believe
+  it, or even believe there is a Marat, except in print." Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote L: Many of the old French Noblesse, and other supporters of
+Monarchy, fled across the Rhine, and with thousands of emigres formed a
+special Legion, which co-operated with the German army under the Emperor
+Leopold and the King of Prussia.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote M: Compare book vi. l. 345, etc.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote N: Beaupuy. See p. 297 [Footnote I, above]:
+
+  "Save only one, hereafter to be named," [Line 132]
+
+and the note on Beaupuy, in the appendix [Note VII] to this volume, p.
+401.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote O: Compare Wordsworth's poem 'Dion', in volume vi. of this
+edition.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote P: When Plato visited Syracuse, in the reign of Dionysius,
+Dion became his disciple, and induced Dionysius to invite Plato a second
+time to Syracuse. But neither Plato nor Dion could succeed in their
+efforts to influence and elevate Dionysius. Dion withdrew to Athens, and
+lived in close intimacy with Plato, and with Speusippus. The latter
+urged him to return, and deliver Sicily from the tyrant Dionysius, who
+had become unpopular in the island. Dion got some of the Syracusan
+exiles in Greece to join him, and "sailed from Zacynthus," with two
+merchant ships, and about 800 troops. He took Syracuse, and became
+dictator of the district. But--as was the case with the tyrants of the
+French Revolution who took the place of those of the old regime (record
+later on in 'The Prelude')--the Syracusans found that they had only
+exchanged one form of rigour for another. It is thus that Plutarch
+refers to the occurrence.
+
+  "Many statesmen and philosophers assisted him (_i. e._ Dion); "as for
+  instance, Eudemus, the Cyprian, on whose death Aristotle wrote his
+  dialogue of the Soul, and Timonides the Leucadian."
+
+(See Plutarch's 'Dion'.) Timonides wrote an account of Dion's campaign
+in Sicily in certain letters to Speusippus, which are referred to both
+by Plutarch and by Diogenes Laertius,--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Q: See the previous note [Footnote P directly above].--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote R: See the 'Orlando Furioso' of Ariosto, canto i.:
+
+  'La donna il palafreno a dietro volta,
+  E per la selva a tutta briglia il caccia;
+  Ne per la rara piu, che per la folta,
+  La piu sicura e miglior via procaccia.
+
+  The lady turned her palfrey round,
+  And through the forest drove him on amain;
+  Nor did she choose the glade before the thickest wood,
+  Riding the safest ever, and the better way.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote S: See the 'Gerusalemme Liberata' of Tasso, canto vi. Erminia
+is the heroine of 'Jerusalem Delivered'. An account of her flight occurs
+at the opening of the seventh canto.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote T:
+
+  "_Rivus Romentini_, petite ville du Blaisois, et capitale de la
+  Sologne, aujourd'hui sous-prefecture du depart. de Loir-et-Cher."
+
+It was taken in 1356 and in 1429 by the English, in 1562 by the
+Catholics, in 1567 by the Calvinists, and in 1589 by the Royalists.
+
+  "Henri IV. l'erigea en comte pour sa maitresse Charlotte des Essarts,
+  1560. Francois I. y rendit un edit celebre qui attribuait aux prelats
+  la connaissance du crime d'heresie, et la repression des assemblees
+  illicites."
+
+('Dictionnaire Historique de la France', par Ludovic Lalaune. Paris,
+1872.)--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote U: Blois,
+
+  "Louis XII., qui etait ne a Blois, y sejourna souvent, et
+  reconstruisit completement le chateau, ou la cour habita frequemment
+  au XVI'e. siecle."
+
+('Dict. Histor. de la France', Lalaune.) The town is full of historical
+reminiscences of Louis XII., Francis I., Henry III., and Catherine and
+Mary de Medici. Wordsworth went from Orleans to Blois, in the spring of
+1792.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote V: Claude, the daughter of Louis XII.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote W: Chambord;
+
+  "celebre chateau du Blaisois (Loir-et-Cher), construit par Francois
+  I., sur l'emplacement d'une maison de plaisance des comtes de Blois.
+  Donne par Louis XV. a son beau-pere Stanislas, puis au Marechal de
+  Saxe, il revint ensuit a la couronne; et en 1777 Louis XVI. en accorda
+  la jouissance a la famille de Polignac."
+
+(Lalaune.)
+
+A national subscription was got up in the 'twenties, under Charles X.,
+to present the chateau to the posthumous son of the Duc de Berry, who
+afterwards became known as the Comte de Chambord, or Henri V.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote X: The tale of 'Vaudracour and Julia'. (Mr. Carter, 1850.)]
+
+
+[Footnote Y: The previous four lines are the opening ones of the poem
+'Vaudracour and Julia'. (See p. 24.)--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Z: The last five lines are almost a reproduction of the
+concluding five in 'Vaudracour and Julia'.--Ed.]
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK TENTH
+
+
+RESIDENCE IN FRANCE--'continued'
+
+
+  It was a beautiful and silent day
+  That overspread the countenance of earth,
+  Then fading with unusual quietness,--
+  A day as beautiful as e'er was given
+  To soothe regret, though deepening what it soothed,                  5
+  When by the gliding Loire I paused, and cast
+  Upon his rich domains, vineyard and tilth,
+  Green meadow-ground, and many-coloured woods,
+  Again, and yet again, a farewell look;
+  Then from the quiet of that scene passed on,                        10
+  Bound to the fierce Metropolis. [A] From his throne
+  The King had fallen, [B] and that invading host--
+  Presumptuous cloud, on whose black front was written
+  The tender mercies of the dismal wind
+  That bore it--on the plains of Liberty                              15
+  Had burst innocuous. Say in bolder words,
+  They--who had come elate as eastern hunters
+  Banded beneath the Great Mogul, when he
+  Erewhile went forth from Agra or Lahore,
+  Rajahs and Omrahs [C] in his train, intent                          20
+  To drive their prey enclosed within a ring
+  Wide as a province, but, the signal given,
+  Before the point of the life-threatening spear
+  Narrowing itself by moments--they, rash men,
+  Had seen the anticipated quarry turned                              25
+  Into avengers, from whose wrath they fled
+  In terror. Disappointment and dismay
+  Remained for all whose fancies had run wild
+  With evil expectations; confidence
+  And perfect triumph for the better cause.                           30
+
+    The State, as if to stamp the final seal
+  On her security, and to the world
+  Show what she was, a high and fearless soul,
+  Exulting in defiance, or heart-stung
+  By sharp resentment, or belike to taunt                             35
+  With spiteful gratitude the baffled League,
+  That had stirred up her slackening faculties
+  To a new transition, when the King was crushed,
+  Spared not the empty throne, and in proud haste
+  Assumed the body and venerable name                                 40
+  Of a Republic. [D] Lamentable crimes,
+  'Tis true, had gone before this hour, dire work
+  Of massacre, [E] in which the senseless sword
+  Was prayed to as a judge; but these were past,
+  Earth free from them for ever, as was thought,--45
+  Ephemeral monsters, to be seen but once!
+  Things that could only show themselves and die.
+
+    Cheered with this hope, to Paris I returned, [F]
+  And ranged, with ardour heretofore unfelt,
+  The spacious city, and in progress passed                           50
+  The prison where the unhappy Monarch lay,
+  Associate with his children and his wife
+  In bondage; and the palace, lately stormed
+  With roar of cannon by a furious host.
+  I crossed the square (an empty area then!) [G]                      55
+  Of the Carrousel, where so late had lain
+  The dead, upon the dying heaped, and gazed
+  On this and other spots, as doth a man
+  Upon a volume whose contents he knows
+  Are memorable, but from him locked up,                              60
+  Being written in a tongue he cannot read,
+  So that he questions the mute leaves with pain,
+  And half upbraids their silence. But that night
+  I felt most deeply in what world I was,
+  What ground I trod on, and what air I breathed.                     65
+  High was my room and lonely, near the roof
+  Of a large mansion or hotel, a lodge
+  That would have pleased me in more quiet times;
+  Nor was it wholly without pleasure then.
+  With unextinguished taper I kept watch,                             70
+  Reading at intervals; the fear gone by
+  Pressed on me almost like a fear to come.
+  I thought of those September massacres,
+  Divided from me by one little month,  [H]
+  Saw them and touched: the rest was conjured up                      75
+  From tragic fictions or true history,
+  Remembrances and dim admonishments.
+  The horse is taught his manage, and no star
+  Of wildest course but treads back his own steps;
+  For the spent hurricane the air provides                            80
+  As fierce a successor; the tide retreats
+  But to return out of its hiding-place
+  In the great deep; all things have second-birth;
+  The earthquake is not satisfied at once;
+  And in this way I wrought upon myself,                              85
+  Until I seemed to hear a voice that cried,
+  To the whole city, "Sleep no more." The trance
+  Fled with the voice to which it had given birth;
+  But vainly comments of a calmer mind
+  Promised soft peace and sweet forgetfulness.                        90
+  The place, all hushed and silent as it was,
+  Appeared unfit for the repose of night,
+  Defenceless as a wood where tigers roam.
+
+    With early morning towards the Palace-walk
+  Of Orleans eagerly I turned; as yet                                 95
+  The streets were still; not so those long Arcades;
+  There, 'mid a peal of ill-matched sounds and cries,
+  That greeted me on entering, I could hear
+  Shrill voices from the hawkers in the throng,
+  Bawling, "Denunciation of the Crimes                               100
+  Of Maximilian Robespierre;" the hand,
+  Prompt as the voice, held forth a printed speech,
+  The same that had been recently pronounced,
+  When Robespierre, not ignorant for what mark
+  Some words of indirect reproof had been                            105
+  Intended, rose in hardihood, and dared
+  The man who had an ill surmise of him
+  To bring his charge in openness; whereat,
+  When a dead pause ensued, and no one stirred,
+  In silence of all present, from his seat                           110
+  Louvet walked single through the avenue,
+  And took his station in the Tribune, saying,
+  "I, Robespierre, accuse thee!" [I] Well is known
+  The inglorious issue of that charge, and how
+  He, who had launched the startling thunderbolt,                    115
+  The one bold man, whose voice the attack had sounded,
+  Was left without a follower to discharge
+  His perilous duty, and retire lamenting
+  That Heaven's best aid is wasted upon men
+  Who to themselves are false. [K]
+                  But these are things                               120
+  Of which I speak, only as they were storm
+  Or sunshine to my individual mind,
+  No further. Let me then relate that now--
+  In some sort seeing with my proper eyes
+  That Liberty, and Life, and Death would soon                       125
+  To the remotest corners of the land
+  Lie in the arbitrement of those who ruled
+  The capital City; what was struggled for,
+  And by what combatants victory must be won;
+  The indecision on their part whose aim                             130
+  Seemed best, and the straightforward path of those
+  Who in attack or in defence were strong
+  Through their impiety--my inmost soul
+  Was agitated; yea, I could almost
+  Have prayed that throughout earth upon all men,                    135
+  By patient exercise of reason made
+  Worthy of liberty, all spirits filled
+  With zeal expanding in Truth's holy light,
+  The gift of tongues might fall, and power arrive
+  From the four quarters of the winds to do                          140
+  For France, what without help she could not do,
+  A work of honour; think not that to this
+  I added, work of safety: from all doubt
+  Or trepidation for the end of things
+  Far was I, far as angels are from guilt.                           145
+
+    Yet did I grieve, nor only grieved, but thought
+  Of opposition and of remedies:
+  An insignificant stranger and obscure,
+  And one, moreover, little graced with power
+  Of eloquence even in my native speech,                             150
+  And all unfit for tumult or intrigue,
+  Yet would I at this time with willing heart
+  Have undertaken for a cause so great
+  Service however dangerous. I revolved,
+  How much the destiny of Man had still                              155
+  Hung upon single persons; that there was,
+  Transcendent to all local patrimony,
+  One nature, as there is one sun in heaven;
+  That objects, even as they are great, thereby
+  Do come within the reach of humblest eyes;                         160
+  That Man is only weak through his mistrust
+  And want of hope where evidence divine
+  Proclaims to him that hope should be most sure;
+  Nor did the inexperience of my youth
+  Preclude conviction, that a spirit strong,                         165
+  In hope, and trained to noble aspirations,
+  A spirit thoroughly faithful to itself,
+  Is for Society's unreasoning herd
+  A domineering instinct, serves at once
+  For way and guide, a fluent receptacle                             170
+  That gathers up each petty straggling rill
+  And vein of water, glad to be rolled on
+  In safe obedience; that a mind, whose rest
+  Is where it ought to be, in self-restraint,
+  In circumspection and simplicity,                                  175
+  Falls rarely in entire discomfiture
+  Below its aim, or meets with, from without,
+  A treachery that foils it or defeats;
+  And, lastly, if the means on human will,
+  Frail human will, dependent should betray                          180
+  Him who too boldly trusted them, I felt
+  That 'mid the loud distractions of the world
+  A sovereign voice subsists within the soul,
+  Arbiter undisturbed of right and wrong,
+  Of life and death, in majesty severe                               185
+  Enjoining, as may best promote the aims
+  Of truth and justice, either sacrifice,
+  From whatsoever region of our cares
+  Or our infirm affections Nature pleads,
+  Earnest and blind, against the stern decree.                       190
+
+  On the other side, I called to mind those truths
+  That are the common-places of the schools--
+  (A theme for boys, too hackneyed for their sires,)
+  Yet, with a revelation's liveliness,
+  In all their comprehensive bearings known                          195
+  And visible to philosophers of old,
+  Men who, to business of the world untrained,
+  Lived in the shade; and to Harmodius known
+  And his compeer Aristogiton, [L] known
+  To Brutus--that tyrannic power is weak,                            200
+  Hath neither gratitude, nor faith, nor love,
+  Nor the support of good or evil men
+  To trust in; that the godhead which is ours
+  Can never utterly be charmed or stilled;
+  That nothing hath a natural right to last                          205
+  But equity and reason; that all else
+  Meets foes irreconcilable, and at best
+  Lives only by variety of disease.
+
+  Well might my wishes be intense, my thoughts
+  Strong and perturbed, not doubting at that time                    210
+  But that the virtue of one paramount mind
+  Would have abashed those impious crests--have quelled
+  Outrage and bloody power, and, in despite
+  Of what the People long had been and were
+  Through ignorance and false teaching, sadder proof                 215
+  Of immaturity, and in the teeth
+  Of desperate opposition from without--
+  Have cleared a passage for just government,
+  And left a solid birthright to the State,
+  Redeemed, according to example given                               220
+  By ancient lawgivers.
+                  In this frame of mind,
+  Dragged by a chain of harsh necessity,
+  So seemed it,--now I thankfully acknowledge,
+  Forced by the gracious providence of Heaven,--
+  To England I returned, [M] else (though assured                    225
+  That I both was and must be of small weight,
+  No better than a landsman on the deck
+  Of a ship struggling with a hideous storm)
+  Doubtless, I should have then made common cause
+  With some who perished; haply perished too, [N]                    230
+  A poor mistaken and bewildered offering,--
+  Should to the breast of Nature have gone back,
+  With all my resolutions, all my hopes,
+  A Poet only to myself, to men
+  Useless, and even, beloved Friend! a soul                          235
+  To thee unknown!
+
+      Twice had the trees let fall
+  Their leaves, as often Winter had put on
+  His hoary crown, since I had seen the surge
+  Beat against Albion's shore, [O] since ear of mine
+  Had caught the accents of my native speech                         240
+  Upon our native country's sacred ground.
+  A patriot of the world, how could I glide
+  Into communion with her sylvan shades,
+  Erewhile my tuneful haunt? It pleased me more
+  To abide in the great City, [P] where I found                      245
+  The general air still busy with the stir
+  Of that first memorable onset made
+  By a strong levy of humanity
+  Upon the traffickers in Negro blood; [Q]
+  Effort which, though defeated, had recalled                        250
+  To notice old forgotten principles,
+  And through the nation spread a novel heat
+  Of virtuous feeling. For myself, I own
+  That this particular strife had wanted power
+  To rivet my affections; nor did now                                255
+  Its unsuccessful issue much excite
+  My sorrow; for I brought with me the faith
+  That, if France prospered, good men would not long
+  Pay fruitless worship to humanity,
+  And this most rotten branch of human shame,                        260
+  Object, so seemed it, of superfluous pains,
+  Would fall together with its parent tree.
+  What, then, were my emotions, when in arms
+  Britain put forth her free-born strength in league,
+  Oh, pity and shame! with those confederate Powers!                 265
+  Not in my single self alone I found,
+  But in the minds of all ingenuous youth,
+  Change and subversion from that hour. No shock
+  Given to my moral nature had I known
+  Down to that very moment; neither lapse                            270
+  Nor turn of sentiment that might be named
+  A revolution, save at this one time;
+  All else was progress on the self-same path
+  On which, with a diversity of pace,
+  I had been travelling: this a stride at once                       275
+  Into another region. As a light
+  And pliant harebell, swinging in the breeze
+  On some grey rock--its birth-place--so had I
+  Wantoned, fast rooted on the ancient tower
+  Of my beloved country, wishing not                                 280
+  A happier fortune than to wither there:
+  Now was I from that pleasant station torn
+  And tossed about in whirlwind. I rejoiced,
+  Yea, afterwards--truth most painful to record!--
+  Exulted, in the triumph of my soul,                                285
+  When Englishmen by thousands were o'erthrown,
+  Left without glory on the field, or driven,
+  Brave hearts! to shameful flight. It was a grief,--
+  Grief call it not, 'twas anything but that,--
+  A conflict of sensations without name,                             290
+  Of which _he_ only, who may love the sight
+  Of a village steeple, as I do, can judge,
+  When, in the congregation bending all
+  To their great Father, prayers were offered up,
+  Or praises for our country's victories;                            295
+  And, 'mid the simple worshippers, perchance
+  I only, like an uninvited guest
+  Whom no one owned, sate silent; shall I add,
+  Fed on the day of vengeance yet to come.
+
+  Oh! much have they to account for, who could tear,                 300
+  By violence, at one decisive rent,
+  From the best youth in England their dear pride,
+  Their joy, in England; this, too, at a time
+  In which worst losses easily might wean
+  The best of names, when patriotic love                             305
+  Did of itself in modesty give way,
+  Like the Precursor when the Deity
+  Is come Whose harbinger he was; a time
+  In which apostasy from ancient faith
+  Seemed but conversion to a higher creed;                           310
+  Withal a season dangerous and wild,
+  A time when sage Experience would have snatched
+  Flowers out of any hedge-row to compose
+  A chaplet in contempt of his grey locks.
+
+  When the proud fleet that bears the red-cross flag [R]             315
+  In that unworthy service was prepared
+  To mingle, I beheld the vessels lie,
+  A brood of gallant creatures, on the deep;
+  I saw them in their rest, a sojourner
+  Through a whole month of calm and glassy days                      320
+  In that delightful island which protects
+  Their place of convocation [S]--there I heard,
+  Each evening, pacing by the still sea-shore,
+  A monitory sound that never failed,--
+  The sunset cannon. While the orb went down                         325
+  In the tranquillity of nature, came
+  That voice, ill requiem! seldom heard by me
+  Without a spirit overcast by dark
+  Imaginations, sense of woes to come,
+  Sorrow for human kind, and pain of heart.                          330
+
+    In France, the men, who, for their desperate ends,
+  Had plucked up mercy by the roots, were glad
+  Of this new enemy. Tyrants, strong before
+  In wicked pleas, were strong as demons now;
+  And thus, on every side beset with foes,                           335
+  The goaded land waxed mad; the crimes of few
+  Spread into madness of the many; blasts
+  From hell came sanctified like airs from heaven.
+  The sternness of the just, the faith of those
+  Who doubted not that Providence had times                          340
+  Of vengeful retribution, theirs who throned
+  The human Understanding paramount
+  And made of that their God, [T] the hopes of men
+  Who were content to barter short-lived pangs
+  For a paradise of ages, the blind rage                             345
+  Of insolent tempers, the light vanity
+  Of intermeddlers, steady purposes
+  Of the suspicious, slips of the indiscreet,
+  And all the accidents of life were pressed
+  Into one service, busy with one work.                              350
+  The Senate stood aghast, her prudence quenched,
+  Her wisdom stifled, and her justice scared,
+  Her frenzy only active to extol
+  Past outrages, and shape the way for new,
+  Which no one dared to oppose or mitigate.                          355
+
+    Domestic carnage now filled the whole year
+  With feast-days; old men from the chimney-nook,
+  The maiden from the bosom of her love,
+  The mother from the cradle of her babe,
+  The warrior from the field--all perished, all--360
+  Friends, enemies, of all parties, ages, ranks,
+  Head after head, and never heads enough
+  For those that bade them fall. They found their joy,
+  They made it proudly, eager as a child,
+  (If like desires of innocent little ones                           365
+  May with such heinous appetites be compared,)
+  Pleased in some open field to exercise
+  A toy that mimics with revolving wings
+  The motion of a wind-mill; though the air
+  Do of itself blow fresh, and make the vanes                        370
+  Spin in his eyesight, _that_ contents him not,
+  But, with the plaything at arm's length, he sets
+  His front against the blast, and runs amain,
+  That it may whirl the faster.
+                                 Amid the depth
+  Of those enormities, even thinking minds                           375
+  Forgot, at seasons, whence they had their being;
+  Forgot that such a sound was ever heard
+  As Liberty upon earth: yet all beneath
+  Her innocent authority was wrought,
+  Nor could have been, without her blessed name.                     380
+  The illustrious wife of Roland, in the hour
+  Of her composure, felt that agony,
+  And gave it vent in her last words. [U] O Friend!
+  It was a lamentable time for man,
+  Whether a hope had e'er been his or not;                           385
+  A woful time for them whose hopes survived
+  The shock; most woful for those few who still
+  Were flattered, and had trust in human kind:
+  They had the deepest feeling of the grief.
+  Meanwhile the Invaders fared as they deserved:                     390
+  The Herculean Commonwealth had put forth her arms,
+  And throttled with an infant godhead's might
+  The snakes about her cradle; that was well,
+  And as it should be; yet no cure for them
+  Whose souls were sick with pain of what would be                   395
+  Hereafter brought in charge against mankind.
+  Most melancholy at that time, O Friend!
+  Were my day-thoughts,--my nights were miserable;
+  Through months, through years, long after the last beat
+  Of those atrocities, the hour of sleep                             400
+  To me came rarely charged with natural gifts,
+  Such ghastly visions had I of despair
+  And tyranny, and implements of death;
+  And innocent victims sinking under fear,
+  And momentary hope, and worn-out prayer,                           405
+  Each in his separate cell, or penned in crowds
+  For sacrifice, and struggling with fond mirth
+  And levity in dungeons, where the dust
+  Was laid with tears. Then suddenly the scene
+  Changed, and the unbroken dream entangled me                       410
+  In long orations, which I strove to plead
+  Before unjust tribunals,--with a voice
+  Labouring, a brain confounded, and a sense,
+  Death-like, of treacherous desertion, felt
+  In the last place of refuge--my own soul.                          415
+
+    When I began in youth's delightful prime
+  To yield myself to Nature, when that strong
+  And holy passion overcame me first,
+  Nor day nor night, evening or morn, was free
+  From its oppression. But, O Power Supreme!                         420
+  Without Whose call this world would cease to breathe,
+  Who from the fountain of Thy grace dost fill
+  The veins that branch through every frame of life,
+  Making man what he is, creature divine,
+  In single or in social eminence,                                   425
+  Above the rest raised infinite ascents
+  When reason that enables him to be
+  Is not sequestered--what a change is here!
+  How different ritual for this after-worship,
+  What countenance to promote this second love!                      430
+  The first was service paid to things which lie
+  Guarded within the bosom of Thy will.
+  Therefore to serve was high beatitude;
+  Tumult was therefore gladness, and the fear
+  Ennobling, venerable; sleep secure,                                435
+  And waking thoughts more rich than happiest dreams.
+
+    But as the ancient Prophets, borne aloft
+  In vision, yet constrained by natural laws
+  With them to take a troubled human heart,
+  Wanted not consolations, nor a creed                               440
+  Of reconcilement, then when they denounced,
+  On towns and cities, wallowing in the abyss
+  Of their offences, punishment to come;
+  Or saw, like other men, with bodily eyes,
+  Before them, in some desolated place,                              445
+  The wrath consummate and the threat fulfilled;
+  So, with devout humility be it said,
+  So, did a portion of that spirit fall
+  On me uplifted from the vantage-ground
+  Of pity and sorrow to a state of being                             450
+  That through the time's exceeding fierceness saw
+  Glimpses of retribution, terrible,
+  And in the order of sublime behests:
+  But, even if that were not, amid the awe
+  Of unintelligible chastisement,                                    455
+  Not only acquiescences of faith
+  Survived, but daring sympathies with power,
+  Motions not treacherous or profane, else why
+  Within the folds of no ungentle breast
+  Their dread vibration to this hour prolonged?                      460
+  Wild blasts of music thus could find their way
+  Into the midst of turbulent events;
+  So that worst tempests might be listened to.
+  Then was the truth received into my heart,
+  That, under heaviest sorrow earth can bring,                       465
+  If from the affliction somewhere do not grow
+  Honour which could not else have been, a faith,
+  An elevation and a sanctity,
+  If new strength be not given nor old restored,
+  The blame is ours, not Nature's. When a taunt                      470
+  Was taken up by scoffers in their pride,
+  Saying, "Behold the harvest that we reap
+  From popular government and equality,"
+  I clearly saw that neither these nor aught
+  Of wild belief engrafted on their names                            475
+  By false philosophy had caused the woe,
+  But a terrific reservoir of guilt
+  And ignorance rilled up from age to age,
+  That could no longer hold its loathsome charge,
+  But burst and spread in deluge through the land.                   480
+
+    And as the desert hath green spots, the sea
+  Small islands scattered amid stormy waves,
+  So that disastrous period did not want
+  Bright sprinklings of all human excellence,
+  To which the silver wands of saints in Heaven                      485
+  Might point with rapturous joy. Yet not the less,
+  For those examples in no age surpassed
+  Of fortitude and energy and love,
+  And human nature faithful to herself
+  Under worst trials, was I driven to think                          490
+  Of the glad times when first I traversed France
+  A youthful pilgrim; [V] above all reviewed
+  That eventide, when under windows bright
+  With happy faces and with garlands hung,
+  And through a rainbow-arch that spanned the street,                495
+  Triumphal pomp for liberty confirmed, [W]
+  I paced, a dear companion at my side,
+  The town of Arras, [X] whence with promise high
+  Issued, on delegation to sustain
+  Humanity and right, _that_ Robespierre,                            500
+  He who thereafter, and in how short time!
+  Wielded the sceptre of the Atheist crew.
+  When the calamity spread far and wide--
+  And this same city, that did then appear
+  To outrun the rest in exultation, groaned                          505
+  Under the vengeance of her cruel son,
+  As Lear reproached the winds--I could almost
+  Have quarrelled with that blameless spectacle
+  For lingering yet an image in my mind
+  To mock me under such a strange reverse.                           510
+
+    O Friend! few happier moments have been mine
+  Than that which told the downfall of this Tribe
+  So dreaded, so abhorred. [Y] The day deserves
+  A separate record. Over the smooth sands
+  Of Leven's ample estuary lay                                       515
+  My journey, and beneath a genial sun,
+  With distant prospect among gleams of sky
+  And clouds, and intermingling mountain tops,
+  In one inseparable glory clad,
+  Creatures of one ethereal substance met                            520
+  In consistory, like a diadem
+  Or crown of burning seraphs as they sit
+  In the empyrean. Underneath that pomp
+  Celestial, lay unseen the pastoral vales
+  Among whose happy fields I had grown up                            525
+  From childhood. On the fulgent spectacle,
+  That neither passed away nor changed, I gazed
+  Enrapt; but brightest things are wont to draw
+  Sad opposites out of the inner heart,
+  As even their pensive influence drew from mine.                    530
+  How could it otherwise? for not in vain
+  That very morning had I turned aside
+  To seek the ground where, 'mid a throng of graves,
+  An honoured teacher of my youth was laid, [Z]
+  And on the stone were graven by his desire                         535
+  Lines from the churchyard elegy of Gray. [a]
+  This faithful guide, speaking from his death-bed,
+  Added no farewell to his parting counsel,
+  But said to me, "My head will soon lie low;"
+  And when I saw the turf that covered him,                          540
+  After the lapse of full eight years, [b] those words,
+  With sound of voice and countenance of the Man,
+  Came back upon me, so that some few tears
+  Fell from me in my own despite. But now
+  I thought, still traversing that widespread plain,                 545
+  With tender pleasure of the verses graven
+  Upon his tombstone, whispering to myself:
+  He loved the Poets, and, if now alive,
+  Would have loved me, as one not destitute
+  Of promise, nor belying the kind hope                              550
+  That he had formed, when I, at his command,
+  Began to spin, with toil, my earliest songs. [c]
+
+  As I advanced, all that I saw or felt
+  Was gentleness and peace. Upon a small
+  And rocky island near, a fragment stood                            555
+  (Itself like a sea rock) the low remains
+  (With shells encrusted, dark with briny weeds)
+  Of a dilapidated structure, once
+  A Romish chapel, [d] where the vested priest
+  Said matins at the hour that suited those                          560
+  Who crossed the sands with ebb of morning tide.
+  Not far from that still ruin all the plain
+  Lay spotted with a variegated crowd
+  Of vehicles and travellers, horse and foot,
+  Wading beneath the conduct of their guide                          565
+  In loose procession through the shallow stream
+  Of inland waters; the great sea meanwhile
+  Heaved at safe distance, far retired. I paused,
+  Longing for skill to paint a scene so bright
+  And cheerful, but the foremost of the band                         570
+  As he approached, no salutation given
+  In the familiar language of the day,
+  Cried, "Robespierre is dead!"--nor was a doubt,
+  After strict question, left within my mind
+  That he and his supporters all were fallen.                        575
+
+    Great was my transport, deep my gratitude
+  To everlasting Justice, by this fiat
+  Made manifest. "Come now, ye golden times,"
+  Said I forth-pouring on those open sands
+  A hymn of triumph: "as the morning comes                           580
+  From out the bosom of the night, come ye:
+  Thus far our trust is verified; behold!
+  They who with clumsy desperation brought
+  A river of Blood, and preached that nothing else
+  Could cleanse the Augean stable, by the might                      585
+  Of their own helper have been swept away;
+  Their madness stands declared and visible;
+  Elsewhere will safety now be sought, and earth
+  March firmly towards righteousness and peace."--
+  Then schemes I framed more calmly, when and how                    590
+  The madding factions might be tranquillised,
+  And how through hardships manifold and long
+  The glorious renovation would proceed.
+  Thus interrupted by uneasy bursts
+  Of exultation, I pursued my way                                    595
+  Along that very shore which I had skimmed
+  In former days, when--spurring from the Vale
+  Of Nightshade, and St. Mary's mouldering fane, [e]
+  And the stone abbot, after circuit made
+  In wantonness of heart, a joyous band                              600
+  Of school-boys hastening to their distant home
+  Along the margin of the moonlight sea--
+  We beat with thundering hoofs the level sand. [f]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT
+
+[Footnote A: He left Blois for Paris in the late autumn of 1792--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote B: King Louis the Sixteenth, dethroned on August 10th,
+1792.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote C: "The Ormrahs or lords of the Moghul's court." See Francois
+Besnier's letter 'Concerning Hindusthan'.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote D: The "Republic" was decreed on the 22nd of September
+1792.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote E: The "September Massacres" lasted from the 2nd to the 6th of
+that month.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote F: He reached Paris in the beginning of October 1792.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote G: The Place du Carrousel.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote H: See notes [E] and [F].--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote I:
+
+  "One day, among the last of October, Robespierre, being summoned to
+  the tribune by some new hint of that old calumny of the Dictatorship,
+  was speaking and pleading there, with more and more comfort to
+  himself; till rising high in heart, he cried out valiantly: Is there
+  any man here that dare specifically accuse me? ''Moi!'' exclaimed one.
+  Pause of deep silence: a lean angry little Figure, with broad bald
+  brow, strode swiftly towards the tribune, taking papers from its
+  pocket: 'I accuse thee, Robespierre,--I, Jean Baptiste Louvet!' The
+  Seagreen became tallow-green; shrinking to a corner of the tribune,
+  Danton cried, 'Speak, Robespierre; there are many good citizens that
+  listen;' but the tongue refused its office. And so Louvet, with a
+  shrill tone, read and recited crime after crime: dictatorial temper,
+  exclusive popularity, bullying at elections, mob-retinue, September
+  Massacres;--till all the Convention shrieked again," etc. etc.
+
+Carlyle's 'French Revolution', vol. iii. book ii. chap. 5.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote K: Robespierre got a week's delay to prepare a defence.
+
+  "That week he is not idle. He is ready at the day with his written
+  Speech: smooth as a Jesuit Doctor's, and convinces some. And
+  now?...poor Louvet, unprepared, can do little or nothing. Barrere
+  proposes that these comparatively despicable _personalities_ be
+  dismissed by order of the day! Order of the day it accordingly is."
+
+Carlyle, _ut supra_.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote L: Harmodius and Aristogiton of Athens murdered the tyrant
+Hipparchus, 514 B.C., and delivered the city from the rule of the
+Pisistratidae, much as Brutus rose against Caesar.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote M: He crossed the Channel, and returned to England
+reluctantly, in December 1792. Compare p. 376, l. 349:
+
+  'Since I withdrew unwillingly from France.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote N: Had he remained longer in Paris, he would probably have
+fallen a victim, amongst the Brissotins, to the reactionary fury of the
+Jacobin party.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote O: He left England in November 1791, and returned in December
+1792.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote P: He stayed in London during the winter of 1792-3 and spring
+of 1793, probably with his elder brother Richard (who was a solicitor
+there), writing his remarkable letter on the French Revolution to the
+Bishop of Landaff, and doubtless making arrangements for the publication
+of the 'Evening Walk'. The 'Descriptive Sketches' were not written till
+the summer of 1793 (compare the thirteenth book of 'The Prelude', p.
+366); but in a letter dated "Forncett, February 16th, 1793," his sister
+sends to a friend an interesting criticism of her brother's verses. The
+'Evening Walk' must therefore have appeared in January 1793.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Q: The movement for the abolition of slavery, led by Clarkson
+and Wilberforce. Compare the sonnet 'To Thomas Clarkson, on the final
+passing of the Bill for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, March' 1807,
+in vol. iv.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote R: The red-cross flag, i. e. the British ensign.
+
+  "On the union of the crowns of England and Scotland, James I. issued a
+  proclamation that _all subjects of this isle and the kingdom of Great
+  Britain should bear in the main-top the red cross commonly called St.
+  George's Cross, and the white cross commonly called St. Andrew's
+  Cross, joined together according to the form made by our own heralds._
+  This was the first Union Jack."
+
+'Encyclopaedia Britannica' (ninth edition), article "Flag."--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote S: In the Isle of Wight. Wordsworth spent a month of the
+summer of 1793 there, with William Calvert. (See the Advertisement to
+'Guilt and Sorrow', vol. i. p. 77.)--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote T: The goddess of Reason, enthroned in Paris, November 10th,
+1793.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote U: Jeanne-Marie Phlipon--Madame Roland--was guillotined on the
+8th of November 1793.
+
+  "Arrived at the foot of the scaffold, she asked for pen and paper _to
+  write the strange thoughts that were rising in her_: a remarkable
+  request; which was refused. Looking at the Statue of Liberty which
+  stands there, she says bitterly: _O Liberty, what things are done in
+  thy name!_ ... Like a white Grecian Statue, serenely complete," adds
+  Carlyle, "she shines in that black wreck of things,--long memorable."
+
+'French Revolution', vol. iii. book v. chap. 2.
+
+ Madame Roland's apostrophe was
+
+  'O Liberte, que de crimes l'on commet en ton nom!'
+
+ Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote V: In the long vacation of 1790, with his friend Jones.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote W: Compare the sonnet, vol. ii. p. 332, beginning:
+
+  'Jones! as from Calais southward you and I
+  Went pacing side by side, this public Way
+  Streamed with the pomp of a too-credulous day,
+  When faith was pledged to new-born Liberty.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote X: Robespierre was a native of Arras.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Y: Robespierre was guillotined with his confederates on the
+28th July 1794. Wordsworth lived in Cumberland--at Keswick, Whitehaven,
+and Penrith--from the winter of 1793-4 till the spring of 1795. He must
+have made this journey across the Ulverston Sands, in the first week of
+August 1794. Compare Wordsworth's remarks on Robespierre, in his 'Letter
+to a Friend of Burns',--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Z: The "honoured teacher" of his youth was the Rev. William
+Taylor, of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, who was master at Hawkshead
+School from 1782 to 1786, who died while Wordsworth was at school, and
+who was buried in Cartmell Churchyard. See the note to the 'Address to
+the Scholars of the Village School of----' (vol. ii. p. 85).--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote a: The following is the inscription on the head-stone in
+Cartmell Churchyard:
+
+  'In memory of the Rev. William Taylor, A. M., son of John Taylor of
+  Outerthwaite, who was some years a Fellow of Eman. Coll., Camb., and
+  Master of the Free School at Hawkshead. He departed this life June the
+  12th 1786, aged 32 years 2 months and 13 days.
+
+    His Merits, stranger, seek not to disclose,
+    Or draw his Frailties from their dread abode,
+    There they alike in trembling Hope repose,
+    The Bosom of his Father and his God.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote b: This is exact. Taylor died in 1786. Robespierre was
+executed in 1794, eight years afterwards.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote c: He refers to the 'Lines written as a School Exercise at
+Hawkskead, anno aetatis' 14; and, probably, to 'The Summer Vacation',
+which is mentioned in the "Autobiographical Memoranda" as "a task
+imposed by my master," but whether by Taylor, or by his predecessors at
+Hawkshead School in Wordsworth's time--Parker and Christian--is
+uncertain.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote d: Compare Hausman's 'Guide to the Lakes' (1803), p. 209.
+
+  "Chapel Island on the right is a desolate object, where there are yet
+  some remains of an oratory built by the monks of Furness, in which
+  Divine Service was daily performed at a certain hour for passengers
+  who crossed the sands with the morning tide."
+
+This, evidently, is the ruin referred to by Wordsworth.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote e: See note, book ii. ll. 103-6.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote f: By Arrad Foot and Greenodd, beyond Ulverston, on the way to
+Hawkshead.--Ed.]
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK ELEVENTH.
+
+
+FRANCE--concluded.
+
+
+  From that time forth, [A] Authority in France
+  Put on a milder face; Terror had ceased,
+  Yet every thing was wanting that might give
+  Courage to them who looked for good by light
+  Of rational Experience, for the shoots                               5
+  And hopeful blossoms of a second spring:
+  Yet, in me, confidence was unimpaired;
+  The Senate's language, and the public acts
+  And measures of the Government, though both
+  Weak, and of heartless omen, had not power                          10
+  To daunt me; in the People was my trust,
+  And, in the virtues which mine eyes had seen. [1]
+  I knew that wound external could not take
+  Life from the young Republic; that new foes
+  Would only follow, in the path of shame,                            15
+  Their brethren, and her triumphs be in the end
+  Great, universal, irresistible.
+  This intuition led me to confound
+  One victory with another, higher far,--
+  Triumphs of unambitious peace at home,                              20
+  And noiseless fortitude. Beholding still
+  Resistance strong as heretofore, I thought
+  That what was in degree the same was likewise
+  The same in quality,--that, as the worse
+  Of the two spirits then at strife remained                          25
+  Untired, the better, surely, would preserve
+  The heart that first had roused him. Youth maintains,
+  In all conditions of society,
+  Communion more direct and intimate
+  With Nature,--hence, ofttimes, with reason too--30
+  Than age or manhood, even. To Nature, then,
+  Power had reverted: habit, custom, law,
+  Had left an interregnum's open space
+  For _her_ to move about in, uncontrolled.
+  Hence could I see how Babel-like their task,                        35
+  Who, by the recent deluge stupified,
+  With their whole souls went culling from the day
+  Its petty promises, to build a tower
+  For their own safety; laughed with my compeers
+  At gravest heads, by enmity to France                               40
+  Distempered, till they found, in every blast
+  Forced from the street-disturbing newsman's horn,
+  For her great cause record or prophecy
+  Of utter ruin. How might we believe
+  That wisdom could, in any shape, come near                          45
+  Men clinging to delusions so insane?
+  And thus, experience proving that no few
+  Of our opinions had been just, we took
+  Like credit to ourselves where less was due,
+  And thought that other notions were as sound,                       50
+  Yea, could not but be right, because we saw
+  That foolish men opposed them.
+                                   To a strain
+  More animated I might here give way,
+  And tell, since juvenile errors are my theme,
+  What in those days, through Britain, was performed                  55
+  To turn _all_ judgments out of their right course;
+  But this is passion over-near ourselves,
+  Reality too close and too intense,
+  And intermixed with something, in my mind,
+  Of scorn and condemnation personal,                                 60
+  That would profane the sanctity of verse.
+  Our Shepherds, this say merely, at that time
+  Acted, or seemed at least to act, like men
+  Thirsting to make the guardian crook of law
+  A tool of murder; [B] they who ruled the State,                     65
+  Though with such awful proof before their eyes
+  That he, who would sow death, reaps death, or worse,
+  And can reap nothing better, child-like longed
+  To imitate, not wise enough to avoid;
+  Or left (by mere timidity betrayed)                                 70
+  The plain straight road, for one no better chosen
+  Than if their wish had been to undermine
+  Justice, and make an end of Liberty. [B]
+
+    But from these bitter truths I must return
+  To my own history. It hath been told                                75
+  That I was led to take an eager part
+  In arguments of civil polity,
+  Abruptly, and indeed before my time:
+  I had approached, like other youths, the shield
+  Of human nature from the golden side,                               80
+  And would have fought, even to the death, to attest
+  The quality of the metal which I saw.
+  What there is best in individual man,
+  Of wise in passion, and sublime in power,
+  Benevolent in small societies,                                      85
+  And great in large ones, I had oft revolved,
+  Felt deeply, but not thoroughly understood
+  By reason: nay, far from it; they were yet,
+  As cause was given me afterwards to learn,
+  Not proof against the injuries of the day;                          90
+  Lodged only at the sanctuary's door,
+  Not safe within its bosom. Thus prepared,
+  And with such general insight into evil,
+  And of the bounds which sever it from good,
+  As books and common intercourse with life                           95
+  Must needs have given--to the inexperienced mind,
+  When the world travels in a beaten road,
+  Guide faithful as is needed--I began
+  To meditate with ardour on the rule
+  And management of nations; what it is                              100
+  And ought to be; and strove to learn how far
+  Their power or weakness, wealth or poverty,
+  Their happiness or misery, depends
+  Upon their laws, and fashion of the State.
+
+    O pleasant exercise of hope and joy! [C]                         105
+  For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood
+  Upon our side, us who were strong in love!
+  Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
+  But to be young was very Heaven! [D] O times,
+  In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways                        110
+  Of custom, law, and statute, took at once
+  The attraction of a country in romance!
+  When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights
+  When most intent on making of herself
+  A prime enchantress--to assist the work,                           115
+  Which then was going forward in her name!
+  Not favoured spots alone, but the whole Earth,
+  The beauty wore of promise--that which sets
+  (As at some moments might not be unfelt
+  Among the bowers of Paradise itself)                               120
+  The budding rose above the rose full blown.
+  What temper at the prospect did not wake
+  To happiness unthought of? The inert
+  Were roused, and lively natures rapt away!
+  They who had fed their childhood upon dreams,                      125
+  The play-fellows of fancy, who had made
+  All powers of swiftness, subtilty, and strength
+  Their ministers,--who in lordly wise had stirred
+  Among the grandest objects of the sense,
+  And dealt with whatsoever they found there                         130
+  As if they had within some lurking right
+  To wield it;--they, too, who of gentle mood
+  Had watched all gentle motions, and to these
+  Had fitted their own thoughts, schemers more mild,
+  And in the region of their peaceful selves;--135
+  Now was it that _both_ found, the meek and lofty
+  Did both find helpers to their hearts' desire,
+  And stuff at hand, plastic as they could wish,--
+  Were called upon to exercise their skill,
+  Not in Utopia,--subterranean fields,--140
+  Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where!
+  But in the very world, which is the world
+  Of all of us,--the place where, in the end,
+  We find our happiness, or not at all!
+
+    Why should I not confess that Earth was then                     145
+  To me, what an inheritance, new-fallen,
+  Seems, when the first time visited, to one
+  Who thither comes to find in it his home?
+  He walks about and looks upon the spot
+  With cordial transport, moulds it and remoulds,                    150
+  And is half pleased with things that are amiss,
+  'Twill be such joy to see them disappear.
+
+    An active partisan, I thus convoked
+  From every object pleasant circumstance
+  To suit my ends; I moved among mankind                             155
+  With genial feelings still predominant;
+  When erring, erring on the better part,
+  And in the kinder spirit; placable,
+  Indulgent, as not uninformed that men
+  See as they have been taught--Antiquity                            160
+  Gives rights to error; and aware, no less,
+  That throwing off oppression must be work
+  As well of License as of Liberty;
+  And above all--for this was more than all--
+  Not caring if the wind did now and then                            165
+  Blow keen upon an eminence that gave
+  Prospect so large into futurity;
+  In brief, a child of Nature, as at first,
+  Diffusing only those affections wider
+  That from the cradle had grown up with me,                         170
+  And losing, in no other way than light
+  Is lost in light, the weak in the more strong.
+
+    In the main outline, such it might be said
+  Was my condition, till with open war
+  Britain opposed the liberties of France. [E]                       175
+  This threw me first out of the pale of love;
+  Soured and corrupted, upwards to the source,
+  My sentiments; was not, as hitherto,
+  A swallowing up of lesser things in great,
+  But change of them into their contraries;                          180
+  And thus a way was opened for mistakes
+  And false conclusions, in degree as gross,
+  In kind more dangerous. What had been a pride,
+  Was now a shame; my likings and my loves
+  Ran in new channels, leaving old ones dry;                         185
+  And hence a blow that, in maturer age,
+  Would but have touched the judgment, struck more deep
+  Into sensations near the heart: meantime,
+  As from the first, wild theories were afloat,
+  To whose pretensions, sedulously urged,                            190
+  I had but lent a careless ear, assured
+  That time was ready to set all things right,
+  And that the multitude, so long oppressed,
+  Would be oppressed no more.
+
+                              But when events
+  Brought less encouragement, and unto these                         195
+  The immediate proof of principles no more
+  Could be entrusted, while the events themselves,
+  Worn out in greatness, stripped of novelty,
+  Less occupied the mind, and sentiments
+  Could through my understanding's natural growth                    200
+  No longer keep their ground, by faith maintained
+  Of inward consciousness, and hope that laid
+  Her hand upon her object--evidence
+  Safer, of universal application, such
+  As could not be impeached, was sought elsewhere.                   205
+
+  But now, become oppressors in their turn,
+  Frenchmen had changed a war of self-defence
+  For one of conquest, [F] losing sight of all
+  Which they had struggled for: now mounted up,
+  Openly in the eye of earth and heaven,                             210
+  The scale of liberty. I read her doom,
+  With anger vexed, with disappointment sore,
+  But not dismayed, nor taking to the shame
+  Of a false prophet. While resentment rose
+  Striving to hide, what nought could heal, the wounds               215
+  Of mortified presumption, I adhered
+  More firmly to old tenets, and, to prove
+  Their temper, strained them more; and thus, in heat
+  Of contest, did opinions every day
+  Grow into consequence, till round my mind                          220
+  They clung, as if they were its life, nay more,
+  The very being of the immortal soul.
+
+    This was the time, when, all things tending fast
+  To depravation, speculative schemes--
+  That promised to abstract the hopes of Man                         225
+  Out of his feelings, to be fixed thenceforth
+  For ever in a purer element--
+  Found ready welcome. Tempting region _that_
+  For Zeal to enter and refresh herself,
+  Where passions had the privilege to work,                          230
+  And never hear the sound of their own names.
+  But, speaking more in charity, the dream
+  Flattered the young, pleased with extremes, nor least
+  With that which makes our Reason's naked self
+  The object of its fervour. What delight!                           235
+  How glorious! in self-knowledge and self-rule,
+  To look through all the frailties of the world,
+  And, with a resolute mastery shaking off
+  Infirmities of nature, time, and place,
+  Build social upon personal Liberty,                                240
+  Which, to the blind restraints of general laws
+  Superior, magisterially adopts
+  One guide, the light of circumstances, flashed
+  Upon an independent intellect.
+  Thus expectation rose again; thus hope,                            245
+  From her first ground expelled, grew proud once more.
+  Oft, as my thoughts were turned to human kind,
+  I scorned indifference; but, inflamed with thirst
+  Of a secure intelligence, and sick
+  Of other longing, I pursued what seemed                            250
+  A more exalted nature; wished that Man
+  Should start out of his earthy, worm-like state,
+  And spread abroad the wings of Liberty,
+  Lord of himself, in undisturbed delight--
+  A noble aspiration! _yet_ I feel                                   255
+  (Sustained by worthier as by wiser thoughts)
+  The aspiration, nor shall ever cease
+  To feel it;--but return we to our course.
+
+    Enough, 'tis true--could such a plea excuse
+  Those aberrations--had the clamorous friends                       260
+  Of ancient Institutions said and done
+  To bring disgrace upon their very names;
+  Disgrace, of which, custom and written law,
+  And sundry moral sentiments as props
+  Or emanations of those institutes,                                 265
+  Too justly bore a part. A veil had been
+  Uplifted; why deceive ourselves? in sooth,
+  'Twas even so; and sorrow for the man
+  Who either had not eyes wherewith to see,
+  Or, seeing, had forgotten! A strong shock                          270
+  Was given to old opinions; all men's minds
+  Had felt its power, and mine was both let loose,
+  Let loose and goaded. After what hath been
+  Already said of patriotic love,
+  Suffice it here to add, that, somewhat stern                       275
+  In temperament, withal a happy man,
+  And therefore bold to look on painful things,
+  Free likewise of the world, and thence more bold,
+  I summoned my best skill, and toiled, intent
+  To anatomise the frame of social life,                             280
+  Yea, the whole body of society
+  Searched to its heart. Share with me, Friend! the wish
+  That some dramatic tale, endued with shapes
+  Livelier, and flinging out less guarded words
+  Than suit the work we fashion, might set forth                     285
+  What then I learned, or think I learned, of truth,
+  And the errors into which I fell, betrayed
+  By present objects, and by reasonings false
+  From their beginnings, inasmuch as drawn
+  Out of a heart that had been turned aside                          290
+  From Nature's way by outward accidents,
+  And which was thus confounded, more and more
+  Misguided, and misguiding. So I fared,
+  Dragging all precepts, judgments, maxims, creeds,
+  Like culprits to the bar; calling the mind,                        295
+  Suspiciously, to establish in plain day
+  Her titles and her honours; now believing,
+  Now disbelieving; endlessly perplexed
+  With impulse, motive, right and wrong, the ground
+  Of obligation, what the rule and whence                            300
+  The sanction; till, demanding formal _proof_,
+  And seeking it in every thing, I lost
+  All feeling of conviction, and, in fine,
+  Sick, wearied out with contrarieties,
+  Yielded up moral questions in despair.                             305
+
+  This was the crisis of that strong disease,
+  This the soul's last and lowest ebb; I drooped,
+  Deeming our blessed reason of least use
+  Where wanted most: "The lordly attributes
+  Of will and choice," I bitterly exclaimed,                         310
+  "What are they but a mockery of a Being
+  Who hath in no concerns of his a test
+  Of good and evil; knows not what to fear
+  Or hope for, what to covet or to shun;
+  And who, if those could be discerned, would yet                    315
+  Be little profited, would see, and ask
+  Where is the obligation to enforce?
+  And, to acknowledged law rebellious, still,
+  As selfish passion urged, would act amiss;
+  The dupe of folly, or the slave of crime."                         320
+
+    Depressed, bewildered thus, I did not walk
+  With scoffers, seeking light and gay revenge
+  From indiscriminate laughter, nor sate down
+  In reconcilement with an utter waste
+  Of intellect; such sloth I could not brook,                        325
+  (Too well I loved, in that my spring of life,
+  Pains-taking thoughts, and truth, their dear reward)
+  But turned to abstract science, and there sought
+  Work for the reasoning faculty enthroned
+  Where the disturbances of space and time--330
+  Whether in matters various, properties
+  Inherent, or from human will and power
+  Derived--find no admission. [G] Then it was--
+  Thanks to the bounteous Giver of all good!--
+  That the beloved Sister in whose sight                             335
+  Those days were passed, [H] now speaking in a voice
+  Of sudden admonition--like a brook [I]
+  That did but _cross_ a lonely road, and now
+  Is seen, heard, felt, and caught at every turn,
+  Companion never lost through many a league--340
+  Maintained for me a saving intercourse
+  With my true self; for, though bedimmed and changed
+  Much, as it seemed, I was no further changed
+  Than as a clouded and a waning moon:
+  She whispered still that brightness would return,                  345
+  She, in the midst of all, preserved me still
+  A Poet, made me seek beneath that name,
+  And that alone, my office upon earth;
+  And, lastly, as hereafter will be shown,
+  If willing audience fail not, Nature's self,                       350
+  By all varieties of human love
+  Assisted, led me back through opening day
+  To those sweet counsels between head and heart
+  Whence grew that genuine knowledge, fraught with peace,
+  Which, through the later sinkings of this cause,                   355
+  Hath still upheld me, and upholds me now
+  In the catastrophe (for so they dream,
+  And nothing less), when, finally to close
+  And seal up all the gains of France, a Pope
+  Is summoned in, to crown an Emperor--[K]                           360
+  This last opprobrium, when we see a people,
+  That once looked up in faith, as if to Heaven
+  For manna, take a lesson from the dog
+  Returning to his vomit; when the sun
+  That rose in splendour, was alive, and moved                       365
+  In exultation with a living pomp
+  Of clouds--his glory's natural retinue--
+  Hath dropped all functions by the gods bestowed,
+  And, turned into a gewgaw, a machine,
+  Sets like an Opera phantom.
+                              Thus, O Friend!                        370
+  Through times of honour and through times of shame
+  Descending, have I faithfully retraced
+  The perturbations of a youthful mind
+  Under a long-lived storm of great events--
+  A story destined for thy ear, who now,                             375
+  Among the fallen of nations, dost abide
+  Where Etna, over hill and valley, casts
+  His shadow stretching towards Syracuse, [L]
+  The city of Timoleon! [M] Righteous Heaven!
+  How are the mighty prostrated! They first,                         380
+  They first of all that breathe should have awaked
+  When the great voice was heard from out the tombs
+  Of ancient heroes. If I suffered grief
+  For ill-requited France, by many deemed
+  A trifler only in her proudest day;                                385
+  Have been distressed to think of what she once
+  Promised, now is; a far more sober cause
+  Thine eyes must see of sorrow in a land.
+  To the reanimating influence lost
+  Of memory, to virtue lost and hope,                                390
+  Though with the wreck of loftier years bestrewn.
+
+    But indignation works where hope is not,
+  And thou, O Friend! wilt be refreshed. There is
+  One great society alone on earth:
+  The noble Living and the noble Dead.                               395
+
+    Thine be such converse strong and sanative,
+  A ladder for thy spirit to reascend
+  To health and joy and pure contentedness;
+  To me the grief confined, that thou art gone
+  From this last spot of earth, where Freedom now                    400
+  Stands single in her only sanctuary;
+  A lonely wanderer art gone, by pain
+  Compelled and sickness, [N] at this latter day,
+  This sorrowful reverse for all mankind.
+  I feel for thee, must utter what I feel:                           405
+  The sympathies erewhile in part discharged,
+  Gather afresh, and will have vent again:
+  My own delights do scarcely seem to me
+  My own delights; the lordly Alps themselves,
+  Those rosy peaks, from which the Morning looks                     410
+  Abroad on many nations, are no more
+  For me that image of pure gladsomeness
+  Which they were wont to be. Through kindred scenes,
+  For purpose, at a time, how different!
+  Thou tak'st thy way, carrying the heart and soul                   415
+  That Nature gives to Poets, now by thought
+  Matured, and in the summer of their strength.
+  Oh! wrap him in your shades, ye giant woods,
+  On Etna's side; and thou, O flowery field
+  Of Enna! [O] is there not some nook of thine,                      420
+  From the first play-time of the infant world
+  Kept sacred to restorative delight,
+  When from afar invoked by anxious love?
+
+    Child of the mountains, among shepherds reared,
+  Ere yet familiar with the classic page,                            425
+  I learnt to dream of Sicily; and lo,
+  The gloom, that, but a moment past, was deepened
+  At thy command, at her command gives way;
+  A pleasant promise, wafted from her shores,
+  Comes o'er my heart: in fancy I behold                             430
+  Her seas yet smiling, her once happy vales;
+  Nor can my tongue give utterance to a name
+  Of note belonging to that honoured isle,
+  Philosopher or Bard, Empedocles, [P]
+  Or Archimedes, [Q] pure abstracted soul!                           435
+  That doth not yield a solace to my grief:
+  And, O Theocritus, [R] so far have some
+  Prevailed among the powers of heaven and earth,
+  By their endowments, good or great, that they
+  Have had, as thou reportest, miracles                              440
+  Wrought for them in old time: yea, not unmoved,
+  When thinking on my own beloved friend,
+  I hear thee tell how bees with honey fed
+  Divine Comates, [S] by his impious lord
+  Within a chest imprisoned; how they came                           445
+  Laden from blooming grove or flowery field,
+  And fed him there, alive, month after month,
+  Because the goatherd, blessed man! had lips
+  Wet with the Muses' nectar.
+                              Thus I soothe
+  The pensive moments by this calm fire-side,                        450
+  And find a thousand bounteous images
+  To cheer the thoughts of those I love, and mine.
+  Our prayers have been accepted; thou wilt stand
+  On Etna's summit, above earth and sea,
+  Triumphant, winning from the invaded heavens                       455
+  Thoughts without bound, magnificent designs,
+  Worthy of poets who attuned their harps
+  In wood or echoing cave, for discipline
+  Of heroes; or, in reverence to the gods,
+  'Mid temples, served by sapient priests, and choirs                460
+  Of virgins crowned with roses. Not in vain
+  Those temples, where they in their ruins yet
+  Survive for inspiration, shall attract
+  Thy solitary steps: and on the brink
+  Thou wilt recline of pastoral Arethuse;                            465
+  Or, if that fountain be in truth no more,
+  Then, near some other spring--which, by the name
+  Thou gratulatest, willingly deceived--
+  I see thee linger a glad votary,
+  And not a captive pining for his home.                             470
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
+
+[Variant 1: In the editions of 1850 and 1857, the punctuation is as
+follows, but is evidently wrong:
+
+               in the People was my trust:
+  And, in the virtues which mine eyes had seen,
+  I knew ...
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT
+
+[Footnote A: The Reign of Terror ended with the downfall of Robespierre
+and his "Tribe."--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote B: He refers doubtless to the effect, upon the Government of
+the day, of the dread of Revolution in England. There were a few
+partisans of France and of the Revolution in England; and the panic
+which followed, though irrational, was widespread. The Habeas Corpus Act
+was suspended, a Bill was passed against seditious Assemblies, the Press
+was prosecuted, some Scottish Whigs who clamoured for reform were
+sentenced to transportation, while one Judge expressed regret that the
+practice of torture for sedition had fallen into disuse.--Ed.] TWO
+
+
+[Footnote C: See p. 35 ['French Revolution'].--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote D: Compare 'Ruth', in vol. ii. p. 112:
+
+  'Before me shone a glorious world--
+  Fresh as a banner bright, unfurled
+  To music suddenly:
+  I looked upon those hills and plains,
+  And seemed as if let loose from chains,
+  To live at liberty.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote E: In 1795.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote F: Referring probably to Napoleon's Italian campaign in
+1796.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote G: In 1794 he returned, with intermittent ardour, to the study
+of mathematics and physics.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote H: In the winter of 1794 he went to Halifax, and there joined
+his sister, whom he accompanied in the same winter to Kendal, Grasmere,
+and Keswick. They stayed for several weeks at Windybrow farm-house, near
+Keswick. The brother and sister had not met since the Christmas of 1791.
+It is to those "days," in 1794, that he refers.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote I: Compare in the first book of 'The Recluse', l. 91:
+
+  Her voice was like a hidden Bird that sang;
+  The thought of her was like a flash of light,
+  Or an unseen companionship.
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote K: In 1804 Bonaparte sent for the Pope to anoint him as
+'Empereur des Francais'. Napoleon wished the title to be as remote as
+possible from "King of France."--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote L: Coleridge was then living in Sicily, whither he had gone
+from Malta. He ascended Etna. See Cottles' 'Early Recollections, chiefly
+relating to the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge' (vol. ii. p. 77), and also
+compare note [Book 6, Footnote U], p. 230 of this volume.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote M: Timoleon, one of the greatest of the Greeks, was sent in
+command of an expedition to reduce Sicily to order; and was afterwards
+the Master, but not the Tyrant, of Syracuse. He colonised it afresh from
+Corinth, and from the rest of Sicily; and enacted new laws of a
+democratic character, being ultimately the ruler of the whole island;
+although he refused office and declined titles, remaining a private
+citizen to the end. (See Plutarch's Life of him.)--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote N: See book vi. l. 240.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote O: Compare 'Paradise Lost', book iv. l. 269.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote P: Empedpocles, the philosopher of Agrigentum, physicist,
+metaphysician, poet, musician, and hierophant.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote Q: The geometrician of Syracuse.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote R: The pastoral poet of Syracuse.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote S: Theocrit. Idyll vii. 78. (Mr. Carter, 1850.)]
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK TWELFTH
+
+
+IMAGINATION AND TASTE, HOW IMPAIRED AND RESTORED
+
+
+  Long time have human ignorance and guilt
+  Detained us, on what spectacles of woe
+  Compelled to look, and inwardly oppressed
+  With sorrow, disappointment, vexing thoughts,
+  Confusion of the judgment, zeal decayed,                             5
+  And, lastly, utter loss of hope itself
+  And things to hope for! Not with these began
+  Our song, and not with these our song must end.--
+  Ye motions of delight, that haunt the sides
+  Of the green hills; ye breezes and soft airs,                       10
+  Whose subtle intercourse with breathing flowers,
+  Feelingly watched, might teach Man's haughty race
+  How without injury to take, to give
+  Without offence [A]; ye who, as if to show
+  The wondrous influence of power gently used,                        15
+  Bend the complying heads of lordly pines,
+  And, with a touch, shift the stupendous clouds
+  Through the whole compass of the sky; ye brooks,
+  Muttering along the stones, a busy noise
+  By day, a quiet sound in silent night;                              20
+  Ye waves, that out of the great deep steal forth
+  In a calm hour to kiss the pebbly shore,
+  Not mute, and then retire, fearing no storm;
+  And you, ye groves, whose ministry it is
+  To interpose the covert of your shades,                             25
+  Even as a sleep, between the heart of man
+  And outward troubles, between man himself,
+  Not seldom, and his own uneasy heart:
+  Oh! that I had a music and a voice
+  Harmonious as your own, that I might tell                           30
+  What ye have done for me. The morning shines,
+  Nor heedeth Man's perverseness; Spring returns,--
+  I saw the Spring return, and could rejoice,
+  In common with the children of her love,
+  Piping on boughs, or sporting on fresh fields,                      35
+  Or boldly seeking pleasure nearer heaven
+  On wings that navigate cerulean skies.
+  So neither were complacency, nor peace,
+  Nor tender yearnings, wanting for my good
+  Through these distracted times; in Nature still                     40
+  Glorying, I found a counterpoise in her,
+  Which, when the spirit of evil reached its height.
+  Maintained for me a secret happiness.
+
+    This narrative, my Friend! hath chiefly told
+  Of intellectual power, fostering love,                              45
+  Dispensing truth, and, over men and things,
+  Where reason yet might hesitate, diffusing
+  Prophetic sympathies of genial faith:
+  So was I favoured--such my happy lot--
+  Until that natural graciousness of mind                             50
+  Gave way to overpressure from the times
+  And their disastrous issues. What availed,
+  When spells forbade the voyager to land,
+  That fragrant notice of a pleasant shore
+  Wafted, at intervals, from many a bower                             55
+  Of blissful gratitude and fearless love?
+  Dare I avow that wish was mine to see,
+  And hope that future times _would_ surely see,
+  The man to come, parted, as by a gulph,
+  From him who had been; that I could no more                         60
+  Trust the elevation which had made me one
+  With the great family that still survives
+  To illuminate the abyss of ages past,
+  Sage, warrior, patriot, hero; for it seemed
+  That their best virtues were not free from taint                    65
+  Of something false and weak, that could not stand
+  The open eye of Reason. Then I said,
+  "Go to the Poets, they will speak to thee
+  More perfectly of purer creatures;--yet
+  If reason be nobility in man,                                       70
+  Can aught be more ignoble than the man
+  Whom they delight in, blinded as he is
+  By prejudice, the miserable slave
+  Of low ambition or distempered love?"
+
+    In such strange passion, if I may once more                       75
+  Review the past, I warred against myself--
+  A bigot to a new idolatry--
+  Like a cowled monk who hath forsworn the world,
+  Zealously laboured to cut off my heart
+  From all the sources of her former strength;                        80
+  And as, by simple waving of a wand,
+  The wizard instantaneously dissolves
+  Palace or grove, even so could I unsoul
+  As readily by syllogistic words
+  Those mysteries of being which have made,                           85
+  And shall continue evermore to make,
+  Of the whole human race one brotherhood.
+
+    What wonder, then, if, to a mind so far
+  Perverted, even the visible Universe
+  Fell under the dominion of a taste                                  90
+  Less spiritual, with microscopic view
+  Was scanned, as I had scanned the moral world?
+
+    O Soul of Nature! excellent and fair!
+  That didst rejoice with me, with whom I, too,
+  Rejoiced through early youth, before the winds                      95
+  And roaring waters, and in lights and shades
+  That marched and countermarched about the hills
+  In glorious apparition, Powers on whom
+  I daily waited, now all eye and now
+  All ear; but never long without the heart                          100
+  Employed, and man's unfolding intellect:
+  O Soul of Nature! that, by laws divine
+  Sustained and governed, still dost overflow
+  With an impassioned life, what feeble ones
+  Walk on this earth! how feeble have I been                         105
+  When thou wert in thy strength! Nor this through stroke
+  Of human suffering, such as justifies
+  Remissness and inaptitude of mind,
+  But through presumption; even in pleasure pleased
+  Unworthily, disliking here, and there                              110
+  Liking; by rules of mimic art transferred
+  To things above all art; but more,--for this,
+  Although a strong infection of the age,
+  Was never much my habit--giving way
+  To a comparison of scene with scene,                               115
+  Bent overmuch on superficial things,
+  Pampering myself with meagre novelties
+  Of colour and proportion; to the moods
+  Of time and season, to the moral power,
+  The affections and the spirit of the place,                        120
+  Insensible. Nor only did the love
+  Of sitting thus in judgment interrupt
+  My deeper feelings, but another cause,
+  More subtle and less easily explained,
+  That almost seems inherent in the creature,                        125
+  A twofold frame of body and of mind.
+  I speak in recollection of a time
+  When the bodily eye, in every stage of life
+  The most despotic of our senses, gained
+  Such strength in _me_ as often held my mind                        130
+  In absolute dominion. Gladly here,
+  Entering upon abstruser argument,
+  Could I endeavour to unfold the means
+  Which Nature studiously employs to thwart
+  This tyranny, summons all the senses each                          135
+  To counteract the other, and themselves,
+  And makes them all, and the objects with which all
+  Are conversant, subservient in their turn
+  To the great ends of Liberty and Power.
+  But leave we this: enough that my delights                         140
+  (Such as they were) were sought insatiably.
+  Vivid the transport, vivid though not profound;
+  I roamed from hill to hill, from rock to rock,
+  Still craving combinations of new forms,
+  New pleasure, wider empire for the sight,                          145
+  Proud of her own endowments, and rejoiced
+  To lay the inner faculties asleep.
+  Amid the turns and counterturns, the strife
+  And various trials of our complex being,
+  As we grow up, such thraldom of that sense                         150
+  Seems hard to shun. And yet I knew a maid, [B]
+  A young enthusiast, who escaped these bonds;
+  Her eye was not the mistress of her heart;
+  Far less did rules prescribed by passive taste,
+  Or barren intermeddling subtleties,                                155
+  Perplex her mind; but, wise as women are
+  When genial circumstance hath favoured them,
+  She welcomed what was given, and craved no more;
+  Whate'er the scene presented to her view,
+  That was the best, to that she was attuned                         160
+  By her benign simplicity of life,
+  And through a perfect happiness of soul,
+  Whose variegated feelings were in this
+  Sisters, that they were each some new delight.
+  Birds in the bower, and lambs in the green field,                  165
+  Could they have known her, would have loved; methought
+  Her very presence such a sweetness breathed,
+  That flowers, and trees, and even the silent hills,
+  And every thing she looked on, should have had
+  An intimation how she bore herself                                 170
+  Towards them and to all creatures. God delights
+  In such a being; for her common thoughts
+  Are piety, her life is gratitude.
+
+    Even like this maid, before I was called forth
+  From the retirement of my native hills,                            175
+  I loved whate'er I saw: nor lightly loved,
+  But most intensely; never dreamt of aught
+  More grand, more fair, more exquisitely framed
+  Than those few nooks to which my happy feet
+  Were limited. I had not at that time                               180
+  Lived long enough, nor in the least survived
+  The first diviner influence of this world,
+  As it appears to unaccustomed eyes.
+  Worshipping then among the depth of things,
+  As piety ordained; could I submit                                  185
+  To measured admiration, or to aught
+  That should preclude humility and love?
+  I felt, observed, and pondered; did not judge,
+  Yea, never thought of judging; with the gift
+  Of all this glory filled and satisfied.                            190
+  And afterwards, when through the gorgeous Alps
+  Roaming, I carried with me the same heart:
+  In truth, the degradation--howsoe'er
+  Induced, effect, in whatsoe'er degree,
+  Of custom that prepares a partial scale                            195
+  In which the little oft outweighs the great;
+  Or any other cause that hath been named;
+  Or lastly, aggravated by the times
+  And their impassioned sounds, which well might make
+  The milder minstrelsies of rural scenes                            200
+  Inaudible--was transient; I had known
+  Too forcibly, too early in my life,
+  Visitings of imaginative power
+  For this to last: I shook the habit off
+  Entirely and for ever, and again                                   205
+  In Nature's presence stood, as now I stand,
+  A sensitive being, a _creative_ soul.
+
+    There are in our existence spots of time,
+  That with distinct pre-eminence retain
+  A renovating virtue, whence, depressed                             210
+  By false opinion and contentious thought,
+  Or aught of heavier or more deadly weight,
+  In trivial occupations, and the round
+  Of ordinary intercourse, our minds
+  Are nourished and invisibly repaired;                              215
+  A virtue, by which pleasure is enhanced,
+  That penetrates, enables us to mount,
+  When high, more high, and lifts us up when fallen.
+  This efficacious spirit chiefly lurks
+  Among those passages of life that give                             220
+  Profoundest knowledge to what point, and how,
+  The mind is lord and master--outward sense
+  The obedient servant of her will. Such moments
+  Are scattered everywhere, taking their date
+  From our first childhood. [C] I remember well,                     225
+  That once, while yet my inexperienced hand
+  Could scarcely hold a bridle, with proud hopes
+  I mounted, and we journeyed towards the hills: [D]
+  An ancient servant of my father's house
+  Was with me, my encourager and guide:                              230
+  We had not travelled long, ere some mischance
+  Disjoined me from my comrade; and, through fear
+  Dismounting, down the rough and stony moor
+  I led my horse, and, stumbling on, at length
+  Came to a bottom, where in former times                            235
+  A murderer had been hung in iron chains.
+  The gibbet-mast had mouldered down, the bones
+  And iron case were gone; but on the turf,
+  Hard by, soon after that fell deed was wrought,
+  Some unknown hand had carved the murderer's name.                  240
+  The monumental letters were inscribed
+  In times long past; but still, from year to year,
+  By superstition of the neighbourhood,
+  The grass is cleared away, and to this hour
+  The characters are fresh and visible:                              245
+  A casual glance had shown them, and I fled,
+  Faltering and faint, and ignorant of the road:
+  Then, reascending the bare common, saw
+  A naked pool that lay beneath the hills,
+  The beacon on the summit, and, more near,                          250
+  A girl, who bore a pitcher on her head,
+  And seemed with difficult steps to force her way
+  Against the blowing wind. It was, in truth,
+  An ordinary sight; but I should need
+  Colours and words that are unknown to man,                         255
+  To paint the visionary dreariness
+  Which, while I looked all round for my lost guide,
+  Invested moorland waste, and naked pool,
+  The beacon crowning the lone eminence,
+  The female and her garments vexed and tossed                       260
+  By the strong wind. When, in the blessed hours
+  Of early love, the loved one at my side, [E]
+  I roamed, in daily presence of this scene,
+  Upon the naked pool and dreary crags,
+  And on the melancholy beacon, fell                                 265
+  A spirit of pleasure and youth's golden gleam;
+  And think ye not with radiance more sublime
+  For these remembrances, and for the power
+  They had left behind? So feeling comes in aid
+  Of feeling, and diversity of strength                              270
+  Attends us, if but once we have been strong.
+  Oh! mystery of man, from what a depth
+  Proceed thy honours. I am lost, but see
+  In simple childhood something of the base
+  On which thy greatness stands; but this I feel,                    275
+  That from thyself it comes, that thou must give,
+  Else never canst receive. The days gone by
+  Return upon me almost from the dawn
+  Of life: the hiding-places of man's power
+  Open; I would approach them, but they close.                       280
+  I see by glimpses now; when age comes on,
+  May scarcely see at all; and I would give,
+  While yet we may, as far as words can give,
+  Substance and life to what I feel, enshrining,
+  Such is my hope, the spirit of the Past                            285
+  For future restoration.--Yet another
+  Of these memorials;--
+                        One Christmas-time, [F]
+  On the glad eve of its dear holidays,
+  Feverish, and tired, and restless, I went forth
+  Into the fields, impatient for the sight                           290
+  Of those led palfreys that should bear us home;
+  My brothers and myself. There rose a crag,
+  That, from the meeting-point of two highways [F]
+  Ascending, overlooked them both, far stretched;
+  Thither, uncertain on which road to fix                            295
+  My expectation, thither I repaired,
+  Scout-like, and gained the summit; 'twas a day
+  Tempestuous, dark, and wild, and on the grass
+  I sate half-sheltered by a naked wall;
+  Upon my right hand couched a single sheep,                         300
+  Upon my left a blasted hawthorn stood;
+  With those companions at my side, I watched,
+  Straining my eyes intensely, as the mist
+  Gave intermitting prospect of the copse
+  And plain beneath. Ere we to school returned,--305
+  That dreary time,--ere we had been ten days
+  Sojourners in my father's house, he died,
+  And I and my three brothers, orphans then,
+  Followed his body to the grave. The event,
+  With all the sorrow that it brought, appeared                      310
+  A chastisement; and when I called to mind
+  That day so lately past, when from the crag
+  I looked in such anxiety of hope;
+  With trite reflections of morality,
+  Yet in the deepest passion, I bowed low                            315
+  To God, Who thus corrected my desires;
+  And, afterwards, the wind and sleety rain,
+  And all the business of the elements,
+  The single sheep, and the one blasted tree,
+  And the bleak music from that old stone wall,                      320
+  The noise of wood and water, and the mist
+  That on the line of each of those two roads
+  Advanced in such indisputable shapes;
+  All these were kindred spectacles and sounds
+  To which I oft repaired, and thence would drink,                   325
+  As at a fountain; and on winter nights,
+  Down to this very time, when storm and rain
+  Beat on my roof, or, haply, at noon-day,
+  While in a grove I walk, whose lofty trees,
+  Laden with summer's thickest foliage, rock                         330
+  In a strong wind, some working of the spirit,
+  Some inward agitations thence are brought,
+  Whate'er their office, whether to beguile
+  Thoughts over busy in the course they took,
+  Or animate an hour of vacant ease.                                 335
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT
+
+[Footnote A: Compare Shakespeare's "Stealing and giving odour."
+('Twelfth Night', act I. scene i. l. 7.)--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote B: Mary Hutchinson.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote C: Compare the 'Ode, Intimations of Immortality', stanzas v.
+and ix.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote D: Either amongst the Lorton Fells, or the north-western
+slopes of Skiddaw.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote E: His sister.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote F: The year was evidently 1783, but the locality is difficult
+to determine. It may have been one or other of two places. Wordsworth's
+father died at Penrith, and it was there that the sons went for their
+Christmas holiday. The road from Penrith to Hawkshead was by Kirkstone
+Pass, and Ambleside; and the "led palfreys" sent to take the boys home
+would certainly come through the latter town. Now there are only two
+roads from Ambleside to Hawkshead, which meet at a point about a mile
+north of Hawkshead, called in the Ordnance map "Outgate." The eastern
+road is now chiefly used by carriages, being less hilly and better made
+than the western one. The latter would be quite as convenient as the
+former for horses. If one were to walk out from Hawkshead village to the
+place where the two roads separate at "Outgate," and then ascend the
+ridge between them, he would find several places from which he could
+overlook _both_ roads "far stretched," were the view not now intercepted
+by numerous plantations. (The latter are of comparatively recent
+growth.) Dr. Cradock,--to whom I am indebted for this, and for many
+other suggestions as to localities alluded to by Wordsworth,--thinks
+that
+
+  "a point, marked on the map as 'High Crag' between the two roads, and
+  about three-quarters of a mile from their point of divergence, answers
+  the description as well as any other. It may be nearly two miles from
+  Hawkshead, a distance of which an active eager school-boy would think
+  nothing. The 'blasted hawthorn' and the 'naked wall' are probably
+  things of the past as much as the 'single sheep.'"
+
+Doubtless this may be the spot,--a green, rocky knoll with a steep face
+to the north, where a quarry is wrought, and with a plantation to the
+east. It commands a view of both roads. The other possible place is a
+crag, not a quarter of a mile from Outgate, a little to the right of the
+place where the two roads divide. A low wall runs up across it to the
+top, dividing a plantation of oak, hazel, and ash, from the firs that
+crown the summit. These firs, which are larch and spruce, seem all of
+this century. The top of the crag may have been bare when Wordsworth
+lived at Hawkshead. But at the foot of the path along the dividing wall
+there are a few (probably older) trees; and a solitary walk beneath
+them, at noon or dusk, is almost as suggestive to the imagination, as
+repose under the yews of Borrowdale, listening to "the mountain flood"
+on Glaramara. There one may still hear the bleak music from the old
+stone wall, and "the noise of wood and water," while the loud dry wind
+whistles through the underwood, or moans amid the fir trees of the Crag,
+on the summit of which there is a "blasted hawthorn" tree. It may be
+difficult now to determine the precise spot to which the boy Wordsworth
+climbed on that eventful day--afterwards so significant to him, and from
+the events of which, he says, he drank "as at a fountain"--but I think
+it may have been to one or other of these two crags. (See, however, Mr.
+Rawnsley's conjecture in Note V. in the Appendix to this volume, p.
+391.)--Ed.]
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THIRTEENTH
+
+
+IMAGINATION AND TASTE, HOW IMPAIRED AND RESTORED--concluded.
+
+
+  From Nature doth emotion come, and moods
+  Of calmness equally are Nature's gift:
+  This is her glory; these two attributes
+  Are sister horns that constitute her strength.
+  Hence Genius, born to thrive by interchange                          5
+  Of peace and excitation, finds in her
+  His best and purest friend; from her receives
+  That energy by which he seeks the truth,
+  From her that happy stillness of the mind
+  Which fits him to receive it when unsought. [A]                     10
+
+    Such benefit the humblest intellects
+  Partake of, each in their degree; 'tis mine
+  To speak, what I myself have known and felt;
+  Smooth task! for words find easy way, inspired
+  By gratitude, and confidence in truth.                              15
+  Long time in search of knowledge did I range
+  The field of human life, in heart and mind
+  Benighted; but, the dawn beginning now
+  To re-appear, 'twas proved that not in vain
+  I had been taught to reverence a Power                              20
+  That is the visible quality and shape
+  And image of right reason; that matures
+  Her processes by steadfast laws; gives birth
+  To no impatient or fallacious hopes,
+  No heat of passion or excessive zeal,                               25
+  No vain conceits; provokes to no quick turns
+  Of self-applauding intellect; but trains
+  To meekness, and exalts by humble faith;
+  Holds up before the mind intoxicate
+  With present objects, and the busy dance                            30
+  Of things that pass away, a temperate show
+  Of objects that endure; and by this course
+  Disposes her, when over-fondly set
+  On throwing off incumbrances, to seek
+  In man, and in the frame of social life,                            35
+  Whate'er there is desirable and good
+  Of kindred permanence, unchanged in form
+  And function, or, through strict vicissitude
+  Of life and death, revolving. Above all
+  Were re-established now those watchful thoughts                     40
+  Which, seeing little worthy or sublime
+  In what the Historian's pen so much delights
+  To blazon--power and energy detached
+  From moral purpose--early tutored me
+  To look with feelings of fraternal love                             45
+  Upon the unassuming things that hold
+  A silent station in this beauteous world.
+
+    Thus moderated, thus composed, I found
+  Once more in Man an object of delight,
+  Of pure imagination, and of love;                                   50
+  And, as the horizon of my mind enlarged,
+  Again I took the intellectual eye
+  For my instructor, studious more to see
+  Great truths, than touch and handle little ones.
+  Knowledge was given accordingly; my trust                           55
+  Became more firm in feelings that had stood
+  The test of such a trial; clearer far
+  My sense of excellence--of right and wrong:
+  The promise of the present time retired
+  Into its true proportion; sanguine schemes,                         60
+  Ambitious projects, pleased me less; I sought
+  For present good in life's familiar face,
+  And built thereon my hopes of good to come.
+
+    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 passive 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 sex and age, and heaven-descended rights,
+  Mortal, or those beyond the reach of death;                         75
+  And having thus discerned how dire a thing
+  Is worshipped 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 appetites 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 space                                  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 (passed
+  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 passions 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 passion. 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 passion 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 worshippers 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 sanctity of passion, 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 passion 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 gratitude to God, 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 circumstance, and visible form,
+  Is mainly to the pleasure of the mind
+  What passion makes them; that meanwhile the forms                  290
+  Of Nature have a passion 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 multitudes of men, and, here and there,
+  A single Briton clothed in wolf-skin vest,
+  With shield 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 ennobling 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 passiveness.
+
+  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 Cumberland 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 Cockermouth. Referring to my suggestion that
+it might be the road from Cockermouth 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
+  destitute 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
+  Cockermouth, in the direction of Bassenthwaite 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 Cockermouth. 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
+Cockermouth, where they used to "chase the butterfly" 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 Cockermouth,
+  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
+
+    It was a close, warm, breezeless summer night,
+  Wan, dull, and glaring, with a dripping fog
+  Low-hung and thick that covered all the sky;
+  But, undiscouraged, we began to climb
+  The mountain-side. The mist soon girt us round,                     15
+  And, after ordinary travellers' talk
+  With our conductor, pensively we sank
+  Each into commerce with his private thoughts:
+  Thus did we breast the ascent, and by myself
+  Was nothing either seen or heard that checked                       20
+  Those musings or diverted, save that once
+  The shepherd's lurcher, who, among the crags,
+  Had to his joy unearthed a hedgehog, teased
+  His coiled-up prey with barkings turbulent.
+  This small adventure, for even such it seemed                       25
+  In that wild place and at the dead of night,
+  Being over and forgotten, on we wound
+  In silence as before. With forehead bent
+  Earthward, as if in opposition set
+  Against an enemy, I panted up                                       30
+  With eager pace, and no less eager thoughts.
+  Thus might we wear a midnight hour away,
+  Ascending at loose distance each from each,
+  And I, as chanced, the foremost of the band;
+  When at my feet the ground appeared to brighten,                    35
+  And with a step or two seemed brighter still;
+  Nor was time given to ask or learn the cause,
+  For instantly a light upon the turf
+  Fell like a flash, and lo! as I looked up,
+  The Moon hung naked in a firmament                                  40
+  Of azure without cloud, and at my feet
+  Rested a silent sea of hoary mist.
+  A hundred hills their dusky backs upheaved
+  All over this still ocean; and beyond,
+  Far, far beyond, the solid vapours stretched,                       45
+  In headlands, tongues, and promontory shapes,
+  Into the main Atlantic, that appeared
+  To dwindle, and give up his majesty,
+  Usurped upon far as the sight could reach.
+  Not so the ethereal vault; encroachment none                        50
+  Was there, nor loss; only the inferior stars
+  Had disappeared, or shed a fainter light
+  In the clear presence of the full-orbed Moon,
+  Who, from her sovereign elevation, gazed
+  Upon the billowy ocean, as it lay                                   55
+  All meek and silent, save that through a rift--
+  Not distant from the shore whereon we stood,
+  A fixed, abysmal, gloomy, breathing-place--
+  Mounted the roar of waters, torrents, streams
+  Innumerable, roaring with one voice!                                60
+  Heard over earth and sea, and, in that hour,
+  For so it seemed, felt by the starry heavens.
+
+    When into air had partially dissolved
+  That vision, given to spirits of the night
+  And three chance human wanderers, in calm thought                   65
+  Reflected, it appeared to me the type
+  Of a majestic intellect, its acts
+  And its possessions, what it has and craves,
+  What in itself it is, and would become.
+  There I beheld the emblem of a mind                                 70
+  That feeds upon infinity, that broods
+  Over the dark abyss, [B] intent to hear
+  Its voices issuing forth to silent light
+  In one continuous stream; a mind sustained
+  By recognitions of transcendent power,                              75
+  In sense conducting to ideal form,
+  In soul of more than mortal privilege.
+  One function, above all, of such a mind
+  Had Nature shadowed there, by putting forth,
+  'Mid circumstances awful and sublime,                               80
+  That mutual domination which she loves
+  To exert upon the face of outward things,
+  So moulded, joined, abstracted, so endowed
+  With interchangeable supremacy,
+  That men, least sensitive, see, hear, perceive,                     85
+  And cannot choose but feel. The power, which all
+  Acknowledge when thus moved, which Nature thus
+  To bodily sense exhibits, is the express
+  Resemblance of that glorious faculty
+  That higher minds bear with them as their own.                      90
+  This is the very spirit in which they deal
+  With the whole compass of the universe:
+  They from their native selves can send abroad
+  Kindred mutations; for themselves create
+  A like existence; and, whene'er it dawns                            95
+  Created for them, catch it, or are caught
+  By its inevitable mastery,
+  Like angels stopped upon the wind by sound
+  Of harmony from Heaven's remotest spheres.
+  Them the enduring and the transient both                           100
+  Serve to exalt; they build up greatest things
+  From least suggestions; ever on the watch,
+  Willing to work and to be wrought upon,
+  They need not extraordinary calls
+  To rouse them; in a world of life they live,                       105
+  By sensible impressions not enthralled,
+  But by their quickening impulse made more prompt
+  To hold fit converse with the spiritual world,
+  And with the generations of mankind
+  Spread over time, past, present, and to come,                      110
+  Age after age, till Time shall be no more.
+  Such minds are truly from the Deity,
+  For they are Powers; and hence the highest bliss
+  That flesh can know is theirs--the consciousness
+  Of Whom they are, habitually infused                               115
+  Through every image and through every thought,
+  And all affections by communion raised
+  From earth to heaven, from human to divine;
+  Hence endless occupation for the Soul,
+  Whether discursive or intuitive; [C]                               120
+  Hence cheerfulness for acts of daily life,
+  Emotions which best foresight need not fear,
+  Most worthy then of trust when most intense
+  Hence, amid ills that vex and wrongs that crush
+  Our hearts--if here the words of Holy Writ                         125
+  May with fit reverence be applied--that peace
+  Which passeth understanding, that repose
+  In moral judgments which from this pure source
+  Must come, or will by man be sought in vain.
+
+    Oh! who is he that hath his whole life long                      130
+  Preserved, enlarged, this freedom in himself?
+  For this alone is genuine liberty:
+  Where is the favoured being who hath held
+  That course unchecked, unerring, and untired,
+  In one perpetual progress smooth and bright?--135
+  A humbler destiny have we retraced,
+  And told of lapse and hesitating choice,
+  And backward wanderings along thorny ways:
+  Yet--compassed round by mountain solitudes,
+  Within whose solemn temple I received                              140
+  My earliest visitations, careless then
+  Of what was given me; and which now I range,
+  A meditative, oft a suffering man--
+  Do I declare--in accents which, from truth
+  Deriving cheerful confidence, shall blend                          145
+  Their modulation with these vocal streams--
+  That, whatsoever falls my better mind,
+  Revolving with the accidents of life,
+  May have sustained, that, howsoe'er misled,
+  Never did I, in quest of right and wrong,                          150
+  Tamper with conscience from a private aim;
+  Nor was in any public hope the dupe
+  Of selfish passions; nor did ever yield
+  Wilfully to mean cares or low pursuits,
+  But shrunk with apprehensive jealousy                              155
+  From every combination which might aid
+  The tendency, too potent in itself,
+  Of use and custom to bow down the soul
+  Under a growing weight of vulgar sense,
+  And substitute a universe of death                                 160
+  For that which moves with light and life informed,
+  Actual, divine, and true. To fear and love,
+  To love as prime and chief, for there fear ends,
+  Be this ascribed; to early intercourse,
+  In presence of sublime or beautiful forms,                         165
+  With the adverse principles of pain and joy--
+  Evil, as one is rashly named by men
+  Who know not what they speak. By love subsists
+  All lasting grandeur, by pervading love;
+  That gone, we are as dust.--Behold the fields                      170
+  In balmy spring-time full of rising flowers
+  And joyous creatures; see that pair, the lamb
+  And the lamb's mother, and their tender ways
+  Shall touch thee to the heart; thou callest this love,
+  And not inaptly so, for love it is,                                175
+  Far as it carries thee. In some green bower
+  Rest, and be not alone, but have thou there
+  The One who is thy choice of all the world:
+  There linger, listening, gazing, with delight
+  Impassioned, but delight how pitiable!                             180
+  Unless this love by a still higher love
+  Be hallowed, love that breathes not without awe;
+  Love that adores, but on the knees of prayer,
+  By heaven inspired; that frees from chains the soul,
+  Lifted, in union with the purest, best,                            185
+  Of earth-born passions, on the wings of praise
+  Bearing a tribute to the Almighty's Throne.
+
+    This spiritual Love acts not nor can exist
+  Without Imagination, which, in truth,
+  Is but another name for absolute power                             190
+  And clearest insight, amplitude of mind,
+  And Reason in her most exalted mood.
+  This faculty hath been the feeding source
+  Of our long labour: we have traced the stream
+  From the blind cavern whence is faintly heard                      195
+  Its natal murmur; followed it to light
+  And open day; accompanied its course
+  Among the ways of Nature, for a time
+  Lost sight of it bewildered and engulphed:
+  Then given it greeting as it rose once more                        200
+  In strength, reflecting from its placid breast
+  The works of man and face of human life;
+  And lastly, from its progress have we drawn
+  Faith in life endless, the sustaining thought
+  Of human Being, Eternity, and God.                                 205
+
+    Imagination having been our theme,
+  So also hath that intellectual Love,
+  For they are each in each, and cannot stand
+  Dividually.--Here must thou be, O Man!
+  Power to thyself; no Helper hast thou here;                        210
+  Here keepest thou in singleness thy state:
+  No other can divide with thee this work:
+  No secondary hand can intervene
+  To fashion this ability; 'tis thine,
+  The prime and vital principle is thine                             215
+  In the recesses of thy nature, far
+  From any reach of outward fellowship,
+  Else is not thine at all. But joy to him,
+  Oh, joy to him who here hath sown, hath laid
+  Here, the foundation of his future years!                          220
+  For all that friendship, all that love can do,
+  All that a darling countenance can look
+  Or dear voice utter, to complete the man,
+  Perfect him, made imperfect in himself,
+  All shall be his: and he whose soul hath risen                     225
+  Up to the height of feeling intellect
+  Shall want no humbler tenderness; his heart
+  Be tender as a nursing mother's heart;
+  Of female softness shall his life be full,
+  Of humble cares and delicate desires,                              230
+  Mild interests and gentlest sympathies.
+
+  Child of my parents! Sister of my soul!
+  Thanks in sincerest verse have been elsewhere
+  Poured out [D] for all the early tenderness
+  Which I from thee imbibed: and 'tis most true                      235
+  That later seasons owed to thee no less;
+  For, spite of thy sweet influence and the touch
+  Of kindred hands that opened out the springs
+  Of genial thought in childhood, and in spite
+  Of all that unassisted I had marked                                240
+  In life or nature of those charms minute
+  That win their way into the heart by stealth
+  (Still to the very going-out of youth),
+  I too exclusively esteemed _that_ love,
+  And sought _that_ beauty, which, as Milton sings,                  245
+  Hath terror in it. [E] Thou didst soften down
+  This over-sternness; but for thee, dear Friend!
+  My soul, too reckless of mild grace, had stood
+  In her original self too confident,
+  Retained too long a countenance severe;                            250
+  A rock with torrents roaring, with the clouds
+  Familiar, and a favourite of the stars:
+  But thou didst plant its crevices with flowers,
+  Hang it with shrubs that twinkle in the breeze,
+  And teach the little birds to build their nests                    255
+  And warble in its chambers. At a time
+  When Nature, destined to remain so long
+  Foremost in my affections, had fallen back
+  Into a second place, pleased to become
+  A handmaid to a nobler than herself,                               260
+  When every day brought with it some new sense
+  Of exquisite regard for common things,
+  And all the earth was budding with these gifts
+  Of more refined humanity, thy breath,
+  Dear Sister! was a kind of gentler spring                          265
+  That went before my steps. Thereafter came
+  One whom with thee friendship had early paired;
+  She came, no more a phantom to adorn
+  A moment, [F] but an inmate of the heart,
+  And yet a spirit, there for me enshrined                           270
+  To penetrate the lofty and the low;
+  Even as one essence of pervading light
+  Shines, in the brightest of ten thousand stars,
+  And the meek worm that feeds her lonely lamp
+  Couched in the dewy grass.
+                            With such a theme,                       275
+  Coleridge! with this my argument, of thee
+  Shall I be silent? O capacious Soul!
+  Placed on this earth to love and understand,
+  And from thy presence shed the light of love,
+  Shall I be mute, ere thou be spoken of?                            280
+  Thy kindred influence to my heart of hearts
+  Did also find its way. Thus fear relaxed
+  Her over-weening grasp; thus thoughts and things
+  In the self-haunting spirit learned to take
+  More rational proportions; mystery,                                285
+  The incumbent mystery of sense and soul,
+  Of life and death, time and eternity,
+  Admitted more habitually a mild
+  Interposition--a serene delight
+  In closelier gathering cares, such as become                       290
+  A human creature, howsoe'er endowed,
+  Poet, or destined for a humbler name;
+  And so the deep enthusiastic joy,
+  The rapture of the hallelujah sent
+  From all that breathes and is, was chastened, stemmed              295
+  And balanced by pathetic truth, by trust
+  In hopeful reason, leaning on the stay
+  Of Providence; and in reverence for duty,
+  Here, if need be, struggling with storms, and there
+  Strewing in peace life's humblest ground with herbs,               300
+  At every season green, sweet at all hours.
+
+    And now, O Friend! this history is brought
+  To its appointed close: the discipline
+  And consummation of a Poet's mind,
+  In everything that stood most prominent,                           305
+  Have faithfully been pictured; we have reached
+  The time (our guiding object from the first)
+  When we may, not presumptuously, I hope,
+  Suppose my powers so far confirmed, and such
+  My knowledge, as to make me capable                                310
+  Of building up a Work that shall endure. [G]
+  Yet much hath been omitted, as need was;
+  Of books how much! and even of the other wealth
+  That is collected among woods and fields,
+  Far more: for Nature's secondary grace                             315
+  Hath hitherto been barely touched upon,
+  The charm more superficial that attends
+  Her works, as they present to Fancy's choice
+  Apt illustrations of the moral world,
+  Caught at a glance, or traced with curious pains.                  320
+
+    Finally, and above all, O Friend! (I speak
+  With due regret) how much is overlooked
+  In human nature and her subtle ways,
+  As studied first in our own hearts, and then
+  In life among the passions of mankind,                             325
+  Varying their composition and their hue,
+  Where'er we move, under the diverse shapes
+  That individual character presents
+  To an attentive eye. For progress meet,
+  Along this intricate and difficult path,                           330
+  Whate'er was wanting, something had I gained,
+  As one of many schoolfellows compelled,
+  In hardy independence, to stand up
+  Amid conflicting interests, and the shock
+  Of various tempers; to endure and note                             335
+  What was not understood, though known to be;
+  Among the mysteries of love and hate,
+  Honour and shame, looking to right and left,
+  Unchecked by innocence too delicate,
+  And moral notions too intolerant,                                  340
+  Sympathies too contracted. Hence, when called
+  To take a station among men, the step
+  Was easier, the transition more secure,
+  More profitable also; for, the mind
+  Learns from such timely exercise to keep                           345
+  In wholesome separation the two natures,
+  The one that feels, the other that observes.
+
+    Yet one word more of personal concern--
+  Since I withdrew unwillingly from France,
+  I led an undomestic wanderer's life,                               350
+  In London chiefly harboured, whence I roamed,
+  Tarrying at will in many a pleasant spot
+  Of rural England's cultivated vales
+  Or Cambrian solitudes. [H] A youth--(he bore
+  The name of Calvert [I]--it shall live, if words                   355
+  Of mine can give it life,) in firm belief
+  That by endowments not from me withheld
+  Good might be furthered--in his last decay
+  By a bequest sufficient for my needs
+  Enabled me to pause for choice, and walk                           360
+  At large and unrestrained, nor damped too soon
+  By mortal cares. Himself no Poet, yet
+  Far less a common follower of the world,
+  He deemed that my pursuits and labours lay
+  Apart from all that leads to wealth, or even                       365
+  A necessary maintenance insures,
+  Without some hazard to the finer sense;
+  He cleared a passage for me, and the stream
+  Flowed in the bent of Nature. [K]
+                                 Having now
+  Told what best merits mention, further pains                       370
+  Our present purpose seems not to require,
+  And I have other tasks. Recall to mind
+  The mood in which this labour was begun,
+  O Friend! The termination of my course
+  Is nearer now, much nearer; yet even then,                         375
+  In that distraction and intense desire,
+  I said unto the life which I had lived,
+  Where art thou? Hear I not a voice from thee
+  Which 'tis reproach to hear? Anon I rose
+  As if on wings, and saw beneath me stretched                       380
+  Vast prospect of the world which I had been
+  And was; and hence this Song, which like a lark
+  I have protracted, in the unwearied heavens
+  Singing, and often with more plaintive voice
+  To earth attempered and her deep-drawn sighs,                      385
+  Yet centring all in love, and in the end
+  All gratulant, if rightly understood.
+
+    Whether to me shall be allotted life,
+  And, with life, power to accomplish aught of worth,
+  That will be deemed no insufficient plea                           390
+  For having given the story of myself,
+  Is all uncertain: but, beloved Friend!
+  When, looking back, thou seest, in clearer view
+  Than any liveliest sight of yesterday,
+  That summer, under whose indulgent skies,                          395
+  Upon smooth Quantock's airy ridge we roved
+  Unchecked, or loitered 'mid her sylvan combs, [L]
+  Thou in bewitching words, with happy heart,
+  Didst chaunt the vision of that Ancient Man,
+  The bright-eyed Mariner, [L] and rueful woes                       400
+  Didst utter of the Lady Christabel; [L]
+  And I, associate with such labour, steeped
+  In soft forgetfulness the livelong hours,
+  Murmuring of him who, joyous hap, was found,
+  After the perils of his moonlight ride,                            405
+  Near the loud waterfall; [L] or her who sate
+  In misery near the miserable Thorn; [L]
+  When thou dost to that summer turn thy thoughts,
+  And hast before thee all which then we were,
+  To thee, in memory of that happiness,                              410
+  It will be known, by thee at least, my Friend!
+  Felt, that the history of a Poet's mind
+  Is labour not unworthy of regard:
+  To thee the work shall justify itself.
+
+    The last and later portions of this gift                         415
+  Have been prepared, not with the buoyant spirits
+  That were our daily portion when we first
+  Together wantoned in wild Poesy,
+  But, under pressure of a private grief, [M]
+  Keen and enduring, which the mind and heart,                       420
+  That in this meditative history
+  Have been laid open, needs must make me feel
+  More deeply, yet enable me to bear
+  More firmly; and a comfort now hath risen
+  From hope that thou art near, and wilt be soon                     425
+  Restored to us in renovated health;
+  When, after the first mingling of our tears,
+  'Mong other consolations, we may draw
+  Some pleasure from this offering of my love.
+
+    Oh! yet a few short years of useful life,                        430
+  And all will be complete, thy race be run,
+  Thy monument of glory will be raised;
+  Then, though (too weak to tread the ways of truth)
+  This age fall back to old idolatry,
+  Though men return to servitude as fast                             435
+  As the tide ebbs, to ignominy and shame
+  By nations sink together, we shall still
+  Find solace--knowing what we have learnt to know,
+  Rich in true happiness if allowed to be
+  Faithful alike in forwarding a day                                 440
+  Of firmer trust, joint labourers in the work
+  (Should Providence such grace to us vouchsafe)
+  Of their deliverance, surely yet to come.
+  Prophets of Nature, we to them will speak
+  A lasting inspiration, sanctified                                  445
+  By reason, blest by faith: what we have loved,
+  Others will love, and we will teach them how;
+  Instruct them how the mind of man becomes
+  A thousand times more beautiful than the earth
+  On which he dwells, above this frame of things                     450
+  (Which, 'mid all revolution in the hopes
+  And fears of men, doth still remain unchanged)
+  In beauty exalted, as it is itself
+  Of quality and fabric more divine.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT
+
+[Footnote A: With Robert Jones, in the summer of 1793.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote B: Compare 'Paradise Lost', book i. l. 21.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote C: Compare 'Paradise Lost', book v. l. 488.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote D: Compare 'The Sparrow's Nest', vol. ii. p. 236.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote E: See 'Paradise Lost', book ix. ll. 490, 491.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote F: Mary Hutchinson. Compare the lines, p. 2, beginning:
+
+  'She was a Phantom of delight.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote G: Compare the preface to 'The Excursion'. "Several years ago,
+when the author retired to his native mountains, with the hope of being
+enabled to construct a literary work that might live," etc.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote H: After leaving London, he went to the Isle of Wight and to
+Salisbury Plain with Calvert; then to Bristol, the Valley of the Wye,
+and Tintern Abbey, alone on foot; thence to Jones' residence in North
+Wales at Plas-yn-llan in Denbighshire; with him to other places in North
+Wales, thence to Halifax; and with his sister to Kendal, Grasmere,
+Keswick, Whitehaven, and Penrith.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote I: Raisley Calvert.-Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote K: His friend, dying in January 1795, bequeathed to Wordsworth
+a legacy of L900. Compare the sonnet, in vol. iv., beginning
+
+  'Calvert! it must not be unheard by them,'
+
+and the 'Life of Wordsworth' in this edition.--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote L: The Wordsworths went to Alfoxden in the end of July, 1797.
+It was in the autumn of that year that, with Coleridge,
+
+  'Upon smooth Quantock's airy ridge they roved
+  Unchecked, or loitered 'mid her sylvan combs;'
+
+when the latter chaunted his 'Ancient Mariner' and 'Christabel', and
+Wordsworth composed 'The Idiot Boy' and 'The Thorn'. The plan of a joint
+publication was sketched out in November 1797. (See the Fenwick note to
+'We are Seven', vol. i. p. 228.)--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote M: The death of his brother John. Compare the 'Elegiac Verses'
+in memory of him, p. 58.--Ed.]
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+FROM THE ITALIAN OF MICHAEL ANGELO
+
+
+Translated 1805?--Published 1807
+
+
+[Translations from Michael Angelo, done at the request of Mr. Duppa,
+whose acquaintance I made through Mr. Southey. Mr. Duppa was engaged in
+writing the life of Michael Angelo, and applied to Mr. Southey and
+myself to furnish some specimens of his poetic genius.--I. F.]
+
+
+Compare the two sonnets entitled 'At Florence--from Michael Angelo', in
+the "Memorials of a Tour in Italy" in 1837.
+
+The following extract from a letter of Wordsworth's to Sir George
+Beaumont, dated October 17, 1805, will cast light on the next three
+sonnets.
+
+  "I mentioned Michael Angelo's poetry some time ago; it is the most
+  difficult to construe I ever met with, but just what you would expect
+  from such a man, shewing abundantly how conversant his soul was with
+  great things. There is a mistake in the world concerning the Italian
+  language; the poetry of Dante and Michael Angelo proves, that if there
+  be little majesty and strength in Italian verse, the fault is in the
+  authors, and not in the tongue. I can translate, and have translated
+  two books of Ariosto, at the rate, nearly, of one hundred lines a day;
+  but so much meaning has been put by Michael Angelo into so little
+  room, and that meaning sometimes so excellent in itself, that I found
+  the difficulty of translating him insurmountable. I attempted, at
+  least, fifteen of the sonnets, but could not anywhere succeed. I have
+  sent you the only one I was able to finish; it is far from being the
+  best, or most characteristic, but the others were too much for me."
+
+The last of the three sonnets probably belongs to the year 1804, as it
+is quoted in a letter to Sir George Beaumont, dated Grasmere, August 6.
+The year is not given, but I think it must have been 1804, as he says
+that "within the last month," he had written, "700 additional lines" of
+'The Prelude'; and that poem was finished in May 1805.
+
+The titles given to them make it necessary to place these Sonnets in the
+order which follows.
+
+One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."--Ed.
+
+
+I
+
+  Yes! hope may with my strong desire keep pace,
+  And I be undeluded, unbetrayed;
+  For if of our affections none finds [1] grace
+  In sight of Heaven, then, wherefore hath God made
+  The world which we inhabit? Better plea                             5
+  Love cannot have, than that in loving thee
+  Glory to that eternal Peace is paid,
+  Who such divinity to thee imparts
+  As hallows and makes pure all gentle hearts.
+  His hope is treacherous only whose love dies                       10
+  With beauty, which is varying every hour;
+  But, in chaste hearts uninfluenced by the power
+  Of outward change, there blooms a deathless flower,
+  That breathes on earth the air of paradise.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+VARIANT ON THE TEXT
+
+[Variant 1:
+
+1849.
+
+  ... find ...      1807.]
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+FROM THE SAME
+
+
+Translated 1805?--Published 1807
+
+
+One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."--Ed.
+
+
+
+II
+
+  No mortal object did these eyes behold
+  When first they met the placid light of thine,
+  And my Soul felt her destiny divine, [1]
+  And hope of endless peace in me grew bold:
+  Heaven-born, the Soul a heaven-ward course must hold;            5
+  Beyond the visible world she soars to seek
+  (For what delights the sense is false and weak)
+  Ideal Form, the universal mould.
+  The wise man, I affirm, can find no rest
+  In that which perishes: nor will he lend                        10
+  His heart to aught which doth on time depend.
+  'Tis sense, unbridled will, and not true love,
+  That [2] kills the soul: love betters what is best,
+  Even here below, but more in heaven above.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
+
+[Variant 1:
+
+1807.
+
+  When first saluted by the light of thine,
+  When my soul ...
+
+MS. letter to Sir George Beaumont.]
+
+
+[Variant 2:
+
+1827.
+
+  Which ...    1807.]
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+FROM THE SAME. TO THE SUPREME BEING
+
+
+Translated 1804?--Published 1807
+
+
+One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."--Ed.
+
+
+
+III
+
+  The prayers I make will then be sweet indeed
+  If Thou the spirit give by which I pray:
+  My unassisted heart is barren clay,
+  That [1] of its native self can nothing feed:
+  Of good and pious works thou art the seed,                     5
+  That [2] quickens only where thou say'st it may.
+  Unless Thou shew to us thine own true way
+  No man can find it: Father! Thou must lead.
+  Do Thou, then, breathe those thoughts into my mind
+  By which such virtue may in me be bred                        10
+  That in thy holy footsteps I may tread;
+  The fetters of my tongue do Thou unbind,
+  That I may have the power to sing of thee,
+  And sound thy praises everlastingly.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
+
+[Variant 1:
+
+1827.
+
+  Which ...      1807.]
+
+
+[Variant 2:
+
+1827.
+
+  Which ...      1807.]
+
+
+
+The sonnet from which the above is translated, is not wholly by Michael
+Angelo, the sculptor and painter, but is taken from patched-up versions
+of his poem by his nephew of the same name. Michael Angelo only wrote
+the first eight lines, and these have been garbled in his nephew's
+edition. The original lines are thus given by Guasti in his edition of
+Michael Angelo's Poems (1863) restored to their true reading, from the
+autograph MSS. in Rome and Florence.
+
+
+  Imperfect Sonnet transcribed from "Le Rime di Michelangelo Buonarroti
+  Cavate dagli Autografi da Cesare Guasti. Firenze. 1863."
+
+
+
+  SONNET LXXXIX. [Vatican].
+
+
+  Ben sarien dolce le preghiere mie,
+    Se virtu mi prestassi da pregarte:
+    Nel mio fragil terren non e gia parte
+    Da frutto buon, che da se nato sie.
+
+  Tu sol se' seme d' opre caste e pie,
+    Che la germoglian dove ne fa' parte:
+    Nessun proprio valor puo seguitarte,
+    Se no gli mostri le tue sante vie.
+
+
+The lines are thus paraphrased in prose by the Editor:
+
+  Le mie preghiere sarebbero grate, se tu mi prestassi quella virtu che
+  rende efficace il pregare: ma io sono un terreno sterile, in cui non
+  nasce spontaneamente frutto che sia buono. Tu solamente sei seme di
+  opere caste e pie, le quali germogliano la dove tu ti spargi: e
+  nessuna virtu vi ha che da per se possa venirti dietro, se tu stesso
+  non le mostri le vie che conducono al bene, e che sono le tue....
+
+
+The Sonnet as published by the Nephew is as follows:
+
+  Ben sarian dolci le preghiere mie,
+    Se virtu mi prestassi da pregarte:
+    Nel mio terreno infertil non e parte
+    Da produr frutto di virtu natie.
+
+  Tu il seme se' dell' opre giuste e pie,
+    Che la germoglian dove ne fai parte:
+    Nessun proprio valor puo seguitarte,
+    Se non gli mostri le tue belle vie.
+
+  Tu nella mente mia pensieri infondi,
+    Che producano in me si vivi effetti,
+    Signor, ch' io segua i tuoi vestigi santi.
+
+  E dalla lingua mia chiari, e facondi
+    Sciogli della tua gloria ardenti detti,
+    Perche sempre io ti lodi, esalti, e canti.
+
+
+('Le Rime di Michelangelo Buonarroti, Pittore, Scultor e Architetto
+cavate degli autografi, e pubblicate da Cesare Guasti'. Firenze,
+1863.)-Ed.
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+
+NOTE I
+
+
+"POEMS ON THE NAMING OF PLACES"
+
+'When, to the attractions of the busy world', p. 66
+
+The following variants occur in a MS. Book containing 'Yew Trees',
+'Artegal' and 'Elidure', 'Laodamia', 'Black Comb,' etc.--Ed.
+
+
+  When from the restlessness of crowded life
+  Back to my native vales I turned, and fixed
+  My habitation in this peaceful spot,
+  Sharp season was it of continuous storm
+  In deepest winter; and, from week to week,
+  Pathway, and lane, and public way were clogged
+  With frequent showers of snow ...
+
+  When first attracted by this happy Vale
+  Hither I came, among old Shepherd Swains
+  To fix my habitation,'t was a time
+  Of deepest winter, and from week to week
+  Pathway, and lane, and public way were clogged
+
+  When to the { cares and pleasures of the world
+              { attractions of the busy world
+
+  Preferring {ease and liberty   }  I chose
+             {peace and liberty  }  I chose
+             {studious leisure I had chosen
+  A habitation in this peaceful vale
+  Sharp season {was it of    } continuous storm
+               {followed by  } continuous storm
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTE II.--THE HAWKSHEAD BECK
+
+
+(See pp. 188-89, 'The Prelude', book iv.)
+
+
+Mr. Rawnsley, formerly of Wray Vicarage--now Canon Rawnsley of
+Crosthwaite Vicarage, Keswick--sent me the following letter in reference
+to:
+
+
+  ... that unruly child of mountain birth,
+  The famous brook, who, soon as he was boxed
+  Within our garden, found himself at once,
+  As if by trick insidious and unkind,
+  Stripped of his voice and left to dimple down
+   ...
+  I looked at him and smiled, and smiled again,
+   ...
+  'Ha,' quoth I, 'pretty prisoner, are you there!'
+
+
+  "I was not quite content with Dr. Cradock's identification of this
+  brook, or of the garden; partly because, beyond the present garden
+  square I found, on going up the brook, other garden squares, which
+  were much more likely to have been the garden belonging to Anne
+  Tyson's cottage, and because in these garden plots the stream was not
+  'stripped of his voice,' by the covering of Coniston flags, as is the
+  case lower down towards the market place; and partly because--as you
+  notice--you can both hear and see the stream through the interstices
+  of the flags, and that it can hardly be described (by one who will
+  listen) as stripped of its voice.
+
+  At the same time I was bound to admit that in comparing the voice of
+  the stream here in the 'channel paved by man's officious care' with
+  the sound of it up in the fields beyond the vicarage, nearer its
+  birth-place, it certainly might be said to be softer voiced; and as
+  the poet speaks of it as 'that unruly child of mountain birth,' it
+  looks as if he too had realised the difference.
+
+  But whilst I thought that the identification of Dr. Cradock and
+  yourself was very happy (in absence of other possibilities), I had not
+  thought that Wordsworth would describe the stream as 'dimpling down,'
+  or address it as a 'pretty prisoner.' A smaller stream seemed
+  necessary.
+
+  It was, therefore, not a little curious that, in poking about among
+  the garden plots on the west bank of the stream, fronting (as nearly
+  as I could judge) Anne Tyson's cottage, to seek for remains of the ash
+  tree, in which so often the poet--as he lay awake on summer
+  nights--had watched 'the moon in splendour couched among the leaves,'
+  rocking 'with every impulse of the breeze,' I not only stumbled upon
+  the remains of an ash tree--now a 'pollard'--which is evidently
+  sprung from a larger tree since decayed (and which for all I know may
+  be one of the actual parts of the ancient tree itself); but also had
+  the good luck to fall into conversation with a certain Isaac Hodgson,
+  who volunteered the following information.
+
+  First, that Wordsworth, it was commonly said, had lodged part of his
+  time with one Betty Braithwaite, in the very house called Church Hill
+  House.
+
+  She was a widow, and kept a confectionery shop, and 'did a deal of
+  baking,' he believed.
+
+  Secondly, that there was a little patch of garden at the back of the
+  house, with a famous spring well--still called Old Betty's Well--in
+  it, and that only a few paces from where I was then standing by the
+  pollard ash.
+
+  On jumping over the fence I found myself on the western side of the
+  quaint old Church Hill House, with magnificent views of the whole of
+  the western side of Hawkshead Vale; grassy swell and wooded rises
+  taking the eye up to the moorland ridge between us and Coniston.
+
+  'But,' said I, 'what about Betty's Well.' 'Oh,' said my friend,
+  'that's a noted spring, that never freezes, and always runs; we all
+  drink of it, and neighbours send to it. Here it is,' he continued;
+  and, gazing down, I saw a little dripping well of water, lustrous,
+  clear, coming evidently in continuous force from the springs or secret
+  channels up hill, pausing for a moment at the trough, thence falling
+  into a box or 'channel paved by man's officious care,' and in a moment
+  out of sight and soundless, to pursue its way, 'stripped of its
+  voice,' towards the main Town beck, that ran at the north-east border
+  of the garden plot. 'Ha, pretty prisoner,' and the words 'dimple down'
+  came to my mind at once as appropriate. 'Old Betty's Well gave the
+  key-note of the 'famous brook'; and 'boxed within our garden' seemed
+  an appropriate and exact description.
+
+  Trace of
+                              'the sunny seat
+    Round the stone table under the dark pine,'
+
+  was there none. Not so, however, the Ash tree, the remains of which I
+  have spoken of. From the bedroom of Betty Braithwaite's house the boy
+  could have watched the moon,
+
+                             'while to and fro
+    In the dark summit of the waving tree
+    She rocked with every impulse of the breeze.'
+
+  'In old times,' said my friend, 'the wall fence ran across the garden,
+  just beyond this spring well, so you see it was but a small spot, was
+  this garden close.' Yes; but the
+
+                          'crowd of things
+    About its narrow precincts all beloved,'
+
+  were known the better, and loved the more on that account. Certainly,
+  thought I to myself, here is the famous spring; a brook that
+  Wordsworth must have known, and that may have been the centre of
+  memory to him in his description of those early Hawkshead days, with
+  its metaphor of fountain life.
+
+  May we not, as we gaze on this little fountain well, in a garden plot
+  at the back of one of the grey huts of this 'one dear vale,' point as
+  with a wand, and say,
+
+    'This portion of the river of his mind
+    Came from yon fountain.'
+
+  Is it not possible that the old dame whose
+
+    'Clear though shallow stream of piety,
+    Ran on the Sabbath days a fresher course,'
+
+  was Betty Braithwaite, the aged dame who owned the cottage hard by?"
+
+
+The following additional extract from a letter of Mr. Rawnsley's
+(Christmas, 1882) casts light, both on the Hawkshead beck and fountain,
+and on the stone seat in the market square, referred to in the fourth
+book of 'The Prelude'.
+
+  "Postlethwaite of the Sun Inn at Hawkshead, has a father aged 82, who
+  can remember that there was a _stone_ bench, not called old Betty's,
+  but Old Jane's Stone, on which she used to spread nuts and cakes for
+  the scholars of the Grammar School, but that it did not stand where
+  the Market Hall now is, and no one ever remembers a stone or
+  stone-bench standing there. This stone or stone-bench stood about
+  opposite the Red Lion inn, in front of the little row of houses that
+  run east and west, just as you pass out of the village in a northerly
+  direction by the Red Lion. This stone or stone-bench is not associated
+  with dark pine trees, but they may have passed away root and branch in
+  an earlier generation.
+
+  Next and most interesting, I think, as showing that I was right in the
+  matter of the _famous fountain,_ or spring in the garden, behind Betty
+  Braithwaite's house. There exists in Hawkshead near this house a
+  covered-in place or shed, to which all the village repair for their
+  drinking-water, and always have done so. It is known by the name of
+  the Spout House, and the water--which flows all the year from a
+  longish spout, with an overflow one by its side--comes direct from the
+  little drop well in Betty B.'s garden, after having its voice stripped
+  and boxed therein; and, falling out of the spout into a deep stone
+  basin and culvert, runs through the town to join the Town Beck.
+
+  So wedded are the Hawkshead folk to this, their familiar fountainhead,
+  that though water is supplied in stand-pipes now from a Reservoir, the
+  folks won't have it, and come here to this spout-house, bucket and jug
+  in hand, morn, noon and night. I have never seen anything so like a
+  continental scene at the gathering at Hawkshead spout-house.
+
+  Lastly, there is a very aged thorn-tree in the churchyard--blown over
+  but propped up--in which the forefathers of the hamlet used to sit as
+  boys (in the thorn, that is, not the churchyard), and which has been
+  worn smooth by many Hawkshead generations. The tradition is, that
+  _Wordsworth used to sit a deal in it when at school._"
+
+Ed.
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTE III.--THE HAWKSHEAD MORNING WALK: SUMMER VACATION
+
+
+(See p. 197, 'The Prelude', book iv. ll. 323-38)
+
+
+If the farm-house where Wordsworth spent the evening before this
+memorable morning walk was either at Elterwater or High Arnside, and the
+homeward pathway led across the ridge of Ironkeld, either by the old
+mountain road (now almost disused), or over the pathless fells, there
+are two points from either of which the sea might be seen in the
+distance. The one is from the heights looking down to the Duddon
+estuary, across the Coniston valley; the other is from a spot nearer
+Hawkshead, where Morecambe Bay is visible. In the former case "the
+meadows and the lower grounds" would be those in Yewdale; in the latter
+case, they would be those between Latterbarrow and Hawkshead; and, on
+either alternative, the "solid mountains" would be those of the Coniston
+group--the Old Man and Wetherlam. It is also possible that the course of
+the walk was over the Latterbarrow fells, or heights of Colthouse; but,
+from the reference to the sunrise "not unseen" from the copse and field,
+through which the "homeward pathway wound," it may be supposed that the
+course was south-east, and therefore not over these fells, when his back
+would have been to the sun. Dr. Cradock's note [Footnote T to book iv]
+to the text (p. 197) sums up all that can "be safely said"; but Mr.
+Rawnsley has supplied me with the following interesting remarks:
+
+  "After a careful reading of the passage describing the poet's return
+  from a festal night, spent in some farm-house beyond the hills, I am
+  quite unable to say that the path from High Arnside over the Ironkeld
+  range entirely suits the description. Is it not possible that the lad
+  had school-fellows whose parents lived in Yewdale? If he had, and was
+  returning from the party in one of the Yewdale farms, he would, as he
+  ascended towards Tarn Howes, and faced about south, to gain the main
+  Coniston road, by traversing the meadows between Berwick ground and
+  the top of the Hawkshead and Coniston Hill, command a view of the sea
+  that 'lay laughing at a distance'; and 'near, the solid
+  mountains'--Wetherlam and Coniston Old Man--would shine 'bright as the
+  clouds.' I think this is likely to have been the poet's track, because
+  he speaks of labourers going forth to till the fields; and the Yewdale
+  valley is one that is (at its head) chiefly arable, so that he would
+  be likelier to have gazed on them there than in the vale of Hawkshead
+  itself. One is here, however--as in a former passage, when we fixed on
+  Yewdale as the one described as being a 'cultured vale'--obliged to
+  remember that in Wordsworth's boyhood wheat was grown more extensively
+  than is now the case in these parts. Of course, the Furness Fell,
+  above Colthouse, might have been the scene. It is eminently suited to
+  the description."
+
+Ed.
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTE IV.--DOROTHY WORDSWORTH AT CAMBRIDGE IN 1808. THE ASH TREE AT ST.
+JOHN'S COLLEGE
+
+
+(See p. 224, 'The Prelude', book vi. ll. 76-94)
+
+
+The following is an extract from a letter of Dorothy Wordsworth's to
+Lady Beaumont at Coleorton, dated "14th August," probably in 1808:
+
+
+  "We reached Cambridge at half-past nine. In our way to the Inn we
+  stopped at the gate of St. John's College to set down one of our
+  passengers. The stopping of the carriage roused me from a sleepy
+  musing, and I was awe-stricken with the solemnity of the old gateway,
+  and the light from a great distance within streaming along the
+  pavement. When they told me it was the entrance to 'St. John's'
+  College, I was still more affected by the gloomy yet beautiful sight
+  before me, for I thought of my dearest brother in his youthful days
+  passing through that gateway to his home, and I could have believed
+  that I saw him there even then, as I had seen him in the first year of
+  his residence. I met with Mr. Clarkson at the Inn, and was, you may
+  believe, rejoiced to hear his voice at the coach door. We supped
+  together, and immediately after supper I went to bed, and slept well,
+  and at 8 o'clock next morning went to Trinity Chapel. There I stood
+  for many minutes in silence before the statue of Newton, while the
+  organ sounded. I never saw a statue that gave me one hundredth part so
+  much pleasure--but pleasure, that is not the word, it is a sublime
+  sensation--in harmony with sentiments of devotion to the Divine Being,
+  and reverence for the holy places where He is worshipped. We walked in
+  the groves all the morning and visited the Colleges. I sought out a
+  favourite ash tree which my brother speaks of in his poem on his own
+  life--a tree covered with ivy. We dined with a fellow of Peter-House
+  in his rooms, and after dinner I went to King's College Chapel. There,
+  and everywhere else at Cambridge, I was even much more impressed with
+  the effect of the buildings than I had been formerly, and I do believe
+  that this power of receiving an enlarged enjoyment from the sight of
+  buildings is one of the privileges of our later years. I have this
+  moment received a letter from William...."
+
+Ed.
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTE V.--"THE MEETING-POINT OF TWO HIGHWAYS"
+
+
+(See p. 353, 'The Prelude', book xii. l. 293)
+
+
+The following extract from a letter of Mr. Rawnsley's casts important
+light on a difficult question of localization. Dr. Cradock is inclined
+now to select the Outgate Crag, the second of the four places referred
+to by Mr. Rawnsley. But the first may have been the place, and the
+extract which follows will show how much is yet to be done in this
+matter of localizing poetical allusions.
+
+  "As to
+
+                                'the crag,
+    That, from the meeting-point of two highways
+    Ascending, overlooked them both, far stretched,'
+
+  there seems to be no doubt but that we have four competitors for the
+  honour of being the place to which the poet:
+
+                  'impatient for the sight
+    Of those led palfreys that should bear them home'
+
+  repaired with his brothers
+
+                       'one Christmas-time,
+    On the glad eve of its dear holidays.'
+
+  And unless, as it seems is quite possible, from what one sees in other
+  of Wordsworth's poems, he really stood on one of the crags, and then
+  in his description drew the picture of the landscape at his feet from
+  his memory of what it was as seen from another of the vantage places,
+  we need a high crag, rising gradually or abruptly from the actual
+  meeting-place of two highways, with, if possible at this distance of
+  time, a wall--or traces of it--quite at its summit. (I may mention
+  that the wallers in this country still give two hundred years as the
+  length of time that a dry wall will stand.) We need also traces of an
+  old thorn tree close by. The wall, too, must be so placed on the
+  summit of the crag that, as it faces the direction in which the lad is
+  looking for his palfrey, it shall afford shelter to him against
+
+                  'the sleety rain,
+    And all the business of the elements.'
+
+  It is evident that the lad would be looking out in a north-easterly
+  direction, i. e. towards the head of Windermere and Ambleside. So that
+
+                       'the mist,
+    That on the line of each of those two roads
+    Advanced in such indisputable shapes,'
+
+  was urged by a wind that found the poet at his look-out station, glad
+  to have the wall between him and it. Further, there must be in close
+  proximity wood and the sound of rushing water, or the lapping of a
+  lake wind-driven against the marge, for the boy remembers that 'the
+  bleak music from that old stone wall' was mingled with 'the noise of
+  wood and water.' The roads spoken of must be two highways, and must be
+  capable of being seen for some distance; unless, as it is just
+  possible, the epithet 'far-stretched' may be taken as applying not so
+  much to the roads, as to the gradual ascent of the crag from the
+  meeting-place of the two highways.
+
+  The scene from the crag must be extended, and half plain half
+  wood-land; at least one gathers as much from the lines:
+
+                  'as the mist
+    Gave intermitting prospect of the copse
+    And plain beneath.'
+
+  Lastly, it was a day of driving sleet and mist, and this of itself
+  would necessitate that the poet and his brothers should only go to the
+  place close to which the ponies must pass, or from which most plainly
+  the roads were visible.
+
+  The boys too were
+
+            'feverish, and tired, and restless,'
+
+  and a schoolboy, to gain his point on such a day and on such an
+  errand, does not take much account of a mile of country to be
+  travelled over.
+
+  So that it is immaterial, I think, to make the distance from Hawkshead
+  of either of the four crags or vantage grounds a factor in decision.
+
+  The farther the lads were from home when they met their ponies, the
+  longer ride back they would have, and this to schoolboys is matter of
+  consideration at such times.
+
+  Taking then a survey of the ground of choice, we have to decide
+  whether the crag in question is situated at the first division or main
+  split of the road from Ambleside furthest from Hawkshead, or whether
+  at the place where the two roads converge again into one nearer
+  Hawkshead.
+
+  Whether, that is, the crag above the Pullwyke quarry, at the junction
+  of the road to Water Barngates and the road to Wray and Outgate is to
+  be selected, about two miles from Hawkshead; or whether we are to fix
+  on the spot you have chosen, at the point about a mile north-east of
+  Hawkshead, 'called in the ordnance map Outgate.'
+
+  Of the two I incline to the former, for these reasons. The boys could
+  not be so certain of 'not missing the ponies', at any other place than
+  here at Pullwyke.
+
+  The crag exactly answers the poet's description, a rising ground, the
+  meeting-place of two highways. For in the poet's time the old
+  Hawkshead and Outgate road at the Pullwyke corner ran at the very foot
+  of the rising ground (roughly speaking) parallel to and some 60 to 100
+  yards west of the present road from the Pull to Wray.
+
+  It is true that no trace of wall is visible at its summit, but the
+  summit has been planted since with trees, and walls are often removed
+  at time of planting.
+
+  The poet would have a full view of the main road, down to, and round,
+  the Pullwyke Bay; he would see the branch road from the fork, as it
+  mounted the Water Barngates Hill, to the west, and would see the other
+  road of the fork far-stretched and going south.
+
+  He would also have an extended view of copse and meadow land. He
+  might, if the wind were south-easterly, hear the noise of Windermere,
+  sobbing in the Pullwyke Bay, and would without doubt hear also the
+  roar of the Pull Beck water, as it passed down from the Ironkeld
+  slopes on his left towards the lake.
+
+  It might be objected that the poem gives us the idea of a crag which,
+  from the Hawkshead side at any rate, would require to be of more
+  difficult ascent than this is, to justify the idea of difficulty as
+  suggested in the lines:
+
+                'thither I repaired,
+    Scout-like, and gained the summit;'
+
+  but I do not think we need read more into the lines than that the boy
+  felt--as he scanned the country with his eyes, on the 'qui vive' at
+  every rise in the ground--the feelings of a scout, who questions
+  constantly the distant prospect.
+
+  And certainly the Pullwyke quarry crag rises most steeply from the
+  meeting-point of the two highways.
+
+  Next as to the Outgate crag, which you have chosen. I am out of love
+  with it. First, if the lads wanted to make sure of the ponies, they
+  would not have ascended it, but would have stayed just at the
+  Hawkshead side of Outgate, or at the village itself, at the point of
+  convergence of the ways.
+
+  Secondly, the crag can hardly be described as rising from the
+  meeting-point of two highways; only one highway passes near it.
+
+  The crag is of so curious a formation geologically, that I can't fancy
+  the poet describing his memory of it, without calling it a terraced
+  hill, or an ascent by natural terraces.
+
+  Then, again, the prospect is not sufficiently extended from it. The
+  stream not near enough, or rather not of size enough, to be heard.
+  Blelham Tarn is not too far to have added to the watery sound, it is
+  true, but the wind we suppose to have been north-east, and the sound
+  of the Blelham Tarn would be much carried away from him.
+
+  The present stone wall is not near the summit, and is of comparatively
+  recent date. It is difficult to believe from the slope of the outcrop
+  of rock that a wall could ever have been at the summit.
+
+  But there are two other vantage grounds intermediate between those
+  extremes, both of which were probably in the mind and memory of the
+  poet as he described the scene, and
+
+    'The intermitting prospect of the copse.
+    And plain beneath,'
+
+  allowed him by the mist. One of these is the High Crag, about
+  three-quarters of a mile from the divergence or convergence of the two
+  highways, which Dr. Cradock has selected.
+
+  There can be no doubt that this is the crag 'par excellence' for a
+  wide and extended look-out over all the country between Outgate and
+  Ambleside. Close at its summit there remain aged thorn trees, but no
+  trace of a wall.
+
+  But High Crag can hardly be said to have risen at 'the meeting-point
+  of two highways,' unless we are to understand the epithet
+  'far-stretched' as applying to the south-western slopes or skirts of
+  the hill; and the two highways, the roads between Water Barngates on
+  the west, and the bridle road between Pullwyke and Outgate at their
+  Outgate junction, and this is rather too far a stretch.
+
+  It is quite true that if bridle paths can be described as highways,
+  there may be said to be a meeting-point of these close at the
+  north-eastern side of the crag.
+
+  But, remembering that the ponies came from Penrith, the driver was not
+  likely to have had any intimate knowledge of these bridle paths;
+  while, at the same time, on that misty day, I much question whether
+  the boys on the look-out at High Crag could have seen ponies creeping
+  along between walled roads at so great a distance as half a mile or
+  more.
+
+  And this would seem to have been the problem for them on that day.
+
+  I ought in fairness to say that it is not likely that the roads were
+  then (as to-day) walled up high on either side. To-day, even from the
+  summit of High Crag, only the head and ears of a pony could be seen as
+  it passed up the Water Barngates Road; but at the end of last century
+  many of the roads were only partially walled off from the moorlands
+  they passed over in the Lake Country.
+
+  Still, as I said, High Crag was a point of vantage that the poet, as a
+  lad, must have often climbed, in this part of the country, if he
+  wanted to indulge in the delights of panoramic scene.
+
+  There is a wall some hundred yards from the summit, on the
+  south-westerly flank of High Crag; near this--at a point close by, two
+  large holly trees--the boy might have sheltered himself against the
+  north-eastern wind, and have got a closer and better view of the road
+  between Barngates and Outgate, and Randy Pike and Outgate.
+
+  Here, too, he could possibly hear the sound of the stream in the
+  dingle or woody hollow immediately at his feet; but I am far from
+  content with this as being the spot the poet watched from.
+
+  There is again a fourth possible look-out place, to which you will
+  remember I directed your attention, nearer Randy Pike. The slope,
+  covered with larches, rises up from the Randy Pike Road to a
+  precipitous crag which faces north and east.
+
+  From this, a grand view of the country between Randy Pike and Pullwyke
+  is obtained, and if the bridle paths might--as is possible, but
+  unlikely--be called two highways, then this crag could be spoken of as
+  rising from the meeting place of the two highways. For the old
+  Hawkshead Road passed along to the east, within calling distance (say
+  ninety yards), and a bridle road from Pullwyke, now used chiefly by
+  the quarrymen, passed within eighty yards to the west; while it is
+  certain that the brook below, when swollen by winter rains, might be
+  loud enough to be heard from the copse. This crag is known as Coldwell
+  or Caudwell Crag, and is situated about half a mile east-south-east of
+  the High Crag.
+
+  It has this much in its favour, that a wall of considerable age crests
+  its summit, and one can whilst sitting down on a rock close behind it
+  be sheltered from the north and east, and yet obtain an extensive view
+  of the subadjacent country. IF it were certain that the ponies when
+  they got to Pullwyke did not go up towards Water Barngates, and so to
+  Hawkshead, then there is no crag in the district which would so
+  thoroughly answer to all the needs of the boys, and to all the points
+  of description the poet has placed on record.
+
+  But it is just this IF that makes me decide on the Pullwyke Crag--the
+  one first described--as being the actual spot to which, scout-like,
+  the schoolboys clomb, on that eventful 'eve of their dear holidays;'
+  while, at the same time, it is my firm conviction that Wordsworth--as
+  he painted the memories of that event--had also before his mind's eye
+  the scene as viewed from Coldwell and High Crag."
+
+Ed.
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTE VI.--COLERIDGE'S LINES TO WORDSWORTH, ON HEARING 'THE PRELUDE'
+RECITED BY HIM AT COLEORTON, IN 1806
+
+
+The following is a copy of a version of these 'Lines', sent by Coleridge
+to Sir George Beaumont, at Dunmow, Essex, in January, 1807. The
+variations, both in the title and in the text, from that which Coleridge
+finally adopted (see p. 129), are interesting in many ways:
+
+
+LINES
+
+To William Wordsworth: Composed for the greater part on the same night
+after the finishing of his recitation of the Poem, in Thirteen Books, on
+the growth of his own mind.
+
+
+  O Friend! O Teacher! God's great Gift to me!
+  Into my Heart have I received that Lay
+  More than historic, that prophetic Lay
+  Wherein (high theme by thee first sung aright)
+  Of the foundations and the building up                           5
+  Of thine own spirit thou hast loved to tell
+  What _may_ be told, by words revealable:
+  With heavenly breathings, like the secret soul
+  Of vernal growth, oft quickening in the heart
+  Thoughts, that obey no mastery of words,                        10
+  Pure Self-beholdings! Theme as hard as high,
+  Of Smiles spontaneous and mysterious Fear!
+  The first born they of Reason and twin birth!
+  Of tides obedient to external force,
+  And currents self-determin'd, as might seem,                    15
+  Or by some inner power! Of moments awful,
+  Now in thy hidden life, and now abroad,
+  When power stream'd from thee, and thy soul receiv'd
+  The light reflected, as a light bestow'd!
+  Of fancies fair, and milder hours of youth,                     20
+  Hybloean murmurs of poetic thought
+  Industrious in its joy, in vales and glens
+  Native or outland, Lakes and famous Hills;
+  Or on the lonely high-road, when the stars
+  Were rising; or by secret mountain streams,                     25
+  The guides and the companions of thy way!
+  Of more than Fancy--of the SOCIAL SENSE
+  Distending, and of Man belov'd as Man,
+  Where France in all her Towns lay vibrating,
+  Even as a Bark becalm'd on sultry seas                          30
+  Quivers beneath the voice from Heaven, the burst
+  Of Heaven's immediate thunder, when no cloud
+  Is visible, or shadow on the main!
+  For thou wert there, thy own brows garlanded,
+  Amid the tremor of a Realm aglow!                               35
+  Amid a mighty nation jubilant!
+  When from the general Heart of Human Kind
+  Hope sprang forth, like an armed Deity!
+  Of that dear Hope afflicted and struck down,
+  So summon'd homeward; thenceforth calm and sure,                40
+  As from the Watch-tower of Man's absolute Self,
+  With light unwaning on her eyes, to look
+  Far on--herself a Glory to behold,
+  The Angel of the Vision! Then (last strain)
+  Of Duty, chosen Laws controlling choice,                        45
+  Action and Joy!--an Orphic Tale indeed,
+  A Tale divine of high and passionate Thoughts,
+  To their own Music chaunted!--
+
+                                A great Bard!
+  Ere yet the last strain dying awed the air,
+  With steadfast eyes I saw thee in the choir                     50
+  Of ever-enduring men. The truly Great
+  Have all one age, and from one visible space
+  Shed influence: for they, both power and act,
+  Are permanent, and Time is not with them,
+  Save as it worketh for them, they in it.                        55
+  Nor less a sacred Roll, than those of old,
+  And to be plac'd, as they, with gradual fame
+  Among the Archives of Mankind, thy Work
+  Makes audible a linked Song of Truth,
+  Of Truth profound a sweet continuous Song                       60
+  Not learnt, but native, her own natural notes!
+  Dear shall it be to every human heart,
+  To me how more than dearest! Me, on whom
+  Comfort from thee, and utterance of thy Love,
+  Come with such Heights and Depths of Harmony                    65
+  Such sense of Wings uplifting, that its might
+  Scatter'd and quell'd me, till my Thoughts became
+  A bodily Tumult; and thy faithful Hopes,
+  Thy Hopes of me, dear Friend! by me unfelt!
+  Were troublous to me, almost as a Voice                         70
+  Familiar once and more than musical;
+  As a dear Woman's Voice to one cast forth, [A]
+  A Wanderer with a worn-out heart forlorn,
+  Mid Strangers pining with untended wounds.
+
+  O Friend! too well thou know'st, of what sad years              75
+  The long suppression had benumbed my soul,
+  That, even as Life returns upon the Drown'd,
+  The unusual Joy awoke a throng of Pains--
+  Keen Pangs of LOVE, awakening, as a Babe,
+  Turbulent, with an outcry in the Heart!                         80
+  And Fears self-will'd, that shunn'd the eye of Hope,
+  And Hope, that scarce would know itself from Fear;
+  Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain,
+  And Genius given and Knowledge won in vain;
+  And all, which I had cull'd in wood-walks wild,                 85
+  And all, which patient Toil had rear'd, and all,
+  Commune with THEE had open'd out--but Flowers
+  Strew'd on my Corse, and borne upon my Bier,
+  In the same Coffin, for the self-same Grave!
+
+  That way no more! and ill beseems it me,                        90
+  Who came a Welcomer, in Herald's Guise,
+  Singing of Glory and Futurity,
+  To wander back on such unhealthful road
+  Plucking the Poisons of Self-harm! And ill
+  Such intertwine beseems triumphal wreaths                       95
+  Strew'd before thy advancing! Thou too, Friend!
+  Impair thou not the memory of that hour
+  Of thy Communion with my nobler mind
+  By pity or grief, already felt too long!
+  Nor let my words import more blame than needs.                 100
+  The tumult rose and ceas'd: for Peace is nigh
+  Where Wisdom's voice has found a list'ning Heart.
+  Amid the howl of more than wintry storms
+  The Halcyon hears the Voice of vernal Hours,
+  Already on the wing!
+
+                       Eve following Eve                         105
+  Dear tranquil Time, when the sweet sense of Home
+  Is sweetest! Moments, for their own sake hail'd,
+  And more desired, more precious for thy Song!
+  In silence listening, like a devout child,
+  My soul lay passive, by the various strain                     110
+  Driven as in surges now, beneath the stars
+  With momentary [B] stars of her [C] own birth,
+  Fair constellated Foam, still darting off
+  Into the Darkness; now a tranquil Sea,
+  Outspread and bright, yet swelling to the Moon.                115
+
+  And when--O Friend! my Comforter! my [D] Guide!
+  Strong in thyself and powerful to give strength!--
+  Thy long sustained Song finally clos'd,
+  And thy deep voice had ceas'd--yet thou thyself
+  Wert still before mine eyes, and round us both                 120
+  That happy Vision of beloved Faces--
+  (All whom, I deepliest love--in one room all!)
+  Scarce conscious and yet conscious of its close
+  I sate, my Being blended in one Thought,
+  (Thought was it? or aspiration? or resolve?)                   125
+  Absorb'd; yet hanging still upon the Sound--
+  And when I rose, I found myself in Prayer.
+
+
+S. T. COLERIDGE.
+
+'Jany'. 1807.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT
+
+[Footnote A: Different reading on same MS.:
+
+  'To one cast forth, whose Hope had seem'd to die.'
+
+Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote B: Compare, as an illustrative note, the descriptive passage
+in Satyrane's first Letter in 'Biographia Literaria', beginning, "A
+beautiful white cloud of foam," etc.--S.T.C.]
+
+
+[Footnote C: Different reading on same MS., "'my'."--Ed.]
+
+
+[Footnote D: Different reading on same MS., "'and'."--Ed.]
+
+
+
+In a MS. copy of 'Dejection, An Ode', transcribed for Sir George
+Beaumont on the 4th of April 1802--and sent to him, when living with
+Lord Lowther at Lowther Hall--there is evidence that the poem was
+originally addressed to Wordsworth.
+
+The following lines in this copy can be compared with those finally
+adopted:
+
+  'O dearest William! in this heartless mood,
+  To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd
+  All this long eve so balmy and serene
+  Have I been gazing on the western sky,'
+
+  ...
+
+  'O William, we _receive_ but what we _give_:
+  And in our life alone does Nature live.'
+
+  ...
+
+         'Yes, dearest William! Yes!
+  There was a time when though my Path was rough
+  This Joy within me dallied with distress.'
+
+
+The MS. copy is described by Coleridge as "imperfect"; and it breaks off
+abruptly at the lines:
+
+  'Suspends what Nature gave me at my birth
+  My shaping spirit of Imagination.'
+
+And he continues:
+
+  'I am so weary of this doleful poem, that I must leave off....'
+
+Another MS. copy of this poem, amongst the Coleorton papers, is signed
+"S. T. Coleridge to William Wordsworth."    Ed.
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTE VII.--GENERAL BEAUPUY
+
+
+(See pp. 297 and 302, 'The Prelude', book ix.)
+
+
+Professor Emile Legouis of Lyons--a thorough student, and a very
+competent expounder, of our modern English Literature--supplied me, some
+years ago, with numerous facts in reference to Wordsworth's friend
+General Beaupuy, and his family, from which I extract the following:
+
+  'The Prelude' gives us very little precise information about the
+  republican officer with whom Wordsworth became acquainted in France,
+  and on whom he bestowed more praise than on almost any other of his
+  contemporaries. We only gather the following facts:--That his name was
+  'Beaupuy', that he was quartered at Orleans, with royalist officers,
+  sometime between November 1791 and the spring of 1792, and that
+
+    'He perished fighting, _in supreme command_,
+    Upon the borders of the unhappy Loire,
+    For liberty, against deluded men,
+    His fellow-countrymen....'
+
+  Though it seems very easy to identify a general even with such scanty
+  data, the task is rendered more difficult by two inaccuracies in
+  Wordsworth's statement, which, however, can be explained and redressed
+  without much difficulty.
+
+  The first inaccuracy is in the spelling of the name, which is
+  'Beaupuy' and not 'Beaupuis'--a slight mistake considering that
+  Wordsworth was a foreigner, and, besides, wrote down his friend's name
+  ten years and perhaps more after losing sight of him. Moreover, the
+  name of the general who, I think, was meant by Wordsworth, I have
+  found spelt 'Beaupuy' in one instance, viz. the signature of a letter
+  of his, as printed in 'Vie et Correspondance de Merlin de Thionville',
+  publiee par Jean Reynaud, Paris, 1860 (2'e partie p. 241).
+
+  The spelling of proper names was not so fixed then as it is nowadays,
+  and this irregularity is not to be wondered at.
+
+  The second inaccuracy consists in stating that General Beaupuy died on
+  the banks of the Loire during the Vendean war. Indeed, he was
+  grievously wounded at the Battle of Chateau-Gonthier, on the 26th of
+  October 1793, and reported as dead. His soldiers thought he had been
+  killed, and the rumour must have spread abroad, as it was recorded by
+  A. Thiers himself in his 'Histoire de la Revolution', and by A.
+  Challemel in his 'Histoire Musee de la Republique Francaise'.
+
+  It is no wonder that Wordsworth, who was then in England, and could
+  only read imperfect accounts of what took place in France, should have
+  been mistaken too.
+
+  No other General Beaupuy is recorded in the history of the Revolution,
+  so far as I have been able to ascertain. The moral character of the
+  officer, whose life I shall relate, answers to Wordsworth's
+  description, and is worthy of his high estimate.
+
+  Armand Michel de Bachelier, Chevalier de Beaupuy, was born at
+  Mussidan, in Perigord, on the 15th of July 1757. He belonged to a
+  noble family, less proud of its antiquity than of the blood it had
+  shed for France on many battlefields. On his mother's side (Mlle. de
+  Villars), he reckoned Montaigne, the celebrated essayist, among his
+  ancestors. His parents having imbibed the philanthropic ideas of the
+  time, educated him according to their principles.
+
+  He had four brothers, who were all destined to turn republicans and do
+  good service to the new cause, though their interest certainly lay in
+  the opposite direction.
+
+  ...
+
+  He was made sub-lieutenant in the regiment of Bassigny (33rd division
+  of foot) on the 2nd of March 1773, and lieutenant of grenadiers on the
+  1st of October of the same year.
+
+  In 1791 he was first lieutenant in the same regiment. Having sided
+  with the Revolution, he was appointed commander of a battalion of
+  national volunteers in the department of Dordogne. I have not found
+  the exact date of this appointment, but it must have taken place
+  immediately after his stay at Orleans with Wordsworth.
+
+  I have found no further mention of his name till September 1792, when
+  he is known to have served in the "Armee du Rhin," under General
+  Custine, and contributed to the taking of Spire.
+
+  He took an important part in the taking of Worms, 4th October; of
+  Mayence (Maenz) 21st October. He was among the garrison of Mayence
+  when this place was besieged by the Prussians, and obliged to
+  capitulate after a long and famous siege (from 6th April 1793 to 22nd
+  July 1793). [A]
+
+  During the siege he wrote a journal of all the operations.
+  Unfortunately, this journal is very short, and purely military. It has
+  been handed down to us, and is found in the Bibliotheque Nationale of
+  Paris in the 'Papiers de Merlin de Thionville', n. acq. fr. Nos.
+  244-252, 8 vol. in-8 deg.. Beaupuy's journal is in the 3rd volume, fol.
+  213-228.
+
+  ...
+
+  In the Vendean war, the "Mayencais," or soldiers returned from
+  Mayence, made themselves conspicuous, and bore almost all the brunt of
+  the campaign. But none of them distinguished himself more than
+  Beaupuy, then a General of Brigade.
+
+  The Mayencais arrived in Vendee at the end of August or beginning of
+  September 1793. To Beaupuy's skill the victory of Chollet (Oct. 17,
+  1793) is attributed by Jomini. In this battle he fought hand to hand
+  with and overcame a Vendean cavalier. He himself had three horses
+  killed, and had a very narrow escape. On the battlefield he was made
+  'general of division' by the "Representants du peuple." It was after
+  Chollet that the Vendeans made the memorable crossing of the Loire at
+  St. Florent.
+
+  At Laval and Chateau-Gonthier (Oct. 26) a terrible defeat was
+  inflicted on the Republicans, owing to the incapacity of their
+  commander-in-chief, Lechelle. The whole corps commanded by General
+  Beaupuy was crushed by a terrible fire, He himself, after withstanding
+  for two or three hours with 2000 or 3000 men all the attacks of the
+  royalists, was disabled by a shot, and fell, crying out, "'Laissez-moi
+  la, et portez a mes grenadiers ma chemise sanglante'." His soldiers
+  thought he was dead, and then the error was spread, which was repeated
+  by Wordsworth, Thiers, and Challamel. Wordsworth's mistake is so far
+  interesting, as it seems to prove that very little or no
+  correspondence passed between the two friends after they had parted.
+  Beaupuy, moreover, had too much work upon his hands to give much of
+  his time to letter-writing.
+
+  Though severely wounded, Beaupuy lived on, and less than six weeks
+  after the battle of Chateau-Gonthier, he was seen on the ramparts of
+  Angers, where he required himself to be carried to animate his
+  soldiers and head the defenders of the place, from which the Vendeans
+  were driven after a severe contest (Dec. 5 and 6).
+
+  On the 22nd of December 1793 he shared in the victory of Savenay with
+  his celebrated friends, Marceau, Kleber, and Westermann. After this
+  battle, which put an end to the great Vendean war, he wrote the
+  following letter to his friend Merlin de Thionville, the celebrated
+  "representant du peuple."
+
+    "SAVENAY, le 4 Nivose au 2'e (25 Dec. 73).
+
+    "Enfin, enfin, mon cher Merlin, elle n'est plus cette armee royale
+    ou catholique, comme tu voudras! J'en ai vu, avec tes braves
+    collegues Prieur et Eurreau, les debris, consistant en 150 cavaliers
+    battant l'eau dans le marais de Montaire; et comme tu connais ma
+    veracite tu peux dire avec assurance que les deux combats de Savenay
+    ont mis fin a la guerre de la nouvelle Vendee et aux chimeriques
+    esperances des royalists.
+
+    L'histoire ne vous presente point de combat dont le suites aient ete
+    plus decisives. Ah! mon brave, comme tu aurais joui! quelle attaque!
+    mais quelle deroute aussi! Il fallait les voir ces soldats de Jesus
+    et de Louis XVII, se jetant dans les marais ou obliges de se rendre
+    par 5 ou 600 a la fois; et Langreniere pris et les autres generaux
+    disperses et aux abois!
+
+    Cette armee, dont tu avais vu les restes de la terrasse de St.
+    Florent, etait redevenue formidable par son recrutement dans les
+    departements envahis. Je les ai bien vus, bien examines, j'ai
+    reconnu meme de mes figures de Chollet et de Laval, et a leur
+    contenance et a leur mine, je l'assure qu'il ne leur manquait du
+    soldat que l'habit. Des troupes qui ont battu de tels Francais
+    peuvent se flatter ainsi de vainere des peuples assez laaches pour
+    se reunir centre un seul et encore pour la cause des rois! Enfin, je
+    ne sais si je me trompe, mais cette guerre de brigands, de paysans,
+    sur laquelle on a jete tant de ridicule, que l'on dedaignait, que
+    l'on affectait de regarder comme meprisable, m'a toujours paru, pour
+    la republique, la grande partie, et il me semble a present qu'avec
+    nos autres ennemis, nous ne ferrons plus que peloter.
+
+    Adieu, brave montagnard, adieu! Actuellement que cette execrable
+    guerre est terminee, que les manes de nos freres sont satisfaits, je
+    vais guerir. J'ai obtenu de tes confreres un conge qui finira au
+    moment ou la guerre recommencera.
+
+    LE GENERAL DE BRIGADE BEAUPUY.
+
+
+  I think I can recognize in this letter some traits of Beaupuy's
+  character as pointed out by Wordsworth, not excepting the
+  half-suppressed criticism:
+
+      '... somewhat vain he was,
+    Or seemed so, yet it was not vanity,
+    But fondness, and a kind of radiant joy
+    Diffused around him ...'
+
+  Passing over numerous military incidents, on the 26th of June 1796
+  Beaupuy received seven or eight sabre-cuts at Jorich-Wildstadt. But on
+  the 8th of July he was already back at his post.
+
+  He again greatly distinguished himself on the 1st of September 1796 at
+  Greisenfeld and Langenbruck, where the victory of the French was owing
+  to a timely attack made by Desaix and himself.
+
+  He was one of the generals under Moreau when the latter achieved his
+  well-known retreat through the Black Forest, begun on the 15th of
+  September 1796, and during which many battles were fought. In one of
+  the actions on the banks of the Elz, Beaupuy was killed by a
+  cannon-ball, while opposing General Latour on the heights of
+  Malterdingen. His soldiers, who loved him passionately, fought
+  desperately to avenge his death (Oct. 19, 1796).
+
+  One of Beaupuy's colleagues, General Duhem, in his account of the
+  battle to the Government, thus expressed himself on General Beaupuy:
+
+    "Ecrivains patriotes, orateurs chaleureux, je vous propose un noble
+    sujet, l'eloge du General Beaupuy, de Beaupuy, le Nestor et
+    l'Achille de notre armee. Vous n'avez pas de recherches a faire;
+    interrogez le premier soldat de l'armee du Rhin-et-Moselle, ses
+    larmes exciteront les votres. Ecrivez alors ce que est vous en dira,
+    et vous peindrez le Bayard de la Republique Francaise."
+
+  Such bombastic style was then common, but what we have seen of Beaupuy
+  in this sketch shows that he had through his career united Nestor's
+  prudence [B] with Achilles' bodily courage and Bayard's chivalric
+  spirit,--to use the language of the time.
+
+  General Moreau had Beaupuy's remains transported to Brisach, where a
+  monument was erected to his memory in 1802, after the peace of
+  Luneville.
+
+  In short, Beaupuy seems to have always remained worthy of the high
+  praise bestowed on him by Wordsworth. His name is to be remembered
+  along with those of the unspotted generals of the first years of the
+  Revolution--Hoche, Marceau, etc.--before the craving for conquest had
+  developed, and the love of liberty yielded to a fond admiration of
+  Bonaparte as it did in the case of Kleber, Desaix, and so many others.
+  [C]
+
+  N. B.--The great influence which Beaupuy exercised at that time on
+  Wordsworth will be easily understood, if we take into account not only
+  his real qualities, but also his age. When they met, Wordsworth was
+  only twenty-one, Beaupuy nearly thirty-five. The grown-up man could
+  impart much of his knowledge of life, and of the favourite authors of
+  the time, to a youth fresh from the University--though that youth was
+  Wordsworth.
+
+  EMILE LEGOUIS.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT
+
+
+[Footnote A: His bravery shone forth at Coethen, where he was left alone
+in a group of Prussians. He fought with their chief and disarmed him. A
+few days after he was named General of Brigade.--8th March 1793.]
+
+
+[Footnote B: The pacification of Vendee was for a great part owing to
+his valour and prudence.]
+
+[Footnote C: Beaupuy is said to have united civic virtues with military
+talents. A good son and a good brother, he showed in many a circumstance
+that true valour does not exclude humanity, and that the soul can be
+both strong and full of feeling.]
+
+
+These notes (B and C) are taken from 'Biographic Nouvelle de
+Contemporains'.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Poetical Works of William
+Wordsworth, Vol. III, by William Wordsworth
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